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September 30 will mark seven years since my very first review here at Invisible Oranges. I’ve had the privilege of sharing this space with some truly talented writers over that time period, and I still look forward to reading each day’s entries as a fan. One of my favorite pieces published on Invisible Oranges was written by my colleague Justin Norton, examining two of my favorite topics – metal and fear – and their relationship with each other, as well as our broader culture and society. It’s much longer than most things we post, or anyone else posts for that matter, but that’s what I like about it: there is a depth and analysis that has nothing to do with clicks or a top 10 or any other Internet LCD. Tracing the history of heavy metal’s indelible relationship with our lizard brain’s fascination with what goes bump in the night, and intertwining that with his own early bonding steps with the genre, makes for an enjoyable and erudite read. I would like to think that more websites and writers should follow Norton’s lead with features like this, but a talent like his is few and far between.
—Chris Rowella
Read: ‘Fear: What is This That Stands Before Me’
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A lot has changed in this neighborhood, but instead of getting bogged down in discussions of gentrification and local politics, let’s focus on the positive: Rock shows at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn still sound pretty damn good. The sold-out show on September 10 was already packed before the first band took the stage, and while it’s easy to enjoy good bands under most circumstances, a full house definitely adds to the experience.
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The Shrine started the show with their brand of finely-tuned street metal. (Just because you’re playing gutter punk anthems doesn’t mean you have to forgo practice.) These guys have been road-dogging it for years now, and it shows in their instrumental prowess. Opening their six-song set with drugged-up zombie ode “Tripping Corpse” then going straight into “Rare Breed”, the crowd was into it immediately. Fists were raised and hair was flying as the California trio channeled Black Flag via Fu Manchu’s ’77 Dodge Street Van. The Shrine’s unsung star is drummer Jeff Murray, who pulled massive Bonham/Ward sounds out of his relatively diminutive kit. They may not be headliners yet, but most bands couldn’t ask for a better warmup act than The Shrine.
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From the between-song banter, it was hard to tell whether Danava frontman Gregory Meleney was under the weather or just “feeling no pain” – most likely both – but either way, it didn’t have an impact on their stellar performance. In terms of years put in, they were the most experienced band on stage that night and it showed. There were Thin Lizzy dual harmonies galore, a lockstep rhythm section with gobs of low end, and Meleney’s soulful howl floating atop it all. The only criticism was rhythm guitarist Pete Hughes disappearing in the mix during songs whenever Meleney had to punch out for tuning; a quibbling detail, to be sure. Danava is a new favorite.
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Most music fans have a subconscious checklist of things they want out of an artist or band. Some might not realize it, or even deny it, but it makes sense: if you love X, Y and Z you want your music to encompass at least some, if not all, of those elements. Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats is one of those bands; I was hooked from the first 90 seconds of “I’ll Cut You Down” (now a live staple). Seeing them almost exactly one year after their previous NYC performance, very little has changed. That’s a good thing; other than some new songs in the setlist (opener “Mt. Abraxas,” Blood Lust choice cut “Over & Over Again,” Volume I’s “Dead Eyes Of London”) all of the crowd favorites were well represented. While much has been made of their retro/analog sound, Uncle Acid sound absolutely HUGE in a live setting. Some of that has to do with the venue, as it’s easy to see some of the nuance and intensity could be lost in a stadium or at a huge festival. The crowd was spellbound from the very start; Uncle Acid has that intangible ability, like Neurosis or YOB, to compel one to lose oneself in the performance, surrender to the music and just exist in that space, even temporarily. Or maybe it was just the haze of devil’s lettuce hanging in the air. Regardless, this is not a tour to be missed.
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The Shrine
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Danava
I’m Listening to Death Metal #7: Pissgrave’s “Posthumous Humiliation”
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Earlier in 2019, Pissgrave released the most complexly and productively controversial metal album of the year so far called Posthumous Humiliation. I say “productively” as a means to mark it from non-productive controversy; someone outing themselves as a bigot or abuser is only productive insofar as it allows decent listeners to drop that work, at least when the situation is simple enough. Besides, nazis are increasingly finding they have no place in extreme metal, so while those conditions may be controversial, they don’t produce anything new for the broader metal world. I say “complexly” as well because, unlike instances of immediate and clear malfeasance on the part of a performer, the issue with Pissgrave’s newest album provided a number of useful comments on the central issue at hand, none of which seemed to contradict each other as much as revolve around the same center, like facets of a gem. Granted, the relatively conjoined center of these varied views was harder to see given the emotional pitch of the controversy itself: the use of the image of real mutilated human remains for the cover art. Posthumous Humiliation was not their first record to feature pictures of real human remains. Their debut album Suicide Euphoria was adorned with a rather gruesome cover of a body seemingly half-melted by strong acid in a bathtub, the body turned to a vomitous sludge. At the time of that record’s release, it was a shock, but in a broadly positive way, at least for the band; for the first time in a while, a style of art that prides itself on extremity was legitimately shocked, and that shock transferred to listens. Somewhere between the release of Suicide Euphoria and Posthumous Humiliation, however, the gimmick seemed to turn from catching to disgusting, turning off public opinion even among those who listen to extreme music about extreme deeds. The primary question was one of tastefulness, a question that on its surface seems absurd to invoke within metal broadly and death metal specifically. After all, death metal is the genre of Cannibal Corpse, a beloved and legendary group not exactly known for being the most decent when it comes to respectful imagery, be it visual or lyrical. But then again, Cannibal Corpse never used real photos of real dead bodies before. The terrain felt, if not quite new, then clearly inadequately explored. And so the controversy, something that is validly and clearly controversial, began to reveal productive snarls and curls and knots within itself....
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The issue, to cut to the core of things, is one of defining “good taste” and then finding its application within heavy metal. This is tricky, obviously; the history of heavy metal, even when only considering the relatively uncontroversial bits, still includes a tremendous amount of depictions of violence both historically real and imagined, realistic and fantastical, autobiographical and desired. Metal is largely fixated on the axis of power and the various relations that arise within that, from supplication and surrender to awe and majesty to domination and violence and fear and hate, and on and on. And because metal is made by real people with real histories, it sometimes is a vehicle for real stories of their own suffering or the suffering of those in their lives, or the desire for those that have hurt the artists to suffer, etc. It is a bound relationship between trauma and metal as a result; there is plenty of metal that does not deal with trauma, but the central topics of heavy metal broadly make it inevitable that trauma, real trauma, the trauma of the living and the dead, will make its way into the art. I can’t speak about this topic, of course, either generally or about Pissgrave specifically, without referring to my own history of physical and psychological abuse. I have nerve damage that affects the right side of my face as a result of traumatic abuse, non-major and purely cosmetic issues of control of my lips and my eyes and my cheeks and my neck. I can speak directly to the fact that I seek metal and find it appealing partly because it so directly deals with those aspects of my history, both in literal terms at times and then flowering out into the fantasy of bodily restoration, violence against those that have wronged me, or even sick and doomy fixations on the death and decay of my own body. Metal, at least for me, is partly a space where I pursue potentially problematic elements that on some level I psychological desire, art about the destruction and desecration of my own body, art that I consent to allow to trigger me so that I can re-immerse myself in those real and profound pains at my discretion. In this vector, I did not find the choice of cover for Pissgrave’s latest record particularly galling. It is a difficult image to view, certainly, and when I listen to the album I use a copy with the replaced black artwork. But in terms of choosing an image that, to me, revealed death as something real and terribly physical, not the fantastical image we sometimes create and promote within spaces of extreme art be they horror or punk or metal, was a powerful choice. The sexiness of death and sick joy of art relating to it is challenged by real images of real bodies; it is hard to look back at certain songs or stories or films as acceptable under the lens of the reality of death. I don’t think this is what Pissgrave were thinking about when they selected the image, granted, but I also don’t think artistic intent is all that useful. Our social and psychological responses are not and should not be directly guided by the artist, even if that information is exciting and helpful for navigating certain corridors. Art, or at least the experience of art, lives inside of the audience of the art and in the social aspect of that audience. Or at least partly. This is one of the complications of the Pissgrave issue. Art may be largely determined by an audience member alone, where the themes of a film or a novel or a record are dependent more on the experience of the work of art than its substance, driven more by phenomenology than ontology, but the ghost of the author and their intent lingers. It’s hard to shake the idea that Pissgrave were merely being provocateurs. In light of that notion, even if depictions of real death may challenge the easy fantasy of art about the topic, can we ascribe those values to this specific instance? And yet even this notion does not dislodge the fact that the image is only controversial because in fact we do mark something specifically troubling about real death, about images of real dead bodies, about the notion of consent to the bodies of the dead and their depictions after death....
A few things became apparent monitoring the responses to the album art. First was that almost but not quite everyone was in agreement on the notion of the image being shocking and gruesome and that the usage of a real image of a real dead body marked something, even if the specifics of what was being marked differed from person to person. Second was that this struck at some fundamental question about tastefulness in metal very broadly but also an equally specific question about death metal and black metal. After all, while the image was gruesome in a very extreme and immediately obvious way, it lived in the same aesthetic body as the covers of Cannibal Corpse, which are often so violent as to be banned from entire countries and necessitate alternate slipcases for sale in some regions. Likewise, Mayhem famously featured an image of the dead body of their former frontman Dead taken by a band member at the scene of his suicide. Other images abound; the critique of the often misogynistic tint that death metal, slam, deathcore, and grind bands can employ has been a recurrent critique in the worlds of extreme music; likewise, somehow the notion of NSBM being a real and continuing genre space within extreme music feels relevant as well in terms of greatly pushing questions of tastefulness into clear and obvious unacceptable places. What we can do with this scattering of data points is begin to draw a map of tastefulness. There are grey areas, certainly, but we can map certain things as lying well within the bounds of the untasteful and others as laying within the tasteful. So, for instance, many find the image of Dead’s body on that famous Mayhem bootleg to be both abjectly disgusting but terribly fitting, given the directionality of the music. Still, it is uncommon to see people champion that release and the reasons for that trepidation come from the same space, that being the image of a very real dead body and one that specifically died of something as universally tragic as suicide instead of the darkness of accidental death. Likewise, Cannibal Corpse themselves seem to have gotten a memo regarding the only major issues extreme music fans had with their covers and over time toned down the misogynistic implications and depictions of their art, erring for increasingly fantastical hyperviolence that takes a superhuman pitch that no longer feels directly relevant and applicable to real people and real bodies, thus freeing them of the burden of being answerable to depictions of real violence. We can even include in this map certain grind or crust bands that use images of real dead bodies that were killed by political violence; these depictions seem to hinge upon political commentary and not mere gawking at dead bodies and so have a clear and potentially triggering darkness to them but also a clear justification. Unfortunately, with this mapping, we don’t arrive at a position that seems particularly kind to Pissgrave. The only commentary on the image from the band who was noticeably silent on the issue was the album title, Posthumous Humiliation. While there is an argument to be made that the rim of ironic darkness around this paints a picture more of rage and disgust toward the image, it is a tenuous one, one driven by the phenomenology of those words and that image being put together rather than one that feels easily justifiable as the intent of the band. This is frustrating in a certain way as well; this was after all the near universal reaction to the image, and a mere nudge from the band saying something to the effect of, “We wanted to confront listeners with real and unvarnished death and to restore the anger and disgust that comes from witnessing,” would have potentially moved the dial for them toward more sympathetic space. But there was no such statement; only silence....
As you can probably tell, it’s easy to turn the wheel on this particular issue over and over again without a feeling of any real progress. The image is clearly shit-stirring by a death metal band, but it triggers discussions in a world that is increasingly bombarded with thoughts, news, and images of dead bodies who die for increasingly obvious political reasons. Between racism, queerphobia, misogyny, the authoritarian use of police to control the working class and all marginalized peoples, and the imperial wars of major powers across the globe, we are becoming ever more aware of the deeply political nature of death. Every person that dies of cancer in a hospital ward is someone universal healthcare could have saved; every dead homeless person is someone housing programs could have spared; every person killed by police is someone intersectional reform could have kept alive, and on and on and on. My father got sick one day from a combination of issues stemming from his alcoholism, which in turn was rooted in PTSD from an imperial war he joined when he was too young to understand what would happen and the abjectly miserable health programs waiting for him when he got home to reintegrate those experiences. He did not get better; over the course of ten years, his health wavered, my family was driven to the brink of bankruptcy, and still he died of a preventable heart attack. As a result of his death and the financial burden of his care, my mother was buried beneath debt and had to return to work after previously being retired. The deaths in your own life are likewise likely marked by the political even if just in minor ways, and we are all becoming more aware of these inflections. Death metal unfortunately comes from an era where it seems in retrospect there was an amount of callousness to real death. This was perhaps an issue of depiction and reportage, where the mass media of the time did a poor job, whether deliberately or indeliberately, with conveying the deeply political nature of all deaths and the harshness of the reality of death. In the hospital, I touched my father’s dead body, which lay prostrate on the hospital bed. He had not died in bed; instead, his heart attack came, of all places, on the toilet, his body lurching up from the seat to press the alert button just before he collapsed dead on the floor. The nurses then dragged his body to the bed where they administered CPR for almost an hour before declaring him dead. When we arrived, his mouth was agape like a silenced scream, his eyes pulled closed by a nurse’s fingers. His skin was cold to the touch, like he was made of stone, but it was still soft like human flesh. That is real death, colder and quieter than what death metal deals in. A silent, poorly lit hospital room, the beeps and bloops of the equipment plugged into the walls now silent, everyone scared to speak because that might somehow validate the reality of the moment and make all of us collective realize it is not a horrible dream and we will not be waking up. It is perhaps from this experience that I invested in that Pissgrave cover the power of demystifying death to people. We treat it sometimes as cliche, something cheap and easy to invoke in art, but I promise you that anyone who was lost a close friend or an immediate family member or a lover or a child has a very immediate recall of the power of death. It is something that, once reinvested with that magisterial darkness, never finds itself exhaustible again. And so I suppose on some sick level the fact that people were so disgusted by the cover pleased me; at last, real death had power again, had the capability to provide that existential shock to people, like they pressed their hand against a busted battery and received a stopped heart for their troubles. I think often, in obsessive cyclical memory, about what would have happened had my suicide attempt gone off without a hitch, if I’d found the gun, if I had just a little more klonopin in the bottle before I downed it with a handle of tequila, if all the little providences and perditions and aligned themselves and I had terminated my own life; it is a PTSD cycle, one I find myself tumbling back into repeatedly and without warning. I then think of death as cliche and so universal that we can hear of a real human dying and know the pain of their family and not blink. It makes me want to scream. So, on some level, the despair toward that real death was darkly pleasing to me. But on that level it feels as well critically untenable. That is a deeply personal experience, too deep, and feels irresponsible to stake a broader critical position on that. Besides, there must be some other way to produce such an evocation, one that involves both the consent of the audience to be entered into that darkness and also a framing by the artist about the intent of that darkness. This is, if anything, one of the more pleasing things about the tendency of black metal artists to release pretentious manifestos about their work: they take a certain set of critical questions away and explicitly frame the directionality of their work, allowing us to judge it as successful or unsuccessful at its aims without the lingering questions of something like Pissgrave....
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But, again, they likely aren’t lingering questions. The biggest issue raised regarding the cover was that we don’t know whether the person who died consented to an image of their real dead body being used to sell records. In issues of the more explicitly political deaths, it is easy to understand their usage, and even in well-framed usages of such images we can raise the question but ultimately understand the statement being made. Pissgrave seemed not to be making any statement other than, “Hey, here’s a dead body.” It feels blatantly obvious that the usage of effectively a random person’s corpse to sell your records in that way is wrong, requiring some additional effort or framing or consent given by either the dead or their family. If I am honest, however, I cannot disentangle my own bitterness towards the dilution of death, the mysteries of death, that tremendum that lingers beyond the veil of the neural death of our snarled rootball brains. The more I sat and pondered its tastefulness and the question of broader tastefulness, the more my own perceptive lens became clear to me, that my own lived experiences have rendered me incapable of giving an honest appraisal of the issue. Pissgrave made the right call switching the album cover most available to an all-black one, the title and logo of the band in white. It removes this question, which seemed both unanswerable and immediately negatively answerable, and leaves only the record itself, which is a powerful and tremendously grim death metal record. It sonically answers questions regarding the cover, feeling stern, stoic, faces locked in grimaces. Posthumous Humiliation sonically does not seem to delight in death -- instead tortured by it -- to view death itself as the humiliation, that we all look stupid and garish in death, robbed eternally of dignity. The closing track, with its ugly harmonized guitars, feels like a tattered flag waving in the wind above a landfill of human bodies. There is nothing but anger on the record, stern inward anger toward forces that cannot and will not change. The cover may have been an apt depiction of the sounds within, but it was also a distraction. Unfortunately, the group dug a grave for themselves, and I doubt the record will be known to many as anything other than “the one with the fucked-up cover.” It is a condition the group made for themselves....
This is, whether fortunately or unfortunately, an inherent risk with extreme music. All experience and imagination deserves art; the experiences and imaginings themselves self-justify the existence of art depicting and engaging with them. However, the existence of art does not then self-justify an audience. Audiences, unless you spring your art on unsuspecting masses, are made up of those who consent, and one of the barriers to consent is that of tastefulness. On a personal level, I both need and desire art more extreme than most to dig out and destroy some sick thing inside of me. Not all people who have experiences parallel to my own need the same kind of art to engage those spaces, turn those wheels and expel those demons; the necessities are caused by internal wheels that turn in ways that we don’t yet have a full and totally psychological understanding of. Extreme art, just like subtle art or humorous art or surreal art or contemporary realist art and more, is a vector of expression that cannot presume superiority to other forms, because ultimately it serves different audiences and different desires. However, there is a unique element to extreme and transgressive art that those other spaces don’t necessarily share. We could imagine a deeply political work, regardless of that political direction, becoming a lightning rod; politics, after all, is a deeply divisive and deeply charged topic, and we wouldn’t expect adults who make art to be so naive as to think bold proclamations in that space would go without reaction, both positive and negative. Likewise for extreme and transgressive art, it is not that art that transgresses typical bounds of taste or extremity is inherently invalid as much as we must anticipate that there will be rejection and reaction to it. After all, this is a large part of what marks the art as extreme and transgressive and a large part of what prompts its creation; in short, the very fact that it transgresses bounds of taste is an intrinsic part, which provides the only intellectual justification for otherwise just being a shitstarter. As a result of this, transgressive art is predicated at least in part on its potential to be pilloried, to have the artists who make it be declared tasteless and regressive, and to face social persecution for untasteful work. An artist who wants to simultaneously make transgressive/extreme art and not experience this pillory, like comics who flagrantly flaunt slurs and bigoted comments, are cowards. There is no other interpretation available; the only artful component of transgression is making us violently reconsider boundaries we assume to be rigid; wanting to avoid the violence of that consideration and still make the art means at some point you just get off on being gross without being in any way artful or productive. The rejection Pissgrave faced must at some point be embraced by the group, or at least future acts such as this avoided, otherwise it paints them as precisely the kinds of infantile reactionaries the more negative responses to their album art paint themselves as. I don’t intend this column to be a definitive statement on the tastefulness of the group as much as a set of general and robust thoughts on the nature of tastefulness and tastelessness using Pissgrave as a keen and potent current example. There are other bands who merely employ bigots and make hateful art; these groups provide not even an arguable disruption of the boundaries of tastefulness, as I strongly feel bigotry in its forms has no place in society. Likewise, there are many more groups that stay safely within those bounds. The ambiguity and lack of comment from the group themselves lends Posthumous Humiliation -- an otherwise strong and potent death metal record that sonically seems to verify the notions of the abrasion of real death versus fantastical depictions of it -- an indefinable quality that in turn lends the controversy around it to be a much more productive dive into how we define tasteful challenges to tastefulness itself in extreme art. Because we cannot kid ourselves. Extreme music in general is predicated on things that challenge traditional good taste, be they gore, Satan, open descriptions of mental illness and suicidality, physical violence, and more. The alignment of extreme art and horror is as old as both genres. The notion of challenging tastefulness, or at least in making art that raises the question, is an intrinsic quality of the space as a whole. But likewise as adults we understand intuitively that this is not carte blanche to make or do whatever we so please, at least not without repercussions, even if they are a quiet disavowal. Burzum is an example of a group most contemporary metalheads have simply and quietly disposed of, regardless of the quality of the records, because the artist simply passed irreparable beyond a veil of good taste. Cannibal Corpse is a good example of a group that sometimes slid over the line but have over time found a space that both challenges tastefulness without itself being so misogynistic that it answers its own question in the negative. Navigating this question is something we as audience to and critics of extreme art must become comfortable with. Art deserves to be created and exist by itself, without outside justification necessary, but that does not mean we must become a party to it as audience, critic, and consumer if we feel it violates these tenets, is not productive or compelling, and is merely devoid of taste....
Langdon Hickman is listening to death metal. Here are the prior installments of his column: I’m Listening to Death Metal #1: Opeth I’m Listening to Death Metal #2: Atheist I’m Listening to Death Metal #3: Ulcerate I'm Listening to Death Metal #4: Gojira I'm Listening to Death Metal #5: Tribulation I'm Listening to Death Metal #6: Morbus Chron Support Invisible Oranges on Patreon; check out Invisible Oranges merchandise on Awesome Distro....
Lingua Ignota Awakens a Sleeping Giant in New Song “Butcher of the World”
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Sheer curtains are drawn, painting the room with a blueish gray light that allows you to see only the outline of your outstretched hand. It’s hard to recognize the appendage that vaguely flickers like a screen picking up static. The only recognizable sensation is the wood below your back, tingling from the vibrato ringing from an invisible loudspeaker. Such is the setting conjured in “Disease of Men,” the opening track on Lingua Ignota's 2017 debut Let the Devil of His Own Lips Cover Him. This five-part tour-de-force shatters like an arrow bursting through chiffon, narrowly skimming the heart -- little did we know that this installment was only the beginning. No matter the caution with which you proceed, “Butcher of the World” -- a sneak peek posted Monday of Lingua Ignota’s highly-anticipated second album Caligula -- is that fateful squeak of a floorboard that awakens the sleeping giant....
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There is perhaps no other way than to speak of the classically trained vocalist and experimental instrumentalist, Kristin Hayter, than through extended metaphors. Pinpointing the source of sounds proves to be more difficult than catching lightning. A medley of distant opera, organ, and unearthly frequencies can be heard floating from a distant church room, but as each pew is searched and every doorway, scrutinized, ground zero remains unfound. In a time in which the concept of genre is becoming increasingly obsolete, Hayter has certainly come bursting through the seams of melancholic movements right on cue. Hayter’s timely ingenuity is not limited to songwriting, however. Her thematic point of view is one that has rarely breached the mainstream conversation in arenas of heavy music (until now). While the archetype of demons overpowering all that is good and holy is a recurring visual and musical aesthetic, it has seldom been refracted through the searing vocals of a domestic abuse survivor. A thirst for vengeance is ultimately irrigated through the false prophets Sorrow and Alienation. In turn, tortured screams become spliced with the choir of one: an angel, freefalling. Alas, the cult of fear and flames delivered through decades of scorched depictions has been turned on its head. The footsteps of impending doom welcome you at the gates of Hayter’s first full-length, 2018’s All Bitches Must Die. In this saga, boiling pitch starts bubbling up from every crevice of the walls, draining the last bit of blue-tinged light. The ambitious title track sits patiently in the album’s midsection – a weary soul caught in the sharp grips of its bookends. As the newest chapter in Lingua Ignota’s journey remains to be revealed, “Butcher of the World" offers a promising glimpse. The most grandiose statement from Hayter to date, a rogue slaying of a not-so-gentle-giant is undertaken with the majesty one would expect of a royal ritual. While happy endings only tend to occur within the sanctity of fairy tales, justice is served as raw piano and violin ring in the demise of another day. Where will our heroine end up once the last page brushes between fingertips? Only time will tell....
Caligula releases on July 19th via Profound Lore, and meanwhile you can also hear her voice on the new Full of Hell record. Follow Lingua Ignota on Facebook....
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From The Bandcamp Vaults #18
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If this month’s column were a dish, it would be a gussied-up meat and potatoes seasoned with polyrhythms, saxophones, and the avant-garde. Something to keep you on your toes. Send your Bandcamp discoveries to [email protected]....
Metal and Metal-ish
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Wishfield -- Wishfield April 12, 2019 Only a masochist wants to feel seasick, but Wishfield transform the sensation into something comforting on their self-titled debut. The album centers around the interplay of both fretless guitar and bass that swirl their way around dreamy black metal produced with a shoegaze influence; Deafheaven does occasionally come to mind. The vocals alternate between traditional shrieks and inventive cleans, the latter delivered with a drugged out drawl and a subtle pop influence. The music intentionally lacks abrasion and instead focuses on memorable checkpoints interlaced within the intricate songwriting, which occasionally transmits an Americana and blues vibe....
Snooze -- Familiaris March 29, 2019 Major key metal has seen a boom thanks to Astronoid, and Snooze follow in their footsteps with their jarring yet pleasant math metal concept album Familiaris. The Chicago group flirt with easycore backed by strong vocal harmonies often reminiscent of Weezer and Pattern Is Movement, which in turn carries a Beach Boys influence. The vocals drive the tracks and support fairly avant-garde compositions despite the overwhelming optimistic note choices. Snooze intends for the audience to consume the album as a single piece, closing and opening the album with finger snaps that could cycle continuously for repeated listens....
The Lumberjack Feedback -- Mere Mortals April 26, 2019 Mere Mortals isn’t here to lecture on the circle of fifths, but The Lumberback Feedback perform their instrumental caveman metal with the right balance of a stoner’s haze and Fight Club scowl. Led by two drummers who predominantly play in sync, the French five-piece play to their strengths with lots of head nodding and digestible riffs. I imagine this is how people want The Melvins to sound. Live, and especially with a few drinks, they could easily whip a crowd into a tribal frenzy....
From the Petrified Forest -- Marzipan April 13, 2019 Full disclosure: I used to play in From the Petrified Forest, and lone occupant Dan Sloan is still a good friend of mine, but I can objectively report that he writes tremendous music regardless of our connection. Three-song EP Marzipan balances space and dream-pop with post-metal leanings reminiscent of Jupiter sans vocals. It’s heavy and groovy but also carries a textbook. The chord resolutions continually blow my mind and are seemingly plucked from a higher thought process. If there were pop vocals on top of this, it would be all the rage....
Cerce -- Live: Last Show, Boston November 30, 2018 Some relationships stay good, no matter how much time passes between visits. Cerce existed for only two-years, from 2011 to 2013, but you wouldn’t know that from their 2018 reunion show. Gloriously captured with crisp production, the powerviolence/hardcore band from Boston move through the set as if they never stopped performing. It’s loud, serious, and fun, and makes you want to move with the spirit of classic hardcore and added elements of noise rock and experimental passages. Becca Cadalzo steals the show with vocals delivered like an animated poetry slam full of squeaks and histrionic squeals. These individuals share a passionate musical bond and after five-years they clearly have plenty more to say....
Not Metal
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Pixvae -- Cali April 5, 2019 Frustrated looking for that perfect party band who can appeal to music snobs and yoga moms? Your knight has arrived. Pixvae represents the merging of two worlds: Kouma, a French trio who provide sharp math rock, and Bambazú, who bring soaring Colombian soul and passion. That may sound like a recipe for wonky world music, but Cali rises well above the trite tag. The union combines two seemingly antagonistic worlds that work beautifully in tandem; without Kouma, the music loses its edge, and without Bambazú the edge has no sirens. The music directly challenges the listener with competing grooves that trigger multiple parts of the body. I urge you to provide enough space to experience the interplay between the percussive swirls and odd time repetition. In the end, you are powerless against its rhythmic spirit and musicality....
Oort Smog -- Smeared Pulse Transfers April 26, 2019 Jazz is a hard sell for a lot of folks, and Oort Smog don’t make it any easier. The spastic duo of saxophone and drums swell and dip in unison while flirting with free jazz, grind, and punk. Pop sensibilities lie behind the madness and they occasionally land on prog grooves and dancy passages. Ultimately, it’s the sound of two dudes with a lot of common interests having fun making music. Music of this nature requires a short run time and Smeared Pulse Transfers keeps it high and tight without sacrificing any of its rebellion....
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Underground Unusualities #4: Cartographs Captures Shattered Screens and Fragile Romance
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In this series, Jenna scours the musical expanse for unusual (but fitting) albums to soundtrack life's tumult....
"There’s the big Internet and the small Internet, and presently, I’d like to smash both into shards to be swept up in the wind." It’s sentiment I never thought I’d being expressing, but the panic of every notification and the itching of chronically bloodshot eyes is only eased by the view of the brick wall outside my bedroom window. The trade-off for an endless supply of blank pages is a world of heartbreak trapped in a tiny handheld screen. I guess it could be worse. I could be enough of a high roller to upgrade my iPhone 6 to an X, and then I’d have to carry around an even heavier reminder that I’m not shit. I think the worst part is that I’m old enough to know better. I’ve hit the point where my Facebook feed is flooded with engagements occurring for other reasons besides unexpected pregnancies, including, but not limited to, a love strong enough to build a life together. Meanwhile, I’m over on Twitter, interacting with other music journalists, namely fellow recovering scene kids who are stumbling backward through the adult world. That’s how I met him, like something out of a goddamned indie movie, sans the ending scene where we walk across a bridge holding hands in our grandma sweaters and tattered chucks. It probably didn’t help that I did, indeed, watch an indie film in which life imitated art so closely, yet with no cigar. The New Romantic tells the story of a young journalist named Blake who lives as a sugar baby for an immersionist report, but when her daddy turns out to be as scummy as one may expect, another young man on her publication’s staff proves to be her knight in shining armor. Hell, they even hook up at a costume party while both dressed as Hunter S. Thompson – a type of #goals that I’ve never considered but would be open to trying. As I watched the quirky couple parade across the football field to attend their college graduation hand-in-hand, I recalled a phone call I had earlier in the week with him. It started with us talking shop about our endeavors from the safety of our respective time zones, but it quickly shifted into an hour-long discussion of where we grew up and the places we dream of visiting (his list included my city, Portland). His baritone voice reverberated in my chest: "So, do you have any siblings?" That so happened to be Blake’s go-to date question, which her knight asked her at a post-all-nighter diner date before she even had the chance to ask. It was all quickly turning into a form of escapism from the gravely serious work world in which socializing is comprised of clutching hard soda water and stiffly debriefing the status of your research. Meeting someone who’s exceptionally smart, but in a fashion that’s dazzled by language, angles, and beauty is more difficult to find than your key ring after a night out. There’s that unease that won’t rest, creating the sense that time is of the essence until you find them. Once you do, you’re sure to stow them close to the vest. Late nights of sharing edgy memes and goofy selfies made early mornings of twitching eyes and jittery hands worth it. All attention to e-mails and last-minute editing was forgone during one gray area between Thursday and Friday. Suddenly, I was hit with the realization: I need to make him a playlist, and I need to do it now. My love language is apparently sharing the tracks that serve as the soundtrack to my smitten dreamscape. As I collapsed back onto my bed -- half out of exhaustion, half out of exhilaration -- I let the final song of my masterpiece, Cartographs' “Safe Travels,” pull at my electrified heartstrings....
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The Danish four-piece was my latest find in my descent into an extremely special and underrated wave of post-hardcore that emerged earlier in the decade. Like a take on Senses Fail for, well, recovering scene kids, the barren trees depicted in their visuals represent a degree of vibrancy that has been lost as the years drift away. Even though tunings have aimed steadily downward, the compellingly climbing riffs and wispily visceral screams paint a picture of a whole kingdom that’s secretly hidden away in earth tone-shrouded bodies. Cartographs’ premiere album Safe Travels especially captures this ghostly bliss. Its title truck beat onward: “Past in present / Repeating his words to decipher the message” covered my bedroom walls like torn photos from magazines. Maybe, just maybe, he felt it, too. Five years proved to induce a jaded edge in Cartographs' music, as their March 2019 release Wilt & Blossom sits enraptured in melancholy. Appropriately, it was blasting crisply through my phone speakers as my own spirits were dulled in a matter of five seconds. I was absently scrolling through Instagram in bed. I had drifted away from a criminology reading that had said the same thing, just slightly differently, from the one prior. I saw he posted a new video and quickly tapped to engage the audio, as I always enjoy his short pieces of cinematography. A young woman, whose hair was that distinct shade of blonde that mine has never been able to achieve, nuzzled into his sharp jawline as if she was trying to be cut. Yet, I was the one who was hemorrhaging the particles of my parallel universe....
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It was a flirtation that existed nowhere but in the confines of my mind, and thus needed to be completely wiped clean from the server. Somewhere between 20 miligrams of Lexapro and $300 of therapy, I felt nothing but an overwhelming urge to be delivered from it all. The road to this mirage is paved with red flags, and after making the wrong turn so many times, I no longer had it in me to invest in a fantasy that will never come into fruition. Some things are much too fragile to be feasibly tucked away for safekeeping. I deleted all my social media apps and chucked my phone a few feet. Wilt & Blossom’s folk-fused finale “In Teal” muffled through the summit of bedding that had formed. After unknowingly being cooped up inside until dusk, I escaped from linen prison, bounding down the stairs of my apartment building. “Though distinctions are far and few/this essence keeps pulling through / pick up your bones, rebuild anew / since 1992” blared through my headphones as I went in search of something that I couldn’t put my finger on. The mist in the air was warm, but not muggy. I looked to my right to cross the street when I noticed blocks lined with all that’s lush and green in a scene fit for a screensaver. While my walk provided much-needed refreshment, my evening writing duties loomed. It was time to face the screen I couldn’t avoid: the big Internet. My bedsores still too tender to return home, I took a seat in a corner coffee shop. Habitually, my finger jumped across the keyboard to the "t" key. The URL instantly appeared. I took a deep breath and hit enter. In a long line of messages for a group chat of which he and I are both a member, his was the very final. He said he was losing vision in his left eye. My heart sunk, brushing my own self-indulgent absence aside to type, "Are you okay?" As he replied indicating a minor case of eye strain, I stared at the bluish reflection in the window, sinking into the seat’s metal bars as if my shoulders had been nailed inward. Peace was never mine to be found....
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Jamming with Jenna, Round #6: Blurred Lines, the Realities of Hate Fantasies in Grind/Deathcore
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There have been countless think pieces written about the dangers of white nationalism in black metal, and, as someone who has written one herself, I believe these analyses are entirely justified. Yet, one recent tweet caused me to wonder if there’s another discussion that we have entirely missed:...
https://twitter.com/ITHACABAND/status/1118873387537973248...
Racism and sexism aren’t exactly apples-to-apples comparisons, but as intersecting systems of oppression, they work similarly in a variety of ways. For example, proportionately-speaking, people of color are far more likely to be victims of police violence in the United States, and, for women, there is a significantly higher chance that we will be subjected to violence in our interpersonal relationships. In other words, structural violence is often written into the experiences of historically marginalized groups. While violence against people of color has been carried out in black metal through menacing symbols and sentiment, other metal genres are not blemish-free in terms of illustrating hate-driven bloodshed. The often-blurry line between grindcore and death metal is where hate against women breeds. Using imagery of women torn apart at the seams while bellowing the details of sexual assault is a significant part of the grindcore brand specifically. That’s not to say that the bands who fall under this umbrella don’t advocate for general gory violence, and it’s also not to say that other eras of heavy music don’t get off scot-free when it comes to maltreatment of women. But, grindcore and deathcore are perhaps the most overt displays of gendered aggression in the same fashion that black metal has housed some of the most explicit instances of white nationalism. The sheer danger of Nazi symbolism in black metal should not be minimized. There also does not need to be a contest of which genre has committed the most egregious offenses. However, now more than ever, it is vital to speak about how violence against women is a form of hate crime. Rape culture is so ingrained into society that it is hard to conceptualize as a form of terrorism. Everything from underage girls being told their shoulders are distracting to male classmates, to Tool fans insisting that Maynard James Kennan’s rape accuser is lying, to having a president who advocated for "grabbing women by the pussy" falls under this umbrella. These examples do not exist in a vacuum. Since the early 1990s, they have been internalized by the terrorist group known as the Incels. While Contrapoints explains the nature of this Internet-based extremist sect of "involuntary celibates," the brief summary is that they resent women for refusing to have sex with them -- sex being an act to which they believe they are entitled. In worst case scenarios, this rhetoric has bubbled up violently offline, which resulted in the 2014 Isla Vista massacre and the 2019 Toronto van attack. A killing spree ending in a lawn littered with slain sorority sisters sounds like a plausible plot for a grindcore video, but unfortunately, this was a picture that transcended the confines of fantasy at UC Santa Barbara. Yet, contrary to what you may be thinking, I remain a steadfast horror fan. Ever since I was a little girl, I would watch commercials for the latest scary movie, dreaming of the day when I’d be old enough to walk my happy ass into a movie theater and watch franchises like The Ring or The Grudge. I watched the real-life ghost story docu-series A Haunting every day after school and checked out books on cursed tourist destinations from the library. Accordingly, I became enamored with the folk tales and occult imagery conveyed in doom metal, as well as the solemn sounds of dungeon-rattling depressive black metal. Whether you’re watching, listening, or both, experiencing nightmares play out in an aesthetically pleasing way is as thrilling as a roller coaster at sunset. Horror takes another direction, however, when it masks expressions of hate. While my experiences as a woman in metal have largely been positive, there have been a few unfortunate exceptions. When I was 21, I attended a festival out of state by myself, the fodder for my first-ever piece of music journalism. After watching one of my favorite bands perform, I ran into a man with whom I was familiar from my local metal scene. His band -- a popular grindcore act -- was headlining the following day. After being followed by a strange man prior to arriving at the venue, I was happy to see a familiar face. After becoming increasingly intoxicated, I agreed to go back to his hotel with him. Nevertheless, I can still see snippets of the events in my head. We walked into his private room and immediately went out onto the balcony to smoke. Eventually, and at first, consensually, he bent me over a chair, and we began hooking up. As things moved back inside, I was growing increasingly done. After going at me some more in bed, I told him that I was in pain and asked him to stop. “Oh, are you hurting?” he said in a seemingly sympathetic voice that feels sarcastic in retrospect. Still, he proceeded on. I was so exhausted that I just laid there and watched the ceiling spin until eventually, it was over. I managed to get my clothes on and leave as he called after me. I stood under the hotel’s portico staring vacantly into my Uber app, trying to snap back into reality enough to figure out how to get back to where I was staying. I made it back safe that night, but I continued to live in denial about what had occurred for years to come. He had said that he had believed in my writing and that he could help me. I told myself that I would just have to subject myself to his treatment if I really wanted a career. It took me experiencing a suspect situation with another man to realize that I was encountering a pattern in my life; one that cannot necessarily be prevented but can change course by cutting off men whose minds have become fully infiltrated by toxic attitudes. Unfortunately, on the heels of this festival, I came home with my self-esteem in the gutter. I woke up one day to a friend request from the frontman of a regional deathcore band. I accepted. At his invitation, I went to see one of his band’s shows. I got knocked down in the pit trying to photograph them, but I didn’t mind. I had the mentality that any musical event was a potential feature. After their set, I was excited to show him the digital previews of the photos. He was less than enthusiastic, alleging that he doesn’t like pictures taken of him while he’s performing. He proceeded to get jealous as I spoke with the show’s promoter (who, ironically, tried to get me to go to hotels with him when I wasn’t old enough to drink by bribing me with alcohol). Growing tired of the whole situation, I eventually left, but he stayed persistent. I woke up the next day to 40 Facebook notifications all from him. He had liked about all my photos from the past year. The texts poured in as well. Afraid to outright reject him, I tentatively agreed to go to a show with him. I woke up on the day in question feeling under the weather. Yet, I dragged myself into work at 6:00 a.m. and surprisingly got a text from him at that early hour. He told me how excited he was for our date and I responded letting him know that I had a sore throat and body aches, but I would try to power through. I was disappointed in his response, but not surprised: You better not cancel on me. I shivered, and not just because I was feeling feverish. Knowing that he has music videos featuring underwear-clad women being tied up and mutilated made it all feel so much more menacing. His text became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I confided in a girlfriend and she encouraged me to no-show. I did, and I blocked him on all platforms, too. She and I stayed in instead, ordering Chinese, drinking Coronas, and watching Sex & The City -- a night well-spent. The reality of dating as a straight woman is that in the back of my mind, I’m always wondering if this is going to be the guy who cuts me up and throws me in a dumpster. At 24, I still grapple with the feeling that I constantly owe men something just by being in their presence. I must tread carefully to decline advances onto their god-given right to my body so that I do not encounter life-threatening danger. It is so easy for a grindcore band to indulge violent fantasies that they claim are encased in fiction, but it is so hard for me to carry the burden of what the implications have for my real life. A lover of the macabre, I am confident that there is a way to incorporate horror into metal without putting entire sects of people in danger. Ghost, demons, and all things that go bump in the night are fair game, but my body is not. Of course, I’m not intending to speak for all women, and I acknowledge that some may legitimately enjoy listening to stories of mutilation and are aroused by consensual bondage practices. Just for me, as a woman who has been through horrific realities, I will not condemn radical figures in black metal while giving grind and deathcore a free pass. My right to live should supersede the freedom to express hate-motivated twistedness. While I acknowledge I cannot silence these bands, I can at least say enough is enough and put them on indefinite mute....
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Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats
Deconstructing Interference #17
Illustration by Emily McCafferty[/caption]
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Since the late 1990s, Tor Lundvall has been a pioneering figure in binding the extremely dark and introspective world of dark ambient music with the lighter side of synth pop and electronica. This process resulted in the release of the brilliant A Dark Place in 2018, a seminal record in which the dark and light sides of the artist join in spectacular fashion. In the end of April Dais Records released a very interesting collection of Tor Lundvall’s early works in A Strangeness In Motion, which included music that the famed artist has been working on as early as 1989. To put that in perspective, the debut full-length of Lundvall Passing Through Alone was eventually released almost decade later in 1997. Lundvall himself stated that he had some reservations with regard to the quality of these works, considering them “naive and youthful relics," but he eventually grew fond of these early memories and decided to release them to the world. Even though there is some definite distance between the compositions of A Strangeness In Motion and A Dark Place, this recent collection pinpoints the origin of the artist, how he first conceived his resilient musical vision and how he formed his own identity. There are three main lessons that Lundvall’s recent compilation brings to mind when compared to a few other recent releases. Firstly, it acts as a bizarre time machine, one that turns back the clock and reinstates a previous version of reality. Another release this month that performed the same trick was the unearthing of Bogdan Raczynski’s unreleased works, pointing to a time when the adventurous IDM scene was on the rise, and it also rehashes the importance of Raczynski’s work on the genre’s current form. The second lesson from A Strangeness In Motion is that experimental music can rely also on simplicity. Lundvall’s early works do not feature the same depth that his later records possess, but they still display a fiercely adventurous quality. Maharadja Sweets is a completely different artist, relying on heavy electronics and folk music to produce his extravagant sound, but with his new record he took a step back and stripped the music down to its very basics. It was a process of distillation, and one that allowed the structures of Maharadja Sweets’ music to shine devoid of any sonic enhancements. The final lesson from Lundvall’s work comes in the artist’s acceptance of his earlier work and finally releasing these to the public. Kelly Moran produced one of the finest records in 2018 and she decided to revisit many of these tracks with her new EP. While the circumstances are different, the alternate versions of Moran’s songs from Ultraviolet do provide an astounding insight into the origin of her third full-length. These are just three of the releases featured in this month's installment, with another four excellent works presented as well. Hopefully you will enjoy listening to these....
Alberich -- Quantized Angel April 12, 2019 Kris Lapke is mostly known through his engineering credentials, having worked with a very diverse set of artists in the likes of noise, power electronics master Prurient, industrialized dark ambient and drone explorer Haxan Cloak, as well as shoegaze-fused, noise rockers Nothing. However, Lapke is not contempt with his role on the production helm of other stellar artists, and has his own outlet, Alberich to explore his own dark sonic world. The project’s debut record NATO-Uniformen saw Lapke revel in a power electronics form, fuelled by extravagant noise elements. This sound further evolved to include a stronger industrial element in his sophomore work Psychology of Love and has now become a pivotal aspect of his new record Quantized Angel. The title of the album actually describes the duality of Alberich’s sound at this moment in time. On one hand there is a transcendental sense that defines the composition, one that arrives through some very nicely laid-out melodic interludes in “No Reference to the Absence of Allegory” or the glacial atmosphere of minimal dark ambient renditions in “Freeze." On the other hand, Alberich forces this ethereal quality to be distorted and manipulated through an array of industrial notions. As the eerie opener “Upper Mountains” leads into “Unity House," the scenery changes from the serene to the dystopian with the processed vocals topping off this demoniacal performance. The elusive and the dystopian are the states in which Quantized Angel exists and under which it thrives. It is the main source from which Alberich draws his impressive arsenal of weapons that Lapke fully realises to achieve a devastating end....
Bath Consolidated -- Narryer Gneiss Terrane May 3, 2019 Bath Consolidated, the project of Noelle Johnson, who first appeared in the experimental music scene through a collaborative work released through Canadian noise label Fuck Yr Body Up in 2016. Even though this was a limited specimen of the project’s sound, it was possible to detect a plethora of enticing attributes about Johnson’s vision. A broad range of influences, an off-kilter perspective regarding sound collage and traversing different sonic areas defined the sound of “Bavaria” and build up expectations for the project. Now, three years after this split release, Bath Consolidated return with debut full-length Narryer Gneiss Terrane and further expose Johnson’s intricate sonic designs. This is a record that is all over the place in the most magnificent way, moving through subtle ambient progressions filled with soothing synths to extravagant moments led by brutal noise outbreaks. The longform compositions are stacked with this sense of volatility, violently switching perspective from the calmly cinematic to the utterly chaotic. The pinnacle of this mentality is closing track “The Great Filter," seeing Johnson erratically move from ambient interludes to improvised, verging on free-jazz renditions and all the way to an overwhelming death metal infused, industrial bound, hardcore representation. Johnson has ultimately produced a record that revels in chaos and anarchy, one that is never contempt with remaining static. A living entity in a constant state of flux....
Bogdan Raczynski -- Rave ‘Till You Cry April 5, 2019 During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Bogdan Raczynski emerged as a leading figure in the experimental electronic genre, and more specifically within the IDM scene. Nurtured and fueled by Aphex Twin’s twisted take on electronic music, Raczynski released a perfect trilogy of records with Thinking of You, Samurai Math Beats, and Boku Mo Wakaran and would go on and collaborate with artists such as Bjork and Autechre. However, despite Raczynski’s early prolific attitude his output would become sparser, and following the release of 2007’s Alright nothing would be heard from the producer. Thankfully Warp and its Disciples sub-division has uncovered a treasure chest of unreleased material and archived works from Raczynski, which they are now releasing in Rave ‘Till You Cry. The record feels like a drive down memory lane, a journey through the various motifs and attributes that comprised Raczynski’s musical identity and vision. This material exposes all the different facades of the artist and his instrumental role in moulding much of IDM’s scope. From hallucinatory moments of beautiful introspection and nostalgic melodies, all the way to crushing beats, quantized percussion and an erratic progression, Rave ‘Till You Cry acts as a lasting memento of Raczynski’s brilliance. The effect of this record is therefore bittersweet, delivering some excellent unheard specimens of the producer’s work but also acting as a reminder that there has not been any new material from Raczynski in the past twelve years....
Kelly Moran -- Origin EP May 17, 2019 In 2018, Kelly Moran released her third full-length and Warp debut Ultraviolet, a stunning work of prepared piano machinations, honing both her classical background and her experimental tendencies and admiration for the likes of John Cage, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich. Now, a few months following the release of her formative work, Moran returns to the writing sessions of Ultraviolet and unearths additional hidden gems with her new Origin EP. The title of this work details much of the content of the Origin EP. Here, Moran seamlessly turns back time, and revisits the foundation of her latest full-length. The works features variations of multiple Ultraviolet tracks in “Halogen,” “Water Music,” “Reflexive Music (Autowave),” and “Helix” which shed a light into the core of Moran’s vision, as these are stripped of their grand form and returned to a point of origin. But, it is the remaining three tracks that steal the show for this EP. “Night Music” is the moment most closely related to Ultraviolet, with a strong atmospheric sense and fleeting, otherworldly manifestation. “Helix II” acts as the final part of “Helix” from Ultraviolet, arriving with a more classically minded quality and progression, but it is “Love Birds, Night Birds, Birds of Paradise and Devil-Birds” that really shines. Here, Moran takes a brave leap forward into a different territory, unfolding a much more hectic piano performance with the underlying drones minimally adding to the track’s ambient touch. It is these moments that reveal what lies beyond the Origin EP and Ultraviolet, and it sounds very exciting....
Lorem -- Adversarial Feelings April 19, 2019 Lorem is the project led by musician and visual artist Francesco D’Abbraccio, and is an inquiry on the human-computer interaction in the dawn of the AI age. In order to achieve this end, D’Abbraccio has opened up the project to include artists from an array of different and diverse disciplines, including AI and video artists, information engineers as well as musical instrument designers. The goal here is not to produce a standalone musical album, but a collection of audio, video, and lyrics through the use of machine learning in combination with programming strategies and hardware. With Adversarial Feelings, Lorem emerges as this strange entity that stands between the humane and the mechanic. It is a strange duality that D’Abbraccio and compan have managed to achieve, with the system coming online in a fine and smooth way through opening track “Trying to Speak” and “Shonx Canton V2.1.4." It is quite interesting trying to decouple the manner in which Lorem, a seemingly independent entity takes its own artistic decisions and moulds its sonic vision. At times the ambient side of the project takes over, as with the laid-back “Latent Spaces," while at other moments it is a much more obtrusive and lavish attitude that rises to the surface, most prominently in “Are Eyes Invisible Socket Contenders." The accompanying videos that go with this work further illustrate the point of the capability of AI within an artistic domain, offering a glimpse of a possible future that appears at the same time terrifying and full of wonderful possibilities. https://youtu.be/_ir9o5EI1cI...
Maharadja Sweets -- Something’s Been Lost May 3, 2019 Since the early 2010s, Maharadja Sweets has been exploring an adventurous take on the singer/songwriter paradigm. His first release through Orange Milk, Engines of Joy, displayed an experimental mindset that moulded together the power and fury of improvised power electronics with the delicate nature of folk music. Through the years Maharadja Sweets would continue to be defined by this dichotomy, but his new record Something’s Been Lost sees Sweets revising this approach. The new record finds Maharadja Sweets re-examining many of his core attributes. The electronics component here is eliminated, with Something’s Been Lost seeing the artist immersing completely within the folk narrative. In addition, the lo-fi aesthetic that provided Sweets’ works with a dimmer and more spikey ambiance is traded for a better overall production that awakens a sweeter, elegant component. And so Maharadja Sweets delightfully traverses a stripped down version of his sound, where freed from his sparse influences he is allowed to focus on the folk origin of his work. The result is a magnificent trip through sorrowful guitar strums, emotive vocals and a fantastic story telling ability. Something’s Been Lost reveals a well-known truth. That under the veil of heavy electronics and lo-fi aesthetics, what has always been Maharadja Sweets’ most winning attribute was his songwriting skills....
Mukqs -- SD Biomix May 3, 2019 Max Allison is an intriguing figure of the Chicago experimental music scene through his involvement with a variety of different projects. He is the co-head of the Hausu Mountain record label, which has exposed some fantastic artists in recent years in the likes of Eartheater. At the same time he is also a member of the Good Willsmith trio, which revels in an experimental outlook that traverses the areas of drone, noise, metal, and kraut-rock among more. But, where Allison exposes his full range and capabilities is with his own project Mukqs. Mukqs exists on a purely abstract landscape, and through the years Allison has produced a stunning array of works that encompass elements of drone music, sound collage and even game audio techniques. His latest work SD Biomix follows down the same path, but sees Allison adhering completely to the ethics of the noise/improv scene and not using any overdubs, sampled libraries or other shortcuts. The result is a stunning, unpredictable and volatile work that can pass from the melodic and soothing to the chaotic and erratic within a matter of seconds. Heavy beats meet with soothing melodies in “All Seven Gods of Fortune," creating a shattering experience through their co-existence. The exploratory sense of Mukqs leads to an exposition of polyrhythmic ideas manufactured through sonic collage processes in “Sword School Word Chain," while at other moments the progression can be almost entirely soothing, as is the case with “Distributing Mementos." It is a sharp listen that does not stay still, but that is its best quality....
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Teeth Chomp Down on Death Metal with New Song “Collapse”
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While a legion of death metal bands resurrect the sounds of Obituary and Suffocation, San Pedro’s Teeth is more concerned with looking forward to what death metal could be than back at what it has been. Technicality and brutality are often seen as mutually exclusive; on “Collapse,” the first single (streaming exclusively below) from their upcoming album The Curse of Entropy, the group deploys complex timings and changes with surgical precision. But this surgeon has a penchant for evisceration....
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In 2014, Teeth released their debut full-length Unremittance which is taxing in its union of bleak, Gorguts-esque death metal and lonely doom. The group put out a split with Fister two years later. Teeth’s tracks on that recording create the whirlpool effect, sidestepping narrative arcs to rip voids in space-time with relentless blasts, swirling guitar notes, and water-in-the-lungs rhythms. “Collapse” uses that same approach to explore greater depths of punishment, conjoining sharpened dissonance with the brute force of Primitive Man, the latter coming across most clearly in guitarist-vocalist Justin Moore’s bestial growls. Alejendro Aranda propels the track with circlesaw fills and blasts, accenting notes that have the greatest potential to rupture a spleen. Clocking in at 2:34, “Collapse” is a murderous shape-shifter, creating just enough room to breathe in each section before latching onto the throat and cutting off air. If “Collapse” and The Curse of Entropy are indicators, the future of death metal will be a cruel one....
The Curse of Entropy releases later this year. Follow the band on Facebook. Teeth will embark on a short tour this June (dates below), including Electric Funeral Fest in Denver. 6/11 - Los Angeles, CA - 5 Star Bar 6/12 - Flagstaff, AZ - The Green Room 6/13 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Loading Dock 6/15 - Denver, CO - Electric Funeral Fest 6/16 - Albuquerque, NM - Moonlight Lounge 6/17 - Mesa, AZ - Club Red https://youtu.be/YHa66gbhcbM...
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Detherous Champions Invincible Thrash Metal on “Hacked to Death”
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Detherous is evidently a made-up word which is amazing because it sounds like it should be real, some archaic adjective nobody uses anymore but will still clear your Scrabble rack. Fortunately, the creativity of the band Detherous is not limited to amateur lexicography. The group was formed in 2014 when vocalist/guitarist Damon MacDonald was still in high school; the current line-up, rounded out by guitarist Dylan Spicer, drummer Dimitri La Rose, and bassist Kamen Proudfoot, attracted the attention of Redefining Darkness Records thanks to a self-released EP Live at Distortion and a ton of Canadian shows which included the Wacken Metal Battle 2018 in their hometown of Calgary, and the tenth annual Armstrong Metalfest alongside the likes of Archspire and Kataklysm. Their debut album Hacked to Death will not be released until August 16th; however, you don’t have to wait that long. We are proud to premiere the new album's title track to celebrate a Canadian tour that kicks off this Friday in Regina at Cloud 9 Live....
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“Hacked to Death” makes thrash metal dirty again. Detherous belies their tender years with a ripping vortex of bludgeoning speed. Although it’s evident that the band was weaned on the cornerstones of the 1980s underground – Slayer’s dramatic apocalyptic time-changes and early Sepultura’s punk-like intensity are evident – they dig deeper and it shows. You can hear the intensity of Demolition Hammer and the grandeur of Asphyx with the hint of creeping death in MacDonald’s sooty grunt. We also have a bonus drum playthrough video for "Hacked to Death" below for your enjoyment....
https://youtu.be/VoRVgKJtiVA...
Hacked to Death releases August 16th via Redefining Darkness Records. Check out the band's upcoming tour dates below:
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Re-reunited stoner metal greats Bongzilla are on tour now with Black Cobra and Lo-Pan, and they just hit Brooklyn on April 1 at Saint Vitus with additional support from Kings Destroy. Pictures and a review of that show are in this post.
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New York City is generally ten to fifteen degrees warmer than the remote Connecticut suburb where I reside. More people and more activity concentrated into a relatively small area will do that. April Fool’s Day was no exception; I watched the digital temperature gauge in my car climb from the low 50s to a manageable 68 as I eased through the L.I.E.’s ungodly Friday traffic into Brooklyn’s quiet Greenpoint neighborhood. There are two things you can find a lot of here: Polish people and metal. The latter is thanks to Saint Vitus, which has become an unofficial home base for all things heavy in New York over the last five years. Poised inconspicuously across the street from God Bless Deli (of course), the bar doesn’t have much room to maneuver around, but it does have Iron Maiden’s Trooper beer by the can and a decent soundboard. That’s all you really need, anyway.
Lo-Pan is not your typical stoner rock band. Instead of plodding jams or psychedelic freakout solos, the growing crowd was witness to thick riffs, tight songs and the melodic croon of singer Jeff Martin. Inhabiting the same space as Walter Schreifels and Jonah Jenkins, Martin’s voice conveys a sense of immediacy and raw emotion. Outside of power metal it’s rare to find a vocalist not only unafraid of the upper vocal register, but owning it. The crowd grew as their set continued, the songs culled mostly from their latest album Colossus. As far as package openers go, Lo-Pan is the band you want to engage the masses.
Greenpoint natives Kings Destroy is another band that defies the norm. Part Sabbath, part NYHC, part Melvins weirdness, every song is punctuated with left hooks from left field. A hardcore slam here, Ozzy vocals there. Did I just hear some thrash? Probably. It doesn’t always work to the band’s advantage – some parts meander to the point where one wonders if they forgot what song they were playing – but the fact that it works at all is a testament to their abilities. The X factor of ‘I’m going to stick around because who knows what they’ll do next’ is a precious commodity, especially in a live setting.
I haven’t seen a show with Black Cobra on the bill in six years, and this time Matt Pike wasn’t around to distract me. It sounds cliché at this point, but this band is the definition of “you gotta see them live!”. They’re the type of band you want to roadie for, because after forty shows in a row you’d still be excited to see them play. The sheer ferocity of their performance is entrancing, with the end of each song jarring you back to reality for a quick reprieve before another one hits. Their latest album Imperium Simulacra dropped in late February, and I’m sure they played some cuts from it, but I really have no idea. I was lost in the best possible way.
I’m pretty sure weed isn’t legal in New York yet, but nobody told the crowd in Saint Vitus as Bongzilla took the stage. The sickly sweet stench filled the room, mingling with the familiar stale beer/body odor scent at once both familiar and gross. They might not get name-dropped like Eyehategod or Electric Wizard, but these guys have been doing fuck-you sludge since well before it was the cool thing to do. (Who else has the splits with Cavity and Meatjack?) The guitar tone is buried under a hundred layers of fuzz but it still cuts through with enough clarity to get heads bobbing and fists – and a pair of crutches! – raised high. The tunes come low and slow, but there is a bluesy bounce to Bongzilla’s sound that keeps one from nodding off. Drummer Magma (aka Michael Henry) swings his sticks like Bonham; you can feel the crowd sway to the beat. The show is sold out at this point and we’re all mashed together, flowing and ebbing like the tide. All I can see are amps stacked high and all I can hear is what’s coming out of them. It’s glorious. Here’s to hoping the next tour stacks up.
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Lo Pan
Kings Destroy
Black Cobra
Bongzilla
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Plenty of ink, digital and otherwise, has been spilled about Thin Lizzy over the last decade. That’s a good thing; along with Blue Oyster Cult, they’ve been the perennial “most overlooked/underappreciated” rock band of the ’70s. Yet if it wasn’t for the American commercial breakthrough of Jailbreak, which was released 40 years ago tomorrow, Lynott & Co. would still be just another classic rock almost-was. It’s not their best album – this writer would bestow that title on either Bad Reputation or Black Rose, depending on the day – but it was a perfect storm of singular musicianship, Irish balladeering and populist songwriting that hit at the right moment. Not just the right moment, but Thin Lizzy’s last moment; Jailbreak was the band’s sixth album, and Vertigo Records was ready to write them off after the lackluster sales of previous releases Nightlife and Fighting. Label pressure, other bands getting heavier, Phil Lynott’s growth as a songwriter, the legendary Scott Gorham/Brian Robertson twin-guitar attack in peak form . . . all of that and more was distilled into 36 minutes of pure magic.
Lynott has always been the central figure in Lizzy’s dynasty, crafting tales of love and loss through creative character-cyphers, and there’s plenty of them to be found on Jailbreak: The lonesome Western character in “Cowboy Song,” the avenging angel of “Warriors,” the crestfallen lothario in “Romeo and the Lonely Girl.” Yet the album’s biggest hits invoke a strong sense of male camaraderie. “The Boys Are Back In Town” is self-explanatory, whereas the title track finds Lynott and his boys “gettin’ up and going down” and “bustin’ out dead or alive” and “Fight Or Fall” sees the singer declaring “Brothers, we gotta fight for one another!” Extrapolating that theme of solidarity, the epic Celtic battle tale “Emerald” tells of a band of Irish rebels fighting off the ruling despots.
The connection with their homeland was also more than songs about battling clans; fellow Irishman Van Morrison was a vital influence on Lynott’s poetic style when it came to more introspective cuts like “Angel From The Coast” and “Running Back,” as well as James Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness storytelling style.
Others have pointed to Springsteen and Dylan as strong inspirations – Robert Christgau, in particular, took the Springsteen connection to a dickish extreme – but those are broad strokes. The juxtaposition of hard rocking rebel with a heart of gold was rare in a world of Paul Stanleys and Steven Tylers. On Jailbreak Lynott wrote with a sincerity and earnestness that appealed to rock audiences on a wide scale.
Jailbreak‘s influence on hard rock and metal is immense, to the point now where lazy PR writers will call any band that harmonizes guitars “Lizzy-esque.” Gorham and Robertson had played together in Thin Lizzy since the Nightlife album, but those songs were more subdued and could almost be classified as soft rock. Fighting brought a harder edge to the proceedings, which ultimately coalesced with the more memorable tunes they wrote with Lynott on Jailbreak. The fingerprints of “Emerald” are all over Iron Maiden’s first several albums, most notably Killers. Likewise, Mastodon covered it on the special edition of their first album, Remission and have made it part of their live set off and on. The title track has been covered by bands as diverse as Fu Manchu, Anthrax and Six Feet Under, and the album’s success in America – it’s still their only Gold record here – birthed countless bands emulating their winning formula. Even 40 years later, new acts like Khemmis and The Dagger name-drop Lizzy during interviews but also walk the walk with songs bearing the swagger, confidence and subtle vulnerability that made us all fall in love with their predecessors in the first place.
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If you’re reading this, odds are you’re more than just a casual fan. Hearing someone say, “I’m not really into music” sounds the same as, “I’m not really into food or shelter,” (to this writer, anyway). We tend to have similar habits when it comes to processing our passion: organizing physical collections to the point of obsession, encyclopedic knowledge of lineups and discographies, and perhaps most significantly, matching memories and milestones to bands and albums. You might struggle to recall your grandmother’s birthday, but I guarantee you remember the first album you bought with your own money. Maybe it didn’t age well, or it’s downright embarrassing, but you know what it is and why you bought it.
I got lucky: Jethro Tull‘s artistic and commercial breakthrough Aqualung was my first solo purchase, and it sounds just as good today as my dad’s vinyl copy did playing on the family stereo almost 30 years ago. One of my earliest non-Sesame Street musical memories is pestering my mother to play “the song with the snot!” (the title track: “Snot running down his nose/Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes”) and dancing around like children do, unaware for about a decade that the song was about a vagrant pedophile. Fast-forward to 11 years old, already wearing out the dubbed cassette I made of my only CD–Tull’s M.U. best-of collection, a Christmas gift–and I have a gift certificate to the music store in the mall. Theology and its relation to society and the individual might have been a few grade levels away, but suburban prepubescent me was more than ready to rock and roll.
Though it’s still widely regarded as a concept album, Jethro Tull mainman Ian Anderson has shot down that notion repeatedly through the years; some of the tracks do have similar lyrical themes, but there is no central story or idea tying the album together. It’s also quite musically diverse: “Aqualung,” “Locomotive Breath” and “Hymn 43” (the album’s only single) are heavy, riff-centric rock staples while short acoustic segues like “Cheap Day Return” and “Wond’ring Aloud” serve more as bridges between the longer, more fully-arranged songs.
The first half of the album revolves around some character sketches conceived by Anderson and his wife Jennie, while the latter songs–which is where the ‘concept album’ impression comes from–deal with philosophical musings on man and society and their relationships with organized religion. These were somewhat heady topics for a rock band at the time, predating ambitious projects like Who’s Next and far removed from the lyrical inspirations of someone like Mick Jagger or Robert Plant. (Coincidentally, Zeppelin were recording IV next door to Jethro Tull in Island Records’ new London studio at the time).
After beginning their career as a more blues-oriented band, Tull had evolved into a frontrunner in the nascent prog-rock genre along with countrymen Yes and Uriah Heep by the time of Aqualung‘s recording. Anderson’s prodigious talent as a flutist (while ostensibly hilarious) added a unique element to the album, and his solos on “Locomotive Breath” and “My God” are indubitably amazing. Other arrangements included recorder, mellotron, male choirs and orchestral accompaniment. Aqualung‘s impact on prog rock still resonates, most notably with acts like Opeth, Tusmorke and Porcupine Tree (whose Steven Wilson remixed the album in 5.1 surround sound for its 40th anniversary) and across the metal spectrum with bands as diverse as Iron Maiden, Overkill and Clutch covering tracks from the record.
Jethro Tull continued an impressive streak of albums throughout the ’70s and into the ’80s, infamously robbing …And Justice For All of Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance at the ’88 Grammys with Crest Of A Knave. There’s a certain schadenfreude to hearing metal fans still complaining about this, especially those that weren’t born yet when it happened. So go ahead, make fun of me and my boring dad classic flute rock. After 45 years, we’re still doing just fine.
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Sweat-drenched August nights, warm beer, dried blood: it’s amazing how music can evoke our senses, memories and emotions in such a specific way. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be our own experiences that are being channeled. When I first got around to listening to them Japanese doom quartet Church of Misery became an instant favorite. Their music transports me to 1969 California. Charles Manson’s California. That’s pretty impressive for a group of guys from a completely divergent culture and time. Yes, all of their songs are inspired by serial killers and mass murderers, but it’s more than that. The distorted boogie riffs, extended swamp jams and off-kilter vocal delivery all serve as a conduit to the dark psychedelia of that time and place, the flip side of the hippie-dippie scene that is now pop culture lore. They’ve also been doing it since 1998, long before Making A Murderer, Uncle Acid, and think pieces.
At this point Church Of Misery isn’t so much a functioning band as it is a vehicle for founding bassist and sole constant member Tatsu Mikami’s songs. The constantly rotating lineup finally went tits-up last year and Mikami found himself alone; rather than let a dire situation get him down, he ended up assembling his best lineup to date for new album And Then There Were None. Guitarist Dave Szulkin of legendary doom-horror troupe Blood Farmers knows his way around fuzzed-out killer (ha!) riffs, as evidenced on monster tracks like “Make Them Die Slowly” and “River Demon,” while drummer Eric Little (Earthride, ex-Internal Void) has been pounding out Ward/Bonham beats for more than two decades.
The coup d’état, however, was bringing in underground legend Scott Carlson (Repulsion, Death Breath, everything) for vocals and lyrics. Known primarily for his death metal growling, Carlson shows a talent for sludgier fare throughout And Then There Were None. A few “yeah!”s and “ooh”s are a nod to his days in Cathedral with Lee Dorrian, but otherwise Carlson’s distinctive rasp is intact, albeit slowed to a more appropriate doom crawl. Album closer “Murderfreak Blues” is the perfect showcase, an epic dirge about notorious serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells. Carlson demonstrates he can write about real-life monsters just as well as the ones conjured up by Lovecraft: “Agony, bitterness and anguish/Compulsion growing day by day/Endless pain, misery and sickness/Disintegrating into rage.”
While the lyrical inspirations run the gamut from early 20th century killer cults to murdering drifters put to death as recently as 2014, the core “devil’s blues” vibe still resonates strongly. The lineup may have changed, but the players are clearly on the same page as Tatsu Mikami when it comes to style: Sleep and Sabbath highs, evil bloody lows.
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And Then There Were None is now available from Rise Above Records. Follow Church of Misery on Facebook.
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John Cougar Mellencamp probably didn’t have Agoraphobic Nosebleed in mind when he wrote “Hurts So Good,” but the notion feels apropos applied to the sludgy, emotional heft that is Arc. The first of four EPs to showcase each band member’s individual influences and ideas, Arc showcases vocalist Kat Katz (ex-Salome) taking a departure from ANb’s usual frantic grind and hilariously irreverent subject matter. In “Deathbed,” Katz wails “On your deathbed / Forgive me” over and over, while Scott Hull’s Cathedral-meets-COC riffs chug along until they give way to an audio sample of a hospital patient explaining how the crisis intervention center didn’t have a spot for him.
“Dick To Mouth Resuscitation” this is not.
Hull’s musical talent has been well documented, but it deserves special mention here as it’s a big leap from Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s usual dynamic. Pig Destroyer has dabbled in doom and sludge over the years on the Natasha album and the Mass & Volume EP, but Arc is Hull’s most focused take on the style. “Not A Daughter” and “Deathbed” delve deep into Crowbar and Eyehategod’s discographies, with every F.O.A.D. riff catchier and heavier than the one before it.
Hull deftly avoids The Boring Zone: that area around the six-minute mark when a band will change things up and hold the listener’s interest, or stay in the rut of a groove and give up. Above all ANb sound comfortable, and while the personnel involved may have plenty of experience with this style in previous bands, it’s evidence to their talent and acumen that Arc sounds like an entry from a career doom outfit.
“Gnaw” comes out of left field compared to the first two tracks: bathed in feedback with a guitar line right from the Buzzov*en playbook, then slowly giving way to a noisy Godflesh dirge. The drum programming, bouncy and swinging in the previous two songs, becomes a factory press of cold efficiency for almost 12 minutes. ANb is a band that has always deserved praise but never quite required anyone to take them seriously. If Arc is indicative of a new direction, that’s going to change. It’s harsh, even depressing, but damn if it doesn’t hurt so good.
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Arc is out this Friday on Relapse Records. Follow Agoraphobic Nosebleed on Facebook and on Twitter at @agoraphobicnb.
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Baroness has had a fairly unique career trajectory. With each release, they’ve picked up new fans and shed old ones at an almost equal pace. Changing up musical direction can be a death knell for most bands, especially in the “heavy” arena. No, Purple is not Cold Lake, but it’s not Metallica either, despite the similar shift towards a more populist aesthetic. Baroness has always been more than just “metal”; classic rock, psych and indie elements have been integral parts of the band’s sound since the First EP. Listeners that have followed the band faithfully should not be surprised at what the ten (OK, nine) tracks on Purple have to offer, but should they be pleased?
“Morningstar” starts the album off well enough, and as one of the three advance singles, people have had a bit of time to let it sink in. It’s big and bombastic, though not quite as memorable a leadoff as “Take My Bones Away” or “Rays On Pinion.” Perhaps with time it could be, but the X factor that tends to lifts Baroness’ songs above their peers is either not there or buried deep. “Shock Me” scared the shit out of me at first, as the synth intro sounded a little too much like Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is” – despite being a self-avowed Foreigner fan, that song is murder. Fear gave way to disappointment, however, upon the realization that it was also not a KISS cover.
Mixed emotions aside, “Shock Me” falls short of what it’s trying to accomplish. Singer-guitarist John Baizley spoke about how Purple wouldn’t dwell on the “mellow, sad thing” that were the emotional and physical scars resulting from the horrific bus crash the band survived shortly after the 2012 release of Yellow & Green. The goal was to write with a positive, up-tempo (yet still aggressive) perspective. “Shock Me” might check all those boxes, but the execution feels hurried. It’s as if the band wanted so much for these elements to shine through that they forgot to craft a great song to contain them. Again the potential is there, but like “Morningstar” it’s an off-the-wall double instead of a home run.
Other songs are more successful. “Try To Disappear” is an interesting change-up: subtle without sacrificing too much heaviness. New drummer Sebastian Thomson is more than able to fill the void left by Allen Blickle, especially when it comes to, well, fills. Along with fellow new guy bassist Nick Jost, the rhythm section keeps the beat but also keeps it interesting. While Baizley and Pete Adams deliver the power chords and hooks, Thomson and Jost almost have their own song within a song, not quite following the guitars but also never losing the plot. It’s as good a representation of Baroness and what they do best as anything else. “Kerosene” sees Baizley’s best vocal performance on the album; the chorus is huge and immediately sing-along-able, along with some memorable guitar fills/solos that recall Red Album and Blue Record. The well-timed break/synth section segues the song to a powerful conclusion.
“Chlorine & Wine” is where Baroness truly shines, in their duality: hard & soft, dark & light, push & pull. The first few minutes finds the band gliding lazily down a river of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”-isms until the distortion kicks in and Baizley belts out “When I called on my nursemaid/ Come sit by my side/ But she cuts through my ribcage/ And pushes the pills deep in my eyes”. The music is as regal and grandiose as anything they’ve done before, a proper setting for lyrics at once both personal and incredibly relatable. It falls short of perfection only at the ending, or lack thereof. “The Iron Bell” shifts back into high gear with a hard-driving tempo and Thin Lizzy swagger, complete with a solo Eric Bell would be proud of.
The earlier Black Album reference is no outlier here; Baroness and Metallica not only share a management team, but a comparable career trajectory as well. Kill ‘Em All and Ride The Lightning are similar in a lot of ways, but the latter is a huge leap forward in terms of musicality and songwriting. The same can be said for the transition between Red Album and Blue Record. Unfortunately, by all accounts they’ve also followed Metallica’s errant production choices a la Death Magnetic: Purple has all the dynamic range of a brick outhouse. It’s a disservice to the songs, which are overall great, and just confounding given the talent both behind the boards and in the booth. Still, one can take heart in the fact that the live show should give these tracks the treatment they deserve.
The struggle that brought Baroness to this point is what shines brightest throughout Purple. The allusions to fire and flames (“Kerosene”, “Chlorine & Wine”, “Desperation Burns”) juxtaposed against the positive words and up-tempo song structures suggest fire not as a destructive end, but a rebirth. The fact that this album even exists is proof of the power Baroness wields; its virtuosity is validation of what we’ve known about them all along.
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No Deafheaven, no Ghost, and definitely no Beach House. Still here? Congratulations! Come on in!
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Honorable Mentions:
20. Amorphis – Under The Red Cloud (Nuclear Blast, FIN)
19. Ufomammut – Ecate (Neurot Recordings, IT)
18. Magic Circle – Journey Blind (20 Buck Spin, US)
17. Meatwound – Addio (Magic Bullet Records, US)
16. Elder – Lore (Armageddon Shop, US)
15. A Place To Bury Strangers – Transfixation (Dead Oceans, US)
14. Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats – The Night Creeper (Rise Above, UK)
13. Kowloon Walled City – Grievances (Neurot Recordings, US)
12. Poison Idea – Confuse & Conquer (Southern Lord, US)
11. Zebras – The City Of Sun (Unsigned, US)
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10. Brothers Of The Sonic Cloth – Brothers Of The Sonic Cloth (Neurot Recordings, USA)
In a world of sludge metal run amok, the return of Tad Doyle is welcome indeed. Going even (ahem) heavier than TAD ever did, Brothers Of The Sonic Cloth hopefully heralds a new era for a veteran crew that is more than capable of keeping up with the contemporaries they inspired.
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9. Niche – Heading East (Retro Futurist, USA)
Coming in at the end-of-year buzzer, Niche has been a most pleasant surprise. Heading East is the album to point out when someone asks ‘Hey, if I want to listen to something cool, where should I start?’ No extremes, no breakthroughs, just warm and good. Yes, it is that simple.
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8. Pinkish Black – Bottom Of The Morning (Relapse Records, USA)
One noticeable 2015 trend was an uptick in John Carpenter/Goblin worship, whether it was from modern masters like Pinkish Black and labelmates Zombi or the OGs themselves; Carpenter and Goblin Rebirth both released albums this year. Bottom Of The Morning is the cream of the crop, melding sinister vibes and cinematic arcs to creepy theremins and cold, detached vocals. A background score for many Halloweens to come.
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7. Acid King – Middle Of Nowhere, Center Of Everywhere (Svart Records, USA)
A decade away did nothing to diminish the power and talent of Acid King. Still tripping, riffing and grooving with the best of them, Middle Of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere is just as solid and memorable as any release in their canon. The songs have a particular method of getting under one’s skin in the best possible way. If you’re gonna get hooked on something, might as well make it this.
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6. KEN Mode – Success (Season Of Mist, Canada)
“We can play this game a little bit longer/But we all know we’re not really welcome here,” sings/shouts Jesse Matthewson at the very beginning of opener “Blessed.” That should clue you in to the beautiful disgust contained within Success. With fellow angry guy Steve Albini on board as producer, this nine track ode to “welp, fuck THAT” is a noisy, glorious triumph for one of the best bands in their genre. Here’s your TGIF soundtrack, forever.
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5. With The Dead – With The Dead (Rise Above, UK)
It’s nice when results live up to expectations.
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4. Panopticon – Autumn Eternal (Bindrune Recordings, US)
In the final chapter in Austin Lunn’s beautiful musical trilogy the title says it all. More so than Kentucky and Roads To The North, this album in particular pulls on my Connecticut Yankee heartstrings. The mood, melodies and arrangements evoke fall memories and emotions like no other album has since Type O Negative’s October Rust. That’s good company.
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3. Hooded Menace – Darkness Drips Forth (Relapse Records, Finland)
Another October winner, Darkness Drips Forth expands on the monolithic death and doom Hooded Menace has been cultivating for years. At this point they really exist in a category of their own. A lot of bands try to write scary music; “Elysium Of Dripping Death” is horror. Excruciatingly slow, purposeful, and evil. Michael, Jason and a bunch of black-gloved giallo villains would approve.
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2. High On Fire – Luminiferous (eOne Music, USA)
I have covered High On Fire more than any other band in my six-plus years at Invisible Oranges, and that is simply because they are the best metal band of the last 15 years. (Quote me!) Consistently amazing live shows, great albums and killer songs, of which there are many on Luminiferous. “The Black Plot,” “Slave The Hive,” “The Falconist,” Jesus, take your pick. Don’t forget that headbanging title track either. OK, I have to go listen to this again. Right now.
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1. Khemmis – Absolution (20 Buck Spin, USA)
Back in July I declared Absolution my favorite doom record of the year, and it didn’t take much extra thought to bump it to number one overall. Khemmis has harnessed the accessibility of classic metal and welded it to the atmosphere, fuzz and musicality of modern doom. (I’m assuming they accomplished this with the magical wizard staff on the album cover.) “Torn Asunder” and “Ash, Cinder, Smoke” are instant classics, tapping into something deeper that transcends simple genre identifiers. The most exciting aspect of the album is that it’s a debut; this is a young band with gargantuan talent that has the potential to go the distance. Go forth and create, Khemmis. I’m in your corner.
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