Again, real life seems to interrupt my attempts at writing. Things are back on track now, so I hope to be back to weekly updates. In the meantime, I've started a Tumblr page and have been doing some micro-blogging with reviews and assorted weirdness. Be sure to check that out: http://thdefenestrator.tumblr.com/
Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind: My love for
Converge can be summed up in an anecdote: I got to see them live for the
third time last year headlining a show the day before Halloween that
awesomely had Torche and Kvelertak opening. I was waiting to use the one
bathroom stall in the men's room when lead singer Jacob Bannon came
literally bouncing out of the stall and out of the bathroom like he was
lit on fire. He didn't look like he was late for anything. In fact, he
seemed to be smiling. Dude doesn't even slow down to take a dump.
(Also,
my butt touched the same place his butt just touched so I think that
means we're now lovers. I'm pretty sure that's how it works, right?)
To
me, that's Converge in a nutshell: bursting with restless energy.
They've been doing this with a consistency and a pace that left most of
their peers wheezing in their wake. They all seem to have creative
endeavors and side project outside of Converge that keep them busy.
(Dear Nate, more Doomriders, plz?) Rather than run out of ideas on their
first couple records, they actually seem to be getting better as
musicians and taking more chances with their sound as time passes.
After what might be a career highlight with 2009's guest-heavy Axe To Fall,
they've responded with a tighter, more focused album. They can still
batter you with sound but time has also taught them where best to hit
for maximum impact.
Baroness - Yellow & Green: According to my Last.fm stats, I listened to 674 Baroness tracks in the last 12 months. "March To The Sea" 89 times and "Take My Bones Away" 86. That sends a pretty clear message: I am deeply disturbed. Or I have a desk job and I listen to a lot of music. Y'know. Whatevs. Honestly, the worst thing about Baroness' switch up from dynamic sludge metal to a more palatable hard rock was watching music journalists contort themselves into uncomfortable shapes trying to describe it. The vocabulary for talking about hard rock music has completely atrophied from disuse so seeing comparisons ranging from Nickelback to Thrice to Foo Fighters were kind of inevitable.
Baroness, of course, sounds nothing like any of those bands. They're similar only in the sense that no one in them are legally considered dead. The imagery of the lyrics alone should separate Baroness from the pack. Bones and water are recurring themes. Textural interstitial pieces help the album flow and keep a sense of atmosphere. Lyrics about bones and bodies of water give everything a sense of immensity or expansiveness. This is not a pop record.
Downshifting from the exhilarating Blue Record still leaves the band cruising at a healthy speed. "March To The Sea," "Take My Bones Away" and "Psalms Alive" all sound fantastic blasting out of a car chugging well over the speed limit. "Eula" is gorgeously dark, one of their very best songs. "Cocanium" and "Stretchmarker" allow them to experiment more with the listeners expectations while remaining very much a Baroness song. In the end, I guess it's okay that music journalists couldn't find the right words for this band. No one else is doing it like this.
Golden Void - Golden Void: Based in the Bay Area, named after a Hawkwind song, and with a sickly yellow cover of dead tree limbs, you can get a good idea of what you're going to get from Golden Void's first album before you drop the needle on the platter: gauzy production, hazy psychedelic atmosphere, and some champion level guitar playing. This is no empty throwback, though. Isaiah Mitchell's limber guitar playing cuts through the smoke with ease. I could listen to the guitar solo on "Atlantis" for days on end.
In true record fetishist fashion, the album is a brief seven track, thirty-seven minute and change affair, perfect for two sides of a thick slab of vinyl. (You get a bonus live track on the iTunes version.) While the atmosphere is thick throughout, they still try on a fair share of styles. Mitchell's vocals may recall Hendrix one moment or Ozzy the next. They may go at a more languid pace on "Jetsun Dolma" only to charge straight through on a song like "The Curve." It's all foreplay to get to "Atlantis," as far as I'm concerned. It's rare for a song to so clearly hit me where I live. All the promise of the earlier tracks comes together for a nearly eight minute ride that begs for big headphones and a volume dial broken at 11.
My only hope is that this isn't a one off project.
Pig Destroyer - Book Burner: Read my review here. Easily the best grind band working today.
High On Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis: Read my review here. I follow guys named Matt Pike on Twitter who aren't the actual Matt Pike in hopes that one day they'll miraculously transform into him and play a gnarly riff that will make you HEAR WRITTEN WORDS. Because that's how awesome Matt Pike is.
Unsane - Wreck: Read my review here. The last and best of a dying breed.
Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music: Sometimes all a rapper needs is a distinctive voice. Not "voice" in the sense of his overall approach to music, just the way words come out of their face hole. There's plenty of rappers who don't have much in the way of technical skill but can convince you solely through the power of their voice. Others have technical skill to spare but no personality or charisma. Atlanta's Killer Mike is the total package.
Buoyed by El-P's most accessible production to date, Killer Mike tears through twelve tracks without stopping for penny ante skits or instrumentals. This is a lean, mean, no bullshit rap album. The album opens strong with monster track "Big Beast" that has a sly turn from T.I. and a confident Bun B but most of the album's guest stars are only there for the hooks. This is Killer Mike's show and rightly so.
The album's centerpiece, the incendiary "Reagan," is soaked in well-earned paranoia as he tears down sacred cows in his own culture as well as the government that enables them. It's strong stuff and an album full of similar political rap would have blunted (pun intended) it's impact. While the tone of the album certainly isn't light, it's not oppressive either.
I don't often buy instrumental albums but after hearing his beats on this record, I picked up El-P's instrumentals just to admire them in their original form. I love El-P's records but seeing him try his hand at a more mainstream friendly style only highlights the range of his productions. When you put Killer Mike over top the beats, you end up with a really killer collaboration that I hope continues on more records in the future.
Easily my favorite rap record of the year.
Swans - The Seer: While my 2012 wasn't exactly rose-scented, two high points of the year were standing front and center on Halloween night to witness the mighty Earth play Phoenix for the first time in fifteen years. It was fucking transcendent. The other was watching with awe as Michael Gira and company (including a Nordic-looking guy named Thor who naturally played shirtless) absolutely wreck the audience at Crescent Ballroom. Lucky for us, what makes them so captivating live is very evident on record.
Their latest album, a double CD titled The Seer, is not casual listening. Swans records never are. Each disc is weighted down by dark epics like the 32 minute "The Seer" on disc one and the one/two punch of "A Piece Of The Sky" (19 minutes) and "Apostate" (23 minutes) on disc two.
If you're willing to put in the time, Swans can open up a whole new world of oppression and darkness. Wielding a different kind of heaviness since their reformation, the band is continuing down a path of apocalyptic folk and psychedelia. In other bands, that would be hyperbole but with Swans it's just facts. It's absolutely pummeling in it's bleakness to the point that comparisons to other bands would be doing Swans a disservice.
It's an exhausting, emotionally draining listen but it's well worth the trip.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Favorite Songs Of The Year
Mandatory overtime, 120 hours (and counting) of Resonance Of Fate and a house full of puppies haven't left me with a lot of spare time for writing. I'm going to try and knock out a couple more Favorite ______ Of The Year posts before the end of the year, so keep an eye out for them, Imaginary Person I Think Is Reading This. Up first, my favorite songs of the year. Favorite, not Best Of, because... well, I'm uncomfortable with the semantic difference between "Favorite" and "Best." This is the stuff that most interested me and, as most people aren't into throwback 70's style rock and gay bounce music, I'll make a lame play for being humble by not trumpeting them as The Best Of The Year.
Burning Love - "Hateful Comforts": My issue with punk rock, even going back to my teenage years, was that most of it was exasperatingly vague about what, exactly, we should be rebelling against. Mostly it was just an excuse for mohawks and facial piercings and I'm sorry, The Offspring, but I don't need your permission for a tattoo to bum out my parents. This is where Burning Love frontman Chris Colohan comes in. "Hateful Comforts," off of their sophomore album Rotten Thing To Say, is the most exhilarating four and a half minutes of punk rock I've heard in years. The lyrics and vocal performance are mostly what sells the song for me. It is painfully specific about post-9/11 paranoia, witch hunts, and the easily led cable news junkies. This is everything punk rock should be aiming for. And, goddamn, that guitar solo...
Future Of The Left - "Beneath The Waves An Ocean": Most people who have heard Future Of The Left's most recent album, The Plot Against Common Sense, would probably argue that "Robocop 4 - Fuck Off Robocop" should be the song you mention first. (Actually, they probably wouldn't argue, they'd just mock me, but... shut up.) While I think it is some of Andy Falkous' best work, the lyrics overpower everything else in the song. "Beneath The Waves An Ocean" feels like a more even balance. Catchy as hell with the entire band firing on all cylinders. Falco's arch delivery and the fuzzed out bassline from Julia Ruzicka really sell it.
Local H - "Sad History": Saying that Local H is the most underrated and under appreciated band in rock music would probably be cold comfort to singer/songwriter Scott Lucas. Every Local H record feels like it could be the last one, it's been that way since the 90's, but "Sad History" could very well be the swan song for a couple of puckish Midwesterners who never quit. While most of his peers have been reuniting for club shows to help pay off their mortgages and drug addictions, Lucas has never stopped writing and touring. He's never released an album that was anything short of rock solid. As a songwriter, there's no one in America who wields bitterness and cynicism the way he does. As a live act, they're still a freight train... thanks in no small part to Brian St. Clair's monster drumming. That said, Lucas has never seemed more tired than he has on this song and this album. Even if the lyrics could easily be about the band themselves, he still ends on a note of hope. Because if Scott and Brian have proven anything, it's that writing them off is a bad idea.
The Afghan Whigs - "Lovecrimes": The idea of Greg Dulli and the recently reunited Afghan Whigs covering a Frank Ocean song only sounds like a strange idea for about the first ten seconds. Dulli has covered everyone from Bjork to Billie Holliday to Kanye West in his other band, The Twilight Singers. His rough, working class soul croon never sounds better than when it's paired with Rick McCollum's instantly recognizable bluesy guitar. They may have broken up more than a decade ago but no moss has grown on them in that time. If the real criteria of a cover song is whether or not a band can make the song their own, this is a success. It sounds like the exact kind of dark psychodrama Dulli was always fond of. I'd never have known this was a cover if they didn't advertise it. It's also a free download on their website, so there's no excuse not to pick it up.
Diplo feat. Nicky Da B - "Express Yourself": New Orleans Sissy Bounce is a subgenre of a subgenre but it's also been some of the most irrepressible dance music I've heard since Baltimore club music was in vogue several years back. Built around lo-fi, homemade beats and repetitive chants, and anchored by openly gay or transsexual emcees like Big Freedia, the gravelly voiced Sissy Nobby and Katey Red, it somehow manages to be dirty as hell and unselfconsciously fun at the same time. Probably because it doesn't have the macho douchebag energy straight men seem to take with them wherever they go. Diplo wisely maintains the basic aesthetic of sissy bounce but gives it a budget and clean production while Nicky Da B jump onto the track with confidence and control. Straight up the best dance music I've heard all year.
Psy - "Gangnam Style": Nope, still not sick of it yet. Usually, when there's a foreign language dance craze, like the Macarena, we can all agree that it was always ridiculous and it's charming or enduring for exactly that reason. Not only is Psy the only real Asian pop star who broke through in America despite several tries (sorry Utada), he was legitimately funny AND in on the joke. Nothing he does will ever be remotely this big again, but damned if it wasn't entertaining while it lasted. And without Psy, I wouldn't have had the single most panic attack inducing four minutes of my life.
Baroness - "Take My Bones Away" / "March To The Sea": Most people I know seemed leery when Baroness went on record about going in a more hard rock direction for fear of permanently scarring the vocal cords of singer/guitarist/lead songwriter/artist John Dyer Baizley. I was not. I got turned onto the band when they released their first EP (yeah, yeah... music nerd bragging rights) and while the heavier-than-thou sludge metal was part of the appeal, you could never deny their songwriting chops. Take out the sludge and you're still left with some very solid, catchy rock music of a sort that doesn't get made anymore. Hesher music of the highest order.
Unsane - "No Chance": It's always gratifying to see a band perfect their artform, whatever it is. Unsane have honed in on a very specific brand of angry, working class noise rock. The stark lyrics, the awesomely distorted bass guitar... no one else could pull it off with this kind of velocity or single-mindedness. A good Unsane song barrels right through you and "No Chance" is one of their best.
Pigs - "Give It": There's no part of the Unsane trio that's less integral than the other but Dave Curran's singular bass tone tweaks the pleasure centers of my brain the way nothing else does. When I found out he had a side project (this time on guitar and vocals) I jumped at it immediately. The album is still very much in the noise rock template but it opens up a bit more than his other project. It's less suffocatingly bleak, but only just. "Give It" could stand alongside the best Unsane track without question. An excellent song on an under-appreciated album.
Golden Void - "Atlantis": All you had to do was mention guitarist Isaiah Mitchell and my ears perked up. A guitar hero in the purest sense of the word, his other project, Earthless, is the essential modern psychedelic rock band. Songs stretch out for twenty minutes or longer, enough to break the patience of any casual listeners. However, the hypnotic repetition and guitar solos that seem alternately endless and far too short help it go down easy. They hinted at what they could do in a more conventional song length on a three way split with Danava and Lecherous Gaze last year and now we have Golden Void. It's an excellent album that I'll write more about later but it culminates in this epic track, incorporating my favorite of Mitchell's guitar work yet.
Aesop Rock - "ZZZ Top" / "Zero Dark Thirty": The thing that jumped out at me first about Aesop Rock's new album, Skelethon, were those killer live-sounding drum samples. They knock hard. I wasn't expecting a huge change in his sound jumping from the "B-boy brainiacs" at the much missed Def Jux to the Minnesota-based Rhymesayers crew, and the star here is still Ace Rock's flow, but Skelethons is definitely funky in a different way than his previous album, None Shall Pass. "ZZZ Top" (incidentally my favorite video of the year... go Patti Li go!) and "Zero Dark Thirty" are probably the best examples of this. Ace is every bit as dense and dizzying as always but this new vibe gives him an extra kick I haven't heard from him before.
Killer Mike - "Reagan": I'd heard of Killer Mike before this year's awesome El-P produced R.A.P. Music but this album was a revelation. Not many emcees would be able to jump from axe murdering with Bun B & T.I. to taking down his own culture and the government that enables it and oppresses it at the same time, but Killer Mike managed it with aplomb. In addition, it contained El-P's most accessible production work, marrying boom bap with the sort of layered darkness he uses on his solo work to outstanding effect. The best track on an excellent album.
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - "Death's Door": Adding this song is a bit of cheat. It came out in Europe last year but was only released in the States in November, giving me a chance to talk more about it. Willfully mysterious, this Cambridge trio are gaining a lot of momentum. The entire album is a strain of doom metal of a type that's been out of fashion for awhile. They've been lumped in with bands like the Merciful Fate devotees Ghost, but Uncle Acid prefer to wallow gleefully in the B-movie themes and grimy lo-fi production. The rickety vibe and the hazy claustrophobia gives the entire album a unique 70's vibe I never get tired of. Essential listening.
Graveyard - "Goliath": There's something about Sweden. No other place can reproduce discarded and marginalized genres of music with so much faithfulness and soul that it doesn't come off like some kind of rote mimicry. There's desert rock Kyuss worshippers like Truckfighters, Astroqueen, Dozer, etc. (Are there even deserts in Sweden? I don't think there are any deserts in Sweden...) Then there are the 70's rock revivalists like Spiders, Horisont, Witchcraft, and Graveyard. Their previous album, Hisingen Blues, was flat out brilliant. It was everything I love about what is usually dismissed as dinosaur rock in an updated form without coming off like some lunkheaded, lowest common denominator-baiting Jet single. Lights Out aims for a tighter, more streamlined version and mostly knocks it out of the park. In a mainstream where The Black Keys are seemingly the only remaining rock band people take seriously, the world needs more bands like this.
Burning Love - "Hateful Comforts": My issue with punk rock, even going back to my teenage years, was that most of it was exasperatingly vague about what, exactly, we should be rebelling against. Mostly it was just an excuse for mohawks and facial piercings and I'm sorry, The Offspring, but I don't need your permission for a tattoo to bum out my parents. This is where Burning Love frontman Chris Colohan comes in. "Hateful Comforts," off of their sophomore album Rotten Thing To Say, is the most exhilarating four and a half minutes of punk rock I've heard in years. The lyrics and vocal performance are mostly what sells the song for me. It is painfully specific about post-9/11 paranoia, witch hunts, and the easily led cable news junkies. This is everything punk rock should be aiming for. And, goddamn, that guitar solo...
Future Of The Left - "Beneath The Waves An Ocean": Most people who have heard Future Of The Left's most recent album, The Plot Against Common Sense, would probably argue that "Robocop 4 - Fuck Off Robocop" should be the song you mention first. (Actually, they probably wouldn't argue, they'd just mock me, but... shut up.) While I think it is some of Andy Falkous' best work, the lyrics overpower everything else in the song. "Beneath The Waves An Ocean" feels like a more even balance. Catchy as hell with the entire band firing on all cylinders. Falco's arch delivery and the fuzzed out bassline from Julia Ruzicka really sell it.
Local H - "Sad History": Saying that Local H is the most underrated and under appreciated band in rock music would probably be cold comfort to singer/songwriter Scott Lucas. Every Local H record feels like it could be the last one, it's been that way since the 90's, but "Sad History" could very well be the swan song for a couple of puckish Midwesterners who never quit. While most of his peers have been reuniting for club shows to help pay off their mortgages and drug addictions, Lucas has never stopped writing and touring. He's never released an album that was anything short of rock solid. As a songwriter, there's no one in America who wields bitterness and cynicism the way he does. As a live act, they're still a freight train... thanks in no small part to Brian St. Clair's monster drumming. That said, Lucas has never seemed more tired than he has on this song and this album. Even if the lyrics could easily be about the band themselves, he still ends on a note of hope. Because if Scott and Brian have proven anything, it's that writing them off is a bad idea.
The Afghan Whigs - "Lovecrimes": The idea of Greg Dulli and the recently reunited Afghan Whigs covering a Frank Ocean song only sounds like a strange idea for about the first ten seconds. Dulli has covered everyone from Bjork to Billie Holliday to Kanye West in his other band, The Twilight Singers. His rough, working class soul croon never sounds better than when it's paired with Rick McCollum's instantly recognizable bluesy guitar. They may have broken up more than a decade ago but no moss has grown on them in that time. If the real criteria of a cover song is whether or not a band can make the song their own, this is a success. It sounds like the exact kind of dark psychodrama Dulli was always fond of. I'd never have known this was a cover if they didn't advertise it. It's also a free download on their website, so there's no excuse not to pick it up.
Diplo feat. Nicky Da B - "Express Yourself": New Orleans Sissy Bounce is a subgenre of a subgenre but it's also been some of the most irrepressible dance music I've heard since Baltimore club music was in vogue several years back. Built around lo-fi, homemade beats and repetitive chants, and anchored by openly gay or transsexual emcees like Big Freedia, the gravelly voiced Sissy Nobby and Katey Red, it somehow manages to be dirty as hell and unselfconsciously fun at the same time. Probably because it doesn't have the macho douchebag energy straight men seem to take with them wherever they go. Diplo wisely maintains the basic aesthetic of sissy bounce but gives it a budget and clean production while Nicky Da B jump onto the track with confidence and control. Straight up the best dance music I've heard all year.
Psy - "Gangnam Style": Nope, still not sick of it yet. Usually, when there's a foreign language dance craze, like the Macarena, we can all agree that it was always ridiculous and it's charming or enduring for exactly that reason. Not only is Psy the only real Asian pop star who broke through in America despite several tries (sorry Utada), he was legitimately funny AND in on the joke. Nothing he does will ever be remotely this big again, but damned if it wasn't entertaining while it lasted. And without Psy, I wouldn't have had the single most panic attack inducing four minutes of my life.
Baroness - "Take My Bones Away" / "March To The Sea": Most people I know seemed leery when Baroness went on record about going in a more hard rock direction for fear of permanently scarring the vocal cords of singer/guitarist/lead songwriter/artist John Dyer Baizley. I was not. I got turned onto the band when they released their first EP (yeah, yeah... music nerd bragging rights) and while the heavier-than-thou sludge metal was part of the appeal, you could never deny their songwriting chops. Take out the sludge and you're still left with some very solid, catchy rock music of a sort that doesn't get made anymore. Hesher music of the highest order.
Unsane - "No Chance": It's always gratifying to see a band perfect their artform, whatever it is. Unsane have honed in on a very specific brand of angry, working class noise rock. The stark lyrics, the awesomely distorted bass guitar... no one else could pull it off with this kind of velocity or single-mindedness. A good Unsane song barrels right through you and "No Chance" is one of their best.
Pigs - "Give It": There's no part of the Unsane trio that's less integral than the other but Dave Curran's singular bass tone tweaks the pleasure centers of my brain the way nothing else does. When I found out he had a side project (this time on guitar and vocals) I jumped at it immediately. The album is still very much in the noise rock template but it opens up a bit more than his other project. It's less suffocatingly bleak, but only just. "Give It" could stand alongside the best Unsane track without question. An excellent song on an under-appreciated album.
Golden Void - "Atlantis": All you had to do was mention guitarist Isaiah Mitchell and my ears perked up. A guitar hero in the purest sense of the word, his other project, Earthless, is the essential modern psychedelic rock band. Songs stretch out for twenty minutes or longer, enough to break the patience of any casual listeners. However, the hypnotic repetition and guitar solos that seem alternately endless and far too short help it go down easy. They hinted at what they could do in a more conventional song length on a three way split with Danava and Lecherous Gaze last year and now we have Golden Void. It's an excellent album that I'll write more about later but it culminates in this epic track, incorporating my favorite of Mitchell's guitar work yet.
Aesop Rock - "ZZZ Top" / "Zero Dark Thirty": The thing that jumped out at me first about Aesop Rock's new album, Skelethon, were those killer live-sounding drum samples. They knock hard. I wasn't expecting a huge change in his sound jumping from the "B-boy brainiacs" at the much missed Def Jux to the Minnesota-based Rhymesayers crew, and the star here is still Ace Rock's flow, but Skelethons is definitely funky in a different way than his previous album, None Shall Pass. "ZZZ Top" (incidentally my favorite video of the year... go Patti Li go!) and "Zero Dark Thirty" are probably the best examples of this. Ace is every bit as dense and dizzying as always but this new vibe gives him an extra kick I haven't heard from him before.
Killer Mike - "Reagan": I'd heard of Killer Mike before this year's awesome El-P produced R.A.P. Music but this album was a revelation. Not many emcees would be able to jump from axe murdering with Bun B & T.I. to taking down his own culture and the government that enables it and oppresses it at the same time, but Killer Mike managed it with aplomb. In addition, it contained El-P's most accessible production work, marrying boom bap with the sort of layered darkness he uses on his solo work to outstanding effect. The best track on an excellent album.
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - "Death's Door": Adding this song is a bit of cheat. It came out in Europe last year but was only released in the States in November, giving me a chance to talk more about it. Willfully mysterious, this Cambridge trio are gaining a lot of momentum. The entire album is a strain of doom metal of a type that's been out of fashion for awhile. They've been lumped in with bands like the Merciful Fate devotees Ghost, but Uncle Acid prefer to wallow gleefully in the B-movie themes and grimy lo-fi production. The rickety vibe and the hazy claustrophobia gives the entire album a unique 70's vibe I never get tired of. Essential listening.
Graveyard - "Goliath": There's something about Sweden. No other place can reproduce discarded and marginalized genres of music with so much faithfulness and soul that it doesn't come off like some kind of rote mimicry. There's desert rock Kyuss worshippers like Truckfighters, Astroqueen, Dozer, etc. (Are there even deserts in Sweden? I don't think there are any deserts in Sweden...) Then there are the 70's rock revivalists like Spiders, Horisont, Witchcraft, and Graveyard. Their previous album, Hisingen Blues, was flat out brilliant. It was everything I love about what is usually dismissed as dinosaur rock in an updated form without coming off like some lunkheaded, lowest common denominator-baiting Jet single. Lights Out aims for a tighter, more streamlined version and mostly knocks it out of the park. In a mainstream where The Black Keys are seemingly the only remaining rock band people take seriously, the world needs more bands like this.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Pig Destroyer - Book Burner
Music, for me, is all about searching out some kind of authentic experience. I have no patience for cheap imitations. Guys like Nick Cave and Tom Waits can hide behind all the theatrics and artifice they want, but the truth of their music is always staring you in the face. PJ Harvey hits every bit as hard on Dry as she does on White Chalk or Let England Shake, it's just a question of where she chooses to punch you. Nothing makes me feel joy the way The Meters or a live James Brown performance do. Suffocating dread and menace? Unsane. Unwavering strength in the face of adversity? It's got to be Black Flag or Converge.
But if you want the purest form of utter nihilism and viciousness, you go to Pig Destroyer.
There's no Devil worship or Satanic masses in Pig Destroyer's world or any of the other typical iconography associated with the genre. You get the sense reading their lyrics that Satan is as big a joke as everything else and his name would only be invoked in order to piss off the squares. There's no costumes here. If you want a glimpse into the worldview that gives P.D. their engine, vocalist and lyricist J.R. Hayes' short story included in the deluxe edition of Book Burner is the place to start. Dedicated to Christopher Hitchens, "The Atheist" is more of a rough sketch than an actual story but it's a perfect example of where these guys are coming from. One man, smart, educated and alone, in a survivalist paradise running from a theocracy gone insane. It's everyone's biggest fears about the direction of our country put in plain language and shoved right under your nose; a Ted Kaczynski manifesto as fiction.
Five years on from their last album, Phantom Limb, the Pig Destroyer sound has gotten fuller, more lush. They've retained the fury and velocity of a 747 spiraling to the ground but the addition of noise man Blake Harrison and the experience of guitarist/producer Scott Hull has given the music an extra dimension. Seth Putnam's joke that "grindcore is very terrifying" no longer seems very funny. This is harrowing stuff.
There's a lot of other good grindcore bands working today but the intelligence and unpredictability of Pig Destroyer is what puts them at the top of the heap. No one else in metal can match the compact yet detailed crime scene photos that are J.R. Hayes' lyrics. There's no political agenda and no right answer. We're all fucked. We're going to die scared, alone and covered in our own blood. And when you listen to him tell you, you believe it.
Songs like "The Diplomat" and "The Boston Strangler" are lengthy for a P.D. song and give them time to stretch a bit and explore while other songs like "Eve" or "Burning Palm" run roughshod in under two minutes. Track by track descriptions sort of miss the point. Grindcore is abrupt and crushing by nature. You're getting nineteen tracks that clock in at just under 32 minutes. The band has clearly broken drummers in the past but Misery Index drummer Adam Jarvis acquits himself nicely in his first album with the band
Not much else needs to be said. Along with Saint Vitus, High On Fire and the new Converge, this is one of the best metal albums of the year. All veteran bands at the peak of their powers. Miss this record at your own peril.
If you pick up the album, be sure to get the deluxe edition. Not only does it include "The Athiest" but also a bonus EP of classic punk covers called Blind, Deaf And Bleeding. It includes covers of the mighty Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Negative Approach, Minor Threat and a really killer version of Angry Samoans "Light's Out."
But if you want the purest form of utter nihilism and viciousness, you go to Pig Destroyer.
There's no Devil worship or Satanic masses in Pig Destroyer's world or any of the other typical iconography associated with the genre. You get the sense reading their lyrics that Satan is as big a joke as everything else and his name would only be invoked in order to piss off the squares. There's no costumes here. If you want a glimpse into the worldview that gives P.D. their engine, vocalist and lyricist J.R. Hayes' short story included in the deluxe edition of Book Burner is the place to start. Dedicated to Christopher Hitchens, "The Atheist" is more of a rough sketch than an actual story but it's a perfect example of where these guys are coming from. One man, smart, educated and alone, in a survivalist paradise running from a theocracy gone insane. It's everyone's biggest fears about the direction of our country put in plain language and shoved right under your nose; a Ted Kaczynski manifesto as fiction.
Five years on from their last album, Phantom Limb, the Pig Destroyer sound has gotten fuller, more lush. They've retained the fury and velocity of a 747 spiraling to the ground but the addition of noise man Blake Harrison and the experience of guitarist/producer Scott Hull has given the music an extra dimension. Seth Putnam's joke that "grindcore is very terrifying" no longer seems very funny. This is harrowing stuff.
There's a lot of other good grindcore bands working today but the intelligence and unpredictability of Pig Destroyer is what puts them at the top of the heap. No one else in metal can match the compact yet detailed crime scene photos that are J.R. Hayes' lyrics. There's no political agenda and no right answer. We're all fucked. We're going to die scared, alone and covered in our own blood. And when you listen to him tell you, you believe it.
Songs like "The Diplomat" and "The Boston Strangler" are lengthy for a P.D. song and give them time to stretch a bit and explore while other songs like "Eve" or "Burning Palm" run roughshod in under two minutes. Track by track descriptions sort of miss the point. Grindcore is abrupt and crushing by nature. You're getting nineteen tracks that clock in at just under 32 minutes. The band has clearly broken drummers in the past but Misery Index drummer Adam Jarvis acquits himself nicely in his first album with the band
Not much else needs to be said. Along with Saint Vitus, High On Fire and the new Converge, this is one of the best metal albums of the year. All veteran bands at the peak of their powers. Miss this record at your own peril.
If you pick up the album, be sure to get the deluxe edition. Not only does it include "The Athiest" but also a bonus EP of classic punk covers called Blind, Deaf And Bleeding. It includes covers of the mighty Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Negative Approach, Minor Threat and a really killer version of Angry Samoans "Light's Out."
Sunday, April 8, 2012
High On Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis
There's no lack of things in the world that we should be outraged about but, being a nerd, the things that make me angry tend to be frivolous and not a very big deal in the long run. Once or twice a year, I'll read a news article somewhere that High On Fire is going out on tour. There will be loud excitement for a half-minute because they are a tremendous live band and I never pass up an opportunity to... ah shit. They're near the bottom of a bill full of shitty metalcore/kindercore/nu nu-metal bands. Well, fuck that.
Given their history and their pedigree and the six albums worth of absolutely killer heavy metal, High On Fire should arguably be the biggest metal band in America. It's certainly not for a lack of trying. Frontman and guitarist Matt Pike was one-third of the legendary stoner doom behemoth Sleep and brings all of his weed-obsessed hesher awesomeness to High On Fire. The warrior imagery and triumphal riffage he brings cannot be fucked with. After three albums working together, Des Kensel and Jeff Matz are absolutely locked in as a rhythm section. The guys are also a hard touring band that's sure to come through your town once or twice a year. Musical trends may have moved more towards the giant pussies wearing girls' pants and asymmetrical haircuts but there's always been something honest and undeniable about H.O.F's no-bullshit approach to metal.
This iteration of the lineup, together since 2007's Death Is This Communion, is the tightest and gnarliest the band has ever been. Their previous album, Snakes For The Divine, is most memorable to me for it's opening track. The riff is just amazing.
There are other great tracks on it ("Frost Hammer," "Bastard Samurai") but that first track overshadows everything else for me. There's no such problem on De Vermis Mysteriis. There's a one-two-three-four punch of "Serums Of Liao," "Bloody Knuckles," the absolutely killer "Fertile Green," and "Madness Of An Architect" before you get a chance to take a breath with the instrumental "Samsara."
In interviews, Matt Pike has talked about the record being a loose concept album posing the question "what if Jesus had a twin in the womb that had to die so Jesus could live... and what if that twin became a time traveler who found a scroll that teaches him how to make a serum which allows him to view his brother through the eyes of an ancestor and goes on a quest to see why he had become this religious figure that inspired all this war and bloodshed?" Which is fucking banana cakes crazy pants. It's also, like most metal albums, completely superfluous to your enjoyment of it. "Samsara" is the only point in the record where you'd have time to think about what's happening and when. "Spiritual Rights" kicks off the back half of the album with aplomb but leads into the sludgier, more ponderous "King Of Days." The end of the track highlights one of the biggest strengths of the album, the new found focus on the sound of Des Kensel's militaristic drums. Producer Kurt Ballou (metal uber-producer and member of punk mainstays Converge) gives those drumbeats an oomph that no previous producer has managed to coax. Whenever the songs open up enough to give Des the attention he deserves, it sounds fantastic. Hopefully future producers of the band will take note.
The second half of the record isn't as epic as the first but it's still rock solid. They lock into a steadier groove and ride it into the big, menacing closer "Warhorn." Jeff Matz's bass takes point over Pike's growling dissection of a battlefield. It's not the uppercut knockout the first half would lead you to expect but it's also never less than engaging.
If you get a chance to see High On Fire doing a headlining gig: take it. Or if you can put up with the prancing ninnies they seem to open for most of the time, go right ahead. The perpetually shirtless Matt Pike always makes for a compelling frontman and the band as a whole is tight as hell. It's always a good show. They may not be the biggest metal band in the world but I can think of few who are better.
Given their history and their pedigree and the six albums worth of absolutely killer heavy metal, High On Fire should arguably be the biggest metal band in America. It's certainly not for a lack of trying. Frontman and guitarist Matt Pike was one-third of the legendary stoner doom behemoth Sleep and brings all of his weed-obsessed hesher awesomeness to High On Fire. The warrior imagery and triumphal riffage he brings cannot be fucked with. After three albums working together, Des Kensel and Jeff Matz are absolutely locked in as a rhythm section. The guys are also a hard touring band that's sure to come through your town once or twice a year. Musical trends may have moved more towards the giant pussies wearing girls' pants and asymmetrical haircuts but there's always been something honest and undeniable about H.O.F's no-bullshit approach to metal.
This iteration of the lineup, together since 2007's Death Is This Communion, is the tightest and gnarliest the band has ever been. Their previous album, Snakes For The Divine, is most memorable to me for it's opening track. The riff is just amazing.
There are other great tracks on it ("Frost Hammer," "Bastard Samurai") but that first track overshadows everything else for me. There's no such problem on De Vermis Mysteriis. There's a one-two-three-four punch of "Serums Of Liao," "Bloody Knuckles," the absolutely killer "Fertile Green," and "Madness Of An Architect" before you get a chance to take a breath with the instrumental "Samsara."
In interviews, Matt Pike has talked about the record being a loose concept album posing the question "what if Jesus had a twin in the womb that had to die so Jesus could live... and what if that twin became a time traveler who found a scroll that teaches him how to make a serum which allows him to view his brother through the eyes of an ancestor and goes on a quest to see why he had become this religious figure that inspired all this war and bloodshed?" Which is fucking banana cakes crazy pants. It's also, like most metal albums, completely superfluous to your enjoyment of it. "Samsara" is the only point in the record where you'd have time to think about what's happening and when. "Spiritual Rights" kicks off the back half of the album with aplomb but leads into the sludgier, more ponderous "King Of Days." The end of the track highlights one of the biggest strengths of the album, the new found focus on the sound of Des Kensel's militaristic drums. Producer Kurt Ballou (metal uber-producer and member of punk mainstays Converge) gives those drumbeats an oomph that no previous producer has managed to coax. Whenever the songs open up enough to give Des the attention he deserves, it sounds fantastic. Hopefully future producers of the band will take note.
The second half of the record isn't as epic as the first but it's still rock solid. They lock into a steadier groove and ride it into the big, menacing closer "Warhorn." Jeff Matz's bass takes point over Pike's growling dissection of a battlefield. It's not the uppercut knockout the first half would lead you to expect but it's also never less than engaging.
If you get a chance to see High On Fire doing a headlining gig: take it. Or if you can put up with the prancing ninnies they seem to open for most of the time, go right ahead. The perpetually shirtless Matt Pike always makes for a compelling frontman and the band as a whole is tight as hell. It's always a good show. They may not be the biggest metal band in the world but I can think of few who are better.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Unsane - Wreck
If you aren't paying attention, the words people usually use to describe Unsane could either be taken as a pejorative or a compliment. You often hear them mention how they haven't changed much since their first full length more than twenty years ago. Same mix of wildly distorted bass, slide guitar, harmonica, and glass gargling shouts. Same monosyllabic song titles. Same blood-spattered cover artwork. The key elements are all still there, yeah, but they've long since been refined to an painfully sharp point. I can't think of another band that oozes menace the way Unsane does. Not in that bullshit "tough guy hardcore band" sense and definitely not in the "Hail Satan" sense either. It's street level, matter-of-fact, fatalistic, and without any macho posturing. Unsane doesn't have to threaten to kick your ass, they just do.
From their first couple wall of noise records to their crusty, grimy mid-period era to now, Unsane has taken it's chances mostly with their production. Since reforming after singer/guitarist Chris Spencer was jumped and badly beaten in Austria, each record has had a different sound. Blood Run was a solid batch of tunes let down by some muddy production that blunted the effect. Even with headphones on it felt like I was listening to the album from the back of a large room. They came back a couple years later with Visqueen, a desert island disc for me and an absolute epic. The bass tone they got on that record... Jesus, listening to it still feels like someone went directly into the pleasure center of my brain and pushed the button marked "wreck some shit." It helped that the songwriting lived up to the power of the musicians: "Against The Grain," "Last Man Standing," "This Stops At The River," "Only Pain"... the whole thing is fucking mammoth. And this year they released Wreck. Sonically, it sounds closest to their fan favorite album Occupational Hazard: very unfussy production that doesn't attempt to gussy up or smooth out any rough edges. The band has gotten so tight at this point, as musicians and as songwriters, that they don't need anything extraneous to get their point across. Take "No Chance," a highlight of the new record. All it takes is letting the guitar drop out for a second or two at the 2:40 mark to let the feedback go to give it that extra oomph. The song would have been great without it but it's just a small choice to change things up that gives it something extra. You wouldn't have heard that moment in their earlier albums and it speaks to the confidence they have in what they do.
That attitude carries over to the rest of the record. With everything so tight and ticking along like clockwork, there isn't a whole lot to complain about. "Rat" starts things off with a chorus where Spencer screams "so unclean" but my noise-damaged ears heard as "sour cream." I'm still trying to convince myself that he isn't actually saying that, which makes the song unintentionally funny. I'll get over it. "Decay," "No Chance," "Pigeon," and "Ghost" are all vintage Unsane songs. Bassist Dave Curran takes over on lead vocals for "Stuck," a song that slows things down a bit to give some space to Spencer's slide guitar. It's more of a break-up song than the "dangers of urban living" stuff they're known for. Spencer's barks and shouts have always seemed somehow resigned to the violence they portray but Curran's whiskey-and-cigarettes voice sounds more bitter and weary as he chastises himself and pleads with his pill-popping girlfriend. They cap things off with a cover of the mighty Flipper's "Ha Ha Ha" that makes great use of Spencer's cynical faux laugh. It's a bang up cover that doesn't disrespect the original in the least. Having Spencer laughing at you as the song dissolves into shredding feedback is just about the most appropriate way possible to end the album.
I don't think Unsane has it in them to make a bad record. Not in the way that some bands do. They're so locked in to their style and so comfortable playing within those bounds that the only really worry would be repeating themselves but, more than twenty years into their career, they've long ago proved too smart for that. There aren't many bands left doing noise rock the way Unsane do. Most of the time, bands are taking more of a college educated weird-beard-and-tight-pants hipster approach to the genre. That leaves Unsane to do what they've always done and done well: make well-constructed, unpretentious, menacing rock music that takes zero shit from anyone. And I'm damn thankful for it.
From their first couple wall of noise records to their crusty, grimy mid-period era to now, Unsane has taken it's chances mostly with their production. Since reforming after singer/guitarist Chris Spencer was jumped and badly beaten in Austria, each record has had a different sound. Blood Run was a solid batch of tunes let down by some muddy production that blunted the effect. Even with headphones on it felt like I was listening to the album from the back of a large room. They came back a couple years later with Visqueen, a desert island disc for me and an absolute epic. The bass tone they got on that record... Jesus, listening to it still feels like someone went directly into the pleasure center of my brain and pushed the button marked "wreck some shit." It helped that the songwriting lived up to the power of the musicians: "Against The Grain," "Last Man Standing," "This Stops At The River," "Only Pain"... the whole thing is fucking mammoth. And this year they released Wreck. Sonically, it sounds closest to their fan favorite album Occupational Hazard: very unfussy production that doesn't attempt to gussy up or smooth out any rough edges. The band has gotten so tight at this point, as musicians and as songwriters, that they don't need anything extraneous to get their point across. Take "No Chance," a highlight of the new record. All it takes is letting the guitar drop out for a second or two at the 2:40 mark to let the feedback go to give it that extra oomph. The song would have been great without it but it's just a small choice to change things up that gives it something extra. You wouldn't have heard that moment in their earlier albums and it speaks to the confidence they have in what they do.
That attitude carries over to the rest of the record. With everything so tight and ticking along like clockwork, there isn't a whole lot to complain about. "Rat" starts things off with a chorus where Spencer screams "so unclean" but my noise-damaged ears heard as "sour cream." I'm still trying to convince myself that he isn't actually saying that, which makes the song unintentionally funny. I'll get over it. "Decay," "No Chance," "Pigeon," and "Ghost" are all vintage Unsane songs. Bassist Dave Curran takes over on lead vocals for "Stuck," a song that slows things down a bit to give some space to Spencer's slide guitar. It's more of a break-up song than the "dangers of urban living" stuff they're known for. Spencer's barks and shouts have always seemed somehow resigned to the violence they portray but Curran's whiskey-and-cigarettes voice sounds more bitter and weary as he chastises himself and pleads with his pill-popping girlfriend. They cap things off with a cover of the mighty Flipper's "Ha Ha Ha" that makes great use of Spencer's cynical faux laugh. It's a bang up cover that doesn't disrespect the original in the least. Having Spencer laughing at you as the song dissolves into shredding feedback is just about the most appropriate way possible to end the album.
I don't think Unsane has it in them to make a bad record. Not in the way that some bands do. They're so locked in to their style and so comfortable playing within those bounds that the only really worry would be repeating themselves but, more than twenty years into their career, they've long ago proved too smart for that. There aren't many bands left doing noise rock the way Unsane do. Most of the time, bands are taking more of a college educated weird-beard-and-tight-pants hipster approach to the genre. That leaves Unsane to do what they've always done and done well: make well-constructed, unpretentious, menacing rock music that takes zero shit from anyone. And I'm damn thankful for it.
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