Revisionist Western

A lot of our understandings of decades or generations are deeply filtered through media. So how we represent and remember the 1980s, for example, is as much about how the 80s looked via Blade Runner as it is about actual representations of that decade. The 80s was ringer t-shirts, acid washed jeans, and moppy hair as much as it was synths and neon, and yet those sounds and images have become indelibly imprinted on our understanding of that time period because of the media we associate with the 80s.  I'm actually old enough to remember the 1990s. As such, I’m fully authorized to say that Djunah is a band that fully captures what I remember as being exciting about that time of period of music more than almost any current band.  Let me explain.  Djunah are a sludgy, two-piece post-metal band from Chicago whose new album, Femina Furens, is an early contender for my favorite album of the year. The songs are a mixture of fist pumping, driving, anthemic rock (Seven Winds of Sekh...

I've been out of the country, so I've been a bit slow up in here, but I'm taking time off from vacation to rave about this record by Lathe that dropped today. Lathe are an instrumental "country doom" band which, to me, sound like a heavier version of Across Tundras. This album has only been out for a few hours, yet I've already listened through it twice, and I'm completely blown away. Admittedly, "heavy twang" is a concept aimed right at me, but beyond my predilection for the genre, it's worth noting that plenty of bands have absolutely boned trying to blend metal and country music. Often, it winds up sounding like some weak early-Pantera-mixed-with-bro-country stuff that feels like the entrance music for a generic player-created wrestler in a 2003 WWE Playstation game.  Lathe, thankfully, gets it exactly right. Rather than just crossing the surface level aesthetics of the genres ("what if country music but with crunchier guitars?")...

I have a theory that most  bands are a mix of genres, even if some of the genres are subtle, and the secondary, more submerged genres often make a difference as to whether or not you like something.  For example, I like a lot of sludge and post metal, but a lot of the (big scare quotes, here) "big sludge bands" aren't the ones I like (for example, I can't really get into The Melvins). I think the reason why is that I'm just, frankly, not that into a lot of the submerged genres that lots of the big sludge bands are built on and which seem to be a lot of people's way in to listening to that sort of thing. Grunge, prog rock, dessert rock, etc., none of those genres do much for me. So if you're a sludge or post metal band that has an undertow (see what I did there?) of one of those genres, I'm almost certainly not going to like it. Nothing personal, you do your thing, but it's just not something that resonates with me. Liträo, on the other hand, are sl...

  Keening, the first EP by UK-based, atmospheric black metal band Cairns, is a genuinely powerful debut release. Between the artwork, song titles, and sound, it evokes a sort of naturalistic, otherworldly, occultic vibe, like you've gotten lost in a particularly grey forest in the British countryside at dusk. The music has a misty, ethereal feel which reminds me of the best of contemporary blackgaze and atmospheric post metal, namely bands like Numenorean, Violet Cold, and Vukari. The song writing on Keening is really top notch, and Cairns are quite good at breaking songs up with a nice combination of melody and dissonance, shifting between parts that can feel quite different even as they all remain drenched in walls of shimmering distortion and reverb. They even make really effective use of sporadic singing vocals alongside of more throat-ripping screaming.  If you're into atmospheric black metal, I would definitely give Keening a listen. I'm looking forward to more by Cai...

Currently driving cross country, but just stopping in to say that Barren and DAHTM, two bands I have written about previously, and who are both quite good, have new releases.  Barren has an EP of furious grind that delivers on the promises of their demo, and DAHTM has released two new churning songs from their upcoming full length. You can stream both below.  Some longer posts coming soon.   Kurungaituku by DAHTM And Then There Were None by Barren

LUME's 2018 album Wrung Out was a solid dose of heavy post-grunge, sort of like an amalgam of Floor and Hum. They delivered on that nice combination of big guitars, hooky songs, and sleepy vocals that feels like the best of the 90s with a contemporary sheen to it. False Calm, their new album, takes that basic formula and adds a whole lot more space . The album is full of sprawling sparse, ambient, soundscapes which make it feel less like a collection of individual heavy songs and more like a single, rolling, sonic ocean of soft-loud-soft dynamics. It's a really rewarding listen, and manages to be engaging and throughout, whether the band is presenting you with crushing noise or barely audible, droning whispers. It's a nice step forward for LUME and represents an impressive evolution of their sound. Head over to Bandcamp and give it a listen. False Calm by LUME

First thing's first. That album title is amazing. "Satan is Our Liberator, We Deserve Freedom Without Shame?" Come on. Poetry. Now that we've got that out of the way, Coward Punch are a relatively new doom band from Sydney, Australia. Like (DOLCH) , Coward Punch straddle industrial and doom, but where (DOLCH) took the formula of driving drum machine beats and heavy riffs in the direction of something pretty and ethereal, Coward Punch move in a grimier, uglier direction. While there are truly gorgeous ambient passages in these songs, the bulk of the album is thick sludge riffs with throat ripping vocals layered over them. An obvious comparison would be something like Godflesh, but the band they actually most remind me of is Hyatari , the underrated drone/doom band from the early-2000s, albeit with some screaming vox in the mix. I'm not always a fan of the mixture of industrial and sludge (the aforementioned Godflesh doesn't really do much for me), but the ...

(DOLCH) is a German two-piece band that sits quite comfortably at the intersection of doom, black metal, and industrial. To my ears, they remind of a slightly more straightforward Nadja or, conversely, a prettier, ambient Godflesh, with a similar sort of droning, drum-machine driven, heavy churn at the center of most of their songs. They tend to build long songs around a single part or two, layering ambient, soundscapey backgrounds under ethereal vocals. I strongly suggest giving this album a spin over at their Bandcamp page. Feuer by (DOLCH)