Revisionist Western

 I have a new review up at DIY Conspiracy of the new albums by Bonjour Tristesse and Trespasser which, more broadly, discusses black metal as a rejection of modernity and how leftist bands draw on that tradition. Check it out if that sounds cool to you. 

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...

On December 2, when I saw the new, surprise Tiny Vipers EP "American Prayer" pop up in my Bandcamp feed, I had a full body visceral reaction, like whatever the exact opposite of a panic attack is. I was alone, but I instinctively looked around the room, wanting to announce to someone that Jesy Fortino had just put out new music and everyone in the world needed to stop what they're doing and recognize the gravity of this occurrence. Tiny Vipers' 2009 album "Life on Earth" is one of the most intricately woven folk albums of the 21st century. It's sparse in its sound, though Fortino's achingly human voice, aided by her confessional lyrics, manages to fill up all the space left over by her minimalist guitar playing, giving the album an atmosphere that is as warm as it is suffocating. Since then, she's put out an excellent collaboration with Grouper called "Mirroring" along with some more ambient and electronic work, but nothing that returne...

Much as I love minimalist and ambient music, it can be tricky to review or even talk about because to explain what makes a particular ambient album "good" somewhat eludes the confines of language. Some of my favorite ambient acts- Kali Malone, Maria w Horn, Ellen Arkbro, Hollie Kenniff, Stars of the Lid, Eluvium- occasionally produce songs or even full albums of little more than a few droning notes. The act of describing what is meaningful about such austere music inherently requires you to delve into what a song even is, and how a series of notes weaves its way into your psyche or our life. That's a long wind up to say that ambient project 1 Mile North is one of the most important musical acts in my personal biography and the album they released this week, "The Sunken Nest," is a beautiful reminder of exactly why that is. 20 years ago, I had a soul-draining job that sucked up too much of my time for comically little compensation. The best part of my day was, ...

I have a soft spot in my heart for one-song albums. I've never done one myself, but I always respect the audacity and ambition that goes into trying to hold a listener's attention through a single, long, uninterrupted track.  My Hair is a Rat's Nest, a largely one-person "screamo" (scare quotes because I have never liked that term) band, fills "The Longing Machine" with more than enough interesting twists and turns to make the one, nearly 25 minute long, song that composes the album interesting throughout.  An almost shockingly broad array of influences seem to weave their way through the song. It starts out with some classically dissonant 90s style screamy hardcore, with angular riffs, busy drumming, and shrieked vocals. But, as the minutes click on, the song adds layer upon layer, bringing in lush atmosphere and textures to complement the more traditionally aggressive approach of its first few minutes. By the end of the track, My Hair is a Rat's Ne...

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?")...

There are a few things I love unequivocally:  Two person sludge bands.  Two person sludge bands with no guitar.  Two person sludge bands with no guitar that you could imagine kids skateboarding to in the 90s.  Thosar is, decidedly, all three.  Hailing from Weiz, Austria, Thosar play a manic, energetic style of bass/drums sludge that feels like a cross between 90s groove metal bands like Unsane, Helmet, and Quicksand, and noisy, stoner skate punk like California X or Bummer. The thing I like about bands like this is they often have a shaggy sort of "hey, dude, let's start a band" vibe to them that I find incredibly endearing. There's something about two people playing sludge with just two instruments, neither of which are the instrument we most associate with the genre, that feels like the fun of a basement show distilled to its essence to me. Thosar captures that feeling very well on Elementa. The album has an almost improvisational feel to it, with the son...

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...

Germany's Beculted sound, to me, like what would happen if Thou was a black metal band. They have these ugly, crawling sludge riffs that just tunnel into your brain which alternate with blast beat driven grind reminiscent of something like Vanum or Panopticon . A truly dirty guitar tone gives the album a raw and churning vibe, and with only 3 songs (despite each clocking in at over 10 minutes), it's a relatively quick listen that leaves you wanting more. If you're into contemporary, blackened sludge, I would absolutely give this record a listen. I enjoyed it a lot.  Arcane Manifestations by beculted

I tend to think that musical barriers that are highly pronounced in one generation tend to fall in the next because young people are musical sponges, soaking up all kinds of different influences that might seem antithetical to older generations. For example, I can't imagine trying to explain to someone who is 21 now that there was a point where mixing metal and hardcore was controversial. Whether  to incorporate metal and, if so, how  to incorporate it into hardcore were open questions when I was a kid. Now, a band like Portland's Screwed just throw chainsaw grind, metalcore, d-beat, sludge, and thrash in a blender like there'd never be a question all those things should go together and we're all better for it. On Terror Cycle, Screwed churn their way through eight menacingly ugly songs, reminding me of something like Moral Void, on the hardcore end, or Primitive Man, for the sludge influence. The guitar tone is spot on HM-2 worship, but they tend to be slower and chugg...

  Out of nowhere, one of my favorite dark hardcore bands just dropped a new album and it's exactly what I want from them. Dark Circles put out a number of fantastic, raging crust albums about six or so years ago. I remember the timing explicitly because, when they were dropping albums, it was when I was living somewhere I wasn't thrilled about living and Dark Circles where one of the bands that really got me through that time. This album picks up exactly where they left off, with a punishing chainsaw-crust sound that manages to keep an undercurrent of melody running through the songs to keep them interesting, even as they pummel you with noise. I would liken them to bands like Barren, The Secret, and Trap Them. I would also note that they were a direct influence on my hardcore band, in particular the first album which was written while I was mainlining their first two albums. Please, please check out Dark Circles. It's PWYW so you have no excuse not to.  Frantic Death by D...

I mean, come on. Look at that album cover. You know exactly  what you're getting here. And yes, it shreds.  Mist of Doom is an absolutely ripping mix between raw black metal and crust. I would compare them to a more hardcore-influenced version of bands like Bütcher, Hellripper, and Bewitcher, with the same kind of driving, raw, blackened attack, but a little less-NWOBHM in the mix and a little more dis-crust going on. If you listen to those bands and wish they sounded more like Wolfbrigade or Martyrdöd, Mist of Doom is your band.  The songs on Revenge of the Ancient Gods are short, the beats are fast, the vocals are throat-ripping, and the riffs are catchy and anthemic. This is really everything I want in blackened crust, up to and including a furious album closer called "Black Metal Nazis Must Die." It's the kind of quick, brutal listen that makes it hard not to bob your head along as it pummels you.  The album is free on Bandcamp, and given that I've listened ...

I keep meaning to write a post on the occasional flirtations metal has had with what might be called "western music" (not country music, more like the kind of music that scores western films) and, were I to do that, T.G. Olson's band Across Tundras would, no doubt, be front and center in that conversation. However, he's gone ahead and released a solo album called "Revisionist Western" so I guess I have  to write something about it before I get to that, huh? Olson is, as mentioned, the main performer in the long-running and criminally  underrated psychedelic-western-post-metal-rock-whatever band Across Tundras. Their output over the last two decades has been consistently incredible and it's baffling to me that they haven't been given their critical due for such a remarkable, ongoing body of work. Olson was also in some pretty good hardcore bands back in the day, most notably The Spirit of Versailles, who I saw absolutely crush a set at a venue called ...

Not the normal thing I review, but if you're into droney, pretty chill, hip-hop beats, a buddy of mine just dropped this tape and it's absolutely killer. He's always been great at putting things like this together and I'm glad to see he's finally turned it into a full on project. I can't really do it justice, so just hit play on this one. THE DAY OF THE BEAT by DEF MAGNETIC

  Not sure what it is, but Russia just kills it  with the genre bending bands these days. На том берегу (don't ask me how to pronounce that, I couldn't begin to guess) are a new neocrust/hardcore band from over there who've recently put out what appears to be their first EP, entitled Мистраль (once again, no idea). This is easily some of the best stuff I've heard like this in a while. It reminds me of the late 90s/early 2000s hardcore (the stuff kids half my age call "skramz"), like Lack , Yage , or even City of Caterpillar, a little bit, with driving, melodic riffs under mostly screamed, impressionistic lyrics. Throughout the EP, though, На том берегу maintain an undercurrent of furious, d-beat hardcore, which helps keep the intensity ratcheted up to 11.  I cannot stress enough that I love this EP. Few records I've heard recently have been as aimed right at me as this is. If you're a fan of bands like Morrow , Fall of Efrafa , or Respire , На том бер...

As someone who likes melody in my metal, I admit that it's tricky line to walk to get it right. If metal is, typically, trying to have some kind of edge or aggression to it, too much melody potentially blunts the impact. Particularly in something like black metal, where the lineage of the subgenre can be traced back to a desire for an uncompromising sonic rawness, the endless chatter about whether or not this-or-that (too) melodic black metal band is really black metal is a testament to how challenging it can be to maintain the central appeal of the sound while also writing songs awash in melody.  All this to say that Sol Sistere's new self-titled album is a rager.   Sol Sistere are an atmospheric black metal band from Santiago, Chile that remind me of bands like Numenorean, Violet Cold, or Uada. They have that really nice shimmering-while-still-noisy quality that the best bands of this genre have (there are literally two songs on the album called "The Shimmer pt I" ...

  There's a certain kind of sludge metal that eschews the normal slow and crushing pace of the genre and, instead, goes for something a bit faster, often influenced by some combination of d-beat, NWOBHM stuff, or grunge. Göteborg's Wolves in Haze ride this sound really well. In fact, this is a sound I'm not always a fan of as I tend to think it can sometimes veer into cheese-rock territory, but Wolves of Haze keep their songs pretty grounded in heaviness and full on likable riffage even as they bring the speed. I would say that someone into bands like High on Fire, Mutoid Man, Electric Hydra, or Killer Be Killed would easily find something to like in the pile of mid-tempo and fast stoner riffs Wolves in Haze drop on you on Chaos Reigns. Check it out below. Chaos Reigns by Wolves in haze

  I've never been that into chuggy breakdowns in hardcore for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. When I was coming up, it felt like two out of every three bands put out albums that were mostly just jud-jud style mosh part after jud-jud style mosh part for 25 minutes straight. I tended, on the other hand, to gravitate towards fast, chaotic hardcore or sludgy riffs. As such, the chuggy breakdowns never did it for me. Even I have to admit, though, that Mastiff has really cracked the code on this genre.  If I were to theorize why I like this record so much, despite it being on the far end of chuggy for what I normally listen to, I would say the following: (1) It rules, and you can't argue with good. (2) A lot of the bands, historically, that pile breakdown on top of breakdown tend to be pretty clean. You know the sound I mean: scooped guitar tones, tight and technical playing, that sort of thing. Mastiff, on the other hand, brings a much darker aesthetic to their breakdown...

I randomly stumbled across an image of the album cover for French post-punk band Bleakness's most recent EP "A World to Rebuild" and immediately sought the band out based on how cool that cover is. I've always been attracted to bands that have a consistent and interesting aesthetic, and Bleakness's artwork immediately drew me in. Just looking at their covers, album titles, and song titles, you can feel an uneasy apocalyptic mixture of despair and hope. The music captures this vibe as well. I like a lot of gothy post-punk stuff, but I'm a hardcore kid at heart, and it tends to lose me when it doesn't give me the raw energy I associate with the best acts of the genre. Bleakness walks the line between moody 80s goth and modern hardcore perfectly, reminding me of  Coliseum or Terrible Feelings, genre stalwarts who ground their morbidity in a driving fury, as much Minor Threat as Joy Division.  I've spent my Saturday morning listening to this EP over and ov...