Suicidal Tendencies - Self-Titled

by Cosmo Lee

Tomorrow's a big day for metal anniversaries. Overkill's Under the Influence and Slayer's South of Heaven both turn 20, and Suicidal Tendencies' self-titled debut turns 25. Now, Suicidal Tendencies isn't a metal record. Other than a few metal-ish leads, it's hardcore punk. It's also Suicidal Tendencies at their most vicious - and fun. They weren't weighed down yet by a subconscious, radio concerns, or experimentation with metal and funk; they were just snotty punks going for it. The video for "Institutionalized," where Mike Muir looks like he's 15, is one of the great treasures of the '80s. (That's Slayer's Tom Araya pushing Muir at 0:35.) Between it, Black Flag, Repo Man, and Dogtown and Z-Boys, I have this warped image of '80s SoCal as a beachfront heaven of punk shows filled with dudes in plaid and skaters doing that old-school, horizontal, hand-on-the-ground style. Happy 25th to one of the most awesomely juvenile albums ever.

Institutionalized
I Saw Your Mommy

Pharaoh - Be Gone

by Cosmo Lee

Pharaoh's new record Be Gone is streaming in full on label Cruz Del Sur's MySpace until July 5. I soaked up the whole thing in one sitting. It deserves the accolades it's getting. I'm not normally a fan of power metal, but this record goes down smoothly - guitars, drums, the vocals of Tim Aymar (who sang for Chuck Schuldiner's Control Denied). A t-shirt scan above reveals Aymar saluting Death (natch), drummer Chris Black plugging his rock 'n' roll band Superchrist, and guitarist Matt Johnsen unexpectedly supporting Danish indie prog act Mew. Mew are a must-hear, with an awesomely helium-voiced singer in the '70s AOR tradition (Supertramp, Kansas, etc.). Johnsen's bio states that his heavy metal mantra is "Don't just listen to metal, but don't stop listening to metal!" Amen.

Buy:
Relapse
The End

Project: Failing Flesh - The Conjoined

by Cosmo Lee

Project: Failing Flesh's main selling point is probably vocalist Eric Forrest, formerly of Voivod. His time in Voivod is highly underrated; the band lost the nuance it had with original vocalist Snake, but it became heavy as hell. After Voivod, Forrest formed his own cyber-thrash outfit, E-Force. He also linked up with brothers Tim and Kevin Gutierrez, of Vienna, VA, to form Project: Failing Flesh. More accurately, the brothers emailed Forrest out of the blue, and he agreed to contribute vocals after hearing their material.

Through the Broken Lens
Regenerate

Forrest's yells and occasional singing are sturdy enough, but the brothers Gutierrez are the real stars of The Conjoined (Burning Star, 2007). They wrote all the music and played all the instruments, except for some keyboards, trumpets, and cello. The record is some of the freshest metal I've heard in ages. Meshuggah, Voivod, Godflesh, black metal, industrial electronics, and general weirdness intertwine seamlessly; a lot of neurons are firing here. One never knows what's around the corner, but it's usually a pleasant surprise. Such unpredictability reminds me of Mike Patton, but none of his projects have been this heavy or substantial.

I recently had a discussion with live4metal.com's Dave Schalek about the state of metal today, and we generally agreed that the major subgenres of metal (death, black, thrash, etc.) have run their course creatively. Metal hasn't had any major paradigm shifts since black metal in the '90s; trends since then have been more faddish than innovative. The concept of "hybrid vigor" greatly appeals to me (interracial marriages, mixed-breed animals, etc.), and I believe the way forward with metal is hybridization à la Project: Failing Flesh.

Buy:
The End
Burning Star
Amazon (MP3)

Voivod - Dimension Hatröss

by Cosmo Lee

Last weekend marked the 20th anniversary of Voivod's Dimension Hatröss. The core of Voivod's golden era trilogy, it bridged Killing Technology's departure from prior Motörhead worship and Nothingface's prog polish. The record remains revelatory today. That's because it's elusive; it hits you and runs away at the same time. So much metal feels like an end game: head for death as fast and hard as possible. Voivod did that early on, but then they started poking and prodding and turning things inside out. By Dimension Hatröss, the band had twisted thrash into strange, futuristic forms. (Perhaps it was a spiritual forebear of Meshuggah.) Denis "Piggy" D'Amour (RIP) was recognizable within a few notes, a distinction few guitarists ever reach. Other things were going on here, particularly conceptually with regard to the band's Voivod mascot - see this interview - but for me, this is where Piggy found his six-string voice.

Tribal Convictions
Macrosolutions to Megaproblems

The Dimension Hatröss demos are available here.

Coffins - Buried Death

by Cosmo Lee

Since 1996, Tokyo's Coffins have honed an instantly recognizable blend of death and doom metal. Other bands have similar girth and fuzz, but few have such command over momentum. One gets the image of a massive mecha machine building up a head of steam. Commonly cited reference points include Autopsy, Winter, and Hellhammer (including copious Tom G. Warrior "Ooh!"s), though I like Coffins most when they shift into a sort of one and half gear between death and doom. It's a simple oompah that's so primal and right. "Altars in Gore" is basically the "Peter Gunn" theme as a hammering two-step. "Under the Stench" begins with Godflesh's Godzilla stop-motion stomp, then lumbers into an inexorable AT-AT Walker trudge. Chris Moyen, responsible for Coffins' other lids, outdoes himself with a graveyard that contains a canny tombstone reference: "Mary Westmacott, 1890-1976." That's Agatha Christie - well-played. Both the CD and LP come in gatefold packaging; the latter includes a poster, with the first 200 mailorder copies adding a patch and stickers. 20 Buck Spin really stepped it up a notch here.

Altars in Gore
Under the Stench

Buy:
20 Buck Spin

Vargr - Northern Black Supremacy

by Cosmo Lee

One of Buddhism's most famous koans is "If you meet the Buddha, kill him." It seems counterintuitive, but it makes sense in Buddhism, which posits that the Buddha nature is inside all of us. In Buddhism, the way to enlightenment is to eliminate all desire. (Of course, this raises the paradox of the desire to eliminate desire as an impediment to enlightenment. Many texts already discuss Buddhism's paradox of desire, so I'll let that issue lie as not fatal to this discussion.) The Buddha in the road would be an external, and thus false, embodiment of the Buddha nature. In other words, we should not desire to find internal truth in external manifestations of it.

Mord
Bring Forth the Ways of Old

That nothing external should be one's master is a powerful assertion. (Again, never mind the logical contradiction that a command to disregard authority acts like one itself.) It negates patriotism, religion, hierarchy, and the like. It also squares with certain notions of individualism offered under the guise of Satanism (which would properly then not be called Satanism, a term under the Judeo-Christian framework). And, more pertinently, it applies to metal.

Vargr is the black metal project of Henrik "Lord Nordvargr" Björkk, of legendary death industrial (or black industrial or industrial noise or whatever you want to call it) outfit Mz.412, whose Burning the Temple of God used a certain photo of a burning church as its cover two years before Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind's book Lords of Chaos did. The project's catchphrase is "True Black Nekronoise Metal," which is ludicrous, as a misspelled, made-up name with so many adjectives can hardly be "true" to anything. Indeed, the artwork invokes so many black metal/Satanic cliches - 666, upside-down crosses, pentagram, Baphomet head - that it seems like a put-on.

Yet Northern Black Supremacy (20 Buck Spin, 2007) is "true black metal" precisely by not being "true black metal." If "true black metal," whatever that is, is transgressive and individualistic, then hewing to finite notions of it betrays its very essence. Here, Lord Nordvargr goes through black metal motions - minor chords, howling rasps, lo-fi production. But he can't keep his true self/selves contained. Jet engine noise pours out of his Mz.412 side; more subdued dark ambience spills from his Nordvargr guise (see last year's fine The Betrayal of Light on tUMULt). Vocal snippets float throughout like a shortwave radio scanning a killer's psyche. "Bring Forth the Ways of Old" isn't "black metal" in the conventional sense; it's a noise workout. But the way its flames sear the edges of the frequency spectrum feels exactly like black metal's best.

Buy:
The End
20 Buck Spin

Humanfly - II

This week is 20 Buck Spin week at Invisible Oranges. The Olympia-via-Bay Area label/distro is Dave Adelson, who has curated an impressive discography starting with SPIN001 in 2005, a reissue of Black Boned Angel's debut EP, on up to the crushing new record from Coffins (SPIN020). From doom to black metal to flat-out weirdness, 20 Buck Spin stands for handpicked quality. This week, we'll cover the label's latest offerings, as well as talk to the man himself.

by Cosmo Lee

The UK's Humanfly are really a '70s psych/prog band who got trapped in the '00s and decided to make the most of it. Thus, they update psychedelic tones and spacy synths with heavy riffs and beautifully robust production. Lazy comparisons will lump them in with the NeurIsis sound, but while the band embodies elements of that aesthetic, "slow and melodic" is the extent of it. The main fault of NeurIsis bands today is that they confuse balancing light and dark with mining a mediocre middle. All too often such bands muck about between pretty and heavy, not really exploring either.

Nenhuns Deuses Nenhuns Mestres

Humanfly aren't so. Their light and dark extend upwards and downwards; the high end sparkles with spiraling melodies, and the low end doesn't skimp on heaviness, though it's more hardcore-gone-sludge than metal. Such use of the full frequency spectrum recalls the mighty Year of No Light, though Humanfly are more expansive. Unlike many other bands, when they wax psychedelic, Humanfly aren't merely biding time until the next loud part. They let synths whoosh and build skyward with wide-eyed innocence; when they threaten to float into oblivion - only then do they drop the hammer. Unlike calculatingly loud-soft-loud NeurIsis clones, Humanfly still turn corners to see where they'll lead.

Buy:
20 Buck Spin
Humanfly MySpace

Grand Magus - Iron Will

by Cosmo Lee

Some records are so metal that one has no choice but to genuflect before them. Iron Will (Rise Above, 2008) is one such record. Janne Christoffersson is the vocalist for Spiritual Beggars, the retro rock project of Arch Enemy guitarist Michael Amott. In Grand Magus, Christoffersson sings and slings a mean axe himself. In fact, he's got some of the best riffs in the biz. Lumbering doom, Viking pageantry, traditional metal - the guy can do it all. Iron Will could have come out 20 years ago, and it would still hold up today. This kind of metal doesn't go out of style, especially with songs this strong. Try not to bang your head to "Iron Will" - it's impossible. When Christoffersson booms, LIKE THE OAR STRIKES THE WATER, damned if I don't want to head for the nearest longboat pronto. One can practically smell the leather tanning. Beowulf metal doesn't get much better than this.

Like the Oar Strikes the Water
Iron Will

Buy:
Rise Above (CD)
Rise Above (vinyl)

Alice Cooper - Trash

by Cosmo Lee

Yesterday's post made me revisit Alice Cooper's Trash (Epic, 1989) for the first time in over 15 years. It was the first tape I ever bought for the sole purpose of shocking my mother with the cover. (It worked. I also remember feeling that the inside artwork in Appetite for Destruction had crossed some sort of line.) Funny how tastes change - in retrospect, this record seems hardly edgy at all. Basically, it's '80s cock rock tinged with Cooper's trademark camp horror, sort of a hair metal version of King Diamond.

House of Fire
Bed of Nails

Two things stand about this record, though. First are the awful, awful lyrics, which I can't imagine anyone singing with a straight face. "Pull my trigger / I get bigger / Then I'm lots of fun / I'm your gun"??? This makes Licensed to Ill look like Ulysses. Second is the fact that Trash was an album by committee. The songwriting co-credits are numerous - Joan Jett on "House of Fire" (which had an incredibly hot video, at least to 12 year-old me), Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, and Diane Warren on "Bed of Nails," which surprises me because she's a woman, yet is responsible for lines like "I'll lay you down and when all else fails / I'll drive you like a hammer on a bed of nails." Maybe it's the songwriting equivalent of a Harlequin romance novel.

Other than Cooper himself, the main party to blame/credit for Trash is Desmond Child, who co-wrote 9 of the album's 10 songs. Maybe that's why they have so many tricky moves that only professional songwriters can do. "House of Fire" is essentially one continuous gearshift key change. The chorus of "Bed of Nails" sounds like that of Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name," which makes sense, since he co-wrote that hit, as well as a gazillion others. Look at his discography - it's jaw-dropping. The guy did some of Aerosmith's and Bon Jovi's biggest hits, KISS' "I Was Made for Lovin' You," Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca," and Sisqó's "Thong Song"? Pure genius.

Metal dance remixes

by Cosmo Lee

The music at my gym is mostly horrible Hi-NRG dance fare. I have made multiple complaints, to little avail. As a result, I have probably been subjected to more dance versions of pop songs than any other human alive, including "Total Eclipse of the Heart," Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire," Skee-Lo's "I Wish," Extreme's "More Than Words," and Celine Dion's song from The Titanic. Screw waterboarding and Deicide - as torture, this stuff would be infinitely more effective.

Poison (Alice Cooper)
Poison (Groove Coverage)

Nothing, however, could have prepared me for the most surreal remix of all (by a German group called Groove Coverage (a name which doesn't even make sense - it sounds like a football defensive scheme)). The moment is firmly etched in my mind. I was on the stair machine. Second one from the left. Doing the stairs. Doing the stairs. Over the speakers I hear, "Your cruel...device...your blood...like ice..." NOOOOOOOOOOOO. No effing way. Alice Cooper got a dance remix??? I nearly fell off the stair machine.

Even worse is the dance version of Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train," by Gyr-8 Productions (yet another terrible name). Whenever I hear those arpeggiated synths at 0:19, a small part of me dies. Incredibly, this remix gets even worse. First come some "Macarena" synths. Then it goes into two different Italo house piano themes, dragging Randy Rhoads' riff along like a vestigial appendage. It's truly repulsive - which is why I can't stop listening to it. Goddamn, does it make me laugh. I can't see anyone ever dancing to it or even listening to it seriously. Maybe it's showed up in an aerobics class or two.

Crazy Train (Ozzy Osbourne)
Crazy Train (Gyr-8 Productions)

Machinery - The Passing

by Cosmo Lee

I've lost much interest in Swedish melodic death metal, because of both changing tastes and stagnation/oversaturation of the music. While good melodeath records still come out (Dark Tranquillity are still thriving, while Omnium Gatherum and Mors Principium Est are enjoyable new blood), the style increasingly seems limited and conservative to me. I suppose that "style" and "limitations" are flip sides of the same coin.

I Divine
Decide My Pain

Stockholm's Machinery don't break new ground in the style. But they bring a sense of drama and ambition I haven't felt from melodeath in a while. I'm surprised how much I like The Passing (Regain, 2008), since it has so many elements I don't like: melodeath riffs, melodic singing, keyboards. The riffs are sturdy enough, however, and the leads are ripping. Both benefit from Jonas Kjellgren's (Scar Symmetry) punchy production, which preserves clarity in picking even at high speeds. The singing utilizes both growling and singing, but the latter is more of a grand Viking style instead of simple good cop/bad cop mechanics; some of the vocal patterns and melodies also recall Nevemore. As for keyboards, they tastefully act as textural color rather than a sonic crutch.

Most importantly, Machinery write actual songs. These jams stick in the head. "I Divine" is a memorable indictment of Christianity: "Why does he keep on fighting / Why does he believe in god/ I can't believe his crying / Crying for the love of god." "Decide My Pain" deploys a similarly catchy chorus. This record's got hooks, it's got scope, and on its first spin, it made me sit down and hear it straight through. I can't remember the last time a record did that!

Buy:
Regain
Relapse

RIP K.Angylus, The Angelic Process

Word has been trickling out - K.Angylus, of the husband-and-wife duo The Angelic Process, passed away in late April. No official cause of death has been announced. The final Angelic Process record was the mammoth Weighing Souls With Sand, which ironically was about coping with a spouse's death. Last year, Angylus suffered a hand injury which rendered him unable to play music, and The Angelic Process went on hold indefinitely in October.

Million Year Summer

I will always associate Weighing with sickness, for different reasons. Last year I visited some friends in Texas, one of whom suffered acute food poisoning. He was retching his soul out next door, and I was trying to sleep. I put on Weighing in my headphones, turned up the volume, and was immediately bathed in a surreal, electric world in which My Bloody Valentine morphed into Neurosis. Weighing is, in a good way, one of the most grotesque-sounding records I've ever heard. It's compressed beyond belief and the guitars seemingly come from a volcano. Drums strain to punch through the din; Angylus' voice fights for its life. Few swan songs have been so passionate.

Grave - Dominion VIII

Grave present what I'll call "the AC/DC problem": what does one do with bands whose records essentially all sound the same? Will just one suffice? Or can one derive more benefit from consuming more of the same? Now, I am probably being unfair to AC/DC. I personally don't think that their albums are identical. Their stand-out tunes certainly stand out, though their filler tunes sure are filler.

Fallen (Angel Son)
Dark Signs

Likewise, Grave albums aren't really all alike. Some are slower, some are faster, some sound better than others. Yet they all reduce to the same thing: old-school Swedish death metal. That Sunlight Studios sound. Those basic but nasty riffs. Not much technicality. Lots of good old-fashioned urrrgh. Dominion VIII (Regain, 2008) - the band's eighth studio full-length (natch) - is indeed more of the same. The grooves are still headbangable. The riffs are still catchy. Ola Lindgren still sounds like he could use a glass of water.

The only differences from before are that the production is surprisingly murky for 2008, and that the riffs are somehow not exactly the same as the hundreds that preceded them. Perhaps these minute variations are what keep fans coming back. I don't buy into the "if you like X's previous records/X's colleagues Y and Z/X's general genre, then you should buy this" argument. Chances are, X's previous records (and those of Y and Z) are better. In this case, You'll Never See... or Soulless are probably all the Grave you'll never need.

Still, I like this, and all the way through. Does this mean that someone could sell me the same plot of land multiple times? Or does it just mean that I'm a metal fan?

Buy:
Relapse
Dis-Order

Brave - Monuments

I love the sound of female singing. But I generally hate it in metal, usually through no fault of the singers. Its usual context is what I'll call "corset metal," over-produced schlock with billowing hair and faceless male minions. It's all drama and no nuance. Lacuna Coil were actually a good band before they became a Pro Tools plug-in farm.

Driven
Something to This

If instead Century Media and Nuclear Blast signed more bands like Brave, the world would be a better place. This DC band has the chops, songwriting, and, yes, the polished production - Monuments needs only a label logo to go on shelves - yet it preserves its singer's humanity. Michelle Loose has one of the most wonderful voices I've heard in ages. It's technically adept, yet big and soulful. She knows exactly when to push her voice and make it "break up"; contrast, for example, Dolores O'Riordan's histrionics in The Cranberries' "Zombie." Metal hasn't had such an appealingly accessible female presence since The Gathering's Anneke van Giersbergen.

Brave is that rare band where each instrument stands out. The guitars are robust, the bass is warm, and the drums burst with tasty fills and propulsive accents. Violinist Suvo Sor is Brave's secret weapon, complementing Loose with mournful melodies. In "Sooner or Later," he even breaks out a shredding solo with four-string arpeggios, the classical precursor to guitar sweep picking.

Many influences enrich Monuments. "Driven" is straight-up, fist-pumping Eurometal. "Stronger" swims in a sea of Pink Floyd echoing guitars. "Forgiveness" plumbs Katatonia's moodiness, while "Hero" is a swirling stew of prog odd meters and Viking melodies. The poignant "Something to This" begs to be a video, in a good way. (But please leave the wind machine at home.) Monuments has more hooks than a UFC fight card, and will make my Top 20 this year.

Buy:
Brave (CD)
DigStation (MP3)

People are weird, pt. 3

While the site wrestles with audio-related server issues, let's talk about metal. One of the best aspects of doing this site is seeing the incoming Google searches. I am always amused at how people type complete sentences into Google instead of Boolean searches. These queries are little windows into people's ids. After all, searching is an act of desire. Sometimes I wish I could reply to these seekers of truth, love, or "the longest officially documented human penis" (an actual search leading here). I do so below with 10 recent favorites.

10.
how do I wear Vietnam metals

With mixed emotions.

9.
why was metallica so successful

Cliff Burton.

8.
what questions to ask when interviewing metal bands

If, when, why, what?
How much have you got?
Have you got it, do you get it, if so, how often?

7.
is job for a cowboy satanic

Only in the fact of their existence.

6.
barney is a satanic song?

Was there ever any doubt?

5.
Does Coldplay have satanic lyrics to their songs?

Ask Apple.

4.
random thoughts in military camouflage

Random, indeed.

3.
grammer = do you have to captalize types of music

America's educational system = fucked.

2.
you dirt sheep fucker pee wee

Someone really has it in for Pee Wee.

1.
girls metal mp3

Some of life's finest things, or at least two of three.

The 1st ever global conference on metal

Click to enlarge

"Heavy Fundametalisms: Music, Metal & Politics," the first ever global conference on metal, will take place in Salzburg, Austria from November 3-5, 2008. Full details and the call for papers are here. One need not be an academic to present, although such affiliation would likely help defray travel/lodging/registration expenses. All papers accepted for the conference are eligible for ISBN-numbered electronic publication, with some selected for hardback publication. 300-word abstracts are due by Friday, June 13, 2008. The conference is accepting submissions on any of the following themes:

Heavy metal and:

- Origins, Definition and History
- Genres and classification. Classical music/Opera
- Culture - Subculture - Underground - Popular Culture - Fans
- Religion - anti religion - Evil - Satanism
- Politics - Nationalism - the apolitical - Fascism
- Imagery - Iconography - Aesthetics
- Art - Design - Fashion - Performance - Theatre - Sleeve Art
- Gender Issues - Misogyny - Homo sociality - Masculinities - Deviant Sexualities
- Monsters - Madness
- Philosophical themes: Existentialism - Nihilism - Hedonism - Ethics
- Literature - Cinema - Documentaries - Soundtracks - Horror - Gothic - Anime - Cartoons
- Fashion

I must confess I have no love for Salzburg (apologies to any readers who are Salzburgers). The one time I visited, it seemed that the entire town was a Mozart and Sound of Music-themed tourist trap. (The profusion of Mozart-shaped chocolates sent me over the edge.) Salzburg has lovely geography, however (click above to enlarge), as well as a top-shelf (literally, as in clifftop) modern art museum.

Thanks to Keith Kahn-Harris for the tip.

Foscor - I Tornà de les Cendres

Catalan black metallers Foscor have released a video for "I Tornà de les Cendres", from their album The Smile of the Sad Ones, which I wrote about here. The video takes place in a spa in Catalonia called the Balneari de la Puda (built in 1870, abandoned in 1958). Its atmosphere is thick like caked blood. A girl wanders the halls of the decaying complex, encountering shadowy figures - or is it all in her head? The prostrate poses and old world vibe recall Morbid Angel's video for "God of Emptiness". The colors match the music: gritty, duskily beautiful. It's refreshing to see black metal sans panda paint. I'm a big fan of Foscor, and wonder why they aren't huge.

Buy:
Foscor
The End

Terrordrome - Vehement Convulsion

The annals of songs about cunnilingus - a pantheon that includes Madonna's "Where Life Begins," The Stone Roses' "Going Down," SWV's "Downtown," Foo Fighters' "All My Life," and, as one wag claimed, U2's "In God's Country" (or was that "I Still Have Not Found What I'm Looking For"?) (also, Ireland's national airline is called Aer Lingus) - have traditionally not included death metal. After all, it's hardly br00tal subject matter (hopefully). Yet here come Greece's Terrordome with "Festivity of Clitoris Licking"; for good measure, they add "No Oral Hesitations." These are indeed tasty jams, overflowing with juicy licks and fluid strokes...of drums. Perhaps the title Vehement Convulsion (Grindethic, 2008) actually makes sense.

Festivity of Clitoris Licking
No Oral Hesitations

I asked the band for a lyric sheet, but, sadly, they could not provide one. They did, however, state the following as their subject matter, in this exact order: "sex, love, porn, environmental awareness, human relations, war, gore, splatter, social/political problems, etc." The band also helpfully clarified about the abovementioned songs: "Yes, they are both [about] love and sex from a romantic and pornographic view, and it is all about pleasure. There is not splatter or murder [in] these 2 songs, in contrast to 'Infected Fornication,' where a murder happens after the guy realizes that the whore was infected with AIDS." You can't fool me, Terrordrome. You have your one br00tal song, but I know that deep down you're a bunch of caring, selfless softies.

Buy:
Willowtip
Grindethic
Amazon (MP3)

Prostitute Disfigurement - Descendants of Depravity

I won't make apologies for Prostitute Disfigurement. Their name is horrible - perhaps it's good in a metal way - and their oeuvre includes such works as "On Her Guts I Cum" and "Rotting Away Is Better Than Being Gay." However, they seem to have grown up a little on Descendants of Depravity (Neurotic/Willowtip, 2008). Their topics are still perversions and violence of all kinds, but their songs are mostly from the perspective of fictional characters: "I'm called the one-eyed drifter / A cross-country odyssey of crime / Advocate of different methods / My cruelty seems to know no bounds." Lyrically, this is basically an entire album of Slayer's "Dead Skin Mask."

Storm of the Fiend
Carnal Rapture

So, these Dutchmen are probably not psychopaths, except on their instruments. This record is ripping. Guitars spray tasty, choppy riffs all over the place, with wicked left-right trade-offs. String rakes! Sweep picking! Two-handed tapping! In just the right amounts! Drummer Michiel van der Plicht is an absolute monster, throwing down insane fills and varied beats. The production is perfect - crisp, crunchy, separated. The stereo interplay of drums and guitars on "Storm of the Fiend" is breathtaking. At 1:52, a blazing lead erupts from the left side. A few seconds later, the right side responds - and then they join in a more perfect union. Sooo good.

Vocalist Niels Adams is suitably beastly, but I'm more interested in his typo-riddled lyrics (bands and labels: I am available for liner notes work and English language editing), which occasionally yield gems like, "In a comfortable seat in which I die / With a grin on my face I'm ready to fry." (Contrast with Metallica's "Ride the Lightning.") Plus, PD get bonus points for the only metal song title ever with the word "generalissimo" in it: "The Sadist King and the Generalissimo of Pain." (I'd love to hear the death growl annunciation of this live.) If you must play death metal now (and that's a big if), you're best off doing it the Dutch way. Two hacked-off thumbs way, way up.

John Darnielle has a considerably funnier blog post about Prostitute Disfigurement here.

Buy:
Neurotic
Willowtip

Thrice - The Earth Will Shake

Photo by Myriam Santos-Kayda

A reader comment on yesterday's Wrnlrd review got me thinking about how American metal has largely omitted American traditional music. Europe has loads of "folk metal" (which often seems to be just racist folk music), Brazil has/had Sepultura, Taiwan has Chthonic with their erhu. A few American counterparts come to mind - Across Tundras, Earth, Resistant Culture - and Southern sludge metal occasionally throws in the odd country or blues lick. But pre-amplification American music is mostly unexplored in metal, perhaps because the latter is so dependent on electricity. Metal could mine this ground, though. There is much darkness in America's (musical) history, and what better vessel for darkness than metal?

The Earth Will Shake

Yesterday I stumbled across a stunning example of what I'm talking about. It comes from Thrice's Vheissu, my favorite record of 2005. The source is most unlikely; until that point, Thrice was a straightforward metalcore band (albeit a skilled one). Their fans must have gotten a nasty surprise upon discovering that the band had become an amalgam of Isis, Tool, and Radiohead. I, for one, welcomed the change, and the band has flexed their new muscles with lovely results on their Alchemy Index recordings. Vheissu is full of revelations, the most revelatory being "The Earth Will Shake." Neurosis would be jealous of most of it; at 2:52, it breaks wide open with old-time chain gang singing. It's O Brother, Where Art Thou?, complete with freedom narrative:

We dream of ways to break these iron bars
We dream of black nights without moon or stars
We dream of tunnels and of sleeping guards
We dream of blackouts in the prison yard

Then it drops into a neck-snapping 7/4, as Teppei Teranishi flings plangent chords skywards. The 27 year-old multi-instrumentalist orchestrates Thrice's beautiful arrangements; I don't hesitate to call him a genius. Who would have guessed that some kids from Orange County would provide metal's most convincing throwback to 19th century America?

Buy:
Amazon (CD)
Amazon (MP3)

Wrnlrd - Pentagon

Pentagon, by one-man band Wrnlrd, is one of the most intriguing packages I've encountered in a while. The translucent papers and gray/silver tones of the CD jewel case suggest IDM. A single eye peers out from behind the back traycard. Lifting the tray reveals the number "21" written twice, as well as the the number "51090942171709440000," which is 21 factorial; the CD has 21 tracks. (Wrnlrd's website has a similar obsession with numbers.)

Sun Wheel: Eye of Horns
May Day: Dance of Vines

The liner notes include an antique map of Washington, DC, as well as a foreboding photo of the Washington Monument (see above), which recalls Fugazi's In on the Kill Taker; Wrnlrd lists Dischord among his influences. They also contain an aerial view of The Pentagon, located in Wrnlrd's native Arlington, VA. (The front cover is a Photoshop filtered image of The Pentagon burning on 9/11.) Finally, the liner notes include a dedication to an officer of a local Masonic Lodge. This leads back to the eye on the traycard - is it the All-Seeing Eye?

Perhaps surveillance is a theme here, an inverse of Isis' Panopticon. The photo of The Pentagon: watching the watchers? It's tough to tell if this record has a political subtext, as it's mostly instrumental. Black metal is the starting point from which it departs in a hurry. The guitar tone is the sonic equivalent of spilling beer on an old rug. Tempos hover around soggy, mid-paced trudges. Creaky banjo adds a woozy, back porch feel, while fuzz runs rampant like weeds. The record feels like a soundtrack, with lots of brief sonic vignettes.

It's all quite strange and a little paranoid - or perhaps I'm inferring that from the artwork. Even if one can't fully grasp the aesthetic, it's still thought-provoking. Pitchfork has a good interview with Wrnlrd in which he talks about his background in bluegrass and country blues: "I see ghosts of American music everywhere. I hear Dock Boggs in black metal, the droning banjo, voice like an earthquake. I hear Blind Lemon [Jefferson] pounding his feet on the floor, and I know he is my cousin... I think the essence of black metal is something that goes beyond geography and stylistic tradition, even beyond music."

Buy:
MySpace
Official Site

Cannabis Corpse - Tube of the Resinated

The Cypress Hill of death metal, Richmond, VA's Cannabis Corpse re-up with another disc of sticky icky. Blunted at Birth, which I reviewed here, introduced the concept of weed-themed death metal in homage to Cannibal Corpse, both in musical style and song titles. The debut was a cute novelty; Tube of the Resinated (Forcefield, 2008), which came out on 4/20 (natch), feels like a real record by a real band. Catchy vocal patterns and groovy riffs yield a solid, headbangable set of old-school death metal. The artwork is more thrash than death metal, but then again, this is the side project of Land Phil from Municipal Waste. Evidently, "Mummified in Bongwater" is about "a portal to a realm spawned from centuries of spilt bongwater," while "Experiment in Horticulture" is about "a giant monster made of pot attacking humanity." Sweet leaf, indeed.

Mummified in Bongwater
Experiment in Horticulture

Buy:
Amazon
Forcefield

Dio - Rainbow in the Dark

Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of Dio's first solo record, Holy Diver. The title track has made inroads into popular culture (South Park, the Judgment Night soundtrack, Killswitch Engage's cover and its ridiculous video), but "Rainbow in the Dark" inspires more love, even though no one really knows what it's about. People have tried to parse it (attempt #1, attempt #2); the most cogent explanation seems to be Dio's feeling of alienation after leaving Black Sabbath and/or Rainbow.

The song's video is beyond explanation, though. A creepy man follows a woman into a Soho sex shop, whereupon he is repelled by a ferociously youthful Vivian Campbell. Bassist Jimmy Bain joins Campbell in the street, while their boss lip syncs on some rooftop. It's all quite baffling. Evidently, Dio is not fond of the song - it's the poppy aberration on Holy Diver - but he is in the minority. "Rainbow in the Dark" has the second greatest synth hook of all time (#1 and #3 would be Europe's "The Final Countdown" and Usher's "Yeah!"); it and Dio's purple boots are beyond reproach.

RIP Cursed

Bad news from Canada's Cursed. Say it ain't so, Joe.

Yeah, you heard. Apparently, it gets even worse. That's all I know or even want to know for now. We got robbed at the very end of tour in a totally unreal, extremely sketchy series of events that still makes no sense at all, only leads to paranoia, anger and a total loss of faith. Passports, money, all the costs of the tour. Either way, whoever did it, it was a bullet in the head, the end of the line. A sudden and totally fucked up way for it to end, which I know will be fitting when I look back on it. All we could do was play the show, badly, and go our ways with whatever money we could muster. I hitched a ride back to Prague with Tomas. Since I can't do a fucking thing about it, I'm going to hang out with my girl, and friends, stare at some Czech mountains and try not to think about it. Needless to say, all outstanding plans are off. All this shit aside, thanks to everyone that helped out and travelled from all over for the shows on this tour, all the kids and bands we played and stayed with. Minus a few fucked up shows, it was probably the best tour we ever had. Thanks everyone for your good wishes. I'll elaborate when I'm home next week, for now - yes it's true, and yes it's over.

Heartbreaking to hear from a band that meant what they said, whose sound roared their name. III: Architects of Troubled Sleep (Goodfellow, 2008) was that rare record I was afraid to review. Words couldn't do it justice. How do you review storm clouds and dirt clods? Part me of wants Cursed to live on. The other part wants them to honor their own words in "Antihero Resuscitator": "All my antiheroes are dead, gone to far-off beds / And I got orders – Do Not Resuscitate / Leave them in the ground, we’ve got our own frustrations." May you find the peace you never had.

Antihero Resuscitator

Buy:
Relapse
Interpunk

Howl, Mendozza

Howl

In the current issue of Decibel (#44, Iron Maiden cover), I've done the "Throw Me a Frickin' Bone!" column, which reviews demos and unsigned records. Some of them are actually good. The two of note this time are by Howl and Mendozza. Both are hairy and sound like it. (One of my non-metalhead friends read the column, after which she turned to me and asked, "What is 'beard metal'?" It was so cute.)

Howl - And the Gnawing...
Mendozza - The Rise of the Piscean

Howl hail from Providence, RI, and remind me a little of Lair of the Minotaur, but with more color. Dig that half-speed Slayer riff in the middle of "And the Gnawing..."! This June, these dudes and dudette will play at Indiana's Dude Fest, which really should be called Beard Fest. Also hirsute and heavy are Vancouver's Mendozza, who drop an absolutely nasty wah-wah workout in "The Rise of the Piscean." The criss-crossing bluesy leads are pure Sabbath, and pure awesomeness. Somehow this band ended up on the Underworld: Evolution soundtrack next to Atreyu and My Chemical Romance - WTF?!

Buy:
Howl
Mendozza

Testament - Low

Speaking of Testament, D.X. Ferris (author of the 33 1/3 book on Slayer's Reign in Blood) has written a fine article on Testament for the Village Voice Media group of weeklies. Of interest is the discussion of Native American shamanic medicine in Chuck Billy's fight against cancer. To my delight, Ferris mentions "Trail of Tears" from Low. The Alex Skolnick years of Testament are rightly considered the classic ones. But for sound quality and sheer power, I prefer what came afterwards, starting with Low (Atlantic, 1994).

Low
Ride
Trail of Tears

Two key personnel changes occurred between 1992's The Ritual and Low. James Murphy and John Tempesta replaced Skolnick and Louie Clemente on lead guitar and drums, respectively (not counting a brief lineup shuffle for 1993's Return to the Apocalyptic City live EP). Murphy was a tasty shredder like Skolnick, but less elegant and more visceral. Tempesta, who would drum on White Zombie's Astro Creep: 2000 a year later, was a clean, rock-solid timekeeper.

The memorably heavy result straddled thrash and death metal. Songs charged through catchy riffs, with solos only when necessary. (Ironically, "Trail of Tears" is a very Skolnick-esque ballad.) Billy's vocals on "Low" are perhaps his finest performance to date. The crisp, balanced production is arguably the best Testament has ever had, in a career plagued with wildly inconsistent production. From personal experience, Low is by far the best Testament record to blast in a car. It's not canonical, but it's a must-have.

Buy:
Amazon (CD)
Amazon (MP3)

Jucifer, Testament

Jucifer

Music critics are privileged in that people send them music for free. They are also cursed in that people send them music for free. Ever since I became a music critic, I have been deluged with such piles of shit that part of me wants to say "fuck you" to all "benefactors" and just buy records like everyone else. Then again, everyone else now probably downloads the same piles of shit. Does anyone listen to records more than once anymore - or make records worthy of such?

Jucifer - Birds of a Feather
Testament - The Persecuted Won't Forget

I've reviewed two records that I actually want to get to know better. The first is Jucifer's sprawling L'autrichienne, which will require the rest of this year for me to digest fully. The second is Testament's The Formation of Damnation, which sounds like shit but has good music on it. This quote by Bob Dylan is applicable: "I don't know anybody who's made a record that sounds decent in the past 20 years, really. You listen to these modern records, they're atrocious, they have sound all over them. There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like...static."

CYT / Hostis / Drastus - From the Womb of Ferocious

In late 2006 and early 2007, John Darnielle wrote "Thirty Short Poems About My Favorite Black Metal Band." Of his fans, I'd guess that 90% know him for his indie rock band The Mountain Goats, while 10% know him for his writing on metal, including his cryptically amusing "South Pole Dispatch" column which ends each issue of Decibel. Collectively, "Thirty Short Poems" is the greatest piece of band fan mail that I've ever read. I have included links to all 30 because I insist that you read them all. They are indeed short, taking about 10-30 seconds each to read. However, they are uproariously funny; nearly each one made me laugh out loud. They are also incredibly tender and profound. Ultimately, they are as obsessive and imaginative as the object of their affection, Drastus.

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Drastus is a French one-man black metal band; he also runs the label Flamme Noire. While I don't share Darnielle's fanatical devotion to Drastus (10 poems in, you'd think he was about to propose marriage), I do appreciate his work. In the poems, Darnielle touches upon how hard it is to find. This is sort of true; his three releases all have very limited pressings. However, I have seen them come and go in various distros, as well as on eBay. Drastus is just one of those names you have to keep an eye out for. Over time, I have found his 2006 EP Taphos and From the Womb of Ferocious, his 2005 split with Hostis (his girlfriend) and CYT (his black metal band with her). The latter comes in an A5 sleeve, and Darnielle's ninth poem addresses the difficulty of storing such an object. I agree; A5 sleeves are a pain in the ass. I have a few - they're all by black metal bands (the "artistic" aspect, etc.) - and I banish them to a box where I try to ignore them.

Drastus - Tumor Reptatus
CYT - Ar Brezel Santez

But the music on Womb is impossible to ignore. Drastus does the split's best tracks; one is straightforward, ass-kicking black metal, while the other features strange, almost gothic singing over an industrial soundscape. Hostis turns in two tracks of menacing dark ambient, while CYT proffers solid black metal with incredibly deft drumming. I am doing a terrible job of description; Darnielle's poems are really all you need. With fans like this, who needs music critics?

Buy:
Ashen
Goatowarex
God Is Myth

Spektr - Mescalyne

Judging from their sound, Spektr refer to the drug and not the Mescalyne Islands in Vanuatu. On 2006's The Near Death Experience (which I wrote about here), this shadowy French duo rammed together dark ambient and black metal with jarring jump cuts. It was an intriguingly disruptive, Burroughsian take on an aesthetic that favors drones, trance states, and other continuums. The Mescalyne EP (Debemur Morti, 2007) is likewise cinematic and hallucinatory, but it isn't so disjointed. This is due to more cohesive drum programming that seems to have an electronic music influence, particularly drum 'n' bass. That's a strange influence to have these days, but Spektr are all about the strange. Mescalyne's four tracks feel like one, yielding a surprisingly cohesive, compact 23 minutes.

Mescalyne

Mescalyne is available from Moribund, Relapse, and The End.

Eibon - Promo '08

Paris' answer to Eyehategod, Eibon have a new promo CD out. Its two massive tracks total 22 and a half minutes in length. Eibon hammer riffs into the ground with the best of 'em, yet shape them into surprisingly graceful journeys. "Asleep and Threatening" is the more aggressive offering, and is audible on Eibon's MySpace. It drops from sludge into a hole of doom, then climbs back out with rough-and-tumble percussion before alighting on moody Tool-isms.

Staring at the Abyss

"Staring at the Abyss" is even more patient, settling into a hypnotic three-note theme. It then traverses a wide variety of feels, including candlelit pyschedelia, a lumbering shuffle, and luminous, tremolo-picked drones. Dig those runs at 7:40 that sprout up out of the dirt like small plants. The recording is perfectly earthy, highlighting tasty drumming by Jerome Lachaud. Last year, Eibon put out a solid split on Bones Brigade with fellow French sludge metallers Hangman's Chair. I reviewed it here; it's available at Bones Brigade, Hellride Music, and Relapse. Someone sign this band!

Blut aus Nord - Odinist

This week is French bands week at Invisible Oranges. There is no special occasion, other than a desire to celebrate the country that brought us Juliette Binoche, Daft Punk, and the finest metal scene currently outside of Sweden.

Blut aus Nord's sound has gotten grumpier over time, a fact reflected in gradually darkening album covers (see here). 2006's MoRT sounded like it looked, bleached of virtually all color. Last year's Odinist was billed as a return to old times, but all records so touted inevitably fail. Times change, as do people and production techniques. Despite efforts to convince the world otherwise, Metallica will never recapture the magic of Master of Puppets.

An Element of Flesh
The Cycle of the Cycles

Thus, Odinist only steps back so far. Its drum machine wakes up from its coma on MoRT, but its guitars remain in the dissonant soup that The Work Which Transforms God first stirred up. (Interestingly, compatriots Deathspell Omega went off the deep end around the same time.) The drum machine has long been a BaN trademark, but its value is variable. It has sounded best when submerged underneath guitars (Ultima Thulée) or when paired with guitars equally grotesque and unnatural (MoRT, Thematic Emanation Of Archetypal Multiplicity). Anywhere in the middle, though, where real drummers could do better, and it's annoying; Memoria Vetusta I would have been ferocious if not for its Sisters of Mercy-esque plastic poundings.

Odinist is another such annoying case, exacerbated by overly compressed mastering that artificially inflates the low end. So much thudding makes the record feel tired. But the feeling matches the guitars, which approximate Godflesh with a killer hangover. For BaN, this sound is getting familiar. Next to black metal's hordes of "old school" retreads, however, it's still thrillingly alien. "An Element of Flesh" flings aloft psychedelic warblings (backwards guitars?); "The Cycle of the Cycles" rises and falls hypnotically. BaN are already working on a new record, a sequel to Memoria Vetusta I, but they'll have to un-grotesque themselves for it, which seems unlikely.

Odinist is available from Candlelight, Relapse, and The End.

Jawbox on Cello - A Benefit for Cal Robbins