An album cover incomparably more interesting than the music within
My review of the debut full-length from Portugal’s Midnight Priest is up now at MetalReview. Perhaps I’m a bit harsh on their raw, Mercyful Fate-ish NWOBHM style, but I found the album tiresome, grating, and almost wholly unoriginal. Plus, despite their drummer’s insistence to the contrary, I remain at least halfway convinced that “Sábado Negro” means black sabbath. I mean, Google Translator says it means ‘black Saturday’, which is completely understandable, but translating ‘sabbath’ from English back to Portuguese yields ‘sábado’, so… Either way, Midnight Priest is out now on Stormspell Records.
This is the biggest image I could find? Thanks for nothing, Internet.
My review of the upcoming record from Oakland’s Saviours is up now at MetalReview. I have some harsh(ish) words for the album, even though I think it works more often than it doesn’t, because most of the time I just want them to lock into a smooth rhythm and let the guitarists shred sweetly all over the damn place. Death’s Procession will be out in a few weeks on Kemado Records.
My review of the latest (and truly scorching) album from Satan’s Host is up now over at MetalReview. Slightly dodgy cover of “Norwegian Wood” aside, this is a fierce and furiously fun record. By The Hands Of The Devil is out now on Moribund Records.
Have you been flinching as much as I have on this trip into the time when words were small, and ambitions smaller, and opinions surprisingly timid? Have you recalled the follies of your own former selves in the process, or has the calcifying march of time so blotted the stains of memory as to render them fuzzed and vaguely pleasant?
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Mastodon, Leviathan (2004)
Still some of the coolest fucking album art in, like, ever
Certainly among the most highly anticipated releases of 2004, Mastodon’s sophomore full-length Leviathan has already been subjected to endless hyperbole, so I will do my best not to add to the prattle. As in any case where the expectations are so high, it is inevitable that many will be disappointed with Leviathan. Those who are most likely to be disappointed, however, are those who were expecting Mastodon to release Remission – Pt. II, with little or no alteration to their already crushing and well-developed style. Instead of treading water (pun only slightly intended), however, Mastodon has incorporated more melody, especially into the vocals – which are no longer hoarse barks, but rather tuneful bellows – and has polished the production up a bit. Neither of these developments, though, has made their overall sound any less punishing.
Despite these modifications, Leviathan may be easily compared to Remission due to the fact that Mastodon has again written an incredibly strong group of songs, and simply plays the hell out of them. Brann Dailor’s drumming is still the most easily recognizable and unique facet of their sound, as he whips through churning, chaotic rhythms with a subtlety and understated flair borrowed from jazz and progressive rock. “Blood and Thunder” and “I Am Ahab” kick off the album furiously, while introducing the aquatic theme (much of it taken from Melville’s Moby Dick) of the record. Far from being a mere pretentious bid for intellectual and musical depth, Mastodon’s sound is indeed massive enough to deserve the theme it claims, easily evoking visions of monstrous creatures rising from the watery deep to feed on the hearts and flesh of man.
Other album highlights include “Naked Burn,” in which Mastodon’s new found sense of melody is used to great effect; “Aqua Dementia,” which features throat-tearing guest vocals by Scott Kelly of Neurosis; and the positively epic “Hearts Alive,” which is able to suggest both crushing weight and transcendent beauty, as a ray of sunlight pierces the murky abyss. Throughout Leviathan, Mastodon’s playing is fluid, inspired, and inspiring. Although this attempt to avoid hyperbole has clearly failed, this is one band whose hype and acclaim is more than well-deserved, given that over the course of just two full-length albums they have managed to discover new ways for heavy metal to be heavy.
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Dry, right? Although there’s probably something to be said in favor of this more straightforward writing style. Generally folks aim to get less pretentious as they age, but I seem to by doing my utmost and damnedest to reverse that pernicious trend. Don’t encourage me, then; I’m incorrigible.
In praise of some of this year’s releases that have featured prominently around Spinal Tapdance HQ lately, and in avoidance of some of the actual work I ought to be doing, I present a quick rundown of, as the title says, some of the new(ish) shit I’ve been spinning.
Beware the mad monk
Slough Feg, The Animal Spirits – Officially out today [ed.: Tuesday], I believe (along with enough other new metal releases to choke a horse, or at least force it into an equestrian approximation of headbanging), this is a nonstop grin-fest of everything wonderful and energetic about classic heavy metal. Mike Scalzi’s vocals are as potent as ever, and the songs are both carefully honed and gloriously meandering. Put it in yr ears and smile, smile, smile.
Color-by-numbers skeleton
Intronaut, Valley Of Smoke – For whatever reason, I’ve missed all the previous releases from this band. This new album, though, really shook me by the shoulders and slapped me around a bit. Excellent songwriting, beautiful textures, great clear bass lines and tasteful jazz-inflected drumming have kept this spinning over and over around here. The instrumental title track may be the best thing here, though that’s not to downplay the judicious use of both harsh and clean harmonized vocals throughout. Definitely recommended.
Climb it
Horseback, The Invisible Mountain – Tough to describe, but equally tough to ignore once it has sunk its claws in your flesh, this hypnotic album is something like an Americana act discovering krautrock and throwing in the menacing undertones of black metal. Oh, plus the entire second side is a lilting ambient piece, the trip down the other side of the mountain after the first side’s arduous ascent. A curious piece of work, but kudos to Relapse for picking this up for wider distribution.
It's good to remember how much you missed them
Autopsy, The Tomb Within – Brilliantly atavistic, mud-sodden death metal for murdering zombies. It’s only five tunes, but all the death and doom you could hope for is alive and (un)well. Welcome back, you perverts.
Brilliant artwork
Cough, Ritual Abuse – I haven’t got my grubby hands on the new Electric Wizard yet, but this new Stateside entry in the grand tradition of nihilistic sludge metal goes down just fine, all ragged edges and shaking hands. Also playing of late has been Cough’s tremendous split with The Wounded Kings (reviewed at this very site by yours truly last week), out in November. I’m pretty sure both sides of the split are streaming somewhere out there in computer-land, so get yourself to Google and soak in the doom.
Like 'Walden', but heavy metal
Celestiial, Where Life Springs Eternal – One of the most atmospheric albums I’ve heard this year. Exceedingly nature-touched, overdriven-to-the-point-of-ambient ‘funeral doom’, though that genre description is hopelessly inadequate to describe the equally soothing and crushing sounds at work within. Reminds one of neo-folk, without actually forcing one to listen to neo-folk.
It's a dead polar bear. Weep for this world.
Antony & The Johnsons, Swanlights – Antony Hegarty simply will not rest until he has made each and every one of us weep bittersweet tears. This is fragile, strong, desperate, haunting music. His duet with Björk is especially stunning, but the variety of songwriting styles on display throughout the album is most impressive.
Move your body
Gilles Peterson, Gilles Peterson Presents Havana Cultura: Remixed – Last year’s original issue of the Havana Cultura recordings were already excellent enough, but here Gilles has enlisted the help of some top-notch remixers and reinterpreters to put a more club-friendly (without the horrific connotations that phrase can entail) spin on this broad pool of Cuban musics past and present. Funky, soulful, and always a lot of fun. It can’t all be heavy metal all the time, friends. Gilles is there for you in your time of need.
Exhaustive, though not exhausting
Bob Dylan, The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964 – A massive two-disc set of early demos of future Dylan classics, plus something like fifteen previously unheard songs. This is a treasure chest to be explored, and in which to lose yourself. The man is clearly not a ‘record once and move on’ kind of studio musician, as the strikingly alternate versions of some of these tunes illustrates. Perhaps the most jarring alternate on here is the demo version of “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” which is slowed way down, and led by piano only.
Hallucinatory shoegaze metal
Sailors With Wax Wings, Sailors With Wax Wings – Debut album from this side project of R. Loren from Texan weirdos Pyramids. Features a shit-ton of guest vocalists and musicians, but succeeds largely because it doesn’t seem bogged down by that fact. The album still presents itself as a coherent aesthetic whole, featuring a gorgeous variety of textures and moods. Best heard as a piece, straight through, with mind set a-wandering.
Mind-bogglingly fantastic, dastardly metal art
Akercocke, Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone – Okay, so this is clearly not a new album. In fact, it’s from way back in the Stone Ages of 2005. But SONOFABITCH this album is so good. You should play it all the time. Each and every day. Also, if the gentlemen of Akercocke would see fit to give us another album one of these days, why, that would be just swell.
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Random bit of old news that I’m still bumming hard about:
Soooooo good
Beatrik went and broke themselves up a while back. Dude also broke up his more straight-ahead black metal act Tenebrae In Perpetuum, which is also too bad, but man, Beatrik was where it was at. If you haven’t listened to Beatrik’s second album Requiem Of December yet, well my goodness, you just really ought to do so. All the best bits of depressive black metal, proper black/doom (like Nortt, see), and the great organ textures of Skepticism, topped off with fabulously excruciating vocals… A really tasty treat, is what I’m trying to say to you.
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So, what’s been keeping you lot auditorially-occupied of late? Don’t be shy.
So, by now many of you have probably seen (or at least seen reference to) this video of Adam Lambert (he of some or other season of American Idol) performing a cover of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” I’m sure with a second’s research I could figure out precisely where and for what purpose this was performed, but I frankly don’t give a shit, and it’s beside the point either way.
The reaction to this video from the heavy metal community, at least as far as I’ve seen, has been, as you might imagine, principally one of outrage, or perhaps even disgust. How dare this man, this purest expression of everything about ‘pop’ culture that heavy metal purports to despise, attempt to infiltrate and appropriate our beloved canon? Alert the village elders (Lemmy, Iommi, Steve Harris), man the ramparts, et cetera, et cetera. All very predictable, and not necessarily wrong.
The offender
Still, I’d like to make a slightly different argument, if you’ll be so kind as to humor me. Instead of being shocked, or horrified, or just simply saddened by Mr. Lambert’s very glam take on Metallica, I think that the metal community should, if not embrace it, then at least recognize this performance for what I think it is: A more artistically compelling and frankly dangerous statement than the original song.
First, here is the official music video for Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” from 1991’s self-titled album:
If you’ve made it through the video without collapsing into a fit of seizures, then bravo. That video is truly a terror to behold (and not in a good way). I’m not quite sure what compelled the director to think, “Oh, instead of filming the same exact action in real-time, let’s make the whole video a stop-motion thing, that’ll be spoooooooky as shit,” but there you are.
Metallica’s song is, of course, widely acknowledged as a “classic,” if for no other reason than it’s been around for a long time, and most everyone knows it. Still, the thing is, it seems to have attained that kind of place in our culture where one is more likely to hear it played over the PA at a giant sports stadium, or at a high school assembly, or maybe even while waiting at the checkout counter of your neighborhood Walmart. It’s safe.
Which is not to say, I should point out, that it was ever really dangerous. By the time the ‘Black Album’ was released in 1991, Metallica was no more danger to anyone than Neil Diamond or soft pillows. If anything, Metallica circa 1991 were the safest sort of rock idols, at least in comparison to the intentionally sloppy, calculatingly scruffy attitude inculcated by the ongoing and/or impending grunge revolution. As opposed to the mopey, “caring-about-anything-is-a-waste-of-time” insouciance of Nirvana or (early) Smashing Pumpkins, the Metallica that toured the ‘Black Album’ was the undiluted expression of the megastar American dreams of every teenager hoping to pull herself up by the (guitar)strap. “Eat your veggies and work hard, kids, and you, too, can be the biggest hard rock band in the world. We’ll even let you grow whatever dodgy facial hair you like!”
The offending facial hair
The song itself, “Enter Sandman,” flirts with a menacing veneer, but its serpentine half-thrash comes off more like the boogie vibe they would embrace more explicitly in the much- (and probably rightly-) maligned Load/Re-Load albums. In the interest of full disclosure, I ought to say that it’s only with age and wisdom that I’ve come to dislike this song (though my mild disdain for “Enter Sandman” cannot even come close to matching my pure fucking spite for the abomination that is “Sad But True.” Truly, a song that ought to be excised from the annals of rock history, and for which sin its writers deserve far worse penance than making an embarrassingly “let’s-hug-it-out” documentary.) Nevertheless, I do not think it is a particularly good song, trapped, as is most of the ‘Black Album’, in that wretched netherworld in which thrash is kicking to draw its last few ignominious breaths, but has already made halting, sopping nods toward the meatier ‘grooves’ that would come to typify the execrable folly of so much “metal” throughout the 90s.
Here, then, is Lambert’s live performance of “Enter Sandman.” The backing track is a reasonable approximation of the original, though it highlights the plodding, infuriatingly middle-of-the-road riffing slightly more than one would wish. The instrumentation isn’t particularly consequential, though, as the focus is obviously intended to be Lambert’s vocals and physical carriage throughout the song. Thus:
Clearly, the audience here is loving every minute of this (although I suspect they would love each and every minute our [anti]hero spends out on the stage); they’re completely lapping it up, and there’s something oddly charming about the amateur video quality. Lambert sings much of the song relatively straight (har, har), indulging in increasingly melismatic flourishes as the verses and choruses pile on in that inescapable logic of pop songcraft. Lambert is clearly an objectively “better” singer than James Hetfield, although I suppose ardent fans of either man would tell you that that’s not really the point.
To cut right to the heart of my argument, though, make sure you watch Lambert’s vocal histrionics and masturbatory pantomime as the song goes into the solo break about halfway through. Lambert mimics guitar soloing with his voice for a few phrases, but then – hark! – begins gyrating and loving his microphone in that most intimate of ways. A 21st century Elvis, high on self-love instead of fried chicken. Coming out of the solo break, Lambert plants some kisses on one of the musicians before continuing to sing out the rest of the song.
Now, to suggest that many in the heavy metal community will have been turned off by the whole spectacle is not necessarily to imply a pervasive homophobia (though there are likely elements of that for some people). Instead, I assume that some combination of the pageantry, the preening male sexuality, and the theatrical vocal take on a well-established entry in the pantheon of American heavy metal will result in a generalized disdain. I also assume that Adam Lambert doesn’t give a damn about heavy metal, or about the heavy metal community, and that perhaps few of his fans do, either. The issue, then, is all one of context. See, there’s nothing particularly controversial in Lambert’s performing that song to that audience, because they are clearly primed to enjoy every flourish, every note, every gesture of whatever song he decides to sing.
The reason, then, that I want to suggest that Lambert’s take on Metallica is more artistically vibrant is that it takes the warmed-over half-thrash violence of Metallica’s original, and the blandly predatory intent of Hetfield’s snarling recitation of children’s prayers, and turns what has become meek and safe into something dangerous to heavy metal itself. Lambert’s writhing performance takes the implicit leering of Hammett’s wah-soaked (duh) solo and makes it explicit. It’s in your face, as he strokes his microphone like the great digital phallus is always is in every other singer’s hands already. In grafting a gay, glammy sensibility onto this half-heartedly aggressive music, I suspect that Lambert has transgressed the standards held (however subconsciously) by many in the metal community.
(This is not really the time or place for getting into the role of homosexuality in heavy metal – though it is a fascinating, important topic – but perhaps it will suffice to suggest that none of the more prominent gay men in heavy metal – Rob Halford, of course, but perhaps also more recently Gaahl (ex-) of Gorgoroth – have brought this type of sex performance into their public personae.)
Perhaps before closing I should add that I don’t particularly enjoy listening to Lambert’s version of “Enter Sandman.” Despite the criticisms I’ve leveled at Metallica’s original version, I think I’d still prefer it to this half-theatrical, half-tepid version. Nevertheless, it’s at times like this, when popular culture intersects – however briefly, however tangentially – with heavy metal, that both venues stand to learn from the other, or at least for whichever community one prefers to put itself up to a sharp self-assessment. When something like Adam Lambert’s performance, however dull or insipid the actual musical performance may be, can appear so threatening to heavy metal, a genre and community ostensibly drawn to power, danger, and all the rest, heavy metal ought to take a look at itself, and at the transgressive potential it once thrilled to realize.
Nevermore, The Obsidian Conspiracy (2010)
— Reviewed in the style of Ernest Hemingway —
The man looked at the picture and looked away and ordered another drink.
The hotel was loud and there were already a lot of people there. The man pulled out a chair and sat down at the hotel bar. He found the barman and ordered a pink gin. Like the sailors used to drink, he thought. A band was playing already when he sat down. Most of the tables in the lounge were full. Couples talking, lots of men clapping each other on the back. The man thought he didn’t need any of that. There would be time for that.
He thought about “This Godless Endeavor.” He looked out the window. A train pulled slowly out of the station, and a table of well-dressed young people across the bar from the man talked loudly about skiing. Five years is a long time, the man thought, and maybe those fond memories were all wrong anyway.
“Turn to the left, turn to the right.” The man did not listen. The band played a chorus, almost like it was played from another room. It played major, dipped minor. The man thought he heard something. Then it was gone. He ordered another drink. “Is this soliloquy or psychosis, or self-hypnosis?” The barman must have left the radio tuned to a motivational program. The man finished his drink, and watched the ice slowly become water in the glass. He breathed out.
The band at the bar only wanted to play some crowd-pleasers. The musicians kept pushing the lounge singer out of the way, so he pushed back. He seemed a little tight, the pusher. Squinted his eyes to look serious. Too many damned words, the man thought. As if each additional syllable made the sloganeering more effective. The man glanced out the window. The train was gone, and a listless breeze swept across the plain.
He listened to the band play “The Termination Proclamation.” He listened, and then remembered her:
“He picked up the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to the other tracks. He looked up the tracks but could not see the train. Coming back, he walked through the barroom, where people waiting for the train were drinking. He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people. They were all waiting reasonably for the train. He went out through the bead curtain. She was sitting at the table and smiled at him.
‘Do you feel better?’ he asked.
‘I feel fine,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.’”***
How do you ‘abandon someone with scorn’, the man thought? It’s all damned worthless anyway. The barman dropped his mixing glass, and set his rag down to clean up the mess. The lounge singer had recovered his poise, and was singing a slow song. The man asked the bartender to turn down the radio. The barman didn’t hear.
Most everyone had left the bar by now. Empty tables weighed down with half-spilled glasses and uneaten food. An older woman in evening-wear sat staring at the band. She seemed to project a sense of feeling the music deeply, deeply. The band’s set was only forty-five minutes, but they had lost some of their sheet music. One of the players ran through some fast solos while the band sat back. Maybe it was a saxophone? The man was not interested. The sparse crowd listened. The man sat at the bar, thinking about lousy conversationalists who always steer a polite topic into ornate, self-serving directions.
The band played an encore, ‘Temptation.’ No one had requested it. The man put down his drink. It had soured. The lounge singer bounced his voice around. Even the well-dressed woman looked uncomfortable. The rest of the band would not meet the others’ eyes.
The barman came back and tried to get the man another drink. The man started to order another gin but then ordered a scotch. “Say, this is some band,” said the barman. “Yes, some band,” the man replied. He balled a napkin in his hand. “Don’t you like the music?” asked the barman, drying off some glasses with lime peels still stuck on them. “Yes,” the man said. He took another drink of the scotch. It tasted like smoke and honey. “No,” he added. “It’s very nice music, but I don’t give a damn. I just don’t like it at all.” He paid the barman and pushed back his chair and walked out of the hotel and toward the train station. He looked back. The band inside was just finishing and those people still at the tables were still talking and laughing. Maybe they were talking about snow and ski lifts and hot cider and good times but the man stopped looking back and put up his collar and his shoes echoed loudly on the ground.
There would be plenty of time to catch the next train at the station so the man thought about “This Godless Endeavor” again and shook his head and couldn’t remember what he meant to do. The man hoped the band found the music they had lost. He put his hands in his pockets and turned the corner and whistled a song he didn’t like. He saw another train far in the hills and he closed his eyes and he kept walking and the train off in the distance went behind another hill and was gone. He kept walking.
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*** Just in case the jarring contrast from my piss-poor imitation didn’t make it obvious enough, this passage in full quotation is taken directly from Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants.” This quote taken from my copy of The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, The Finca Vigia Edition, 1987, New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., p. 214. Let’s just say, shall we, that the Hemingway story likely shares its subject matter with Nevermore’s “The Termination Proclamation.” You tell me which source deals with its theme more deftly, yeah?
In addition to my regular dose of all things vile and extreme in metal, I’ve been listening to quite a bit of jazz lately. A few weeks back I was spinning Miles Davis’ record My Funny Valentine, which is a live concert recorded at the Philharmonic Hall in New York in early 1964. One of the great pleasures of listening to live music, but especially to jazz, is following the back and forth of communication between the band members. The particular track which stopped me dead in my tracks was the quintet’s run-through of the Cole Porter jazz standard “All Of You.”
This is a band set to 'slow burn'
Here is the audio (in two parts) of that same quintet playing “All Of You” in July of 1963, which appears on the album Miles Davis in Europe. I couldn’t track down easily accessible online audio of the version which appears on My Funny Valentine, which is unfortunate, but this rendition still gives great insight into the near-telepathy of the band – especially the astonishing rhythm section of Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums.
Tony Williams is an incredibly active, almost aggressive drummer here; check out his ability to highlight Miles’ most strenuous phrases without stepping on them (from about 3:00 to 4:15 on the first half of the track). But what really gets me hooked listening to the band play this tune is the lightning-fast communication between Carter on bass and Williams on drums while Hancock is laying down his piano solo (this is the majority of the second half of the track, all the way until Miles comes back in for the chorus around 5:30 or so).
If you’ve got yourself a copy of My Funny Valentine at hand, I prefer the version on there, but both versions demonstrate the single-mindedness of the ensemble. All of this got me to thinking, though, that the type of collective improvisation on display with Miles’ quintet is an exceeding rarity in heavy metal.
Of course, improvisation plays a fairly large role in many types of heavy metal. The most obvious example of this is the guitar solo. We know, too, however, that not all guitar solos are improvised – if you see Metallica playing “Fade to Black” or Slayer playing “Raining Blood,” I think there’s an expectation on the part of the fans that the solos, which may at one point have been largely improvisational (though I have my doubts about that), will be played more or less true to the way they have been burned into their brains through years’ worth of listening.
Still, the guitar or other instrumental solo break is the most obvious example of improvisation in heavy metal. In the classic structure, the guitar solo is a type of compositional break, used much in the way a pre-chorus or bridge is used to transition from one part of a song to another. A solo will often occur on top of a basic riff structure which has already been introduced in a verse or some other section of the song. It serves, in this way, to introduce novelty within an already-recognized framework. The essential structure of the song would be unchanged by the removal of the solo, in most cases.
Then, of course, you get into all sorts of avant-garde stuff, with manipulated feedback, distortion, and the detritus of found-sounds and other oddities. I don’t think most people going to see Merzbow or Skullflower, for example, have exactly the expectation of hearing recognizable “songs” from these groups/dudes. In these cases, then, improvisation is less a decorative addition to a predetermined structure (as Hammett’s whammy-fondling is to a Metallica jam), and actually becomes the basis of composition.
Both of these models, however, are entirely separate from what goes on with Miles Davis’ group from 40-odd years back. Certainly, there is a basic structure to the piece. The melody of the original tune serves as the most skeletal reference, but the essential building blocks of the song are the tempo and the chord changes. Beyond that, however, as you can hear in this recording, pretty much anything goes. Sure, there’s a design in the order of solos – Miles introduces the theme, then launches off into a fantastic deconstruction of it, before it gets handed off to Coleman on the tenor saxophone. After the tenor break, Herbie Hancock takes over on piano, before Miles comes back in at the end to revisit the melodic theme and bring the piece to a close. By that description, then, it would seem that this follows the first model of improvisation, where there is a predetermined structure upon which soloing sits as a purely decorative flourish.
But to interpret the collective improvisation of Miles’ group here as a rote reading of a standard tune with traded riffs on the theme would be to do them a great disservice. The crucial thing to follow in this live recording is the absolute vibrancy of the communication between all of the different members. I find it easiest to pick out when following the interplay of the rhythm section – bass, drums, and piano – which is especially vital during Hancock’s solo break. See, whereas the Metallica tune would be played exactly the same way without the solo included, if you remove any one of these three lines from “All Of You,” you would miss out on how these three guys are structuring and restructuring the rhythm and melodic texture of the song as they play it. When they slip into a half-time swing beat for just a few measures, and then seamlessly back into the regular tempo, you have to wonder: If one of those components were absent, would it have the same impact?
The crucial element of the improvisation which goes on in “All Of You” is precisely that it is a collective improvisation. There are five guys up on stage, and they are essentially having a conversation with each other. Miles brings up the topic and swishes it around in his mouth for a while to see how it feels, but then he opens up the floor for comments. Coleman agrees with Miles, for the most part, but elaborates on a few points. It goes on like this. The timing of Williams’ cymbal hits is dependent on what he hears Carter playing on the bass, or how he imagines Hancock will shake up his rhythm in the next two bars. Carter walks his bass along quite amiably, but listens for Williams’ emphasis, and tracks along with him when it feels right. If you take away one of these speakers, the conversation crumbles. Balance is lost. The nays have it.
To extend this somewhat-tenuous metaphor further, most guitar (and other) solos in heavy metal are basically like some guy yelling while everyone else carries on a conversation. Take out the dude’s yelling, and the conversation continues apace. You might be getting the impression, by the way, that I don’t at all care for guitar solos, which is not actually my point. I think guitar solos can be pretty rad, and I enjoy a face-melting shredfest just as much as the next metal fan. What I’m trying to stress, though, is that heavy metal might find itself expanded in interesting ways if it made room for this type of collective improvisation that one is likely to find in good jazz.
If I had to take a stab at figuring out why this is the case, I suspect it has something to do with the aesthetic of transgression and personal triumph which is so widespread in heavy metal. The lyrics and topical concerns of much heavy metal are about strength, overcoming adversity, having the courage to be different, and so forth. Obviously, these themes are expressed in vastly different ways, whether we’re talking about the hardcore youth gang pep talks of Hatebreed, or the motif of Nietzschean haughtiness and individual superiority common in black metal. When it comes to expressing these ideas musically rather than textually, a fairly obvious way to do so is by highlighting the virtuosity of individual musicians.
Jamey Jasta's Seven Habits for Highly Effective Backstabber Overcomers
For the most part, the closest one might come in heavy metal to collective improvisation is with dueling guitar solos (or dueling guitar-keyboard, guitar-bass, or whatever else). The problem is, these flights of multi-musician fancy don’t typically involve the same type of musical conversation as in jazz. Instead, if you see Dream Theater live, for example, you will find John Petrucci doing a back-and-forth with Jordan Rudess on keyboards, where they trade off several bars, each trying to out-play the other. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that sort of coupled soloing; in fact, it tends to be quite entertaining. Still, the model remains that of the individual virtuoso (or of two individual virtuosos, in which case the number ‘1’ remains a more important signifier than the number ‘2’), struggling heroically against all odds to emerge victorious, having slayed all rivals with the intensity and sincerity of her skill.
As a sidebar, I don’t mean to play too much into the hands of those who believe that heavy metal is about nothing but virtuosity. I think that’s far from the truth, and that’s actually one of the main problems I had with the otherwise quite interesting book by musicologist Robert Walser, entitled Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Apart from seeming quite dated now (it was originally published in 1993), I think Walser relies too heavily on the notion that the primary mode of transgression in heavy metal arises from instrumental prowess. Still, it’s an interesting book, and one of the (very) few academic books on the subject of heavy metal, and may well be worth your time to wade through some of the overwrought passages to discover the musicological and critical theoretical insights. It’s available here from Amazon, and certainly plenty of other places, too.
Sorry for not giving a shit about Van Halen
Well, I’ve definitely banged on about this too much already, so I’ll try to wrap things up. I think where Walser has it wrong, and why I don’t want to overemphasize this highly atomized, individualistic reading of heavy metal as sheer virtuoso performance, is that there are plenty of metal bands out there that succeed precisely because they avoid emphasizing one musician’s skill above that of another, and instead focus on working as an entity. Neurosis comes to mind first, primarily because I’ve been rocking their new album Live at Roadburn 2007 recently. Here is a band, though, which seems less like a collection of individual voices, and more like a collective, through which different voices occasionally speak. That model is all fine and good, and obviously the amount of reverence shown a band like Neurosis is an indication that I’m not the only one who thinks this way.
What remains un- (or at least under-) explored in heavy metal, though, is exactly this kind of collective improvisation, this quickly-shifting musical conversation between members of the band that I find so thrillingly present in these live recordings of Miles Davis and his band. I’d like to see metal bands able to move from these two poles of either playing completely as a pulsating organism (the ‘Neurosis Model’, say) or as a preconceived structure atop which the Nietzschean Over-Man dazzles with his unfathomable mastery (the ‘Metallica Model’, say – I’m not claiming that Kirk Hammett is the pinnacle of guitar wizardry, it’s just the example already in play). Instead, there remains this tantalizing third way, in which a band locks in the skeleton of a song structure – a set tempo, maybe, or a flash of half a guitar riff – and then launches into an actual conversation between equals.
This is, for the most part, far less flashy than a Steve Vai guitargasm, and requires more patience and closer listening than the monolithic heft of Neurosian song-mountains. It’s as much about listening as it is about speaking, but if the bands can learn to listen, and we listeners can learn to listen to the ongoing conversation, heavy metal can yet achieve a more intimate sense of community; a community not just of fans who listen to the same music, nor of individuals who gain access to community by virtue of technical merit. A community always in the process of creating itself; an improvised community.
Hello, friends. Things are a bit slow ’round here at Spinal Tapdance HQ this Friday, though the merciful drop in temperature is much appreciated, primarily because the greater Chicago area no longer feels like one giant humid ass.
Thanks a lot, global warming, for making this...
...feel like this.
A few points to toss out there before we all enjoy our long Labor Day weekend shenanigans:
1) Kylesa. I know I’ve been rambling on about this insanely rad band for a while now (it was just two days ago that I fell all over myself to the opening track from their upcoming album, Spiral Shadow). Poking around the metallic nether-regions of the internet recently, however, I’ve come across some rather peculiar criticisms of Kylesa. Now, I don’t particularly care if you don’t dig the same music I do, and I don’t even care if you engage in the most ruthlessly shame-faced ad hominem attacks to express those opinions.
After all, that’s why the internet was created. I mean, sure, the DoD will tell you it was to protect vital infrastructure in the event of nuclear war, but for real, it was just so some guy at the DoD could spam everyone he knew about how Maggie Thatcher was such a great lay and that Nikita Kruschev had a penchant for intimacy with rodeo clowns. I mean, frig it, DARPA probably actually stands for Douchebags And Really Pissy Assholes.
I’ve gotten off topic. Ah, yes. The criticism of Kylesa that I just cannot countenance is the argument that their two drummers should be doing more off-the-wall stuff. (I’ve come across this opinion several times, but one of the more notable recent entrants to the field is this column from MetalSucks.) I think this opinion is wrong-headed for two reasons:
– a. First, it’s just wrong. Take a listen to Kylesa, would you? More specifically, take a listen to Kylesa in the following way: Give a listen to last year’s Static Tensions in your favorite pair of (non-shitty) headphones. I find it a great pleasure to follow the mixing of the drums across stereo channels. But fine, maybe this line of criticism has a point, in that Kylesa’s two drummers aren’t typically doing anything psychotic like trying to match a 4/4 rhythm on one kit with a 3/4 waltz beat on the second kit.
For my money, though, that’s not the point. Instead, the fact that Kylesa have got two drummers is a crucial component of their overall SOUND. These complaints, on the other hand, seem mostly directed against their SONGWRITING. The fact that these two guys are usually mirroring one another on the drums, or maybe trading fills, is absolutely essential to the way Kylesa’s music sounds. (I’ll be a music douche and throw ‘timbre’ out there.) Sure, if they only had one drummer, the songs would be written in much the same way, but the execution would be noticeably different.
You see, having two drummers gives them that unique attribute of sounding both raw and polished, thick and somewhat brittle all at once. Because when you have two drummers playing in a band, even if you ask them to play the exact same thing, there are ineffable human differences in the way those precise rhythms will be played that cannot (and, I am arguing, absolutely SHOULD NOT) be ironed out by technology. The ear hears the same rhythm, but also hears that rhythm’s simultaneous echo.
– b. Second, I’m fairly certain that if Kylesa’s two drummers WERE to bust out some insanely complicated polyrhythms, or if one of them were to spend an entire song doing NOTHING BUT TOM FILLS, the only complaint one would hear would be, “Ah, that two drummer thing is such a fucking gimmick. They’re just playing an ol’ crazy shit they can think of; couldn’t they just play TOGETHER for once?”
Well, fuck that. And fuck you, too (maybe). We ARE on the internet, after all.
2) Enslaved have posted the lead track from their upcoming album Axioma Ethica Odini on their MySpace page. In my book, everything these Norwegians have done thus far has been stellar, but after hearing this track, I’m even more pumped for the upcoming album. It’s a pretty epic track, but maintains a discernible structure and a chorus which, at first listen, seems quite catchy, but has some really bizarre melodic and chord progressions as is befitting a band of Enslaved’s recently-psychedelic ilk. My favorite part is the supremely tasty guitar lead toward the end of the track, which is reminiscent of the searing leads in one of my all-time favorite Enslaved tunes, “As Fire Swept Clean the Earth,” from 2003’s Below the Lights. Check it out, and get excited for the September 28th (American) release on Nuclear Blast.
3) I hadn’t really seen any word of this kicking around online until I was randomly browsing Crucial Blast’s webstore the other day, but Gnaw Their Tongues has just put out a new album on that label. It’s called L’Arrivée De La Terne Mort Triomphante, and it’s officially out September 7th, but it’s up for purchase at Crucial Blast now. I’ve just ordered my copy, and am thus eagerly awaiting another chance to defile my eardrums/soul with this latest missive of blackened, noisy filth from Mories.
Dude is another one of those probably-too-prolific-for-his-music’s-own-good kind of guys (Striborg, Hellveto, Xasthur, I’m looking at you, guys – don’t even get me started on that French dude whose ‘band’ name starts with a Z and looks like onomatopoeia for vomit), but the last two full-lengths have been mesmerizing in their single-minded pursuit of musical depravity.
Your grandmother would love it!
4) Last, it’s Labor Day this Monday, which for most Americans means an extra day off work, one last chance to get shit-faced at the beach before winter (“Gather ye Hefeweizens while ye may,” goes the old poem), and an orgy of last-minute consumer spending on school supplies for the wee bastard children. Thing is, Labor Day used to be, well, a celebration of the political aspirations and achievements (many still embryonic) of the American labor movement. None of you out there will be unaware of the sorry state of the American (and, indeed, global) economy currently, but what we should also remember is that in times of economic crisis, it is often the forces of labor which are “asked” to sacrifice more for the health of capital.
I don’t have anything particularly more profound to add to that, other than to suggest that you take some time this Labor Day to appreciate the achievements of decades upon decades of labor struggles.
To that end, and as a sort of addendum to the column I did a little while back on Heavy Metal Cocktails, I offer this quick, simple recipe for the Worker’s Shandy:
Ingredients:
– 1 can or bottle of the lager of your choice. Beautiful thing about this shandy is, it basically doesn’t matter how shitty the beer is, but you can also do it up fancy with any sort of $12 imported beer you like.
– 1/2 lemon
– Dash of salt
– Optional: A few dashes Angostura or Peychaud’s bitters, or a dash of Worcestershire sauce.
Directions:
Pour the fresh-squeezed juice of half a lemon into a pint glass. Pour the beer into the pint glass. Throw a dash of salt atop the beer. The salt represents the sweat on the worker’s brow; the lemon, the bittersweet sense of labor’s achievement’s and subsequent retrenchments. The beer, well, the beer’s just beer, which is scrumptious. If this basic (and not particularly sweetened) shandy needs a bit more spice for your taste, give it a try with a few dashes of bitters of your choice, or even, if you’re feeling especially crushed by the relentless grind of the wheels of industry, a dash of Worcestershire sauce. These additions can, if you like, symbolize the blood of the workers of the world, still waiting to unite.
Drink well-chilled, and at your own damn pace. Don’t let anyone give you any shit.
Different people listen to music differently. Seems painfully obvious, sure, but since I posted a little while back about quizzing myself on how well I knew my own music collection (apparently, I half-know my collection…) I’ve been thinking about just how it is that we recognize and/or remember particular music.
This got me trying to figure out what metal songs are most likely to find themselves stuck in my head. While thinking through that, it seemed that most of the results I came up with were songs I would identify because of their vocal hook; basically, shower sing-a-long type songs.
Here are just a few examples of some of my favorite heavy metal sing-a-longs, then:
Judas Priest, “Heavy Duty/Defenders of the Faith (Live)”
Sure, I occasionally get the slow-motion blues-stomp of “Heavy Duty” in there, but it’s primarily the “Defenders of the Faith” sing-a-long that I find banging around in there all the time.
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Nile, “Black Seeds of Vengeance”
For whatever reason, the first line of this song has always stuck with me (“The scourge of Amalek is upon you…”), but other than that, it’s obviously just the crushing death/doom breakdown at the end, chanting the song title ad infinitum that gets me every time.
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Dark Angel, “Darkness Descends”
Again, it’s just the chorus here. Watch your neighbors and coworkers recoil in disgust as you let loose your venomous saliva to the soothing sounds of “The city is guilty / The crime is life / The sentence is death / Darkness deSCEEEENDS!”
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Metallica, “Creeping Death (Live)”
The chorus on this classic track is a great one to shout along with, but everyone’s favorite participatory moment has got to be the breakdown – where else but at a metal show is it considered socially acceptable to scream “DIE!!! DIE!!! DIE!!!” at the vein-bulging, eye-popping top of one’s lungs?
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Bathory, “Woman of Dark Desires”
Probably with some effort I could figure out what Quorthon’s yelling in the verses, but for the most part, I’m happy enough to croak along to the chorus on this, one of my favorite Bathory tracks.
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Mayhem, “Funeral Fog”
Most black metal is total balls to sing along to, but Attila’s inimitable vocals are, nonetheless, fun to imitate. “FYOOOOOO-NER-EEE-UHHHL……FUGH!!!”
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That’s obviously just a small cross-section of the metal songs that tend to get stuck in my head. The interesting thing, though, is that it seems pretty clear that I gravitate much more toward vocal hooks than guitar riffs. I mean, some of these songs have riffs that are extremely easy to recall to the mind (“Creeping Death,” especially, but even the minor tremelo blitz of “Funeral Fog”), but for the most part, these songs get stuck in my head because of the vocals.
I wonder, then, if it has something to do with the fact that I don’t play the guitar? An interesting question to pose to metalheads, then, is: Are guitar players more likely to get riffs stuck in their heads, or are the songs in their heads there, like they are for me, as sing-a-longs? It’s a bit more difficult to “sing” along with a guitar riff, but I wouldn’t be surprised if different people identify more closely with different parts of a song, in which case it would seem to have something to do with how we listen to a song.
For my part, it seems to be vocal melodies, catchy choruses, and so forth, that stick in the mind after I’m listening. When I’m in the act of listening, though, I do often find myself concentrating more closely on the guitar, or following drum fills, or picking out the bass line – those things just don’t tend to stick to my gray matter as cloyingly as the human voice.
Yet another thing that I noticed from this brief stream-of-consciousness song list is that most of the these songs whose vocal tracks get lodged in my brain are in some way thrash-inspired. Clearly, Metallica and Dark Angel are thrash, but that Bathory track is a very thrashy one, and the chorus of “Funeral Fog” switches between straight-on black metal blasting and a more thrash-paced break.
The odd thing is, I don’t necessarily consider thrash to be one of my favorite genres, so I wasn’t expecting to see such a thrash influence here. The more I think about it, though, it makes sense that thrash-inspired songs might be more memorable, inasmuch as the genre has a heavy focus on jagged, intensely rhythmic delivery, whereas songs from death metal or black metal often truck along with less variation.
Or, at least, the vocals in thrash are often delivered in a sort of complimentarity to the riffs, whereas in certain other genres, the guitar work is meant to provide texture rather than clearly identifiable structure, so it may be more difficult to pluck the vocals out of that textural mass.
Guitar players out there: Do you ignore vocals and remember only riffs? Drummers: Do you ever recall anything other than how tight some dude’s snare is? Singers: Do you ever listen to Attila Csihar and despair, knowing that nothing you ever produce with your vocal cords will match that level of depravity?
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In some other random news:
– Red Harvest has broken up, and that just bums me the fuck out. For my money, nobody out there did cold, antisocial industrial metal better, and they will be sorely missed. See the band’s Myspace for details. To help you through the grieving process, check out some official live clips from their 20th anniversary show last year. Four songs from the show are available here.
– Neurosis has just put out an official live album, capturing their performance at Roadburn in 2007. It is available from Neurot Recordings at this location. Go, give yourself to the rising.
– Across Tundras have a new album out, and it’s cheap from their webstore. I absolutely LOVE their first full-length, Dark Songs of the Prairie (probably the best replacement for the sorely-missed Gault), but I haven’t followed any of the intervening releases. I’ve just ordered my copy, though, and will gladly report in due time. Here’s to hoping for more doomed-out Americana.
– Devin Townsend finally announced more tour dates on his upcoming headlining tour, including a fervently hoped-for (by me, at least) stop in Chicago in November. FUCK YES. Ahem. Check out the full list of tour dates here, and do not miss this heavy metal wizard if he’s swinging through your stomping grounds.
That’s all for now, friends. Be good to each other, and please have a very heavy metal Wednesday.
Spinal Tapdance 