Rhythm is a funny thing. For the avid music listener, then, I’d wager a fair sum that the way rhythms are internalized has a lot to deal with the way one experiences time. And perhaps, even more so than a similar melody, or musical key, or instrumental timbre or anything else, it’s rhythm that can rightfully claim to be the preexisting undercurrent of raw musical material from which individual songs and artists only occasionally borrow, like drilling down through dry topsoil, through shale and limestone and dead rivers, only to hit, eventually – inevitably – on a current of time that speeds the whole world along with it.
That’s why, I suppose, these songs, which on their surface have nothing to do with one another, may actually be the same song in some meaningful sense. At least, once you’ve caught that rhythm, you don’t hear it with your ears or see its sound waves with your mind’s eye – it works you from within, like your chest is a warm antenna pulling in signals from the center of the earth:
Gnarls Barkley, “Open Book”
Aphex Twin, “Bucephalus Bouncing Ball” (see especially the section from 3:04 onward)
If you’ve ever spent much time writing album reviews, chances are you already know how much your appreciation of a record can change across multiple listenings. I don’t think there’s any great rule to follow about how many times one ought to listen to something before trying to say anything reasonably articulate about it, but it’s also pretty safe to say that if one bashes out a review before the album has even passed the finish line, shit ain’t right.
This isn’t a lecture, though. Maybe what online music journalism needs, in fact, are interpretive haikus, stream of consciousness fits of creative nonfiction, and album reviews written matter-of-factly about music which either does not exist, or has not been heard by the writer. That’s your own business. (Actually, now that I think about it, writing Reviews Of Nonexistent Albums sounds like a possibly worthwhile undertaking…)
I’ve been wondering, though, just why it is that our first impressions often change so much in the fullness of time. Sadly, I’m sure many times, it’s because our first impressions are later realized to be out of step with the general consensus, and so we either consciously or subconsciously alter our opinion accordingly. Still, even the most genuinely hermetically walled-off of us have been there. We find that we are not the stolid rocks of constancy we once thought ourselves to be, and that even We, the cosmically ordained, are not impermeable in the face of the wending shuffle of time.
I’d like to propose a little diagnostic of the various ways in which, it seems to me, our opinion of an album can change from first to later listenings. I’ve offered a few examples of my own under each category only by way of illustration, but I’m curious to see if there isn’t something systematic about these different types of records which leads them to be first and then later impressed upon us differently.
————————————————————-
Type 1:“The Winner”: Albums that you love when you first hear them, and which you continue to love subsequently.
– This is a pretty straightforward category, and obviously has very little to do with changed opinions. Still, you know the type. You spin it once, think, “Shit, that’s awesome!” Then, you keep spinning it, and it just gets better and better. I suspect most folks would place most of their favorite albums in this category, although I also suspect there are some closet Type 4s lurking in there…
Examples:
– Tough category to pick examples for, then, since there are so many albums to fit the bill.
– Doomriders, Darkness Come Alive. This is just an absolute FUCKING MONSTER of an album that just gets better every single time I play it. Hardcore? Rock? Metal? Who gives a shit: Doomriders are here to tear you apart.
– Primordial, The Gathering Wilderness. Basically, nothing can fuck with this album. Ever. This is one of the most evocative pieces of music I’ve yet to encounter in the wide world of metal. Pure class.
– Lurker Of Chalice, Lurker Of Chalice. I dig most of the stuff that Wrest has put out under the Leviathan name, but the Lurker Of Chalice album just has an atmosphere all its own. Haunting and haunted, and soothing without being safe.
Do not try to fuck with this.
Type 2: “The Piece Of Shit”: Albums that you hate when you first hear them, and which you continue to hate subsequently.
– This is also a pretty straightforward category. We’ve all been there, where we play something, suggest to our friends and acquaintances that it sounds like an old dog retching violently onto a turntable playing an old Alvin & the Chipmunks record, and leave it at that. Days or weeks later, we are subjected again to this execrable document to the miserable state of the human condition, and contemplate inflicting bodily harm on the individuals responsible.
Examples:
– Again, there must be shitloads upon shitloads of albums in this category for me. Maybe I’ll pick a few slightly less obvious examples, then:
– Suffocation, Suffocation. I actually like a lot of Suffocation’s other stuff, but man, something about this record just rubs me right the goddamn wrong way.
– Aethenor, Betimes Black Cloudmasses. Son of a BITCH this record is booooooring. And it’s not like I automatically slag off anything drone-y or ambient; this one just pissed me off.
– Novembers Doom, Into Night’s Requiem Infernal. I’m beginning to wonder if maybe this category (Type 2) isn’t especially filled with albums that have disappointed us. I really liked the two Novembers Doom records which preceded this one, but ugh. Nothing about this was appealing or convincing.
Hey, guys, that title? Completely meaningless nonsense.
Type 3: “The Jumped-The-Gun”: Albums that you love when you first hear them, but which you begin to hate upon subsequent examination.
– In some ways, this is the most interesting of these categories to me. This type of reaction is for those albums that really blow you away the first time you play them, but then lose whatever vitality they seemed to have upon further listening. It seems probable that this category is populated with albums that have some cache of novelty to spend, but seem hollow and insubstantial once that novelty has worn off.
Examples:
– Eluveitie, Slania. I should have known better than to be impressed by this one, I suppose. Still, the great glossy production and the superficial sheen of folk instrumentation were sufficient to distract me from the utterly subpar Gothenburg tedium that lurked within.
– Solefald, In Harmonia Universali. I feel kind of badly about including this one. I still really like Solefald, honest, I do, but geez, this album just wears on my nerves something awful. It was the first record of theirs that I bought, and I was totally into it at first, what with the lyrics in like twelve different languages, and the quite off-kilter songwriting style. The vocal style is what first started to grate on me, though, and now, every time this comes on, I just get bored and want to go fly a kite or something. I’m much more about The Linear Scaffold these days.
– Megadeth, United Abominations. I suppose I’m not the only one who got dragged into this. By this point, I’m just sick of Mustaine in general, but I’ll admit it, I gobbled up this album like crazy when it came out. I, like many of you, had been horribly burned by Megadeth in the past (Youthanasia, Cryptic Writings, and so forth), but had pretty much ignored the previous albums that been hailed as ‘returns to form’. Don’t know why I believed that about this one, then. I really dug it at first, because, well, you know, it was slightly fast, and had some solos and what not. Over time, though, and especially with the release of Endgame (which is, scientifically speaking, five hundred times better than this turgid mess), I just cannot abide Mustaine’s self-righteous mumbling about the United Nations, the Middle East, and God knows what else. Seriously, man: Rust In Peace or get the fuck out.
Not so much with the universal harmonies; sorry.
Type 4: “The Pleasant Surprise”: Albums that you hate when you first hear them, but which you begin to love upon subsequent examination.
– This is sort of the dark horse category, I think. Every now and then, though, I’ll hear something for the first time that just sounds like absolute garbage. I’ll shut it off, and maybe even chuck it out, in a fit of disappointed rage. But then, some time later, it’ll come on again, and somehow I’ll hear it in a different light, and suddenly it clicks somehow.
Examples: – Akercocke, Choronzon. So, this is an example of how this categorization isn’t perfect. Which is to say, I don’t think I ever straight-up hated this album, but I sure didn’t care much for it the first time through. Over subsequent listenings, though, I came to appreciate it a lot more. I still think the albums they’ve put out since then are superior – in particular, the magnificent Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone.
– The Ruins Of Beverast, Rain Upon The Impure. Okay, in all fairness, this one is still my least favorite of the three Ruins of Beverast albums. Nevertheless, given my slightly disgusting love for the Unlock the Shrine album, my disappointment the first time through this album was fucking massive. As near as I’ve been able to figure it out, though, my problem was basically with my expectations for the production. Rain Upon The Impure has one of quietest, most distant sounding black metal productions I’ve heard in some time, which is extremely offputting, unless (and this is a crucial unless) you crank it REALLY LOUDLY. Doing so finally allowed me to appreciate this album as still quite excellent.
– At The Gates, Slaughter of the Soul. This is sort of the reverse case as with Eluveitie above. First few times I heard this album, I wrote it off as a bit dull and not particularly creative. Maybe I lacked the necessary historical context at the time, or maybe I just hadn’t listened to this album at a sufficient volume. I’d like to think I appreciate this album exactly the right amount now, which is that this is a complete shit-kicker of an album that destroys anything else in the style. Unfortunately, the influence of this album has been far more malign than inspired. Hardly their fault, though.
Survey says: Better than you think!
————————————————–
Thoughts? Which albums have you completely dismissed out of hand, only to find out later that you couldn’t bear to do without them? Or, alternately, which albums are your great shames; y’know, the ones that you loved and loved to death and couldn’t get enough of, and then, all of a sudden, you figure out, “Hey, this really fucking sucks”?
I’ve been thinking lately about the sheer level of inundation that we followers of music face these days. In many ways, I think this is a fantastic development, particularly with the healthy state of the underground’s manifold scenes and subcultures. Maybe, on the other hand, that supposed strength is really just a reflection of the crippling weakness of the traditional music industry. Important questions, but not exactly what I’m concerned with here.
You see, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that I don’t really know my music all that well. Sure, I know a whole lot about music, but what I’m thinking is, basically, holy shit, I have got so much different music at my disposal each and every minute of every day that there is no way I can possible distinguish between it all.
To that end, I’m forcing myself to do a blind listening test. I’ve collected all the metal in my iTunes onto a playlist, and I am going to put it on random, turn off my computer monitor so as to disallow any cheating, and then attempt to identify the first ten songs that come up on the playlist. Find my running commentary below, with the actual results in brackets below each guess. See you on the other side.
——————————————————————
1. So, this is a pretty tasty morsel right here. When it first played through, I was thinking it was something along the lines of the melodic death metal attack of God Dethroned. Now that this chorus of ‘Stigma Diabolicum’ kicks in, however, I’m pretty sure that this is Austrian black/death metal horde Belphegor. Definitely from one of their more recent albums, but I sure as hell couldn’t tell you which one.
I’ll take a stab at it, and say I think it’s from that album whose goddamn name escapes me at the moment, but not the most recent one (Hexenwahn whatever), nor from Bondage Goat Zombie, so their third most recent.
[It was: Belphegor, “Stigma Diabolicum,” but that IS from Bondage Goat Zombie. Pestapokalypse IV was what I was thinking of, but I was wrong to do so. Anyway, I’m still counting that one as correct.]
2. Hmm, I’m at quite a loss on this one. It starts off with some black noise-ish segments, before kicking into some seriously crypt-kicking production, low echoing death howls, and a generally chaotic riff-and-drum attack. My best guess is that this is from Weapon’s Drakonian Paradigm album.
[It was: Mitochondrion, “Wraithlike,” from Archaeaeon. Definitely haven’t spent enough time with that record, but I don’t think that Weapon guess is too far off.]
3. Son of a bitch this is all going to be embarrassing. This starts off all jangly and reverb-y, so I’m thinking definitely 90s black metal. But, shit, those vocals are all death gurgly, plus there’s a total Ihsahn howl in there somewhere. It’s not Emperor, but it might be one of those classic mid-90s black/death hybrids like Dawn or Sacramentum. I suppose it’s also possible it’s Naglfar or something like that, but the death influence seems a bit too strong for that.
Fuck, I’ve got tons of wild guesses, but no great ones. Vocals now sound like Jonas Renske’s on Bloodbath. Hmm. Maybe I’m forgetting some old more straight-ahead Katatonia side project? Anyway, I’m going with my first instinct, which was Dawn, from the Slaughtersun record.
[It was: Aeternus, “Dark Rage,” from Shadows of Old. So, I was totally on the right track with that ‘classic but underappreciated black/death hybrid from the mid- to late 90s’ jag. Just turns out that I am no better than all the rest at appreciating Aeternus. Killer tune, although I prefer their first two records.]
4. Crazy chamber music intro. Is this from the new Sigh? Oh, wow. Embarrassing. I’ve just mistaken Serj Tankian’s live, all-orchestral run through of his solo album Elect the Dead for Japan’s finest psychedelic black metal blasters. Apologies to everyone involved. Anyway, this, for sure, is Serj Tankian. Tracks called “Money,” I think.
[It was: Serj Tankian, “Money,” from the Elect the Dead Symphony. Clearly an unqualified win, there, but I kinda want to shave off some points just for thinking it was Sigh.]
5. Ah, thankfully an easy one on which I will not embarrass myself. This is Isis. Or, at least, this is one of the tracks from the double-disc collection of reinterpretations of songs from Isis’ landmark 2002 (?) album Oceanic. Couldn’t exactly tell you which track this is, but it’s one of the mellower ones, currently playing around with some nice organ tones, and then throwing Aaron Turner’s hoarse bellows out in the middle of this sparse instrumental expanse. Very cool to hear this fantastic album broken down into its constituent pieces.
[It was: Isis, “The Other,” as interpreted/remixed by James Plotkin, from the Oceanic: Remixes/Reinterpretations compilation. Success.]
6. Whoa, that’s a harsh fucking contrast. At first I thought this was Ildjarn, such is the hideous level of lo-fi noise emanating from my speakers at the moment. On further consideration, though, my best guess is that this is very early Emperor, from the self-titled/Wrath of the Tyrant CD reissue. And yet, and yet… Damn, I’m second-guessing myself something fierce now. Nope, sticking with Emperor. Damned if I know the song, though. Shameful.
[It was: Belketre, “Demzreyavbtre Belketraya,” from Ambre Zuerkl Vuorhdrevarvtre. SON OF A BITCH. Of course there is absolutely no reason for you to believe me now, but up there, when I wrote “I’m second-guessing myself something fierce now,” I absolutely was going to say “This sounds like it could also be some of that LLN stuff, maybe Belketre or Vlad Tepes.” Fuuuuuuck. Sorry Ihsahn, sorry Norway, sorry France.]
7. Man, am I really making a poor showing of this. At first blush, this track sounds like something tribal-ish and noisecore-y (adjectives are not my strong suit this morning). Gets a bit more blasting, and then when the vocals kicks in, I’m fairly certain that’s Steve Austin’s coruscating howl, so I think this is Today is the Day. Now that I think about it, that makes good sense, since I think this is from when TITD had Bill and Brann from Mastodon in the band. So, again, I’ve got no clue on the track title, but I think this is Today is the Day from In the Eyes of God. Fingers crossed.
[It was: Converge, “Letterbomb,” from When Forever Comes Crashing. Wow. Just, wow. I totally thought this was Converge at first, but then I gradually convinced myself that those vocals were not, in fact, Jacob Bannon but were, instead, Steve Austin. Shit. Still, goes to show that either Converge can pull off some fucking metal sounding production earlier on, or that Today is the Day were never as metal as one thought.]
8. Extended instrumental intro section makes song identification a bit tricky, folks. Let’s kick in some fucking metal, eh? Oh, that was the whole song? Well, fuck you very much. I don’t know, man. I literally have NO CLUE what this is. I’m also about 100% sure that this is NOT a song by The Ocean, but that’s what I’m going to guess anyway.
[It was: Tombs, “Story of a Room,” from Winter Hours. Man, that sucks. I really love that record. Out of context, I guess it’s a lot trickier to match guitar tone to artist. Still, I knew it wasn’t The Ocean. Just had to put any old shit down.]
9. This is a pretty nimble, black/folk attack. My first inclination is to go with Borknagar. Yep, there’s good ol’ Vintersorg. Pretty unmistakable timbre on that dude. I suppose this could be Vintersorg (the project) as well as Vintersorg (the man), but I think his solo(ish) stuff never got quite so black as this. So, I’m going to go with Borknagar. Let’s see, when did Vintersorg join? I’m going to hazard a guess that this track is from the Empiricism album.
[It was: Borknagar, “The Genuine Pulse,” from Empiricism. Awesome.]
10. This is Mastodon. For sure. That vaguely Southern-tinged finger-picked acoustic intro was a pretty fast giveaway. But, sadness of sadness, I’m wavering as to which album this is from. At first, I was thinking maybe this was from Crack the Skye, given its quite mellow character. But, hmm. Damn, this is shameful. Still, now I’m maybe 80% confident that this is the closing track from Leviathan, which is called, I believe, “Joseph Merrick.”
C’mon, Mastodon, can’t you help a brother out? Sure would be nice to close out this cavalcade of fuck-ups and metal failures with an unabashed WIN.
[It was: Mastodon, “Pendulous Skin,” from Blood Mountain. Sweet fucking houndstooth pajamas. So, despite being totally dead-on about Mastodon, turns out the two albums I was wheedling back and forth between were both the WRONG FUCKING ALBUM.]
(11. As I was finishing up typing some of these comments, Mastodon faded out, and in kicks the inimitable vocals of Phil Anselmo from Down’s first album, NOLA. Thanks, dude, for giving me another confidence booster. Track’s called “Losing All,” but I can’t claim credit, as Anselmo actually tells you that.)
Okay, now it’s time to turn the monitor back on and see just how shittily I’ve done.
—————————————————————————————————–
So, I’m giving myself five out of ten. I know I had the album wrong on a bunch of those, but I’m pleased enough to have just identified the artist correctly half the time. And honestly, that’s quite a lot better than I thought I would do at this.
The whole point, though, is not to simply pat myself on the back, or subject myself to an extreme bout of self-castigation. Instead, I think this is really indicative of something. Perhaps it’s just me, but I have a feeling that I’m not alone in being in the thrall of the unending pursuit of novelty in music.
I just think, maybe, that it’s time we recognize at what cost this ragged, wide-eyed pursuit must come.
Hello, friends. Not too much is shaking ’round Spinal Tapdance HQ today, but I was thinking that maybe I’d like to send a mixtape to each and every one of you. But then, of course, real life intrudes. Logistics, &c. The mind boggles.
So, please accept this poor substitute; namely, a “mixtape” in the form of a whole mess of YouTube links. Still, these are some of the jams that have been helping me beat the heat around here. Enjoy!
1. Amorphis – “The Castaway” (1994)
2. Dream Theater – “Stargazer” (Rainbow Cover) (2009, original 1976)
3. Sleep – “Dragonaut” (1993)
4. Unearthly Trance – “God Is A Beast” (2008)
5. Swans – “I Remember Who You Are” (1989)
6. Devin Townsend – “Material” (2000)
7. Madder Mortem – “Formaldehyde” (2009)
8. Anaal Nathrakh – “Do Not Speak” (2004)
9. Neurosis – “Locust Star” (1996)
10. Nick Drake – “Cello Song” (1970)
Please have a (mostly) Very Heavy Metal Wednesday.
So, I’m two days or so late with this update, but presumably you are all just as giddy with anticipation as I for Iron Maiden’s new album, titled The Final Frontier. Official news has final broken on an August 16th release date (which I can only assume/hope will translate into an August 17th release date here in the States), along with this frankly bitching cover art:
In space, no one can hear you headbang
This August release date, unfortunately, is well beyond the end of Maiden’s summer US tour (currently under way, and to be attended by yours truly in mid-July), but the band has put the album’s first single, “El Dorado,” up on their website for free download, so I would recommend dropping pretty much whatever puny thing it is you may be doing and directing yourself directly to this press release on their website for directions on downloading the single. Frankly, if you don’t have at least seven minutes to devote to heavy metal today, I don’t even know what you think you’re doing around here. Plus, the single download comes with this exclusive comic-art-inspired image:
"Fuck yes," is the basic conclusion you must reach
Looks a little bit Dr.-Manhattan-on-Mars-in-Watchmen, and a little bit Lord-Weird-Slough-Feg’s-Hardworlder, but also looks one hundred per cent bad-ass. QED.
Anyway, go check out the track for yourself. It’s not the snappiest single ever, but it seems like it will probably make for a really solid album track, and it’s got a really tight solo-trading section. Plus, it comes in and ends on a totally heavy metal free-fill section, so it seems perfectly crafted for dropping seamlessly into their current live set.
What are the Irish always so fucked off about, I wonder?
Following fairly hotly on the heels of last year’s excellent debut album White Tomb comes this hefty (36 minutes) EP from the Irish black metal band Altar Of Plagues. Another of the almost uniformly-excellent bands on Profound Lore’s current roster, Altar Of Plagues wields a meditative, dense fusion of elemental black metal and the drawn-out song structures of insert-your-favorite-variety-of-“post-“-influenced-metal-here. This EP, which I seem to recall reading was written on the road (the band thanks the Roadburn Festival in the liner notes), is a nice little teaser for future efforts, and thus is not quite up to the high standard set by White Tomb, but doesn’t quite seem as though it was intended to be. To put it another way, I think that this band’s style is generally better-suited to the album-length statement, but these two tracks certainly show no precipitous drop in quality.
Of the two lengthy songs on offer here, I think opener “Atlantic Light” comes off slightly better, in large part due to its meatier feel. (Somewhat ironic, innit, that the track “Atlantic Light” comes off as all-around heavier than the slightly more spacious “The Weight Of All”?) The track kicks off with a nearly depressive black metal-styled plod, which eventually locks into that stretched-out, black metal/post-rock groove the band lived in so comfortably on previous releases. The comparison is probably a bit played-out by now, but these guys probably sound closer than anyone else to the pissed-off progeny of Wolves In The Throne Room and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. “Atlantic Light” is also notable in the vocal department for throwing in some sludgey/noisecore-styled bellowing, which very nicely complements the more traditional post-BM rasping. These touches, though slight, might even give the band a bit of crossover appeal to fans of the somewhat spacier cast of the sludge/doom/hardcore/post-fucking-whatever spectrum (particularly Minsk, Rosetta, or Mouth of the Architect).
“The Weight Of All” touches on a somewhat wider palette of the band’s sonic and textural repertoire, perhaps unsurprisingly given its nearly 20-minute running time. Some of the nicest songwriting touches crop up towards the end, where the band goes from washes of ambient/noise drones, into a carefully-paced section of blasting, and then finally into a great momentum-gathering final push of double bass-led gravity. This is a band which really takes its time developing its ideas, which may require a bit of patience from the listener, but offers a fine contrast to the current glut of tech/death blast-athons. While we’re on the subject of blasting, the sections of blast-beating are generally few and far-between on this release, but when they crop up, especially in the penultimate movement of “The Weight Of All,” they have a pleasantly organic, loose, and almost shambolic quality, perhaps attributable to the exceptionally rattle-y snare drum. Where this slightly off-kilter blasting might sound sloppy if attached to your more garden-variety Satan-and-frostbitten-nipples black metal, I find it carries the the suspended, droning melody of these songs rather nicely.
The production on this EP is quite a bit muddier than on White Tomb, but for some reason it really works well with the songwriting. The crisp, clear production of the full-length worked well for the band’s sound as well, so I don’t know if the slightly dirtier tone here works only because of the few touches of sludge vocals thrown in, or maybe just because this whole release has the feel of a really promising young band out on the road, impatient to get some new ideas thrown down to tape before the moment passes; regardless, this sounds much more live, and really puts the listener in direct conversation with the mournful hue of these patient, well-crafted songs. All in all, though I’d much rather hear another full-length from this Irish band, these two songs whet the appetite nicely until the crepuscular, creaking world they apparently inhabit inspires them to further feats of sorrowful, avant-garde bleakness.
Next up on my quick run-through of a favorite artist’s discography is Autechre. Before diving in, though, it must be said that I have two pretty hefty bones to pick with these two English dudes. Bone the first: how in the fuck do you pronounce that name? This is an issue that I’m much more accustomed to dealing with when it comes to metal bands with either foreign language or made-up language names evoking various degrees of unpronouncibility (apparently not a word, but you know what I mean) or apoplectic, saliva-flecked rage in the pronunciation (Anaal Nathrakh, for example, or Nazxul – pretty sure there’s no way to say those names without sounding dangerously close to the edge of mental breakdown). But c’mon, guys – you’re English. I know it’s a bastard mongrel language, but I should at least have a general sense of how to get down to chewing on your name with my sound-forming muscles. Last time I did a bit of Google-imploring, the closest I was able to approximate is that it’s pronounced something like ‘awe-TEK-er’. Thankfully, one of the benefits of not having too many close friends into the exact same music as me is that there don’t arise too many opportunities for me to embarrass myself by tripping over an obviously incorrect pronunciation. Anyway, bone the second, which is really no fault of these dudes (Sean Booth and Rob Brown, by the way, for those of you playing along at home), is the stupid fucking ridiculous genre-designation ‘IDM’. Stands for ‘intelligent dance music’, which is just a hopelessly pretentious label, and not particularly helpful, especially when Autechre gets to that stage where they started fucking beats so mercilessly as to make any attempt at dancing a surefire way to self-induce a seizure.
(Seriously. Check out this [admittedly bad-ass] music video, and try to dance along a little bit:
Good fucking luck.)
Anyway, point is, I think IDM is a completely obnoxious term, and although it serves as a somewhat useful signifier for a range of avant-garde and off-kilter electronic acts from the early 1990s onwards (Aphex Twin, Black Dog Productions, The Orb [kind of], Plaid, Boards of Canada, µ-Ziq, or basically anyone early on the Warp records roster, &c., &c.), I hate it, and wish that, as a term, it would jump off a fucking cliff and die. So there.
Now that I’ve got that off the ol’ chest, on with the music.
Incunabula (1993):
Despite the fact that it sounds relatively conventional when compared to their later aural peregrinations, Incunabula arrived as a startlingly fully-formed whole. “Kalpol Intro” is one of the most brilliant introductory tracks ever written, and its haunting washes of static perfectly set up the rest of an album which is both ethereal and robotic, cerebral and warm. More or less straightforward rhythms propel these alien soundscapes, which, more often than not, are the structural support upon which are laid beautifully simple melodies (a trend picked up somewhat later by Boards of Canada). “Bike” and “Eggshell” are particularly favorites, but this album works wonderfully as a piece, and comes absolutely as close as any album I’ve ever heard (perhaps barring Aphex Twin’s landmark Selected Ambient Works, ’87-’92) to serving as the perfect soundtrack to a slow-motion dance party for underwater robots. Seriously. Listen with your eyes.
Amber (1994):
Released just a year after their debut album, Amber is very much like a slightly spookier twin of Incunabula. The rhythms remain mostly straightforward, but the synth washes and melodies occasionally suggest a greater undercurrent of anxiety or menace; see especially the opener “Foil,” or “Silverside.” The comparatively briefer track “Nine” is a lovely piece of ambient suspension, featuring the type of taut string-sounding synths that will crop up later in Autechre’s discography, albeit in more and more chopped and processed versions. Check out the seemingly effortless melodic and rhythmic interplay on display throughout the stunning “Further.” This album also features Autechre’s least computerized album cover, by far. Some might see this record as too much of a holding pattern from the debut, but I think it’s just as likely to see it as a refinement of the themes and moods of Incunabula; neither album, however, gave much hint of the sea change to be found in their third, and defiantly best, album, Tri Repetae.
Tri Repetae ++ (1995):
As suggested above, Tri Repetae is my absolute favorite Autechre album, and probably the one that would serve as the best introduction to the group for a virgin listener. Basically, the way I envision it, this album is something like a fulcrum for the rest of Autechre’s recorded output, in that it balances the warmth and mostly straightforward rhythmic tendencies of the first two records with the experimentation and more clinical sound of much of the group’s later work. This album still functions well as a whole, but whereas Incunabula and Amber felt very much texturally and sonically unified throughout their playing time, I have the very distinct feeling on Tri Repetae that each individual track creates its own sonic and textural world; the snarling bass flares of “Dael,” for example, introduce themselves right up front, but then Booth and Brown patiently introduce other elements in such a way that when all the layers of the song have been added, it presents an aural environment to just sit and get lost in. Check out, for example, the way that the main synth melody in “Clipper” is mixed in and out of the foreground in such a way that the melody plays almost like a hymn to the Doppler effect. “Leteral” is another strikingly brilliant sound-world; the initial rhythmic pattern sounds to me like pistons throbbing in a great steam-shrouded factory, but it is quickly joined by an understated organ and some gentle synth overtones which move that great factory into the clouds. Obviously, I could go on and on about this record, describing for you exactly how the constituent parts of each song combine to produce a collision of density and space, harmony and industrial rhythm, and so forth. Instead, why don’t you just go listen to this right fucking now and see/hear/feel for yourself. Play it fucking loud, please, and don’t make me ask twice. Oh, and if you do run out to the store and pick this up post haste (as you should), make sure to get the double-disc version Tri Repetae ++, in which the ‘++’ represents the two EPs (Anvil Vapre and Garbage, btw) collected on the second disc. Special notice should be given to the completely heavenly closing track from disc two, “Vletrmx21.” If robots could weep…
Chiastic Slide (1997):
Here, basically, is where shit gets a little weird. Opening track “Cipater” starts off not too dissimilar to the rough industrial-style beats of some of Tri Repetae and tosses on top a fairly charming half-melody, but then about halfway through, breaks down into what is probably the closest Autechre will get to producing a dub track. I think, based on some of what I’ve read elsewhere, that this album doesn’t rank super highly on the list of most Autechre fans, but it seems like a pretty self-evident progression from Tri Repetae, just pushed a bit further over the experimental edge. Most tracks still maintain a pretty straightforward meter (check out “Tewe” for the electronic equivalent of a jazz drummer playing crazy fills with a set of brushes), although the overall tone of the album is cooler, and somehow slightly more distant. Somewhat difficult to explain, I guess; think about it maybe like an android learning to make music by imitating the glorious moods and juxtapositions of the preceding album (especially gorgeous tracks like “Eutow” or “Leterel”) – the pieces are there, but stitched together in a slightly, well, altered fashion. It bears pointing out, though, that the marimba-esque melody of “Cichli” is one of Autechre’s best, as far as I’m concerned. “Hub” is probably the track rocking the most “other-ness” on here, and hints at greater bouts of rhythmic abstraction to come in the group’s future. Another interesting tidbit: Check out the gut-punch rhythm of “Calbruc,” and then compare it to the main beat of Björk’s track “Innocence,” from her Volta record.
LP5 (1998):
Whoa. LP5 brings to full flower some of the experimental tendencies on offer in the previous two albums, and cranks the wackiness up the 11. Lead-off track “Acroyear2” kicks off at high-speed, something that previous Autechre productions hadn’t much done, and ends up locking into a groove that sounds like a simultaneously smooth and foreign drum and bass tune (actually, toss in some heavier drums, and this could actually pass for breakcore – it’s this era of Autechre that Aaron Funk A.K.A. Venetian Snares seems to have had in mind when putting together his excellent Huge Cylinder Chrome Box Unfolding album a few years down the road from this monster of an album). Aside from Tri Repetae, this album is the other that I would direct newer Autechre listeners to, because it definitely amped up the spindly, melodic, yet still freaked-out tendencies of their sound, while still staying at least somewhat close to recognizable beats and rhythms, without straying into the extreme abstraction of the next couple of full-lengths. This entire album is just remarkable to soak up, but a personal favorite is “Fold4, Wrap5,” which drops some seriously pretty tinkly bits over a constantly shifting tempo of gentle drumpad beats. Autechre had always stood apart as innovators, but if Tri Repetae saw them exploring the outer reaches of our solar system, LP5 sees them taking a stab at modifying the gravitational constant of the universe. Stunning, stunning genius.
EP7 (1999):
Kinda beats me why this one is technically classified an EP, since my version gives a running time of just about an hour. Either way, most of this sounds like potential outtakes from LP5, but without the slightly derogatory connotation that sometimes attaches to such a comment. “Ccec” comes maybe the closest Autechre comes to featuring a real live vocal sample, though it’s snipped and sequenced well past even Prefuse 73 standards, until it’s just another percussive element. The tracks featured here continue to move away from the thicker and heavier beats of Tri Repetae and Chiastic Slide, and feature more of the hectically played taut-string synth melodies (I still can’t really come up with a better way to describe the sounds – occasionally it will sound like some sort of harp from the future, but not quite like any of that ridiculous nonsense Spock played in that hippie/cult episode of the original Star Trek…). More tasty electro goodness, then, and who’s complaining?
Confield (2001):
It is perfectly conceivable that certain listeners would have been able to follow Autechre to this point in their career, but might feel, with Confield, that they had lost the plot, jumped the shark, or whatever. This is, frankly, a really fucking peculiar record. Most of the sounds contained within it are not unprecedented for Autechre, but there is a real starkness and great distance in most of these songs. I happen to think it’s still a tremendous album (and in large part, precisely because of that stark quality), but it’s understandable that those of us out there who would still like, y’know, something like actual songs from their abstract electronic artists might be a bit disappointed. These are, nevertheless, some unconventionally beautiful and unique sound creations. You can almost start dancing to “Cfern,” for example, but try it for too long, and you’ll likely trip all over yourself. “Parhelic Triangle” sounds like a static-producing machine folding in on itself over and over again. Closing track “Lentic Catachresis” is another headfuck, starting off like a cast-off Tri Repetae skeleton track with bursts of organ fractals shot through it. The machines are talking to you, and they are trying to say, “We love you.”
Draft 7.30 (2003):
The random-beat-generating-software would seem to be in full effect by this point (though I’m sure more astute followers of Autechre history would be happy to tell me precisely when and where such software made its entree – I suspect it may have been somewhere between 1998 and 2000, but whatevs). Besides featuring probably the best Autechre cover art (I know the totally nondescript Warp-style no-information-whatsoever covers are part of an aesthetic, but seriously: BORING), Draft 7.30 takes great pleasure in keeping the listener at arm’s length, with little semblance of traditional song structure, recognizable rhythm (or at least any rhythm that lasts longer than a half-measure at a time), or even their trademark quirky melodic underpinning. These are generally cold, occasionally harsh soundscapes, which are fascinating, but can be quite off-putting if you’re not quite prepared for them. “IV Vv IV Vv VIII” is particularly sparse and hostile, perhaps akin to striking a punching bag filled with mercury over and over again with a set of rusting golf clubs. “61e.CR” lulls the listener in with a fairly straightforward 4/4 rhythm which actually stays fairly constant throughout the track, though the quieter bits toward the end introduce some softer percussion which seems to tug at the meter, while the album’s centerpiece, the 11-plus-minute “Surripere,” comes in with a warm, glitchy ambient texture not too far from much of Kompakt’s stable before it gradually pulls itself apart with harsher swaths of noise and deconstructed beats. It’s not really accurate to claim that this album is any more experimental than some of Autechre’s others, but for whatever reason, the mood created by Draft 7.30 seems much more clinical and detached than a lot of the rest of their canon; whether that adds to or detracts from the album’s appeal is up to you, humble listener.
Untilted (2005):
Man, I straight-up HATE this album’s cover. I mean, seriously. Let your eyes soak it in – looks like either an uncool white suburbanite’s attempt at graffiti art, or like your slightly slow cousin’s elementary-school-computer-rendered portrait of Optimus Prime. Bums me right the fuck out, pretty much beyond all reason. Doesn’t help all that much that this might be among my least favorite Autechre albums, but at least the music is still about twelve thousand times better than that congealed-dog-vomit of an album cover. Now, when I say it’s one of my least favorites, what I really mean is that this album will still robotically rock your face off, but just to a slightly lesser degree than certain other Autechre albums. The extremely taut rhythms of “Ipacial Section” are a particular highlight, as is the laid-back funk of “Iera.” “Fermium” veers almost a little too close to Aphex Twin (circa Richard D. James Album, I’d say) for comfort, but pretty much the rest of the album is unmistakably Autechre. One of the biggest problems with the record is that several of the tracks seem to have a playing time which exceeds the amount of interesting ideas, such that a track starts off with a great juddering rhythm or spastic melodic bit, but then either grinds the same section on ad nauseum, or dissipates into a vague ambient/static haze. This actually works pretty well on the massive, nearly 16-minute closer “Sublimit,” which seriously bounces all over the fucking place, even rocking some vaguely house/disco-esque tones around the 4:00 minute mark, but too many of the other songs overstay their welcome. The machines are still talking to you, then, but now they are trying to say, “Hey, dude, mind if we keep crashing on your couch for another month?”
Quaristice (2008):
Three years between Untilted and Quaristice is the longest Autechre has taken between albums thus far in their career, and this record definitely sounds like they took a step back and did some reevaluation. The most immediately obvious characteristic of this album is that it contains a whopping 20 (!) tracks, only two of which actually exceed the five-minute mark in running time. Given my complaints about Untilted, one would think that this strategy would play like a godsend, but in fact, there are some drawbacks here as well. The great thing about this record is the sheer number of tracks, and the amount of stylistic diversity on offer; beatless, ambient opener “Altibzz” flows right into “The Plc,” which rocks some woozy, wobbly effects over a distant bass thud and the clang of soft steel-toe drums, coming across like an orthogonal reading of dubstep trends. In many ways, this album is reminiscent of Aphex Twin’s Drukqs album, in that there’s such a wide range of things going on throughout that it’s a whole lot of fun to listen to, but doesn’t end up being nearly as memorable as earlier, slightly more cohesive records. These songs play a lot more like sketches, introducing a few ideas and running with them for a few minutes, before careening off into a completely separate stylistic direction. It is occasionally frustrating, but just as often thrilling, to hear Booth and Brown rooting around through so many sounds, moods, and textures. I am particularly fond of the nocturnal “Tankakern,” the “Rettic AC”-esque (from Chiastic Slide) static washes of “Fol3,” and the utterly disorienting “Lo.” There are great moments scattered throughout, but as I’ve suggested, they take a bit more patience to find. I also think that closing with the two lengthiest tracks, both of which are completely beatless dark ambient tunes, was a bit much, and winds things down on an anticlimactic note.
Oversteps (2010):
Released in February of this year, I’m still working on giving Autechre’s newest album the attention it deserves. In some ways, the band seems to have resolved the complaints I had about Untilted and Quaristice, in that Oversteps features the non-trivial number of 14 full productions, each with shorter running times than the occasionally bloated songs on Untilted, but each song feels much more like an actual song than the shorter mood pieces of Quaristice. To my ears, Oversteps hearkens back to the “album-ness” of earlier work like LP5 or Tri Repetae much more than any of Autechre’s other more recent albums. In fact, I think I would compare this album most frequently to LP5, because even though the actual textures are markedly different, both albums tend to focus a bit more on exploring various synth tones and textures, rather than the abstract and random beats and rhythms of the albums from, oh, let’s say Confield through Untilted. The chopped strings and harpsichord-esque “Known(1)” is an early highlight on this album, as are the delicate “krYlon” and the dark, thumping “D-Sho Qub.” Apart from the slightly brighter, less abstract textures, one of the most pleasant aspects of this newest album is the rediscovered sense of “almost rhythm,” by which I mean the ability to put together a rhythmic structure which seems fairly conventional and foot-tappable, but then to twist and prod it ever so slightly to throw the listener’s expectations subtly off course. When the beats eventually come in on the opening track “R Ess,” for example, just try to follow along. Your brain thinks that it has got a handle on the subdued, shuffling beat, but it refuses to conform to standard meter. Here, at last, the machines are speaking to you once more, and they are saying, “Come join us inside this black hole.” Oversteps makes your cosmic progress toward the oblivion of the event horizon a warm and comforting (yet still peculiar and alien) journey.
Until next time, then, friends, keep a warm fire burning in your cold, robot hearts.
-d
Following quickly on the heels of the Ocean Machine – Biomech album of 1997, Infinity is the first album which was originally released by Devin Townsend as a solo project under his own name. As remarkable as the Ocean Machine project was, it is really on this first ‘proper’ solo project that Devin’s twisted genius for epic, progressive metal bears full fruit. Sure, we can all agree that Strapping Young Lad knew how to bring it in terms of utterly intense prog-tinged metal, but SYL always tilted towards the more aggressive and industrial side of things; it’s the solo Townsend, I think, which displays a much wider textural range and more varied songwriting. Lest I deserve a swift bout of pummeling, I should hasten to add that Infinity features the monstrously-talented drumming of fellow Strapping Young Lad (har-har) Gene Hoglan, and thus has somewhat of a leg up on Ocean Machine from the start.
Not the handsomest man in metal
The album kicks off in fine form with “Truth,” a massively epic and overstuffed instrumental intro which, when it breaks the building tension at the end by jumping a fifth (I think) and holding that stringed synth tone over a cymbal roll, reminds me of nothing more than Yanni’s Live at the Acropolis. Yeah, that’s right – fuckin’ Yanni, and it kicks ass, so step off (like I’m the only one who ever watched PBS in the 90s…). The first proper song “Christeen” is quite a bit reminiscent of “Life” from the Ocean Machine album, in that it is one hundred percent a classically-structured pop song. Both tracks also run perilously close to the cheesy (especially “Christeen”s Phantom of the Opera-quoting chorus), but “Christeen” redeems itself somewhat with that nice intense bridge and lead-in to the final go-around of the chorus.
Though the tendency was already somewhat evident in the Ocean Machine album, I find that it’s on Infinity where I really start to pick up on the duality of Devin’s musical personality. On the one hand, the dude knows how to craft well-constructed songs – the old verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-etc-etc shtick – not all of which suffer from the overly pop-leaning sounds of the above-mentioned tracks. On the other hand, he has a real knack for breaking up an album into more straightforward tracks and more experimental tracks – and moreover, that experimentation can just as easily take the form of ambient, gradually-building, and almost modal hymns (Devin Townsend’s Kind of Blue period, we could call it) as it can take the form of smashing as many disparate musical styles, instruments, and sounds into one rambunctious whole.
On the more straightforward tip, then, I’ve already mentioned “Christeen,” but “War” and “Soul-Driven Cadillac” fall somewhat into this camp as well. The intro to “War” goes on far too long for my taste, but both tracks stomp along in this groove of modal suspension and form a solid backbone for some of the more experimental material that peppers the rest of the album – particularly “Bad Devil,” “Ants,” and “Wild Colonial Boy.” I suspect that for many fans of Devin’s solo work, these extremely busy and chaotic songs are the primary draw, and I absolutely agree, except with the caveat that were it not for the counterpoint provided by some of the more straightforward (but no worse off for being so) songs, these insanely diverse tracks wouldn’t seem quite so batshit crazy. As it is, though, “Bad Devil” picks up the slack dropped by “Christeen” in a MAJOR FUCKING WAY, featuring some awfully punchy riffing (in contrast to the diffused tone of a lot of the riffing on the rest of this album and many of Devy’s others) and some wicked horror theme synths (think The Munsters or The Addams Family). Even better is when the track drops into a shuffling swing rhythm and highlights some jazz trombone and an almost rockabilly upright bass section. Killer stuff.
“Ants” is another balls-out wacky song, which can only really be described as sounding like Dream Theater and Behold…The Arctopus jamming on a cover of “Hava Nagila,” so feel free to take that for what you will. “Wild Colonial Boy” is another track somewhat in the model of “Bad Devil,” in that it oscillates between more straightforward metal components and distinctly non-metal genre sections. In particular, “Wild Colonial Boy” careens between a quite catchy polka section and some of the most earnest-sounding vocal melodies of the entire record. On this track, Devin’s vocals walk that absolutely perfect tightrope between soaring melodicism and winking melodrama, which will be one of the most winning features of his entire musical approach.
Regardless of what type of song he’s playing, part of the charm of Devy’s solo material is that, as is so often the case, these songs work so splendidly by manufacturing an overload – because Devin is an excellent producer, all of the individual layers of the sound remain distinguishable, but in most of these tracks, there is just so much going on that eventually the listener says, more or less, “Fuck it,” and decides to surrender to the waves upon waves of gorgeous noise. The real trick, and one of the least replicable aspects of Townsend’s genius, is that this overload doesn’t feel confrontational (as in most actual noise music – Skullflower, I’m looking at you, you crazy fuck), but rather warm and inviting, like wandering into a thick forest in the middle of a thunderstorm – sure, you get a bit wet, but there’s shelter in there, and a real feeling of almost existential density.
For my money, the album peaks exactly where it should, with the final two tracks. “Life is All Dynamics” is absolutely one of the best songs on here, and features some of Devin’s most heart-rendingly intense vocals. I mean, seriously: Put on this song just about as loudly as you can handle, and I fucking dare you to not find yourself stomping around your house like a goddamned flesh-hungry velociraptor (or even a stegosaurus on a serious trip of plant withdrawal) in time to Devin’s hollering “LIFE! IS! ALL! DY-! -NAMICS!!!” Science will soon prove it impossible. The transition into the closing track, “Unity,” is also extremely classy; given the tension-building suspended outro of the preceding track (remember? You’ve just stopped thrashing [your dinosaur tail around] like a maniac [Jurassic Metallica – shit, I’ve just invented a crossover children’s cartoon & heavy metal hit]), the rich and mellow tones of this song are a perfect come-down. Plus, I think there’s a nice bit of commentary done by book-ending the album with tracks called “Infinity” and “Unity,” which seems to be reflective of the type of worldview Devin often represents in his solo works (though here I’m especially thinking of “Triumph” from Synchestra, which, in the interest of full disclosure, is probably the best song that has ever been written).
The bonus tracks on the version of Infinity that I own, I don’t know, I could pretty much take them or leave them. The track “Noisy Pink Bubbles” (which may or may not be Devin’s tribute to Helloween’s Pink Bubbles Go Ape – I prefer to think not…) is especially odd, with some child chorus vocals sounding straight out of Annie or some such musical, and clean electric guitar strumming over an almost “Lust for Life” drumbeat. Also included are live acoustic versions of “Sister” and “Hide Nowhere” from the Ocean Machine album, which are nice for a change of pace, but although the latter especially features some nice vocals from a very closely-mic’ed Devin, it also drags a bit as an all-acoustic number. There’s also an early band demo of a track called “Man” on here, which sounds, well, like a demo – decent enough, but kind of like an unfinished thought. These bonus tracks, then, are mostly interesting curios for the true Townsend fanatic (which, truth be told, is me), but although this album thrives based on its disparate moods and sounds, I really think it is perfectly capped by “Unity,” so I typically end it there.
In comparing Infinity to Ocean Machine – Biomech, it seems pretty clear that Infinity explores a much broader range of sounds and moods, and does so in a much shorter running time. Which one you prefer may just depend on what you’re looking for, although I find that Infinity edges out Ocean Machine by a non-trivial margin, and undoubtedly established Devin Townsend as one of metal’s most outstanding and relentlessly creative musicians.
Overall rating: 94%. I STILL haven’t stopped crashing around my house to “Life is All Dynamics.” Devin Townsend: Metal Genius Extraordinaire & Inducer of Perpetual Motion. Take that, physics.
I may not be expert in many things, but I have, perhaps more than I should, quite a lot of experience in buying music online (that is, ordering physical products online, not digital music). Wrapped up in all of this discussion is probably a fairly good entree into the debate over illegally downloading music. Maybe a post for a later time, but for now, let it be said that although I don’t take a particularly hard line on downloading, I do think that if we honestly value the artistic contributions of independent and spirited musicians, we need to continue to contribute to an economy that supports these musicians. I thought, therefore, that I might offer a little bit of advice to anyone out there looking for both a wide selection and a good value in their new or used heavy metal. You can find many of these links on the sidebar of this blog’s main page, along with a brief description of the site. Here I will try to offer a little more detail as to why (and for what) I would recommend these sites.
Silly but necessary disclaimer: I have no relationship to any of these retailers other than that of more or less occasional, and more or less satisfied, customer. Another disclaimer: I basically buy only CDs, so if you’re looking for vinyl-specific advice, this is not be the best place. However, many of these more independent outlets carry stock of vinyl releases (especially limited edition 7″s and the like) in addition to CDs, so if you’re looking for a genre that any of these distros specialize in, I would definitely explore further to see what sort of vinyl they carry.
Independent/Small Labels & Distros:
The End Recordswebstore: This is probably one of the best and most reliable all-around heavy metal distros currently going. They don’t really specialize in one genre over any others, so you are likely to find a little bit of just about everything, from death to doom to black to grind to hardcore to industrial to true heavy metal, and they’ve even recently begun branching out and carrying selected releases (particularly new releases) from some of the more “major” independent labels for indie and electronic musics; my most recent order (of just a few days ago) was a triple pre-order for the new Negura Bunget record (by the “new” Negura Bunget), the new Forest of Stars, and the reissue (finally!) of Gorguts’ From Wisdom to Hate, to give you a flavor of what you can find. Shipping is free within the U.S., and what has proved especially satisfying lately is the ability to place an order for items which are in stock, available only for pre-order, AND items which are currently out of stock; their order fulfillment process has always worked really smoothly for me, especially when it comes to out-of-stock items, since they’ll put them on order for you, but still let you know if it looks doubtful that something will ever come in. Basically, this is the only webstore I’ve come across that has this type of functionality, and I think it’s really great. Prices are quite reasonable, as well, although for some of the more mainstream (and especially non-metal) stuff that I mentioned above, you might be better served going elsewhere (e.g., this was not my first stop when I wanted to preorder the recent Autechre or Black Keys records). Still, you’ve gotta love supporting a super reliable independent player, so maybe that’s worth an extra dollar or so every now and then.
Century Media Recordswebstore: The Century Media distro, based out of California and connected to the record label, is somewhat similar to The End Records, though probably somewhat less exhaustive in scope; it still seems to carry a fair amount of pretty much any metal genre you could care to seek out, but I haven’t seen it branch out much into that mythical world of non-metal music. So, feel free to take that either as a commendation or reproach. I have primarily used this site as a source for some excellent pre-order package deals (something that Relapse Records – see below – has begun to offer more frequently as well), where you can pre-order upcoming albums along with t-shirts, hoodies, posters, and other merch for a price reduction. The site is currently plugging the new Nachtmystium and Nevermore records, among others, for those who are interested. One thing I will say is that they’ve recently undergone a bit of an aesthetic makeover, and I don’t much care for it; the site seems over-busy and a bit visually bloated. Unlike The End, shipping is not free here, but they do have going for them a pretty excellent clearance section (currently just a shade under 1,000 items), where I have found a load of gems for the friendly price of $3 – $7.
Relapse Records: Relapse has a well-deserved reputation as one of the metal scene’s most prolific indie labels (think Neurosis, Mastodon, High On Fire, Baroness, Dillinger Escape Plan, Pig Destroyer, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Coalesce, Cephalic Carnage, Unearthly Trance, Minsk, Tombs, &c., &c…). It just so happens that the Philadelphia-based label also runs a pretty decent metal distro. As mentioned above, they have recently started offering a lot more in the way of t-shirt + CD pre-orders (as well as some 2-for-1-and-a-bit options; e.g., if you pre-order the second volume of the Scott Hull-organized This Comp Kills Fascists, you can add on the first volume for just a few bucks extra), and accordingly, I tend to order from Relapse primarily to buy items from their own artists, rather than as an all-purpose destination. Still, prices are pretty decent (probably on average $12 or $13 for CD full-lengths), but again, shipping will cost you a bit extra (though maybe a hair less than at the CMDistro, if I recall, but don’t quote me on that one).
Profound Lore Records: Profound Lore is a relatively small concern when compared with the preceding sites; nevertheless, it is absolutely one of the best (and truly underground) indie metal labels going these days. The primary draw for this site is tracking down the latest releases from Profound Lore’s artists (including, recently, Cobalt, Ludicra, Altar of Plagues, Coffinworm, Hooded Menace, WOLD, Saros, Portal, The Howling Wind, and so forth), which are offered at extremely good prices with free shipping to the U.S. (even though it’s a Canadian concern). The webstore also carries a small but potent selection of fairly obscure or difficult-to-find (at least through many other venues in the States) titles; in this respect Profound Lore’s webstore is somewhat similar to that maintained by the Ajna Offensive, which I’m not reviewing here because I don’t frequent it enough, but which is notable for its depth of hard-to-find black metal as well as for being one of the main U.S. distributors for French orthodox BM powerhouse Norma Evangelium Diaboli (NoEvDia). Check ’em all out.
Reckless Records: Reckless is an actual physical record store with three locations in Chicago: one in Lakeview, one in Wicker Park, and one right downtown in the Loop. This is definitely not a metal-centric option, but each of their physical stores does stock a metal section with both a frequently rotating bunch of used material as well as a pretty decent selection of recent releases from most of the more major indie or underground metal labels (meaning, for example, that you’ll for sure be able to find all the most recent Relapse releases right away, and that they’ll probably eventually get in at least some titles from your Profound Lores, 20 Buck Spins, and the like). If you’re in Chicago, Reckless is a great place to go kill a few hours; even if you’re not, though, don’t fret, because the entire inventory for all three stores is searchable through their website. This also means, for Chicagoans, and to my occasional great shame, that if you’re browsing their stock online and find a bunch of items you want but which happen to be scattered across all three locations, you can pay the extra fees for shipping to get your order filled online rather than running all over town. Think of it as a pretty dull ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ story, in which none of the options end with you enslaved by aliens on Mars or washing a dragon’s genitals for eternity as punishment for angering Merlin.
Aquarius Records: This one is a bit of a wildcard, I suppose. Aquarius is a small, independent record shop in San Francisco, and although I visited San Francisco back in March, I wasn’t able to make it to their physical location. I’ve put in a few orders to Aquarius over the years, so although I don’t patronize them very often, I think they’re definitely worth looking into. At the time I stumbled onto them, I think I was looking for some titles which were then almost impossible to find anywhere else; specifically, I ordered a copy of Mütiilation’s Vampires of Black Imperial Blood and Leviathan’s two-disc demos-and-rarities compilation Verräter. Since that time, I feel like I’ve stumbled across both of those titles elsewhere (especially Verräter, which I feel like was reissued by tUMULt records, which, though I’d have to check to verify, I think may actually be somehow associated with Aquarius). Regardless, Aquarius’ frontpage is a cool place to check out, because they keep a running editorial commentary on new items they get in stock, which definitely tend toward the extremely obscure (isolationist black metal, freak-psych-noise-rock, long forgotten ‘world’ musics, and all sorts of CD-Rs and other limited run things), so it’s a pretty fun list to browse through if you’re looking for something random you may never have heard before.
Moribund Records / Full Moon Productions / Red Stream Records / Blackmetal.com : So, I’ve grouped these four sites together because they are likely to have a good deal of overlap. All four are based in the States (Washington state, for Moribund, California, for Bm.com, and somewhere in Florida for the other two), and all four tend to specialize in black metal. Full Moon is probably the smallest of the three, but has also recently moved to a $8 rate for pretty much all CDs (plus a reasonably sizable $5/disc clearance section), so while you may not find everything you’re looking for, whatever you do come across is almost always a great deal. Red Stream is a little more hit and miss for me, although their prices tend to be pretty fair, and (if memory serves) they also offer free Stateside shipping. As a label, Moribund is probably the highest profile (with recent artists like Horna, Azaghal, Brown Jenkins, Arckanum, Avsky, etc.), and maintains a fairly sizable webstore. Moribund’s everyday prices are only average (maybe even a bit on the pricey side of average), but they frequently offer sales which make things quite reasonable. Blackmetal.com obviously got in on the webstore business nice and early to have cornered that domain, and run a small label in addition to a black metal (obviously) heavy webstore. Prices here are also quite good, with frequent sales and clearanced items and a nice recommendations function when viewing a particular item. I have had positive experiences shopping at all four places, so if you’re looking for something fairly obscure (and mostly black metal), you might give them all a quick look.
Deepsend Records: This Massachusetts-based label and distro is a fairly recent discovery for me, but a very quality one as well. Whereas many of the previously mentioned sites specialize either in nothing or in black metal, Deepsend is a great spot to look for various contemporary permutations of death metal and grindcore (particularly tech death or brutal death metal, whatever you want to call it). Again, this is not webstore with a massive inventory, but shipping is included in the pricing of individual items, and they have an ongoing deal whereby three full-priced CDs gets you a 4th free. Pretty hot shit, if you ask me.
Candlelight Records: Now, I don’t have anything necessarily bad to say about Candlelight’s distro, but it’s really not so great compared to a lot of the others I’ve reviewed above. Their inventory is quite small, doesn’t seem to change much, and apart from scanning through their sale items for anything of one-time interest, the only thing I’ve used the site for is pre-orders (earlier this year, for Ihsahn and Fear Factory, and maybe last year for Blut Aus Nord and Emperor’s killer Live Inferno). Nothing wrong, really, but I’d definitely steer you to almost all of the above first, unless you’re looking for a Candlelight-specific title.
Non-Independent Retailers:
Amazon: Presumably Amazon.com requires no introduction, so I’m not even going to hyperlink it. I’m sure there are all sorts of arguments to be made about how shopping at ‘e-big box’ places like Amazon (or buy.com, or overstock.com, or whatever) is poisonous to smaller, more independent retailers, and that’s fine. I get it. But the bottom line is, a lot of the time you can find better deals here. Not all the time, and that, quite honestly, is why I’ll usually check the above-listed sites first when I’m trying to track something down or figure out who’s getting which new releases when; but I’d be completely full of shit if I told you that I didn’t then also check Amazon to compare prices. Presumably you also know the deal: free shipping on orders over $25; but another option I’ve come across much more frequently lately is their price guarantee on pre-orders. Basically, if you put in an order for an album yet-to-be-released for a certain price, but the price they offer goes down after you place your order but before the item is released, they will automatically give you the lower price (this literally just happened with Rosetta’s new album; when I placed my pre-order it was listed at $13.99, but when it shipped the price had been knocked down to $12.99, so that’s what I was charged). I’m well aware that this may just be a sophisticated ploy on Amazon’s part to instill good will and fuzzy feelings in their shoppers. All I can say to that is: keep it up. Amazon is also a great place to check for used copies of your favorite metal needs. I have absolutely never had any problems using Amazon as the facilitator for third-party transactions, which are just as often second-hand music and book stores as they are private citizens selling off their personal collections. Be warned, though, that the $2.99 shipping per item adds up awfully quick (which is one reason you might first check out half.com first; see below for more).
eBay: Same as above. You know the drill with eBay. This is not usually my go-to spot, but if I’m looking for something crazy obscure or out-of-print, I’ll sometimes give it a whirl; you never know when you’ll stumble across an item being auctioned by someone a little out of the pricing loop, or when you’ll miraculously be the only bidder on a pristine condition copy of Swans’ long out-of-print and quite rare live release Real Love (hypothetically speaking…).
Half.com: This is a sister site to eBay, which just hosts straight-up sales rather than auctions. The prices you’ll find for most used items will probably be quite comparable to those you would find browsing used stock at Amazon (and in fact, many larger sellers will have their items cross-posted on both sites). The notable benefit to Half.com, then, is that if you order multiple used items from the same seller, shipping is $2.99 for the first item, but only $1.89 (or somewhere thereabouts) for each subsequent item. So, shipping costs will definitely still add up way too quickly, but you’ll get a much better deal on shipping than if you were to find the exact same seller’s storefront on Amazon, where each used item ordered, even if multiples are ordered from the same third party, will cost you $2.99. And just like shopping used on Amazon, you’re likely to run the gamut of independent booksellers and record shops to folks just like you and me, banging around the internet trying to make a living.
CD Universe: You know, this place ain’t half bad, either. I mainly check this place out for pre-ordering new releases. The prices are usually cheaper than Amazon’s, but shipping isn’t free, so more than a few times, I’ve figured out the items I want, put them in the shopping cart at both sites, and then figured out what the totals would be once CDUniverse adds on their shipping (which isn’t unreasonable, it’s just sometimes deceptive in that it makes you think their prices are lower than Amazon, when they may not actually be). They also seem just about as likely as Amazon to stock obscure underground metal titles, so that’s definitely a plus.
Alright, folks. That’s the advice I’ve got for you. This is by no means an exhaustive list of the best places to shop for metal online, but these are the places I can vouch for personally. Another generic piece of advice, I suppose, is that if you’re looking to buy a particular genre of metal, look up the website for a record label which supports artists of that genre; chances are pretty good they may have a webstore with items distributed from other labels, in addition to their own artists (this is how I came across Deepsend, and actually Willowtip, as well, which I didn’t mention above, but which has a similar type of webstore, specializing in similar genres). I’m also happy to hear from any of you out there who have randomly stumbled across similarly worthwhile indie labels and distros; if there’s one thing the internet is good for, it’s for more efficiently connecting all of us to the shit-ton of awesome music out there in the ether, the better with which to smash in our faces.
Go forth and spend your money in a slightly less frivolous way than you might have done otherwise. Cheers.
Given that this current bout of ninety-plus degree weather has sapped me of all earthly energy, why not opt for the path of least resistance (namely, random iTunes game)?
1. Aphex Twin, “Come to Daddy (Little Lord Faulteroy Mix)” – Some creepy and understated electro from Mr. Richard D. James. This track suffers incomparably, however, from appearing immediately before one of my favorite Aphex Twin tracks ever, “Bucephalus Bouncing Ball,” which, apart from appearing on the Come to Daddy EP, also showed up on the soundtrack to Darren Aronofsky’s Pi alongside other mid-90s electronic greats such as Autechre, Massive Attack, Orbital, and the sometimes-maligned Banco de Gaia. Anyway, “Bucephalus Bouncing Ball” makes fantastic percussive use out of what sound like ball bearings being dropped on a smooth concrete surface; those interested in weird musical coincidences might also check out Gnarls Barkley’s jaw-droppingly awesome track “Open Book” for a somewhat similar percussive production.
2. Today is the Day, “Flowers Made of Flesh.” – Well, goddamn it all if I didn’t try to get through all of Sadness Will Prevail a few times. I’ve pretty much decided that the sprawling double album was never intended to be sat through all at once – not because the band wanted each disc experienced separately as a self-contained experience, but rather that two-and-a-half hours of tripped-out ambience, disturbing samples, shrill, shrieking almost-grind, and droning cyber-death riffing were intended to beat the listener into submission and leave him or her huddled in the very same asylum corner pictured on the album cover; whether that speaks well or ill of the record, I’ll leave you be the judge.
3. At the Gates, “Neverwhere.” – At the Gates’ earlier records seem to get overlooked in favor of discussing the landmark Slaughter of the Soul, which makes sense, given that commentators are equally likely to single out that album as the greatest example of the concise brilliance of the Gothenburg style as they are to metaphorically vomit all over its reputation by arguing that without it, the reviled styles of ‘metalcore’ and ‘deathcore’ (I guess) would have been, if not completely forestalled, then at least staved up by a fair while. I don’t much buy either position, and find it a fun, thrashy little album that never sticks with me much after it’s finished playing. This track, from their debut album The Red in the Sky is Ours, is kind of cool, but the stuttering, intentionally awkward melodic phrases right at the start bum me out.
4. Tool, “The Pot.” – Tool fans are an odd bunch, right? 10,000 Days was a fairly divisive record, if I recall, and I’ve still never quite figured out my own feelings about it. I think “Vicarious” worked quite effectively as a single, and the 17-minute, two-part “Wings for Marie”/”10,000 Days” suite ranks up there with the band’s best work. On the other hand, this track does almost nothing for me, and I find the 11-minute plus running time of “Rosetta Stoned” unacceptably self-indulgent for a track which goes nowhere and features embarrassingly expletive-laden adolescent stomping exclusively. Go figure.
5. The Stooges, “Not Right.” – Every now and then, the world forgets what rock and roll sounds like; in these dark times, all it takes is someone with a shitty set of speakers (the shittier the better, when it comes to The Stooges) and a ragged copy of Raw Power to roust the world from its shiny-overproduced-rock-music-induced somnolence. This track is from the self-titled album, for the record, but for my money, Raw Power is ALWAYS where it’s at for sheer rock fury – especially in fiery opener “Seek and Destroy” (seriously, YouTube that shit to see Iggy tearing up that track at any point over nearly FOUR decades) and the downright nasty “Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell.”
6. Mistress, “Whiskey Tastes Better…” – Possibly the dirtiest band in dear old Blighty, and brought to you by the same lovely folks behind Anaal Nathrakh and Fukpig. This track features some fairly grimy power metal squealing (think Iced Earth, but like everyone who gives two shits about Barlow or ‘Ripper’ Owens got on the wrong side of a bar fight with Jon Schafer’s Civil War reenactment buddies and ended up chewing on a broken bottle of Jack Daniels) all over the top of a close-but-not-quite-Sunlight riff-fest of sludge-caked grind. In other words: awesome.
7. Sufjan Stevens, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” – Oh my, my, my; that is one ironic transition. From the filthy misanthropy of Mistress to Sufjan’s fairly straight take on this sacred Christmas song. Not too many indie artists could get away with Sufjan’s five-volume (and still counting, I believe) mini-albums for Christmas, but the dude knows just when to rock his straight-up EARNEST voice, and when to cut loose a little (see “That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!”). Plus, the minor key mope-fest that is “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” was basically MADE for this kind of sad bastard music (apologies to Nick Hornby/Jack Black/Belle & Sebastian/etc.).
8. Swans, “Saved.” – O boy. There is way too much to be said about Swans (which I may attempt in a later post). This track is from the controversial album The Burning World, which was Swans’ first (and only) major label album. Michael Gira (Swans’ principal songwriter, singer, and all-around Dude Of The Righteous Voice) has disavowed the album, primarily due to the pressures he feels the band faced from the label to clean up their sound, as well as the production job done by Bill Laswell. If you ask me, the whole thing is a bit overblown; yeah, the album is a far cry from the nihilistic drone-stomp of their early 1980s work (Cop, Greed, Filth, Holy Money, etc.), and sure, it was a disappointing come-down to have been the follow-up to probably their all-around most consistently awesome full-length, Children of God, but it’s still got some pretty decent tunes (although, it ought to be said, this is not one of the best), especially “I Remember Who You Are,” “God Damn the Sun,” and opener “The River that Runs with Love Won’t Run Dry.” Although the instrumental textures, which were really tidied up and smoothed over, may be the biggest change from their previous work, the thing I found most tough to swallow about The Burning World is the almost country-fied, honey sweet gloss given to Gira’s vocals (as opposed to the much gruffer, roots-ier country style occasionally employed by Gira later in his excellent work as Angels of Light – now defunct, with Swans back in action as of late last year). All of this is mostly beside the point, as this record is one tough motherfucker to find, with most used copies selling online for $30 and up.
9. Drudkh, “Where Horizons End.” – This Ukrainian band is definitely on my list of “Metal Bands Whose Names I Will Try To Avoid Speaking In Public Because I’ve Got No Fucking Clue How To Pronounce Them” (also making the list: Amon Amarth [which looks deceptively easy, but how they hell are those vowels pronounced?], Kiuas, Mörk Gryning, and hundreds of others). Disregarding the linguistic difficulties, these reclusive metallers have made some of the most mesmerizing and grimly melodic black metal of the past decade or so. This track, from Estrangement, shares all of those wonderful songwriting characteristics, but, like the rest of the record, suffers, in my view, from an excessively treble-y production, both in the clean-ish lead guitar and the way-too-fuzzed-out distorted rhythm guitar.* The bass sounds pretty great, but simply can’t match the extremely classy and even more up-front bass in their most recent (and much superior) album Microcosmos.
10. Black Breath, “Virus.” – Well, hell yes. Black Breath’s debut full-length, out just earlier this year on Southern Lord, is a super-potent kick in the goddamned teeth. Heavy Breathing features an excellent, compact Swedish death metal-style guitar tone, but mixes it up into a fierce cocktail of Disfear-esque metallic d-beat and seriously pissed-off half-time doom breakdowns. Check out the completely wicked instrumental “Heavy Breathing” and the way it seamlessly breaks into the following track, “Children of the Horn.” Crushing and dangerous stuff, and much too well-crafted for being their debut album (well-received three-track EP of last year notwithstanding); make sure your china is well-secured in its hutch, because these dudes have the potential to smash your pitiful little world down to shards and pixels if they get any better.
That’s all for now, friends; I’m off to break things.
*Apologies to your friend and mine, the comma, who is sure to be sorely overused whenever I get my grubby little hands on it.
Spinal Tapdance 