18 total search results
Paradise Lost – Medusa
Review — April 2, 2018
With the daring first notes of a church organ, Paradise Lost primes its listeners for a quasi-sermon on the mount in Medusa. A part description of suffering, part omen for eventual destruction, part heroic call to arms in the face of meaninglessness, Medusa glorifies godless bravery and turns those …
Amenra – VI
Review — April 2, 2018
I thought it a safe bet to listen to any album off Neurot Recordings with care and patience, and expect something great. Amenra is no fragile exception. Their essence taps a well of meaning seemingly endless on all levels of analysis, as much as it taps a particular sound thrust …
Various Artists – Starkweather/Concealment - Split
Review — April 9, 2018
After seven patient years Starkweather releases their third split Divided by Zero with Portugal’s Concealment. The two-song split cements itself with every listen as masterful. Like a vitamin, it’s not to be consumed on an empty stomach, or listened to with impatience. But brevity being the byproduct of vigor, …
Madensuyu – Current
Review — April 16, 2018
I’ll start with a request for the reader: think about genres and how difficult it truly is to define music. It’s hard to hold in your head. Take metal for example. It is obvious that Black Sabbath is metal and so is Isis, despite how different they are. It …
Lotus – The Road To Calvary
Review — April 23, 2018
Deep inside Belgium lies Lotus, the Powerbar of Antwerp hardcore. In early December Lotus released their particular blend of pessimistic optimism, paradoxically digestible yet equally unsettling. Steering modern hardcore trends away from cheap nihilism, The Road to Calvary bites down a vicious chunk of hardcore spirit that raises my pulse, burning …
Miracle – The Strife of Love in a Dream
Review — May 1, 2018
Shake off the trenchant hold Depeche Mode has on dark sounding synth pop and Miracle opens up like a blooming flower. Sure David Gahan delivers more punch in his voice, and sure there’s a lack of Martin Gore's vibrato chilled melodies— aside from genre conventions monolithically constructed by Depeche Mode, Miracle is …
Exitmusic – The Recognitions
Review — May 9, 2018
What gathered my eyes about Exitmusic’s newest album The Recognitions was not any previous knowledge about the group, but a shared name of a favorite book by William Gaddis. Gaddis’s book borrows heavily from religious text, poetry, opera; even the name borrows from the Clementine Recognitions: a religiously gnostic narrative featuring …
Geld – Perfect Texture
Review — May 17, 2018
Geld’s Perfect Texture is 11 tracks, 23 minutes, 41 seconds: walloping wallaby! I feel like I’m back in my initial stomping grounds of Lethbridge, Alberta, a place that must exist in Geld's stomping grounds of Melbourne, Australia. Back in Canada’s Loyal Order of the Moose community hall, standing in an …
Baptists – Beacon of Faith
Review — May 22, 2018
Canadian hardcore is a weirdly veiled style. Like Canadian politics, it is highly deferential, often distinctly so. This means it both blends in with previous hardcore styles at the same time it writes original sounding songs, and it sounds highly derivative and mediocre despite the musician’s individual skill. Split in …
Sleep – The Sciences
Review — May 28, 2018
Hendrix takes the stage with his band—right-handed guitar upside down, LSD stashed in his headband, visions of blue baize fields and purple skies are immanent. The experience is underway. "Voodoo Child" ends, bongos rip, drums roll, Jimi feedbacks and chaos continues behind him. “Oh say can you see, by the …
Gulch – Burning Desire to Draw Last Breath
Review — June 18, 2018
Here we go, something horribly maniacal approaches. An out of focus haunt looking like a Goya sketch funnels all the screaming souls from hell at the threat of a Gatling gun and an itchy trigger finger. In their place we as Listener fall into the gap. Each song features a …
Jesse Dayton – The Outsider
Review — June 25, 2018
Powerful, bottom heavy, but good headlamps. She loves to look good, but also can build an engine; loves fancy dress, yet plays in the mud. She’s drive-able in the city, and capable of off-road adventures. As much as country music loves the Daisy Duke, and the General Lee, symbols stereotypically …
Slapshot – Make America Hate Again
Review — July 9, 2018
What pisses the supremely tolerant off? Intolerance. What pisses Slapshot off? Edgebreakers, trainwrecks, narcissists, whiners, whingers, hypocrites, the mentally weak, and quitters! Slapshot lists, tackles, hip checks, and pins this notion of kindness to the boards, praying for full on donnybrook. They are Brad Marchand staring at one of theSedin’s, asking for …
Northwoods – Wasteland
Review — July 16, 2018
'[T]here the nightingale filled all the desert with inviolable voice and still she cried, and still the world pursues, "Jug Jug" to dirty ears.' And likewise, with dirty ears, the 'Jug Jug' of Northwoods' Wasteland will lose their hard earned respect, slowly. A respect sucked through a straw from the pool …
Converge – Beautiful Ruin
Review — July 16, 2018
Converge—Nietzsche’s pissed off nephew, Rilke’s furious friend—achieves a glimmering consummation in a mishmash of fourness (which, in numerology, symbolizes spiritual wholeness). They went from thrash titans to sonic gods; now they flirt with the nasty nebula they came from, dumping what we might consider B-sides, smacking a healthy appetite, and …
Duvel – Attempts at Speech
Review — July 23, 2018
Welcome to Duvel’s childlike fantasy, their ruminations inspired by Norwegian life. The bleak echoing of whatever neurosis such a wonderfully Scandinavian culture produces, other than seasonal depression and too much equality, speaks through them in musical duality. This album is so childlike, oftentimes aloof, stumbling upon pure goodness as if by …
Thou – Rhea Sylvia
Review — August 6, 2018
Thou, in this particular rendition, throw down great song thud after thud, right on the table, while permeating a delicate scent through their carefully constructed EP, Rhea Sylvia. Each song is a steamy dish, smelling like Tool, Starkweather, and Isis mishmashed together. The vocals have a Maynardish- …
