Cut the bullshit: HOWL adds a new layer of hair and muscle to stoner metal, crushing resilient minds with cryptic harmonies and mammoth thrash rage. Music is more about meter nowadays than ever before. Cool riffs? Shit, that’s so classic metal. WE WANT MORE. There is an incredible power to be unleashed in a one-line guitar solo, but only if it’s let loose at the exact right moment, with the right intonation—taking the audience by surprise and walking right over the beat (see “Oma). And by loosening the distinctions between movements, HOWL crafts a highly memorable, fluid and infatuating experience that is incessantly fresh. “Oma” is clearly their flagship track, but there are surprises to be found all over their debut EP (available in its full three-track streaming glory on their MySpace or after the jump), and they’ve recently entered the studio to confront the incredibly high expectations for their debut LP on Relapse Records. I have a feeling they’ll continue to deliver, and 2010 is going to be a huge year for them.
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Yeah, that’s cool. Lots of goodies came out in the past few days (Metal Underground has those pretty well covered), but slightly more interesting is the bad news that came out today. Some people must really hate Christianity. Katatonia has parted ways with long-standing guitarist and bassist, Fredrick and Mattias Norrman. Probably due to unfortunate familial circumstances; we wish them the best. Lots of mushy statements can be found here. And our review of Katatonia’s latest, here. And another set of unfortunate circumstances have caused The Number Twelve Looks Like You to end their career after nine years of ups and downs. This was certainly long-anticipated, seeing that their popularity peaked right around their first album (ever see more than twenty people at a #12 show?)–even though Worse Than Alone was arguably their best yet. Guitarist Alexis Pareja issued an expectedly long-winded overly-elegant statement, which can be read, again, at Metal Underground. And though we bailed on the endless debate of end-of-the-decade/end-of-the-year lists (Rolling Stone pretty much covered everything you need to know in this fancy photo gallery), we’ll be making our predictions for the following decade soon, which will see the resolution of the digital revolution and tons of crazy shit like this:
Is everyone missing out on this project? Phantom Glue’s distorted mess stomps forward in a comforting fury, wrapped around an enormous sound. They recorded a prodigious EP late last year, available in its entirety at their MySpace, with incredible performances in “Phantom Glue” and “Scabman” to say the least. Their blend of stoner sludge punk hits you with a brick and then changes the beat, slowing the punches. They’ve from a richly creative scene out of Massachusetts, pulling vocals from the Huguenots, guitars from the Proselyte and Hydronaut, and drums from 27. Their influences are diverse but unceasingly heartfelt, and the sounds they’ve produced are full-bodied, with surprisingly honest turns (“Gog and Magog” ). Their tone rivals the darker moments of Torche, with a glam that glues their progressions together and the raw, disgusting grit of I Hate Sally. And, recorded at GodCity in six hours with the venerable Kurt Ballou of Converge, the emotional intensity of the live performance is preserved with a simply beautiful sound. Don’t let yourself miss this.
Abacus, EMI r:7.5 It’s heavy, it’s technical, and it’s innovative but it can also be difficult to listen to as well. The band plows through the album in an angry and headlong manner. And Ion Dissonance’s most recent album Minus the Herd is an interesting way to spend 32 minutes and 59 seconds of free time Minus the Herd springs to life following an eerie crescendo at the beginning of ‘The Surge,’ and immediately drummer Jean-Francois Richard is up to crazy syncopation, piquing the interest of tech-metal enthusiasts before the album has even really begun. Richard lays down a unique china pattern that interchanges between on-beats and off-beats. Check it out:
The strange effect produced by switching between on/off-beats on the ride can also be found about a minute and a half into ‘Scorn Haven.’ Apart from these instances, syncopation in general is rampant in Minus the Herd.
Katatonia Peaceville Records 8.8 Delicate is not often a word testosterone-overloaded metal heads want to hear when associated with their beloved music. But in a genre saturated with ridiculous machismo, Katatonia is a breath of fresh air with their signature blend of delicate aggression. Delicacy in this sense should not be equated with graceful ballet-style artistry, but the nervous tension required to balance fierce emotions on a knife’s blade of complexity and consequence. Their new record forges no new territory for the band, but builds upon previous efforts effectively and efficiently. The last record, The Great Cold Distance, was easily their most successful release to date, but not their most defining. Night is the New Day takes the best melodies and grooves from Viva Emptiness and Last Fair Deal Gone Down, mixing it with the viciously cold atmosphere and impressive production from their latest release, to create a heavy music masterpiece. Katatonia has been the brunt of many alt-rock, pansy metal comments due to Jonas Renske’s preference for clean vocals over traditional screams and grunts. However, through the clean vocals, instrumental dynamics, and unconventional metal song structure, Renske and company prove themselves as brilliant musicians in an uncompromising genre with their use of subtlety, imbuing Night is the New Day with a deeply unsettling edge. Sometimes brute force is not always the most effective tactic, and Katatonia’s dark introspection is enough to make any thinking man uneasy.
Released: May 5th, 2009 Rating: 3.1 Sure, they beat Despised Icon to it earlier this year, and applied a mechanical precision to their progressions. It moves fast, and maintains a pretty nasty aggression all the while. And they bring it real heavy for a good while. We can say that about Day of Mourning, The Devil Wears Prada just throws synth harp and vocal melodies over it. Am I legitimizing either one? I didn’t say that. These releases emphasize the technological impression made on studio production,: everything aligning so perfectly, so clearly, and creating slightly idealistic sonic expressions. It’s exhilarating, but presents a false account of their performance capabilities and strips some dynamic humanity from the record. But isn’t the studio an artist’s workshop? An enormous palate of listening attention? The Devil Wears Prada has created a mature stylistic impression of their metalcore roots, demonstrating a confidence in their influences, virtuosity within their genre and an eager willingness to experiment with “extreme” production elements. Unfortunately, the results are about as riveting as the tired genre (eh, tracks three, four, five…) and some shortfalls—in tone especially—bring down the experience (“Dez Moines” and “Big Wiggly Style”). “Danger: Wildman” reboots back to the level that “Sassafras” grips you. Sure, that shit is poppy as all hell, but it holds the intensity and they rarely dwell on lackluster phrases. It’s pretty standard melodic intuition that you find with your well-endowed pop-punk group, but they’ve dominated the subgenre for a while now, and The Devil Wears Prada has some respectable chops. Can they pull the album off live? Continue reading The Devil Wears Prada – With Roots Above and Branches Below Review So stop being so damn ethnocentric and blast your family with the latest Mnemic track. Premiering yesterday over at Metal Hammer, “Diesel Uterus” is industrially heavy, with an progressive atmosphere that unites the song. Mnemic has always shown some impressive compositions, and this first track is a good indication for their next effort. If you can’t read Danish (why can’t you?!), here’s a translation of the comments from Mnemic’s frontman, Mircea Gabriel Eftemie: “‘Diesel Uterus‘ is probably one of the heaviest songs in terms of tuning. We still maintained the brutality but mixed it with some really beautiful melodies that can be heard in the chorus. The vocals had lot of room to unfold as heard in the chorus and throughout the song. It is mid-tempo pretty much all the way, and the middle part – or c-section if you will – becomes rather progressive and more melodic than the chorus. “The lyrics are about the way technology has changed our way of living. Everybody is dependent on digital devices, mobile phones, computers and especially the internet. If we have Google Earth, what does the military have? Are we safe at all? And is abundance of information a good thing? Definitely good, if you know how to avoid the bad things. The main point is that we should adapt to technology in a correct and balanced way. In reality, we do waste a lot of time. An aspect of the internet is that we end up watching the world most of the day through a screen. It is definitely a heavy topic that requires debate and a heavy song!” Mnemic’s new record comes out January 26th on Nuclear Blast Records. Born in the remote backwoods of upstate New York to an Irish father and Native American mother, Doran McCarthy was born to become an adventurer. After a short stint in the Navy, he was given a dishonorable discharge and became a vagrant, roaming the countryside of the vast American west. A good man at heart, he protected the vast badlands of South Dakota for fifty years before resigning himself to a life of Alaskan bear wrestling. These are his stories… This is his music…
“What Would Clint Eastwood Do” I got to Armkirk, South Dakota one bitter night. Dusty, I stumbled into the town’s rusty, worn down saloon. A disgusting old man–a greasy handlebar mustache–sat at the piano, pounding out songs for the lowlifes to slur along with, drunkenly. I ordered a shot and a beer. These animals disgusted me. Found a place to stay above the sheriff’s office. Armkirk was a dusty growing town on the edge of the badlands. No one knew it existed but them. These damn farmers. Something wasn’t right about them. It didn’t take me long to understand though. They were thieving, murderous imbeciles who grew all day and drank and fought at night with an anger so present it was almost palpable. None of them had seen the world. None of them wanted to. They didn’t know the end was coming. Continue reading McCarthy’s Chronicle: After I Left the Horde… |
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Another Rebirth, and what it means for Metal
“And I can die now, rebirth motherfucker” proclaims Lil Wayne in his recently leaked/canned Rebirth, facing an upcoming court case, a pot bust and an album leak. The New York Times’ argument that his career doesn’t need a major label release hits the point, but misses the reasoning behind his distinct workflow. Tha Carter III realized years of reputation-building mixtape releases, remixes and guest spots that created a cultural machine–no LP required. But Wayne recognizes the incredible reach of the mass media and its dependency on the album. Using this to his advantage, the album is not “effectively meaningless, a concession to the record label and that old albatross, the need for revenue,” as Jon Caramanica might have you think, but a strong artistic statement and his self-created entry into the world’s history books.
Mixtape culture has evolved into a much larger beast as of late, but Weezy’s phenomenal effort in No Ceilings will earn him little more than the buzz he’s used to receiving. His engraving in the history books comes with platinum records, Grammy’s, and an incredible debut (a million in a week is the standard now). Wayne thinks he can hype the record more, and the Amazon leak is more of a high-cost excuse than a tragedy. Sure, the million copies of Rebirth that were pressed will–most likely–now be destroyed, but We Are Young Money debuted the same week, a video for “On Fire” came out yesterday and “Drop the World” is making its way through the charts. The promotional effort has been building for over a year now (“Prom Queen” dropped around this time last year) and it’s not going to stop just yet.