Not sure why I'm just getting around to posting this album now. Been thoroughly enjoying it for a number of months, it's among my favorites of the year.
Some people write Algernon Cadwallader off as Cap'n Jazz worship and leave it at that. It's not hard to see why, the jangly guitar, sloppiness and raw, screechy vocals that Algernon Cadwallader employ were the essence of Cap'n Jazz. But I think you'd be missing out if you don't give Algernon Cadwallader a fair shake. Does it sound like just about every band the Kinsella's have ever been in (include Make Believe and American Football in that mix)? Sure, but it's also played with an ebullience, swagger and youthful passion that I haven't heard since Meneguar broke up, and that's saying something.
I was hoping to come up with something witty to say about all the hooks on this album, but fuck it, just download it.
Algernon Cadwallader on last.fm
Get it here.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Portal- Outre' (2007)
I feel like I've been listening to and talking about this band a lot recently, so I suppose I'll post some.
I was quite surprised when Portal blew up after their 2009 album Swarth. Prior to that they were very much a fringe band in black and death metal circles. That part I didn't find so surprising, Portal is unquestionably one of the most challenging bands to listen to that I've ever heard. So when they started popping up on some of the bigger metal websites and blogs and NPR featured a video of their performance at Maryland Deathfest (see below) I was a bit astounded. Perhaps it's the fact that they signed with Profound Lore Records, who get a lot of press. Maybe its the costumes or the disquieting live atmosphere or their commendable commitment to things Lovecraftian in all facets of the band. Or maybe it is the music, I have no idea.
I don't mean to make it sound like Portal isn't a great band, they are, they're just the antithesis of the lowest common denominator dreck that gets recycled around the web's metalsphere (see: Revocation). The guitar sounds like a swarm of bees, if the bees were the size of Labrador Retrievers. Or maybe more like the wail of some monolithic ancient beast loosed from its prison at the bottom of the sea. The wall of sound rolls over you like some sort of sick off-kilter tide, making you queasy. The vocals sound like what I imagine the exhalations of a dry-throated long deceased corpse would sound like. The drumming seems unhinged, erratic, even sloppy at times. Wait, I'm not doing this right again.
Portal is one of the most frightening bands I've ever heard. Outre' features some of the strangest and most awesome guitar playing you'll ever hear, if you can make heads or tails of it that is. Also, it's my favorite Portal album. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Portal at last.fm
This song is off their 2009 album Swarth.
This one is on the album you're about to download.
Get it here.
I was quite surprised when Portal blew up after their 2009 album Swarth. Prior to that they were very much a fringe band in black and death metal circles. That part I didn't find so surprising, Portal is unquestionably one of the most challenging bands to listen to that I've ever heard. So when they started popping up on some of the bigger metal websites and blogs and NPR featured a video of their performance at Maryland Deathfest (see below) I was a bit astounded. Perhaps it's the fact that they signed with Profound Lore Records, who get a lot of press. Maybe its the costumes or the disquieting live atmosphere or their commendable commitment to things Lovecraftian in all facets of the band. Or maybe it is the music, I have no idea.
I don't mean to make it sound like Portal isn't a great band, they are, they're just the antithesis of the lowest common denominator dreck that gets recycled around the web's metalsphere (see: Revocation). The guitar sounds like a swarm of bees, if the bees were the size of Labrador Retrievers. Or maybe more like the wail of some monolithic ancient beast loosed from its prison at the bottom of the sea. The wall of sound rolls over you like some sort of sick off-kilter tide, making you queasy. The vocals sound like what I imagine the exhalations of a dry-throated long deceased corpse would sound like. The drumming seems unhinged, erratic, even sloppy at times. Wait, I'm not doing this right again.
Portal is one of the most frightening bands I've ever heard. Outre' features some of the strangest and most awesome guitar playing you'll ever hear, if you can make heads or tails of it that is. Also, it's my favorite Portal album. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Portal at last.fm
This song is off their 2009 album Swarth.
This one is on the album you're about to download.
Get it here.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
The Helio Sequence- Keep Your Eyes Ahead (2008)
Only a handful of times in my show-going career have I been completely blown away by an opening band that I was previously unfamiliar with. Of those, only one rapidly ascended to rank amongst my favorite active bands. As you can probably guess, that band is The Helio Sequence. The funny thing is I saw them open up for Minus The Bear, who at the time I absolutely loved. Since then however, I've found myself listening to Minus The Bear less and less (especially since that turd Omni) and The Helio Sequence more.
The first time I heard The Helio Sequence I was impressed with the amount of noise these two dudes made. I would describe their first few albums as shoegaze, or perhaps shoegaze's catchier cousin dream pop. These were big wall of sound affairs, the walls being composed of pedal driven guitar, loops, synth, 8-bit bleeps and bloops and of course drums (interesting tidbit: drummer Benjamin Weikel plied his trade on Modest Mouse's Good News For People Who Love Bad News). Those things can still be found on Keep Your Eyes Ahead, just not in the same quantity as their other releases. Really, the transition from dream pop to indie rock/pop began on their third album Love And Distance, but even that seems dense when compared to the sheared down sound of this album. It might be ridiculous to call the results of a band diluting the sound they had cultivated and playing more by the pop playbook fresh, but to me that's exactly what Keep Your Eyes Ahead is. It's like that first day in the spring where you can go outside without a jacket, it might only be five degrees warmer than the day before, but that five degrees makes all the difference and somehow you feel unburdened. The Helio Sequence has always written tremendously catchy songs, but by scaling back a bit and committing to writing the pop songs they always seemed to know they were capable of, The Helio Sequence have produced what is, to date, their master work and one of my favorite albums of the aughts.
Keep Your Eyes Ahead is essential listening for everybody.
The Helio Sequence on last.fm
Get it here.
The first time I heard The Helio Sequence I was impressed with the amount of noise these two dudes made. I would describe their first few albums as shoegaze, or perhaps shoegaze's catchier cousin dream pop. These were big wall of sound affairs, the walls being composed of pedal driven guitar, loops, synth, 8-bit bleeps and bloops and of course drums (interesting tidbit: drummer Benjamin Weikel plied his trade on Modest Mouse's Good News For People Who Love Bad News). Those things can still be found on Keep Your Eyes Ahead, just not in the same quantity as their other releases. Really, the transition from dream pop to indie rock/pop began on their third album Love And Distance, but even that seems dense when compared to the sheared down sound of this album. It might be ridiculous to call the results of a band diluting the sound they had cultivated and playing more by the pop playbook fresh, but to me that's exactly what Keep Your Eyes Ahead is. It's like that first day in the spring where you can go outside without a jacket, it might only be five degrees warmer than the day before, but that five degrees makes all the difference and somehow you feel unburdened. The Helio Sequence has always written tremendously catchy songs, but by scaling back a bit and committing to writing the pop songs they always seemed to know they were capable of, The Helio Sequence have produced what is, to date, their master work and one of my favorite albums of the aughts.
Keep Your Eyes Ahead is essential listening for everybody.
The Helio Sequence on last.fm
Get it here.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Midnight- Satanic Royalty (2011)
Hopefully you dug that Midnight compilation I posted a few weeks back. After eight years of existence and a slew of EPs and splits, Midnight has finally released their first full length and goddamn does it rule. Satanic Royalty is a lot less raw sounding than even the better produced tracks on Complete And Total Fucking Midnight. I suspect that for some this will dispel much of the charm that Midnight once held, but I think they benefit from the better production. The riffs on this album are too awesome not to be heard and that tinny, recorded in a trashcan under water sound would really detract from these songs. The better recording also makes it clear just how awesome Athenar's vocals are, one of my favorite metal vocal performances of the year for sure. I can't overstate how rad this album is, it's like shotgunning beers with Satan or something.
Midnight on last.fm
Get it here.
Midnight on last.fm
Get it here.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
The Mountain Goats- Tallahassee (2002)
This is one of those just in case posts. If we've known one another for more than 15 minutes and discussed music at all, you probably know that The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle is one of my favorite musicians ever. Why? Because he is the best lyricist ever. Period. If you're familiar with The Mountain Goats I defy you to name a better lyricist. If you're not familiar with The Mountain Goats, get familiar. Now. Trust me, as a guy who spends most of his time bowed before the altar of the almighty riff, the only way a musician who, for most of his career, recorded albums in his bathroom with just an acoustic guitar could be counted amongst my favorite musicians is by being an extraordinary wordsmith.
Tallahassee happens to be my favorite Mountain Goats album as well as a great starting place for the uninitiated. Tallahassee captures The Mountain Goats in a transitional period, after Darnielle's lo-fi unaccompanied acoustic recordings and before The Mountain Goats became full band with well produced albums. Tallahassee in many ways combines the best of both eras, with good production and occasional drum, bass and other instrumental accompaniment, but for the most part is just Darnielle and an acoustic guitar.
This comes more highly recommended than anything else I have posted on this blog.
The Mountain Goats on last.fm
Everybody's favorite Mountain Goats song ever:
One of my personal favorites from this album:
Get it here.
Tallahassee happens to be my favorite Mountain Goats album as well as a great starting place for the uninitiated. Tallahassee captures The Mountain Goats in a transitional period, after Darnielle's lo-fi unaccompanied acoustic recordings and before The Mountain Goats became full band with well produced albums. Tallahassee in many ways combines the best of both eras, with good production and occasional drum, bass and other instrumental accompaniment, but for the most part is just Darnielle and an acoustic guitar.
This comes more highly recommended than anything else I have posted on this blog.
The Mountain Goats on last.fm
Everybody's favorite Mountain Goats song ever:
One of my personal favorites from this album:
Get it here.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Gigan- Quasi-Hallucinogenic Sonic Landscapes
Surprise! Another death metal gem from 2011!
I hate the overwhelming majority of modern technical death metal. So much of it is just technical for technicality's sake. Bands seem to sacrifice songwriting, heaviness and originality (3 things I value more in my death metal than technicality) for being as tech as they possibly can. I don't get it. Prime example: Revocation. People talk about that band as if they're the second coming of Death. I get that the dude can play guitar and play it quite well, but Revocation's music is some of the most generic, soulless shit I've ever heard. There are a handful bands that pull off technical death metal well, Gorod, Mitochondrion, Gorguts, Decapitated and a few others. I think I can make another addition to that list with Gigan. If you've listened to much tech death then you know what to expect, but here's what I dig about this album: the Gorguts style insane riffing, Gorod-like jazzy bits, inhuman Origin-esque grind tempos (though unlike Origin, Gigan mix up tempos, so their albums aren't an all-out aural assault that gets tedious after a few songs, the quieter sections are also quite nice) and the strange spacey atmospheric stuff. Also, the fact that this album doesn't just sound like a bunch of riffs smashed together.
I've always wished more death metal bands would go for the space/Sci-Fi thing, thanks Gigan.
Gigan on last.fm
Get it here.
I hate the overwhelming majority of modern technical death metal. So much of it is just technical for technicality's sake. Bands seem to sacrifice songwriting, heaviness and originality (3 things I value more in my death metal than technicality) for being as tech as they possibly can. I don't get it. Prime example: Revocation. People talk about that band as if they're the second coming of Death. I get that the dude can play guitar and play it quite well, but Revocation's music is some of the most generic, soulless shit I've ever heard. There are a handful bands that pull off technical death metal well, Gorod, Mitochondrion, Gorguts, Decapitated and a few others. I think I can make another addition to that list with Gigan. If you've listened to much tech death then you know what to expect, but here's what I dig about this album: the Gorguts style insane riffing, Gorod-like jazzy bits, inhuman Origin-esque grind tempos (though unlike Origin, Gigan mix up tempos, so their albums aren't an all-out aural assault that gets tedious after a few songs, the quieter sections are also quite nice) and the strange spacey atmospheric stuff. Also, the fact that this album doesn't just sound like a bunch of riffs smashed together.
I've always wished more death metal bands would go for the space/Sci-Fi thing, thanks Gigan.
Gigan on last.fm
Get it here.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Midnight- Complete And Total Fucking Midnight (2005)
How about ANOTHER band that wears masks when they play? Perhaps I should have done these last two posts the week leading up to Halloween rather than the week following.
The sound of Cleveland, Ohio's Midnight harkens back to the first wave of black metal. Think Bathory, Celtic Frost, Hellhammer and Venom. So, not so much black metal as it's conceived today, but rather thrash or speed metal with the typical Jesus hatin' subject material and in this case, a healthy dose of sleaze (listen to "Endless Slut," "Unholy and Rotten" or check out some live footage of Midnight with the Midnight Mistresses if you don't believe me). This album compiles a bunch of Midnight's early material and as you would expect with such a compilation, there is some variance in the quality of both the recordings and the music itself. Though, once you hear it I think you'll agree that one of their earliest songs "All Hail Hell" is a fucking thrash anthem, as is the other track below. To this point first wave black metal has more or less be ignored by the whole thrash revival thing. With Midnight gaining in popularity I wouldn't be surprised if in the next few years more bands trying to sound like Hellhammer cropped up. Hop on board now and when the second wave of first wave black metal hits you can say you were into it before it was cool.
Midnight has a new album coming out next week (11/8), if it rules I'll put it up here as well.
Midnight on last.fm
Get it here.
The sound of Cleveland, Ohio's Midnight harkens back to the first wave of black metal. Think Bathory, Celtic Frost, Hellhammer and Venom. So, not so much black metal as it's conceived today, but rather thrash or speed metal with the typical Jesus hatin' subject material and in this case, a healthy dose of sleaze (listen to "Endless Slut," "Unholy and Rotten" or check out some live footage of Midnight with the Midnight Mistresses if you don't believe me). This album compiles a bunch of Midnight's early material and as you would expect with such a compilation, there is some variance in the quality of both the recordings and the music itself. Though, once you hear it I think you'll agree that one of their earliest songs "All Hail Hell" is a fucking thrash anthem, as is the other track below. To this point first wave black metal has more or less be ignored by the whole thrash revival thing. With Midnight gaining in popularity I wouldn't be surprised if in the next few years more bands trying to sound like Hellhammer cropped up. Hop on board now and when the second wave of first wave black metal hits you can say you were into it before it was cool.
Midnight has a new album coming out next week (11/8), if it rules I'll put it up here as well.
Midnight on last.fm
Get it here.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Ghoul- Transmission Zero (2011)
I've been patiently waiting for this album to leak so I can post the video below. Watch it.
Nice.
Anyway, Creepsylvania's finest are back with another slab of death-tinged thrash, b-horror movie schlock, axe murder, Killbot antics and surf rock. Ghoul albums are always a blast to listen to and Transmission Zero is no exception. As usual, riffs abound and they haven't lost their touch when it comes to writing anthemic sci-fi thrash odysseys. In case you aren't familiar with Ghoul, members have also spent time in Bay Area bands such as Asunder, Dystopia, Ludicra, Exhumed and Impaled. Though if you ask they'll say they have no idea what you're talking about and that they hail from a small Eastern European town whose major export is tar and primary industry is toxic waste disposal.
Ghoul on last.fm
Get it here.
Nice.
Anyway, Creepsylvania's finest are back with another slab of death-tinged thrash, b-horror movie schlock, axe murder, Killbot antics and surf rock. Ghoul albums are always a blast to listen to and Transmission Zero is no exception. As usual, riffs abound and they haven't lost their touch when it comes to writing anthemic sci-fi thrash odysseys. In case you aren't familiar with Ghoul, members have also spent time in Bay Area bands such as Asunder, Dystopia, Ludicra, Exhumed and Impaled. Though if you ask they'll say they have no idea what you're talking about and that they hail from a small Eastern European town whose major export is tar and primary industry is toxic waste disposal.
Ghoul on last.fm
Get it here.
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