Like an amplifier should

Yes, here it is, back on track, for now. Sorry if the next few entries don't match the exceedingly high standards I started out with, but I am sick and tired and busy with you've heard all this bullshit before get to the music goddamn.


If there's one thing I really do like when it comes to music, it's shoegaze. Terrifically loud, noisy, dense, occasionally poppy, and even the general aesthetic is just so damn cool. A little pretentious, maybe, a little ridiculous, sure, but those are words I'm totally comfortable associating myself with.

Holler, Wild Rose! sort of fall under this umbrella. Sort of, yeah. "Marylawn Hair" is My Bloody Valentine worship at it's finest, with that frankly glorious wavering synth wading through the mix. And "Holler, Wild Rose!" has a fantastic, almost post-rockish explosive intro. But instead of falling into fuzz-on-ten, reverb-on-eleven, three-two-one-LOOK-DOWN tedium, Our Little Hymnal is one of the most delightfully varied debut albums I've heard in a while (even if I am several years behind on this one... oops.)



From the flat-out, wall-of-geetar gaze sounds to surprisingly delicate acoustics to spirituals to tastefully done ambient interludes to whatever sort of "indie rawk" you wanna call it, it stays interesting and, more importantly, stays good. It's loud, it's soft, it's melodic, uplifting, heartfelt; wickedly solid record. They should have a new one coming out sometime soon, and the only thing out there besides this is the limited-to-200 Yarn EP. which is a nice little stopgap between albums.

I did my best to give you some representative tracks, but as always, if you think you'll dig the rest of 'em, throw some dollars at 'em.

Holler, Wild Rose! - Marylawn Hair
Holler, Wild Rose! - Sun Vines

ohhh shhhiiiiiii-

sorry,
been real busy with school/work
exam time, you see
I've been pretty dead this week
back to regular thing soon

Cover version extravaganza! Part one.

I basically wrote this just so I can share what has become one of my favourite covers ever, but then decided it could (potentially) become a nifty idea to come back to in future entries (i.e., when I am too lazy to do something original (woah, meta.)

The cover song is a funny thing. It used to be the primary type of single in the early days of the music industry, where songs by black musicians would be stolen, reworked (and usually totally pussied-up) and performed by white groups, earning ridiculous sums of money for zero effort. Now, it's not quite as common for a band's biggest hit to be a cover (lol Gary Jules), but what's most alarming is that a discomforting amount of modern covers are not recognized as covers by the [dang ol'] kids these days [who won't git off my lawn]. I cringe when I think of how many 14 year old girls think My Chemical Romance wrote "Desolation Row."

However, the "cover" can also be fascinating when a band completely reworks a song and actually makes it their own; it's a fantastic way of paying tribute to an influence. And these are the types of covers I will be presenting.

Today's pick is "Only Shallow" by Nadja, song originally by My Bloody Valentine (but you knew that, right?) Both bands are known for their huge wall-of-guitar sound, with mouldy molasses-thick fuzz, barely-there vocals and just generally loud-as-fuck all-consuming soundscaping. I imagine a brief bio of the coveree would be superfluous to most of y'all, but regarding the coverer: Nadja are a drone/doom duo comprised of Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff based right here in Toronto (ok, right there in Toronto since I'm technically in a different city) and are, hands down, the most prolific drone-duo the city has ever seen (an oft challenged position, no doubt.) Not only do they have a fucking absurd amount of releases in an amazingly short amount of time, but they are almost unanimously high-quality.



With regards to the cover, I can't think of a band more fitting to cover thee almighty My Bloody Valentine (except maybe A Place to Bury Strangers). You can tell Nadja are deeply indebted to them, and their cover is a brilliant tribute. In a truly Nadjian move, the tempo has been halved; the [pseudo-]iconic opening drum roll of the song is slowed to a lazy pace, with the guitars and keyboard following suit. However, the slower speed works stunningly well here. Combined with the thousands of overdubs and no less than 5 fuzz pedals turned up to 12 (all figures are estimates), it proves to be even dreamier and more ethereal than the original. Completely mesmerizing, and completely worth the time for fans of either band, or folks who can dig a nice shoegaze tune in general.

Nadja - Only Shallow

Hey, whaddaya know, these cats just put out a whole record of covers. As always, buy what you like.

I am a filthy, lying whore.

Sorry, something came up that took priority over writing that 3 people will read.

Update Tuesday, hopefully with something significant.

Sorry

Last week got super busy.

Update today, promise.

With Throats As Fine As Needles

Cool recording techniques, to my knowledge, always yield cool albums. Set Fire to Flames set up a bunch of equipment in a condemned house for a week with a whole lot of drugs to see what would happen, and put out the stellar Sings Reign Rebuilder. Sunn O))) set up shop in an old Norwegian cathedral to do Domkirke and churned out some of the best material of their decade-long existence (chiefly "Why Dost Thou Hide Thyself In Clouds?"). With Throats As Fine As Needles formed a four-man drone supergroup (featuring members of Nether Dawn and Birchville Cat Motel), then holed up in an abandoned bunker with portable instruments in a concept that, on paper, pretty much makes my dick explode.



Luckily the dick-explosion pretty much carries though on to record, too. (Wait, "luckily"...?) As one would could guess based on the talents involved in this project and the circumstances they put themselves in, this is abrasive, varied, noisy, and hugely reverbed stuff. It's all very layered and extremely dense, with so much shit going on it can't help but meld together into some blissed-out drone grooooooves, man. Especially the first track, where it feels like all four of them are going full bore and it comes off sounding like a much more evil Vibracathedral Orchestra or Natural Snow Buildings (both of which are terrible comparisons at face value, but imagine each of them were... locked in a bunker with battery-powered instruments.)

The packaging for this thing is swell too, with a hand-dyed rice (?) paper sleeve, so I'm assuming each of these is going to be unique. Less than 999 copies left, so get it while you can.

With Throats As Fine As Needles - I
With Throats As Fine As Needles - II

Flags Of The Sacred Harp

Sorry, today's entry is going to blow ass because I am operating on very little sleep, having pulled an almost-all-nighter to finish (and, for that matter, start) an essay & whatwith work the night of, before, and after, I am effectively dead.

Jackie-O Motherfucker (yeah, sorry, no spiel/context today) are a group musicians (OH SHIT!) who seemingly vary in number/instrumentation on an album-to-album basis, but there always seem to be guitar/drums/bass/something that is bowed and/or squeezed and my goodness every ounce of my creative energy is well and truly sapped.



Point is, they play some brand of sound which can be loosely umbrella'd under "psychedelic folk", usually in perfect proportions of "psych" and "folk" (at least on the album I'm talking about here), although they are certainly not afraid to go full-bore into either genre (take the alarmingly pleasant "Rockaway" compared to the cacophonous ending to "Nice One"). Speaking of "Nice One", they need more songs like this: abso-fucking-brilliant. The minimalist beginning slowly building-up to the psychy-noisy-folky-freakout is really goddamnn cool. That being said, if you like what you hear here, the whole album is definitely worth your money (though you can probably find it cheaper than this...)

Wow, sorry this was so shit. Better writing next Monday, I pinky-swear.

Jackie-O Motherfucker - Nice One
Jackie-O Motherfucker - Hey! Mr. Sky

Black metal ist kalt

Metal is fucking ridiculous. You know, I know, metal fans know it. I don't mean this in a negative way, but it's really fucking ridiculous. Power metal is fantastically whimsical, death metal is laughably brutal, and thrash metal is practically a cartoon.

But nothing whatsoever can match black metal (bolded for emphasis/grimness.) The attitude, the aesthetic, the fashion...
hell, it almost feels as style-conscious as the "scene/emo/whateverthefuck" 'movement'. It's gotta be grim, it's gotta be frostbitten, it's gotta be so invertedly necro and recorded in your basement onto a limited edition tape that if it isn't, you're a fucking poser so go listen to Job For a Cowboy you fucking gay-ass poser scum FUUUUUUUUCKKKKK HOLY SHIT I HATE YOU YOU SUCK SO MUCH.

(Admittedly, this fervour has died down somewhat in recent times; acts like Darkthrone and Satyricon are looking more like angry old men then costumed servants to Satan, and newer bands like Nachtmystium and Wolves in the Throne Room look downright friendly.)

Nonetheless, this sort of attitude means a lot of black metal is shitty, sloppy, aimless, indistinct, blast-beaten nonsense. So when bands come along and try something new, something a little more grandiose, with a little more thought and a little more effort (well, make it a lot more), a lot of people absolutely lose their shit (see: Deathspell Omega, Wolves in the Throne Room, etc.) However, one of my favourite black metal releases in the last few years (and, in fact, one of my favourite metal releases) is just well-written straight-up black metal: no keyboards, no female vocals, no extended ambient passages. Fucking I.C.E.



Imperial Crystalline Entombment, comprised of Mammoth, Blizzzard, IceSickKill and Bleak (yes, really), are pretty much a pure black metal ensemble hailing from the frostbitten fjords of Waldorf, Maryland ("pure" meaning guitar + bass + drums + vokills, not "pure" in the Aryan, National Socialist Black Metal way(see: Gestapo 666, Slave Whipping Blasphemy, etc.) What sets them apart is that they actually put noticeable time and effort into songwriting. There are choruses, there are vocals, there are hooks, and they do it all without dipping into "melodic black metal" territory. The lyrics are a tongue-in-cheek (?) story about the coming of Ravaskeith, and his bringing of an apocalyptic end in white. While the subject matter is ridiculous (word of the day!) and the lyrics not particularly deep/meaningful, they are written with... get this... metre and rhyme. The syncopation of the vocals and the rhyming does wonders when it comes to making a memorable, satisfying experience.

Mammoth rise in winter guise,
Take this child to the frozen side,
Empty human born of flesh,
Throw him, to the cold white death!

Buy it if you like it.

M4As, sorry:
I.C.E. - Hypothermic Possession
I.C.E. - Cascade Cavern Catharsis

Ghosts will come and kiss our eyes

If I had a dollar for every band that "features members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor", I'd probably have at least twelve dollars. A Silver Mt Zion is the obvious choice, then we've got Set Fire to Flames, Fly Pan Am, Exhaust, 1-Speed Bike, Black Ox Orkestar, Molasses, etc, etc. Not to say I dislike Godspeed (actually quite the opposite), nor do I dislike many of the side projects, but it just feels like they're goddamn everywhere.

One such project I ignored for far too long was HRSTA (spelled with little dots below the RST, but who has the time to do that?), featuring Mike Moya (ex-Godspeed, lolz) and, perhaps more excitingly, Brooke Crouser (Jackie-O Motherfucker (note to self: do blog on Jackie-O Motherfucker.)



Moving away from the grandeur of the former and the folksy noisefuck of the latter, HRSTA are sort of a middle ground between the two extremes (to underwrite everyone involved in this comparison.) This is a superbly atmospheric record, with all matter of organs and related instruments providing minor-chord drones while the reverb-y/tremeolo'd-to-hell-and-back guitar lines wrap their way around them (or is it the other way around..?); and, of course, Moya's vocals fit perfectly, and whatever little couplets of lyrics you can decipher are wonderfully creepy, too. His voice reminds me of Mehdi Ameziane from Natural Snow Buildings, and, at times, even of Thom Yorke's more restrained moments (a la Kid A, natch.)

As always, support the band whenever you can.

HRSTA - Entre la mer et l'eau douce
HRSTA - The Orchard