BEST O' OH-NINE

Severely delayed, yes, I know, but life, as it is, tends to get in the way, so the holidays combined with various personal detours on the road to the grave bumped "blogging" down on my list of priorities just a smidge. But hey, new year, new attitude, GO TEAM.

So let's just get this out of the way:
ALBUM OF THE YEAR: Mount Eerie - Wind's Poem



Thank you, Phil Elverum, for giving me one of the only albums this year to immediately give me that warm, fuzzy feeling right from the outset that says "Calvin, you're going to live this." Wind's Poem had me at its buzzsaw 'hello' with "Wind's Dark Poem", took my hand and dragged me into its dense foggy flaming forest home. An absolutely blissful union of black metal aesthetic with folk sensibility, it's the dirty little crossover that Elverum's been flirting with for a while and finally decided to embrace, with really stunning results.

(Side note: what is it with sensitive folk musicians and their black metal? Owen Pallett rockin' a Mayhem shirt, John Darnielle's oft-mentioned love of metal, and one of my favourite local artists, Wyrd Visions, who is quite literally plays acousitc black metal (and even did a cover of "Freezing Moon".)

So yeah, there it is, my album of the year. You can sleep tight now. Unless you wanted to see something else in the ol' top-slot, in which case, maybe some honourable mentions will sate your lust:

LIGHTNING BOLT - Earthly Delights



"Skull-fuckingly heavy" feels like a bit of an understatment when talking about
Earthly Delights, but severed head gangbang lead-ski biathalon borders on silly. This one really took me by surprise, and could very well be my new favourite Lightning Bolt album. Crushingly focused and engagingly experimental, it's really an exhausting listen, but ridiculously satisfying. I fucking dare you to not bang your head when the drums come in on "Colossus".

Lightning Bolt - Colossus

NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS - Shadow Kingdom



Yeah, ok, the cover is fairly hideous, and yeah, I'm a complete Natural Snow Buildings fanboy, but fuck, this is good, ok? Ok. Triple LP, double CD, comic-book... this thing is massive (and boy, was it priced accordingly). Maybe even a bit too big for its own good, but when the drones are as completely engulfing as these (see: "The Fall of Shadow Kingdom"), length is a bit of a moot point. Maybe not the best starting point for new fans, maybe not enough new to satisfy the grumpy old ones, but it's still an undeniably solid slab of thoughtful and charming (yeah, charming. Read the back of the comic, or listen to an interview with the band. Charming!) maelstorms.

RICHARD YOUNGS - Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits



I've already talked a length about how swell this album is, and whaddaya know, it survived the year and made it onto this list. Unfortunately released with a total pressing of less than 300, this is Youngs at his most overtly catchy and pop-oriented. Synth-heavy, layer-heavy, but positively skyward melodies. A depature, really, but which new Richard Youngs album isn't one?

LINK REMOVED. (but on the plus side, this is getting re-released!)

Part 2 coming much sooner than this part took to get here.

Kram Ran

I'm not patriotic in any sense of the word. As Bill Hicks once said, "my parents just fucked here, that's about all." But nonetheless, I can't help but be proud when two parents fuck in my country and produce some legitimately exciting musicians, the latest of which I've been introduced to is Kram Ran.

Hailing from Winnipeg (a city fondly reflected upon by many in the Canadian music scene), Kram Ran is a one-man affair culling influences from... well, shit, everyone according to his Last.fm page: "A Silver Mt Zion, The Robot Ate Me, The Microphones, Radiohead, Xiu Xiu, Tim Hecker". Which isn't entirely inaccurate, really. The beginning of "A Death & Kill" tricks you into thinking that Silver Mt Zion influence is at the start of the list for a reason, before segueing into a jumpy piano riff and positively manic vocals calling to mind Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart quite handily. Kram Ran seems to channel Xiu Xiu fairly often, actually: "To Dance With Your Dear Dread" opens with a searing wall of keyboard destruction and the buried, desperate vocals and, later, "And Once Upon a Time" recalls a certain singer's quiet, barely-in-tune whimper; it also reminds me of the brilliantly naive vocals on Our Brother The Native's latest, if that's a point of reference for anyone of you (and if not, get the newest Our Brother The Native, goddammit). But hell, the comparisons are started to piss me off, so I imagine anyone associated with the Kram Ran camp was tired of it since I brought it up.

What probably wasn't clear in that last paragraph is that this actually, truly is an excitingly original EP. I'm not going to go into detail because I really want you folks to hear this yourselves, but definitely grab this thing; it's free, and completely worth your time. With equal parts fraught desperation and contemplative crooning (check out "Kill Then Give" for a good mix of both; the falsetto breaks halfway in give me the shivers, I tells ya), and, appropriately, a lush blend of acoustic and electronic instrumentation, A Brief Affair of Limping and Gathering of Clipped Wings is one of my favourite home-grown EPs of the year.




Download the whole thing and/or buy yourself a copy here (only $5)

The Big Gloom

Comparing bands to other bands is Cloud Strife-sized double edged sword with a greased hilt. On one hand, sure, it's the easiest way to sum up a band's sound, to say they sound like Band X, Band Y and if Band Z had a baby with Band A while Band C cut the umbilical cord, but it also seldom does justice to neither Bands X nor whatever band you're trying to talk about. So when everyone compared Have a Nice Life to Joy Division, My Bloody Valentine, and Sunn O))) among others (I think I heard Swans somewhere), I did my best not to immediately shit myself 5 times and die, because how on Earth could a band live up to those veritable legends?

Well, shit, they just about did.

And the only reason it's "just about" and not "absolutely" is because this is still a young group.

So, instead, maybe that should read shit, they fucking will.



Poor formatting and excessive curse words aside, this band truly does combine the best of all the aforementioned worlds. Joy Division's uncomfortably depressing lyrics, My Bloody Valentine's wall-of-sound, Swans' repetitive, hypnotic song-structure, Sunn O)))'s... ok, this comparison has always been kind of lost on me, but whatever. Throw that in with a vague black metal aesthetic (the non-ridiculous kind) and a healthy DIY spirit and even a sense of humour (keep up with the Enemies List twitter) and I swear this description is still not off base: Have a Nice are indeed all of that, quite handily.

Though I feel like I'm already falling into the negative-side of this comma-happy band roll call: Have a Nice Life are still a unique force, and not merely derivative of any of the aforesaid.

"Hey now", said the Blogosphere, "this band is old news, mate. Remember early 2008, when everyone went totally apeshit over Deathconsciousness?"

Yes, but there's plenty of reasons for things to get apeshittier (?) now: grab a copy of the recently-pressed Deathconsciousness 2xLP, complete with huge explanatory booklet. Why the hell hasn't this sold out yet? Do your thing, internet. Or if you want some instant gratification, stream the whole thing here and then download the just-released b-side/demo compilation Voids. Worth your time and hard drive space, pinky swear.

Alright, I'm going to quite my fanboy gushing now. Dismissed.