I'm sorry, this number is no longer in service

It's no understatement to say that Robotic Empire played a big role in my musical development, way back in the early aughts when HXCMP3 was a thing and Robotic Empire and their artists gave away MP3s with reckless abandon. They had tons tons tons of exactly the sort of thing I was looking for at the time: mean, obscure, distinctive hardcore/metalcore/screamo/grind/whatever. Circle Takes the Square, pg. 99, Circle of Dead Children and Pig Destroyer are probably the most relevant names on the [huge] list, but I ate it all up, and there were tons of under appreciated gems in the mix - Transistor Transistor, Hassan I Sabbah, Pink Razors, Stop It!!, etc. (Side note: furthermore, for some completely inexplicable reason, Robotic Empire also gave me my first songs from Isis (huh?) and, erm, Opeth. Yeah, they put out an Opeth record. Back in my day...) But today is all about Employer, Employee. Finally.



For the uninitiated - and that seems to be far too many - Employer, Employee played, uh, metalcore, sort of. But with none of the windmilling, breakdown-ing, bass dropping, chug-chugging bro-core genre tropes that have come to define that sort of music as of late. Employer, Employee play an honest-to-god fusion of metal and hardcore, taking the heavy grind of the former and slapping it across the face with spastic bursts of the latter, all the while with some borderline-mathy chops to back it all up. Some of their most adventurous material came after their full length sic[sic], on the Mother Spain & the Wayfaring Myth 7" where the opening track contains this entirely epic string quartet interlude and if your primal instinct to tear shit up is not triggered the instance that the vicious "YOU'RE GONNA DIE" scream unleashes a fucking savage every-core assault in your face, then seriously reconsider your life and how you've lived it up until this point.

Their discography LP was released yesterday after literally years in the making (I checked out their Last.fm page out of curiosity, and saw my own post from January 2007 expressing my excitement for their undoubtedly soon to be released collection) and boy was it done up in style. For $12.99 you get a clear 12" record limited to 300 copies with a pin, a patch, an insert, and a free digital copy. Seriously. I got the 7" for $5 and have never been able to find the way out of print CD, so $13 for a beautifully made piece of vinyl with tons of free bonuses is an absolute steal. Snatch that up before Robotic Empire realizes how insane this price point is.

SERIOUSLY, GO BUY THIS RECORD.

Employer, Employee - Nil or the Nile
Employer, Employee - One Count of Mutiny

SHOW REVIEW: Isis w/ Pelican + Tombs

Ok, yeah, another show review, sorry. Then again, since the uploaded MP3s get a minimum number of downloads, are you actually here for the writing for serious? Hm!

Anyone into the whole post-Neurosis/"atmospheric sludge"/"post-metal" sort of schtick (which I still haven't heard a satisfying catch-all genre name for) knows that this is a sort of dream line-up. Pelican and Isis? And these Tombs cats getting all sorts of buzz about 'em? For $20?

Tombs didn't quite slay me as hard as I was told they were going to, but they nonetheless played an enjoyable set of doomy black metal, which managed to keep things interesting by actually slowing down once in a while, throwing in some noise & ambient(ish) passages and generally being solid musicians.

Pelican, after finally micing their drums properly (make your own joke making fun of their drummer now, I know a lot of you folks hate the man) did their usual sludgy, riff-heavy instru-metal that, in [mentally] sober retrospect was pretty same-y, but in a live environment, it just straight-up rocks, for lack of anything more articulate. Heavy as hell, supertight musicians; great metal, great time.

Also in the "better live than on record"-category this evening (2 out of 3!) are the headliners, the almighty gods ov sludge (or so I'm led to believe), Isis. I can't really articulate why their set was so amazing (which is a bit worrying, considering I'm pursuing an English degree and all, but I digress), but these cats have perfected their craft and are a rock-solid physical entity in the concert hall. Not shying away from "quieter" moments for the live set, they made brilliant use of heavy/soft, loud/quiet dynamics, something the preceding band should make notes about, and something the crowd should recognize and mosh accordingly to; if moshing is ever appropriate at an Isis concert, it certainly isn't during the intro to "Dulcinea", you stupids. The set was mostly new material, but it was the old stuff that really slayed: the aforementioned "Dulcinea" was amazing, and the definite highlight was Panopticon's "In Fiction."

I daresay this was the best show of the year so far. This statement may not last the month, though: Sonic Youth on June 30th? Fuck. Yes.

(P.S. The Eternal is pretty cool. Needs more listens. "Antenna" an immediate favourite. Fragments efficient.)

SHOW REVIEW: Wolves in the Throne Room w/ A Storm of Light, Krallice, & Thrones

Alright, updates should be back to normal now that, as of tomorrow, my school year is done (finally). And yeah, Tuesday updates aren't "normal", but I know all 4 of you are pining for something new to sate your need for my inimitable prose.

Normally, we all know the role of an opening band: to waste time before you get to see the band you paid to see. Ok, or bands the headliner respects and wants to expose to a wider audience, whatever. But by and large, these are not particularly groups you care about (my last show review completely notwithstanding, mind you.) Well, and to break some internal structure and acknowledge those last parentheses, this line-up was another exception: thee almighty eco-friendly epic black metal ensemble Wolves in the Throne Room, supported by A Storm of Light, Krallice and Thrones (just in case you didn't read the title, natch.)

A Storm of Light are a Neurosis-worshipping trio who, unsurprisingly, feature the ex-visuals... guy (visualist? visionary? visionsman?) from Neurosis themselves, who has also served stints in Red Sparowes and Battle of Mice, so the sludgy-credentials here are at waste-thick ooze out ofthat scene in Saw III with all the pig guts. (Which reminds me, I just saw Saw V, and how bullshit was that? (Along with Saws II-IV, mind you (but I digress!). Part of me wanted to think "oh my god, this is going to be so boss! And this album art is bomb, too, this will be the best damn thing since Isis!", while part of me knew that "all of these post-Neurosis bands are the same, ugh." Well, the latter turned out to be true, and while the female guest-vocals gave them some distinction, its by-and-large the same pseudo-atmospheric dirge tuned to drop-whatever.

(However, I did pick up their gorgeous Primitive North split with Nadja for a cheapo $20 (and you all laughed when I put off buying it!) and it's definitely worth your time, especially for the sidelong Nadja blissy, fuzzed-out drone that they do oh so well.)

Krallice were definitely set to impress, too, since they're the closest thing to a black metal supergroup since the short-lived Twilight, although curiously none of the members have any blackened credentials: the "ex-member of..." rollcall includes Astomatous, The Flying Luttenbachers, Orthrelm, and, inarguably the biggest draw, Colin Marston, of Behold... the Arctopus and several more-or-less interchangeable post-everything tech-wank bands. While I expected some sort of iffy, tech-black sort of deal, I was pleasantly surprised that there was nothing overly showy and the emphasis was on fierce, riff-heavy black metal. Shame about the minor sound problem (the vocals would overpower the stage-right speaker), but done well enough to spark my interest in the band. Well done.

By this point it seems like I could devote an entire entry to just listing the former projects of the acts on this bill: take Thrones, the solo project of Joe Preston. It would probably be easier to list the bands he hasn't worked with, but his resume includes tenures with the Melvins, High on Fire, Earth and Harvey Milk. And when you've played jackhammer on a Sunn O))) track, then no one will ever question your bad-assery again (and since apparently a bunch of you are questioning just how boss this guy is, he's loaded his everything with fucking bears.) Stylistically he was the odd-man out, opening with a lengthy drone/doom sort of thing that audibly confused some of the crowd, but this sort of thing is right up my alley, and goddamn did he make an oppressive layer of noise just looping his bass and fiddling with some samplers. Immensely powerful drones, followed by some extremely Melvins-esque "stoner rock" or whatever the tag is that one gives meaty-sounding, low-end heavy hard rock.

And finally, Wolves in the Throne Room have come out of whatever backstage ritual they were performing before the show and... well, carry it onto stage, as they dimmed the lights, lit candles, and cranked the fog machine to 11 to create a wicked atmosphere; this is how black metal is meant to be heard. For a bunch of outsider pseudo-hippies, Wolves can, to put it lightly, tear your fucking head of with raw black energy. Incredibly tight and remarkably aggressive compared to some of their recorded output, they were able to get heads a-banging' more thoroughly than any other band on the bill. (As a side note, $15 shirts are definitely the way to go; way to go, guys.)

For an open-minded metalhead, I'd dare you to find a better evening for $18.

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