https://i.imgur.com/KO3CIzZ.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/5FoztzIO8iOlpjndpYwgBG
http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2018/04/12/ails-the-unraveling/
A musician’s “return” after an extended absence from music (whether that be from an intentional hiatus or otherwise) is an interesting peek into their creative headspace. Do they prove themselves creatures of habit, or were they reinvented over this intermission? In the case of Ails, it’s a little of both. Other than for this record speaking for itself (read: kicking tons of ass), the group is likely best known for bandmates Laurie Shanaman and Christy Cather’s previous work in Ludicra. As expected, Ails is a similarly forward-thinking metal project, but The Unraveling distinguishes them from their impressive lineage – the group also features guitarist Sam Abend (Desolation, Abrupt), drummer Colby Byrn (One In The Chamber, 2084), and bassist Jason Miller (Phantom Limbs). The album’s six tracks are refined and streamlined as they are ambitious and exploratory. The Unraveling’s more colloquial take is a welcome answer to the sophisticated dialect of skronkier blackened death bands. Here, twists and turns are more easily navigated, but the journey is no less surprising or enjoyable because of it.Energizing opener “The Echoes Waned” is a indicator of the deft and thorough approach heard on The Unraveling. The mix provides a crisp, clean gaze throughout, inviting repeat listens. Every flick of the wrist is present, highlighting dexterous transitions and a supreme sense of timing. Their musical language regularly hints at something around the next corner, but there’s still a number of jarring, dramatic wrinkles to keep things from getting stiff. “The Echoes Waned” brews up rounds of tension with Shanaman and Cather’s intertwining vocals before they’re sucked away by undertows of mini-movements, culminating into a “how’d we end up here?” acoustic detour. The vocal interplay lends a welcome contrast over the course of the album, though Shanaman’s exhaustive shrieks slather the ominous instrumentation with tangible dread, terror, and sorrow.
Fleeting and fluid, one moment melts into the next with a musical intuition seemingly sensitive to the listener’s pulse. Punctuating moments have a transitory feel, picked up by the momentum of each song. This happens frequently and makes the record a pleasure to come back and parcel out each lead, lyric, and rhythm. “Dead Metaphors” dismissively passes from a majestic doom intro to tremolo swirls and jagged, gnarly harmonies only to revive it for an epic reprise. For as efficiently as the group evolves each composition, Ails maintain a rawness and edge that match the thrashy tendencies of fellow Bay Area boundary-pushers Grayceon. While there’s much on the epic end of the spectrum, this rawness is a welcome retreat from the heady swell of the super-calculated and dissonant styles.
“Mare Weighs Down” has a perfectly maimed gait that encourages their heavy metal slog to become a hub from where each aspect of their sound can take off. Ails merge black, death, and doom metal with a folksy majesty and NWOBHM-level love of rad harmonies, making for a delightfully dim atmosphere. Each facet gets its due, though the flywheel of their sound is carried by blackened passages. With all of the grind and few of the frills, the too-brief “The Ruin” demonstrates Ails’ blistering idle. So as brainy as they get, melodies thread through each song, leaving something to latch onto as things quickly unfold. “Any Spark of Life” unfurls a into a nebulous spew of death and doom that staves off eroding flurries of needling guitars. Similarly, closer “Bitter Past” is ferocious and patient, doling out blows on cue then dashing off to the next verse or bridge. Overall, The Unraveling is a remarkable, oftentimes catchy take on a style that often gets long-winded or tied up in it’s own aspirations. A very strong debut despite the group’s pedigree.
https://grizzlybutts.com/2018/06/23/ails-the-unraveling-2018-review/
In hindsight the sordid discography of Bay Area avant-dark metal/post-black metal quintet Ludicra was forward-thinking. Equally invested and escapist in their black metal fortitude, it was a project that served as induction for many future black metal fans and ushered in some small push towards new styles of the sub-genre. With the long break before ‘The Tenant’ and drummer Aesop Dekker investing in his position within Agalloch even more the inevitable split happened in 2011. From there Dekker and John Cobbett (Hammers of Misfortune) formed punkish avant-black Vhol almost immediately while Laurie Shanaman and Christy Cather took a few years to conceive Ails. Unsurprisingly, their debut full-length ‘The Unraveling’ is a revision of the style heard on Ludicra‘s final album ‘The Tenant’.Ails‘ debut will undoubtedly please fans who have long felt the loss of Ludicra. As someone who never personally connected with any of their previous work Ails is a new experience that came with no concrete expectations. From the first listen I saw the intended pattern of descent portrayed, the album quite literally ‘unravels’ into an increasing state of disarray and anger. This causes a great deal of conflict as a listener who appreciates artistic theme but seeks musical (lets say structural and melodic) value just slightly above concept. My initial reaction was “Wow, that got really unlistenable as it ended.” Quickly realizing that it was meant to ‘unravel’ I felt myself quickly alienated from it’s second half and more or less unwilling to go along for another ride. With some time apart, and some small reunion, I’ve resolved my thoughts on ‘The Unraveling’ after two months.
It’s just alright, man. Cather‘s place in first chair for Ails‘ guitar work shows a songwriter with still ‘bare’ influences that resemble dark metal and melodic black metal heavyweights around half of the time. This actually leads to some of the best moments of the album with “Dead Metaphors” and “Mare Weighs Down” largely carrying the album outside of the first track’s strong vocal arrangements. With so much of Ludicra‘s sound invoked through the two distinct vocalists it is hard to see Ails as the upstarts they are rather than a renaming of their past project. So, as a debut this is an average black metal release that loses steam and coherence by the time it ends. As a continuation of Ludicra‘s sound ‘The Unraveling’ is generally sub-par outside of a few songs that work well enough. All of this keeping in mind I’m no great fan of their past work to begin with.
If “The Echoes Waned” didn’t set a higher standard that the rest of the album couldn’t quite meet it’d likely all have been a bust for my taste. Even now, picking the album up two months later I’ve found myself shutting off the record repeatedly when certain songs begin, rearranging the tracklist (why wasn’t “Any Spark of Life” Track 2?) and generally struggling to find any desire to hear it’s last couple songs again. I do see greater potential for this project and think they’ll eventually reach for what bands like Ion, Yellow Eyes or even Castevet were/are doing but ‘The Unraveling’ isn’t quite there yet in terms of style or execution.
― Friedrich B. Neechy (Oor Neechy), Thursday, 21 February 2019 17:43 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/6TZiUq0.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/2aenzTjIBx7LX5mQ3tEqCv
https://listen.20buckspin.com/album/manor-of-infinite-forms
https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tomb-mold-manor-of-infinite-forms-review/
Once, many moons ago, I was sure I had stumbled upon a great and historic treasure. Indescribably drunk and shambling across the street with a friend, I dropped to my knees to inspect an inviting collection of mysteries spied on the floor. After some investigation, I truly believed I had discovered – amidst the suspiciously damp apparel – a new and unheard of species of indigenous land-dwelling prawn. It was only when my friend slapped the morsel out of my hand that I realised I was, in fact, rummaging through a patch of alarmingly robust vomit. In that moment, as fame and fortune were so savagely torn from my grasp, I learned a valuable lesson – life can often be confusing, gross and unnecessarily sticky. Three words one might use to describe Canada’s Tomb Mold, who, after tearing classic death metal asunder with 2017’s debut, Primordial Malignity, have since returned with an expanded line-up and another installation of their corporal jigsore quandry. Manor of Infinite Forms arrives rancid, raucous and ready to rot.Like most people, I wasn’t expecting Primordial Malignity when it released – a viscous concoction of esoteric Demilich riffing, lovingly stirred into a distinctly Finnish flavored bone soup, Dismal yet delicious. Manor of Infinite Forms dares not change the recipe, but, time begets growth even in these corpse-fields, and the Canadian’s second album boasts small yet clear signs of mutation. Where the debut would swirl with virulent vortices of rhythm, chaotically deploying a mercurial non sequitur riff here and there, the follow-up seeks to stitch them together more effectively, albeit as thalidomide as ever. Max Klebanoff remains the second coming of Chris Reifert, commanding the kit with an impressive profusion of fills, D-beats and maniacal blasting, whilst recounting each regurgitation with a bubonic, if monotone, vocal delivery.
Although the epic “Blood Mirror” lurches with all manor of dank destruction, it’s “Abysswalker” that caught my attention the most. A driving riff echoes with an eerie yet horrifically catchy lead guitar line and exemplifies the enhanced songwriting the band are so clearly plying – in particular, the work of guitarists, Payson Power and Derrick Vella, who are still dealing in the same unassailable rhythms but with an added sense of cohesion, more fluidly combining and complementing their transition points. There’s a lot to be said for the element of surprise, and Manor of Infinite Forms, as a follow up does somewhat want for the unexpected, a commodity its amorphous and ever-predatory predecessor had in abundance. Although the vile beauty of the debut’s ability to unpredictably change riff largely remains, these structures are fractionally more considered. “Gored Embrace (Confronting Biodegradation)” Dismembers its buoyant pacing by occasionally splicing its verses with a helping of tastefully limited, yet darkly effective, melody. Similarly, “Chamber of Sacred Ootheca” progressively builds on its main riff like the Demigods of old, slowing, accelerating and re-ordering to more creatively vilify the ears.
Sadly, the debut’s graven compression perseveres while the putrid production is largely missing, instead opting for a comparatively wholesome finish. The cartilage-encrusted percussion and grotesque guitar sound is sanitized to a degree, and while enough ugliness remains to suitably weave the Incantation, I can’t help but miss the outright aural abomination that was previously presented. Still, the unconventionally memorable nature of the material still manages to protrude from the soil and beckons me beyond any personal preferences, as the cleaner production does somewhat accentuate the enhanced technicality on display here, forcing the songs to speak for themselves as averse to grimacing behind a novel production job.
In almost every way, Manor of Infinite Forms is the logical continuation of the pestilence already set forth in Tomb Mold‘s previous work, and while there is a notable improvement in songwriting, the album largely offers much of the same. Perpetuation, however, is often misinterpreted as a lack of vision, but a band like Tomb Mold understands that their trade feeds on violent viscera, and have wisely exercised their development without straying beyond the formula that lavished such loathsome light on their output in the first place. If this was a record on your radar, then I can’t imagine you’ll be disappointed – a bile-bequeathed love letter to all us OSDM fans, without feeling the gruesome need to ape another band’s cursive…
https://grizzlybutts.com/2018/05/29/tomb-mold-manor-of-infinite-forms-2018-review/
The deeply twisted and rabidly tunneled rhythms of Toronto’s death metal history might have been lit by the sparking chainsaws and flamethrower blasts of Slaughter and Sacrifice back in the 80’s but the darkest catacombs were sealed until the mid 2000’s. With the limits of extreme metal being pushed nationwide for the last decade groups like Adversarial, Paroxsihzem, Abyss and Thantifaxath entered the 2010’s with greater-honed, transformative skills and somewhere in that same mix festered the aspirations of Tomb Mold. Initially formed as a duo of Derrick Vella (guitar, bass) and Max Klebanoff (vocals, drums) within a (speculative) timeline presumably after Klebanoff joined Abyss in 2011, and beyond his five year investment in groove-death metal band Fragile Existence. On a plane all their own just a few short years after their first tape, the phenomenal momentum of Tomb Mold‘s hungered-after releases appears to have forced a refining sledge of evolution upon their rotten sound.Their sound as a duo back in 2016 evolved from a mix of Purtenance and demo-era Dismember on ‘The Bottomless Perdition’ towards a more nuanced Witch Vomit-adjacent sound on ‘The Moulting’. The Finnish death metal influences became even more evident on their debut full-length ‘Primordial Malignity’ which featured dirty-but-readable production that tore away from the cavernous horror of their demos. At the very least the band’s debut was on par with both Funebrarum records as well Vorum‘s ‘Poisoned Mind’ in terms of old school sound and sharp riff progressions. Looking back a year removed from Tomb Mold‘s debut, I think it deserved a bit more fanfare for mixing the cruel attack of Morpheus Descends ‘Ritual of Infinity’ with the thoughtfully trailing intensity of Adramelech‘s first album.
To further elevate expectations, Tomb Mold wasted zero time vaulting off the momentum of their debut by expanding their staff to a four-piece and testing the expanded potential of a full line-up with their ‘Cryptic Transmissions’ demo just six months later. The demo’s bassy tones had a gnarly ‘Severed Survival’ thump but more notably the writing brought an elevated, technical form to their old Finn-deathly sogginess. It was clear that with greater expectations, and two more brains, came increased potential for compositional intricacy. With just two songs already measuring half the length of ‘Primordial Malignity’ a ‘leap forward’ moment was imminent. That prophesied leap would come far sooner than expected with the announcement for the next full-length coming less than three months after the demo.
Momentum can be a dangerous thing in the world of death metal, especially if we look to the history of promising, over-hyped death metal bands in the early 90’s who collapsed when tours fell through, albums flopped, or quickly shifting scene trends deflated their appeal. From the perspective of a collector high potential energy often leads to a bright burn and a quick fade, resulting in some of genre music’s greatest gems be it Gorement or Morbus Chron. But as a fan who forms personal attachment with tours, shirts, albums, and the promise of more… a band that rises to greatness (see: branding) and rides it steadily (Immolation) can retain value that diminishes slowly and reinforces their rise. I see the development of Tomb Mold‘s sound as a great example of how trend-immune a project can potentially be as it’s ‘sound’ begins to supplant its beginnings slightly with new and increasing collaboration. In lieu of describing the impact of it’s momentous potential energy, ‘deliberate ambition’ is how I’d first describe the stylistic statement ‘Manor of Infinite Forms’ makes.
Through alternating periods of analysis and casual enjoyment I’ve found the second Tomb Mold full-length to be confidently gymnastic compared to the manic aggression of their previous work. The longer, unpredictable compositions and multitude of riff-changes skirt the edges of old school technical death metal without ever falling into chaos, careless dissonance or Demilich-ian redundancy. ‘Manor of Infinite Forms’ isn’t memorable for any grand innovation or flamboyance so much as it relies on a daunting, fractal stream of consciousness that spirals and grinds with twice the ambition of the first record. It’d be hyperbolic to describe the experience as ‘impenetrable’ but the deliberate nature of the guitar work demands rapt attention throughout and I’d often lose the ‘arc’ of certain songs on the first few listens.
Stylistically speaking ‘Manor of Infinite Forms’ blends the furious bludgeon of ‘Ritual of Infinity’ with the clever precision of Demigod and expels it all through the bone-lined caverns of Convulse‘s ‘World Without God’. The riffs are immediate and unrelenting throughout as if plucked directly from ’92 somewhere between Helsinki and New York. Klebanoff‘s vocals are reminiscent of Burial Invocation‘s original vocalist but with a range a bit closer to Krypts‘ Antti Kotiranta; his delivery is perhaps less obscured and distant in the mix than either band but the tonality is often comparable. I believe most folks will be focused on the guitar performances for the first several listens but it is worth noting how flawlessly tuned the overall sound of Tomb Mold is on ‘Manor of Infinite Forms’ thanks to mastering from Arthur Rizk (Inquisition, Power Trip).
Balance without compromise is struck in furthering Tomb Mold‘s stylistic ambitions while tastefully retaining the original intentions of the project. What initially appears as an ‘Erosion of Sanity’-like melange of influences colliding together to form a ‘sound’ actually holds up as a reasonably original conception for old school inspired death metal in 2018. The sonic references, mood, and delivery are inspired but not so derivative that one can pin down ‘Manor of Infinite Forms’ as plain ‘worship’, genre entry, or idolatry. It is just challenging enough to carry depth but never so ambitious that the power of ancient death metal’s attack is lost. Is it memorable though? That’ll depend on your love of riffs and whether intense spectacle or elaborate maze-like compositions are more important. The middle ground is perhaps early Sentenced, Atrocity or Mercyless and if you get excited at the promise of a detour towards the more esoteric edges of ‘Slumber of Sullen Eyes’ this’ll be your new favorite thing.
When I’ve listened to an album so much I lose some perspective when the time comes to reflect upon the best point of induction. A key point of endorsement, actually. No doubt the title track is stand-out but the further refined version of “Blood Mirror”, the opener from the ‘Cryptic Transmissions’ demo, is the ultimate ‘speaks for itself’ piece. The complete listen is relatively flawless in arrangement and execution as a whole. So, outside of maybe the impressive, mosh-able Swedeath build of “Final Struggle of Selves” as a salable point of interest, it is an album best taken whole and revisited. The full listen grew upon me like adipocere within a moist tomb, each layer held value as it’s inner-workings unfolded across countless listens and ultimately exceeded unrealistic expectations. Essential death metal for 2018
― aquaman goes to college (Drugs A. Money), Thursday, 21 February 2019 18:00 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/MBToVPZ.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/2bH90aULuT0vmo10zSy4uH
https://sumac.bandcamp.com/album/love-in-shadow
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/sumac-love-in-shadow/
7.8
Though he does not play a single note, the Japanese improvisational nonpareil Keiji Haino is partly to thank for one of this year’s most audacious metal statements. In the summer of 2017, Sumac—then a rather untested trio of West Coast metal veterans including guitarist and singer Aaron Turner of Isis, bassist Brian Cook of Russian Circles, and drummer Nick Yacyshyn of Baptists—traveled to Tokyo to record and perform with Haino after he unexpectedly accepted an unsolicited invitation to jam. For 40 years, Haino has crisscrossed the borders of rock, noise, blues, and even a cappella balladry, disregarding structural and linguistic conventions with a singularly surrealistic vision. On American Dollar Bill, he did much the same with Sumac, helping the trio splatter its volatile and involved doom against the studio wall, throw it down the stairs, and splinter it into shapes of joyous abstraction.For Sumac, it must have been like seeing yourself in a cracked mirror and realizing there’s something fundamental about yourself you should change. Though the band had already written its third record, their time with Haino prompted them to reconsider the possibilities of open space and internal deconstruction, to ponder anew the room where a solo or breakdown might once have gone. Love in Shadow is both daring and daunting, with Sumac disrupting their customary marches with frayed instrumental improvisations that feel as if they may fall apart and building 15-minute opuses with assorted blocks of dead-ahead pummel and dissonant impressionism. They have hinted at this path in the past, particularly on 2016’s What One Becomes, their stormy and suggestive second album. But Haino and American Dollar Bill catalyzed Sumac’s progression toward Love in Shadow, a four-track, hour-long, monumental album that feels like the arrival of a band newly unbound.
Love in Shadow may at first feel unapproachable, like some steamroller you can only watch plow past. Or perhaps it sounds unseemly, like some gangly beast whose long limbs and bulky body don’t cohere. The first response is a symptom of a truly powerful trio, a band capable of shifting from athletic thrash to viscous doom with unwavering force; when “The Task” begins in italicized fury, for instance, you simply want to get out of its way. The second impression stems from the improvisational impasses where they trade rugged melodies for warped variations: When Turner shapes a spider web of piercing notes, à la Derek Bailey, toward the end of “The Task,” one wonders how it all fits together. All four pieces pivot between brute strength and ponderous retreats. After the seven-minute tirade that opens “Arcing Silver,” Sumac go nearly silent before conjuring emotional images without a word, much like Loren Connors. They sprint toward the end, as driving and relentless as they have ever been. The listener is left dumbstruck by whiplash.
Where the music can often seem like a slingshot, Turner pulls a narrative cord tightly through Love in Shadow, offering a stabilizing factor amid all the commotion. Rendered in language that laces eroticism with existential anxiety (and vice versa) and harkens to poet Octavio Paz, these songs address our dogged pursuit of, need for, and battle with love—or, as Turner phrases it, to find “our better blood” alive and flowing in someone else. Turner returns time and again to the vulnerability inherent in love, as if making a commitment turns us into supine beasts exposing our soft bellies to the whims of another. As he wrestles with these feelings, barking and bellowing one clipped phrase at a time, the band wrestles alongside him. As he faces some wall of worry, the band collapses into one of its paroxysms, looking for the answer. The longer you listen, the more cohesive and magnetic Love in Shadow becomes, revealing itself as a reluctantly romantic opera all clad in black. Here’s a record about love as you’ve never heard it.
The toil and triumph Sumac document and illustrate so gamely during Love in Shadow represent an accidental analogue for Turner’s own trajectory. Twenty years have passed since Turner cofounded Isis, a band whose fluid shifts between musical frames helped reshape a generation’s expectations of what metal could be. He did (and, to a lesser extent, still does) the same with his label, Hydra Head, and a string of bands that have all pressed against the boundaries of heaviness in peculiar ways—the spasmodic Old Man Gloom, the immersive Mamiffer, the radiant Jodis. Turner is as inquisitive and essential as any other figure in heavy metal in the United States this century, but his creative unrest and quest to issue his music on his own terms have long kept him at the edge of wider success. Here he is anyway, radically reinventing the possibilities of a band that has leapfrogged from good to staggering in a single record. Love in Shadow is a testament to perseverance in the face of uncertainty from a bandleader who has lived, worked, and loved by that ideal.
https://www.angrymetalguy.com/sumac-love-in-shadow-review/
Since the death of Isis (the band), lead songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Aaron Turner had had his finger in all the post-metal pies. Whereas Isis, especially toward the end of their illustrious existence, became a lot more measured, ponderous, and — to an extent — clean sounding, Turner’s other endeavors (Greymachine, Mammifer, and Old Man Gloom) dwelled in stranger experimental spheres. Sumac have similar leanings. Formed in 2014, the three-piece, featuring Brian Cook of Russian Circles on bass and Nick Yacyshyn of Baptists on drums, send forth their sludge with noise, free-flowing mayhem, and lashings of experimentation. Love in Shadow is their third full-length, an intensification of the improvisational, free-form touches explored on What One Becomes. Earlier this year, Sumac collaborated with Japanese artist Keiji Haino. Haino‘s abstract, free-form abstract, free-form approach to music heavily influenced Love in Shadow. What you’ll find, when you open this Pandora’s post-metal box, is an hour of music split into four massive slabs. Structures, pre-rehearsed music is stitched together with passages of improvisation, recorded over five days in a single room, and carefully merged by Kurt Ballou. The goal: “Finding comfort in the negative spaces within each track’s borderland.”Love in Shadow is a slanted, realistic representation of love in all its battered, ugly, inconsistent and warped beauty. Essentially, we all want to be loved yet so many of us find it difficult to find it, accept it, or show it. It’s a complex emotion and this is complex music. At their core, Sumac are a huge sounding sludge band — the frilly airiness of Isis is replaced by punishing, incessant noise: a brick wall. And this is how the record starts. “The Task” begins mid-eruption. It cranks and creaks with gargantuan force, combining rapid sludge grooves and licks with sharp industrial noise. Turner’s deep animalistic bellows fire from the maelstrom, writhing amongst off-kilter licks and crashing cymbals. A powerful start, but things soon drastically transform. At the seven minute mark, nothing but the sound of an out-of-tune guitar can be heard, reverberating through the abyss. Then a dirge. Guitars, bass and drums emerge from the “negative space.” Steadily, with the sound of guitars like a distant chainsaw accompanied by a more prominent cranking bass, echoing drums and sporadic primal cries from Turner, the song trudges forward. Brighter guitar melodies, disembodied, drift above this, the occasional note out of tune. Then, at the twenty-minute mark, the sound of an organ takes over. Turner abrasively snarls over this peculiarly beautiful outro. The end.
I’ve done this all wrong. This is an album that succeeds when left to wash over you — darkroom music. Trying to describe every movement, transition, and genre that features in a track does this record no favors, although you need something to cling to here. There are three more tracks of equally diverse and ambitious proportions to go! Letting it wash over you is vital, and you’ve really got to be in the right kind of mood to take this all in. Despite being 65-minutes long, there’s an organic and careful pacing to the album that makes this feel like a shorter listen. The record sounds great, too — it’s deep, rich and immersive, perfect for this type of meditative journey. Most impressive is the diverse range of noise that streams from the guitars. At times, the record sounds like a damned hybrid of psychedelic-rock, noise, drone and death metal. Every shard of sound from Turner’s guitar — particularly in “Attis’ Blade” — can be heard murmuring, moaning and shivering through the mix.
The rehearsed elements of the record are frequent and a heavy riff based sound is at the core of Love in Shadow. The industrial rigidity — droning, cranking, brutal — of the pre-planned sections is in direct contrast to the loose, improvisational reveries which writhe with pained, slightly off-key melody. Balance is key to a record like this, and Sumac get that balance right — they’re never too far away from the riffs and the conventional sounds. Some of the experiments are failures, though, especially when the experiments drift too far away from the crux of the “metal” sections. The improvised licks, particularly in “Arcing Silver,” occasionally sound sloppy. They offer nothing in the way of cathartic release, momentum building, or emotion creation — Turner and co. are able to fall back on their previous successes in other bands for sure. This is similarly the case during the closing meltdown of closing track “Ecstasy of Becoming.” When other instruments are introduced — such as the organ in the opener and psychedelic tones — Sumac‘s experimentation pays off.
I cannot fault the idea behind this album. It chews all the formulaic tropes and stereotypes of post-metal, swallows them, and spits them out in a repulsive, wonderful mulch — a reformed freshness emerges in Love in Shadow. It may not be perfect, but it’s certainly unique and undeniably powerful. Accompanied by a strong production which enhances the records on all sides, Turner and co. have crafted an album which breathes something new into the genre.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/review-sumacs-free-metal-breaks-ugly-new-ground-727869/
Sumac is an extreme metal power trio with seemingly no boundaries, jazz-like interplay and a hankering for noises both brittle and extreme, sparse and overwhelming. Leader Aaron Turner – former of Isis – stresses in interviews that “heavy” can mean a lot more than just riff bludgeon, and Sumac’s big-tent vision is patient and satisfying, reminiscent of what labelmates Tortoise did for rock music: just replace vinyl-collector obsessions with krautrock, dub and minimalism with burlier slabs of Swans, free and fusion jazz and the American and Japanese noise undergrounds. It’s less a collage owing to the frenetic cut-and-paste of Mr. Bungle or Naked City and more like a sludge band embarking on the longform journeys of electric Miles Davis.On their third (and longest) album, Sumac stretch out on four massive uglyscapes that all cross the 12-minute mark. The multiple chapters of 21-minute opener “The Task” plays out like Tortoise’s avant-sampler platter “Djed,” a suite that links multiple ideas into a cinematic whole. Within there’s blackened Mastodon pummel, mathy turnarounds, Stooges-esque free noise, doom stomp and itchy mosquito drone. Towards the end, the rhythm section slowly urps out a 11/4 ostanato while Turner provides a bluesy, noise-flecked guitar solo that’s more like Bill Frisell or Mark Ribot than, say, Kirk Hammett. “Arcing Silver” starts with an AmRep-style sludge riff while Turner wheedles and explores and crackles or stays silent. After its share of churn and tumult and void, there’s a pause and a coda that sounds like a 59-second grindcore Hüsker Dü. Closer “Ecstasy of Unbecoming” recalls everything from the “scum tapes” of Wolf Eyes to the primitive guitar avant-blues of Bill Orcutt to Turner’s old band, Isis. The recent output of Sige Records, a label run by Turner and musical/marriage partner Faith Coloccia, feels like a decent hint for watching for Sumac’s current obsessions. In the last few years they’ve released music from free-rock duo Black Spirituals, Japanese “catastrophic noise-metal” group Endon and harsh noise veteran Daniel Menche
― aquaman goes to college (Drugs A. Money), Thursday, 21 February 2019 18:36 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/lmnKxUm.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/4GsqPmkYHciTZqdU1kCWxB
https://sublimefrequencies.bandcamp.com/album/sujud
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/senyawa-sujud/
7.6
In a departure from the airier meditations of 2017’s Brønshøj (Puncak), the Indonesian duo’s Sublime Frequencies debut explores an earthy fusion of doom and folk metal.Senyawa’s music rises from the belly of the beast and crawls out of its gaping maw. Each wail, drone, and plucked guitar string from the experimental Indonesian duo evokes the feeling of deep-set hunger; every sound contributes to the tension. Instrumentalist Wukir Suryadi and vocalist Rully Shabara delight in exploiting this powerful sense of yearning, employing a spectrum of emotional registers—in one moment hushed despondence and in another punishing solemnity. When the spell finally breaks, what follows is all the more compelling because of the delayed release.
Senyawa’s Sujud, their first album for the Sublime Frequencies label, is an ode to terra firma; it takes its unifying theme from the Bahasa Indonesian word “tanah,” which translates as “soil,” “ground,” “land,” and “earth.” The theme is reflected across many of the record’s song titles: “Tanggalkan Di Dunia (Undo the World),” “Terbertaktilah Tanah Ini (Blessed Is This Land),” “Kebaikan Tumbuh Dari Tanah (Goodness Grows Off Soil),” and “Kembali Ke Dunia (Return to the World).” The duo’s work seems like a reaction to the current environmental crisis: Suryadi builds many of his own instruments out of natural materials, including the electric guitar on the album, and Shabara’s resonant baritone shapeshifts into feral growls and yelps, lending an organic cast to the music. It often sounds as if Senyawa are summoning the deities of nature, undeterred by the wrath that would inevitably follow. Where 2017’s Brønshøj (Puncak) favored airier meditations in which Suryadi’s homemade string instrument, the bamboo wukir, undulated like thick plumes of smoke above Shabara’s throaty incantations, Sujud spasms into offense mode. Now, Senyawa assert their darkness and eventual redemption with newfound temerity.
Sujud begins with an exorcism. Over the course of “Tanggalkan Di Dunia (Undo the World),” both Shabara’s exalted plainsong and Suryadi’s erratic electric guitar fuse, gradually becoming increasingly distorted. Suryadi throws conventional strumming out the window, instead scratching at the strings with frenetic energy. Together, the two sound as though they’re trying to break apart the earth to expose its ravaged interior. The dust eventually settles on “Penjuru Menyatu (Unified Counters),” the turning point of the album, where Shabara’s vocals shed their formerly atmospheric form and take shape as an almost punk-rock shout, lyrics fully enunciated. The song’s gauzy opening melodies breathe in deeply before the thunderous riffs go chugging uphill, Shabara’s wails accelerating, pedal to the floor.
There is no obvious path to deliverance, but Senyawa reach a final state of peace by the album’s conclusion. Shabara’s grainy ASMR vocalizing turns the high-pitched cooing and shoegaze haziness of “Kebaikan Tumbuh Dari Tanah (Goodness Grows Off Soil)” into a tingly, full-bodied listening experience. The album’s impact lingers in these serene interludes; songs like the closing “Kembali Ke Dunia (Return to the World)” would lose their warlord intensity without the dynamic contrast. Those slivers of light only accentuate the stretches of unrelenting darkness. By the end of Sujud, it’s clear whatever folkloric spirits were previously conjured must return to the tanah, and the only way to achieve this is for Shabara to vocally divide himself into a 10-man chanting circle over Suryadi’s frayed guitar until we’re suddenly left with deafening silence.
It’s not so much that Senyawa are unlike anything you’ve ever heard but the way they unify disparate genres under a single umbrella that makes the band’s approach so striking. Sometimes breaking boundaries doesn’t mean creating an altogether unfamiliar sound—rather reworking a bricolage of already existing elements. On Sujud, Senyawa nearly sink to their knees under the heaviness of doom, folk metal, and noise, all the while proclaiming their humble fealty to the earth.
https://boomkat.com/products/sujud
Senyawa stir primordial spirits in the cosmically heavy doom and psych explorations of ‘Sujud’, the Indonesian duo’s stellar debut with Sublime Frequencies. Since arriving to global underground acclaim in 2015 with the ‘Menjadi’ LP on Rabih Beaini’s Morphine Records, Senyawa have established themselves among the most beguiling acts in circulation right now by meshing traditional Indonesian music with elements of doom metal and free improvisation to realise a sound truly without precedent.
Judging by what we’ve previously heard from Rully Shabara Herman and Wukir Suryadi’s duo, ‘Sujud’ is unmistakably their definitive and most powerful album yet. Across seven tracks they explore phantasmagoric scenes of throat singing and abyss-staring doom guitars on the incredible ‘Tanggalkan Di Dunia’, alogn with paralysingly haunting psych-folk on the title track, before jamming gibber-jawed vocals and churning metal riffs on ‘Perjuru Menyatu’, and rounding out with the possessed vocals and grunting guitars of ‘Kembali Ke Dunia’.
“Sujud, their premier release on the Sublime Frequencies label, is the latest chapter of this very special and singular sound of the past, present, and future. The basic theme of the record can be summed up with one extremely powerful Bahasa Indonesian word, Tanah, which translates to "soil-ground-land-earth". Shabara's vocals are an expressive force, conjuring spirits from the soil with a deep humility and respect for the land and their existence in the universe. Suryadi has built a new guitar for these tracks and pushes the Senyawa sound into new territory, utilizing delay, loops, and other effects creating grounded backdrops of folk metal, punk attitudinal, and droning earthscapes - providing Shabara the perfect context to explore his whispering poetry and jagged, sharp-as-a-kris animistic powers. There is simply no other sound like it and Sublime Frequencies is thrilled to present this new direction in their discography.”
― Friedrich B. Neechy (Oor Neechy), Thursday, 21 February 2019 19:00 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/4Y7h9pt.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/566OjYAnHkH5dsQnrARb7M?si=ygzJDPPVS8Oef7uMruTNpw
https://ytst.bandcamp.com/album/dirt
https://newnoisemagazine.com/review-yamantaka-sonic-titan-dirt/
Dirt marks the first album released from this Canadian Noh-wave prog collective in three years and if it isn’t already apparent from the cover art, they take quite a bit of influence from anime culture. In fact, this album was originally conceived as the soundtrack for an anime film that never released back in 1987 which had a bit to do with a concept called Haudenosaunee, which is even beyond my otaku ears. Sure, I might be working on Persona 5 as well as the Steins;Gate 0 visual novel in addition to finishing my inaugural viewing of the Super Sentai Zyuranger box set; but some of this is still quite a bit over my head. Additionally, YST are known for the soundtrack to the game Severed, so if you’ve played that and enjoyed the music there, you may want to pick up this one without me even going so far as to describe it.There are some changes though, as the band now has a new singer in Joanna Delos Reyes and I cannot yet say as to whether or not this was a good or bad idea for them. I haven’t heard anything from the collective prior to this album, surprisingly; so I can’t make any contrasts in between the two vocalists that they’ve had. What I can tell you, is that this is the kind of soundtrack that fits somewhere in between Acid Mothers Temple and Yume Nikki. While psychedelic, it is also quite bombastic and contains touches of Boris here and there as well. The first song that I decided to check out from the album as soon as it appeared in my inbox was “Yandere” a term that I was familair with from my tenure spent in various visual novel groups. I’d also recommend it is a great place to start for people who are new to the act and looking for something a bit more accessible in comparison to much of the glorious weirdness present on the disc. Shamefully, I’ll admit that I would have expected the lyrical nature to be a little more sadistic, considering the topic but you have to keep in mind that the record also focuses heavily on Buddhist philosophy. In other words, it’s not the kind of record that you’d expect from that song title alone.
That being said, Dirt is the band’s heaviest album and features guitarist Hiroki Tanaka laying down some rather punchy riffs while the dazzling keyboards of Brendan Swanson work to demonstrate everything that I’d rather hear in video games these days, instead of the orchestral pomp that is just as commonplace in Hollywood films. “Beast” is a perfect example of this grand keyboard work, which is wonderfully splattered throughout the disc. Drummer Brandon Lim also lets loose on a couple of these cuts, providing what might be seen as more than a few metal touches on the album’s title track. The record is definitely identifiable as a full-on drug trip and I’d simply want nothing less. Dirt may as well be LSD and if you actually happen to have the PS1 game of the same name that I’m referring to, it may work as a great soundtrack for that too.
Once again, as I can’t compare this to any of the band’s previous albums, I cannot say for sure as to whether or not the handful of more accessible tracks on the disc is a common element for their albums or just something that they have added this time around to gain a much broader audience. Even so, I can’t certainly knock the weird psychy prog-pop of “Out Of Time” which I found to be a mesmerizing experience, far better than anything you’ll hear from the mainstream pop music scene. In my honest opinion, YST should be up for an award rather than most of the current Billboard nominees. Though that’s simply because Dirt isn’t just a heavy psych-prog album with touches of pop, its a unique work of art that we don’t get to hear very often in modern music these days. Some people believe that there is nothing new under the Sun, but Canada’s Yamantaka//Sonic Titan are certainly the exception to that age old rule.
https://www.echoesanddust.com/2018/03/yamantaka-sonic-titan-dirt/
Yamantaka // Sonic Titan is a band that can only be described through the most outlandish and improbable matching of sounds, genres and concepts you can think of. Name drop just about every music genre from Prog Rock to J-Pop, throw in some influences from Japanese Theatre, anime and Native American culture, tie everything up with an overarching narrative and you’ll end up with a rough blueprint of what you can expect from the Toronto-based group : one hell of a sound to wrap your head around. To make sense of it would seem utterly crazy, were it not for the fact that it somehow does make perfect sense, as demonstrated with the release of Dirt, the third in a series of critically acclaimed full-length records.As a group built around a core rock formation, Yamantaka // Sonic Titan oozes with ambition through every aspect of their work, leading some critics to label the group in the ‘progressive rock’ category. Unlike most groups with a similar line-up of instruments on display, the most prominent musician sitting in the spotlight alongside the lead vocals is the bands’ leader on drums, Alaska B., whose dynamic performance steals the show time and time again throughout the record. Rhythm and cadence shifts are key to the music on Dirt, and they are executed impeccably to serve the albums’ shifting moods and smooth flow.
Those in tune with the bands’ oriental sounds will hear some influences coming from classic anime and game soundtracks, especially with Brendan Swanson’s performance on keyboards. A fair number of tracks, namely ‘Dark Waters’ and ‘Beast’, sound like the score to a boss battle in a Final Fantasy video game. Though some rock bands have tried experimenting with similar Japanese influences, it takes a band with Yamantaka’s playing and songwriting skillset to deliver truly convincing results.
The record blooms with newfound colours with the help of new band members on guitar, bass and lead vocals, adding a tinge of new flavour to the sound established on the two previous records. Guitarist Hiroki Tanaka’s playing shines through with some beautiful lead guitar flourishes and solos, namely on ‘Beast’ and the album’s closing track, though he mainly serves as a rhythm player. Singer Joanna Delos Reyes proves to be the most notable change in the band’s lineup, standing out with her saccharine voice timbre and poppy vocal melodies on ‘Yandare’ and ‘Out of Time’, a nice addition to the bands’ vocal range.
The record takes its time to ease itself into the action. Dirt clearly aims for epic grandeur and makes sure the audience is fully immersed in the albums’ decorum before moving on to the main courses. Kicking off in full gear two-and-a-half songs into the album, the record does open up a tad bit too slowly and could’ve probably done without the intro track. With that being said, Dirt is a nonetheless well paced record.
One of the records’ main weak-points, however, lies with the records production, which struggles to maintain clarity on some of the louder, more densely arranged cuts, namely because of the rhythm guitar’s frail tone and messy mix. A cleaner production would definitely have been preferable to heighten the records’ cinematic feel.
Yamantaka // Sonic Titan’s theatrical nature is seen, heard and felt with every aspect of their work, right down to the records’ structure. Every track on Dirt reads less like a song than as a scene in a tightly edited feature film. The group leaves no room for filler, as every track unfolds and leads into the next. With that being said, the records’ pacing does overstep on the tracks’ playability as standalone songs, who feel incomplete when taken out of the context of the album.
Dirt is best regarded as one coherent whole, sectioned into scenes for our convenience but meant to be heard as one big composition. Despite a few quirks in the production department, this third full-length album holds up as a very solid release for the group. As eccentric as their work may read on paper, Yamantaka // Sonic Titan measure up to their claims and have proven themselves once more with another splendid piece of work that transcends genres. Dirt is a sonic spectacle unlike anything you’ve heard before, and that alone makes it worth a listen.
― Friedrich B. Neechy (Oor Neechy), Thursday, 21 February 2019 19:21 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/Z9oZ5nE.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/097DmmcskEDBUEgFJaIbvG?si=Hyar-yDWR-GiHTbdwnYgOg
https://consequenceofsound.net/2018/10/album-review-voivod-the-wake/
The Lowdown: Voivod have always had a style all their own. The Canadian thrash/prog veterans have broken all kinds of musical boundaries since their 1982 formation. The band’s trajectory has soared since 2013’s Target Earth, followed by 2016’s EP, Post Society. On its 14th studio album, The Wake, the band continues its post-apocalyptic, sci-fi creations across eight expansive conceptual tracks. After new guitarist and now main songwriter Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain took over from late founding guitarist Denis “Piggy” D’Amour, he has stayed true to Piggy’s groundbreaking guitar techniques, while still evolving the band’s sound. Denis “Snake” Belanger’s vocals are just as wonderfully odd as ever, yet he’s progressed his voice exponentially over the years with a more melodic delivery.The Good: Opener “Obsolete Beings” immediately grabs the listener’s attention with the band’s classic, dissonant chord progressions, rapid fire snare drum rudiments and driving rhythm section, which consists of original drummer Michel “Away” Langevin and new bassist Dominic “Rocky” Laroche. “The End of Dormancy” introduces some cinematic orchestral elements, marching Phobus-era rhythms and sharp melodic guitar chords, while “Orb Confusion” contains odd dissonant melodies with vibrant walking basslines and a groovy jazzy/proggy vibe. On the 12-plus-minute epic album closer “Sonic Mycelium,” the band reintroduces the orchestral elements and shows off its diverse layers by combining various parts throughout the album and inserting them seamlessly into one track. In fact, the whole album ebbs and flows and constantly shape-shifts with dynamic results.
The Bad: It’s hard to say anything remotely bad about The Wake. Perhaps the blower-horn bass sound that former member Jean-Yves “Blacky” Thériault achieved is missed slightly. If anything else, although the production is crisp and pristine, it could be argued that it’s a bit too polished.
The Verdict: If you’re already a fan of Voivod, then you know how incredibly unique they are, and the quality of songwriting on The Wake is top-notch, making it one of the strongest metal albums of the year. Voivod have progressed exponentially since their raw punkish days of “Condemned to the Gallows” from Metal Blade’s Metal Massacre 5 compilation.
Essential Tracks: “Always Moving,” “Sonic Mycelium,” “The End of Dormancy”
https://www.angrymetalguy.com/voivod-the-wake-review/
I, Dr. Fisting, am back—but much more importantly, so is Voivod. After suffering a near-fatal blow with the death of founding guitarist Denis “Piggy” D’Amour in 2005, these Canadian legends are experiencing an unlikely renaissance with new axeman Dan Mongrain (ex-Martyr). 2013’s Target Earth was the best thing the band had done in decades, and the follow-up EP Post Society took the band’s music in an even more progressive direction. With this momentum established, The Wake seems positioned to expand Voivod‘s musical world once more.Leadoff track/first single “Obsolete Beings” is simultaneously thrashy, psychedelic, and weird—in other words, all things a Voivod song should be. However, things get considerably more intriguing on the “The End of Dormancy.” The track begins innocently enough, with a Phobos-era death march of a riff eventually giving way to some absurdly technical soloing. From there, a section appears straight out of Holst’s The Planets, including a goddamn orchestra and timpani players. Frontman Denis “Snake” Belanger rises to the occasion, augmenting his usual bellow with some choral arrangements and even a somewhat theatrical spoken-word bit towards the end. This song may well be Voivod‘s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and is in many ways the most ambitious thing they have ever done.
“Orb Confusion” is the flip side of that coin, with the band dishing out hyper-dissonant tech-thrash and Snake belting it out like it’s a Ramones song—the “na na na” bits in the chorus are fucking ridiculous, and yet they work perfectly. While Mongrain may well be the musical architect of The Wake, Snake is easily its most valuable player. This record is his most energetic vocal performance in forever, and he’s taking chances with his technique that few of his peers would even attempt at this point.
Voivod - The Wake 02
The string section reappears on several other tracks, and its inclusion is perhaps the most notable aspect of Voivod‘s latest evolution. The band has always had an orchestral element to its sound, blatantly homaging Stravinsky and Shostakovich in their early years, so incorporating the real thing is, if anything, long overdue. It’s a testament to Voivod‘s talent that they were able to do so convincingly and seamlessly, while so many of their contemporaries could not. Founding drummer Michel “Away” Langevin also delivers a command performance here, navigating the many twists and turns of “Event Horizon” and dishing out pseudo-blast beats on “Iconspiracy” like a man half his age. Away is also responsible for all of Voivod’s album artwork, and the cover for The Wake is a huge improvement from his art on the previous two records. New bassist Dominic “Rocky” LaRoche (who replaced founding member Blacky on Post Society) makes his presence known as well, whether he’s playing higher melodies on “Spherical Perspectives” or grinding out the counterpoint to Chewy’s space madness riffage on “Always Moving.”
The album concludes with “Sonic Mycelium,” a 12-minute medley that revisits several musical themes that occurred earlier on the album, as well as a verse from 1993’s “Jack Luminous” for good measure. Yes, it’s gratuitous, but it reinforces the album as being a single work, rather than a collection of songs. While The Wake may lack a standout track such as “We Are Connected” (the very best song of the Mongrain era thus far, for my money), it’s also more cohesive and consistently engaging as a whole than Target Earth was.
Thirty-five years in, Voivod is riding a wave of creativity that would have seemed all but impossible a decade ago. Mongrain and Laroche are meticulous in preserving the band’s classic sound but are unafraid of exploring new musical territory. Not to be outdone by the new guys, Belanger and Langevin have stepped up their game considerably as well. Having carried on without both Piggy and Blacky, Voivod might be less a collection of specific people now, and more of an idea of how music should sound. And to paraphrase V For Vendetta, ideas are bulletproof.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/voivod-wake-album-review-726051/
Voivod formed in 1982, and after only five years, the Quebec thrash-gone-prog quartet was pretty much impossible to mistake for any other band. Their now-classic late-Eighties albums — including 1988’s Dimension Hatröss, which ranked at number 78 on Rolling Stone‘s Greatest Metal Albums list — were like portals into a fully formed alternate universe: elaborate feats of escapism realized via frontman Denis “Snake” Bélanger’s heavily accented tales of thought control and interstellar intrigue, drummer Michel “Away” Langevin’s chugging beats and vivid dystopic artwork, and guitarist Denis “Piggy” D’Amour’s wildly inventive art-metal riffage.
In the Nineties, the band started to dial back its over-the-top, concept-driven weirdness. While their output since then has been generally solid (1993’s Outer Limits is an underrated gem), it’s sometimes seemed a little conservative next to the epic scope and unbridled eccentricity of the Hatröss era. On Target Earth — the band’s strong 2013 LP and first without D’Amour, who died of colon cancer in 2005 — Voivod once again embraced their sci-fi side. The Wake, the band’s 14th LP, offers definitive proof that the old, weird Voivod is back: It’s arguably their most hyper-detailed, gloriously geeky album since the Eighties.
Snake and Away are their usual inimitable selves here, but the MVP is guitarist Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain, who joined the band in 2008. A little more than a decade younger than the other members, he grew up steeped in Voivod’s music, and particularly what he has referred to as the “eerie, chaotic, post-nuclear vibe” of D’Amour’s guitarwork. On Target Earth, he acted more as a steward of the legacy, but here, he’s fully unbridled, driving the music with the same mad imagination that Piggy once did.
“The End of Dormancy” is an instant Voivod classic that sums up the The Wake‘s skillful blend of the technical and anthemic. The lyrics tell the story of an underwater alien craft that powers up after millions of years and wreaks havoc, and the lone survivor of the human offensive against it. Chewy’s dazzling progression of riffs — first burly and trudging, then tense and marchlike — accompanies the tale. Meanwhile, Snake plays multiple characters, from the commander on the loudspeaker (“All units, ready to counter-attack”) to the man who makes it back, only to find himself embroiled in X-Files–like conspiracy (“This is what happens when you know too much!”). Like the best moments from Voivod’s high-tech heyday, the song combines adolescent fantasy with grown-up musical sophistication.
The rest of the record covers a huge amount of stylistic ground, reminding the listener that Voivod always treated metal more as a jumping-off point than a comfortable niche. “Orb Confusion” touches on hard-grooving postpunk, complete with slicing, dissonant riffs and rangy distorted bass from Dominic “Rocky” Laroche (who joined in 2014 and makes his full-length studio debut on The Wake), while “Event Horizon” is pure brain-bending prog. “Always Moving” juggles frantic asymmetrical riffage with murky acoustic psych and a sunny synth-guitar solo that finds Chewy channeling his inner Pat Metheny. A few songs even feature tastefully integrated strings.
“Sonic Mycelium,” the album’s 12-minute-plus closer feels ambitious even for Voivod. The track plays like a hallucinogenic recap of the entire record, splicing and reconfiguring riffs and lyrics from the seven preceding songs. It’s an ingenious closer and an affirmation of just how committed this incarnation of the group is to recapturing the immersive wonder of Voivod’s earlier work. Like The Wake as a whole, it’s the sound of a veteran band indulging its most bizarre instincts and in the process reconnecting with everything that originally earned them such a loyal and obsessive fan base. Piggy would no doubt approve.
http://www.invisibleoranges.com/voivod-the-wake-review/
Progressive thrash metal legends Voivod returned this year with their release The Wake. This is the third release with Daniel Mongrain, formerly of technical death metal band Martyr, acting as head songwriter following the LP Target Earth from 2013 and the Post Society EP from 2016. For those who have heard those previous two releases, a simple way to describe The Wake is it doesn’t break the tradition set by those before it. The sonic template is very much one designed to harken back mostly to early- to mid-period Voivod, roughly from Rrröööaaarrr to Dimension Hatross.In those days, as now, there were plenty of thrash riffs and up-tempo passages, married against progressive structures and the signature jazzier chords full of suspensions and dissonances and tensions that the band made their own within the metal world. Mongrain once more employs an encyclopedic knowledge of former guitarist Piggy’s sonic tendencies, and for good reason; Voivod is one of the very few groups that can hit a single chord and immediately signal to you that it’s them you’re listening to.
What makes this record exciting is an unexpected influx of influence from The Outer Limits, their 1996 record that featured, prior to this, their only track to crack the ten-minute mark. On that record, like the two that preceded it, Voivod first began dabbling in extended mid-tempo passages, easing away from thrash and into more purely progressive waters. Those moods make their way back to the group on The Wake, benefiting not only the songs themselves but also the overall shape of the record.
This is perhaps the best paced Voivod record since, funnily enough, The Outer Limits, with the band offering enough variance both track to track and within the tracks themselves to make the record feel like it breaths in and out. The songwriting here feels a notch tighter than on the past two records as well. Martyr, the group Mongrain hailed from, were just as capable as delivering a twisting, turning slice of technical death metal with non-repeating sections and linear songwriting that busted your skull open as they were to produce riff salad that didn’t stick in the head. Here, the variance in tempos and textures helps nail the riffs and transitions in the head a bit more keenly.
This success compared to their past two excellent releases is perhaps due to their return to the concept album form. Concept albums have always tightened Voivod’s writing, what with their first few following the antics of band mascot Korgull terminating at Dimension Hatross, charting one of the largest aesthetic leaps record-to-record that metal as seen before or since. Outside of that form, it seems Voivod does not always know how to pace records, writing song-by-song quality material but sometimes losing focus of how the collection will sound once everything is assembled. In retrospect, this was the one key issue with Target Earth, a record that was pound-for-pound the best Voivod in roughly two decades (if not more) but was a tiring listen. Post Societyaddressed this in EP form by simply cleaving the runtime in half, delivering 30 minutes of topsy-turvy post-King Crimson thrash. The Wake solves it in a more sophisticated way, scoring itself according to the beats of Snake’s plot.
Everyone sounds of fine form here. Mongrain and Dominique Laroche, who made his recording debut with the group on Post Society, riff like the natural progression of Piggy and Blacky before them, while iconic drummer Away and vocalist Snake sound as good as they did in their prime. The time spent with side-project Tau Cross clearly has resparked Away’s interest in his signature prog-punk drum beats, playing with more complexity here than the group has seen from him since the 1990s.
The most satisfying part of this record, which will no doubt thrill long-time Voivod fans, is that the group doesn’t seem fatigued or lacking ideas or chemistry whatsoever. We can’t predict the future, but it seems like Voivod has quite a bit of gas left in them yet, and the continuously increasing quality of releases from them over the past five years feels very much like we may be entering into a second golden age for the group in their golden years. A delightful record, one so good it retroactively makes ones before it just a little bit worse, dimmer in its light, and one of the very best of the year.
― Friedrich B. Neechy (Oor Neechy), Thursday, 21 February 2019 19:40 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/JtLNVv6.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/0rqwAw1OsmH6qwGjnbAgn4?si=YzGn8RllSpy-vKbBQt_joQ
https://thearmed.bandcamp.com/album/only-love
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-armed-only-love/
8.1Part of the thrill of these 11 songs is that they often sound like they’re about to burst or implode, but they never lose their course. On repeat listens to the Armed’s second album Only Love, you start to realize just how finely woven it all is—chaos careens off chaos, using the tracks before them as last-second momentum pushes before disappearing again, infusing what comes next with an extra shot of energy. From opening synth line to closing noise implosion, it’s part relay race, part punk-rock opera.
This feels like a pop record, albeit one with rabies. The Armed create nihilistic hardcore anthems that’ll find you shouting “Everything dies!” “Nowhere to be found!” and “Kill your heroes where they sleep!” The unexpected hooks are courtesy of the conceptual framework they created for the collection: The definitively punk/metal/hardcore band sought to write these songs as if they had never heard punk, metal or hardcore before, just trying to conjure the pop music of their formative years. They’re a band who’s covered Smashing Pumpkins in the past, their debut album Untitled included plenty of slower bits, and their interest in those other zones feels very genuine—which is the only way you can pull something like this off.
As might be expected, it’s hard to pin down the Armed stylistically. They create raw-voiced music that mixes hardcore dynamics, experimental electronics, and a smeared sense of melody. They have three people handling guitar, three vocalists (two male, one female), and variety of synthesizers and electronics besides the airtight rhythm section. They bring to mind a revved-up arty Liars circa Drum’s Not Dead, or maybe ’90s eccentrics Brainiac, or a more playful Converge. It’s, of course, foolish to compare a band this specifically themselves to another band; it’s maybe best to think of Only Love as one of those moments where you have leaky headphones and the sounds of traffic, car alarms, someone’s stereo blasting Fuck Buttons, and a kid crying combine to create a momentary orchestra in your brain.
Careless name-checking aside, they do share a bloodline with Converge: The sextet recorded Only Love with Converge guitarist/studio guru Kurt Ballou, who recorded their debut three years ago, as well. They also twisted the arm of Converge’s Ben Koller—a masterful drummer more than capable of staying detailed and interesting at breakneck speeds—to sit behind the kit. So far, the Armed have collaborated with a few different drummers; hopefully Koller decides to stay put because he adds a sense of control and finesse to the implosions going off around him, and is their best walk-on to date.
Only Love is more ambitiously structured than the debut—the first four songs bleed and tie together like a mutant ball of silly string. It’s the same band, but they’ve cracked things open, and it feels tighter, despite being looser. Where the debut followed some specific punk patterns, and the experiments sometimes plodded into mid-tempo toss-offs, Only Love is beautifully all over the place without losing steam.
Undeniable opener “Witness” is their cathartic Deafheaven “Dream House” moment, albeit with a more negative spin. On it, main vocalist Randall Kupfer growls like he’s trying to dislodge his insides (a bit like John Brannon of fellow Michigan band Laughing Hyenas), and amid his meltdown, shadowy clean harmonies also emerge. In an unlikely twist, the calmer “Luxury Themes” finds a way to bury vocal harmonies in a wall of noise. Now and then, I think of sped-up Flaming Lips, or Pissed Jeans if they sang about starting communes, not dying in an office.
“Role Models” creates a noise-pop anthem with little more than the words “Everything dies.” Importantly, before they remind us that you’ll one day be dust, they also suggest, like a motivational anarchist speaker reminding you to make the most of your life: “You won’t break your stride/No you can’t break your stride.” And, on the eerie, catchy “Middle Homes,” the singers croon: “Breathe/Where’s that little fire?/Gone” That’s the key to this album—as dark as things may seem, we keep going. This kicks into action during the final third of “Fortune’s Daughter,” when the drums arrive after a sideways noise meld, and you want to start punching the floor.
To illustrate the extent of their maximal approach, they’ve released a booklet called “No Solutions” with the collection. Subtitled the “Only Love” issue, it’s reminiscent of a Crimethinc. tract, gathering images (anti-commercialism collages, fashion spreads) and often thoughtful words (“Empathy is not compassion. Empathy is weapon”). There are short essays, shorter record reviews (of St. Vincent, Zwan, Lou Reed & Metallica, Lou Reed himself), comics, reviews of Detroit-area staples by a person dressed like a lawn shrub, and diagrams for how to achieve Only Love’s guitar tone. There’s plenty of tongue in cheek here, something to also admire about the band—this music is vibrant and loud and angry, but they aren’t afraid to crack jokes. (The editor of the accompanying booklet is listed as Papa Johns Emeritus.)
The Armed started in 2009, ages ago in punk rock years. A new band wouldn’t have the arsenal or know-how to create something as anti-everything and complete in all aspects as Only Love; from the packaging to the storyline to the print publication to the “vibe,” it feels like the apotheosis of years of experiments. It’s a lesson in never settling. As the singers croon on “Heavily Lined,” a song that sounds like HEALTH, Negative Approach, and Youth of Today walking into a bar together: “This iteration bores me/Everyone gets older/Only you gave up.” As Only Love illustrates, these fuckers clearly haven’t.
https://www.echoesanddust.com/2018/06/the-armed-only-love/
Like many music obsessives with the joy of an office day-job I can do a lot of headphone listening, inevitably a lot of this can fall into the ‘noise’, but every now and again, a track comes along which makes me stop whatever it is that I am doing and take notice. One track that gave me that ‘holy shit’ moment was ‘Future Drugs’ by The Armed. The sheer chaotic brutality for the track delivered with a surgical precision tends to rouse one from general workday malaise.The Armed describe themselves as a punk rock band, well that’s probably more in attitude than a musical style. There music has aspects of noise, shoegaze, post-hardcore and electronic aspects, all thrown into a blender. The band might well earn comparisons with Botch, Converge and All Pigs Must Die. The band have a longtime relationship with guitarist and prolific producer Kurt Balou, a man not unfamiliar with all things noisy. His production has managed to capture the raw energy and sheer noisy chaos on the band’s first album (Untitled) and he’s done the same on Only Love
Only Love is quite a different record compared to their previous. The PR mentions a reimagining, I would usually take this with a pinch of salt, but actually it does seem that they have started from a different place and added in some different aspects, clean vocals and female backing vocals for one thing but also a heavy electronic feel. It is no less brutal than previous records, in some ways moreso. This is a dense album, it takes a while to break the surface and understand what makes up the tracks. The band have, ignored boundaries and taken a different path without forgetting what is at the core of The Armed.
The album opens with ‘Witness’ a brutal track, nicely following on from Untitled. Electronic influence obvious right from start. That track is a complete maelstrom of sound, with a distorted feeling tends to add to the chaotic feel of the track. The next track, ‘Role Models’ blends in from the first. The track darts around, the sounds somehow blended into one but also coming at you from all angels.
In a unusual change of pace ‘Nowhere to be Found’, distant sounding vocals and quieter and more depressing sounding with grating angular guitars that morph into a final thirty seconds of chaos with only Ben Koller’s drums cutting through the chaos. ‘Apperception’ takes us back to the aural assault. Along with ‘Parody Warning’ it’s hard to describe in both tracks the main band’s sounds coalesce into one, sections of guitar/FX colour the sound. It has the feel of being dragged underwater by a rogue wave with no real idea which way is up. Guitar or electronic flourished cut through this for brief moment. Both good tracks and show what the band do really well.
Both the previous track and ‘Fortunes Daughter’ use female vocalist alongside the usual vocalist (as with all things The Armed, the band members, vary in a random fashion and aren’t listed anywhere). But the contrast between the slightly screamed, almost childlike female vocals is stunning, not something that is often used, but surprisingly effective and serves to through another dimension to the tracks.
From here the album descends into complete chaos, just hovering about what might be considered musical. During ‘Luxury Themes’ I thought at one point I had two tracks playing slightly out of sync. Vocals when cleaner tend to be a bit whiny and not as strong as when screamed and to me the track tends to lose its way a bit. ‘Heavily Lined’ carries on in a similar vein. Middle homes, has again a slightly different feel, the use of electronics that could have come from a 80’s era 8-bit computer and some different texture. It is a bit more anthemic in feeling musically but again, the vocals let the track down. Which is a real shame because as a instrument track it is a stunning piece. ‘Ultraglass’ is similar. ‘On Jupiter’ has an ethereal dreamy feel to the intro, soft electronica and distant sounding vocals. Before taking an abrupt about turn back into the usual chaotic noise. Punishing, brutal and industrial. Builds in cadence before collapsing in on itself and becoming noise and static.
The album is split almost into two parts, the beginning six tracks and brutal chaotic and noisy. The other influences stretch the tracks from being just another noisy band into something expressive and interesting. Where it falls down for me is the weak vocals, when screamed they are excellent and cuts through the noise. Clean however they tend towards whiny, it’s personal taste and some may love it but for me it is not where the band are at there best.
Only Love is interesting, sonically ambitious and in places, exciting. Brutal noise delivered with surgical precision. ‘The Armed’ don’t really seem to care what people think, they went out and made an album that they wanted to make, ignored usual boundaries and sensibilities and tried to do something new, in places it worked and in others not so much.
― Friedrich B. Neechy (Oor Neechy), Thursday, 21 February 2019 20:00 (five years ago) link