★★★☆ The good news: this is shoegazey sludgey post-metal at its finest, with nary a misstep. Listenable, evocative, internally consistent… this is a well-crafted album. The not-so-good news: by dint of the genre, there’s not much on here to take away once the music stops (although the second half of the album comes closest to delivering memorable moments). See the rest here
Chris Squire had a bigger impact on my bass playing than anyone else I listened to in my youth. Ged taught me how to step forward and fill up musical space with the instrument, which is a great counterpoint to Mike Rutherford’s subdued, almost Frippian unshowmanship. But Squire was really my Coltrane. See the rest here
I’ve been in mourning all week. It’s still too soon to listen to Fish’s bass playing (although maybe I’ll break my fast by finally listening to “Fish Out Of Water”). See the rest here
★★★☆ On paper, there should be nothing remarkable about this album. It’s extreme noisecore, produced by Kurt Ballou, with no real standout performances throughout. But in a strange way, that chimaeralike quality is the album’s greatest strength; without the distraction of distinctions, the resulting impact is more pure and devastating. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ This pains me. I really wanted — almost needed — to love this album. The failure is not due to admittedly crushingly high expectations, but rather the band’s abandonment of virtually everything that is so adored in their landmark album “The Shape Of Punk To Come.” Most glaringly, the emotional resonance is a.w.o.l.; See the rest here
★★★☆ Waldo is in the finest form of his career, acting as a strong counterpoint to the musical meanderings of the rest of the band behind him. The metal here is solidly lo-fi, but also diverse in its tastes, careening from obvious Pig Destroyer influences to classic thrash to plodding moshfests. See the rest here
The Toast published a whimsical article about the most metal deaths in Tolkien’s universe. One of my favorite quotes is:
Gandalf died after he, “Threw down my enemy… and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin,” which is the most metal line in the entire trilogy, and possibly all of English literature.
I’m heading out of town tonight, on a red eye for a series of meetings this week. This is my first flight out of San Francisco in a few months. Since I was last here, someone got the bright idea of setting up a mini exhibit that speaks to the region’s important cultural art movements. See the rest here
★★★☆ While perhaps not as bold a transition as the ones we heard going into the band’s last two albums, this is nevertheless a fully-realized and utterly different take on prog metal, more “Coal” than “Bilateral” but with hints of both. Einar Solberg’s vocals take on more of a prominent role here, but the rest of the band are also tireless in their performances. See the rest here
★★☆☆ I give this band props for keeping “On Lonely Towers” interesting, in an Opeth-meets-Alestorm kind of rollicking way. But my god, the clean vocals are so jarring and distracting. Unfortunately, they’re the clearest part of the mix. Also, the songs tend to feel overlong and belabored. See the rest here
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