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METZ — METZ II

Wednesday, April 29th, 2015

Nothing highlights the disconnect between underground and popular music like articles on the death of rock and roll. Even mainstream luminaries like Alice Cooper and Billy Corgan, who you would at least expect to try and stay in touch, seem to think that indie pop and EDM are the only music that’s inspiring the young. Guitar music, they suggest, is dead. As anyone who reads this website on a regular basis would understand, this is a ridiculous assertion, but the new METZ album proves it once again. Forget the sub-genres and the noise influences for a moment: at its heart, METZ II is a rock album. The sound is powerful, urgent, and abrasive, mixing punk, noise, and grunge with occasional gothic undertones. They’re a young band, relatively speaking; while their members are in their early 30’s and far too old for traditional rock and roll, their sound is youthful and original, drawing its influences predominately from the late 90’s and early 2000’s. This is only their second album, and they’ve been together for less than a decade, so you can hardly say they’re old or out of touch. And yet, here they are, producing hard-hitting, unashamed, and threatening guitar rock in 2015. If you’d only paid attention to mainstream music journalism, you could be forgiven for seeing them as an anomaly. But this year has been full of innovative new guitar music. METZ are far from alone.

METZ II continues the devastating aural assault delivered by their self-titled 2012 debut, with ten tracks of innovative, aggressive noise rock that’s not only subtle and avant-garde but energizing and fun to listen to. It feels like the logical progression of not just noise and punk, but rock music itself: a shout of defiance to anyone who suggests, even for a minute, that the genre has lost any of its force or cultural relevancy. Opening track ‘Acetate’ begins with a broken, bassy guitar riff and digital glitches, leading into a chaotic musical maelstrom that pulls you in immediately and doesn’t let go. The shouted, overdriven vocal line manages to heighten the intensity, making for a passionate, immersive wall-of-sound with a power travels wonderfully through your speakers, but makes you yearn to experience it from the mosh pit even more. This is followed by the buzzing, glitchy post-punk of ‘The Swimmer’, with a relatively long intro that makes the song hit even harder when it comes, and the riff-heavy modern grunge of ‘Spit You Out’, carving pop melodies out of technical, broken-sounding dissonance and noise. METZ share a bit of Swans’ talent for managing tension, interspersing their overwhelmingly heavy music with bursts of silence, glitches, or guitar distortion; seconds of respite that make the brutal aural beatdowns even more abrasive when they come. ‘IOU’ channels early Joy Division with its ‘Warsaw’-inspired opening riff, increasing the tempo and adding clashing drums, multi-vocal shouting and layers of guitar distortion to enhance its effect, and ‘Landfill’ is a structurally traditional rock song with weird melodies, wall of noise guitar riffs, and frenzied shouting: an abrasive deconstruction of a pop song that’s not only ridiculously heavy, but melodically interesting too. And all of it takes place at this machine-gun tempo that leaves you hungry for more and gasping for air. It’s an intense and exciting experience.

The entire album is violent and decayed. Almost every track is bombastic, powerful, and musically inventive: and even the sounds of apparently broken amps and digital glitches are beautifully captured and controlled. The whole record is less than 30 minutes long, but it lingers long after you hear it, like the taste of an exquisite glass of wine. A lot of this is down to the final track, ‘Kicking a can of worms’ , where the droning, psychedelic soundscape builds to a brutal crescendo across its four-minute runtime, ending in static noise and sudden silence. It’s the perfect conclusion and the combination of noise, silence, and subtle song-writing makes you want to put it on again almost as soon as it ends.

In short, METZ II is a fantastic album. It transcends their 2012 debut on almost every front: technical skill, variety of sounds, and sheer, musical intensity. That’s a big call for anyone who heard their first release to make, but somehow METZ have deserve it. While music like this is still coming out, and not from pre-established mega acts or aging alternative heroes, it’s impossible to say the genre is dying or even close to its end. This is youthful, passionate, devil-may-care rock and roll taken to its logical extreme. It’s music like this that our decade will be remembered for by generations to come. Not EDM or Meghan Trainor: blistering, energetic, alternative music, bubbling to the surface from a vibrant underground. Cooper and Corgan need to dig a little deeper. METZ are the future of rock.

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METZ — METZ II

Wednesday, April 29th, 2015

Nothing highlights the disconnect between underground and popular music like articles on the death of rock and roll. Even mainstream luminaries like Alice Cooper and Billy Corgan, who you would at least expect to try and stay in touch, seem to think that indie pop and EDM are the only music that’s inspiring the young. Guitar music, they suggest, is dead. As anyone who reads this website on a regular basis would understand, this is a ridiculous assertion, but the new METZ album proves it once again. Forget the sub-genres and the noise influences for a moment: at its heart, METZ II is a rock album. The sound is powerful, urgent, and abrasive, mixing punk, noise, and grunge with occasional gothic undertones. They’re a young band, relatively speaking; while their members are in their early 30’s and far too old for traditional rock and roll, their sound is youthful and original, drawing its influences predominately from the late 90’s and early 2000’s. This is only their second album, and they’ve been together for less than a decade, so you can hardly say they’re old or out of touch. And yet, here they are, producing hard-hitting, unashamed, and threatening guitar rock in 2015. If you’d only paid attention to mainstream music journalism, you could be forgiven for seeing them as an anomaly. But this year has been full of innovative new guitar music. METZ are far from alone.

METZ II continues the devastating aural assault delivered by their self-titled 2012 debut, with ten tracks of innovative, aggressive noise rock that’s not only subtle and avant-garde but energizing and fun to listen to. It feels like the logical progression of not just noise and punk, but rock music itself: a shout of defiance to anyone who suggests, even for a minute, that the genre has lost any of its force or cultural relevancy. Opening track ‘Acetate’ begins with a broken, bassy guitar riff and digital glitches, leading into a chaotic musical maelstrom that pulls you in immediately and doesn’t let go. The shouted, overdriven vocal line manages to heighten the intensity, making for a passionate, immersive wall-of-sound with a power travels wonderfully through your speakers, but makes you yearn to experience it from the mosh pit even more. This is followed by the buzzing, glitchy post-punk of ‘The Swimmer’, with a relatively long intro that makes the song hit even harder when it comes, and the riff-heavy modern grunge of ‘Spit You Out’, carving pop melodies out of technical, broken-sounding dissonance and noise. METZ share a bit of Swans’ talent for managing tension, interspersing their overwhelmingly heavy music with bursts of silence, glitches, or guitar distortion; seconds of respite that make the brutal aural beatdowns even more abrasive when they come. ‘IOU’ channels early Joy Division with its ‘Warsaw’-inspired opening riff, increasing the tempo and adding clashing drums, multi-vocal shouting and layers of guitar distortion to enhance its effect, and ‘Landfill’ is a structurally traditional rock song with weird melodies, wall of noise guitar riffs, and frenzied shouting: an abrasive deconstruction of a pop song that’s not only ridiculously heavy, but melodically interesting too. And all of it takes place at this machine-gun tempo that leaves you hungry for more and gasping for air. It’s an intense and exciting experience.

The entire album is violent and decayed. Almost every track is bombastic, powerful, and musically inventive: and even the sounds of apparently broken amps and digital glitches are beautifully captured and controlled. The whole record is less than 30 minutes long, but it lingers long after you hear it, like the taste of an exquisite glass of wine. A lot of this is down to the final track, ‘Kicking a can of worms’ , where the droning, psychedelic soundscape builds to a brutal crescendo across its four-minute runtime, ending in static noise and sudden silence. It’s the perfect conclusion and the combination of noise, silence, and subtle song-writing makes you want to put it on again almost as soon as it ends.

In short, METZ II is a fantastic album. It transcends their 2012 debut on almost every front: technical skill, variety of sounds, and sheer, musical intensity. That’s a big call for anyone who heard their first release to make, but somehow METZ have deserve it. While music like this is still coming out, and not from pre-established mega acts or aging alternative heroes, it’s impossible to say the genre is dying or even close to its end. This is youthful, passionate, devil-may-care rock and roll taken to its logical extreme. It’s music like this that our decade will be remembered for by generations to come. Not EDM or Meghan Trainor: blistering, energetic, alternative music, bubbling to the surface from a vibrant underground. Cooper and Corgan need to dig a little deeper. METZ are the future of rock.

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Akhlys — The Dreaming I

Tuesday, April 21st, 2015

The French record label Debemur Morti Productions continues to release gem after gem. With acts such as Blut Aus Nord, Year Of No Light, and now the iconic and reformed Norwegian band In The Woods… on their list, their taste appears impeccable. The label’s latest release serves to reinforce this view, unleashing the darkest nightmares of Nightbringer’s Naas Alcameth in their sonic form through another project of his: Akhlys. The Dreaming I, out on April 20th, is Akhlys’ new expression of oneiric visions. Inspired by the dreams of their creator, the songs are consuming works of grandiose intensity and epic dark atmosphere.

It would seem the key delineation between Nightbringer and Akhlys would be found within what inspires the music and lyrics. Knowing what Naas Alcameth has to say about this makes it clear; however, there is more to it than that alone. Akhlys’ birth was clearly borne of dark ambient ambitions. On this second release, black metal erupts savagely from the soporific and dominates. Whilst the ambient style may be scaled back on this occasion, it remains a vital form within the overall effect of the record. This mesmerising, dreamlike flow between the styles is something that distinguishes Akhlys from Naas’ other projects. Through their combination, what the styles have in common is highlighted with fantastic outcomes.

Akhlys’ first release was an opus in two seamless parts, Supplication. On The Dreaming I, the five songs could pass again as one epic piece. Each song can stand alone as a magnificent piece; but, for all that quality, piece by piece does not compare to the experience of taking in the full record in one transportive, jaw-dropping listen. The ambient passages heighten the surreal and hallucinatory quality of the record’s atmosphere, drawing you in deep and far from the waking world. The black metal is of the absolute highest quality. In its most lethiferous and explosive moments, The Dreaming I places the genre in a position that is as good as it has ever been, ambitious and instrumentally masterful with a production that unleashes all of the nightmarish detail, hiding nothing from the listener. Have a listen to “Consummation” and tell me it is not one of the very best black metal songs you have ever heard. I dare you.

The number of high quality black metal releases coming out of late is becoming something of a blur. Even so, The Dreaming I stands out. It is bound to be a favourite amongst those who are fans of Naas Alcameth’s other work and those who seek out black metal’s more cerebral and imaginative efforts. The album’s polish and flawless performance should rightly attract plenty of admirers from metal fans outside of the black metal scene. It is a record of great atmospheric scope, transpiring as a thoroughly engaging journey from start to finish. Naas Alcameth should be proud of what he has done here; but, no doubt his search for stylistic balance within the Akhlys project and deeper spiritual expression overall will drive him on to try and achieve something even better. That is one hell of a scary, but wonderful, thought.

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Wire — Wire

Wednesday, April 15th, 2015

2015 has largely been the year of the revival, with new albums from Sleater-Kinney, Gang of Four, and The Monochrome Set, even the return of 90’s mall goth legends Jack Off Jill and Marilyn Manson. It seems like almost every indie artist that’s fallen off the radar is coming out with new material this year, with varying degrees of artistry and crossover success. While English post-punk band Wire don’t exactly fit the mold, their newest album, the self-titled LP out on Pinkflag at the end of the month, seems to express a similar desire for rebirth and revitalisation. Stylistically, the music is a logical continuation of the psychedelic post-punk of 2013’s Change Becomes Us, with a darker, simmering energy and denser instrumentation. It walks the line between harking back to their old material and taking on more contemporary influences. It’s the sound of a working band who are trying not only to continue their own unique, historic formula but to allow for radical alterations too. It is, in short, a remarkable achievement, and one of the stronger albums of the year.

Opening track “Blogging” comments on the internet to the sound of urgent, modern post-punk, taking a path well-trodden on recent releases by similarly inspired old-school heavyweights like Nick Cave and Morrissey, but spinning it in a new direction, arguing that in our interconnected secular society, consumer technology and the internet are becoming a religion in and of themselves. This is followed by the devastating orchestral shoegaze of Joy Division-esque track “Shifting”, about the unexpected break-up of a long-term relationship, and the yearning narrative of “Burning Bridges”, combining psychedelic rock with post-punk revival to create an astonishing work of melancholic beauty. The narrative lyrics, coupled with the carefully constructed inter-textual instrumentation have an almost hallucinogenic effect, similar to the tracks on the latest album from The Monochrome Set. But Wire differentiates themselves by their better use of universal themes and a broader, more contemporary musical palette. While The Monochrome Set largely relegated themselves to twee or nostalgic lyrics drawing most of their inspiration from the musical past, Wire seem to be a little more in-touch with what’s going on in the modern world, going almost out of their way to reference current trends in music and society. The difference is enormous, making for a similarly high quality, but vastly more inclusive sounding album.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Wire have always been a forward thinking band. From their early experiments with electro pop and synthesizers to their notoriously difficult live album Document and Eyewitness from 1981, the band have never shied away from making shocking, unexpected musical innovations. This new album is really no exception to the rule. But probably the biggest, broadest, and most exciting change comes with the final track “Harpooned”, which is almost Swans-like in its intensity. The band refer to it as the heaviest song they’ve ever written, but it’s also one of their most melodically interesting. It’s a combination of wall-of-noise guitar distortion, subtly evolving melodic work and stirring monotone vocals, combining their traditional sound with metal and no-wave influences. It’s a triumphant conclusion to the album, and a promise that even greater things are still to come.

Gang of Four and The Monochrome Set need to pay attention. This is a perfect example of how to do a 70s-inspired post-punk record in 2015. It breaks new ground while still sounding exactly the way that you’d expect. More than just a simple revival or extension of their sound, Wire’s new album proves they’re still capable of producing powerful, exciting and relevant music, while providing hope for an even brighter future yet to come. If you’ve never heard the band before, now is your chance to be amazed, and if you’re a fan already, you will be pleased with both the stylistic continuation to their previous work, and the exciting implications of their new material. As always, Wire fail to disappoint. It’s impossible to recommend this album highly enough.

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Misþyrming — Söngvar elds og óreiðu

Thursday, April 9th, 2015

2015 is looking to be a good vintage as far as black metal goes. There have already been quite a few outstanding records released, rife with the invention and iconoclasm that flow through and wonderfully distort black metal’s core principles of sonic malevolence. In the past year or so, a scene that has shown to be well worth focusing attention upon is Iceland’s. However, despite the excellence of releases by bands such as Sinmara last year, broader recognition has yet to develop. Misþyrming are a band to recently debut with a full-length release that exemplifies this. The odd writer has picked up on their talent, perhaps most notably Noisey’s (Grim) Kim Kelly. But even after a couple of months out and about, the chatter about this band’s first record has yet to reach the pitch it deserves.

Söngvar elds og óreiðu begins in a fairly straightforward manner as far as the genre’s conventions are concerned. Whilst the early tracks may not contain many twists, the quality is undeniable. The first third is a furious conflagration of blinding speed and violence, all bred by riffs absolutely infernal in their evocation. Rather than the chilling windswept lifelessness so demarcative of the environment inspiring Scandinavian black metal traditions elsewhere, there is a strong sense of immolation, of the smoking explosive mountaintops Misþyrming’s homeland.

As the album progresses, its meditative qualities and the ornate detail in the riffs really begin to develop. Söngvar… never once resorts to the post-rock and shoegazey plays that have evolved into something akin to standard moves in creating a big atmosphere. In that sense, like Caïna and Leviathan this year, it has something in common with the better black metal releases of the last six or so months. It’s not that there is anything wrong with these elements if well executed. It has simply developed, by virtue of a saturation point being approached, that by evoking such motifs the music risks becoming average.

Instead, Misþyrming keep their art interesting by emerging from black metal’s common machine-like total instrumental unison with eruptions of individual expression, such as the free and billowing bassline bubbling underneath the guitars in “Er haustið ber að garði”. This follows straight into the next song, “Friðþæging blýþungra hjartna”. Nothing is dwelt upon at excessive length, producing a significant density as well as stylistic invocation from across the genre’s ages.

When hitting top speed, Misþyrming are without mercy, explosively hateful and bred from expertly distilled black metal riffage. The aforementioned diversity of ideas within the black metal scope the band expresses lends power and gravity to these attacks, and creates that welcome experience some black metal achieves of showing that you can be primitive and nasty whilst cerebral and ornate all at once.

As far as debuts go, Misþyrming’s is fantastic, brimming with intensity and ideas and a consuming infernal atmosphere. Having not long ago been a solo project that has expanded, there is good reason to expect even better things to come in the future. The album has been out since February through Terratur Possessions. You won’t regret giving it a chance.

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The Soft Moon — Deeper

Wednesday, April 1st, 2015

Darkwave is one of those musical genres that’s less about technical quality of the music and more about basking in sombre, lush soundscapes. Sure, there are unifying features: depressed vocals, heavy bass, and cold repeating synth lines feature prominently in most successful electronic-goth bands. But these are merely tools to replicate a bleak, mysterious, and identifiable sort of atmosphere or energy. That’s why the gothic look is so important to fans and performers of the sound; it’s all about maintaining an illusion. The downside to this aesthetic approach is that sometimes the individual aspects of the music are neglected. This isn’t usually a problem, but minor infelicities become major brakes to your immersion when you notice them, pulling you outside of the fantasy usually generated by the music. The Soft Moon’s latest album Deeper, released last month on Captured Tracks, is a fantastic example of the right way to do darkwave, but it suffers from a fatal flaw: the lyrics, when you hear them, are extremely hit-and-miss. Darkwave bands aren’t usually known for their wordplay; acts like Deine Lakaien or Project Pitchfork lacerate the English language on a regular basis, but still manage to produce great music that’s immersive and emotionally enjoyable. But both of these bands are German. English isn’t their preferred language so it’s easy to forgive them for awkward phrases or lyrical clichés. The Soft Moon are American, and should have no excuse. You wouldn’t think that lyrics would be posing them a problem.

The Soft Moon have crafted an increasingly detailed and layered sound with every new release, starting from the relatively simple electronic shoegaze and post-punk of their 2009 self-titled LP, then moving towards the more intricate, comparatively experimental sound of their latest album. “Wrong” sounds a bit like early Nine Inch Nails, with staccato bursts of lo-fi digital synths over heavy post-punk drumming. The lyrics evoke a sense of existential dread: “I’m in control of my decisions,” singer Luis Vasquez offers. “You’re wrong,” Distorted vocals answer. “This pain I feel inside won’t die…” Vasquez continues. The distorted vocals answer: “You’re right.” While the words are few and simple, the dissonant musical maelstrom that surrounds them, driven on by throbbing bass, lends them a sense of power that makes the track feel paranoid and frightening to listen to. This sort of composition is where the album really shines, taking short bursts of words and phrases and building on them until they become something greater than the sum of all their parts. “Being” takes a whispered sample saying “What is this place?” and “I don’t know where I am,” and turns it into the vocal line for beautifully rendered electronic post-punk song, built around the sound of a rewinding tape. And title track “Deeper” does a similar thing, putting jungle drums and sawtooth synths under manic walls of noise and chanting.

It’s dense, chaotic music, a massive evolution in style from the simpler sound of The Soft Moon’s previous albums, though that sound is still audible in stripped-back new tracks like “Far” and “Feel”. But the image shatters when the singer tries to get more complicated with his lyrics, with songs like “Black” and “Wasting” taking away from the bleakness with clear, audible vocals that sound like they’d be more suitable written on a motivational poster. These songs don’t destroy the album, but they come in quick succession early on, taking you away from the bleak illusion maintained by the otherwise awe-inspiring sound of the album. It might not have been a problem if they hadn’t come so early, but Suicide-inspired opening track “Inward” isn’t strong enough to set the scene, and “Black” and the tracks that follow it mean the first half of the album feels a little flat compared the more consistent tone of their previous releases, and the half that follows it.

It’s hard to tell if they’ve always had this problem. Usually The Soft Moon bury their vocals to the point of incomprehensibility in reverb and digital effects. On Deeper, they’re clearer than ever before. The lyrics don’t spoil the album, but they do create a problem – sometimes, not all the time, it pushes you away. You can’t take it seriously, and then the illusion is shattered. This is an unfortunate development on an otherwise spectacular album from a usually reliable band. It’s difficult to know how to feel about it. On one hand, it’s denser and more innovative than ever before. On the other, it’s a little slack around the edges. It’s as good a place as any to start if you’ve never heard the band before, but it might not be as immersive as their previous releases. It feels like they’re at a crossroads at the moment. Do they stick with simple lyrics and keep expanding on their sound, or do they work to improve their lyrics to put across more complicated meanings and emotions? It’s a good album, but not the masterpiece it wants to be. It’s fraying, cracking at the edges. It demands a listen all the same.

Deeper is out now on Captured Tracks.

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Dodheimsgard — A Umbra Omega

Tuesday, March 24th, 2015

Dodheimsgard first came to broader attention with their debut album on Malicious Records, Kronet Til Konge, in 1995. As a three-piece, including Darkthrone’s Fenriz and the unmistakable vocals of Aldrahn, Dodheimsgard’s first full-length album was fairly straight down the line Norwegian black metal, albeit quite an outstanding effort in that context. The band’s third release was an EP, Satanic Art, which saw an expanded lineup and the beginnings of experimentation that would explode from the gates on the subsequent album, 666 International. DHG broke free from the earlier conventions they had mastered and flung themselves with abandon into a more industrial and progressive approach, developing a sound that would prove distinctive of the many other projects the members were involved with (such as Ved Buens Ende, Virus, and Code). This deviation also heralded much longer stretches of time in between releases. Until last week, it had been eight years since DHG’s last record was produced. In 2015 they have returned, at last, with yet another cerebral avant-garde masterpiece called A Umbra Omega.

To those familiar with DHG’s previous work, perhaps what is most immediately noticeable about the new album is a dramatic difference in production. There is something less primitive and noisy about the overall sound, a spacious dynamic not so reliant upon the midrange as per the Metal Commandments. It is tempting to say there is a cleaner aspect to the mix; yet, this is not to suggest there is an antiseptic or “overproduced” quality. There’s a lot more room and life in the sound than on previous albums. This was undeniably essential; with so much detail present it could all so easily have been lost.

The band’s trajectory towards prog, lined with complex time signatures and a phenomenal density of riffs and movements, is expressed with an even greater unhinged fever than we’ve heard from DHG before. Sinewy attachments to black metal roots remain in terms of the odd blast of violent tempo, but the crisp and clean guitars and vocal styles throughout A Umbra Omega serve to put great distance between the album and even the most recent experimental takes on black metal elsewhere. The restless shifting between musical motifs and demented pace at which this occurs puts both this album and the band itself at the most avant-garde end of the musicians’ other projects.

Demented and haunting chord progressions have long been a signature of guitarist Vicotnik and are, therefore, expected to be plentiful on the new album. The addition of a new guitarist, L.E. Måløy, to the ranks appears to have expanded DHG’s repertoire when they transmute into moments of hypnotic beauty. The dark jazz influences are more prominent and confidently executed. Terghl, the other new member, brings a much different sound and style to the drumming. In this sense, DHG have moved on yet again, leaving behind the industrial elements they experimented with on the previous two albums.

Vocally, A Umbra Omega is a wonderful development. There are still hints of that special tone of Aldrahn’s that made his early works so essential (check out Zyklon-B’s Blood Must Be Shed). Here he has broadened his stylistic range to beef up the experimental feel of the work. His use of effects brings out particularly pleasing results, most notably in some of the more ethereal post-rockish passages in the songs.

To dissect each song here would be overdoing things, as in their great length they swarm with ideas and surprising moments. Expertly and briefly decorated with some unusual instrumental appearances, the high level of detail makes A Umbra Omega something which requires extensive revisitation to appreciate for all of its worth. Dodheimsgard have produced something that reflects stunning creative growth over a vast period of time, suitably epic and twisted in a manner that ensures their uniqueness amongst their peers is preserved.

A Umbra Omega is out now on Peaceville Records.

The Black Captain DJs this week at The Electric Funeral Club on March 25 and Crux on March 28.

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The Monochrome Set — Spaces Everywhere

Wednesday, March 18th, 2015

Somewhere out there in an alternate universe, The Monochrome Set are filling stadiums. Critically acclaimed but mostly unknown outside of Britain, the band began in the post-punk scene of the late 1970’s and have been going more or less ever since. Shades of their legacy can be heard across the history of British alternative music from Pulp to The Smiths, but the band themselves have somehow avoided almost any kind of lasting fame or notoriety. Most people only seem to remember them for producing a set of three fairly good post-punk LP’s in the early 1980’s, which were less interesting than the more experimental output of their contemporaries. But they’ve been writing songs and playing shows for almost 35 years now show no signs of stopping anytime soon. The twelfth full-length release for the third incarnation of the band came out this month. Will it finally bring them the recognition they so obviously deserve?

The short answer, sadly, is probably not. This is one of the most well-composed, quirky and intelligent releases of the year thus far. It represents a significant improvement in musical style compared to their 2013 album Super Plastic City and boasts a layered sound reminiscent of a combination of 60’s rock, 70’s punk, and 90’s britpop. At its best, it sounds a bit like Morrissey fronting a new wave band. At its worst: a slightly condescending parody of the Moody Blues. It’s a very meta sort of album, engaging with the history of pop music in subtle ways to add emotional weight to a series of twee, satirical narratives about life in modern Britain, shown most vibrantly in the seventh track “The Z-Train”, where a driving, bluesy bassline and horror show guitar riffs back the singer’s observations of the people on his train. “Bleary mammal in blue cotton, smelling like a prune / The lyrics he has all forgotten, so he just whistles the tune.” It really paints a vivid picture, and the listless tone of the vocalist coupled with the snark behind his lyrics makes for an entertaining, almost cinematic sort of an experience. Second track “Avenue” does a similar sort of thing, with harpsichord and a kind of Beatles-esque psychedelic vibe adding a feeling of nostalgia to the singer’s recollections of a street he used to know in London, now unsafe to walk along at night. The lyrics complement the music beautifully, creating a sense of bewilderment at a well-remembered place now completely lost in time.

It’s difficult to imagine a lot of new fans being attracted to this release. The majority of the musical and cultural references end at around the 1970’s, and even the sound of the music is dated. People of a demographic old enough to appreciate The Monochrome Set have probably already formed a strong opinion on the band, and this new album won’t change their minds one way or the other. It is the one of the most musically innovative albums the band has ever made, but it isn’t different enough from any of their previous material to persuade anyone who’s disregarded them in the past. Younger people more familiar with Morrissey or Jarvis Cocker will find them harder to relate to, and because the band is so obscure, they won’t have the nostalgia required to pull them through. And the saddest part of all is that it really is a wonderful album. It doesn’t pretend the last thirty years never happened, like the newest from The Pop Group, and it doesn’t disregard everything that made the original band so great, like the latest one from Gang of Four. It’s done so much right that it almost seems like a tragedy it hasn’t tried to be a little more inclusive. This is why it will probably still be overlooked.

It would be wonderful to see The Monochrome Set get the recognition they deserve within their lifetimes, but while they continue along without making any kind of effort to engage with modern music or relate to the changing world, it’s hard to see that happening. But maybe that’s the way they like it; the sleeping giants of the British indie scene, playing detailed, intricate and funny music that speaks to the experiences of an aging fanbase who has followed them since the very beginning. If you’re not already part of that fanbase, you will struggle to appreciate the album. It isn’t necessarily a damning critique, but it’s a sad one. It could have been so much more than this. All they had to do was let us in.

Spaces Everywhere is out now on Tapete Records.

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Leviathan — Scar Sighted

Tuesday, March 10th, 2015

The latest release from USBM one-man project Leviathan has been a subject of great anticipation, especially after a couple of teasers were let loose very early on this year. The catalogue produced for Leviathan by musician Wrest (Jef Whitehead) over the course of 16 years has exhibited continuous evolution from something raw and within strict black metal delineations into works of a more sprawling, chaotic, and thought-provoking scope. Scar Sighted is a record that travels down the furthest reaches yet on this path, exceeding expectations with songs of seamlessly rich complexity, erupting violenty with the caustic and hateful energy that Leviathan is notorious for.

The album was produced by Wrest with Bill Anderson, whose name has appeared alongside great works by Swans, Agalloch and Pallbearer amongst others. There is no doubt as to the collaboration’s success, as Scar Sighted plays out its staggering density of ideas without falling into the void of a disjointed mess that metal bands so often disappear into when attempting something so ambitious. Whilst doing so, it continually remains rooted in its unseemly spirit of swirling, malevolent noise. The sound is uncluttered and possesses a superb clarity, with every stinging drop of the storm being felt at full intensity.

Scar Sighted is contemptuously defiant of the staunchest traditions of black metal, exploring what is beyond the horizon through piercing, demented genius. The closing passages of “The Smoke of Their Torment” are pure insanity. Clean guitars and vocals provide a totally unnerving experience the equal of any violent maelstrom of distortion and screams. Even in some of its most recent innovative incarnations, this trick is usually the old standard of creating idyllic and sensitive counterpoint amidst speed and sonic violence. There’s really no such trick in Leviathan’s world. This album is, uncompromisingly, the sound of spiritually reveling in a totally violent breakdown of inhibitive social paradigms.

The riffs are dissonant and chaotic in a way that would make the distinctive French stalwarts of the genre lose all control of bodily functions. The mania present in moments like those midway through “Gardens of Corprolite” are gloriously sickening with their dizzying speed and effortless lunacy. Even as melody closes out the track, it manages to sound as though there is the thought of something horrific being done to you.

The title track exemplifies the richness of ideas present across the entire record, transforming from epic vocal chanting drones into monolithic doom evocative of watching a comet of black ice splitting the Earth in twain. As particles of life extinguished spread languidly outwards into the cosmos, the music slows further, heightening the desolate and epic outpouring of feeling. Wrest has gone from lacing you mercilessly with sonic violence straight into producing some of the finest funeral doom around, and with far more point and emotion to it than simply showing you this is all just because he can pull it off. This is an amazing moment on the album. Then, with a herald of spoken word, it explodes back into an assault of brilliant old school BM riffs. The blistering climax dissolves into ambient smoky wisps of reversed guitars.

It is not just in the instrumental tones and styles present that Scar Sighted excels through diversity. Vocally, Wrest morphs like shadows from a flame ill at ease in the wind: ritualistic chants and deep throaty drones to reverberant shrieks, decimating low-end death growls, all the way through to wails of suffering and dementia. Alongside the instrumental prowess, the complete blend of the elements obtains vast dynamics and darkly kaleidoscopic nuance. To think that this tremendous noise is the writing and performance of a single person is astonishing.

Scar Sighted was released through Profound Lore Records last week. I send my best wishes to the world’s black metal musicians for the year ahead. You trvly have your work cut out for you surpassing this one.

The Black Captain hosts Behind the Mirror this Wednesday at 11PM Perth time (+8GMT) and Brain Blood Volume on Sunday at 1AM on RTRFM.

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Gang of Four — What Happens Next

Wednesday, March 4th, 2015

Anyone who’s ever participated in a first year philosophy class would be aware of Theseus’s ship; a thought experiment that asks whether or not the eponymous trireme, with all its constituent parts replaced, can still be called the original vessel. This philosophical puzzle can be applied to the newest release from Gang of Four, an iconic band whose foundational members have slowly whittled away to the point that only guitarist Andy Gill remains. It’s a little easier to decide here than in the original scenario, because the basic components of the band haven’t entirely been replaced yet; Gill’s trademark contributions are still present, heard in familiar, single-note guitar riffs played to clattering staccato beats. The politics also remain, with songs like “Obey the Ghost” and “First World Citizen” making passionate social commentary on our consumer-focused, technologically saturated modern world. But just about everything else has changed, leaving few connections to the band that came before. Inconsistency itself is not a problem, as Gang of Four have always been experimental, but it does the question remains: are they still really Gang of Four?

“Where the Nightingale Sings” starts out strong, with the angular instrumental interplay of Gang of Four’s older work translated into funky minimalist synth rock. But by the start of “Broken Talk”, the record changes into something else, adopting a guitar and synth sound strongly reminiscent of KMFDM’s 1995 album Nihil. Guest vocals from Dead Weather/The Kills vocalist Allison Mosshart only strengthens the comparison, making the song sound like a weaker version of KMFDM’s single “Juke Joint Jezebel” but without the speed or edge. “Isle of Dogs” sounds a little better, with ringing parallel guitar riffs and poppy vocals above a grinding right-panned saw-tooth synth, and “Dying Rays” is lovely too, with miserable lyrics over soft-piano, and delicately layered electronic instruments, taking full advantage of guest vocalist Herbert Gröenemeyer’s crooning and melodic voice. “What I wanted… disappears in the haze,” Herbert sings, as Gill’s guitar riffs softly behind him. It’s a beautiful song, even if it bears little resemblance to anything the band has done before. But it isn’t particularly innovative; it’s the sort of ballad played by aging rock stars from Robert Smith to Liam Gallagher, and while it’s very nice to listen to, it’s not enough to recommend the album.

In fact, this is edging on a criticism of the What Happens Next as a whole. This feels like more of an evolution of Andy Gill’s personal creative expression rather than anything attached to the wider history of pop music or the name Gang of Four. It wouldn’t be a problem were he writing as a solo artist, but Gang of Four was always more than just Gill. His guitar work offers the album a connection to the past, but it isn’t strong enough to attach it to their legacy, and its even downplayed in a lot of cases — part of a wider shift towards a more electronic sound that characterizes this release. It wouldn’t be so bad if the sound was more original, but all of these tracks cover musical ground that should be very familiar to most listeners in 2015. This, coupled with the relative lack of connection to any of the work that came before, makes it a difficult album to really recommend, though there’s enough here to inspire some hope for the future. “Dead Souls” and “Isle of Dogs” transcend their roots in punk and electronic rock to come to an interesting convergence of the two, and the increased emphasis on harmony from the new vocalists coupled with the rattling guitar and funk influences typical to Gang of Four might lead to some interesting new developments. But right now the mixture seems a little incomplete.

What Happens Next isn’t a bad album, but it isn’t really interesting either. For a 35-year-old band whose debut album almost single-handedly re-defined many of the genre tropes of modern rock, this kind of banality is disappointing. And really, that’s the problem with the album. Gang of Four tried to do a lot of things, but they were seldom ever boring. What Happens Next is confused, naïve to its strengths, and nowhere near as innovative as it wants to be. It is simply a collection of listenable, generic rock songs pulled together into a largely forgettable album. It’s Gang of Four in almost name alone. If Andy Gill wants his solo work to live up to the band’s historic reputation, he needs to do a better job than this.

What Happens Next is out now on Metropolis Records.

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