Archive for the ‘Shellac’ Category

Matthew Tomich’s Top 10 Albums of 2014

Saturday, December 27th, 2014

Life is Noise editor Matthew Tomich closes our best of 2014 series with his favourite records of the year.

10. DORVAL & DEVEREAUX – Dorval & Devereaux

Though the pulsating single ‘Heavy Hands’ is the standout track on this debut collaboration from White Ribbon and Samantha Glass, the 36 minutes of Dorval & Devereaux unfold like a painstakingly crafted hallucination. Ethereal in parts and unsettling others, these are synthetic textures for daydreams and night terrors. If the 90’s Playstation game LSD were to ever see a re-release, this record would make the perfect soundtrack.

9. TINARIWEN — Emmaar

Even though the songs are sung in their native tongue, Tinariwen’s epic desert blues transcends barriers of language and culture. It helps that the Malian band’s brand of rock — a label that does little justice to Tinariwen’s diverse and often spiritual aesthetic, but feels more appropriate than any other term in Western music criticism — bursts with flourishes of familiarity, from Hendrix to Dylan. Emmaar feels like a bridge between worlds, a fact best exemplified by its opening gambit ‘Toumast Tincha’, a riff-filled odyssey that’s equal parts intriguing and recognizable, grooving and introspective. Emmaar is the perfect soundtrack to journeys unknown.

8. ESBEN & THE WITCH — A New Nature

Esben & The Witch do not rush into things. While that leads to some meandering moment on the 14-minute ‘The Jungle’, it’s largely to the trio’s advantage, a record that feels equally consistent and diverse, as if each song is another side of the same story. It’s excellently paced, too, placing its longer, brooding numbers next to its more subdued meditations. The guitars shimmer and distress, while Rachel Davies delivers her most poignant performances on the penultimate ‘Blood Teachings’, where repetition morphs her utterances into mesmerising mantras of near-transcendent proportions.

7. EMMA RUTH RUNDLE — Some Heavy Ocean

Even at her own shows, I hear Emma Ruth Rundle’s fans compare her to Chelsea Wolfe. If they weren’t labelmates and the only two female frontwomen on Sargent House, maybe the conversation would be different. It certainly should be: beyond a fondness for reverb and a penchant for morose, film-noir vocal delivery, Some Heavy Ocean owes little to Wolfe’s recent output. Rundle – who also fronts shoegazing trio Marriages and played guitar in the now-defunct post-rock band Red Sparowes – is stripped bare on her debut solo record, the delayed guitars of her past exploits exchanged for a steel-stringed acoustic, occasional percussion and some synths to hint at the dark clouds ahead. Rundle’s voice strains as it soars in ‘Run Forever’ where the main refrain becomes more desperate and compelling with each repetition: “If we both get caught then we’ll run forever/if we both go down we’ll go down together.” But it’s on the closing track ‘Black Dog’ where Rundle shines, even if the song is brimming with darkness, one of the most lyrically and sonically compelling odes to depression.

6. HELMS ALEE — Sleepwalking Sailors

It’s hard to stand out with labelmates like Russian Circles and Chelsea Wolfe, but Helms Alee are perhaps the best representatives for the Sargent House aesthetic — punishing yet fragile, diverse yet distinct and relentlessly innovative. On Sleepwalking Sailors, the Seattle trio are forever oscillating between moods: ‘Tumuscence’ shifts in tone from boisterous to vulnerable to pensive over the course of a single verse, thanks in part to the shared duties that juxtaposes guitarist Ben Verellen’s animalistic call-to-arms with drummer Hozoji Matheson-Margullis introspective wail.

But it’s the riffs, rhythms and unexpected turns where Sleepwalking Sailors really shines. As good as this year has been for metal and its various offspring with standout releases from YOB, Earth, Pallbearer, Tombs and so many more, the highlight of this year in metal for me has to be the closing 60 seconds of ‘Heavy Worm Burden’ — a song that transforms from a sludge jam into heart-wrenching transcendence as the low end drops out in favour of wailing, bent guitar strings and sublime sermonizing. I challenge anyone to find a passage of recorded music from 2014 that’s more compelling.

5. DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979 — The Physical World

It’s hard to think of The Physical World as a comeback album because DFA1979 never really went away. They disbanded, certainly, but their first run was too short to comfortably fit them into the Reuniters Club – in 2006 when the dissolution became official, they were only five years and one album in. The Physical World came 3 years after the duo returned to the touring circuit and the break has served them well: while 2004’s You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine flirted with the thankfully-defunct nu rock revolution, DFA1979 sound like a new band on this new record – confident, bombastic and aggressive. It’s middle-heavy – ‘Crystal Ball’, ‘White is Red’ and ‘Trainwreck 1979? might be the duo’s strongest three songs in their brief catalogue — a catalogue that’s sure to expand if the strength of this record is anything to go by.

4. ICEAGE — Plowing Into the Field of Love

Elias Bender Rønnenfelt has one of the most compelling voices in rock music today. Though he flirts with overwrought delivery from time to time, almost every moment in Plowing Into the Field of Love brims with sincerity and intensity, from the playfulness of ‘The Lord’s Favorite’ to the chaos of ‘How Many’ and the desperation of ‘Forever’. It helps that he’s backed by a trio of excellent musicians and superbly crafted songs — the instrumentation on Plowing … are seem permanently off-kilter in the most deliberate way possible, resulting in a record that’s eminently listenable yet always challenging.

3. SHELLAC — Dude Incredible

If there were ever a argument for a band taking their time, it’s Dude Incredible. After more than 20 years, Shellac have not mellowed, but on this record the trio feel more comfortable and assured than they have in years. Dude Incredible forgoes the short-burst punk rock and meandering 9-minute opuses of past release’s in favour of an approach that’s entirely focused, refined and strangely obsessed with surveyors. Easily the best release of their career.

2. YOUNG WIDOWS — Easy Pain

Young Widows’ fourth record marries the subtlety and texture of 2011’s In and Out of Youth and Lightness with the angular explosiveness of their earlier work to masterful effect, running the gamut of noise rock and post-punk without settling into either aesthetic. Few band straddles the line of nuanced tension and apocalyptic paranoia better than this one, and tension is the Louisville trio’s best weapon: songs like ‘King Sol’ bubble with an uncomfortable tension before climaxing in cathartic release at the precise moment they need to. These are songs for bad trips and trephinations.

1. SUN KIL MOON — Benji

Though Mark Kozelek’s year has been marked by petty feuds and pettier insult songs, he was also responsible for one of the most moving and honest records of the year in Benji, an ode to the minutiae of contemporary life that spans from San Francisco to Ohio to Newtown and back. There’s as much darkness as there is light in Benji, though it’s more poignant moments are the most heart-wrenching like opening track ‘Carissa’, where Kozelek uses his guitar and voice to make sense of the accidental death of his cousin in and give her life poetry. Rarely does an album feel like it’s being written and played right in front of you, the stories unfolding in real time as Kozelek seemingly finds the words as he goes to narrate the lives of those around him. Worth countless repeat listens.

Jack Midalia’s Top 10 Albums of 2014

Tuesday, December 16th, 2014

10. YOB — Clearing the Path to Ascend
Clearing the Path to Ascend is not easy going. From just before the five minute mark of album opener ‘In Our Blood’, things really kick in as the Oregon band slow drip doom into our ears. With vocals that swing between the hauntingly beautiful and the brutal, coupled with merciless and punishing instrumentation, Clearing the Path to Ascend is a four-track, hour-long journey into dark territory. The record briefly picks up the pace a bit on the second track, ‘Nothing To Win’, before ‘Unmask The Spectre’ and ‘Marrow’ settle things back down to get the listener ready for more slow-pummelling. YOB throw enough diversity and moments of respite onto the record to keep your attention and stop things getting too monotonous, but Clearing the Path to Ascend is overwhelmingly a loud, brutal and brilliant ride.

9. REAL ESTATE — Atlas
Real Estate’s Atlas is a summer album that’s perfect for winter. There’s enough of everything you know and love from Real Estate to make this record a perfect companion to a sunny day (reverby, cutting lead guitars and playful, pretty instrumentation), but there’s enough of a hint of melancholy, both lyrically and musically, to make Atlas perfect for a winter night with a scotch by the fireplace. While not quite up there with Days, there’s no doubt that Atlas represents a maturation of Real Estate’s sound to something that, despite sounding simple and effortless, is a complex and dense work.

8. SILVER MT. ZION — Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything
In case you didn’t know what you were getting into with Silver Mt Zion, the band has helpfully named their latest record to remove any impressions this might have been a quiet folk release or something like that. Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything is a cacophonous and beautiful mess.

The album begins with a recording of Efrim Menuck and Jessica Moss’ child (“We live on the island called Montreal and we make a lot of noise, because we love each other”) that could be an introduction to Fuck Off Get Free… or, equally, a summation of the bands’ worldview. Musically at least, there’s a feeling of celebration and joy, albeit mixed in with heavy doses of the usual Silver Mt Zion protest and anger and depressing song titles. ‘What We Loved Was Not Enough’ forms the centre of the album, telling the story of apocalypse, self-destruction, riot, war and poverty. Nestled in all that mayhem, however, is a little sliver of optimism — the hope that our children will be strong and selfless enough to live like we couldn’t.

7. BILL CALLAHAN — Have Fun with God
I may be bending the rules ever so slightly in putting this record in here, in that Have Fun with God is a dub version of last year’s Dream River. However, as I somehow overlooked Dream River in 2013, I’m partly using this as an opportunity to make up for it.

On Have Fun with God, Callahan’s voice takes less of a front-seat to the instrumentation, augmented with buckets of echo and reverb. It’s an interesting experiment on Callahan’s part, and the songs on Dream River generally work well in this new format. Have Fun with God manages to be both bleak and uplifting at the same time, while maintaining the late-night-listening feel of its predecessor. Somehow sounding unrelentingly sparse, even with additional effects, Have Fun with God is a welcome addition to Callahan’s catalogue.

6. PIXIES — Indie Cindy
Terrible title and a lack of Kim Deal aside, the first Pixies’ record since 1991 is a welcome return. From the opening track, ‘What Goes Boom’, it’s clear that Indie Cindy might occasionally be a little bit Pixies-by-numbers, but after 13 years it’s just nice to have new Pixies material. Tracks like ‘Blue Eyed Hexe’ and ‘Bagboy’ are right up there with the band’s best work; Frank Black’s voice swings between nonchalant cool to piercing scream as well as ever, Dave Lovering remains one of my favourite understated drummers in rock, and Joey Santiago’s guitar still gives me goosebumps. The hooks are still there, the tunes are still there… what’s not to love?

5. THE WAR ON DRUGS — Lost in the Dream
Lost in the Dream is another effortlessly dreamy walk into Americana from The War on Drugs. The Philadelphia outfit stick to what they do best — pounding freight-train drums and conspicuous nods to Springsteen, mixed with liberal doses of reverb and psych meanderings. Tracks like ‘Under The Pressure’, ‘An Ocean In Between The Waves’ and ‘In Reverse’ continue the tradition of excellent War on Drugs road trip songs, while ‘Suffering’ and the title track give a taste of the band in ballad mode.

It’s heartening to see a band that has been slogging away for a while now start to get the traction that Lost in the Dream appears to have received. It’s certainly well deserved.

4. SWANS — To Be Kind
Michael Gira is a without a doubt the scariest human being on the planet. Swans at their loudest and heaviest are a terrifying beast, but it’s the quiet moments of To Be Kind in which Gira seems to be at his sneering, menacing worst. Boasting more than a hint of the industrialism of Einstürzende Neubauten, this is a record I would regularly put on as background music, only to find I’d that I’d either stopped whatever I was doing and that an hour had passed in the blink of the eye. There are certainly worse ways to spend a couple of hours.

Additional mention of the cover art, which is either the best or the worst album artwork of 2014.

3. SHELLAC — Dude Incredible
Dude Incredible simply gets the job done. Clocking in at just over half an hour, the record is Shellac stripped of anything that might be considered superfluous, leaving less a record and more a precise, surgical airstrike. From the prowling bass of ‘Riding Bikes’ to the snarl of ‘All the Surveyors’, Dude Incredible manages to pack real menace into an austere half hour. Nothing is overused and nothing is overdone (both in terms of songwriting or production), a fact that won’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows Shellac and Albini’s form. Key tracks include: ‘Dude Incredible’, ‘All the Surveyors’, and ‘Gary’.

2. PARQUET COURTS — Sunbathing Animal
This record followed me around all year, whether it was the solid month where I basically listened to nothing else, the fact that most people in my life were obsessed by it, or seeing the cover art on a 10-metre-high mural — Sunbathing Animal was inescapable. It seemed to have wormed its way into all corners of my existence, so the high rating of Sunbathing Animal might be due to some kind of musical Stockholm Syndrome as well as the fact that it’s a brilliant record.

All the usual suspects are here in terms of a detached, super-hip influence: Modern Lovers, Pavement, Velvet Underground, etc, but there’s enough originality and personality on this record to make it more than the sum of its parts. The selling point of Parquet Courts is that perfect Malkmus-style “loose but still in total control” balance between technical ability and sloppy noise. Having said that, the quieter moments on Sunbathing Animal (‘Dear Ramona’, ‘Raw Milk’) are certainly worth a listen as well.

Highlights include: “What Color is Blood”, “Bodies Made Of”, “Black and White” and “Instant Disassembly”.

Note: They put out two records this year, but I haven’t spent enough time with Content Nausea to include it here so Sunbathing Animal it is for spot number two.

1. HARMONY — Carpetbombing
I knew this was my number one record of 2014 from the first time it entered my earholes. Combine ragged guitar with soaring crescendos and breathtaking harmonies, nuanced songwriting and stark-but-beautiful production, and you’ve got one hell of an album. It’s a distinctly Australian-sounding record, in the same difficult-to-explain way that The Drones sound Australian beyond merely the accents.

I could throw around adjectives all day, however to put it simply: Carpetbombing nails the balance between the beauty and trauma of being alive and condenses it into 43 minutes of music that demands to be played loud and with total attention.

Check out Life is Noise’s Top 10 Albums of 2014 and check back later this week for more of our writers’ best records of the year.

Life is Noise’s Top 10 Albums of 2014

Monday, December 15th, 2014

Our staff count down the best records of 2014 — from the heavy to the hallowed and everything in between.

10. TINARIWEN — Emmaar

Even though the songs are sung in their native tongue, Tinariwen’s epic desert blues transcends barriers of language and culture. It helps that the Malian band’s brand of rock — a label that does little justice to Tinariwen’s diverse and often spiritual aesthetic, but feels more appropriate than any other term in Western music criticism — bursts with flourishes of familiarity, from Hendrix to Dylan. Emmaar feels like a bridge between worlds, a fact best exemplified by its opening gambit ‘Toumast Tincha’, a riff-filled odyssey that’s equal parts intriguing and recognizable, grooving and introspective. Emmaar is the perfect soundtrack to journeys unknown. — Matthew Tomich

9. VOYAGER — V

Excellent songs and production. These guys have finally found a sound that bridges the melodic and the heavy. Pop structures and anthems that deserve to shouted along too at massive European festivals. — Scott Bishop

8. SUN KIL MOON — Benji

Though Mark Kozelek’s year has been marked by petty feuds and pettier insult songs, he was also responsible for one of the most moving and honest records of the year in Benji, an ode to the minutiae of contemporary life that spans from San Francisco to Ohio to Newtown and back. There’s as much darkness as there is light in Benji, though it’s more poignant moments are the most heart-wrenching like opening track ‘Carissa’, where Kozelek uses his guitar and voice to make sense of the accidental death of his cousin in and give her life poetry. Rarely does an album feel like it’s being written and played right in front of you, the stories unfolding in real time as Kozelek seemingly finds the words as he goes to narrate the lives of those around him. Worth countless repeat listens. — Matthew Tomich

7. TOMBS — Savage Gold

Post-metal with more than a dash of black, Savage Gold is dissonant, haunting, extreme – and one of the surprise releases of the year. See also their excellent cover of Bowie’s ‘Heroes’. — Scott Williams

6. SHELLAC — Dude Incredible

Dude Incredible simply gets the job done. Clocking in at just over half an hour, the record is Shellac stripped of anything that might be considered superfluous, leaving less a record and more a precise, surgical airstrike. From the prowling bass of ‘Riding Bikes’ to the snarl of ‘All the Surveyors’, Dude Incredible manages to pack real menace into an austere half hour. Nothing is overused and nothing is overdone (both in terms of songwriting or production), a fact that won’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows Shellac and Albini’s form. — Jack Midalia

5. ICEAGE — Plowing into the Field of Love

Plowing Into The Field of Love is everything people love about Iceage and a whole lot more. The songs still wallow the in same bleak mirth Iceage bathe in, but the dense, nihilistic moods are now littered with the sounds of folk and an undeniable country swagger, which might sound odd to some fans but by damn you wouldn’t have it any other way. This whole album is like a punch in the guts, but it’s the sort of punch you’re grateful for, the one where once you’ve managed to start taking in oxygen again and you reach out and gladly ask for another. It’s bold, aggressive, mangled and so perfectly enjoyable, an example of a band leering ten feet above their contemporaries. — Jack Payet

4. SWANS — To Be Kind

Michael Gira is a without a doubt the scariest human being on the planet. Swans at their loudest and heaviest are a terrifying beast, but it’s the quiet moments of To Be Kind in which Gira seems to be at his sneering, menacing worst. Boasting more than a hint of the industrialism of Einstürzende Neubauten, this is a record I would regularly put on as background music, only to find I’d that I’d either stopped whatever I was doing and that an hour had passed in the blink of the eye. There are certainly worse ways to spend a couple of hours. Additional mention of the cover art, which is either the best or the worst album artwork of 2014. — Jack Midalia

3. THE DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT — Z2

Devin has to be admired, not just for the great music on this album but for the projects he takes on in general, the majority of which are born from his bizarre and brilliant mind. Z2 is a double album (condensed down from 50 songs originally), the first part being a typical DTP “pop metal” album taking elements from Epicloud and Addicted, though it feels more mature. The second half is a War of the Worlds-style rock opera featuring the return of Ziltoid (Devin’s alter ego, a coffee-loving alien hell bent on world domination) similar in musical style to the first Ziltoid album but with a bigger scope and budget. The Ziltoid tale will also be taken to the musical theatre stage next year at the Royal Albert Hall for a show that sold out within weeks. — Scott Williams

2. ELECTRIC WIZARD — Time to Die

It took me a while to come around to Time to Die, especially since vocalist Jus Oborn sounds like he’s singing down the corridor, but it’s the heavy/slow DOOMY riff fest that you want and desire from The Wizard. — Scott Bishop

1. YOB — Clearing the Path to Ascend

YOB’s Clearing the Path to Ascend was virtually undisputed amongst aficionados of independent heavy music as one of the best albums of the year. Crowned by a song bound for a timeless regard in the world of heavy music, ‘Marrow’, the rest of the album gradually emerges from the blinding supernova of the closer across multiple listens to burn slowly into the mind as one of the most outstanding albums made in heavy metal history. Scheidt can make it seem as though drawing upon an utterly deadly riff is as easy as breathing for him, and is quite happy to let you have it methodically and relentlessly over a period of time where other bands would have played twenty different ones. This is doom deep in a trance. YOB is meditative. YOB is introspective, and deeply moving in its sincerity. On this record, YOB is godlike. — The Black Captain

Check back over the next two weeks as we reveal our individual writers’ top 10 records of 2014.