RECORD REVIEW: Nachtmystium - Assassins, or Black Meddle Part 1 (2008)

I think that I can count on one hand the number of people I know who enjoy black metal, including myself. And I don't really count, because quite frankly, I think a lot of it is awful.

Black metal as a genre is one that absolutely refuses to move forward in any way. It clings with an unrelenting vicegrip to the early days of its past, when it was birthed by a gang of insane Satanic Norwegian teenagers who make Marilyn Manson look like Mickey Mouse. To give you an example of how completely insane black metal's past is, consider the fact that only one original member of the pioneering group Mayhem is still active - their first vocalist was committed to a psychiatric ward, their second committed suicide in a completely ludicrous fashion and then had his brains eaten for breakfast, their guitarist was murdered by their bassist, and their bassist is still imprisoned for the murder of their guitarist.

The music is often not nearly as epic as the stories of the bands, sounding like a maelstromic Norwegian winter storm at best, and an angry wasp trapped in a beer can at worst. This is because in the underground black metal scene, awful production is a virtue. Every band wants to imitate these crazed madmen who recorded on either a four-track in their basement or the cheapest studio in Oslo, when they didn't blow all the money on sheep's blood and severed pig heads. There are countless black metal imitators Stateside who mask their lack of skill behind abysmal production, releasing mediocre record after mediocre record, oblivious to all change and mentally stuck in Norway in the early 90's. This was the kind of band Nachtmystium used to be - Burzum/Darkthrone copycats who used to listen to Marilyn Manson and KMFDM before they "grew up," attempted to sacrifice stray cats to Satan before getting scratched and letting them go, and cried themselves to sleep every night wishing they were Norwegian. On the fantastic Assassins, Nachtmystium seems to have finally figured out that black metal isn't the only style of music that exists, and have found out that much like Jaegermeister, it mixes incredibly well with the right ingredients.

The style of the album is very reminiscent of Meddle-era Pink Floyd, making me think that Nachtmystium frontman Blake "Azentrius" Judd must have found his dad's old Floyd vinyls stashed in the attic, along with the weed hidden behind them. The album opens with "One Of These Nights," an obvious throwback to "One Of These Days," the closest thing Pink Floyd had to a headbanger, then progresses into the punk rock/doom/ambient title track, which I think is probably one of the best metal tracks of the year. The remaining cuts off the album are much the same, mixing the icy lo-fi fury of black metal with headbanging punk rock aggression and entrancing ambient noise reminiscent of The Mars Volta's work on De-Loused In The Comatorium. The real prize of the album is the three-part closer "Seasick," where Judd fully brings in the dark psychedelia he heard on his dad's records (while stoned, of course) with dreamy guitars, loose jazz-based drum patterns, almost-funky bass, and oh my fucking God is that a goddamn saxophone solo in a black metal record what the fuck is going on holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

I think that the best part about Assassins, by far, is that despite its multitude of myriad influences from across the musical spectrum, it's relatively accessible as far as evil underground metal goes. It even has verse-chorus-verse song structure! Most of my hipster friends who scoff and laugh to themselves about metal have been nothing but impressed with Nachtmystium, relieved to find that there are metal bands that both make serious music and can actually be taken seriously. These four Norwegian-copycats-turned-pioneers have pried black metal's cold hands off of the early 1990's and forcefully dragged it into the modern era, whether it wants to go there or not. A relief to us fans of the genre, because we'd thought the reason it wouldn't let go of the past was because of rigor mortis.

RECORD REVIEW: PlayRadioPlay! - Texas (2008)

Daniel Hunter's MySpace-born, Postal Service-influenced, and uncontrollably catchy flavor of electropop was first brought to my attention in the form of a cover of the Killers' "Mr. Brightside," which rocked. That was off of PlayRadioPlay's first EP, The Frequency, which also rocked. And now Hunter has put out Texas, the band's first full length.

Oh, and it rocks. More energetic than the Postal Service, richer musically than Hellogoodbye (but with the same dislikes of spaces), and more consistent than ex-labelmates Under the Influence of Giants.

Texas opens with "Loco Commotion" and a slow build of guitars interwoven with sliding synth lines. Then it explodes. It's clear from the beginning that Hunter has no self-control whatsoever, tossing in every synth riff he can think of, harmonizing with himself whenever he feels like it, and switching tempo and mood at the drop of a hat. The song, like the rest of "Texas," oozes with energy and teenage ambition (Hunter was 18 when it was released).

First single "Madi Don't Leave" is another highlight, oozing with emotion and vocoder. Here and throughout the album Hunter struggles with the consequences of his early success; "Corner Office Bedroom" riffs on his fear of becoming too engrossed in his music at the expense of family and friends.

A couple ballads are scattered throughout the album, too, though calling a track like "My Attendance Is Bad But My Intentions Are Good" a ballad may be a bit of a misnomer. Even PRP!'s softer side bubbles with energy.

I rate Texas 5 turntables.

And a microphone.

CONCERT REVIEW: Dave1, DJ Funk, Spitzer, Crookers, Danger at Webster Hall, NYC (June 21 2008)

Aren't all-night concerts fun? I bought tickets to this event with two of my beloved coworkers from my summer job (here referred to as Lucky9 and Fad). Doors opened at 11, show started at 12, ended at 5, and I didn't get back home to my bed until 8 AM. I couldn't move for about two hours after I finally woke up later that afternoon, I had danced so hard.

DAVE1: This guy is one half of the electro-funk duo Chromeo (ATTN: Valentine Michael Smith - you'll love these guys), who are very reminiscent of the classic 80s electro movement, with influences borrowed from Michael Jackson, King of Pop. Dave1 was more into modern electro during his set, and the stuff he played sounded like techstep D&B basslines set to a 4/4 club beat. VERY danceable.

DJ FUNK: I think the correct name for this guy's genre is..."booty house?" This is the single stupidest genre of music ever created, but I'd be lying if I said that his set wasn't any fun. The lyrics to every song probably had the word "ass" in them at least thirty times. At least. The two things that I liked most about his set, though, were his breakbeat mix of Daft Punk's "One More Time," and his bottle of Grey Goose that he passed down to the audience.

SPITZER: A shame I can't find that many of their tracks online, because these guys are GREAT. It sounded like a mix of dark trance and electro-house, so I didn't know whether I wanted to rave or jam. (DJ Respire, a good friend of mine, recommended I try "ramming," or "javing.") Fantastic electro with delusions of trance, and I definitely intend to play them next time I DJ for the Shiva Rave.

CROOKERS: Fantastic fucking live show. A third of the crowd stormed the stage, and we were all clustered around the DJ deck watching those two crazy Italians doing their thing. They were very receptive, and knew just what tracks to play to get the audience jamming with them. I'm completely unsure as to what genre they fall into, but they mix the rolling techstep-reminiscent basslines with bangin' electro-house and rap/hip-hop to create, quite possibly, the most awesome dance party music ever. A good group to watch out for, as their remix of Kid Cudi's DayNNite has become a noticeable underground club hit (it's in the first video).

DANGER: The headliner and highlight. More than any other DJ, he was very concerned about the image. He was the only act to come on in a costume (a black body suit with white eye areas, reminiscent of Venom from Spider-Man), and the only act to incorporate video into his performance. The nature of his music combined with the choices the VJ made for material - old action movies like Predator and Road Warrior, old cartoons like GI Joe and Voltron, old video games like Final Fight and Street Fighter 2 - shows that he's even more stuck in the 80s than either Daft Punk or Justice. When this guy's album drops, it's going to be HUGE. He mixes the sound of 1980's cartoon and action movie soundtracks with Nintendo synths and modern French-style electro to create probably the best music I've ever heard come out of the French scene. Ever. I can't wait to see what he'll throw out next, and I'm awaiting the release of his second EP with extreme anticipation.

The Ocean Collective - Precambrian (2007)

The Ocean is a revolving group of musicians around Berlin who've just recorded a concept album. That's right: the title says it all. This is an album about the Precambrian era.

In these two disks, you'll find twenty minutes on the Hadean & Archean periods, in which the Earth was pretty much a big ball of fire. The music reflects this. The riffs go CHUGCHUGGACHUGGACHUG and the bass drum goes DUBBADUBBADUBBADUB and the vocals go GRARARAAA, GRARARARRAAAAAAUGGH!! It's not the best stuff out there, or the most original, but it's a step up for fans of generic noisy American bands. The unusual rhythms and growly chords are pleasers, and the singer does sound as though he would break into one's house and tear one's wife in half. Even given the fun rhythms and crushing guitar, it's the second disk that gets exciting. 

We begin the second disk with an echoing guitar and mournful saxophone that seem to echo down an empty street though soup-thick fog. Is this Casablanca? Is it Cowboy Bebop? No: this is the Proterozoic!

Track two picks up on the first's coda and takes it for a walk through gentle territory like a respite in an Opeth epic, oddly maintaining a second vocalist who sounds like he just came from a bar fight. Two minutes in, we're reminded that, yes, this is a metal album when they break out a melodic but angry guitar line and the barfly starts shouting again. By four minutes in, piano and cello (I think?) have softened the scene again. Anyone who wishes that the loud guy from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones could be Opeth's lead singer is REALLY in luck. Then, six minutes in: GRRAAAAAAUUGH!!

The rest is along the same lines. I still don't have enough metal experience to classify this baby, but I get the feeling that neither would anyone else. It has excellent melodic elements and bone-crushing, brutal heaviness that go well together. The pace changes dramatically from the Hadean (hammering, but this is no speedcore) to the ponderous pace of the slower Proterozoic elements. Time signatures vary: plenty of the two disks will be in 3/4, like much metal, but others are in evidence. The styles change widely, probably because the line-up of this group changed from session to session. Yes, there is one voice-over from an obscure movie. Also of note are the lyrics. The Ocean tends to write about one or both of two things: being overwhelmed, alienated and absorbed by modern job culture, and (surprise surprise) DROWNING IN THE OCEAN. The only way to tell the difference is to look up the lyrics online. I was somewhat surprised by the lack of lyrics discussing plate tectonics, the evolution of sexual reproduction, or the Oxygen Crisis, but I got over it. There must be a metaphor somewhere. Besides, it's not like anyone was around for the Precambrian - for all I know, that's what everyone was talking about back then. 

If one is looking for variety in one's sonic brutality, this is a good place to start. On some tracks, I think to myself, this is the kind of thing that King Crimson might have done if they'd been Germans who got together in 2000, and if all of the breakups and reformations had occurred in the space of one album. On others, I think, GRRAAAAAAAUGH!!

RECORD REVIEW: Does It Offend You, Yeah? - You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into (2008)

A group of four motley Brits from the town of Reading, Does It Offend You, Yeah? is a band that seems to have no idea of what to do with itself. To start with, there's the origin of their name, one of the most ham-handed and awkward band names on the face of the planet except for "!!!," which I still don't think anyone has actually managed to figure out how to pronounce. Synth/guitar player Dan Coop describes the creation process thus, in an interview with NME.com:

"When me and James Rushent first started writing music together we decided to put it up on MySpace. We needed a name to put as our profile name so just put what was the first thing that was said on TV, we switched it on and Ricky Gervais [of The Office] said 'Does it offend you, yeah? My drinking?' so we just went with that. No thought went into it whatsoever."

Their equally as awkward-to-say album, You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into (the result of the same creation process), seems just as lacking as their name in terms of creative direction and overall statement of purpose. With most bands, you can immediately say what style they definitely are - My Chemical Romance is whiny teen-angst wrist-slitting emo with rock opera delusions of Queen, Metallica is groovy thrash riff after groovy thrash riff for eight minutes at a time (not that kind of groovy you dumb hippie), and Flogging Molly are that irresistible mash-up of Irish folk music and punk rock. Does It Offend You, Yeah? seems to have not found their definitive style at all, and therefore resign themselves to doing everything they think would be cool. This works well for individual cuts off of the album, but the record itself when taken as a whole ends up rather disastrous, much like your typical college dorm project gone wrong.

You know what, these names are so incredibly awkward to type that from now on I'm just going to call them Stupid Band Name, a group from Reading who released Stupid Album Name to lukewarm reviews in 2008. Please keep this in mind as you continue reading.

Stupid Album Name fluctuates between three distinct styles that the band seems to enjoy doing. The first is a MSTRKRFT style electro-distortion fest heavy with vocoders and cowbells that would be perfect to mix on a modern dancefloor alongside similar contemporaries like Justice and Digitalism. (I myself have dropped the fidgety "Weird Science" and floor-destroying "We Are Rockstars" to great reception at parties over the summer.) The second is a fascination with dancepunk in the damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead stylings of groups like Klaxons and Death From Above 1979. Tracks like "Let's Make Out" and "Attack Of The 60 ft. Lesbian Octopus" (a good use of a long name) whiz out of your speakers at Mach 3, making perfect driving music. The last style they do, which can be heard on "Dawn Of The Dead" and the not very epic "Epic Last Song", sounds like a mediocre imitation of The Killers, who are themselves a mediocre imitation of Bruce Springsteen. I don't get this bit, because it seems like the inclusion of songs like this is a half-assed attempt at showing us how Stupid Band Name has "soul." Any listener can tell you, however, that their true soul comes across during the DFA79-ish tracks, where they actually sound like they're having earnest fun. Britrock-ballads-with-beats cuts like "Being Bad Feels Pretty Good" sound more like the band was forced into doing them at gunpoint by some cliched Bond villain.

"Oi, what is this shite? You really expect me to be Brandon Flowers?"
"No, Meester Ruthers. I expect you to die."

If there ever was an album for the hit single iTunes generation that my dad claims we are, this really is it. If you're a DJ, just download "Battle Royale," "Weird Science," and "We Are Rockstars" off of Beatport and don't give them a second glance. If you want to hear the band at their best, grab the more dancepunky stuff. Don't subject yourself to the boring poor-man's-Killers stuff; something tells me that the members of Stupid Band Name wouldn't want you to listen to them either.

RECORD REVIEW: The Killers - Day & Age (2008)

I've had a hard-on for the Killers ever since 2004 and Hot Fuss, a beautiful album with depth, range, and irresistible synth. Sam's Town was a refinement of their sound, though it sacrificed the more laidback approach that made the second half of Hot Fuss so enjoyable ("On Top" and "Everything Will Be Alright," for example), for the sake of making the same two songs six times each. But those two songs sounded great, and I'd be happy to listen to "Bling (Confession of a King)" on repeat for a good long while. Sam's Town didn't do anything new, but it was still solidly written and it had lots of synth. I like synth, so that's good.

Skipping past the forgettable B-sides album Sawdust, we arrive at Day & Age, the album that determines whether or not the Killers have staying potential. And I'm sorry to say I'm not optimistic. The album starts strong: first single "Human" is suitably grandiose, though I'm still not sure if there's a single real instrument on the track (I like synth guys, but your fake strings sound awful). "Losing Touch" is even better, hinting at the former glory of fellow album-opener "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine." But aside from the (fairly anemic) guitar riffs, the instrumentation is a mess again. Add that to frontman Brandon Flowers' inability to write a song without a downtempo section anymore (goddamnit!), and the best songs on the album just don't belong in the same category as anything off Hot Fuss.

And that's the good stuff. By the time track 4, "Joy Ride" rolls around, Day & Age has fallen apart. I'm glad you've been listening to a lot of jazz recently, Brandon, but it doesn't work. Neither do the tribal chants (Really? Are you sure? Really?) on "This Is Your Life." Neither does trying to be Belle & Sebastian on "I Can't Stay" (Is that a GLOCKENSPIEL?). Jesus Christ I can't believe I just wrote that sentence about the Killers, of all people. For fuck's sake, guys. You're better than this.

If you like the Killers, don't buy Day & Age. Just sit down and listen to Hot Fuss a couple times instead. And if you don't have Hot Fuss, listen to Sam's Town. They used to be good, I promise. But now? I guess the soul is gone.

RECORD REVIEW: Pink Floyd - Animals (1977)

Pink Floyd is the bomb - the smart bomb. I love these guys, from about 1967 up to '75. Wish You Were Here is the last one that blew me away, and the middle tracks (dominated by Roger Waters) turned me off to anything after that. After '75, "IMHO", they should have called it a day, but Roger Waters took over the band and drove them into the ground with albums like "The Wall" and "My Dad Died in the War and I Hate Maggie Thatcher". Billy Pilgrim recommended Animals (1977) to me, and since I know that he shares my opinions on Waters, I chose to give it a try.

The album is a mixed bag, but it's a bag mixed with goodness. At some points, the sound gets pretty mainstream, a generic classic-rock sound. That disappoints me because I could get that anywhere: when I put on Pink Floyd, I want an album that only Pink Floyd could deliver. Rest assured that this is such an album, but not to the same degree as DSotM or Meddle. My theory? As Wikipedia tells me, "Rick Wright admittedly did not contribute much compositionally". Wright is the keyboard wizard behind "Any Color You Like" (Remember that the defining characteristic of Wish You Were Here is the mind-blowing keyboards? Remember the bit at the end of Dark Side where the keyboards blow out the back of your skull with a ray of pure prismatic LSD? That's Wright.) and part of the lyrics to "Time", my favorite Pink Floyd poetry. He and Gilmour are, I suspect, the genius behind post-Barrett/per-Waters Pink Floyd. I'd like also to note that all band memebers EXCEPT Waters are credited on "Any Color". Make of it what you will.

Animals itself requires dedication. It begins and ends with a little acoustic segue. The songs do not skimp and are longer than the line in front of Have-a-good's register. Roger's bass is mostly in its place as a team player, the songs are weird and interesting (though sounding more plastic than earlier albums - see "Sheep"). Wright's keyboards are what I really miss. He sounds dried out. The keys don't have the psychedelic sunburst power that is what keeps me coming back to Pink Floyd long since my original love affair with Gilmour's guitar. Here, the atmosphere comes often from flourishes on the guitar that any rock band could muster or from cheap echo voice effects. Where is the ineffable? Where is the incomparable? Where is the Pink? I'm not sure. There's a little bit in "Pigs (Three Different Ones)", but that disappears 50 seconds in with a gross-out faux-string preview of the 1980's. Starting at 1.50, you can hear the nails going into the coffin - or is that a cowbell? Wright, you make me cry. Waters, you make me grimace. In all, it's a good album, and it's a Pink Floyd album, but by my count, it's not a good Pink Floyd album.

Finally, take note:

" I didn't really like this album much. I have to say I didn't fight very hard to put my stuff on and I didn't have anything to put on. I played on it. I think I played really well but I didn't contribute to the writing on it and also I think Roger was kind of not letting me do that. I think it was the start of the whole ego thing in the band, Animals. "

– Rick Wright, November 1994, BBC Omnibus Pink Floyd Special 1994.