NINE SONGS I LIKED THIS WEEK IN LIST FORM – FEB 25 – MAR 2
Hi hi, don't feel like doing an intro. Keep safe.
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1. Convulsing – "Endurance," from Perdurance (Dissonant Death Metal – Independent). After six long years of, well, of frankly keeping very busy (Altars, Nightmarer, and much more), Brendan Sloan is finally back under the majestic, crooked robes of Convulsing. And given that everything that has ever come out under that name has been basically a masterpiece, the excitement (and surprise) is great. I'll caveat my first impression with the album by saying that albums of this ilk, generally, take a while to grow on me, and, at times, grow very strongly. So in terms of first reaction I would say that the field generally known as Disso-Death, as far as that serves as an accurate descriptor, has been forever changed with the release of Ad Nauseum's Imperative Imperceptible Impulse. And with that genre-defining album in mind, Perdurance doesn't do anything that, for me, pushes that new border forward. HOWEVER, the closing track on Perdurance, which, to me, is by far the most dynamic one on the album is already a favorite for the year, and serves as a very interesting hint for things to come (maybe?). Still an amazing album, still something I need more time with (and will link back to this blurb as proof of past me being an idiot for not getting it), but "Endurance" is immediate, obvious brilliance, even to duds like me. FFO: Disso shit.
2. Herxheim – "The Enchanted," from Contrapasso (Avant-Garde Black/Death Metal – I, Voidhanger Records). Howls of Ebb is one of the best, weirdest things ever to happen to metal, and them breaking up sucked and continues to such. Herxheim, Patrick Brown's post HOE project, has always been great and very interesting, but it never, to me, reached to creative apex of his former weirdness. Well, that phase is seemingly gone, because the new Herxheim release (long EP, LP whatever it is), is easily my favorite since the premature demise of HOE and is, as we stand today, one of my absolute favorite release of the year. Such a left-brain assault on the mind and the soul, it makes me think of something like Virus, despite sounding absolutely nothing like those Norwegian legends. Just the sense of a creative, strange mind going 100 MPH and giving absolute no shits about you or your life. Amazing, amazing stuff. FFO: Howls of Ebb, Acausal Intrusion.
3. Inter Arma – "New Heaven," from New Heaven (Dissonant Everything Metal – Relapse Records). Another very anticipated release from one of my favorite living bands on Earth and as well as other places in the cosmos, and, surprisingly, another dip into the dissonant pool. Yes, friends, Inter Arma has too gone dissonant, though it remains to be seen if that is a trend throughout New Heaven (I've got some influence in this world, and yet not enough to get Relapse promos). In a way, though, this continues the trend that started in Paradise Gallows and continued on Sulphur English of Inter Arma getting "heavier." And, to tell the absolute truth, I don't know how I feel about that. To me IA are at their best when there's an element of rockin' and space to what they do, which makes sense since my favorite IA albums are Sky Burial and The Cavern. So, as fucking awesome they are at anything and everything they do in this world, I kind of hope that whole album isn't just this. FFO: Me bitching about my favorite bands.
4. Couch Slut – "Ode to Jimbo," from You Could Do It Tonight (Noise Rock – Brutal Panda Records). Sometimes shit gets weird and you feel disoriented and you need something that makes sense to ground you. The new Couch Slut single sounds like that thing that can anchor you. In fact, it sounds like someone throwing a hammer around the room and obliterating everything you love, but you're kind of rooting for it as it goes HAM on your life. Relentless, pissed, musical without being oppressive, and dynamic without losing a sense of edge. Basically a perfect song. FFO: Today is the Day, Unsane.
5. BILAR – "חורבן," from קדמון (Black Metal – Independent). Speaking of perfect songs and shit that makes you feel like a real human in a world filled with confusion, terror, and shitty people (see the always boring clause four below), the debut release form Tel Aviv-based, Hell-bent Bilar is just black metal. Only it's just black metal performed by some of the best people to make metal on earth today, and serves as – despite what your ears will tell you – a moving love letter to being evil and writing evil shit that slays. FFO: Evil shit that slays.
6. Myrdød – "Flesh Shelter," from Consciousness 6.337.9664 (Avant-Garde Black/Death Metal – Wise Blood Records). While I have been following Myrdød from the very beginning (pretty sure I'm the first to write about them), I've failed to follow up on everything they've done, though noting their shift from black metal into weird-ass death metal a while a go. And in the wake of said shift, this new release is probably the best they've sounded (from what I have heard) since. It's brutal, it's smart as hell, and it isn't boring. All great things. FFO: Florid Ekstasis, Skin Tension.
7. Kvadrat – "Υπόγειος Λαβύρινθος," from The Horrible Dissonance of Oblivion (Disso Death Metal, again?! – Total Dissonance Worship). I was frankly blown away by Kvadrat's 2021 EP Ψυχική Αποσύνθεση, and wrote as much. So much atmosphere and so much malevolent sentiment at the same time, really a miracle of a thing. Now with a full length coming, it seems, at least from what I can hear on this first (and great) new single, that they've somehow gotten better on all accounts. It just sounds like a monster slurping its way to your soul, and you can't look away. So fucking pretty. FFO:
8. Misotheist – "Whitewashed Tombs," from Vessels by Which The Devil is Made Flesh (Black Metal – Terratur Possessions). The line between "boring-ass black metal" and "fucking awesome black metal" is so fine sometimes it makes a man look into the depths of the heavens and question his own sanity. But the new Misotheist release is such a clear case of brilliant, smart, evocative black metal that still somehow reminds be, bears echoes of the kind of black metal I can't stand. In that they stand in a very narrow group of bands that have that kind of effect for me – Djevel is probably the best example. Regardless of this babble, perfection. FFO: Djevel, stuff that isn't boring.
9. The Body & Dis Fig – "Coils of Kaa," from Orchards of a Futile Heaven (Noise/Metal – Thrill Jockey Records). The Body has to be one of the projects I have written of for the longest, I think, just because I happened to bump into their brilliance just as I was making my way back into metal. Master We Perish was my way in, and I have stayed in, for the most part since. This new collab, part of their seemingly endless string of collaborative albums, fucking rules in that same, early 2010s way. It feels like a nightmare, and it feels unpleasant, but you cannot stop listening. How wonderful. FFO: Fuck off.
FIVE MORE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
ONE: I don't know how many people have listened or are listening to the now probably kind of defunct Nero Order, but more people need to listen to this brilliance. That's just a fact of life.
TWO: Pneuma Hagion signed to Everlasting Spew and are coming with new shit. I would educate myself if I were you.
THREE: Fluisteraars are coming with a new album and/or improvised live set, who gives a shit whatever they do is gold.
FOUR: *Inhales deeply*. The chances of me pulling off this section of the post are, frankly, slim and grim. I have addressed the fucking horrendous war that has been going on here for the past months, ruining lives, crushing souls, and making the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea to be not only more heinous than it is everyday but almost unlivable. I can't speak for Gazans and the abject horror they are suffering, nor can I speak for the Israeli victims of some of the most heinous shit I have ever heard of, but from my very narrow point of view I would say everyone I know closely considers jumping ship quite seriously. Not just because of the war, but because of the noxious air that has become our already fucked and corrupt political system since it has erupted. If there ever was a case study in a society plummeting into a nightmare, as a society, well, this is a pretty good one.
And why do I say all this? Because what's easiest to forget during a war or any kind of big event is that it is still populated by actual people. There are actual people in Gaza whose lives I cannot even attempt to fathom, especially as a father who cares deeply and fears deeply for his children. And there are actual people in Israel who literally have no idea what's going on, who are angrier by the day for the things done in their name, and who are petrified by the understanding that some of the nice people with whom they have shared a general living space before the war have become full-on death-wishing drones. And the reason I make this point is because I had a run-in this week with someone who doesn't think like that. I was sure this would be a whole detailed depiction of my very unfortunate interaction (online) with said person, and how infuriating it was to see someone assign me and any/every Israeli with a kind of moral failing (this, side note, is ironic given that the worse kind of Israeli also assigns Gaza civilians and children with complicity with, say Hamas actions). Actually you know what, not even a collective moral failing is the issue, but the kind of assignment of a collective moral failing that has nothing to do with the war, just the fact that some promoter over here decided to bring some sketch bands over. To that person, the fact that a promoter decided to bring a band and that some people would like to see that band live is not the moral failing of that small group of people, but indicative of the society as a whole, something not one person would say about a sketch band playing any country on earth. So, really it's that age-old linking of the aesthetic to the ethical, in the most narrow, fuck-ed up, dehumanizing way.
But I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to describe it. Though I did somewhat, but I won't. I just wanted to say that somehow this narrow-minded piece of human shit also happens to be a popular Facebook metal reviewer type, and the fact that I have always loathed his writing, his patronizing stance as a reviewer toward both his subject and his audience, and how funny it is that the people who write horribly, and who present themselves as horrible people are the ones with a horrible general stance toward their fellow people, that lack any form of compassion and empathy, and who's taste in music just objectively sucks. Hypebeasts in music, hypebeasts in life. May they all go and fuckity fuck themselves. This also pertains to people who have ever so politely but noticeably backed off form me and from the blog since the war began. I understand your qualms and I feel your pain, but silently backing off is not the way to go in life. Not in anything. I'm probably too pissed to make any kind of sense, sorry.
FIVE: Seriously?
ONE LAST THING, PROMISE: No.
