The Same Songs as Ever and Some New Songs JUN 15 – JUN 21

It's a strange thing, to decide to write about music when, really, music plays such a minor role in my life for the last week or so. I've living in my sister in law's home for the past week, along with my in laws, 13 people cramped together through life circumstances and war. Intense familial proximity is the stuff of powder kegs, as American Christmas and/or Thanksgiving movies will argue time and again, and so intensifying that proximity via war and war-related anxiety (my seven-year-old shouting: "I just saw a light hit a light in the sky and there was an explosion!") makes it into a complicated situation in which music, again, arrives only rarely. When I have listened to music at all it was either a Locrian or a Krallice album. I've found they either deliver the eerie discomfort of my life (Locrian) right now, or represent the human soul, squiggling like a worm under the pressures of a damp, dangerous, unpredictable earth (Krallice). Sometimes, both at the same time.

So this might not be the usual weekly post. I did one last week for Patreon subscribers only, not because I'm some kind of marketing wiz, but because I felt I didn't have it in me to go through the motions of "oh look cool music" again, and because I felt like the people who've unwisely supported me there deserve what little I had to give. Speaking of support, some of y'all reached out and cared, and I can't tell you how much that means. This may or may have always been about community of shared music weirdness, and the fact that people cared enough to reach out solely based on that love felt great. Really did. Keep safe. 

If you're new to this metal blog of bones you can also check out the various interview projects I have going on as well as the weekly recommendation posts. And if you'd like to keep abreast of the latest, most pressing developments follow us wherever I may roam (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, Bluesky, etc), and listen to my, I guess, active? (no) podcast (YouTube, Spotify, Apple), and to check out our amazing compilation albums. You could also possibly support my unholy work here (Patreon), if you feel like it. Early access to our bigger projects, weekly exclusive recommendations and playlists, and that wonderful feeling that you're encouraging a life-consuming habit. It's probably a bad idea, but to each their own. On to the list.

Krallice – "Deliberate Fog," from Psychagogue Gilead Media / Hathenter). Not becaues this was necessarily the best Krallice track I've heard this week, there is no such thing as a bad Krallice track, but because it's what I'm listening to now. Krallice, like Fugazi (have I made that comparison before? I think I have), have the uncanny ability to criss cross a whole field of musical possibilities and still sound like Krallice. Here they sound like the Krallce version of a lo-fi, understated black metal project, only it's Krallice. The overly busy mind, the incessant push toward movement and dynamism, and still, somehow, understated. Just a marvel. I hope one day someone incases them in amber so future life forms would be able to appreciate them as well. 

Krallice – "Porous Resonance Abyss part IIII," from Porous Resonance Abyss (Hathenter / P2). I listen to Krallice a lot, that much is clear. In times of pain but also in times of exuberance. Seeing my three-year-old come up to get a hug (my kids are all great huggers, which, while not necessarily serving as a sign of future mental health, is a good sign in terms of the tools one need in order to maintain the shaky boat of the adult mind) is exuberant. It's the best I can hope for these days, despite the fact that, under the shadow of massacre and missiles, stuff is also happening on other fronts – my job-deciding academic book about war and nature got a book contract and my next prose thing – novel? – is getting to the design part of the publishing process – and yet I can't help but also imagine him starving and dead. I don't think there are many parents among the millions who occupy official warzones who don't have that thought – my child is beautiful, and fed, and happy, and loving, and I love them, but they might be dead and undone in five minutes. Krallice hold that mode too, you see. When I interviewed them – really just talked to Nick McMaster, I told them/him about this sense of music that feels like the contours of a mind. I remember that conversation, and yet now I can't find it in the interview. Might be that I was wrong. Where was I? I listen to Krallice a lot. But I'm pretty sure in recent years I've listened to Porous Resonance Abyss the most. Yeah

Locrian – "Corpolite," from The Clearing (Fan Death Records). Out of the many masterpieces produced by this inhumanly talented, majestically intuitive collective, there's reason to believe that The Clearing is their most underrated absolute diamond of nefarious sounds made human. Locrian doesn't want to alienate you, they want you there with them. They are the most human nonhuman form of music imaginable, as if an object or an energy – say a cloud of broken electricity – wants to cry in your lap. This may have to do with the pure nihilism that sometimes erupts from Terence Hannum, or the organic melodies that come from André Foisy, or the primal stability and abstract flourishes that are constructed under the supervision of Steven Hess, but these very different musicians come together and create something that is both alien and familiar, both friend and foe. 

Locrian – "Obsolete Elegy In Effluvia And Dross Elegies," " Obsolete Elegy In Cast Concrete," and "Obsolete Elegies" from Drenched Lands and Return To Annihilation(Ambient Atmospheric Black Metal – Independent). I've written quite extensively about the high retard I have for "Obsolete Elegies," which appears as the closing track to what is perhaps the greatest Locrian album, Return to Annihilation, but was actually the culmination of a work in progress since the two early versions of its main melody as they appeared in 2009's Drenched Lands. Wait, the synth part and the strumming guitar part is starting now (around the 5-minute mark) and thus begins one of the greatest musical stretches in human history so I'm going to have to stop right now and listen.

There might be a self-help lesson here, as also explained by Terence when I discussed this track with him at length, something about acknowledging that you're on to something special and not giving up until you filled like you've exhausted its potential. But I don't think that's it, or, maybe it's some of it, but not exhaustively so. It's recognizing the bug, the warp, the limit that you encounter time and time again and respecting that unchanging, unyielding part of you enough to hit it against your head over and over. To recognize not progress, necessarily, but being stuck. And, through that, producing one of the most sublime artistic expressions of the twenty-first century. When the keyboards rush in around 13-something. War, missiles, my son, my nether-son starving, I can take it. I can take it.

Pit of Despair – "скорая смерть," from вина (Depressive Black Metal/Post Punk – Independent). I posted something on Blusky about the power of unexpected talent and its ability to raise your soul from the dead. Well, it's this album that caused the stir to stir. Music as I wish it was all the time – genuine, creative, unafraid of mixing seemingly disparate musical streams into a single creative rope. In this case you have everything from depressive black metal, punk attitude (and at times actual expression), post-punk, and even indie. All coming together to form something that feels real and personal and beautiful.

Blood Chariot – "Horsemen of the Black Divine," from Chariot of Blood (Black/Death Metal – Hidden Dawn). The aesthetics of war is a part of the war experience, there's really no going around that ugly truth. When Ahab talks he speaks fluent Shakespeare, he's a director, not just a ship captain, and the appeal of his lofty speech is intrinsically linked to his broken body and the appearance of a broken soul. As readers we are not, I think, meant to always suspect Ahab but also understand what it was about him that made Ishmael so transfixed by his every words. It's only when things fall apart, usually, that we notice the spell – when it's gone and we've almost died (or died in fact). So as much as I would love to stay in the brain waves created by subversion, there's value, I think in looking that beast straight in the face and, once in a while, say – Yeah, well, I kind of get it. That's this album.

Trhä – "helëna," from di nido jad – ◊untwan law¶ur dëhajt◊ejn – a∫ëtana lín bë (Atmospheric Black Metal – Independent). I don't usually pepper this blurbs with criticism, but I will now, not sure why. The second track of this new Trhä album/EP is OK. It's basically what Trhä have been doing, either very well or just very good, for the last few years. I say this only to accentuate the achievement of this first track featured here. It feels Trhä with every bone of its body, but it explores this jangly, melodic, almost 90s indie vein that, while always being there, is really prominent and exceedingly beautiful. 

Białywilk – "Volo Ergo Sum," from Wniebowstąpienie (Atmospheric Black Metal – Fiadh Productions). I actually mentioned this one in the mention-only somewhat depressing and depressed post I had a few weeks ago, but have since been crushing on this album way to much to leave it at that. I've been following Białywilk from day one and this feels like the culmination of a lot of separate strands they've been weaving, some looser than others. An album that feels like a statement, the kind of statement that results in what is for me one of the best straight-up atmospheric black metal records of the year so far.

A Colossal Hand – "Strangling the Last American Buffalo," from The Last Good Days (Mathcore/Death Metal – Independent). I just listened to this for the first time and it has so much unchecked rage and has such a fetching Bandcamp description ("Suburban dad metal") that I couldn't myself. Maybe no explanation is warranted here, I'm too tired anyway. Listen if you like violently weird shit.

FIVE MORE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

ONE: The only info I care about is where in the world would I choose to be today, or tomorrow. And if you're in that worldly position that would allow you to attend the Benefit for Palestine at Het Groene Veld in Amsterdam June 20th, then you should do so. Not because I'm value-projecting here (or shame-projecting), but because there are so many good, honest people involved (Teardrinker, Toeva, Holocausts, NN17) and it would be fucking criminal to miss either the show or what will most definitely be an epic hang.

ONE LAST THING, PROMISE: Keep safe.