Okay, kiddos, here tis. I'll be real with you-- I don't actively seek out new releases too often, mostly because I'm busy digging through various genres' respective goldmines of past releases. I got into a lot of these from friends' recommendation or stumbling upon the news of them during my interwebs travelings.
Free-thought association on the past year: Shoegaze, post-rock and metal just keep mixing. Swedish death metal is as tasty as Swedish fish. Dinosaur Jr can't do too much wrong anymore. Why are all girls who play in shoegazey bands really, really cute? Does Jesu being on Mark Kozelek's label mean he and Justin will collaborate?
Tribulation - The Horror
I've often stated that my love for death metal of the oldschool persuasion comes from the same place in my heart that my love for horror movies does. Tribulation, therefore, is basically my wet dream come true-- a band with a horror-film aesthetic that emulates the classic styles of Swedish death metal and its Tampa-based counterparts with superior musicianship, but never strays from the raw and dirty chainsaw guitar sound. Every superb, gore-soaked song is linked with stabs of creepy film score keyboard-- a perfectly tasteful meshing of mediums harkening back to when Entombed put the Phantasm theme in the middle of "Left Hand Path."
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Amesoeurs - Self Titled
Amesoeurs pull off an amazing feat with their self-titled final release: a record that follows in logical footsteps from their Darkthrone-meets-Slint debut EP Ruines Humaines but doesn't depend on it for reference. Sure, the aural black metal influences have been toned down some (Neige only shreds throat on a few songs) in favor of driving bass lines and post-punk clean guitar melodies, but the darkness inherent in the band's music remains unchanged. If anything, it's increased. Amesoeurs aimed to reflect the ills of modern society; here, they've managed to do so with aplomb. Sylvain's disorienting scream in the verse of the exemplary, "Heurt" is just as disorienting and menacing as anything Neige rasped previously, and proves even more powerful when contrasted with the cleaner moments of the song.
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Fen - The Malediction Fields
Amesoeurs masterfully mixed that controversially-termed genre, post-rock, with black metal on their debut EP. But that doesn't mean the parts making the whole weren't blatantly out in the open. Fen, however, masterfully mix both genres in an "unconscious way,"; dudes admittedly love some GY!BE, but aren't blatantly gonna stick a 12-minute Raise Your Skinny Fists-style valley in the middle of some icy, blasting Immortal peaks. Instead, they cover their tunes with equal parts haunting rasps, propulsive drumming, discernible melody, and lush keyboard ambiances. Most impressively, Fen know how to structure an atmosphere just as well as they do a song. The Malediction Fields is an almost-cinematic journey through a surreal, darkened pastoral world.
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Weed Hounds - Demo
Weed Hounds, I have three confessions for you. One, these four cuts reference all the good My Bloody Valentine EPs for sure-- but never get too swathed in distortion, and with nice lil' solos! The guitars sound just sunny enough! Totally awesome. Two, will you please change your fucking name? Again, demo is rule, but do you want people thinking you're a bunch of 15-year-olds who just discovered gravity bongs and Sleep's Jerusalem? Finally, I totally have a crush on your frontwoman, and not only because her voice occasionally sounds like Bilinda Butcher. Sayin'.
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Dreaming Dead - Within One
Did you ever wish that a band could be as tastefully technical as latter-day Death, but maintain a good death metal darkness? Dreaming Dead are it, and while the spirit of Chuck Schuldiner is strong with frontwoman Liz Elliot, she keeps her songwriting-- anchored by the powerful blasts, fills and other drum moves of Mike Caffell-- super-tight without being super-derivative. A promising debut.
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P.S. Eliot - Introverted Romance In Our Troubled Minds
Okay, so the fuzz was totally wiped away from the band's Bike Wreck Demo. It was as if-- much to the chagrin of a considerable amount of ICDT staff-- these three girls and one dude took mad Dust-Off to their instruments and recording equipment. But you gotta ask yourself a serious question about this here slab of DIY powerpop. Is it any less honest? Is Katie Crutchfield's songwriting any less relatable? Naw, dawg. It's great. It's sweet. It's super cute. Most of all, it reeks of conviction. What more can you ask for?
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Nirvana 2002 - Recordings 89-91
Relapse Records gave me great fuel for my Swedish death metal addiction here. These dudes were way young and never played live while active, but damn if the content of this record doesn't measure up to classic Entombed, Dismember and Desultory. The remastered demos are given particularly boneriffic, album-quality production.
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My Bloody Valentine - Remastered and Unreleased
Not really a record so much as three leaked tracks, with one rumored to be post-Loveless. It's MBV, it's got them "glide guitars" goin' on...now if only Kevin Shields could recover from the ecstasy of being able to bathe in fresh British currency everyday as a result of the bands All Tomorrow's Parties paychecks, and deliver us an album.
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Dinosaur Jr - Farm
Dinosaur Jr operate in the same manner as Bolt Thrower, and-- at the risk of being offensive here-- AC/DC. All three pump out very similar albums on a periodic basis. Difference being, of course, that Bolt Thrower and Dinosaur totally rule. ZING! But, real talk, Dinosaur's consistency is reassuring. J Mascis' guitar playing still rips, Barlow's bass and especially his songwriting contributions keep getting more promising, and Murph still slams. Maybe Farm doesn't have as many highs as Beyond did, but it sure as hell has more consistent song-to-song quality.
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Jesu - Opiate Sun EP
Damn, I thought, throwing on the opening "Losing Streak," it's Jesu alright...and it sounds...er..LIVELY?! Don't get me wrong-- I've been addicted to whatever Justin Broadrick puts out under the band name since I heard Silver several years ago. One of the inherent traits of the tunes on that EP as well as the Conqueror full-length and most of the other stuff I've heard is a wonderfully stoned, not entirely bleak sort of greyness. And while that's still present here, and these four songs aren't anything wholly new for Broadrick, there's a new sort of energy subtley propelling them along. Also, it's on Mark Kozelek's label. Bonus.
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Download "Losing Streak [Jimmy Eat World Single Version]" Here
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2009 Albums I Should've Spent More Time With:
Absu - Self Titled - So epic! Nerdy! Dark! Plus...synths.
Adam Franklin - Spent Bullets - These songs are absurdly catchy, full of conviction and simply beautiful.
Asphyx - Death...The Brutal Way - As awesome and primal as their earlier 90s material. Can't wait to see them at MDF.
Bloodbath - The Fathomless Mastery - Swedudes worshiping Morbid Angel? CAN YOU GO WRONG? No.
Church Of Misery - Houses of the Unholy - 70s stoner jams and serial killers, two of my favorite things! But these guys' weed makes them angry, not lazy.
Cult Ritual - Self Titled - I finally listened two weeks ago, and uh...whoa. I TOTALLY believe the hype.
Dysrhythmia - Psychic Maps - I always loved these dude juxtaposed Voivodian riffage with ambient drone tracks. The latter is, for the most part,sorely missing on this release.
MF Doom - Born Like This - Not that bad, but some of the beats felt a little flashy and that one song "Batty Boyz" reeked of homophobia.
Subarachnoid Space - Eight Bells - And I have no excuse, because I was on tour with you guys.
Velnias - Sovereign Nocturnal - And I have no excuse, because I was on tour with you guys.
Zombi - Spirit Animal - I love Surface to Air like none other, yet I still have yet to buy this. Epic fail.
-Asa
18 comments:
Dear Editor,
I'm working on my list and write ups, Dinosaur Jr. made my list too of course, I'll just write about it, obviously putting a DL link would be stupid as hell.
-Evander Holywar
Editor here. Get it in by Friday!
Adam, thanks! But the Adam Franklin record is called simply Spent Bullets.
Thanks.
My top ten of 09
01 Yob - The Great Cessation
02 Absu - Absu
03 Master's Hammer - Mantras
04 Amesouers - Amesouers
05 Cross Stitched Eyes - Coronach
06 Dinosaur Jr. - Farm
07 Giant Squid - The Ichthyologist
08 Circle of Ouroborus - Tree of Knowledge
09 Peste Noire - Ballade Cuntre Lo Anemi Francor
10 Sixx - Sister Devil (reissue of 1991 cassette)
Honorable mentions:
SubARachnoid Space-"Eight Bells"
Orthodox-"Sentencia"
While Heaven Wept-"Vast Oceans Lachrymose "
Ahab-"The Divinity of Oceans "
Tribulation-"The Horror"
Ride For Revenge-"The WIsdom of the Few"
Saros-"Acrid Plains" (Asa, get it if you haven't)
Worm Ouroborus-"Worm Ouroborus" (Should have been in the top 10 but came out late)
fuck, i forgot about that Peste Noire tape. maybe i'll cheat and add it last minute.
-Adam
mf doom? really?
"Did you ever wish that a band could be as tastefully technical as latter-day Death, but maintain a good death metal darkness?"
No. I don't.
Mark Kozelek doing stuff with justin would be fucking crazy.
haha I downloaded Weed Hounds because they were called Weed Hounds.
my next HC project will be called Graveity Bong.
Trey-- you're the hip-hop authority here, haha. I only occasionally skim the surface. I don't think Born Like This was Doom's best at all, but it's one of many records I barely listened to after buying this year.
And I could've guessed Dreaming Dead was hardly your thing.
Agreed on Broadrick/Kozelek collab, though.
big baby campbell, hopefully when you start that band with an awful name you will spell gravity correctly.
ROFL SURE GOT TOLD
didn't you post that cult ritual album like a month or two ago?
and you just listened to it?
terrible.
LOL, perhaps you didn't realize that there are 24 different people who have posted material on this site. Asa was not the one who posted the Cult Ritual LP.
Step your troll game up.
-Adam
also asa, homophobia is going to happen in hip-hop. it fucking sucks but all the best rappers are homophobic. even andre 3000 says something homophobic here and there.
...and he's vegan!!
-Adam
Tribulation kills! Thanks for the list.
I guess I should have italicized grave for you there Trev. I was gonna call it Project X but apparently that's taken?
Trey, I'm well aware of homophobia being present in hip-hop. Sucks indeed! I guess I always liked to consider Doom a little wiser. Guess not! Wamp wamp.
Homophobia sucks, but Batty Boys was the best track on the album! He uses gay like people uses retarded. Doesn't make it necessarily right, but I don't think it's necessarily homophobic
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