Album Review: Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi

                                 

Orange Pazuzu is a wicked strange band. Hailing from Finland, they’ve always been described to me as an avant-garde black metal band. I can certainly hear the vanguard aspect of their sound, and agree it is ambitious, but for the life of me I don’t understand how this can still be called black metal. That said, when examining the acidic perspiration of their production, the spine-clawing angles of their guitar work, their employment of restless wailing synths, and the raspy aural foam generated by Jun-His’s tarp-pit-alligator vocals, I’m at a loss for a better way to describe them. Black metal it is! Mestarin Kynsi is the band’s fifth LP and sees them continuing to press against the limits of extreme and heavy music in fascinating ways. Here we have surprisingly fitting flashes of psychedelic rock that meld seamlessly into melancholic renditions of R’nB, jazz, and industrial music that will delightfully tickle your spine at the same time that it chillingly drains your soul into a realm of shadow and mystery. “Tyhjyyden sakramentti” is filled with frigid intrigue that plays out through warping celestial noise and cautious grooves before breaking into a nightmarish jazz-funk meltdown a third of the way through its runtime. Malevolent synth bawls flush the tense and distended chamberous crypt hymn “Oikeamielisten Sali” out into the blinding moonlight to be seen in its full, miserable majesty. Later the industrial backfire of “Kuulen ääniä maan alta” will capture you with its trance-inducing rhythm, toying with you like a hapless sinner in clutches Chernabog’s palm. If you are looking for something to set the mood while you stew in your misanthropy, the devil’s fire trench of “Uusi teknokratia” employs more traditional second-wave black metal grooves to pull you along a dank, moss choaked corridor, and past the threshold of a bottomless revenue, where it will cast you to your fate, falling through a rush of biting, icy winds until your skin turn black from exposure and begins flacking like old lead paint. Mestarin Kynsi will test your sanity like few other albums released this year, and even though its trial is pitiless, it will keep you returning to feel the bite of its mind-cleaving blade again and again, in succession, in perpetuity.

Grab a copy from Nuclear Blast here.

Album Review: Jeff Rosenstock - No Dream

Death Rosenstock (the name impressed on a money clip he gave me when I talked to him after one of his shows… I always thought "Jeff" sounded like an assumed name) is not going to let not being able to tour or not being able to do the normal press rounds stop him from releasing an album in 2020. And why should he? He's a fella who has made his fortune on the margins of America's Rock Industrial Complex. Rosenstock released all of albums by his previous band Bomb the Music Industry! for free and I downloaded every single one from Quote Unquote Records before I even knew who he was (Update: you can still download all of his records there actually, as well as all of the Chotto Ghetto you could ever need in this lifetime). Let not a pandemic, or playing Pitchfork's Festival, or being interviewed for Dan Ozzi's newsletter change the way he handles his business. If only we could all be so persistent and humble.

This brings us to No Dream, his fourth solo album, released on May 20, 2020 without warning or even so much as a knowing wink in our general direction. It's not dissimilar from his previous efforts, in that it's a collection of bloody sleeved, soar throated indie rock and pop-punk, baying at the injustice of the world, with a few domestic asides and concessions to the personal sprinkled throughout. Like most Rosenstock albums, I initially hated it. Also like most Rosenstock albums I gave it another listen, and then another, and by the fourth or fifth go-round I was singing along to the chorus of a few songs, and by the sixth I was still singing but also by then crying, credit card in hand, ordering a vinyl copy to be sent to my apartment. The only thing that sticks in my craw about No Dream is the intrusion of surf rock riffs and production on a number of its tracks. These parts don't work for me because: 1) surf rock was overdone when I started listening to Rosenstock stuff back in 2008, I felt like his style was a welcome escape from it then, and I still feel like it's a bit of a crutch for punk/garage/indie artists today when they don't know how to progress their sound, and 2) it makes it a little too obvious that he moved to CA while recording the record. That said, the nervy, urban pop-punk I've come to associate with his style is still here, and manages to not be entirely overwhelmed by the laid-back concessions to his new home's "house style." And frankly, any nits I'd have to pick are more than compensated for and forgivable by everything else that is on offer here. "Nikes (Alt)" is a fast and fuzzy Rosenstock insta-classic, as is "Scam!" with its hot syncopated chords, sweaty grooves and ditch-or-die lyrics. Even the surfy bits on "The Beauty of Breathing" are tolerable, and I've totally fallen for the low-key heartache of "Ohio Tpke." The slow burner "NO DREAM" is an arresting depiction of the atomizing effects of viewing the world through the prism of social media that transitions into a seriously tight melo-hardcore hot take for its furious finish. All around killer, even with the wave-crashy filler.

I'm not going to beg you to listen to No Dream, but I think you might like it if you gave it a spin. You can literally get it for free off the web, so you have very few excuses not to. And if you decide to purchase the record, know that 10% of the sale will go to support Food Not Bombs. Buying this album won't make you a hero, but it won't not make you one either. Just saying.

Get a copy of No Dream from Polyvinyl here,

Or, Quote Unquote, here. 

Album Review: Caustic Wound - Death Posture

This week Post-Trash is running my review of the new OSDM revival act Caustic Wound and their new LP, Death Posture. Earache era death metal with modern atmospheric production. An absolute echo chamber of terror. Check out my review here, and grab a copy of Death Posture here. 

InEffect Winter / Spring Round Up 2020

This past winter and spring I ended up writing quite a few reviews of releases from underground hardcore punk acts for the east coast indie zine InEffect Hardcore run by Chris Wynne. Chris is a generous guy and sent me a ton of great stuff to give a look-see and do a write up for. Now that the first half of the year's reviews have been archived on InEffect's site I figured it was time to do a quick recap of everything I covered. If you missed any of these reviews, nows your chance to get caught up. 

Inner Turmoil - Trapped At Birth EP

Inner Turmoil is an incredibly pissed off sounding hardcore punk band out of PA who takes a very metallic approach to Sick of it All's and Agnostic Front's pioneering styles. Check out the review here, and grab a copy of their EP from 1054 Records here. 

Downpresser - The Long Goodbye

Downpresser's Don't Need A Reason was easily one of my favorite hardcore albums of the past decade and their follow up The Long Goodbye is more than worth the six-year wait. Metallic hardcore with an old school NYHC attitude. Fucking amazing stuff. Check out my review here, and grab a copy from Closed Casket Activities here. 

Dead Man's Chest - Dear God Single

UK bruisers Dead Man's Chest is a metallic hardcore band who wear their death and thrash influences proudly on their sleeve. Their Dear God Single released earlier this year is a very welcome addition to my evergrowing hardcore playlist. Check out my review here, and grab a copy from Upstate Records here. 

Treason - True Believer EP

Cincinnati's Treason is a straight edge steamroller of police stomping metallic hardcore. I think I listened to True Believer about two dozen times while writing this review and it got better every spin. Check out my review here, and grab a copy from Upstate records here. 

Drain - California Cursed

"Cursed" is an overused term as of late, but if there is one part of the world that it could accurately describe, it would probably be California. The site of some of the country's most intense wealth hoarding and desperate examples of poverty, it is in no way a bastion of hope for humanity. At least there are still some decent hardcore bands emerging from the surf of its coast. Drain is an awesome cross-over thrash band and I was very stoked on their debut LP when it dropped earlier this year. Check out my review here, and grab a copy of California Cursed from Revelation Records here. 

Bore - II EP

Bore is an NYC 90's metalcore revival band who do an admirable service to the legacy of pioneers like Botch, Dillenger Escape Plan, and Snapecase. Check out my review of their second EP here, and grab a copy from Small Settlement Records, here. 

Probation - Violate 

Probation is a Dutch sludge infused hardcore band that takes the malice of Crowbar and combines it with the whiplash of France's Kickback. Check out my review of Probation's latest album here, and grab a copy from WTF Records, here. 

That's it! Now beat it! 

Album Review: Phalanx - The Golden Horde

I've got a review of the debut EP from LA-based death metal war makers Phalanx up over on No Echo. It's an awesome combination of hardcore punk, grind and death that feels wholly fresh and original. Check out my review at No Echo here, and grab a copy of The Golden Horde from the band's Bandcamp here.  

Support undergound metal ya goon! 

Album Review: Paradise Lost - Obsidian

I've got a review of the new Paradise Lost album Obsidian up over on Scene Point Blank. Paradise Lost has always been on the periphery of my listening habits but this is the first time that they fully came into focus for me and I am very pleased with what I heard. Check out my review here, and grab a copy from Nuclear Blast here. 

Ignore the score, it's just something they make me do. 

Album Review: NNAMDÏ - BRAT

Growing up is a hard and unrewarding endeavor. It is a process that reveals more to you about the world and yourself without dispatching any real understanding of either or conveying real power to change them. If you are lucky, you can discover as you age something about yourself that you love, some activity that you are passionate about, and which allows you to connect with others and share a gift bore of your own sweat, blood, and gray matter. Most people aren't so lucky, though. Chicago hip hop and experimental artist Nnamdi Ogbonnaya aka NNAMDÏ is sensitive to the pains of growing up and the conflict that this process brings into focus within your vision of yourself and the possibilities presented to you as a person. Learning to embrace a willful manifestation of the self if really the only way that some can navigate and survive the world, and it is inspiring to see NNAMDÏ explode out of the Malort icing Birthday cake that is Chicago's underground to sing lovely songs of self-acceptance and actualization to us on his latest album BRAT. Things kick off wonderfully with the acoustically anchored and orchestrally oriented, brash-bash pop "Flowers for my Demons," a track that seamlessly transitions into the phat and righteously ugly, bad-bass, cash-stacking, heart-breaking sob-fest "Gimme Gimme." Getting what you need to live and pursuing your goals with the fervor required to fulfill them can feel selfish and even painful for an empathic person. This is a reality examined in-depth on the claustrophobic, spastic, padded-walled aperture "Bullseye" which contains the line, "I'm a big ole brat and you laugh when I say that I need all that," a sentence that mimics and mocks detractors whose criticisms are more oriented towards themselves than an understanding of your actual needs, contrasted with the tracks creep progression into more confident and mature orchestrations. A beautiful dynamic rebuttal that plays itself out again and again through the record's run time. If you can't fuck with soft-focus, indie jazz-rap, and dream-scape soul-devotional "Everyone I Love" or the mathy, post-rock flush of "Perfect in My Mind" then I'm not even sure why your reading this or if you can consider yourself a hip hop fan following the emergence of BRAT into the world. NNAMDÏ has thrown down a game-changer here, and I hope it inspires you to love yourself a little more and make some changes in your life that allows you to be there fully for yourself and others.

Grab a copy of BRAT via Sooper Records, here. 

Check out my interview with NNAMDÏ for the CHIRP Radio podcast here.

Album Review: Aktor - Placebo

Take a journey inside the skull of a man who has tasted eternity. Relish his conscious mind, condensed into a capsule and laid upon your tongue. Chew lightly with the stone inside your head and swallow it down the well that travels between your ribs. Let his memories and emotions fill your veins like lightning. His will gripping the throttle of reality and forcing you through an accelerated tour of time and space. Driving towards metaphysical bedrock, like an anchor dropped in a crystal-clear pond cuts through the water. That man is Chris Black, or as you may know him professionally, Professor Black, and his tool of transcendence is Placebo.

Placebo is the second studio album by Black's retro-rock-futurist project Aktor. He is joined here once again by Jussi Lehtisalo and Tomi Leppänen of Circle and Pharaoh Overlord fame to assault your mind with sounds and visions not born of this dimension or timeline. Begining with the free-wheeling, steel-biting uplift of Black's Chicago based hard rock band High Spirits, Aktor improves on the musical science of modern-man by raising the long-dormant spirits who once served as muses for the likes of Blue Oyster Cult, Hawkwind, and Voivod, and capturing them in a sampling board so that they may be tickled and tortured band's leisure. The resulting cacophony of semaphore synths, high-flying amphetamine chords, and fog of electric-fire fête is so thoroughly drenched in the sweat of genius you'll swear it was produced by the ghost of Sandy Pearlman.

Let the electro-hiss and sneer of "The Ghost of Time" lift you to a place where you can confront the digital demiurge that plagues our age. After defeating the demon, slake your thirst in victory with a swig of star-light infused surf rock from the cool ripple pond of "Seeing Rocks in the Sky." When you're ready to kick some more ass, throw on the ordinal-headed speed metal of "Save Your From Me" and "Get Me Outta Here." And when you are finally willing to leave behind your flesh prison for good to allow your mind to explore the infinite folds of the universe, take what you have learned on this journey to open the laser-light gates of the lofty, polaris-poaching "Astronaut" and pass through the final threshold of the eccentric, circuit-board flooding fry, and cosmicly-operatic "Clean Machine." Aktor may call what they've prescribed to you a Placebo, but the side effects will pulverize your mind and liberate it from its fragile mortal casing.

Grab a copy of Placebo from Ektro Records here. 

Album Review: Chicano Batman - Invisible People

Chicano Batman is probably one of the most delightful acts in the country at the moment. Hailing from LA, they’re a psychedelic funk quartet of dapper Latino men whose music synthesizes the sounds of the Americas into a single, seamless whole. Borrowing the songcraft and passion of North America’s brown-eyed soul pioneers like Sly and the Family Stone, they need in threads of chicha and tropicália, cut the final product with ricochets of William Onyeabor-esque Nigerian synth-funk. Their 2017 album Freedom is Free is the pinnacle of their cultivated style and can be considered a modern pop classic by any measure of the term.* Their latest effort Invisible People serves to update their mojo with krautrock culled from the grooves of Can and Neu! as well as integrating modern hip-hop elements into their production. These efforts succeed in distancing their sound from the Daptone Records feel of their previous releases and ushers them into the orbit of indie acts like Neon Indian. I’m agnostic as to whether or not these changes improved their overall sound, although I will say that the best stuff is a little front-loaded here. Opener “Color my life” slides into view with a funky-fresh blend of Nigerian pop and reggae propelled by a busty break-beat and tinted by mood-enhancing synth lines. “Blank Slate” is a pleading and lovelorn voyage through trippy, snappy guitars and wormhole forming backing synths, destined to dock in the heart of classic Motown soul. “I Know It” is palpably affectionate with lean, bending chords which feel coated with a soft-plushy lining like kitten fur, while the title track is a patient stroller with warm-key accompaniments, dancing chords, and a pliable beat. Later highlights include “Moment of Joy” which feels like a super-smooth and bright slice of space-funk that seems like a cut from Thundercat’s Drunk that somehow ended up on the editing room floor, “Polymetronomic Harmony” with its reverb meshed up-tempo tropicalia-favored taste of indie R’nB, and finally, the highly danceable ‘70s rewind and motorik soul slide, “The Prophet.” At the risk of sound corny, let me just say that Invisible People is out of sight. 

Grab a copy via ATO here. 

*This may already be the case. I don’t hang out with that many music critics^ so I have no way of knowing.

^This is probably for the best.

Album Review: Foretoken - Ruin

Self-released black metal projects recorded in someone's home are the backbone of the genre in a lot of ways. Folks passionate about metal, who have managed to put together a studio in their basement, can be like village wizards, conjuring infernal arcana in the depths of their hovel, unleashing their creations upon the world without warning. The mystique of these projects helps to safeguard the enigmatic nature of black metal as the often sole member prefers to remain anonymous behind monstrous monochromatic and inscrutable cover art. The home production also lends itself to lo-fi recording quality which reifies the ashen filth of early second wave recordings. It's pretty rare to come across a basement black metal project that doesn't sound like their attempting to be Moonblood, and even rarer to dredge one up that has ambitions of becoming the next Fleshgod Apocalypse. Virginia's Foretoken is nothing if not ambitious, though. 

 

Comprising of guitarist Steve Redmond and vocalist Dan Cooley, Foretoken is the product of a pride of devotion that only the metal faithful know and grasp the truth of. They've transformed their love of the gruesome and faith in the impure to raise a temple of tragic folkloric fantasy, cleaved from the coal-black stone of a cursed mountainside. Their debut album Ruin combines the technical death metal dynamism of Necrophagist with the epic, castle-traipsing, blackened banshee summoning orchestrations of late-career Dimmu Borgir. A haunted artifice that is far from collapsing into dereliction. The choice of Necrophagist as a point of reference isn't arbitrary either, not only does the guitar work on tracks like the wrath unchaining thrash of "His Rage Made Manifest" and the melo-death bellow of "Hamartia" compete with these masters of mayhem, but Hannes Grossman himself has been taped to keep the beat for these dread drizzled processions. Grossman's vigorous drumming style folds into the more traditional orchestral aspects of Foretoken's style like a blood-soaked blade run through a soft-cloth, polishing it to a deadly glimmer. Grossman is such a good fit for the project that it's hard to believe that he was not involved in the majority of the album's writing. But no, the compositions with their eldritch lyrics and tight, dauntless guitar work are all Cooley and Redmond. Just about the only other thing that wasn't done in house was the performance of the actual orchestral accompaniments. Although, if he is to be believed, Redmond wrote these sections on his own with no prior experience. Truly, these carefully planned orchestrations have the touch of a master and the overall scores feel balanced and nimble, if a little overly long at points. Sometimes inspiration needs to follow its whims though, and I'm not going to begrudge Ruin for a having a little fat on its bones. 

 

So how does this strange sorcerer's dream manifest all of its disparate elements into a cohesive whole? Let's take it track by track. The wicked, wind-burnt, witch-trial "Bewildering Duress" is easily the most straightforward black metal track on Ruin with Cooley giving us a brush with his inner Immortal and Redmond laying down ghastly tremolos which duet with spectral synthesizer wines and nail-peeling strings in a chorus of otherworldly foment. "The Retribution" comes in next with a monstrous tundra tearing war charge, hastened by Grossman's incessant thunderous pummel and urgent string strikes that rise like volleys of arrows above dare-devil guitar heroics. "A Deathless Prison" begins with a hexed acoustic section which is quickly torn open by a voracious phalanx of light-footed guitar work and blood juicing grooves that wind together like a hangman's noose around your neck before the momentum of the track pushes you over the edge into a sudden and final drop. Whatever desperate place you desire as your destination, Ruin will take you there. 

 

It's fairly remarkable the fact that an album with this wide of ambitions comes from such tight quarters. Even with little physical space to work with, Redmond's and Cooley's imaginations were able to break free of their enclosures and travel the Earth in search of stories of witchery and woe, sweeping up heroes and reducing kingdoms to ash in an awful ravenous odyssey of the mind. If this is the first and last album we see from Foretoken, we know that they gave the best they had to offer this world as it crumbles in a crestfallen decline. 

Grab a copy of Ruin from Foretoken's Bandcamp here.    

Album Review: Mindforce - Swinging Swords, Chopping Lords

Alright knuckle head, listen up! You might not be able to bake a potato with all the brain power you’ve got and a 9 volt battery but that don’t mean you never deserved nothing nice. Like that sweater your grandmother knit for you or that time your older sibling convinced your hot cousin (you know which one) to give you a kiss on your birthday. Well now you’ve got one less thing to complain about in your miserable, ungrateful life. Poughkeepsie, New York hardcore band Mindforce dropped an EP this winter and it will smack the sorry look right off that wad of pepperoni you call a face. Swinging Swords, Chopping Lords follows up Mindforce’s well-received 2018 LP Excalibur with four tracks of mean, trim east-coast hardcore that will get you ripping up the pit in a Leeway tee with a mane of long tangled locks befitting an extra in a Nuclear Assault video. It’s the kind of teeth-kicking, low-life-or-no-life punk that thrived in the yellow, damp street lights and piss saturated back-alleys of New York City in the early ‘90s. A time of legend when Cro-mag-num man was king and the only law was Murphy’s Law. The EP opens up with the title track, a slow but potent, gear-grinding, monster thrasher that takes big, black-jack fisted swings at your ears before fizzling out like a match in the rain. “Fratello” picks up where the previous track ended with heavy growly bass lines and dejected, seething chords that pound the pavement like it’s trying to disrupt utility service for the whole block. The tempo ramps up on “Hope Dies in the City” with its dicing cross-over grooves, circle-pit spin-cycles and a crushing, breakdown outro. All this leading to the final boss, “Hellscape” a rush of brash, fiery guitars with a militant beat that feels like it is marching against your sanity and sense of self-preservation with each cutting chord and kidney-punching snare slap. Drop a needle on this sucker and then you can stop acting like no one ever gave you nothing worth anything you prick.

 Grab a copy of Swinging Swords, Chopping Lords from Trible B Records, here. 

Interview: NNAMDÏ

Photo Nnamdi Ogbonnaya

I had the pleasure of speaking with Chicago based hip hop and experimental music trendsetter NNAMDÏ for the latest episode of CHIRP Radio's podcast series, Shelter in Sound! We chatted about his fantastic new album Brat, artist solidarity in the city, canceled tour plans, and what he thinks the future of live music will look like in a post-COVID world. I had an absolute blast speaking with him and I hope you'll equally enjoy listening in our conversation. You can check out the full interview below, or on CHIRP Radio's website here. 

NNAMDÏ's lastest record Brat is out now via Sooper Records. 

Album Review: Ric Wilson & Terrace Martin - They Call Me Disco EP

As we head into summer, the world still finds itself in free fall due to a global pandemic (of which I'm sure you've heard, no need to elaborate further). If you're one of the lucky ones, you're stuck indoors enmeshed in a terminal struggle with boredom (which, let me reiterate, is only if you're lucky). But just because you can't go to a party, doesn't mean that a party can't come to you. If you're needed of a new soundtrack for a bedroom dance-off with your cat/dog/child/bae/bathrobe, then pony up and drop the needle on the new EP from Chicago MC Ric Wilson and LA producer Terrance Martin, They Call Me Disco. This sequenced, star-light guided, sure-footed, dance-derby starter, punches like Dolomite, shocks your limbs like a Frankie Knuckles set, blows out your speakers (and your hair) like Parliament, and just might inspire you to live your life like it's a passion project.

It's not typical that an EP can feel as full and rich as a seven-course meal (especially with only 6 track), but somehow, They Call Me Disco feels more nourishing than the majority of full-length hip-hop releases I've heard this year. Let me break this down for you, starting with the laser-hued, spotlight-stealer "Breakin Rules" with its soulful grooves, silky synths, and persistent, perspiration-inducing beat. "Don't Kill the Wave" turns up the funk, takes you by the hand, and leads you in a platform healed stepping, soul-tango-tangle, liberating you to live according to your own groove. Later "Before You Let Go" ups the juicy, dirty, thirst-slacking funk in a sumptuous display of sex appeal. "Move Like This" drops some smooth R'nB adorations with fur-footed beats and golden-hued synths that glide past your ears like passing streetlights that peek through your car windows while you drive around the city late at night.

The album is a beautiful thing to behold, but if I had to pick one moment where it all comes together, that moment would be the sizzling, sun-baked, windy-city summer billet-doux "Chicago Bae" featuring, BJ the Chicago Kid. Anytime BJ is a feature, I get hyped, but when he croons over those beefy bass grooves and cool, carbonated beat, my mind wanders into a distant era of barbecues and porch parties, mental post-cards from summers past. The string of name drops and real city tour itineraries named on this track, detours away from the versions of the city we see in commercials, don't help alleviate the pining caused by our current state of social isolation, but dammit it if these mentions don't make me appreciate this city all the more. They Call Me Disco is the kind of release that makes me proud to call Chicago home, even if it doesn't make a living here in quarantine any easier. Pour one out for summers past, and in anticipation of summers yet to come, hopefully, when we will all be together again.

Grab a copy of They Call Me Disco via Bandcamp here. 

Album Review: Pantayo - Pantayo

Popular music since at least the 1970s has been defined by its beats. From the disco era onward, the propulsion of a simple 4/4 has kept people moving their feet long through the night and into the wee hours of the dawn. In the '80s the rage was minimalism and (for that time) futuristic tech. Swapping out skins and acoustic amplifying cylinders for programmed machines that could either keep a sparse series of pin drops rolling with mechanical precision or overwhelm the senses with a crush of claustrophobic rhythms. At that time, a cadre of mostly white post-punk and pop artists began experimenting with percussion and instruments from outside of the acknowledged western cannon. As interesting as it could be to see famous and forward-looking rock stars embrace the music of indigenous people though, it was an experiment that often fell flat, both artistically and politically, exacerbating the foreignness of the borrowed sounds in a way that alienated them from their origins, and reducing them to a commodity marketed as the exotic. This is how "world music" became cursed.

While the history of integrating western popular music with indigenous instruments has its winding tales of woe, it is possible to introduce the two on mutually agreeable terms without displacing either's context in the melding of influences. Enter Pantayo, the all-women, punk-pop group who root their music in a shared identity as queer Filipinas living in diaspora in Canada. The central component of Pantayo's sound is kulintang, an instrumental tradition native to several cultures in Southeast Asia. The sounds of this tradition, including those of the Maguindanao and T'boli peoples who inspired the band, arise out of a performance involving a row of horizontally laid gongs positioned based on the tone-pitch they emit once struck. The gongs are played by sticking the bosses at the top with wooden beaters. In Pantayo's interpretation of this traditional form, the performance of these gongs takes on a primarily percussive quality, enhanced by modern electronic devices and production techniques. "Respectability" isn't something I'm generally interested in or which I think lends itself to good art, but if you're going to make deference to a tradition a tenant of your process, you'd be hard-pressed to find a band who does it better than Pantayo. While contemporary to its core, Pantayo strives to demonstrate respect to the origins of the instruments and traditions they borrow from, modernizing their qualities without estranging them from their roots.

From the outset of Pantayo's debut, you can hear the mix of influences kaleidoscoping together in a variegated dance of passion, conscientiousness, and discourse between the players and the traditions that they have embraced. The opening track "Eclipse" quivers with excitement as its Annie Lonnex-esque vocal melody snakes around the resonate rings that ripple through the air, emanating from rhythmic strikes of brassy bosses. It's an evocative introduction to the album's sonic tool-kit, a chest of diverse implements enhanced by the loving aural molding of Yamantaka // Sonic Titan member Alaska b's production work. The album is suffused with beautiful moments that harken back to the transitionary period of early '80s post-punk and new wave, when anything seemed possible within the sphere of popular music, and to be honest, kind of was. This ethos is exemplified by the troubled and theatrical "Kaingin" with its soaring melodies, majestically spreading its wings to coast through valleys of Pet Shop Boys-esque clamor and mischievous hurdling harmonies, landing somewhere between a new wave opera and an abstract portrait. I've found myself captivated by the charm of "Heto Ha" which begins with a winsome minimalistic beat that leads the listener through a hypnotic echo chamber into the dense distorting glare of an alien dance party. There are even selections that just play like "high art," as far as such a phrase can be applied to popular music, like "Bronsé" which sounds like it could be a part of a gallery exhibition curated by Laurie Anderson. One of my favorite moments though, is also the most brash, this being the clanging and assertive "Taranta" which houses a place of calm self-assurance amongst a cyclone of its own messy, complicated energy. Every track presents a new avenue of discovery and a novel perspective on well-worn truths and conventions.

Whenever I think I have a handle on Pantayo's debut, I give it one more spin, and I am blown away by what I had missed during previous listens. It's a complicated and rewarding experience, and I'm probably going to give it another cover-to-cover listen as soon as I'm done typing this sentence. Whether you're looking for a new beat, or a chance to nestle into a familiar rhythm, Pantayo's debut offers you the opportunity to lose yourself in both.

Get a copy of Pantayo's debut from Telephone Explosion here. 

Album Review: Misanthropic Aggression - Alcoholic Polyneuropathic Freaks in Hell

Atlanta's crusty foes of humanity Misanthropic Aggression have dropped a new single for their song "Alcoholic Polyneuropathic Freaks in Hell" out via Boris Records and you can read my review over at No Echo. It's an absolutely savage cacophony of black metal and hardcore that slots perfectly into my mental headspace right now. Check out my review here, and grab a copy of the single here. 

Album Review: Chip Wickham - Blue to Red

Chip Wickham didn't release his first solo jazz album until he was 42. Even for a jazzman, that is a long time to go without stepping into the spotlight. After two decades as a go-to wingman for everybody from the vibrant vibraphonist Roy Ayers to the affable Mathew Halsall, he finally assembled a cohort out of his talented roster of friends and cut a record, the Spanish influenced La Sombra. A cool outcropping of playful model jazz that centered Wickham's superb, spiritually–tutored, Lateef-esque flutistry, and permitting it to have the top-billing that it always deserved. La Sombra has a certain track that goes by the name "A Red Planet," a number with a particularly Blue Note-shaded groove and a tight, tap-dancing beat. Much like the rest of the album, it carries a weighty sense of intrigue, in its search for meaning on hot sun-bleached beaches, clouded with salt-infused air. Though similar in name, it's an entirely different creature than what you will find on Wickham's latest album, Blue to Red.

Blue to Red is the Manchester multi-instrumentalist and producer's third solo outing, and one that tells the story of a planet in distress. While Blue to Red carries over much of the menagerie of breezy optimistic, middle-eastern influences from his 2018 Shamal Wind, it is much more direct and forthright in its approach to spiritual jazz than its predecessors. This is largely owed to Wickham's attempts to imbue the record with his cares and concerns for the people of planet Earth is it enters a period of mass extinction and rapid atmospheric upheaval. While Earth will certainly never look like Mars, such as the title implies, it may very well become a place where it will be difficult to find a place to live that doesn't feel like an oven for a third of the year, or a drink of water that doesn't have go through a desalination process before imbibing, or where each sip isn't a gamble with industrial runoff and heavy metal poisoning.

"Route One" cuts to the quick with a punctual beat, courtesy of Sons of Kemet drummer Jon Scott, which pulls along an inquisitive bassline and a flowy sprite of Hancock reviving keys, a procession kicked off by Wickham's instructive, tempo-setting flute playing. Simple and straightforward, it is nearly the most unadorned track on the album, both in concept and in addressing the album's themes. It is second in these respects only to the opening title track, "Blue to Red," an unseasonably warm and sober cut that marches forward in contemplative weariness, led by the sharp alluring call of Wickham's performance, pushed along by the lively flutter of Amanda Whiting's harps, which ripple past the ears with such fidelity that you'll swear Alice Coltrane is sitting behind you, fingers caressing the strings of her instrument, getting the hooks of its vibrations just under the lips of your ear lobes. "Double Cross" takes the themes of the album a little further, picking up the tempo following a whinnying cry from Wickham's flute, from there his breathwork begins to cuss and grumble in a kind of one-man argument with his instrument, a tussle that continues until he passes the track over to a spat of prog-funk keys, which shamble and holler like they are dodging incoming space rocks, before passing the song back to Wickham for an edifying, breathless finale. As a counterpoint to this track, the galaxy ranging "Interstellar" keeps a similarly nimble pace, while managing to keep its mind's eye confidently trained on the stars in the sky. The soothing procession of the magnificent "Might Yusef" winds down the album, unfurling through delicate harp strokes and a refreshingly restful flute melody like a flower in the early hours of the morning, yawning so as to soak in the sunlight between its soft lips and folds.

Blue to Red is a cosmic panoramic that attempts to take the entirety of the human condition as found on this wet little marble into its prevue. The starting point of a mission to reach through the psychic barriers of the mind, to extend a guiding hand that can lead us to a future where the Anthropocene marks the beginning of ascension to a more enlightened age. A pleading rescue effort to deflect our trajectory towards a necrotic age of accelerating calamity. While the choice of what to do seems obvious, it is far from clear, and yet to be determined which path mankind will wander.

Get a copy from Lovemonk, here. 

Album Review: Ulcerate - Stare into Death and Be Still

I should really know better than to listen to Ulcerate on an empty stomach. But here I am, writing this with nothing in me but coffee and a waning will to live.* For those not keen, Ulcerate is a highly technical atmospheric death metal band out of New Zealand. Their sound is widely attributable to drummer Jamie Saint Merat's prodigious tempo-changes and post-production work, and guitarist Michael Hoggard's employ of dissonant guitar effects and frenetic playing style. Their like if Gorguts and Portal got sucked into a cyclone somewhere out in Kansas, and while they were both suspended in mid-air a blade of a nearby windmill became dislodged and impaled them both. Later after hearing about the tragedy on the news, Neurosis singer Steve Von Till decided to write a song in the slain bands' styles. And that's it. That's their sound in a nutshell. There is no other possible way of describing it. Stare into Death and Be Still is Ulcerate's sixth album and continues the band's mission to be uncompromisingly disorienting and dense. "Exhale the Ash" features bucking, serpentine guitars and a haunting atmosphere, while "Stare Into Death and Be Still" is penetratingly ominous with sharp, crenellated chord progressions and a battlement of ruthless tempo-changes, and "Inversion" has a dark allure to its snaring hooks and tarry shuddersome grooves. The tracks that I found myself enjoying the most are a little front-loaded here, but that doesn't mean that the entire package isn't a gale of catharsis, woe, and mind-dissolving complexity. Trust me, there are guaranteed moments on this album when you're going to feel like you're in a plane that is spinning out of control and about crater into the ground, orphaning whatever lower lifeforms you've sequester at your home. Remember to eat something an hour before giving this album a spin, or barring that, clear a route to your toilet and leave the seat up.

Get a copy of Stare into Death and Be Still from Debemur Morti Productions, here.

* The latter of which is not at all attributable to the album I'm reviewing, but a reaction to the general state of the world and me in it.

Album Review: Elders - Omen

Do you hear that clap of thunder ringing from the mountain? It must be a new Elder album on the rise from the Old One's keep. Elder may have crawled from the primordial ooze to as a Conan the Barbarian themed doom metal band, but they've since tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge, as sewn by psychic wanders Pink Floyd, and drank from the enchanted fount in the court of King Crimson, and now they are more than meer homage to a legend, they are a legend themselves. Through their travels in this barren world, they have acquired a crystal third eye, embedded on the inside of their skulls, which allows them foresight into possible futures and visions of dimensions that lay beyond humankind's purview. Amongst their many visions, they have foreseen the collapse of an empire once thought mighty and inviolable. This realm at the tipping point of abrupt decay is the subject of their fifth album, Omens.

2017's Reflections of a Floating World marked a significant departure for the band from the stoner metal of their adolescent releases. On that album, Elder depicted a world held aloft in a beautiful, but precarious and unsustainable balancing act, through transcendent fizzling space rock and heavy psychedelic cascades. It's tempting to draw comparisons between our world and the worlds that Elder describes vividly in their music, as many of the events they sing about are inspired events from our timeline, however, I think we'd be best to avoid the fates of the people depicted on Omens if the option is still open to us. Things don't exactly go right for the children of that empire, as I'm sure you can surmise.

While Omens develops various themes introduced on Elder's last album and delivers on many of the promises and potentials hinted at on that release, the band's roots in the American doom metal circuit have yet to be uprooted, and still form a gnarled mass lodged deep with the center of Omens' molten iron core. The title track "Omens" features heavy, fog hallowed guitars that climb and plummet into pools of rippling psychedelic feedback, rolling and folding reflected starlight in the wake of each mighty riffs passage. Less constrained stylistically is the following track, "In Procession," which is driven by effervescent arpeggiated chord progressions, flashy star-towing grooves and complementary, phasor skipping synths with some asteroid crushing Mastodon-esque grit thrown in for good measure. Elder shakes things up further on the latter half with "Embers," a very '90s alternative rock inspired track, which dips into progressive reworkings of Pearl Jam riffs while making room for the dashing starlight pierce of twirling synth arrangements and billowing clouds of electric nebula distortion. The world Elder shows us on Omens may be doomed, but it is resplendent in its decline.

Grab a copy from Armageddon Records, here.  

Album Review: Destroyed in Seconds - Divide and Devour

Comprised of former members of infamous punk and metal pariahs Phobia and Mange, Destroyed in Seconds (DIS) proudly raise the insolent flag of Discharge and savagely cast aside the illusions upon which society has built its abattoir like machinations. With the full-throated fury of Swe-death infused punk they have wrought upon the blood-soaked ground their third LP Divide and Devour. DIS's latest effort is the follow up to their 2012 LP Becoming Wrath, and the interim eight years have been worth the wait. From its first strike to the skin of your eardrum, DIS burns a syphilitic streak through crossroads of your mind with Disfear guitar strikes, Dismember like grooves, and Tragedy embued white-phosphorus rage. The LP opens with the red-zoned chain-breaker "Divide and Devour" and slides into the organ juicing, human rind-peeling death-grind of "Sulfer," a two-pronged payload that proves Divide and Devour to be more deadly than a California wildfire, and more potent than fracking gas in your well-water. It's a conflagration you'll find yourself cheering for even as it's flames lap at your eye-brows. Between the on and exit ramp of this album lies a scorched patch of salted earth inhabited by the blood-letting Discharge revival "Wraiths," as well as "No Respect" which gets in some Tragedy worship before ripping your hair out at its roots with a furious swipe of thrashy mad-dog circle-pit starting riffs, and "Buzzards," a suicidal dose of desert biker death-rock. Grindcore plays a not so surprising role in the makeup of Divide and Devour's squalid palette, with the "The Badge" being one of the hottest tempered examples of the group's death-grind penchant. However, DIS can still press for land-speed records even when they are not assiduously slaving for the grind, like on the carpet-bombing extermination campaign "World War When," with its jagged saber-cut solos and trench tilling grooves. In 2020, we don't need more reminders that the system doesn't work for us. No, what we need now are calls to action for when the bastards try to divide us and take our bread. If their plan is to Divide and Devour, then ours must be to make them choke.

Divide and Devour were self-released by DIS, you can get a copy through their Bandcamp here.

Album Review: Worriers - You or Someone You Know

My review of the latest Worriers album You or Someone You Know is up over on Post-Trash now. For me, Lauren Denitzio one of the most relatable songwriters working in rock music and I'm very happy to have this album in my life today. Check out my review over at Post-Trash here, and grab a copy from 6131 Records, here.

Interview: Ratboys

Credit: Julia Steiner

For the second episode of CHIRP Radio's limited series, Shelter in Sound, I spoke with Ratboys guitarist and lyricist Julia Steiner about her band’s adventures in streaming live shows from her basement, how her band ended up playing a Bernie Sanders rally, and what she plans to do once the Shelter in Place order is lifted in Illinois.

Missing Ratboys's live sets? They play a live set on Twitch every Fri & Sat @ 8pm CST. Visit https://www.twitch.tv/watchratboys for more info. 

Listen to the interview below, or on CHIRP's site, here. Stay safe out there! 

CHIRP Radio · Shelter In Sound: Ratboys

Album Review: Barrens - Penumbra

It always worries me a little when I don’t hear something I good out of Sweden in a while (a while being a week or more). Like, did the significantly more socialist economy they have up there finally collapse and reduce them all to barbarism? Forcing them to eat rats and trade their children for the next smartphone upgrade? Oh wait, the phrase is Socialism OR Barbarism… or NOT and... also they’re on the whole doing just fine even in the grips of a global pandemic… well, if they decide that they want a little less self-determinism and a little more neo-feudalism, they can let the United States know. I’m sure they’d be happy to send an envoy from the University of Chicago’s Economics Department.

Getting back on topic, Barrens is a dark post-metal band from Sweden and I’m definitely enjoying their debut LP Penumbra. Barrens is a signee to Pelagic Records, and if you’re familiar with the likes of heavy post-rockers and label mates Pg.Lost then you have a pretty good idea of what’s coming your way on Penumbra. Barrens' members all met while playing in the largely instrumental indie rock band Scraps of Tape. I know what you’re thinking, pretentious meandering indie rock, like I need more of that in my life. I relate to that sentiment, but hear me out, because 1) Scraps of Tape are not the kind of band to get lost up their own rear ends, and subsequently neither are Barrens, and 2) both those bands ROCK OUT LOUD! In fact, you can hear the energy and dark brooding Pelican-esque angst busting out all of Scraps of Tape at all corners, like a wolverine clawing its way out a burlap sack, and that energy is transferred over to Barrens without inertia.

Let yourself ascend in the spotlight like glare of “Atomos” which has a surprisingly weighty and patient groove, supporting wafting gamma-rays of Failure-eque guitars and twinkling keys. Your brain will be lightly seared as you let “Arc Eye” into your ears, with its haunting and crisp synth-led grooves and sharp, lyrical, and insistent guitar work. Most of the tracks here tend to be downtempo in terms of speed, but if you want something that will ratchet up your heart rate “Shifter” will do the trick, with dark and foreboding industrial post-punk guitars and cruelly persistent, rapid synth stabs ala Perturbator- the whole gambit has a techno-dystopian feel that could set the tone to a chase scene in the next installment of the Blade Runner franchise. If you are looking for an ominous addition to your soundtrack this week, look no further than Penumbra.

Grab a copy of Penumbra from Pelagic Records, here.

Album Review: Ono - Red Summer

It’s not an easy thing to reckon with one’s past. It’s even harder to look back and see how the decisions of others have molded your present in invisible ways. And it can be downright terrifying to stand in full recognition of the villainy that presides over the social order of today and know how that mendacity is a through-line of the web of history, ensnaring and damning us all.

Red Summer is the latest LP from Chicago’s experimental gospel anti-music vanguard Ono. It is the fourth LP from the group since their reconstitution in 2012 following a 26-year hiatus. Lead by multi-instrumentalist sound-miser P Michael Grego and evocative siren travis, their latest album examines the legacy of the “Red Summer” in Chicago, a period in 1919 when white, mostly Irish mobs, roamed the south side of the city beating, murdering, and terrorizing black citizens. Their victims had moved to Chicago for work and to escape the campaigns of the revived Klan in the deep southern United States. Now they were faced with conditions as bad as those they had fled. The race riot was set off by the murder of Eugene Williams at a segregated beach. Williams had swum too close to the whites-only area, was struck by a stone and drown. Police refused to arrest the white man who had killed Williams and the resulting protests by the black community were met by violent suppression by white mobs. This aggressive response escalated into the now infamous riots that claimed the lives of 38 lives, injured countless others, and resulted in tremendous damage to the property and livelihood for Southside blacks. After the riots were suppressed by the National Guard in August, no prosecutions were brought for the murder of black citizens who were victims of racist violence.

While the riot ended 100 years ago, the Red Summer has not. Ono’s latest album connects the threads of the first sale of black people as property in what would become the United States, to the violence of the Red Summer, through the butchery of the Tuskegee experiments, through wars waged by the rich and fought by the poor, and finally to the degraded state of affairs today, and asks: Why has the world changed so much, and yet, remained dishearteningly the same? This question is especially relevant to Chicago, which remains onerously divided along racial lines, and where the death and execution of its black citizens, by poverty, by cop, and now plague, remains criminally under-addressed.

On Red Summer, Ono remains committed to their mission of illuminating our discordant reality through mutilated jazz, harsh piercing tones, and an antagonistic gospel revue. As we head into the summer months, it is imperative to remember that the past, for better or for worse (mostly worse), is alive in all of us. Only in examining the wounds left by the sabers of injustice can we attempt to break these blades and ensure that they are never again in the hands who would use them to do harm. It is possible to bring the Red Summer to an end, but if only we are willing to recognize where it began.

Grab a copy of Red Summer via American Dream Records, here.