Album Review: Chicago Crowd Surfer Round Up - May & June

Chicago Crowd Surfer is running a handful of my reviews from earlier this spring. You can find links to each below. 

Helen Money - Atomic 

Helen Money is a treasure and Chicago is very lucky to have her call it her home. Epic and penetrating string arrangments and heavy metal atmosphere. You can check out my review of her latest album Atomic here, and grab a copy from Thrill Jockey here.  

Mako Sica & Hamid Drake - Balancing Tear

Local jazz-rockers Mako Sica have teamed up with the marvelous Hamid Drake for an incredibly evocative album that they have titled Balancing Tear. Check out my review here, and grab a copy of the album from Astral Spirits, here. 

L.T.F. - Rehabilitation Process

Chicago Research continues to release solid electronic dance music faster than I can realistically keep up. I'm not complaining, I'm just outing myself as having a job and responsibilities, and I can't listen to everything that I want to, to the extent that I want to, all the time. Oh well! Of the releases that I have been able to check out, L.T.F.'s Rehabilitation really jumped out at me. You can read my review here, and grab a copy from Chicago Research, here. 

The Hyss - Extraterrestrial

Chicago stoner /sludge rockers The Hyss have a new release and it's pretty fun. Kind of X-Files themed. Sort of a pulp-horror / Rob Zombie-cinematic universe vib going on as well. Check out the review here, and grab a copy here. 

Album Review: Xibalba - Años en Infierno

Scene Point Blank is running my review of the new Xibalba album, Años en Infierno or "Years in Hell." It's a perfectly titled hardcore album for 2020. Xibalba has always sounded malicious but they've really stepped up their game for this release. You can read my review here, and grab a copy of Años en Infierno from Southern Lord, here. 

Album Review: Tithe - Penance

There are a lot of metal bands who have come to embrace the void-walker motif. The vision of a robed, often faceless figure, possessed of arcane knowledge and doomed to live a deathless existence while experiencing physical, bodily decay befitting a corpse. I get why they do this. People tend to drudge through their days, heavy with the knowledge of their inertness and mortality. Getting on with their day-to-day, with no ability to change their surroundings. Failing to connect with other humans who share their plight. Being a conscious creature under such conditions can feel like a kind of languid living death. While most metal bands choose to embrace the figure of the void-walker for a variety of relatable reasons, Portland's Tithe manages to embody the existential estrangement and ego-death represented by this cultural form with a savage and satisfying alacrity on their latest LP, Penance.

Tithe took shape after vocalist and guitarist of Matt Eiseman and drummer Kevin Swartz hit pause on their grindcore project Infinite Waste and moving up from Oakland to Portland. Sounding like a pagan, mongrel hardcore punk hybrid of sludge and ‘90s death metal, Tithe shriek into the whirling, emptiness of the sky, demanding that the universe offer answers for their regrettable existence. What works so well thematically on Penance, is how Tithe incorporates sources of tangible pain in the world into a sound that feels like it's baying against the fabric of reality itself. The sources for any spiritual and psychological crisis are always going to be material and social in nature, with your subjective experience extending outward as a world-altering, cosmic force. These themes are clearly illuminated by the trudging dirge of “Scum” which begins with a clip of dialogue from Todd Solondz’ "comedy" Happiness before diving into a cold pool of lightless Dead Congregation-esque grooves, dragged further into the mire by a ripping tow of blast beats and lung-filling sludge guitars. “Apostasy” and opener “A Single Rose” similarly prove space for the band to lash out at their sorrows, weaponizing their disillusionment to tear down false idols. Elsewhere, deranged experiments with LSD and cruel psychiatric treatments are examined and morally eviscerated through wheeling, bucking guitar melodies and light-extinguishing, arid howls on “Psychedelic Neurogenesis” and “Lullaby,” both interspersed with disturbing clips of conversations pulled from news broadcasts on the topics.

Ultimately though, it's the track “Palindrome” where everything comes together, a tight and visceral framing of a gnawed and gnarled mind, with rushing sweeps of Autopsy-grind beats and frantic, sawing guitar chords which tear at the tracks innards as if it were performing its own vivisection, prying open the cavity of its chest to peer inside the hollow of its trunk to glimpse the depthless lacuna inside, with lyrics depicting the death presaged by every birth.

We are all tiptoeing on the rim of annihilation, unable to pull ourselves back, and unwilling to throw ourselves in. The war each of us wages against the mind and the world it must inhabit is an endless squabble of pitched battles and ceaseless losses. Each day we rise, a part of us dies and leaves another hole. And yet we continue to live knowing full well that someday there will be nothing left of us but the pain that passed through these holes, like wind whistling through the gaps and cracks of an old pane of glass.

Grab a copy of Penance from Tartarus Records, here. 

Album Review: Muzzle - Demo

Rough, raw, and aggressive. Muzzle is a sizzling pan of grease-fire distortion and rail-jumping, roller-coasting, garage rock grooves. I hardly listen to hardcore that doesn’t, at least tacitly, acknowledge the existence of Incantation, even though I realize that this causes me to miss out on a lot of stuff I know I’d otherwise fall chucks over chapeau for. Muzzle’s debut demo is one such record that I'm thankful I tore myself away from the latest Kruelty EP long enough to check out. The release consists of three tracks of manic, basement quality-recording punk, with tainted Poison Idea riffs unspooling all of the floor, terminally infected with a psychedelic fungus that spreads willfully like an infection in an open wound. The mad dog howl of the vocal performances sounds like a man being tortured for information, metal clamps sinking their teeth into some soft, unmentionable part of his body, with copper wires running out the back and around the contact points of a car battery. It might sound painful, but he's clearly loving every second of it. Opening track, “In the Frame” begins with a squall of feedback before laying into a groove that sounds like what an old school, no-seatbelt, sans-airbag, demolisher derby feels like. “Muzzle” will hit the gas on your adrenal gland and not let go until it presses out every last drop of juice under its boot. And lastly, “Decrepit Bag” takes you on a detour of badly distended Black Flag waving riffs that weave and chide before striking for the kill.

SPHC usually donates its digital sales to the Baltimore Transgender Alliance, but for the remainder of June they will be remitting all of these digital sales from this release the Minnesota Freedom Fund (today is the 29th, you still have time!). You can learn more about Baltimore Transgender Alliance, a qualified non-profit, here, and the Minnesota Freedom Fund, here.

Want to buy a digital copy of Muzzle's demo, grab a copy from SPHC's Bandcamp, here.

Album Review: Ripped to Shreds - 亂

California's death and grind gladiator Andrew Lee sounds more cohesive and masterful than ever before on his latest LP with Ripped to Shreds, somewhat ironically, titled 亂 (Luan)- a character which translates to “chaos” in English. The title is not necessarily self-referential (although applicable) and appears to stem from an outward examination of the world and human history. The character 亂 can also mean warfare and destruction, and you may remember it from the poster art of Akira Kurosawa’s exploration of human hubris, Ran. Given that context, the themes of the album come into sharper focus. The Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries for much of the world has been a ceaseless wheel of horrors and destabilizing events. The past four years (especially the past six months!) have required many of us in the United States to take stock of the role that our country has played in seeding this disorder. A reflection that becomes all the more necessary as the bounty many Americans once deemed their birthright (the product of colonialism, capitalist imperialism, and good old fashioned racism) has been revealed by COVID-19 to be little more than a mound of rotten fruit. But bandleader and musical marshal Lee is not content to let 亂 wallow in the shallows of guilt that have presently overtaken the American political consciousness. No, he has much older scores to that he ios looking to settle. 

The cover art depicts the Lugou Bridge Incident, a battle between the invading army of Imperial Japan and China’s National Revolutionary Army in July 1937. It involved the Japanese army’s attempt to locate a missing soldier in a Chinese town and quickly escalate into a brutal showdown between opposing forces, which some historians credit as the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War (and World War II proper). The entire Incident is depicted in the first single from the album, “Opening Salvo” a maddening crush of crater making grooves and pulverizing percussion that will leave you scrambling for cover as the deadly heat of the Phil Tougas's guitar work rains down around your ears. Through the twisted marauderism of tracks like “Righteous Fist to the Teeth of the Wicked,” Lee delves into the inciting sentiments of the Boxer Rebellion, while the wild cry and merciless hack-saw push of the doomy “Throes of a Dying Age” tells of the war’s grisly, bitter conclusion. 

Not all of the tracks off 亂 are mired in the grim history of colonial warfare, though. The album sees Lee taking the time to explore Chinese mythology as well. Although these detours inexorably lead the listener down a bloody path that parallels the real-life horrors depicted elsewhere. The Entombed-Thrower sputter and rip of “Eight Immortals Feast” shutters with blathering cries that have all but lost their human qualities as the lyrics depict a butcher shop that reduces luckless souls to moist delicacies for the culinary satisfaction of immortal beings. Later, the listener is greeted by an equally grisly depiction of King Zhou Xin and Queen Daji of the Shang Dynasty’s debauched parties on a lake of wine on the track “Ripped to Shreds,” a stranglehold of unyielding pressure and galloping, skull-cleaving grooves, abated only by the writhing shriek of a frenetic guitar solo’s outburst.

If you’re looking for a refreshing, modern take on Swe-grind that will occupy your ears as well as your mind, leading you down Wiki-rabbit holes of myth and true-life tales of mayhem (and really, why wouldn’t you), then Ripped to Shreds's 亂 is here for you when you're ready to set your senses and psyche ablaze! 

Grab a copy of 亂 from Pulverized Records, here. 

Album Review: Krv - Krv

Krv is a French black metal band with some pretty shameless dance-metal influences, comprised of vocalist Nicolas Zivkovich and multi-instrumentalist Louise Lambert. Krv’s name translates to “blood” in Serbian and their sound combines various second and third-wave influences like Dark Throne and Empire, with industrial dance a la Godflesh, and the more heretical sounds of Behemoth and, because I’m feeling particularly sassy at the moment, let’s say, Cradle of Filth.

Upon a cursory listen, there are a couple things that leap out at me immediately, two of which are the songwriting and production. Despite how raw a lot of these tracks sound and the relentless energy they exhibit, they’re all tightly composed while managing to sound incredibly clean and well balanced. This should not be surprising given the fact that Lambert is also the master-composer behind the dark, pop-bombast of DDENT’s post-doom and twisted-angelism. What didn’t realize until possible my third listen, was that the drum work, which outside of the acoustic portions performed by Renaud Lemaitre, is largely programmed. As I mentioned, this was hardly noticeable on my first listen, an undeniable mercy as electronic beats in black metal can be about as much fun as having toothpicks jammed under your eyelids. As interesting as I find Mysticum, the desaturated quality of their sequences can make me feel like I’m trapped in a sensory deprivation chamber at times, my tolerance for their choice of percussion is low to non-existent. I’ll take a firm tom slap and gritty bass pummel on a live drum kit any day of the week.

Back to the matter at hand, you’re probably wondering how Krv’s debut self-titled stacks up at this point. Well, I'd say it stacks pretty highly in my estimation. The first track “Motherless Abyss” gets things started with a classic dark Finnish tremolo before introducing a break-beat and sliding into a howling, goth-industrial march through what feels like an abandoned coal-town, where the fires from a century-old mining accident still burn violently below. The following track “Forlorn” increases the BPM as well as the desperation with forceful acerbic guitars, sharp grating grooves, and dry vocal deliveries that come to resemble a parched Jaz Coleman. There isn’t a single track on Krv's self-titled that isn’t worth taking note of: “Flamme Noire” is a dark-house and crust-inferno, “Open Your Temple Unto Him” borrows a middle-eastern melody and heightens it with haunting atmospherics as if taking a page of out Mamaleek’s playbook, “Hécatombe” lands like a cinder block on a crystal vase with murky, crust-punk grooves and devastating artillery-volley percussion, “Autarcie Spirituelle” is an intense, bone-wrecking, mechanical melee, while closer “Transcendence Through Death” feeds the triumphalism of Enslaved through the abattoir of early Kvelertak’s party-killing, lawless punk flay, with the relentless wedge of industrial blast-beats pushing the track ever closer to the edge until it finally topples over into the abyss. Few, if any other, bands can spill as much blood on the dance floor, with as much nihilistic flair and intensity as Krv has on their debut.

Grab a copy of Krv's debut from Chien Noir Records' Bandcamp here. 

Album Review: Buscabulla - Regresa

I have a new column running on CHIRP Radio's blog. We're calling it Critical Rotation! Twice a month I dive into two albums that are in the station's rotation that I really like. Hopefully my little write-ups encourage you to give these albums a go.

For the first edition, I picked up the new album from Buscabulla, a musical married couple living, thriving, and surviving in post-Maria Puerto Rico, and singing about ongoing damages and consequences of continual colonial rule over the island over the United States. It's a gorgeous pop album that is well worth your time and attention.

Check out my review here and grab a copy of Regresa from Ribbon Music here.

Album Review: Nick Hakim - Will This Make Me Good

I have a new column running on CHIRP Radio's blog. We're calling it Critical Rotation! Twice a month I dive into two albums that are in the station's rotation that I really like. Hopefully my little write-ups encourage you to give these albums a go.

For June, I picked out the new album from Nick Hakim, Will This Make Me Good. The title refers to growing up with "behavioral problems" that require corrective doses of medication. Meds can save your life. And sometimes they do more harm than good. Either way, they can't "solve" problems that aren't the product of a chemical imbalance. 

You can check out my review here, and grab a copy of Will This Make Me Good from ATO here. 

Album Review: Sweet Spirit - Trinidad

Sweet Spirit is a band modeled after the last great American rock band.* However reminiscent their sound may be of other bands who have contributed to the American songbook over the years, they are singularly a group with style all their own- brash, slick, beaded with sweat and sex appeal. The sextet is led by guitar-hook galaxy-head Andrew Cashen and human panther Sabrina Ellis and their sound applies body-moving logic to shimmering pop-R’nB guitars, syrupy ye-ye melody revivals, and wire funk grooves, presented with neon light-tinted production that assumes the rushing dance floor lights spinning overhead are the harbingers of a new, more hopeful dawn. Their third LP Trinidad is named after Ellis’s great-grandmother as well as an implicit celebration of their Mexican American heritage. While retaining the youthful, cock-eyed swagger of their previous releases, Trinidad is also more varied in its approach, electing to elevate somber moments over the mischievous, disco carnival of previous releases. For comparison's sake, and in the spirit of ‘80s nostalgia, which the band often leans into, if 2017’s St. Mojo is Blues Brothers, then Trinidad is Big. More mature, a little bittersweet, but still a hell of a good time. The stage is set by opener “Behold” which features a very cinematic sort of “curtain-pull” progression at the outset before allowing Ellis’s voice to take off, soaring amongst the stars, tailed by a seltzery tremolo and crisscrossing downstroking guitars. Soon after, the breathy, black-top pounding R’nB of “No Dancing” percolates into your ears with fizzy soul grooves occasionally punctuated by a canon-fire bass drum. Next, you'll want to check out the krauty, circuit slide ‘n glide of “Y2K,” and the crying, electric cowgirl soul of “Only Love.” When it’s finally safe to bridge the social distance that currently resides between us,** you’re all invited to my place for a barbeque and we are spinning Trinidad until the sun comes winking at us over the horizon.  

*In case you were curious, the last great American rock band imho is Ellis’s and Cashen’s other group A Giant Dog, and also, depending on my mood, King Kahn & BBQ Show.

**Which exists for health and safety reasons due to COVID-19, and which we should only disregard once we know it is entirely safe to do so.

Get a copy of Trinidad from Merge Records here.

Album Review: Dan Drohan - You’re a Crusher / drocan!

Dan Drohan is a talented and versatile performer, probably best knows for providing beats and production expertise to various outfits within NYC’s dream-pop community. He has a penchant for Velvet inspired psyche-rock as well, which has made him an ideal drummer for the dream-decoder R’nB of Nick Hakim. After spending his career giving other people's projects form and momentum, Drohan is finally stepping out from behind his kit to produce an album of his own original material (which, of course, involves him stepping back behind the kit, because, drummer). You’re a Crusher / drocan! Is a double mini-LP, released in two parts, then slammed back together into a whole, like the two sides of a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich. The first half, You’re a Crusher, was recorded with the help of his bandmates in the band élan as a series of demos that Drohan than tweaked and finessed on the road and while waiting for planes over the course of several years. A protracted, labor of love to say the least. In contrast, drocan!, was tracked over the course of month with the aid of multi-instrumentalist Mike Cantor. If you are listening to both halves of the album in a single sitting, you’re going feel the difference. You’re a Crusher has stronger hip-hop influence, that folds elements of jazz and funk together into cacophonous pudding back of congealed body-popping noise. Tracks like “Leave it Loading” feature a brain messaging, firm, fingery bass line, that weaves around resonate road-spikes on a black-ice of Dilla inspired beats, while the other stand out from the first LP, “We Like To See (Earth)” clatters and hums while pulled along by tight drum loops and a scrambled FM radio signal. The second LP feels more tightly composed and focused in comparison while accommodating various tangential mutations. “Tokyo” has more than a little Wayne Coyne DNA under its fingernails, painting a Dan Deacon-esque fusion-jazz portrait of some delightfully viby flora, while “Passwords” stumbles through an eastern-inspired melody, in a chopped and sorted tumble of airy, electronic melodies, tickling harp-sounds, and an inquisitive but purposive beat. While there are times when I find myself wishing that You’re a Crusher / drocan! was leaner and more focused, I don’t know how it could become more streamlined without losing the restless dream sequence qualities that I like about it. While a little uneven in places, and undercooked in other, Drohan’s debut solo effort still makes for a rather substantial snack.

Get a copy of You’re a Crusher / drocan! from Drohan's Bandcamp here. 

Album Review: Died - Less Life

Scene Point Blank is running my review of the new Died record Less Life today. The band has really changed their sound for this release and Less Life is not, I repeat, it is absolutely NOT Anonymized Internal Criminals,* but I still found myself enjoying it quite a bit. Review can be read here, you can get the record from Died's Bandcamp here.

*Much to my disappointment.

Album Review: Yawners - Just Calm Down

Sometimes to find really great pop-punk you've got to go abroad. I've got a review of last year's sweet and sunny, tender emo-core inspired LP from Spain's Yawners, titled Just Calm Down ready for your reading pleasure. I liked this record so much that I felt compelled to write a review for it even though it dropped back in 2019. You can check out my write up over at Post-Trash here, and get a copy of Just Calm Down from La Castanya here. 

Interview: Bev Rage

Photo Credit: Bev Rage

For the latest edition of CHIRP's Shelter in Sound series, I sat down with Bev Rage of Bev Rage and the Drinks to talk about what he's been up to while sheltering in place and hear his take on how the drag community has been coping with the disruptions caused by COVID 19. You can listen to our conversation below or over at CHIRP Radio's site, here. 

CHIRP Radio · Shelter In Sound - Bev Rage Interview

Album Review - clipping. - Chapter 319 Single

This Juneteenth LA noise and hip-hop artists clipping. have released their single Chapter 319 via Bandcamp. It is one of the most immediate pieces of media that I have heard this year. The single addresses the circumstances of America’s intransigent issues of police brutality and racial violence, the fight against which has recently overflowed into mass street actions catalyzed by the senseless death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville. Since the protests of these needless and evil slayings became the subject of national news, many similar killings have occurred at the hands of law enforcement, further illustrating the dramatic need for systemic change to the dynamic between black people, property, and enforcement of the law by the state. These slayings include the murder of Rayshard Brooks for the crime of sleeping in his car, and the shooting of David McAtee, a beloved Louisville business owner, for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are others too. Literally too many to name. Which brings us back to clipping.’s single. If you don’t know what’s happening at this point, if you don't comprehend how disparate treatment of communities based on the color of their skin can have life or death consequences for average Americans attempting to live their lives, then it is not merely a lack of education, but an act of willful neglect which informs your world view. The clipping. says as much at one point in the single and further identifies the fact that voting for Donald Trump in November is an overt act aimed at perpetuating white supremacy. There isn’t any other way to interpret such an action in the group's mind, and there isn't in mine either. With characteristically back-breaking, blown-out bass, territory-claiming electronic chatter, and a rolling, pull-no-punches flow, clipping. make their intentions clear. They are not here to threaten anyone. They are not here to plead for recognition or respect. The dignity of one is not a detriment to another in a free society, and black people do not require concessions or permission to do what needs to be done in order to grasp the unburdened mantel freedom and respect for their lives which should be the inheritance of every citizen of the United States. "Chapter 319" is packaged with “Knees on the Ground” a disorienting, psychological play that unfolds through air-stealing electronics and rattling piston-clapping beats, depicting a fatal encounter by a young black man with a police officer. It was previously released on Soundcloud, and it is extremely difficult to listen to. Not because of its harsh aesthetic qualities but due to the directness with which it portrays someone’s death and the grim, daily reality that it reflect. Of all the music made in this moment, there are few examples that I can think of more prescient than what clipping. has released here.

Today (June 19, 2020) clipping. will split its portion of all Bandcamp sales of their Chapter 319 single between the GoFundMe for George Floyd’s daughter (the Official Gianna Floyd Fund), People’s Breakfast Oakland, The Okra Project, and Afrorack. For its part Bancamp will be donating all of its proceeds from today to the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund. On all days thereafter, sales of these two tracks will be periodically collected and donated to organizations dedicated to racial justice.

Buy this single via Bandcamp here. 

Album Review: End It - One Way Track EP

Baltimore’s End It is the kind of band that hardcore exists to give a voice to. Honest, self-critical, anti-racist and suspicious of authority, their debut EP One Way Track impacts your ears like a cinder block crashing through the front windshield of a police car. Embodying the 90’s east-coast hardcore sound of funk-thrash fanatics Gut Instinct and the world-weary anger of NYC’s Neglect, their sound has all of the raw energy and rebellious vitality of a fresh coat of irreverent spray paint on a “moral majority” styled, neo-liberal, politician’s campaign billboard while a police precinct burns in the background. What I’m trying to say is that End It rules the streets, and you better not think you can take them back without risking taking a skateboard truck to the temple. The EP gets off a knockout blow with its opening track “Hardhead,” which starts with a sample of country singer Charlie Rich’s 1977 song “Rollin’ with the Flow,” before putting a boot in your gut with a Bulldozer-tipped chord shellac and the triumphant cry of vocalist Akil Godsey's righteous snap. “HTF” has more forward cross-over influences and lyrics about standing your ground and not giving into fear. The final two tracks are quintessential east-coast, truth-in-practice hardcore, with “Lifer” stacking sturdy, steely chords to a lightning-fast, left-hook/right-jab, dancing groove with lyrics about breaking out of the oppression of one's surroundings and fighting to make a life for yourself. The wallop you receive on “Lifer” is followed by the Absolution-esque glide and brakeless sprint of title track “One Way Track,” which features high-winding metallic hardcore guitars and a devastating, pit-charging breakdown. If End It’s One Way Track doesn’t inspire you to do something about your god-damned life or the injustice in this world, then there isn't anything that will. 

Get a copy of One Way Track from Flatspot Records, here. 

Album Review: Neckbeard Deathcamp / Closet Witch / Racetraitor / Haggathorn 4 Way Split EP

Racetraitor's vocalist Mani Mostofi is a fan of split EPs. In a statement on To Live a Lite Record's blog, he reflects on the formats uniquely punk quality and how they exhibit the "collective underpinning" of the DIY ethos. Of his current split for TLALR, he further stated that he hoped it would serve as a "community building exercise in which like-minded bands each offer their take on life, politics, and brutality in a shared space." A laudable goal for sure and one clearly in line with his radical commitments.

The idea of a collective project is one that leftists spend a lot of time musing about. While it may not be possible for most who believe in the moral and rational basis of anarchist political structures to realize all of their shared goals while forcibly living within the confines of capitalist realism, this does not prevent political actors of this persuasion from creating collaborative works of art that speak to their ideals. As previously alluded, it is this struggle to creating a space for the shared expression of political conflict and righteous anger amongst likeminded compatriots that acts as the impetus for this 4 Way Split between legendary anti-racist metallic hardcore Sufis Racetraitor, power-grinders Closet Witch, primitive communist black metallers Haggathorn, and Chicago's finest meme-metal magicians Neckbeard Deathcamp.

Neckbeard Deathcamp starts the EP off with two songs, "Spit Shine" and "OK Boomer," and it's easily their best work to date. I've appreciated their skilled satire of the right-wing's increasingly fascistic, internet youth culture since their 2018 debut White Nationalism is for Basement Dwelling Losers, but as satisfied as I was with the concept of that album, the execution left something to be desired. However, after hearing their contributions to this Split, I can belatedly say that I am now a fan of their music as well. Dark, raw, crusty black metal, steeped in sour feedback and perpetually disturbing the peace with foul, guttural, sewer-mutant vocals. They've absolutely grown as songwriters and musicians in the past two years, and they should be very proud fo the material that they've contributed to this EP.

Of the bands on this EP, the one that I was most familiar with from the outset was Closet Witch, the ragged-edged grindcore conjurers from Iowa. The concentrated emotional discharge of their 2018 self-titled LP ripped a hole clean through me when I first heard it, and I haven't completely recovered since. Closet Witch's first track "A Happy Kettle" emphasizes their power-violence influences, with shredding grooves and a punishing, churning break down that winds you up for muscle splaying, joint-dislodging, ten-story tumble of "Ace of Cups" and the septic embrace of "Abstinence but Not." Closet Witch's contributions to the EP are the most aesthetically varied of the lot, as exemplified by the ambient, post-hardcore of "Solar Lullaby," which is reminiscent of the wondering, sonic thought-mires that Cloud Rat sometimes integrates interstitially into their work, albeit not as ambitiously as the on last year's EP, Do Not Let Me Off the Cliff.

When Racetraitor finally gets their turn, they channel their inner Wolves in the Throne Room for three brutal, deconstructive examinations of power differentials and pacifying ideology. The rattling "Sarcophagus" feels like a wrecking ball falling through a net of cobwebs, distending and eviscerating illusions in its passing, with dark dancing tremolos, ripping blast-beats, and a wrathful tide of verticality collapsing atmosphere. Next, "Subordinate Terror" takes the plunge into blackened hardcore a la Baptist, while the "Golden Calf" returns to their roots, invoking kindred riff-blenders 108.

Finally, the curtains are drawn on Haggathorn's track, "Awakening." The cut is a remarkable six minutes of bitter, crude, second-wave inspired, gothic rock ‘n roll, with a surprisingly cinematic edge to its lapping grooves, capturing the sense of motion created by the rhythmic falling and rising of a great lid before a cataract clouded lens. A giant eye with the capacity for omniscience, but which can now only see its own advanced state of decay and enfeeblement. Unable to see anything but its own demise, it assumes that the world is dying with it.

As far as collective works are concerned, the 4 Way Split works as a cohesive statement of intent to reform a world of corrupt commitments. A far better, cohesive and potent declaration than what serves as "resistance" to hegemony in contemporary political discourse- the facile musings of ivy-league educated opinion columnist with by-lines in a paper of record, or the technocratic, blue-prints drafted by coastal think-tanks and Silicon Valley elites that aim to "do good, by doing well." With terminally detached allies like these who needs enemies? There is little doubt that we live in perilous times where the average person has little more than bad and worse choices laid out before them. There is a dearth of meaningful structures into which those who dream for a better future, one free of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, enforced hetero-normativity, and capitalism, can pour their collective efforts and ambitions. These structures will have to be built from the ground up, and I do not think it is naive that an album born of such collective intentions can serve at the inspiration for the transformative change so badly needed in the world. It may be too much to ask of a single album, but if you won’t demand the impossible, how can you hope to achieve anything real?

Get a copy of the Split from To Live a Lie Records, here.

Album Review: Green / Blue - Green / Blue

There are times when I really miss the music of my youth. Hours spent cruising between my miserably home town to shows in Milwaukee, Chicago, and other far-flung parts of the Midwest. Dropping everything on a school night to see the Birthday Suits crash a bingo hall and sing into a PA system meant for a karaoke. Sneaking underage into bars to see the Blink Shake and catch a contact high off their weird psych-punk pummel. And laying prone on the floor of my parent's basements for hours trying to deconstruct what made The Soviettes so damn good and yet so damn simple (like, I know it's the hooks, the rough recordings, cleanly tracked vocals, and loose, fun dynamic of the band, but I'm still impressed- That shit was lightning in a bottle). At some point after college, I got into metal and hardcore and my tastes became progressively weirder from there on out. But to this day, I get a little aerosolized burst of serotonin in the recesses of my brain when I hear a really good Midwest garage band doing their thing. I'm going to stop beating around the bush folks, I am seriously digging the debut LP from Minneapolis's Green / Blue.

Green / Blue is comprised of vocalist and guitarist Jim Blaha formerly of Blind Shake, bassist Hideo Takahashi of Birthday Suits, and guitarists and vocalist Annie Sparrows and drummer Danny Henry formerly of the Soviettes (Ha! There was a point to the preamble after all!). The group came together after Sparrows bought a collage portrait off Blaha and the exchange kicked off a conversation about their current musical projects, leading Blaha to share some rough cut demos he'd tracked. Since the demise of Blind Shake, Blaha had been diving into the back catalog of The Clean and Guided by Voices and coming up with his own renditions of that classic '80s indie rock sound. After listening to some partial tracks on Blaha's phone, Sparrows expressed interest in joining the project and the pieced fell into place from there.

If you were expecting the savage edges and brash teen angst of any of the bandmembers' previous projects to surface on the Green / Blue's debut, you'll be sorely disappointed. Instead, what you'll find is a focused exhibition of lightly post-punk-punched-up, lo-fi resign coated, plaintively psychedelic garage rock reminiscent of a faultlessly aged and refined Times New Viking. Troubled bass growls undergird most of the mixes like the intractable passage of time, grounding the tracks in a temporal pond of lightly acidic existential panic, while the wine of wiry, high-tuned guitars arch above like sepia-toned, hotchpotches of half-recalled memories transformed into a pure electrical discharge. Sparrow and Blaha's vocals combine with a melancholy urgency that churns up feelings of loss and hope in a medley of charming ambivalence to one's future and resolve to forget one's past. "With That Face" bobs into view with a tense, bald-rubber groove, sharp road-spike leads, and gritting, teeth-baring harmonies that demonstrate the venom that can leak from a "Minnesota Nice" smile. "Return" ratchets up the temperature to make you sweat with white-hot, charcoal fire, Ty Seagel-esque grooves. Later, "Fine a New World" dials up the fuzz and pours on the honey for an enticing Jesus and Mary Jane cush-crush, while "Shards" feels like Royal Trux relaxing into a low-key mean-streak.

There was a time when indie music blogs would have lined up to do a feature on a band with Green / Blues. The group effortlessly pulls off that straightforward, unpretentious, highly melodic brand of indie garage rock that only a few years back would have had those simps at Pitchfork eating out of the band's hands. Now Pitchfork is too busy running glowing stories on Soundcloud snitches and obvious industry plants to bother with a rock band like Green / Blue. Let the taste(less)-makers of yesteryear chase ad dollars and click-through schemes. Real indie blogs will always cover real indie music. To that point, if you miss the days when you could discover your new favorite band by stumbling into an afternoon rock show at your local coffee shop, then Green / Blue is the kind of band you need in your life right now.

Get a copy of Green / Blue's self-titled debut from Slovenly here. 

Album Review: Cro-Mags - In the Beginning

Harley Flanagan is back my dudes. After 20 years and some weird legal/band drama, Flanagan is back with another fucking killer Cro-Mags album. In the Beginning is the inaugural release of Mission Two Entertainment, the label founded by Tony Brummel of Victory Records fame. Tony credits the Cro-Mags as his inspiration to start a record label after seeing them play is Venom in Chicago when he was only 13. Now it's all come full circle. Check out my review of In the Beginning over at Scene Point Plank, here, and grab a copy of the album from Mission Two, here. 

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

Album Review: Funeral Leech - Death Meditation

I have a soft, rotten depression in my heart where I keep my love of death-doom. And in a year where we were fortunate enough to get a Paradise Lost LP it feels even more imperative to shout-out bands who are keeping it old school, tending to the flame of early Asphyx recordings to guide the passage of twisted souls through the twilight hours. New York’s Funeral Leech is one such band, and their debut album Death Meditation consists of six surprisingly spry bursts of downtuned, morbid, and fatalistic death metal wrapped in the deathly shroud of doom. The album kicks off with the Mortuous-esque grave echo of “Downpour,” and continues into the maddening abyss of “The Burden of Flesh,” things slow down a bit with the murky trudge of “Lament,” only to be picked back up again by the forceful blast-beats and brutal riffs of the Morbid Angel meets OS Paradise Lost deluge “Morbid Transcendence.” Their drummer and vocalist Lucas Anderson explained to the good folks at Decibel Mag a few months back that the goal of the album is to turn a penetrating gaze upon the tissue-thin justifications that stoke humanity’s will to live, and the existentially absurd and futile struggle to beat back the claws of death and prevent oneself from being dragged into the maw of oblivion. When it comes to death-doom, you really can’t get much more on-brand than that. Namast-not-today, buddy.

Get a copy of Death Meditation from Carbonized Records, here. 

Album Review: Jamo Gang - Walking with Lions

Jamo Gang is ready to claim the pride land back from those chuckle-headed hyenas and pretty boy, sad-sack, alligator-tear dropping Soundcloud snakes on their latest release Walking with Lions. In case you didn't know, Jamo Gang is comprised of three upstart hip hop artists, MCs Ras Kass from LA and El Grant from NYC, backed by the bubble-bass and cush-beats of producer J57. Legend has it that these rare-breed rebels were introduced by DJ Premier, and if that's true, it's hard not to see the potential he saw in these dudes when their powers unite. As a Chicago boy (the good kind, the kind whose never even set foot on the University of Chicago's campus) I'd be remiss not to recommend "Belushi & Aykroyd," and as luck would have it, It's also the first track, kicking things off with bluesy, El-P-esque crusher grooves, with thick, smack-talking bars about the crew's distaste for schmoozing music-industry bullshit and the easy by which they skin snaking bastards as soon as they show their fangs. Next up is "Francis Scott Key," which features mean beats and airy angry samples with lyrics that enumerate America's long list of sins against black America. The title track "Walking with Lions" grabs hold of the clock and spins the hands back to when southern rap seeped through the mortar and margins of every city in America in a blasting beat-down of gospel boom-bap with beautiful sections of clean singing. "38 Minutes" punches above its weight thematically, a spine-tingling avant-garde slab of hardcore rap featuring Sick Jacken of Slipknot and describing various reactions the crew go through in the last two-quarters of an hour they have on Earth while they wait for an atomic bomb to reduce them to irradiated, charcoal silhouettes. For my money though, "The 1st Time" is the highlight of the album, is ready for a block party in a world not stricken with COVID-19, a track begging to be let loose, where a confident, strutting, back-pack rap beat meets a golden jazz-rap, mash-up featuring DJ Premier and Atmosphere's Slug. Learn to walk the line with these young cats, because if you step to them instead, you're bound to feel the cut of their claws.

Grab a copy of Walking with Lions from Fat Beats here. 

Album Review: Twisted Horror Split w/ Exhumed & Gruesome

Would you look at that, Matt Harvey put out a split with himself. Harvey has been extremely busy the last few years (he’s always been busy, but I’m talking since I cared to keep track of his activities… so, the last ten years or so), and it’s been extremely cool to see his band Exhumed come into their own within the past decade (a crazy thought as they've been kicking around since 1990!). Exhumed were the first band that I came to associate with the term “gore metal,” and while they’re definitely not the only (or the first) band that this designation could apply to, they’ll always have place in my red, gooey, valvey center because of this fact. Within the last three years, in particular, I’d say, they’ve taken their gratuitous, ghastly, swe-death and grind hybrid in daring new directions, subtly introducing melodicism without loosening their grip on the throttle of intensity, while also leaning hard into the pulp horror aesthetic that once only lived on the periphery of the band’s persona. 

The three songs packaged on Twisted Horror are archetypical of the sound that the Exhumed perfected on their fucking fantastic 2019 LP, simply titled Horror. “Rot Your Brain” begins with a terrible Entombed-esque cry that will fill your veins with ice cubes as you are pulled into the tracks ripping percussion and vicious, cannibalistic chords, as if your pants leg had become caught in a conveyor belt and you were slowly being fed into a meat grinder. 

You may think that your mind is sufficiently menaced and its synapsis thoroughly julienned after this opener, but you’re going to have to pull yourself back together if you’re going to make it through the remainder of the release. The slippery, fine-grained grit and melodic mendacity of “Buried to Die” will tumble in on you from all sides, enveloping you in a stew of bludgeoning grooves and wheeling, piston percussion, poured together until they are as thick as concrete. Surviving the previous tracks brings you face-to-face with “Dead, Deader, Deadest,” which exhibits loose, blood-soaked guitar lines that lash and lasso your attention like a noose around the neck, and will pull you behind its relentless peel until your limbs become dislodged with the friction, to the tune of a chorus of call and response, gargling death vocals. 

The Exhumed tracks would feel sufficient as an offering of fetid aural fare, but then Harvey also saw fit to include two tracks from his Schuldiner-raising, Death revival tribute, Gruesome, a band whose sound is entirely unstuck-from-time, and who so resemble their heroes that it’s basically like the getting a direct sequel to Leprosy every time they release an album. I couldn’t consider myself much of death metal fan if I turned down something like that, now could I? Both Gruesome tracks land right in the pocket, with hairy, putrid chords, gangrenously septic beats, viscera irrigating vocals, and squealing slide guitars. It’s all over too quickly, leaving me thirsty for another shot. Oh barkeep, can I get another? I’ll take mine extra wet, put something in there that will leave a trace of iron on my tongue, and don’t forget to add a twist of horror!

Pick up a copy of Twisted Horror from Relapse here. 

Album Review: Jonah Mutono - GREG

I feel like the best gospel-R’nB comes out of the UK. Maybe it’s their distance from the source and religious origins of the music that makes it palatable to a secular, pop audience. I’m not entirely sure. All I know is that Jonah Mutono is doing it right. Formerly known as Kidepo, the London Born, US and Ugandan raised singer embraces his heritage and wrestles with saints and demons alike on his latest project GERG. The album is a lovingly patient and emotionally insistent album that seeks to engage the listener in a sonorous interchange about loving your fellow men (both platonically and romantically) while reckoning with the scorn of some who claim their anger flows from the almighty themself. Mutono clearly believes that he is not put here on this Earth to be hated though, and his faith in himself and his place in the universe is a loving rebuke of the aspersions placed on him. With weighty, blissed-out production and a soothing presence, Mutono allows his personality to flourish on the track “Smith Johnson Williams Brown,” a soft and loving spiritual about the brotherhood of men with a title that combines the three most common last names of men in the United States. Other noteworthy cuts off GREG include, “Shoulders” with its swinging, deep grooved, classic ‘80s vibe, as well as the urgent call-and-response of the neon-tinted, romantic root-kit “Circulation” which dips a toe in ‘90s trip-hop to great effect. See also, “South Bank,” a sober-minded break-up song wrapped in a ‘90s club jam, capturing the lonely rush of realizations that culminate in the death of a relationship, also the jaunty gospel-hop styled entreaty “The Low,” and the scintillating soul-extending caress of “I’ll See You” serve to variety to the seven-course serving of sex appeal the album dishes up. While some believe we each contain a spark of the divine, the dignity of each of our humanity is undeniable with or without deific intervention. The world may find reasons to disregard or shame you, but if there is one message you can take from Mutono’s GREG, it is that you are worthy of love regardless of how others may see you.

Get a copy of GREG from True Panther here. 

Album Review: Let It Come Down - Songs We Sing In Our Dreams

                                        

It appears that Shimmy Disc is back from suspended project hell. Over a decade after the owner and post-punk dynast, formally know as Kramer, had to wind-down his magical music box of a label following a series of lawsuits (the complexities of which could be the subject of their own law school course), likeminded experimental label Joyful Noise has generously extended its hand to Kramer and Shimmy to get them back on their feet. Presently, Kramer is one of a dozen named curators of Joyful Noise's White Label Series (an ambitious reissue and mail order vinyl project that you can learn more about here), as well as the label's current artist in residence. Joyful Noise clearly has a lot of faith in Kramer and a deep love for his past work. Possibly too much? I have a lot of love and appreciation for Frank Black, but I would never give him half the control over my blog as Joyful Noise has given Kramer over their 2020 operations. And believe me, there is no money coming in or going out of my corner of the internet, so good on them for taking risks and making such a big investment in Kramer's come back.

The first release on offer from the Galaxie 500 producer and Butthole Surfer bassist as part of his residency/revival/one-man-renaissance is a new project in collaboration UK singer Xan Tyler, which they are calling Let It Come Down. Their debut album is Songs We Sang In Our Dreams. It is a collection of songs that Kramer has apparently been working on for decades, and which have finally coalesced around Tyler's whimsical and articulate singing style sometime after their work on a three-track single in 2015. So how is Kramer's maiden voyage with Joyful Noise? Smooth sailing so far, I'd say.  

Let It Come Down is a complex, slowcore inflected reimagining of English folk with elements of sound collage and south American jazz seamlessly woven throughout. What captured my attention immediately about tracks like "Monday" and "Tomorrow" was just how goddamned sad they sounded. Repetitious portrayals of loss focused through the lens of modern guilt and regret. There is a romance to sad songs that I find irresistible. There are few loves that I know in this world as satisfying as a melody that feels like it is stabbing you in the heart with each refrain. I can listen to Chelsea Wolf I want to hear maudlin contemporary folk songs, though. Kramer and Tyler also knead together dream-like sequences, anchored by snippets of captured dialog and detritus, that speak of paranoid repudiations ("One Moon") and wincing domestic ambition ("Three Wishes"). And if you need something slightly less experimental, or dare I say, upbeat, you can always try out the slightly varnished sanguine tones of the Beatles-esque "Forget," or the Sergio Mendes eyeing, cool tropical patter of "Fingers." It's not so much that Tyler and Kramer are changing the channel every three minutes, as much as they are telling stories with intersecting plot threads, and they don't seem to mind interrupting one to pick up where they left off with another. This might not be for everyone, but you can't claim that it isn't at least interesting what they are attempting to accomplish here.

At times Songs We Sang In Our Dreams feels like three separate albums climbing on top of each other and vying for your attention, but after awhile the logic of Kramer's and Tyler's method begins to click and you start to see how all the parts fit together to form a meticulously manufactured apparatus of sound. You kind of have to think of yourself as being in a dark theater, and each track is like a short film in a series. Not every film as the same characters, but they all tell one contiguous story. This may sound overly complicated, but it is also a way of organizing an album that rewards careful and repeat listens. To its credit Songs We Sang In Our Dreams is not as Rube Goldbergian as some producer lead projects can be. It limits itself to a few, narrowly defined, if uniquely crafted motifs, that it examines from multiple angles and in different lighting before drawing to a conclusion. Aesthetic restraint and careful refinement I think are what keeps this album from wandering too far off course, with a result that is varied, impactful, and which left me very much interested in hearing more.

Grab a copy of Songs We Sang In Our Dreams from Joyful Noise, here. 

Album Review: Nicole Mitchell and Moor Mother - Offering - Live at Le Guess Who

Receiving a wide physical release two years after its inception, Moor Mother’s performance with flutist Nicole Mitchell at the 2018 Le Guess Who Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands, is finally available for us working shlubs who can't budget for a holiday romping between the tulips. Moor Mother was one of the curators of the festival in 2018 and the recording of her's and Michell's showcase from the event has been released under the title Offering. Through noise, and clutter, and heaving poetry, Offering constructs a sonic astral plain, projected from the core of nature's metaphysical womb into the minds of Moor and Michelle, the energy of this transfer flowing out of their figure tips, mouths, and feet in a blazing dark glow of kinetic heat. Like arch lightning leaping between steel polls, the two performers commune in a display of meditative angst and evocative enlightenment as a single being, pushing back against the trespasses of ego, which imprisons the human mind and confines its potential to parochial prejudices and material drek, condemning the soul to wither on the vine as the body hurtles towards oblivion. Chewing at the flesh that cages that part of us that resonates in unison with the transcendent cerebral tapestries of Alice Coltrane and the armistice aiming mind armada of Sun Ra, they kick at what is assumed natural to find the pre-material architecture of deadmen's reasons and to make breathable cracks in clay jars that house badly segregated realities. With sound and light and truth these entangled threads of sonic silk, wool, medical gauze, and dogs hair form a net in which to catch all of the thoughts that clutter and confound the conscious, allowing them to be sifted for the embers of light that hide within. Disjointed rhymes for rumination on the restitution of one’s place in the universe. Brew some tea, take a deep sip, tune in to the frequency coming from your stereo speakers and place your mind in the palms of a higher power.  

Grab a copy of Offering from Moor Mother's Bandcamp here. 

Album Review: Ratboys - Printer’s Devil

Wilco kinda came out of nowhere. I’m sure I now have a dozen nerds presently rushing to “@ me” with a tedious “well, actually” essay-length thread that includes reviews of the band’s entire discography and the critical reaction they received at each stage in their career to prove that their success was inevitable and I just wasn't paying attention, but I don’t care. They came out of nowhere for me. I encountered them through an NPR piece in college. Their unassuming mix of Midwest power-pop, alternative country, and “aww-shucks” ambition, and changed the way I thought about bands from this corridor of the de-industrialized great lakes region.* For a long time, bands I thought to take seriously either came from the coasts or England. Wilco was the first Midwest band who seemed “big“ to me while retaining their connection to their home town, Chicago. And you know what, Ratboys gives me the same vibe.

Formed by Julia Steiner and Dave Sagan while still attending school in South Bend, Indiana, Ratboys is also that wonderful combination of underappreciated Midwest power-pop, alternative country, and “aww-shucks” ambition, and they also feel like a very very big deal to me. I first encountered them when I heard the single “Elvis in the Freezer,” and everything about that track which hooked my ear lobes is reconstituted for primetime on their third LP,  Printer’s Devil.

Like getting your ear-ring caught in the zipper of your windbreaker, it’s extremely difficult to untangle yourself from the hooky, heart-string plucking melodies without taking a moment to appreciate the situation for both its simplicity and how deceptive inescapability. For me, the lush, pinch-hitting country wallop of “Alien With A Sleep Mask On” put the boredom of my quarter-life crisis on life support with the first clash of its jangly, perky chords. Likewise, “Look To” slides into sight with the implacable charm and confidence of Cheap Trick playing a friend’s barbeque after coming home from Budokan, and “Anj” brims with a comparable level of unspurned, heart-string bound, electric exuberance. Quieter moments like “I Go Out At Night” brings them closer to the subtle, soft-focus sparkle of contemporaries like Charly Bliss, while the crinkly, intricate, and sedge lined “A Vision” puts them at the forefront of this generation’s folk revival.

Someone (else) attributed the Ratboys's success to their heavy touring schedule with indie-passing-pop-punk bands like PUP and Dowsing, and while their connections have certainly contributed to their success, their talent stands out as singularly exceptional and noteworthy without these associations. And frankly, even if they never left Chicago, they’d still be a big deal to me.

Grab a copy of Printer's Devil from Top Shelf here. 

*I have other opinions about Wilco that are less flattering that I do not plan to share here. 

Album Review: Chepang – Chatta

If there was ever an instrument that most people would assume grindcore could do without, it would probably be the saxophone. But here comes Chepang with all the hot, steamy sax appeal of an Albert Ayler album. What I hope will dawn on you if you decide to give either “Pahilo Bhet” or “Antim Bhet” off of Chepang’s second LP Chatta a listen, is how unsuperfluous the sax contributed by Danish musician Mette Rasmussen is to the structure of these songs. In fact, there is very little about Chatta that feels unwarranted or wasteful. The Nepalese American grindcore outfit describes themselves as “immigrind,” combining the disorienting, gnashing angst of Discordance Axis, with the tightly monitored experimental trouble-making of Agoraphobic Nosebleed, and the alienated death-crust-crush of Napalm Death, in a two vocalist, double percussionist gambit for total creative liberation. They move with a boundless appetite for excess that transcends all borders. Tracks like “Hantakari” conjures up a hypnotizing, zombie-making groove, while “Pakhandi” takes the groove-smithing to a monstrous new level of man-mangling malice. “Adhunikata” will light your scalp ablaze with Napalm Death infused interplays that rain down like a caustic curse from angry skies. “Barood” indulges in odium-caked, thrashy metallic-hardcore guitars, that pull the straightforward hell-diving Slayer riffs of “Murkha,” the Voivody infernal squall of “Sano Dhukur” and the bad-moon Biohazard cross-over of “Kalilo,” into a family tree of proud thrash hooligan influences that will have the neighbors instinctively clutching their pearls every time you smash play- even while they're out of earshot. In an era where our government seems to spend most of its time trying to conceive of underhanded ways to put up barriers to entering this country, there may not be a better soundtrack for reducing these walls (real and metaphorical) to rubble. 

Get a copy of Chatta from Nerve Altar / Holy Goat here. 

Album Review: Revenge - Strike.Smother.Dehumanize

J. Read is back to put the boots to you with another blitz of raw black metal, this one titled Strike.Smother.Dehumanize. It's slightly more accessible than previous releases but this is only relative to his past work, and even then it's likely to be too caustic for casual metal fans. Revenge really doesn't do "popular" or "listenable" after all. Not being approachable is kind of their thing. Check out my review over on Scene Point Blank here, and grab a copy of the album from Season of Mist here. 

As an aside, is it funny to anyone else that they are selling a camo T version of the album cover because it's funny to me. 

Album Review: Yves Tumor - Heaven to a Tortured Mind

A space with no volume. Geography with no border. A body that displaces no air. A room too large to see the far wall with the naked eye but too small to contain a single breath. Yves Tumor lives in the interstitial realities between what is known, what can be felt, and what we feel and know too much of and is shut out completely for safety and peace of mind. Heaven to a Tortured Mind is the wayward scholar from no-where’s fourth studio album, and sees him leafing through the pages of human experience to excavate evidence for a grand theory of everything, except for how to keep a leash on his own tempestuous mind. The album emerges from the mirage of time and sound with the neo-soul, cloud-hopping, sexy-sainthood slayer “Gospel for a New Century,” which captures of the warm exuberance one might feel from watching a hypothetical, VHS homemovie of Thundercat giving a pint-sized Nik Hakim a piggy-back-ride. This laid back, noisy psychedelic-marbled-R’nB is examined in new exciting forms on the shadow-dwelling crawl and mole-man funk of “Strawberry Privilege” as well as the clattering, day-dream drill “Identity Trade” which embodies a pandemonium of jazz grooves fighting through a furrow of discord to breach the surface for a chance at a breath of fresh air, including a particularly spunky and inspiring clarinet solo. Things really come together on “Kerosene!” though, where Yves Tumor and Diana Gordon duet, their voices gliding around each other and intertwining like snakes in oil, with Gordon doing her best Dolores O’Riordan impression through the swaying storm of hot desire and spaceship funk blasting star-dust exhaust all over the night sky. Your mind does not need to be troubled to find the glimmers of heaven nestled throughout this release.

Grab a copy of Heaven to a Tortured Mind from Warp Records here.