Placebo : " Love Like Loud"

A big fan of this band for well over a decade now but can't say I was too enamored with their previous album "Battle For the Sun" which seemed bland and a little too middle of the road. I was unaware this album was even coming out so it was a surprise when I across it. I believe it's getting a September 16th release in the States. The opening title track was a little daunting because it gave me flashbacks of the direction they went in on "Battle For the Sun" and I feared Brian had sobered up and lost his touch. Fortunately the rest of the album proves this isn't the case, though it does lack the drugged lamentation feel of their older work.

To say the song " Love Like Loud" is bad is  an overstatement it  comes to close to being banal radio rock for Placebo. "Scene of the Crime" is more on par with what is expected of the band. It's driving with the glam edges, the other layers in the sound , namely synths add to the sound rather than take away from it.

The lyrics have always been the bands strong point and the winks are some what blatant in the stabs taken at social media on "Too Many Friends". Brian isn't taking himself too serious with the opening line " My computer thinks I'm gay / I threw that piece of junk away".  The chorus is big and bright , almost too happy for how I prefer these guys but the other components make up for this.

At the onset I was concern that perhaps Brian had gotten sober and lost his touch as the songs lacked the certain brooding sardonic shadow side than begins to show it's smirk on " Hold Onto Me". In some sense he can't win for losing as by "Meds" the ballads about chasing the dragon had begun to get contrived, but with out that strung out yearning and the sense that his make up is tear streaked. But one of the albums strongest tracks "Rob the Bank"  recalls every element that made the bank great to begin with. The lyrics are smart and the hooks have an edge to them , while the guitar expands its sonic reach beyond the norm for commercial rock.

The piano accompanying "A Million Little Pieces" doesn't burden the rest of the arrangement and helps it to move as fluidly as when the band used similar elements on "Sleeping with Ghosts". Brian's voice also feel most comfortable here as the Geddy Lee like pitch to his often nasal tenor was bound to not age well, though he has handled it admirably even here, though the first signs of strain are showing as his youth isn't immortal, yet his singing style hasn't lent itself to change like say David Bowie's and was bound to face it's mortality.
The build on "Exit Wounds" finds his voice sounding as androgynous as ever but the more electronic sweep of the songs lends it self more readily to his delivery.

The albums final act maintains it's momentum even getting back to a familiar dark bleakness of contemplation on"Begin the End" that find the guitar being just as lyrical in its phrasing as the vocals. Though it seems the album goes out on a slight whimper with "Bosco"  though it's a better song than title track which opens the album but is nonetheless a piano ballad even though the lyrics go back to his self deprecating addictions this time its narrowed down to just drinking. This album  restores faith in the band after the last one and for the most part is pretty damn good so I'll give it an 8.5 though they have released 10s for most of their career so its bittersweet.

Gigan: Multi-Dimensional Fractal Sorcery And Super Science

This is my first stint with this band. the albums opens with a lot of density to it. There is some sonic breathing but the very raw production makes me feel like I'm crammed into a crawl space of the ship in Event Horizon as " Beneath The Sea Of Tranquility" unfolds. Like Ulcerate and Gorguts the trend to marry atmosphere with this dark technical brutality continues here.  Like most albums of this ilk the fact you are being hit with this degree of heaviness catches you from the onset of  the assault and the band find the challenge to keep you engaged from their as heaviness alone numbs you out and loses its effect

They was no time hitting the threshold and blast into " Influence Through Ritualistic Projection" it morph into a slightly off time accent that doesn't strike me as capturing the mood of any ritual but is a different take on death metal. It takes an Electro-Stimulated Hallucinatory Response to generate more variety then the straight up snare wanking. Though to have the term psychedelic thrown around so much in regards to their sound there is no a lot of cerebral  window dressing . The leads are noisy and chaotic like Kerry King on some bad acid but three songs in it's as trippy as it gets.

The riff to Mother Of Toads hops around with an ugly distortion. The jazz like break down midway is pretty cool as well as the King Crimson spazz out putting this on the more progressive side of psychedelic. Fittingly one of the darker more intense moments where this album shines is Obsidian Sun. Where the manage to strike a balance of being as sonic as they are metal , though the scales are tipped in favor of metal .  There angular pound of  Cosmic Triangular Communications gets the point across. The opening riff is pretty cool and proggy for death metal , but you know my rule cool riffs alone don't make a song. This where I run into problems with a lot of death metal. The growls here are low mixed growls that vary slightly so they aren't monotone but its clear the vocals are where the least amount of thought was given.

They pick up to an even more blinding speed on Gibbering Hordes Of Zemiath, which I get is fast and we have layers of diddling guitar over it but is this a song or a riff ?  when it slows to the crazy wonky riff I'm more of a fan as the faster parts are precise yet still trip over themselves.  They don't come to their senses on  Bio-Engineered Molecular Abnormalities, in fact the keep up the crushing speed only making little weird guitar sounds for a few seconds, which is far from breaking the boundaries they seem to think they are and we reach the numbed out state where the fury loses its power and becomes white noise, but to their credit they made it to the last song before this occurs. I'll give this album a six but if you like middle of the road tech death metal you might want to round it up to a 7. 

Gorguts: "Colored Sands"

I have little trouble saying this is one of the heaviest releases of the year, but I am having trouble deciding if that equates with being one of the best. Are their good songs being written here or am I being dazzled by weighty riffs? These Canadians can write about death with conviction as this is their first album after the suicide of their Drummer Steve MacDonald.

The opener "Le Toit du Monde" lures me in with dips into the more melodic middle sections and the hint of atmosphere haunting the edges of this war machine. Some times I hear this and think..." Well these guys are succeeding where a band like Meshuggah has failed when falling prey to the expectations of the masses. Sure this album has gotten a load of accolades but that means jack and shit to me. What they have going against them here is they come out of the gate so strong here and a common problem for many metal bands is they hit you with the heaviness on the first song that leaves your ears ringing but you numb out half way through because they lack dynamics.

By "Forgotten Arrows" the math comes in and begins a more calculated dissection of its self but still hit me as being more convincing than the last one by Ulcerate. The drumming has more power behind it , yet is precise and these guys have no problem with seamless transitions in the pace. But even in the face of a technical juggernaut like this the rule applies... cool riffs alone doesn't make a good song. The vocals are the bands weakness as they are low and guttural enough to convince me they mean business but still rather one dimensional.

The title track does well to lead in softly and come back in strong as it gives the album some ebb and flow. Once they are back into the song at full blast  into the meat of the song is where it gets hard to really differentiate itself from some of the riffs that before. The solos tend to clutter the chaos than if they were given the space to stretch out. When the chords are allowed to ring out and reach for the darkness they sound better than when crammed into the more claustrophobic passages.

Though it starts of lost in the momentum like a child running down hill, "Enemies of Compassion" does develop a pretty mammoth riff that it returns to like a thematic element rather than a cheap plot device. However when these guys just straight up go into bludgeoning mode it's not their strong suit as they want to keep too many balls in the air. It's when they let the song breathe in the final two minutes that it gains the most power. They do know when to lead off with a good riff and let it groove before bringing in the circus on top of it, " Ember's Voice" is a good example of this, but it doesn't feel like the road map is very clear on where they should go when they deviate from it, until the slow the pace down and congeal around it.

They take things down to a doom pace on "Absconders". The transitions here are more like the next logical step and seem more natural than some of the jumping through hoops found in other odd places, but the song starts to be come white noise and loose my attention after the first six minutes.  Once again they drop the introduction down to a simmer before pounding you with the meat of the matter on the album closer " Reduced to Silence". They offer sparse breaths of dark cool air in-between hinting at the tension before dropping the hammer back down. This is done more tastefully than expected even though they show an aptitude for dynamics they sometimes forget when overzealous with the heavy. They find some sonics toward the  end the song with as the blur of brutality numbs into white noise. It's these more morse glances towards doom where the band makes the most music rather than banging the lowest notes they can find around.

I'll round this up to an 8 but I don't see it having much continued growth with me as my ear was caught on the initial listen but with each repeated listen it gets more obtuse and collides into slightly boring, though I do like the gray shroud wrapped around the feel of this album.

Crystal Stilts: "Nature Noir"

This is the 3rd full length from the band currently base in Brooklyn, it starts off at a lazy drugged 60's shuffle, with a Morrison like baritone moaning into the bathtub down the hall. The guitars nod off in a manner not unlike some of the less droney moments of the velvet Underground. It encapsulates everything I like about music from the decades, all underground New York Art scene and none of the hippy crap.

The drugged haze begins to clear for something with a little more spry in its step with "Future Folklore" but stays to the Quaalude left of the Stones even at their most Satanic and majestic. The Benzedrine boogie here is a more hopeless party indicative of the lyrics"back to the underworld/back to the sea / back to the garden just you and me."

They are more optimistic in their hung over strum on "Sticks and Stones". I prefer the lower more somber vocal tone to the first two songs. They stay in a dreamy strum of acoustics on "Memory Room" which keeps the more stoned slacker monotone than the album started with.  This band has often been labelled as being post-punk and I don't hear anything to back those claims until the Jesus and the Mary Chain appear. It shows back up on "Words Gone Weird" but unlike like most post-punk or goth, there is some sort of tension and this album is far too relaxed for that label, closer to being psychedelic.

They work the best when creating a bleak oasis of psychic garage rock like " Darken the Door" that wanders off into Doorsish exotic scales and circus waltzes. I have a sinking feeling there was more experimentation being done with drugs than the sonics which tend to return back to acid drenched meanderings that happen to have enough melody to hold them together despite the best attempts of the jangling guitars to lead them elsewhere.

The title track bathes in the heavy reverb of a western and still manages to find a subtle groove. The indie attitude is all over this thing far more than any punk sneer as it is far to dazed and confused to bite back, but it works for this album. Of course I can do without the camp fire guitar strumming and want things to keep the morose feeling and they tip toe this balance when they bring the album to an end with "Phases Forever".  I no longer do the kind of drugs needed to really feel this type of floating exit the album makes but I can recall it.  I'll give this album an 8,  seems like it will grow on me, overall I was caught by surprise by these guys as there is a certain down trodden feel to the album I enjoy a great soundtrack for coming down.

Chelsea Wolfe :"Pain is Beauty"

It's not a secret how I have been dying to get a hold of this one and it has been worth the wait. With "Unknown Rooms" it took a listen or two or it to grow on me but with this album by the time I reach the build of the opener "Feral Love" it grabs me. It's darker and heavier than "Apokalypsis"

"We Hit a Wall" is filled with a desperate beauty, I have already reviewed this song and its as stellar as it was the first time I heard it maybe even more powerful now that I know what to expect from it and can just bathe in it. The electronic elements don't take the easy way out by just droning and Wolfe's voice glides over it like the lonely ghost she always is. The vocals are produced in a similar fashion to other other album very reverb drenched. This is for atmosphere because the gods know she has the pipes to pull this off however she wants.

There is almost an evil Depeche Mode feel to some of the movement in the electronic elements, the ethereal vocals set against the almost retro "Enjoy the Silence" like beats in the end create more of  Cocteau Twins sound. I think its funny that when I brought up Wolfe in the state of the Goth scene panel it was scoffed at by some, but this is the future of dark music in fact at times she makes the likes of Siouxsie seem too peppy. Zola Jesus is going to have to watch her back and come correct if she hope to even be able to touch watch is being done here.

The David Lynch garage swing of "Destruction Makes the World Burn Brighter" is different for her, the darker elements shade the edges in the way the backing vocals haunt the corners.There are moments that sound like they belong on the soundtrack to a transcendental horror movie, "Sick" being the song that brings this to the forefront of my mind. The line  "I'm not the kinda sick that you can fix" is very powerful and when her voice hovers into an acapella section its rapture.

Like a David Bowie this is another reinvention in her approach , but there are still many trademarks to her sound presented and given the spotlight in different ways but still fitting nicely in her body of work. There's a dissonance to "Kings" that could be heard as Krautrock, or obviously dark wave. She drops it back down into "Doom Folk" as she has been most commonly labeled with the strum of  "Reins" sitting against down tempo funeral march that gathers speed as they start down hill. Her voice really shines out of the darkness here, a little more delicate than from what we have heard put to album but a similar style employed live.  The post- rock nuance of the guitar sets a chilling back drop.

There is a twisted Bjork like turn taken on "Ancestors, the Anicents" it has a very powerful throb and the electronic elements do not detract from this still sounding very organic. There are even some slightly proggy elements to some of the guitar playing here. This album is dynamically here strongest as it builds toward the ashes of a burned heaven, drifting like smoke higher than she has soared before. The drumming is also noticeably stronger on this album.

She reverts back to the acoustic guitar on " They'll Clap When You're Gone" this song is the closest thing to what she has done before, so if this growth frightens you then this will be your favorite song as it strikes me as being a left over from another session. While if this was the direction she took this album as whole I'm sure I would like it but it seems like an old song used as filler considering the magnitude of sonic scope she has showed us she is capable of producing. But taken aside by it's self its not a bad song and has a emotive build not unlike those on Unknown Rooms.

The piano driven intro to "the Waves Have Come" doesn't stray to far from her past as well but it's done in a creepier manner to distract me from this fact and by the time the drums come in then the movement has you caught up in this tragic dance . By the next build you have handed her the crown to take the throne as the new queen of goth. Though its a title she will surely reject. She closes this out by dropping it back down to just her and her guitar for the fittingly titled "Lone"  though it builds into a  cowboy ghost of a campfire fire song.  I'll give this a ten since it's the highest rating I albums on here, her glances back to the days of her and her guitar will take time to grow on me after being blown away by the dynamics of the album as a whole.    
      

Up From the Underground: The Boston Boys - "Keep You Satisfied"

This  Boston based band sounds like they belong preforming on a corner of Bourbon Street with the blues inflected roustabout title track that sets their e.p. sailing. Boston is a college town and while from their chops some of the boys obviously attended Berklee, they are more focused on getting the frat party moving than dissecting jazz riffs.

The pop hooks to "Amelia" create an odd juxtaposition between a Justin Timberlake groove and Dave Matthews, while they might be trying to capture more of a roots music sound by the addition of a mandolin and a fiddle, they are used in a manner much more similar to Dave Matthews than anything on the Oh Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack.  The vocals carry r&b nuances in phrasing and benefit from the mix and creative bells and whistles they dabble in on the production side.

The groove is the focal point to mid tempo "Endless Creation" . To these guys credit they manage to have a lot going on around the melody, with every instrument employing fill heavy embellishments to create the jam feel. Sometimes it brings to mind the solo work of Paul Simon, but this could also be said of David Matthews.

"Honeycomb" dances more of a jig around its self. They instrumentation swirls around itself while giving the vocals plenty of room to breathe. The r&b elements slide a little further into the spot light here. It becomes apparent every player is bringing a unique skill set of influences that are being mixed into this jumbo.

The ballad "Take Me Under" reminds me of something Ben Harper might do. The song seems a little too sparse in its attempt to become intimacy, as this sort thing isn't the band's strong suit. They work best when they are throwing a lot of different grooves, sounds and melodies at you and truth be told this folkish ballad is better left to those who that is their forte.

Overall this is a lot of fun and would be welcomes to any party in the French Quarter, though they have a built in audience in their hometown. There is a huge demand for this sort of thing, though only for the more open minded here at Abysmal Hymns, if you appreciate the Dave Matthews Band for their chops and ability to blend unique sounds then you will appreciate this effort as well, as they do not come across as a Dave Matthews Tribute band by any means having a compelling sound of their own.

Ministry: " From Beer to Eternity"

In some ways this feels like 1994 with both bands putting out albums so close together. Where Trent has hung up his industrial hat , Al is not so apologetic about it. This album feels a lot less mall metal than some of the other post- Darkside of the Spoon albums.  The opener is a weird one slower paced , yet more dynamic than what we have been getting from Uncle Al in recent years. As a whole the songs are more dynamic and tend to just pound out the machine drone like they did on "Filth Pig" the only draw back to this is the slick product and glitch blips here and there make this seem less apocalyptic in scope.

The lyrics to "Punch in the Face" seem pretty juvenile to me and the mix on the vocals is a little dry making the gruff quality sound more overtly metal like Fear Factory, but aide from that it's by no means a bad song, but as you know if I'm a fan I hold the bar pretty quality and don't like to make excuses because of their legacy. It's pretty powerful stuff and will be a hit with more mainstream metal heads. When it comes to industrial strength metal, the song "Permawar" does a better job as a whole, there is a greater range of dynamic and it's evident Al took more care in the song writing process. The vocals in the verses dumb it down into more of a straight forward Pantera like metal thing.

They stay on a similar Fear Factory like course on "Perfect Storm" in the fact there is more metal groove than the industrial pound of their most classic work. The samples work more like a call and response than to create a mood like they have in the past ,  the vocals in chorus redeem the song for me and the build at the solo section rocks as well.

The samples feel more like a White Zombie album than the more cerebral tone Ministry should take. The album becomes a glitch ridden sound scape of samples that feels more like a Ministry album, this changes after " Fairly Unbalanced". They begin to take a harsher more experimental direction with the samples and beat you with them similar to the approach that frequents "Psalm 69" . This bleeds over from the end of "Fairly Unbalanced" drowns "the Horror" in it's chaos but keeps it breathing with the pulse of the underlying beats. Fans of Pyschic Tv and Swans will find it very pedestrian but for those who didn't seek out anything more experimental then I 'm sure there will be a fair amount of bugging out but the stoned masses. "The Horror" bleeds into the chaos of the next song.

 The march of " Lesson Unlearned" helps to constrict the album back to together as they flex their metallic muscles and it almost sounds like a groove laden version of KMFDM with the female vocal hook.  "Thanx But No Thanx" starts off in a manner that reminds me of the Lords of Acid song " Marijuana in Your Brain" if  Williams S Burroughs got a hold of it. While I can appreciate the quirky nature of  the first half of this song it feels more like a Tom Waits b-side that I'm not sure I really need to have in my ipod and it could have been put to better use on a Revolting Cocks album. When it builds into the heavy guitar the hooks it cool but it feels like two songs were smashed together.

There is more experimental ambiance to "Change of Luck" serves as one of the albums more interesting moments. The closer "Enjoy the Quiet" is just a static sound scape. While the album includes two remixes for the purpose of this review we are just looking at the sources because if the remixes are better then why didn't they just do that in the first place. I'll give this album a 9.5 and room for it to grow on me, I think the production could stand to be thicker but over all it delivers much closer to home for where I want Ministry to be.