Haunted Horses : "the Watcher"

The new album by this Seattle based project comes to life by kicking into a dark tribal hammer of drums and guitars screaming out from the dark depths where this album must have been conceived. The pound of the band awakening here is only two minutes and bleeds right into the next song "Goetia" which sonically builds from the opener, with the low ghostly moan crooning desperately over the frantic guitar that builds through out, until the chant rises up from this dismal pit into a scream. Not unlike early industrial namely Greed era Swans. It works more on hypnotizing than creating some kinds of dance floor groove.

The somewhat Bauhaus bellow of "The Moon's March" captures the creepy Halloween feel of what most think of goth, but while keeping up the droning pound the album previously established but its to a post- apocalyptic funeral here. It even brings to mind the tribal brand of industrial craziness bands like Crash Worship once invoked, especially on the percussion heavy "Children of Light", though the vocals here remind me a little of Lard on the verses.

The intro to "the Void " is thick synth drone, followed by the low spectral vocals and percussion. I am sure some will try to write off some of the more minimalist electronic throbs as being kruat rock, or even cold wave, but it is more abrasive than either sub genre. The drumming is impressive and the fact it is so organic in it's execution is crucial to the bands sound.


The noise chaos of "Lumenance" is the first hint of the death rock tag that I feel is justifiable, though there is more Swans like pound to it than anything Christian Death did during the Rozz years at least. It is hammered into place in a manner I feel can't be done justice in the studio, but still the execution is convincing enough, am sure this is once of those bands you walk away think their albums don't do them justice.

The death rock passion of lovers comes across in "The Animist in the Gallery of Muses" , the vocals take on more emotive inflection and the dissonant bat cave guitar, jangles creepily throughout the tomb, they must have recorded this in. The goth moments are not for your pretentious Thursday night dress ups, as you aren't going to be swatting bats and throwing dead roses to this.

"White Eyes" despite its angular noise and chants in the back ground, takes on some of the more rocking dynamics, in the chorus riff , which pounds the nails in the coffin with a hook to the beating it comes with.I'll give this album a 9.5 though it might grow into a 10, as every time it pops up on shuffle mode, I remember how much I like it but it's so dense and angular, and all too often noisy that it doesn't nag at you to obsessively listen to it like most albums I rate of as a ten which I can just leave on.  


       

Holograms : "Forever"

I've been hunting down this album the Stockholm based punk band since it's release, even contacting their manager who is vacationing in Australia. This release sees, the punk roots intact , but the post- label is firmly in place as it has a dark spacious not confined by the raw explosion punk is normally limited to. This is displayed out the gate with the opener "Sacred State".

Things continue to drift into darker waters as the album progresses , it finds as much common ground with Joy Division and New Model Army as it does the likes of Iceage. The Iceage comparison comes as there is not the hugest classic punk influence, unless we are talking about the middle ground when bands like Suicide and Joy Division were thought of as punk.The songwriting here has much more depth and thought behind it than what you would typically think of as punk. I would even go as far as to say they are even a step ahead of other  northern euro-punkers like Iceage when it comes to the dynamic range of their song writing.The use of Keyboards on this albums adds to this fact.

"Meditations" starts pretty straight forward high tension fashion as a lot of this sort of post-punk coming out and then gets a bigger sounding hook on the chorus, but is still coming from the same zip -code as Bellicose Minds. In fact I think this band bridges the gap between bands like Bellicose Minds and bands like Lower and Iceage. They stay the course , with bass driven march on"Attestupa", the reverbed guitar lines wander around the bass, while the interplay still makes it dancey enough for goth night.

The attention to detail when it comes to making catchy songs remains intact on the more synth dominated "Luminous" the guitar line almost strays into death rock, if he had more Bela Lugosi rather than the snotty punk baritone croon he uses for most of the album, "Rush" takes things back into the tense Joy Division like propulsion. This one didn't grab much as much as the rest of the album has so far , but it grew on me by the songs end as it coalesces into more of a hooky build.

You could almost call "Wolves" a slow song , if compared with the pace the band has kept most of the album, but not a ballad by any means it falls on the more deliberate end of mid tempo. There are some really raw scraping guitar sounds on this one and it builds into loose sonic deconstruction. The more traditionally goth "Laughter Breaks the Silence" still keeps things pretty punk in the bat cave. The song drives harder than even Ian Curtis and the boys. 

At almost six minutes " A Blaze on the Hillside" is the albums longest track. A minute and a half in it breaks down from it's straight ahead punk charge , it really only breathes on the punk tom pulses, and isn't a bad song it is the most sonically and dynamically flat , with the guitar melody that surfaces halway through as the most interesting part.

"Lay us Down " closes out the album, his voice takes on a more melodic quality here and comes the closest to more thought and melody being put into his vocal approach and marks the singers high point of the album and the songs brings the album to a close with a more melodic swell. I'll go ahead and round this album up to a 10 as "A Blaze on the Hillside" is the only tune that seemed a little redundant, but I will give it the benefit of the doubt that it will grow on me.          

Loss of Self : "Twelve Minutes"

To dismiss this bands as being Deafheaven wannabes is selling yourself short. Comparisons can be drawn to Deafheaven, but  this band from  Melborne, is darker and more prone to wander into shoegazing territory. Tracks from their demo,  that founds it's physical copies quickly consumed, are remastered and found on here as well.

The vocals when they go into the scathing sneer, do have a tonal quality similar to that of Deafheaven, but they are not limited to that register going into lower growls.The first two minutes of  "Free Intelligence" they lay the blasty mcnasty on thick, and then float off into a more melodic guitar line in the final minute. "the Inheritance" is under two minutes and holds onto the narcotic sway of shoegaze for most of the song before building into cavernous and rawer black metal than what Deafheaven is about.

The guitars take on almost more of an indie rock jangle on Isolt, as dynamic smartly written song, with moody layers than encompass more than melancholy even though there is a reflective sadness to how the chords ring out, the vocals get even more tortured here reminding me more of Depressive Suicidal Black Metal in the way they gurgle. The bass playing here gets some props as well, for it finds melodies beneath the guitar in a way most black metal bands don't.

The use of clean vocals on this album is very interesting in they are buried behind the sonic layers and low-post-punkish, think Joy Division when they are audible, but mostly come across like a distant chant that makes you wonder if your ears are playing tricks on you when listening to "Paradise Overgrown" . The bass and drums add qa punchy throb to shove the murky mass of guitars forward.

The blast returns on "the Mind, Its Form and Function" though a minute in they give you breathing room. The recording is interesting lo-fi, in a way that will appeal to fans of raw black metal and are stuck in the cvlt sounds , but there are many sonic layers. There is a lot going on here and it takes a few listens to take it all in.On "Seidiltz" this is done in a weird tempo riff that the riff of the band swirls around, it slows and ebb and flow is steered into another direction, creating a sound that is very unique to this band, almost like a Sonic Youth of black metal.

"There Must Be Great Wisdom" touches back onto the more indie rock sounds even though there are screaming echoing over it. The drummer and the bass player are really locked into a drunken dance around it all. Aside from the screaming , the first half of the song there are no elements of black metal, even when the faster drumming kicks in their is a strange haze shimmering over everything, with elements of noise rock. The title track, takes a bizarre sonic middle ground with the My Bloody Valentine elements coating everything even when the metal roars to life after the first minute. When they go full speed ahead with the blasting it almost feels like they are taking the easy way out when it compared to the creative paths they have taken their sound.   I'll go ahead and around this album up to a 10 and expect to see it popping up somewhere on my metal albums of the year list , depending on how it grows on me.




7.8

Why Goth Won't Die

For a sub culture so centered around death, goth won't die. If you are a regular reader here then, you have to be aware the music keeps finding new ways to be reborn. In a recent article Louise Tickle a goth herself wrote on how goths grow up she explores a few reasons for this...see below
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/oct/24/goth-culture-research

But when she poises the question regarding why it endures life changes more than punk and raving, she misses out on on key factor, goth is about embracing you are rather than who you are not like punk. Punk rock is for rebellious suburban teenage, it carries a different kind of anger than say metal. Metal, another subculture that doesn't carry the same visual staying power, with symbols such as the cutting of hair, is more empowering than punk, though garnished with a high dose of fantasy and escapism, where punk is grounded in a hyper-shitty reality they are giving the finger to.

Sure ,there are place like Little Five Points in Atlanta or Venice Beach where some punks are in Never Never Land and staying true but many of these are maintaining this because it is giving them a reason  to not just keep punk alive , but also their alcoholism, which punk is a justifying sound track to cloud their denial of. The rave culture is the same in this regard, their are no elder ravers, because hard drugs do not  carry success stories. There are three options, get sober, go to jail or die.

More proof who can pull off what they do better over 50 Dead Can Dance or Jello Biafra ? Jello and Rollins are doing spoken word or voice overs to car commercials. Danzig is more metal than punk and get memes made for buying cat litter.In a lot of goths, became goths after growing out of punk...Nick Cave, I'm looking at you.

If something centers around your other interests it's more likely to have staying power, you don't meet many people who say, I use to like horror movies and the Cure. You don here a lot of stories of "I use to be a punk , begging for change..." but those are all told in A.A. meetings.

My daughter finds punk and metal too be to loud at times for her developing ears , but she doesn't mind the Cure and will even dance to it. She has seen Nightmare Before X-mas as many times as she has seen Finding Nemo, but probably not as many as she has seen Labyrinth, but it's not a touching as when she squeezes my neck and says "I Love Daddy, he's my Wolf-man", moments that come from parenting on the dark side.        

Cokegoat: " Vessel"

With three voices screaming over the rolling poly- morph of riffs to creates a Mastodon like feel. It's too up beat for me to really call this sludge as the riffs are sharp and jagged with a straight up metal attack.It roars to life in this pre-Blood Mountain mode of attack though more grindcore than sludge until the riffs settle into a slower groove with keyboards causing the song to float a little midway through.

I have always though if you want to play like Led Zeppelin then listen to more Robert Johnson than you do Jimmy Page, and these kids are well polished on their Neurosis. "Buried in the City" find them wielding big clunky doom riffs more like High on Fire, the vocal layering is more Neurosis, and it's a moderately cool, riff , but the rule around here is cool riffs alone do not make a song.

They are good, players, the drummers leads the pack here, which is similar to Mastodon, and their bass player might even be better than Troy, but the riffs are not as original .The melodies when the appear aren't really hooky, though on what might be the chorus to dogs, things congeal well. It builds in a very similar manner to what Neurosis might do in the Through Silver and Blood era. They do take the occasional jammy wander to let the songs breath returning to the chant of the chorus.

The keyboards don't really come out of the closest to make their presence known until, "End of Your Life part 1" the riffs get bigger and make for a more monstrous gallop. The second part of this song is thundering but in  much more deliberate manner and almost like a half time reprises of the first part."Fly by Night 2" is no a sequel to the Rush song. It hammers into the song with some great drumming but no clear motive but to pound you. The more grind core side is abandoned fora slower more melodious metal riff, and I'm sure their are some people who might find this to be genius, but it sounds like something I have already heard. The first passing listen to this album I found entertaining, but really sitting down to listen to it makes me underwhelmed.

If these guys paid more attention to melody, they would be better songs writers, the keyboardist, sings on "Fly by Daylight"  and her voice gives it a more Kylesa feel and its one of the albums better songs. The riff hit harder when they are more thought out rather than blind swinging for the fences. By the time we get to " Glorious Dead" their hasn't been enough to convince me that this deserves to take up the space on my iPod. The chug they close things out with is more Electric Wizard, and they continue to jam around and look for ways to riff out of this. Well recorded and well played , but more fodder for teenagers who like a sound no matter how derivative it might be, I'll give it a 6.    

Glorior Belli : Gators Rumble, Chaos Unfurls

Though I like them, it is a little confusing  how this band from France sounds like stoner bikers trekking through the deserts of Arizona. The were once considered black metal but now there is nothing really black metal about them and they sound to have more in common with Eyehategod than Mayhem . There are traces of the black metal dissonance on songs like "the South Will Always Know My Name" it stays at a slow sludge like pace, not creepy enough to be doom.

There is a Black Sabbath foreboding to opening riffs of "Blackpowder Roars". The vocals are really raw and gnarly, with a distorted filter over them that sounds like they were recorded using blown out speakers. The organic fuzz to the guitar tone reminds me of the first Down album and the riffs are loaded with as much groove.

"Wolves at My Door" they bring the blast back for a minute, before they wind up back in a whiskey soaked shuffle, doused in the double bass.The next t hint of black anything is on "I Asked For Wine, He Gave Me Blood",  I like the chorus on that , it reminds me of Deicide for some reason and parts are rather Watain of them. So it's proof they haven't lost it, and are just choosing to pretend like they are from South Louisiana. Some of the riffs even go as far as to remind me of Corrosion of  Conformity.

It gets a little darker on "Le Blackout Blues" the guitar riffs leave a lot of sonic space for everything to ring out.  Two minutes in it really pick up into a quick boogie before the drugs kick in a slow them back down.  They are pros at coming up with good dark lead ins to songs, the problems seem to occur when the build reckless momentum, "Backwoods Bayou" keeps the cool sonic element but stay instrumental and never fully realizes it as a song. Where a song like " Ain't No Pit Deep Enough" has a fairly straightforward intro and stays the course in Crow Bar like territory, but with nastier vocals and bluesier guitar embellishments. There is a cool that gets layered over the distorted crawl.

At times thing border line the Panterrible southern groove thing too closely for my taste-buds and doesn't have enough blackened elements. Then there are moments like "A Hoax , A Croc" where they manage to ooze the darkness out the pentatonic murk.It rears it riff up and runs at you like a wild boar midway through the song. There are coarse sung vocals that pop every now and then, and they are very Phil Anselmo.

"From One Rebel to Another" has a large does of stoned boogie to it, and makes hope the French government will crack down on the importation of Pantera in France as they have a great scene and don't want it contaminated by too much of this. You can put this album on shuffle mode and all the songs seem to blend into one another just seamlessly as they do when you listen to it straight through.  There is a groove to "Built For Discomfort" you can not resist head banging to, despite the Down thing it finds it self leaning back into .

The album closes down shop with the title track, that has a more hazy simmer to it and the bass player opens up and wanders around under the guitar solos. The  vocals here remind me of a rougher Venom for some reason. Some of the Southern sludge elements given a coat of darkness here, have already been done better by Acid Bath, though this is a much more grime glazed album. I'll give this one a 7.5 as , it's decent for what it is and ends on a high note, me and this band have grown apart , but if you want to hear what happens when a black metal band turns into Down, check it out for sure.



8.4

Falkenbach:"Asa"

As the winter nears, I begin to crave more viking in my metal, but rarely can folk metal bands deliever, as most are too happy and sound like silly drinking songs or growling over polka. In the past I had given Falkenbach a listen, but have hardly been blown away by past efforts so I gave the new album by the one man German band a shot, the opener  Vaer Stjernar Vaerdan, has the Lord of the Rings epic feel I like but without being to happy. In fact the clean vocals are mournful, unlike the more triumphant Tyr, who gets so up beat their trip over themselves into silliness.

So the album was off to a good start, but can Markus Tummers, craft a entire album as convincing. Well the harsh vocals and accelerated pace of "Wulfarweijd" sound like a more black metal Finntroll , but more angry than frolicking. It charges head on into battle, but so do most other bands of this ilk, with little variance except onward into the battle.

The acoustic guitars that start the swinging gallop of "Mijn Laezt Wourd" has more personality to it. It drones on the riff until the vocals come in and the tempo modulates to accommodate the melody. The pace of this reminds me of the newer Primordial. Brozen Embrace goes into a more straight up black metal riff ,but it is done much more effectively this time.

The strum of the clean guitars returns to lead off "Eweroun" but the metal guitars are evenly blended with the acoustics.This song chugs along nicely with its flowing sway.It seems the pattern established is to take the riff and sail it across the seven seas, building on it in waves rather than any changes . A mid-period Enslaved riff storms out across the tundra with "I Nattens Stilta". Melodic layers are added in the songs second half and when the double bass lets up it even takes a more folkish tone.

It 's is like every other song has breathing room as "Bluot Fuer Bluot" treads more melodic ground , though still bears a stomp over the ice. It seems like the melodic vocal lines have improved greatly from what I remember of the earlier work. It reverts back to more of a black metal feel in the final two minutes. The formula stays intact as "StikkeWound" goes for the throat with an epic blast, that paves the path for an even bigger gallop, where Amon Amarth, like to play viking, this sounds much more convincing, though will only sell a fraction of their numbers.

And album ends with some breathing room, as the strum of acoustic guitar propels this Germanic pagan  ode. The drumming is pretty tasty here and keeps the song soaring over the camp fire.I'll give this album an 8.5 , it exceeded my expectations, even though it at times can be a little predictable and could use more experimentation with the folk elements, but for a one man band it's fair to say this is damn impressive.