LA Noir, Low, Inverta -- I dub thee METAL

Gonna take my pregnant woman (42 weeks and contracting--wooooo!!) and my girl Lucy to Best Buy and get LA Noir. It's gonna be totally metal.

I'm also gonna look for the new Low album. Also totally metal.

Lastly, I found this band today on MySpace. So if you click that link be prepared to load a super slow MySpace band page. I think the first song, the only one I listened to, is instrumental because they're looking for a singer. I might be wrong. Anyway, don't they sound like Tool from the AEnema/Undertow days? More modern, of course. I kinda like em. They're named Inverta.

YouTube - Transformers 3 : Dark of the Moon - Official Trailer 2 [HD]

YouTube - Transformers 3 : Dark of the Moon - Official Trailer 2 [HD]

The best thing about this preview is the music. The movie could be the best of all three, but that's beside the point. The music to this trailer is really cool. I could see it in a metal format really easily.

Deathspell Omega--Chaining the Katechon

I feel as though I can't even talk about Deathspell Omega. They're so fucking crazy, awesome, unflinchingly and sorrowfully all black metal. Dissonant beyond dissonance, yet retaining melody.

I'm listening to Chaining the Katechon (2008). One 22-minute song. Starts as if it was in the middle of an extreme black metal song. No intro. Full on nutbars right at the get-go. Guitars full of distortion, scraping- the-dungeon-walls vocals, drums hitting maddening  rhythms I can't begin to comprehend.

The weirder it is, the more I'm interested. This hits the nail on the head. Those French posturers. Those pretentious black metal elitists.

How dare they tempt me so. They manifest my desire for weirdness with their ultra-weird music, something few other bands aspire to do.

They use a lot of techniques and sounds that other black metal bands don't. The sound varies, differs, stays interesting, fresh. Terrifying, even. It's recorded well, too, with emphasis on a lovely mixture of all sounds. Nothing is too loud, nothing is too distorted. The music swells, quells, and loops over mountains of suffering. It's not so heavy that it's stupid and you scoff at it. They kick off half the distortion sometimes and totally change up the feel of what they're doing.

They probably could have made this piece many songs, but then that would require less attention from the listener. Deathspell demands your attention, or they can just as well leave you behind. They do nothing to draw in the casual listener; they do everything to draw in the avant garde listener.

Elitists. How I love Deathspell.

Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe

Read about it here at Wikipedia if my synopsis is less than your prog dork mind wants to envelop regarding these four dudes. Because if you're reading this, you probably recognize their names as belonging to four of the dudes in Yes, sans the bassist, during their greatest period. This lineup put out the four Yes albums that I have--Close to the Edge, Fragile, Tormato, and Tales from Topographic Oceans.

Edge and Fragile are easily the best of those four works, the former being less accessible, the later being more rock oriented. Both are sweet, weird prog rock albums that rely more on musical innovation and technical ability than lots of distortion and typical rock song formats. They've become two of my favorite vinyls to listen to.

So I pick up this used cd of ABWH, not knowing what to expect. And goddam, it's crazy. It's really 80's, and annoyingly so. But by track 6, they're doing some cool jazz-infused jamming... ugh, then it starts sounding like it could be Jimmy Buffet or some such drivel.

It certainly was a find. I think I'll like it during the next listen. I don't know when I'm ever going to have the patience to listen to the whole thing all the way thru. Lots of it is just too happy for me. I'll grumblingly admit that it is very family-friendly, if it ever comes to that.

The album was released in '89. The Yes lineup had already gone thru extensive changes. So there was Yes, and then there was ABWH, both wanting to play Yes songs, and both, in my mind, having the right to. And get this--the NEW Yes sued the OLD Yes (ABWH) to keep all mentions of Yes off their promo releases! Fucked up!

Waltari discovery

YouTube - Waltari: In The Cradle

I had no idea about this band until I saw the review from Avant Garde Metal. The video is really awesome. I love that singer. He's got acting talent as well as vocal, and stage presence. Reminds me of Marilyn Manson quite a bit--sometimes it's flinchingly corny and goth, and the musicianship isn't so spectacular. But it's really cool how the song flows, and the middle path has a pretty cool metal riff and the backing band really shines. The singer really does a good job of keeping you interested the whole way through.

One way he's better than Manson is that he's singing well. His voice isn't all coked out. Yeah, I said it, Manson. You crazy fuck.

My favorite part of the Cradle video is when he looks back at her, like, "Aren't you coming?" I won't say much more. It comes at the end of the video. He acts with his facial expressions, and it's pretty hilarious. He's a real character, this singer guy. I really like him. He does very well at creating moods.

This is good modern metal. I would definitely put it somewhere between industrial metal and metal. It's pretty rockin. Pretty driving throughout. Good stuff.

Meshuggah - Catch Thirty-Three

Explorers of New Metal Ground

Alright, I usually don't like all-screaming vocals, but this band really does it for me.

For one thing, he's not screaming all the way through every song. Oftentimes he just lets the band do its thing, sometimes for several minutes at a time. I can imagine him onstage, feeling the energy of the crowd, the band, and just waiting for that chance for his part to come up, building up that energy, walking the stage, feeling his own inner zen, being at peace among the heaviness and the fellow math metal bretheren, and when he does finally release his screams, he's had time to build it up and concentrate and make it sound awesome.

He's also really just about using his voice as an instrument, rather than a way to make you feel sorry for him. There's no angst in his vocals. No childishness. No room for love. He stares death in the face and feels the fear of the images his band's metal conjures.

And the guitars.... oh my god. On Catch, the two guitarists are playing custom-built, Ibanez 8-string guitars. The band's very informative Wikipedia page contains a quote from one of the guitarists where he says that trying to play power chords on one of those 8-string beasts sounds too mushy. It makes sense. You ever try to play a low power chord on a bass guitar? It sounds like shit, unless you really know what you're doing and have a good sound. That's why all the riffs on Catch are single-string riffs, similar to bass lines. Somehow it's still ultra-metal and ultra-brutal. This album certainly conquers new ground in metal.

One feeling I get from this album is one of ... I dunno, a mechanical mechanation of some sort. Like the people making this music aren't human. Lots of metal, especially screamo metal, reminds me more of human weakness than strength..


The combination of two guitarists and a bassist playing those single-note lines, all the same, give those lines a big sound. A less discerning listener might think that the band is just one guitarist, a drummer and the vocalist. But that's cause all three of those Swedes are playing in exact unison. It's a sound you won't get with any other band. It's thick and mechanical and human. Meshuggah borrows from no one, except maybe Metallica, and every metal band must do this. It's in the rules.

Another important thing about this band--they almost never are playing in 4/4 time. It's beautiful. You have to remain open to suggestion with Meshuggah, cause you can never predict where they're gonna go. It's not really easy metal to follow, but it is easy to listen to. Because, somehow, you can bob your head to almost all of their riffs. Metal definitely needs a beat you can get behind, even if every rhythm is a polyrhythm. Somehow their drummer is so kickass that he can go along with these insane guitar lines, and yet make it head-bob-able.

Every song on Catch is a movement in the one song that comprises the whole album. Lots of tracks will change without you realizing it, unless you dutifully watch the track times, which is boring. It adds a prog element to the music. There are recurring themes and riffs that are heard all throughout the album, and yet there are still individual songs to pick out. Here is a video for one such song, "Shed." It comes near the end of the album. It's the epitome of badass. Enjoy.

Radiohead: The King of Limbs review

The new Radiohead album, King of Limbs, is a perfect example of a band stepping out on a limb.

Either that, or it's about a big giant tree. I can't tell. I don't want to exactly find out right away--the exploring of new Radiohead material, to find your own meaning in their weird music, is what I like most about the band: the exploration factor.

I'm not going to pretend that I know exactly what to feel about Limbs. I'm not crazy about the album, but I don't dislike it either. It's too advanced for me right now. It's hit me in an unexpected place. It's from a plane of existence I have not experienced yet. Something foreign. Alien, but from Earth. I want to listen to it more to find out what it's all about. You can probably find somewhere to stream it, if you look hard enough.

What I will not do is say something stupid, like, "I can't believe they'd betray their listeners like this." Additionally, I will not pass undue judgement on the album, as if I have any claim to it or know anything about the writing process the band went through to create it. I'll bet some of the band members were as apprehensive about putting this out as they were Kid A.

Artists must be able to put out what they want, when they want. We'll still eat it up with a spoon. We need new, interesting art, and artists need to be free to make whatever art they want, free of boundaries and gatekeepers and worries of how they might piss off their undeserving fans by creating art that doesn't sound similar to their previous work.

Many people really want to hate this album. I've heard one reviewer say that he wanted more sweeping, emotional moments on Limbs, like he found on In Rainbows. It seems like Radiohead were sick of giving people emotional, sweeping moments, and I don't blame them. It made them into rock stars, caught in the whirlwind of fame. It's made them jaded as hell, and who wouldn't be in that situation?

A friend of mine said, "I sure hope this is a joke album, and not the new Radiohead." Well, go cry over a cup of tea and How to Disappear Completely if you're so worked up about it. Let out those demons. Then realize that Yorke, Greenwood, Selway, O'Brian, and Greenwood don't have to do anything they don't want to; further, they must be allowed to fulfill themselves creatively. If Limbs is how they do that, then they must be respected for their choice. If not, they may just get too pissed at the world, say Fuck you, I'm leaving and you can't have any more of my sweet music, and we'd have to right to complain. Ever read Atlas Shrugged?

Radiohead choose not to dwell in the past; their fans should, too. I mean, come on, it's not like all their old classic albums are going to disappear completely. What many people will realize, after the smoke of Limbs' release clears, is that this album is an integral part of Radiohead's collection, and a natural following of their previous works. They're sick of fame anyway. They have been since OK Computer. They don't want to be big rock stars anymore; they just want to be themselves--weird, quirky, having fun, not worrying about critics.

Evidence:


I totally respect Radiohead for, once again, going out on a limb and creating music nobody expected them to create. We don't need more of the same, no matter how much we want it.