The Year In Music 2011

As I do every year, I've compiled a list of my favourite records to come out this year. This will be posted incrementally in the coming week. But first, some prologue to that list, an elegy for the year that was. Of course, this is really a general overview of some of the trends I noticed and is in no way an attempt to give a complete look at all the important developments in music this year.

2011 was a big year for metal. I suppose this goes without saying, because with its populist intentions and perpetual generation of new fans and bands, metal as a whole has never really declined. The attention paid to it by the music media has fluctuated wildly in the last three decades, but the music itself never left. In any case, the neo thrash revival, along with continuing developments in USBM away from its source musics, the co-mingling of post metal sonic signifiers with purer strains of extreme metal, the continued plodding of doom and sludge denziens, some good old hardcore abandon, and all those classic twin guitarmonies and phantasmagorical lyrical themes are all prominent features of today's metal scene. With the resurgence of a hard rock ethos in the metal underground, the music that is being made is by and large less rigid than it was a decade ago. Today's metallic musicians have displayed a willingness to embrace other forms of metal (and non-metal) when making their music, allowing for a more fluid approach to songwriting. In other words there's a whole lot of good stuff being made, and fewer restrictions than ever before.

Rock music is also doing well, artistically at least, but you won't hear much about the good young rock bands making a go of things these days. Unless you're the Black Keys or a surviving relic of the early 90s (Foo Fighters, Jane's Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers) it seems like nobody wants to fess up that good rock music is still being made. The media and marketplace is in a pop cycle now, so expect they'll find their way back in another year or two. What is really important for rock aesthetically is that the worlds of rock and metal have finally re-converged after a long period of separation, but that's a story for another essay. In any event, if you're looking for some rock that really does rock, you're not going to find it when a description of the band's music has the frankly meaningless prefix "indie" in front of it. In the last 5 years or so, "indie rock" has become a new sort of half-measure for upwardly mobile bands who like to cop the cool of a real rock and roller without dirtying their hands with any of that filthy "rocking out." How passe. A new shadow major label economy has grown up and filled a void in the marketplace left when the majors stopped signing new bands about 15 years ago. Larger indie labels have been quicker to adapt than the majors to how the internet has changed the industry and capitalized in a big way with cross-platform marketing opportunities. This is not to say that the music being produced is bad. Some of it is quite excellent, but the problem is that indie pop is being misrepresented as rock, and this does no one any favors. Critics might grudgingly praise a rock album that embraces and build upon traditional rock elements, but any positive comments will be qualified with sideswipes about relevance and originality. Never mind those bands that are making relevant and original rock music that sometimes do get a boost from the music literatti (Atlas Moth, Baptists, Baroness, Big Business, Black Tusk, Fucked Up, Griever, Kylesa, Lumerians, Russian Circles, Rwake, SubRosa, Thee Oh Sees, Twin Crystals, Torche, Zoroaster... the list goes on), in most cases any coverage they get usually focuses on the non-rock elements of their sound. This middle ground between metal and the non-heavy indie scene is where the real rock is.

2011 was also a major coming out party for the long-lived drone scene. Experimental musicians and avant garde composers have been working this continuum for decades, even predating the rock 'n' drone experiments of the Velvet Underground. Now it seems the appetite for this stuff is exponentially greater than was ever suspected, and regular music fans are finding out that they really like this stuff when they are exposed to it. I would guess that the appeal of 20-minute electronic sound-scapes and minimalist psychedelic mantras is proportional to the overload of 've seen arise since the virtual collapse of the band format in the pop industry. No one actually PLAYS pop music anymore, and in fact no one now listening to pop music even has any memory of played pop music. The oppressively digitized and mass-produced pop music we have today is programmed, as it has been for about 30 years now. The technological freezing of pop music has been destructive to most people's ability to actually hear and understand music, and the vast majority of people don't give a shit. The one unintended consequence of these long term trends that has been beneficial to they pop audience's appreciation of good music in one way at least, and that is in the casual listener's understanding of texture. An ability to derive pleasure out of the tactile surfaces of sound is essential for the enjoyment of drone music, which generally speaking has none of the traditional elements of pop music, hooks, verses, choruses, or rhythms. Drone music also does not require any refined sense of musicality or special skills of its makers to be effective. All that is needed is a desire to explore the possibilities of pure sound. The possibilities here are limitless, because there really are no rules. People are making this stuff up as they go along, a very exciting prospect. As a result, drone musicians have been coming out of the woodwork, and some of them are extremely prolific. The internet has also been crucial for distributing and trading this music, causing the acceleration of the music's development. In 2011, some fabulous recordings were released, and this trend looks to continue into 2012 and beyond.

There were also a few outliers here and there. To get into them all would take too long, suffice it to say that I try to be pretty well rounded and expose myself to quality examples of most types of music. I like lots of different stuff, even if the heavy, freaky, abrasive, noisy weird stuff makes up the majority of my musical diet. The music world is ever widening and evolving and I can't possibly cover it all by myself. If you have any suggestions for things I missed or maybe overlooked, by all means let me know. Moreover, make your own lists. I love reading 'em.

Beastial

*Update* The current GWAR tour is not cancelled. All dates will remain as scheduled.

Guitarist Cory Smoot of GWAR was found dead on his band's tour bus yesterday morning. They were just about to launch a tour of Canada. Smoot, or Flattus Maximus, was 34. Here's a classic track from these guys in tribute. See if you can find a video of those guys wreaking havoc on the hipsters at SXSW last year.

Extended

And I thought I knew something about long songs. This is pretty sweet.

Sage

"If more people worshipped music, the world would be a better place"
-Scott Ian of Anthrax

Amen to that, brother.

Platform

I love the extended guitar workout. Songs that exist for one reason, and one reason only -- so a hotshot axe-picker can blast off and solo his way into the sun. And I'm 'aint talkin' 'bout "Eruption" here, or any whimsical folk breakdown like Steve Howe or Jimmy Page might do. I'm talking about those slow-burning scorchers where the rhythm section locks in and lays down a bone-simple rhythmic bed for the soloist to go off on, and the singer retires from the stage to go get a blowjob from a groupie. They can be any length, but the best ones are the ones where either you never notice the time going by, or they leave you wishing they went on longer. So, without further ado, here is a few of my favorites.

Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno - First, all you hear is the drones and chants of the ancients, as if a giant obelisk looms in the distance. Suddenly a screech of feedback announces the arrival of an amped-up speed-freak boogie riff, and Japanese acid guru Kawabata Motako proceeds to being tearing the riff to pieces for the next 20 minutes. As analog synths pan dementedly and a warped space god makes cosmic pronouncements in the background, Motako carries on a full throttle sonic assault, exploring every scorching harmonic that his ultra-distorted guitar can summon.


Comets On Fire - Blue Tomb
Comets On Fire, where have you gone? For the first half of the 00s, these guys absolutely cold-cocked all comers in the psychedelic ultra-rock weight division. Since 2006 however, not a trace of these guys exists on the internet. Twin guitar godzillas Ethan Miller and Ben Chasny have obviously been busy with their many respective projects, but come on guys. It's been five years. You'd think you could at least hit the studio for a weekend and kick out some apocalyptic space death jams with the tape rolling just to give us heads something. Well, if they well and truly are finished, at least we'll always have this hazy sludge mountain to remember them by. As the titanic finale to Blue Cathedral, one of the greatest rock albums ever made, this 10 minute behemoth has always stood as the band's crowning achievement. Chasny and Miller here go supernova as the rythm section lays down a hypnotic groove anchored by Ben Flashman's supremely fuzzy bass. Unlike other Comets freakouts which are all feedback, distortion and amp scream, this is a controlled explosion in molasses slow-motion build towards a triumphant finale. Spirals of guitar undulate and bisect each other at chaotic angles while never spiralling too far from the song's central bass hook. Noel Von Harmonson's echoplex splatter adds a further dimension of sonic dimentia over top. When the whole thing explodes into a heavenly finale, you'll finally glimpse enlightenment. Too band they haven't been around in a while to take us back there.


Built To Spill - Broken Chairs
Doug Marsch is the rarest of things, an indie rock guitar hero. I don't know when hipsters decided that being a really good guitarist was actually a bad thing, but clearly no one told this guy. For a man that has made his career penning unforgettable melodies and twee as fuck ruminations on halcyon innocence, Marsh can absolutely wail on his axe. There is no better showcase for his fuzzy, Crazy Horse-inspired leads than the closing number from their 1999 Keep It Like A Secret album. Check out the 19 minute version on the aptly titled Live album if you really wanna hear him tear a hole in the universe.

Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
George Clinton told Eddie Hazel to "play like yo mamma just died," and for the next 9 minutes, Hazel lays down an apocalyptic sonic trip through the gates of hell. Although he does pick up into some flashy, shredding licks at times, most of the solo accentuates Hazel's heavily delayed and distorted wah-inflected tone with masterfully sustained notes and emotionally devastating bends. If Hazel had done nothing else besides this song, he'd still deserve to rank among the greatest guitarists of all time. As it happens, he's all over the first three Funkadelic records, each of them a true psychedelic classic.

Jimi Hendrix - Red House
Really, any number of Hendrix tracks could have belonged on this list, but I've always had a soft spot for this cool Mississippi blues workout. Hendrix would often channel his earthy soul and years of chitlin circuit experience on this song, which he often extended up to 15 minutes or more in concert. Although not a pre-requisite for a great guitar showcase, his excellent vocal performance is of note. He's in full lover-man persona here, his vocals dripping with character and sexual desire. This is interesting, because Hendrix himself thought he was a bad singer, an assertion that I never agreed with.


Neil Young - Like A Hurricane
Not that Niel Young has a shortage of extended guitar jam platforms, but I've always been particularly in love with this song. Though he was known to stretch it out to impossible lengths in concert, this mainstay of his set never bores me. Well, maybe if you include his 33 minute sound collage Arc, but I don't. This song's unforgettable melody is couched in some of Young's most expressive soloing and bookended by his emotionally devastating singing. An absolute masterpiece.

Randy Holden - Fruit & Icebergs
Randy Holden recorded a version of this song with Blue Cheer on their New! Improved! album, but he was only a member of those rapidly fading sludge barons at the tail end of their initial period of greatness. Holden himslef stuck around long enough to record just one side of the record, then went off to record his incredible Population II solo debut, from which this song was taken. The album itself is a love letter to the electric guitar, an example of just how far you can go with one drummer, one supremely gifted axe-slinger, and a wall of amplifiers. This version of "Fruit & Icebergs" is done in gloriously sludgy half-time with twice the fuzz of the original. Holden's jaw-dropping excursions take 60's inspired hard rock and electric blues cliches straight into the ionosphere. You can almost hear the sweat beads running down Holden's forehead and the grimace on his face as he bends into and out of notes all over his punished fretboard. No doubt about it, the man sounds like he's digging a grave. Too bad the album didn't get released for 20 years and the record company sold his gear out from under him, kicking off Holden's 25 year exile from the music world.

Robin Trower - Bridge Of Sighs
I can't get over how rich and thick Trower's tone is on the title track from his 1974 solo album. Trower was never the fastest or most technical player, but when it came to nailing those slow, endless and liquid-smooth space-blues licks, no one has done it better save of Hendrix himself.

Sonic Youth - Hits Of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg)
This is actually a group guitar jam, but the song's lazy lope is the perfect place for Thurston Moore and Lee Ronaldo to slather their molten, fuzz-caked guitars all over a gently babbling river of hallucinogenic sound. Take the trip.

Silly

Just for fun side project: Motörhead dubstep remixes. I'd call it The Bass Is Better Than The Snatch. Hey, crazier things have happened.

Devastation

So due to my recent re-discovery of The Sound Of The Beast, I've been excavating that magical 1982-1984 period in which all disparate strains of black, death, power, doom and good old fashioned classic heavy metal exploded outward, diverging with the power of an atom being split. As the shards from the initial metal detonation spurred by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal hurtled onward and upward, genres would soon become rigidly codified. Excellent and powerful music would result, but I've always had a particular fascination with this period, when the lines were still blurry and scene politics not as dogmatic. It's especially interesting to note that by 1984, the great steel lords like Saxon, Iron Maiden, Motorhead and Judas Priest and American counterparts like Manowar were all still firing on all cylinders, while most of the bands who would shape the direction of heavy metal over the next 15 plus years were already in place, either as underground tape-trading fixtures or fresh-faced fusiliers recording debut albums and playing local shows, and even a few groups of teenagers thrashing about in smokey beer-soaked practice pads.

Here is a list of some favourites, new and old, that have been getting extra spins at the altar recently.

Anvil - Metal On Metal Canadian power metal legends best known for appearing in a documentary which portrayed them as a real-life Spinal Tap. Fortunately, a new generation has re-discovered these guys, and fallen in love with ridiculous anthems like the title track and the groupie-slaying sleeze tributes "Tag Team" and "Jackhammer." The leather bondage gear and musical vibrators that were synonymous with their stage dress only adds to their perverted appeal.

Bathory - Bathory Although later they became notable for pioneering the ultra-epic micro genre of viking metal, Sweden's Bathory began life as ultra-crude Venom wannabes. I mean that in a good way. This was a vital step in the creation of black metal.

Exciter - Heavy Metal Maniac A great missing link between classic heavy metal and mid-80s thrash, this Ontario band worked much of the same ground as early Metallica, thrashing with wild-eyed abandon and displaying a love for Sabbath's heavy riffage and Motorhead's breakneck speed. For a year or two at least, these two bands were neck and neck, though these guys never really topped themselves after this. Standout track is the ultraheavy "Iron Dogs," but there isnt a weak track here. An overlooked classic.

Iron Maiden - Number Of The Beast
Not much needs to be said about this record. Iron Maiden's first record with Bruce Dickinson saw them leaving their punked-up pub-metal roots in the dust in favour of elaborate, classical compositions and fantastical (rather than macabre) lyrical themes that would define the career of one of the greatest bands of all time.

Judas Priest- Screaming For Vengence
This was Priest at their commerical peak. Touring the world with Iron Maiden in tow, the twin titans created legions of fans everywhere they went. Some of Priest's catchiest songs can be found here, with Downing and Tipton's trademark dual lead guitars carving molten chunks of sound with laser precision. Everythime I hear "You've Got Another Thing Coming" on the radio on our local classic rock stations, I always crank the volume.

Manowar - Into Glory Ride The manliest men who ever manned. Manowar would carry the flame for true heavy metal for decades, but this is one of their best efforts. In particular, "Gloves of Metal" ranks as one of the grestest fist-in-the-air, call-to-arms metal anthems of all time.

Mercyful Fate - Melissa
The arcane, mystical aura of Denmark's Mercyful Fate is matched by their highly accomplished musical feats on spellbinding compositions like "Into The Coven," "Satan's Fall" and the mesmerizing title track. Kind Diamond 's unbelieveable falsetto is in fine form here, and their phenomenoal musicianship and gothic sensibility would have a powerful influence on everyone from Metallica to Mayhem.

Metallica - Kill 'em All
Metallica kick-started a new era in metal with their heavy chugging rythms, giving birth to the thrash metal aesthetic fully formed on their debut. Unlike later albums though, this is pure, unrefined work by a band obsessed with heavy metal, with each song coming loaded by at least six or seven riffs and as many shredding guitar solos. Hetfield's vocals are a little high and screechy, but the band gets by on enthusiasm and sheer conviction. They would never sound like this again, and Kill 'em All captures a young and hungry band on the cusp of greatness.

Motorhead - Another Perfect Day
Easily the most underappreciated Motorhead album. Former Thin Lizzy guitarist Brian Robertson stopped by to inject his fluid, melodic style into the Motorhead machine, and the results have polarized fans ever since. For me, tracks like "Shine" deserve to be ranked among the very best the band had to offer, though if one were to ever categorize a Motorhead album as conventional, this would be it.

Saxon - The Power & The Glory This was Saxon's commercial peak, and great ragers like "Redline" that channeled the drive of their early biker metal roots were bolstered by the elaborate slow build of "The Eagle Has Landed." Things were getting slicker production-wise for them, but on this album, and to a lesser extent 1984's Crusader, Saxon still ranked among the best that Britain had to offer.

Slayer - Show No Mercy Dave Lombaro's shockingly fast drumming and the ultra-evil imagery of Tom Arya's psychotic screams distinguished Slayer very early on. Unlike other speedfreaks like D.R.I. or C.O.C. Slayer was equally interested in the technically accomplisehed tendencies of classic heavy metal. Their chops were raw, but song structures were not being simplified, simply sped up to vaporization speed while still retaining the instrumental breaks and complex bridges. A radical and extremely influential debut.

Venom - At War With Satan
The final of Venom's essential proto-black metal template-setting albums, At War With Satan's epic title track is effectively metal's answer to Milton's Paradise Lost. This is far from the basement-value ineptitude of Welcome To Hell. Here, they prefigure all the baroque tendencies that some angry scandanavian teenagers would ride to infamy in the coming decade.

Warlock - Burn The Witches Germany's Warlock did a raw, energetic take on power metal with a thrashy edge, and threw the soaring vocals of metal-goddess Doro over top. The effect is all shredding, wailing guitars, flying hair and relentless drumming crystalized into pure unadulterated heavy metal.