I listen to a lot of metal. Black metal, death metal, grindcore, whatever. I like things that are heavy and brutal. But the thing is, your eardrums get calloused over time. You can only listen to so many bands that are trying to be the heaviest, sickest, most brutal motherfuckers in the world before you start to kind of think you’ve already heard all of the final frontiers of extremity. So when I first heard “The Blood-Dimmed Tide,” the first song on Anaal Nathrakh’s new album Vanitas, I was taken completely by surprise. Actually, it ripped my fucking head off. This record is so insanely over the top aggressive, so technically pristine, it’s blastbeats so ferociously fast and its vocal howls so dementedly tortured that it’s hard to comprehend anything else amid this onslaught. What gives Vanitas its extra degree of ferocity is the production, particularly the layer of corrosive noise that accompanies the inhuman bellows that pass as lyrics, as on the throat-rending roar on “Forging Towards The Sunset.” What’s more, there are actual songs here, with clean Nordic bellows offering a glimpse of tunefulness through the cacophony. The effect is not unlike finding your way through a blizzard by following the ringing voice of your Viking companion. Just be careful he doesn’t shank you for your plunder though.
These guys have made a career out of mangling traditional sonic conventions and sound structures into a sticky paste, and grabbing whole fistfuls of noise to throw at a blank canvas. Hyperactively jumping from one sound to another, Black Moth Super Rainbow take what should be a clinical, academic approach to making music, add a good dose of nonsensical humor and plenty of warm analog synths and invite the listener into a colourful funhouse of chaotic electronic music. Cobra Juicy is a fine example of their style, injecting a serious penchant for groove and alien dance hooks, funking up those fuzzy bass lines and throwing their heavily processed vocal nonsense on top. The result is a headphone record for listening to with friends, experimental music that you can dance to. It sounds difficult but it’s really not. The pop-friendly sensibility at work makes unfamiliar sounds easy to grasp. Pore over it exhaustively or simply relax and soak it in gradually. Many people will get different things out of this music, but no matter what you are into, you should have no trouble enjoying it.
38. Earth - Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light (Part II)
Dylan Carlson has continually mined the same sound for a decade now, a desolate take on sparse, wide-open guitar themes that march toward the horizon at a snail’s pace. Last year’s triumphant Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light (Part I) might have been the finest example of his dedication to that sound yet, and although that record’s sequel doesn’t quite grab me the way the first one did, it may only be because I’ve started to take for granted what a new Earth record will sound like in 2012. This isn’t to say that there is nothing new here, just that the tweaks are very subtle. Opener “Sigil of Brass” is a three-minute palette cleanser that forgoes the steady pacing that the drums usually provide, and sets Dylan free to wander on his own for a time before the rest of the band joins him. It is probably the bleakest and most ear-catching moment on the record, and a truly interesting variant on what could be a very narrow sound in the hands of a lesser group of musicians. Elsewhere the nuances of Carlson’s interplay with the band makes for a captivating listen, but one need not overanalyze this record to enjoy it. Earth know how to establish a certain mood, and there’s no one else on Earth who does it better.
It’s telling that the legendary Thomas Gabriel Fischer served as producer for Teutonic warriors Secrets Of The Moon’s newest album. Seven Bells retains much of the adventurous spirit and obsession with power that Fischer’s Celtic Frost embodied on their epochal late ‘80s work. Secrets Of The Moon might not be as muscular or brutish as Frost were, but they embrace a more streamlined approach that incorporates traditional black metal dynamics blown up to stadium size and filled out with Fischer’s full, rich guitar sounds and cavernous drums. A key here is the bottom end, which is so often neglected in this style of music. Sevens Bells melds melodic guitar leads with aggressive thrashing, enjoyable midtempo riffing and doomy funeral marches, all topped off with harsh but catchy vocals. This is not a record for black metal purists, but anyone who has only a passing familiarity with black metal and wants to hear a fine example of what went down in 2012 would do well to check this one out.
For roughly a decade now shadowy Ukranian black metal naturalists Drudkh have been churning out consistently excellent albums that seem to straddle both the raw and evil work of traditional black metal while subtly tweaking the formula in interesting and creative ways. For a musical style that is often rife with backbiting and vitriolic accusations of selling out, it’s truly rare to see a band that so consistently puts out a high volume of material without ever repeating themselves or opening themselves up to criticism from the Kvlt. Drudkh’s reputation as paragons of the black metal vanguard is above reproach, and they’ve pretty much released at least one album per year since their formation. Eternal Turn Of The Wheel revises their familiar template somewhat by alternating aggressive thrashing with some more laid back but still dense slower parts that are rich in distorted harmonics. A full, authoritative bass sound rounds out a very powerful mix. Often synths and clean guitars poke through the claustrophobic murk, adding colour and accents while howling winds and nature sounds add atmosphere. It’s these little touches that make Eternal Turn Of The Wheel a far more satisfying listen than most of the black metal that get released these days. Running just a hair over 36 minutes, the album makes its point quickly and delivers exciting multipart songs that twist and turn but never meander. By rejecting the primitive bashing of luddites who think black metal should never evolve, Drudkh continue to strike a fine balance, and deservedly keep their place among the upper echelons of the black metal pantheon.
35. St. Vitus – Lillie: F-65
The reunion of Scott “Wino” Weinrich with doom metal pioneers Saint Vitus kind of snuck up on me. Things like this are usually rumored about before they ever come to fruition, but the band released its first album with their longtime singer on vocals since 1990 with very little fanfare. I had heard something about a few shows here and there with the classic lineup sporadically until the death of original drummer Armando Acosta, but thought his passing would be the end of it. The thought of the band actually recording never crossed my mind. Perhaps that was a wise move, as Lillie: F-65 literally sounds like nothing ever changed for these guys. It has everything a St. Vitus album should have. Acosta’s replacement, Blood Of The Sun drummer Henry Vasquez, does a fine job laying down that classic Vitus sludge trudge alongside Mark Adams’ timeless troglodyte plod and Dave Chandler’s heavily distorted fuzz squall. Over top of it all is the unforgettable voice of Scott Weinrich, warning mankind of the pitfalls of its own desires. Take one listen to “The Bleeding Ground” and tell me you aren’t glad to have these guys back together again.
Someone’s gotta tell Ty Segall to lay off the amphetamines a bit. The guy is cranking out more songs and albums than his fans know what to do with. After winning recognition with the messy yet catchy garage rock of records like Lemons and Melted, he inverted the songcraft to scuzz ratio on the oddly subdued Goodbye Bread, winning further accolades in the process. Not being a fan of the cleaned up and now much poppier retro-pop of that record, I was delighted to see him in 2012 release first a raw garage psych collaboration with White Fence, then a month later whip out Slaughterhouse as the Ty Segall Band. This is a return to the kind of cranky rock n’ roll the guy made his name on, this time with a fuller, heavier sound on it than his early stuff. Everything here is fuzzed, out, freaky, and in the red. It’s as if he traded in his Electric Prunes and Dead Moon 45s for some bad acid and a couple Stooges and MC5 LPs. Slaughterhouse is bigger, noisier, and sludgier than anything he’s yet put to tape, and for this reason it’s my favourite of his releases this year. And he’s not event done yet, his third album of 2012, Twins, is an amalgamation of all the musical personalities he’s shown thus far. With a discography that now numbers 7 full length albums in 5 years along with a multitude of singles, EP’s, collaborations and non-album releases, he might want to think about slowing down to stave off the inevitable burnout that always accompanies such a torrid pace. Thankfully, no signs of that are audible yet.
33. Bison – Lovelessness
Leadoff track “An Old Friend” opens with a flourish of Thin Lizzy leads, before lurching into a shambling gait. Suddenly it launches into full tilt thrashing, racing onward with intensity levels jacked. The track closes with a quadrilateral dual guitar fadeout. It’s clear early on that this is definitely going to be the band’s most rock-inspired work yet. “Anxiety Puke/Lovelessness” kicks off as a straight ahead rager, but an early song collapse and then magnificent buildup about a minute and a half in builds to a mammoth riff jam. These songs are more varied in their approach than previous outings. “Last and First Things” has a furious middle section that will get the blood pumping, then downshifts into a cavernous resin-caked half time jam. There is some flailing about going on at times, and not everything works well. They sometimes forget the keys to what made their sludgy thrash appealing in the first place. This isn’t to say the record is a curve ball for Bison, as there is still more than enough of the band’s trademark chug and grind to satisfy fans. There are signs of the band trying new things, but Lovelessness has the hallmarks of a transitional record. It neither reaches the heights of Dark Ages or is as consistent throughout as Quiet Earth. At its best, Lovelessness is an interesting display of creativity from a band deciding where to go next.
32. Municipal Waste – The Fatal Feast
Municipal Waste tweaked their crossover party thrash formula somewhat on 2009’s Massive Aggressive, a stone-faced, lightning fast rumination on nuclear disasters and media literacy that traded in Suicidal Tendencies’ sense of humor for Megadeth’s astute political concerns. Although solid, the record seemed to lack the energy that made their early record so enjoyable. I’m happy to report that The Fatal Feast is a return to the gross out humor and B-Movie shlock that makes these guys to fun to listen to. This time out there is a bit of a sci-fi twist to some of the material, akin to something like zombies in space. It’s not all fun in games, as some tracks still deal with real world problems, but it seems like the band has been able to work its adult concerns with the real world into its eternally goofy teenager aesthetic. The title track details the horrors of flesh eating disease, while “Covered In Sick/The Barfer” is a classic anthem to the joys of irresponsible drinking. About their ability to thrash there has never been any doubt, as these 17 tracks fly by like a whirligig of powerhouse drumming, serrated riffing and irresistible shoutalong choruses. It sound like they’re figured out a way to grow up and still have fun, and it bodes well for a band that originally seemed like it would only last as long as it’s first EP.
31. Trash Talk - 119
Trash Talk is a hardcore band signed to Odd Future’s record label. With 119 clocking in at 14 songs in under 22 minutes, they set the song to minutes ratio as high as anyone since about the first D.R.I. album. Aside from a couple of guest appearances from luminaries like Tyler, the Creator and Hodgy Beats as hype men on the sludgy “Blossom and Burn,” there is nothing here to suggest the band is attempting to crossover to anything though. This is angry, aggressive, ferocious punk rock that benefits from a viciously heavy and thick production job that allows their occasionally doomy tendencies to shine through during the brief snippets when they allow the bottom end to resonate a fraction of a second longer. The vocals come courtesy of a calloused shouter who sounds like he’s got lymph nodes on his vocal cords. The whole package adds up to a lean, mean, punishing beatdown of a record that is as truly punk rock in the traditional sense as anything else out there. So if none of that excuses them being distributed by Sony to the fickle guttersnipes who love to throw ambitious and skilled bands under the bus, just think how awesome it could be if the teenagers were listening to this instead of Down With Webster.
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