Intronaut - Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones)
Genre: Progressive Metal/Sludge Metal
Words cannot accurately portray how
much I absolute love this album. This is potentially, if not
absolutely, one of my favorite albums of the year. With its dreamy,
absolutely delectable mix of jam-y jazz and metal pomp, Intronaut
present with Habitual Levitations an
absolutely stunning piece of art in the form of a progressive metal
album. In a scene dominated by loud, over-the-top bands, Habitual
Levitations gets attention by
being profoundly quiet in comparison. It's still undeniably metal in
its heaviness and feel, but the band never plays itself out too far,
indeed, playing each note, lick, and groove with well-thought out
intentions, to amazing results.
This
is music to get lost in, with comforting rings and nebulous, echoing
vocals – soothing, yet strong. Intensity is not something you'll
get from listening to a masterpiece like this, but you'll definitely, beyond the shadow of a doubt, feel yourself positively flying as the insane rhythm duo of Danny Walker (drums) and Joe Lester (bass) melodically and intricately play their way into your soul.But that's not to say Habitual Levitations never gets heavy – 'The Welding', the album's second piece, echoes 2010's Valley of Smoke in its jazz-exterior and hard-baked interior. But on the other hand, songs like 'Harmonomicon' or 'A Sore Sight For Eyes' are as open-ended as metal can be, pushing power on the aforementioned badassery of the band's rhythm section. Intronaut have also done away with harsh vocals, allowing the band to move as one without any jarring, sudden shifts.
While
some might call that a shame, it's actually worked well in the band's
favour as they went from a purely instrumental band (Void)
to including vocals sparsely on Prehistoricisms,
to Valley of Smoke where
the vocals were upregulated. But in any case, Sacha Dunable's gruff,
mid-range uncleans were always at odds with Intronaut's flighty,
tumultuous music. In Habitual Levitations,
an album all about big ol' grooves and clean fun, Dunable's
well-developed cleans complement this fact beautifully.
Habitual
Levitations is a modern classic,
as sure to please as it is to amaze. If you haven't yet had the
pleasure of enjoying this album, do yourself a favor and get on it
soon. I, for one, am unduly
excited to see Intronaut open for Deafheaven and Between the Buried
and Me in February.
Notable Songs:
'Milk Leg', 'Eventual', 'Blood From a Stone'.
Wardruna - Runaljod - Yggdrasil
Genre: Ambient
At
an Alcest show in September, I had the pleasure of meeting Canadian
musician Musk Ox, and amidst asking him what it was like to open for
Agalloch and meet Gaahl, the topic of the latter's new music project
Wardruna came up. I'd heard mention of the bizarre 'Norse ambient'
group featured in the music of a Vice documentary on Norway but neglected to check them out until the snow fell, and then it just
became magical.
Wardruna
as a project are focused around traditional Norse instruments,
including Jew's harps, fiddles, and big ol' drums made by crudely draping deerskin over a cylinder. Their first album,
Runaljod – Gap var Ginnunga,
was a meditative yet intense journey through the untamed, snow-shod
forests of Scandinavia, with the band offering minimalist open spaces
and conjuring up epic, yet still soundscapes. It was the perfect
complement to the Vice documentary mentioned above, and when the sun
is setting and you're in the middle of a forest I can only imagine
how intense the music must feel.
Runaljod
– Yggdrasil (after the cosmic
tree of Norse mythology) is the band's newest outing in four years,
following the release of single 'Fehu' last year. As a unit,
Yggdrasil is far
better at transporting the listener to the middle of a fjord.
'Rotlaust Tre Fell', the album's thunderous introduction, is an
invocation of the Norse gods, naming
them by name and role to serve as the album's definitive start before
flawlessly entering the aforementioned 'Fehu'.
Considering
how there are no synths on this album, it's stunning how the band
manages to make half the sounds they do. Many ambient albums struggle
with what exactly they want to do to their listener, but Wardruna are
well aware of their goals and confidently make strides to take you
there. Even if you don't speak Norwegian (I've dabbled a bit, but not
enough for me to fully grasp what's being said), you can almost feel
the pull to the middle of a ritual circle in the pine forests.
'NaudiR' begins with Gaahl's low, resolute vocals but slowly
crescendos into a forceful chorus.
Where
Gap Var Ginnunga was
atmosphere, Yggdrasil is
ritual. The band played down their vocals on Gap Var
Ginnunga, preferring instead to
explore large soundscapes replete with even some birds, but the new
record is an intensely spiritual experience, and the trance-inducing
vocals on 'Solringen' or the hypnotic fiddle on 'Gibu', which feature
layered vocals, one spoken, the other sung.
Listening
to Yggdrasil in
fragmented stretches is a good way to utterly ruin this record. This
is meant to be a spiritual, meditative exploration of the Scandinavia
of yore, and in many ways it succeeds as a result of its length.
There are no singularly good songs, because almost every 'song' on
this record is good, but patches of particular intensity and epicness
that you can't help but gape at and pray they never end. To that end,
I'm not going to claim there are any noteworthy tracks. This is an
experience meant to be enjoyed for its full 66-minute duration.
Kvelertak - Meir
Genre: "Black 'n Roll"
“Black
'n Roll”, at least for me, is the ultimate example of people trying
to pigeonhole bands into genres. It all started in 2006, when former
Swedish black metal all-stars Dissection put out a bouncy, less
traditional album entitled Reinkaos,
which featured catchy riffs, comprehensible vocals, and a drastic
scarcity of tremolos.
Perhaps
in a fit of “maintaining purity”, black metal fans began
labelling Reinkaos as
a new genre crossover – black metal and hard rock – and thus the
designation of “black 'n roll” was born. People sometimes shove
Vreid and later Satyricon in this category, and despite my misgivings
about the “genre's” name, it's genuinely fun, if not serious,
music.
Enter
Kvelertak – an intensely Norwegian band (seriously, their name
means 'chokehold') who erupted out of nowhere in 2010 with a
self-titled album and enough drunk raucousness to power a small
African country. With frantic energy dripping from every guitar riff
and howled lyric, Kvelertak took everyone by surprise and their
newest album, simply entitled Meir ('More')
was eagerly awaited the world over.
Most
people were disappointed in this record, claiming that the
beer-soaked, intoxicated ranting of the self-titled stagnated in Meir
as the band didn't really change or put anything new forward – and
to that I say who cares! Meir takes
the form of eleven relatively brief (only one song breaks six
minutes) tracks, heaped with as much mass, tasty riffs, and Viking
glory as you can stomach. 'Tordenbrak' features the best introduction
riff out of almost anything the band has produced, and the single
'Bruane Brenn''s clean breaks
are absolutely excellent.
That
Kvelertak love them some classic rock is obvious, but it's on Meir
that they really get the swing
of things, culminating in the Who-esque 'Evig Vandrar', which
features acoustic guitars juxtaposed with an angry, shirtless
Norwegian screaming his head off. If that doesn't sound awesome, get
your head checked.
Compared
to their self-titled, Meir is
far more riff-heavy, and even though the various riffs and ideas
always seem to be just related,
thanks to the skill of twin guitarists Vidar Landa and Bjarte Lund
Rolland, they play off of one another continuously, harmonizing just
enough to keep the music interesting – see the spectacular
crescendo on the aforementioned 'Tordenbrak' for the best example.
'Trepan', on the other hand,
is a far more black-metal influenced song, lacking lots of the catchy
hooks and melodies Kvelertak have stuffed Meir with
in lieu of getting back to the roots.
For
the most part, Meir works
well at what it does – providing a listener with some fun drinking
tunes infused with enough pomp to loosen you up, but ultimately the
fact that this is the self-titled 2.0 does detract from it. If you go
into Meir expecting to
hear anything new, you'll be disappointed, but if you found yourself
hungry for more after 2010, Meir supplies
eleven more tracks to slake your thirst.
Notable Tracks:
'Bruane Brenn', 'Tordenbrak', 'Monelyst'.
Nails - Abandon All Life
Genre: Hardcore/Powerviolence
With
enough hardcore rage and thrash metal insanity to shatter the
eardrums of anyone unfortunate to get caught in the blast, Nails
returned this year with their second auditory violation in the form
of Abandon All Life –
an intense, crushing 17-minute long journey through hell as Todd Yard
(ex-Converge) screams unapologetically at your damned soul. Featuring
a 24 second song, and only two songs over three minutes, Abandon
All Life is as seizure-inducing
as it is concise. The band knows exactly what they're doing, and
crams it all efficiently into this mammoth album.
But
what's that? You want variety?
Abandon All Life has
got variety! 'Wide Open Wound' is torturously slow and sludge-y –
imagine Eyehategod on meth and you might approach the song's
unimaginable swath of destruction. Or perhaps the random medieval
break on the title track, which is so out of place and comprises
about half the song (which isn't too long, given it's a little under
a minute and a half) that you can't help but do a double-take.
Amidst
the frantic D-beats, breakdowns, and incomprehensible howling,
there's just enough give for you to nod along helplessly as you're
roughly dragged around and curbstomped by the unfathomably heavy
aforementioned 24-second 'Cry Wolf', ending with Yard barking out
“something something FUCKING SHIT”.
'Suum
Critique', the closer and album's longest at a little over five
minutes (I've known doom bands to have songs longer
than this album), follows the same recipe as the aforementioned 'Wide
Open Wound' – space things out a little bit more and fill in the
space with tasty, heavy kick. Allow the listener to savour the chunky
guitars as a final respite before the punishing, stupidly heavy
breakdown comes in.
Abandon
All Life knows exactly what it's
doing, where it's doing it, and how it's going to go about it. In a
genre known for lack of direction and putting message ahead of
execution, Nails have everything precisely orchestrated to deliver
the maximum amount of punishment that we eagerly lap up. Nails are a
band that never drag their feet, rather, they sprint howling for
blood, and Abandon All Life is
testament to how awesome the result is when a band doesn't feature
boring interludes.
Notable Tracks:
'Cry Wolf', 'Wide Open Wound', 'God's Cold Hands'.
And So I Watch You From Afar - All Hail Bright Futures
Genre: Post-Rock
Post-rock,
for all of the virtues of post-rock influenced metal I extol, is a
mixed bag. On the one hand, it's an overpoweringly hip genre, so
you're going to have a good amount of pretentious hipster bullshit -
Bon Iver or Godspeed You! Black Emperor, for instance – but then
you have bands like Russian Circles or Mono who, aside from actually
being talented at playing their instruments, convey the same
atmospheric immensity in a more traditional 'rock' way.
Heavy
Blog is Heavy described Irish outfit And
So I Watch You From Afar as
'a metalhead's post-rock
band', and his designation is pretty damn spot on. Since their 2009
self-titled debut, the band's put out two undisputably heavy records
– 2011's Gangs,
which, despite the high-pitched guitar work and sometimes snare-heavy
drums, was a mighty affair with enough lightheadedness to excuse the
actually quite intricate and driving instrumentals. I've had nothing
bad to say about them since I stumbled upon them some time ago –
'Set Guitars to Kill' is a fantastic song – and seeing them earlier
in November was well worth sitting through the castrated hipster
garbage of TTNG. But I digress.
I had
high expectations, thus, for All Hail Bright Futures,
which debuted this March through Sargent House, who put out some of
my favorite records this year (Russian Circles, Deafheaven, and
Chelsea Wolfe to name just a few), and, while I was a little let down
at the start, it was undeniably a very successful, if sudden,
evolution.
If
the bright, saturated covers of the album art are any indication,
this is a super chipper, upbeat album, compared to Gangs'
more muted monochrome, which
itself was a continuation of the self-titled. All Hail
Bright Futures takes equally
from previous outings while spinning itself just a little bit
differently than before, the most notable change coming in the form
of vocals.
Yes,
it's a change that wasn't taken too well by some (my roommate got
intensely disappointed), but, surprisingly enough, it's a change that
works well, with the vocals never serving to disrupt the groove of
the music. While it still
came as a surprise initially, they're
used sparingly, and ultimately help more than hinder as they take
mostly the form of simple gang vocals or 'ooooohs', like on the
psychedelic title track. The
record also features a much more prevalent synth and an upbeat
element that can't be denied, making it a departure from previous
outings who were more focused on an organic sound.
That's
not to say that All Hail Bright Futures came
out of nowhere – there's still plenty of fun, sparkling riffs
scattered throughout the album, but this is the first record the band
has really thrown their weight around and established what they can
or can't do, and it's more on the former with this record.
Psychedelics and synths aside, the monumental seven-minute 'Brave
Minds' is a sprawling, atmospheric epic with a hint of horns lurking
in the back as the instrumentals form layers on layers, and it's
totally entrancing. Opening pair 'Eunoia' and 'Big Things Do
Remarkable', on the other hand, are dainty and fast,
featuring the chanted line “the sun is in our eyes”.
All
in all All Hail Bright Futures is,
as has been the case with ASIWYA since their inception, a complete
success. Fans of the band will find themselves a little taken aback,
but in the grand scheme of things everything the band set out to do
with this record goes beyond success and enters brilliance. If this
is any indication of what the band have in store for us it's exciting
indeed.
Notable
Tracks: 'Big Things Do Remarkable', 'Brave Minds', 'Mend and Make
Safe'.
Vanna - The Few and the Far Between
Genre: Metalcore
As the dust clears
from the minimalist title track, which is replete with slowly
mounting intensity and some piss-angry spoken word, Vanna return to
the fray with their most effective and winning formula yet. The
turbulent Boston hardcore act has featured a radically different
lineup each release, but 2013's The Few and the Far Between shows
promise.
By trimming the
fat and dumb metalcore accoutrements that made their beginning work
so boring, 2011's And They Came Bearing Bones was an
interesting, if predictable hardcore record. I've had mixed feelings
to this band for quite a while, but a combination of following their
release of The Few and the Far Between and seeing them open
for Every Time I Die (who have held my heart securely for quite some
time now) fixed them in my mind as a band that definitely gets the
hang of this whole metalcore thing.
That Vanna are in
a difficult genre to make music in is no secret – with labels like
Rise and Victory cranking out cookie-cutter, breakdown-festooned love
ballads, “true” metalcore bands, that is, a cross between
hardcore punk and thrash metal, are becoming a rarity. Fortunately, as
is the case on 'Year of the Rat', Vanna know how to equally juxtapose
the catchy hooks and clean breaks of the former with the filthy,
chunky downcast texture of the other. 'I Said I'm Fine', the track
that directly follows, wears its Black Flag influence like a badge of
honor, eventually giving way to a vacuous clean break.
The Few and the Far Between is the
logical continuation of And They Came Bearing Bones, and
fortunately has left the snorefest of A New Hope and the
disorganized screamo worship of Curses deep in the dust. It's
still quite obviously a metalcore record, but the band knows how to
exploit the sweet spot between dumb and Hatebreed-style dumb and
plays it up for all it's worth. There's even a spoken word-style
song, which features little drums and melodic guitar ('Please Stay'),
and is such an utter departure from the style of the album that I was
immediately sucked in on first listen.
It's difficult to
tell if a hardcore band has progressed so much as 'has become
interesting to listen to', and Vanna may simply have evolved into
the latter category.
Yet, while it is a
step up and easily one of the band's best, The Few and the Far
Between lacks staying power – most of the songs leave little to
no impression, and the album is over fairly quickly given the longest
song is a little over three minutes long. The second half of the
record is, for lack of a better word, forgettable in that song
structures start to blend together – intro, verse, verse, clean,
ringing verse, breakdown, and close.
Vanna are at their
best when they're playing classic hardcore, not trying to spastically
inject melody and clean vocals in a shot at accessibility.
Commendably, the band has moved quite quickly, and their past two
records are testament that they have the ability, if not the will (or
label's permission) to make interesting hardcore and transcend the
jaws of mainstream metalcore. The Few and the Far Between is
Vanna's best record, and is worth checking out if you're a fan of
their work.
Notable Tracks:
'Year of the Rat', 'Casket Rhythm', 'The Dreamer/The Thief/The
Relic'.
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