Well folks, it's been a long, arduous
ride from start to finish, but we are at the end of this
retrospective! I hope this has been an informative,
semi-comprehensive look back on what had been a truly rich and
enjoyable year for music. Now, I have to get caught up on what 2014
has to offer...
Cult of Fire – Ascetic
Meditation of Death
Genre:
Black Metal
It's
always nice when a fairly uninteresting band really gets their
bearings together for their sophomore release – My Bloody
Valentine, with their boring debut Isn't
Anything and
stunning followup Loveless
spring
to mind as the most striking example – and usually exists in
diametric opposition to the so-called 'sophomore slump' which is a
definite threat to artists who encounter any modicum of success at
the start. One
of the best cases for the 'sophomore spike' last year was
Cult of Fire, a Czech black metal act with only another album to
their name – 2012's Triumvirát.
The record suffered from uninteresting ideas, overdone riffs, and an
overall lack of memorability. Luckily, 2013
saw
Ascetic Meditation
of Death (stylized
in Tibetan, which I can't type in because my word processor doesn't
support)
– which took most of black metal's tropes and stood them totally on
their head by interjecting Eastern influences.
Opening
track 'Samhara Rakhta Kali', with its mystical
sitar-and-throat-warbling-studded intro culminating with the crash of
a gong, is a pretty fair indication of what Cult of Fire have in
store for you on this record – it's undeniably black metal, but the
persistent Eastern instruments give the music a far more unique and
unprecedented sense of atmosphere, which, after the unbridled
ugliness of Triumvirát,
is
both unexpected and welcome. Meanwhile, following track 'On the
Funeral Pyre of Existence' begins abruptly with a dizzying keyboard
zap that erupts into an almost progressive-like blast. Off-kilter
melodies careen about in the violent haze, at once out of place but
nevertheless fitting.
With
Ascetic Meditation
of Death,
Cult of Fire both
expand their own horizons, as well as pave new ground in a genre many
consider done to death. The
aforementioned 'On the Funeral Pyre of Existence' features a brief,
but nevertheless haunting break which features a solemn melody as
flames crackle. The
record flows very easily between triumphant marches and Eastern chaos
– with the production just murky enough for the sound to drag you
into din of battle, but still allows for the commendable percussion
of Tom Coroner to shine. For
all of their adherence to the doctrine of black metal, Cult of Fire
nevertheless manage to squeeze in a bit of cheese to what many would
consider quite a novel and artistically meritorious album.
Power-metal like synth passages abound – with 'Shava Sadhana'
(track 3), 'Kali
Ma' (track 4)
and 'Khanda Manda Yoga' (track 7) having
the most striking examples.
This
is a record that could teach Utah cheese-purveyors Caladan Brood a
thing or two about mixing epic and black metal. In
many ways Caladan's
debut Echoes of
Battle echoes
(no pun intended) some of the more in-your-face dungeon synth
elements of Ascetic
Meditation of Death,
but while the Americans opted for a
more Summoning-centric approach,
Cult of Fire brought
more 1349 and Dark Funeral to the forefront –
the album is a
dedication to the Hindu god of death, anyway.
I
could write for hours about how unique, refreshing, and almost fun
this
album is, but I'll let this brief writeup speak for itself. Rest
assured, for fans of black metal, this is not a record to be missed!
Notable Tracks: 'Samhara Rakhta Kali' (track 1), 'Kali Ma' (track
4), 'Gruesome Dance of Death' (track 6).
Whores
– Clean
Genre:
Noise Rock
Whores'
equally in-your-face band name and bright pink bandcamp page are
about as subtle as the music these Atlantans crank out at a breakneck
pace on their newest album Clean.
With a monstrous, lumbering bass attack combined thick-n-juicy guitar
riffs and get-drunk-and-sing-along vocal
hooks,
Clean has
all the features of what seems to be yet another Californian
sun-kissed stoner rock album. But while their devil-may-care yelling
and disregard for your feelings might scream Fu Manchu, near the end
of opener 'Baby Bird', the
instruments fall away from vocalist Christian Lembach who fills the
empty space with his absolutely furious yell.
There's
something raw, primal, and not very pleased that Whores bring to the
table with Clean.
As Lembach intones “I've had enough” in 'Cougars, not Kittens'
before lasping into some more contrite heaviness. 'Cougars' in
particular plays with a light/heavy dynamic that makes every
punishing punch the band throw that much more emphatic.
If bands like Every Time I Die and Teethmarks make you happy, give
this record a spin. Definitely a fun time, and at not even 40 minutes
it's over all too soon.
Notable Tracks: 'I Am Not a Goal Oriented Person”, 'Blue Blood',
'Baby Bird'.
Weekend Nachos – Still
Genre: Powerviolence
Along with Nails, hilariously-named Chicago powerviolence
collective Weekend Nachos put out one of the must talked-about and
eagerly-anticipated powerviolence outings of the year. But while
Nails' brutal, uncompromising Abandon All Life rushed through
its 17 minutes of pure aural annihilation, Weekend Nachos' Still
adds an element of spasticity to its approach that lets it pull
ahead of the pack. Despite barely cracking the 20 minute mark, the
method to Still's madness is to pack in as much brutality and
ugliness as possible, with the band moving effortlessly between more
traditional hardcore riffs and hazy, almost sludgey passages.
Amazingly, there are some spare seconds that the band fills with a
sinister build up before erupting into everyone's favorite blend of
rapid, chunky hardcore – 'Satan Sucker', despite being barely two
minutes long, manages to cram in a definitive beginning, middle, and
end, with easy distinction marking the difference.
What sets Still apart from previous Nachos outings is,
foremostly, that the grindcore element of their more guttural and
wretched records like Worthless and Torture is toned
down in lieu of sweltering crust that would make Amebix and Rorschach
proud. 'Watch You Suffer''s devilish crust riffing that explodes into
a protracted, howling break is Still's prime example, and at 3
minutes 25 seconds, it's among the record's longer pieces, and
features Weekend Nachos doing the unthinkable – slowing down for
a devastatingly heavy hardcore pummeling as feedback warbles heighten
the intensity before the storm comes crashing down again with
'Wolves'.
This gives Still both a unique flavor among Weekend Nachos'
discography, and allows for some definitive 'fuck yeah' moments now
that the band's vocals are actually comprehensible – they even
threw in a song called 'You're Not Punk' to definitively stick it to
the posers. There isn't a single track on Still that feels out
of place, and for powerviolence fans it's definitely not a record to
miss.
Notable Tracks: 'Satan Sucker', 'Yes Way', 'Broken Mirror'.
Year of No Light – Tocsin
Genre: Post-Metal
Year of No Light have, by themselves, one of the most unique track
records of any post-metal acts on the market. Their discography, as
of writing, is comprised of 2008's lengthy Nord, the
effervescently crushing Ausserwelt, and, unexpectedly enough,
a score for the classic horror movie Nosferatu the band wrote in 2012
(Vampyr). In any case, the band is known for their bleak,
frigid, and massive soundscapes that seem to grow even larger with
every release. Their newest effort, Tocsin, is no different,
and as it moves between somber clean and torturous distorted guitar
on the opening title track, it's readily apparent that Year of No
Light have been methodically moving towards a droning, almost funeral
doom-like approach to their music. This is a switch characterized by
the abandonment of post-metal's more ethereal, hazy instrumentation,
and instead, layering emotionally destructive patterns atop one
another to create a dark, raw epic.
As with the Body's Christs, Redeemers, Tocsin further
highlights post-metal's sludge roots, plowing resolutely through some
punishingly heavy bass mires as multiple guitars swirl about
impossibly above. As 'Tocsin' moves into 'Géhenna', the mire
contracts, exploding into a blinding, piercing net of light that
seems to move everywhere at once.
The vivid imagery I'm painting with the music isn't flighty chance –
Tocsin is an incredibly evocative record that never quite lets
up the intensity, even in its more airy moments. For as serene as
most of the instrumentals are on the record, the pervasive sense of
desolation paints everything with a shade of grey, and the heaviness
of bassist Johan Sébenne anchors most of the album in emotional
negativity. Also to the band's credit, Tocsin is a fully
instrumental album – which cuts out the potential flop of the
band's vocals, thereby allowing the music to flow out in its entirety
and strangle you without being jolted back to the reality.
Tocsin feels very much like the soundtrack to the end of the
world – whole sagas start and end in each massive song, and when
the record is played in its entirety it's absolutely wonderful to
behold. Electronic elements, as in Altar of Plagues' Teethed Glory
& Injury, are used sparingly, and only when necessary to
heighten the bleakness Year of No Light are purveying. When listening
to Tocsin, it feels as though everything has its own place –
every song stands on its own, even as most top ten minutes and scrape
fifteen – and each is a finely orchestrated, searing narrative of
the apocalypse.
To conclude, this is not an album you want to miss out on. Here's to
hoping we don't have to wait another four years for a new Year of No
Light record.
Celeste – Animale(s)
Genre: Black Metal/Post-Hardcore
Celeste as a band have faced a number of struggles over the
years – the French act have three previous albums to their name,
each more monstrous and hulking than the next, but anyone who has
listened to Celeste's material can tell you one thing – the band's
records tend to blur together, with very little to tell them apart.
Though this problem was slightly remedied on 2010's Morte(s)
Nee(s), Celeste still had quite a ways to go before sitting
through an album of theirs was refreshing rather than redundant.
Thus, it came as a bit of surprise when the band announced last year
that their upcoming effort Animale(s) would be a two-disc
feature clocking in at over an hour and a half. Animale(s)
is a concept album about two youngsters falling out of love very
quickly – not new ground by any means, but the band's excellent,
genre-bending songwriting works wonders for getting around what's by
now a fairly hackneyed narrative. Unfortunately, though, there is a
limit to how much the band pushes the envelope. In a lot of ways,
Animale(s) stumbles on the same grounds previous Celeste
outings did – it's not a very interesting album at all. When
contrasted with Year of No Light's tasteful, varied songwriting,
Celeste simply don't hold up. Musically, however, their nationality,
however, is the last thing Celeste and YONL have in common –
Animale(s) is a malevolent, rage-ridden mess that, past its
forlorn, echoing introduction, is totally unafraid to demolish
everything in its way.
Celeste draw influence primarily from the darkness of black metal
and emotional wretchedness of post-hardcore, putting both together in
ways you wouldn't expect – ever heard black metal with
semi-hardcore vocals? Look no further than the record's first
minutes. Ever wonder what would happen if Converge listened to less
Black Flag and more Celtic Frost? Celeste indulge that thought
experiment. The intensity the band are now known for is back
full-force in Animale(s), and even though it's wholly
punishing and overwhelmingly brutal, it really is the band's only
trick up their sleeve, and for the entire 90 minutes it's played out
ad nauseum.
Trying to make it through Animale(s) is difficult. Extremely
so. After about ten minutes and your anger is purged, the band's lack
of variety becomes one of its most defining characteristics and
everything falls apart for them. It's wholly unfortunate, because if
Celeste had a few more ideas they'd be writing some truly fascinating
music, but instead their newest record sounds undeniably like their
other three.
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