Wreck and Reference - Content

No artist sounds like Wreck and Reference. Maybe my musical interests and knowledge are a bit narrow, but I doubt I'm wrong about my previous statement. Last year's Youth was not only one of my favorite records of the year, but one of the most intriguing and genuinely different things I came across. As the band's progressed, we are given Content, an EP that has many of Youth 's attributes, but brings them into a whole new world.

"Absurdities and Echos," the opener for the EP, is a water logged subterranean cloud of swirling textures - both haunting and otherworldly - organic drum work and the band's best vocals yet. The vocals are augmented in a way that they reverberate in a lower tone and sound like the singer is trapped far below ground and yelling to the surface through an old well. They ebb and flow over the rich drone of effects that come through as a dark hum, sparkling static, and stabs of some type of melodic synth.


B-side of Content  is "Abhorrence," a track which sounds more akin to last year's  Youth. Making use of higher and scratchier vocals, harsh textures that sit below some type of melodic keyed synth instrument, and ever building drums, "Abhorrence" is much more of a car crash than the slow slosh of "Absurdities and Echos."

What Wreck and Reference do so well is simple; they create moody music that's dense but easily appealing. There's a lot going on in each track, but the band does well to include a tangible melody, an accessible vocal line, or an alluring atmosphere. There's no easy way to pigeon hole the band, and we shouldn't look to, but the music finds itself in the company of only particular aspects of other bands: Swans's penchant to trudge and burn, the cathartic momentum of Neurosis's best works and maybe the moodiness of post-punk. The live drums do well to offset the mostly programmed sounds of everything else and the vocals are dynamic enough to easily convey the mood of the lyrics.

While it's only two songs, I've become enamored and absorbed in Content in a way that didn't come so quickly with Youth. While vastly different, the EP does remind me a bit of Urfaust's Drei Rituale Jenseits Des Kosmos, which is way more trance-inducing and repetitive, but a similarly engrossing drone that relies on ambiance and non guitar sounds.

Preorder directly from Flenser and stream for free at the Band's Bandcamp.

Ruined Families - Blank Language

Blank Language is that light at the end of the tunnel, the album that twists and turns the way you'd want and the distant dream you've been thinking about since you first had it some years ago. Well...maybe not you, but this is something that I've been itching for ever since I first delved into hardcore music. Ruined Families's style could be pigeon holed as post-hardcore, but what really matters is the fulfilling sensation of the album and all the different notes it hits. Whether those notes are emotional, melodic, or rhythmic, Blank Language is an impressive effort that melds a myriad of influences and sounds into a unique and pulsating album.

Fell Voices - Regnum Saturni

With their third album, Regnum Saturni, U.S. black metal act Fell Voices find themselves playing into abstracts and delving deeper into ritualistic chaos. The album was recorded live, a trait that means a lot to me, not only in the band's character, but also in the band's sheer sonic power.Unlike previous efforts, Fell Voices dedicate the first breath to a spoken sample by poet Mary Oliver, a poem which sets the thematic tone of the album and ties into the album's title and mythos. Gone are the repetitive and intricate melodies of the their last lp and instead the band uses tremolo riffing and black metal stylings to create a sort of drone that doesn't shamble, but rather blurs.