autumn

Heartsick? Forlorn? A tad depressed? Autumn and Winter will do that to you.

I've always felt lows around this time of year and it's not much different circa 2012. Music's always been a strong sense of relief and fascination for me, and I don't know where the logic lays in listening to sad music while you're down, but it's what a lot of us do.


Perhaps there's no better soundtrack than Jesu's brand of gloomy drone/doom/shoegaze hybrid, most perfectly distributed by their first full length Jesu.  Right in tow there's The Angelic Process, a former couple that took My Bloody Valentine's whirling layers of melancholy to new levels with crushing vats of guitars and some of the most otherworldly vocals.




A touch of despair and animosity goes a long way with Leviathan's brand of black metal most perfectly encapsulated in The Blind Wound. While going by a different name, Leviathan main man Jef Whitehead, produced possibly my favorite album of all time under the moniker Lurker of Chalice. Combining all kinds of genres, the self-titled LP is a powerful murk of neo-folk, black metal, and ambiance. The sample, coming from the Sylvia Plath biopic, shouldn't turn you off, no matter how angsty it might sound, this track is really overwhelming.



Alongside Justin K. Broadrick, no one's done as good a job as forging a musical path based around their own depression than Wesley Eisold of  Dark Wave/Synth Pop outfit Cold Cave. Cold Cave's first album's title says it all; Love Comes Close.




Swans made their name through their harsh beginnings and ever-changing sound, but I came to enjoy them through this simple acoustic track that does more for me than nearly any other track.




A bit on the cheesy side, Roy Orbison holds a special place for me as he was a favorite of my mom. His croon has gone nearly unmatched and a track like "No One Will Ever Know " is unbeatable.



Undeniably most of these acts are frowns, but every so often they surprise us with glimpses of joy, hope, or just something positive sounding. This is what pushes them beyond simple angst.

Tour of Duty: USA

The U.S. black metal scene has got to be my favorite bar none. Like many creative outlets we benefit from a land mass nearly the size of all of Europe, and a much more diverse population than many other countries, so it's understandable that we have a much more diverse and ambitious crop of bands. Regardless of all of that, there are so many U.S. acts that it's been a difficult task to just pick a few for this installment and I've only tried to stray from very current acts as well as the longer ones and those most well known (there's an exception for Leviathan as 1. it's probably my favorite band and 2. that track is awesome and hard to get a hold of).

Without further adieu, I present to you...

Tour of Duty: U S of A

1. "Hissing and Sullen" - Leviathan - Destroyers from the Western Sky (track appears only on this comp)

2. "Winter Bliss" - Demoncy - Joined in Darkness

3. "In Retribution, Anonymously Burned" - Frontier - Demo

4. "Crippling Blasphemous Persistence" - Infernal Stronghold - Godless Noise

5. "Crucified Whores (Of the White Light)" - Ibex Throne - Total Inversion

6. "The King of Jews" - Havohej - Dethrone the Son of God

7. "Unto Us He Is Born" - Profanatica - Profanatitas De Domonatia

8. "Show Me" - Bone Awl - Meaningless Leaning Mess

9. "Uno con Kaos" - Volahn - Dimensiónes del Trance Kósmico

10. "Who Shall Stand Against Me?" - Krieg - Blue Miasma

Tour of Duty: USA from Perpetual Strife on 8tracks.

Leviathan - True Traitor, True Whore

Where solo act Leviathan has found success in the past in densely harrowing, vulgar, and paradoxically beautiful efforts, he seems to over look it with his latest release True Traitor, True Whore. Personal impetus aside, the album appears to be a connect the dots effort in order to make an overall homogeneous, digestible, and painfully overproduced work that leaves a die-hard like me disappointed.

Much to blame is the production, not only in sound and style, but in the sheer amount of effects and things at hand for Wrest to over complicate and distract with. Right from the beginning there is this laughable gibberish which goes into a great curve ball riff that's then torn apart by a very violent and thrashing riff. I get it, he wants to play with the listener's expectations and contradict whatever might be pleasant and melodic sounding with violent and unsettling sounds; but it's just so forced sounding. This works well on some tracks, "Her Circle is the Noose" and "Blood Red and True", but for the most part, every song seems to follow the same idea and strains my interest.

My favorite track from the album

The album is a strange form of retrogression as it borrows not only previously used ideas and tropes from Leviathan's back catalog, but also previous songs ("Shed this Skin" and "Blood Red and True"). The variance between tracks themselves is little, if any. They all jump from typical black metal sections to overproduced hazes of effects and creepy effects, in some way, shape, or form. Previous efforts had such strong writing chops and attention to structure, in that sense, True Traitor, True Whore feels much more like a pop album, where each track was conceived on its own and only the production with a vague agenda to keep them together.

While Wrest deserves the attention he's got for this record, I think it would've been more appropriate some five years ago. Sheer talent and good ideas don't save Leviathan from this overproduced (literal) nightmare of an album that lacks the atmospheric brilliance of prior releases and pushes the envelope of digestible dissonance black metal to another level. The simple, ending track shown above "Blood Red and True" manages to build upon a simple, plodding riff which shows Wrest's talent for not only creating dense and creepy songs, but also something rhythmic and hypnotic.

Will I buy it? Probably on vinyl, because as both a fan and a collector, it has been Leviathan that first spurred me to collect records. Will I listen to it? Doubtful.

Drought

My creative energies haven't been there as of late and I haven't done much in the way of exploring new music. If you're bothering at all to read this, then I thank you greatly; this isn't the kind of gig I'd carry on for my own entertainment.

To keep on tab with me, and maybe inspire me to respond or facilitate something I've been listening a lot to Polish favorites Self Hate and Suffering Mind, and usbm acts Ash Borer, Fell Voices, and the new Leviathan album which I'll talk about at greater length sometime soon.

There's few albums that I really like that I can't give a concrete answer for. One of which being Self Hate's At the Beginning God Created Fear, another being Conqueror's War Cult Supremacy. I think something both albums contain is an incredible amount of ferocity, speed, and bat-shit vocals. To the former of the bands, the production definitely helps as it's absurdly heavy and viscous, so muddy at times I'd normally complain about it, but here, I'm loving it. It feels at times that things might just spiral out of control and that anxiety of wondering if the band can make it out of the song alive makes it all the more enjoyable.

The aura that At the Beginning... evokes is rare, it reminds me a bit of old Phobia and Brutal Truth, but a lot heavier and darker. I couldn't help but think, if this band were American, they'd be as revered as the other two previously mentioned.

Anyway, I'm finding more and more to like out of Central European acts like those mentioned, there's something great going on their besides hockey, sausage, and beer, and it's their grindcore. I plead to for you to listen to Gride, Lycanthrophy, and Wojtyla.

New LEVIATHAN Album Announced: True Traitor, True Whore

True Traitor, True Whore

Just announced via Profound Lore, the turbulent and mysterious  one man act Leviathan will have a new album out soon, titled "True Traitor, True Whore." Instantly, people might think the title refers to charges brought against main man Wrest (Jef Whitehead) for sexually assaulting his girlfriend with a tattoo gun. Regardless of whether that's the case or not, the title isn't all too inspiring as it lacks his old knack for bizarrely unsettling titles like Tentacles of Whorror or A Silhouette in Splinters.

To further my pessimism, Sanford Parker is credited with Engineering duties. You might know him from his awful band Minsk, his help in derailing Nachtmystium, as well as his handful of other instances of mediocre and slick production (Krieg's lackluster comeback, Twilight's awful new incarnation, etc).

Now

So, with all that negativity you'd think I just have some bone to pick, but I have proof; lo and behold "Her Circle is the Noose." What does this tell us? Well, for one, my allegations against Sanford Parker stand true and two; Wrest seems to be continuing his creepy meandering style that really came through in Massive Conspiracy Against All Life. I guess this is a logical continuation from Wrest's last recorded work (I think Sic Luceat Lux was recorded before Massive Conspiracy Against All Life).

Then

The track is good, don't get me wrong, but it's no return to form and no trailblazing. For anyone who's listened to  Leviathan's split with Sapthuran, otherwise known as The Blind Wound or even the split with Xasthur, you'd know Wrest has it in him to create some extremely potent, moving, and darkly melodic stuff. With this leaked track, he seems to be straying further from the melodic nuisances that made me such a fan and rather building upon the creepiness explored in ambient works A Silhouette in Splinters  and the last full length.


Of course I'll be buying this, but my hope is that there's something more potent than this, something that grabs at you and suffocates you in a dismal and etheral breech like what we've seen in the past.

Here's the track listing...

1.    True Whorror
2.    Her Circle Is The Noose
3.    Brought Up To The Bottom
4.    Contrary Pulse
5.    Shed This Skin
6.    Every Orifice Yawning Her Price
7.    Harlot Rises
8.    Blood Red And True

Two tracks are oldies, "Shed this Skin" which is similar to "Her Circle is the Noose" as it's a midpace meandering track that was plagued with his silly bedroom production from years prior and "Blood Red and True" which could be a perfect fit here on this album (and due for a touch up).

Due out Novemeber 8th, this promises to be a big fuggin' deal.

Ash Borer - MMIX - MMXI

"‘I love humanity,’ he said, ‘but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular[...]yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.’ ”

Perhaps, just perhaps, more than any other style of music, black metal contains this similar paradox as outlined by Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov. Now, we're not talking the highfalutin crap that Liturgy claims with its brand of "transcendental black metal" (don't click the link if you actually enjoy their music; it's devastating) but more so the eventual paradox of being a misanthrope yet keeping friends. A celebration of life is obvious in black metal's very Romantic tropes revolving around nature as well as its disdain for life revolving around, well, death. Does this mean Shelley would of liked black metal? I don't know, but what I do know is in its infancy, black metal never strove to make something "beautiful," "enthralling," or "somber." Instead, early acts (first and most second wave) looked to the morbid, the occult and sinister nature of things, mostly for shock value, but eventually in some sort of pseudo post-teenage angst as we saw with bands like Burzum. To avoid a history lesson I'll sum it up by saying, like anything that's given time to develop, evolve, or mature, black metal has explored such a wide variety of emotions and topics that bands like  Ash Borer fully embody in a  multifaceted sound in terms of emotion. On the surface, to be so ugly because of its hollow production, craggy/fuzzy guitars, cacophonous drums and distant screams, Ash Borer ultimately create something sublime in the face of what some might call "harsh."

The whole west coast of the States seems to be a hotbed for brilliant black metal. Some will go on for ages about the absolutely mediocre Weakling, while others overlook the genius of acts like Leviathan and Ceremonial Castings and the current groups like Fell Voices, Leech, and of course Ash Borer. And while I like all the bands mentioned , it's Ash Borer's recent collection done by Land of Decay that's got me absolutely hooked.

von Trier's Antichrist is a nice visual companion to Ash Borer

The sound of celebration and loss come together as one with Ash Borer's collected works. At times triumphant and harmonious, other times somber and bleak, Ash Borer are able to explore and conceptualize the sounds of the human heart, both in strife and in joy. The beauty the band possess is much in the same vein that Eliot's The Waste Land is hauntingly beautiful. Melodic nuisances surge back and forth, to crumble and decay, then to build up once again to momentous breaks. Invoking damp soil beneath your feet, fluttering wings in the distance and decayed timber; Ash Borer create long, winding songs that are completely absorbing and mysterious.

I probably sound like I've been drinking Chai tea all day and reading poetry, but I'm dead serious about all that Ash Borer invoke and achieve. The band is on the cusp at the most fruitful time for black metal in America and I can only hope they continue to elaborate on their sound and approach.