Falloch - Where Distant Spirits Remain

Artist: Falloch
Album: Where Distant Spirits Remain
Release: 2011
Genre: Folk Metal/ Post-Black Metal
Rating: 100%. Close your eyes, drift away.


Formed in 2010 following the dissolution of Askival, and promptly picked up by Candlelight Records (a label who has brought to the table countless noteworthy works by such artists as Opeth, Anaal Nathrakh, Altar of Plagues, Blut aus Nord, Winterfylleth, Emperor, Wodensthrone, and so the list goes), Falloch's debut release is a shining example of just how quickly an album can soar above the overcrowded valleys of mediocrity, up into the cerulean paragon.

Rising from the ashes of Askival and fettering themselves to a label well known for its black metal proficiency, one might have expected a furthering of these musical ideals. This couldn't be further from the truth. Shedding the hardened carapace and aligning their music to the likes of Solefald, Sólstafir and Alcest, Andy Marshall and company have settled comfortably into the ever-expanding realm of post-black metal.

Named for Scotland's striking Falls of Falloch, every second of "Where Distant Spirits Remain" exudes each drop of water that fell in its inspiration. Never losing its energy, the album explores vast regions of sound and influence. Each song elegantly weaving instruments into a vibrant tapestry. From the interlaced acoustic guitars and swelling drums of "We are Gathering Dust", to the emotion-laden tremolo/tin whistle union of "Beyond Embers and The Earth". The third track, "Horizons", fades into a stunning pan-flute and bodhrán soundscape, before rupturing again into the elegant, driving rhythm's of "Where We Believe". Few musical stones are left unturned here, with shades of Agalloch, Alcest, Primordial and Logh flowing seamlessly around one another.

With but two short months left on the docket, "Where Distant Spirits Remain" will more than likely close out 2011 as album of the year. Close your eyes, drift away... silently.

Astronautalis-This Is Our Science

Astronautalis

This Is Our Science

Ⓟ2011 Fake Four Inc.

Rating: 8/10

Musical schizophrenia. Some times, it’s a bad thing. Actually, most of the time it’s a bad thing, an artist trying to do too many things at once. But some times a musical act draws influence and inspiration from so many different people and genres and locations and life situations, it makes for one massively frenetic, erratic beautiful mess. Astronautalis happens to be the latter. If you look him up on last.fm his “popular tags” are listed as hip-hop, indie rock, and experimental. Based on his latest release, This Is Our Science, I’m not sure I would agree with any of them. Are there elements of all three on the album? Yes. Absolutely, yes (although, I don’t really agree with indie rock as a genre at all. Indie rock, what does that even mean? You released an album independently? Or you’re trying to sound like you released an album independently? And experimental? That’s just because someone couldn’t shove him under some genre umbrella). Sorry. Tangent. But, honestly, Astronautalis would be hard to shelve at a music store. I suppose Pop/Rock would be best, because, let’s face it, it’s the catch-all section. All I have to say, if they had a “Leah Really Likes This” section, it would probably be the first place to have it’s own display (and if it happened in the next couple of weeks).

But you write hip-hop reviews! you say? Well don’t get me wrong, if there was one genre I would use to describe him to a friend (or you, the reader, as in right now), hip-hop, I suppose, would be it. Astronautalis, in fact, raps in most of his songs. He’s known for his rhyme skills, but after listening to this album, he really doesn’t seem limited in his musical voice. He sings in all of his songs as well, and some of them involve no rap at all. In Life The Curse, the final track on the album, I swear he channels Tom Waits. It took me aback the first time I listened to the album the whole way through. That distinct deep low growl resonating from my speakers.

If I’m having a hard time getting my point across, the best description I can give you, is that This Is Our Science sounds like something I’ve been listening to for years. In no way is it dated or played out, but Astronautalis knows how to use the breadth of his multitude of styles and how to play them off of each other. As he bounces around musically from track to track, he’s creating a feel that’s....familiar. And good, quite good.

Oh, Astronautalis. Apparently, he’s been around since 2003. Printing You & Yer Good Ideas and selling it exclusively at shows. He got picked up by Fighting Records and they reissued it in 2005 and two more albums before this. Sometimes music doesn’t make it in popularity across the border north (and the same in reverse) until it’s already on the decline. That point when the artist peaks and releases some of his best work, which sets the bar too high and he/she/they can’t seem to top it for the rest of their career and everyone accuses them of selling out or not being as great as they once thought they were. I’m in no way saying this is the case with Astronautalis, I’m saying that I hope it isn’t.

THROWBACK: Wire-Pink Flag

Wire

Pink Flag

Ⓟ1977 EMI

Rating: Throwback

Every once and a while, for whatever reason, you discover a band or an album that has apparently been around for a very long time but, somehow, has seemingly gone unnoticed by you...well, me, I guess is what I’m saying. And this doesn’t happen to me very often (when it comes to music, quality related television programs slip through my fingers all the time). The only reason I say that is because, growing up, I was extremely fortunate to have the type of father who introduced me to more music than I possibly will ever discover for myself. He had (and still does, actually) the biggest CD collection I’ve ever seen, and our house, was a house, that when you woke up on a weekend morning, or came home from a friends house, the front door was wide open, and music would be spilling out into the street. Now, as you can imagine, this had a bit of an effect (and an affect) on myself and my two brothers. My brothers, being older than me by 5 years, and again by 9, making quite the age gap when you’re growing up, also ended up having a significant influence on the music I listen to, or have even heard. These are three distinct and massive generation gaps, so like I said, there is a rare occasion when I am surprised to find that a band from, oh the 70s, let’s say, that is completely unbeknownst to me. So when it happens and I get excited, I’ve decided to implement the throwback review.

Wire, a recent discovery thanks to a very good friend of mine and a Facebook post he made on his own wall. It was the track Mannequin from Wire’s first studio album Pink Flag. As it turns out, (even though I have only submitted hip hop reviews for this blog) I’m a massive punk fan, it was the first genre of music that I got to claim as my own, which neither my father nor my brother’s could hold any sway over what I listened to (youth in revolt...of a very encouraging non-judgmental environment, I might add). Now, technically, people consider Wire to fall under the post-punk, new wave genres, but, Pink Flag was released in 1977, smack dab in the middle of the punk movement, so for all intents and purposes, I’m calling this album punk.

I’ve done some reading since downloading the album and, it turns out, Wire is considered to be a major influence, coming out of the London in ’76. Pink Flag definitely reflects the first wave of British punk. It’s minimalistic and fast paced, as all good classic punk is (the longest track on the album being is 3:58), short bursts of attitude. Personally, I love this original style of punk, and appreciate it, not simply for nostalgic purposes, but for the energy it insights in the listeners. But aside from that, you can clearly hear the origins of post punk coming through on the tracks, with actual tempo changes and the tiniest bit of harmony on some of the vocal tracks.

This whole album is right up my alley and all kinds of good. It’s amazing sometimes that when you’re looking to find really good music, it’s been there the whole time.

Grieves-Together/Apart

Grieves

Together/Apart

ⓅRhymesayers Entertainment, LLC

Rating: 8.5/10

Okay, enough is enough. I’ve been staring at this document for almost a month trying to write this review and I’m not really sure why. I like this album and I like Grieves. How much do I like Grieves? I like him, I like him a lot. He’s probably one of the best rappers you’ve never heard of. But for some reason I just can’t seem to put this into words. He’s melodic and moody and his type of hip-hop isn’t necessarily the kind you sing along with, but damn does it make you listen. His lyrics and tracks paint images in your head of baggy jeans, ball hats, and wearing your hood up, walking around the downtown streets of some faceless city, just trying to blend in while you work through your thoughts. Cathartic, comes to mind. Together/Apart is sort of a diary for Grieves, somewhere to work through the relationship problems that come from promoting a budding recording career and consistently being on the road. I guess that’s a common theme in blossoming artists, but Grieves never makes it sounds self-pitying, as so many do. Moody? Yes. Depressing? Hardly.

This is Grieves second studio album and, I have to admit, I haven’t had all that much experience with his first, 88 Keys and Counting. Both have come out to critical acclaim and both run along the same vein, soulful but grittier than the track polishing we’re used to hearing on so many hip hop albums nowadays. Not to say that the tracks on Together/Apart sound haphazard or even a carbon copy to his first release, Grieves is distinctive in his sound, mixing his rap with his own low raspy singing, a voice which hardly belongs to a 27 year old white boy. A blend of keys, horns, percussion, and strings, mixed with Grieves poetic and personal lyrics, it makes for the best kind of hip hop.

I could go into detail about each track, but honestly, they’re all standouts. However, I will say the first track, Light Speed, really sets the pace for the album. A low tempo track with simple hand claps in the background, the lyrics giving nod to his days from childhood and all the steps that led to the present (the present being the time he sits down to write this song, literally), “It’s so simple, Superman, trick or treat, wet socks, bike rides in the summer to the best spots, could’ve sworn I was king of the best odds.” and “Started working on things that had lost all reason, now I’m sitting with a pad, moving so fast.” Setting tempo and mood, the rest of the tracks are just as mellow and personal.

Really, I’m not sure what there’s left to say about Together/Apart. Just give a listen. Hopefully, you’ll understand what it is that leaves me at a loss for words because, again, I can’t seem to describe the feeling.

Pyha - The Haunted House

Artist: Pyha (Korean for "Ruined")
Album: The Haunted House
Release: 2008 (Yeah, yeah I don't do 'fresh' reviews)
Genre: Depressive/Atmospheric Black Metal (and probably the grimiest yet)
Rating: 98% Dense and intense.


Welcome folks to an abhorrent, fifty-three minute nightmare. An agony of static and wretch fueled by a deep hatred of corruption and war. The atmosphere from start to finish both stimulating, and absolutely crushing. Devoid in its entirety of hope; stripping away emotion until you`re left with the barren tundras of loss and anathema. And this, from a Korean eighth-grader?

When the great tUMULt Laboratories first announced it was re-releasing this adolescent basement suffocation, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect (but I can assure you it was nothing positive). But the moment you open the jewel case and slide out the insert, you are struck with troubling images of a stark brutality; war. Sepia toned images of death and destruction. One image of a man hopelessly clutching the lifeless form of a friend; another of thousands fleeing from a fire-laden street. Terror, sorrow, rage, hatred, cruelty. From the first ninety seconds of the opening track "Appulyi", there was promise. Promise that, before the final few scarring seconds of the three part "Hyunnga is a Tangled Story" ticked away, was abruptly thrown into a chaotic pit of distortion and bare-bones, lo-fi odium. From the marrow-chilling vocal layers of the fifth track, "Song of the Elderly", to the eerily skeletal "Seomak" and "Message From Heaven", to easily the most driving 'black metal' track on the album, "After the Aliens", Pyha explores the foulest corners of struggle and emotional deprecation. Very nearly every second of this album is spent buzzing the red, pulsating continuously, breaking from the pained screams and doom-laden groans only for a few anguished keyboard interludes of the warmachine; for weeping mothers and terrified children.

How something so intense, so dissolute, could reside in the heart of a juvenile is well far and beyond me. Perhaps the most emotionally capturing, breathtaking, apalling album I have had the (dis)pleasure of listening to. It's albums like this that fuel my continued search to dive deeper into the obscure chasms of music. The vast fjord's of sound wherein lie the rarest of harmonious gems. Pyha, a bleakness, an utter darkness no obsidian, nor onyx, could match.

Braid - Closer to Closed

Braid

Closer to Closed

Polyvynil (2011)

There I was, minding my own business, trying to stalk people I barely know on Facebook, when an ad caught my eye. Now, the ads on Facebook are usually of no consequence to me: I don’t need to chat with women that don’t exist, buy a condo, or drink Coors Light. This ad was different, however. It proudly proclaimed that Braid, a band that I’d loved quite a bit in my late teens, had gotten back together and that they had released a new EP! This was all very confusing to me, both because I didn’t really expect them to get back together, and because a Facebook ad might finally be relevant to my interests.

Braid was not the first of the mid-90’s emo bands that I used to love when I was just out of high school and was still pretty awkward around girls to attempt a comeback. The Get Up Kids had a similar idea, and I was pretty unimpressed.  The thing about Braid being back together that concerned me is that – much like the Get Up Kids - I didn’t really like much of their latter-career material. I did rather enjoy their posthumous live album “Lucky to Be Alive,” even the songs that were written as the band was kind of imploding, but that was likely due to the energy of the band’s final shows.

There was also the matter of Hey Mercedes, a band that contained 3/4ths of the members of Braid, and they started off strong with “Everynight Fire Works” and then kind of trailed off as well. With all this middling quality output, it was understandable for my enthusiasm to be tempered. In fact, upon reading the news that Braid were back together, I was much more excited about seeing a band I never got to see play some songs that I used to like a lot than any of the new material. Upon listening to Closer to Closed, it seems as though my initial inclinations were sadly correct.

The four song EP starts off with “The Right Time,” which, sadly, features Chris Broach singing. Some of my favorite Braid moments are when Chris Broach yells things. Chris Broach is really good at yelling things, even just things like “Yeah!” Sadly, he is not a tremendously talented singer, and he does not yell a single thing on this EP. Other than Chris’ singing, the rest of the song just sounds a lot like Hey Mercedes’ latter output, albeit with sparser production. One of the major differences between Hey Mercedes and Braid was always that Braid had much more of an edge; Hey Mercedes were far poppier, but somehow that worked for them. Unfortunately it seems like Closer to Closed straddles the line between the two bands, and somehow comes off sounding neither edgy nor poppy.

Fortunately, guitarists Broach and Bob Nanna do often seem to slip comfortably back into their familiar guitar interplay, and they always played off one another tremendously well. The drumming and bass are mostly forgettable, but that was always kind of the case with Braid anyways. The EP’s standout track is definitely “Universe or Worse” which comes across as a poppier version of one of Braid’s old slow songs – Think “Capricorn” with some syncopation and some “oohs” in the background.

Still, on repeated listens, I can’t help but shake the feeling that this EP isn’t really terrible - it just isn’t Braid. Despite the thought that I was entering into listening to this album with low expectations, I have let my own preconceived notions of what Braid sound like get the better of me. It’s like being excited about going on a date with an ex you haven’t seen in a long time. Once you actually go on the date you often find that you don’t really like who they’ve become, you were just really into who they used to be.

The Cool Kids-When Fish Ride Bicycles

The Cool Kids

When Fish Ride Bicycles

Ⓟ2011 Green Label Sound

Rating: 4/10

Le sigh. I really had high hopes for this album. To be honest, I wasn’t even aware The Cool Kids had released an album until my insomnia induced internet surfing pointed it out to me. Based on their EP, The Bake Sale, I would’ve considered myself a Cool Kids fan, in fact, I claimed on several occasions that I was, even declared it on Facebook by ‘Like’-ing them (which is the only way to declare something officially), but now, with the release of When Fish Ride Bicycles, I’m not so sure.

Unlike it’s predecessor, When Fish Ride Bicycles lacks in...well, it just lacks. It’s mediocre at best. There does not appear to be a single track on the album that stands out to me. Truthfully, the beats are still distinctly The Cool Kids-esque, but completely toned down (which is what you get for signing on Pharrel as your producer, err, cough, ahem), which, I guess, had a direct affect on the writing? And, yes, I am posing that as a question because I honestly have no ides. Being that I obviously don’t know the boys (and most likely never will), I can’t even begin to fathom what happened. Was The Bake Sale EP just a fluke? I could’ve sworn there was exceptionality in this duo. With references in their lyrics to N.W.A. and even to their own tracks back and forth on the EP AAAND rhymes like “...just an F.Y.I., I’m F-L-Y, and for those who can’t spell I’m a pretty swell guy...” and “What it is, what it is, come check the noise, it’s the new black version of the Beastie Boys. Chuck-ie, Mikey, some dudes don’t like me. Don’t care. I’m dope, they lame, so bite me.”; I believed them! But maybe I was fooled.

The whole of When Fish Ride Bycicles album seems slowed down, almost muted. I just can’t seem to get behind any of it. If you’re still curious, even after this gloooowing review, I suppose the tracks you should check out are Sour Apples (featuring Travis Barker), Swimsuits (featuring Mayer Hawthorne), and Roll Call (featuring Asher Roth, Chip Tha Rippa, and Boldy James). They would be the catchiest tracks on the album. Sour Apples sounds most like a Cool Kids track with guest star Travis Barker (of Blink 182 and mad skillz fame) backing on drums. I’m not a huge Barker fan (to be honest, I find him a bit overrated, dun dun dun) but he definitely adds the bounce it needs, without over shinning the lyric work. Next up is Swimsuits; catchy enough, but nothing special. And, finally, Roll Call; actually, one of my least favourite tracks on the album, but should be checked out for the lyric work that Asher Roth puts in. I feel like Roth got written off because of I Love College, a single release set up to make him a one hit wonder, and people seemed lumped him in as the next Eminem simply because the boy is white. Well, the kid’s got his own style and skill, and more people need to know about it.

So, what have I learned form this experience? You can’t assume you’re going to like the next release from an artist even though you feel like you’ve gotten to know them so well over the years (27 plays of The Bake Sale EP on the iTunes, not including the iPod or the reset when I switched computers), but I guess I should’ve learned that by now, I have been buying my own music for almost 19 years. Shit happens.