February 1, 2012

Liturgy - High Gold

By way of an explanation for this video, let me quote again from Christopher Weingarten’s Spin story about Liturgy:

Soon after Liturgy released the first single from Aesthethica, the accelerating cloudgazer “High Gold,” they got an unexpected YouTube tribute from user FenrizBrazil, a name referencing the drummer from true-school black metal band Darkthrone. The video featured “High Gold” set to more than 15 scenes of men passionately kissing each other. “Clearly it was made with hostile intentions,” says Hunt-Hendrix. “I was definitely laughing uncontrollably, due to a mix of bewilderment and amusement and fear—but it was very startling. Then we were considering making it our official video.”

When I first saw this video, I was actually fooled for a moment, and thought that it was an official video. The thing about this video is that it could just as easily be a product of Liturgy attempting to annoy uptight black metal fans as a product of those uptight black metal fans attempting to annoy Liturgy. Either way, it makes a strong point about how disturbing and closed-minded the typical black metal fan base can be, and exactly why a band like Liturgy is so needed to shake that whole scene up.

11:54am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUayFjRoU_
(Notes: 4)
  
Filed under: Top 20 of 2011 
February 1, 2012
#1: Liturgy - Aesthethica And of course, the record I picked as my favorite of the year would also turn out to be the most controversial record on my list. When I got into Liturgy, and for quite a while afterward, I had no idea there was any sort of controversy around them. I discovered their 2009 debut album, Renihilation, late in 2010. Someone on some message board or someplace mentioned to me that Liturgy was a new American black metal band who were doing something pretty great, and I trusted their opinion enough to check it out. Renihilation, with its relatively straightforward take on lo-fi, stripped-down, levels-in-the-red black metal, won me over instantly, and I played it a fair amount over the next six months or so. Then Thrill Jockey, who have the magazine where I work on their promo list, sent me a digital copy of Aesthethica, which struck me as Liturgy taking things to a whole new level. By this point, I’d learned from friends who still kept up with the insular internet-gossip world of the progressive hardcore underground (as opposed to the underground hardcore scenes centered around tough guy moshcore and first-wave revivalism) that Liturgy was made up of people who’d been playing screamo bands a few years before, singer/guitarist/chief songwriter Hunter Hunt-Hendrix in particular having been in the Birthday Boyz, whom I’d never heard of before but clearly had some relevance in the screamo scene. It was much clearer from the sound of Aesthethica that this influence existed, too. One entire song, the seven-minute instrumental “Generation,” was based around a mathematically complex riff that wasn’t too far from something Lightning Bolt or Don Caballero might do, while other less black metal-sounding intros or breakdowns that appeared in various places on the album were also clearly coming from a post-hardcore approach. Yet still, to me, what came through most clearly was black metal. And it makes sense for a band who grew up in the hardcore and post-hardcore scenes of the past decade to end up with a pretty strong black metal influence. In the early 90s, when bands like Mayhem, Burzum, Immortal, and Emperor were getting just as much notice in the American metal underground for the criminal activities of their members as for their groundbreaking music, morbid fascination led a lot of metal fans (many of whom happened to be hardcore kids) to check out the Norwegian black metal scene. By 1995 or so, you could hear black metal influences in the sound of such diverse bands as One Eyed God Prophecy, Prayer For Cleansing, and Suicide Nation. The riff structures, blastbeats, and double-time strumming that characterized the black metal sound worked its way down through the evolutionary currents of the hardcore underground, until some of it was showing up in bands that the Birthday Boyz would likely have regarded as contemporaries. When people talk about underground scenes like these, I often get the feeling that they see outside influence as either unlikely or downright impossible. Perhaps this is due to the sort of fiercely loyal groupthink that can take over these small scenes. Such hive-mind tendencies can be both good and bad; good in that they help to facilitate the survival of a tiny scene that, if it becomes too diffuse, could evaporate entirely, but bad in that they foster an environment which takes interest in anything outside itself as an existential threat. When I went to basement shows in the mid-90s, I only talked to other attendees about bands like Antioch Arrow and Indian Summer. No one knew who was going home and listening to Slayer, or Nick Drake, or R. Kelly. Maybe all of us were dabbling in a variety of non-sanctioned genres, but nobody was talking about it. When I talk to people about Liturgy who claim that screamo kids couldn’t possibly know enough about black metal to start a black metal band, it’s this kind of cultural myopia that I see at work. None of us have any real idea of what Hunter Hunt-Hendrix was listening to back then. Based on the way Liturgy sounds now, though, I think the guy’s got to be pretty well-versed in the history of black metal. I’ve noticed from live recordings of Liturgy that I’ve heard that his screamed vocals are quite high-pitched; when they’re as forward in the mix as they tend to be on live recordings, he often sounds like a fan of such y2k-era screamo bands as Jerome’s Dream or Orchid. However, on Aesthethica, the vocals are placed relatively low in the mix, and are drenched in reverb, creating the impression of some poor anguished soul howling out his deepest fears and sorrows to the unforgiving walls of a large, empty room. What I hear in Liturgy’s vocals is a combination of influences taken from the angry antisocial railing of early black metal bands like Emperor or even 80s-era genre inventors Bathory, mixed with the more emotionally-centered vocal tones of hardcore bands like Converge or Pg. 99. Aesthethica contains its fair share of deviations from the sonic template of black metal, as on “Generations” or the early Mastodon-style midtempo riffing that makes up “Veins Of God.” However, when they are in straightforward black metal mode—as they are for the significant majority of this album—they construct their riffs out of the same quick chord changes running up and down the fretboard that can be heard in bands like Immortal or Emperor. Really, though, the band they most remind me of is Swedish group Marduk. Liturgy tend to play in higher keys than Marduk do, and they sound like they’re using different kinds of chords—specifically, Liturgy use the higher-pitched, more emotional-sounding octave chords, while Marduk go with darker, angrier-sounding power chords—but they construct their songs in very similar fashion. The most obvious musical innovation that Liturgy brings to the table is a variety of blastbeat that Hunter Hunt-Hendrix calls the burst beat. Like a typical blast beat, it’s based around extremely frequent snare hits, which often reach speeds of 300 BPM or better. However, in a burst beat, the blasting changes speeds within individual measures of a riff, and tends to incorporate relatively frequent pauses. Strangely enough, this shifting, pausing beat actually heightens the emotional tension of Liturgy’s music, even though it seems on paper like it should disrupt it. On songs like “Red Crown,” when a verse reaches its end and the drummer pauses for a two or four-beat rest, the sudden slam back into the hyperspeed riffing which comes at the end of that rest hits like a ton of bricks. The combination of Hunt-Hendrix’s anguished screams and frantically strummed guitar riffs with the shifting burst beats of drummer Greg Fox—whose work is integral to the sound of this album, and who unfortunately quit Liturgy a couple of months ago; how will they ever replace him?—all work together to give this album an extremely angst-ridden sound. I think this is a lot of what initially attracted me to Liturgy’s music; as a person who is angst-ridden at the best of times, I find their music to have a lot of emotional resonance in my daily life. And this is true despite the fact that I know pretty much nothing about what Hunter Hunt-Hendrix is singing about. The sound of his voice is enough to get the point across, at least for me. I’ve owned a copy of this album for nearly nine months, but I’m still playing it multiple times a week, and I still have trouble sitting still when I listen to it. It moves me, both emotionally and literally. I still haven’t talked about the controversy surrounding Liturgy, and that’s mainly because I don’t want to. My attachment to this band was formed completely separately from the manifestos they’ve released. I’m still only somewhat aware of them; my attempts to read Hunt-Hendrix’s Hideous Gnosis: Transcendental Black Metal paper have all ended in frustration and confusion. I’m pretty sure I get the basic point, but I think a lot of the details are difficult to parse, and since I understand the basic point, I’m not sure it’s worth it to dig any deeper. His point seems to be that American black metal as a genre and a movement needs to separate itself from the earlier forms of black metal, which were much darker and more nihilistic, while retaining the aesthetic qualities that made the genre a worthwhile form of music. He seems to find the earlier forms of black metal, which he refers to as Hyperborean (did he intend to remind me of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories with this term?), to be on a downward spiral into negativity and irrelevance, though I get the idea that he considered it vital and important at one time. His suggestion for a new direction for American black metal is towards transcendence, the idea of the aesthetics (he spells it “aesthethics,” hence the album title. Is this an intentional misspelling, or is it supposed to be an independent term with a different meaning? That, I cannot tell you) of black metal being directed towards catharsis, and a denial of nihilism in favor of light and… perhaps even joy? Like I said, the details are vague, at least to me.  What I can tell from reading what I’ve read of Liturgy’s philosophy is that they are turning away from the negativity and elitism—which is often linked to extreme right wing political philosophies, such as crypto-fascism, the pagan/Satanist authoritarianism of neo-volkisch movements, and even outright neo-Nazism—that dominates the thinking of many black metal fans, scenes, and bands. As much as I do enjoy black metal as a musical style, it’s tough sometimes to feel comfortable with listening to it, and there are some bands who are considered quite important to the musical evolution of the genre—most importantly Burzum and Darkthrone—that I refuse to listen to. While I love Emperor, who were less integral to the criminal activities of the early-90s Norwegian black metal scene but still very much a part of it, it’s tough for me to reconcile the fact that their first LP was recorded inbetween when their drummer committed a murder and when he was arrested for it. I feel a bit more comfortable with later LPs that feature a different drummer, but I still wonder sometimes if I’m a bad person for listening to any of their stuff. I feel like I’m on firmer ethical ground with musically important but non-criminal bands from the Scandinavian region, such as Enslaved, Marduk, and At The Gates, but the truth is that any northern European band linked with the black metal scene has a better than even chance of having extreme right-wing ties. That reality makes me uncomfortable, but I think I’m probably in the minority there. I feel like there are some black metal fans who feel the way I do, and some who just don’t care about the politics of the music they listen to (even if they do hold divergent political beliefs). But where most black metal fans, particularly fans in America, are concerned, I think a lot of them romanticize the right-wing beliefs of European black metal bands. In Lords Of Chaos: The Bloody Rise Of The Satanic Metal Underground, which is (sadly) probably the most authoritative black metal-related history currently extant, co-author Michael Moynihan gives a detailed sociological explanation for the movement towards right-wing political extremism in the Norwegian black metal underground. His contention, if I remember correctly (I don’t currently own a copy of the book), is that the liberal socialist society of late 20th century Scandinavia lead to widespread ennui amongst the youth of the region, and that the contrast between their society and that of their pagan Viking forefathers in centuries past made the idea of tearing down modern society in favor of a return to pre-Christian Scandinavian values quite attractive. Moynihan’s theory makes a lot of sense; in fact, despite the political reality of the modern United States, which is far more repressive and draconian, and far less economically comfortable for the majority of its population, I see a lot of the same ennui and romantic interest in right-wing iconography and ideology in the upper-class white youth culture of the present-day United States—or at least in the extreme musical underground version of that culture. The advent of “mysterious guy hardcore” (which is a whole other story, one that I’ve wanted to tackle for quite a while, but is outside the purview of this article) has involved quite a bit of interest in the crypto-fascist right wing of the industrial noise scene, particularly focused on Whitehouse, a group I find truly repugnant. The fact that important socially-liberal issues of the past decades seem for the most part to be settled (at least from the upper-class white point of view) has inspired a rather ironic return within white youth culture to flirtation with, and sometimes even open advocacy of, racism, sexism, and other forms of intolerance towards those different from oneself. By the way, it should be noted that Michael Moynihan has often been accused of advocating fascist beliefs himself, and though, after coyly refusing to take a stand in either direction throughout most of the 90s, he’s recently begun to openly reject fascist movements that he’s previously been linked to, his rejections often still bear the telltale tone of crypto-fascist beliefs. Which is to say, I do not trust the guy, and despite finding merit in his sociological theorizing within Lords Of Chaos, I do not share any of the tacit approval that is a textual undercurrent within that book. Just in case there was any doubt about that. There are plenty of people who fit this sociological profile within the ranks of American black metal fans, and boy does Liturgy piss them the hell off. While Hunter Hunt-Hendrix’s manifestos may be difficult to parse, quotes like one he recently gave to Spin, as part of a story by Christopher Weingarten about black metal bands who don’t fit the genre’s typical profile, make clear exactly what they hate about him: “Sometimes it feels like there were metalheads just waiting for this band to come along to hate it. Certain signifiers of looking a certain way and things are really meaningful to people. But it’s important to just do what you want to do, you know?” What’s fun is contrasting that quote with the article’s previous paragraph, which I will quote in full: Idiosyncratic moves like this are the core of DIY, but in the insular, identity-crazed shred-o-verse, they cause headbangers like black metal misanthrope Wrest of Leviathan to get up in arms. “I’ve never farmed in my life and I don’t play a flute by a campfire,” he told Decibel in October, as he awaited trial for sexual assault. “That shit’s just corny. Black metal at the end of the day is about Satan and will always be about Satan. Black metal seems to be for hipsters with their girlfriend’s pants on nowadays.” I admire Weingarten’s subtle insertion of the clause that I bolded, casually dropping in the fact that the person he’s quoting, who is going all-out to approve of black metal’s links to right-wing ideology, is also the sort of person that no halfway decent human being should want to be associated with. However, Wrest is a perfect example of what I’m talking about when I talk about extreme music fans who romanticize and fetishize right-wing iconography, and to understand just how perfect, you should all read up on exactly what he’s been charged with and what he’s had to say about it. A good place to start is Brandon Stosuy’s interview with him for Pitchfork, from September (note the dig at Liturgy in the answer to a question about defining black metal). Stosuy’s questions are softball-ish at times, but the interview was conducted over email, so I suppose if he’d been hard-hitting he might not have gotten any answers at all. I’d also direct you to the original print article on the crime, from the Chicago Sun-Times (who seemed to have no idea about Wrest/Whitehead’s musical career). Like a lot of the important figures on the early 90s Norwegian black metal scene, notably Burzum leader Varg Vikernes, Wrest comes off like a disturbed and dangerous individual. Regardless of any personal right-wing allegiances he (or Varg, for that matter) may have, he’s the sort of person you probably would want to have as little one-on-one contact with as possible. And these are the sorts of people who find Liturgy most disturbing. For someone with my own political beliefs, that’s comforting, and at times even amusing. Some of Hunter Hunt-Hendrix’s more prominent quotes are flat-out trolling people like this, and I’m pretty sure he’s doing it intentionally. Regardless of how much I like Liturgy, I find it enjoyable to read quotes like this. And in light of how much pleasure I’ve gotten out of Aesthethica over the course of the past year, it is an outright joy to for once feel completely comfortable with a great black metal album.

#1: Liturgy - Aesthethica

And of course, the record I picked as my favorite of the year would also turn out to be the most controversial record on my list. When I got into Liturgy, and for quite a while afterward, I had no idea there was any sort of controversy around them. I discovered their 2009 debut album, Renihilation, late in 2010. Someone on some message board or someplace mentioned to me that Liturgy was a new American black metal band who were doing something pretty great, and I trusted their opinion enough to check it out. Renihilation, with its relatively straightforward take on lo-fi, stripped-down, levels-in-the-red black metal, won me over instantly, and I played it a fair amount over the next six months or so. Then Thrill Jockey, who have the magazine where I work on their promo list, sent me a digital copy of Aesthethica, which struck me as Liturgy taking things to a whole new level.

By this point, I’d learned from friends who still kept up with the insular internet-gossip world of the progressive hardcore underground (as opposed to the underground hardcore scenes centered around tough guy moshcore and first-wave revivalism) that Liturgy was made up of people who’d been playing screamo bands a few years before, singer/guitarist/chief songwriter Hunter Hunt-Hendrix in particular having been in the Birthday Boyz, whom I’d never heard of before but clearly had some relevance in the screamo scene. It was much clearer from the sound of Aesthethica that this influence existed, too. One entire song, the seven-minute instrumental “Generation,” was based around a mathematically complex riff that wasn’t too far from something Lightning Bolt or Don Caballero might do, while other less black metal-sounding intros or breakdowns that appeared in various places on the album were also clearly coming from a post-hardcore approach.

Yet still, to me, what came through most clearly was black metal. And it makes sense for a band who grew up in the hardcore and post-hardcore scenes of the past decade to end up with a pretty strong black metal influence. In the early 90s, when bands like Mayhem, Burzum, Immortal, and Emperor were getting just as much notice in the American metal underground for the criminal activities of their members as for their groundbreaking music, morbid fascination led a lot of metal fans (many of whom happened to be hardcore kids) to check out the Norwegian black metal scene. By 1995 or so, you could hear black metal influences in the sound of such diverse bands as One Eyed God Prophecy, Prayer For Cleansing, and Suicide Nation. The riff structures, blastbeats, and double-time strumming that characterized the black metal sound worked its way down through the evolutionary currents of the hardcore underground, until some of it was showing up in bands that the Birthday Boyz would likely have regarded as contemporaries.

When people talk about underground scenes like these, I often get the feeling that they see outside influence as either unlikely or downright impossible. Perhaps this is due to the sort of fiercely loyal groupthink that can take over these small scenes. Such hive-mind tendencies can be both good and bad; good in that they help to facilitate the survival of a tiny scene that, if it becomes too diffuse, could evaporate entirely, but bad in that they foster an environment which takes interest in anything outside itself as an existential threat. When I went to basement shows in the mid-90s, I only talked to other attendees about bands like Antioch Arrow and Indian Summer. No one knew who was going home and listening to Slayer, or Nick Drake, or R. Kelly. Maybe all of us were dabbling in a variety of non-sanctioned genres, but nobody was talking about it.

When I talk to people about Liturgy who claim that screamo kids couldn’t possibly know enough about black metal to start a black metal band, it’s this kind of cultural myopia that I see at work. None of us have any real idea of what Hunter Hunt-Hendrix was listening to back then. Based on the way Liturgy sounds now, though, I think the guy’s got to be pretty well-versed in the history of black metal. I’ve noticed from live recordings of Liturgy that I’ve heard that his screamed vocals are quite high-pitched; when they’re as forward in the mix as they tend to be on live recordings, he often sounds like a fan of such y2k-era screamo bands as Jerome’s Dream or Orchid. However, on Aesthethica, the vocals are placed relatively low in the mix, and are drenched in reverb, creating the impression of some poor anguished soul howling out his deepest fears and sorrows to the unforgiving walls of a large, empty room.

What I hear in Liturgy’s vocals is a combination of influences taken from the angry antisocial railing of early black metal bands like Emperor or even 80s-era genre inventors Bathory, mixed with the more emotionally-centered vocal tones of hardcore bands like Converge or Pg. 99. Aesthethica contains its fair share of deviations from the sonic template of black metal, as on “Generations” or the early Mastodon-style midtempo riffing that makes up “Veins Of God.” However, when they are in straightforward black metal mode—as they are for the significant majority of this album—they construct their riffs out of the same quick chord changes running up and down the fretboard that can be heard in bands like Immortal or Emperor. Really, though, the band they most remind me of is Swedish group Marduk. Liturgy tend to play in higher keys than Marduk do, and they sound like they’re using different kinds of chords—specifically, Liturgy use the higher-pitched, more emotional-sounding octave chords, while Marduk go with darker, angrier-sounding power chords—but they construct their songs in very similar fashion.

The most obvious musical innovation that Liturgy brings to the table is a variety of blastbeat that Hunter Hunt-Hendrix calls the burst beat. Like a typical blast beat, it’s based around extremely frequent snare hits, which often reach speeds of 300 BPM or better. However, in a burst beat, the blasting changes speeds within individual measures of a riff, and tends to incorporate relatively frequent pauses. Strangely enough, this shifting, pausing beat actually heightens the emotional tension of Liturgy’s music, even though it seems on paper like it should disrupt it. On songs like “Red Crown,” when a verse reaches its end and the drummer pauses for a two or four-beat rest, the sudden slam back into the hyperspeed riffing which comes at the end of that rest hits like a ton of bricks. The combination of Hunt-Hendrix’s anguished screams and frantically strummed guitar riffs with the shifting burst beats of drummer Greg Fox—whose work is integral to the sound of this album, and who unfortunately quit Liturgy a couple of months ago; how will they ever replace him?—all work together to give this album an extremely angst-ridden sound.

I think this is a lot of what initially attracted me to Liturgy’s music; as a person who is angst-ridden at the best of times, I find their music to have a lot of emotional resonance in my daily life. And this is true despite the fact that I know pretty much nothing about what Hunter Hunt-Hendrix is singing about. The sound of his voice is enough to get the point across, at least for me. I’ve owned a copy of this album for nearly nine months, but I’m still playing it multiple times a week, and I still have trouble sitting still when I listen to it. It moves me, both emotionally and literally.

I still haven’t talked about the controversy surrounding Liturgy, and that’s mainly because I don’t want to. My attachment to this band was formed completely separately from the manifestos they’ve released. I’m still only somewhat aware of them; my attempts to read Hunt-Hendrix’s Hideous Gnosis: Transcendental Black Metal paper have all ended in frustration and confusion. I’m pretty sure I get the basic point, but I think a lot of the details are difficult to parse, and since I understand the basic point, I’m not sure it’s worth it to dig any deeper. His point seems to be that American black metal as a genre and a movement needs to separate itself from the earlier forms of black metal, which were much darker and more nihilistic, while retaining the aesthetic qualities that made the genre a worthwhile form of music. He seems to find the earlier forms of black metal, which he refers to as Hyperborean (did he intend to remind me of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories with this term?), to be on a downward spiral into negativity and irrelevance, though I get the idea that he considered it vital and important at one time. His suggestion for a new direction for American black metal is towards transcendence, the idea of the aesthetics (he spells it “aesthethics,” hence the album title. Is this an intentional misspelling, or is it supposed to be an independent term with a different meaning? That, I cannot tell you) of black metal being directed towards catharsis, and a denial of nihilism in favor of light and… perhaps even joy? Like I said, the details are vague, at least to me. 

What I can tell from reading what I’ve read of Liturgy’s philosophy is that they are turning away from the negativity and elitism—which is often linked to extreme right wing political philosophies, such as crypto-fascism, the pagan/Satanist authoritarianism of neo-volkisch movements, and even outright neo-Nazism—that dominates the thinking of many black metal fans, scenes, and bands. As much as I do enjoy black metal as a musical style, it’s tough sometimes to feel comfortable with listening to it, and there are some bands who are considered quite important to the musical evolution of the genre—most importantly Burzum and Darkthrone—that I refuse to listen to. While I love Emperor, who were less integral to the criminal activities of the early-90s Norwegian black metal scene but still very much a part of it, it’s tough for me to reconcile the fact that their first LP was recorded inbetween when their drummer committed a murder and when he was arrested for it. I feel a bit more comfortable with later LPs that feature a different drummer, but I still wonder sometimes if I’m a bad person for listening to any of their stuff. I feel like I’m on firmer ethical ground with musically important but non-criminal bands from the Scandinavian region, such as Enslaved, Marduk, and At The Gates, but the truth is that any northern European band linked with the black metal scene has a better than even chance of having extreme right-wing ties.

That reality makes me uncomfortable, but I think I’m probably in the minority there. I feel like there are some black metal fans who feel the way I do, and some who just don’t care about the politics of the music they listen to (even if they do hold divergent political beliefs). But where most black metal fans, particularly fans in America, are concerned, I think a lot of them romanticize the right-wing beliefs of European black metal bands. In Lords Of Chaos: The Bloody Rise Of The Satanic Metal Underground, which is (sadly) probably the most authoritative black metal-related history currently extant, co-author Michael Moynihan gives a detailed sociological explanation for the movement towards right-wing political extremism in the Norwegian black metal underground. His contention, if I remember correctly (I don’t currently own a copy of the book), is that the liberal socialist society of late 20th century Scandinavia lead to widespread ennui amongst the youth of the region, and that the contrast between their society and that of their pagan Viking forefathers in centuries past made the idea of tearing down modern society in favor of a return to pre-Christian Scandinavian values quite attractive.

Moynihan’s theory makes a lot of sense; in fact, despite the political reality of the modern United States, which is far more repressive and draconian, and far less economically comfortable for the majority of its population, I see a lot of the same ennui and romantic interest in right-wing iconography and ideology in the upper-class white youth culture of the present-day United States—or at least in the extreme musical underground version of that culture. The advent of “mysterious guy hardcore” (which is a whole other story, one that I’ve wanted to tackle for quite a while, but is outside the purview of this article) has involved quite a bit of interest in the crypto-fascist right wing of the industrial noise scene, particularly focused on Whitehouse, a group I find truly repugnant. The fact that important socially-liberal issues of the past decades seem for the most part to be settled (at least from the upper-class white point of view) has inspired a rather ironic return within white youth culture to flirtation with, and sometimes even open advocacy of, racism, sexism, and other forms of intolerance towards those different from oneself.

By the way, it should be noted that Michael Moynihan has often been accused of advocating fascist beliefs himself, and though, after coyly refusing to take a stand in either direction throughout most of the 90s, he’s recently begun to openly reject fascist movements that he’s previously been linked to, his rejections often still bear the telltale tone of crypto-fascist beliefs. Which is to say, I do not trust the guy, and despite finding merit in his sociological theorizing within Lords Of Chaos, I do not share any of the tacit approval that is a textual undercurrent within that book. Just in case there was any doubt about that.

There are plenty of people who fit this sociological profile within the ranks of American black metal fans, and boy does Liturgy piss them the hell off. While Hunter Hunt-Hendrix’s manifestos may be difficult to parse, quotes like one he recently gave to Spin, as part of a story by Christopher Weingarten about black metal bands who don’t fit the genre’s typical profile, make clear exactly what they hate about him: “Sometimes it feels like there were metalheads just waiting for this band to come along to hate it. Certain signifiers of looking a certain way and things are really meaningful to people. But it’s important to just do what you want to do, you know?” What’s fun is contrasting that quote with the article’s previous paragraph, which I will quote in full:

Idiosyncratic moves like this are the core of DIY, but in the insular, identity-crazed shred-o-verse, they cause headbangers like black metal misanthrope Wrest of Leviathan to get up in arms. “I’ve never farmed in my life and I don’t play a flute by a campfire,” he told Decibel in October, as he awaited trial for sexual assault. “That shit’s just corny. Black metal at the end of the day is about Satan and will always be about Satan. Black metal seems to be for hipsters with their girlfriend’s pants on nowadays.”

I admire Weingarten’s subtle insertion of the clause that I bolded, casually dropping in the fact that the person he’s quoting, who is going all-out to approve of black metal’s links to right-wing ideology, is also the sort of person that no halfway decent human being should want to be associated with. However, Wrest is a perfect example of what I’m talking about when I talk about extreme music fans who romanticize and fetishize right-wing iconography, and to understand just how perfect, you should all read up on exactly what he’s been charged with and what he’s had to say about it. A good place to start is Brandon Stosuy’s interview with him for Pitchfork, from September (note the dig at Liturgy in the answer to a question about defining black metal). Stosuy’s questions are softball-ish at times, but the interview was conducted over email, so I suppose if he’d been hard-hitting he might not have gotten any answers at all. I’d also direct you to the original print article on the crime, from the Chicago Sun-Times (who seemed to have no idea about Wrest/Whitehead’s musical career). Like a lot of the important figures on the early 90s Norwegian black metal scene, notably Burzum leader Varg Vikernes, Wrest comes off like a disturbed and dangerous individual. Regardless of any personal right-wing allegiances he (or Varg, for that matter) may have, he’s the sort of person you probably would want to have as little one-on-one contact with as possible.

And these are the sorts of people who find Liturgy most disturbing. For someone with my own political beliefs, that’s comforting, and at times even amusing. Some of Hunter Hunt-Hendrix’s more prominent quotes are flat-out trolling people like this, and I’m pretty sure he’s doing it intentionally. Regardless of how much I like Liturgy, I find it enjoyable to read quotes like this. And in light of how much pleasure I’ve gotten out of Aesthethica over the course of the past year, it is an outright joy to for once feel completely comfortable with a great black metal album.

11:48am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUayFjQymr
(Notes: 19)
  
Filed under: Top 20 of 2011 
January 31, 2012

Moving Mountains - The Cascade

Here’s the performance, shot at the APK Studios loft in Brooklyn, that made me fall in love with Moving Mountains. If you compare this live version to the version of “The Cascade” that appears on Waves, it’s clear that there’s a lot missing besides the swelling string sections—the singer’s vocals on this live take aren’t nearly as strong as they are on the studio version, for one. He’s unable to hit the high notes on the bridge, and sustaining other notes seems to be a bit more than he can handle while playing guitar at the same time. The backing vocalist’s parts are almost inaudible, perhaps due to a too-low fader on the soundboard, or maybe he just can’t sing very loud (which is easily hidden in the studio but much harder to disguise in a live environment). Regardless, this version still has a really powerful effect for me, just because of how heartfelt it obviously is. What Moving Mountains are unable to replicate from their studio sound in a live environment is more than made up for by their passionate onstage delivery. I didn’t go to that Conditions show that I was writing up when I first heard of these guys, but I can assure you that the next time they play Richmond, I will be front and center. I’d be a fool to miss this twice.

P.S.—Here is the other song from this live session: “Always Only For Me.”

2:43pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUayFh76w0
Filed under: Top 20 of 2011 
January 31, 2012
#2: Moving Mountains - Waves It seems strange to say this about an album that ended up this high on my list, but I almost didn’t hear Moving Mountains at all. They came to my attention in November, and completely by accident. I was writing a preview article for RVA Magazine’s website about a show Conditions (a great Richmond-based emo band who released my #1 album of 2010, Fluorescent Youth) were headlining. I wanted to say something about the opening bands as well, and one of them, Moving Mountains, was completely unfamiliar to me. I googled them and discovered a two-song video in which they were performing live in a loft space in Brooklyn. The multi-camera footage and professionally recorded sound made clear that this was an organized PR event rather than a true underground live performance, but it was still really cool to see them playing on a living room floor in front of a small but fervent audience. The songs they performed in the video—“Always Only For Me” and “The Cascade,” both from Waves—were excellent, too. They were working in a particular variety of the modern emo sound that I’m a sucker for: dual guitars that strayed from playing in unison whenever possible in favor of divergent but interlocking melodies; clean, pretty lead vocals that were occasionally given extra resonance with the addition of screamed backing vocals; and an underlying heaviness that was carried mostly by the rhythm section, with powerful drumming and low, simple basslines that provide a solid foundation for the single-note guitar leads. That two-song video was enough to send me scrambling for a copy of Moving Mountains’ album. That album, Waves, immediately lived up to my expectations, not only capturing the excellent live sound they’d had on that video throughout the album but revealing an entirely different dimension to their sound. Live, their sound was relatively stripped-down—just the two guitars, bass, drums, and vocals. On the album, though, almost every song was augmented with orchestral arrangements. “The Cascade,” my immediate favorite based on the live session, features a string section on the final verse and chorus, with violins adding melody lines on top of the ones carried by the guitar and vocals. For a band with a powerful, rock-based sound, these instrumental additions present a risk; if the string sections overrun the guitar and vocal melodies, or weaken the power of the rhythm section, the song could easily become a syrupy mess. However, due to the decision to leave these orchestral arrangements relatively low in the mix most of the time, they are never overpowering. Instead, the sonic dimensions they add to these songs increases the emotional impact of their wistful melodies without diluting the overall arrangement. Moving Mountains comes closest to syrup territory on “Once Rendering,” a mostly-acoustic ballad with very little contribution from the rhythm section. However, in its position at the album’s halfway point, it represents a breather from the heavier feel of the songs surrounding it and works quite well as such. While I often think of it as my least favorite song on Waves, when I listen to the album all the way through, it feels appropriate in context, and I’m never inclined to skip it. There are many songs here that I do consider my favorites—almost the majority of the album, in fact. Opener “My Life Is Like A Chase Dream (And I’m Still Having Chase Dreams)” starts off with a slow, quiet intro, but once it gets going, its soaring lead guitar riffs and driving chorus make an immediate impression. Moving Mountains don’t place too much emphasis on the post-hardcore aspects of their sound, but in places like the chorus to “My Life Is A Chase Dream,” or the sudden half-time breakdown that appears where it seems like “The Cascade“‘s second chorus should be, they prove their ability to use heavier sounds effectively. Another song on which this talent appears is “Always Only For Me,” which doesn’t have a well-defined chorus, but does feature an excellent mid-song crescendo in which the two vocalists lay down contrasting screamed and melodically sung vocal lines. The emotional feel of this section of the song is heightened soon afterwards when, in conjunction with a downward key change, a horn section comes in. Normally, when one thinks of a horn section, things like the brass charts on old Stax singles come to mind, but this is far different, a moment that instead has the same orchestral feel conjured elsewhere on the album by string sections. The horns play a very similar part to the low root notes that the bass lays down during this section, and provide both a thickening of the song’s basic chord structure and a nice understated contrast to the high, clear vocal part during this section. “Alleviate,” perhaps the only truly uptempo song on this album, is another highlight, featuring lyrics that, like those of “The Cascade” and “My Life Is A Chase Dream,” refer extensively to sleep and dreaming. The way the lyrics combine these topics with references to love and loss calls to mind Armor For Sleep’s 2003 debut album Dream To Make Believe, another post-y2k emo classic, and one of many albums that put the lie to the widespread assumption that the emo genre had nothing to offer once Dashboard Confessional happened. Moving Mountains, like Conditions, Armor For Sleep, and quite a few other groups from the past decade (Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, My Chemical Romance… the list goes on), are making solid contributions to the modern emo genre, proving that hardcore-influenced bands can mature and integrate more overt pop stylings without losing their backbone. Emo’s not dead, y’all.

#2: Moving Mountains - Waves

It seems strange to say this about an album that ended up this high on my list, but I almost didn’t hear Moving Mountains at all. They came to my attention in November, and completely by accident. I was writing a preview article for RVA Magazine’s website about a show Conditions (a great Richmond-based emo band who released my #1 album of 2010, Fluorescent Youth) were headlining. I wanted to say something about the opening bands as well, and one of them, Moving Mountains, was completely unfamiliar to me. I googled them and discovered a two-song video in which they were performing live in a loft space in Brooklyn. The multi-camera footage and professionally recorded sound made clear that this was an organized PR event rather than a true underground live performance, but it was still really cool to see them playing on a living room floor in front of a small but fervent audience.

The songs they performed in the video—“Always Only For Me” and “The Cascade,” both from Waves—were excellent, too. They were working in a particular variety of the modern emo sound that I’m a sucker for: dual guitars that strayed from playing in unison whenever possible in favor of divergent but interlocking melodies; clean, pretty lead vocals that were occasionally given extra resonance with the addition of screamed backing vocals; and an underlying heaviness that was carried mostly by the rhythm section, with powerful drumming and low, simple basslines that provide a solid foundation for the single-note guitar leads. That two-song video was enough to send me scrambling for a copy of Moving Mountains’ album.

That album, Waves, immediately lived up to my expectations, not only capturing the excellent live sound they’d had on that video throughout the album but revealing an entirely different dimension to their sound. Live, their sound was relatively stripped-down—just the two guitars, bass, drums, and vocals. On the album, though, almost every song was augmented with orchestral arrangements. “The Cascade,” my immediate favorite based on the live session, features a string section on the final verse and chorus, with violins adding melody lines on top of the ones carried by the guitar and vocals.

For a band with a powerful, rock-based sound, these instrumental additions present a risk; if the string sections overrun the guitar and vocal melodies, or weaken the power of the rhythm section, the song could easily become a syrupy mess. However, due to the decision to leave these orchestral arrangements relatively low in the mix most of the time, they are never overpowering. Instead, the sonic dimensions they add to these songs increases the emotional impact of their wistful melodies without diluting the overall arrangement. Moving Mountains comes closest to syrup territory on “Once Rendering,” a mostly-acoustic ballad with very little contribution from the rhythm section. However, in its position at the album’s halfway point, it represents a breather from the heavier feel of the songs surrounding it and works quite well as such. While I often think of it as my least favorite song on Waves, when I listen to the album all the way through, it feels appropriate in context, and I’m never inclined to skip it.

There are many songs here that I do consider my favorites—almost the majority of the album, in fact. Opener “My Life Is Like A Chase Dream (And I’m Still Having Chase Dreams)” starts off with a slow, quiet intro, but once it gets going, its soaring lead guitar riffs and driving chorus make an immediate impression. Moving Mountains don’t place too much emphasis on the post-hardcore aspects of their sound, but in places like the chorus to “My Life Is A Chase Dream,” or the sudden half-time breakdown that appears where it seems like “The Cascade“‘s second chorus should be, they prove their ability to use heavier sounds effectively.

Another song on which this talent appears is “Always Only For Me,” which doesn’t have a well-defined chorus, but does feature an excellent mid-song crescendo in which the two vocalists lay down contrasting screamed and melodically sung vocal lines. The emotional feel of this section of the song is heightened soon afterwards when, in conjunction with a downward key change, a horn section comes in. Normally, when one thinks of a horn section, things like the brass charts on old Stax singles come to mind, but this is far different, a moment that instead has the same orchestral feel conjured elsewhere on the album by string sections. The horns play a very similar part to the low root notes that the bass lays down during this section, and provide both a thickening of the song’s basic chord structure and a nice understated contrast to the high, clear vocal part during this section.

“Alleviate,” perhaps the only truly uptempo song on this album, is another highlight, featuring lyrics that, like those of “The Cascade” and “My Life Is A Chase Dream,” refer extensively to sleep and dreaming. The way the lyrics combine these topics with references to love and loss calls to mind Armor For Sleep’s 2003 debut album Dream To Make Believe, another post-y2k emo classic, and one of many albums that put the lie to the widespread assumption that the emo genre had nothing to offer once Dashboard Confessional happened. Moving Mountains, like Conditions, Armor For Sleep, and quite a few other groups from the past decade (Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, My Chemical Romance… the list goes on), are making solid contributions to the modern emo genre, proving that hardcore-influenced bands can mature and integrate more overt pop stylings without losing their backbone. Emo’s not dead, y’all.

2:36pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUayFh6068
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: Top 20 of 2011 
January 30, 2012

Thurston Moore - Benediction

Thurston and his solo band (featuring harp and violin) perform the opening track fromDemolished Thoughts on Letterman last August.

All I have to say about this is that it rules.

7:32pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUayFeip4C
(Notes: 7)
  
Filed under: Top 20 of 2011 
January 30, 2012
#3: Thurston Moore - Demolished Thoughts This year, Thurston Moore and his Sonic Youth bandmate, Kim Gordon, ended their romantic relationship, after something like three decades together. I admit that my first thought, like that of many Sonic Youth fans, was “What does this mean for the band?” Of course, I care about what happens to Kim, Thurston, and their daughter Coco too, and if what makes things OK for the three of them as people is for Sonic Youth to cease to exist, I’m fine with that happening. But, especially considering the ridiculous fact that I still have never seen Sonic Youth perform live, such a thought does not exactly fill me with joy. One of the things that makes me feel a little better about it, though, is the fact that I’ve been so taken in by this solo effort from Thurston Moore. Demolished Thoughts features Thurston forsaking the usual electric foundations of Sonic Youth to lead a small acoustic combo, with results that are immediately striking, and quite pleasant. Though the comparison isn’t entirely apt, I can’t help but think of Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter when I listen to Demolished Thoughts. The second of the three albums Drake released during his lifetime, Bryter Layter featured, in addition to Drake’s quiet, finger-picked acoustic guitar and warm, soothing voice, the work of quite a few classical and jazz musicians, who proceeded to add a lush, inviting atmosphere to Drake’s spare solo arrangements. Despite the fact that the songs on Demolished Thoughts were clearly written with the intent of including the orchestration they now feature, Moore’s album nonetheless creates a mood very similar to that of Drake’s. And yet, it retains Moore’s off-kilter sensibility, which comes through in surprising and distinctive ways. For example, Demolished Thoughts is not the only solo record Thurston released this year; a few months before Demolished Thoughts came out, a small vinyl-only label called Vin Du Select Qualitite released an LP by Thurston called 12 String Meditations For Jack Rose. Thurston’s untreated instrumental guitar solos on that album, a memorial tribute for a well-respected experimental guitarist who passed away a couple of years ago at the frighteningly young age of 38, are odd and distinctive, reminiscent of Rose’s work as well as that of John Fahey. Demolished Thoughts, with its string-section backing and tastefully embroidered production, should be the polar opposite of what Thurston was doing on his tribute to Jack Rose. And yet, some of the odd, tension-filled moments that materialize on that record greatly resemble some of the most unsettling, and most interesting, moments on Demolished Thoughts. Generally, those darker, stranger moments are buried beneath the much more pleasant layers of instrumental polish on display throughout this album—which, as a result of that polish, has a warm, inviting feel, rather than the sometimes prickly exterior of the Jack Rose tribute. However, at times, most obviously on the song “Circulation,” the Nick Drake-ish atmosphere falls away, in favor of something that sounds almost like acoustic Sonic Youth crossed with the John Cale-era Velvet Underground’s darkest, wildest moments. These sounds seem like they shouldn’t work in an acoustic setting; without the feedback, most of Sonic Youth’s material would be rendered pointless, or at least extremely awkward. And yet, if anything, these darker, more unsettling moments only draw the listener in further. An exercise in nothing but warm, inviting polished pop might seem a bit unnatural coming from a well-known experimentalist like Moore—the fact that he continues to insert his unique sensibility into such a melodic work keeps the entire thing sincere. It also helps the more conventional moments on Demolished Thoughts stand out and ring true, whereas if they were all that the album had to offer, they might start to seem hollow and insincere after a while. What Demolished Thoughts really gets across is that Thurston Moore has a lot to offer besides what he puts out there in Sonic Youth. He is capable of doing solo work that integrates all sides of his artistic approach, and does so in a fundamentally appealing manner. I’ve enjoyed the last several Sonic Youth albums just as much as I liked their more universally acclaimed material from two decades ago. However, if events in Thurston and Kim’s personal life have rendered their continued collaboration in Sonic Youth an impossibility, I will console myself with the prospect of further Thurston Moore solo albums, which is not at all a disappointing proposition.

#3: Thurston Moore - Demolished Thoughts

This year, Thurston Moore and his Sonic Youth bandmate, Kim Gordon, ended their romantic relationship, after something like three decades together. I admit that my first thought, like that of many Sonic Youth fans, was “What does this mean for the band?” Of course, I care about what happens to Kim, Thurston, and their daughter Coco too, and if what makes things OK for the three of them as people is for Sonic Youth to cease to exist, I’m fine with that happening. But, especially considering the ridiculous fact that I still have never seen Sonic Youth perform live, such a thought does not exactly fill me with joy.

One of the things that makes me feel a little better about it, though, is the fact that I’ve been so taken in by this solo effort from Thurston Moore. Demolished Thoughts features Thurston forsaking the usual electric foundations of Sonic Youth to lead a small acoustic combo, with results that are immediately striking, and quite pleasant. Though the comparison isn’t entirely apt, I can’t help but think of Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter when I listen to Demolished Thoughts. The second of the three albums Drake released during his lifetime, Bryter Layter featured, in addition to Drake’s quiet, finger-picked acoustic guitar and warm, soothing voice, the work of quite a few classical and jazz musicians, who proceeded to add a lush, inviting atmosphere to Drake’s spare solo arrangements. Despite the fact that the songs on Demolished Thoughts were clearly written with the intent of including the orchestration they now feature, Moore’s album nonetheless creates a mood very similar to that of Drake’s.

And yet, it retains Moore’s off-kilter sensibility, which comes through in surprising and distinctive ways. For example, Demolished Thoughts is not the only solo record Thurston released this year; a few months before Demolished Thoughts came out, a small vinyl-only label called Vin Du Select Qualitite released an LP by Thurston called 12 String Meditations For Jack Rose. Thurston’s untreated instrumental guitar solos on that album, a memorial tribute for a well-respected experimental guitarist who passed away a couple of years ago at the frighteningly young age of 38, are odd and distinctive, reminiscent of Rose’s work as well as that of John Fahey.

Demolished Thoughts, with its string-section backing and tastefully embroidered production, should be the polar opposite of what Thurston was doing on his tribute to Jack Rose. And yet, some of the odd, tension-filled moments that materialize on that record greatly resemble some of the most unsettling, and most interesting, moments on Demolished Thoughts. Generally, those darker, stranger moments are buried beneath the much more pleasant layers of instrumental polish on display throughout this album—which, as a result of that polish, has a warm, inviting feel, rather than the sometimes prickly exterior of the Jack Rose tribute.

However, at times, most obviously on the song “Circulation,” the Nick Drake-ish atmosphere falls away, in favor of something that sounds almost like acoustic Sonic Youth crossed with the John Cale-era Velvet Underground’s darkest, wildest moments. These sounds seem like they shouldn’t work in an acoustic setting; without the feedback, most of Sonic Youth’s material would be rendered pointless, or at least extremely awkward. And yet, if anything, these darker, more unsettling moments only draw the listener in further. An exercise in nothing but warm, inviting polished pop might seem a bit unnatural coming from a well-known experimentalist like Moore—the fact that he continues to insert his unique sensibility into such a melodic work keeps the entire thing sincere. It also helps the more conventional moments on Demolished Thoughts stand out and ring true, whereas if they were all that the album had to offer, they might start to seem hollow and insincere after a while.

What Demolished Thoughts really gets across is that Thurston Moore has a lot to offer besides what he puts out there in Sonic Youth. He is capable of doing solo work that integrates all sides of his artistic approach, and does so in a fundamentally appealing manner. I’ve enjoyed the last several Sonic Youth albums just as much as I liked their more universally acclaimed material from two decades ago. However, if events in Thurston and Kim’s personal life have rendered their continued collaboration in Sonic Youth an impossibility, I will console myself with the prospect of further Thurston Moore solo albums, which is not at all a disappointing proposition.

7:26pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUayFehJ0K
(Notes: 5)
  
Filed under: Top 20 of 2011 
January 30, 2012

Snowing - So I Shotgunned A Beer And Went To Bed/It’s Just A Party

Snowing broke up a few months ago, about six months after I saw them for the first and only time. This is footage from their final show, in a church basement in their hometown of Philadelphia, PA. It’s always made me feel sad to contemplate the fact that a vast majority of the great bands I discovered through my two decades in the underground hardcore/punk/emo/whatever scene have a pretty much nonexistent profile in the larger music world—the fact that most people that I talk to about music don’t know who the hell Angel Hair were is a tragedy to me. And of course, the fact that it’s really fucking hard to get past the level on which underground bands exist, to go from having a few hundred hardcore fans and only 1000 or so people who’ve even ever heard of you to actually attaining even a small measure of widespread fame, makes it correspondingly hard to keep tiny underground bands going. For a band to survive long enough in that scene to make a second album is extremely rare. Snowing were no exception, which makes me sad.

On the other hand, something that’s impossible to miss when watching a video like this is the fact that really tiny bands often connect extremely intensely with the local scene in their hometown. In this video, the church basement where Snowing is playing is fucking packed—notice the multiple rows of kids who’ve crowded onto the stage because there’s nowhere else for them to stand. Notice the way that, on the quieter parts, the kids in the crowd are singing along so loudly that you can hear them more clearly than the singer. Even in Philadelphia, not that many people probably even know who Snowing were. But for the kids who went to their shows regularly, they probably seemed like one of the biggest bands in the world. And in a decade or two, when these kids are grown to middle age and live in the suburbs with their families or whatever, they’ll probably still treasure their Snowing LPs and their memories of screaming along with the chorus of “It’s Just A Party” at their last show. And that is fucking beautiful.

12:39pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUayFdM_bB
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: Top 20 of 2011 
January 30, 2012
#4: Snowing - I Could Do Whatever I Wanted If I Wanted As I mentioned earlier when writing about Algernon Cadwallader, there’s been somewhat of a trend within the underground pop-punk/emo subculture of bands that sound like Cap’n Jazz. Algernon are probably the defining band in that trend, considering that they came first and, due to Peter Helmis’s extreme vocal resemblance to Tim Kinsella, probably sound the most like Cap’n Jazz. However, at least in 2011, Snowing was my favorite of the Cap’n Jazz-derived bands on the scene. It’s funny to look at my 2011 list and realize that Cap’n Jazz original members Tim Kinsella and Victor Villareal placed lower than Cap’n Jazz revival inciters Algernon Cadwallader, who in turn placed lower than did a newer band from their town who they obviously inspired. Guess it goes to show that, at least in my mind, one’s role in inventing a style of music matters less than one’s present-tense execution of that style. I discovered Snowing when they played the third day of a local pop-punk fest. They went on about four slots before headliners Algernon Cadwallader, the band I was really there to see. Snowing came out of nowhere and blew me away, and within a few weeks, I’d hunted down their album, which was available for free download on their label’s website. It’d be easy to claim a great musical resemblance between Snowing and Cap’n Jazz, and that’s definitely the shorthand I use when attempting to explain them in one sentence to friends who haven’t heard them. But in truth, there’s a good bit more going on here, musically, than such a comparison would indicate. The song construction on this LP sticks quite a bit more closely to standard verse-chorus-verse pop tropes, and despite the tangling arpeggios that form many of their guitar riffs, they tend to deliver straightforward choruses in almost every song here. The final product is less like Cap’n Jazz than some strange hybrid of post-Cap’n Jazz bands The Promise Ring and Owls. Snowing’s singer doesn’t sound much at all like Tim Kinsella, instead delivering his lyrics in a heartfelt bleat that is probably closer to the vocals of the Promise Ring’s Davey VonBohlen. But he makes up for his lack of vocal polish with passionate delivery and some pretty great lyrics. This album’s main lyrical themes all relate to coming of age, and they’re reflected in the tempered jubilance of the album’s title—which sounds like the simultaneous realization of someone who has just moved out of their parents’ house. “I can stay up as late as I want and eat cereal for dinner,” they think, “but if I don’t make sure I wake up and get to work on time, no one will.” These songs are about learning to navigate the perilous world of adulthood, to deal with responsibilities and cultivate interpersonal relationships that go beyond the surface level. A lot of these songs deal subtly about insecurity and difficulties in communication; for example, “Mark Z. Danielewski” begins with two friends talking about the book House Of Leaves, but soon moves below the surface, with the singer expressing fears that he’s not a good conversationalist and talking about using tiredness as a go-to excuse to prematurely bail on conversations. Throughout the song though, whenever he mentions being tired, he always follows up by mumbling, “…and I’m tired of being alone.” Other songs, such as “KJ Jammin” and “So I Shotgunned A Beer And Went To Bed,” focus on alcohol as both a shield from and an instigator of awkward situations. In turn, on “It’s Just A Party,” he sings, “I spent my last six bucks on whiskey and I sent a thousand texts that I regret.” “It’s Just A Party,” an uptempo song with an unforgettable chorus, is both my favorite song on this album and the one that related most closely to my life over the course of this year. I actually spent a little over two months of 2011 dating someone, which isn’t that much of the year but seems like a lot in light of the fact that it was my first time dating anyone in over four years. When things inevitably fell apart, music was often my refuge from feelings of embarrassment and self-doubt, and I came back to this album quite a bit. “It’s Just A Party” was the song that seemed to most accurately describe what I was going through—a combination of frustration at having put myself in such a position in the first place and a desperate longing to be right back in that position. During the pre-chorus, the singer declares, “I never meant to cause you drama—I never meant to fall in love. I could deny it, or try to hide it, but with one kiss I would be done.” Then the band charges into the chorus: “Hey there, Melissa! You’re fucking awesome! I just keep going on and on whenever you’re not around.” The song sounds like a happy one at first, until you start to notice the lyrics of the verses and pick up on the true implications of the chorus. Like a great deal of this album, “It’s Just A Party” is a song that attempts to shrug off feelings of rueful awkwardness, and doesn’t always succeed. In our modern American pop culture, we describe feelings and experiences like these as “coming of age” stories (I did it myself earlier in this review), but as I grow older and yet continue to relate to albums like this, I really wonder whether awkwardness and struggles with communication and being responsible aren’t just the human condition. I turned 36 last week, and I’m still struggling with all of these issues. Who knows, maybe I’m just immature. But regardless, Snowing did a good job of summing up my personal emotional condition this year, and did so over some really excellent quirky, melodic emocore, thereby ensuring that I played this album a whole lot in 2011.

#4: Snowing - I Could Do Whatever I Wanted If I Wanted

As I mentioned earlier when writing about Algernon Cadwallader, there’s been somewhat of a trend within the underground pop-punk/emo subculture of bands that sound like Cap’n Jazz. Algernon are probably the defining band in that trend, considering that they came first and, due to Peter Helmis’s extreme vocal resemblance to Tim Kinsella, probably sound the most like Cap’n Jazz. However, at least in 2011, Snowing was my favorite of the Cap’n Jazz-derived bands on the scene. It’s funny to look at my 2011 list and realize that Cap’n Jazz original members Tim Kinsella and Victor Villareal placed lower than Cap’n Jazz revival inciters Algernon Cadwallader, who in turn placed lower than did a newer band from their town who they obviously inspired. Guess it goes to show that, at least in my mind, one’s role in inventing a style of music matters less than one’s present-tense execution of that style.

I discovered Snowing when they played the third day of a local pop-punk fest. They went on about four slots before headliners Algernon Cadwallader, the band I was really there to see. Snowing came out of nowhere and blew me away, and within a few weeks, I’d hunted down their album, which was available for free download on their label’s website. It’d be easy to claim a great musical resemblance between Snowing and Cap’n Jazz, and that’s definitely the shorthand I use when attempting to explain them in one sentence to friends who haven’t heard them. But in truth, there’s a good bit more going on here, musically, than such a comparison would indicate. The song construction on this LP sticks quite a bit more closely to standard verse-chorus-verse pop tropes, and despite the tangling arpeggios that form many of their guitar riffs, they tend to deliver straightforward choruses in almost every song here. The final product is less like Cap’n Jazz than some strange hybrid of post-Cap’n Jazz bands The Promise Ring and Owls.

Snowing’s singer doesn’t sound much at all like Tim Kinsella, instead delivering his lyrics in a heartfelt bleat that is probably closer to the vocals of the Promise Ring’s Davey VonBohlen. But he makes up for his lack of vocal polish with passionate delivery and some pretty great lyrics. This album’s main lyrical themes all relate to coming of age, and they’re reflected in the tempered jubilance of the album’s title—which sounds like the simultaneous realization of someone who has just moved out of their parents’ house. “I can stay up as late as I want and eat cereal for dinner,” they think, “but if I don’t make sure I wake up and get to work on time, no one will.” These songs are about learning to navigate the perilous world of adulthood, to deal with responsibilities and cultivate interpersonal relationships that go beyond the surface level.

A lot of these songs deal subtly about insecurity and difficulties in communication; for example, “Mark Z. Danielewski” begins with two friends talking about the book House Of Leaves, but soon moves below the surface, with the singer expressing fears that he’s not a good conversationalist and talking about using tiredness as a go-to excuse to prematurely bail on conversations. Throughout the song though, whenever he mentions being tired, he always follows up by mumbling, “…and I’m tired of being alone.” Other songs, such as “KJ Jammin” and “So I Shotgunned A Beer And Went To Bed,” focus on alcohol as both a shield from and an instigator of awkward situations. In turn, on “It’s Just A Party,” he sings, “I spent my last six bucks on whiskey and I sent a thousand texts that I regret.”

“It’s Just A Party,” an uptempo song with an unforgettable chorus, is both my favorite song on this album and the one that related most closely to my life over the course of this year. I actually spent a little over two months of 2011 dating someone, which isn’t that much of the year but seems like a lot in light of the fact that it was my first time dating anyone in over four years. When things inevitably fell apart, music was often my refuge from feelings of embarrassment and self-doubt, and I came back to this album quite a bit. “It’s Just A Party” was the song that seemed to most accurately describe what I was going through—a combination of frustration at having put myself in such a position in the first place and a desperate longing to be right back in that position.

During the pre-chorus, the singer declares, “I never meant to cause you drama—I never meant to fall in love. I could deny it, or try to hide it, but with one kiss I would be done.” Then the band charges into the chorus: “Hey there, Melissa! You’re fucking awesome! I just keep going on and on whenever you’re not around.” The song sounds like a happy one at first, until you start to notice the lyrics of the verses and pick up on the true implications of the chorus. Like a great deal of this album, “It’s Just A Party” is a song that attempts to shrug off feelings of rueful awkwardness, and doesn’t always succeed.

In our modern American pop culture, we describe feelings and experiences like these as “coming of age” stories (I did it myself earlier in this review), but as I grow older and yet continue to relate to albums like this, I really wonder whether awkwardness and struggles with communication and being responsible aren’t just the human condition. I turned 36 last week, and I’m still struggling with all of these issues. Who knows, maybe I’m just immature. But regardless, Snowing did a good job of summing up my personal emotional condition this year, and did so over some really excellent quirky, melodic emocore, thereby ensuring that I played this album a whole lot in 2011.

12:22pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUayFdKQ66
(Notes: 9)
  
Filed under: Top 20 of 2011 
January 29, 2012

Hateful Coil - Bull Thunder

Another excellent song from David’s Town, the fake album Fucked Up released in conjunction with David Comes To Life. What really shocks me is that, out of the 18 songs on the album proper and the 19 songs on the supplementary releases, so goddamn many of them are so goddamn good.

4:17pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUayFaRrA2
(Notes: 6)
  
Filed under: Top 20 of 2011 
January 29, 2012

Fucked Up - The Other Shoe

Here’s the video for the first song I heard from David Comes To Life—“The Other Shoe” was the first real song (after a flute intro from a live performance of “Son The Father”) on Mixtape IV. I was pretty much sold on the entire album by the time I’d heard this song two or three times.

3:23pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUayFaEr2Z
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: Top 20 of 2011