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This week sees new releases by Believer, Between the Buried and Me, Indian, Last Chance to Reason, Pentagram, Red Fang, Young Widows and more. MS new release expert Vic Vaughn takes a looksee at each after the jump!
It must be that time of year, because new metal is seemingly streaming from every orifice of the Internet. So much music, in fact, that it’s increasingly difficult to keep up with it all (first world problems, we know)… so I’ve decided to pool ‘em all together in one handy-dandy post.
Québécois avant-garde metallers Unexpect have a freakishly fervent cult following; within minutes of new song “Orange Vigilantes” going live on Unexpect’s website earlier this week we had a swarm of emails from excited readers. It’s been nearly five years since Unexpect’s last album In a Flesh Aquarium dropped on The End Records, so I can understand why folks are so excited. And then there’s that other thing: this band is awesome. They’re kind of like extreme metal’s answer to Mr. Bungle, but nerdier, or as reader Chris Dávila calls them, “crazy circus metal.” Look for a release date for Unexpect’s new still-untitled album to be announced soon.
The March 29th release of Surtur Rising draws ever closer, but you don’t have to wait any longer to hear another new song by Swedish viking cock-metallers Amon Amarth.
Genre-labeling can be a funny thing. So points out Stereogum “Haunting the Chapel” scribe Brandon Stosuy who had this to say about Louisville trio Young Widows:
It could be this morning’s KEN mode and Trap Them listening sessions talking, but pair those knockout efforts with bluesy, sludgy Louisville trio Young Widows‘ In and Out of Youth and Lightness and it feels like 2011’s going to be a good year for various shades of noise rock (or old-man punk or post-noise rock or noisecore or…)
Pigeonholing be damned, let’s all just get along and rock out with our collective cocks out (and jam out with our collective clams out) for a change because the new Young Widows track “Future Heart” provides us all with an opportunity to do exactly that. The one time I saw these cats live (Bowery Ballroom in 2009 with Russian Circles) they impressed the hell outta me with an intense live presence and simple but effective light show. This new track immediately struck me as being less heavy than what I’ve heard of theirs in the past, so, not being well-versed in this band’s discography, I confirmed that suspicion with a quick listen to some of their older stuff on their MySpace page. But you know what? It’s all good. In the land of the Super Brutal MS Mansion oftentimes a change of pace is quite welcome.
Check out “Future Heart” on Stereogum and look for In And Out Of Youth And Lightness on April 12 via Temporary Residence
-VN
Legendary stonebags Sleep are resurrecting their monolithic Holy Mountain this weekend here in the NYC metro area. That record is pretty amazing – less a collection of songs and more a riff delivery program. As is the trend these days, those who didn’t hear them tour on the record in the mid-90s will get a second chance to drink it all in. It will be a moment: everyone in the room will know the songs, the band isn’t going to be too stoned to play and even the opening bands will be watching from the side of the stage, happy to finally hear these songs the way they’ve always hoped to hear them – live, loud and in front of them.
This reunion stuff… I’ve got mixed feelings about it, like lots of folks. I guess it’s better to happen than not to happen. I guess. But bands performing dated works has a sense of nostalgia to it that doesn’t give the charge it did when it was all first going on. This itself may be a fiction – appreciation for a band may grow after they’ve decided to call it quits, and maybe they just weren’t that good a live band when they came up with their classic material. Sleep, for example, was opening for Cathedral at the goddam Limelight (a Mid-town cocaine dance club for those who aren’t familiar) when they were touring Holy Mountain. Still, the thrill of hearing Al Cisneros roll through the opening lines “Dragonaut” just can’t be the same as when it was all happening the first time.
Which is funny for us here in NYC. Because that exact thrill of a totally amazing, mindblowing show happening in a cramped basement by sweaty bands surely at their peak will also be happening Monday night. As 1,000 joints of light are ignited uptown, those lucky enough to cram into the basement of the Lower East Side’s Cake Shop to see Young Widows and Helms Alee are going to be there as it’s all happening for the first time. Each band has put out an underappreciated classic records in the past few years, reports on the new stuff for both say they’re even better and they can each fully fucking bring it live.
Young Widows is a blistering three piece. I guess you could describe them as a rock band, the same way you can describe cheese grater as a kind of loofa. Maybe someone has a complaint with their twin fridge-amp/light show presentation, but not me. It all gives them the visual appearance and sonic presentation of the business end of a Peterbilt truck on a midnight Interstate. I haven’t heard the new shit they will be playing so I’ll hold off on raving about that, but if they’re still ending their set with the transcendently awesome “Swamped and Agitated” from their last record, we will all be leaving that room changed for the better.
“Russian Circles” is like an onomatopoeia of band names; I have no idea what a Russian Circle is, but I do know that if the band name is spoken — not written — it’s accurate as fuck. Listen to any Russian Circles song and tell me their music doesn’t sound just like circles that are rushing, spiraling and spinning (hint: it helps if you’re stoned). Their excellent 2008 release Station was one of my favorite instru-metal releases of that year, and judging from the new track “Malko,” their new record Geneva (October 20th, Suicide Squeeze) will bring more of the same rushing, circling goodness.
Noise/post-rock fans, take note: ex-Botch, current-These Arms Are Snakes bass player Brian Cook is now a permanent member of Russian Circles. Yeah!
Listen to “Malko,” courtesy of The Fader, below:
Catch the band on tour with Young Widows and Red Sparowes this fall. Dates after the jump.
-VN
Where to begin? So many debaucherous moments — too many beers, not enough whiskeys, a shit-ton of BBQ, and a helluva lotta MUSIC….yes yes, it was another sleep-deprived week in Austin, Texas, and at the end of it all, it was the best one yet.
Wednesday has done and drawn to a close, and an awesome day it was. Highlights included Young Widows, The Bronx, Fighting With Wire, Jucifer, El Mariachi Bronx (The Bronx as a full mariachi band), Valient Thorr, Pack of Wolves, These Arms Are Snakes, and finally meeting MS contributor Corey Mitchell in person. There’s so much to be seen today, Kip has gone missing, and I’m hungry, so I’ll make this quick:
Minimalism and rock do not necessarily go together. But as any pregnant lady can tell you, odd cravings can lead to some really satisfying flavor sensations. With that in mind, I’m pleased to introduce My Disco.
Like Shellac if envisioned by monks instead of grizzled music business vets, this guitar-bass-drums trio embodies asceticism in their angular music. Tracks off last year’s Paradise (produced by Steve Albini) work so damn well because they’re so damn spare. No elaborate rhythms, no complex basslines, and no fucking solos! Instead, My Disco produce appreciate the silences and gaps that can come from a more selective and, yes, minimal approach to music composition. In the hands of less skilled musicians, this kind of shit would fall flat on its face, but it undeniably works for these Aussies. You can see for yourself when My Disco joins noise rockers Young Widows on a string of North American tourdates.
-GS
[Gary Suarez is more stardog champion than slumdog millionaire. He also writes for Brainwashed and sporadically manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No.]
Josh Homme’s favorite band, the ever-defiant and unabashedly offensive Dwarves, needs no introduction to any of you awkward overgrown boys who stood gawking and giggling in the local Sam Goody at their album covers as even more immature adolescents. Fronted by miscreant Blag Dahlia, the group made itself known as much for its brash punk rock tunes as for intentionally, sacrilegiously tasteless artwork that could be considered pornographic to a hapless Palin-esque puritan. After a retrospectively hilarious Beatles-referencing stunt of “killing off” exhibitionism prone guitarist HeWhoCannotBeNamed, the band was evicted from the unamused Sub Pop and ultimately found a new home a few years later on Epitaph. Despite not having released a new album since 2004, the Dwarves carry on with live assaults for their rabid fans.
I’ve taken on the thankless assignment of the noise rock beat for Metalsucks and I couldn’t be happier to share my undying love for this savage and atonal subgenre with all you closeted Disturbed fans. From vile legends like Big Black and Helmet to beady-eyed upstarts Pissed Jeans and The Austerity Program, I’m your man; shabbily attired, inconveniently hirsute and altogether uncouth. (I briefly considered taking on a Hebraic pseudonym, as is customary here, but opted against it despite my own Word Jumble of a heritage. For the record, it would have been Moishe Milquetoast.)
Let this first installment of Scraping Genius Off The Wheel (get the reference, win a freaking door prize) serve to remind you all that while the inglorious glory days of Amphetamine Reptile and Touch & Go lie behind us, we socially awkward and hideously acned admirers of this type of music still have plenty to get excited and inappropriately erect over.
