Headphone Reverence

This site is an outlet for my obsession: music. There's a lot of mediocre music out there, and even more hate for terrible music on the internet. So instead of contributing to the hate I just want to focus on the music that I feel passionately about.

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Album Review: FANGE - Purge

When I first read the promo for this noise-laden French act’s debut I must admit that my ears were ready to experience something entirely different from what I heard. The words classic Swedish death metal, crust, metallic-hardcore and HM-2 fuelled riffs all appeared as descriptors, leading me to believe that FANGE could very well count themselves among the legion of mediocre Trap Them clones who seem to be putting themselves out there nowadays. So I was pleasantly surprised when the first track “Cour Martiale” ripped through my headphones; and by the time the song had fully devolved into a mess of harsh noise, feedback, pummelling percussion and horrifically caustic snarls I found that my doubts were well laid to rest. FANGE shares more in common with noisy sludge groups like Thou, Indian and The Body than their promo might have you believe, and they’ve carved out an impressive spot next to those acts with their first studio album.

There is truth to the Swedish death metal, crust and hardcore descriptors in the sense that a d-beat or classic death metal groove or rhythm occasionally surfaces, but these truly are detours from FANGE’s base sound which seems to be abrasive, noisy sludge. These digressions are a great way to bring a new energy to the intentionally slow, atmospheric mood of the sludge sub-genre, and FANGE weave them into their songs seamlessly. For example, the second track - “Mâchefer” - constantly changes up its tempo, starting with a crust riff that’s fast enough to mosh to, eventually grinding down into a crushing march-like rhythm and then back into a final punk-influenced riff. Yet it never feels as if the band forcibly stitched several independent songs or ideas together, every new idea flows smoothly from its predecessor, giving every song a wholistic feel.

The band really shines when they find a groove and play with it until it has completely decomposed, like on the second half of “Roy-Vermine” one of my favourite tracks on the album thanks to its combination of harsh noise and swampy sludge riffs. The song literally slows to a grinding halt, slowly dissolving into a whirlpool of feedback, noise and vocalist M. Jungbluth’s disgustingly raspy snarls and growls; Which brings me to my favourite highlight of Purge: the vocals. Fans of extreme, noisy music take note, this is how it’s done. Jungbluth uses his monstrous voice as if it were an instrument played alongside FANGE’s buzzsaw guitars and pounding drums. As the music gets harsher and more abrasive so do the vocals, they sound just as ferocious and unhinged as the music itself. They’re also mixed incredibly well on this album, with just the right amount of reverb so that they feel inseparable from the rest of the cacophony. This is truly some A+ vocal delivery.

FANGE are one of those rare new extreme groups who I genuinely can’t wait to hear more from. I hope that they keep experimenting and pushing their own boundaries, god knows they can afford to. They’ve found a killer balance between harsh noise, sludge, hardcore/punk and death metal, and they can only benefit from pushing their limits further. 

Standout Tracks: Mâchefer, Roy-Vermine, Étouffoir

Least Favourite Tracks: None

Rating: 8/10

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Quick Reviews

This is a section where I post some quick thoughts on albums that I’ve been meaning to review, but either haven’t had enough time, or don’t really have all that much to say about.

The Body & Full of Hell - One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_pSD78lzOQ

Full of Hell are a band who’ve been around for a while, but in my opinion they’ve taken some time to find their sound, meandering between chaotic hardcore and grind but always sounding a bit too much like other well-established acts. It wasn’t until their collaboration with Merzbow two years ago that the group finally won me over with a style of dual-vocal, harsh-noise influenced grindcore that was all their own. Then there’s The Body, a band who’s presence on my blog is a near constant given how much good material they are constantly putting out. The only reason I’m not giving this particular collaboration a full review is because it sounds pretty much exactly like what you’d expect from the two bands working together. 

This is without a doubt the noisiest, most violent-sounding thing that The Body have been involved with, and it even rivals Full of Hell’s Merzbow collab of 2014. Giving this album a full review would be like trying to review a natural disaster in detail, how many different ways can I tell you that this is one of the most disgusting, darkest, noisiest and most definitely the least-happiest album you’ll listen to this year?

A$AP Ferg - Always Strive and Prosper

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2foQwkKQgc

I loved A$AP Ferg’s  2013 debut Trap Lord; it had a uniquely weird personality, it was catchy as hell and had a lot of stand-out tracks. His Ferg Forever mixtape of last year was a step forward into even stranger territory (take the single “Doe-Active” as a perfect example). I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that A$AP Ferg was fitting into that territory of hip-hop’s biggest weirdos, ruled over by the likes of Danny Brown, ODB and Missy Elliott to name a few.

With all that being said, I’m disappointed that Ferg’s sophomore album is full of his most commercial material yet. It really doesn’t do Ferg any favours, he stood out from the crowd thanks to his oddball flow and cadence and now it’s as if he’s trying his best to blend into a crowd of already established artists. “Strive” is one of the most by-the-numbers club songs I’ve ever heard. It’s as if it were created by some kind of focus group studying club music trends (cornball positive message? check. Awful piano-driven melody backed by house beats? check...). And his song with Future sounds like literally any other Future song. In fact it sounds more like Ferg is being featured on a Future track than something that even remotely fits on this convoluted album. Aside from a few catchy tracks that reminded me a bit of Ferg’s older material this album fell off my listening cue pretty fast.

Melt Yourself Down - Last Evenings on Earth

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHaFvhUe2M0

Ever since hearing their debut in 2013, whenever someone mentions the word “fusion” in music I think of Melt Yourself Down. The London-based act create a collage of sound that fuses elements of punk, jazz and electronic with North African and Indian styles of music. The result is beyond fantastic, and incredibly danceable. The group’s second album features more super-funky saxophone melodies and addicting bass grooves as well as the same kind of overwhelming movement and mixture of styles that permeated their debut. 

This album almost feels more adventurous in a sense; songs like “Jump the Fire” experiment with electronics to create a cathartic feel, it’s a song that just keeps building on the same apocalyptic bass beat. The differences between this album and the group’s debut are subtle at best, but when you have a winning formula like this it doesn’t really matter as long as your music is memorable and makes you want to dance. On Last Evenings on Earth Melt Yourself Down accomplish exactly this.

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Album Review: Xiu Xiu - Plays the Music of Twin Peaks

For someone who is a fan of both the purely experimental music of noise-pop artists Xiu Xiu and the avant-garde film-making of genius screenwriter David Lynch, this beautiful mash-up seems like something straight out of a Lynchian dream sequence. And as a more recent fan of the 90s supernatural crime-drama, Twin Peaks, this album couldn’t have come out at a more appropriate time for me (and for many others, I presume, as the show’s long-awaited third season looms in the near future). After giving this double-LP, reimagined soundtrack countless listens I can’t even conceive of any other band or artist to take on the monumental task of covering the music of Twin Peaks. It seems like a job for Xiu Xiu, and Xiu Xiu alone. And man, do they deliver.

Before I ever even watched the show I was familiar with some of the music of Twin Peaks. Composer Angelo Badalamenti’s haunting score is iconic. His theme for Laura Palmer, the all-American, small-town sweetheart whose murder rests at the centre of the show’s dark plot, is particularly unforgettable. Much of Angelo’s original score fluctuates between beautifully sorrowful melodies, dark droning ambience and campy detective/noir tunes (to indicate that something is amiss, there is a clue being discovered, or something goofy in a very 90s-soap-opera style is about to happen). Xiu Xiu covers every angle, every mood of Twin Peaks, although they have chosen the show’s deeply-rooted darkness as the core theme of the album. This is a good move. I guarantee that apart from the show’s loveable campiness, goofy moments and quirky characters, any true fan will tell you that the reason they got hooked had to do with the mystery of the Red Room, the Black & White Lodges, Bob, and/or any number of dark, eerie, and supernatural aspects of the show more than anything else. Twin Peaks taps into our natural curiosity towards darkness; we always want to learn more, we want to discover what lies just beyond our perception even if it leads to nothing but senseless pain and suffering. Xiu Xiu’s take on the soundtrack is indeed a dark one, it takes the eerie elements of Angelo’s original score and brings them right to the forefront of the album.

The dark mood of this album builds right from the start with Laura Palmer’s Theme, its iconic piano melody is played overtop an ominous, thudding bass note. Even the more lighthearted tracks like “Audrey’s Dance” are infused with an unsettling atmosphere thanks to Xiu Xiu’s weird instrumentation and proclivity for near unrecognizable noises. “Blue Frank: Pink Room” takes a rather unassuming bass driven melody that is played often on the show and gives it the post-rock intensity of a Godspeed You! Black Emperor song, with Jamie Stewart abusing his guitar, filling the track with urgent feedback and echoey distortion. When “Falling,” the theme for Twin Peaks’ opening credits finally shows up, it will give you shivers typically reserved for moments of powerful nostalgia. The dark atmosphere reaches a boiling point on the album closer “Josie’s Past,” an 8-minute long track that features an extraordinarily disturbing excerpt from Laura Palmer’s diary followed by an impeccable impression of Leyland Palmer via Jamie Stewart, ending the whole experience in the best way possible (albeit all too soon in my opinion)

As far as Xiu Xiu albums go I strongly believe this is one of the group’s best offerings to date; even if it is technically an album of covers, it’s so steeped in the experimental weirdness Xiu Xiu are known for that it actually feels highly original. Xiu Xiu’s sound is hard to pin down, it’s one that is much easier to recognize than to describe, and I don’t mean that as a cop-out for writing a descriptive review. Every album they’ve put out stands apart from the next, working with everything from pop-music conventions to harsh noise and techno to create a musical impact that deals mostly in atmosphere and mood. I think that’s why this album succeeds so brilliantly, the music of Twin Peaks is all about building impenetrably dark atmospheres and haunting complexions. This is something that Xiu Xiu has proven to understand, grab onto and make it their primary focus.

Standout Tracks: Laura Palmer’s Theme, Into the Night, Audrey’s Dance, Blue Frank: Pink Room, Sycamore Tree, Dance of the Dream Man, Falling, Josie’s Past

Least Favourite Tracks: None

Rating: 10/10

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Mick Jenkins dropped one of my favourite mixtapes of 2014 called The Water(s), as well as a somewhat prosaic EP last year called Wave(s). So it’s great to see Jenkins back in full form on this latest track “The Artful Dodger.” It’s an aggressive bass-heavy track built on a light and wavy synth melody. It also features Jenkins dropping a hook that I guarantee will get stuck on repeat in your head today. Wait for the flow to change completely around the 2:45 mark

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Things are sounding pretty upbeat and mind-bending on this excerpt from Swans “final” album - The Glowing Man - set for release June 17th. Granted the album contains another 3xLP worth of material so a 2 min clip is hardly anything to judge the album by. This is by far my most anticipated release of the year and I can’t wait to hear what the rest of this colossal album is going to sound like.

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Album Review: Young Thug - Slime Season 3

Super prolific weirdo/rapper Young Thug has dropped five mixtapes in the last two years alone, with his debut studio album - Hy!£UN35 - due out this year as well. While the differences between the mixtapes are subtle at best, Young Thug’s appeal has been his uncanny ability to flow over every beat and use his voice as an extra instrument to enhance every mix. Even when you have no idea what the dude is saying, all his “squeaks” “chirps” and “squawks” imitate the music he sings over and make an already cool beat even better. Things haven’t changed much this time around, and depending on what you think of Young Thug this can be a good or bad thing. Thug’s lyrics are sounding surprisingly more discernible on his latest instalment of the Slime Season mixtapes, a much shorter and succinct offering than the first two. Musically, this latest mixtape features more of Thug riding his customary minimalist trap beats, but if you’re already a fan there’s no reason not to like these songs.

Young Thug has a lot of music. It can be kind of intimidating for a new listener to look at the fifteen-or-so mixtapes he’s dropped since 2011 and decide where to start. I’ve asked myself many times why I like the Atlanta based rapper so much, and I’ve scrutinized my favourite tracks trying to find the elements that tie them together. Best Friend, Flaws, Power, With That, Check, Halftime... all feature Thug rapping like an alien who’s been studying human hip-hop from the stars and consequently developed his own technique entirely. He takes a beat and fills the negative space with his lyrics in a fluid way that emulates the movement of dance, stretching out syllables or cutting them short, squawking, chirping and singing his own melodies to compliment the rhythm. More than any other rapper out there Young Thug makes his voice his instrument. It’s the same on Slime Season 3, and while I don’t like all of these new songs the tracks that are good are really damn good.

While most of the tracks on Slime Season are pretty standard Young Thug affair, there are a few tracks that stray from the path and branch in strange directions. Like “Drippin’” in particular; a weird bouncy nintendo-like melody that finds Thug rapping almost as if he were A$AP Rocky on speed at times, at one point he’s actually yelling his choppy, start-stop lyrics. “Problem” features a really cool piano melody, ominous bells and some eerie sci-fi synths making it my favourite track on the mixtape. The only track I really didn’t like was “Worth It” but that’s because I’m not a huge fan of Thug’s voice over more subdued, softer melodies. Overall this was another great mixtape from one of hip-hop’s biggest weirdos, but it still doesn’t come close to satisfying my hunger for a full-length album. 

Standout Tracks: With Them, Digits, Tattoos, Problem

Least Favourite Tracks: Worth It

Rating: 7.5/10

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Album Review: Cobalt - Slow Forever

When I initially heard the single “Beast Whip,” the first track Cobalt had shared in 7 years, I was filled with anticipation. The duo’s last album - Gin - was widely regarded as one of the best black metal albums of the decade and a truly forward-thinking experiment that defied easy classification (it’s also one of my personal favourite black metal albums). “Beast Whip” was no doubt different from anything on Gin, thanks in part to the dramatic departure of vocalist Phil McSorely and the addition of ex-Lord Mantis frontman Charlie Fell, but also an obvious result of a 7-year writing hiatus. Now that I’ve had the opportunity to consume this new 84-minute monster of a double album a few times I’m left with some very mixed feelings. What Slow Forever introduces to Cobalt’s sound is groove, length and a new variety of harsh vocal styles, but I can’t help but feel that it lacks the apocalyptic and dangerous character that the band developed on Gin.

I promise to keep my comparisons with Gin to a minimum, in fact I’ll get them out of the way right now. Gin was a slow-burn of an album with a ton of intricacies. Like a Swans album it utilized repetition as its primary mode of attack, taking its time to build a desolate, sun-scorched atmosphere and apocalyptic rural-American mood until hitting you hard with its disgusting hooks. It never really left me even after I was finished listening, I couldn’t shake the uneasy, grimy atmosphere it so expertly crafted. Slow Forever didn’t have quite the same effect on me. Sure it’s nihilistic and aggressive, but when the album is over, it’s over. The music is more immediate than with Gin. Another huge difference is the change in vocalists. McSorely had a very menacing and unhinged presence on past Cobalt albums, his raw vocals were perfectly suited for black metal. Fell sounds like a more seasoned metal vocalist with a few different tried-and-true variations of screaming, howling and shrieking up his sleeve. Fortunately he’s good at implementing these styles and they never really sound cheesy or overdone (as I feel they had the potential to be). His starkly nihilistic lyrics are also perfectly suited for Cobalt, with lines like ““Thirty years shit luck/ Hydromorphine/ Kerosene/ Anal sex/ Amphetamines/ Car crash/ Antidepressants/ Incest/ Depravity/ We accept / Bed smells like burnt foil/ Broken hope in a burning dream.” (from “Hunt the Buffalo”) at least we know Slow Forever is as bleak as any other Cobalt offering. But does it really matter if this album is different from Gin? I really wasn’t expecting a Gin 2.0 after seven years anyway. My problem with this album lies mostly in the song-writing.

With all of its bombastic metal hooks and grooves this is the least black metal album in Cobalt’s discography. But what defines Cobalt’s sound isn’t a sub-genre anyway, it’s the primal, animalistic feeling that saturates their music. Cobalt write songs that worship nature in all of its unrefined violence and ugliness. This feeling comes few and far between on Slow Forever as the whole thing seems so groove-oriented, and only occasionally are these grooves interesting. It’s hard to judge individual tracks because they are long and change often, for example I hate the first half of “Elephant Graveyard” but love the repetitive second half. There are good and bad parts of each song. Sometimes they build a gloomy atmosphere only to be interrupted by a riff that just sounds awkward. Like the first track “Hunt The Buffalo,” not a bad song until the point when you expect it to end. The song nearly fades out when a really awkward galloping guitar hook suddenly stumbles out of nowhere to extend the already 6-minute song for another 3 minutes. The only song I can say I loved from beginning to end on the first disc was “Beast Whip,” and I’m sad to say that I really could have done without the rest.

The second half of this album really does pick up though, this is where the new Cobalt seems to shine. Multi-instrumentalist Erik Wunder is talented without a doubt and his drumming in particular is so cool and unique it boggles my mind. But I feel like the song-writing of the first disc suffered from bloated riffs and sections that weren’t good enough to be as repetitive as they were. From the second half of “Elephant Graveyard” onwards the album focuses itself on building atmosphere. “Final Will” sets a dismal mood, followed by an interlude titled “Iconoclast” which features an equally somber speech from Ernest Hemingway regarding the inherent loneliness of a writer. The title track takes its time building a menacing atmosphere and is probably the closest the album comes to sounding like Gin; while the closing track “Siege” is by far the most different from any other Cobalt song I’ve heard, and is perhaps a hint as to where the band are headed sonically in the future.

I feel that Slow Forever could have been much better if it had been edited down... a lot. There are too many grooves and riffs that I find really distracting from the apocalyptic atmosphere of the album because they get tiring or they just sound too hokey. Yet that signature Cobalt atmosphere is still present, it just takes some effort to dig for it.

Standout Tracks: Beast Whip, Final Will, Iconoclast, Slow Forever, Seige

Least Favourite Tracks: Hunt The Buffalo, Ruiner, King Rust, Cold Breaker

Rating: 6/10

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Quick Reviews

This is a section where I post some quick thoughts on albums that I’ve been meaning to review, but either haven’t had enough time, or don’t really have all that much to say about.

Brood Ma - Daze

Listen: https://soundcloud.com/broodma/molten-brownian-motion-preview

If all music represents movement in some form or another, Brood Ma (the latest signee to forward-thinking electronic label Tri Angle) slithers, wriggles and creeps through a collage of different styles of club music in his third album Daze. Calling this an album feels a bit misleading as Daze is better listened to as a 27 minute-long mix divided into 13 short segments. There are no breaks; nothing to divide tracks from one another as each song flows seamlessly into the next. There are of course segments I find more interesting than others, the opening track is especially chilling, and the grimy, alien-techno vibe of “Hard Wear” is a definite highlight for me. Overall this was a really cool listen, and I recommend it for anyone who is already a fan of the dark, genre-defying experiments of label mates like The Haxan Cloak, Rabit or Lotic. Tri Angle is steadily building a reputation for this kind of futurist electronic music as they continue to sign great new artists like Brood Ma.

Gazelle Twin - Out of Body

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yixMf7q31Q

Out of Body is the soundtrack to a live visual performance and short film collaboration by British visual artist Carla MacKinnon, composed by Elizabeth Bernholz, otherwise known by her stage name: Gazelle Twin. Man is this thing unsettling, especially for someone as squeamish as myself. It reminds me a lot of Pharmakon’s critically acclaimed 2014 album Bestial Burden, a noise-based experiment of samples and blood-curdling sounds meant to mimic the human body and it’s inevitable struggle with disease and slow decay. “Out of Body” as a soundtrack is similarly a work of body-horror, think David Cronenburg, it seems designed to make you squirm, making you uncomfortably aware of your own body even in an unconscious way. “Blood Gushes I” starts the album with a steady heartbeat, while the track “teeth” mimics the sound of its appointed body part with a broken rhythm that sounds like chattering and clacking of bone against bone. With MacKinnon’s accompanying visuals (which include graphic imagery of animal tissue, blood and organs) this project achieves an instinctually unnerving atmosphere. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

Denzel Curry - Imperial

Listen: http://hypetrak.com/2016/03/exclusive-stream-denzel-currys-new-imperial-album/

Imperial is Florida-based rapper Denzel Curry’s follow-up to his 2013 debut Nostalgic 64. What made me take notice of Curry’s debut was his insane flow and the speed that he somehow manages to keep up even as he consistently changes his rhyming pattern. The album was also tastefully dark and ominous, and with Curry’s lyricism it sounded like a more serious and introspective response to Waka Flocka Flame’s brand of yell-rapping over grimy trap beats. Unfortunately, I didn’t really care for the majority of Curry’s mixtape of last year “32 Zel / Planet Shrooms” and to make matters worse, Curry really lost me with Imperial. I still think this guy is a fantastic emcee, his technique is incredible and he has a great voice. But the constant yelling and one-note production style gives this album a monotone feel. Even after the first track leaves you thinking “that was cool, that song went hard” eventually the singular tone makes listening to the entire album a pretty stale experience for me.

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In this new “interview” with Death Grips we get 22 minutes of new instrumental material... let the music speak for itself.

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If you’re somehow not yet convinced that Mykki Blanco is one of the best emcees around today, just listen to the rapper spit a mind-bending freestyle over Macy Rodman’s “Lazy Girl.” Mykki has announced a new album for this year, the lead single of which will be dropping sometime in May. This surprise freestyle should tide me over until then.

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Check out this cool new track by Irish post punk trio Slow Riot. It’s dark and danceable with a wall of grey fuzzy distortion that builds into some great crescendos. This kind of post punk revival stuff seems to be done to death these days, but every so often a band like this one manages to stick their heads up above the multitude of imitators to be noticed.

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Album Review: Damien Jurado - Visions of us on the Land

Singer/songwriter and founding father of the Seattle folk music boom Damien Jurado is back with his 13th studio-album and the final instalment of his conceptual trilogy, Visions of Us on the Land. The trilogy began with Maraqopa in 2012 and continued with an absolute masterpiece in 2014, Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son. In addition to introducing a mind-bending fictional story this conceptual epic also signified a big change in sound for Jurado. Before Maraqopa the singer forged his own distinct sound in atmospheric folk music, using simple chord progressions and ethereal backing music to compliment his haunting voice, creating some of the best sad-guy folk music I’ve ever heard (please for the love of god check out Saint Bartlett, one of my all-time favourite albums). But Maraqopa introduced an immense and epic feel to many of his songs, with a psychedelic tinge to his lyrics and music that continues throughout the entire trilogy. With all that being said, I’m sad to say that Visions, although epic in length (featuring 17 tracks) and imaginative in an artistic sense, left me somewhat disappointed.

With the album opener “November 20th” my heart immediately began to race as an exhilarating marching rhythm leads into an epic piano and string melody with Jurado’s signature voice echoing over it all. This was exactly what I had hoped for, it sounds like a perfect opener to the psychedelic fantasy/science fiction story that is this trilogy; a story of a nameless character who leaves society behind to discover a mysterious land as well as some universal truths about his own life. But with the exception of a few very memorable tracks, the majority of what follows kind of sounds like Jurado is giving us his best Jose Gonzalez impersonation. Not to say that Jose is by any means a lesser artist, but his style is so feather-light and calm in comparison. What I love most about Jurado is his ability to write amazing hooks and songs that will never leave you, but with Visions it’s as if he’s toned down the epic feel of the songwriting and cranked the psychedelia up to 11. A few of the songs sound a bit recycled as well, for example “Cinco de Tomorrow” sounds almost exactly like Jurado’s “Thax Douglas #1″ from his Live at Landlocked album in 2011. I realize that artists change and fine-tune their songs over time (especially songs that only appear live) and the result is far from sounding bad, but unfortunately it’s also far from memorable. I have listened to this entire album over and over, and every time I am surprised when it ends because I barely remember listening to it apart from a few memorable tracks.

My favourite songs on Visions are also the most epic, and I don’t think this is a coincidence because I know that Jurado can write some amazing low-octane songs with nothing but an acoustic guitar. The grandiose feel of songs like “QACHINA” and “ONALASKA” just seem to meld better with Jurado’s old Americana-fuelled song-writing and psychedelic style than with Gonzalez-esque chilled-out classical guitar picking and vocals with a bit too much reverb. Or perhaps I can’t help but compare Visions to the previous two instalments of Jurado’s trilogy, which I apologize for, because every work of art deserves to be judged by its own merit. If you’re a new listener you may enjoy this album a lot more than I did, and it could be an excellent gateway to Jurado’s amazing back catalogue of uniquely inspired folk music. What I can say about Visions is that it is clear that Damien Jurado is still carving his own artistic path separate from most other musicians within the genre, and that alone makes him an artist worth following closely. 

Rating: 7/10

Standout Tracks: November 20th, QACHINA, TAQOMA, ONALASKA, Exit 353

Least Favourite Tracks: Walrus, Cinco de Tomorrow, And Loraine, A.M. AM.

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Album Review: Kanye West - The Life of Pablo

I feel as though a lot of readers reserve their judgement of a music blog for that moment when the blogger first reveals their opinion of Kanye West. Well I’m sorry if I disappoint you when I say I’m not really going to talk about Kanye (the person) and his publicity-hungry shenanigans or ego trips all that much in this review. All I’ll say is that if so many people’s opinions regarding music taste hinge on whether Kanye is an artiste or a trash can, the man must be doing something right to get your attention. Now on to the review. It’s been a befuddling and arduous journey, but The Life of Pablo (fka SWISH, fka Waves) is finally here, and it sounds nothing like the train wreck I imagined it might be.

After dropping boring single after boring single between Yeezus and now, I was really expecting an album that sounded like a confused mash-up of the uninspired Yeezus B-side “All Day” and Kanye’s absolutely awful collaboration with Rhianna and Paul McCartney “FourFiveSeconds.” Instead, what I’m hearing is a fast-paced and unpredictable collage of different styles and sounds from Kanye’s own varied discography. There’s bits of every album, every “phase” of Kanye West, all stitched together into a series of 18 songs, many of which are only about 2 to 3 minutes long. It sounds almost as if Kanye couldn’t make up his mind on what the songs should sound like, so he changes them every 30 seconds. Nowhere is this more apparent than the track “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 2″ which sounds like a Future song before abruptly dissolving into a number of chopped up samples that sound as if they belonged on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. But it’s this tendency to never sit in one spot for too long that makes The Life of Pablo so interesting and different. It doesn’t sound unfinished, it sounds like the album contains a lot of random ideas that somehow seem to work together pretty well.

People talk a lot about Kanye’s lyrics, but I can’t say I’ve ever tuned in to a Yeezy song for the bad puns or the double entendres. In fact, his lyrics are often downright cringeworthy. This happens a few times on Life of Pablo and unfortunately these lines are often the ones that stand out like a glaring eyesore. "If I fuck this model/ And she just bleached her asshole/ And I get bleach on my T-shirt/ I'mma feel like an asshole" is one such gem; while the now infamous "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex," is both immature and super-dated. If this were any other rapper, I would lose interest after hearing one or two of these cheeseball lines. But Kanye is a gifted producer, and continuously calls upon a pool of the world’s greatest producers to collaborate, using some of the world’s greatest music samples to create some pretty cool sounding music. Herein lies my dilemma, as much as I don’t care for Kanye West as a lyricist (granted he can pen some sing-along hooks that are hard to forget) I often find myself enjoying whatever new ideas his albums offer sonically.

The Life of Pablo doesn’t come close to solidifying Kanye as the calibre of artist he claims (believes?) he is, nor does it make him out to be a terrible creative mind or a fraud. It’s simply a decent album with some really good tracks I know I’ll be playing quite a bit this year. There are songs on this thing that I really don’t enjoy either, simply because they sound rather boring or uninspired, or feature guest artists who I just don’t dig. But for what it’s worth Kanye’s newest album is definitely a solid compilation of the all the varied sounds and styles that he’s explored throughout his career.

Rating: 7/10

Standout Tracks: Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 2, Famous, Feedback, Highlights, Real Friends, Facts

Least Favourite Tracks: Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1, Wolves, No More Parties in LA, Fade

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Album Review: Magrudergrind - II

Magrudergrind are a ferocious grindcore band from DC who developed a winning formula of crunchy distortion, sickening vocals, powerviolence and hardcore/punk influenced riffs and catchy mosh-speed hooks on their 2009 breakout full-length, simply titled Magrudergrind. After a six-year hiatus, the trio are back with another album of fast-paced, crunchy, groovy grindcore. And although the band still write some kickass riffs and punishing rhythms, at times this album feels too similar to their self-titled release, without as much no-fucks-given personality.

If you took the angry hardcore mosh riffs of Trash Talk and fused them with the guitar tone and blistering speed of Rotten Sound you’d have a good idea of what to expect from Magrudergind. These guys know how to make a crowd move with their music; they play the kind of grindcore that makes me want to jump on people’s heads and force my way to the front of the pit (not an easy feat, I’m a pretty lazy guy). The other thing that I love about these guys more than your average grind band was the way they crossover styles, not only between grindcore, punk and powerviolence, but with hip-hop as well. Songs like “Heavier Bombing” gave their self-titled album a unique feel and offered a fresh break from the otherwise relentless blasting and grinding. With II Magrudergrind seem to have written an album in much the same vein as their self-titled, only with a few less memorable riffs and without the hip-hop influence entirely. Songs like “The Opportunist” and “Icaro” manage to pack more energy into a 7-second long riff than most hardcore punk bands can do with an entire song. But there are also songs like “Relentless Hatred,” which sounds as stale and by-the-numbers musically as one would expect from its boring song title.

But comparing II to the band’s self-titled of six years ago isn’t entirely fair; standing alone this album still does more than hold its own within the extreme music scene. If you’re looking for a solid album to blow off some steam too, this is your ticket. It’s fast, angry, catchy and loud, all the trademarks of a good grindcore album. II is a good record, it simply lacks the brash personality that Magrudergrind so expertly fused into their last full-length. 

Rating: 7/10

Standout Tracks: The Opportunist, Sacrificial Hire, Stale Affairs, Icaro, Husayni/Handschar

Least Favourite Tracks: Relentless Hatred, Black Banner

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Album Review: The Body - No One Deserves Happiness

I couldn’t blame you if you thought I’ve changed Headphone Reverence into a metal blog by now. Although I’m still happily listening to Bowie, Young Thug and FKA Twigs, it just so happens that there’s been a surplus of great heavy music as of late. The latest of which to earn a shining a review from me is The Body’s “grossest pop album of all time” lovingly entitled No One Deserves Happiness. 

First off, I feel like it should be noted that calling this thing a pop album, even a gross one, is a pretty far stretch of the imagination. This album is just as heavy, terrifying and gruesome as anything else from the duo’s impressive discography. What this does mean is that The Body have changed things up a bit for this specific release. Namely, this album is probably the “catchiest” album The Body have written as they tend to swap their trademark slow, trudging doom rhythms for drum beats with a bit more pep. There’s also noticeably more melody on songs like “Starving Deserter” (which is so dark it almost sounds super-villanous) or “Two Snakes,” the latter of which starts with a deep electronic bass line more typical of hardcore electronic, grime or trap than doom metal. Another difference is the regular use of female choir vocals on the tracks; although The Body have collaborated many times with The Assembly of Light Choir, they have become a seemingly permanent fixture on No One Deserves Happiness. The choir vocals are a perfect contrast to The Body’s filthy distortion and bloodcurdling shrieks and help to elevate this album above the mass of typical doom and sludge metal into something truly experimental and boundless.

The Body’s propensity to play with new sounds and collaborate with unexpected guests (Vampillia, The Haxan Cloak, Braveyoung and coming soon: The Bug and Full of Hell, just to name a few) makes them one of the most exciting and unpredictable bands within the styles of extreme, dark and experimental music. I would say that No One Deserves Happiness is one of their most successful excursions yet and proves that The Body are not only exciting as collaborators but can create full-length albums that sound fresh and different from one another. The only issue I had with this specific new style came in the song “Shelter Is Illusory” which was just a touch too dancy for my taste; it sounded more like someone had remixed a Body song into a dance track rather than The Body taking dance music and mangling it into something malformed. Everything else on this album blew me away. I know I’ll still be blasting this thing long after The Body hit us with their next flood of new material.

Rating: 8.5/10

Standout Tracks: Hallow / Hollow, Two Snakes, Starving Deserter, Prescience

Least Favourite Tracks: Shelter Is Illusory

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Viking's Choice: Cobalt, 'Beast Whip'

Cobalt is a pillar of American extreme metal. Seven years after Gin, the duo returns with a double album, a new vocalist and the colossal "Beast Whip."

Gin remains one of my favourite black metal albums of all time; it was a departure from everything that too often made the sub-genre bland and stale. Incorporating punk riffs, tribal drums and lyrical themes centring on American literature, Cobalt (a duo comprised of vocalist Phil McSorely and multi-instrumentalist Erik Wunder) built a new sound that felt wholly creative and fresh. After some much publicized discord between the duo ending with Phil’s dramatic departure, Erik is back albeit with a new vocalist by his side. NPR is streaming their new track “Beast Whip” and I have to say the song gave me chills, it sounds that good. Slow Forever comes out March 25th on Profound Lore

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Here’s a new song via Death Grips called “Hot Head.” Following up their “final album” last year, the group are still releasing amazing material in preparation for their newest record titled Bottomless Pit. “Hot Head” starts as a mind-fuck of noise and rabid drumming, but quickly takes a turn for the super-catchy at around the 1 minute mark. I didn’t have to hear this song to be stoked on a new Death Grips album, but it definitely helps.