#rv:gloomp

[albumswapping]

Cypher by Spektr [via nil]

Spektr are a French black metal act, and possess the requisite amount of weirdness and surreality to fit comfortably within the national scene. French black metal in general is known for some of the strangest and most impenetrable ever produced, full of projects that approach the genre from a perspective steeped in atonality and a very abstract sense of malevolence. Cypher is an extremely competent example of the form, sporting a very spiky guitar tone and frequent vocals samples (mostly in English, interestingly). It putters along in this way quite well for its 45 minute runtime, atmospheric dark ambient segments and other compositional quirks keeping it from becoming too flat and boring. Nothing spectacular, but an enjoyable listen.

» gloomp

[albumswapping]

Lawless Darkness by Watain [via mediate]

Another album of clean, professional black metal. Feh. I appreciate this stuff, but I'm not sure I really like it. The problem is how monochrome it comes off, another big grey expanse of "emotional" that inspires no feeling in me. I don't mean to be too harsh, it's an okay album, one of the better of this sort probably, with the last track actually fairly interesting, but I just feel so little about it. I don't mind music that doesn't move me emotionally, but only if it seems like it's trying to do something beside that, and this definitely doesn't. Yawn. Next.

>> gloomp

[albumswapping]

The B-52's by The B-52's [via TommyWiseau]

As opposed to most of the bands I'm recommended for this dumb thing, I have actually listened to The B-52's before. Like, not just Love Shack. The entire album Love Shack was on. Which was... less than good. It was pretty dreadful, honestly. B-52's at that point are a band only tolerable in small, single-sized doses, I guess. So I didn't go into this one with exactly high hopes, but it did come with a bit of a pedigree, and TW said it was fairly different from their later stuff. 

"And," you ask, leaning forward over the edge of your seat in rapt suspense, "was it?!" Well, yes, actually. The first B-52's record shows a much more interesting, thoughtful band than the one that made Love Shack. This is an album of slightly odd and skewed new wave; fun, catchy, but with an edge. It's not a remarkable album, but it is a perfectly decent one, that sounds to me like about a million other perfectly decent new wave albums. No regrets.

>> gloomp

[albumswapping]

Runaljod – gap var Ginnunga by Wardruna [via Tunc] Disappointed. Tunc usually has a pretty good idea of what I'll like, but I dunno, don't really feel this. "Runaljod – gap var Ginnunga" is the sole album by Norweign band Wardruna. The members have been in a whole bunch of other projects, none that I recognize, but I'm not up on the scene so that's fairly meaningless. Warduna play a very richly textured brand of extremely Nordic Neofolk. There's a lot of unconventional percussive sounds and instruments made from animal skin. I might like it more once I get a good snowfall, because it is, atmospherically, a very, very wintry album. A lot of it sounds like some sort of creepy, although not necessarily sinister, ritual on some great, snow-covered hilltop in the dead of night. Which you'd think would be fucking awesome, right? I would, at least. But it's not, weirdly enough. The thing's 50 minutes, which is usually a fair length for this sorta stuff, but I was getting very bored of it by like halfway through. I dunno. All of the tracks start to blend together into some sort of viscous slush of hymnal vocalizations and bowed strings. So, yeah, not awful, but disappointing.

>> gloomp

[albumswapping]

Trademark Ribbons of Gold by VHS Head [via xwd] So I did basically no research on this thing but RYM indicated it was a big deal back in 2010 and I remember hearing about this guy in Wire, so that's cool or whatever. Never really gotten much into IDM. Generally prefer what dance music I do listen to to be more direct and vicious. But this is a neat album I guess. My understanding is it's compiled entirely from samples off old VHS tapes, and I certainly dig that aesthetic. Most of the tracks have got a good velocity to them, like some sort of garish sports car bouncing down a dirt road. The big problem is it's far too long. I think I would've really liked it at 40-some minutes, but at 70 it gets waaay old, unfortunately. Not a bad listen, overall, but ultimately the gimmick can't sustain it for me. Someone more into the form might love it, I'm left fairly nonplussed.

>> gloomp

[albumswapping]

Seraphim by Irfan [via Rose]

Okay, silver lining: At least the first album of this new "season", if you will, isn't something I'm indifferent to. However, it's not something I liked either. Haha, oh, no, I did not like this at all. Straight up: this is one of the worst albums I've ever had the sorry fate of sitting through. I mean, this shit is fucking awful, oh my god.

"Seraphim" wholeheartedly embraces a number of my biggest musical turnoffs. Here is an album that is not only lifeless, but at the same time seeks to suck the life out of everything around it as well. It's an album of "ethereal ethnic" music, which apparently means some woman crooning meaningless "exotic" sounds over some washy mishmash of "exotic" instruments, probably of Arab origin, although they're used to so little of their potential that I couldn't possibly be sure. This is music for the waiting rooms of New Age societies that would be pyramid schemes expect the leaders are too fucking stupid to know how to run one.

I really want to emphasize: I fucking hate this album. Not "haha dude that was soooo bad", no, I seriously fucking hate this. Music this lazy, this lacking in imagination, with such a strong odor of "we don't need to try, people love this world music shit", makes me angry. My time on this planet is too preciously short to spend any of it on garbage like this. Fuck off, and die.

>> gloomp

[albumswapping]

Panzerfaust by Darkthrone [via mediate]

Sigh. What an utterly mediocre record. Can I just say that and be done with it?

No?

Well, fuck. Right then. Darkthrone. Classic black metal band, instrumental (har har) in developing the style. After an initial offering of death, they put out a trio of black LPs which are considered absolute essential listening for anyone interested in the style, and I've heard... none of them. I know, I know, I find it kind of inexplicable as well. The point I'm trying to convey is I went into this album being very familiar with Darkthrone's history, but not with their music. So, lucky me, my introduction to what they sound like is their first black metal album that isn't necessarily all that great, based upon my (light) reading.

My reading steered me well, because yeah, "Panzerfaust" isn't that great. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad, really, but mostly it just didn't leave much of an impression. Seven tracks of scratchy black metal with nothing much to them beyond that. This might, of course, be a bit of an Elvis situation, but they're four albums in, they aren't getting extra points for originality anymore. Still, though, I don't want to sound too harsh. It's an okay black metal album. There's just not really much to it to distinguish it from the fifty million other "okay black metal album"s out there. This would be the part where I say it's not really my thing, but I really like black metal, so, yeah, no cop out for you, "Panzerfaust". You're mediocre and that's all there is to it.

>> gloomp

[albumswapping]

Viscera by Jenny Hval [via Ste "Rincewind" phen]

Sorry, Stephen. I'm about to disappoint you.

Viscera came with very high praise. Having been placed at number one on Stephen's top 50 2011 albums list, obviously no small achievement, I was hoping to be blown away, or at least very impressed. Unfortunately, what I got was a very wispy 40ish minutes of little intrigue and less excitement. Maybe this is a flaw of my listening method, which favors general impressions and divided attention over close analysis and complete focus. Maybe there's some fantastic stanzas dropped over the sparse, subtle instrumentation that just passed me by, but I don't really believe a work can be carried on lyrics alone anyway. As it stands, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to launch into that all-to-common refrain: I mean it's okay I guess probably a lot of people would like it and I don't hate it but (say it with me now) it's not really my thing.

>> gloomp