ALBUM REVIEW: Big|Brave, "Vital"

By: Josh McIntyre
 
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 23/04/2021
Label: Southern Lord Recordings

 
“Vital” CD//DD//LP track listing:
 
1). Abating the Incarnation of Matter
2). Half Breed
3). Wited, Still and All…
4). Of This Ilk
5). Vital
 
 
The Review:
 
Big|Brave creates music that consumes the listener. Their exploration of soundscapes (rather than notes) pulsing rhythms, and raw emotional vocals have captivated me since I first saw them opening for Sunn O))) back in 2016. The band is less than a decade old yet here we are with their fifth LP, “Vital”.
 
If we must give a genre description, I find Big|Brave to be more at home in the post-punk field than sludge metal, though they clearly cross paths in terms of the heavy drones. Their sound is somewhere between the pulsing aggression of early Swans and the creeping beauty of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. This has been consistent from the start but the band continuously experiments with their foundation.

“Vita”l continues this trend and is another lively display of what makes Big|Brave who they are. Huge, pulsing sounds (they don’t play many ‘chords’ in the traditional sense) followed by lingering trails of reverb are the standard. The use of negative space is just as crucial. Each track builds, gradually and slowly, until they dissipate. Of this Ilk, the fourth song, becomes one of the most aggressive of the band’s career halfway through. It absolutely pulverizes and then fades away like someone who has finished their point. It’s fairly comparable to an expressionistic painting, one that uses abstractions to show the ambiguity of simple existence.

These feelings are crucial here. Robin Wattie, our primary vocalist, sings and yells while these soundscapes waver around. Her performances are powerful and her lyrics, which regard her feelings and experiences being an ‘Other’ in a society dominated by a complex web in which whiteness and maleness are seen as standards (hence everything else is ‘Other’), put significant weight on “Vital” as a piece of artistic expression. There is such a strong sense of existential exploration on this record that one feels an obligation to listen again and to read the lyrics again, this next time just a little closer.

Big|Brave don’t just put out records that sound cool, even though they certainly do. Each one feels like an extension of the people who made them. They remind us that music is temporal and takes up space. It isn’t just about the notes that we play but how we play them. Big|Brave can pound drums, punch their guitars, scream, and devour us in waves of feedback before taking it all away. We are as vulnerable to their will as they are to their own. We, as people, are also both temporal and spacious. We are capable of being both fragile and powerful. The songs in “Vital” wander about their existence just as people similarly do. They speak of vulnerabilities, marginalization, strength, and endurance. We learn when we listen to each other.
 
“Vital” is available HERE

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Ad Nauseum, “Imperative Imperceptible Impulse”

By: Josh McIntyre

Album Type: Full Length 

Date Released: 12/02/2021 

Label: Avantgarde Music

 

“Imperative Imperceptible Impulse” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1). Sub Specie Aeternitatis 

2). Inexorably Ousted Sente

3). Coincidentia Oppositorum 

4). Imperative Imperceptible Impulse

5). Horror Vacui 

6). Human Interface to No God

The Review:

There’s weird music and then there’s this. Avant-garde is thrown around a lot to describe odd metered and dissonant death/black metal bands but Ad Nauseam truly deserves the title. I don’t think that consonance is even in the band’s musical lexicon. The riffs and rhythms swarm around, constantly shifting and melting into the brain. This wasn’t made to headbang to, this is a challenging musical experiment that demands detailed attention. In other words, this needs to be listened to multiple times to appreciate.

This album in particular is much dryer sounding than Ad Nauseam’s past works and comparable bands such as Ulcerate and Blut Aus Nord. This makes the constant array of clashing guitar notes and clanging bass all the more an assault. This physicality combined with the unpredictability of the rhythmic flow of each track honestly makes me feel anxious. It’s like being lost in a dark cave. You can’t see anything, you don’t know where you are, and every little sound frightens you.

It’s damn brilliant. This record is getting a lot of high marks and for good reason. While being clearly inspired by a certain school of experimental metal the band takes it to another level. The aggressive left/right panning of the two guitars that almost always play highly contrasting riffs might be the most notable factor here. At all times the brain is listening to at least two different patterns and the natural desire for some kind of melodic or rhythmic resolution is thrown out the window like a helpless, unwanted child. Still, in the midst of this chaos the band does provide for slower, quieter moments of slight relief, a factor that allows listeners to bear the journey in addition to being enjoyable in itself.

Ad Nauseum is far from the first death metal band to reference 20th century classical music or jazz but those influences, I suspect, give the greatest rise to the intense atmosphere and discomfort at display. At times I’m even reminded of the bleakest parts of works by The Caretaker, the ambient/sound collage artist that seeks to create the musical equivalent of the human mind deteriorating from dementia. It’s even comparable to the surreal horrors of Bosch’s depictions of Hell or the terrifying phenomena in a Junji Ito universe. If someone asks you what fear sounds like show them this album.

“Imperative Imperceptible Impulse” is available HERE

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

TRACK PREMIERE: Ølten deliver a titan of sonic manipulations on "Raus"

Formed in 2012, Ølten are a three piece armed with one guitar, one bass, and a drum kit, taking these individual elements they have coalesced into a titan of sonic manipulations, a trio that doesn’t always need to flex its muscles to display raw power. Their new record “Ambiance” is set for release via Hummus Records on November 2^nd,  and you can check out a brand new track entitled “Raus” below.  Preorders for “Ambiance” are being taken (HERE) and band offer some insight to the structure and sound of the track below

The intro riff shares similar sounds with our friends from Unfold, a Swiss band we've all admired for years. This track then continues with a long central part a bit "prog": two guitar notes, four moog notes. And finally, a trax whose brakes give out on the way down.

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Dead Empires, "Designed to Disappear"

By: Mark Ambrose


Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 23/02/2018

Label: Silent Pendulum Records

 

“Witnessed live and through my speakers, “Designed to Disappear” is a juggernaut of a record – one that hops easily between genres while remaining the work of a distinct, remarkable quartet.  I’m onboard for whatever challenging, inspiring output they have in store.”

“Designed to Disappear” CD//CS//DD//LP track listing

1. Spectacular Ruin

2. The Form

3. Slay Rider

4. Reverse Speak

5. A Summertime Song

6. Ones and Zeros

7. Ergot (feat. John Carbone)

8. Designed to Disappear

The Review:        

The term “progressive” gets thrown around pretty egregiously in metal – most often you’re left thinking of bands like Dream Theater or Iced Earth, and even then thinking in terms of scale, length, or concept albums.  Far too frequently, it’s easy to forget how the genuine first wave of “prog” artists, from King Crimson and Santana to Yes and Rush, embraced weirdly abstruse musical styles.  While a ton of modern prog enthusiasts will point to the longform arena rock epics like “2112”, there aren’t many who hold up the 80s pop experimentation of Yes as key progressive cornerstones.  Yet with the supremacy of total oddball artists like Mike Patton and his onetime collaborators in the dearly departed Dillinger Escape Plan in the 1990s and 2000s metal/math/whatevercore scenes, there is growing appreciation for boundary-free heavy music.  New York state’s Dead Empires, formerly an instrumental trio, have all the hallmarks of these monumentally talented virtuosos with a healthy injection of pop sensibility to match. 

Intro track “Spectacular Ruin” displays the muscular guitar- focused energy at the heart of Dead Empires winning formula, allowing John Bryan space to lay down harmonized, rousing leads that will please the Thin Lizzy fanatics out there.  “The Form” unleashes vocalist Jason “PRKR” Sherman for the first time – his monstrously distorted vocals and noisy manipulations are all the more exciting when his melodic strengths come to the foreground later.  The rhythm dynamic of Phil Bartsch and DJ Scully is monumental – heavy as the heart of a neutron star.  And Bryan’s apt countering of chugging rhythm and shrieking high end melodic guitar work sounds like the best Mars Volta leads we never got. 

“Slay Rider”, a thrashy two minute blast of galloping drums and blast beat choruses, is a great example of the Dead Empires’ bold disregard for genre conventions – they could have forged on with the noisy, experimental math rock of the first two tracks and had a pretty solid record, instead, they go full on groove-thrash attack before the heady, jazz grind freakout of “Reverse Speak.”   And that’s only the first two minutes of the track, before a beautifully salsa infused guitar and piano (guest Jason Volpe) tradeoff, pounding double bass drumming of Bartsch, or the magnificently melodic bridge vocals.  Just when you think you have Dead Empires’ formula pegged they drop into a spaced out dub metal (is that even a thing?) track like “A Summertime Song”.  Like a 311 song if they could just muster the grit to be HEAVY, “A Summertime Song” is the unlikeliest, weirdest 7 minutes I’ve heard on an album this year that actually works as a pop single.  DJ Scully’s gnarly bass gets some time to shine here and it’s easy to see why he’s an in demand multi-genre bassist – dude has some serious tone and chops.

The instrumental “Ones and Zeros” is a bit of a palate cleanser after the consistent tonal changeups of the record so far, recalling the meat and potatoes harmonies of “Spectacular Ruin”, with some moments that recall Big Country (maybe the most overlooked non-metal guitar group of the 80s), and others that once again have me thinking of Phil Lynott and company.  “Ergot” may be the most “conventional” post-metal/metalcore piece of the whole record, if a punishing metal song in the midst of all this post-rock beauty, featuring a spoken word coda courtesy of Moon Tooth’s John Carbone, can be called conventional at all.  The epic, titular finale is a 12 minute, anthemic journey through regret and mortality that is cinematic, rewarding, and ultimately uplifting, even with lyrics like “death, the great equalizer / everything will end one day / that’s the hard truth we go to bed with everyday, / designed to disappear we all go away”.  Somehow it’s far more inspiring than you’d imagine, with moments of seriously dissonant brutality.  More than any other track, I could see this as full on arena rock – it deserves an audience of thousands to truly appreciate its massive scale.

Though there are only eight tracks on their newest record, Dead Empires’ offer lightning fast jaunts through multiple genres, embodying the bold heart of progressive music’s infinite potential.  While their forebears like Dillinger Escape Plan have retired, or Mike Patton has stopped only occasionally to focus on projects that exist as more than one-off experiments, Dead Empires has the potential to continue as a band to watch, as every move seems to take you to new, unforeseen destinations.  It’s really amazing to see it replicated live, as I had to pleasure to experience this autumn, and hear so MUCH coming from a stripped down quartet.  If you have a chance to see them during the upcoming tour, I’d absolutely recommend it, as the pure intensity and prowess is somehow just as monumental, even in a small venue.  Witnessed live and through my speakers, “Designed to Disappear” is a juggernaut of a record – one that hops easily between genres while remaining the work of a distinct, remarkable quartet.  I’m onboard for whatever challenging, inspiring output they have in store.

“Designed to Disappear” is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook