selected sounds vol. i
As promised, I'm going to try to start doing some record reviews here, and this is the inaugural installment. I'll probably stick to new-ish stuff, but who knows.
AGALLOCH Ashes Against the Grain
It's fitting to start off the review series with this release; it's my front-runner for album of the year. This is a metal record, but it's proabably not what you think. The band name and the overall aesthetic are suggestive of black metal, but, aside from the vocals (most of which are in the classic raspy BM vein), these guys can't be pigeonholed that way. The term they use on their website is "dark metal," which does the trick well, though I can't rattle off any other bands in that particular subgenre. The best description I can give is that large chunks of this record sound like Mono covering Cult of Luna with black metal vocals on top. Other bits sound like power metal on cough syrup. And there is one with a traditional 6/8 black metal feel. Anyway, the songs are long and generally slow (not doom-y slow, but slow) and effortlessly epic. It's just one great riff after another without any of that self-conscious "here's six minutes of a quiet part leading to three minutes of a REALLY LOUD part" stuff. If the first guitar riff in the first 30 seconds of the first track doesn't hook you, don't waste your time with the rest of the album. What makes this such a great record is that multiple songs have multiple memorable riffs, and the band understands that there's no such thing as playing a great riff too many times.
And did I mention that this is catchy as hell? Major indie-rocker crossover potential (in fact, it already got a glimmering review on Pitchfork). Along with a handful of ep's, this is actually the band's third full-length, though I haven't heard any of their earlier stuff (and I don't yet own a hard copy of this one, yikes! I'm trying to avoid that with these reviews). I would particularly like to encourage those of you (uh, all of you?) who aren't big metal fans to give this a chance. You won't like the vocals, but they're pretty sparse anyway. If you can't get into this record at all, then there's probably no hope for you.
Oh yeah - these guys are from Portland, OR, and really like mountains and trees and stuff like that.
AGALLOCH Ashes Against the Grain
It's fitting to start off the review series with this release; it's my front-runner for album of the year. This is a metal record, but it's proabably not what you think. The band name and the overall aesthetic are suggestive of black metal, but, aside from the vocals (most of which are in the classic raspy BM vein), these guys can't be pigeonholed that way. The term they use on their website is "dark metal," which does the trick well, though I can't rattle off any other bands in that particular subgenre. The best description I can give is that large chunks of this record sound like Mono covering Cult of Luna with black metal vocals on top. Other bits sound like power metal on cough syrup. And there is one with a traditional 6/8 black metal feel. Anyway, the songs are long and generally slow (not doom-y slow, but slow) and effortlessly epic. It's just one great riff after another without any of that self-conscious "here's six minutes of a quiet part leading to three minutes of a REALLY LOUD part" stuff. If the first guitar riff in the first 30 seconds of the first track doesn't hook you, don't waste your time with the rest of the album. What makes this such a great record is that multiple songs have multiple memorable riffs, and the band understands that there's no such thing as playing a great riff too many times.
And did I mention that this is catchy as hell? Major indie-rocker crossover potential (in fact, it already got a glimmering review on Pitchfork). Along with a handful of ep's, this is actually the band's third full-length, though I haven't heard any of their earlier stuff (and I don't yet own a hard copy of this one, yikes! I'm trying to avoid that with these reviews). I would particularly like to encourage those of you (uh, all of you?) who aren't big metal fans to give this a chance. You won't like the vocals, but they're pretty sparse anyway. If you can't get into this record at all, then there's probably no hope for you.
Oh yeah - these guys are from Portland, OR, and really like mountains and trees and stuff like that.
2 Comments:
please review the new supersystem record
ok - send me a copy
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