Re-Review: Frank Zappa – Absolutely Free (1967)
Autechre – Quaristice (2008)
This album is Autechre’s take on the arcane, ethereal dream. I have unilaterally decided that Quaristice is a concept album about a scientific expedition into the depths of a gas giant. Why? My mind works in strange ways. Incidentally, the Versions EP that came with a very limited edition of this album is essentially an illustration of such an expedition going very wrong. More on that someday. Either way, the OG Quaristice is slightly famous for being a collection of many short songs, as opposed to Autechre’s focus on lengthy tracks. As usual, Autechre handles this with the usual aplomb and flair.
Quaristice‘s extensive song count is, to put it least, a double edged sword. Since this album is about the same length as the rest of Autechre’s pre-2010 studio albums, individual songs don’t have quite the time to stretch out and develop the the band’s usual flavor of ambient songwriting (…with the possible exception of the longer tracks at the end). Instead, you get what feels like a series of sketches. If the existence of Quaristice‘s many alternate versions are to be believe; this original’s content was presumably created by taking the usual extended jams and editing them down with extreme prejudice. The usual cliches about having many short songs apply here (more chances for variety, less filler). Beyond that, though, this also means that Autechre has the chance to explore ideas and soundscapes that we might never hear on a more conventionally structured album.
In fact I’d say this adventurous spirit is Quaristice‘s specialty. The ingredients here aren’t unheard of, but most Autechre albums seem to focus on a few specific ideas – Chiastic Slide‘s industrial grime, Untilted‘s rhythmic prowess, Oversteps‘ melody. This album? Gives you a bit of everything. An excellent case in point – when I first heard “Simmm”, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Oversteps by its chimes and FM synth. On the other hand, Oversteps rarely comprehensively destroys and rebuilds a song as an ambient soundscape. Quaristice is replete with combinations – grit and melody (“Theswere”), vocal drone, (“IO”), rhythm and narrative (“chenc9”), abstract hip hop (“Perlence” – the Perlence series are probably worth a review in and of themselves), etc. Similar to the track count – you don’t get a particularly deep exploration of any one concept, but the sheer breadth and combination of aesthetics is hard to beat.
If it weren’t so relentlessly abstract, I’d be inclined to recommend Quaristice as a starting point for Autechre. As it is, I didn’t get to it until I’d listened to many, many other Autechre recordings, but I think my appreciation for this one has been enhanced by my overall familiarity with their music. Start or not, you might end up feeling the same.
Highlights: “Altibzz”, “IO”, “Simmm”, “90101-5l-l”, “chenc9”
Re-Review: Brutality – Screams of Anguish (1993)
My experience with Brutality after their full length debut hasn’t been great. Somehow, those later albums seem to lack a certain je ne sais quoi that was present here? I figured it’d be good to go back and investigate what happened. I also have an ulterior motive in revisiting Brutality in general – one of the band’s members (who admittedly didn’t perform on Screams of Anguish) eventually came out as a transwoman. This admittedly tenuous sisterhood makes the band worth a fresh look, as far as I’m concerned.
In that spirit – Screams of Anguish comes off to my 2020 ears as pretty middle of the road in its approach. It’s not especially intense or decrepit. It’s not as relentlessly atmospheric as some of its predecessors, doesn’t lean into melody like folks across the sea, and doesn’t push the technical envelope in other ways either. From the massive link dump, you might expect a band without much in the way of notable qualities. In practice, though, Brutality is a jack of all trades band. Master of none, perhaps, but as the proverb goes, that’s “…nonetheless often better than a master of one.” Screams of Anguish excels when it tries to do multiple things at a time. Maybe the best example of this is “Cries of the Forsaken”, which fluently switches between long doomy passages, melodic shredding, and a few rapidfire blasting sections, all in an extended arrangement that’s constantly bringing in new riffs and musical ideas. There’s a lot of bands that excel at any one of these ideas, but not many I can think of that succeed in a straight up death metal context.
The sonar side of this album comes off as competent, if not exactly remarkable. Screams of Anguish has what feels like a pretty standard, if slightly trebly mix – no audible bass, but everything else is clear and intelligible. There’s some nice guitar leads here that help flesh out Brutality’s non-brutal side, and the drummer (Jim Coker) has a good ear for rhythmic variety. For what it’s worth, Screams of Anguish also features two keyboard and clean electric guitar interludes that… honestly, sound fine. Given how some of the band’s contemporaries fouled their own attempts up (looking at you, Morbid Angel), this is at least a small plus. In conclusion, while the instrumentation here isn’t superlative, it’s more than sufficient to support Brutality’s compositional aims.
If I had to guess, I’d say I spend more time and cognitive effort on death metal’s more specialized acts. That being said, Screams of Anguish is consistently at least good, and usually better. All I need to do now is evaluate its successors. You may have to wait a long time for me to re-revisit Brutality, though. Flash Fiction Month beckons!
Highlights: “These Walls Shall Be Your Grave”, “Exposed to the Elements”, “Cries of the Forsaken”, “Spawned Illusion”
4mat – Modern Closure (2019)
In a way, I almost hate the best music. Not the music itself, per se, but more the fact that it’s harder to write critically about things that I’m not inclined to criticize. My previous experience with 4mat (Nadir) was like that, but Modern Closure is on a new level. This album takes the chiptune-derived aesthetics of its predecessor and elevates it with longer, richer, and more complex compositions. I find Modern Closure to be an absolute joy to listen to… which has the aforementioned side effect of making it very hard to write a “review” that isn’t just a series of links to storefronts where you can buy this recording and support its deserving author…
To be fair, Modern Closure is more elaborate than Nadir by far. It’s almost three times as long, with twice the tracks, and therefore correspondingly more time to explore itself. Where Nadir felt densely coiled and channeled an approachable chip-pop aesthetic, Modern Closure comes off as more ambient. That being said, you can still recognize these recordings’ shared musical heritage; they both favor intricate rhythm, jazzy harmonies and chord progressions, chiptune influenced instrumentation (to quote my past self, “…arpeggiation, hardware sweeps, fake echo, and so forth”), etc. Modern Closure does add some frequently lo-fi recordings of physical instruments (or at least realistic simulations of such), but I still feel I was well prepared to delve this album’s secrets by its predecessor.
In practice, Modern Closure ends up exaggerating and emphasizing what much of what I liked about its predecessor. It is, without any qualifications, more. Producing exaggerated music doesn’t always make it better, mind you, but I’m into the specifics here. In particular, 4mat takes the opportunity to write more ambitious songs; they have more unique parts and permutations to work through. The diptych in the middle of the album (“The Edge of the Wheel”, and “Love and Art”) is a great example of this. Both are almost exactly the same length, but take things in very different directions. “The Edge of the Wheel” iterates on a relatively consonant and conventional melody, using massive dynamic shifts to shape it for dramatic effect. “Love and Art”, though, is more of a rambler, traveling through several soundscapes that each could be spun off into its own song. If Modern Closure has a weakness, it’d be that some of these tracks don’t really have much of a narrative, but I’m hard pressed to complain when the journeys are so good.
To be honest, this is probably going to be one of my top albums of all time for a while. I admittedly look forwards to anything that can even attempt to displace it.
Highlights: “The Shape of Passing Cars”, “The Edge of the Wheel”, “Tracker’s Folly”, “Measure”, “Modern Closure”
Cory Doctrow – Walkaway (2017)
Some spoilers follow after the gap.
When I started reading this, the world had caught fire. Now, though, the world has exploded. Probably a good time to work on reading this book. Walkaway makes a critical assumption about how technology might evolve in the next few decades – in this case, that we’ll end up with the infrastructure to build a post scarcity economy – and runs with it, hypothesizing what a world where people can literally “walk away” from society as we know it and build a new society based on anarchism and mutual aid. Without that atmosphere of post-scarcity? I don’t know if Walkaway could happen as written, but the experience certainly feels like an anarchist praxis.
Read more…Öxxö Xööx – Nämïdäë (2015)
I knew that from the title alone that Nämïdäë was going to be a pain to review. Just look at how many umlauts this thing has strewn about its titles! Öxxö Xööx, for all intents and purposes, is what happens when you strip Igorrr’s collaborators (the “Serreverse”, as I once dubbed it) out of Igorrr’s studio albums, and let them run amok in a world of their own creation. Apparently, this results in highly experimental, melodramatic and operatic doom metal. In addition, the entire album is performed in some sort of constructed language, which admittedly reminds me of a certain other French band… Nämïdäë, to say the least, is quite the trip. Please don’t ask me how to pronounce it.
For what it’s worth, Nämïdäë wastes no time in establishing its identity. If you’re anything like me, you know you’re in for a gothy time when you hear the first organs of “Därkäë”. If you consulted the song lengths, you also know that you’re in for a proggy time. This band goes out of its way to write extended songs with all sorts of transitions and few obvious verses/choruses. That alone is admittedly enough to win many points in my book, but it’s admittedly a double edged sword. Öxxö Xööx can be scatterbrained at the best of times, but when you sound this wild, that’s better than trying to cram everything into the same songwriting formula ad infinitum…
The instrumentation, though, is the real benefactor from this approach. Öxxö Xööx has one of the strongest and most recognizable aesthetics I’ve heard in some time. There’s a bit of a neoclassical feel to everything, given the massive level of background keyboards (lots of harpischord lines, too!). The real star, are the dual vocalists. I was already familiar with Laurent Lunoir and Laure Le Prunenec’s work under the Igorrr label, but as previously mentioned, I appreciate that they had the chance to “run amok”. This is a heavily vocal driven album, with a healthy mix of both clean and harsh singing for all tastes. Laure in particular lets loose, with crazed yelps contrasting a clean, piercing soprano. Either way, these two have great chemistry, and the arrangements here are a pleasure to listen to. There’s also, to my understanding, a concept album buried under the conlang, but even the translation doesn’t especially help me understand. Given my background as a music fan, I’m not particularly worried about this, but it might be a turn off for some of you out there. Maybe.
Silliness aside, I unconditionally recommend Nämïdäë, and I implore you to get your hands on a copy. Expect similar praise for this album’s successor at some point in the future.
Highlights: “Därkäë”, “Ländäë”, “Dä Ï Lün”, “Äbÿm”
My keyboard is crying blood now.
VNV Nation – Futureperfect (2002)
Take your mind back to 2016. I was an egg who was just on the cusp of finding meaningful employment, and politics hadn’t yet failed us. Halcyon days, right? Even back then, I had long forgotten the circumstances that lead me to discover VNV Nation. Those events have only receded further into the past. It’s in that spirit that I am left to parse what I’ve learned from Futureperfect. My initial impression that it was an archetypal recording – a reasonable entry point for anyone who wants to explore so-called “futurepop”. The more I think about it, though, especially in light of Empires, the more I suspect it’s an experiment. There are some ideas here that, as far as I can tell, don’t really have equivalents on what else of this band I’ve listened to.
Once we get past the “Foreword” (which channels the optimistic, future-facing aesthetic I expect from VNV Nation), “Epicentre” begins with shrill, abrasive beeps over pounding EDM beats. It’s distinctive, to say the least, and it also had the possible honor of inspiring Planepacked material. Plugs for the upcoming studio album aside, Futureperfect leans deeper into sound exploration than the albums that bookend it. Empires and Matter+Form show off a decently wide variety of instruments, but it never reaches quite this extent. This aspect of Futureperfect culminates (as far as I’m concerned) with a one-two punch in the middle of the album – first, the even glitchier, harsher instrumental that is “Structure”, and immediately after that, the twelve bar blues licks of “Fearless”, I don’t know about you, but I never expected those chords to be so obvious in this sort of music. Maybe these two are why I fixate on this album’s experimental side?
Silliness aside, you’re still getting slick, danceable pop music with enough meat on its bones to keep your attention for a while. That merging of techno/trance instrumentation with consonant melodies and verse/chorus song structures in my experience, is the point of VNV Nation. It was something they’d fundamentally figured out on Empires, and when Futureperfect isn’t fiddling around, looking for the next thing, it’s refining the craft of futurepop. There’s some evocative songwriting here – “Electronaut” is a favorite for its abstract and somewhat sparse instrumental stylings, “Carbon” laments the flaws of a civilization that was admittedly able to birth VNV Nation, “Beloved” melts my estrogenated heart and keeps the rest of me pleased with its incessant arpeggiation, and so forth. Not all the experiments work, but nothing stops me from focusing on the high points.
While it’s not as consistent as Empires, nor does it have the apparent rock influence of Matter + Form, Futureperfect does showcase a couple of successful experiments, which… is enough for me to recommend it. Shows how harsh of a critic I am these days!
Highlights: “Epicentre”, “Electronaut”, “Carbon”
maudlin of the Well – Leaving your Body Map (2001)
The duology continues. Leaving Your Body Map picks up the very second that Bath left off (if you listen to both albums in a row, like you should, because it’s quite the trip), giving you another hour or so of maudlin of the Well goodness. It successfully continues the arcane, ethereal, dreamlike atmosphere of Bath; they were, after all, released on the same day and probably recorded in tandem as well. You might expect to especially get more of the same after a description like that, but Leaving Your Body Map, while continuing this formula, also presents a different spin on this off-kilter band.
In practice, Leaving Your Body Map strikes me as a slower, slightly gentler, and certainly more contemplative companion piece to Bath. You’ll still get the mixture of death metal with indie/progressive rock tropes, but the band spends more of their time exploring its mellow moments. This seems consistent with frontman Toby Driver’s musical evolution – his work with his later projects (like Kayo Dot) has apparently trended frequently (if not entirely) away from metal. That’s at best an early trend here. For whatever reason, though, this also means longer acoustic interludes, whether in separate songs, or in the middle of existing material. The extended period of calm in “A Curve That To an Angle Turn’d” is a good example; it also has the fortune of conveniently illustrating maudlin of the Well’s most intense dynamic contrasts for the listener. Meanwhile, “Gleam in Ranks” represents the one time the band fully lets loose like they did on Bath, but it’s amongst the shortest tracks here. Well placed to coke things up, though.
The last bit, though, illustrates that we’re still dealing with fundamentally the same band and approach to music. maudlin of the Well remains a band of massive contrasts, whether gradual or abrupt. Leaving Your Body Map gives listeners an opportunity to hear new combinations of this musical language. You could theoretically argue that there’s not a whole lot of new ideas; things that you didn’t hear on Bath in some form. That being said, this also makes for a more unified experience, as I suspect the band intended. We’re also already dealing with a preponderance of musical ideas – sometimes they just need to be explored further! The continued emphasis on extended songs helps, allowing tracks like the almost pastoral “Stones of October Sobbing” to slowly unwind and reveal their secrets.
It might be obvious for me to suggest that Leaving Your Body Map is an essential companion to Bath, but it still bears repeating. Both albums are favorites of mine, and well worth it.
Highlights: “Gleam In Ranks”, “Bizarre Flowers – A Violent Mist”, “Riseth He, the Numberless”
Xoth – Interdimensional Invocations (2019)
Interdimensional Invocations is basically the technical death metal equivalent of candy. It’s got flashy performances and all the extreme metal techniques you’d expect (blastbeats, harsh vox, tremelo riffs), but it seems to focus more on catchy melodies and basic song structures than anything else. That’s a common focus, but not one I typically usually associate with this level of extremity, even though based on previous experience, I really should. In practice, if you want me to appreciate your pop craft, you have to be really good at it. Does Xoth measure up?
Xoth does have a few subtle points in their favor, admittedly. First, their sound here vaguely reminds me of Valdrin’s debut, which was compelling, if admittedly flawed and immature. I’m not sure how much sense comparing Interdimensional Invocations‘s Lovecraftian aesthetics to Valdrin’s more straight ahead dark fantasy, but you’ll get the same emphasis on melody (though Xoth is less self-consciously evil here) and broadly similar song structures. Mind you, I don’t think there’s any intentional relation, but there’s a theme here – Xoth’s work reminds me more of other genres than their apparent techdeath companions. The benefit of this, I suppose, is that they have a perspective that a more straight ahead band might. There’s a few tracks here that point towards a more ambitious style, though, which are always appreciated. “Unseen Abductor” is the best example of this – it’s got some cool chord progressions in the middle, and is otherwise on the extended side by this album’s standards. It’s not drastically different, but it shows what, as far as I’m concerned, would make a good foundation for future material.
That being said, you still get the instrumental pyrotechnics you’d expect from Interdimensional Invocations. The guitars are probably the most obvious part of this. We also have the advantage of three vocalists working in tandem. They double as instrumentalists, but they all bring a different flavor of harshness to the table. There’s even some moments of audible bass parts, although it doesn’t seem to be particularly active beyond supporting the rest of the band. It’s probably a neutral sign that the band meets my expectations without particularly going beyond them, but Xoth’s musicians clearly know what they’re doing and how to get good results out of their genre. More complicated musicianship wouldn’t necessarily make things better, but depending on what Xoth does in the future, it might help? I digress.
I guess Interdimensional Invocations isn’t a particularly rigorous recommendation on my part, but it’s still a recommendation. I don’t know how much staying power it’ll have, but it’s been satisfying so far.
Highlights: “Mountain Machines”, “Unseen Abductor”, “The Ghost Hand of God”
Magma – Retrospektiw (Parts I + II) (1980)
How many bands do you know that have original compositions that they’ve (strictly speaking) only played live? Magma’s latter day career seems to revolve primarily around converting their live backlog into polished studio work, with the occasional detour into new material (like Félicité Thösz). That being said, there’s still plenty of reason to delve some of the live stuff that hasn’t quite yet been obsoleted by other editions. Retrospektiw is, to put it bluntly, essential. It contains definitive versions of both Theusz Hamtaahk and Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh – massive, sprawling, album-long epics that inspired countless other prog bands.
I figure that since Retrospektiw basically boils down to two studio albums worth of content, it might make sense to approach each half separately. First, Theusz Hamtaahk – a shorter (at a mere 36 minutes), more intense and ominous composition. This is the first part of the “Time of Hatred” song cycle, and it shows – starting with a doomy take on the same melody that opens up the second part (Ẁurdah Ïtah, where it’s trackinated as “Malawëlëkaahm”) before gradually, ritualistically building up to a classic Magma freak out. This also gives us a chance to appreciate the synthesizer/Rhodes heavy lineup of this incarnation – if you’re big on electronic sounds, you’ll enjoy that greatly, though you might miss the more rock-oriented instrumentation of previous Magma material. Either way, it’s archetypical Magma.
There are more takes on Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh throughout Magma’s material (including the original studio version in both its versions), but this is the one I return to most often. This has its moments of crushing intensity, but it’s a more diverse composition than TH by far. I don’t know enough Kobaian to actually say, but if I had to guess, maybe there’s a happy end to the story? Regardless, this is a more energetic and improvisatory take on MDK than what you’d hear on either of their initial takes (the 1973 studio version, or the stripped down version first officially returned in 1989), though it does lose some of the regimented, even martial sound of the original. As part of this, though, it adds extended bass and electric violin solos, which were presumably composed at least early enough to appear as “Mekanik Zain” off Hhai. All the competing version of MDK should make it clear how much live Magma can reinvent itself.
As a general rule, my Magma coverage boils down to “just listen to this band already”. Each album inside or outside of the studio, though, brings something new to the table. In the long run, though, it’s easier just to binge Retrospektiw and continue from there.
Highlights: … haven’t we done this joke before?
Peccatum – Lost In Reverie (2004)
So I haven’t been particularly enthused about Ihsahn’s solo work proper… but apparently time with the wife results in some compelling material. Lost In Reverie was a surprising and enjoyable discovery (planned almost since I learned about Emperor, but somehow forgotten until 2020). It also makes The Adversary‘s weaknesses all the more confounding. Why didn’t this collaboration last? Would Starofash meet my current needs? Are these questions getting me anywhere? There’s clearly something here that’s grabbing my attention and reorganizing the Ihsahn-isms into a more potent force.
If I had to guess, much of this is because Lost in Reverie isn’t really a metal album. It does have some metal songwriting at times, but otherwise oscillates between symphonic music and electronica-tinged modern rock. If anything, that means Peccatum’s songwriting isn’t required to be metal. There’s some writing here that would suffer greatly from being forced down that path… though there’s also some strange experimental noodling (like the ‘industrial’ sections of “Desolate Ever After”) that doesn’t always work – probably too clever and avant-garde for its own good. This is getting into subjective territory, but it’s at least indicative of Peccatum’s ambitions. In this case, at least, I’m more interested in a band that tries stuff and executes some neat ideas.
Even though Lost In Reverie doesn’t always gel together, it works exceptionally well when it does. Ihriel herself is a major chunk of this, lacing much of this album with her seductive, husky vocals. They also pair well with Ihsahn’s richer, melodramatic and vaguely operatic approach to cleans. This interplay is the linchpin holding Peccatum together, and it unites the disparate styles running through these tracks. Given that Lost in Reverie has a wide variety of atmospheres to draw on – the alternating ethereal glitchiness and jangling distortion of “In the Bodiless Heart”, the tense, horny funk of “Veils of Blue”, the moments of conventional black metal in “Black Star”, and so forth – it’s good for the album as a whole to have this sort of unifying force. That being said, the dynamics are also killer. I don’t know how I feel about the intro track as a whole, but it does provide a valuable opportunity to slowly build up and establish the Peccatum aesthetic. I haven’t talked much about that, per se – when it’s not referencing prior Emperor material, it nestles into a special flavor of sexualized grimdark and melodrama that seems to have especially flavored my tastes in recent years…
Merits or not, I know that I’m personally in the right headspace to appreciate Lost in Reverie. It’s an album that I could see myself delving into even if I’d gotten to it on time, but better late than never.
Highlights: “Inside the Bodiless Heart”, “Veils of Blue”, “Black Star”
Summoning – Stronghold (1999)
Nevertheless, Summoning persisted. I attuned to Summoning’s particular take on lower-mid-tier fidelity black metal almost a decade ago, but I’ve been very slow to expand my listening past Minas Morgul and Dol Guldur. In practice, I can only take so much sparse. Summoning has enough layering and attention to song structures to pique my interest, but there are limits to what you can do with layering alone. That being said, I still think Stronghold brings enough to the table (a robust mix of both old and new) that it’s worth the time of anyone who liked the last two albums.
The most important changes here are in the instrumentation; there’s two major components of note. First, Stronghold has a renewed emphasis on guitar parts, at least relative to the synth lines that are Summoning’s bread and butter. On average, it feels more aggressive than the previous albums’ baseline. If you ask me, though, the enhanced guitar presence actually makes for a brighter and arguably more heroic take on Summoning’s not-quite-black metal. Picture a horde of orcs in battle, as opposed to skulking in Mordor’s dungeons, or marching through desolate plains. The other important change is the vocals – for the first time that I’m aware of, there’s conventional singing. When mixed with the typical harshes (“Long Lost to Where No Pathway Goes”), it makes for an interesting sound. There’s also a guest singer on “Where Hope and Daylight Die”; Tania Borsky attempts a haunting soprano that I’m not super impressed with. Oh well.
The actual compositions, on the other hand, cleave closer to the formula of previous Summoning albums. These tracks travel by at a leisurely pace, and hit that sweet spot of variety and repetition that I usually label “journey” style songwriting. Summoning has always been melodic, but the enhanced guitar work allows main guitarist Protector to subtly make everything more intricate without drastically changing up his songwriting formulas. For the most part, this reinforces the brighter sound – Stronghold sounds immediate in a way that I haven’t previously associated with Summoning (though I should mention I haven’t listened to anything newer than this and can’t yet judge accordingly). In practice, whether you gravitate more towards this take on Summoning than their earlier, more cavernous work is likely a matter of personal preference and your current mood.
Either way, Stronghold is a successful, if not especially ambitious evolution of Summoning’s sound. Fans will appreciate the continued expertise and craftsmanship, and this is probably as good an entry point as any if you’ve never experienced this Austrian Casio-powered duo.
Highlights: “Long Lost to Where No Pathway Goes”, “The Glory Disappears”, “The Rotting Horse on the Deadly Ground”
Type O Negative – October Rust (1996)
If you want to experience October Rust in all its glory, you must first endure a practical joke for an entire 45 seconds.
Manilla Road – Out of the Abyss (1988)
Tell me, folks – what happens when a band that’s been edging towards ever greater intensity declares themselves straight up thrashers? It can’t help but be Out of the Abyss. This is a particularly interesting moment in Manilla Road’s career for two major reasons. First, as far as I know, they never really made anything this consistently violent again (though later albums had isolated moments of thrashy goodness). Second, it pars back some of the melodramatic and “epic” songwriting in its pursuit of aggression. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it completely unprecedented, but it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting after Mystification. Either way, this is an unusually focused effort, but is Out of the Abyss‘s focus worth it?
For what it’s worth, Manilla Road hasn’t completely abandoned their vaguely proggy roots on Out of the Abyss. There are still some extended songs, even if there’s more straightforward, aggressive material by weight. In general, though, everything has this harsh, dissonant, minimalistic sound that was rare at best on their previous albums. As a fan of fast, aggressive metal, I sometimes appreciate this. When it comes from a band that’s as good at atmosphere and melodrama as Manilla Road, though, I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something important. This approach works better when it takes advantage of its speed and violence, but the slower songs actually suffer here, whereas a more moderate incarnation of the band would’ve been able to take advantage of their haze.
Manilla Road’s thrashing madness, at least, feels more or less competent. This incarnation of the band is more than capable of playing their parts. Nothing here’s especially flashy or technical, but Out of the Abyss is tightly performed and keeps things varied enough to preventing things from getting too banal. Mark Shelton does a lot to keep this material afloat with his vocals. His performance is more abrasive and snarly than before, which fits the material perfectly, but he also finds time to toss in the rest of his vocal trademarks (nasally singing and the occasional falsetto), which is appreciated. Meanwhile, the weakest member of the band is almost certainly the producer. Out of the Abyss sounds clear and well mixed, but lacks the satisfying crunch of the albums that bookend it. It’s a very dry production that could benefit greatly from sharper guitars and drums – maybe it needs some love from a remaster?
In practice, there are a couple of quality tracks here, but for Manilla Road, you can do better.
Highlights: “Whitechapel”, “Black Cauldron”, “Midnight Meat Train”
Beherit – Engram (2009)
I gotta warn you – this album is a little strange. Feels like that’s kind of a given with Beherit, am I right? That being said, Engram is definitely the most straight forward and punishing Beherit album I’ve covered so far. It’s an especially simple, minimalistic and pummeling take on black metal that sticks to its guns for 43 minutes and leaves nothing alive in its wake. Regardless of whether you like that sort of music, you have to admire Beherit for staying so relentlessly focused. Mind you, my own appetite for minimalistic extreme metal has its limits… but maybe Engram can triumph over the competition?
Really, the reason I’m fond of this recording is because it’s got the typical subtly unhinged Beherit aesthetic. From its very first few seconds (cassette noises and misanthropic muttering), Engram taps into the wellspring of madness just enough to flavor itself while still remaining coherent and precise. The rambling synths and buried screams of “Axiom Heroine” paint a story of gibbering madness and nightmares behind the few riffs and drum patterns the rest of the band deigns to play. It’s all downhill from there – a constant procession of simple, crushing songs which slowly prepare you for the definitive version of “Demon Advance”. Compared to the demo on Celebrate the Dead, this edition of the song features sharper production by far, and extra layers of synth, which culminate in an extended coda that sounds like being inexorably sucked into a red nightmare hell for all eternity.
It helps that Engram has one of the best productions of all time. This isn’t from a technical stance – audiophiles will find everything overdriven to the point of absurdity and various elements (mostly vocals and synths) drowned under the noise. It’s the philosophy behind the production that makes it work. This is a consistently aggressive and forward album, but also a sparsely composed one, so having a loud and trebly production actually works in its favor. A more intricate album would suffer in the same circumstances, but Engram is essentially a concentrated dose of feral violence, if one with hints of nightmare and terror breaking through at times. I don’t know how the musicians here got that sound, but they not only managed it, they ended up with something crisp, something sufficiently clear… something that’s a joy to listen to, so who am I to complain?
Basically, Engram is a reminder that if you really know what you’re doing, you can, in fact, write the most basic material and make it worthwhile and even profound.
Highlights: “Axiom Heroine”, “All In Satan”, “Pagan Moon”, “Demon Advance”
