Top Albums 2014 Part III 30 - 21
30. Old Man Gloom – The Ape Of God
.jpg)
When thinking about doom metal, what comes to mind predominantly
is the concrescence of downtrodden guttural vocal work, heavy instrumentation
and the occasional feeling for ambient sound. Old Man Gloom however stretch that
formula adding the hardcore elements of Converge and a good amount of eerie noise
found in projects like Lotus Eaters. The Ape Of God might come close to
recalling the experience of waterboarding. The instrumentals evoke drowning,
although there is not even a stretched instrumental part present. It is drowning
while standing in the dry, fully aware of the externally infused torture upon
you. Hard hitting tracks like “Fist Of Fury” further this notion of torture
through their unforgiving screeching and Aaron Turners voice stopping the
progression of the track as if asking “had enough now?”. For the noise part,
almost every lengthier song features a meditative section, that is, praying for
the rashness to have finally stopped and night to secure you. In conclusion
this effort can only be lauded for the instance of mixing everything found on
the now defunct Hydra Head label together and continuing on the goal of pushing
metal music further one album at a time. Right now I can only highly
anticipate the Sumac project by Turner and advise you to dig deeper to every
band connected to this act.
29. Sun Kil Moon – Benji
Is there any sense in being truthful while writing
songs? As for most singer-songwriters reaching the poetic means stripping or
filling the words created by everyday occurrences and thoughts to form a song.
Mark Kozelek has done this on his earlier work and started to move away from
being cryptic and metaphorically inclined from release to release. Benji has
him singing in the same fashion he might talk about the things that happened to
him in life. He starts with “Carissa” giving the account of his distant cousin
dying through a household accident. Kozelek is wakened by this coincidence and
begins reflecting on life and death in a strikingly honest way, mostly just
telling the story of the funeral. In the other songs he speaks about his first
love encounters, the love for his mother, hanging out with his father and other
instances of meeting somebody or hearing from someone´s death. In a way Benji
is too stripped from production as there is seldom any other instrument then
the guitar, so listening for musical enjoyment alone might only be for a few.
But for anybody who wants to follow the perception and thoughts of an aging and
gifted musician, Benji holds great depth and after subtracting the personal,
also bears some messages and reflective notion for the own biography.
28. Solstafir – Otta
If you have lived in the assurance that the banjo is
an instrument of delightful folksiness, of the vagabonds roaming this world
lightening moods with their songs, you will have to reconsider after Ótta. In
fact, never has a an album bearing so many mid-tempo songs struck me as being
inherently metal in nature. As the opener “Lágnætti” and “Ótta” start the album
on a rather balladesque note, the feeling of metal music, otherwise only evoked by loud guitar
solos and harsh vocals, never leaves you. Undoubtedly Solstafir gain momentum in
these songs, but it is not until the mid of the album that they actually try to
be loud and explicitly electric with their sound in “Miðdegi” and “Nón”. The
vocalist Addi has no need to shout to deliver a wretched feeling of
abrasiveness and sorrow. His voice might come close to a mad man preaching
interchanging with that of a poet letting you partake in his recitals. But when
it does happen and Addi lets away his shout like in closer “Til Valhallar” you
are immediately transported to a former self of the band, a hard and relentless
metal act, bearing no polish of the post- movement. It is in this vicinity, this
close relation and contrast that the band shines and excels in making
atmospheric music without ever falling into easy listening or crescendo-core
like post rock.
27. Kerretta – Pirohia
Seeing Kerretta live brings you much closer to what
they are all about. There are many instrumental bands that functions on the
idea of long and drawn out jams, either touching a more psychedelic vibe or venturing
into the metal side of things. Thing is, Kerretta don´t just “vibe”, they work
while on stage. Not meaning that there is no feeling to their music, but their
approach on interplay, variation and progression is meticulous. The drummer H.
Walker works like clockwork while bass player William Waters provides his
service as if the instruments was attached to his hands, neither slacking nor
being overly concerned with his presence. It is in guitarist David Holmes
however were the parts convene. He provides the tension as much as the
contemplation. In Pirohia the band extents on their ideas of crushing
instrumental music, going from the attentive loudness in “Warnlands” to
perfectly blending the dullness of metal chords with the stretchy tendencies of
psychedelia. Either way, you just feel every chord and every note being hit,
like a perfect, breathing machine the three musicians play to become as one.
Special attention must be given to “Kawea Tātou Ki Ngā Hiwi” where as a first,
Kerretta recruit a Maori vocalist. For the quality of being an unknowledgeable
language for most, the vocals blend beautifully with the journey of the
instrumentals and show the band being able to venture into foreign territory
without any expense on their heavy and crafty nature.
26. Jakob – Sines
Sines is the idea of the idea, the archetype of
instrumental rock music. Furthering their career with every record, it seems
that Jakob tend to part from any indexical feature one could ascribe to music
and venture into unknown territory, in which they alone decide form and
function of their music. Sines is a howling piece of work, the guitar has
progressed even further and has denaturalized to one drawn out drone. Still the
drumming provides a frame, a confinement to follow what Jakob are saying. While
the music of other acts in this genre tends to be grasped with the attribution
of one or more feelings, say for instance hope or sorrow, Jakob have
transcended this game of subjective meaning altogether. Listening to their work
is like following the sonic waves, taking every turn they take, drowning out
after each segment and starting anew in the next piece. It is neither happy or
sad, not contextual or even narrative, it is the experience of sound as pure as
hearing your mother’s voice for the first time.
25. This Will Destroy You – Another Language
I can only guess from what the band said about Another
Language that This Will Destroy You were in a creative rut and had to
reconfigure what they wanted to do as musicians. And I can understand this, as
many instrumental rock bands get thrown into the simplistic umbrella of
post-rock, which to get really pejorative just means crescendo-core – building
a song, exploding, rinse and repeat. With their previous record Tunnel Blanket
they went into a much darker, ambient territory, eschewing the high rises for
grimy slushes of noise. I personally thought this effort to be weaker, not for
the experimentation but for the emotional weight the band carries when going
full sinister and ambient. With Another Language the band has found back to
their origins without the vice of repetition. The songs deliver much hope and
refines the seven-minute-one to two crescendo formula into a structured
experience ranging from seven to three minute tracks. TWDY pull of in one track what
would take other three. The pace themselves in “Invitation” with their military
drumming as much as they create beauty with the twangy guitars. And they
deliver the forwardness, better set the upwardness that many seek in
instrumental rock without relying on the wall of sound and the
“blast-everything-you-have”. With this, the quartet from Texas might really
have formed their lane, their own language described as “doom-gaze”.
24. Ratking – So It Goes
Ratking deliver unadulterated rap music. Hard hitting
and not for any style, movement or other idealistic notion. As you are sucked
into the experience of So It Goes with a monologue about the past loving hip
hop heads not concurring with the new notions and perspectives in hip hop, Wiki
and Hak spit their own directly into your face. The use of drum computers
throughout the record recalls none other than Ratking it seems and the way the
two rappers flex their words shows a huge variety. Considering this, their
music still can´t just be correlated with being punk or approaching hip hop
from a non-hip hop perspective. Ratking rather take the genre as the sap of
their life-flow, having the upbringing and mind sets of New Yorkians and
developing on this with much individuality. This point can be proven best by
collaborating with a figure like King Krule. The British crooner has as much an
influence of hip hop as he does in blues and yet still remains unconfined and
nonrestrictive in his approach. So Is Goes stands as one of the best hip hop
releases this year and Ratking will without doubt deliver far greater things
with the energy that set them on the map.
23. Isaiah Rashad – Cilvia Demo
As the newest addition to the rooster of Top Dawg
Entertainment and the Black Hippy collective, expectations on Isaiah Rashad´s
first project were high. People were looking for justification why Rashad
should be the one associated with the likes of Kendrick, Q and Soul. For me,
this justification was pretty useless from the start, but I can see why he is a
very good addition to his fellow musicians: Rashad does not follow a greater
agenda, as he himself says in many of his songs. He is neither the made out
savior like Kendrick, the “new puffy” as Schoolboy is trying to and doesn´t
overcrowd his rap with meaning and cryptic messages (I´m still trying to decide
if Ab-Souls These Days is trash or not). Cilvia is Rashad paying homage to many
of his peers and most of all, him figuring out who he is and which direction
his life will take. Isaiah flows really well over the smooth production of this
record. And when breaking this scheme for “Soliloquy” with some harder boom-bap
style of production, he still shines with witty wordplay and references. It
seems in those short songs, like “West Savannah” that Rashad shows his most
introspective and emotive. Rather than following some role he himself or other
ascribed for him, he give you himself, his questions and sorrows. And apart
from all the content, Isaiah´s voice just sounds great. Be it in his faster
rapping or melodic sing-songy delivery, you can vibe with his voice. For all
the albums produced by TDE this year, the newcomer outshined his elders simply
because he knew he should not bow to the idea of proving anything to anybody. “The
best is not perfect, the rest is not worth it – wake up!”
22. Perfume Genius – Too Bright
“Aww look at that fragile little boy, singing his
songs and being broken” – being so overtly emotional as Mike Hadreas might come
with the price of not being taken that serious as an artist, like displaying a
osteogenesis ridden body of work. This might have been true for the
first two albums by Hadreas, but if you´re constantly fragile, in the innermost
way, you have to build a wall around yourself, not as defense, but as an
offensive armor, keeping those out who don´t want to understand. For this it
seems Too Bright found its bricks & mortar in the form of the synthesizer.
From the springy line in “Queen” with it huge disco charm, to the menacing wave
of “My Body” or the futuristic piercing of “Longpig”, Hadreas evokes the
plastic and superficial as a packaging for his pain. If one thing in his lyrics
has changed, it is his new found confidence in his position as a gay writer,
not just being a simple singer-songwriter or a crybaby with an acoustic
guitars. He can be sassy and above that can infect you with the dark inside
him. This becomes especially apparent when he screeches to the breaking of his
delicate voice in “My Body” or even goes fully muffled in “I´m A Mother”. For
those who grew to love Perfume Genius for his delicacy, it still exists in
almost half of the songs. His usual piano driven, reverby and beautiful. When
he moves his ballad “Don´t Let Them In” to a dreamy tune almost fit for a
ballet dance performance, you finally understand that in fragility lies grace,
and this is what Hadreas has found in Too Bright, even if you have to dig
through the knavish synth sounds he created.
21. Watter – This World
You can listen to Watter for all matters of innermost
meditation. This supergroup formed with parts of Grails and Slint is one long
jamming session, trying to create monuments of sounds that work as pillars to a
grand shrine of contemplation. But all these psychedelic tendencies aside, This
World is a beautiful piece of instrumental craft and the use of various distinct
sounds in one big entity. “Lord I Want More” and “Bloody Monday” takes to using warm acoustic handpicked guitar (or eben banjo) to deliver some nostalgia and folky atmosphere to the whole effort.
It is like going down to a lake and perceiving the nature around you after
having been in the space of your own mind. Title track and closer “This World”
harkens back to this sentiment, beginning as an elegy of sorts, with an
emotional piano clattering away but regaining momentum and cheerfulness
quickly, leading you out with happy keys. This World for all its
spiritual jams remains an album close to reality and keeping in mind the space
and experience of nature in form of organic instrumentation. In a way this is
next level psychedelia, unconcerned with space and extraterrestrial, delivering
a deep look inwards to sharpen the senses for your immediate environment.
Comments
Post a Comment