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arysguide · 3 months

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Part 1: Ary's favourite releases of 2023

Before you ask, yes I know that Mitski and Sufjan Stevens released albums this year! I'm gonna go ahead and assume they're already on a lot of other people's lists! However, if you think I'm missing out on YOUR favourite album of 2023, let me know. If you're thinking: "63 albums isn't that many, I wish there were more" - you're in luck because there's a Part 2. Part 2 has a different (more pop? upbeat? accessible?) vibe. Don't think too hard about it...

The chart isn't ranked, just arranged in a way that looked nice to me. Metal, hardcore, rap, emo, skramz, bedroom pop and more!!!

Here are Bandcamp links to all of the albums (for those not on BC there's a YouTube or Spotify link). Honestly I'm never quite sure what genre something is, but there's a lot of metal in any case.

Row 1

Lauren Bousfield - Salesforce [digital hardcore]

Dead Times - Dead Times [harsh noise extreme metal]

Danny Brown - Quaranta [rap/hiphop]

Underdark - Managed Decline [post black metal]

Boris & Uniform - Bright New Disease [psychedelic heavy metal]

PUPIL SLICER - BLOSSOM [blackened mathcore]

Sanguisugabogg - Homicidal Ecstasy [death metal]

Row 2

Full of Hell & Primitive Man - Suffocating Hallucination [death metal/grindcore]

Radeloos//Ziedend - Doodsverachting [blackened crust]

Agriculture - Agriculture [ecstatic black metal]

Victory Over the Sun - Dance You Monster To My Soft Song! [progressive black metal]

fog lake - midnight society [bedroom pop]

Bell Witch - Future's Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate [funeral doom]

Krallice - Mass Cathexis 2 - The Kinetic Infinite [progressive black metal]

Row 3

Svalbard - The Weight Of The Mask [postmetal]

Terzij de Horde & Ggu:ll - Van Grond [vitalistic black metal]

portrayal of guilt - Devil Music [blackened post-hardcore]

SAINT VEHK - Practice/Doubt I&II [occult death industrial]

Sightless Pit - Lockstep Bloodwar [dub/power electronics]

Designer Violence - We Gave Peace A Chance [electropunk]

geronimostilton - The Vampyre [skramz]

Row 4

Chat Pile & Nerver - Brothers in Christ [sludgey death metal]

Afsky - Om hundrede år [depressive black metal]

Full of Hell & Gasp - FOH/Gasp (Split) [death metal/grindcore]

Solar Temple - The Great Star Above Provides [blackgaze]

Fluisteraars - De Kronieken Van Het Verdwenen Kasteel - II - Nergena [atmospheric black metal]

Fluisteraars - De Kronieken van het Verdwenen Kasteel - I - Harslo [atmospheric black metal]

Andre 3000 - New Blue Sun [spiritual flute jazz]

Row 5

Aesop Rock - Integrated Tech Solutions [rap/hiphop]

Blood Incantation - Luminescent Bridge [cosmic death metal]

Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter (fka LINGUA IGNOTA) - SAVED! [experimental gospel metal]

Spetterpoep - Stoelgang Van Zaken [coprogrind/grindcore]

Gnaw Their Tongues - The Cessation Of Suffering [blackened drone metal]

JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown - SCARING THE HOES [rap/hiphop]

The Lemon Twigs - Everything Harmony [70s inspired rock]

Row 6

Old Nick - "The Truest Spell" [dungeon synth/raw black metal]

Armand Hammer - We Buy Diabetic Test Strips [rap/hiphop]

Liturgy - 93696 [transcendental black metal]

Helena Hauff - fabric presents Helena Hauff [hardcore techno]

That Same Street ⁻ Electric Angel [skramz]

That Same Street - Endgame [skramz]

the scary jokes - Retinal Bloom [dream pop]

Row 7

Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze - The Fractal Ouroboros [occult black metal]

Katie Dey - never falter hero girl [hyperpop]

Full of Hell & Nothing - When No Birds Sang [grindcore/shoegaze]

All Men Unto Me - Chemical Transit [classical/doom metal]

RXK Nephew - Till I'm Dead [rap/hiphop]

Panopticon - The Rime of Memory [rabm/black metal]

Yaeji - With A Hammer [electronic]

Row 8

DRAIN - LIVING PROOF [punk/hardcore]

909 Worldwide - Hardcore Will Never Die, and Neither Will You [happy hardcore/rave]

lobsterfight, gingerbee, Cicadahead, godfuck - a lobster, bee, & cicada walk into a bar and find god [skramz]

GingerBee - Our Skies Smile [skramz/5th wave emo]

Curta'n Wall - Siege Ubsessed! [dungeon synth/raw black metal]

GEZEBELLE GABURGABLY - Gaburger [alt pop]

crisis sigil - God Cum Poltergeist [cybergrind]

Row 9

Lamp Of Murmuur - Saturnian Bloodstorm [black metal]

Crystalline Thunderbolts - Blessed Hands Touch The Ophanim Under The Golden Rainbows [experimental black metal]

Tomb Mold - The Enduring Spirit [black/death metal]

FIRE TOOLZ - I am upset because I see something that is not there. [electro-industrial/experimental]

Angel Electronics - ULTRA PARADISE [happy post-hardcore]

Vylet Pony - Carousel (An Examination of the Shadow, Creekflow, and its Life as an Afterthought) [electronic]

Ada Rook - Rookie's Bustle [electronic]

This post took forever to make. Again if you have any thoughts on it please tell me!!!! And share widely with your friends :)

Love, Ary

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thislovintime · 11 months

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The Peter Tork Project, 1983. (Read more in previous posts.)

"The Peter Tork Project, Tork likes to emphasize, is not a revival, although the band members do play some Monkees songs 'better than the first time,' says manager Carol Gore. 'Peter will never get the Monkee off his back,' she adds." - The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 6, 1983

"[Tork] says The Peter Tork Project plays music ‘sort of on the heavy end’ of album-oriented rock radio. ‘We’re not heavy metal per say, but we’re just on the pop side of that,’ adds the affable performer." - The Daily Oklahoman, November 7, 1983 (x)

“Peter Tork (he was the blonde funny one) is currently making a comeback on the New York club circuit with his band, the Peter Tork Project. He told me about his style: Home: ‘Legally I live in Southern California but I also have an apartment on the Upper West Side of New York. We have a spectacular view of the sunset, but the area is so trendy it’s become absurd.’ Family: ‘I am married to a writer named Barbara and have two children, Hallie, 13, and Ivan, seven. They go to an alternative school locally. We decided on it bevies it’s a place where if the kids wanted to do something they can insist on it. My kids have whale watching classes where they rent a boat and go and watch whales. I have never seen it but they tell me it is a transcendental experience.’ Food: ‘We go anywhere that is handy and convenient. There is a good sushi place near and I like Hunan cooking. We don’t go to the trendy restaurants because they are expensive and uncomfortable.’ Clothes: ‘On stage I wear New Wave clothes, black and gray colors, jeans and sneakers. But you won’t catch me dressing up like Adam Ant or any of those guys.’ Ambition: ‘I would like to have a viable career and enjoy the prerequisites of royalty (again) but if it does not happen I won’t be disappointed. Basically I’m pretty content.’ Monkees: ‘The project included other people who had to be taken into account, but they were not accountable to us. The politics were not for me but by the time I realized how absurd my demands were, it was too late to retract them. But I learned an awful lot of what not to do.’” - “Tork of the town” by Jessica Berens, Evening Standard, July 26, 1983

#Peter Tork #Tork quotes #long read #The Peter Tork Project #1983 #80s Tork #Barbara Iannoli #Hallie Iannoli #Ivan Iannoli #The Monkees #Monkees #Scott Avitabile #Jerry Renino #Derek Lord #<3 #The Philadelphia Inquirer #The Daily Oklahoman #Evening Standard #can you queue it

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merkleymrack · 1 year

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I was tagged by Eloise @marimobath to post 6 albums i've been listening to :) ty!!

(background img featuring deepest fish ever filmed)

notes: two of these are actually EPs! four of these are black metal! but they've all got something a little funky going on.

Agriculture are an LA band that call themselves "ecstatic black metal". Recommended for fans of the transcendental black metal project Liturgy. This EP is beautiful and intense and fills me with joy, I cannot wait for their debut album.

Old Nick makes black metal that is extremely camp and silly, but masterfully executed. If you like to brood mysteriously but also goof around rambunctiously, this is the album for you. Makes me feel like a court jester.

Another black metal album, I loved Lamp of Murmuur's previous album which was more gothic with post punk influences, this new one is raw and aggressive but still has a lot of atmosphere. They just keep getting better.

I'm not as familiar with thrash metal but I really like this Power Trip album. It rules. The intro of "Waiting Around To Die" reminds me a little of the Jaws theme. (shrug)

More fun black metal from Devil Master, track 8 "Funerary Gyre of Dreams & Madness" makes me think of surf rock.

A friend showed me GingerBee and I was immediately hooked. This EP can be described as a lot of things - 5th wave Emo, Screamo, (Hyper)Skramz, there's some Chiptune - just give it a listen. Makes me feel nostalgic and happy ^_^

i'm tagging @iguaners @ratgxrl-extraordinaire @bornacle @mikkouille @ikuharaisabitch @choccymilky @eggomccool @strayanima @gavinstrick @hourglassstorms @bigfrogs @effelte @chainsawyou and anyone else who wants to post some albums for me to look at !! 💜 ps it does NOT have to be this detailed lol i just had a lot of fun making this post ok bye

#agriculture band #liturgy band #old nick #devil master #lamp of murmuur #gingerbee #power trip #black metal #5th wave emo #mine #music

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eretzyisrael · 1 year

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My magical Seder above the rooftops of Beirut

Zaki Elia cherishes his memories of celebrating the Passover Seder in Lebanon in the 1950s. He wrote this account forty years later in London, where he resettled. Today no Jewish community exists in Beirut. (With thanks: Michelle)

Beirut by night (photo: Paul Saad, Wikimedia Commons)

The time is the mid-Fifties. Abou Jacques and Um Jacques (literally the Father and Mother of Jacques) held the Seder for the whole family. This included us: we were related through the marriage of their elder son Jacques to my Auntie Touné, my father’s favourite sister.

The Seder was on a grand scale and catered for six to seven families. The preparations for it started one month in advance. All the mothers used to go to Um Jacques in a rota of two at a time in order to help prepare the meal.

During that season the Gentiles with their spring cleaning were as busy as the Jews with their Pessah cleaning. In the street we used to live in, Persian carpets were being beaten on the balconies by Kurdish cleaning ladies in zingy dresses. The more beatings reverberated in the streets the closer we came to Pessah. There was a definite sense of ascending hysteria. I was young, and to me it looked epic in scale.

The weather this time of the year was crisp and scrubbed. The last whiffs of orange blossom mingled with the pungent smells of the Med and the many gallons of cleaning fluid.

On the day of The Seder the whole world seemed as good as new.

Dusk settled with the arrival of Uncle Jacques in his shiny black Buick with its polished chromium plated nick-knacks. The effect of an American car in the narrow streets of Beirut was breathtaking. We all glided into the Buick in a cloud of starched cleanliness and Eau de Cologne.

My father always held the cumbersome bouquet of gladioli. Uncle Jacques drove us to his parents’ flat barely three minutes away, but the ride seemed pure magic. The experience of the car was transcendental.

Abou Jacques and Um Jacques lived in the penthouse flat of a 40s building with the monumental feel of a Parisian facade. A heavy modernist wrought iron and glass portal led into a hall with a stupendous mirror on the left and a smaller one on the right. Two steps up and you reached the landing: a lift was inserted in the stairwell of a sweeping, wide staircase climbing all the way up to the fifth floor. Everything was clad in tasteful local marble. Lifts were not common in Beirut of the 50s. The ascenseur’s metal door was imposing, with a vertical slit-like window in its centre, and crowned with a brass plaque depicting in intaglio the world map, overlaid with the brand name of the lift ‘O.T.I.S.’. we fell under its magic spell, that would propel us upward to some heavenly place.

We had to ascend in two batches.

First my mother, my sister and uncle got in the cabin and were heaved up, taking with them the shaft of light that was cast onto the landing. My father, the gladioli and I waited in semi-darkness while watching, in awe, their progress upward. Their arrival was heralded by the light flooding the top floor landing and followed by a gush of ‘Ahlan Wasahlan’ and ‘Hag Sameiah’ that trickled and echoed down the stairwell. That was Um Jacques’ voice. On our arrival, my dad, the gladioli and I were received with the same generous glee.

Um Jacques was a lovely coquettish old lady with a tight and immaculate perm. She always wore little gold earrings mounted with a string of tiny pearls. Whenever she giggled and laughed her gold tooth glinted with happiness. Her dresses were perfectly tailored in summery colours and flowery patterns according to the latest Parisian fashions. She loved wearing the heavy jangling gold bracelet that Abou Jacques gave her a long time ago. Everybody loved her.

Abou Jacques also had a gold tooth, shyly set behind a generous but stiff moustache. He had white hair and was soft spoken with a perpetual expression of contentment and humility. His amber worry beads never left his hands.

The flat was awash with aunts, uncles and cousins of various ages and sizes, greeting and complimenting each other profusely. The crystal chandeliers were ablaze in the two rooms where the Seder table was set straight across both spaces. It was huge. Four white tablecloths were needed to cover the full length.

While the last preparations were being made, my cousins and I would go out onto the terrace to scrutinize the shimmering glitter of the city and spot the lights of the famous seaside hotels: Hotel Excelsior, Palm Beach, St. Georges, Residence, The Normandy. Each one was identified and greeted loudly. We looked upon Beirut as travellers do when taking off or leaving port. Indeed, the terrace felt just like a ship’s deck at night with the same sort of breezy stillness, and muted rumble of departure.

The night was queen. Our eyes were filled with cascading stars and neon lights. From the darkness of the terrace the Seder table spanning both rooms could be seen through three French windows, bursting with so much light, that the walls containing it seemed to dissolve into night. Within this radiant cocoon the Seder table displayed its splendid vanities: Damascene brass work, Bohemian crystals, Louis XVI silver tableware and china crockery festooned the table in balletic rhythms.

As we all settled around the table Abou Jacques would hush us down in order to start the journey from darkest Mitzrayim. We children were more interested in the Haroseth. We read through the Haggadah looking at the pictures, singing the songs, spilling the wine, and cursing the Egyptians; we did not understand much but felt it all the same. Slavery, miracles and redemption mingled in our heads, but the Haroseth was best.

Before the meal started, most of the mothers disappeared into the kitchen led by Um Jacques, and reappeared laden with an abundance of different entrées, beautifully served on an array of big, boat-shaped plates.

All the men were proud, and contented. Compliments were rushing up and down the table. ‘May Peace be upon your hand!’ ‘May we have such feasts at the weddings of your children!’ The meal proceeded noisily with all fathers exchanging jokes and laughter. The profusion of flowers displayed on the sideboard shimmered and quivered to the sound of silver cutlery and joyful eating.

After we consumed the first course, Um Jacques would disappear again into her kitchen while the ladies cleared the table. With the help of one of her daughters-in-law, Um Jacques would reappear with the main course. On a massive silver vessel with big brass handles was enthroned a whole stuffed lamb bedecked with a garland of red flowers round its neck and a young lettuce in its mouth. Its eye sockets were emptied. Everybody applauded. It was awesome and gruesome, delightful and fearful. The epicentre of the meal shifted from Abou Jacques’s to Um Jacques’s end of the table. She unpicked the sown-up belly to release the stuffing of rice and pistachio nuts, and the fragrance of spices would rush out into the room on its way to heaven. ‘Ya Allah!’

Following this mythical meal the Haggadah was read and sung into the small hours of the morning. My cousins and I would grow restive and escape onto the terrace to watch the city. Little did we know what was brewing behind all that glitter. That was 1957. In 1958 the first inkling of trouble surfaced, and Jews began wanting to leave. Half awake and half dreaming of Eliahu Hanavi, our Seder ebbed away gently on the laps of our parents.

My younger sister and I would wake up the next morning not quite understanding how we got in our beds. The first day of Pessah was usually sunny blue with some whiter-than- white clouds and a fresh clean breeze. We made the walk to Synagogue all starched-up and sharp. The soles of our slightly painful new shoes were stiff; they slithered on the grimy cobbles and made us feel above worldly things. We felt new…

The Synagogue was brimming with billowing tallitim that revealed silk ties and crisp suits.

Hanging from the ceiling, above the ark, the crowded row of chiseled brass and silver oil lamps were sparkling with polished newness. Whiffs of burning oil, ‘Old Spice’, old prayer books, and bergamot Eau de Cologne mingled and swirled around. Raucous and out-of-tune singing often drowned the vocal arabesques of the Hazan. I used to watch with wonder as his face turned sweaty and red, and his jugular vein swell over his rigid collar as he reached his top notes.

At the end of the service, the open air forecourt of the Synagogue swarmed with all the ‘Messieurs et Mesdames’, uncles and aunts, the grannies, the grandpas, the cousins, the friends – all in a riot of taffeta, lace, nylon and rayon, silk flower corsages, gold and fake jewellery, fezzes, stilettos and shiny shoes. It was peacock time!

Soon after, the crowd would part again for the traditional Pessah Ziarat or visits. The Ziarat were a sort of communal walk-about, punctuated by well-wishing stopovers at all the friends and relations’ homes. Mothers and older daughters tended to the visitors; fathers and younger children did the visiting. The first two days of Pessah were open days for all.

The Jewish community fanned out for just half a mile around ‘Wadi Abou Jamil’, the local Jewish Lower East Side.

My father used to lead us patiently through the intricate web of walkways, steps and courtyards that rambled in and out of the main street, up dingy stairs to this friend, down stone-covered paths to that cousin. We were served salted nuts, mulberry or fruit syrup drinks and all sorts of almond and coconut sweetmeats. Everywhere we visited was neat, spanking clean and adorned with scented flowers.

Outside, in the clear spring sunlight, everybody moved around at a gentle pace (the new shoes began taking their toll) . Fathers waved to each other from across the street. The whole city resonated with warm greetings and farewells: ‘May we see you again in days of happiness!’

Thirty-eight years later, the Beirut Jews scattered across the globe in the successive waves of Middle Eastern convulsions.

#Jews of Lebanon #Judeo-Arab culture

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hey-have-you-heard · 4 months

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Hey, Have You Heard These 50 Tracks from 2023?

Another year comes to a close and the music lover pulls up their trusty spotify playlist to document the high points of their year in music. You know the drill by now but in case you're new here... Songs are in alphabetical order (there is no internal rating to the 51) but if I had to choose a single song for everyone to listen to, it would be "Why Am I Alive Now", please listen to that track if nothing else. A Spotify playlist of the included songs is linked below for your listening pleasure

Fontaines DC - ' Cello Song Kicking things off with the only cover song on the list, Grian Chatten and band spin Nick Drake's song into something entirely their own, paying homage to Nick Drake's songwriting whilst pulling in the intricacies of their own unique sound and appeal.

Boygenius - $20 Screw star-signs and wizard school houses, which member of Boygenius do you align yourself with? I'm a Julien Baker stan but I adore them all, especially when their voices and styles are weaving in out of each-other in rapturous noise like this.

XL Life - Baby Steps Hardcore and punk has had a great year, a really great year, and XL Life have been a standout part of that. Backed up by a guest verse by Bob Vylan's own Bobby Vylan, Baby Steps is bursting with soul and emotion, driven by breakneck drums and heart-on-sleeve positivity

100 Gecs - Billy Knows Jamie 10,000 Gecs (the much anticipated follow up to 2019's 1000 Gecs) truly gave us the as-promised 10 times as many gecs, if a Gec is a unit of measurement for what can only be referred to as wild-genre-fuckery. Billy Knows Jamie gives us full on Bizkitesque nu-metal, including record scratches, a bass line Fieldy would be proud of and a rapid descent into utter chaos.

Algiers, Billy Woods, Backxwash - Bite Back Bite back is a masterpiece of ever-building tension, Carpenterian synths weave the track together as one musical idea gives way to another. With every new phrase and trade-off between vocalist, the threads pull tauter and tauter. The switch up at 3:10 still gives me chills every time I hear it.

Glass Beach - the CIA My favourite theatre kid emo's are back and doing what they do best, which is whatever the hell they feel like. You know when all the 70s prog rock bands fell into the 80s and needed to get radio-play so they fell into this weird sort of choppy watered down down art-pop sound (e.g. Yes)? This feels like that, but there's no actual need to conform, so Glass Beach are still free to get as weird with it as they want, whenever they want.

Blood Command - Decades Deccades is a very bad representation of Blood Command as a band (at this point I'm unsure if a good representation of the band exists), but it's a very good song. Hardcore and "Death pop" is out, R&B is in. Reverb soaked synths and horns, skittery hi-hats, layered vocals and lyrics about lost love and the Heavens Gate cult.

Liturgy - Djennaration I'll be the first to admit that Liturgy are an acquired taste (the first time I saw them live it made me feel physically ill), but if you can put on some headphones, turn up the volume and lose yourself in Liturgy's "Transcendental Black Metal" there is no other feeling quite like it in music.

Kesha - The Drama The continual evolution of Kesha's sound has been a fascinating thing to watch ever since Tik Tok put her on the brat pop map back in 2009, each album cycle has seen her stripping back elements of character, delivering ever rawer and more honest depictions of self. The Drama pulls away from pop almost entirely, what starts as a Lorde-like slow ballad tumbles into a nightmare-collage of upbeat synths, a circus show of theatrical excess as Kesha's desparately laments on a loss of faith in humanity and self. The song ends on an absurd mix of housecats and Ramones, oh the drama of it all.

Fever Ray - Even It Out Even It Out may not be the technically best song on Radical Romantics, but the idea of Karin Dreijer teaming up with Trent Reznor to make a gleefully unhinged song about violently attacking a child is just too funny to me. The rest of the album is also incredible and well worth a listen.

Follow You - Saint Agnes Oh, hey, speaking of Trent Reznor, Saint Agnes channel Nine Inch Nails on the massive distortion drenched choruses of this stand out track from Bloodsuckers. Lead singer Kitty's vocals soar over wailing guitars and crunching bass, this is the sound of a band triumphing through adversity.

Johnny Booth - Full Tilt I remember seeing a comment when this first released that summed up how ifelt about it perfectly. "This has slap fucks". Yes, selppin2, I couldn't of put it better myself. Johnny Booth have been consistently hitting it out the park for the past few years and this is no exception, absolutely brutal stuff.

Creeper - Further Than Forever Creeper's Sanguivore is an album to be devoured in it's entirety, I couldn't choose a single song so this is merely a goth-punk-opera overture. A nine minute long homage to the theatrical tendencies of Jim Steinman. If you enjoy any part of this, Sanguivore is a must listen for you.

Crosses - Ghost Ride Chino Moreno swaps out the rumbling wall of guitars of Deftones for pulsing bass synths and sparse electronic drums with the second album from his side project with Far's Shaun Lopez. Ghost Ride is a sultry slow build that crashes into industrial-pop(?) choruses.

Idles - Grace Idles (to my surprise) were my most listened to band of last year, and if Grace is a sign of things to come on Tangk, they're in with a shot for 2024 as well. Grace finds Joe Talbot swapping out the political battering ram of a growl he's employed previously for a soulful tone, a message of peace and love, and its hauntingly beautiful to behold. No God, no king, love is the thing.

BENEE - Green Honda You may remember BENEE from tiktok's 2019 supahit Supalonely, she's still writing bops. Two middle fingers up, leave you in the rearview, bops.

Free Refills - Grounded What can I say, I'm a sucker for a good bassline, and this is a great bassline.

Pendulum, Bullet For My Valentine - Halo (Matt Tuck Rework) On his rework of Halo, Matt Tuck keeps all the energy of the original mix but ups the aggression. This is the sound of Pendulum at their heaviest and best.

Tokky Horror, Scottish Gabber Punk - HAMMER 2 THE FACE (Scottish Gabber Punk Remix) Speaking of energy and aggression... it doesn't get much more energy and aggression than this, hammer 2 the face is a fitting title for the brutality of this track.

MSPAINT - Hardwired MSPAINT are a hardcore punk band with a notable lack of guitar, the instrumentation instead filled out with colourful synths. The result is a unique and engaging sound unlike anything else in the genre.

Empire State Bastard - Harvest ESB are my kind of supergroup, formed of Biffy Clyro's Simon Neil, Oceansize's Mike Vennart and Slayer's Dave Lombardo (yes, you read that right). Simon Neil is delivering career best vocal performances, Mike Vennart is stirring up unholy hell on guitar and Dave Lombardo is doing what Dave Lombardo does best.

Alice Longyu Gao - Hëłłœ Kįttÿ I didn't think we could get more unhinged than last years MONK, with it's thrash metal guitar and vib ribbon solo, but here we are in the year of our lord 2023 and I'm listening to car clown horns. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM.

Bob Vylan - He's a Man Do y'all remember the Lindsay Lohan Freaky Friday movie? There was a great song in it called Take Me Away... anyway, I forget why I mentioned that, but this song is really fun.Great cheeky lyrics and love that guitar riff.

Fall Out Boy - Hold Me Like A Grudge This may just be a nostalgia pull, but that intro transported me back to hearing Dance, Dance for the first time. Hold Me Like A Grudge does a masterful job of pulling together elements of FOBs classic sound and their more recent poop sensibilities that has had me enjoying their sound in a way I haven't since Infinity On High

Evie Enby - Homies Oops, how did this get in here? Please appreciate the one note guitar solo.

FIZZ - I Just Died My general lack of enthusiasm for The Beatles is fairly well documented by this point, but one of the best things they did for pop music was use the clarinet on When I'm Sixty Four. Well good news, I no longer have to listen to The Beatles to get my clarinet fix. Now that the Beatles reference for this year's list is done.. I just died is a song about an absolutely mortifying experience delivered with great mirth. It's a fantastic, sing-along-in-the-shower bop, and have I mentioned the clarinet solo?

CLT DRP - I Put My Baby To Sleep (It's pronounced Clit Drip) What can I say, another explosive, genre defying, track by one of the best bands in the world. Now go listen to the entirety of Nothing Clever, Just Feelings.

Orla Gartland - Kiss Ur Face Forever Joyous, peppy and "let's play a game of emotional monopoly, in the name of monogamy" may be the best couplet I've heard this year. It's just fun, so much fun.

Bring Me The Horizon - LosT When LosT first dropped, I referred to it as the geccification of BMTH, I meant that in the best possible way. I really enjoy how the hyper-pop elements lift this track up. "The next time that I open up to someone will be my autopsy" is one of the finest Oli Sykes-isms we've had in a long time.

Swans - No More Of This Okay, so the actual Swans track that should be on this list is The Beggar Lover (Three) but apparently putting an uncompromising, nigh impenetrable, 43 minute long epic in the middle of a playlist is terrible for retention, and I'm a coward. But if you have a spare 50 minutes, go give it a listen.

Pupil Slicer - No Temple Pupil Slicer continue to prove themselves to be one of the most exciting bands in Mathcore. Pushing against the boundaries of genre in a genre where pushing against boundaries is a core philosophy, No Temple is, according to the band, the heaviest song they've ever written. The bass guitar work is an exceptional standout for me here as it pushes against the rest of the song.

Carly Rae Jepsen - Psychedelic Switch With every CRJ album project comes a B-sides album, and with every B-sides album comes an absolute banger. Psychedelic Switch is undoubtedly this for the Loneliest Time/Loveliest Time project. You'd be forgiven for thinking Daft Punk themselves reunited to produce this french disco flavoured bop.

Soft Play - Punk's Dead Who the fuck are Soft Play? Sound like a bunch of lefty snowflakes. I've missed these boys, doing this kind of thing. The Robbie Williams feature is inspired.

Chappell Roan - Red Wine Supernova Red Wine Supernova is sexy, self-assured, feel-good, sapphic fun. It's a testament to how good a song is that lyrics like "I heard you like magic, I've got a wand and a rabbit" doesn't detract from it, but actually elevates it's effortless charm.

JAAW - Rot JAAW are an industrial metal "supergroup" formed of members of Therapy, Three Trapped Tigers, Sex Swing and Biglad. That is likely mostly gibberish to the average music listener, but to a niche few, it's a very exciting prospect. What it sounds like is swelling, tumultuous walls of noise, tortured screams, screeching guitars and pulsing distorted bass. Catharsis through noise.

Better Lovers - Sacrificial Participant More supergroup! Greg Puciato teams up with ex-members of Every Time I Die and Will Putney (of Fit For an Autopsy). I was devastated by the split of ETID, (off the back of the phenomenal Radical adn jsut before I was due to see them live), but Better Lovers is one hell of a silver lining. Puciato's energetic vocals bounce wildly off of the erratic musicianship that was the cornerstone of ETID's sound. It's a perfect match on record and is even better live.

Architects - Seeing Red Bless Architects. They're a band that are truly a victim of their own success, as they've tried to pull their sound and ethos in new directions it's been met with a huge amount of negativity from their own fanbase. Seeing Red is a reaction to this. "You want heavy? Here's heavy. Are you happy now?". Blegh.

Teen Mortgage - Sick Day Sick Day is a 2 minute punk blitz about how you are worth so much more than your labour and how having a cute cat you want to look at is a perfectly valid reason to stay at home. Capitalism 0 - Cats 1.

Purity Ring, Black Dresses - Shines Purity Ring and Black Dresses are both Canadian electronic duos and that's about where the similarities stop, but that just makes this collaboration all the more interesting. There's so much going on here, the chaotic harsh frenetic noise of Black Dresses, Ada Rook's screams, the twinkling synths of Purity Ring and sing-song melodies of Megan James. Somehow it pulls together to create something of true beauty in its own weird way.

Dream Nails - Sometimes I Do Get Lonely, Yeah Dream Nails take on the rising issue of incel culture and red-pill ideology, with grace and empathy. Pointing fingers not at individuals but at the systems and powers that enable and create these pipelines to hatred and bigotry. It's a bold and challenging idea, executed superbly.

Baby Dave - Sounds Good When a fan sends you an unhinged voice message out of the blue offering you a bite suit and dogs to shoot a music video, obviously the thing to do is make a song out of it, then take them up on their offer and use it as the video for that song. There's a great OPM era The Streets vibe to this track that plays off nicely of the grounded reality of its subject.

Sleep Token - The Summoning Sleep Token do the impossible, they make prog-metal (the unsexiest of all genres) , undeniably sexy. Nowhere is this clearer than on The Summoning, a 6-and-a-half minute epic of a track with multiple time signature changes and tonal flips, that somehow still oozes with a swaggering sexuality throughout it's runtime. The out-of-nowhere funk switch up on the end of this track is perfection.

Lambrini Girls - Terf Wars Love those Lambrini Girls, they say what I'm thinking, and they say it loud.

Ezra Furman - Tether This one had me in floods of tears from the first listen. A classic string-laden piano ballad about inescapable pasts and the desire to cut yourself free from who and where you've been.

The St. Pierre Snake Invasion - That There's Fighting Talk This track does two things it builds and it STOMPS, like real "put on your heaviest boots and then strap lead weights to them because they need to be heavier" stomps. An industrial-mathcore floor-filler, the song crescendoes then continues to crescendo into ever greater insanity. Get Stomping.

Calva Louise - Third Class Citizen Calva Louise's sound has evolved so much since I first fell in love with the band listening to their 2017 debut single Getting Closer. Third Class Citizen has elements of Muse in it's bass-lines, stadium-sized guitar riffs and fizzing production. The vocals and lyrical content make it something altogether its own though, the palpable fury in vocalist Jess' voice as she demands "Respect, motherfucker" is real and visceral.

HEALTH - Unloved Off the back of their genre spanning, multi-release collaboration project, DISCO4, RAT WARS sees HEALTH back in a focused mode and delivering their heaviest album to date. Unloved is a moment of relative respite on the album though, a Depeche Mode tinged track, soaked in 80's reverb and ready for the goth club. HEALTH pull you into their world of misery and beauty with catchy hooks and pulsing bass.

Anohni and the Johnsons - Why Am I Alive Now This year saw the release of "My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross", Anohni's first studio album with her band since 2010's Swanlights. The abrasive electronics of her solo albums are traded in for warm soulful tones and a raw almost live-feeling instrumentation. It's a beautiful, deeply emotive, and incredibly present sounding album. Feeling as if you are being drawn into the recording process itself, Why Am I Alive Now? is an existential lament on finding purpose in a purposeless world, in navigating through suffering to find hope and love. On learning why to be, when it feels like the world is set on stopping you from being.

HMLTD - Wyrmlands THE WORM IS HERE! Wyrmlands is an example of one track on an album that should be listened to in its entirety. The Worm is a concept album at its most conceptual, eschewing genre and at times structure entirely in favour of narrative and ~vibes~. It's a dizzying disorientating listen, that will leave you' with more questions than answers, but thankful for making an attempt 're mind awash with unanswered questions and fresh ideas.

Billy Woods, Kenny Segal, Danny Brown - Year Zero Year Zero refers to an apocalyptic cultural reset. Society has reached a breaking point and we must start from scratch, everything before was for nothing. Billy Woods and Danny Brown play two different sides of the same coin. Woods, stony faced and deadly serious "My taxes pay police brutality settlements" is the herald of the end "Burn it down with us inside". Danny Brown, the manic joker, revelling in the freedom of a new world, rhyming Good Will Hunting with Cool Runnings and dropping bars about ice cream machines. It's a compelling way to deliver a narrative.

#music #2023 #Spotify

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dustedmagazine · 9 months

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Agriculture — S/T (The Flenser)

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Agriculture plays “ecstatic black metal,” which sounds like an audacious claim until you figure out that the band is naming a sub-subgenre moniker describing a specific stylistic register. Two potential problems ensue: 1) that’s still an audacious assertion, even if it’s just a matter of niche creation; and 2) some of us recall with distaste the obtuse and frequently nasty exchanges of opinion that accompanied Haela Hunt-Hendrix’s pronouncement of Liturgy’s desire to play “transcendental black metal.” Ecstatic is not Transcendental, but they’re in the same spiritual ballpark. And there are other surface-level similarities: young and literate American white kids from a coastal city infamous for its hipster population (Brooklyn for Liturgy, L.A. for Agriculture); confrontational deviations from the kvlty aesthetic doctrines of black metal’s self-identified trve believers; a tendency toward embracing rapture and the sublime, rather than spewing hatred and blasphemy. You can just about feel the underground’s outrage machine humming, waiting to grind into aggressive top gear.

One response to that: If the music is good, who cares what the trolls in corpse paint think? And much of what Agriculture has created and recorded for this debut LP is very good, exploding with energy and replete with interesting textures. There are compelling tremolo runs and rhythmic shifts that contribute to songs’ dramatic structures. See especially “Look, Pt. 2,” which is aggressively acrobatic and satisfying in equal measure. This reviewer is delighted by the maneuvers around the 3:40 mark, at which staccato chunks of thump and crash sound behind a gloriously vertiginous, winding bit of soloing. It’s complicated and a bit gaudy, and it works.

So, is it ecstatic? That’s a high bar, even if we stick with the somewhat underthought notion of ecstasy the band has addressed here and there in media chatter about the record. Guitarist Dan Meyer seems mostly to use “ecstasy” as a synonym for “joy”—which is provocative in its black metal context. But that sense fails to engage ecstasy’s intensity and full complexity. For a different sense, see Bernini’s famous sculpture of Saint Teresa, or maybe the OED. In a true state of ecstasy, the distinctions between pain and pleasure, good and evil, joy and sorrow, all melt away. Being is projected into an unthinkably passionate beyond.

That more persnickety — if correct — sense for ecstasy ends up being relevant to a good portion of the record, which mobilizes black metal’s aggro and ugly qualities to access states and feelings of terrible beauty and, sometimes, caustic joy. Agriculture doesn’t always hit those marks; acoustic, crooned interlude “The Well” is close to insufferable. But it’s also short, and when the band stretches out, into expansive gestures charged by volatile playing, the record is exciting and satisfying. Album closer “Relier” gives itself over to Agriculture’s maximalist impulses. It’s the pyrotechnic display the record promises, and it’s terrific. More fiery ecstasy of that sort. St. Teresa would approve.

Jonathan Shaw

#agriculture #the flenser #jonathan shaw #albumreview #dusted magazine #metal #black metal #ecstatic black metal #Youtube

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foundationsofdecay · 9 months

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@biteration tagged me to post the 4 albums that i'm currently listening to the most! this was so difficult to narrow down, it's been a great year so far for both new releases and new discoveries so there's a lot of different albums i've been listening to.

sleep token - take me back to eden

this one is probably a pretty obvious inclusion lol but i've been listening to this nonstop since it came out. it's my go-to when i'm driving, or want to listen to music in general. both the instrumentals and the vocals are phenomenal here, and the lyrics in some songs in particular hit pretty hard. the final track has made me cry multiple times, which i mean in the most complimentary way possible.

haken - fauna

i know the cover looks like a reference to a certain nft but i promise it isn't haha. this one took a couple of listens to really process, a lot of prog albums can be that way for me tbh but like most haken albums i'm super into it now, there's no skip songs and you can jam to just about every track. there is a good mix of very prog-y songs (elephants never forget is my personal favorite) and some more standard structured ones, which helps break things up too.

none - damp chill of life

i'm not very plugged into the genre of depressive black metal, and i definitely have to be in the right headspace to get the most out of this one, but i'm a bit obsessed with this album and this band. it doesn't hold back at all in expressing bleakness and hopelessness and pain, but by the time the album ends, i find it to actually be cathartic and ultimately hopeful, or at least it brings a sense of determination, if that makes sense. the atmosphere here is desolate, but absolutely gorgeous.

pull down the sun - of valleys and mountains

for all my talk about take me back to eden that i've been doing since that dropped, no album since the dear hunter's act 5 has grabbed me so quickly and intensely as this one. one of the best prog/post metal albums i've ever heard. the band is based in aotearoa and has yet to really tour outside of there, so i don't know if i'll ever hear this played live, but i feel like that would be a transcendental experience.

i want to include some honorary mentions so bad but i will resist... tagging @malcriada, @videnoirs, @hollowburrow, and @gliscor if you'd like to do this!

#tysm for tagging!! ^_^

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doomedandstoned · 11 months

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Dublin Bass & Drum Duo TRUE HOME Drop Meditative Doom Record ‘Black Lotus’

~Doomed and Stoned~

By Billy Goate

There aren't a whole lot of bass and drum acts out there. Bell Witch, Big Business, Bardo, and Behoover come to mind (strangely, the majority of bass-led bands also choose names that begin with the letter "B"). What may not be as tough to pull off when tempos are swift, becomes a challenge when everything slows down to a doom's pace. And you want to strip the band of its (arguably) most popular instrument?

That's at least how the heavy underground felt until OM came along and blew our minds with the advent of Meditative Doom, sans guitar. Other bands have followed in those footsteps, including Zaum from New Brunswick and Breath from Oregon. Now from Dublin, Ireland comes bass & drum duo TRUE HOME with their own take on meditative doom in 'Black Lotus' (2023).

True Home's most accessible song is placed first on the album, "The Cry of the Mountain Hawk," featuring a slithering stoner-doom riff that sounds like a royalty fuzzified Tool. Vocals are droning and clean, not too distantly removed from Reverend Bizarre, and share a kinship with Sleep frontman Al Cisneros. This one's got a chorus that I'll probably find myself singing whilst making breakfast or taking out the trash. It's just something I do.

Beneath each song is the lulling sitaresque tone produced by programmed synth. It grounds us to the experience and becomes more and more comforting with eath encounter. "The Great Journey" takes a bluesy, jazzy, off-beat approach to Gregorian Chant, at least until things get electrified to work out all that nervous energy -- with irradiated noodling that rivals Swamp Ritual.

The intensity ramps up even more for "Sailing The Sand Dunes," in which the bass moves with big, sweeping gestures and stays busy as hell trying to keep the barge moving over barren Saharan hills and flats. This is the one, I'm sure, that'll get people headbanging at concerts.

The last two songs on the album usher us deeper into a realm of tranced-out introspection, with the mysterious, hazy, and hypnotic "Buddham Sagnahram Gachami" and the near 20-minute transcendental colossus, "Ascension Of The Astralnaut," featuring spoken word passages that serve perhaps to guide the listener into a state of general meditativeness.

The record is ideal for Cursed Monk Records, who specialize in dark musical esoterica. "The darker, weirder, and heavier the better," their motto goes. True Home's Black Lotus will be released on May 26th on compact disc and digital formats (pre-order here).

After suffering a dreadful bout with COVID (the Delta strain) in 2021, psychedelic, meditative doom was key to my mental, physical, and spiritual recovery. I'm pleased to have another band enter the fold. Stick True Home on a playlist with OM, Bong, Zaum, Breath, Saturnalia Temple, and Megalith Levitation.

Give ear...

Black Lotus by True Home

SOME BUZZ

Photographs by Shane J. Horan

True Home is a Dublin Based Psychedelic Meditative Doom Metal two piece. Featuring Declan Beare on Bass/Vocals, and Charlie Appleby on Drums and percussion.

The Bass and Drum combo balance between transcendent meditations and earth shattering heavy riffs.

For two people they move a serious amount of air at bone crushing volumes, helped by the droning modular synth providing a continuous atmosphere to get lost in.

Their 3rd studio album "Black Lotus" comes out on CD and Digital Download May 23rd via Cursed Monk Records.

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#D&S Debuts #True Home #Dublin #Ireland #doom metal #bass & drum #Cursed Monk Records #D&S Reviews #Doomed and Stoned

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