When Giles Corey was found guilty of being a "dreadful wizard" during the Salem Witch Trials, he famously quipped "more weight" as he was pressed to death under giant stones.
Roughly 300 years later, Jesuit answered his request.
After seeing that someone had posted the whole Jesuit self-titled album for download at Sludgeswamp, I thought maybe I should revisit the album as part of my heavy music series.
Taking a brief break from heavy music, I'm hitting up the opposite end of the spectrum with a look at Max Richter's newest stuff.
I always write about genres of music that aren't my primary areas of knowledge with a bit of trepidation. I mean, what the fuck do I know about classical music?
I was in the orchestra in junior high, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't qualify me as some kind of expert.
First I'd like to point out that this record has a picture of a priest having his eyes gouged out by ravens. With that, Rager (which is a fucking sweet name) is already ahead of the game. Second, I knew what feculent meant, but no idea what the fuck an emesis was. A quick look in my dictionary tells me it's the action or process of vomiting. Awesome. Without even listening to this thing, I'm already in.
The relative merits of music that's "tight" vs. music that's "not tight" has raged for as long as young folks have found it more entertaining to pick apart the various minutia of their favorite records than, say, go to school or work.
Among metal kids the debate is usually soundly won by those advocating a decidedly "pro-tightness" stance, if nothing else, by their sheer numbers.
Well, not really. But I am back in town. Either later today or tomorrow I'll have a review up here, but now I'm just going to get back into the swing of posting with a list of things that bug me. In no particular order, they are:
1) People who complain that all a band's songs sound the same (amusing and egregious example here).
Following that last review of Ocoai, I'm taking a look at another real layered, tactile band today, U.S. Christmas, and their new record "Eat the Low Dogs" on Neurot Recordings.
One of the things that I tend to like in music is texture. Sure, I like bands that can shred, or whatever, but I think the thing that draws me in more than sheer talent is the ability to create a very tactile listening experience where sounds feel warm, or cold, or hard, or grainy, etc.
Ocoai, from Tennessee, are better at creating textures than almost any metal band out there.
It was a REAL good weekend for shows, as in one of the best I've ever had the pleasure of living through.
Being a young band is always kind of a double edged sword. On the one hand, if you're any good, people will probably be pretty interested, as in "check out these 16 year olds who can totally shred!"
The flip side, of course, is that it also kind of turns you into a bit of a novelty act, and allows people to say, often correctly, that people only care about what you're doing because you're young and awwwwwww, aren't the kids playing metal so cute!
If you're into heavy music you're probably at least aware of Amenra, the Belgium hardcore kids with the riffy and hypnotic albums all titled "Mass." Their new album, "Mass IV" (or "Mass IIII?") picks up with more of the same that they're known for.
