Justin Broadrick is one of music's certifiable legends. As a teenager he helped define grindcore as the guitarist for Napalm Death on their seminal album "Scum". Shortly after he formed Godflesh, one of the most influential bands of the last thirty years. Broadrick's soul-crushing metal mixed with ambient and industrial made for one of the most original sounds of the 80s and 90s, as well as one of the most devastating. There isn't a respectable metal band operating today that has not cited Godflesh as an influence, dropped their name, or worn their t-shirt during a photo shoot. Out of the ashes of Godflesh's eventual demise came Broadrick's next major project; the jaw-dropping Jesu. This time Broadrick mixed shoegaze with his thundering heavy brand of doom metal and crafted some of the aughts most spectacular releases. Jesu was pummeling, but triumphant, harrowing, but beautiful, and again, nothing else really sounded like it.
Yet the entire time that Broadrick was busy inventing genres and redefining the boundaries of what heavy music was, he was also tinkering with the most minor elements of his sound, crafting experimental side project after experimental side project based around his seeming obsession with the components of his larger scale projects. For instance, his early foray into electronic music came in the form of Techno Animal that focused on slowing down, remixing and tweaking the pummeling electronic beats that comprised the back-bone of Godflesh. Final became Broadrick's ambient project that focused on the droning, haunting effects-laden guitar that was initially featured on some of the tracks on Godflesh's "Pure" and "Selfless" then eventually in Jesu.
More often than not these side projects were interesting, but not essential, preliminary sketches or after-thoughts of Broadrick's greater musical exploration and development. The album "Pale Sketches" was exactly that. Although released in 2007 under the Jesu moniker, the album collected what were essentially early demos and unreleased tracks that Broadrick had been working on since 2000 that he didn't feel fit on "proper" Jesu releases. Broadrick's instinct to not include them was spot on, since most of the tracks were subdued electronic pieces that would have indeed sounded out of place next to the muscular guitar riffs of an archetypal Jesu piece. Now Broadrick has revisited those tracks under the guise of Pale Sketcher, and scaled them back even further; stripping them of any guitar whatsoever and submerging them entirely in a batter of electronica.
Why would Broadrick do this? Hell if I know. But he did and the result is mixed to say the least. Maybe it was so he could get a spot on one of those upscale lifestyle cds which were so popular in the late-90s like Wallpaper and Cafe Del Mar, because some of the tracks here actually sound like they could fit on those kind of collections. 'Let's go shop at Ikea and listen to Pale Sketcher on the way, what do you say babe? But first I need a latte, is there a Starbucks around here?' Seriously, I can hear that conversation playing out when I listen to this album. Ok, maybe I am being a bit facetious, but still this sounds like Jesu stripped of all of all it's might, and made polite (and no I really didn't mean to make that rhyme, it just sort of came out that way). You absolutely could play this at a dinner party and no one would be the wiser. Of course that doesn't mean it is unlistenable, rather the opposite is true. This is a little too listenable, too accessible, too balearic. Sure between the chill ambient textures there is a tiny bit of that Jesu sturm and drang, but it is emasculated and subdued to the point that it is but a shadow of its former self.
Broadrick has hinted at this kind of move over the past few tracks he has released, which were admittedly more synthesizer based than they were guitar, but those tracks have been heavy for the most part. What makes Pale Sketcher so different is how incredibly pleasant of a listen it is overall. Taken on its own accord, this isn't a bad record. The problem is that Broadrick's traditional audience will likely be left cold, while the proper audience for this kind of album may not ever be exposed to it. Then again, Ghostly International is releasing this, which could find Broadrick a whole new audience. I guess if Bob Mould can become a techno DJ, then surely Broadrick can find his own following among fans of this kind of thing. For the rest of us, this will go down as just another Broadrick side project in between something much greater.
The annual Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee is one of the best little-known musical secrets. The festival features some of indie-rock's biggest names alongside a mind-boggling array of legendary experimental artists. It's the only American festival that I am aware of that features Joanna Newsom and the National on the same bill as William Basinski and Terry Riley. At last year's festival experimental heavyweight Christian Fennesz played an improvised set along with Necks drummer Tony Buck and avant-guitarist David Daniell, member of San Agustin and sometimes collaborator with Loren Mazzacane Connors and Rhys Chatham, among others. The result of that set has been preserved and released by Chicago's Thrill Jockey records titled simply "Knoxville".
The thirty-minute set has been divided into four parts over the course of the record to reflect shifts in the group's dynamics. "Unuberwindbare Wande" begins things with subtle guitar and cymbal effects before cascading into waves of sound. What is most distinctive about the piece is that rather than Fennesz's washed out layers of electronics, electrified-rustic guitars take center stage, guiding the track towards a climax that is as noisy as it is beautiful. The track evokes the distinctly American drift of Scott Tuma's improv work in Boxhead Ensemble and Good Stuff House more than it does the anything to be found in the Touch records catalog.
"Heat From Light" measures the trio in the wake of "Wande's" early climax. Slight percussion and reverb-laden guitar slowly, but surely, builds into a shimmering drone featuring a backbone of electronics provided Fennesz. Eventually Fennesz's presence builds into a massive drone that will sound familiar to fans of his work. All the while Daniell and Buck hold on, coming in and out of the picture with drifting percussion and more countrified electric guitar squalls. By the end each member stands in equal balance with one another perfectly blending Fennesz' European approach with Daniell and Buck's ambient Americana.
"Antonia" follows and is all gentle-cascading waves of music that sounds like the sun reflecting on the ocean. "Diamond Mind" closes out the set on a darker more discordant tone. Stabs of electronics are juxtaposed against explosive free-jazz drums while Daniell's guitar works its way through the chaos trying to find some light amidst the cacophony. Eventually the track, and set, climaxes with each musician playing full force and blurring into one unified cloud of sound before gentle receding into the horizon. When all is said and done there is a calm and a kind of awe in the wake of what these three have accomplished. This is truly inspired improv and a perfect example of what goes right when three musicians set egos aside and play off one another to create something much larger than themselves individually. I would wager that seeing this performed live was absolutely transcendent. Thankfully this recording of that event exists for listeners to immerse themselves in time and time again.
For a while now Thomas Köner has been more of a myth than a reality. Among the drone and ambient set his name has long been spoken with reverence as an originator of dark ambient, but because his seminal early albums have long been out of print, one had to take claims of his importance and greatness solely on the basis of faith. As a result, like many legends, Köner's early albums have grown in stature, in part because of their scarcity. When it was reveled earlier this year that Type would be reissuing them there was understandable anticipation for what had become the white whale of dark ambient.
Type's release of Köner's first three albums as one package is more than just a public service project, it's downright inspired, placing each recording in the context of Köner's evolution as a visionary artist. Each subsequent release builds upon and expands Köner's sonic experiments, and played back to back, paints an epic portrait of a soundworld that begins on the surface of a bleak tundra and ends burrowed far beneath the frozen earth.
"Nanutak", Köner's debut album, begins the series. Originally released in 1990, the recording features 11 untitled tracks that play like a single epic slab of sound, broken up into smaller movements and progressions. Köner manipulated gongs and treated cymbals as source material to craft the album's cold dark minimalism. In the process he created a soundtrack for the end of the world, both metaphorically and literally. Inspired by Robert Falcon Scott's tragic Terra Nova Expedition of Antarctica, the record is a bleak unrelenting work that mirrors both Scott's fatal trek to the South Pole, as well as the lifeless ice scape he attempted to conquer. Beginning as haunted drones, as the album progresses, subtle patterns and rhythms emerge, but never to the point of dynamism. There is a static nature throughout Köner's debut that reflects the endless ice field of Antarctica. That static nature coupled with the bleakness of the drones makes "Nanutak" one of Köner's most difficult recordings to enjoy, but in the right place at the right time it will haunt and devastate.
"Teimo" follows and is a leap forward in Köner's development. It is here that Köner developed the drones that made him one of the early progenitors of dark ambient music. Originally released in 1992, the album laid down a template that would be followed by many of the ambient luminaries who made up Touch Music's stable of artists throughout the aughts. The drones are fuller, and while they don't quite shimmer (you would need to introduce some light into the proceedings to get a shimmer, and Köner's recording is wholly devoid of light), they expand, pulsate and breath. Granted that breath is visible as it hits the cold air, and all that expands before it are endless darkened glaciers, but there is a sense of life on "Teimo" that was not present on the frozen dead world of "Nanutak".
"Permafrost" is the most fully realized album of the three, in keeping with Köner's evolutionary trajectory. Song titles map a descent through snow, ice and into the frozen ground beneath, while Köner's drones paint the appropriate soundscapes for each step deeper into the earth. As the album progresses, the drones engulf the listener further until one is wholly absorbed. The album culminates with the titular track featuring a lo-end rumble that sounds similar to the kind of intros that Sunn 0))) would open their earth-shattering doom epics with some ten years later. The piece doesn't so much grow as it swells, eventually submerging the listener and surrounding them in layers of frozen terra firma. It's a cavernous piece that dominates the senses like a white out. "Meta Incognita" follows and takes us further down, burrowing into the depths with a hellish sounding drone that evokes Dante's frozen lake where the worst of the damned were contained.
"Permafrost" would be a masterwork if it were made today. The fact that it was originally released in 1993 makes it a prophetic and visionary work. The same could be said for each of these albums. It's kind of astonishing that so much of what Köner is doing here has seeped into doom, drone and ambient music throughout the aughts, yet these recordings predate the decade of doom and drone by nearly ten years. While these recordings are superb in their own right, as a historical musical document they are essential. Thankfully Type has had the understanding, vision and respect to bring these recordings back out of obscurity and into the light where everyone can now appreciate and understand why Thomas Köner really does deserve the reverence and adoration that he has received over the years from experimental fans and musicians alike. This is one of the finest reissues of the year.
A couple of quick sweeping statements that may or may not be hyperbole: 1) Boris is one of the greatest bands in the world today. Period. So great that they are often taken for granted as they rack up excellent release after release. One never has to ask whether or not a new Boris album is going to be good; because it is, one just has to remember that even after countless full lengths, singles and eps that they should continue to be celebrated for being one of the greatest bands of our time. 2) Boris is also one, if not the, most versatile rock bands...ever. I cannot think of another band that is, or has been, able to straddle pop rock, heavy metal, hard rock, extreme noise, drone, ambient, post rock, even dance rock with the virtuoso skill of Boris. They have mastered so many styles of music that the only serious question one asks when a new Boris album is released is not whether or not it is good, because, like I said, it always is, but what KIND of Boris album it is. Is it going to be ambient like "Flood", epic like "Feederback", doom sludge like "Amplifier Worship", psyche pop like "Rainbow", or balls out rock and roll like "Pink"? As if to prove that point the band has just released two very different kinds of releases that continue to expand on their ever-growing legacy. "BXI" is a collaboration with semi-legendary Cult frontman Ian Astbury, whereas "Luna" is a single twelve minute track featured on a split 10" with Torche entitled "Chapter Ahead Being Fake". One is an enjoyable but slight detour for the band, while the other is a culmination and leap forward of the sound the band has been toying with since the grossly under-appreciated "Smile".
Of the two, "BXI" is the lesser release, but it is still worth picking up and blaring out of your stereo speakers. When I first learned that Boris had collaborated with Astbury my first reaction was pretty much 'what the fuck?' Back in the day I more than got my groove on to The Cult's still amazing "Love" and "Electric", but let's be honest, the band hasn't really done much since. To his credit those two albums still hallow the ground that Astbury walks to a large degree, also of his hard rocking contemporaries he has aged better than most, if not all. He certainly doesn't provoke the grimaces and smirks that younger progeny like Chris Cornell do(Soundgarden reunion could have been something if Cornell didn't spend the last twelve years crapping on his band's legacy). With that in mind after I got over my initial shock, intrigue and anticipation set in. Maybe Boris could inject some of their magic into Astbury's mid-to-late career status.
What is most striking about "BXI" is that it doesn't really sound like Boris, at first, as much as it does a parallel universe version of The Cult. Closer listens reveal otherwise, but this is a record you crank to 11, so subtleties are not really the order of the day. The ep starts out with "Teeth and Claws", which is the track most likely to get its hooks in you and become the earworm that plays in your head when you wake in the morning. It's an upbeat epic-sounding rocker that sounds a lot like a throwback to the early 90s and grunge. It doesn't hurt that Astbury's voice doesn't sound a day over 1985, and I mean that as a serious complement. Astbury has range and there is nothing here that indicates he has lost an octave since "Love". At the center of the song are Astbury's lyrics steeped in pagan-romanticism. Two of the song's central lyrics are "the animals will save us" and "attack attack attack" (referring to the animals saving us) which is wonderfully complemented by guitarist extraordinaire Wata's guitar counterpoint. Yeah, it's kind of goofy, but it also rocks like hell and plays on a certain primalism that is undeniable.
The ep's other highlight "We Are Witches" follows with an equally heavy rocker that is much darker. Again Astbury's lyrics take centerstage and have something to do with an occult apocalypse, but it does deliver a hell of a refrain; "standing there like a victim will only get you killed!". Boris again perfectly compliments Astbury's almost too big for life presence with a perfectly attuned performance that smolders and burns alongside the singer's charismatic delivery.
Interestingly enough the most expendable track on "BXI" is Boris' cover of The Cult's classic song "Rain". Wata takes vocal duties on the track, and the band plays a reinterpretation of the track that sounds like a hybrid of a bar-band cover version and dance remix that does nothing to add to the original other than bolster it as the one and only definitive version. More than anything what the track makes you realize is that Astbury is a damn amazing singer. I love Wata's songs with Boris, but she really can't compete as a vocalist with Astbury. This track may have absolutely killed if he had re-recorded his vocals with Boris playing.
"BXI" ends with the mellow, but nevertheless epic (as if it could be any other way with this fucking guy singing) track "Magickal Child". Again Astbury paints with lyrics steeped in pagan-romanticism over Boris' perfectly complementary bombast. More than before, though, Boris sounds like Boris. Subtle fuzz turns into a chasmic soundscape that is part doom and part hope which stirs the soul either way. Christ, did I say this was the lesser release of the two pieces in this review? Like I said earlier; all Boris releases are good and this is no exception. You just might have to readjust the settings on your stereo to 1991. Regardless, I would love to hear more. It's clear from this release that Boris respects the hell out of Astbury and plays alongside him as organically as The Cult did. That's a pretty cool thing in and of its self, but its a goddamned amazing thing when you remember that the band we are talking about is Boris, who do not need Ian Astbury to make a name for themselves. The fact that Astbury really is the star of this recording speaks volumes about both artists. "Luna", on the other hand, is a different story entirely.
Starting with "Smile" Boris began to incorporate more pop elements into their experimental heavy as hell sound. Not that they risked producing a top 40 hit, after all, the album's most "pop" song was the ever so radio-friendly titled "My Neighbour Satan" featuring blistering guitar freakouts, and inside out, upside down, kaleidoscopic production. It was not exactly "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". Nevertheless the band continued to explore the boundaries of pop-metal on a series of seven inches for Southern Lord titled "Japanese Heavy Rock Hits". In hindsight "Satan" and those most excellent seven inches all appear to be variations on the band's attempt to digest and produce pop songs on their own terms. In the process Boris has crafted a whole new sound, not just for their repertoire, but for music in general. "Luna" is a culmination of those ideas and that sound. It's Boris' version of pop writ large.
The heart of "Luna" is all blast beats and tonal guitars, yet somehow the song manages to be incredibly uplifting and beautiful. Even when the song shifts and Takeshi's pulsating dance-oriented bass drops out and all that is left is twisted black metal-infected guitar and drummer Atsuo's insane blast beats, the band's harmonies continue to elevate the song into something gorgeous. It's an epic track reflective of the frontiers that Boris has been breaking down and redefining over the past couple of years and one that will either signal an end to this chapter, or another charge forward into more pop-metal bliss. Interestingly, the track comes to an end with a snippet of the kind of massive sludge doom that the band started their career playing, leaving the answer to that question wide open. Either way "Luna" will satiate while whetting appetites for what comes next.
So, like I said, Boris is the one of the greatest bands in the world today. If you don't know that already, then you don't know much.
London's Mount Kimbie have produced one of the most beguiling records of the year with their debut album "Crooks and Lovers". The duo of Dom Maker and Kai Campos craft music steeped in dubstep that incorporates techno, ambient, and IDM, making for a sound that is not easily categorized. The band caused a stir in the dubstep community last year with the release of their first ep "Maybes" on Paul Rose's (aka dubstep superstar Scuba) label Hotflush Recordings. The recording sounded a bit like Boards of Canada played by Burial. Another ep, "Sketch on Glass", followed raising expectations even further for their debut long player. "Crooks and Lovers" does not disappoint, although it may require repeated close listens to pin down everything going on here.
"Tunnel Vision" begins the album with another Burial/Boards of Canada hybrid that features looped acoustic guitar, a ghostly dubstep shuffle, disembodied vocals and droplets of electronic rain. "Would Know" follows and signals that overall the band is playing with a muted palette of sounds on "Crooks and Lovers". The piece's languid ambient-inspired surface is only slightly disturbed by a far-off pulsating dubstep beat and effects that would normally overpower a track, but here are buried far underneath layers of gentle waves of sound.
The duo are at their best, though, when they liven things up just a tad, as on the dizzingly great "Before I Move Off." The piece begins with hauntingly discordant plucked piano strings reminiscent of a Ghost Box recording. The strings are looped into an Escher-like rhythm that is soon juxtaposed against a counter-rhythm of steady percussive effects, circular bass and electronic squiggles. Eventually the piano strings drop out and chopped up soul vocals emerge taking the song into a brighter territory. It's one of the album's best tracks in part because the band runs the gamut from dark to light effortlessly, shifting moods and textures on a dime.
Unfortunately "Before I Move Off" is one of the few tracks where the band mixes things up so extensively. If there a weakness to "Crooks and Liars" it is that while each track is fairly captivating in its own way, most lack the dynamism evident on "Before I Move Off". Some tracks like "Adriatic" are little more than pleasant wallpaper. "Carbonated" and "Ruby" on the other hand, mixes both approaches. The tracks are not as immediately striking as "Before...", but repeated listens reveal a shifting array of sounds throughout each that will reward listeners.
Complaints aside, nevertheless “Crooks and Lovers” is more than a worthwhile listen. At its best it is a blueprint forward for ambient-dance oriented music. Furthermore the breadth of Mount Kimbie’s approach is pretty staggering. Listen to the meditative “Ode to Bear” followed by the Kompakt infected techno of the incredible “Field,” and you will get two very different approaches to electronic music that somehow comes together seamlessly on “Crooks and Lovers”. If anything at the end of this record, I was left wanting more. I wanted the duo to go further with their experiments, dig even deeper and destroy what few boundaries remained. This is a good beginning that offers the promise of an even better future.
At some point in every crate digger's career he or she will stumble upon Ethiopian musician Mulatu Astatke, and consequently fall in love with his intoxicating mixture of jazz, latin and traditional Ethiopian music. My introduction came at the hands of a friend in Chicago who played "Ethiopian Modern Instrumental Hits" for me one night. Caught up in the moment, I thought to myself 'this is the greatest sound I have ever heard.' It rocked and grooved like nothing I had heard before. It was dark, exotic and sexy as hell. The next day I was off to Dusty Groove to raid their Astatke collection, including the much loved "Ethiopiques Volume 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969-1974". I spent an entire spring and summer obsessed with that sound, running down limited edition eps and lps, as well as further volumes of the Ethiopiques series.
Around the same time I was undergoing my Ethiopian Awakening, NYC's The Budos Band were crafting music based around Astatke's sound. They peppered it with soul, funk and afro-beat, but at the center was that beguiling Ethiopian magic. The group's first album was enjoyable enough, but found the band struggling to carve out their own identity while at the same time recycling sounds from the 60s and 70s. "The Budos Band II" was a major improvement. The band found their voice by focusing on that distinct Ethiopian sound and pumping it full of horn vamps and grooves influenced by blaxploitation soundtrack music. Their music was still greatly indebted to Astatke, but sounded tougher and more street smart.
Now the band has returned with "The Budos Band III", an album that solidifies the approach carved out on "Budos Band II". The band hits the ground running with the muscular "Rite of the Ancients" which mixes a 70s soul horn vamp with an addictive conga-based African rhythm and a slightly psychedelic guitar that grooves and sways in between the brass and percussion. "Black Venom" dims the lights while a slinky horror-house organ fills out the grimy urban track with a hint of evil.
"River Serpentine" brings the sexy back with a more languid rhythm that struts nevertheless. It's one of the album's stronger tracks, as well as its most upbeat. What makes the song stand out is that it is as chill as it is virile. It's all cool confidence and understated swagger, and one that would sound even more awesome if my imaginary entourage would play it on a jam box everywhere I entered. "Nature's Wrath" turns the lights back down for the album's most Ethiopique moment. A serpentine bass and guitar line that will be familiar to anyone who owns any of the Ethiopiques series is juxtaposed against stabbing horns and organ that eventually build into a crescendo. It's a great piece that begins spacious and ends with noise and drama, and it's perfect mid-point for the album.
Unfortunately the latter half of the record is not nearly as exhilarating as the first side. There are still all sorts of sweet moments here, but overall it begins to become less distinguishable. "Raja Haje" is the one exception. Another piece indebted to Ethiopiques, the song simmers and boils over in perfect measure. It's all spindly winding guitars and hot and humid brass and percussion that groove exactly as they should. The band closes the album out with "Reppirt Yad", a cover of the Beatles' "Day Tripper". I admit to not being a fan of rock songs covered by jazz bands, and "Reppirt Yad" does absolutely nothing to change my mind.
In the end, "The Budos Band III" is a solid, if not perfect addition to the band's catalog. For newcomers, this is as good a point as any for an entryway into the band's dark groove. For the initiated there is nothing revelatory here, but plenty to satisfy nonetheless. Apparently the album was recorded in 48 hours, which may explain why the album is so top heavy. If only the band had taken a break after the first 24 hours and reconvened at a latter time maybe they could have produced something spectacular. As it stands, though, "III" is merely good.
It's been a long time since I've heard a really good stoner/sludge metal album. What qualifies for stoner rock these days is something along the lines of High On Fire's thrash sludge, which is absolutely two devil horns up awesome, but not really what I think of when I think of stoner. Stoner, at least for me, is something along the lines of Sleep and early Monster Magnet, slowed down, blazed out psyche sludge that sounds like the heavy metal version of an acid trip. Zoroaster are not entirely a stoner band, since they do traffic in High on Fire's thrash sludge at times, but they are at their best when they are playing monster spliffed-out riffs the size of megalodon, and when they combine the two it's downright cosmic.
The Atlanta, GA trio formed in 2003 and have been a staple on the doom/sludge scene since the release of their debut album "Dog Magic" in 2007 on the venerable Southern Lord. "Matador", their third album, finds the band at the height of some serious powers, and looks to be the record that will finally move Zoroaster from the "also ran" category to the forefront of modern metal. "DNR" kicks the album off with a brutal assault before settling down into a blues sludge groove, which is eventually blown into the sky by a killer bridge of chunky riffage. A pitch perfect spacious psyche guitar solo and cavernous vocals seal the deal letting listeners know upfront what kind of smoked out black magic they are in for. "Ancient Ones" sounds like a speed up, thrashed out Sabbath and proves the band can tear through a song with the best of them. One can imagine long hair whipping in a perfect circle when the band locks into their double-bass thrash onslaught during the piece. The real goods come in on "Odyssey." The song is as epic sounding as its name implies. It's a massive burner complete with grand canyon sized riffage, god-like vocals, a stratosphere piercing snare drum and guitar solo, and a swamp boogie breakdown at the end. After "Odyssey" it's kind of hard to imagine what the band is going to do to top themselves. Fortunately Zoroaster has many more tricks up their sleeve.
"Trident" switches gears and sounds a bit like the industrial-metal of Nachtmystium's "Addicts," which isn't too much of a surprise since the increasingly ubiquitous Sanford Parker, who has my vote for metal's MVP of the year, produced "Matador" and had a hand in that album. The freaked-out psyche-damaged instrumental "Firewater" follows and sounds like a beast smashing its cage during a very bad trip. The band returns to similar stomping grounds that "Odyssey" tread with "Old World" which sounds exactly like I always wanted OM to sound; huge, heavy, laborious, hypnotic, but with plenty of metal fireworks to satisfy the inner caveman.
The band pushes even further on the cosmic "Black Hole," which seamlessly combines their traditional stoner stomp with the trash sludge of High On Fire. The song is insanely good, particularly when the band lock into a thrash workout with flares of psychedelia that sound pretty much what I imagine a black hole to sound like as it rips everything in its orbit to pieces. It's a great sound for the band and one that I can only hope will be explored further on future releases.
Zoroaster close out the album with a return to pure stoner bliss on the gargantuan title track. The song is great, but really it's just icing on the cake, because by the time we get to the behemoth that is "Matador" we are already under the band's spell, hypnotized by their grooves, pummeled by their riffs and high on their sound. You don't need illicit substances to enjoy "Matador," Zoroaster lays down an atmosphere so thick, so hypnotic that you will feel blazed out by the time you are done listening, and that, my friends, is what true stoner metal is all about.
Wheeler says: Nothing about this album, but her silence spoke volumes. Normally she hates all things metal and usually tells me to turn off whatever I am playing as soon as she hears pounding drums, monster riffs and screaming vocals. Oddly I played this through TWICE, and she did not say a single word about it. I even caught her quasi-headbanging at one point.
The Arcade Fire started their career producing what is, by general consensus, one of the most important and scene defining indie albums of the last decade. "Funeral" tapped into the grandiosity of post-rock, and its thousand members on stage playing varied and eclectic instruments, planted it firmly within the traditional indie rock framework and came out the other side with something that sounded like Modest Mouse crossed with Bruce Springsteen. The album's grand arc explored childhood and mortality seriously but in a celebratory manner, and found the band at their most life-affirming and hopeful.
"Neon Bible" followed and was an improvement on the band's sound. Turning from the personal to the political, the band took on topical themes of religion, war and the general psychosis of the post-9/11 American landscape. Some saw the album as heavy-handed, but in a musical landscape that was dishearteningly quiet in the face of one of the country's darkest decades, "Neon Bible" was a beacon of sanity. Even with it's depressing thematic thread, musically "Neon Bible" thrilled and uplifted. You could dance to "Keep the Car Running," and find release in "Intervention" and, of course, the granddaddy of all anthems, "No Cars Go." Even if the band were bordering on the overblown grandiosity of U2, they sounded pertinent and exhilarating. Vocalist Win Butler hadn't reached the self-righteousness of Bono just yet, instead he sounded like a young man scared and disgusted by things that should scare and disgust any rational human being. The album cemented the band as one of indie rock's biggest acts, and the one most likely to cross-over into mass popularity.
Now the band has released their much-anticipated third album "The Suburbs", and for the first time in the band's career they sound bitter and cynical. Too cynical, I am afraid, to make "The Suburbs" enjoyable enough to listen to regularly. As to be expected there has already been much overpraise of the album, and oddly most of it has run along the line of something like this: '"Neon Bible" was too serious and political, "The Suburbs" is a welcome return to form and it's about childhood, so it must be hopeful and life-affirming,' or something similar. Nothing could be further from the truth. "Neon Bible" was an outward looking album of redemptive anthems and communal ballads, "The Suburbs" is the band's most negative and navel-gazing work to date, sorely lacking the hope and cleansing experience of their previous albums.
Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with artistic expression as cynical and bitter sounding as "The Suburbs," but those who enter here should abandon all hope. Don't take my word for it, listen to what Butler has to say on the album's title track: "I want a daughter while I'm still young, I wanna hold her hand, show her some beauty before all this damage is done, but if it's too much to ask send me a son." Personal aside; this lyric almost made me weep when I first heard it. I can directly relate to what Butler is saying. I actually got my wish, and as the father of two young daughters, have tried to show them as much joy and beauty as possible, but there is a foreboding I feel about the world they will inherit. Given the very real possibility of global environmental and economical collapse, I deeply fear for their future, and that has, in turn, made me incredibly pessimistic at times. Needless to say I can relate all too well to Butler's dim view that even with the promise of new life, damage and demise are just around the corner. The point is that he may be more cynical than ever, but Butler is telling uncomfortable truths throughout "The Suburbs". The question listeners must answer for themselves is how much bleak reality they want to go with their morning coffee and music. Add to Butler's dread-inducing lyrics an incessant humourlessness and you have the makings of the least enjoyable "good" album in years (and yes, ultimately, it is good for the most part).
Thematically, and Arcade Fire are all about themes, "The Suburbs" is about expansion and decay. Whether it is the expansion of the suburban village throughout the latter half of the twentieth century and it's demise into ghosts towns brought on by overextended credit and foreclosure, or whether it is our own expansion further and further away from childhood marching toward our own personal foreclosure, or society as a whole buckling under entropy, "The Suburbs" covers it. Early on Butler makes it clear what it's all about when he sings "when all of the walls that they built in the 70s finally fall, and all the houses they built in the 70s finally fall, it meant nothing." There is a futility throughout the album that undercuts all of the songs here, even when there seems to be glimmers of hope. One of the album's many highlights "Ready To Start" finds Butler and the band bouncing along fine together to create a rousing soundtrack moment, when he sings "if the businessmen drink my blood like the kids in art school said they would, then I guess I'll just begin again." It's one of the album's few anthematic moments, but whatever hope Butler is still offering is quickly cut short by the very next song "Modern Man" when he sings "I was almost there then they pulled me aside and said you're going nowhere."
Not all is doom and gloom, at times Butler engages in the most distasteful of rock star posings - condescension. One of the albums greatest musical pieces is also its most offensive lyrically. "Rococo" is nothing more than an example of a band biting the hand that feeds it. It's a bitter slam on the indie/hipster culture that makes up Arcade Fire's fan base. Named after an artistic movement in late 18th century France that is often viewed as an expression of the shallow excesses of French royalty and upper class, the song is about how equally shallow the "modern kids" are. Sadly the song itself is the most shallow thing here. One could go on all night about what a hipster is or isn't, which in itself is an absurd exercise, but for all of their appropriation, it seems that the driving force of hipster culture is a culmination of post-modernism where it all; the past, the present, the future, means nothing ultimately. Oddly this seems to be exactly what Butler is saying throughout the album. One could argue that a hipster is a punk stripped of his idealism, and so what? Where did those ideals get anybody, except as bitter as Butler sounds here? So what if the "modern kids" dress up their nihilism in bright colors and "words they don't understand"? At least they recognize it's all bunk in the end. In some ways "Rococo" is an example of a tension that seems to be present in Butler's world view. Even in the face of what he knows to be futility Butler is struggling because he still wants his ideals. He wants so badly to maintain his idealism that he sounds most bitter when recognizing it as an increasingly untenable position. "Rococo" is Butler ripping apart people basically because they lack idealism, as Butler's own idealism appears to be falling apart like everything else in "The Suburbs." In many ways "Rococo" sounds more like Butler struggling with himself than the "modern kids." Even if that piece of dime store psychology is wrong, it is still an unforgivable song lyrically, and one that makes me think Wayne Coyne was right about the band treating people like shit.
A couple of other tracks fail lyrically as well, but for different reasons. "Deep Blue" and "We Used To Wait," are Butler at his most heavy-handed. Both songs are basically about how technology has disconnected us from our humanity. Radiohead did this better and more intelligently over a decade ago, and whereas Thom Yorke became the voice of our disquiet, Butler sounds kind of ridiculous. "Deep Blue" refers to the computer chess program that defeated chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997 (the same year that "OK Computer" was released coincidentally), and is basically a commentary on how technology is encroaching upon our lives. Very original statement that. "We Used To Wait" is literally about how we used to hand write letters and how now because we don't, we seem to have lost something. Again, nothing original here and nothing that really goes beyond the surface of the existential situation technology has created in the manner that Radiohead did all those years back. So no, "The Suburbs" is not, contrary to the BBC's hyperbole, better than, or even in the same league as, "OK Computer."
"We Used To Wait" does contains one of the album's most crucial lines that sum up Arcade Fire's entire raison d'être. The line is simply "now our lives are changing fast, hope that something pure can last". That, in a nutshell, is what Arcade Fire are all about. They yearn for the innocence of childhood, the innocence of idealism, the innocence of conquest and expansion, but find themselves in the midst of damage and decay where everything falls apart and the center cannot hold. They are still looking for some hope, some purity, some light in the dark, but after a trip through "The Suburbs" that quest seems increasingly futile. By the album's end the band is asking for nothing more than to "please cut the lights," reflecting a desire for a return to a primativism that only the worst, most desperate, kind of idealist could believe in. All and all it's a pretty drab affair.
Oddly enough, musically this is the band's most accessible record to date. With the exception of very few tracks the band has pared down their sound to create taut rock songs. Gone is the grandiosity of "Neon Bible" and "Funeral" and in its place is something leaner and catchier. So why the long face? It's Butler and his self-serious delivery of dour lyrics, which are often at odds with what his band is doing musically. Songs like "The Suburbs" "Modern Man" and "City With No Children" swing and groove underneath Butler's existential angst. Ultimately that tension is what saves the album, but one can't help wishing that Butler would learn to lighten up just a little and recapture some of that synergy between band and singer that made a song like "Wake Up" from "Funeral" the classic it has become. Arcade Fire, the band, sounds at the height of their power musically. They sound as cohesive as they did on "Neon Bible," but more relaxed, making for an incredibly satisfying musical experience.
But here there is a caveat as well; the album is overlong and sags horribly in the middle. The first six tracks finds Arcade Fire at their best, even on mellower songs like "Modern Man", but once the "Half Light" suite starts the band sounds like they are on autopilot for nearly the entire mid-section of the album. The only bright spot is "Suburban War," one of the album's darkest musical tracks, and also one its best. Its a downbeat epic track that starts with gently picked guitar and brushed drums only to end with war toms. Here, more than anywhere else, that synergy between singer and band exists, even if it is in the service of the exact opposite mood of "Wake Up". It isn't until "Wasted Time" has finished doing just that the band sounds alive again with the acoustic stomp of "Deep Blue". Thankfully the song marks a return to form and the band finishes out the album strongly, especially on "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" which sounds like a disco remix of Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill". The song benefits as well from Regine Chassagne's vocals who sounds as joyful and uplifting as Butler sounds resigned and cynical.
"The Suburbs" is a difficult album to love, but one that is not easy to dismiss either. Four of the tracks are absolutely expendable, Butler sounds like a malcontent who has forgotten how to smile throughout and even when he doesn't sound so annoyingly dour, the truths he speaks are depressing at best. Yet, overall it's a pretty damn good album. Not great, although some of the songs are, but pretty damn good. I recommend it, but with more caveats than I think I have ever given a record before. Maybe that split decision is ultimately a testament to "The Suburbs", since most truly great pieces of art have not been without derision and praise in equal measure, and there is plenty of praise and hyperbole out there surrounding this album to offset my derision here.
Wheeler had two separate reactions to "The Suburbs":
1. "Why does he have to be so serious? I know life sucks, I realize that every day, I don't need to listen to music to remind me of it! I wanna hear sunny songs about the beach and cats and smoking weed" (referring, of course, to Best Coast).
a few days later...
2. "You know despite everything I said before, I think I am going to end up liking this album."
"The Suburbs" fan video that is really rather good
Justin Broadrick is one of music's certifiable legends. As a teenager he helped define grindcore as the guitarist for Napalm Death on their seminal album "Scum". Shortly after he formed Godflesh, one of the most influential bands of the last thirty years. Broadrick's soul-crushing metal mixed with ambient and industrial made for one of the most original sounds of the 80s and 90s, as well as one of the most devastating. There isn't a respectable metal band operating today that has not cited Godflesh as an influence, dropped their name, or worn their t-shirt during a photo shoot. Out of the ashes of Godflesh's eventual demise came Broadrick's next major project; the jaw-dropping Jesu. This time Broadrick mixed shoegaze with his thundering heavy brand of doom metal and crafted some of the aughts most spectacular releases. Jesu was pummeling, but triumphant, harrowing, but beautiful, and again, nothing else really sounded like it.
