Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to another broadcast from Sound Guardian Radio. Today will be the first in a series of artist profiles which I'll start throwing in amongst other radio pieces. To start us off, I thought I'd profile the work of a favorite vocalist of mine: Mark Lanegan. Lanegan started off his career as the vocalist for Seattle Grunge band Screaming Trees, but since that band broke up in the early 2000's, Lanegan has been rather prolific, working with everyone from Queens Of The Stone Age to Greg Dulli (with whom he formed the band The Gutter Twins.) He's got quite the baritone and after you hear him sing once you'll usually be able to recognize his work. With this broadcast I'm going to play you a selection of four songs from Lanegan's post-Screaming Trees work, including songs from his collaborations with Queens Of The Stone Age, Isobel Campbell and Soulsavers, as well as a song from his solo work. Here's hoping you enjoy!
1. "Song For The Dead" by Queens Of The Stone Age
2. "Methamphetamine Blues" by Mark Lanegan Band
3. "Come On Over (Turn Me On)" by Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan
Disclaimer: For those who read my previous review of Lightning Bolt’s Wonderful Rainbow, some of this may be recap. Also, Chippendale doesn’t really sound like Zach Hill at all. I don’t know where I got that idea from.
At five albums now, you’d think Lightning Bolt would have run out of ideas. After all, how far can you really take minimalism in music before you start repeating yourself? But no. The duo is still managing to take their selected brand of Noise Rock to new places without changing their drum and bass setup. It’s fairly impressive too. For playing such abrasive music, every Lightning Bolt album has been well received, critically speaking, and they’ve got a devoted following of fringe music lovers (like me.) More than that, the music is actually really good. Hailing from Providence, Rhode Island, Lightning Bolt consists of bassist Brian Gibson and drummer Brain Chippendale and together they create Avant-Garde Noise Rock that, against the odds, manages to have everything from hooks to actual melody, even while drenched in mountains of heavy feedback.
Lightning Bolt is about as far from conventional music as Vegemite is from tasty, and it all starts with the set-up. Gibson’s unusual instrument sound is usually mistaken for a guitar but it is, in fact, a bass, tuned to cello standard tuning with an extra banjo string. Along with this strange instrument is an array of effect pedals that serve the purpose of making the sound coming out of his bass everything from high-end squiggles to fuzzed-out quakes. By way of a delay pedal, Gibson also has the ability to loop his bass lines, allowing it to sound like there’s more than just one of him and play individual parts of the song at the same time. But this band is a duo and would not be complete without Brian Chippendale.
Behind the drums, Chippendale is a force of nature, an aggressive one-man demolition team that, if he wanted to, could level skyscrapers with just his drum kit. According to Chippendale, he plays in such a way where he’s trying to fill up space with his drum beats, which adds to the overloading effect of Lightning Bolt’s music He’s also, inexplicably, the band’s unsettling vocalist. Chippendale doesn’t really sing with Lightning Bolt, he more howls like he’s just been set on fire and is desperately trying to put it out. He does sing words usually, but it’s nearly impossible to decipher them under all the fuzz. Not only that, but Chippendale doesn’t use a regular microphone. He wears a mask with a built in contact mic made out of a telephone receiver, which further distorts the sound. Lightning Bolt without words is a volatile ride through an Arggo-Nosie Rock amusement park. With words, and Chippendales demented howling, you enter a bizarre variation on the amusement parks funhouse, where everything becomes even more disorienting.
The bands most recent release is this album, Earthly Delights, which continues their foray into spastic low-end rhythms and uncompromising audio assaults. It also manages to hit the benchmark set by their previous two albums, Hypermagic Mountain and Wonderful Rainbow, even surpassing them at times. There is a danger in Lightning Bolt’s music though and that’s the possibility for wankery at the wrong times. As strange and powerful as this record is, it has two weak spots. The first is “Flooded Chamber” in which the band manages to step in sonic shit and takes about four minutes trying to scrape it off. Gibson’s bass on the track is effected to the really high and almost painful end of things, while Chippendale just flails like a loon hopped up on too much PCP. It’s a track that, unlike most Lightning Bolt songs, doesn’t go anywhere and just kind of chases it’s own tail. The other weak spot is the short and pointless “Rain On Lake I’m Swimming In” which is just two minutes of Gibson aimlessly plucking the higher notes on his bass while Chippendale makes nonsense sounds into his mic. Both of these tracks could easily have been left off the album and it still would have been solid, probably even more so.
But aside from those two hiccups, the rest of the album is hot white gold. The opening cut and this blog’s namesake “Sound Guardians” starts out with Chippendale’s pounding drums and warping waa sounds from Gibson’s bass before kicking into one of the most raging Lightning Bolt songs to date, and certainly the most bombastic they’ve sounded right out the gate (oh look, a rhyme.) The schizophrenic fury doesn’t quit and even picks up further with the second track, “Nation Of Boar” which is a quintessential Lightning Bolt song if I ever heard one, with roaring low-end bass chords over Chippendale’s frenzied drum lunacy and manic vocalizations.
However, possibly my favorite track on the album is the seven minute long thunderer “Colossus” which is one of Lightning Bolt’s less spastic and more epic compositions. It’s slower than “Nation Of Boar” or “Sound Guardians” but that makes it feel more powerful somehow. It’s well titled too, seeing as how it conveys the feeling of the colossus rising up from it’s slumber and then lumbering it’s way across the land. As the track progresses, Gibson’s bass work gets more and more wild and Chippendales drums more rowdy before coming to a place of almost calm at the track’s end. It’s got a good arc. Throughout the album, the band doesn’t let up it’s uncompromising sound but occasionally does dip into what could actually be considered a hook or groove. Come to that, Lightning Bolt is actually very groovy music, it just might not seem like it at first.
A lot of people may think that Lightning Bolt is just random noise blather, but I have to disagree. Brian and Brian are obviously skilled composers as well as musicians and they’ve proven that by delivering yet another excellent adventure into Noise Rock madness. It’s got hooks, its got grooves, it’s got walls of distortion and it’s chock full of electrified energy. Really, what more could you want?
Ladies and Gents. Welcome to a very special edition of Sound Guardian Radio. I learned today that one of my favorite Metal bands, ISIS, is breaking up. They've stated that this is not because of internal strife but simply because they've accomplished everything they've set out to do. I'm guessing that most of these goons will continue on in music. And that's fine and all, but I can't go to their last show here in Seattle. Bummer. So instead, I'm going to devote this broadcast to playing four of my favorite ISIS songs. Seeing as how ISIS always had a penchant for long-form Metalgaze, these songs are all over seven minutes in length, but trust me, they're very good. I'm going to miss ISIS, but their music will stick around and hopefully, if you've never heard them before, you'll give this broadcast a listen and see what you think. Enjoy. Goodbye, ISIS.
I’m trying to recall the exact moment I became a fan of Steve Albini. I guess it would have to be the first time I heard Big Black’s Songs About Fucking. It was a gift from a friend who seemed to think I’d like it, not that she told me anything about it before giving it to me. So, I have the album on my iPod. I’m working on something on the computer and am trying to decide what to listen to. I cue up Songs About Fucking, plug it into my dock and walk back to the computer. A second and a half later an unholy squall blasts its way out of the speakers and I turn around to stare at them. The sound was not unlike metal girders grinding against each other with some lunatic screaming things about “The Power of Independent Trucking” buried somewhere in the mix. The drums sounded inhuman (I would later learn that they were generated by Roland the Drum Machine.) I take this in and then realize that something is wrong. I can’t quite be sure but something doesn’t seem quite right about the situation. And then it hits me. It needs to be louder… much louder. I cranked the volume up to max, nearly blew out my speakers and I think reduced my hearing by a couple decibels for the afternoon. This was my introduction to the music of Steve Albini.
For those of you who don’t know or haven’t read Our Band Could Be Your Life, Steve Albini was the driving creative force behind Big Black for five or so years in the mid to late 80’s. He’s a guitarist and sound engineer like no other and is one of my heroes… for some reason. It actually worries some people that I like this guy as much as I do, considering his proclivities for writing songs about slaughtering cattle and alcoholism. But that’s one of the things I like so much about Steve Albini: he’s sarcastic. He’s got one of the blackest senses of humor on the face of the planet and that comes out in his music.
Big Black was a great band but great things must come to an end. After his first bands demise, Albini hooked up with the rhythm section of Scratch Acid to form the disgustingly titled Rapeman. In a world where it’s fairly easy to piss off conservatives, Albini started pushing the buttons of hipsters. The ultimate test was naming his band something as offensive as Rapeman and it worked, people were outraged and completely overlooked the music. It wasn’t as good as Big Black but it showed that Albini was still capable of caustic wit and metallic whiplash guitar attacks. Rapeman came to an end before the 80’s were over and Albini subsequently formed his current band, Shellac, with Todd Trainer and Bob Weston a few years later.
Shellac’s latest release, Excellent Italian Greyhound, is, in my humble opinion, their finest to date. An acerbic assault of twisted steel and sharp aluminum, this record is nine tracks worth of deadpan lyrics and Math Rock belligerence that should satisfy anyone familiar with Albini’s work. It’s not their most accessible listen, that would be either At Action Park or 1000 Hurts, but it’s their most rewarding one. The first track is a demonstration of Shellac’s fondness for unusual song structures. The ambling “The End of Radio” is eight minutes long and barely holds together… or so it seems. There is no chorus, just Albini’s rambling tale of the last man on earth, who also happens to be a DJ, broadcasting his final transmission to an empty world. It’s actually one of the most manic tracks on the album, just not in the music. All the mania is in Albini’s delivery, where he seems to be teetering on the brink of sanity.
The next three tracks are all straight ahead rockers, as straight ahead as you can get with Shellac that is. The best of these is the track “Be Prepared.” The song spends it’s first 40 or so seconds trying to get off the ground before kicking into life, with Albini’s wind-up and release guitar taking the forefront. It’s not long before he barks out “I was born wearing pants!” to which Bob Weston responds, “Be prepared!” The song is pretty funny actually; apparently Albini was also born with $25 in his pockets and already wearing spats and a dickie (whatever the hell that is…)
The other two rockers, “Steady As She Goes” and “Elephant” are also both solid songs. Someone mentioned “Elephant” to me once as being about Fugazi and how they have yet to return from hiatus. I didn’t think much of it until I got two other records, Fugazi’s The Argument and The Evens’ Self-Titled Album. “Elephant references both albums in its title and opening lyrics, with Bob Weston singing “Here… comes… here comes the argument” paralleling the final lyrics of the final song of The Argument. And naming the song “Elephant”? Guess what’s on the cover of The Evens’ Self-Tilted Album. After that though, the reference seems to end because the lyrics of “Elephant” take on a decidedly confusing bent, with both Albini and Weston speak-singing different stories that, on the surface at least, don’t seem to have anything to do with Fugazi. Still, it’s an intriguing riddle.
By far the oddest track on the album though, is the 9 minute + “Genuine Lulabelle” which begins with Albini’s announcement that “You could say that I’m… the Genuine Article.” The band then soldiers into an instrumental section that starts out leisurely before abruptly taking a turn for the urgent. Then. Everything stops. No music. Albini… speaks. What follows is the single most unexpected thing to ever surface on a Shellac album: An A Cappella section. I was stunned too. The unaccompanied Albini tells a tale of a girl called Lulabelle and the subsequent shenanigans she got into. Then, the second most unexpected thing to surface on a Shellac album makes his presence known: Strong Bad. No Joke. And he’s not alone. A deluge of voices, from all those famous voice actors you can’t remember the names of chime in, all of them proclaiming that “what one wants is the real thing, the genuine article: a real Lulabelle.” Eventually, the voices subside, the band kicks in and the song goes wild, Albini’s now shouted lyrics meeting with razor sharp instrumentation. It’s by far the most successful experimental track they’ve done.
There aren’t really any weak tracks on this album. There are good ones, great ones and weird ones. The final four tracks, which includes the actually upbeat instrumental “Kittypants” and Weston’s major label protest song “Boycott”, all fit the bill of the album nicely. Albini and co’s music is challenging, noisy and very original. I highly recommend Shellac, Rapeman and Big Black’s entire discography. But remember, this music is not for the faint of heart and if you’re offended easily or don’t have a tongue to plant in your cheek, you probably should steer clear.
Hey folks. For todays broadcast I want to share with you some music from some loud Seattle bands that don't exist anymore. Yep, sad to say it, none of these 4 fantastic bands I'm going to play for you are still around. The Blood Brothers called it quits in 2007 and the other three buried themselves last year. I was even at the last Kane Hodder/Schoolyard Heroes show. While most of these musicians are continuing to do music with newer groups, I thought It'd be nice to give their old bands some airtime. So, let's quite the yammering and get on with the headbanging. Enjoy!
Let me preface this review by explaining that if you do not have a really powerful sound system or state-of-the-art headphones, you shouldn’t be listening to this. Also, if you’ve got a fear of loud music, stop reading because it’s a pre-requisite of Sunn O))) that you listen to them at excruciating volume so that you can feel the music. I’ll say that part again to drive it home: “Feel” not just “hear.” Because part of the fun of Sunn O))) is the full body massage that goes along with their music. To most people, Sunn O))) is going to just sound like really drawn out noise dirges and while some of their material does fit that description, this album, Monoliths & Dimensions, is one of the most beautiful and rewarding heavy albums I’ve heard in a long time.
Sunn O))) is primarily a duo: two guitarists, Stephen O’Malley (also of Khanate & Burning Witch) and Greg Anderson (of Goatsnake) accompanied by a wall of Sunn brand amplifiers. Together, these two men are responsible for re-defining the power of the word Drone. Because the music of Sunn O))) is the best Drone Metal since Earth’s early albums. Sunn O))) in fact, initially began as an Earth tribute band and has since expanded to become the world’s foremost Drone Metal act. The genre tag of “Metal” brings up certain connotations of head-banging and rock-on hand signs that really makes the word misleading in describing Sunn O)))’s music. There are no flying V guitar solos, no death growls, no drums, no vocals or percussion of any kind. Just two guitars and a wall of amps all turned to 11… maybe 12.
That’s how it was for a while before the two guitarists began to collaborate with other artists. And that’s where my interest was piqued. Of the three Sunn O))) albums I own, Monoliths & Dimensions is the best, heaviest, darkest, and has the most interesting collaborators (Black One was a close second.) I’ll be the first to admit, the first time I heard this band I was completely confused. “Why on earth would someone sit around listening to feedback variations for an hour?” I asked. That was with Sunn O)))’s Flight Of The Behemoth album, which was a less interesting and far less polished effort. With the advent of Monoliths and Dimensions, I decided to give the band a second try. This time, I was blown away. At four tracks, Monoliths & Dimensions clocks in at a 53:44 and its time well spent. It’s also a dark descent into the void that combines all the terror of Black Metal, Dark Ambient and the night. Humans have a very rational fear of the dark and Sunn O))) is that darkness in music form. More than Lustmord, more than Earth, more than Xasthur or any of his Black Metal ilk, Sunn O)))’s music is scary. Another qualifier of how you listen to it is that you should listen to it at night, by yourself and with all the lights out.
Monoliths & Dimensions is, as I said before, the best album Sunn O))) has ever put to tape. Recorded over a period of two years, it’s the biggest their music has ever sounded and that’s saying something considering that their previous material was already pretty gigantic sounding. “Monoliths & Dimensions” is in fact the best description of their music: it’s massive in scale and sounds like a bleak void.
Unusually for Sunn O))), three of the four tracks on the album feature vocals. But Sunn O)))’s choice of vocalist, Mayhem’s Attila Csihar, is perfect for the terror inspiring atmosphere of their music. Csihar perfectly complements Sunn O)))’s music by bringing his fullest, deepest demon voice to bear. You can’t understand a word he’s saying because of his accent and just how deep his voice is, but the message gets across none the less: he’s gonna eat your soul. The voice Csihar uses on Monoliths & Dimensions is not the screech employed by most Black Metal vocalists or some silly pig growl like you’d find with a Death Metal band, but the voice of the abyss itself as it swallows you whole.
Csihar’s foreboding presence is felt most strongly on the opening track “Aghartha” which gets the album off to its rumbling start. At 17:33 it’s the longest track on the album and for the first eight minutes or so it’s business as usual in the Sunn O))) camp, with slow chords and mountains of feedback that will shake your blood. Then Csihar enters the picture and begins to slowly intone what I’ve heard is a poem about the creation of the earth. Looking at the lyrics (which do exist) I’m not sure what he’s taking about, but as I mentioned before, it doesn’t much matter. After the slow rumble of “Aghartha” melts away we begin the second track, the 9:42 long “Big Church (Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért)” which is probably my favorite composition on the album and subsequently, my favorite Sunn O))) piece. You’re probably still looking at the subtitle. No I do not know how to pronounce it properly, but Attila Csihar does. “Big Church” (I’m not gonna write the impossible word every single time) begins with an unholy choir of fallen angels lamenting their lost grace before O’Malley and Anderson’s grinding chords start up again. But the angels (really a Viennese woman's choir) sing throughout this track, making it one of the prettier Sunn O))) songs in existence. As the music of “Big Church” builds and finally crescendos, Csihar reenters to speak more lyrics and does the impossible by reciting the word in the subtitle. Which, you know, should be impossible.
Csihar’s contributions to the album come to an end with the third track “Hunting And Gathering (Cydonia)” which features him at his most operatic. It also features a horn section and percussion, more things unusual for a Sunn O))) album. But the final song on the album, the haunting “Alice”, is perhaps the strangest. The first completely instrumental track on the album, “Alice” features traditional Sunn O))) song structure but manages to feel somehow less foreboding than anything else on this album. Listening to it feels like attending a very stormy funeral precession, laden as it is with mournful horns and dirgy riffs (or rather, even MORE dirgy riffs.) It feels sad, in place of the terror usually inspired by Sunn O))). My early comment about how this album is beautiful stems from the entirety of it’s construction and execution, but “Alice” is a strong swing in that statements favor all on it’s own. And there’s no twist either, no bogyman leaping out the closet at the last minute. The droning feedback fades away, leaving just the horns and strings behind and the album goes out on its mournful note.
You know, throughout this review I’ve explained how all of the more experimental elements make this less of a proper Sunn O))) album. But I’ve just realized coming to the end of this review that it is in the nature of Sunn O))) to be experimental and, therefore, it’s not so strange. Most people fail to grasp how meditative Sunn O)))’s music is: there’s a supremely Zen quality about the chord progression and the walls of sound. It makes for a very calming listening experience, at least for me. It may be feedback drenched Drone Metal but it’s strangely beautiful in a textural way and I like it. Just remember, play it loud or don’t play it at all.
Hey folks. Welcome to another broadcast from Radio Sound Guardian. Today I'll be playing you songs from Sxip Shirey, Jason Webley and Amanda Palmer, because tonight I'm off to see the Evelyn Evelyn show, which features all three of the aforementioned miscreants. It should be a fun night and for all those not going or who can't make it, I hope you enjoy this broadcast. Cheers!
Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to another broadcast from Sound Guardian Radio. Today will be the first in a series of artist profiles which I'll start throwing in amongst other radio pieces. To start us off, I thought I'd profile the work of a favorite vocalist of mine: Mark Lanegan. Lanegan started off his career as the vocalist for Seattle Grunge band Screaming Trees, but since that band broke up in the early 2000's, Lanegan has been rather prolific, working with everyone from Queens Of The Stone Age to Greg Dulli (with whom he formed the band The Gutter Twins.) He's got quite the baritone and after you hear him sing once you'll usually be able to recognize his work. With this broadcast I'm going to play you a selection of four songs from Lanegan's post-Screaming Trees work, including songs from his collaborations with Queens Of The Stone Age, Isobel Campbell and Soulsavers, as well as a song from his solo work. Here's hoping you enjoy!
))Monoliths.jpg)
Posts
