Album Of The Week : U.S Christmas - Eat Of The Low Dogs

Since I have spent the last three weeks drifting indolently across the Iberian peninsula (see jacktstravels.blogspot.com) I had to put Album of the Week on a brief hiatus. For me, travelling always brings out the best in any music, and the soundtrack to me fruitful meanderings in Spain and Portugal was the album by U.S. Christmas, psychedelic rockers from deepest Appalachia.

As a rule, I'm very discriminate about buying music. I have a list of CD's that I want to buy as big as Dave Mustaine's ego so I don't often just buy any album on a whim - it needs to merit the money I spend on it. With Eat Of The Low Dogs it was different. I heard the song Silent Tongue on Last.fm radio and was so enamoured by it that I had to buy the record based on just that one listen. And I wasn't disappointed. In fact, that very track pales into comparison when measured against some of the other behemoth songs on the album.

U.S. Christmas are on Neurot Recordings (record label of extreme metal masterminds Neurosis), and if Scott Kelly and co. give your band their blessings then they must be worth shouting about. Both bands share the same lonesome, bleak landscapes but project them in different fashions. Like Neurosis, U.S. Christmas have the ability to take a few chords, milk them to near saturation point and create a simple yet awesome song - take Say Sister for example, only four chords are used up until the epic, gorgeous, undulating outro section. There's not a chugged power chord in sight, and it would be unsuitable to call this metal at all, even if the vocals are raspier and harsher than your average rock band. The band owe a lot more to 70's space rock legends Pink Floyd and Hawkwind than any 80's and 90's metal.

I can see some listeners objecting to the use of the perhaps ostentatious modular synth and the heavily echoed vocals, but for me it adds depth to the sound. Nate Hall's vocals are strained and beautifully impassioned. As he screams "And I don't ever change" in Uktena you really feel a haunting conviction in his voice. The guitars and used delicately and abstemiously, never over-indulging, and focusing on creating an eldrich atmosphere and giving awesome texture to the record. The overall sound created is one of a band jamming out live, yet the songs are never desultory.

The follow up to this album, Run Thick In The Night, as been very well received by critics, and a support slot for Neurosis's show last month in San Francisco shows that the band are heading on a upward trajectory. Great things are to come from these guys.

9/10

Highlights : Say Sister, The Light of All Time, Uktena

See also - Pink Floyd - Us And Them, Hawkwind - Hall Of The Mountain Grill, Neurosis - Stones From The Sky.

Album Of The Week : Big Star - Number 1 Record

After being mightily impressed with Big Star's other classic album, Radio City, back in March last year, I thought the band's debut album, Number 1 Record, would have a lot to live up to for me. However, upon listening to it it gave a reminder of when I first gave When The Kite String Pops by Acid Bath a first spin. No, there was no sludgy misanthropic riffs or demonic vocals, but it was more in the sense that I never thought the first album I heard by the band (Paegan Terrorism Tactics) could be beaten, yet the predecessor (in terms of my order of listening) totally blew the other album away. Even though I still rank Radio City as an awesome, awesome record, Big Star's first album manages to top it.

The song that got me into the band was September Gurls - an absolute rock classic, with gorgeous vocal melodies, catchy guitar lines and with a simple, to-the-point structure. Number 1 Record is full of these oh-so-succulent moments. If it wasn't for the bands commercial failure (blamed on their record labels poor promotion and distribution of the bands works), the songwriting duo of Alex Chilton and Chris Bell could've been the McCartney/Lennon partnership of American Power Pop. The songwriting oozes class and creativity - the twelve tracks on the album are both instantaneously appealing but won't get boring after repeated listenings, surely a sign of great music.

Within the album there's a lot of diversity, a fine sum of the greatness of 60's and 70's rock. Thirteen could be seen as a prototype for Skyway by The Replacements, one of many bands heavily influenced by Big Star, whilst the angsty Don't Lie To Me and the melodic delight of The Ballad of El Goodo are just more examples of the ecletic nature of the songs. I wonder even if Alice In Chains were influenced by the albums closer ST 100/6 - the vocal harmonies are surprisingly similar to what Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell became famous for in the early 90's with grunge titans Alice in Chains.

Each of the twelve tracks have their own merits. This is 70's pop-rock at its absolute best, an unmissable yet criminally underrated album. Buy without hesitation.

Highlights : The Ballad of El Goodo, Thirteen, My Life Is Right

See also - The Replacements - Skyway, The Ledge, Big Star - September Gurls

Album Of The Week : Bloodbath - The Fathomless Mastery

One thing which I've learned about supergroups is not to expect them to be the sum of the parts, in terms of both quality and stylings of the music. If anyone was hoping that Shrinebuilder were going to top Neurosis and Saint Vitus then they were bound to be dissapointed with the end product So approaching a band like Bloodbath, consisting of a who's-who from the last twenty years of Swedish extreme metal, it's good just to expect some quality metal rather than a genre-defining band like Opeth.

The end product is pretty sweet indeed. The music praises early 90's pioneers Suffocation and Obituary, and the triggered drums and gut-wrenching pinch harmonics on "Mock The Cross" are a clear Morbid Angel tribute. The band take in modern influences too, exhibiting the trademark Dying Fetus groove, but without including the frequently unnecessary sweep picking self-indulge-fests. Unmistakeably 21st century-sounding productionwise (for the better or worse depending on your viewpoint), sticksman Martin Axenrot showcases beautifully precise and brutal drumming, straddling the line between sounding too triggered and too laboured perfectly, whilst the guitars crush and squeal in blasphemous cacophany as you'd so desire. New lead guitarist Per Eriksson puts in some tasty leads, particularly at the end of "Hades Rising", and the star of the show, Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt performs his trademark roar to perfection. I've been listening to this whilst slaughtering people on Hitman: Blood Money, and it has provided the most perfectly lurid soundtrack - a sincere compliment to the music indeed. Overall, it's nothing particularly groundbreaking or innovative, but very enjoyable nonetheless.

7.5/10

Highlights : "At The Behest of Their Death", "Hades Rising"

See also - Morbid Angel "Where The Slime Live", Opeth - "Wreath", Edge Of Sanity - "Twilight".

Album Of The Week : Winter - Into Darkness

After five months in Brazil it seemed appropriate that my return to the UK would best be accompanied with some music filthy and dirgy enough to suit the current bout of weather affecting the country. Not to mention the fact that the temperature is 30 degrees colder here than the midsummer in Rio - how are you supposed to fully appreciate dark grim music whilst basking on a beach beneath a cloudless sky? So I ordered a copy of New York doomsters Winter's first and only full length, "Into Darkness", now in it's 20th year of existence. Despite a short career, the band left their mark on extreme metal, and this has finally been recognised with the reuniting of the band for Roadburn 2011.

The album, along with Autopsy's classic "Mental Funeral", released a year after, is considered a pioneer of the death/doom genre. Whereas the Floridian legends work was characterised by the more technical guitar playing influence of drummer Chris Reifert's previous band, Death, Winter is pure, utter, unadulterated doom. The cover art sets the scene - of what looks like the remenants of a settlement after a nuclear holocaust with two blackened ghostly figures standing by. The music rarely picks up from a funeral pace, and you find yourself following the drum patterns more than the very basic but effective guitar work, which makes for an interesting listen. The vocals painfully accompany the apocalyptic miasma, sounding like a dying man coughing up the last energy left in him. All in all, definately recommended if you like your music slow, dark and raw.

7.5/10

Highlights : "Freedom Opression", "Eternal Frost"

See also - Black Sabbath - "Black Sabbath", Cathedral - "Night Of The Seagulls", Autopsy - "Torn From The Womb"

Taint - Live at Sin City, Swansea, 18th December 2010

Judas Priest recently announced that their upcoming tour would be their last. After 35 years of countless groundbreaking albums, and with the band members approaching 60, it seemed like a fitting time to finish it all. Yet news in the same month that saddened me more was that Welsh metal trio Taint would be breaking up, bringing their career to a premature end.

We could've seen this coming. Taint have been plugging away at the metal scene for 16 years without any real breakthrough, despite releasing some of the most awesome, hard-to-define metal imaginable. The album "The Ruin Of Nová Roma" is probably as good as any other British metal release in the last ten years, and the following two releases, the album "Secrets and Lies" and this year's E.P. "All Bees To The Sea" were both innovative pices of works. The official reason for the breakup was down to family commitments, but anyone who has witnessed a live gig by Taint recently will testify to a certain degree of frustration shown by the band members at their stagnation.

Although the arctic tundra that has hit a lot of Britain in the last few days was against the gig even happening, the small, innocuous looking venue of Sin City pleasantly full. For only £3 this was the most ridiculously good value for money gig imaginable (31 times cheaper than seeing a show on Justin Bieber's forthcoming UK tour incidently). The band had come full circle, having started their career in South Wales, it seemed fitting to pay tribute to their hometown by having their final show there.

Taint recently supported metal behemoths Shrinebuilder, and bassist Chris West put in a performance of such passion and intensity that his doppelgänger Scott Kelly would be proud of - between songs you could see him struggling to hold back the tears. Jimbob is a pure one man guitar army, playing every chord with the sad knowledge that it would be the last time it would be heard. The Iommi worshipping "Black Rain", the off-the-cuff ripping soloing in "The Sound-Out Competition" and the riff feast that is "I'm Going to Kill Henry Ford" were a pure delight to digest. Not forgetting Alex Harries underpinning it all with some awesome grooves and fills. For a three piece Taint are very intense and the sound is never less than full. Another notable characteristic about Taint's music is that the songs are rarely stuctured in a conventional sense, yet the riffs ebb and flow effortlessly and work a treat in the live setting.

It's an ironic tragedy that as Taint hang up their instruments their compatriots Bullet For My Valentine begin a UK Arena tour. Whereas their awful brand of generic Metallica-wannabe haircut metal rolls on, backed by the syncophatic mainstream metal media, three truly talented induviduals end their journey.

Jack

Vader - Live in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 13th November

After nearly four months, the wait is over. I set off from Rio de Janeiro at 8:30am on a seven hour bus to the large unremarkable interior city of Belo Horizonte in order to get an extreme metal fix, and see some old friends and a new city in the process.

It's remarkable how heavy metal remains so popular here in Brazil, as it's very expensive to be a metalhead, or a fan of foreign music in general, in this country. For example, a pack of strings is three times the price as back home, and an effects pedal I bought a year ago in England is over twice the price here. If you want to buy an instrument that isn't stocked here (quite possibly), you have to pay 60% import tax, plus shipping - a lot of money. This protectionalist economic bloc policy may (or may not, I really don't know much about it in all honesty) have a myriad of advantages in the trade of other goods, but it's undoubtably surpressing musicians here. Then there's the cost of gigs. Unless you're lucky enough to live in a big city in the south of the country, you'll probably have to travel for hours, if not days to see an international act. Even after the expenses incurred by the bus/flight, the gig prices are more than expensive back home - for example, Vader (the band I saw in Belo) played Leeds in March, charging £12 for tickets, yet I paid 50 reais to see them in Brazil, which is over £20. However, most metalheads here justify this by the fact that gigs with international acts are few and far between - you could watch a quality metal band almost every week somewhere in England, whereas Brazilians have to wait sometimes months between shows.

Belo Horizonte is probably the metal capital of Brazil, the equivalent of Birmingham in England. The similarities are apparent - both are large, fairly bland and landlocked industrial cities. It's the place where Brazil's favourite metal sons Sepultura originated, as well as underground legends Sarcófago (whose original singer/guitarist Wanger Lamounier, in a rather bizarre twist, is now an economics professor at the main university in Belo, where my friends are studying). For this reason Belo is not often ignored by international bands touring the country.

Although I've been to many better gigs this year, this one will be remembered fondly nonetheless. Opening were a fairly cringeworthy generic local Black Metal act, who I didn't actually see, given the advice of my Brazilian friend who I went to the show with. Needless to say, a band whose drummer labels himself 'Guardian of the Forest' (in a non-ironic way) puts me off before even hearing their music. Following them were Ragnarok, who played fairly straightforward old-school Norwegian Black Metal, which was enjoyable if only for the fact that it was the first time I'd heard a blastbeat live in 5 months. Taking the stage at 12:30am were headliners Vader, who 27 years into their existence are still going strong. They hammered out some of their finest Eastern-Bloc metal, with plenty from classic album De Profundis (ranked by Terrorizer as the 20th best Death Metal album ever), which mixed well with the more groove-orientated newer stuff. Having played for an hour that was that and my first Brazilian metal gig was over. Kudos to frontman/guitarist Piotr Wiwczarek, who is the only surviving original member of the band and still has a great amount of passion and gusto for his craft - whether you think playing a small club in Belo Horizonte is worth over a quarter of a century of work or not, you've got to admire the dedication, or insanity, depending on your point of view.


Jack

Kylesa - Spiral Shadow

Since my forced migration to the sunny yet metallically challenged climbs of Rio de Janeiro there hasn't been a lot to write about. It's not that bad, but sadly most international acts play São Paolo/Belo Horizonte/Curitiba ahead of Rio. That means travelling the distance from London to Aberdeen just for some good music. So there are no gigs in this city at the moment, and it's very hard to get the latest releases without downloading them or paying £15 postage and waiting 2 weeks. But the release of the new Kylesa album demanded some attention...

After discovering this bunch and much eulogising over seeing the band back in July this year (far too late admittedly) I was pretty excited to hear their new album, their forth full length, and their second album in only two years.

Kylesa are, along with such other psychadelic sludgy metal counterparts as Mastodon, Baroness, Black Tusk and Zoroaster are part of the Georgian scene, which at this rate will probably go down as legendary as the early 80's Bay Area thrash or the late 80's Floridian death metal scene.

The record is brilliant - no filler, packed with an equal weight of heavy trademark grooves and celestial instrumental passages. The production is excellent, and the two drummers are given enough space in the mix to distinguish their amazing interplay. The album owes as much to metal as it does to rock in general - the song Don't Look Back is a potential radio hit, whereas Drop Out showcases both hardcore and stoner influences.

Singer/guitarist Phillip Cope mentioned in a recent interview with Terrorizer that he isn't much of a fan of prog, and that he prefers songs that are more to the point and catchy. This is certainly reflected in the record, and it is usually executed wonderfully, although I'd take issue and say that it would be interesting if a few of the songs, particually the gorgeous album closer, Dust, were carried a bit longer and given a more, erm, epic vibe. This is nit picking essentially, it's a great record.

Hopefully I'll have more to come in time. I'm going to see Polish death metal behemoths Vader the weekend after next, and hopefully I'll find time to give the new Intronaut a spin. Other than that, there are new albums by Morbid Angel, Crowbar, Hate Eternal, Eyehategod, A Perfect Circle, Devin Townsend, Autopsy, Neurosis and Gojira to look forward to in the next 6 months. 2011 looks to be promising already!

Jack