Sonnet XXIX

Let's just get this out of the way right now. The cover art for the new Deafheaven album New Bermuda looks like a clown hit Venom in the face with a cream pie:

All of Spiderman's lame villains are gonna laugh at me

Until I realized that, I couldn't for the life of my figure out what I was supposed to be looking at. I absolutely loved Sunbather's aesthetic. A black metal album with a orange-washed pink cover? That resonated with me, mostly because I like black metal and like wearing pink but also because it said something about Deafheaven and black metal. Black metal has always had this soft, delicate underbelly that contrasted its bleakness and morbidity in purposefully ironic and productive ways. I mean, the best Burzum songs feature Varg plinking and plunking pretty little notes on a synth. Alcest is, at this point, the prettiest shoegaze band in the world. Deafheaven, too, always embraced melody and ambience to help create a larger story. 

That's what made Sunbather so incredible to me (I think it was my second or third favourite record from 2013): its delicacy. Because, really, black metal is fast, loud, aggressive, evil music for big whiny cry babies. You watch George perform, in black jeans and black shirt buttoned all the way to his neck and black boots, and you look at his wide eyes and sneer, and you just know that that dude, like me and you, is a big whiny baby. I mean, the band is named after a line from a Shakespeare sonnet. Literature? That is for sissies.

When NPR initially streamed New Bermuda, I was a bit lukewarm on the album. I listened to it a few times, enough to decide, "I like this," and then waited for the vinyl to be released to buy it and listen to it again. Unfortunately, Criminal Records pushed back the date for the vinyl release for two weeks, so I ended up buying the CD (I'll buy the vinyl when it comes out and gift the CD to Steven probably). I just couldn't not listen to it anymore, and not because I was particularly fond of the first few listens, but because I really wanted to have an opinion about it. More specifically, I wanted to have the opinion that New Bermuda wasn't nearly as good as Sunbather and maybe wasn't even as good as Roads to Judah. 

I am a fool. I have striven for foolishness. My foolery is boundless. I've spent all week listening to the three albums (and also the 2-song version of the demo I have on 7"), and New Bermuda is better than Sunbather, and, interestingly, Roads to Judah might be super boring and unmemorable. Really, it shouldn't matter which album is better, but that's how I often think about things, and it's definitely how a lot of people think about a band's new album, especially when it follows such a massive breakout record like Sunbather. 

New Bermuda is great. George's vocals are a bit grosser and snarlier, the songs are incredibly well-written and feature fascinating build-ups and transitions that demonstrate how much they've matured in the last two years. It's even a heavier album, with the band incorporating more of what you might call traditional metal riffs into the songs. They're not playing the same black metal on New Bermuda as on Sunbather, but it still feels like Deafheaven. It might not even be black metal anymore? Maybe that's what worried me during my first few listens. But black metal is polymorphous, so why wouldn't it be black metal? 

Sunbather is/was a trying record. The cathartic moments of the album are made more cathartic by the amount of time it takes to reach them. It's a long, sprawling album in which the listener is supposed to get dizzy and lost. It's alienating because it's from alienated people. It wears its emotionality like its pink album art. It's intentionally exhausting. 

New Bermuda is far more calculated, using its size menacingly rather than being engulfed by the very size of the space it creates. If Sunbather's vast, empty soundscape with cathartic oases and horizons alike, found its accomplishment in the delaying and denying of any sense of completion, then New Bermuda is an accomplishment of full completion and actualization, in that it seems to be exactly what Deafheaven wanted to create. Everything seems to be in its right place on this record, and it's intensely satisfying. In the most positive way, it is an album that is easy to listen to and to listen to repeatedly. It might not be the depressive force that Sunbather was, but it doesn't need to be that. It needs to be - and is - its own monster. 

Spotify Discover Playlist 2: The Playlistening

I don't care that I just did one. That was last week. We are a forward looking people.

1. The Besnard Lakes - Albatross

That's right! The Polaris-nominated Besnard Lakes. They've been nominated twice, even! You know who has more Polaris victories than The Besnard Lakes? Fucked Up. (In looking through the Polaris nominees/winners, should I be surprised at how many Canadian musical acts I recognize?) This song is fine, but I don't care about it. It's a good song. I'm just not interested.

2. The Sundays - Can't Be Sure

Uh oh. Woman-fronted Britpop? A big voice over jangly, subdued pop music? An absolute delight.

3. Riff Raff - Judo Chop Freestyle

Is trying to be a legitimate rapper a thing Riff Raff does now? What an exhausting thought.

4. Lotus Plaza - Red Oak Way

This is apparently the Deerhunter dude's other band. I think I know what Deerhunter sounds like, but I'm not sure. Spotify seems to be pretty convinced that I solely listen to dream-pop. This is boring.

5. Amen Dunes - Splits are Parted

Not that I wanted to thumbs-down Amen Dunes necessarily, but I think these Spotify Discover things should have a simple yes/no rating system. Wouldn't that make sense? Anyways, I figured out who McMahon sounds like. The dude from Majical Cloudz is/was just doing an Amen Dunes impression. Is Majical Cloudz still a band? I like this Amen Dunes song more than the other one last week. Warble warble warble. I bet people in relationships listen to Amen Dunes together.

6.  Pure X - Wishin' on the Same Star

I cannot stand these vocals at all whatsoever and have to change this very quickly.

7. Faith No More - Sunny Side Up

I have tried for years to like Faith No More. I like plenty of Mike Patton's other projects. I just think that Faith No More might kinda suck. This is like well-written butt rock. Like, classy butt rock. It still sucks, but it sucks without being entirely offensive.

8. Chief Keef ft. Andy Milonakis - Hot Shit

The conversations that must've taken place to make this happen were probably incredible. Fun fact: more than a couple of the really good battles from Grizzlemania 2 are on Milonakis' YouTube channel. 

9. Titus Andronicus - Dimed Out

If you loved Dropkick Murphys, I could see you going apeshit for Titus Andronicus. Or at least I can now, as this is almost certainly the first time I've ever actually listened to this band. No thanks!

10. The War on Drugs - In Reverse

This is another band that I've never actually listened to. I'm looking at the 7:41 timestamp on this song and thinking there's no way I'm going to make it all the way through. This shit is bland. 

11. The Flying Burrito Brothers - Hot Burrito #1

Gram Parsons was so so so so great. That's all I have to say.

12. Gravediggaz - Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide

If you're uninitiated, Gravediggaz was RZA's horrorcore side project. If that sentence gets you excited, congratulations, you're me in high school. 

13. Tobias Jesso, Jr. - Hollywood

At some point, you have to wonder exactly how Spotify puts these playlists together. What is it that I've listened to that would land this song on here? I'm worried that Spotify is going to start culling its Discover playlists for me from the previous week's playlist, and that's not going to end well for anyone. This shit is like whiny Randy Newman. Like, if Randy Newman was in his 20s and got dumped. That's what this is. It also sucks.

14. Jedi Mind Tricks - Hell's Messenger

A few months ago, I tried to listen to Visions of Gandhi. It has not aged well. Vinnie Paz just said, "Your guns go boom boom - my guns go pow pow." He's even bored with himself at this point. This track being under 3 minutes long is its best quality

15. Fleetwood Mac - That's All for Everyone

I should listen to Tusk. This is like a good version of all those bad modern pop songs Spotify made me listen to earlier in this playlist.

16. Pink Floyd - Pigs on the Wing (Part 2)

I only like certain Pink Floyd albums. Well, by certain, I mean all of the ones that came before Dark Side of the Moon. And even then, at this point I'm really only interested in the live version of "Set Your Controls for the Heart of the Sun" from Ummagumma. This Pink Floyd just isn't that interesting.

17. Viktor Vaughn - GMC

This whole album is great. You might have to have a real conversation about where it ranks against Doom's other albums and projects, because it's up there. I mean, I guess it's not even a big deal to say it's the third best behind MM.. Food and Madvillainy, right? 

18. Drug Church - Learning to Speak British

Good timing, as Drug Church's new album just came out/is about to come out? We all know how I feel about Patrick Kindlon and his various projects. Good band.

19. King Geedorah - Fazers

There are multiple songs on this album that say "ft. MF Doom" if you ever doubted MF Doom's commitment. I can't remember what my favourite track from this album is, but this is a good one, too.

20. Nehruviandoom - Intro

Hey how about some more MF Doom? I didn't know about this side project. I wish they would've included a song that wasn't the album intro. Now I'll might never know what this actually sounds like.

21. DJ Esco, Future - Never Gon Lose

For me, listening to Future is just participating in youth culture in a way that seems pretty inauthentic. Mostly because I don't think I enjoy his songs very much.

22. Colin Stetson - The Stars in His Head (Dark Lights Remix)

This guy is a saxophonist/multi-reedist with some fancy schmancy circular breathing technique. This song is kinda like a noise track but with saxophone instead of blown-out guitar manipulation. It's kinda harsh. I think I might be absolutely fucking into this.

23. King Louie - B.O.N.

"I don't do battle rap - tell 'em to battle that," says King Louie. That's because you would get absolutely body-bagged.

24. Shane Carruth - A Young Forest Growing Up Under Your Meadows

I've tried to watch Upstream Color multiple times on Netflix, but the volume is set so low that I can't do it. If this is what the rest of the soundtrack is like, though, maybe I'll just get really into it and never see the movie. It's like some of the softer Deaf Center songs. Love it.

25. Chromatics - I Can Never Be Myself When You're Around

This song would be good in a dark club with some lights and some alcohol and some mild drug use.

26. Susanne Sundfor - Memorial

Norway's biggest export. A big, slow, orchestral pop song that never really reaches dance tempo. I'm for the most part into this.

27. Big Sean - Paradise

I don't necessarily like Big Sean, but I think it would irresponsible of me to not put this into the weekend rotation. 

28. The Microphones - The Moon

I bet people loved this shit when it came out in the early 2000s, right? It certainly wasn't on my radar. I bet people would love this shit now, too. Of all the modern guitar pop Spotify has foisted upon me, this is easily the most interesting. But... I'm already over it.

29. Chastity Belt - Drone

I also have to imagine this being incredibly popular. I might listen to the rest of this album. I think I will.

30. The Go-Betweens - You Can't Say No Forever

Sure, why not more pop music to finish off this playlist? Australia's greatest pop band of all time, says All Music. Sure, why not.

I'm giving this playlist a generous C. Really generous. Do better next time, Spotify.

Short Review of a Spotify Discover Playlist

I finally played one of Spotify's new Discover Weekly playlists. It's tailored to my interests. It's all about me. It even superimposes the text onto a photo of me. Let's see how Spotify did!

1. Eno & Hyde - "Cells & Bells"
Not a bad start. Not a great start. Vocals ruin the song. Admission: I rarely care about non-ambient Eno music, excluding Roxy Music, of course.

2. Youth Lagoon - The Knower
Absolutely fucking not. I get why this band is popular, but it sucks.

3. Dean Blunt - Molly & Aquafina
Whoa! This is the worst shit I've ever heard. Thanks, Spotify!

4. 2 Chainz - El Chapo Jr
Prediction: Spotify will do a good job with rap songs on these. This is a good reminder to add the latest 2 Chainz album to my Spotify.

5. My Bloody Valentine - To Here Knows When
A fine selection. I don't know if it's "deep cut" to pick a song from Loveless, but it's certainly a fine song.

6. The Clientele - Reflections After Jane
Sorry, Dean. Gonna have to snatch that superlative away from ya already. Get your shit together, Spotify.

7. Prefab Sprout - Goodbye Lucille #1
The song title sure seems like an Arrested Development reference, but this is from 1985. Pretty catchy brit-pop/brit-rock. I could see myself listening to a whole album or two from this band. Good job, Spotify!

8. Rush - Jacob's Ladder
Never gonna say no to Rush.

9. Lush - Untogether
One of those shoegaze bands from the 90s who got lost when the 90s ended. What a pretty song.

10. Jeezy - Thug Motivation 101
Need I say more? JEEZY.

11. Future - I Serve the Base
It's funny how divisive Future has become in hip hop. He's really become the scapegoat for oldheads complaining about how hip hop has changed. This song, like most Future songs, should be on any house party dance mix.

12. Twerps - I Don't Mind
I listened to this entire song! Pitchfork says it's the best song on this album. If that's true, that's bad. If it's not true, I wouldn't be surprised because, well, ya know, Pitchfork. I don't know. This song apparently wasn't offensive enough to make me skip it, but I've already forgotten what it sounded like.

13. Wire - Reuters
Picking a song from Pink Flag for Wire is kinda like picking something from Loveless for MBV. No one's mad about it (at all at all at all), but Wire's got a bunch of albums that I could stand to dive into way more. Still, this is a great song.

14. Amen Dunes - Song to the Siren
I don't know, man. A lot of people like Amen Dunes. I'm not sure I'm one of those people. Through Donkey Jaw, though one of the better album titles I've ever seen, never appealed to me much. This is from the new EP, I guess. McMahon warbles too much. He's just so warbly. He also sounds exactly like someone else, but I can't remember who it is. I'm still waiting for something to really make me like this band.

15. Morrissey - Bengali in Platforms
Cool choice from Viva Hate. Spotify is confident about two things: I like trap music, and I like British bands from the 80s and 90s

16. Nine Inch Nails - Ruiner
I used to love NIN so much. Like, so much. I bought bootlegs off eBay. I wanted to be a multi-instrumentalist like Trent Reznor. I obsessed over these records. This was always a favourite from Downward Spiral. The way Reznor buries his vocals in the chorus while the music reaches this really bleak fever pitch? Man. It's great.

17. Real Estate - Green Aisles
I've never listened to this band for a few reasons. Their name is pretty close to Sunny Day Real Estate, so, it's like, why not just listen to Sunny Day Real Estate, one of the best bands of all time. Also, lots of people I'm friends with/associate with via Facebook like this band, and I have zero faith in their taste in music. I'm sorry about that. It's just... you like Youth Lagoon and I bet you like Dean Blunt. That's just how it is. This song, though? Not bad. I'm prolly not gonna listen to anymore songs from them, but I wouldn't avoid them in the future.

18. The KVB - All Around You
Languid, depressive, minor-keyed synth rock, you say? Don't mind if I do. If Matthew isn't already listening to this, he's in for a treat. Are all of their songs this dancy and gothy? I'mma find out. I love it.

19. Grateful Dead - Terrapin Station
I guess listening to Joni Mitchell and Neil Young a bunch is what got this on my Discover Weekly? It's funny listening to a song that I know for so many of my friends in college has to be the blueprint for everything they love. This song is the standard bearer, right?

20. Tears for Fears - Suffer the Children
Never gonna turn down a Tears for Fears song.

21. Tiesto - The Feeling
Haha, not a chance. What the fuck is with the vocals on this song? Next.

22. A Tribe Called Quest - 8 Million Stories
Yes, absolutely. You know who loves Tribe Called Quest? White dudes in college. Well, I mean, I everyone loves them, but they've got the white college dude demographic locked up easy. "Award Tour" was on so many mixes that my friends made in college. Like, it was just that kinda song. And for good reason!

23. This Mortal Coil - Barramundi
It'll End in Tears is such a great album title. This is one of the few tracks from that album that isn't actually a cover song. It's, as far as I can tell, an original from the one-time bassist of Cocteau Twins. It's really, really great. Like, gothic ambient or something. (It even has sound the of waves at the end!) If Simon Raymonde made more music like this, I'd be real interested in a thing like that.

24. Disasterpiece - Detroit
This is from the It Follows soundtrack, a movie that a dozen people actually reached out to me to recommend. Spoiler alert: I never saw it. This song is a good, eerie soundtrack song. "Disasterpiece" is easily one of the worst names for a band (is this even a band?) I've ever heard, though. When I search for that name on All Music, it just shows me it's a Slipknot song, so there's that.

25. Spiritualized - Feel So Sad (Glides and Chimes)
This immediately became my favourite Spiritualized song. It's beautiful. This little synthy scale rising and falling in the background? That simple little riff played over it? Man, I could listen to this song a bunch of times in a row and never even mind. Like, a mixtape of just this song would be perfect for reading and studying.

26. The Egyptian Lover - I Cry (Night After Night)
I would like you to look at this album cover:

Apparently this album, and this dude, are super influential and important, but I've never heard of either. It's electro-funk proto-rap, and goddamn is it great. Spotify bringin' the heat.

27. Pet Shop Boys - "Two Divided by Zero"

I told you Spotify knows I love music from British music from the 80s and 90s.

28. Big Grams - Run For Your Life

I have no idea what to think about this. It's that new Big Boi project that mixes electro-indie and hip hop. I don't know. I feel like it kinda sucks? But maybe it doesn't? Should I listen to the whole EP? I don't know I don't know I don't know.

29. Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers - Someone I Care About

Important proto-punk stuff. Your favourite record store owner's favourite band.

30. Animal Collective - Loch Raven

I don't think I have it in me to all of a sudden start caring about Animal Collective. I listened to Merriweather Post Pavilion in its entirety the other night with a couple friends who love Animal Collective. I didn't give a single shit about anything I heard on that record, and it's their most critically acclaimed. Reading about the album Feels makes me think this song is more of an interlude type thing. Anyways, it's not bad. I'm still not into Animal Collective.

Honestly, I gotta give this an A-/B+, right? This is absolutely something I am going to start doing on a weekly basis (if I have the time for it). 

Fire and Brimdrone

To call Godspeed You! Black Emperor 'cinematic' is, at best, mildly insightful. Everyone who has listened to GY!BE knows what you mean by it, but it doesn't produce any sort of deeper evaluation/introspection of their sound. It's also the most recognizable thing about them: "The car is on fire, and there's no driver at the wheel."

It's also become a dominant trope in movie previews. You get Clint Mansell or Hans Zimmer or someone like that to make a low, pseudo-orchestral soundscape, paste a disembodied voice over it, and you've got goosebump gold. It works so well that, though I now actively and vocally dislike it, I, despite myself, still got giddy when they pulled that exact shit for the Avengers 2 trailer. (It didn't work on me for Batman V Superman, though. Suckers.)

One of the best aspects of post-rock, at least for me, is its suitability as a reading soundtrack. Of course, it doesn't work when some loon is rambling all over the B-side of Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada. Or when you've got a composer's catalogue pulled up on Spotify and all of a sudden you're gone from a symphony to an opera, and you have to break from your reading to click to a new track. I can't read to music with vocals or just voices. It's not that I pay attention to what's being sung/said, it's just that I stop paying attention what I'm reading. My mind drifts into this unproductive, arrested liminal space in between listening and reading wherein I kind of just freeze. 

Something different happened, though, when I first got to "True Stories" on Crimewave's Collection I. I still froze, but instead, all of my attention went immediately to the sample of a wild Southern preacher telling a story of a woman in a spiritual crisis. The preacher, at times unintelligble, due to his accent, the rough recording, and his occasional screaming, spews brimstone from his pulpit in the no-longer-there over a mystical, gleaming, foreboding, weedy, baleful dronescape. Andy Gibbs' composition is pitch perfect. The keys of a synth brighten slightly towards their death in a loop over a groaning roll of bass reverberation with a night's symphony of crickets and cicadas pulsing incessantly, too. All of this fades to the background beautifully underneath the weight of the preacher's sermon.

Even though I know I'll have to stop my reading for eight minutes - or twenty four minutes if I listen to it three times in a row -, I still put on Collection I first when I'm listening to Crimewave while reading. I need to get to "True Stories," so I can experience it. It feels novel while trafficking in a well-worn mechanism. It's a pleasure folded in on itself and then multiplied back out because it's a convention that has been renewed and produced in such a way that both recalls all of the previous ways you've enjoyed it while forcing you to imagine yourself sitting in the pews of that church. You're multidimensional, multitemporal, when it's playing. The preacher's story ends:

"When she looked me in the face and said, 'For Christ's sake leave me alone," ladies and gentleman, she wasn't just talkin' to me. She was talkin' to the Lord. And on the first day of January, he just left her alone. That's all God have to do to send you to Hell 'fore you even have an invitation: just take his hand off ya - that's all! - and drop you into Hell..."

I like to imagine this preacher looks like a tin-type of a horrible Howard Finster. He has a gold tooth, and his smile doesn't pull towards his eyes but rather sets his teeth on edge and cracks his lips. He's mostly made up of grease and Revelations. He has the shiniest shoes in church and drinks whiskey cheaper than his poor parishioners drink. He also reaches out from the no-longer-there and drags me down into the never-is-here. Maybe he allows me to convert for eight minutes, only to backslide when the track changes. 

But maybe none of it would affect me without Andy Gibbs' composition undergirding it all. Maybe all I've done is allowed my thoughts to find the drone gods for those eight minutes and baptize myself in their low end sibilation. Praise be.

Grief's Incestual Power

I think the three pieces of advice I'd like to give to my previous selves would be:

1. Retake the GRE before applying for PhD programs

2. Don't quit playing basketball

3. Don't get annoyed when people say the music you like all sounds the same.

Go ahead and toss out 1 and 2 because who cares and then toss out 3 because whooooooo fuuuuuuucking caaaaaaares. The "every song sounds the same argument" comes from Phish fans and pop fans and all sorts of music fans who like music that sounds exactly identical to all of its iterations, and that's fine! It makes sense that bands have established sounds, and it makes sense that you'd like bands that sound like bands you like. Sure, diversify your otic consumption by all means, but let's have a little honesty with our sweet, sweet jams. (But, seriously, Phish fans, they stopped writing new music 30 years ago.)

Younger, angsty me and not-as-young-but-still-slightly-angsty me: just let it slide, man. It's a non-starter of an aesthetic discussion. It's a judgment so basic it comes with a mocha frappe wrapped in an Etsy-bought scarf. It just doesn't matter.

Just like it doesn't matter that Windhand and Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats both have new albums that don't really take any sonic risks. A (more) cynic(al person) might listen to each album and think, "Yes. That is what those bands sound like." It's not necessarily wrong, but it does sell short each record.

It's also fitting for me that both bands released new albums within a few weeks of one another, because I got into both bands at about the same exact time back in 2013. Windhand had just released Soma and that split with Cough - I ordered their self-titled tape around the same time, too. Uncle Acid released Mind Control sometime near then, and I fiiiinally gave in to Steven's demand to listen to them. I 100% refused to listen to Blood Lust when it first came out because of their god awful name. It's an unwieldy travesty of a name. I don't even know what half of the name is worse, but since I've taken to just calling them "Uncle Acid," I guess it's the second half; though, for the record, I think "Uncle Acid" is also a shitty band name. 

Tragically bad name notwithstanding, both Mind Control and Soma were in heavy rotation by the end of 2013. Mind Control was a killer record for driving around Atlanta more or less impaired, and I could just flip the sides of Soma over and over in my room... more or less impaired. I don't remember if either record ended up in my Best Of 2013 list, but who gives a shit about that?

Windhand has always sounded like Electric Wizard, yet they've always avoided sounding redundant. Like, I always thought Electric Wizard was so monolithic that you didn't need another one, but then Windhand showed up and proved that they're absolutely needed to be another. I mean, if Eyehategod and Grief and Noothgrush could all co-exist at the same time, then why not Electric Wizard and Windhand? My working theory is that Windhand just stole Electric Wizard's powers, seeing as how EW has only released one album since 2010, Time to Die, and I don't even remember a single specific song on that album. If the next EW album is a return to form and Windhand stumbles on their next release, I'll take that as proof that I'm correct.

Uncle Acid's sound isn't a carbon copy of another band, but their influences are all over their music. Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, Pentagram, The Beatles, the occult, the 60s and 70s in general. None of its redundant or reductive, but it's not exactly genre-defying or genre-defining either.

So it doesn't really matter that Grief's Infernal Flower and The Night Creeper sound, well, like they're supposed to. Windhand's record is slightly mellower and almost feels catchy at times. Uncle Acid upped the cult 'n roll just enough to keep things moving. Windhand's a pleasant dirge-fest, with Dorthia's vocals floating over the dragging riffs in a way one might call soothing. Uncle Acid mixed in more 70s solos and freaked out the vocals a bit. At the moment, I actually might like both the new albums more than the previous efforts from both bands, but that could easily change a few months down the line once I go back and listen to Soma or Mind Control or any of the other releases. 

Riffs and Spliffs

Doom, stoner rock, sludge, and all the mixing and matching within those subgenres have always produced unique bands. They've also always produced bands that want nothing more than to sound like those bands. As someone who's been a fan of those types of music for a majority of my life, I've never minded that fact. For the longest time, it seemed like you could count the bands from those genres on your fingers and toes. Queens of the Stone Age certainly changed things, bringing new interest to this particular sound, and, admittedly, those genres could be accused of being watered down (at least a few years ago, certainly), but, again, it never bothered me. Except Queens of the Stone Age. That band bothers me. Listen to Kyuss, poseurs. Just kidding. Do whatever you want. 

One of those things you should do, though, is listen to these records. At the very least, you should listen to "Pusher Man" from The Night Creeper, because good goddamn, the audacity of it all.

Loc La Familia

How many records has Lockin Out released over the last two years? Seven. Well, technically six. We'll get to that later, though. That might sound insignificant, but Greg Mental & Co. only released five between 2009 and 2013. That's 120% increase in releases! And, really, it's not like LOC ever released music prodigiously - even from '02 to '06 -, but the impact of each release has always far outweighed the sum total of the releases themselves. 

At least, that's how it used to be. This is the label that spawned Mental and Righteous Jams, two bands who, when active, were bigger than any other band in the scene; introduced Cold World to the... world; saw Justice transform into a group that did early 90s Bad Brains better than early 90s Bad Brains; and even put out a Terror LP. I haven't even mentioned motherfuckin' Crunch Time, Jaguarz (jungle jaaaaaamz), Lion of Judah, Dumptruck, Look Alive (forever underappreciated), Stop and Think (Both Demos goin' for like $150 on Discogs - I got my retirement fund set up), Rampage, or RZL DZL, the greatest band of all time. Look at that paragraph full of band names. That was the fuckin' LOC roster in the early 2000s. Are you fucking kidding me? That shit's Bill & Ted. There's so much cool ass vibery emanating from that paragraph that your high school's quarterback and head cheerleader are jealous. Cady Heron would turn her back on her true friends for these kids. God damn.

Lockin Out, for me, will always be that cool. Those bands were our avenue to a pocket of hardcore that seemed to hover above the rest of the scene. We wore the shirts, we low-skanked like "Sike!" was on a perpetual loop in our ears, we turned shit we heard on the records into inside jokes (the amount of times we just fucking quoted shit Greg Mental said on the Live on WERS set is so ludicrous that I'd be embarrassed if it wasn't so fucking awesome). I even went so far as to get the fuckin' label's logo tattooed on me. Before (and during and after), 80s hardcore, specifically Revelation Records bands like Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today, Judge, Bold, Chain of Strength, and Warzone, was a way to elevate ourselves in the scene, because - face it - even things you enjoy/consume for the purest reasons will always have social consequences both positive and negative. We loved it all sincerely, but we knew the social capital that came along with wearing certain shirts, buying certain records, playing and singing along to the right covers. That shit was our style. We, at least we thought, embodied the youth crew movement, the youth crew revival movement, and the LOC movement. It spoke to us. It also made us feel cool(er than everyone else.)

That's what I see in the mirror

I have no idea how Lockin Out registers in the scene anymore. When I went to see Turnstile in April, I saw one other kid wearing a Lockin Out shirt. I didn't see any at Wrecking Ball. I mean, the swag is still selling out immediately on the website, but who's buying it? Young kids who love the current LOC roster or old dudes like me? I don't know. I don't really go to hardcore shows anymore. I don't even know where they happen. I could find out, but eh, I apparently can't be bothered. For the most part, I've left the scene, so to reconcile myself to that fact, I've decided that some parts of the scene must've left with me.

Fortunately, LOC hasn't left me without a dope rhythm to skank to, though the skankin' is confined to the ivory tower that is my bedroom. Maybe the next time Greg Mental releases something, I'll ask after the resurgence of the label over the last couple years. Maybe I'll ask if he remembers when he stole my girlfriend at Magic Fest 2k4. Son of a bitch.

So how about those six (seven!) releases I mentioned all the way up there in the first line of the post? Let's evaluate 'em!

Consolation Prize - Consolation Prize 7"
Consolation Prize's bandcamp hasn't updated since 2013, when they posted two singles from this 7". That's not a great sign, but, who knows, maybe they're still rippin' through Justice-styled mid-paced hardcore in Philly. I've liked this record a lot, because it sounds a lot like Justice. Escapades era Justice. The best fucking Justice. That fuckin' record? I dunno, man. That's a record that always makes me think about how much people who don't dig hardcore are missin' out on truly great art. Consolation Prize clearly agrees/agreed.

Snail's Pace - Demo 2014 cassette
Another band whose tenure might've been as short as the cassette they released. This band always made sense alongside the benchmob releases of the early '00s: not in the starting squad, but definitely bringin' somethin' to the court when it's time. For better or worse, the best way to describe their sound is to say they sound like a Lockin Out band. That's a sweet thing, because LOC hadn't put out a band that had that early 00's vibe in years. On the other hand, it's a bit of a reductive way to review something, but I think it's apt.

Fiddlehead - Out of the Bloom 7" (and cassette!)
Lockin Out ended 2014 with a little teaser tape from Boston's Fiddlehead. I love teaser tapes, by the way. I mean, I get that they function exactly the same as 7" and CD singles, but I dunno, they get me excited. This recorded is fucking good. I tried to get Brian into them, but I think Brian has 100% stopped listening to anything I recommend to him. They sound like Fugazi and Jawbreaker, and he loves those bands. Fiddlehead is one of those bands that I'm surprised more of my friends don't talk about. They have appeal. It would make so much sense for them to tour with Give. I love this record. (I'm furious I didn't get the clear green vinyl, by the way. I guess at least 300 people love them, too.)

The Flex - Don't Bother with the World 7"
This record is so fast and gnarly that it's going to be done before I finish writing this review. The fuckin' vocalist calls himself The Boots. Did you read that? The Boots. That's his fuckin' listed name. Three of the other four dudes have names that end with "y" (what happened, Egan?). It's blasting British hawdcoah that stomps around in Doc Martens grinning and spitting at everyone. It's great!

Build and Destroy - Demo 2010 7"
Some dude uploaded the whole 9 minutes here, so you can jam it real quick before you rush to order it before it sells out. Will & Haroun's other band. Part of me hates Build and Destroy because it kinda seems like RZL DZL got put on hold for it, but that part of me is petty and childish. This shit picks you up and slaps you around for even actin' like that. It's like RZL DZL playing Trapped Under Ice or something; a bunch of attitude and riffs but with the slightest quirkiness that makes it so much endearing. The end of "Suspended in Time" will make you throw your record player out the window.

Build and Destroy - Map of the Heavens 7"
And, like, thank gawd Greg Mental gave us two B&D rekkids at once. The fuck was I gonna do with just the demo to bedroom mosh to? To quote QP: "this shit just get more ridiculous every round." I thought the re-released demo was outta control, but at this point they're just fuckin' with everyone. Vogel doin' guest vocals on the opening track? Yup. Jason Tarpey from Iron Age goin' 100% Jacob's Dream on the closer over the most ridiculous riff of the year? Duh. Oh what's that? That riff isn't even the most ridiculous riff on the record? Get the fuck outta here. LOC till I fuckin' cease.

Slack in impact? LOC might've just released four of the best hardcore records of 2015. Now if we could only get that new RZL DZL and that Red Death we've been hearin' about...