Goatcraft – Yersinia Pestis
Imagine if Chopin’s nocturnes were as dark and foreboding as
the word “nocturnes” sounds. Or imagine if chamber music actually came from
some haunted-ass chambers.
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| This is what Chopin actually looked like |
Severed + Said – Pyrrhic Fortunes
This album should be the soundtrack to the second season of Stranger Things. Makes you wanna ride
bikes with your friends straight into a hellmouth.
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| Caress me with your darkness, baby. |
Young Thug – Slime Season 3
One of the most endearing things about Thugger Thugger is
that he doesn’t care about rhyming or pronunciation. For me, he’s too fun to
hate.
Hammock – Everything and Nothing
The saccharine pathos of Hammock’s new album is cloying and
nauseating. Maybe they thought Sleepover
Series was too grim and needed to readjust. *Bzzt* Wrong!
Woven In – New City, No Money
Perfect record for all those times you wanna hit the beach
and catch some tasty waves but you can’t forget that Ian Curtis is dead.
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| Surf your sadness |
Gucci Mane – Everybody Looking
Guwop’s music is secondary to the Guwop Myth. Doesn’t
matter, though, because this album knocks front to back. GOT A MAYBACH I CALL
IT PAYBACK.
Krimewatch – Demo tape
Krimewatch mixes GISM with Warzone to produce five hardcore
ragers focused on so-called friends and class warfare. Either join the circle
pit or get pitted!
Red Death – Deterrence
Two-song heater that requires oven mitts to flip on your
turntable. Politically charged songs a la early 90s crossover. Only downside:
five minutes ain’t enough.
Sophie Hutchings – Wide Asleep
At times powerful, at times nondescript, Hutchings’ latest
album possesses moments of breathtaking neoclassical ambience but fails to
engage the audience from start to finish.
Ascend/Descend – Murdock Street
A fast, smart hardcore record featuring members of American
Nightmare that I can’t connect with. Is it me? Is it the record? Why gahd why!
Asphalt Graves – The New Primitive
Death metal for hardcore kids made by folks from metal bands
with large hardcore-kid fan bases. It’s better than Black Dahlia Murder or
Misery Index!
Numenorean – Home
A less shoegazy Deafheaven with excellent instrumentation
and songwriting. Despair, Loneliness, and Sadness walk into a bar but the bar
is just a sprawling emptiness.
Tides of Sulfur – Extinction Curse
Sludge from South Wales that sounds like it dredged the
entire Atlantic Ocean floor to find all of humanity’s most damning atrocities
committed against nature.
Tim Hecker – Love Streams
Hecker digitizes, manipulates, reprocesses, and reproduces
the feelings of becoming one of the atoms of colour in a cotton candy sky over
a world afire.
Zeal & Ardor – Devil is Fine
Mixing slave spirituals, black metal, and the devil is an inexact
craft. When it bubbles (“Blood in the River”), it is soul-shaking. Uneven but
innovative.
Blut Aus Nord / Ævangelist – Codex
Obscura Nomina
Ævangelist’s technical, spatial black metal is better than Blut Aus
Nord’s creepy industrial black metal, but this split doesn’t demand more than a
couple listens.
Field Mouse – Episodic
The playful, reflective indiemo-pop of Hold Still Life gives way to a jauntier 90s alternative revivalism
that doesn’t do justice to Rachel Browne’s plaintive vocals.
Russian Circles – Guidance
Biz. As. Uge. Riffs? Definitely. Atmosphere? Absolutely.
Stunning instrumentation? You know it. Oh, some more riffs? Yup. What’s this…
even more riffs? Oh hell yeah.
Ian William Craig – Centres
Imagine Tim Hecker making feedbacked love to Sigur Ros and
then that lovechild getting really into tape manipulation and noise and also the
baby’s Canadian.
Mathias Grassow – Wisdom of Fate
Two hours of creating space from non-space, of filling up every
infinitesimal moment with drifting modulation and towering textures. We are one
with we. Namaste.
Creative Adult – Fear of Life
Kinda like with Psychic
Mess, the couple great songs (“Heal,”
“Know How”) are genre-smashing. The other songs are good, of course, but can’t
measure up.
Pallbearer – Fear and Fury
Peter Steele never died, he just transformed into Brett
Campbell. Original track? Rad. Sabbath cover? Fine (Mob Rules is trash). Type O Negative cover? Ev-uh-ree-theeng.
The KVB - …of Desire
Find the darkest spot in the sweatiest goth club and start
moving your sexy body until you burst into the shimmering glitterball you really
are.
Minor Victories – Minor Victories
Shocking development: members of bands (Mogwai, Slowdive)
that play beautifully despondent and cruelly gorgeous music form new band doing
same! If you can believe it.
Dinosaur, Jr. – Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not
After five listens, all I’ve got is that this is significantly
better than I Bet On Sky but not in
the same ballpark as Farm.
