Halfway Point
Well, we made it. We’re halfway through 2009. This has been a strange year for me, and I think my all-over-the-place listening habits may reflect that. As I have in previous years, however, it is time to run down my favourite releases of 2009 so far. It’s been a pretty slow year so far for me (as noted by the fact that I managed to take time to reacquaint myself with a slew of classic punk records in the midst of keeping on top of new stuff) but there’s still a pretty nice selection of ace-quality music that came out in the first half of the year (in absolutely no particular order):
Sunn O))) – Monoliths & Dimensions
Drone metal overlords Sunn O))) return after their last proper full length (2005’s terrifyingly dark Black One) with another set of dense, punishing, fog-shrouded soundtracks to your worst nightmares. The twist on this outing, and what makes it so remarkable, is the group’s decision to incorporate a broader range of musical styles, drifting from their own trademark sounds into hazy, spiraling psychedelia at the drop of a hat toward the album’s monumental finale. Where Black One was a harrowing listening experience that sounded as though it had been recorded in the deepest depths of Hell, Monoliths shows them progressing through new territory, exploring new sounds, and vastly expanding their oeuvre to include more of their various influences. Without much hesitation, I’d call this my favourite album of the year so far, hands down.
The Horrors – Primary Colours
Hands up anyone who saw this coming. Anyone? No? Seriously, who in their right minds expected the gothy Tim Burton extras in garage punk band the Horrors to wind up releasing a lush, shoegaze-influenced album as the follow-up to their middling, gimmicky debut? Primary Colours could have been released under a completely different band name, and I likely would have never noticed. This is a great example of a totally changed band. Gone are the squealing Hammond organs and punk snarl, replaced by dense layers of reverbed guitar and…well the vocals didn’t change too much, I suppose. Still, though, this shows a band that desperately needed to grow up doing so well before I think anyone expected them to.
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Phoenix haven’t had a whole lot of trouble winning me over in the past. Their music is just typically fun, upbeat, indie pop with roots held firmly in the radio-friendly music of the 70s and 80s. Not a whole lot of problems in that mix. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix continues this trend, more or less, without veering off into any territory that could detract from their syrupy-sweet sound. If you’re looking for a ridiculously catchy, fun-filled indie pop album, then look no further. It’s not likely to get much better than this one for the year. It would be nice to be proven wrong on that, but it doesn’t seem terribly likely in all honesty.
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
Now I will be the first to tell you that the whole “shoegaze revival” thing is starting to get a little bit ridiculous. That said, however, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart’s self-titled LP is one of those albums that just kind of gets the whole thing right. A mix of shoegaze’s ethereal, reverb-soaked sound and the lo-fi abrasiveness of more obscure gazers like Black Tambourine (whom I just discovered this year, thanks to similar comparisons made on other websites), The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart may have the hype machine fueling their rise to indie pop stardom, but when the music’s this good, it’s hard to begrudge them that limelight.
Wavves – Wavvves
This album is so sunny and fun that it makes me want to dance around my room like an idiot. Very few albums do that to me. Wavves is the (formerly, as he now tours with a regular drummer) one-man project of Nathan Williams, who cranks out the fun on his second full-length like there’s no tomorrow. The sound is something like what might happen if current lo-fi “it” bands like Times New Viking took on the sun-soaked, beach-loving pop of the Beach Boys and channeled it through mid-80s So-Cal punk rock. Put simply: it’s incredibly stupid fun.
Wolves In The Throne Room – Black Cascade
From sunny pop/punk psychedelia to murky, intense American black metal. Like I said, it’s been a weird year for me. Wolves In The Throne Room had established themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the USBM scene when they released 2007’s Two Hunters, and on their latest LP, they cement their status as one of the big players in American black metal, all the while continuing to expand their sound beyond black metal’s relatively strict confines. The music is atmospheric, densely layered, and shrouded in a thick fog that makes all the elements of each track sound as though they’re fighting and clawing to be heard. This one is definitely worthy of making an appearance on anyone’s year-end “Best Metal Releases” list.
Kylesa – Static Tensions
Kylesa’s dual-drummer attack is one of few that I’ve ever heard recorded the way it should be. With each drummer taking up their own stereo channel, much of Static Tensions feels like a percussive assault that just doesn’t let up over the course of its playtime. Couple that with the band’s shared vocal duties and crushing riffs, and each track on the album feels fresh and unique. Not once have I ever felt bored by this album. Without a doubt, Static Tensions deserves a great deal more attention than I’ve noticed it getting. It’s relentless, monolithic sludge metal that deserves to be recognized as one of the year’s strongest, most consistently enjoyable releases.
Sonic Youth – The Eternal
What’s with all the mediocre reviews being handed to this album? I mean, what are people actually expecting from Sonic Youth so late in their game? This is their sixteenth studio album, not counting all those left-field experimental SYR releases. Considering the members are at an age now that makes their band name almost hilarious, and have been doing this for so long that they’ve seen bands they directly influenced form, break up, and then reunite, can we not see The Eternal for its own staggering merits? As far as I’m concerned this record marks the first time they have successfully married their later-years mellowness with the rabid noise rock of their early career, and their earlier Geffen material. It is taking the three major pieces of the Sonic Youth puzzle, and putting them together to create their strongest release since Murray Street. So where’s the problem? Don’t believe the press until you’ve heard the album for yourself.
Japandroids – Post-Nothing
Two piece band from Canada? If you’re like me, your first thought was “Uh oh, the kids who really liked Death From Above 1979 are getting signed now” and promptly dismissed them. Of course, that would mean also that, like me, you’re incredibly dumb. I was forced to swallow my words the first time I put on Post-Nothing. True, there are moments here that I sometimes feel they may be channeling DFA79 just a little bit (mostly in the vocal delivery), but this is a totally different band in just about every way. Japandroids seem more concerned with making music that’s just plain fun about things that are also just plain fun (drinking, partying, girls), and it works. Like they say in “Young Hearts Spark Fire”: “I don’t wanna worry about dying / I just wanna worry about sunshine and girls”. I think we can all relate to that.
Dinosaur Jr. – Farm
Who knew the Dinosaur Jr. reunion would turn out this well? I assumed, like many others, that 2007’s reunion album Beyond was a fluke. It was a pretty alright album, and one of few reunion albums that actually worked out well. I just sort of figured that if they even made it to another album after that, it would be as terrible as the half-hearted trash that Mascis was turning out under the Dinosaur Jr name toward the end of its initial run. Imagine my surprise when Farm turned out to be one of 2009’s best rock albums. And “rock” is definitely the right word for this. The face-melting J. Mascis guitar solos are in full effect here, and it all just takes me back to the first time I heard the band. I was about 9 years old, poking around a cousin’s CD collection and found the “Just Like Heaven” EP tucked away in some old hardcore albums. I knew (and loved) the Cure track already, so I was pretty excited to hear this new version. I was (and still am whenever I put it on) completely blown away. It remains one of my favourite cover songs of all time. Hearing Farm for the first time took me back to that moment, and I felt like I was discovering an old favourite all over again. Welcome back, guys.
Future Of The Left – Travels With Myself And Another
I never really took the time to familiarize myself with McLusky. I’m working on that now, though, having heard this album just yesterday and falling completely in love with it. It seems to veer wildly between straight-ahead anthemic hardcore and Scratch Acid-style art punk, but winds up just sounding like an insane, driving rock album. If you want something to drive down the street shaking your fist and smoking a pack of cigarettes to on your way to a seedy basement bar to start a fight, then this might be the album for you.
Shogun Kunitoki – Vinonaamakasio
Shogun Kunitoki’s 2006 album Tasankokaiku was one of those really strange accidental discoveries for me that I ended up being insanely happy to have made. It’s sad that I am the only one I know who really took to their droning, hypnotic electronic sounds, because that album’s follow-up Vinonaamakasio is a vast improvement. It’s a bit more melodic, and a bit of a “rock” affair at times, while continuing down their winding ambient paths at other times. Get on top of this one, because I can guarantee that it will go down as one of 2009’s most under-appreciated albums otherwise.
This is actually almost entirely because I bought a Bauhaus T-shirt and suddenly felt the need to listen to “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” afterward. Additionally, it seems to mostly be the first half of this disc that I enjoy the most, save for their dreadful cover of T. Rex’s “Telegram Sam”. “Double Dare”, “In The Flat Field”, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”, “Stigmata Martyr”… The first half just rages up until that T. Rex cover with so much brooding attitude that it’s a wonder anyone can listen to it without feeling like going out and picking a fight with a vampire.
Another compilation. In this case, probably the most underrated of all the Joy Division compilations I’ve heard. Permanent tends to get pushed aside in favour of Substance a lot, which I’ve always disagreed with. Substance showcases the rougher, more punk-influenced Joy Division with dashes of their startling pop sensibilities added to sweeten the load for inexperienced listeners. Permanent, on the other hand, gathers what could arguably be the band’s most accessible material onto a single disc, though with a pointless and unnecessary remix of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” tacked onto the end. This album has everything I could possibly want, short of making my own Joy Division mixed tapes; “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, “Transmission”, “She’s Lost Control”, “Shadowplay”, “Dead Souls”, “Atmosphere”, and pretty much every Joy Division track that I’d count among my favourites. I have always recommended this as an ideal starting place for people who are curious about Joy Division, and will continue to do so. Much like Bauhaus’ Volume One, this one seems to be the disc I turn to most often when I feel like listening to this band.
I can’t explain why, but this is by far and away my most favourite Hot Water Music album. Lately I’ve been turning to it a lot specifically for “Remedy”, “I Was On A Mountain” and “Trusty Chords”. For some reason those first three tracks on the album just hit me more than anything else on it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the entire album is great–hence my reasoning in calling it my favourite Hot Water Music album, you see–but that opening trio floors me every time. They’re the perfect mix of everything I love about HWM: aggression, melody, and Chuck Ragan’s poetic, damaged vocals. A great album by a great band (who is also a great loss to the punk rock community; a trio of greatness).
I seem to be in a nostalgic mood as of late, revisiting things like At The Drive-In’s simultaneous breakthrough and swansong. This album came out when I was in high school and changed my fucking life (expect a “Records That Changed My Life” feature on it at some point when I have the time). The manic energy and power here is nearly untouchable, and imagining the live clips I’ve watched of them just makes me wish that much more that I’d had a chance to see them live. What gets me about this record, though, is the way no one can ever seem to agree on what the best track on it is. Everyone always seems to have a different opinion. Personally, my vote goes to “Enfilade” and it’s plodding drum-machine verses and insanely powerful, driving choruses. This could stand among my favourite songs from that period of my life, and perhaps of all time. The whole record is equally as good, but that song in particular has always stood out to me.
Continuing with the nostalgia a bit here, sort of. This album is only a few years old, but I still listen to it when I feel like revisiting a different place and time in my mind. Whenever I hear this album, it’s 2004, I live in Hamilton, Ontario, and life is actually pretty okay for a change. With the exception of “Black History Month” (don’t ask, I just really dislike that song and don’t think it belongs on this album) this album has always been near-perfect to me. It’s pummeling sound just drives your head straight into the ground and then stomps all over it. It’s pretty widely-known at this point that they said their sound was the result of wanting to sound like a herd of elephants stampeding through your living room, and I still say there couldn’t be a more accurate description of what listening to this album is like. It’s like a break-up album for noise-rock kids.
I can understand why some people wouldn’t enjoy this. It veers back and forth between walls-of-sound shoegaze and post-New Order electro pop pretty often, and all throughout the vocals pepper the mix with some admittedly awful lyrics. That said, however, if you enjoy the modern wave of My Bloody Valentine worshipers armed with pedal boards and reverb-soaked vocals, then Ceremony probably has a few things to offer you. For starters, as I said, they subscribe to shoegaze outfits like MBV or the Jesus and Mary Chain as much as they delve into the world of 80s electro pop like New Order or Depeche Mode. Given that somewhat eclectic mix, the end result is an album that can be immensely enjoyable for someone with wildly varied tastes (like myself) who can manage to ignore the somewhat trite, cliche-ridden lyrics.
A Place To Bury Strangers is another of those bands who seems to get lumped into this shoegaze revival that we’ve been going through over the past couple of years. The thing that, to me, sets them apart from most of their peers, however, is the reckless abandon that seems to permeate most of their songs. Their self-titled debut LP is loud and abrasive, but also soft and delicate. They seem to be one of the better groups in this little revivalist genre. “To Fix The Gash In Your Head”, “Don’t Think Lover”, and “I Know I’ll See You” have been some fairly standard go-to tracks for me lately, but the entire album is worth looking into.
Anyone reading who talks to me in real life has likely heard me mention this band at least once in the past three or four months. Throughout most of January and pretty much all of February, I was utterly obsessed with this album. So much so, that I considered going back and revising my
It’s difficult for me to accurately recount the immense influence that Erick “Lux Interior” Purkhiser, vocalist for the Cramps, has had on my life. At the age of 14, I was given a copy of the Epitaph Records compilation Punk-O-Rama III. The twelfth track on that otherwise bland compilation changed my life. The Cramps’ manic, surf-rock-on-speed “Haulass Hyena” was like nothing I’d ever heard before. It was insane, put simply. Vocals were permeated by the helium-pitched laughter of what I can only imagine was the most ridiculous, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth-inspired cartoon hyena of all time. The guitars were like Dick Dale or the Ventures jamming with the Ramones. The drums were a primitive, stomping mess. There was no bass. I had no idea what to make of it, but I loved it all the same. Within a matter of weeks, I had stumbled upon their IRS Records compilation Bad Music For Bad People. The album’s vibrant yellow cover, complete with its iconic, grinning ghoul with sky-high hair and a tattered jacket (collar up, of course) was, again, unlike anything I’d ever seen. It was so garish, obnoxious and just flat-out campy that I instantly knew I would love this band, regardless of the fact that I’d yet to hear a single song of theirs, save for “Haulass.”