bITS 'N CHUNKS
Well, golly friends would you look at that - 2019 already! I'm not quite ready yet because I still have a little leftover biz from 2018 that I didn't quite get to. I'm hoping that if I do it now, I can still count it for last year. Like a fresh haircut, we don't really comment on new things until it's been 2 weeks at least. Right? Right.
Woven In's 2018 release Razzmatazz is that leftover biz. This album is so worth talking about that I regret not having my isht together long enough to do so. The last time I spoke about Woven In we were chatting aboutBossa Blanca -- at that point, the project was already easing away from the melancholic surf sounds found on Highs and Ultra Lows and previous EPs. Razzmatazz sees Woven In comfortably in low-fi darkwave dance mode although the retro beachy elements are still there. It's just that the beach has closed up for good and we're just reminiscing on it at this point. Mariah Fortune keeps up the themes of isolation and its accompanying loneliness and lost angst, but each song creates its own atmosphere here. Considering that most of the album is instrumental, that's something pretty fine right there. There's the freak out of "Gunmetal", the not-that-distant, relatable real life pain of "Hooptie" and "Jingle", the call out of "They Don't Want You to Live" (can a song with no words call anyone out? Yes.) It's a very personal album, emotive and vulnerable like Ultra Lows with the cool sweep of Bossa Blanca, the definition of a transition. Quiet, wordless like keeping a secret or getting ready to scream -- later. When a band changes their signature sound up, I always think, "maybe this won't be my bag." It almost wasn't. But 2018 has shown me that I'll cry AND dance to anything. Count nothing out. Do yourself a favor.
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Well, Haken graced us with a new album this year - something I meant to talk about well before the concert I attended back in November, but well. Perhaps my life is a shambles. I've seen a lot of descriptions of this album as "djent" but at this point I feel like that term is so far removed from its origins (it's basically an early metal meme to describe something as Meshuggah-esque) that it doesn't have a ton of pull for me anymore. It definitely doesn't describe too much outside of a very niche part of the progressive community overall. So, what does this album sound like? Well... to me I'd say late period The Mars Volta, thematically and musically. There's probably far less saxophone but especially with the guitar texture and landscapes, it's there. Haken has always sounded a little retro to me, but here their signature sound is best on display with single "The Good Doctor" and from there it gets... well, different. Let's talk about it, though. Why does prog rock like the Crazy tropes so much? Well, humanity is complex, from our social interactions to our individual motivations, and nothing encapsulates that better than the mysteries of the human brain. Perfect for a subgenre that itself is complex and often concerned with cerebral things. It's a personal topic for me as someone coping with mental illness however successfully or unsuccessful, and I suppose that's at least part of the reason I am drawn to prog. The feeling that I don't have to pretend to care about mundane topics like boys, girls, money, or politics. I feel like prog is at it's best when it's prohibitively complex and boy does prog enjoy talking about "craziness". The only thing more interesting than the human brain functioning is when it ceases to function normally and all sorts of nightmares commence. It can be a little navel gaze (see Mars Volta again) or it can be expansive and humanizing (late period Rush). For Haken, mental wellness -- or rather, unwellness -- makes a thrilling topic and an overreaching story line. But one that veers on a little... corny for them. Let's talk about that for a second because I don't mean the version of corny that equals wack or cringe. I'm talking about something that has the whiff of regular. A twice told tale coming in for a third time. Why now? Because it's a popular trope of the genre so we have to? The true concept of Vector is mysterious, but it can be surmised that a lot of song elements are meant to connect back to previous albums. It's heavily hinted that "The Good Doctor" is a direct sequel to the infectious "The Cockroach King"; if that's the case, then Vector surely reveals who the cockroach king and his victims truly are, right? Right? Well. No! Rather, it's hard to say. There could be role reversal at play, so not a straightforward example at all. Maybe we've even been reading things wrong the whole time. Once we get deeper into the album, things take a turn for Cuckoo's Nest and we explore more of what's going on in this person's psyche. By the time we hit "Puzzle Box" and "Veil", it's established that we ain't getting any clear cut answers this week. That's a tough pill to go down, but that sort of obsession and nerdery is a commodity in this community. So, is it good? Yes. It's more likely to clear your skin than clear anything else up. The best Haken album? Not really. At 44 minutes and 7 songs, there was room for a little extra here without dropping into excess. The songs are great but thematically it just feels like we're going through the motions of doing it just to do it. There's better ways to go about this and I'm confident Haken will in the future, this one's just a compromise...
Gang, it's time for concert season once again!
... Except I've already been to all the shows I'm tryna go to this year with the exception of a potential new year's eve bash. My Shows About Town feature is pretty consistent, but for the latter half of this year I've (to be blunt) had my shit rocked repeatedly by the ups and downs of life and depression. So I haven't felt like it! So, rather than a thorough concert review, here's a speed run of the two biggest shows I hit up in good ol' Music City.
You know, gang, I like metal and I like movies. That much should be evident if you read any of my writing, follow my social media, know me as a person, and so on.
I’m always pondering ways to reach out to my fellow metalheads and commiserate, but most importantly combine our interests in productive ways. As it turns out, one of the prerequisites to metal fandom is… an enjoyment of film. Shocker! Specifically, we tend to lean towards scary film. So for Halloween, I thought I wanted to do a list of metal horror films for your headbangin’ souls. Then, the project got… big. Metal infects everything in my life (like goth, only less so) and I thought, why do I have to stick to horror movies? Why can’t it just be evergreen? Then… the project got monstrous. I realized I couldn’t do it alone. So I reached out to my genderfluid dreamboat -- I mean definitely one of my favorite power metallers and big time inspiration, Lovely! Together, we have compiled a master list of films that any self-respecting metalhead should enjoy, or if you’re stuck in that phase of explaining things to mom and dad, maybe some of these will help. (I’m totally fucking with you, these won’t help at all). So, check out the massive list below, and don’t forget to check out Lovely’s podcast, Lovely Talks Metal! And follow their Twitter and Instagram. That being said:
Well, it's time to get back in the swing of things.
Look, I don't know where inspiration comes from. 'K? I don't care. As I think I've explained previously, I don't get too sentimental about my writing process. For me personally, I have to just do it. I can't really go hunting for clues because I'll exhaust my brain and quit. Well, at some point, I had kind of quit. I hope we all know at this point Alfred Hitchcock was... well, to say problematic skirts the issue of him being fucking terrible. To women, to coworkers, to his actors. He was like Kubrick x 1000 and Kubrick was no slouch. Hitchcock also happens to be my personal guide when it comes to writing and manipulation of fiction, so to say I've mentally canceled him or something isn't true either. Pairing the two is difficult in my mind sometimes. But Hitchcock (and Welles, and Kubrick, and...) was a notoriously difficult and meticulous man and would often fall into bouts of depression when he was done planning production and had to get to the actual directing bit. The directing bit wasn't challenging. I feel that. I don't ask where inspiration comes from because that's the hard part. Writing, not so much. I've had so little and have been so mentally scattered. So when inspiration cropped up in a potential zine contribution, right or wrong goddamnit I took it and ran with it. And so, I began to... write. I started on that project, first. Didn't like it, will table that one. But I decided in my head that I would finish a project I had started a while ago. Wasn't a fresh idea but it fit the criteria and, well, I need to finish it. I went from that project to another in dissatisfaction and awe, and decided I finally had some time to shove a few things off my desk. But how to get back into something you haven't looked at for almost a year? How to recapture the mood? How to get to the ending I've long since forgotten since I live my life on the square and I don't write my endings? (I really don't write my endings) I decided on music. I would play a little mood music to recapture the mood. Not the music I was listening to at the time because I really don't remember and I kind of don't care. Just... music. After a while, I found myself listening to or thinking about the same things over and over. I made a quick experimental playlist of what's been getting me through chapters. When I'm ready again, another? |
Ia! If you've come this far, you're either looking for weird or you know you've found it... TRESPASSING
September 2018
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