Tim Hecker – Virgins

October 14, 2013 • Kranky

Though many people claim Harmony in Ultraviolet as a high point for ambient music, I was never really a huge fan of its sound. But then, a couple years ago, when I first heard Hecker's 2011 album Ravedeath, 1972, it had an incredible effect on me which turned my opinion of Hecker around completely. I still consider it to be one of the greatest ambient albums I've ever heard. Virgins is more or less a direct sequel to Ravedeath, and it is equally as intense and beautiful and necessary to hear.

For the uninitiated, Virgins' style can be a bit hard to describe—it's an enveloping combination of layered ambient droning, glitchy electronics, tape manipulation, and some classical instrumentation like woodwinds and strings. Though each track is distinct from the rest, the album still manages to flow together in one huge soundscape—it's more of an experience than a collection of songs.

And I've heard a good handful of albums like this one (with wildly varying opinions on each), but there's something about Hecker's approach to this kind of music that leaves me stunned whenever I listen to it. Like Ravedeath, there's this sort of overbearing, plodding, beautiful sadness to the music that grabs my attention at every turn. Though the tone is mostly pretty sad, there are other times when things get incredibly tense—even a bit angry—as conflict between the soothing ambience and harsh, assonant grinding noises and drones erupts out of nowhere. Despite being an album constructed the way it is, it still feels very real and present. There's just so much happening, even during the quieter parts; but it never seems like it's too much to take in, even when the music is undoubtedly suffocating the listener. Sometimes the music sounds messy and disorganized, sometimes it's clean and concise, but it's still consistent with itself.

Also like Ravedeath, I won't say Virgins is a flawless album; there are still some slightly weaker tracks and the album is a little duller around the middle. But considering how much the album wows me on the whole, I don't really care; I just want to feel in that moment—where soft clarinets and echoing sawtooth synths and clanging noises surround me and all I can think is "why bother listening to anything else?".

9

Stream the album courtesy of NPR

SRVVLST – "Thoughts"

December 25, 2013 • Major Bear Records

I first heard of this band when I saw them play at a great show back in July. I'm happy to see the band gaining some traction and are set to put out their new EP The Seven Year Inch in April 2014, although the first track is already available to stream on Bandcamp. As with their earlier stuff, "Thoughts" doesn't step too far out of the emo / indie-rock framework, but it still has that prog-ish flair SRVVLST likes to inject into their songs—lots of changing up time signatures and tempos and a very dynamic sound (from the quiet second verse, to the skittery, heavy riff of the song's climax, to the tense cresecendo and neat drum groove at the end). Maybe nothing game-changing for emo revival just yet, but I guess we'll see in April when the EP drops.

Vattnet Viskar – Sky Swallower

September 3, 2013 • Century Media Records

I saw these guys play a show back in March, really enjoyed it, and have been looking forward to some new stuff from them since. Well, it's finally here (okay, yes, I'm a month late) and I'm happy to say that Sky Swallower is a great album worth listening to.

For anyone unfamiliar, Vattnet Viskar play relatively standard modern black metal (what some might call "post-black", I guess), hyping the old Darkthrone style—lots of blasting, somewhat muffled guitars, with low guttural vocals, but with also lots of atmospheric sludge metal thrown around as well—the aggressive-yet-plodding kind. The styles go together well, as they usually do. Vattnet Viskar's version isn't the greatest example of it, though. Rather than blending styles together, the band jumps straight from post-rock to sludge metal to black metal very abruptly (see "Fog of Apathy" for a good example of this). While that does work to keep things from getting too stale, it also makes the album feel a bit off.

That being said: They still know how to write a good riff. The calmer sections are quite soothing and great at building in the tension when they have to, and the loud aggressive sections are like a slap in the face when they finally kick in. They don't have quite the same intensity that I would expect, but I think that's partly the fault of the so-so production values.

All in all, a fine album (and good on Vattnet Viskar for getting with Century Media!). Nothing amazing, but it was about exactly as I expected based on their first EP and their live show. Recommended for modern black metal fans for sure.

7

Katatonia, Cult of Luna, Tesseract, Intronaut

September 18, 2013 • Peabody's Downunder, Cleveland, Ohio

Yep, Cleveland. A two-hour drive (each way) just to see a show? I must be crazy, right? Nope, just Cult of Luna, who's touring the States for the first time in eight years, and this was their only Ohio show, meaning it'll likely be my only opportunity to see them play, ever. Looking back, it was kind of a silly idea and I highly doubt I'd ever drive so far just for a show ever again—not to say it was bad, though.

Intronaut

I've been listening to Intronaut for a long, long time, though only casually and I haven't really listened to their newer stuff very much. Their show was exactly how I thought it'd be—decent, but not particularly amazing. Apparently Intronaut as a band is really just a support outfit for their bassist to show off (although he really is quite good, so that's not really a complaint). The poor mixing (very light on guitar and vocals) didn't help much. They're a band that's definitely better on CD, but they were still enjoyable enough.
6 • Best Laser Light Show Award (Suck It, Tool)

Tesseract

They're a decent enough band I guess, but I never really cared much about them. They put on a good enough show, though; at the very least, it looked like they were having fun themselves. I was a bit disappointed by how much of their performance was automated, though—I guess it makes sense to play to a click track when your material is so technical, but automated guitar effects seems a little silly. (And don't bother pretending to play when it's obviously a pre-recorded guitar in that one song, it was so obvious.) Anyway, fine enough if you're a fan.
6 • Best Capri Pants Award

Cult of Luna

I probably overhyped this show in my mind—I mean, if you've seen their live DVD, you can understand how pumped I was. Now, they did put on as good of a show as they could: a fantastic heavy sound, very cool visuals (although the strobe light was a bit much), and some pretty intense playing. They did seem to have a lot of technical problems, though—broken strings, no bass for half a song, and one of the guitars seemed horribly out-of-tune for a whole song. Still, they played some great songs (nothing earlier than Somewhere Along the Highway but I'll take what I can get) and I did enjoy them quite a bit.
8 • Most Spilled Beer Award

Katatonia

I think I used to like Katatonia a long time ago, like 2005 or so, but I haven't listened to them in ages and it turns out they aren't really that good anymore. Their alt-rock-pretending-to-be-metal style isn't bad, just very unimaginative and not terribly fun to watch. Also, their entire setup was straight through the mixing board—no amps or anything, which looked really weird and made it seem kind of fake. I bailed after three songs because I wanted to get home, so it might have gotten better, but I doubt it.
5 • Silliest Banners Award

Locrian – Return to Annihilation

June 25, 2013 • Relapse Records

Locrian is another one of those bands I'd known the name of for years but never got around to listening to them until recently. And to be honest, it turns out I wasn't really missing all that much.

Return to Annihilation is some sort of odd combination of orthodox black metal aesthetics with a drone- and post-rock-like approach. It's a very unique sound, and one that I think probably has a lot of potential, but Return to Annihilation seems a bit half-baked to me. Locrian doesn't seem to know exactly what they want to play, so they do all sorts of different things and throw them together. Sometimes it winds up working, sometimes it doesn't.

The tracks are mostly based around repitition and very subtle variance, but that leaves a lot of them feeling a bit empty and directionless—see "A Visitation...", which finally kicks off with just one minute left and promptly goes nowhere. Not all of them are like that; the title track has an interesting buildup although the way it's handled is a bit weird. "Panorama of Mirrors" probably does its structure the best, but it's so slow that it's tough to notice anything happening.

The jury's still out on the muffled, tortured screaming vocals which only slightly fit the album's aesthetics—they fit in okay with the heavier sections, of course, but against the lighter clean guitars and ambience they simply sound wrong.

It's not all bad, though; there are still some high moments. "Two Moons"' contrast of the machine drone with the steady drums and lilting guitar is actually pretty cool. The lengthy closer "Obsolete Elegies" is actually a really solid track, too, with a good atmosphere and solid finish to the album.

I guess for ambient/noise fans, this is a decent enough album, but I don't think it's really put together well enough or captivating enough to warrant more than one or two listens. I'm not writing off Locrian just yet, though; apparently The Crystal World is quite good...

5