Locrian & Christoph Heemann - Locrian & Christoph Heemann (2012)

Band: Locrian & Christoph Heemann
Country: Chicago, Illinois/Aachen, Germany
Style: Experimental Drone
Label: Handmade Birds

Obviously, I am a big fan of Chicago's Locrian and will support anything the band decide to do. Earlier this year, they released their amazing collaboration with Mamiffer and now we have another collaboration album. I was not familiar with German composer Christoph Heemann before hearing about this album a year or so ago, but whatever Locrian wind up putting out, it's always worth hearing.
It has to be said that on first listen through this album I was left scratching my head. What I know Locrian for being is experimental drone, which this is, I can't recall ever hearing any material from them that was in the vein of pure ambient music, which this is at times. I was thoroughly thrown for a loop on my first listen. Even the trio's work with Mamiffer was not as spacious as this turns out to be. Having said that, to say that it's a completely ambient effort would be selling this short, there is plenty of additional instrumentation coming in from the Chicago trio to balance out the more ambient soundscapes that Heemann constructs through these tracks. The best indication of this is on the opener, Hecatomb, which utilizes some really interesting drum patterns and synth work (piano and organ) to great effect while guitars are introduced only at the beginning before falling away into loops of ambiance. It's sort of an odd opener, it's not bad, but in comparison to what I'm used to hearing, even from straight-up drone and ambient artists, the first track is usually a bit more "grandiose", for lack of a better word. This track is more somber and meditative, it doesn't announce itself like a great majority of tracks do when you press play to the first song of an album, and I think that that is one of the reasons I was so confused after listening to this for the first time.
The rest of the album plays out in much the same way, with extended pieces of somber ambiance that can be just as unobtrusive as it is fascinating. The only trace of metal you will find on here are the wretched cries of Terence Hannum, and those will only be found on the second track, Loathe The Light. Like I said in the intro to this, I'm not at all familiar with Christoph Heemann's work outside of this album, but when I started writing this review I began to think of that old Friedrich Nietzsche quote, "When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you," and I think that can be applied to Locrian. As anyone who listens to their material, we know it's dark and intense, even in its softer and more melancholic moments, but this could very well be what Locrian is on the other side of that abyss. Removing all the intensity and brutality that comes from their metal influences and replacing it with pure ambiance. Sure, I'm probably exaggerating a little bit, this thing doesn't really dive into pure ambiance until Edgeless City, which is a hell of a track. It's probably the quietest track on the entire album, as well as being the longest, and is just so spacious sounding, yet also somewhat twisted and morbid as well. Whether it's the low-end drone that pretty much acts as the foundation for everything else in the track or the surges of dissonance that arise now and then throughout, it's just a marvelous piece of ambient drone. Then there's the closer, The Drowned Forest. As if to only enforce the cohesiveness of the entire record, the track acts as an almost second part to the third track, following suit in its minimalistic form of constructing soundscapes of ambient noise and texture. With vocal chanting introducing the track, which may give it a bit more accessibility than the two tracks without vocals, I'm not sure if the person who'd buy without a second thought is the type of person who'd even care if there were vocals on here at all, but it gives way to that darker, amorphous atmosphere that was heard on track three.
It's quite the interesting record that is probably even more divisive than either group/artist's usual output. With how unusual this record came out to be I can't help but ask myself questions about it long after the four tracks have ended and I'm left in silence. If you're a fan of ambient, drone, dark ambient, experimental music in general really, I highly recommend you check out this album now.
Overall Score: 9
Highlights: Hecatomb, Edgeless City

Asva & Philippe Petit - Empires Should Burn (2012)

Band: Asva & Philippe Petit
Country: Long Beach, California/France
Style: Experimental Drone/Dark Ambient
Label: Basses Frequences/Land of Decay/Small Doses

I've been a fan of Asva since I first heard their 2008 album What You Don't Know Is Frontier several years back. This is my introduction to Philippe Petit though, having never heard of him before finding out about this collaboration. After 2011's Presences of Absences album though, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Stuart Dahlquist has decided to branch the Asva name even further outside of the drone-doom box he first carved for himself back in the early 2000s.
I like Asva, I mean, they're not exactly my favorite of the drone-metal groups, but I do enjoy what they do and will occasionally go through bouts where all I listen to is the desert doom they did on their first two full-lengths. Personally, I still hold 2008's What You Don't Know Is Frontier as one of the best drone metal records I've ever heard, but after the more psychedelic and less metallic reinvention, of sorts, of their style on Presences of Absences, this collaboration doesn't feel quite so unfounded. Abandoning most, if not all on the majority of these tracks, metal traces from the Asva half of the collaboration, what remains is one droning epic the likes of which I can't say I've experienced before, and five smaller pieces that do well to live up to the twenty-three minute opening title-track. Let me tell you that opening a record with a track that long can be, and in this case was, quite an overwhelming experience.
This is a record of subtlety. Like I said above, I am not familiar with Petit's work but Dahlquist's work with Asva has always held large amounts of subtlety - and I know that came out sounding a little awkward. I've listened to this record many times by the time I'm writing this review and I've tried to listen to it in various ways. The first couple of times I played this, it was merely as background music, something that's on that will draw my ear every now and then while it's playing, which is how I usually approach drone and ambient records at first, and it was an interesting thing to really do. With a lot of the music I listen to, even in the background, I feel like if there's some sort of calm or a sort of tension that it should build to something, but no explosion of sound came while listening to this. I probably listened to this thing three or four times before I finally figured out that there were points of escalation on here. It was not just a static idea that very minimal ups and downs, but is in fact, if you actually listen, quite a tense and brooding little rager of an album. It builds in those respective areas very, very slowly and without really making you aware of it. I don't mean for that to be interpreted as it being dull or boring, on the contrary in fact, this is record filled to the brim with depth and ideas that should be more than enough to keep people listening in.
I guess my problem with the album is that the opener is such a slow burner that the five following tracks feel almost rushed in comparison. Make no mistake, they're all really good and interesting tracks, except for maybe A Vision, which I did find to be just a little bit irksome at times, but I think that starting the album with such a powerful and monolithic track as they did, the rest of the tracks just sort of pass by without leaving as strong an impact. Having said that, I did find that when I listened to the five tracks on their own, either just skipping past the opener or putting the album on shuffle, they did feel a lot more complete.
I really wasn't sure what I was going to end up with on this record the first time I put it on but by now it's really become something special. I think it's a really interesting album that definitely has it's own vibe going on. It's a hard album to really access at first but given time and effort it will reveal itself to be something that you'll definitely want to hear.
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: And Empires Will Burn, The Star Implodes

Maybe That's Why Humans Drink The Darkness That Is Coffee - Window to The World (2012)

Band: Maybe That's Why Humans Drink The Darkness That Is Coffee
Country: Stockholm, Sweden
Style: Experimental Black Metal/Djent
Label: Independent

Like I've been saying in many a review for djent bands, the genre is pumping out less and less interesting groups. But, like I've been saying, there will always be groups and projects that stand out from the rest by trying something different. I was always interested in what the fusion of black metal and djent might sound like, so when I saw this band tagged with both, I knew I had to listen.
Now I know that to many people out there, the idea of black metal being forcibly jammed into a sub-genre like djent is probably the last thing they'd ever want to hear, that and it mixed with metal/deathcore, but I was curious. The end result is actually pretty interesting. The guys in this band have obviously taken an influence from the likes of Vildhjarta. It's like a wild concoction of black metal's bleakness and vocals, djent's heavy rhythms and grooves, mathcore's spastic riffs, and post-rock atmospherics and clean sections. It's a totally bizarre sounding fusion of ideas that actually manages to work. I figure a lot of people, after listening or skimming through this album will say that there isn't even any black metal on it. That's debatable only because, yes, there are very few riffs that actually recall the black metal genre, but there are some ideas scattered throughout the album that do bring to mind some of the genre's more weird bands. I think that this might be more tolerable to some know that this is a mainly instrumental record, with vocals popping up very seldomly throughout the majority of the record.
I have to say that unfortunately the album is not great in the way of consistency though. While early songs blend the above genres and some others together in a way that is very disorienting and somewhat offputting manner, the quality drops on the second half as the band begin to abandon that in favor of more spacey post-rock ideas. Maybe it's just me, but no matter how much I enjoyed The Sanest Sentence or Glowing Stars, I think that it may have been a mistake to allow them to be as extended as they are. While the latter track at least opens with some of the more frenetic guitar grooves that were showed off on the first couple of tracks before diving into post-rock ambiances, the former dwells completely in that space. I don't have a problem with the tracks inherently, but I do wish that the band could have written more metal tracks than experiment so fully with post-rock. I know I'm coming off a bit harsh here but it's only because I do feel like the band may have devoted more time to those sections that the metal ones. After opener Riddle Me This, the metal tracks begin to decrease in quality for me. Tracks like Torchlight and Antitune feel like the band was just trying to be as weird as they could, throwing in all sorts of keyboard effects and weird guitar and vocals ideas that just don't work. Those post-rock sections, by comparison, are far more focused and captivating. Even though it is primarily a post-rock driven track, rather post-metal, Who Are You? is probably one of the best examples of the band performing to their strengths by combining those extended post-rock sections with some heavier (though certainly nowhere near as spastic) parts, though I do wish those parts were as extended.
The end result is a really schizophrenic album that is sure to intrigue, annoy, and baffle just as many people as many people who will be blown away by it. Some tracks feel more like exercises in weirdness than actual songs, but when the band actually throws out a song, it's at the very least interesting. If you haven't already been turned off by the idea of the fusion of the above genres, check it out, otherwise avoid at your own risk.
Overall Score: 7.5
Highlights: Riddle Me This, Who Are You?, Glowing Stars

Novallo - Novallo EP (2012)

Band: Novallo
Country: Columbus, Ohio
Style: Industrial Metal/Tech Metal
Label: Independent

Obviously, as I've said in the past, djent is getting more and more over-saturated, and that remains true still. Every day, more and more bands are jumping on that train and trying to get some hype or exposure, even if they don't do anything interesting with it, but there are still some interesting groups popping up here and there. I happened to just stumble upon Novallo several days ago by coincidence, here's what I ended up getting as a result of pressing play.
If you hate djent, I have to strongly suggest that you do not listen to this release because those noise-gates are certainly on used to maximum effect on here. Those stop-start palm-mutes are quick and spastic and I could definitely see some people getting incredibly annoyed with this band because of it. Stylistically, they sort of remind me of Monuments in that they're rapidly bouncing between djenty grooves with quick melodic phrases with great efficiency, though there is definitely a much higher use of electronic effects on here. The reason why I wound up actually really enjoying this album was because of the vocals, they're definitely the stand out for me. Since four of the five guys in the band do vocals, I can't really tell you who's doing what (or if main vocalist Sam Gitiban is simply doing everything on here), but the vocal acrobatics are just great. There's a pretty wide range of styles being channeled on here, from standard death growls, Tides, post-hardcore singing and screaming, Visually Silent and 4 Eyes Win! respectively, or even straight-up soulful singing, Angle of Perception, and those are just the few that popped into my head while listening through a couple of times. I think that some of the choices sound a bit too digital, with some of the effects on the vocals not particularly working for me, but that's just a small gripe when I'm constantly being assaulted by different vocal styles from nearly every angle.
While I don't think each track is fantastic, I think there are some really great ideas on here that show a lot of potential. I do believe these guys could go far depending on where they decide to take their sound on future recordings. If you enjoy diverse songs that still come from the djent sound, I think you'll definitely dig this release.
Overall Score: 7
Highlights: Angle of Perception, Level Nine

Prison of Mirrors - Manning The Galleys (2012)

Band: Prison of Mirrors
Country: Seattle, Washington
Style: Progressive/Atmospheric Black Metal
Label: Independent

Last year Prison of Mirrors really surprised me with it's debut full-length. Blending the rather formulaic post-black metal clichés with more interesting ones found in the genre's more progressive and atmospheric divisions led to an impressive debut. With this sophomore effort following so closely on the heels of the debut I was wondering how much the ideas had been improved upon within only several months.
Right from the beginning of Desiccation it becomes obvious that main man Nick Brandt has decided to take a less direct approach to songwriting on this album. I don't mean that he decided to get rid of the up-front melodies or aggression, but more that the focus of the production has shifted from having the guitars hit you square in the jaw to adding more depth in the atmosphere. The mood is less visceral and more melancholic, which has made these five songs feel less "intense", which I don't have a problem with (but I guess that's totally relative), as the atmosphere that the album gives off is one of the better examples of melancholy found on an album I've heard all year. The songwriting has also become a lot more focused, trimming some of the fat from the excess of the previous album, and writing songs that are more concise, though still quite long, in their ideas. Even on epics likes Sanctity In Chains or All We Cherish In Embers, the focus is always on the song, and things never fall out of sync or control, which I could see turning some people off (maybe they like that rough edge that causes things to seem on the verge of total chaos), but for this record, it worked more as a positive than a negative. Melody is never sacrificed for brutality, experimentation, or atmosphere on here, which in my mind at least, sets PoM apart from many of his peers who seemingly forget that you can be as dark sounding and weird as possible, you still need to be able to write a good song/melody to keep your listener interested (though with weird you'd still probably get a pass from me).
My biggest problem with the project's self-titled debut was the drum sound, obviously being programmed, it sounded very plastic and unfortunately, overly fake or compressed sounding drums are something that really irritate me. was glad to hear that that qualm had immediately been removed from the equation on here, as the drums do have a more naturalistic sound to them. They're also a bit farther back in the mix, which I think helped to not make them sound as apparently mechanical. Having said that, I can't say that there aren't a few spots where this album did hit a bump that made me sort of scratch my head and wonder about. While most are rather inconsequential, the one that struck me as an odd choice to include was the sort of shoegaze section that is used throughout Galley Slaves. It isn't bad, per se, but it's one of those parts where it's like, I've heard this sort of thing done before and it doesn't really do anything for me. Maybe it's just my fault for listening to too much of the blackgaze sub-genre that I've become spoiled, it's not a flaw, just experimentation. I can respect it, but it doesn't mean I have to enjoy it. Also, going back to the drum programming thing, it occurred to me after listening to this album a couple of times that there wasn't a whole lot of variety in terms of the programming. The slower parts certainly have parts that suit them, but the majority of the faster moments appeared to just blast forward without much diversity. Once again, it's probably just me nitpicking.
It's nice to see a young artist already honing his sound into something unique after only two albums with the will to experiment still remaining. It's not perfect, but if Brandt continues on this upward path, I do think he'll create something really special in the very near future. Definitely check this out if you're a fan of the more atmospheric side of black metal, you will not be disappointed by this album.
Overall Score: 9
Highlights: Sanctity In Chains, Horn of Winter

Mare Cognitum - An Extraconscious Lucidity (2012)

Band: Mare Cognitum
Country: Santa Ana, California
Style: Post-Black Metal
Label: Independent

Last year Mare Cognitum released a pretty solid debut album, The Sea Which Has Become Known, which went under a lot of people's radar. I don't know how many people went out of their way to check out the project based on my review for that album, but hopefully a few liked what they found. I can only hope more people do the same based on this review.
After last year's debut which blended traditional black metal intensity with more progressive ideas that showed a project that was rooted in having aggressive riffs while still reaching for something more, this album retreats from the experimental tendencies. Not to say it's devoid of the more progressive ideas or anything, but it is less interested in having ideas in single tracks and would rather have a more cohesive album. The progressive ideas have been moved from including, or experimenting, with different sub-genres into simply having more complex song structures and more revealing forms of atmosphere and ambiance. You'll find that the backdrop of these tracks tends to unfold with every minute that passes by. Despite that, the majority of the album is made up of songs that move quickly, both riff wise and through transitions, as can be heard on Pyre of Ascendance, which is easily one of the more spastic tracks on the album, jumping from one extreme to the next effortlessly, though also somewhat carelessly as well. It's not a bad song, on the contrary actually, I think it's one of the more interesting tracks on the whole album, but it definitely sticks out as the black sheep on here as it does try to do everything a bit less naturally.
I do have to say however that while the sound throughout the album is more consistent than the debut's, the songs are not. There's not a bad song on here, but there were more instances where I did find my attention drifting off or wanting to pause the album and listen to something else for a while before coming back to it, which never happened to me while listening to the debut. A track like Degeneracy Pressure is fine for what it is, but it never stuck with me, never grabbed me in any way that made me take notice of it, and as a result, became utterly forgettable. On the other side of that you have a track like Ergosphere which does everything correctly (in my view of course) where you have an interesting build-up, solid tremolo riffing, atmospheric leads, and powerful melodies. While that's essentially the two ends of the spectrum, for me anyway, you have a track like the closer, Pulses In Extraconscious Lucidity, which sort of encapsulates everything that's both really good and disappointing about the album in one go (though it has to be said that the closer is predominantly good). So as not to give the wrong impression, two-thirds of this album are good tracks, it's just two out of six that kind of fall short in my mind.
I can't help but feel like I was let down by this album a little bit because it didn't hit me as hard as the first album did and it didn't hit me as consistently. It's not a bad album, but I don't think it's quite as powerful as the debut was. Check it out if you want to hear some solidly done black metal, with a foot in the post-bm scene to boot.
Overall Score: 7
Highlights: Collapse Into Essence, Ergosphere

Mole - What's The Meaning? (2012)

Band: Mole
Country: International
Style: Modern Jazz
Label: RareNoise

I don't think that there's a single person in the world who hasn't heard jazz at some point. Whether it happens to be a random band in a bar, the music playing as you walk through a mall, or to an extent, even street musicians in some foreign countries harness some of the genre in their brand of skiffle music. Without a doubt some of the most commonly known ideas about the sound of jazz comes from what is found on this debut record.
The product of a rather worldly quartet formed by Mexican pianist Mark Aanderud and up-right bassist Jorge "Luri" Molina, New York guitarist David Gilmore, and Argentinian drummer Hernan Hecht, what you have on here are extended pieces that blend various ideas into something that is, at least in my opinion, more palatable. I've said before that my knowledge into the world of jazz is rather limited, but even I can hear ideas from the worlds of lounge, funk, fusion, and to an extent prog-rock, in these compositions. I realize that this next comment will more than likely be taken the wrong way, but the sound of this record, not so much the performances, but the overall sound, made me think that this is the sort of thing that could be played in the background of a mall or restaurant. It has that very airy, but very clean and polished, sound that I tend to think of when I think of that sort of background music. Elevator music in some terms. I mean, this thing very rarely rocks out, it keeps things very much in the jazz tradition, and even when it rocks out, it balances those moments out with more of the lounge or contemporary stuff, hear Flour Tortilla Variation for an example. The few funk inflected tracks near the end of the album are more grabbing as well, as they did tend to stay with me for a while longer than some of the more "straight" jazz tracks.
In my opinion, the clear standout performance on here is Aanderud, who always keeps things moving, while not ever coming off as pretentious or audacious. He keeps things grounded with a track containing a melody while letting it move into free-form improvisation, letting it fly off the handle, and then bring it back in. I mean, I guess credit could be applied to all four members for that, but Aanderud just brought this air of tastefulness and focus to the project, which obviously stems from him being one of the founding members, that never let the songs fly off into random noodling. I do have to compliment Hecht for really keeping things restrained, for as much as I praise Aanderud for keeping these songs on course, Hecht is really the one to which that should be directed towards. His playing isn't overly flashy or technical, but restrained and controlled, though he does flex his muscles a bit more on PB or the title-track, where he does break out into some more "active" playing. Not to discredit either Gilmore or Molina, their performances are both very well done and certainly add to the album, but I found myself gravitating to the performances of Aanderud and Hecht far more often.
It's an impressive debut, but not one that's totally devoid of cliché, which, from what I've read, is part of the reason for the appeal of this. This isn't the sort of stuff I typically listen to, but it's nice for a change of pace. If you happen to enjoy modern jazz I think this is definitely worth checking out if you already haven't.
Overall Score: 8
Highlights: Trees and The Old New Ones, Flour Tortilla Variation, Greenland