Godspeed You! Black Emperor - 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! (2012)

Band: Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Country: Montréal, Canada
Style: Post-Rock/Drone
Label: Constellation

This one really came out of nowhere and has pretty much just blown up since people found out about it. Obviously the regard in which GY!BE is held in the music world is one which is quite hard to rival in modern bands of a similar style, as well as being the first new release in ten years, made for a perfect storm of hype. Even if this is somewhat old material, any new material from GY!BE is good.
Now, I think it's probably well known at this point that this is actually not technically new material from the band since these tracks have been around since back before the band originally separated and were going to be on the follow-up to Yanqui U.X.O but since that's only now just happened, these are fresh songs to at least most of us. I mean, even though this is old material for the band, to myself, it's new and quite a bit of the material on here is up there with some of my favorite songs the band have put out. Opener Mladic is quickly becoming one of my favorite tracks from the group. Starting off with a somber drone and quickly escalating into a super noisy climax that just screeches and moans with distortion and feedback, but it's awesome. I have always loved how so many post-rock groups have that very clean sound, maybe not polished but definitely very clean and presentable, and that's sort of become the norm, but GY!BE just has no interest in that and will freely dive into straight-up rock moments with no regard to it sounding presentable or accessible (after all, this is the band who makes albums full of twenty-plus minutes songs). This track features all the staples of the band's past material, perhaps a bit more noisy during some of those rock inflected parts, but the Arabian melody used is just totally engrossing. There was not a single point during that opening track that I ever felt bored or uninterested (and after all the post-rock I've actually listened to this year, I'll tell you there've been five minute long tracks that have lost me).
I wasn't overly crazy about the two drone tracks, Their Helicopters' Sing and Strung Like Lights At Thee Printemps Erable, but they were far from being bad. In fact the latter track is actually quite good, but when you stack either track up against the two giants that make up the majority of the album's running time, they just don't match up. As for that second giant, We Drift Like Worried Fire, it's less of a burst of raw energy and feels more in the mold of ideas the band have worked with in the past and have heard many other bands try their hand at. Granted, GY!BE still top the majority of those bands and add their own stamp to the equation, but it feels more comparable to your everyday post-rock track. It's not quite as aggressive or noisy, but perhaps more appealing to new fans because of it. I will say that the second half of the track struck me as being more powerful than the first due to the inclusion of the additional percussion and the heavier emphasis on the strings in during the build.
I sure it's no surprise that I think this is a great piece of work, like everyone else seems to think as well. I'd love to hear even more material from the band and can only hope that this reunion will lead to even more material being written and released. Anyway, if you haven't checked this out already, definitely do it, you don't want to miss out on this album.
Overall Score: 9
Highlights: Mladic, We Drift Like Worried Fire

Tarpaulin - The Bleached (2012)

Band: Tarpaulin
Country: Illinois
Style: Atmospheric Black Metal/Drone-Doom
Label: EEE Recordings

As far as I know this is the first recording of this southern Illinois group, but there is almost no information out there on them so forgive me if I'm incorrect. It's really hard for me to come up with things to open up a review when there's almost nothing out there for me to comment on or introduce my perspective on to you (the reader). So let's just get right into it.
It's been a little while since EEE Recordings put out a release that wasn't from one of the Nji-related bands (as far as I know, this band has nothing to do with them), so I was unsure what sort of style this was going to be. The short description describing the album basically said that it was ambient black metal with spoken word vocals; and in response to that all I can say is, that's true marketing for you. That is exactly what this album is. Frankly I can't make out a word of what the vocals are actually saying except for maybe the odd line here or there, but it's so processed that it kind of makes it hard to even hear the vocals at times. I'm not saying that as a fault, because for all I know that may have been the intention of how the album was mixed, but they're hard to make out. They sort of have that boxy kind of phaser effect on them which sort of makes them sound almost industrial-ish in a way. If vocals and lyrics help to reaffirm why you like a certain band or album, this one might cause you a bit of trouble.
On the instrumental side of things, this band definitely likes to take a pretty aggressive style of black metal and wave it in the listener's face/ears because they totally screw with the production. Once again, not meant as a negative. Four of the five tracks on here are short, aggressive bursts of black metal with touches of doom thrown into the mix, with the last track veering off into droning territory that isn't all that different from what Oaks of Bethel have been doing on their records. But the entire thing has that sort of signature EEE production sound where it sounds totally reverbed out and everything just sounds so hazy and thick sounding that it can become difficult to pull things apart. Black metal gives way to drone and drone turns into a psychedelic soup of sorts where various effects all intermingle with each other and blend into trip, if nothing else. It's a hard record to get into, from my experience because the first four tracks are just so driving and aggressive, for the final track to just sort of derail and fall into psychedelic drones felt a little unsatisfying personally. Maybe it's just me who felt this way, but it was a problem that I could not get past.
Unlike the work that the duo in Nji do, I found this a rather bitter pill to swallow, not because it was bad or anything, but it is quite different. It's certainly not going to be everyone's cup of tea and might piss a few people off but it's at least worth hearing this year. If you like drone-doom or ambient black or something in between the two, this is an album you're going to want to buy, otherwise, look into it first before buying.
Overall Score: 7.5
Highlights: Little By Little, Bound For Zar

Ash Borer - Cold of Ages (2012)

Band: Ash Borer
Country: Arcata, California
Style: Atmospheric Black Metal
Label: Profound Lore

Last year, Ash Borer made quite an impression on the underground metal community with their self-titled full-length. When I heard about the band being signed to Profound Lore I was both happy and disappointed. Happy that they were making a name for themselves and going to get bigger, disappointed because now they're not the same unknown little band that I sort of held close to my heart.
Right from the get-go, let me just say that I think it's great that even though Ash Borer signed to a label as respected and well known as Profound Lore, they actually made a record that's even more atmospheric than their self-titled, they didn't conform to the style of other groups on the label. While previous recordings held this sort of unhinged aggression that was channeled through these epic pieces of atmospheric black metal, this new album experiments with more variation in that sound. The majority of the album is still fast and direct black metal riffing, there are more spaces of open synth and slower doom passages. I was a little surprised to find that the role of synth and keyboards had a much larger role on this album than on the band's previous material, or at least that's the way it seemed to me. Not only are there entire sections that are devoted to synth but there are several points on a given song where they'll emerge from the background and carve out a far more epic soundscape. Just because I know some people were really excited about it, I didn't think that Jessica Way's presence on the album really did anything for me. She wasn't bad, but I didn't really think she added to anything on it. In addition to that, as I said above there are more slower passages on here than I can recall previous tracks containing, and I think that does add to the impact of this album. High speed tremolo picking can only take you so far (unless you're Krallice, because then apparently you can do high speed and higher speed and still make it work) and the incorporation of slower doom parts really does help to make the album feel more well rounded.
In the past, Ash Borer has maintained a pretty rough and raw sound, in regards to the production on their tracks. It felt very natural and authentic without coming across and lo-fi or underproduced. This new album is cleaner than their past recordings, but still maintains that authentic sound that doesn't sound, at least to me, like it was tampered with too much, if at all, after the initial tracking was finished. When performing long tracks like this, I do think that it's important to keep the sound pretty clear so the cleaner parts don't simply fade into the background, like on Convict All Flesh for example, the clean melody played during the bridge of the song comes out sounding very clean and not overly loud or compressed. It doesn't mesh with the distorted guitars at all. Personally, I did think the snare sound was a little loud at certain times, but I'd assume that that's just from hitting it harder than an actual mixing problem.
While I don't think I was hit with the same impact that I was from the band's debut full-length, I still thought that this was a great piece of work. It's an album that does have a wider margin of appeal because it is more varied in style and it'll be interesting to hear where they go next. If you like black metal in any form, I highly suggest you check this one out.
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: Phantoms, Removed Forms

Adrift For Days - Come Midnight... (2012)

Band: Adrift For Days
Country: Sydney, Australia
Style: Stoner/Doom Metal
Label: Art As Catharsis

I don't listen to a whole lot of stoner influenced music (obviously if you look back on my reviews) but I do enjoy quite a lot of doom. So when I was offered this, though I was initially a bit skeptical, I decided to give it a shot. Needless to say this did turn out to be more my speed.
This was one of those albums that intrigued me based on a profile that mentioned stoner, doom, drone, and sludge, granted my interest in those varies, but a band who just mixed them all together just made me want to listen. Not a unique fusion at all, but I like the idea of just taking the four styles and crafting something slow, hulking, and heavy; and that's exactly what this turned out to be. This is one of those bands that seems to know how to blend the above styles into something palatable but also quite different. It's not a sound that's going to win over any people with prejudices towards these genres, but if you're a fan already of any of them, you're going to get a real treat in this album. The bass tone is very fuzzy and distorted, but the guitars are very clear and heavy, drawing their riffs from many tried and true blues lines that, played in a different context than this album might come off as hokey or redundant. In all honesty, while listening to this album the only band that came to mind that sounds similar to what these guys are doing is fellow Aussie's Whitehorse, who are equally as interesting a band. If you listen, the production on both this album and Whitehorse's material is slightly similar, very heavy and open sounding, which works. I'll let you decide who's better or which you like more.
However, while the lumbering grooves of the heavy sections are great, when the band move into cleaner and slightly more atmospheric tones, it becomes a far more grabbing listen. Those cleaner tones are far more psychedelic than they really have any right to be. There are many other bands who could take the same principle structure the band use on here (as indeed, many post-metal groups do) and turn into something very stale and trite, enjoyable maybe, but redundant of other groups for sure. While I wouldn't go so far to say that the boys in Adrift For Days have much in common with post-metal or post-rock, those cleaner sections have a similar tone to many of those bands, but is far more reminiscent of groups who tend to jam out on elongated sections like that. A track like House of Cards is pretty much the epitome of that idea, with the group basically just drawing out this clean and atmospheric phrase for the majority of the track before busting into a huge drone-doom passage that just smacks you in the face with it's weight. Perhaps the short The Stormbreaker is a better indication of simplistic songwriting with the cleaner tones, but is a lot less of an indication of what the band actually sounds like. Though I have to say that track in particular is the one that springs into my head when thinking about this album because it is easily the most accessible and immediate track. If what you're looking for is a jam piece, definitely go for closer Eyes Look Down From Above, which is an epic piece that is probably the slowest track on here and is the most connected to the ideas from drone. This was the track that gave me the most difficulty while listening through, mainly because of how restricted the track felt. Having more atmospheric moments on the few tracks to come before it, I did kind of feel like this epic had lost something by not including something as ambient or atmospheric into its structure, but that's just me.
It's a pretty damn solid album, a bit too long in some spots for my own personal taste, but it's never a dull moment. I would definitely say that if you're going to listen to this, give it time because it is not an easy album to get into from my experience with it. Definitely a must for all fans of slow and heavy music this year, do not skip this over!
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: House of Cards, Back of The Beyond

Elu of The Nine - Elu of The Nine (2012)

Band: Elu of The Nine
Country: Romania/Salem, Oregon/France
Style: Drone Doom Metal
Label: Woodsmoke

I've been meaning to get to this release for a while now because I think that it is worth covering (duh). I have not heard the demo that was released back in 2009 but I am assured that it is very good, so based on that alone I decided to pick up a copy of this. Being over two hours long I knew I was in for one hell of a treat when I pressed play on this for the first time.
Now, I don't care what style of music you make, but when you release a song that's just about two hours long (and I am certainly aware that this was split into two tracks so it could be on two sides of a tape) you better make it good. Obviously this isn't The Flaming Lips here, it isn't as if I've reviewing a twenty-four hour long song, but two hours is still long and, frankly, longer than a majority of people would want to spend listening to a single track. Then you realize the style with which this group happens to play, drone-doom, funeral doom, and whatever other uber slow forms of doom you want to throw into the pot as well. These facts alone are enough to scare of the typical listener, I mean, sure, there are people who love drone-doom and will listen to it all day, but I think that even they might find it a bit taxing to just sit down and listen to a two-hour long drone-doom album while doing nothing else. Personally, and I'll just come out and say it, this was a huge pain in the ass to sit through. I love drone-doom as much as the next weirdo who couldn't get a date in high-school, but I can only tolerate so much before getting fidgety and needing to get up and actually do something. Maybe it's just me, but when I sit still for too long I get tired, and there were several points when listening to this where I did feel my eyelids getting heavier.
With all that being said, I'm not going to pretend that there isn't a unique charm to this album. As I repeatedly made note of above, I do think that the length is a problem for me, but I do understand that there will be some who can and will listen to all two hours straight through and enjoy it. While I found it hard to remain engaged for the entire duration of the album, I also understand that those who really enjoy this sort of stuff will find it interesting and possibly even hypnotic. The main melody on the first half of the track is quite reminiscent of early 90s death-doom, sort of My Dying Bride-esque in my opinion, so I did enjoy whenever that popped up. The second track dives much further into the drone realm, which I will say I did not enjoy as much as the more drone-metal of the first half of the track. It's much noisier and, in a certain way, psychedelic that just sort explores this emptiness created by feedback, noise, and ambiance. It really isn't until the last twelve or so minutes during the second half of the song that return to the main theme from the first half.
In the end, I couldn't help but feel bored at certain point while this was playing. I think it was the overall length of it rather than the music itself, which I think would be more tolerable if I had just listened to the two halves separately. If you like drone doom, funeral doom, drone music in general, or other really slow stuff like that, you'll probably get quite a lot of enjoyment out of this.
Overall Score: 8
Highlights: Maurerische Trauerdrohne I

Car Bomb - w^w^^w^w (2012)

Band: Car Bomb
Country: New York City, New York
Style: Mathcore/Djent
Label: Independent

Several years ago when I got a new computer, I was delving quite heavily into the tech metal genre. That's where I found djent groups like Periphery and Vildhjarta, fusion metal bands like Spiral Architect, Twisted Into Form, and Linear Sphere, and more spastic math groups like Car Bomb. I reviewed Car Bomb's 2007 album Centralia back when I was first getting started with reviews (I'm sure you find it if you look back far enough) and how surprised was I when I saw this new album was released something like a week or so ago.
I'm not sure what changed in the five years between records, but Car Bomb has really altered their sound. Centralia was a record that was full of spastic, uber technical playing that was all over the place. It was extremely jarring record when I first listened to it, though I did eventually come to enjoy it, but this record is much more groove based. Yes, there are still freak-out moments of dissonant guitar riffs and crazy slides, but like I say in the genre header above, this recalls ideas that many djent groups are working with. It's weird because whenever I thought about Car Bomb, I always assumed they'd keep doing the really weird ideas of The Dillinger Escape Plan doing tech-death, but this takes more ideas from Meshuggah than Cryptopsy (who I only mention because I know the band really likes them). I'm not saying the band do this style badly, but it's the sort of change that I wasn't expecting and didn't really want to be rather blunt about it. When I listen to Car Bomb I want to hear insanely crazy and brutal metal not groovy, somewhat technical metal. It feels like the band is simply jumping onto the hype train and trying to get some exposure by putting out a djenty record. It doesn't feel like a natural progression from the last record is what I'm trying to say.
With that being said, I'm not going to pretend like there weren't things on here that I didn't like. I thought that the more melodic and straightforward ideas on Lower The Blade was really well done and the chorus was actually pretty catchy. Michael Dafferner's clean singing has a Mike Patton sort of quality to it, and as a MP fanboy, anyone who has a similar style to him wins points in my book. I almost wish that clean vocals were used more on this record because aside from the song I just mentioned, they are used pretty sparingly throughout, popping up only every now and then. Another track worthy of note is Third Revelation which features Gojira's Joseph Duplantier performing some guest vocals on it, though that's not what makes it worth paying attention to. This track is one of the few moments where it feels more like a natural fusion of the spastic technicality of Centralia and the more rhythmic ideas of this album. I also thought that the short acoustic break in Magic Bullet was a nice addition to the song in question. But aside from those tracks and a couple of others, I can't really say I was all that impressed with the album, unfortunately. I read a comment where someone described this album as Car Bomb's Miss Machine, and I both agree with that statement and disagree with it. I think the statement is correct because this album does have the band trying out a few new flavors, but I disagree with it only because I thought that Miss Machine had several songs on it that I really enjoyed and come back to, this album has very few of those.
It's a decent album, but I kind of wish that the band had a few more references to their previous sound on here. It just feels too much like an unnatural shift to me, if you feel differently good for you, but I couldn't get past that aspect. If you like technical metal, djent, or even groove metal, I think you'll probably find something on here that you'll enjoy, but I'd recommend Centralia over this any day.
Overall Score: 6.5
Highlights: Lower The Blade, Third Revelation, This Will Do The Job

The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza - Danza IIII: The Alpha - The Omega (2012)

Band: The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza
Country: Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Style: Mathcore/Djent
Label: Black Market Activities

Of any year end list I've made in the last several years (I did start doing it before I started this blog so there are more that are not posted), one of the few things I regret not posting was 2010's Danza III: The Series of Unfortunate Events. I thought that was a great record and so I was really looking forward to this album when they first announced it's progress around the same time Danza III was about to be released. Here we are, two years later and the band are now saying this is their final album.
I'll admit it, I think Danza (which is what I will be referring the band to in this review) is a good band. It took me several tries to get into them, but in the end I actually found a band that did make leaps forward with every release they put out and managed to finally impress me with their last album. With the addition of Josh Travis to the band on guitar, he really upped the band's game and made it into something unique and really interesting, something that was only hinted at on releases prior to his arrival. His recent album with new band Glass Cloud shows that he is certainly capable at writing more straightforward and accessible songs, but that album didn't have the personality or charisma that Danza has and I think that it was simply a lack of him throwing in more spastic and dissonant riffs, and obviously the lack of vocalist Jessie Freeland. He isn't the greatest vocalist out there, and frankly, if you put him into another band, he'd probably just come off as just another deathcore vocalist. But the thing I've found listening to Danza is that while his style isn't all that original or unique, what he happens to do is deliver and convey a sense of passion that many of his peers do not. Unlike many other vocalists who growl/scream/yell/etc., when I listen to Freeland, you can hear that he is putting everything into what he's saying, and that's something that I do not get from many other bands.
But, onto this album. Before it was even released, the now duo had said that they had focused on writing songs for this album instead of trying to cram as many notes and winding dissonance into a track as possible, and that definitely shows. Sure, there are the obligatory non-stop freakout of You Won't and This Is Forever, but then there are the more interesting and thought provoking (for this band) tracks like Hold The Line or the eerily melodic This Cut Was The Deepest. While the overly technical nature that the band exhibited on early releases was what initially drew me to them in the first place, I do think that it is fitting for them to have grown to the point to where even they adhere to more conventional song structures and ideas. Also, I have to say that this is probably the only time I've ever appreciated the vocal stylings of Alex Erian or Phil Bozeman. I was never a Despised Icon fan and never saw much of the appeal of Whitechapel, but I actually think they do a solid job on The Alpha/The Omega. Bozeman actually does a really good job in my opinion, really bringing in some guttural power and intensity to the track which was genuinely surprising. However, to say that this album is up with Danza III would be lying, for in my opinion this is the more flawed album.
While that album was full of songs, one after another, that just repeatedly hit the listener in the face with impressive songwriting and technicality, this one is full of tracks that either act as filler interludes or in the case of Paul Bunyan and The Blue Ox, a strange instrumental. Obviously, I have no problems with instrumentals, but there were two things that really proved to be rather irksome while listening to this track. One, why is Jesse not on it? I'm serious, because I don't see any reason why he couldn't be on this track, and it's the longest track on the album. Normally this wouldn't bother me, but I hate it, HATE IT, when a band with a vocalist makes an instrumental track the longest song on the album. To me, it's like a waste to not to have Jesse on it. Secondly, it's a bit too disjointed for my taste. The first five or six minutes work fine, but then it just skids into random ideas that sound like they weren't finished and were just tacked on because the band thought they were cool. No, no, no, don't do that, it doesn't work! Obviously these are just personal problems I have with the track, but boy did they annoy me. I can get past all the interludes, except for maybe Some Things Better Left Unsaid, which is genuinely pointless to the album, but that instrumental just really irritated me.
In the end, it is a flawed, but still very good album. The actual tracks themselves are actually really good, but they're broken up by repetitive filler and two lengthy and rather inconsequential tracks. If you're a fan of the band, you'll listen to this regardless of what I have to say, but if you're new, I'd say to stream it before you buy it.
Overall Score: 8
Highlights: You Won't, This Cut Was The Deepest, The Alpha/The Omega, Don't Try This At Home