2012: Splits IX

It's been a little while since I've done a split review, and I've stored up a couple so I thought I'd bring it back and share some of them with you guys and girls. As always, reviewed from 1-8.

And The Giraffe - Creature Collector EP (2012)

Band: And The Giraffe
Country: Gainesville, Florida/Nashville, Tennessee
Style: Alternative Country/Jazz Rock
Label: Independent

Last year And The Giraffe released one of my favorite EPs of 2011 with Something For Someone. They were one of the few groups who made me at all interested in country music, since I'm not really a huge fan of it. So when I happened to see that they were releasing this new album I wanted to get on top of it as soon as possible.
Right off the bat, the band make it known that they are not a group to underestimate. Now, I don't listen to a whole lot of country music, but from the artists that I've heard, experimentation is not something that is a big priority for them, but opener Find My Name In The Sun makes it almost the focus to introduce new ideas into the band. The introduction of additional instrumentation including banjo, saxophone, and hand percussion and more electronic textures into their sound certainly does allow for a wider breadth of sounds and ideas into the album. Their last EP had a few electronic elements and a much softer edge to it than these six songs do, which is actually quite interesting since I didn't expect the group to pursue a slightly more experimental sound. Despite that, the sound is unashamed in its devotion to country and folk music traditions. The songs on here still maintain a very acoustic driven structure, with additional instrumentation being the icing on the cake rather than the driving force of them. Personally, the use of piano on tracks like The Silent and Enough Is Enough really helped to create a mood that was not present on their previous material and definitely proves to be a strength in their songwriting. The only song I wasn't crazy about was Take Care, which just didn't sit right with me, maybe because the lyrics felt a bit too hokey for my taste and sort of clashed with the more minimalistic musical approach on that song in particular.
As with Something For Someone, I think this is a great piece of work that really shows great skill in both songwriting and arranging on the part of these guys. For as much as country music is all about singing about your tractor and the open plains, it can prove to be actually impactful when reigned back into a state of melancholia and subtlety is introduced. I think these young men are really talented and I look forward to more great material from them in the future.
Overall Score: 7.5
Highlights: Find My Name In The Sun, The Silent

Sanity Obscure - Subterranean Constellation (2012)

Band: Sanity Obscure
Country: Singapore
Style: Technical Death/Thrash Metal
Label: Independent

I'm always sort of surprised whenever I see a death metal band (of any sort) with a cover that uses rather bright colors. It really has nothing to do with the music, but it does always grab my attention. That, along with some rather unique guest spots really made this an interesting little album.
Coming into this, I sort of anticipated that it would be a bit more on the technical, let's say dissonant, side of death metal, but boy was I surprised when I finally pressed play. This is very bizarre sounding death thrash. The influences on here are quite obvious, late-period Gorguts, Death, and Atheist, so the riffing on here comes across quite angularly and dissonant in several spots, but is also quite harmonious as well. A lot of what's on here also varies in tempo, with a lot of it being quite slow or mid-paced rather than the standard high-speed blast-fest. I mean, there are certainly blasts on here, but definitely do not come into this expecting to be overwhelmed by them. There is also some really weird effects scattered throughout the album as well, with phasers popping up in the background of a couple of tracks. But possibly the weirdest effect on here is whatever was used on the guitar during the solo on Synergistic Permutations which made it drift between sounding like an actual guitar and a clarinet. It's seriously one of the weirdest effects I've heard all year. There are also two guests on the here which turn out to be the likes of Bruce Lamont proving some crazy sax during opener Dreams - Manifestations and Kevin Hufnagel providing a fantastic melodic guitar solo on Doublethink. I was really impressed with not only the performances of both guests but also how the band even got them to appear on here. They're certainly talent in here but it's just a bit odd. Granted, I really shouldn't be all that surprised seeing how abstract the band make their songs, drifting between the realms of intense jazz fusion and abstract death-thrash more often than most bands do in a career. I sort of wish this album was longer, because the band know how to write compact little bursts that don't get old even after repeated listens, and since the entire album is under twenty-five minutes.
I actually really enjoyed this, despite how short it was. I think that this band has a lot of potential and hopefully they can mine that well even further for their next release. If you happen to enjoy weird or interesting death or thrash metal, definitely check this little release out.
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: Rise of The Machines, Incarceration Divine, Doublethink

Gods of Chaos - March Into Perdition (2012)

Band: Gods of Chaos
Country: Zagreb, Croatia
Style: Death Metal/Experimental Grindcore
Label: Path Less Traveled

As much as well known and respected death metal bands are great, I've found that newer, underground groups are actually the ones that impress me the most. I was sent this album several months back and in between school, work, and other stuff, I haven't really had a whole lot of time to go back and check on stuff I agreed to cover. I happened to stumble on this a little while back and it just hit me that I needed to listen to this.
There's something exhilarating about listening to a band do something interesting with grindcore. The genre is inherently exciting and probably one of the most fun genres of music I listen to, it's fast, aggressive, and the songs are short - it's like punk but with more distortion. It's even more of a thrill when the band in question decides to take a specific route with it, whether it happens to be the more experimental one or the rawer one, or another one I'm not currently aware of, both have their perks. When it comes to this band in particular you have a bit of both. With the likes of Colin Marston on the production job for this album, the album has a great raw and noisy sound to it, which really crystallizes that energy that courses through this band's veins. The production only adds to that by giving the whole thing this very chaotic and natural vibe where it literally sounds like every member was just playing the songs together in a room (with vocals and effects added later of course). What is also great about this record is that even though it is based in the sounds of grindcore and old-school death metal, there are those experimental flashes that I talked about above that make the record stand out. There are touches of Krallice-esque black metal tremolo picked guitars, some nice Disfear (or other crust band) styled d-beats, and more than a few bursts of noise and feedback throughout. There are times when the band sound more like a slightly more metallic version of Converge than anything close to the likes of Cannibal Corpse or Napalm Death. The band isn't all that heavy or even all that distorted, when taken into account how distorted some metal bands can be, and tends to sound more like an extremely spastic noise rock or hardcore band most of the time.
It's a strong debut from a band with a lot of potential and room to grow and expand in the future. There's a lot to like about this record and the band manage to accomplish quite a lot in just over thirty minutes. If you like extreme metal or even noise rock, I highly suggest you look into this record as soon as you can.
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: Nuclear Phantom Warhowl, Dealers of Nadir, Grinning With An Errection At The Gallows

Sky Burial - There I Saw The Grey Wolf Gaping (2012)

Band: Sky Burial
Country: Wellfleet, Massachusetts
Style: Ambient/Industrial
Label: Small Doses

I've covered a few of Michael Page's previous recordings last year and enjoyed them both quite a bit. I have also gone back and listened to several of the project's earlier albums and gotten a feel for how Page works alone as well as when he's collaborating with others. This album has a whole slew of guests on it adding to the unique concept of the project.
From as far as I can tell, this is the most collaborative release that Page has ever released under the Sky Burial name, featuring the likes of Jarboe, Bridget Wishart, Xiphoid Dementia, and Danny Hyde to name a few. Hyde even went so far as to create two pieces (from the looks of the credits) on his own without collaborating with Page. The resulting album is far more expressive than I could call any of Page's previous releases, which is more than I could say for the album he made with Nik Turner, last year's Aegri Somnia. Though the majority of the album is still kept within the worlds of ambient and drone, the collaboration between various artists has resulted in a an album that channels many more stylistic ideas. Industrial and noise music, and to an extent I'd say krautrock as well, start to worm their ways into these huge spaces of ambiance and change the track into a more amorphous sound. Even the huge string section that opens up Shedding The Husk (and continues throughout the track) is slowly overtaken by spacey synths, atmospheric cymbals, and low-end drones, yet never feels like it's just one track fading out and another being turned up, which it very well could have turned into, but more of an engulfing of one and absorbing it into its own being. This is also one of the more interesting tracks on the album because it manages to change itself so many times throughout its ten minute length. From a churning orchestral intro into spacious ambiance and then again into slightly more frenetic, yet rather minimally composed, industrial piece.
The two pieces created solely by Danny Hyde do stand out on here in perhaps the most annoyingly obvious way. The first time I listened through this I wasn't looking at the booklet or anything and I hadn't looked through it yet, I was just listening to the music and both Carne[val] and Fools Circel 9wys stood out like sore thumbs. They were so electronic, and I want to say melodic, that they just sounded almost nothing like the other pieces on the album. For me, it might just be a placement issue, because the tracks themselves are actually quite interesting and are by no means bad, but they just didn't gel with the more ambient based tracks that make up the majority of the album. Having said that, there is just this overflowing sense of joy and enthusiasm that pours out of these tracks, and a majority of tracks from the album, where you can just tell how much these fun these people had working and creating these tracks. It's rare that I feel much emotion from ambient based music at all, I might feel something towards it, but the music almost never gives off a sense of emotion, and I found that rather charming and endearing about the album.
The end product of all these pieces being released under this banner is somewhat hit-and-miss, miss coming more from placement than any sort of lack of interesting ideas. There are some really brilliant moments on here that really convey an atmosphere that I rarely hear from any style of music. I think that if you dig anything from ambient to experimental forms of electronic music will be able to find something of interest in here.
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: Shedding The Husk, Silence Moves, Bone to Beak (The Vultures Speak)

Rage Nucléaire - Unrelenting Fucking Hatred (2012)

Band: Rage Nucléaire
Country: Montréal, Canada
Style: Industrial Black Metal
Label: Season of Mist

I was probably as surprised as anyone when Season of Mist announced the signing of this group, which happens to feature the legendary Lord Worm on vocals. I never expected Lord Worm to appear with another group ever again and his performances were resigned to the classic Cryptopsy records. I also didn't expect that his next big venture would be a black metal band.
Despite the title of the genre, industrial black metal can be quite a varied style to work inside, and so expecting a particular sound from it is rather futile. When I hear that term, I tend to think of a more polished sound, something closer to Fear Factory (but with black metal), which is certainly not what you will find on here. This is much closer to the sound of the first couple of releases from Anaal Nathrakh, with extremely distorted guitars, industrial noise covering the entire thing in a smog of sort of mechanical matter - giving it that very rough and yet sterile industrial kind of sound at the same time. The drums are done live, so they don't have quite the precision that groups who use drum machines have, but the performance is a more naturalistic one, with more variation than most groups in this style tend to have. Then, there's Lord Worm, who is as unintelligible as ever. Being someone who enjoyed his work in Cryptopsy, yet never understood a single word he was saying (even with the lyrics), he certainly lives up to his legacy on here. Though some might be a little thrown off due to his reliance (whether because of the style of the band or otherwise) on his higher screams and occasionally affected vocals and his sparse use of his trademark growl on here.
Despite all that the actual songwriting aspect to the group is quite well developed. Though there is a distinct lack of vocal hooks or variation, the guitar melodies are actually quite well done, often times falling somewhere between early black metal tremolo picking and more traditional heavy metal melodic phrasings, hear Fields of The Crucified. The synth work is also something worthy of note because, while it is not overly present on the first couple of tracks, when it starts to make itself known, it does work well. Providing either subtle atmospheric touches or, in the case of Endziel, a slightly more symphonic edge that sort of reminded me of the early albums of Lunar Aurora. Lord Worm's vocals are well done, but as I said above, his trademark growl is notably absent from the majority of this album which was something I felt disappointed by. That style of his was the draw for me into this album, and while he certainly gives a very good performance, I just wish that he growled more (a minor complaint I know, but still something that bothered me). In addition to all of that, Lord Worm has provided this album with some of the best song titles I've read/seen all year.
It was certainly a different sort of album than I anticipated it being, but I can't say the lack of variety really did it any favors. As someone who likes this sub-genre a lot, I do think the band have something, but the real test will be where they go from here. If you're in the market for a very aggressive and noisy black metal album, definitely check this one out.
Overall Score: 8
Highlights: Fields of The Crucified, 30 Seconds In The Killhouse, Unrelenting Fucking Hatred

Blacklodge - MachinatioN (2012)

Band: Blacklodge
Country: Villard-de-Lans, France
Style: Industrial Black Metal
Label: Season of Mist

I've been following Blacklodge for years now and I'd like to think that I've been supporting them for just as long. This is my third review for the band, I remember reviewing Solarkult during my first couple of months doing this and then a few months later covering T/ME. Now they're on a much bigger label and with more press backing them, but did it change their sound?
The answer to that is no, well, at least in a negative sense it's no. The band have definitely shifted their sound to what I consider an even more aggressive one. Listening back to some of the band's older material, this album does ring with a harsher and less "rock" mentality and with more visceral tendencies. I say "rock" because in the past, while the band were always undeniably metal, their songs had that very straightforward sound that was very riff driven, not that they were a rock band. Songs also go through some more phases, especially in terms of the drums, with the band branching out into some more adventurous territory there. I felt like the band did kind of derive their sound from a certain sound that relied on noisy guitars and heavy, industrial beats, but those beats were somewhat one-dimensional at times, but on T/ME the band really did go for more of a progressive aesthetic which led to more of an atmospherically led record rather than the driving, riff-heavy sound on their first two full-lengths. This record sort of takes a spot in between those two sounds. The riffs and songs are very much the focus of this album, but as I stated above, there's more variation in terms of beats, which would only come from shifts in structure.
For me, this is easily the most mature record the band has released to date. With all the above factors coming together along with some of the band's strongest batch of songs yet, it just feels like the culmination of ideas has created something very strong. The band have always demonstrated that they knew how to write anthems, songs with heavy beats, catchy riffs, and a vocal line that just made you want to shout it at the top of your lungs, and while all the above indicators probably point to that being true on here, it actually isn't. As with their last full-length, the purpose (I guess that would be the best way to put it) of the anthem has decreased in priority for the band and they are instead writing songs that are more interesting while confining them to relatively short lengths to make them very digestible. A track like Industrial Temple MysticA is easily one of the band's most accomplished songs to date but still contains those simplistic and catchy riffs that will grab you and make you want to listen. There really wasn't a track on here I didn't like beyond opener TridenT which just didn't really do anything for me. Aside from that though, the album blends really strong anthems with more atmospheric and experimental ideas which is something of a dream combination for me when thinking about this band in particular. A track like Order of The Baphomet is probably the strongest combination of these ideas, with the beat shifting throughout the track from the typical slower pulse to more frenetic skittering but the riffs are memorable. I should mention that I'm really glad that the band did not experiment with dubstep on here, cause that could have very well ruined the album (but that's just cause I don't like dubstep - so take that as you will).
It's a very logical follow-up to their last full-length and will likely please old and new fans alike. I think it's easily the band's best work to date, and hopefully further expansion and progress will be made on future releases as well. If you like experimental and more industrial forms of metal, or those sub-genres mixed with black metal, grab a copy of this and listen.
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: NeutroN ShivA [Sun, Walk With Me!], Antichrist Ex Machina, Order of The Baphomet