Fuck the Facts' "Disgorge Mexico"

Band: Fuck the Facts
Album: Disgorge Mexico
Date: 07-22-2008
Label: Relapse
Genre: Metal/Grindcore/Experimental Grindcore
Rating: 3.5/5.0

Its been awhile.

First things first: Fuck the Facts' last album, Stigmata High Five (2006) was a revelatory experience. With the odd exception, grindcore, experimental or not, never appealed to me. It seemed to offer all of the pompous technicality of the worst kind of death metal along with a healthy dose of holier than thou hardcore credibility. And lets face it, 'experimental' is the metal equivalent of telling somebody what they're about to eat is an acquired taste. A hearty "Good luck" and pat on the back marking the beginning of a truly annoying experience, unforgettable despite all honest attempts to purge it from your archive of things that have sucked. But Stigmata High Five didn't suck.

And so with great disappointment I say the following: Disgorge Mexico is an alright album. It isn't bad, it isn't great. Its just there.

Putting aside my lofty expectations for a moment, what really stands out about this album is the lack of a coherent voice. There are twice as many tracks here as Stigmata High Five, for reasons which escape me. The first third of the album is seeded back to back with blistering aural assaults that begin and end quickly. The first track, "Borders", is a kind of overture, introducing the work to follow. The more melodic parts of Stigmata High Five are doomier here, evening out the band's sound to good effect. Track three, "Absence and Despite" is practically catchy, and the breakdown seems almost out of place, an afterthought. Track distinctions overall seem to be largely arbitrary. Stigmata High Five had the benefit of incorporating softer, more traditional metal elements into longer songs. Here these parts are broken into single songs in their own right. Still, if the album ended at track six it probably would have held up just fine.

But the album doesn't end there, for good and ill. Track seven, "Driving Through Fallen Cities" is maybe my favorite, and it comes across as a bit more complete than the preceding songs. What really stands out is a the breakdown, a goth/doom pastiche that would be at home on any of the more recent Katatonia albums. The feel is stretched somewhat with "La Culture du Faux", a riff driven affair that would have fans of Down and C.O.C. feeling right at home. If Pepper Keenan thought the guys in Paradise Lost were really women and had kids with them, and then those children formed into a Devastator-esque robot, this song would play as it brutalized a midwestern town.

Thats ridiculous, you think. I say truth is stranger than fiction.

Anyway, by the time the album's longest track, "The Storm" kicks in we're firmly into another territory altogether. Suturing together the finer points of both the preceding sections, this part of the album is perhaps the most coherent. But even so, it comes as a bit too little too late. Disgorge Mexico tries to do a lot, and succeeds a good portion of the time. A fact made all the more difficult to handle considering how startlingly innovative the band has been. Unfortunately this is a case where the whole does not exceed the sum of its parts. This album could have been broken up into three distinct, yet equally successful EPs. Maybe next time.

Melvins' "Nude With Boots"

Band: Melvins
Album: Nude With Boots
Date: 07-08-2008
Label: Ipecac
Genre: Metal/Sludge Metal
Rating: 3.5/5

I was not a fan of the Melvins. I'd be hard pressed to say I'm a fan now. Their catalog is enormous and I'm just at the tip of the iceberg. But what I've heard I like.

Now, I've heard of the Melvins, of course. I even saw them live when they opened for Helmet on the Aftertaste tour. Before the show a friend and I were verbally accosted by a Melvins fan who proclaimed in no uncertain terms that they were the heaviest band of all time. Ignorant as I was I thought the first band to play that night, a jam-rock seven piece (with piano!) was them. That assumption was utterly discredited when the Melvins took the stage. Streetfan's proclamation was very nearly validated, particularly when compared to Helmet's lackluster performance that evening. Helmet were on the way to breaking up and, well, the Melvins were themselves. They were great.

And then I basically forgot about them until last year. Interested in other stuff, I suppose. Always meaning to check them out, their CDs were the ones put back when push came to shove in the record store. Then one day sifting through the recently aquired new CDs at my favorite record store (its a friggin' head shop now-see what happens when you don't support your local record store?) the owner pointed out all the Melvins stuff he'd just bought. He knew I liked Big Business, and told me that both Jared Warren and Coady Willis were in the Melvins now. So I picked up the album they were on, A Senile Animal, and one other, Hostile Ambient Takeover, both of which I really liked. So I kept my eyes open for other discs and waited for the next one.

First time through I really didn't like Nude With Boots. It grabbed my attention right off with "The Kicking Machine" and then disappointed me. Every song sounded more like the previous one and I sank into a sulky boredom, waiting for the one standout song to make the purchase worthwhile. It didn't come.

But I've learned not to let such experiences wreck albums for me, and waited a couple days to approach it with fresh ears. Nude With Boots has grown considerably on me over those days. It sounds like a whole different disc. The best part being it doesn't sound like the same song over and over for forty minutes. The opener is a rock-infused affair highlighting the influence of Warren and Willis. From there the album takes on a doomier air without abandoning any of the catchier rock moments we were introduced to right off the bat. "Dog Island" may be the best example of slow burn doom giving way to tight, angular riffs and vocal melodies more at home in the better examples of "90s alternative rock." "Suicide in Progress" inverts this relationship slightly, with staccato rock riffing giving way to a vocal delivery which would be familiar to most doom/sludge fans.

A couple of tracks, "Dies Iraea" and "Flush" serve as ambient noise experiment intermissions, breaking the album up into three discrete yet connected elements. The three tracks after "Flush" are without question the "heaviest" on the album, and stand alone from the rest of the disc somewhat. But they won't catch you by surprise if you've been paying attention. Doom and sludge fans would do themselves a favor working up to "The Stupid Creep" and "The Savage Hippy" but if impatience reigns, starting there wouldn't spoil the album's flow much, if at all.

All together a very strong album, but I wasn't exactly stunned. Enjoyable, but I probably won't go out of my way to play it for other people. Basically, I find myself in the same position I've been in before with the Melvins. I'm keeping an eye out. I like today's Melvins, and I'll probably like yesterday's Melvins too. But working back to zero can be risky. That said, I do have some dollars for the used bin burning a hole in my pocket...

Opeth's "Watershed"

Band: Opeth
Album: Watershed
Date: 06-03-2008
Label: Roadrunner
Genre: Metal, Progressive Metal, Progressive Death Metal
Rating: 5+/5

It wasn't so long ago my friends and I argued about Metallica's black album. Honestly, I argue about the black album with my friends to this day. But when it came out my circle was largely divided into two camps: those who thought it was the greatest thing Metallica ever did and those who thought it was utter garbage. Whether the band had sold out or not didn't really come up then, though it comes up quite a bit now. I had a more nuanced opinion. I didn't think it was their greatest album (still don't) but made the point that anyone who was paying any attention at all could have seen the black album coming from a mile away (an argument I still make). I was one of the few who felt this way, apparently, as the black album became the deal breaker for a lot of Metallica fans.

And so we come to Opeth's Wathershed. This is going to be a deal breaker album for Opeth fans. After a couple of personnel changes fans were a little wary to begin with. (Not surprising, really, as there are still Metallica fans who feel the band died with Cliff Burton). But this album sounds, feels, and is constructed differently than previous Opeth releases, and fans already teetering on the "they rule/they suck" fence will find plenty of excuses in Wathershed come down firmly on the "they suck" side. Which is a shame, because this album is easily the best thing Opeth have released.

Watershed is epic. The album is soft and brutal, forlorn and agressive. While the album could have been crippled by overproduction, (there were some six separate masters before the final release) it comes across cleanly and without pretension. The pacing is excellent; songs break and recede like waves from beginning to end. The album's title suggests this is a pivotal transition for the band, and anyone looking to make a direct connection between the title and the path of the band will find ample evidence to back up their claim.

Throughout the album there is a distinctly 70s feel. Watershed opens with "Coil," a short acoustic piece in the singer/songwriter vein. And while it doesn't seem out of place - Opeth have deployed acoustic instruments before - the presence of female vocals is the first indication we're on ground not tread before. Mikael Åkerfeldt, frontman and creative force for the band, has said he had no interest in including female vocals because, basically, it had been done before. And even though "Coil" is a hauntingly beautiful song and a outstanding opening track for the album, folks will have no trouble saying its an indication Opeth have sold out.

What will probably piss fans off the most is the funk-inspired organ breakdown six minutes into "The Lotus Eater," the album's third track. Coming close on the heels of "Heir Apparent," a progressive death masterpiece in line with Opeth's earlier work, "The Lotus Eater" is at once a destructive and catalyzing force. This track destroys expectations and defines the album. There's no other way to put it. Almost to drive the point home that the organ wasn't an aberration it reappears on "Burden," delivering the most blistering solo in the seven-minute track, and maybe even the best solo on the album.

Fans who aren't chuffed on psych-y, 0rgan employing Opeth will find themselves in more familiar territory with "Porcelain Heart," but the last two tracks, "Hessian Peel" and "Hex Omega" are perfectly executed examples of the band's new sound. Both songs incorporate a more balanced attack, folding in influences you knew had to be there but the band never let on to. And both tracks, but especially "Hex Omega," highlight Åkerfeldt's more nuanced vocal delivery. Whether its the vocals or the production, there is something about them that reminds simultaneously of Roger Waters and Michael Gira. Honestly. I can't explain it.

Tangent/Conclusion: Its bewildering to me to think that fans of a band occupying slots in not one, but two "progressive" categories would get upset when the band started to become more musically adventurous. If you want to hear albums by bands who put out the same record over and over, there are plenty of options. (And if you doubt the amount of ground you can cover within such restrictions, please refer to the following bands: AC/DC, Disturbed, Nile, Weezer). I mean really, its not like they cut their hair or anything.

Oh, and the plus in the rating is granted for challenging expectations and putting out an album which flows flawlessly from beginning to end. Eat that, Rolling Stone.

Electric Wizard's "Witchcult Today"

Band: Electric Wizard
Album: Witchcult Today
Date: 11-12-2007
Label: Rise Above
Genre: Stoner Rock, Doom, Metal
Rating: 3.5/5

Even if you aren't familiar with Electric Wizard's work, the album art for Witchcult Today should give you a pretty good idea of where the band is coming from. The wispy font evoking curling smoke, a robed figure sporting horns and carrying a nude woman... Electric Wizard wear their influences on their sleeve, so to speak.

Track titles like "Satanic Rites of Drugula" and "Raptus" aren't so much clues as they are affirmations. Electric Wizard like pot. Electric Wizard like fuzzed-out 70s jams. Electric Wizard are more than a little familiar with the more ridiculous aspects of popular Satanism. Roll it all together and you get Witchcult Today.

In the glut of retro-cool releases as of late, (Witchcraft, Baroness, Graveyard - even Mastodon covered a Thin Lizzy song...), Electric Wizard stand out. Frankly, they were in the vanguard of the doom metal revival, and have more than their fair share of fans for the effort. With at least one genre-defining album in their catalog - 2000's Dopethrone - Electric Wizard could be expected to rest on their laurels. After all, less talented bands have coasted on less. But they've never stopped releasing worthwhile tracks in a genre that can, at times, provide good cover for lackluster work. Turning up the fuzz and jamming for 12 minutes does not a good stoner/doom song make. Any band interested in carrying the torch Sabbath lit lo those many years ago would do well to check out We Live, Let us Prey and Witchcult Today to get a sense of how it should be done.

The album opens strong with the title track, but the standout efforts here are "The Chosen Few" and "The Satanic Rites of Drugula." The album suffers from some poor pacing, however, and ends like the Lord of the Rings trilogy - with at least one more ending than necessary. With stoner/doom bands you can expect a 10+ minute jam. And it makes sense that they'd come at the end of the album. The point being to have the album peak when the listener does. But Witchcult Today ends with two such epic jams, "Black Magic Rituals and Perversions" and "Saturnine." "Saturnine" is clearly the stronger of the two, and justly closes the album. Coming on the heels of "Black Magic..." really saps the songs power though, and would have been better placed about halfway through the disc, either before or after "Raptus."

I don't even smoke pot though, so what do I know from stoner metal? Well as the saying goes, I know what I like. And I like this.

Buried at Sea's "Ghost"

Band: Buried at Sea
Album: Ghost
Date: 10-2007
Label: Neurot
Genre: Doom, Metal
Rating: 4.5/5

Its been awhile since I had the chance to sit down to write much of anything here. Theres a pile of stuff I need to get to, including some things I haven't even cracked open yet. I say this not as an apology, but to explain why it is, when I have quite a bit else to write about here, I'm starting with Buried at Sea. Lets just say the spirit moved me.

The spirit moved me like a punch in the face. The opening of Ghost hit like a fist wrapped around the densest piece of volcanic glass ever discovered, a primordial bludgeon. Ghost is beautifully simple, illustrating the natural attraction of (seemingly) simple things done incredibly well. The attack is dirty/tight, with a hazy fog of static and ambient sound enveloping a sonic landscape borne by the band's masterful execution.

Ghost's thirty minute journey begins with a palpable sense of expectation. A pulsing bass/synth line just under the surface draws you in, focusing your attention and hinting at whats to come. A minute and a half in, the whole band lurches into motion with a slow doom-dirge befitting a Viking funeral. But like the shorter intro before it, even this is only a hint of what's to come. As the tempo slows for the ineivitable build and release, the piece is marked by a sense of gleeful doom. The track swells for what seems like an eternity and when it finally breaks the shifting, haunting sound of the introduction is thrust to the fore. This a heavy pause, however, and when the sound of a bell suddenly cuts through the mist you know you're truly, utterly fucked - you're only halfway through.

The Grieving Dead

This is the situation: I don't steal music.

Yeah, I consider downloading music without paying for it stealing.

I consider it stealing because most of the music I listen to is made by people like me. They work, have lives, maybe even families. They have rent and they need to eat. The labels they're on, if they're on labels, are usually independently owned. If they're lucky, they have major label ties for distribution. I say lucky, but its a relative term. A lot of indie labels wouldn't consider themselves lucky if they had major label distribution, they'd consider themselves sellouts. Major label distribution just makes it easier for me to find stuff, though I usually don't have a problem if I'm paying attention to release dates for upcoming albums that I know I'll be buying.

Point being, I'd no more take money from them than I would my friends. If I care enough about a band to listen to them, I care enough to buy their stuff, so they will continue to produce music I like. Downloading it without paying seems an awful lot like petting a dog without ever feeding it. Eventually the dog isn't around anymore for you to pay attention to it. Attention is great provided you have another way to feed, house and clothe yourself. (And a lot of bands do. If you're not on a major label - hell, even if you are - chances are you have another way of making money. With that in mind, maybe another metaphor is in order. Maybe we can consider stealing music akin to not leaving a tip when we've had great service and enjoyed our meal.)

Because I feel this way, I put effort into buying music from independent record stores as well. Usually, I purchase albums online. I do this for two reasons. First, its easier to have music delievered to my front door than it is to go to three or four different places. Who am I kidding - I really only have two local options. If I'm willing to go to Michigan I can increase the tally to four or five. But thats an hour away, and with the price of gas... The second reason I order most of my stuff online is that I know where to look. Independent labels usually have their own webstores, and if they don't their distributors often do. Even with shipping, I can save a little money shopping this way.

Sometimes an album is just unattainable, though, and for this reason I seek out good used record stores whenever possible. Recently I had the chance to go to San Francisco and check out two fairly well-known record stores, Rasputin Music and Amoeba Music. Rasputin's was amazing. If you've never been, the best way I can describe it is this: you have to take an elevator to the fifth floor. Amoeba, to put it mildly, was overwhelming. To take full advantage of the place, I think I'd have to move to San Francisco. Seriously. I made a conscious decision to focus on picking up things I've been looking for and haven't had much luck tracking down around here. Luck was on my side for the most part, and I was able to keep my average at under $10/CD even with a couple of new albums thrown into the mix.

Still, the experience was a bit uneasy. The whole time I was thinking to myself, "I'm in a graveyard." There's a joke in a Simpson's episode. Homer goes to the dump to get rid of a giant ball of candy, and as he's rolling it up to the trash pile he passes three areas. If I'm remembering correctly, they're labeled "BetaMax Tapes," "Laser Discs" and the third one is marked "Reserved for DVDs." Walking through the stores, passing tape racks and LP bins on my way to the CDs, I couldn't help but feel I was participating in futile effort to sustain a system that should be dead already. I mean, isn't the internet destroying this? Shouldn't this place be out of business already? Why aren't I just downloading all my music on iTunes?

And then I realized - I'm dead. To Steve Jobs, the major labels, p2p sharing sites, everyone with a stake in the "new" business of music. I shop for music on obsolete formats, in obsolete stores, for obsolete reasons. At best, I'm a material fetishist, someone who's interest in the packaging of music Apple tried to pander to with "cover flow." At worst I'm assigned to the slice of marketshare deemed unreachable, undesireable.

But I'm not fetishist, and I'm too young to be shopping for nostalgia, and too old to care about being cool in the eyes of the record store clerk. I may be dead, but I'm the worst kind of dead - I'm political. I make my decisions with the full knowledge of exactly what it means to be outside the view of the organs of capitalism but still within the system of exchange. The death of independent record stores, independent record labels, independent bands has been greatly exaggerated. Sometimes, after the grieving is over, the survivors do something other than simply live. Sometimes they live with the intent of carrying out the mission of the deceased. So long as I'm buying music, I'm buying independent as best I can. The grieving is over.

Bad Religion's "Suffer"

Band: Bad Religion
Album: Suffer
Date: 09-08-1988
Label: Epitaph
Genre: Punk
Rating: 5/5

For a record coming in under thirty minutes, you wouldn't necessarily expect a whole lot of diversity as far as song content and lyrics go. Most bands operating in the half-hour or less vein of punk can't seem to break out of the hyperactive, play 'til something catches fire mold. Lyrics are spit machinegun style, and melody is left to the imagination. This album has shown dozens, if not hundreds of bands that being intelligible and crafting a solid rhthym with a catchty hook doesn't mean leaving your ferocity and attack at the door.

Bad Religion has always been political, commenting on social and cultural issues with a personal anger made all the more potent by Greg Gaffin's refusal to dumb down the point. His baseline assumption is that his audience is smart enough to get what he's saying. There's precious little to "read" into his lyrics; what you hear is what you get. "Part II (The Numbers Game)" starts with a punk rock standard, a gang vocal counting up to the opening verse while the guitars and drum rave up behind. None of the energy is lost when the vocals kick in, seemingly in the middle of an established rant, "It's superficial progress, they call it liberation/With opiates of silicon, Big Brother schemes to rule the nation." For a track ushering in final third of the album, you'd be hard pressed to think of better way to kick off the beginning of the end. And make no mistake, this is an "album" in the truest sense. There is a beginning, middle and end, not a couple of singles and some filler. (Unfortunately this can't be said for some other releases in the Bad Religion catalog - but thats for another time).

The album starts as strong as it ends. "You Are (The Government)" is a sharp condemnation of apathy and inaction, "1000 More Fools" attacks the commodification of religion and the mass culture of televangelism, and "How Much is Enough?" is a short, powerful critique of consumerism and excess. For an album coming up on its 20th anniversary, lyrics like "Tell me can the hateful chain be broken/Production and consumption define our hollow lives/Avarice has led us 'cross the ocean/Toward a land that's better, much more bountiful and wide/When will mankind finally come to realize/His surfeit has become his demise?" are still relevant. Whether you think this is less evidence for the prescience of the band than support for the claim that little has changed in 20 years, the power of the track still echoes.

The title track and "Delirium of Disorder" hint at a tendency to experiment with the punk rock format, foreshadowing attempts by the band, some more successful than others, to broaden their sound (and perhaps their commercial appeal). By and large, this is a powerful example of a band doing apparently simple things really well, leaving a legacy of imitators to struggle through the equation of emotion, political views, catchy song writing and a rebellious streak grounded in self reflection as well as a healthy distrust of authority. This is punk with style, made rigid by belief. We should be thankful they're still putting out worthwhile music. While other bands are getting matching haircuts or knocking up Nicole Ritchie, its nice to have old voices which are still relevant.