Sam Recker

The Black Angels: Indigo Meadow

It’s a hot new thing to resurrect (and occasionally build on) the archaic sounds of yore; from Kscope prog resurrecting King Crimson and Jethro Tull to modern pop music digging up disco, history always repeats itself. It’s not necessarily a bad thing in the case of The Black Angels. For the most part, they’re by-the-book psychedelic rock with a hint of the old Post-Punk revival in the garage rock vein, with the washed out, heavy guitars. What little new ideas that The Black Angels brought to the table, however, was an undeniably oppressive lyricism. Through the subtly somber organ and jangly bass guitars, the nasally croon of the male lead, and occasionally feminine backing vocals, the crusty production that followed their discography made for an entertaining mix of nostalgia.

Indigo Meadow throws the directly depressing ideas that preceded it out the window with the clarity of production and a general sense of campiness in every aspect of the music. Interplay is a focal point for the most part, the title track and Don’t Play With Guns are extremely dynamic and the latter employs a much more upbeat synth treatment  Holland starts out similarly to a new-era Flaming Lips song until the organs and guitar take over for a lethargic tale of a trip to Holland. Songs like Evil Things and I hear Colors (Chromaesthesia) carry heavy, washed out guitars that trudge quickly in a much stronger influence for garage rock, but with the organs that are ever present, they can never stray far from their psychedelic roots. Twisted Light and Always Maybe, however, are absolutely drenched in that acidic 60’s sound with guitar and synth taking center stage while the lyricism swirl in an irrelevant habit. The contemplative, minimal Black isn’t Black is the gem of the record, closing it with a loud/quiet dynamic and a spacious agoraphobia that works towards the vocal’s mix’s advantage, the lyrics telling a haunting story that coils around the pensive bassline. While starving for ambition, The Black Angels’ music continues to gradually grow as they explore every nook of their idiom.

The Black Angels’ Website
Hear Evil Things.
Buy Indigo Meadow CD, Vinyl, Digital.

L. Pierre: The Island Come True

Because of the refined, yet clearly influenced by grief in his Arab Strap-era personal life conveyed thickly on Everything’s Getting Older with multi-instrumentalist Bill Wells, Aidan Moffat still finds his ambient solo project L. Pierre to hold some significance to him. Originally a challenge set by his other half, Malcolm Middleton who at the time had a rather successful if not painfully conventional solo project of his own, L. Pierre quickly grew into something that showcased sentiment and sorrow better than any pop song Moffat could write on his own. Originally starting as what could clearly be seen as simply a mildly more experimental rhythm section for Arab Strap, what with the drum machine and soundscapes coming awkwardly into the forefront on his debut Hypnogogia, but something was brewing between the “bum bum tss” and hum of this release.

By the time Dip came around in 2007, the orchestral samples that sat buried in the mix like many an archaic progressive rock song would have them swelled and became the very backbone for the records to follow. After the noisy mess that was Dip came The Island Come True. A deceptively campy album cover echoes thoughts of paradise but none is to be found within. The record starts off with an opener—KAB 1340—of pier bells ans seagulls with a somber, washed out orchestra that paints a picture of a shore wracked with depression, death and storms. The distorted waves crash against the hum, cracks and pops of a simulated record playing that before simply sounded like some pretentious dribble, but Moffat is so incredibly deep in this kind of music that it feels appropriate now. Between crackles, pops and somber strings is an even worse indicator of pain, the subtly distorted sounds of children laughing, carrying on, humming, singing along, even crying. While the crackling can get overbearing, namely on The Grief that Does not Speak, it’s easy to see it simply as over-immersion and hear the perfectly depressing strings that sit in the center.

The short, haunting Now Listen! acts as a reminder that the best is yet to come, however. It’s a bookmark to the more ambitious, emotionally ambiguous side of the record. The momentum is slow going with the subtle soundscape Exits, the sampling wavers near the end and crumbles into the exotic Doctor Alucard with a loud upright bass, operatic female lead and multiple eastern percussion that channels Om’s more worldly work. Dynamic strings keep the tribal funk in line until Tulpa demands the listener give in (presumably to the mix) and prepare for the epic The Kingdom, with its loud, droning build and epic mallet percussion. The synthesized soundscape cannot hide the crickets chirping in the background, and like an addictive book, they’re the only thing at the end to indicate night has long fallen, time is nothing when the experience is so immersive.

L. Pierre’s Website
Buy The Island Come True.
Stream The Island Come True on The Quietus.
Watch KAB 1340.

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Grouper: The Man Who Died in His Boat

Liz Harris’ quiet side-project is easily akin to walking through a fog. If that us the case, then Grouper’s The Man Who Died in His Boat is the edge of the ordeal, looking out to the infant sunrise. The record is the first in quite a while to start with an intro, and the distortion and noise gives way slowly like sinuses clearing to the release. For the most part, also, the music is clear. Each song has the groaning vocals somewhat closer to the forefront, and the guitars shine despite their typically muddy mix work. Being Her Shadow is really the only track that resembles Grouper of old, while songs like Cloud in Places, Cover the Long Way and Towers put guitar and vocals up front, focusing to a sharp point the sound and lyrics, rather than the mood they create. Vanishing Point is a minimalist instrumental that acts as a turning point for Grouper, terrifying and subtly unsettling in the simplicity of the keys. The short closer Living Room echoes Alicia Merz’s sentimental Birds of Passage in it’s generally relatively shrill delivery, but the clear lyrics offer a closure that was never needed, but closes the album in a beautiful manner. While Grouper’s music tends to be best drowning in drone and with unintelligible lyrics, The Man Who Died in His Boat is a welcome change of pace.

Grouper’s Website
Buy The Man Who Died in His Boat.

Ensemble Pearl

Ensemble Pearl is a sonic gathering, and a better tribute to fellow drone artists Earth than Sunn O))) could be. Stephen O’Malley heads this one, also. The ever intense, ever enthusiastic Atsuo of Japanese genre-hopping darlings Boris, familiar with the ground O’Malley likes to tread (see their collaboration: Oroborus Circuit) is part of the rhythm section, Boris’ live guitarist and alumnus of Oriental psych-rockers Ghost Michio Kurihara is along for the ride too. These three would sooner create something to rival Keiji Haino’s recent endeavors if it weren’t for Jesse Sykes‘ bassist Bill Herzog’s undoubtedly heavy bass guitar acting as anchor for this ship of Noise.

The record starts off with a short Ghost Parade that mirrors the work of Earth in a peculiar way; if Earth paints a picture of bleached skulls basking in the American desert sunlight, then Ghost Parade is a terrarium of one such a scene inside of glass in a dark art exhibition, the effects, dynamic additional guitars and quiet feedback acting as the artificial exterior. Painting on a Corpse is just slightly longer, much more upbeat and dynamic, but it loses much of the intensity the album started with with the sheer amount of things going on. The surprise is that Kurihara’s guitar techniques tend to outshine Stephen O’Malley’s, wailing and screaming while O’Malley’s sits back and yawns. Wray, however, completely flips the idea of the group’s sound on its head and, at a glance, feels like the skeleton of Painting on a Corpse with its wails and growls. The subtle dynamics of Timba Harris’ droning strings and the instruments in the foreground. The whole ordeal feels more like beings reaching out to each other, never quite touching, but always meticulously thrashing.

Atsuo’s restraint is the focal point of Island Epiphany, despite the gravity of the sound that pervades it. Even when Bill Herzog loosens the reins on the two guitarists, allowing them free reign over the mix, twisting and destroying it, Atsuo does nothing but keep time, the kind of refined, simple percussion he hasn’t done since Altar. Eyvind Kang’s Erhu and strings hang well below the mix on the percussionless Giant, and punctuates each artist’s part in the song to expose their subtle interactions. Sexy Angle is far from as lighthearted as its title with Atsuo’s hypnotic, complex percussion, and the full, slow-burning effect of every artist’s continued work for the twenty minutes the track swells and eventually, after creaking under its on weight, crumbles into space and the droning of not only guitars, but slithering violas.

Stephen O’Malley has teased an idea of continuing what Ensemble Pearl is, and if that much is the case, then the only real issue on the horizon is what will Sunn O))) Become? The impeccable Monoliths & Dimensions is not far in influence to Ensemble Pearl’s debut, but will the bridge between them only tarnish Sunn O)))’s otherwise entertaining back catalog? While each other active side-project of Stephen O’Malley grows into its own separate entity, will Sunn O))) be left to gather dust?

Ensemble Pearl’s Label Page
Listen to Painting on a Corpse
Buy Ensemble Pearl

The Volume Settings Folder: Leaving Winter

Talk about ambition. Leaving Winter is not the first self-released, handmade full-length album by budding ambient project The Volume Settings Folder to get a physical release, but it does have the loosest concept: the death of Winter to birth Spring. Short in length for an ambient release at only 39 minutes, but the lack of content leaves no room for indulgences. Each track has one thing in common with the rest, the sound of water flowing and dripping. Whether it’s in the foreground on the stark, unsettling Vesta—the dripping augmenting the dissonant soundscapes—or conveyed in metaphor on the squealing of acoustic guitar on Tschano, the giving way of snow to open up the grass pervades the entirety of the record. That is not to say that Leaving Winter is warm throughout. The opener, Neswo and its comparatively short closer in Tschano both work as sleek, dissonant bookends in entirely different formats. The centerpiece of the album is the incredibly short Kroesta, where loud drones perforate most of the duration. An incredibly distorted and twisted acoustic guitar jangles on for half of the song, eventually fading into muffled obscurity to open up the absolutely vibrant Brahma, its own ten minutes all cherished, backed in sound and soundscape. Leaving Winter is ambient music that belongs as a focal point, rather than being played as background noise.

Buy Leaving Winter (you can listen to it there first).
M. Beckmann’s Blog
Listen to Tschano.
Watch the making of Leaving Winter’s packaging.
Other The Volume Settings Folder Works

The Strokes: Comedown Machine

When Angles came out in 2011, its, well, angular chrome sheen in production and instrumentation was obvious indication that The Strokes were sick of the kind of jackhammer garage rock they were putting out to glorious fanfare since their inception. The record was hit-and-miss for die-hard Strokes fans and newcomers alike, but they’re back with a warmer, thicker production on Comedown Machine, a much quicker wait time than what it took to get Angles out. Where Julian Casablancas’ vocal style shied more towards indifferent and pouty on Angles, Comedown Machine follows not only a similar spectrum to their youth, but a whole new vibrant world of songwriting. The ambition of his range is a bit more refined here, only pronounced intensely on One Way Trigger. In fact, it may be the most ambitious track on the record. The keyboards, acoustic guitar and Casablancas’ falsetto are most prominent, and if it had a masculine electric guitar at the foreground instead of keeping it in an appropriately small role, it could easily be used in the Breakfast Club dance scene. 80’s Comedown Machine is easily the most “Strokes” song on the record with its aggressive speed, washed out vocals and loud, grisly guitars while 50/50 is exactly that, 50% Strokes and 50% something different entirely, if not eagerly welcome. Whether coming from a realm Simple Minds curates, or one that A-ha stumbles around, the record is never too far from the heart of what The Strokes are, and while the songwriting can admittedly get a bit tired, the record is easily a welcome addition to their discography. The unpredictable curve-balls they throw like the Lounge-esque Call it Fate, Call it Karma is why some people stick around, too.

The Strokes’ Website
Buy Comedown Machine (CD/Digital, Vinyl)
Watch All the Time.

The Twilight Sad cracked open their smoggy shell to expose their sleek electronic center with No One Can Ever Know in 2012, and have recently quietly released a track that didn’t make the cut for the record. It’s not quite evident why; the droning synth, deep pianos and upright bass shaking the core of an otherwise mediocre track make for great listening.

The Twilight Sad’s Website
Read about No One Can Ever Know.
Get a download of Tell Me When We’re Having Fun.
Buy No One Can Ever Know.

David Bowie: The Next Day

The Next Day, the not-quite-subtle, but still utterly cryptic title for emotive English virtuoso David Bowie has him forcing virtually every stereotype he perpetuated throughout his lengthy, colorful solo career through the stark, amorphous adult contemporary sound his latter career simply cannot escape. Like the album art, Bowie is absolutely drenched in the ideas and sounds from his past, and he uses them readily here, but not so much in the act of homage or duplication, but as a sideways glance or nostalgia. The music is extremely consistent for a David Bowie record, the most so since his folk peak Space Oddity, but he explores every cranny of this narrow archetype: The subtle saxophone in Dirty Boys melds so well into the mix and funky guitar tones that it simply acts like one of the boys rather than taking an inappropriate center stage position, and songs like The Next Day and The Stars are Out Tonight are not only explosive and unique, but incredibly emotive in contrast to Bowie’s most recent habit of creating refined, contemplative music. Of course, there’s much refined music to go around, and most of it is a blemish to the record. Where Are We Now and You Feel So Lonely You Could Die Swell with electric orchestra and nasal croons, even soulful backup vocals that make these moments feel more like an eighties band back for more pseudo-sad piano rock, of course the ridiculous synth-rock of Valentines Day and Dancing Out in Space offset it in a bad way, but manage to ultimately work rather well. The whole record, despite being rigid in its consistency of sound, is an absolute mess; all over the place emotionally. That’s how Bowie does it best, though.

David Bowie’s Website
Buy The Next Day
Watch Where Are We Now?

Nails: Abandon All Life

So-Cal’s cocaine-cock-rock outfit Nails blew onto the scene with their incredibly intense, incredibly organic and wall-produced debut recently re-released on Southern Lord Records. While some songs sounded like excerpts with their sudden beginnings and ends, Unsilent Death was great on the whole. They stay pretty consistent on the follow-up, Abandon All Life, but there is some semblance of change. It’s a surprise that they can fit interplay in their stacked to the brim archetype, but the 44-second Tyrant appears to entirely be just that. For the most part, the vocal style has changed to match the change of pace (there’s honest-to-god evolution on some of these tracks) from a guttural growl to an ear-piercing scream, and while occasionally disjointed, there’s no huge issue. On Unsilent Death, the chugging mid-tempo sounds utilized ended up feeling somewhat corny between absolutely blistering half-a-minute cuts, but the build on Wide Open Wound is absolutely terrifying. The song itself is proportionately wide-open, as it is over twice the average song length at three minutes. The sludgy, oppressive sound acts like an agoraphobic Thou with Todd Jones’ powerful screech. The record ends with Summ Cuique, a plodding, blast-beat driven monolith that the average pre-2013 Nails fan would be tapping their toes in impatience at, screaming “Where’s the D-Beats?!” all-in-all, Nails still got it, and shine in any extreme idiom.

Nails don’t have a website, believe it or not.
Dig around and you’ll find a place to buy Abandon All Life on CD or vinyl on the label page.

My Bloody Valentine: m b v

My Bloody Valentine made their mark with the arguably essential Loveless in (year), and aside from a lukewarm EP, have been entirely silent until they quietly announced reunion, and silently, suddenly release their self-titled comeback. MBV is nothing if not consistent. Aside from the production style, the majority of the record could just as easily be placed in any of their EPs, or either of their previous records despite the gap in time (22 years!). The record, however, is not merely treading familiar ground. The groovy Only Tomorrow is soaked to the marrow in clean reverb in the vocals and strings with the drums—as in each track with drums on MBV—acting as the only device giving the sound any semblance of shape. At a glance, the recording feels jagged, as though not one,  but thousands of guitars are creating the noise. My Bloody Valentine do what they do best be allowing the song to flow and meander for the better half of its duration like water filling gaps in soil before slowly fading into silence. While Bilinda Butcher sings for the bulk of MBV, as she should, the guitars feel masculine, as though the entire archetype of the band has grown teeth, the best example being Who Sees You’s jagged sound and bending. Is This and Yes contrasts the noise with a more subtle, minimal organ drone acting as a tolerable extremity to offset the reckless abandon of the rather hit-and-miss latter part of the record. The tracks build up the ambition one after another, and unfortunately, it also stacks a less interesting sound. New You sounds more like early Cardigans and the Earthling-era Bowie jungle noise of Nothing Is certainly is cheesy, a repetition most simple and unwelcome. Wonder 2 is best-case scenario My Bloody Valentine evolution, and because of this, it takes the cake as best song on the album. MBV isn’t bad in a conventional sense as much as a “22-year wait for this?” kind of feeling. And while a few of the songs that find My Bloody Valentine stepping out of their comfort zone to better results, what falls short tends to be merely because My Bloody Valentine were so good at what they did before.

My Bloody Valentine’s Website
Buy m b v.
Listen to m b v.

The Flaming Lips: The Terror

Look… The Sun is Rising is the last will and testament for any Flaming Lips song that resembles something with shape, as The Terror, the 2013 full-length effort from Wayne Coyne’s dream project spends the bulk of its time floating aimlessly in clouds of drone, synthesizer and reverb. Unfortunately, what made Embryonic arguably their best release was its stark, sharp guitar and sheer energy. At a glance, The Terror is indeed something terrifying in multiple ways: Coyne’s voice sounds too terrified to move above a whispering croon, and the majority of the songs meander quietly, stretching past five, six, even twelve minutes. On the whole, and in grave detail, there are very few moments that surpass forgettable. For instance, the opener details their agenda for the record: creating sound not with sound alone, but with delivery. While the rest of the album tends to suffer, Look… The Sun is Rising makes a valiant effort to create some sort of orifice in the dense layers of subtle noise that permeate the rest of the record. The record isn’t entirely boring, though: songs like You Lust and You are Alone, and especially Butterfly (How Long it Takes to Die) pen deliciously morbid narrations that only add to the theatrical quality of the whole thing. You Lust lumbers at a heavy, cloudy thirteen minutes and piddles around the same boring foot an a half of ground in the entirety of that time. The music does occasionally evolve, but the lack of dynamic lyricism takes away from the magnitude of the song. The record ends in a similar way to its beginning, loudly, but fails to keep the momentum going, oft fading into static. The same can be said for The Terror in bulk.

The Flaming Lips’ Website
Buy The Terror (Vinyl, Digital, CD)
Watch Sun Blows up Today (non-album track)

The writer brings a more human sound to the varied opinions of music enthusiasts, and while not extremely prolific (glass houses..) the flow is delicious and the site is an apt peek into more extreme and obscure genres of not just metal, but drone and ambient releases I may overlook.

Mogwai: Les Revenants

Mogwai have done soundtracks before, for a documentary and a feature film, but a television show makes a more harrowing endeavor. a pseudo-horror-drama about the undead painted in a more innocent light couldn’t have asked for a better artist to write the music for them. Being a show’s score, crescendos and generally loud points in sound are few, and electronic sounds, effects and synthesizers help to paint the coldness of death and undeath extremely well. Whether the guitars are met with reverb and static, or the gentle twanging of brothers and the pinging of pianos in an organic manner, the music manages to convey the uncertainty perfectly the way the french drama should be able to with a simple orchestra. Occasional strings section interludes aren’t forced and everything flows well enough that Les Revenants, given the position that Mogwai are in now, could very well act as an album proper for the Scottish band, a small oasis between terrible dry spells. There’s even a little ditty with full vocals, albeit sparse and repeated. What Are They Doing In Heaven Today? is a beautifully morose waltz that easily trumps any boring, stale pop song that attempts to feign sadness.

Mogwai’s Website
Buy Les Revenants.

How to Destroy Angels: Welcome Oblivion

Trent Reznor’s decay into noise that is How to Destroy Angels screamed out one more melodic, poppy breath with the bulk of their sophomore EP, An Omen, and that notion of melody is slowly fading, but is still ever present on Welcome Oblivion, their full-length debut. the first four songs swing between bass-laden chaos and haunting melody thanks to Mariqueen Maandig finally spreading her vocal range to a full scream. Everything silences quickly on the brooding, progressive monolith that is Ice Age (trimmed down just slightly for this release) and the noise and dissonance returns for its re-recorded sister track from the previous EP, On the Wing. Of course, Trent’s habits of an uplifting melodic downer on each album are preserves with the surprisingly good, but somewhat poorly orchestrated Too Late  All Gone. The jewel here is hard to pinpoint, but it may be the surprisingly minimal, yet absolutely explosive How Long, where they not only channel Depeche Mode in the lush hook, but Skinny Puppy in its by the numbers biting verse. Unfortunately, the album doesn’t pick up again until The Loop Closes, where Trent shows off his pipes and ever present affinity for the cryptic. That’s not so say that the instrumentation on each song, which alternates between minimal, droning and spacious (There’s a reason the band is named after an acclaimed Coil EP) and explosively stark. It’s simply put that Maandig’s vocal delivery is a powerful part of the music and is best put at center stage. Thankfully, Atticus Ross’, Reznor’s and Rob Sheridan’s clear production and vibrant electro-work gleam to make up for Maandig’s now tired whispering interludes.

How to Destroy Angels’ Website
Watch How Long.
Watch Ice Age.
Buy Welcome Oblivion. (CD, Digital, 2xLP)

Screaming Females: Chalk Tape

After the overhaul of sound that was Ugly, the fantastic trio Screaming Females trek onward with reckless abandon into the future with a little EP called Chalk Tape. There are seven tracks, altogether clocking in at a measly 15 minutes, but there’s just so much to take in! The band bounces between different rock sounds like nobodies business, while the same dynamic pervades the entire EP. Crushing the Kingdom has classic punk written all over it, soaked in Black Flag-esque riffage and drumming. Bad Men is a spacey little acoustic ditty previously unheard of. Into the Sun’s unconventional percussion and smoky guitar scream fellow-female-fronted band Helium’s eastern influence, and the album closes with a slight look backward, to their pre-Ugly works’ entirely static sound and male backing vocals. Chalk Tape is an ample midpoint for a budding rock force to be reckoned with.

Screaming Females’ Website
Watch Poison Arrow.
Buy Chalk Tape.

Jim James: Regions of Light, Sound of God

The perfect solo album concept (See Julian Plenti is… Skyscraper, Steven Wilson’s Insurgentes) may elude Jim James, singer of indulgent rock band My Morning Jacket, but Regions of Light, Sound of God is still pretty okay. The record’s sound could easily be the next step for My Morning Jacket, because it’s not a terribly drastic change from what he did there, but what makes Regions of Light a better record for Jim James is that the record is poor for a concept album. The songs are all over the place, and “Space” appears to be the overarching theme of the sound if “Baby’s First Existential Crisis” is the theme of the lyricism. James was given a copy of Lynd Ward’s spiritually gripping God’s Man during his recuperation from a spill, and he had covered (as Yim Yames) some of the more philosophical George Harrison songs, so at least the writing makes sense, whether it’s about technology against humanism on the spacey, groovy opener of State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U) or throwing caution to the wind for love on the bouncy  Flaming Lips inspired somber Dear One. James channels the Carpenters and Bon Iver on the similarly written A New Life, putting his own rhythmic spin on the otherwise tired sound. While the more upbeat songs are well put together, Jim shines on the more minimal tracks, the simple instrumental Exploding being the absolute highlight for the more profound; the sound speaks volumes where James’ simple lyricism couldn’t touch. He croons over the somber banjo and saxophone on the closer, coming off like Michael Jackson in his heyday. The record is unbelievably tight, but Jim James found plenty of room to spread his legs and create an indulgent little album that can stand alone perfectly well against his discography with the comparably indulgent group project of his.

Jim James’ Website
Buy Regions of Light, Sound of God (CD, Vinyl, Digital).
Watch Know Til Now.
Watch A New Life.

Electronic genres are monopolized by the indulgent and chaotic counter-culture, and it is refreshing to see artists taking such a vulgar genre and spinning in a more refined direction. Brandt Brauer Frick, German based trio (most recently with a full orchestra) are one such a group. Recently however, the music they’ve created has taken a turn into controlled chaos. The music swelled violently on their sophomore record Mr. Machine due to the live setting and large orchestra to coordinate. It only gets more chaotic here with LA-based rapper Om’Mas Keith playing vocalist. The music blasts and squeals with no real sense of direction while samples and minimal organic instrumentation try to give it orientation. Eventually Keith acts as ringleader to the insanity, Throwing down schizophrenic and repeated verse,the whole thing cracks at the seams in just three short minutes.

Brandt Brauer Frick’s Website
New Record Miami due in March.

Riverside: Shrine of New Generation Slaves

Riverside dropped their tried-and-true simplistic alternative rock sound from their progressive vocabulary for the sake of a much more epic, technically-oriented idea on the impeccable Anno Domini High Definition in 2009 with blaring organ, precious rhythm-section interplay and lyricism that remained catchy, but managed to stuff a bit more poetry into its mix. It took them two years to follow it up with Memories in My Head: three long, meandering tracks that grew subtly and showcased Riverside’s independence from speed and heavy-hitting riffage, but never lost a beat for a second. To be frank, Riverside had some high expectations for the next step. In the lyricism department, everything on their 2013 release, Shrine of New Generation Slaves worked out rather well aside from the inappropriately washed-out mixing. Vibrant phrasing and equally masterful execution of matching it with frontman and driving force Mariusz Duda’s impressive vocal range are the album’s strong point. If only the record’s instrumentation could follow suit.

From the very beginning, the by-the numbers guitar work on the opener chugs laboriously for the most part, and when the song reaches a head, melodically jamming out, it still feels stale when compared to the very same song just a minute before. Longer songs like The Depth of Self-Delusion tread familiar ground to benefit, but Celebrity Touch mucks it up, utilizing a full, bombastic sound that marked much of Anno Domini High Definition correctly, but the progression and cliche’ organ use crashes rather spectacularly. The album never rocks out, and when it denies We Got Used to Us this extremely strong part of the band’s archetype, it settles for a lush piano ballad with a smooth baseline to mark not only the most unique track on the album, but one of the best. Feel Like Falling makes a perfect radio track with its tired synth work and catchy hook, but it’s easy to move past for the two longest songs on the release. The penultimate track, Deprived (Irretrievably Lost Imagination) fiddles around at full volume for a good four minutes, and when it finally decides to work towards an explosive payoff, the song stops at the exact point where such crescendo would belong and cruises off into the sunset in a lack-luster manner. Escalator Shrine would work perfectly as the last track, what with its use of virtually everything Riverside had ever done in its twelve minutes, lumbering back and forth between technical jam and spacey ballad to create simply one of the best examples of progression and interplay Riverside had put together in their entire career.

Unfortunately, the record ends with a “Coda”, a simple reminder to listen to the single Feel Like Falling, using its lyrics against a somber acoustic guitar. With some tightening and remixing, Shrine of New Generation Slaves could live up to the memory of Anno Domini High Definition, but it sits back in the comfort of midtempo and space, where safe (read: boring) albums reside.

Riverside’s Website (Polish)
Buy Shrine of new Generation Slaves (CD, Vinyl, Digital).
Read about Memories in my Head.
Watch Celebrity Touch.

Steven Wilson: The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories)

The opening track for Steven Wilson’s The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) bursts out in sheer 70’s prog indulgence and reckless abandon, working as virtually the perfect opening track. The song, Luminol follows a funky bassline and very little lyrics for most of its lengthy ten minutes, yet like many long progressive songs before it, including the ambitious Raider II from Steven Wilson’s previous, somewhat polarizing effort Grace for Drowning. The flare and blistering speed of the song fade quickly near the end for a quiet ballad to flesh out the story Luminol conveys in more muted tones. the record’s opener could not be more perfect. Unfortunately, the storytelling that Porcupine Tree’s frontman weaves throughout the record is the only thing that carries on aside from the indulgence on his 2013 effort in bulk. The second track is nothing terribly interesting: a gentle ballad with a little too much going on. The Holy Drinker, however, has a horn section, schizophrenic saxophone and absolutely crushing guitar. The drums are incredible the the interplay with these and the organ behind it works wonders while carefully walking the thin line between dynamic theater number and painful Dream Theater ditty. The matter-of-fact lyricism keeps the music from getting too melodramatic and the lengthy ten minutes is mostly well spent.

The whole release seems to be a conscious effort outside of Wilson’s affinity for the paranormal to stay away from the kinds of sounds he used often on his later work with his band Porcupine Tree and his other solo albums. While The Pin Drop and The Watchmaker don’t sound like anything unique at all until they climax, the title track of this assuredly big release happens to be the most unique for Steven Wilson here, beginning quietly with classical guitar and strings until it politely explodes into a full symphony. It feels as though Grace for Drowning should have come before this release, as The Raven That Refused to Sing is tight in all the right places, without being afraid to throw around its influences, while Grace for Drowning is almost uncomfortably tight for coming off of the coattails of one of the most indulgent solo debuts to be recorded: Steven Wilson’s impeccably off-the-wall Insurgentes.

Steven Wilson’s Label Page
Buy The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) (CD, Vinyl, Digital).
Watch The Raven That Refused to Sing.