In Water Colors

Right now in Korea it’s officially Cherry Blossom season. I don’t know if you are aware of what that means, but it’s a wonderland around here. A world full of unnatural color and calm that turns the sidewalks into an adventure whispered in silk.

Donawhale is the first Korean band that I have fallen for. Their most recent release Dive to Blue would be on any major “Indie” best in 2009, if anyone in the west had got a hold of it. Their sound is a mix of tween-pop and shoegaze to my ears. This observation deserves major interrogation since I have a narrow grasp of Korean culture. This of course is even a broader statement about my understanding about culture and social norms in general. What I do know about this band in a musical context, is that they are undeniably good.

Dive to Blue one of those albums that you just become calmly wrapped into. The last time I felt this way "2 a.m." by Kaki King. Donawhale is something special and I will be damned if I don’t get a chance to see them live while I am in Korea. I doubt that they will ever make it to the states, and trust me when I say that our hearts are lesser for it.

Fork Tongues Lie

Matt: We have got to make this one heavy, like nothing we’ve done before.
Des: What the hell have we been doing all these years?
Jeff: I got a few ideas.

It’s just another day at Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon when High on Fire get together.

Jeff: So when do you want to meet and work all these riffs out?
Matt: When do we get off tour?
Des: On Communion I got the chance to throw down some thrash. Can we keep that alive?
Matt: I want this album to rip. Hold nothing back.
Des: Like on Blessed Black Wings?
Anonymous drunk: Hey aren’t you that Pike guy?
Matt: Um, yeah my name is…
Anonymous drunk: Dude, you sound just like Lemmy!
Matt: Thanks. Motorhead rules.

Des: I have got tons of great fills, kinda like Slayer’s "Necrophobic."
Jeff: And I really want to get into some creepy bass work.
Des: Aren’t we working with that big name producer on our new album?
Jeff: You mean Greg Fidelman?
Des: Yeah, that dude.
Matt: I got a feeling we are gonna clash.
Anonymous drunk: Man, you sound just like Lemmy and Black Sabbath! Your band is amazing and sh*t!
Matt: Umm. Thanks. Later bro.

Des: Didn’t he produce the last Slayer record, World Painted Blood?
Jeff: Ya, and played a role in the last Metallica record.
Des: Seems like a bad idea.
Jeff: Metallica did put out their best album about two decades.
Des: Is that really saying much?
Jeff: How many times did you listen to Master?
Des: Reality or Puppets?
Matt: What are you trying to be, Cliff Burton or something?
Jeff: No, I just want to toy around with the kind of tones that they were able to rock on songs like “The Thing That Should Not Be.”
Matt: Between the two of us I think we can work something out.
Des: Slow it down a little?
Matt: Keep it heavy.
Anonymous drunk: Hey Pike guy! Be like Venom!

Last Chance has a lone patron sitting at the other end of the bar. Dressed in a Hellhammer jacket and crusty jeans, he finishes his dry whiskey and exists the Saloon. Driving away in his pickup he blares Celtic Frost's “Circle of Tyrants."

Des: Can we rock some Judas Priest, maybe like “Sinner?”
Jeff: I was thinking “Beyond the Realms of Death.”
Matt: As long as we keep it late classic late 70’s Priest, I'm cool.
Des: Matt, you said you wanted to write something about Samurai's?
Matt: Ya, I think it would fit with the tribal warfare theme we got going.

Anonymous drunk: Please, man, I am stupid drunk, but please don’t sell out like Metallica!
Bartender: Have you ever listened to No Life 'til Leather?
Anonymous drunk: No. Why does that matter? I just wanna say…I think...I'm gonna be sick.

Matt: Ok, so I want to make this one heavy.
Des: I’m ready to rip it up.
Jeff: Sounds good. Anybody got an album title?

Photos From Last Night

Blues Control released an E.P. this last year entitled Local Flavor, and overall, it didn’t knock me off of my feet. I had never heard of the band before, so I can’t say it was a major disappointment since I really didn’t have any expectations, it's just that most of the songs I thought tied into a larger narrative about what is hot now…with one exception.

It’s a rainy day in 1972. Little Richard walks into a dark New Orleans dive with a red sequence suite and a green valour bow tie. He grazes a bouncer who measures time in neon lighting, takes a deep breathe, and glances across the room only to see Frank Zappa drop a nickle and throw on The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” A worn and lonely bartender understands just why, and calmly watches Zappa squat over at a nearby booth laced with cigarette ash, oak, and pearl leather. The bartender thinks about the time in 69', when he wandered onto the Brooklyn Bridge at 4:15 in the morning with Lou Reed and screamed at the top of their lungs, "You Gotta, You Gotta, Gotta, Try A Little Tenderness!"

Blues Control captured all of this on "Good Morning" and have created one of my favorite songs of the last year. The E.P. is only four songs long, but if you know anything about the good times, you know they go by fast.

Buried Sounds

I remember sometimes waking up in Portland (OR) after a night out, sweating out the events of last night, breathing in the hints of smoke left on my jeans and skin. It wasn’t the best feeling in the world I have to admit, but I can’t help thinking of those mornings when listening to this album. Everything started out sour, but after I got some grub in me and an afternoon shower, I couldn’t have felt better.

Zola Jesus pushed me more than any other artists this year, and I have to admit that I had a really hard time trying to figure out why. The Spoils had similar qualities that made My Bloody Valentine or the Microphones intriguing, but what I have really fallen for is how the keys ride waves of distortion, without being buried underneath them. I keep returning to “Smirenye,” “Soeur Sewer,” and “The Way” like silver antiques hidden under the floorboards in a dusty wooden box with iron trimming, or maybe one buried in your grandmothers garden, made of dented and rusting tin.

This album has been a labor of love for me, and while at moments I lose my train of though, I always come back to a simply melody in the mess. I really dig this album. Check this out if it shines in your direction.

Chapters In Good

I am listening to the new Mountain Goats album for the millionth time and wanting to say a few words about the claims surrounding its inspiration. Each song is onThe Life of the World to Come inspired by, though not directly connected, to a particular Bible verse. Mr. Darnielle (songwriter) has spoken publicly describing his own personal faith and how each song relates in various media outlets. What bothers me is that this is a narrative long established that doesn’t need titles from the good book to see where he’s coming from. This is not to condemn the Bible, John, the Goats new album, or even the critics formerly mentioned. I have been stirring over this for a while now and I have come to the conclusion that my argument is over an interpretation and abstraction of religion, not music.

His lyrics have always been, to me at least, stories of redemption spoken through sinful hands. Though not exclusively, this is in many ways a Christian concept that finds reconciliation by allowing suffering to speak. His newest album speaks directly to this, but like I said before, one can look at his older work and see the same themes at play. Sometimes he is bluntly using the Bible on songs like “Love, Love, Love,” when he writes “King Sol fell on his sword / when it all when wrong / and Joseph’s brother / sold him down a river / for a Psalm;” or “Against Pollution,” “This morning / I went to the Catholic Church / because something just came over me. / Forty-five minutes in the pious / praying the rosary.” I want to raise the notion that John has always been able to articulate the same concepts, album after album, without explicitly mentioning religion, but with an understanding of the everyday and mundane.

He finishes the same verse on “Love, Love…” with “And Sonny Liston rubbed some Tiger Balm into his gloves. / Some things you do for money / and some you do for love;” and juxtaposes the “Against” verse with “Decorative grating on my window/ gets a little rustier ever year / I don’t know how the metal gets rusty / when it never rains here.”

The message is that revelations occur, in spite of our moral crisis or lack of understanding. A new way is made, we count our losses, and survive in one way or another. This has been the story, for me at least, while listening to the Mountain Goats and The Life Of The World To Come.

A Moment Like This

I have been waiting on a full length from Regurgitate to my dissatisfaction for more than a couple years now. No other grind band has mastered the art of how to get so much out of so little as these guys. They have a new split out with Dead Infection and three more killer songs to add to their catalogue.

Their side of the split is titled Yyyaaaaaah, which might make you think, “It seems like a lazy effort, why should I even care?” It might make you think, “How could these Swedish giants be thirsty for blood with a title like that?” It might make you think, “Could this be the same band that gave us Carnivorous Erections?” To this I respond…

1) You should care.
2) This is gore by the gallons.
3) Regurgitate Ain't Nuthing ta F*ck Wit!

It’s gore-grinds audience that limits releases, not talent. This is why you get so many bands creating splits or E.P’s, instead of creating larger, longer bodies of work. That doesn’t change the genius of this band for a second though. In a genre where songs don’t break the two-minute mark, most bands understandably run out of room, but not this Swedish crew. They continually come up with slick and groovy riffs amidst all of the blasting, perfectly balanced out with great vocal arrangements. Rikard Jansson ties pitch shifting with screams like tar on cement, and brings a natural coherence between verse and chorus dynamics. The mere fact that Regurgitate is able to distinguish the two with such ease is cause for thousands grind fans to mosh til their eyes bleed, or maybe just shotgun a few brews on a weekday afternoon.

I am still waiting another Sickening Bliss to be released, but whatever this band pukes out, I will be there to document every second of it, no matter how brief the glory is.

Everything Is Everything

I remember hearing Sa-Ra’s The Hollywood Recordings back in 2007 and feeling a bit caught off guard. It wasn’t the best thing ever or make my end of year list, instead what made Sa-Ra special was all of the genres that they were able to navigate. Arriving after the neo-soul party had winded down some years ago the album had that kind of feel, and at the same time sounding nothing like the artists of that era. There were more electro flavors, even landing in some minimalist Dub ground at times. If they had shown up circa 2001, when everyone was in the groove, it might have been either too early to appreciate or too crowded get noticed.

Even now I don’t think they are really getting noticed. I would claim that the reason for that is not only the eclectic nature of their sound, which can be distracting, but also how the albums linger on a bit too much. I can understand a group with this much musical talent not wanting to leave any muscle un-flexed but it begins loose direction after a while. That said, I won't stand around while critics damn a lack of creativity in Hip-Hop without talking about Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love. Their sound has expended even more while at the same time coming into greater form. “My Star” is a radio ready R&B track with seductive guest vocals by Erica Rose. My favorite track on the album has to be “Death of a Star (Supernova).” It’s full of disco energy that begs for a dance floor. It all comes to an end with the free-flowing jazz of “Cosmic Ball.”

These guys might never make a Top-Ten list but they should care less since artists shouldn't pay much mind to conventional criticism. However, more critics should be laboring for hours in midnight lit rooms, filled with smoke, heat on full blast, and numb fingers that grow weary with definition. Sa-Ra is that real.