Year End Blah 2008. Pt1
December 15 2008 at 03:34:15 AM
Champagne? The Left Hand Path went live nearly nine months ago. Prior to, DePalma and I spent a year hashing out a sort of hole-ridden strategy, trying to concentrate the dual vision, but keep it loose enough to allow room for other ideas, some straight-forward, some plain silly. It has worked better than I ever imagined, and we’ve got Alpino’s brother Justin to thank for taking a trillion e-mails into his head, organizing them into site design and putting the whole thing together with remarkable speed and ease.
Drawbacks? They really aren’t any. I’ve enjoyed a good pelting from readers whose only prior music crit reading experience is a 40-word track-by-track delineation of the latest
Decibel Magazine faves; DePalma countered similar faux indignation over Metallica’s critically lauded “Return to Form” with the most technically sound and all-encompassing apologia I’ve read since Kant’s
Prolegomena. Alpino either confused the masses with his hearty inking re: Hardcore, or simply managed to glide under troll radar. (Bully for you.) Of course, “pro bono” writing is formidable reward in-and-of-itself: No rules, stylistic guidelines, word counts, or artificial enforcements are held fast. It’s (mostly) anti-commercial, and being such, it (usually) shies from easy consumption. Following the signpost that is _______ sounds like _______ is a course I’ll gladly put foot to pavement if there’s a pot of gold at the end of that hike. Here: Not so much. That’s not to say LHP isn’t “critical,” or – for bloody fuck’s sake – about what the music “sounds like.” On the contrary: No other outlet, printed or electronic, delves into the white-hot “whatness” qua “whatness” of the CDs, CD-Rs, LPs, cassettes, and MP3s we write about. We consider aesthetics, lyrical content, musical prowess, derivativeness, origin(s) etc. and present opinions in often artfully bizarre ways. Those that relished our efforts, you know who you are. Those that didn’t: Well, we’re pleased we managed to piss you off. Let’s pop the cork, shall we?
The past nine months brim with major and minor victories. Preening at stage’s end is a distillation of thoughts on the critical process itself, which I somehow stuffed into the ass end of a review of Dagon’s
In Desolation Per Nefandum. What follows are mostly interactions with others: interviews with Stuart Dahlquist, WRNLRD, and Ofermod’s Befalgor (many thanks to Tyler Davis for making the latter possible). Before the words, however, is/was the music. The first-listen, the second and third, the reception and thought-forming process – all truly fucking enjoyed without fetters. Unscripted, honest, one-sheet free writing isn’t easy. But it sometimes is more rewarding than the musical artifact itself. Yet, there were many records that presented sound struggles. Dense thematic(s), fiercely unified vision, impenetrable musicianship, etc… These are the records that remain standing at year’s end, the one’s that outlasted months of repeated playing, discussion, delineation. To wit:
The Best:
DEAD CONGREGATION,
Graves of the Archangels
Runner-up:
DEATHSPELL OMEGA,
Chaining the Katechon
The Rest:
LUGUBRUM,
Albino e Cogo
MASTER,
Slaves to Society
BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE,
Dolores
ASVA,
What You Don't Know is Frontier
WRNLRD,
Pentagon
NECROVATION,
Breed Deadness Blood
MYSTIFIER, Baphometic Goat Worship [NWN boxset]
OFERMOD,
Tiamatu
DAMAAR,
Triumph through Spears of Sacrilege
UNEARTHLY TRANCE,
Electrocution
BURNING WITCH,
Crippled Lucifer [reissue]
DEAD CONGREGATION is the indisputable champion. A fluff-less record, executed flawlessly. What more can be said? I tied the Hellenic Death Metal outfit to its ethnic origin and tradition(s). I thought and wrote of Homeric wrath and heard it in DC’s music. No small feat to render ineffable anger as plastic, real. These dudes allegedly played a local show with Necros Christos. (Anyone with video needs to contact me immediately.)
NECROVATION also held Death Metal’s standard high, bestowing an unwitting, knuckle-dragging populace with a blackened, gory mess. Thank you, motherfuckers.
And so
DEATHSPELL OMEGA returned with a vengeance from a disappointing mess of a record, fangs flashing full and bright; the music as provocative and complex as the theosophical concept the piece is based on; interpretation/reception with each listen/read wholly different and compelling. Completely dissimilar in presentation was
ASVA’s
What You Don't Know is Frontier, a record I’ve possessed in one form or another for years. I gained a friend over its production process, and was honored when Southern asked me to crib together some thoughts re:
WYDKIF. (Tony Sylvester, may you drink deeply this Yuletide season.)
WYDKIF is, as I put to Mr. Sylvester, akin to Winter playing selections by Carl Orff. It’s celestial, other-worldly stuff with an undeniable “organic” feel and sound. Classically dynamic, pugnaciously bombastic, artfully macrocosmic, this record teeters on the line of unclassifiable, and is better for it. On the opposite spectral end is
LUGUBRUM who actually manage to get weirder with every release.
Albino e Cogo is head-scratching shit bar none, with an unyielding summit of faux field-recording and sloppily drunken Black Metal. I keep waiting for the canine snuff film… The nation’s capital gives us
WRNLRD, all with its compendium of fractured histories – secret and public – dazzlingly disseminated via competing technique and tradition: front-porch hootenanny, Musique Concrete, and Black Metal are hammered into perplexing singularity. The more listening = more hearing.
Pentagon goes deep, and taunts those who stop short of dropping down into the darkness. The violence here is implied, and, uh, performative;
DAMAAR takes an alternate route and gives us pure sonic Jihad. Small doses are best.
Disappointments? Aren’t there always? I was disheartened to see the trend of demos/rarities reissues amped up in ’08 (Save for Burning Witch’s
Crippled Lucifer, which I couldn’t/can’t seem to get enough of). Apparently folks can’t send mediocre or worse to the pressing plant, and that goes doubly for half-baked “art” schlock courtesy of Boris, Sunn, and other prominent members of their “Metal” clique, Inc. I don’t see this fading anytime soon, as writers persist with connecting this silly shit with refined – and in some cases, scholarly – musical traditions. But, you, know, Fuck you, Stew. You’re a hack and fulla shit, etc. Oh, all right. OK. More champagne?
[Stewart Voegtlin]
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I'll have to check out that Necrovation. I heard one song awhile back, and thought it was pretty ripping. I've yet to find a newer band that can top Repugnant, though. Haven't heard the Asva or Damaar, so I'll have to check them out. Lately, I can't seem to get The Devil's Blood off of repeat....
I'd like one thing cleared up, though. Stew V: could you pinpoint your beef with sunn? Is it primarily in the presentation--the pretense of 'refined and scholarly' art-craft? That they find nothing wrong with selling the $hit out of their music? Or is it the music itself?
i haven't spent much time with anderson or o'malley's legion of side projects, but as far as i'm concerned, Sunn proper manage to kick out some pretty supreme jams.
just wondering where you stand on the matter.