Stoneburner- Sickness Will Pass (2012)

Migration by Buried At Sea is my favorite doom record of all time, regardless of subgenre. That might seem like an odd choice to many, but I've never heard an album as unrelenting and suffocatingly heavy. I'd go so far as to call it the heaviest album of all time (and those of you who know me know that I tend to do so without the slightest provocation). Growing up a punk kid who loved powerviolence I didn't know people made music that slow and heavy or that I could possibly enjoy it so much. I remember staring agape at the car stereo after hearing that titanic crash at the beginning of Migration for the first time. The closest analogy I can come up with is when, suddenly, a gigantic chunk of glacier breaks off and slams into the ocean with a roar. Since Buried At Sea is no longer with us, I always keep my ear to their grave, anxiously listening for bands down there nibbling at their sodden corpse. At times Batillus reaches Buried At Sea levels of trudging hugeness, but they've got their own sound and are on their own path that only on occasion winds its way through that corner of the graveyard. For the past few years I've been keeping an eye on Portland's Stoneburner who feature guitarist Jason Depew formerly of...you guessed it...Buried At Sea. Thus, I've been eagerly awaiting the release of Sickness Will Pass for a number of months now.

Does it deliver? Boy, does it ever. Don't think that, based on the above, Stoneburner is a Buried At Sea clone. Far from it (though I could get down with that, I like plenty of Discharge clones). Like Migration, Sickness Will Pass starts out with a thunder clap and immediately hits some of the same lows (and I mean that in the best way possible). This album is vicious. If Eyehategod is a PCPed-out first timer stabbing wildly and making a mess of things, Stoneburner are a seasoned vet, knifing you methodically while staring you in the eyes with a completely flattened affect. But as I said, this isn't Migration Pt. 2. Soneburner has plenty of tricks up their sleeves in the form of bluesy southern sludge riffs, Yob-esque pedal driven bits, guitar solos, up tempo sections and double bass.

This album is tremendous and in addition to capturing a spot amongst my favorites of the year it's made me completely reevaluate some of the notions I had about Buried At Sea. Being the most visible member and the member whose other projects I was most familiar with, I had always attributed much of Buried At Sea's sound to Sanford Parker. Sickness Will Pass changes all that. The tones, the riffs and the malevolence I now see were the work of one Jason Depew and he's back with another absolutely killer piece of doom history.

Try it.

Buy it.
Physical (CD)
Digital

No vinyl yet, but I will certainly be making a post about it when it becomes available.

Vinyl Fetish: Whirr (Whirl)- Distressor EP

Not sure how I missed that this reissue was happening. The original pressing of this Whirr EP (they were known as Whirl at the time) was fraught with issues. I know that a number of people who ordered it from the UK based label it was released on never received their records. I opted not to order it from them based on that fact, so I've been semi-actively looking for a copy at a reasonable price on Discogs for a year now. I go to the Discogs homepage today and voila! a reissue. Comes with all new artwork and two bonus demo tracks. 595 copies pressed, 325 on clear with splatter (ugh, I know, splatter vinyl is fucking lame) and 270 on green/white swirl, which is supposedly exclusive to the Graveface Record Club (also lame). Oh well, at least I'll be able to own one of my favorite EPs in recent memory on vinyl at last

 

Graveface Records

Textbook Traitors- You Pull The Strings That Make Us Dance (2002)

Listening to Guidelines (see post below) got me all hot and bothered for some more chaotic screamo. I mentioned Textbook Traitors when I posted the Guidelines EP and immediately realized Textbook Traitors is one of the reasons I started this blog. Not them in particular, but bands of their ilk. Bands who in their time were completely overlooked. Granted, when this EP came out the screamo wave was just about to crest and when that wave broke it spilled out a slew of shitty bands, so Textbook Traitors were mostly lost in the wash, drown out by the pounding of the shitty surf. OK, I think that's enough water and poo allusions for one post.

Textbook Traitors were a screamo band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin who released a grand total of 33 minutes of music in their all too brief career. The drummer went on to join Get Rad (had I known this when I saw Get Rad at Gilead Media Fest I would have gotten all fanboy on that guy). Other than that, I can't seem to find any info on the band's previous or more current endeavors. However, all you really need to know is that if you have even a passing interest in the genre, this EP contains 15 of the finest minutes of screamo you will ever hear. Unlike many of their peers, Textbook Traitors eschewed the quiet/loud dynamic for the most part in favor of an all out aural assault unlike anything I'd heard before or I've heard since. Eardrum shredding shrieks, grindcore pacing, blast beats and frenetic, dissonant, shrill guitar caterwauling make this one of the most grating listens ever and nearly a decade after my initial listen, I still can't get enough of it. This is a masterpiece of the genre, up there with Chaos Is Me by Orchid and Document # 5 and Document #7 by Pg. 99. Absolutely essential.

Punk rock will never die.

Buy it:

Digital
Physical (CD)
Unfortunately, this hot mess was never released on vinyl. Start talking about it incessantly and maybe we can get Magic Bullet to give this thing the vinyl treatment it deserves.

Guidelines- S/T EP (2012)

Whoa! This is some rad shit! I can’t say I really listen to much screamo anymore, when nearly all of the progenitors of the genre and the second wave bands went the way of the dodo so did my interest. I peek in every once in a while to see what the haps are, but these days every band I hear seems to be a Pg. 99 clone doing the quiet/loud thing over and over and over and over again. That’s cool, I’d rather listen to Pg. 99. They all seem to have become so concerned with the pretty, quiet parts and crafting the most epic build that they completely forget the payoff; the violent, unhinged, sounds like it’s going to go spiraling out of control at any second, bordering on grindcore bits of screamo songs that I absolutely adore. You know, like what Orchid and Textbook Traitors excelled at. Call it “emoviolence” if you’re one of those people. It’s those delightful tidbits where Guidelines shine. Sure, there are still the melodic sections and the quiet/loud dynamic, that’s part and parcel of the genre, but what is truly remarkable is how these New Jersey gents manage to transition into and even combine the chaotic elements of screamo with the melodic. Listening to this brings me back to a whole different era of punk rock music, but also gives me hope for the future. Thanks, Guidelines.

Digtial. Name your price on bandcamp.

Ajuna- Incomplete Circles Becoming Dead Ends & Perpetual State Of Disbelieve (2011)

Like my compatriot Pat, my tastes in black metal do not ride the rails of convention. Ajuna is not your typical black metal band and therefore perfect for me. Even calling what they do on these albums black metal is almost a misnomer. Asides from the vocals and stylistic flourishes they share more with bands like Slint, Jesus Lizard, and 90's alternative than they do Mayhem or Emperor. The eight songs that comprise Incomplete Circles Becoming Dead Ends & Perpetual State of Disbelieve run the gamut of AmRep / Touch and Go sounds. Jangly, not overly distorted, but dangerous guitar, thunderous Henry Bogdan / David Wm. Sims bass tone, and propulsive drummimg. Yeah you read that right, second post featuring a black metal band where you can hear the bass. The rhythm section in Ajuna drive the hell out of these songs. Absolutely stellar shit here! This band has been on repeat for quite a while now and probably will for the foreseeable future. 

Included in the download is their brand new demo Death In The Shape Of Winter. Having listen to it, I can say they have definitely taken a turn for the heavier in the last year. That's not a bad thing at all, but a lot of the AmRepiness that make the first albums so charming and interesting is lost a little bit. I am in no way knocking these songs, hell the video I included is from Death..., they're just different.

Try it

Buy it:
Not yet, look for it soon on Neh-Owh Records

Dweller on the Threshold - S/T (2012)

I had the hardest time trying to sum up Dweller on the Threshold. Here you have a band that takes their moniker from a Van Morrison song, crafting songs that would fit easily on records ranging from Cave In, Converge, Pygmy Lush, Boris, Isis, Bright Eyes and Wilco. While the the majority of S/T lay on the quieter, reverb drenched side of life, Dweller... can bring the almighty riff. When they do, it is to devastating effect. Upon first listen I was totally taken aback when the charging rhino of Crumbling House erupted from my speakers. After being lulled in to a sense of tranquil melencholia after the first two tracks, it was a shock to say the least. It's as if they decided to reverse engineer the quiet loud quiet dynamic so prevalent in music today. Whatever their particular path, it works! Not to say Dweller... doesn't mix the two, That Drone and Canto 894 are an excellent example of that. They just seem to want to keep their chocolate out of their peanut butter... you know what I mean. So if I had to wrap it up in a nice little package for you i'd sum it up like this: Jeff Tweedy starting an all star post-metal band with Ken Andrews, Wata, Aaron Harris, And Nate Newton. Yeah, it's rad!

Try it

Buy it
Digital
Physical

Azoic- Gateways (2012)

Yes, goddamnit. Yes. I don't know about you, but all of this weird, dissonant, cacophonous and angular death and black metal that's coming out these days gets me all antsy in my pantsy. Deathspell Omega and Mitochondrion are two of my favorite bands on the planet right now and released my favorite albums of 2010 and 2011 respectively. Since I'm name dropping those two bands it shouldn't come as a surprise that Gateways will likely nab a high spot on my best of 2012 list. If you were to make a box and whisker plot with DsO as the lower extreme and Mitochondrion as the upper extreme, Azoic would fall somewhere in the interquartile range, between the median and the lower quartile (remember box and whisker plots? they ruled!). What makes this album even more impressive it that's it's the work of just two dudes, who based on the only picture of them that is on the internet look like they're 17. But who knows, maybe the delightfully mild Icelandic summers and hot springs keep inhabitants baby-faced into their 30's. Alright, enough inane rambling. Fans of the aforementioned bands, fans of Enslaved's more recent output and fans of modern black metal acts like Dodecahedron absolutely need to check this out. Highly recommended.

Get it here.

Not available in a physical format or as a legit download yet.