Friday is a slow day on the internet anyway. I may not get to posting anything for this day. I want to. I am working on my stack of reviews here, but I actually have some work this week and well frankly Sims 3 and Until The Light Takes Us are calling my name. So instead, enjoy this picture of this frog I found on HowStuffWorks.com
Agalloch
Marrow of the Spirit
Profound Lore
Black Metal is a very confusing genre of music. Firstly, the music is often very brilliant, very beautiful and very cinematic. For me, I consider most black metal musicians to be composers. While the music is driven by a great deal of emotion, very powerful emotions in fact, the best of the genre’s music comes from very trained players. The corpse paint, the growling vocals, the Satan and Death stuff, that reminds me of Halloween. Which is fine. I like horror, I guess just not so much in my music all the time.
The United States is not at the forefront of Black Metal. For those who are just finding this genre here on this blog, #1 sorry for that, but Black Metal gets its origins mostly from Norway and the other Nordic countries where darkness reigns supreme. It’s a very odd genre that includes Odinists, Naturists, Satanists and idiots. The lyrics contain lots of elements of fantasy and history and can sometimes be very awesome and sometimes be stupid and ignorant. It doesn’t help when really amazing music, like Burzum for example, is created by hateful, murders. I tread very carefully around Black Metal, but luckily for me, in 2010, Agalloch, a band from Portland, Oregon put out a fucking amazing album with Marrow of the Spirit.
As the genre goes, Agalloch is actually one of the older, still active Black Metal bands. Formed in 1995, I was first introduced to them when I good friend gave me a copy of Ashes Against The Grain. I went pretty fucking nuts for the music on that album and when vocalist John Haughm actually sings, Agalloch is downright beautiful. It helps that they stretched outside the even expansive genre of Black Metal and heavy metal too. Their music was greater than most bands, creating epic feelings in each passage. I was pretty into it. The cookie monster vocals however, seemed very ill placed and poorly executed. I wished that Haughm would just sing because his voice is amazing. Ashes Against the Grain is great, but it fell out of rotation.
Marrow of the Spirit is a whole other animal. It’s six songs and sixty minutes. This is a monumental album, the size of which can not be imagined. It is the soundtrack to my reoccurring nightmares that are filled with massive landscapes of junkyard statues that block the skies. This album exceeds mere genre descriptions or academic music speak and every moment of it counts. Agalloch has not just put the various genre’s of metal on notice, it’s put everyone on notice.
This time around, Haughm’s growly vocals fit so nicely with the music, hints of actual harmony exist and they blend within the blasting double kick drums and frantic riffing that make up the heavier parts of the songs. But the music grows and includes post-rock elements that wouldn’t be far off on Russian Circles albums or in the middle of an Explosions in the Sky passage. And that in lies the beauty of Marrow of the Spirit, is that it has powerful movements that fall into soft sweeping movements that build into great, big, anthmatic movements. All undercut by a crisp and clean amount of guitar work that is just stunning.
Agalloch is finding it self creating music that is often sold to a certain type of person, white males in their teens and twenties, as most music today is sold to. But even narrow marketing budgets that have to count in a shitty economy can not contain just how great an album this is. Even NPR, the bastion for 30something liberal fuck heads gave this album a glowing review and included it on their top 50 of 2010. This isn’t some hipster move on their part either. Marrow Of the Spirit is a genuine piece of modern art, beautiful and terrifying and grand the way great art should be. Agalloch is deserving of a wider audience outside of metal subgenre ghettos and into a greater context.
Yo, I kinda lied about not posting every day this week. I didn’t plan on it, but then I posted that shit about Too Many Daves and well, I didn’t want to have a break in the day. I have some updates and shit for some other posts and stuff at least through Monday of next week and have most of my year-end shit written up. I also hope to drop science about the new Agalloch album by the end of the shit. And you know maybe a few more things. I don’t have shit planned for 2011 yet and that’s kinda fucking with me, but I am about to move across the country so, such is life.
Anyway, in the interest of keeping your attention I thought I would do what I do best and that is rant my idiotic head off. So, be for warned, there is no forethought to what you are about to read. But, I was over at another website and saw this picture of Solja Boi or whatever the fuck that idiot, no talent ass clown’s name is. I just got really pissed looking at it. So aside from my other, normal bashes on Hip Hop (I hate the players, I love the game so fuck off) I figured I would go off on some shit. This won’t be about sexism or violence or guns or any of the really, really stupid shit those idiots do, just other things that I hate that no one else seems bothered by.
Face Tattoos – Face Tattoos are a bad idea in general. I mean, tattoos are pretty stupid. I have over 20 myself and all of them are dumb, poorly thought out ideas. Most of them look really good and the artists that did them are awesome. But over all, they are an indication of bad life choices on my part. That’s not going to stop me from getting even more stupid tattoos on my body over time, but it doesn’t change the fact that one of the best ways to make your self look like an idiot is to have someone permanently draw on your skin. Having said that, this trend of pseudo-millionaires getting really weird shit tattooed on their faces is alarming in its stupidity. I saw one dude that had the Los Angeles Dodgers logo etched on his check. You know, I’m just waiting for a kid who is really into hip-hop and really good at science to do that shit to his face and not get into MIT. Seriously, hip-hop nation cut it out.
Futurism – There is this new trend, I think we can blame that no talent ass clown will.i.am for it, where suddenly everyone is all like a futuristic robot or a time traveler or some other such futuristic being. I can’t completely articulate why this bothers me. Mostly I think it’s just because I find shit like Black Eyed Peas so disingenuous and all this other stuff that’s followed in their wake just makes me sad.
The Continuation of Gold Teeth “GRILLS” – Look, I’m not sure about this, but I think that moron Lil’ Wayne has like platinum fangs or some shit in his mouth still. Dude, that was incredibly stupid when the Flava Flav did that fifteen years ago. It’s still really silly man. You look like Halloween is 365 days a year and much like corpse paint on the black metal guys, that mouth full of whatever makes me have a real hard time taking you seriously or being intimidated by you. I’m not sure what I am supposed to think. You look like a clown. Yea dude, I just put you on some Juggalo Level Type Shit.
Bad Sampling – This is a bit more esoteric gripe. The art of the sample is a tricky one. I realize that the foundation of hip hop music is based on the sample. Now, that’s kind of cool to an extent, but with so much technology around to create new sounds and further manipulate those sounds, the sample seems kind of weak. Not totally, but what I hate is a bad sample. It’s been a while since I’ve keyed in on anything as atrocious as MIA’s sample of the Clash which made me want to punch her in the uterus while pregnant that shit was so offensive. Then fucking Kanye rips “21st Century Schizoid Man” by fucking KING CRIMSON? Look, I know I freak out on Kanye way too much for my own good on this stupid blog, but really, how can a dude who samples that shit in such a song killing, unsmooth way get praised to GENIUS LEVELS. If are going to sample, especially from classic rock, which is not easy to do, make sure that shit is seamless. Otherwise, you just sound like you have no musical context and no fucking idea what you are doing. Which clearly Kanye, you don’t.
Me Bitching About Kanye – I get it dude, you hate Kanye and it pisses you off that no one else seems to share your point of view even though you have strong arguments for why you think that dude is an over-hyped, undeserving ass clown. But seriously, this is turning into some hatred-of-Twiglight level craziness here, friend. I know you need to fixate yr disgust for humanity on something, but this Kanye nonsense is getting old. It’s the holiday season, put on some Black Metal, drink a cup of decaf and just chill the fuck out.
Well, I sure feel better now. I hope we can all get past this now and move on to something more constructive. We aim to provide enough distraction from your life to make the misery of the mundane ebb just a bit. Maybe, just maybe we can make the world a better place. Peace to you.
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