“It’s that time of year in Seattle when the rain is a comforting constant. It streams down in varying degrees of intensity, from barely-there mist to hefty droplets the size of large coins. As I was reading through Folian’s promo materials, I had a hunch the one-man band’s debut full-length Blue Mirror would be the perfect warm, dense, and fuzzy accompaniment to the drab winter weather.” Gaze into this shoe.
“What do you get when two metalhead friends come together and begin a file-sharing effort from a thousand miles apart to explore their collective musical lusts? You get [drumroll please]…a shoegaze album? I was taken aback when I first played Timelost’s new album Don’t Remember Me for This and was quickly reminded of the modern shoegaze and dream pop sound of Brooklyn, New York band Beach Fossils.” Shoe’s on first.
“Throughout their career as Alcest and helped by gradual fluctuations in style, French multi-instrumentalist Neige and drummer Winterhalter have been cultivating a deep sense of beauty and unfiltered sentiment. An exploration of sonic poetry in the vein of The Lake Poets, unmistakably filled with a romantic ache, a longing, and an expression of beauty and infatuation with the world so deep it hurts. Looking back at their previous work, Spiritual Instinct appears as one of the purest manifestations of this search.” Let the spirit guide.
“The songs on Love & Decay are post-metal in structure with moments of sludge/doom heft, but damn it if Spotlights don’t frequently sound like My Bloody Valentine started down tuning their guitars and forgot to stop. Or like a much heavier Starflyer 59 back when they were accused of being a My Bloody Valentine knock-off. If you’re not following, take a break and go listen to Loveless. We’ll still be here when you get back.” Up in lights.
“What’s in a name? How important is that moniker to a band’s identity? And what do we make of it when a band makes a radical change to its own name? These thoughts crossed my mind listening to the new album from Siberian metallers, Ultar. Previously, the members went by the very death-metal-sounding Deafknife. Then, for reasons unclear, they changed their name to Ultar, after the fictional town ‘Ulthar’ in. H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘Dreamcycle’ stories. The town of Ulthar in the books is famous for its most significant law: that ‘no man may kill a cat.'” How about beating a dead horse?
“Right now, while the rest of the United States is either snowing or trying to thaw, right in my happy home in Florida, it’s starting to become summer already. While many people find this concept idyllic, in reality it feels kinda gross and dreary. The sudden increase in temperatures and humidity, along with grey skies, compounds feelings of dread and sadness as the grey permeates and hovers until the skies finally break, and we are delivered that deluge of rain that makes everything somewhat better. It’s rare to come across an album that captures that break effectively. Wilt & Blossom, the debut album by Danish upstarts Cartographs, managed to do so with great ease.” Haze of torment.
“Even before Sunbather set off a scene-cred melee best likened in both intensity and contrivance to the Hedley Lamarr goons/Rock Ridge citizens brawl in Blazing Saddles, post-black metal was no spring chicken. James Kelley of Altar of Plagues suggested that the band’s change of direction on Teethed Glory and Injury was at least in part due to boredom with a stagnant scene and despite the downright bacterial rate at which post-black metal bands spawn, I can think of very few remarkable records in the style that have come out in recent years.” Blue light special.
“You wake up and everything seems better. The air is fresher, the sun is brighter, and you feel a sense of hope you haven’t felt in years. That’s what it was like listening to Astronoid’s 2016 debut Air for the first time. From out of nowhere, the Massachusetts quartet burst onto the scene with a style that hit the perfect sweet spot between fresh and familiar. Combining Deafheaven-esque music with airy, poppy singing, the band built off their experience in Vattnet Viskar to create something truly original, something that soared through a world of timeless innocence right onto my Album o’ the Decade shortlist.” Following a dream.
“In the high pressure game of Promo Sump Bingo, sometimes you win big. Vanishing Kids, an act wholly unknown to me, lists themselves as “somnambulic doom,” and that sounded interesting enough to snatch from the murky waters and scurry away with to my Ape Cave of Solitude. The thing is, they’re not really doom at all. In fact, they’re one of those rare bands that openly defies easy classification.” Don’t think, just listen.
“Unless you’re a polar bear, six straight weeks of below average temperatures will destroy your spirit. Rather than hunting for fun, uplifting, Record o’ the Month-caliber albums, you will find yourself dredging the promo bin for anything bitter and morose. Thus I stumbled across Megaton Leviathan, a band specializing in all things doom, drone, and shoegaze. Mage is mastermind Andrew James Costa Reuscher and his ever-changing band’s third album, and if the promo blurb is remotely accurate, its “borderline narcotic compositions” should be just what I need to push me even further into early winter doldrums.” How much does a gaze weigh?
