“The Tower feels like ascent. You’ll feel light as air, floating upon the ether in warm sunlight, only to crash to earth in plummeting gravity. While journeys are not uncommon across metal’s many weathered and storied expanses, Australia’s Bolt Gun offers a vertical trek. Its experimental fervor, blackened climaxes, and monolithic weight, and above all, the emphasis on atmosphere, offer scenic vistas and groveling earth alike, hurtling towards the summit and the zenith. Always majestic, as if in reverence to the colossal structure always in view, The Tower feels like a chronicle: a breathing, organic, but dense legend.” Climbing creativity.
Locrian
Stuck in the Filter – August’s Angry Misses
“Leaf-looker season rapidly approaches. It’s time to batten down the hatches, get your grandparents’ affairs in order, take all of the money out of your bank accounts and stuff the cash in your mattresses, and buy six different kinds of shotgun with enough ammo to fill your entire Volvo station wagon. And, of course, we can’t forget to give the filter an extra deep clean as the constant tourist traffic whips dirt and grime into the air and into our precious filtration system.” Clogged gutters and Filter clutters.
Locrian – Infinite Dissolution Review
““Black metal, noise, krautrock, post-rock and something else, but none of the above at the same time,” wrote Alex Franquelli about Locrian’s previous record Return to Annihilation. These words ring truer than ever on Infinite Dissolution, a record that eschews categorization and shows the Chicago/Baltimore trio carrying their sound into unexplored and inexplicable structures, bringing together disparate worlds, and moving even farther away from the slow ambient noise and drone that marked the first, hyper-productive part of their career.”
Locrian – Return to Annihilation Review
“Have you ever wondered what happens to the music nobody listens to? It implodes. It does not even make any noise. It simply withers unnoticed, forgotten, unwanted. Then there is the music that stays: that particular strain of artistic endeavor that appeals to the masses and (sometimes) the niches and that we are taught not to live without. Locrian are the natural evolution (some may say ‘consequence’) of the Chicago scene of the late 90s where acts like Tortoise, Isotope 217, and Gastr Del Sol flourished and kept the territory safe from the dying throes of grunge.” Alex thinks this album shouldn’t be left to implode into a black hole of apathy. In fact, he seems quite taken with this experimental fusion of drone, blackness and the kitchen sink.