Stereogum » Haunting The Chapel

Under The Influence: Krallice Diotima

brandon — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 11:23:04 +0000

This is the final Haunting The Chapel. In case you missed my earlier tweet, I accepted a position at Pitchfork, where I’ll be returning as an Editor on Monday, 8/1. “Returning,” because I worked there as a Contributing Writer from 2003 to 2008, writing 200+ reviews and then launching the site’s metal column Show No Mercy in 2006. To answer what a number of folks have been asking: Yes, Show No Mercy will be back, made better with some things I learned while working on Haunting The Chapel.

Since starting Haunting The Chapel at Stereogum around Halloween 2009, I’ve enjoyed reading your comments, and feeling a sense of community. People have mentioned to me a few times that the comments on HTC always seem calmer and less angry than the comments on the rest of the site. I appreciate the thoughtfulness — as well as the insight of what you’ve had to say. We’ve accomplished something rare on the internet: An actual dialogue that never devolved into a bunch of anonymous people shouting at themselves. (Someone contact Guinness.) Pitchfork doesn’t include comments, but I’ll be posting SNM links at Pitchfork’s and my personal Facebook, so let’s continue talking over there…

Before signing off, I wanted to thank Scott for taking the chance of incurring eternal indie-rock wrath by giving me the space for Haunting The Chapel. (Some people don’t want black metal colliding with their chillwave.) I also appreciate that you banged your head at that second Nachtmystium show I organized, made those HTC matches (anyone need some?), and helped me out with banners when I sponsored the High On Fire and Triptykon and tours. I’d also like to thank Amrit for his enthusiasm re: the column — Dawnbringer, especially — and for showing his face at Krallice, Watain (on a first date no less), and Anal Cunt. \m/ to both of you.

While at Stereogum I did more than write HTC — on a daily basis I multi-tasked a dozen things — but I think this is where you ended up seeing me, as a person, most clearly. That said, blogging in general’s made me a better writer. It’s deceptively hard work. In ways it reminded me of my first job, at 11 or 12, picking blueberries 7AM-4PM five days a week at a hot, somehow shadeless Pine Barren farm. (It also taught me more about Weezer than I ever wanted to know.)

At the end of the day, and this particular period, I’m mostly proud of how Haunting The Chapel’s grown and shifted and been accepted in weird, interesting ways. (And pretty awesome seeing that Opeth post blowing up the “most commented” charts.) Considering crossovers and breakthroughs, this installment is a great way to bring things to a close:

Landmine Marathon – “Cutting Flesh And Bone” (Stereogum Premiere)

brandon — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:53:52 +0000

Landmine Marathon‘s fourth album Gallows finds the Bolt Thrower-nodding Phoenix, Arizona death-grind quintet finally capturing the energy that’s made Grace Perry & Co’s live shows some of the best over the past few years. It’s the first album featuring heavy-hitting new drummer Andy York. Which could have something to do with it. More important to the pull: Gallows features the band’s strongest, best sounding songs to date. See, for instance, “Cutting Flesh And Bone.”

Opeth – “The Devil’s Orchard” (Stereogum Premiere)

brandon — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:57:15 +0000

Swedish progressive metal stalwarts Opeth’s 10th album Heritage — which follows 2008′s Watershed and 2005′s Ghost Reveries — is their strangest, most genre-melding to date. For starters it includes guest spots from Swedish flautist/composer Björn J:son Lindh and Weather Report percussionist Alex Acuña. As you may have guessed, it also includes 100% clean singing. Main man Mikael Åkerfeldt refers to Opeth records as “observations.” Of this one he notes, “[I]t feels like I’ve been building up to write for and participate on an album like this since I was 19.” Fittingly, he says he listened to a bunch of Alice Cooper over the past year. There’s also something youthful about the exuberant blend of jazz upswings, “God is dead” lyrics, and stop-on-a-dime tempo shifts in lead single “The Devil’s Orchard.” On the album it follows the two-minute scene-setting opening piano piece “Heritage,” a song Åkerfelt says was inspired by Swedish jazz pianist Jan Johansson and Swedish folk music. That in mind, take a listen to Heritage‘s first explosive moment:

Under The Influence: Castevet Mounds Of Ash

brandon — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 17:10:05 +0000

Castevet‘s Mounds Of Ash was one of 2010′s best metal releases. The NYC trio’s blend of muscular black metal, hardcore punk, progressive post-rock, compositional implosions, and a “fuck you” attitude made for some of the year’s most compelling music on record and onstage. Mounds, out initially via Profound Lore, is getting a second life courtesy of a vinyl edition out next month via Forcefield. In honor of that moment, I asked vocalist/guitarist/etc Andrew Hock to assemble a Mounds Of Ash mix. He responded with an ambitious collection of dark metal (of various sorts), complex avant-garde jazz, booming classical, and Talk Talk. His thoughts and selections:

Flourishing – “Momentary Senses” (Stereogum Premiere)

brandon — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 14:17:12 +0000

“Momentary Senses” arrives toward the middle of Flourishing’s discordant, dark, unexpectedly catchy debut LP, The Sum Of All Fossils. (The eight-song collection follows 2010′s A Momentary Sense Of The Immediate World EP.) The NYC trio features Wetnurse co-guitarist Garett Bussanick on vocals/guitar along with bassist Eric Rizk and drummer Brian Corcoran. Their suffocating, melodic blend of filthy death, nimble grind, Godflesh-toned industrial, prog, noise, and expansive post-rock pairs well with Ulcerate, Castevet, Tombs, and Portal, but they uncover too many of their own angles to find an exact match. Definitely one of my favorite records of this second half of 2011. A taste:

Futur Skullz – “Waste Not Want Not”

brandon — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:07:56 +0000

People keep talking about “songs of the summer” that don’t sound like the songs of any summer I’m having, so figured, for starters, I’d nominate “Waste Not Want Not,” a blazer from Futur Skullz. It’s the second track on the San Francisco trio’s Phil Manley-produced debut. The crusty, thrashing full-throttled D-beating crew features guitarist Josh Smith (ex-Weakling, Fucking Champs), bassist/vocalist Chris Newsom (ex-FaceDowninShit, Uwharria), and drummer Moses Saarni (ex-California Love, Look Back And Laugh). When they recorded the collection, though, Christian Gonzales (ex-Gargantula) was the guy behind the kit: Take a listen to his work — and the guitar solos, imploded vocals, etc., of the other guys — on “Waste Not Want Not.” As the Skullz explain, they’re playing “metal that is punk”: “We wish we sounded like Anti Cimex crossed with Whiplash but in reality we probably sound more like Bad Brains and Metallica.” Not a bad thing, obviously.

Årabrot – “Madonna Was A Whore” (Stereogum Premiere)

brandon — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:58:00 +0000

Norwegian noise-rock instigators Årabrot’s Bataille-referencing fifth album Solar Anus follows last year’s Bible and porn-influenced Revenge. Vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Kjetil Nernes expounds upon the collection’s concept:

The Atlas Moth – “Coffin Varnish” (Stereogum Premiere)

brandon — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:31:50 +0000

The Atlas Moth was one of the first bands I covered in Haunting The Chapel — via an interview with guitarist/vocalist Stavros Giannopolous (ex-Twilight). His Chicago crew deftly molds three guitars, bass, and drums (hammering psychedelic sludge, doom, post-rock) with a storm of clean, growling, blackened vocals to create a unique, moving take on lighter-lifter metal. The quintet’s 2009 debut Glorified Piece Of Blue Sky showed a ton of promise, their covers EP One Amongst The Weed Fields, a welcome sense of humor. The excellent sophomore collection An Ache For The Distance — one that features as many atmospheric layers and lifts as its predecessor, but more songwriting depth and details and additional wrinkles in pacing, coloration, and dynamics — should establish them as a force. (Hey, no more opening spots… These dudes are headliners.) Take a listen to the gorgeous opener “Coffin Varnish” and note the above artwork: It captures the album’s pretty, mysterious, sunsetting, kaleidoscopic feel.

Unkind – “Koulutettu Epäonnistumaan” (Stereogum Premiere)

brandon — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:50:26 +0000

Veteran Finnish quintet Unkind play crusty, guitar-sliding d-beat punk that should interest fans of Discharge, Tragedy, and Disfear as well as folks into the dark atmospherics mastered by Amebix and Converge. The band’s fifth album (and Relapse debut) Harhakuvat closes with the 6-minute “Koulutettu Epäonnistumaan” (“Education Of Failure”), an example of how they like to occasionally push their 2-minute hardcore explosions into doomier, more expansive territories.

Under The Influence: Tombs Path Of Totality

brandon — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:19:55 +0000

Tombs’ Path Of Totality topped my list of the Top 26 Metal Albums Of 2011 So Far. I was curious what sort of personal soundtrack went into that muscular, violent, surprisingly delicate and detailed blend of New York noise-rock, black metal, and industrialized blast-beat shoegaze, so I asked them to make a related mix for our new playlist franchise Under The Influence. Before you listen, take a look at vocalist/guitarist/band leader Mike Hill’s thoughts on his appropriately dark, punk, and very heavy inspiration playlist. He offers insightful background for fans of the album/trio, but even if you’re not into Tombs, listening to classic Black Flag transition into Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam Gorgoroth or Streetcleaner into Ulcerate is completely killer.