One of the biggest misconceptions is that metalheads aren’t completely huge nerds. Take for instance the UK outfit DVNE, who offer up a powerful blend of progressive metal, sludge, and psychedelia that is largely based on the writings of Frank Herbert. Their Bandcamp URL is even Songs From Arrakis.
But however nerdy they may be, there’s nothing wimpy or asthmatic about them. Voidkind, their third full-length, is a display of power worthy of Shai Hulud himself.
Very few releases had as profound an impact on my teenaged music tastes than Deep Elm Records’ Emo Is Awesome, Emo is Evil, Vol 1. And few tracks on that compilation had the impact of Benton Falls “Angel on Hiatus,” a shapeshifting track that traverses the full spectrum of emo’s moods and dynamics with a powerful climax.
But like many of the bands discovered through that comp (see also: The Appleseed Cast), I didn’t dive too deeply into the records that provided those tracks. While many of the songs from Guilt Beats Hate ended up on various emo mix CD-Rs, it’s taken me until just now to buy a proper copy. The record has lost none of its potency though.
I usually try to be pretty discerning with my record purchases. My wantlist always exceeds my budget, so I try to make sure that I’m completely sold on what I’m buying.
But every once in a while, I’ll come upon something like a $10 vinyl sale and just become a madman. I’ll spend an hour or more frantically scrolling, streaming the first few minutes of a record for a sample before making a gut decision.
And thus is how I ended up with Lines Breaking Circles, the debut record from As We Draw, a killer blend of screamo, black metal, hardcore, and sludge.
Gimmicks are a tricky thing to do right. Most of the time, when a band has A Thing™, eventually their music starts serving the gimmick rather than the other way around (ex., Billy Joel, whose late-80s output was a pursuit for what would make the best music video). And honestly, it would be really easy to categorize Narrow/Arrow as a gimmick band and move on. Guitarist/vocalist Cody Nicolas usually plays two guitars simultaneously and every single one of their song titles is a pun.
And yet, they manage to escape all the trappings of their own gimmicks by offering earnestly moving songs and musicianship that’s impressive without ever being flashy. While Narrow/Arrow has been offering up a satisfying mixture of math rock and Midwest emo since their inception, they’ve never sounded more impressive—or more at ease—than on Asbestos Weak Hood.
The last two times I’ve reviewed a Blushing record, I talked a lot about the tightrope that shoegaze acts have to walk between capturing the archetypal early 90s sounds of the genre and finding their own voice. By their third full length, Blushing walks this balance so deftly that mentioning it would be a moot point.
Sugarcoat offers up the same sweet, dreamy songcraft that the group has made their career on, but there’s a palpable confidence here. They’re even more fluent, and the vocabulary sounds more comfortable in their mouths.
One of my favorite subgenres is Chino Moreno side project.
For all the praise he gets as a metal vocalist, the Deftones frontman has made a considerable amount of noise across the years about how his musical center is actually pretty far from metal, preferring acts like The Cure, Depeche Mode, Cocteau Twins, and the like.
This push and pull of Chino’s more melodic sensibilities to the band’s heaviness is a big part of what makes Deftones so compelling, but there’s something special that happens when he leaves his bandmates to experiment with other sounds. In fact, my own path to the Deftones started with Palms, his project with former Isis members.
But usually, these side projects are one offs. Until last year when his project Crosses released a completely delicious follow up.