Reviews

Record #870: Executioner’s Mask – Winterlong (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As I’ve made my way to reviewing music more or less full time, I’ve noticed that my own tastes have started trending into stranger and darker directions. A few of the records I’ve fallen in love with recently exist in eldritch soundscapes that might sound abominable to the average listener (see also: Cremation Lily, HERIOT).

So when I first came across Winterlong, I was already poised to love it. But when I saw that the press release compared them to Deerhunter, The National, and Alcest, I was rapt with intrigue. What sort of music could be accurately described by that unlikely trio?

As it turns out, Winterlong doesn’t just fall right in the middle of those three—it also has plenty of nods to Joy Division, The Cure, Slowdive, and even Black Sabbath. And that’s all while sounding focused and gripping.

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Record #869: Elliott – False Cathedrals (2000)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

It’s no secret that I’ve been known to miss important bands. For example, I missed Louisville emo legends Elliott entirely until I bought a copy of Song in the Air after coming across it in a record store in St. Pete FL in early 2020. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that most people consider that record to be a disappointment. 

The real show, so I was told, was False Cathedrals. So when that record got a repress, I did the same thing I did with Song in the Air: I bought it without listening to it.

And while personally my opinion on its follow up hasn’t been changed, it’s easy to see why this album gets the love it does.

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Record #868: Bloodmoon – Bloodmoon: I (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Usually, when artists announce a collaboration, you can make a pretty educated guess as to what the end result might sound like. Take for instance Volcano Choir, the union of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and mathy post rockers Collections of Colonies of Bees, who released music that sounds like Bon Iver playing mathy post rock. Or May Our Chambers Are Full by Thou and Emma Ruth Rundle, which found ERR offering her gothic country vocals over Thou’s relentless sludge.

But then you have projects like Bloodmoon, which unites all of Converge with Chelsea Wolfe, her ubiquitous collaborator Ben Chisholm, and Cave In’s Stephen Brodsky. There isn’t much common ground between the chaotic mathcore, gothic doom, and melodic space metal of the three respective projects to predict what it might sound like.

There’s no low-hanging fruit so ripe that it’s practically picking itself off of the vine. Instead, this album is carefully and laboriously worked. It sounds cultivated, not gathered. And, every drop of sweat was worth it.

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Record #867: BRUIT≤ – The Machine is burning and now everyone knows it can happen again (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As a post rock fan, I’ve heard a lot of my fellow fans complaining the last several years about how there aren’t any good post rock albums coming out. I have generally dismissed this as your typical “old man yells at cloud” grumpiness. After all, there’s been tons of recent post rock that I’ve absolutely loved.

But then, I heard The Machine is burning and now everyone knows it can happen again by French post rock/modern classical quartet BRUIT≤ (French for “noise”). This record is so great that for a second, I understood what they might have been talking about.

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Record #866: Nadja – Luminous Rot (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I’ve been fostering a love of heavy, weird music for a while now—you can probably blame Sunbather for kicking me down that hill. But in the last year or so that I’ve been writing for Tuned Up, I’ve mucked about through darker, grimier swamps than I had ever expected, and enjoyed it far more than I would have ever thought.

One of the murkier records that I’ve fallen in love with in that time is Luminous Rot from the long-running drone/doomgaze duo Nadja. From first blush, it can feel oppressive and impenetrable, but there’s a tension between the thick, sludgy instrumentation and the almost tender songwriting that makes for an engaging listen.

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Record #865: Cynic – Ascension Codes (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Yesterday, I talked about how much weight the Opportunity to buy something factors into my decision to buy it. That fact is much more true for this record, which I found a few feet away for the low price of $15 due to some minor damage (I haven’t been able to figure out what they were talking about).

I mostly knew Cynic by reputation: the project gained notoriety as a pseudo side project of massively important metal band Death, released Focus, which basically wrote the blueprint for what we now think of as progressive metal, and broke up almost immediately. They reunited in 2006, releasing a couple records to mixed reviews.

Ascension Codes, the first Cynic record without founding drummer Sean Reinert and longtime bassist Sean Malone, is similarly mixed, with many people dismissing it as a Paul Masvideal vanity project while others consider it an impressive effort that lets itself meander a bit too far into prog noodling. But as far as I can tell, that’s been Cynic’s whole deal since day one.

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Record #864: Fen – The Malediction Fields (2009)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

Of all the variables in the careful calculus I use to decide what records to buy, Opportunity is perhaps the one with the most gravity. True, I often hunt with laser-focused intentions. But other times, a record will simply present itself to me in an opportunity that I cannot resist.

For instance: I had heard London blackgazers Fen before purchasing this record—how could I not? They pop up in the “Fans also like” section of just about all of my favorite metal bands. If I’m honest though, none of my preemptive listens compelled me to track down any copies.

But then, while foraging through the shelves of Amoeba Records in San Francisco, I found a copy of their debut full-length for an agreeable price. And I couldn’t have been more thrilled. Listening to the album in one earbud as I continued to browse, I was taken by the sweeping post black metal epics which affirmed my decision to buy over and over again.

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Record #863: Mountaineer – Giving Up the Ghost (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

When I was first introduced to Mountaineer through their 2020 record Bloodletting, I was instantly enamored. That record is an inspiring bit of gorgeous sludge metal that transcends the emotional resonance of the genre without stretching beyond the sonic conventions laid down by Isis, Cult of Luna, and others.

So when Giving Up the Ghost was announced, I was equal parts excited and apprehensive. Bloodletting felt so singular that it might be impossible to follow up in a satisfying way. Either they make the same record and it winds up boring or they shift the formula of their careful chemistry and it doesn’t reach the same reaction. I actually waited a few weeks after it was released to listen to it because I was so nervous that it wouldn’t live up.

Since I’m reviewing my personal vinyl copy, you could probably deduce that my worries were unfounded.

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Record #862: Mineral – The Power of Failing (1997)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I will be the first to admit that sometimes, my opinions about certain bands or albums have absolutely no rational sense behind them. Take for instance The Power of Failing. I have been a huge Mineral fan ever since I bought a CD copy of EndSerenading at my local record shop in high school, even following Chris Simpson on to his wonderful project The Gloria Record.

So what line of thinking led me to not care at all about The Power of Failing until I was well into my thirties?

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Record #861: Heriot – Profound Morality (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

In feudal England, a heriot was a tribute paid to the lord of the land when a serf passed away. It was an undeniably oppressive practice, robbing poor families now bereft for the benefit of the already wealthy tyrant of the land. The heavy outfit Heriot from the UK practices a similar form of oppression, but in the form of their sonics.

One of my go-to phrases in describing music is “oppressively heavy.” But when I first heard Heriot, I realized that I have not known what it means to be so heavy that it’s oppressive. This is the kind of sonic density that squeezes your skull, that crushes your bones. It’s the sort of heaviness that dominates your attention and ceases the existence of all else.

Profound Morality, their debut, is only eighteen minutes long, but it leaves an impact crater far larger than its physical size, thanks to its unrelenting mixture of metalcore, industrial, post metal, old school hardcore, and even some glimmers of nu-metal.

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