Reviews

Record #793: Deafheaven – Infinite Granite (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

The backlash from “A Great Mass of Color” came so quickly, they might as well have been included in the press release. Black metal purists were quick to point to the undistorted guitars, lack of blast beats, and (gasp) clean vocals as proof that Deafheaven weren’t kvlt.

Subsequent singles rebutted the idea that it might be a one-off. And now that the album is out, we can see for ourselves that this softer palette weaves itself through the entire album. Even longtime fans have turned on them, saying this record sounds like an entirely different band. They’ve lost the plot. They’ve sold out.

And the whole time, I’ve said the same thing to them: besides the vocals, this is what Deafheaven has sounded like the whole time. 

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Record #792: Christie Front Drive – Stereo (1996)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Emo kid that I was, I’ve discovered the last few years that there’s a fair amount of the genre that I missed. Obviously I was aware of early pioneers like Sunny Day Real Estate and Mineral, but that was through turn-of-the-millennium bands like Further Seems Forever, The Juliana Theory and twothirtyeight. I was a big Jimmy Eat World fan, but I was far more familiar with Bleed American than Clarity.

I say this to explain that even though Christie Front Drive have been cult favorites among Second Wave emo fans, I had given very little playtime before buying this LP on the strength of their reputation alone.

And let me tell you what: 16-year-old Nat would have eaten this record up.

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Record #791: Amenra – De Doorn (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Media is an interesting thing.

Take for instance De Doorn (Flemish for “The Thorn”) the seventh album from Belgian sludge metallurgists Amenra. It is by all respects a grave and serious album: these songs were written as part of a project commissioned by local government officials as a commemoration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the First World War, a presence still uniquely felt in their region, dotted with bunkers, trenches, and the lingering loss of ancestors. It is a poignant look at grief, mourning, and the scars of war.

And yet, I discovered this album when professional wrestler Malakai Black used a track as his entrance music.

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Record #790: Manchester Orchestra – The Million Masks of God (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As I have mentioned many times before, I somehow went a decade and a half without hearing Manchester Orchestra, despite hearing their name constantly. I decided to change this last year and instantly became a fan.

And just in time too, because shortly after that point, they released The Million Masks of God, a dazzling technicolor spectacular that is as catchy, aggressive, lush, heavy, and emotive as anything they’ve ever released.

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Record #789: Manchester Orchestra – Simple Math (2011)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

I am a relative newcomer to Manchester Orchestra. Despite hearing their name for the greater part of a decade—often while they were touring with some of my favorite bands—I had never listened to them until last year. However, that proved fortuitous in a way, because my discovery happened just before the repress of Simple Math. My initial inquiries suggested that this album was the fan favorite, but high prices on the resale market caused me to ignore it for a bit…which explains my backward path through their discography.

Based on that trajectory, both A Black Mile to the Surface and Cope were far poppier and folkier than I was expecting based on their reputation. Simple Math, however, starts to bring the picture into focus a bit more, marking a turning point from the band’s scrappy origins to their big-budget sheen of newer albums.

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Record #788: Magnog – Magnog (1996)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

No matter how you feel about Mogwai, there’s no denying that their 1997 debut album Young Team totally changed the trajectory of post rock. That album practically wrote the blueprint for the cinematic, guitar heavy, climax-chasing music that has become synonymous with the genre.

But before Young Team? Post rock still existed, but it was far more abstract. Acts like Bark Psychosis, Talk Talk, Flying Saucer Attack, Tortoise, and even Stereolab were all described under the post rock umbrella without sounding very much like modern post rock (or each other).

Add to that diverse and amorphous list of bands the Washington outfit Magnog, whose brilliant 1996 self-titled was introduced to me earlier this year.

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Record #787: Drive Like Jehu – Yank Crime (1994)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

I realized recently that despite hearing the name Drive Like Jehu dropped alongside many of my favorite post-hardcore, emo, and punk bands for decades, I had never knowingly listened to them. I had confided this to a group of friends, who encouraged me to buy this record immediately.

And though I hadn’t listened to this record before receiving this record yesterday, I’ve heard its impact for years. This is the kind of record with such an unmistakable influence on the scene that I have heard every scraping-guitared, ragged-voiced, overdriven-bass, angular-drummed second of this album filtered through other bands.

But even after nearly thirty years, this album sounds fresh and inventive, no matter how many other acts have tried to follow the same formula.

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Record #786: Black Swift – Desert Rain (2019)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

The bigger the world gets, the smaller it seems. Take for instance, German alt-rockers Black Swift. I was first introduced to them when my band opened for them on a show of one of their American tours, only to find that the lead singer, Sally Grayson, grew up a short drive away from my hometown.

Then, last week, she embarked on a solo tour that stopped in my living room (alongside ex-Sixpence None the Richer/Velour 100 alum Tess Wiley). It was there, stripped away from the fuzzy guitars and leather jacket drums, that the power of her voice and songwriting became inescapable.

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Record #785: Lantlôs – Wildhund (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Lantlôs is German for “homeless,” or “without homeland,” and that name is certainly apt. Throughout their career, chameleonic German metal band has been stretching the borders of heavy music, unconcerned with citizenship in any genre. Their earlier albums, such as .neon and Agape were indelible entries in the blackgaze canon, featuring Alcest’s Neige on vocals. 2014’s Melting Sun was a transcendent work that shed itself of any of heavy music’s trope to create an album that was blissful while still being entirely heavy.

Seven years later, Lantlôs returns with Wildhund (German for “Wild Dog”), an album that uses all the same sonic textures to create what is almost a pop record. And even with all the band names they’ve dropped in the press materials, Wildhund sounds as without peer or homeland as they ever have.

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