Reviews

Record #767: BIG|BRAVE – Vital (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

For someone who is as heavily into glacial, sludgy, female-fronted metal as I am, it might come as a shock to hear that I never heard about Big Brave until a couple months ago when I found myself with an advanced copy of their newest album to review. But within seconds of the opening track “Abating the Incarnation of Matter,” I was already on their site ordering this record. Immediately after I finished the review, I tracked down a copy of their earlier album A Gaze Among Them.

All that to say. This record is great.

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Record #766: Kate Bush – Hounds of Love (1985)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

The art world is filled with archetypes. Take for example how every precocious pop starlet from Britney to Lady Gaga to Ariana Grande has garnered comparisons to Madonna.

On the other hand, it’s almost impossible to overhear any discussion about quirky art pop femme fatales (see: Bjork, St. Vincent, Regina Spektor) without the name Kate Bush being dropped somewhere.

But for all my love of the inventive artists often compared to her, I hadn’t actually spent any time with her work until a few months ago when I decided to spring for (what I understand to be) her seminal record, Hounds of Love. That leap of faith was rewarded tenfold.

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Record #765: In This Style – Craft (2019)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I’m a devout believer in the importance of local music. Much of my life has been guided by the community I’ve gained from the local and regional music scene, and I’ve invested much in my life to its success. Perhaps the biggest reason I moved back to South Bend from Chicago was to help build the local scene here.

In that regard, one of the constant misconceptions I deal with is the idea that local music is necessarily of a lesser quality than “real” music. And while it’s true that there’s no shortage of lackluster bar bands hacking their way through Eagles covers bringing down the average, some of the most beautiful music I’ve experienced has come from the craftsmanship of people in my own community.

Take for instance In This Style, a seven-piece prog rock outfit that delivers the kind of hypnotic, mind-melting, sonic alchemy you’d expect to be played in stadiums or huge open air festivals, not small venues and dive bars.

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Record #764: Dustin Kensrue – Carry the Fire (2015)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

The one thing that truly set Thrice apart from the throngs of other early-to-mid -00s post-hardcore bands was the ability of lead singer Dustin Kensrue to craft great choruses. Even at their moshiest, there was a pop sensibility that displayed a deep appreciation for blues, folk, and classic R&B that demanded singalong.

Even as they’ve expanded their sonic palette to incorporate elements of post rock, sludge metal, and electronica, his love of roots music has remained central. Beggars may be the only album in history to cite both Isis and Billie Holiday as influences.

With this in mind, longtime Thrice fans should find no surprises in his 2015 solo record Carry the Fire, a relatively subdued pop record that finds him embracing these elements without the need for hardcore catharsis.

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Record #763: Black Sabbath – Sabotage (1975)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald
Black Sabbath Sabotage vinyl review

Over the last few years, I’ve been making a concerted effort to give Black Sabbath their due. After all, few other bands have such a dominating influence across an entire class of genre. Hundreds of bands are still trading their souls to make music as heavy as their First Six.

Sabotage is the final of this sextet, and I realize now that I’ve mistakenly believed it to be the first step in a downward trend. And while it may not be as untouchable as Master of Reality or Paranoid, it’s maybe the most adventurous of the First Six—and still just as heavy.

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Record #762: Fleet Foxes – Shore (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Among my social circle, I have a famous distaste for bands like Mumford & Sons, Of Monsters & Men, and the rest of their ilk of faux-backwoods, banjo-accompanied strum-and-stomp folk pop.

Every ounce of that aversion is due to Fleet Foxes, whose explosion of popularity in the late 00s opened the floodgates for imitators.

However, while there is an undeniable amount of trend hopping in the bands that followed them, Fleet Foxes’ fifteen-year career betrays an ignorance to—if not disdain for—the passing trends of popular music. Rather, their influences have always run much deeper than the flavor of the moment.

Never has that been more evident than their fourth album, Shore, which was recorded in many of the same studios as the classic albums that have served as the Foxes’ musical north stars. Whether through observable or supernatural means, those influences are more synthesized on this album than ever before.

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Record #761: Gojira – Fortitude (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

If you’re going to name a band after the greatest monster in cinema mythology, you better deliver. Luckily, long-running French metal outfit Gojira hasn’t built their reputation by not living up to their name. Throughout their twenty-plus-year history, they have delivered punishing groove metal that is both destructive and awe-inspiring.

Originally establishing their reputation as a highly technical death metal band,  2016’s Magma saw a seismic shift that saw them leaning into more melodic and progressive elements without losing any of their technical edge. With that album as my introduction, I was already primed for this year’s Fortitude, a sonic tour-de-force that shows what the French foursome is still so highly regarded.

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Record #760: The Cure – Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Perhaps there is no candidate for Pop Superstar more unlikely than The Cure’s Robert Smith. With his frizzy moptop, pale complexion, and full face of makeup, Smith was the face of the 1980s goth rock movement and its obsession with darkness—the kind of guy that Satanic Panic folks would point to to prove that society was in the icy grip of the Dark Lord.

While their output was nowhere near as evil as Christian Fundamentalists would have you believe, The Cure’s music did have a gothic darkness that would make religious parents plead for their childrens’ souls when they heard it through the bedroom door.

And yet, their seventh full-length, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, somehow broke the Billboard Top 40,  despite its extended instrumental passages, flirtations with Eastern folk music, and a massive runtime. Even for all its weirdness though, it managed to fit in some absolutely stunning pop hits.

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Record #759: The Beach Boys – The Beach Boys Love You (1977)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Across the history of popular music, few minds have created music as beautiful, infectious, and moving as that of Brian Wilson. But that mind was also intensely fragile, leading to bouts with mental illness that were so serious he had to withdraw from the creative process, often for years at a time.

During one such stint, Brian’s psychiatrist encouraged him to combat his idleness by working on new music. The resulting project (originally intended to be a solo record) is one of the strangest entries in the Beach Boys’ extensive canon. But for all of its absurdity, it is incredibly rewarding for anyone who accepts it on its own terms.

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Record #758: Coheed & Cambria – Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Vol. 2: No World For Tomorrow (2007)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Coheed & Cambria attracts a lot of criticism for their… whole deal. Sci-fi prog rock concept albums based on a comic book written by the lead singer who then sings about genetic wars and space armadas in an androgynous elf voice isn’t exactly a recipe for mainstream success. But at their best, Coheed has a gift for wrapping these weirder elements up in sugary sweet pop hooks and classic rock tropes.

This mystical ability to mix prog and pop made me a massive fan of their first three albums, but every time I’ve dug into their later works, it seemed they leaned far too heavily into their more experimental compositions, neglecting the earworms entirely. But after finally acquiring a copy of their stunning debut, I learned that I had entirely missed their fourth album, No World For Tomorrow, which might actually be their hookiest, catchiest, classic-rockiest album ever.

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