Reviews

Record #737: Emma Ruth Rundle – Marked For Death (2016)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

In the last few months, my awareness of Emma Ruth Rundle has absolutely exploded. I was introduced to her most recent solo record On Dark Horses when I was assigned it while writing for a Belgium-based review site, and even then she was only introduced to me as the guitarist from Red Sparowes.

After almost a year and a half of knowing and loving just that album, I started to dig deeper, falling in love with her alternative/post-rock/psychedelic outfit Marriages, psych-folk outfit Nocturnes (someone sell me their vinyl copy plz), and her recent collaboration with doom metallurgists Thou.

But it’s taken me until a few weeks ago to listen to any of her other solo work, and once I did, the obsession continued. Marked For Death, her second song-based solo album—and regarded by many to be her best—is a crushing work of dark, brooding Southern gothic that showcases her stunning talent as both a songwriter and an ambient architect.

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Record #736: Chapterhouse – Whirlpool (1991)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Speaking of nostalgic shoegaze…

Most of the conversations about the history of shoegaze are focused around three bands in particular: Ride, Slowdive, and My Bloody Valentine. This trinity embodies much of the spirit of shoegaze that modern revivalists try to channel with their own work.

But there are hosts of lesser celebrated bands from the same era who, despite lacking the same footprint, are still entirely worthwhile. Case in point: Chapterhouse. Continue reading →

Record #735: Dead Horse One – The West Is the Best (2019)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

Creating a genre album is a difficult task. Artists much manage a delicate equilibrium between their own voice and standard elements of the genre—it’s a balancing act with originality on one side and nostalgia on the other.

This is especially true for genres that rely heavily on nostalgia, such as shoegaze.

And yet France’s Dead Horse One is up to the task. The West Is the Best manages to color their voice with shades of all of the shoegaze greats without obscuring their originality.

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Record #734: The Casket Lottery – Short Songs for End Times (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Among most circles, emo is often spoken of dismissively. It is the cracking-voiced, limp-wristed realm of cringy, whingey, immature songwriters offering up poor-me missives put to noodly, poorly composted guitar parts and over-exuberant, off-time rhythm sections.

To anyone who buys into such a cartoonish critique of the genre, allow me to offer The Casket Lottery as a counterpoint. Formed as an offshoot of mathy metalcore heroes Coalesce, The Casket Lottery has always showcased emo at its very best, making great use of what made the genre so irresistable without allowing themselves to fall into the clichés that plague many of their contemporaries.

Short Songs for End Times, their second album since reuniting in 2010, is a punch straight to the gut that sets their brand of hard-hitting emotional punk on politics, tackling the division and absurdity of the post-truth era.

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Record #733: Boneflower – A(r)mour (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I have a working theory I’ve been testing the last few years. The premise is essentially that to the average layperson, their entire listening experience is driven by the vocals. Future Islands is essentially a good new wave/synthpop band, but many listeners suggest they defy labelling based on the deep, throaty growl of Samuel Herring. My own band—a heavy shoegaze/post rock outfit—is compared to Kings of Leon because my voice has a gritty, rock timbre. I’ve also heard a spacey garage rock band compared to Aretha Franklin because the singer was a black woman.

By the same token, consider Boneflower: a Spanish band that utilizes effects-heavy guitars, shifting drum rhythms, and grand instrumental compositions. Strip the vocals from it, and it could probably land somewhere near post rock (though admittedly a bit more aggressive than your typical post rock fare). Their own Bandcamp page uses the tags “alternative, post hardcore, post rock.

And yet, due to the techniques utilized by the lead singer, they are dubbed “screamo” but just about everyone who writes about them.

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Record #732: Dashboard Confessional – So Impossible EP (2001)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Dashboard Confessional So Impossible EP vinyl reviewI’ve told the story before of buying The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most at a music store in Florida on my fifteenth birthday. Little did I know that that very same day, Dashboard Confessional released a delightful concept EP that only the most emo of emo bands could pull off.

So Impossible is a four-track story of a first date with the singer’s crush, aided only by his own acoustic guitar and the acoustic noodlings of Sunny Day Real Estate’s Dan Hoerner.

In writing, it sounds like the kind of thing that should be lost to the forgotten custom HTML of LiveJournal pages. But in spite of—or maybe even because of—its simplicity, it remains enduringly charming.

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Record #730: Black Sabbath – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

After spending much of my life believing Black Sabbath to be wholly evil (as a child in the Evangelical Church) or wholly outdated (as a self-serious hipster), I’ve spent the last couple years slowly working my way through their catalogue—and learning just how wrong I was.

Throughout the early records, the band gets progressively heavier with each release. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath certainly doesn’t stop that trajectory at all, but neither does it rely on heaviness alone as a compositional device. The result is some of the most cathartic and gorgeous music ever written.

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Record #729: Baroness – Yellow & Green (2012)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Image may contain: 1 personI started 2020 with the realization that Baroness could do no wrong, and that I might as well just buy their entire catalog. Red was the first record I purchased in 2020, and so there’s a certain poetry to the fact that Yellow & Green—the final missing piece in my collection—was the last I purchased.

It’s admittedly an odd choice to purchase this record last—by most accounts, Yellow & Green is their masterpiece: a massive, sprawling double album that finalizes their transformation from sludge metal heroes to genre-defying Metal Gods. It was perhaps that monstrous reputation that me tentative to approach it, but every second of this album lives up to its legacy.

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Record #728: Marriages – Kitsune (2012)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Speaking of Emma Ruth Rundle…among the long list of projects in her genre-spanning CV, one of my favorite releases is Salome, to date the only full-length project of the experimental group Marriages, featuring fellow Red Sparowes member Greg Burns.

Salome has entranced me since I was introduced to its chameleonic, at times eldritch, blend of post rock, alternative, and metal sensibilities. But that chimeric quality is perhaps even more prominent on Kitsune, the EP that preceded their full length by three years.

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