Reviews

Record #722: HUM – Inlet (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

In the twenty-five years since the release of You’d Prefer an Astronaut, the musical landscape has been filled with bands that exist at the altar of HUM. The combination of doom metal heaviness, laid back vocal delivery, and major key melodies that HUM delivered on that breakthrough has inspired everyone from Deftones to Cave In to Quicksand to Cloakroom to Spotlights to The Life & Times to True Widow…I could go on.

But now, two decades after going on hiatus, HUM has released a new record that proves that they’re still the kings of space rock. And it might just be their best ever.

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Record #721: The All-American Rejects – The All-American Rejects (2002)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

In 2002-2003, I was a sixteen-year-old emo kid who discovered all my music through scouring message boards, cross-referencing the thank yous in CD liner notes, or watching hours of Fuse TV. I was ingesting a healthy diet of Thrice, Sunny Day Real Estate, Fugazi, pre-hiatus Weezer, Zao, and the like.

And when the Fuse airwaves started being infested with at three All-American Rejects videos on heavy rotation (was it only three? I could have sworn it was at least five), I had an almost visceral reaction. It was the cheesiest, most cliche, overproduced schlocky pop punk I had ever heard. It was so pop punk it was almost devoid of any punk ethos at all. It felt like the exact embodiment of copycats who heard Dashboard Confessional and learned the exact wrong lesson.

And for years, I endured it angrily.

But after I graduated, I was driving around with a friend and flipping through their CDs when I found this and threw it in as a joke. And to my utter surprise—and the disappointment of my punk cred—I realized that this album totally bangs.

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Record #720: Foo Fighters – Greatest Hits (2009)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

There are two things that I generally don’t care about at all: radio rock and greatest hits compilations.

But in this case, I will make a huge whomping exception.

For one, at this point in my life, I have little interest in diving deep into the extensive catalog of the Foo Fighters. However, I am not above admitting that Dave Grohl & Co. have produced some of the best radio rock the genre can offer. This collection of singles (in no particular order) is wall to wall bangers, showcasing Grohl’s perfect instincts for writing rock and roll hits.

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Record #719: The Chariot – Everything is Alive, Everything is Breathing, Nothing is Dead, Nothing is Bleeding (2004)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

For a certain subset of music fans within a certain age, there are few bands as important as The Chariot. For former scene kids who put their girl jeans through their paces two-stepping in the church gym or muddied in the mosh pits of Cornerstone Music Festival, The Chariot represents the absolute epitome of mid-2000s Christcore.

And a decade and a half later, their debut record, Everything is Alive, Everything is Breathing, Nothing is Dead, Nothing is Bleeding is still every bit as chaotic and cathartic as it was back then, containing the blueprint for every riff, breakdown, and fist-pounding one-liners that throngs of metalcore bands are still trying to recapture.

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Record #718: Dens – Taming Tongues (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Over the last  few years of attending, playing, and even organizing vaguely “Christian” music festivals, I have come to a deep appreciation of Facedown Records—home of such excellent bands as My Epic, Everything In Slow Motion, Weathered, American Arson, Comrades, and many more excellent bands that often fly under the radar.

Another one of these bands is Dens,  whose set I heard through the floor while in a Chroma Artist Collective meet up during last year’s  Flood City Fest and cursed the timing of the thing.

But earlier this year, they released Taming Tongues, an absolute powerhouse of post hardcore that is at once anthemic and hard hitting.

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Record #717: Deftones – Ohms (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

It took me a while to get into the Deftones. The ebbs and flow of my opinion of them are well-documented on my social media: a few years ago, I took it upon myself to figure out how I felt about them once and for all, and dove headlong into their discography, taking detailed track by track notes of each album, which shift between aggressive alternative metal and dreamy shoegaze. Their discography sometimes feels like a fight between these extremes, heavy riffs sitting uneasily against the more billowing songs on the tracklist.

But here, Deftones frontman and admitted The Cure fanboy Chino Moreno opens the record singing, “I’ve finally achieved balance.” And then the band spends an entire album proving that they’ve one just that. Over thirty years into their career, Ohms might be the most cohesive and consistent record in their catalog.

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Record #716: An Autumn For Crippled Children – Try Not To Destroy Everything You Love (2013)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

By now, long time readers will understand that I have an incredible weakness for heavy music that plays with more delicate elements. My collection is filled with these sorts of experiments, from Alcest to Zeal & Ardor—projects that hold tight to the crushing catharsis of heavy metal, but don’t shy away from adopting a sense of gentleness.

An Autumn For Crippled Children’s breakthrough album, Try Not To Destroy Everything You Love is an absolutely staggering example of this kind of music that is equal parts ear splittingly vicious and heart throbbingly sentimental.

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Record #714: James Taylor – Greatest Hits (1976)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

In the summer of 2006, I was between my freshman and sophomore years of college. With no job and few friends left in my home town, I spent most of the summer driving across Michigan, crashing in friends’ living rooms (or kitchen floor, in one instance), occasionally happening on open mic nights or jam sessions or campfires where the acoustic guitar in my backseat would be of use.

My vehicle in those days was a late 90s Chrysler Town & Country that I inherited from my mom when she upgraded. The once mighty stock sound system was now neutered, its CD player rendered useless. Driving between cities, finding strong (and listenable) radio stations proved impractical.

All I had was a tape deck, and a garage sale copy of James Taylor’s Greatest Hits on cassette. Such was my soundtrack for that summer, and many months in between (it may have stayed in the deck as long as two years).

And while I usually pass on Greatest Hits compilations, when I found this the other day, I had to take it—and not just for the memories.

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Record #713: Citizen – Everybody Is Going to Heaven (2015)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As closely as young me followed emo, post hardcore, and the various other splinter groups in the broad punk umbrella, I lost touch somewhere for a while. Personally, I blame the Third Wave of emo, with its ranks of guylinered front men who were more concerned with fashion and deals with Hot Topic than they were with the music.

So aloof was I that I almost  completely missed several great bands—the Emo Revival, “the Wave,” and other scenes that resurrected the best parts of the music I grew up with with sincerity and skill.

I’ve seen Citizen’s name (and albums) for almost a decade now. But it took finding this album in my local used shop to spur my curiosity to finally pull them up on Spotify.

And boy, am I ever glad I did.

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