Reviews

Record #969: Emma Ruth Rundle – Some Heavy Ocean (2014)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I’ve been going through a massive Emma Ruth Rundle phase lately. It all started when I revisited On Dark Horses and realized that it’s probably in my top fifty records of all time. In the couple weeks since, I’ve revisited the many, many other projects of hers I have.

When that wasn’t enough, I took to Discogs to fill the gaps in my collection. Most glaring of these was Some Heavy Ocean, her first outing as a solo singer-songwriter (as opposed to her proper solo debut, Electric Guitar: One, which was a series of instrumental improvisations). And while Some Heavy Ocean doesn’t have as much metallic heaviness as her later solo records, it’s hardly straightforward folk either. The sonic palette borrows a lot of atmosphere from her time in post rock and shoegaze bands. Continue reading →

Record #968: Downward – The Brass Tax (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Looking back, the marriage of grunge and shoegaze should have been a little more obvious. At first blush, it might not seem like the unwashed, clenched teeth noise rock of the Seattle Sound would have much in common with the dreamy, mumbling walls of noise of the Scene that Celebrates Itself. After all, what kinship can Slowdive have with Soundgarden?

But if you look further from the center of each scene, you start running into bands like HUM, Failure, and Swervedriver—or even, I don’t know, The Smashing Pumpkins. The ’90s were filled with bands that found a middle ground between each scene’s love of huge guitars and hiding pop structures under noise and atmosphere.

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Record #967: Flying Saucer Attack – Flying Saucer Attack (1993)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Speaking of the intersection of ambient music and barely decipherable shoegaze, I realized recently that as often as they come up in conversations about shoegaze, drone, post rock, lo-fi, and other noisy scenes that tickle my brain in a nice way, I haven’t dug too deep into Flying Saucer Attack.

Of course, I’m familiar with them by reputation. I’ve even had a copy of Further for years. But my love for the project has not stretched out much beyond that one record. When I was reading about Belong for the last post though, there was an inordinate amount of comparisons to this, FSA’s self-titled record.

While Further is often lifted up as their most significant record, Flying Saucer Attack is much more song-based, implementing more substantial vocals and ubiquitous drum loops alongside the otherworldly ambient guitar experiments they’re remembered for.

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Record #966: Belong – Common Era (2011)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve picked up a worrying habit in the last couple years: I’ve been sleep-record-shopping. I will often wake up to order confirmation emails for records I don’t remember buying. I’m now pretty sure it’s a side effect of my new ADHD meds, but it hasn’t been enough of a problem for me to want to do something. It’s like a little gift from myself, and even my subconscious self is aware enough to keep to a certain budget.

Well, usually anyway. I got some money for Christmas that Sleepytime Nat has decided should be used to splurge, and he bought two pretty pricey records—that I’ve never listened to, mind you—in the last couple weeks that have raised my eyebrow.

The real problem is though…it’d be a lot harder to be mad at him if he didn’t have such great taste. One record was Loss, by the excellent British post-metal band Pijn, and the other was this: Common Era by Belong.

Belong was, by all metrics, an ambient drone band. They had released a number of largely formless texture experiments a lá Brian Eno that were well received. Then, after a three year absence, they released a shoegaze record, complete vocals and pulsing drum machines. However, the songs aren’t too much more coherent than their other work.

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Record #965: bdrmm – Bedroom (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Any sort of appeal to nostalgia has a fair amount of revisionism. The real life nuance that marked an era is too detailed for contemporary acolytes to keep track of, so they opt instead for broad strokes and general shapes. The shoegaze revival of the last several years is especially guilty of this, whittling down the (actually quite diverse) scene of the late ’80s and early 90s into a few landmark albums and a couple combinations of effects pedals.

But when you’re studying Loveless and Souvlaki for inspiration, you might miss that shoegaze was initially an offshoot of post punk and goth, using a vibrant color palette of pinks and violets to fill in the gloomy, monochromatic sparseness of their antecedents.

You can make solid shoegaze without diving too deep into that history. But when a band looks to the same influences as the shoegaze heroes of old, something special happens.

For instance, Bedroom by the British outfit bdrmm, which captures the dreamy landscapes of shoegaze while exercising a simplicity that feels more Joy Division than My Bloody Valentine.

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Record #964: Baroness – Stone (2023)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I’m a relative newcomer to the Baroness faithful. After falling in love with Purple it took me until Gold & Grey to consider diving deeper into their back catalog. Red Album and Yellow & Green were the first and last records I bought in 2020, and that long digestion process convinced me that they were one of the best metal bands going today, offering a confounding blend of sludge metal, progressive rock, psychedelic, folk, and good ol’ fashioned rock ‘n’ roll that is above reproach. The phrase I kept using in those reviews were “they can do no wrong.”

I’ll admit, Stone is the biggest challenge to that assertion that they’ve offered. My first few listens—which I undertook while distracted—were a little underwhelming. I added them to my year end list out of necessity—I only had twenty-three and needed two more to round it out. Whether that was a self fulfilling prophecy or not, I’m not sure. But what I do know is that I ordered it right after publishing that list, thinking, “how bad can it be? It’s friggin’ Baroness.”

And upon giving it a few close listens, I stand by that claim. Stone offers up plenty of their trademark brand of anthemic heavy metal while also stretching further into new sounds.

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Record #963: MONO – The Last Dawn & Rays of Darkness (2014)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Throughout their twenty-five year career, MONO have demonstrated time and time again that they are masters of duality. Their best material finds them unifying the gorgeous orchestration of their “neo-classical” brand of post rock and bombastic catharsis that sometimes stretches into metal territory. Their tours have found them accompanied by a full orchestra while sharing bills with the likes of envy and Boris, and those facts never seem to contradict eachother.

On 2014’s two-part release of The Last Dawn and Rays of Darkness, the Japanese masters give each element of their sound a little more room to breathe, spending one album prioritizing their more orchestral ambitions and the other indulging their most fiery impulses. Continue reading →

Record #962: A.R. Kane – Sixty-nine (1988)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

It’s said that there is a fine line between genius and madness. I’m not sure just how universally true that axiom is, but in the case of Sixty-nine, the debut full length from British dream pop duo (note: they coined that term themselves), they ride that line like Slim Pickens at the end of Dr. Strangelove.

The record is fiercely experimental—to the point that it’s almost a wonder that anyone agreed to release it. Nevertheless, the record became a huge influence on trip hop, post rock, and shoegaze.

I want to be clear that I love this record. There is nothing quite like it. But as is often the case with these sorts of artistic milestones, the scope of its influence may far outshine the record itself. Not everything thrown at the wall sticks. In fact, depending on my mood, this might strike me as completely transcendent, or as the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. Continue reading →

Record #961: The Appleseed Cast – The End of the Ring Wars (1998)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

There is a phrase that comes up in music discourse a lot: “arrived fully formed.” It’s often employed to describe an artist whose debut already demonstrates the sound that they would go on to make their trademark. You can see this in bands like Fugazi or Mogwai, where their artistic voice was already established from their earliest releases.

This phrase does not apply to The End of the Ring Wars. Where The Appleseed Cast would make a long career blending post rock composition and emo songwriting to build one of the most enduring catalogs in the scene, their debut is much rougher around the edges. Very little of the sophistication that would make albums like Low Level Owl or Mare Vitalis seminal classics is on display here.

Instead, they offer up an homage to genre pioneers like Sunny Day Real Estate or Mineral, leaning heavy on twinkling guitars, moaned vocals, and noisy catharsis.

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Record #960: The Kinks – Kinda Kinks (1965)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

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I have said, often and loudly, that the Kinks were the best band of the British Invasion’s first footfalls. Compared to their contemporaries at the time, their songs were more electrifying than the Who, more charming than The Beatles, and had more swagger than the Rolling Stones.

But the ferocity of their brand of rock and roll had some drawbacks—namely, a few violent tempers that led to violent fights both within the band and with roadies that got them banned by the American Federation of Musicians. Essentially blacklisted in the biggest music market in the world, the Kinks soldiered on through the rest of the globe. During a brief trip back to Britain after a tour in Asia, they recorded their second full length in just two weeks. The tight turnaround made it so they were unable to address any of the unhappiness they had with the sessions, and Ray Davies in particular has expressed his displeasure with the finished product many times over the years.

Regardless of how the band feels about the record though, it is hardly a poor example of the group’s prowess.

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