Record #894: Birds in Row – Gris Klein (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Our relationship with music is often discussed in quite shallow terms. Words like “enjoy” or “like” do little to express the full nuance of how music can make us feel. In fact, the assumption that music is meant to simply be enjoyed or liked is an inadequate lens that can impede how the artists intended us to interact with it.

For example, I’m not sure I enjoy this record. The first time I heard it, there was very little about it that I liked at all. In fact, after scanning through it the first time, the most accurate word for my reaction was probably disgust. But over the next week or so, I found myself returning to it several times, swirling it in my ears like wine in a glass trying to discern the exact reaction I was having.

And I couldn’t stop. Whether I liked the record or not, it got its barbed claws under my flesh and embedded itself there. I’m still not sure I’d say I enjoy this record—but I’m a little more sure that it doesn’t mean for me to.

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Record #893: The Bell & The Hammer – The Things We Get Wrong (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Around nine years ago, I met Dan and Serenity Johnson at my church’s Super Bowl party—which I will admit is not a place I typically expect to meet interesting people. But as the weeks went on and I got to know them better, I was surprised at the breadth of Dan’s encyclopedic knowledge of music history, which the couple combined with an incredible talent with their project The Bell & The Hammer and their 2010 record To Set Things Right. 

Shortly after releasing that collection though, their musical ambitions were set aside as they transitioned into parenthood. But as I’ve remained close with Dan through the years, he constantly shared bits of songs they were working on, and this past year, those songs finally found release in their sophomore record, The Things We Get Wrong. And let me just tell you. This record makes me feel honored to count them among my friends, because personal connection or not, this is a masterpiece.

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2022 Year End

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

2022 was an absolutely bonkers year for new music. It seemed like every musician who had to stop touring in 2020 finally finished their lockdown-era albums, and dozens of defunct acts came out of the woodwork. It was a year of stunning debuts, surprising reunions, and more music than anyone could keep up with. There are dozens of great albums that I just didn’t have the capacity to care about (e.g., Soul Glo, Ethel Cain, Spoon, Wilco, Death Cab…).

But there were even more records that hit me dead square in the chest. I purchased more music than I ever have before, even when I was showing some semblance of impulse control.

And because I am an immense music nerd, I have organized it all in a list.

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Record #892: Chat Pile – God’s Country (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Chat Pile doesn’t sound like it would sound very good on paper: sludge punk guitars, 80s-style drum production, and scuzzy bass lines ripping beneath spoken-word diatribes about systemic poverty, grief, critiques of organized religion, and drug-induced hallucinations of Grimace, the McDonald’s character, smoking weed.

To be honest, I’m not sure it sounds that good off of paper either. There’s not much here that sounds beautiful by conventional standards.

But for all its ugliness, there is a power here that cuts through its lack of listenability and lack of hooks and grasps your attention anyway. And if you let it take you, you’re in for quite a ride.

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Record #891: Dream Unending – Song of Salvation (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

It’s often said that music is a transcendent art—that it exceeds the sum of its parts, reaching beyond the mundane circumstances of our day to day. But if we’re being honest, an awful lot of music falls short of that promise. If I’m skimming the radio, there’s very little that might inspire even a shift in my mood, let alone an altered state of consciousness.

But every once in a while I’ll find a record that reminds me just how much power music has. A record that stretches my imagination beyond its usual limits and peels back the corners of the fabric of reality, even for just a moment. And if are once again being honest, a lot of musicians think this is what they’re doing, only to mire themselves in woo-woo pastiche and tired cliches.

In the case of Dream Unending’s sophomore record Song of Salvation though, those traps are avoided, in favor of long-form progressive death-doom metal that transcends not only its genre but its ambitions.

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Record #890: Esben and the Witch – Wash the Sins Not Only the Face (2013)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

At this point, I should just ignore my Spotify Daily Mixes. They’re becoming financially ruinous. Almost every time I skim through one, I find something that immediately grabs my attention (see also: Life on Venus, Grivo, Locrian…).

A few weeks ago, I was looking through one of these playlists and was fascinated by the delay-heavy guitar and ethereal alto vocals of “Slow Wave,” so I dug further. What I found was an album that felt like Warpaint had been listening to a lot more goth, post rock, and black metal. Which hit my sensibilities right on the button—which in turn saw me pressing the “order now” button on a copy on Discogs.

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Record #889: Calm Collapse – Mirrored Nature (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

I say a lot of words about music. I have this blog, I write reviews for Tuned Up and the occasional other publication, I have a music podcast…at any given moment I might have two or three group chats prattling on about new releases, hidden gems, or reminders that certain records are as good as I remember.

But sometimes, all of that does a poorer job of communicating the pure essence of my reaction to a piece of music than a simple two-word reaction. In this case, “holy shit,” which escaped my dropping jaw about thirty seconds into album opener “Positive Greed.” And as the record continued on, I didn’t find much reason to refine my reaction.

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Record #888: Blankenberge – Everything (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

Everyone talks about how the internet has made the world smaller, but less attention has been given to how it has expanded microcosms into galaxies. Microgenres have become scenes unto themselves, with legions of bands offering sonic homage to a handful of albums.

Where the term “shoegaze” originally referred to a dozen or so bands around London, the sonic explorations they pioneered have created hosts of acolytes making their own pilgrimages through reverb-and-fuzz-drenched guitars. This scene has further bifurcated itself, with further microscenes forming within the context of an already niche genre (see: dreamgaze, heavy shoegaze, blackgaze, doomgaze, dreamo and more).

One of the more fascinating microscenes I’ve discovered is the Russian shoegaze scene, which is comprised of bands like Life on Venus, Pinkshinyultrablast, and Blankenberge, whose album Everything is quickly becoming a favorite of mine.

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Record #887: Brian Eno & Kevin Shields – The Weight of History / Only Once Away My Son (2018)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Very few musicians have chased the sonic concept of pure texture with as much steadfastness and fearlessness as Brian Eno. Both as a musician and producer, he is responsible for some of the most gorgeous soundscapes put to tape, practically inventing the idea of ambient music and bringing those lessons into both art punk and more mainstream pop.

But very near the top of list who might give him a run for his money is Kevin Shields, the mastermind behind My Bloody Valentine and an aural savant so consumed by his pursuit of sonic bliss that it borders on pathological (let’s be honest, it’s probably a few steps past that line).

So the mere thought of them joining forces was enough for me to purchase this without hearing a second of it—and of course, it paid off.

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Record #886: Astronoid – Radiant Bloom (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

I have a working theory that in any piece of music, most lay listeners primarily hear the vocals. The strongest case for this idea was at Furnace Fest ’21, where the “dream-thrash” band Astronoid, a band known for their blistering riffs, fiery solos, and blastbeats galore were booked on the stage reserved for the quieter bands.

But even so, Radiant Bloom might stand to challenge even those listeners, as Astronoid offers up the most brutal instrumental performance of their career.

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