After hearing My Epic’s name in the periphery of my awareness for years, the project that finally drew my attention was Ultraviolet, one half of a pair of EPs.
While their M.O. has always drawn heavily on experimentation, the Ultraviolet/Violence project finds them restricting themselves to specific elements of their palette.
Ultraviolet, the softer of the two, leans heavy into dream pop, electronica, and ambient post rock, without losing any of their edge.
For a little bit in the late 2000s, it seemed like “chamber pop by a classically trained female multi-instrumentalist that used to be in Sufjan Stevens’ touring band” was posed to become its own genre.
And while St. Vincent’s Annie Clark has found the most enduring success out of that crowd, I’m not sure anyone has topped My Brightest Diamond’s stunning second record.
In 1998, the Appleseed Cast released The End of the Ring Wars. It was a shockingly mature work for a debut, offering a stunning mix of pop punk hooks, post rock compositions, and hardcore energy.
But it’s especially more impressive when you realize that they’ve done so with an unparalleled consistency. Across their catalog, there are no lulls, no dips, no records that their fanbase would rather just ignore. In fact, if you get five Appleseed Cast fans together and ask for their favorite record, you might get five different answers, each with respectable arguments for their choice.
I say all of this to drive home an important statement.
The Fleeting Light of Impermanence might be their best ever.
Some albums don’t need a follow up. They stand firmly upon their own two proverbial legs, singular icons that echo into eternity, transcending everything else the artist does.
Loveless is one of those albums. It cemented My Bloody Valentine’s legacy even without a follow up.
And for a long time, it finally felt like that follow up would never come. Then once it did, it was met with apprehension. After all, how do you follow up a record as sublime and transformative as Loveless?
Often, when a record is treated with mythology and laudation, the actual music itself fails to stand up to its own legend.
Despite being an icon in every regard, Loveless doesn’t have the same struggle. It is a glistening masterpiece that transcends every level of the myth surrounding it.
A lot of people talk about My Bloody Valentine as if they emerged from the ether in 1991 with the masterpiece Loveless.
Not only is that a drastic oversimplification, but it also ignores Isn’t Anything, which is a wonderful record in its own right.
If nothing else, no one can accuse Moving Mountains of putting out the same record over and over again.
Across their three full-lengths, the Purchase, NY outfit visits many of the same sonic touchstones without ever repeating themselves. Their self-titled draws from the same wells of post rock, emo, and indie, but with a marked maturity.
A lot changed in the four years between Pneuma and Moving Mountains’ second record.
Most notably, what was once a studio-only two-piece was now a proper full band. And it shows. Compositionally, Waves has a heft that its predecessor lacked. But that comes at a little bit of a cost.
For as long as I’ve been familiar with the Appleseed Cast, I’ve never done a deep dive into their discography. Ten years passed between hearing them on Deep Elm’s Emo Is Awesome/Emo Is Evil compilation and purchasing Low Level Owl. It’s taken me six years to buy anything else in their catalogue.
And when it comes down to it, I basically purchased Peregrine at random while looking at the severe lack of Appleseed Cast in my collection and deciding I needed to do something about it.
And here is where I abandon every single amount of musical elitism I’ve built up and out myself as the poser I am.
Because this is my favorite Modest Mouse record—by a pretty significant margin.
Maybe it’s because it’s the first record of theirs that I heard. Maybe it’s because at the deepest core of my being, I am a pirate and am thus a sucker for anything nautical-themed.
Or maybe it’s just because it’s a really, really great record.