Record #680: Battles – Mirrored (2007)

When you’re exploring new music, occasionally you come across love-at-first-site records—albums that immediately latch themselves to your psyche when you first hear them. Then, there are slow burns—records that take a little more exploration, but fully envelop you in their sonic arms.

Then, there are great, unknowable beasts: eldritch albums with a hundred eyes and a thousand tentacles that never stop swirling long enough for you to get a good look at them. You are left only with a roaring, gaping impression of the unearthly monstrosity. Every glance uncovers additional layers, peeling themselves away endlessly to unrecognizable shapes until it isn’t the album you thought you listened to the last time.

Mirrored has been one of these albums for me: an ancient, Lovecraftian record that changes color and shape with every repeated listen. But after a decade of trying to wrap my head around it, I’ve finally embraced the madness.

Continue reading

Record #668: Envy – Insomniac Doze (2006)

As long as I’ve been in the emosphere (read: like 2001 or so), I’ve somehow entirely ignored Japanese screamo pioneers Envy. It’s quite likely that I heard their names thrown around with acts like Orchid and Loma Prieta that I didn’t like at all, and assumed they would carry all of the same abrasiveness.

Had I known though that they leaned much closer to post rock than to hardcore, I wouldn’t have waited fifteen years to listen to this masterpiece.

Continue reading

Record #665: Elliott – Song in the Air (2003)

Image may contain: indoor

As convenient as online shopping has made it to find all the exact records that you’re looking for, perusing a record store can bring gems that you would have otherwise ignored.

Case in point: Song in the Air by Elliott, which I found at Planet Retro in St. Pete while browsing their impressive Punk/Metal section (Kate Bush was in there too, so take “punk/metal” with a grain of salt). Having been tangentially aware of them, I pulled up Spotify and scanned through some of the songs.

What I found was a powerful emo record that gets most of its emotional weight from the intricacy of its songwriting rather than the bombast of its arrangements.

Continue reading

Record #650: The End of the Ocean – -aire (2019)

Post rock is typically a patient genre. Bands build elaborate landscapes of cinematic splendor and emotional catharsis that evoke the heights and depths of the human experience. But this usually takes a while: it’s not unusual for a post rock tune to sail right past the seven-minute mark—or even the ten minute mark.

But on -aire, The End of the Ocean achieves the same evocative heights without wasting any time.

Continue reading

Record #639: Alcest – Spiritual Instinct (2019)

If history is kind (and accurate) it will remember Alcest as one of the most important metal bands of all time.

After all, the flood of bands fusing the passion of black metal with the textures of shoegaze and the drama of post rock (see: Deafheaven, Oathbreaker, Brutus) are taking pages from their playbook. Their debut EP Le Secret fused these elements together in a way that many bands are still using as a blueprint—and it came out in 2005. 

Continue reading