Spylacopa, the side project of Candiria guitarist John LaMacchia, has released their Steve Perlmaster directed new music video for “Hexes,” which can be viewed below. This is the project that also features Jeff Caxide of Palms/Isis fame and Julie Christmas (ex-Made Out Of Babies, etc.) Their new album Parallels will be released on March 31, 2015 via Rising Pulse Records.
Spylacopa, the musical brainchild of Candiria guitarist John LaMacchia, is releasing their long awaited debut full length record Parallels on March 31, 2015 via Rising Pulse Records. The album was produced by LaMacchia, mixed by Ken Schalk (Candiria) and mastered by Julian Silva at On Air Mastering. This is their first new release since their 2008 debut self titled EP, and features members of ISIS, Mister Sparx, Palms, Candiria, Made Out Of Babies, Slow Parade and Julie Christmas.
The delay of the album was partly due to the untimely and tragic murder of drummer Troy Young, who was killed in his Brooklyn apartment in December 2009 following an attempted robbery.
LaMacchia comments:
“Troy Young Tracked the drums for all the original material that made up the debut EP and most of what makes up this full length which is a huge reason why this record is being released. These are some of the last recordings of Troy Young tracking drums in a professional setting. After meeting Troy’s family during the trial of his murder, I felt somewhat obligated to get this record out. Troy would have wanted this record to come out and I feel that this is a way of helping to keep him active and present. He was such a talented young guy who was just getting a foothold in New York City as a working and functioning musician when he was killed.”
There’s prolific, there’s ubiquitous, then there’s Aaron Turner. With Isis no more than a beloved memory and the latest effort from Old Man Gloom done with its mischief-making, the man’s thirst for invention and colossal soundscapes appears unslakeable and latest project Sumac bounds into being with debut album The Deal (Profound Lore).
From the outset, earth-shaking bass notes and riffs allude to the swelling hostility of former glories. There’s a marvellous tone to the switching, slamming riff and bass of ‘Thorn In The Lion’s Paw’, as deep as the Marianas trench yet resonant, crashing through fearful, hissing amps that groan under the sheer weight. Wonderfully dictated by rolling, pulverising stickwork, Turner’s diseased bark careers the bulldozing track toward a lush, atmospheric ambience; the piercing piano keys and howling lead chord chilling the soul. It’s a typically diverse, adventurous, yet sonically booming exercise deserving of beefy cans rather than those tinny, treble-heavy ‘in-ear’ aberrations. The scything, hammer riff of ‘Hollow King’, when colliding with the frenetic rhythm episodes, is positively euphoric and claustrophobic; even an albeit accompanied drum solo and brutal jam session can’t bore, instead numbing the senses with their size and stunning display of instrumentation, the closing imitation of a pulse the beating heart of the grandest titan.
Despite the undulating power, however, there’s a self-indulgence which leads to meandering moments: the pounding, scorching Stoner twist of ‘Blight’s End Angel’ for example containing extraneous and tedious passages. Despite a rolling pummel and that ripping scour, the thirteen-minute title track houses aimless lulls broken by a crushing intensity, yet even this is occasionally stodgy and flinches only with switches of pace and enlivening lead breaks at both the halfway point and the coda. Only the drifting yet reverberating power and beauty of the YOB-like, aptly-named closer ‘The Radiance of Being’ reflects that early variance you’d expect more of.
This is still a fine album, full of Turner’s trademark phenomenal power. He is doubtless capable of more spectacular results than this, however, he would feel that someone of my limited cognitive powers couldn’t fully understand…
7.0/10
PAUL QUINN
Chicago instrumentalists Pelican is set to release a new EP via Southern Lord in February 24, 2015 around new reimaginings of “The Cliff,” off their 2013 Forever Becoming album.
The four track EP includes remixes from Justin Broadrick (of Godflesh, Jesu), Aaron Harris and Bryant Clifford Meyer of ISIS/Palms, and, for only the second time in their fourteen year career, vocals. Allen Epley (Shiner, The Life and Times) will be contributing his voice once again. He previously contributed to “Final Breath” on 2009’s What We All Come To Need. Listen to “The Cliff” (vocal version) here.
The Cliff Track Listing:
1. The Cliff (Vocal Version)
2. The Cliff (Justin K. Broadrick remix)
3. The Cliff (AH & BCM remix)
4. The Wait
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SUMAC is a new group with singer/guitarist Aaron Turner (ISIS), drummer Nick Yacyshyn (Baptists) and bassist Brian Cook (Russian Circles, ex-Botch) and has released a preview video for their debut album The Deal, out February 3, 2015 via Profound Lore/Sige. Watch it here.
Their live debut will be at the Rickshaw Theatre in Vancouver, BC this Friday, December 4, 2014, opening for Deafheaven.
It is during the fourth track, the abrasive ‘Of Stillness & Solitude’, a misnomer of a song-title if ever there was one, that you truly, madly, deeply get Downfall of Gaia. The Isis roiling builds into a chaotic clashing juxtaposition of rusted, raging black metal, vocal shrieks pained with frustration and defeat, and a draining feeling of epic repression immerses as the despotic union of sludge, post-metal and black metal, with a steady jarring relentlessness, wraps the consciousness.
Suspension of disbelief may have originated in the cinematic world, but it adequately applies to many albums – albums that act or behave as a soundtrack, or soundscape (vomits in mouth), if you will. With albums, it’s that creating of an atmosphere, that complete absorption into the feeling the band are creating, where you accept their alternate reality. The more cerebral will do this, guiding you on an aural journey. Cult of Luna excels at it. Early Burzum damned near perfected it. But take it from the hands of the Master Builders and put it in the paws of the less adept you get moments, like at the outset of ‘Darkness Inflames These Sapphire Eyes’, where apposite styles are forced together, when the brooding introduction hits cataclysmic rage in a ungainly segue, where it snaps you out of that false reality. It’s not contrast; it’s a cluster-fuck, as if a surgeon were to reattach a severed finger with a staple gun and gaffa tape.
If there’s a thin line between love and hate, there’s an even thinner one between tense and ominous and, well, boring and jarring, and it’s a line Aeon Unveils The Throne of Decay (Metal Blade) tramples up and down. It has the composite parts. It has the bleakness of Winter, the discordance and pervading opacity of Neurosis and the abrasiveness of Krallice. It has the mood bits, it has the caustic futile wrath, but it doesn’t always know how to put it together and keep it together. But when it works, when ‘Excavated’’s harrowing 8 minutes bleeds on you, Downfall of Gaia nail all the nuances of unsettling, bleak music and it is beautifully horrible. I get the attempts at contrast, I get the pervading mood of hopelessness, but I also get a lot of cut and paste, of not quite knowing how to blend it all together. There’s a lot to recommend about Downfall of Gaia, but this is not their masterpiece. Not yet.
7.0/10
STEVE TOVEY
We now know that our version of The Ape of God (Profound Lore) – the one that was released to the press – is a compilation of parts of the two new albums issued by Old Man Gloom only and not full version(s) of the pair, both released with the same title. On their Facebook page the L.A. super-group claim they would stand by the truncated compilation as an album in its own right, and indeed it would serve as such.
The sludge-drenched hostility of ‘Fist of Fury’ and ‘The Lash’ collides with fuzzed-out riffs and post leads underpinning the titanic crunch, fully embracing Aaron Turner‘s Isis background. That lead is a howling current through the intense roar of ‘Predators’, an ominously building ambient crescendo falling to eerie wails; the angry Neurosis vibe screaming from every pore and indicating a deeper sense of gravity. This segues into the savage, visceral pummel of the monstrous ‘Shoulder Meat’, the deep lead underpin almost sorrowful whilst crashing thunder is eclipsed by a stone breaking, torturous riff. As these two tracks don’t follow each other on the albums proper, the organic melding of the join displays the length OMG went to fool the media.
The breakneck aggression of Nate Newton‘s Converge is evident in the sequencer-filled bruising battery of ‘Never Enter’, while eerie atmospherics cede to the mutilating slash and oscillating crunch of ‘Promise’. The weight and hiss of the rhythms are as oppressive as the consumptive vocal roars, Santos Montano‘s drums and Caleb Scofield‘s bass pounding and throbbing through the Gregorian psychedelic drift of ‘Simia Die’ before the soaring riff carries the coda to tumultuous skies. Closer ‘Aarows [their spelling] to Our Hearts’, which also closes the second album proper, is a fourteen-minute epic displaying the full gamut of creativity with a slow build through ambient samples, a maudlin drum march and picked riff graced by gentle vocal intonations. As the fuzzing noise gradually swells through the seeping gloom into an agonised, pulsing horror, so does the unbearable tension. It’s the kind of track Cult of Luna have it in their power to make, but haven’t appeared angry enough for years to execute.
With our review copy of the albums being four tracks shy of the full complement, this is still representative of a mighty effort from a band totally at the top of their game, dwarfing last album No (Hydra Head) and destined to rattle many ‘top ten’ lists of 2014.
8.5/10
PAUL QUINN
Just when you thought that post metal had run its course with the demise of Isis and Cult of Luna going on hiatus, along comes another set of bearded types who love Explosions in the Sky more than they do employing a vocalist. That’s not to say they’re not welcome to hang around for a while however, for St. Petersburg, Florida five piece Set and Setting have some gloriously hazy sights to show us, which they do with aplomb on sophomore record A Vivid Memory (Prosthetic).
With a name referencing the importance of one’s mindset and location in order to best appreciate an experience with psychedelic drugs, it would be lazy to lump Set and Setting in with those bands who rely on their listeners being wasted to make up for their own musical shortcomings, but it is true that the kind of woozy, gradually building post metal they play would go well with some mind-bending substances at hand. The repetitive melodies and surging rhythms of opening tracks ‘Waves of Luminescence’ and ‘The Inevitable Cycle’ will delight fans of Mono and Pelican, especially with the latter’s bursts of speed indicating that the band haven’t nodded off just yet, while the clinical squalls of ‘Acceptance’ has the members getting the most from their instruments.
Track lengths increase as the album progresses as the band explore the void even deeper with the blurring of post and black metal on the searing sheen of ‘Descending Sun’ which at times sounds like Deafheaven devoid of vocals. The dual percussive assault is maintained throughout the album, giving proceedings a hypnotic feel while the visual impressions of dramatic landscapes and blurred impressions are enforced by the use of repetition and occasional forays into drone and even Shoegaze territory. However the band never tries to outdo themselves and know that the best way to produce a memorable song is to make it worth listening to again. A Vivid Memory has plenty of such tracks and although you don’t have to be baked to fully appreciate them, it wouldn’t hurt.
7.5/10
JAMES CONWAY
This has been a mighty year already for quality heavy and experimental music. When Boris puts out new music, it is a major happening across the fan base of many genres of music. Praise from critics is always nice, and Ghost Cult gave Boris a 9/10 for their new album. But when you hear more people talking up Noise (Sargent House) than many other big-ticket band releases this year save for a few, you know something cool is happening. Adding to that mix, The Atlas Moth, riding high off of their June album The Old Believer (Profound Lore), you have two of the most dynamic and interesting bands right now on the same tour. Then top it off with some avant-doom madness from Subrosa, and you have a can’t miss show top to bottom. While having three bands of a certain mystique and quality (especially Boris) brings out the super fans, it was a weird mix of indie hipsters, death metal beardos, bro dudes (hey it’s Boston) and even a few vest wearing dudes and chicks all together in a weird soup of humans on a Tuesday night in Beantown. Every metal show is basically an interesting social experiment!
Subrosa was up first and I was a little stunned at the hefty early crowd, already entranced by the first notes. Playing their deft, drone-y sludge, they hit you hard and deliberately. It’s hard not to be transfixed on the performance of front woman/axe slinger Rebecca Vernon. Her soul shaking vocals and skillful playing just smokes fierceness. Violinists Kim Pack and Sarah Pendelton pack in the drama with their intense, layered parts. I have spent reviews complaining about the the weird room that The Paradise is, and how it doesn’t do bands any favors sonically. Some of the highs from the strings were eaten up by the depth of the room, which is a shame since on record they are towering. Kim’s vocals were also a highlight tonight. The set leaned heavily on No Help for the Mighty Ones and More Constant Than The Gods (both on Profound Lore), and between the two, I favor the earlier album. Despite that, the bands’ best song on the night was ‘The Usher’ from More Constant…, and featured Dave Kush from TAM on guest vocals. Still, it was impossible at the end of their set not to feel tipsy from the strength and creativity of this band. I need to see Subrosa play a headline set, just once in my life. Just once.
Over the years I have learned how to spot greatness in bands, sometimes before they even know it. Usually, I am usually right about these things and The Atlas Moth is going to be a band that years from now, we point to this moment when they took off. They hit the stage tonight with a purpose and the poise of a veteran band that they have become. I have seen others shoot their collective load too fast when opening for Boris (because Boris is Boris), but not these guys. They just went up like any other show and eased into their set with ‘Jet Black Passenger’. The now mostly full room was just feeling it big time! Or it could have been some of the superb herb I sensed going around nearby me. Bathed in a wash of blues and reds (cool to watch from the crowd, crap for photographers), front man Stavros Giannopoulos and Kush on the conjoined vocals of shrieking despair and smoothness just melted the entire room. The entire band was just crushing tonight, as they jammed mostly new material from The Old Believer. The now modern classic of ‘Holes In The Desert’ was also welcomed to my ears on this night, and its a track that I hope never leaves the set. Kim from Subrosa came out and lent her playing to ‘The Sea Beyond’, which also was a treat. When the entire band gets to singing, screaming together as it does, it can be quite moving. Andrew Ragin, who produced the new album, also chimes in with synths, guitars and vocals is a powerhouse live. He is a difference maker. The secret weapon of the band is Dan Lasek on the drums. He has really upped the ante in terms of power and groove since he joined. Not since the mighty ISIS played some of their final shows in this very building a few years ago has post-metal been so well executed here. Bring on the headline tours boys!
Finally it was time for Boris. Some of the beardos had left after the penultimate act and there were some drunken bros who were loud as fuck the rest of the night, which pissed me off to no end. Moving right a long, Boris hit the stage with a boom, launching right into ‘Melody’ from Noise. Professional;, perfectly played, and most of all fun; Boris knows how to start an album or a party with uptempo, melodic bliss inducing rock. Takehashi Ohtani rocks the double-neck guitar/bass and moves flawlessly between either neck depending on what the parts require. Vocally he is a wizard: able to morph his voice to whatever the style of the songs call for. Atzuo Mizuno behind the kit is a powerhouse, as both a drummer and a performer. His vocals are also excellent and when he and Takehashi sing together, it is magical. Plowing right into ‘Vanilla’, another new song, the crowd let out a loud cheer. It was almost like a sporting event atmosphere in the room with many “oohs” and “ahhs” all night long. The opposite of her cohorts, Wata on guitar is quite restrained in her performances physically, but she is a beast on the axe. Her stoicism is only matched equally by her mastery of riffs, the occasional lead part, and feedback of course.
Although the band leaned heavily on the just released Noise, they mixed it up well with Pink and Amplifier Worship also represented too. The set list was constructed expertly as you would expect from this band. Raging rock and metal, introspective mellowness, followed again by waves of crashing melodies and other weirdness. Mid-set cuts such as ‘Ghost of Romance’, ‘Heavy Rain’ and ‘Cosmos’ just send you on an emotional rocket ship to space and back . Speaking of space, Boris has never been afraid of the space rock, but really labels can barely describe what this band does. They are reference points for those who need a paint by numbers experience. It’s much better than to let go and feel the show, rather than make mental notes such as “pop song, drone song, instrumental, thrash number”. Or maybe that is just me.
Closing out the night with panache, they chilled out with the somber ‘Angel’, then rocked with ‘Quicksilver’. After a drawn out feedback and noise rave-up, a friend of the bands’ came on stage and there was a sudden wedding proposal! The things you see at a show, man. Then the band returned and played ‘Vomitself’ and bid us all a good night!
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Boris Set List:
Melody
Vanilla
Pink
Statement
Ghost of Romance
Heavy Rain
Taiyo no Baka
Cosmos
Angel
Quicksilver
Encore:
Vomitself
WORDS: KEITH (KEEFY) CHACHKES
Chicago instrumental post-rockers Pelican have been known for putting on quite the powerful show despite the lack of vocals. While this is a minor setback for those unfamiliar with the band, Pelican’s sound is quite heavy enough for those who love their music this way and tonight’s show was no exception.
Bassist Bryan Herweg was positioned in center with guitarist Trevor de Brauw and their “newest” member Dallas Thomas working together and creating a vibe that comes across heavy yet atmospheric. The visuals playing in the backdrop works well with the low lighting and creates a somewhat somber atmosphere that got the crowd into it immediately.
Almost half of their ten song set covered their latest release Forever Becoming, such as ‘The Tundra’ and ‘Deny The Absolute’, while sprinkling songs from various releases such as ‘Dead Between the Walls’ and ‘Ephemeral’. Their set list flowed fairly smoothly and unlike past tours, Pelican weaved it together fairly well and gave the crowd an earful of heavy sounds.
The encore of ‘Mammoth’ was their heaviest tune of the evening, getting a mosh pit going and raising the tempo for the night. While many may not expect such things happening at a Pelican show, they do throw in surprises.
Brooklyn, New York’s Tombs is a bit of the opposite of what post-rock fans may expect and instead leaned towards crushing riffs and a tinge of black metal meets experimental heaviness. Rarely letting up on low end heaviness, Tombs kept the crowd on its feet with its vicious heaviness and rarely letting up. Neurot Recordings artist Mustard Gas And Roses a.k.a. MGR a.k.a. Mike Gallagher (ex-ISIS) opened the night.
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WORDS BY REI NISHIMOTO