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This is where the power of a band like Lux Interna lies.  Though moments of down-tuned distortion and bludgeoning percussion pop up on there is light in the body, there is blood in the sun, the San Franciscan’s newest, the group matches these with sections of relative quiet, which prove even denser and harder to unpack.  Their pedigree stretches from Nick Cave to pitch-black interpreters of American music like Those Poor Bastards and Murder by Death, if not back to Howlin’ Wolf and Son House.  They make music that understands a lack of volume won’t stop a song from rattling your ribcage.

This comes to mean that dynamics aren’t what the band places its emphasis on.  Rather, Lux Interna find a way to subvert more traditional means of generating drama, emphasizing ebb and flow rather than tension and release.  An impressive amount of percussion pushes each song along, shakers and cymbals and hand drums and snares, sometimes pounding, sometimes lilting.  “Seed” maintains its fractured samba groove for the entire run, allowing male and female vocals, in addition to guitar stabs, to unfold overtop.  “Tongues” roils and breaks over a rolling bit of tom work that would make Swans proud.  Working a genre that either eschews drums or uses them simply, LI explores the rhythmic edges of their music, and brings back something that struggles with life.  It moves.

In structure, these songs often have the loping nature of traditional American folk tunes, repetitive chord progressions that walk an unsteady line between mesmerizing and rote.  Sometimes they veer too far to the second end, as on “Blackbird,” which lazes in a dream without truly congealing, but more often the group hits a sweet spot, snatching something that works and droning atop it.  The vocals have the quality of an incantation, words repeated more for their sound or purpose than meaning, buried in the mix but ever present.  You’ll catch snatches, but even on the clearest songs, like the Carissa’s Weird-isms of opener “King Winter,” the harmonies are more important than whatever is being harmonized.  Like a blue yodel, they’re about evocation more than explanation.

It’s not a perfect album, but it is, blessedly, an interesting one.  Unlike other bands of their ilk, LI don’t seem content to write the same song ten times over the course of an album, instead trading in bluesy doom, psychedelics and Johnny Cash.  Its flaws are worth paying attention to, and prove that after a decade, the group keeps morphing and trying.  A career is a route, not an end, and Lux Interna will see you on the back roads.

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There is blood in the sun:
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San Francisco’s Deafheaven has eluded obnoxious genre trapping since their inception, doing so with a towering hybrid of sound. Second full-length, Sunbather is nothing short of an achievement, blurring lines between black metal and shoegaze, post-rock and screamo. Crafting these disparate wholes into a greater work, it is clear Deafheaven is an ambitious entity. With the overwhelming response Sunbather has received, vocalist George Clarke and guitarist Kerry McCoy found time to shed light on their work, inspiration, shows and future.

CVLT: How did the recording of Sunbather differ from Roads to Judah? Did the reputation the band garnered have an impact on the recording?

DFHVN: We were definitely much more nervous going in. Not necessarily because Roads had gained some recognition, but because we had a desire to fully out-do ourselves.

CVLT: On the grounds of scope, Sunbather belittles Roads to Judah, however they also come off as pieces of a greater whole. From an evolutionary and aesthetic standpoint, where do the two albums differ and where are they alike?

DFHVN: We took the same motivation as we had for Roads but heightened it as better musicians with a clearer, most constructed idea of what we wanted to accomplish. The aesthetics are similar, but more thought out and intelligently executed this time around.

CVLT: The artwork of Sunbather is the antithesis of typical grim, wintry imagery of black metal with its sunset hues and ribbon strands. Was this an apathetic response to metal reactionaries or even a response at all?

DFHVN: It is a move that is often misconstrued as a response to “typical” black metal imagery. I’m a fan of various types of art and simply do not want to be confined to one style. We have plenty of imagery that reflects darker themes. I simply did not find it fitting with this release.

CVLT: When someone hears a Deafheaven record, particularly Sunbather, is there anything you’d like them to uniformly glean from the listen?

DFHVN: I can only hope that it draws out some sort of emotional response. It is the key reason for the music we make.

CVLT: In contrast to woodland fascinations, Deafheaven appears drawn to urban woes. What about living in a metropolis like San Francisco influences the lyrical content and the compositions as a whole?

DFHVN: The city has a great influence on us as it affects how we live our lives as a whole. Our finances, our struggles, our relationships, etc. It would not make sense to refer to any other lifestyle.

CVLT: From Mogwai to Weakling to Envy, there is a seemingly endless channeling of influence into Deafheaven’s sound. Of these myriad inspirations, what albums have moved Deafheaven to this current point the most?

DFHVN: Honestly, that’s too difficult to answer. We do have our major influences…some of which you’ve pointed out. But we listen to music constantly and I feel as though every act that we enjoy plays a part in our influence.

CVLT: There is a delicate edge to the band’s lyricism that evokes vibrant images and potent emotion. Are there any particular writings, poems and philosophies that find their way into the music?

DFHVN: I try and read as often as I can. I probably don’t read as often as I should. There are various authors that do influence me. Particular pieces? Maybe on a subconscious level.

CVLT: Considering the preceding hype, the double show at the Echoplex with Boris and Ides of Gemini seemed to be an event concert. Considering the availability of Sunbather within days of the shows, how do you think fans having heard the album affected the reception?

DFHVN: I’m extremely surprised and have been overwhelmed as just how well the response from fans have been. We are all very appreciative of the love we’ve been shown so far.

CVLT: Your first headlining North American tour is fast approaching. Considering the band’s recent momentum, the turnout can be expected to be avid and huge. As a band, has it ever been imagined Deafheaven would be as far-reaching as it has become?

DFHVN: We just continue to do as much as we can with the time that we have. I’m grateful for how far Deafheaven has taken us, but there is much more room to grow. Any time fans come out to enjoy the show, regardless of the show’s size, is a success to me.

CVLT: At this point, what plans and projects does the band have for the rest of 2013 and beyond?

DFHVN: Only to tour as much as possible. Hopefully other musical opportunities will arise as well, but time can only tell.

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In many ways, Palms sounds just as you would imagine. Moreno’s voice-as-an-instrument presence is an otherworldly facet, crafting an ethereal atmosphere, maintaining his ghostly melodic croon throughout the album. Meanwhile, the instrumentation borrows from Isis’ final two albums Wavering Radiant and In The Absence of Truth, specifically those records’ more lighter shades.

Quiescent and hypnotic vibes run throughout this album and the artwork is a near perfect visual accompaniment to the lush sonic landscapes held within. The guitars craft hazy ambience that blossom into rich, dexterous walls of soothing sound and while there’s very little here that you could call riffs, it’s never anything short of invigorating.

The album opens with the serene climes of ‘Future Warrior’, where Palms lay down mesmeric guitars that glimmer on the horizon, and when Chino enters vocally, this record begins to unwind before us in engrossing fashion.

The sprawling ten minute ‘Mission Sunset’ is where this album takes on a whole new life force with brooding passages, before blooming into an Alcest-like wash of ambient guitars that are equally as imposing as they are life-affirming. It’s a common theme of ebullience, without cliché, that runs through this album and each twist and turn is simply stunning and breathtaking. Around halfway through the record, it has become well and truly clear that Palms have exceeded expectations.

‘Tropics’ was the first taste we had of this album and it was certainly a song that bolstered expectations for this self-titled with its serene landscapes, but Palms still have the ability to swell in intensity – just listen to the wavering crescendo of ‘Shortwave Radio’ for proof. However, the band’s aural explorations are mostly that of the tranquil and almost easy listening, occasionally haunted by the band members’ individual heavy tendencies.

Whichever way you cut it though, Palms is a beautiful album first and foremost and one that will certainly appease the tastes of Isis’s final days and Deftones’ more serene areas and especially Chino Moreno’s work with Team Sleep. However, given the side project nature of this band, it’s difficult to predict what the future will hold for Palms beyond the next year or so but what we have now is more than satisfying.

Palms is released June 25th through Ipecac Recordings

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Kicking off on a Friday night in The Silver Dollar Room, noise mongrels Catamites are playing their first show for the lucky few that have made the trek in early. The duo offers up a caustic serving of noise rock with grinding guitars and utterly frantic drumming complemented by maniacal shrill vocals.

Meanwhile, Blastronaut deliver a similar sort of meandering chaos but from a different approach. Their mathy post hardcore is a little like Britain’s Alright The Captain filtered through a few hardcore records, with their largely instrumental pieces complemented by the occasional gang vocal.

Pretty Mouth totally up the intensity though with a breed of experimental grinding dissonance that grows and grows in barbarity throughout the set, as the crowd in the venue begins to grow with it. Special note must be made of the employment of an eight string guitar that adds thick, devastating layers to the assault.

Moving on, Akroid return us to plains similar to those explored by Blastronaut, with their angular post hardcore tinged with erratic melody that’s short and sweet. Next, things take another turn for Ayahuasca, in the best possible sense. Their psychedelic-imbued sludgy rock is a real grower with its unabashed melodies and sleek lead guitar work.

Altarus flip things over though once again with trudging doom metal that’s rife with Electric Wizard and Sleep worshipping riffs but the energy and vitality discharged is all them. Their doom is mostly instrumental causing a hypnotic swirl of riffs only for the reverie to be disrupted by bellowing vocals from the abyss – definitely a band not to be missed.

Nothing can really prepare anyone for the crushing dirge of Hammerhands though. Crafting earth shattering slabs of sludgy doom, the four-piece are a sound to behold as they lay waste to the venue. Their latest record, Glaciers, is an aptly titled one as their slow, brain crushing doom moves at a glacial and overpowering pace for the most part but with flourishes of celerity mixed in for good measure. In a live setting, these threnodies of wreckage take on a whole new life force that’s utterly pulverising. Hammerhands are easily the band of the night.

However, don’t let that take anything away from the pairing of Lullabye Arkestra. Equipped with just drums, bass and vocals, the husband and wife team serve up a ridiculously rocking malaise of energising space rock-influenced psychedelic riffs that’s easy to get lost in. Also, their drummer sets fire to his snare drum for a couple seconds. Hey, why not?

Vilipend bring night one to a close, and do so on short notice after original headliners Dopethrone were forced to cancel due to injury, mere hours before the show started. As expected, they’re a treat. Their gaunt and provocative hardcore has grown in quality with each release, more than evidenced by last year’s Inamorata LP, and somehow their energy and vitriol is magnified in a live setting.

On Saturday night, we take a trip a few doors down to The Comfort Zone for night two of BriefcaseFest that’s mostly dominated by black metal acts but also hints of noise and death metal. The dark ambient act Cetacea, the solo project of Gates’ Bryan W Bray, opens things up as he sits forlorn with guitar in hand before a table of electronics, crafting droning hypnotic noise that’s totally enveloping.

Meanwhile, Ischemic are a totally different beast with their unbridled primitive black-death hybrid with an affinity for doom metal’s slower shades. It’s quite interesting as the band appear a bit so and so to begin but once they find their groove and start growing in momentum, their set is utterly pummelling. Murky dense riffs dominate their sound while piercing lead guitars slice through sporadically in each track, all complemented by the scathing vocals and special note must be made to the devastating drumming.

Ottawa’s Occult Burial then take us back in time a little bit through the medium of old school black/thrash with horns firmly pointed towards Bathory. They may only have one demo tape under their belts right now, but they’ve more riffs than you’d care to count. Things then take major swerve for Ride At Dawn. The trio employ a drum machine alongside guitars, bass and vocals for a dissonant grinding cacophony tinted with black metal that’s quite repetitive but relentless, imagine Mysticum colliding with Bologna Violenta.

Nyodene D are next and plummet us further into the void. The man behind the power electronics and HNW project is kind of the odd one out of the bill, being the only non-Canadian act on this night’s line-up, but he more than makes his presence felt. Harsh electronic acts like this can be hit or miss live but make no mistake that Nyodene D hit… repeatedly… to your temple with molesting electronics reverberating throughout the venue, with the use of non-instruments like chains and sheet metal and our protagonist’s unnerving vocals that submerge spectators and as if the wave of noise engulfing the venue wasn’t enough, Column of Heaven’s Andrew Nolan joins Nyodene D adding his own caustic vocals to the fray – an invigorating and bracing, and at times bizarre, set from start to finish.

As previously mentioned, black metal is a big part of the second night’s bill and the final four bands are ones loyal to BM’s dark beating heart. First is Toronto’s Sortilegia. A small pulpit is erected in the middle of the stage, illuminated by candles as incense burns through The Comfort Zone creating an otherworldly atmosphere as the pairing of guitarist/vocalist Koldovstvo and drummer Haereticus slowly enter the stage, garbed in black robes and unfurl their old school black metal. Raw buzzsaw riffs and harrowing ambience are the order of the day with Sortilegia, and Koldovstvo’s vocals are simply on form as she shrieks her bitter diatribes over hellfire and brimstone. It reminds us that they only have two demos out and an album couldn’t come sooner.

Speaking of bands that have sparse recorded output, Thantifaxath are outright enthralling. The three figures come dressed in similar dark robes to unleash their hail of chimerical black metal. For the most part it’s scything and unrelenting stuff but every so often, the trio will throw a spanner in the works like the mesmeric and twisting vibes of ‘Violently Expanding Nothing’. This is another band that needs to get a new release out soon and strike while the iron is hot.

Fellow Torontonians Sylvus are up next. They’re celebrating the completion of their new record, due for release sometime soon, so the set is rife with new material. Their brand of black metal is much more au fait with the snow covered forests of Norway, being focused on old school frosty atmosphere and searing vocals. A few amp issues almost impede the band’s momentum at first but after a couple of songs, things clear up and Sylvus return to their destructive ways.

Finally, Quebec City’s Forteresse are tasked with capping off this lengthy jaunt that has surely left some ears and necks weary but ultimately satisfied. The Quebecois black metal band have become seasoned veterans in the last couple of years, a status bolstered by the quality of their last two records, Par Hauts Bois et Vastes Plaines and Crépuscule d’Octobre, in particular.

In a live setting, they’re just as impressive delivering hammering, soul destroying black metal that’s equally hypnotic as it is devastating across their extensive headlining set that only means certain victory for the Quebecois band and BriefcaseFest.

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Hi Melynda. First of all I want to thank you for finding the time to do this interview, really appreciate it. Do you want to introduce the band?

I’m Melynda Jackson I play guitar, Haley Westeiner plays bass, and Chris Van Huffel plays the drums.

Even though “The Captain’s Daughter” is your debut album, you are definitely not new on the scene, given that you and Chris Van Huffel were both members of SubArachnoid Space. Do you consider Eight Bells to be a continuation of SubArachnoid Space or a completely new entity?

Melynda:  Well, you can’t really run away from yourself- In other words, it is totally different but obviously my style is my style regardless what project I play in.  Style changes as a person grows.  I feel that there is always room for growth as a guitar player-but some parts of what I do are just the way that I play.

Chris: There are elements left over from SAS, but I think EB has evolved into something different. I know my playing and perspective have changed quite a bit since SAS. Haley also brings something to the table, which SAS didn’t have before.

Photos: Ted Reckoning

How does the creative process works in Eight Bells? Is it an individual process or you jam together and work the songs out that way instead?

Melynda:  We mostly work as a group.  Haley or I will come up with a part and share it with the rest of the group to create a song, or sometimes we spontaneously create together.  There is no set rule or way that we do things, we let it happen as it will and I think we are still developing how we work and will work as a group.

Chris: I think generally we are more scrutinizing than before and that continues more and more going forward with the new songs we are working on since ‘The Captain’s Daughter’ was released.

You are currently signed to Seventh Rule Recordings, which seems to be releasing very interesting albums recently (the new BATILLUS being one of them). How is it working with them?

Melynda:  Working with Seventh Rule is great.  Very supportive and down to earth – it’s also nice that the label is located here in Portland Oregon.

Can you give us some info on the recording process of the album? Where was the album recorded? If I am not mistaken Billy Anderson (who was worked with bands such as NEUROSIS, EYEHATEGOD and thousand more) was involved.

Melynda:  We used Revolver Studios here in Portland because we wanted an analogue recording.  They have a two-inch machine there, so that was nice.  We tracked with Billy there, and then he mixed most of it on his own at his studio, Everything Hz.  For the final mix, I flew to LA for a couple of days.

Chris: Working with Billy was great! I think he did a very good job, especially with the time frame we had for tracking (4 days).

If I am not mistaken there are vocals in one of your songs (“Fate and Technology”) while the rest remain instrumental (not including the choirs). Do you think that in the future you will include vocals in more of your songs?

Melynda:  Yes, we are moving toward more singing in the songs. Haley wrote the vocal passage for Fate and Technology- before she came up with that, it was just the guitar part in that spot but much shorter. Haley put the vocals in there, which gave shape to the part.  Haley is instrumental in my growth this way, composing with vocals in mind is totally new to me both challenging and freeing…  She is great at suggestions on harmonies, and also encouraging me as I continue to learn how to use my voice.  Personally – I love instrumental music too- I don’t think we will ever have a song that centers completely around vocal parts.  I do vocalizations on The Yellow Wallpaper, but these are done with a contact mic through a bunch of effects in order to create more of a voice as an instrument effect.

Your bassist, Haley Westeiner, seems to be a quite intriguing persona, classically trained and playing a six string. It seems really impressive. Can you give us some details on her background? Has she been in any other bands?

Haley: I am originally from Hartford, CT but moved to Portland in 2001 and have played in bands here since then, including the Haggard, Pom Pom Meltdown, Gay Deceivers, and Labryse.  I have always been partial to progressive rock or metal trios and experimental sounds of all kinds, different mixes of pop and dissonance, structure and free- form. This is one aspect of what makes Eight Bells a rewarding project. I like six string basses because they up the ante of musicianship, allowing me to extend my range and adding elements of fusion, as they are often used in progressive, funk, or other technical genres.

Melynda:  I am so glad that I found Haley- love her sense of melody.

Chris: Playing with Haley has been an amazing experience. Very grateful she is doing this project with us.

On a more engineering side of things, the use of effects is quite prominent throughout your music; I guess you have a quite impressive pedal board. Can you tell me for instance your three favorite effect units?

Melynda:  My pedal board is not a crazy as you might think it is.  I don’t really have room for pedals I don’t use or ‘one trick pony’ type pedals.  I just have the basics: delays, distortions, overdrive, wah.  My days of lugging around a pedal that is so particular in what it does that you can only use It once per set without sounding cheesy and overdone are long past.  Right now I am really loving my new overdrive – Monarch pedal made by Earthquaker Devices .  The rest is top secret.

To the music now you have an impressive array of influences from psychedelic elements and post rock atmosphere to jazzy abstracts themes and you still manage to sound unique and do not fit in a specific genre, something very rare these days. Firstly do you agree with that description? And do you all in the band listen to so many different genres or does each member brings something on the table? And finally do you find it difficult to balance between all those different sounds?

Melynda:  I agree that we don’t fit any particular genre.  The goal for me is to make the music that happens to me within a guideline of how it will feel, not who it sounds just like.  We do listen to lots of different music- and I will say that my tastes are pretty wildly varied.  I am more interested in capturing a feeling than fitting into a genre.

Chris: I find it hard to try and explain what genre of music we are when people ask me. I usually send people a link if they are really interested.

More into the inspiration side of your music: which bands would you say have influenced your sound mostly? And do you also find inspiration in other forms of art, I am asking because I believe that the closing track of the album “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a reference to the short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Melynda: The Yellow Wallpaper is a great story from a time that is not so far gone.  Essentially the story is about depression and how the treatment made it worse.  I have most definitely felt like the character in that story, and can identify with her treatment.

Not going to be cruel and ask you for your favorite records of all time but what are you enjoying listening to lately?

Melynda:  I have been listening to early polyphony recently- with short breaks for Depeche Mode.

I know it is probably a bit soon to ask but are you currently working on a follow up album? 

Melynda:  Yes we have begun writing for the next record.  At this point we are working on a theme for it and have a couple songs mostly finished.

How was the tour that you just completed with SubRosa, and do you have any gig plans for the future?

Melynda:   We had a fun time on the tour, and SubRosa are great people to travel with for sure.  It was hard to say goodbye to them. We do have a couple of summer gigs that we are really excited about and some possibilities in the fall as well.  I would like to focus on the writing though.

Chris: Touring with SubRosa was great! Crushing music and crushingly sweet people.  I wish it could have been longer.

All right Melynda! Thank you again so very much for taking the time to do this interview. I wish you all the best and I will hopefully see you guys playing live soon. Take care!

Melynda:  Not a problem!

Chris: Thank you!

Haley:  Cheers!

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There’s been a vaguely 70′s feel on some of the last few Locrian records, and it’s perhaps made a little more explicit both sonically and conceptually here.

Spectres of prog rock, John Carpenter and Riz Ortolani style soundtrack work, and the pastoral musings of Popol Vuh and Comus flit through the album’s inner workings respectfully, though as per usual the band are still far from plagiaristic. A perfect example is the unexpectedly beautiful opener – take away the distorted, banshee like vocals and it’s sun drenched synths, rolling rhythm section and tasteful interjection of dual guitar is weirdly reminiscent of Peter Gabriel era Genesis at their dreamiest.

Locrian are masters of the slow build, always have been. “A Visitation From The Wrath Of Heaven” is a long, tense night drive that you know is eventually going to explode, but when it does, it doesn’t make the fireworks any less majestic. “Exiting the Hall of Vapor And Light” begins with an echo of their drone roots, adding evocative and non intrusive guitar lines to create space.

The logical channeling of all the elements that make the album the wonder it is though, is the final, epic “Obsolete Elegies”. A 15 minute suite where the prog element is most pronounced, the band weave through moods and themes expertly – from full band majesty to a few moments of glacial ambience to a full on symphonic almost black metal assault at the end – it’s an utterly breathtaking piece of music, seemingly beamed down from another world entirely and channeled through the trio as if it had always been there. waiting for the right hosts to give it form.

Having followed this band eagerly since the “Rhetoric of Surfaces” album about 5 years ago, I’ve learned to expect the unexpected with each record. Locrian now, however, have a mastery of their own sound built of over time such that they now feel like a familiar friend when I hear each new record for the first time – yet each time they seem to find new ways of expanding their sound. “Return to Annihilation” is the most cogent expression of their musical identity so far. A warm, compelling listen that you’ll hear something new in every time you listen.

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‘Return To Annihilation’ Review appeared first on CVLT Nation.

The band’s penchant for monolithic riffs has been toned down here a little bit in favour of more sleek ambient flourishes, which have become their focus on Vampyr. That said, the album still bears a thematic and atmospheric comradeship with Ausserwelt. In fact, Vampyr was penned around the same time in 2009 and 2010 and was intended as a live score to a silent film of the same name. You can see similarities in the track titles to Ausserwelt but most tellingly, Vampyr explores the more subdued elements of its predecessor.

Vampyr has shorter tracks and more serene components, which exhibit Year of No Light at their most solemn. The spectral guitars that glimmer through darker, haunting shades of atmospherics are somewhat reminiscent of Braveyoung’s recent output while at sporadic moments, Year of No Light will break the mould with some of their trademark earth shattering droning doom, if only for a moment to wake you from your reverie.

The opening of ‘Generique’ and ‘Courtempierre’ lets in a hazy mist at first as gentle whirrs of electronics begin to fizzle and guitars start prodding through ever so slightly. It’s with the nine minute ‘Ombres’ that Year of No Light begin the twists and turns of Vampyr, with simply beautiful chiming guitars that soon begin to gather in pace and intensity alongside the tribal-like drums that eventually gives way to a droning wave of noise. It serves as proof of the band’s ability to gently and slowly move between two extremes while always holding you in the palm of their hand.

It’s then with the track ‘Vampire’ that Year of No Light brings a hail of sludgy doom into the mix that plucks a note or two from Ausserwelt and its jolt and reverberation are utterly stunning, marking an important turning point in the record with next song ‘Morsure’, where the spectral guitars become more pronounced and the mood decidedly more morose.

‘Malediction’ maintains a funereal vibe with imposing piano notes playing off the lowly strum of a guitar. It’s a theme that recurs with ‘Saignee/Revelations’ and attests to the album’s elegant conceptual flow and from here, the moods plunges even further into a deeper, darker abyss.

Third last track ‘Outremonde (Hierophante)’ begins one last voyage to end Vampyr, where the band make a concerted effort to tear down the serenely constructed walls that were put up around this record. Bricks come crumbling down thanks to the colossal drone doom riffs and the unnervingly pulsating bass line juddering underneath, giving way to the noisy refrains of ‘Profanation/Redemption’.

But it’s with ‘Oree (Abbesse)’ that the band brings this album, or score, to an otherworldly climax and endnote, with frantic drumming to combat the slower pace that mostly characterised the album and much like the end of Ausserwelt, Vampyr concludes on a staggering high.

This may only be the precursor to the band’s next fully fledged album, Tocsin, later this year but Vampyr is still a stunning piece of work from the Frenchmen that stands entirely on its own.

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“Absurdities and Echos,” the opener for the EP, is a water logged subterranean cloud of swirling textures – both haunting and otherworldly – organic drum work and the band’s best vocals yet. The vocals are augmented in a way that they reverberate in a lower tone and sound like the singer is trapped far below ground and yelling to the surface through an old well. They ebb and flow over the rich drone of effects that come through as a dark hum, sparkling static, and stabs of some type of melodic synth.

B-side of Content  is “Abhorrence,” a track which sounds more akin to last year’s  Youth. Making use of higher and scratchier vocals, harsh textures that sit below some type of melodic keyed synth instrument, and ever building drums, “Abhorrence” is much more of a car crash than the slow slosh of “Absurdities and Echos.”

What Wreck and Reference do so well is simple; they create moody music that’s dense but easily appealing. There’s a lot going on in each track, but the band does well to include a tangible melody, an accessible vocal line, or an alluring atmosphere. There’s no easy way to pigeon hole the band, and we shouldn’t look to, but the music finds itself in the company of only particular aspects of other bands: Swans‘s penchant to trudge and burn, the cathartic momentum of Neurosis‘s best works and maybe the moodiness of post-punk. The live drums do well to offset the mostly programmed sounds of everything else and the vocals are dynamic enough to easily convey the mood of the lyrics.

While it’s only two songs, I’ve become enamored and absorbed in Content in a way that didn’t come so quickly with Youth. While vastly different, the EP does remind me a bit of Urfaust‘s Drei Rituale Jenseits Des Kosmos, which is way more trance-inducing and repetitive, but a similarly engrossing drone that relies on ambiance and non guitar sounds.

Preorder directly from Flenser and stream for free at the Band’sBandcamp.

Originally written for Perpetual Strife

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Originally this collective gathered in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago to perform this meandering and avant-garde piece to a sold out crowd. Soon they congregated once again, this time in the studio belonging to none other than a certain Mr. Steve Albini, and recorded what would become You’ve Always Meant So Much To Me. Needless to say, the story is an interesting one and the music itself is even more intriguing.

Initially opening with whirring ambient noise and an altogether spectral vibe, ‘You’ve Always Meant So Much To Me’ gently meanders through calm hills of atmospherics for the first 15 minutes or so when serenely plucked guitars pervade and this movement begins to unfurl.

Lonesome strings join the guitars and the bed of noise begins augmenting, making its presence felt even stronger. What we have here is somewhat reminiscent of Godspeed at their most stripped back only for a flurry of titanic riffs to come crashing in. Sludgy, doom-laden guitars now take centrestage, where they are complemented by the string arrangement and ghostly, haunted vocals roaring in the distance.

How this track morphs into something else entirely is an experience. The final 10 minutes of this voyage see the towers of riffs wither away and the initial spectral acoustic guitars return once again truly bringing ‘You’ve Always Meant So Much To Me’ full circle as ambient buzz and hum play us out till the end.

This album is nothing short of sublime and beautiful, while serene and oddly aggressive at the same time. It speaks to the diversity of musicians within it and the tutelage of JR Robinson.

You’ve Always Meant So Much To Me will be released by Thrill Jockey

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Meant So Much To Me
Wrekmeister Harmonies
Review + Visual appeared first on CVLT Nation.