ALBUM REVIEW: Have a Nice Life- The Unnatural World
Have you ever had a panic attack? Have you ever felt crushed by the world around you? Hyperventilating, suffocating from the lack of air around you? The paranoia and anguish associated with these metaphysical feelings is hard to replicate. However, The Unnatural World manages to ape these emotions perfectly on one of the heaviest album’s I’ve heard in years.
Just take early standouts like the vicious Defenestration Song. The crunchy drums pound along against the post-punk guitar work, creating a paranoid intensity I haven’t heard since Bauhaus stopped making classics. The group vocals here are equally intense, with the wailing vocals creating a dark intensity that is bone chilling. Then there’s the ominous noisy whirl throughout the final minute or so of the track, creating a noisy and hazy cloud of sound that manages to bring in some orchestral sounds behind the dark ghastly vocals and the drumming. It’s a helluva track, and most of the other tracks here actually get pretty close to matching it.
Long and dark tracks fill the entire LP, making it a doom-and-gloom joyride. The wavy guitar work and trudging bass on Burial Society help to make the desperate Black Sabbath-esque chorus ring even louder. There’s even a sense of ambiance at the end of this track (and others) that helps to craft an overarching dread that brilliantly ties the mood and aesthetic of the album together incredibly well.
In fact, part of what makes The Unnatural World really stand out is how fantastically it blends atmospheric sounds with heavy and nasty Post-Punk. Music Will Untune the Sky has an undeniable prettiness about it, but it’s backed by a heavy beast-like distorted guitar and some fragmented sounding chimes here and there. It’s a moment that manages to be incredibly flooring, meshing beauty with dread in a way that I can’t say I’ve ever heard before. The use of the spoken word sample on Cropsey is well executed as well, again bringing together this intensely scary dread that permeates throughout the album. That song gets noisier and noisier as it moves along, before fading back into an even more terrifying spoken word sample, this time distorted to an ominous mumble behind some chimes.
Even the seemingly less ambitious songs do incredibly well, with the short Unholy Life making up for its short run-time by backing in some intense drumming and some stellar noise and guitar. The bass on the beginning of Dan and Time, Reunited by Faith really brings out the post-punk in the sound, reminding me of all the great bass playing that made bands like Bauhaus, Joy Division, and more recent Post-Punk titans like Savages so great. There’s even some electronic instrumentation sprinkled throughout that amps up the mood and sound. There are moments at the end of Dan and Time that bring a sense of dark nostalgia to them as well, almost sounding like a gloomier and darker version of Oneohtrix Point Never’s Replica. The album closes with the ominously huge and spacious Emptiness Will Eat the Witch, which begins with some oddly emo-reminiscent vocals that are muted by airy reverberation. Then, a choir of vocals joins in, creating an huge and beautiful gothic sound that just takes your breath away. The final seconds of the album, a quiet guitar, close everything on a strange and unfinished note. This entire album is just brilliant.
It’s heavy, it’s nasty, it’s beautiful, it’s scary, it’s big, it’s loud…it’s just about everything I could want in a post-punk album. There’s even some sludge and noise and ambiance thrown in for good measure. It all just blends together so well, creating this huge wall of darkness that sprawls across the entire record. It’s a perfect album for the slimy and gloomy month of January, and it’ll probably be a perfect album for any other month as well.
Summary: The Unnatural World is an explosive and dark masterpiece, with post-punk aggressiveness mixing with slimy doom and vicious noise and beautiful ambiance to create a record that’s challenging, dark, and flooring all at once.
Choice Cuts: Guggenheim Wax Museum, Defenestration Song, Emptiness Will Eat the Witch
Leftovers: Unholy Life (It’s still an incredible song, though)
A+
You can stream the album below. The Unnatural World is out now on Enemies List.
ALBUM REVIEW: Alcest- Shelter
There have been plenty of think pieces lately that desperately try to connect Deafheaven’s out-of-this-world success last year to new trends in heavier music. Not to say that their stellar record Sunbather doesn’t have an influence, but a lot of the comparisons seem desperate and stretched thin. One new album that continually comes up in conversation is Alcest’s latest, the dreamy and gorgeous Shelter.
Now, Alcest have been around since 2000, long before Deafheaven. So, it’s a bit odd that they’re being brought up at all. But maybe it’s worth bringing up. Unlike their previous albums, which go for a darker and thicker sounds, Shelter goes for the skyblazing guitars and post-rock sounds that make bands like Explosions in the Sky sound so damn epic. The vocals are a bit clearer this time around, and guitar chugging is kept to a minimum. They’re still shrouded in a Shoegaze sound, but the walls of sound are substantially prettier this time around. The movement from darker to lighter can understandably irk some into a Deafheaven comparison, but Alcest manages to avoid most of this by making Shelter work more in a poppy post-punk direction. A direction that is effortlessly soft and pretty.
There are some breathtaking moments all around the LP, showing that Alcest have really committed to this “We’re pretty now!” thing. The drumming on La Nuit Marche (If that abbreviation makes no sense I apologize) feels like the buildup to something huge, which it is. The drums are like a man on a wintery night, trudging through a thick and pretty winter storm (the guitars). The centerpiece of the album, the bombastic and huge Opale, is almost humbling in its skyscraping sound. The mix of shoegaze and huge sounding post-rock here is an experiment that pays off incredibly well.
This album really feels like it’s more of a movement in sound than song. You can really lose yourself in the swirling guitars and reverb-y drums and lose track of what track your on. The crescendos throughout also helps to keep you engaged, even if you’re not entirely sure what’s happening. There are moments that don’t quite feel like the explosive release you’d like (Voix Sereines doesn’t quite reach the catharsis you want it to, but it gets pretty damn close), but the pure passion in the sound throughout the album is enough to make up for some of its easily-to-overlook shortcomings.
Really, it’s the album as a whole that stands out. Sure, Neige’s vocals aren’t the best vocals out there. But they really mesh well into the instrumentation, like many shoegaze bands are supposed to do. His sweet whispering becomes an instrument, slowly going down the stream with the guitars and drums. There aren’t too many specific moments where it seems that an individual has knocked it out of the park. Rather, Shelter makes itself great by really investing in their new, brighter sound. The 10 minute epic Déliverance is basically this album boiled down to an explosive epic.
Summary: Shelter finds Alcest exploring brighter sounds in a way that pays off; the instrumentation works together with a great mixture of post-rock and shoegaze to create an explosive and satisfying sound.
Choice Cuts: Opale, Déliverance
Leftovers: Voix Sereines
B+
You can stream Déliverance below. Shelter is out now on Prophecy
ALBUM REVIEW: My Bloody Valentine- m b v
I feel like Kevin Shields right now. I’ve been putting this review off for a little over a week now, because I’ve been wanting to really process what I’ve heard. This album is so loaded with history and sound that it can be a little overwhelming. However, today I decided to sit down once more, give it an intense listen, and review it. What do I think? Basically, it’s pretty great, but it’s not nearly as world-stopping as everyone is saying it is.
There are tracks on here that, thankfully, sound quintessentially like My Bloody Valentine. The opening track, She Found Now, is an incredibly gorgeous and spacious track that is lathered in reverb and a strange kind of melancholy. It’s a song that, with the quiet vocals and loud guitars and distortion humming over them, is truly what I expected, and wanted, from the group. Keep in mind that I didn’t want Loveless 2, but rather an album that expanded upon Loveless just enough to make it sound different and more daring, but not to a degree where it would be kind of off-putting. Thankfully, Shields and the gang avoided this for the most part.
Also, the production (which Shields said was recorded without any digital elements) is absolutely lovely. Every song feels big, dark, and spacious. They just kind of permeate throughout the air and wrap you in a beautiful haze of distortion. Since this album does sound pretty old, it’s nice that the production doesn’t do anything to try modernizing it.
Now, at first I was kind of upset about how old the album really sounded. I mean, it felt like this as an album from 1993 that we just heard for the first time. Which, after thinking for a bit, I’m pretty sure that’s actually what it is. Yeah, the album sounds old, but that’s a factor that kind of gets thrown by the wayside after a few listens (And after 1 really deep listen).
Courtesy of Pitchfork
The vocals here seem to stick out more, and play equals with the guitars on many songs, which is pretty cool. Shields whispery voice has an odd understated command to it. It’s subtle without being ignorable. It demands attention without really outright saying it. And then the guitars also have their job, too. I mean, there’s a solo in Only Tomorrow that really takes me back in time; assuaging me with its smooth yet oddly rough sound. Plus we still have songs that waver in and out of comfortable keys (Who sees You) that always end up being really great, since this effect just works for some reason. It feels like watching a wave hit a beach and then receding back into the water. Clearly, this is an incredibly beautiful album.
Lyrics on these albums are so hard to here that they’re almost negligible. In fact, the vocals act less as a tool of poetry, and more as just another instrument in the ensemble. The vocals mesh with the rest of the group without it truly coming across as having a vocalist there. Plus, there’s so much reverberating beauty going around that lyrics are the last thing I’m worried about.
Now, there is some experimentation here, which sounded good, but may or may not have really met the standards of some of the rest of the album. Is This and Yes is pretty, but the cheap sounding 90s synths do feel out of place and uncomfortable on this Shoegaze album. It’s also a little overlong for my taste. Yet some do work quite well. The weird organ and trickling guitars on If I Am, while at first are a bit unsettling, eventually kind of mesh. It’s totally weird and makes little sense, but it just does that.
The big thing here is the difference in sound. Loveless was also beautiful, but it had somewhat of a more intense vibe to it. m b v (aside from the more wonky In Another Way and Nothing Is) is more grounded, smoother. It takes their sound and beauty and places it in a more chill mood. This is an album that would be gorgeous for a night drive or sitting in your room at 2 in the morning intensely thinking about things. If that’s something you do. Either way. The only thing I wish would have happened was that the last 3 tracks, while they’re good, would calm down just a little. I do like the tracks on their own, but the twist of the album from the smoothness to the intensity kind of threw me off. I understand their intention of making the overarching sound spiral like that, I’m just not personally in love with it.
This album is not (yet) loveless. It’ll take a lot of time, and a lot of rehearing for it to become that. However, this album still manages to be pretty great. Other bands have left the picture and came back with a comeback album, but they left is disappointed. My Bloody Valentine went on a hiatus for 22 years, and they managed to drop a pretty great album. Now I’m just excited to see how they follow this up.
Summary: m b v is just enough of the old My Bloody Valentine sound and just enough experimentation to work; plus the absolutely gorgeous songs and sounds don’t hurt.
Choice Cuts: She Found Now, Only Tomorrow,Who Sees You, In Another Way
4/5
Stream She Found Now below. m b v is available for purchase over on their site and is streaming on their YouTube account.
ALBUM REVIEW: The Joy Formidable- Wolf’s Law
I’d like to say that we are in a renaissance of good rock music, across the board. Many may disagree with me, but I feel that nowadays, there’s a lot of really good rock music being released, both in the Indie world and in the mainstream. I mean, there are so many groups that are considered “Mainstream Radio Acts” that I actually really, really enjoy. Passion Pit, The Black Keys, Mumford & Sons (Get at me), and more recently, The Joy Formidable.
I heard their previous album, The Big Roar, two years ago, and I thought it was really, really good. They had a nice energy and sound, and a fantastic female vocalist in Ritzy Bryan. The group also meshed together a lot of different genres into one slick and sweet sound. It took Shoegaze, Arcade Fire theatrics, and snarly post-punk, and made a nice sounding album out of it.
2 years later, The Joy Formidable are getting pretty big. I hear them on the radio all the time (which I don’t mind in the least bit), and they make good music. On their latest album, it’s apparent that the band is aware of how big they could be, and I was going into this album expecting to be disappointed. Turns out that that’s a really stupid reason to be skeptical.
I suppose we should get the bad things out of the way, first. Initially, I was weary about individual songs, but a lot of them turned out to simply be growers. Instead, one problem the album has is that it doesn’t really unify it’s idea in a way other than sonically. I mean, the gorgeous album art, the name of the album, and the epic sound really makes you think that there should be some kind of overarching theme. There might be, but the album never really reveals it enough for it to be relevant. Another thing I’ll briefly note is that this album feels a bit less daring than The Big Roar. That album, as rarely as I revisit it, always stuck out to me as an Alt-Rock album with a bolder taste. Wolf’s Law still kind of retains some sense of freshness, but it’s daring eccentricities are not as apparent (or even as present) as their last album.
However, as much as those little things do have a minor effect, this is still an album that seemingly panders to my taste for a perfect crowd-pleasing record. You’ve got thrashing punk (Rats), a gorgeous acoustic ballad (The absolutely beautiful Silent Treatment), My Bloody Valentine Shoegaze intros (Maw Maw Song), and a whole ton of other examples. Even if the album doesn’t work as incredibly well at establishing an idea, it does an amazing job at being an irresistible melting pot of Rock n’ Roll.
Image Courtesy of The Joy Formidable
Also, Bryan’s vocals are top notch. No matter what the attitude of the song, she can convey the perfect attitude and sound, leading to a lot of spine tingling moments. This album also establishes a sense of unity in the band that I don’t think was there before. While I liked The Big Roar, it sometimes seemed like all the different elements were in disarray and out of touch with each other. Here, the guitars, drums, vocals, and songs themselves are organized, and feel together. The band feels like a very, very strong band. This might because of the decreased experimentation, but this album really sounds like it was made by a talented group that has mastered their sound.
There are a lot of anthemic moments here that, while some may find them pandering, I love. The Joy Formidable has managed to find an interesting sound and bring into a truly fantastic project that will probably outgrow a lot of its nitpicky problems and become something to be admired. I’ve heard a lot of records that have gone for this approach, but rarely has it worked. On Wolf’s Law, The Joy Formidable truly make their sound and album work, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. And I can already tell this album is going to grow on me, and I really like that. If you want proof, check out the closing track, The Turnaround. Emotionally powerful, shoegazy, gorgeously produced, wonderfully performed, sprawling…everything I want in an alt rock song is there.
Summary: Beautiful, Anthemic, Sonically interesting, and wonderfully performed, Wolf’s Law manages to cover its thematic holes with its fantastic instrumentals and songs.
Choice Cuts- Silent Treatment, The Leopard and The Lung, The Turnaround
4/5
Check out the video for Cholla below. Wolf’s Law is out now on Atlantic/Canvasback
Vantage Point Music 