New Release Wrap-up: March - April 2012: Metal Edition

Given the origins of Eclectik Electrik as a metal-oriented radio show, I strive to prove that I am about more than just metal. Then other days I'm like, fuck it, I love metal so that's what I'll write about. Here are some bite-sized reviews for five of the most interesting metal releases (from a few different realms of the genre) of the last month.

#1 - Ancestors - In Dreams And Time

In Dreams And Time represents a return to relative modernity for this LA band after the retro prog of last year's excellent Invisible White EP. As always the band boast epic compositions with performances to match. The key to Ancestors is the balance of their various elements and using them in unity. There are no heroes here squirming for attention, all play their part. While all members are firing on all cylinders singer Justin Maranga is of particular note, his astral howl cuts through the murk and gives the album a human heart. Washes of Wurlitzer organ liven up “Corryvreckan” which could have easily wallowed in the abyss of blunt prog metal. It concludes with the extended Neurosis like jamming of “First Light” that unfolds as a 19 minute odyssey. At times it is cold and bleak while at others raw and seething – quite a ride from start to finish.

Rating: A-

Recommended tracks: Corryvreckan, The Last Return, Running In Circles

#2 - Killing Joke - MMXII

 

Reinvigorated by their successful return in 2010 with Absolute Dissent, Killing Joke seem to be enjoying a late-career creativity renaissance. MMXII is a more focused and streamlined affair than the previous album or possibly any before that. The music, the power, the voice; everything is just as apocalyptic as ever about Killing Joke. Behind it all there is a real heart which beats the most clearly on “In Cythera”, the most overtly-goth track on the album. “Corporate Elect” out-punks bands half their age and 'Glitch' is practically straight-up metal. MMXII is nothing new for Killing Joke but it is a wonderful distillation (and a timely reminder) of everything that makes them great.

Rating: A

Recommended tracks: In Cythera, Glitch, Trance

#3 - High On Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis

 

You have come to expect thick glorious sludge from High On Fire and that is precisely what you get. Every track is punishing and murky as hell. The hard-hitting Oakland trio have a reputation for coarse, violent music and it appears that it is a reputation that is not taken for granted. De Vermis Mysteriis (“The Mysteries of the Worm”) is the bands seventh album, a milestone of nearly twice as many albums as guitarist/singer Matt Pike's former outfit: Sleep. Perhaps it is due to their last album, Snakes For The Divine, being so diverse and well-recieved but De Vermis Mysteriis has a hard time gaining traction. After a prolonged slog the final track “Warhorn” closes things out in style (even if it is rather similar to “Bastard Samurai”). Easily your daily does of heavy even if its not their best work.

Rating: B-

Recommended tracks: Serums Of Liao, Warhorn

#4 - Meshuggah - Koloss

Warning: Koloss is suffocatingly heavy. Do not even turn this record on if you are of weak constitution or faint at heart; you are likely to get motion sickness or worse. Seriously. For a band with such an extreme presence and extreme reputation as Meshuggah Koloss is a surprising controlled affair, far less savage than the intimidating Obzen. That doesn't mean that this album to won't threaten to melt your face and break your back at every turn – because it will. Rather that it sets up a formidable pace and maintains it stoically through the album's duration. While this show of restraint is admirable it also makes every song blur into one another, preventing Koloss from having many stand out tracks as opposed to merely very good moments.

Rating: C+

Recommended track: Break Those Those Bones Who Sinews Gave It Motion.

#5 - Sigh - In Somniphobia

Japanese black metal weirdos Sigh have been dabbling in prog rock and carnival orchestras for the past 19 years (accordions in my black metal? What?) and In Somniphobia continues their legacy of sheer nuttiness. You will find shades of Frank Zappa, King Crimson, and Mr Bungle. Needless to say this album is way the fuck out there. Things start with the fiery "Purgatorium", a slab of metal neo-classicism, and it just get weirder and weirder from there. No matter how far into space Sigh drift they are always mindful to bring you back to their core black metal aesthetic. Is it in the journeys in between these peaks of relative normality that you are shown something amazing. An exercise in willful madness that is never less than puzzling. If this is your first exposure to Sigh (as it was for me) then brace yourself!

Rating: B

Recommended tracks: The Transfiguration Fear, L’excommunication a Minuit

Album Review: The Mars Volta - Noctourniquet

The more perceptive among you may notice that this album has been out for nearly a month. Why the long delay before publishing the review? I revere this band so much that if I had tried to write a review after just a week or two of listening to it I feel as though I would miss some of it's less corporeal aspects. In short in order to do the album justice I would need to let it really sink into my pores. So, without further ado ...

It might have only been three years since we last heard from The Mars Volta on Octahedron but it certainly feels like a lot longer than that. It could have something to do with the fact that they released five albums over six years that this hiatus feels particularly long. This track record is even more impressive given the rumours that the band writes, records, and discards an entire album’s worth of material between releases to keep their creative process vital. Stories of artistic struggles between guitarist / composer / workaholic Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala might explain the wait. The end result is Noctourniquet and it is equal parts excess and restraint which is a hard balance to maintain. The primary complaints against their previous two albums were they there was too much going on (The Bedlam In Goliath) or not enough (Octahedron). Here no song lingers for more than eight minutes but then again there are 13 of them to contend with. Lyrically Cedric is back in his free-association mode that yielded such head scratchers as “exoskeleton junction at the railroad delay” on “Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)”. Anybody searching for a grand deeper meaning underneath the surrealist poetry is in for a nasty surprise. I hope they have a thesaurus, an Ouija board, and painkillers at hand. 

Looking back to their auspicious debut, De-Loused in the Comatorium, only the two main members remain consistent – being Omar and Cedric. Line-up changes are nothing new to The Mars Volta but this is their first record without longtime keyboardist Ikey Owens and also the first in which former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante has not participated. Also new on board is the drummer from Omar’s solo work Deantoni Parks. As with every new drummer brought into the Mars Volta fold Parks brings a whole new style to the table. He doesn’t smother the record like Tom Pridgen did on his debut outings in The Bedlam In Goliath but his poly-syllabic beats are wonderfully engaging. It is clear that re-invention is of great concern on this album, and they waste no time in demonstrating this.

The album starts with “The Whip Hand” that rides a buzzing synth riff that is more trance than prog. When Cedric wails “I am a landmine so dontcha step on me” it cuts through the song like a knife. You feel transported to an alien land like only Mars Volta knows how to do. There is a noticeably smaller focus on incendiary guitar freakouts. It is not that Omar and company have lost faith in their strengths but rather that they are doing more by using less, giving other instruments a chance to shine. “Aegis” and “Dyslexicon” (the sort of clever song titles that bands like this favour) are more in line with the classic Volta sound without completely eschewing their current ethos. Things cool off a little on “Empty Vessels Make The Loudest Sound” which is a dead-ringer for “Televators”. More and more this is starting to feel like an artful recreation of the vibe on De-Loused In The Comatorium – which is in itself not a bad thing. But then there is “The Malkin Jewel”, a nightmarish lullaby reminiscent of a Led Zeppelin song unraveling on a rusty nail. The repeated refrain breathes menacingly down the back of your neck “All the traps in the cellar go clickety-clack / cause you know I always set them for you / And all the rats in the cellar form a vermin of steps / yeah you know they’re gonna take me to you ”. The albums “first half” concludes with potential single “Lapochka”. Subtle electronic flourishes frame what is one of the album’s most straightforward numbers and a pleasant end to the A-side. 

If the first half was a rollercoaster ride the second is a long glide over turbulent waters. “In Absentia” is smothered in heavily treated instrumental effects. Any remnants of traditional song that are in there are swept up in the melodrama of sonic schizophrenia. From there it is a long, hallucinatory journey to the end. From the bruising “Molochwalker” to the celestial title-track the journey is seamless between songs. Just when it might be losing some steam along comes the funky title-track and “Zed and Two Naughts”. What an amazing ending to a hard to digest album! Even though the lyrics of the latter can be hard to pick up on (something about Saint Christopher, dashboard mascot and patron of travelers) the chorus will be tugging at your brain for days - even weeks or months - to come. And just like that The Mars Volta retreat into the ether.

So what we are left with is a satisfying – if sometimes frustrating – album that fits well into the band’s existing canon which, like their best work, hints at a number of future directions for their music. The Mars Volta are nothing if not forward-thinking. To the outsider, non-fan this is pretty good album to try and get into them with and retrace your steps backward to their excellent debut. There are no excessively long jams, no impenetrable back story to circumnavigate; just masterfully played psych rock in all of its glory.

Rating: A

Recommended Tracks: Empty Vessels Make The Loudest Sound, The Malkin Jewel, Zed And Two Naughts

Freak-When-See 101: Part 1 – Maggot Brain (1971)

As someone who is a die-hard music fan the most difficult (and often most common) question I get asked is “What sort of music do you like?” I try to listen to a bit of everything but I can’t just say “everything” and expect to be taken seriously as a fan. Sure I enjoy metal, funk, blues, jazz, rock, hip-hop, prog, dub and much more but just spouting off a bunch of genres is not much good to anyone. No, I look for a certain feeling in music. It has to be adventurous, dangerous, powerful, and preferably freaky. To this end I have coined the term “Freak Music”. Since it is damned hard term to define I intend to demonstrate what Freak Music is by exploring the music that shaped the idea. Freak-When-See 101 is my love letter to the great, bizarre albums of the world that helped inform my taste in the unusual. Part 1 sees me confronting one of my all-time favourite records: Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain.

“Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time for y'all have knocked her up. I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe. I was not offended for I knew I had to rise above it all or drown in my own shit”

With those ominous words one of the greatest psychedelic trips known to man begins. The year was 1971 and funk master George Clinton’s Funkadelic outfit had released their third album, Maggot Brain. It was a record that dug deeper into the trippy territory explored on their previous records and took another stab at what people were calling “funk”. As a piece of music terminology funk was still a new concept and many people were scrambling to define it. Sly & The Family Stone defined it as soul with guitars but that just wasn’t funky enough for Clinton and co. His idea was to smash James Brown and Frank Zappa together to make something fun, energetic, and trippy as hell. And thus, Maggot Brain was born.

Naturally when one thinks of Maggot Brain the legendary title track leaps to mind. Aside from the spoken word passage at the beginning what you have is ten minutes of sprawling, emotive guitar solo. Even today, a mere 41 years after its recording, it still sends a chill up my spine. There are conflicting stories about how the song came to fruition which adds to the overall mystique. The one is subscribe to is that it was performed under a copious amount of LSD when guitarist Eddie Hazel was told to imagine that his mother had died. If this is how you play while tripping and grieving then I suggest some more musicians should give it a go¹. Speaking of Hazel, he pulls his weight and a half all across the whole record. His molten solos on ‘Super Stupid’ is easily enough to put him at Hendrix-ian levels of awesomeness, let alone the vocal performance. As far as I am concerned Eddie Hazel is one of the world’s great unheralded guitar heroes even though he may not have lived up his full potential. Outside of his dabbling in the origins of P-Funk he had only one album that wasn’t released posthumously².

The song draws you so deep into its funk – to use the word in another way – that the arrival of ‘Can You Get To That’ is unexpectedly jubilant. Big sing-along verses, tight drums and Ray Davis’ almighty baritone and all of that is followed by the whacked-out ‘Hit It And Quit It’. This one-two hit is Clinton’s brand of funk in full flight. Picture the craziest 70s party imaginable; bizarre costumes, dancing girls, alien motherships descending from the skies. Funkadelic might melt your brain but they still wanna make you dance. The only problem you get with an experimental album made under the influence of early 70s drug culture is that it must have been hard to tell when you had gone too far. Case in point is the nonsensical ‘Wars of Armageddon’. It is a long, rambling jam filled with garbled voices, sounds of a domestic disturbance, and thoroughly pointless lyrics (the key lyrical motif is “More power to the people / More pussy to the power / More pussy to the people / More power to the pussy”.

Sure, Maggot Brain was not their first album (that honor goes to their 1970 self-titled album) nor is it their most diverse (that would be 1970’s Osmium, released under the name Parliament). As the years went by the Parliament-style good time music would eclipse Funkadelic’s unstable psychedelia and open the way for Clinton’s solo electro-funk recordings. Maggot Brain represents a high-water mark and the band at their potent mind-opening best and in my opinion reigns as one of the greatest records of the golden age of psychedelic rock. Have you tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe?

Maggot Brain in all its glory

¹ This is clearly a joke.

² Check out Games, Dames, And Guitar Thangs from 1977. It includes a stellar cover of The Beatle’s ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’

Album Review: Ministry - Relapse

Coming back from what seemed like a permanent break up at the time, Ministry are back to their old tricks – hence the album’s title, Relapse. The question is can Ministry maintain relevance in the post-Bush era considering he was the square focus of their last three albums. The answer is a resounding “Hell yes”. Opening track “Ghouldiggers” rides the repeated refrain of “I’m not dead yet” in a song that references the music industry’s knack for selling the deceased piece by piece to consumers. It is a tightly wound, furious number and that is a damned good thing considering that Ministry has always run on vitriol. You can expect wall-to-wall snarling riffs, jackhammer drums, and of course the deranged ramblings of old ‘uncle’ Al Jourgensen. Everything about this record screams “aggression” at top volume. Their bloody-knuckled assault is as blunt as it has ever been; nobody ever need accuse Ministry of going soft on us. The title-track is the album’s beating black heart, with Jourgensen crying “I’m filthy rich and I’m horny” amidst quotes from Vietnam war veterans. It is a line that is as poignant as it is plain daft. Aside from the occasional dalliance with retirement, Ministry are becoming one of the music world’s constants – that is, they are constantly pissed off. When it comes to political nihilism look no further than these industrial stalwarts and they are as agitated as ever.

Country: USA

Recommended Tracks: Ghouldiggers, Relapse

Rating: B-

Album Review: Grinderman - Grinderman 2 RMX

Remix albums are tricky propositions, doubly so for anyone who is a fan of the original material. Will a series of remixes shine any new light on something you enjoy or will it create an endless stream of inferior versions? I have been a Nick Cave fan for years and also thoroughly enjoyed his rock and roll diversions in Grinderman, so how would myself (and others like me) feel about Grinderman 2 RMX, an album full of remixes from 2010’s excellent Grinderman 2 record.

For this record Grinderman have gathered a diverse array of remixers and collaborators such as Nick ZInner, Matt Berringer (The National), Cat’s Eyes, and Silver Alert. They are a strange group to be sure and the results are also appropriately strange. “Hyper Worm Tamer” (by UNKLE) is a revelation, transforming what was arguably one of the original album’s weaker songs into a full blown James Bond theme. A Place To Bury Strangers on the other hand amplify the song to haggard neo-punk levels of sonic intensity. Obviously not every reinterpretation is a resounding success. “Mickey Bloody Mouse” (by Queens Of The Stone Age’s Joshua Homme) is toothless and frustrating as it squanders that song’s primal scream down to a muddled twitch. Perhaps Cat’s Eyes seductive rendition of “When My Baby Comes” is more your speed, all cooed vocals and feedback.

The album is bookended by unremixed tracks. The first is “Super Heathen Child” which finds Grinderman joined by King Crimson mastermind Robert Fripp on guitar. As an enormous King Crimson fan nothing could warm my heart more than these esteemed gentlemen laying down a dark, heavy jam that rivals the original track in sheer awesomeness. The new solo in the outro is utterly goose-bump inducing. At the other end of the record is a demo version of the song “Evil” called, what else, “First Evil”. Is Grinderman 2 RMX essential, even to a die-hard fan? Not really but does offer a series of thought-provoking remixes by a motley crew of cult heroes and musical luminaries.

Country: UK / Australia
Recommended Tracks: Super Heathen Child, Hyper Worm Tamer

Rating: B-