"From the discarded remains of the Idiot’s Flesh has risen…."

Album; In Glorious Times
Artist: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
Year: 2007
Genre: Avant-Chamber Metal/Progressive Metal
Label: The End

The Sleepytime Gorilla Museum are easily as baffling as their name would imply, and their albums are forays into previously unexplored regions of the human and in-human condition. The band rose from the remains of Idiot Flesh and Charming Hostess to become a new entity. In Glorious Times is their third release, following 2004’s Of Natural History. The band’s sound has changed little since then, but they have certainly found more things to do with that sound. How do I describe it…At one moment you could be watching the greatest opera on earth, a moving tale of tragedy and woe (nothing good ever happens in opera) and then you realize, it is nothing more than a farce, the presumed tragedy isn’t even real, everything is backwards and 1=0. As you continue to watch and listen, your understanding of the line between seriousness and farce grows ever more blurred until the blithering maniacs proclaiming they are made of a thousand tiny countries seem as sane and coherent as you did before you entered the theater. S.G.M. is a bunch of lunatics, sure, but they are geniuses also.

Many of their instruments were developed by their bass player Dan Rathbun. Some of these notable inventions include the “piano log,” the “percussion guitar” and “The Vatican” (a drum set made of found objects and regular pieces.) In Glorious Times, the formula has been well established by previous efforts, so why not tweak it some more by a move from Web of Mimicry Records to The End (a label which specializes in Avant-Metal and more.) The album’s songs are magnificent in size and execution, the opening track “The Companions” being 10 minutes to begin with. In the song, Nils Frykdahl (the bands Guitar player) details the coming of “the lonely people” who he seems greatly threatened by. Lyrics of this group are often stories of fantastical happenings and places, with some kind of pseudo-philosophy driving the whole thing. Frykdahl's vocals are guttural and sound like a wolf tearing at the flesh of a deer, while violinist Carla Kihlstedt’s have greater range as she can go from a lilting whisper to a brutal cry of agony in a split second. The playing of the band at this point has reach a multi-layered cohesion so perfect that they could be sharing thoughts, especially on tracks like “Angle of Repose,” a tale of a woman whose body is made up of tiny countries, and “Helpless Corpses Enactment,” mad scientists ramblings on life and death given musical form.

This album is spooky; make no mistake, perfect for a drive through some dark landscape of desolation and waste. To make it even more so, the band has added recorded messages that sound like they could have been taken directly from a mental institution for hopeless psychotics. As the album continues, the feeling of dread increases to unbearable levels, but that’s all part of the fun. Listening to this, you can’t help but feel as though you are witnessing something incredible. Something that history will recognize and keep forever. At least, until it’s destroyed in a great fire… for that is the nature of the Museum, to be consumed by time, both preserved and destroyed at the same time.

“I want you to move like you’re a salmon swimming upstream!” – Jason Webley

Album: The Cost of Living
Artist: The Jason Webley Quartet
Year: 2007
Genre: Folk/Indie
Label: 11

Those Familiar with Mr. Webley’s work know him to be a talented musician in his own right. Each of his four albums are strong ones and “The Cost” is no exception. But there are some differences: Previous albums featured numerous artists performing on any given track, where as “The Cost” boils down to a core cast of Mr. Webley (Guitar, Accordion,) Alex Guy (Viola,) Jherek Bischoff (Bass) and Quilken (Drums.) This core band gives the album a feeling of cohesion hinted at, but not fully realized,, on previous albums. This is not to say those albums are weak, far from it, but that’s another review. Often there is a sort of theme to Webley’s work, usually the number 11 or opposites & parallels. This time neither theme is present (though the album does have eleven tracks.) In their stead are…Salmon…No, I’m serious. The quasi theme of the album is salmon, spawning salmon to be exact… OK, that’s only half true. The salmon swimming upstream are meant to represent the struggle of life, hence the album title. The theme is not wholly original (except for the salmon,); what could be more classic then the struggle of life? This is one of Webley’s best works and perhaps my favorite. Standout tracks include; “Ways to Love,” an upbeat tune (in pace if not lyrics) that brings the whole salmon/life metaphor to light. “Clear” is an apprehensive song about missing angels, both figurative and literal. “Disappear” is a haunting song in which Webley’s most epic vocal range is demonstrated. And finally “There's Not a Step We Can Take That Does Not Bring Us Closer,” the longest track title ever and the best song on the album. When I saw Webley’s Quartet perform, it was the last song they played. Lacking the orchestra of violas and trombones on the track itself, the crowd filled in with their voices (I was a trombone.) This album does not have a weakness I can find. I love it. Hearing all the songs performed live first made it even better. It was (and still is) the best show I’ve attended. I cannot praise this album and its artist enough.

Money, Money, Money Is NOT Our GOD! (The jokes on you, Pink Floyd!)

Album: Extremities, Dirt and Various Repressed Emotions
Artist: Killing Joke
Year: 1990
Genre: Tribal Metal
Label: Noise

After disbanding in the late 80’s, Killing Joke quickly returned in 1990, with a new drummer and renewed energy and rage. Martin Atkins, after being fired from P.i.L. for the third and final time joined Killing Joke as their new drummer. The tribal beat laid down by Atkins, along with Paul Raven’s heavy wall of bass noise, propels the band forward at extreme speeds (appropriate considering the album’s name.) Geordie Walker is in top form, his guitar grinding its best like a man sharpening an arrow head. But the Joke would be nothing without Jaz Coleman’s enraged vocals. The sheer musical power of the opening track “Money is not our God” is equaled and perhaps outdone by Coleman’s manic fury. Whatever happened to the tellers of the Joke during the very brief period between their break-up and reunion has pumped them full of raw and primal energy. The Album boils with uncontained power, like a volcano about to erupt. Except in this case, you stand in front of the blast. Let it hit you and some of its energy will be infused into you. That sound coming towards you? That’s the sound of man reclaiming his primal self and returning to the land, a world of chaos unbound before him.

John Lydon and Keith Levene suffer for their art, and so do you.

Album: Flowers of Romance
Artist: Public Image Ltd. (P.i.L.)
Year: 1981
Genre: Post-Punk/Experimental
Label: Virgin

This album is sick, and I don’t mean awesome or feverish sick. I mean Junk Sick. This album is heroin addiction distilled into music. Listening to it brings waves of misery so cold and inhuman that you want to crawl into bed and hide from it. But you can’t. This sickness follows you, it clings to you like a parasite, and there is no escape from it. You must wait it out to be cleansed of it. The wait isn’t long, only a little more than a half an hour, but it’s a dark half an hour. The black void is filled with pounding drums and dark wails detailing pains and atrocities the likes of which would drive a man insane if it were anything but fiction. Before this, P.i.L. was a band, a strange band, but a definite band, with a singer, guitar, drums & bass. The bass and guitar are all but completely gone and the reaming instruments are bleak and foreboding. The voice’s former anger have soured and shrunk away to the howls of a paranoid psychotic. The death of the “band” has ushered in something new… something evil. Parents worry about the music their children listen to; groups like Slipknot and Korn. They shouldn’t, that is light and easy listening compared to the nightmarish horror evoked by this album. Whilst a highly challenging listen, Flowers of Romance remains an excellent document of the power of the studio as an instrument, and the misery of heroin addiction.

Change of System

Rather than reviews being placed in the comments section where they are easily unnoticed, they will simply be posted as new posts. Homework related writing will still be posted to the comments section. Cheers!

Alright then...

I appear to have created a blog. Sweet.