A Difficult 2013—Part Five

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats—Mind Control (Rise Above)

Discovering the musty, macabre thrill-show of Blood Lust late in 2012 certainly got me primed for the arrival of Uncle Acid’s next collection of debauchery. Mind Control is less ramshackle than Blood Lust—it sounds as though everyone had learned the material before turning up at the studio, which lends certain songs (“Poison Apple”, “Mind Crawler”) the kind of punch that Blood Lust achieved, I suspect, only through happy accident. Overall, though, it’s a little less urgent than its predecessor, a little more sunburnt if not desiccated, which suits its Manson family/California nightmare theme perfectly. As with Manson, psychedelics and The Beatles enter the picture as well, especially during the “Blue Jay Way” strains of “Death Valley Blues”, which is where the album peaks for me. Sometimes they’re unfocused, sometimes songs drive towards endings that turn out to be just a mirage and they wind up wandering aimlessly across the desert. But I have to trust whoever’s in charge because the whole thing simply works for me, the songs occasionally achieving a grimy sort of grandeur, as on “Desert Ceremony.” I’m game to follow Uncle Acid and crew off whatever artistic cliff they’re racing towards next.

Blood Ceremony—The Eldritch Dark (Rise Above)

Toronto’s own minstrels in the gallery triumphed this year with The Eldritch Dark, a witchy, hooked-filled delight. What stands out most is their unpretentious celebration of a good tune and a solid riff. They're a refreshingly down-to-Earth four-piece band with spare arrangements that still made room for detailed, elegant songs like “Drawing Down the Moon” and should-be-a-hit “Goodbye Gemini.” They don’t just blindly worship at the church of Sabbath; I wouldn’t doubt they're down with Fairport Convention too. In a year when I took a wrong turn or two when it came to stoner-y stuff (man, I did not get along with that Orchid album at all), Blood Ceremony delivered in terms of originality and personality. Seeing them on tour across the country with Kylesa and White Hills this year proved that they’re for real. I’ve been curious about this band for a while, and I’m glad I picked this album to join them on.

Purson—The Circle and the Blue Door (Rise Above)

Rise Above are finding the greatest bands these days. Purson’s debut album is sheer class, confidently occupying its own loftspace somewhere in the neighbourhood of prog and stoner rock. They’re a bit like Curved Air in that they don’t swing hard in one direction or the other; they simply make a hell of a pleasing sound—maybe a little too elaborate for the mainstream, but at their core they rock hard enough for the jean jacket crowd. Singer/guitarist Rosalie Cunningham has a similar “don’t mess with me” tone to the mighty Sonja Kristina. Note that the only band on Rosalie’s thank-you list is The Beatles, so she’s clearly been inspired, songwriting-wise, by the masters. It’s worrying to see that the band that recorded the album and the current group have completely different lineups (aside from Cunningham), but here’s hoping that they can make this a going concern. Anyway, the Purson you hear on The Circle and the Blue Door are a band with a haughty allure, with songs that rock with carnivalesque abandon and defy you to write them off as merely “promising.”

Anciients—Heart of Oak (Season of Mist)

From my blurb for Hellbound’s year-end roundup: It was a thrill to watch Anciients on the rise throughout 2013. From tours with TesseracT, Death (Official), and Lamb of God to an invitation to play Roadburn in 2014, it was clear that the Vancouver quartet had arrived. Their calling card, of course, was their magnificent debut album. Heart of Oak sings with style and confidence. Each of its nine tracks reveals an innate understanding of how epic metal songwriting works, while never resorting to formula. It’s fun to imagine them in a makeshift lab in some desolate Quonset hut feverishly distilling their sound from casks labeled “Opeth,” “Mahavishnu,” “Celtic Frost,” and “Thin Lizzy,” but the truth is, there are no simple recipes for successful heavy metal. Anciients had the inter-band chemistry, taste, and, most of all, the work ethic to lay this record down, get it right the first time, and proceed to take on the world.

Steven Wilson—The Raven That Refused to Sing and Other Stories (k-Scope)

Wilson’s previous solo work (that is, the solo work released under his own name, not the early one-man-band Porcupine Tree albums) was, in the context of latter-day Porcupine Tree, a little experimental and reticent. Insurgentes was full of new ideas and interesting treatments. 2011’s Grace for Drowning was diverse and expansive, taking on classic progressive rock tropes and owning them. That double album often brought the hammer down, but not in the way The Raven That Refused to Sing does. The Raven… reduces the palette compared to the often jazzy textures on Grace…, and delivers six masterful songs. Out of all the “Steven Wilson” releases so far, doesn’t feel like a solo album at all. You can tell he poured his heart into this, as songs like “The Raven That Refused to Sing” make an emotional impact equal to their musical muscle. Lyrically, he makes a welcome break from the topical, contemporary themes of Porcupine Tree, and instead tells stories in each of the songs (although there’s surely social commentary within the sad tale of “The Holy Drinker”). Much as I like cheering for the underdog and championing certain music for its endearing imperfections, I do love this almost ruthlessly impeccable album, and have no problem putting it at the top of my Best of 2013 list.

A Difficult 2011, 10 to 6

Can I just have done with this? My sick joke of a year-end list drags on.

10. YOB—Atma (Profound Lore)

YOB become more important with each release. By now I think they’ve transcended the “doom” tag and moved alongside Neurosis in the realm of consciousness-raising heavy music. On Atma, YOB don’t really add anything new to their sound, and it' s not like they needed to. Like the last couple Electric Wizard albums, the recording sounds odd, almost off-putting at first, but you’re inevitably pulled into possibly the best collection of YOB songs yet.

9. Anathema—We’re Here Because We’re Here (The End)

This is an absolutely terrifying record, bordering on emotional abuse. It batters me with feelings of hope and loss and mortality couched in 10 almost unendurably beautiful songs. I’m a person who likes to think he’s in control of any given situation in life and work, although the futility of this outlook becomes clearer every year. Still, old habits die hard, and confronting an album like this that screams “YOU’RE WRONG, YOU’RE WRONG, YOU’RE WRONG!” is a profound experience. We’re Here Because We’re Here tears me apart.

It’s significant that the front and back cover depict the horizon—a destination that you can see but can never reach. The songs themselves are about the limits you perceive and the limits that don’t exist. “It ain't about yourself/Get out of yourself” as the chorus demands in “Get Off Get Out.” They lay it on thick—big ballads, strings, female vocals, spoken word passages—but Steven Wilson’s mix places every element just so, streamlining these songs so that they plunge directly into the core of my being. Originally released in 2010 and issued domestically in 2011, I think this is the best Anathema album since Alternative 4. I’m in awe of its power.

8. Ghost—Opus Eponymous (Metal Blade)

Ghost strikes me as a lark that quickly got out of hand. Fenriz puts in a good word and suddenly they’re touring the world and their Nameless Ghoul vocalist is wondering if he’ll be wearing that Satanic Pope hat for the rest of his life. What hath they wrought? Honestly, putting aside the “hype” (what constitutes hype now anyways? A pull-quote off a blog? An ad?), this album caught on because Ghost has amazing material. I think the metal audience is smart enough not to get sucked in by image. No one’s impressed by anyone’s OTT black metal photo shoot. Morbid Angel can plant their feet just over a shoulder’s width apart and frown at us real hard, but we’re still not gonna buy Illud Divinum whatever. So yeah, Ghost had the best tunes and that’s why they’re in the top 10.

Another thing in Ghosts’s favour was that they themselves owned up to it all: "Naysayers will accuse us of being pretentious, which we are, or gimmicky, which we are." That conspiratorial wink I can hear in their music is intentional, apparently, but in the end, who cares? This short, punchy album will be over by the time you're done pondering matters of authenticity, "coolness," etc. Maybe they did actually melt down a bunch of Roky Erickson, Mercyful Fate, and BÖC LPs, have the resulting blob blessed by Satan, then used it to press their own work. Whether by diabolical accident or infernal design, you can hear all these things coming together on Opus Eponymous. The simple arrangements, wonderfully unspectacular recording, and unabashed yet diabolical tunefulness produce a time-warp effect, to the point where I half expect/half hope to be able to search up vintage footage of "Stand By Him" on Top of the Pops, complete with girls swaying awkwardly in their crocheted ponchos and yellow flares.

7. Steven Wilson—Grace for Drowning (K-Scope)

Mr. Wilson had a hand in two other albums in this post, but this one’s his own baby. After finding Porcupine Tree’s Fear of a Blank Planet rather stale and passing on The Incident (I did enjoy Wilson's previous solo album Insurgentes, though), I took a hint from the advance PR for this album and snapped it up at HMV ($10.99 for a double album!) the minute I saw it. What I heard was astounding, starting from the moment “Sectarian” kicked into high gear. It may be the best thing Wilson has ever put out. On this release he lets go of everything and gathers up fresh strands in the form of new musicians, sounds, and song forms. I don’t know what kind of therapy/meditation/substances he embraced before starting this project, but I think I want some. Grace For Drowning’s feeling of creative renewal puts it in the same realm as Opeth’s Heritage for me, although I don’t think Wilson caught as much flak from his fanbase for his good work.

Grace For Drowning is a trip through the darker side of prog that recalls King Crimson prior to their 1974 hiatus. Blasts of Mellotron choir signal imminent doom while saxophones rage in protest. Storms roil, clouds part. The epic songs are really epic, while some of the shorter numbers (“Index” and “Postcard”) are tackled with a simplicity that might elude a Porcupine Tree production. In fact there’s a stripped-down, elemental feel to the whole thing. “Remainder the Black Dog” and “Raider II” are big statements drawn in clear, broad strokes. It’s a sign of the material’s quality that you or I could walk up to a piano and most likely pick out the notes. There’s some jazz, too, adding to the album’s unpredictability and air of mystery. The influence is not as pronounced as others may claim; the jazz enters in some free passages where the sax or flute gets to have a blow, as well as in (brilliant) drummer Theo Travis’s in-the-pocket style. By picking away at the crust of post-everything modernity and revisiting old values in earnest, Steve Wilson’s recorded his most radical work.

6. Opeth—Heritage (Roadrunner)

I'm the guy who still really, really likes Opeth. I’ve never reviewed one of their albums here, mainly because most of the critical dialogue regarding Opeth fills me with rage. Why even contribute? Opeth tends to bring out the worst in both metalheads and prog fans. To the willfully obscurist metal messageboard warrior, Homopet's weak sauce is the perfect cure for insomnia. Girlfriend metal, pretty much. For the archetypal prog fan, he of a certain age and delicate demeanour, Opeth might be listenable if it weren’t for those Cookie Monster vocals. And here's me, caught in the crossfire, thinking, "Yeah, but—" before deciding that nothing's worth wading into either discussion.

But here’s how I feel. As a lifelong metal and progressive rock fan, Opeth have been a gift. I can’t imagine a better band to have followed from their debut album. It was a great day when I first found Orchid in the miscellaneous “O” bin at Sam the Record Man. Their streak of quality releases and their graceful progression from progressive death metal to progressive rock has been amazing. I thought they’d take a left turn much earlier than they actually did. When Still Life, their fourth album, came out, I remember being surprised that they were staying the course, polishing and refining the death/prog mix instead of pursuing one style in earnest. Their last album, Watershed, had some blatantly eccentric moments that signaled an album like Heritage was on the horizon.

It’s an odd record for sure, with a stream of consciousness flow that shucks off most of Opeth’s previous formula, if that’s what you want to call it. There are more songs in more styles, with some new sounds brought in. Listening to the album at Scrape Records on release day, I thought that it sounded like the Änglagård album of Michael Akerfeldt’s dreams, and I still hear a vein of classic Swedish prog deep within. The rocking moments are more isolated, perhaps a little more self-conscious, as with “Slither,” their tribute to Dio-era Rainbow. At the other end of the scale is a song like “Häxprocess,” a drifting, shifting seven-minute fever-dream.

That elusive quality is one of Heritage's best features. It’s not a bunch of long songs with heavy parts alternating with pretty parts. It’s a much more sophisticated mixture, one that unfortunately tasted of shit sandwich to many of their fans, judging by the bitter comments I've read on Facebook and the many, many long faces on display after their show at the Commodore last year. Oh well. Seeing as my one of my favourite heavy metal bands has finally become one of my favourite progressive rock bands, I will not be joining in the backlash.

Steven Wilson—Insurgentes (kscope)

No one’s straying outside their comfort zone on Insurgentes—neither Steven Wilson or his audience. If you like Porcupine Tree’s recent output, then you’ll be more than happy with what is billed as Wilson’s first solo album (ignoring the fact that he oversees everything to do with Porcupine Tree, which started as Wilson’s one-man project). While the sounds and atmosphere on Insurgentes haven’t fallen far from the Tree, differences emerge with repeated listens. The album has given Wilson the chance to work with different musicians (including Tony Levin, Jordan Rudess, and Clodagh Simonds from Mellow Candle). PT drummer Gavin Harrison plays on nearly every track. Every time you think the album is going to settle into an intimacy typical of a solo album, Wilson throws in something to subvert it and take a song in an unexpected direction. Even a fragile little song like “Abandoner” is host to a series of what must have been painstakingly constructed textures. Likewise, the plain piano and voice format of “Get What You Deserve” is eventually consumed by crashing guitars and layers of noise. “Salvaging” moves from a heavy trance groove to a dissonant orchestral end piece. As with Stupid Dream’s “Tinto Brass,” Wilson celebrates another, erm, underappreciated director in tremendous fashion with album opener “Harmony Korine.” “No Twilight Within the Courts of the Sun” opens with an unusually jammy feel based around a recognizably Levin bass line before an extreme quiet/loud dynamic takes over. I don’t know if Wilson would devote space on a PT album to a creepy little experiment like “Twilight Coda.” Open the booklet and you’ll find a photo of smashed and incinerated MP3 players, an unsubtle indictment of the prevailing lo-fi culture. In the face of this widespread indifference to audio quality, Wilson’s other response is to include an additional DVD containing 5.1 and 24-bit stereo mixes, which I’m sure would blow your head off on the right setup. However you choose to listen, new sounds and new voices make Insurgentes a more interesting album than the last PT outing, Fear of a Blank Planet. I hope Wilson brings more of his left-field impulses to the sessions for his main band’s next release.