A Difficult 2013—Part Four

Clutch—Earth Rocker (Weathermaker)

Earth Rocker sank out of sight for a while there in 2013, but returned with a mighty wallop. I bought the album when it came out—sounded great—and saw the sold-out show at the Commodore shortly afterwards—had a great time bro-ing down with all the Clutch fans. After that flurry of activity, Earth Rocker got put aside. When it was time to make this list, I put it on again and…whoa, this is a killer album! It’s a lean, punchy collection. The keyboards are gone, so it’s just guitars, drums and Fallon in fine form. A few of the tracks are instant classics (the title track, “Crucial Velocity” and “Unto the Breach” at the very least). The rest are the kind of deep cuts that keep an album raging from start to finish. How Clutch has managed to run so hot for so long is beyond me, but if they ever wanted to sell their secrets to other musicians, I’m sure they could retire wealthy men.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds—Push the Sky Away (Bad Seed Ltd.)

This felt like an effort to shake things up in the Bad Seeds camp. The songs didn’t sound composed in the classic songwriter sense—you know, verses, choruses and such worked out in private and then presented to a band for fleshing out —but were clearly based on jams. “Jubilee Street,” for example, is a one-riff concept that builds to an ecstatic release, mirroring the singer/narrator's dream of transformation. Small sounds prevail: a brief bass loop; a violin lick flashes by like a sparrow; a crisp, simple beat starts a song. The results are often tense, mysterious and threatening. Throughout, Cave is laid-back but intense, giving his words an unfiltered flow to match the music, and dropping images of surreal derangement: “I got a fetus on a leash,” he claims on “Jubilee Street” On “Higgs Boson Blues,” Lucifer has “100 black babies running from his genocidal jaw.” Push the Sky Away was compelling little world of words and music, and a successful exercise in spontaneity tempered with careful consideration.

Scale the Summit—The Migration (Prosthetic)

So many notes! These Scale the Summit kids can sure play. They trade in clean, concise progressive metal in the same sphere as Cynic, except without any singing. Every song is packed with solos, rhythmic changeups, and loud-soft dynamics. The quartet obviously have many years of theory and practice behind them, but they’re using their powers for good, taking their music on the road and delivering it with authority on stage. So what gives them the edge over the dozens of bands trying to do the same thing? I`d say it`s balance, composition, and taste. The chemistry between the musicians is such that everyone contributes equally to the music’s impact, which strikes me as an impressive feat. Playing at such a high level, there’s a danger of cancelling each other out, the same way mixing primary colours together produces black. They’re focused on the songs, which are arranged in a way that respects their audience’s attention spans. Scale the Summit seem to know that you can practice scales till your hands fall off, but if you can’t entertain anyone with your music, you’ve got nothing.

The Opium Cartel—Ardor (Termo)

The second album from the Opium Cartel will charm the pants off you. If the music doesn’t make you wanna take it off and get it on, then maybe the album cover will (phew!). At this point it’s a little tough to distinguish the Opium Cartel from White Willow, bandleader Jacob Holm-Lupo’s other prog-rock ensemble. The main point of departure is that the Opium Cartel skew more towards pop music, although it’s pop music of the most lush, sophisticated sort. Remember when Peter Gabriel had hit songs on the radio? It seems that happened a lifetime ago in an alternate universe, but to me, the Opium Cartel are going for a similar kind of left-of-centre catchiness. In a better world, they would be kings (and queens) of the airwaves. There are big choruses, inventive rhythm tracks, swathes of wonderful synths, and a pristine production job. If you liked So (or anything by Talk Talk, Jane Siberry or Kate Bush for that matter), then The Opium Cartel are your bag. And aside from all the shiny sounds and sexy good times, Ardor also supplied the spookiest thing I heard all year: a spellbinding cover of BÖC’s “Then Came the Last Days of May.” Wrecks me every time.

Guapo—History of the Visitation (Cuneiform)

The return of Guapo proved to be an exciting thing. This release featured 42 minutes of new music and a live DVD of the band ransacking NEARfest a while back. Only 42 minutes of new music, though, you say? Well, that’s how long albums used to be, and that’s the way we liked it. All three tracks are quality fodder, and “The Pilman Radiant” is the best long-form track I’ve heard in ages. Reviewed in full here.

April Gig Roundup

April brought a deluge of unmissable shows to town. There’s no way I could review them all in full, but here are some notes on what I saw last month.

Clutch with Orange Goblin, April 3 at the Commodore Ballroom

I honestly wasn’t that familiar with Orange Goblin, despite having read about them for years. They turned out to be a rowdy lot, riling up the crowd with their Motörhead-calibre attack. Clutch had it pretty easy after that. Vancouver sure loves them. They played a punchy set very much in the vein of Earth Rocker. That jam band they’d been transforming into was nowhere to be seen this night.

Black Wizard with War Baby and Astrakhan, April 5 at the Interurban Gallery

Two things I learned, or had confirmed, watching my buddy Kyle Harcott DJ this show. One, old records sound the best. The tone coming off that copy of Killer was amazing. Two, people will come up and high five you when you play Sabbath. All the bands were amazing at this show. Black Wizard are getting to be too big a band for the Interurban. Which is good; they should be huge. When they played “Jesus,” people went insane.




Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, April 6 at the Vogue Theatre

I finally got to see Nick Cave, and it was worth the wait. The band was flawless (and loud!) and the set list could not be quibbled with. What I did find interesting as a first-timer was that Cave played exclusively to the first three rows of people—those who were within his physical reach. Apart from acknowledging the balcony once or twice, he didn’t exactly bring the whole room together, or transform the theatre into an intimate space. Still, Nick Cave. Phwoar.

Yob, April 6 at the Interurban Gallery

After Nick Cave, I dashed across to the DTES in time to catch Yob’s entire set. I could not have a better life. Trying to describe Yob at the Interurban and do it justice would be impossible. If you know Yob, you know the deal—they really were crushing and transcendent. They played a big chunk of Atma and a sick, gilding-the-lily encore of “Quantum Mystic.” Mike Scheidt is one of the best guitarists I have ever seen. I’m glad I had almost two weeks to recover from that night.

La Chinga with No Sinner, Three Wolf Moon and Harma White, April 19 at the Rickshaw Theatre

This was La Chinga’s album release show (and what an album it is). No Sinner drew the biggest crowd. Three Wolf Moon are always a pleasure to see/hear. I just saw enough of Harma White to realize I was foolish for missing most of their set.

Subrosa with Eight Bells, Astrakhan and Dungeons, April 20 at the Astoria

The two local openers played on the Astoria floor. The consistently impressive Astrakhan are really pushing themselves with their epic songs. They’re reminding me of a certain other local band who’ve broken internationally this year. Portland trio Eight Bells made superb use of effects to enhance their alternately blackened and cosmic compositions. Guitarist Melynda Jackson looked so anxious up there, like it was all going to collapse at any moment; I was rooting for them. Subrosa were unexpectedly brutal in a live setting. With twin violins squalling away and guitar/bass/drums pounding with full force, it was a bulldozer of sound. This gig had an enjoyable “no-goofs” vibe. Ted was there, too, and he took some incredible pictures.

Absu with Auroch, Terrifier, and Xul, April 24 at the Biltmore Cabaret

Wow, Absu actually played the Biltmore. I caught most of Xul’s set and thought they were solid. Terrifier’s speed/thrash attack really impressed me. The always-deadly Auroch were a quartet for this gig, with Shawn from Mitochondrion on bass. The floor filled up for Absu, thus I could barely see them. I eventually found one spot where I could see Proscriptor at work, headset mic and all. Quite the masterclass.

Device with The Twitch, April 26 at the Princeton Pub

Device drummer Kyle Harcott might humbly scoff at his band’s inclusion on this list, but I was really looking forward to this show. Device represent an alternate universe where my own weekend band learns to play its own songs properly, gets a singer, and plays gigs. Good on them for getting out there and doing it. Their original material is way cool meat-and-potatoes metal (or bacon-and-eggs metal, if you prefer Metal For Breakfast), free from trends and “extreme” bollocks. And they encored with “Snowblind” and “Wrathchild.” What more could I want? A raucous yet relaxing way to end an action-packed, sleep-deprived month.

Clutch w/ Removal at the Commodore Ballroom, February 5
Good bill, eh? Two monster bands with their own twists on the heavy rock. Removal brings their instrumental punkprog fistinyourface while Clutch has developed into a kind of Sabbath-meets-Coltrane outfit over the years. Before the show, Smash told me to check out this page, which has hard evidence that Clutch are our sort of people.

We ate at the venue, and I was working on a chicken burger when Removal came on and began slaying. Trying to chew while paying attention to Removal is no mean feat, I tell you. It was great to see them on the big stage in front of so many people, and they sounded huge. With samples and triggered instruments being such a big part of their sound, I wasn’t sure if those elements would come across, but they did. They even had the slide show going. When “We’re Removal from Vancouver, BC” appeared projected behind them, they got a big cheer. As Smash pointed out, as far as much of the crowd knew, Removal might as well have been from Milwaukee...or Mars. I’m sure they made a lot of new friends, including Clutch’s drummer, whom I saw bopping away by the side of the stage during “Frankenstein.” Removal!

It’s amazing how well Clutch do in Vancouver. It helps that they play here often. It’s a bit of the old “chicken-or-egg?” Do they play here so often because they have a lot of fans, or have they gained all these fans because they play here a lot? These followers are genuine know-every-word types, too. Looking at the crowd, I couldn’t see the usual clusters of tourists who turn up because the Rough Guide to Vancouver says the Commodore is the place to go on a Saturday night. No, it was a sea of diehards out on the floor.

Neil Fallon (well into the Beard Rock stage of his career) is the people’s poet and “Mob Goes Wild” is already an all-time hoser anthem, slotting its endearingly cranky bulk alongside “Tom Sawyer”, “Riff Raff,” and Max Webster’s “Hangover.” The set list seemed fairly standard, with all the hits from their classic self-titled album (“Spacegrass” was an obvious encore), plus a couple from Elephant Riders and a good chunk of last year's tremendous Blast Tyrant. Their lineup has expanded to include keyboards on this tour for that extra Heep/Purple vibe. The new guy added some nice shading at various points, but he could have been featured more prominently, especially when you consider that the keys had the potential to take the jamming into Govt Mule territory. Maybe next time.