Anekdoten—A Time of Day (Virta)
The latest Anekdoten album contains a golden moment in the form of a jarring musical event that almost made me fall off my chair the first time I heard it. This moment occurs during the album’s second track, “30 Pieces,” a jagged waltz that gets more and more intense, building up to a crazed unison passage before releasing, suddenly and gloriously, into…a flute solo. And not just a flute solo, but a flute solo introduced by an almighty whack from a vibra-slap. Two good things that go great together. I believe the band were trying to kill me with coolness.
A lot of fans still cling to Anekdoten’s earlier albums, where their King Crimson influences were more blatant, but over the course of five studio full-lengths they’ve refined that style to become very much their own thing, and that thing is still compelling to me. Their sound is anchored by Anna Sofi-Dahlberg’s vintage-sounding keyboards and the raspy, stealthy bass lines of Jan Erik Liljeström, both of them combining to infuse the songs with overarching melancholy. The songs themselves are pretty economical by prog standards. Never ones to solo at any length, Anekdoten prefer to steer verse/chorus structures towards mini-instrumentals before returning to a previously established part. It’s often these detours that produce the most thrilling, dark moments, such as the monolithic riff that erupts in the midst of “A Sky About to Rain” or the ethereal drone section that bisects “Prince of the Ocean.” Sometimes I think I should change the name of this blog, because music by bands like Anekdoten is such an effortless pleasure. Whatever further refinements they make to their material in the future, as long as they retain their solid songwriting and—most importantly—their sound, I’ll be listening.

I've never actually tried concocting recreational hallucinogens (those long DIY articles in Flipside involving morning glory seeds, acetone, and cold medicines always sounded to me like a surefire route to brain damage and/or third-degree burns) but I happened upon an effective recipe last Wednesday night.

1. Come home unexpectedly tired after having downed a couple pints at a book launch.
2. Lie on couch, close eyes, and drift in and out of consciousness while this album is playing:

Recent activity...









Missing: Sigur Ros, October 7 at the Chan Centre.

Just skimming through Mogwai's tour diary tonight:
"Ah Vancouver, there’s nothing quite as awe-inspiring and life affirming as stepping off the tour-bus and seeing 2 people emerging from a huge dustbin. We even had a special guard to look after the bus while we were away from it."


I did a twin set of interviews for my Ascend piece in the upcoming Unrestrained! magazine. I talked to Greg Anderson first, then followed up with Gentry Densley the next day. They're both fascinating chaps in their own ways: Anderson earnest and talkative; Densley laid back and thoughtful. Densley works as a prison librarian in Salt Lake City, which is one of the greatest day jobs I've ever heard of. Anderson, of course, runs Southern Lord Records and tours the world with SUNN O))).

One of the reasons I wanted to cover Ascend was the chance to talk with Anderson about Engine Kid, his band from 1991 to '95. Engine Kid toured and released a split LP with Iceburn, Densley's jazz/hardcore outfit from the same era, but the pair's roots go back even a few years before that.

Engine Kid were a misunderstood band at the time. I remember a review of their first single, which the writer declared a Slint rip-off before smashing the record to pieces. True, the band's approach on the "Astronaut" single and Bear Catching Fish album owed a lot to Slint and Rodan. I saw them once opening for Sebadoh at the Town Pump in 1993, and I'd never heard a band play so quietly during quiet parts. The stage microphones barely picked anything up. Then they'd stomp on their pedals and bend back your ears with the incredible volume.

They quickly outgrew the obvious influences and displayed an altogether heavier and deftly dynamic sound on their next LP, Angel Wings.

And that was about it, apart from the split album with Iceburn. So when I got Anderson on the phone I wanted to ask him about his impressions of the scene at the time, and why Engine Kid sounded the way they did.

Was that era actually a good time to start a band?

"Well it’s kind of funny. We were always kind of misfits in Seattle. We started the band in '91 and we lasted till about '95 during the whole explosion and boom of the grunge scene. I liked some of those groups—Nirvana, Soundgarden, Skin Yard—I thought those bands were great, but that’s not really musically what we wanted to do. We were a lot younger than a lot of those bands too.

"The irony of Seattle is that all those bands came out of a scene that was the 21-and-over bar scene. Seattle had these really messed-up, strict laws. If you were under 21, there were just no venues and it was impossible to have an all-ages venue too because the insurance costs were so high. So all the all-ages venues closed down in the city and you basically couldn’t go see music unless it was at a huge venue, like a 2000 or 3000 seater. So as all these bands were really happening and this community was happening, we were too young to go to those shows. And by the time we were 21, and those bands had exploded and they were playing in front of thousands and thousands of people, you could go to their shows anyways! They were all ages. But at the time it was like we were more involved in the hardcore community and our tastes were diverse. We were into bands like the Melvins and stuff like that, but we really couldn’t go see them play. So we really missed out on the blossoming and the exciting time of that happening. The only band I really got to see in a small club setting back then was Nirvana, but other than that, we weren’t really a part of that. So I think Engine Kid’s sound stems from being outcasts and trying to do our own thing, even though we were taking cues from what was happening in Louisville, Kentucky with Slint and Rodan and Bastro. We weren’t trying to mimic the Stooges and Led Zeppelin. Our heads were elsewhere and our energy was elsewhere too. Engine Kid was more aggressive in some ways and eventually we splintered off into more of a metallic sound, and that was because we were just young, energetic and had a lot of aggression in what we were doing."

That isolation had some artistic benefits then…

"Yeah, again it's completely ironic because to me the whole concept of the grunge scene and all those bands coming up was based on isolation as well. It was hard to get to Seattle if you were a touring band, so we didn’t get a lot of the really cool touring bands from Los Angeles or from Chicago or from New York coming out our way because they’d basically get past San Francisco and it was kind of a dead hole. It’s a long drive to Portland, and it’s a longer drive to Seattle. So to me that was the thing with grunge, it’s like we’re going to do our own thing and we’re going to do our own bands, and that’s how they started. And ironically it trickled down also in theory to what Engine Kid was, where we just felt isolated from that as well. So it was like double isolation!"

“Global Metal is more of a documentary in the true sense of the word,” says Sam Dunn, “because it’s about more than just music; it’s about culture and about youth and about globalization. These are buzzwords that even the CBC loves.”

I interviewed Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen for Unrestrained! last May, when they were in town promoting their latest documentary, Global Metal. Their visit coincided with the Rush and Iron Maiden gigs here—Dunn and McFadyen went to both shows, as they're shooting separate films about each. At the Maiden show, Dunn was actually on stage during "Heaven Can Wait," singing backup with a gang of contest winners. Lucky bugger.

It was a great kick to meet the two of them, and here are some outtakes from our interview, which took place at one of them Starbucks. (Dunn, by the way, was very impressed by the Mule Mobile, which has been my mainstay portable recorder for 25 years.)

Metallica's "Fight Fire With Fire" was a perfect choice for a theme song, seeing as kids around the world seem to have latched onto metal in response to societal or governmental oppression. How did you come to choose it, and when?

Dunn: I guess we ended A Headbanger's Journey with Metallica at Wacken, and we just kind of picked it up where we left off. "Fight Fire With Fire" is a great Metallica song. It set a template for extreme metal that continues to this day. It’s one of the first and one of the most well known that started with the acoustic guitar intro and then blasts you into this thrash metal song. And that’s something that bands are still doing to this day. So there’s somehing historically in there, but it’s mostly just picking up where we left off.

So it was more of a musical choice than a thematic choice.

Dunn: I guess. We met Lars and obviously we talked to him in Global Metal this time around. They really liked A Headbanger's Journey even though they couldn’t be in the film because they’d just finished Some Kind of Monster and were pretty burned out with cameras. He liked it enough to allow us to use "Master of Puppets" in the first one, so…

McFadyen: He was pretty awesome on this one. He found that Indonesian footage for us and sent it to us and he was like, “Don’t ever make a doc without us again.”

Dunn: I think Lars has learned that Metallica is big, but it’s not as big as the Internet. He can’t really stop it. I guess my perception of it... I mean, he’s got a bad rap because of his stance on Napster, but at the same time I think it was admirable that he was able to acknowledge [in the new movie] that this is something that is here to stay and it’s obviously something that is getting metal music to people around the world. I’m sure he would be shocked to discover that there were Saudi Arabian Metallica fans, right? I think he’s come around, which is a sign of wisdom.

Apart from your entry into China, lugging armfuls of professional film equipment through customs while on tourist visas, what were some of your hairier travel moments or experiences while traveling?

McFadyen: Our whole philosophy was that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. That was the whole way we went through this. They told us not to film in Tiananmen Square. That was a big thing. And we went in there with our little 16 mm camera, just walked in and filmed the Square. 15 guards came over eventually and put their hand on the camera and we were like, "Sorry." So that’s the way we try to go through things. It’ll catch up to us one day, maybe.

Dunn: We get asked a lot, "Was it difficult getting into all these countries, and were you intimidated or scared going to all of these countries?" We actually discovered that things were safer and more open than the way we had perceived it to be. Unfortunately we didn’t get into Iran. We wanted to get into Iran because the metal scene there is pretty interesting, but we couldn’t. We went to the Desert Rock Festival [in Dubai] instead, but apart from thtat, our experience was that we were really embraced by the metal scenes and generally it was a lot safer than we expected.

We don’t look like your average TV crew or like we’re with CNN. We liked our footprint to be small. I think that’s sort of what we like about making these documentaries is that you can be mobile and try and capture something that’s a little more human, a little more ground level than what youget through CNN or major news sources.

About the segment at Blackmore’s, the Deep Purple-themed bar in Japan, where drunken businessmen screech "Highway Star" at the top of their lungs—was that a typical night there?

McFadyen: That was the second time we had been there. We went when we were doing promo for the first film—just to drink. And we were like, "This is crazy." Because the bartender looks exactly like Ritchie Blackmore. We went back and there was a few more people there. I think they’d gotten wind that we were coming and as soon as we walked in, there was a cheer.

Dunn: Something we wanted to show there is that there’s a well-known phenomenon of the salary man in japan. It’s a slang term that is for the typical hard-working Japanese businessman, and the culture there is very much that you work, work, work, work, and when you leave work you drink with your workmates. That’s where you socialize, because the work environment in Japan is very work focused. The way you actually bond with your workmates is in that environment. So we just thought it was so funny to find these guys in, of all places, a Deep Purple-dedicated bar rocking out to "Highway Star." It was just something that people had to see, because we couldn’t believe we were seeing it.

McFadyen: There’s a few moments when you're filming where you think, “This is going in the film.” That was one of them.

As Canada’s metal ambassadors, in a sense, did you hear any interesting perceptions about Canada from people you met? Who’s the best-known Canadian band?

Dunn: Well, everywhere we go and we tell people we’re Canadian, they either mention Rush or Voivod. Those are usually the first two bands that come out of people’s mouths. I think Canada has kind of come into the fore because we are so close to the United States and yet we’re recognized as being quite different...especially post 9/11. I think that as Canadians, because of the society we’ve grown up in, we’re able to look at what’s going on around the world with pretty open eyes and have a certain balanced perspective on it that maybe other countries can’t.

McFadyen: We have a pretty healthy cultural perspective as Canadians. I think that comes across in this film. It’s kind of a positive message when you think about it. All these people were pretty amazing around the world.

Dunn: Another element to this is that if we were to do Global Metal 2, Quebec would be a good candidate because it’s recognized as a home of top-quality death metal music, has been since the days of Gorguts and Obliveon and all those old bands. It has its own unique scene. And it’s interesting—the Catholic, French-speaking, much more European section of Canada became the home for metal in this country. Next to Bergen, Norway, there's more metalheads per capita in Quebec City than anywhere else.

Generals gathered in their masses,
Just like witches with pint glasses...

I just thought, "Oh, bugger this. I want to listen to a bit of Rush."

Believe it or not, this clip from Saxondale gets better from there.

I think I've mentioned Banzai Records a few times on this blog. Banzai played a HUGE role in disseminating underground metal in Canada during the '80s. It licensed the cream of American, British and European independent metal labels—Neat, Megaforce, Metal Blade, and Noise in particular—and, through the distribution might of Polygram, put them in every damn record shop across Canada. Sure, their product could be "budget" and stingy on the packaging, but the fact that they got the music out there was the most important thing.

I still remember the excitement of seeing albums by bands I'd only read about in Kerrang! up on the wall at A&B Sound...and for $5.99, too! Kill 'Em All was the first LP I sprang for, little knowing that that album was the lit fuse on a scene that would quickly explode. Over 20 years later, I'm still listening to the dust and debris settle.

A few years ago, Adrien Begrand of Decibel & Popmatters captured that era much more skillfully than I can here. While I consider his piece the definitive Banzai retrospective, I'm always thrilled to find anyone else reminiscing about the label in print.

So it is in the latest issue of Decibel, where pro wrestler and Fozzy frontman Chris Jericho talks about being a metal fan in Winnipeg in the mid-'80s, and manages to neatly sum up the egalitarian nature of the new metal in the process:

"There was this label Banzai Records in Canada—it was the imprint for Metal Blade and Megaforce. Anything that was on Metal Blade or Megaforce in the States was on Banzai in Canada. We bought everything on that label... I remember buying Kill 'Em All because it was on Banzai and because the guys in the photo on the back had more zits than I did. I thought if those guys could be in a band and make it, then so could I."

Simian Special—The Cougar Stands Its Ground (SN Ratio)
Max (Sim Special) Arnason is a huge talent on the local scene, whether as part of the legendary Roadbed in their final days, teaming up with Super Robertson for a marvelous one-off album, or designing gig posters and CD packaging (he did stuff for my favourite Norse troll Mortiis, for Odin’s sake). The guy’s voice can transition effortlessly between a Martin Tielli-esque earnestness and David Lee Roth's partay yelp. Get him behind the drum kit, and he’s a similarly commanding presence. To see him take the stage at the Supper Show is always a treat. Simian Special is his own baby, a quartet with tight songs rooted in guitars from the 4AD school of texture—imagine a more gregarious Cure or a Rheostatics who’ve shucked off the burden of forging our national identity. The arrangements are detailed and precisely rendered, very much like Sim’s own visual designs. The drums snap, the harmonies soar, the guitars chime, synths snake in the background—something’s always going on. For me, the experience of listening to the album was a process of absorbing the minutiae over the course of a few airings, and after that the songs and hooks emerged in all their glory. There are an awful lot of 3 1/2 minute songs to take in—16 in all—so there’s a risk that some will be lost in the clutter. Nevertheless, there are a number of tunes I wouldn’t want to live without, like the hard charging “Frank Slide” (joining my own "Hope Slide" in the canon of songs named after western Canadian natural disasters) and “Solid Hole.” The high point of the album for me, though, is “Beloved Jane,” which gracefully unfurls a single chord progression, drapes a compelling vocal and ethereal guitar overtop and results in something majestic—their very own “Plainsong,” if you will. Graceful and unpretentious, it’s beautiful work.

I nearly had an aneurysm when I spied this ad on the back page of Exclaim! Here we see Noah and the other creepy Rogers Wireless kids eagerly having their phones scanned to gain admission to a hot Live Nation concert featuring Simple Plan. Fortunately, it's an exaggeration. Our favourite communication conglomerates are not actually offering virtual tickets via cell phone...yet.

Still, this ad gleefully condones flaunting your phone at rock concerts, and that to me is a bad thing. Many people agree, and you can read about it here. Roger Waters—surprise—finds them irritating. I hope the tide turns soon, and at some future gig, we'll see Noah and his friends taking out their phones for the doorman, who will confiscate the devices and feed them into a crusher.

Capillary Action—So Embarrassing (Pangaea Recordings)
Capillary Action picked an apt name. The band dips into and draws from many musical pools, with each rivulet terminating in a thick vein flowing with smooth pop, hardcore, jazz, and general prog goodness. If aliens flew over Nanaimo, beamed an unwary Elvis Costello into their craft and forced him to mind-meld with the Dillinger Escape Plan and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, old Declan’s subsequent compositions might sound like something off So Embarrassing. The album is packed with brief songs that flirt with catchiness but inevitably fly off in all directions. Bandleader Jonathan Pfeffer’s songwriting philosophy is apparently “Get in, get out, and leave them with their heads spinning.” There will be no casual background listening once this album goes on. The amount of activity and detail in each song demands your full attention. The arrangements and production are both top-notch—the soothing pop moments are downright orchestral, while the production (engineered by aural punisher Colin Marston of Behold the Arctopus and Orthrelm) renders the loud/quiet contrasts with neck-snapping precision. Pfeffer’s lyrics, a minimal poetry of extreme anxiety, seem to direct the ever-shifting music that underpins them. Skimming the lyric sheet reveals much to fret over: “The secret exit that leads to an intricate trap.” “I think I heard a sound. There’s someone in side the house.” “I still sleep with gritted teeth.” “Deep-seated in a cement-filled gut.” Yes, the neuroses are tumbling out with the same manic drive as the music, and we’re all the better for it. Some lyrics are concerned with music itself, a topic that, when handled with style and skill (as it is here), is the best subject matter of all. So few artists can do it without being cheesy. “Self-Released” explores the parallels between two types of committed relationships: musicians/record labels and men/women. And in “Pocket Protection is Essential,” the author wants the song’s unnamed subject to “Pummel that fucking noise into my head. Make it burn, make it throb. I need a fix—where is it?” For me, it's right here on this album.

As luck would have it, Capillary Action play the Railway Club this Sunday, June 15. Lord knows how they pull off this kind of mayhem on stage, but it should be a visceral thrill anyway.

Progressive Nation Tour with Dream Theater, Opeth, Between the Buried and Me and Three, May 6, Orpheum Theatre
The unstoppable caravan of overachieving musos known as the Progressive Nation Tour rolled into my increasingly prog-friendly city a couple weeks ago. Being a proud citizen of that great nation (my dual passport is up for renewal, but I didn’t find any application forms at the merch tables) I ambled into the palatial confines of the Orpheum to pay tribute to the prog godz old and new.

Three started the night with a well-received half-hour set. Their sound was a little too polite and smooth for my tastes, but they didn’t lack for showmanship. Their two drummers—a chrome-domed standup dude with timbales and assorted percussion, as well as keyboards, and a rocker kid behind the drum kit—contributed much to the action, and the guitarist/frontman got himself a standing O with his acoustic interlude at the end of their set.

After that, I was a bit concerned about how Between the Buried and Me would go over with this crowd— an “all ages” gathering to be sure. Kids from 6 to 60, as Milton-Bradley might say. While I’m sure their epic death/prog metal + Queen approach was a bitter pill for some, the band did their best to whip the crowd up, and I think it worked. The audience certainly gave them a fair listen and responded well to BTBAM’s abrupt shifts and diversions. The band sounded great on the two (2!) songs from Colors they had time for; it’s a shame they couldn’t add a song or two from Alaska or The Silent Circus.

Swedish titans Opeth sounded almost minimalist by contrast, providing a refreshingly grounded performance compared to what came before and after them. With only 45 minutes at their disposal, this was an efficient set—a new song (“Heir Apparent”), a few heavy epics (“The Baying of the Hounds,” “Wreath,” “Master’s Apprentices”), a ballad (“In My Time of Need”) and a “hit” (“The Drapery Falls”). Not a comprehensive stroll through their catalogue, but enjoyable nevertheless. Their merch woman said they’d be back in September to headline, so once I’m through counting the days till Watershed comes out, I’ll start the countdown to September.

Dream Theater had the lot—projections, elaborate lighting, cameras to catch every fleet-fingered flurry of notes and ace display of stickmanship (James Labrie thankfully lacked a vocal-cord cam) and a nifty street-scene stage set. What they didn’t have was enough good songs to sustain my interest. I enjoyed them a little more than I thought I would. I expected half the set to be solo spots, which was not the case. We ducked out prior to the encore to hang out at the BTBAM merch table, only to have their bassist Dan persuade us to go back in for the closing medley, which to my pal Smash’s disgust, lacked anything from When Dream and Day Unite.

Despite the airing of a few complaints on the ride home, it was a fun evening of music, and I hope the Progressive Nation can unite again with a few more adventurous bands in tow. How’s about Behold… the Arctopus, Guapo, Kayo Dot, Upsilon Acrux, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Thinking Plague, Titan, Present, Time of Orchids, Ahleuchatistas… ? Like I said, I’m a citizen—I’m entitled to my vote.

I love our OM poster. I'm afraid my picture does it scant justice. David V. D'Andrea has done some stunning work, including album covers for Witchcraft, Ulver (the LP version of Shadows of the Sun) and Asunder.

I finally hung it properly today, in a spot where it presides over the record collection. In the fine print it lists the final date of the tour in Seattle, and once again I'm kicking myself for not going down for the show, especially because drummer Chris Hakius left the band shortly after this tour. It would have been great to see OM in their original lineup. Still, I'm looking forward to hearing how the new duo of Al Cisneros and Emil Amos sounds.

The Railway Club isn't the most relaxing place to be on a Saturday night, but I toughed it out last weekend in order to catch some hard-rocking bands. I went solo, but ran into some of the usual suspects at the club—the alliterative quartet of SR Jones, Sim, Snappy, and Shockk.

Victoria's Crown the Wolf were on first, with a set of solid songs in the Kyuss vein. Hey, who wouldn't want to sound like Kyuss? The singer/guitarist had a great voice for this style. Nice job!





Black Betty is a band I've wanted to see for ages; ever since I came across them at stonerrock.com and checked out their tunes at MySpace. Jonas and Ana's pummelling set—mixing the weighty riffs of Sabbath with the good times vibe of, say, Grand Funk—didn't disappoint at all.






The only letdown was that there was no merch to be found; I need their album. I don't do enough local bands for Unrestrained! (Antiquus and SYL/Devin Townsend have been the only Vancouver-area acts I've covered, I think), so I have to get in touch with them at some point.



Mongoose were on next (Sprëad Eagle headlined the night, but I had to hit the Skytrain before they went on). These guys have logged a million kilometres in the van since I last saw them, and their music's progressed way beyond the catchy punk bursts found on White Plastic Deer. Although they've gotten a lot more "rock & roll" and added a lot more diversions and complexity to their material, they still exude an all-ages basement show energy that's a joy to witness. This lineup—stalwarts Shockk, RC, Johnny, and new drummer Radar—is their strongest yet, and I hope they get a chance to record a followup album really soon.

Guapo—Elixirs (Neurot)
Elixirs has some unexpected twists and tangents. The British outfit’s previous two albums, Five Suns (Cuneiform) and Black Oni (Ipecac), which formed the first two chapters of a trilogy (a notion that the band likes to downplay because of its obvious prog-cliché nature), were steeped in aggressive complexity in the tradition of King Crimson and Magma and full of eerie, muscular music. Elixirs eases off to an extent that’s immediately apparent, and incorporates a lot more guitar work, vocals, and varied percussion. Overall, though, they haven’t changed their style all that much; they’ve just tweaked some of the dynamics and shading. A track like the opener “Jeweled Turtle” shows a lot of restraint over its nine minutes of simmering menace. Compared to Five Suns, where every lull led to an explosion, this piece refuses to pander to that expectation. “Arthur, Elsie and Frances” returns to the jagged rhythms and dynamics that abounded on earlier albums, but with a little less aggression than before. “King Lindorm,” the closing epic track, contains some of the most exciting passages on the album, with a compellingly slow buildup over a repetitive but complex piano figure and a satisfyingly weighty release at its climax. A pair of very interesting tracks occupy the middle of the album. “The Heliotrope” and “The Selenotrope” were previously released (as instrumentals) as the Twisted Stems EP and are a kind of yin/yang pairing, one with male vocals (by Alexander Tucker), one with female vocals (from Jarboe, who’s keeping pretty busy these days); one in a minor key, one in a major key. Both are very much in the vein of recent Ulver or old Brian Eno—sparse late-night ballads in no hurry to get anywhere. Elixirs doesn’t end the trilogy with a bang, but not quite a whimper either. If you’re already a fan, you won’t mind at all.

I’m not really into April Fool’s Day, and jokes where you’re made to feel gullible are the most terrible thing on earth to me. I remember Terrorizer magazine’s prank from about 10 years ago when they awarded Album of the Month to a black metal band called Arktyk, unknowns from Alaska who’d just signed with Relapse. The album’s description, something like extreme black metal mixed with Pink Floyd parts, sounded right up my alley—and, alas, they were entirely fictional. For about two hours I was all set to order their album before I realized I’d been reading the April issue. I was crushed. At least these days I can listen to Deathspell Omega, who basically fulfill all my progressive black metal requirements.

I did go out and have a hell of a time on Tuesday anyway. After work I headed to the Railway Club for Jen Currin’s book launch. Her latest collection is Hagiography, and my first impression is that it’s her most accessible work yet. Her poetry can be a little tricky and elusive (for want of a much better word), but I like it because every line is a surprise. When Jen reads, she reveals the amount of care and humour she puts into her work, and it becomes even more impressive. At times during her set I’d get derailed by a particularly brilliant line, like “He’s old enough to be her mother” and have to force myself to quit pondering it and rejoin the poem already in progress. The first poet of the evening, Bill Stobbs from Wisconsin, went over really well too. It’s a shame he sold out of books (he only had four copies on hand) so quickly.

From the Railway I went straight to La Casa Del Artista on Main Street for Stitching and Unstitching, a monthly jazz/improv event that Jeff Younger helps to put on. I don’t think I’ve mentioned Jeff Younger here before, which is a damn shame. He’s a sick guitarist with a twisted mind. Jeezly talented. You’re never quite sure what’s burbling beneath his gleaming pate, but you know it’ll inevitably express itself in some really cool musical way. He’s also a top man, and fighting the good fight in this here town. Last Tuesday’s Stitching and Unstitching featured Jeff doing his Devil Loops project and The Sukha Trio. Devil Loops saw Jeff, his guitar, and various digital confabulators and doohickeys work through a few different pieces that flowed really well, from mellow to skronktastic and back to mellow, building up layers (i.e. these newfangled “loops” alluded to in the project's name) with delay and stripping them down again. Despite what Jeff said between songs, none of it sounded like Santana.

The Sukha Trio consisted of Jared Burrows (guitar), Stan Taylor (drums) and Colin MacDonald (saxophone) and Daniel Hella (flute), Hella also threw in occasional toy accordion, bells, vocals, a noisemaker thing that looked like a Big Gulp cup with a wire hanging out of it. They set themselves up two-by-two on the floor in front of the stage, facing each other across the floor with a video projector between them. The projections showed blurred/abstracted footage of birds and planes, kids playing in water, and pots boiling. I’m a sucker for live music and visuals (slides or video), and The Sukha Trio’s presentation worked out nicely. Sometimes the video segments would finish before the music did, but with their loose-seeming arrangements I can’t say they were really intending to time everything to the exact second. My only real quibble would be they went a little long (I was tired, I admit, full of poetry and beer), but I’d definitely like to see them again, especially if they work up a new set. I feel pretty lucky that La Casa is right down the street from me. I’ve seen some cool things there recently, including a triple bill of punk rock (including moviecore monsters Graf Orlock) where I was undoubtedly the oldest dude in the room.

Woods of Ypres—Woods III: Deepest Roots and Darkest Blues (Krankenhaus)
Inspiring, uplifting and positive aren’t the usual adjectives you’d associate with a ragingly superb black metal album. So let’s say the third Woods of Ypres release is also dark, fierce, and uncompromising. The Toronto trio have reworked black metal conventions—especially in terms of lyrical subject matter—to create a style that’s very individual and not a little brave given its plain-spoken openness and shunning of anti-Christian, pro-pagan themes. Musically, despite guitarist/vocalist/drummer David Gold’s self-declared status as a “black metal being,” I wouldn’t even say this is pure BM. WoY instead offer a hybrid of black and doom and the dark melodic Scandinavian sound of Amorphis and Katatonia, over which Gold alternates clear/harsh vocals as the music shifts pace and mood. It’s a bruising combination—don’t expect watered-down ear candy for goth kids—that allows for healthy variety in songwriting approaches and a satisfying flow of material across this lengthy album. Gold’s view of the world is a mite vengeful and intrinsically Canadian (more on that later), yet he exists in a moral universe where hard work and self-belief are rewarded, and the weak-willed are cast aside. He’s got a lot get off his chest—the four years since their last album, the similarly lengthy Pursuit of the Sun and Allure of the Earth, must have seen some mighty struggles—and delivers years worth of spite in his copious lyrics. When he roars “Suffer!” on the crushing “Iron Grudge” it’s not directed at the Lord or his followers; he’s castigating some weak soul who obviously screwed the band over—perhaps an ex-bandmate who showed up late for practice one day. I personally find that the most affecting tracks are the mid-paced ones. “December in Windsor,” for example, has a memorable tune and acoustic guitars that ring out in stirring fashion. Looming majestically over everything, however, is “Your Ontario Town is a Burial Ground,” a melodically infectious yet vicious potshot at small-town apathy that I’d like to declare our metal National Anthem for 2008. As for my “intrinsically Canadian” claim, the penultimate track “To Lock Eyes With a Wild Beast” explores our uneasy relationship with nature—as Canadians, we’re surrounded by it, celebrate it, brag about it, but we ultimately fear it. We build suburbs ever higher up the mountains, then shoot the bears who wander down to sniff the household garbage. Gold’s Beast isn’t the one from the Revelations; it’s the one lurking just beyond the trees. As the song’s pathetic protagonist is chased down and eaten alive, Gold scolds, “You wanted nature? Nature wanted you as well.” I know I’ll have some pepper spray at the ready next time I go for a hike. Woods of Ypres continue to provide a powerfully original and articulate voice in a genre where so much clamour and misdirected menace often amounts to nothing. Woods III is a triumphant conclusion to their first trilogy of releases.

Here's a lazy ol' YouTube post to ease back into this. Black Mountain did the business on Conan's show the other night...


Before the sweater and the beard, Steve McBean used to play in Victoria's Mission of Christ, a great metal band who mixed DRI, Slayer, and Celtic Frost into a caustic melange of deathly goodness. I regret I never got to see them; I didn't have any thrash metal buddies in the late '80s.

Oh, the humanity! (via Metafilter again).

Check out this thread on Italian prog at Metafilter. You know you want to. The beards, the bombast—fantastico! If the Banco link doesn't frighten you, nothing will.

I spotted this at the entrance to the Hard Rock Cafe in Niagara Falls. Alas, I didn't heed Keith, Greg and Carl's call—we checked out the Casino slots instead and lost it all. A Lucky Man I wasn't.

Some bad pictures taken from inside a moving vehicle.

Niagara Falls is extremely classy, with many amenities for the discerning gentleman.


One of the last vestiges of the Guccione empire? Needless to say, next time I'll stop in for a Caligula Calzone or maybe a Corinne Alphenburger.


I don't even want to imagine the kind of sick stuff that goes on in here.

Planets—s/t (Distile)
The avalanche of quality math rock continues. I’ve never encountered an incompetent math rock band—some have clearly mastered more advanced math than others, but none have out-and-out sucked. Maybe all the potentially lame bands realize they won’t cut the mustard before they commit their naïve arithmetic to tape and embarrass themselves. Releases like this can provoke that kind of harsh self-contemplation. Planets are a number-crunching duo from Napa, California. Paul Slack handles bass, while Thomas Crawford covers “not bass,” which must equate to at least drums and guitar, based on what I hear here. I’d be interested to find out how the two of them wrote and recorded this stuff because the guitar is tightly interwoven with the rhythm section. If it was overdubbed onto bass/drum jams, it’s impressively executed. Most of the songs are the kind of skittering riff farms to which any fan of Dysrhythmia, Upsilon Acrux or Ahleuchatistas would be attuned. If I can pick out any distinguishing attribute amidst their undeniably excellent musical execution, it’s their commitment to rocking out. They’re not afraid to linger on a particularly blistering riff for a few seconds, or ride a groove for a couple minutes (as on “Return of a Dead Man”). The sound is suitably chunky as well. Rest assured, Planets will scramble your synapses (12 varied, intense tracks over 25 minutes will do that), but on a number like “Exercise!” they show they can write a tune you have a hope of recognizing on your second or third listen. The disc comes sewn inside a cloth pouch, so have scissors and a clean pant leg (to wipe the lint off the playing surface) handy if you get yourself a copy. The music’s well worth the extra prep.

OM—Pilgrimage (Southern Lord)
OM are one of those high-concept bands that proliferate nowadays. The duo—Al Cisernos and Chris Hakius (ex-Sleep)—plays stripped-down low frequency vision-quest music, with bass and drums leaning heavily on each other during longform spiritual journeys towards a kind of ambient-metal Xanadu where pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath commingle in a space/doom void. All in all, it's quite a contrast to former bandmate Matt Pike’s maximum rock and roll approach in the equally righteous High On Fire. OM's compelling power-through-minimalism approach also stands in opposition to more assaultive duos like Ruins, Hella, or Lightning Bolt. Judging by this and their previous full-length, Conference of the Birds, OM releases straddle a format between album and EP. Pilgimage lasts about half an hour, so OM are either careful composers or ruthless editors...probably both. Each of the four tracks serves a purpose and resides comfortably in the running order. We’ll not hear any complaints about “value for money” because such materialistic concerns have no place in OM’s realm. This particular saucerful of secrets opens with the title track (also reprised in shortened form to close the album), a hushed affair, with delicately plucked bass and muffled tom work, sounding like Waters and Mason jamming circa 1969. Cicernos’s whispered vocals work a stream of consciousness vibe ("Witness from mind and psychic sheath a guardian sun restrains the world projection") as do the riffs, which have an idiosyncratic internal logic that encourages acceptance instead of analysis. “Pilgrimage” fades to make way for the distorted churn of “Unitive Knowledge of the Godhead.” This startling transition, bridged by a mellow passage that plays with a few notes from the previous track, is my favourite moment on the album. Having delivered a quiet one and a loud one, “Bhimas’ Theme” mixes the two dynamics, making for perhaps the most approachable, deliberately structured piece on Pilgrimage. While nothing on the album quite matches the superb and memorable “At Giza” from Conference of the Birds, the overall flow and variety of the tracks shows some significant progression, making OM’s third major release a satisfying listening experience. Pilgrimage is a testament to their staunch focus. If they keep widening their field of vision, OM should be able to keep at this for years to come.

Cortez the Killer—s/t EP (self-released)
Here’s more proof that the Vancouver music scene has entered a golden era. Though they take their name from Neil Young’s slow-burning epic, Cortez the Killer’s own music is a turbulent headrush more akin to Botch, The Refused, or forefathers Fugazi and Squirrel Bait. This fiery quintet shares a member with A Ghost to Kill Again, whose debut album knocked me on my ass earlier this year. The two bands also share a fanaticism for unpredictable action rock, although Cortez favour a harder punk rock edge compared to AGTKA’s shameless prog tendencies. Where AGTKA are sweeping and emotional, Cortez are taut and pissed off on this five-song EP. Each track writhes with rapid-fire lyrics—cryptic yet clearly imaginative political tirades whose stream-of-consciousness presentation in the booklet perfectly reflects their delivery. “Cocktails Mixed by Molotov” reimagines WWII’s Eastern Front as a hockey game while “East Vancouver Heart Attack” laments those being swept aside in the name of civic development (featuring the genius line “we all desire change but have none to spare”). Musically, flurries of hepped-up Iron Maiden licks and double bass (drummer Benjie Nesdoly turns in a heroic performance) pepper the spasmodic song structures—structures that still leave room for hooks in the form of gang-shout choruses and other vocal lines that get catchier with every listen. The songs seethe with debut-release excitement, and once Cortez the Killer catch their breath and hit the studio again it’ll be interesting to hear them stretch out across a full-length release.

The Benzene Ring—Breathing Water in a Dream (Vortex Gang Records)
New York’s The Benzene Ring are easy to enjoy yet difficult to describe. The band appears comfortable with the “indie rock meets prog” tag, so, even if it doesn’t do them sufficient justice, let us go with that. (Aside: I often find that bands are their own worst enemies when they label themselves—there’s a local band that describes themselves as “alt-country with a hip-hop backbone,” a phrase that nearly sends me screaming and flailing into oncoming traffic whenever I see it tacked up on a poster in my neighbourhood.) The Benzene Ring have their own musical hybrid figured out, integrating all elements seamlessly enough that you barely notice transitions between fresh-faced poppiness, sinister ‘n’ sinuous Steve Hackett guitar lines and Tool-worthy heavy sections. Hometown boys Bend Sinister are operating in similar territory, I think, albeit with a different set of styles and influences. The overall approach is guitar-based and economical, refreshingly free of the musical bloat that affects too many bands these days. The murky CD cover offers no clues to the wonders within—I thought the colorful, detailed painting on the back of the booklet would have done a better job of conveying the music's sensibility. There might be a concept underpinning the album, but I‘ve become so clueless in my old age that unless the booklet is
emblazoned with “Welcome to our heavy concept album,” I’m oblivious. Who has time to figure it all out? Songwise, The Benzene Ring have a flair for the mini-epic, such as on the 7-minute opening track, “You and Me in the Absence of Predators” which travels from a sprightly catchy opening to a noisy guitar duel to a placid, watery section before reprising the introduction, producing a nice déjà vu effect. The second track, “An Old Man Dies and Finds Himself in Hell” is equally strong, a rapid-fire REM-to-Genesis-to-points-beyond structure, with a nice use of the devil’s interval during the song’s latter third. The vocals are particularly good throughout, as they manage to work in some strong melodies no matter how eccentric the instrumental backing. The album then fragments into abstract pieces and semi-songs—the sort of thing that got me thinking “concept album”—deep-space whooshing and hissing or Eno-esque ambient diversions. Of the semi-songs “The Magical Road” is a favourite of mine—just a single lyrical mantra chanted against a driving guitar riff, a quick guitar-solo release, then back to the chant, which builds and builds to the end; all done in just over two minutes. The album finale, “Pretend I’m Not Here,” has kind of a Canterbury feel (with Leslie speaker vocal effects straight offa Camel's Moonmadness), for a time at least. If they added a slightly harder edge to their sound, this band would be perfect for an adventurous label like The End. These songs, each a humble triumph of imagination, go to some interesting places, and I’d be pleased to see the Benzene Ring go places in the next few years as well.

I was at Progressive Ears this morning, reading an unspectacular thread on power trios, when someone threw up a link to November, a Swedish trio who released three albums between 1969 and 1972. Holy crap—these guys were right up there with Night Sun in terms of obscure early '70s heaviness, and definitely on par with more famous acts like Captain Beyond and Budgie. I can hear a lot of their sound in Witchcraft as well (speaking of whom, I've been waiting for a review copy of their new album The Alchemist for a while. I'll probably just buy it, because hey, new Witchcraft!).

Here are the Top 100 Canadian Albums, as voted by our nation's critics and documented in Bob Mersereau's new book. No list is perfect, and lengthy lists drawn up by critics are especially suspect, but this one avoids total blandness with some worthy and surprising choices. Here are some notes on the ones that I own.

1. Harvest, Neil Young (1972)
Strange that this would prevail on a critics' list, even if it is his most popular album. I thought the rock-crit junta preferred scragglier Young albums, like Tonight's the Night. As Sam Inglis writes in his book on Harvest (part of the 33 1/3 series), "...it would be fair to say that Harvest was a hit despite the press, rather than because of them; and it's not only rock critics who have expressed distaste for Young's most successful album. Ask serious Neil Young fans to name their favourite album of his and you'll hear votes for any one of ten or so, but Harvest is unlikely to be among them. If you love Young for the searing rock 'n' roll of Rust Never Sleeps or the raw emotion of Tonight's the Night, Harvest is too safe, too bland, too popular."

I think Harvest is a fantastic album, and a very worthy #1.

2. Blue, Joni Mitchell (1970)
Truth is, I bought this used from Neptoon's bargain bin because I wanted the original version of "This Flight Tonight." It gets a fair bit of early morning play here.

3. After the Gold Rush, Neil Young (1970)
After Harvest, this is probably Young's most hit-filled album. It's hard to beat that initial stretch of songs on side one.

9. Moving Pictures, Rush (1981)
Again, what a killer first side! An easy selection for the top Rush album here; Moving Pictures had a huge impact on a generation of basement-bar and backs-of-car dwellers across the country (sorry, I'm referencing the wrong album there). "Tom Sawyer" is pure jean-jacket poetry, while I'll always have time for "The Camera Eye"'s 10 minutes of elegance on side two.

16. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Neil Young with Crazy Horse (1969)
"Cinnamon Girl," "Down by the River," and "Cowgirl in the Sand" probably use up over half the running time on this album, the first Neil Young release to showcase the shambling, jamming side of his musical personality.

17. 2112, Rush (1976)
The album that pulled them out of the dumper...jeez, it's all about side one again. It always bugs me when it's called a concept album, or even when "2112" is called a side-long epic. No, it's seven little songs that tell a story that can only be properly discerned when you read the 'tween-song "narration" between the lyrics in the gatefold. Duh, you guys.

19. Whale Music, Rheostatics (1992)
I'd place Melville first in the Rheostatics discography myself (see more below). Whale Music has "Self Serve Gas Station," though, which is a whole movie's worth of depressing, soul-destroying, suicidal drama in five minutes.

22. Rust Never Sleeps, Neil Young & Crazy Horse (1979)
This album is badass, though I don't think it has the depth of the previous NY albums on this list. I do think "Powderfinger" is one of his best-ever songs, and I have a soft spot for "Welfare Mothers."

30. Tonight's the Night, Neil Young (1975)
I got this after reading all the critical hoopla in one of those special Rolling Stone issues ("Best 8 Million Albums of the Mid-70s" or something), but I've never really gotten into it.

31. Decade, Neil Young (1977)
A greatest hits package makes the list? I have this, and I like to open the triple gatefold up and look at it. I rarely put it on.

38. Melville, Rheostatics (1991)
This is my favourite Rheostatics album. They were ON for this one, just brimming over with piss 'n' vinegar. "Record Body Count," "Aliens (Christmas 1988)," and "Horses" can reduce me to bubbling goo. Capped off with "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," it's a Canadian classic.

39. Love Tara, Eric's Trip (1993)
Great to see this underrated band make the list. This was their first album for SubPop, and the follow-up, Forever Again, was even better, IMO.

40. On the Beach, Neil Young (1974)
I really really liked this album when I first got it, but looking at the song titles, I'm hard pressed to remember most of it. I reviewed it briefly here back in 2004: "It’s Neil down in the dumps in 1974, dressing down Lynyrd Skynyrd (or perhaps Crosby, Stills and Nash) one more time ('Walk On') then embarking on a series of more stripped-down numbers, some of which are quite beautiful. 'See the Sky About to Rain' and the title track are two of my favourites right now." Some penetrating analysis there.

47. Harvest Moon, Neil Young (1992)
Having attained iconic status after Freedom and Ragged Glory, it was time for a sequel to Harvest. Like most sequels, Harvest Moon doesn't quite recapture the magic of the original. The subsequent Unplugged album was great though, and remember that video with Dale Crover as young Neil?

51. High Class in Borrowed Shoes, Max Webster (1977)
"a foot in the kitchen/a foot in the door/but the foot in your mouth/is so u don't get bored." Yeah, Pye Dubois is the people's poet, fuckin' A, and this is Max Webster's most rockin' album. Thanks to Martin Popoff's books for pointing me towards their catalogue beyond the s/t debut—five records and about 10 bucks got me endless hours of enjoyment.

56. Si on avait besoin d'une cinquieme saison, Harmonium (1974)
I remember our French teacher playing us Harmonium songs so we could read along with the lyrics. Little did I know at the time that there was such a thing as Quebec folk-prog, and that I would be buying Harmonium albums 20 years later when there was no other progressive rock left to buy.

62. The Trinity Session, Cowboy Junkies (1988)
I think I liked the idea of this record more than the record itself. They were well ahead of the mope-rock curve, as evidenced by those MOJO tribute albums where cutting-edge artists of today turn ebullient works like Revolver into dirge-fests.

64. Nothingface, Voivod (1989)
See, this is where this whole Top 100 exercise justifies itself. Voivod! Nothingface! Cyber-metal masterpiece at #64 with a bullet(belt)! I guess that "Astronome Domine" video really burned a few impressionable brain cells back then.

70. Love Junk, The Pursuit of Happiness (1988)
Moe Berg was clearly a young man relishing the prospect of a mid-life crisis when this CanCon power pop classic was released. While nobody needs to hear "I'm an Adult Now" ever again, there's a bunch of other songs here to pick up the slack. "Hard to Laugh" kicks pretty hard, as does "Killed by Love" (Berg's reply to Motörhead's "Killed by Death"?) and the immortal "Looking for Girls."

86. Smeared, Sloan (1992)
There were other Sloan albums further up on the list, but this is the only one I own. "Underwhelmed" (their own "I'm an Adult Now") is on here in its speedy incarnation, which I think I like a bit better than the lumbering EP version. I have to say the thrill of those days—when that DGC logo accompanied epochal releases by Sonic Youth and Nirvana, and our own Maritimes lads got in on it too—is long gone for me.

100. A Farewell to Kings, Rush (1977)
I remember getting this album from Woodward's and having it melt my face even when played on my folks' old faux-Victorian woodclad all-in-one phonograph/radio hi-fi (or mid-fi) unit. Only "Madrigal" flounders here, like "Tears" on 2112, and it doesn't matter anyway because "Cygnus X-1" tears apart every nerve afterwards, obliterating its feeble predecessor like so much space dust.

What about these, eh?
It would have been cool to see these albums make the list:
Nomeansno—Wrong
Sons of Freedom—s/t
SNFU—And No One Else Wanted to Play

"I was trapped into being alive." The Guardian profiles Robert Wyatt and his partner Alfie. As someone who has tried to sing in the past, I enjoyed this passage:
"Wyatt is brutally modest about his voice. Described by Ryuichi Sakamoto as 'the saddest sound in the world', it is limber and beautiful - yet Wyatt once likened it to Jimmy Somerville on valium. 'There's no deliberate or conscious input into the way I sing,' he says. 'It's more like damage limitation.'"

I saw his new album Comicopera in a store a couple weeks ago, and I stupidly didn't buy it right then and there.

I'm having problems managing my time and being productive these days. I start every day with the best intentions—get some work done in the morning, get out of the house before the hordes of SFU students swarm my transit route(s)—only to fritter away the time here at this machine.

This morning the time wastage was worth it, though. Check out this Metafilter thread about my second or third or fourth favourite band. It boasts a healthy 88 comments so far too, most of them witty and fond, e.g. "I enjoy annoying my sister, a huge Rush fan, with random outbursts of 'SALESMAN!'"

Now I must get dressed.

Roland Kirk with Jack McDuff—Kirk’s Work (Prestige)
Reading the liner notes to this Rudy Van Gelder remaster, I learned that Roland Kirk had a bit of “novelty act” stigma. I guess the sight of a big blind guy blowing on any number of wind and brass instruments out of any number of orifices was difficult for people to take seriously back in 1961. All I know is Roland Kirk rocked really hard. His flash, showmanship, and pioneering spirit definitely appealed to certain players on the adventurous fringes of rock in the late ’60s. I’m thinking of Ian Anderson, who borrowed Kirk’s vocalizing flute style and adapted a couple of his signature tunes, as well as the Kirk-style twin-sax attack of Van der Graaf Generator’s David Jackson. Rock music and Kirk’s brand of jazz also shared a blues foundation. It doesn’t get any more down and dirty than “Doing the Sixty-Eight” or “Funk Underneath” off Kirk’s Work. “Funk Underneath” is an especially interesting track, with its shifting moods. Kirk leads off on flute, tentative and coy. When Jack McDuff takes over on organ, working overtop the marauding bass line, the tune toughens up and turns into something that I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. McDuff shares billing with Kirk, and his Hammond lends a pervasive sense of menace laced with ’60s cool. (I’ve discovered recently that jazz organ is one of my favourite things on earth. Larry Young, Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff—they’re all killer. I’m up for more recommendations.) The double shot off the top of the album features my favourite tracks. “Three for Dizzy” sounds like the theme to a spy flick, all dramatic sax stabs and slinky melodies. In contrast, the version of “Makin’ Whoopee”that follows defines the word “peppy” and I’ll throw in the term “shit hot” while I’m at it. It’s the kind of live-off-the-floor mayhem that makes you want to throw down your chosen instrument forever, knowing you’ll never rock that hard. At a little over half an hour, Kirk’s Work is like the Reign in Blood of jazz albums, making for the best jazz fix I’ve had in a while.

Kosmos—s/t (The End)
I don’t know if the late Carl Sagan liked rock music at all, but I think he would have appreciated Kosmos. Not only did this splendidly psych-rocking Montreal quartet borrow and mutate the name of the good doctor’s landmark TV series, they also make music that would have worked perfectly as that show’s soundtrack. I can picture Sagan guiding us around billions and billions of galaxies to the chilling Kraftwerk vibe of “Dream” or using the burbling synth raga of “Mothership” as a backdrop to a discussion of black holes. Kosmos play planetarium rock to be sure, but they pull in so many styles and musical colours that the album easily avoids becoming a drone-fest. Instead it’s a vital, concise cluster of Euro-prog explorations mixed with unexpected detours into heavy rock raveups and fuzz punk. Voivod drummer Michel Langevin powers the whole enterprise (along with copilots Jetphil, Alex Crow of Tricky Woo, and Vincent Peake of Grimskunk) with an authority befitting decades of laying down off-kilter rhythms for Voivod. He provides plentiful bombast and bluster for more extroverted tracks like album opener “Psycho,” “Messe Noire” and “Grand Grizou” where his bandmates provide thrills aplenty with their organ vs. synth vs. guitar battles. Some pieces bring to mind Heep and Purple sans crooning, as well as the vanished instrumental NOLA-scene side project The Mystick Crewe of Clearlight. Fans of Goblin, Zombi, Djam Karet, and Pink Floyd’s soundtrack work would also be advised to tune in and turn on. I suspect this album is the inevitable by-product of someone’s cool record collection and an attitude that anything’s worth trying once. From Red Giants to White Dwarfs, they’re all here in the Kosmos.

Neurosis—Given to the Rising (Neurot)
Neurosis have earned the right to do anything they want at this point. They release their own records, they tour when and where they want. If any other band was in this position, one might expect a certain laziness to creep into their music. This is Neurosis, however, so the only expectation is steadfast, indomitable excellence... Their releases since Times of Grace have seen the gradual introduction of a certain terse moodiness and quietude associated with post rock, a tendency that Neurosis acolytes Isis have embraced much more decisively on albums like Panopticon. The logical outcome of Neurosis's musical progression could result in an album entirely mellowed out and interchangeable with any mopey indie-rock outfit. But Neurosis music comes from the heart, so forget logic and the unimaginative reductionism that usually constitutes other bands' “artistic growth.” Given to the Rising slams the brakes on that stylistic trajectory with a batch of dark, heavy songs built upon riff after riff after riff. The album is full of those Neurosis terror moments, where a murky tangent suddenly explodes as the whole band unleashes one of those crusher riffs. This is nothing new for Neurosis, of course. The most novel aspect of Given to the Rising is that they’ve chosen to focus on the dark and heavy. They played one or two of these songs live when I saw them in November, but I was too busy trying not to die to file away the fine details of the new material. They’ve worked with Steve Albini again, who’s given them their best recording yet...perfectly spare and direct. Neurosis songwriting methods don't stick to any rules other than songs should have a beginning and end and be terrifying, so to try to describe the unpredictable tangents within each track would be the equivalent of spoiling the plot of a long-awaited film. I’ll just say that once you’ve experienced the opening title track—one of the greatest songs they’ve ever written—you’ll want, you’ll need, to stay seated and hear the rest. Those who’ve felt the exhilaration of a new Neurosis album know what I mean. You can write me afterward once you've recovered sufficiently and we’ll compare notes. With many bands of Neurosis’s vintage, the tendency is to point new listeners to an album four or five releases back, where the band made the big breakthrough. With Neurosis, however, their sense of quality control is such that you could start with Given to the Rising and immediately "get" what they've been about since they began their magnificent trek.

I'm guest blogging this week over at Heavy Metal Time Machine, where Metal Mark was kind enough to let me sound off on Voivod's Killing Technology.

Just as I'm playing favourites with the Porcupine Tree discography, ProgressiveEars has a poll going. Here are the results so far:

1 In Absentia
2 Stupid Dream
3 Deadwing
4 Signify
5 Lightbulb Sun
6 The Sky Moves Sideways
7 Fear Of A Blank Planet
8 Coma Divine
9 Up The Downstair
10 Recordings (b-sides compilation)
11 Metanoia
12 Voyage 34
13 Arriving Somewhere (DVD)
On The Sunday Of Life
Staircase Infinities

Porcupine Tree—Fear of a Blank Planet (Atlantic)
I know the score with a new Porcupine Tree release. The music will be impeccably played and produced. Steven Wilson's melodies and songwriting will far outstrip any "prog" or "prog metal" outfit going today. I also know that it'll take me a few listens to fully appreciate the sonic richness that saturates every Porcupine Tree album. And Fear of a Blank Planet proves me right. So why do I feel a little underwhelmed? Maybe I'm feeling they haven't brought anything new this time. The gut-punching tech-metal moves they introduced on their Atlantic debut, In Absentia, still rise up at crucial moments. So do the searching, intense ballads, like "My Ashes" and "Sentimental," which reprises an acoustic guitar riff from "Trains," a standout track from In Absentia. There's a surging title track to open the album, just like the title track from Deadwing. But I'm looking back at the previous couple albums and realizing that "Deadwing" is a better song, and "The Creator Has a Mastertape" (a like-minded bit of mayhem from In Absentia) is more inspired than either of them. I'm thinking "Trains" is a better ballad than the more sedate songs on this new album. So why bother with ...Blank Planet then? Well, there's "Anesthetize," all 17:42 of it, where Porcupine Tree's Floyd-meets-Tool method reaches its apex. It's divided into three sections (almost songs within the song) of which I like the second—the heaviest—the best. Alex Lifeson adds some keening guitar textures as a bonus, and the whole thing zips by effortlessly. The album plays itself out on two strong tracks, "Way Out of Here" and "Sleep Together," the former distinguished by its tsumani of a chorus and crushing denouement (with drummer Gavin Harrison performing unspeakable wonders), the latter by its ingenious string arrangement. If you're a fan already, you're on board and nothing's going to stop you from diving right in, just as I did. There's 50 minutes of excellent music to enjoy. I just don't think they've bettered previous albums or hinted that they're going somewhere new in the future. I think this album and Lightbulb Sun are destined to be the dark horses of the catalogue, holding pattern albums ripe for rediscovery when I've spun classics like Stupid Dream and Deadwing one too many times.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I'm almost finished with another issue of Unrestrained! We've got some upcoming masthead shakeups that I hope will result in an even better magazine. I know I have some ideas...

For the second issue in a row I've interviewed a band that intrigued the hell out of me, only to have that band's new album get a drubbing in the reviews section. That's fine by me; I realize I'm hardly the typical U! writer or reader. The band in question last issue was Phazm, and this time it's Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.

I'm a crummy journalist; something I realized during my Voivod junket in Montreal last year, watching Martin Popoff working the room with his voice recorder. Interviews fill me with dread, although I suspect I'm getting better at them—thinking on the fly and following up on morsels of unexpected information dropped by my interviewee. The best parts about writing for U! are clicking off my tape recorder after a good chat, then (much later) clicking Send after I've finished the piece. Getting the finished magazine is cool too...just to see how my article looks. I can't actually read it again very closely. The nonsense I spew is just too painful.

I knew Nils Frykdahl of Sleepytime would be one of the good ones about a minute into the interview. He was just a staggeringly cool and articulate guy, and I'm sorry my piece couldn't have been twice as long. Here are some of the outtakes (Gorilla droppings?) from the interview.

While explaining SGM's adherence to the principles of "Rock Against Rock" (which he described as "a recognition of the need to destroy rock music in order to preserve what have been the useful elements of rock music") he mentioned that the movement had a number of historical precedents. With that in mind, I asked him if these historical precedents had anything to do with Rock In Opposition.

"I would say any movement in rock that has ambition has been a precedent. Punk rock certainly had strong elements of that. The Rock In Opposition movement was a big inspiration for us. Actually we'd been using the Rock Against Rock name for many years before knowing the name Rock In Opposition. When I discovered that I thought, 'Oh my god, wait a minute!' But I knew the groups. We were big fans of Art Bears, Henry Cow and a number of those bands before we knew that they called themselves Rock In Opposition. I think Rock In Opposition is explicitly political whereas Rock Against Rock is not explicitly political, although certainly a lot of what we’ve done has political connotations. The Rock In Opposition movement had strong ties to a European tradition of anarcho-communism, which, incidentally, we could use a dose of in the United States. Rock Against Rock is maybe more philosophical and more reckless."

Bearing in mind how amazingly dense and involved their music is, I had to ask the inevitable question about their songwriting process: what does an SGM song sound like when it’s in its “first draft” form? Is the hyper-complexity built into it from the start?

"No, not at all. Actually, that’s not true. Sometimes it is. There’s very different writing styles that are the basis for the songs. Sometimes the hyper-complexity is there from the beginning and somebody comes in with a score, essentially, and passes out parts. Dan Rathbun [bass] tends to write that way. He doesn’t typically write a lot of material, but every album has a song or two of his, and his have tended to be that way, just conceived from the ground up. My tendency has been the opposite—to come in with the most bare-bones version of a song, almost something you could sing around a campire with a guitar part and some vocal refrains or something. I’ll bring these things in and I’ll toss them out to the wolves of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and they just get ripped apart and layered and built up until I’m saying 'Yes, yes, yes! That’s it.' So everyone writes their own parts on their very idiomatic instruments in ways that I certainly could not conceive of while I was sitting around the riverbank or wherever I was writing the song. That’s part of the process. Often those things will get built up very slowely, very rehearsal intensive, with very little going to paper. I’ll write the very minimum down to paper or one specific section that has an interlocking melodic thing that is easiest to work out on paper. Everybody is comfortable with that format, but that isn’t the way we end up working most of the time."

And then there's the video, which I hope you've all seen by now. Why did the band choose the very, very crazy “Helpless Corpses Enactment” when there were one or two more casual-audience-friendly choices on the album?

"The fellow who made the video, Adam Feinstein, chose that song. He was actually working on a video for 'The Companions.' He had the whole thing storyboarded out to the last detail, and it sounded like a really interesting video. Just as we were about to start production on that, our label, who was helping fund the whole thing, pointed out that on most video channels you can’t show anything longer than 4 and a half minutes. That song weighs in at around 10 minutes. We tried doing an edit to get it down to 4 and a half minutes, and we weren’t satisfied with it. We had just finished a mix of the Helpless Corpses song and said, 'Well, um, gee, this is a really different sounding song from that, but check this out. What do you think?' We weren’t finished with the album by a long shot at that point, so we didn’t have that many songs to choose from. So we sent him this mix of that, and he just loved it.

"Not having worked on metal stuff before and not having really listened to metal before, Adam was just excited at the idea of making a very non-metal video to a very metal song. That song is actually 6 minutes and it’s something very easy to make a 4 and a half minute version of. He immediately had all these ideas for it. He could right away picture the whole thing. Maybe someday we’ll make a little movie of 'The Companions,' but with today’s Internet-based video world you need to be able to make these little bite-sized packages, so… The video director had some strong ties with the lyrical material, to corpses. The song was—and I have to be somewhat cryptic about this—written by an Irish sorcerer, as we mention in the liner notes. He was well acquainted with that particular Irish sorcerer, so he immediately was excited about working on it. The song of course ties in lyrically very strongly with all of the other themes on the record—the themes of death and recycling of matter and rebirth and persistence of form and all those things...although it’s very hard to understand, I realize. We didn’t print the lyrics for reasons which I will have to leave undiscussed for now."

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum—In Glorious Times (The End)
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s music is dense, tricky and ultimately rewarding once you get past its initial “what the hell?” factor. You plug this CD into iTunes and it comes up under the genre “Rock,” which is a woefully inadequate description of the tangle that tumbles out after pressing “play.” They claim to pursue something called “rock against rock,” a contradictory, negating slogan that actually suits their music better. They generate enough bombast and chaos to rival any metal band, but they manage to do it without the conventional metal weaponry—no power chords, no cod-classical/medieval melody lines, no climactic guitar solos. Instead they create an onslaught comprising odd homemade instruments, slashing dissonant guitars, percussion that skitters around every obvious possible beat, and vocals that range from Nils Frykdahl’s slavering rapid-fire rantings to Carla Kihlstedt’s beautifully plaintive singing. No matter how much the quintet piles on—and the songwriting does take an all-hands-on-deck approach—just when the clutter and counterpoint become too much to absorb, branches of musical accessibility eventually emerge as little handholds to which to cling. The folk/hymn opening of “The Companions,” for example, has a great deal of appeal, with Frykdahl singing beautifully and dramatically against a tinkling backdrop. But SGM can’t help themselves, they build and build upon that opening theme before finally exploding into the inevitable cacophony in the final three minutes. The next song, “Headless Corpses Reenactment,” is a more concentrated burst of dramatic ferocity, kind of like Univers Zero interpreting Suffocation. This, of course, is the song they blew their wad on a splendid video for. I would have thought they’d pick the user-friendlier Kihlstedt-voiced “Formicary,” a perfectly pleasant number that veers into King Crimsonville only at the end. As if the music wasn’t challenging enough, cryptic phone messages are interspersed between several tracks, inviting you to imagine and construct a storyline for the album. Who are these people and why are they saying these things? So many questions…some of which Frykdahl answered when I interviewed him last week. I won’t say anything more here. You should give this album some time, wait for the questions to come, and start chipping away at your own conclusions. The most important conclusion I’ve drawn is that this is one of the year’s best albums.