That’s been yet another remarkable month for music. There’s been some fantastic stuff released but why in the name of god, during some of the hottest days on record, did it all have to be so intense? I mean, it’s July, where were the summer bangers? As always, I’m happy that the Hartnoll brothers had my back but I could have done with a few more feel good bops. But we play the hand we’re dealt and that was some fantastic, but full on music. Let’s start with my album of the month.
(As always, please don’t take the Spotify links here as an endorsement of the company. They are awful to artists and you should use a better streaming company.) (If you do use them.)
Oahk
Tiny Husks
Indie, shoegaze
Tiny Husks is an album by Bryan Ziolkowski, who uses it to deal with the loss of two pregnancies. Now, that’s a lot to open a review with but it sets the mood here, and lets the listener know what they’re in for. Don’t worry though, this isn’t misery porn. This is a beautiful album, filled with delicate indie songs, shoegaze textures and more than a touch of anger which bubbles to the surface every now and then.
Tiny Husks, the title track, has a touch of the Antlers about it. The delicate falsetto that drifts through the song is nicely offset by the almost shouted vocal. You can hear the pain in here but it’s one of the most captivating things I’ve heard in years.
Burning Bone feels like someone kneeling on my chest. It’s so enveloping, the slow build is all consuming but most importantly this feels cathartic, and while it never breaks into the wall of noise that you might be expecting, it doesn’t feel like a let down, more like being led out of a suffocating place.
I honestly can’t remember the last time an album grabbed me so quickly. It’s an incredible thing to take pain like this and turn it into something so beautiful and so touching.
Orbital
30 Something
(Electronica, 90’s Dance)
30 years in a band is a pretty incredible milestone in any career but one in dance music, a style that was derided as “not proper music” somehow seems more impressive.
30 Something is a collection of remixes and the modern live versions of the band’s classic songs, which to be honest didn’t set my heart a flutter when I heard about it, but at least it was more interesting than another best of.
Luckily, the album does more than enough to justify its existence, there are some cracking remixes here, David Holmes provides a lovely mix of Belfast, Dusky has a much shorter, and to be honest, probably a better version of Are We Here? ANNA’s version of Belfast is very different as she seems to have strapped the song to Underworld’s Born Slippy to turn it into a full on banger. It’s an odd choice but it works somehow.
The modern versions of the band’s classic’s don’t fare as well. Chime and Belfast sound great, Halcyon, thankfully, doesn’t have either Belinda Carlisle or Bon Jovi anywhere near it , but the rest? It’s just an example of how you can go a bit too far off the template. Satan in particular has been neutered into pointlessness. Of the two new songs here, Smiley is a nice throw back number, but nothing exciting. Acid Horse is a song I have heard will never listen to again.
This all sounds like a bad review but in a world of playlists it’s very easy to strip mine the album for the gold on here, and there’s lots of it. Of the 24 tracks here there’s easily 15 songs here worth your time. It’s helped me reconnect to Orbital’s music again, which is more than enough reason to justify this album’s existence.
Conjurer
Pathos
(Sludge, Blackened death metal)
Conjurer’s second is surprisingly slower than their jaw dropping debut. Pathos is much closer to a sludge album than the blackened death of Mire, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less intense. The opening track, It Dwells, is ferocious. Huge sludgy riffs come crashing down on you like the weight of the world, the slow grind setting up such an enormous sound it’s almost overwhelming.
And that is how this album plays out, it pushes me to the edge of how far I can take metal intensity. The second track, Rot, has a horror movie soundtrack feel but instead of a jump scare the guitars slash at you while the drums just pummel you into submission.
There is a surprising amount of range here. There are faster songs, some more black, some more death leaning but it’s all ridiculously heavy.
There is some respite though, it’s not all overpowering, music like this needs to eb and flow but let’s be honest this is a brutal (in the best way) album.
Now, I may be making this sound hard work, and as I said this is a challenging album, but it’s fucking great. If you’re into metal this extreme, this is a must have album for you.
Spectral Flux
Displaced Reality
(Techno, IDM)
Spectral Flux is a joint project from Way of Exiles favorite, Rupture // Rapture and UJTB. RR plays melodic techno and UJTB is more about a much harsher, glitchy sound. I had no idea what to expect here but I was always going to check it out.
The opening track, Rabid, reminds me of Scalping the way the processed guitar fights with the synths over who’s pushing the song forwards. There’s an almost operatic motif throughout the track that lifts the track, bringing a beautiful harmony and offsetting the huge bass and glitch beats that are rattling the bottom end.
The next two tracks dial things back, bringing a lot of mood and atmosphere. This is almost Cyberpunk. This is music for neon on chrome, leather jackets and mirror shades after dark. Things toughen up again with Distance as the guitars come back, bumping shoulders with some John Carpenter synths. I mean, this stuff is pure catnip to me, I cannot get enough of this sound. This EP is a gem.
Panzerfaust
The Suns of Perdition III – The Astral Drain
(Blackened post metal)
The Astral Drain is Part three of Panzerfaust’s four part series, and this is the part of the story where things slow down. The black metal of the last album is now leaning into blackened post metal. This is sludgy and oppressive, built on a slow avalanche of toms and kicks that really help build the claustrophobic mood that carries throughout the album.
That’s not to say the band have turned their backs on the faster songs but they’re kept to the back half of the album. At first, the bursts of speed are used the way most post metal would use crescendo,with Bonfires of the Insanities a fantastic example of how Panzerfaust do this well. By the time we get to The Far Bank of the Styx the band switches to full gear the blackened assault comes to the fore, all the more exciting for being used sparingly.
If you’re looking for something really heavy and dark as hell to offset the summer sun, this is the perfect album to do it.
Ithaca
They Fear Us
(post hardcore)
Less than 90 seconds into the first song, vocalist Djamila Azzouz screams “Don’t look so scared! It’s good advice.
Ithaca’s debut album, The Language of Injury, was an absolutely furious album of guitar assault and while that post hardcore attack is still here, there are more clean sections and clean singing than before. But it’s still furious.
The album is littered with fantastic lines,“Why would I stab you in the back when you have so many faces to choose from?” and “I put poison in your birthday cake.” are just a few that really stand out, Djamila has a great knack for a clever line, but it can be hard to keep up as those lines fly by at breakneck pace.
But it’s not all breakneck riffing, You Should Have Gone Back’s opening is pure 80’s hard rock. The opening solo is for playing on mountain tops. It’s a fun let up in the metal madness, and while the song drops back into the hardcore goodness, it give you a bit of foreshadowing for the last song.
Hold, Be Held is a total change of pace. It’s almost an 80’s power ballad and is a radical change from the album it ends. Smokey guitar, chilled vibes with guest vocalist Yansé Cooper, bringing a completely unexpected pop dimension to the song.
It’s not the album I was expecting but getting what you want would be boring. This is rage with heart, huge riffs and more than a bit of genre mixing swagger.
Short reviews
Three great albums I haven’t had the time to listen to enough to give the full review treatment.
Indian Wells
No One Really Listeners to Oscillators
Indian Wells is released on Max Coopers Mesh label and you can tell almost instantly. While IW is far more straightforward in his music, there is a very similar feel to the synths and atmosphere. The album as some great moody track and a few bangers. I need to give it more time, but it will get it.
Mogwai
Black Bird
This is the soundtrack to the first season of Black Bird, a show on Apple TV. It’s on the more downbeat end of Mogwai’s sound, mostly atmospheric songs and very little in the way of fireworks but it’s still great, from what I’ve enjoyed of it so far. 24 songs is a lot to get your teeth into.
Kuedo
Infinite Window
Kuedo’s first album was very indebted to the Bladerunner soundtrack and you can still hear his love of Vangellis here. This sounds like a sci-fi sound track with a few big tunes on it. Can’t recommend it enough if that’s your kind of thing. It’s definitely mine.
The ways of exile 