Flah on Music

Picks for the Week

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 02:14:00 -0800

Marzuraan – Solid State
Genre: Drone/Stoner
While the production is on the raw side (even for stuff of this nature), there’s no way getting around the fact that Marzuraan huge sounds will be the next big thing in drone. Picture the more rocked out drone numbers from Boris plodding along at a pace that would make Sleep proud. Surprisingly, it’s not a huge wall of low end either, as drums are prominent in the mix and drive those molasses riffs into territory that’s strangely and suprisingly melodic. Of course, fans of the regulars will get a kick out of it, but there’s more to it than what you think. It’s drone for jam rock fans, albeit, jam rock fans that are driven to a near sloth like state through barbiturates.

Nurse With Wound – Shipwreck Radio
Genre: Ambient/Noise
Rarely do you couple a cool idea with even cooler music. The backstory to Shipwreck Radio is worth the price of admission alone, but the tunes are also a fine display of the mastery of sound manipulation by long running noise makers Nurse with Wound. Field recordings are twisted into fantastic atmospheric soundscapes with a few surprises in the program including a great hip-hop beat that sounds like Dalek spending a day by the lake and a layered laugh track; cooler to hear than to read about for sure. Shipwreck Radio is just plain neat and well worth the look for fans of field recordings and ambient music.

Jose Gonzalez – Stay in the Shade
Genre: Folk/Singer/Songwriter
I’ve known about Jose Gonzalez since he released the Crosses EP (which remains his best) and he continues to put out excellent restrained folk with gorgeous melodies and a genius stripped down “I recorded this in my living room” production sense. Stay in the Shade doesn’t throw you any curves, instead it’s another excellent set of songs that emphasizes his never showy but always pitch perfect acoustic guitar licks and his lovelorn vocals. If you like any of those bedroom recorded folk albums that have been reaching pretty high heights of popularity, you need to hear the guy that is outdoing all of them.

Caffiends – Fission, Fusion, And Things Made of Concrete
Genre: Hardcore/Rock
It’s a shame that Caffiends broke up because they were really hitting their stride here. Caffiends had the ability to not only write some raging tracks in the vein of Haste, but pen competent guitar jazz, drum n’ bass, and even dreampop. And these weren’t shallow attempts at trying to be eclectic either. In all their forms, Caffiends had a knack for writing catchy parts, be it a breakdown or a melodic hook. As far as I’m concerned, they never received the recognition they deserved. Forget the fact that this was on Indianola Records and check it out.

Podcasts

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 22:14:00 -0800

Podcasts are going to be on hold for a little bit until I find a more stable server. Sorry to all those looking foward to them.

I'm going to be updating a lot more in the coming weeks, possibly, possible maybe even three to four times a week. Whoa. I'm breathless. Was it good for you?

Picks for the Week

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 00:59:00 -0800

U.S. Maple – Long Hair in Three Stages
Genre: Math/Experimental
Still amazingly weird and off-kilter sounding, 95’s Long Hair in Three Stages, USM’s full length debut, is like listening to straight ahead driving rock through a damaged mind. Sounding free and off the cuff yet amazingly cohesive, USM’s angular guitar lines are drowned in dementia while brimming with the complexity associated with math rock. The combination of a high and low tuned guitar creates an interplay that would even leave well…anyone scratching their noggin. Al Johnson’s vocals, sounding like a husky Snagglepuss, further the initial reaction that this shit is completely out there. Call it the destruction of rock, it’s never dull and clings to just enough convention for it all to be maddingly catchy.

Velvet Cacoon – Dizzy from Eternity
Genre: Shoegazer
So the druggy black metallers with the My Bloody Valentine fixation go into full shoegazer mode on this excellent demo, leaving any trace of rough edges and harshness behind. Concise rock numbers rub elbows with dreamy tracks that pull together backwards drums, gorgeous treated vocals, and an overall hallucinatory vibe. You get plenty of echo, delay, and some great moments that are dead on for Kevin Shields; what more could you ask for? Along with How The Last Day Came..., Dizzy from Eternity shows LGV's side of VC to be just as (even more so if you ask me) rewarding as their trippy black metal.

Miltown – Miltown
Genre: Rock/indie/emo
It’s become cliché to exclaim that any band that didn’t get the amount of popularity that they deserved was simultaneous wronged by the masses and forgotten by the critics, but there’s absolutely no reason why Miltown should be a name lost in the sea of late 90s rock/emo. I hate to use the word emo because of the way it has recently suffered by the hands that don’t know what they’re labeling because this ain’t your mall emo. No sir. Thick, crunchy guitars with a hint of groove lay the backbone for strong vocals that don’t have a hint of an effeminate quiver. Best of all, Miltown just fucking rocks. Word is they have a long lost release coming soon. I can’t wait for that. If you missed them before, don’t miss them again.

Joscho Stephan – Swinging Strings
Genre: Jazz/Swing/Gypsy guitar
There’s only one thing you can say about Mr. Stephan: the man can play! His dexterity on the fretboard is unbelievably as he explores avenues that would make Django proud. And this is more than just a guy worshipping the golden age of swing and gypsy guitar, Joscho is capable of penning numbers that are not only eyebrow raising from a jazz standpoint, but beyond catchy to boot. All his albums are essential if you’re even the slightest bit interested in gypsy guitar or ever spent your nights wishing you could’ve traveled back in time to catch Le Quintette Du Hot Club De France in the flesh.

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 02:37:00 -0800

I’d like to apologize for the sporadic posting as of late. I’ll try and get back in the swing of things by, at the very least, next month.

Quickie:
After years of trying to suppress my curiosity, I caved and downloaded what many consider to be one of the worst albums of the rock era; an album that fully alienated an entire performer’s audience and to this day is still met with laughs by critics. Metal Machine Music! The album that made an entire scene ask, “Lou, what the fuck were you thinking?!”

I’ve always heard that it was a landmark of awful. Lou Reed went fucking nuts! Lou Reed was fulfilling contractual obligations! Lou Reed was just joking, square. Whatever, you still don’t know much about the record itself because the man won’t talk about it and I have a feeling that the people that are paid to write about it never made it past the first record.

Metal Machine Music always found a way to sneak in on those worst of lists, the most shocking moments in rock, etc. Everyone knows about it, makes jokes about it, hopes that they never make such a colossal dud. The thing is, for all of its notoriety, no one seems to actually possess it; even finding it on a p2p program with a wide user base proved difficult.

But I found it, that’s the important thing. I needed to sate my curiosity and this weekend seemed as good as any to dive in and hear for myself this monstrosity of a record.

And honestly, it’s really not that bad. I am Lester Bangs reincarnate.

I’m not going to say that it’s the best album ever made. I’m just saying that it’s not as bad as everyone, minus Lester and a few modern net critics I found, makes it out to be. I was made to expect something incredibly dense with nothing but atonal wails. Well, you get some of that but not in the way I initially thought.

Of course, the musical landscape is a bit different come ’06. I’ve had my perception of feedback dulled by Sonic Youth, I understand the concept of layered noise thanks to Merzbow, and have had my bowels massaged by listening to Earth drooooooooooooooooooooooooone and droooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooone. Metal Machine Music is a little tame by today’s standards but made all the more impressive considering the time frame. 1975. Who the hell was doing this stuff back then? Certainly no one that commanded the same level of popularity as Mr. Reed.

Yeah, it’s a little excessive. Even I find it hard to make it through all four sides at once because there’s little variation; probably the point since you grow so accustomed to it, almost like living near an airport/highway/train tracks. Also, modern technology has killed the “locked groove” which kind of takes away from the annoyance of the finale. Still, MMM, on the whole, succeeds at what it set out to do. Problem: no one really knows what that is. All I know is that it isn’t one of the worst albums of all time. I guess I should get around to checking out Metheny’s Zero Tolerance for Silence now.

Flah on Music Podcast #008: Gems II

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 14:35:00 -0800

Playlist:
Bolt Thrower - At First Light
Arcturus - White Noise Monster
Beheaded - Vaults of Ageless Pain
Tandjent - The Path of True
Antigama - Flies
Belphegor - Fornicationium Et Immundus Diabolus
Himinbjorg - Daily Desillusions
Aeon - God Gives Head in Heaven (Acoustic)

Direct MP3 link: http://www.switchpod.com/users/Flah/flahonmusic8.mp3

Subscribe (plug this into your podcast media player and get updated with new shows automatically): http://feeds.feedburner.com/FlahOnMusic

Poorly penned stream of conscious thoughts to read while listening: Currently, I’m nursing a cold and I feel like I’m floating so forgive me if this reads like it was written by a five year old. But, you know me, I always have to give my listener…a podcast…on the day…thats it’s due…yeah I couldn’t keep a straight face.

As we continue to delve into the topic of songs people forgot about, never heard, or were on bad releases that were avoided in '05, we enter the realm of metal. It wasn't an amazing year for metal but, as evidenced by my Top 50 list, it did dominate my listening time once again. All in all, metal showed up with a lot of okay to good releases but few amazing ones. There were, however, a handful of great songs that simply got no recognition for any of the reasons I've already stated.

I'm guilty of wanting to start a set off with a great song so Bolt Thrower's entry is there solely to get everything started the right way. One of metal's best this year and thankfully, not one that will be forgotten. The rest however, might be a different story.

I saw Arcturus's new album on a lot of end of the year disappointing/this album sucks lists and while it wasn't as groundbreaking as The Sham Mirrors, it still was filled with quality material. It'd be a shame if people gave up on the record before they reached White Noise Monster as the whole song is hook with fantastic clean vocals and rather goofy, but enjoyable lyrics.

Did anyone talk about Beheaded's album this year? I know that brutal death isn't quite in the vogue, but while others got some notable print (Mainly Disgorge, and good for them) Ominous Bloodline just seemed to slip by. Too bad as some of the slam/breakdowns on this album were the year’s best.

Antigama released two great progressive grind albums this year and, in my mind, didn’t get the attention that they deserved. I guess people are still hungry to hear Nasum clones. I got a chance to interview the guys which you can read here.

Tandjent would be considered just another Meshuggah clone if they didn’t nail their material. While there is no reason to consider them next in line if Meshuggah calls it a day (Coprofago has been jockeying for this position for years now), they did have some solid songs this year, especially the album closer The Path of the True.

Belphegor unfortunately was over shadowed by the US release of the similar sounding Behemoth as they’re both cut from the same satanic posturing Morbid Angel cloth. Belphegor’s guitar fireworks are not to be missed and they also have a trick up their sleeves that most metal of this kind is lacking; they write killer songs.

Himinbjorg’s album was pretty average switching between driving black metal and Viking metal with a strong Enslaved influence. They absolutely shine on Daily Desillusions though with a keen use of acoustic guitars and great Enslaved like shredding.

Finally, Aeon put out a great album of god hating Deicide influenced death with one little surprise tacked on at the end; an acoustic cover of their most blasphemous number. Amazing.

Next week, we’ll be taking a look at some hardcore/screamo tracks that people missed. Hopefully I won’t have a headache. Ugh.

Top 50 of '05

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 19:24:00 -0800

50. Khold - Krek
49. Jesu - Jesu
48. Ocean - Here Where Nothing Grows
47. Disgorge - Parrallels of Infinite Torture
46. Novemeber's Doom - The Pale Haunt Departure
45. Pelican - The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw
44. Burst - Origo
43. Solefald - Red For Fire: An Icelandic Odyssey Part 1
42. Yob - The Unreal Never Lived
41. Keith Fullerton Whitman - Multiples
40. Nadja - Truth Becomes Death
39. Ween - Shinola, Vol. 1
38. Overmars - Affliction, Endocrine...Vertigo
37. Equilibrium - Turis Fratyr
36. Swallow the Sun - Ghosts of Loss
35. Cephalic Carnage - Anomalies
34. Danse Macabre - Synkopenleben, Nein Danke. Vin
33. Earth - Hex (Or Printing In the Infernal Method)
32. Men in Search of the Perfect Weapon - Men in Seach of the Perfect Weapon
31. OM - Variations on a Theme
30. The Other Side of the Sky - Rorschach
29. Porcupine Tree - Deadwing
28. Coprofago - Unorthodox Creative Criteria
27. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
26. Opeth - Ghost Reveries
25. Hella - Chirpin' Hard/Church Gone Wild/Homeboy
24. Deathspell Omega - Kenose
23. Rosetta - The Galilean Satellites
22. Crowpath - Son of Sulphur
21. Tides - Resurface
20. Lightning Bolt - Hypermagic Mountain
19. Boris - Pink
18. Antony & the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now
17. Animal Collective - Feels
16. Swarm of the Lotus - The Sirens of Silence
15. Slough Feg - Atavisim
14. Toby Driver - In The L..L..Library Loft
13. Moonsorrow - Verisäkeet
12. Wintersleep - Untitled
11. Knut - Terraformer
10. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
9. Ephel Duath - Pain Necessary To Know
8. Funeral Diner - The Underdark/The Swept Under
7. Venetian Snares - Rossz Csillag Allat Született
6. High on Fire - Blessed Black Wings
5. Khanate - Capture & Release
4. Lurker of Chalice - Lurker of Chalice
3. Kayo Dot - Dowsing Anemone With Copper Tongue
2. Corrupted - El Mundo Frio
1. Meshuggah - Catch 33

Flah on Music Podcast #007: Gems 1

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 14:35:00 -0800

Playlist:
Meneguar - House of Cats
We Versus the Shark - I Am Destined For Greatness
M Ward - Big Boat
Jim and Jennie & the Pinetops - Hannah's Song
Jennifer Gentle - Circles of Sorrow
Archer Prewitt - Cheap Rhyme
Wintersleep - Migration

Direct MP3 link: http://www.switchpod.com/users/Flah/flahonmusic7.mp3

Subscribe (plug this into your podcast media player and get updated with new shows automatically): http://feeds.feedburner.com/FlahOnMusic

Poorly penned stream of conscious thoughts to read while listening: First off, sorry for the delay when it comes to podcasting recently. My brain has been fried by the shift from the normal doldrums of college into the hectic, “Holy shit, I don’t want to fail,” buzz of finals. That and my nice space provider has done a lot of shifting and molding when it comes to free account benefits. So no hour long podcast like I planned this week, instead, you’ll have to suffer through the same topic for four long weeks. My deepest condolences to the ADD addled.

As the year winds down and ’05 gets ready to regenerate into a new year (I’ve waited all year to make a Dr. Who reference, forgive me), there’s always a heaping helping of tracks that I hope won’t be forgotten but inevitably always are. This may be because A) no one actually listened to the album or B) the rest of the album was so bad or so maddingly average that it wasn’t worth digging through again to get to the gems. Of course there’s a C); I wanted a good set of songs to round out the podcast which is why Archer Prewitt makes this set.

Meneguar showed great potential this year and House of Cats is one of the year’s best but I hardly heard anyone talk about this album even though it appears on the fairly well known and respected Magic Bullet label. The rest of the record took a dip in quality and they never quite hit on the hook driven heights of Cats but that’s okay because the song has a way of sticking to you for the rest of the week and obscuring the downsides.

We Versus the Shark’s modern math rock with touches of electronica didn’t hold up well on repeated listens besides the killer track found here. With some great angular guitar lines and their best hook of the album, it stuck out in an album that never really capitalized on their strengths.

M Ward got a lot of press this year but I didn’t think much of his album beyond the seriously addictive throwback rock of Big Boat. That familiar piano bridge gets me every time and the absurd, almost trying to hard to reveal the pun, lyrics are a treat.

It’s a shame that more people don’t know about Jim and Jennie & the Pinetops’s revival bluegrass/country as they delivered a fantastic album this year that was pitch perfect. Hannah’s Song was the jewel but the rest shouldn’t be forgotten either.

We’ve already been over Prewitt so the title of most underrated album of the year may go to Kary offshoot Wintersleep who arguably are the best thing going in rock music right now. Distinctive vocals come together with ridiculously good songwriting that never steps into the overwrought territory of everything that’s been on radio this millennium. Why they haven’t reached a higher plateau of popularity with any of their projects (another side project Contrived also released an album this year) is beyond me. Maybe I don’t hang out in the right places but there has to be a place where I can sing this band praises with fellow admirers.

Next week, we’ll take a look at some heavy stuff that slipped by.

Flah on Music Podcast #006: Rap

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Fri, 2 Dec 2005 17:10:00 -0800

Playlist:
Rakim - Flow Forever
Binary Star - Reality Check
Oddjobs - Dreams for a Mole III
Dangerdoom - Old School
Dalek - Ever Somber
Blackstar - Respiration
Nadasdi - Passenger
Blackalicious - Alphabet Aerobics

Direct MP3 link: http://www.switchpod.com/users/Flah/flahonmusic6.mp3

Subscribe (plug this into your podcast media player and get updated with new shows automatically): http://feeds.feedburner.com/FlahOnMusic

Poorly penned stream of conscious thoughts to read while listening: I think everyone has a phase in their life (at least in the last ten years) where they explore rap and mainstream R&B for awhile. There’s just an unconscious need to search through the entire genre to see why it’s ruled the charts for so long and if any of it does anything for you. I had a brief affair with hip hop my senior year of high school when I took some time to nail down my feelings on...well...everything. I found that I usually enjoyed the production aspect more than the rapping (probably why I love Timbaland but hate everyone he works with), decided that Notorious B.I.G. was far and away more talented than Tupac when it came to stringing rhymes together but Tupac has the better songs, and that slow and syrupy chopped and screwed mixes delighted me far more than the original compositions.

After that, my interest in rap severely dropped off as I trolled its murky depths for all I found worthwhile. In the last year, I have a renewed interest (although, not quit as consuming) and in my older age I hold a newfound respect for those that can come up with clever rhymes and clever flows. I just needed a kick in the ass to realize that there’s still some solid things going on in the underground while the mainstream continues to be rather vacant when it comes to both quality and interesting compositions.

Anyone that thinks of rap as a favorite genre won’t find anything new on this podcast, but for those that want a push in deciding whether they should reexamine the genre, here it is.

Flah on Music podcasts are a short thirty minute program uploaded every week with added commentary behind the show. Usually the commentary doesn't have anything to do with the show at all and is written in a haze caused by advanced sleep deprivation.

Flah on Music Podcast #005: Gore/Pornogrind

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:46:00 -0800

Playlist:
Hemdale - Delicious Gory Fun
Corpsefucking Art - War of the Toilet Gear
Dead - Defeat Remains
Cock and Ball Torture - Fist Fuck Family
The Day Everything Became Nothing - Protect
Last Days of Humanity - In Advanced Haemorrhaging Condition
Ultra Vomit - Brutally Brutalized
Gronibard - La Raie de Mon Cul, C'est une Trousse à Bite
Cliteater - Frigid Fuck
Libido Airbag - Cumfilled Wonderbra
Rompeprop - Swarming of the Cysts
Screaming Afterbirth - Septic
General Surgery - Slithering Maceration of Ulcer
I Shit On Your Face - F.F.F.
Dead Infection - Rich Zombie
Gut - Crippled Bitch
Regurgitate - The Combustion And Consumption of Pyorrheic Waste

Direct MP3 link: http://www.switchpod.com/users/Flah/flahonmusic5.mp3

Subscribe (plug this into your podcast media player and get updated with new shows automatically): http://feeds.feedburner.com/FlahOnMusic

Poorly penned stream of conscious thoughts to read while listening: Sorry for the lateness! Switchpod was down due to everyone uploading their vapid entries on what they snagged on Black Friday for cheap and serious and respected and other words that don’t apply podcasters like myself couldn’t cut through the shit to get one up in time.

So this is the time on Sprockets when we shed half of our audience. I love goregrind. I really do. A lot of people don’t and I’ve found that the reason they don’t is that they, drum roll please, take music way too seriously. That’s not to say that I don’t, it’s just that I know when I shouldn’t. Goregrind is a definite time when I know should let the good times roll and be concerned whether I'm making the most of my time. Listening to goregrind is akin to watching really shitty horror movies just for laughs and to see a couple cute teenagers get murdered in the most grotesque way possible. Have no idea what I’m talking about? Well, this podcast isn’t for you as you’ll be another addition to the large population of people that, and I love saying this, just don’t get it. With pitchshifted vocals, lyrics about gore or sex (usually involving both, a fun mix and match), and some great groovy riffs it’s a brainless fun ride and that’s what makes goregrind so irresistibly fun. It’s over the top and that over the top nature is generally why you listen and subsequently love what you’re listening to. Just like power metal, excess is your greatest friend when it comes to gore and that's pretty much the extent of it (We could talk about the vocals but really, it falls under the same deal. It's silly because it's meant to be silly. People just don't get that).

Enjoy the half hour of quick blasts of noise with mouth farts. If you hate it, fine, but take a moment to reflect on why you hate it. It’s not a study in musical theory, it’s a study in fun and if you take it on that level, you can’t help but enjoy it.

Flah on Music podcasts are a short thirty minute program uploaded every week with added commentary behind the show. Usually the commentary doesn't have anything to do with the show at all and is written in a haze caused by advanced sleep deprivation.

Flah on Music Podcast #004: Epic Metal

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 15:44:00 -0800

Playlist:
Disillusion - A Day By the Lake
Symbyosis - Life
Lykathea Aflame - On the Way Home
Orphaned Land - Birth of the Three (The Unification)
Enslaved - As Fire Swept Clean the Earth

Direct MP3 link: http://www.switchpod.com/users/Flah/flahonmusic4.mp3

Subscribe (plug this into your podcast media player and get updated with new shows automatically): http://feeds.feedburner.com/FlahOnMusic

Poorly penned stream of conscious thoughts to read while listening: This week I’m not going to give you some long diatribe about the golden days of some dead genre as I pine for better days nor am I going to go through various what ifs that will probably never come to fruitarian and are easily refuted. Instead, I give you a podcast of some great metal choices from the past few years that one can only describe as epic. It’s anthemic, at times absolutely gorgeous, and most importantly outside the normal realms of your typical pinch-harmonics and breakdowns construction.

There’s a lot of genres on display here from folk metal to black metal to metal that just can’t be categorized (what exactly do we call Lykathea Aflame besides amazing?) but it all shares the same quality; it’s stirring and can only be described by one word; epic. Enjoy this little respite from what you've come to expect.

Flah on Music podcasts are a short thirty minute program uploaded every week with added commentary behind the show. Usually the commentary doesn't have anything to do with the show at all and is written in a haze caused by advanced sleep deprivation.

Flah on Music Podcast #003: Viking/Folk Metal

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:12:00 -0800

Playlist:
Korpiklaani - Beer Beer
Finntroll - Trollhammaren
Ensiferum - Battle Song
Equilibrium - Tote Heldensagen
Einherjer - Ironbound
Moonsorrow - Unohduksen Lapsi

Direct MP3 link: http://www.switchpod.com/users/Flah/flahonmusic3.mp3

Subscribe (plug this into your podcast media player and get updated with new shows automatically): http://feeds.feedburner.com/FlahOnMusic

Poorly penned stream of conscious thoughts to read while listening: Seeing how black metal only took a couple of years to traverse across the Atlantic into America after being a predominantly Scandinavian affair, you can’t help but wonder if Viking metal and folk metal, now with a new found place among the metal consciousness thanks to the pioneering efforts of Enslaved and Moonsorrow on one side and Finntroll on the other, is going to burrow into the American metal underground and create the same kind of legitimacy problems that’s currently associated with USBM.

I mean, could you really see some guys from Saratoga playing humppa and singing about their ancestors in Valhalla that battled orcs? It’s almost inevitable that some American outfit is going to do (or already has) their take on Viking themed metal just like all those bands that now live in the sweltering heat of the bible belt do their take on frosty blasting black metal. I have no problem with styles crossing the special bounds and circumstances that created them, but I’d have a hard time listening to a band who’s MO is to sound as legitimate as possible in a genre where they simply can’t because of their history and origin.

That’s not to say that there haven’t been amazing USBM bands, but the scene has grown into its own sound and ideology. While there still are a lot of imitators, it can be seen as a legitimate variation of black metal where it felt less than genuine before. But the thing that makes Scandinavian folk and Viking metal what it is, is because of the band’s own personal history. The only way that it could work in the US is if they translated everything over to represent an American history both in lived and musical terms which would make it an entirely different beast but still fitting within the bounds of folk metal, just not of the Scandinavian variety (could you imagine Woody Guthrie verses with gigantic Floridian death metal choruses? Doesn’t sound too bad to be honest).

Of course, the kind of folk/viking metal we’re talking about is crossing grounds as shown by the amazing Equilibrium that hails from Germany, not too far away from where Finntroll calls home but the fun Met feels a bit like a copycat. That’s not to say it’s bad, it’s one of the best metal songs this year, but it feels a little less than honest considering everything. And yes, I know that folk metal is all over the place, but I’m not talking about the folk metal that is by definition, metal with influences from traditional songs played in the band’s homeland; least I forget about Skyclad, Cruachan, et all. It’s just that I know that there’s going to be a lot of American bands that try their hand at Finntroll’s game and they’re going to look for acceptance from a scene that just doesn’t fit them (Maybe a band out of Northeast/west would work with their polka background). Metal isn’t an equal rights area, you know? There’s got to be some genres that remain sacred that Johnny-come-waaaay-latelys from a clashing background shouldn’t give a try. But, Nile, with their take on Egypt, is huge and critically accepted so anything can happen here.

Anyway, enjoy the podcast. Folk metal is great because it’s not only the catchiest thing you’ll ever here but still retains the power of the other half of its namesake, metal, so you don’t have to trade heaviness for uplifting and fun sing-a-longs.

Flah on Music podcasts are a short thirty minute program uploaded every week with added commentary behind the show. Usually the commentary doesn't have anything to do with the show at all and is written in a haze caused by advanced sleep deprivation.

Post Grunge

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Tue, 8 Nov 2005 13:56:00 -0800

Sometimes, it’s just unavoidable. I was stuck listening to the radio while my girlfriend and I feverishly tried to drown out the off key impromptu gospel performance coming from her roomie’s sleeping quarters. It was quite the mixed blessing. On one hand, I didn’t have to listen to an impassioned howl about God’s grace and compassion but I had to suffer through the alt-rock station’s brainless playlist (Although, I was pleased to see that The Fixx’s One Thing Leads to Another is still in rotation) that was heavy on one of the worst forms of rock to ever reach mainstream acceptance; post grunge.

Over the last couple of decades, it seemed like every new alternative rock/metal genre that popped up and gained control of a slice of the mainstream audience had its fair share of groups that were legitimately good. No matter how shitty the actual genre or form of music was, there were those bands that could craft something worthwhile out of the constraints. Even the much maligned nu-metal and rap metal subsets had bands that most would consider, at the very least, above the rest of their peers (a stretch for nu-metal, yes, that would create one hell of a wasteful argument but rap metal always has RAtM to fall back on). It certainly seemed that way until you traveled into the land of post grunge, a bizzaro world where uniformly bad press and blandness translates into platinum records.

Ever since Bush hit the airwaves, alt-rock radio has been controlled by post grunge and all its corporate pushed posturing. In over a decade post grunge has added absolutely nothing to the musical landscape except for a headache caused by the over repetitive nature of the music itself. You’d think in that time span there would be something worthwhile released, but I’m racking my brain to think of anything that even creeps above average. Bush’s Sixteen Stone? Well, some of it was okay but I’ll go on a children murdering rampage if I have to endure Glycerin one more time. Local H’s As Good as Dead? This hardly fits the mold because it had character, but even then only half of it was really great while the other half was the worst kind of filler. Creed’s My Own Prison? The holy grail of post rock had two good songs but the rest was marred by the need to be dour and to have some kind of message. Days of the New? Alice in Chains wannabes that could’ve written some great songs if they weren’t so damn depressed. Sliverchair? Israel’s Son, Tomorrow, and then what? Okay, I might give you Vast but do they even count? After that, you’re hitting a patch of bands that sound exactly the same with others that could’ve been good but don’t register on anyone’s radar anymore. When was the last time you heard anyone bring up The Nixons, For Squirrels, Cool for August, Stabbing Westward, or even Veruca Salt?

It’s gotten to the point where post grunge has become an influence for other post grunge bands. How else could a band like Theory of a Dead Man exist that sounds exactly like Nickelback? Usually a genre dies out and gets resurrected ten years later to give way to imitators of imitators which begs the questions, why won’t post grunge die? Most musical trends could only hope for the longevity that post grunge has had above ground. Its lasted longer than actual grunge for Christ’s sake. I mean, Candlebox isn’t exactly a few steps away from 3 Doors Down, you know? The fact that the general populace eats up shit like Hoobastank worries me far greater. With lyrics that are so goddamn whiney that it surpasses anything the Dashboard Confessional wave of emo did, The Reason became a big charting single and still remains in constant rotation. The singing is off key, there’s hardly any real melody in it, and even though it runs maybe four minutes, it wears out its welcome by minute two by repeating its already limited ideas. And it was huge. Just like the new Nickleback. Do people just want to hear the same song and the same sentiment repeated ad infinitum? Apparently. How terrible.

Flah on Music Podcast #002: Math Rock

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Fri, 4 Nov 2005 21:09:00 -0800

Playlist:
Drive Like Jehu - Here Come the Rome Plows
Drill for Absentee - Circle
90 Day Men - Methodist
Ativin - Scissors
Off Minor - Cadveric
Shotmaker - Failure
The 1985 - Shooting Blanks

Direct MP3 link: http://www.switchpod.com/users/Flah/flahonmusic2.mp3

Subscribe (plug this into your podcast media player and get updated with new shows automatically): http://feeds.feedburner.com/FlahOnMusic

Poorly penned stream of conscious thoughts to read while listening: Firstly, I’d like to apologize for the lateness of this. It seems I can’t even make a deadline when all that is involved is writing a few paragraphs that come straight from my head and nothing else. This is probably why I excel in the arts and critical thinking but have little to no value in the real world.

After the eighties/early nineties when rock fractured into a million pieces, there seemed to be a testing period, the 90s, where we all sat back, watched the evolution and saw what genres were going to really make it. Survival of the fittest? Well, not quite. Some genres where a hit and some weren’t but managed to hold a big enough influence over the youngins to keep the sound alive, flowing and growing with each new addition. And some genres, well, they just died a predictable death, sinking to the background and retaining a small devoted scene and maybe popping up to color other genres here and there but for the most part, gone and forgotten. According to who you asked, Slint had two children, post rock and math rock. Where they the first in either? No, but they characterized the genre and brought it all under a tag. Post rock grew leaps and bounds as successive bands molded the sound into something unique and different, essentially keeping the waters boiling with creativity. Math rock…well…where is it? After an explosion in the mid to late 90s, math rock just sort of dissipated for really no good reason.

I mean, it wasn’t like math rock was stuck in a creative rut by any means. The whole MO of the genre was to keep pushing things forward and to shrug off the norms of standard song writing. But after the genre population grew exponentially, it just fell off. Granted, I don’t keep my ear to the ground but what do we have today? Slint is doing a reunion tour, Matt Sweeney got a glimpse of the mainstream with a Pumpkin and is now supplying the riffage for a Prince, 90 Day Men are now miles away from their old sound, and on and on. New blood? Serotonin? We Versus the Shark? Off Minor? That’s really all I can think of off the top of my head and Off Minor highlights another trend that seems to be developing; erasing math rock from the history books.

Off Minor, despite having a sound that’s akin to mid period math rock, is described as screamo by most because of their lineage. Drive Like Jehu gets lumped into post hardcore and even emo. The rest of the genre seems destined to be remembered as indie rock with a interest in jazz and complex rhythms. Granted, the tendency to give anything that differed from the established a new name went a little overboard during this time period but it seems like we’re ready to forget that math rock existed. Even when it pops up in other genres, we’re not ready to give it the label of math rock. Further proof? The intricate and angular guitar lines of newcomers The Fall of Troy. Complex, different, pushing the norms; staples of math rock with a whole lot of melody and harmonies (Kind of like Thingy, et. all). What has it been called?

Prog-rock/emo/post hardcore.

Goodbye math rock, we hardly knew ye. You still have a place in my heart as one of my favorite genres.

Flah on Music podcasts are a short thirty minute program uploaded every week with added commentary behind the show. Usually the commentary doesn't have anything to do with the show at all and is written in a haze caused by advanced sleep deprivation.

Flah on Music Podcast #001: Screamo

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 22:33:00 -0700

Playlist:
Neil Perry - Nine Minutes Of Non Fiction
Textbook Traitors - From Counting To Calculus
Welcome the Plague Year - Craft Messenger
Jeromes Dream - It's More Like a Message to You
Funeral Diner - Yeah, You Remember That
Et Tu Brute - With One Last Look
Raein - New Day Scenario

Direct MP3 link: http://www.switchpod.com/users/Flah/flahonmusic1.mp3
Subscribe (plug this into your podcast media player and get updated with new shows automatically): http://feeds.feedburner.com/FlahOnMusic

Poorly penned stream of conscious thoughts to read while listening:Remember back when the word “screamo” wasn’t used to describe a really bland mixture of pop punk/radio rock with abrasive vocals? Maybe you don’t. MySpace doesn’t. MTV doesn’t. A good 99.9% of the population doesn’t. So you’re in the clear if you don’t, but a lot of people do and that’s why this current trend of calling Thursday, newer Underoath, and the like "screamo" is so infuriating.

Flah, you’ll say, you hate genre tags. Indeed I do, they serve little purpose besides giving people an idea of what they’ll be getting into if you recommend them tunes and making sure you don't have to work hard to look like a pretentious music nerd. But a lot of the time you grow to really enjoy a majority of the bands that get pushed under a certain tag. You start to hunt out similar artists. The genre tag becomes a bright shining light in a world of unlistenable shit. Then, inevitably one day, someone who doesn't know what the hell they are doing (or does, that's the scary part) tries to stick a band that doesn't sound a damn bit like the ones you love into your genre. YOUR GENRE.

"Flah, point to where they touched you on the doll."

Right on the goddamn crotch. Violation. Adrenaline pumps, eyesight goes black, and you wake up in a pool of anger induced piss. And this isn't regular pee, this is angry pee which smells like cat urine placed in the mouth of Vericona Moser. All this because someone doesn't understand genre tags (Reality: no one does. Not even Stephen Thomas Erlewine and his penis alone knows more about pub rock than the entire planet. Not to mention he'll place it on a jukebox, it'll slam keys like Snuffleupagus, and turn out a better playlist than the most elite mashup artist).

As much as I’ll say that genre tags don’t matter, they still have the innate ability to start riots because, whether you’ll agree with me or not, music is a religion and people really don’t like it when others try and mess with their belief structure. Ask any elder black metal fan what he thinks of people lumping Cradle of Filth in with his beloved first wave or any grindcore enthusiast what he thinks of all the fashionable mistakes that started to pop up after As the Sun Sets called it a day. Your comments will be met with a lot of hate. A lot. Don’t be surprised if you lose an appendage in the resulting conflict because those black metal guys actually carry swords. It’s part of the trve and kvlt contract. I have to carry around a goddamn flail or my eye socket gets raped by Gorgoroth. I wish I was kidding.

Around the same time Thursday dropped the pretty okay (I’m not going to lie, I like some of it) Full Collapse and blew up, it seemed that the definition of screamo was changed forever. Not that anyone really cared except those that were fans of the emo subgenre of old that now had to endure talking to fourteen year old girls (OMG, liek do u haev Hawthorne Heights?). Oh, and forget about us trying to give them the genre emocore for them to ruin so we could have screamo back. When was the last time you heard the word emocore? Rites of Spring?

Of course, there seems to be a whole ton of people that are fans of the traditional screamo world now so maybe the added exposure was a good thing. I’ve only really been around it since ’02 (yes, I bow to those that had the first Honeywell demo) but the popularity has grown since it was knocking on death’s door when everyone put away their Orchid albums and forgot about it.

Aimless rant aside, this podcast serves two objectives. One, to give kids that don’t know an example of what screamo was before it became a mainstream music press buzzword. Even though I’m sure I’ll be launched headfirst into a bevy of debates on what exactly is screamo and that everything on the playlist isn't (I know, I know, I didn’t add Portraits of Past, Reversal of Man, Portrait, Iconoclast, on and on), it covers the basics of the sound. Secondly, since screamo is a form of emo (don’t argue, goddamnit) this will serve as a reminder to my friends that think emo is just Dashboard Confessional soft crap that lacks balls. On any level, enjoy.

Flah on Music podcasts are a short thirty minute program uploaded every week with added commentary behind the show. Usually the commentary doesn't have anything to do with the show at all and is written in a haze caused by advanced sleep deprivation.

So You Want to be a Reviewer, Huh?

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 10:18:00 -0700

So You Want to be a Reviewer, Huh?
Has the Internet changed the way we write?

So, you want a ______, huh? If you were a web developer in the mid nineties (i.e. cut and pasting html source info from sites with good layouts on your free Geocities page) that opening phrase comes packed with a little nostalgia. I’m convinced that everyone has found themselves, one time or another, at HTMLgoodies.com looking through Joe Burns’s collected tutorials (before he went big business of course) trying to figure out how to get their own homepage up on this crazy World Wide Web contraption that seemed like the devil incarnate for the post office and a godsend for porn fanatics. Flashback to 1997 and during my move from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, I was there quite frequently as I decided to run with the tech crowd and learn HTML. Looking back at it now, the early days of the net resembled the rush west as everyone scurried to secure property. There seemed to be two overriding reasons for you to be in the virtual world those days: One, some people were in it to make money. Two, other people could finally read their bullshit without having to acquire a degree in journalism or a lucrative book deal.

The best thing about the net was quality control was nil, no matter what the maintainers of various web awards would tell you (an internet phenomenon that would dissipate as soon as everyone started to get a bit more serious). Everyone that wanted to do a little computer language coding had a page up that could possibly be seen by other people without the need to invest too much time or too much money. No deadlines, no editors, no limits (no grammar); it was utopia for those that wanted to write but didn’t have the talent, drive, or time to go through the typical routes. Naturally, as the internet evolved, the old world ways of publishing started to look rather archaic. The net wasn’t changing what people wrote per say but it was changing how they got it out there.

Soon, the complaints from people in the old world started to be leveled against this new community of upstarts. The insults flew back and forth as publishers called web maintainers lazy hacks and web maintainers called publishers old fashioned (This is best seen in the Penny Arcade vs. Wiley battle that irked the online world more than the print world). As soon as the blog craze hit, the lines were firmly divided. On one side there were those that saw the old way as the only true way to ensure quality and on the other stood those that wanted to continue to push the limits of what could be read and how. But, we’re not here to discuss the philosophy of netizens and those of print journalists and authors, right? We’re here to read about reviewers, right? Well, like other areas that once were based solely in the print world, reviews haven’t been left unscathed by the internet phenomenon; we’re just now seeing the divergence from old world to new.

In 1997, after taking a crash course in frames, I started one of my first web adventures, I was reviewing music. I don’t even remember my first site that much besides giving pretty solid reviews to bands that have long since disappeared like the pop punk by way of hair metal guitar wankery of Protein or being interested in the music samples I heard of some band that had a name derived from a fish which I realize now was probably Karp. Still, I was writing about music in a fresh medium along with a thousand other people and, although most of us were doing it purely out of self interest, we were all playing a part, no matter how small, in an interesting shift. Finally, you could easily find reviews of obscure music without having to consult the back of some metal magazine where the review section was an uninformative few lines at best or subscribe to an underground fan zine that came straight off the black and white Kinko’s copier. New music that was far below the mainstream’s radar was only a mouse click away and you could be at a trend’s birth without leaving your computer seat.

Fast forward eight years and the effects of the information superhighway started to become clear. After doing time as an editor twice (which is a real gas if you’ve ever seen me try to employ proper grammar), a couple of reviewer positions, and plowing through around three hundred reviews I decided to take a break. It didn’t quite reach the infamy of the self imposed sabbatical that Bill Waterson took because, well, no one missed me. Retirement was in the cards for a while, but I knew that I’d be back. The pull of being a reviewer is too great. Even through all the bad, the lack of time, being forced to listen to terrible music, death threats, forever unconsciously spelling “decide” “Deicide,” there were all the reasons that made me write in the first place; free tunes, increased knowledge, unique opportunities, suddenly having opinions that somewhat mattered, etc, etc, etc. I knew that retirement to me meant the same as breaking up did to Integrity or losing a member did to Zao but, during my absence from the written word, I got to catch up with the music world around me and take a long outsider’s look at reviewing in general.

What I witnessed was that shift in full effect; not in the way people were reviewing but the way people were reading reviews. Along with the usual complaints about reviewer’s opinion being wrong, there were gripes that the reviewer didn’t go into enough detail or never told the reader what the album sounded like. I’ve seen that argument occasionally, mostly leveled at people who wrote concept reviews that read more like a failed Creative Writing paper than a stab at music journalism but what made it different this time around was the way it was answered.

I’ll be the first to admit that, while it may be fun on a sadistic level, it’s definitely not the best of ideas to confront your readership on any issues especially one where they find you at fault. It’s like pouring gas on yourself and confronting the angry pitchfork wielding mob outside your residence while teasing them about their torch throwing abilities. Inevitably though, some of us will do it just to defend our credibility. In the past, the “you didn’t tell me what this album sounded like” argument was always answered with something along the lines of, “You need to learn to read, it’s above your head, you don’t understand me, I like to cut myself, etc,” but now, I saw a totally different answer. “Go listen to the mp3 link provided if you want to know what it sounds like.”

What caught me off guard wasn’t the frank manner that the answer was provided (and totally devoid of insults, a rarity when engaging in an argument with a literary personality), but that the reviewer had a point and hinted at the shift in reviewing content. With sample mp3s being far more prevalent and becoming a far more common marketing tool, did you still have to describe the album in detail since a reader could readily hear something for themselves? Was this one of the first signs of the shift in the structuring of reviews on the net? Surely, this reviewer thought so but I wasn’t completely sold on the issue.

I decided to gather together a panel of three reviewers I respected and read quite often to ask them some questions about the future of the online music critic and throw in some golden oldies that I don’t think a lot of people outside music journalism understand about the world of reviewing.

Andrew writes for the long running website Aversion Online and his no nonsense reviewing style that is heavy on description, not to mention the amazing amount of review he’s done a month, has gained him many a reader. He currently has one of the most interesting MP3 blogs going on the net.

Erik Thomas is extremely busy not only writing for two websites, Metalreview and Digital Metal, but also writing for the print publication Metal Maniacs.

Ash Levitt is currently expanding the normally reviewed content of Lambgoat. I also believe that he’s one of the few online music reviewers I know that has a degree in psychology.

What is a reviewer's job?
Andrew: I feel that a reviewer's job is simply to be honest while attempting to beas polite and thorough as possible. Almost everyone who writes reviews has their moments where politeness is abandoned in favor of animated commentarydue to strong opinions, but barring such rare occasions I think it's best to simply honestly state both the good and the bad in order to try and provide a balanced view for the reader.

Erik: I think it varies from writer to writer. Some writers want to entertain and amuse, others want to clearly define an album for the reader with little extraneous material. For me it’s less of a job but more of an obligation; I want the reader, when he or she reads my reviews, then purchases an album, I want them to have a sort of mental image of the album already. When they listen to it I want them to go "yeah, I hear that" or "yeah, I agree'.

Ash: Well, obviously a reviewer's primary job is to review the album at hand. However, a lot of reviewers don't seem to understand that, while it is the reviewer's opinion, some sense of objectivity should be strived for. Reviewers who become too subjective in their reviews and take everything personally end up writing reviews that cheat the reader and the band.

With the internet, obviously people can check out sample mp3's with ease.Does this influence the way that you write reviews since people can hear asample for themselves? Has this changed the "game" so to speak, where many reviewers don't describe the album as in depth (rather they give theiropinion on why this is good/bad) because the music is usually there just one click away?

Andrew: No, this has no influence on the way that I write. I don't expect anyone to go and blindly purchase a CD just because I give it a good review, however, so my hope is that my reviews can at least provide readers exposure to new bands and records that they might not have heard of otherwise that interest them enough to explore options such as downloading mp3's to sample on their own. I don't think mp3's and the internet have impacted the lack of depth/detail in your average review either. Poor and unsatisfactorily descriptive reviews have existed forever and always will exist. Perhaps the ease of use of the internet simply means there are more such reviews out there, but the reason for the reviews lacking substantial content falls solely on those writers' lack of responsibility for their work.

Erik: The Internet hasn't affected how I write. I think in metal far more than other forms of music, readers are looking for some form of validation from likeminded folks or guidance before they buy. The Internet just adds to the justification. I try to make my reviews as detailed as possible so that a person can or cannot buy an album based on my review alone. If they do like I do, read a review, then find an mp3, then purchase the cd, I feel I've aided that process. I still think even with mp3s that only give a hint of an album, metal fans are more likely to purchase cds to want the artwork, lyrics and such.

Ash: I don't think it has really changed the game that much. A lot of times, when I'm looking for new music, I take what other reviewers say as well as sample mp3's as a whole package or complements of one another. For example, if I don't understand what a reviewer is talking about specifically, I listen to an mp3 to get a better idea. On the other hand, a good review will give you a sense of the album beyond one or two sample songs.

Do you find it more useful to describe an album with band references or todescribe it in other means? Does referencing bands create a situation where a reader can discover multiple bands during a review or does this make the reader even more lost since their unfamiliarity with the genre gives them no understanding of what the album in question will sound like?

Andrew: All of the above. I usually tend to try and avoid band descriptions, but even a cursory glance at my site will show that I am often guilty of it just as much as the next person, so I just try to provide those types of comparisons as a loose gauge of general approach while still going further to cite literal musical descriptions and breakdowns of key tracks to add more insight into those blanket band comparisons. Comparing bands to other bands always has the potential to either expose readers to multiple discoveries in a single review, or, as you said, potentially confuse them if they have no familiarity with any of the artists that comparisons are being drawn to.

Erik: I try to add some references, but you have to be careful of the review becomes one giant name drop. References allow the reader to form some sort of opinion without actually hearing the album. If I say a band sounds like Morbid Angel and that person hates Morbid Angel, I've saved that person the time and effort from reading on or buying an album. However, that person may love Morbid Angel and may buy an album based on that reference alone. I think references should not be relied on though; there’s no point in comparing a band to 23 underground, unsigned black metal bands from Norway that no one except the reviewer has ever heard of. I try to make my references broad, bands that I know a reader might have heard of-it sets the stage for the album and for most part is a basic stylistic descriptor of an album. Those references have to be expounded on, a review isn't simply a reference-any one can do that.

Ash: I think both methods are necessary to write a good review. Examples of other bands that are similar in sound is useful, but it can misconstrue a lot of things too. How many times have you seen a CD in a store with one of those promotional stickers on it that says some shit like, "For fans of Hatebreed, Frank Zappa, and Joan Baez." But it can also be problematic to describe bands in other terms like genres, etc, because not all categories mean the same thing to all people.

The eternal battle continues: showy and verbose vocabulary or just the meat and potatoes?

Andrew: Meat and potatoes. Pardon my proverbial French, but I fucking despise"showy and verbose" reviews, and nothing gets me fired up quicker than an absolutely useless review chock full of senselessly intertwined adjectives that provide absolutely no insight whatsoever into what a band actually sounds like - "ironic" that these types of reviews are almost exclusively quoted by bands and record labels in marketing and promotional materials. There will never come a day that 5,000,000+ entirely different bands couldn't be very loosely referred to as "a cacophonous whirlwind of dizzying mercilessness unleashed in an absolute maelstrom of jackhammer assaults" or whatever such nonsense these "poets" come up with, and I have no respect for anyone who approaches writing reviews in that manner. It's useless and should not be tolerated. I simply write the way I talk, I don't fancy myself an actual "writer" at all.

Erik: Each review and every reviewer is different. It depends on the album and the mood I’m in. As a whole though, you have to get the meat and potatoes of the album across. If you write Chaucer but the reader has no idea what the album is like, the review fails. But on the other side, I feel it’s my job to provide some form of entertainment and make the review interesting. It would be simple to write "This is death metal. The vocals are growls. The Drumming is fast..etc" But the reader deserves more, reviewing, like the musicians we review, is an form of art-and readers know what is good writing and what is bad writing.

Ash: If you imagine that there is a continuum between these two extremes and write from that standpoint, then the review will be better than if you make it all or none. Some albums are so horrendous that the meat and potatoes version is saying too much. Also, some albums are so great that one could go on and on with huge $10 words, but no one would know what the reviewer is talking about.

Why be a reviewer? What's the best and the worst part?

Andrew: I'm a music fan at heart, just like anyone else who might read my site, so my #1 reason for spending so much time writing reviews is because I want todiscover new music just like any other diehard fan. I can't even begin to estimate how many incredible records I never would've heard had I not started my site six years ago, and I just hope to pass on the awareness of these awesome bands to others in the hopes that more people will find more incredible music to enjoy. The worst part? Well, there are numerous downsides, but lately the biggest pitfall for me is simply time. It takes a lot of time to do what I personally do with my site, and it's been really hard to juggle that workload as time goes on.

Erik: Easily the worst part is not being able to listen to albums because I WANT to. I have a continual stack of cds I HAVE to listen too. I can hardly ever throw on a classic old album, because I’ve got 30 or 40 new albums I have to review. I think too as a reviewer, you begin to not just sit back and enjoy an album, you are always critiquing and listening on a deeper level, rather than just enjoying an album for what it is. The best part for me, and I'd be lying if I said other wise-I love free music. I'm a cd whore, I love getting cds in the mail. I get a little cash writing for Metal Manics magazine, but it’s not any sort of income. The 2 websites I write for (digitalmetal.com and metalreview.com) all I get is free cds-and that’s worth it for me. The other benefit is interviewing bands and people I literally idolized growing up. I've got to interview Martin Walkyier of Sabbat, Jan C of Gorefest, Roger Miret of Agnostic Front, etc. I've been childlike when interviewing those folks, but getting to talk to them and see how 'normal' they are amazes me.

Ash: I can't speak for other reviewers, but the reason why I review is first and foremost because I love the music. I love discovering new music, and I believe in the bands that put it out there. If an album is really good, it deserves to be known. Conversely, if an album sucks, that should also be known to save people money. Therefore, I guess, the best part is helping to show other listeners amazing albums, and the worst part is getting a ton of shit from ignorant listeners when you give an album a bad, or even mediocre review.

Most reviewers skip over the artwork and packaging. Is this an important part of the overall presentation and should it be taken as seriously as the music contained within?

Andrew: Yes and no. Yes, it is absolutely an important part of the overall presentation, but no, it should not weigh as heavily as the music. The music is key, but I definitely feel that packaging should always be at least touched upon in reviews. That's why I don't really care for mp3's: I want the art, I want the lyrics, I want the entire package, not just the music. When I was a little kid the sole reason I bought Iron Maiden's "Somewhere in Time" cassette was because the artwork kicked ass. That record made a huge impact on my listening habits at that early age, and the artwork really drew me into it big time back then.

Erik: I personally dont focus on it too much on the artwork unless something really leaps out at me. We are music reviewers, not art critics. So many albums are great that have shitty artwork-why focus on that?

Ash: As a reviewer I don't care about the artwork or packaging, because I'm not reviewing that. I'm reviewing the music that is the album, because that's what people are really buying it for. How many times have you bought a record of a band you hated or didn't even know just because of the artwork? Personally, though, artwork is very important to me. Amazing layouts by designers like Stephen O'Malley and Aaron Turner make me want to own every different press of a release on vinyl and CD. But this is just when I buy stuff and has nothing to do with reviewing.

Do you feel like your opinions carry any weight with bands and labels or dothey just see you as another marketing device?

Andrew: Sometimes I feel like my opinions carry weight. I don't want that to sound arrogant because I'm just not like that, but I have had a good number of bands over the years express to me that they've really found my honesty and my critical nature to be quite helpful, and that they've even gone so far as to make adjustments based on some of my suggestions. I think that's crazy in some ways, but it's really cool to hear things like that as well, because it's nice to know that sometimes all the hard work can be of some value to someone. I also know for a fact that I've gotten a few bands signed over the years, though oddly enough the labels never mention this to me! In most of those cases I'll usually hear a word of thanks from the bands after all is said and done. I wish I could have that kind of effect more often, though, because I can always name off a good handful of incredible bands that remain unsigned! I think that I in particular am a little less of a "marketing device" in many cases because I'm pretty finicky about recording quality and stuff, and as briefly touched upon earlier the way I write isn't all that "quotable" for bands/labels.

Erik: Not my opinion necessarily, but ANY opinion holds some weight. Reviewer names are very rarely mentioned but the website or magazine is. But by that token, some sites and print do have some weight. You always see a certain few press quotes on album ads-and its always the same ones. With the internet though, I think reviewers have some more clout. Before, you bought the album, then decided if you liked it. Now, with so many reviews sites, labels know that the kids are reading reviews now and making a lot of decisions based on those reviews.

Ash: Sometimes it's just used as a marketing device after the record is out. I've come across reviews I've written on websites of various labels that use them to sell the CDs. That's fine with me. I've also indirectly helped bands get signed to labels by reviewing their demos, so someone has to be paying attention.

As the online world keeps changing and albums become easier to track down and listen to, do you find that there's a shift in your job from being someone giving your thoughts on an album to being a kind of "new music source" for people looking for new bands?

Andrew: Not really. I actually don't review but so much of the "higher profile" newreleases that come out as I tend to get more support from smaller bands and labels, and I'm usually so backed up that my reviews hit the site a couple of months after new releases are officially on the streets. So I could be a source of "new music" as in "music you haven't heard before", but not necessarily as in "brand new releases" or whatever. But overall what I do now is the exact same thing I've been doing since late-1999 - in so much as actually writing the reviews, that is. Not much has changed there.

Erik: Both. I always like introducing folks to new bands, but I also like recommending an old band to a new metal fan. I still think people want other people’s thoughts on bands whether it be a new one or an established act. Metal is so secular and specialized that fans want justification from people that know metal whether its new music or thoughts on an album.

Ash: This is kind of similar to the question above about how much sample mp3s have changed the game. I think the job of the reviewer has stayed the same. It's actually possible that their job has become more important now because there is an information overload with new bands and new music. Every band has a Myspace page. Every small label is touting their army of bands as being the best. What's the average listener to make out of all of this confusion? Reviews certainly aren't the definitive answer, but they're a good start.

Is the music critic, especially in print, a dying breed or will there always be a place for those that want to write passionately about music?

Andrew: The whole "blog" explosion has kind of made a lot more people into"unofficial" critics (not that I really believe in "official" critics either) that just kind of rant and rave about music without operating as any kind of "zine" or what have you, so in that regard I think there's been an increase in the number of people simply expressing their thoughts out of their love of music, but at the same time I do think the "music critic" is kind of a dying breed (very much especially in print) due to the whole mp3 thing and the immediacy of internet updates. There are definitely a lot of people out there that by now feel like reading (or writing) reviews is a waste of time, and I can honestly understand that in some respects.

Erik: I think more so for metal, music critics will stick around. It’s such a specialized genre, and there’s such a limited fan base, those fans want opinions of what is a pretty specific style of music. That’s my job.

Ash: I think it will always exist somewhere, though it is more common to see lots of reviews online instead of in print outlets. Even big music magazines now devote less space to reviews than articles and interviews.

According to these three gentlemen, the age where we really see the impact of the online world on the review is still far away as we all seem to be doing, at a base level, what our forefathers did in print for years and years; writing descriptively about music and how that music influences us. Still, you can’t help but think that there’s going to be a revolution on the horizon where everything changes. Someone just needs to start it.

So what exactly does the world of reviewing have to do with HTMLGoodies anyway? If you peruse through HTMGoodies.com now, you’ll see a section about the history of the website presumably written by founder Joe Burns. There’s a paragraph in particular that sticks out:

The email poured in. People wrote long, emotion-filled, thank you letters telling me they were happy to have found a site that showed them HTML in a language they could understand. No one had yet taken the time to explain the language in simple English, let alone offer it on the World Wide Web.

Joe Burns gave people the information they needed in a different, simpler way and he seemingly changed the forecast for the internet; creating a storm of those that needed just a little push to get their DIY site out there. So is the massive explosion of internet content because of people like Burns that gave people the information they were looking for in a different way? Well, I guess it’s something that those with hindsight will probably examine but it does give us a fascinating parallel. Is the world of reviews just an “HTMLGoodies”, a catalyst, away from a shift that changes its structure forever? If we’re going to go as far as saying that one man’s site changed the net, can’t we in turn say that one man’s reviews could change the way we write? It’s entirely possible and it’s something to think about.

So, you want to be a reviewer, huh? Well, you could change everything on the reviewing landscape forever.

Ten of the Best Samples You'll Fast Foward Through

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 03:57:00 -0700

5. A Silver Mt. Zion – Built Then Burnt (Hurrah! Hurrah!)
Album: Born Into Trouble As The Sparks Fly Upward
Genre: Post rock

The opening call of “Brothers and sisters!” revels in a certain childlike wonder that we all shared. It’s a beautiful recreation of a time when we didn’t have preconceived notions of the future and anything that we wanted seemed to be within our reach. It’s a great little sample that gives way to gentle post rock orchestration of the highest order. A Silver Mt. Zion would never be this good or this consistent again and this well used sample helped them pave the way.

4. Old Man Gloom – Zozobra
Album: Seminar III
Genre: Post doom/sludge

As shown by Buzzoven earlier in this list, there’s no rule against using more than one sample to create atmosphere. The collage that takes place in this epic enforces the band’s M.O. and subject matter perfectly with…B-movie clips about apes and their evolution? Well, the members of the Simian Defense League (I’m not kidding) may have a thing for the lower primates they also have a thing for crafting amazing songs that have the ability to resonant despite their odd subject matter. The samples here are well placed and carry that oddity to fruition like most B-movie samples do. Great stuff in what I think is one of the best songs of all time.

3. The Axis of Perdition – Forms on the Other Side of Silence
Album: The Ichneumon Method (And Less Welcome Techniques)
Genre: Black metal/industrial

Well, if you ever wanted to be scared out of your wits, this is right where you should head. A noise collage segue on one of the more interesting forays into the world of black metal in the 21st century provides the scares thanks to an absolutely fantastic performance from a male actor reading off some prose that is dead set in the Lovecraftian vein of horror. With rumbles and screeches building in force, the sample surges ahead telling of the encounter with some ancient beast of the night. It’s bar none one of the frightening things you’ll hear and makes good on the usually laughable attempts of black metal at trying to make music with an eerie tinge.

2. Backstabbers Inc. – SB2K Mosh Anthem
Album: While You Were Sleeping
Genre: Hardcore

The best usage of a movie sample that you’ll ever hear. Ever. I mean it, ever. Al Pacino rages in his monologue (One of the best monologues in modern film, you’ll know it when you hear it) while Backstabbers Inc. lay the backdrop with a slow crawling chug and tortured screams. It’s more than just anthemic, it does more than just pump you up, it’s the perfect hardcore sample that gets at the same problems of hardcore while being incredibly forceful and with a winking eye. It’s just great stuff and while some may say that using that sample in particular that already exhibits a ton of energy on its own may be lazy, I can honestly say that few samples have been used that well and to that great a degree.

1. The Wind Up Bird – This
Album: Whips
Genre: Post rock/noise

This song is known by me and others as the saddest song ever recorded and it’s all because of the sample. Straight from a real breakup over a voice mail, “Sorry I’ve become this monster, I love you a lot,” catapults you into a world of despair as you hear the inflection of true pain in the woman’s voice. The fact that it’s real makes listening to This like getting a punch in the gut. As oppressive distortion rages, the audio glitches set in, and the sample is panned from speaker to speaker you can’t help but be absolutely heartbroken whenever you hear those words. “Sorry I’ve becomes this monster, I love you a lot.” It hurts so badly because it really hurt someone else and that sudden onset of emotion is what makes this sample so powerful. It’s the best sample you’ll ever hear.

Ten of the Best Samples You’ll Fast Forward Through

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 14:58:00 -0700

The sample; overused tool to lazily introduce the subject or another grand sonic texturing device that can add that spark that a song needs? It all depends on which genre of music you call your home because the sample has been many things to many genres. A cliché in techno, a must have in goregrind, and an evolutionary stepping stone in hardcore. Like most music history, details are sketchy as to where we can place the origins of the sample. As I rack my brain for useless details I can tell you that Pink Floyd used a great one on the underappreciated Meddle (Football fans singing, it was money). Where they the first? Hardly, but they were a great early example of a well placed sample that added to the song experience and was just done right, a true rarity when you take into account the bulk of needless song intros and intrusive movie clips. So, let’s do what music journalists do best and have a countdown. Ten well used samples that show that the usage can become an art in the right hands.

10. Buzzoven – This is Not
Album: Sore
Genre: Sludge

While the song begins with a hint of the sample that will dominate the last fifteen plus minutes of the song, it really doesn’t kick in until you reach the 4:10-4:20 mark of the closing track of the sorely missed Buzzoven’s seminal work. There’s a man meekly saying “You got a ticket to hell?” that repeats seemingly indefinitely while a dissenting crowd noise is looped in the background with a strangely unnerving tape distortion screeching along. Buzzoven wasn’t breaking ground with the long loop, it had been done before and done since (Emo Summer’s own repeater might be one of the most annoying things ever recorded) but This is Not’s sample gives the song a real atmosphere and the layered effect gives you a sense of impending doom and unavoidable gloom, the perfect complement to a sludge record with a certainly evil and nihilistic tinge. Given the right setting, listening to the whole sample is just goddamn creepy and lesser mortals would do well to shut the album off and pretend that there’s just fifteen minutes of dead air instead of one of the best used samples put to wax.

9. Pig Destroyer – Piss Angel
Album: Prowler in the Yard
Genre: Grindcore

Say what you will about the band, they’ve certainly gotten their fair share of lashes from both grind faithful and unfaithful alike, but the two part sample that puts the finishing touches on their down right freighting concept album about stalking makes for one of the better uses of samples to come out of grind, a genre that’s notorious for using them and using them poorly. There’s two points of interest here, one being the section where the song cuts out and reveals a phone tone and a man heavily breathing (which just adds to the weird stalking subject matter on display here, I urge you to read the lyrics) and the final spoken word part that starts at 2:44 (and has dick to do with the album’s concept besides being a continuation of the intro) which is just so odd and so out of left field that it has a strange alluring quality. The voice is draped with effects to make it sound like one of those bad talking computers from the mid nineties and calmly recites the seriously demented lesbian encounter while a crowd watches at an amusement park. Manipulate some tones in the background and the sample takes on that creepy atmosphere that will show up yet again on this list.

8. Aborted – Meticulous Invagination
Album: Goremageddon
Genre: Death metal

Sometimes a sample is so well used that it becomes tied to a song. The opening movie sound byte, “The doctor is in…” was a perfect start to the Carcass worshipping patho-grind mayhem that Aborted would display on their most recognizable work. The sample becomes ingrained in your memory and when you hear it you expect to be bombarded by a guttural scream and furious chugging guitar attack. Pungent Stench used the same sample later but it just didn’t work proving that a clever sample will always be associated with the song it first stared in.

7. Isis – The Minus Times
Album: The Red Sea
Genre: Post-doom/sludge

“Do you know how it hurts your eyes to stare at the horizon?” So goes the sample that unleashes the floodgates on a young Isis when early Godflesh was still a logical comparison. Not only is the sample pretty cool in a sort of overly poetic, kind of pretentious way but it also would give the album its name. Pitch perfect for the song and like a lot of good samples, it's more than quotable.

6. Supermachiner - Bitter Cold
Album: Rise of the Great Machine
Genre: Post rock

Sometimes a sample is so affecting that it becomes hard to listen too. Such is the sample that becomes the focal point of Bitter Cold, arguably the best song from the debut of Mr. Bannon's from Converge fame side project. A simple repeating guitar line builds in intensity giving way to a giant screamed crescendo but the sample that’s subtly laid under the proceedings is what gives the song its resulting hard to listen to quality. Faintly, you hear the screams of a woman being raped but it’s more than just a gimmick. It’s unrelenting and it carries on for a near unbearable four minutes but it does what great samples do, it adds to the atmosphere of the song and evokes an emotion, albeit a disturbing but quite powerful one.

Sunday: The last five.

Brawl at the O.K. Corral of Stupid

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:16:00 -0700

From the files of nobody gives a shit, there’s a giant battle brewing that’s going to tear metal apart! Okay, not really, but maybe those 400,000 people that bought Ill Nino’s new album (and need a dramatic music makeover apparently) and the five or six white kids that think they’re Latin and still give a shit about Soulfly shouldn't look each other in the eyes anymore because their bands of choice are throwing a big girly hissy fit.

It all started when Mark Rizzo, not the guy that was in Grease, went on the record as saying that Ill Nino played live shows with a tape backing them, called them fake, and said that, now sing this in your head like The Clash tune, he fought the lead singer and he won, he fought the lead singer and he won. Isn’t that precious? It’s like we’re caroling about retards.

Christian Machado, who’s last name sounds like a variety of edible nuts, shot back today and said that Rizzo was a meany head and didn’t have some of his facts in order. The most interesting part of statement? Check this out:

"Rizzo, with his wannabe-tough-boy attitude and his big mouth, thought he was going to change the face of music with a new band he then called CORE-TEZ, but failed miserably. His attempt to recreate ILL NINO came up short, and sounded more like an ILL NINO cover band. Rizzo couldn't even strike an indie deal, and this left him even more frustrated. This left him with no choice but to join SOULFLY as a hired punk, who only receives a menial paycheck and nothing else. If Rizzo feels that strongly about being a real hater, then he should stop cashing in his ILL NINO royalty checks...but I guess he needs ILL NINO's money.”

Let’s all act like eighth graders, encircle the two, and say, “Oooooooooooooo!” obnoxiously loud. And he just called you an Ill Nino cover band! Damn, that’s harsh, that’s like being garbage squared.

But wait, there’s more. If I can direct your attention to the center ring, you’ll see Mr. Machado isn’t done swinging yet. Excerpts that I can turn around make Machado look like an idiot follow:

“As for ILL NINO playing to tape, we run sample tracks live because we have samples and keyboards on our albums. Many bands run samples live — ROB ZOMBIE, STATIC-X, FEAR FACTORY, LINKIN PARK, and OZZY [OSBOURNE], all run samples live, just to name a few. For a band he claims is 'fake,' we're doing better after Rizzo's departure. ILL NINO's 'Confession' has sold over 400,000 copies worldwide, outselling our debut 'Revolution..Revolucion', which sold 320,000 worldwide.

No one in ILL NINO talked negatively about SOULFLY or its members, but he had to start this shit once again. If you talk shit about NINO, you talk about all 6 members, not just one.”

Ah, yeah, man! If you mess with the NINO, watch out son. We’ll, like, sell 400,000 records on your ass! Lame. But, they are man enough to admit that they run a tape during their performances which, honestly, is a bitch move because it’s not that hard to find touring keyboardist. But then, It's not that hard to write good songs and they screwed the pooch on that too.

And don’t think that I’m heaping all this hate upon the NINO because I’m some sort of disgruntled Soulfly fan that’s pissed because they haven’t put out a good record in, hmmm, never. It just makes me a sad panda that these dudes, that the rest of the world couldn’t give less of a squirrel piss about, are duking it out in the press over grade school shit at best. It’s time to grow up kiddies.

Oh and before I forget:

"Don't forget where you came from, or what got you where you are now, stop crying already!!!"

You can find that on page twelve of the Lamest and Most Generic Put Downs Ever book.

Corrosion of Sanity

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 16:11:00 -0700

As I labor to catch back up with all the breaking news I can’t help but shake my head at the utter stupidity of the human race.

After Dimebag got some lead in the noggin, you’d think that promoters would amp up security and make it harder to sneak weapons into shows. But then, promoters are mostly dumb in my experience and only think about the green rather than the well being of others. So, it really came as no surprise to learn about even more show violence as four fans get injected with the wrong kind of metal at a Corrosion of Conformity show.

The former hardcore now stoner rock band took the stage and after following what MTV News describes as a, “mosh-pit altercation,” some guy decided to pull out a knife and started going to town on people for whatever reason seemed to make sense in the mind of a man that’s willing to kill after A MOSH PIT ALTERACTION. Unbelievable.

Fast forward to later that night and one of the fans that got on the wrong end of one of the worst pits in history dies in the hospital while three others are wounded. Not to make light of a grave situation but I guess a tour with One Dead Three Wounded is off the tables now. The suspect escapes, is later captured, and SMNnews.com reports that, “Investigators say Pyne (the suspect) admits being at the club with a knife but doesn't remember anything after seeing his girlfriend in a fight.” Ah, the old I blacked out while I was stabbing people in the chest and trying to intimidate everyone that wanted to intervene with my giant knife defense. Somehow, I don’t believe a word that comes out of the mouth of a guy that needs to bring a knife to a metal show. Call me crazy.

COC made some statements later, none of which thankfully alluded to their nineties hit Clean My Wounds, and basically said everything you’d expect them to. Mike Dean had some especially pertinent words and went on record as saying:

“This tragedy is possible anywhere people gather and especially where alcohol is involved. It also is a possibility wherever nihilism sets in, as I'm afraid it has in the world of heavy metal, where we find ourselves categorized, for better, or more likely for worse. I'm not trying to espouse any lofty ideals or spirituality but could we at least aim as high as everyone coming together however briefly, to have a good time without hurting anyone?

Show that you are above this destructive stereotype. Our band has been committed to a higher standard for some time but it is an uphill struggle to be sure. Every day in every situation, the power is yours so use it wisely.”

Word.

So as the story seems to be getting some light coverage in the mainstream net markets of MTV News, the public’s opinion of the IQ of metallers takes another big hit and we’re all painted as Neanderthals that use extreme violence to settle simple problems. It’s either time to stop the tough guy posturing or time to hide your love of metal in the closet. Now I have to go buy some collared shirts.

Minor Infringement

qkasmt@gmail.com (Flah) — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 13:13:00 -0700

From the files of “OH NO YOU JUST DIDN’T BITCH!” comes the squabble between the good natured guys of the legendary Dischord label and those alleged human rights violating alleged money hungry alleged dickbags over at Nike (I said alleged, please not to be making with the lawsuits). Seems someone over at Nike World Domination Corp. thought it would be a good idea to name a skate tour Major Threat (let the eye rolling commence) and pilfer the fathers of hardcore and straight edge’s logo in the process. Maybe they thought they were strengthening the legacy of Minor Threat in the skate world. Maybe they thought no one would notice. Maybe they thought, hey, we’re an alleged evil business that can step all over some nice “Do it ‘till I DIY” people because they have no cash and can’t hire a lawyer to mess with our schemes to allegedly make the world into a giant festering corporate shithole. Call me a pessimist, but I’m going to put all my money on number three very black here.

Of course, Dischord made a statement and it reads as such:

“To set the record straight -- Nike never contacted Dischord to obtain permission to use this imagery, nor was any permission granted. Simply put, Nike stole it and we're not happy about it. We are not yet sure what options, if any, we have to stop Nike from using our images to sell their shoes, but if you would like to direct your complaints to Nike that would be a good place to start.

To longtime fans and supporters of Minor Threat and Dischord this must seem like just another familiar example of mainstream corporations attempting to to assimilate underground culture to turn a buck. However it is more disheartening to us to think that Nike may be successful in using this imagery to fool kids, just beginning to becoming familiar with skate culture, underground music and DIY ideals, into thinking that the general ethos of this label, and Minor Threat in particular, can somehow be linked to Nike's mission. In any regard, we would like to thank the many people who have written to us in the last several days to express their outrage, support and encouragement.”

Ahhhhhhmen.

The thing that was constantly in the back of my mind when reading this news was, “Well, does the new Major Threat logo look like Minor Threat’s logo?” Music fans know that cases of plagiarism and stealing have been built on next to nothing, so I went looking for the offending ad to see what kind of similarities I could find. And, before this ad gets canned across the web, here it is in all of its bullshit corporate glory.

Wow, yeah, I don’t know. I can’t see the likeness.

Finally, to make sure I’m telling both sides of the story here, yeah, this little bungled ad adventure will probably get more people into Minor Threat and more people into Dischord, blah de blah blahiggity blah. But seriously, even though hardcore is on the up and up when it comes to consumerism and even though most of the underground labels that were on the straight and narrow five years ago are a bit dodgy nowadays doesn’t mean you can roll the big monopoly death machine over little labels that never hurt anyone and most look at like the holy grail of music. That’s just allegedly shitty dudes. Shame. For shame.

Oh, and I tired to call you guys for a comment but I couldn’t get through that mess of a menu system you have going there (P.S. Replace that annoying douche that does the whole, “Okay…” deal.)