Touché Amoré, “To Write Content”

Touché Amoré is a bit of a genre Rorschach test: emo? Hardcore? Post-hardcore? All of them, I guess, and maybe folks will identify in whatever way that fits them into their tastes. Not me! I’ll identify them as whatever genre fits best with whatever through line I’m desperately trying to spot on any given day.

Krallice, “Wastes of Ocean”

Like…uh…maybe I could talk about the distinction between the speed of hardcore versus that of extreme metal, and how to my ears one of the distinctions is that the drumming often becomes almost unmoored from the guitars in extreme metal for long stretches, while hardcore is usually more locked in. Which is all kinda bullshit, but this blog is all just bullshit anyway. Moving on!

The Jesus Lizard, “Gladiator”

HELL YEAH MAN TIME TO GO BREAK STUFF FUCKIN’ LET’S GO GET DRUNK FUCK SHIT UP

Tha Alkaholiks, “Let It Out”

Tha Alkaholiks stood out from out other rap groups in the mid-90s in California by being mostly playful, in contrast to the dominant G-funk aesthetic at the time. E-Swift’s production also presented a different approach than the dense, deep funk jams of the time. This is from their second record, 1995’s Coast II Coast, which featured a whole bunch of fun guests (Madlib, Q-Tip, Xzibit, others), and is just a solid album.

Wolves in the Throne Room, “Permanent Changes in Consciousness”

This is what counts for an interstitial track for Wolves in the Throne Room. Only 1:54!

Gino Parks, “Don’t Say Bye Bye”

Meanwhile, Gino Parks cranks out an entire song with an actual structure in a tidy 1:51. It’s actually kind of funny to think about how far music has gone from 1960, and to think that you can actually draw a lineage between these two songs without much backtracking on the family tree.

Bark Psychosis, “A Street Scene”

Bark Psychosis’s first run consisted of this album, Hex, after which they broke up. They did reunite ten years later for another record, but I haven’t listened to it. This album is hard to characterize. It’s kind of dream pop and kind of post-rock, and it’s unabashedly ambitious which is always nice. The compositions are big and the arrangements even bigger. This blurring of genre boundaries and fearlessness about incorporating technology is something that was unusual in pop or rock at the time.

Another month in the books here! NOT BAD.

Boss Hog, “Winn Coma”

Straight-ahead rock from the most straight-ahead record Boss Hog made.

Krallice, “Inhume”

The third Krallice album, Diotima, was the last they did with Profound Lore before striking out on their own. It contains the usual elaborate black metal craziness, and while it’s good, it’s maybe the Krallice album that sticks with me the least.

Ulthar, “Undying Spear”

Shuffle is in a metal mood these last couple days. This is from the 2020 album Providence, and if you were wondering what black metal vs. death metal was like, these two tracks might help. The pounding riffs here are very death metal, as opposed to the tremelo picking madness of the Krallice song. The vocals here are kind of black metal, though.

Bob Marley, “Keep On Moving”

This comes from the second collection of Bob Marley’s singles collection, The Complete Bob Marley & The Wailers. The second collection is called Soul Revolution, and I think I generally prefer the previous volume on the whole. Of course, it’s all great, and it’s a shame these collections aren’t still in print, they’re excellent.

Explosions In The Sky, “The Birth And Death Of The Day”

I have to say, while I think that Godspeed You! Black Emperor is probably the platonic ideal of post-rock bands, this band/track name combo here is really incredible form. If you give these names to an informed music listener, they’re going to guess post-rock pretty much every time. It sounds exactly like you’d expect.

Phono-Comb, “Grip ’n’ Grin”

Phono-Comb is a successor band to the great Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, which you probably guessed if you’re familiar with that band’s work. Two-thirds of the band (Don Pyle on drums and Reid Diamond on bass) played in the band, and their lone LP (1996’s Fresh Gasoline) is great. If you’re not familiar with the Shadowy Men, I just found out that Yep Roc has brought their three outstanding records back into print, and you need to go check them out now.

Pete Rock & CL Smooth, “For Pete’s Sake”

From the stone-cold classic Mecca And The Soul Brother, this song is typically excellent. Every song on this record hits hard, it’s incredible.

PJ Harvey, “Ascending”

squinting Yeah, I suppose that this IS an ascending track, isn’t it?

Thantifaxath, “The Bright White Nothing at the End of the Tunnel”

Sometimes, you just want black metal, unadulterated by other genres. We don’t always have to mix it up with everything else! Thantifaxath does that well, and this hits the spot.

The Emotions, “I Could Never Be Happy”

Late period Stax single here, which you can hear in that much more 70s funk sound. And of course, the production at this point is much richer than some of the earlier stuff.

The Slackers, “Feed My Girl Ska”

This comes from the 2007 album Boss Harmony Sessions, which is sort of a bit of an odd record from them. They have some originals, some arrangements of other people’s songs, and some songs written by other folks from the band than Vic Ruggiero. It’s tied together with an intro and outro by “Boss Harmony”, which I think is one of King Django’s (Skinnerbox) many aliases. At any rate, the Slackers are great, so this is a pleasant listen, but it’s not one of their top tier records.

DJ Logic, “Abyss”

My kids and I often joke about “dog logic”, where dogs try to reason about the world from their first principles, and it leads to some funny places. So now, I’m trying to figure out what are the axioms of DJ logic, and what the precepts you’d reach based on them. But it’s late, and my head hurts, so I can’t really follow this through to its conclusion.