Bathory, “Possessed”

Bathory’s second album, The Return of the Darkness and Evil, was one of the touchstones in black metal’s first wave. Most of the traits of the genre were in place at this point, with the murky production, shrieked vocals, satanic themes, and punishing pace. The template would get refined on Bathory’s next record, but this is one of the establishing albums.

The Unsemble, “Krishna”

The Unsemble are an experimental outfit consisting of Alexander Hacke (Einstürzende Neubauten), Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard, Firewater), and Brian Kotzur (Silver Jews). There’s nothing really rock about it, and it doesn’t sound much like any of these folks’ other bands, other than some of Neubauten’s quieter moments. It’s an interesting listen, though, and I recommend it.

DJ Shadow, “This Time (I’m Gonna Try It My Way)”

DJ Shadow’s third album, The Outsider, is kind of a mess. It was four years after The Private Press and ten after Endtroducing, and all that time apparently created a lot of ideas that all tried to burst out at the same time. That doesn’t let the whole thing hang together as an album, but it does have plenty of fun songs. It’s also an album that I have learned to appreciate more as time has gone on. It turns out that he didn’t need to make another Endtroducing!

Murs, “I’m Innocent”

Murs found himself on Warner Bros for Murs For President, and he turned in a big album to celebrate. There are a lot of ideas, a lot of big beats, a lot of targets. It’s a good record, but it feels like it’s a little much.

Mayhem, “A Wise Birthgiver”

I went a little bit into Mayhem’s history the last time they came up, so I won’t repeat that here. I’ll just reiterate: these were bad people, and even this later version of the band contains folks like Hellhammer who have said terrible things and never really recanted past links to repugnant beliefs. I bought this album unaware of the band’s history outside of Vikernes and Euronymous. Knowing what I now know, I would have avoided it.

Albert King, “Born Under a Bad Sign”

Majestic. I’m just going to fuck this up if I try and write something.

Chemical Brothers, “Block Rockin’ Beats”

Last time we had a track from this album, I expressed mystification that the Chemical Brothers had a moment. But you know what? This song is a fuckin’ force of nature, of course it was huge. Listen to it!

Indian Handcrafts, “Starcraft”

We’re big fans of noisy duos here at Five Songs, so of course Indian Handcrafts is up our alley. They’re more towards the Melvins end of things, putting them in the vicinity of Big Business more than anybody. Big stoner vibes, and huge riffs. It’s impressive that this is just a guitar and drums.

Thou, “Sifting”

Thou released a bunch of stuff in 2020. One of them was a compilation of Nirvana covers that they’d released in various other places, gathered together as Blessings of the Highest Order. This, of course, is the last song from Bleach, and it’s a real punisher here. The entire album is a good time.

Head of David, “Bugged”

Head of David is notable mostly for inspiring a bunch of other bands, not to mention being Justin Broadrick’s proving ground for the sound he would later refine as Godflesh. As for the band itself, a lot of their stuff sounds pretty leaden, but this track is pretty good.

Joe & Barbara, “You’re Astounding”

This comes from very late in the Stax run, from 1975, just before the label’s bankruptcy brought things to a close.

Aceyalone, “Five Feet”

Aceyalone was one of the founders of the Freestyle Fellowship, which we just had the other day. He went solo and had a string of albums ranging from solid to excellent. This comes from his 2001 album Accepted Electric, which is probably my favorite solo album of his.

The High Back Chairs, “Miles To Inches”

Jeff Nelson is one of the co-founders of Discord Records, as well as the drummer for the legendary Minor Threat, a legacy that would be the envy of so many people. I was just listening to Minor Threat the other day, and it still holds up incredibly well.

He also drummed in the High Back Chairs.

Anagnorisis, “This Cursed Blood”

While listening to metal might not be good for much in terms of self-enrichment, if you look up band and song names, it’ll at least increase your vocabulary.

Ghost Bath, “Golden Number”

There’s a continuum in music that relies heavily tremelo picking going from black metal at one end to shoegaze at the other end. The placement of any band on this spectrum kind of comes down to the vocals, the use of dissonance, the melodies (if any), and the production. And bands can move around on the spectrum (Alcest, for instance). Ghost Bath isn’t pure black metal, so they’ve moved along that spectrum some. “Blackgaze” is sometimes used for these sorts of bands, and I can’t decide if that’s a good name or not.

Einstürzende Neubauten, “Nagorny Karabach”

Alles Wieder Offen (“All Open Again”) represents Neubauten fully completing their new model of creating albums. In 2002, Neubauten wanted to get themselves total creative freedom to create the music they wanted, without any label interference. They managed to get 2,000 people signed up at $35 a piece, which was enough to fund some sessions. Those recordings would turn into Supporter Album No. 1, which I have a copy of somewhere around here. However, the band turned to Mute records to turn it into a full release (Perpetuum Mobile, which re-worked some of the songs from it), which allowed them to fund a tour.

The Beatles, “Birthday”

Stupid Beatles! It’s not my birthday! Or this blog’s birthday, which is a day off of mine! I can’t put them in charge of anything.

christian fitness, “all ghosts to medicine counter four”

When you make really elaborate song or album names, it can easily tip over into pretension or tweeness. Andrew Falkous does a really good job with it, though. I mean, this album is called Love Letters In The Age of Steam. That’s really good!