A Forest of Stars

Gang Starr, “Take It Personal”

DJ Premier is one of the best to ever do it, and Daily Operation captures him near the top of his form. His beats are spare but bracing, with everything having a purpose, which is to hit hard. Guru is similarly direct, without a lot of embellishment, leading to a record that sounds almost businesslike. That’s not a complaint or anything, it’s nice to hear something that takes itself seriously and has the chops to back it up.

A Forest of Stars, “A Prophet for a Pound of Flesh”

The rolled Rs are a bit much, don’t you think, A Forest of Stars guy? There’s always a line that metal bands walk, where if they go too far and seem like they’re taking themselves too seriously, they cross into Theatre Kid territory. Now, you can lean into the ridiculousness, of course, and that’s fine and good and not what I’m talking about. It’s just if you get too dramatic and don’t seem to be tongue-in-cheek at all, well, it gets extremely silly.

Dodecahedron, “Interlude”

Dodecahedron is a black metal band that plays in the very dissonant end of the pool like a bunch of my favorite metal bands. It’s all murky noise and ugly churn, warty and unpredictable. They only have two albums out, and I’ve only got this one based on a positive reivew I read somewhere, but I like it pretty well.

A Forest of Stars, “Drawing Down the Rain”

Almost seems wrong to put this in the same genre of black metal as Dodecahedron, doesn’t it? I mean, there are blast beats and tremelo picking, I guess, but there’s something resembling melodies here, not to mention some clean singing, strings, and other non-grim shit. If you played this to somebody who had no exposure to modern metal, it would at least make some sense. Dodecahedron? Not so much.

Look, this is every day-ish.

A Forest of Stars, “A Blaze of Hammers”

This is A Blog of Gummi Worms.

Kings Destroy, “W2”

I want to say this was from a Humble Bundle? It’s kind of plodding, and sort of sounds like something that should only be played in the background by some kids playing D&D.

The Channels, “To The New Mandarins”

After the end of Jawbox, J. Robbins primarily focused on being an engineer and producer. This did not stop him from leading a whole string of bands, including Burning Airlines, Office of Future Plans, and today’s band, The Channels. Surprising nobody, this sounds a lot like a J. Robbins record. To my ears, it sounds the most like the final Jawbox record. The Channels only put out this one album, but it’s a good one, and it should go on your list if you like his stuff.