Krallice

Chris Farren, “Red Wire Blue Wire”

In a fine concept for an album, Death Don’t Wait (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is a soundtrack for a non-existent spy movie. I’m already a sucker for spy music, so I enjoy this quite a bit.

Melvins, “Night Goat”

There are definitely moments on Houdini where the idea of the Melvins breaking big in the wake of Nirvana and Soundgarden didn’t seem quite so crazy. This song, for instance, would seem to me to be perfectly palatable to the grunge crowd. The record didn’t really break big, because even its most marketable moments are pushing the boundaries for a mainstream crowd, but at least you can kind of see the outline of an idea here.

Autolux, “Becker”

Hm. What is this? I like it! I don’t remember buying it, that’s all. I suspect I picked it up in a sweep of year end lists and then forgot about it. It’s good! Looks like there’s a connection with Failure here, but I don’t know if that’s why I got it. Anyway, enjoy!

Krallice, “Set”

This is from Krallice’s 2020 release Mass Cathexis. Cathexis is one of those words that must disproportionately appear in a metal context - it sounds badass and nobody knows what it means. I mean, I’ve never seen it outside of a metal context! But I must be misremembering things, it looks like only three albums with the word in it, and 12 songs, none of which I’m familiar with other than this album.

WE’RE BACK, BABY! The historical record of this blog won’t show anything, but for the record: on the 18th, I blew this damn thing up so thoroughly trying to update it that I had to re-install it from scratch, and then remember all the custom modifications I did to get a music player in here. It was a mess, but we’re back. And we have a new logo! Kick off the tunes, Plexasaurus Rex!

The Roots, “Make My”

Geez, it’s been more than a decade since undun was released. Every now and again, I go look up a band that pops up on here and discover that there are albums they’ve released that I was unaware of. Always a treat! But alas, I was unable to manifest any new Roots records I didn’t already have. I’m sorry I failed you all.

Big Boi, “Apple of My Eye”

Oh, and I am aware of …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin, I just realzed that that might not be clear.

Krallice with Dave Edwardson, “Rank Mankind”

For their seventh album, Krallice brough in Dave Edwardson (Neurosis) to change things up. It’s still very much a Krallice record, with all the dizzying ideas that entails, so Edwardson mostly just kind of inflects the proceedings some. He gives the vocals a certain visceral grounding that gives this all a little bit more of a gutteral feel, as opposed to the sometimes purely cerebral feel of Krallice. The band is incredible as always, and this album rips.

ALL, “Honey Peeps”

By the time they hit 1997’s Mass Nerder, ALL was on their third singer across seven albums, but the band still basically sounded the same. This was finally the album where I realized that I was very much done with them. The previous record (Pummel) had some awful lyrics, and I really wasn’t sure why I picked this one up. Kind of force of habit, really. At any rate, with the Descendents also having been resurrected by this point, ALL really served no purpose.

The White Stripes, “Conquest”

Probably the most out-there song on Icky Thump, this flamenco goof is not only stylistically funny, but also happens to be a cover, making it another outlier on the record. It’s pretty fun, though.

They Might Be Giants, “Weep Day”

This is from Mightathon, a compilation of b-sides and non-album tracks from their early years, roughly around Lincoln. There’s some great stuff on this disc, many of which also appear on other comps, so it mostly can be skipped. I’m not sure it’s really very readily available these days anyway.

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!

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.

Modest Mouse, “Fire It Up”

I really need to go back and re-evaluate this record. Given how much I like the previous three albums from them (and the various EPs), it wasn’t really fair to kind of dismiss the record after only a couple listens. Sometimes it’s easy to just move on when a record doesn’t click right away, especially for a band that you love, because you expect to love it right away.