Addaura - Burning For The Ancient

Addaura - Burning For The Ancient Fans of Cascadian Black Metal bands such as Alda, Fauna, Wolves In The Throne Room, Skagos - take note.  This is probably your cup of tea.  I know it's mine.  I enjoyed this band's 2010 demo, and have eagerly been waiting for more ever since.  This was well worth the wait.  Melodic, hypnotic, haunting, this record is repetitive in a mesmerizing way, rather than a boring way.  The recording does the songs justice.  Not to muddy, or underproduced. The vocals are a majestic mix of screaming and growling that accent the epic nature of the music perfectly.  This is supposed to be available on vinyl, but I cannot figure out where.  The band apparently self released this little gem.  I'd recommend getting it into your grubby little hands, and on to your turntable as soon as possible. 

Here.

I'm still here!

Sorry it's been a minute to the folks who read this.  I've still been settling into my new place.  I've also been doing a lot of intensely personal writing, that as always has a soundtrack, but I'm maybe not ready to share with the world yet.

I've been feeling inspired the the resurgence of DIY post punk and deathrock.  It's about fucking time!  I turned 31 the other day.  I found gothic rock before I found punk when I was 13.  That's 18 years of carrying the torch for a genre that has been dragged through the mud, and commercialized and bastardized just as much, if not more so than punk.  Punk may have had bands like Green Day, and Rancid to help drag it back into mainstream consciousness in the early nineties, and one could argue the merits of what Green Day and Rancid have given back to DIY punk. Most importantly,  does punk have something as embarrassing as Marilyn Manson that average joes associate with it?  No, no it doesn't. 

So what have I been excited about?

 Dekoder - Demo  This four song cassette tape has been making the rounds on blogs all over the interwebs.  I've even seen it on multiple year end lists.  It definitely made my own.  The song writing is solid, catcthy, infectious even.  My only problem with this demo, is I just want more of it.  You can definitely hear a lot post punk influence with the melodies woven through the songs.  Think if Joy Division met a punkier Sleater Kinney with more political sounding lyrics.  At least that's what I get.  I've been listening to this over and over.

Here.

Cemetery- Demo  I first heard tell of this band when another friends' band played with them on a trip through Chicago.  I looked up a grainy, too dark video of them playing on youtube.  Kids who look like they could be from the back of a Finnish punk EP circa 1982 playing distorted, moody sounding deathpunk.  I was ecstatic to find the demo on Drug Punk a few months later.  I was not let down.  Moody, morbid, solid songs.  Think a punker, faster, Christian Death, without the disturbing genius that was Rozz Williams.  I especially dig "Voices In The Ceiling" and "State Ward" Hearing those songs I'm transported to the bleak, hopeless, grey winters of Chicago.  Wandering, the deserted, lonely wind-blasted streets to a cold, and empty house, or maybe your friends are there and you huddle together for warmth, finding what joy you can in the small things.

Here.

Deathcharge- Love Was Born To An Early Death Do you like Discharge?  Motorhead?  The Sisters Of Mercy?  Did you ever wonder what would happen if all three bands collaborated on a project together?  This might be it.  I am waiting for my vinyl copy of this from my life long best friend Molly, over at Growler Distro.  I plan on writing a more in depth review then.  I actually remember reading a review for one of this band's EP's in Profane Existence waaaaaay back in 1997, or 1998.  I believe it was the laughably titled "A Look A Their Sorrow" I was especially skeptical because at the time I didn't like discharge.  Blasphemy, I know, but it was before things like filesharing, and torrents existed.  I found a used CD copy of Never Again at a local record store in rural Pennsylvania, and found it to be mediocre at best.  It would be a number of years before I would finally hear Discharge's early EPs, and Hear Nothing, See, Nothing, Say Nothing, aka their relevant material.  Suffice to say, I simply did not understand the legions of disclone bands, especially back in the nineties when they were fewer and farther between. 

I'm getting off track here.  This record rocks.  These folks have found their sound.  The music lurches on, like a vicious war machine set against, greasy, grey skies.  I'm working of an advance copy here, with no lyric sheet, but what I can make out is some of the most darkly intoned bleak lyrics I've heard in a punk record in a while.  Almost bleaker than I can really handle.  "bullet holes look best on foreign children" "there is nothing I love in this world" It's like a soundtrack to the angst us aging punks feel against an insane world.  I sincerely hope these folks don't feel like this all the time, because if they do, I would worry for their emotional and physical well being.  For me, some of that "there is no future, and everything is a lie, so fuck it" defiance is embodied in this record. 

People all over have been singing the praises of this record, and rightfully so.  I was definitely skeptical at first, but after a few listens, it has grown on me, and more.  Get this!

Unseen Forces

Here.

Alda- ::Tahoma::

Alda - ::Tahoma:: - This record is remarkably beautiful.  This also made my year end list for 2011.   I guess in a sense, this record is Cascadian Black Metal, through and through.  Some folks would probably be quick to lump this in with Wolves In The Throne Room, or Fauna, but this record has a power and originality all it's own. 

This record is filled with sadness and rage at our mechanized, lockstep, spiritually bereft, technological death culture, but also a deep sense of awe, and wonder at the natural world, and a deepset belief that some semblance of sanity, and return to a sense of respect and reverence for the natural world could still save us.  Five songs, and not a single one of them misses anything.  The power in this little cassette is undeniable.  I had the pleasure of seeing this band live in the Pacific Northwest at the beginning of this year, and it was one of the finer shows I've been to in recent memory.  It underscored the amazing, transformative power that music can have for me. 

Here.