The thing is, Astpai can sound a little too earnest. “This one goes out to the majority of global trading companies!” screams singer Zock before the music officially kicks in, then he continues, “that reach aims by creating oppressed minorities!” On your first listen, the jaded punk in you might roll your eyes; hang in there, it gets better. “Hands Kept Clean” follows, and it’s songs like this one that wouldn’t make me surprised if Fat Wreck scoops these guys up before they officially make waves in the States. There is a passage towards the end that breaks the song down to half-time that is kind of breathtaking. Zock sings, “You have the answers to everything you never questioned,” while the band carries the song to its final seconds and a breakneck coda. And that’s the thing with this group: there are sections revealing musical themes and anthemic choruses that may not seem obvious at the beginning of any given song. “Paving Ways in Cliché Suits” opens with “Paving the way with sorrow” sung a capella, which sounds awkward at first. The chorus of the song explodes with the same chorus, sung the same way but with an octave lead that makes the tune single-worthy (not to mention the Shape of Punk to Come breakdown midway through). The straightforward songs are killers, too. “For Habits of Bitterness” starts off with one of the best intros I have heard all year. Corruption Concealed is by no means a grower, though. It hits early and often and rarely lets up. There’s an acoustic breakdown here (“Hard to Manage Broken Windows”), and another Refused ode in the form of an electronic breather there (“This Declaration of War”) but the band basically sticks to a very intense brand of melodic hardcore. That they can play the music so well, with so many interesting ideas within a sub-genre in need of resuscitation, and convey opinions on some very sensitive subjects with sincerity makes it a crime that they are flying under the radar. [Quattrocchi]
www.jumpstartrecords.com
At the Soundawn
Red Square: We Come in Waves Italy’s At the Soundawn start off with “Slight Variations,” an ethereal mixture between Botch, Tool, and Mogwai. At times heavy, at times soft, this is a great introduction to an exceptional disc. A mixture of clean and distorted guitars build atmospheres and urgency, colliding with the clean, aggressive vocals. “Submerged,” starts off faster than the previous tune, as the vocals kick in, you can’t help but to start nodding your head. Crushing and dissonant, At the Soundawn masterfully blend clean melodies with brooding undertones. About halfway through, it gets pretty ugly—crusty and slow, with some interesting samples in the background. “One Day Before” almost sounds like it could be an emo anthem as it starts, before adding some more heaviness to balance it out. It switches between clean and crunch, in a schizophrenic battle. “Phone Will” is the longest song on the disc, and the only one that clocks in over five minutes. Starting off melancholic, the intro gives way to dissonance and gritty vocals. Shortly afterwards, we hit a really mellow, clean break to help add structure. As good as this song is, you catch so much more on headphones. Trippy interludes, and a slow crescendo bring “Phone Will” to new heights as it soars and fades away. The much shorter “Sundown in Rome,” is a clean instrumental that slides and trips its way to turn into some really excellent tweeps and bleeps as a transition to “Rain Falls.” This tune is reminiscent of Rosetta. Not overly distorted, At the Soundawn has figured out how to make the melody heavy and dissonant, and it sounds great. Halfway through, they bust into the clean bridge we were just waiting for. We end our journey with the closing track, “Frames of You.” This opens with an almost Tool-ish bass line, before getting right into the gritty, raw, and at the same time polished, soaring, and melodic closer. Clean vocals are present in this song, and are actually in the foreground instead of the background as a slight change. Hell, there’s even a bass-wah at some point during the bridge. Hell yeah! [Dixon]
Aughra
Proof of Dark Matter | Light the Lights Aughra is a solo project from Brent Eyestone, who also happens to run Magic Bullet. So, this project is sort of like the boss’s brother who gets put in charge at work. The obvious nepotism doesn’t mean he’s unqualified for the position, but it’s only natural to assume it. Thankfully, that rarely rings true on Proof Of Dark Matter | Light the Lights, Eyestone’s first proper full length after four years of scattered releases under the Aughra moniker. Living on the borderline between drone, IDM and eerie soundscapes, it employs flourishes of the most convincing elements from each. The best and worst thing about this forty minute ride is its lack of any central theme. It gradually—and sometimes suddenly—shifts from melodic IDM (think Boards Of Canada, Lusine) to haunting, beatless textures (Tim Hecker, Kranky Rec.). This lack of continuity is worth the lack of monotony, with Aughra painting effective landscapes, despite using broad strokes. [Anderson]
www.magicbulletrecords.com
Best Friends Forever Self-Titled
Here is a collection of songs written over the past few years by Minneapolis’s BFF. Listening through this might make you kind of sad that Ellen Page hadn’t warmed to BFF rather than Kimya Dawson when suggesting music for the soundtrack to Juno. This loose collection of singles provides the same kind of charm and friendly intimacy that said soundtrack had, plus an incredible knack for songs written with a goofy sense of humor and heartbreaking longing. The band name is not just a cute take on zeitgeist jargon, either; the theme of this band is fucking friendship. Unashamed, faithful, take-no-prisoners friendship. Take “Loneliness Song,” where Bri and Jes, the band’s heart and soul, trade words on companionship: “How do you always know what I’m going to say?/ How do you always finish my sentences?/Bri, it’s because we’ve known each other for so long/Bri, it’s because we’ve always been cut from the same cloth.” The girls sing back and forth about spreading the right things on each other’s toast and sharing bongs while leading a dance-floor ready chorus about being lonesome without each other. It’s actually striking and beautiful. “Abe Lincoln” is a retroactive love song about wanting to take care of the former president. Jes sings about making him a happy man by reciting Shakespeare for him and even taking the infamous Booth bullet for Abe. As silly as it sounds, the girls sing very seriously about the subject matter and play very solemn rock to complement it. Of course, if they had been there to marry Lincoln, they wouldn’t be here to play the song, so it’s our victory. The fact that Bri and Jes have actual ideas for songs and subject matter before they write their lyrics makes you feel like you’re not being cheated. They’re giving you some real thought here. Of course sometimes it comes at a price, as “How BFF Breaks It Off with Movie Stars” is a kind-of annoying ode to Orlando Bloom. Eck. There are other questionable songs with really cheesy background music, too. However, BFF “break it off” fun and poppy for the rest of us. When a song is good (as in “Abe Lincoln” or the disco-flavored “2081” about BFF’s future success), this collection makes you glad you’ve stumbled across yet another band doing something inventive and honest. Plus, they sound like they’d be a great time live.
[Quattrocchi]
www.plan-it-x.com
So this is what happens when the heads of two of the biggest labels in DIY hardcore get together and make the slowest music they possibly can. The collaborators, being Brent Eyestone of Magic Bullet Records (Big China) and Mike Haley of Electric Human Project (Little Trouble), originally released this material on two cassettes and a 3-inch CD that came with fur and fossilized shark teeth. What diverse tastes these guys must have. I’d like to see their record collections, especially Brent’s. The guy went from Corn on Macabre to Forensics to this nonsense, which would make more sense released on Woodsist or Not Not Fun than Magic Bullet. What we have here is forty minutes of droning atmosphere that Thurston Moore would probably just love, equal parts viral fever hallucinations, Tetsuo imitations, and recurring bad acid flashback visitations. Sorry, it’s damn hard not to describe music this abstract without using abstractions. It moves around quite a lot in mood, making for a very disorienting overall experience. Even though the songs all fall into the same category, the comforting hum and acoustic guitar of “You Really Believe in Magic” is about as similar to the screaming knobs and wires of “Burning Blade” as Little House on the Prairie is to Eraserhead. Easy comparisons would be Burning Star Core, Birchville Cat Motel and the like, but BC&LT have a greater attention to detail than their contemporaries, and this album not only features uncommonly good production values for this genre, but also throws in quite a bit of sonic variety, such as the fretless bass and harpsichord lines that subtly fade in and out of the mix. The final product is experimental music that is surprisingly accessible to outsiders. Stimulating in addition to being a complete mindfuck, Big China & Little Trouble are perfect through headphones during a late-night brooding session. [Moroni]
www.magicbulletrecords.com
Braindead
No Consequences When it comes to hardcore, the avid fan and casual observer will usually agree: most of it is boring. I’ve met a lot of people who are into hardcore music in my life and very few, if any of them will claim or admit to liking most of what’s going on at any given point. This is magnified in my case, digging through dozens of hardcore records every issue. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there are few, if any definable things that will quickly separate the worthwhile from the derivative. I’ve never been able to quantify what lands bands (especially new ones) in the shrinking percentile of worthwhile new entries into any sub-genre of hardcore. But whatever this invisible list of things contains, Braindead seem to have most of them checked off. The basis for their sound is a modernized take on the more energetic early to mid-90’s straightedge bands, like In My Eyes, Fastbreak, or Turning Point before them. They have sharpened some of the edges on this sound, much like many of the newer Bridge 9 bands. There are melodic, well-sung vocals thrown in, which are good enough to end up an unlikely asset. Unlike almost all of their peers, Braindead are actually at their best in their slightly slower, more introspective moments. “Dear Alison” is more than double the length of the average song here, and much more than a token long, slow song to break up the cut-time monotony. It’s ominous, soaring and convincing, carried by a slow, monolithic guitar lead that is spot-on. Without going too far out on a limb, it makes the songs around it more seem more intense and elevates No Consequences from another collection of hardcore songs to an actual, certifiably complete album.
[Anderson]
www.burnbridges.net
www.lifeforce-america.com
32
Big China & Little Trouble
Black Blood of the Earth Pts. 1 & 2 + Fur & Teeth
:: THE NEW SCHEME ::