The Evpatoria Report Maar I don’t know who I feel worse for; the members of The Evpatoria Report, or all their potential new fans. Even they don’t seem to dispute that they are, by most accounts, late to the party with their cinematic brand of instrumental rock. I am usually a fan of this sort of stuff, though even I’m starting to lose patience with the now-endless parade of similar bands. Hailing from Switzerland, these guys aren’t a brand new band, though this is the first most people in the U.S. will have heard of them. Their sound hardly reinvents the wheel, but given a couple close listens, it’s obvious they have an ear for the details sorely lacking in most similar records. Maar consists of four tracks, each covering more than ten minutes, while the last comes in at almost twice that long. It’s hard not to pick up similarities to the more melodic Mogwai material, new and old. The dual guitars are crucial to most of the melodies, though they aren’t hiding behind feedback or drowning out everything else in the mix. The refreshing balance between the guitar parts with the rhythm section and alternating keyboard and violin parts gives Maar a much more contemplative, less jarring feel. Persistent, solid drumming and expected (but still welcome) dynamic shifts keep all four songs from becoming the soundtrack to a 60-minute nap.The end result is an endlessly familiar, but never redundant take on a genre that’s too often attempted and way too rarely this successful.
Swiftly They Flee,” as persistent dual-guitar parts arrive much more to-the-point than is usually expected from the genre. The simple, delay-drenched intro to “Upon Eager Eyes” is a sudden and perfect cool-down from “Swiftly.” It sounds like the most melodic Mogwai pay-off, without the booming, wall-of-sound backing or the eight-minute build-up. “The Palace Stands” is the other standout track from the 12”, and is the strongest introduction to Giants from either release. It takes the urgently-layered melodies they rely on, and distill them into a more crisp form. Without losing the slow build-up qualities of their songwriting, it streamlines the process just enough to be all payoff and no repetition. More than any other song, it shows how Giants are one of the stronger bands in an already-overrun genre, without deviating from the formula. [Anderson]
www.mylenesheath.com www.cavityrecords.com
Glass & Ashes Self-Titled
It’s all generic presence with the new blues; duos of regurgitation, third rate riffs, and phoned in lyrics. Callous attempts to create guitar heroes out of men whose libretto never progressed beyond the base level of heartbreak. The new blues—or at least the appropriated new blues—has been seething in the underground for the past few years; Modern Life is War, Paint it Black, and The Gossip have spent the last years conducting new visions of the American musical cornerstone, while conducting a paradigm shift in how the blues is presented. Consider Glass and Ashes on the same road. This is the new blues, no argument, a heavy unrelenting album with a bleak and angry vision of our world unfolding. Lyrically, the album borrows from the themes of yore. “Seconds Before the Floor Drops Out,” a sensescrushing opener, spins about an impending world doom, as “We Will Hang for This” tackles the irresponsible combination of bourgeoisie passivity and nationalism. “Bird’s Eye View” offers the same austere portrait as self-analysis. The guitars sound like dueling wires, scrapping for presence, “To the Point of Paralysis,” is a driving number where the strings slide across the fingers, rather than vice versa. The subtle, but heavy end of the album’s closer “The Rebuttal” weighs like a crumbled building. And rightfully so; this bluesy, crushing album is unrelenting, like a stolen breath of fresh air. [Sousa]
It may be an uphill battle to try and convince people to check out yet another, new, epic guitar-based post-rock band. But if they can, at least in some small way get people to actually dig through the 60 minutes of music on Maar, they just might have their faith restored. [Anderson]
www.getaliferecords.com
Grey Daturas
Zach Hill
Return to Disruption
Astrological Straits
Grey Daturas is a pretty impressive three-piece from Melbourne, Australia. They have a frenetic playing style,, capable of interesting repetition of a theme and as interested in the long form as the short, with songs ranging from 2-10 minutes long. The fun part is I can’t think of a band that offers a direct comparison. Post-rockers Kinski are about as close I can get, but Grey Daturas seems more focused on abstraction, as their song titles would indicate, including “Beyond and into the Ultimate,” “Balance of Convenience” and “Answered in the Negative.” They’re willing to use noise strategies, letting feedback ring in and out for minutes on end, and then break into a ferociously focused assault. A longer song like “Answered in the Negative” slowly builds layers of sludge that threaten to dry and fall apart, but cohere to form an increasingly massive and ugly sound. I imagine this band would be a loud, impressive, screeching experience live. I’ll be checking their website periodically. [Flatt]
If you haven’t yet heard of Zach Hill and somehow missed the seemingly endless stream of Hella (and related) recordings on which he wreaks half of the aural havoc, consider yourself blessed. Don’t get me wrong. Hill is rightfully considered one of the more boundarypushing drummers in independent music. Anyone who has had to sit through the jarring barrage of Hella while the duo opened for the band they actually wanted to see can attest to Hill’s simply superhuman energy and agility. And Hill has released his debut solo recording. Contributors include an impressive list of musicians, such as Les Claypool and LCD Soundsystem’s Tyler Pope. In spite of Hill’s accomplices, however, Astrological Straits remains a senses-battering masturbatory musical adventure. “Street People” is perhaps the best example of this; the two-minute track, a blistering drum solo with sparse accompaniment, conjures up what it must feel like to get trampled at a bull run in Barcelona. Let me lend one caveat to these words; I often hear records that I can’t imagine anyone appreciating. Hill’s solo debut, however, is not one of these. Astrological Straits has moments of what could be incredibly appreciable musicianship if you’re able to see past the chaos. Or if you’re able to love it because of the chaos that could easily be considered beautiful by the right listener. However, Hill seems to do away with the “less is more” approach that has recently dominated songwriting, favoring instead the “more is still not enough” school of thought, packing as much cacophony and as many notes into this hour-long kick in the face as possible. At the very least, I’d advise listening to the record in at least 13 sittings, listening to each track as a work on its own. (You may have to further subdivide the songs just to make it through the whole hour.) I can guarantee you won’t have the energy to endure the hour. Indeed, even the most adventuresome listeners will be completely spent by “Toll Road,” the record’s second track. I would recommend Astrological Straits to any listener that can appreciate technicality for the sake of technicality and the simply epilepsy-inducing fervency of Hill’s fanaticism. [Cox]
www.neurotrecordings.com
Gridlink
Amber Gray Amber Gray is a grind/noise hybrid of fast, aggressive, and just plain brutal music from former Discordance Axis vocalist Jon Chang. Chang teams up with technicians Matsubara, Ikeda, and Okada for a full frontal assault. The 11-song disc (totaling just 13 minutes) starts with the title track, a furious screamed tune to set the stage. Whiplash speeds plummet us through “3 Miles Below Sea Level,” “The Jenova,” and “Crash Logs” before you even realize what’s going on. It’s incredibly technical, and ridiculously fast. This is a great grindcore CD of super fast, technical riffs, insanely speedy beats, and Chang’s high pitched scream. Other great tunes on this one: “Pattern Recognition,” “Asuka,” and “Antitheist.” Recommended if you like Pig Destroyer, Napalm Death, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, or hell… any good goddamn grindcore. [Dixon]
www.hydrahead.com
www.ipecac.com
www.noidearecords.com
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