Time To Burn - Is.Land (2007)

The first few moments of the album hint at an all of this like the prelude to an oncoming storm, with distant dissonant guitar lines that only give a glimpse of what is to come. Soon after, huge (and I mean really huge) riffs are introduced, distorting the noise around them (including the screams of the singer) and bringing everything to a breathtaking climax within the first two minutes. After this, ‘Nayeli’ simply continues the onslaught, as does every other song on the album. But Time To Burn don’t keep to one tempo or style, throughout the fourty minute playing time of Is.Land Time To Burn pace things, slowing it down at times with doom like riffs, or ambient post-metal build ups, either slow and powerful or quiet and menacing, never relenting on the paranoid and bitter ambience that surrounds the release.

Very unique blend of genres within this album is not unlike that of The Pax Cecillia, if you want an album that is pure aggression and devoid of happy thoughts this is a defiant go to album. Plus they're French.

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I Pilot DÆMON - Come What May (2010)

In comes a relatively "out of nowhere" hit for me from 2010. I Pilot DÆMON's (I don't like this name) Come What May, creates a fairly strange blend; their tendencies towards sludge, hardcore, skramz, and even a bit of metalcore leads them to a ground that's sort of equal parts Converge, Electric Wizard, and Orchid.

The intro chugs through power chords and thick layers of fuzz, leading into sustained screams that builds to the second song, which really just comes off as a more involved version of what led them off. And from that we get lead into the bulk of the album, mostly working off a see-saw battle between their heavily stoner-influenced riffs and their quicker hardcore moments. With something like "Only At Night", we get the sludgy feel. Something taken right out Eyehategod's notebook perhaps. But at the very next moment, with "The Life Collider" we get more of a wall-of-sound, vocal led, moving into a small "shred" of a riff, abandoning the traditionally inviting sound of the sludgy "chugging".

I suppose it'd be easy to accuse them of having a lack of flow, but honestly they tend to manage the changes quite well. Vocals never change, sticking to their heightened grunts... somewhere in between a shout and a scream, and even at their most involved they seem to call back to their most chilled, and vice versa. It's quite remarkable how self-contained they are. This isn't a new band suffocating themselves with their influences; It's finding a ground that settles somewhere in-between, highlighting notes and writing their own. Like some of the new "blackgaze" artists, they are creating a new blend that recalls it's predecessors, but only in a new light. It's a new sound, not because it's experimented in timbres we haven't heard, but because it's fresh take, and a new telling of what has come before.

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Neurosis - Through Silver and Blood (1996)

Imagine living through a nuclear catastrophe. All that was around you now lies in ruins. Imagine moving amidst the devastation, alone, a wandering nomad roaming the bleak landscape. There is nothing but you and your slowly deteriorating sanity. You can hear the sound of impending doom. You know your death is approaching and you know it is unavoidable. Only utter, torturous, despair awaits you. This is the sound of Neurosis.

I still distinctly remember when I had first heard Through Silver in Blood. The only metal I had heard up to that point had been bands like Metallica and Slayer. I originally picked up the album because the name sounded cool and I loved the cover art, but nothing could prepare me for the hell storm I was about to witness. I became entranced by their absorbing, tortured, and melancholic sound; it was unlike anything I had ever heard before.

The tracks on the album are composed of sludgy riffs, distorted bass playing, berserk tribal drumming, eerie ambiance, and tortured shrieks all drenched in a layer of thick, fuzzy sludge. Never has such a feeling of utter hopelessness ever been portrayed in music as it has been portrayed here. Though Neurosis is not just about bombastic blasts of noisy sludge, but also about eerie ambient sections that play off the louder ones. This creates a feeling of rising tension before the jarring noise. They create a bleak atmosphere that is at the same time filled with an intense feeling of uneasiness.

This album was definitely meant to be listened to as a whole, as Neurosis creates an almost hypnotic listening experience. They are able to play a section for just the right amount of time to mesmerize you, but not bore you, something many artists fail to do. Just as you are being hypnotized by a repeating sludgy riff, the band shifts gears, throwing you into a cacophony of jarring noise and tortured shrieks or a vast ambient soundscape that is both beautiful and unsettling.

If there was any one single standout track on this album, it would have to be the opening title track. Some bands create musical universes with their complete work or with an album. Neurosis manages to do that with a single song.

There are few artists that are able to create as much emotional tension as Neurosis does and Through Silver and Blood showcases them playing at their loudest and most intense. It is, in my opinion, their finest album and one of the greatest metal albums of all time.

In short, fucking amazing.

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Torche - Meanderthal (2008)

Most likely due its lack of accessibility, metal doesn't get a whole lot of attention on this blog. Of course we don't just dismiss it as a universally insignificant genre like some ignorant, pompous fruitcakes, but there are a lot of great metal bands making great albums out there that deserve some attention. Which brings me to Torche, a nice little sludge outfit from Miami. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term 'sludge' in music, it's a kind of jacked-up grunge. It's also highly accessible. If you're issue with metal is the hideous vocals or the overly fast-paced rhythm, then here's your fix.

Meanderthal, Torche's second album, follows the trend set by their self-titled debut (and later EPs) as being a fast-paced record with short tracks for the bulk of the album followed by a more lengthy songs towards the end of the record. Opening track 'Triumph of Venus' opens with a bang, as a metal album should, with heavily distorted guitars and banging drums. An intense instrumental, it does well to grab the attention of the listener. For metal-wary listeners this might not be an instant favorite, but it's only 1:44 and the album takes a much different tone with the following track 'Grenades', a much slower-paced song with melodic guitars and vocals to match. And this becomes an ongoing theme for the album, varying tempos from song to song, which works well because the songs are so short. And the longer songs on the album tend to combine the fast-paced nature of the shorter songs with long solos or bridges, which should be a pleaser for the more metal-oriented fans.

Do you like Grunge? If so, then you might like Torche. Do you like 'Stoner rock' like kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age? If so, then you might like Torche. Do you like metal? If so, then you very well might like Torche. And if you aren't a fan of the typical metal vocalist, well this might just be all the more sweeter.

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Video - Across the Shields

Boris - Akuma no Uta (2003)

Boris is a brutal delicacy, that rare concoction that does all things for all people. If everyone knew it and consumed it in extremis, though, it would stop being a delicacy, right? Oh well, everyone else's loss. _Akuma No Uta_ is a drop-dead masterpiece, from the punishing drone of the opener to the gong-inititiated reprise of the intro on the last song, the title track (translated as "The Evil Song.") They can do it all and just about better than all the competition:
--Sludge? I don't hear anyone who can blend a blaring punk melody with sludge in such a truly sickly-sweet manner as Boris does on their upbeat tracks;
--Drone? To say the least, but that doesn't stop them from rocking like mad when they choose to push their own boundaries.
--Psychedelic? Believe me, when you turn _Akuma No Uta_ up as loud as you need to, there are few more mind-and-body-altering experience than this one (really your body churns!!!);
--Punk? Yeah . . . we can call this band punk as fuck. To those who like their music in boxes and think that punk as fuck means the latest Exploited retread, well, Boris is too punk for you. For the rest of us, Boris may be the band who can cash in on the late, great Refused's promise of _The Shape of Punk to Come_. Like the Refused, Boris takes any style and makes it their own in their awe-inspiring music machine (minus the jazziness of the Nordic screamers, but plus the sludge, drone, psychedelia, etc. . . .). Also like the Refused, Boris are forward-looking, taking the listener on a gleeful death ride that leaves you absolutely free. It doesn't get more punk than that, kids.
When you take into account that Boris are Japanese and rock harder and better than pretty much any of us in the Anglo world, it's clear to see where our eyes should be turning to discover where the future of rock lay. I realize that I've talked them up more than I've reviewed the songs, but words can hardly describe. I'll just say that it compares 100% favorably with their newest opus _Pink_, just more succinct. Oh, did I mention they play their instruments to within an inch of their literal existences? (I don't think I've heard an amp abused as much as on _Akuma No Uta_). Wata is one wicked, original, and visceral guitarist. I could go on and on, but I'm just gonna let you buy this album; wait for it to come in the mail; put it on your stereo's highest setting (jack up the bass!!!); and feel your perception, and hence your life, change.

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