-Posted by TZARATHUSTRA
Listen to the new track "45" here.
And if you need more convincing, take a look at this full set that Gaslight Anthem played at Glastonbury back in 2009, with special guest Bruce Springsteen:
Monday, April 30, 2012
Gaslight Anthem Previews New Song
Gojira Posts New Track
-Posted by TZARATHUSTRA
Check out "L'Enfant Sauvage" here.
If you're not familiar with Gojira (or even if you are), take a listen to "From The Sky" from their excellent second album From Mars To Sirius:
A Note about The Reviews
Before we get too far into this thing, I'd like to take a minute to address the general idea behind the reviews here at Radio Free Future. Readers may notice a lack of negative reviews here. That's something that will likely continue, because we here at RFF believe that there's too many good records for us to spend time complaining about the bad ones. Schopenhauer wrote about a similar idea regarding books, but it applies just as well to records:
“The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms
At RFF, we don't want to fall victim to Sturgeon's law (which says that 90% of everything is crap). Most music sites know this is true, but keep on reviewing mediocre or downright bad albums, and then you end up with thousands of reviews ranked at a 6 out of 10. This is just content for content's sake, which is fine, but we want to tell you about what we think is excellent. Also, you won't find numerical rankings of albums here. Music is subjective, and an album that's barely a 5 to one person might be a perfect 10 to another. We try hard to write actual, thoughtful reviews for each record, but after that, we trust you to decide what you like.
There's no real method to what we review, it's really just whatever we think is good at the time. With that in mind, there are a couple different kinds of reviews that will end up being posted here. One is new releases that we like, so we can stay on top of good new music. Another is older records that strike us as particularly memorable or essential. Our culture is becoming increasingly ahistorical, and you never know when you're going to turn someone on to something they might have missed. We're also going to be a source for finding out about bands that you may never have heard of. We tend to pull pretty deeply from all kinds of different musical scenes, so hopefully you'll end up finding some new favorites here.
We're just getting started here at RFF, but we have a lot of good stuff on the way, so check back often or add us to your RSS feed with the link in the sidebar. Also, you can follow us on twitter to hear about new posts: @radiofreefuture.
Thanks for reading.
-Posted by TZARATHUSTRA
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Crushed Beneath A Rainbow
As a serious contender for "World's Happiest Metal Band," Torche had a lot to live up to after their breakout album Meanderthal, and they've finally delivered their follow-up, entitled Harmonicraft. The title fits perfectly, as Torche has clearly crafted some serious harmonies for this effort.
In a way, it seems like Meanderthal was an album Torche had to make before this release was possible. Meanderthal was an exercise in risk-taking. Their self-titled debut had a lot of buzz, but no one had ever packed so much sunshine into an album so crushingly heavy, and metal fans are not the most open-minded group where sunshine is concerned. The band had to answer a lot of interview questions about their harmonized vocals, their jovial attitude, and whether or not they were actually a metal band (the band has used the term 'thunder pop' to describe themselves). Meanderthal had a lot to prove, but the risk paid off, and now on Harmonicraft, Torche sound like they're comfortable in their role. No, not comfortable. Justified. They know exactly what they're doing and they do it well.
Their overall sound remains the driving, bass-heavy monolith it always has been, but refined to a new level. The Songs for Singles EP seems to have given them extra discipline to craft tighter, more urgent songs than on previous releases, and their rhythms have more variation, from all-out, plowing speed, to swaying, hands-in-the-air grooves, to plodding, headbanging grind. Above all these crushing sounds float the sometimes harmonized, nearly celebratory vocals, at times reminiscent of some kind of ecstatic ritual.
In the end, all of the elements that drew people to Meanderthal are present here, and used with great skill to craft an excellent album of blissed-out heaviness. Harmonicraft will no doubt be the soundtrack to the impending summer for many happy listeners.
Also: If you ever have the opportunity to see Torche live, don't miss out. I had the chance to see them a year or so ago in a small club, and they were fantastic. Bright white stage lights illuminated the show, so the whole experience was made up of flashes of the smiling band having a blast, swirling colors behind the eyelids from the lights, and the giant, overwhelming sound of weapons-grade joy that wasn't hard to imagine was the voice of god.
-Review by TZARATHUSTRA
Saturday, April 28, 2012
The Mysteries of the Worm
Modern heavy metal is nearly as bad as electronic music about creating meaningless microgenres. Thrash-influenced eco-black metal? Depressive funeral doom metal? New Wave of Old School Death Metal? In a sea of ridiculous overclassification, it's nice to know that there are some bands who just play straight-up heavy metal. That's where Oakland, CA's High on Fire come in. They're too fast for doom or sludge metal (see Matt Pike's old band Sleep for his real take on doom), too low and nasty for thrash, and they certainly don't fit the strict standards of death or black metal. They're a bit like Motorhead in that they simply play pummeling, aggressive music and don't seem to care where they fit in best. The Motorhead comparison is actually pretty apt, since High on Fire can sound at times like Lemmy and Co. taken to a whole new level of aggression.
For anyone interested in heavy music, High on Fire should be a household name by now, as they've recently released album number six, De Vermis Mysteriis. Vocalist and guitarist Matt Pike explains the album thusly:
“It’s a concept record, a little bit. I got this idea about Jesus Christ and the Immaculate Conception: What if Jesus had a twin who died at birth to give Jesus his life? And then what if the twin became a time traveler right then? He lives his life only going forward until he finds this scroll from an ancient Chinese alchemist who derived a serum out of the black lotus—which is actually in Robert E. Howard’s ‘Conan’ stories—and then he starts traveling back in time. He can see the past through his ancestors’ eyes, but his enemies can kill him if they kill the ancestor that he’s seeing through at the time. Basically, he keeps waking up in other people’s bodies at bad times. It’s kinda like that old TV show Quantum Leap. Kurt actually pointed that out to me after I told him the idea. But whatever—time travel is a killer concept."
It's pretty safe to assume that the album's themes were somewhat influenced by pharmaceutical assistance.
The Kurt referred to in the above quote is the infamous (at least in metal circles) Kurt Ballou of Converge fame, who produced the new album to great effect, because the sound is absolutely crushing. Matt Pike and High on Fire also deliver something besides simple heaviness in the form of actual, memorable songs. Between the lyrics offered up in Pike's throat-destroying shout and the complex songwriting, Mysteriis is definitely more than just a collection of tracks. They seem to have taken the "concept album" idea to heart, because the whole work is imbued with a more cinematic scope than past releases. The songs can be completely devastating of course, just listen to the track "Spiritual Rites," but there are also thoughtful, dramatic moments like the preceding track, "Samsara," with its twisting, serpentine lead work. Those leads are no doubt aided by Pike's custom 9-string guitar, which is strung as a regular 6-string, only the highest three strings are doubled, so that Pike's solos ring out as if played on a 12-string guitar.
Overall, this is High on Fire's most ambitious work to date, and the bizarre subject matter lends it an even more twisted vibe than their older albums. They've ventured into Lovecraftian territory here, and they've dredged up something both unearthly and well worth a listen to anyone who wants some quality heavy metal with absolutely zero pretension.
-Review by TZARATHUSTRA
Black Sabbath Live 1970
This full set from 1970 is for anyone who forgot (or, perish the thought, doesn't yet know) why Black Sabbath are gods among men. Paranoid had just been released, and Sabbath had only really been a professional band for about two years at the time, yet all the elements were in place. Geezer Butler and Bill Ward performed as one of the best rhythm sections in all of rock and roll at the time and showed that you could be monstrously heavy and still retain a solid groove, and Tony Iommi was plumbing the darkest, scariest depths of guitar sounds the world had ever heard. Over top of all that noise, Ozzy's vocals were powerful and menacing. It was still the blues-based rock and roll that the world was so familiar with at the time, but it was blues-based rock with all the color drained out of it. It was claustrophobic and horrific and well... paranoid.
It's important to retain a sense of historical context to fully grasp why Black Sabbath was so terrifying. This show was recorded in December of 1970, so Woodstock was still fresh in people's minds, and the stabbing at Altamont was only a year before this concert. The hippie movement was flaming out, and people were beginning to suspect that love wasn't going to save us. Then Black Sabbath comes roaring out of England with the most unholy sound anyone had ever heard:
-Posted by TZARATHUSTRA
Stepping Out In Style
After the end of the White Stripes, fans were understandably curious what frontman Jack White would do next. During the last few years of the Stripes, they had settled into an inactivity that allowed Jack to explore several side projects like The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, but those were full band efforts that didn't allow for Jack's own vision to fully manifest. But now with the release of Blunderbuss, Jack has finally shown us what he can do when he's truly on his own, and the results are fascinating.
Jack White has never been shy about displaying his influences from the annals of rock and roll, but on Blunderbuss, he's all over the map. Country, blues, rock, soul, and anything else that catches his fancy all make an appearance here. The sounds are lush and true, and the production is unsurprisingly excellent, warm and analog without being muddy. Perhaps most impressive is the track "Weep Themselves to Sleep" where insistent piano shares space with dirty guitars and pounding drums, with a sputtering guitar solo sweeping across the stereo channels. The songs show serious craft in their construction, with nothing sounding tossed off or rushed, proving that Jack has either been hard at work these last few years or he just makes it look easy.
The White Stripes always seemed to have a childlike sense of play, due to Jack's lyrics (see the song "We're Going To Be Friends") and loose guitar style and Meg White's fun, splashy drum work. But on Blunderbuss we get a glimpse of Jack's more adult perspective, and it's clear he's got some lady troubles. Many of the songs seem to involve tales of alluring but sadistic women, which all gets mixed up into a Freudian brew of sex and death. But while Jack is wrestling with Eros and Thanatos, he doesn't forget to rock, which means that his first outing under his own name is quite a success.
-Review by TZARATHUSTRA
Friday, April 27, 2012
Menzingers Live Set
Here's a full live set by The Menzingers at Alex's Bar in Long Beach, CA earlier this year. The quality of the audio makes up somewhat for the strangely subdued crowd.
-Posted by TZARATHUSTRA
The Shape Of Punk To Come
Despite a band name that no one knows what to do with at first, The Menzingers have steadily built up a strong fanbase in the punk community with endless touring and three consistently solid albums. The newest of them is entitled On The Impossible Past, and not only is it their strongest release yet, but it's a distinct contender to become a classic punk record. The Menzingers' albums have always sounded personal, but On The Impossible Past is even more direct, with the lyrics making overt references to people and places from the band members' lives. Even though most listeners won't share their Scranton to Philly past, the references go a long way towards making the album's atmosphere more palpable.
Though they still show plenty of muscle, the band's sound has smoothed somewhat on this release. There may be a little less punk fury and a little more melancholy, but the musicians' performances on the album are all tight and expressive. Rather than just clatter away with predictable punk riffing, the guitars supply each song with distinct tones, a bright distortion here or a shimmering chorus effect there, and the rhythm section really helps build the tension and pace of each track. It all serves perfectly to match the lyrics, which simply but eloquently describe four punks growing up. There's a distinct awareness of time on this record, and the songs show evidence of reminiscence and regret at every turn. It would be easy to go the emo route and simply whine about getting older, but the Menzingers are far more observant than that, and they've found myriad shades and hues in their maturity, both bitter and sweet. Even when singers Tom May and Greg Barnett's voices uncoil into screams, the album remains touching. Not necessarily in a Lifetime channel sense, but more in the sense that the songs touch you. This is an album that has a noticeable effect, not one that simply slides by in the background. It's easy to imagine an audience full of punks all coming to grips with turning thirty, singing along with the words, "Cause I cursed my lonely memory with picture perfect imagery/Maybe I'm not dying I'm just living in decaying cities/But I'm still healthy I'm still fine, I'll be spending all my time/Reading the obituaries."
For many listeners, On The Impossible Past is going to be a perfect album, hitting every note it needs to. If this is what punk rock is going to sound like in the 21st century, it's fallen into good hands.
-Review by TZARATHUSTRA
P.S. - The word Menzingers is a respelling of the word Minnesingers, which is German for a kind of troubador in the 12th-14th centuries.
The Past Is A Playground
There are any number of ways to approach the history of rock and roll. Some see it as territory already covered, with no need to return to older styles, and some see it as an ongoing development, with the act of listening to old records being something akin to reading old journals. The interpretation with the most potential for fun, however, is to see the rock and roll past as a playground, which is clearly the preferred perspective of Radio Moscow, an Iowan band consisting of multi-instrumentalist Parker Griggs, along with bassist Billy Ellsworth and live drummer Lonnie Blanton. Though Griggs handles much of the recording himself, the obvious sonic template is the power trios of late-stage psychedelia from the late-60's/early-70's. It would be easy to make a bad record this way, in fact the most likely outcome would be to make an album that had the same effect as a bad cover band, where the effort to comply with vintage standards simply made the listener pine for the real thing. Radio Moscow slips through this trap by making a record that sounds dated in the best way, combining vintage sounds and tones with a little extra juice from the modern stoner rock movement, all the while displaying an inexhaustible and unironic love of fuzzy, propulsive psychedelia.
As you might expect, Radio Moscow puts a premium on instrumental prowess, especially the guitar work, which is so good that it probably counts as porn for any guitarists in the audience. Their newest release, The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz, is no exception to this, as instrumental virtuosity abounds. Luckily the band has the sense to keep the heroics subservient to the groove. The sound is definitely psychedelic, but rarely jammy; even when the guitars are aiming to blow your mind, the rhythm section keeps you nodding your head.
Radio Moscow's earlier records, a self-title debut and the sophomore release Brain Cycles, are both excellent records in their own rights, but The Great Escape... offers a broader sonic palette, with fuzzed-out rockers sharing space with acoustic slide blues and even tribal rhythm workouts like "Densaflorativa." In the end, Parker Griggs may be another in a legion of Hendrix worshippers, but he's certainly one of the best. For all the serious guitar mojo on The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz, it remains an extremely listenable and, most importantly, fun record.
-Review by TZARATHUSTRA
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