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theprogrockbstheorist · 1 year ago

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BS Theory no. 2: The Gizzverse is a Prank

“Nonagon infinity opens the door/ Wait for the answer to open the door”

Or… does it? If you must know anything about the modern Australian psychedelic, prog, electronic, whatever else “rock” band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, you should know that they have a rabid base of devoted fans that have been mapping out the “Gizzverse” for years. This Gizzverse has developed due to the fact that this band has 25 studio albums in a little over a decade of existence and that much of their music is self-referential. It’s also not only the music: many of their music videos harken back to earlier ones, and much of their album artwork, done by close friend of the band Jason Galea, references back to earlier albums. This has convinced their fan base that there must be some connection, some overarching story connecting their albums. They band themselves have hinted towards this as well, stating that their albums take place in different “alternate timelines”.

But what if they’re just fucking with us?

It’s undeniable that many of their albums have a cohesive theme and perhaps even plot— but most of these are self-contained. Their 2019 thrash metal album, Infest the Rats’ Nest, has a self-contained plot of global warming and superviruses ravaging the Earth, with Mars becoming outpaced for the average Earthling, so a crew sets out for Venus and burns up in the atmosphere. Their 2017 album (or rather, one of five of them), Murder of the Universe has something resembling an overarching plot and definitely an apocalyptic theme, and some say it ties into another one of their 2017 albums, Polygondwanaland, which is also divided into 3 separate suites. But, admittedly, a lot of these are reaches.

This isn’t to say that there haven’t been SOME albums with confirmed connections: 2022’s albums Made in Timeland and Laminated Denim are anagrams of each other, and explore similar concepts. 2023’s two albums, Petrodragonic Apocalypse (no, I’m not writing out the full fucking name) and The Silver Cord are confirmed to be “yin-yang” albums. A lot of their albums DO deal with similar themes as well: usually with apocalyptic scenarios brought on by environmental factors, most of the time, climate change. So, clearly, there is an underlying theme to many of their albums.

However, there is one reason why I doubt there’s much more to the “Gizzverse” than speculation: there’s not cohesive thought on what, exactly, constitutes the Gizzverse. None. There’s no established timeline by fans, there’s no sequence of events, there’s not even agreed consensus of albums that are a part of the Gizzverse. The band doesn’t say much about it, either, just that there’s “alternate timelines”. The wording is so vague that that could mean anything, from “we wrote a couple different concept albums exploring issues that are important to us, but are otherwise unrelated” to “we have a full-fledged multiverse with thought-out timelines and recurring characters.” This isn’t to say that there isn’t SOME evidence towards the latter: some of their album covers have recurring motifs, and sometimes similar-looking characters are referenced in their music videos, however that could be just coincidental. Even if it isn’t, I don’t think the Gizzverse is an established canon: I feel like the band is familiar enough with their devoted fanbase to realize that some people love theorizing (definitely not me), and intentionally lead them on a wild goose chase, throwing references to otherwise unrelated works.

So, in other words, they’re probably fucking with us. There’s really not much evidence to prove that a Gizzverse exists: there’s next to no named characters, and those that are named have plots that resolve within in their own album, such as the Han-Tyumi and Balrog suites from Murder of the Universe. Furthermore, if a prog band, such as Cohered and Cambria or Ayreon, set out to make multiple albums within the same story line, they usually do it with the express purpose of doing so. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard did not do that. So, even if they do have some sort of multiverse going on, it’s certainly not very fleshed out, making it very open to interpretation.

One thing to keep in mind from all this is that artists are human to, and sometimes they like to screw with people. We can’t take everything someone says at face value, because sometimes people make jokes, and sometimes people just..lie. Do I really think King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are pranking their fans with the concept of the gizzverse? I don’t believe they were being serious about having a fully fleshed-out plot or developed “alternate timelines”, but it is true that a lot of their work is conceptual in nature and deals with similar themes, so I can see how it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for some people.

#essay #prog rock #progressive rock #prog #kgatlw #king gizzard and the lizard wizard #this has been in my drafts since July lol

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progmetol · 6 months ago

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Hi! You got mentioned as a fav in a post on my dash and I got to say: I love your name.

As a fellow elder scrolls and prog metal enjoyer I would love to ask a few questions out of friendly curiosity!

- what's your overall fav prog band?

- what was your favourite prog album of 2024?

- if you go to concerts - favourite prog concert you've been?

Thank you!!! I don’t get to talk about prog much on here so I will gladly do so

1. My favorite overall prog band is Dream Theater which I know is probably the most basic pick possible but what can I say. They have a special place in my heart and did a lot more for me than just introducing me to new music. Put simply I would not be the person I am today if I hadn’t discovered them.

I’ll also go ahead and say my favorite at the moment is probably Circus Maximus. Wasn’t a big fan at first but they clicked now and I’ve been listening to them a lot lately.

2. Honestly I have kind of slacked on new releases this year so I couldn’t tell you. I can tell you my favorite of 2023, though—Opus by Nospūn. Awesome album

3. Yes, I do go to concerts! It’s hard to pick a favorite, I’d probably have to go with seeing Dream Theater play Scenes From a Memory in full in 2019 (I think). Really cool show. Runner ups would be seeing Haken and Leprous together in 2018 (I think, lol), the latter of which wasn’t even a band I was super into until that night because they just blew it out of the park. They are INSANE live. Other runner up is Devin Townsend in 2020 because he has a hilarious stage presence + awesome music (he’s my #2 favorite artist).

#miss prog actually talks about prog for once #mp talks #mp answers

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classicrockblog1 · 1 year ago

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David Stone (born Michael David Stoyanoff on March 20, 1953) is a Canadian keyboard player best known for playing with Rainbow.[1] He later joined Max Webster for their album Universal Juveniles.[2]

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Stone worked on the Bud Matton Agency tour circuit and played in the band Symphonic Slam, whose self-titled and only album released in 1976 went gold in Japan. He then joined Rainbow, and was voted the fifth best keyboardist in the world in the Japanese magazine Music Life in January 1978. After performing on Long Live Rock 'n' Roll, he returned to Canada and played with Max Webster and singer B. B. Gabor. In 1991, Stone played on a demo by US prog metal band Vision.[3] Stone also played on the hard rock/prog metal band AraPacis' 2019 album Paradox of Denial and joined the band in September 2019.[4] He also played on AraPacis' 2020 EP Déja Hard, their 2021 full length Waterdog and their 2022 full length Suburban Mist. Stone was formerly married to award-winning journalist Madelaine Drohan.[5]

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iloveamagician · 2 years ago

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OH, DISMEMBERMENT PLAN...

what an insane band name, when I first started listening to them, I had no idea what "to dismember" meant, I only looked up the dictionary definition after seeing people's reactions such as "????????" and "the WHAT plan????!!!!", when they had been recommended the band. It happens. I feel it belongs to the experience of people who aren't native speakers of English, yet they've grown up surrounded by music in the language. Music comes first, lyrics second, meaning... third??

I still have a clear memory of ten-year-old me memorizing all the lyrics to my favorite Linkin Park songs. While I recognized some of the words I was singing along to, I wasn't able to decipher their meanings and wasn't even trying to. That band was my first real obsession. Hyperfixation, perhaps. They were the music I would play when I was given access to youtube on the family computer. Turns out I didn't get to grow up to be the person who gets the aux. In my teenage years I went through so many more music phases, a journey I'd love to discover in better detail across many more posts in the future. There was my metal phase with a milion subphases within it (since there is probably more subgenres than bands), then a prog and alt rock phase, then in the summer of 2019 a friend introduced me — 16 year old, coming to terms with their newly discovered queer identity — to car seat headrest, which swept me like an ocean wave and irreversibly changed my music taste and also me as a person.

The world of indie music opened itself to me, so many new artists, bands, but more importantly specific albums by those artists, dc snuff film/waste yrself, the glow pt. 2, itaots, souvlaki... all the classics, but none of them had a hold on me as strong as Twin Fantasy by CSH, Come In by Weatherday, Funeral by Arcade Fire, YWNKW by Sweet Trip, and – well, my Elliott Smith obsession was yet to come but we can count XO in there too. But in the midst of all these albums, you could find Emergency & I, a record that I enjoyed when I first listened to it, I didn't really think much of it, but I really felt the need to return to it. And then again and again, I best enjoyed the fun, most standard songs, What Do You Want Me To Say and Gyroscope, I loved hearing the small weird details in them, the time signatures, the mindblowing drumming... the album didn't mean a lot to me at first. I was still 17 when I first heard it, I needed to grow into it.

A year later I got into a long distance relationship, I started university, I moved from my small town to a big city. And it sucked, I wasn't really able to make any friends, I couldn't handle the pressure of schoolwork, my depression got much worse, my adhd meds weren't really doing anything, at some point I stopped leaving my dorm room and I ended up sinking into a deep metaphorical pit and eventually dropping out after four months. Fun stuff. The reason why I am mentioning all this is that there is a strong correlation between my music journey and my life journey. And Emergency & I is the college age young adult album. There is so much loneliness packed into it but it's not exactly sad or depressing. This album can be kind of laid back, or extremely anxious, it can be very nihilistic and dystopian, it can be very fun or it can completely rip your heart out, it can make you think "yeah I do know these people", it can be very silly and the next second it throws the most poetic and beautiful words at you that fill your heart and head with an abundance of images and feelings. And it gets better the more you grow into it and the more you relate to it, and even if you don't relate to everything, the songwriting and storytelling is so perfect and emotionally intense that it will rip its claws into you and never let you go.

In the last year and a half I've managed to get myself into a much better place in terms of mental health and academic success. I started studying again, this time a subject I love (languages), I found some amazing friends, the long distance relationship has turned into a less distance relationship and we see each other relatively often and things are going great and I finally realized that Emergency & I is the best album ever made. Because even when everything is going great, maintaining all those parts of my life is not easy at all and this album knows it too well. Okay, maybe it is not the best album ever made, but it is the best album for me. At this stage of my life.

But do I claim that after over three years, I understand the meaning of this album perfectly? Not really. Well, I bet not even Travis Morrison does, because how could he have predicted the intensity of the feelings I go through each time I listen to the album, or the impossible to fill void that appears inside of my chest after the final track ends, making me long for more of those feelings but also making me sad becuase there is nothing else quite like E&I...

And, you know, maybe I was wrong and the song meaning does not come third. Maybe the first time you listen to a song, it already means something to you. Maybe that is why I was drawn back to the album. Each time I listen to it I am a different person. And the songs mean different things. Of course I understand more of the song lyrics the more I read them and listen to them and analyze them but words can only go so far in terms of meaning. The band created the songs with certain ideas in their heads but those ideas have been transformed so many times, from their minds through their instruments, on paper, to the recordings, the masters, and then to the ears and minds of thousands of people, through different mediums, through different means of discovery. Songs mean different things to you when a friend recommends them to you or when you find them on your own, even before you listen to them. And I am not even mentioning live performances where your body vibrates with the music and the room and the songs are changed ever so slightly each time. Nobody experiences music the same way.

And I could talk for hours about what exactly the album means to me but I cannot and also do not want to fit all of it in one post. I want to dedicate a separate post to each of the songs on this album, which is one of the things my blog is going to be about, but I don't want to limit myself to being only a dismemberment plan fan, I want to document my music journey here, both by looking into the past and sharing my current favorites (for example get ready for a ton of weatherday posting this year). This post is just me speaking random sentences into the void, to prepare everyone for all of my future long posts, which are also going to be me ranting into the void, hoping things will end up making at least some sense to at least one of you (assuming somebody will read this, but I know this place is full of nerds just as obsessed with things as me (or even more, actually) so my chances aren't a complete zero).

tldr listen to dismemberment plan, it might change your life. I am not conscious enough to proofread. goodnight <3

#dismemberment plan #indie rock #music #csh #90s music #indie #weatherday #nonbinary #I plan to irreversibly damage the music taste of all the gays on here and I am not sorry

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hey-have-you-heard · 2 years ago

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Hey, Have You Heard These 50 Tracks from 2023?

Another year comes to a close and the music lover pulls up their trusty spotify playlist to document the high points of their year in music. You know the drill by now but in case you're new here... Songs are in alphabetical order (there is no internal rating to the 51) but if I had to choose a single song for everyone to listen to, it would be "Why Am I Alive Now", please listen to that track if nothing else. A Spotify playlist of the included songs is linked below for your listening pleasure

Fontaines DC - ' Cello Song Kicking things off with the only cover song on the list, Grian Chatten and band spin Nick Drake's song into something entirely their own, paying homage to Nick Drake's songwriting whilst pulling in the intricacies of their own unique sound and appeal.

Boygenius - $20 Screw star-signs and wizard school houses, which member of Boygenius do you align yourself with? I'm a Julien Baker stan but I adore them all, especially when their voices and styles are weaving in out of each-other in rapturous noise like this.

XL Life - Baby Steps Hardcore and punk has had a great year, a really great year, and XL Life have been a standout part of that. Backed up by a guest verse by Bob Vylan's own Bobby Vylan, Baby Steps is bursting with soul and emotion, driven by breakneck drums and heart-on-sleeve positivity

100 Gecs - Billy Knows Jamie 10,000 Gecs (the much anticipated follow up to 2019's 1000 Gecs) truly gave us the as-promised 10 times as many gecs, if a Gec is a unit of measurement for what can only be referred to as wild-genre-fuckery. Billy Knows Jamie gives us full on Bizkitesque nu-metal, including record scratches, a bass line Fieldy would be proud of and a rapid descent into utter chaos.

Algiers, Billy Woods, Backxwash - Bite Back Bite back is a masterpiece of ever-building tension, Carpenterian synths weave the track together as one musical idea gives way to another. With every new phrase and trade-off between vocalist, the threads pull tauter and tauter. The switch up at 3:10 still gives me chills every time I hear it.

Glass Beach - the CIA My favourite theatre kid emo's are back and doing what they do best, which is whatever the hell they feel like. You know when all the 70s prog rock bands fell into the 80s and needed to get radio-play so they fell into this weird sort of choppy watered down down art-pop sound (e.g. Yes)? This feels like that, but there's no actual need to conform, so Glass Beach are still free to get as weird with it as they want, whenever they want.

Blood Command - Decades Deccades is a very bad representation of Blood Command as a band (at this point I'm unsure if a good representation of the band exists), but it's a very good song. Hardcore and "Death pop" is out, R&B is in. Reverb soaked synths and horns, skittery hi-hats, layered vocals and lyrics about lost love and the Heavens Gate cult.

Liturgy - Djennaration I'll be the first to admit that Liturgy are an acquired taste (the first time I saw them live it made me feel physically ill), but if you can put on some headphones, turn up the volume and lose yourself in Liturgy's "Transcendental Black Metal" there is no other feeling quite like it in music.

Kesha - The Drama The continual evolution of Kesha's sound has been a fascinating thing to watch ever since Tik Tok put her on the brat pop map back in 2009, each album cycle has seen her stripping back elements of character, delivering ever rawer and more honest depictions of self. The Drama pulls away from pop almost entirely, what starts as a Lorde-like slow ballad tumbles into a nightmare-collage of upbeat synths, a circus show of theatrical excess as Kesha's desparately laments on a loss of faith in humanity and self. The song ends on an absurd mix of housecats and Ramones, oh the drama of it all.

Fever Ray - Even It Out Even It Out may not be the technically best song on Radical Romantics, but the idea of Karin Dreijer teaming up with Trent Reznor to make a gleefully unhinged song about violently attacking a child is just too funny to me. The rest of the album is also incredible and well worth a listen.

Follow You - Saint Agnes Oh, hey, speaking of Trent Reznor, Saint Agnes channel Nine Inch Nails on the massive distortion drenched choruses of this stand out track from Bloodsuckers. Lead singer Kitty's vocals soar over wailing guitars and crunching bass, this is the sound of a band triumphing through adversity.

Johnny Booth - Full Tilt I remember seeing a comment when this first released that summed up how ifelt about it perfectly. "This has slap fucks". Yes, selppin2, I couldn't of put it better myself. Johnny Booth have been consistently hitting it out the park for the past few years and this is no exception, absolutely brutal stuff.

Creeper - Further Than Forever Creeper's Sanguivore is an album to be devoured in it's entirety, I couldn't choose a single song so this is merely a goth-punk-opera overture. A nine minute long homage to the theatrical tendencies of Jim Steinman. If you enjoy any part of this, Sanguivore is a must listen for you.

Crosses - Ghost Ride Chino Moreno swaps out the rumbling wall of guitars of Deftones for pulsing bass synths and sparse electronic drums with the second album from his side project with Far's Shaun Lopez. Ghost Ride is a sultry slow build that crashes into industrial-pop(?) choruses.

Idles - Grace Idles (to my surprise) were my most listened to band of last year, and if Grace is a sign of things to come on Tangk, they're in with a shot for 2024 as well. Grace finds Joe Talbot swapping out the political battering ram of a growl he's employed previously for a soulful tone, a message of peace and love, and its hauntingly beautiful to behold. No God, no king, love is the thing.

BENEE - Green Honda You may remember BENEE from tiktok's 2019 supahit Supalonely, she's still writing bops. Two middle fingers up, leave you in the rearview, bops.

Free Refills - Grounded What can I say, I'm a sucker for a good bassline, and this is a great bassline.

Pendulum, Bullet For My Valentine - Halo (Matt Tuck Rework) On his rework of Halo, Matt Tuck keeps all the energy of the original mix but ups the aggression. This is the sound of Pendulum at their heaviest and best.

Tokky Horror, Scottish Gabber Punk - HAMMER 2 THE FACE (Scottish Gabber Punk Remix) Speaking of energy and aggression... it doesn't get much more energy and aggression than this, hammer 2 the face is a fitting title for the brutality of this track.

MSPAINT - Hardwired MSPAINT are a hardcore punk band with a notable lack of guitar, the instrumentation instead filled out with colourful synths. The result is a unique and engaging sound unlike anything else in the genre.

Empire State Bastard - Harvest ESB are my kind of supergroup, formed of Biffy Clyro's Simon Neil, Oceansize's Mike Vennart and Slayer's Dave Lombardo (yes, you read that right). Simon Neil is delivering career best vocal performances, Mike Vennart is stirring up unholy hell on guitar and Dave Lombardo is doing what Dave Lombardo does best.

Alice Longyu Gao - Hëłłœ Kįttÿ I didn't think we could get more unhinged than last years MONK, with it's thrash metal guitar and vib ribbon solo, but here we are in the year of our lord 2023 and I'm listening to car clown horns. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM.

Bob Vylan - He's a Man Do y'all remember the Lindsay Lohan Freaky Friday movie? There was a great song in it called Take Me Away... anyway, I forget why I mentioned that, but this song is really fun.Great cheeky lyrics and love that guitar riff.

Fall Out Boy - Hold Me Like A Grudge This may just be a nostalgia pull, but that intro transported me back to hearing Dance, Dance for the first time. Hold Me Like A Grudge does a masterful job of pulling together elements of FOBs classic sound and their more recent poop sensibilities that has had me enjoying their sound in a way I haven't since Infinity On High

Evie Enby - Homies Oops, how did this get in here? Please appreciate the one note guitar solo.

FIZZ - I Just Died My general lack of enthusiasm for The Beatles is fairly well documented by this point, but one of the best things they did for pop music was use the clarinet on When I'm Sixty Four. Well good news, I no longer have to listen to The Beatles to get my clarinet fix. Now that the Beatles reference for this year's list is done.. I just died is a song about an absolutely mortifying experience delivered with great mirth. It's a fantastic, sing-along-in-the-shower bop, and have I mentioned the clarinet solo?

CLT DRP - I Put My Baby To Sleep (It's pronounced Clit Drip) What can I say, another explosive, genre defying, track by one of the best bands in the world. Now go listen to the entirety of Nothing Clever, Just Feelings.

Orla Gartland - Kiss Ur Face Forever Joyous, peppy and "let's play a game of emotional monopoly, in the name of monogamy" may be the best couplet I've heard this year. It's just fun, so much fun.

Bring Me The Horizon - LosT When LosT first dropped, I referred to it as the geccification of BMTH, I meant that in the best possible way. I really enjoy how the hyper-pop elements lift this track up. "The next time that I open up to someone will be my autopsy" is one of the finest Oli Sykes-isms we've had in a long time.

Swans - No More Of This Okay, so the actual Swans track that should be on this list is The Beggar Lover (Three) but apparently putting an uncompromising, nigh impenetrable, 43 minute long epic in the middle of a playlist is terrible for retention, and I'm a coward. But if you have a spare 50 minutes, go give it a listen.

Pupil Slicer - No Temple Pupil Slicer continue to prove themselves to be one of the most exciting bands in Mathcore. Pushing against the boundaries of genre in a genre where pushing against boundaries is a core philosophy, No Temple is, according to the band, the heaviest song they've ever written. The bass guitar work is an exceptional standout for me here as it pushes against the rest of the song.

Carly Rae Jepsen - Psychedelic Switch With every CRJ album project comes a B-sides album, and with every B-sides album comes an absolute banger. Psychedelic Switch is undoubtedly this for the Loneliest Time/Loveliest Time project. You'd be forgiven for thinking Daft Punk themselves reunited to produce this french disco flavoured bop.

Soft Play - Punk's Dead Who the fuck are Soft Play? Sound like a bunch of lefty snowflakes. I've missed these boys, doing this kind of thing. The Robbie Williams feature is inspired.

Chappell Roan - Red Wine Supernova Red Wine Supernova is sexy, self-assured, feel-good, sapphic fun. It's a testament to how good a song is that lyrics like "I heard you like magic, I've got a wand and a rabbit" doesn't detract from it, but actually elevates it's effortless charm.

JAAW - Rot JAAW are an industrial metal "supergroup" formed of members of Therapy, Three Trapped Tigers, Sex Swing and Biglad. That is likely mostly gibberish to the average music listener, but to a niche few, it's a very exciting prospect. What it sounds like is swelling, tumultuous walls of noise, tortured screams, screeching guitars and pulsing distorted bass. Catharsis through noise.

Better Lovers - Sacrificial Participant More supergroup! Greg Puciato teams up with ex-members of Every Time I Die and Will Putney (of Fit For an Autopsy). I was devastated by the split of ETID, (off the back of the phenomenal Radical adn jsut before I was due to see them live), but Better Lovers is one hell of a silver lining. Puciato's energetic vocals bounce wildly off of the erratic musicianship that was the cornerstone of ETID's sound. It's a perfect match on record and is even better live.

Architects - Seeing Red Bless Architects. They're a band that are truly a victim of their own success, as they've tried to pull their sound and ethos in new directions it's been met with a huge amount of negativity from their own fanbase. Seeing Red is a reaction to this. "You want heavy? Here's heavy. Are you happy now?". Blegh.

Teen Mortgage - Sick Day Sick Day is a 2 minute punk blitz about how you are worth so much more than your labour and how having a cute cat you want to look at is a perfectly valid reason to stay at home. Capitalism 0 - Cats 1.

Purity Ring, Black Dresses - Shines Purity Ring and Black Dresses are both Canadian electronic duos and that's about where the similarities stop, but that just makes this collaboration all the more interesting. There's so much going on here, the chaotic harsh frenetic noise of Black Dresses, Ada Rook's screams, the twinkling synths of Purity Ring and sing-song melodies of Megan James. Somehow it pulls together to create something of true beauty in its own weird way.

Dream Nails - Sometimes I Do Get Lonely, Yeah Dream Nails take on the rising issue of incel culture and red-pill ideology, with grace and empathy. Pointing fingers not at individuals but at the systems and powers that enable and create these pipelines to hatred and bigotry. It's a bold and challenging idea, executed superbly.

Baby Dave - Sounds Good When a fan sends you an unhinged voice message out of the blue offering you a bite suit and dogs to shoot a music video, obviously the thing to do is make a song out of it, then take them up on their offer and use it as the video for that song. There's a great OPM era The Streets vibe to this track that plays off nicely of the grounded reality of its subject.

Sleep Token - The Summoning Sleep Token do the impossible, they make prog-metal (the unsexiest of all genres) , undeniably sexy. Nowhere is this clearer than on The Summoning, a 6-and-a-half minute epic of a track with multiple time signature changes and tonal flips, that somehow still oozes with a swaggering sexuality throughout it's runtime. The out-of-nowhere funk switch up on the end of this track is perfection.

Lambrini Girls - Terf Wars Love those Lambrini Girls, they say what I'm thinking, and they say it loud.

Ezra Furman - Tether This one had me in floods of tears from the first listen. A classic string-laden piano ballad about inescapable pasts and the desire to cut yourself free from who and where you've been.

The St. Pierre Snake Invasion - That There's Fighting Talk This track does two things it builds and it STOMPS, like real "put on your heaviest boots and then strap lead weights to them because they need to be heavier" stomps. An industrial-mathcore floor-filler, the song crescendoes then continues to crescendo into ever greater insanity. Get Stomping.

Calva Louise - Third Class Citizen Calva Louise's sound has evolved so much since I first fell in love with the band listening to their 2017 debut single Getting Closer. Third Class Citizen has elements of Muse in it's bass-lines, stadium-sized guitar riffs and fizzing production. The vocals and lyrical content make it something altogether its own though, the palpable fury in vocalist Jess' voice as she demands "Respect, motherfucker" is real and visceral.

HEALTH - Unloved Off the back of their genre spanning, multi-release collaboration project, DISCO4, RAT WARS sees HEALTH back in a focused mode and delivering their heaviest album to date. Unloved is a moment of relative respite on the album though, a Depeche Mode tinged track, soaked in 80's reverb and ready for the goth club. HEALTH pull you into their world of misery and beauty with catchy hooks and pulsing bass.

Anohni and the Johnsons - Why Am I Alive Now This year saw the release of "My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross", Anohni's first studio album with her band since 2010's Swanlights. The abrasive electronics of her solo albums are traded in for warm soulful tones and a raw almost live-feeling instrumentation. It's a beautiful, deeply emotive, and incredibly present sounding album. Feeling as if you are being drawn into the recording process itself, Why Am I Alive Now? is an existential lament on finding purpose in a purposeless world, in navigating through suffering to find hope and love. On learning why to be, when it feels like the world is set on stopping you from being.

HMLTD - Wyrmlands THE WORM IS HERE! Wyrmlands is an example of one track on an album that should be listened to in its entirety. The Worm is a concept album at its most conceptual, eschewing genre and at times structure entirely in favour of narrative and ~vibes~. It's a dizzying disorientating listen, that will leave you' with more questions than answers, but thankful for making an attempt 're mind awash with unanswered questions and fresh ideas.

Billy Woods, Kenny Segal, Danny Brown - Year Zero Year Zero refers to an apocalyptic cultural reset. Society has reached a breaking point and we must start from scratch, everything before was for nothing. Billy Woods and Danny Brown play two different sides of the same coin. Woods, stony faced and deadly serious "My taxes pay police brutality settlements" is the herald of the end "Burn it down with us inside". Danny Brown, the manic joker, revelling in the freedom of a new world, rhyming Good Will Hunting with Cool Runnings and dropping bars about ice cream machines. It's a compelling way to deliver a narrative.

#music #2023 #Spotify

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vinylspinning · 2 years ago

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Exhorder: The Law (1992)

Here it is, kids: arguably the best Pantera album recorded by a band other than Pantera.

As many of you know, Exhorder’s 1992 sophomore LP, The Law (and its predecessor, Slaughter in the Vatican, for that matter), bear an uncanny resemblance to Pantera’s concurrently released Cowboys from Hell and Vulgar Display of Power, and there was absolutely zero coincidental about it!

While there’s no way to prove this beyond a reasonable doubt (and, as we know, history is written by the victors), this New Orleans’ quintet are widely credited with establishing the fundamental groove metal blueprint (smudged by southern sludge) that their nemesis subsequently perfected and rode all the way to the heavy metal big leagues.

Not only were Kyle Thomas’ enraged roaring and self-empowering lyrics absolute ringers for fellow N.O.L.A. native Phil Anselmo, but Vinnie LaBella and Jay Ceravolo’s muscular, molten lava rhythm guitars likely contributed to Diamond Darrell’s transformation into Dimebag Darrell.

Though I will say, knowing that inspiration can also be a two-way-street, that The Law’s blood-red cover art sort of looks like cross between Pantera’s I Am the Night (1985) and Power Metal (‘88) albums.

Meaning that the jury is still out (and probably always will be), but it doesn't take a musical genius to realize that both bands were mining a very similar vein at exactly the same time -- one that saw the brutal values of thrash and death metal honed to a groove-oriented, bluntly focused approach.

And Exhorder's second LP showed marked improvement over their flawed debut; pushing the boundaries of their aggressive sound so as to radically broaden their dynamic and melodic range, without losing touch with its core elements.

Prime examples included the title track, “Soul Search Me,” the alternately thrashy and sludgy “Unforgiven,” and “(Cadence Of) The Dirge, ” all of which employed a dizzying array of neck-snapping starts and stops with the monolithic force of a “Primal Concrete Sledge” -- oops!

But Exhorder weren’t averse to trying new things, so while the tangled riffs of “I Am the Cross” recalled prog-thrashers Dark Angel, the elastic guitar licks and slap-bass of “Un-Born Again” fell in with countless other bands (Mordred, Mind Funk, Saigon Kick, Faith No More, etc.) that were flirting with the short-lived funk metal craze of the time.

Yet the most conspicuous number here was Exhorder’s surprisingly faithful rendition of Black Sabbath’s “Into the Void,” which stands in stark contrast to the mold-breaking, risk-taking experiments all around it, but was likely requisitioned for that very reason by the good folks at Roadrunner Records.

All of the above made The Law a valiant effort that would go down as a minor extreme metal classic of the early ��90s, and yet it still couldn’t prevent Exhorder from breaking up a short time later, no doubt feeling robbed (and they wouldn’t be the last) by their old friend Anselmo as Pantera shot to fame.

But this wouldn’t be the last fans heard of singer Thomas, who went on to front the excellent (if short-lived) Floodgate, before joining Chicago doom gods Trouble, then southern fried stoned rockers Alabama Thunderpussy, and finally helming a partial Exhorder reunion for 2019’s Mourn the Southern Skies album.

p.s. -- Some of these words evolved from my All-Music Guide review of The Law.

More Exhorder: Slaughter in the Vatican.

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beechersnope · 2 years ago

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☉ what do you do when you get stuck writing?

✦ what was your easiest fic to write & your hardest?

- depends on the reason i'm stuck. if i already outlined something & i'm just struggling to draft it, i might keep pushing myself to write a couple sentences at a time, but if it's an idea i'm having trouble with, then i'll probably look for inspiration elsewhere until i figure out what i'm actually looking for.

- for f1, i would say any of my short fics were easy bc i write them all in one sitting, pretty much. since all my longer fic is still in progress, i would say those, but i think one of my toughest writing experiences was in a previous fandom writing a 30k continuation to a popular series i'd written. this was like 2019 but i remember having to make a playlist for myself that was exclusively 90s/00s prog metal so i could keep myself from getting distracted while i worked on it! the fic in question is called "now twice as shy".

thank you for sending these!

#anon #writing

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skullamity · 1 year ago

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I think the reason that it doesn't happen often, especially if it hops genres, is that the fans will vocally hate on shit that isn't more of the same old thing, and the farther away from 'the same old thing' that is, the worse the backlash. A really fun example of this is Garth Brooks' "Chris Gaines: Greatest Hits" which was a weird pop album that Brooks released in like...1999? featuring vocals by Brooks but attributed to fictional pop star Chris Gaines (Brooks with a 'Toby Maguire in Spiderman 3' haircut and a soul patch), made to accompany a Music Mockumentary that ended up falling through when the reception for the album was bad. It wasn't a groundbreaking album, but it wasn't a bad album, either, but people literally thought that Brooks had completely lost his mind in the wake of it. As far as I know, it was his first and last foray into pop.

But I get why you want this, because when it does happen? Holy shit, some of the coolest, most unexpected music and concept albums I've ever heard!

One of my faves, to this day, is Sound & Fury, released by Sturgill Simpson in 2019!

So, I have mixed feelings on country music. I grew up in a household where it was nearly all my parents would listen to, and while I still have a love for some of the older, ballad-y, story telling stuff that was new when I was a kid (Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire), I also got to watch country music get bland and nationalistic, post 9/11. I had never heard of Sturgill Simpson prior to Sound & Fury, but I did give his music prior to S&F a listen and it just wasn't for me. It's very...classic country. Inoffensive. I can see why people like it.

Do you know what people who like it did not like? Sound & Fury.

Sound & Fury is a post apocalyptic concept album released in 2019 that veers right out of country right into hard rock, funk, and grungy, scrungly, gritty-sounding electronica. The music videos for it were all animated (and anime???), varied wildly in style/tone and need to be watched in a specific order for the story to play out. I don't know if it's still up there, but the entire set could be viewed in one go as a weird artsy short movie on Netflix. People who love inoffensive country Sturgill Simpson HATED this album, and, knowing nothing about his older music, I was just thrilled to be listening the entire way through!

I don't know if he'll ever do something like this again, but it was refreshing to see him in post-release interviews stating straight up that he'll make whatever music he wants, and if people don't like it, that's their problem--he'd rather quit making music than base his choices on what people think he should be making.

Anyhow, I want this to happen more, always. Thanks for posting this, btw, because it made me realize it's been a while since I gave Sound & Fury a re-listen. I'm gonna end this post with some embedded vids of stuff from S&F, I am going to link ONE S&F video because I forgot that a lot of the others heavily feature naked anime boobs and tumblr doesn't like that.

But also if you like this sort thing, Devin Townsend is constantly making weird and awesome concept albums that are usually prog metal, but are sometimes acoustic, sometimes have very opera style singing and some are ????? indescribable. He's also goofy as hell. I discovered him because he guested on Ayreon's weird and cool concept prog metal opera album, The Human Equation.

My dude has 23 solo studio albums (at least two of which are about an evil space alien on a quest for a cup of coffee) and 4 live albums, and also did/does livestream shows and gigantic, super weird and creative live shows. He also does a lot of vocal team-ups with Anneke van Giersbergen and they are always a treat.

Finally, didn't include this above because this is ALL they do, but if you like concept albums, I was blown away be the entirety of Unleash The Archer's album Apex, which is a metal concept album with an extremely talented female vocalist (the rest of the band is also just so technically gifted, this is the first song I heard from it, and it still blows me away every time I re-listen).

Anyhow, I live to add new things to my listening rotation, so as soon as I hit post I'm going to scrape through the notes for this to see if anyone else is recommending stuff! Thanks again, OP!

Rock bands used to just write about whatever the fuck. Not to be all "old music was better!" but when's the last time the world's highest selling band released a song about killing people with hammers. The Who made an entire rock opera about a deaf, mute, and blind guy who is so good at pinball that he inspires a cultlike group of devotees who think he's the next christ. It was released at the peak of their popularity and was made into a movie featuring people like Elton John and Tina Turner.

I think classic rock gets a reputation for being all about girls and cars and drugs but for about 15-20 years there were absolutely no rules on acceptable song subject matter. Pink Floyd has a song about a gnome going on an adventure. Alice Cooper has a whole album about breaking out of the Ableist Insane Asylum because he misses his dog. These weren't weird little indie groups, these were all highly successful charting bands getting radio airplay and selling out stadiums.

We need to bring this culture back. No more love songs. Sing about wizards.

#music #more weird shit please #just go fucking ham

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falloutbradreviews · 1 month ago

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Novelists – Coda

Every time a band has changed vocalists, it can either be a make-or-break thing. For some bands, it works wonders, especially with AC/DC when they replaced the late and great Bon Scott with Brian Johnson, but sometimes it doesn’t go as well. Remember when Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Motley Crue replaced their iconic vocalists for an album (or in some cases, a few albums)? Those replacements didn’t go so well, but there are a lot of cases where it goes really well, or it goes better than you might expect. One such case is the French metalcore band Novelists; I haven’t listened to them since 2020, and since then, they’ve actually had two vocalist shakeups. I only thought they had one, but they actually had two. The last album of theirs I heard was 2020’s C’est La Vie, and that was released right before the COVID-19 pandemic halted everyday life for awhile. I don’t have any memories associated with that album, at least in the same way as Four Year Strong’s 2020 LP, Brain Pain, or even Issues’ last album, 2019’s Beautiful Oblivion (which came out at the end of 2019, but I listened to it a lot in the beginning of 2020), but it was a pretty decent progressive metalcore album. I know they dropped another album in 2022, entitled Déjà vu, but I never heard it. I saw that they dropped another new album a few years later, this time entitled Coda, and they also had a new vocalist for this one. This time, however, they employed Camille Contreras, so I was instantly curious about how they added a female vocalist.

If you think about it, that’s a smart move, because bands like Spiritbox are gaining in popularity, and Linkin Park kind of did the same thing by bringing along Emily Armstrong for their comeback album (albeit Contreras was in Novelists for a year before Armstrong was announced), but that could be seen as a copycat move. Thankfully, though, Coda circumvents that by utilizing sounds that the aforementioned bands really don’t typically utilize, especially pop and djent. The band has always been a prog-metalcore and djent band, but this album dials that back the djenty and the progressive metal side of their sound for a more Octanecore and pop-metal sound. They still try to have the heavier moments interjected into their music, but there’s where my biggest issue with this album lies – everything sounds good, but the juxtaposition between the heavier and djentier parts and the more pop-focused parts are a bit jarring. The album will go from a soaring pop chorus to a breakdown out of nowhere, and it doesn’t feel very seamless, but more so it’s what they have to do to keep the song interesting or within their wheelhouse.

Contreras is a great vocalist, and she knocks it out of the park, but the songwriting here just doesn’t totally work a lot of the time. It’s still good, make no mistake, but it feels jarring. They don’t quite have that balance between making things heavy and catchy at the same time. Bands like Issues, Sleep Theory, and even Rain City Drive can do that pretty well, and the breakdowns and heavier moments never feel out of place or random. That’s how they feel here. Sometimes it works, and the breakdowns and heavier moments add something cool, but most of the time, it sounds forced. A lot of bands in that vein feel as though they need to have screams and breakdowns to fit in, but they don’t. Sleep Theory is a great example of a newer band that doesn’t rely on that. Their debut album, Afterglow, is incredible, and it’s a great example of how pop and metal can go together so well. The album is short, only 39 minutes, so it’s not a long or strenuous affair, but the songs also follow a similar formula, so everything just blends together. The songs sound cool a lot of the time, but in between the different influences being jarring, and the songs just blending together, it’s not an album I’m dying to revisit. Their vocalist admittedly carries this album, and credit where it’s due, she’s utterly fantastic. She has one of the best voices in that scene right now, and they don’t underutilize her, which is something that a lot of these types of bands tend to do, but they don’t totally work with her strengths.

This isn’t one of the worst albums of the year, or anything like that, but if anything, it might be an honorable mention. It’s a cool album, even just to hear once or twice, because it has a cool idea. I think I respect the ideas this album presents more than its execution, but if you like pop-flavored metalcore, you’ll probably like this a fair bit. They don’t go the route of Spiritbox or Linkin Park, thankfully, but their vocalist is as good as Courtney LaPlante and Emily Armstrong. It’s just that they don’t totally blend the sounds and influences very well, so it makes for a jarring listen at times. It’s almost like I’m listening to two different albums at a few times, but they’re not bad albums. I like when the album leans more into the pop side of their sound, because I’ve always found this band to be a generic djent band and nothing else, so the addition of the pop influences is pretty neat. I wish they would combine them better, but at the same time, I like what I hear. I’m torn on it, ultimately, because it’s not quite Sleep Theory in terms of the way they combine these influences, but at the same time, it’s not like Sleep Token, either. I can’t get into Sleep Token for how pretentious they combine pop and metal, but this isn’t like that. It’s a lot easier to take in, but this album isn’t anything to write home about, either. The only thing that I would say is truly great here are the vocals, and like I said, this is a case where the vocals very much carry this album. That’s not a bad thing in itself, but if you’re looking for more, you might not get it.

#novelists #coda #djent #metalcore #progressive metalcore #spiritbox #linkin park #metal #heavy metal #rock #pop

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johnkatsmc5 · 4 months ago

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Molybaron "Molybaron" 2018 + "The Mutiny"2021 + "Something Ominous"2023 France / Irish Heavy Prog Prog,Alternative,Post Metal

full spotify

https://open.spotify.com/album/7Es70NFodr3locVSKILPqi

https://open.spotify.com/album/3efPHFkt27hwHJmZnwG1ZE

https://open.spotify.com/album/53NzQ3AAXcJZZyrmmzrYrc

Formed in Paris, December 2014, by Dublin-born singer/guitarist Gary Kelly and Parisian guitarist Steven Andre, MOLYBARON have swiftly become one of the most talked-about bands in the modern metal scene. With a sound that encompasses everything from state-of-the-art tech-grooves and anthemic metal to multi-layered atmospherics and giant, muscular hard rock riffs beyond, the band’s eccentric flair always sets them apart from the rest...~ In divided times, the power of music is undeniable. When that music is ferociously original and defiantly uplifting, the impact is even greater. Formed in Paris, December 2014, by Dublin-born singer/guitarist Gary KELLY and Parisian guitarist Steven ANDRE, MOLYBARON have become one of the most talked-about bands in the modern metal scene. With a sound that encompasses everything from state-of-the-art tech-grooves and anthemic metal to multi-layered atmospherics and giant, muscular hard rock riffs beyond, the band's eccentric flair always sets them apart from the rest. "The most common thing I read when critics describe our music is their difficultly placing us in a genre: is it rock, is it metal, progressive metal, groove metal?" posits KELLY. "Well in fact, just like the critics say, I believe it's all of the above." Released in 2017, MOLYBARON's self-titled and self-released album provided a startling showcase for this new musical force. Willfully eclectic but still brimming with powerhouse melodies and moments of mind-bending metal dexterity, the album received widespread acclaim and led the band to be offered a series of high profile support slots and festival appearances, including a European tour with NYC goth metallers A PALE HORSE NAMED DEATH in 2019. Meanwhile, the band's next artistic plan was being plotted, the spectacular results of which can be heard on MOLYBARON's extraordinary second album, "The Mutiny". Like its predecessor, it offers innumerable hidden depths, both musical and lyrical.....~

Molybaron "Molybaron"2018

Line-up / Musicians - Gary Kelly / vocals, guitars - Steven Andre / guitars - Sébastien Saint-Angel / bass - Camille Greneron / drums Songs / Tracks Listing 1. Fear Is Better Business Than Love (3:08) 2. Moly (4:23) 3. Let's Die Together (3:27) 4. Dance (4:48) 5. Sleep Leaves This Place (4:29) 6. On the Other Side (3:56) 7. The Apocalypse Shop (4:27) 8. Only When Darkness Falls (3:26) 9. Incognito (3:26) 10. Mother (3:29)

Molybaron "Something Ominous"2023

Line-Up: Gary Kelly – Vocals/Guitars Sebastian De Saint Angel – Bass Camille Greneron – Drums Florian Soum – Lead Guitar Tracklist Something Ominous Set Alight Billion Dollar Shakedown Breakdown Anyway Daylight Dies In Darkness Dead On Arrival Pendulum Reality Show Vampires

Molybaron "The Mutiny"2021

Line-Up: GARY KELLY – Vocals / Guitar STEVEN ANDRÉ – Guitar SEBASTIEN DE SAINT-ANGEL – Bass CAMILLE GRENERON – Drums Tracklist 01 Animals 5:23 02 Lucifer 3:23 03 Amongst The Boys And The Dead Flowers 4:14 04 Prosperity Gospel 4:15 05 The Lighthouse 4:37 06 Slave To The Algorithm 4:51 07 Something For The Pain 4:09 08 The Hand That Feeds You 4:10 09 Twenty Four Hours 4:54 10 Ordinary Madness 4:44

Molybaron "Molybaron" 2018 + "The Mutiny"2021 + "Something Ominous"2023 France / Irish Heavy Prog Prog,Alternative,Post Metal

https://johnkatsmc5.blogspot.com/2025/03/molybaron-molybaron-2018-mutiny2021.html?view=flipcard

https://johnkatsmc5.tumblr.com/post/777548946959728640/molybaron-molybaron-2018-the-mutiny2021

#Molybaron “The Mutiny”#Molybaron “Something Ominous”#Molybaron “Molybaron”2018 #france post metal #france alternative rock

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