The Cramps "songs the Lord taught us"

I have much scarier compact discs in my collection but this is my favorite one to play on Halloween  (after I've listened to the song "thriller" of course)  #thecramps are a spooky sleazy mess, their songs are campy endeavours about teenage werewolves and dancing zombies all wrapped up in reverb soaked drunken shrunken-head surf punk. It's fun music wrapped in a vampy monster aesthetic and really resonates with me on this holiday.  Upon relistening to this this morning I'm a little surprised I never connected the dots between the vocalist Lux Interior and David Yow of the Jesus Lizard.  The both have this wild man yalp that is viseral but also very character filled. I'm kind of shocked I never made that connection before. Anyway, I'm in the kitchen eating Ramen noodles with my youngest song as this disc is playing in the living room. It's a strange mixture of old sensations and new ones.  I'm enjoying music I listened to in my early twenties and the food that kept me alive that decade (that and pockets filled with stolen almonds from the chocolate factory I worked at for a while) and watching this little boy slurp and throw those familiar noodles while dancing in his high chair. It's a mash up of the nostalgic and the nostalgia-in-making. I'm looking forward to taking them all trick or treating tonight, I'll probably have "what's behind the mask" stuck in my head the whole time and that'll suit me just fine. Happy Halloween!

Eneferens "the inward cold"

So most of the compact discs I've been writing about have been pretty nostalgia fueled. This #eneferens disc just arrived yesterday and has given me a big reason to ponder it and some of the other discs I've purchased online in recent months.  I have never been a real fan of buying music online.  I've always loved the hunt and surprise of picking up discs at stores, swaps and shows. However since cds are out of fashion there are no specialty stores in my area carrying the sort of stuff I like in any real consistent way.  Recently though I've discovered a music site that I can appreciate: bandcamp.  What intrigues me about this app is that I am purchasing music directly from the artists and not middle men.  I listened to a bit of this album and really liked the post-rock/shoe gaze strain of black metal that I heard. It's well produced and I'm a sucker for the illegible logo above mountains thing.  It's an ep and relatively inexpensive cd in it's second run (I still only buy music I can get on cd, I have a hard time paying for something and not receiving a physical product. I'm old like that).  The disc arrived very quickly after I ordered it and came with a little "thank you" note from the artist as well as an autographed cover.  I'm not really fan boy over that kind of stuff but I was touched by the intamicy of the transaction.  Knowing this dude poured himself into this music and he gets to actually see the units leave his house, that's cool.  That's underground. That's what got me into music so heavy.
To add to all of this I freaking love this disc!  Great production, the songs are big sweeping movements with lots of quality musicianship and very dynamic compositions.  If you're into the whole blackgaze thing (alcest, ameosuers, heretoir, etc) you will really enjoy this album.  If you like the post metal things like Russian circles and jesu you will also like this alot, sits right in that pocket. It hasn't left my car player or my mp3 player in the past 24 hours.

Thantifaxath "s/t"

This is one of those rare black metal records where the bass guitar is not only audible but also plays a rhythmic and melodic role in the music.  It's one of those things that you don't miss in black metal until you hear it.  All the other trappings are present: buzzing arpeggio guitars, blurry drumming and howled vocals.  The bass playing (or maybe it's just the mix/production of it) really elevates this release.  That's not to say that I don't love basement recordings of ghouls in corpse paint cathartically howling over the hiss of tape and cardboard sounding drums.  I love that shit.  It's just that when I hear well produced (cautiously not over produced) black metal I enjoy the clarity of its intentions.  I appreciate the murky sounds on classic releases and it gives them an antiquated flavor that makes them seem sincere.  Like there was nothing that could stop the creation of that evil din, not even the lack of technology.  That's primal, that's cool.  That being said it takes a special je ne sais quoi to make that stuff sound authentic these days.  I like hearing the bass guitar now.  Last night I went to bed early, fighting the impulse to spend too much time on Grand theft auto 5 online.  I listened to this cd on headphones while awaiting sleep to punch me in the conciousness.  It was kind of a mistake because of how much I like this disc. I fought off slumber to listen intently to nuances in the headphones, eventually sleep took hold.  I had awoken briefly at some point to take the headphones off and turn off the player and then fell back asleep and had vivid dreams of hanging out with John C. Reilly.  I have no idea what that means.

Fever Ray "s/t"

I was sucked in by this cd cover.  Most of the time I use the marvel of technology to check out something before I purchase it.  I saw this disc by #feverray in a used bin and was drawn in by the cover illustration.  I decided to go old school and just buy it on a gut feeling because of that art.  I've been burned by that in the past many times but I was feeling nostalgic for the pre-cell phone access to the Internet era. I took this home.  It's a great music-noir album much like the cover implies. Dark cinematic songs that make me think of an electronic era Nico.  I felt vindicated to have discovered this cd organically, just through bin flipping.  I've listened to this one alot and someone occasionally plays it at the tattoo shop which is always a welcome melancholic treat.  One of my favorite things to do is spend hours flipping through CDs in bins. The hypnotic tick-tick-tick as strange and sometimes familiar album art cascades in front of me.  It excersizes my brain as I make split second assessments of album art and tests my encyclopedic recall abilities as I try to remember discographies, friend's suggestions and holes in my collection.  I find zen in doing it even if I don't purchase anything  (which is rare).  The keepers that you discover this way feel intimate.  Like there was some psychic tendril that reached out to you and because of your honed recepticles you were able to perceive the bond.  The ones that don't work out (which are most of them) I chalk up to talented artists and manipulative art directors. They have studied us and we're able to counterfeit the ago of a good release. Or it might be that I'm just so eager to find that next album that changes my musical landscape from that moment on that I allow myself to be coerced like a desperate lover.  When the stars align and this sort of purchase works out it validates the process and I continue to crate dig.

Red Stars Theory "but sleep came slowly"

My family just went for a long autumn walk trying to shake of some sickness with crisp fall air.  We made it a long walk to a place on Elmwood Avenue that the kids enjoy and that I don't really like.  Compromised because I'm the only one that was really looking forward to the urban hike.  We are home and the wife had to run out to purchase the oldest boy some new pants and sweatshirts because they are growing like weeds.  I'm camped and relaxing on the couch listening to this cd and enjoying the waning hours of "music sunday" (on sundays we don't turn on any televisions until after dinner, but anyone is welcome to play music).  If I had found this #redstarstheory disc when it was released in 1997 I would have named it one of my favorite albums.  But since I bought it based on the album title alone a couple of years ago it gets relegated to "hey this is an awesome slowcore album I missed so now it's a welcome curiosity in my collection".  The album is slow paced and has the signature soft/loud/soft dynamics of the genre.  There's some woodwinds mixed in to give it a little personality.  It's the kind of music I want to hear on a day like today.  Slow, heady but not pretentious and with post hardcore roots (fugazi worship).  Before I sat down to read and write this I perused my slowcore/shoegaze/post-rock section (yeah, I have a whole section devoted to this stuff)  I passed over some tried and true standards and decided to visit this pretty unfamiliar one.  But if you've listened to this type of music it's really not unfamiliar, it's more... out of focus.  In that it has all the trappings of the genre but the songs aren't the ones you know.  I'm enjoying it as the boys are working on a jigsaw puzzle together.  When I focus on this disc I like it alot, there's some Hammond organ droning over the tinkling of indie rock fender guitars and the boys just congratulated themselves over completing a corner of their puzzle.  This is a good moment.

Metallica "master of puppets"

Anybody who knows me today knows that I'm a curmudgeon when it comes to #metallica . They are the biggest fall from grace since I've started collecting music.  I find the band and their music insufferable.  Decades of abandoning and suing their roots has made me grown to hate the sight of their faces.  Especially Lars. #itshouldhavebeenlars. There was a time in my life where this record was part of a binary center of my universe (Slayer's "reign in blood" was the other gravitational force)  this disc was released the day after my fourteenth birthday in 1986.  I really can't explain how much this album changed the musical landscape for all of us heshers. The dynamics and production on this (their finest) album is unassailable.   I thought of this CD today as I waited at my son's bus stop with.  It was a dark and rainy morning and I can remember riding a Marlboro smoke filled bus to high school on a very similar day.  On that bus someone always had a boom box and almost every single day since we got it that boom box was playing a cassette of "master of puppets".  I would sit behind my secret high school headbanger crush peering at her feathered hair and fringed black leather jacket.  I'm still kind of surprised I don't have lung cancer from the fog of second hand smoke on that bus.  I fucking HATE the smell of cigarettes but in some way I can't explain it's almost a fond memory of it. Nostalgia is a powerful thing.  This record also introduced me to Pushead. I remember the first time I saw the "damage inc." T-shirt at my locker outside of homeroom.  A fellow head slinked up near a circle of us and that shirt with its incredibly rendered skull and two spiked clubs bursting from the cranium was like the light on an angler fish, it lured me into the consuming maw of black band t-shirts. I'm still being chewed up by that vice today. 
I keep this cd around mainly for nostalgia.  Like I've previously stated I hate Metallica"s guts now.  Watching the documentaries of their whining and self-absorbtion have alienated them from me to the point of turning them into despised icons.  I can't even begin to measure the gap they've created in my heart. Fucking dicks.

Cult Leader "lightless walk"

Last night I received a text from a friend that #cultleader was playing at a local art space.  I have recently written about missing a doom metal band's performance because I didn't know about the show so after helping put the kids to bed I decided not to add another missed show regret. Cult Leader used to be a band I liked alot named Gaza, some sort of tumultuous drama precipitated a member shift and a re-naming.  This record continues to refine the evil sounding prog/hardcore/metal beast of a band's sound.  It's like they managed to incorporate all the time signatures and tempo changes into a menacing bad-ass disc.  All of them. 
I'm the kind of guy that brings money to a show and loves the merch tables.  It's like I have access to the most elusive and exclusive cd stores around.  This show was no different for me and I read that it was a five band bill which I assumed meant some cool new discs to check out.  I was wrong.  Usually I feel old at shows because of all the young kids acting self-important and peacock in for each other. I didn't really feel that way this time.  This time I felt old and out of touch because all the merch tables were clogged with cassettes.  Fucking cassette tapes.  The second worst format ever created.  There was also a lot of vinyl but I made the executive decision some time ago not to fall down that format's rabbit hole.  I refuse to rebuild my finely honed and massive music collection.  I've come to accept vinyl,  I understand it's attraction and do to a point envy the collectors.  Big album art, an armful of treasures with heft as you leave a store or flea market.  I get it.  Fucking cassettes though?  Can you try any harder to be inaccessible and inconvenient?  I didn't buy a damn thing.  Not because I didn't have money but because I'm out of the loop on this format elitism.  So to the band from montreal that sounded like a cool thrash/skate rock/hardcore thing: sorry, I'll never hear you again.

Japandroids "post-nothing"

It's always amazing to me how the experience of catching a band perform live can change the way their albums sound to you.  When I first heard #japandroids I though they were just a frantic Superchunk rip-off.  Being a little older and not having finger on the pulse of indie rock anymore I was quite surprised to squeak into a sold out show in an illegal venue in Brooklyn.  I was there to catch local noise/shoegaze heroes A Place To Bury Strangers, but the sea of canned beer swilling hipsters were there for Japandroids. The duo took the stage and expertly navigated their set of frantic sweaty pop songs.  The steamy warehouse shouted back choruses that were unfamiliar to me but we're obviously beloved by everyone else. I felt like an outsider and a couple songs into the show I had decided I had to revisit their CD I had picked up at home.  I don't remember why I bought it, it may have been a suggestion from one of Buffalo's old guard of aging indie rockers.  I have it another cursory listen before flying to NYC since I knew they were on the bill.  It hadn't offended me but it really didn't hold my attention either.  When I returned home from my weekend in the Big Apple I pit the disc on and wondered how I had missed the hooks before.  To be sure the songs are obscured a bit by the nervous speed they are played at, and the cacophony is even more impressive after seeing it reproduced live with only two people. I suppose I am a little jaded having been in bands and knowing how much studio wizardry goes into making the magic that appears on these five inch plastic discs.  Seeing the same sounds conjured with flesh and sweat live gave street credit to the stuff on the album.  Apparently that was the viewpoint I needed to enjoy this CD.

Bell Witch "four phantoms "

This past winter #bellwitch played in Buffalo.  I know this because I saw a post after the show on one of their social media sites. I had no idea they were playing here.  It dawned on me that I'm "out of the loop".  I pride myself of my doom metal collection and I love this band.  How did I miss this?  The show was just a few blocks from my home.  As an old curmudgeon I tried blaming the promoters.  I saw no flyers, no ads for the show.  I received no notification.  Then the unwanted notion that it was kind of my fault started creeping in.  Where did I go that I would have seen a flyer? (Though really, if you're not delivering flyers for doom metal shows to tattoo shops you've failed.)  I haven't cracked open an art voice or public social newspaper in weeks (though there weren't any ads for this show anyhow).  I follow the band on multiple social media platforms but never saw any of their tour dates (thanks for limiting my feed Facebook and instagram).  Wait a minute.... this one wasn't my fault!  Bell Witch come back!
What makes this sting even more is this album "four phantoms" (their latest) is incredible doom metal!  They record as a duo and play epic funeral/death doom metal.  Gigantic slow songs that ebb and flow then crush and bury. Vocals howl in the din like a lost soul. Great stuff, I am so bummed I didn't catch them live and add a trophy to my black t-shirt collection.