LOCAL Album Review: The Hussy - Galore

Longtime fixtures of the recently booming garage-punk circuit here in Madison, self-described “trash-rockers” The Hussy deliver what we’ve come to love while simultaneously expanding their sound on the fourth LP Galore (released June 30, 2015).  The most noticeable change is the addition of bass, which the former-duo incorporates through the entire album.  Their stripped-down aesthetic is further bolstered by layers of guitars and effects, percussive elements, and on some tracks creative instrumentation such as violin and lap-steel guitar.  Make no mistake however, this is still a band and a record built on no-bullshit charming scrappiness.  Even while delivering some of their most immediate, hooky material to date, the DEVO-esque cheeky pop is balanced perfectly with an aggressiveness and abrasion reminiscent of early grunge bands like Mudhoney.  Bobby Hussy continues to be one of the more exciting guitar slingers going, with fuzzed-out progressions and a ramshackle (though very proficient) soloing style that cuts through the mix like a lawnmower.  The boy/girl vocal dynamic is also on full display, with impressive harmonies and defiant, carefree lyrics delivered with a grin and a middle finger.  

Galore digs its claws into you right of the bat with standout opener Asking for Too Much.  Acoustic and electric guitars mesh together and Bobby cooly laments from a deep sea of reverb in a track that has all the makings of a garage rock classic.  Things only get better with follower Take You Up.  Bob plays the crooner for two verses, channelling the deep post-punk type of drone of Ian Anderson or Peter Murphy.  Punctuated by a vocal-less chorus centered on guitar interplay, the track finishes with a soaring wall-of-sound bridge. 

Following a very solid pair of snotty punk bangers in EZ/PZ and Made in the Shade, guest musician Justin Aten’s violin takes center stage in the exquisitely somber downtempo dirge Darkness.  What begins as a sparse psychedelic arrangement of delicate guitar arpeggios and Heather’s mellow brooding gets the garage treatment during it’s second half.  Like a breaking wave the track explodes into a noisey whiteout as guitar distortion kicks in and Aten wails away on the violin in such a way reminiscent of John Cale’s viola work with The Velvet Underground.  All the while the detached monotone vocals continue, washed all but out of the mix as Galore’s side one comes to a shoegazing close.

With such a high standard set by Galore’s first side, side two tends to sag a bit as repetition sets in.  Several tracks have the feel of a band that is still struggling to capture the intensity and passion of their live performance in a way that makes for a consistently satisfying at-home listening experience.  These tracks ride purely on the guitar work, and for the most part Bobby makes it happen with an absolutely in-the-pocket performance.  Through memorable riffs and volatile soloing, he commands his distorted, livewire sound like a rock n’ roll cowboy wrangling a mad stallion.  J Mascis is the very apparent influence on his style, and there is no doubt that this display would earn a nod of approval from the legendary Dinosaur Jr frontman. 

Closing track My Bad plays like a Vivian Girls-esque neo-shoegaze as Heather’s ethereal vocals float delicately over a raging sea of feedback and distortion.  The album ends with noisey psychedelic freakout that features Bobby’s most extensive soloing before gradually giving way to pure static.  It makes for a grinding finish, but fits the album’s tone awesomely.   

Overall Galore sees The Hussy craft an incredibly listenable record that not only maintains but builds upon their established identity as a band.  Some of the more straight-forward numbers leave a bit to be desired, but at its best the album delivers brilliantly ragged psychedelia without any sense of indulgence or pretension.  It isn’t until the final track that any song hits the three minute mark, but every song is packed with dense instrumentation and production that absolutely hits its mark as almost a grungy version of Pet Sounds.  Galore is not only satisfying for those familiar with the band, but has the authenticity and execution of an album that any rock fan can appreciate.  This is the kind of record that you immediately put on a second time, while you anxiously wait to see what the band does next.

To purchase your copy of Galore, swing by Mad City Music Exchange or visit Southpaw Records

*Catch The Hussy on night two of TurkeyFest; Saturday October 24 at Crystal Corner, as they play their first show back in the states following an extensive European tour!!

Matt's Favorite Horror Flicks; Part I

In a peculiar kind of way, the horror genre is sort of like the punk-rock of the movie world.  It began vaguely, on the outside edge of the medium, before crystalizing itself in the late 1970s.  Since then it has become an ever-growing umbrella genre, with a seemingly infinite amount of available methods of execution and niches to satisfy (or exploit).  It is a genre where anything goes.  There are no rules, and sometimes the more recklessly made, potentially offensive, and against-the-grain; the better a resulting product is.  There is an inherent aura of danger involved, and that is what makes them so damn much fun to experience.  

On that note, I decided to make this year's "Noisepaper Halloween Special" a series on my favorite films of the horror genre.  Not a particularly original concept, I know; but every movie included will be one that I hold strong feelings about that I have been dying (horror-themed pun unintended) to put into writing one way or another.  

This first installment features a trio of relatively old gems that seem to be lesser known among todays audience.  They have all aged incredibly well however, perhaps even reaching "timeless" status.  While not usually mentioned among the classics, as far as I'm concerned they are important landmarks in horror cinema.    

Re-Animator

Re-Animator is a film based on an H.P. Lovecraft story originally written as a parody of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.  If that doesn't set the stage for this gruesomely entertaining thrill-ride, the satirical take on Psycho's theme music that plays over the opening credits will. 

As noted by Robert Ebert, the film seems to thrive on the balance between director Stuart Gordon's desire to make a good film, and his simultaneous acknowledgement that a film about a mad scientist bringing back the dead is unlikely to be considered "good".  As the film builds momentum off of this tension, it finds its stylistic groove in comic book-esque, out-of-control sci-fi weirdness.  I like to describe this movie as either the scariest funny movie ever made, or the funniest scary movie ever made.  Although it maintains its horror spirt throughout- propelled by perpetually building intensity and gore, the whole story is shaded with a psychotically morbid, pitch-black sense of humor.  

Jacob's Ladder

I'm a sucker for movies dealing with dreams and delusions; where the story and images are presented through an unreliable lens in such a way that anything can happen and the viewer is left questioning whether anything is "real" or just imagined.  I have found very few films that succeed in creating such a palpable atmosphere of unease the way that Jacob's Ladder does.  

Jacob's Ladder places its protagonist (and in turn its audience) in a world shrouded in perpetual fog, where normal characters act vaguely "off" and fleeting glimpses of demonic creatures are made.  The plot navigates a disorienting network of flashbacks as our hero tries to make sense of it all, before all hell (quite literally) inevitably breaks loose.  For much of its runtime we are kept right at the brink of sanity, just as overcome by the unpredictable mystery as our main character is.  There are a few well-placed jump scares thrown in to keep the momentum, but the real terror lies in the constant feeling that something unspeakably scary is just about to happen.  When it finally does boil over with the infamous "hospital scene", the result is one of the most undeniably brilliant sequences in all of horror, and some of the most indelible nightmare fuel to be be found anywhere.  

 Suspiria

In the post-fascist Italy of the late 1970s, a subgenre of horror emerged that has come to be known as Giallo-Horror.  Such films traditionally focus on an outsider protagonist becoming witness to some type of gruesome crime, and as a result finding themselves involved in a story of delusion, diabolical authority figures, Hitchcockian suspense, and violent bloodletting.  Among the most highly regarded of such films is Dario Argento's 1977 classic Suspiria.

Much like Jacob's Ladder, Suspiria creates a surreal atmospheric setting; in this case experienced from the perspective of a young American ballerina attending a mysterious dance academy in Germany.  Unlike Jacob's Ladder, Suspiria relies not on shadows and glimpses of disturbing imagery, but bright, gory, in-your-face terror.  The death scenes play out like works of art, the disembowelment of the ballet students choreographed like a ballet itself, with the surrealistically vibrant blood serving as the main set piece.  Despite a lacking storyline, the film maintains tension not only via graphic kills, but the bizarre intricacies of the setting itself, and the disorienting camera angles in which it is seen.  Add in the terrifying soundtrack by Italian progressive rock band Goblin, and this film is a work of art unlike any other. 

Halloween Album Special: Butthole Surfers - Locust Abortion Technician

If Hell has a house band, I like to think that it is the Butthole Surfers.  The Surfers built a career out of making music that at its friendliest is just plain weird, but more often than not is threatening, abrasive, and legitimately frightening.  On their 1996 album Locust Abortion Technician in particular, they have an undeniable knack of putting on tape the mentally unhinged type of sounds that exist in the darkest corners of our psyche, only brought fourth in the unstable mind or to soundtrack tormented fever dreams.  I will go through with the agonizing task of picking one song from Locust Abortion to represent The Surfers on the final Halloween mixtape, but for now it feels necessary to address the entirety of an album that for my money is the most deranged, maniacally twisted collection of songs ever set to tape.

"Daddy?…What does 'regret' mean?"  

"Well son, the funny thing about regret is- it's better to regret something that you have done than to regret something you haven't done.  

And by the way, if you see your mom this weekend, be sure and tell her:

SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN!"

And with that, the Butthole Surfers launch headfirst into 33 minutes of utter nightmare.  The opening track that contains this delightfully haunting intro is Sweet Loaf, a cover/parody of sorts of Black Sabbath's Sweet Leaf.  The hook is a warped version of Tony Iommi's classic original riff, accompanied by effects-laden inhuman shouts and screams.  The vocal effects in question have come to be called "Gibbytronix" after frontman Gibby Haynes, who processes his vocals in various demented ways throughout the album.  It does an admirable job of introducing the general approach of the Surfers:  weird and even disturbing, but at the end of the day still flat-out rocks and is delivered with a sly wink. 

The next few tracks dwell in the deepness of this atmosphere.  Graveyard is rooted in a distorted, downtuned guitar riff that seems to grind its way through it's own sludge, with brief piercing leads occasionally slicing through the mix.  The Gibbytronix makes its presence felt, as the vocals are heavily down-pitched to provide a suffocated, guttural quality as if they are excruciatingly making their way up through six feet of earth.  Following Graveyard is Pittsburgh to Lebanon, a down-and-dirty blues straight from the depths of hell.  It plods along to a lunatic groove as Gibby howls distortedly about such things as buying "(his) first shotgun at the age of three".  

Just as you begin to get used to the downtempo weirdness thus far, The Surfers throw in a subconsciously dreaded monkey wrench, confirming your fears that this rabbit hole does indeed deepen.  The brief instrumental Weber sloppily establishes riffs and motives that are never expanded upon, and leads directly into the farm animal sounds.  The moo's and baa's that carry throughout Hay are soon accompanied by stuttered, disorienting tape loops that flap and reverse over themselves as the animals continue their yelling and are joined late in the track by faint high-pitched human chanting and devilish growls.  At the albums halfway point the relatively straightforward Human Cannonball is a welcome intermission.  More importantly however, it is a very strong stand-alone garage rock song.  Albeit on the terms of the Butthole Surfers; the riffs drone along, the vocals are manic and the lyrics are cryptic; it adds a new level of musical sensibility that will be necessary to carry this album through its home stretch.  

U.S.S.A. shoves us back into nightmareland with a terribly distorted drumroll, or march, or…something.  The brief fade-out provides a teasingly false sense of security right before the grinding guitar noise stutters its way to the front of the mix.  Gibby spends the next couple minutes half-screaming (through filters that give even more edges to his delivery) incoherently over the now familiar, yet no less threatening, chopped up tape loops.  Much to everyone's demented joy, as soon as this madness ends The O-Men pick it right back up.  The rhythm pounds in double-time now, and once the rapid-fire vocals come in spewing nonsense it's obvious there is no turning back.  In what I suppose could be called a chorus, there is a call-and-response from the many schizophrenic voices of Gibby Haynes, as his high pitched worm-voice gives que to his Darth Vader-on-acid voice, which is followed by an unhinged, hyperactive guitar lead before it starts all over again.  The tempo is taken down briefly with Kuntz, but the insanity very much remains.  The song is a remixed version of what seems like an old-time traditional Indian or Middle-Eastern song edited just right (and with extra voices added) so it sounds like the word cunts is repeated as the etherial rhythm drones on.  After that we are treated to another version of Graveyard, this time without any downpitching effects.  Somehow it is even more maddening this way, as the guitar plucks and screams while the Gibbytronix take the vocals to new depths of delirium.  

The darkness all comes to a head with troubling album closer 22 Going on 23.  In audio taken from an actual radio broadcast, a young woman details with disturbing tranquility her "sleep problems" stemming from a sexual assault.  In the background a feral, lumbering riff rises and swells with pure evil as the radio host analyses her issues with echoing terms like "anxiety…sleep programming…conselling…medicine…depression…etc".  After a slowed down, otherworldly guitar solo the same woman resurfaces, complaining of an entirely different set of problems.  The album then fades out into familiar farm-animal noises, and comes to a disturbing halt with crickets and slow-motion "moo"ing.  Upon further inspection, not only are these slowed down versions of the same sample heard in Hay, but the woman's voice had previously been sped up and distorted and used throughout the album, subconsciously tying all of the madness together.  

As you're dropped into silence and left wondering exactly what the hell it is that you've just listened to, the album continues to work its magic as the aural journey through hell sticks vaguely in your mind like the aforementioned fever dreams.  After a little time to readjust to normalcy the appreciation grows for the way Locust Abortion Technician maintains an enjoyable, momentous listen even as it sinks to new depths of psychosis.  The overall haunting atmosphere and gleeful embrace of everything creepy and darkly experimental make this as good of an album as any to give a spin during Halloween. 

ALBUM REVIEW: My Bloody Valentine - m b v

You know those weird dreams where you feel like you are free-falling into a terrifying abyss, only to come to a sudden "landing" when you jolt awake in bed?  In a certain way, m b v feels like that moment of weightlessness, only it takes that split second of subconscious panic and stretches it out into 46 minutes of beautiful yet tense submission.   

In 1991, My Bloody Valentine shook the world with Loveless; an album that not only altered the course of indie rock, but brought a new perspective to what music itself could be.  Loveless put a backdrop of sheer noise and distortion to the band's beautiful pop melodies in an absolutely sublime meshing of style and mood, and in the process nearly bankrupt their record label.  In the following decades frontman Kevin Shields would go on to record numerous incarnations of the followup- all of which would be subsequently shelved out of his fear of not living up to the timeless release of Loveless.  That is, until now.

In January, Kevin Shields mentioned during a London concert that the new album will be released in "maybe two or three days"; the type of flaky response that had become typical of one of rock's greatest perfectionists.  This time, however, the promise held true.  On February 2, 2013, the new My Bloody Valentine album was released.  The band's official site crashed immediately, leaving an untold number of fans (including your's truly) staring at error messages for hours on end.  

Such a turbulent release, after two decades of buildup, would be more than enough to cripple any other band.  Of course, in a way that only they could manage, My Bloody Valentine fed off of the hype.  This is an album that was mythical for over two decades before its actual release; it and now that it actually exists, it certainly delivers on its monolithic stature.  Beginning with the artwork, the surreal pink hue of Loveless' cover has given way to ever-darkening shades of blue for m b v.  After being wrapped up in the warmth and surreal comfort of loveless we find ourselves in confrontation of the other side of the spectrum.  Subtle as it may be, it is an effective first-impression to the album.  This is not the smothering euphoria we all fell head-over-heels with in '91.  This is the claustrophobic struggle of a genius haunted by his own legacy.  While Loveless wrapped us in a blanket of bliss that felt as natural as breathing, m b v challenges us to find it within ourselves to embrace the free-fall.  

This is definitely an album that picks up momentum as it goes.  The first half or so operates on relatively the same plain that Loveless did over two decades ago.  This is by no means a negative though; Loveless was far ahead of it's time, and frankly, I think it could come out today and the world still wouldn't be ready for it.  m b v begins with a wall of sound fading in in as if the old machine is warming up to pick up right where it left off.  Upon reaching operating temperature, the band continues in a warm, comfortingly familiar drone for the duration of opener she found now.  only Tomorrow to me, was an early classic upon first listen.  In Bilinda's first appearance she coos sleepily, just as we remember her and hear her in our dreams (or is that just me?).  Meanwhile, the guitars smolder and swirl, but show hints of welcomed modernization with crunchy, start/stop dynamics.  

As the album nears its midpoint, any concern of it simply being rehash gets debunked in the best possible way.  The most assertive change on display is the prominence of the rhythm section.  The drums and bass really make themselves known this time around, especially on new you, which thumps and pulsates behind echoing guitars like a hazy dance song.  Fittingly, this is the point where things early kick into high gear for m b v.  in Another way opens with an alien-sounding burst of manipulated feedback, which jolts into a grinding, uptempo guitar groove.  Bilinda even puts a twist on her signature vocal style, singing with a more staccato, articulate approach that hadn't been seen since the band's early EPs.  For much of the song the guitars stutter and screech with controlled feedback, but it is much faster and more upbeat than what we have come to know.  During the bridge sections there is a ringing drone that sounds like bagpipes.  By the time you get used to all of it, the song segues into nothing is.  For the following three and a half minutes  the noise machine chugs along, building and building tension like some sort of psychedelic snowball.  In true My Bloody Valentine fashion however, the payoff never comes.  Instead you immersed in this turbulent sea of noise and perpetual sonic momentum.  Just when it becomes unbearable, the album drops you back into the abyss with wonder 2.  As the hazy phantom melodies, wall of noise, flanging drums, and overall comforting chaos disappears into flowing waves of feedback, you find yourself in a disorienting yet incredibly satisfying state of sedation.  The final deafening silence leaves you to reflect on the experience, and to realize that it was everything you could hope for in a My Bloody Valentine album.  

For 22 years it seemed impossible, but m b v has proven itself to be a worthy followup to Loveless, and addition to the sublime discography of My Bloody Valentine.  Whether m b v will reach the legendary status of its predecessor is something that only time will tell.  As it stands though, it is an incredibly satisfying outing from one of indie rock's greatest bands.  

Classic Album: Cheap Trick - Heaven Tonight

Cheap Trick is most definitely one of the bands the forged an entirely new approach to no holds barred, take it for what it is rock and roll.  They came about in the transitional period of the late-70s, which in hindsight manages to work in their advantage.  As a band they never fit into the "rock god"/"guitar hero" type of thing, but they were too clean to really be punk and too edgy to really be pop.  Even though they were misfits in the music world, through their passion and authenticity towards what they did they turned that into their very identity.  Combining elements of each aforementioned genre with a classic British style and a knack for absurd, tongue-in-cheek humor, Cheap Trick epitomized, if not invented, the sub-grenre of power-pop.  1978's Heaven Tonight is where it all came together for this Rockford, Illinois group.  

Surrender hits with a definitive moment right away in the band's signature song, marrying pop songcraft with the attitude and sonic assault of punk rock to create a fist-in-the-air anthem that holds up just as well today.  From there the album takes you on a roller coaster tour of rock and roll.  There are party-ready rockers (On Top of the World, California Man), retro British Invasion style hooks (On the Radio, How Are You), proto pop-punk (Stiff Competition, Auf Wiedersehen) and the near R&B of High Roller and Takin' Me Back.  The effectiveness of the album as a whole is that each song stealthily incorporates elements of the others into a collection of genre-bending, powerful, timeless rock.  

Around the midway point of the album are two absolute high points, Auf Wiedersehen and Heaven Tonight.  The title track is a slice of dreamy psychedelia that lyrically (and musically) sees the band explore the dark side of drug use.  The taunting almost-whispered vocals weave a tale of pushing the limits for the sake of a high.  It is a brooding, ominous, and at times downright scary track that is undeniably hypnotic.  On the opposite side of their spectrum, Auf Wiedersehen is the closest they've ever come to a punk song; and for a pop band in 1978 it was pretty damn close.  The laughable, darkly clever lyrics are sung sneeringly with a growling cockney accent, and gain threatening momentum as the guitars grind and stutter their way through each verse.  The crooning, preachy chorus fits right in with a wink and a nod.

On the whole, this album is just a ridiculously enjoyable demonstration of the amalgomic nature of Cheap Trick.  The media friendly pop stars (Robin Zander and Tom Petersson)  combine with the geeked out music nerds (Rick Nielson and Bun E. Carlos) to create a brilliant encapsulation of rock music in general, and its turbulent nature at the time, ingeniously wrapped up into a nice tidy package.

True to the timeless nature of their music, Cheap Trick continues to go strong as somewhat of a cult favorite, backed by a fiercely loyal legion of fans.  They've continued to release studio albums throughout the 2000s and can always be counted on to support their local Rockford community and the Chicago area music scene.

CHEAP TRICK

Album Review: Bass Drum of Death - GB City

As described by its label, Fat Possom, GB City sounds like "the soundtrack playing in your head when you're fucked up and walking home in the middle of the night".  Reminiscent of the under appreciated early 60s "frat rock" scene of the Pacific Northwest,  this is an absolutely vintage, blown-out garage rock record dripping with surfy delivery and subconscious hints of twisted psychedelia.  The album was written and recorded entirely by singer/guitarist John Barrett in his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, using minimal equipment and even less bullshit.  

The album is especially strong during its first half.  Nerve Jamming opens with pounding, lightening-fast drums and jagged angular power chords, wasting little time before cracking open into a headbanging scream-along chorus about wasting time (ironically) and blowing minds.  The pace doesn't let up at all as BDoD thrashes their way through the title track and into highlight third track Get Found.  The tune is driven by a grinding, muscular, guitar riff as the only constant as rest of the band jolts to brief stops for the sake of jumping back in and exploding into cathartic ferocity during the final minute.  Velvet Itch rounds things off with a comparatively slower pace as the guitar and drums bang along in unison to create a groovy, earth-shaking rumble while John screeches about talking to Elvis in his sleep.

Over the course of the second side of the album things slow down somewhat, literally in the case of standout track Spare Room.  It starts with the familiar Phil Spector drumbeat, slowed to the point of desperation by a sea of guitar grime and ominously trippy five-note bassline.  The energy returns with Young Pros, a bouncy, upbeat song that in some screwy alternate universe could have been huge in the 60s. Sunny guitar hooks and serenading verses are bracketed by a sky-opening chorus featuring doo-wop backing vocals and gleeful drum fills behind John's warped croon.

While the greatest appeal of this album undoubtedly lies in its raw, primitive musicianship and garagey recklessness, the vocals do more than their part to complete the package.  John bashes his way through the songs with a droning howl, dripping with reverb and overdriven from sheer volume.  He goes on about religious girls, demonic possession, drugs, depression, paranoia, and destruction while punctuating his phrasing with absolutely brilliant moments where he erupts into screeching cracks and yelps of excitement that sound like Little Richard on acid.

I had the opportunity to see Bass Drum of Death at the 7th St Entry shortly after this album dropped, and they did not disappoint.  John lead the charge behind an untamed mop of hair obscuring his entire face, which he couldn't be arsed to brush aside at any point.  It was oddly fitting though as the faceless ball of hair spat songs in much to passionate of a way to be entirely human.  They closed the show with a manic rendition of Nirvana's Territorial Pissings, and just about left the building and everyone inside in ashes.  While nothing could convey the chaos of this band in a live setting, the album does an admirable job of replicating the vibe.

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Album Review: Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Psychedelic Pill (2012)

Neil Young and Crazy Horse is a rock and roll institution.  Together they have a way of transcending praise and criticism, and in a sense it even seems futile to analyze their work.  Neil Young's legendary anti-commercialist nature combines with the ramshackle nature of Crazy Horse to give their music a certain invulnerability; this is about them, nothing more and nothing less.  Conventional analysis is rendered weightless by the fact that they have no statement to make other than to simply assert their presence.  Never has that felt more true than when Neil decided to saddle up the Horse last year for the first time since 2003 with Americana, the ragged sing-along collection of folk classics, and its follow-up:  the sprawling double album release of Psychedelic Pill.  

The album starts off with Neil on his own, sounding like an unplugged take on his latest solo work, 2010's Le Noise.  Somber acoustic strumming accompanies the withdrawn serenade of the opening chorus, and it is almost tangible when Crazy Horse fades in (with an interesting production trick) to join the ride.  There is no turning back from there, as the crew navigate their way through the remainder of the almost half-hour sonic landscape that is Driftin' Back.  On Ramada Inn, the second of three 16+ minute epics, Mr. Young uses a long love affair as a metaphor for the band itself, as the ups and downs level off over the decades to eventually become simply a fact of their existence.

As the album rides along from there, it slips the listener into long stretches of surreal trance, locked into the slow-motion gallop of deceptively simple chord progressions.  These extended periods are punctuated by slashing guitar stabs and Neil's sneering yelps of dissatisfaction of today's culture of music consumerism.  All the while though the record is blanketed in sustained, fuzz-saturated guitars that rise up at the perfect moments to engulf the songs with warm, reassuring bliss.  

During the pensive journey you've found yourself on are a handful of shorter, more upbeat songs that serve as departures from the introspection like welcoming townships along the trail.  The title track Psychedelic Pill picks up the pace with flanged-out guitars that phase back and forth like massive jet engines swirling overhead, and lyrics about party girls in shiny dresses looking for good times.  Later on Neil takes a moment to pay respect to his personal roots with the nostalgically celebratory Born in Ontario, and acknowledge the life-altering moment of his first exposure to Bob Dylan in Twisted Road.  During these moments of lighthearted relief Neil confides that he writes music to "try to make sense of [his] inner rage", to cleanse his soul of life's tribulations and allow himself to find solace.

The album, and the band itself, rises to absolutely monolithic stature on the closing epic  Walk Like a Giant.  Young ruminates aggressively about his band's youth, how he came so close to changing the world with social revolution, but decades of weathering the storm has left him feeling like "a leaf floating in a stream".  However he refuses to give up the hope of once again walking like a giant.  During the instrumental breaks between verses the band, backed by fleeting horse whistles and tribal grunts, weaves it's way through catharsis beneath the growing ominousness of rumbling black clouds of feedback.  The skies finally open up in the final minutes as the album devolves into an absolute maelstrom.  Sheets of white noise crash down behind thunderous drumming as Neil rips one of the free-est of his trademark freeform guitar solos.  amongst the storm the band eventually starts banging in unison with a lurching pulse like massive footsteps that slowly fade into the distance.  Finally, a single quarter-note beat of the snare drum surfaces from the murk, reemerging like a lone candle amidst the chaos.  The light summons the band back for one final, wordless chorus with which Neil, as he has always been able to, finds hope within the wreckage.

Thus, the album ends with Neil Young and Crazy Horse walking like the giants that they are, with the assurance that the world can still be saved.  For as long as old Neil has The Horse at his side, the dreaming will never be over.  Long may they run.

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Classic Album: Acid Bath - When the Kite String Pops (1994)

While I like to keep this focused mainly on new (or at least active) bands and current musical happenings, I do have quite a backlog of bands/albums/etc that I feel are worthy of writing about given their impact on the music world and my personal outlook on it.  This is the first of such blurbs, but will not be the last.

Now I'm no metalhead, but that doesn't mean that I don't occasionally enjoy taking a little journey into the darker corners of music and the human psyche.  Granted triggering such an experience is no easy task for a record to accomplish, as simply being heavy doesn't cut it.  This is an album that pulls it off.  Regarded as a classic of underground/alternative metal, it has become increasingly engulfed in legend over the years to the point that it transcends itself.  The band burst onto the scene for a few short years before all but disappearing.  Their music on their breakthrough album is too heavy and innovative to ignore but too defiant of categorization to make a lot of sense of.  The cover of the damn thing is a self-portrait of John Wayne Gacy done while he was in prison awaiting execution.  Everything about it adds to the overall menacing vibe.

Acid Bath formed in 1991 deep in Louisiana, where the only thing sludgier than the swamps is the music.  The band (led by vocalist Dax Riggs) set out to make what they described as "death rock".  In practice this revealed itself to be a unique take on sludgy doom metal taken to extreme lengths and infused with blues, folk, and country.  After their demo earned them a deal with Rotten Records, they put out When the Kite String Pops in 1994.  

Simply put, WtKSP is an engaging, provocative, and often outright disturbing exploration of sprawling dementia.  It shifts seamlessly from thundering lurch to thrashing hardcore punk to deranged ballads featuring almost spoken-word poetry.  All the while the songs make their way through a maze of time and tempo changes while somehow maintaining the simple feel of insanity.  The compressed drums and processed vocals add an industrial dimension to the overbearing menace of the album.  Riggs does an admirable job of navigating the diverse and ever-changing material, moving seamlessly between tortured screams and crooning poetics reminiscent of Glen Danzig.  At times he displays the surprisingly complex lyrical passages with an almost southern sounding twang.  I suppose it goes without saying that the aforementioned lyrics consist of relentlessly dark themes including psychosis, drug abuse, death, and violent depression.  That said, the album manages to frame the material in such a way that presents it as a darkly poetic and musically stimulating exhibition of the dark side of human nature.  That said the length of it (clocking in at over an hour) makes it a difficult straight-through listen- (It's usually somewhere around "Dr Suess is Dead" that I feel the need to take a shower)- but The Blue, Finger Paintings of the Insane, Scream of the Butterfly, etc are still incredible as standalone tracks.

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