The Body- All the Waters of the Earth Shall Turn to Blood

Some doom metal is called such for merely clinical reasons, i.e. its unsettlingly slow tempos, seismically heavy guitar tone, and dark lyrical themes. Other doom metal genuinely sounds like the end of the world.

Providence, Rhode Island doom/sludge cultists The Body occupy prime real estate in that latter category. In an age where virtually every event has musical accompaniment, if the world does decide to end in 2012 (spoiler alert: not betting on it), I wouldn't be surprised if somebody licensed The Body's newest LP All the Waters of the Earth Shall Turn to Blood as its official soundtrack.

The seven minute choral introduction to album opener “A Body” is like a rapturous, heavenly light, bathing us one last time before the band, a punishing duo of guitar and drums, opens the earth to swallow us whole for the remaining two-and-half minutes of the track. This song sets the stage for the rest of the record, coupling destructive, anti-social, truly doom-laden metal with unusual, atmospheric and unsettling sonic partners.

Third track “Empty Hearth,” for example, chops up actual doomsday cult chanting (from this collection, for those who just can't get enough doomsday cults) into a glitchy, inhuman counterpoint to the duo's industrial crunch that, once you get past the chanting's creepiness factor, is actually kinda catchy.

The chorus from “A Body” return multiple times, to near-transcendent effect, first on more straight-ahead doom song “Even the Saints Knew Their Hour of Failure and Loss” and again on the jaw-dropping closer “Lathspell I Name You.” Elsewhere, on “Song of Sarin, the Brave,” a straight-outta-Jonestown fanatic (or possibly William S. Burroughs or somebody, who knows) rants about pain and suffering over the band's mood-setting metallic creep, bowing out from time to time to let them storm back into the foreground.

That isn't to say that this record is great simply because of its non-metal aspects. Yes, the way those parts are integrated elevates the record, and they're certainly excellent additions that create a compelling listening experience, but the true praise goes to the band themselves. This LP would be nothing without the excellent principle performers, as well as their sense of aesthetic and considerable curatorial skills. The expressive vocal howls and heavy yet diverse guitar work lend body to The Body, and the outstanding, creative drum work propels this apocalyptic, nihilistic obelisk of an album to sludgy, outsider doom metal genius.

All the Waters of the Earth Shall Turn to Blood is similar in many ways to last year's surprise metal masterpiece, Liturgy's black metal/shoegaze bar-raiser Renihilation (which if you check back to my year-end list for 2009, you'll notice that I tragically slept on, waiting until Zmaj's year-in-retrospect kicked me in the ass enough that I went and got it) in its transcendent, almost religious quality, rendering classic-quality metal alongside atmospheric touchstones that combine to create a wholly new experience in their respective genres. Also like that album, All the Waters of the Earth Shall Turn to Blood is a strong contender for album of the year, and barring a rush of genius in the next three months (i.e. Orphan or the new Pig Destroyer record) it should rank heavily on many metal year-end lists.

HaASL Radio Show 9/18/10

1. Animal Collective- “Leaf House”

2. Lower Dens- “Blue & Silver”

3. Pill Wonder- “Wishing Whale”

4. Why?- “These Few Presidents”

5. Small Black- “Weird Machines”

6. Growing- “Green Flag”

7. Light Pollution- “Good Feelings”

8. Dan Deacon- “Paddling Ghost”

9. Tickley Feather- “Sorry Party”

10. Cloudland Canyon- “Mothlight pt. 2”

11. M83- “Run into Flowers”

12. Guards- “Long Time”

13. Joanna Newsom- “ '81”

14. Beach Fossils- “Youth”

15. tUnE-yArDs- “Lions”

16. Thee Oh Sees- “Ghost in the Trees”

17. Gauntlet Hair- “I Was Thinking...”

18. The Tallest Man on Earth- “Walk the Line”

19. We Like Cats- “Meow Hear Me Roar”

20. Waskerly Way- “Cat Alert”

21. Reading Rainbow- “Wasting Time”

22. Toro y Moi- “Blessa”

23. Cornelius- “Drop”

24. Neutral Milk Hotel- “Song Against Sex”

25. Weed Diamond- “I Can't Understand You, Girl Bear”

26. Ólöf Arnalds- “Englar Og Dárar”

27. Gang Gang Dance- “Nomad for Love (Cannibal)”

28. oOoOO- “Mumbai”

29. Eternal Summers- “Pure Affection”

30. Beach House- “D.A.R.L.I.N.G.”

Agathocles- Peel Sessions 1997

John Peel kinda ruled. He basically served as the main media force in promotion of grindcore as a fledgling genre*, giving Napalm Death, Carcass, S.O.B., Extreme Noise Terror, Bolt Thrower and myriad others radio support that, let's face it, wasn't going to come from anywhere else any time soon. For many of these groups, their Peel Sessions serve as a priceless artifact of a level of energy and ferocity soon forgone for other goals (most of the above-mentioned grinders' next stop was by-and-large something akin to death metal, although the exact definition of that term varied by group) and by some not matched on other studio releases.

Enter Agathocles. After 25 years, it hardly even seems fair to bother with an introduction. For almost the whole of that time period, they've been faithfully producing socially and politically targeted grindcore LPs, splits and 7”s with varying degrees of punk, death metal and experimentation mixed among them, characteristically recorded in varying degrees of low fidelity.

This session, as Peel's almost always do, finds the band riding an energy and songwriting peak. Two years prior, the group had released what I consider their career statement in terms of LPs, the diverse, 44-song lo-fi grind opus Razor Sharp Daggers. Thus, many of the cuts come from that record, along with 1997's Thanks for Your Hostility, whose “Be Your Own God” offers the highlight performance from Peel Sessions 1997.

While Peel's Sessions were all exclusive performances for radio, they were less live performances than exclusive demos, since the bands took most of a full day to record them. For that reason, this album offers the best-recorded performance we've ever heard from Agathocles. Coupled with the fact that these songs were performed and largely written during a portion of the band's most creative period, it makes this record perfect for everyone from the die-hard completist Agathocles acolyte, the sometimes Agatho-fan who feels like there's always been something missing in their understanding of the group, and the newcomer who's always been too daunted by the pages-long discography to even know where to start.

What truly makes this album, beyond even the prowess and cult status of the band, is Peel himself. His banter opens and closes the album, and though both are brief, it lends a certain magical, 25th-hour quality to the record that says, “This is a moment in time. This will never happen again, so enjoy it.” Peel's sheer enthusiasm for grindcore, coupled with his refined, British radio voice, give an authenticity to radio broadcasting that seems unable to be matched anywhere, in any country today. Take, for instance, the professional, NPR-announcer way in which he introduces the band on the album's first track.

“And uh, finally tonight we have a session for you from AGATH-ocles, as they must be called, rather than Aga-THO-cles. Brief pieces, by and large. This is --”

And instantly, the Belgians finish Peel's sentence, spewing forth the beginning of Razor Sharp Daggers' “A Start at Least” with characteristic vitriol and in blissfully uncharacteristic fidelity. That instant when the refined form of Peel's announcing voice and the pure form of grindcore meet rockets the listen forward, and Peel lets the band carry that momentum from there. Carry it they do, offering a tight, rewarding set whose recording and mix leaves the requisite grit and riverbed-muddy distortion intact, but ensure that nothing ever cuts out or gets buried, and that the drums are mic'd well enough to actually be discernible, instead of being the wall of kick drum and flailing cymbals some of their recordings are reduced to. The band is a ball of energy throughout the set, and even the rare moment where they actually slow down a bit, the 4:10 “Kill Your Fucking Idols,” the pacing and volatility of the other songs is maintained admirably.

Neither credentials from the Agathocles or John Peel fanclubs are required to enjoy this offering, but filling out applications for one or both by your first couple listens wouldn't be unusual, either. In either case, Agathocles' Peel Sessions 1997 is best taken as an artifact, a passport to a time before Peel's tragic passing in 2004 and a time when Agathocles were still receiving recognition as a grindcore band, rather than the record-churning, LP/7”/split machine many genre lifers have reduced them to.

*[Ed.: Not to mention countless other amazing groups of disparate genres, the names of which I can't even begin to enumerate here; the show's raw guest list includes every letter of the alphabet, plus numerals, most entries in double digits.]

Hipness Through the Static: HaASL Radio Show

So, I've been terrible with posting since school started, but do have a bunch of mostly finished entries that should be up in the coming weeks when I have either a weeknight or weekend that I'm not doing work or engaging in debauchery.

However, this semester I picked up a practicum with my school's radio station, applicable as credits since I'm a communications major, and landed one of six coveted "underground" slots (hours from midnight to 2 AM reserved for specialty shows, in which the DJ(s) responsible can play whatever they please, assuming it's clean and within format.) My proposed format was an indie rock show, and since my first broadcast was this past Saturday, I'll be posting tracklistings and trying to link free mp3s/streams/videos when available so people can grab any new stuff that they like. I've got class in five minutes, so I'll keep this brief. Here's last week's tracklist, and don't forget to listen on www.wqsu.com Saturdays midnight-2 AM Eastern standard time.

1. of Montreal- “Suffer for Fashion”

2. Tame Impala- “Solitude is Bliss”

3. Memoryhouse- “To the Lighthouse”

4. Guided by Voices- “Kicker of Elves”

5. Tennis- “Baltimore”

6. Real Estate- “Beach Comber”

7. Cloud Nothings- “Can't Stay Awake”

8. Thao With the Get Down Stay Down- “Bag of Hammers”

9. The Morning Benders- “Cold War (Nice Clean Fight)”

10. Neon Indian- “Deadbeat Summer”

11. Xiu Xiu- “Gray Death”

12. Galaxie 500- “Strange”

13. Josephine Foster- “Stone's Throw from Heaven”

14. Black Moth Super Rainbow- “I Think it is Beautiful That You Are 256 Colors Too”

15. Memory Tapes- “Bicycle”

16. Wet Wings- “Whisper Always”

17. Los Campesinos!- “Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time”

18. Devendra Banhart- “Aperpareplane (Early Recording)”

19. BARR- “The Song is the Single”

20. Twin Shadow- “Slow”

21. Ice Cream Shout- “Tattooed Tears”

22. SLEEP ∞ OVER- “Outer Limits”

23. Best Coast- “When I'm with You”

24. French Kicks- “Abandon”

25. Wild Nothing- “Chinatown”

26. Hotel Lights- “Norina”

27. Candy Claws- “Silent Time of Earth”

28. Sunset Rubdown- “Idiot Heart”

Hip-hop Meets Grindcore Top 5

I've said it once, and I'll say it twice: grindcore is tough to pin down. As formulaic as the genre may seem to the untrained eye, no formula can explain anomalies like the inclusion of burly industrial experiments or poetry intros on Agathocles' Razor Sharp Daggers, the bouncy pop-punk/grind hybrid “Ten People” from Damage Digital's Moss, or the closing track to Slight Slappers' A Selfish World Called Freedom, “Vanette,” which segues from swirling noise into a sweet, keyboard-driven ballad dripping with 50s-style charm. And don't get me started on Brutal Truth, Exit-13, or Total Fucking Destruction. Grindcore's a genre that bands aren't afraid to let their other influences roam free in, too, and so it's only natural that hip-hop appeared in the mix by-and-by. The ways that these five selections employ hip-hop and grindcore are diverse as the genres themselves, and serve as a “For Dummies” guide of the way the two styles can be artfully melded together on a record.

5. S.O.B.- “Tukikage”
After their '80s glory days, S.O.B. lost more than a little of their thunder. The 1999 album that this track comes from, Dub Grind, features disappointingly little of either dub reggae or grindcore, although it does manage to pull off a nice experimental trick or two. This minimalist, dub-tinged hip-hop track is one of the brighter spots on the record, and hints at what this album could've been if the band took half of the risks they should have taken in making Dub Grind.

4. Catheter- “False Sense of Judgement”
Sporting the smallest amount of hip-hop of any song on this list, this track serves as an example of the hip-hop appearance as accent, rather than as introduction or “Oh man, can't believe they did that!” hook. The brief, sparse beat that serves as this song's outro is one of those passing things that really doesn't ever get an explanation, serving to illustrate the sort of comfort with the genre grindcore bands have found in the 2000s.

3. Genocide- “Intifada”
Coming from the Mexican group's We Rape the Sky, We Rape the Hell LP (find it here at Cephalochromoscope if you don't have it on your harddrive,) this track is one of the most surprisingly well-produced on this list, and easily the best-sounding thing on Genocide's entire record. The other surprising thing about this track's brooding, Middle-Eastern beat is that it's so good, I'm almost disappointed when the grindcore section inevitably kicks in.

2. Magrudergrind- “Heavier Bombing”
Magrudergrind have always seemed to me a sort of more agile, neo-Spazz, and this reworking of This Comp Kills Fascists track “Heavy Bombing” (possibly the world's first grindcore remix, barring things like disc 2 of Agoraphobic Nosebleed's Altered States of America) does nothing if not prove that fact. Surly, metal-inflected beats build for most of the track, while an MC chants “It's getting' down to the grind/Magrudergrind” before the band explodes onto the track for roughly 30 seconds. Their supremacy doesn't last long, however, as the track gives way to hip-hop again, this time in the form of a dark, 90's style G-funk outro (think Snoop Dogg's “Murder was the Case” or “Serial Killa”) that encompasses the last 20 seconds of the song.

1. Spazz- “Camp Chestnut”
This is the track that started it all. When you think of combining grindcore and hip-hop, this should be the song that immediately comes to mind, sort of the “Bring the Noise” of hip-hop/grindcore pairings. A weird, trashy vocal-loop beat serves as the springboard for what might be one of the strangest collaborations in metal history. Several seconds in, Kool Keith appears on the track and starts shouting out Spazz. And then your mind explodes. Immediately after the explosion of your head, Spazz appears to grind what's left of it into powerviolence-scorched little bits. The full story of how the collaboration came about, as well as the “Autopsy, Def Leppard and Spazz” line from Dr. Octagon's “I'm Destructive” can be found here in this fascinating blog post by former Spazz guitarist Dan Boleri, which illustrates further the strange sort of overlap the two seemingly disparate genres have with each other. No one can quite explain why it works as well as it does, but melding hip-hop beats and grindcore fury seems to be a secret art that certain adventurous grinders are probably going to keep tucked away in their arsenal for the rest of the genre's history.

Junip- Rope and Summit EP

When first hearing Junip's “Rope and Summit,” title track, presumable lead single, and opener of their newest EP, I'm not ashamed to admit that I thought, and possibly spoke aloud, the words, “HOLY SHIT I CAN'T WAIT TO HEAR THEIR ALBUM.” Yeah, I liked it that much.

This, before hearing that Junip is the project of José González, an artist I've always been sort-of indifferent to, almost to the point of dismissiveness.

This, while not knowing that the release the track is featured on is a mere four-song EP, not the full-album offering I'd been hoping for.

As a reviewer, forgive me if I focus on one track exclusively over others, but Junip's “Rope and Summit” is a track that's both refreshingly familiar and surprisingly inspired. Its tentative, folk-tinged openings and instrumentation build into a sparse, yet krautrock-energized, track that invites repeat listens by combining the former genre's plaintive guitars and the latter genre's insistent keyboards and drum patterns into an alluring combination of drive and mystery seldom heard in modern music. I can tell you it reminds me vaguely of Fleet Foxes and Yo La Tengo, although, truly, it probably won't sound like either of them when you listen to it. This is either the mark of an incredibly poor reviewer or an adept artist. I for one beg for your choice to err on the side of the latter, although the final decision is up to you.

The track that follows, “Far Away,” attempts to capitalize on the opener's momentum by beginning with an almost prog-rock jam as introduction, and while the motorik beat and suberb vocal contribution by González come close to living up to their tracklist predecessor, “Step in front of a runaway train/ Just to feel alive again” doesn't hold a candle to the stuck-in-my-head-ability of “Rope and summit, rope and summit” repeated over and over again, even though I STILL don't quite know what that track could be about, other than mountain climbing.

As for the third track of four, the eight-minutes-and-change “At the Doors,” if Yo La Tengo learned this song and decided to include it on their next record, one would be forgiven for insisting to friends that González and Co. had covered YLT and not the other way around, chronology be damned. For all its hypnotic, krautrock drive, the song fails to rise above its influences, and could've been written by any kraut-inspired indie group from the last two decades.

Closing track “Loops,” all softness and repetition, sounds like it could be exactly what the title implies, a palatable series of guitar and drum loops which vocals were applied over, despite its opening plea to “disconnect all loops.”

Ultimately, this EP is a prime candidate for the argument of single vs. longform. While offering an excellent single on the part of the title track, the rest of the album, for the most part, renders itself as only quietly enjoyable to the point that it might be soundtrack music. Rather than bringing into question José González and the two other obviously competent musicians who comprise the band, one wonders whether the current pressures of the music industry itself might have stunted this clearly promising offering, causing it to be released as a free download rather than a full-price album.

First Baby Steps Out of Blog Entropy

So, yeah... I've been kind of a deadbeat blogger lately. In my defense though, I've had a busy past few months, what with finishing finals for my junior year of college, and then after that being mostly consumed with my new summer job interviewing people for the U.S. Census bureau. Still, I promise, dear Internet, that I will change my wicked ways.

I've got several grindcore posts in the works, and hopefully a couple indie rock reviews (which I'll also be submitting to the beautiful people at Hipster Garabe) and maybe some other stuff. If you're patient, I promse we'll be seeing more of each other very soon.