Shooting at Unarmed Men - Yes! Tinnitus!

Shooting at Unarmed Men - 'Pathos Ate Bathos'

Shooting at Unarmed Men's second album Yes! Tinnitus! is not really as good as last year's third effort, Triptych, but it's a testament to the strength of that album (my favourite of 2008) that Yes! Tinnitus! is still pretty great. In parts it benefits from being able to go back from Triptych in order to appreciate it better; in others it has a certain charm of its own.

The standout first song 'Pathos ate Bathos' starts off with Shooting at Unarmed Men's typical rhythm-heavy songwriting, post-hardcore guitar with a few spaghetti-western flourishes and a frantic but relatively simple beat. Four minutes of rocking out in this vein make for a badass introduction to the album, plus a little bit of start-stop dynamism tacked on at the end as well.

Writing about Triptych on Geek Down's Best of 2008: Rock Albums, josephlovesit referenced the Jesus Lizard and this band's "confident assholism"; likewise, the next couple songs here feature a misogynistic God and a capitalist-acquisitive cowboy. It's a snarling, intense bridge to the next really great song on the album, the single 'Girls Music' (post of the promo 7" here).

Rather like (the ever-unavoidable comparison) a Mclusky b-side put into overdrive, or "a great twisted pop song" as I described it before, 'Girls Music' is the fun, inventive side of Shooting at Unarmed Men which condenses down post-hardcore creativity. The following songs stretch things out a bit more, from the shoutalong "D-I-S-M-O-U-N-T" of 'I Am United Nations' to the slow, ratcheting melodicism of 'Pat Yourself On The Proverbial ("In the summer... she blisters... and her skin peels"). At this point, despite the garage-y immediacy of 'I Cry For No Man' and 'Get On Out And Come Right In', the album begins to drag somewhat; indeed slowed down almost unnaturally for the closer, 'In Flight Instructions Are A Joke, Say I' with its rousing chorus "she drank the whole bottle down".

Still, this is definitely a Shooting at Unarmed Men album as you would recognise from Triptych, if not quite of the same quality. Jon Chapple's voice, both literally and figuratively - i.e. musically - speaking, in this latter-day post-punk, ex-Welsh post-hardcore band deserves to be heard a lot more.

Shooting at Unarmed Men on eMusic

Myspace

a rather brilliant and suitably disturbing 'Girls Music' video:

Reasons to be Emo #200 / Hoover - The Lurid Traversal of Route 7

200th post/reason -

Previous Reasons to be Emo*:

#150 / Hot Water Music - Moonpies for Misfits

#140 / Swing Kids - Discography

#100 / Jawbreaker - Dear You

#50 / Shotmaker/Maximillian Colby - Split

#1 ? / Han Shan - s/t 7"

* if you think about shit like that, that is. Excellent analysis of that question here on the Prisonship. The half-dozen featured examples here aren't meant to be canonical, and definitely are not intended to be definitive; instead, they are choices of what that genre means to me, an ongoing selection of diverse highpoints.

'Distant'

The core of the genealogy, The Lurid Traversal of Route 7 was Hoover's only full-length recording. Originally recorded in 1993, in the first year of the Clinton administration, released on Dischord Records in 1994, and remastered in 2004/5. The last three songs on the CD version, 'Return', 'Private' and 'Dries' were from a separate vinyl release from the LP of Lurid Traversal, and together make up thirteen tracks on the album.

'Distant' opens up with atmospheric noise, harsh and mechanical, and a little bit of percussion, then rhythm, and then the heavy guitars kick in. It's taut, it's tense - barely controlled rage and stop-start dynamics over low, slinking basslines. "3000 mile view/ through a telescope" with the last word screamed out with an unexpected, yet not incongruent, intensity. 'Pretender' operates on the same kind of taut rhythms, locked into a driving groove with propelling guitar and vocals. The song moves forward and upwards with every riff, until disintegrating momentarily at the end.

'Electrolux' builds the sound up again slowly, with deliberate beats and ominous, humming guitar. Clearer guitar balances the equation, lulling the dubb-y, intense atmposhere of the song along. 'Electrolux' erupts, first in guitars, in shouts and screams, and then in vibrant trumpet, a soaring cacophony of sound that swells and collapses back into the rhythm below, which has grown in intensity. Minimalism conflicts with outward expression, emotion with weighty, deliberate pace.

'Electrolux'

Every song on Lurid Traversal drips with intensity and emotion, balancing explosive hardcore and post-hardcore with near-empty, Slinty post-rock, shifting between states with every verse (though, of course, there are no verses to the lyrics). Thus a song like 'Shut' winds it way between quiet and loud in a very Fugazi-ish way, focusing its emotional punch on the crescendo of guitars, yet also expressing itself in the transitional spaces between sounds. The tone created is extremely dark but with carefully crafted, melodic moments of beauty - like the cricket-filled instrumental passage of 'Route 7' - entwined with deep and sonorous rhythms. It's accessible at the same time - the opening to 'Regulator Watts' trips lightly and gently underneath whispered, distant vocals.

Again, the emphasis on rhythm propels the album on through each song, carrying the momentum of post-hardcore heaviness onwards each time, ripping it up and building it up again. 'Father' combines the stop-start dynamic with a near-continuous, insistent beat, rapidly advancing towards its chaotic explosion, and disintegrating like 'Pretender' into annihilating noise. Similar but more immediate and direct than 'Electrolux', 'Cable' shouts out its rhythms with brassy, brash anxiety, and climbs into the heights with distorted reggae and blues riffs.

'Letter'

The dynamics and contrasts of typical 'emo' guitar bands, like the tender yet destructive passions of Indian Summer, course through The Lurid Traversal, but are combined with the equally typical complexities of Dischord post-hardcore groups, resulting in epic and intense creations of late-model punk rock. The first part is evident on the arpeggiated, whispered intro to 'Letter' and its linear progress to ear-crushing, violent catharsis; the second in the equally quiet, almost abstract opening to 'Cuts Like Drugs' and, then, its expressionistic guitar jabs combined with enveloping sound and tense rhythm. In fact, the catharsis of the latter eventually emerges as the most intense of the Hoover sound.

'Cuts Like Drugs' (Live on WFMU - thanks to Matt for splitting it up)

"Some people say this sounds like Fugazi,and they miss the point. It sounds like classic DC twin-guitar midtempo style, as do Fugazi and a hundred other bands. The important part was the way the evil slithering basslines made it seem so dark and serious, and the way the singer worked up from whispering to a tortured animal howl at the end. 'Cuts Like Drugs' has it all."

Andy Radin (fourfa.com)

"The epic "Cuts Like Drugs" plays out like the bastard child of Lungfish and Fugazi, a slow plodding drone with the guitars feedback chiming in and out wrapping itself in and around the package fully developing the experience. But it is the song "Cable" that in my eyes stand out on its own. A hymn of dissatisfaction, the brooding demons that swim through all our minds. When they cry out, "I was programed to kill you." it's almost heartbreaking in how at its most earnest these words speak out in the most succinct fashion of modern day society."

sweetbabyjaysus (Burning Down the Dreams of Forever)

"Hoover were one of the greatest DC bands to come from the Dischord label. Their full length, The Lurid Traversal of Route 7 was and is one of my favorite records. Fred Erskines bass (later of Crownhate Ruin and June of 44) is a driving force and the twin monotone guitars of Dunham and McRedmond cut and scathe and slither while Christopher Farrall keeps everything in time. Or out of time, in a very Hooverish way."

blend77 (Zen and the Art of Face Punching)

"hoover is probably the most influential dischord band never to feature ian mackaye. They arrived in them halcyon early 90s days when DC was starting to register the profound effects of dubby, downbeat-y rhythms and of touch and go records heavies like slint, the jesus lizard, rapeman et. al. Their the lurid transversal of route 7 is for me a high point in american hard/punk/core/rock…

despite so many of our friends getting engaged one way or another with corporate rocking for best and worst, dischord - and hoover - always spoke to a kind of freedom (to rock, to angst-i-fy, to experiment) that only the outlands of indie rock could abide, at least back then."

lexdexter (The Prisonship)

I'll leave you to appreciate 'Return', 'Private' and 'Dries' yourselves:

The Lurid Traversal of Route 7 on Dischord Records (CD/digital)

Download link (from Burning Down the Dreams of Forever)

Slowdime (reunion) EP and Side Car Freddie/Cable 7"

Boxes - Animal; Road Records

Boxes - 'Animal'

There's been a lot written in the Irish blogosphere (blogo'sphere?) about the decision of Road Records to close down. The causes and consequences of Dublin's premier independent record shop disappearing have been discussed at length here, and the best tribute to the store is written here. I think the most I can add is to highlight a recent purchase from the shop, an independent band from the same city, just by way of showing what was important about Road Records to the alternative music scene in Ireland and Dublin.

Personally, I had only been going to Road on a regular basis since about this time last year, when I got a USB turntable and, separately, got into Irish indie music. Prior to that, the shop was too esoteric and, well, indie for my tastes; and besides, there's a perfectly good Tower nearby for more ordinary-alternative sorts of purchases - a fact which must have sidelined Road for most music fans of my generation.

The combination of vinyl and Irish, however made, Road a real necessity for my listening experiences. The excellent Human Bell LP was album of the week or month; Shooting at Unarmed Men's superb Triptych album was displayed in the window for some time (possibly because it looks awesome); and favourite Irish albums from last year like So Cow's I'm Siding With My Captors and Chequerboard's Penny Black came from there as well. Of the Irish releases sourced in Road, I invariably got the crucial listen from the Indie Hour radio show/podcast - which has also unfortunately come to an end at the same time.

I heard the track above from Boxes in passing on that show, and was going to buy the album but put the purchase off (and should have gone to the album launch in the Lower Deck, too) and never did. Until I was looking for some last purchases to make from the shop -it doesn't even seem like there's a sale on, but people just seem willing to help clear their stock and buffer some of the losses. So Boxes - Animal it was (plus the new Cap Pas Cap 12" and Fucked Up - Year of the Pig, which is about as underwhelming as The Chemistry of Common Life). As it turned out, I should have been listening to this album a long time ago.

Here's the description from the store - that was one of best things about Road, the little mini-reviews of practically every album or single - as displayed on the Boxes website:

"album number three from this irish based two piece featuring mark hayes on drums and gavin cowley on bass and vocals. the album is another superb slice of post punk, math rock, post rock and old style sludge rock. its full of hard hitting but also quite intricate sounds with hints of no means no, shellac, don caballero, jesus lizard, fugazi and all things amphetamine reptile related."

(Road Records july 2008)

Animal is Boxes' third album - their second was recorded with Steve Albini, so you can tell there's a track record there - and was recorded in Experimental Audio studio in Dublin. Sonically, they're like a heavier version of current Irish favourite multi-instrumentalist R.S.A.G, or a funkier Young Widows (or, equally, a more AmRep-py Fugazi). It's metallic without being too metallic, which is what I like, and it's got the intense mathy sound of their influences down well, while still sounding sufficiently original to be interesting.

I've chosen the title track because it's, predictably, a good introduction to their sound (though far from the sum of it), but also an extra track from the album, 'Picture', because in part it exhibits, in a way that 'Animal' doesn't quite, the Irish nature of the band - 'Picture' has the typical post-rock/post-hardcore vocals in a quite noticeable Dublin accent. Which may not be particularly important, but I still like the song even more for it:

Boxes - 'Picture'

You probably won't be able to buy Animal online from Road anymore (though try your luck if you're actually in Dublin), but you can get their second album Bad Blood on Cargo Records

[Update: Road Records have Boxes - Bad Blood for sale]

Joseph McRedmond Interview + TCR Unreleased Demos w/ Alex Dunham

'An Open Bottle'

First of all, here's a set of unreleased demo tracks from the Crownhate Ruin with Alex Dunham that were temporarily lost from the internet - Joe McRedmond still has them on tape - but which have resurfaced recently. This is what the man himself said about them on his Facebook page, apparently:

"Some unreleased not very good, poorly recorded The Crownhate Ruin songs with Alex joining us, and David Titus Batista on drums. I’ll be surprised if you enjoy it."

True, they're not great sound quality, but they're still a fascinating - and enjoyable - listen if you want to hear the sound of the Crownhate Ruin paired with some of the extra guitar/vocal pyrotechnics of Regulator Watts. Essentially an album's worth of new songs - tracklisting at the bottom of the post - plus a great version of 'Blood Relative' from Until the Eagle Grins:

Download (thanks to Nick at dischord dot org)

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Secondly, here's an interview I did in the last couple of days with Joe McRedmond - the guitarist for Hoover and the Crownhate Ruin, as well as many other Hoover-related projects (see below).

If you want to hear what he's doing now - and I definitely recommend this - check out Saggiatore.

Tell us about yourself:

My name is Joseph P. McRedmond, I am a half Irish half Sicilian male born and I am considered tall.

Of the various bands you played with after Crownhate, i.e. The Boom, The Sorts, Sea Tiger, etc., which albums/singles did you record on?

I remember recording on a couple of songs with Sea Tiger, The Sorts last record "Six Plus", touring with the Boom, recording on the Him record "New Features", playing bass on two Michael Nace LP's, recording demos with The Perfect Souvenir with Vin, and many practice tapes and live recordings of Rancho Notorious, and unheard demos playing bass with Gun, and a couple of singles with Admiral before all of this. [Edit - and my short lived project with James Brady from Trusty called "The Velvet Kid"; there is 1 limited edition single out there somewhere. I think Tanzania.]

Of those groups, were there any experiences that were especially memorable, or groups that you enjoyed playing with the most?

I remember them being all memorable at the time it was happening.

Within Hoover - e.g. 'Electrolux', and 'Relectrolux/Electrodub' - and in later groups like the Sorts, and in Regulator Watts as well, there's a lot of dub influence: I know that's common with a lot of Dischord and related bands, but was there anything or anyone specific it came from in Hoover? Or was everybody into it equally?

Everybody turned each other on to different musics, we would all bring mix tapes and would request things when necessary...and Jamaican music is the best music, as you can see in its influence on the world...there'd be no hip hop without Jamaica...it's deep late night party music with your friends usually with a message.

Until the Eagle Grins is usually the first record people get into after The Lurid Traversal. When you started up The Crownhate Ruin with Fred Erskine, what was the musical idea behind it? Where did you want to go from Hoover?

To keep playing and touring and recording and find a good drummer. and that's just what we did. And then we would jam forever and take our time putting music together and mostly just play as much as possible. We did a lot of quick out of town trips those two years.

What was the origin of the name Crownhate Ruin?

On the way home from rehearsal one night we passed a Crown Gas Station and Fred said "What do you think of the name The Crown Ruins? and I said what about the Crownhate Ruin? and then it was the name.

Kerosene 454 are listed in the thanks for Until the Eagle Grins, and I heard that you jammed with the Wall brothers for a while. Apart from the label (Slowdime Records), what was the connection with that band?

I originally met Alex in the summer of 1989 in Pittsburgh when Admiral played a show with Wind of Change which also featured Jim and John Wall. When Alex moved to DC he moved in with me, and I was already playing with Fred and Chris after Chris and my band with Geoff Farina of Karate, (our band was called Victor Deluxe) broke up after two shows as Geoff decided to move back to Boston. Alex started playing with us of course. On our first tour we played some shows with Kerosene, and then they moved from LA to DC. Hung out together at parties and more and more people move out here. In the middle of The Crownhate Ruin times, Fred and I moved into a house directly behind Kerosene's house, so we put two ladders up and climbed the chain link fence. After Crownhate and Kerosene broke up we had a little band called Vita Bruno with Jim, John, Vin, and myself. Rehearsed for a year and never got anywhere. Then Fred asked me to join The Boom, with a little prodding by myself, to go on a tour of Europe. John Wall was in the band at the time. We would practice in the Kerosene house. While we were gone, Vin replaced us with Mike Markarian who I lived with and Brandon Butler. They played as Vita Bruno til Brandon replace everybody and started an earlier version of Canyon.

The unreleased Crownhate demos with Alex Dunham are pretty much all new songs, apart from 'Blood Relative'. How likely was a second Crownhate Ruin album?

It was very likely, but we just couldn't play together anymore... Fred was busier with June of 44, Alex with Regulator and Vin with school. So David and I continued playing together off and on.

What do you think about the term 'emo' (or its sister codeword, '90s post-hardcore')?

I don't think about shit like that.

Anything in current punk or hardcore, or post-hardcore that you still listen to or enjoy?

The Eternals. The Good, The Bad, and The Queen, the more funky stuff.

Favourite record (new or old, I guess) of 2008?

Kutiman's "Kutiman" or the Jackson Conti record.

Favourite record in the Hoover family tree (that you didn't play on?)

The Him record "Universe Peoples" or "Many in High Places Are Not Well" or The 2nd Boom record "Any Day of The Night", or The Sorts "Contemporary Music" or most of the Sea Tiger LP.

Favourite record in the Hoover family tree (that you did play on?)

The 3rd Boom LP that never got released, but I have on soulseek.

Thanks

No sweat.

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Demo tracklisting:

10. An Open Bottle

11. The Two Fuckers

12. Trapped Like A Mime

13. As Your Hatred Grows

14. Baby Blue and Black

15. Blood Relative

16. Dismantling Hell

17. Success

(6- An alternate version of 'Open Bottle', from this four-song, 8-track recorded first demo by the band, from 1995 - thanks to Matt)

Leatherface - Little White God

Leatherface - 'Little White God'

(Click to view larger)

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Leatherface - Little White God 7" (RUG16/Domino, 1994)

A1 - 'Little White God'

B2 - 'I Gotta Right'

B3 - 'Meaning'

& from Leatherface - Win Some, Lose Some 7" (DUMP018/Rugger Bugger Discs, 1994)

04 - 'Discipline' (live)

05 - 'Colorado Joe/Leningrad Vlad' (live)

Download

Buy Little White God 7" from Domino Records

Discography information from www.x1984x.com the Shipyards

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I found this via an mp3 blog a week or so ago, but I just listened to it yesterday. The five tracks appear to be from two different 7" releases, albeit consecutive ones. In any case, 'Little White God' is one of the indescribably superb Leatherface's best songs (the opening track from The Last album, previous post here), while a couple of prime-era Leatherface b-sides and a pair of early live tracks make for a nice collection.

I've read 'Little White God' described as 'reggae-influenced', which makes a certain amount of sense from the song's bouncy nature; plus, ever since the Clash or the Ruts, British punk has often absorbed strong elements of its companion genre. It's somewhat akin, in a hardcore setting, to the dub reggae influence on Fugazi's Repeater, which was released around the same time as Leatherface reached their early-90s prime.

Aside from that, 'Little White God' is an outstanding post-hardcore song about drugs and personal choices/addictions. Leatherface lyrics always have a certain ambiguity about them, in the combination of apparent positives and negatives, or ironic and (apparently) sincere statements. I'm never sure exactly what they're saying, but I understand just enough for them to make an impact.

Further impact comes from the excellent cover artwork, a masterpiece in the technological-industrial blazing punk post-hardcore meme. Though I'm not quite sure why someone would be welding a razor blade - if that what's it is - it sure looks fantastic. Added to that, as I just realised today, is the strength of the block-lettered 'Leatherface' name - in red or black on the other albums - with its dropped shadows and almost-typical font (look at the R) which is just the right side of subtle and artistic.

Of the B-sides, 'I Gotta Right' is an enthusiastic fast-loud rock'n'roll hardcore type of song, with prominent, riffing guitar work; while 'Meaning' is the slower, more melodic type of post-hardcore typical of the Minx album - where Leatherface lost some of the cathartic immediacy of their masterpiece, Mush, but mostly made up for it with less obvious, almost balladic pathos. The two live tracks - flip-side to the 7" release of 'Win Some, Lose Some' and 'Ba Ba Ba Ba Boo' - take several steps further back, right to Leatherface's first album, 1989's Cherry Knowle which was much more straightforwardly hardcore-like than anything else the band did after.

Sonically and lyrically, the authority-critical 'Discipline' and the obviously cold-war-era 'Colorado Joe/Leningrad Vlad' ("USSR, USA, they're so gay" - I think using the word in an ironic twist on the 'happy' meaning rather than simplified homophobia) are the link between 80s hardcore punk and its progression, in the Leatherface sound, into 90s post-hardcore - quite outside of Dischord Records and the post-Revolution Summer group of bands, although there is a Leatherface/Jawbox live split.

As it happened, Leatherface moved - largely via Mush - from being purely known in the UK scene to relatively wide recognition in the US, and joining the Avail/Hot Water Music/J Church group of alternately gruff and poppy post-hardcore bands - and eventually leading to the sublime Leatherface/Hot Water Music BYO split series album (posted here) that marked the return of Leatherface after the Last breakup.

Regulator Watts - The Aesthetics of No-Drag

(Image from Jason Farrell's design site - various other, larger pictures online have the colour tones messed up so this is the best one I found. Jason Farrell also did the design/layout for a whole lot of other Dischord/Slowdime and Hoover releases)

This is the last major part/post of the Hoover Genealogy Project. I'll come back to The Mercury CD at some other time, and possibly other releases by The Boom/The Sorts/Sea Tiger... and Frederick Erskine's Just a Fire, which is very good too. However, the essence of the Hoover family tree has been for me the trio of Abilene, Radio Flyer and Regulator Watts. Which essentially makes it the Alex Dunham tree, but oh man, can that guy play guitar. The main alternative branch is of course Frederick Erskine and Joe McRedmond in the Crownhate Ruin, who produced the closest thing there is to a 'follow-up' to Hoover's The Lurid Traversal of Route 7 in Until The Eagle Grins, and then the former of which who went on to do great things in June of 44, et al, before re-intersecting with the Dunham branch on Abilene's second album. Of course, there a plenty of other groups scattered in and around there, for example Sevens; and a couple of 7" releases by pre-Hoover groups Admiral and Fine Day, which I suggest you go to Proven Hollow's long-dormant blog to find, as that was only where I heard about them myself.

The list of posts in the Hoover Genealogy Project so far:

13. Hoover - 'Side Car Freddie' b/w 'Cable'

12. Live on WFMU: Hoover, Lincoln and Crownhate Ruin

11. The Sorts, Sea Tiger - 'How Did You Get There', 'Theme Song' 7"s

10. Abilene - Two Guns, Twin Arrows

9. The Crownhate Ruin - Until The Eagle Grins

8. The Crownhate Ruin: Vol. 1-3

7. Abilene - s/t - (after eggcityradio.com)

6. The Boom - Movin' Out

5. [The Hoover Mixtape]

4. Radio Flyer - In Their Strange White Armor

3. Regulator Watts - 'New Low Moline' 7"

2. Hoover/Lincoln - Two-Headed Coin 7"

1. Hoover - s/t reunion EP

Regulator Watts came into the series early on with the 'Rocket to Chicago'/'New Low Moline' 7", also part of the 1998 Mercury CD. I guess I held off posting the first full-length until I could better absorb and thus transmit it, while the two-song 7" is a much more accessible way to get into Regulator Watt's high-octane sound. However, there are two songs from The Aesthetics of No-Drag which work well as an introduction to the album: the opening track, 'Mercurochrome', and the album standout, 'The Ballad of St. Tinnitus'.

Regulator Watts - 'Mercurochrome'

'Mercurochrome' is an opener of the kind that condenses down the intensity of Lurid Traversal's 'Distant' and cranks up the volume on Radio Flyer's 'Allied' into a whole other level of high-powered, electrified post-hardcore. Lyrics on a variation of "old grandads got my number/sinking highballs/hit me with it my mind/blind at the same time" added to the fact that mercurochrome, as I understand it, is another name for iodine (i.e., the disinfectant applied to wounds) makes this a particularly painful song. At the very start, 'Mercurochrome' is almost entirely a wash of screeching, atonal guitar noise, temporarily interrupted by a noisy rhythm and more conventional, rockish structure, but returning to its jagged, unreconstructed sound throughout.

The sense of barely controlled chaos is practically a cliche in Hoover-related bands, but 'Mercurochrome' puts it to especially vivid and immediate use; as do the following songs, '20th Century Ltd.' and - after a brief interlude of quiet instrumentation in 'Halifax' - the hypnotic, penetrating 'Candy Bullet O'. As is often the case with three-piece groups, Regulator Watts have the capability to create a lot of noise and abandon within each song, accentuated by the piercing, practically tortured sounds of Alex Dunham's guitar. 'Seedtick East' lays off on the punk rock fury with a calmer, slightly dub-influenced track which opens with an almost train-like boom and echoing, distant drums and vocals.

Regulator Watts - 'The Ballad of St. Tinnitus'

Even more traumatic than 'Mercurochrome'. Coming off the last swipe of guitar feedback in 'Seedtick East', 'The Ballad of St. Tinnitus' opens quietly, over a heavy drum pattern and a climbing guitar line that suddenly soars into ear-shattering volume: "I lost my mother to the needle, my father to the bottle" (though the lyrics sheet doesn't use the pronoun 'I') "let the people sing...". In 'The Ballad of St. Tinnitus' the harsh guitar sound developed over the previous tracks - and indeed, in Radio Flyer and Hoover - reaches its point of greatest refinement and intensity. 'Tinnitus' - the common affliction of those exposed to loud noise - is painfully beautiful music, a beat by beat, minute by minute attack on the conventions of rock sound, and a statement of distorted purity in art and artifice.

'Pemberton Red' works perfectly as more subdued follow-up, rather reminiscent of the calmer, yet tense, explorations of Radio Flyer. Alex Dunham's voice has a noticeably broken quality to it, almost as if injured and withdrawn from the exertions of 'St. Tinnitus', yet still enveloped in the rolling, accented rhythms of the song. 'Chechero' is another instrumental, atmospheric interlude, repeated on The Mercury CD at greater length. In The Aesthetics of No-Drag it leads into another slow-building but hard-hitting rocker, 'Eleven', which handles the quiet-loud transition and ultimate, cathartic crescendo in a very Hoover-ish manner.

'False Idols', written by Seven's Bobby Sullivan (see Proven Hollow's post here) is the dubbest track of the album, and in fact redone as 'Version Idols' for the last track of The Mercury CD. Along with Hoover's 'Electrodux' and the 'Relectrolux/Electrodub' version on the reunion EP, 'False Idols' marks the overt inclusion of the influential dub sound within the post-hardcore style. With this in mind, 'Firecrackerjack Tippy' seems to start off as a ponderous exercise in that combination, a hazy, slow-moving rhythmic track interjected with swiping, melodic guitar phrases which grow louder and more emphatic as the song goes on. It's as much Radio Flyer, and even Abilene-ish, as it is Hoover-like, but it also includes the extra dissonant edge of the Regulators Watts sound.

A reprise of the earlier instrumental track, 'Halifax Hellbound' adds a momentary passage of grinding guitar before giving way the album's final track, the supremely intense and aggressive 'Witchduck' - a remarkable, fiery closer. As much as 'Mercurochrome' and 'The Ballad of St. Tinnitus', this song incorporates the disparate elements of rhythm, distortion, screaming vocals and disturbing atonality into a tight rock structure; in essence coming probably just as close to a total reconstruction of the Hoover aesthetic as the Crownhate Ruin did a year beforehand.

Regulator Watts - 'Witchduck'

Regulator Watts - The Aesthetics of No-Drag (1997) (via Kissmysoundsystem)

Slint - Glenn/Rhoda 10" and Mogwai - Batcat 12"

Slint - 'Glenn' (1994)

Slint - 'Rhoda' (1994)

Mogwai - 'Batcat' (2008)

Slint's EP contains, minute for minute, the best music of their slender but massively important output - Spiderland a greater, but far longer, opus of the early 90s Louisville sound and post-rock point of origin. (The songs were recorded in 1989, after Tweez, but were never released until after Spiderland, in 1993/4) For a description of these two two songs, allow me to return to one of the very earliest posts on this blog, written before going to see Slint performing Spiderland in Tripod, Dublin - at which 'Glenn' and 'Rhoda' were played as part of an extended encore:

"1. this EP almost perfectly bridges the fairly disparate sounds of Tweez (a lo-fi, desultory and crunchingly metallic album) and Spiderland (a twisting, epic and subtle masterpiece of post-rock). 'Glenn' rejuvenates the minimalistic sound of Tweez, tightening it up and adding an extra dimension of tension to the instrumental style. The song quickly builds up into a crescendo, which almost immediately goes nowhere, except to introduce an ominous humming sound... part reminiscent of the antagonistic noise of Tweez, part prescient of the eerie claustrophobia of Spiderland.

2. the music of this EP was for me the most 'accessible' part of Slint, coming as I was from a particular musical direction. Previously, I had an allergy to the whole aesthetic idea of post-rock or math-rock (don't worry, I'm on meds now... the doctors call them the mercury program). The song 'Rhoda', in no small way, helped change that. You see, I was listening to a lot of Maximillian Colby, which was a very heavily Slint-influenced emo/hardcore band, similar in vein to the Swing Kids or perhaps Clikatat Ikatowi. But Slint-influenced is not the same as Slint, so when I downloaded Tweez (the only Slint record Touch and Go have released on eMusic... insert conspiracy theory here) I was a little disappointed, not to say confused. Because this alternate version of 'Rhoda' is simply so much better than that entire album. Right from the starting notes, it is probably Slint's loudest song, performing a similar synthesis of styles to 'Glenn' but simultaneously amping the sound up several notches, drenching the spaces between jagged riffs in perfectly pitched feedback, descending into weird, metallic noise and finally collapsing into a droning whine..."

(Slint - "Glenn/Rhoda" EP, August 2007)

I can't believe I had "an allergy to the whole aesthetic idea of post-rock or math-rock", because it would make a listening to a lot of what I follow now very painful. The Mercury Program are a very good band, though. After that post was the review of the gig itself, still probably the best I've seen in the last 18 months (including the Dinosaur Jr. reunion tour and Battles, twice, with the only real challenge being seeing Si Schroeder live for the first time as well).

"3. When they started playing the first few bars of 'Breadcrumb Trail', it sounded like the most familiar thing in the world. This was basically like listening to the album, but better in every way. Or if you were able to listen to the album at tremendous volume, in a room full of people, maybe that... The first sequence of 'Breadcrumb Trail' and 'Nosferatu Man' was pretty damn rocking, and then they slowed it down a bit for 'Don, Aman', when the two guitars came and sat opposite each other on stools in the middle of the stage. Halfway through 'Washer' I was thinking, maybe now I understand a little bit more what Indian Summer felt 'with the needle dragging the end of the slint lp', and where they took a lot of their sound from. The same with 'For Dinner' and the echoes of Max Colby... not really that all those bands are derivative, but that Slint just created this massively important aesthetic. Finally, with 'Good Morning, Captain', we were left with "I MISS YOU!!!" reverberating in our ears, and wondering... what happens now?

4. They played 'Glenn' and 'Rhoda'! That is, after playing Spiderland in its entirety, they played the Glenn/Rhoda EP in its entirety. I was pretty stoked to hear the album, and that would in itself have made the gig awesome, but hearing those two songs live just blew me away. Especially after just writing a review of those songs, to hear them so unexpectedly was memorable to say the least. Mind you, I used to think 'Glenn' was a quiet song. Not so live, however... 'Rhoda' was also upgraded to "earth-shattering". Just awesome."

(Slint - Live @ Tripod, Dublin)

Since then, I bought a record player, and pretty much along with it, a vinyl copy of Spiderland (the way it's meant to be heard). Later on this year, new reprints of the self-titled/'Glenn'/'Rhoda' EP, whatever you want to call it, arrived in the shops. I have to say the difference in quality - in audio terms and in the general experience - is less easily discernible than with Spiderland. Hence, the streaming clips are just ripped from the CD version. However, the pure aesthetics of the EP are enhanced by the 10" version, from the film noir-ish cover art (supposedly inspired by this 1992 book of NYPD crime scene photographs) to the unnamed, crimson-soaked pictorial side A/side B labels on the record itself.

(Click to expand)

A further enchancement of this most perfect encapsulation of the Slint sound and energy came also with the 2008 release of Mogwai's 'Batcat' EP for their current album The Hawk Is Howling. What a 'batcat' is, I don't know - visual, visceral horrorshows aside - but Mogwai did follow in the footsteps of another Slint (okay, Albini/Shellac) influenced band, Mclusky, with their song titles. And yes, that's not a hawk on the album (or at least it doesn't look like one), and no, it's not howling. But 'Batcat' the song is a condensed epic of post-metal, crushingly heavy, noise-making guitars and intricate post-rock composition, which immediately reminds me of Slint's 'Rhoda', the re-worked version.

It's not just 'Batcat', the second track on the full album after the winding, harmonious 'I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead', that makes the EP worthwhile, however. Two tracks on the flipside to 'Batcat', 'Stupid Prick Gets Chased By The Police and Loses His Slut Girlfriend' and 'Devil Rides', showcase Mogwai's less intense, more subtly crafted post-rock soundscapes, in a sort of combined 'Glenn' to Batcat's 'Rhoda'. The upfront heaviness of the EP is in some ways mirrored by the accessibility of the full-length, for all its sprawling, double-LP expanse:

"...Mogwai's sound on The Hawk Is Howling is in the style of their last few albums. The melodies on The Hawk Is Howling are direct and overt. It's grown man, heart-on-their-sleeve music without being veiled in pretense--probably why it got a 4 on Pitchfork. When Mogwai get heavy, they sound like Tool. And it rules. Mogwai are a great rock band because they sound honest."

(josephlovesit, Geek Down - Best of 2008: Rock Albums)

Slint - Touch and Go / Quarterstick Records

Slint 10" at Road Records

Mogwai - Matador Records

At the End of a Fucked Up Holiday: Punk Rock 1998-2008

Pennywise - 'Badge of Pride' (Straight Ahead, 1999)

Fucked Up - 'Son the Father' (The Chemistry of Common Life, 2008)

(the post title comes from a mis-remembered line in the Embrace song, 'End of a Year'. It would be a mixtape post, except for the fact that there's nothing in between those two songs that I really want to include - and therein lies the rub, and the 'holiday')

This isn't an anti-Fucked Up post, or an anti-hardcore post. It's a pro-punk rock post, and a pro-progressive punk rock post. I do think that the current Fucked Up album is overrated, but I also think that the importance of things being overrated is, well, overrated. So my aim is not to denigrate that album, but to put it into some sort of perspective.

'Badge of Pride' is the song that got me into punk and hardcore, via Punk-O-Rama #5 (2000). That album, Straight Ahead (1999), still stands up for me today, as does its predecessor, Full Circle (1997). In that respects, it's thus the first and the last straightforward - however melodic or 'poppy' it might otherwise be considered - hardcore song in my listening history.

At the time, "Hardcore 'til the day I die" seemed to me the most impossible ambition, philosophically speaking, but also the most sincere musical statement that I had ever heard. Some of the lyrics became gradually more problematic as I grew older - for example, how do you square "Say what you wanna say I'm not listening anyway" with a liberal, progressive and democratic political outlook? It's not impossible - part of the sincerity of hardcore/punk is the expression of attitudes in conflict with, as well as in support of, idealism - but it is difficult, and I think it's that tension, above and beyond purely sonic issues, that drives the typical listener, from across generations, along the line from hardcore to post-hardcore.

Beginning with this post and this post, I attempted to address a fellow blogger's contention - urbanology - that Refused's 1998 album The Shape of Punk Come marked the last really great hardcore/punk record. I came up with a personal list of, broadly, post-hardcore and screamo albums from the last decade, or part of it. For me at least, those six records (from Hot Water Music, American Steel, Mclusky, Envy, La Quiete and Sinaloa/Ampere) covers the main movements in 'new sounds' that have kept punk and hardcore fresh. Even this year, which hasn't exactly been spectacular for punk - with the exception of the one album featured above - has provided new variations on the post-hardcore and screamo fronts from Have A Nice Life, Loma Prieta and ...Who Calls So Loud; as well as my personal favourite punk album of the year from Shooting at Unarmed Men.

Mostly for the reasons outlined above, there is an almost complete bias amongst those choices away from straight-up hardcore. Upon posting the list, I was encouraged to go listen to Modern Life is War's outstanding 2005 album Witness - which is of superb quality, but still not quite my thing. And more recently, urbanology returns - to 1998 - with the twin brother to Refused's The Shape of Punk Come, Abhinanda's Rumble. This record, also from Umea, Sweden, represents another side of the same end-of-the-century movement:

"In retrospect this period with its releases, its shows and the lyrics, the whole scene seems like the climax of the new school hardcore in Europe; soon after that the music changed and hardcore-music got more into metal and tough guy shit, while the scene that held up the ideals of punk and hardcore (sometimes in a very dogmatic way) branched off the limited possibilities of the music. The last records from Abhinanda and Refused are a good symbol of it. Both bands told in many interviews, that after their releases from 1996 they fell into a black hole and soon started to search for a new way, in music and expression in general. Refused undoubtedly went to the highest step with “the shape of punk to come“, the epitaph and throne of that sound in one. A few weeks after the release, and I hope I remember it the right way, also after Refused split up, Abhinanda released Rumble. A superb record, still with a hardcore basis, but with typical Swedish garage rock’n’roll influences and thirst for experimentation. The songs are rocking like hell, not as arty as Refused, more directly, but not losing the hardcore spirit, the rage, the desperation and the hope."

Rumble is very good, undoubtedly, and an interesting artefact from an overlooked scene, but it also sounds rather dated. A decade old, and it sounds quintessentially like an album from late 90s punk and hardcore. Now we've moved on, far beyond the Epitaph sound and its apogee with The Shape of Punk to Come. Post-hardcore and epic screamo - each one and two decades old already, at least - define the alternative edge of contemporary punk. While I'm partial to some more traditional hardcore, I don't mourn its absence, in stylistic rather than innately spiritual forms, from 2008.

Which brings me directly to Fucked Up, The Chemistry of Common Life. I'll begin by saying that it is a good record, even a very good record - but only potentially, or a slight possibility of being, a great record. In terms of hipster criticism, it makes an impressive #2 in the AV Club list, and a slightly more realistic #17 in the Pitchfork Top 50. Interestingly, in the latter #16 is the Vivian Girls s/t, and #15 the Crystal Castles s/t; both albums arguably more punk, subversive, and creative whilst being - respectively - catchily pop and vapidly electro.

The problem - for me - with The Chemistry of Common Life is that it's being held up as the absolute height of art-punk experimentation, as the apotheosis of post-hardcore. Yet when I hear it, it's a quasi-thrashy hardcore record with a (really) nice guitar sound and songs that extend past five minutes. Those songs are good - they have intelligent lyrics, great hooks, and generally a very agreeable mid-tempo pacing. The growling vocals absolutely don't bother me at all, as anyone who normally listens to hardcore is already familiar with that particular aesthetic.

Essentially, Fucked Up is a surprisingly normal hardcore record, admittedly with a lot of bells and whistles, and an arty gloss that makes it attractive (and this is a really good thing) to people who wouldn't normally listen to hardcore/punk. At base, there isn't then that much difference between the three-and-a-half minute long song from Pennywise above, and the six-and-a-half minute one from Fucked Up - apart from a misperception of the genre of hardcore, or the development of post-hardcore.

When looking for the development of punk rock since Refused - or as Pitchfork takes it back to, Husker Du's New Day Rising - it's to the side genres that the true aficianado turns: the sound of Revolution Summer and all the tunes that this blog originally focused on; this century, the noise-rock of Mclusky or the epic screamo of Envy; in 2008, the post-punk of Shooting at Unarmed Men or the latest developments in post-rock and screamo; or, slightly more commercially, Vivian Girls and Crystal Castles (perversely, I'll stick with them rather than the somewhat dull No Age). Making a melodic hardcore album not only just doesn't cut it for the most progressive record this decade, but also reflects the basic, straightforward hardcore sound - still valid, and still enjoyable - that all the really exciting albums moved away from.

- a guy called Clint got in touch about his sorta-melodic-hardcore band from Toronto that isn't Fucked Up, but who have a very nice EP/album available for download. It's called Outsourced from the New Enemy, and you can get it at their website here. And in case you're wondering, I don't usually do this sort of promo stuff, but in this case I just really like their sound.

The (very) Best of 2008 Pt. 1

Hardcore For Nerds: The Best of 2008 Mixtape, Part 1

Total: 29.9 mins

(Download)

1. Shooting at Unarmed Men - '------------' ('Peristalsis') - 3:38

2. Ham Sandwich - 'click... click... BOOM!!!' - 3:21

3. ...Who Calls So Loud - 'What I Learned in the C.O.U.M.' - 9:38

4. Vampire Weekend - 'The Kids Don't Stand a Chance' - 4:03

5. Grails - 'The Natural Man' - 4:41

6. Human Bell - 'Ephaphatha (Be Opened)' - 4:40

Hello and welcome to the successor to Hardcore for Nerd's first end of year mix, Zeitgeist: The Mixtape (2007). These are the top six records from the provisional best of 2008 list in the last post. Each one is assigned to a category, some of which categories repeat themselves here or in the other half of the top 12, and some of which are slightly frivolous.

'Runners Up' for each category are included to give some depth to the list, and because it is rather early and I'm working from a provisional end cut, I've included a few extra releases I just discovered from Zen and the Art of Face Punching's new 'Stuff To Get Into' which lays out several excellent punk/hardcore records that had passed me by.

I've discussed all of these records at length in previous posts, so rather than repeating myself as to the descriptions, explanations, exhortations and justifications relating to the albums as a whole I will stick to the particular track at hand. (None of which, by the way, have been repeated from previous mixes) This carefully selected mix, which comes in at just under thirty minutes in length and thus one half of a cassette tape, has - if I do say so myself - a very good flow and sense of coherence, despite its variety of sounds and styles. So do enjoy the second part of the Zeitgeist series, from Hardcore for Nerds...

1. Shooting at Unarmed Men, 'Peristalsis' from Triptych.

(Category: Album of the Year Pt. 1; Contemporary Punk Rock Album of the Year - Runners Up, Fucked Up - Chemistry of Common Life, Failures - s/t, and (if you're in the US) Future of the Left - Curses)

"Your Dear John letter/had grammatical errors/

and failed to mention that you're a cunt

Your Dear John letter/had grammatical errors/

and your spelling was atrocious"

And so begins the third and final disc of Triptych. A heavy, raging song lyrically resonant of Mclusky ('Gareth Brown Says' from Mclusky Do Dallas - "all your friends are cunts/your mother is a ball point pen thief" - though the swearing is mostly a cultural British thing, and not evidence [necessarily] that all Welshmen are misogynists) but still several steps removed musically. As with the rest of the album, it's avant-garde, ironic hardcore; a faster, punker version of Young Widows. And the closing couplet to the song? "It's called peristalsis/ ...fuck off!"

2. Ham Sandwich, 'click... click... BOOM!!!' from Carry the Meek.

(Category: Album of the Year Pt. 2; Irish Album of the Year Pt. 1 - Runners Up, Fight Like Apes - Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion, Jape - Ritual)

It's difficult to follow up the preceding fury without it being something less harsh, but here's the track with the hardest edge from Carry the Meek, anyway. The review in the end-of-year roundup of State wrote of the album, which came in at 24 of 50, that it arrived as fully-formed singles collection. All the songs are stand-out tracks, which is a prime reason for why I think this album is so good. 'click... click.. BOOM!!!' combines in stereo sound deep bass, crushing distortion and a lighter melody, female and male vocals, into a great dynamic pop song. Three justified guitars and great songwriting make for punk-pop, pop-rock, whatever, with real weight.

3. ...Who Calls So Loud, 'What I Learned in C.O.U.M.' from ...Who Calls So Loud.

(Category: 'Real' Screamo Record of the Year - Runners Up, Sinaloa - Oceans and Islands, Loma Prieta - Last City, Suis La Lune - Heir, La Quiete - s/t 7")

A nine-and-a-half minute long screamo song? Yep, that's what defines one of the greatest releases of the year. The true sound of screamo - blurred with some very pedantic and unnecessary descriptions, but having very recognisable and salient features - has been around, and evolving at a reasonable pace, for at least a decade at this stage. Building on the epic mode of preceding band Funeral Diner, ...Who Calls So Loud's debut album is a roller-coaster ride of barely-restrained emotion and technical proficiency, of which 'What I Learned in the C.O.U.M.' is the effective apex, as well as possibly the greatest excesss. As noted just above, there are numerous good screamo releases this year, from across the US and Europe, but this is still my definite favourite. Previously I've oscillated between the US vein of hardcore and 'Euro screamo', searching for the right balance between emotion, melody, speed and technical skill. This year, I think I've found it.

4. Vampire Weekend, 'The Kids Don't Stand a Chance' from Vampire Weekend.

(Category: Indie Album of the Year Pt. 1 - Runners Up, whatever else the cool kids are listening to these days - s/t)

And how to segue between screamo and Vampire Weekend? It's a difficult task, and one I've already attempted; but in this case, I chose a particularly appropriate, somewhat atypical track from everyone's favourite over-hyped indie debut. Seguing from the closing ambient streetsounds of ...Who Calls So Loud', it's the opening, solo rhythm of Vampire Weekend's last song on their album. 'The Kids Don't Stand a Chance' has a softer, looser feel to it than the other tracks, almost as if it's been produced differently from the rest of the album (it hasn't, as far as I know). Lyrically and compositionally, it is in reality just as archly indie - itself a perfectly acceptable quality - as the rest of Vampire Weekend, but to me it gives a certain warm feeling of, say, a Clash record. If you've seen singer Ezra Koenig's very competent appearance as guest vocalist for Fucked Up, you'll know there is an extra dimension to this band. But even the more obvious ones are more than remarkable enough.

5. Grails, 'The Natural Man' from Doomsdayer's Holiday.

(Category: Post-Rock/[un]Conventional Style Album of the Year - Runners Up, Mogwai - The Hawk is Howling, God Is An Astronaut - s/t, The Jimmy Cake - Spectre and Crown)

For this band I have, as in the case of the previous mix, eschewed the typically heavier, more forthright songs from the album, such as 'Reincarnation Blues' and 'Predestination Blues', despite the fact that, on the surface, they are probably closer to the album's intended 'sound' overall. And right from the start, 'Doomsdayer's Holiday' makes it clear that Grails are in take-no-prisoners post-rock mode; ramping it up exponentially from equivalent rockers like 'Silk Rd.' from 2007's Burning Off Impurities. Likewise, I saw an Irish commenter named Void describe the album as "giving post-rock a much-need Gothic metal kick up the arse" which strikes me as an excellent description for Doomsdayer's Holiday. Still, it is in the spaces between noises that I have learned to enjoy Grails - a sort of Zen-like self-abnegation, anticipating the heaviest of riffs in the most minimal of sounds, and finally creating the 'post' somewhat apart from the 'rock', while also merging them together in an extraordinary level of cultural complexity. There's no spoon, either.

6. Human Bell, 'Ephaphatha (Be Opened)' from Human Bell.

(Category: Post-Rock/Post-Hardcore Variation Album of the Year - Runners Up, Zomes - s/t, Have A Nice Life - Deathconsciousness, Young Widows - Old Wounds)

With this album I've taken the opposite approach to Grails, and selected the shortest, brashest track from Human Bell's exquisitely crafted LP of minimalist, instrumental post-rock, a coming together of Andy Heumann (Arboretuem) and Nathan Bell (Lungfish). 'Hanging from the Rafters', from the original mix in April, is probably more representative of the full record. Here, the rhythmic composition of guitars, which defines the whole album, is here swathed in simultaneously ethereal and abrasive trumpet sounds. For fans of the Boom or Abilene - you'll like this.