Moon – Caduceus Chalice

As tends to happen these days, I preordered this album from a few songs I’d heard on his Myspace page.

Yes, it’s one man black metal. But it’s not really one man black metal.

The cover art is terrible, comprised entirely of cliches.

The typography is far more blasphemous than any declaration of anti-religious dedication; must everyone use these shitty Black Forest “gothic” fonts?

The logo is remarkably dull even for a field most noted for its wide array of remarkably dull logos, though it gains a few points by being both unreadable and symmetrical. A novel approach to the otherwise unimaginative “u can’t read me hail satan” squiggle routine.

It’s a fucking aesthetic nightmare on the outside. Even looking at the .jpg of the cover makes me angry. I had to cover it with a Post-it note just to complete this review.

…these are truly the last days

the internet is a petty tyrannical monster

Long, Long Winds

While reading Thoreau’s comments on the lenses of specialists in the field of cultural interpretation, I thought of this essay on a very Brit hyper-hybridity popping out amongst their kingdom of sub genres. The essayist above draws together a slew of really disparate threads into a coherent – if not very convincing – narrative about (I think) what happens at the margins of genre. I’m not entirely sure, but I find it interesting writing about largely uninteresting music.

This one’s even more relevant to Thoreau’s topic, or maybe it’s simply that I can follow it more easily. That essay was written partly in response to this hilarious character assassination. If IOZ was British, straight and cared a lot about hating dubstep, he might read this essay. I can’t say I actually follow most of the personal snippiness, or even agree with him on most points, but it is a funny read. [1]

I LIVE

The pads upon which I played

On tender days, rain or sun

Cursors upon which fingers laid

Far too harsh, the damage done

I will have you back

And return again

To the songs which held us

Through the night

Burial – Untrue

Untrue is a parade of simple, stilted beats and R&B vocal samples pitched about while drowning in reverb. It’s poorly mixed and almost ugly. It evokes a nearly universal reaction of what the hell from everyone.

But despite sounding like poo, it’s very engaging. The mood is, however, entirely that of feeling like the dude(s) who made it wore nothing but grey hooded sweatshirts.

M83 – Saturdays=Youth

Pure shine pop.

Every song on this album exists as the soundtrack to a perfect prom that exists only in the imaginations of relatively well-adjusted people. It’s intensely focused on delivering that feeling of what being young and invincible is imagined to have been like.

It’s almost a little too much at points but never quite crosses over into parody. It gets real close though:

” Like a moth she moves to the red light
Her blood warms and boils there
She skims the sweat like a new milk
And pops the buttons off her wet blouse”

I don’t know what to make of that.

But I do feel like putting on a prom.