"Now for the other life. The one without mistakes." - Lou Lipsitz
The sunset in Texas in October brushes us familiarly. I feel a twist in my heart as the late afternoon's gold mixes with shadows that take more and more space—much more space now than what blocks the light. And then the last rays slip over me and run fingers through the treetops.
Note: What can you do but notice the beauty of it, even during the final minutes of the football game.
When songs on Ylem offer an opportunity for resolution, Sunless always takes a pass. Instead of allowing for the emotional release of a headbanging breakdown or final minor-to-major chord change, this Minneapolis-based death metal trio always chooses yet another stutter-step to keep you off balance.
My favorite song, "Spiraling into the Unfathomable," starts strong with a chaotic onslaught. Then the song pulls through nimble riffs and irregular beats, throwing lots of elbows and fingers. Most of the album is like this—dense, dissonant, mathy metal. Guitars slice thin cuts of spoiled notes, the snare drum pops like popcorn, and a raspy vocal growls to this kaleidoscopic examination of the dark.
Passion is channeled into proficiency, and emotional connections wither during the endless pursuit of curiosities. Ylem, through intricacy and denial of resolution, sublimates violence more than a lot of other death metal albums.
Sunless will release Ylem, the band's sophomore album, on October 29 on Willowtip Records. The album is billed as part two of a trilogy that began with the band's debut, Urraca, from February 2017.
Donald Ray Pollock writes a twisted version of American Southern Gothic fiction, and The Heavenly Table twists the genre to the point of torture. This novel, caked in cruelty, depravity, and poverty, is a hell of a story. The events are set in 1917 and, consistent with Pollack's other novels, unfolds in territory around southern Ohio. The story revolves around the three Jewett brothers; their father's death sends the impoverished brothers out on the road, their appetite for adventure primed by the Western pulp-fiction novel they have read so much they have it memorized. Pollock introduces many other characters, and shuffles between them chapter by chapter. Everyone—each barkeep, school teacher, vagabond, and whore—comes with a story, no matter how minor the part. It's a bargain. The cruelty, depravity, and poverty that splatter every other page make some passages tough reading. But few of the characters are straight-up bad, and the tidy, focused storytelling and prose compel further reading.
