something about the late full-length album from Anna Sage

The French band finally releases its long-awaited, highly anticipated debut.

Off the rails and whipping toward you, its headlight beaming the anger of God, Anna Sage’s new self-titled album is a thrill. The rapid-fire opening snare on “The Holy Mice” battles a staccato, off-time guitar riff. And the guitar tone is live; the amplifier practically hums in front of you. Feedback sometimes fills voids when the guitars break, like on “Sinner Ablaze.” Thirty seconds in, the song hits a groove, and bass guitar notes slide around the key as the six-string pours out a blurry, dissonant drone. Then comes “The Deadly Mess of a Dying Head,” where the atonal scream-shout vocal rages in cadence—"The wall in their eyes / they fall from their skies / hear ‘em antagonize!"

Anna Sage, a four-piece band from Paris, has issued at least two EPs in the band’s 10 years, but this self-titled album, released April 15, 2022, is the band’s proper debut. You can instantly hear the influence of Jane Doe-era Converge—the caustic intensity, the volume and passion, the mix of straight-ahead rhythms with frequent, chaotic tempo changes. Other hardcore and metal influences include Botch, Will Haven, Trap Them, and Gaza.

“Loveless” includes an oft-repeated sound on the album—dissonant high- or mid-range two-note chords that knead over crashing drums while the vocal smears its shredded personality onto the aggressively mordant sound. “Double Bind” begins much like a Jane Doe song, too, chaos pounding on all the doors and windows. Then around 50 seconds in, the song stabilizes and the guitar jams on a simple riff while the drums ratchet up the tension by slipping in fills and playing just off the beat.

On Anna Sage, the guitar riffs can be thrilling, taking the listener around blind corners and through dark doorways. The drums alternate between imposing order and creating high drama by stopping and starting; the guitars will repeat a riff, but the drums play differently the second time through. One thing I notice, though, is that the album has no big moments, no single part I would play for someone to say this is how good this band can sound. I think this just underscores how consistent this album is and how important the audio engineering and production are to making Anna Sage sound so good.

about an okay new death metal album

The delicate sound of beautifully engineered death metal.

Finland’s Corpsessed wheel out a new maggot-filled slab of 90s death metal on April 22nd. On Succumb to Rot, the band adds to its catalog eight more songs of the writhing dead. Hear the guitar picks flick up and down mightily; register the restless-leg syndrome of the drummer thumping down the seconds that lead you closer to the grave. But what registers for me most is the intestinal vocal, belching sequences of words that are more reminders than thought. What do they remind you of? Death. And metal.

I enjoy the production and guitar tone on this album. Succumb to Rot comes out via Dark Descent Records, and the band anticipates releasing a vinyl edition later in the year. Vladimir “Smerdulak” Chebakov created the artwork—the cover depicts a vaguely human abomination meeting his gruesome demise on the tar sand wasteland. And that reminds you to have a little fun.

something about a 2019 album, “What Life” by Club Night

First thing every morning—but especially Monday morning—I hear the bus flatulate to a stop 30 feet outside my bedroom, and I know the world is back at it. And through my window I watch garbage trucks collect piled trash behind the restaurants and bars and dump glass bottles, sucked empty, into breakage. The workers use bins, bags, and boxes to gavage-feed the truck until it pulls away, stuffed stupid, the engine howling hollow wind.

Listening to the brilliant album What Life makes me feel alive—like I want to catch every bus and all the garbage is a celebration. Club Night released What Life in April 2019, but I heard it only recently. The music often sounds high-spirited but contains multitudes. The songs convey spontaneity, as if Club Night is experimenting with changes and rhythms, but the band’s idiosyncrasies are masterful and the musical sum captures a contagious, noisy energy of hooks and melody.

What Life opens with “Path”—the drummer counts off 16 beats as the bass guitar insists on the note, then the drum rolls through fills while the guitar strings pull off and hammer on, wheedling notes, and the vocal—charged and high—cries out to all and sundry. The lack of inhibition speaks volumes. The music sweeps through emotions—joy, restlessness, righteousness, desperation. Even the quieter moments carry energy.

Club Night takes all the noise of daily life and filters it into music. What Life feels a little like the perspective grief can give you.

“Cough” opens with a brief mellow passage, then the restless drumming and guitar figure in. The song segues into a faster heartbeat. The vocal swallows water, as if drowning under reverb and the mix, but its expressiveness and pitched cry allow it to pierce the bonds of the surface.

The bass guitar starts “Cherry” with a head-nodding pulse. Then guitar harmonics ping a melody. Tumbling drum fills hold the momentum, and the volume grows, the rhythm quickens, the angles sharpen until the song drops into a nice and easy playout.

Club Night’s blend of fragility and ferocious animation reaches near-perfection on “Trance.” Take just the moment of one lyric: “I let out a howl so unspeakable.” Josh Bertram’s vocal starts as a hoarse, tortured scream, then slides into his melodical caterwaul. The song has incarnations, taking on different rhythms and paces. The vocal pierces, the guitar phases, the drums roll to a bass alive with inspiration. At 3:00, the song hits a triumphant coda.

And within an album full of highlights, the best among them is the last song, “Thousands.” I probably will play this song from time to time the rest of my life. I love it for the crescendo at 3:30—the snare drum starts cracking, the feedback sings, synthesized skies whistle as they fall—and then it all resolves with the lyrics, “What if we wanted more? Not waking up to the taste of bad news again. I dare not ever ask though I bawl at the splintered sunlight alone… What if we wanted more? Are you happy with the life that you chose?”

Club Night’s frontman, Josh Bertram, was previously in Our Brother the Native. What Life, and Club Night’s previous EP, Hell Ya, are far less experimental than Our Brother the Native and sound more like early Animal Collective and maybe Mae Shi. What Life captures something—a time, a storm of influences and events, maybe. But what if we wanted more?

 

 

something about Roger Ebert's autobiography "Life Itself"

Roger Ebert was a talented, Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic and writer who worked for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he and Gene Siskel, film critic for rival paper Chicago Tribune, began co-hosting a weekly movie review show in Chicago. The no-frills program was picked up for national syndication and eventually moved to commercial network television. The odd couple—plump, mop-haired Roger wearing glasses next to tall, thin Gene—having tense, insightful arguments and giving thumbs-up/thumbs-down movie reviews became a pop-culture phenomenon in the 1980s and 90s. After 53-year-old Siskel died in 1999, Ebert continued the show format with other critics.

Ebert was diagnosed with cancer of the thyroid and salivary glands in 2002, and his treatment and surgeries later led to the removal of his lower jaw. Ebert, disfigured and no longer able to speak, continued to write, and his blog attracted a loyal audience. He reviewed movies for the Chicago Sun-Times for 46 years and was on TV for 31. Ebert was 70 when he died.

His patient, careful autobiography, Life Itself, is traditional and lovely. Ebert describes his parents, his childhood (including Catholic school), his career, his alcoholism (and then his pain-killer addition during cancer treatments), and his relationships, including the close, competitive relationship he had with Siskel. Ebert's writing about his disfigurement and condition is touching. I also enjoyed reading his views on the evolution of film promotion over the years and his descriptions of his interviewing habits.

 

Read some of his interviews:

• "Who's gonna get me a beer?" An interview with Lee Marvin by Roger Ebert, October 10, 1970
• Interview with George Peppard by Roger Ebert, February 18, 1968
• Interview with John Wayne (1969) by Roger Ebert, June 29, 1969

And one passage early in the autobiography sneaks in this gut-punch.

The optometrist had me read the charts and slowly straightened up. "Has Roger ever worn glasses?" he asked my mother. "No. He hasn't needed them." The doctor said: "He's probably always needed them. He's very shortsighted." He wrote me out a prescription. "Wasn't he ever tested?" It had never occurred to anyone. My parents and my aunt Martha the nurse monitored my health, which was good; I was in the hospital only twice, to have my tonsils and appendix removed, and had monthly radiation treatments for ear infections (they were probably responsible for the salivary cancer I developed in my sixties.) I'd never complained about eyesight, and no one noticed any problems.

Life Itself was published in 2011.