something about another metal album

Progressive death and thrash band Cathartic Demise burn like a welding torch on the calculating new album, In Absence. But the band’s sound is not especially violent. Cathartic Demise are builders, not warriors.

The album sounds more like death metal than thrash—and more like death metal than prog, even though many songs top seven minutes. Like “Pale Imitations,” which goes almost eight. It opens with a poured-syrup guitar riff. That riff gets double-guitared for the harmony. The band uses dual-guitar harmonies throughout to find center, and these moments root the album in a metal tradition. At one minute into “Pale Imitations,” the drums and bass guitar join in, sound-tracking a death march. Then a counterpoint guitar line threatens the pace, so the tempo picks up until the band is at full blast. Rich, atmospheric, melodic sections with layers of guitars pile into the song’s latter moments. The last two minutes sound almost buoyant, and the song finally passes in the blurred reflection of melody.

Cathartic Demise put out its first release in April 2019, a self-titled EP. Today, this Ontario band releases In Absence independently. I listen to it now and hear all these wonderful metal influences. The musicianship is superior and the production is very good—a compliment to proficiency. And how could you not accept a sound so proficient?

 

something about "Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge," a nonfiction book by Jim Schutze

Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge, by Jim Schutze, was a best-selling true crime book in 1998. It was adapted into the 2001 film "Bully," directed by Larry Clark. The crime involves the brutal murder of Bobby Kent, a vicious kid in a comfortable, middle-class Ft. Lauderdale beach community. Kent's best friend and a group of peers lured Kent to his death. 

 

This is the story of a damaged and depraved community. Schutze, a local Dallas journalist, is pitiless and closes his book with a swipe at the adults loitering at the edges of the kids' lives. Reading this dissolves a little more faith in humanity. It's great.

something about another song and video

French synthwave musician Perturbator released a new video and single, “Death of the Soul,” from his forthcoming album, Lustful Sacraments.

The album, currently set for a late May release, explores people’s self-destructive tendencies, according to James Kent, the person behind Perturbator. You sort of get that idea, too, from the video for “Death of the Soul.” Animation depicting games are followed by noirish city night scenes lit by neon signs that flash words like “Heroin,” “Alcohol,” and “Lust”—about as subtle as a train wreck.

Kent has said, “The track takes inspiration from old school EBM a la DAF or Front 242. Valnoir has managed to perfectly pair visuals that reflect the nihilistic tone of it.” Kent wrote, performed, produced, and mixed Lustful Sacraments. The sound of “Death of the Soul” suggests the album will be consistent with the Perturbator oeuvre—dark, anxious, and cinematic, synthesized tones.

This music does little for me. Addicts without drugs feel need. Drugs can make people feel euphoria and, eventually, numb. This is the music of a machine that registers only the need and feels nothing.

a line of dialogue from "The Deadly Conspiracy," a Barnaby Jones–Cannon crossover episode

Don Corcoran: "I use the law—I don't let the law use me!"

an album review of “Let’s Not (And Say We Did)” by Zeahorse

The blurry streetlights and bitterly ferocious noise rock of Sidney.

Zeahorse’s latest album tyrannosauruses through a world experiencing a mass-extinction event. The first song, “Designer Smile,” careens forward with its weight-throwing groove and tyrannical vocals. The sweaty, raving lyrics—“I wish you could see me know / I'm exercising my designer smile!”—sound both insecure and commanding.

Let’s Not (And Say We Did) is the Sydney-based band’s third album and first in over four years. Zeahorse’s sound calls to mind bands like Unwound and Fugazi. Think noise rock and post-punk.

After a couple of galloping tracks, Zeahorse canter through a chunkier groove on “Guilty.” The lyrics describe treading water in a hyper-self-conscious culture of self-improvement. The rising and falling vocal sneers, “When our heads get turned into mush, blame it on the hoo-haa, the Friday night fuss ‘cause I’m dated and bloated and boring and sinking / The party will never end with someone like you / Whatever you do will only make it worse; whatever you do now will only make it hurt.”

On “The Ladder,” Zeahorse bare teeth at the ladder-climbing company man: “Ah, I climb the ladder—there is nothing better! If I could be the spanner, will you be my hammer? Ah, I climb the ladder—there is nothing better! I could be a friend to everyone!” This disaffected lament boils over to the sound of hard-charging post-punk.

Find a slight change in sound, from post-punk to a sludge-gummed crush, on “20 Nothing.” The song opens with a big beat, then rolls out a savage bass tone that sounds great with splashy cymbals. Zeahorse flash big, broad noise-rock stripes and more satire in the lyrics: “I'm so happy, I'm so ready to turn my moments into nothing / Suffocating under the money tree / This ain’t no place for you, and it ain’t no place for me.”

The four-piece band keeps it loud in the pocket. Songs on Let’s Not (And Say We Did) seethe massive grooves and layered, blaring vocals. The singing has that quality of sounding taunting, scolding, and pleading all at once—Johnny Rotten-style, already done. The lyrics deliver indelicate attacks on the materialistic, shallow, and image-obsessed—familiar targets and features of culture that, the louder you rail against them, the more they envelope you.

 

Note: Not really my taste in music, but I think it sounds good and can imagine others enjoying it.