Tag: Metal

[Listen] TOOL: “Fear Inoculum” NEW SINGLE! (Part 2)

What follows was initially intended to PRECEDE my final statements (being, as they are, “final”), but was moved later since it’s stupidly long-winded.

Now what exactly this IS is a heavily-edited and approximately 60% authentic transcript of my initial reactions to hearing Tool’s HIGHLY anticipated single, the title track off their HIGHLY anticipated upcoming album, “Fear Inoculum”.

Tool - Fear Inoculum.png

 

OK this is it, this is it. Thirteen years of studio-silence, and this is what we’ve been waiting for.

“Fear Inoculum”. “Inoculum”? Like the little speck of bacteria that you incubate overnight for larger cultures?

So like… a little speck of fear that thrives and festers to make a whole lot of fear?

That can’t be right.

A break to enlist the aid of the all-knowing G’o-ogle.

OK almost right. It’s a little dose of fear. Just an inoculum’s worth. For whatever purpose. Infection, immunity, shits and giggles.

Alright, now we know what we’re dealing with.

And… play.

[00.00]: Industrial… metallic noise ascending in pitch, OK. I don’t hate it. And some kinda thick undulating BROAAWWM that bounces between the same three notes. And both your ears. LOVE that.

And oh what’s that DO MINE EARS DECEIVE ME?

CAN THAT TRULY BE THE EXOTIC SOUNDS OF THE SOUTH ASIAN DRUM, THE TABLA, ACCOMPANYING NOTES OF VAGUELY EASTERN MODES PLUCKED ON THE VAGUELY ZITHERY-SOUNDING STRINGS OF AN INSTRUMENT OF VAGUELY ASIAN ORIGIN?

NOW WE HAVEN’T SEEN THAT VERY MUCH IN THE METAL GENRE NOPE NOT VERY MUCH AT ALL IN THE LAST SIXTY YEARS.

I’m not complaining though (because it did very much seem like I was complaining, didn’t it, what with the caps and such), it’s got some serious “Planet Caravan” vibes.

[01.20]: OK those vibes lasted all of twenty seconds we’ve moved on oh look ooh the guitar BROAAWM’s getting MEANER. I like this. And DRUMSSSS the real ones now by which I mean those of the western kind. Bringing the PolyrhythmsTM. Now it’s a TOOL song.

[01.41]: Whoops and there I’ve just tripped over the plodding bassline, playing all those jaggedy accent notes on the off-beats. How could I forget good old Justin? Edit: NOW it’s a Tool song.

[2.01]: Oh, hello Maynard. Aw the BROAWM only comes back when he’s not singing. It’s my favorite part so far.

NOT listening to the lyrics. Because FUCK that.

Tool Rule of Thumb:

Tool of Thumb: All any Tool song is ever trying to tell you is FUCK you or if not that then FUCK The Man and if not that then FUCK society and if not that then FUCK you all over again but now on like a psychological level, couched in a broader lament on the loathsome, irrational and undeniable sinfulness inherent in the human condition (or something), like real Christian shit – WHOA stop the presses TOOL IS A CHRISTIAN BAND.

[2.42]: Oooh the BROAWM’s found itself a little riff. A GOOD one. Goes well with the drums and bass. Damn it’s like these guys are kickass musicians or something. Man I hope they don’t tease me with this sweet sonic synergy for just these thirty seconds and abandon it for the rest of the song.

[3.14]: Oh wait no that’s their MO. Now Maynard’s whisper-yelling at me. I don’t like it. “Immunity”? No just. Gimme that wave of guitars again.

[3.34]: Oooh building BUILDING. We’re BUILDING NOW. On a MODIFIED RIFF yup the old one is shot dead and never coming back aaaaaaand the new one’s gone too. We’re doing this other marginally different one now and Maynard’s gonna do his warbling-with-reverb thing over it. Ooh aah energetic drum fills and heavy power-chords. Very metal so MET-AL.

[4.21]: Oop and we’ve gone quiet. Only got our “unconventional” drums going now. Not gonna lie the culmination of that build was a bit underwhelming. But hey, perhaps that was just a local maximum. And the global is yet to come. Because if these guys make a song with (THE AUDACITY TO HAVE) lyrics like “enumerate” and “mitosis”, how could one (HAVE THE AUDACITY TO EVEN CONCEIVE OF ATTEMPTING TO) describe it without dipping into pre-calc lexicon?

[4.39]: The guitar’s gone back to the same three-note wave, ground zero, and now I’m kinda getting sick of it. Maynard’s singing… along it somewhat. Never straying too far, melodically¸ and thank God because his trajectory seems totally random.

Revisiting and revising the BROAAWM again. Another fun progression yes why not let’s go again it’s a fun ride, right?

[5.36]: Let it be noted that at this timestamp, he said the word “allegorical”. OooOOOoooh.

[5.51]: NEW RIFF WITH LOTTA DISTORTION. IT’S JUST OK FOR RN BUT I’M EXCITED TO SEE WHERE IT GOES.

I’m yelling, see, because it’s LOUD.

Some good percussion and one-note-per-bar bass notes really helping to hype this bridge.

Oh there’s Maynard again. And of course everything else gets totally muted once he comes along. Guitar’s all clean now, but playing the same riff you know what THAT MEANS it means we’re building again oh so much tension ooh I FEEEL it.

[7.03]: Some power chords mmkay I’m liking this. Drums getting harder. Really letting you know they’re there. Some staccato chugga-chuggas on the guitars, I can get behind that.

[7.36]: When will I learn? It all built up to Maynard’s chanting. What’s that you ask? Why yes, we DID just do this FOUR MINUTES ago. But it’s OK because now the guitar’s back! Playing its shiny new riff for all of us!

[8.43]: The drums and the guitar are engaged in a serious debate about where the song should go next, and I must confess, I’m invested. Where will they go now that they’re back where they’ve started? And for the third time, no less??

Oh, that’s right, nowhere. The drums are just kinda hitting a lot of uniform beats and the guitar’s lingering on the same note for uncomfortably long.

Alright all it’s built to is a ruthless assault on my skull. Nothing’s changing except the INCREASING VOLUME. More of the same monotonous rhythm and for some reason really REALLY amped guitar and bass playing the same goddamn notes AND ARE YOU KIDDING ME THE SONG’S OVER.

 

 

#tool2019 or some shit.

– Mans

[Listen] TOOL: “Fear Inoculum” NEW SINGLE! (Part 1)

HOLY FUCK IT’S A NEW SONG

RECORDED IN A STUDIO AND EVERYTHING

THEY SAID THIS DAY WOULD NEVER COME

Tool - Fear Inoculum.png

Now because thirteen years is a long time for fans to build up some pesky EXPECTATIONS and for bands to accumulate some pesky  STYLISTIC CHANGES and all, I wanna give my two cents on how I think this whole album is gonna go down in terms of fan response:

Nothing can kill the hype that these guys/the fans have built over the last few years. Especially not with a song like this, so true to their original style, hitting all the right idiosyncratic notes. And for what it’s worth, I did, upon hearing it, pre-order the album. Y’know. For the culture.

 

Now here’s my two cents on the song itself.

It’s the same old Tool we all knew and loved. Same moving parts, same vacillation between winding along moody minimalist development passages, and dwelling in warm, thick-textured, pleasantly repetitive but short-lived riffs. The same bassline that grumbles agitatedly along beneath the rest for most of the song, rearing its head only during the (several) climactic swells. The same tarantismic correspondence between the drums and the guitars, the whole (magnificently seamless) machine scuttling fluidly and beautifully on its belly like a mutated arthropod, a wet, jet-black abomination of twisted limbs and translucent flesh. Maynard still the star of the show, multiplied for ethereal effect by accordion-folded vocal tracks. Running through all the same old tricks: wailing, whining, grunting, growling, just as well as he’d done on records long past and has continued to do in innumerable live shows since.

Bottom line: A great song, really, if only we hadn’t seen it so many times before. AND the song could have been like a third of the length and still felt complete as a composition. It builds well, as their songs always do. But we just climbed the same goddamn hill like six times. ALSO, unfortunately, Maynard’s vocals were easily the weakest part of the song. Sapping whatever energy the instrumentals summoned over all those minutes, and generally, melodically, sticking out like a sore thumb. Like if someone took that insect-monster that the perfect Tool song seeks to emulate and tried to jab a wooden chopstick into it and call it another leg.

 

Bottommost line: just go listen to “Rosetta Stoned”. You’ll have an almost identical but marginally better time.

 

In-depth analysis of the lyrics coming never.

-Mans

[Listen] FEARLESS IRANIANS FROM HELL: “Monkey in the White House”

Who the hell are these people and where did they go????????????????#$#@

Image result for fearless iranians from hell

All I could find was that they’re from Texas and that they’re Iranian and possibly fearless but don’t quote me on that.

They were and then they weren’t, all in the decade that starts with an 8. Except they bled into the 2000’s by accident, it would seem, when they released an EP called “Peace Through Power”, and it turned out to be a bunch of demos of old songs and ONE new one.

 

“Burn the Books”, from Holy War (1988)

“Special Delivery”, from Foolish Americans (1990)

“Die for Allah”, from Die for Allah (1987)

 

These Iranians really were fearless, in that they did the same thing the Kominas are doing now, except instead of playfully wagging a finger at Americans that don’t like that they’re all that Iranian or Hellish or whatever, they go all the way and condemn them as… well “ignorant” seems like the worst thing they say. They devoted a whole album to it! Their last one, Foolish Americans.

But they (implicitly) condemn other people too! Like Iranians. Overall, though, they just seem to hate war and death and how it (alongside fundamentalist Islam) has come to define certain areas in the East, in the eyes of the West. The best part is that all those lovely messages are conveyed exclusively in the form of hyperbolic satire, with lyrics featuring a whole lot of bloody war imagery and extremist rhetoric. I mean, they have a whole song called “A Martyr in Every Home”.

Wait wait no, let me try that again.

I mean, they have a whole album called Holy War. No wait no there’s an even better one.

I mean, they have a whole album called Die for Allah. Wait no no no wait.

I mean, they have a whole song called “Dogsperm”. Yeah, I think that says it best.

 

But even besides their lyrics, these guys are just really good at writing catchy riffs. There’s an average of like three per song. And they’re aggressive as shit! Shit’s aggressive! Aggressive shit! Angry poopies!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmusic.

 

“Burn the Books” will come back to you in all these fragments that you think are from different songs but then when you listen again you’re like OH SHIT IT’S ALL IN HERE and pure aural ecstasy ensues. Its form is really interesting, where it starts slow and builds up to neck-breaking speed-chorus, predictably, but then it… cycles? Like Black Sabbath to Slayer and then back again. It was weird to listen to at first, but these guys pull it off really well. And it lets them cram like twelve distinct riffs and motifs into less than three and a half minutes. The weakest aspect for me, personally, is the lyrics, I think. Perhaps it’s just hard to hear what the guy’s saying, but I can’t quite tell what books we’re burning and who’s “the sore loser at the end of the line”. All that being said, “God gave up on you, so did I” still hits hard, despite its context-less-ness. Heh.

“Special Delivery” is just so ANGRY! Aw it’s SO angry! At America! Americans. “Another monkey in the White House because of you!” This is from 1990 though so they’re still going on about Bush. The FIRST one. It’s pretty easy to forget that, though. ‘Cause y’know. Trump, and that. Anyway, it starts out all heavy with a coupla different riffs and fun lil’ rhythm changes and then rises a little bit with all these happier-sounding power chords while the singer’s screaming at you before breaking again into instrumental riff-town. It’s amazing, how much they manage to do in just two minutes. The singer’s got a great scream, too, and the rhythm in the lyrics is extremely gratifying. And so simple!

“A mis-sile aimed di-rect-ly at the ass-hole of the Earth!”

1-2-3-4 1-2-3-4. Love it.

“Die for Allah” has this incredible opening showcasing the drums. I don’t usually give a care for drums, just because I, personally, severely under-appreciate their role in making literally every amazing song I know as amazing as it is. But this song’s got drums that even a dumbass like me can’t ignore! And the guiTARS. You’ve got all these tappy light melodic scalic passages that get beaten back down with an onslaught of monotonic sixteenth notes and the singer commanding you to DIEEEEEEEEEE FOR AAAAALLLAAAAAAAAAH. It’s so CATCHY. j-j-j-j (that’s the sound it makes) j-j-j-j j-j-j-j j-j-j-j-j. My favorite part is what I think is the chorus. And I’m only calling it that because that’s where he actually says “Die for Allah”. Just good. Fast. Headbangin’ shite.

 

Really though, with only three short albums left to us by these intrepid Persians of the inferno, there’s no excuse not to just listen to the whole fucking-brilliant catalog. And I say this because goddamn was it hard to pick three songs. I had to leave out “Forced Down Your Throat”! “Martyr in Every Home”! “The Trinity”! “What’s in the News”?!?!!?!!

Go listen or go to hell.

-Mans

[Listen] RED FANG: Sampler

Like a bloody tooth.

 

 

I got into my current garage rock/punk-phase by means of the slowest, heaviest, laziest, and haziest subgenre of metal:

Stoner rock. Or doom metal. Or sludge something.

The point is they’re slow. And heavvvvvvvvvvvvy.

Among doom metal bands, Red Fang really isn’t so doomy. They’ve got some groove, some pep, some punch, something other than buzzy fuzz-guitars that bleed from your speakers like black molasses. If you want that, you can try Electric Wizard. I might have suggestions for them too, so stay tuned.

Personally, I find excessively doomy doom to be rather boring, so stumbling upon Red Fang was a welcome surprise. It maintains the energy and intensity and heaviness of doom, without caving in to screaming and monotonous melody or worst of all: the complete absence of a catchy hook.

Also! Their music videos are pretty good! As in, actually worth watching.

I know! It’s insane.

They’re usually pretty funny, got a little plot of their own and everything. Not to mention one had a guest appearance from professional Funny Guy Fred Armisen of Portlandia and SNL fame! That video is for the song “Blood Like Cream” and is NOT in this sampler but I’ll link it anyway just because I like you so much.

A lot of Red Fang’s songs are awesome, but here’s three of my favorites:

“Prehistoric Dog”, from Red Fang (2009)

“Hank is Dead”, from Murder the Mountains (2011)

“Cut it Short”, from Only Ghosts (2016)

 

“Prehistoric Dog” and “Hank is Dead” are kind of in the same vein. And for that reason, I hesitated to include them both, but I mean what the hell, if they’re representative of the band, they belong here. And I like them both a lot and didn’t want to have to choose between them. So there. Uncomplicated, swingy guitar riffs that are catchy enough to be pounded into your ears for four straight minutes with minimal transformation and still sound amazing. Drums that punctuate the guitar where necessary and do nothing more. Singing eh, lyrics eh, obviously not what this song is for.

“Cut It Short”, and Only Ghosts as a whole felt like a departure from this earlier style of theirs. I actually felt the lyrics a little bit. And maybe this is just a production thing, but all the instruments felt… cleaner? More separated? I don’t know shit about mixing or whatever, but this is the first time I didn’t feel like the guitar was used as the sole driving force of the song, nor as a bludgeon to the brains of the unsuspecting listener. There’s just more space here, more gaps in the noise, whole segments of the song that were (dare I say?) minimalist. This is a song that I struggle to call “doom” in that sense. I feel like this song just bears the vestiges of doom, in the barest minimum, somewhere. The tone of the guitar, maybe?

Another thing I don’t know shit about. I’m no musician.

 

And here’s “Blood Like Cream”. With Fred Armisen. And zambees.

 

Keep yer teeth bloody, I guess.

-Mans

[Listen] BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: Sampler

Remember “Don’t Fear the Reaper”? Well, forget it.

Image result for blue oyster cult

I mean, it’s a good song and everything, but falls far short Blue Öyster Cult’s best. I’m sincerely baffled that they’re not more well-known, considering how irrefutably awesome their music is. I don’t even mean that in some kind of abstract, holistic, or in any other way “niche” manner, I mean it’s just plain clever and catchy and GOOD.

Like, objectively.

I couldn’t limit myself to three songs for this sampler. I mean, I did for this particular one, but there’ll be more, believe you me.

 

[EDIT 3/1: So I can’t seem to leave this post alone, I had to change the second song from “Godzilla” to “Shooting Shark” it’s just it’s just it’s just BETTER.]

“Kick Out the Jams”, from Some Enchanted Evening (Live album, 1978)

“Shooting Shark”, from The Revölution by Night (1983)

“Astronomy”, from Secret Treaties (1974)

 

“Kick Out the Jams” is a cover of a song by MC5. It’s a very frequently covered song, whose original version is also very good (as is the cover by Rage Against the Machine), but this. THIS is “Kick Out the Jams” with Buck Dharma. The song is already fast paced, not allowing any of the members a break (even the poor keyboardist, whose name I can never remember), but still Buck outshines everyone, dominating your ear-space, thickening the texture with all these improvisatory flourishes in even the smallest gaps. There’s not one Buck-less second. Which means, of course, that there’s not one second not worth listening to.

Which, I hate to say, is not the case with every BÖC song. There are some painfully long ones. But that’s why you’re listening to a sampler, right? You want to be guaranteed goodness. You smart little cookie, you.

[EDIT 2/24: OK OK OK this is important apparently the original “Kick Out the Jams” first came out 50 years ago almost exactly and here’s a cool article I found about it that alerted me to this little tidbit

Brothers, Sisters and Motherf&#kers

But whoa isn’t that crazy??]

 

“Shooting Shark” is one of the best anti-love songs I’ve ever heard. Actually, anti-love doesn’t do it justice. It’s like a breakup song, I guess. Its lyrics are wonderfully poetic, but I can’t credit BÖC for that; not beyond having incredibly talented poet friends (in this case, Patti Smith). Anyway, it sounds what a pop song of its time should sound like, with piercing drum-beats and sweeping synth. And saxophone??? The whole song is kept from sounding too much like “Radio Gaga”, however, being unable to escape its persistent “dark” quality. It seems to be drowning in a quagmire of its bass line and synth flourishes, and the free-roaming sax and Buck’s momentarily optimistic vocals seem to be straining against their clutches.

ALSO Randy Jackson from American Idol is the one playing bass on this song WHAT

 

“Astronomy” was the first song of theirs I heard, and still it transports me now as it did when I first heard it. It epitomizes everything I love about BÖC. The sometimes-relaxed, sometimes-intense, dreaminess, the fairy-tale lyrics, and even its structure. It’s not terribly unique, being verse/verse/chorus/ or whatever, but it builds wonderfully, with well-placed instrumental breaks (not to mention a killer guitar solo) and nothing… overdone or overwhelming or overshadowing anything else. It’s just a great song.

 

 

Justice for the Cult of the Blue Öysters.

– Mans