#30 - The Secret | Solve et Coagula

Some people may ask how I could possibly enjoy this CD If I fucking despise Converge.

Answer:

This is not an annoying pile of shit.

This is extremely angry, heavy, dissonant, gritty, and ferocious hardcore.

This is also 10 times better than their previous record which sounded like Converge b-sides.

Pissed off Italians are awesome. Moving on...

Top 30 coming...

I tried writing about the new Agalloch record. It's too huge even for me to produce paragraphs that can actually describe the journey that takes place in your ears when you put on the record.

So in the meantime, I'll be posting my top 30 albums of 2010 starting with #30. A short, and sweet blog post about each CD starting from the top! By the time I get to Agalloch MAYBE i'll be able to brew something up.

Number 30 is coming soon.

Eluvium | Static Nocturne

Matthew Cooper's Eluvium has already released Similes this year, which still sits somewhere within the 5-10 list of albums of 2010. Although long followers of Eluvium were displeased with the addition of singing and percussion, I felt Similes is an incredibly heartfelt album and I feel like the addition of vocals really helped me fall in love with the melodies even more.

But what do I care about the fans...

If this was a response to the fans or not, Static Nocturne is an incredible 50 minute opus of gorgeous ambient drone and breath stopping atmosphere and samples, and it's completely void of the things that pissed off the fans with Similes.

I shouldn't explain the atmosphere this song creates, although it may be blatantly obvious the musical environment the sounds deliver, I feel every person can find there own unique world within this song.

If you want an idea, read this short paragraph from Matthew Cooper himself:

"I am ultimately a fan of sound in a much larger sense it is from rain falling, the ocean swelling, the wind picking up cars driving by, train yards, box fans, etc.. etc.. etc... the amalgamation of these things creates a wonderful comfort to me and it is in this "static" that ideas and music come to me the mixtures of these elements create the chord changes and melodies or are the foundation by which they are found there is nothing more comforting to me in the world than the flood of this vibration at a constant ....."Static Nocturne" is an ode to the process by which inspiration finds me and an homage, of sorts, to this foundation of noise..."

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It may be too soon to say but I think I may end up liking Static Nocturne more than Copia.

Intronaut | Valley of Smoke

1. Elegy
2. Above*
3. Miasma
4. Sunderance
5. Core Relations*
6. Below
7. Valley of Smoke*
8. Past Tense

* - stand out tracks

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I vaguely remember making a blog post about Intronaut's previous record, Prehistoricisms, which blew me away immediately. It was a giant upgrade from its predecessor, Void, which also kicks ass, just not as thoroughly.

On my first listen of Valley of Smoke I wasn't so impressed. There's now clean singing and a lot more reverby, spacey parts. Sounds right up my alley. In fact, it is my alley. So why didn't this click right away? It's because although the band progressed accordingly with clean vocals and a lot more atmosphere, they didn't progress experimentally. In all honesty, Prehistoricisms may still be the better album due to the fact that this band maxed the fuck out in experimentation, especially for this genre. That record is ridiculously groovy and WEIRD and weird in a very good way.

With that said, on second and a half listens of Valley of Smoke, this CD is fucking AWESOME. Yes, maybe they couldn't expand too much upon what they mind-fucked me on with Prehistoricisms but it's as if they took their own influence from that record, and the parts that really stood out and expanded upon those parts instead.

Although it's not my favorite song, I do want to mention the title track. It is essentially the two best songs on Prehistoricisms combined. The 16 minute "The Reptilian Brain" and "Any Port" merged into a half sized, 8 minute jam. This one featuring Justin Chancellor from my beloved Tool. The guitarist again, like in "Any Port" is jamming the drums on this track, but a full kit instead of two toms. So let me map this out.....two AMAZINGLY talented bassists and two drummers at the same time are ripping your mind apart with endless patterns and signatures on this track. It's not as incredible as "The Reptilian Brain" or "Any Port" for that matter but it's still a wicked track.

Either way, overall, this band still has it. If it continues to grow on me at this pace it may make the top 10 or 15. Dig it.

Hopesfall | No Wings to Speak of

I'll never forget the day I heard this EP in 2003. I had just gotten into 'hardcore' or any kind of music with screaming in general. A week after playing this EP on repeat I knew it may be my favorite EP of all time.

It's now 2010 and I've grown out of 98% of hardcore.

No Wings to Speak of is still to me the greatest four stand-alone songs recorded for one compact disc.

In words I can't quite describe, I'll simply say that these four tracks encompass the most beautifully aggressive song writing and emotionally impacting lyrics that nearly anyone could relate and feel to. The emotion of the melodies, the vocals, and the lyrics simply are beyond what other bands in this genre at that time we're attempting to do. What's blatant is that Hopesfall weren't attempting to do anything other than what their hearts were writing. This is natural and pure.

If you're into any kind of hardcore and you somehow missed this EP or are turned off by the way Hopesfall transitioned as a band, please go back and listen to this. You will not regret it.

Also, if you're Bill Lohr and you're reading this, your opinion is invalid. You love Pearl Jam.

Highly Anticipated Record: Agalloch | Marrow of the Spirit

1. They Escaped the Weight of Darkness 03:41
2. Into the Painted Grey 12:25
3. The Watcher's Monolith 11:46
4. Black Lake Nidstang 17:34
5. Ghosts of the Midwinter Fires 09:40
6. To Drown 10:27

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........

FINALLY. A new Agalloch record. And how I cannot wait to hear this one. The album title, cover artwork, and track listing are all fantastic. Now it's time to hear the overly awaited, highly anticipated tunes these guys have been writing for awhile now. I for some reason have a feeling this could be their greatest record. The Mantle is nearly a masterpiece but I feel if they combined that song writing with the production and overall sound of Ashes on the Grain they could produce an even better album than anyone expected. Hopefully that's what Marrow of the Spirit is.

Quick note: Track 2 is called "Into the Painted Grey". I'm thinking this is referring to the album cover. As if someone were walking into the painting. It reminds me of dredg's "It Only Took a Day" which is metaphorically about a sleep paralysis episode of somebody stuck inside of Dali's numerously named "Sting caused by the flight of a bee" painting (that's the shorter of the three names).

This record comes out 11.23.10. Sooner than I expected although still way longer than I planned on waiting after Ashes on the Grain. Let's see if this album can surpass my absurdly high expectations.

Cloudkicker | Beacons

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1. We are going to invert...
2. Here, wait a minute! Damn it!
3. We're goin' in. We're going down.
4. Oh, god.
5. I admit it now. I was scared.
6. We were all scared.
7. Push it way up!
8. ...it's just wide-open field.
9. It's bad. We're hit, man, we are hit.
10. Amy, I love you.

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After releasing a debut LP and three solid EPs soon after, Ben Sharp finally gave us another full length, Beacons. The hype around this one was much larger due to the fact that he didn't actually just...give this one to us, instead posting little teasers every week. Each release thus far has been a free download on his site, something that I greatly encourage and appreciate, and so do fans. Intelligently, I believe he built up his fans appreciation enough for him to offer this record to fans in a stream, yet they can pay whatever quantity of currency they wish for a higher quality digital release, and he will then ship out physical compact discs of Beacons to those who dished out money. Very cool.

You may be looking at the track listing for this record and think...'What a bunch of stupid titles.' Actually, all the titles are rather eerie and interesting. Each are final or nearly final last words from pilots about to eat shit. What's great about the titles are that each song really resembles the final words. Such as the "We're goin' in. We're going down.", which is a very winding and frantic song that easily gives off panic-y imagery of you being in a plane twisting down through the sky.

The album runs together pretty smoothly although certain sections of the CD are smoother than others. The stand out moment of the record are the two ambient tracks "I admit it now. I was scared.", "We were all scared" which beautifully run into each other and then into the best song on the record "Push it way up", a groovy monstrous track with oozing layers of ambient reverb soaked guitars gushing all over the product. The guitars sound like 3 separate sirens roaring loudly over the music that literally put you in a frozen trance. It's as if something terrible is happening yet you can't move because of how beautiful it sounds. It's a great moment on the record.

In all, this is by far the most cohesive and solid effort from Cloudkicker. As much as I enjoyed his previous releases, this one will easily get more spins from me. Definitely check this out if you haven't already. He is streaming the album right on his website for free.