As with movies, most sequels in music should never be made. But I'm excited to see that the relentless Devin Townsend is recording a follow-up to 2007's Ziltoid the Omniscient. It will be convenient to have something, anything else to compare to the original.
Townsend, Canada's most prominent metalhead who isn't in Rush, could be considered death metal's Les Claypool--irreverent, constantly hopping in and out of projects, almost comically prolific but inarguably talented. He may be the only figure in history to make proficient death metal sound tossed off, maybe because he writes lyrics like this. If Ziltoid is any indication, Heavy Devy probably spent most of his formative years reading Mad and Heavy Metal.
Ziltoid the Omniscient, which made more metalheads reach for a dictionary than any record since Carcass' Necroticism – Descanting the Insalubrious, tells the story of an alien visiting earth in search of the ultimate cup of coffee. The skits and sound effects are laugh out loud funny, but of course the real draw is the music, a hypermelodic set of death metal that feels more fleshed out than Townsend's work in Strapping Young Lad but just as unpredictable. Nearly all of the music here is Townsend, programmed in part with Drumkit from Hell (Meshuggah's Fredrik Thordendal's software) and with prodigiously laid out industrial-tinged guitars, bass and keyboards. As far as death metal rock operas go, it's even pretty accessible, with discernible, clean-sung hooks in abundance.
When it first arrived, Ziltoid felt like a diversion from Strapping Young Lad, a fun project from a musician with more ideas than he could handle. But seven years on, Ziltoid plays like a major harbinger in a genre that had gone stale, a re-imagining of what death metal could be and the first big step in the solo career of metal's skulleted mad scientist.
Showing posts with label meshuggah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meshuggah. Show all posts
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Friday, July 26, 2013
To Break the Spell of Aging: What makes a band sound "dated?"
This week, Metallica's Kill 'Em All turns 30. I'm listening as I write this (yes, I can barely control my head enough to type), and it sounds just as great as I remembered. One of the best rock debuts and an all-time classic metal album. I'd even argue that it's one of the greatest punk albums ever. But one thing that always surprises me about Kill 'Em All is how modern it sounds.
Three decades have done nothing to wane Kill 'Em All's ferocity. If anything, it sounds even more brutal, now knowing how many thrash and metalcore bands couldn't emulate it without watering it down. The production is perfectly raw, the kind of sound that black metal bands consistently aim for and always fail at. Were the scowling, acne-faced boys of Metallica to support Kill 'Em All today, they could hop on a tour with anyone from Meshuggah to Kvelertak to the Dillinger Escape Plan to Immortal.
But why is this? Consider Venom's Black Metal, released a few seasons before Kill 'Em All. Its influence is all over Metallica--that hardcore-infected metal and basement production are just as discernible here, only Venom did it before Metallica. The lyrics aren't nearly as good as Metallica's, but no one listens to metal for the lyrics. The music on Black Metal is pretty great. So why does it sound enjoyably silly today, whereas Kill 'Em All sounds essential?
When music ages poorly, it has little to do with how influential it is, as Black Metal proves. It has even less to do with the way it sounded at the time. Giorgio Moroder's entire career feels buried in the '80s, yet Daft Punk just included him on their ultra-hip new album. What really matters is how the artists that emulate the sound compare to the originals. Countless bands have sounded like Metallica since 1983, including several great ones, but none of whom are as transcendent as Kill 'Em All. Shortly after Black Metal kicked off a musical renaissance, it was outclassed by Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth and Testament. I'm impressed that Venom's influence has carried over to bands as varied as High on Fire and Behemoth, but I'm even less likely to play Black Metal when the best work of the latter two bands is available.
This year, Venom's influence turned up on the Melvins' excellent covers album Everybody Loves Sausages, which King Buzzo and the gang opened with their own version of Venom's "Warhead." It never stops being fun to watch a band as idiosyncratic as the Melvins constantly increase in stature. At least once a year, it seems like a great new band breaks through on the sounds that the Melvins defined--Sleep, Mastodon, Boris, Neurosis, Isis, Big Business, Made Out of Babies, Torche, Coliseum and East of the Wall all come to mind. All of these artists are honoring Houdini and Stoner Witch with their music, but none of them have been able to occupy that sound from the Melvins. One still can't get that unpredictable avant-sludge-stoner-doom-punk-grunge-metal anywhere else. Yet with more and more great bands working on those ideas, the Melvins matter more now than ever.
Think about the band that's generally considered the architect of heavy metal, Black Sabbath. Reasonable listeners still credit them with inventing and perfecting the genre. Their chief rival at the time was Deep Purple, a quintet of equally innovative Brits who basically popularized the idea of blues-based hard rock being played faster than Led Zeppelin. Purple easily outsold Sabbath, got more radio play, generally received better reviews and often played bigger venues. But Deep Purple couldn't survive the rise of AC/DC, Van Halen and Aerosmith, none of whom tried to compete with Sabbath's tuned-down doom rock and occult-inspired lyrics, but all of whom thoroughly trounced "Highway Star" several times over.
It's examples like this that remind us why originality in rock music, which infamously stole themes and progressions from the blues, is overrated. It's admirable to break ground, but it doesn't matter much if the ground that you break gets covered by someone who writes better songs than you.
Three decades have done nothing to wane Kill 'Em All's ferocity. If anything, it sounds even more brutal, now knowing how many thrash and metalcore bands couldn't emulate it without watering it down. The production is perfectly raw, the kind of sound that black metal bands consistently aim for and always fail at. Were the scowling, acne-faced boys of Metallica to support Kill 'Em All today, they could hop on a tour with anyone from Meshuggah to Kvelertak to the Dillinger Escape Plan to Immortal.
But why is this? Consider Venom's Black Metal, released a few seasons before Kill 'Em All. Its influence is all over Metallica--that hardcore-infected metal and basement production are just as discernible here, only Venom did it before Metallica. The lyrics aren't nearly as good as Metallica's, but no one listens to metal for the lyrics. The music on Black Metal is pretty great. So why does it sound enjoyably silly today, whereas Kill 'Em All sounds essential?
When music ages poorly, it has little to do with how influential it is, as Black Metal proves. It has even less to do with the way it sounded at the time. Giorgio Moroder's entire career feels buried in the '80s, yet Daft Punk just included him on their ultra-hip new album. What really matters is how the artists that emulate the sound compare to the originals. Countless bands have sounded like Metallica since 1983, including several great ones, but none of whom are as transcendent as Kill 'Em All. Shortly after Black Metal kicked off a musical renaissance, it was outclassed by Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth and Testament. I'm impressed that Venom's influence has carried over to bands as varied as High on Fire and Behemoth, but I'm even less likely to play Black Metal when the best work of the latter two bands is available.
This year, Venom's influence turned up on the Melvins' excellent covers album Everybody Loves Sausages, which King Buzzo and the gang opened with their own version of Venom's "Warhead." It never stops being fun to watch a band as idiosyncratic as the Melvins constantly increase in stature. At least once a year, it seems like a great new band breaks through on the sounds that the Melvins defined--Sleep, Mastodon, Boris, Neurosis, Isis, Big Business, Made Out of Babies, Torche, Coliseum and East of the Wall all come to mind. All of these artists are honoring Houdini and Stoner Witch with their music, but none of them have been able to occupy that sound from the Melvins. One still can't get that unpredictable avant-sludge-stoner-doom-punk-grunge-metal anywhere else. Yet with more and more great bands working on those ideas, the Melvins matter more now than ever.
Think about the band that's generally considered the architect of heavy metal, Black Sabbath. Reasonable listeners still credit them with inventing and perfecting the genre. Their chief rival at the time was Deep Purple, a quintet of equally innovative Brits who basically popularized the idea of blues-based hard rock being played faster than Led Zeppelin. Purple easily outsold Sabbath, got more radio play, generally received better reviews and often played bigger venues. But Deep Purple couldn't survive the rise of AC/DC, Van Halen and Aerosmith, none of whom tried to compete with Sabbath's tuned-down doom rock and occult-inspired lyrics, but all of whom thoroughly trounced "Highway Star" several times over.
It's examples like this that remind us why originality in rock music, which infamously stole themes and progressions from the blues, is overrated. It's admirable to break ground, but it doesn't matter much if the ground that you break gets covered by someone who writes better songs than you.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
The Ten Best Metal Records of 2012
Alphabetical order.
1. Cattle Decapitation, Monolith of Inhumanity
Funnier than Meat is Murder.
2. Converge, All We Love We Leave Behind
Punk rock is a fine place and worth fighting for.
3. Deftones, Koi No Yokan
No matter how hard you try you can't stop us now.
4. Goatwhore, Blood for the Master
Decibel: 8. Pitchfork: 4.8.
5. Gojia, L'enfant Sauvage
History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men.
6. High on Fire, De Vermis Mysteriis
So do Motörhead, AC/DC, the Ramones and Little Richard.
7. Meshuggah, Koloss
Your djent is too short to box with gods.
8. Pig Destroyer, Book Burner
Sorry, pig. And book.
9. Revocation, Teratogenesis
The free, internet-only, Scion-presented EP that roared.
10. Torche, Harmonicraft
Flying outside now, too.
1. Cattle Decapitation, Monolith of Inhumanity
Funnier than Meat is Murder.
2. Converge, All We Love We Leave Behind
Punk rock is a fine place and worth fighting for.
3. Deftones, Koi No Yokan
No matter how hard you try you can't stop us now.
4. Goatwhore, Blood for the Master
Decibel: 8. Pitchfork: 4.8.
5. Gojia, L'enfant Sauvage
History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men.
6. High on Fire, De Vermis Mysteriis
So do Motörhead, AC/DC, the Ramones and Little Richard.
7. Meshuggah, Koloss
Your djent is too short to box with gods.
8. Pig Destroyer, Book Burner
Sorry, pig. And book.
9. Revocation, Teratogenesis
The free, internet-only, Scion-presented EP that roared.
10. Torche, Harmonicraft
Flying outside now, too.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
High Five for 2012
By now you've either heard that Fiona Apple has the best record of the year so far, or you've heard The Idler Wheel... and know that it's true. But with Fiona already riding a 90 on Metacritic,
she doesn't need my endorsement. Instead, may I suggest you support the
five best metal records for the first half of the year, in alphabetical
order.
 |
| Cattle Decapitation, Monolith of Inhumanity San Diego's favorite misanthropes reinvent jazz as grindcore. |
 | |||||||||||
| Goatwhore, Blood for the Master You see us coming and you all-to-geth-er-run-for-cover--we're taking over death metal. |
 |
| Gojira, L'enfant Sauvage Ishirō Honda, meet François Truffaut. Discuss. |
 |
High on Fire, De Vermis Mysteriis Pike's Peak. Again. |
 |
Meshuggah, Koloss The Black Dahlia Murder's arms are too short to box. |
Happy listening! See you in December with the top ten.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Meshuggah at Terminal 5
One of the best things about metalheads is that they pay to see bands like Meshuggah. In no other genre, except jazz, will you see a band with no conventional tunings, rhythms or choruses headline a 3,000-capacity venue. Meshuggah's compositionally-subversive non-metal peers probably don't whip their fans into the same kind of visible delirium, but that may have more to do with the band's intangible powers than the forces of death metal.
Meshuggah are death metal's Slayer. Entire subgenres--technical death metal, djent, deathcore, Gojira--have been founded on the idea of outplaying them, but no Summer Slaughter act has ever conjured up the ferocity amassed by the five guys that make up Meshuggah. Watching them wipe the floor with Terminal 5 last week under Godzilla-sized riffs was a reminder that Meshuggah are still at the top of the games that they founded.
Openers Decapitated, one of the better bands to stem from Meshuggah's shadow, drove the crowd into a floor-encompassing pit for the entirety of their set. Sticking to tracks from last year's Carnival is Forever, Poland's heaviest seemed to overcome the venue's stifling acoustics by sheer force. Guitarist Vogg has made a name on passing expectations, losing two members in a fatal bus crash and rebounding with their most consistent record yet, and drummer Krimh honored the mindwarping style of deceased drummer Vitek without imitating it.
Baroness, the evening's odd band out, are famous for classic rock-inspired beard metal. They'd be better suited for a bill with Mastodon or even Bonnaroo, but at Terminal 5 they were able to emphasize their stoner-prog melodies by offering the night's most drastic change of pace. Not once did they pander to the tech death audience, opening with a slow drone and and serving Kyuss-like riffage under often harmonized vocals. The crowd gave them their due, taking a 45-minute break from moshing to absorb the hypnotic progressions of "A Horse Called Golgotha" and "The Sweetest Curse." I'm not sure that I could enjoy a double album of it (as we'll find out when Yellow & Green drops July 17,) but I'd see them again and invite friends.
Impressive as they were, neither Baroness nor Decapitated could steal the show. From the bass-heavy first tones of "Do Not Look Down," Meshuggah unleashed a dizzying set, focused mainly on their two most recent albums, this year's Koloss and 2008's career-peak ObZen. The former's slowed tempos and the latter thrash touches melded into a cinder block-heavy show of horns-flashing music theory classes, graced with a congruent stained glass stage design and a nearly blinding light show. Who knows how much of Terminal 5 would've survived were the Meshuggah fans not relatively subdued by the flashes.
On record, Meshuggah's leaders are guitar wizards Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström and polyrhythmic master Thomas Haake, but onstage frontman Jens Kidman is the star. A good if not mind-blowing singer, his robotic movements and omnipresent samurai face are an unforgettable visual to the sci-fi nightmares behind songs like "The Demon's Name is Surveillance" and "Future Breed Machine." Under the frantic waves of "Combustion," he was the eye of the band's hurricane, moving just slowly enough to make the case that he was about to destroy the room. Compared with other death metal frontmen, his performances are like his band's music--not the fastest or most dynamic that you can find, but all the scarier for their guile.
Meshuggah will be no one's gateway metal band, but for those of us who like our jazz to come with blast beats, we couldn't have asked for more.
Meshuggah are death metal's Slayer. Entire subgenres--technical death metal, djent, deathcore, Gojira--have been founded on the idea of outplaying them, but no Summer Slaughter act has ever conjured up the ferocity amassed by the five guys that make up Meshuggah. Watching them wipe the floor with Terminal 5 last week under Godzilla-sized riffs was a reminder that Meshuggah are still at the top of the games that they founded.
Openers Decapitated, one of the better bands to stem from Meshuggah's shadow, drove the crowd into a floor-encompassing pit for the entirety of their set. Sticking to tracks from last year's Carnival is Forever, Poland's heaviest seemed to overcome the venue's stifling acoustics by sheer force. Guitarist Vogg has made a name on passing expectations, losing two members in a fatal bus crash and rebounding with their most consistent record yet, and drummer Krimh honored the mindwarping style of deceased drummer Vitek without imitating it.
Baroness, the evening's odd band out, are famous for classic rock-inspired beard metal. They'd be better suited for a bill with Mastodon or even Bonnaroo, but at Terminal 5 they were able to emphasize their stoner-prog melodies by offering the night's most drastic change of pace. Not once did they pander to the tech death audience, opening with a slow drone and and serving Kyuss-like riffage under often harmonized vocals. The crowd gave them their due, taking a 45-minute break from moshing to absorb the hypnotic progressions of "A Horse Called Golgotha" and "The Sweetest Curse." I'm not sure that I could enjoy a double album of it (as we'll find out when Yellow & Green drops July 17,) but I'd see them again and invite friends.
Impressive as they were, neither Baroness nor Decapitated could steal the show. From the bass-heavy first tones of "Do Not Look Down," Meshuggah unleashed a dizzying set, focused mainly on their two most recent albums, this year's Koloss and 2008's career-peak ObZen. The former's slowed tempos and the latter thrash touches melded into a cinder block-heavy show of horns-flashing music theory classes, graced with a congruent stained glass stage design and a nearly blinding light show. Who knows how much of Terminal 5 would've survived were the Meshuggah fans not relatively subdued by the flashes.
On record, Meshuggah's leaders are guitar wizards Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström and polyrhythmic master Thomas Haake, but onstage frontman Jens Kidman is the star. A good if not mind-blowing singer, his robotic movements and omnipresent samurai face are an unforgettable visual to the sci-fi nightmares behind songs like "The Demon's Name is Surveillance" and "Future Breed Machine." Under the frantic waves of "Combustion," he was the eye of the band's hurricane, moving just slowly enough to make the case that he was about to destroy the room. Compared with other death metal frontmen, his performances are like his band's music--not the fastest or most dynamic that you can find, but all the scarier for their guile.
Meshuggah will be no one's gateway metal band, but for those of us who like our jazz to come with blast beats, we couldn't have asked for more.
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