Michael
Perturbator – “Vile World”
French outrun phenom and previously featured guest Perturbator is back with a set of new releases! The full-length album, The Uncanny Valley, is really great and I highly recommend you go check it out. But today I wanted to highlight the bonus-track disk, which is available for “name your own price” directly from Blood Music. The bonus disk really shows off James Kent’s ability to slow it down a bit and still make a solid dance track. I love the bass line in this track; it is simple and fundamental, but when it really kicks in, the track comes together in that special way that makes me bob my head no matter where I am. Kent does a great job of keeping that classic outrun feel but maintains great depth in his melodies.
Perturbator is an outrun project on the Blood Music label, and you can get his new album The Uncanny Valley on Bandcamp or directly from Blood Music in many, many beautiful formats.
In Flames - “Cloud Connected
At the Fear Factory show in Portland a few weeks ago, I likened Soilwork to In Flames and Wes said that he didn’t know/remember what In Flames sounded like, so I decided to dig out my favorite In Flames track and OH BOY am I happy about it being only available via YouTube (official music video). The early 2000s were a great time to make music videos, especially if you made fairly mainstream metal. I had a really hard time deciding between the videos for “Cloud Connected” and “Trigger,” which both came from probably one of the first metal albums that I wore completely out and had to buy another copy of when I was 13 or so: Reroute to Remain. It was fun and catchy metal with some decent melodies. I listened to the whole album again today and still love it. Ultimately I went with “Cloud Connected” because the video is ridiculous and the song has a catchy synth line.
In Flames is a Swedish metal band that started in 1990 but is still releasing albums. They got super popular for a while in the early 2000s, but their newest album is called Siren Charms and it is not as good – but only because I think they are trying too hard to be clean and fit in with metal now.
Wes
Agalloch - “Into The Painted Grey”
I was late to the Agalloch party, and with their announcement on May 13, I decided I should go back and take a look at the first Agalloch I listened to. Before I had heard Agalloch, I didn’t have a clear idea of black metal; I think I had associated it with acts like Cradle of Filth, and steered clear of it. When I heard the field recordings and melancholy cello, I knew that this was not going to hold with my internalized idea of black metal.
Agalloch helped me come to love the more nature-inspired side of black metal, as well as the technical prowess that many bands in the genre have. I had come in expecting cheese and got an emotional, heavy ride alternating between blast beats with speeding tremolo riffs and slower, thoughtful movements underlined by acoustic elements. Agalloch opened me up to exploring an entire genre, and for that I am grateful.
Agalloch is a massively influential black metal band from the Pacific Northwest. Their latest and maybe last LP, The Serpent and the Sphere, is available through Bandcamp and Profound Lore Records.
Eight Bells - “Landless”
Over the course of “Landless”, Eight Bells gives us a great array of moods that really demonstrates their technical strength. The track starts with a strong and quick-paced movement, layering in heavy drums, drops us into a mellow vocal section, then tears us straight back out. Rather than feeling like whiplash, the relative mellow of the vocal sections gives a strong emotional context to the roaring movements afterwards. A few minutes into the track, everything breaks down; the song becomes a wash of cymbals and distortion, with some cleaner picking floating through; this wash serves to set up the back half of this almost 13 minute track. The back half holds the mellow tone of the earlier vocal sections before building into a screaming roar of tremolo picking and rapid drumming. The end of the song almost serves as a distorted reflection of the first moments; it ties the two ends together without feeling repetitive.
Eight Bells is a Portland trio that feels like it rides the borders of several metal genres. Their latest album, Landless, is available through Bandcamp or Battleground Records.