2K7 in Review: My Favorite Albums, #6

Hails, fellow warriors. Although the event has passed, I'd like to share something from earlier this month, my preview/retrospective for Ministry's American farewell concert run in Chicago. As it turns out, the hype was really unjustified. The legendary industrial group's final tour amounted to little more than an all-star Ministry tribute band (mainman Al Jourgensen was the only member in place prior to 2005) playing a whole set of songs from their recent records, a tiny selection of old ones with Burton Bell from Fear Factory singing, then Doors and Stones covers for the final encore. It takes balls for an act with a long history to focus on newer material in concert, but when it's the last chance anyone will have to see you? That's just balls. Anyway, time to get back to this list... I'm finally half done!

6. Moonsorrow, V: Hävitetty (Spinefarm)
Frequent readers of this blog are familiar with my affinity for metal with a cultural element. Last January, I posted a rudimentary guide to the tradition, wherein I noted this previously underground phenomenon rising to visibility among the fickle masses. A little over a year later, the global ethnic metal movement shows no sign of abatement, and is now even a rapidly growing trend in the States under the generic Viking/pagan/folk metal banner. Witness the commercial success of this spring's excellent Paganfest USA tour, or last fall's equally well-received headlining tour by genre superstars Finntroll, which has inspired their return this summer. Yet even a connoisseur can get very lost among the labyrinth of outfits claiming inspiration from their ancient ancestors right now; just spend some time clicking around various MySpace friends lists to see what I mean. Eventually the exploration becomes redundant, sending you back to the masters, and of all the groups doing this stuff, the headliners of the first Heathen Crusade continue to offer the most adventurous voyages. Although Moonsorrow has never been short on ambition, 2003's rousing and wistful Kivenkantaja found the Finns taking full advantage of their august reputation by mapping out long, epic compositions that were less about jolly drink-along riffery and more about channeling the triumphant era of pre-Christian pagan Scandinavia. Hävitetty, which translates to "Ravaged," contains only two such frostbitten tracks, each more than 26 minutes long. Both the format and aura of album number five represent Moonsorrow at their atmospheric, eclectic, cinematic best, fusing the gritty, elemental focus of 2005's Verisäkeet with Kivenkantaja's widescreen wonder.

The first, "Jäästä Syntynyt/Varjojen Virta" ("Born of Ice/Stream of Shadows"), is a seamlessly integrated two-fer that commences with a crackling fire and Markus Eurén's ominous synth swells before main songwriter (and Finntroll keyboardist) Henri Sorvali plucks out a clean, mystical guitar refrain. Within minutes, drummer Marko Tervonen and Henri's bassist cousin Ville have added a gauzy rhythm to the musical mist, and four lines of deep Finnish Viking crooning later, we come to a break that likely signals the beginning of the "Varjojen Virta" part. The guitar foreshadowing during the intro announces itself as the song's main motif, a doomy four-note death knell which picks up to a midpaced trudge as Ville lets out his first desperate rasp, screaming to the cold sea for release from terrestrial torment. Moonsorrow moves between these modes, increasing in intensity and volume with clanging bells and choppy seafaring riffs until dropping back to a mellow gait, utilizing accordion/pipe tones for a folky interlude. Before you know it, the quintet has surged over a black metal crest before winding down with a Manowarian bass showcase and a return to the Viking trudge, now augmented with folk melodies and a stout male choir for the big finish. I've only described the half-album I've posted for your perusal, but know that the more evenly-paced second track, "Tuleen Ajettu Maa" ("A Land Driven Into the Fire") is just as powerfully enveloping. Moonsorrow just unleashed another of these awesome behemoths as the title track of their Tulimyrsky EP, and the tune amazingly hit number 2 on the Finnish singles chart, assuring that the Viking lords will continue their reflective talespinning until Finland is cleansed of all Christian and modern influences. What could thrill me more? An encore live appearance in the States? Well, consider me thrilled...


No music videos were made for Moonsorrow's V: Hävitetty, but here is a short official promotional video containing a snippet of "Tuleen Ajettu Maa."

2K7 in Review: My Favorite Albums, #7

Well, put me in overshoes and call me a duck! A few weeks ago, I sat through "Made of Honor," one of those atrocious rom-coms that always used to make me feel a little better about not having a girlfriend, because the alternative might have meant I had to watch such an odious thing. Yet, although my Sassy Frassy Lassie and I recently celebrated one entire year of tight lovin', I am glad to say that she hasn't subjected me to a single Kate Hudson vehicle. No, "Made of Honor" was viewed of my own volition, and she wasn't even with me. Here's what I thought. Scroll down for dumb analysis of another great 2007 record.

7. Menomena, Friend and Foe (Barsuk)
Why does so much "experimental rock" sound like mentally imbalanced art school dropouts farting into microphones? Insert your favorite euphemism for masturbation here and you’ll receive no counterargument from me. I don't give two shits about experimental music if there's nothing to grab onto. I'm not a music school graduate, so you could be flouting all sorts of accepted theory and whatnot, but I need a melody, a rhythm, at least something resembling a song. I at least need to feel the joy of creation, because the breaking of boundaries should ideally sound like a pleasurable undertaking, not a grueling chore to stave off much-desired sleep. Give me a fun, interesting, tuneful band like Tomahawk or Man Man over any frustrated jazzbos subjecting adventurous listeners to self-serious, abstruse plinking and banging. Populated with Christians but not a "Christian band," Portland, Oregon's Menomena has the potential to be that kind of shittily pedantic project: they write their songs with the help of a computer looping program and their last CD was a soundtrack to three modern dance performances they accompanied in 2004. Yet the trio’s third album balances artsy impulses with solid indie pop songcraft which breathes convincingly enough to obscure their obsessively nerdy origins. In doing so, Menomena guarantees that whatever surprise waits around each corner, it will eventually become lodged in the listener's head. Friend and Foe is my kind of experimental album, even alluding to its dual nature in its title. It's certainly catchy at first, yet encourages and rewards repeat listens to the point that it becomes an obsession.

On the oddball side of the spectrum is Danny Seim's percussive complexity, transposed from the band’s digitally rejiggered jam sessions. He kicks the disc off with a few seconds of Bonham bombast, crashing and bashing his way through the sonorous lope of opener "Muscle’n Flo" until his bandmates catch up with him for a chiming finale. Seim’s loosely mechanical beats turn a lilting little piano-and-acoustic tune like single "Wet and Rusting" or a lumbering mood piece like closer “West” into nervously rousing adventures. On the more approachable side, you have Brent Knopf's rich keyboard melodies, blending with bassist Justin Harris' saxophones and brass in a majestic, sun-dappled bed for the trio's commingled vocals. From the off time anthem “Weird” to the ethereal/funky "Evil Bee," the horn accents provide a number of the album’s most memorable hooks. Piano-spiked scorcher "The Pelican" evokes Genesis’ wide-eyed erudition and King Crimson’s discordant stomp without sounding expressly like either prog rock touchstone. Contrast this with the spacy "My My," which coasts on an soft organ tone until it cracks open in regal splendor. The songs here are more impressive and affecting the more that goes into them. While the mellow trifle "Ghostship" seems almost dull outside of album context, the group whistling that flavors the mini-epic "Boyscout'n" and the electronic squiggles that sneak into the addictive shuffle of "Air Aid" only add another rich dollop of audio glory to already-entrancing tunes. I assume fans of quirkily cadenced indie stars such as Modest Mouse or TV on the Radio would enjoy Friend and Foe, because as the experimental end of the indie rock pool becomes friendlier to mainstream listeners, it's not hard to imagine Menomena's intricate weirdo pop catching on.

Three videos were made for Menomena's Friend and Foe... see below.

"Wet and Rusting"


"Rotten Hell"


"Evil Bee"

2K7 in Review: My Favorite Albums, #8

Christ, am I sore. I suppose four straight hours of beer drinking, sweating, fist pumping, headbanging and hollering "hey! hey! hey!" will do that to a nearly 33 year-old body. Let me tell you, if the Paganfest USA tour is coming to your city, you would be a complete fool to miss it, as all four bands completely kicked my ass last night. The Mokena, IL tour stop also functioned as the kickoff for Chicago Powerfest 2008, which begins in earnest tonight. Click here for my full preview, including a look at the performers and a review of the long-awaited new album by Saturday's headliners, Testament. And now, more metal!

8. Wolves in the Throne Room, Two Hunters (Southern Lord)
Black metal has been a contentious and often silly thing for a while now. While the legendary old Norwegian bands have changed their style, gone to seed or become nostalgia acts, pockets of activity in eastern Europe and America have picked up most of the attention. However, the often interchangeable, repetitious nature of the U.S. bedroom projects and the often primitive, racist nature of the former Eastern Bloc cadre don't do much to spark my interest. Similarly, the curious rise of pagan metal to commercial viability has wrought a lot of bandwagon jumpers who would rather hop around and chant about beer (admittedly, a fun path if followed with spirit) than wring ideological and spiritual convictions into serious music. The truly great pagan metal bands, especially those who stick to black metal rather than the more demonstrative folky side of the scene, always sound as if they could play nothing else, as if modern humanity's disregard for the natural world has so repulsed them that it has poisoned their blood, propelled their limbs to attack, to force these wretched humans to dwell upon the beauty of their planet one last time before it's stripped away from them forever. That's the kind of band Olympia, Washington's Wolves in the Throne Room have become on their second album, a huge step up from 2006's interesting but embryonic Diadem of 12 Stars. The bass-free trio's unreadable logo and dedication to analog recording scream "kvlt," while their backstory (radical leftie environmentalists who live on some sort of bio-friendly commune/farm) wholly informs their self-described "transformative black metal."

Like the debut, Hunters consists of four tracks, The record floats in on "Deo Artio," an almost hopeful shoegazer instrumental propelled by slooow, cavernous drums and spacy keyboard atmospheres as thick and dank as an autumn woodland mist. Then a guitar rings out as "Vastness and Sorrow" wakes up the sleeping predators, exploding into black metal ferocity laced with euphonous drones. By the time it's wound down, Rick Dahlin and Nathan Weaver have sawed out several cyclical tremolo riffs that methodically drill and drain you of outside thought, concluding with a razor-sharp melody so triumphantly bleak it brought me to tears when I experienced it live. "Cleansing" follows in two perfectly contrasted halves, the first a spooky, fuzzy forest lullaby conceived and vocalized by guest Jessika Kenney, the second the most merciless doomy black metal segment on offer. The wordy title of "I Will Lay Down My Bones Among the Rocks and Roots" portends its 18-minute length as it alternates mournful doom with searing black tempos, its mesmerizing tribal-paced interlude its calling card, with Aaron Weaver hammering the funeral drums for a suitably epic closer. Given its bite, beauty and desolation, Two Hunters ranks among the most immersive, organic, overwhelming heathen hymns ever recorded by metal musicians, achieving the effect of classics such as such as Ulver's Bergtatt, In the Woods...' HEart of the Ages and fellow tree-hugging Northwest intellectuals Agalloch's Pale Folklore. Yes, it's that good.

No official videos have been made for Wolves in the Throne Room's Two Hunters, but here is a real nice bootleg of them performing in The Netherlands in January.

"Vastness and Sorrow"