The deadliest art of the Orient is now in the hands of an American.
2.20.2009
See change
What up, gang? The job hunt is going about as well as can be expected in this economy, which is to say it's mighty frustrating. I know I have marketable skills. Employers in the area just don't seem interested in someone who can communicate effectively right now. Oh, if only I had 7 to 10 years of experience in coding SQXMLGBT, predicting growth sector revenue potential option shares, telling other people how to run their business or some other vague-sounding shit! I'd be lighting Cohibas with $100 bills right now. Instead, I'm hopping in the same leaky boat as nearly 5 million other Americans. I guess I should feel better because I'm not alone? Well, as long as COBRA keeps covering this recurring lung infection (the doc suspects it may be COPD!), I can't complain.
Meanwhile, changes are afoot here. Most obviously, I have a snappy new logo that incorporates my love of woodland fauna, old-timey fonts and insular hipster sarcasm. The other major difference is that I've overhauled the links, breaking them down into Entartete Kunst's main areas of interest: news/culture, music and film/TV. You might notice that I've canned the list of friends' pages. IN NO WAY does this mean that I don't love each of you who were previously there. It's just that it's tough to keep up with who's actually maintaining their blog or other site, and that while attempting to revamp my professional life, I've made the decision to keep this blog as outwardly focused as possible, and my first step is to minimize the "personal" links found on it.
Don't worry, the content should remain identical. I'll still include tedious navel-gazing paragraphs like the one that started this post, and, when inspired, I'll even return to documenting my kitchen adventures. This is a hobby site, after all, and it will still only reflect its creator's interests. It's simply about appearances. Next, I intend to delete my dusty MySpace profile, since I'm sick of avoiding it. No, I do not expect to move to Facebook, which, as far as I can tell, is just a boring combination of MySpace and Twitter "for adults" that won't let you block undesirables. Y'all have fun, though.
To herald the fresh-ish outlook, let me introduce a few of the new ways to leave Entartete Kunst.
SCRAMBLED FACE: A fledgling music blog initiated by yours truly. The simple goal is to highlight "music worth hearing," be it brand new or decades old, focusing on the unique, interesting, odd or just plain good. I'll try to include a variety of genres for all you silly metal haters. I'm not sure how often I'll post, but as long as time and interest allow, expect something every day, since it's not very labor-intensive. Along with my brilliant comments, like any music blog, each post will include a link to download the recording at hand so that visitors might sample its sounds and decide whether they should buy the damn thing, provided it's available for purchase. Like any responsible music blogger, I don't intend to illegally upload any copyrighted material myself, but merely to point folks at files that are already out there. (This may change... I'm considering posting compilations to coincide with Entartete Kunst's mp3 playlists, for those who don't want to be shackled to the trusty streaming player. A comp download would function like a podcast without my annoying voice mucking up the goods, and you could take it with you while you're power walking or riding the bus or begging for change or doing whatever people who use iPods do with them. Any interest in this?)
Something Awful: I'm not introducing you to anything new here, as I extolled this immensely popular site's pleasures years ago. In case you've missed that, or haven't visited in a while, SA is still good for a laugh when you're feeling miserable. Sure, a lot of it appeals only to Internet losers who have nothing better to do than harass other Internet losers in masturbatory lolspeak forums, and most of its content would confuse the hell out of your parents. However, despite my lack of interest in today's video games, I can't help but love perpetual cynics. Infrequently maintained features such as Your Band Sucks and The Horrors of Pornography, as well as regular columns like Garbage Day and Reviews [Movies] (note the lack of a snarky title), provide all the evidence one needs that pop culture is a festering cesspool in need of immediate torching. In the tradition of loveable American cranks like Ambrose Bierce, Flannery O'Connor and Anton LaVey, the folks responsible for SA's content generally don't have anything positive to say about modern life, which can really help you feel better about yours.
Fuzzy Memories: Did you grow up on Chicago-area TV? While the Museum of Broadcast Communications has sadly been without a physical facility for nearly six years, FM's searchable archives contains the stuff you'll want to see. At least, it's got what I want. I'm talking Son of Svengoolie's 3-D broadcast of "Revenge of the Creature," Waffelos commercials and the animated Captain America "conserve energy" PSA. Thanks to FM, I finally learned the name of guys who did voiceovers for Channel 32 (Jim Barton!) and ABC (Ernie Anderson!) when I was a kid, and the name of the trippy early morning live action/puppet show I had for years thought was "Gigglesnort Hotel" (it was "Hot Fudge Show"!). I revisited the opening of 32's "Monstrous Movie" (it used to make me piss my pants!), their "Snipets" segments and those low-budget nightly "Newscene" programs that aired shortly before they signed off and scrolled those cheesy Nite-Owl graphics until morning. I especially enjoyed the infamous 1987 incident starring the "Max Headroom" pirate who broke into Channel 11's "Dr. Who" broadcast. If you miss the days when Venture and Zayre fulfilled all your shopping needs, when any ride was a quarter at Dispensa's Kiddie Kingdom, when Harry Schmerler sang for your Ford dollars and Arthur Treacher's served up fish n' chips, when Starbeat presented what's happening, when ON TV and Spectrum were your pay TV options, when WFLD and the Chicago Sun-Times were owned by Field Communications, when Channel 44 showed "Speed Racer" and Channel 60 showed the "King Kong" cartoon, when Channel 66 wasn't in Spanish, etc., you will spend hours trolling these archives. Too bad all the vintage WGN clips are down... I blame Sam Zell for my inability to see the "Family Classics" intro.
More content to come, including reviews of recent film viewings. On a related note, TV ads claim this coming weekend offers your final chance to see "Coraline" at theaters in 3-D. If you haven't, I highly suggest doing so... it was written and directed by Henry Selick of "The Nightmare Before Christmas"/"James and the Giant Peach" fame, based on a book by Neil Gaiman, and is the creepiest children's movie released in recent memory. If that's not enough of a recommendation, I quote a post-viewing conversation that happened right behind me:
LITTLE BOY: "Grandma, that was a weird movie." ANNOYED GRANDMA (who had guffawed straight through the lengthy "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" ad): "Yeah, it was!"
How do y'all like the new logo? If you make it to the end of this post, you might agree with its sentiment.
I am traditionally - and intentionally - behind the rest of the planet when it comes to looking back at a given year's music releases. Many publications, including the one that previously employed me, run their best-of lists by mid-December, meaning writers must have their lists in working order shortly after Thanksgiving. Monthly magazines require an even longer lead time, so I imagine those scribes are weighing their options while shopping for Halloween costumes.
Frankly, this is bullshit. Pundits complain that Oscar voters tend to forget about movies released near the beginning of the awards season cycle. Here, we have the opposite problem. In order to compile a best-of-the-year list before said year is over, one will naturally give short shrift to December releases. Sure, if you work for one of those long-lead monthlys, you will have received all the big Xmastime albums ahead of time. But who in their right mind would include one of those? The holiday blockbusters are almost always supefluous crap by high-profile, artistically irrelevant performers, superstars coasting on legacy who would unload millions of music-type products even if they consisted of field recordings of their own beer farts (your Aerosmiths, Mariah Careys, U2s, etc.).
Although I keep stock throughout the year, I usually like to wait until the following January or February before finalizing my favorites. This way, I can give proper time to late releases, match them against the stuff I've been jamming since the previous New Year's and catch up with all the little things that have been on my radar, but to which I had not yet gotten. I mean, I have my favorite artists, who I always keep up with and who will almost always make my list, but then there are the mind-blowing surprises that make an ever-expanding musical palate so rewarding.
Although nothing new blew me away in December, 2008 provided a perfect example of this. One of my favorite bands in the world released a new album in '08, and while it's enjoyable and doesn't diminish my esteemed opinion of the band, it was also unremarkable enough within the general landscape that it didn't even crack my top 25. Meanwhile, the album I enjoyed most last year came from a band with which I was only somewhat familiar ahead of time, and furthermore embodies a crucial change in lineup and aesthetic for the group, one which on paper would seem a turnoff to me. Although I always prefer sounds that challenge me and lyrics that speak to me in an innovative manner, in the course of my work last year, at times I found myself enjoying a few regular old rock bands with nothing profound to say. My point is that if you keep an open mind, you never know what will strike you, or when it will strike.
So, let's end this long intro. The bottom line is that I got paid to make this list of my ten favorite 2008 albums in early December, and I've thus recycled a fair amount of previously published material for this post. However, although none of the entries have changed since then (well, I did change one of the honorable mentions), I have continued to listen to them and think about them, so I consider what's here to be my definitive comments about these standout discs. The playlist that's currently streaming includes two exemplary tracks from each album, and I've included all official accompanying music videos, or bootleg live videos if no official promos were made.
Finally, as always, please don't confuse this with a "best" list. That's a dishonest critic's term which implies one had enough time and interest to hear every new album released, in every genre and edition. Instead, you should consider these the discs that thrilled me on first listen, called me back throughout the year and have yet to lose their gleam, no matter how carefully I've unraveled their contents.
1. Parts & Labor, Receivers (Jagjaguwar) Renowned as noise mongers, Parts & Labor perhaps hit the apex of that definition with their first release of 2008. The Escapers Two EP was intended as a tribute to hardcore, one-upping forefathers like Minor Threat, 7 Seconds and Hüsker Dü by cranking out fifty-one tracks seething with bare melody and brazen volume in less than thirty minutes, an occasionally thrilling but ultimately tiring set. Alongside their similarly ear-splitting second album, 2006's Stay Afraid, as well as 2007's comparably more considered follow-up, Mapmaker, the group had taken tuneful noise rock about as far as it could go. Suddenly a quartet — complete with a guitarist! — the Brooklyn-based outfit inevitably eased off the throttle, but somehow didn't wuss out. While still offering an incredibly dense mix, Receivers derives most of its overwhelming power from expansive, hummable melodies that seem to echo from a deep, primal place of yearning. As keyboardist Dan Friel and bassist B.J. Warshaw trade vocal duties, they herald the heart of humanity among what are necessarily huge and anthemic but ultimately winningly simple alt-punk songs. Their compelling lyrics mirror Warshaw's wallpaper-worthy cover art, defying the divisive structures and machines of the modern world by twisting them into fresh, personal creations (from the album's most instantly catchy tune, "Nowheres Nigh": "Estimating the death of nations/Consumption is our plight/These wasteful westerns of our time/Gestating clutter under sky polluting lights"). The progressive message is clear, but these songs never come across as the childishly pedantic scoldings of recycleholic anarcho-freegans, rather as positive clarion calls to anyone who would dare to build bridges from the ruins of our steel and glass tombs. All the while, a sizzling shoegaze haze of otherworldly hisses, buzzes, bleeps, squeals, instruments (cello, bagpipes, saxophone, saw) and other sounds, many sent to the band by fans, provide style to support the substantive tunes. Receivers' near-constant "headphone" moments are inextricably woven into eight infectious anthems that demand to played over and over. In the process, Parts & Labor’s hopeful, collaborative appeal to the mind, heart, body and soul launches their imposing euphony into a nearly spiritual realm. Parts & Labor: "Wedding in a Wasteland" (unofficial)
2. Man Man, Rabbit Habits (ANTI-) No matter what else they do, Man Man will remain the masterminds of one of this decade's most creative, affecting and downright fun recordings, 2006's Six Demon Bag. For all its percussion abuse, falsetto harmonies, jazzy digressions and abrupt explosions of undeterminable racket, it sounds like the output of people who genuinely enjoy life despite, or maybe even because of, the messiness it entails. Moving to a more "legit" and upscale indie — in fact, the one that houses Tom Waits, who is often given as a not incorrect reference point for Man Man's aesthetic — Philadelphia's fun loving loonies naturally reined in and polished their wild n' woolly sound. The unique quintet reportedly considers Rabbit Habits their "pop" album, considering that it contains more linear compositions and less clattering arrangements that what's found on Bag and its scattershot predecessor, 2004's jaunty The Man in a Blue Turban with a Face. Its tidiness and simplicity are relative, though, as Man Man is still one of a kind, in time uncovering a wealth of sonic surprises buried within alternately whimsical and wistful junkyard carnival jams. Aside from their boisterous instrumentation and groovy momentum, the charm of these addictive songs comes from their bold sincerity. Delivered in Honus Honus' patented pirate growl, the lyrics are hooky yet bleak (try "I can’t breathe underwater like I used to before I met you" from saloon sing-along "Doo Right," or "All I see is a shallow grave trapped inside a pretty face" from mini-epic "Poor Jackie"). The melodies seem uncomplicated, but repeat listens provoke countless admissions of, "I don't remember that..." Best of all, while cryptic oddity often passes for genius in the indie world, Man Man's childlike exuberance never seems calculated or contrived. They're getting better at streamlining their cockeyed vision, but their theatrical performance thankfully remains tattered, homespun and undeniably real. Man Man: "Mister Jung Stuffed"
3. Woods of Ypres, III: The Deepest Roots and Darkest Blues (Krankenhaus) To have any appreciation for heavy metal music, one must possess a certain disillusionment with (or, better, a contempt for) the mundane. Metal is at its core the sound of people reaching beyond the everyday, whether through towering sonics, over-the-top image or metaphoric lyrics, displaying a striving impulse that non-adherents often confuse with a juvenile refusal to confront reality. Although their music falls in line with accepted genre memes (comparisons with early Agalloch, Katatonia, Ulver and Opeth are apt), Woods of Ypres, the Canadian project led by vocalist/guitarist David Gold, is a rare metal act that prefers honest introspection to portentous mythmaking. Here, an entirely new lineup helps Gold refine his sonorous blend of doom, black, folk and gothic metal, resulting in a lengthy, varied voyage through classy European-sounding climates. Meanwhile, whereas 2004's impressive Pursuit of the Sun & Allure of the Earth intriguingly contrasted a desire for hope with a tendency for despair, this long-awaited follow-up involves another thematic dichotomy. These extraordinarily personal songs mull the struggle between stagnation and progression, directly addressing how an individual's growth can be oppressed by the provincial mindsets of hometowns and music scenes. Gold's imperfect singing imparting more authenticity than a more polished vocalist could, his approach yields dozens of dramatic yet insightful declarations: "I understand the relation of black metal and modern life/How a cold winter scene can inspire distortion and screams" ("Through Chaos and Solitude I Came..."), "I haven't spoken a word in days, except for cursing the noise in the hall" ("Distractions of Living Alone"), "Year's end, coming home, and what do I have to show for myself?/I amount to nothing more than what they understand" ("Thrill of the Struggle"), "One thing we have learned from the cycle of repetition/Patterns of negative thought always bring you back to the same old places" ("End of Tradition"), "Beautiful to have come, beautiful to see/But also beautiful to leave" ("Mistakes Artists Make (The Dream is Dead)"). As befits the gripping music, melancholy and spite run high, although Gold's emotional exorcisms are most resonant due to his conclusion that the best revenge comes from growing up and moving on. In its patience, diversity and maturity, Woods of Ypres's third release is truly a metal album for grownups. Woods of Ypres: "The Northern Cold"
4. Bloc Party, Intimacy (Atlantic) Y'all might remember that Bloc Party's A Weekend in the City was my favorite album of 2007. It was already a more intimate album than their 2005 debut, Silent Alarm, yet in addition to announcing a greater influence from electronic music, the quartet also announced a further distancing from political diatribes with the title of their third album. Thankfully, the driving dancefloor throb is seamlessly integrated into the Brits' emotive, evocative post-punk nuggets, and while often focusing on personal themes, the band never sinks to maudlin levels of navel-gazing. It's fiery stuff, and it sounds like a natural progression, not some ironic or stiff indie concession to populism. Perhaps to silence critics who felt Weekend was too soft, Bloc Party kick off their latest with their most abrasive, difficult material to date. The alarming klaxons and squeals of "Ares" literally invite the listener to "dance to the sound of sirens," while repetitious thumps and hair-raising spy-theme horns threaten to overwhelm first single "Mercury." Never a band to stand still, they then proceed to offer a slate of memorable anthems shot through with spiky laser-beam energy ("Halo," "Trojan Horse," "One Month Off") and poignant music-box soundscapes ("Biko," "Signs," "Ion Square"). Although none of the tracks here fails to surge with emotional impetus, Intimacy is at its most distinctive when it combines the programmed/live moods, such as on affecting choral-drenched standout "Zephyrous," or on "Better Than Heaven," where guitarist Russell Lissack expertly blends electronic harshness with shoegaze smoothness. It's clearly a transitional album, as Bloc Party is clearly feeling out their sonic extremes, although as such it's a remarkably advanced experiment and an impressive statement of intent. In fact, it synthesizes the hallmarks of Alarm and Weekend while adding new textures and approaches to the band's repertoire. All that's missing is politics, but thanks to Kele Okereke's silken Britpop crooning, interpersonal dynamics come off nearly as contentious and, somehow, imbued with the promise of harmony. Bloc Party: "Mercury"
Bloc Party: "Talons"
Bloc Party: "One Month Off"
5. The Coke Dares, Feelin' Up (Essay) As much as I love the ebb and flow of winding song structures, The Coke Dares reminded me that there's more to life than ornamentation and excess. On their second album, the Indiana trio cranks out 33 brash and infectious songs ranging in length from four seconds ("Fuck You I Quit") to just over two minutes ("Sleeping With Someone Else's Girlfriend"). The trio, made up of members from much mellower bands Magnolia Electric Co. and The Impossible Shapes, can obviously play, but short, sloppy bursts of garage punk energy fit them best. A glance at the song titles suggests the breadth of subject matter: "There's a Meth Lab on My Street," "I Wish I Could Get as High as Neil Young Does," "Everybody's Got Some Time to Die Unless You're a Zombie," "I'm Just Trying to Drink to Get Some Sleep," etc. Some of them are very catchy ("Radiator Hose," "Slo-Mo Catastrophes," "Tour Rot"), while others are amusingly aggressive ("Buyin' Shit," "Nazi Rock," "Come Hell or High Water the Proof Is in the Pudding"), one ("Ronald McDonald") even reminds me of a Dead Milkmen skit/song. The ramshackle recording — committed live to two-track tape, supposedly in two days because they won the studio time in a contest — and fluctuating sound levels, uncommitted melodies and seemingly improvisatory, often puerile lyrics all contribute to the ephemeral DIY fun. I could go on and on about how this lovably raw guitar/bass/drums mutt is enough to renew faith in working class, "unimportant" punk, but since the cheekily-named Coke Dares rarely need more than a minute to do it, I think my time would be better spent tracking down their first CD, Here We Go With. The Coke Dares: "Rockin' Dave" (unofficial)
6. Testament, The Formation of Damnation (Nuclear Blast) Not many bands release their definitive album 25 years into their career, but one of the Bay Area's original thrash metal crews — at one time dismissed as a Metallica clone — got 4/5 of their definitive lineup back together and did just that. After three classic platters (The Legacy, The New Order and Practice What You Preach) and one rush job (Souls of Black), Testament started fiddling with their sound, and they spent the metal-lean '90s trolling the underground with negligible artistic or commercial success. Then, they surprised everyone when this journey culminated in 1999's hidden classic The Gathering. Its all-star lineup included former Death dudes James Murphy and Steve DiGiorgio and once-and-future Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo, but that was almost inconsequential next to the material, which was the heaviest, most bracing thrash released during the heyday of nü-metal, let alone from a veteran "second-tier" band. Nine years later, when the kids are mullet-deep in semi-ironic tight jeans n' white hightops thrash nostalgia, vocalist Chuck Billy and guitarist Eric Peterson finally succeeded that late-career masterwork by welcoming lead guitarist Alex Skolnick and bassist Greg Christian back to the fold. For us old-timers, Skolnick's fluid solos, Christian's burbling bass and Billy's dynamic roar embody the sheer personality missing from most American metal ever since grunge scared major labels into throwing honest bands out with the glam trash. But forget nostalgia, as Formation expertly blends Testament's classic mosh with the eye-popping vitriol preferred by jaded younger listeners. From high-throttle ragers like the title track and "The Persecuted Won't Forget" to the insistent midpaced chug of "More Than Meets the Eye" and "Killing Season," Testament bridges the gap between The Gathering's crushing death metal-ish brutality and the more nimble and melodic slant of their '80s work. It's virtually timeless... the only dated element is the Sept. 11-themed lyrics of "The Evil Has Landed," and even those aren't as corny as they could have been (see: Iced Earth). When compared with Metallica's better-selling "return to metal," it becomes clearer who is today's pale imitation. Testament: "More Than Meets the Eye"
7. Cordero, De Dónde Eres (Bloodshot) Ani Cordero founded her eponymous band with the intention of infusing indie rock with a Latin sensibility. On Cordero's fourth studio album, De Dónde Eres (Where Are You From), the two disciplines are seamlessly integrated, offering an effortless-sounding set for listeners from any background. The Atlanta-bred, New York-based Puerto Rican singer/guitarist wrote the group's first album with entirely Spanish lyrics (previous discs were bilingual affairs) on her mother's nylon string guitar while attending to family crises, making for less psychedelic, more intimate material than Cordero offered on 2005's En Este Momento. The rock flavor is still felt at times, mainly due to the creative rhythm section, such as in the hard-hitting drums by Cordero's husband Chris Verene (formerly of The Rock*A*Teens) on opener "Quique" or Eric Eble's post-punk bass slithering through the mysterious "Ruleta Rusa" ("Russian Roulette"). "La Música es La Medicina" ("Music Is the Medicine"), with its distorted guitar and vocals, and the joyous, dub-influenced closer "La Vida Sencilla" ("The Simple Life") offer the dynamics expected by rock fans, yet a look at the lyrics' translations reveals a greater depth of experience to be found than on your average Caucasian dudefest. Meanwhile, quieter numbers "Guardasecretos" ("Secret Keeper"), "Veneno" ("Poison") and "El Arco Iris" ("The Rainbow") pulse with the same vital momentum as the quartet's rocked-up material thanks to sexy rhythms, spooky atmospheres, plaintive horns and, most of all, Ani's plainly pretty pipes. Her voice is a surprisingly bewitching instrument which doesn't so much gush emotion as guilelessly evoke ghostly glimpses of it. This well-rounded, entrancing wisp of beauty is without question a must-have for fans of starry-eyed Latin rockers from Os Mutantes to Zoé, but no matter your primary language or what you're listening to, De Dónde Eres is an exotic alternative that transcends all arbitrary borders. Cordero: "Ruleta Rusa"
8. The Cool Kids, The Bake Sale (Chocolate Industries) In a desperate scramble to remain ahead of the curve, the music blogosphere obviously overhypes a lot of mediocre acts. That said, bloggers get it right sometimes, as in the case of Chicago hip-hop duo The Cool Kids. Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish met via the Internet and began their career like your average hipster indie rock act: by releasing singles on MySpace and a selection of tastemaking blogs. Chicago scenester DJs like A-Trak and J2K got behind them, they went on tour with M.I.A., they even did a tune with Lil Wayne, all on the strength of crafty online marketing and a couple of untraditionally distributed mixtapes (free downloads available to everyone, rather than physical copies sold out of their trunks in urban neighborhoods). By the end of 2008, The Cool Kids had released songs in conjunction with Mountain Dew and the basketball video game "NBA 2K9," plus featured in a TV ad for the game as well as one for The Gap — all without a proper LP to their name. The sole purchaseable document of the group so far is The Bake Sale, an EP collecting 10 previously released favorites. Amazingly, even as a "greatest hits" of the duo's "demo" days, it stands out among today's bloated, overfussed hip-hop. Sometimes the pace picks up ("What It Is," "Bassment Party"), and "88" cranks out some classic Rick Rubin-style guitar blasts, but these tracks mostly stay at an insistent head-nodding medium tempo, relying on solid boom-bap beats and simple synth hooks. Their straightforward rhymes either brag about how fly they are or talk about stuff most young people can relate to regardless of their background: riding bikes, playing video games, eating cereal, etc. Part of the Kids' attraction comes from their accessible old school values, while their personable charisma makes up the rest. They're the sort of everyman rappers whose joyful boasts can actually make a crowd get behind them. They're not gangstas, they're not backpackers, and if you listen closely, you'll hear that they're not really even retro revivalists. The quick, buoyant Sale merely proves that The Cool Kids only got so cool by being themselves. The Cool Kids: "Black Mags"
9. Opeth, Watershed (Roadrunner) Opeth has been one of my favorite bands for more than a decade, but I will admit that the Swedish prog metal giants had been treading water for a while. In retrospect, the first troubling sign was 2002's Deliverance, a very good album in its own right, but ultimately a more brutal, less dynamic, quick-turnaround rehash of 2001's masterpiece Blackwater Park. The next was not Deliverance's "companion" piece Damnation — that one-off experiment in mellow prog was actually a very satisfying style diversion, one I tend to consider akin to most metal bands' acoustic EPs — but 2005's Ghost Reveries. Also a very good album, Reveries offered a few more spots of clean vocals and a full-time keyboardist in Per Wiberg, along with a higher profile than I ever guessed they would achieve, since the metal scene hadn't elevated a truly exceptional band in decades. Unfortunately, it was too transitional to provide a clear picture of where they were heading, and was so popular that I feared they'd be tempted to stay in that uncommited mode. So now, come Watershed, two integral members are gone: ailing drummer Martin Lopez, who had been the unfailing rhythmic key since Opeth left its early blackened ebb-and-flow behind, and founding rhythm guitarist Peter Lindgren, the last true original member left. With adequate replacements in tow, vocalist/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt inevitably assumed full control of the reins. Of course, this unlocked the gates to stylistic shifts and self-indulgence, but on this, the ninth Opeth album, the sextet finally opened up their trademark balance of melodic death metal heft and pristine acoustic tenderness to new configurations, making better use of Wiberg's vintage textures to boot. The result is a once-unique cult act, faced for years with the danger of repeating themselves too many times, triumphantly reclaiming their exclusivity now that wider fame is in their grasp. Sure, despite the tricky rhythms and Åkerfeldt's intermittent roars, it's a more mainstream listen, what with all the sumptuous '70s prog balladry ("Coil," "Burden") and classic rock drama ("Hex Omega") on display. Pieces like the doomy "Heir Apparent," rollercoaster ride "The Lotus Eater" (dig the funky Goblin tribute at 5:48!) and slow-burn behemoth "Hessian Peel" show genuine progression in the metal half of Opeth's personality, the half that any longtime fan really cares about. Its creators having reestablished a strong identity at a very crucial juncture, Watershed constitutes the metal underground's least compromised olive branch of this decade, as well as the most appropriately-titled album in recent memory. Opeth: "Porcelain Heart"
Opeth: "Burden"
10. Marnie Stern, This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That (Kill Rock Stars) 2007's gonzo masterpiece In Advance of the Broken Arm announced Marnie Stern as a new breed of guitar hero, one whose obvious mastery of her instrument seemed incidental next to how she molded those shredding skills into warped, astounding shapes and patterns. Alongside a ridiculously tight rhythm section — drummer Zach Hill (of noise heroes Hella) and bassist John-Reed Thompson — Stern built mini-symphonies around torrents of tapped notes, stop-start rhythmic spasms prodding her Morse code solos into unlikely but unforgettable refrains. Arm was the definition of an auspicious debut, but kudos to the thirtysomething New Yorker for acknowledging that her sophomore effort could have become a disappointing blur if it were as batshit insane as her first. Stern instead made a slight move toward more traditional songcraft with material that is more repetitive in a mantra-like manner (see the outrageous album title), but consequently more tangible. She opens with "Prime," starting with only vocals and a tapped beat before she and the boys kick into a staccato squawk, varying with some scale runs and something resembling an actual riff, but mostly sticking to that opening chop-chop-chop. "The Crippled Jazzer" and "Vault" are the closest Stern has come to conventional rock music so far, both offering a handful of recognizable guitar refrains among their cyclic charms. However, fans of the debut will be glad to hear its whirlwind spirit in tracks like "Transformer," "Ruler" and "Steely," as well as Hill's invaluable percussion assault on breathless, multifarious selections such as "Shea Stadium" and "Roads? Where We're Going We Don't Need Roads." Overall, this album lands somewhere in the vicinity of math rock and no wave, although Stern's inventive arrangements and nutty helium vocals make it more excitable and inviting than either art-punk tradition might imply, giddily creative and challenging but never academic. Marnie Stern: "Transformer"
