Oh, comment section, how did you know I was hoping to hear weed jokes?

- S W

Preach, Jason. Make me feel alright.

- S W

- S W

As I type this though, I can’t help but feel like a petulant kid. Maybe I just feel for Willowtip, cause I have a large chunk of my heart dedicated to them, seeing as they were one of the first metal labels I got into. But fuck that noise, this is a good thing!

One thing that signing to Relapse does do is poise Ulcerate to take over 2013. The Destroyers Of All is seeing its fair share of acclaim, and I’m confident that newcomers¹ to Ulcerate will be liking it more after a year of steady absorption. If Ulcerate’s able to top themselves with their next one, I feel like they’re gonna make a real impact on the death metal world.

And for good measure:

• Juicy J‘s Blue Dream & Lean is currently dominating my ear-space right now, as the man is want to do. What I’m loving about this one – which, at the moment at least, is more than both Rubba Band Business records – is how much it builds on the sounds (and words) of those two mixes; lines are not only referenced, but recut as hooks or catchphrases. I don’t know enough about Juicy J’s discography to say for sure that a lot of this stuff originated on the Rubba Band Business tapes, but re-appropriated hooks like the ones on “Gotta New One” and “Stoner’s Night 2″ definitely work for me. And, although the Lugar production remains, I think the most successful style on the tape is the kind featured on tracks in “Gotta New One”  - that is, soulful samples transposed with hard trap drums, kinda similar (but not really) to what made “International Players Anthem” awesome. And I’m sure as fuck you liked that one.

• Also on the agenda: a genealogical study of Kerasphorous. I was crazy about Order From Chaos since I first heard Stillbirth Machine, and dig Axis of Advance (although I still haven’t gotten to their latest) but I hardly went deep into either bands discography – maybe due to the fact that Angelcorpse and Conquerer left me cold. Kerasphorous’s (sadly) final EP, Necronaut, is making me regret that. In a year that featured quite a few “avant-garde” approaches to death metal (in a desert of retro-fetishism), it’s encouraging to hear some music from traditional metal dudes that is as engaging and exciting as any experimental metal album. If it wasn’t just two tracks, no doubt that this one would have been one of my favorites from this year. Anyway: I have albums from Vulpecula and Cremation on the way as I type this and am beyond psyched.

• I’m a little late on this one, but Circle Of Ouroborus’ Eleven Fingers is spectacular. Like Alright Is Exactly What It Isn’t, it’s pushing metallic sounds far from their typical context and, also like Alright, it’s well past the point where you can call it metal. Eleven Fingers  hews a lot closer to metal than Alright, and features some rather traditional metal moments – although the melodies, played on the maybe-guitar-maybe-a-keyboard, with that wonderful ambience swirling around are anything but traditionally played. Nothing Circle of Ouroborus has moved me before but, frankly, I’m stunned by the sound they created for this album. And another beautiful pressing courtesy of Handmade Birds.

- S W

I find it much more rewarding to experience a band which forces you to decipher their style in your own terms, rather than basing that experience on a nice, neat, predetermined description.

- Shane, Crooked Necks

- S W

I’m writing a monthly column called Strange In Stereo, which is really just a mix, that is about non-metal music for metalheads. Check out my first attempt here.

Actually got an interview with Shane of Crooked Necks going up there too. We had a good conversation and he proved most of my theories about the band wrong, but that’s why we gotta do stuff like this!

Also, a new face will be appearing on Strange World in the near future.

See you then.

- S W

But even if you place yourself in the anti-Waka Flocka camp, I think it’s difficult to deny the pure unfiltered energy of this performance. The moment when Waka comes on stage is powerful; when the beat dropped, it landed on me so hard that I jumped in my chair a bit.

- S W

edit: I don’t know if this is just those youtube background images playing tricks on my brain, but there is something spacey about the tracks that either wasn’t present on their earlier stuff, or I simply didn’t notice it.

- S W

Blasphemous Crucifixion - Crude Burial (Rusty Axe Records, 2009)

Blasphemous Crucifixion, of the three bands that I’ve written about, might be the easiest to dismiss offhand. On a lot of levels, Crude Burial is a fractured mess. On the first half of the album, that fractured nature is very literal; songs end abruptly, cut in and out with other songs for a moment or two, only to end a second later. But its also fractured stylistically. At times, you’ll be listening to straightforward misanthropic black metal, and at others, Dark Tribe style what-the-fuckery, and even punky black and roll. These shifts aren’t necessarily going to jump out, because they’re all buried beneath monotonal lo-fi production. The product description over at Legion of Death Records says that the album was partially improvised, and it shows.

But there’s an understated melodic touch at times, one that is easily ignored. The Mortifera evoking riffs that begin “Disgusting” betrays Lurker’s depressive affinities. The next song – the title track – is equally melodic, but this time with a sense of punk simplicity and abandon. “Crude Burial” is actually one of the few songs that reveal Lurker’s connection to Toil/Crooked Necks, primarily on the basis of its tight bass/drum groove.

But in a lot of ways, Blasphemous Crucifixion represents a polar opposite to Crooked Necks. Not simply because it is far blacker and more angry and distorted, or because they are stifling compared to Crooked Neck’s expansiveness, but because the approach to composition is radically different. Crooked Neck is an incredibly detail-oriented band. The guitar work seems simple – and is to a large degree – but, especially when you listen to it on headphones, it becomes clear that these simple riffs are made great by the interaction between the various guitars, the way they are panned to each speaker. Sometimes its as if the they’ve taken one riff and disassembled it, spreading it over several instruments instead. This goes double for Alright Is Exactly What It Isn’t, which throws several guitars on each track almost exclusively for ambience.

Blasphemous Crucifixion, on the other hand, is raw, unfiltered release. You really do get the sense when listening to it that Lurker doesn’t know how the song is going to end while he’s playing it. That also explains why the record is so stylistically scattershot; the band’s much less concerned with crafting a sound or style than it is with expressing some powerful feeling in the moment. That feeling may manifest itself in one moment as Darkthrone worship, but in the next, it might be something else entirely. And I think this idea goes a long way towards connecting Toil and Crooked Necks with Blasphemous Crucifixion. Each expresses something that the other can’t.

—

Although I didn’t expect it, writing this feature has changed my perspective on Crooked Necks. I was pretty adamant before about them being a metal band, but now I’m not sure. I am confident enough to say that they are no longer (if they ever were) a black metal band; their influences and vision has expanded to the point that black metal is only one aspect of a larger whole. I hesitate, however, to say that they’re not metal. Gun to my head I’d say no, but only time will tell.

And as you might have inferred, I’ve received my copy of Alright Is Exactly What It Isn’t, and there will be a review coming soon. In short; it’s a little surprising, at times audacious, and predictably great.

- S W