Melvins: "The Water Glass"

Last year, sludge-rock band the Melvins released its 20th album (and third since linking up with Big Business members Jared Warren and Coady Willis). That album, entitled The Bride Screamed Murder, is emblematic of what the band has done its whole career: tweak its signature sound — part anthemic classic rock, part avant-garde heaviness — to present something entirely new yet quintessentially Melvins. That willingness to shake things up has been a major factor in the band's longevity.

After last year's release, the band undertook a tour in early 2011, playing a different album from its back catalog each night. As the saying goes, you get what you give, and in this case, the Melvins' 30-year history of experimentation has continually rewarded the band with new experiences. Dale Crover, drummer and founding member, recounts the band's some of the most memorable recent experiences below.

Endless Residency Tour
by Dale Crover

The Melvins did a residency every Friday night last January in Los Angeles. To make each show unique, we decided to play a different record from our ever-growing catalog of releases. It seemed to go over really well, and since we took the time to learn all these records, we decided to take it on the road. Here are some highlights from the "Endless Residency" tour.

Austin Texas: Austin shows are always great, except for the heat. It's 100 degrees out, and of course we're playing outside! The show goes well, but by the end, the "costume" that I'm  wearing feels like a soaking-wet sleeping bag. The next day we meet up with our friends from the band Honky to get lunch. Everyone I know that lives in Austin says that the BBQ downtown is average, and they know where the best is. We drive miles out of town to a place in Spicewood, Texas, called Opie's BBQ. We're greeted by a guy who opens a large trough with 10 different kinds of smoked meat. We let the Honky boys order for us, then sit down to stuff our faces. It was certainly worth the trip, and I highly recommend the spicy corn! After the feast, we stop by Willie Nelson's recording studio. Honky just recorded there. No Willie, but we  got the full tour, including seeing the tape vault with Red Headed Stranger master tapes! I was also highly impressed by the nine-hole golf course next door. Maybe we'll do our next record there!

Chicago: Last time we played the Double Door in Chicago, we were challenged to a Wiffle Ball home-run derby. We've been playing what we call "Hall Ball" for a few years now. The Double Door staff took notice and started their own version. Last year, we clearly won, but they wouldn't have it, so they cheated and claimed victory. Just like the 1919 Chicago Black Socks, who cheated in the World Series! I guess it runs in the family. These guys take their Wiffle Ball games seriously. Star Spangled Banner before the game, announcer/commentator — they even made Double Door Liquor uniforms this year! Unfortunately, we lost! We did end up talking them into letting Buzz [Osborne] pitch to them in the last inning. Fastball, inside: plunk! Fastball, inside: plunk! "Ooops, it got away from me!" We'll get you next year, ya bums!

Brooklyn, NY: Really? We're doing a photo shoot with Mick Rock? Wow! Iggy & the Stooges, Bowie, Queen and now Melvins! Wait a minute? This guy is a full-blown kook! We were warned that he will probably scream obscenities at us while shooting. Sure enough, "Buzz, you cunt, cunt, cunt! Suck it! Suck it! Suck it! Aaaaggghhhhh! Whew! I got off on it, I really did!" "You motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker!" Click, click, click. It was like a dirty version of an Austin Powers photo shoot. I was laughing my ass off the whole time! Our bassist, Jared [Warren] was visibly annoyed. "Your Hugh Grant charm isn't quite working for me." "Oh, please! Hugh Grant is a wanker!"  True, if he weren't who he was, we probably wouldn't have tolerated it. It would've been over in about two minutes. Also, we're not ones for embarrassing outdoor photo shoots. You can tell he comes from different times, obviously trying to get some kind of reaction, or whatever. I ended up really liking him. He told us that, at one time, David Bowie would do "anything, and I mean anything!!!!" People like Mick always have great stories.

Things seem to get weirder and weirder the longer we're a band, but fuck it! It beats the hell outta working at a pizza joint!

Isis: "Grinning Mouths" from Clearing the Eye live DVD (Ipecac, 9/26/06)

In June of 2010, post-metal quintet Isis called it quits following a farewell tour. The LA band was one year removed from its final studio release, Wavering Radiant, and feeling that it didn't want to "push past the point of a dignified death," its members parted ways right before the release of a split EP with Melvins.

Now the band is giving wistful fans another taste of its melodic sludge rock. On May 31, Isis posthumously and digitally reissued the first of its five live album, which originally were released over the span of 2004 to 2009.  The rest are being rolled out in two-week intervals, with the third becoming available this Tuesday, June 28.  ALARM recently spoke to drummer Aaron Harris about the reissues, the band's personal significance, and what the members have been doing since the breakup.

What was the catalyst in putting together the live album series?

We wanted to have something we could offer to the fans. We were getting a lot of live recordings coming in from fans that had been to our live shows, and it was just starting to pile up, and we figured we should do something with all these live recordings. So we started sifting through them and figured that we would do a little live series, release it ourselves, sell it at our shows, and make it a limited, special thing.

We did small runs of them, and once they were gone, they were gone. Recently, we decided that we would make them available digitally and reissue them. So that’s what we’re doing now. They’re digital reissues for people that weren’t able to get copies the first time. It’s just kind of a cool idea to strengthen the fan/band bond, something between us and the fans.

What do you miss about touring and playing with Isis?

The thrill and the energy of playing live. I don’t know if it can be replaced by anything else. There’s something special about touring and visiting your favorite cities and playing shows in some of your favorite spots and getting to see old friends. It’s something I’ve done since I was a teenager, so it was part of my life, and I guess, in a sense, it’s part of me, and it’s not there anymore. So I definitely miss it.

What kind of significance does the time that you spent with Isis hold for you in your personal life, professional career, etc.?

It’s a big part of who I am. I was a teenager…we grew up together. I’m 33 now, and I spent a lot of crucial years with the members of Isis and in the band, touring and building the band up. It definitely shaped who I am and made me a semi-established musician. A lot of important things happened for me throughout the career of Isis. The first time we got to tour in Europe — that was amazing. I had never really been outside of New England.

I grew up in Maine and spent some time in Boston; that’s where the band formed. I never really imagined that we would leave the New England area, let alone play shows in Australia, Europe, and Japan. I got to see a lot of places that I never thought I would get to see, which is pretty amazing just in itself. The fact that people on the other side of the world were fans of our band and willing to come out and see us play — that was pretty incredible.

Do you feel like there are any bands out now that have kind of picked up where Isis left off?

I see the name Isis tossed around in reviews in references to other bands when referencing a sound. I just saw something the other day, where a band was described as sounding like early Isis. It’s cool. That’s another thing that I never thought would happen — that we would be an influential band or make a stamp in the vast majority of music out there. It’s definitely an honor to be influencing other bands.

There seems to be a balance of light and darkness between the melodic guitars and driving bass, and the singing and more intense vocals. Is that something that Isis tried to accomplish?

It’s just something that evolved in our sound. Early on, we didn’t really know what we wanted. I mean, we had an idea of what the music we wanted to play would sound like. It wasn’t until a few albums into it that we started to develop our own sound. We always wanted to have a lot of dynamics. When you’re a young band, your idea of dynamics isn’t very focused. It was just loud and quiet, there wasn’t much in between. We had to work on the building part, composing the songs, making them flow and find our own sounds individually to make it all work. I don’t think it’s as simple as being quiet and loud. It’s almost like making your sound 3-D, like in all dimensions.

Do you feel like the sound changed a lot when Isis signed to Ipecac?

I guess so, yeah. I don’t think it really had anything to do with signing to Ipecac. That was the point at which we were taking the band a little more seriously, so I guess it did have a bit to do with that. We were able to make a living off the band and focus on it more full-time.

How do Isis songs take on a different shape in a live atmosphere as opposed to recording in the studio?

There are just elements to seeing a live band that you can’t really capture in the studio, and I think we were definitely a live band. I mean, I think our records are great, but we really existed in a live realm. To the Isis fans that didn’t see us live, it’s disappointing, but I think our records definitely hold up. It’s just two different things — there’s the record, and then there’s the live show. I think a lot of bands, their record is better than their live show. For us, that wasn’t the case. There was an element to the live shows that I think made us more of a live band.

What projects are you currently working on?

I’m still continuing to engineer, mix, and produce records. That was something I was doing on the side throughout the Isis career. Musically, I’ve just started playing again with Jeff [Caxide] and Cliff [Meyer] from Isis. We started a new band. We don’t have a name or anything yet, but we’ve written a handful of songs, and we’re continuing to write.

I think, right now, we’ve just focused on writing a record. The name and the idea for the release will come later. It’s more than half of Isis, so there’s going to be that sound in there, but it’s going to be different. Aaron Turner is in a band called Mamiffer with his wife. Mike Gallagher has a solo project called MGR and scored a film recently.

Have you considered the possibility of a reunion tour? Did you have that in mind when you started working on the live albums?

No…I mean, honestly, we’ve only been split up for a year. I think people are not really thinking about that. I’m not even sure if it’s a possibility. I hope that someday I will play with those guys again as a group, but a reunion, I’m not really too sure about. We all still keep in touch. We have a lot of live material and some stuff that we’ve been planning to release that we did for Wavering Radiant — some bonus tracks, live video footage. There will still be a few things coming out here and there for Isis.

It’s funny — I see people leaving comments on our Facebook page, and they're kind of confused, like, "I thought you guys broke up. It’s kinda weird that you guys are still doing stuff, but you’re broken up." That kind of confuses me. Just because we’re not continuing to write music as a band, we’re still trying to keep Isis alive. Not with new releases necessarily, but we still have some material that we want to release and plan on releasing. I just hope people can understand where we’re coming from.

Dälek: "No Question"

“A mix of Eric B. and Rakim and Black Sabbath” is how MC Dälek describes Gutter Tactics, the latest release from his eponymously named hip-hop duo (pronounced dial-ect) — but only if you press him to do so. The New Jersey-based pair, which also includes producer Oktopus, isn’t necessarily eager to place labels on its brand of moody, dissonant hip hop that recalls the heaviness of rock acts like Melvins and Torche.

But since the duo’s 1998 debut release, Negro Necro Nekros, critics and fans alike have attempted to fit Dälek into a genre — any genre that isn’t hip hop. It’s little surprise: decades of mainstream-music conditioning have diluted the definition of “true” hip hop to bling, bravado, and track loops. Any contemporary US hip-hop artist that dares to draw from anything but the musical well of mainstream pop and R&B has an uphill fight in proving his or her authenticity. Dälek takes things a step further than what most fans even come to expect from experimental hip hop, with a sinister sound that has more in common with grindcore than crunk, and lyrics that dwell on issues of social and political inequality.

But for MC Dälek, the duo’s musical affiliation to hip hop is clear — he’s not interested in creating a new category of hip hop or to distance the group from the genre. “[Critics] always attempt to put certain parameters around different types of music,” he says. “We started 11 years ago, and from the start, people have attempted to put us into these sub-genres — glitch hop, experimental hop, doom hop — and come up with all of these ridiculous names. That’s not what we really are, though these fads come and go. You can call us whatever you want, but after 11 years, we’re still making records. Our sound evolves, but to me it’s just hip hop. Hip hop is my culture, what I grew up with.”

Arguably one of the more anticipated underground releases of 2009, Gutter Tactics is unrelentingly abrasive, immersing the listener into a sea of jagged, atonal sound and lyrical bleakness. It’s both hypnotic and frustrating — and meant to be. But unlike the gloomy, apathetic drone of 2006 album Abandoned Language, the tracks of Gutter Tactics resonate with a sense of passion, hope, and action.
 

"I’m proud to be American; I love this country, but I also have no problem pointing out its faults."

“A lot of people listen to our records and think that it’s just noise, and we understand that,” MC Dälek says. “Our music’s not for everyone. But it’s not just about the anger; it’s not just about showing the ills of the world. The idea is to highlight things that people don’t talk about, things that are going on in communities that don’t have a voice. To me, that’s what hip hop always was. It’s always been the voice of the community, the voice of the lower class. That’s what I’ve always embraced and loved about it, and regardless of what elements we use in our work, that’s what we try to put across.”

And in this, Gutter Tactics succeeds, pairing the duo’s signature ambience with sludgy, lo-fi-rock influences and some of Dälek’s most pointedly political messages yet. The lead track, “Blessed Are They Who Bash Your Children’s Heads Against A Rock,” starts with the now-infamous speech of President Barack Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright, a damning rebuke of US foreign policy. MC Dälek says that it wasn’t included on the album for shock value, but it was intended to be provocative, or at the very least, intended to challenge listeners to hear the words in their full context, beyond how the mainstream media chose to frame Wright’s persona.

“We’re usually not that topical of a band,” MC Dälek says, “and that’s not really the reason that we included the speech.” He pauses to collect his thoughts, continuing, “It’s funny how the media works. Everyone was in an uproar over what [Wright] said, but most places would only play one or two sentences from his speech. When I finally heard the entire speech [on YouTube], I couldn’t find one line that was offensive to me, or one line that was a lie. I’m proud to be American; I love this country, but I also have no problem pointing out its faults. I just want people to hear the speech in its in entirety, not just the snippets that Fox News will show you.”

Even so, Dälek doesn’t expect much backlash from its choice to include the speech. “If anyone’s gonna be pissed about it, they should at least listen to the whole thing,” MC Dälek says.

Though Gutter Tactics is an admitted departure from the duo’s more abstract direction in Abandoned Language, MC Dälek says that it’s by design and a logical progression from earlier work. “We have a good idea of what we want to do from album to album,” he says, explaining that he and Oktopus had started to conceptualize the sound of Gutter Tactics while working on Absence in 2004. “In comparison to Absence, we knew that we needed to take a different approach with Gutter Tactics. We always knew that it would be in some ways heavier than Absence. [Gutter Tactics] has the melodies of Abandoned Language with the brutality of Absence; we think that it’s a nice mix of the two.”

Dälek acknowledges that its approach to writing is unusual. “We work in really bizarre ways,” MC Dälek says. “We have blueprints for the next two albums. I always said that I’d be making music regardless of whether it’s my job or not, so I just make beats, and Oktopus and I just start grouping things together for potential albums. There’s no set formula. There’s some tracks that Oktopus just puts together himself, but we have that trust in each other to put together the best possible songs, the best possible albums.

"We have ideas of where we’d like to go next,” he laughs, “though we don’t always like to say!”

Junk Science & Scott Thorough: Phoenix Down (Modern Shark)

Junk Science & Scott Thorough: "Box Art"

After a sophomore album on Definitive Jux that leaned on R&B, jazz, and cut-up vocal samples, hip-hop duo Junk Science has made a new beginning for itself with its first release on MC Baje One's new label, Modern Shark.

Somewhere between a long EP and a mini LP, Phoenix Down is a nostalgic collaboration with producer Scott Thorough — offering a journey back to 1980s video-game scores with modern nerd rap on top.  The music consists of original creations on 8-bit synthesizers, with beats by Thorough and DJ Snafu, and it's the best of the duo's catalog.

Fittingly, there are plenty of video-game and pop-culture references, including the famous Contra code in the chorus of "30 Lives."  Baje also rolls a cast of video-game characters into "In the Shadow of the Colossus," but like most of the other tracks, the references serve as metaphors for a greater theme — here, it's about confrontation, fear, and heroics.

My Morning Jacket: Circuital (ATO)

My Morning Jacket: "Holdin' on to Black Metal"

On paper, My Morning Jacket seems predictable — a hairy, five-piece rock-'n'-roll band from Louisville, Kentucky, known for rocking epic shows with twangy Flying V guitars and boatloads of reverb. Yet time and again, Jim James and company have explored diverse sonic interests including psychedelia, dance, funk, and R&B.

These explorations approached excessive indulgence on the band’s last album, Evil Urges, in 2008. But now, on Circuital, MMJ has found a sweet spot; its spacey Americana merges with an ever-simmering intensity that never dips too far into left field but often comes to a roaring head of both electric and vocal wailing. The band is also capable of dialing things back into folk territory, as evidenced on the Neil Young-esque “Wonderful (The Way I Feel).” More than a return to roots that its title suggests, Circuital is a document of a band comfortable in its own skin.

- Text by Kyle Gilkeson

Shabazz Palaces: Black Up (Sub Pop)

Shabazz Palaces: "An Echo from the Hosts that Profess Infinitum"

Hovering below the radar and intentionally light on biographical info, Shabazz Palaces is a hip-hop project that's spearheaded by Palaceer Lazaro, better known as Ishmael Butler, a.k.a. Butterfly of Digable Planets.

But don’t expect to hear smooth, jazz-infused rap from Shabazz Palaces. After two acclaimed EPs, the group offers a discordant, avant-garde rap album with its first full-length, Black Up.

The opener, "Free Press and Curl," assaults the listener with relentlessly repetitive bass blasts. Melodic flourishes arise occasionally, but mostly, the production is little more than bursts of low-end buzz.  Black Up rewards listeners who have invested in quality woofers, especially given that Lazaro’s rapping is mixed low, and his flow doesn't often sync with album's rhythms.

But the record isn’t all avant-rap experimentation. Strong melodies and consistent beats make their appearances, such as on “Recollections of the Wraith” and “Endeavors for Never.”  These tracks feature female vocalists as well, and the contrast between the clear, melodic vocals and the vast majority of the record’s music — with Lazaro’s tinny-sounding, low-mixed rapping — is refreshing, breaking up a possibly monotonous listen.

- Text by Tom Harrison

Honorable Mentions

Artichaut Orchestra: T is for Teresa (Tzadik)

Cheer-Accident: No Ifs, Ands or Dogs (Cuneiform)

Dark Castle: Surrender to All Life Beyond Form (Profound Lore)

Isis: Live I 9.23.03

Jeremy Udden’s Plainville: If the Past Seems So Bright (Sunnyside)

Anders Koppel: String Quartets | Mezzo Saxophone Quintet (Dacapo)

Melvins: Sugar Daddy Live (Ipecac)

Ocote Soul Sounds: Taurus (ESL)

Richard Pinhas & Merzbow: Rhizome (Cuneiform)

Tartar Lamb II: Polyimage of Known Exits LP

Vast Aire: Can Ox 2010: A Street Odyssey (Fat Beats)

Wino: "Release Me"

Seventeen years after his first show with Saint Vitus, singer and guitarist Scott “Wino" Weinrich stands on stage performing the songs that help launched a generational flotilla of doom. It's July 1, 2003 at the Double Door in Chicago. The crowd for the only American Saint Vitus reunion show is packed near the stage, but there's standing room at the edges.

Weinrich recalls, "It was cool but also a little bit sad. It took however many years, and we couldn't even sell out the show." Five hundred devoted friends and fans — it's a respectable but modest turnout. After decades of playing to crowds ranging from handfuls to thousands, he still can't fill a medium-size venue.

This shouldn't be a surprise; in fact, it's expected. Weinrich has always been just under the radar, a musician's musician. Over the years, he's collaborated with a gamut of rock legends, including members of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Death. His fans include Henry Rollins, who says, "Scott is one of the heaviest people known to mankind. Just listen to the music; the man matches it well."

Dave Grohl recruited him, along with other celebrated heavy-metal icons, for his Probot project, where Wino contributed vocals for "The Emerald Law" and played guitar in a live version of the band along with Grohl and Motorhead's Lemmy Kilmister. Greg Anderson, who, as a member of Sunn O))) and co-founder of Southern Lord Records, is one of the parties most responsible for the current influx of doom bands, cites Weinrich as an "immeasurable influence. The intensity and passion of his playing are unprecedented. He is not in a class of his own. He is the class and the owner."

Everyone related to heavy music has a Wino story or two, the best of which are off the record. There's a duality about the man — he's well liked, always regarded as a generous, friendly guy, but also known as a fiend, perpetually recovering from one addiction or another. He's the most famous guy in heavy metal of whom you've never heard.

As a teenager, Weinrich helped synthesize the burgeoning DC doom-metal scene of the late 1970s, playing guitar in Warhorse, the band that became The Obsessed. Neither interested in mainstream glam metal nor the counter-culture thrash movement, The Obsessed and other local groups like Pentagram purveyed a slow, bluesy take on psychedelic hard rock.

Despite scant recordings — one eight-and-a-half-minute EP and a single — the band had a tremendous influence across the music underground. Fugazi's Joe Lally briefly lived with the band and remembers, "After Wino became the singer, that's when [the] intention behind his writing became clear to me. When Wino started singing, you really felt, 'Hey, this shit is serious.'" Though his range wasn't as wide as some of his contemporaries, Weinrich was nearly unmatched in his intensity and warm soulfulness. As he honed his musicianship and songwriting skills, he also crystallized an interest in motorcycles, booze, and crack cocaine.

The next several years saw Weinrich play in a number of bands. He moved to LA in 1986 to front rising band Saint Vitus, but after three years decided that he needed to write music on guitar again. He left to reform The Obsessed with new rhythm players, including the Melvins' Dale Crover and Kyuss' Scott Reeder back in Maryland. Paradoxically, his lust for chemicals rarely affected his musical prowess. "Back in the day, people used to ask how I could play so smooth when I was that wired, but you get used to it," Weinrich says. And despite more than the occasional binge, he's kept his friends closer than most.

"Fugazi was touring Germany in the [early] '90s, and I don't remember what city we were in, but between songs I heard someone yell, 'Joe!'" Lally recalls. "It was clearly Wino. After the show, he asked us for a band photo because Hellhound was going to release the first Obsessed record from 1985, and he wanted to include photos of friends. He didn't seem to be too together at the time, and I wasn't sure I'd ever see him again. Still, he carried that photo in the pocket of his leather jacket for the rest of the Saint Vitus tour, and it got on the record sleeve. I was pretty shocked when I saw it there." After The Obsessed parted ways, the mid-'90s ushered in the era of his stoner-doom project, Spirit Caravan.

"I got kind of tired playing in bands full time. It was really starting to become unproductive. At the end of the day, I asked myself, 'Do I really want to do this full time?' I didn't."

In 2002, Weinrich joined The Hidden Hand, his most experimental endeavor to date. Like every Wino trio, this one toured relentlessly, devoted to the ideal of DIY live music. While many players burned and dropped out, Weinrich kept at it, finding fresh musical allies. "When [we were] able to tour with The Hidden Hand, it was one of the high points of playing music for me, period," reflects Mike Scheidt, YOB guitarist/vocalist. "Wino has that killer balance of great songwriting, true heaviness, and honest emotional depth borne from living a hard life and surviving long enough to tell the tale."

Over the years, Weinrich's playing evolved, assimilating more progressive, psychedelic nuances. Politics also infiltrated his lyrics, which previously tended towards philosophical and metaphysical themes. The Hidden Hand disbanded in 2007 after some nasty in-fighting on a European tour, and Weinrich attempted to take a break from music.

"I got kind of tired playing in bands full time," Weinrich admits. "It was really starting to become unproductive. At the end of the day, I asked myself, 'Do I really want to do this full time?' I didn't." These are the kind of thoughts that lead one to record a swan song, but instead, Weinrich started a new project and booked six months of gigs. Jean Paul Gester, an old friend and longtime drummer of Southern rock band Clutch, had other plans. Weinrich says, "We're good friends and had always talked about recording a record someday. Jean Paul was so enthusiastic that it was contagious. It was all the push that I needed [to continue making music]."

The other piece of the puzzle was bassist Jon Blank of DC's Rezin. "I knew that he was good, but I didn't know how good," Weinrich says. "He learned all of the songs so fast, and there was really good chemistry." Given Clutch's tireless touring schedule and Rezin's waxing profile, the real challenge was getting everyone into the jam room and studio. "There wasn't a lot of putting stuff off," Weinrich says. "We knew that we had a time frame, and we did it."

The resultant album, billed simply as Wino and titled Punctuated Equilibrium, was recorded in two sessions, half of the songs at a time. Multi-session records are usually a hodgepodge of sounds or muted by digital normalizing, but that's not the case with this record. The album sounds as if it was recorded live in a practice space. Weinrich says, "This is the best-sounding record yet."

The music is all over the place, spanning the gamut of styles that Weinrich has refined over the years, including doom, blues, hard rock, and psychedelia. Weinrich's relaxed but limber guitar playing makes it sound easy. Punctuated Equilibrium is a twisted mass of tree limbs, each song reaching in one direction only to bend in another. "I think [the album] is vaulting Scott into a new arena," says Bobby Liebling of Pentagram. "There is some incredible ear candy, and he's branching out towards much more diversified material than ever in the past…not to mention the guitar playing, [which is] murderous."

The most ethereal (read: "trippy") song on the record is "Wild Blue Yonder," a six-and-a-half-minute ride on a spaceship. "We went into the studio with just the framework and guitar melody — that's all we had," Weinrich says. The result is an acid-rock freak-out on guitar that's anchored by a relentless bass line and drum work that wrap time signatures around multiple phrases. It's seamless; you'd think these guys had been playing together for years.

Other songs on Punctuated Equilibrium bare the distinct stamp of the accompanists. "One thing about Jean Paul is that he loves crazy timing," Weinrich says."It's fun for me too, especially on songs like 'Eyes of the Flesh' and 'The Gift.'" The latter of these is a bonus track from the extra 10" record. Weinrich says, "I've only ever played it with one other drummer who understood it. Jean Paul and I hammered it out in two or three nights, and Jon learned it in one fucking night." "Eyes of the Flesh," along with other tracks like "Secret Realm Devotion" and "Gods, Frauds, Neo-Cons And Demagogues," showcases Weinrich's uncanny ability to wail out sustained notes and slow bends. Tracks such as "Silver Lining" exemplify his ability to scream melodic leads that don't soil his warm, monolithic guitar tones.

Punctuated Equilibrium is an ambitious and varied record, showcasing musicians at the top of their games, and other musicians have continued to take notice. In April of 2009, Weinrich headlined the 14^th annual Roadburn Festival in Tilberg, Netherlands with a once-again-reunited Saint Vitus.

Meanwhile, an acoustic version of his solo band played South by Southwest in the States. Last January, Weinrich announced yet another new band, Shrinebuilder, an underground-metal supergroup of sorts, featuring Scott Kelly of Neurosis, Al Cisneros of Sleep and Om, and Crover. The group will release an album in September of 2009 and is planning a brief tour. Kelly has commented in interviews that "Wino has been the keystone of this idea from its inception. It wouldn't have been worth doing, and it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been part of it. Lightning." That's to say nothing of Weinrich's rumored electronic project as well as the acoustic affair, Peckerwood. No one can accuse him of being a slouch.

When asked about the last time he had a drink, Weinrich cracks a joke: "Ten minutes ago [writer's note: it's 9 a.m.]…nah, just kidding. I gave up drinking and hard drugs a long time ago." Not that he doesn't knock back a cold one every now and then. As for the cocaine, he's remarkably candid. "It was fucking great — that's why I did it," he says. "It just becomes a lifestyle choice. You have to stay on it, tear apart your house every day, or you live a normal life. There came a point when I just had to live a normal life."

That life includes three kids — Nick (who wants a Moog keyboard), Maxwell (who wants his papa's gold chopper), and Alexandra — as well as an estranged wife, Diana. "I was a stay-at-home dad," Weinrich says. "I raised them from the cradle. Once Diana and I stopped seeing eye to eye, things changed rapidly." When he's not spending time with his kids, hunting down vintage guitar gear, or watching The History Channel, he's struggling to figure out new technology. "I traded a friend of mine for a G4 laptop. I need to figure out that phone thing to talk with the kids while I'm in Europe…Skop?"

Punctuated Equilibrium has had a positive reception with both critics and fans. "It's about timing," Weinrich asserts. "It's always been about timing, and it's never been right for me before. For some strange reason, things are coming together now." He relates his touring schedule — wall-to-wall shows with the Wino project on the road with Clutch, more Saint Vitus reunion shows, Shrinebuilder, and miscellaneous engagements through June 2009. At age 48, 30 years into his career, it's an odd time for a foray as a solo artist, but it's just what Weinrich needs.

"To be honest, this sort of gave me a shot in the arm. I felt like this record made me feel better about things; it made me want to keep playing."

Zu: "Carbon"

As Carboniferous begins, it’s unclear as to what instruments are communicating through the speakers. A pulsing, low-toned beast hums over an adaptable backbeat, awaiting an indecipherable but universally understood high-pitched howl. By all accounts, this could be a gritty synthesizer and a warped guitar exchanging musical thoughts, but primarily, the instruments at play are the usual armaments of Italian sludge-jazz trio Zu: electric bass, baritone sax, and drums.

Previously, this decade-old group offered ornate free-jazz creations, often unrestrained from convention and always bucking pop structure. Its newest album and Ipecac debut, Carboniferous, filters Zu through a lens of alt-metal, anchored by the behemoth distorted bass riffs of bassist Massimo Pupillo and the demolishing thuds of drummer Jacopo Battaglia. Saxophonist Luca T. Mai is free to freak out atop the mountainous cadences, but his squealing leads and frenetic solos refrain from creating impenetrable walls of counterpoint.

Undoubtedly, Carboniferous is the heaviest creation of Zu’s prolific career. Through the band’s 14 releases and its members’ countless other collaborations, a maelstrom of musicality has rained upon listeners’ ears. As Zu, the three have summoned styles that include noise, math rock, punk, metal, experimental, improvisational, and no wave, and other projects have stretched into hip hop, traditional Roman murder ballads, and radically revised Beatles songs.

Carboniferous is heavier than all of it. For the first time, Battaglia’s kick drum plays a higher pitch than the bass. Everything other than drums is distorted, including the master recording of the album’s first two tracks, “Ostia” and “Chthonian.” And even the drums get distorted for Zu’s punishing live performance, one that has included the effected vocals and samples of luminous singer Mike Patton.

As one might imagine, finding the proper pedals is imperative to this massive sound, and thankfully, the band has a friend in Milan who runs a music shop with homemade pedals from all over the world.

“It’s difficult to find good stuff, especially for the bass, because you lose a lot of attack and bass frequencies with the commercial crap,” Pupillo says. “It’s good to find something that you can use, is powerful, and keeps the low end of the instrument.”
 

“Looking at our discography, it’s really one road that brings us to this record — every time getting a little bit closer to the center of what you want to say."

Indeed, Pupillo’s bass is never lost in a wash of fuzz. His instrument, tuned down to a low B, anchors the album with math grooves and powerfully low tones. And to solve the acoustic problems of losing the baritone sax in the bass frequencies, Mai performs with a multi-effect bass pedal that Pupillo says is perfect for the saxophone. This bends the saxophone’s tone nearly to one of an echo-effected guitar, making it difficult at times to discern the sax from the few spots of guest guitar on Carboniferous (the Melvins’ Buzz Osborne appears on “Chthonian”). When everything is combined, it seems that Zu has arrived at a stark new sonic destination. The band, however, feels that its path to this point was instinctive.

“Looking at our discography,” Pupillo says, “it’s really one road that brings us to this record — every time getting a little bit closer to the center of what you want to say. For us, it takes a lot of time; it’s really digesting a lot of ideas and influences. It’s very organic. It’s not something like post-modern composition, where you say, ‘Okay, let’s play one bar country, two bars hardcore, and one bar contemporary.’"

When asked about the world’s shrinking musical boundaries, Pupillo agrees that the Internet has had a vast impact, acting as a catalyst for cultural fusion, and he credits it for turning Zu’s members onto other great groups from around the globe.

“We are so omnivorous,” he says. “I think that a lot of people today are not listening to one kind of music anymore. It’s really hard to find somebody who only listens to metal, punk, ethnic music, or whatever is out there. There are so many great things. You get inspired by so many things that you hear or see, and in some way, you don’t want to cut that from you.”

And for as much ground as Zu has covered in its discography, its members join forces elsewhere for different sounds. A full-length collaboration with noisy hip-hop duo Dälek is in the works; the aforementioned Roman murder ballads were recorded for two Ardecore albums with Karate’s Geoff Farina; a project called Black Engine found Zu with electro-experimental guitarist Eraldo Bernocchi; a collaboration called Garden of Evil, whose album is due this year, will have Zu’s rendering of works by composer Bernard Herrmann.

Zu’s members also spend down time — what little they have outside of the band’s immense touring schedule — playing improvisational jazz gigs, often with members of Chicago’s thriving jazz scene. But for their innumerable collaborations, none may be more exciting than that with Patton. After a handful of performances with Zu, the incomparable vocalist recorded vocals for “Soulympics” and “Orc,” two of the ten outstanding tracks on Carboniferous.

Patton’s contributions on “Orc,” the album’s dark, final track, are wordless but ominous, appearing as throat singing and voice manipulation that sounds like a Tibetan singing bowl. On “Soulympics,” Patton builds steam with deep pitches and whispers before erupting in screeches akin to those that he uses in “Cuckoo for Caca” by Faith No More. A harmonized call of “Superman” then dances with a distant, high-pitched, reverberated overdub, leaving “Soulympics” as, arguably, the album’s best offering.

The tracks without Patton, however, are no less impressive. “Carbon” is built around an infectious count-chant rhythm, interspersing one-beat rests and a two-beat sustain as the group “counts” to six, pounding listeners with relentless force. The song wails with a swirling harmony, created as Mai’s sax reaches a virtual crescendo. “Chthonian,” the preceding track, features Pupillo playing distorted natural harmonics as Battaglia joins to create a polymeter. The song gets extraordinarily heavy while retaining two independent rhythms, lurching between ambience and fury before Osborne’s presence is felt in a wild outro.

Following what should be a laudatory response to Carboniferous, the trio will return to the US in August to travel through the East Coast and to Chicago; in October, the group will again be stateside to tour the West Coast with influential punk/jazz trio NOmeansno. That’s part of a nonstop international itinerary for a group that was in the US just last November.

“All the people who try to live off the music are in the same situation,” Pupillo says. “You do it and it’s great, but at the same time, it takes your whole life. You don’t have any spare moments anymore.”

Dianogah: Qhnnnl (Southern Records, 8/12/08)

Dianogah: "A Breaks B"

Essayist and self-proclaimed “dean of American rock critics” Robert Christgau once wrote, “Great bands keep creating from what they know, and figuring it out as they do.”

Chicago’s Dianogah (consisting of bassists Jay Ryan and Jason Harvey and drummer Kip McCabe) has spent the last 12 years crafting unique compositions primarily from its two basses and drums, incorporated minimal guitar, or keyboards when the situation called for it. On its newest album, Qhnnnl, coming six years after its most recent album (the John McEntire-recorded Millions Of Brazilians), Dianogah is branching into new territory, using its bass-centric background in exciting new ways.

“We’ve been a band for a really long time, and I think now we’re trying to shrug off how captive we are to our instrumentation," McCabe says. "We’ve explored a lot of what we can do rhythmically and melodically. I think our next step was breaking away from what seemed easier to do with our instruments and trying to do something different."

Dianogah formed in 1995 and quickly became a staple of the vivacious Chicago independent music scene. “You had all these vibrant labels working here," Ryan says. "You had bands that were operating on a really small level, like ours, all the way to the more popular indie-rock bands, like Shellac, Tortoise, and The Sea And Cake. There was very much a “do-it-yourself” attitude. That was the thing people said about Chicago."

Now, in 2008, Dianogah is operating in largely the same self-sufficient manner, but in a changing scene. Harvey comments, “The whole point of this was to have fun, and the fact that anyone would come to see us play, the fact that anyone would still put out our record, is great because it’s just our fun thing to do. Now every Tom, Dick, and Harry band has a booking agent, a PR guy, a label, a manager. When we started out, we felt lucky that we would have a label to release our record.”
 

“We’ve been a band for a really long time, and I think now we’re trying to shrug off how captive we are to our instrumentation. We’ve explored a lot of what we can do rhythmically and melodically. I think our next step was breaking away from what seemed easier to do with our instruments."

Ryan, who also runs his own screen-printing studio, The Bird Machine, adds, “I think it’s fair to say we’ve always had super-low expectations of the band. We can probably go to any city in America and a dozen people will come out, and maybe four of them will have heard of us, and that’s cool. We don’t expect 300 people to come out, and we don’t get frustrated when 300 people don’t show up.” The rampant careerism of current Chicago bands is somewhat at odds with the community from which Dianogah arose. Still, Dianogah perseveres, and, in 2008, the band is shaping up to be stronger than ever.

Dianogah's first three albums are in-depth explorations of bass guitars, seductive rhythms, and intertwining melodies. By the time Millions of Brazilians was released, the wandering melodies threatened to drift away entirely. “I think we realized after the last couple records," Harvey says, "that the quieter songs don’t end up making it into our live set very often because they seem to be the things that bore people when we’re playing them.”

The new Dianogah is a different beast. “We all bought a distortion pedal,” McCabe explains. Ryan adds, “To name names, we all got into Meshuggah a lot. I finally got around to discovering the Melvins, and listened to them a lot, which is really late in the game. Our musical tastes have continued to develop and have tended towards some heavier stuff.” Which isn’t to say that Dianogah has gone metal. But on several new songs, there is a rock-oriented, often noisy approach that was only vaguely hinted at on previous albums.

On the other hand, several new tracks rank with the most beautiful work it has made. Chicago violinist Andrew Bird appears on four new songs, adding subtle counterpoint to the most direct and intensely melodic songs of Dianogah’s intensely melodic career. “A year or two ago, he came and played a show with us and just played on some older songs,” Harvey says. “He reinterpreted guitar parts or keyboard parts, and did them on the violin in his own way. We were all floored by what he had done, just really excited, and agreed that we have got to get him, if he’ll do it, on the new record. So we gave him a tape of everything, and he picked the ones that he wanted to write stuff for.”

The high point of this collaboration might be “A Breaks B,” which not only features Bird’s poignant string work but also a vocal duet between Jay Ryan and Pawner’s Society singer Stephanie Morris. Millions Of Brazilians was the first Dianogah album to feature no vocals at all, and on prior albums As Seen From Above and Battle Champions, vocals were already scarce. On Qhnnnl, Dianogah has brought singing to more songs than ever before.

McCabe says, “We’re a bit challenged tonally, in that we have two basses and drums, and there’s a lot of room. One of the things that interested me about adding a female vocalist was the tone.” Indeed, Morris adds a distinctive character to several songs in the same way that Bird’s violin enhances others. “Stephanie has just a really genuine, ego-free, unaffected voice that’s quite beautiful and also super subtle. I think that they’re the vocals that a band like [ours] need[s]. They’re very timid, almost like an instrument.”

It all adds up to what may be one of the most exciting, diverse, and satisfying albums of the coming year. “I think collectively we can say that we think that it is our best record," Harvey says. "I know that every band that puts out a new record probably says that. I think that [it applies to us] in terms of having an idea of what you want something to be and then having it turn out the way you hoped." Dianogah has made several worthy albums — now the band is preparing to release a potential Chicago classic.

“On the last couple records, we would end up having songs for the record, and not songs for shows," Harvey says. "So we wanted more songs for shows that were fun for us to play. 'Qhnnnl' and 'You Might Go Off,' which are songs we’ve been playing for years, are some of our favorite songs to play live because they’re fast and loud." “You Might Go Off” might be the key to the new record’s code. It is beautiful in its simplicity, and quintessentially Dianogah in its swirling melodicism, yet it is the most punk-oriented song that the band has written. For the rousing finale, the whole group shouts, “This is how we fight!”

As usual, ALARM leaves no genre unexplored in our list of this year's overlooked gems.

Sigh: Scenes from Hell (The End, 1/19/10)

Sigh: "The Summer Funeral"

With a history of fusing other revered genres to a doomy combination of black metal and thrash, Japan's Sigh used its eighth studio album to deliver symphonic, epic metal that calls upon classical instrumentation to top its rock foundation.

Brass, woodwind, and string instruments — as well as organ and piano — accent as well as lead sinister melodies that take surprising turns through fanciful themes. Raspy, menacing vocals coat each track, resulting in a dramatic presentation that isn't much at odds with its complex backdrop.

RJD2: The Colossus (RJ’s Electrical Connections, 1/19/10)

RJD2: "Games You Can Win"

Following a divisive album that saw the introduction of poppy, soulful vocals, producer RJD2 returned with something of a split release — an album that leaves no shortage of accessible, vocal-driven tunes but that emphasizes some inventive instrumentals.  Whether or not you dig the soulful RJ, there's no doubt that the music on The Colossus is some of his best to date.

Chicago Underground Duo: Boca Negra (Thrill Jockey, 1/26/10)

Chicago Underground Duo: "Spy on the Floor"

For 15 years, the Chicago Underground Duo (and Trio, Quartet, and Orchestra) has been an avant-garde jazz outlet for prolific Chicago musicians Rob Mazurek (Exploding Star Orchestra, Isotope 217) and Chad Taylor.  Boca Negra is an interesting dichotomy, as spiraling vociferation leads to upbeat grooves, shifting piano chords, harmonic electronics, and ambient samples.

Algernon: Ghost Surveillance (Cuneiform, 1/26/10)

Algernon: "Broken Lady"

The brainchild of guitarist Dave Miller, Algernon walks a thin line between melodically driven post-rock and instrumental unconventionality.  Ghost Surveillance places greater emphasis on synthesizers and sprawling song structures, but at its core is the combination of accessibility and technicality that has defined Miller's style. Noisy, circular rock riffs transform to tranquil, wandering passages. "Timekiller," the album's fourth track, is a beautiful, buoyant number — and one of the band's best creations to date.

Bei Bei & Shawn Lee: Into the Wind (Ubiquity, 1/26/10)

Bei Bei & Shawn Lee: "East"

In the hands of a marvel, the guzheng — a gorgeous Chinese zither — resonates with tactile beauty as its many strings are plucked with precision.

Bei Bei, a native of Chengdu, China, is one such musical technician. And this collaboration with Shawn Lee, a prolific producer who can man as many genres as he sees fit, is undoubtedly one of the year's finest albums.  Together, the two use Into the Wind to navigate through funky down-tempo jams, Kung-Fu flavor, hip hop, soul, and driving grooves.

Daníel Bjarnason: Processions (Bedroom Community, 2/1/10)

Daníel Bjarnason: "Bow to String I: Sorrow Conquers Happiness"

Best known as a conductor and arranger for indie groups such as Sigur Rós, composer Daníel Bjarnason also holds a lofty classical résumé. Processions, his proper debut, is, at many points, a challenging classical work.  Powerful cellos scale and race with crackling percussions before settling into gently bowed and pizzicato string accompaniments; easily half a dozen strings battle for dominance in a sorrowful, harmonic piece that resonates long after hearing it.  Undoubtedly, Processions is a daring and original debut.

Shining: Blackjazz (Indie Recordings / Distribution, 2/2/10)

Shining: "Fisheye"

Beginning as an experimental acoustic jazz ensemble, Norway's Shining — the brainchild of saxophonist Jørgen Munkeby — transformed to a progressive jazz-fusion outfit before delving into its darker side for a collaboration with black-metallists Enslaved.

Blackjazz pushes deeper into the band's dark recesses, forging a progressive industrial sound for the young century.  Big, complex rock riffs, twisted through gnarly distortion, form the foundation and support a mass of frantic, whirring synth lines and gut-wrenching black-metal screams.  In all, Blackjazz is a new epic — and perhaps the best metal album of 2010.

Pillars and Tongues: Lay of Pilgrim Park, LP + download (Endless Nest, 2/9/10)

Pillars and Tongues: "The Center of"

With just three members, Pillars and Tongues manages to craft powerful folk abstractions and interwoven, trance-inducing vocal dynamics. Both composed and improvisational, these shifting forms evoke spiritual vibes in their soulful essence, heavenly harmonies, and repeated patterns.

Dessa: A Badly Broken Code (Doomtree, 2/9/10)

Dessa: "Dixon's Girl"

The only female member of Minneapolis hip-hop collective Doomtree, Dessa is a spoken-word vocalist, singer, and MC whose awaited full-length was finally released earlier this year.

On A Badly Broken Code, her true solo debut, Dessa's vocal diversity is matched by its underlying music, ranging from hard-hitting beats and rhymes to lilting harmonic overdubs.

The Bastard Noise / The Endless Blockade: The Red List (20 Buck Spin, 2/16/10)

The Bastard Noise: "Mutant World of Shame / Underworld"

A spinoff of treasured "power-violence" hardcore group Man is the Bastard, The Bastard Noise is approaching its 20th anniversary of creating noisy electro-doom brutality.  For this split release with hardcore/punk experimentalists The Endless Blockade, the group utilizes the trademark drum-and-bass style of Man is the Bastard in combination with its far-out sounds.  The Endless Blockade contributes three tracks to the release — one 14-minute epic and two avant-garde remixes.

Freeway & Jake One: The Stimulus Package (Rhymesayers, 2/16/10)

Freeway & Jake One: "Know What I Mean"

Continuing his life after Roc-A-Fella Records, former freestyle star Freeway now makes his debut on Rhymesayers, a fitting new home — if only temporary before a move to Cash Money.  Fellow Rhymesayers standout Jake One provides a funky, malleable backdrop for Freeway's fiery delivery and lyrics that are alternately personal and light in content. And though Freeway deserves his accolades, Jake One's production is the MVP of this collaboration.

Carolina Chocolate Drops: Genuine Negro Jig (Nonesuch, 2/16/10)

Carolina Chocolate Drops: "Hit 'Em Up Style" (Blu Cantrell)

Beholden to the traditions of Americana and early African-American folk, the string trio Carolina Chocolate Drops continues blurring the lines of old and new. On Genuine Negro Jig, the group's fifth album, a few original numbers and a trove of traditionals take root in banjo, fiddle, and percussion. Three-part harmonies shimmer on the famous folk tune "Trouble in Your Mind," and simplicity shines on gripping renditions of "Why Don't You Do Right?" by Kansas Joe McCoy and "Trampled Rose" by Tom Waits.  Most surprisingly, Genuine Negro Jig includes an enjoyable rendition of "Hit 'Em Up Style," an unintentionally farcical pop hit by Blu Cantrell.

Mako Sica: Dual Horizon LP (La Société Expéditionnaire, 2/16/10)

Mako Sica: "I'Itoi"

A translation of the phrase "land bad," Mako Sica has more than a nominal Native American influence; the trio's distant vocal reverberations and dirge-inspired tunes recall the spirituality of America's original inhabitants.

Between the vocalizations of Brent Fuscaldo, the melodies of guitarist Przemyslaw Krys Drazek, and the rhythms of drummer Michael J. Kendrick, Mako Sica maintains a strong balance of abilities — with a brooding combination of jangly guitars, reverberated vociferation, and instrumental dynamics.

High on Fire: Snakes for the Divine (E1 Music, 2/23/10)

High on Fire: "Snakes for the Divine"

Stoner-metal trio High on Fire has built a devoted following over the past dozen years as fans fell in love with Matt Pike's gruff vocals and thunderous guitar riffs. On Snakes for the Divine, Pike uses his throat to channel Lemmy Kilmister; meanwhile, the band has picked up its pace and crafted an album that isn’t as outstretched. Hard-hitting riffery leads an effort that, though diverse at times, may be the band’s most driving release.

Jaga Jazzist: One-Armed Bandit (Ninja Tune, 2/23/10)

Jaga Jazzist: "One-Armed Bandit"

Five years have passed since we've heard the powerhouse melodies of Norway's Jaga Jazzist, the post-rock/"nü-jazz" conception of brothers Lars and Martin Horntveth.

One-Armed Bandit, immediately the group's best album, resembles symphonic prog rock, arguably a few steps removed from parts of Frank Zappa's expansive catalog and closer to countryman Jono El Grande's diverse and theatrical style.  This album, however, is much more cohesive than either of those comparisons suggest, and at times it is nearly overwhelming with grooves and harmonious refrains.

Rob Swift: The Architect (Ipecac, 2/23/10)

Rob Swift: "The Architect"

Turntablist/DJ Robert Aguilar, formerly of the X-ecutioners, has long utilized his love of jazz, R&B, and other musical movements to create compelling hip-hop instrumentals while displaying his tight beat-juggling skills.

The Architect is Swift’s foray into the classical world. In addition to a multitude of sampled styles and sounds, classical cuts comprise a substantial chunk of this Ipecac debut. Rearranged strings, organ, and horns often make the foundation of a given track, occasionally evoking high-tension Italian Westerns, as Swift’s scratches dance atop banging beats.

Rotting Christ: Aealo (Season of Mist, 2/23/10)

Rotting Christ: "Aealo"

For more than 20 years, Athens' Rotting Christ has traversed different directions on the metal path.  With its previous release, Theogonia, the group released a striking, original album that fused its dark sound to the ethnic sounds of its ancestors.

Like its predecessor, Aealo features female Benedictine chants, lingual pipes, and a medieval feel. Combined with dueling high-pitched harmonies and powerful guitar work, these new elements highlight an album that should be among the most original metal releases of the year.

Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté: Ali and Toumani (Nonesuch, 2/23/10)

Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté: "Ruby"

As two of Africa's most internationally renowned musicians, guitar legend Ali Farka Touré and kora phenom Toumani Diabaté have displayed impeccable abilities while integrating the styles of other cultures into their ethnic sounds.

Each Malian, the two collaborated for the acclaimed In the Heart of the Moon in 2005, shortly before Farka Touré's passing in 2006. Fortunately, the two set aside time to record new material before touring for In the Heart of the Moon, and the result is another beautiful set of duets that sees a posthumous release.

Throughout Ali and Toumani, Farka Touré roots each creation in melodious African-blues pieces. Diabaté's virtuosity accents each track in the form of fanciful scales, which at times evoke classical harpsichord passages, perhaps most notably on "Sabu Yerkoy."

Fang Island: s/t (Sargent House, 2/23/10)

Fang Island: "Sideswiper"

Mostly comprised of ex-Daughters, the good-time rock quintet Fang Island was one of the most quickly ascending bands of 2010, jumping onto tours with The Flaming Lips and Stone Temple Pilots following the release of its first full-length album.

The self-titled release is chock full of palm-muted and speed-infused indie-prog anthems, with über-layered vocal harmonies to go with a triple-thick guitar assault and distorted-bass bludgeoning.  It's one of those rare releases that feels absolutely radiant and thrashing at the same time.

B. Dolan: Fallen House, Sunken City (Strange Famous, 3/2/10)

B. Dolan: "The Reptilian Agenda"

Going way back with Sage Francis, rapper B. Dolan is a like-minded MC and slam poet whose style isn't terribly dissimilar to that of his long-time friend. Fallen House, Sunken City is Dolan's second full-length for Strange Famous, and it's full of the sociopolitical themes (if often in quick blasts or asides) and contentious delivery for which he's known.

In addition to some seemingly personal lyrics, Dolan takes passing shots at big business, taxation, the pharmaceutical industry, the concept of ownership of natural resources, the Israeli razing of Palestinian developments, and, among many other things, the so-called New World Order — dropping clips of Dick Cheney and George H.W. Bush in "The Reptilian Agenda."  On top of Dolan's socially conscious rhymes, A-list production by Alias makes this one of the year's top hip-hop releases.

Archie Bronson Outfit: Coconut (Domino, 3/2/10)

Archie Bronson Outfit: "Shark's Tooth"
Archie Bronson Outfit: "Shark's Tooth"

With its warbled vocals and driving percussion, British psych-rock trio Archie Bronson Outfit is like a more adventurous Wolf Parade — as comfortable burning up the dance floor with clean, bouncy riffs as it is turning up the reverb and rocking in a garage.

Coconut is the band's first LP in nearly four years, and it kicks off with a crunchy, swirling guitar line and a hypnotic bongo-laden beat. Produced by DFA's Tim Goldsworthy, Coconut gets spaced-out and drone-like at times, but it always offers a hint of pop accessibility amidst the static and haze.

Download the podcast for This Week’s Best Albums: November 30, 2010 and subscribe to This Week’s Best Albums for free with iTunes.

Stream the podcast for This Week's Best Albums: November 30, 2010.

God of Shamisen: Smoke Monster Attack

God of Shamisen: "Last Shamisen Master Attack"

Featuring a pair of members from genre annihilators Estradasphere, God of Shamisen is a boundless project of East/West fusion combining heavy metal, improvised Japanese folk, and much more.  The four-piece is led by Kevin Kmetz, a US native who grew up on a military base in Japan and later mastered Tsugaru-shamisen, a striking, percussive style that developed during the late 1800s and early 1900s in the north of the island of Honshu.

The band’s music is built on Kmetz’s mastery of the shamisen, a slender, three-stringed Japanese instrument, but it has drawn the ire of some traditional shamisen masters for adding thrash riffs and rapid-fire metal beats. (Read the band's story in our newest book, Invisible: Overlooked Albums and Unseen Artists, and online here.)

On the band's 2008 debut album, Dragon String Attack, its aggressive blend skips from blast beats to reggae jams to Turkish folk. There are plenty more tangential visits to other styles, but at the band’s heart is the mixture of metal and shamisen.

Smoke Monster Attack, the band's digital-only second release, accentuates that mix. It features a few unreleased originals as well as a handful of video-game and movie covers, including wild renditions of the themes to Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Star Wars. The album was co-produced by Billy Anderson, a brief member of the Melvins who has produced or engineered for dozens of excellent heavy bands, and his presence makes Smoke Monster Attack that much stouter.

Tristeza: Paisajes (Sanity Muffin / Better Looking)

Tristeza: "Newbury"

Over the past 13 years, this highly melodic group of post-rock instrumentalists has released a constant stream of LPs, EPs, and outtakes.  And though Tristeza has slowed in recent years, Paisajes — the band's latest full-length — is another beautiful batch of churning rock tunes.

The group’s lineup has shifted a bit since former member James LaValle left to focus on The Album Leaf, and it has since added and lost a keyboardist. Paisajes is back to the basics, in a sense – at many points, it’s just the harmonic interplay of a reverberated guitar and bass on top of drums. However, there are accents of vibraphone and violin as well as a few funky horn cuts, and the band is billing this as an "album of sound, color, and textures."

No matter the context, Paisajes excels with more pretty rock instrumentals — recorded, notably, by Tim Green of The Fucking Champs, helping recapture some of the vibe of the band’s classic album Spine & Sensory.

Locrian: The Crystal World (Utech)

Locrian: "The Crystal World"

Not to be confused with the metal band of the same name, this Locrian is the dark noise duo-turned-trio from Chicago that has released dreary, droning, long-form experimental soundscapes.  The Crystal World is the group’s first album as a trio, and though it still builds slowly and is noisy and dark, it’s Locrian’s most palatable release yet for casual listeners.

Also sharing its name with the Locrian musical mode, which is built on tension and dissonance, the group has added more live instrumentation to make what might be the most melodic, accessible, and structured of its releases.  The Crystal World is, at times, essentially a cousin of brooding post-rock and horror-score atmospherics, but it walks a fine balance between order and chaos.  In all, it’s another evolution of a band that’s still coming into its own.

Honorable Mentions

King Cannibal: The Way of the Ninja (Ninja Tune)

Jason Stein’s Locksmith Isidore: Three Kinds of Happiness (Not Two Records)

The announcement of the special Unsane live shows coincides with the 25th anniversary of Amphetamine Reptile Records, once home to the band. Unsane will perform alongside the Melvins, Boss Hog, and more as one of the featured artists at the AmRep 25th Anniversary Bash, set to take place August 27 and 28 in Minneapolis, MN.

Touring with Unsane is Today is the Day (Aug. 22-26) and Keelhaul (Aug. 5-7, 22-26).

Unsane tour dates:

August 5 – New York, NY @ Santos Party House
August 7 – Baltimore, MD @ Otto Bar
August 22 – Toronto, ON @ Sneaky Dee's
August 23 – Akron, OH @ Backstage Concert Club
August 24 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
August 26 – Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon
August 27 – Minneapolis, MN @ Grumpy’s Bar