Wild Beasts – Smother (Domino)
With their third album, Wild Beasts create a wonderful amalgam from Hayden Thorpe’s unconventional and haunting vocals, light piano, and the sort of well placed electronic effects one could look for from Panda Bear, NIN, or recent Radiohead. Smother contains very strong songs, each incredibly complete unto itself, and yet together this album may be the most cohesive electronic album since LCD Soundsystem’s beautiful This Is Happening. Each track brings elements into the next, some upbeat, others almost reverent, all creating an incredible continuity of sound. The best track is “Plaything,” a ghostly and sensual tune reminiscent of slower Nine Inch Nails and even Joy Division. The last track, “End Come Too Soon,” is the most apt sentiment expressed herein. Hayden’s Morrisey-esque tone carries a story, wile the electronic effects and incredible piano coalesce into a haunting tour-de-force.
Indestructible Noise Command – Heaven Sent… Hellbound (Candlelight)
To start, I’ll have you know, I’ve always had complaints about metal, mainly because i grew up on a large amount of industrial music, with Throbbing Gristle and Nine Inch Nails piercing my four year old eardrums. I loved Metallica, Black Sabbath, and Slayer, and technical metal like Animals As Leaders and Periphery made me feel infinite, but for the most part, metal seemed like a genre of homogenized themes and vocal talent. INC is a band that broke up before I was born, only reforming in the last two years, and their first new full-length in two decades, Heaven Sent… Hellbound, has made me fall back in love with heavy metal. It is full of incredible breakdowns, perfect distortion, clear vocals and more than a good amount of blast beats. An epic journey, Heaven Sent… Hellbound takes you from the entangling piano of “Jackboot Thugbots” all the way to inescapable labor of love “Fueled By Regret” with out missing a single nuance of real heavy metal. If you are a real metalhead who pines for the days when Metallica was still good and Slayer was on the lips of every kid who new what music was, regret is the last thing you will feel if you get this album. Indestructible Noise Command has done something really special here. I’m gonna go kick something now.
Wild Beasts – Smother (Domino)
With their third album, Wild Beasts create a wonderful amalgam from Hayden Thorpe’s unconventional and haunting vocals, light piano, and the sort of well placed electronic effects one could look for from Panda Bear, NIN, or recent Radiohead. Smother contains very strong songs, each incredibly complete unto itself, and yet together this album may be the most cohesive electronic album since LCD Soundsystem’s beautiful This Is Happening. Each track brings elements into the next, some upbeat, others almost reverent, all creating an incredible continuity of sound. The best track is “Plaything,” a ghostly and sensual tune reminiscent of slower Nine Inch Nails and even Joy Division. The last track, “End Come Too Soon,” is the most apt sentiment expressed herein. Hayden’s Morrisey-esque tone carries a story, wile the electronic effects and incredible piano coalesce into a haunting tour-de-force.
Indestructible Noise Command – Heaven Sent… Hellbound (Candlelight)
To start, I’ll have you know, I’ve always had complaints about metal, mainly because i grew up on a large amount of industrial music, with Throbbing Gristle and Nine Inch Nails piercing my four year old eardrums. I loved Metallica, Black Sabbath, and Slayer, and technical metal like Animals As Leaders and Periphery made me feel infinite, but for the most part, metal seemed like a genre of homogenized themes and vocal talent. INC is a band that broke up before I was born, only reforming in the last two years, and their first new full-length in two decades, Heaven Sent… Hellbound, has made me fall back in love with heavy metal. It is full of incredible breakdowns, perfect distortion, clear vocals and more than a good amount of blast beats. An epic journey, Heaven Sent… Hellbound takes you from the entangling piano of “Jackboot Thugbots” all the way to inescapable labor of love “Fueled By Regret” with out missing a single nuance of real heavy metal. If you are a real metalhead who pines for the days when Metallica was still good and Slayer was on the lips of every kid who new what music was, regret is the last thing you will feel if you get this album. Indestructible Noise Command has done something really special here. I’m gonna go kick something now.
