Pavement, O2 Brixton, Wednesday 12th May 2010
Their entire career lo-fi indie legends Pavement had displayed a flagrant disregard of convention, either musically or genre imposed, focussing more on the deconstruction of musical art rather than its fulfilment. Their live show is a glorious, ramshackle celebration of chaos, irony and bare faced lunacy. That’s not to say that Pavement don’t take their art seriously, it’s just that they don’t think art needs always to be so serious. Their entire back catalogue is spanned almost at random in a show that covered classics and obscurities in equal measure. The highlights were rabble rousing Unfair, Steve Malkmus throwing a hissy fit and throwing down his malfunctioning guitar on the floor half way through Summer Babe, and 5000 people shouting ‘NO BIG HAIR!’ at the culmination of Cut Your Hair.

Pavement are more punk than many a punk or hardcore band around today. I think some of this loose, lo-fi aesthetic and ethos is missing from the punk and metal genres. Once upon a time it was “pick up a guitar, learn 3 chords, write a song”. These days in metal it’s more like “pick up a guitar, a shed load of effects and Pro-Tools, learn Dream Theatre’s Octavarium, note perfect, from beginning to end, spend 2 years writing a prog metal epic”. But the pursuit of art isn’t confined to endless noodling, expanding, refining. Pick up Napalm Death’s Scum, and Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and learn a little about experimentation.

Cathedral, ULU London, Thursday 29th April 2010
Doom should be played loud. The bass emitted by a doom show should loosen your teeth in their sockets. Whether it was the lack of sound check (the bands collectively arrived late) or some stupid sound regulation is unclear, but one way or another this show was nowhere near loud enough. Because of this, Japanese serial killer obsessed doom merchants Church of Misery, a band I’m not particularly familiar with, failed to have an impact on me, so I spent their set outside catching up a long lost friend that I’d bumped into on the night.

Cathedral too suffered with the auditory depravation, but still managed to put on a spirited show. Playing various tracks from their lauded new album The Guessing Game mixed in with classics such as Hopkins (Witchfinder General) and Ride, in all other facets the show was everything a Cathedral show should be. Singer (and bone fide doom legend) Lee Dorian’s manic flailing makes for an entertaining spectacle, and the crowd departed with a collective smile on their faces. Good enough for me.

RIP Ronnie James Dio
There’s nothing that I can say about Dio that hasn’t been said a million times by now. There are few icons in the metal genre that can match his stature and influence. Dio’s gargantuan voice formed a vital part of the soundtrack of my formative years. It is Dio and not Ozzy that provides that voice for my favourite Black Sabbath song:

His legacy is a fitting enough tribute in itself, and should speak (howl, wail, scream) for itself. Rest in Peace Ronnie, you will be missed.

The Inevitable Nose is 1 year old
On the 31st of May 2010 it was a year since my first post on this blog (I urge you not to waste your time checking out my early posts, they are poorly written, inaccurate nonsense for the most part), which in the intervening year, has formed a vital part of my existence. Started as a mechanism to recommend music to my mates, it soon turned into a musical odyssey that would have a massive impact on my life. I’ve discovered musical forms that I never knew existed, learned that I know nowhere near as much about music as I thought I did, met people who have become good friends who I otherwise would not have met, rediscovered old friends, helped found a forum and fanzine and improved my writing skills massively. It’s sometimes hard to remain interesting, relevant and maintain quality, but writing this blog never feels like a chore, and thus far has propelled me to fascinating and inspiring places. To those who have tuned in over the past year, thanks for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure.

The Ocean – Heliocentric

On releasing Precambrian, The Ocean had a whiff of the future about them. Delivering punishing post-metal reminiscent of Cult of Luna but stretching into more old school prog territories, referencing the likes of Pink Floyd. With Heliocentric they take a fairly radical turn, apparently into more post-hardcore territory. The fact that, with new vocalist Loic Rossetti, Heliocentric demonstrates a preference for clean vocals, although significant, isn’t really a concern here. It’s the fact that they’ve had to employ some fairly hackneyed melodic techniques to accommodate them. Now sounding like a less mature Oceansize, the band may view this as a personal progression, but it the grand scheme of things, this ends up sounding like the faux-boundary pushing of the likes of Between the Buried and Me. There are some rousing moments here, and hints at former glories, but nothing that really grabs the listener screaming “we have just rewired you brain!”, which is what I was hoping for. This is the sound of a band finding its feet with a new sound, and I commend them for it, but The Ocean have been around for quite a while now, and they should be sounding like a band well and truly in their stride. Heliocentric is part of a pendant of complementary albums, the second to be released late 2010 – we can only hope that they saved all their real creativity for the second half.

Cathedral – The Guessing Game

Unlike The Ocean, Cathedral are a band branching out into new, progish areas and sounding like they’ve been doing it all their lives. Cathedral’s sound may not be new any more, but they’ve always managed to make music that sounds totally out there, and The Guessing Game is the most ‘out there’ record they’ve released in a very long time. This is not an album for those new to Cathedral unless you happen to be a veteran with lengthy, noodling old school prog. But this isn’t simply prog revisionism, nor is it merely Cathedral ‘doing prog’, this is a pretty bold artistic statement and one that will see them revered as metal revolutionaries for another decade to come. Dorian and team feel as fresh as ever, and in terms of maturity and damned right assuredness, they’re so far ahead of the pack they almost everyone else may as well just give up.

The Dillinger Escape Plan – Option Paralysis

Perhaps the title of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s 4th full length album is indicative of their state of mind when they recorded this album. Throughout their career Dillinger have broadened their palate to include whatever damn well suited them and be damned with the rest of you. Managing to shock and confound on every single release, the seemingly endless diversity of the musical form was once again before them like giant smorgasbord for them to indulge their sonic crapulence. Option Paralysis describes the state where you have so many options available to you that you are mentally unable to act on any of them. In The Plan’s case, they appear to have been paralysed, for the first time in their career, into standing still, which is sad, because although Option Paralysis is a good album by any band’s standards, it lacks the elements of surprise and obstinacy that has really defined Dillinger’s career to date. I’ll forgive them for this hiatus from creativity, but the next release better damn well be a marshmallow vindaloo of an album.

Barren Earth – The Curse of the Red River

With Opeth sounding like Opeth while managing to sound utterly different with every release, Barren Earth sound like Opeth trying to not sound like Opeth. A mix of doomy death and through-the-ages prog, Barren Earth’s sound is Technicolor and cavernous. Referencing 70’s prog in a more literal sense than Opeth, complete with synth solos and folkish bits, there’s a distinct air of Dream Theatre. Unfortunately, for almost every instance of proggy goodness, the unsubtly arranged and delivered death vocals spoil the party – Curse… sometimes has a whiff of Nu-Metal about it. It’s like the DM vocals are there purely to qualify this album a progressive death record, but this is akin to remixing a King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King with hip-hop interludes. There are moments of pure Death here, but they mostly sound like Opeth, with a bit of Morbid Angel thrown in. It grates to the extent that I simply don’t enjoy listening to this, an album that otherwise I’d really love. I don’t rate albums but if I did, it Curse of the Red River would get 2/10 as a (prog)-death album, and 8/10 as pure prog.

Ludicra – The Tenant

Whether the kvlt like it or not, Black Metal is evolving. That doesn’t mean hardcore crossovers and progressive dabbling, but developing its monolithic core around creative minds and thus spewing a more paisley misanthropic ooze. So here we have San Francisco’s Ludicra and an oestrogen inflected black masterpiece called The Tenant. Ludicra mix tempos and melodies not usually associated with BM, but somehow obviously belonging to BM as if they merely discovered them in some corpse infested basement. The Tenant is at times mournful, others unsettlingly aggressive, managing to inject melody and riff hungry groove, evoking anything from Burzum to Megadeth to labelmates Worm Ourourboros. The female element is apparent, straying from the lowbrow bludgeoning of much of the genre, softening edges where they need softening, but tearing ragged maws to redress the balance – this is not ‘softer’ just more balanced. Regardless of genre, The Tenant is an accomplished record as you’ll find this year, and one that simply radiates class and creativity. Black Metal it is, through and through, but of a new sort, not progressive, just a progression.

Seismic downtuned riffs straddle mid-tempo and doomy passages into the final track and set piece De Sorte que Plus Jamais un Instant ne Soit Magique which dabbles in drone-like simplicity. Here, Celeste’s sound really blooms into something dramatic and transcendent driving the album’s vicious intent to an infinitely dense singularity of pure noise.

Perhaps not quite as textured as earlier Misanthrope(s), Morte(s) Nee(s) is well recorded, beautifully packaged and given away in its digital form entirely free here along with the rest of Celeste’s marvellous back catalogue. Download this, savour its delicious intensity, then go buy the LP, for it is a thing of beauty.

Chimp Spanner is guitarist Paul Antonio Ortiz from Colchester, UK. Ortiz’s day job is making music for computer games, adverts, radio etc. In his spare time he is Chimp Spanner – the bastard offspring of Cloudkicker (Ben Sharp) and zany guitar supremo Steve Vai. Whereas Cloudkicker sits uncomfortably in the post-rock category At the Dream’s Edge delivers instrumental metal that borders on, but ultimately transcends, the solo guitar virtuoso tomfoolery of Vai and his Jedi master Joe Satriani. Whether Ortiz aligns himself with these esteemed, but ultimately uncool elder statesmen is unclear, but the comparison is unavoidable.

The Vai-esque lead guitar keens and flutters over a choppy ocean of Cloudkicker like percussive, polyrhythmic chugging. There’s invention and guitar wizardry here aplenty and some seriously tricky time signatures. Where Vai and his ilk are usually comfortable to let the widdly guitar do the talking Ortiz pervades his mad science through every instrumental layer, of which there are many. Although the Cloudkicker/Vai comparisons are the most obvious, this eclectic collection borrows from across the rock/metal spectrum, one minute death, the next ambient, the next melodic rock and there’s a clear debt to progressive noodling of Dream Theatre. It doesn’t always work, one minute “Yes, yes, yes!”, the next “No , no, no!” which, when taken as a whole, makes …Dream’s Edge an occasionally tiring listen.

That said level of musicianship on display here is nothing short of stunning and rarely overtly showy, and there’s no shortage of ideas. At the Dream’s Edge lacks the drama of Clouckicker or the wacky, post-Zappa personality of Vai – it feels a little clinical at times. This is definitely one for the musos as really doesn’t have much to offer in the way of an emotional fix, but it’s hard really to knock something this nifty.

Écailles de Lune isn’t a black metal album as such. Sonic alchemist and sole band member Neige has crafted a total immersion musical landscape that variously caresses and claws at your emotions playing out the magical narrative that’s utterly mesmerising. Écailles… could have easily have descended into sonic slush with its mix of mixing atmospheric Black Metal reminiscent of early Burzum, plaintive shoegaze, and post-rock, but somehow it all seems so natural together. Three genres deeply rooted in the pursuit of atmospherics, the soothing shoegaze is broken by dramatic and emotive BM passages while the post-rock elements offer a cinemascopic breadth. Not only does it work, it’s hard to imagine why no-one did this before.

Alcest will, in perpetuity, be bound to their pure BM beginnings, but with Écailles de Lune have produced a ‘black metal’ album that is neither particularly ‘black’ or even ‘metal’. In that respect it’s better compared to the other standout BM crossover release this year – Ludicra’s The Tenant which similarly plays acrobatics with the BM genre but to somewhat different effect.

Écailles de Lune is haunting but beautiful, exhilarating and soothing. The otherworldly atmosphere is only enhanced by the entirely French vocals that make, for a non-French speaking listener (well, I can order a cup of coffee and ask for directions in French, themes that don’t feature particularly highly in this narrative!) this a purely musical experience, which doesn’t at all detract from the ethereal majesty of it all, but in some ways enhances it. In that respect, this release bears comparisons to wacky Icelandic sound sculptors Sigur Ros – indeed, much of this album would play out quite nicely as the soundtrack to the BBC science/nature documentary.

The sign of a truly great album is that, when the last notes fade to silence, you’re left yearning for more. Much much more. The BM or shoegaze or any other label is entirely beside the point, here – Écailles de Lune sounds like an album that needed to be made – as if merely uncovered from the musical mêlée like a beautiful fresco on a grimy church wall.

The likelihood is that this will be shunned by the BM crowd for its ‘indie’ leanings and the French vocals won’t help commercially outside of France, so Alcest will struggle to get a popular foothold, which is a shame as this album needs to be heard by many, many people. Here we have then, the first absolutely essential album of 2010.

The biggest UK show they’ve ever played, it wasn’t sold out, a fact for which I for one was thankful, as it resulted in my crappy seat situated where the air is thinner and sound crapper being upgraded to a prime location in the stalls right behind the sound desk. The venue certainly felt pretty full as the house lights went down and Opeth embarked on a marathon 3 hours set (with 20 minutes interval).

This was a game of two halves – first, the revisiting of that landmark album. A turning point for the band and perhaps for extreme metal as a whole, Blackwater Park is rendered here pretty much note perfect save for a lounge rendition of Harvest. The only real surprise is that Åkerfeldt remained uncharacteristically silent, eschewing all stage banter, and let the music do the talking. Opeth’s music is nothing if not consistent and although Blackwater Park may stand out of their distinguished back catalogue, it’s by no means overshadows the rest in a way that, say, Rust in Peace (recently also played live in its entirety) does with Megadeth’s. Placed by many as one of best albums so far this century, it plays out like a bludgeoning yet beautiful mass, but in the context of the second half clearly feels like a celebration of the legend that is Opeth rather than Blackwater Park itself.

So 20 minutes to take a breather – quickly shuffle out to neck a 4 quid bottle of beer (no drinks in the auditorium!) – then back for the ‘mystery’ second half. Most of the audience would have guessed the direction of the remainder of the set as soon as Opeth started playing debut album Orchid’s Forest of October – a song off of every album (save Blackwater Park) played in chronological order. Unlike the first half, Åkerfeldt wasn’t about to stay silent and as he took us on a guided tour of the bands history. The singer’s stage banter is by now legendary and formed the very back bone of the second half. Spurred on by the regal surroundings he was at his most irreverent and blasphemous. Quite understandably, Mikael and team are glad to be here, but it was no easy road as Åkerfeldt talked us through tales of poverty, constant lineup changes and love embraces with Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson. OK, so this is no Confessions of Motley Crue, but it’s the way you tell them eh?

Opeth are precision musicians. Every note, beat and roar is delivered with surgical precision. The Albert Hall was made to have music, in all it’s subtle and complex forms, played in it, so predictably the sound was crystal clear – the feeble sound of the rapturous audience almost lost in the cavernous acoustics. But somehow Mikel and crew managed to make this enormous shrine to music feel intimate – more like a comedy club than an 8000 capacity theatre.

Second half playlist:

1. Forest of October (Orchid)
2. Advent (Morningrise)
3. April Ethereal (My Arms Your Hearse)
4. The Moor (Still Life)
5. Wreath (Deliverance)
6. Hope Leaves (Damnation)
7. Reverie/Harlequin Forest (Ghost Reveries)
8. The Lotus Eater (Watershed)

This half of the show was dubbed Evolution XX which implies a great change, but although Opeth have certainly progressed through these two decades, there’s no sense here of a band ascending from base, primitive or naïve beginnings to a majestic prime. Earlier tracks may have less bombast than their more recent counterparts, but these tracks form a coherent continuum that coexist to the point that they would happily sit on the same album. Opeth’s career, in many fans’ eyes, is bisected by a singly album – Still Life – your preference (or exclusive patronage) exists for one half, or the other. But I challenge anyone listening to this set to claim that Opeth are not one of the most consistently brilliant bands on the planet.

A celebration indeed – of Opeth, of metal, of guitars and drums and noise and all things that are good in the world.

Groove is king on these seething slabs of stripped down hardcore, which grab you from the first bar and mesmerise with their hypnotic swing. There are moments of aggression and melancholy, and enough complexity to keep you coming back for more.

I couldn’t be more pleased that there’s a band out there making music like this – it’s utterly refreshing. It’s particularly impressive given that Hummune only formed later last year and they already sound this mature. Also, don’t be fooled by the M.R.S label, this EP is self released and is all the better for it. All three tracks can be downloaded for free from their Myspace. This is already one of my favourite releases of the year, go check it out.

Largely eschewing the progish meanderings of Death is the Communion, Snakes is a much more meat and veg metal affair, and my my does it work – it’s immense! High on Fire didn’t really change as a band, they just got faster and more aggressive, galloping gleefully between caustic stoner (Bastard Samurai) and unapologetic thrash (Ghost Neck) effortlessly working in guitar solos and the even the odd reference to Maiden. The polished production really shows the shine of the scales underneath and is what immediately distinguishes it from the both the stoner crowd as well as High on Fire’s previously releases. Pike’s growl cuts Dalek-like through the wall of guitar/bass roar. Purists will chastise them for distancing themselves from their stoner roots, but this has the distinct air of a band becoming its true self

This may well find High on Fire their deserved wider audience and 2 months into 2010 we find our first diamond in the rough.

Taint clearly have a keen ear for melody. All Bees to the Sea, comprising of 4 tracks, is immediate in that sense. However, rather than shelter in cookie cutter naval gazing like much of the rest of the modern post-punk crowd, Taint have clearly been bathing in the sludge-groove experimentation of the likes of Baroness and Mastodon. These 4 razor sharp tracks display a deceptive amount of complexity that never overshadows the melodic punch. There’s a psychedelic air that at times evokes the spirit of 90’s psych-punk underdogs Warrior Soul, others the post-hardcore of Prong or Helmet. However, the EP’s true Baroness inflected beauty comes to fruition on the 12 minute prog-out that is the title track – super-sized and utterly satisfying.

All this in four songs – it’s quite remarkable. All Bees to the See is the sound of a band enjoying themselves and really flexing their creative muscle – I can’t wait to hear what they come out with next!

Worm Ouroboros – Worm Ouroboros
Canadian label Profound Lore’s obsession with eclecticism continues with the addition to their roster of Worm Ouroboros who could only be attributed to the metal genre in the broadest sense. By some definitions this could be considered post-rock, as many of these slow building tracks would stand firm without the vocals. However, the inclusion of the gorgeous female vocals provided by Lorraine Rath and Jessica Way help this transcend that oversubscribed genre and a strong folk influence sees this record floating dreamily between ethereal passages building to harder more metallic sections. There’s a sense of foreboding apparent throughout the record but it’s far from a being bleak affair. Both beautiful and haunting – a real triumph.

Cobalt – Gin
Cobalt’s vocalist/lyricist Phil McSorley can generally be found stationed with the US army in Baghdad. He’s not particularly fond of people and has seen some stuff that would mentally handicap most of the rest of us. So it’s not really surprising that Gin is a snarling, nihilistic affair. Bundling this in the Black Metal pigeonhole would be lazy, as there’s so much more here than the misanthropic BM stylings. The opening track Stomach is slimy, oozing sludge, while elsewhere we’re treated to doom, more traditional BM, proggy sections, and some good old fashioned riffathons. Ecclectic indeed, and thoroughly entertaining. Yet another gem in Profound Lore’s crown and one of the best albums of the past year.

Harvey Milk – s/t
Too many moons ago to mention the master tape of Harvey Milk’s first album was recorded and sent to a label who claimed to want to release the album. That tape, and as such the album, went into the void for the intervening years before being discovered, restored and turbo-charged. S/t is a frenzy of noise and fuzz and all out amplifier abuse, as you would expect from these noisenicks, and it sounds glorious.

Tombs – Winter Hours
Blackened hardcore? Why on earth not! Winter Hours sees Brooklyn’s Tombs trudge through bleak, nihilistic hardcore, interspersed with snarling BM passages. There’s melody and beauty within the cacophony and some slick songwiritng. Like a slightly less angry Cobalt, Tombs are taking the blackened arts into more (dare I say it) commercial climbs. Good on ‘em!

Teeth of the Sea – Hypnoticon
Teeth of the Sea’s Hypnoticon is tasty little EP of semi-electronic, droning, psychedelic rock. Sometimes evoking guitar prone electronica of groups like Propellerheads, while others moving into ambient jazz territory this is the cheery antidote to acts like To Blacken the Pages and Nadja. Fun, although not particularly essential.

Portal – Swarth
Portal’s grimy, messy and insalubrious music swelters and splutters like a corpse in a Brisbane sewer. Labelled death metal, this surreal and supremely ugly noise perhaps sits better within the BM camp (not least because of their creepy stage names and garb), however a disfigurement of the musical form such as this has seldom been achieved in that genre. There’s some real creativity in here and a dedication to sonic perversion that’s hard to knock. Swarth has a ramshackle charm and surrealist lyrics are at times hilarious, but it’s hard to see how someone could seriously enjoy listening to this. Seriously uneasy listening.