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solasan · 1 year

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band name + album + songwriting + change + tattoo + voice + seven for Marnie? 👀

infamous MC questions

TYSM amber

Band name: How did they and the others come up with the band name? Has the name changed since it was founded?

they definitely went through a few iterations. rowan fought hard for rowan & the hartettes but was quickly vetoed. they threw around the idea of making some seven-based number joke but couldnt come up w anything they liked LOL. jazzy and iris played around with a few flower-based names, but that didn't Fit The Vibe (bc the vibe is a lil less flowers, a lil more everything on fire).

i think hornet's nest itself was a seven-marnie joint effort? they were playing around with the idea of it for a song n then figured it actually worked better as a name. marnie Very Seriously Considered changing the name after he left, but they'd been established as hornet's nest for two EPs already and had a growing fanbase, so she didnt think the disruption was worth it.

Albums: What are some of the albums the band has released? Are they a consistent style? What themes did they explore?

so gasping was their first EP (the one maya has on vinyl that marnie's super embarrassed about) and that was when they were kind of figuring out their style. probably more punk than grunge rock? kind of them just trying to find their groove. there's a few ethel cain southern gothic style references lyrically and a lot of angsty horrific references to bodies in the marshes outside their hometown (It's Symbolic For Seven & Marnie's Buried Trauma) LOL

i think possibly they released another EP after that but i dont have clear Thoughts on that yet?

then was take cover, which is their final release with seven LOL. leaning more into grunge rock now (heavy guitar & bass sounds, more refined but still intense vocals). this one's pure anarchy bc marnie's fully rejected (and been rejected by) her parents and seven has fewer songs where he's centre-stage so there's a kind of? tension? in some of his songs. lots of rage against the machine type shit. also some more gothic americana, since that's just Their Thing Now

under the bus is next and it's a hate-letter to seven lol no it isn't. there's a couple angry songs abt nebulous betrayal/getting thrown under the bus by circumstance that r juuust vague enough that marnie can feasibly get away with saying theyre not about him, tho 🤥. it's kind of more an album abt growing up than anything, n they definitely have a more mature sound. probably there's smth abt liminal spaces as a metaphor for the Ephemeral Nature Of Youth (And Love) or smth

and then finally there's their most recent album glass houses :) so named bc a few of the songs are rewritten versions of stuff she wrote when she was still living w her parents, n the whole album kind of... deals w the isolation she felt during that time? but from her pov as an adult now? we got references to breaking windows, we got references to being cut off from the world by glass, we got it all. (also forecast fires is on there bc it's a heavily reworked once-sweet love song she wrote abt seven when she was pining years ago, but this time it's abt the inevitability of catastrophe and how knowing what's coming can be like... soul destroying)

Songwriting: What’s their process? Is it different than it was when they used to write songs with Seven?

i'm not sure that she has a specific Process tbh. i think she probably comes up with lines in the shower/bath quite a bit, if only bc she's a shower singer and she likes to experiment. she's gotten into the habit of keeping her phone nearby when she showers so she can peek out of the curtains and write stuff down in the notes app lol. uhh i think tunes come to her before words do; she finds patterns she likes chord-wise and then goes from there?

writing songs w seven was a lot more collaborative obv so yeah it's different!! but also i think she was a lot less critical abt her songs n ideas when they worked on stuff together bc she kind of... always trusted seven to tell her if something didnt work or could be improved??? n now she has to do that herself LOL. it takes her longer to come up w songs without him than it did with him, but i think they're a bit more streamlined and perfected than they were before??

Change: How has their personality changed since Seven left the band? Are those changes related to Seven leaving?

she's still got her humour, which is good, but she's a lot more serious abt the band/their music/their future. she tries to take more responsibility for them now, bc seven's not around to kind of split that with her, and she's stepped into the role of leader bc no one else will? so there's a lot of pressure there, both from herself, orion, and (less intentionally) the band, who have kind of gotten into the habit of turning to marnie for help n advice.

she's also a lot more spiteful LOL. she's generally angrier, if only bc (since she voted to keep seven as a lead singer n not a backup) she rly feels like she didnt do anything wrong to him and it's fucked up that he left. uhhh more trust and abandonment issues than ever <3 which means more self-destructive behaviours!!! party drugs r a big one (she didnt used to rly touch much beyond weed before he left) but also hypersexuality since as someone else who deals w my issues thru vacillating wildly between hypo and hypersexuality i like 2 drop my trauma in there she finds it's a good way to get out of her head (shes always found sex was good for that, even when it was happy n healthy w seven), but then she has some issues around feeling dirty/regretting it, so. :shrug:

Tattoo: Did they keep the tattoo with Seven’s initials? Why/why not? What was that decision/execution process like? (Bonus: What do they think of Seven keeping their tattoo?)

amber look at me look me in the eyes. thank u so much for askin this one, this one is the one i've been MOST excited for. wuv u.

anyway LOL NO SHE DOESNT. the day she got the news that he'd joined a new band, she went to the nearest studio that took walk-ins and asked them to cover it up. it was very much an unplanned thing; she was angry and hurt and sad and she just... couldnt keep it. having his initials on her — like a brand, like ownership, and she hadnt minded that when he was hers too, but now he's gone and she's still his and she feels pathetic about that — was too difficult. when she walked into the studio she said "i need this covered up" and they said "ok, with what?" and she said

um eventually she settled on getting a big spider tattoo that kind of curls around her wrist and onto the back of her hand??? its butt is what covers the S.D. specifically. funny thing is that marnie hates spiders and always fucking has, but it was one of the first things she saw the studio offering, and she would literally rather have that on her body than seven. liar. seven also knows she hates spiders lol so he's probably definitely hurt abt that :)

seven keeping his tattoo feels like a mockery to her LOL. there's no part of her that's like oh he kept it bc he loves me, there's hope~ it is ALLLL "he's trying to freak me out". that doesnt mean that a possessive part of her doesnt like seeing it on him, tho, even if she'll deny that to the day she dies.

Voice: What does their singing voice sound like? Do you have voiceclaims(s) for them?

answered here xx

Seven: Do you have headcanons about their friendship and/or romantic relationship (past or future)? What do you imagine some of their best memories are? What do you think some of Seven’s favourite things about your MC were/are?

answered here

#this is actually embarrassing ive gone into so much detail #i have so many thoughts abt their albums n no way to articulate them coherently #like Thoughts. but at the same time all i can give u is Vibes. im sorry <3 #ty amber <3333 sry this took so long LOL my energy levels are Not It n i keep going nonverbal #answered #ch: marnie ross

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lethal-liability · 3 years

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Ari's ranking of Imagine Dragon's discography

Here's something literally no one asked for! Anyway rankings are out of 10 and I'll have album stats at the end. Also any songs in the EPs that would later appear on Night Visions are just going under the album. I know that'll screw with their averages but I don't really care.

Imagine Dragons (2009) average rating: 7.2

I Need A Minute: 6/10 A nice fun song I used to like dancing around my room to. The lyrics are completely incomprehensible but I guess that's the point, I like it. The vocals are just a little bit too low

Uptight: 7/10 Funky beat, I really like the synth. I didn't listen to this one much as a kid but I really missed out this song kinda fucks.

Cover Up: 7/10 Some more funky bass and synth, getting into some of the more poetic lyrics that I like from them. Pretty solid.

Curse: 9/10 This 👏 was 👏 my 👏 favorite 👏 song 👏 back 👏 in 👏 the 👏 day 👏 Here's where my bias comes in cause this one gets an extra point purely for that. The lyrics don't really make sense but I would lay up at night coming up with complex amvs in my head to go along with it :) Still holds up to 11 y/o Ari's love.

Drive: 7/10 Again, another one I never really listened to as a kid. It's a pretty good, relaxing song, really different from the rest of the upbeat songs on the EP.

Hell and Silence (2010) average rating: 6.75

All Eyes: 6/10 Another funky song, nothing really special but pretty solid

I Don't Mind: 4/10 Honestly not a fan of this one, the synth is kinda annoying and the lyrics are kinda irritating

Selene: 8/10 Idk what to say I just like this song :)

Emma: 9/10 Honestly pretty much the same as Selene but with a chiller vibe, I like the raspier vocals. Extra points for that nearly yelled bridge HELL AND SILENCE I CAN FIGHT IT

It's Time (2011) average rating: 4.2

Tokyo: 3/10 Look I'm a sucker for funky synth OKAY. I don't speak Japanese but I don't have to to tell you Dan's pronunciation is really cringy. Deducting points for the kinda fetishy lyrics too.

The River: 8/10 This is one of those songs I like to listen to when I'm sad to make myself sadder so I can cry my feelings out. It's got a pretty, soothing melody and nice lyrics.

Leave Me: 2/10 This song used to make the feminism leave my body as a kid but I just can't bring myself to really do that anymore lmao. Come on Dan, that's two kinda gross songs on one album :/

Pantomime: 2/10 I. Really did not like this song as a kid. Like I had a playlist on youtube of all their music except this song. I was right.

Look How Far We've Come: 6/10 Hearing this song for the first time in like nine years was an experience. Not a bad song but dome of the lines are a little clunky.

Night Visions (2012) average rating: 7.33

Radioactive: 9/10 Ya know this is the song that got them famous and for good reason. It's a good song and great amv fodder.

Tiptoe: 8/10 It's gonna be harder to write about these songs going forward because these are ones I listen to regularly so I know I like them but yeah. Good song.

It's Time: 10/10 Radioactive may have been what got them famous but this was their first real big single and it was my favorite. I'm a big sucker for a mandolin and I think this is where they started to lean more into the folky sound than the synthy sound.

Demons: 9/10 Another one of their songs I used to listen to to cry and I don't listen to it much anymore because of that but it's still a good, poetic song that hits me in the feels.

On Top Of The World: 6/10 My mom had this as her alarm when I was in middle school so I couldn't listen to it for a long time. The lyrics are a little heavy handed sometimes and a little incomprehensible at others but it's an alright little tune.

Hear Me: 8/10 This album is a little confusing because they include some of their older synth heavy songs alongside their newer folky songs, but I won't complain with this song. Frustrated 13 year old me loved this song because I, too, felt that no one ever heard me when I talked. Ya know, 13 y/o things.

Amsterdam: 7/10 I have no idea what this song is about but it's pretty good.

Every Night: 5/10 This was their first and last try at what I call a "first dance bait" song. Ya know like Perfect by Ed Sheeren or Marry Me by Train? It's alright, just really heavy handed.

Bleeding Out: 10/10 Oh emo eleven year old me ate this edgy shit up. Is it a grimdark? Yes. But that's a plus for this song. This song makes me wanna scream every time I listen to it I BARE MY SKIN AND I COUNT MY SINS AND I CLOSE MY EYES AND I TAKE IT IN

Underdog: 6/10 Another cute song, not much to say about this one, it's alright.

Nothing Left To Say: 9/10 ANOTHER another song I cry to, this one still hits home for me. It's pretty and soothing but the lyrics are still heart wrenching. The instrumental at the end is nice and I like to fall asleep to it.

Rocks: 8/10 A nice upbeat song that is a little repetative but it's only about a minute long so it doesn't over stay its welcome.

Working Man: 5/10 This song isn't on spotify so I don't get to hear it often and I actually hadn't heard it in a while when I listened to it to do this. It's kinda trying to be a 9 to 5 type song but it doesn't really do it for me.

Fallen: 8/10 Another song I hadn't heard in a while since it's not on spotify but I'm more of a fan of this one. Another amv bait song to me but one with more of a triumphant vibe to it. I really like the vocals in the chorus.

Cha-Ching ('Til We Grow Older): 8/10 The hook of this song, cha-ching x3, has a big potential to become really annoying like some of their later songs (cough cough, Thunder) but they actually somhow make it work. This song hits me a lot harder now than it did as a kid cause god. Yeah. They're so right. We are all living until we grow older.

Smoke + Mirrors (2015) average rating: 9.06

Shots: 9/10 Hell YES my favorite album finally let's get into this shit. Anyway songs that make me wanna lay in a field of wildflowers. Well the music, the lyrics are pretty depressing. But that's what makes a great song ya know.

Gold: 9/10 Songs about the rich losing their humanity? Hell yeah. I fucking love the percussion and the synth in this one too.

Smoke and Mirrors: 10/10 The under appreciated masterpiece of this album in my humble opinion. Everyone always talks about Dream as the best song on the album but I really think it's this one. That yelled OPEN UP MY EYES gets me all the time I just really really love this song.

I'm So Sorry: 9/10 Real sexy bassline on this one. I can't tell what the fuck this song is about but I don't care because it goes pretty hard.

I Bet My Life: 8/10 I like the gospel vibes, especially the backing vocals, some of them out-sing Dan a little bit. This one also hits a little harder now that I'm grown up a bit.

Polaroid: 8/10 Another one with cool percussion, some of the lyrics are lost on me but I get the overall vibe of it.

Friction: 10/10 I have no clue what that string is at the beginning of the song but man does it fuck hard. God actually everything in this song goes pretty hard, I'm especially a fan of the vocals.

It Comes Back To You: 8/10 Nice chill song, I feel like this is one that's gonna hit in a few years. Not much to say about it tbh besides I like it.

Dream: 10/10 This song really does live up to the hype even if I like other songs better. It's really poetic and well composed. You really just have to listen to it to get it tbh.

Trouble: 8/10 The piano at the beginning is a little grating but it gets better. Again not much to say about this one, it's solid, just not one of my favorites.

Summer: 8/10 Another sexy baseline, another set of incomprehensible lyrics. I like it.

Hopeless Opus: 10/10 This one's a little weird but it was my favorite for a while. I like weird. Idk if anyone would agree with me but this one was kind of a self fulfilling prophecy, this really was a hopeless opus since, in my opinion, they've yet to make album as good as this one. Also. Guitar solo.

The Fall: 10/10 I like to put this song on when we get the first cold snap of the year after summer :) It's just really chill and I like the vibes and the vocals

Thief: 10/10 AAAAHHHHHH SONGS THAT MAKE ME WANNA RUN THROUGH THE WOODS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

The Unknown: 9/10 Cool percussion, I like the intermediate piano, it's a nice touch.

Second Chances: 9/10 I like the strings and the vocals. Another nice chill song.

Release: 9/10 I like that this one is completely acoustic, it's a nice send off for a great album, if a little depressing.

Evolve (2017) average rating: 5.5

I Don't Know Why: 10/10 I have wanted to choreograph something to this song for the fucking longest time oh my god. I really love the vocals and the synth in this one.

Whatever It Takes: 5/10 This one's alright. It's not great but it's definitely not the worst. Perfectly average pop song.

Believer: 10/10 I am a little bit biased with this one because I use it for my OCs a lot but like. It's a really good song. And I don't watch TV so I haven't gotten it ruined for me by commercials.

Walking The Wire: 6/10 I hadn't listened to this song in a while and it's really not as bad as I remember. I guess you can really tell that he was having marital issues when they made this album and that didn't really connect with me back then. But I'm kinda into a little bit of it now.

Rise Up: 4/10 Another really average, inspirational pop song. I like the raspiness of Dan's voice in most songs but it sounds so over processed in this song I can't stand it.

I'll Make It Up To You: 3/10 Wow okay never mind the marital issues vibe is coming back real heavily in this one. Idk it's just such Straight People vibes, I don't like it :/

Yesterday: 1/10 I associate this song with someone I don't talk to anymore and really wanna forget so it's kinda running at a deficit already. But. Um. It's not a good song otherwise. It's another weird song but something about this one just doesn't work.

Mouth Of The River: 7/10 I think I liked this one when it came out, idk why I stopped listening to it. It's pretty good. Not great. But I like the river imagery. Well. I like river imagery in general.

Thunder: 2/10 hhhhhhhhhhhh why did they think this was a good idea. Probably their most notorious song, I know a lot of people cite it when they say Imagine Dragons makes shitty music. I just think it's tragic that this is one of the ones that got super popular for some reason. However as someone who teaches children's dance classes, however annoying you think this version is, you haven't heard anything until you have to listen to the KidzBop version twice a week for a year. Not a complete 0 because I do like some of the vocals that aren't. That Part.

Start Over: 6/10 Another one I hadn't heard in a while, but it's pretty groovy. Not as heavy handed as some of the other songs, and that flute in the chorus is pretty cool.

Dancing In The Dark: 8/10 I like this one a lot, the processing on the vocals is a little wonky but I like the vibes.

Next To Me: 4/10 Yeah this was the "please don't divorce me" song. It's. alright. Really heavy handed, they probably should've waited to release this one but you know.

Origins (2018) average rating: 4.8

Natural: 10/10 Another one I'm biased for because I associate it with a beloved OC. But It's still a good song. I like it.

Boomerang: 5/10 Another song that just has an awkward hook with awkward delivery.

Machine: 9/10 I like this song a lot more now that I know the band is really outspoken about their experiences with mormanism and escaping it. But the irony of a song with a nonconformist message from a pop band is not lost on me.

Cool Out: 5/10 Idk I don't have much to say about this one. It's alright.

Bad Liar: 4/10 Oh boy more divorced dad energy. Hhhhhh I'm getting burnt out on this. For the record I have no problem with people going through things like this, I'm just not into these vibes in my music, especially when they're super desperate like this.

West Coast: 3/10 East coast supremacy. Also why are you trying to be Mumford and Sons.

Zero: 4/10 You know, the Ralph Breaks the internet song? God. That sure was a movie. The song is better, but not by much. It is fun and bouncy but I don't like listening to it too often.

Bullet In A Gun: 5/10 I used to really like this song but now I just associate it with an embarrassing character I used to stan so :/ I do still like the lyrics even if I don't listen to it anymore.

Digital: 3/10 I can't tell if this song is pro or anti technology??? And the electronic melody is annoying.

Only: 4/10 Hhhhhh I'm so tired. I don't like this one.

Stuck: 2/10 idk man. bad.

Love: 3/10 Really trying hard to be the Beatles here. :/ That's really not a compliment.

Birds: 5/10 This one's kinda nice, a little more original but like. I'm so burned out on this theme. hhhhhhhh

Burn Out: 10/10 Speaking of burn out. lmao, no I actually really like this one. I just recently listened to it kinda intently for the first time and I just. Wow. The second verse really gets to me. I feel like this song has a lot of the poeticness I liked from Smoke + Mirrors.

Real Life: 0/10 Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh obligatory "PHONES BAD" song from the folk pop band. At least when Bastille does it they don't literally say "turn your phone off!" in the song. I'm so tired. I'm gonna take a nap before I listen to the next album.

Mercury - Act 1 (2021) average rating: 7.46

Okay I'm still tired but let's do this. Also I've only heard this album like three times so far so this ranking is most definitely gonna change as I listen to it more.

My Life: 9/10 Holy shit this song is fucking heart wrenching and I first listened to it at like just the perfect time for me to ball like a baby listening to it. Literally my only gripe is I wish the tempo would've picked up a little bit earlier.

Lonely: 9/10 This song is equally fucking depressing but it's upbeat and I eat that shit up. The vocals are a little weird sometimes but I really like the pre-chorus a lot.

Wrecked: 8/10 Okay so this album is just gonna be gut punch after gut punch huh? Look, I was really going through some shit when they dropped this album so I like really connected with a lot of it. But yeah I like this song.

Monday: 4/10 Alright. Not a fan of this one. The metaphor is kinda cute I guess, even if it implies that like literally everyone else things your sweetheart is fucking insufferable. Actually. Who tf thinks monday is the best day of the week? Like what kind of person? But, uh, musically, it's kinda annoying.

#1: 7/10 Self-care babie!!!!!!! Okay but this is a nice song. Yes we all need to learn self love it's a fucking journey babe.

Easy Come Easy Go: 9/10 I really like this one, it might be my favorite on the album. My only gripe is the bridge/3rd verse/whatever it's called is a little bit clunky

Giants: 8/10 god DAMN those vocals. This is another kinda weird song but I'm into this one like I am with Hopeless Opus.

It's Okay: 7/10 Honestly I'm kinda tired of hearing "it's okay to be not okay" Like yeah I've been depressed for most of my life now I think I got that at this point. But I am a fan of "I don't want this body, I don't want this voice, I don't wanna be here but I guess I have no choice." Like damn even my gender crisis? Y'all are really just hitting all my nails from the past year right on the head huh?

Dull Knives: 9/10 OKAY ROCK RIFF I HEAR YOU, I just wish it would've lasted through the song instead of going slow again during the second chorus. But yeah, songs that make me wanna scream in the woods in the middle of the night.

Follow You: 8/10 ME AND WHO???????

Cutthroat: 9/10 HELLO AMV BAIT I MISSED YOU I wish it was longer. Also, love Dan's screamo debut I wish he'd just fucking scream his throat raw more often.

No Time For Toxic People: 4/10 okay I think we've established that I'm not a fan of completely unsubtle songs so I don't think it should be a shock that I'm not a fan of this one. The music doesn't really save it either.

One Day: 6/10 M E A N D W H O ? ? ? Not as much of a fan of this one as Follow You though.

Additional Singles but only one's I've already heard because fuck you there are so many of these

Battle Cry: 6/10 I thought this one was from some soundtrack but idk. A transformers movie I think? I can't find anything on it. Anyway, okay song. I like the line stars are only visible in darkness. The rest of the song is kinda repetitive

Born To Be Yours: 8/10 I like this song a lot. I have no idea who Kygo is but I'm a fan of this beat. For the record, this is more something I would use for my first dance.

Destination: 6/10 Another song I haven't hear in a while. I enjoy the vocals from the other band members. But it is an itunes sessions song so it's a little messy, probably could have been better if they'd recorded it as a regular song.

I Was Me: 7/10 A nice sad acoustic song, not much to say, I like it

Levitate: 6/10 This one is from that Jennifer Lawrence Crisp Rat movie no one saw. It's okay. I like the sci-fi vibes.

Lost Cause: 4/10 This one is from the Frankenweenie soundtrack of all things. This is another grimdark edgy song, but it just doesn't have the staying power to me that Bleeding Out did.

Monster: 8/10 This song was my fucking jam as a kid and was the song that got me into Nightcore in middle school so you know it's important to me. Still a big fan of it.

Not Today: 7/10 I actually saw the movie this was from, Me Before You. I would say this is another first dance bait song but I think they were just trying to match the vibes of the movie. The song is better than the movie though. In case you were wondering.

Ready! Aim! Fire!: 7/10 continuing the trend of songs from soundtracks, apparently this song is from Iron Man 3? Seems kinda weird to put a song about rebellion and revolution in a movie about a billionaire 🤔🤔🤔. Anyway it has a more electronic, industrial sound than most of their stuff which i appreciate. Still have to deduct points for being from a marvel movie though oops.

Roots: 10/10 Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh I love this song. Another another biased one because I associate it with one of my OCs but like. It's a good song.

Sucker For Pain: 5/10 Ya know that song from the Suicide Squad soundtrack? The masochist anthem? It's alright, I mean Dan's part is probably the best, the rap is okay I guess, I'm not a huge rap fan so I don't really know what constitutes a good rap. I guess the appeal of this song was all the big names but it just gets tiresome that there's a new voice every 30 seconds. Really gimmicky but Lil Wayne's part is kinda funny so I'll give it that.

Warriors: 8/10 More amv bait, another one I could've sworn this was from some soundtrack but I can't find anything on it. Pretty solid song.

Who We Are: 6/10 This sing is from one of the Hunger Games Movies, I can't remember which one though. Anyway it's fucking incomprehensible but I like it.

Conclusion

Okay so in order from Highest to Lowest ranked the albums and EPs are

Smoke + Mirrors: 9.06

Mercury - Act 1: 7.46

Night Visions: 7.33

Self Titled: 7.2

Hell and Silence: 6.75

Evolve: 5.5

Origins: 4.8

It's Time: 4.2

See and this is completly objective because if you had asked me to rank my favorite albums I would've put Night Visions above Mercury 😠 I did have a good time going back and listening to a lot of old songs I hadn't heard in forever

anyway I'm tired and this post no one asked for is over 3k words so I am going to bed good fucking night

#long post #even with the read more hhhhhh #oh well #anyway #enjoy the most basic band that I like lmao #imagine dragons #ari screams into the void

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intoxicatingimmediacy · 4 years

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Visions Of Bodies Being Burned clipping.

clipping.'s second entry in their horror anthology collection follows up 2019's There Existed an Addiction to Blood by conjuring up an atmosphere that rarely allows a moment to catch your breath. Here the Los Angeles-based trio takes Apple Music through the record's many horrors.

Say the Name William Hutson: “I had always wanted to make a track using that phrase from the Geto Boys, and we had talked about doing a Dance Mania Chicago ghetto house track about Candyman. I always liked that idea of a slow, plodding, more dance-oriented track, using that line repeated as a hook.” Daveed Diggs: “We had always talked about how that line is one of the scariest lines in rap music, it's just really good writing. Scarface does that better than anybody. What we had was this very Chicago, these really specific reference points, to me, that I had to connect. That's how I saw the challenge in my head, was like there's this very Texas lyric and this very Chicago concept. Fortunately, Candyman already does that for you. It's already about the legacy of slavery in this country. So I just got to lean into those things.”

’96 Neve Campbell (feat. Cam & China) Jonathan Snipes: “This was actually the second thing we sent them—we made an earlier beat that had a sample that we couldn't clear. We wanted to make something that sounds a little more like jerk music and something that's a little bit more tailored for them.” WH: "We didn't have our Halloween, Friday the 13th slasher song. The idea was to not have Daveed on it at all, except to rap the hooks, and just to have female rappers basically standing in for the final girl in a slasher movie. But then we liked Daveed's lines, we wanted him to keep rapping on it.” DD: “It felt too short with just two verses. We were like, ‘Well, put me on the phone and make me be the killer.’” WH: “There's a Benny the Butcher song called '’97 Hov,' this idea of referring to a song by a date and a person that's the vibe you're going for. So some of the suggestions were like, '’79 Jamie Lee Curtis' or '’82 Heather Langenkamp.' But then with Daveed on the phone and making a Scream reference, '’96 Neve Campbell' made more sense.”

Something Underneath DD: “There's a whole batch of songs we recorded in New York while I was also doing a play, and so we'd work all day and then I'd go do this show at night. For a long time, there was a version of this one that I couldn't stand the vocal performance on. It's obviously a pretty technical song, and I just never nailed it and I sound tired and all of this. So it ended up being the last thing we finished.”

Make Them Dead WH: “We did ‘Body & Blood’ and ‘Wriggle,’ which both take literal samples from power electronic artists and turned them into dance songs. The idea for this was, let's do a song that instead of borrows from power electronics and makes it into a dance song, let's try to just make a heavy, slow, plodding thing that feels like real power electronics.” DD: “When we finally settled on how this song should be lyrically, it was actually hard to write. Just trying to capture that same feel. There's something about power electronics that feels instructional, feels like it's ordering you to do something. The politics around it are varied, depending on who is making the stuff. But in order to sit within that, it had to feel political and instructional, but then that had to agree with us.”

She Bad WH: “That's our witchcraft track.” JS: “Obviously, this ended up having some melodies in it, but it started as those, but it really is just field recordings and modular synths, and there isn't a beat so much and the melody is very obtuse in the hooks. It's mostly just looped and cut field recordings.” DD: “I've been moving away from something that we did in a lot of our previous records, like really super visual, like precise visual storytelling that feels really cinematic, where I'm just actually pointing the camera at things, so that was fun to try that again.”

Invocation (Interlude) (with Greg Stuart) WH: “It's a joke about Alvin Lucier's beat pattern music, his wave songs and things like that, but done as if it was trying to summon the devil.”

Pain Everyday (with Michael Esposito) DD: “I love this song so much. Also, I definitely learned while writing it why people don't write whole rap songs in 7/8. It's not easy. The math, the hidden math in those verses is intense. It kept breaking my brain, but now that it's all down, I can't hear it any other way, it sounds fine. But getting there was such a mindfuck.” WH: “So then the idea was it's in 7/8, it's about a lynched ghost, so the idea we had was a chase scene of the ghost of murdered victims of lynching.”

Check the Lock WH: “This was conceived as a sequel to a song by Seagram and Scarface called ‘Sleepin in My Nikes.’ That was a rap song about extreme paranoia that I always thought was cool and felt like a horror, like an aspect of horror.” JS: “This is the one time on this album that we let ourselves do that like John Carpenter-y, creepy synth thing.”

Looking Like Meat (feat Ho99o9) DD: “I think they reached out wanting to do a song, and this had always felt, we always wanted this to be like a posse track, kind of. This was another one that I wasn't going to write a voice for actually, we were going to try to find a better verse.” JS: “Which is why the hooks are all different—we were going to fill them in specifically with features, but sometimes features don't work out. This is like our attempt at making the more sort of aggressive, like a thing that sounds more like noise rap than we usually do.” WH: “The first thing on this beat was I bought 20 little music boxes that all played different songs, and I stuck them all to a sounding board and put contact microphones on it, and just cranked them each at the same time.”

Eaten Alive (with Jeff Parker & Ted Byrnes) DD: “I had been in this phase of listening to Nipsey [Hussle] all day, every day, and all I wanted to do was figure out how to rap like that. So from his cadence perspective, it's like my best Nipsey impression, which we didn't know was going to turn into a posthumous tribute.” WH: “And the rapping was also partly a tribute, just spiritually a tribute to No Limit Records. That's why it's called 'Eaten Alive,' which is named after a Tobe Hooper horror movie about a swamp.”

Body for the Pile (with Sickness) WH: “It already came out [in 2016]. It ended up being on an Adult Swim compilation called NOISE. We did it with Chris Goudreau, our friend who is just a legendary noise artist called Sickness.” JS: “We always thought that would be a great song to save for a horror record, and then years went by and we weren't going to include it, because we thought, ‘Well, it's out and it's done.’ We looked around and I don't know, that comp isn't really anywhere and that track is hard to find, and we really like it and we thought it fit really nice. When we started putting it in the lineup of tracks and listening to it as an album, we realized it fit really nicely.”

Enlacing WH: “The cosmic pessimism of H.P. Lovecraft is all about the horror of discovering how small you are in the universe and how uncaring the universe is. So this song was about accessing that fear by getting way too high on Molly and ketamine at the same time, then discovering Cthulhu or Azathoth as a result of getting way too fucking high.” JS: “My memory is that this was never intended to be a clipping. song, that you and I made this beat as an example of, ‘Hey, we can make normal beats.’” DD: “That Lovecraftian idea was something that we played in opposition to a lot on Splendor & Misery, so it was good to revisit in a way where we were actually playing into it, and also it definitely feels to me like just being way too high.”

Secret Piece WH: “We wanted to really tie the two albums together, so the idea was to get everyone who played on any of the albums to contribute their one note. So we assembled the recordings of dawn and forests, and then almost everyone who played on either of these two albums contributed one note.” JS: “We have a habit of ending our albums with a piece of processed music or contemporary music. We ended midcity with a take on a Steve Reich phased loop idea, and we ended CLPPNG with a John Cage piece, and then There Existed ends with Annea Lockwood's 'Piano Burning.' So we wanted something that felt like the sun was coming up at the end of the horror movie, a little bit.” WH: “That was the idea was that we were exiting, it's dawn in a forest. So dawn in a forest in a slasher movie or a horror movie usually means you're safe, right? The end of Friday the 13th one, the sun comes up and she's in the little boat, but that doesn't end well for her either. We did not have the jump scare at the end like Friday the 13th.” DD: “I pushed for it a little bit, but some people thought it was too corny.”

#clipping.#bill hutson #daveed diggs #jonathan snipes #clipping

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happymetalgirl · 5 years

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Sermon - Birth of the Marvelous

Since starting this blog I have really fallen in love with Bandcamp as a primary source of new music to try out (alongside adventures through the links of YouTube, iTunes, and reputed record label’s rosters), which is how I found this band/project here, Sermon. Even though Prothetic Records is one of the labels I follow, it took me forging through a series of Bandcamp links to find this one, but it has become another one of those stumble-upon bands that I'm so glad came my way. Prosthetic has labeled them an “anonymous musical force” perhaps to preserve privacy, perhaps to direct focus to the music itself, perhaps to conceal what wealth of experience is possessed by this brand new project’s mastermind(s) to maintain an aura of mystique around how a debut such as this could be so masterfully crafted.

When I saw the cover of Birth of the Marvelous, I thought I was probably in for some proggy, Tool-esque, Soen-ish, alternative metal project of some sort. And while that is indeed what this album ended up being, to reduce it to simply a comparison to Tool or Soen would be criminal, because this album certainly offers such a special experience that those two bands do not and that I have been utterly mesmerized with since first hearing. Birth of the Marvelous is such a tremendously masterful release that it’s hard to believe it’s a debut.

While the album’s mystique penetrates from its anonymous creation into its abstractly liturgical lyrics, its label-given status as a religiously themed concept album with a message of “theological balance” is not as far-fetched or hyperbolic as so many flowery album descriptions tend to be. And the album’s sonic pallet definitely reinforces the aura the lyrics seek to conjure.

So while I’m definitely already making it rather clear how I feel about this album, what makes a debut progressive alternative metal album that treads much of the same ground as the aforementioned contemporaries with such an abstract and variably interpretable lyrical concept so compelling is definitely worth delving into.

I mentioned the similarities to Tool and Soen, but I think this would lean a little more closely to the style of Soen for the vocal similarity and for not leaning much on eccentricity the way Tool have. What aspect of Tool's sound Sermon does accomplish is the cinematic experience of their music, but they do so much more subtly and less long-windedly than Tool often tend to. The songs on Birth of the Marvelous are really not all that long, and even though they're rather spacious and aren't jam-packed with thick instrumentation to give them a sense of grandeur, they manage to achieve such a great sense of grandiosity through the classic prog metal method of intricate structural dynamics and making the most of the subtle accents they incorporate, allowing the choral sections or chants or whatever they include to bolster rather than over-blow the album's religious experience. In fact, I would say the shorter songs here actually do a little more for the album than the lengthier ones.

With only 7 tracks ranging from just under 4 minutes to just over 8 minutes, the 40-minute-and-change album doesn't look like a lot for a prog metal album on paper, but once into the music itself, the specs are the last thing beckoning any concern.

"The Descend" opens the album with a brooding, ominous ritualistic vibe made all the more harrowing by the chants of "rise, rise" that accent the lyrics detailing of the shift from adoration to condemnation of a one true savior and the scornful adorning of a crown of thorns. At just 4 minutes, it rather efficiently opens the album's energetically dynamic ritualistic atmosphere as it ebbs and flows from the more boisterous chanting sections to the subdued eerieness of the verses and the simple yet cathartic climax of the vocal high near the end, showing immediately how well Sermon can take a relatively small serving of ingredients from the prog metal bar and do so much with it.

The eerily-named "Festival" continues the saga of the opening track as "the crowd rejoiced as the the savior suffered without choice" as the "clap their hands" mantra resounds throughout the track. Perhaps even more ominous and gradual in its build than the previous song, “Festival” is definitely a big part of the religious experience the album conjures. The stoic mantra repetition over the subdued rolls of the snare and subtly mixed and slightly distorted guitar provide the suspense the songs builds upon to reach its climax, which the dynamic shifts and choral accents along the way do so well to bring it toward.

"The Drift" is a little smoother and more atmospherically open than the two songs before it, by no means sleepy, still working in some busy tom drumming and guitar distortion amid the more swooning and occasionally falsetto vocals of the song, allowing the later ambient section in the middle to both actually feel like a breather and build into an ethereal post-metal crescendo of tremolo picking and increased cymbal crashes. Being one of the most serene cuts of the album, it doesn't really continue the tenseness that the first two songs, but it helps the overall energetic arc of album by not spending all the suspense it built up so quickly, resting in the pleasure of the previous two songs’ stimulation to build the anticipation and set up the intensity the the eventual climax, a phase of which comes up next. Lyrically, the song enters more abstract and similarly spacious territory revolving around the connection of the speaker (whoever it is) to the savior and to the bleeding Earth. It’s definitely more meditative where the previous two songs were more ceremonial and direct, a needed draft from the heat of the procession, which resumes in full force on the next track.

The album reaches its midpoint with the gritty double-bass-bolstered distortion grooves and overt metallic heaviness of "Contrition", which is the most straightforward modern blackened groove metal track on the album, but still makes interesting use of a few unforeseen musical twists: howling death growls, pinch harmonics, low-tuned guitar grooves, an apocalyptic choir/layered-vocal even some varied blast beats. The song’s subject matter takes the subject of contrition itself to an extreme with the lines “curse the sin in me / grant me the end I desire / watch me march into the fire” a frank and open expression of the speaker’s remorse and wish to be purified by hellfire. It’s as upfront lyrically as it is aggressive musically, providing a thrilling piece to join either halves of the album together.

Following the fire of “Contrition” the album moves into its last cool-down track of sorts: "Chasm". The song is another bit of an abstractly hopeful contrast to the more direct religious tumult of the album’s more energetic cuts, the speaker putting faith in prayer and a father’s hand to brave the falling of stars from the sky. While the waves of ambient guitar echoes of the intro do eventually crash upon the shores in with the cymbals that reel in the tides of greater instrumental fullness, the song remains rather spacious and contemplative amid the angelic choir voices as opposed to the cathartic self-condemnation of “Contrition”. It's not the most blood-pumping song on the album, rather another bit of a breather (which is needed) before the final two songs on the album.

The album comes through with perhaps the best representative of Sermon’s compositional strengths with "The Preacher". It’s a progressive metal masterpiece of a song not for any oversaturated mashing together of musical ideas it does in its mix or any overblown sense of grandiosity through easy means. Rather, the song accomplishes the thrilling journey and the grand sense of majesty of songs far more overblown by making all the dynamic shifts, motif changes, and accenting bursts of vocal energy Sermon incorporates count and making them as effective as they can be. It’s very much a comprehensive overview of everything Sermon has done so magnificently with prog metal’s most humble toolbox so far on the album. It also finds the album back at a more sinister thematic tone with the speaker most liker being a titular preacher of sorts claiming to offer the light of a savior through their insight. It’s not very specific about how the preacher is making this claim to the “children of sin”, but the subtle sense of underlying manipulation and malice at the lyrical level is made all the more overt with the dark musical delivery, and it is the dynamic of the instrumentation that makes it one of the album’s best pieces all around.

For it’s final piece, the album revisits the ominous scene set by the opening track with the expounding reprise of the patient and utterly beautifully climactic "The Rise of Desiderata". Invoking the famous poem about striving to create one’s own happiness, the song wraps up the wild ride of condemnation, abandonment, contrition, manipulation, and restoration of faith by coming full circle to the first-referenced savior. Musically, the album’s longest track does reach for and accomplish that slow build that prog does so well, taking its sweet time through an ethereal ambient section that does so gradually build up with layers of vocals, snare rolls, guitar distortion grooves and atmospheric layers, eventually reaching the denser and more metallic section just before the end and finishing in tremendously climactic fashion with the same chants of “rise, rise” that began the album, this time, summoning one’s own savior rather than the jeers of the cursing crowd. Honestly, as climactic as it is, it could have easily gone longer and pulled off even more musical explosion, but given the aspect of the album’s strength stemming from withholding from going too obnoxiously bombastic in typical prog metal fashion, it is perhaps more fittingly tempered as it is rather than as a classically overdone prog finale. And it is indeed still a satisfying and conclusively complete closing song that provides the right tonal and lyrical closure without spelling everything out too obviously or strictly.

Birth of the Marvelous is an album that is rewarding and thrilling to unpack and whose details and nuances are a joy to become more and more familiar with. It’s spiritual concept, while abstract and not necessarily the most complex, is well-arranged and ultimately proverbially valuable nonetheless. If there's one major standout feature of this album that takes it above the rest of the prog metal crop, it's very much Sermon's seemingly veteran expertise (despite this being the project's first album) with the dynamics that go into prog metal. It is an album with meticulously placed and effective accents all over that all feel to be in their right and natural places. It's very much in line with the type of clean, artisan progressive alternative metal that Soen has made their name on, but this is honestly far more thrilling than anything Soen have made, and considering that band's progress with Lykaia, it's the masterpiece the new Soen album this year should have at least tried to be. But this is not the time to get on about how Soen disappointed this year, rather how miraculously Sermon has risen from nothingness to spiritual prog metal’s highest peaks.

I love this album, and I have not been able to stop listening to it since hearing it; this is the one to beat for everything else coming out this year.

Awestruck and mesmerized/10

#sermon #birth of the marvelous #alternative metal #progressive metal #metal #heavy metal #new music #new album #album review #great album #sermon band

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sinceileftyoublog · 4 years

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Sightless Pit Interview: Grave of a Dog, Song by Song Breakdown

From left to right: Dylan Walker, Kristin Hayter, Lee Buford

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The trio of The Body’s Lee Buford, Lingua Ignota’s Kristin Hayter, and Full of Hell’s Dylan Walker have some history. The Body and Full of Hell had released two collaborative albums, and Hayter’s appeared on The Body’s records. But Sightless Pit is a true distillation of each of these artists while simultaneously existing as its own entity. And to them, it’s not just a side project. Sightless Pit is, to Walker, “the next most serious thing I have” after Full of Hell. Earlier this year, he spoke to me over the phone of desperately wanting to apply what he’s learned from his experiences in his “will play anywhere” best-known band--mistakes included--to the new one that’s a little more picky. This isn’t to say that Sightless Pit’s debut Grave of a Dog is composed--quite the opposite. Many of the songs started out with a minimal canvas and took shape on their own, often due to the nature of the instrumentation. (They used no guitars and instead noise devices, drum machines, a baby grand piano, and a lot of samples, including a John Phillip Sousa sample.) But the essence of Sightless Pit, as Walker repeatedly told me, lies in contrast best enhanced by atmosphere as pure as the collaboration itself. Recorded with Seth Manchester (“He understands and finesses things in a way we couldn’t do with anyone else,” Walker said), Grave of a Dog is singular because it ebbs and flows and thrives in extremes.

Read on as Walker breaks down the album, song by song, cover to cover.

Since I Left You: Sightless Pit is a collaboration of three artists who have collaborated before in various ways. Why was this the right time to do this exact iteration and a full album’s worth of songs?

Dylan Walker: I don’t think the timing was intentional at all. A couple years ago, though, Lee and I finally buckled down about starting a band because he had studio time at Machines with Magnets. He started working on beats. Kristin was there, too. She did some synthesizer and piano accompaniments to the songs. It added so much to the record. At first, I think Lee just wanted her to be a contributor, as The Body do with all of their guests. But it just seemed so critical to me, what she contributed, even from the first batch of recordings, that we had to have Kristin in the band. I didn’t know her that well at point. I had never met her in person. We were really friendly with each other, and we liked each other’s music a lot. We kind of blindly asked her to be in the band, and she was super into it. What she offers is so much different than what I can do and what Lee can do. It made it into a more full-bodied project. The timing didn’t have anything to do with it, but it took us ages to make the record, since we were all on tour. Lee doesn’t fly, so he only recorded one time to make up the beats, and Kristin and I went up to Providence to finish the record last year around this time. It was kind of sketchy. We didn’t want to mess with anything Lee had done or lose his vision, but thankfully, Machines with Magnets is such a cool studio, we were able to finesse things into a shape we were all into. We had no idea how it was gonna sound, either. There weren’t really a lot of guidelines to go on, which made it a little difficult for me to envision where the record was gonna go. But that was the cool part about it. It was very organic.

SILY: Now, at this point, Kristin has released CALIGULA, her biggest record to date, and has garnered her a fan base similar to The Body’s and Full of Hell’s. The first track, “Kingscorpse”, just sounds like the answer to the question, “What would a collaboration between Lingua Ignota, The Body, and Full of Hell sound like?” First, you hear her, then you hear Lee’s beats, and then you hear you. It’s sort of like, “Boom, boom, boom,” this is exactly what it’s gonna sound like.

DW: Even early on, we kind of thought that would be the first song, but when things were more formally taking shape, we decided as a group that should be the first track. It just feels like an introduction, like a palate cleanser to me. It’s the most normal, on-the-nose song on the record. It’s really hard to think of these songs as singles, since the whole thing is different the whole way through. I feel like it’s meant to be listened to together, the whole way through, not as singles, though that’s kind of how things go nowadays. But yeah, it’s a great first song. It’s pretty straightforward and has everybody’s voice in it pretty equally.

SILY: “Immersion Dispersal” introduces some other elements of the aesthetic, most prominently drone. To what extent was that song on the record and the record in general influenced by ambient music?

DW: I think it had a heavy influence on the whole record. “Immersion Dispersal”, I’m actually listening to it right now so I can remember what happened, because it’s such a long process. Certain songs on the record are really driving and dancey and more out front with their aggression. “Immersion Disperal” has some groove to it, with Lee playing saxophone and Kristin doing some juggalo rapping, which is kind of a joke, I guess.

SILY: “The Ocean of Mercy” has chants that are direct references to ritual dancing.

DW: Kristin and I are really into this collection of paranormal recordings. A lot of the recordings are from the 60′s and 70′s. It has a lot of cool ghost artifact recordings. But this one is exorcism. We sampled that a little bit and wanted something that breathes and cleanses your palate. This track is my favorite one on the record. It’s meditative. It sinks into you. There are a lot of layers on the track, but they’re very subtle, so the track feels minimalistic to me. Some of these tracks are so intensely blown out and in your face, that something like this is a nice breath. A literal ocean of mercy. The track kind of made me laugh when we named it. It made a lot of sense.

SILY: “Violent Rain” has a sort of dystopian quality to it. Was that something you were going for there?

DW: Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing with a lot of these songs. When these songs are started, there’s no intention to them. We don’t know what they’re gonna sound like. We start them, and they take shape on their own. They dictate to us how they should sound. At least that’s the vibe I get every time I’m in there. We build these songs from the bottom up. So basically, we had a collection of beats from Lee, and Kristin played synths on top, and we basically find a hook or something that makes the song fit into what we’re trying to do for the record.

“Violent Rain” drum-wise reminded me of an old band Lee was in that Spencer [Hazard] from Full of Hell and I were really into called Dead Times. They were extremely blown out, minimalistic, industrial doom. It was so brutal. The more simplistic the beat is, the more it channels that old style. I’m a big fan of it. It’s kind of this flowy, moody synth song, but these brutal drums swell in and out. Kristin’s piano and solo performance on top of it is a nice contrast. I’m just one little part of this thing. I’m not the architect by any means. But one thing I made clear to those guys was I really wanted to exemplify the harsh contrast between the ugliest sounds Lee and I can make and these beautiful, grandiose, soaring sounds Kristin is kind of known for, I guess. She makes all kind of sounds, ugly and beautiful, but that stark contrast always excited me. This was an extreme case study in that.

SILY: On "Drunk On Marrow” and “Miles Of Chain”, your screaming becomes an almost gargle, even more so than I’ve ever heard from your voice. To what extent do you think you pushed your voice on this record?

DW: I hate to say this, but I don’t really remember if I pushed my voice any harder in particularly. I definitely wanted the vocals on “Miles Of Chain” to be pretty wretched, so I kind of went for it there. It’s where my style is kind of leaning in the future, even with Full of Hell. Maybe less emphasis in making sure I pronounce things properly and more emphasis on making the gurgliest, most disgusting-sounding vocals I can muster at the time. It has more pronounced feeling, and obviously it sounds grosser. It has more area where I can sit in comfortably. So I can really push myself in that direction more.

SILY: The second to last track, “Whom The Devil Long Sought To Strangle”, blew my mind composition-wise the first time I heard it. With the three of you, especially The Body and Full of Hell, I have to tell myself, “Nothing’s off limits,” but when the explosion of screeches and screams came about at the end of this song, I was still surprised.

DW: Yeah, it turned out pretty cool. The sounds all the way through the song on top of the drums, that’s Kristin playing with the strings under this baby grand piano. We just want to get sounds any way we can get them. If it creates this cool, atmospheric landscape, that’s exactly what they want. I want it to expand between unsettling ambiance, explosions, and nice, dancey beats. We didn’t intentionally go into it knowing what kind of contrast was gonna be there, and it kind of grew into its own thing. This record is really organic. I’m still truly wondering whether people are going to like it. None of us really know how to describe it, but it does feel like all three of us. I’m not too worried about it. If some people like it, that’s cool. I’m glad we made it.

SILY: Why did you decide to end it with “Love Is Dead, All Love Is Dead”?

DW: It’s just a depressing song. This whole record was about walking away from things you love. This song is just sad. It has almost like a hopeful note at the end, too. I think it’s really beautiful. It’s not just miserable and caustic. It’s dynamic. It’s not singular or just ugly. I didn’t do a lot on this track. I did some background noise for texture. The song is purely a Kristin performance. It has layers. It’s not ugly. It’s a beautiful sounding song. But it’s crushingly sad to me.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the band name?

DW: You know, I had that name in my name bank I keep in my phone for a long time. I wanted to use it for a Full of Hell song. It’s actually a location in an Elder Scrolls game. Pretty nerdy, but I was so struck by the wording. It felt so perfect. In terms of how this record sounds, too, it was pretty fitting. We were tossing around names, and it stuck with everybody. This hopeless, deep, unknown place.

SILY: What about the album title?

DW: “Grave of a Dog” was this incredibly sad title Lee had sitting around that he wanted to use for this band. We all really love dogs. I feel like “Grave of a Dog” is such a brutal, sad title. It’s dual-fold, too. It could be the grave of a dog, or the grave of a person not even worth a name. Overall, it’s just crushingly sad. That’s kind of Lee’s specialty.

I have a couple Corgis, and I’m a big baby about them. When I went on tour for the first time, I had really terrible separation anxiety. Every tour I’m going on added up, I’m missing a third of this dog’s life. Am I going to regret this when this dog passes, god forbid? It was worth it for me to be away from him for a third of his life, but it was really fucking with me for a couple years. It was this time sync crisis. There are a lot of different ways to interpret the title, though. I’m sure Lee could give you a whole different fucking explanation. There’s some anonymity to it, but also a very literal definition.

SILY: What about the album art?

DW: That was my concept. We were having trouble with a direction for the artwork. When the record was shaping up, I was pretty excited about it. I was proud to be a part of it. I wanted art that was good. You could so easily shrug it off and do just about whatever. I didn’t want something like that to be just shrugged off. I thought it was so cool for the cover to be just entirely black, with the outline of the three of us shrouded. We had a friend shoot for us. The logo, even before we knew what this project was gonna sound like, the aesthetic I had in my head was very rococo, very gilded and flowery and lengthy looking. My friend Mark McCoy, who I’m such a fan of, did the logo. I wanted it to be extravagantly beautiful, and a great contrast with the ugliness of the music. I need to really get that logo out there as much as possible. It’s unique--I don’t see a lot that look like that.

The insert has some flower arrangements a friend shot for us. I wanted some warm color to contrast the blackness, but not on the outside of the record. The outside had to be essentially a black hole. That was the impetus for that artwork.

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been listening to, reading, or watching lately that’s caught your attention?

DW: I haven’t been able to watch movies or TV for a couple months now. I’ve been in this weird phase where I only watch YouTube. I’ve been watching really weird YouTubers, those monotonous, shit-talking people who just rant. It’s weird--it’s not entertaining, and I feel bad for my wife. There’s always some stupid fucking 40-minute rant video on where the guy is eating something disgusting and choking on it or throwing up or naked. That’s where I’m at. I’m only watching the most freebased form of whatever TV is. Straight up garbage.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Natalie Rose LeBrecht. I can’t even describe her--I don’t know where she’s from. But this record, Mandarava Rose, is so beautiful. It has a ton of instruments on it and is so soothing. I’ve been listening to a lot of Tony Molina. He’s a really great songwriter. His songs are extremely short, funny, and sad.

SILY: Full of Hell beat him by one spot in our top albums list of last year.

DW: That’s so sick. I’m glad you guys like Tony Molina, too. I was such a huge Ovens fan, first. It’s so crucial. But then I got into his solo records. There’s some loud stuff but a lot of acoustic stuff, too. It’s so interesting how short his songs are. He’s a punk dude, and it’s interesting to see how that aspect of punk translates to power pop songs. The leads are insane. He’s self deprecating in a way that’s not corny, just funny and sad. His records don’t wear out for me. I’ve also been listening to a lot of Stooges lately. Oddly enough, I randomly came across King Krule. I knew the name forever and never bothered to listen. I was listening to that record 6 Feet Beneath the Moon that came out a few years ago. It’s so sick. He’s so talented. It’s really fun to listen to. I’ve also been listening to a lot of hard, beat-heavy house music. There’s this label in England called NUXXE, run by the artists Shygirl and COUCOU CHLOE. I think they’re referring to it as post-club music, but it’s really noisy, with ignorant-ass beats.

SILY: Do you subscribe to any Twitch channels?

DW: I think Twitch requires too much intelligence to sign up for. YouTube has some serious weirdos. I don’t want to listen to guys who are intentionally trying to be funny. There are just some YouTubers I’ve been following for a long time that I’ve been really back into lately. I feel like in one way, it’s funny and dark to see these people pouring all this time into it, but in a totally serious way, I think it’s kind of beautiful that something like YouTube exists and gives a platform to people who might not have a lot of friends or have a healthy way to cope with the world around them or don’t like interacting with the world. Because YouTube exists, these people have a following of people that exist and that they can talk to. I think people undervalue it when they talk shit about weirdos that have 5,000 videos on YouTube of shit-talking. Nothing like this existed before for them. I may find it funny, but I refrain from ridiculing someone because they’re eccentric. I follow these people and see where their journey takes them. Every town’s got one. It’s pretty wild. There’s even a guy in the town next to me. He’s been doing it for a decade and reviews all kinds of stuff. It’s pretty incredible. I guess I have bad taste--I like boring, stupid shit like that. I’m gonna fly my flag and run with it: I’m a weirdo who watches other weirdos on YouTube.

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houstonlocalus-blog · 7 years

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Football, etc. Grows Their Sound On “Corner”

Football, etc. Photo: Gia Quillap

In music, no matter what you may want to happen, bands can’t make the same albums over and over again, unless they’re maybe AC/DC. The truth is that any fan of a band should want the group to grow and mature as artists. On their new full length, Houston’s Football, etc. do just that, they grow and shed the bulk of their emocore leanings. In fact, Corner finds the band heading in a more indie rock direction that results in a sound that’s more focused and open to more tastes than that of the emo underground. Possibly the band’s strongest release to date, the ten songs are full of energy and emotion, while taking their sound to a whole new place that delights anyone who gives it a spin.

Opening with the more melodic nature of “Save,” it’s quickly apparent that the band isn’t making the traditional album here. The dual vocals alone that mix with the intense cluster of drums, guitar, and bass create a sound that’s closer to acts like Superchunk than you might be expecting. The band still sounds the same with Lindsay Minton’s vocals, but the structure of the track echoes a band that’s taking things to a beautifully more open direction. They follow this with the more sonically diverse and slower sounds of “Try Out.” The song immediately reminded me of acts like Sharon Van Etten or Waxahatchee, where the slow melodies of the instrumentation and Lindsay’s vocals come together to offer up one of the many stand out tracks of the release. The fuzz of the guitar mixed with a backing vocal track underneath the main vocals and Daniel Hawkins’ snappy drums give the listener a sound that’s hard not to fall in love with. The closest the band comes to their emo past happens on the third track, “Foul.” However, as close as it gets to the trio’s older sound, that doesn’t mean that this isn’t a leaner and more strengthening sound. The song will stick with you for days after just one listen, and sticks to you with its head bopping pace and catchy chorus.

The band takes a more slow stride on “I Believe,” further mixing things up as to what they’re up to on this release. There’s a more complex structure here, only proving that the band is definitely growing more than many within their genre. This is followed by the stark and tender sound of “Space,” where the song sounds so autobiographical that the lyrics are some that really stay with you. The amount of depth on the song, complete with a more complex structure than that of the band’s previous releases really showcases their sound as a unit. The bridge alone echoes sounds of indie rock progressions, and gives the listener another song that’s nothing like what Football, etc. has done in the past. The band returns to a more driving sound on “Eleven,” where the indie rock vibes with emo undertones are so strong that another stand out of the release will haunt you with each and every time you place the song on repeat. The balance between the bass from Mercy Harper, the melody driven guitar from Minton, and Hawkins’ drums really brings the track to a more flush sound that offers up more diversity as the three piece takes their sound to a whole new place.

This continues on the head bopper, “Advantage,” complete with a hook heavy guitar and verse that you can’t forget. If what the band is doing here is what they have planned for their future releases, I say bring it on. The mix of melodies on the song is definitely welcomed and is a journey you’re more than happy to take with the band, which continues on the eighth song “Overtime.” The band seems to indulge a more post punk vibe on “Nutmeg,” with an almost dissonant guitar that works so well, that you want to hear the song over and over. With a sound that’s closer to the early works of bands like Wire and Stiff Little Fingers, it’s still unmistakably Football, etc. but also something fresh and new that’s pretty amazing to hear. The album gets closed off with the slow and meandering sound of “U20.” While the elements of emocore run high on this song, the beauty of the vocals that seem to cut through the heavily melodic guitar that seems to pick up and slow down as soon as it starts to get going. When the chorus hits, it hits hard with a fuzzy guitar and a heavy vocal that gives you a sense of something personal that has to be said.

The end result is a sound from a band that’s growing into spaces that shed their earlier past in favor for something fresh and invigorating. By returning to work with famed producer J. Robbins again, Football, etc. proves that a band can grow while keeping many elements of their core sound intact in the process.

You can stream Corner here, or grab a copy from Community Records here. Or you can grab a copy from the band when they play their album release party at Rudyard’s on June 10. The 21 & up show will also feature the tape release from Houston’s Ruiners who will be on as direct support, as well as a set from Austin’s Yorick, and an opening set from Houston’s Greg Cote & the Real Life Friends with doors at 8 pm and an $8 cover.

Football, etc. Grows Their Sound On “Corner” this is a repost

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