Canadian Audiophile’s Mishaps and Misadventures

Amidst cascading walls of noise and remorseless choruses of sound, a sort of ailing splendour lurks below the black metal of Withered. Formed in 2003, the Atlanta four-piece is an incorporation of sludge, grindcore, death metal, and every other flaming thing between.

Their latest, Folie Circulaire, is on the aptly-named Prosthetic Records. You may wind up missing a limb after listening to this one.

With vocals channelled from the depths of Niflheimr (that’s a Norse concept for the underworld) and guitars that whirl around like vampire bats out for blood, the sound of Withered is rather easy to peg. To all intents and purposes, it’s the devil’s music.

The cavernous mire and dirt is mined from the depths of the Dark Lord’s mind and the anomalous harmonious portions seem placed purely as a counterfeit reprieve for the castigation of weighty bass and drums that saturate the whole thing like a beat driving someone to ruin.

I mean that in a good way!

The fatal mauling of Folie Circulaire blares through the sonic doom attack of the “The Fated Breath,” which is led by Napalm Death’s Barney Greenway. It’s as though Death has warmed over and is reaching through the stereo speakers for another participator.

Withered’s bloody assault keeps tearing away with its claws, imposing its sadistic spirit with textbook death metal on tracks like “Gnosis Unveils.” With a beautifully sick melody serving as a prologue, “Gnosis Unveils” quickly turns into a pit of horror and swallows up anything in its wake.

Truly epic shit.

Folie Circulaire even contains an elegy (maybe) to John McCain (“Purification of Ignorance”) and a cover of Necrophobic’s “Into Armageddon” to close things off.

Withered’s second album is a fierce follow-up to Memento Mori and should grant the quartet a spot in the annals of extreme music. It is a vicious record worthy of many spins for lovers of lethal and shadowy metal. The band’s attention to detail proves gratifying, as the swirling guitars and thundering vocal beating fuse for one of the best metal albums of the year.

8/10

Nat King Cole’s 10th Anniversary was a momentous release in 1955 because it marked one of the first times a label mined its vaults and released unreleased tracks to the public. Such a practice might not seem like a big deal in the “download age,” but back in good ol’ ’55, it was something out of the ordinary.

Cole was a substantial success since he had signed with Capitol Records in 1943 as the leader of the King Cole Trio. He was skilled as a jazz pianist at that point, but more attention was being paid to his vocal talents. Cole’s tunes started to feature more and more vocals until he pretty much left the piano bench for a career as a full-time vocalist. The collection of music found on 10th Anniversary is culled from his jazz and easy-listening days and highlights a time of growth and transition.

By the time 10th Anniversary came out, Cole had announced to the world that he was going solo and would be leaving the King Cole Trio moniker behind. The album, then, reflected a bit of a shift and gave fans a chance to hear both where Nat King Cole had been and where Nat King Cole was going with the rest of his extraordinary career.

The reissue of 10th Anniversary in 2008, along with the reissue of many Nat King Cole albums, marks this period of transition with solid presentation. Many of the songs from 10th Anniversary have never been featured on CD before, so for Cole fans this collection will be a real treat. In fact, this is the first time this album has been reissued in any form since its first release. For collectors, that’s a pretty big deal.

One side of the album (remember when albums used to come with “sides?”) is dedicated to King Cole Trio recordings from its later stages, mostly featuring material from between 1945 and 1949. The Trio, comprised of Cole on piano and vocal, Oscar Moore on guitar, and Johnny Miller on bass, were among the first jazz groups to set up the now-popular arrangement of guitar, bass, and piano.

The Trio sounds splendid on classics like “Dream A Little Dream of Me,” “The Love Nest,” and “I’m an Errand Boy for Rhythm.” The album features three different configurations of the Trio, as on some tracks Irving Ashby moves in to play guitar and Joe Comfort takes over on bass. Regardless of the formation, the King Cole Trio works like a dream. “Lulubelle,” which features Ashby on guitar, is a grand example of the ability of the Trio to fit together under Cole’s guidance.

The second side of the record features vocal recordings and a more orchestral sound. Arranged by Capitol Records hit-makers like Pete Rugolo, Dave Cavanaugh, and Les Baxter, the second part of the album reflects more of where Nat King Cole was headed with his stellar career. He takes center stage and commands every song with care and his trademark vocal style.

Whether he’s singing a majestic ballad (“Lovelight”) or a big band number (“I Wish I Were Somebody Else”), Cole commands with his ability to adapt to various genres. One interesting little ditty is “The Story of My Wife,” which manages to be sweet and fun without being tacky. Nat King Cole always had a gift for singing with charm and affection that drew people in to the music. That gift is evident all over 10th Anniversary.

Nat King Cole’s 10th Anniversary is a collector’s dream. Featuring a nice compilation of songs that represents a transitional era in his career, this album will be a must-have for lovers of Nat King Cole’s everlasting excellence. Personally, I’ll be returning to this recording again and again.

8/10

And there she was. The woman in red drew attention to herself like a crimson angel on the wrong side of town on a stormy night where nothing was what it seems and everything was just a little…different.

I approached her from across the crowded smoky room with a drink in my left hand, and a lighter for her cigarette in my right. Ready for anything, I calmly drew near and flicked the flame out just in time. Her cigarette greeted my warm flame like two lovers who hadn’t seen each other for a while. She smiled.

I stole a glance at her figure quickly, hoping to go unnoticed by the dame in red. She had a body that’d make a bishop kick out a stained glass window and lips that seemed to say “Thank you, I’m yours.” Her purse was slung over her left shoulder and she held it tight as though protecting something.

Everybody’s protecting something here.

In the middle of all of this smoke – or is it smoke and mirrors? – comes Larry Vuckovich and his gang of jazz thugs. Without warning, the sounds of High Wall: Real Life Film Noir fill the crowded smoky room and people are paying attention to something else besides their drinks and besides their respective women in red.

See, Larry’s a pro.

He’s what hipsters in jazz call a “rare bird.” Proud of his Slavic heritage and making no jokes about his love for film noir, Vuckovich has been filling smoky rooms with beautiful music as though it flows straight from his veins. 2006 saw Street Scene, a critically-acclaimed marvel that saw him join with stellar jazz musicians under a dim street lamp somewhere to create gorgeous and haunting sounds. With the page turned midway on 2008, High Wall: Real Life Film Noir picks up where Street Scene left off.

Vuckovich has composed High Wall because of his interest in the themes of deception, false accusations, and The Big Lie. Perhaps for me, The Big Lie is somewhere in the red woman’s purse.

Based on a 1947 film noir of the same name, Vuckovich’s High Wall references the barrier to the truth that we all sometimes wind up facing. Larry knows that barrier well, having grown up in a Communist regime in Yugoslavia. Throughout his life, he’s looked for the truth wherever he can find and has produced music based around that search for reality.

The musicians joining Vuckovich must be searching for the same sense of truth because the musical cohesion as evidenced in the arrangements is truly something special. Larry’s accomplices move through a variety of tones, taking on Afro 6/8 rhythm in “Afro 6/8 Minor Blues” and sweeping through film themes in Bronislaw Kaper’s “High Wall” or his own composition “View from Telegraph Hill.”

Vuckovich also works through jazz-funk with precision (“Put It Where You Want It”) and organizes his crew through classic blues patterns on Coltrane’s blazing hot “Locomotion.”

As I find myself drifting off through the Eastern European patterns of “Gypsy Roma Mambo (Dark Eyes),” I start to realize that the woman in red is gone.

Frantically, I turn around and look behind me for just a glimpse of the sweet crimson dress or the beautiful lips. She’s gone. Nothing remains but a memory and the eerie possibilities of The Big Lie in her purse.

8/10

Ashanti has always struck me as one of those doomed-for-background-vocals type girls. Her unexceptional voice was always better suited to singing hooks behind some over-exuberant, crusty pop-rapper. After a set of mild albums and singles, Ashanti stepped outside of her standard set of producers from The Inc. and put out the album she’d always wanted to make with 2008’s The Declaration.

Ashanti’s voice is never brilliant. But unlike the other R&B paragons of mediocrity, Ashanti has a certain appeal as the star in front of her songs. She doesn’t grant a cure for insomnia like Cassie and she’s not as pedestrian as the ladies from Danity Kane, but she’s not particularly good either.

What can one say about The Declaration other than to press the point that this is about as average as average gets? It will sell well, it’s easy-to-digest and flavourless, and it’s wholly unremarkable.

There are tracks here that are respectable, proving that the Ja Rule duets from hell are in the rear-view mirror. Take “Body on Me,” for instance. The catchiness of the track and the services of Akon and Nelly create a concrete single which should see plenty of chart time.

The piano-heavy “The Way that I Love You” is a good tune too and Ashanti makes fine use of the limitations of her voice by confining herself to a level-headed range. She stays safe here, as she always does, but it somehow works with the undulating production of the track.

The cooingly sexy “Things You Make Me Do” is a tantalizing track, as Ashanti writhes and breathes with a sort of Janet Jackson sensuality. A video for this song would be scorching.

Unhappily, those three exceptions aside, the bulk of The Declaration feels less like a decree of autonomy and more like the same old bag of feeble tricks. The light “Good Good” is fronted by a bored-sounding Ashanti and the yawn-inducing “Struggle” doesn’t provide anything noteworthy either.

The Declaration continues to prove Ashanti as a background singer pretending to be a lead artist. She’s certainly not as mind-numbing as some other performers, but Ashanti’s fundamental lack of individuality and character do little to make The Declaration memorable.

4/10

The fusion of genres is an art form. Reliant entirely on the inventiveness of music journalists and fans with too much time on their hands, genre fusion is a wordsmith’s orgiastic feast. With no moderation and very few rules, words are created that help sum up the various changes in the nuances of music. The official name for this fusion of two words is portmanteau.

For our purposes, we’ll use one such portmanteau to describe ferocious Alaskan group 36 Crazyfists: metalcore.

The band’s first release on Ferret Music and fifth album overall, The Tide and Its Takers is a courageous record to follow up the critically-acclaimed Rest Inside the Flames from 2006.

With metalcore as the halfway house between metal and hardcore punk music, it’s easy to see how 36 Crazyfists live up to their billing. Screaming and yelling is bolstered by unusually saccharine melodies throughout The Tide and Its Takers, making the album a near-schizophrenic stew of styles.

Vocalist Brock Lindow leads the way and cuts a lethal swath of devastation through songs like “Clear the Coast.” “When we fall from grace, we must rise from the dead,” he shouts in defiance over frantic guitars and vocal accompaniment from Adam Jackson of Ohio rockers Twelve Tribes.

Mick Whitney’s bass and Thomas Noonan’s drums provide an efficacious underpinning, but it’s Steve Holt – Arrested Development fans? – who serves as the cement for the band. His guitar rips through outstanding riffs and solid support segments with meticulousness, serving as the ideal companion to Lindow. Holt also provides some backing vocals.

The Tide and Its Takers really displays the band’s range. Explosive riffs give way to Lindow’s multiple personalities and Noonan’s stellar drums beat a pattern across the Alaskan wilderness, making this a record that will surely shatter some windows and break some ground.

The utter viciousness of tracks like “The All Night Lights” and “Vast and Vague” paint the guys as a cruel and unruly assembly of metalcore seekers of reality, unpacking absolute brutal exactness with scrupulous attention to detail. Whether it’s Noonan’s relentless drums, Whitney’s solid bass, or Holt’s sick guitar, 36 Crazyfists will beat your stereo into submission.

Taken as a whole, this is a well-played and well-produced album. The Tide and Its Takers is a solid look at a talented and seasoned metalcore band whose fearless approach has made them trustworthy players on the scene.

7/10

Visions of Martha making her way down a fire escape frantically with the strap of a high-heeled shoe in her mouth and a wadded-up pair of panties gripped in her hand temper I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too with a sense of urgency and a sense of treachery and a sense of peril.

Part broken-hearted, part howl-at-the-moon, part soulful-shitstorm, the stellar youngest Wainwright is often noted for being a ball of emotion (most of it directed at the shitty parenting skills of Loudon Wainwright III) and a citadel of profane and unrefined impulse. She’s also despairingly needy and distressed; a true trickster with a hiked-up skirt and a wounded soul attached to the bottle.

Aw hell, it’s light and shade for all of us in the end anyway.

I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too exemplifies the gloomy patterns we fall into in hopes of finding pleasure. By focusing on our lost wishes and our frantic, obsessive dreams, we’re able to give a blessing to a small splinter of sunshine before once again shrinking back into the shadows to bear witness to our own devices.

It’s not surprising that the cover of Martha’s second album – and can you believe that? – features her prone on a sofa, legs bare, ready to victimize or be victimized. This record is that openness, it is that austerity, and it is that discrimination.

Take for instance “Bleeding All Over You,” fierce title and all. She messily lays her soul out and suffers the wounded results: “My heart was made for bleeding all over you/And I know you’re married but I’ve got feelings too/But I still love you.”

Martha seeks implicit approval incessantly and is incessantly frayed or flung by love and living, it seems. On “So Many Friends,” she bemoans the direction her life has taken. “I have lost so many friends/I have gained so many memories.”

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Thankfully, dear Martha has found her way through the depths of her tormented choices and the directions her life has taken her. She is more than willing to look forward and courteously assembles what she can. “Comin’ Tonight” lets us know that she’s still searching for that encounter and is willing to forget it when it’s done.

But in the end, what can Martha do?

A tempest of bad choices – that’s why we love her – and a throng of heroic attempts rush through her life in song with frankness and audacity. She’ll get up again. She’ll climb down another fire escape. And we’ll be there, every step of the way.

8/10

For deeply introspective and powerful instrumental post-rock/metal, Russian Circles are tough to beat. Alternating cogently between jarring slow passages and thundering heavy metal textures, the Chicago-based trio formed in 2004 and has since been releasing expansive soundscapes with incredible consistency.

Station marks the group’s second full-length album. It is constructed with intense care and attention to detail. Each note unfolds like a petal on a dark rose, adding mood and ambience to the profoundly engaging compositions.

Fans of Russian Circles will likely find less heaviness on Station, which may be disappointing for fans who know what they want. Some may even find the record to be somewhat underwhelming. With expectations of mammoth metal violence, the light and calculated guitar found throughout Station will be unexpected.

The intensity of the compositions should not so easily be cast aside, however. This is one hell of a great record. Station is filled with enormous levels of texture, with some songs sounding like classic Tool and others flowing more like symphonic arrangements.

Regardless of the possible influences, Russian Circles have composed a series of seven masterpieces.

Station expands with steady intention and dispenses with “thundering for thundering’s sake” type metallurgy. Instead, the trio builds songs appropriately and efficiently.

The heavy metal bursts arrive as the innate expansion of dominant construction and not simply as an expected emblem of the band’s sound. When guitars rip through the shell, it’s because they belong there as a natural element and not because they simply exist in the genre as an accepted part of the madness.

It will certainly be said that there’s a bit too much substance here to go around and that will be a suitable appraisal for those who enjoy their music in certain containers. For the rest of us, however, the eagerness to follow the rabbit hole is a gratifying journey.

Russian Circles play with ambience and electronic pieces here, adding cement to tracks like the excellent “Youngblood” without sacrificing the essence. The turbulent guitar rips through the surface to provide an inconceivable experience.

Other tracks rise and crash down like massive waves, such as the ill-omened “Harper Lewis” or the Tool-esque “Station,” both of which hurtle and collide as though in the midst of a violent tempest.

That tempest controls Station, pushing and pulling the music in multiple directions for a serious sonic attack. The seven-song-squall is a post-rock lovers’ dream, a hazardous kaleidoscope of might and madness, and a damn good rock record worthy of several spins with speakers gutsy enough to handle it.

9/10