Showing posts with label Beach House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beach House. Show all posts

Friday, December 30, 2022

My Ten Favorite Albums of 2022

Whereas last year, I had moments that suggested I may not be able to cull ten new records for a list, this year I had no similar problems. LOTS of new music in 2022. What follows is the list of my ten favorite albums released in 2022.




Top Ten Albums 2022:


10) Beach House -  Once Twice Melody


I've been a bit slow on the uptake with Beach House. While I've been partaking in their music for probably close to ten years, I always kept them at arm's length. In fact, it wasn't until two or so years ago that my cousin Charles recommended I give the track "Elegy to the Void" my undivided attention. That song, from the band's 2015 album Thank Your Lucky Stars, proved to be the track that opened an entirely new dimension to the band's music for me. Since then, every album that drops plays a slightly more important role in my year, culminating with this year's double album, Once Twice Melody, which, like Mastodon's Hushed and Grim last year and another 2022 album higher on this list, is a double album with NO fat. Every track is perfect, the order is essential, and it all builds into a fitting snapshot of the quieter moments of my 2022.



9) H6LLB6ND6R - Side A


Here's a first - H6LLB6ND6R is made up of the Addams family, who also have a film in my top ten films this year! The movie is likewise titled Hellbender, and just like this record, it's a really fresh take on what a stripped-down, independent project can accomplish. If this is bedroom-producing, I want more. Every track has a hook, and yet, the sludgy, pummeling goodness still hits hard. Add in an early Jucifer-vibe to the doubled vocals, and I just couldn't put this one down. 


8) Greg Puciato - Mirrorcell


Everything Greg Puciato does moves the needle well into the red with me. Mirrorcell is no different. That first single, "Lowered" with Reba Meyers from Code Orange is a massive track, and really helped to define my year. The rest of the album takes the slightly fractured feeling of Puciato's first solo record, Child Soldier, and smooths it into a more coherent whole. I miss the f*ck out of DEP, but I can't really complain when their singer is giving us albums of this calibre.


7) Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror


Until Leather Terror, Carpenter Brut's records always felt like they were half-there to me. I dig several of them to varying degrees, and the OST to Blood Machines is fantastic (but that's a score, and thus, something a bit different than an album), but there's always been a... I don't know, call it a whimsy that sneaks into the vibe and leaves me a bit cold. But that's just me. I also think my regard for CB may have suffered by my being such a fan of Perturbator-  anyone else working in that realm of "Synthwave" or whatever you want to call it felt a few notches behind. 

But as I said, ALL of that is my own baggage, and should not be misconstrued as judgment against the extremely accomplished musician known as Carpenter Brut, who proves me 100% full of shit on this new album. This one SLAMS, the guest vocalists all do fantastic work, and the one-two of tracks "Day Stalker" and "Night Prowler" is something to behold. 

Baggage ejected; can't wait for the next record!!!

6) The Mysterines - Reeling


My elevator pitch for this band is meant to evoke honor, and yet I realize it essentially sells the Mysterines short. "PJ Harvey singing for BRMC" is enough to convince folks to give this band a chance, but having listened to the record countless times and seen them live (my first post-vaccination show), a comparison like that does nothing to convey the raw gifts on display in Reeling's perfectly tight 13 songs. This is Rock n' Roll that lives and breathes with a confidence and cool that places it right up there in the lexicon of bands that will live forever - Iggy, Bowie, the aforementioned PJ and Motorcycle Club. A lot of that is owed to singer/guitarist Lia Metcalfe, who emotes a conjuration somewhere between Nick Cave's mystic knowledge and PJ's "Fuck U" attitude.

5) Final Light - Final Light


Brutal, majestic, mysterious: take the neon pentagram glow of Perturbator's music and wash it in the medieval blood of the north often associated with Black Metal and you still can't quite get close to capturing the sonic environment of this record. One thing's for sure though: It's a storm! 

I've spent A LOT of time this year using Lustmord's various instrumental music as a soundtrack to my writing because of the doorways his musical manipulations open. Maybe more than anything else on this list, Final Light provides a very similar experience. There are dark places herein, but they're inspiring and beautiful and, if you catch them just right, they'll take you places you won't be expecting.

4) Sylvaine - Nova


I'd never heard of Sylvaine until I saw them open for another band on this list, and live they absolutely blew me away. When I fired up this year's Nova album I found that, just like that live show, this band's studio mastery creates an all-encompassing experience that is visceral and beautiful and at times, sad and scary. That's pretty much exactly what I want from my Post-Black-Metal-Folk-bands, and Nova shot to the top of that list the moment I hit play on this one.

3) Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

To quote my good friend Keller as we stood in L.A.'s Echoplex this past October watching Z&A tear through 80% of the new, eponymous record, "These guys are truly post-genre." Yep. Every album just gets bigger and better. Can't wait for the next. 

2) Ghost - Impera


I was not a super fan of Ghost's previous record, Prequelle, and while I've never stopped recognizing Tobias Forge's genius, his work doesn't always align with my taste or what I perceive as the promise whispered by those first two-and-a-half Ghost albums. So in the run-up to the release of this year's Impera, I had assumed this would be another quasi-disappointment. 

Wrong. This is easily my favorite Ghost album behind Infestissumam. Something about the arranging and songwriting on this one - I'm not sure if it's because I'm at a place where I have reassessed and embraced so much 80s Hard Rock I once detested, but I feel elements of a lot of that here, only transmogrified into something sleek and modern. Side A closing tracking "Watcher in the Sky" is my favorite song by the band behind "Year Zero," as well as my second favorite song of the year, and it carries a lot of weight here. That said, every single track moves me and gets stuck in my heart, even the mellowest ones, because they all fit together into this beautiful puzzle called Impera and make for a thrilling snapshot of an artist who has still yet to tap into his reserves.

1) Orville Peck - Bronco


It is a rare breed, the musician who can follow up a widely praised - and deservedly so - debut album with an even better sophomore record, let alone one that is a double album. Orville Peck, however, knocked this one so far out of the park, Pony seems like it came out a decade ago. Bronco is thrilling, with every track outshining the previous in lyrics, melody, and above all instrumentation. Like Impera, Bronco takes what has come before and influenced it - in this case the pomp and circumstance of 70s country instrumentation - and weaves it into a beautiful portrait of the years that preceded the album and those yet to come. Also, like Impera, one of the songs on the A Side - in this case, "Out of Time" - is my favorite of the year. What a perfect fit to my exodus from California and my move to Tennessee. 

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

New Beach House!!!

 

New Beach House to welcome us back to the land of the waking and working this Wednesday morning. I need it. The album Once Twice Melody drops... well, I don't know that I quite understand the release schedule for this one, so let me just post the pre-order link to the band's site HERE and copy and paste the itinerary directly from the video below: 


ONCE TWICE MELODY RELEASE SCHEDULE 
Chapter One: November 10, 2021 
Chapter Two: December 8, 2021 
Chapter Three: January 19, 2022 
Chapter Four: February 18, 2022 (LP, CD, and cassette available)




Watch:

Holy F&*k, and that's all I have to say about this. 


I really hope none of this is red herring (I fish I don't particularly care for.)




NCBD:

Another fantastic NCBD Wednesday. Short and sweet as far as the commentary this week, let me just mention how much I've grown to love Maw over the past two issues, and am very much looking forward to issue #3.
Oh yeah, and Primordial is just the bee's knees at this point. Andrea Sorrentino's art is next level. There are narrative mechanics at work even just in his layouts that represent enormous leaps forward for the medium - leaps I think it will be years before other people build upon. 




Playlist:

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - The Helm of Sorrow
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man
Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God
Emma Ruth Rundle - Engine of Hell
Mastodon - Hushed and Grim
Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch: Censor OST
Slayer - Show No Mercy
Code Orange - Underneath




Card:


Another nod to completion, which leaves me slightly perplexed. That's half the fun, though. I always think of this card as an indication of balance - or at least a suggestion to strive for it. And truth be told, my balance is way out of whack right now. So maybe that's what I need to focus on right now. If it wasn't for this damn day job...

Thursday, September 13, 2018

2018: September 13th



Beach House have apparently agreed to tell the story of my life in song.

I am still living HIGH off that Mandy screening on Tuesday night. There are so many people I'm trying to reach out to and tell them they will love it, moreso even if they see it in a good theatre with great sound. I'm already planning to see it again either this weekend or next.

NCBD yesterday:


And a preview for a new book coming out from Image/Top Cow on October 10. Infinite Dark feels like an awesome space Sci Fi rumination on the end of the world and humanity in general, but set in outer space, and I'm pretty excited to have creator/writer Ryan Cady will be our guest tomorrow night when we take Drinking with Comics on the road to El Cuervo Gallery in El Segundo!


Playlist from 9/11:
Ghostland Observatory - See You Later Simulator

Playlist from 9/12:
Dead Rabbits - The Ticket that Exploded
The Ocean - Permain: The Great Dying Pre-Release Single
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Ennio Morricone - Black Belly of the Tarantula OST
Sinoia Caves - Beyond the Black Rainbow OST

Card of the day:


I'm going with change of mood on this one, as something happened yesterday that totally revamped my current outlook on a project.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

2018: June 19th



Gorgeous new Beach House video.

Watched Evil Dead (2013) for about the fifth time last night, as K had never seen it. SO fucking good. Please Mr. Alvarez, make that sequel!!!

Playlist from 6/18:

Chasms - On the Legs of Love Purified
Wrong - Fee Great
Cocksure - TVMALSV
Beach House - 7
Nothing - Zero Day (single)
Them are Us Too -
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley

Card today:


The Emotional Aspect of Air. Wielding the Will with emotional maturity. Knowing when to back off and when to be assertive.