Sunday
9:29 a.m. woke up and listened to “Cuddle With Me” by
Gentlemen X, a song I found at a very severely compromised bitrate
on Audiogalaxy some time ago. Smooth, sensitive, my-but-you-look-lovely-tonight
R & B.
9:35: The Weakerthans, Reconstruction Site. Note to Sean Carruthers:
you’re right, I was wrong — this is fucking awesome.
I still think Fallow was weak, and especially the rip-its-own-balls-off
version of “Anchorless” on it. Sue me. But I was
gravely in error not to have listened to this album in its entirety
before now. It is simply outstanding.
10:09: Mastodon, “Workhouse” (from Remission).
Everybody here knows just how completely fierce Mastodon is,
right? Right?
11:00: Bruce Dickinson, The Best of Bruce Dickinson. I listen
right up through “The Tower,” which is one of the
best metal songs EVER. After that, what’s the point in
going on? Twin guitars, standard-bearer vocals, better beat than
you’ll hear in practically any mainstream metal act. At
some point I think I’m going to have to look into The
Chemical Wedding, the album on which “The Tower” originally
appeared. This song marks the loudest volume at which I’ve
played any one record this week.
5:39 p.m.: All week long I’ve had Krisiun’s Works
of Carnage at or near the top of the stack. Somehow it keeps
getting pushed back. Just now, then, while slicing Peruvian sweet
onions for the split pea soup I’m making for dinner, I
let it rip. I wanted to see whether I like it as much as I have
the first few times I played it, since their last one, Ageless
Venemous, impressed the shit out of my the first two times
I heard it, after which point I lost all interest.
Works of Carnage is much better; the blinding finger-speed
for which les brers Krisiun are renowned is all over the record,
for sure, but it’s not the entire point. Well, OK, maybe
it’s most of the point. But on Works of Carnage,
Krisiun succeeds in coming off like prodigies even when you’ve
already seen the tricks several times. The twin guitars are occasionally
hypnotic, especially on Wolfen Tyranny, and the cover
of Venom’s “In
League With Satan” is just k-rad. Yes, I did say “k-rad.” I
have been writing about records I love all week and am running
short on superlatives.
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