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Two months to go. Ugh. Song: "Echoes" I didn't like this on first listen but giving it another chance worked better. Seriously doubt anyone who's following me gives a fuck about the Klaxons or their general style of music, but I also seriously doubt I can post another fucking mediocre stoner-sludge-doom song without shooting myself in the face. These things happen. Anyway, I was thinking I might be a hipster/scenester/emo kid for halloween. It won't require much if I continue listening to bands like this. I could probably go for something more appropriate to really drive it home, but that sounds too painful. I'll stick with the safety of what I already know... and I knew the Klaxons before you did. ;) The new Teh Srowd album. Cuz I'm avoiding controversy brought on by Teh Gologe. This is not the first time through the album, as you may already know. 1. Sounds like them. Reminds me of just about everything else going on in this genre right now, including them. 70s-80s heavy metal worshiping stoner metal style genre, I mean. Bison BC, Saviours, etc. And them. No words. We didn't need to hear your stupid thoughts, so that's cool. 2. After that cum-in-face intro, this song sounds so much better than it did on my first 5-second sampling when people were trying to leak tracks and failing the internet in the process. I don't like the idea of witches, especially blended with metalisms... It's way overdone. And the epic/medieval/nature-based metal lyrical stories are fucking dull. I hope that bird led you three douchebags off a cliff. but anyway, the song's better with a little time. 3. Has this band toured with Metallican'tmakegoodmusicanymore? 4. Wank wank. Oh no, wait, words? I wonder how many people have suffered stockholm syndrome from/of/with this band. I might be one of them. Would I know it if I was? Ugh. This song did not need to be seven minutes long. 5. I wish I could identify why this is boring when, on the surface, it should not be. 6. I am liking this better so far. Maybe he won't sing... about being forever lost in the iron jungle with a monkey named Herbert who likes his bananas raw. OMG no words, I win nothing. 7. Title track. They're supposed to be really good or epically related to the whole product, so I have high expectations. ... Yeah, it's okay. 8. Here's the one I thought sounded like Kiss. I mean, the name, it's just... come on, really? Subterfuge comes to mind. Why not? Why, why? I want to not. 9. Left field intro. Sounds like the rest of it after that. 10. More of the same. Well, I haven't totally liked any of their albums... and it's following a similar path of only liking the pieces. I think I have slowly become a naysayer over the years, somewhat in contrast to my weak attempt to support them. I don't think I'm going to have any real perspective on them, though, for some years yet. For now: elevator music for metalheads. We'll see how I feel in a few months... The new !!! album. First song: The one that's been going around. I've heard it too much now. Two: Disco. It goes off the deep end after a bit, though, typical of their style. Kind of psychedelic even though it's not "psych". Three: Starts stupid. Weird vocals come in. Reminds me of The Clash. Gets more straightforward dancey towards the end. Four: Seems like the lyrics are more important than the 'song' here (it being repetitive...). I'll read those later. Five: I suppose this is !!!'s smooth jazz album... Six: The lady vocals again. Seems like this might be remixed a lot in the future? Seven: Back on the disco. I used to listen to !!! while working and this sounds like a good 'work' song. Eight: Tuning out. Nine: One minute to build up to more build up. Ah, dance music. Ah, stoner rock. If billybob had a hammer, apparently he wouldn't stop. I had a hammer once. I have a hammer today. I wonder if he was hammered when he wrote this nothing. Ten (a bonus track): Disconnected. Well then. I don't think I'll listen to this as much as I have other !!! material, but it may grow on me with time. I'll get back to you on that, internet. Song: "Month of May" Arcade Fire wrote a song about hipsters. Embrace however you find this ironic then, instead of being a metal snob, listen to it. I have uploaded the Sounds of Sagittarius comp for April 2008. I started working on the next month but the amount of right clicking involved with this project makes for massive hand cramps... so the rest will take time, as you might expect. Th3 5w0rd's album leaked to the net (what? you can't read l337? get with the program, you're io years late). I have given it an almost complete once-over, and, well.. it sounds like them. For those with an existing hard-on for the band and a tendency to like what's familiar, it's fair enough. A few songs are okay. But yeah, so far, I'm not really keen on it. I'll give it some time and you'll probably hear about it again once or twice before the end of the year... Ninth Moon Black's latest album is (finally) available for download. You can find it by using common sense. Definitely Isis-y/post metal, and makes for a tough listen for me after the mood is set. They're good at what they do, though... That one festival I've talked about no less than nine hundred and fifty times on this blog is coming closer to being properly announced. It sounds like two days are more or less set. The other two keep getting shuffled around based on headliner choices, who's available and such, but a catalyst decision was made recently that will hopefully lead to a group of confirmations. When that happens I should be mere days away from me being able to talk about how excited I am to get to see ___ and why. Not that a few of these really need an explained reason... It's going to be a very exhausting few days. Concert view #89: SubArachnoid Space headlined with a missing guitarist, which at first was a bit weird to hear but it was nice to see/hear exactly who was doing what, and I have a preference for bass anyway. They wore black this time (it was their last show ever). Thrones was an ADD challenge as usual but I was really tired so I was in the right 'space' to hear him do his thing. Aranya was more or less as I expected they'd be for me, but I did not expect them to remind me so much of APC/Tool. It was my first time at the venue, first time in that neighborhood, and I almost missed it. And speaking of Thrones, I recommended a band to open for Thrones elsewhere in the country and it looks like it's going through and actually happening. What a boost that was. So, if I have any visitors from Atlanta, you guys should go see Thrones, Christian Mistress, Wizard Smoke, and Whores on October 19th at 529. I'd go, but, you know, 3000 miles... I'm a week or two from being done with my current school term. Next one sounds like a pain in the ass but there's a gap between them that should hopefully result in some changes around here. I can't say what those are yet because I don't really know. I'm sure there's one or two other things but I'm drawing blanks now, so... hi! Here's more of 2008 in Sounds of Sagittarius history and resulting commentary. 03/15: !!! - hello? is this thing on? 03/15: soundgarden - the day i tried to live 03/16: the white stripes - i'm slowly turning into you 03/16: death from above 1979 - you're a woman, i'm a machine (album) 03/18: the knife - silent shout 03/18: goldfrapp - train 03/19: mindless self-indulgence - you'll rebel to anything... 03/19: the young gods - i'm the drug 03/20: morphine - empty box 03/21: eagles of death metal - don't speak... 03/22: red fang - reverse thunder (updated) 03/23: mastodon - naked burn 03/23: behold the arctopus - you will be reincarnated... 03/24: billy crystal meth - mammoth 03/24: sleep - jerusalem (pt. 6) 03/24: lcd soundsystem - 45:33 03/26: zzz - o.f.g. 03/26: gravity kills - here 03/27: fu manchu - evil eye 03/27: the mars volta - vicarious atonement 03/28: black cobra - dragon & phoenix (updated) 03/28: glazed baby - let me take you to chinatown 03/28: floor - namaste 03/29: between the buried and me - informal gluttony 03/30: dream theater - octavarium 03/30: ladytron - black cat 03/30: yay! 03/31: meshuggah - perpetual black second 03/31: tomahawk - red fox 04/01: the satellite circle - kick you right back 04/02: black cobra - below the cusp 04/02: felix da housecat - control freaq 04/02: monster magnet - superjudge These fucking lyrics. Love love love. 04/04: queen adreena - pretty like drugs 04/05: enojado - vodka king 04/05: nadja - radiance of shadows 04/06: the cramps - human fly Okay, that's enough for now. Portland Bands (Are Awesome) Other PDX area bands to sample on the metal spectrum: And don't forget the rest of the Northwest: Also check out promoters, bookers, and blogs for a push in the right direction: As always, consider these a starting point and not the end of a journey. Be sure to read Parts 1, 2, and 3 first. It's only been a few years since I first began going to concerts regularly, since I first discovered that there were local bands that I actually enjoyed. I traveled pretty far in my knowledge and experience of the local Portland music "scene" in that time, but I still have some way to go to have a really comprehensive knowledge or awareness of it (assuming I want that in the long run). There are many venues I've yet to visit, many bands I've yet to see. I may feel burned out occasionally and more often hesitate trying what's new or new to me, but there is plenty left for me to discover. Regarding the bands I have locally sampled or seen live, I've generally stayed within my favorite genres: doom, stoner, psych. Much of this has to do with timing as I had honed in on a new love for doom just before my first local concert experiences and shortly thereafter began to like psychedelic rock/metal sounds a little more. Despite my "newness" hesitations outside of this, I feel it's important to keep branching out and to keep an open mind. Although, in my case, that "open" mind will always be tinged with cynicism and initial dislike... I first heard Trees by my planned attendance of Fall Into Darkness 2008. I assumed I might like them based on very limited information and was wrong. The drawn out drone meets black metal element was too much. I could have gone through their set without a decision about them, but the vocals turned "eh, I'll have to try again later" into "no sir, I don't like it". During their set I found myself imagining that they were the perfect soundtrack to the customer service work environment, so I at least got a laugh out of the experience. A new band called Atriarch was listed as opening the following year's Fall Into Darkness. I went looking for information as per the norm and found nothing of any substance. I could tell they were darker metal from their myspace "design" but I would have guessed that anyway from the festival's nature. Even though it had been over a year since I'd seen Trees, those vocals were unmistakable when I saw them live at the fest - I first thought Atriarch was Trees. Consequently, the live experience of Atriarch came and went with little more than the memory of impatience for the bands I had arrived to see. Over the next months, seeing Trees a second time and finding out Atriarch was at least one member from the 'deceased' Graves At Sea - a band I knew by name and general musical association but hadn't yet listened to - left me curious. Atriarch still didn't have much info/music online, and the shows they were playing weren't enough to justify braving the wilderness, so I decided to make a point to find more about Graves At Sea. I found Documents of Grief (album) and got stuck on "Red Monarch". It seemed to me that Atriarch wasn't quite as doomy, but they were down a similar path... Or were they? I would have to try them live again... At this point I got involved with helping out for the benefit of the Fall Into Darkness 2009 festival DVD. I made a point to re-watch my former live-in-person experience of Atriarch. Watching "Shadows", I soon remembered that I had been standing behind one of the camera folk, remembered being annoyed by the smell from one of the Atriarch guys burning sage, remembered that people were walking or talking behind me almost like they were oblivious that they'd paid for a show at all (what's new there). I didn't remember actual spoken lyrics (as opposed to screaming), and that threw me off enough to keep watching beyond simply memory recall. I'm glad I did... Of all the songs on the DVD, each appealing to a different niche, Atriarch's song stands apart and strikes me as the best of the lot. As hilariously annoying as I'd found the ever-angsty vocals in person with Trees, singer Lenny put his all into the performance, perfectly matching the music visually without rehashing some other band's style or tracing the word "irony" in the mud. With that, I was reminded of every time I've disliked a band only to come around on them with time. What good timing, too, as Atriarch are on the brink of releasing their first album. Something tells me "Shadows" will be on it... A turn in the opposite direction on the scale of doom metal and we may find ourselves somewhere near the more sonically upbeat, faster tempo band Mongoloid Village. (No, really. That's really their name.) Mongoloid Village has a "sound" akin to blending Iommi Stubbs with Black Elk so you can imagine my default appreciation. I can't quite connect them to anyone in my history, though, and that may be for the better. Last.fm tells me I'm a "top listener" of Mongoloid Village's work, which is strange considering my awkward disaffection with similar brands of cerebral rock and metal. Perhaps it's because I play "Shittown, U.S.A" fairly often. Nevertheless, if I take a top listening position on a site, with my scattered and easily bored listening habits, I'm pretty sure that means the band isn't well known. And what a fucking crime... I may not get into their whole material the way someone with a musician's background might, but at least "Shittown" is an acceptable work of genius. Here's hoping there's more behind it, if only behind the veil of my ignorance. Similar emotional impact as Mongoloid Village but with a simplified, much more dirty, punkish, sludge sound, Rabbits turns the "what the fuck?" dial to 11 - especially with their song "Bees". Once on their myspace but now replaced by newer tunes, I listened to it in advance of seeing them live for the first time before Ancient Age and Akimbo and wondered what the hell I was getting into. My memory of this experience, however, is poor - I saw Ancient Age twice around the same time at the same venue, one time with Rabbits opening and the other with another punkish local The Ax, and the two experiences have blended together in memory as one. But that song with its lyrics "we... are... bees" was enough to create a lasting impression. I thought you were Rabbits? Rabbits have released a few EPs on their own and, like Mongoloid Village, have played a countless number of local shows (AKA a shitload, including but not limited to every local band I like) resulting in being surrounded by local musicians that love these guys. They've only just been signed - to Relapse. Though I haven't had much luck with them personally, the resulting album should make or break my feelings and give the Portland metal, heavy rock scene some more deserved exposure outside of the Northwest. Though I doubt people with the influence to make it happen would agree, I'm thinking a Rabbits, The Ax, Chinese (Seattle) tour would be pretty cool. Lastly, I must mention one more band. Post-metal has consistently been hit or miss with me since my first listen of Isis. As said, I can be quite impatient with music, and post-metal's added emotionally introverted, slow building, fill-in-the-blank element has more than once frayed my nerves. I don't mind being challenged a bit, but boredom usually wins me over and I have to go find something more "present" to hear. True, some songs (or bands) are beautiful and work great for particular settings or moments, but on the average day I'll lean towards avoiding post-whatevers... Megaton Leviathan had recently done some shows with Wolves In The Throne Room and Ninth Moon Black - a pretty killer couple of bands if you're into post, black, progressive metal kind of sounds. Something told me Megaton would be similarly heart-wrenching as I went to check out what they sounded like, and they were. My first sampling of "Guns And LSD" went over very well. Their more expansive, doom fan friendly sound quickly turned a casual wondering into a must know more. I have yet to see Megaton Leviathan live, but I can't imagine it being short in any department. With the amount of house shows I've heard they've put on both for themselves and other bands, as well as being linked to Northwest bands with a long-existing fanbase, something tells me they have social support around here. From afar they appear to be doing something right, and I look forward to the day I may see them do their thing live. Til that day, they have an album in the works due out very soon. Eighteen or nineteen bands is a good starting point. You may want to check my archives to find a few more, including bands from Eugene and Seattle. I also recommend checking out any of these bands' myspaces and seeing their list of band friends (and their band friends) or who they're playing alongside live in the future - there are plenty of Portland bands unmentioned here all across the rock-metal spectrum that are worth your time if you just make the tiniest effort to find them. [88] Mike D, Lord Dying, Tweak Bird (2010) About an hour before leaving to go see Its Casual, Tweak Bird, and Mondo Generator this night, I saw some stray posting on someone's facebook from another that Mondo Generator had canceled and whomever's band was opening to fill the empty spot. Huh? Was that a joke? I kept checking for updates only to find the post disappeared... which I took as a sign that Mondo Generator either made their way here after all or that band didn't end up taking the slot. Arriving, I discovered not only Mondo Generator had canceled - Its Casual had dropped as well. Now, Tweak Bird was going to headline with two others opening the show. I thought the door guy had said the last minute replacements were "Lord Nine" and didn't recognize the Mike person at all (though I immediately thought of Beastie Boys), so... mysteries continued. Walking in, seeing a familiar face or two hanging out in the otherwise next-to-empty venue, it occurred to me: Ohhh, Lord Dying... Sweet! I had wanted to see them again and didn't know when I'd get that chance. This definitely made up for any imagined losses, more so with the fact that I'm apathetic towards Mondo Generator. Sucks for Tweak Bird, yay for me! Mike D turned out to be a sit-down blues-rock guitarist with a raspy voice. I thought a few of my blog associates might like him, namely Cheeto. Me, not so much. I recently briefly talked about how hard it is to go from metal to other types of music. Once you have the metal bug, it's hard to go back to anything else. My non-metal history is mainly lighter radio rock, 80s/90s pop, heavy dance... but blues-rock hasn't touched my history much. Does Morphine count? By comparison, not really. Either way, southern-ish sounds get under my skin regardless of genre. It was definitely a challenge. Kudos for the last minute addition, though. Lord Dying was excellent - better than their Fourth of July show, and momentarily Dantes actually delivered good sound. The PA had some Priestess playing beforehand and one of the guitarists looks like a member of Priestess, and for a moment they "sounded like Priestess" in my head. After further analyzing their overall sound, I came to the conclusion that they were much like Saviours - or, locally, Nether Regions. They have an overall heavy metal meets doom sound very appropriate for anyone following those bands. As soon as they start grabbing shows that have more than six confused people present, I can see them taking some of Red Fang's crowd - who, by the way, they're playing with on August 20th. TOLD YA SO! Anyway, now they just need to get on the internet sharing bandwagon so I can post one of their songs. What can I say about Tweak Bird that I haven't already said? Well, I got to thinking about how it's been nearly two years since I saw them for the first time, and almost exactly two years since I first heard "Whorses", the song that sold them on me. In that time I've managed to see them five times - only missing one of their shows because of a death last year. I've had nothing but good things to say all of this time... New album's easy on the ears so far, the long EP Reservations is the greatest thing ever, and the few singles/etc I've heard have been above-par at least. Live, they've consistently been great. This show was about the same - they did 'songs' but they were chopped and drawn out and given new intro/outro instrumental pieces and psych abuses. Short of the occasional added piece, most bands can't really effectively change their songs live and still be appreciated afterward. When Tweak Bird does that, it makes sense and fits their overall sound well. It's certainly appreciated by those of us who've seen them several times and don't really need the same songs I've heard a thousand times now. Of the new shit, they played "The Future" (with some lovely effect-ed, fuzzy, bassier guitar), "Tunneling Through", "A Sun / Ahh Ahh", and "Sky Ride"... Old shit I didn't keep track of. "Whorses" was definitely in there, and they played "Spaceships" last as an encore. There were a few more songs than that, but such is not keeping a setlist. There were no wind instruments present physically or by tape, but "A Sun" had some alteration to it that made up for the saxlessness. All in all, I didn't mind losing my chance to see Mondo Generator or Its Casual - Lord Dying and Tweak Bird made up for any/all perceived losses, especially in light of missing Tweak Bird last year. In short, A+++ FIVE STARS WILL BUY AGAIN. |
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