Micro-Reviewery 4: Lethargic Euphoria, Napalm Ted, etc.
Still even more stuff from the past few weeks that deserves no more than a brief paragraph.
Lethargic Euphoria – Standstill
Black-gaze is a genre so formative that you never really know what to expect from band to band. Lethargic Euphoria has an instrumental style like Ghost Bath for a good while, but the last twenty minutes is like ’90s emo without the whiny vocalists. As a result, I now understand that the only reason I didn’t like ’90s emo was the whiny vocalists.
B
Remember That You Will Die – Remember That You Will Die
Remembering that these guys will die brings me some solace. Vaguely experimental in nature, all four of these tracks are hampered by their repetitive structure: silly part that recalls another genre, black metal boredom, back to silly part. In order, the sandwiching sections are Depeche Mode gothic, crappy electronica, and Slint-style math rock times two. You’ll barely be able to get past the second track’s intro.
D+
Napalm Ted – Into the Black Ooze EP
Grindish blast from Finland, the high points are definitely the punkiest parts, which all die near the four minute mark of this twelve minute short play. After that, there’s way too much death metal in the mix, featuring a lot of that awful dun-dun-CHUG dun-dun-CHUG riff.
C-
Porreria – Noise Carnage EP
Weird noisecore album. First couple tracks are inaudible digital garble with a couple shrieks, breaking into a much more conventional grind noise sound. Rather than laying into power chords, the guitarist does a lot of high-pitched noodling with some dexterous finger randomness. When mixed with the ultra tinny cymbal sound and the vocalists shrill BLAH-BLAH-BLAHs, this can get pretty grating, but at least it’s something I haven’t heard. Pretty unique for such a worn-out genre.
B-