Fall releases kind of peaked the week of September 21 with a baker’s dozen great albums to choose from, including the second half of Ufomammut’s double album. Last week I was so excited by the album of the week by Witchcraft that I wasn’t ready to focus on the rest. This includes two exceptional releases on Napalm Records, Eternal Season by French stoner rockers Glowsun and one of my anticipated albums of the Fall by German stoner/space rockers My Sleeping Karma. Eternal Season was a nice surprised as I had only recently started getting into Glowsun’s 2008 debut, The Sundering, and I didn’t even know they had a new album coming. While their debut was full of great crunchy, heavy psych, I can tell they’ve worked hard in the four years since, as Eternal Season is clearly a step forward with richer tones and more fluid playing and musical structures. Vocals are spare, but when Johan Jaccob does sing, it’s has mellow, breathy quality that bring positive associations to Colour Haze’s Stefan Koglek or Om. While their songs average nearly 7 minutes, they keep things moving, and the edges rough with a bit of sludgy doom influences along the lines of Electric Wizard. A stellar entry in the stoner/psych/doom canon from France!
Soma is My Sleeping Karma’s fourth album. Both their most ambitious and laid back, every song is followed by a sleepy ambient interlude, the transcendent music lulling me into a meditative state where I might focus inwards just as intensely as I hear the music. While it’s tough to follow up the recently released double album from Colour Haze, who’s Elektrohasch label was their home for the first three albums, Soma has plenty to offer to those receptive to their unique sound. I was impressed enough to order the CD and will give it some real headphone listening and report back. Read more at The Obelisk.
The Soft Pack’s Strapped is slightly disappointing in that they just can’t maintain the endlessly catchy quality if their early songs. They definitely put more work into recording these songs, complete with horn arrangements, and when they don’t sound overworked, there’s enough for a solid pop album that I definitely recommend it. It just won’t quite get the playtime as their first two albums of surfy garage noir. The Toy’s self titled debut on Heavenly records is some nice Krautrock inspired British pop. Sweden’s Skånska Mord released their second album, Paths To Charon on Small Stone. It’s a dependable mix of proto-metal and stoner rock influences from Sabbath/Purple to Soundgarden, Kyuss and Fu Manchu. The biggest disappointment of the week is No Doubt’s Push And Shove. Eleven years after their super fun Rock Steady (2000), I’m shocked they couldn’t manage a better album after all that time. Gwen Stefani had some decent singles on her two solo albums, and I thought they’d delight in being a band again and writing some more rocking stuff. Instead it largely sounds like limp electro-pop ballads that were left over from Stefani’s solo albums because they weren’t good enough. Sad.
This week of course featured the one-two punch of great releases from Sweden’s Spiders and motorik psych rockers Moon Duo. Tom Krell of How To Dress Well came up with a solid follow-up to the haunting low-fi R&B of the 2010 debut Love Remains with Total Loss, which is less fuzzy and attempts to be more energetic, but still exudes an almost crippling sense of despair. The Sea And Cake released their ninth album in eighteen years, Runner. With such longevity and productivity, it’s easy to take this band for granted. But no one does their avant art pop as beautifully as they do. When Steven Ellison released his third full-length, Cosmogramma (2010) as Flying Lotus, I projected a lot of expectations onto him as representing the best of future music. His skills at incorporating threads of electronica and hip-hop with the deftness of a jazz artist like his great-auntie, the late Alice Coltrane, are undeniable. However I realized that he just piles too much into the music. Like Animal Collective, his music is brilliant, but so busy that it’s just fatiguing. His third album for Warp records, Until The Quiet Comes is likely just as good as Cosmogramma, but so far I can’t last through the whole thing in one sitting. The quiet has to come sooner than that. I have a soft spot for British metal band Tygers of Pan Tang, as their first few albums in the early 80s are underrated not only as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, but just some fun, catchy rock. Ambush is not really a comeback, as they’ve had a bunch of albums over the years, so not necessary beyond super fans. Try Spellbound (1981). I used to find Muse intensely annoying, but I can at least intellectually see their worth as a decent stadium band that reaches for Queen-like heights even if Matthew Bellamy cannot stop sounding like Thom Yorke if he tries. I don’t hate albums of theirs like Black Holes and Revelations (2006) and The Resistance (2009) but am also not moved to listen to them again. The 2nd Law simply is not as good as any of their previous albums, but has at least a couple songs fans might look forward to in concert.
