Rock – Page 78 – 7th Level Music

Top 30 albums of 2021: #’s 25 – 21

Let’s not waste time. Here are the records that cracked my top 25 (of over 60) that I reviewed last year.

#25: The Beths – Auckland, New Zealand, 2020

This delightful live album from The Beths is full of joy. The band was over the moon, the crowd was ecstatic, and daring to open with “I’m Not Getting Excited” was a gutsy move when everyone in the place was bursting with energy.

#24: Acid Dad – Take It from the Dead

Acid Dad were a band I’d heard a lot about, yet didn’t know much about them. I caught them live about an hour from my house and was sold within two songs. Take It from the Dead is a fine psych-rock record with touches of surf that make it a standout.

#23: Ty Segall – Harmonizer

Ty Segall added a bunch of synths and electronic beats to his already heavy fuzz rock, and the result, Harmonizer, was impressive. He showed his love for krautrock and even dance rock, and that he could pull off both genres as easily as psych jams.

#22: Morly – Till I Start Speaking

Easily one of the loveliest and sexiest albums of 2022, Till I Start Speaking is a great mix of Morly’s vocals, electro-beats, and synths. I hadn’t heard of Morly until this record was sent to me, and it was a pleasant discovery.

#21: Pearl & The Oysters – Flowerland

Speaking of lovely records, here’s another one. Bossa nova, disco, ambient, and house all merge together for an album as pretty and trippy as its cover.

Who makes the top 20? You’ll learn tomorrow!

Keep your mind open.

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Top 15 live shows of 2021: #’s 15 – 11

Live shows made a comeback in 2021, thank heavens, but many were still canceled or postponed due to the ongoing pandemic. As a result, I only saw 35 live bands this year. Cutting that list in half (or thereabouts) to save time, here’s the start of my top fifteen concerts of 2021.

#15: Acid Dad – Ft. Wayne, Indiana’s Brass Rail – October 08th

I’d only heard a couple tracks by Acid Dad before seeing them live, and they didn’t fail to impress everyone at the Brass Rail. It was a rocking show of groovy psych-rock with hints of surf and garage rock.

#14: Protomartyr – Kalamazoo, Michigan’s Bell’s Eccentric Café – November 12th

This was the first time I’d seen Protomartyr live as well, and it was a fine show indeed with a ton of great post-punk rock in front of an excited crowd of fellow Michiganders.

#13: Stöner – Ft. Wayne, Indiana’s Piere’s – September 29th

This was two firsts in one, both seeing and hearing Stöner for the first time. They played a cool heavy set of desert rock and won over a lot of fans (including yours truly) at this show. Their shirts and LPs were flying off their merch table after their set.

#12: King Buffalo – Ft. Wayne, Indiana’s Piere’s – September 29th

Yes, the same show. King Buffalo were the first of three bands that night (the third being Clutch). I’d heard of King Buffalo before, but only a couple songs. They played an excellent set of psychedelic rock that set the table for the rest of the night.

#11: All Them Witches – Chicago’s Metro – December 16th

This was the last show I saw in 2021, and ATW put on a solid set of heavy psychedelia. It was the last show of their tour before a break until they played a series of shows around New Year’s Eve.

Who’s in the top ten? Come back tomorrow to learn!

Keep your mind open.

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Top 30 albums of 2021: #’s 30 – 26

As always, I actually wait until the previous year has ended to put out my list of my top albums (and live performances, which will be listed in other posts), because albums are released all the time. Many excellent albums have been released in many Decembers and gone forgotten or ignored by music critics and bloggers.

So, without further ado, let’s get started. I reviewed sixty-five albums last year, so I cut the list in half to cover the top of the bunch.

#30: Shred Flintstone – Unlimited Power

This is a wild punk rock record from a band with a goofy name and serious chops. I mean, you have to be good with a name like “Shred Flintstone.” Unlimited Power is appropriately titled, because the whole thing is bursting with energy.

#29 Open Hand – Weirdo

This is a fun dance-rock record that was several years in the making. It’s like a combination of LCD Soundsystem and !!!.

#28: Jealous – Lover / What’s Your Damage?

This is a wild double EP of post-punk and krautrock from Berlin. It ranges from dance beats to rock riffs and was one of the best releases fro Dedstrange all year.

#27: Cuffed Up – Asymmetry

This four-song EP is solid alternative rock with catchy hooks, great double vocals, and heavy riffs that bode well for a full-length album in the future.

#26: The Black Angels – Live at Levitation

The Reverb Appreciation Society has been issuing “Live at Levitation” albums for a little while now, so it was no surprise that The Black Angels, who started the RAS and also started and still help curate the annual Levitation Music Festivals in Austin, Texas and Angers, France, should get their own release in the series. It covers some of the bands’ earliest performances at the festival and is a treat for fans of the band, the festival, and psychedelic rock.

Who cracked the top 25? Come back tomorrow to find out!

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Blackwater Holylight – Silence / Motion

It’s easy to write nowadays that albums released this year are reflective on the trying times of the previous year (that still persist into this year and probably 2022), but Blackwater Holylight‘s new album, Silence / Motion, captures the ache of those times like few others. It’s at times sorrowful, other times euphoric.

The album opens with dark, folk-like sounds of gray sky guitars and violins before it turns into a heavy, doomy growler on “Delusional.” Lead singer Allison “Sunny” Faris sings “I can’t describe this pain I wear. It suffocates and you left it here.” on “Who the Hell,” a gut-wrenching song about loss. The title track winds around you like a ghost that desperately wants you to understand why she can’t leave this plane just yet. Sarah McKenna‘s synths on it are like the sound of that ghost piercing the veil.

“Falling Faster” starts off sounding like a gothic ballad and then McKenna’s synths brighten it up to almost a synthwave track you’d hear on late night 1988 public access television. “MDIII” is mixes ethereal vocals with buzzing guitars from her and Mikayla Mayhew. I love the guitars on “Around You,” which are solid shoegaze riffs. The album ends with the psychedelic, heavy, and spooky “Every Corner.” Eliese Dorsay saves some of her best chops for the end, pounding out metal chops with the urgency of a fierce warrior.

It’s a haunting album. I mean, the cover image alone should tell you this. The sound of it gets under your skin and in the back of your head, creeping around for a long while.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Dave at US / THEM Group.]

Review: Parquet Courts – Sympathy for Life

Constructed from a lot of improvised jam sessions, Parquet Courts‘ new album, Sympathy for Life, continues to embrace the band’s love of dance music and club rock.

Starting out with the groovy, bad-ass “Walking at a Downtown Pace,” the band makes you want to dress up, throw on some sunglasses at night, and strut your stuff on the way, at, and back from the club. The bass line is killer, the guitars a bit frantic, and the drums downright wicked. The song, like all the others on the record, was written before the pandemic, but now takes on an altered meaning post-pandemic. The lyrics are brutal truths: “I’m making plans for the day all of this is through…Food that I’ll taste and all the drinks that I’ll consume, return the smile on an unmasked friend…” / “Walk at a downtown pace and treasure the crowds that once made me act so annoyed.” / “Planning the future as if time is yours to choose.”

“Black Widow Spider” is a rocker about intense grief and trying to move beyond it. Believe me, I get it. “Marathon of Anger” brings in more synthesizers and electronic beats to create a dub-like banger about all of us getting back to the work of supporting each other after being separated for so long. “Just Shadows” is a tale of becoming addicted to routine, and how that gives you the false impression that you’re happy and everything is go well.

The beats on “Plant Life” would fit right in on a Talking Heads record. “Application Apparatus” is a song about the benefits and creepiness of GPS mapping – told with post-punk electro dance beats and guitar. “Homo Sapien” cranks the distortion for a song about how we’ve evolved from ancestors who beat stones into tools to people who crave “the sensual touch of glass, so smooth on the fingertips, the erotic quality of not feeling meaningless.” The title track seems to have been recorded with the ghost of Curtis Mayfield in the studio – it’s that groovy.

“Zoom Out” encourages us to look at the bigger picture (“When you zoom out, tomorrow is now. When you zoom out, together is now.”) – and to dance. “Trullo” is a weird, funky, skronky tale about cabin fever. The closer, “Pulcinella,” is a tale about being hesitant to embrace love again, especially after a long time away from it (“…the mind wanders home like a cat does when it knows it’s time to feed again.”). Again, I can relate.

The album is a clever mix of excellent lyrics, funky beats, and the promise of more epic things to come. Two of the tracks, “Marathon of Anger” and “Plant Life” were edited down from forty-minute jam sessions. I hope they kept recordings of them, because I’d love to hear those. How about releasing them to start afresh in 2022, PQ?

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: The Monsters – You’re Class, I’m Trash

Hailing from Bern, Switzerland, The Monsters are punk giants in their homeland who make unapologetic trash rock, as is evidenced on their newest album You’re Class, I’m Trash.

The album opens with the explosive “Gimme Germs,” and sets the tone for the whole record. You barely have time to breathe throughout it. “Smell My Tongue” belongs on a soundtrack for a John Waters film with its trashy lyrics and frantic pounding. “Carpool Lane” borders on sludge rock. “Dead” cranks up the fuzz on the guitars and vocals (Them yelling “Dead!”).

The guitars on “Stranger to Me” sound like angry hornets. “Blasphemy” is equally angry. “Yellow Snow Drink” is almost goth-country, and “Electro Bike Asshole” is back to the fiery punk (and might be the best punk song title of 2021). “Get Drunk on You” must slay live because it flattens your immediate surroundings coming out of your speakers as they subtly sing about oral sex with lyrics like, “I eat you, baby, and you eat me.” “I Love You” is a love song sung by a madman.

“Devil Baby” could fit into a 1960s Italian horror film (especially with the creepy opening piano chords) or an occult biker movie (with the wild guitars) with ease. “My Down Is Your Up” sounds like something Mr. Bungle wishes they’d written. The album ends with another, even spookier version of “Dead,” a live version of “Gimme Germs,” and the title track – which sounds like a runaway train in which the musical entertainment in the dining car is a zombie DJ playing scratched records.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Matt at Shattered Platter PR.]

Rewind Review: Protomartyr – The Agent Intellect (2015)

Recorded in a week in a small studio in Benton Harbor, Michigan, Protomartyr‘s third album, The Agent Intellect, is almost bursting at the seams with powerful energy.

Opening cut “The Devil in His Youth” feels almost like an early New Order track with its urgent guitars from Greg Ahee. His riffs on “Cowards Starve” take on a slight shoegaze touch as Joe Casey sings about the dangers of social pressures (“If you think about them all of the time, you’re gonna find that your head’s been kicked in.”). I once read a YouTube comment that described Protomartyr as “Three guys playing post-punk riffs, and a guy with some cans of beer in his pocket walks onstage and just starts talking, and band keeps playing.” That’s not a bad little description of their live shows, and not a bad description of the sound of “I Forgive You.”

“Boyce or Boice” seems to be a tale of coming to grips with aging and past sins. Then again, “There’s no use bein’ sad about it. What’s the point of cryin’ about it?” Casey chants on “Pontiac 87,” perhaps the most post-punk track on the record (judging from Scott Davidson‘s bass riff alone). “Uncle Mother’s” guitar fuzz is quite good, and I like the way it’s complimented with a slight distortion of Casey’s vocals. “Dope Cloud” is hazy, yet a bit frantic (a style that Protomartyr can pull off seemingly without effort).

“The Hermit” catches you off-guard with its soft start before Alex Leonard unleashes his drums and the rest of the band almost scrambles to keep up with him. “Clandestine Time” sounds like an out of control clock with its weird beats, Leonard’s cymbal crashes, Davidson’s bass notes that sound like heavy bells, and Ahee’s guitar acting as the whirling gears within it. Casey’s voice is the alarm.

The trembling beats of “Why Does It Shake?” match the simmering panic in Casey’s lyrics about trying to hold onto sanity while the U.S. (in 2015) was on the verge of madness as it approached an election that would turn the country upside-down. Casey’s vocals are pulled back (in terms of volume, not depth) on “Ellen,” while his bandmates move forward in a track about waiting for a love that might not ever show up. The closer, “Feast of Stephen,” has, as far as I can tell, nothing to do with Christmas and everything to do with big riffs and vocals that bounce off the walls behind you and flatten you twice.

It’s a record you can get lost in and probably find different nuances in the instruments and meaning in the vocals every time you hear it. Not many bands can do that. Then again, not every band is Protomartyr either.

Keep your mind open.

Review: Century Egg – Little Piece of Hair

Hailing from Halifax, Century Egg are a fun post-punk / pop-punk quartet whose new EP, Little Piece of Hair, is a fun romp.

You’ll want to answer, “Yes,” to opening track “Do You Want to Dance” as Robert Drisdelle‘s guitar swirls around you and Matty Grace‘s bass propels your dancing shoes. That bass, and Meg Yoshida‘s happily excited heartbeat drums, are a great combination on “I Will Make Up a Method” as Shane Keyu Song sings about figuring out a way to succeed despite everyone and everything trying to keep her down.

Their rocking cover of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu‘s “Ring a Bell” is delightful, and will instantly bump up your mood. The title track cranks up the fuzz and seems to be about never giving up your curiosity. “Riddle to Place” slows things down with a practical rock ballad as Song tells a potential lover to slow it down as well because she’s given up on making it work.

The EP ends with “Cornered,” with Song singing in Chinese as her bandmates bust out serious chops. Yoshida’s cymbals seem to roll and sizzle beyond the atmosphere, Grace’s bass seems to be doing a Tae Bo workout, and Drisdelle summons up some of his best post-punk riffs on the EP.

It’s solid stuff, and makes you want to hear a full album from them in the future – as any good EP should.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Gabriel at Clandestine Label Services.]

Yard Act encourage us to take the money and run on their new single – “Payday.”

Excitement just keeps building behind the Leeds band Yard Act ahead of the release debut LP, The Overload,which is due out via Island Records and their own imprint Zen F.C. on the recently revised release date of January 21st. The album follows a collection of early singles released in 2020 and early 2021, that immediately caught on in their home country, earning accolades from outlets like The Guardian, NME and Loud & Quiet, and creating a stir in the US, earning praise from outlets like NPR, Stereogum, Paste and Under The Radar, who designated them a band to watch in 2021. The band’s hot streak has continued apace, recently garnering the support of high profile fans in Elton John and Cillian Murphy, selling out a run of shows, appearing on the soundtrack to the latest FIFA game, and performing their album’s title track on Later…w/ Jools Holland.

Following on the heels of “The Land of The Blind,” the band are sharing a new track and video “Payday”.

WATCH: Yard Act’s “Payday” video HERE

Speaking about the new single, Smith explains: “‘Payday’ was one of the few tracks on the record we had to rebuild completely in the studio because the first demo was recorded on my computer and the hard drive corrupted. We spent about TWO hours trying to figure out that stupid keyboard part I’d put on it and couldn’t remember how to play. It was boring but worth it. It’s about gentrification, class fetish and how the human brain is so powerful that with enough time and processing power combined it will be able to justify, defend and/or continue to commit the actions of any human being it controls.”

The accompanying video is the band’s third collaboration with director James Slater and his production team, following “The Overload” and “Land Of The Blind”, and further develops the world Yard Act have created and the characters that exist within it. Smith says: “We wanted to do something less location and narrative based for this video, so an infinity white studio served as the perfect purgatory for an anti capitalist anthem funded by a major record label. It was great to get Kayleigh from ‘The Overload’ car boot shoot back with her friends, and they choreographed a brilliant dance routine for it themselves, which really brings the video to life. It’s also nice to finally be able to explain all the lettuces that kept cropping up in the previous videos.”

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Tom at Hive Mind PR.]

Die! Die! Die! return with original lineup and first single from a new album due in February 2022.

New Zealand trio Die! Die! Die! announce their forthcoming new album This Is Not An Island Anymore, sharing the first single today via New Noise Magazine. Hear and share “Losing Sight, Keep On Kicking” HERE. (Direct Bandcamp and SmartURL.)

Since their debut in 2005, Die! Die! Die! has blended a powerful and infectious concoction of post-punk, noise pop, shoegaze, lo-fi, and punk rock into one massive sounding whole. Fresh for a global pandemic outbreak, the trio returns in its original lineup for their most urgent and well honed album to date, This Is Not An Island Anymore. Since recording their debut album with Steve Albini (Shellac, Nirvana, PJ Harvey) in Chicago in 2005, Die! Die! Die! have worked with producers including Shayne Carter, Nick Roughan (The Skeptics), Chris Townend (Violent Femmes), and have written and recorded albums in New York, Dunedin, London and rural France.

Their indispensable collection of records, and their intense and unflinching live show, continue to drive their connection with audiences across the globe. Both are a telling reminder of why Die! Die! Die! are one of the most enduring and unapologetic bands to ever emerge out of New Zealand.

The single is an explosive anthem and as the band describe it, ‘explores losing yourself and finding your Maori’. Die! Die! Die! have returned to their original lineup bringing original bassist Lachlan Anderson back to the fold to join band mates Andrew Wilson (guitar/vocals) and Michael Prain (drums).

Their forthcoming album This Is Not An Island Anymore – set for release in February 2022.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Dave at US / THEM Group.]