11/20/2022 Music Roundup

What if there was no good music this week. What then

To be honest with you all, not as much great listening this week because I have been on that fucking grind. Not because I’m particularly ambitious or anything, its because I forgot about shit that I had to do, so I was panicking trying to finish stuff. But hey, I got it done and I did it pretty well, it was a good week. I saw Immolation and they were tragically mediocre, if not bad, again, and I saw Cannibal Corpse and they were bad, but that’s why they are so good, more on that later maybe.

Effluence - Liquified

There’s not much I love more than hearing pieces you don’t think fit together be arranged into something new and satisfying. Not to get too 2016-nerd-bro, but holy fucking goddamn, this thing is incredible. What a genuinely amazing statement, I say this with absolutely no irony, this is a stunning work of art. There has always been a strain of brutal death metal and goregrind that leans into the avant garde, sometimes becoming noise, sometimes becoming complete nonsense. It’s always felt as though Effluence is just teetering on the edge, but never fully collapsing, as pitch shifted and drenched in gore as it is, there’s a sense that the music is moving in a direction, there is a purpose. This album sees Effluence’s sprawling and shrieking experimentation collide with kitchen appliances and jazz piano into something that is unique and exciting for the world of brutal death metal, which is often defined by how formulaic it is. I can’t describe how thrilling it is to listen to guttural vocals paired with piano melodies dancing on top of chugging death metal guitars, while a saxophone shrieks like a wounded animal. Ever since Subneural Entropic Dysgenesis, their debut, I’ve felt like Effluence were the next big thing, and like they were really leading the way in an exciting “new wave” of death metal. I’m not sure if this has been proven true yet, but people absolutely need to take notice of this stuff, it’s only getting better.

Goreshit - Semantics: The Benzo Chronicles

This is a perfectly fine breakcore album, with lots of that fun ethereal ambience that Goreshit is known for, but really what I enjoy about it is that the title could be the name of Jordan Peterson’s entire life. Other than that, this is cool, not as great as Semantic Compositions on Death and Its Meaning, but at least doesn’t have any of that really weird loli shit. You’re a fucking weirdo who deserves to be ashamed if you’re into that.

Nurser - Split w Bleachdrinker

Nurser released one of the best albums of the year in their self titled debut, they do a really nasty style of sludgy grindcore that feels like you’re breathing in smog. I’ll always be a fan of grind bands with big, punchy snares like this one, though I’m not really picky about how a snare sounds in the first place. This is a short and sweet slice of everything they do so well, lots of feedback, some atonal riffs and propulsive blast beats. If you like music with black and white cover art of some gruesome historical event, this will whet your appetite nicely. Can’t wait to hear more from Nurser.

Cannibal Corpse, Dark Funeral and Immolation live at the Palace 11/15/22

For my birthday I was doing homework all day (loser), but I did get to see this fun little ticket as a sort of birthday present to myself. This was a weird show, it felt like the big takeaway for me was that sometimes you just have to enjoy shit in spite of itself.

I didn’t see Black Anvil cause I had homework, but I did show up in time to be pretty disappointed by Immolation. It’s really quite tragic because I think Immolation are an incredibly interesting and cool band, but every time I’ve seen them they’ve fallen flat. Most, if not all, of

the blame lies on their drummer, Steve Shalaty. Death metal can really struggle in a live environment, particularly more technical stuff, and so much of that is because of the double kick. Death metal, and Immolation particularly would be unrecognizable without double bass, but its so hard to mix properly in a live setting, and triggers are a sort of necessary evil. The result though can be that the kick sounds utterly lifeless, while drowning out other parts of the kit, like the snare, and other instruments. The upside is that you can hear the kick perfectly, but that also means you can hear any mistakes the drummer makes perfectly, and boy were there a lot of mistakes. I don’t know if it was an off day or something, but Shalaty sounded terrible, his kicks were almost never on tempo, and basically all you could hear was how badly he was playing. Vigna, Bouks and Dolan all sounded great too, adding to my confusion, and sadness.

I talked earlier about how exciting of a band Effluence are, and I think the same was and is true of Immolation in many ways, they have a recognizable style, and an unsung guitar hero in the form of Rob Vigna. They make interesting, and unexpected death metal, but just can’t make it work live, and that’s a shame. I still bought a T-shirt though because their records are incredible and again, their music is fundamentally much more interesting than any other band on this bill.

Nowhere was that more evident than Dark Funeral. There is basically nothing to say about them, they performed competently and without any trace of creativity or anything exciting to say for themselves. They were a band that played.

Cannibal Corpse were, well, Cannibal Corpse. They play all the same songs, and they do the exact same crowdwork, and they do the fakeout at the end of every concert. Corpsegrinder, Fisher, Webster and Rutan were all great, and Mazurkieiwicz was as medicore as ever. Seriously, that guy is just a bit too old to be playing this music, and it shows, but hey props to him for staying active. But in spite of all that, and maybe even because of all that, they were really damn fun. They know what works, and they do it well, they could never be accused of trying too hard. No matter how thoroughly OK most of their set is, you’ll always have a smile on your face, and you will bang your fucking head when they play that breakdown in Hammer Smashed Face.

And maybe that’s my big takeaway from all of this. None of these bands were life changingly good, but they were fun, and even if I wasn’t astonished by the musical prowess on display, I was enjoying myself and that’s what one’s life should be focused on, not some arbitrary rating of good or bad, or shit like that. Life is short, and this concert was fun, I was distracted from things that I was stressed about, and I got to see Erik Rutan ripping solos. I don’t need much more than that.