Reveal! - Doppelherz (2021)

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Here's an album that is absolutely refusing to be pigeon-holed by arm-chair bloggers and critics alike, a giant fuck you to those of us who feel a compulsion to tie everything down with one of our genre packages—Sweden's Reveal! are one of the rare groups impure and brazen enough to traverse a rarely contested musical swath of influences running the gamut of everything declared under the banner of "Extreme Metal".

Doppelherz is a colourful mosaic of sounds both old and new, borrowed and invented, frenetic and calculated.—Throughout its entirety, creaky cathedral chords reminiscent of Negative Plane and Funereal Presence can be heard, which is not entirely uncommon, but definitely dubious when it's pressed up against something that sounds like early speed/heavy metal a la Mercyful Fate or disoriented black metal and thrash riffs in the vein of Obliteration or Spirit Possession… But somehow these guys fucking pull it off with gusto!

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I'll spare the multitude of comparisons and say this, it feels like this record shouldn't work. Like there's a little too much going on and too many things being pulled and implemented for it to even feel cohesive, but there's just enough structure and swagger to make it work. And I'll be the first to admit, not having this album in my last years top albums of 2021 was an impermissible misstep, but as it usually goes with very late releases in the year, I overlooked and under-appreciated Doppelherz when it dropped mid December.

Reveal! - Doppelherz (bandcamp)

Jordablod - The Cabinet of Numinous Song (2020)

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Here's a new one I've just landed on from the Iron Bonehead faction, I'll normally scour the new releases found there as the label has earned its way into my trusting arms (ears, whatever) thanks to a plethora of solid releases – How about that Blot & Bod album last year, a real crusher – So when I saw this new album by Jordablod, a motley trio from Sweden hellbent on pulling from sounds across a wide range of sonic landscapes, but still adamant about the bulk of sound being a mixture of doom, death and black metal. It works, and I'm compelled to enjoy the way in which the drums are recorded,  a thick rumbling, and at times plodding, kick drum, that positions itself between a layer of guitar fog which at times seems to float around old rock n' roll and psychedelia riffs. I might be doing a poor job of describing that, to be fair, I'm surviving off the fumes of a few hours of sleep and a undercurrent of a lingering hangover daze. Listen on, my wayward sons.

Jordablod - The Cabinet of Numinous Song (bandcamp)

Milk Music - Mystic 100's (2017)

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"And you can smoke a mystic 100 with him..."are the last words that can be heard piercing through the reverb laden downward spiral of the intro song, sounding muddy and discordant as all hell, Coxen's vocals howling on like weird recounts from a bad trip... It's weird that this track flows into the second track 'Twists & Turns & Headtrips' because even through sheer contrast and complimentary juxtaposition it sounds like two different songs from two different albums from two different bands especially when the second song is jerked to start out of a sample of game show clapping... It's really weird and it shouldn't work. But it does. And I like it.

I only bring all that up to point out one thing. I have been almost completely bored with most music lately, in particular new music coming out this year. Continuously listening through Mystic 100's has been a temporary anecdote to my sonic banality. It's one of those rabbit hole listens, where the ending is nowhere close to the start, everything is wonky and your perspective hangs by a thread.

Milk Music are special. Not like special olympics special but unique special. Their musical cloth is woven from many threads; Weaving in late 60's psych rock, post-punk drone, a grimy edge from side alley punk and an undeniable ooze of catchy pop hooks. Sometimes sounding poignant and nostalgic like early Replacements or Royal Headache and non-sensical and punchy like Destruction Unit or early Pissed Jeans.

I don't know what it's all about and I like it.

Mystic 100's (bandcamp)

Cindy Lee - Act of Tenderness (2018)

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Haunting. Forlorn. Beautiful. Cindy Lee's musical landscape has always been all of these things, a sonic network woven from a wrenching guitar tone, a bleak synth backdrop and an atmosphere soaking heavily in its own folly, stewing in its sadness, marinating in a maddening pond of dismal thoughts and past hurts. This is what it feels like, mostly. There is always this undeniable undertone of warmth and something comforting about it all though, like any good artist or any good fatalist, it's up to the author to conjure up a feeling of hope, even if it's wishful thinking. Nobody likes a total Nihilist.

Act of Tenderness is just that, tender, but it's also everything above and everything below the heart, sitting in the gut and living in the hippocampus. You didn't even know it was there until now, as you sip from your black coffee you realize that. Look at me now, one moment I was listening to Moonknight's Ligeia feeling absolutely nothing in-particular and now only two songs in on this album I'm my most primordial and pensive self. Form your own opinion and stop caring about what other people think, anyway.

Take a listen.

Act of Tenderness

Also definitely listening to her 2017 release, Malenkost. It's grim as black metal and soft as cashmere.