Finally! I got the pictures of Spiderman!!!!
Metalligator approached Scuttlegoat‘s desk with a smug satisfaction, raising his reptilian chin as if he were a Swedish shred legend celebrating his own God-like wonder.
“You expect me to believe this is actually Spiderman?” Scuttlegoat bleated with little hesitance. “You’ve never been able to get a photo of him doing the things that people LOUDLY SAY HE’S DOING ON POLICE SCANNERS AND TELEVISION. And now you have him taking a shit and digging for nose gold???”
“I never thought about it that way” sulked the Gator as the reality of this illusion had set in. “Was it really all a ruse?”
The holidays can bring out the strangest in people. Some rush to the front of the line with a misplaced urgency and no grasp on patience. Others indulge in every vice anticipating to silence the dread with the chemical rush of a full and fattened belly or a pleasantly numbed mind. But just who was this mystery man whose winter-time escape involved dressing as Spiderman to do… gross and humorous things?
We may never know, but this mystery has fueled a rush of productivity and wonder at The Goat Review. Indulge with us and save the marzipan for later.
HOT OFF THE PRESSES
Metalligator hears a bleep and goes bloop...
Front Line Assembly have slowed down considerably during the '10s, with the recent effort Mechanical Soul sounding very tired and the revived Cyberaktif releasing a tepid effort at capturing what made the debut special some 35 years ago. But with all of the projects Bill Leeb and friends have going on, something was bound to hit. Coming out of left field, Bill Leeb decided to release what easily could be a Front Line Assembly album as a solo artist. But while the form might be familiar, there are ideas on Model Kollapse that re-contextualize the FLA sound in ways that makes it fresh. Perhaps as a consequence of recent work with Cyberaktif and one of Leeb's other acts, Delerium, the usual beats and EBM-led dance music finds an augmented atmosphere and guest vocals from Actors member Shannon Hemmett, helping the songs pop. The songs all have that odd sound or sudden twist that takes them out of ordinary fare for Leeb's main acts, which makes Model Collapse easy to recommend.
Cosmo finds a knife in the pit...
Thou need no introduction. One of the pioneers of the modern sludge scene, they’ve been concocting burly riff-fests since the mid 2000s. Never boring, but oft a touch long in the tooth, sixth full-length Umbilical showcases Thou’s tightest songwriting to date, at just under 50 minutes. Some of the nastiest songs they’ve written up until now are present on Umbilical too, with highlights including the infectious “The Promise” and the megalithic “Emotional Terrorist”, which features vocalist Bryan Funck spitting pure venom in your ears (“STAB! STAB! STAB UNTIL YOU’RE DEAD TO ME”) with a vitriol that is unsurpassed. Umbilical is quite the astonishing record, and I hope Thou continue in this vein of tight, venomous hymns on future releases.
Peat enjoys way too many things but OU is one of them so we trust him...
No band this year has defied description or divided my own mind like OU. 蘇醒 II: Frailty opens with wintry ambient piano but soon a staccato burst of 90s alt metal shatters the peace. These constant, quicksilver mood shifts between the beautiful and the jagged is the heart of 蘇醒 and while the mix of pop, prog metal, and ambient threatens to be too much for that heart to sustain, it works. Part of OU’s magic is the enchantingly powerful voice of Lynn Wu, a constant tying together the regimented chaos. Another part is the mesmeric rhythmic drive; it’s obvious that primary songwriter Anthony Vanacore is the drummer from the way the rhythms carry the songs’ progressions. Then there’s the catchy melodies - the synths on “淨化 Purge” are particularly captivating. 蘇醒 is incredibly impressive at its best. Not every track has that power - "衍生 Capture and Elongate (Serenity)" is too elongated - but I’ll keep listening because if there’s one album I expect to rate very differently next year, it's 蘇醒. And if there’s one album you should give a chance to, it's 蘇醒. The editor agrees.
I don’t have a problem with metal being full of faithful tributes to the sounds of old. It brings people happiness. My problem is there’s not enough good tributes to early Swedish melodic death metal for my happiness. As such, getting some fresh material from Sarcasm, an OG act that hadn’t evolved much, was exactly what the doctor ordered. Mourninghoul is a tightly composed package full of riffs that will take you right back to that sound’s heyday. Some of it leans towards the more brutal Stockholm end, like on “A Lucid Dream in the Paradigm Shift”. More of it leans towards that Gothenburg melodicism, as on “Dying Embers of Solitude”. The best moment is the epicly melancholic march of “No Solace From Above”, a near nine minute beast that builds from soft intro to vitriolic misery that points at a possible direction of evolution for Sarcasm. But if they want to continue paying homage to the old stuff, then that’s okay by me. Sarcasm have nailed what the sound should sound like, and I hope others pay attention.
The editor is shameless...
Arthouse Fatso plays to their strengths as riff-forward deathgrind — and with the added mystique and controversy of Orson Welles's private life. Further warping Welles' character and Sycophantic Seizures' sound with left-field death metal and gritty electronics, not a moment goes to waste across its short run. Whether enamored by the horror-tinged croaked word intermission, the classic grind intensity of tracks like "Famous and Unfunny," or the Dying Fetus groove of "Tweets of the Sane," the SS serves a little something for everyone. Do not approach if allergic to riffs, enjoyment, or heavy-handed ironic satire.
