home.social

#hierarchies — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #hierarchies, aggregated by home.social.

  1. Dwelling Below – Wearisome Guardians Review

    By Spicie Forrest

    The boys in Dwelling Below get a lot of facetime here at AMG. We’ve reviewed Hierarchiesdebut (Jared Moran, Anthony Wheeler, Nicolas Turner), all three albums by Acausal Intrusion (Moran, Turner), one by Filtheater (Moran), and we’ve done a filter piece on Feral Lord (Moran, Turner). It’s no wonder, as we tend to enjoy the angry, dissonant stuff they put out. I’ve been jonesing for something in that ballpark, so when I learned that Dwelling Below’s debut unnerved Thus Spoke enough to waive seniority, I quickly snagged their follow-up. Hoping it might hit the spot, I eagerly dug my grubby lil nubbins into Wearisome Guardians.

    Dwelling Below was a filthy slab of long-form deathened doom, and Wearisome Guardians offers much of the same. Look at that cover art. It sounds exactly how you’d expect: like bathing in stagnant catacomb water. Cavernous, mad, and malevolent, Moran echoes through abandoned tombs, disturbing centuries of eight-legged architecture. On the skins, he nearly wakes the dead with frenetic onslaughts of double bass and unsettling cymbals. Turner’s guitar stillbirths an unholy union of Saint Vitus and Autopsy. Warped and abrasive riffs lumber forward, inexorable and lethal as a cave-in, while tormented leads scream psychosis from a neighboring cell (“Terminal Experiments,” “Sacraments”). Ever-so-slightly discordant basslines weave and coil around your ankles as Wheeler encourages a reexamination of your sanity. Like meeting a skinwalker, you know something’s off, but it’s hard to describe, and it’s fucking terrifying.

    It’s a little oxymoronic to call 1.) dissonant 2.) death/doom 3.) metal accessible, but Wearisome Guardians is perhaps Moran’s most approachable offering yet. His aforementioned acts all shove their base genres through the same twisted, dissonant lens, but compared to Hierarchies or Acausal Intrusion, Dwelling Below is almost melodic. Between chaotic, atonal passages and vicious whammy abuse, Turner employs more traditional riffcraft learned long ago at Candlemass (“Wearisome Guardians,” “Terminal Experiments”). Leads in “Unfolding Universe” and “The Altar” reveal traces of Brocas Helm and Cirith Ungol, while “Sacraments” reaches further back, unearthing the legendary B.B. King for a solo, soulful, bright, and blue. These ancestral trappings are strung with care and shine brilliantly against Dwelling Below’s murky core. Wearisome Guardians offers these moments of reprieve from its oppressive violence, like guiding lights coaxing you deeper into the dark.

    At 51 minutes, Wearisome Guardians isn’t terribly long for the genre, but with an average track length of ten minutes, it certainly isn’t a casual listen. Luckily, songcraft is not a weakness Dwelling Below suffers. Far from sedentary, Wearisome Guardians is in constant motion. Most riffs only linger a few moments before evolving into something new or reverting to a main throughline. Even when a riff tarries longer, the bass, drums, or vocals twist and shift, keeping things fresh and engaging throughout. More than this, each song seems built around clearly defined movements. Even on a first listen, I could guess my place in a song fairly well. There’s an intuitive logic to each track’s pace, allowing Wearisome Guardians to feel lean and efficient with no real fat to trim. Even the 90-second “Interlude” belongs. What initially feels like a respite reveals itself to be just as unsettling as the rest of the album. Bright and metallic, this moment’s tainted rest doesn’t let you forget what’s on the other side.

    I wished for some grimy, cavernous filth, and I got it. Wearisome Guardians is a menace to experience. I honestly thought it hyperbole when Thus Spoke said their debut induced fear, but exaggeration it was not. Even with bright moments that fractionally lessen the tension, Dwelling Below is still deeply unnerving. These casket campers know what they’re doing, and they’re good at it. Wearisome Guardians is a strong success on both atmospheric and compositional fronts. Dwelling Below doesn’t just want to show you the dark. They want to leave you there without a torch and seal the tomb. This sophomore effort is claustrophobic, sepulchral, and evil. Wearisome Guardians is viscerally unsafe, and it’s here to break you if you’ve got the nerve to let it.

    Rating: 3.5/5.0
    DR: 10 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
    Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
    Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
    Releases Worldwide: October 31st, 2025

    #2025 #35 #AcausalIntrusion #AmericanMetal #Autopsy #BBKing #BrocasHelm #Candlemass #CirithUngol #DeathDoom #DeathMetal #DoomMetal #DwellingBelow #FeralLord #Filtheater #Hierarchies #Oct25 #Review #Reviews #SaintVitus #TranscendingObscurityRecords #WearisomeGuardians

  2. #WabanakiStudies should be taught at all #MaineSchools

    OpEd by Hope Carroll, December 26, 2023

    "#Wabanaki history is ingrained across #Maine and has deep rooted cultural relationships with major natural landmarks that many of us see everyday. However, there is a concerning gap surrounding the important aspects of our state’s rich Wabanaki history and what little many students learn about it in Maine schools.

    "Wabanaki studies need to be consistently incorporated into all Maine school districts. According to a 2022 report done by the #AbbeMuseum, the #MaineACLU, the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission and the #WabanakiAlliance, the Wabanaki studies law passed by Maine in 2001 is not appropriately enforced across the state.

    "The law 'requires schools to teach Maine K–12 students about Wabanaki territories, economic systems, cultural systems, governments, and political systems, as well as the Wabanaki tribes’ relationships with local, state, national, and international governments,' the report says.

    "The Portland public school system recently incorporated a Wabanaki studies program into its curriculum. This will hopefully be a good example for other districts across Maine and encourage them to do the same.

    "Teaching Wabanaki studies will help children gain a better understanding of the state. In time, this can help them develop a closer relationship with the #land and our responsibility to ensure that it is cared for and treated with respect.

    "'Through #traditional stories representing the terrestrial and aquatic systems, important [Wabanaki] values are imparted that safeguard culturally significant resources from overuse and ensure the persistence of the people and culture,' says Natalie Michelle, interdisciplinary studies and research assistant of native environmental studies in climate change at the University of Maine.

    "It is more important than ever that we look to native science as we face irreversible damage to our climate. We must prioritize implementing these ideals early into the educational careers of children so they go on to practice them throughout their lives.

    "Western science and education has taught the ideals of dominance over nature for centuries. This is reflected in practices that have contributed to the #extinction of animals, rises in #NaturalDisasters, food and water shortages and the numerous other effects of #ClimateChange. Instead of connecting with #nature, we are often taught to distance ourselves from the #NaturalWorld. We are taught to use vague and nonspecific naming tools like 'it' to refer to any non-human being.

    "'We use it to distance ourselves, to set others outside our circle of moral consideration, creating #hierarchies of difference that justify our actions — so we don’t feel,' says Robin Kimmerer, professor of environmental and forest biology at the State University of New York College of #EnvironmentalScience and #Forestry.

    "Kimmerer talks of alternatives to using 'it' to put ourselves on the same level as other living beings, recognizing them as relatives by calling them by their name. But she says that this can be difficult for many of her students because they were not taught these alternatives until now.

    "In my experience growing up in Maine and going to school, I never encountered a class focused on Wabanaki studies until college. I am grateful to have this opportunity now. But it has been difficult for me to implement these new ideals into my thinking toward the land around me because they seem so foreign.

    "Using the word 'foreign' seems wrong when describing ideals that have been used in Maine since long before any of us were here. But Maine schools and communities have an opportunity to change this.

    "Children who grow up in this state have the right and responsibility to know the history of the land around them. They have the right and responsibility to understand the negative implications of #colonization and #ForcedRemoval of the #WabanakiTribes and how despite horrible #historical events, the Wabanaki people have endured and developed their own #sovereign structures.

    "In order to create more inclusive classrooms that incorporate all aspects of our state history and work towards building respectful relationships with Maine land, other communities should follow the exciting example being set in #PortlandMaine."

    Source:
    bangordailynews.com/2023/12/26

    #WabanakiConfederacy #LandBack #IndigenousPeoples
    #IndigenousSovereignty #ClimateCrisis #LandStewards
    #Stewardship #IndigenousNews #NativeAmericanNews