#the-flenser — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #the-flenser, aggregated by home.social.
-
C’est, sans aucun doute, la plus grosse claque musicale que j’ai prise depuis des eons, avec Oranssi Pazuzu.
Cet album transporte quelque chose, une intentionnalité et une intensité que je n’avais pas rencontré depuis un bail!
poke pour @ptm
agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-spiritual-sound
#Music #Metal #BlackMetal #Agriculture #TheFlenser #OranssiPazuzu -
C’est, sans aucun doute, la plus grosse claque musicale que j’ai prise depuis des eons, avec Oranssi Pazuzu.
Cet album transporte quelque chose, une intentionnalité et une intensité que je n’avais pas rencontré depuis un bail!
poke pour @ptm
agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-spiritual-sound
#Music #Metal #BlackMetal #Agriculture #TheFlenser #OranssiPazuzu -
C’est, sans aucun doute, la plus grosse claque musicale que j’ai prise depuis des eons, avec Oranssi Pazuzu.
Cet album transporte quelque chose, une intentionnalité et une intensité que je n’avais pas rencontré depuis un bail!
poke pour @ptm
agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-spiritual-sound
#Music #Metal #BlackMetal #Agriculture #TheFlenser #OranssiPazuzu -
C’est, sans aucun doute, la plus grosse claque musicale que j’ai prise depuis des eons, avec Oranssi Pazuzu.
Cet album transporte quelque chose, une intentionnalité et une intensité que je n’avais pas rencontré depuis un bail!
poke pour @ptm
agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-spiritual-sound
#Music #Metal #BlackMetal #Agriculture #TheFlenser #OranssiPazuzu -
C’est, sans aucun doute, la plus grosse claque musicale que j’ai prise depuis des eons, avec Oranssi Pazuzu.
Cet album transporte quelque chose, une intentionnalité et une intensité que je n’avais pas rencontré depuis un bail!
poke pour @ptm
agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-spiritual-sound
#Music #Metal #BlackMetal #Agriculture #TheFlenser #OranssiPazuzu -
Chat Pile are back.
The Oklahoma City noise rock outfit have announced their third album, Who Loves the Sun, arriving in September. The band has also unveiled the album's first single, "Deep Blue," and announced an extensive North American headlining tour set for this fall.
-
Chat Pile are back.
The Oklahoma City noise rock outfit have announced their third album, Who Loves the Sun, arriving in September. The band has also unveiled the album's first single, "Deep Blue," and announced an extensive North American headlining tour set for this fall.
-
https://www.europesays.com/es/597567/ Chat Pile presentan su nuevo disco con ‘Deep Blue’ #ChatPile #Entertainment #Entretenimiento #ES #España #Music #Música #NoiseMetal #Noticias #Spain #TheFlenser
-
The Flenser is a label with some really good bands
Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo − The Matador (ambient and noise rock)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwcpKJgotZ4Faetooth − White Noise (fairy doom metal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9nFicK_n5EAgriculture − Micah (5: 15am) (ecstatic black metal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycQ6xaYqtWg#TheFlenser #Metal #Music #ChatPile #Faetooth #AgricultureBand
-
The Flenser is a label with some really good bands
Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo − The Matador (ambient and noise rock)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwcpKJgotZ4Faetooth − White Noise (fairy doom metal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9nFicK_n5EAgriculture − Micah (5: 15am) (ecstatic black metal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycQ6xaYqtWg#TheFlenser #Metal #Music #ChatPile #Faetooth #AgricultureBand
-
The Flenser is a label with some really good bands
Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo − The Matador (ambient and noise rock)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwcpKJgotZ4Faetooth − White Noise (fairy doom metal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9nFicK_n5EAgriculture − Micah (5: 15am) (ecstatic black metal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycQ6xaYqtWg#TheFlenser #Metal #Music #ChatPile #Faetooth #AgricultureBand
-
The Flenser is a label with some really good bands
Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo − The Matador (ambient and noise rock)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwcpKJgotZ4Faetooth − White Noise (fairy doom metal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9nFicK_n5EAgriculture − Micah (5: 15am) (ecstatic black metal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycQ6xaYqtWg#TheFlenser #Metal #Music #ChatPile #Faetooth #AgricultureBand
-
The Flenser is a label with some really good bands
Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo − The Matador (ambient and noise rock)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwcpKJgotZ4Faetooth − White Noise (fairy doom metal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9nFicK_n5EAgriculture − Micah (5: 15am) (ecstatic black metal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycQ6xaYqtWg#TheFlenser #Metal #Music #ChatPile #Faetooth #AgricultureBand
-
Agriculture – The Spiritual Sound Review
By Owlswald
Black metal is rooted in extremity—a core toolkit of visual aesthetics, speed, power and atmosphere that naturally imbues it with an inherent spiritual essence. But that essence often collapses into a monochromatic buzz of tremolo and constant tempos. Los Angeles-based quartet Agriculture challenges this expectation with their second LP, The Spiritual Sound, moving beyond the solely dark and brutal in search of presence and illumination. Coming off their potent self-titled debut—a record that landed on Cherd’s Top 10(ish) records of 2023—and 2024’s Living is Easy EP, The Spiritual Sound is a statement of pure honesty and fearless experimentation. The record shatters typical black metal conventions, throwing out ritualistic fanfare for a vast array of influences including death metal, noise, math rock, folk, country, and punk. Self-dubbed as “ecstatic black metal,” the foursome demands you check all preconceived notions at the door as they reframe extreme in their own unique and expansive way.
While Agriculture hasn’t completely turned their backs on their blackened roots, The Spiritual Sound uses them as a launchpad to branch out into realms occupied by groups like Liturgy and labelmates Chat Pile. The frenzied, tremolotic dissonance of guitarists Dan Meyer and Richard Chowenhill still power tracks like “Serenity,” “Flea,” and “Micah (5.15am),” underpinning Leah Levinson’s manic vocals and Kern Haug’s unhinged drumming. Now, however, this approach serves as a stepping stone to more expansive horizons, as Agriculture’s originality has fully blossomed. The record’s forty-four minutes are a playful, unpredictable and complex patchwork of styles: math rock chaos (“My Garden”), sludgy down-picked riffs (“The Weight”), soothing Slowdivey shoegaze harmonies (“Flea,” “Dan’s Love Song”), punky gallops (“Micah (5.15am))” and delicate, folky passages (“The Reply,” “Hallelujah”). This diverse blend transmits an authentic ethos centered on camaraderie, collective struggle, and catharsis, grounded in themes from queer history and AIDS-era literature to historical collapse and Zen Buddhism. As unconventional as it might be, The Spiritual Sound’s mission is a clear success: to craft unique, empowering music that fosters community without pretense.
Agriculture’s experimentation largely shines through Meyer and Chowenhill’s impressive and inventive shredding. The duo injects The Spiritual Sound with tons of flashy guitar work through a hodgepodge of bends, squeals, trills, and high-pitched pick taps around more conventional bouts of thrashy riffing and smothering tremolos to create a vibrant spectrum of textures. The captivating leads in tracks like “The Weight,” “My Garden” and “Bodhidharma”—the latter of which contains one of the best solos I’ve heard in a long time—take influence from Tom Morello’s (Rage Against the Machine) boundary-pushing designs or Larry LaLonde’s (Primus) accented jams, while “Flea’s” solo elicits the expressiveness of classic rock. Song o’ the Year candidate “My Garden” explodes into a whirling dervish of frantic math fretwork before dropping into one of the most crushing riffs I’ve heard all year. It then transitions into a soothing interlude for a brief moment before bludgeoning you once more with heaviness and rapid-fire high tremolo runs. This constant shift between doom- and groove-laden weight, jarring dissonance, and soothing ethereal passages is what gives The Spiritual Sound its complex structure and feeds its absorbing, often unpredictable journey.
The Spiritual Sound’s novelty is equally defined by Levinson and Meyer’s vocal performances. Levinson shifts between extreme intensity and introspective subtlety, delivering ear-piercing shrieking rasps balanced by softer, more experimental elements like the poetic, spoken word found in “Bodhidharma” or the conversational tone of “Flea.” The strategic use of soothing clean vocals and Meyer’s beautiful harmonies in songs like “The Reply,” “Hallelujah,” or “Dan’s Love Song” also provides essential emotional contrast, amplifying the impact of the record’s heavier tracks and buttressing Agriculture’s originality. The coarse production—courtesy of Chowenhill—is compressed and somewhat lo-fi but allows the quartet’s unbridled sound to rush through the speakers with both raw aggression and clarity.
Agriculture may have stumbled into black metal during their formation, but the genre—and The Spiritual Sound—is all the better for it. Though their ambitious scope results in some unevenness (“Flea” and “Serenity” rely on tropey structures and interlude “The Spiritual Sound” is confusingly split into its own track), Agriculture is unafraid to walk its own path, successfully blending various styles into a great record authentically rooted in the power, community and pure enjoyment of extreme music. Black metal purists should look elsewhere—however, those who approach The Spiritual Sound without pretense will find a unique, genre-defying experience that only gets better with every play.
Rating: Great!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: The Flenser
Websites: agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/music | agriculturemusic.com | facebook.com/agriculturemusic
Releases Worldwide: October 3rd, 2025#2025 #40 #Agriculture #AlternativeMetal #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #ChatPile #ExperimentalMetal #Liturgy #Oct25 #Primus #RageAgainstTheMachine #Review #Reviews #Slowdive #TheFlenser #TheSpiritualSound
-
Agriculture – The Spiritual Sound Review
By Owlswald
Black metal is rooted in extremity—a core toolkit of visual aesthetics, speed, power and atmosphere that naturally imbues it with an inherent spiritual essence. But that essence often collapses into a monochromatic buzz of tremolo and constant tempos. Los Angeles-based quartet Agriculture challenges this expectation with their second LP, The Spiritual Sound, moving beyond the solely dark and brutal in search of presence and illumination. Coming off their potent self-titled debut—a record that landed on Cherd’s Top 10(ish) records of 2023—and 2024’s Living is Easy EP, The Spiritual Sound is a statement of pure honesty and fearless experimentation. The record shatters typical black metal conventions, throwing out ritualistic fanfare for a vast array of influences including death metal, noise, math rock, folk, country, and punk. Self-dubbed as “ecstatic black metal,” the foursome demands you check all preconceived notions at the door as they reframe extreme in their own unique and expansive way.
While Agriculture hasn’t completely turned their backs on their blackened roots, The Spiritual Sound uses them as a launchpad to branch out into realms occupied by groups like Liturgy and labelmates Chat Pile. The frenzied, tremolotic dissonance of guitarists Dan Meyer and Richard Chowenhill still power tracks like “Serenity,” “Flea,” and “Micah (5.15am),” underpinning Leah Levinson’s manic vocals and Kern Haug’s unhinged drumming. Now, however, this approach serves as a stepping stone to more expansive horizons, as Agriculture’s originality has fully blossomed. The record’s forty-four minutes are a playful, unpredictable and complex patchwork of styles: math rock chaos (“My Garden”), sludgy down-picked riffs (“The Weight”), soothing Slowdivey shoegaze harmonies (“Flea,” “Dan’s Love Song”), punky gallops (“Micah (5.15am))” and delicate, folky passages (“The Reply,” “Hallelujah”). This diverse blend transmits an authentic ethos centered on camaraderie, collective struggle, and catharsis, grounded in themes from queer history and AIDS-era literature to historical collapse and Zen Buddhism. As unconventional as it might be, The Spiritual Sound’s mission is a clear success: to craft unique, empowering music that fosters community without pretense.
Agriculture’s experimentation largely shines through Meyer and Chowenhill’s impressive and inventive shredding. The duo injects The Spiritual Sound with tons of flashy guitar work through a hodgepodge of bends, squeals, trills, and high-pitched pick taps around more conventional bouts of thrashy riffing and smothering tremolos to create a vibrant spectrum of textures. The captivating leads in tracks like “The Weight,” “My Garden” and “Bodhidharma”—the latter of which contains one of the best solos I’ve heard in a long time—take influence from Tom Morello’s (Rage Against the Machine) boundary-pushing designs or Larry LaLonde’s (Primus) accented jams, while “Flea’s” solo elicits the expressiveness of classic rock. Song o’ the Year candidate “My Garden” explodes into a whirling dervish of frantic math fretwork before dropping into one of the most crushing riffs I’ve heard all year. It then transitions into a soothing interlude for a brief moment before bludgeoning you once more with heaviness and rapid-fire high tremolo runs. This constant shift between doom- and groove-laden weight, jarring dissonance, and soothing ethereal passages is what gives The Spiritual Sound its complex structure and feeds its absorbing, often unpredictable journey.
The Spiritual Sound’s novelty is equally defined by Levinson and Meyer’s vocal performances. Levinson shifts between extreme intensity and introspective subtlety, delivering ear-piercing shrieking rasps balanced by softer, more experimental elements like the poetic, spoken word found in “Bodhidharma” or the conversational tone of “Flea.” The strategic use of soothing clean vocals and Meyer’s beautiful harmonies in songs like “The Reply,” “Hallelujah,” or “Dan’s Love Song” also provides essential emotional contrast, amplifying the impact of the record’s heavier tracks and buttressing Agriculture’s originality. The coarse production—courtesy of Chowenhill—is compressed and somewhat lo-fi but allows the quartet’s unbridled sound to rush through the speakers with both raw aggression and clarity.
Agriculture may have stumbled into black metal during their formation, but the genre—and The Spiritual Sound—is all the better for it. Though their ambitious scope results in some unevenness (“Flea” and “Serenity” rely on tropey structures and interlude “The Spiritual Sound” is confusingly split into its own track), Agriculture is unafraid to walk its own path, successfully blending various styles into a great record authentically rooted in the power, community and pure enjoyment of extreme music. Black metal purists should look elsewhere—however, those who approach The Spiritual Sound without pretense will find a unique, genre-defying experience that only gets better with every play.
Rating: Great!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: The Flenser
Websites: agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/music | agriculturemusic.com | facebook.com/agriculturemusic
Releases Worldwide: October 3rd, 2025#2025 #40 #Agriculture #AlternativeMetal #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #ChatPile #ExperimentalMetal #Liturgy #Oct25 #Primus #RageAgainstTheMachine #Review #Reviews #Slowdive #TheFlenser #TheSpiritualSound
-
Agriculture – The Spiritual Sound Review
By Owlswald
Black metal is rooted in extremity—a core toolkit of visual aesthetics, speed, power and atmosphere that naturally imbues it with an inherent spiritual essence. But that essence often collapses into a monochromatic buzz of tremolo and constant tempos. Los Angeles-based quartet Agriculture challenges this expectation with their second LP, The Spiritual Sound, moving beyond the solely dark and brutal in search of presence and illumination. Coming off their potent self-titled debut—a record that landed on Cherd’s Top 10(ish) records of 2023—and 2024’s Living is Easy EP, The Spiritual Sound is a statement of pure honesty and fearless experimentation. The record shatters typical black metal conventions, throwing out ritualistic fanfare for a vast array of influences including death metal, noise, math rock, folk, country, and punk. Self-dubbed as “ecstatic black metal,” the foursome demands you check all preconceived notions at the door as they reframe extreme in their own unique and expansive way.
While Agriculture hasn’t completely turned their backs on their blackened roots, The Spiritual Sound uses them as a launchpad to branch out into realms occupied by groups like Liturgy and labelmates Chat Pile. The frenzied, tremolotic dissonance of guitarists Dan Meyer and Richard Chowenhill still power tracks like “Serenity,” “Flea,” and “Micah (5.15am),” underpinning Leah Levinson’s manic vocals and Kern Haug’s unhinged drumming. Now, however, this approach serves as a stepping stone to more expansive horizons, as Agriculture’s originality has fully blossomed. The record’s forty-four minutes are a playful, unpredictable and complex patchwork of styles: math rock chaos (“My Garden”), sludgy down-picked riffs (“The Weight”), soothing Slowdivey shoegaze harmonies (“Flea,” “Dan’s Love Song”), punky gallops (“Micah (5.15am))” and delicate, folky passages (“The Reply,” “Hallelujah”). This diverse blend transmits an authentic ethos centered on camaraderie, collective struggle, and catharsis, grounded in themes from queer history and AIDS-era literature to historical collapse and Zen Buddhism. As unconventional as it might be, The Spiritual Sound’s mission is a clear success: to craft unique, empowering music that fosters community without pretense.
Agriculture’s experimentation largely shines through Meyer and Chowenhill’s impressive and inventive shredding. The duo injects The Spiritual Sound with tons of flashy guitar work through a hodgepodge of bends, squeals, trills, and high-pitched pick taps around more conventional bouts of thrashy riffing and smothering tremolos to create a vibrant spectrum of textures. The captivating leads in tracks like “The Weight,” “My Garden” and “Bodhidharma”—the latter of which contains one of the best solos I’ve heard in a long time—take influence from Tom Morello’s (Rage Against the Machine) boundary-pushing designs or Larry LaLonde’s (Primus) accented jams, while “Flea’s” solo elicits the expressiveness of classic rock. Song o’ the Year candidate “My Garden” explodes into a whirling dervish of frantic math fretwork before dropping into one of the most crushing riffs I’ve heard all year. It then transitions into a soothing interlude for a brief moment before bludgeoning you once more with heaviness and rapid-fire high tremolo runs. This constant shift between doom- and groove-laden weight, jarring dissonance, and soothing ethereal passages is what gives The Spiritual Sound its complex structure and feeds its absorbing, often unpredictable journey.
The Spiritual Sound’s novelty is equally defined by Levinson and Meyer’s vocal performances. Levinson shifts between extreme intensity and introspective subtlety, delivering ear-piercing shrieking rasps balanced by softer, more experimental elements like the poetic, spoken word found in “Bodhidharma” or the conversational tone of “Flea.” The strategic use of soothing clean vocals and Meyer’s beautiful harmonies in songs like “The Reply,” “Hallelujah,” or “Dan’s Love Song” also provides essential emotional contrast, amplifying the impact of the record’s heavier tracks and buttressing Agriculture’s originality. The coarse production—courtesy of Chowenhill—is compressed and somewhat lo-fi but allows the quartet’s unbridled sound to rush through the speakers with both raw aggression and clarity.
Agriculture may have stumbled into black metal during their formation, but the genre—and The Spiritual Sound—is all the better for it. Though their ambitious scope results in some unevenness (“Flea” and “Serenity” rely on tropey structures and interlude “The Spiritual Sound” is confusingly split into its own track), Agriculture is unafraid to walk its own path, successfully blending various styles into a great record authentically rooted in the power, community and pure enjoyment of extreme music. Black metal purists should look elsewhere—however, those who approach The Spiritual Sound without pretense will find a unique, genre-defying experience that only gets better with every play.
Rating: Great!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: The Flenser
Websites: agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/music | agriculturemusic.com | facebook.com/agriculturemusic
Releases Worldwide: October 3rd, 2025#2025 #40 #Agriculture #AlternativeMetal #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #ChatPile #ExperimentalMetal #Liturgy #Oct25 #Primus #RageAgainstTheMachine #Review #Reviews #Slowdive #TheFlenser #TheSpiritualSound
-
Agriculture – The Spiritual Sound Review
By Owlswald
Black metal is rooted in extremity—a core toolkit of visual aesthetics, speed, power and atmosphere that naturally imbues it with an inherent spiritual essence. But that essence often collapses into a monochromatic buzz of tremolo and constant tempos. Los Angeles-based quartet Agriculture challenges this expectation with their second LP, The Spiritual Sound, moving beyond the solely dark and brutal in search of presence and illumination. Coming off their potent self-titled debut—a record that landed on Cherd’s Top 10(ish) records of 2023—and 2024’s Living is Easy EP, The Spiritual Sound is a statement of pure honesty and fearless experimentation. The record shatters typical black metal conventions, throwing out ritualistic fanfare for a vast array of influences including death metal, noise, math rock, folk, country, and punk. Self-dubbed as “ecstatic black metal,” the foursome demands you check all preconceived notions at the door as they reframe extreme in their own unique and expansive way.
While Agriculture hasn’t completely turned their backs on their blackened roots, The Spiritual Sound uses them as a launchpad to branch out into realms occupied by groups like Liturgy and labelmates Chat Pile. The frenzied, tremolotic dissonance of guitarists Dan Meyer and Richard Chowenhill still power tracks like “Serenity,” “Flea,” and “Micah (5.15am),” underpinning Leah Levinson’s manic vocals and Kern Haug’s unhinged drumming. Now, however, this approach serves as a stepping stone to more expansive horizons, as Agriculture’s originality has fully blossomed. The record’s forty-four minutes are a playful, unpredictable and complex patchwork of styles: math rock chaos (“My Garden”), sludgy down-picked riffs (“The Weight”), soothing Slowdivey shoegaze harmonies (“Flea,” “Dan’s Love Song”), punky gallops (“Micah (5.15am))” and delicate, folky passages (“The Reply,” “Hallelujah”). This diverse blend transmits an authentic ethos centered on camaraderie, collective struggle, and catharsis, grounded in themes from queer history and AIDS-era literature to historical collapse and Zen Buddhism. As unconventional as it might be, The Spiritual Sound’s mission is a clear success: to craft unique, empowering music that fosters community without pretense.
Agriculture’s experimentation largely shines through Meyer and Chowenhill’s impressive and inventive shredding. The duo injects The Spiritual Sound with tons of flashy guitar work through a hodgepodge of bends, squeals, trills, and high-pitched pick taps around more conventional bouts of thrashy riffing and smothering tremolos to create a vibrant spectrum of textures. The captivating leads in tracks like “The Weight,” “My Garden” and “Bodhidharma”—the latter of which contains one of the best solos I’ve heard in a long time—take influence from Tom Morello’s (Rage Against the Machine) boundary-pushing designs or Larry LaLonde’s (Primus) accented jams, while “Flea’s” solo elicits the expressiveness of classic rock. Song o’ the Year candidate “My Garden” explodes into a whirling dervish of frantic math fretwork before dropping into one of the most crushing riffs I’ve heard all year. It then transitions into a soothing interlude for a brief moment before bludgeoning you once more with heaviness and rapid-fire high tremolo runs. This constant shift between doom- and groove-laden weight, jarring dissonance, and soothing ethereal passages is what gives The Spiritual Sound its complex structure and feeds its absorbing, often unpredictable journey.
The Spiritual Sound’s novelty is equally defined by Levinson and Meyer’s vocal performances. Levinson shifts between extreme intensity and introspective subtlety, delivering ear-piercing shrieking rasps balanced by softer, more experimental elements like the poetic, spoken word found in “Bodhidharma” or the conversational tone of “Flea.” The strategic use of soothing clean vocals and Meyer’s beautiful harmonies in songs like “The Reply,” “Hallelujah,” or “Dan’s Love Song” also provides essential emotional contrast, amplifying the impact of the record’s heavier tracks and buttressing Agriculture’s originality. The coarse production—courtesy of Chowenhill—is compressed and somewhat lo-fi but allows the quartet’s unbridled sound to rush through the speakers with both raw aggression and clarity.
Agriculture may have stumbled into black metal during their formation, but the genre—and The Spiritual Sound—is all the better for it. Though their ambitious scope results in some unevenness (“Flea” and “Serenity” rely on tropey structures and interlude “The Spiritual Sound” is confusingly split into its own track), Agriculture is unafraid to walk its own path, successfully blending various styles into a great record authentically rooted in the power, community and pure enjoyment of extreme music. Black metal purists should look elsewhere—however, those who approach The Spiritual Sound without pretense will find a unique, genre-defying experience that only gets better with every play.
Rating: Great!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: The Flenser
Websites: agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/music | agriculturemusic.com | facebook.com/agriculturemusic
Releases Worldwide: October 3rd, 2025#2025 #40 #Agriculture #AlternativeMetal #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #ChatPile #ExperimentalMetal #Liturgy #Oct25 #Primus #RageAgainstTheMachine #Review #Reviews #Slowdive #TheFlenser #TheSpiritualSound
-
Agriculture – The Spiritual Sound Review
By Owlswald
Black metal is rooted in extremity—a core toolkit of visual aesthetics, speed, power and atmosphere that naturally imbues it with an inherent spiritual essence. But that essence often collapses into a monochromatic buzz of tremolo and constant tempos. Los Angeles-based quartet Agriculture challenges this expectation with their second LP, The Spiritual Sound, moving beyond the solely dark and brutal in search of presence and illumination. Coming off their potent self-titled debut—a record that landed on Cherd’s Top 10(ish) records of 2023—and 2024’s Living is Easy EP, The Spiritual Sound is a statement of pure honesty and fearless experimentation. The record shatters typical black metal conventions, throwing out ritualistic fanfare for a vast array of influences including death metal, noise, math rock, folk, country, and punk. Self-dubbed as “ecstatic black metal,” the foursome demands you check all preconceived notions at the door as they reframe extreme in their own unique and expansive way.
While Agriculture hasn’t completely turned their backs on their blackened roots, The Spiritual Sound uses them as a launchpad to branch out into realms occupied by groups like Liturgy and labelmates Chat Pile. The frenzied, tremolotic dissonance of guitarists Dan Meyer and Richard Chowenhill still power tracks like “Serenity,” “Flea,” and “Micah (5.15am),” underpinning Leah Levinson’s manic vocals and Kern Haug’s unhinged drumming. Now, however, this approach serves as a stepping stone to more expansive horizons, as Agriculture’s originality has fully blossomed. The record’s forty-four minutes are a playful, unpredictable and complex patchwork of styles: math rock chaos (“My Garden”), sludgy down-picked riffs (“The Weight”), soothing Slowdivey shoegaze harmonies (“Flea,” “Dan’s Love Song”), punky gallops (“Micah (5.15am))” and delicate, folky passages (“The Reply,” “Hallelujah”). This diverse blend transmits an authentic ethos centered on camaraderie, collective struggle, and catharsis, grounded in themes from queer history and AIDS-era literature to historical collapse and Zen Buddhism. As unconventional as it might be, The Spiritual Sound’s mission is a clear success: to craft unique, empowering music that fosters community without pretense.
Agriculture’s experimentation largely shines through Meyer and Chowenhill’s impressive and inventive shredding. The duo injects The Spiritual Sound with tons of flashy guitar work through a hodgepodge of bends, squeals, trills, and high-pitched pick taps around more conventional bouts of thrashy riffing and smothering tremolos to create a vibrant spectrum of textures. The captivating leads in tracks like “The Weight,” “My Garden” and “Bodhidharma”—the latter of which contains one of the best solos I’ve heard in a long time—take influence from Tom Morello’s (Rage Against the Machine) boundary-pushing designs or Larry LaLonde’s (Primus) accented jams, while “Flea’s” solo elicits the expressiveness of classic rock. Song o’ the Year candidate “My Garden” explodes into a whirling dervish of frantic math fretwork before dropping into one of the most crushing riffs I’ve heard all year. It then transitions into a soothing interlude for a brief moment before bludgeoning you once more with heaviness and rapid-fire high tremolo runs. This constant shift between doom- and groove-laden weight, jarring dissonance, and soothing ethereal passages is what gives The Spiritual Sound its complex structure and feeds its absorbing, often unpredictable journey.
The Spiritual Sound’s novelty is equally defined by Levinson and Meyer’s vocal performances. Levinson shifts between extreme intensity and introspective subtlety, delivering ear-piercing shrieking rasps balanced by softer, more experimental elements like the poetic, spoken word found in “Bodhidharma” or the conversational tone of “Flea.” The strategic use of soothing clean vocals and Meyer’s beautiful harmonies in songs like “The Reply,” “Hallelujah,” or “Dan’s Love Song” also provides essential emotional contrast, amplifying the impact of the record’s heavier tracks and buttressing Agriculture’s originality. The coarse production—courtesy of Chowenhill—is compressed and somewhat lo-fi but allows the quartet’s unbridled sound to rush through the speakers with both raw aggression and clarity.
Agriculture may have stumbled into black metal during their formation, but the genre—and The Spiritual Sound—is all the better for it. Though their ambitious scope results in some unevenness (“Flea” and “Serenity” rely on tropey structures and interlude “The Spiritual Sound” is confusingly split into its own track), Agriculture is unafraid to walk its own path, successfully blending various styles into a great record authentically rooted in the power, community and pure enjoyment of extreme music. Black metal purists should look elsewhere—however, those who approach The Spiritual Sound without pretense will find a unique, genre-defying experience that only gets better with every play.
Rating: Great!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: The Flenser
Websites: agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/music | agriculturemusic.com | facebook.com/agriculturemusic
Releases Worldwide: October 3rd, 2025#2025 #40 #Agriculture #AlternativeMetal #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #ChatPile #ExperimentalMetal #Liturgy #Oct25 #Primus #RageAgainstTheMachine #Review #Reviews #Slowdive #TheFlenser #TheSpiritualSound
-
Out October 3 - Agriculture’s "The Spiritual Sound” LP / LP COLOR / CD / MC from The Flenser. Behold, the highly anticipated new album from rising ecstatic black metal collective, Agriculture.
#agriculture #agricultureband #thespiritualsound #theflenser #ecstaticblackmetal
-
Out October 3 - Agriculture’s "The Spiritual Sound” LP / LP COLOR / CD / MC from The Flenser. Behold, the highly anticipated new album from rising ecstatic black metal collective, Agriculture.
#agriculture #agricultureband #thespiritualsound #theflenser #ecstaticblackmetal
-
Out May 30 - Planning For Burial "It's Closeness, It's Easy." LP/CD from The Flenser. The anticipated follow up to the 2017 Below The House album from the cult gloomgaze powerhouse.
https://midheaven.com/item/planning-for-burial/it-s-closeness-it-s-easy
#planningforburial
#itsclosenessitseasy
#theflenser
#thomwasluck
#gloomgaze -
Out May 30 - Planning For Burial "It's Closeness, It's Easy." LP/CD from The Flenser. The anticipated follow up to the 2017 Below The House album from the cult gloomgaze powerhouse.
https://midheaven.com/item/planning-for-burial/it-s-closeness-it-s-easy
#planningforburial
#itsclosenessitseasy
#theflenser
#thomwasluck
#gloomgaze -
Out May 2 - Pyramids "Pythagoras" LP/CD from The Flenser. Nine years in the making Pythagoras pushes boundaries blending jagged fragments of black metal and shoe gaze with layers of reggaeton and neoperreo.
https://midheaven.com/item/pyramids/pythagoras
#pyramidsband
#pythagorasalbum
#theflenser
#shoegaze
#blackmetal -
Out May 2 - Pyramids "Pythagoras" LP/CD from The Flenser. Nine years in the making Pythagoras pushes boundaries blending jagged fragments of black metal and shoe gaze with layers of reggaeton and neoperreo.
https://midheaven.com/item/pyramids/pythagoras
#pyramidsband
#pythagorasalbum
#theflenser
#shoegaze
#blackmetal -
Out Jan. 24 - Kathryn Mohr "Waiting Room" LP from The Flenser. An incredible slow core/ambient journey of isolation and self-reflection recorded over a month in a disused fish factory in eastern Iceland.
https://www.midheaven.com/item/mohr-kathryn/waiting-room
#kathrynmohr
#theflenser
#slowcore -
Out Jan. 24 - Kathryn Mohr "Waiting Room" LP from The Flenser. An incredible slow core/ambient journey of isolation and self-reflection recorded over a month in a disused fish factory in eastern Iceland.
https://www.midheaven.com/item/mohr-kathryn/waiting-room
#kathrynmohr
#theflenser
#slowcore -
Out December 20 - Chat Pile "This Dungeon Earth/Remove Your Skin Please" CD from The Flenser. The OK juggernaut's first two EPs from 2019 reissued on one disc. Eight songs that blast like a car smashing into a house.
https://midheaven.com/item/chat-pile/this-dungeon-earth-remove-your-skin-please
#chatpile
#thisdungeonearthremoveyourskinplease
#thisdungeonearth
#removeyourskinplease
#theflenser -
Out December 20 - Chat Pile "This Dungeon Earth/Remove Your Skin Please" CD from The Flenser. The OK juggernaut's first two EPs from 2019 reissued on one disc. Eight songs that blast like a car smashing into a house.
https://midheaven.com/item/chat-pile/this-dungeon-earth-remove-your-skin-please
#chatpile
#thisdungeonearthremoveyourskinplease
#thisdungeonearth
#removeyourskinplease
#theflenser -
By Cherd
Two years ago, I named Chat Pile’s debut full-length God’s Country my Album o’ the Year, at considerable risk to myself. You see, the senior partners at AMG and Sons, LLC have no love for the Pile or for the greasy noise rock/post-hardcore/sludge these Oklahoman’s produce. After submitting my year-end list, I endured all manner of verbal abuse, which would have been fine had it not been followed closely by physical abuse. A hulking ape branded a large “P” on my chest, after which a gang of masked n00bs beat me senseless. I like to think they were forced to do this, but a couple clearly enjoyed themselves. Then came the waterboarding. This wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t played Alestorm on loop as I struggled for air. Finally, I spent a month in The Hole, and when I emerged again shaking and moist with sweat, they warned me against such folly in the future. Two years have passed, and Chat Pile’s sophomore release Cool World has arrived. Wounds I thought had healed ache as if new, and I fear exposing myself once again to the roving Eye of Sauron, but I just can’t deny my love for this band. Will I risk another month in The Hole for Cool World?
For the uninitiated, Chat Pile draw their sound from the darker, weirder corners of the 90s. Over their first EPs, it would be fair to say they were a mix of The Jesus Lizard and Deadguy with Korn riffs smattered on top. God’s Country saw them get heavier and angrier, with a sludgy heft adding to their sound and lyrics laser-focused on Middle American misery. Cool World is their heaviest work to date and continues to draw from 90s noise and post-hardcore. The first time I heard lead single “Masc,” I noted the influence of Helmet. Meanwhile, cuts like “The New World” channel Red Medicine era Fugazi. There’s a more uniform sound across the album than on previous outings, one that relies on sustained rhythmic grooves and repetition. If you’re familiar with God’s Country, it’s like they dedicated the better part of Cool World to what they were doing on “Slaughterhouse.” There’s also a subtle commitment to melody and despondent vocal harmonies that cut through the harshness on songs like “Shame” and “Milk of Human Kindness.”
Cool World’s focus on hypnotic, oily grooves combined with vocalist Raygun Busch’s shell-shocked talk-singing and raging shouts pays huge dividends if you like your noise metal gnarly and apoplectic. The best material comes in the form of two song couplets, the first being “Frownland”/”Funny Man,” and the second “The New World”/”Masc.” As “Frownland” demonstrates, the punch in these songs comes partly from scraping slabs of ugly bass courtesy of four-string slinger Stin and from a production job that gives Cap’n Ron’s drums plenty of low-end. Then there’s Busch’s reliably unhinged delivery of lines like “Big world, small change, outside there’s no mercy and not everyone can hide” from “Funny Man.” It’s the kind of delivery that lets you know there’s no mercy inside, either. “The New World” finds Chat Pile firing on all cylinders as Busch shrieks “Most are dragged kicking and screaming out into the new world.” It’s the ugliest, heaviest, and best song the band has ever written. By following this with the much more melodic but no less cynical “Masc,” Cool World gives us the best one-two punch you could ask for. Busch’s lyrics have moved from the micro to the macro of human suffering, and the shift to bigger rhythms and harder grooves supports this well.
This, however, means some of the idiosyncrasies that have served Chat Pile well over the years are missing. It’s all as bleak and off-kilter as ever, but there are no truly weird left-field detours here like the humorous “Rainbow Meat” or the starkly disturbing “Dallas Beltway” from the EPs or the humorous and starkly disturbing “grimace_smoking_weed.jpg” from God’s Country. The variety in Cool World comes mostly from the melodic tracks “Shame,” “Masc,” and the gloomy “Milk of Human Kindness.” There’s even a death metal vocals segment late in “Shame” that gets the blood pumping, but I miss the songs that make you go “What did I just listen to?” This could of course mean the band will widen their audience with Cool World, since a song like “Why?” proved divisive in the past. Cool World is a really good record, but for the first time, it sounds like a record some other band could have made.
I won’t be making Cool World my Album of the Year, but it’s certainly very good and I’ll probably play it to death in the next few months. It has the best two songs the band have written so far and finds Chat Pile maturing into a sound full of gnarly grooves. That said, a touch of the old overt weirdness and humor would go a long way on such a dark record. Is all this enough to save me from another month in The Hole? I don’t know, but if I disappear for a while, you’ll know why.1
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: The Flenser
Websites: chatpile.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/chatpileband
Releases Worldwide: October 11th, 2024#2024 #35 #AlternativeMetal #AmericanMetal #AmericanRock #ChatPile #CoolWorld #Deadguy #Fugazi #Helmet #Korn #NoiseRock #Oct24 #Review #Reviews #Sludge #TheFlenser #TheJesusLizard
-
By Cherd
Two years ago, I named Chat Pile’s debut full-length God’s Country my Album o’ the Year, at considerable risk to myself. You see, the senior partners at AMG and Sons, LLC have no love for the Pile or for the greasy noise rock/post-hardcore/sludge these Oklahoman’s produce. After submitting my year-end list, I endured all manner of verbal abuse, which would have been fine had it not been followed closely by physical abuse. A hulking ape branded a large “P” on my chest, after which a gang of masked n00bs beat me senseless. I like to think they were forced to do this, but a couple clearly enjoyed themselves. Then came the waterboarding. This wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t played Alestorm on loop as I struggled for air. Finally, I spent a month in The Hole, and when I emerged again shaking and moist with sweat, they warned me against such folly in the future. Two years have passed, and Chat Pile’s sophomore release Cool World has arrived. Wounds I thought had healed ache as if new, and I fear exposing myself once again to the roving Eye of Sauron, but I just can’t deny my love for this band. Will I risk another month in The Hole for Cool World?
For the uninitiated, Chat Pile draw their sound from the darker, weirder corners of the 90s. Over their first EPs, it would be fair to say they were a mix of The Jesus Lizard and Deadguy with Korn riffs smattered on top. God’s Country saw them get heavier and angrier, with a sludgy heft adding to their sound and lyrics laser-focused on Middle American misery. Cool World is their heaviest work to date and continues to draw from 90s noise and post-hardcore. The first time I heard lead single “Masc,” I noted the influence of Helmet. Meanwhile, cuts like “The New World” channel Red Medicine era Fugazi. There’s a more uniform sound across the album than on previous outings, one that relies on sustained rhythmic grooves and repetition. If you’re familiar with God’s Country, it’s like they dedicated the better part of Cool World to what they were doing on “Slaughterhouse.” There’s also a subtle commitment to melody and despondent vocal harmonies that cut through the harshness on songs like “Shame” and “Milk of Human Kindness.”
Cool World’s focus on hypnotic, oily grooves combined with vocalist Raygun Busch’s shell-shocked talk-singing and raging shouts pays huge dividends if you like your noise metal gnarly and apoplectic. The best material comes in the form of two song couplets, the first being “Frownland”/”Funny Man,” and the second “The New World”/”Masc.” As “Frownland” demonstrates, the punch in these songs comes partly from scraping slabs of ugly bass courtesy of four-string slinger Stin and from a production job that gives Cap’n Ron’s drums plenty of low-end. Then there’s Busch’s reliably unhinged delivery of lines like “Big world, small change, outside there’s no mercy and not everyone can hide” from “Funny Man.” It’s the kind of delivery that lets you know there’s no mercy inside, either. “The New World” finds Chat Pile firing on all cylinders as Busch shrieks “Most are dragged kicking and screaming out into the new world.” It’s the ugliest, heaviest, and best song the band has ever written. By following this with the much more melodic but no less cynical “Masc,” Cool World gives us the best one-two punch you could ask for. Busch’s lyrics have moved from the micro to the macro of human suffering, and the shift to bigger rhythms and harder grooves supports this well.
This, however, means some of the idiosyncrasies that have served Chat Pile well over the years are missing. It’s all as bleak and off-kilter as ever, but there are no truly weird left-field detours here like the humorous “Rainbow Meat” or the starkly disturbing “Dallas Beltway” from the EPs or the humorous and starkly disturbing “grimace_smoking_weed.jpg” from God’s Country. The variety in Cool World comes mostly from the melodic tracks “Shame,” “Masc,” and the gloomy “Milk of Human Kindness.” There’s even a death metal vocals segment late in “Shame” that gets the blood pumping, but I miss the songs that make you go “What did I just listen to?” This could of course mean the band will widen their audience with Cool World, since a song like “Why?” proved divisive in the past. Cool World is a really good record, but for the first time, it sounds like a record some other band could have made.
I won’t be making Cool World my Album of the Year, but it’s certainly very good and I’ll probably play it to death in the next few months. It has the best two songs the band have written so far and finds Chat Pile maturing into a sound full of gnarly grooves. That said, a touch of the old overt weirdness and humor would go a long way on such a dark record. Is all this enough to save me from another month in The Hole? I don’t know, but if I disappear for a while, you’ll know why.1
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: The Flenser
Websites: chatpile.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/chatpileband
Releases Worldwide: October 11th, 2024#2024 #35 #AlternativeMetal #AmericanMetal #AmericanRock #ChatPile #CoolWorld #Deadguy #Fugazi #Helmet #Korn #NoiseRock #Oct24 #Review #Reviews #Sludge #TheFlenser #TheJesusLizard
-
By Cherd
Two years ago, I named Chat Pile’s debut full-length God’s Country my Album o’ the Year, at considerable risk to myself. You see, the senior partners at AMG and Sons, LLC have no love for the Pile or for the greasy noise rock/post-hardcore/sludge these Oklahoman’s produce. After submitting my year-end list, I endured all manner of verbal abuse, which would have been fine had it not been followed closely by physical abuse. A hulking ape branded a large “P” on my chest, after which a gang of masked n00bs beat me senseless. I like to think they were forced to do this, but a couple clearly enjoyed themselves. Then came the waterboarding. This wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t played Alestorm on loop as I struggled for air. Finally, I spent a month in The Hole, and when I emerged again shaking and moist with sweat, they warned me against such folly in the future. Two years have passed, and Chat Pile’s sophomore release Cool World has arrived. Wounds I thought had healed ache as if new, and I fear exposing myself once again to the roving Eye of Sauron, but I just can’t deny my love for this band. Will I risk another month in The Hole for Cool World?
For the uninitiated, Chat Pile draw their sound from the darker, weirder corners of the 90s. Over their first EPs, it would be fair to say they were a mix of The Jesus Lizard and Deadguy with Korn riffs smattered on top. God’s Country saw them get heavier and angrier, with a sludgy heft adding to their sound and lyrics laser-focused on Middle American misery. Cool World is their heaviest work to date and continues to draw from 90s noise and post-hardcore. The first time I heard lead single “Masc,” I noted the influence of Helmet. Meanwhile, cuts like “The New World” channel Red Medicine era Fugazi. There’s a more uniform sound across the album than on previous outings, one that relies on sustained rhythmic grooves and repetition. If you’re familiar with God’s Country, it’s like they dedicated the better part of Cool World to what they were doing on “Slaughterhouse.” There’s also a subtle commitment to melody and despondent vocal harmonies that cut through the harshness on songs like “Shame” and “Milk of Human Kindness.”
Cool World’s focus on hypnotic, oily grooves combined with vocalist Raygun Busch’s shell-shocked talk-singing and raging shouts pays huge dividends if you like your noise metal gnarly and apoplectic. The best material comes in the form of two song couplets, the first being “Frownland”/”Funny Man,” and the second “The New World”/”Masc.” As “Frownland” demonstrates, the punch in these songs comes partly from scraping slabs of ugly bass courtesy of four-string slinger Stin and from a production job that gives Cap’n Ron’s drums plenty of low-end. Then there’s Busch’s reliably unhinged delivery of lines like “Big world, small change, outside there’s no mercy and not everyone can hide” from “Funny Man.” It’s the kind of delivery that lets you know there’s no mercy inside, either. “The New World” finds Chat Pile firing on all cylinders as Busch shrieks “Most are dragged kicking and screaming out into the new world.” It’s the ugliest, heaviest, and best song the band has ever written. By following this with the much more melodic but no less cynical “Masc,” Cool World gives us the best one-two punch you could ask for. Busch’s lyrics have moved from the micro to the macro of human suffering, and the shift to bigger rhythms and harder grooves supports this well.
This, however, means some of the idiosyncrasies that have served Chat Pile well over the years are missing. It’s all as bleak and off-kilter as ever, but there are no truly weird left-field detours here like the humorous “Rainbow Meat” or the starkly disturbing “Dallas Beltway” from the EPs or the humorous and starkly disturbing “grimace_smoking_weed.jpg” from God’s Country. The variety in Cool World comes mostly from the melodic tracks “Shame,” “Masc,” and the gloomy “Milk of Human Kindness.” There’s even a death metal vocals segment late in “Shame” that gets the blood pumping, but I miss the songs that make you go “What did I just listen to?” This could of course mean the band will widen their audience with Cool World, since a song like “Why?” proved divisive in the past. Cool World is a really good record, but for the first time, it sounds like a record some other band could have made.
I won’t be making Cool World my Album of the Year, but it’s certainly very good and I’ll probably play it to death in the next few months. It has the best two songs the band have written so far and finds Chat Pile maturing into a sound full of gnarly grooves. That said, a touch of the old overt weirdness and humor would go a long way on such a dark record. Is all this enough to save me from another month in The Hole? I don’t know, but if I disappear for a while, you’ll know why.1
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: The Flenser
Websites: chatpile.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/chatpileband
Releases Worldwide: October 11th, 2024#2024 #35 #AlternativeMetal #AmericanMetal #AmericanRock #ChatPile #CoolWorld #Deadguy #Fugazi #Helmet #Korn #NoiseRock #Oct24 #Review #Reviews #Sludge #TheFlenser #TheJesusLizard
-
By Dear Hollow
Vida Blue feels like watching a baseball game in the ’70s with your alcoholic dad. You can hear the Oakland crowd go wild, and Dad’s drunken groans echo around the wood-slatted family room. You wince as he tightens his fists. You can hear your mom making beef stroganoff in the kitchen with the radio going, smell the weighty hamburger meat right before she adds the roux and a healthy helping of apathy. It’ll make your bones grow, she whispers when you ask. The fuck you say, your dad growls, crumpling the can of his eighth beer and throwing it at the trash can’s broken teeth. You try to watch the game and witness Dodgers hitter Van Joshua out by Rollie Fingers on a groundout to end the series. Oakland’s Swingin’ A’s in a threepeat, 4-1. Mom and Dad start throwing fists and divorce threats like there’s a World Series at stake, and you can’t tell if you should cheer for the A’s or feel sad for the Dodgers because your parents are fighting over beef stroganoff and growing boys.
Vida Blue, Mamaleek’s ninth full-length, mourns the 2023 death of member Eric Livingston – paralleled by the Oakland Athletics’ relocation to Las Vegas. It reflects on legendary pitcher and namesake Vida Blue’s legacy – and Livingston’s. In honor and homage, Vida Blue takes the squelching and jangling hemorrhaging cyst-blues template of 2022’s impressive Diner Coffee, painting a ’70’s folk-, blues-, prog- and jazz-rock sheen across it with reckless abandon. Bass lines are the backbone of each track, frequently shattered and crippled in flute or brass explosions; jazzy southern rock and metallic licks drool across the bandstand; abrasive noise and groaning post-punk drive their teeth into the proceedings. Ultimately, Vida Blue is everything that makes Mamaleek completely divisive – and utterly brilliant.
Vida Blue does a good job capitalizing upon Diner Coffee, unsteadying the Oxbow-esque blues-rock foundation and its avant-garde elements. It adds to Mamaleek’s freeform figure, enhanced by the brothers’ unhinged roars, agonizing groans, and disconcerting spoken word. From the opening lick of “Tegucigalpa,” a ZZ Top-esque guitar drawl colliding with the Jethro Tull’s soothing flute, it does its damnedest to draw you in with its plethora of avant-garde stylings only to pervert them into a cheese ball of rot. While the elevator music of “Vileness Slim” and the funky bass lines of “Vida Blue” and “Hatful of Rain” are cracked by brass and flute ejaculations, crescendos of discordant plonks and nostalgic chords seamlessly war in an undecided battle – elements like chimes, harmonica, backing choirs, noise, and even whistling adding to the trademark jangle. Big band orchestra a la Glenn Miller sprawl across tracks like “Vida Blue” and interlude “Momentary Laughter Concealed from My Eyes” add a tantalizing question mark in sudden yearning romance.
While Diner Coffee’s foundation of grotesque jazz lent itself to Miles Davis-esque moments of modal clarity, Vida Blue is much more fluid in its expressions, a grin of melody that shakes hands with the surrounding chaos – landmarks likewise including a tasteful dose that adds texture and nuance to the ugliness. “Ancient Souls, No Longer Sorrowful” features a droning southern rock line that fuses into infectious brass explosions before collapsing into a piano line that morphs from wildly improvised to suddenly beautiful, before returning to a Tom Waits-esque doo-wop bastardization. “Black Pudding Served at the Horn of the Altar” features an off-kilter post-metal rhythm that Isis would be proud of beneath a slowed pedal effect of Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name Of,” achieving a strangely liturgical aura through its ominous chanting. Finally, ten-minute behemoth “Legion of Bottom Deck Dealers” feels ironically the most traditional, Joy Division-esque moans harmonizing atop a strange fumbling of glitching metallic guitar riffs that swing between beautiful and discordant.
As always, Mamaleek features a lot to unpack – discordant, freeform, and downright painful at times. Vida Blue is its most glorious train wreck yet, collapsing upon the fucked up foundation laid by Diner Coffee. In ways that pay homage to their fallen bandmate and to the city that moved on without the A’s lefty pitcher, the act’s ninth offering feels simultaneously more maniacal, more exploratory – yet the jangling trademark works stunningly in its favor – and, dare I say, Mamaleek feels more human. But as the saying goes, as the sounds of both baseball and domestic discord fade, you’re left with only the memories.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: The Flenser
Websites: mamaleek.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/Mamaleek
Releases Worldwide: August 9th, 2024#2024 #40 #70sRock #AmericanMetal #Aug24 #AvantGardeMetal #Blues #ChamberMusic #FunkMetal #GlennMillerOrchestra #Isis #Jazz #JethroTull #Mamaleek #MilesDavis #NoiseRock #Oxbow #postPunk #ProgressiveRock #RageAgainstTheMachine #Review #Reviews #TheFlenser #TomWaits #VidaBlue #ZZTop
-
By Dear Hollow
Vida Blue feels like watching a baseball game in the ’70s with your alcoholic dad. You can hear the Oakland crowd go wild, and Dad’s drunken groans echo around the wood-slatted family room. You wince as he tightens his fists. You can hear your mom making beef stroganoff in the kitchen with the radio going, smell the weighty hamburger meat right before she adds the roux and a healthy helping of apathy. It’ll make your bones grow, she whispers when you ask. The fuck you say, your dad growls, crumpling the can of his eighth beer and throwing it at the trash can’s broken teeth. You try to watch the game and witness Dodgers hitter Van Joshua out by Rollie Fingers on a groundout to end the series. Oakland’s Swingin’ A’s in a threepeat, 4-1. Mom and Dad start throwing fists and divorce threats like there’s a World Series at stake, and you can’t tell if you should cheer for the A’s or feel sad for the Dodgers because your parents are fighting over beef stroganoff and growing boys.
Vida Blue, Mamaleek’s ninth full-length, mourns the 2023 death of member Eric Livingston – paralleled by the Oakland Athletics’ relocation to Las Vegas. It reflects on legendary pitcher and namesake Vida Blue’s legacy – and Livingston’s. In honor and homage, Vida Blue takes the squelching and jangling hemorrhaging cyst-blues template of 2022’s impressive Diner Coffee, painting a ’70’s folk-, blues-, prog- and jazz-rock sheen across it with reckless abandon. Bass lines are the backbone of each track, frequently shattered and crippled in flute or brass explosions; jazzy southern rock and metallic licks drool across the bandstand; abrasive noise and groaning post-punk drive their teeth into the proceedings. Ultimately, Vida Blue is everything that makes Mamaleek completely divisive – and utterly brilliant.
Vida Blue does a good job capitalizing upon Diner Coffee, unsteadying the Oxbow-esque blues-rock foundation and its avant-garde elements. It adds to Mamaleek’s freeform figure, enhanced by the brothers’ unhinged roars, agonizing groans, and disconcerting spoken word. From the opening lick of “Tegucigalpa,” a ZZ Top-esque guitar drawl colliding with the Jethro Tull’s soothing flute, it does its damnedest to draw you in with its plethora of avant-garde stylings only to pervert them into a cheese ball of rot. While the elevator music of “Vileness Slim” and the funky bass lines of “Vida Blue” and “Hatful of Rain” are cracked by brass and flute ejaculations, crescendos of discordant plonks and nostalgic chords seamlessly war in an undecided battle – elements like chimes, harmonica, backing choirs, noise, and even whistling adding to the trademark jangle. Big band orchestra a la Glenn Miller sprawl across tracks like “Vida Blue” and interlude “Momentary Laughter Concealed from My Eyes” add a tantalizing question mark in sudden yearning romance.
While Diner Coffee’s foundation of grotesque jazz lent itself to Miles Davis-esque moments of modal clarity, Vida Blue is much more fluid in its expressions, a grin of melody that shakes hands with the surrounding chaos – landmarks likewise including a tasteful dose that adds texture and nuance to the ugliness. “Ancient Souls, No Longer Sorrowful” features a droning southern rock line that fuses into infectious brass explosions before collapsing into a piano line that morphs from wildly improvised to suddenly beautiful, before returning to a Tom Waits-esque doo-wop bastardization. “Black Pudding Served at the Horn of the Altar” features an off-kilter post-metal rhythm that Isis would be proud of beneath a slowed pedal effect of Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name Of,” achieving a strangely liturgical aura through its ominous chanting. Finally, ten-minute behemoth “Legion of Bottom Deck Dealers” feels ironically the most traditional, Joy Division-esque moans harmonizing atop a strange fumbling of glitching metallic guitar riffs that swing between beautiful and discordant.
As always, Mamaleek features a lot to unpack – discordant, freeform, and downright painful at times. Vida Blue is its most glorious train wreck yet, collapsing upon the fucked up foundation laid by Diner Coffee. In ways that pay homage to their fallen bandmate and to the city that moved on without the A’s lefty pitcher, the act’s ninth offering feels simultaneously more maniacal, more exploratory – yet the jangling trademark works stunningly in its favor – and, dare I say, Mamaleek feels more human. But as the saying goes, as the sounds of both baseball and domestic discord fade, you’re left with only the memories.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: The Flenser
Websites: mamaleek.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/Mamaleek
Releases Worldwide: August 9th, 2024#2024 #40 #70sRock #AmericanMetal #Aug24 #AvantGardeMetal #Blues #ChamberMusic #FunkMetal #GlennMillerOrchestra #Isis #Jazz #JethroTull #Mamaleek #MilesDavis #NoiseRock #Oxbow #postPunk #ProgressiveRock #RageAgainstTheMachine #Review #Reviews #TheFlenser #TomWaits #VidaBlue #ZZTop
-
By Dear Hollow
Vida Blue feels like watching a baseball game in the ’70s with your alcoholic dad. You can hear the Oakland crowd go wild, and Dad’s drunken groans echo around the wood-slatted family room. You wince as he tightens his fists. You can hear your mom making beef stroganoff in the kitchen with the radio going, smell the weighty hamburger meat right before she adds the roux and a healthy helping of apathy. It’ll make your bones grow, she whispers when you ask. The fuck you say, your dad growls, crumpling the can of his eighth beer and throwing it at the trash can’s broken teeth. You try to watch the game and witness Dodgers hitter Van Joshua out by Rollie Fingers on a groundout to end the series. Oakland’s Swingin’ A’s in a threepeat, 4-1. Mom and Dad start throwing fists and divorce threats like there’s a World Series at stake, and you can’t tell if you should cheer for the A’s or feel sad for the Dodgers because your parents are fighting over beef stroganoff and growing boys.
Vida Blue, Mamaleek’s ninth full-length, mourns the 2023 death of member Eric Livingston – paralleled by the Oakland Athletics’ relocation to Las Vegas. It reflects on legendary pitcher and namesake Vida Blue’s legacy – and Livingston’s. In honor and homage, Vida Blue takes the squelching and jangling hemorrhaging cyst-blues template of 2022’s impressive Diner Coffee, painting a ’70’s folk-, blues-, prog- and jazz-rock sheen across it with reckless abandon. Bass lines are the backbone of each track, frequently shattered and crippled in flute or brass explosions; jazzy southern rock and metallic licks drool across the bandstand; abrasive noise and groaning post-punk drive their teeth into the proceedings. Ultimately, Vida Blue is everything that makes Mamaleek completely divisive – and utterly brilliant.
Vida Blue does a good job capitalizing upon Diner Coffee, unsteadying the Oxbow-esque blues-rock foundation and its avant-garde elements. It adds to Mamaleek’s freeform figure, enhanced by the brothers’ unhinged roars, agonizing groans, and disconcerting spoken word. From the opening lick of “Tegucigalpa,” a ZZ Top-esque guitar drawl colliding with the Jethro Tull’s soothing flute, it does its damnedest to draw you in with its plethora of avant-garde stylings only to pervert them into a cheese ball of rot. While the elevator music of “Vileness Slim” and the funky bass lines of “Vida Blue” and “Hatful of Rain” are cracked by brass and flute ejaculations, crescendos of discordant plonks and nostalgic chords seamlessly war in an undecided battle – elements like chimes, harmonica, backing choirs, noise, and even whistling adding to the trademark jangle. Big band orchestra a la Glenn Miller sprawl across tracks like “Vida Blue” and interlude “Momentary Laughter Concealed from My Eyes” add a tantalizing question mark in sudden yearning romance.
While Diner Coffee’s foundation of grotesque jazz lent itself to Miles Davis-esque moments of modal clarity, Vida Blue is much more fluid in its expressions, a grin of melody that shakes hands with the surrounding chaos – landmarks likewise including a tasteful dose that adds texture and nuance to the ugliness. “Ancient Souls, No Longer Sorrowful” features a droning southern rock line that fuses into infectious brass explosions before collapsing into a piano line that morphs from wildly improvised to suddenly beautiful, before returning to a Tom Waits-esque doo-wop bastardization. “Black Pudding Served at the Horn of the Altar” features an off-kilter post-metal rhythm that Isis would be proud of beneath a slowed pedal effect of Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name Of,” achieving a strangely liturgical aura through its ominous chanting. Finally, ten-minute behemoth “Legion of Bottom Deck Dealers” feels ironically the most traditional, Joy Division-esque moans harmonizing atop a strange fumbling of glitching metallic guitar riffs that swing between beautiful and discordant.
As always, Mamaleek features a lot to unpack – discordant, freeform, and downright painful at times. Vida Blue is its most glorious train wreck yet, collapsing upon the fucked up foundation laid by Diner Coffee. In ways that pay homage to their fallen bandmate and to the city that moved on without the A’s lefty pitcher, the act’s ninth offering feels simultaneously more maniacal, more exploratory – yet the jangling trademark works stunningly in its favor – and, dare I say, Mamaleek feels more human. But as the saying goes, as the sounds of both baseball and domestic discord fade, you’re left with only the memories.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: The Flenser
Websites: mamaleek.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/Mamaleek
Releases Worldwide: August 9th, 2024#2024 #40 #70sRock #AmericanMetal #Aug24 #AvantGardeMetal #Blues #ChamberMusic #FunkMetal #GlennMillerOrchestra #Isis #Jazz #JethroTull #Mamaleek #MilesDavis #NoiseRock #Oxbow #postPunk #ProgressiveRock #RageAgainstTheMachine #Review #Reviews #TheFlenser #TomWaits #VidaBlue #ZZTop
-
Out October 11 - Chat Pile "Cool World" LP/CD from The Flenser. The anticipated follow-up to 2022's scorching "God's Country" from the OKC dread prophets expands their sludge-ridden noise-rock with touches of goth-tinged dirge, big-ass hooks and off-kilter metal grooves without losing a drop of their power and crunch.
https://midheaven.com/item/chat-pile/cool-world
#chatpile
#coolworld
#coolworldalbum
#theflenser
#noiserock -
Out October 11 - Chat Pile "Cool World" LP/CD from The Flenser. The anticipated follow-up to 2022's scorching "God's Country" from the OKC dread prophets expands their sludge-ridden noise-rock with touches of goth-tinged dirge, big-ass hooks and off-kilter metal grooves without losing a drop of their power and crunch.
https://midheaven.com/item/chat-pile/cool-world
#chatpile
#coolworld
#coolworldalbum
#theflenser
#noiserock -
Out October 11 - Chat Pile "Cool World" LP/CD from The Flenser. The anticipated follow-up to 2022's scorching "God's Country" from the OKC dread prophets expands their sludge-ridden noise-rock with touches of goth-tinged dirge, big-ass hooks and off-kilter metal grooves without losing a drop of their power and crunch.
https://midheaven.com/item/chat-pile/cool-world
#chatpile
#coolworld
#coolworldalbum
#theflenser
#noiserock -
Out October 11 - Chat Pile "Cool World" LP/CD from The Flenser. The anticipated follow-up to 2022's scorching "God's Country" from the OKC dread prophets expands their sludge-ridden noise-rock with touches of goth-tinged dirge, big-ass hooks and off-kilter metal grooves without losing a drop of their power and crunch.
https://midheaven.com/item/chat-pile/cool-world
#chatpile
#coolworld
#coolworldalbum
#theflenser
#noiserock -
#TheMetalDogArticleList
#MetalSucks
Review: Agriculture Tap Into the Esoteric and the Importance of Community on Living Is Easy/The Circle Chant
Embrace the brutality of life's cyclical nature.#agriculture #buddhism #esoteric #livingiseasy #thecirclechant #theflenser #communityconnection #selfsacrifice #blackmetal #experimentation
-
#TheMetalDogArticleList
#MetalSucks
Review: Agriculture Tap Into the Esoteric and the Importance of Community on Living Is Easy/The Circle Chant
Embrace the brutality of life's cyclical nature.#agriculture #buddhism #esoteric #livingiseasy #thecirclechant #theflenser #communityconnection #selfsacrifice #blackmetal #experimentation
-
#TheMetalDogArticleList
#MetalSucks
Review: Agriculture Tap Into the Esoteric and the Importance of Community on Living Is Easy/The Circle Chant
Embrace the brutality of life's cyclical nature.#agriculture #buddhism #esoteric #livingiseasy #thecirclechant #theflenser #communityconnection #selfsacrifice #blackmetal #experimentation
-
#TheMetalDogArticleList
#MetalSucks
Review: Agriculture Tap Into the Esoteric and the Importance of Community on Living Is Easy/The Circle Chant
Embrace the brutality of life's cyclical nature.#agriculture #buddhism #esoteric #livingiseasy #thecirclechant #theflenser #communityconnection #selfsacrifice #blackmetal #experimentation
-
#TheMetalDogArticleList
#MetalSucks
Review: Agriculture Tap Into the Esoteric and the Importance of Community on Living Is Easy/The Circle Chant
Embrace the brutality of life's cyclical nature.#agriculture #buddhism #esoteric #livingiseasy #thecirclechant #theflenser #communityconnection #selfsacrifice #blackmetal #experimentation
-
Out August 9 - Mamaleek "Vida Blue" from The Flenser. The SF Bay Area-based metal deconstructionists' latest is both inspired by the loss of a bandmate and the legacy of Oakland A's legend Vida Blue.
https://midheaven.com/item/mamaleek/vida-blue
#mamaleek
#vidablue
#vidabluealbum
#theflenser
#bayareametal -
Out August 9 - Mamaleek "Vida Blue" from The Flenser. The SF Bay Area-based metal deconstructionists' latest is both inspired by the loss of a bandmate and the legacy of Oakland A's legend Vida Blue.
https://midheaven.com/item/mamaleek/vida-blue
#mamaleek
#vidablue
#vidabluealbum
#theflenser
#bayareametal -
Out July 12 - Scarcity "The Promise Of Rain" from The Flenser. Experimental black metal from Brooklyn featuring members of Pyrrhon, Krallice, Sigur Rós, The Glen Branca Ensemble, among others. Transformative, compelling and urgent.
https://midheaven.com/item/scarcity/the-promise-of-rain
#scarcity
#thepromiseofrain
#theflenser
#blackmetal
#krallice
#pyrrhon
#glennbranca -
Out July 12 - Scarcity "The Promise Of Rain" from The Flenser. Experimental black metal from Brooklyn featuring members of Pyrrhon, Krallice, Sigur Rós, The Glen Branca Ensemble, among others. Transformative, compelling and urgent.
https://midheaven.com/item/scarcity/the-promise-of-rain
#scarcity
#thepromiseofrain
#theflenser
#blackmetal
#krallice
#pyrrhon
#glennbranca -
Out May 17 - Have A Nice Life "Voids" 2xLP/CD/MC from The Flenser. The first official physical release of the fan-made compilation of alternate tracks and demos from the Deathconsciousness album. Freshly remastered. Colored vinyl variant available.
https://midheaven.com/item/have-a-nice-life/voids#haveanicelife
#voids
#voidsalbum
#deathconsciousness
#theflenser -
Out May 17 - Have A Nice Life "Voids" 2xLP/CD/MC from The Flenser. The first official physical release of the fan-made compilation of alternate tracks and demos from the Deathconsciousness album. Freshly remastered. Colored vinyl variant available.
https://midheaven.com/item/have-a-nice-life/voids#haveanicelife
#voids
#voidsalbum
#deathconsciousness
#theflenser -
#Upcoming Who amongst us hasn’t wondered what ecstatic black metal sounds like? Maybe #Agriculture’s new EP “Living is Easy” can help you. Available via #TheFlenser, April 28th. https://agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/album/living-is-easy
-
#Upcoming Who amongst us hasn’t wondered what ecstatic black metal sounds like? Maybe #Agriculture’s new EP “Living is Easy” can help you. Available via #TheFlenser, April 28th. https://agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/album/living-is-easy
-
#Upcoming Who amongst us hasn’t wondered what ecstatic black metal sounds like? Maybe #Agriculture’s new EP “Living is Easy” can help you. Available via #TheFlenser, April 28th. https://agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/album/living-is-easy
-
#Upcoming Who amongst us hasn’t wondered what ecstatic black metal sounds like? Maybe #Agriculture’s new EP “Living is Easy” can help you. Available via #TheFlenser, April 28th. https://agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/album/living-is-easy
