Leatherboys: Gay For Johnny Depp posing hardcore (Arty is on the far right).

I met Arty Shepherd in 1996, when we were both employees at a closet-sized record store in Manhattan’s West Village. But I had known Arty’s name for years prior to that—he was a columnist at Rich Black’s essential (and now-defunct) Long Island-based hardcore/punk/metal zine Under the Volcano, and more notably, he was a member of two of the Long Island hardcore (LIHC) scene’s seminal acts: Mind Over Matter and Bad Trip. Since the breakup of Mind Over Matter in 1995, after the release of their amazing swan song, Automanipulation, Arty has played in a handful of excellent and criminally unknown bands around New York City, including Errortype: Eleven, World’s Fastest Car, Instruction, and God Fires Man. Perhaps his most successful recent venture is Gay For Johnny Depp, a performance-art hardcore band that has released three EPs and three full-length albums since forming in 2004, including the brand new What Doesn’t Kill You Eventually Kills You. For contractual reasons, for most of GFJD’s career, Arty went by the nom de plume “Marty Leopard” (rhymes with, um, Arty Shepherd), but the cat (or leopard, as the case may be) is out of the bag. Arty is one of the coolest people I know—he has great taste in music and can drink like a champ—as well as one of the people who put Long Island hardcore on the map. Along with GFJD, Arty is in the bands Primitive Weapons and Icebergs, and he’s opening a rock bar/venue in Greenpoint called St. Vitus (like the legendary doom band) with Justin Scurti from Milhouse. In the immediate future, Gay For Johnny Depp is doing a record release gig on February 10 at Union Pool in Brooklyn, and from there, they are heading straight to the UK, where they are superstars. Check them out…and, for God’s sake, buy the man a drink.

I see that you’re doing the record release in NYC, then heading straight to the UK. You’ve been in a bunch of bands over the years, and pretty much all of them have been big in the UK and sort of not-so big here in the States. Is that accurate? Why the hell is that?

It’s somewhat accurate. “Big” is a relative term. I can play to a lot more people over there than over here. It’s a small country (but insanely expensive) and can be properly toured in two weeks. In recent years, I’ve always had to work a job—two weeks at a time was easier to get off to tour than, say, two months for the US. Plus you can actually make an impact as opposed to a US tour where you have to keep going and going for years at a time and never get anywhere. Other than that, labels, agents, etc., have taken a shine to us over there, thus enabling us to operate as a band with proper releases, press and tours… Or maybe they just have great taste and drink more, like me.

You’ve been doing GFJD since 2004 – in that time you’ve also done Errortype, Instruction, God Fires Man (am I forgetting anything?). It has seemed (to me) that GFJD was always sort of a side project to your “main band” but has GFJD taken on the role of your “main band”? If so, how did that evolve?

I’m also doing a band called Primitive Weapons with some LIHC superstars (EP out on March 8) and an electro, e-mail project called Icebergs that’s pretty interesting. The Gays have actually done better than most of my other bands exactly because we haven’t really given a shit about it. Its fun and our shows are like a very unpredictable hardcore party. Sometimes things are amazing, other times they can go horribly bad and I end up in the hospital (it’s free in the UK). Recently, I wanted to take a break from writing rock/pop songs; what was expected was getting depressing. I just don’t care about selling records (doesn’t exist anymore) or making publishing money (I signed an awful deal years ago). I needed to recapture the passion I had, the Gays seemed the obvious solution for my dilemma. Our anti-marketing attitude kept us current and a cult following has emerged. The only things I really enjoy doing anymore is writing and being onstage. The rest of the “industry” is bullshit.

You came from the LIHC scene and a hardcore background, but since Mind Over Matter, your bands have really grown away from hardcore—into metal, Britpop, shoegaze, and so on—but GFJD is a hardcore band, and thus (I guess) a return to hardcore. Was that a conscious evolution for you?

Mind Over Matter was a band that consciously thought we could change the hardcore genre. In retrospect, I realized that when you made hardcore progressive, it was no longer hardcore. Hardcore is a genre that will always exist and never change. [Hardcore bands] don’t really go beyond what they do, which is awesome. Our final record, Automanipulation, had Ride ripoffs and Oasis ripoffs, not to mention all the noise influences (Swans!). No one noticed. It wasn’t a hardcore record. We had intentionally created our own idea, I’m not sure anyone has figured out how to label it, so they went with hardcore. We felt that record transcended a label and I’m very proud of that. Gay for Johnny Depp is six years on. I was asked to join as a goof. The first record barely had lyrics (like Obituary’s first album). The band’s music really took me back to all the Gravity Records bands in the ’90s (or the “stand up/fall down chain wallet bands” as we called them) so I went with it. There are no conscious decisions made in Gay for Johnny Depp, it all just happens. It’s really, at its best, performance art. At its worst, a joke that’s gone too far. The one thing we did want to do was challenge the testosterone-driven silliness that hardcore encouraged. We thought Gay for Johnny Depp was an amazing companion to shirtless boys rubbing against each other in a sweaty room. Although, I don’t consider GFJD to be a hardcore band. Just a great band.

What are the similarities you see between hardcore today and the hardcore of the LIHC scene? Are there any?

Again, hardcore is a specific term. I didn’t necessarily consider a lot of the LIHC bands to be straight up “hardcore.” There were so many original bands. From Silent Majority to Scapegrace to Clockwise to 1.6 Band to Milhouse and, of course, Glassjaw, Neglect and VOD. All considered LIHC, none of them sounded remotely alike. They all took their influences and did something special with it. That’s what made that time special, and I have a lot of love for it. It was a true golden age for a culturally vacant locale that was so close to the cultural center of the world. A weird dichotomy. I don’t know too much about today’s hardcore scene. I’m just happy that LI has been represented by the likes of great bands; obviously, I have to mention Taking Back Sunday and Brand New. They carry that legacy of originality.

You grew up in some pretty important scenes: LIHC, Britpop during the era of Oasis/Blur, NYC during the time of the Strokes/Interpol/etc. What do you think of the scenes occurring today? How do they compare to the ones you saw (and were a part of) coming up?

The Internet has changed the game for scenes per se. Younger kids listen to everything; they are very much the iPod Shuffle generation. Most times they don’t even know what bands they are listening to. They have no concept of genre, which can be great (unless it results in bands like Attack Attack or Enter Shikari). Way back when, there were filters for “quality.” Labels, radio, press and MTV were tastemakers. Today it’s the Wild West. The older scenes I’ve witnessed develop were somewhat organic and based on songs and a little bit of luck and timing.

Do you ever get back to LI? Do you ever hear any bands out here? Anything good?

I have some family on LI but I don’t make it back often enough. I know of and have played with some of the Long Island bands like Incendiary, and I like Iron Chic and Capital. [Mind Over Matter vocalist] George Reynolds has a new band called Wiretap Crash—they seem pretty cool, but I’m biased. Bomb the Music Industry has a great name and ideology, but I haven’t actually heard a song. I love some of the old hardcore folks doing metal these days, like Gary and Paul from Kill Your Idols’ latest band, Black Anvil, and Ryan from Motive’s band, Unearthly Trance. Both their new records are amazing! I’m sure there are some other great bands out there, but I’m old, and that scene is a youth culture. I just make music now. I do what I know.

People really react to the name Gay For Johnny Depp. Do you ever regret that choice? Or was it the best decision you ever made?

It was Joe [Grillo]’s band before I joined. I made it a persona. It’s the best band name ever.

Preach! Arty, as Marty Leopard, dropping some religion.

As Gay For Johnny Depp, you guys all go by pseudonyms (yours being of course “Marty Leopard”). As GFJD has grown, have you become more inclined to use your real identity? Was anyone ever really fooled by the fake names?

It started because I was signed to Geffen and couldn’t contractually put out records with another band. We’ve recently pulled our real names from as much as we can. The internet culture has recently come to bite me in the ass and I hate that someone can know so much about another person by a Google search. In the UK, I often get called Marty by the younger kids so I guess it works on some level. Personally, it works for me as performance art.

You are a voracious music listener. What are you listening to these days?

As you well know, I love to talk about what music I believe in. You also know my tastes are diverse because I’m a bit long in the tooth. For impure metal, it’s Deathspell Omega. Their last three records are black metal masterpieces, sometimes sung in dead languages. They are Univers Zero (odd jazzy orchestral ’70s prog band) done by Satan in France. America’s fucking nightmare. I think Elbow is still the best band on the planet. No one touches them for pure emotion and songwriting prowess. They are Spirit of Eden/Laughingstock-era Talk Talk but with a sense of pop. Or a sense of any sort of song structure really. Frankly, Guy can sing anything and make it amazingly melancholy. Jesu is my dream band. If someone told me in 1990 that the dude from Godflesh would start ripping the shoegaze scene, I would have laughed at them. Jesu is the Reese’s peanut butter cup of my musical tastes. I also love Torche. They touch on so many great ideas. They are doom pop. Amusement Parks on Fire is a Silversun Pickups/old Dino Jr.-style band from the UK whom I have loved for a while. Of course there is Biffy Clyro, whose new records I don’t love (pure pretentiousness) but I still think they are one of the best rock bands on the planet. I wish the US would figure that out, but such is life.

Inquisition have been an American black metal stalwart since 1998 and Mike is just hearing them for the first time now? Terrible!

Last week in this space, I published my list of what I considered to be the top 10 albums of 2010, which garnered this actual response from a reader: “Top ten what? Bands no one’s heard of? Top ten albums that some teenage nobody likes? Top ten albums that suck?” (Um…thanks for reading!) Honestly, I love getting a response from readers—any response—and while I can understand that reader’s frustration, I disagree with his criticism. Indeed, the very thing I love about reading year-end lists is that they give me great opportunities to discover music I might have missed (or dismissed) during the year.

To wit, I spent much of this past December—as I have done every December for the past two decades—hungrily scouring every year-end list I could find, writing down names of albums or artists I’ve never heard of, and then hunting them down. It is, quite honestly, one of my very favorite times of year for this reason alone; this is one of my most beloved pastimes.

Anyway, with The Year That Was now behind us, and The Year To Come still ahead, I figured I’d use this space to share with you, dear Reader, some of the albums to which I have been introduced by others via their end-of-2010 lists. I kinda wish I’d heard these albums earlier, so they might have had a shot at my list. But I’m happier to have them saved for me, for now, for this lull, for this magical moment of discovery.

Red Vienna—Red Vienna EP (via AversionOnline’s Andrew W’s “Get Averse” list, published on Decibel Magazine’s Deciblog)

You might know extreme-metal mag Decibel as one of the few music-specific print publications that still matters. You might know Andrew W’s AversionOnline as an MP3 blog focusing on hardcore and metal. And if you’re familiar with either, you likely wouldn’t expect them to recommend Canada’s Red Vienna. But I’m so glad they did. Red Vienna is a super-catchy, ’80s-inspired pop band that has echoes of both Joy Division and Rick Springfield. And as great as that sounds on paper, it sounds even better in real life, I promise. Very highly recommended.

Forest Swords—Dagger Paths (No. 48 on Pitchfork.com’s “Top 50 Albums of 2010”)

Everyone knows indie-mainstream tastemaker Pitchfork, and everyone seems to hate them, but everyone checks the site every morning, and really, no publication has done as much for experimental/underground music. I was familiar with most of Pitchfork’s 2010 Top 50, but this gorgeous, haunting and dark electronic gem flew under my radar. In Pitchfork’s year-end capsule, they compared Forest Swords to ’90s electro-shoegaze gods Seefeel—which should pique anyone’s interest—but I hear more Portishead, Burial…even some of Bill Laswell’s ambient-dub work. All this is to say: weird, spooky, hypnotic and essential.

Year of No Light—Ausserwelt (No. 9 on BrooklynVegan.com’s “The Year 2010 in Metal,” by BV contributing writer Fred Pessaro, aka BBG)

Fred Passaro is Brooklyn Vegan’s resident metal critic, and he’s one of the best in the business. His 2010 year-end list was loaded with good recommendations, but I was blown away by Year of No Light’s Ausserwelt. Lush and cinematic post-rock, like Godspeed or Explosions in the Sky, Year of No Light write marathon-length songs with dizzying peaks and passages so sweeping and grand that they send chills up my spine and blood rushing to my head.

Inquisition – Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm (No. 5 on Stereogum.com’s “Haunting the Chapel’s Top 50 Albums Of 2010,” by Stereogum senior writer/columnist Brandon Stosuy)

Brandon Stosuy is one of my favorite music critics—over the last five years, he’s introduced me to more great bands than any other writer I can think of. Both he and Brooklyn Vegan’s BBG had Ominous Doctrines in their top five albums of 2010, which, to me, was an embarrassing indication that I had slept on something kind of big. Oh well. Inquisition are a black metal band from Seattle, and Ominous Doctrines is, in fact, amazing: some of the catchiest, most deftly executed, most layered and most exciting metal I’ve heard this year. That said, I don’t know if it would make my list: The band’s vocalist, Dagon, “sings” in a froglike manner that I find really distracting. (And I listen to, and love, a lot of Cookie Monster vocalists, so I assure you, it’s a pretty severe sound.) Still, I can’t stop listening to this album, and every time I listen, I grow more accustomed to those vocals—maybe even liking them. Beyond the vocals…like I said: some of the best stuff I’ve heard this year. And like everything else on this list, I’m so glad I finally found it, so glad that someone took the time to introduce me to all this music, to share with me this great bounty.

Arcade Fire refined their songwriting on The Suburbs, and the result was one of 2010's most emotionally and aurally arresting collections (No. 3).

Listen: Something like 50,000 albums came out this year, and there are more ways than ever to hear all that music. You can’t make a top 10 and have it mean anything anymore—a top 50 might actually include almost everything you listened to and loved. So this top 10 represents a fraction of my year in music—a cross section of what music sounded like to me in 2010. So, listen:

10. Mark McGuire: Living With Yourself (Editions Mego)—Ambient guitarist Mark McGuire released something like a dozen records this year. It wasn’t easy to keep up, but it was worth it. The hazy, shimmering Living With Yourself was McGuire’s most song-based 2010 solo work, and it’s a great starting point if you’re just digging into his terrific (and quickly expanding) catalog.

9. Women: Public Strain (Jagjaguwar)—Offering, as it does, such bleak portraits of urban decay, the sophomore album from Calgary, Alberta’s Women may be depressive, but its blissful streaks of melody keep it from being a drag, and its auburn hues raise it to levels of almost divine beauty.

8. Big Boi: Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Return of Chico Dusty (Def Jam)—Yes, it’s a consensus pick, but who says the consensus is always wrong? It’s impossible to not recognize the greatness of Outkast member Big Boi’s solo debut. Sir Lucious Left Foot abounds with the playfulness, verve and innovation of vintage Outkast—vintage Prince, even.

7. Los Campesinos: Romance Is Boring (Wichita)—Prior to this year, Wales’ Los Campesinos were known mostly for their exuberance, but Romance Is Boring matched that youthful energy with an adult cynicism, and offered a mature, thrilling work bursting with new ideas, new textures, and some of the most exciting choruses of 2010.

6. Grinderman: Grinderman 2 (Anti-)—Nick Cave has had a hell of a career, but Grinderman 2 stands among his finest work. Violent, vile and very, very catchy, Grinderman 2 offers some of the most quotable lyrics of Cave’s catalog, and certainly some of his most propulsive songs.

5. Alcest: Écailles de Lune (Prophecy)—France’s Alcest are often called a black metal band, though their catalog is much more My Bloody Valentine than Mayhem, and better than both. The band’s mastermind, Neige, is one of music’s most exciting innovators, and everything he releases commands a stop-whatever-you’re-doing-and-listen response. And Écailles de Lune rewards it. Lush, haunting, wondrous—like a dream or a memory or some gorgeous hallucinatory fantasy.

4. Kylesa: Spiral Shadow (Season of Mist)—Last year, Kylesa released the pugilistic, kinetic, massively thrilling Static Tensions, one of the best albums of 2009. They topped it this year. Spiral Shadow is a bold step forward into new aural worlds heretofore not even suggested in Kylesa’s catalog, much less explored. Spiral Shadow feels like a big album—it builds on oceanic riffs and tribal drums, adding spaced-out, spidery guitars, pummeling breakdowns and full-bodied, textured vocals. The band’s speed and power combine to form one of contemporary popular music’s more intoxicating sensations, but as the record bucks dogma and ventures forcefully into unexpected new straits, it sounds like Kylesa have taken an important step forward, one that should come to be remembered as a breakthrough.

3. Arcade Fire: The Suburbs (Merge)—The Suburbs is not a perfect album—moments here try too hard, are a bit too cute—but the large majority of this thing is ferocious and haunting and great, finding a spot at the center of a Venn diagram featuring The Cure, Springsteen, Big Country and My Bloody Valentine. I don’t know if it’s the simplicity of these songs or merely the fact that the band are now just better songwriters than they used to be, but this thing is 16 songs long and I’d say at least 12 of those songs are totally emotionally and aurally arresting. That is an insane, almost unfair ratio. Undeniable.

2. Kvelertak: Kvelertak (Indie Recordings)— A raucous, violent album of massive chant-along choruses, dirty blues guitar licks, gargantuan riffs as sticky as resin, and wild instrumental unpredictability, the debut LP from Norwegian deathpunkers Kvelertak sounds like five decades of rock ’n’ roll’s most dangerous music—the Stones, the Stooges, the Pistols, Motorhead, Mayhem—distilled into 11 individual 3-to-5-minute blasts of 90-proof sonic vodka.

1. Agalloch: Marrow of the Spirit (Profound Lore)—It was a great year for heavy metal—both as a genre and a zillion different sub-subgenres—but no band succeeded more mightily than Agalloch, whose Marrow of the Spirit would have been tough to beat in any year, not just this one. Marrow combines black metal, prog-rock, shoegaze and folk to create a seamless and signature sound, a perfect canvas for the band’s nature-themed lyrics. The performances are ferocious yet precise, delicate at points; the sonic scope is truly boundless—just listen to “Black Lake Nidstång,” the album’s towering 17-minute-plus centerpiece, which seems to encompass an entire universe of sound: It’s built around a simple Sabbath-y riff, but its carefully arranged complexity brings the piece to dizzying heights. It’s an album I keep coming back to—it makes every other option seem less interesting—and every listen reveals not just new details, but entirely new highlights. We have overused to the point of meaninglessness words like “epic,” “awesome” and “masterpiece.” But think about, really, think about the true definition of those words: Marrow of the Spirit can be considered nothing less.

Ke$ha tops Mike's lists of the second-best albums of 2010

It came yesterday: my e-mail invitation to participate in this year’s Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll. It comes at this time every year, and every year it means that I have to stop thinking about what will comprise my list of the year’s 10 best albums and finally make that list, commit to that list. It’s the commitment I have a problem with. I listened to a lot of records this year, and found a whole bunch of new music to love. So, with two weeks to go till my Best of 2010 is officially released, I’m using what’s left of the year to cover the albums that didn’t make it into my Top 10. I’ll cover 10 this week, 10 next, and these will be presented in no particular order. (When we get to 10 through 1, I’ll put numbers on these things.) And even in this fashion, I’ll be leaving out something. Lots of things. Just like every year.

Ke$ha—Animal (RCA) There were a lot of great pop singles this year, but Animal was an album full of them. Ke$ha was packaged as a low-concept Lady Gaga, but packaging aside, Ke$ha actually has better songs than Gaga: songs that are more honest in their ambitions, more successful in their delivery, more exciting and more memorable.

Watain—Lawless Darkness (Season of Mist) In a year where extreme metal broke countless new boundaries—where bands like Agalloch, Kylesa, Castevet and Nachtmystium reshaped the genre in countless ways—no band did purist-style flesh-ripping, skull-crushing, Satan-loving black metal as well as the mighty Watain. Lawless Darkness has the makings of a stone classic: meticulous songcraft married with ferocious performances.

Against Me!—White Crosses (Sire) Remember when Against Me! were a punk band? I don’t, actually, which is probably why I’m able to enjoy their music so much now. White Crosses is a pure pop record, every bit as worthy a crossover as Born in the USA was in its time, with the same tattered, blue-collar heart and subversive spirit built into its gold-plated hooks.

Shearwater—The Golden Archipelago (Matador) I don’t know to what specific indie subgenre Shearwater exactly belong—maybe slow-core or post-rock or something similarly limiting and lame—but whatever it is, they are better than that. The Golden Archipelago is a deliberate, delicate work showcasing a mastery of texture, negative space and construction. Still, for all its finely wrought details and layered intricacies, this is bold music, calling to mind the lush, late-night atmospherics of Talk Talk, Bark Psychosis and David Sylvian, but with a sense of anthemry sometimes lacking in those (great) artists.

Man’s Gin—Smiling Dogs (Profound Lore) Erik Wunder is the instrumental genius behind the brilliant American black-metal masters Cobalt, but with Man’s Gin, he proved himself a pretty impressive frontman, too. Smiling Dogs captures Cobalt’s violent spirit while stepping away from that band’s searing assault—instead, it’s black-as-coal Americana: murder ballads, Appalachian folk tunes and heavy-drinking sing-alongs with indelible melodies and twisted lyrics.

Twin Sister—Color Your Life (Infinite Best) Twin Sister are originally from Long Island, though like half the band moved to Brooklyn (of course). Still, I’m going to continue saying they’re a Long Island band, because they are from Long Island, and I want Long Island to get some credit here—people know us for Billy Joel and Eddie Money and Taking Back Sunday. Horrible. Twin Sister make ambient-noise-pop that is lush, jagged, hypnotic, gauzy, arresting and sweet, and which recalls, like, Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo and Stereolab. This is beautiful, intoxicating music. Why wouldn’t Long Island want to boast of this, take some ownership of this, be proud of this?

Marah—Life Is a Problem (Valley Farm Songs) On their seventh full-length studio album, Pennsylvania-via-Brooklyn-via-Pennsylvania roots-rockers Marah barely resemble the Marah that excited critics, WFUV listeners and Stephen King at the turn of the millennium, but gypsy-frontman (and sole remaining original member) Dave Bielanko has never crafted finer melodies than he has here, and his Westerberg-ian vocals sound especially shredded, sad and glorious.

Torche—Songs for Singles (Hydra Head) Following 2008’s outstanding Meanderthal, Florida quartet Torche lost a member, but as the now-trio’s new extended EP proves, they’ve lost none of their psychotic energy or sheer power. Songs for Singles is even catchier than the very catchy Meanderthal and it rocks just as hard—like Queens of the Stone Age banging out Mudhoney classics (and it’s every bit as joyous, magnificent and weird as that comparison would imply).

Les Discrets – Septembre Et Ses Dernières Pensées (Prophecy) Outside of America, no country is producing more forward-thinking new black metal than France, from Alcest to Peste Noire to Deathspell Omega to Lantlos and more. Les Discrets have some artistic ties to the aforementioned Alcest—frontman Fursey has worked with Alcest frontman Neige in numerous incarnations—but both bands have distinct styles. Septembre Et Ses Dernières Pensées is shoegaze-y darkwave—think Katatonia, Catherine Wheel, early Red House Painters—nuanced, powerful and grand.

Beach House—Teen Dream (Sub Pop) By now, I assume everyone has either forgotten Beach House’s sublime and heartbreaking Teen Dream or written it off as being something less than sublime and heartbreaking—a full year has passed since it first leaked, and during that time, this fragile music has been discovered, loved, overplayed, dismissed, buried and lost. But listening to it now, as winter falls upon us again, Teen Dream’s hazy, shimmering grace still reflects the bleak sadness of the season, the gentle beauty that surrounds us always.

Santos Party House

96 Lafayette St. 7 p.m. $16. (With Goatwhore, Black Anvil and Hamsoken.)

As black metal evolves into newer and weirder sonic and thematic terrains, Sweden’s fearsome and amazing Watain continue to toil in the same poisoned ground from which the music first grew. The band offers swirling, suffocating, hook-driven black metal that draws from the very best in the genre’s history—Dissection, Immortal, Morbid Angel—with lyrics focusing on rituals, witches, devils and demons the likes of which even Euronymous himself would approve. Their new album, Lawless Darkness, is one of 2010’s great highlights, spilling over with relentless, magnificent, horrifying anthems of nether realms and the black arts. Live, the band is famous for two things: (1) ruling on the level of metal’s all-time greats; and (2) filling the stage with the corpses of sacrificial pigs and drenching the crowd in goat’s blood. So: (1) Don’t miss ’em; and (2) wear a smock.

Watain perform “Legions of the Black Light” at Hellfest 2010

Agalloch's Marrow of the Spirit: It's pretty great!

Agalloch

Marrow of the Spirit

(Profound Lore)

As promised last week, a few words about Agalloch. But first, some context:

One of the architects of black metal was a Norwegian man named Øystein Aarseth, who called himself Euronymous. Almost everything with which Euronymous was involved in the late ’80s and early ’90s went on to define the genre in some archetypal way. He was the mastermind behind Mayhem, perhaps the most important band in black metal’s history, as much for their mythology as their music. He ran a small label called Deathlike Silence, which released albums by some of the genre’s early greats, including Burzum, Abruptum and (of course) Mayhem. He owned a record store in Oslo called Helvete, a hangout for the nascent black-metal scene. Most famously, Euronymous was murdered, at age 25, by Burzum’s Varg Vikernes—stabbed to death on the night of August 10, 1993—which was the apotheosis of black metal: a shocking single instant upon which a legend and a faith have been built.

Because of his place at the center of this storm, Euronymous’ utterances have taken on almost gospel-like qualities among certain adherents of the genre; they are parsed, quoted and put forth as the purest vision of what black metal is and must be. Euronymous abhorred “trends” and “normal” people. In one interview he said, “Black metal has nothing to do with the music itself…it’s the LYRICS, and they must be SATANIC. If not, it is NOT black metal… If a band cultivates death and worships Satan, it’s black metal.”

That was essential to Euronymous’ vision for the genre, and on some levels, that rigid and dogmatic approach has come to both shape and confine black metal. On other levels, though, it is remarkably quaint and naïve: Since Euronymous’ death, the genre has grown in a million new and exciting ways, and it’s hard to argue the music would be better had its most talented practitioners limited themselves to such a silly, adolescent set of rules and worldview.

So, with all that said, on to Agalloch.

Agalloch are a black metal band from Portland, Ore. Over the last 14 years, they’ve released a small and influential discography featuring what they call “a multifarious sound consisting of black metal, folk, progressive rock, and ambient soundscapes.” That may come off a little pretentious, but it’s a reasonable assessment of the band’s music—music rich with texture, nuance, shadows and light. To be fair, most black metal is heavily atmospheric: It creates a dark, wintry ambience built on hissed vocals, blast-beat drums and tremolo guitars. That’s the basis of Agalloch’s music, too, and that’s why it would be hard to place them in any genre other than black metal—even though they might beg to differ (they call themselves “dark metal”), and even though Euronymous would surely disapprove.

For one, Agalloch does not worship Satan, nor do they “cultivate death.” Their lyrics are often about the grandeur of the natural world. Their amazing new album, Marrow of the Spirit, opens to the sound of a flowing river. In one recent interview, Agalloch guitarist Don Anderson said of the band’s lyrics: “The Northwest is filled with evergreen trees, waterfalls, rows of massive mountains and the coast.  It’s impossible not to be affected by it.” In another interview, the band’s frontman, John Haughm, said some of his new lyrics were about “the healing process” following an illness.

That’s not to say Marrow of the Spirit is some gentle or ethereal new-age frolic. After a somber cello opener, the album bursts into a furious hailstorm of drums and guitars that usher in the swirling, labyrinthine and truly thrilling “Into the Painted Gray.” Here (and throughout the album), no small amount of credit is due new drummer Aesop Dekker, whose work on Marrow of the Spirit stands among the very finest of the genre, even while challenging the ideas of what black-metal drumming “should” sound like. At 12 minutes, 45 seconds, it’s the album’s second-longest cut, though nothing here (save the opener) falls shorter than 9:35 (that would be the catchy, goth-y and quite wonderful “Ghosts of the Midwinter Fires”).

Those marathon song lengths stay true to a certain brand of old-school black metal, too—acts like Burzum, in particular, offer oceanic songs in which listeners can get lost—but rather than build a mood through droning repetition, Agalloch’s songs are elaborate constructions in which leitmotifs are revealed and repeated, and throughout which tension is built, sustained and released. “The Watcher’s Monolith” opens with a languid, melancholic acoustic strumming, joined by electric guitar that streaks downward like snowfall in moonlight, before it finds its stride as a chugging metal anthem…and then, again, it changes pace. “Black Lake Nidstång,” the album’s epic 17-minute-plus centerpiece, is built around a simple Sabbath-y riff and Haughm’s tortured howl, but its carefully arranged complexity brings the piece to dizzying heights. Soon after the 10-minute mark, the song shifts from one thing into something else entirely: A Moog fades in, then the ringing of chimes, delicate and crystalline. Then, out from the fog bursts an arena-sized riff, itself repeating, building, into something altogether beautiful. In all, it’s more like Sigur Rós or Pink Floyd than it is, well, Mayhem.

And therein lies the rub. Even the most open-minded of black-metal fans has Euronymous’ views emblazoned somewhere in the recesses of his or her psyche. The genre today is almost without any clarity of mission—it is a glorious and unwieldy tangle of subgenres and tangents—and any attempt to understand it must begin with Euronymous and his principles. Agalloch are hardly the first band to break free from those inane conventions, but listening to this remarkable music now, I can’t help but think Euronymous would frown on much of what has been built in his wake. Marrow of the Spirit is something grander, more generous, than what he envisioned for black metal. Who knows? Maybe, after all this time, he would approve. Or maybe the genre needs a new definition, a new apotheosis. [10/10]

Stream Agalloch’s Marrow of the Spirit on NPR.org!

The cover art for Kvelertak's debut album, by John Dyer Baizley of Baroness!

A week or so ago, I posted the following status update on my Facebook Wall:

Spent the last month deeply in love w/this Kvelertak LP (D-beat a la Disfear but weirder, crazier). As of today, it’s my album of the year.

My thinking here was this: It’s November. I’ve listened to hundreds of records this year, and not too many have stuck with me. Yet, Kvelertak’s self-titled debut has revealed more nuances and exciting musical choices with every listen, and continued to prove to me that it is not just a very good album, but perhaps one that is pushing boundaries, one that is worthy of the strange dedication it has inspired in me. At the moment I wrote that update, if I’d been asked to officially declare my “2010 Album of the Year,” it would have been Kvelertak.

Anyway, that was the extended thought process that went into my very brief Facebook status update. Needless to say, I couldn’t expect anyone else to know what I was thinking, but I didn’t anticipate a backlash. And then I got one. Via my friend Phil, who replied:

dude, this must be your 8th album of the year since june. . . what were all those other ones again?

Phil was, of course, mocking my enthusiasm, which does indeed lead me to apply the superlative to numerous records every year, even though to do so is strictly oxymoronic: There cannot be more than one “best.” I do what little I can to skirt this by saying (very, very often) that some record or other is “one of the year’s best.” By leaving my parameters undefined, I have a built-in legal defense against complainants such as Phil. “One of the year’s best” could mean anything, really. I see no need to enumerate further. “One of the year’s best.” That says enough. In the moment, to me, the record in question is without any doubt the best music in the world. And there have been many such records for me this year.

Anyway, I was out walking last Saturday afternoon, blasting through my headphones Marrow of the Spirit, the new album from Portland, Oregon black-metal band Agalloch, and I found myself thinking: “This is really a great album. This could be the album of the year.”

And, you know, the more I think about it, the more I think, it really could.

But that realization made it especially urgent for me to document in my own words what makes Kvelertak such a special record—I want to say more about it than just, “As of today, it’s my album of the year.” Because if my superlatives have no value, then I must craft stronger, more thoughtful arguments for why I love this music as much as I do. So this week, a few words on Kvelertak. Perhaps next week we’ll discuss Marrow of the Spirit…and any other albums that change my life between now and then.

Kvelertak—Kvelertak (Indie Recordings)

If I didn’t already know Kvelertak was from Norway and you’d asked me to guess where they were from based solely on their sound, I’d say, “Sweden,” and be pretty confident I was right: The band’s exceptional self-titled debut album has much more in common with Swedish D-beat/death metal merchants like Disfear, Entombed and At the Gates than it does any of Norway’s best-known metal exports: Here I’m thinking specifically of the sound for which Norway is most famous, i.e., black metal in the Darkthrone/Burzum/Mayhem tradition. Kvelertak betray their origins in their lyrical themes—Norse mythology—and their lyrics—which are written and sung in Norwegian (in those regards, Kvelertak has a lot in common with another of this year’s standout metal albums, Burzum’s Belus).

That slight cultural crossover provides immense rewards. Kvelertak is an insane album of massive chant-along choruses, dirty blues guitar licks, gargantuan riffs as sticky as resin, and wild instrumental unpredictability. The whole thing sounds like a barroom brawl—but, you know, a barroom brawl as seen on Sons of Anarchy: chaotic and sweaty and sexy and cool. And loud. Like, LOUD. And catchy. Like, there are more hooks here than on most radio-pop albums. It’s a party record, really. It also sounds like five decades of rock ’n’ roll’s most dangerous music—the Stones, the Stooges, the Pistols, Motorhead, Mayhem—distilled into 11 individual 3-to-5-minute blasts of 90-proof sonic vodka.

That description could make the music sound arch or postmodern, but it’s really not: It’s so unself-conscious, so utterly excited and enthusiastic and manic that such artistic pretensions would seem totally alien to the band’s identity, their approach to making music, the sheer, violent energy that drives each of these tremendous songs. On their website, Kvelertak claim they “shamelessly draw inspiration from every corner of something that could fit into their idea of good, hard-hitting and catchy rock ’n’ roll,” and that seems accurate, even perhaps a bit modest. Kvelertak the album abounds with such richness, openness, joy and hedonism. It somehow captures an entire history in its 49 minutes. It is timeless and multitudinous, but so urgent and immediate that it could not have existed in any other instant except this one. [9/10]

Kylesa – Spiral Shadow (Season of Mist)

Last year, Kylesa released the pugilistic, kinetic, massively thrilling Static Tensions, an immediate stunner that would go on to become one of the best albums of 2009. Still, in many quarters it was overshadowed, specifically by Baroness’ magnificent and superlative Blue Record. The comparisons were justified, if mostly superficial: Both bands are from Savannah, Ga.; both bands play a melodic and progressive form of sludgy, psychedelic metal influenced by the likes of Mastodon, Neurosis and Kyuss; both bands feature album artwork by John Dyer Baizley, who also happens to be the frontman of Baroness. Blue Record was probably better than Static Tensions—it’s simply more nuanced, more significant, more daring—but no fan of one had any business ignoring the other. Spiral Shadow may be Kylesa’s attempt to grab back the spotlight they seemed to lose last year, or it may be a natural and organic artistic progression wholly unaffected by the more-heralded work of their peers, but either way, the album is a bold step forward into new aural worlds heretofore not even suggested in Kylesa’s catalog, much less explored. Rather than straightforward battery, the band has found great new depths in their sound, added countless new layers. Longtime fans may feel put off—the tuneful experiments on display here sometimes bring the music to the verge of alt rock—but this fan finds the whole thing to be immensely satisfying and rewarding. Spiral Shadow feels like a big album—it builds on oceanic riffs and tribal drums, adding spaced-out, spidery guitars, pummeling breakdowns and full-bodied, textured vocals (leaning equally on both frontpersons Phillip Cope and Laura Pleasants, which gives the proceedings an especially varied feeling). It never doesn’t sound like Kylesa—the band’s speed and power combine to form one of contemporary popular music’s more intoxicating sensations—but as the record bucks dogma and ventures forcefully into unexpected new straits, such as on the churning Pixies-esque “Don’t Look Back,” it sounds like Kylesa have taken an important step forward, one that may not initially win over old fans, but should, over time, come to be remembered as a breakthrough. 9/10

Junip – Fields (Mute)

If you’ve been following Jose Gonzalez since the beginning, you’ve probably lost interest in him by now. That’s not unacceptable. At first, of course, it was impossible not to be taken with him. In 2003, when the Swede’s first album, Veneer, was released in his home country, he was an absolute unknown in this part of the world; even in 2005, when it was finally released here, he was a fairly mysterious character: His fragile, beautiful music sounded at once timeless and atavistic and lost, built on bossa nova, folk and jazz, like some tragic Nick Drake- or Arthur Verocai-type pop bard whose long-forgotten contributions had been unearthed after decades of being boxed up and forgotten. Quickly, though, those layers of dust and mystery were scrubbed away and Gonzalez’s music was featured prominently on crap TV like Numb3rs, Bones and One Tree Hill, not to mention a Sony Bravia commercial. Gonzalez quickly commodifed his sound and abandoned his cool and became sort of an indie Colbie Caillat in the process. Still, to his credit, his music hasn’t actually gotten any worse, and if anything, he’s taken a few strides to regain some control of his image. Case in point, bringing back his old band, Junip, which was formed back in the early days, before anybody knew who Jose Gonzalez even was. In 2005, Junip released the lovely, if minor, Black Refuge EP, and then…disappeared. (That disappearance dovetails nicely with Gonzalez’s burst into the mainstream.) In 2010, though, Junip seems to be Gonzalez’s primary artistic outlet: Already this year, he’s released two new Junip works, the Rope and Summit EP and now the band’s first LP, Fields. That Gonzalez is working under the Junip moniker may serve to illustrate just how far he’s trying to distance himself from his own name, because frankly, nothing here sounds all that different than his solo work. Which is a good thing, indeed. Gonzalez has a lulling, honeyed vocal instrument that casts every word against a gorgeous backdrop of midnight stars; he plays a supple and deceptively challenging guitar. Both those comparisons probably (again) call to mind Nick Drake, which is a perfect reference point, though Gonzalez’s music is darker than Drake’s; it has tones of not just sadness but violence along with its attendant joy and wonder. Fields does offer more robust constructions than those found on Gonzalez’s skeletal solo records, but it’s never unclear to whom these songs belong. Still, if Gonzalez feels the need to obscure his identity in order to continue crafting such delicate and detailed music, I won’t hold it against him. And while I won’t say that anyone who jumped ship way back when should climb aboard now, I will say I’m happy he’s managed to keep me interested after all this time. 8/10

Jimmy Eat World—Invented (Geffen)

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Jimmy Eat World, but I find it impossible to identify them. They’re neither as schmoopy as their detractors would suggest, nor as challenging as their more ardent fans seem to allege. So what the hell are they? At their creative peak—almost universally believed to be their 1999 LP, Clarity—they showcased a peculiar style that bridged the gap between Sunny Day Real Estate and Weezer. But once they hit that sweet spot, they never really returned to it. They followed up Clarity with 2001’s Bleed American, which was re-titled Jimmy Eat World when the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 apparently made the name Bleed American seem tasteless. Personally, I found the original title to be especially moving in the wake of those attacks. I also absolutely loved that record, which came to be one of my soundtracks of that year; it somehow captured the anger, fear and confusion I felt in that moment.

Structurally, Bleed American dealt in staid pop archetypes: ballads and rockers in equal measure. That was a departure, and arguably a step down, from what the band had accomplished on Clarity, on which each song was both a ballad and a rocker…and something else, too: something drone-y and dreamy and different. Still, Bleed American was a huge commercial success, spawning a few terrific (and ubiquitous) singles. But after that, the band seemed lost: The sound of Clarity had been pushed to its logical end on that album; meanwhile, other bands (e.g., Death Cab For Cutie) had taken a similar formula to levels that Jimmy Eat World wasn’t capable of reaching. However, the pop success the band achieved on Bleed American was equally unrepeatable, and furthermore, threatened to alienate the large core fan base that Jimmy Eat World had established in the years between their 1994 debut and Bleed American.

Ever since then, Jimmy Eat World has seemed like a band without a direction. Futures, the 2004 record that followed Bleed American, was a humorless and often hookless affair; 2007’s Chase This Light seemed like an attempt to bring back the pop audience the band had found on Bleed American and lost on Futures. To be clear, both those records have some very good songs, but neither feels very compelling or complete.

With the new Invented, Jimmy Eat World seem to be trying to recreate that unique chemistry they found on Clarity. I don’t know if that’s an admission of defeat or a newfound comfort in exploring a previously abandoned artistic avenue, but it leads to some exciting, if uneven, results. First, the bad. Frontman Jim Adkins is (still) not a good lyricist: He writes heart-on-sleeve confessionals and relies on his tremendously expressive voice to sell the sentiments. The band still seems to primarily understand music as a binary: This is a heavy song! This is a slow song! (Or, at its most complex: This is a heavy part in a slow song!)

Now, the good: Front to back, these are the best songs Jimmy Eat World have ever written. For all the respect Clarity has garnered, it’s really more stylish than substantial. Bleed American has some absolute gems (“The Middle,” “Sweetness,” “A Praise Chorus,” “The Authority Song”), but it also has some forgettable, embarrassing duds (“Your House” and “If You Don’t, Don’t” are sub-Duncan Sheik soft rock). In particular, the first half of Invented is pretty close to perfect: Lead single “My Best Theory” is kind of what Clarity wants to sound like, mixing IDM and electronic elements with kinetic guitar pop to create a singular hybrid. “Higher Devotion” continues the band’s (surprisingly successful) experiments with Scissor Sisters-esque dance-pop (first evidenced on Chase This Light’s best track, “Here it Goes”). “Movielike” is Adkins’ sad-eyed story about coming to, and being beaten by, New York City—the tale punctuated perfectly by structural choices; it gets bigger and bigger, and culminates in a sweeping and (appropriately) cinematic chorus. “Coffee and Cigarettes” is a nod to Otis Redding’s classic cut of the same name and it may be the simplest, most efficient, effective and greatest song of Jimmy Eat World’s career. It rocks, it’s catchy as hell, it uses Adkins’ magnificent voice to superb effect, it has a nostalgic lyrical thrust with which any listener can identify, and a chorus with which every listener will sing along, scream along, and then hit repeat.

In some ways, Invented puts into perspective the choices made by Jimmy Eat World along the way. It suggests that while the band may have lost their direction at points, they never lost their abilities or their drive. Maybe it’s impossible to identify Jimmy Eat World because they’re still finding their own identity. Invented offers plenty of evidence that the search is worthwhile.

But it’s also especially appropriate right now, because last night, I attended a Pavement reunion concert.The last time I saw Pavement was 1995 or so, at which time their music meant a great deal to me, and while I typically find musical reunions to be nothing more than opportunistic cash-ins, I expected this one to be an exception. But it wasn’t. If anything, it seemed especially empty and soulless and bereft of artistic discovery or integrity. It felt as though nostalgia was being forced upon me, and I resented it. I felt nothing.

What makes Malkmus’ observation doubly appropriate is that in this month’s “Pirate Guide,” I find myself examining new records from several bands from back then: bands that mattered to me in 1995, or so. And I’m aware that my memories affect my interpretations of these records. But unlike Pavement, each of these artists has brought new music to the table, instead of substituting nostalgia for art.

Manic Street Preachers—Postcards From a Young Man (Columbia)

The Manics have been steadily releasing music for two decades now, and while they have a fairly limited aesthetic scope (politically charged fist-pumping glam-metal anthems), they’ve managed to keep things interesting by cranking the volume (or turning it down), and introducing (or eliminating) certain sonic elements: electro touches, massive orchestral arrangements, etc. Postcards From a Young Man follows 2009’s excellent and minimalist Steve Albini-produced Journal for Plague Lovers, and it may be a slight dropoff: By including string swells and gospel choirs here and there, Postcards sometimes recalls some of the band’s more bloated ’90s work. But the writing and performances here are uniformly magnificent, and as the album drives into its back half, the overblown additions are given something of a rest, and frontman James Dean Bradfield is allowed to simply belt and rock out. And when he’s at his best (as he is here for a good half of the album), there are few rock bands that can stand alongside this one. [7/10]

Superchunk—Majesty Shredding (Merge)

Superchunk are considered one of indie rock’s “classic” bands (alongside Pavement, among a few others), but I’d argue they never released a “classic” album. They have a few very, very good records, and they established a signature sound that grew over time, but no single work that is essential to understand the era or the genre. Majesty Shredding is the band’s first album in nine years, and it is absolutely as fresh and energetic as Superchunk’s most impassioned work (no small feat). The band’s ferocious instrumental interplay is in terrific form, the helium voice of Mac McCaughan is still a wonder, and the hooks here are as sharp and addictive as ever. Majesty Shredding is a joyous return—as good as, and maybe better than, anything else in the band’s catalog. [8/10]

Belle & Sebastian—Write About Love (Rough Trade)

The Belle & Sebastian brand was established with 1996’s landmark If You’re Feeling Sinister, but the band has evolved by leaps and bounds since then: By 2003’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress, B&S were flaunting a bold, brassy new sound that bore little resemblance to the quiet melancholy that made them famous. To this longtime fan, the changes were welcome: While Sinister remains my personal favorite, both Waitress and its successor, 2006’s The Life Pursuit, were highlights in a very strong, deep catalog. Write About Love is the first B&S record since Life Pursuit, but it comes on the heels of God Help the Girl, a musical project by B&S frontman Stuart Murdoch that bears a decidedly theatrical flair. Coincidentally or not, Write About Love feels like a cross between God Help the Girl and recent B&S: Alongside Murdoch, it features numerous female vocalists—including pop-jazz chanteuse Norah Jones and actress Carey Mulligan—which give the proceedings a sweeping, dramatic feel. At its best, B&S use this new template to grow again: e.g., album opener “I Didn’t See it Coming,” a wonderful electro-pop duet featuring Murdoch and Sarah Martin. But nothing else here matches those highs, and much of it falls short of the new standards set by the band. Not to mention their old standards. [6/10]

Nachtmystium's Blake Judd, who will perform in Manhattan on Sept. 15, and in Brooklyn on Sept. 19.

Chicago’s Nachtmystium is not just one of the best black metal bands in the world; they are, right now, one of the most exciting bands making music in any genre. Their new album, Addicts: Black Meddle Part 2, is perhaps the most expansive metal record to be released in 2010, bursting with ideas and experimentation and new approaches, though it contains all the hallmarks of the genre and the band: There is immensity to the sound; there is violence, sadness, anger. The record’s very real, human themes—primarily among theme being, yes, addiction—are especially welcome in a genre that too often dwells only in fantasy and/or solipsism. Nachtmystium head Blake Judd (the only member still standing from the band’s first incarnation, and who is also part of American black metal supergroup Twilight) answered some questions with the Press just prior to his band’s show at The Studio at Webster Hall in Manhattan. Nachtmystium will perform tonight at The Studio and on September 19 at Brooklyn’s Knitting Factory.

Long Island Press: When did you decide that the second part of your “Black Meddle” series would be called “Addicts”? When did that lyrical theme (addiction) first take hold of your imagination and songwriting?

Blake Judd: I decided on the title and the album theme sometime in late 2008 when the writing process began. It all continued to develop more and more throughout 2009 as I was writing the bulk of the music and realized that in some ways I was very much living the lifestyle that was inspiring the story I wanted to tell with this record, which made it ever more personal to me and I completely decided on keeping the title I’d been working with (“Addicts”) and finished the writing in the following months with Jeff Wilson.

Long Island Press: There has long been a romanticizing of drug abuse in Nachtmystium’s image. How do you reconcile that aspect of your image with the lyrical content on “Addicts”, which depicts addiction in fairly horrific ways?

Blake Judd: An addict lives in that “romanticized world of abuse” you speak of oftentimes amidst the horrific realities of their own addictions or issues with drugs, which is what makes the theme of real drug addiction as horrifying as we have attempted to portray it through the lyrics on Addicts. Having struggled with addiction on and off in my life, I’ve at times been very amped up about doing just what you described (romanticizing it), and have taken that lifestyle and used it as a marketing tool for the band. It works for our chaotic lifestyle still to this day.

Long Island Press: You said in an interview with Decibel that you tried “singing” on “Addicts.” Were you happy with the results? Do you believe your work will head in a direction where textured and melodic singing will eventually replace (primarily, at least) the guttural growling we have come to associate with Nachtmystium and black metal in general?

Blake Judd: I’m very happy with the vocals on “Addicts.” They’re still very “gruff,”  but they’re not as harsh as previous albums and there is a bit more melodic texture to it. I’m trying to do the same thing live to the best of my ability, on those songs anyways. I think you’ll see us continue to try to make the vocal approach to this band more and more along these lines in the future, but I would also always expect there to be somewhat of a “rough” edge to them despite this fact.

Long Island Press: Right away, “High on Hate” seems to spring very naturally from your last Nachtmystium release, “Doomsday Derelicts,” but even as the song progresses, it moves into less immediately recognizable black metal territory, into something quite different entirely. From there, the record seems to have no boundaries, but never does it quite return to that straightforward approach. Was that a conscious decision on your part, to start the record on such a note, and to veer away in such disparate directions?

Blake Judd: Yes, we wanted to open this record with something that, following up an album like “Assassins”, I’d assume most conscious listeners wouldn’t have expected. It was then intentional to put the two tracks that follow the opener exactly where they are to take the listener on an immediate ride around the world in which we were going to voyage into on this album. I really like the way it all flows myself.

Long Island Press: I’ve heard some traditionalists who deride Nachtmystium as populist black metal–does that mindset ever influence your artistic choices?

BJ: I don’t care what anyone says about my band. Nachtmystium is my life, it’s all I do, and any f**king asshole black metal douche bag who wants to question me or my integrity can feel free to do so right to my face if he feels so inclined. I and the four people who travel with me six to seven months out of the year are total extremists in our lifestyles and there is nothing “fancy” or “glamorous” about our lifestyles as members of Nachtmystium, We just happen to get paid enough these days to keep gas in our van (note, VAN) and the wheels on it turning and maybe pay a month or two of rent each after a tour. If someone thinks that is like living some rock star lifestyle, think again.

LIP: American black metal is at a very exciting place right now, with more bands experimenting in more areas, and achieving some pretty amazing results (even as some bands drive further away from what traditionalists perceive to be “black metal”). What are your thoughts on the state of American black metal today?

BJ: I don’t listen to new black metal at all these days unless it’s made by the guys I play music with (like Twilight members and Nachtmystium members’ side projects). The only black metal bands I really pay any attention to outside of what I just mentioned are Watain and Blut Aus Nord. I have plenty of old classics that keep me happy and I use my free time to check out new music these days, checking out other stuff outside of the black metal realm as I’ve burnt myself out on black metal, honestly.

Long Island Press: Will the follow-up to “Addicts” be “Black Meddle Part 3”? Have you decided how many parts will eventually comprise the “Black Meddle” series?

Blake Judd: Nope. “Black Meddle Pt. II” was it. All done; the next album will be something totally different.

Weezer—Hurley (Epitaph)

Looking back, it’s probably fair to say Weezer were destined to fail. The California band started their career with two front-to-back classics—1994’s self-titled, so-called “Blue Album” and ’96’s Pinkerton. Yet those albums achieved the bulk of their notoriety while the band was on hiatus, in the late ’90s/early ’00s, so that by the time Weezer were ready to regroup and record a third LP, they already had an impossible task ahead of them: matching a legacy and a set of expectations that were decidedly incommensurate with not just one another, but with the band’s actual level of ability. Think about it: Aside from the Arcade Fire, how many modern bands have not only come out the gate with two immortal LPs, but have had those LPs reach immortality before their third album even came out? And how have those bands fared? (I can think of one off the top of my head—Oasis—and…well, case in point.) So Weezer’s fall from grace should come as no great surprise. Which doesn’t excuse the string of mediocrity and sub-mediocrity and pandering, patronizing, soulless pabulum produced by the band in the wake of Pinkerton, but maybe it helps to explain it. Maybe.

On the expanded Deluxe Edition of Weezer’s new album, Hurley, is a cover of the Coldplay hit “Viva La Vida.” Musically, it’s inessential—a faithful reading of a song that has achieved total blandness by virtue of its astonishing ubiquity—but listening to Weezer mastermind/control freak/frontman Rivers Cuomo sing those very familiar words puts everything that just preceded them into a neat perspective. Sings Cuomo in a stark, plaintive tone: “One minute I held the key/Next the walls were closed on me/And I discovered that my castles stand/Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand.” As written by Coldplay, and when performed by that band, the song’s ostensible subjects are characters from history, but coming from Cuomo, the piece feels confessional, it feels personal, it feels like an apology and an explanation: “I used to rule the world,” sings Cuomo, owning that “I” in a way its songwriter does not intend it to be owned. “Now in the morning I sleep alone, sweep the streets I used to own.”

That seems to be the essential thrust of Hurley (presumably named after the character on TV’s Lost, based on the unforgivable cover art, though some sort of tie-in with the pop-punk-friendly surfer clothier cannot be ruled out). The first song here is called “Memories,” and in it, Cuomo waxes nostalgic about making music before making music became a job: “Messing with the journalists and telling stupid lies/They had a feeling something was up because of the look in our eyes/In fact we didn’t know what we were doing half of the time/We were so sure of ourselves and sure of our way through life.” From those highs of days gone by, the song moves to an especially harrowing and bleak present: “I can hear them babies crying and the lawn needs to be mowed/I’ve got to get my groove on, honey, ’cause I’m freaking bored.”

Those lyrical themes—ennui, nostalgia, a midlife yearning for youth, a suburban existential crisis—are apparent throughout Hurley (which is, incidentally, the band’s first release on an independent label, in this case the SoCal-based Epitaph Records, home to the Weezer-esque likes of Bad Religion and Motion City Soundtrack). But there is something much more interesting here, too: not just nostalgia but genuine regret, a fear that a great amount of talent and good fortune has been wasted. For the listener, it cannot be enough that Cuomo is “freaking bored”—because who cares about the dissatisfaction of the filthy rich? What matters to us is the first half of that line, that he needs to “get [his] groove on.” It is that urgency, that artistic hunger, that makes Hurley so exciting. And it is impossible to mistake Cuomo’s concerns: As he did on “Blue Album” and Pinkerton—which primarily dealt with themes of adolescence and misanthropy, respectively—Hurley has a fairly singular lyrical target, which it hits more often than not. “Someday we’ll cut our critics down to size,” Cuomo sings in “Trainwrecks,” “we fall but then we rise.” In “Brave New World,” he sings, “Things will never be the same/I may snuff the burning flame/Or I may prove to be much more than I thought.” Of course, any album that opens with a track called “Memories” and closes with a track called “Time Flies” is not exactly being coy about its intentions, but contrary to the possible implications of those titles, Hurley does not bathe its writer’s emotions in warm sepia hues; there is a visceral dread and determination here, not just in the words but in the delivery, which is raw, impassioned, exuberant, alive.

The album’s centerpiece and its highlight, “Unspoken,” is one of the finest songs of Weezer’s career. Cuomo’s voice is in peak form, ranging from meekness to ferocity, and his craftsmanship has never been better. Again, the lyrics follow the prevailing theme, Cuomo’s contrition and regret here taking the form of anger: “And if you take this away from me, I’ll never forgive you, can’t you see?” The target of his venom is vague—is he referring to his fans? His critics? Himself?—which is ultimately inconsequential. In the song’s final chorus, he borrows both the trick and the riff from Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” but it is employed deftly and gracefully, with enough sheer power to flatten any cynicism and dull any comparisons. The standouts don’t end there: The Big Star-ish “Run Away” features a sweet, melancholic guitar line courtesy of Ryan Adams; the triumphant and jubilant “Hang On” sounds a lot like some of the more anthemic moments on Andrew W.K.’s awesome The Wolf.

The album is not perfect and not always on message—and those two facts often coincide. Surely its most egregious moment will also be its most discussed: “Where’s My Sex?” is sophomoric and obnoxious. It relies on a massive hook and a silly lyrical trick that Cuomo seems to think is a whole lot cleverer than it really is. (Trick being: The word “sex” should be replaced by the word “socks”—because the song is really about…socks! Not sex! Socks! Haha! Get it?) The decision to include it here, at the heart of an economical and hard-hitting 10-song collection, calls into question any newfound self-awareness Cuomo might display elsewhere. To be clear, it doesn’t erase all evidence of that self-awareness, it just makes the whole thing feel…schizophrenic or something.

The essential difference between Hurley and the two classic Weezer albums is found in the details. For instance, “Where did all these smart girls come from?/I don’t think that I can choose just one” (from Hurley’s “Smart Girls”) is a fairly bland statement compared to, say, “Goddamn you half-Japanese girls/You do it to me every time/Well, the redhead said you played the cello, and I’m Jell-o, baby” (from Pinkerton’s “El Scorcho”). It seems Cuomo still wants to sing silly love songs, but they don’t capture his imagination the way they used to—and here, he’s torn between wanting to go back to those days (cf., “Memories”) and wanting to go forward (cf., “Brave New World”). Regardless, it’s hard to disparage a song that so enthusiastically extols the appeal of brainy women, especially one with such a slamming chorus. More importantly, Cuomo ends “Smart Girls” howling, hoarse, as if he is singing for his life, as if he actually cares. That’s a lot more than can be said of anything else Weezer has released since Pinkerton. Indeed, Hurley feels like it might capture the first time in a very, very long time that Cuomo’s investment in his music matches the investment his fans have made. And now, finally, for all parties involved, that investment feels as though it is being rewarded.

Man’s Gin—Smiling Dogs

(Profound Lore)

If you were to look in my iPod’s history, you would see that I have devoted a wildly disproportionate number of plays to songs from Gin, the 2009 album from American black metal band Cobalt. (To be completely accurate, they call themselves a “war metal” band, which may be a more appropriate designation, but it’s also a sub-sub-subgenre with which almost no one is familiar, so for now I’m calling it “black metal” and leaving it at that.) In fact, in numerous places, I named Gin the third best album of last year, and I often think today that it might be even better than that. It is one of the bleakest and most intense records I have ever heard, but it is also diverse and unpredictable and layered, which is rare in any genre, but especially so in black metal, where slavish adherence to form is too often held aloft as some form of musical ideal (or, in the parlance of the genre, “trooth”).

Cobalt is a two-piece, originally from Colorado, made up of vocalist/lyricist Phillip McSorley and multi-instrumentalist Erik Wunder. Last year, at the height of interest in Gin, McSorley was frequently projected (by the media, at least) as the face of Cobalt, due in no small part to the fact that he is a sergeant in the U.S. Army who served in Iraq (hence, I guess, the “war metal” tag) and is currently stationed in Manhattan, Kansas. That angle left Wunder (now relocated to Brooklyn) as something of a second banana—a take not supported by the band’s instrumental work, which is, in fact, the product of one of the genre’s true visionaries.

Man’s Gin is Wunder’s first project as a frontman, and Smiling Dogs is Man’s Gin’s debut LP and, on first blush, it would seem to share a lot of similarities with Cobalt, even beyond the presence of Wunder: Both have found a home at Profound Lore, the genre-changing Canadian label responsible for releasing a great deal of black metal’s most exciting and expansive new music; both feature deep-sepia cover art in hues of black and copper; and both have claimed the word “gin” as part of their identity.

But that’s more or less where the similarities end. As I wrote in a July review of Smiling Dogs’ title track: Tonally, there is one comparable cut on Gin—the album’s suffocating and grim “Dry Body,” one of its few non-metal moments. Smiling Dogs is not a black metal record, nor a war metal record, nor even a metal record: It sounds a lot like Alice in Chains circa Jar of Flies, or Dax Riggs, or Nick Cave, or Mark Lanegan’s solo material. (Upon hearing it in the office, a co-worker asked if I was listening to Pearl Jam.) Naturally, it is because of Cobalt that I was interested in Man’s Gin, but an affinity for one will hardly signify an affinity for the other.

Still, both bands deal exclusively in dark, masculine themes—death, betrayal, vengeance, violence, anger—and in my very limited anecdotal experience, fans of Cobalt have embraced Man’s Gin. To wit: I attended a concert earlier this summer, a month or so prior to the release of Smiling Dogs, at which Man’s Gin was the opening end of a lineup featuring some of the most flesh-searing black metal bands on the planet; and on the whole, the crowd seemed to love them.

As he showed that night, at that concert, Wunder is a strong frontman and he has a powerful, expressive baritone—a great voice (especially if you think Layne Stayley had a great voice, which I do). More impressive still is his sense of songcraft, which is on generous display throughout Smiling Dogs. This is minimalist, pitch-black music—with roots in Appalachian and Irish folk, blues, German beer-hall songs, murder ballads—but Wunder is a gifted tunesmith who writes immediately indelible melodies that demand singing along. (It also goes well with alcohol, which may or may not be made clear by everything else I’ve written here.) The music’s catchiness is evident throughout, but if you’re looking for some immediate fixes, check the chorus on “Smiling Dogs,”  the climactic guitar solo on “The Death of Jimmy Sturgis,” and the entirety of “Nuclear Ambition, Pts. 1 and 2,” the album’s highlight and centerpiece, the latter half of which makes reference to “Richard Nixon’s stronghold” and uses its sharp hooks to sink lines like “I need to know where I can buy a drink…It’s time to fist-fuck everything.” (Perhaps not surprisingly, Wunder lists Hunter S. Thompson as a major influence.)

I find myself trying to imagine what Wunder might accomplish by bridging the gap somewhat between Cobalt and Man’s Gin—his voice and melodic choices applied to more aggressive music, especially with his estimable guitar skills, might result in something that transcends all boundaries. But if this is all we get from him—Cobalt and Man’s Gin, I mean—well, this is more than enough. This is more than most musicians are capable of. This is pretty great already.

(This is video from the aforementioned show I attended at The Studio at Webster Hall, wherein Man’s Gin opened for Castevet, Velnias and Altar of Plagues. This video is by unARTigNYC. For more of his work go to http://unartignyc.com/recordings/.)

Katy Perry—Teenage Dream (Capitol)

In a column that regularly focuses on contemporary American black metal and depressive post-shoegaze-Spanish-classical-influenced folk, dissing on someone like Katy Perry might seem a little obvious—a little cheap, maybe—but it’s not that simple. I have publicly championed lots of artists who might be considered Katy Perry’s peers: I have written at length about my appreciation for Kelly Clarkson; I think Ke$ha has released at least two of the year’s best singles; I was the only critic to include Lady Gaga’s The Fame on my 2008 Pazz & Jop ballot (and Rachel Stevens’ Come and Get It on my 2007 ballot…); and I’ve long expressed my fondness for the pop songwriting/production work of Max Martin and Dr. Luke. So I’m not predisposed to disliking Katy Perry—just the opposite, if anything. In fact, I expected a lot from Teenage Dream, because I loved (and still love) its smash first single, “California Gurls.” That track is bizarre, overstuffed and opportunistic, saying almost nothing at all about its ostensible subject—“Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top” is relevant and specific to California how exactly?—yet is utterly infectious and wonderful, featuring a little disco guitar lick seemingly stolen from Stardust’s classic “Music Sounds Better With You” and a timeless, indelible Swedish melody. I think, actually, that “California Gurls” is so good because it’s so weird. Problem is, the same can’t be said of much else on Teenage Dream. Some of it is very weird, and yes, very good: The cheeky “Peacock,” for example, is built around an inane and vulgar single-entendre playground chant but it’s also layered and fun and very, very catchy. Perry fares well when she does floor-fillers, and poorly when she does ballads and/or emo pop: “The One That Got Away” wouldn’t be fit for the likes of Ashlee Simpson (to be clear, that’s not a good thing); “Hummingbird Heartbeat” attempts to update Rick Springfield’s Working Class Dog for the Jersey Shore crowd but the song’s soul gets lost in gloss; “Pearl” is a dreary sub-Imogen Heap bore. Fortunately, most of Teenage Dream is upbeat, but not enough of it reaches (or even reaches for) the amazing heights of “California Gurls” or “Peacock.” And during those moments—the majority of the record—it lacks any identity whatsoever. Strange, I think, for an artist with such an outsized personality (or, at least, an artist who claims to have such an outsized personality). [5/10]

The Arcade Fire—The Suburbs (Merge)

The Arcade Fire’s debut is largely considered a classic, and its follow-up cemented them as arena-worthy, but I found both those records to be a little bombastic and consequently difficult to love. The Suburbs is thus the best Arcade Fire album, in my opinion, because it is also my favorite Arcade Fire album, and the only one I listen to out of enjoyment rather than obligation. It’s not perfect—moments here try too hard, are a bit too cute, a bit faceless—but the large majority of this thing is ferocious and haunting and flat-out great, finding a perfect place at the center of a Venn diagram featuring The Cure, Springsteen, Big Country and My Bloody Valentine. I don’t know if it’s the simplicity of these songs or merely the fact that the band are now just better songwriters than they used to be, but this thing is 16 songs long and I’d say at least 12 of those songs are totally emotionally and aurally arresting. That is an insane, almost unfair ratio. I don’t even want to like The Arcade Fire at this point, on principle, and I definitely don’t want to be getting on a bandwagon after two critically beloved records, but this one is—as Katy Perry claims California girls to be—“undeniable.” [9/10]

Yes, haha, that’s a joke. Of course you know the “M” in MTV stands for “music,” just as you know that MTV and music are almost entirely divorced from one another at this point. That’s the joke. Haha.

Anyway, a couple days ago, it was announced that Universal Music Group—home to pretty much every big star in the pop-music world (Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber)—would pull all its music video content from MTV.com, and air it exclusively online at Vevo.com. Do you care about this news? I can’t see why you would. If we’ve already agreed that MTV has nothing to do with music, and MTV.com is merely an extension of MTV, then why should this matter? If you want to see the new Rihanna video, you’ll go to Vevo. It’s really not a big deal.

And, in fairness, it shouldn’t be. The powers that be at MTV long ago realized they could make a lot more money with consistent blocks of structured programming rather than by showing music videos. That’s perfectly understandable. Furthermore, as bad as some MTV programming can be, some of it is also pretty great—for example, I sincerely love Jersey Shore; I think True Life is intelligent, compelling and generous. I would much rather watch either of those shows than Cobra Starship videos.

Still, as the network drifts further from its roots, I find myself looking back on its golden days and wondering how much it impacted and aided the evolution of popular music. It certainly impacted and aided the evolution of a generation of pop-culture consumers. Personally, MTV introduced me to not only countless new bands that would go on to impact my life, but it provided me with a cultural center, an understanding of myself in relation to others. It also provided me opportunities to grow as a person. Understand, that’s because I defined myself very strictly in terms of the music I listened to, but isn’t that what all teenagers do? (I still do it, so it’s not necessarily exclusive to teenagers.)

This is what I mean: When I was a high school metalhead, I would watch Headbangers Ball, to see videos from obscure bands I loved (I remember the shock and excitement I felt in first seeing a Kreator video on TV), and in turn, discover new bands to love. In doing this, I found bands like Pantera, Voivod, Faith No More, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam… And as I found these new bands, my personal horizons expanded.

Of course, it helps that I was at Ground Zero when grunge exploded—as grunge was a new thing at the crossroads of heavy metal and modern rock (or Headbangers Ball and 120 Minutes)—but MTV provided the setting for that explosion. Without MTV, would we have had “Smells Like Teen Spirit”? Would Nirvana have mattered? (For what it’s worth, I’m of the mind that music was forever altered by Nirvana, maybe more so than any band since the Beatles, to the extent that nothing today would look the way it does had Nirvana not mattered. It bears mentioning that I was 17 in 1991, when the band’s breakthrough Nevermind was released, so I may have a slightly distorted view.)

My point is, I don’t think we would have had the phenomenon of Nirvana had MTV not been there to endlessly replay that video—but we needed more than just MTV; or, really, we needed MTV and nothing more. We needed to focus our undivided attention on one channel, one source, so that we as a culture were sharing this moment, so that we all knew who Nirvana was, and why they looked and sounded different than anything else we were seeing and hearing. Only MTV could have provided this. Or, more generally, only a source like MTV could have provided this. In this sense, 1991 offered the exact ingredients necessary for a perfect storm of cultural tectonic shift.
And, next year will be the 20th anniversary of Nevermind and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and 1991.

In other words, that was a long, long time ago. That is ancient history.

I don’t hear many people decrying the demise of MTV. Sure, lots of people make that joke, that obvious joke, that I made at the top of this column—pointing out the irony to be found in the network’s name—but not many people seem to recognize what MTV meant and why it mattered. Or if they do, they don’t seem to care. And I can’t say we’re stronger or wiser or happier because we had MTV—nor even that I am a more interesting or more well-rounded person because of it—but I don’t think anything would have been the same without it, and I don’t think another generation will have anything quite like it. And in some ways I envy them this, and in other ways, I think the generation of which I was a part—the MTV generation, if you will—I think we were around at the moment of something very special, something magical, something that was, in its way, revolutionary.

Mark Kozelek, painting blue guitar

I’ve written at length in this space about Mark Kozelek: the artist who currently records under the handle Sun Kil Moon, and before that, Red House Painters, and sometimes, in between noms de plume, under his own name. My reason for covering him with such frequency and verve is because, as I have noted, he is my “favorite” recording artist (whatever that means), and has been for some 16 or 17 years, and that relationship—artist and fan, spanning the course of what feels like forever—is one that I cherish, one that I think about a lot. Also, over the course of those years, Kozelek has grown, equally weirder and better and more confident; he’s gotten more interesting as he’s gotten older, he’s continued to write and record some stunning, beautiful music, music that continues to deserve and demand my respect and admiration and love.

Kozelek’s new album, again released as Sun Kil Moon, is called Admiral Fell Promises. It came out a couple weeks ago on Caldo Verde, Kozelek’s own label, through which he releases his records as well as the records of a few other spiritually and aesthetically like-minded souls—that is to say, artists who create work of unusual sadness, slowness, majesty and beauty, artists such as Jesu, Kath Bloom and Retribution Gospel Choir.

Admiral Fell Promises is the third full-length studio album of original music released by Sun Kil Moon. There are subtle but important distinctions in that sentence: Sun Kil Moon has been a running project since 2003; Kozelek has been releasing music since 1992; his catalog includes some 27 recordings under his three separate monikers—including LPs, EPs, live albums, covers albums. His early work—the first albums from Red House Painters—shared tonal qualities with some of the more depressive shoegaze and dream-pop acts of the day (Slowdive, Catherine Wheel, anything on the 4AD label—which was also, not coincidentally, the home of Red House Painters back then), but it was better constructed than anything produced by those artists, with tremendous instrumental intricacies and confessional, poetic lyrics. (As Jim Greer of Spin Magazine said in 1993, Red House Painters “sounds like what My Bloody Valentine might sound like if the band could sing or write songs.”) Over time, Kozelek’s songwriting moved away from those echo-heavy, gauzy shades, into free-form Neil Young-ian guitar heroics and melancholic pastoral folk, à la Nick Drake or Tim Buckley, still keeping a tight focus on Kozelek’s mournful, dulcet voice and very personal, location-specific lyrics—that location frequently being Kozelek’s adopted home of San Francisco.

At this point in his career, it’s not so easy to compare Kozelek to anyone else—Admiral Fell Promises was performed solo, on acoustic nylon-string guitar; it is heavily influenced by Spanish classical guitar music. Kozelek’s own playing occasionally recalls that of Steve Howe of Yes. He’s become something of a virtuoso on the instrument. I saw him perform to a full house in Williamsburg a few weeks ago, and at times, from the back of the room, where I was standing, I felt like I was watching some old Catalan master playing to a hushed concert hall. And the hall was indeed hushed—entirely silent, hypnotized, reverent, as Kozelek played, seated, bathed in a cool light, alone on stage. That is fairly standard for Kozelek’s shows these days, and has been for more than half a decade now. His music demands obsession, careful attention. He hasn’t toured with a band since 2003, hasn’t played an electric guitar on stage (that I know of) since 2001. Speaking selfishly—with no concern for Kozelek’s own touring considerations—I think he should plug in now and then; he should occasionally drag the band on stage with him: His electric guitar work is powerful and exhilarating, and many of his best songs were originally recorded with a full band arrangement.

If anything, though, Admiral Fell Promises suggests he will not head in that direction anytime soon. The new album is stark and delicate, like the reflection of moonlight on a gently rippling lake; like a cigar box full of old letters, folded and faded, full of faraway love and endless loss. It has tremendous depths, and darkness, and tenderness. Its beauty can be astonishing, transcendent, but it is also reassuring. Few other artists are capable of such work. Indeed, I cannot think of one. And if this is because I am a fan, so be it—but I am a fan because the artist has earned my devotion, and continues to earn it. And I listen to a lot of music—really, a lot of music—but nothing else captures me like this. Nothing else even comes close.

The Cranberries: not Mike's favorite band

This is how the Cranberries song “Zombie” got stuck in my head:

I was talking to my friend Dan about those old CD clubs. Remember them? Columbia House and BMG? Get eight CDs for a penny and agree to purchase five more CDs for full price (full price being approximately 50 to 80 percent more than retail)? With the cards that you had to send back, or else they would send you the CD of the Month (which you never wanted)? But you never did? Send back the card, that is? Because you were lazy? Do they still have those things? The clubs, I mean, not the cards. It seems incredibly obsolete in the age of file-sharing, but who knows?

Anyway, like many people in my general age range, I was a member of both Columbia House and BMG—several times over, in fact. I believe I lived up to the terms of those agreements at least once, and reneged on them at least three times, meaning I still owe both companies a small sum of money. (There was a time when I believed these debts would cripple my credit rating and leave me incapable of ever buying a house, and I suppose there is still a possibility this will occur—I’ll let you know when I try to buy a house.)

Those CD clubs were a huge scam, of course, but they were good for a young collector trying to fill major gaps in his nascent CD library. I got most of Led Zeppelin’s catalog for a penny, a bunch of Doors CDs, Metallica stuff I had previously only owned on cassette, etc. (Why yes, I was in high school when first getting involved in these clubs, why do you ask?) As a freshman in college, I rejoined one of the clubs (new address and all—I figured they couldn’t track my old transgressions) and picked up a lot of “college-appropriate” music. Among the CDs in this batch were the first two albums from England’s The Sundays. I can’t recall now why I ordered these CDs (it may have had something to do with a cute girl in my life-drawing class wearing a Sundays T-shirt) but I listened to them—sporadically at first, but over time, those Sundays CDs found regular rotation on my stereo, and over the years, they wore themselves into grooves of the seasons: Certain types of days, certain times of day (sunny, cool weekday afternoons, for instance) called for The Sundays and their subdued, jangly sweetness and melancholy.

So, after talking to Dan about those CD clubs, and remembering all the CDs I obtained for those pennies, I got to thinking about The Sundays, and how unlikely it was that I found their music, and how happy I was (and continue to be) about our serendipitous meeting. As this musing occurred on a cool and sunny weekday afternoon, I decided to listen to the band’s flawless first album, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic (all The Sundays’ albums are flawless, so that adjective is sort of redundant here, but still worth noting).

Anyway, listening to the album made me think about the band’s legacy: Reading came out in 1990, their second album, Blind, came out in 1992, and their third album, Static & Silence, came out in 1997. (They have released nothing since, though I continue to hold out unfounded hope that a new album is forthcoming.) And that made me think about how, for a while, it looked as though The Sundays’ legacy would forever be overshadowed by The Cranberries’ legacy, because—even though The Cranberries 1993 debut album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?, blatantly ripped off The Sundays’ sound—The Cranberries were a more successful band, in terms of mainstream popularity. And at the time, this prospect really bothered me: I wanted The Sundays to get credit for that sound, because it was theirs and because they were better at it.

But my concern was unwarranted; that historical error was never made. Why? Because The Sundays never really changed their sound, they never made any musical mistakes, and now they have a flawless (but way-too-small) catalog.

Meanwhile, The Cranberries, after getting their first taste of success, decided it would be better to be global rock giants than quaint purveyors of smart Smiths-ian pop, and on their second album they included the song “Zombie”: a loud, catchy, annoying and ubiquitous smash that ranks among the worst songs of the era. It has become the defining moment of The Cranberries’ career—their entire legacy boiled down to one awful song.

And that made me think of this: “IT’S IN YOUR HEA-ED/ IN YOUR HEA-EE-YEA-ED/ ZAH-AHM-BE/ ZAH-AHM-BE/ ZAH-AHM-BE-AY, E-AY, E-AY.”

From there it was stuck—as the lady sings—in my head, where it’s been for days.

And now, dear reader, it’s in yours, too.

Yakuza—Of Seismic Consequence (Profound Lore)

Right now, there’s no other label in metal—heck, there’s no other label in music—releasing such exciting, boundary-expanding, uncompromising records as Canada’s Profound Lore. Their roster is like a who’s who of extreme metal’s best bands: Cobalt, Krallice, Yob, Amesoeurs, Portal, Altar of Plagues… It’s unusual today—at a time when record labels have less influence than ever before—to see one independent label making such an incredible impact and establishing such a signature voice. Of Seismic Consequence is the fifth album from Chicago’s Yakuza, and it is another major triumph for the label. It’s also a pretty substantial statement from the band. Yakuza don’t really sound like anything else in metal, or anything else, period. Vocalist Bruce Lamont—who mostly sings in a dark Layne Staley-esque croon here—also contributes hypnotic saxophone work; there are heavy jazz and Middle Eastern influences guiding the writing and performances. Recorded by Sanford Parker, the sound is sharp and clean but devastatingly, almost suffocatingly heavy. Much of the record proceeds at a doom metal-esque gait, which only accentuates the precision and exhilaration when the band shreds (and when they do, it is truly a thing to behold). Most importantly, the songs here are songs—not virtuosic wankery; not empty ambience. At its frequent best, Of Seismic Consequence appears to belong to no genre: Yakuza could almost just as easily be a jazz band with metal influences. But even that seems to ghettoize the work—in a weird sense, Yakuza are making true “world” music, finding sounds in disparate genres across the globe, and blending them to create something both new and old, something genuinely unique, something that is in fact pretty goddamned amazing. [9/10]

School of Seven Bells—Disconnect From Desire (Vagrant/Ghostly)

The ’90s revival crops up in the weirdest places and ways: the excellent forthcoming debut from California’s Best Coast reminds me of Liz Phair’s 1993 classic Exile in Guyville; Southern grungers Dead Confederate (whose new album comes out in August) sound like Nirvana circa In Utero (or maybe even a little like forgotten grunge also-rans Paw). With their honeyed female vocals and Space Age Bachelor Pad bloops and bleeps, School of Seven Bells recall the dreamy post-rock of Stereolab, the warm shoegaze-y glow of Lush, and the blissed-out alt-techno of Seefeel. School of Seven Bells don’t do much to update those sounds, but I’m not sure any update is necessary: Disconnect From Desire may be referential and retro, but its influences always sounded a little otherworldly and out-of-time anyway. Disconnect From Desire is (presumably) designed with getting high in mind, but it’s tightly and expertly constructed; as much as it drifts and glides, it has a center, a soul, a reason to exist, and even if you don’t care about its careful and meticulous attention to detail, it is melodic, engaging and lovely enough to appeal to those of us who quit drugs back when these sounds were first in vogue (or not long thereafter). [8/10]

It’s a theory, anyway.

But it’s also July, and that means we are exactly halfway through 2010—six full months have passed, six full months are ahead of us. It is the midyear point, the point at which we can take stock of what has come already, and clean the slate somewhat for what we have yet to experience. Of course, artistically speaking, calendar years are fairly arbitrary measures—a band might have written songs for an album over the course of the last five years, spent parts of the last two years recording those songs, and only released them as a completed work this year. So what does that have to say about 2010?

Probably nothing. Maybe nothing. But just the same, now is as good a time to clear the books.

What follows are my 10 favorite albums of 2010 thus far, in alphabetical order. However, if 2010 were to end today and this was how the year closed out, I would consider it to have been a very, very good year. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Alcest – Écailles de Lune (Prophecy)

France’s Alcest are often called a black metal band, though their catalog is much more My Bloody Valentine than Mayhem, and better than both. The band’s mastermind, Neige (also the man behind the similarly essential Amesoeurs), is one of music’s most exciting innovators, and everything he releases commands a stop-whatever-you’re-doing-and-listen response. And Écailles de Lune rewards it. Lush, haunting, wondrous—like a dream or a memory or some gorgeous hallucinatory fantasy.

Beach House – Teen Dream (Sub Pop)

Teen Dream came out in January—I think I had a copy of the record in December—which is why year-end lists are so flawed. I’ve listened to it a million times, lived with it all winter and all spring; last week, I heard its single, “Norway,” in Old Navy. Six months from now, will I still be able to hear its immense and subtle beauty? Its shimmering loss, wisdom, darkness, lightness? Its generosity of melody and its scarred humanity? I think so—because I think it’s timeless—but still.

Best Coast – Crazy For You (Mexican Summer)

See: Beach House, above. Different side, same coin. Crazy For You isn’t even officially released yet; I got a copy of it last week. By that logic, it shouldn’t be on this list, but I wanted to write about it, and even if it doesn’t make my year-end list, it will make a lot of others. By then, Bethany Cosentino, the woman behind Best Coast, will be an icon, a symbol, an academic discussion—so for the moment, it’s nice to see her just as a really great songwriter and one of the coolest singing voices on the planet.

Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty (Def Jam)

I really don’t write about hip-hop because I don’t listen to a very wide array of hip-hop: just the artists I already know or the artists recommended to me. For that reason, I’m hesitant to recommend hip-hop to others—because what the hell do I know?—but it’s impossible to not recognize the greatness of Outkast member Big Boi’s solo debut. Sir Lucious Left Foot is probably the consensus choice for Album of the Year right now, but sometimes the consensus is actually right. Luscious abounds with the playfulness, verve and innovation of vintage Outkast—vintage Prince, even.

Les Discrets – Septembre Et Ses Dernières Pensées (Prophecy)

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: “Another French black metal band that is not really black metal? What the heck is up with this list?” Hey, it’s my list, and that’s the best music I’m hearing right now. Les Discrets have some artistic ties to the aforementioned Alcest—frontman Fursey has worked with Neige in numerous incarnations—but these two works are distinctly different. Septembre Et Ses Dernières Pensées is shoegaze-y darkwave—think Katatonia, Catherine Wheel, early Red House Painters—nuanced, powerful and grand.

MGMT – Congratulations (Columbia)

I liked the first album from MGMT a lot—it was on my year-end list in 2007—but Congratulations is so far superior to that debut that it sounds like a different, and much better, band. It’s Technicolor psychedelia, stunning songcraft, weird as hell and endlessly listenable—like Love’s Forever Changes, in so many ways—and it seems destined to be remembered as a lost classic.

Nachtmystium – Addicts: Black Meddle Part II (Century Media)

Wow, yet another black metal band (this one from America) producing expansive music that evades the closed-minded sensibilities of many uptight fans of the genre? Yep, it’s that kind of year (so far). As I wrote about Addicts just last month: “It is better, certainly, than the pointless and arbitrary constraints black metal fans place upon its practitioners, better than pretty much anything the genre is producing right now.” And, here, a few weeks later, I stand by those words. Another victory, and another step forward, for one of the country’s most exciting bands.

Sun Kil Moon – Admiral Fell Promises (Caldo Verde)

I won’t play coy: Mark Kozelek (of Sun Kil Moon) is my favorite artist, ever, and his albums rarely don’t make my year-end lists. That said, his albums always deserve to be there—they are glorious works of art that stand alongside the best of Neil Young, David Sylvian or Nick Drake. Admiral Fell Promises is his most hushed and gentle work to date—no small feat—influenced by Spanish classical music and performed entirely on nylon-string guitar. (Kozelek may now be one of the finest guitar players in the world; certainly he is among the very best in the world of “pop” music.) Utterly, amazingly heartbreaking. As usual.

Tame Impala – Innerspeaker (Modular)

I can see a lot of aesthetic similarities between Innerspeaker and the previously mentioned Congratulations. Both are sprawling works of melodic pysch-pop with boundless imagination and countless outer-space explorations and places to get lost. Both have shades of the Beach Boys and the Beatles, but neither get swallowed up by those lofty (and oft-stifling) references. Indeed, both rise above them, using those musical worlds as places to find new ideas, not places to mine the past. Innerspeaker is bigger and goes further out there and is more immediately exciting than Congratulations, however, both are essential.

Twin Sister - Color Your Life (Infinite Best)

Twin Sister are originally from Long Island, though they moved to Brooklyn (of course). Still, I’m going to continue saying they’re a Long Island band, because they are from Long Island, and I want Long Island to get some credit here—people know us for Billy Joel and Eddie Money and Taking Back Sunday. Horrible. Twin Sister make ambient-noise-pop that is lush, jagged, hypnotic, gauzy, arresting and sweet, and which recalls, like, Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo and Stereolab. This is beautiful, intoxicating music. Why wouldn’t Long Island want to boast of this, take some ownership of this, be proud of this?

Five on the cusp: Javelin—No Mas (Luaka Bop); Mark McGuire—Guitar Meditations Vol. 2 (self-released); Shearwater—The Golden Archipelago (Merge); Watain—Lawless Darkness (Season of Mist); Yakuza—Of Seismic Consequence (Profound Lore)

Of course, those types of titles are taken seriously mostly by people who work in media. Unless you’re especially obsessive, you probably don’t worry about these things; you probably just listen to music, and try to find new music to enjoy, rather than debating whether or not the summer of 2010 will best be defined by Katy Perry’s “California Gurls,” Ke$ha’s “Lovedrug” or Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro.”

What’s more, for you, maybe none of those songs will sound like anything more than background noise. Maybe your summer will be defined by something else entirely; maybe you will spend your summer finally digging through the catalogues of Leonard Cohen or Led Zeppelin or The Jam. Maybe you will return to your New Order records or your Jawbreaker records or your Guided By Voices records. Maybe you will buy the new Big Boi CD and listen to nothing else for two months. Maybe you will download five albums a day, and find among all that chaos your new favorite song. And for you, that will define the summer.

My own listening habits tend to drift with the seasons. In fall, I listen to melancholic, pastoral folk and deep-blue jazz, music that echoes my own autumnal nostalgia; in winter, I listen to black metal that howls like the stinging and bitter winds, and ambient that is as quiet and dark as the long nights; in spring, I listen to punk and pop and indie rock, anything that sounds like waking up, like being alive. I mean, I listen to everything, all of it, all year round, but the sounds always echo the seasons, and over time, they come to represent the seasons, they come to be part of each other, they grow so deeply intertwined that I cannot distinguish one from the other.

For me, summertime is hazy and slow and sort of hallucinatory. It is baseball and cold beer and air conditioning and nights spent awake, sweating, thinking. It is music as heavy as the air, and bright as the sun, and wild as the thunderstorms, and lazy as the long weekends spent immobile, exhausted. It is hip-hop and stoner metal and chill-out and chillwave and bossa nova and Britpop and Southern rock and house and sludge and doom. For me, “The Song of the Summer” is not the same as what it might be for you, but like yours, my summer will be filled with music. What follows are some of the songs that have entered my life only recently, but will be with me through this hot season, and will in the future remain as landmarks, signposts, memories of 2010, of this summer.

Delays “Unsung” (from the LP Star Tiger Star Ariel)

Delays’ debut LP, 2004’s Faded Seaside Glamour, is one of my all-time favorite summer records—along with, like, Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker and The Smiths’ Louder Than Bombs (for a universe of reasons, all especially particular to me and those summers)—and I’m truly and sincerely overjoyed to have a new one from the British band for summer 2010. Star Tiger Star Ariel is Delays’ best since that debut, and “Unsung” is its most brilliant, exuberant moment. Bursting with strings and melody and soaring vocals, the song feels like a hard rush of salt air through a sunroof on an empty Ocean Parkway doing 85, cruising to the beach, or cruising to nowhere, cruising just to feel that rush, that breeze.

Dom “Hunny” (from the EP Sun Bronzed Greek Gods)

There are all these great indie bands making music that seems crafted specifically for summer 2010—like we will never hear it again after this summer, like it will go on to be this lost relic as soon as September rolls around. I’m thinking of bands like Beach Fossils and Brothertiger and Viernes and Wild Nothing, all of whom have recently released works of blissed-out pop that will never sound better than they do right now, today. Dom is another one of those bands, and their Sun Bronzed Greek Gods EP is full of such glorious music. “Hunny” is especially wonderful—a shimmering, spacey, buoyant little sing-along that feels like it was air-recorded on an old boom box to be played during weekend barbecues and psilocybin jaunts.

Band of Horses “For Annabelle” (from the LP Infinite Arms)

There is something so expansive in the sound of Band of Horses, like their music is a bottomless well of heartache and happiness and awe—just undiluted, intense feeling. It comes from singer Ben Bridwell’s magical voice, one of the most remarkable instruments in popular music today. “For Annabelle” is a perfect showcase for that voice and its miraculous power. The song is massive and heartbreaking, but also delicate and aching and soothing. It moves like a river, rippling and reflecting, cool and beautiful. You stand beside it, staring in wonder, in the hard heat of day, but dip your toe and it feels amazing.

Man’s Gin “Smiling Dogs” (from the LP Smiling Dogs)

Man’s Gin is the side project of Erik Wunder, the instrumental visionary behind the American black metal band Cobalt, whose last album, 2009’s Gin, may be one of the very best ever produced by the genre. Man’s Gin is not a black metal band. It sounds like Alice in Chains circa Jar of Flies, or Mark Lanegan’s minimalist solo material, or Dax Riggs’ bluesy work with Deadboy & the Elephantmen. (Tonally, there is one comparable cut on Gin—the album’s suffocating and grim “Dry Body,” one of its few non-metal moments.) Still, though it may not be metal, Man’s Gin is heavy—heavy in concept, heavy in feel. Like a brutal, endless night spent drenched in sweat and agony, it’s murky and bleak and desolate: humid as August, dark as 3 a.m., fueled with alcohol and sadness, like the dog days themselves.

The Roots “How I Got Over” (from the LP How I Got Over)

The Roots’ excellent new album is a perfect summer soundtrack, front to back, but its title cut still stands out as a highlight. It has a deep groove, powered by organ, a driving ?uestlove beat and a Philly soul chorus. Its lyrics—about the dangers of growing hardened by a life on the Philadelphia corners—are delivered with joy and bounce, a briskness that cannot help recalling being outdoors, on the sidewalk, in the backyard or the park, on the deck or the roof, “out on the streets.” And while there will be many candidates and many opinions, many songs and sounds for many stereos and sets of headphones, this one may in fact be, for me, for 2010, the song of the summer.