THE WHITE STRIPES "Icky Thump" CD

Okay-wow. This album is a giant steaming pile of derivative shit. I feel completely let down and am floored by the lack of a single memorable riff on this piece of trash. What the hell was Jack White thinking? For all the talk i heard about this being a return to rocking form, with some hints even of thrash metal being included as well as some serious soloing, this thing is beyond bland. It's like Jack and Meg sacrificed a rib each to the great god of stagnancy in return for the inspiration to churn out some worthless, grating bore-o-riffs. Not much there, John-not much there. I'm not really angry here, more confused, because the Stripes have long been a fave of mine (as well as many others) and to the day i day i will still say that "Expecting" is one of the greatest, toughest, most primeval guitar riffs that i have ever laid ears on-i'm left perpelexed and just trying to figure out where the way, the path, the noble road to rock ecstasy, was lost by Jack and Meg. It certainly wasn't on their last record-even throughout its deviations from the formula, it contained some of their best stuff, including the massive juggernaut "Instinct Blues" (which i have recently given thought to covering in Yog-Sothoth, which would be our 2nd Stripes cover.) So i guess somewhere between punching out worthless goons from lesser bands and getting married to forgettable "supermodels" and signing to a major major label, Jack just gave up. Decided to phone one in. Hell, he interviewed Jimmie Page in Guitar World- looks like he's really made it. The need to write quality material must have evaporated like so much dignity back when he was laying carpet for a living. So i would skip this one, really. Forgettable through and through. And one more thing-using an octave on every guitar solo gets really annoying. It's about as predictable as Meg's drumming has gotten. A horrible misstep.

FEAR FALLS BURNING "The Infinite Sea of Sustain" Audio DVD

Another project that is becoming far too prolific for me to keep up with but is way too good to fall behind on. This one was a no-brainer...six live concerts captured in crystalline audio over the course of FFB's European tour from 2005, all loaded on to one audio dvd for seriously extended play, along with a few mysterious photographs of the man in action as the music drifts by. And i really think drift is the most appropriate word here, as all of these pieces enswirl you in their narcoleptic hypnogogy and pull you deep down into a lovely little aura of relaxation and meditation. Listening to this album has actually eased my recents stresses as of late and not much else ahs been able to, aside from the outings with friends and games of "Settlers of catan" that i have recently been involved in. So yes, i really really like this record. But you may be wondering just who the hell FFB is and why i'm so down with his stuff. FFB is the new project begun a few years ago by the dude who was known as Projekt/Release recording artist vidnaObmana-FFB was born of a desire to revert back to guitar playing and live performance. Every FFB piece is a live real time composition, with the sounds fed through walls of pedals, loops and delays until they endlessly recycle and form new walls of sound of their own accord, more or less. It's a master class in layering and improvised composition and due to the ease of the way this music is presented, recordings are multitudinous-i have a good portion of what FFB has done thus far but some i've just missed out on due to financial constraint and lazing up on the output watching. This one is well worth your dollars, though, and is still available, and the packaging is pretty damn exquisite-it's like a velour wood case-you have to really caress it to see what i'm saying, but it's nice. The sound is towering and monolithic, the drones warm and inviting and so so comforting once you slip into them. It's very much in the vein of other soundlords like Troum, Nadja/Aidan Baker, Final, etc...hazy sounscapes blurred with melancholy and yearning, a reaching for something more, a desire to connect. I love this band, i really do, rapidly becoming a fave in my assemblage of drone albums and requisite late night listening when i'm feeling lonely or upset (which is a lot right now.) I would love to see FFB live, hopefully they'll get to the states soon so i can witness the haze in all it's volume drenched glory, but until then these live shows will have to suffice...arriving soon at my door will be the equally massive (and i mean it) 5LP set on tonefloat records, where FFB is remixed/reprocessed by such greats as Nadja, Final, Birchville Cat Motel, Stefano Pilia, et al. Probably will be the release of the year, in my humble opinion. Awesome and beautiful....

LUNAR AURORA "Andacht" CD

Holy shit. This album absolutely fucking slays. Amazing. Lunara Aurora are one of the more mysterious black metal entities lurking around (and alas they will lurk no more, as they have stated that this record will be their last in a long while) and have more or less eschewed any sort of spotlight that's been cast their way, presumably more concerned with creating beyond EPIC black metal with a fucking freezing cold atmosphere and gorgeously melodic, devastating riffs. This album serves as an amalgamation of everything they've done honed into a knife of deadly precision. The disc starts off furiously and pretty much never lets up-sounds well up and fill the space you're listening to it in-this is a sonic masterwork compared to anything that any band has done, ever. It's like the sound glut of Mogwai filtered through black metal-everything is here-massive crunchy/fuzz guitars, ambient soundscaping keyboards that encompass the entire compositions, freezing them with mooncrust and glacier shine, heavily delyaed and chorused guitars that bleed into the keyboards and add to the majesty, choral vocals that sound as cavernous as if they were recorded in the Sistine Chapel, and of course screechy reverb-laden vocals that echo of despairs unknown...it's a thick, dense mix of true blackened art and i am hard pressed to think of any band that has gone to this level. Xasthur's layering technique comes to mind but his sound is far too lofi to butt heads with this epoch-there's a definite Burzum influence at work here too but rather than go in the buzzing, torturous direction that more of Varg's disiciples choose Lunar Aurora crafts grandiose swaths of music that could be the national anthems of some weird black metal universe. I really can't go on-just know that this is triumphant, masterful music of the highest order regardless of genre.

SHINING "V:Halmstad" CD

At long last it has arrived at my door, after months of trying to find someone in the US who was distributing it. Upon me at last is the fifth monumnetal effort from Sweden's Shining, the "suicide squadron of Sweden." Shining is the black metal project of Niklas Kvarforth, started in 1996 to help him deal with the agonies and hurts he was struggling with in his life. Shining pretty much invented the "suicidal" black metal genre and this new recording cements their position as one of its reigning practitioners. Of course the big claim to fame was that Hellhammer of Mayhem used to drum in Shining-apparently those days are gone now, as Niklas has replaced everyone with some weird backing band called "The toolbox." Shining is only Kvarforth-everyone else is relegated to backing band status. So why do i love Shining so? They are one of the few bands who actually convey a true, frightening and real sense of depression, hurt, torment, sorrow, agony...and this has to be the result of Kvarforth's own suicide attempts (three times) and resulting hospitalizations in Swedish mental facilities. Now i know what you're thinking, and i agree-if he really wanted to kill himself, he'd just do like the girl in this fantastic album cover and eat a muzzle. So i guess there's something he's clinging to, some reason he's still here, but i don't think that his suicidal failures at all dimish the power or command over my emotions that his music has. There is no vocalist i have ever heard in all of black metal that sounds more tortured-when i listen to Kvarforth let out an out of tune wail and hear his voice break and crack, i can feel what he must be feeling. He can project and draw you into what he's feeling, the hurt that's inside. Secondly, he's an absolutely amazning guitarist and songwriter. Shining is midpaced for the most part but extremely technical-they come up with riffs and counterpoints that are rooted in the basics of black metal but they take them to a far more progressive place and create an altogether eerie and disconcerting pummel of atmosphere by way of weirdly dissonant passages and and depressing samples lifted from films along with devastating metal riffs and incredibly impressive and well planned guitar solos. A lot of time and effort goes into a Shining record and it's obvious to me that this record came at great personal expense and emotional devastation to Kvarforth. Comprised of six tracks (one is an interlude by way of Beethoven, so really only five) the record takes you down a very dark road where the sorrow and regret wells up in a massive pool, the waves getting deeper and deeper until eventually you're drowning in the total choking mass of desperation that the band has built up. The songs almost all feature haunting acoustic guitar figures and majestic and melodic solos that give instant goosebumps (and a few rock and rollisms don't hurt either.) Amazingly well recorded and totally crushing in sound, the guitars and drums will flatten you. Kvarforth's voice is getting even more torn and ragged, if that's possible-his vocals have become a choking hoarse bark that breaks consatnly and send shudders through your body-by the time you reach the final track, where a gorgeous chord progression of fuzzy guitars pulls you down down down and Kvarforth's clean (!!!) sung vocals lull you into his near suicide vigil, you will feel like there is no hope, no escape, no light, no love, nothing-nothing coming ever but an endless parade of defeats and hurt, piled higher and higher until you're buried under their collective and suffocating weight. This record is completely amazing, beautiful and fucking scary. Another masterpiece from Shining.