HYLI Vol. LIV - Failure and Tribulation
Andy sends Patrick some Swedish blackened-heavy metal and Patrick sends Andy some '90s space-rock alternative-rock stuff.
Hey gang. Patrick here, of course, no one else ever writes these (Andy: I didn’t even get a chance to write it give me a break) . How are y’all doing? Deepest apologies to our Philly readers, Go Birds. Did y’all see the halftime show? I’ve seen some absolute dorks try to talk shit about it because “Rihanna didn’t want to be there!” No shit!! She’s super very obviously pregnant!! My wife is currently More Pregnant than Rihanna and the idea of making her … stand on a mobile platform supported by some sort of wiring system??? Wouldn’t go over well! Not to mention Rihanna absolutely brought the hits for the performance. Get a life! Some good albums came out last week, too. Moments of Clarity by Narrow Head absolutely rips. Just guitars sounding fantastic. Dudes rock. Hope y’all have a good week and all that jazz.
Also, sorry we took a week off last week. Last year, we never missed a week, through having children and injuries and COVID and travel and all kinds of stuff. Last week, I had picked someone, without realizing it, that has been sort of soft-cancelled and I didn’t want to give them the shine on this here newsletter, so we scrapped it last minute. Sorry!
Failure - Fantastic Planet
Patrick: Space rock. Where to begin. I tend to kind of loosely appreciate stuff that would be considered “psychedelic rock” but often find that the songs are a bit too far up their own asses, with some exceptions. It seems to me that Space Rock is just basically psychedelic rock but a bit heavier with some huge Riffs. At least Space Rock of the ‘90s variety - stuff like Hum, Failure, Spiritualized, etc. Of those bands, Fantastic Planet is the record that stands out to me the most as kinda closest to just regular mainstream alternative radio rock, but with enough Weird thrown in to kinda make it its own separate thing.
I think I found this album because the band A Perfect Circle (apologies) covered “The Nurse Who Loved Me” on a compilation album. Tool and A Perfect Circle kinda seem like the touchstone for Fantastic Planet a bit too. “What if Tool did less DMT?” type stuff (Andy: hm). Anyways, that cover mostly sucks now (Andy: excuse you), but as a teen, I was Big Into It and it led me to check out the original, which blew my little teenage mind. The way the guitars sound on this album is pretty much the platonic ideal of Guitar Tone. It makes sense that Ken Andrews, the guitarist and singer of this band, went on to become a big-name producer and mixing engineer guy for the Jimmy Eat Worlds and Paramores of the world - he knows how to make guitars that are fairly melodic feel like they’re playing the heaviest shit in the world.
I could go a bit more track-by-track with this but I won’t for brevity’s sake but, yeah, this album rocks me. “Heliotropic?” Jesus fucking christ. Goddamn gorgeous beautiful song. Hope You Like It.
Andy: This rocks, man. I mean it rocks. Catchy melodies, great drumming, good choruses and great guitar work. I didn’t think I needed a 17-track hour-plus grunge record in my life but, man, how wrong I was (Patrick: I could split some genre hairs here a bit but I won’t because I’m just glad you like it) (Andy: genres do not matter please read our newsletter).
If you told me that this was an unreleased Nirvana project that was shelved I would absolutely believe you (Patrick: man the Cloud Nothings album you yelled at me for saying sounds like Nirvana sounds way more like Nirvana than this lol) (Andy: That is why its a shelved project and not b-sides, keep up). It has enough of the ‘it’ that made Nirvana so special while still being very much own thing. Before we get all dorky, I’m not saying this is as good as Nirvana but it’s really scratching that “what if there were Nirvana songs you never heard” itch that I know we all have. Spacey, atmospheric, grunge in space. Patrick yelled at me in text for this comparison with a bunch of bands I don’t know or care about but he can eat it (Patrick: fair). This shit bangs.
Honestly, this is up there with anything Patrick has recommended to me through this project (Patrick: !!!). Why have I never heard of this? I’m not some 90s Grunge Brainiac (Patrick: not grunge) by any means but I am shocked this isn’t in the upper echelon of that genre. “Pillowhead” is a song that should be on every Best of the 90s playlists (Patrick: “Stuck on You” is on most of those). The balls on these guys to backload a record like this. The absolute stones.
Thank you, Patrick. This will enter the normal rotation. I Loved It (Patrick: so glad you loved it).
Tribulation - The Children of the Night
Andy: Pat and I always argue about album art. I’m right and say that album art matters and he is wrong and says it doesn’t matter (Patrick: good album art certainly can be cool and be additive but I’ve literally zero times ever listened to an album I love and thought “hmm this would be better if the artwork was good” and am convinced if you think this you’re a virgin herb) (Andy: I have two kids). Obviously, the art (or band names, or album titles, or the number of churches burned down by band members) doesn’t change the music but it is part of the whole artistic presentation. I use Bandcamp as a source of new music discovery and intriguing album art is what prompts me to check something out. It’s the modern-day equivalent of browsing a record store and seeing what catches your eye (Patrick: I think this is where we differ: you have a browser’s mentality and I go in with a gameplan in mind, it’s fine).
Anyway, Pat had already listened to the albums I think have all-timer album art (The Mantle, From Mars To Sirius, Fortress, Dénouement, and on and on and on) so I ended up on Tribulation’s The Children of the Night. Really simple art that makes me go “huh what the hell is this?” and give it a spin. This was on my list for Patrick for a while but it didn’t feel right until now.
People call this Black-n-Roll and you might think “man that is a dumb name” but then you’ll listen to it and be like “huh yeah it makes sense.” Album rips. Vocals are firmly planted in black metal with a tinge of gothic metal. Like, if the black metal kid wanted to impress the goth girl who was really into Nightwish and just couldn’t quite break away from his roots. Is that a relatable analogy (Patrick: the sigh I let out…)? Hope You Like It.
Patrick: This was pretty cool. About halfway through this record, I was kinda gearing up for a “wow this is a HYLI all-timer” take, but while I still like this quite a bit, the back half lost a bit of steam for me. In any case, this album rules, and reminds me a lot of Kvelertak, a band that dominated the mid-2010s for me but that I’ve kinda forgotten about in recent years.
I totally get the black-n-roll vibe. Just love a band that includes influences from Zeppelin or AC/DC or Thin Lizzy or Deep Purple etc. with black metal. Give me that over the blackgaze Deafheaven knock-off shit ten out of ten times. Just Dudes Rocking at the highest degree. Like Beer Commercial music that makes you want to go out and buy a sixer of Narragansett and not step away from alcohol for an eternity.
“Melancholia” and “In the Dreams of the Dead” back to back are my favorite stretch of the album. It feels weird to call two songs back to back a “stretch” but it’s metal so naturally those two songs total 11 minutes, so it feels appropriate. Johannes Andersson’s vocals are great. Just total down-the-middle black metal vocals but feel like they’re done by someone who decided to move the sliders a little more towards “fun” and away from “being depressed/burning churches.” (Andy: yes, you nailed it.) The drums are great too. Jakob Ljungberg gets into that kinda gallop-y groove a few times and I love it. Unfortunately, some of the solos on tracks on the back half kinda get tiresome tracks like “Strains of Horror” and “Cauda Pavonis” seem kinda aimless. If they trimmed like three tracks (15 minutes) and this was a tight 7-track 45-minute (lol) album, I think it’d be one of my top 5 or so HYLI records, but as it stands, it’s another Pretty Good one, and that’s fine (Andy: I also agree that it is too long as a whole. I don’t care about long songs but I don’t need an hour-long record. Just close it off at 45 minutes). I Liked It.