HYLI Vol. LXXI - Rodrigo y Gabriela and Zozobra

It's Genre Swap Week™️: Andy sends Patrick some mostly-acoustic flamenco "rock" and Patrick sends Andy some hardcore-influenced sludge

Hello folks. It’s Patrick here again. I “returned to work” this week from parental leave but, as of the time writing this Tuesday evening, I have yet to be able to a) turn on my work computer, b) enter my place of employment or c) park my car in the parking lot without 5-13 people present to hold my hand. The nice part of the benefits of Corporate Work Culture is that they take care of you really well when you or your spouse has a baby. The bad part is literally everything else. When My Company sends you on Parental Leave, they make you an “inactive employee” which just seems dumb and unnecessary? My boss, a nice lady, was like “wow that seems like … a lot of unnecessary work they’re making you do!” and I was like “yeah it sucks” and she laughed and then I laughed and then I sighed and she hung up the phone. So, I’m getting paid for at least a few more days to basically just Chill with my baby, which rocks. How are you? How are your jobs? What is your company’s benefits and leave policy like? Sound off in the comments and/or replies. Hope You Like It.

Rodrigo y Gabriela - 11:11

Andy: Patrick asked that we do another swap week, where I pick a non-metal album and he picks a metal one. I picked a jazz record and he said no (Patrick: I wasn’t being mean, I had already heard it lol). He then said that Maylene and the Sons of Disaster were a metal band which… sure. I’d say there more Southern rock but whatever (Patrick: as the foremost Drive-By Truckers scholar of this newsletter and the worldwide web, I disagree). I don’t know why he thinks I secretly love some normal band that I’ve just never mentioned ever in our 15+ years of friendship. Yeah man, I love the song “A Little Respect” by the band Erasure but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard another song by them? Patrick, I have “plenty” of non-metal that I can recommend but if you’re here thinking I’m gonna drop some like Billboard Top 10 Act that you’d here on the radio, you’re in trouble (Patrick: what?). The next time we do this swap he’s getting an Experimental, avant-garde, Armenian folk album. I’m not joking.

I settled on Rodrigo y Gabriela because they’re fun and they’re pretty dang popular. This album is metal without technically being metal. Feels a bit like cheating but who cares. My first exposure to the duo was with Guitar Hero or Rock Band or whatever. They were extremely fun to play. Rodrigo y Gabriela has had a successful career basically pulling up stools and playing the acoustic guitar to stadiums full of people all over the world. They played Madison Square Garden with The Stone Roses a few years ago (synergy) so that is cool (Patrick: genuinely shocking! wow!).

There aren’t any violent drums or blast beats, no guttural vocals here or br00tal riffs here. Just an annoying instrument being played at an extremely high level in a very fun way. Hope You Liked It.

Patrick: I love Andy. Truly one of my best friends here on this planet Earth. I do not understand this dude one bit. I, a newsletter publisher, am trying to do my part to grow this newsletter’s audience. Week after week, like Sisyphus, I push the boulder that is this newsletter up the mountain, trying to find interesting and somewhat well-liked artists to discuss so that we can try to suck in a few handfuls of readers a week and keep ‘em coming, since most of Andy’s choices, while good music, have less of an audience. Now, that the tables are turned, Andy has the ability to do so as well and he chooses fully instrumental flamenco guitar music. I am kind of being a little twerp here: looking at Rodrigo y Gabriela’s Spotify numbers and wiki page, they seem - charitably - Extremely Popular. But dude picks music every week with absolutely ridiculous vocals and he has one week a year to feature Normal Singing and he simply refuses to do so (Andy: on what planet am I secretly listening to normal vocals).

Anyways, yeah, this is cool. It only now is clocking with me, looking at wikipedia dot org, that these songs are cover songs (Andy: I actually didn’t know this). It was impossible for me to tell they were covers since they’re fully instrumental versions of songs with singing lol, but that’s cool. Man, these two can really play guitar. There are a few songs here, “Atman” most notably, where they ditch the acoustic guitars for some parts and shred on electrics that I really enjoyed, but even I - absolute Hater of the acoustic guitar - have to admit that they made the acoustics sound cool (Andy: also do not love the instrument but this is an exception). “Chac Mool” - with its soft kinda melancholic arpeggiated parts almost feels like the music that scored the video game and TV adaptation of The Last of Us, which is sick.

Part of this is difficult for me though. Without the vocals, it was a bit difficult for me to discern any difference song by song (Andy: Do you need to here? Its just kinda like…a vibe) (Patrick: in my humble opinion, songs are an important part of music, your metal is showing). Prior to knowing these were covers, it felt like “Savitri” was a song that was almost a theme for the album, with that guitar part popping up one or two times prior to the song on the album. It seems clear now that it isn’t the case and that, in my brain, acoustic guitar just sounds like acoustic guitar. There’s some nice shredding and crazy percussive kind of parts throughout but, ultimately, I just hate that instrument lol. This is among the best examples of it I’ve heard played but it’s just not anything I’m ever going to go back to. I enjoyed hearing it and liked it probably about as much as I can for something this wildly acoustic, but I wouldn’t say I Liked It. It’s fine. Please be more normal, Andy (Andy: avant-garde, Armenian folk, got it).

Zozobra - Harmonic Tremors

Patrick: Cave In is one of my favorite bands. One of the first times I hung out with Andy, I popped Cave In’s new - at the time - record, 2011’s White Silence. It was the last record with the band that Caleb Scofield would fully participate in, as he passed away during the recording of 2019’s Final Transmission, dying in a car accident the year prior. I remember Andy hearing the first song on White Silence, which features a lot of screaming from Caleb, and Andy being like “sick this is sludgy and cool” and then “Serpents” started with Caleb going even more intense and Andy was like “wow so sick” and then “Sing My Loves” started and Stephen Brodsky started singing and Andy was like “hmm turn this off,” which is a take I’ve held onto for over a decade because what the fuck man (Andy: I don’t remember this but I trust you. Do you remember where we were going? Was it Red Mango?).

Anyways, I have loved Caleb Scofield’s vocals and his bass playing for what now feels like half my life. It sucks absolute shit that he died and can’t be ripping vocals like those with Cave In and his other band, Old Man Gloom, and solo-project, Zozobra, anymore (Andy: It truly sucks shit). Knowing we were doing the swap this week, I wanted to pick an album featuring Caleb, and Harmonic Tremors is the most pure, uncut Caleb Scofield record. Cave In and Old Man Gloom both have two other singers each, cutting his contributions on records to a few an album. Zozobra was fully his project, playing guitar and bass and handling all vocals, with friends from his other bands helping out on drums and occasional lead guitar parts.

This dude fully had my favorite heavy vocals ever. “Invisible Wolves” is so fucking heavy. There’s a lot of metal where you can tell the vocalist took vocal lessons so they can be healthy and scream and not do permanent damage to their throat box. Fuck That. You can tell from the first note on this album, and especially on “Invisible Wolves,” that this is a dude whose only technique is Yell Loud As Fuck. He also has riffs on riffs. I think he got a fair amount of recognition for his bass playing in a genre that doesn’t always have great bass playing but he really brought some great guitar playing to the table on Harmonic Tremors too. “Caldera” has a great lead part in the intro and “Kill and Crush” has one of my favorite sludgy riffs ever. “Soon to Follow” isn’t the most complicated guitar on the planet but has such an undeniable groove. He brought his standard A Game with the bass too. Just listen to the intro of “The Vast Expanse.” That is Peak Tone. I hope Andy likes this. There’s a fair amount of Regular Singing on this record that I hope he won’t fill his diaper about, because it’s also an incredibly heavy record. I mostly just miss the music from Caleb Scofield and wish he was still around. One of the GOATs. Hope You Like It.

Andy: I guess I am the bad friend here because Patrick never likes any of my random weird non-metal picks and then he drops these absolute bangers for me. What the shit. I’m a fan of sludge but I’m pretty picky because I think the genre has a lot of boring bands that don’t get it. Not Zozobra (or I guess Scofield, really). This album absolutely rules, man. It is incredible. It really nails the aspects that make sludge so good.

“The Blessing” is a classic sludge epic. The drums on “Levitator” feel like gunshots in my chest (Patrick: yes, dude). The entire album should have been like this. “A Distant Star Fades” feels like some kind of sludge-metal rendition of a Foo Fighters song to me. That is a compliment btw. I love “The Vast Expanse”… very spacy epic sounding. The tone and feedback on these songs just get into your bones.

Caleb Scofield’s vocals are easily on the all-timer list. Just violent stuff. He is very good at yelling. I guess I’ll take some credit for growing up because none of the clean vocals made me want to turn it off (Patrick: progress!). They work really well on “Levitator”… I wonder if that was my favorite song on the record. It very well might be. It had everything I could ask for.

I loved this album. I loved it. Thank you.