HYLI Vol. LXII - Turbid North and The World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die

Andy sends Patrick some Alaskan doom/death-metal from this very year 2023 and Patrick sends Andy some Big Riff Shit from 2021 out of Connecticut

Patrick didn’t want to write the intro because, and I quote, “My basketball team is getting owned by Himmy Butler” and “I have an infant.” Tough run for my guy (Patrick: I said the latter not the former fuck the fuck off). Anyway, anyone ever go to an Emo Nite? I know that some people are like “that seems dumb” but if you’re into that music there is nothing quite like singing along to “Helena” or “Misery Business” with like 200 other people. Maybe it’s because the shows I go to are a lot smaller (and more violent) so I like the community aspect of it? I don’t know. I’m going to Nu-Metal Nite this Friday and I absolutely… cannot... wait. Gonna go wild to Taproot’s “Poem” and Crossfades “Cold” and Static-X “Stupid” and you can’t stop me. Live your life and have fun. I love you (Patrick: alright, sorry guys, I’ll write these from now on).

Turbid North - The Decline

Andy: Really know I’m gonna nail it for Patrick on this pick so let’s just get that out of the way now. Betting now it hits his EOTY list if it is 20+ bands (Patrick: I’m turning 34 so it’ll be 34 bands). Mark it down, baby.

Turbid North is a 3 piece Sludge/Doom band out of Alaska (pay no attention to the fact they relocated to Texas) and I’m pretty sure they’re legit lumberjacks that just started playing metal. They have moments of stoner rock, sludge, doom, post-metal and even bits of thrash metal and grindcore. Somehow, it all flows together cohesively. It never feels like they're just playing around with different genres for the sake of it. They could easily be a grindcore band if they wanted to. Seems like they just do whatever they want and it just so happens to always be heavy and Very Good™.

The riffs here are so good man. Pretty much each song has a riff or two that will give you Riff Stank Face. If you don’t know what that is you haven’t been listening to enough albums on this newsletter. Pat, please provide an example (Patrick: what?)(Andy: you know what I’m talking about don’t be coy). “A Dying Earth” is just an all-timer of an instrumental track.

For some reason, I was feeling a Little Bit Goofy and made a playlist where it was one song from this and one song from Pat’s album just alternating the whole time (Patrick: dying to know which TWIABP song). It was terrible I don’t recommend it (Patrick: okay, I won’t do this?). You’re welcome for the pick, Pat, cause I Know You’ll Like It.

Patrick: Turns out Andy was right, I love this shit (Andy: Mission Accomplished). I keep a running list in a Google Doc of every album I’ve listened to each year like a normal sane person, with an extra list that’s pretty fluid “ranking” each album I have listened to that was released in that calendar year and, as of right now, Turbid North’s The Decline is fifth on said list. That’s pretty sick! It’s been a while since a new metal release has connected with me so heavily.

The Decline is just the perfect mix of sludgy/doomy metal, which is my preferred style of metal. Throughout the 43 minutes, the album recalls all my favorite shit from Cave In, Converge at their slowest, Isis the Band, Old Man Gloom, etc. Just heavy as fuck, occasionally fast, and has tons of great riffs.

“Patients” is probably my favorite track here, probably because it’s the fastest, shortest, and most riffy. It feels like something that could have fit in seamlessly on Converge’s All We Love We Leave Behind, which imo is their best record. I also love “The Road,” which kinda dips into clean singing a bit with some pretty guitars before diving back into being unhinged. Speaking of clean singing, album opener “Eternal Dying,” features almost exclusively clean singing and is a convincing attempt at an Alice in Chains-meets-Cave In type sound, which I really love. Honestly, the only bummer here is that the album closer, “Time,” is the worst song here and it always kinda stinks when a great album ends on a sour note. That being said, this blew my top off and came out of nowhere for me so thanks Andy, I love you and I really liked this album.

The World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die - Illusory Walls

Patrick: I went a little long and personal in my write-up last week for Songs: Ohia, so I’m going to try to get in and get out a bit this week. TWIABP (I’m not writing all that) is a band that has always had a few songs I’ve really loved, but never quite as a whole thing worked for me. “January 10, 2014” is one of my favorite songs from the last decade and I could recite basically the full thing but I couldn’t tell you about another single song off the album Harmlessness. That’s the case for the rest of their records too - maybe a song or two or three off each really works for me and then there’s like 45 minutes of stuff I’ll never listen to.

That is not the case with Illusory Walls. Part of the issue for me with the other albums is that it seems a bit like a case of too many cooks in the kitchen (Andy: there are 35 band members). Illusory Walls strips the band down, in terms of members a bit, but builds a bigger and more cohesive sound as a result. The riffs are wayyyy more memorable here and, imo, the vocal melodies from David Bello and Katie Dvorak stand out much more than anything else the band has done.

I really like the first half of this record, which is to say the first 9 songs lol, but I love the second half and final two songs on the record. “Infinite Josh” feels like the pinnacle of the band’s entire career, calling back to “Getting Sodas” off of Whenever, If Ever, where the band’s name becomes the hook of the song, and then “Fewer Afraid” is a perfect closer, tying the whole record together in a way reminiscent of “Goodbye Sky Harbor” off of Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity. I really love this record and it makes me want to like this band more. Hope you enjoy the riffs ya little creep.

Andy: I have heard of this band for what feels like a decade, and I can tell you two things: firstly, most people seem to be very fond of them, and secondly, I have never heard a single song by them.

What I can confidently tell you is that I should have listened to this a decade ago. If someone had given this to me in college, I would have been aggressively all about it (Patrick: it came out in 2021 but go off). Now, I'm too bogged down in corpse paint and blood to fully appreciate it in the way I would have when I was younger (Patrick: be normal one day of your life). Not to say that this is bad in any way; it's pretty great. I just know I would have been annoyingly into it if it had come out in 2009. It's really fun post-rock/post-hardcore/post-whatever. Just some Grade-A Great Riffs here.

Albums don't need to be 1 hour and 10 minutes long. Honestly, you could just pull the second two songs and release it as a double album. I'm not as high on the first half (meaning the first 9 songs, lol), but I don't dislike it. I would just spin the second album/final two songs more often.

Go back in time and make them release this in 2009 and have them share it with me. Thank You. I Liked It.