HYLI Vol. LXXXI - Hole and Gorguts
Back to regularly scheduled HYLI themeless content: Patrick sends Andy some '90s "grunge"/alternative rock and Andy sends Patrick some '90s math-rock-infused death metal.
Hello, welcome to Hope You Like It. We got some really good new releases last week for what feels like the first time in a little bit. I (Patrick, of course, who else) (Andy: I do this literally every other week please find a new slant) am going to tackle these alphabetically because I like all of them a ton and doing it in some sort of ranked fashion at this point would feel too reactionary. Mitski released her seventh record, which has a title that’s too long, and it’s the first one I really enjoyed. I missed out on the early few records and by the time I came around to her stuff, everyone was like “don’t worry about those, she’s changed her sound so much since then,” and then the ones after it didn’t really do much for me. This one kinda reminds me of the last Angel Olsen record with some Father John Misty theatricality thrown in. Some big songs here, I enjoyed it enough to maybe finally check out those early albums. Olivia Rodrigo also released her second album. Frankly, the way people are discussing the album online is nauseating lol so I will keep it brief and just say I (really) enjoy it and would like everyone to find something else to discuss. Tomb Mold also released its fourth full-length, The Enduring Spirit, and without any spoilers, I would imagine this will pop up on both Andy and I’s EOTY lists. What an album. I can already see metalheads online getting pissed today (Tuesday) because Pitchfork published a very positive review of the album. Dorks and dweebs get mad about this shit, be a better person than them. All positive attention like this for a band this size and from a publication that size is a unanimously positive thing. Get a life. Anyways, I liked the music, hope you did too.
Hole - Live Through This
Patrick: Andy popped off in the snark bits of one of our recent-ish posts about Scowl with some shit about how Courtney Love influence isn’t a good thing. I’m not going to dunk on my friend too much because a) it is very clear that was coming from a place of ignorance, which I think he would admit to, b) I think by simply making him listen to this album he’d see that error himself and c) The Man has been trying to get Us Men to hate Courtney Love since we have been breathing air, so I cannot necessarily blame him for getting got by The Man, it happens to all of us at some time or another.
But jesus fucking christ Live Through This (and Celebrity Skin if we’re being real) is such a good record. I, much like Andy, did not always feel this way. I was a 16-year-old boy at one point teaching myself guitar by playing along to Nirvana albums and reading books like the miserable bullshit Kurt Cobain biographies that got trotted out at the time and watching movies like Gust Van Sant’s Last Days and seeing “news” stories on MTV or whatever about how Kurt’s daughter got emancipated and how a judge was looking into the circumstances of Kurt’s death because some dipshit private investigator was a misogynist. I was impressionable but I was also dumb. I’m 34 now. I am still dumb but I am not an idiot. Again, misogyny has been striking out against Courtney Love since well before her husband shot himself and it will probably continue to do so until all of us are dead in the ground. She is one of the best songwriters (yes, I am crediting her as the songwriter here because she wrote all the fucking songs and is great at it) and vocalists of her generation and you have to work hard as hell to realize that because, simply, Most People will try to convince you of otherwise before you ever listen to a note. It sucks!
I am an admitted Grunge Lover. Live Through This is one of the five best grunge albums (Andy: oooo wow). Maybe one of the three best, depending on how you feel about the heavier grunge bands, your Soundgardens and Alice in Chains, who run closer to metal than what I think of as grunge and being more traditionally punk (Andy: man I might agree with you here). Right off the bat, “Violet” is an incredible song with a massive chorus, in which Courtney does the quiet-loud-quiet thing so well. “Jennifer’s Body” has such a fun chord progression and I love Courtney’s delivery of “kill the family, save the son,” before launching into the huge chorus. “Doll Parts” and “I Think That I Would Die,” go hard, harder than most of the songs written by her male counterpart peers. I don’t love every song here and, if I’m being honest, on some days I prefer the slick production of Celebrity Skin, but fuck if this isn’t one of the most important records of the ‘90s. Raise your sons to accept that Courtney Love is fucking sick and to not buy into Tom Grant and his bullshit (Andy: I have no sons but will do my best).
Andy: I'm not a huge grunge fanatic; like, I enjoy the genre but it doesn’t get me all sweaty like our boy Patrick. I didn’t particularly like Courtney Love, I cannot tell you why… maybe just growing up in the ‘90s or them making so much fun of her on those I Love The 90’s shows - I have no real reason, just didn’t (Patrick: I can tell you why and I do not think it’s your fault but society has been pitting men against her for nearly our entire lives and it sucks) (Andy: I have been got by the man please forgive me). However, I can, without hesitation say I was wrong and mis-educated and this album rules (Patrick: hell yeah lmao).
The immediate comparison to Hole is a toned-down Nirvana (Patrick: man I am on the record with my Nirvana love but this record is way more aggressive than Nirvana). If I had a friend who was like “yeah Nirvana is decent but it goes a little too hard for me!” I’d respond with “Okay there are bigger problems here but maybe you should listen to Hole. Might be just what you need.” Now, obviously, they aren’t as good as Nirvana (do we need to really even talk about that), but they do a great job of being good enough (Patrick: I like Nirvana more but you didn’t have to write this sentence lol). “Gutless” seems like it could be a Nirvana b-side.
It is probably a disservice to dissect Live Through This with such a heavy Nirvana focus, especially considering this album stands strong independently (Patrick: I agree! let’s move on!). Without delving into the weeds, I’m sure Kurt's alleged contribution to the songwriting and orchestration took it from decent to good (Patrick: they are not alleged, they are actively debunked lol he sang backing vocals on two songs and that is it)(Andy: really being classed here). Naturally, being around a brilliant songwriter could have left an imprint on her and potentially pushed her to get the most out of herself. You see a lot of heavy grunge here, some punk-influenced songs, and the occasional pop/rock sections. Love has a sick “FUCK YOUUU” in "I Think That I Would Die" that hits hard. She is very good at what she does. This is a good album.
I was wrong thank you for educating me. I Really Liked It.
Gorguts - Obscura
Andy: Death Metal is having a year in 2023, just ask anyone with a pulse. We’re living good right now. To celebrate, I thought I’d introduce some death metal classics to our little baby boy, Patrick, starting with Gorguts' Obscura.
This record is so dirty, man. It feels so nasty. The guitar tone is gross; the vocals are gross; the bass is gross. Everything is so gross and so good. Gorguts actually wrote this in 1993, but it seems people forgot how good Death Metal was, so it wasn’t released until 1998. The genre was struggling, and Gorguts was like, “Who cares? Listen to this nonsense.” It is best described as a jazz album in its essence but a death metal album in its execution. It's a musical abomination of organized chaos: intentionally unstructured, filled with jarring riffs, tortured shrieks, and stunning solos. Nothing here makes much sense, but it all fits together perfectly.
The album didn’t need to be an hour long, so I apologize for that (Patrick: I so very deeply agree). However, I won't apologize for anything else.
You never know with our good friend Patrick on matters like this. Obscura is a death metal classic and a major influence on many popular bands today. It is not an easy listen so if he doesn’t like it right away I won’t be super mad, just normal mad. Hope You Like It.
Patrick: I’ve been texting my good friend Andy about once a month asking him “hey who is a band that sounds like this” and I send him a link to the song “Tempered by Mercy” by the band DeadBody from last year. Every time he says “idk this just sounds like death metal to me” or some shit and sends me a band that doesn’t really sound like them at all. All this time, he could have just been sending me Obscura by the band Gorguts because this sounds exactly like them lol.
I love this shit! It’s so cool! I’ve been enjoying the hell out of the recent stream of death metal (see: the intro blurb about Tomb Mold), which to me is proof that the experiment of HYLI has been a massive success the last year-and-a-half-plus. However, sometimes, more traditional death metal can get a bit stale, to me. Mix it up a bit! Obscura really mixes it up. There’s so much math-rock weirdness to the time signatures and just bizarre guitar tone choices that I was kept interested basically the whole time.
My one negative against this album is that it is 12 songs and one hour long. That’s 5-minutes a song! It gets a bit oppressive by the time the album ends. Imo I don’t think any of the long tracks need to be shortened - “Clouded” is probably my favorite track here and it is over nine minutes long. However, I think the three tracks between three and four minutes long could probably be cut (they’re my least favorites here) and the album would be a bit more palatable at like 45-minutes and 9 tracks. That being said, it’s splitting hairs a bit. God this record is good. I love the guitars, I love the vocals, I love the drums. I even, psychotically, love the artwork. This has everything. I just wish my friend Andy sent it to me sooner. And I wish they had an editor, to make the record make a bit more sense, much like how I edit this newsletter to (try) and make my friend Andy appear coherent 😊.