HYLI Vol. LXXXVIII - Winter Music 2k24
We are making a few changes but we will still be yelling at each other, don't worry.
Hello, HYLI Gang. Did you have a good holiday? We had a good holiday. Or at least, I, Patrick, the only person who ever writes these, did (Andy: I write literally every other one please find a new slant before I find a new partner). Well. I guess I had a good holiday. I drove a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I also got a promotion (yay!) and then realized oh boy there goes all my free time I had the last four years (no!!!!!) so it’s been idk decent to okay I guess. I saw Andy Maroon, co-writer of the Hope You Like It Newsletter, last week. So again, decent to okay. Hope you all are well.
Anyway, we are making a few little tweaks to the process here at Hope You Like It. We started this project back in January of 2022 and have since covered 174 different albums over 104-ish weeks. Patrick graduated from Death Metal 101 and Andy learned to enjoy some Bob Dylan. Andy still can’t appreciate any folk music and Patrick is still afraid of fast drums, so there is still some work to do in Season 3.
Moving forward, we want to mix it up a bit. Give a little space to breathe and whatnot. So we will be going to a biweekly format. With this, we hope that the burnout will decrease and we’ll have more time to listen to each other’s picks. Also, we will be tweaking to where, instead of doing one album that’s from our personal canon every week, or every two weeks in the new HYLI timeline, we will alternate between sharing a playlist for one newsletter and then sharing our favorite album released during the current or previous month (depending on the date the newsletter comes out) with each other in the next issue. We had a lot of fun with some of the playlist-themed weeks we did in 2023 and it seems like you guys liked them too and it’s always fun to discuss new releases. So, roughly, one album-themed newsletter and one playlist-themed newsletter each month. Ideally, we’d like to have more of our friends join us, too. In the past, this has only really happened when one of the three girls our two families have were born or when I (again, Patrick, I’m the only one writing these) had an eye injury lol (Andy: weak human). It’d be fun to have guests a bit more often in 2024.
Andy’s HYLI Winter Playlist
Andy: Metal does a lot of things poorly but it is supremely good at conjuring a winter vibe. That is like… most of what black metal is. I could make countless versions of this playlist without repeating songs. The metal genre has an abundance of cold, oppressive and atmospheric vibes. There is a reason the genre flourishes in that climate.
I really could have just picked Agalloch’s The Mantle and been done with it but that wasn’t in the spirit of the game so instead I just picked three Agalloch songs. I did a great job! If you want the perfect winter metal album it is that one, easy.
Imagine, you’re in the woods (Patrick: okay done). It is cold but beautiful (Patrick: wow sounds like Blue Ridge, Georgia!!). Snow begins to fall as “Lily” plays. It works. People are weird about Këkht Aräkh but this instrumental is great. Really sets the stage for the rest of the playlist. “Its Painless To Let Go” hits you like an avalanche. None is such a god damn good band. I know we’ve covered this album with the newsletter already, but it is nearly as perfect of a “give up and die in the snow” vibe that can exist without actually doing that. Agalloch follows with “A Desolation Song” which is GOATed and I won’t hear otherwise (Patrick: okay!). Woods of Desolation provides a bit of hope with the soundscapes in “Darker Days” before Agalloch pulls you back down with the appropriately named “Falling Snow” - maybe the perfect song to listen to while snow is actually falling.
With "Divination, Pt. II" by Vukari, the unrelenting power of the cold wilderness is brought to the forefront. Shit hits hard. This track also has a spot on a playlist I have titled “Depression Sessions” because it just exudes hopelessness. Agalloch’s final appearance starts with the crunching of snow and the smack of an elk’s skull before launching into “The Lodge,” one of the best songs ever written, no hyperbole. Perennial Isolation is an underrated project, very reminiscent of None with just a bit more hopefulness. Nulling Roots is a band I’ve been wanting to get in front of Patrick for a while, so now seems as good as any. Does it represent survival? Acceptance of death? Who knows!!!!
Enjoy you twerp (Patrick: we are so fucking back).
Patrick: We are so fucking back! It’s January and we are rested and recharged. Time for some … oh, black metal. Some things change and some don’t (Andy: don’t fix what isn’t broken).
This is good. A lot of stuff I’m “familiar” with here, as Andy has told me multiple times The Mantle is one of his favorite albums of all time. Being the great friend I am, I’ve listened to that album a few times, and it makes up like 20% of this playlist so we are retreading some ground here. “A Desolation Song” is cool but “The Lodge” is incredible. And of course, since it’s the number one (only?) (Andy: they were a big band you dweeb) Agalloch Fanboy Andy, there’s another Agalloch track from a different album (“Falling Snow”) and it’s kinda cool to hear their The Mantle sound tweaked a bit.
I still go back to the None record we discussed previously with HYLI a fair amount. Such a cool black metal vibe that doesn’t move into blackgaze territory like so many newer bands have lately. Woods of Desolation falls into a similar place in my brain. Just two great black metal bands that rule and operate in a different space than so many of the other bands going.
Everything else here is fairly new to me. I think Andy has shown me Kekht Arakh before, but this song was unfamiliar. I enjoyed but it didn’t floor me. Perennial Isolation probably had my least favorite track here but it wasn’t bad and is so much better than some of the other bullcrap Andy made me listen to last year. Even meh black metal can be good! I don’t have much to say about Vukari or Nullingroots other than I enjoyed hearing them and took their names down to check out more in-depth. This is basically a playlist to highlight Agalloch and it does a great job at doing so. Certainly a band with some snowy PNW vibes. Good job Andrew.
Patrick’s HYLI Winter Playlist
Patrick: So it seems like Andy’s general vibe for “Winter” is depressive and isolated and up to your knees in snow while carrying an elk carcass to keep you full during your hibernation. Or whatever. I get it, it fits his little creep vibe. For me, “Winter” is an XXL sweater and eating Kringle and cranking up that central heat. Less isolated, more comfortable.
I think a few of the tracks here emphasize this pretty strongly. Some titles are a bit on the nose but “December,” “Winter (2020)", “Muzzle of Bees” (Andy: metal ass song name) and “Snowflakes Are Dancing” are where my head was at with those picks. “December” is basically just Indie Rock but Teenage Fanclub - and really Scotland in general - just feel like winter to me. Throw “The Loneliness and the Scream” (Andy: also metal) and Frightened Rabbit into that All Scottish Bands Feel Like Winter To Me category. The Rolling Stones might be the most Summer and In the Pub band ever, but Goats Head Soup and “Winter (2020)” kinda flip their script a bit. A Ghost is Born is a perfect record and literally feels isolated, since Jeff Tweedy basically fired all of Wilco to make it, and “Muzzle of Bees” is my favorite track off the record.
“Kanga Roo,” “Snow is Falling in Manhattan” and “One Fine Morning” kinda felt like tracks I picked trying to predict what Andy would pick for his playlist and picking the indie rock versions of that vibe. All of Big Star’s Third feels incredibly metal and “Kanga Roo” is no exception (Andy: no wonder it kicked so much ass). A lot of the black metal Andy picks feels very atmospheric or “environmental,” for lack of a better word. Both Purple Mountains and Bill Callahan convey that mood with a slightly tweaked formula, swapping animal skulls for acoustic guitars, as instruments.
The rest of the tracks here are merely songs I Like that fit the vibe. No real mental gymnastics over why I picked them. They just worked. Elliott Smith and John K. Samson are incredible writers and, imo, winter music should be more sparse and more lyrically-driven. Andy will hate John Lennon and Bon Iver (Andy: you are a literal prophet). He’s wrong and I’m right. Both those songs rock but I’m not going to beat him up over it. It was eight degrees outdoors when I saw him last week and most of these songs were beating around my head then. Love to my bud, love to HYLI, love to our readers, and love to winter the season. Enjoy.
Andy: To the surprise of literally nobody our playlists are pretty different. I’d say that both of our playlists feel very wintery but like … different types of winter vibes. Patrick’s is more sipping tea by a campfire (Patrick: something I’d never be caught dead doing) while mine is more trudging around in knee-deep snow in a forest slowly dying (Patrick: have to imagine this was a regular move for you when you lived in Oregon). Both are pretty good. One is better but I will leave that to myself (Patrick: agreed!).
I don’t think of Rolling Stones to be a particularly wintery band but when Jagger is literally singing “I’m cold oh lord I’m so chilly and cold” it does get the vibe across. “Kanga Roo” from Big Star at first had no real ‘winter’ vibe but I totally got it on the third or so listen. Great song. The cowbell hits as hard as the elk skull from Agalloch in the exact same way (Patrick: common comparison). I bet this album is fun (Patrick: well…).
“December” didn’t feel very wintery at all but was a fun song nonetheless. Frightened Rabbit… where have I heard that name before? Edit: Back in the day I think we wrote about a lot during the “The Midnight Organ Fight” era over on a website I used to run (Patrick: you also listened to them here lol). Song is fine, next song has a much better name and is a much better song. I feel the same about Purple Mountains as I did back when we discussed them. Lyrics are great, music is a snooze for me. Kurt Vile song is another that didn’t feel very wintery to me other than the lyrics including “snowflakes” and stuff. Elliot Smith is a ringer here for sure. This is what I want out of a winter playlist. I want to feel cold and isolated. Great song.
“Winter Wheat” was a classic “this song sucks oh wait I’m wrong and also an idiot” moment for me (Patrick: same happened to me tbh). “One Fine Morning” from Bill Callahan is probably the best song here for me (Patrick: it was the first one I listened and I knew it had to be the last track). Very winter vibe. Hell of a closer.
I enjoyed a good bit of this playlist but missed it on a few of the songs. Sorry, I do not think I am a John Lennon guy and we know I’m not a Bon Iver guy. Actually, I’m not sorry. They can kick rocks. Maybe they try adding a blast beat for once (Patrick: we are back).