HYLI Vol. VII - Death and Can
Andy picks some death metal from the death metal capital of the world - Florida - and Patrick picks some krautrock from the krautrock capital of the world - Germany.
Hey gang. What’s going on? I was in Philadelphia for the first time this weekend and saw Dua Lipa there. It Rocked. She was good as hell. I listened to a band named Death on the train back to Charlotte. I won’t spoil how I feel about that record just yet. Hope y’all had a good long weekend and Hope You Like this news dispatch.
Death - Symbolic
Andy: I tried to pick Admiral Angry’s Buster this week but Pat called me crying and was like “No! You can’t pick that! I want more important bands in metal history! Even though last time Necrophagist scared me so much and I cried like a little baby!” so I was like “Okay, Pat, calm down. How about I pick a Death album? Would that be okay?” Through his snotty sniffling I heard him go “Yes, Andy, that is okay.” (Patrick: Reader, Andy is a liar. When I cry, snot does not come out).
Out here with the most important death metal band in Death from the daddy of death metal Chuck Schuldiner. I couldn’t really decide which record to pick since I kinda love all of them differently. Scream Bloody Gore (1987), Leprosy (1988), Human (1991) and Symbolic (1995) are my personal favorites, and they often rotate. I went with Symbolic as I feel like it is one of the ones often considered “the best” and it was one of the most accessible. Pull up any “Best Death Metal Albums Ever” listicle and you’ll probably see 3 or 4 Death albums; you can’t really go wrong with any of them. Hope You Like It.
Patrick: My man Andrew on an absolute two-week tear here. This album fucking Rocks. I did, however, spend most of the album very confused as to why this is called death metal. To me, for the majority of the length of the album, I thought this was thrash. It really sounds like if Metallica never made Metallica (the Black Album) and just continued along on their thrash path (Andy: Arguing about sub-genres is the bane of my existence and I’ll never do it). I guess Chuck’s vocals are a bit harsher than James Hetfield’s, but only incidentally so. And the instrumentals could easily fit on Kill Them All or Ride the Lightning, especially on “Crystal Mountain” and “Perennial Quest,” with the band featuring some acoustic guitars. It seems like the earlier albums might have more of a consistent death metal trend so I’ll check those out, but this felt like thrash to me. In any case, it fucking rocked.
I see Chuck died not long after this album. Usually, with this newsletter, I’ve been conditioned by Andy’s picks to expect if a band member is dead it’s because a) they killed themselves or b) their bandmate killed them. And with a name like Death, you just truly never know. Really fucking sucked to see dude died at 34 from a brain tumor. My mom died at 46 from a brain tumor. I couldn’t see if Chuck had any kids at all. I hope not. Would really hate that for them. Absolute RIP to a dude who could shred like a king.
Can - Ege Bamyasi
Patrick: I found out about Can from the 2014 Paul Thomas Anderson flick Inherent Vice. Y’all seen this motion picture? Absolute sicko shit. Anyways, early on in the movie, PTA cues up “Vitamin C” and little 25-year-old bass playing freak me was like “what in the holy hell is this song?” Anyways, this entire album rocks. A lot of krautrock kinda washes over me with the motorik beats (Andy: hm?) and, in my opinion, a lack of certain dynamics that Can had in spades. The drumming is an absolute ringer for the style of Phil Selway in Radiohead, and the bass playing of Holger Czukay is some of my favorite bass playing ever. Not to mention Damo Suzuki (the only non-German), who is one of the more captivating vocalists I can think of. An absolute white-hot gem of an album. Hope You Like It.
Andy: Man. What? What is this? This first song put me through the fucking ringer. Was it in English? Surely not, but apparently, it is? I guess (Patrick: It is in English, your native tongue, yes). What the heck is Krautrock? (Patrick: me every time I’m like “what is tech-melo-deathcore) Man, what a wacky record. What is going on here? I’ve heard kazoos and chimes and a bunch of other uncommon instruments with some wild time signatures and such. It also gets into these almost hypnotic riff portions that help ground it before getting all goofy again, most notably on “One More Night.”
I have no idea how I’d describe this record to anyone. I also don’t really know how to write a review for it? I’ve listened to this record once a day since it was given to me and half the time I’m like 🤔😵🥴 and the other time I’m like 😎🤯🤩. Like what the actual hell is going on in the song “Soup?” Oh, sure, let’s just follow up that 10-minute smörgåsbord of noises with a relatively normal song in “I’m So Green.” Just a very weird wacky record that really works for me most of the time. I’m not going to delete this from my library and I’ll revisit it from time to time, for sure. I Liked It (I Think?) (Patrick: As always it is my pleasure to create this reaction).