HYLI Vol. XCV - hereisaropegoodluck and Merce Lemon
Andy sends Patrick some recent grindcore from god knows where and Patrick sends Andy some americana from Pittsburgh
Hey, gang! Hope everyone is having a blast in life and is ready for the quote-unquote holiday season. I (Andy) think I’m in the (perhaps unfortunate) minority who loves spending time with extended family, so I’m stoked for that part of the holidays. I’m not going to write a novel like Patrick does (Patrick: okay man) because I know you have stuff to do, words to read, and riffs to listen to—so enjoy!
hereisaropegoodluck - Nothing To Write Home About
Andy: One of my favorite discoveries of the last few years is the label Wax Vessel. Honestly, they might as well call it "Andy’s 2008 Music Taste Records," but that doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well. Wax Vessel specializes in reissuing iconic MySpace-era albums, featuring new designs and collector-focused packaging, with profits going directly back to the bands (can I get a hell yeah?). Sick-ass merch as well. I am so happy and thankful that a label focused on preserving the legacy of underground heavy music exists. Their releases are like looking back in a time machine. Brother, they have The Yellow Sign’s discography! Ivebeenshot! A Black Rose Burial! (Patrick: I’m happy for you).
Anyway, I bring them up because they’ve also started releasing new, era-specific sounding music: bands like Killing of a Sacred Deer (Patrick: good movie), Casket Dealer, and Psycho-Frame. What has gripped me for most of 2024 is hereisaropegoodluck. Featuring Michael Carroll (formerly of Destroyer Destroyer) on all instrumentation and Brian Cole (formerly of Plagues) on vocals, hereisaropegoodluck is a relentless blend of grindcore, deathcore, experimental elements, and some sweet, sweet MySpace-era tones.
Influenced by the likes The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, Duck Duck Goose, and Heavy Heavy Low Low (Patrick: you’ve gotta be kidding me with this shit), Nothing To Write Home About captures our favorite era’s hallmark characteristics: blistering speed, chaotic song structures, and raw aggression. With their unique sound and nostalgic nods to a formative period in online underground heavy music, hereisaropegoodluck is both a tribute to and an evolution of the genre's roots.
Nothing To Write Home About is some grade-A-good-shit-grind with a good helping of black metal influence. We love some blast beats here and this album is filled with them. Sick ass riffs. “Find a Whisper In the Whirlwind” and “Eating Sorrow By the Spoonful” have that ominous black metal vibe to them. The riff in the middle of “Lies Like a Tombstone” is so good. I love metal album art that doesn’t look like a metal album at first glance (shoutout Admiral Angry’s Buster) (Patrick: this looks like metal album artwork sorry).
Please enjoy. Please check out Wax Vessel. hopeyoulikeit.
Patrick: There is one aspect of this record that held me back from really fully loving it but, as it stands, I quite enjoyed this. Andy mentioned a bunch of, presumably, metal band names that I’ve never heard once in my fucking life but I trust him that this band sounds like those bands (Andy: try spending more time on myspace in 2008 maybe?). To my more hardcore predisposed ear, this sounds like a slightly heavier version of mathcore bands like Converge, Dillinger Escape Plan, kind of the Chariot etc. more than anything else (Andy: sure).
The guitar is great. The dude really does riff. “I’m the Only Hell My Mama Ever Raised” (the album has great song names) l is an onslaught of guitar and drums and I fucking love it. They really embrace the mantra of Never Stop Riffing (Andy: our mantra here at HYLI). The opener, “We’ve Howdied, But Haven’t Shook,” starts off kind of wrongfooting me too, putting me in the headspace of bands I loved over a decade ago and have forgotten about like Russian Circles and Pelican. Big post-metal vibe. And then that all comes crashing down and old boy starts screaming. He has a hell of a voice and it fits the mood of the riffs perfectly. If I know Andy at all, I know his ass loves when the vocalist starts breathing heavy towards the end of “Pigs Get Fat, Hogs Get Slaughtered.” The band seems like it’s having fun and it makes me enjoy this album probably more than I would without the occasional moments of goofiness.
My only complaint is that, for this kind of music, any song really extending beyond three minutes that isn’t primarily a post-metal thing, like the intro track, can start to really weigh on you. A track like “Finding a Whisper in the Whirlwind” is four minutes long and feels like it’s on some Pink Floyd “Echoes” shit beating you down for twenty minutes. It’s a minor complaint, especially when the album in total is under a half-hour, but for me to have peak enjoyment with this type of metal, I really need it to get in and get out. The lengthier tracks here are a bit tiresome, but they’re few and far between, so it’s just a minor quibble. I liked it! It’s fun! More metal should be fun!
Merce Lemon - Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild
Patrick: We’re in a great time right now for kind of americana-leaning records that get a little noisy. The Greg Freeman record from 2022, I Looked Out, is one of my favorites of the decade so far. Seeing him hype this record up and mention that he played guitar on this really helped sell me on Merce Lemon, someone I hadn’t heard of prior to Greg’s Instagram story about the album. I am mostly Off Of Instagram but I am glad I checked whatever day that was because this is absolutely (spoiler alert for next week’s EOTY list) one of my favorite records of the year.
Merce just has a great voice. So much of this genre can rest entirely on whether or not you have a great voice (Andy: imo the entire genre but yes). Strong songwriting helps and is here and being able to play your instruments beyond just strumming open chords is also nice but, like, even if you’re only scraping by in that regard, a great voice can sell a folk song. “Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild” closes the album with one of the better vocal performances I’ve heard all year. A lot of this album couldn’t be further instrumentally from what I’m about to reference but Merce’s voice really reminds me at times of Laura Marling, which is an extremely good thing. When the back half of the song hits and the soundscape expands a bit right before cutting out to end the album is such a fucking cool move.
A lot of artists lately have been getting compared to Neil Young, some rightfully so and some that make me scratch my head a bit. “Foolish and Fast” is maybe the most Crazy Horse-sounding song I’ve heard this year. The lead guitar part that kicks in with the chorus sounds so fucking good, the distortion contrasting perfectly with the softness of Merce’s voice. There are also a bunch of fun kinda poppy, melody-forward tracks too like “Slipknot” (Andy: doesn’t sound like Slipknot 0 out of 10) and “Backyard Lover” that really do it for me. It does seem like we’re kind of reaching a moment of oversaturation for this genre but as long as Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild keep dropping, I’m going to keep staying interested. Everyone else, up your game. Hope You Like It Andy, Don’t Be A Baby.
Andy: This could not be more different from my pick this week. I get that the formula of this newsletter is ‘one metal album and one non-metal album,’ so it shouldn’t really ever be that way but sometimes there’s this weird little bit of synergy between the releases. That is not the case this week!
Doesn’t matter, though. This record is still great (Patrick: Wow! You’re growing!) (Andy: shut the fuck up). Normally, I can sort of pinpoint a reason why I like one of Patrick’s folky records—be it weird vocals, big risks, or whatever. I can’t quite pin down why I like this one, but I do. It might be because it’s a great antithesis to the deranged stuff I’ve been spinning all month, but I think it’s just a great record by a great musician (Patrick: I think you nailed it).
Some of these songs worked a lot better for me than others, but that’s because I don’t have a nuanced ear/am a little baby. The sick-ass banjo in “Blueberry Heaven” rules. “Slipknot” is fun, but I think Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild’s title track might be the best track on the record. It helps that the album has a tinge of melancholy draped over everything—a haunting heaviness.
Lemon’s voice isn’t anything like Beth Gibbons’ of Portishead (Patrick: ?), and I’m definitely not comparing it to her in a straightforward sense. But they both scratch this itch of loneliness, emotional depth, and hopelessness that I find very interesting and endearing (Patrick: okay, plane landed). It helps that the album is peppered with lyrics like “The skin is peeling away” and occasionally whips out a whisper for added effect.
Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild could easily have been an “eh this kinda stinks” album for me (especially with the opener - probably my least favorite) but it has stuck with me for the past two weeks. It isn’t getting stuck in my head but quietly pulls me in with reminders of how I feel while listening to it. I enjoyed it.