HYLI Vol XXVI: Gang of Youths and Tómarúm
It's the middle of the year. Andy and Patrick send each other their favorite albums, so far, from this year full of piss and shit
Hello, it is the midpoint of 2022 and like every good music outlet, we are adapting the newsletter for a “Best of 2022 So Far” type thing. I (Andy) had another little girl in 2022 so that is my Best Of so far. I (Patrick) did not have a little girl because I’m too busy Rocking. We hope you guys are having a good 2022 so far I guess!
Gang of Youths - Angel in Realtime
Patrick: On another music website, I’ve been conducting a series of threads where, dating back to 1960, about two dozen of us list our three favorite albums of each year in an attempt to eventually make a bracket and determine the best album (insert an Andy quip here saying some bullshit like “hmm so it’ll be Agalloch? or some shit) (Andy: Seems as if I don’t need to say anything). Basically, now that this process is more or less caught up to 2021, it has led me to feel like while there was a lot of GOOD to VERY GOOD stuff from 2016 or so to 2021, there wasn’t a ton that felt truly GREAT.
Gang of Youths’ Angel in Realtime feels truly great. While I typically agree with Andy that lyrics aren’t my favorite aspect of music, when music with lyrics that really connect with me hit, that tends to do a lot of heavy lifting for me. I guess, boiled down, for me this means that you can get away with bad or non-noteworthy lyrics if the music is really good, but having great lyrics that connect with me really takes music to that “I love this now” place. This album was written by GoY frontman David Le’aupepe after his father’s death in 2018, when Le’aupepe found out his dad was not only a decade older than David was led to believe, but born in a different country with a different ethnic background than David was led to believe and, perhaps most crucially, also the parent of two half-siblings that David had no knowledge of. It’s … heavy stuff but also extremely empathetic to David’s dad. Where a lesser writer might use this life experience to craft angry or self-centered songs, David relates both to his dad and newfound siblings in a way that just gives the feeling that this is an A+ dude who can also write catchy hooks and great tunes.
Ultimately, none of this would matter if the songs sucked instrumentally. They do not. There’s plenty of great piano, U2/Coldplay-esque lead guitars, and drums and percussion bordering on world-music that make the instrumentals rival the lyrics and vocal delivery in a way that really hits. I love this. Hope You Like It.
Andy: I spent a lot of time with this album to try and connect with it. It has been existing in a sort of weird neutral territory where I don’t dislike it but I don’t love it. I’m not eager to turn it on but I enjoy its entire runtime (Patrick: honestly, I expected much worse reaction, so I’ll take it). It’s a little too much like U2 (Patrick: what dipshit cauldron are you living in where this is a bad thing) or mainstream rock to really grab my interest. The more and more I listened the more I started to settle into what it was trying to be. Typically, either in this newsletter or in previous group text record clubs, I feel that I owe it to my friends to listen to their suggestions a lot. I shoot for at least once a day (Patrick: I, a bad friend, do not do this but in my defense Andy makes me listen to Nazis)(Andy: I’d like to request an end to this bit because people that don’t follow the newsletter or know me might think that I’m really into nazis or something and, to be crystal clear, that is not the case). It is particularly helpful in cases like this where on first listen (or 2 or 3) I didn’t find any connection with the music but, as it comes time to write the newsletter, I develop some. I’m truly trying my best here. To summarize, I think this album is pretty dang good.
It is about 3 or 4 songs too long in my opinion. A few songs (“brothers”, “hand of god”) are in my no-go zone (Patrick: this is because you don’t like lyrics, but fair) but other than that I’ve really come to enjoy this album. “returner” might be my favorite at this point. I’m not sure when I would toss this on but I do quite enjoy each listen. I Liked This.
Tómarúm - As In Realms Of Stone Icons
Andy: So our prompt this week was the best album of 2022 so far. Well, Patrick wouldn’t let me post a single song so definitely don’t click here to listen to the best song of 2022 (Patrick: thanks, I won’t). He ALSO said I wasn’t allowed to pick an EP so definitely don’t click here to also listen to the best EP of 2022 (Patrick: ☺️).
So I settled on Tómarúm. Settled is not a fair word cause this album is absolutely incredible. Both technical and atmospheric, As In Realms Of Stone Icons boasts some of the most elaborate compositions I’ve heard in the genre in a long while. These are some big, exciting songs. The songwriting here is top-notch. A perfect combination of atmospheric black metal and technical death metal. Actually, genre tags don’t matter at all, this shit just rocks. I don’t have some cool interesting story like the GoY album has, its just two dudes in Atlanta kicking ass. Thanks.
Shoutout to Knoll for coming in during the last week and almost stealing the top spot (Patrick: I said pick one album and you listed two non-albums + an additional album, please grow up).
Patrick: Andy had a little dumbass bit (Andy: it was a great bit) at the end of 2021/beginning of 2022 where he would text me on a near-daily basis that no good music came out in 2021, which he has since walked back because a) he is an idiot and b) he has no conviction (Andy: he’s not wrong). Turns out good music did come out that year. He also has been texting me near-weekly this year about all the good music from this year. It’s ridiculous. Anyways, the little twerp said Tómarúm was his favorite album of the year so far so I went in with an open mind because I am a good friend.
This rules! I’m glad he sent it to me. He texted me this is “beautiful metal,” which is a concerning and odd way to describe this, but I enjoyed it a lot. They do a cool thing where they mix both traditional black metal vocals and traditional death metal vocals on the album, and occasionally within one song. I tend to lose a bit of steam around the halfway point of albums in both genres. Having both present here and divided roughly equally helped alleviate that a bit.
The guitar parts also ruled. There’s soaring lead lines that (apologies Andy) recall Deafheaven a bit and I’d imagine that’s where Andy attaches the “beautiful” feeling. I kind of agree (Andy: got ‘em). I Really Like It and will listen again throughout the year to this album and this album only. All other Andy albums from 2022 can get fucked (Andy: wtf).
Other Albums of Note from Andy
(Patrick: are you kidding me)
Other Albums of Note from PAT
No. I said pick one album and I did so. You are so annoying.