HYLI Vol. XXXVI - Ulcerate and Bob Dylan
Patrick sends Andy the second best album of all-time and Andy sends Patrick some kiwi death/post-metal
Hello, welcome back to the newsletter this week. I called Pat today to ask for lunch recommendations and he yelled at me. We have a friend who also refuses to admit to Pat that the Rings of Power show is popular for some reason, because he said a year ago that no one would watch it and Pat said that’s crazy it’s lord of the rings everyone will watch it. As a middle earth fan, I think it is totally fine. It is just Amazon Fan Fiction which whatever, good for them. It isn’t as bad as I expected it to be. Everything looks too clean/too much like a set most of the time (Patrick: I disagee kinda, the “look” of the show is the only thing about it that I kinda love. doesn’t look like MCU “oh this is a backlot in Atlanta” shit and kinda looks “real”). Oh well! Gonna spin Howard Shore’s LOTR Score now thanks!
Ulcerate - Stare Into Death And Be Still
Andy: There is a 50/50 chance that Pat yells at me about how I’m a bully for making him listen to this stuff or that he loves it. I never really know. I just try my best. He likes Wake and they’re pretty similar so who knows. While it is technically Technical Death Metal (Encyclopaedia Metallum says Avant-garde/Technical Death Metal) I think it has enough melody and the drums (Patrick: hmm reading this after is interesting lol) take enough of a break for him to enjoy it.
I’m pretty confident this is my favorite album of 2020 outside of 156/Silence (who dropped a banger of a record last week). This album is an hour-long (sorry) of atmospheric (my favorite word), suffocating (Patrick: consider breathing), dark, melodic death metal. “Visceral Ends” and “Stare Into Death And Be Still” are my personal favorites. Although, each song doesn’t stray too far from the album as a whole. Really just a great vibe for me.
I knew I’d probably pick this eventually and at this point I know the newsletter isn’t gonna sputter out into nothingness (unless I really get on Pat’s nerves one day, who knows) so I figured why not. Probably pairs great with Bob Dylan, ya know? I wonder if we are the first website to type out “Ulcerate and Bob Dylan”. Hope You Like It.
Patrick: Most metal that I tend to really enjoy is usually either a) basically just Heavy Rock (Metallica, Black Sabbath, etc.) or extremely heavy and sludgy shit (Old Man Gloom, Cult of Luna, etc.). Stare Into Death and Be Still (chill name guys) is a lot closer to the latter here, unsurprisingly since Andy never picks anything “normal.” I respect it and am glad, I really enjoyed this album. (Andy: What is normal? This isn’t like some Igorrr wacky shit. It is pretty normal metal that isn’t like…played on the radio or whatever).
It’s funny to me Andy thinks this is melodic (Andy: it is). There is next to no melody with the vocals at all (Andy: correct. I was referencing guitars). I feel like that’s kind of the point? Dude just bellows his head off and it rocks. One of my favorite newer (to me) vocalists in quite some time. Brutal as all hell in the best way. That being said, the guitars are easily my favorite part of the record. They really tap into that post-metal, Cult of Luna thing where you could see something like this fitting on an Explosions in the Sky record or something if they raised the tuning like three steps. There’s a little riff in “Exhale the Ash” around the two-and-a-half-minute mark of the song that sounds unlike anything else I’ve heard, just little blips of tapping notes that shouldn’t work but totally do. Love it.
The only thing I dislike about this is the little tech-death flourishes, specifically, the super fake sounding triggered drums on the blast beats. This is a common take for me. I’m sorry but they suck. Blast beats aren’t meant to be a constant, and in Ulcerate’s defense, some songs barely use them, but on the front half of the record there are numerous instances where songs go for like two or three minutes of blast beats unended. Just annoying shit to me. It took me from Loving This to just Really Liking It. I’ll check out more of their stuff eventually.
Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
Patrick: Let me get this out of the way now: this is my second favorite album ever. I’m just not going to be normal about this. It fucking is perfect. I love it. No album that’s an hour and 12 minutes like this should hold up so strongly throughout its entire tracklisting but Blonde on Blonde absolutely does.
As I’ve said in the past, on nine out of ten albums, lyrics aren’t going to matter to me nearly at all. However, I think I’ve found lately that the albums that I truly love get a boost because I really, really enjoy the lyrics. And, like, there just are few if any lyricists who are better at the game than ole Bobby. You don’t have to take my word for it, you can take the Nobel Prize for Literature’s word if you don’t trust me. And, while Bob’s voice isn’t for everyone, this is pretty much the best it ever was and, for me, works entirely. Shortly after this, he’d get in a motorcycle accident that kind of permanently changed his voice for the worse, but at this point, he had the highest command of all of his tools. The lower, ragged vocals? Dope. The higher pitched longing “croon?” Awesome. And for as much as people like to mock him as nasally with overly verbose lyrics, few singers convey as much unhinged emotion as Bobby does on “I Want You” by singing “I want you, so bad.” It’s beautiful. The guitar riff from Wayne Moss perfectly matches the melancholy. Jesus christ. It’s perfect.
While Bob’s name is front and center for obvious reasons, there are other people here who deserve flowers. Namely, the members of the Band that helped Bob out here, in the form of bassist Rick Danko and guitarist Robbie Robertson. On “Visions of Johanna,” (one of my top-10 songs ever), Robertson’s lead playing completely takes over for minutes at a time in a way that he only really ever does on The Band’s The Last Waltz. And the solo on “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” might as well have been noise rock for the time, which is the last thing I’d imagine most expect from a Dylan album. Additionally, there are few bass players who have a deeper feel than Danko. Just an all-time dude. I love the playing on “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” so, so much when the descending line from the chorus hits. Lastly, shouts to session drummer Bobby Gregg’s drumming. So in the pocket. The little blast that comes as you lead into the chorus of “One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)” hits like a fucking machine gun on an otherwise pretty tame song. The drum fills are the jet fuel leading it into the stratosphere. Perfect shit.
I was going to paste like three paragraphs of lyrics here but I’ll show restraint and limit myself to one from “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” that hits me so hard every time I hear it. Dylan is easy to mock and most of the parodies are funny but none of them come remotely close to walloping you like the OG. I Hope You Like It. I Know You Won’t.
“With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims
And your matchbook songs and your gypsy hymns
Who among them would try to impress you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums
Should I put them by your gate, or sad-eyed lady, should I wait?”
Andy: Guess what I know about Bob Dylan? Basically nothing (Patrick: ? how do you sleep at night) (Andy: under a 30lb weighted blanket so I feel like I’m being smothered). I know he has a voice that people love to imitate enthusiastically and he didn’t write Piano Man (Patrick: ???) but that is about it. Shocker, I know.
I’m gonna just say this now so you can choose to stop reading or scream into a pillow or whatever - I don’t enjoy Bob Dylan. I’m fully willing to admit that he’s a great lyricist and musician. I hear it, I just don’t particularly like it. I think a lot of it is in his delivery. I for sure see how if this does it for you it really does it. This isn’t something that sucks shit like when someone is like “Oh man I absolutely love U2” which is garbage (Patrick: why say this) so you’re sitting here wondering what happened to them as a child (catch these strays Bono). I get why this is an all-timer album for Pat. It makes sense to me. It just isn’t for me.
Reading along with the lyrics was really a high point for me. I can appreciate the lyrics without loving the execution. That is allowed. I never really understood why so many people considered him a GOAT songwriter but I absolutely get it now, even if it’s not really for me (Patrick: okay yes good this was the goal). The harmonica wasn’t my favorite on first listen but really grew on me. I’m one of those loser dorks who thinks his vocal delivery is goofy.
Wikipedia says he basically started touring in the 1970’s and hasn’t stopped at all. That’s pretty nuts considering he is like 111 years old (like my boy Bilbo). Anyway, I hope Pat and I are still friends after this (Patrick: I wonder what take I could stir from you that would end our friendship). I gave it my best shot but I’m not a Bobby D Boy. I Didn’t Like It.