First Red Rays

 In the modern musical landscape, just about everything seems to be known - all the time. Album releases are announced months in advance, and usually songs drip about once per month for about two or three months ahead of time. And bands that have been dormant for a while, usually announce a new release very early to build anticipation. And then there is Neurosis.

Neurosis have been a favorite of mine in the post-metal genre for quite some time - along with now retired Isis, to me, they have been the standard bearers for this brand of metal characterized by sludgy tempos, tribal rhythms, hypnotic patterns, and ambient passages. And screamed vocals - often mixed with clean vocals as well. But Neurosis had been quiet as a band since 2019, when they played their last concert, and their last album, Fires Within Fires, was released in 2016. In 2022, the band issued a statement following founding guitarist Scott Kelly’s admission of long time systematic abuse of his wife and his children. Their response revealed the character of the band, and I assumed they were done. This feeling was strengthened when drummer Jason Roeder announced retiring from touring and was selling off most of his equipment. I thought their body of work would speak for itself, and that we had seen the last of them.

Then we get to March 20 this year. I was looking at the release list for the day, with few interesting releases. Then I noticed it. Neurosis. An Undying Love For A Burning World. What was this? I hadn’t heard anything about Neurosis in a long time. And it turned out to be a new album. And not just that, without Scott Kelly, they had added Aaron Turner on guitar and screaming vocals. Aaron Turner of Isis (and Sumac and Mamiffer). I had to check this out. And I was blown away. An Undying Love For A Burning World opens with We Are Torn Wide Open, a song I only can describe as a shouted chant. And then Mirror Deep follows in crushing fashion. But they really kick into the tribal sludge on the third song, First Red Rays, which is just about a perfect post-metal song. Aaron Turner’s screams, Noah Landis’ ambient sections, and Steve Von Till’s haunting vocals are all present and held together by the glue created by bassist Dave Edwardson and the aforementioned drummer Jason Roeder. 

To me, this was the album I didn’t know how much I needed. I think they have created a masterpiece, and I keep returning to it. Now, I know this isn’t for everyone, but it certainly is for me - and I hope you may like it as well!

Tribal Convictions revisited (Symphonique edition)

 It’s been about 10 years since I first shared the song Tribal Convictions by VoiVod, and it has only grown in stature with me since then. I love the tribal drum beat by only continuous member, Michel Langevin (or Away, as he is better known - and I just realized that another band where the drummer is the only continuous member is Deep Purple with Ian Paice, which makes for pretty good company), and when I saw that Voivod just released an album with the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, because of course they would, it was a great opportunity to bring the track back to life again. 

And yes, I know what you are thinking: Metal and orchestral music don't work. And there are examples that are supporting that claim (Metallica's S&M are fun curiosities, but not really expanding on the original sound, maybe because Metallica's music already is highly orchestrated, especially from Master of Puppets and out, the Norwegian band TNT did something with Trondheim Symphony Orchestra for their 30th anniversary - it wasn’t bad, but it didn’t add all that much. Personally, I loved Deep Purple’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra, written by classically trained keyboardist Jon Lord, but it never got much of a critical acclaim. 

However, there have been major exceptions - and to me, they mainly have come from the more avant garde metal bands, who by nature already have an approach to the music that really invites the sonic expansion that comes with an orchestra. I loved Triptykon’s Requiem Live At Roadburn. I love Amen Ra’s A Solitary Reign with Atomic Orchestra. And I love VoiVod’s Symphonique. VoiVod’s music is often angular and sparse - there aren’t the layers of guitar you can find on Metallica’s album - so the enhancement that an orchestra brings almost makes the initial recording sound like demos or sketches, as the orchestra really fills the sound. And they fill it with the sound of cosmic doom, perfectly fitting their world of sci fi horror. So enjoy the Tribal Convictions yet again - this time with Quebec Symphony Orchestra!

The bigger question: Are we just Meat Machines?

 I don't know that I have hidden my attraction to odd and quirky music particularly well - it is indeed true. One of my favorite musicians is Les Claypool, bassist and singer in Primus - as well as a host of other side projects: Colonel Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade (their cover of Pink Floyd's Animals album is spectacular), Duo De Twang (Stayin' Alive never sounded more redneck), Oysterhead (with Stewart Copeland of Police fame and Trey Anastasio from Phish - all three of them are really institutions in themselves), and, finally (although this list is not extensive), The Claypool Lennon Delirium. Les Claypool is the unlikeliest of frontmen - he has a well-cultivated quirky look, often enhanced with costumes and masks, he has a nasal voice that for some is a very acquired taste, especially when singing, and if any bassist ever strutted around on stage, it is him. But it works. It works because of a history of being self-effacing (the chant of love for Primus fans is "Primus sucks"), a nerdy approach to both instrument and lyrics, and a genuine likability that you can't put a price tag on (check out Geddy Lee's Paramount show Bass Players Are Human Too - the episode with Les Claypool is fantastic and showcases a personality that is as free from artifice as you can get (unless I simply buy the hype and he has me completely fooled (and yes, I know that parentheses inside parentheses are not proper writing - but as long as I put enough closing parentheses, you know what I mean (thank you Excel for the many lessons in nested parentheses)))).

There is no accident that I was able to bring in Geddy Lee when I talk about Les Claypool. Claypool is a die-hard Rush fan, and Primus even went on tour playing Rush's seminal A Farewell To Kings album (part of a stretch of albums that really defined their career, starting with 2112 and to me running through Grace Under Pressure, although most Rush fans would probably end it with Moving Pictures) in its entirety. I can also recognize some of Lee's bass tone in Claypool's bass - when he plays it more traditionally. But Les Claypool isn't about tradition - he is about invention and pushing the instrument further. His combination of the funky slap style from the 70s and 80s, a chordal approach to his playing, and speed and agility on his runs (Wikipedia also suggests a flamenco influence) is completely his own. While John Entwistle may have played the bass as a solo instrument and Geddy Lee and John Paul Jones filled out a ton of space to support guitar work that sometimes was ethereal, Les Claypool combines that - but also finds a way to fill the sonic landscapes with lush cascades of runs, chords, and, yes, melody. And when he started out, nobody approached the bass even close to how he did. 

In the mid 2010s, he paired up with Sean Ono Lennon and formed The Claypool Lennon Delirium, and their approach to what Lennon labeled "progadelica" fits Claypool's quirkiness and the ethereal tone of Lennon's voice. Their music ranges from songs sounding like Danny Elfman's The Nightmare Before Christmas (Troll Bait) to trippy prog (Boomerang Baby, South of Reality), to more straight up psychedelia (Amethyst Realm). They have released three albums: Monolith of Phobos (2016), South Of Reality (2019), and just recently, The Great Parrot-Ox And The Golden Egg Of Empathy, and I love all three of them. You can clearly hear Claypool's influence all over them, but it is equally clear that Lennon has his own musical vision here as well. He is a solid guitarist, but to me, it is the voice he brings - and a sense of melody that clearly harkens back to that very famous band from the 60s. But I will not dwell on his heritage here, because Sean Ono Lennon stands very competently on his own two feet. And paired up with Claypool, we get a combination of two great but distinctively different musical approaches, much like Pink Floyd had in Gilmour/Waters and that other band had in Lennon/McCartney. Here, Lennon has the melodic and fluid style of Gilmour and McCartney, while Claypool is the counterpart bringing an edge (or, more accurately in this case quirkiness (yes, I like the word a lot (what is it with me and nested parentheses today?))) similarly to Waters and Lennon in the aforementioned songwriting pairs.

On the album The Great Parrot-Ox And The Golden Egg Of Empathy, there is one track that just has etched itself onto my brain like a Nerve Tattoo (thank you, Motorpsycho), and that is the song Meat Machines. It has a long synthesized intro for a little over a minute before the guitar comes in - and then there is Claypool's bass anchoring it all with a tone right from Geddy Lee's playbook. It is filled with treble, which really makes it pop, but when the pre-chorus sets in, the rich bottom appears as well. It may not be earthshatteringly original when it comes to the melody, but it is wonderfully constructed, and even more so, it is wonderfully written, both musically and lyrically. It asks the question "is there more to us?" - "are humans nothing more than meat machines?" It is filled with standout lines, like "It's such a very precarious line between stoned and petrified" and "when you can't see the maze you're in, how can you escape it?" It asks many big questions - and what I love is that it doesn't try to answer them. And I would argue that this is a case of asking the questions itself is answering them. 

The Return of the Sporadic Writer: Shush

 It's been a long time again. Luckily, this time I didn't have to reopen the site - or I wasn't met with a "Tore doesn't live here anymore" message the way I was the last time I popped back in. I always have plans. Great plans. And then life pops in and gets in the way. But this time, there has been so many great releases. So many. And some of them were surprise drops as well. But I want to start with an old favorite of mine. Tori Amos. And no, it's not because there is only a vowel difference in our first names. It is because I have been genuinely moved by here latest album, In Times Of Dragons.

In the beginning of her career, with albums like Little Earthquakes and Under The Pink (I am choosing to ignore Y Kant Tori Read - although it is charming in its way), she really moved me. Massively so. But sometime after Boys For Pele, I lost the connection I had to her music. I loved From The Choirgirl Hotel, but I don't remember much of it. It didn't stick the same way the first three albums had. And To Venus and Back really didn't click. Then I loved Strange Little Girls, the collection of cover songs, including Slayer's Raining Blood - although I have to admit that some of her choices for arrangements were pretty far out there. 

So I lost touch with her music for a while, but around the time of the album Native Invader from 2017, I started picking up her music again. The time was right for me to explore the 16 year gap, more or less, and it revealed good albums. Not stellar, to me, but good. Ocean To Ocean followed, and I caught her on tour for the first time. Needless to say, I loved the show - and not even a boot on her broken foot slowed her down. 

But In Times Of Dragons is to me an album that brings me back to the old days. This time, again, she has something to say, and she's not afraid to speak her mind. From an artistic point of view, I have always been a huge proponent of "show, don't tell," but these days, subtlety gets lost in the constant roar of what Tori Amos unabashedly label the patriarchy. She hits hard this time. Her words are direct. They are political. They are charged. And she is unapologetic. The lyrics in Shush make clear just how she feels: "Southern girls know what it means/when the patriarchy menacingly says/you shush yourself now."

And then there is the music. The piano churns out bass heavy chords, slogging along at a pace that is heavy. So very heavy. We feel the weight of what she is singing about. Her right-hand hits lighter notes - there is a sprinkling of treble notes as well. But there is very little light that is shining through. 

And then there is the added weight of the final lines: "I knew a girl who wrote/'Silent All These Years'/Where is she." And on those notes, those words, the song ends. Having followed her embrace and empowerment of femininity since the beginning, those words, with the callback to Silent All These Years, hit hard. And that sets the tone for the rest of the album. This is prime Tori Amos. This is greatness. This is one of the greatest female voices of all time. This is what you NEED to listen to!

Musings On Music II: Neigh!! - Elysium, Soon

 On Friday the 13th of September, the other band that really made me realize that the era where I first started listening to them really defines what I listen to with them released their 27th (!) album (although if you could add a couple other releases depending on how you choose to count. The band is Motorpsycho, and I think I already have shared a little bit about how I started listening to them the summer of 1993 - and I did see them live at least once a year until I moved to the US in 1999. To me, the albums they releasted from Demon Box in 1999 through Trust Us in 1998 are unparallelled in Norwegian rock history - and they also form one of the strongest album arcs of any artist/band I have followed. 

However, following Trust Us, they started playing with pop arrangements, and while I think the three next albums are perfectly servicable with some songs that are absolutely spectacular, something was missing from the far out freak outs of their 90s output to me. It was still indeed Motorpsycho, but it did not hit me the same way as the earlier music had done. I almost wrote that it was not the same - but I am actually appreciative of that, as I do like that they grow, develop, and are true to themselves. But the thing was that to me, they didn't hit me the same way. Then their drummer, Gebhardt, left, and the album Black Hole/Blank Canvas was a letdown for me. I still struggle listening to it. But with their next album and their next drummer, Kenneth Kapstad, they were back to form again, and I loved the albums they released with him - but I struggle remembering many songs, if any. After Kapstad left, they got Tomas Järmyr in as a drummer, and once again, they created great albums that I enjoyed - but with limited durability or staying power.

Then Järmyr left, and they are back to the core duo of Bent Sæther on bass and vocals (and drums in the studio, at least) and Hans Magnus Ryan (Snah) on guitar and vocals. And then the album Neigh came out. And rarely has an album been more aptly named. It isn't that it is bad, and it could be that it will grow on me if I listen to it more, I just really don't feel like it. There is something missing. The lone highlight to me is Elysium, Soon - which sounds like the brother or sister of Evernine, one of the highlights of Trust Us for me. It's not that it's a bad album, as I already said, it's just not really clicking for me. And while I think that the obvious explanation to me is that it doesn't flow as freely as an album does when they play as an ensemble (although this was an odds and ends album, so the flow of the album may not have happened regardless - it's just that whenever they play a song without a drummer from outside the core duo, it sounds flat). 

But I do think that in contrast to Nick Cave, this proves my point. I don't think they ever will reach the same heights for me that they reached in the 90s. I think we may have grown apart - and nostalgia may be a significant factor here as well - but the bottom line is that the music they made in the 90s still hits me as hard as it did back then. I still love those albums... Demon Box, Timothy's Monster, Blissard, Angels And Daemons at Play, and Trust Us still get played often. And whenever I play them, I get transported to this other world. And I don't even really need to play them to listen to them. They have tattooed themselves onto my nervous system, hardwired themselves into my cerebral cortex, so all I need to do is focus - and I am right there, from the first "hee haw" of Waiting For The One that opens Demon Box to the climactic finish of Hey Jane that mellows out with Dolphyn (Eric Dolphy, anyone?) that ends Trust Us. Just about all of it is right there. And that is the beauty of music.

Now I have followed them for 31 years, and I will follow them until they pack it all up and close the doors to their bunker (battening the hatches, so to speak) - and I will keep on enjoying their music, but they really haven't created music that keep visiting me since Trust us in 1998. They have not released bad albums, but their music just has not clicked with me to the same extent. The only exceptions to this are their Roadwork live albums, where you still can hear the fire burning. In that sense, they are getting closer to Grateful Dead in that their live work surpasses their studio work - they just need to keep putting out great live music... I will be here to buy and to listen. 

In the meantime, I will keep on listening to the great albums from the 90s. And every now and then I will listen to some of the later work as well. Sometimes that does lead to me rediscovering music I almost had written off, and with Motorpsycho being as strong of a band as they are, I am almost expecting that to happen. And then there is Elysium, Soon. I will keep listening to it. 

Musings On Music I - Wild God

These past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about music - and about how so much about it is dependent on time and place. Back when I was in high school, I am thinking 1988 or so, I was introduced to Nick Cave by Lars Tomren Støring, one of the new friends I had made with a great taste in music. And I should probably point out that when I said he introduced me to him, I am really talking about his music - I have not met the man himself (although I finally have seen him live - and I will see him live again in Detroit on April 19, 2025 - but this time with The Bad Seeds). The album that launched my love for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was Tender Prey, with The Mercy Seat as the focal point (later covered very successfully by Johnny Cash), and ever since, he has been a fixture in my record collection - and in my musical taste. The next album, The Good Son (1990), was the one most of my other friends discovered, but I kept going back to Tender Prey. The Good Son was followed by a string of great albums: Henry’s Dream (1992), Let Love In (1994), Murder Ballads (1996), and The Boatman’s Call (1997). It is quite an impressive string if albums, and while I mainly go back to Henry’s Dream and The Boatman’s Call, I really love this series of album, as well as No More Shall We Part from 2001. 2004’s Nocturama was a low point for me, and I almost gave up on him, especially after hearing that Blixa Bargeld left The Bad Seeds prior to Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus from 2004; however that was a true return to form. 

I have been following him and his career all the while, through Grinderman and work with Warren Ellis as well as more solo oriented recordings and tours, and he has always been there, lurking, with music that recently has made me think more than feel. His career started changing with the album Push The Sky Away (2013), where traditional song structures were disappearing for more free form poetry accompanied by a more ethereal sounding Bad Seeds. Personal tragedy struck while he was recording Skeleton Tree (2016), and this style of music was taken to a long-form extreme on Ghosteen (2019). Of course, being somewhat of a completist, I have also gone back in time and listened to the albums released prior to Tender Prey, including the work from The Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party. But the music of his that is nearest and dearest to me is still the output from the 1990s, which is when I was most active listening to music - and probably when a lot was imprinted on me. 

And that is really what I wanted to write about, and I will do a follow up to show a contrasting feeling with a different artist that is near and dear to my heart. I am developing somewhat of a thesis that when we first hear an artist - and I am really talking about the period here more than a specific year, although in some cases, that is how short the period is - really cements how we listen to them. And it doesn’t have to be contemporaneous music to when we first hear them (if that was the case, I would be listening more to Paul McCartney and Wings than The Beatles, as The Beatles were over by the time I was born), but it is the music we got introduced to. And there aren’t many exceptions to that in my book. But Nick Cave is one of them. 

Now, let me be very clear about one thing: I am all for artists developing and evolving - and I am also perfectly at ease with me evolving in a different direction - that is what growing apart is all about. But sometimes artists grow in ways that are separate, yet somewhat parallel - but make just the right turn at just the right time to hit you just right again. Nick Cave is one of those artists for me. Like I said earlier, Nocturama was a low point, but Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus became a spectacular high again - and it is one album I keep on revisiting, especially Abbatoir Blues. Dig Lazarus Dig (2008) sounded like he tried too hard, and, as I already have said, Push The Sky Away, Skeleton Tree, and Ghosteen all hit me differently. They are great albums, but they are not ones I come back to all the time (although there are songs like the haunting Jesus Alone that follow me around) - until Wild God, released August 30. I have listened to it quite a bit - but I also find that the songs from it come to visit me frequently. It started with Wild God, but I find that songs like Frogs and Joy and Conversion also come visiting more and more often. And that, too me, is what makes an album great. When you can listen to it when it isn’t even playing. There are some albums I can do that with - and that is happening with Wild God to me right now. 

I don’t know that I will think that any of his albums will top the series he released from Tender Prey in 1988 through The Boatman’s Call in 1997 (I might throw in No More Shall We Part from 2001 as well) to me - and that is the important thing to remember here, this is all about how I connected with his music - but Wild God is damn close. As was Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. And that, to me, is what makes Nick Cave so very special. And I am pumped to see him live with The Bad Seeds in April!

A Design For Life

How do you respond to personal tragedy? That is a question we all will have to face in life, and likely more than once. What do we do? Where do we go?

For Manic Street Preachers, that personal tragedy happend on February 1, 1995. At 7:00 AM, Richey Edwards checked out of the Embassy Hotel in London. He was scheduled to meet up with singer/guitarist James Dean Bradfield to fly to the US. He never showed up - and he was never heard from again. To this day, there is no certainty as to what happened, but he was declared presumed dead on November 23, 2008. 

Initially, Richey Edwards was the Manics' driver and photographer, as he was another close friend - the only friend who could drive... But he eventually joined the band on rhythm guitar despite barely knowing how to play - and it wasn't a skill that developed much during his time in the Manics. But he had style and public relations skills - and he wrote lyrics along with Nicky Wire. And what lyrics they were... The Manics' third album, The Holy Bible, which was released at the end of August, 1994, was filled with Richey's harrowing lyrics about depression, anorexia and the state of the world. Reading the lyrics to 4st 7lb is particularly painful, as it clearly depicts anorexia and a weight sliding down to the lower tolerance limit of the title, which is about 63 punds. 

Richey had his demons. Suffering from depression and anorexia, and finding solace in cutting and other self harm, he had been receiving in-patient treatment on several occasions. And then he vanished, leaving his three very good friends behind to try to pick up the pieces. Like I said yesterday, these were good friends who decided to play music together, and three of them are still doing that. But in 1995 they were faced with the very existential question: What do we do now?

So how do you respond to personal tragedy? I must admit that I greatly admire the ones who turn it into something constructive, and that was what Manic Street Preachers did. After a six month hiatus, and with the blessing of Richey Edwards' family, they regrouped and eventually recorded Everything Must Go, which in some instances at least to me seemed to deal with Edwards' disappearance head on.

        We don't talk about love
        We only want to get drunk

These two lines are from the song of the day today, A Design For Life, the first single from the fantastic Everything Must Go. I could go on playing music by the Manic Street Preachers for a long time following my much delayed awakening, but I will take a little bit of a break from them now. But please explore them. It is quite the treasure trove. 

Motorcycle Emptiness

Some songs just stay with you. I hadn't listened to Motorcycle Emptiness from the Manic Street Preachers' first album Generation Terrorists in years when I for some reason started looking at the Manics again this summer. I can't remember what compelled me to do so, but oftentimes it is something I read or see on tv that triggers a memory or a desire to explore some music further. And this summer, Manic Street Preachers became yet another rabbithole for me to fall down into. I remember getting Generation Terrorists way back when it first was released in 1992. I liked it. I liked it a lot. But to me, my interest in the Manics was relatively short lived at that point. 

After rediscovering them, I will say that watching the documentary No Manifesto really changed the way I looked at them. I have a soft spot for friends deciding to get together to play music - and even more so when the same friends are still together making music 34 years after they start and 28 years after they released their first album. It  hasn't been without issues, but I will save that for a later post. To me, the fact that James Dean Bradfield (guitar and vocals), Nicky Wire (bass), and Sean Moore (drums) still play together - and still sound damned good - is really what every band aspire to. On their first three albums, Richey Edwards played rhythm guitar and wrote lyrics with Nicky Wire, so that is the fourth member seen in this video. 

I still won't pretend that I fully understand the lyrics to Motorcycle Emptiness and all the imagry it contains - although I get the theme of consumerism and the hollow pleasures it brings. And I am a huge fan of the final switch from "motorcycle emptiness" to "everlasting nothingness". "Under neon loneliness" indeed. 

 

Liar

There isn’t much to say about this song except that it describes DJT perfectly. But Rollins band is well worth exploring if you haven’t yet. The musicianship is stellar - on the album Weight, the lineup featured Melvin Gibbs on bass and Sim Cain on drums, both of whom had played with one of my favorite jazz guitarists, Marc Ribot, but in Rollins Band, they played with Chris Haskett on guitar, and the sound they created was the perfect foil to Henry Rollins’ uncompromising and at times brutal delivery. And Liar has a perfect description of a narcissistic con man of the type that currently occupies the White House.

7empest

So Fiona Apple might have this year's best album - at least in my book (and certainly so far, I have no doubt) - but last year was all about Tool for me. I discovered Tool through the song Sober a long, long time ago and have been following them since. They had released the EP Opiate in 1990, and then they released their first official full length album (Opiate almost has a full album playing time, but it's still an EP) Undertow in 1991, which is where Sober was found. Then, like clockwork, every 5 years they released a new album. Aenema in 1996, Lateralus (in my opinion still their masterpiece) in 2001, and 10,000 Days in 2006. And then it was quiet. Until last fall, when they released Fear Innoculum. After waiting 13 years, the expectations were insanely high, and I am really happy to say that they delivered. Fear Innoculum was a great album, with great musicianship throughout - but then again, you know that's what you will get when you talk about Tool. 

The song I have selected is 7empest, but I could easily have selected just about any song on the album. It is that even. It really goes from highlight to highlight, and it feels like one cohesive artistic statement. 7empest is the last proper song on the album, and if you have the physical copy (cd), it is the closing number. It is well worth listening to - it is long, but it is spectacular...