Beatroute Magazine BC Print Edition November 2017

FEATURED CONCERTS
VICTORIA, BC
OCS - Memory of A Cut Off Head Teen Daze - Themes for a New Earth Wolf Parade - Cry Cry Cry
BLACK WIZARD
PLUS HASHTEROID AND TORREFY
CAPITAL BALLROOM // SAT, NOV 18
STICKYBUDS
PLUS MT. DOYLE AND JENNAY BADGER
CAPITAL BALLROOM // FRI, NOV 24
CURRENT SWELL
PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS
CAPITAL BALLROOM // FRI, DEC 1 & SAT, DEC 2
AN EVENING WITH
SHANE KOYCZAN
MCPHERSON PLAYHOUSE // TUE, DEC 5
FOR FULL CONCERT LISTINGS & TO PURCHASE
TICKETS, PLEASE VISIT:
WWW.ATOMIQUEPRODUCTIONS.COM
FACEBOOK /ATOMIQUEPRODUCTIONS TWITTER @ATOMIQUEEVENTS
Marilyn Manson
Heaven Upside Down
Loma Vista
Heaven Upside Down is shock rock industrialists
Marilyn Manson’s tenth studio album. Manson
certainly lives up to the shock aspect of his
performance with this album. They’ve added some
terrible hip-hop beats to “SAY10” and “Blood
Honey;” eventually it dissipates into his old school
industrial, almost grunge-y style, but they shouldn’t
be there anyways.
It’s not just the beats that come off awkwardly
here either. Manson is known for being a smart
lyricist renowned for being clever and repetitive, but
his lyrics are often more laughable on this album.
With his continuous counting from one to ten in
“Revelation #12,” you’ll never forget that Manson
knows how to count to ten; or the entirety that is
“JE$U$ CRI$I$,” all of the lyrics are terrible. Once
you get passed the horrendous beats and hilarious
lyrics, the album has some solid points to it.
Manson’s second single, “KILL4ME” is easily the
best song on the album, it’s incredibly catchy which
is about half of what Manson is known for. The title
track is musically lacking: the beat is catchy, but
otherwise it’s nothing to brag about and certainly
not good enough to name an album after. If you’re
looking for Manson’s old, killer song-style, you’ve
come to the wrong album.
• Bailey Barnson
Melkbelly
Nothing Valley
Wax Nine Records
With their debut album Nothing Valley, Chicago
band Melkbelly have created perhaps the most
cacophonous rock record of the year. It’s also one
of the best debuts of the year, deftly combining
math-y garage elements with riot grrrl-esque rock.
“Kid Kreative” is the most straightforward of the
songs on Nothing Valley; a straight-up garage rock
smash-and-grab built on a catchy guitar hook and
lead singer Miranda Winters’ charismatic vocal
delivery. In a recent Stereogum piece, Winters
described the track as being about “… having your
aesthetic hijacked by someone else. Specifically, as a
woman that plays rock ‘n’ roll, having your aesthetic
hijacked by a man and them easily capitalizing on
that.”
Luckily for Melkbelly, their aesthetic here is purely
their own. The following track “R.O.R.O.B.” features
a noise breakdown that feels like something out of
a hardcore track. The song after that is a winding
indie track that sounds like a Speedy Ortiz song
put through a meat grinder. From there, the album
remains wildly divergent from anything else on the
indie scene right now. Overall, Nothing Valley is an
essential listen for anyone who ever thought that
guitar music could ever die.
• Jamie McNamara
OCS
Memory of A Cut Off Head
Castleface
Leave it to John Dwyer to change things up
just when everything was starting to sound
comfortable. Going from Thee Oh Sees, to Oh
Sees, to OCS in the span of a year, the notoriously
productive garage rock legend ditches the prog
headiness of August’s Orc for the freak folk sound
of his earliest work on Memory of a Cut Off Head
(MOACOH).
Despite a return to the acoustic adventures of a
band now five-or-so iterations removed from this
current lineup, MOACOH is a surprisingly efficient
melding of Oh Sees prog-indebted jams and OCS’
original psych country ramblings. The songs here
are quintessential Dwyer, featuring winding guitar
lines and odd song structures. This is folk music
filtered through a kaleidoscopic acid haze. Gone are
the dueling drummers and krautrock pulse of the
last few Oh Sees records, replaced by reedy violin
and a jester’s wit. Still, even without the propulsive
guitar riffs and high-tempos of Dwyer’s last few
projects, MOACOH still retains a few jam impulses.
With its plinky harpsichord, standout track “The
Remote Viewer” feels like a medieval fair rendition
of a track from 2016’s A Weird Exits. It features one
of the most straightforward choruses in the Dwyer
catalog and it’s absolutely addictive after a few
listens. That goes for much of MOACOH; it won’t
sink its hooks into you immediately. Given time,
however, these psychedelic excursions will unfurl
and wrap their tendrils around you.
• Jamie McNamara
Teen Daze
Themes For A New Earth
FLORA
Releasing his second project of the year, Jamison
Isaak’s Themes For A New Earth is an enjoyable
collection of instrumental tracks with a singular
tone. The album was recorded at the same time
as Themes For A Dying Earth, but lacks the vocal
contributions of its predecessor. New Earth feels
like a collection of outtakes as opposed to a fullfledged
companion album. To Isaak, there’s a similar
theme to both being reborn and dying, as the two
projects sound nearly indistinguishable in terms of
production. However, Teen Daze establishes a tone
that is potent and vibrant like the colours of fall.
Isaak previously enlisted guests like S. Carey of Bon
Iver for his last album, but the soundscapes of New
Earth hold their own without any features.
The project is soothing, capturing the grandiosity
of nature in both instrumental-heavy tracks and
ambient compositions. It sounds like it could
be the soundtrack to an 8-bit videogame where
exploration and adventure is at the forefront. True
to the album cover, it deconstructs the beauty of
staring out into the ocean and watching waves
crash along the coastline, evoking a wide array of
emotions such as serenity, melancholy, and hope.
While New Earth is solid from front to back, mixing
tracks with Dying Earth enriches the concept.
There’s no correct combination, as Teen Daze has
masterfully allowed the decision to be dictated by
the listener.
• Paul McAleer
Wolf Parade
Cry Cry Cry
Sub Pop
Gone for six years and gracefully back again,
Montreal’s Wolf Parade have returned to the fold
draped in a sound that’s easily their most lush and
polished yet.
Carried by the sardonic vocals of frontman
Spencer Krug, Cry Cry Cry straddles the line
between goofiness and utmost sincerity,
encapsulating a flair for the dramatic that may
be the lynch-pin for new initiates to the band’s
following.
This is most prevalent on opener “Lazarus
Online,” where heavy piano meshes with Krug’s
wavering baritone around lyrics such as: “Lazarus
online/ I received your message/ You’re a fan of
mine, your name’s Rebecca, and you’ve decided not
to die.”
Apart from the sensational theatrics, however,
Cry Cry Cry is actually a pretty solid album overall.
Tracks like the quasi-ballad “Baby Blue” and the
post-punk-revivalist-chic “Am I an Alien Here”
more than make up for the tedious pitter-patter of
weaker cuts like “Valley Boy” and “Who Are Ya.”
Another important consideration for Cry Cry
Cry is that it was produced with enough upbeat
moments to counterbalance some of the more
extravagant, and the finished product not only runs
clean — it’s an album that you can play start to
finish without fighting the urge to skip through.
• Alec Warkentin
32
November 2017