BeatRoute Magazine [AB] print e-edition - [November 2017]

Teen Daze
Themes For A New Earth
FLORA
Wolf Parade
Cry Cry Cry
Sub Pop
livereviews
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 full-fledged
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
Trivium
The Sin and the Sentence
Roadrunner Records
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.
In short, Cry Cry Cry is a fitting post-hiatus
return; an album that you feel in your chest,
whether you’d like to or not.
• Alec Warkentin
MONOLITH AB, NORTH, ROSETTA
October 17, The Palomino
There’s nothing like a blast of icy arctic air to recall that
time of year when music lovers return to crammed
basements and huddled up dance floors to enjoy
some communal warmth and ear-numbing rock and
roll. And that was exactly the case on a brisk October
Tuesday as puffy jackets and functional headgear
headed down to The Palomino to take in a triumvirate
of heaviness.
First up, local dirge-dealers Monolith AB stepped
up to unleash an asteroid belt of dire consequences.
Displaying impressive growth in terms of both instrumentation
and stage-presence the band exhibited a
collection of colossal compositions graced with pretty
intricacies and discernible personalities.
Next up, North’s intimidating soundcheck almost
made us wish we hadn’t heard them tip their hand
before performing. Smoothly rocking out a session
of dangerous tunes, North echoed a less imperiled
version of Bison’s lyrical heathenry and heaviness.
Deceptive in their sophistication, North’s churning
chords frothed up buttery solids that melted hearts
with romantic melodies and sheer emotional heft.
Exercising an admirable amount of restraint, the powerful
trio impressed mightily with their brutal honesty,
progressive forays and a sense of exclamatory outrage
as pure as the driven snow.
Holding up half the sky, and the venue’s ceiling
in the process, Rosetta effortlessly summited the
evening’s increasingly intense proceedings. The
Philadelphia-based five-piece unpacked a suitcase full
of blistering fury and fuzzy doom-rock that shook the
dust from the rafters and drove any lingering ghosts
from their brick-and-mortar niches. Vocalist Mike
Armine braced himself for an onslaught of his own
making, climbing his bandmates’ vacillating scales
like a caffeinated toddler. Tearing into tracks from the
post-metal band’s sixth album, Utopiod, the ardent
Armine stole electricity from the air itself and then
rained it down on the audience like a human Tesla
coil. Densely packed but designed for maximum
maneuverability, Rosetta’s sludgy blast of spaced-out
rock was the ideal pressure release valve for a city
teetering on the edge of winter.
• Christine Leonard
Photo: Christine Leonard
If you’re a long-time Trivium fan and you’re
disappointed with the direction Silence in the
Snow went, you might want to pick up their eighth
studio release, The Sin and the Sentence. Most
of their albums before Silence in the Snow were
heavy enough to force you into a mosh with the
majority of vocals being either screams or growls,
but Silence in the Snow was more atmospheric
and melodic with exclusively clean vocals. This
album is a beautiful mix of their previous release
and the influences of their older sound. It opens
with the title track which begins with an incredibly
fast beat before Matt Heafy’s voice booms in with
his gorgeous baritone. The track ebbs and flows,
mellowing out for the chorus only to pick up again
for the ear-splitting solo. While Heafy is still singing
melodically in the majority of the songs, he’s also
screaming like a demon for an even mix his spectacular
voice.
Neither of the early singles they chose to release
really do this album justice, their third single, “Betrayer,”
is where the beauty lies. “The song displays
absolutely everything that Trivium is fantastic at;
it ranges from making you want to punch your
buddy in the face to wanting to serenade them.
It’s unbelievably fast, yet melodic, and it has one
of Trivium’s famous solos. Luckily, it’s only one
of many songs that kick ass on this album. “The
Wretchedness Inside” is another stand out, except
it’s bouncy as hell with a slamming bass line to
break your neck to. The Sin and the Sentence
proves that Trivium still have what it takes to
slaughter the mainstream metal scene.
• 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
BEATROUTE • NOVEMBER 2017 | 53