Wolf's Week #11
MooM, Jenny Don't & the Spurs, other stuff
Still alive despite my day job's best attempts this week. I feel a little guilty about dropping this on a Friday when so many better newsletters have carved out this part of the week as their time to shine. (Yes, it is now Saturday, which means this newsletter is late being late. How I roll.) So, please, if you haven't already, read and subscribe to:
Speaking of Lamniformes Cuneiform, Ian Cory's brief thoughts on Pitchfork match my own, so check that maybe-an-obit out. While I had no real affinity for P4K's imperial period as tastemakers (in fact, one of the great intra-generational schisms among my cohort is the fault line separating people like me who think of old P4K as absolute clown shoes and younger folks who regard it as the gospel), I actually thought the site was the best it had ever been under Puja Patel's stewardship, so I find this craven "consolidation" by Anna "The Sunnies Stay On" Wintour to be more demoralizing than I thought I would. I'm not sure this is the nail in the coffin of music writing. There seems to be more written about music now than ever before. But it definitely feels like another watershed moment if you ever thought about doing it as a career. Maybe more thoughts about this later when I'm not so rushed.
Finally, I'm bummed to hear about the passing of Luis Vasquez. As a one-time fellow Mojave Desert resident, I felt some kinship with the musician despite never meeting him. (In the '90s, Vasquez achieved the holy High Desert rite of passage of opening for Face to Face and seemed well-liked by the scene elders when I passed through the area later that decade.) His 2010 self-titled debut under The Soft Moon hit me at the perfect time, soundtracking my long walks around a midnight-cloaked Los Angeles back when I worked there. Condolences to his friends and family.
Music
MooM - Plague Infested Urban Dump Of The Future (Lixiviat, To Live A Lie, La Agonia De Vivir, Taklitim Holim)
From: Tel Aviv Yafo, Israel
Genre: powerviolence
MooM comes courtesy of a Machine Music recommendation, which won't be the last time you see one of the internet's foremost new music resource namechecked in these pages. The Tel Aviv quartet plays powerviolence in the Slap-a-Ham tradition, speedily shifting between various punk and core riff styles while maintaining a generally pell-mell propulsion. Yes, there's Spazz Voice,1 but it's implemented in one of the last annoying ways I've heard recently. And musically, the band reminds me more of No Faith, just without the harsh noise excursions. In fact, if MooM has any preference for extracurriculars, it's tribal grooviness. The perfectly titled Plague Infested Urban Dump Of The Future is bookended by near-industrial dirges that are like Crash Worship colliding with Infest. Neat curveball. But, yeah, as always, MooM's calling card is the riffs. It excels at those speedy thrashcore races and slomo chug ragers. That I made it through this entire blurb without trying to make a "full MooM" pun is a sign of growth on my part.
Effluence - Destructive Transfixed Incorporeality (self-released)
From: USA
Genre: goo / extremely hard bop
Effluence's first release since 2022's Liquefied is another step in the solo outfit's unique evolution. Destructive Transfixed Incorporeality sounds like Effluence, complete with the original 'Encenathrakh but more chaotic' conceit, yet it's unlike anything that has come before it. That has seemingly been Matt Stephens's MO over all of the extremely hard bop musician's releases, continually upping the extremity and adventurousness while tightening the screws on these projects' parameters. For instance, sonically, Destructive Transfixed Incorporeality is Effluence's most devastating document, encompassing some of its most straight-up brutal material since Psychocephalic Spawning. Stephens pushes the outré elements to the background in favor of a ferocious assault. Those honks and skronks are still there, but are more tightly woven into the aural fabric of the music. Where some Effluence material has a ramshackle quality, emphasizing the looseness of free jazz, Destructive Transfixed Incorporeality is almost Defeated Sanity-esque in its pursuit of pioneering new levels of ferocity out on the fringes of death metal. But, of course, this is Effluence, so let's get weird. The 11-minute title track opens with an onslaught that would make Malignancy proud. And then, three minutes in, a mournful clarinet signals a shift to a droning collage of noises and samples that could surely crack a modern Nurse With Wound list. Sick.
Ὁπλίτης - Παραμαινομένη (self-released)
From: China
Genre: black metal / prog / thrash
Who knew the person behind Ὁπλίτης was so into zeuhl? That's one of the takeaways from a recent edition of "The War Inside My Head" that ran on Machine Music.2 "Younger Zeuhl bands like Le Grand Sbam definitely deserves more attention instead of 100 monthly listeners," the prolific musician said. Hot damn, a Le Grand Sbam sighting. That's not something I would've expected before listening to Ὁπλίτης's newest album, Παραμαινομένη. Now, it makes perfect sense.
Like Effluence, Ὁπλίτης has been evolving steadily over its releases, taking the Serpent Column-y black/thrash formula about as far as it could go on Ἀντιτιμωρουμένη, a more concise offering of riff-assisted annihilation. That one sounded like When Forever Comes Crashing-era Converge caught in a 40-minute loop of a tour van rollover.
Παραμαινομένη has some of that. The repetitious thrash riff in "Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεὰ παραμαινομένη ἐμοῦ..." hits you like a hammer does a nail, a brute force battering that is classic Ὁπλίτης at this point. But it also vastly expands Ὁπλίτης's palette of sounds and styles. There are squalls of saxophone, dynamic dips into folk, and experimental sections that are prog in the true sense of the word.
For my money, and Παραμαινομένη did get my money, thus ensuring its place in the annals of obscurity (sorry, this is what I do: I'm the Mothman of underappreciated metal bands), the best track on here is "Ἡ τῶν λυσσημάτων ἄγγελος," which demonstrates how freely Ὁπλίτης can stretch its sound in the hunt of something new. There's a section at 4:54 that erases the riffs like Rauschenberg did to de Kooning, and I'd reckon it would even challenge Car Bomb to find the one. It's a major highlight for a band that feels like it has been speedrunning a whole career over the last 365 days. Scoreboard: Four full-lengths since January 1, 2023. If this is 2024's opening salvo, I can't wait to hear where we end up.
Other music stuff:
Ana Lucia - Ana Lucia
In 2007, The Busy Signals released its self-titled debut. "A Chicago-based punk band comprised of five serious record collectors who can talk your ear off about Milk' n' Cookies b-sides," the Dirtnap Records band bio read. And, sure, songs like the deliriously catchy "Ring Ring Ring" probably shine because of that record collector know-how, that put-in-the-reps sense of what made the 45s of yore great, namely crunchy guitars and teenage kicks spontaneity. But Busy Signals's pepped-up power pop had elements you can't pick up just from listening to the greats or chipping away in the velvet tinmine. The band oozed charisma, particularly Analucia McGorty's vocal approach that was somewhere between Shakin' Street, The Nuns, and The Pretenders. McGorty had the confidence of knowing that no matter where she went, she was the most interesting person in the room.
Of course, The Busy Signals broke up before they could break out, never attaining their rightful place in the pantheon of new power pop bands with a punk streak, such as the cultly adored The Exploding Hearts or Radioactivity. And for a long time, I thought that was it. I'd kick the tires on whatever project one of the members had coming out, but nothing seemed to recapture the bottled lightning bolt that was The Busy Signals.
But guess what? In a turn that's remarkably me, I overlooked one significant ex-member project: Ana Lucia. In 2012, McGorty released her self-titled solo debut with assistance from Travis Ramin (Ramo Records, a ton of those bands) and Matt Castore (Formaldehyde Junkies, Condominium, and, more recently, the solid Scrunchies), both of whom were in the fun bubblegum glam throwback Juvie around that time. And I'll be damned. After all these years, I just stumbled upon what I had been pining for during a random late-night Bandcamp excavation session. If The Busy Signals ever released a follow-up, I'd expect it to sound like Ana Lucia.
Ana Lucia even has all the hallmarks of a second album. The sugar rush energy of the debut has been streamlined into something a tad more sophisticated that teases out the power of the hooks, the kind of patience that a band finds by fine-tuning their voice. And so, where The Busy Signals sounds like a band fresh out of the practice space and bursting with vitality, Ana Lucia is a smidgen more deliberate in figuring out how to make this stuff work in a broader rock context, not unlike how the street rockers and early punks braced themselves for the oncoming '80s. Think of Blondie's evolution from 1976's Blondie to Eat to the Beat. So, you get tracks like "Take Take Take," a muscle-rippling rocker with a killer tinnitus synth hook on the chorus, "Watcher," a gloomy garage chug, and "Mess Around," a straight-up Stiff Records earworm. Still, the common denominator is McGorty. Talk about someone who just knows how to navigate a punk/power pop song. She once again sounds like the coolest person alive. And, considering that she seems to have gone on to be a costume designer for shows like Pose, that coolness hasn't abated one bit.
Find me on Bandcamp until Ampwall goes live.
Wishlist Roulette
In this section, I'll randomly choose an album from my voluminous Bandcamp wishlist. After listening to it, I'll either buy or remove it.
Bijoux Cone - Love Is Trash (Literal Gold Records)
From: Portland, OR
Genre: synth pop
Bijoux Cone's excellently-titled second album, Love is Trash, reminds me of Vinyl Williams. The two modern savants mine different styles: Williams does psych and Cone soulful synth pop. Still, their approaches feel similar, drilling down to the styles' essences and rebuilding them by wrapping hazy and lush layers around the essential elements. Usually, that means taking melodies that are so attractively elemental they might as well predate the universe and plopping them within productions that have the fuzzy halcyon warmth of a family's favorite VHS tape.
Like some of Vinyl Williams's work, Love is Trash's best moments are slyly easygoing. Songs like the album highlight "Don't" are kind of like an escalator, carrying you along effortlessly in a way that makes you feel like you're floating. But there's so much happening behind the scenes: the groove, the arpeggio, the counter bassline supplied by the sax. And when those elements come to the fore, such as the bridge with spacey synths and flutes that are like Part Time commandeering Hawkwind, Love is Trash blooms.
So, naturally, my criticism of Love is Trash is that, during those initial spins, it doesn't bloom enough. In other words, I didn't pick up on many of the neato parts during the first listen or even the fifth listen. Perhaps I'm just oblivious. And, to an extent, Bijoux Cone exhibits a steady, thoughtful songwriting hand by not revealing too much, increasing the replayability of these songs by many magnitudes. After all, my favorite albums tend to be growers.
However, I wish more of Love is Trash hooked me from the get-go. Back in my editing days, one of the only good pieces of advice I gave writers was that sometimes you gotta make the subtext the text. Granted, this reflects more upon me as a listener than Cone as a composer, but I wonder if I would've given these not-as-immediate-as-they-could-be songs the time they deserved if I wasn't writing about them. In fact, I wish I had even more time to figure out where I stand overall.
Of course, the whole point of this section is forcing myself to make a decision now. "Don't" is great. "Reflections" is great. But the rest hasn't struck a chord with me...yet. My toxic trait is that I tend to make that determination after seeing an artist live, so Bijoux Cone, please come to LA. (This is backwards, I know.) For now, I'm tentatively tossing Love is Trash back while acknowledging it has a chance to hit the collection soon.
Discovering Myself Weakly
In which I review whatever Spotify has served me in Discover Weekly and then ponder the implications of who the algorithm thinks I am.
The Playlist:
Flammer Dance Band - "Fri"
Tuulikki Bartosik - "Põhjarannik"
Daisy Rickman - "Borelesyow Bleujyowa"
Brandon Coleman - "Resistance"
Minhwi Lee - "Blue Flower"
Alexander Flood - "Oscillate"
Modern Cosmology, Laetitia Sadier, Mombojó - "Making Something"
Acopia - "Be Enough"
JSPHYNX - "Reflex"
Reginald Chapman, Foxygen - "There Is This Thing"
John Roseboro - "Fetal Position"
Nico Paulo - "Intro, Dream"
Dengue Fever - "Touch Me Not"
muva of Earth - "no one else has your magik!"
Ludo Gastolfi - "New York Prelude"
Pierre Cavalli - "Tempo In Tempo"
Soft Machine - "The Dew at Dawn"
H31R, JWords, maassai - "Backwards"
Galya Bisengalieva - "Saryzhal"
The American Analog Set - "Too Tired To Shine I"
EABS, Jaubi - "Strange Love"
At - "Cut From Toxic Cloth"
Carlos Niño, Carlos Niño & Friends, Deantoni Parks, Nate Mercereau - "Flutestargate"
Ash Walker, Ebi Soda - "Babylonian Triangle of Captivity"
Jonnine - "Tea For Two (Boo)"
Koma Saxo, Petter Eldh - "Watten Koma"
Frog - "420!!"
V/Z, Valentina Magaletti, Zongamin - "Candles - Version"
Golden Brown - "Cobwebs and Sage"
Oren Ambarchi - "Live Hubris Part 2"
Highlights:
"Borelesyow Bleujyowa," the opening track of painter/musician Daisy Rickman's Donsya a'n Loryow, is a great hang, especially with that quietly insistent rhythm that's like waves lapping against the side of a boat. Reminds me of an even more blissed-out version of the acoustic Citay material.
Minhwi Lee cracked my year-end list.
I think I've written in these pages before that I am a sucker for anything jazzy that has a harp. At first listen, muva of Earth's droning "no one else has your magik!" evokes the same celestial vibe as Alice Coltrane's "Journey in Satchidananda."
Soft Machine's take on Harry Beckett's "The Dew at Dawn," especially with that dubby Caribbean rhythm, is simply a pleasant way to spend four-and-a-minutes.
Lowlights:
Like last week, nothing on this playlist was that annoying, although I wasn't too fond of Jonnine's sleepy "Tea For Two" or H31R's awkward "Backwards." In other news, I finally heard the feted Frog. I...don't get it.
Who I Am:
The kind of person who gets slammed at work all week and then, when they least expect it, gets absolutely read inside and out by a normie dating meme that makes them question their existence. In contrast to the fantastical yarns I normally spin, yes, this actually happened today. No, I don't want to talk about it. Please direct all inquiries into the void where I'll be residing forevermore.
Movies
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
What I've seen of Iñárritu's filmography works for me like a buffet: I don't want the whole spread, but I'll nibble on some offerings here and there. Like, I don't think Babel is a good film, but it has scenes that have stuck with me, such as the Japan club segment. Birdman is the same deal: visually intriguing with some tedious plotting that takes me out of the narrative. 3/5
Ronin (1998)
In between The Island of Dr. Moreau and Reindeer Games, John Frankenheimer helmed this taut thriller co-penned by a pseudonymous David Mamet. That's real working director stuff. Anyway, rarely have I seen a movie so blasé about civilian deaths. It's an intriguing counterpoint to the typical spy movie conceit of saving the world behind the scenes. In Ronin, the clandestine action spills into everyday reality, and what they're fighting over seems as stupid as any of our humdrum pursuits. More movies about that, please. 3.5/5
Body of Lies (2008)
The runt of the litter in a year that produced Hurt Locker and Generation Kill. Supposedly Ridley Scott revisiting the themes of Kingdom of Heaven in a modern-day context, but that feels more like retroactive PR mumbo-jumbo. The plot doesn't really hang together — it feels like three films fighting to be the main narrative — but there are a couple decent action sequences, and Russell Crowe and Golshifteh Farahani are great as contrasting characters. I was entertained. I'm an idiot. 3/5
Deadfall (2012)
What if Fargo were written by a dumbass who dropped in a PornHub-quality incest subplot for edgelord reasons? Probably the worst thing Kris Kristofferson, Sissy Spacek, and Kate Mara have been in, but not the worst thing Eric Bana has been in, which should tell you everything. 1/5
Source Code (2011)
Sneaky romcom! I love me a sneaky romcom. Source Code is kind of like if PK Dick had romantical feelings but still couldn't help himself by tightening the bow with a subtly disturbing denouement. Way better than it has any right to be. 3/5
Double Impact (1991)
Who up doubling they impact? One of the stupidest movies ever made. Watching Jean-Claude Van Damme trying to act with himself is like a dog barking at its reflection in a mirror. An absolute treat for those who love trash. 1.5/5
A Life Less Ordinary (1997)
Watch the karaoke scene and skip the rest. Holly Hunter is great as an angel because she is one (longtime crush, forgive me), and Delroy Lindo provides some dynamite reactions. Otherwise, this extremely '90s flick that's painfully not Trainspotting is a snooze and should only be screened as a bar movie for 'oh, it's that guy' supporting actor spotting purposes. 2.5/5
Check out my Letterboxd if you're bored.
Show Report
BARE MINIMUM / SAVIOR COMPLEX / EN LA MUERTE / FLESHFED / HOLY CARAVAN - 1/13/2024 at c47
c47 is a small, nondescript space in an industrial park. It's bare-bones with nearly zero amenities. When it's cold, it's cold. When it's hot, it's hot. And that spartan, we're-all-here-for-the-music vibe is its greatest asset. It's the epitome of a DIY space, one that is disappearing as the infrastructure to keep indie music alive continues to erode. I think we need these places like the ocean needs tide pools, and I find it somewhat distressing that there may be a time when bands don't get to cut their teeth in these venues.
Anyway, c47's name is derived from its building number, and it's surrounded by your usual tenants, such as repair shops and engravers. I used to catch the odd show here semi-frequently pre-COVID. And then, the pandemic torched the entirety of the local alternative scene. But underneath the ash, things have started to sprout. There's an honest-to-god independent record store across town that carries releases from the area's label, Extinction Burst. And c47 has started hosting shows again, giving kids the time-honored desert tradition of catching local bands before their best and brightest move on to bigger and better opportunities.
After a short setup that was scored by a DJ Screw tape, which is the ideal between-sets music, Holy Caravan kicked off the show with stoner/doom-paced chugs that had a hardcore edge. I was working off a similar-artist corpus about a decade older than anyone else in attendance, but Earth Crisis if Asbestosdeath was probably the closest comparison. For newer outfits, maybe Holy Caravan can hit up the similar riff-focused Asphalt for a split. As for Holy Caravan's live presence, the thick, bassy tone rattled my bones nicely, the drummer beat the hell out of their kit with an energizing fury, and kids were inspired to mosh to the grooves. Definitely a highlight of the night.
Fleshfed followed, immediately demonstrating the variety of this five-band bill. The quintet played a spudly kind of death metal that flexed some brutal tendencies. I stand by what I said in the video embedded below: "Think stuff on the Maggot Stomp spectrum with a touch more Suffocation pizzazz." What I didn't mention was how surprised I was that the group was way more Long Island than LA, even sneaking in some Internal Bleeding chugdowns after the Suffo scuzziness. But, yeah, its best moments were whenever it exited the cave to sneak a peek at the stars, ripping through some celestial Artificial Brain bridges in the process. Better than expected. I see them again.
Next up, En La Muerte, an anarchic Chicano punk quartet from LA. While it's rad that kids are still doing stuff in the vein of Void, this quartet didn't work for me. Part of that is because I've become incredibly picky about this style of punk. If it doesn't have d-beats, I'm not biting. The other part is...how do I write this without sounding like a fossil...I found the crowd work to be irritating. The constant calls for everyone to "move up to the front" grew tiresome. Look, I'm old. I've been to a billion shows. I think you get one shot to get the crowd to move. After that, if it doesn't happen, that's on you. Besides that, I enjoyed En La Muerte injecting chaos into the evening, and I dug that they covered Cro-Mags. To each their own.
Occupying the penultimate spot was Saviour Complex, a melodic punk trio from Moorpark, CA. Personally, I'd find it daunting following the previous three aggressive bands with melodic punk songs, but Saviour Complex had the confidence to pull it off. As I mentioned, I know zip about this style other than appreciating...like...Leatherface? Is Leatherface melo punk? But it was hard to ignore Saviour Complex's passion and energy. Chance Your Arm, its latest full-length, is now on my wishlist. Hoping to give it a whirl.
Bare Minimum, a toughguy quintet from the 805, closed the night out with total jud mayhem. I liked how the crowd instinctively made plenty of room for a pit, and that space was soon filled with air punches and spin kicks. I am...uh...not that person, but I appreciate a good jud, and Bare Minimum brought them in the grand ignorant tradition of bands like Bulldoze. It was a pretty solid way to burn off the negative energy of a rough work week.
JENNY DON'T AND THE SPURS / CARAVAN 222 / REVERSE COWGIRLS / DJ MAMA TRIED - 1/14/2024 at Alex's Bar
Ugh, I feel terrible short-changing these bands, but this newsletter is LATE, and I'm running out of daylight. I might write something more in-depth about this show in a future newsletter. For now, I just want to get this thing out of my drafts. Sorry! This is mostly a slightly expanded transcript of the video below.
Country, time to shed what remains of my metal readership. And, oh boy, here comes the drawl. We've unleashed my latent drawl. My apologies. I was married to a Southerner, and this is what I got in the divorce.
First up, Reverse Cowgirls. The singer was rocking a hat emblazoned with rhinestones that spelled out the c-word, and there was a tiny rubber dong on the tremolo bar of her hollow body guitar. Perfect. The cowpunk quartet got the vibes dialed in with some boozing and hellraising in front of a friendly crowd that even bought them shots. I've finally seen someone do shots on stage. It's officially 2024. The performance was a little shaky, but that added to the honky-tonk mystique. It'll probably have to change the name at some point. Definitely not the first to that one. But if there's any fairness in the world, its stage presence alone laid claim to it.
Next, Caravan 222. You know, I should've seen it coming from a band that released a record titled Country Bangers. There are times when a band clicks with you immediately, and this LA sextet that grew to a septet with a second vocalist clicked into place when it started deftly shredding some psych-infused cosmic country. Stellar. After that first song that rocked so hard with intricate parts aplenty floating around like an aurora borealis, someone, a musician, I reckon, ran to the stage and yelled, "Save some for the rest of us." The members saved some for the two-song finale, with guitar feedback and pedal steel swelling in equal measure. I can't wait to see this band again, and I hope it finds a producer who can translate that live energy to the studio.
I didn't think the night would get much better, but your main event, Jenny Don't and the Spurs, cleared even that high bar. The Spurs put in work. The guitarist was a beast, navigating nimble leads all night. And the active rhythm section was tireless in its pursuit of a head-nodding groove. Jenny was the star, though, exuding a superstar charisma and command of the audience. Plus, whew, can she sing. See this band if they're in town. And don't be scared to give them an ovation. The guitarist and I locked eyes while we awaited the encore, but the crowd lost its cheers, so DJ Mama Tried started spinning tunes again. Welp. Guess I'll have to go see them in LA again in a couple weeks. Seeing one of the best bands I've caught this year again? What a tragedy.
Upcoming Stuff
For someone who is a music obsessive, reads a lot, and self-identifies as a writer — although, as you can tell, I'm really pushing it with that designation most of the time — I don't care that deeply about lyrics. I think this is just a consequence of listening to metal and punk. But every once in a bit, my inroads into a record is that the lyrics are great. The two songs on offer from Ellie Bleach's forthcoming EP, Now Leaving West Feldwood, hit that mark. Set in a fictional town with a cast of beautifully drawn and detailed oddballs, Bleach fires off some killer one-liners. Example: "It's the apocalypse/ Finally some time alone."
I was a big fan of Jane Weaver's 2018 album The Silver Globe, a quirky, spacey record that was like motorik enthusiasts taking a crack at space rock. The two songs from Love In Constant Spectacle, which is due in April, have some of that smeary spaciness, but the music is closer to the art-pop of Cate Le Bon. Intrigued.
Shows:
HIT BARGAIN / GIANNA GIANNA / SARAH REGISTER - 1/20/2024 at Zebulon
I have a feeling that Hit Bargain's new material is going to blow my hair back.
EMILY ROSE & THE ROUNDERS / SWEET NOTHINGS / MORE? - 1/21/2024 at Permanent Records Roadhouse
The last time I was at Permanent Records Roadhouse, the show got delayed by a couple hours because a comedy show was running concurrently in the outdoor space. That makes the vague acknowledgement of "more" on the flyer seem a little…ominous.
MARY LATTIMORE / STEVE GUNN - 1/22/2024 at Zebulon
Sad I missed the other dates in the Mary Lattimore residency, but I made sure to prioritize this one with Steve Gunn. If I hear anything from Time Off, my head will explode.
DAVE HARRINGTON’S PRANKSTERS WEST - 1/23/2024 at Zebulon
I have no idea what this is going to be. Playing YOLO roulette on a worknight.
Follow me on IG for upcoming release natterings and show dispatches.
Hocking My Wares
So, uh, other people got sick this time. Part 2 and 3 of the favorite 50 will be up soon. Until then, have you read the first installment???
Other than me flogging that dead horse, I'm happy to announce that the RateYourMusic "Best Metal" list is back for 2024. You can find that here.
Check out Wolf's other garbage: https://linktr.ee/wrambatz
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You instinctively know the voice I'm talking about. Also, I used to work near an embassy that had its fair share of protesters. One frequent activist in particular used to use the Spazz voice to start call and response chants. It was…surreal.
The other takeaway is…was Trivium that influential on the raised-on-metalcore metal cohort? Will there be a Capharnaum renaissance soon?
Saw "The Spurs" in the headline and thought I was going to get some hot takes on Victor Wembanyama. Thanks as always for the shout-out. I also found myself more shook up about the p4k news than I would have expected. As for Trivium, as a raised-on-metalcore kid (i.e. was in high school in 04-08) I thought they were super corny at the time, but I've since softened on them. I don't think they get enough credit for doing re-thrash on 'The Crusade' just before that style became super trendy.