Obligatory end-of-year music feature

Well, it's been a hell of a year. Unfortunately, I mean hell in the biblical sense. 2016 has been pretty much a giant dumpster fire of a year, and it simply can't die soon enough in my opinion. If nothing else, I at least have some free (or, rather, name your own price) music for your listening pleasure. The following records have no minimum price on Bandcamp, but I suggest you at least pay something instead of just leeching. People have to eat, and all that. Anyways, here're some free* tunes I've been listening to lately.




Ah, blackgaze. Astronoid's Air is basically what happens when you supply a black metal band with antidepressants and switch their vocalist out for a pop-punk singer. The result is something uplifting and surprisingly accessible, even for those who aren't fans of metal. Not only is this album available for no minimum price, it's also one of my favorite albums to come out of 2016. There aren't really any excuses for not checking it out.




The Armed is a bit of an odd band. First off, yes, the album is actually named Untitled. Second, The Armed released Untitled as actually free on Bandcamp instead of as a name your own price option. In other words, there isn't a way to really pay the band for the album. This is a fairly strange move to be honest. If they simply wanted their music to be accessible, they could just as well have chosen the name your own price option as that (strictly speaking) carries no obligation of paying anything at all. Instead, they went out of their way to NOT receive any money for their work. As an econ major I find this somewhat baffling, but hey, that's punk for you I suppose. In any event, The Armed's Untitled is a fantastic slab of hardcore and punk that seems straightforward but ultimately isn't. It's all fairly conventional until the song Dead Actress, but I'd rather not spoil it for you. Just give them a listen if you're in the mood for frenetic energy and youthful aggression. Being a fan of The Dillinger Escape Plan would also help, as The Armed can be quite similar at times.




Is it black metal? Is it death metal? They call themselves blackened death metal, but I'm not sure I see this as a death metal record as much as it is symphonic black metal. Whatever you call it, Hyperion's debut album Seraphical Euphony is bloody impressive. If it weren't for a less than optimal level of audio compression, Seraphical Euphony would be very nearly perfect in my opinion. As it stands, these Hyperion newcomers have still managed to knock the ball out of the park with this one. Black metal fans, sleep on this one at your own peril. It's yet another quality offering from 2016, a year that's been as good for metal as it has been shit for all else.

Hopefully this triple post helps make up for my rather spotty posting record during last semester. I look forward to 2016 being over with in a few days. Until then, Guitarman out.

Checking in

It's been a while since I've posted anything here, so I felt the need to check in. I'm currently in my senior year of college, so finals season has me quite thoroughly pinned down right about now. Thankfully, finals season ends on the 15th. After that, I will be largely freed of the obligations that are keeping me from sharing more music with you. Until then, I'll be over here cranking out papers 'til my hands bleed.

Guitarman out.

The End

I had the great honor of being able to attend Black Sabbath's final concert in the United States yesterday, and it was one hell of a show. They almost exclusively played cuts from their first three albums, and the atmosphere was freaking electric. Black Sabbath has always been my favorite band (my main guitar is even a Tony Iommi signature model), so being able to see them live was something of a religious experience.

Now then, I mentioned in my last post that I'd talk about the increasing toxicity of US politics. However, in the time since I made that promise, I've become fairly inundated with it myself. My social media feed is still filled with vitriolic and hypocritical rhetoric from both sides of the aisle. Basically, I just can't get to a calm enough state of mind to even write about this right now. Sorry, but it looks like that discussion will need to be put on hold for a while longer.

Guitarman out.

The World Turned Upside Down

Well then. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably already know the results of the US presidential election. If you haven’t heard the news because you were living under a rock, then that sounds like a lovely place to live and I hope you invite me to stay until this all blows over. I'm not writing here to criticize Trump, or to attack his supporters. You certainly won't find me celebrating the prospect of a Trump presidency, but that's neither here nor there. I’ll make time this weekend to discuss the growing toxicity of American political “discourse” (if you can even call it that, at this point). For now, though, I have schoolwork to do and a Black Sabbath concert (this Saturday!) to look forward to. After all, it’s best not to write a political post when your emotions are in turmoil. These things, like most in life, are best done with a clear head and even hand.

Until next time,

Guitarman

Deadlines, deadlines everywhere

Bit rude of me to just disappear for a month without warning, so sorry about that. Anyways, it's getting to be midterm/paper season over here, so my free time is limited to say the least. Add to that my continuing health problems, the haunted house being put on by my residence hall, and grad school / job applications...it will suffice to say that my hands are a bit full right now. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can post something substantial, so we'll see how things go.

Music Exchange: Round One

Hello, everyone. Today's post is going to be heavy on recommendations, but relatively low on content. I'm not going to go into much depth about each artist on today's menu due to time constraints, but I may go back and do a separate feature for some of the artists I mention in this post. We'll see.

In case I wasn't particularly clear on the subject before, I'm currently in my senior year of college. This means that much of my time is occupied by reading about Plato, or researching Mexico's 19th century foreign debt, instead of discovering interesting bands to pass on to you folks. Thankfully, my roommate (who will go unnamed for now, since I haven't asked his permission) is a fellow musician, and a music major to boot. Since our schedules don't have too much overlap (I'm stuck being an early-riser this semester, while he burns the midnight oil), we've set up a whiteboard in our dorm room for sharing bands we think the other might be interested in. I've decided to start sharing the fruits of this exchange with my audience (such that it is) at this blog. This time, we both selected three albums from different artists, so I'll be sharing a total of six different bands with you today (in no particular order). Due to the sheer quantity of music this time around, I'll be fairly brief with each band. I think the music should speak for itself, anyways. Without further ado, let's get to the music.

Guitarman's recommendations:

#1: Haken - "Affinity"

My list of recommendations starts off with Haken's release from earlier this year, "Affinity." The album is modern progressive metal with an 80's pop-ish flair. Great stuff, and very much on the lighter end of the heaviness spectrum. I may do a more in-depth feature on it later, because it deserves more than just a little blurb here. Give it a listen, and you'll see what I mean.

#2: Gygax - "Critical Hits"

I think the best way to describe Gygax is to call them a nerdy Thin Lizzy. Actually, that's probably all the description that the band really needs. Their sound is straightforward classic rock/metal with focus on guitar harmonies (did I mention that they sound almost exactly like Thin Lizzy?), and their lyrical themes are about what you'd expect from a band named after the creator of Dungeons and Dragons. Their album "Critical Hits" doesn't ask for much of your time (it's about 30 minutes total), and is well worth it. We don't get enough of this stuff these days.

#3: The Dread Crew of Oddwood - "Lawful Evil"

There's some context behind this recommendation. See, I live on a themed hall on campus. Specifically, we're the pirate-themed substance-free hall. Kind of a strange combination, I know. My roommate is one of the hall captains, which is what we call our leaders. Anyways, The Dread Crew of Oddwood are similar to Alestorm (a band I previously featured) in that they write songs almost exclusively about pirates. Unlike Alestorm, however, they aren't a metal band. Dread Crew of Oddwood are an acoustic folk band that takes stylistic inspiration from metal groups. They're a quirky lot, and their latest album "Lawful Evil" is certainly worth a look if you're into folk and have a functioning sense of humor.

Roommate's recommendations:

#1: JJ Doom - "Key to the Kuffs"

For the record, no, rap isn't really my cup of tea. My roommate recommended JJ Doom for his lyrics, which are villain themed and, frankly, great. However, I'm probably not going to be seeking out this album that often. While this is some of the best rap I've ever heard, I tend to focus much more on the instrumentation than the vocals when I listen to music. As such, I gravitate towards rap-rock like Rage Against the Machine, Pre-Fight Hype or Southpaw Swagger when I want my rap fix. Still, I'll probably be coming back to JJ Doom, which isn't something I can say about most straightforward rap outfits. I imagine anyone who normally pursues rap music will absolutely love this.

#2: Danish String Quartet - "Wood Works"

And now for something completely different: traditional Nordic folk music. I'm not exactly qualified to assess the quality of a string quartet, but I must say that I'm enjoying what I'm hearing here. They're precise without sacrificing the inherent fun of the pieces they preform. If you enjoy folk half as much as I do, you'll enjoy them.

#3: Punch Brothers - "Phosphorescent Blues"

Full disclaimer: I'm still digging through their music, so this is more "first impressions" than "researched opinion." That being said, I'm really liking what I'm hearing from these folks. The Punch Brothers play progressive bluegrass, which is absolutely fantastic. I'm lacking in comparisons to draw from to describe their sound, but that's honestly a good thing in my opinion (just not when I'm trying to introduce them to you). They've managed to blend soulful bluegrass with classical inspirations, and it works bloody brilliantly. This is certainly my favorite of the groups my roommate recommended, and by a rather large margin. Definitely worth checking out!

So, there you have it: round one of the roommate music exchange. I'm clearing off the whiteboard to make way for more music, and I'll be sure to let you know what makes the list! Until next time, Guitarman out.

The Mighty Few

Things have been hectic over here. With grad school applications, job hunting, classes and persistent health issues, my plate has been fairly full as of late. Thankfully, I've finally found enough time to shine a spotlight on one of the more delightfully strange releases of last year. Introducing "The Mighty Few," by The Grand Astoria.

Hailing from Saint-Petersburg, The Grand Astoria is a Russian rock outfit that combines a stoner aesthetic with progressive fundamentals to great effect. Or was it a progressive aesthetic with stoner fundamentals? In either case, their opus The Mighty Few is a paradoxically easy and challenging listen. No, I'm not just speaking in riddles for the sake of pretentious pseudo-intellectualism. I get enough of that from college freshmen trying to debate continental philosophy. Allow me to explain what I mean.

You may have noticed that the embedded track is a full twenty-eight minutes and nineteen seconds in length. No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. Yes, that's the first track of the album. The Mighty Few is a full-length album (actually a fairly long one at nearly fifty minutes), but has a mere two tracks. Furthermore, these tracks are repetitive enough that listening to them all the way through isn't an easy task for the ADHD music fan. It's also somewhat difficult to just allot twenty-plus minutes of your time to listening to a single song. That's what I mean by The Mighty Few being a challenging listen.

On the other hand, the actual music being played here is extremely accessible (despite its format). The Grand Astoria play a hypnotic blend of stoner rock, jazz, progressive rock and classic metal. To quote the blog Heavy Metal Textbooks, "if Pink Floyd and The Mars Volta had a baby, and that baby grew up listening to heavy metal and punk, and then formed a rock band, that band would be The Grand Astoria​." It's a bit of a roundabout description, but roundabout descriptions seem oddly apt when talking about music of this sort. My advice would be to listen to the first few minutes of the second track, The Siege, to see if this album is right for you. Opener Curse of the Ninth takes a good two minutes of tease and build before the distortion kicks in, while The Siege fires on all cylinders right out of the gate. Either way, they're both great songs. You have excellent vocal harmonies and glorious walls of fuzz juxtaposed with subdued psychedelia and restrained classical elements, and the end product is a quite compelling (if arguably overlong) slab of music.  Give it a spin; for twenty-plus minute songs, they're quite addictive.

Guitarman out.

A health update

Sadly, health problems kept me from being able to get a blog post up this weekend. As I mentioned last post, I was kind of a wreck this weekend thanks to an allergic reaction to some antibiotics. Things got much worse when I woke up Saturday. I wasn't really able to move my hands much at all, and had difficulty standing let alone walking. I ended up having to go to the emergency room Saturday and stayed there until Sunday morning. The swelling is mostly gone, as are the hives. However, this ordeal consumed a large chunk of my weekend, and I had to dedicate the remainder to schoolwork. I'm still alive, though, and frankly that's enough for me right now. Had I delayed going to the emergency room, I'm not sure I'd be alive to type this right now (judging by the swelling on my neck that started during my stint in the ER waiting room). It's a bit of a stretch to say that "all's well that ends well," but there you have it. Hopefully next time I'll have a chance to post about music instead of some new medical ordeal. Guitarman out.

Health issues

This story starts some time in last July. I noticed that my large toes on both feet were quite a bit more sensitive than usual. Upon examining them, I found them to both have fairly nasty ingrown toenails. They both became infected, and I went on antibiotics. The antibiotics were mostly effective at eliminating the infection in my left big toe, while my right big toe remained infected. Since I couldn't get an appointment with a podiatrist before my planned trip to Ireland in early August, I went to urgent care and had part of the nail removed on my right large toe. My hope was that this would remove the ingrown portion, allow the infection to drain, and get all this resolved before my flight to Ireland. My left big toe was, at this point, merely ingrown.

Unfortunately, my trip to urgent care left me noticeably worse off than I started. They managed to take part of the nail off on my large right toe, but there were complications. The person actually removing the nail (let's call them Tim) turned out to be extremely inexperienced, and the nail itself turned out to be quite brittle. Instead of cutting cleanly, my nail came apart in narrow splinters. Tim saw this and decided to stop the procedure early, repeatedly telling me that he did not know what he was supposed to be doing in this situation. His superior responded to his questions by telling him to use his own discretion, a comment which appeared to fluster and confuse Tim. Keep in mind that all this is happening in front of me, so I'm not exactly feeling confident about Tim's competence. He had also not succeeded in actually numbing me (largely due to the level of infected tissue), so I felt every tear he made with his knife and tweezers, as well as every time his hand shook while injecting me with nerve blockers (which was quite a bit). At the end of the day, the nail was in worse shape than before the procedure. Instead of being ingrown, the edge of the nail was now in a serrated pattern that was sharp to the touch. Furthermore, the toe is still infected a month later.

After getting back to school (and having the infection return to my left large toe), I went to the school medical staff for antibiotics. They prescribed me a generic version of Augmentin, an antibiotic which helped somewhat with the infection. Coincidentally, they also found that the one of the numbing agent injection sites from my surgery had itself become infected. Thanks again, Tim.

Everything started looking up after I started the Augmentin. I felt itchy sometimes, but thought nothing of it. My feet were recovering. Today, however, I woke up to find myself covered in hives from head to toe. I have hives on my neck, behind my knee, all over both arms, all around my waist, on both of my inner thighs, and basically everywhere else I've checked so far. My hands are so swollen that I have difficulty moving about half of my fingers (making this somewhat difficult to type), and my skin feels like it's on fire. Apparently (according to my school physician) I'm allergic to Augmentin.

So there you have it. My health is a bit of a comedy of errors at the moment, and I'm kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'll try and get a music post out this weekend, but I'll probably wait for the hives to clear up.

Hope your day went better than mine did, and I'll see you next time. Until then, Guitarman out.

Blackjazz

Well, it's a little later than planned, but better late than never. It's time for another music spotlight. Introducing: Shining, with their 2010 album Blackjazz!

Shining is a bit of a tough nut to crack, so let's start with the basics. First off, it would be helpful to clarify that I'm talking about the Norwegian band called Shining, not the Swedish band called Shining. The Swedish Shining is a black metal band ostensibly concerned with making listeners as suicidal and likely to self-harm as possible. On the other hand, the Norwegian Shining (hereafter referred to as just Shining) is...well, for starters it's far more difficult to describe via pithy statements.

Shining is, for lack of a simpler term, an avant-garde metal band. Avant-garde, however, is itself a fairly empty description. It would be better to call Shining's music the ungodly fusion of industrial and progressive metal with free-form jazz and electronica. On Blackjazz, Shining have created something that you aren't likely to fully appreciate on your first listen. My first time through, I found Blackjazz to be more exhausting than exhilarating. Part of that is likely a result of the album's run-time falling just short of an hour. Add to that an incredibly dense sound, manic tone, lengthy songs (particularly on the album's back-end, where a nearly eleven-minute song is followed by two songs just shy of nine minutes each), and counter-intuitive design choices ("The Madness and the Damage Done" is track one; "The Madness and the Damage Done, part one" is track six) and you get an album that's potentially draining for the uninitiated listener. I assure you, however, that Blackjazz is worth the extra effort required in its appreciation.

Do you like your music progressive and full of surprises, yet with a strong sense of groove? Does the idea of music made by madmen, for madmen, appeal to you? Do you think Meshuggah would be a more interesting band if they hired a saxophonist? If you answered yes to any of those, then you (like me) might be the target audience for Blackjazz! The album is funky, brutal and strangely satisfying. It's filled with intricate compositions formed around the simplest groove riffs. Ultimately, though, it's nearly impossible for me to describe Blackjazz without resorting to hyperbole and metaphor. At times, it's the sound of the apocalypse (a trite metaphor, but a fitting one regardless). At times, it's the sound of a jazz orchestra and a metal band attempting to bludgeon each other with their instruments. Either way, it's great fun for those of us able to appreciate music of this level of insanity. Don't take it from me, though. This is one of those albums that, love it or hate it, you owe it to yourself to experience.

I'm back

Hello! I'm back from Dublin, and have returned to San Antonio for my senior year of undergrad. School will keep me somewhat busy, but I should have more time for updates now than I did over the summer. My schedule is also a lot more flexible now. I'm planning on updating the blog this weekend once I'm better situated in my dorm. I have artists already picked out, so it's just a matter of putting metaphorical ink to metaphorical pages. See you then!

EDIT: Whoops, seems I didn't end up having enough time to post this past weekend. My bad. I'll upload the post once I'm done with classes today.

Hiatus

Hello everybody! I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm taking a brief hiatus from the blog while on vacation. Tomorrow, I'm flying out to Dublin to go visit my sister. I'll be back home in Washington on the 16th, but will then be headed back to Texas for school on the 19th. I don't expect to have decent internet either in Dublin or en route to Texas, so there probably won't be any blog updates for a while. Hopefully, I can get something online on the 17th or 18th, but otherwise it could be a while before I'm free to post something new.

Guitarman out.

The Protomen

I had planned to do this feature on the 17th, actually, but real life started hitting hard and fast. That weekend, one of my cousins from California visited. The next weekend, I went to see one of my brothers who flew over from his post at the Pentagon. I have also been desperately making vacation preparations. Next week, I'll be flying off to Dublin to go stay with my sister for a week. Since I won't have much internet access over there, I figured I needed to get something out ASAP. So, here I am. Let's get down to business.

This week, I'm featuring The Protomen. Oh boy, where do I even start with these guys. Well, they're a rock group hailing from Nashville, Tennessee and have been active (in some form or another) since 2003. The band currently contains a whopping nine members whose real names are unknown. Their claim to fame? They've crafted a rock opera inspired by the original Mega Man games on the NES. The Protomen have released two parts of the planned trilogy (their eponymous debut, and its follow up "The Father of Death"), and are working on the third. Each album forms a coherent story (The Father of Death is a prequel) with the musical genre shifting as appropriate. The apocalyptic Act I plays out like a lo-fi, punk rock, chip-tune take on Queen. Act II opens as a Western musical but closes as an 80's rock concert (the transition occurring during the instrumental "How the World Fell Under Darkness," and symbolizing the mechanization of society under Dr. Wily's rule).

I'll grant that the band is far from perfect in terms of technical skill. Some of their guitar leads in Act II are uninspired at best. There are moments where the vocals in Act I are uncomfortably off pitch. Act I also contains some audio artifacts (including a particularly jarring one somewhere in the middle of "Due Vendetta") that should have been eliminated somewhere in the process. Additionally, while Act I is intentionally lo-fi, the audible peaking (especially with the drums) can be headache inducing at sufficient volume.

Despite their flaws (which are certainly fewer in their recent output), The Protomen have created a convincing and emotionally compelling dystopian imagining of freaking Mega Man. Why? I have no idea, but I'm glad they did. Even in tracks where their musicianship falls a little short, their vision manages to still shine through. It's the strength of the band's vision and their storytelling that makes their epic such a captivating listen. You don't have to be a fan of Mega Man, driven by nostalgia (like me), to enjoy this. You just have to be interested in hearing a story told through songs. It's a tale of a man whose noble aims end up the undoing of all that he loved. It's the tale of cynicism versus idealism, of hope versus pessimism, of brother versus brother. At the end of the day, it's a tale that asks if humanity, jaded and indifferent, is truly worth saving. Give it a listen, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Thunder Down Under (round 2)

Yes, I basically just reused one of my older titles. No, I don't care. I promised an update this weekend, and I have to wake up in about eight hours to go to work. Not ideal writing conditions, but I'll roll with it.

Remember that band Blackwater Fever I featured a while ago? They were the slow, dark blues band hailing from Australia. Well, tonight's band is basically their foil. Introducing The Fumes.

Hailing from Sidney, Australia, The Fumes are a blues rock band with a very special place in my heart. They three albums under their belts at this point, but their debut opus, "Guns of Gold," is what I'd like to talk about today. The Fumes started out with a fairly simple plan of attack: use delta blues as a foundation, play with a punk rock attitude, and turn the fuzz and distortion to eleven. It's a winning formula that keeps Guns of Gold relevant a decade after its initial release. Guns of Gold is quality blues-based hard rock from start to finish, sprinkled with a refreshing amount of variety. You get acoustic numbers like Postman's Inn, the nearly-seven-minutes-long heavy stomp of Tell Your Story Walking, the long-lost ZZ Top crunch of Down River, and the epic closer Johnny the Lion Slayer. The album does get a little long in the tooth, with a total runtime over an hour, and with three of the fourteen songs going for more than six minutes. They definitely could have made more of an impact by trimming some of that fat, but I'm not going to complain too long about too much of a good thing here. Guns of Gold is certainly worth your time, as is the more "mature" follow up, Sundancer. I haven't listened to the third album, Bloodless, yet, but I'm a little hesitant after the stinker single "Dance in Costume," released after their second album. Then again, I didn't see that song on Bloodless, so I think the coast is clear. Think they learned their lesson (the song was really quite bad).

Anyways, so that's The Fumes. Go check them out if you like blues and/or hard rock. There's plenty of both in their catalog. I'll see if I can get another feature out next weekend. Wish me luck!

Guitarman out.

A Belated Sit-rep

Is it really July already? Considering I've been AWOL from ROTGM for so long now, I feel I should explain my absence. Some time in February, I was let go from my internship at an advertising firm. Long story short, they finally ran out of work to give me and we parted on good terms. That internship was only supposed to last through the middle of August, so I was really just happy I managed to hold onto it for more than twice as long as planned. Granted, this meant going back to job searching, which (combined with finals in May) really clamped down on the time I could use to track down music for ROTGM.

Once I got back from college for the year, I started working at a temp agency in my home town. The temp agency connected me with a factory gig working on prosthetic limbs. Not exactly my cup of tea, I thought, but hey it would pay the bills. Unfortunately, this job goes from seven am three-thirty pm, and is carried out basically in silence. We all wear earplugs on site, so idle conversation isn't particularly easy to pull off. There's a radio playing somewhere, but it's so distant that it's mostly drowned out by ambient noise. As a result, I basically sit at a table all day hoping that A.) I don't set myself on fire (a fairly common occurrence there) and B.) that I don't go insane from lack of music. It's not so much a difficult job as it is an utterly soul-crushing one. Silence for eight hours, interrupted occasionally by the sounds of me freaking out because I set my hand on fire again with the blowtorch (we don't change gloves between rubbing shoulder supports down with alcohol and using a blowtorch to melt scratches on those supports, so our hands are extra flammable). Basically, I've been too bloody drained these days to think of much interesting to say on ROTGM.

Regardless, I wish to make it known that I do have some updates planned for the next few weekends. I have some bands I'd like to feature here, and it's just a matter of having enough time to do those spotlights properly. I'll be back in a few days with more than just a status update.

Guitarman out.

My Generation

Hello everyone. I've been running this little blog operation for a few years now, and I've been growing increasingly uncomfortable that it hasn't been living up to its name Ramblings of the Guitarman. Sure, I'm still Guitarman, have been since high school and will be until the day I'm pushing up daisies. However, I'm not sure I've done much in the way of rambling here. I didn't intend this blog to be just an intermittent stream of music recommendations (although I certainly enjoy doing those posts). Instead, I initially intended this blog to be a resting place for my musings that I could never (before) find an audience for. I'll still post band recommendations and music spotlights, but expect a few more unfocused posts on music, politics and philosophy from here on. I really like doing things like my political conversation etiquette post, so you'll be seeing more of that kind of stuff here. Now then, it's time I stopped beating around the bush. I promised I'd talk about "music and the generation gap" in the title, so here we go.

First, some background to this discussion. I live in Washington state and go to college in Texas. Since food on campus is grotesquely expensive, I prefer to have my car with me when I'm at school. That way I'm not stuck with three dollar packages of instant ramen (those prices are basically highway robbery). I could whine more about Aramark's harmful monopoly on campus cuisine, but I digress. My home in Washington state is a good 2,200 miles away from my college in Texas, which makes for some rather extensive road trips. Every spring, my dad books a flight down to meet me and we begin the several day process of driving halfway across the country back to Washington. I pride myself in my car's music collection, so we can drive four or so days without listening to the same song twice. Choosing music for these road trips, however, is something of a challenge.

There's a rather large age gap between my father and me. Furthermore, my dad basically stopped listening to the radio sometime around 1980, as he came back from deployment in the navy to discover that radio stations developed a fairly unhealthy obsession with rap music. As such, it's a bit of a struggle finding music that we can both appreciate on equal terms. This isn't to say that I dislike the classics. My silver briefcase of CDs is filled with pages of the Doobie Brothers, the Guess Who, Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, all that good stuff. My father also really appreciates AC/DC, which is a godsend on road trips since they make perfect driving music. The problem is that so many of my older albums don't make for particularly good driving music. If I put on something like the greatest hits of the Quicksilver Messenger Service, it doesn't matter how much we both like the band. When you're staring down three-hundred miles of straight road with no buildings or cars in sight, half an hour of that stuff and we're both out like a light.

Once I run out of classic hard rock, those albums with universal appeal and boundless energy, things start getting somewhat tense in the car. My natural inclination is to start playing metal. I have a large assortment of metal albums in my car since the stuff makes for phenomenal phenomenal night driving music. I don't think it's really possible to fall asleep to Carcass, after all. However, this is my dad I'm riding with. Death metal and black metal aren't going to cut it here. I needed something with clean vocals and melody, maybe a nice groove too. On this latest voyage back to the evergreen state, I put on some Goatsnake and Gloryhammer to serenade us with bluesy doom metal and cheesy power metal respectively. Here, I'll post some samples. Give them a listen before you continue reading.

It would suffice to say that these albums did not go over particularly well. However, to stop with such a cop-out description would defeat the point of this post. When both albums were done, my dad turned to me and started speaking with that most loaded of opening statements: "Now, don't take this the wrong way, but..." Oh boy, I thought, here it comes. What he ultimately said (after the usual cries of "where's the melody," "metal is too Satanic for me," and "that guy is just chanting 'I killed him' (was actually saying 'a killing floor', which is both the name of the song and a classic blues motif), etc.) was the inspiration for this blog post.

The general idea of my dad's argument is that we will forever gravitate towards the music that sounds familiar to us, which varies based on both life circumstances and one's date of birth. My dad prefers bands like the Beach Boys and Bob Seger because they remind him of his childhood. That kind of music was instrumental in developing his musical tastes, which have solidified with age. The end product is a sort of generation gap for musical appreciation. If something sounds too different to what we listened to growing up, we reject it as just noise and then precede to bemoan the state of the music industry. After all, he argued, we all just really pursue our comfort zone.

Unsurprisingly for longtime readers of this blog, I balked at his suggestion that I too would one day become a musical dogmatist asserting that music died the day it stopped sounding like the soundtrack to my halcyon days of youth. I certainly saw kernels of truth in his argument, what with my adamant rejection of things like dubstep and autotuned pop music. However, I have enough self-awareness to be able to identify this revulsion at modern music as something other than reluctance to accept the next generation. It's not that I dislike so many modern bands because they differ from what I listened to as a youth. In fact, many of the trends I so dislike in music nowadays have their roots in the stuff I listened to naively as a child, wondering why I wasn't able to "get" these artists so popular with my peers. I may be a musical dogmatist, but for reasons that have nothing to do with my musical generation.

In appreciating music, I am first and foremost a connoisseur of instrumentation. In particular, I greatly enjoy a well-played guitar part. I am, after all, a guitarist; can you blame me? This, not any generational divide, is responsible for my under-appreciation of so many modern artists. I go where the riffs are, and the riffs are often in music that predates me. I gravitate towards songs like Aerosmith's Walk This Way and Carcass's Heartwork because, man, those are some GREAT riffs! They aren't really my generation's riffs, they're just timeless. If I seem like a musical curmudgeon, shaking his cane at all the pop-rock and dubstep kids marching across his lawn, it's because I just can't sate my hunger for guitar riffage from those kinds of music. I don't think it matters quite what generation you come from, your first taste of Hendrix should still be something like a religious experience. I hunger to hear the next distant horizon someone will take us to through the guitar. Hopefully, when that happens, I won't miss it from wallowing in nostalgia. I don't want something like a generation gap to stop me from appreciating the next great step in rock, in metal, in blues. Admittedly, if the guitar ever stops being given its due as the king of instruments, as the face of rock, then you'll see me eating these words. I'm happy with whatever generation's music appreciates the guitar, and I want a rather large gap between myself and any generation that seeks to ignore it.

Guitarman out.

Sinister roots

Hello, everyone, and happy Easter to you!

As I mentioned over on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/rotgm/), Lincoln Durham's latest album, Revelations of a Mind Unraveling, dropped on the 25th. It's been about three years since his sophomore effort, Exodus of the Deemed Unrighteous, and four years since his debut album, The Shovel vs. The Howling Bones.

First, some more background. Lincoln Durham is a native Texan who tours as a one-man band. His style on his previous albums was a vigorous blend of olden southern Americana. Durham's music is as much founded in bluegrass as in blues, and his records are filled with fiddles, banjos and mandolins accenting his powerful yet loose guitar playing. His first album, The Shovel vs. The Howling Bones, captured my with its stomping riffs and tasty slide guitar. On the other hand, his sophomore effort, Exodus of the Deemed Unrighteous, put Durham's vocals front and center. Durham had sounded like a seasoned blues singer on his debut; his second album saw him attack his microphone like a fire and brimstone preacher. His performance was dynamic, soulful, and one of the only times I've seen spoken word passages actually benefit an album.

So, how does his latest album measure up? Revelations of a Mind Unraveling confused me before I even pushed play for the first time. The album artwork was such a stark departure from the others. Here it is put next to the previous two.

Confusion about the sudden palette change aside, Revelations is one heck of an album. Like Exodus, it's rather short at just shy of 32 minutes. It's by far the darkest and most experimental of his albums so far. The balladry of Shovel and Exodus is kept to a bare minimum here. There are certainly no love songs this time, either. Instead, we get such cheery numbers as "Rage and Fire and Brimstone," "Bones," "Rusty Knife," "Noose," and the uncomfortably titled "Bleed Until You Die." Yikes. The most upbeat track is the gleeful pagan bluegrass of "Gods of Wood and Stone."

The guitar work, though not the emphasis of the album, has a noticeably more modern edge to it at times. If anything, it sounds at times like the blues-meets-punk assault favored by the White Stripes, although with a considerably more traditional approach. As expected, Durham knocks the vocals out of the park with a mastery and fervor that simply can't be topped. The spoken word sections make a comeback, although considerably more blended with the sung passages than on Exodus. They're also kept to a relative minimum. Durham isn't content to simply tell you stories here like he was on Exodus. Instead, he sells his lyrics with positively manic delivery and righteous conviction.

It's not quite like his previous albums, but once again Durham delivers the goods. I can safely recommend this to fans of Exodus of the Deemed Unrighteous, fans of the White Stripes and anyone interested in hearing new takes on classic American genres. You won't regret it.

Until next time. Guitarman, out.

An (open) mind is a terrible thing to waste

"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend." ~ Thomas Jefferson

The American election season is a terribly divisive time, rife with groundless animosity and the parading of one's questionable dogma of choice. In the spirit of this time of contention, I'm going to take a moment to talk about politics. Sort of. I'm actually going to cover the act of talking about politics. Specifically, I'm going to share some pointers on how to actually have some civilized discourse instead of a pointless shouting match. These points aren't limited to political discussion, and are just generally helpful to keep in mind.

#1.) Be aware of the reasons for your beliefs. You aren't going to be able to talk meaningfully about what you believe if you can't explain why you believe.

#2.) Genuinely want to understand the other person's views. If you don't actually make an effort to understand the other person's views, you're kind of an ass if you still expect them to pay attention to yours. You should make mutual understanding one of your highest priorities in a discussion. You should shoot for a dialogue, not a monologue. Let the other person speak, and actively listen to what they're saying. Ask questions to clarify their position. People generally enjoy being the subject of honest curiosity in this context.

#3.) Be open-minded. My fields of study are economics and philosophy. If there's one thing I've learned in either field, it's that assumptions make it easier to fit reality into tidy little models. If there's a second thing I've learned, it's that the tidier the model is, the less that model will actually correlate with reality in any meaningful way. If you want to have a meaningful discussion on a topic like politics, you need to be willing to admit that your assumptions aren't unassailable.

#4.) Be polite, dammit. The world is a bizarrely complicated place, and it's quite easy for equally intelligent people to come to completely different conclusions on something. Don't equate disagreement with stupidity. Be respectful even if you're talking with someone who appears completely incapable of grasping logical truths (such as "A is true if B is true" being equivalent to "if B is not true, A is also not true"). Feel free to point out problematic logic and incorrect facts, but be respectful about it. Make sure to keep your language as polite as possible at all times, because inflamed tempers will quickly undo any efforts at a civilized discourse.

#5.) Keep your arguments relevant to the other person. An atheist will not care that the book of Leviticus declares male homosexual intercourse to be an abomination (Lev. 18:22), so it's not relevant if you're arguing with an atheist about whether same-sex marriage should be legal. A person is more likely to listen to an argument that is compatible with their own views. This is one reason why it is so crucial to understand why the other person believes what they do. By understanding where they're coming from, you'll be able to figure out how to actually respond to their beliefs. If you try using an argument fundamentally incompatible with the other person's worldview, you aren't going to get anywhere productive.

EDIT: I initially said "try only to use arguments that are compatible with the assumptions held by the other person." That's not what I had intended to say. There's nothing wrong with arguing against a person's assumptions, save for the fact that people generally don't like the process of carefully reexamining their beliefs. That's why so many people found Socrates so bloody annoying. Just keep in mind that arguments are more persuasive when they don't require people to actually change their fundamental beliefs. When you align an argument with the other person's basic assumptions, you are only trying to persuade them of a single thing. When you make an argument that contradicts the other person's basic assumptions, you are trying to persuade them of multiple things simultaneously, hence the increased difficulty.

#6.) Stick to the facts. When possible, name specific studies and evidence for your position. When you don't know something for certain, admit your lack of knowledge. Never attempt to use rumor, popular opinion, baseless speculation, appeals to authorities, etc. as substitutes for actual evidence. Be honest about the difference between what you know to be true (and can verify) and what you believe to be true (and cannot verify).

So there you have it. Understand the source of your beliefs and the beliefs of the other person. Keep an open mind and a respectful attitude. Only present the facts you can verify and the arguments that matter to the other person. Finally, I'd like to add one final piece of advice:

#7.) It's about learning, not winning. One conversation on politics is probably not going to cause someone to throw out their entire political worldview. Opinions tend to change fairly slowly. As such, you shouldn't expect someone to be converted to your dogma of choice after presenting your case. Don't make that your goal. Instead, just try to learn why the other person thinks what they do. Share your views, and let your views be challenged. You'll be happier and wiser for it.

I'll post again soon, with music this time. Today marks the start of my Spring break, and I plan to make up for the lack of a February post and then some. Until then, may your political discussions be rational, productive and enjoyable. Guitarman, out.

New year, same gig

Happy intensely belated new year. Now that I have recovered from this weekend's shenanigans (flat tire repair, work gone awry, my 21st birthday), I'm ready to ring in the new-ish year a month late with some quality music. I have a lot of music to go through today and not quite as much time as I'd like, so I'll make this a bit briefer than I probably should.

Before I get to the music, though, I'd like to talk on the subject of harsh vocals in metal. You might notice that the music I'm featuring today is strewn with all manner of screams, rasps, growls, barks and snarls. This was intentional, and it's to make a point. It should come as no surprise to my audience at this point that I'm something of a metalhead. I can't help it; so much of the best guitar-work is found in metal, progressive rock, blues and flamenco. I simply listen to whatever has the most interesting or exciting guitar parts. Few genres these days are as guitar-driven as metal, from the treble-heavy blast strumming of black metal to the crunchy grooves of death metal. There is, however, something of a price of entry to the more hard-edged stuff in metal: the vocals. For the longest time, I simply chose to avoid harsh vocals in metal. Payoff be damned, I simply couldn't stomach screams or...whatever those black metal vocalists were doing (it just sounded like irritable stage whispering to me). I think the record that opened my mind a little was Lost in the Sound of Separation, by Underoath. It's not an album I return to often anymore, though. What really changed my mind to harsh vocals in metal was hearing Amon Amarth's single War of the Gods (from Surtur Rising) for the first time.

THAT was a gamechanger. I hadn't heard quality death metal before, let alone death metal with MELODY. The use of harsh vocals in music finally clicked with me. Amon Amarth was using the human voice (to great effect, I might add) as a percussion instrument, and not as an additional source of melody. It needed to be a gruff growl and snarl in order to not distract from the guitar lines in the treble. It needed to be abrasive to project any kind of power with that low of a pitch. The vocals took getting used to, but they made sense. I could accept that, and I'm glad I did.

What I'm trying to say here is that there is both logic behind these more abrasive vocals, and (more importantly) a MASSIVE payoff for acclimating oneself to them. Oh boy, is there ever a payoff!

Introducing Wilderun's sophomore album, Sleep at the Edge of the Earth.

This album is, without hesitation, my favorite of all the records I've encountered. It has folk instrumentation, beautiful clean vocals, blast beats, brilliant arrangements, excellent pacing, a sense of groove and of melody. It has harsh vocals. Basically, this is what would happen if we took Opeth, removed the 70's prog influences and replaced those with folk music. The result is majestic and should NOT be skipped over. This is the album I'd suggest for acclimating oneself to harsh vocals in metal. It's an extremely palatable blend of melody with black metal and death metal, and I'd recommend it to people who do not consider themselves metal fans at all. I have yet to show this to someone, metal fan or not, and have them dislike it. I could ramble on for hours about how much I love this album, but I'd rather just let the music speak for itself. It's not free, but it's worth every freaking cent and then some. You can pick it up from their Bandcamp page HERE. It's only $7 USD minimum, and it's worth so much more.

For someone looking for a bit less bombast and way more oomph and strange puns, we have Slugdge.

As much as I love these guys, I am not advocating using them as your gateway to extreme metal unless you're already fine with harsh vocals. Slugdge is freaking heavy, with a potent mixture of blackened sludgy death for your listening pleasure. No, they're more an example of the long-term payoff for acclimating yourself to extreme metal. They're also a pretty way to just jump straight into the deep end rather than sticking your toes in the water with Wilderun. If you're already a fan of the headier brews metal has to offer, then you'll feel right at home with Slugdge. They're creative, brutal, and highly entertaining. They also write all their songs about slugs bringing about the end times, which is frankly hilarious. Give them a shot at their Bandcamp page HERE. Their entire discography is available with a name your own price offer with no minimum price, after all, so there's no reason not to give them a shot if you (like me) are a fan of what they're peddling.