Alive, but trembling

Hello. Every now and then, I tend to post something here to the effect of "I'm still alive, and I haven't abandoned the blog." This may be an "I'm alive" post, but the connotation is a little different this time. Today should have been a fairly normal day. I had a few interviews scheduled, and returned to my apartment to grab lunch between them. I left the apartment at 12:15 for my second interview, and returned around 1:40. My intention was to stop by my apartment, change out of my suit into more comfortable clothes, and head out again to go grocery shopping. Instead, I found my apartment inaccessible.

Police barricades cut off that entire side of the block.

Unbeknownst to me, three incidents had occurred in my brief absence. The first was a minor collision, blocking some traffic. The second followed from the first, with an 18-wheeler backing over the car behind it (well, under it, but you get my point). Apparently, there weren't any critical injuries in either of those cases. That can't really be said of incident #3. In the third incident, which was apparently unrelated to the others, a man was shot in the stomach about a minute's walk from where I sleep every night. On learning that, from the comfort of a Starbucks a few minutes away, I started shaking for reasons other than the unneeded caffeine.

I've lived most of my life in a pretty quiet neighborhood with little in the way of danger. My sister's car window was smashed once, and some possessions stolen, but I certainly never felt that my life was in peril. On moving to a new city, I'm about a month into my new life before someone gets shot in the stomach half a block away mere minutes after I leave. So yes, I am still alive.

Alive, but trembling.

Guitarman, out.

Transitions

You've probably noticed that I've been less than active lately. I don't really have time to post a review today, but I figured that I at least owe my readers an explanation for my relative silence. I graduated with my BA in international economics and philosophy on the 13th, and moved into my new apartment on the 19th. Lately, I've been using most of my time on the hunt for employment, and haven't had time to write here. Hopefully this'll change once I get a job and a stable schedule. I have a few interviews lined up for actuarial and financial positions, so hopefully I'll get my foot in the door somehow. Once I do, I'll be sure to keep you updated.

Until then,

Guitarman

Finals, finals, finals

With my final undergrad semester coming to an end, I've been kept pretty busy. Between working on term papers and searching for employment, I haven't exactly had much time to post here. Thankfully, there's a bit of a lull at the moment, so I've come to share some avant-garde metal goodness with you.

Hailing from Poland, Ketha play metal with prog sensibilities and a strong underlying groove. #!%16.7, the EP I've linked above, wastes nary a moment of your time, and clocks in at around 16 minutes over 12 tracks. In reality, it plays more like one song in twelve parts than a collection of short songs. The musicianship is excellent, the grooves are airtight, and the brass section is just right. I recommend it highly.

Until next time, Guitarman out.

Obscure and worth it

Today I'd like to introduce you to a fun little band that, unfortunately, never really took off: Dark Hall. Dark Hall is, or rather was, an instrumental jazz fusion group from the late 90's. They released a total of three demos, one with their original lineup and two more after changing guitarists. In the end, Dark Hall never actually released an album, and I've only been able to track down their last demo (their self-titled effort from 1998) and one track from their 1994 demo Solace.

You might be wondering why I'm so interested in this non-starter of a band from the 90's. One answer is that Dark Hall was simply great at what they did. For demos, the five tracks of theirs floating around are well mastered and impeccably performed. This wasn't exactly amateur night, and Dark Hall had a rather noteworthy cast of talent. Dark Hall started as a trio with Steve Di Giorgio on bass, Chris Dugan on drums and Flamp Sorvari on flute and saxophone, adding Eric Cutler on guitar in time for their first demo. Now, I haven't been able to find much information on Flamp Sorvari or Ken Schultz (the band's replacement for Eric Cutler on guitar in '95). However, the rest are associated with some fairly high profile acts of their own. Chris Dugan is known less for his musicianship and more for his work as an audio engineer, working with Green Day from American Idiot to Revolution Radio. That probably goes a long way towards explaining the high audio quality of the demo. Founding guitarist Eric Cutler (not to be confused with the opera singer of the same name) is also a founding member of Autopsy, a rather legendary death metal band. Steve Di Giorgio is probably the most prolific of the bunch, playing bass guitar for a slew of metal legends, from Autopsy to Death to Testament to Control Denied.

On the video I've embedded in this post, the first four songs are their 1998 demo Dark Hall, with the last track being from their 1994 debut Solace (meaning Eric Cutler is on guitar, rather than Ken Schultz). You can pick them up for free at the band's ReverbNation page here: https://www.reverbnation.com/artist/downloads/3622154. According to the band's write up, they're "in the planning stages for a new recording." I, for one, wouldn't get your hopes up too high, though. They've been in the "planning stages" since 2013, and we haven't heard a peep from them since. They could actually be making something new, but I dunno. It's quite possible that we'll have to content ourselves with their killer demo in the meantime.

By the way, if you have some obscure band that you think deserves a little more coverage, let me know so I can feature it. I can be reached at my email, askguitarman@gmail.com. Until next time, Guitarman out.

Soon

So, you may have noticed that I've been conspicuously absent since December. I would like to apologize for that. I try to post at least once a month, but things don't always work out in my favor. This is my last semester as an undergraduate student, and I've been extremely busy with paper writing, job hunting and life planning. That being said, I'm currently home for spring break. Since I have a brief reprieve from my deadlines, I'm going to make an effort to post a few times before I head back to school on the 18th. I've already chosen some of the bands I'd like to cover, and am looking forward to sharing them with you soon.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated

Hello again, world. For a good while, I wasn't sure if I would ever post here again. Quite a few things have changed since my last post. I changed jobs, my mom is moving to a new neighborhood, my sister is living in a different country (follow her Irish escapades on her blog: The Novelest). I'm doing what I can to balance a full course-load, a ten-hour workweek and various forms of impending doom (midterms, papers, floods, etc.). Basically, the ol' blog got put on the backburner for far longer than I had anticipated. At the end of the day, though, I don't want Ramblings of the Guitarman to be some project I toyed with for a while and then abandoned. I may not get much in the way of traffic here, but I'm fairly fond of having my own little corner of the interwebs. I'm not going to do something irresponsible like promise regular updates and then leave you all hanging for another year, but I will do my best to keep the site updated. It might not be all band reviews, but I should find something to put here every now and then.

With that in mind, I have a treat for all two of my readership who comes here for music stuff and not just because they typed in "rotgm" instead of "rotmg" when looking for info on Realm of the Mad God (yes, I am aware that the similarity makes it really hard to actually find this blog; no, I am far too fond of the acronym to consider changing it this far in). Here's some free music!


While I admit to not actually finding them myself (I found them through Angry Metal Guy, and his excellent self-titled blog), Iron Thrones is too good of a band for me to skip over. This Minneapolis-based metal outfit disbanded back in 2012, but produced two killer albums back when they were still active. They somehow managed to combine prog-y melodeath with metalcore, of all things, and the result is far more coherent than you might expect. In case you were wondering which half of the equation is more responsible for the songwriting, take a gander at the track lengths. We're talking as long as 12 minutes in some cases, and they go by effortlessly (no small feat, that). This is a band that could transition with effortless grace from beautiful prog arrangements to crushing breakdowns and back again. Their second album, The Wretched Sun, features the usual clean/hardcore vocal transitions you might expect of this type of music, but their first album, Visions of Light, manages with only the hardcore half of the package. Oddly enough, the music doesn't suffer for it. You'd think that maintaining the same vocal delivery over such varied musical passages would in some way be detrimental to the flow of songs, but it actually works here. The vocals variously wash over or pummel through the listener, as called for by the song.

This is the part of the review where I'd usually try and justify my title of Guitarman by commenting on the axe-work employed by Iron Thrones. It's certainly impressive, but it's so far divorced from my area of expertise that I find it difficult to comment on. The playing is tight, and there are certainly some some memorable riffs here (the main riff from Heart of the Light, for example), but riffs really aren't the focus. This isn't a band that writes a riff, puts a song around it, and then slaps on a guitar solo for good measure. The focus is more on chord progressions, rhythms and the vocals than on any given riff. I suppose that might be a product of the band's metalcore influences, and I do appreciate that it keeps the prog half from getting too self-indulgent. Iron Thrones writes good songs, not just good riffs, which is a nice change of pace from the Dream-Theater-clone-of-the-week type of progressive metal we usually get. All in all, I highly recommend Iron Thrones to fans of progressive music looking for something a little more raw, and to fans of metalcore looking for something a touch more layered and complex. I'd recommend Iron Thrones to all of you, actually, so long as you don't mind harsh vocals. I get that they're an acquired taste, but one well worth the price of admission in my humble opinion. Give them a spin at their Bandcamp page, ironthrones.bandcamp.com, for free downloads of both Visions of Light and The Wretched Sun. Alternatively, if you're feeling particularly lazy, just use the widgets I linked earlier in this post.


Until next time,
Guitarman

News, and some music

As I sit here at my kitchen table, typing away on my laptop, I can hardly believe what a crazy summer this has been. I've put on a garage sale, worked in a government cubicle, washed cars, and even received a car of my own. More importantly, I'm adjusting to the reality that my family is finally selling my childhood home. I've known for a while that this would happen eventually, but foreknowledge has done little to ultimately lessen the strangeness of the situation. Moving out of the home I've lived in for as long as I can remember is a frankly surreal experience, and certainly not one I know how to process. Getting ready to move has occupied my time and thoughts this summer, but now that the house is actually going on the market I think it's time I try and get on with my life. For all the memories I associate with this house, it's still just stuff in the end. No sense in getting so hung-up about it, I suppose. Anyways, on with the music. Introducing Alestorm, a Scottish metal band with a pirate fixation. There's a curious tendency of some metal bands (especially power and folk metal groups) to intentionally restrict their lyrical and thematic content to a single topic. From what I've seen, that topic is generally either the medieval ages (the typical setting of high fantasy) or vikings (which makes sense considering how many great Scandinavian metal bands there are). Alestorm, on the other hand, is the only metal group I've seen to have pirates as their central thematic element. The group hammers out well polished power/folk metal, with accordion synths adding to the band's pirate-esque feel. There are more straightforward metal numbers (the guitar harmonics on the track Heavy Metal Pirates reminds me of some classic Judas Priest numbers), but the vast majority of Alestorm songs are littered with faux-accordion, Bowes' gruff Scottish accent, and a certain lightheartedness that separates Alestorm from the crowd. The lyrics, despite being limited to pirate-y things, are genuinely clever and often hilarious ("You put your faith in Odin and Thor, / We put ours in cannons and whores"). At first glance, Alestorm has put themselves into a very narrow box by restricting themselves to songs about pirates. In truth, the band exercises more flexibility than most metal groups I've come across, switching freely between tropes of power metal, folk metal, thrash metal, and even death metal without leaving the listener behind. Alestorm brings well-polished production, creative lyrics, and enough love of fun to the table for me to heartily recommend them. They just released their fourth album (Sunset on the Golden Age) little more than a week ago. Give it a listen, and you might see why I love this group so much.