Broken Play is him, and better yet, it’s more him. Two of his finest moments on here, and across his work, are “My Last Song” a coda as an intro that’s packed with hooks, and “Babychain,” one of his most furious songs that doesn’t stray from his inner heart. “Future Panther” is super thrashy, and the title track goes down some Swedish alleys, like Anti-Cimex running into Nifelheim, getting into a brawl, then making up with a couple more lashes. He embraces the metalpunk he’s always been, making a full-length that’s as furious as his EPs. And in a decade of bangers, Broken Play is his finest work. Or an 88-minute chance, to be precise.Any time Damian Master puts out anything as A Pregnant Light, you know it’s making my list. At the very least, displaying Lulu prominently and proudly in your record collection will certainly act as an interesting talking point, as I discovered when one house guest started chasing me round the garden brandishing the LP sleeve as a makeshift chakram. An overriding conceptual narrative (inspired by bourgeois-baiting German theatre)? The incorporation of classical strings? Ominous existential drones? Check! Check! Check! Its later tracks are particularly rewarding, culminating in the majestic 20-minute closer “Junior Dad”, although it’s doubtful whether certain critics even made it that far, let alone awarding Lulu the repeat listens it requires to unveil its gnarled beauty. Protracted songs based around repetitive, cyclical riffs? Check. Alternatively, think of it as an ambitious post-metal opus. Think of it more as a never-to-be-repeated and utterly idiosyncratic piece of avant-garde conceptual art. Try not to think of Lulu as an orderly continuation in the discography of either the world’s biggest metal band or the beshaded composer of Transformer. The original album never made it to vinyl but it takes up most of Consouling Sound’s posthumous 2-LP “complete recordings” compilation. Christmas’ versatile voice whispers, soars, screams, speaks, screeches, moans, wails and roars, leaving rival metal vocalists trailing in their two-dimensional dust. Most of Christmas’ vocals were captured on first take and for “Cave Of Spleen” she hadn’t even prepared any lyrics, improvising her verses about chipped teeth and bloody mouths on the spot, and bursting into tears by the end of the recording. ![]() Julie Christmas and Josh Graham were in a turbulent on/off relationship during the making of Battle Of Mice’s one full-length ( A Day Of Nights) and the anger and frustration of that situation bled naturally and nastily into its brooding music. One short-lived supergroup was Battle Of Mice which featured members of Red Sparowes, Made Out Of Babies and Book Of Knots. ![]() The fertile post-metal scene has been particularly adept at birthing side-projects and cross-band collaborations. Chin-stroking, philosophizing, studying, meditating, designing architecture or slumping in a beanbag are equally encouraged. Musician and Hydra Head label boss Aaron Turner, meanwhile, preferred to call it “thinking man’s metal.” You can headbang in slow-motion to these records if you like. Despite their slowly unwinding, instrumental songs, Illinois’ Pelican considered themselves to be punk. Several of the post-rockers’ metal counterparts took similar exception to the genre label they’d been assigned. Soon enough, “post-metal” was adopted to describe bands that remolded the boundaries of heavier music by eschewing traditional formulas of metal songwriting and incorporating ambient, psychedelic, avant-garde and drone influences into their extended compositions. ![]() Incidentally, many of them favored biodegradable cardboard CD covers over ’orrible plastic cases. Such bands were influenced by non-rock genres such as jazz, classical and electronica. In the early ‘90s Simon Reynolds coined the term “post-rock” for artists who were using “rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes.” It was applied to a wide array of broadly experimental musicians from Talk Talk to Tortoise whose deconstructed music valued textures and timbres over verse/chorus clichés. Music critics have a peculiar penchant for the prefix “post.” Post-punk.
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