#aelter

...of what’s currently happening in my personal life. For those readers who may be unaware, I’m a dad to three kids who in spite of having a numbnuts father have all managed to develop into rad little human beings, At the beginning of this month, my youngest was rushed to the hospital and without delving into the minutiae of terminology here, it was determined after a two-week hospital stay comparable to existing in the newly expanded lowest circle of hell, that she has an incurable lung disease. Of course no good American tale of triumph over illness is complete without the added fate of the country’s oldest and most profitable racket known as insurance/medical costs. That said, no amount of financial duress or uncertainty is even remotely comparable to the utter dread and possibility of losing a loved one, let alone your own child. Knowing this and knowing that my soon-to-be five-year-old daughter has hugely improved from where we were just three weeks ago is a relief that renders any other potential issues as completely menial on the most subatomic of levels. 

With that, the last few days have seen another unexpected but no less welcomed perspective on the seemingly boundless compassion of humanity and those things I’ve taken for granted within my own life. In the spirit of full disclosure, it would be an obvious exercise in bullshitting of the lowest order for me to say that I’ve embraced optimism as a life principle throughout all trials and tribulations. It would also be dishonest for me to insinuate that my efforts with SfB have been entirely the result of a perfectly executed balancing act between two teaching jobs, several freelance jobs, and the ultimately demanding and invaluably rewarding role of being a father, partner, and a whole host of others to my family. In fact, indicating such a balance on my part would, to be frank, be an outright lie. SfB began in 2012 as the result of what I thought at the time was the most difficult experience I would ever face, but presumptions such as those tend to be our hardest learned lessons and for me that lesson roared into my life with battering ram devastation earlier this month. 

Everything I’ve done with SfB has been the result of absolute dedication, devotion, and a refusal to settle for mediocrity. Though I’ve not succeeded on every level of that focus by any means, the large success I’ve managed to have here has not come without certain sacrifices that until very recently were not entirely clear to me. I wrote a little about the experience of my daughter’s hospital stay on my other non-music blog thing, and while that piece captures the emotional context of what we all endured, it doesn’t speak to what relevance the ordeal has with regards to every other area of my life in the aftermath. Last week, my close friend and colleague, Kim Kelly, did much more than offer up editing guidance or a band contact or a link to an underground metal band on the verge of finally breaking out. Simply put, Kim saw a need in the life of a friend and refused to ignore the issue or hope for the best. What’s more is that Kim quickly became the initial spark for what’s transpired over the last few days with hundreds of people, both friends and strangers, going above and beyond to help with the enormous financial burden that lies ahead of us as we ensure that my daughter has the medical care she needs to manage her illness. You can go here to read more about my daughter and the specifics of the GoFundMe Campaign set up by Kim. 

Aside from what’s been one of the most humbling experiences of my life, the efforts and outpouring of love, support, and encouragement for my little girl have also resulted in a long overdue reality check for myself not only as one of a seemingly infinite number of music writers but more importantly as a father. It’s difficult to express without reservation the kind of emotions I’ve felt over the last month, but above anything else those feelings have led me to a place where I can either completely refocus my dedication to the most irreplaceable parts of my life, or I can continue sacrificing what’s invaluable to me in the name of what has done and will continue to do just fine without me constantly blathering on about it. With all of that, the future of SfB and my work elsewhere is not some hazy unknown where I get to revel in self-obsession. Instead, what lies ahead for me will look quite different as my role as a writer or whatever the hell I am is a cosmically distant second to those I’ve been graciously afforded by the universe (and biology). 

Again, this is not some self-loathing retreat into domestic obscurity. SfB is not going away by any means. Features will simply be much fewer in number with more time between and, to be quite honest, the adage of quality over quantity has never looked more wonderfully welcoming. Closing out this bloated introduction/announcement thing, I want to express my gratitude, love, and appreciation for any of you who’ve read, shared, liked, hated, commented on, re-tweeted, or simply but most worthwhile of all engaged with me here or elsewhere to talk about not just metal but the amazing and irreplaceable commonalities we have with all music regardless of our respective and beautifully varying genders, cultures, languages, races, interests, or individual identities. If nothing else, the last few days have reconfirmed my suspicion all along that music has been and will continue to be long after we’re gone the ultimate conduit for humanity at its most honestly beautiful. Thank you all so much again for everything you’ve done to support me, the site, and now most importantly my family. 

No monthly roundup would be worth a damn, of course, without an actual roundup of my favorite releases (I was able to fully absorb) this month so for your reading pleasure:

SIX THINGS TO HEAR

Abyss: Heretical Anatomy (20 Buck Spin)

Click here to read SfB’s review (and exclusive stream) of the outstanding full-length debut from Toronto-based death metallers Abyss.

Acid King: Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere (Svart)

Sometimes a band grows up, but more often than not a band simply grows old. In terms of metal band shelf life, it’s likely that no subgenre has drawn more criticism (both fair and not) for wearing out its welcome than stoner metal. Adding to that scrutiny is the admittedly fickle nature of metal fandom where yesterday’s love affair with a band is oftentimes today’s arbitrary dismissal. San Francisco’s Acid King have had an inarguably profound impact on doom/stoner metal, and while the word “influence” seems invariably paired with longevity, no amount of time necessitates artistic merit or even a viable contribution to the genre itself. With that, the inadvertent pressure for a band like Acid King while somewhat undeserved is in many ways a more significant glimpse of the broader spectrum for the genre itself and the relationship it shares with fans and critics with regards to longevity and relevance.For the Bay Area threesome that pressure is wholly absent on their fourth and best full-length to date, Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere. 

The two decades since their eponymous debut with Zoroaster have served the slow-burn band the kind of compositional maturity as rare as it is fully realized. While the three releases prior to Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere are not without due praise, this album represents a remarkable step forward for Acid King as opposed to the lateral safe route embraced by many of their contemporaries in stoner/doom metal. Vocalist/guitarist Lori S. has never sounded as confident with both her instruments as she does now ten years after what appeared to be the band’s last full-length. Contributing their own invaluable musicianship are drummer Joey Osbourne and bassist Mark Lamb, both of whom work in impressively executed lock-step with their bandmate as she belts out each track with the kind of power and force that commands the attention and well-deserved accolades that continue to establish the band as one of the genre’s finest. Read SfB’s interview with Lori S. here for more.  

Aelter: Aelter IV: Love Eternal (Pesanta Urfolk)

Read SfB’s review and listen to the exclusive stream of one of the year’s most noteworthy releases with the fourth full-length from Blake Green’s (Wolvserpent) solo project.

Bell Witch: Four Phantoms (Profound Lore)

With their full-length debut, Seattle’s two-man funeral doom act Bell Witch provided a compelling and unique perspective that immediately stood out from the band’s peers. For all its singular execution, 2012’s Longing now seems like a precursory glimpse of what was to come with this year’s phenomenal Four Phantoms, a four-track rendering of some of the most devastatingly morose and all the while captivating funeral doom in years. With each track topping the ten-minute mark, Four Phantoms is a risky endeavor even considering the near expectation for longwinded compositional tendencies for bands operating within the respective subgenre.

Beginning with the twenty-two minute opus “Suffocation, A Burial: I – Awoken (Breathing Teeth),” the album is meticulously fine-tuned with astonishing precision given the sprawling nature of each song. The kind of reticent and pensive context in which many funeral doom bands operate is often given to a kind of tedium in the listener where the payoff is nowhere near what the setup would indicate. With these songs however, the deliberate pacing is the album’s masterstroke with the music never showing its hand until necessitated by the context of those sounds which surround it. Even then the songs don’t resort to forced or predictable explosive bombast but rather operate in a haunting cycle of coiling and recoiling, alternating brilliantly between the monolithic and the muted.   

Bosse-De-Nage: All Fours (Profound Lore)

Labeled with the somewhat shortsighted moniker of post-black metal (whatever the hell that is), San Francisco’s Bosse-De-Nage have largely distanced themselves from that or any constraint of genre by simply embracing a myriad of sounds without resorting to the lazy aping of any of them. A difficult endeavor in any musical context, compositional versatility demands not only a broad knowledge of those influences; it more importantly requires a more than cursory understanding of how those varying sounds operate not when thrown together with abandon but synched in a kind of complementary medium that works to highlight each individual component while maintaining the larger integrity of the music as a whole. The four-member group has largely adhered to the black metal MO with their aversion to the press and publicity, and while the reasoning for that obscurity for many bands has its origins in the mysterious ethos of the subgenre itself, Bosse-De-Nage seem genuinely inclined to let the music speak or in this case rage with unmitigated ferocity and sonic complexity.

By and large, black metal has the tendency to be its own worst enemy from a musical perspective, which is to say nothing of its more than somewhat sketchy history. Blast beats are neat, sure, and paired alongside all manner of howls ranging from what sounds authentically unsettling to what more or less sounds like a herd of cats going apeshit in the middle of a snowstorm, the subgenre has offered a whole host of delightfully bleak things to listen to. Within that realm of redundancy, Bosse-De-Nage’s music remains deservedly remarkable and no more so than on their fourth and arguably best release thus far, All Fours. Eight tracks deep and rarely offering any kind of reprieve from the onslaught of its music, the album is more post-bullshit than it is post-anything else thanks to song structures that don’t as much revel in their complexity as they capitalize on the potential such a myriad of sounds would inevitably offer when executed with as much relentless instinct as they are with absolute focus.

Monolord: Vænir (Riding Easy)

Compared to the likes of YOB and Sleep, Monolord seemed destined to fall short of expectation before their excellent sophomore release Vænir even reached listeners. Though the accuracy of those comparisons is questionable (just given the chasm of difference between those two bands alone), Monolord succeeds with unquestionably extraordinary distinction on the six tracks here. Based in the seeming infinitely creative wellspring of Gothenburg, Monolord’s brand of stoner/doom metal is almost an immediate departure from what might be an anticipatory instinct for the majority of acts gambling within such a well-worn context.

impact primarily due to members Brittany McConnell (violins/drums) and Blake Green’s (guitar/vocals) incorporation of native folk melodic accents into the otherwise opaque density of their sound. While that sense of space is carried over in his solo project Aelter, the dynamic is evocatively bare with Green further showcasing his versatility both as a vocalist and lyricist. On his upcoming full-length with Aelter, Aelter IV: Love Eternal, Green expounds on those most compelling characteristics of the project’s first three albums, providing a cohesive structure to the overall atmosphere of decay and muted chaos that underscores every track of the album.