#n0v3l

Hardly new, but four releases from 2021 well-suited for the cooler seasons - including the best record I've heard this year. This is what you want; go get 'em.

Cerebral Rot, Excretion of Mortality (20 Buck Spin)

Hard to out-camp death metal obsessed with trying to come up with the grossest bodily failures and decomposition, but I'll happily put up with song titles like "Retching Innards" when the riffs are this fuckin' good. Besides, we've all been there. My innards, retching. Excretion of Mortality pretty much picks up where Odious Descent Into Decay left off, except the band is a full-on force now. The opening title track is a textbook lesson on grimy death metal, suffocatingly dense, full of bone-crushing riffs and winding radioactive solos, finding fresh rot in each new movement. That same ridiculous formula is sharpened and reused to stunning effect again and again over the album's first six tracks; I'd call "Bowels of Decrepitude" out for it's particularly bruising attack and that sick bass solo part (there's another one on "Drowned in Malodor"), but ya can't go wrong with any of 'em. My only qualm with the record is that it maybe should've ended after six songs, and not with the 11-minute closer "Crowning the Disgustulent (Breed of Repugnance)," which just feels like an exhausting, self-referencing recap after the rest of the record. Six outta seven is a ridiculous batting average, and I'll take too much of a good thing even if I have to whine about it. Not sure that going Cro-Magnon in these times is the answer but it sure as hell is a fun distraction. Good times for death metal in the States: new records from Mortiferum and Apparition out now or soon.

N0V3L, NON-FICTION (Flemish Eye)

I gotta admit that I felt a little bit burned by Crack Cloud's last album, what with its tendency toward these corny ornate Arcade Fire-esque gestures (still, "Tunnel Vision" though), so I was a little hesitant to check out the debut from sister band N0V3L, L33T-speak band name and all. Happy to report that NON-FICTION is much more successful than PAIN OLYMPICS while treading the same grounds. Lyrically N0V3L touches on the opioid epidemic ("Pushers") and the diet activism fads spawned in every corner of social media in the past year ("Interest Free," "Status") while continuing to rail against our corporate overlords (the seemingly neverending "Falling In Line," long enough to bluntly drive the point home) and modern politics ("En Masse"). The band strips the definition of "post-punk" down to its core across the record, guitars and synth reduced to window dressing for the amazing rhythm section, vocals speak-sung in a low register and only given any urgency in spare doses. "Stranger," with its horn section, sounds like prime A Minute to Pray-era Flesh Eaters, and the frantic drumming on "Pushers" drives the bleak lyrics "We're all junkies just weeks from a habit" into your skull. For all the nearly danceable and dark successes across most of NON-FICTION, it's the instrumental outro of "Status" leading into mild closer "Notice of Foreclosure" that stands as my favorite part of the record. The repeated guitar line and the mumbled, defeated vocal delivery on "Notice of Foreclosure" serve as a final sigh of a people reluctantly accepting that there is nowhere else to go. So by all means, dance to the likes of "Group Disease" while you can, because the end of this record is a real bummer. Ignore this band's inexcusable choice of a name, because NON-FICTION is the real deal, a mirror held up to show all the imperfections. While they can offer only to name the problems while standing in solidarity, it feels important and it feels like enough most days.

Nusidm, Hatred of Pain (self-released)

Record of the fuckin' year right here. Not sure what planet Glen Schenau is on but more artists could take a cue from Hatred of Pain's reckless, insular experimentation. Glen's solo output thus far has been singular, to say the least, and his first LP pushes him much further out to sea. Opener "I Took Off Your Ring" is an endurance test, Schenau throwing backward carnival organ and ear-piercing flute into the mix at points where the listener might have settled in. "The mix," by the way, is this amazing black metal guitar tremolo picking, sans effects, and plodding, woozy drumming with Glen's clenched jaw intonations serving as the vocals for it all. Nothing really approaches the extremes of "I Took Off Your Ring" in length or sonics on the album again, but that same aggressively insular approach continues. "Lit a Little Fire" is a highlight, Glen sounding like he's in a submarine that's slowly going under but holding onto hope that "she'll be right back," enunciating the latter as fast as he can while his head's above water. The most aggressive track, "Frowntown," has the most animated vocals that almost refer back to his earlier solo work, barking "This is a venue I was banned from!" over a gnarled bed of descending guitar and rolling drums. It's not all sandpaper and scrap metal on Hatred of Pain, though: "Vapid" rides a jazzy bassline for its duration, "A Thankless Crime" is a hard-plucked acoustic loner, and "Hammer Smashed Phone" (yes) with its muffled robotic vocals and piercing melodica sounds like a warped collaboration with the Native Cats. The record reaches its logical conclusion on "So Dark," a deep and moving trip that turns black metal inside out, with lyrics that are basically the title and Glen crooning "I'm not blam-ing YOU-OOH" from the bottom of the well. When this record first arrived, it came with a handwritten note from Glen explaining how he thought maybe the record was a little too personal but he made the choice to put it all out there, basically blowing up his life to make something from all of the pieces in some sort of cleansing act, and that framing makes a lot of sense. I think it's a brilliant piece of work, bleak and sharp and funny and desperate in equal measure, and the physical package reflects the care and probable over-analysis of the whole project. I haven't heard anything this inwardly focused and completely unaware of musical and societal norms since Courtesy and Good Will Toward Men. Amazing stuff. If you trust me, trust Hatred of Pain more.

V/A, and felt like... (Knekelhuis)

NON-FICTION by N0V3L

N0V3L’s songs bound out of the gate on febrile bass lines, a shushy tension of cymbals underpinning the rhythms. Dual guitars agitate in trebly tangles, throwing off shocks of electricity as they cross. But the Canadian six-piece sounds a good deal more assured and fluid here than on the debut EP from 2019. The singing is a good deal smoother and less spiked with yelps. The production is sharp and spare, but it captures the music with a visceral depth and resonance. If they were jittering across two-dimensional space before, the band is now operating in a full three dimensions.