Monthly Metal Mixtape: November 2021

Friendly reminder for the holiday season – buy stuff from your local shops. Like all these records, hit up your local record shops to find them. They need the support more than some idiot who wants to shoot himself into space.

Amon Amarth – Fate of Norns (2004, Metal Blade Records)

I’ve been on a nostalgia kick lately, so we’re going way back to Amon Amarth’s 2004 entry, Fate of Norns, which was their fifth full length and my introduction to the band in either my sophomore or junior year of high school (memories are hazy, this was over fifteen years ago either way). At the time it was a groundbreaking thing; I was getting into more of that Scandinavian melo-death of bands like Children of Bodom or Kalmah (it would take me a bit longer to dive into the Gothenburg bands of the 90s), and Amon Amarth would become one of my favorites for the next decade, pumping out solid melodic, Viking-infused death metal. Coming shortly after the Lord of the Rings movies (the world where Amon Amarth took their name from), I was really into fantasy and mythology, so the overwhelming Norse mythology and tales of Vikings in their lyrics was right in my wheelhouse. The (now looking really grainy) video for “The Pursuit of Vikings,” with its synchronized windmill headbanging was badass. It was influential stuff.

However, it also wasn’t their best, falling soundly as middle of the pack in their currently eleven-LP-long catalog. More burly than brutal, more martial than melodic, it falls in that awkward spot between two of their career highlights in 2002’s Versus the World and 2006’s With Oden on Our Side. It’s the portrait of a band finding their groove. For every cringe moment (the spoken word thing in “Where Death Seems to Dwell” or the unmemorable “Valkyries Ride”), there’s some absolute highlights. The title track hits with some emotional heft and a surprisingly soaring chorus. The aforementioned “The Pursuit of Vikings” is bombastic, especially the chorus. Near ballad “Arson” is a highlight in their long-form storytelling and soundscapes, with a tuneful solo to really make it stand out. That fake ending in opener “An Ancient Sign of Coming Storm” kicks ass. It’s a solid record – Johan Hegg’s deep, though decipherable, vocals consistently stand out. There’s some phenomenal drumming and some great little melodic fills scattered about. It retains a bit of that rawness that their early records had that would fade as they got more theatrical. For an entry point to an impressionable sixteen year old metal head, Fate of Norns sure worked its magic. And it’s still worth spinning. – Steve O

Big D and the Kids Table featuring Melt-Banana - “You Buggin’” from Do Your Art (2021, Side One Dummy)

I want to use this space today to talk about something metal … adjacent that is putting a smile on my face this month. And that is the latest entry in the bewildering musical pairing of Boston ska goofballs Big D and the Kids Table and Tokyo noisecore legends Melt-Banana. Now excuse me while I state the obvious – happy-go-lucky ska and wild, experimental noisecore are not exactly like peanut butter and jelly. But hey, Elvis liked peanut butter on his burgers, right? The two bands released a split 7-inch in 2002, which included Big D covering Ministry and Melt-Banana covering Toots & the Maytals. Big D’s lead singer David McWane talks about the band’s relationship with Melt-Banana on a recent episode of the In Defense of Ska podcast (around the 33 minute mark). The latest get-together comes on Big D’s new album, Do Your Art. Now, I’ve heard some people call Big D’s albums too long and bloated with filler. I have to disagree – Big D are leaving themselves room to explore different styles and include some unusual tracks on their records. This new album has 20 tracks, but it still clocks in under 45 minutes so it’s not all that long. “You Buggin’” - featuring Melt-Banana - accounts for 49 seconds of the runtime. It’s a blast of energy starting off with vocals and guitar by Melt-Banana along with some minimal percussion, giving way to Big D’s horn section and some lingering vocals spilling over the end. The whirlwind of a song is over just as quickly as it starts. Enjoy the quirky, puppet-starring video below. – Phil Collins

King Woman – Celestial Blues (2021, Relapse)

Kris Esfandiari is King Woman. I mean, of course the band is stacked with some extremely talented people that should get a whole lot of credit (Joey Raygoza’s thunderous, chunky drumming in particular), but what I mean is Kris Esfandiari is the type of band leader whose image, voice, and sheer presence makes the band what it is. In that regard, King Woman is more of a singer-songwriter project than anything with her incredibly emotive, breathy, rugged voice delivered in scarce near-whispers, bluesy croons, and powerful stoner rock bellows guides the masterfully crafted atmospheric sludge doom of Celestial Blues. You know when you hear an album and the songwriting just effortlessly clicks together perfectly with no riff or transition feeling out of place? No instrumental stretch too long? No chorus too repetitious? This is one of those albums.

This music is groovy, melancholy, catchy and with almost too many highlights to count. What’s more surprising is this music has hooks. The shout-along and sing-along moments are almost never-ending and feature an unmistakable singer-songwriter-y quality of dark folk music. The songs are self-contained and almost pop-song in length by sludge/doom standards, but each track brings something completely fresh to the table and to the album with a different unique infectiousness.

The album uses tempo and dynamics song-to-song to create an unpredictable sonic experience that’s impossible to get a full handle on. Celestial Blues’ conceptual theme of the biblical story of Lucifer, which would be a trite cliché in the hands of a lesser band, finds invigorated new life in lyrics written from the perspective of Lucifer that map against the personal life and struggles of Kris. Kris’s Lucifer is a fully-fleshed out character played with swagger, wry sarcasm, flaming passion, rebellious rage, lackadaisical majesty, tempting charisma, or crippling loneliness all depending on the track. Everything sung manages to not be cheesy and begs the question where does the character of Lucifer end and the real person Kris Esfandiari begin?

Highlights include:

• The single, “Morning Star”, its perfect music video, swirling grooves, and sing along outro.
• “Golgotha’s” repeating vocal melody reflecting its “It never ends” lyrical motif as more and more musical layers build with subtlety into a fiery bridge with Lucifer seething at God for his seemingly endless demands of him. (Whoops, that’s the whole song isn’t it.)
• The punk-tinged “Coil,” being the shortest, fastest most rip-roaring track on the album with Kris triumphantly shouting down her haters and those that have tried to dethrone her.
• “Entwined” is the unmistakable climax of the album and the only song that takes on the both fast, slow, loud, and soft extremes of the entire album – building to a massive crescendo with screaming, blastbeats, and raw power.
• The perfect sad song bleak downtempo and atmospheric closer, “Paradise Lost,” where all that power has been taken from Lucifer, his wings have been ripped off, and the feeling of abandonment permeates everything.

At 40 minutes, this is about as concise and listenable a record you will ever get in this genre, so you have no reason to skip out. Give it a shot even if you aren’t usually into these sounds. It’s really an incredible work of art and one of my favorites of 2021. – Mike Tri