Top 15 Records of 2010, And A Reflection

I’ve had a busy 2010. I stopped my half-assed “regular” posting in the middle of the year. I’m essentially a copy writer by trade; whenever I wrote here, it was a forced attempt to do something “creative” to counter-balance all the rote writing I do at work. I like my job, but I discovered that I’m burnt the fuck out on writing when I get home. I still needed an creative outlet; most of my life, it’s been playing drums, but that’s tough when you live in a one-bedroom apartment. Luckily, an old friend and member of my high school band had a new project that suddenly needed a drummer right at the time that I was looking to get going again, so I joined up with them in May.

We (Moons) have been gigging around Boston (plus a road show in New York!) throughout the fall and are putting the final touches on our debut EP next week. Look for it on Bandcamp in Jan/Feb, and possibly on vinyl, too. I heard someone say that we sound like “a bunch of metal kids that got into Hum.” That’s reasonably accurate.

Anyhow, I’ve been reading a ton of Best of 2010 lists lately, and I finally felt compelled to write something again. For anyone who give’s a rat’s ass, this is what a metal kid who likes Hum was into this past year.

Boring BC

Dark Ages opens with some open reverb-drenched minor chords and legato trumpet. This is the sound of Bison BC taking themselves too seriously.

It’s a shame, because they used to be so much fun. Quiet Earth slayed faces. A bunch of goofs from Vancouver drank a bunch of beer and wrote a great bunch of songs equal parts stoner metal, thrash and punk. It was upbeat, it had grooves, it had hooks, the humor was irreverent, and we all shouted along to the gang vocals. Great record. That’s the band I enjoyed. But by the time the bloated eight-minute opener “Stressed Elephant,” meanders off nowhere fast, I’m already bored by this “mature” new sound.

The punk vibe is gone. Some thrash elements are still around, but it’s like new Exodus versus old Exodus: mean-faced thrash versus party thrash. I know which one I actually care about. The ferocious gang vocals are gone too, replaced by some sappy “woah-ohs” that would make even Jerry Only wince. Mostly, we’re left with doomy heavy metal, without much bowl-smoking groovage.

They do manage to squeeze out a few solid compositions. “Fear Cave” flies all over the place, but still holds some of the gnarliest riffs on the record. It runs the gamut from rock to doom to vicious thrash, then lays into a gut-churning, tense, moody medium tempo for the last few minutes, and fades out (up) to blown out, distorted noise. Cool. The thrashier tunes that make up the middle of the record, like “Two Day Booze” and “Take the Next Exit” show a few flashes of angry brilliance as well. I just don’t hear any real rippers like “These Are My Dress Clothes” or “Quiet Earth” here. Dark Ages won’t be popping up on my iPod very often.

The New Arsis Is Pretty Excellent

When A Celebration of Guilt came out in 2004, blogs were still just websites and they were all over that album like flies on shit. I still had yet to perfect the art of music piracy so I went out and bought it blind based solely on recommendations (I’d never do that today). And holy shit, it was ripping! I was still down with most melodic death metal at that point, but all that was happening right around that time was sappy metalcore a la Killswitch Engage. This Arsis band was so much better than that! That chubby Malone dude could play the shit out of his guitar. And a year later, A Diamond For Disease dropped and made the hair on my neck stand up again. Righteous!

Then I slowly grew to hate Arsis.