Introduction
Five Songs, 1/21/2018
Five Songs

Five Songs, 1/21/2018

Here's today.

Benton Falls, "Trail and Terror"

I've always been a little fuzzy on the genre "emo". I'm old enough that it's come around multiple times as a genre label, being applied to bands ranging from Rites of Spring to Touché Amoré. And it seems like the only thing really tying all these various scenes is some kind of punk sensibility married to heartfelt lyrics. Benton Falls usually gets described as emo themselves, but to my ears, this is pretty much just post-punk. But it's good post-punk! If this is emo, so is Jawbox, is what I'm saying. And I don't think anybody has described Jawbox as emo. (OK, somebody certainly has.)

Common, "Thelonious"

Another cut from Like Water For Chocolate, and another example of what made that album so good. And my song titles are still scrambled for this album. I should fix that. (I will not.)

Boris, "Afterburner"

We've only had Boris with Merzbow here, so it's about time we had Boris just on their own. As I mentioned before, Boris started as Melvins worshippers, and in some ways, never really changed from that. But that's because they stayed true to the spirit of the Melvins, and kept relentlessly experimenting. The Melvins didn't just keep re-making Bullhead, and Boris didn't just keep re-making Amplifier Worship.

This song comes from Pink, which in a lot of ways is the most conventional Boris record. It still gets pretty shaggy in spots, but there's not as much of the long, drawn-out drone fests you get on many of their other records.

High On Fire, "Madness Of An Architect"

Sleep was one of the titans of doom metal, putting out multiple legendary albums, including Sleep's Holy Mountain and the epically drugged out Dopesmoker, a single 60-minute song. The enormous caveman riffs, pounding pace, and clouds of weed smoke inspired tons of bands to follow in their stoner rock footsteps. One of those bands was High On Fire, started by Matt Pike of Sleep after that band fell apart following the difficulty in releasing Dopesmoker. Continuing in the vein of Sleep, but turning the speed up just a notch, High on Fire is still very much stoner rock par excellence.

One day, we'll get "Dopesmoker" on this thing. That'll be a good playlist.

Eagles of Death Metal, "High Voltage"

Last time, I referred to this band as aggressively skanky, and I'd like to modify that just a bit. Given how much ska we get around here, I don't want anybody to think I meant in that sense. So, let's go with "aggressively scuzzy". That gets the sense across.

Joshua Buergel
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