Things Are About To Get Weird > Pinebender * 1999 Ohio Gold Records
I already know I’m going to like an album when the cover design looks like this. Maybe not quite disassembled enough for me to consider it post-rock, but it certainly is post-Seam. Another 90’s Chicago act for the legacy book, Pinebender’s Things Are About To Get Weird is a title that feels like the response to the “Web in Front'' call “and there’s a chance that things’ll get weird.” The album often conjures the Chapel Hill sound of Archers of Loaf and Superchunk, but drawn out into slowcore territory. Oh yeah, Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan co-founded Seam. But this is about Pinebender. Opening song “There’s A Bag of Weights in the Back of My Car” is an over-12-minute emotional, mostly instrumental jammer that touches on plenty of slowcore cornerstones: simple chord progression, heavy tremmed-out notes, and a climax into wah-wah fuzz. There’s maybe two lines of lyrics in there somewhere. Just the way I like it. They play the soft and minimal just well as more energized noise-rock. The drums are always slow, steady, and simple, granting plenty of room for the dual guitars to carry the weight. The Billy Corgan/J Mascis solo in “Now How It Will Happen'' is Zuma rearing its head one last time before the end of the millennium. “California” continues the Youngian root fuzz into over-blown bliss.
Myopia > Mizmor & Thou * 2022 Gilead Media
Behold! A freakin sludge feast! Served with plenty of mashed potato riffs and gravy tones. Thou and Mizmor are a perfect pairing (one the potatoes and one the gravy but which is which?) and with Thou’s collab count rising, I should have seen it coming. Mostly, throughout the record the guitars and drums are steadily hammering away in unison, but moments of breakaways and harmonization build emotional textures. Songs like “Drover of Man” and “The Host” have choruses that utilize those textures to elevate out of the mud and offer glimpses of the sky, even if only to drop your head back under moments later. These are standout sections. A.L.N. of Mizmor brings his unique down-tuned, slow, and grungy doom and, of course, that wide open, deep scream that almost sounds inhaled? I’m not sure. But I’ve never heard anyone scream like him. The atmosphere is thick. When the band takes stride into blast beats it feels well deserved and high time. The breakdown in “Manifold Lens” lets the fuzz sizzle a good long while as Bryan Funck screams words you’ll want to remember for future crosswords.
Together > Duster * 2022 Numero Group
It’s finally time for me to talk about Duster. The latest record came out earlier this year but the vinyls are just making their way into our hands. I listened several times this spring when the album was published on Bandcamp, and you know I watched the music videos they made for each song, but if any band is committed to the vinyl setting, it’s Duster. Their music makes you want to spin the record through amplified headphones while fading into the couch. And though I’m staring at a computer screen instead of the ceiling and don’t have a joint, the record sounds great. I think if there is a through-line for all the Duster records, I think it’s their attempt to make each record bassier than the last. The bass fills your head like a constant hum, dropping a velvet curtain backdrop behind the performance of subtle guitars, drums, synths, and vocals. “Escalator” feels straight from Pink Floyd’s Animals with its synths and acoustic guitar, yet it still builds into classic Duster free-jamming drums and I can sense it’s poised to become a new fan favorite with a signature vocal melody harmonized beautifully, albeit briefly. I was a big fan of the comeback record Duster s/t. Together continues the goth, minimal, and restrained sound of the s/t, drifting further from the krout inspired Contemporary Movement (my favorite record (of all time?)) and the more lo-fi emo/post-hardcore of Stratosphere. But I’m all for it. This is not to say there aren’t connectors to the past. “Moonroam” has the space rock tremolo effect that blasts me to the moon. And of course the record has the heavy fuzz jam “Making Room” which almost feels necessary. Are Duster becoming predictable? Maybe. Just a little. There’s usually a time in a band’s career when they start to make the same record repeatedly, Dinosaur Jr. has made the same record for what feels like 20 years, but if it’s a record you like, who cares? They’re consistent. I don’t want to discredit Clay Parton’s and Canaan Dove Amber’s tonal and structural exploration, but I believe we’re beginning to see the “capital D” Duster, complete with crystallized expectations of consistent records, their songs fulfilling dutiful roles like characters in a play. But I’ll be damned if I don’t love the record every time.