Naked Raygun - All Rise

So I was sitting in a psychology lecture today, and, as psychological discussions are wont to do, the topic inevitably turned to Naked Raygun (my psychology professor is awesome). Specifically, the instructor used his desire to listen to Naked Raygun vinyls in order to explain the concept of drive in relation to Drive Reduction Theory. The analogy was a mess, but it accomplished two things: one, it made me envious (I want All Rise and Throb Throb on vinyl), and two, it transferred onto me the desire of listening to Naked Raygun. It was a situation which could have been considered ironic, but only by someone who does not fully understand the definition of irony.

Released in 1986, All Rise, Naked Raygun's third album, marked the in-between phase of a transition in which the band would evolve from the brasher punk of their debut into the noisy-but-melodic post-punk outfit seen on Jettison (see my post here). It moves away from their previous album, Throb Throb, with an increased emphasis on atmosphere and a change in production style; the sound here sounds more like their later albums than anything they had done previously. There are still some examples of blaring, balls to the wall punk, specifically on "New Dreams", which almost feels like a Throb Throb b-side, but for the most part, the album is more mature than anything the band did before it. Still, this is vintage Naked Raygun, featuring some classic riffs, and the same overriding theme of pessimism found throughout their discography.

In some ways, All Rise could be considered the younger brother to Jettison (unless you have a better metaphor, in which case I suggest you use that instead). The two albums share a great amount of similarities, but the ideas presented on All Rise are accomplished to a greater degree of success on Jettison. All Rise contains the same strongly pop-oriented song structures of Jettison, but feels more like the Buzzcocks than Big Black in doing so, with some of the hooks veering closely into pop-punk territory (see: "Mr. Gridlock"). Combining this development with the darker, more cathartic songs like "Backiash Jack" leaves this album feeling disoriented, caught between the contrasting ideas of melodic punk and noisy art-rock dissonance. The main strength of Jettison was in combining these ideas, but here, the result isn't as cohesive. While some songs pull off the feat perfectly, others just feel awkward, as if they'd rather belong on a Stiff Little Fingers album; which is likely intentional, given the degree to which the former influenced Naked Raygun (see their "Suspect Device" cover for more). It's not that these songs are bad; it's just that they don't exemplify the reasons why I listen to Naked Raygun. Their ability to integrate haunting pop hooks into a blistering punk attack is unparalleled, and it comes off a tad disappointing when they take their foot off the gas just to ape another band's approach. Not bad, just... disappointing.

But slight blemishes aside (and they are only slight), this is still a fantastic album created at a time of transition in the band's career. All Rise generally gets ignored in Naked Raygun's discography, sandwiched in between the band's two more accomplished efforts, but just because it hasn't the intensity or creativity of their other efforts doesn't mean it should be looked over in the least. Lack of cohesion aside, some of the band's best songs are on this album, and it can stand up to, if not surpass, most any punk album of its time. No, it's not Jettison, but what is?

All Rise

Ampere/Funeral Diner Split EP

1. Ampere - Secret Hallways
2. Ampere - Sleepwalkers
3. Funeral Diner - I Was the Sword

I will not pretend to be overly fond of Ampere. Their spastic, chaotic style, while brimming with energy and a strong sense of technicality, never stays with any one idea long enough for me to grasp on to it. In fact, I have a fun and easy-to-use formula on the subject:

Orchid - enjoyability = Ampere

And while their side of this split is surprisingly listenable given their track record, that's not why I'm posting it. The reason why is because the other side of the record is possibly the best thing Funeral Diner has ever done, which is too bad, considering this was also their last release before breaking up.

"I Was the Sword" is quite frankly a brilliant song, somewhat reminiscent of On the Might of Princes at their best. It builds through some sharply darting guitar lines and chaotically rhythmic drumming to a blisteringly emotional and intense climax, breaks it down, and then finds a new and effective way to do it all over again. This is 'epic' in every sense of the word, and should be considered a must-have by any fans of the band.

Ampere/Funeral Diner

I Wrote Haikus About Cannibalism in Your Yearbook - 8 Song Demo

Q: I actually wrote a haiku about cannibalism in someone's yearbook once.

A: He didn't get it.



There's an unstated point to this.


i wrote haikus about cannibalism in your yearbook

I have way too much free time.

New God is an Astronaut! Plus Additional Hyping

I've spoken before in this space about the awesomeness that is God is an Astronaut. They're a fantastic group that has carved out a niche for themselves, moulding layers of obfuscating electronic haze into breath-taking post-rock brilliance.

Anyway, they have a new album coming out on the 7th, the self-titled God is an Astronaut, which is currently streaming about half of its tracks on their myspace page (it has also apparently leaked, so you can probably find it if you're intrepid enough). You'll also be able to purchase it from their website once it officially releases. I encourage you to check it out.

And while I'm at it, I may as well throw out a recommendation for what is currently my favourite post-rock outing of the year, Up-C Down-C Left-C Right-C ABC + Start's Embers. Simply put, it's one of the best albums of the year, and an excellent example of taking a tried-and-true formula (in this case, the type of 'crescendo-core' [I feel dirty just writing that] derivative from Explosions in the Sky) and making it your own. If you want, you can order it from their website, or you can just wait until the end of the year, at which point I will likely pimp it into oblivion.

Eric's Trip - Love Tara

Eric's Trip - Love Tara


I had a chance earlier this year to see Eric’s Trip in concert. I didn’t, because it was at some club that requires membership to get in and it seemed like a pain in the ass to go through and they wanted five bucks or so for membership, but if I had, you can sure bet it would have made an interesting story to recount here.

Oh well. (True story too!)

Eric’s Trip was a Canadian indie rock band hailing from the listless shores of New Brunswick. They formed in 1990, and, after a number of demo tapes, were signed to Sub Pop records at the peak of their post-Nirvana influence. In 1993, they set out to record their first album for Sub Pop, ending up with Love Tara, a collection of garage-rock influenced, lo-fi love songs. They broke up in 1996, but have reformed multiple times throughout this decade to tour and play particular events.

I first found out about these guys a few years back while doing random searches as inspired by awesome songs (As you may as well have gleamed, I have no good stories about finding out about bands. Just random shit I found online while I was bored. Stay tuned for a future post in which I tell you about that one time, at the bank, when I deposited a check and the teller gave me a dirty look and I’m like what? and yeah pretty cool right). I figured hey, anyone who would name themselves after a Sonic Youth song with some of my all-time favourite lyrics probably has good enough taste in music to make some good stuff themselves. And lo, I was right. I just didn’t expect them to be this good.


Eric’s Trip’s sound is not the hardest to describe. Think of stereotypical folk-inspired indie rock, from the time before it became popular to emulate crappy post-punk from the 80’s and call it indie regardless of what label they’re on (no disrespect to all the good bands who were emulated as well). Add in conditional use of the electric guitar, and fill the recoding with all the crackling distortion of an overplayed vinyl record, and voila: pure, heartfelt lo-fi indie glory. This is music that you could imagine listening to before a roaring fire on an Autumn day; delicate enough to set the mood, but not content just to linger aimlessly in the background as first-date muzak. Singer/guitarist Rick White described their sound as "sappy melodic pop music on top of thick distortion”, and that’s probably a good way of summing it up. It’s a very simple formula the band uses, combining the softness of folk and the noisiness and anguish of grunge, but they utilize it to perfection. In fact, I’d go as far as to call Love Tara one of the best indie records of the 90’s, an all-too unknown masterpiece, and put Eric’s Trip well ahead of their more well-known contemporaries such as Pavement and Built to Spill.

Much of what makes this album great comes in the vocals, which are shared between Rick White and Julie Doiron with White taking the brunt of the duties on this album (also, both share guitar/bass duties alongside fellow guitarist/bassist Chris Thompson). Both White and Doiron display a great amount of tenderness and care in their deliveries, which does well to enhance the sincerity in lines like “looking around for an extra person in my life to call my friend” and “how come it upsets you so/shouldn't it be me who feels uneased”. The lyrics tend to fit into a very conversational style, with the songs mostly being person-to-person tales of love or regret, communicated with a muted sadness by the band’s vocalists. That they come off as so genuine can be put on White and Doiron themselves (especially White), who sing in very soft and melancholic tones, almost to the point of whispering at points (“Behind the Garage” being an excellent example). The way this album is produced is notable too in this sense, as the sound fashioned here takes on a very warm and personable style. The background noise on “May 11” for example, suggests a real-world atmosphere, as if the singing is just one half of a conversation we’re not getting all of. When White or Doiron sing, the clearness of their vocals in the otherwise often distortion-fueled mix helps communicate the band’s message as heartfelt and honest. Another example of a strong effect utilized by the band is showcased in the song “Frame”, which pits White’s soft croons against a very jagged riff, placing the delicacy of his delivery against the overlying sharpness of the guitar. The ensuing contrast is quite powerful, as White’s fragile voice is swallowed up by the strident waves of distortions, overcome by the power of the amplifier.


With Love Tara, Eric’s Trip not only put out an outstanding debut, but a lo-fi indie classic. The distortion, the folksy warmth, the emotional, utterly personal song-writing, all standards Eric’s Trip would uphold throughout their career, but possibly none used to the same success as on the band’s debut album. What we have here is marvellously minimal indie rock, adorned with lyrically relatable feelings regarding love, alienation and friendship. Put it on, sit by the fire, and watch the leaves envelop the ground outside your window, as they desert the now barren trees from which they fell.


Love Tara

Decahedron - Disconnection Imminent

Decahedron - Disconnection Imminent


In the aftermath of Frodus, its members went on to a number of other projects. Nathan Burke, Frodus’ latest in a long line of bassists, went on to form The Out Circuit, where he still resides today. Shelby Cinca formed steampunk band The Cassettes, moving in a number of more experimental directions past even what was hinted with And We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea, as well as playing briefly in the band Mancake, alongside Frodus drummer Jason Hamacher. But eventually, Cinca went back to his post-hardcore roots, again enlisting Hamacher on drums as well as former Fugazi bassist Joe Lally, and together they created Decahedron, a socially conscious outfit that lived by the mantra of “Delete False Culture”. Decahedron only released one album, Disconnection Imminent, but it signalled a spiritual return to the protest-punk of Frodus, as well as a musical progression that combined the angry, dissonant hardcore they were known for, with Cinca’s growing experimentation with ambience and electronics (a couple years afterward, Cinca would put out a solo album based entirely around this concept). The result was an original and unsettling album, which contrasted sci-fi bleakness with a very real and disconcerting look at modern society.


As mentioned above, the music feels like a noticeable progression from And We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea-era Frodus; by which I mean you can make comparisons between Decahedron and Frodus easily (and I have), as the underlying form seems obviously influenced by Cinca and Hamacher’s former project, but there is also a natural evolution on display here. As such, Decahedron feels like a spiritual successor to Frodus, and not just in the phylogeny of the band itself. The angular raspiness of the guitar is more than familiar to the listener, and the way in which the smoothness of the bass plays off the guitar in intertwining fashions is again exhibited, but the way electronics have been integrated keeps any sense of derivativeness at bay. Interludes such as “Dislocation” showcase the way in which the band manages to insert abject dissonance into their tracks, and while this may become grating within the parameters of an instrumental song, it works well in giving an even greater sense of desolation to calm, brooding epics like “Every City is a Prison”. Indeed, feedback is used constantly throughout this album, as the ominous cries of what sounds like industrial machinery audibly rusting on the spot are injected and pumped into the backgrounds for mood. This works to varying degrees in terms of listenability, but what can’t be denied is how it communicates the isolation of the music in a very direct way.


As far as the vocals go, Cinca remains more austere than usual here, generally finding himself content to passively croon along to the despondent flow of the music, but he still has his moments to shine. The chorus of “Burning Lights” is a definite highlight here; after a very menacing passage leads to quiet, Cinca’s obstructed screams of “Drowning into yourself/turning against your will to live” manage to come off as fierce as ever. “Lt. Col. Questions Himself” provides another prominent example of Cinca’s ragged intensity, shouting his lines just as loudly as the music can drown them out. The way Cinca screams so wholeheartedly and forcefully has always been a highlight of Frodus for me, as he always conveys an emotional passion and intensity that can rarely be matched, making it something of a shame that he doesn’t do it more often here. The result is an album that is less focused on anger (despite the virulence of the lyrics), and more focused on detachment. A great example of this is in “No Carrier”; when Cinca screams about disconnection during the chorus, the message is transmitted with all the accuracy of a drive-thru order, cutting out and obscuring the words from full recognition.

All in all, Disconnection Imminent is a strongly atmospheric post-hardcore album that, while not quite matching the greatness of Frodus’ work before it, manages to impress. Experimental without being impenetrable, smooth while still keeping an edge to it, Disconnection Imminent remains a gem in the catalogue of three men with much bigger claims to fame.

DELETE: False_Culture

The Conglomerate's Tendrils Are Spread Throughout Many Sinister Soups

Also: they know you. And they think that you and they should meet.




This is either delightfully absurd, or decidedly retarded, depending on how you look at it. I fall into the former group.

Frodus - And We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea

Frodus - And We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea


Frodus was formed in 1993 and dissembled in 1999, issuing two full-length albums and a number of other releases while together and recording a third just before breaking up. Their exceptional blend of mathy, D.C.-style post-hardcore has earned them praise from, and given inspiration to countless followers. The band reached their pinnacle on what was regrettably their third and last album, the post-humous And We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea, experimenting with a number of different esthetics to add to the noisy, jumpy punk (affectionately deemed “spazzcore”) they originated with.


Like nearly all D.C. post-hardcore bands that came about in the 90’s, Frodus takes a number of cues from the godfathers of post-hardcore themselves, Fugazi. Fugazi helped shape the landscape for post-hardcore with their aggressive, discordant sound, as well as their desire to experiment beyond the traditional means and limits set out for them, two things Frodus had going for them as well. An analogy between the two wouldn’t be hard to follow; both D.C. bands, both playing styles of angular, occasionally abrasive post-hardcore, and both considered to be among the best at what they do.


As the 90’s went on, Fugazi became more and more experimental, and while this lead to them gaining a reputation as some of the premier pioneers in underground music, it also involved them losing much of the aggressiveness that made them great in the first place. Whether or not this was positive is irrelevant; the point is this pattern of development was not theirs alone. Near the end of their days, Frodus was going down a similar path, wherein they wanted to experiment with the boundaries of their already developed sound. The result is less chaotic and far more polished than, say, F-Letter, and has a feeling of maturation when compared to their previous releases, not unlike comparing The Argument to 13 Songs.

And this is where the analogy ends. Because unlike Fugazi, Frodus do not seem even the slightest bit tamed on And We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea, remaining just as angry and as vigilant against the mainstream culture that spawned them as ever. Sure, there’s the occasional ambient interlude, suggesting that the band just didn’t have anything left after writing this, but don’t let that fool you; cries like “Stupid human scum!” are only the most literal examples on an album full of cynicism and frustration. The aggression is most palpable on tracks like “The Awesome Machine” and “There Will Be No More Scum”, wherein the coarse power of the guitar and the screams of singer Shelby Cinca lend an incredible amount of intensity to the proceedings.


Yet there is a certain wistfulness to a lot of the songs as well; while the lyrics are as angry as ever, managing to be both veiled and direct in their vitriol, they also convey a very defeatist approach toward the topics taken on. For example, in “The Earth Isn’t Humming”, as the minimalism of the bass combines with Shelby’s resigned cries of “another one must fall down”, the listener is greeted with an overwhelming sense of despondence. This feeling of hopelessness engulfs much of the album, whether Frodus is working toward a frenzied, noisily cathartic climax, or constructing a slow, melodic instrumental piece. The contrast between the angrier and more aggressive songs, and that of the more despairing and gloomy songs do a great deal to suggest a level of exhaustion in the band, as if they just couldn’t keep up the same level of defiance anymore. This weariness also finds itself coming into play in the rest of their music too; the angular, mathiness of the band which could have previously been likened to a San Diego-style band like Drive Like Jehu, now sounds more relaxed, almost to the point of post-rock territory.

With their last album, Frodus created the monument for which, for better or for worse, they will be remembered for. And We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea is a triumph of subversive, experimental music which manages to combine the sensibilities of math rock with the volatility of hardcore and come away a rousing success. Gloomy and ominous, it takes the bands’ pessimistic, wearied take on the modern world and translates it seamlessly into audio format. There may be more famous bands to come out of D.C. in the past 15 years, but there are few better.

Frodus Conglomerate Intl. thanks you for listening