Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Programming
Throwback sounds and hotly anticipated post-punk
Welcome back my cohorts and ghoulish minions. Apotheosis has returned, I’m moving a very long distance very soon, and things have been wild so some weeks have been missed. I’m going to do my best to not miss any more weeks, or at least will try to keep you abreast of any weeks that will be missed. If you’re a fan of procrastination and inconsistency like me, send us up by clicking the button below.
In the interest of actually getting something posted this week, I’ve shortened the newsletter. Next week I plan to have enough time to get through all my listening a bit early so that I can really dig into things. As a consequence of being a bit time crunched, this edition has no mini-essay or subgenre guide. These will be returning in next week’s newsletter.
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Svdestada - Azabache
Azabache sounds like the metal of my childhood grew up. While that may not hold true for you, if you had even a passing interest in the post-hardcore scene and happen to be between the ages of 25-35 you’ll pick up on some familiarity here. The instrumental work on this album operates like a warm blanket that pulls you back into the whirling nightmare that was mid-2000’s PHxC bands guitar parts (how you doing Fall of Troy?). What grounds the record then are it’s vocal performances. While the post-hardcore of my youth was marked by a sugar glazed crossover with pop-punk, this fully embraces the harsh vocals of black metal. Ultimately, it’s a black metal with a very specific, very familiar guitar tuning, but good lord does it work. Not a single moment lulls on this record, I get the feeling it’ll be the soundtrack to more than a few speeding tickets.
Great Metal from this Week
While the year to date has a lot of catching up to do, February kicked off with a bang. Each of the albums listed here was very close to being the album of the week, but I’d specifically like to shout out the 8/10+ record Phase Out by Cara Neir. It’s a little goofy and silly, but it’s a wild ride of experimental metal, electronic, and a D&D campaign. Very little about the album is easy to describe, and the niche it fits in probably won’t appeal to more than 90 people on Earth, but apparently I’m one of them. Watch out for the gator bats, watch out for the lightning axe.
If listening to each of these albums sounds harrowing, just click the button below to follow the Apotheosis Fresh Kills playlist on Spotify. I update the playlist in real time as new metal comes out so you’ll never miss out on a great track.
Non-Metal AOTW
Black Country, New Road - For the First Time
Everyone who knows me is not at all surprised by this pick. Ever since hearing “Sunglasses” in the pre-pandemic times and determining that it was indeed the best song of 2019, I’ve been eagerly awaiting this debut. Thankfully, what they pulled together was more than impressive enough to win our album of the week. Sonically, the record is all over the place. It bounds between punk, post-punk, brit-rock and about twelve-dozen other esoteric genres, but ultimately they operate on their own terms. It’s the sort of record you need to hear to believe. Even then you may not believe it.
Runners-up
Gazing Forward from the Cockpit
Friday dropped quite the lineup on us. I’m personally extremely excited for the Swampbeast and God is an Astronaut albums. The latter band was one of the first post-metal groups I ever heard and even when compared to Pelican I feel like they’re my ideal vision for the genre. Hopefully this album lives up to expectations.
Metal Albums
God is an Astronaut - Ghost Tapes #10
Humanity’s Last Breath - Vӓlde
Swampbeast - Seven Evils Spawned of Seven Heads
Abiotic - Ikigai
Non-Metal Albums
slowthai - TYRON
Django Django - Glowing in the Dark
JPEGMAFIA - EP2!
If there’s something I missed, go ahead and leave a comment. All I can do is go off album art and bands that I already know something about, so I’m sure I’ll miss things from time to time and I need y’all to save me from that.
Shrinekeeping
Once again, thanks for sticking around while I sorted a bunch of life stuff out. Turns out moving is hard in general, a fact that is only exacerbated by pandemics and long distances. I’ll do my best to stick on a regular schedule but there may be a few late letters here and there. My apologies for that.
If a slightly inconsistent email schedule doesn’t bug you, and you think it won’t bug your friends, consider sharing the newsletter. We’re working on some big things right now and the metal subgenre guide is going to be surging back in a big way.
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Thanks again for stopping by. Please just make sure to step over and not inside of the rotted corpses on your way out. They smell bad as is, and getting the liquefied organ stench out of the carpet is such a hassle.