Happy Heavy Metal Fathers Day
"Who is your daddy and what is his pedal setup?"
A few days ago I realized I completely missed the window to get something out within one month of my last newsletter. So in the interest of accounting for some of May, I’ve compiled a list of my favorite music to come out last month. Sadly, I didn’t have any brilliant essay ideas so you all will have to live on without my prescience and witty observations for a while longer. At least you still get music recs?
Some Music of Value
Artists put out plenty of great music in May, so at least this letter won’t be way too short. There were also a few hits at the end of April that I missed in my previous letter, so I’ve collected those as well. This is a mix of metal and other stuff, so read the description to see if any of the albums are up your alley.
Party Cannon - Injuries are Inevitable: A face-pulping brutal death record about the deadly New Jersey amusement park, Action Park. Silly and aggressive, it’s Party Cannon as you’ve always loved them.
Wheel - Charismatic Leaders: Do you like Tool and wish someone sounded like them so you could like a band without quite as much baggage? Charismatic Leaders by Wheel is that exact album. Get your nerdy rhythm fix here.
Knocked Loose - You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To: Knocked Loose continues to push metal farther away from the riff space, and deeper into the breakdown space. Luckily, no one does a breakdown quite like them.
Jordan Rakei - The Loop: A soulful, soft album buoyed by excellent vocals and gentle, floating instrumentals.
Unleash the Archers - Phantoma: I almost never like power metal. I liked this record. Unleash the Archers has the vocal heft to keep this album on the rails while leaning fully into the camp of power metal.
Mach-Hommy - #RICHAXXHATIAN: Immaculately produced hip-hop with a who’s who of features. Mach-Hommy has one of the best flows in hip-hop right now, and even keeps up with Black Thought on a track.
Shellac - To All Trains: RIP to the god Steve Albini. This unfortunately posthumous release retains all the goofy joy and jolting intensity that Shellac brought for decades. It’s a real shame we won’t ever hear any more.
Vince Staples - Dark Times: A reserved, socially focused version of Vince Staples is not my favorite version of him, however, he does it well enough that it’s still on this list.
Kangding Ray - Polar EP: Vibey, club ready IDM that would also be the perfect accompaniment for an acid trip. Some of it even has a hint of Fuck Buttons, which is the highest compliment I can pay anything instrumental.
Thou - Umbilical: Thou continues their ascent toward sludge-metal godhood. Feedback-laden, crushingly heavy, and unyieldingly depressive, they keep the hits coming from open to close.
Dos Monos - Dos Atomos: When I first heart Dos Monos, I threw them into the hip-hop bucket, and Dos Atomos shows them becoming so much more. At times rap metal, at times full blown rap, and then vaguely classical in other moments, Dos Atomos is one of the most thrilling, unpredictable records of the year.
RXKNephew - Till I’m Dead 2: No one in rap comes anywhere close to being as funny as RXKNephew. One of the songs on this album takes a diversion for several bars so that neph can talk shit on J Cole, and how no one he knows has ever listened to him. Don’t listen to it at the gym unless you wanna break a rib when you drop the bar on your chest from laughing.
Bat for Lashes - The Dream of Delphi: A tripped out dream (see what I did there) of an album that smashes together choral vocal approaches, harps, chimes, and booming 808s. Great for cooking or cleaning the house, and also general listening.
Diva Karr - Hardly Still Walking, Not Yet Flying: Blasting black metal with just enough technical edge that it avoids the dull pitfalls of the genre. A bit post metal, like a slightly less experimental Liturgy.
Thanks for sticking around even when the newsletter is short. To the dads out there, happy fathers day, and to everyone else, don’t worry, next week is a short one, you can make it through the work week.
Catch you all in about a month.