American Aquarium: The Fear Of Standing Still (2024)

Last year I took my son to his first concert, to see the Drive-By Truckers. He’s pretty easy-going when it comes to genre, and enjoyed the band when I would play them around the house. I wish the show was a better experience for him, though – the band was loud to the point of clipping, with little to no stage presence, just ripping through song after song like they just wanted to get it over with. I don’t think they said one word besides “Goodnight.” There was one shining, bright spot though: the opening band. It was our first ever exposure to American Aquarium, and they played like their lives depended on it. It was, in a word, glorious, the kind of show you dream of when you see a band. We all bought t-shirts, I got to introduce myself and my son to leader BJ Barham, and we became there and then fans for life. The TL;DR: there was no way The Fear Of Standing Still wasn’t going to make this list.

ChrisDecember 25, 2024December 24, 20241 Comment

Vinyl

Blood Incantation: Absolute Elsewhere (2024)

Blood Incantation have forever been the nerdy, brutal darlings of the metal community. Every website and magazine (well Decibel, anyway – are there any print zines left?) fawned over the PR emphasizing the analog recording of debut full length Starspawn, and once Hidden Histories OF The Human Race came out in 2019 it was official: no one made music like this, and the mighty BI were tops in everyone’s books. My take? That “analog” production did less than nothing to bolster whatever chops the band had in both the playing and songwriting departments. Good as those albums may have been, I barely listened once the initial fanfare died down. And then came Absolute Elsewhere, and the newly crowned god of metal production, Arthur Rizk. Uh, folks? That metal community just might be right about this whole Blood Incantation thing…

ChrisDecember 24, 2024December 24, 2024Leave a comment

Vinyl

Letting Up Despite Great Faults: Reveries (2024)

Dream pop is a tricky thing for me. It’s like 80s hair metal in that, when done just right, brings me instantly back to a point in time – in this case the early 90s when said hair metal was being replaced by all these jangly, spirited concise songs we all called “alternative” because it was the alternative to what FM was playing. Letting Up Despite Great Faults was a huge shot to the head when I first discovered them with IV, their 2022 return after an eight year absence. Everything I love about that record returns in Reveries, a beautifully crafted spiderweb of an album, ethereal and delicate and bound to stick to you when you walk into it. I happily did.

ChrisDecember 23, 2024December 23, 20241 Comment

Vinyl

Steve Hackett: The Circus And The Nightwhale (2024)

In a year where I doubled-down on my love for Genesis, it was refreshing to see two of the band’s former members (I guess they’re all former members now) put out incredibly strong solo work. I’m still trying to wend my way through Peter Gabriel’s I/O with its dozen different mixes, but there was so such hesitation with The Circus And The Nighwhale, the latest studio effort and first concept album from Steve Hackett. Immediately ear-catching and stuffed to the gills with incredible guitar playing, Hackett sounds like he took all those years keeping the prog-version of Genesis alive and distilled it all into an album that could have sat side by side with their best work while maintaining a modern, rock edge.

ChrisDecember 22, 2024December 22, 2024Leave a comment

Playlists

(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 29: Best of 2024: Stoner and Psych Rock/Metal

It begins. End of Year season is officially in motion, and over at Nine Circles I posted my first list, focusing on stoner and psych hard rock/metal. I still reach for the more extreme stuff, but more often than not when I’m in the mood for hard rock and I DON’T cave into my natural instincts with classic 70s rock and prog I go to the next best thing: those bands keeping that vibe alight in the modern era. Over the next few weeks the (Un)Focused Definition playlists are going to highlight songs from my many (too many, if we’re being honest) Best Of lists, but it starts here, on the Solstice…in the desert.

ChrisDecember 21, 2024December 21, 2024Leave a comment

Vinyl

Ellesmere: Stranger Skies (2024)

On paper, so much of the current progressive rock scene seems like a recipe for disaster: one guy masterminding a specific brand or vision, enlisting guest musicians (often rotating from album to album) to achieve a studio-sterile sound. That was my fear when I heard about Ellesmere, an Italian modern prog project headed by Roberto Vitelli who plays bass and keyboards in addition to songwriting¹. Another ill omen: he changed singers from his previous album. But then I saw a name as I perused the credits to Stranger Skies: Tomas Bodin? From that band I reviewed so many great albums from? More hope: it’s inspired by A Trick of the Tail, my (kinda) favorite Genesis album? Then I actually heard that new singer, John Wilkinson, quite possibly a younger cloned version of Phil Collins. You know, from the A Trick of the Tail era? All in, baby.

ChrisDecember 20, 2024December 20, 20242 Comments

Consuming the Tangible

We are what we consume

Month: December 2024

American Aquarium: The Fear Of Standing Still (2024)

Blood Incantation: Absolute Elsewhere (2024)

Letting Up Despite Great Faults: Reveries (2024)

Steve Hackett: The Circus And The Nightwhale (2024)

(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 29: Best of 2024: Stoner and Psych Rock/Metal

Ellesmere: Stranger Skies (2024)