Comments

We can't start this conversation at 5:56, Dan. I have to go home and actually watch this thing. But in brief: I have feelings similar to yours, only more irate. I was rooting for Trixie going into Week 1, Bebe going into Week 2, Shangela as of maybe Week 3 -- shifting alliances like [TK some character from Game Of Thrones] from moment to moment -- and all along, increasingly accepting DeLa's imminent win, and after a point, simply marveling in her goddamn talent. That was such a wack, pointless, selfish decision. BUT WE CAN REVISIT THIS. Re: tonight: If it's not Shangie it's a bad choice. I'm looking forward to next Thursday.

It is 100% going to be Shangela and it should be. Trixie has been pretty disappointing this season. And I'm a fan in real life; I saw her in P-Town a few summers ago (before the old YouTube series w Katya, before her 1st album, no idea what to expect beyond what I saw on S7 or whatever) and she absolutely blew me away. Her songs were phenomenal and totally unexpected (by me anyway). But she flubbed an entire season of All Stars that was pretty much designed for her to dominate. Either way, DeLa completely fucked the whole season with that stunt, and it was a pretty mediocre season already. I'm CERTAIN they are starting S10 next week basically as damage control so people don't go months talking about how bad RPDR has lost it.

Oh god you're right. He loves these portentous, elliptical homophones, huh? "The Ize Of The World"? Maybe that's it, actually, I can't remember. I mean, I guess it's less dumb when you know why it's written that way, but tbh that makes it sound MORE like a Megadeth song title (which I hope is not intentional but who knows).

I think maybe "Wink" has a Rostam feel or something, which is why it seems like a "pop" song to me. It reminds me a tiny bit of that Hamilton & Rostam tune that got some burn on Spotify pop playlists a couple years ago, but with a heavier beat. It's definitely not "pop" like Fall Out Boy or even the Killers. It feels really grimy but also kinda hypnotic, and the hook is huge but not obvious, it just sinks in and pulls you along.

I think "Dreams" and "ALieNNatioN" have the strongest melodies and will get the most plays on MY Spotify, but "Wink" sounds like a "pop" song in a different way, like something you'd hear at fucking Urban Outfitters or H&M or whatever. That's not a diss, and the song doesn't play like a blatant attempt at making a "hit" or anything, just feels like the one that ppl will pick up on. Idk, maybe I'm off-base, but when I first heard it, I was like, I swear I know this song (and I never listened to the live version, so I hadn't actually heard it before). It's undeniably a jam tho.

Yeah that's a jam. If the album has a true "hit" -- as in, like, a song that could get sequenced into Spotify playlists or whatever -- it's that tune.

Darren, I don't judge anybody for what they choose to listen to -- as I have said many times to many ppl, my life would suck without Type O Negative, and my adolescence would have been UNBEARABLE, but it's still not easy for me to square some of St. Pete's stuff with my own ethics. But his music is deep in my heart, and even if I could choose to rip it out, I absolutely would not. I love it, I can't help it; I love LOVING it. I won't even apologize, I just accept it as a fact of being a person who contains multitudes. And like I said, I don't even get into these convos except in private w friends, so I didn't want to get into this one, but I know yr a good dude with good taste, and also that ppl (like me) take yr opinions seriously, so I felt a tiny responsibility to mention that, just for ppl who might not have been aware or whatever. Like, I always knew Taake's history and it seemed so obviously idiotic, juvenile, and puerile to me that I never even took it seriously, and when I saw ppl taking it seriously, I realized, maybe I'd been wrong. But Sa*nko ... he's a different thing. And we can talk about that some other time/place, because this ain't the time/place. Anyway I wasn't tryna "gotcha" you or whatever (I hope that is obvious). You and I (and Doug and Ian/Wyatt/Aaron and every decent metal dude) have to wrestle w the same conflicts. I think it ultimately makes us better, more thoughtful, more compassionate ppl, and as far as I'm concerned, that's the goal for every single one of us on this planet.

I made a promise when I stopped doing Black Market that I wasn't gonna be the "Nazi police," and I try to stay out of metal convos altogether these days, but I feel like a lotta decent ppl got caught off guard by the Taake stuff, and I also see a lot of Dr*dkh talk in the comments recently for some reason, so just note that the band's main dude R*man Sa*nko is one of the most prominent figures in the NSBM movement and he ain't real subtle about it. Not saying don't listen to his bands (altho I don't), but be aware he is a Varg-like ideological isolationist white supremacist (whereas Hoest, by comparison, is just a fool who doesn't know what the word "ideology" means). https://www.metal-archives.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=55217

OK that is not all. The most famous and essential Zen koan is called the "Mu" koan, the question half of which is, "Does a dog have Buddha nature?" So the fact that Byrne used that sound in a song called "Dog's Mind" is doubly interesting. That is ACTUALLY all, thank u again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative)#The_Mu-koan

Tom writes: "'Dog’s Mind' uses a synth chime that sounds very much like an Apple computer booting up." Fun fact #1: The Apple boot-up sound was created to be a "zen-like, meditative sound meant to imitate a gong, or an 'om' chant" (per 99PI). https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-sizzle/ Fun fact #2: "Om" is considered the most sacred sound in the universe according to Eastern tradition. It is "the primordial sound associated with the creation of universe from nothing." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om I'm pretty sure Byrne is familiar with the meaning of "om," so I think it's really interesting that he would re-contextualize the Apple sound in his music, which deals with such heavy existential/metaphysical themes and their convergence with modern life. That is all. Thank you for your time.

"I love the Voids but" You do not love THE VOIDZ.

All fair points. I'd have no personal objection to not calling them "death metal" at all. I try to call them "melodic death metal" when I talk about them expressly to distinguish them from the genre on the whole, because I agree, they really sound very different. There's a byzantine taxonomical framework here that sort of necessitates the "death metal" tag, but if there weren't, I'd be happy to catalog them differently. To that end, I don't think you explicitly hear their influence much in metal-qua-metal circa now (except in the case of like Horrendous maybe), but if you look at the world of heavy music outside metal, you can pick it up. The best example I can give: One of my very favorite albums of 2017 was by a Canadian post-hardcore band called Counterparts, and that record runs deep with At The Gates. Not saying you'll dig it (I think you will prolly not dig it, in fact, because, again, it's not metal) but it's the example I offer because I fucking WORSHIP this thing.

Based on the way they've rolled it out thus far, I kinda feel like "Pyramid Of Bones" might be the next single, and that song is a FUCKING TRIP.

OK I will find some other quotes. Hold plz. ... OK here we go. These are all just cut-and-pasted outta Wiki real haphazardly, so it's a mess: "Korn's [1994] debut album is said to have established nu metal. As said by Joel McIver, Korn "was almost solely responsible for the tidal wave of change that subsequently swept the metal scene."[41] Bands like Coal Chamber and Limp Bizkit were inspired by the album's "churning rage, emphasising similar grooves and song structures," and "the sound's hip-hop elements.".... The album launched the career of record producer Ross Robinson,[42] who later produced albums such as Roots by Sepultura, Three Dollar Bill, Yall by Limp Bizkit, and the Slipknot albums Slipknot and Iowa... "[Ice Cube's "Wicked"] was covered by Korn for their 1996 [sophomore] album Life Is Peachy. This version features Deftones lead singer Chino Moreno and contrasts from Ice Cube's version with scat-like vocals from Jonathan Davis in the chorus... "Wicked" is the first single from rapper Ice Cube's third studio album The Predator.... "Released within months of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, in November 17, 1992, many [Predator] songs comment on the racial tensions... Referring specifically to that year's Los Angeles riots, in the first single, "Wicked", he rapped "April 29 was power to the people, and we might just see a sequel"... Limp Bizkit has also covered [Wicked] in concert, while Korn have performed this song live on several occasions with Chino Moreno, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst and Ice Cube himself... "The Family Values Tour was created by the American nu metal band Korn in 1998 to be an annual rock and hip hop tour... "According to Arvizu, the tour name was due to "so many of their friends who were like family to us played in bands"... "Korn toured with the band Limp Bizkit, as well as Ice Cube, Orgy, Incubus, and Rammstein.[22] The tour was considered to be a major success, and promoted Follow the Leader to sales that were considered to have "skyrocketed"... "Korn helped to promote then-unknown acts. The results were very promising. Rammstein's album "Sehnsucht" achieved platinum certification in the United States, also Orgy's debut "Candyass", which was released through Korn's own record label, Elementree Records, achieved similar success. Limp Bizkit enjoyed even greater success which helped them establish themselves as one of the leading acts of the nu metal wave at that time, and enjoyed enormous commercial success... "On September 25, 1998 due to the beginning of shooting the movie Next Friday, Ice Cube was replaced [on the tour] by alternative band Incubus for remaining four dates... "[Korn]'s fourth album, Issues, produced by Brendan O'Brien, was released on November 16, 1999... To celebrate the album's release, the band performed the record in its entirety in front of a live audience at New York's historic Apollo Theater... This performance marked the first performance by a rock band since Buddy Holly in the late 1950s... "This special event featured the New York Police Department marching drum and bagpipe band... "Issues was described by Stephen Thomas Erlewine to be less hip hop-oriented than Follow the Leader... "Following the release of Korn's album Issues, Fieldy decided that his contributions to the band did not incorporate his love of hip-hop music enough. As a result, during a lull between albums, Fieldy decided to make his own rap album... "Fieldy's Dreams is the rap project by Korn's bass guitarist, Fieldy. His first album, the gangsta rap album Rock'n Roll Gangster, was released on 22 January 2002. "Following the [2011] death of his father, Fieldy became a born again Christian... "[As of 2012] Fieldy has stated that his second album, Bassically, is still in the works. Originally intended to be a hardcore rap album, Fieldy has scrapped the original idea in favor of a jazz fusion style [which] he can "be more proud of, opposed to his first solo CD under Fieldy's Dreams titled Rock'n Roll Gangster"... "On February 22, 2005, Korn's management announced that after almost 12 years, [Brian] Welch had left Korn, citing that he had "...chosen the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior, and will be dedicating his musical pursuits to that end."... "Welch said that it was not only having found Christ that influenced his decision to leave the band. As a single father he did not want to raise his daughter in an environment filled with drugs, sex, and explicit language... "As early as a week following his departure from Korn,[30] Welch claimed through press that a solo record was close to being completed... A number of demos from these early sessions surfaced on peer-to-peer networks, among them "A Cheap Name", a song directed at rapper 50 Cent. He also recorded several other songs, including "Dream" and "A Letter to Dimebag", the latter being an instrumental tribute to "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott... "Abbott's musical roots were in country western music; he supported the local music scene in Dallas and sometimes recorded with local musicians. He played in a country band called Rebel Meets Rebel with country performer David Allan Coe... "[Jonathan] Davis once described Barack Obama as an "Illuminati puppet"[31] and told Billboard that Obama had "basically dragged this country down into the worst it's ever been." /// I guess this is not intended really as a direct reply to your response to my "post," it's just some random shit that maybe further asserts my gut feeling that there is some racial and cultural tension in nu-metal that has to be addressed in any meaningful reassessment of the genre. Truthfully if anything, this backs up your assertion that Jonathan Davis didn't really rap, and that Korn worked with Ice Cube (four times, in fact). So I concede to your point, and I appreciate being given the opportunity to engage in this thought experiment.

I appreciate this response, sincerely, but I didn't really intend for my comment to be construed as "analysis," and I apologize for presenting it as such. It was offered more as a gut reaction to the half-assed "reclamation" of nu-metal that I've encountered, which never (in my experience) puts the music into any sort of context or contends with it beyond, like, the individual writer's nostalgia. If I were writing an analysis, I'd investigate this more thoroughly, but I'm not. (Somebody should, though.) Real quick re: Korn: In a vacuum, I mean, OK. But this is the context I'm talking about. Just stealing some stuff from Wiki here: "[W]hen Korn performed in town as the opening act for Sick of It All, Durst invited Korn to drink beer and tattoo them. Although Durst's tattoos were unimpressive, he was able to persuade Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu to listen to a demo, consisting of the songs "Pollution", "Counterfeit" and "Stuck". Korn added a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit to two tours, which exposed the band to a new audience. The band attempted to expand their sound by auditioning an additional guitarist, but Borland soon determined that another guitarist was not the answer, and DJ Lethal, formerly of the hip hop group House of Pain, joined the band as a turntablist after a successful practice performance... "After their performance opening for Korn at the Dragonfly in Hollywood was well received, Limp Bizkit signed with Mojo, a subsidiary of MCA Records... After a dispute with Mojo, Limp Bizkit signed with Flip, a subsidiary of Interscope Records... "Reginald Arvizu of the band Korn persuaded Ross Robinson to listen to the band's demo, which consisted of the songs "Pollution", "Counterfeit" and "Stuck"... "Robinson produced Limp Bizkit's debut, which was recorded at Indigo Ranch... Despite the success of live performances of the band's cover of the song "Faith", Robinson was opposed to recording it, and tried to persuade the band not to play it on the album. However, the final recording, which incorporated heavier guitar playing and drumming, as well as DJ scratching, impressed him.... "Borland stated in an interview that George Michael, the writer of the song "Faith", hated Limp Bizkit's cover and "hates us for doing it"... "Continuing the band's policy of using names that would repulse potential listeners, [Limp Bizkit] named the album by using part of the phrase "queer as a three dollar bill" and adding the word "Y'all" for Florida flavor, naming the album, Three Dollar Bill, Yall.[4] The completed album featured an abrasive, angry sound which Limp Bizkit used to attract listeners to their music.[4] After the band completed recording, they toured with Korn and Helmet in 1997. Critics reacted unfavorably to performances of Korn and Limp Bizkit; Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel music critic Jon M. Gilbertson criticized Durst's performance, stating "The one attention-grabbing moment of Limp Bizkit's rap/thrash show was when the lead singer expressed a desire for gay men to be 'stomped'. Which isn't remotely rebellious. It's just puerile."[4] That same year, they also notably served as an opening act for Faith No More, a band often credited as paving the way for Limp Bizkit and the nu metal genre.[7] The group's keyboardist Roddy Bottum later recalled "That guy Fred Durst had a really bad attitude. He was kind of a jerk. I remembered he called the audience faggots at one show when they booed him. Not a good scene." // I could go deeper, but I am not trying to lead the charge for nu-metal's re-assessment, I'm just sorta saying why I've found the re-assessment (such as it is) to be inherently unsatisfactory. You don't have to agree w me, of course. This is Just My Opinion.

Phil: A couple years ago I wrote a massive, multi-part review of Tyranny, the then-new solo-ish album by Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas (working under the moniker Julian Casablancas + The Voidz). Than as now, generally speaking, opinions on Tyranny veer only between the most extreme poles. I was on the "hate it" side of the fence; it scanned to me as a Metal Machine Music-style troll job. I follow Julian's career pretty closely (as I've been doing since 2000) so I defintely wanted to like the album, I DEFINITELY wanted to review the album, and I felt uniquely qualified to absolutely annihilate the damn thing when I DIDN'T like it. So I wrote this massive multi-part vivisection -- like 7k words, maybe more -- and man I delighted in doing so. There is no better cheap thrill than just RIPPING UP an album, especially when you can do so with authority and conviction. (I read it again recently and I couldn't believe how electrified I sounded in the writing.) But at some point in the the third or fourth stanza, I zoomed out a bit and launched into a criticism of my own reaction. In there, I not only wrote, almost verbatim, exactly what you said in your comment here, but I used the exact same example to make my point (mighta used Bitches Brew, but same diff). Something to the effect of: "Is it reasonable for the audience to expect something that has never been promised by the artist? And is it reasonable for the audience to judge the work based on those expectations? And if we do so, are we judging the work based not on what it IS but what it ISN'T? Or (worse) what we want it to be instead?" I wrote all that and read it back to myself, realized I'd inadvertently revealed a whole lot more about ME (i.e., not the subject) than I'd said about the subject, and I just decided to spike the whole review then and there. I don't know how history will remember Tyranny, but I didn't want to be on its margins as some blowhard who dragged an artist for following his weird muse to crazy places when I would have (apparently, in that moment) preferred he simply make minor adjustments to a style he'd outgrown.

Doug: I was thinking about nu-metal too when writing that comment. (Coincidentally, after Chester Bennington's death, Phil wrote a really smart piece that fair-mindedly tried to assess Linkin Park's legacy.) I think it's fundamentally different though. I'll try to explain why I say this: The thing about most nu-metal is you have all this serious cultural baggage that nobody bothers to unpack when they "reassess" the music. There's a really uncomfortable racial component that goes totally ignored. On the part of the artists, there was a type of cultural appropriation that bordered on minstrelsy. The broad feints at hip-hop -- e.g., wicky-wicka turntables, Adidas track suits, Kangol bucket hats -- were totally superficial and smarmy and would be UNTHINKABLE today. The proto-nu-metal bands (Faith No More, RATM, etc.) were not guilty of this; it's a contrivance wholly owned by Korn and their rotten progeny. (At least Anthrax did a Public Enemy song WITH PUBLIC ENEMY.) Naturally, over time, half those bands became either country artists or religious fundamentalists or Kid Rock. And then, of course, NEVER TO BE OUTDONE in this particular area, you had the old-guard purists whose immediate virulent rejection of the music was surely in some part the result of pure isolationist racism. "Keep YOUR rap out of MY metal"-kinda stuff, the apotheosis of which is probably (as always) Varg's unlistenable synth-classical records on which he tried to excise all non-white influences dating back to the Middle Ages. So ANYWHO I feel like one cannot seriously critically reassess nu-metal without digging deep into that stuff, and nobody ever does, so instead you get these facile nostalgia wank-offs that always make me wanna puke. (One of the reasons I felt good about Phil doing the Linkin Park thing is that they actually had a real connection with and commitment to hip-hop, regardless of how you rate their music: They had a fucking rapper in the band; they made a whole album with Jay-Z.) This is 100% irrelevant to the kid who grew up digging Korn and now plays freaky tech-death or whatever, but critics of any age have no fucking excuse. All of this is a long-winded lead-in to my less interesting actual point: I used the example of At The Gates because they never presented any such obstacle for critics, fans, anyone. They made a couple decent-enough prog-death albums, then woke up one day and said, "Hey what if, instead, we took the best stuff about Iron Maiden, the best stuff about Entombed, threw in some Godflesh-y stuff, cut all the unnecessary garbage, and kept everthing to like a real tight, fast three minutes apiece? Oh and also we have the best death-metal singer in the history of the world." Reaction? "APOSTATES BEGONE! EURONYMOUS WOULD NOT APPROVE!" This happened! And you wanna know the truly insane thing? Not only did it happen but there are people who STILL feel that way. And also? Both you and I absolutely KNOW some of those people (not naming names), and some of those people actually have a substantial influence on the shape of metal today! It is just... like... remarkable? Absurd? Maddening? I dunno man. But it is something!

Phil: Ian's essay here is one of my favorite things we've ever posted on Stereogum, and I thought that was an especially cogent point (among many), but it's also interesting to consider how history is reshaped by historians over a broader spectrum. Since we're talking about metal, I'll give you an example from metal's recent past: I remember a time (probably around 2000 or so?) when At The Gates were considered irretrievably almost treasonous by "purists" because their sound was unapologetically melodic in a genre that, by that point, almost summarily rejected melody. Secondarily, they were "blamed" for spawning metalcore bands like Killswitch Engage et al. I don't remember when exactly the tide shifted (maybe around the time of the original reunion? Or Disfear's Live The Storm?) but today, At The Gates are just about universally beloved by the gatekeeper-types, and rightly so IMO. In a weird way, history has forgotten the old consensus, to the extent such a consensus existed outside a very tiny circle of idiots. But which of those is the "accurate" version of history? We see this all the time as new generations of critics and artists emerge to replace the old guard, or as the voices of the masses overpower those of the gatekeepers. (I'm too lazy to look it up, but as I recall from reading lots of shit about both heavy metal and music criticism, Black Sabbath were not exactly acclaimed upon arrival.) This isn't specific to metal of course, but metal provides an interesting lens through which to consider the phenomenon, because metal fans tend to be guided more by pointless dogma than what you might call "taste," and as such, a crazy percentage of the music being made today proudly rehashes ancient (yet unassailable) cliches of The Golden Age. Idk I think I lost track of what I was trying to say here, except for my initial comment about Ian's essay: It is superb.

I literally know everything about this (for real) and still don't understand what happened with that. FWIW the explanations given are totally bogus.

The truly obscene irony here is that Tomas Lindberg drew THE FUCKING DARK THRONE LOGO, which is arguably the single coolest, most iconic, most unfuckwithable image in the entire history of heavy metal. How does that same guy look at the Typewriter or Papyrus typefaces and say, "That's the one for MY band"?!?

Honestly, At The Gates are LEAGUES above most death metal bands in terms of lyrics/titles/themes, and still when I saw this tracklist, for a second I was like, "wait isn't that a song from At War With Reality?" But no. The new song is called "A Labyrinth Of Tombs." The AWWR song was called "Death And The Labyrinth." Could have also confused it with AWWR track "Heroes And Tombs," I guess. Point is, I too would like to try out the random death metal song title generator, primarily to see how many of those randomly generated titles have actually been used by real death metal bands.

Great band! Also: Great artwork! Idk what "random obscure side project" I was talking about, I guess I was thinking of this graphic a little bit:

I'm just busting chops. I love ATG so goddamn much, I own at least six or seven T-shirts, and the "wtf" artwork has become part of the charm for me. Truthfully the new one looks like it could be any random obscure Dead Congregation side project, but I love that aesthetic. Plus, there's no music to talk about, so we're stuck talking about the album covers for the moment. It's still exciting as hell to me!

I guess the SOTS cover itself isn't totally objectionable by '95 Earache standards, but the NASCAR logo is so ugly, and then the Papyrus typeface looks so fucking cheap. I mean, look, we are talking about one of my favorite albums of all time, so the cover must be doing something right.

I mean, we're gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. I actively hate the covers of With Fear and AWWR -- that typewriter font really bugs me. With Fear would be a pretty cool cover if they used the "cathedral" logo from Red In The Sky. As for RITS: The "cathedral" logo is the only cool thing about it, IMO. The image itself is generic, and the "graffiti" font they use for the title doesn't go at all. But I do agree that TSD and SOS are exponentially WORSE. Don't forget the compilation album Suicidal Final Art, the cover for which is also totally hideous!

Nope, not a single note. I CANNOT WAIT.

I just gave you both upvotes, so your accidental downvote has been cancelled out. Nothing but love for Harris fans.

Just to offer some contrary points of view from people who make a living in podcasting: PJ Vogt (Reply All) from an interview with BK Mag: Vogt: Me and Alex [Goldman] really love Comedy Bang Bang, and [our Reply All segment] Yes Yes No is not funny in the way that Comedy Bang Bang is funny, but it taught us that there’s a way to have people talking that didn’t feel flabby. There’s a way the conversation can work. BK Mag: Scott Aukerman is like a genius at that. Vogt: Oh my God, he is so good. BK Mag: That U Talkin U2 2 Me podcast is just amazingly done. Vogt: And it’s like, oh, this episode is four hours long? Sure! It’s all gonna be fine. They come up with games. So I can hang out for a long time because you told me the rules of the thing I’m about to hear. That’s the thing we consciously crib. ‘Here’s this thing. Here’s how it’s going to work.’ There’s something weirdly nice about that. And it will be different, but that’s fine, because you know the parameters of the difference. BK Mag: I love that he’s not afraid to hit the beats every single time. On U Talkin U2 2 Me? he’s going to call Larry Mullen Jr. “Larry Mullen Senior’s son” every single time. Vogt: Every single time! It’s so good! It’s so enjoyable! Basically, podcasts do two things. One of them is that you hang out with people you’re used to, and you have a relationship with. And one of them is that they’re delivering a story, or jokes, or some information that you enjoy listening to. And he’s so good at establishing things that really reward coming back. http://www.bkmag.com/2016/05/25/people-neighborhood-pj-vogt-2/ Matt Boll (Gimlet Media, Lead Audio Engineer & Music Producer) from Gimlet’s Top 2017 Picks for Non-Gimlet Podcasts: Two years ago when I interviewed for my job at Gimlet, Alex Blumberg asked me what my favorite podcast is. A bit sheepishly I replied the same way I would now…. You Talkin’ U2 To Me. As a sound engineer and music producer I’m usually working on podcasts that are sound rich, and have highly edited narrative arcs. You Talkin U2 To Me has none of that. However, through some weird combo of accident and improv, (Adam) Scott and Scott (Aukerman) have crafted a strange, funny, and surprisingly genuine podcast that stays at the top of my list. If you can get into the almost ‘inception’ like world of inside jokes and U2 knowledge they create over 20+ episodes the pay off is incredibly satisfying. https://medium.com/gimlet/tis-the-season-2017-ace409771a3c

@ me if you can even FIND a J Church shirt. I've been looking for one forever! (This is a sincere request.)

Thank you? Look, I'm sure you can find SOMEBODY out there writing clinical, dispassionate, house-style music criticism. But will they have a comments section for you to share these MFA workshopisms? Idk.

Treat yo' self!

Deafheaven?

Doodz (everybody, all): I just wanna jump in and say I'm super flattered and humbled by your generosity and kindness. Thank you all so much for real. I thought the thing I wrote was WAY too long ... but Amir requests "more words" and Coke favorably compares me to the writer who invented and perfected the concept of minimalism in American literature, so next time I guess I'll go longer. (Jk. But I did cut a bunch because it was too long.) To the maniacs asking about "QYURRYUS": you people are nuts. Also I wrote this on Tuesday night, before I even knew "QYURRYUS" was coming out this week. If I wasn't clear in the post I wrote ABOUT THAT SONG, I absolutely love that song, too, I just love this one more. (And also, again, I had already written this one.) Love all u guys. Except for the guy who did the "Hemingway sucks" meme. That was just uncalled for.

Altho to be fair, that is literally exactly an actual thing Koz HAS USED as a "sick burn," too, come to think of it. Cancel the "bring more" request. You have brought exactly enough.

This is also exactly the kind of thing Ryan Adams would think is a "sick burn." Man, I got trolled by Kozelek himself. You gotta bring more than that.

Actually Wild Hunt is a great comparison too. Everything you're saying here is 100% on-point, at least as I heard this album. You basically just said exactly what I felt/heard/experienced but hadn't taken the time to put into words. Thanks man!

Ghost with harsh vocals is exactly what I heard too. I don't think it's Cold Lake, but this one didn't do it for me, and I'm a Trib fan. Still those guys are MONSTER talented and I'm gonna listen to whatever they do. I wish I'd covered this when it came out, but one of their guitarists Jonathan Hulten put out a Nick Drake-y solo record maybe a year after Children Of The Night, and it's genuinely beautiful (I'm a huge Nick Drake fan, so YMMV) and gives some idea how far out there they could take Trib if they choose to do so.

I think their Dad was more like (translated from Polish): "WHAT IS THIS ENDLESS NONSENSE! STOP WASTING YOUR LIVES WITH THIS FLOYD PINK, GET A JOB AND GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! THESE ROOMS ARE FOR PAYING TENANTS!" Fortunately they never got jobs, dad passed in the '90s, now they own the building, and they're not real interested in being landlords, so they give us a sweet deal on the rent and we don't bug them about shit or bitch when our 3rd floor apartment reeks like an Amsterdam cafe bc of all the doobs being passed around at their BBQ in the ground-floor backyard. '70s kids, man. The American Dream at its Icarus moment. Those guys crack me up tho.

;-)

Based on what I've heard of the album, I think it's gonna be A LOT to take in at once, so you might as well listen. You might hate the song out of context, but I'm pretty sure there is only one song on the entire album that sounds at all like this, so it's not like yr getting spoiled in the slightest. You might love the song, in which case you should be stoked for the album because even though I get the impression nothing else on there sounds quite like this, what I have heard is every bit as adventurous and unpredictable as this, just in very different ways. Best answer I can give? If you could go back in time, how would you have preferred to hear "Juiceboxx"? Whatever you FELT in the moment you finished reading that question -- before applying logic -- multiply that feeling by a million and that's your answer. I say go for it. You only live once!