2019 In Review

Below are some brief write-ups of a few albums I really liked from 2019 that I didn’t write about:

Cave In - Final Transmission

I actually wrote a whole piece on this, but scrapped the entire thing after I tried to edit it down to the bare essentials.  It’s really difficult to write about your favorite bands new album, especially when that album contains some of the best material they’ve done in years.  Not that White Silence, the group’s 2011 experimental blend of Heavy Metal, Hard Rock and Psychedelic Pop is anything to scoff at, but Final Transmission is the most Cave In sounding album since they released their Space-Rock classic Jupiter in 2000.  The shimmery chorus/delay effect that guitarists Stephen Brodsky and Adam McGrath perfected in their earlier years is in full force backed with a base of their latter day riff-heavy rock.  But for as good as the music is, there’s another layer of significance to Final Transmission.  The songs were collected from demo sessions the band had conducted prior to the tragic passing of long-time bass player Caleb Scofield.  An extremely unique voice in the metal world, both literally and in his superb playing and bass tone, Scofield was a major driving force behind Cave In’s sound.  With Final Transmission, the group pays homage to their fallen bandmate and friend who had helped shape the material it contains, some of the best they have ever made.

Efterklang – Altid Sammen

Denmark’s indie-pop darlings Efterklang went on an indefinite hiatus following their 2012 full length, Piramida, at which point the genre-fusing band began to exercise more electronic tendencies with their synth-based alter ego Liima.  Resurfacing again in 2016 to write and perform an opera called Leaves: The Color Of Falling in collaboration with fellow Danish composer Karsten Fundal, the exact fate of the group remained uncertain.  But after the second full-length album under the Liima moniker, the trio of Casper Clausen, Mads Brauer and Rasmus Stolberg returned their sights to the more orchestral indie pop sensibilities of Efterklang.  It’s difficult to say Altid Sammen is the most ambitious album for a group whose discography includes performances with full Philharmonic orchestras, much less an experimental opera, but there is a certain maturity present in these nine tracks.  The dreamy post-rock of their early days melds into the boisterous orchestration of the groups more recent output.  Clausen sounds more confident and in control of his vocals than ever, seamlessly shifting from his signature lower register croon to a soaring head voice and back.  Complimented by Baroque Orchestration X, a Belgian collective using traditional instrumentation to create modern music, Altid Sammen floats along, half indie rock record, half symphony.  With it, Efterklang have created their strongest album to date and set the bar even higher for themselves than it already was.

Kayo Dot  - Blasphemy

While Cave In and Efterklang have had evolutionary paths that one can follow from their beginnings to their most current releases, Kayo Dot is perhaps the exact opposite.  Toby Driver, band-leader and song writer, has taken an approach perhaps more along the lines of a Jazz or Chamber Music composer.  Each record has been a focus on an entirely new and different idea, whether it was the Avant-Garde Metal of Choirs Of The Eye, the Classical and Jazz arrangements of Blue Lambency Downward or the Scott Walker-esque Goth Rock of Coyote.  But what’s most interesting about Blasphemy isn’t that Driver has yet again jumped on something entirely new, but more that it’s almost a fusion of his entire past.  Traces of the heavier side of the band blend with the synth driven dark wave explored on their previous two releases, Coffins On Io and Plastic House On Base Of Sky creating a wide range of tonality and style.  In concept moreso than in sound, Blasphemy actually more closely resembles something Driver’s previous band Maudlin Of The Well would have created. The “anything goes” approach takes the album from the hypnotically serene to the crushingly heavy.  It’s beautiful, it’s complex and it’s strange.  It’s pretty much the album you always hoped Toby Driver would make.

Mdou Moctar – Ilana: The Creator

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Nigerien guitarist Mdou Moctar and his band play live a few times.  His dazzling and mind boggling skill is certainly a sight to behold, but what can actually be lost in the display of amazing musicianship is that the songs are actually good too.  The band buzzes through sets filled with explosive guitar solos and driving polyrhythms, blurring the lines between Western Rock and traditional African Music.  Where previous efforts have been a mishmash of lo-fi live recordings, auto-tuned jams and droning acoustic desert ballads, Ilana: The Creator captures the full wild psychedelia of the groups live show for the first time.  Moctar and company’s electrified take on the Tuareg guitar style is nothing short of mesmerizing.  The gritty distortion on the guitars compliments the searing solos like the one in “Tarhartazed,” one of the albums highlights, where Moctar’s blisteringly fast playing is as much Hendrix and Van Halen as it is fellow Tuareg guitarist Bombino.  Ilana: The Creator is not only one of the top alums of the year; it’s one of the best albums I have ever heard.

Charlie Parr – Charlie Parr

It’s hard to say if Charlie Parr’s self titled full length, his seventeenth album, is a pivotal turning point in the singer-songwriters career, but considering nearly half of it is reworked songs from his back catalogue, it almost has the feel of closing out a chapter.  Factor in that Parr played an uncharacteristically loud set with an electric guitar and full backing band to kick off his tour, one can’t help but to wonder what’s to come.  But for now, we have Charlie Parr, an excellent collection showcasing Parr’s impressive blues-folk finger picking and penchant for story telling.  New songs like opener “Love Is An Unraveling Birds Nest” and “Mag Wheels” fit nicely into the canon; personal and melancholic blues numbers built on a bed of his signature not-exactly claw hammer style playing.  “Heavy” brings back Parr’s tasteful slide style and tinny resonator guitar moan, both major contributing factors to the dusty feel of 2017’s Dog while fan favorites like “To A Scrapyard Bus Stop” and “Jubilee” show up in updated versions, sounding more like the live incarnations they have morphed into over years on the road.  The album closes out on “Cheap Wine,” a staple of the musicians live sets since it’s original recording in 2005.  In it’s current form the singers howl brings new life to the lyrics, a tale about a downtrodden small town liquor shop owner yearning for something more.  Like the protagonist of the song, Charlie Parr may be looking for the next chapter of his story, and whatever that may be, we would be wise to follow along.