Drum’s Not Dead is an album in the truest sense of the word. There are scarcely any songs on here that a cognisant individual would skip to, apart from the final track. Drum’s 12 songs are to be listened to consecutively, in their rightful and deliberate context. Separately they do not amount to more than experimental oddities, but as a whole they create an eye-opening listening odyssey.
“Drum” represents creativity and “Mt. Heart Attack” embodies death or pessimism. Drum’s Not Dead captures the conflict and battle between these two concepts.
“Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack” opens the album with washes of distorted guitar and foreboding drumming, generating an irrepressible nervousness. Second track, “Let’s Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack” marks the first musical and conceptual brawl. Vocalist, Angus Andrew, opens the song with a bellow like a siren, before the percussion starts to pound harrowingly. Guitars resound as part of some hellish nightmare, while Angus sings in his frightening falsetto. Cymbals crash madly, while the vocals continue to howl frantically.
“A Visit From Drum” introduces the tribal drumming which is scattered throughout the remainder of the record. Angus’ choir vocals chant “When the power’s out and it’s dark in the house, I will run. On the other side”. Discordant flickers of guitar smash and then withdraw.
“Drum Gets A Glimpse” offers one of the records few melodic reprieves. Riffs echo beautifully, while the drums whisper. There’s a sung call-and-response conversation “Why can’t we just try start again?”, “It just won’t work”. “I’m bothered by these trembling stars”, “Then close your eyes”. It’s warm and fleeting.
Mt. Heart Attack then begins to prevail, as “It Fit When I Was A Kid” bullies Drum shortly after. Angus hums in a low register maliciously, “We will drive you in the boot, through the crooked paths, to your resting place. We will leave you in the woods”.
“Hold You, Drum” agonisingly prolongs the aural torture with marching band percussion, jarring chords and looping vocal buzzing. “It’s All Blooming Now Mt. Heart Attack” haunts with nuanced atmospherics, disquieting, terrible and taut.
Drum is strung up by the wrists in “Drum And The Uncomfortable Can”. The torment is recounted by Angus, “Take him out the back, throw him in the bin, dump his grimy clothes, wash your dirty hands”. Unyielding tribal drumming continues to harass anyone still listening.
By this point, dread and alarm have settled in and Mt. Heart Attack appears the victor.
Until, as if by some impossibility, the album closes with an indescribably magical lullaby, which in 4 minutes completely cleanses the listener of the lurid journey they had just endured. The destination, it would seem, is a musical paradise. “The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack” is my favourite song of all time. When listened to in the context of Drum’s Not Dead, this song presents itself immaculately, nakedly. It has such a generosity of spirit, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was from a different record. The song engulfs you with tender chants and a humane melody. It acts as a rich emotional reward for anyone who explored the darker crevasses of their consciousness in the songs prior.
Drum’s Not Dead will drown anyone willing to hear it, but it will also afford you a priceless and overwhelming breath of fresh air at the curtain-close, worthy of the bruises to your ear drums.
Drum’s Not Dead is a perfect statement, wholly and completely.
Spiderland is a difficult record to define. At times it’s post rock, other times math rock and even grunge. It’s a bit like Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation meets something undefinable. Some of the guitar riffs screech, fuzzy and unrefined. At other times, they’re pristine and clear.
“Breadcrumb Trail” sounds like rock Rilke. “As I walked toward it I passed a crowd of people...she smiled at me, asked me if I wanted my fortune read...”, a narrative is mumbled as a guitar riff recurs. The chorus erupts as the “fortune teller screams at me”.
“Nosferatu Man” is dissonant and distorted. “Don Man” is melancholic and is void of percussion (and empty in general). A guitar strums indolently over and over, as a protagonist inaudibly recounts his thoughts before, during and after a party in a bar.
“Washer” presses on with miserable chords and the unhurried tempos. It’s graceful and simplistic in its gloom. Vocals are whispered. There’s always something disquieting about Spiderland. Even the album photograph is unsettling in the unstable smiles of the band members. “Washer” surges deafeningly toward the conclusion then recoils to its original hush.
Tension is pent up and then released in “For Dinner...”. The instruments are barely capable of being heard, generating an unremitting trepidation. Finally, “Good Morning Captain” bullies the listener with a heartless bassline, “Let me in, the voice cried softly from outside the wooden door. Scattered remnants of the ship could be seen in the distance, blood stained the icy wall of the shore”. In typical Slint style the chorus features a blare of instruments after muted verses, affording listeners an involuntary catharsis.
Spiderland is loud and quiet. It’s removed but affecting. It causes you to unravel.
Paul’s Boutique approaches its second decade with an anniversary edition LP, while proving to be an essential landmark stamp in hip hop history. This sophomore release is definitely one of the most important and criminally underrated albums (it tanked upon its release) in the ever growing hip hop genre. For this release the Dust Brothers were recruited along to craft a staggering amount of angular beats and ironic samples that prove to be clever and cheekily self-referential. Every song indulges with a diverse and rich labyrinth of samples (boasting over 400 samples) that requires immense concentration to pick them all up.
This album acted as a pinnacle in showcasing the ability to combine rap and pop culture together through deliciously referential punch lines. These references range from the Beatles, Bob Marley, James Brown, The Flintstones, Psycho, Sir Isaac Newton, Bob Dylan, Muhammad Ali, to Dr. Seuss and many more. It’d be impractical to list them all.
The album opens with ‘To All the Girls’, a bluesy ode to all women around the world (assumingly these girls fought, and possibly died for their right to party) which is followed by a stampede of funk force that is ‘Shake Your Rump’ that completely revolutionises their sarcastic party style that was conceived in ‘Licensed to Ill’. The song confirms that they haven’t lost a beat with witty lines like "Sam the butcher, bringing Alice the meat".
In “3-Minute Rule" MCA, Adrock and Mike D boast and claim ridiculous notions such as ‘I've been making records since you were sucking on your mother's limp dick’. While this doesn’t sound very admirable, it should be noted that the boys spit lines out with a hint of sarcasm and sharpness modestly. The final track ‘B-Boy Bouillabaisse’ is a 12 minute opus that shifts from impressively placed beats sampling country, jazz and funk relentlessly. The boys sound comfortable but never relaxed. The last 2 minutes of the song features a live applause and cheering from an audience, it’s so well placed that you feel like returning the favour.
In this Anniversary Edition, every track has been remastered with great precision. The drums sound thicker and warmer while the bass lines ripple through the speakers. Downloadable content is available through this LP with the Beastie Boys providing commentary on each track that is worth a listen. It is apparent 20 years after the 1989 release that we’ll never hear something like this again. As the boys put it themselves in ‘The Sounds of Science’: “Expanding the horizons, expanding our parameters.”
There's no denying that they changed the face of hip hop.
Unwittingly, Don Hertzfeldt has become something of a viral internet sensation- there are probably five times as many people who could quote the “My spoon is too big/I am a banana!” gag from Rejected than there are people who actually know who this man is. The fact that Don Hertzfeldt is adamant that computers not be used to create or screen his works is lost in the quick-fire comedy potential of Rejected's many comic segments- seemingly made for sites like YouTube.
Perhaps this mutilation of his first true masterpiece has influenced his return to the long form- not features, mind, but short narrative pieces that are impossible to effectively compartmentalise for YouTube. Everything Will Be OK actually has a protagonist, Bob; and while a clear plot (in the traditional cause-and-effect sense of the word) is hard to discern or explain, it is definitely a work to be viewed in its entirety. It's hard to imagine Bob and his ex-girlfriend's pseudo-philosophical musings about death and space travel having nearly as much impact on YouTube as Rejected's “My anus is bleeding!” segment.
Something to get out of the way from the off- Everything Will Be OK, the first part of a planned trilogy, is better than the award-winning Rejected. It is, unreservedly, the best statement that Hertzfeldt has painstakingly etched frame-by-frame so far- just don't ask me to explain what that statement actually is. His trademark non-sequitur style of humour, perfected in Rejected, is now framed within a very human narrative, an intense downward psychological spiral. The real-world neuroses that he last visited in the overlooked Lily and Jim are painfully blown wide open before your very eyes, utilising even more bizarre hand-made animation effects than Rejected's chaotic final chapter- multiple irises and altered photographs give us a view of a fractured life that is somehow familiar.
It is, mind you, very funny. Not to give any of the gags away- but the deadpan narration is juxtaposed with the stick-figure imagery in many ways that couldn't fail to make you crack a smile. But if Muffassa's death in The Lion King didn't make you cry- the final act of Everything Will Be OK will. A minor animated masterpiece. Bring on part 2.
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Drum’s Not Dead is an album in the truest sense of the word. There are scarcely any songs on here that a cognisant individual would skip to, apart from the final track. Drum’s 12 songs are to be listened to consecutively, in their rightful and deliberate context. Separately they do not amount to more than experimental oddities, but as a whole they create an eye-opening listening odyssey.
