A Short Perfunctory Letter

Drumming Upstream is back from the paywall

I’m going to keep this brief because I am certain that my American and non-American subscribers alike are tired of reading about America right now. Obviously the subject has been at the top of my mind as well. In an effort to think about it less, I’ve kept myself busy with other tasks. For the last few days I’ve steadily edited and moved the Drumming Upstream archive out from behind the paywall. In hindsight I don’t think it was a good idea to paywall that series to begin with. Hopefully some other parties can be just as honest with themselves about their own mistakes this week.

Anyway… if you are looking for reading material this weekend, the first two and a half seasons of Drumming Upstream are a novel’s worth of writing about my favorite songs and what I learned about them by learning to play them on drums. There are 43 entries to date, with another 435 hopefully on the way. You can explore the series chronologically on the Drumming Upstream tab on the main page, or in ranking order on the Drumming Upstream Leaderboard. Or, if you’re nostalgic for the experience of reading TV Tropes and Cracked, you can use the series’ interlinked footnotes to go on a tab opening adventure that you and your internet browser are sure to enjoy! I promise to have the next entry about the song “Universe” by The Microphones out soon, and during my usual December holiday I plan on getting a head start on a few more entries that have been sitting in my draft folder since Joe Biden was still running for president.

Well, that’s enough for now. Please enjoy Drumming Upstream along with your regularly scheduled Listening Diary & Micro Reviews.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Listening Diary ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Here are five songs that I enjoyed listening to recently! You can find a Spotify playlist with all of this year’s tracks here, updated with a new song every Monday-Friday.

“The Gift” by Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (of the Last Human Being, 2024)

I’m trying to catch up on 2024 albums that I missed earlier in the year. Fun how even a band as bizarre and hostile to convention as Sleepytime Gorilla Museum can sound as comforting as a lullaby after returning from so long an absence. I love what they’re doing with the interlocking cymbal patterns here. I think adding more complexity in higher pitched percussion is a good thing for metal bands to explore going forward.

“Prologue” by Kamasi Washington (Fearless Movement, 2024)

Most the albums with songs featured in today’s letter have one thing in common: they are looooooong. You always know you’re getting a lot of music from Kamasi Washington. While much of Fearless Movement experiments with his formula by adding guest vocals and instrumentalists that require a more reserved approach (shout out to Andre 3000), “Prologue” is uncut Kamasi. Two drum sets, squealing sax solos, and a main theme indebted to the Latin end of jazz fusion.

“Yellow Dawn” by Sumac (The Healer, 2024)

I’ve come to accept and respect Aaron Turner’s mid career shift to improvisation. With The Healer I’ve learned to enjoy it. That it took Sumac a while to find their groove only speaks to how much red ink they spilled editing their internal rule book. The payoff is worth it. The lengthy jam at the start of this track and the wild guitar solo in the middle are the best stretches of improv I’ve heard from this band, and the final riff is one of the best they’ve written.

“Everything & Everywhere Is Grace; Heaven Is A Decision I Must Make” by Fire-Toolz (Breeze, 2024)

I say it every time and every time I mean it: no one does it quite like Fire-Toolz.

“Universe Ancestral Talisman” by Krallice (Inorganic Rites, 2024)

Similar to my hesitance to get on board with Sumac’s “out” era, I haven’t always been sold on Krallice’s foray into synthesizers. I applaud their creative restlessness, of course, but I’ve long accepted that the majority of Krallice’s output is going to be firmly in the “for them” category. This track however is for me. Not a single trace of their black metal past, just pure progressive electronic expressionism.

\ \ \ \ \ Micro Reviews / / / / /

Here are five micro reviews of albums from my vast Rate Your Music catalog. Long time Lamniformes Instagram followers will recognize these from my stories, however they’ve been re-edited and spruced up with links so that you can actually hear the music instead of just taking my word for it.

Master of Reality by Black Sabbath (1971) - Heavy Metal

Like any of Sabbath’s first six records, this album could claim to have invented multiple strains of heavy metal all by itself. Groovy odes to weed, self-righteous Christian moralism, a theme song for pacifists in the age of nuclear armageddon, climate death sci-fi… this record really has it all. Most importantly it has MASSIVE riffs, maybe Iommi’s best track-for-track performance on a Sabbath record. It isn’t my favorite of the Ozzy run but its best tracks are undeniably metal classics and deserve your time if you care about the genre.

Master of Puppets by Metallica (1986) - Thrash Metal

The best possible argument for incremental improvement over reinvention. Almost track by track the same record as Ride The Lightning, but slightly better in a number of minor ways. Those small differences add up to a credible case for the best metal album of all time. If that isn’t too dramatic a statement for you, get a load of this: the first minute of this album is about as perfect as recorded music has ever gotten. And don’t get me started on “Damage Inc”! Can you tell that I first heard this album in 8th grade? It’s the best. I love it.

Individual Thought Patterns by Death (1993) - Death Metal

Death’s revolving door lineup strikes on absolute gold. I prefer Symbolic (and Leprosy) but I have no problem saying that LaRocque/DiGiogio/Hoglan is the best ensemble to grace a Death album. That high level personnel is crucial because, like all of Death’s later material, the songs on this album don’t make sense. Schuldiner was an all time riff writer and a real slapdash songwriter. Though this would come back to undo Death entirely, here the exceptional backing band inject just enough of their personal flavor (DiGiogio’s fretless bass tone, Hoglan’s fluttering cymbal accents, LaRocque’s old school theatricality) to give Schuldiner’s undercooked compositions a real kick.

Eparistera Daimones by Triptykon (2010) - Doom Metal

If Monotheist was Tom G. Warrior’s “old man’s still got it” record, this album proved he had a lot more where that came from. Some of the gnarliest, ugliest, most spitefully vicious metal ever put to tape. That is, of course, a compliment of the highest order. If I were being stingy I’d say that the tunes between “A Thousand Lies” and “The Prolonging” are a step down from the rest of the record, but I appreciate the generosity of material given how little this band has put out since. “The Prolonging” might be metal’s best diss track, sporting a main riff that feels like having your head crushed between two zamboni’s traveling at 100 mph. A 2010s classic.

Given To The Rising by Neurosis (2007) - Post-Metal

The first Neurosis album I picked up on release day, and the source of the dumbest argument I’ve ever had at a band practice. As the first Neurosis album after post-metal became a certifiable phenomenon, this album has palpable “get off my lawn” energy. And rightfully so. Neurosis do what they do best better than most bands do anything at all. The songs are slow, simple, loud, and ugly. Their two singers sound like grizzly bears conversing about Cormac McCarthy. Negative space plays as much of a role as conventional riff work. Although Spotify play counts suggest that “Water Is Not Enough” is the hit, I implore you to check out “Distill”, one of *the* best latter day Neurosis tracks. Too bad Scott Kelly is an abusive piece of shit!