Updates From The Studio
The busy summer continues!
Good morning! Another short letter this week. Too hot to think in consecutive sentences. I spent two days this week recording eight songs on drums for an upcoming full length by the band A Lake Within The Earth. I tracked at Ohmstead Studios in Humboldt Park with my old buddy Seth Engel. This was the first time Seth tracked drums in Ohmstead’s massive new room, and let me tell ya, the drums sound GREAT. My paying subscribers will get a chance to hear those great sounding drums next week, but for now here’s a chance to look at those great sounding drums:
Yes, that is a second snare drum. Also, this is the same kick drum that I used on the Sisyphean sessions nearly a decade ago. Still works! Once my session at Ohmstead wrapped up, I dragged my drums back north for one last rehearsal with Ferrn before our show on Saturday night at The Burlington. The band is feeling good, despite the heat, and we’re ready to bring the heat to you for our second show.
We have guests over for the weekend, so I’m going to cut this intro short. In addition to the subscriber exclusive I alluded to above, you can expect a free letter about the best albums of 2025 so far in your inboxes next Friday. Until then, stay cool!
# # # # # The Promo Zone # # # # #
As I mentioned above, Ferrn are playing tomorrow night at The Burlington! Come join us, Edens, and System Exclusive for a night of rad jams. You can grab tickets here.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Listening Diary ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Listen to this year’s running diary on Apple Music.
“Cracked” by Pink Navel & Kenny Segal (How To Capture Playful, 2023)
Back when I was in Bellows we played a few shows with Pink Navel in the Boston area. Always got the impression that he was a cool dude, but I had no idea that he was affiliated with Ruby Yacht and Kenny Segal1!! It makes perfect sense in retrospect, both because Pink Navel is a DIY maverick and a rapper with a deep bag of unexpected references to pull from. Devin is particularly deft with video game bars, drawing out all kinds of poetic meaning from the turns of phrase common to gamer linguistics.
“Hoodlum” by Noor (Mother’s Guilty Pleasure, 2024)
As part of my larger Progmatism project I’ve been revisiting a lot of my favorite progressive metal records from the late 80s and early 90s. I’ll get into the reasons why this particular era interests me eventually, but I suspect that the French-Canadians in Noor have spent a similar amount of time with records from the same prog metal golden age. These kids have chops for days, even if this isn’t prog per se they’d have no problem holding their own against the shredders of yore. Can’t resist a song that has the lyric “my evil deeds” in it either.
“Two Riders Down” by Caroline (Caroline 2, 2025)
The indie bands are doing blast beats, again. Let me see if I can trace this out. Blast beats now belong to extreme metal, punk rock via grind and hardcore, jazz (it’s a Tony Williams lick at the end of the day), and now, thanks to the friends with benefits relationship between indie rock culture and black metal for the last 15 years, post rock. Caroline don’t use the beat as an empty gesture either. The second half of this song is a series of one bold decision after another. My personal favorite move is the spoken word bit that comes in right as the blasting starts to get legit intense.
“Arctic Summer” by Weeping Sores (The Convalescence Agonies, 2025)
Now see THIS is the kind of song you expect blast beats from. Of course guitarist/vocalist Doug Moore and drummer Steve Schwegler make you wait for them, but the intervening minutes are well worth the delay. Frankly, it’s weird to hear a Moore joint this, dare I say, conventional? Obviously I love the weird shit (just look at my best of 2024 list!) but it’s nice to hear a few riffs that I could hum in the shower a day later. Also nice: the cello!
“Nightvisions” by Liana Flores (Flower of the Soul, 2024)
Shouts out to Aquarium Drunkard for putting this album on my radar. If I see the letters “MPB” anywhere in a description of a record these days you can count on my ears for at least a few tracks. Gorgeous vocal arrangement here.
\ \ \ \ \ 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.
Choirs of The Eye by Kayo Dot (2003) - Progressive Rock
As a young, curious metalhead and frequent reader of Sputnik Music in the mid 00s, Kayo Dot’s debut album held a similarly mythical reputation as Opeth’s Blackwater Park. I’m sure this reputation would annoy Toby Driver, considering how hard he’s worked to distance himself from the metal scene in the years since. It’s a shame because metal is a more interesting club with Driver in it, and because he was really, really good at it, but I understand the impulse. Metal is something that Kayo Dot *do*, not what they *are*. So what are they? Good question! At its core Choirs Of The Eye is a prog rock album where the most intense moments draw from metal’s playbook without following the genre’s rules. Like a lot of music from the north east coast avant garde Kayo Dot are pretty humorless, but they make up for it by filling the record with oodles of beautiful passages often powered by woodwinds and brass instruments that give it an utterly unique sonic palate. And yes, when things get heavy they get REAL heavy, like in the thrilling conclusion of “The Manifold Curiosity”. This material is just as mind-bending and inspiring as it was two decades ago, no matter what genre it belongs to.
No Help For The Mighty Ones by SubRosa (2011) - Doom Metal
My friend and former bandmate Brooks once noted that the American metal scene saw an eruption of doom bands during the Obama years. SubRosa were one of the most interesting acts to arrive during that wave, blending the rumbling density of tuned down guitars with layers of electric violin and rough-hewn vocal harmonies. Though it’d be easy to overstate the folksy-ness of their music, SubRosa’s approach to doom feels distinctly American and western at that. This is music for open skies and craggy deserts. As the excellent album cover suggests this album has an occult flavor, which, along with the hypnotic riffing and tom-heavy drumming could be attributed to the influence of Neurosis. SubRosa are no clone however. If anything the strings make them sound like a heavier version of A Silver Mount Zion. They’d write sharper songs after this, but No Help kicked off one of the best runs of doom records in the 2010s. Check out “The Inheritance” if you need a sampler.
De Vermis Mysteriis by High on Fire2 (2012) - Heavy Metal
Released during a stretch when it felt impossible not to see High on Fire live if you attended one than one metal show a year, De Vermis Mysteriis paired America’s best hesher power trio with producer Kurt Ballou just as he was coming into his own as the go-to guy for deep fried guitars and artillery caliber drums. My unfounded suspicion is that this isn’t many people’s favorite High on Fire release, lacking as it does many of their biggest “hits”, but it’s probably many people’s second favorite record by them. What it lacks in name recognition it makes up for in sheer force and sonic intensity. Everything about this album goes hard as hell. Even the interludes have some real zing to them, thanks to Jeff Matz’ incredible bass tone. Matz’ even gets a chance to take center stage on the gobsmacking slow jam “King of Days”, one of the stranger and best songs High on Fire have put to tape. As always, the less you look into and think about the band’s lyrics the better. Instead think of the record’s batshit backstory as flavor text, the real mechanics as ever lie instead in Matt Pike’s impeccable taste in heavy metal riffwork.
Heaven or Las Vegas by Cocteau Twins (1990) - Dream Pop
Is this patient zero for the slow vibes-ification of indie and alternative rock? Maybe too bold and provocative a question to for a record as widely beloved as this, but it’s worth asking. It isn’t hard to imagine, judging by the memes, how a young band could learn all the wrong lesson from this record - that lyrics don’t matter as long as the music sounds pretty enough. And to be fair the guitars on this record are awfully pretty, just one gorgeous combination of effects after another. But this simplifies the album’s appeal. Sure it’s hard to make out the words, but don’t overlook how musical the lyrics are on the level of sounds and syllables. It’s like that old Batman episode where he realizes he’s dreaming because he can’t read. This is pop music heard through the haze of the surreal. Don’t over look the bass guitar, the real hero of the record. One of the best records to reach for on a beautiful sunny day with nothing pressing on the schedule.
The Blueprint3 by Jay-Z (2001) - Rap
I’ve probably listened to this record more than any other rap album if I’m being honest. After half a decade of commercial dominance, Jay-Z cements his legacy with a self-consciously “classic” record. To that end, he and a team of the best producers of the era assembled an album that not only directly sampled classic soul records but lived up to the standard of lush arrangements associated with that era. Luxurious production is its own kind of flexing. This high standard assured that even the radio singles sounded phenomenal. Yes, unfortunately some of this credit must go to Kanye West, but don’t let his oversized profile crowd out the excellent contributions of Just Blaze and Timbaland. As for Jay himself, if this isn’t his peak it’s the closest thing to it. Slick talk, effortless flows, highly quotable lyrics, surprisingly intricate rhyme schemes. One of Jay’s great talents is knowing when to break the rhyme in order to make some lines pop or to pivot to a new scheme. That he recorded this set of tunes over the course of a weekend is astonishing. Sure it might be a little hard to take the claim that his individual success is on par with the civil rights movement, especially given what he’s done with his success since, and sure the “models & bottles” playboy act might be a little grating, and SURE there is some unfortunate early 00s language on here… but listen to “U Don’t Know” and tell me this man isn’t one of the best rappers ever!!