Five & Five on Friday, 7/14/2023

Actually good DFW discourse, actually good video game news, and more!

Happy Bastille Day! Congratulations on making it to the end of the week. As you head into your weekend, here are five recommendations and then five micro reviews of albums from my high school CD collection. Maybe you’ll find something new to read, listen to, or do this weekend. See you next week!

1. ICYMI: I sent out the latest entry of Drumming Upstream earlier this week, about “Towing Jehovah” by Converge. This one took a long time to put together because a) I needed to take some time to get this Five & Five series up and running b) because Converge are one of my favorite bands and I have a lot to say about them, and c) because their songs are very hard to play on drums. I think this one of the better DU’s this season. I hope with this tune out of the way I’ll be able to deliver more entries at a faster clip.

2. If you’ve followed me on social media for the last few years, or if you read my review of Nope last year, you’ll know that few things get my goat like low-hanging criticisms of Infinite Jest from people who find the very idea of reading a challenging book worthy of ridicule. Lest you confuse me for some thin-skinned DFW fanboy, you should know that I LOVED this extensive critique of Wallace’s work by Patricia Lockwood. Lockwood untangles a number of connected issues with the DFW style & persona, praising the parts that are good and unsparingly shredding the parts that suck. She’s also incredibly funny, doubly so if you’re familiar with the material she’s analyzing. Good criticism rules!

3. Though I haven’t been gaming as much as I’d like lately (job search, and I got too scared playing Death Stranding lmao), I was heartened to see that the American wing of Sega has voted to unionize. Not only is this a necessary step to push back on the insane workload demands of producing modern video games, it’ll also provide a foothold for workers when the rising tides of automation/etc come their way. As for a recommendation… uh, I don’t know, try playing a Yakuza game or something.

4. I enjoyed this essay about the stylistic hallmarks and musical geneology of anime theme songs, or Anison, from Ryo Miyauchi of This Side of Japan. I’d somehow never heard of the 89-second rule before this essay, and I appreciated the clear way Ryo broke down the various influences on the form.

5. As long as we have unions on the brain, consider buying some merch from the WGA! Did you see that quote about how the studios are willing to wait this out until writers are homeless? Fuck that! Buy a hat (or t-shirt) to show the execs that we’ve got each other’s backs.

Now, onto the five micro reviews. Long time Lamniformes Instagram followers will recognize these from my stories back in late 2020, 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.

Hate Crew Death Roll by Children of Bodom (2003) - Melodic Death Metal

Oh man, this band used to be HUGE in the 00s and now no one ever talks about them. Remarkable how fast a band can tank their reputation with some lesser records and sloppy live shows. At some point I convinced myself I was too cool for this record. I’m not. It’s fun as hell. More orchestra hits than a Konami soundtrack. This band understood that metal can be a party in the right hands. [This review was written before Alexi Laiho passed away in December 2020, which brought Children of Bodom back into conversation albeit for tragic reasons. I still think they are strangely under-discussed considering how hugely popular they were for years.]

Reanimation by Linkin Park (2002) - Nü Metal

I got this remixed version of Linkin Park’s debut Hybrid Theory for Christmas in 8th grade, thanks Mom! Honestly, I think this album is really neat. It introduced me to Black Thought, Pharoahe Monch and Jurassic 5 way before I understood how cool that could have made me in high school. Linkin Park’s sound lent itself well to very imaginative electronic remixing. I wish more rock records sounded this futuristic today.

Pablo Honey by Radiohead (1993) - Alternative Rock

I think even as a 14 year old the simp levels on this record were simply too high for me to endure. It didn’t help that this was the last piece of Radiohead’s back catalog that I put together when I got into them, so it had to compete with a few of my favorite albums of all time to make an impression. Really, it’s a totally fine rock album that has the unfortunate fate of being attached to a drastically different discography. “I Can’t” is a great tune.

Evil Empire by Rage Against the Machine (1996) - Rap Rock

*teen Ian voice* wait… colonialism is…. bad????

This one gets written off as the runt of the litter when it comes to Rage Against the Machine (anecdotally speaking, that is), but holy hell is it good. Not as catchy as the other two, sure, but just as mean. The focus on global issues, specifically the struggle of the indigenous Mexican population, also give this record a different vibe than the more USA-centric debut.

The Battle of Los Angeles by Rage Against the Machine (1999) - Rap Rock

One of the records that made me want to play drums as a pre-teen. A lot of the political content went over my head when I first heard it, but it sure did plant a lot of seeds from that altitude. Listening to it as an adult I understand what all of those references to Fanon, Baldwin, Hampton etc are getting at. Oh, and the riffs kick ass.