Five & Five on Friday, 8/25/23

Gone fishin', figuratively

Happy Friday! 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. You may have seen the trailer for the new film Maestro, staring Bradley Cooper as composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein. Or you may have heard the hullabaloo about Cooper’s prosthetic makeup for the role. In either case, if you’re unfamiliar with Bernstein himself, this clip of him talking about Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is a good introduction to his style and critical ethos.

2. I am by no means a fan of Saturday Night Live. Sure, over the years there have been skits that I’ve lol’d real hard at but on the whole the show has a sub-optimal batting average. I say this to say yes, I am the target audience for a Longreads essay about the show’s shitty working environment and Lorne Michael’s tyrannical control over much of the comedy industry. Nonetheless, I think this piece is worth reading, if only for the hard numbers on SNL’s command over the market. I do think the writer left a lot of meat on the bone on this subject and zoomed out to the subject of celebrity a bit too quickly, but hey, nobody’s perfect.

3. I’ve spent the last week on the road with my parents for a family reunion in Wisconsin, where I’m currently writing from the shore of a lake. Unlike the routes I’ve taken through the country on tour, which link together major metropolitan areas via interstate highways, my parent’s and I took the scenic route through Ontario and the mysterious Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Along the way we’ve made a point to eat some of the local specialties. In London, ON we enjoyed shawarma from Shelby’s, an eastern Canadian chain that gives Middle Eastern fusion the Chipotle treatment, albeit with significantly better spices and packaging. In Mackinaw, Michigan we enjoyed some terrific whitefish fresh from the Great Lakes, though we skipped out on the local obsession with fudge. And while traveling through the UP we had pasties, huge empanada-esque meat buns brought over by Cornish miners, for lunch. So, if you find yourself on the road, I encourage you to give the local flavors a shot instead of just settling for the endless string of chicken sandwiches that I typically subsist on while touring.

4. While I’ve been away, I’ve enjoyed two different reflections from writers who’ve reached milestones living in New York: Ashna Ali on their 18th anniversary and Kelsey Chapman on her 10th. As a born-and-raised New Yorker I’ve often paradoxically felt like I don’t have an “authentic” experience of living there. The city is so transitory, and is home to so many transplants that the true NYC life is one that is built by some degree of choice. Of course, as you’ll quickly realize from these two selections, even the transplant experience is too varied to fit into a single category. Anyway, New York rocks and I’m glad interesting people keep moving there.

5. My final recommendation this week is, since I am on vacation, to chill the heck out. Find a body of water and stare at it for an hour. Walk around near trees without headphones. Contemplate an interesting rock formation. Or, if none of these natural wonders are available to you, don’t set an alarm for a few days. Feel no guilt for keeping it frosty, and don’t bother thanking me for it.

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.

Essential Cuts by Carcass (2004) - Grind / Death Metal

A concise summary of Carcass’s pre-reunion material that shows how much ground they covered stylistically in a short period of time. I had forgotten until this project how many compilations I own. This one didn’t lead to any other Carcass purchases, so it must not have stuck with me.

Jesu by Jesu (2004) - Post-Metal

An album I respect the hell out of on an aesthetic level. Slow, melancholic, heavy music that isn’t interested in being aggressive but instead on capturing a sense of wist. The songs aren’t quite there though, and I feel like other bands have taken this angle to much cooler places since this album. Still, a landmark record for this type of heavy music.

Versus the World by Amon Amarth (2002) - Death Metal

I remember a classmate of mine mistaking this for a video game when I pulled it out after class in high school once. This cover definitely looks like some super unforgiving PS1 hack ‘em up. This band’s viking shtick does nothing for me these days, but I do like their patient and clear approach to melody. I don’t think I needed this many records by them though, jeez.

Enter Deception by Cellador (2006) - Power Metal

I remember this being one of the first power metal bands to emulate the Dragonforce “power metal with blast beats” style. They did not catch on in America, can’t speak to the rest of the world. Not sure what happened to them, tbh. This album is corny without being joyously corny. It does not go nuts enough, because it mistakes constant playing for exciting playing.

The New Black by Strapping Young Lad (2006) - Thrash Metal

My first Devin Townsend record. I got on this band’s irreverent wavelength right as Townsend was clearly growing tired of it. Hard not to think of this album in terms of how it set the stage for the incredible Devin Townsend Project run a few years later. The best songs here are the singles, “Wrong Side” in particular.