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If you simply skim over the facts regarding the U of M’s latest blockbuster grant you will see that the Department of Energy has awarded the U with 8 million dollars to construct a wind turbine that doesn’t produce any viable power. In the logic of money and energy it is no doubt unusual, even risky, for a $ sign and a large string of 0’s to not be tied to a guaranteed usable, sellable …
There is this idea that filesharing is bad for bands, which comes from a simple logical fallacy that hinges on the misguided notion that if free downloads were not available, the downloader would instead purchase the album. In reality, in most cases of illegal music downloading, the listener would not buy the album if he couldn’t download it, he would simply not listen to it at all. As a person who spends quite a bit …
The sound is the most immediately striking thing about Cloudkicker’s new EP: they’ve found the perfect production style for this sort of music. The record’s sound is crisp, full, huge, and dynamic. But a great sound is nothing without good riffs, and Cloudkicker’s production is suited equally well to the band’s ethereally epic style and their stern mathematical riffing. It would be hard to find a bad riff on any of these three songs: the …
Eric Brew
It may simply be my aversion to any discussion of morality that marks my distaste for The Machinist. It could also be the high hopes I had for its’ seemingly intricate and inquisitive plotline. Even until the end, despite the better part of my ego telling me precisely what the protagonist’s reality was, I refused to accept the obviousness of the resolution. I was set on …
What This Is:
I asked as many people as possible to review the same album for this issue. My idea was to showcase the essential and inescapable subjectivity of criticism, and to that end I chose a challenging record: The Purging Trilogy, a two-hour-long avant-guitar album by guitarist Mick Barr. The record is split into three parts: Ixoltion, Sacreth, and Hymns. As I expected, every assertion put forth in one of these reviews is contradicted in …
These reviews had to get cut down to fit into the spread. Here’s the uncut versions!
Kevin Tully
Ocrilim’s Purging Trilogy is something I can appreciate for what it is.
There’s not really much going on in the whole damn thing except guitar track over guitar track over guitar track times infinite. It’s basically 2 hours and 12 minutes of one dude playing guitar. Now, I have to say I’m totally in awe of anyone that can see …
Goldmund – Philip Glass film scores on quaalude.
-Eric Brew, Editor-in-Chief
Ocrilim – Beautiful guitarfucking.
-Deniz Rudin, Editor, S&V
Scout Niblett
-Peter Poght, Contributor
Bangs – Take U To Da Movies
There is a recent and tremendous surge in the popularity, both general and youtubular, of the self-consciously or “ironically” bad, but people shooting for so-bad-it’s-good generally end up at so-bad-it’s-even-worse-for-trying. In this climate, Bangs’ gigantic and sincere awfulness is just the pick-me-up a serious camphound needs. Check out this fantastic video from Sudan’s finest rapper. …
10 Albums that I loved:
Agoraphobic Nosebleed – Agorapocalypse
Who would’ve thought ANb would put out an album with an average song length of over two minutes? The world’s fastest grind band slows down a little, with mindblowing results. Absolutely fucking insane thrash trades off with insanely heavy riffs, with the best drum programming in human history. This record has the perfect grindcore mood: pissed off and wild and gross, offensive just for the sake of …
1a.m.
A Man Outside My Window: “I WANT A FUCK! I WANT A FUCK, NOT A DICK-SUCKING!”
A Woman Outside My Window: “YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE!”
Crabcore is a style of music that has briefly become, to the shame of us all, profitable. Though some crabcore has its roots in screamo and deathcore, some in suburban whiteboy rap, and some in no-talent laptop techno, all crabcore is made by very young scene kids, all crabcore combines screamed vocals with autotuned vocals, and all crabcore absolutely fails at electronic music.
Here are some crabcore bands to familiarize yourself with. It will be painful, …
I know that somebody told you that Isis is a metal band (though that information was erroneous), but that doesn’t mean that you don’t even have to listen to the music before deciding how to respond to it.
You are stupid.
You guys, Isis is not the sort of band that generally provides you with that sort of cathartic release, certainly not on their last two albums.
Which are not metal albums.
Okay.
-Deniz
P.S. Here is their press paragraph for …
