WEGL's Friday Picks: Oct 28 - Nov 4
1) Benjamin Clementine – And I Have Been – Oct 28, 2022
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1) Benjamin Clementine – And I Have Been – Oct 28, 2022
Notorious Orange County experimental-punk group The Garden took a stop in Atlanta on the tour of their latest album HORSESHIT ON ROUTE 66 this past Tuesday, October 11, and I had the pleasure of seeing it live. For those unfamiliar, The Garden is composed of a pair of twin brothers, Fletcher and Wyatt Shears, who release solo music under the monikers Puzzle and Enjoy respectively. The Garden takes elements and concepts familiar to the California punk scene, and fuse them with 21st century electronic instrumentation, with a focus that is frequently restricted to drums and bass only, backed up by synthetic melodies and samples. There has truly never been a band quite like The Garden, particularly given their Kiss-esque stage theatrics and face painting paired with the eccentric neo-punk. Their past 3 records (not accounting for the various demos and bedroom mixtapes they released from 2011-2014) have each displayed a sound unique to band, whilst still standing apart from each other. Many of the tracks remain true to the punk trope of “3 minutes is too long,” with other songs containing more melodic undertones that can reach around 4 minutes. This latest record is no different, and I would argue that it is in fact their most “punk sounding” LP to date, given the synth injections and melodic choruses are kept to a minimum, if not absent all together on a few songs. The band describes their music as “Vada Vada,” which essentially is the highest degree of experimentality and intends to ignore all genre-based conventions. Obviously, it is pretty much impossible to truly make music that is 100% original and uncapable of being categorized, especially when one uses the standard major-minor key format that dominates western music. To me, “Vada Vada” is much more a mentality, and its one that Wyatt and Fletcher certainly live by. One that states, "either enjoy and appreciate what we’re doing, or get the hell out of the way."
Melt My Eyez See Your Future – Denzel Curry
There are a few reasons as to why the evolution of rock music has yielded some of the most influential, creative, and unique albums and artists of any genre. Whether it be for the simple fact that rock music sees no instrumental bounds, can be enjoyable in any context, and can be independent from or wholly dependent on technology and electronic production, it is undeniable that rock music is a constantly changing spectrum of sounds and emotions filtered through the lenses of different musical geniuses throughout the last 100 years. Of all the genres and subgenres contained within the realm of rock music, few have as distinct of a sound as shoegaze. Dubbed “shoegaze” due to guitarists and singers being known for standing in one spot, sometimes staring at the ground or “shoe-gazing” for the majority of a show, the layered, fuzzy, reverb packed guitar tracks, pounding drums, and touches of ambient synth make this a timeless form of rock music since its original conception in the late 80s and early 90s. With major pioneers of shoegaze-like instrumentation dating back to the 60s with creative minds like Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and the Beatles, followed by the sounds and styles of The Cure, Sonic Youth, and Dinosaur Jr., and eventually brought into true form with groups like the Cocteau Twins and the Jesus and Mary Chain, it is debatable if any band captured the true essence of shoegaze-rock better than My Bloody Valentine.
The wait is finally over. Quintessential indie-rock outfit Modest Mouse released their seventh studio album, The Golden Casket, on June 25, 2021. The highly anticipated project consists of 12 songs and is just a hair over 50 minutes in length, a bit shorter than most of the bands previous releases. Front-man Isaac Brock and drummer Jeremiah Green, the two remaining members of the original trio, are back full force with their ensemble of other instrumentalists, some new and some old, in addition to a world of new sounds and song concepts. This is, by far, Modest Mouse’s most unique and colorful sounding album to date. The use of synthesizers and a wide range of other electronic instruments gives a majority of the songs on this album a much fuller, more vibrant sound than anything the band has released as of yet. While many critics and casual listeners are struggling to see how The Golden Casket can hold up to the likes of the bands earlier, more well known releases such as the beautifully haunting concept album, The Lonesome Crowded West, or the record that came 7 years later, Good News For People Who Love Bad News, including essential Modest Mouse songs that really put the band on the map in the mid 2000’s and even landed them a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Album in 2004. With all of that said, let’s break the album down and discover why it could be their most bold and interesting release so far, and what it could mean for fans in the future.