MELOMANIA here to ease the chilly week with above-average new releases and choice reissues

The "We're Not Making Many Friends With This One" edition

IT’S GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS!

So less keystrokes and now less solid music leaping out at us. We are one month into 2023 and three albums might be ready to age beyond the spring. Maybe four. Going through the music with a friend (who had just given us a preview of a fantastic demo that is still under wraps,) we only had a few tricks up our sleeve. So, tread merrily into this week - with critical distance and HOPE to find some music that will help.

THE WAEVE [LP/CD](Transgressive)

As longtime admirers of Graham Coxon of Blur (that drilling guitar solo on “Coffee & TV” remains a brilliant example of giving it everything you have…and then some,) we were intrigued by the new project with singer Rose Elinor Dougall. Dougall fits into Coxon’s warped sense of songwriting perfectly. When she takes the lead on the brooding “Sleepwalking,” her vocals and delivery regularly turn up the emotion. On the noirish single “Kill Me Again,” Coxon (and his saxophone) discover a new mood where Dougall accents the best parts. However, like the unabashed freedom of Coxon on that aforementioned Blur track, The Waeve really needs another burner like “Someone Up There” where they both match so well amid chaos and noise.

NICOLE FAUX NAIV - Moon Rally [LP](Bronze Rat/Redeye)

Russian/German Synth/Pop singer/songwriter Naiv has a great sense of what makes SynthPop great. Her background vocals and the swooning but slightly indifferent lead on “Afternoons” go brilliantly with the New Order-ian guitar part. Her ideas are fleshed out even better on the Cure-ian (think a breezy “The Head on the Door” song played at half-speed by Lande Hekt) ballad “Tomorrow Was A Summer Day in 2001.” Naiv’s real gift is creating atmosphere. “Empty Summer” pounds out its frustration over loss between Girl-Group beat, twinkling synths, and a minor chord overhang as a dramatic pause. Carving out her place between bubbly SynthPop and the more Goth complement, it is going to be a pleasure to see Naiv develop.

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY - Hee-Haw [LP](Drastic Plastic)

How do we get from Nick Cave and Co. in The Boys Next Door (Rowland K. Howard’s brilliant “Shivers”) to The Birthday Party? “Hee-Haw” holds the answer. This collection of late Boys Next Door and early Birthday Party hints at how violent they are becoming. “Happy Birthday” still smacks of Post-Punk with its angular Gang of Four rhythms and screechy guitar, but Cave’s animal sounds and the whip-crack ending is blood-boiling. Thank goodness for the beautifully evocative “The Friend Catcher” where their PiL-ish use of empty space is more frightening. Phil Calvert’s drumming is penetrating. Tracy Pew’s bass pushes everything even harder. However, Howard’s stellar guitar work is so inventive. On Cave’s BND composition “A Catholic Skin,” Howard’s six-string winds around the multiple voices of Cave. Finally, the stop-start punch of Cave’s “The Hair Shirt” is a fond farewell to the New Wave impulses of the time beaten down by repeated hits, breaks, and Cave’s hiccuping yowls. “Hee-Haw” is the embrace of chaos and knowing how much more it will bring.

MY DAD IS DEAD - POW! EP [LP](Scat/The Orchard)

Mark Edwards found so many colors of grey and black with just his guitar, bass, and that Big Black-ish drum machine (as discussed before on 2.24.22.) These three cuts recorded for Homestead Records back in the Summer of 1987 are an awesome discovery. The unnerving tension and control Edwards exhibits on the tangled guitar figure on the re-recorded “Anti-Socialist” seem to tell the story of that Husker Du-ish buzz blending with Post-Punk threaded bass lines leading to Alternative music. As Edwards shouts out “I wanna fix it with my bare hands” over a mounting series of multi-tracked parts, the effect is thrilling. The dour “In The Morning” is even darker as Edwards stirs the dissonance into the background for the verses and then unleashes his guitar for a coded response to the hypnotic dream story. It is only fitting that the instrumental “The Best Defense” closes it out with an instrumental that hints at a jangly, bright sunrise coming. After all, this was My Dad Is Dead catching fire in time for his best work.

DEATHCHANT [LP](King Volume)

Before taking their Stoner Metal to the confines of Riding Easy (2021’s “Waste,”) Los Angeles’ Deathchant made a homemade debut that takes a lot of chances. Not just another bunch of wastoids trying to become Kyuss, Deathchant (even at lower-fi) regularly keep the flame burning with freakouts (mid-song in “Pessimist”) and brooding intros (“Control.”) Deathchant’s riffs sizzle like early Uncle Acid playing Thin Lizzy. “Ritual” is as showy as early Kiss and then develops into a dark Monster Magnet psycho trip. The main course is still the driving “Hex” that mixes its echo-y vocals with a biker-ready/NWOBHM guitar chug and inventive lead guitar squall. Here’s to that third record where they put all their ideas on the table again.

WITCHFINDER GENERAL - Death Penalty [CS](Heavy Metal UK)

One of the ur-Doom Metal records, NWOBHM’s second wave brought Witchfinder General to the front for battle in 1982. Their first single “Burning A Sinner” (contained here) is probably the closest they stray toward sounding just like Sabbath. Zeeb Parkes may phrase like Ozzy, but his voice is much higher. That difference in range leaves a ton of room for some fantastic solos from Phil Cope (who also played bass.) The closer “R.I.P” swings hard around drummer Graham Litchfield’s mixture of cowbell-clang verse/16-to-the-bar chorus work. The title cut could be Pentagram with its stair-step chording and bass fills. Sure, “No Stayer” works out all their riffage and drive for nearly two minutes before actually becoming a song. As they arrive at that crushing crowd-clapping moment - it is potent. However, the crystal ball really forecasts the future on the detuned stomp of “Witchfinder General” which thunders like the Melvins before daring to swing like Sabbath (not necessarily sound like them) .. only to quickly grind back down to a sludgy crawl in a hairpin turn. “Death Penalty” may not be perfect, but it carries all the genes necessary to continue the evolution of Doom Metal.

DARKTHRONE - Wind of 666 Black Hearts [LP](Peaceville/The Orchard)

You can find a lot of beauty in the scrappy noise of ancient tapes. Rehearsal recordings turn a lot of the black beauties of early Darkthrone into rumbly-meets-squelchy fuzz (“Summer of the Diabolic Holocaust.”) However, there is real power in several of these 1991-1992 sessions. “Crossing The Triangle In Flames” almost sounds like it is ready to blow apart, but is a real testament to their precision speed picking. One can almost feel the ice of nearby lake Gjersjøen on “The Dance of Eternal Shadows.” The early “Blaze In The Northern Sky” demo and nine hair-raising minutes of “Kathaarian Life Code” are enough to make anyone (non-metallers too) at least willing to explore one of their best albums ever. The very best of “Wind” comes together in a thunderous, ominous, and neck-snapping version of “In The Shadow of the Horns.” It is rare that Darkthrone’s raw power has been heard like this. The main riff sounds like a guillotine coming down again and again. While the chugging downward spiral chorus is equally harrowing. [NOTE: Originally, we were not planning to review Darkthrone here for a third time. However, those “Northern Sky” demos deemed it must-hear product.

There is a method to the madness we promise. To us, the best playlisting songs come two ways:

1. When you are just skimming an older playlist/segment - see a track - and it starts playing in your head.

2. When a cut surprises you. When you are listening to the random array run together and that song plays that makes you race over to find out what it is.

So thank you for reading, listening, subscribing, and supporting the artists we introduce via this online platform.

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