Dean Blunt: Black Metal 2
If Black Metal from 2014, is Blunt concocting a lethal cocktail of untraceable genre bending, the the 7-year sequel, Black Metal 2 is the perfect antidote to the night before or the unsatisfactory of last year’s solstice. This long awaited follow up burns slowly but in the best way possible, like the summer sun still descending the time you’re leaving your spot to begin the night. Blunt has only mastered his signature ingredients, drowned out guitars that gently dance around the tastefully picked samples, dead-pan like attentive vocals and verses that make you hear every phrase clearly, and most enjoyably his Hype Williams collaborator, Inga Copeland returning to her fan favorite guest backing vocals, as well as lead vocals at times. Copeland is so critical in completing Dean’s sound. Not to say that both artists aren’t capable of producing some of their best work to date alone, but it’s a certain partnership that produces something so intimate. The end product is always a special hypnotic sound, leaving you placed in the space between them, like you are actually in the room where they trade off dark ballads seamlessly.
What makes this such a summer album is that unlike its predecessor, Dean Blunt is letting the songs seap out and around you instead of more dramatic stops and starts with the first Black Metal album. Not to say that the first LP in the series isn’t an experimental magnus opus of his, but with this album the listener receives the right amount of listening space and time to experience intangible feelings that occur over these ten songs. “Dash Snow” is Blunt at his most quintessential self, providing the heaven and hell contrast of coexisting with Copeland’s vocals, giving off a familiar feeling only Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandavol could evoke on a late fall afternoon. Tracks “SKETAMINE”, “LA RAZA”, and “NIL BY MOUTH” a three piece burned out trilogy create the perfect atmosphere to drive down Sunset blvd. melting in the sun, just being happy at the fact we actually have a real summer this year. This 2021 sequel ends in bliss. “WOOSAH” is a beautiful acoustically laid down track, a merry-ground-round loop of space, sound, and additional pinches of trumpets, leaving you truly dazed and confused, only to ask why did it have to come to an end. The finale, “the rot” is this EP’s best track by far, due to Blunt delivering once again for the last time exactly the dynamics of his recipe we desire. “I told her relax, You might as well relax, ‘Cause the fear is going down, down, down” Blunt says. This is a metaphor: life is blossoming almost fully again, fear is disintegrating for good. It may as well be a summer love song with new relationships unfolding and people coming across each other naturally for once. Copeland sings into the fading distance, “I am waiting on an old dream, Holding on to someone new, ooh, For a moment, I’ve been waiting, Stranger in a dark room.”
What we’ve learned this past decade is that Dean Blunt is an artist we can’t rush. When we are patient, we are rewarded with a body of work possessing tracks that have cohesive emotional qualities that only Blunt can define as transcendental poetry seeping through a mystique landscape.
Iceage: Seek Shelter
The best-dressed men in rock n’ roll return this summer by perfecting their growth in sound since we last heard from them. This new album from the Danes possesses the sound that you only want to experience when the sun is heading down this summer, that warm burn you experience in your chest causing feelings of made-up natural serotonin ecstasy. Building off of ideas from 2018’s Beyondless, you see the boys mastering these musical expeditions. Long graduated from their strict drunken slur-like punk landscape, Elias Ronnenfelt and company further explore warmer classic archetypes such as soul-infused classic rock on the title track “Seek Shelter”, pop lullabies ``Drink Rain”, and dance beat-like patterns on single “Vendetta.” Ronnenfelt doesn’t just try these out for trial and error, he fully embraces these adored genres with open arms, while still never losing his jagged integrity that we first began to lust for starting a decade ago. Don’t be a boomer this summer season by saying you don’t want to check out this fifth full-length LP from the men in good shirting because it’s not strictly punk like the first two records. The reason these Northern European rock n rollers have been highly regarded is due to the consistency of the evolution of the band’s sound. Not afraid to take risks by breaking down sonic barriers with incorporating genres of folk, blues, country, into their formative infrastructure involving post-punk, goth, and hardcore projections. Touching on this album and Iceage’s shift in influences within soundscape, the greatest rock n roll band in the world comes to mind. The Rolling Stones. Seek Shelter is Iceage’s Sticky Fingers. It’s dangerous when it wants to be, intimate but never forgiving, and overall presents an emotional nostalgic quality to soundtrack your summer of love 21’.
The best track on this album, the opener as well as the third single, “Shelter Song ''. This song could easily qualify for the position of being millennials and gen z’ers “Wild Horses''. The way Ronnenfelt sways the lyrics verbally off the levitating guitars, patient drums, and a bassline that assembles this heart-wrenching, folk-like tune provided by bandmates, Johan Surrballe Wieth, Casper Morilla, Dan Kjær Nielsen, and Jakob Tvilling Pless,
presents a certain irie but welcoming invitation into this band's most vulnerable side we have experienced to date. “Dear Saint Cecilia '' is a sound of celebration, an exhilaration of artistic emotion pledging allegiance to the Roman martyr, the catholic patroness saint of music and poetry. This is a direct callback to the sonic influence in the sound of Sticky Finger’s “Bitch”. This being said, this band of five now still sounds like no one who’s come before, neither like any contemporary peers. Standout single, “Gold City” brings out another strong suit from the boomer era of sound with its underlying burning harmonicas, complimenting the enjoyable word break down Ronnenfelt sings before the eruption of the slowly oozing chorus that really seeps into the ears, “First there was I, then there was us, Off goes the layers, as written in dust, What you have lost, I shall provide, All that you left behind, I’ll pick up the supplies.“ The emotional spirit and abstract mascot of this excellent 5th EP by the Danish Punk Poets is the eclipsing sound of climatic cuts ``The Wilder Powder Blue '' and “The Holding Hand''. They both first start with a gently prancing instrumental or grazing vocals from Ronnenfelt, they build up from a very wistful sound to a theme we have experienced throughout this album, a celebratory reverberation. Passionate resounds that will make you experience motives of wanting to sway, mosh, smile, breakdown, or sorry not sorry, love.
Ronnenfelt and his equally talented band of musicians don’t look to contemporary culture influence nor have ever with any release. Instead, these five versatile rockers, put on many hats and many good outerwear pieces to blend a special bag of grounds that will always leave you with the feeling of unethical counter music, in today’s landscape of artists endorsing bad tacky sneaker collaborations and unearned headlining festival slots.
Faye Webster: I know I’m Funny HaHa
Out of all the albums I’m going to give my irrelevant two cents on, ATLien Faye Webster’s “I Know I’m Funny Haha” was made for reflecting on drifted relationships, the cosmic sized changes in everyone's life the past year and a half, and non-demeaning self-scrutiny. This is one of those mesmerizing albums that only comes around a couple of years, that poses the quality of slowing downtime. With sounds of indie folk-rock, alternative country influence, an iota of r&b, and even a hint of early 90’s alternative female rock pioneered by The Breeders/Pixies’ Kim Deal, Faye gives us a lot to endure by keeping all these sounds audibly coherent throughout. Once a member of seminal SoundCloud 2010’s label Awful Records, the dreamy voiced, bangs, and clog sporting songwriter has come a long way since the golden era of SoundCloud’s Atlanta-based DIY comradery. Since signing to an influential indie label, Secretly Canadian, Webster’s approach to forming ballads from her personal encounters remains the same but just augment significantly with each release. This is your album for summer if you’re a fan of indie rock feening for some western-influenced twang or sway. Sounds of Pedal Steel, swinging violins in the background, and gently spoken but endearing verses, this album has all the components to make you plan multiple excursions to Joshua Tree into the extended LA summer into November.
Faye Webster is transparent more than ever about relationships in her personal experiences on her fourth studio album, I Know I’m Funny Haha. On the title track of this album, Webster speaks on her escalating relationship with her current boyfriend, dissing their sour landlord, all while sharing laughs and sharing drinks with her partner’s family. This song was written to truly break hearts this passing summer, being intimate about experiencing that significant relationship with a partner where you are so in sync with one another, in their case, with playing a look-alike Linkin Park bass. A scenario being projected to listeners, sung out by Webster depicting a bond that is at the point of intimate inseparability. After multiple listens of this album's visible anthem, “Better Distractions'', I couldn’t help thinking of country-folk female icons' anthems, Emmylou Harris’s “Boulder to Birmingham'' or Linda Ronstadt’s “Blue Bayou''. All three country seasoned songwriters in their respective songs sing in the context of longing to see that one companion after growing fond of their absent lover’s return. There is classic western-folk lyrical content done in an uncorny presentation here in 2021. Webster sings, “Depending on our time apart, The better the distractions are, and there isn’t a lot, only took a couple of times without you here to realize, But I figured it out.” I Know I’m Funny Haha’s most exciting verse is on the sixth track “Cheers”. It’s an unexpected cartwheel in sound for Webster’s enjoyable love letters over pedal steel. This song pulls you in with an unapologetic stop and start styled intro, pioneered by The Breeders original dreamy alt frontwoman, Kim Deal. The song soon erupts into an irresistible sing-a-long falsetto chorus that you will hear at future shows, as she opens up for Wilco in North America this fall. “A Dream With a Baseball Player '' has been specifically enjoyable to listen to this summer down here in Los Angeles, CA. This track produces the effect to make you mentally melt blissfully, besides physically on Sunset Blvd. It has a steadily ringing effect, reminiscent of even LA’s monumental soul-sampled G-funk genre from the early 1990s, in other words, music to ride around a golden hour to. The true gem of this album is mid-point “Kind of”. Beginning with its delicate approach to normal paranoia on acquiring information about your partner’s past lovers, the ballad starts to disentangle into open-hearted confessions and innocent openness with one another. This song rocks you back and forth with the chorus repeated into obscenity. More than perfect for driving off into the obsidian summer night sky.
This autobiographical LP from the multi-talented Atlanta native musician always outfitted in the shade of royal blue, well-sitting carpenter pants and clogs with a good silhouette delivers her most emotionally constructive body of work yet. This is an album for a young artist that’s only going to age finer over the next couple of years with the youth freshly entering adulthood, trying to figure themselves and relationships taking place around them.