The January overflow continues with 2021 records from Carcass, Empyrium, and the Hold Steady. Get ’em while they’re lukewarm!

Carcass – Torn Arteries
(September 17, 2021)

When I firmly placed Torn Arteries, with conviction, into the #14 slot of my 2021 Top 25, I was wont to use the phrase “beefy” to describe the burly, robust, thick and heady musicianship from this well-seasoned, influential death metal band. Beefy beefy beefy beefy.

Carcass has been around forever, and they’ve undergone as many stylistic shifts as I’ve undergone ritual pagan colonoscopies! That is to say, about five. Speedy goregrind to technical death metal, and slowly moving into what I would consider more of a death ‘n’ roll aesthetic overtime. Seems silly to compare something like this to classic rock, but this whole record gives me strong mid-’70s-era hard rock vibes. I’m reminded of AC/DC, Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, and Aerosmith, odd as that may sound; the heavy use of obvious blues-based song structures and the bombastic give-no-fucks attitude are hard to miss. There just happen to be a lot of raspy guttural vocals as well.

The infectious energy here is what really sells me. These guys are in their 50s now; they don’t sound like a young band, but they still have the ferocious vitality of a young band. What may otherwise be cookie-cutter heavy metal tunes are constantly elevated by Bill Steer’s fierce guitar work. That, plus they’re not afraid to throw in some oddball Middle Eastern scales or tasteful synthetic handclaps here and there. That kind of shit gets bonus points from me.

Honestly, I’m still surprised I like this so much considering it really is Death Metal Lite. Ultimately, Torn Arteries feels like a familiar classic. Another worthy addition to an excellent discography.

Early Verdict:

Empyrium – Über den Sternen
(February 26, 2021)

My neofolk opinions have been painted negatively by the passion its musicians tend to have with fascism and Nazism. Much of the genre is rooted in ’70s industrial sensibilities, which sought to be deliberately subversive and boundary-pushing. That mentality, coupled with the folk mentality of “sticking to European history and traditions”, I guess fascism and neofolk go hand-in-hand. Much of the time, possibly in the case with Douglas Pearce and his very popular neofolk outfit Death in June, the artists are just merely intrigued by the history and may, in practice, vehemently oppose the views. Still, though. Bleh.

Most of the neofolk stuff I know is punk-adjacent. I don’t know much of the metal-adjacent stuff other than some of the lighter side of Agalloch, but unless I hit the jackpot with Empyrium and it’s all chaff from here, I’m in for a ride. Consider me converted on heavy metal-inspired neofolk. Über den Sternen is a masterpiece of traditional acoustic folk arrangements and exhilarating black/doom metal heaviness. No cheesy balladry, no dancing elves, no over-the-top power chords, and best of all, no artificial, by-the-book, stilted soullessness. Warmth! Warmth all around!

I’m glad I binged on this album during the desolate Chicago winter hellscape I currently find myself in, it’s a perfect compliment to the icy conditions some of these powerful riffs are trying to plow through. The gorgeously plaintive acoustic instrumental “Moonrise” cuts through a stark, hauntingly quiet backdrop like a smoldering knife, while tracks like “A Lucid Tower Beckons on the Hills Afar” and the “The Wild Swans” flex their frosty, punishingly cruel edges. The latter especially has some real Opethian melancholy, like crawling across a tundra for the sake of appreciating the beauty.

I’m floored. It’s a lot of what I want from the softer side of extreme music without the cheese. I can’t wait to rummage through everything else in the metal neofolk…storage…uh, hut.

Early Verdict:

The Hold Steady – Open Door Policy
(February 19, 2021)

The Hold Steady is always great. Eight albums in, these seasoned bar hound slackers bring their A game once again with a big, delicious slab of Springsteen-style heartland rock.

Notably, the lyrics to Open Door Policy were written before the pandemic, but features many themes that were made all the more relevant in the wake of the Life and Times of COVID. Technology, capitalism, societal connections, isolation. The human condition. An aging rock band has aging philosophical musings to go along with it. I’ve seen complaints over the years that the band’s focus has moved on from “hell yeah we’re going to party haha look at that drunk guy” to “oh man maybe were getting too old to keep doing this shit and I have a flight to catch at 7:30am for that business meeting with my vendor but haha look at that drunk guy”. And I’m 100% cool with that.

In the end, though, it doesn’t matter, because most of the allure of the vocals doesn’t come from the stories themselves, but from Craig Finn’s everyman storytelling style. He’s one of those guys who could be reading directions off the shampoo bottle and you’d still be rapt in attention. Here are some fun passages, the very first verse of “Spices”: “She sent a picture of a plethora of poker chips spread out on the bed between a mouth and a leg/She said ‘there’s pretty many people already but still I wish you were here’“. Or “Unpleasant Breakfast”: “You just can’t keep throwing up and then cover it with sawdust/And expect us not to notice and pretend it didn’t happen“. This is the Hold Steady charm right here.

Musically, it’s fantastic. Hard-hitting piano-driven rock music that is often way more upbeat than the lyrical matter. This time around, the band gels as a unified whole rather than merely a vehicle for Finn’s nutso poetry. I’m hoping they can continue to thrive with this worth ethic. And were those parts of “Lanyards” supposed to sound like the titles to “Chariots of Fire”? Me likey.

Early Verdict: