Yo man, I’m on a roll! No time to extend this post any longer than it already is! Here are some roundups for Star One, Chat Pile, and Viagra Boys.

Star One – Revel in Time
(February 18, 2022)

Technically, it’s Arjen Anthony Lucassen’s Star One, because why not? A guy like Lucassen is so over-the-top with his grandiosity that it’s no surprise that the band’s name contains the 20 letters of his own grandiose name. Don’t forget the apostrophe S.

This guy has been around forever, usually making solo projects under the moniker “Ayreon” and contributing to countless collaborations, but one thing is always, always, ALWAYS constant with his music: the sheer ostentatious pomposity. Everything is like a seven-layer quadruple chocolate cake of progressive metal self-indulgence. I can only listen to a fucking Ayreon album once every two years. I can only take so much, and it doesn’t take much to take so much.

This brings me to his first album under his Star One project in 12 years, Revel in Time. As usual, these songs are directly inspired by science fiction movies. Meaning, these songs are exactly about these movies. Like, these songs are just plot synopses. “Back from the Past” is just Back to the Future (“And when the lightning strikes/You have to be precise/Exactly 10:04/And not a second before“). “Revel in Time” is just Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (“You got to believe you’re the only ones/Here to preserve our society/It’s hard to conceive you’re the Great Ones/You’ll end all war and poverty“). “Today Is Yesterday” is just Groundhog Day (“Round the clock, it never stops/He can end his life, do whatever he likes/But it’s all in vain, he can’t explain/There is nothing he can do about it/No, there’s nothing he can do about it“).

There’s a lot I could say to illustrate how shitty this is, but there are two things I want to mention about it in particular: 1) There is no room for actual imagination or creativity in the lyrics. Just make things rhyme, I guess. 2) I think it’s kind of depressing that a 62-year-old man is gung-ho enough about semi-mediocre sci-fi movies to revolve entire albums around them. ENTIRE albums. Not just a track or two. It’s demented.

Skip this.

Early Verdict:

Chat Pile – God’s Country
(July 29, 2022)

Not very many bands are out of Oklahoma, are there? A quick search brings up a whole lot of nobodies, and then All-American Rejects, the Flaming Lips, and Hanson! Now, fresh out of Oklahoma City, we have Chat Pile. They’re the newest teen sensation since Pig Destroyer! MMMBop indeed.

Chat Pile plays sludgy noise rock with a lot of hardcore punk and industrial influence, and it’s unlike anything I’ve heard in a while. The production is hellishly sparse to create an atmosphere of industrial desolation while vocalist Raygun Busch rants and raves about nihilism and the futility of human existence over slow bass drones and squealing guitars. I love Busch’s voice; he sounds like if Jesse Pinkman was really mad about social injustice. At times the music and vocals sound even more demonic and twisted than your average death-doom band. The band makes great use of empty space, where the silence between phrases can be eerily louder and more powerful than yelps of “THERE’S MORE SCREAMING THAN YOU THINK!” Screw heavy metal, this stuff is the real scary music.

I can actually believe the vitriol behind Busch’s pained shouting. He really sells it. “Why” is my favorite track; the bass grooves go full-on Melvins while Busch screams about how society treats the homeless. It packs an emotional punch. “I COULDN’T SURVIVE OUT IN THE STREETS! COULD YOU?! I’VE NEVER HAD TO PUSH MY SHIT AROUND IN A SHOPPING CART!” But it’s not all hollerin’ and howlin’. “I Don’t Care if I Burn” is a somber, melancholy, calm spoken-word piece over no music. Just the sound of a crackling fire. “I think about killing you every day.” He sounds like Steve Albini if he were plotting some very public domestic abuse.

Never do I feel bored, never do I consider the music to be a load of indiscernible mush from one song to the next. Genres are often switched up from the guitar tones alone, freely maneuvering around its many influences without sacrificing its identity.

That is to say, this albums rules.

Early Verdict:

Viagra Boys – Cave World
(July 8, 2022)

Viagra Boys’ album from last year, Welfare Jazz, landed a very respectable #5 spot in my top albums from 2021. Then I learned that their lead guitarist, Benjamin Vallé, died just last October. Then I learned that they basically had their third album in the can without Vallé. I thought that was nuts. A founding member tragically died at an early age, then the band is able to move on and get another album of fresh material recorded and released within a year? This can’t be good, right? This jarring circumstance is going to be noticeable, isn’t it?

I guess not. Against unspeakable odds, these guys are steadfast and consistent. Cave World is a continued step in the right direction, further expanding upon their unique sound and proving themselves the best damn Sweden-based punk band working right now. Maybe the only Sweden-based punk band!

Songs stick to two themes: self-deprecation/ironic arrogance and transparent political commentary. There are three, count ’em THREE, songs about humanity’s failure to evolve! With Sebastian Murphy’s usual tongue-in-cheek and hilarious lyrics, it wouldn’t matter if they were all about monkeys. “Troglodyte” is fast-paced and catchy with these cool electronic bloops during the choruses. The people who don’t believe in science and think the news is fake “…ain’t no ape, (you’re) a troglodyte“. The music of “The Cognitive Trade-Off Hypothesis” plods along on a prehistoric ugga-chugga rhythm with sprinkles of these Crystal Castles-style witch house synths. Murphy sings in falsetto about how “we climbed down from the trees and learned to speak/we lost all of our cognitive ability“. Then the closer, “Return to Monke”, has some of my favorite lyrics on the whole record: “Well, everybody’s worried about the future/Well, don’t take that vaccine man, they’ll, they’ll turn you into a computer/Well, out here in your local jungle, ain’t nobody vaccinated/We spend our time throwing shit at each other, we’re just hanging out masturbating“.

Speaking of vaccines, Murphy goes on an extended spoken-word diatribe on “Creepy Crawlers”. Ranting like a feral Nick Cave, he plays the part of an alt-right conspiracy theorist who tried to tell all of us that we should’ve done our research before “voting for the wrong motherfucker”. “Wow, they got kids growing up with animal tails, man/They’re putting microchips in the vaccine/And they’re putting creepy crawlers in the microchips/The kids without the vaccines are getting harvested/Because their blood is untainted“. Look, I could sit here and quote the whole album. There’s pure gold everywhere you look.

And of course, the usual sad-sack stuff is also great. “Punk Rock Loser” pokes fun at the shitty alpha male arrogance (“I ain’t your average, punk rock loser/Yeah, I’m a savage, I’m really cool/I tried to warn ya, I’m loose“). “Ain’t No Thief” gets loudly defensive about blatant robbery (“I ain’t no thief/We just happen to have the same stuff, motherfucker“). “Big Boy” shows off lack of confidence merely by drawing attention to it (“I’m a big boy, babe/I don’t start crying if you make fun of me/Yeah, I’m a big boy, honey/Ain’t got problems with my insecurities“).

Not to belabor the point that the album is fantastic, but it has a guaranteed spot on this year’s Top 25.

Early Verdict: