Welcome to 2022. January is odds-and-ends month, so while I wait for a fresh pile of new music to come out I’m going to spend the next four Wednesdays wrapping up 2021 with twelve more records that deserve their days in the spotlight. Today’s 2021 Overflow features albums from Veilburner, Backxwash, and Poppy.

Veilburner – Lurkers in the Capsule of Skull
(September 24, 2021)

Veilburner’s fifth album cracked my 2021 Top 25 with a coveted spot at #22, and most of the problem here was that I was a latecomer to this magnificent slab of ghoulish, unearthly extreme metal. No doubt it would be higher on my year-end list had I been able to spend more time with it.

I’m constantly on the lookout for new or undiscovered metal of the “extremely weird” variety, and the definition of “extremely weird” can be malleable. Lurkers in the Capsule of Skull is the clear winner in 2021 with its atmospheric cross between a nightmare alien planet and Hell itself. The ambitious opening track alone, “In the Tomb of Dreaming Limbo”, hits much of what’s great about this whole project. Snarling, echoed demon vocals. Standard speed metal solo guitar that breaks down (with acid, probably) and bends into impossible psychedelic chords and intervals. Spidery industrial, off-key synths that dance evilly around the frenetic drumming. All tightly arranged and perfected in order to give the listener an audio soundtrack to descending into insanity. The concept is literally a man struggling with a terrifying mental illness! Ain’t that neat?!

What makes it for me is that, underneath all the madness, the visceral moods shine through. There’s piety in the clean vocal chants near the end of “Cursed, Disfigured, Amen!”. The title track buzzes with villainous jubilation. The murky plodding of “Para-Opaque” reminds me of Elvis Presley if his music was eviscerated by the Residents during a fentanyl near-overdose.

And yet, I keep coming back for the warped, feverish effects splashed across every note, every riff, to the point where I feel like I’m stumbling dizzy through some haunted carnival house of mirrors. There’s so much more to say, but I’ll leave it at that for now. It’s very good album.

Early Verdict:

Backxwash – I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES
(June 20, 2021)

Backxwash’s fantastic third studio album rests comfortably at my year-end list’s #13, and is my overall favorite hip hop album of the year. I tend to like my hip hop gritty, theatrically angry, and with aggression to match. These days, the industrial hip hop acts fit the bill nicely. Death Grips, clipping., a little JPEGMAFIA, a little dälek here and there, and, of course, Zambian-Canadian rapper Ashanti Mutinta as featured in this very review capsule thingy!

I was intrigued by her 2020 album, but I never got a chance to hear it. Rectified in 2021, I thoroughly enjoyed her whole LP discography and eagerly welcome every future offering from this possibly prolific artist. I LIE HERE BURED… opens with a looped sample of a doctor describing the purpose of pain (“It’s in this sense that a little bit of pain is a good thing.“), repeated enough to bring absurdity to the words. Well, it’s pain you’re gonna get! A whole earful. Distorted shouting and chopped heavy metal riffs commence at a rumbling, apocalyptic pace. Mutinta lays it all bare, track after track, for 33 minutes.

I can only imagine the plight of a transgender woman raised in a Christian Zambian community. Obviously. But if Backxwash’s music is intended to be a sonic recreation of that personal emotional heft, then man…it’s probably a pretty good sonic recreation.

Early Verdict:

Poppy – Flux
(September 24, 2021)

No, Poppy didn’t reach the heights of my Top 25 for 2021, but she snagged the #3 spot on my Top 20 for 2020. And rightfully so, as 2020’s I Disagree was a formidable marriage of grunge, metal, industrial rock…and also the occasional extramarital flirting with J-pop but shhh don’t tell.

So I went into Flux with much anticipation. At its core, I Disagree was a successful experiment wherein anything artificial and/or overproduced was consistent with the Youtube star’s cultivated character, so maybe I expected something totally wild this time. Tuvan throat-singing over Trent Reznor-style aggro-turbulence? A 50-minute drone metal workout? Hardly. It’s a little bit of a step back this go around, but for the first time it feels like we’re getting more Poppy the Person and less Poppy the Weird Uncanny Valley Alien Satirical Youtube Character.

And why do I think that? I don’t know, the songs feel warmer on Flux. They feel like they weren’t created in a laboratory to stringent specifications. And, hey, this lady’s got talent after all, huh? Most of these nine songs are muscular earworms, borrowing elements from a wide range of rock styles. Personal highlights include “Lessen the Damage”, which explores the poppier side of Sleater-Kinney riot grrl punk, and “Hysteria”, a straightforward surf pop song with the kind of introspective storytelling you’d get from Phoebe Bridgers of Faye Webster.

On a surface level, Poppy’s music skirts the fine line between artistic expression and soulless commercialism, so a little bit of backstory on the evolution of the Poppy persona is required to appreciate the fact that, yes, it IS artistic expression. Fully. And maybe that helps my enjoyment of her music, but I can’t complain too hard if the hooks are there!

Early Verdict: