Why, is that yet another Newer Release Roundup on the horizon?? Yes, yes, I believe so! Today I have albums from Whispering Sons, Frost*, and Cannibal Corpse. Bring the kids in for that last one!

Whispering Sons – Several Others
(June 18, 2021)

Whispering Sons hails from Belgium, the land of waffles and sprouts! They play a moody, gothic type of post-punk that runs the range from slow and dreary to punchy and caustic. The lead singer, Fenne Kuppens, is a woman but you would have to double check to make sure first; her voice register is super low! Like Cher! Y’all remember Cher? The band’s lineup situation is similar to the newer London-based post-punk outfit Dry Cleaning; the band minus the lead singer all knew each other for a while, and Kuppens was recruited much later for her voice and delivery. While Dry Cleaning’s Florence Shaw admittedly contributes not much more than her own voice to her respective project, Fenne brings much of the emotional weight to the music: the tangible feelings of alienation, of desperation, and of loneliness, all enhanced by her quavering timbre. She sounds like she’s stranded–isolated–near the vast, odd, purple dune-like wasteland depicted by the album cover.

If I had to grasp at comparisons, I’d say U2-like guitars (especially on “Heat”), Gang of Four-style sharp basslines, maybe Cure-like emotional wavering and desperate vocal delivery, Protomartyr-like desolate soundscapes, and occasional Sonic Youth-like no wave crashes of hissing noise. That oughta do it.

Personal favorites are the back-to-back tracks “Vision” and “Screens”, which nicely show the two sides of the Whispering Sons coin. The first chugs precariously along two minor-key chords, building to a high-strung and disjointed chorus. Eventually, Kuppens all but yells by the end of the song. Very cathartic. “Screens” is a cool-down; a piano-driven, woeful mid-tempo piece with static-y drums fizzling about the edges. It’s the perfect soundtrack to a rainy Thursday afternoon.

Releases like Several Others will assuredly get lost among the post-punk landfill, but don’t sleep on this one. It’s every bit as good as anything else you could stumble across. Unfortunately, with 2021 being such a strong year for young post-punk groups, it may not be Whispering Sons’ time in spotlight quite yet. They’ll get their due, you heard it here first!

Early Verdict:

Frost* – Day and Age
(May 14, 2021)

I’m frustratingly picky about my progressive rock. I’m especially wary of supergroups, which tend to comprise the strongest of the strong prog rock personalities all in one big, unstrained, self-indulgent band. My mini-review of the new Transatlantic album serves quite well as an example of my written feelings.

And, indeed, Frost* is a neo-progressive rock supergroup made up of members of Arena, IQ, and Kino, three somewhat schmaltzy, and fairly typical, neo-progressive rock groups. Casual and cautious listening of Frost* in the past has kept the band precariously teetering upon the narrow, hair-thin tightrope that also balances my other genuine prog rock interests. It represents how easy it can be for any such band to stumble and fall, never to return. A few special bands are glued to it. Frost* may get that glue some day!

I was blown away by Day and Age at first listen, and then slightly less on the second listen, but then caught some new “aha” moments on my third and fourth listens! So that’s a good sign. I was worried at first when, after the cool new wave U2-esque rhythms that begin the album on its title track (hey, look at that, another U2 similarity), it moved into some familiar Peter Gabriel/Phil Collins vocal stylings with hokey late-’80s adult contemporary melodies. Uh oh! We’re losing balance on that tightrope! But then, like all good (and I mean good) prog rock bands, they’re able to give their wussy whimsical side some real edge, tension, and some humor. There’s this extended nervous bridge section with haunted child vocals that brought me right back into it.

The album strikes a good balance between the hokey Genesis playfulness and the sinister Porcupine Tree darkness. The first few minutes of “The Boy Who Stood Still” shows this middle ground, with actor Jason Isaacs narrating a fanciful tale about a boy who could make himself invisible (and it eventually twists into a metaphor for isolation) over some futuristic, syncopated electronic keyboard arpreggios. Tasteful use of keyboards is all over Day and Age, acting mostly as an industrial/electronic rhythm section instead of a lead instrument. I really like the Stewart Copeland-like rhythmic synth progression on “Island Life”, and closer is a cool piece of business with its slow semi-bombast, the vaguely industrial percussion, and the operatic backing vocals fading in and out during the chorus.

This is a contender for my coveted Token Prog Album of the Year position. Will this slot be filled by something else in the next three months?? Only time will tell! *snore*

Early Verdict:

Cannibal Corpse – Violence Unimagined
(April 16, 2021)

Nothing here that reminds me of U2! Except maybe that I’d rather look at the cover art than Bono’s stupid face! I never got the hype for Cannibal Corpse, but then again, I never gave anything else beyond their first two albums a chance. I’m wondering if a lot of their early success rode on shock value and other transgressive attributes that aren’t nearly as shocking or transgressive these days as they used to be. Listening back to their first two again, they’re interchangeable with any other death metal band of its time. Maybe they did it better? It’s hard for me to tell.

So, why not, how about their fifteenth album Violence Unimagined? The band takes pride in finding fresh, creative ways to display their overexaggerated obsession with gore and violent death. Not having heard 80% of their catalog, I can only assume that Cannibal Corpse is one of those tried-and-true stalwarts of death metal, and each new release appeases their rabid fans with as much Cannibal Corpse-y goodness as their previous album, year after year after year.

Taking it on its own merits, which is how everything should be taken, this is some good stuff. Chunky riffs aplenty, with throaty, raspy, intelligible growls, and interesting guitar parts that alternate between hard-hitting, punctuating staccato, and lazy swirling around the pummeling blast beats. And the sequencing! Just when you think you’ve had enough of the style, they throw in a song like “Slowly Sawn” with hella interesting guitar scales dotting the fetid musical landscape.

Of course, lyrics like “Protracted slaughter/Slowly cut apart/Every day, another stroke/Serrated edge slicing/Through tendons and bone” are way more poetic than anything I could possibly contribute to this review, silver-tongued as I may be. So I’ll just leave it at that.

Early Verdict: