ALBUM OF THE WEEK

Xasthur 'All Reflections Drained' LP 2009, Hydra Head Recordings

Greetings and salutations my kin. Keeping it moving this week, we got a cold grip of emptiness materialized as the new Xasthur LP. Say what you will about his records, some of them totally smash and some of them, in my opinion, are on the boring or lame side, as they are so reclusive that I cannot dig, but still they are pertinent to the discography. Nonetheless, all of the Xasthur works retain a unique vibe, a fucked up and alienated/isolated one, a scared of people and self-depreciating one. Or something like that.. The guitars sound like strange funeral music, and ambient/distorted static and synth floods the 'songs' out all over the place. As the moans weave around the tired drums, these tracks get more difficult to listen to, which is cool I guess. It rarely slays shit on this one, but in the past the records had a sound more characteristic of what comes to mind when mentioning American Black Metal, all fast and shit, razor blade shit or whatever, such as on A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors (2001) or To Violate the Oblivious (2004). This is a solo project, one who calls himself Malefic makes this stuff in southern California and has been doing so since 1995. He has released a ton of shit, countless LPs, splits, EPs, and and has been involved in both Twilight and Sunn O))) through the years. As his records continue to come out, they have gotten less intense on the speed and brutality, but heavier on the emotional negativity/hopeless vibe and are better designed to give the listener a straight up bummer, songs dragging on and on, making you feel irritated and upset kind of. On All Reflections Drained, there are still shrieks on some white light shit, some pummeling drums (I think these are all real drums, not the electronic kit on many previous releases), but at as a whole it is a deeper and more careless disregard for what 'rips,' instead a bleak and empty listen that is next level negative as shit. This is a cool record, it is expansive and confrontational, but not the best Xasthur record by any means. It has a guest on it, M.H., who does some vocals and ambience. Records are more or less supposed to be portals, and Xasthur joints achieve that shit. This one is one to a sorrowful and frustrating place that is almost undesirable. It escapes me, why I seek these records out, only to have my social anxieties enhanced by experiencing others' said anxieties. Such as life, and the strangeness of living. This is Hydra Head vinyl, they do it correctly, double LP with heavy everything. Artwork by tattoo legend Tim Lehi, It also came out on a very limited cassette, which unless you are a fool, you would know that that slays.