HAIL, INTRICATELY DEVELOPED MISTAKES.

We’re going down some even weirder holes than the ones you experimented with in highschool after a 2’6 of Everclear soaked gummie bears, waking up places you didn’t remember going to sleep in.

I wanna get hella real with you, girl.

Caress your neck and make you forget about all your problems.

We touch.

“Cadaveric Incubator of Endoparasites” echoes in the background.

You’ve never felt my playlist on shuffle before, and it makes you wanna torrent.

It makes you wanna torrent so hard.

The kind of torrenting that makes you wonder how you even had a download from anyone else. Spanning genres you didn’t even know we had.

I let my fingers do the talking as I wander through the flaps of my vinyl collection, thinking of the soft circular motion in which they spin. I give a quick flick and my selection comes sliding out of the jacket to be presented in it’s black, hulking glory.

BAM!

You are struck by a cacophony of big band swing, electric guitar, and a feisty bunch of vocalists all at once, and for the first time you find the expanses of my musical girth to be just too big, too outside of your comfort zone, too all-encompassing. All it took was that one miss-step to leave a tangible bitter taste in your mouth.

That’s the kinda stuff I wanna talk about today. Music that makes you uncomfortable. Music that can cause such a strong emotional response that it may physically make someone drain their crying holes faster than being in the car when your dad backs over the family dog.

As I’ve mention A LOT, music is immensely subjective, but I find that song content is commonly responded to the same way when pulled apart from the melody and “sweet falsetto’s” so that all you are left with is something between lyrical content, and production quality. Take for example, the first band I wanna talk about today; Vehemence.

The first time I ever overheard this band, I had no idea was I was really getting. Amongst the above-standard death metal horseplay there was something that made me feel, sort of, off about it all. I asked my co-worker at the time what it was, and he told me never really listened to it. I asked why and he told me after knowing what the lyrics were that he felt extremely uncomfortable. I picked up the semi-shattered case of the album and merely raised an eyebrow. “God Was Created, huh?” I said jovially, “Sounds like pretty average anti-religious death metal to me”. “Lyrics are in the front of the book”, he retorted, but he said it listlessly, as if all joy had fallen from his tone.

I popped open the cover and attempted to read the chicken scratching of a font they had chosen, and Oh. My. Christ. In a very exact descriptive sense, “Oh. My. Christ”.

Over the course of 10 songs and just under an hour in playtime, the album tells a story of a man who becomes increasingly obsessed with a young christian girl who (let’s just say) reeeaaally likes that 6-pack that Jesus is rockin’ on all those crucifixes and paintings. As our protagonist’s obsession increases, he begins to watch her at school, as she walks the city streets, and through her bedroom window only to see her being incestuously raped by her father. On one such night where daddy dearest just isn’t satisfied by just a good ‘ole self-handie, he makes his way into her room, forcing the stalker to initiate things due to how enamored he is with the bible-thumping daughter (ha). He murders the father and presents himself unto as her FUCKING LORD AND SAVIOUR, JESUS MO’FUCKIN’ CHRIST, and what is the first thing Jesus would want after smiting a shitbag? WHY, SWEET VIRGIN POON, OF COURSE!

“You saved me, Jesus! What’s with the paper though?”

“I need affirmative consent before I smash your puh”.

As this pedophile takes her virginity, he gets lost in his own mind and ends up choking her to death and instead of taking any personal blame for any instance of it, proceeds to curse God, even going as far as to claim that Jesus has taken her away from him.

Now, that’s only songs one through three, and I promise that it only gets more twisted. (He digs her body up, amongst other atrocities). Basically, after actively going through the whole thing, I also do my best to not listen to this album, not because it’s bad by any stretch, but solely because it really, truthfully makes me feel like my stomach is inexplicably eating away at itself. Being confronted for a looooong time about things we would rather not even imagine can really give you a reality check. Give this a listen if you’ve recently eaten, but I wouldn’t be sad if you missed it:

Vehemence – Fantasy From Pain

Prodding down a different alley altogether, once upon a time I was sleeping on a pull-out couch, doing little else than play guitar/D&D/and go to work, when my housemate (the wildest bassist alive) handed me a thumbdrive with the simple instruction of “Enjoy”! It had easily 100 bands I’d never even heard of 50-some of which I couldn’t pronounce, let alone spell. Amongst all of the crazy japanese slam-jazz-avant gardé, I saw a name that made me just laugh, and I mean come on, “Diablo Swing Orchestra” conjures up some hellishly good visuals, and not only that, devilishly enjoyable music too. They have a few very consistent albums, but the one I wanna talk about is call “Sing-Along Songs for the Damned & Delirious”.

DSO is crazy. Branching from operatic female vocals to immaculate violin solo’s, you kinda just gotta let your hips shake like your Esméralda. (“Hellfire” from Hunchback is also, stupidly good). The guitar riffs are also absolutely fantastic, mostly because they don’t so much play a rhythm as they do accent the rhythm that already exists from the other instruments and singers.

Take for example this total babe of a track; “Lucy Fears The Morning Star”

Giving songs crescendos and appropriate breaks is a very clear indicator of how a band really writes. My highschool music teacher used to tell me, “The most important notes are the ones we don’t play”.

I never got terribly good at sitting still until I discovered chicken nuggets, but even in the case of rockin’ a 20-banger plate of those bad boys, I would still be dropping my ass like it was my sole source of income if you were to throw on some DSO at a house party. No one ever makes nuggets for house parties, that’s mistake number one.

Boil it all down to say that I believe that it is INTEGRAL to listening to many types of music. Not just genre’s, but music that makes you respond in a different way. Any asshole can write a song that “Makes you happy!” or “Really just matches my summer 2016, Cindy”, but those are very core emotions, and don’t commonly advance your thinking. Having a song or artist that makes you cry for example, is a powerful, POWERFUL, bond to have.

Anyway, just think about stuff more, I guess.

STAGNANTLY YOURS,

BEAR