Wrekmeister Harmonies: The Alone Rush
I had picked up Wrekmeister Harmonies' gorgeous 2014 single-song album Then It All Came Down, but they're another band that kind of fell off my radar between then and now. Maybe it's the presence of Thor Harris as a player on the album, but the first thing that really jumps out at me about The Alone Rush is that it reminds me some of The Burning World-era Swans. That's an album that has always been unfortunately maligned, even by Swans frontman Michael Gira himself, but I've always felt it deserves better, and I hope that The Alone Rush doesn't suffer the same fate because it's a really gorgeous, meditative goth album. The strings drip with melancholy, the percussion is distant and haunting, and the rich baritone vocals invoke not just Gira but also Andrew Eldritch, effortlessly grounding the otherwise-drifting light touch of the music. If you're looking for another record of 'acoustic goth' like The Burning World (and if you're not, seriously give it another spin - it's better than you remember), then The Alone Rush will give you that same sense of beautiful, massive grandiosity.
The Verboden Boys (Belfast Chapter): Band From Reality
As different as it gets from The Alone Rush. First, a little history lesson: from what I can tell, The Verboden Boys is a 'franchise punk band'; that is, there are dozens(?) of bands from around the world playing under that name who all stem from a 'headquarters' in Antwerp. The bands all use the same song titles, but the actual contents of the music can be wildly different. At the time of this writing, Band From Reality is the only release by a chapter of The Verboden Boys, this one given to us by the apparently especially-unhinged Belfast chapter. The record seems to be a couple vocalists, a way-too-overdriven synth, and a drum machine, playing the most ugly explosion of insane synth punk you've ever heard. It's 17 minutes long, but a full 10 of those minutes are the glitchy ambient closing track, so you can listen to the rest of the album quicker than it takes you to heat up and devour a Hot Pocket. There's just an incredible sense of youthful racket, and even features what I assume is one of the members moms making a guest appearance ("dinner's ready!"), reminding of the bands in my own obnoxious teenhood. Band From Reality is only a couple bucks on Bandcamp; do you really want to live in a world without The Verboden Boys? I hope we get some releases from other chapters in the future!
Last-minute update! I was totally incorrect about the Belfast Chapter being the only recorded Verboden Boys out there! Check out The Montreal Chapter for more traditional song structures, though the tons of reverb still give the record that weird sheen.
Last-minute update! I was totally incorrect about the Belfast Chapter being the only recorded Verboden Boys out there! Check out The Montreal Chapter for more traditional song structures, though the tons of reverb still give the record that weird sheen.
