Jonathan Hill

A Soapbox for Uninformed Opinions

May
19

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The Atomic Fireballs Torch This Place Review

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The Atomic Fireballs Torch This Place Review

Artist: The Atomic Fireballs
Album: Torch This Place
Genre(s): Jazz
Subgenres(s): Swing Jazz
Released: 1999
Length: 39 minutes
Language(s): English
Label(s): Atlantic Records, Lava Records

Track List:

01. Man With the Hex
02. Mata Hari
03. Swing Sweet Pussycat
04. Caviar & Chitlins
05. Lover Lies
06. Spanish Fly
07. Pango Pango
08. Hit by a Brick
09. Calypso King
10. Drink Drank Drunk
11. Flowers in the Sand
12. Starve a Fever

Atomic Fireballs Torch This Place Cover

Torch This Place is the first major label album and last ever release by The Atomic Fireballs. Finding initial success on the Vans Warped Tour in 1998, the band released Torch This Place the following year but unfortunately they never followed it up and subsequently faded into obscurity before they could make a name for themselves, much like the short lived swing revival scene.

While best described as a swing revival act, The Atomic Fireballs effortlessly match the powerhouse performance style of bands associated with the punk scene, which is something that cannot be said for most swing revival acts. This, along with John Buckley’s distinct throaty singing voice, makes The Atomic Fireballs stand apart from their contemporaries.

Their sound is not centred on a single instrument and instead opts for letting them interplay with each other to create a layered and rich listening experience that is easiest to recognise on Mata Hari and Flowers in the Sand. The brass section consists of a trumpet, trombone and a tenor saxophone that steals the show more often than not. Drummer Geoff Kinde provides a good number of short and sharp fills between his powerful and rhythmic percussive thumps.

The double bass and piano make louder contributions the quieter numbers Lover Lies, Hit By a Brick and Starve a Fever but can still be heard well enough on most of the other songs. The guitar on the other hand is by far the quietest instrument on the album and it is hard to hear it outside of Mata Hari and Spanish Fly.

The Atomic Fireballs are often over looked due to their short career but their ability to write swing jazz songs with punk-like energy makes Torch This Place a unique and electrifying album that is definitely worth your attention.

May
12

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Behold the Arctopus Skullgrid Review

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Behold the Arctopus Skullgrid Review

Artist: Behold the Arctopus
Album: Skullgrid
Genre(s): Heavy Metal
Subgenres(s): Progressive Metal
Released: 2007
Length: 34 minutes
Language(s): N/A
Label(s): Black Market Activities

Track List:

01. Skullgrid
02. Canada
03. Of Cursed Womb
04. You Are Number Six
05. Some Mist
06. Scepters
07. Transient Exuberance

Behold the Arctopus Skullgrid Cover

Behold the Arctopus’ Skullgrid will either leave you in awe of the bands musical abilities or recovering from a throbbing headache. If you do manage to get passed the intense musical acrobatics of Skullgrid you’ll quickly find that there isn’t much left to intrigue you with beyond that.

It’s nearly impossible to absorb and remember any of Skullgrid because no part of any song is present for more than a few seconds before it changes into something else. There are some strong moments but they are scattered throughout the album and get lost between the meandering instrumental passages on either side of them.

Canada is probably the most coherent song on Skullgrid with the opening segment being repeated a handful of times at seemingly random intervals, making it at least partially memorable. Song lengths vary greatly on Skullgrid with the title track being just over a minute long, You Are Number Six clocking in at 9 minutes and the other 5 songs going from 3 to 7 minutes in length.

There is easily enough material on Skullgrid to be fleshed out into multiple full length albums but instead you will hear Behold the Arctopus play every guitar scale, drum pattern and rhythm under the sun packed into a brief 34 minutes. The trio have technical abilities in spades but they would rather show off said abilities instead of crafting a series well thought out instrumental songs.

Skullgrid can best be likened to masturbation: self-indulgent, messy and no one else should have to hear about it.

May
5

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Team Sleep Team Sleep Review

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Team Sleep Team Sleep Review

Artist: Team Sleep
Album: Team Sleep
Genre(s): Electronic, Rock
Subgenres(s): Trip Hop, Trip Rock
Released: 2005
Length: 54 minutes
Language(s): English, French
Label(s): Maverick Records

Track List:

01. Ataraxia
02. Ever (Foreign Flag)
03. Your Skull is Red
04. Princeton Review
05. Blvd. Nights
06. Delorian
07. Our Ride to the Rectory
08. Tomb of Liegia
09. Elizabeth
10. Staring at the Queen
11. Ever Since WWI
12. King Diamond
13. Live from the Stage
14. Paris Arm
15. 11/11

Team Sleep Team Sleep Cover

Team Sleep is the self-titled debut album and end result of an extensive collaborative project that manages to pull together a myriad of influences ranging from shoegaze, post rock, dream pop, instrumental hip hop and glitch music. When combined, these influences are used to create a low key trip hop/trip rock album that focuses on ambience and textures with an experimental edge rather than big choruses or flashy instrumental leads.

The trip hop/trip rock songs that make up about 2/3 of the album are abruptly broken up by the more experimental and challenging songs littered through the track listing. The post rock/shoegaze styling of Your Skull is Red and Blvd. Nights will make you feel like you’re being swept under by a tidal wave of noise.

In contrast, the hip hop and glitch inspired song Staring at the Queen features programmed percussion that clangs around like a lumbering machine and is rounded off with skipping and looping effects in an effort to make it sound as dysfunctional as possible. King Diamond on the other hand uses samples of Chino Moreno and Mary Timony to create an odd spoken word collage with a similar musical style. While arguably not the highlights of Team Sleep, they are certainly memorable.

Paris Arm is a straightforward love song that is unexpectedly sung entirely in French by Sandy Lakdar, who is not credited in the album booklet but does get mentioned on the Team Sleep homepage. It is also one of the shortest songs on the album, only outstretching the interlude Delorian by 9 seconds.

While the brooding ambiance makes Team Sleep a suitable soundtrack for the small hours, the noisy post-rock/shoegaze and glitchy hip hop inspired songs will provide enough variation to stop the songs from running together.

Apr
28

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Cryptopsy None So Vile Review

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Cryptopsy None So Vile Review

Artist: Cryptopsy
Album: None So Vile
Genre(s): Heavy Metal
Subgenres(s): Death Metal
Released: 1996
Length: 32 minutes
Language(s): English
Label(s): Wrong Again, reissued on Displeased Records and Century Media Records

Track List:

01. Crown of Horns
02. Slit Your Guts
03. Graves of the Fathers
04. Dead and Dripping
05. Benedictine Convulsions
06. Phobophile
07. Lichmistress
08. Orgiastic Disembowelment

Cryptopsy None So Vile Cover

None So Vile is an unyielding auditory terror created by Canadian death metal masters Cryptopsy. The album features troglodyte impressionist Dan Greening (better known by his stage name Lord Worm) whose polarising vocal performance consists of grunts, growls and howls that make the lyrics entirely undecipherable. His performance will leave the eyebrows of the uninitiated permanently raised.

The most memorable performance on None So Vile is provided by drummer Flo Mounier, who hammers away relentlessly at an inhuman speed with unnerving endurance. His playing often takes centre stage but guitarist Jon Levasseur steps into the spotlight to take the lead role occasionally and plays some short but infrequent solos between it all.

Bassist Eric Langlois is hardly heard through Cryptopsy’s 32 minute cacophony. He does manage to make some distinct appearances during the bridges of some songs and can be heard clearly on parts of Slit Your Guts and Benedictine Convulsions. Cryptopsy manages to soften up for the better part of 35 seconds to play a calm solo piano piece on Phobophile. It gives your ears just enough time to recover before the band gives in to temptation and resume their aural bombardment duties.

While there aren’t any lacklustre songs on None So Vile, Cryptopsy doesn’t change their sound much from song to song. Instead the band relies on their technical abilities to make the songs distinct from one another. None So Vile lives up to its name and delivers on all accounts. It will be loved or hated by the listener without much room for a grey area but as far as death metal goes, it has certainly become a staple of the subgenre.

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