Aphex Twin - Drukqs [2001]

On it's tenth anniversary, Aphex Twin's last studio album remains a significant cornerstone of modern electronic music. Drukqs shows Richard D James forming a distinctive collage of the styles acquired through his past albums. It's contents show inspiration ranging from the abrasive acid techno of his notorious Richard D James Album to the cold drones of James' early ambient work.  What you also get are 13 solo piano compositions, making up almost half the album, a decisive turn of direction for a musician more prominently known for testing the sonic boundaries of electronic equipment. The album's ambition admittedly overweighs it's quality (spanning 2 discs and a meaty 100 minute running time, it's way too long!) but Drukqs is certainly one to check out if you want an introduction to Aphex Twin's vast musical output.

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Heaven And Hell - The Devil You Know [2009]

I'm adding the tag of 'Black Sabbath' to this one, for one reason - this essentially is Black Sabbath. Evidently not wanting to get caught up in legal wrangling upon the reunion of the other classic Sabbath line-up, this doesn't quite stand up to the level of Heaven And Hell and Mob Rules, but as modern heavy metal goes, it does a damn fine job. It was also, I believe, Ronnie James Dio's last studio output before his untimely demise, and a damn fine performance it is too.

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Weekly album analysis, week 5

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Jesu - Silver EP [2006]

Justin Broadrick. The man just about defines 'eclectic'. This is his drone/shoegaze project Jesu, which, as usual for Broadrick, manages to sound like nothing produced in any of the above genres. This release is short, being an EP, and actually somewhat poppy, with some vocal moments that almost remind of the pop-punk of Blink 182 (but not to too great an extent). A very good EP, and a perfect introduction to the music of Jesu.

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Daylight Dies - Dismantling Devotion [2006]

Just this post, and I promise I'll stop posting metal with a romantic feeling for a while. Daylight Dies aren't your average Paradise Lost clone, however - in fact, they sound little like the Yorkshire band. However, they still manage to evoke the same feeling of suffocated romanticism through their blend of death/doom. Dismantling Devotion is an excellent album, and one that could appeal to fans of diSEMBOWELMENT as much as those of My Dying Bride and their ilk.

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Kyuss - Blues For The Red Sun [1992]

Josh Homme, for those who don't know, is most commonly known as the singer/guitarist/head honcho for Queens Of The Stone Age. Before that he was part of the heavy, stomping machine that is Kyuss and this album, Blues For The Red Sun, is by far my favourite of theirs.

This album is regarded as a seminal stoner rock album (along with Sleep's Holy Mountain (Persona 101: I disagree that Holy Mountain is a rock album, but whatever)) and it's easy to see why with the instrumentation/production. The guitar is a wall of chunky heavy sound, the bass rumbling underneath and a slight hollow sound to the drums creating a lazy attack on each beat.

Now a thick, heavy sound is all very well and good, but what of the songs? Well, tracks such as 'Green Machine', 'Apothecaries' Weight' and 'Writhe' should answer that question for you as most tracks on this album are very heavy and, perhaps more importantly, catchy .

Overall this is an album that is always heavy (but not metal) and mostly catchy/interesting. A criticism of this album is that it's a bit too long and by the end I find myself tired of the album (as the sound on this is album is pretty much constant).

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Frightener/Pulling Teeth - Split [2007]

My love for the band Pulling Teeth has already been well-documented here (even if their new one is pretty bad), but Frightener are just as good on this split. This is a god-level release of modern hardcore, and any fan of Throats, Trash Talk and the like would do well to get their hands on it. Both bands are still criminally underappreciated, so... appreciate them, I suppose.

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