NEW REVIEW / NEW VIDEO

I'm tired. I'm always tired. Here's 2 things:

A really cool TSTAT / I DIE SMILING writeup was posted today on a metal blog that goes by the name NO CLEAN SINGING. An extremely favourable review. Very, very nice. Nice guys.

HERE IT IS.

The article is not only about the new album but the new video as well! The one I had no idea was even being made until it was presented to me in its completed state by Mr. Dave Hall. It's for YOU CAN'T KILL ME and it is amazing.



The new JESU is a good one. I wouldn't rank it among my favourite JESU releases but I'm still enjoying it immensely. SOMA, the newest album by a band called WINDHAND, is blowing me right away. I also discovered something called BALTIC FLEET which is kind of a cold, updated take on instrumental/krautrock type stuff. The new NIN is shockingly solid. Didn't see that coming. Checked out the new SUBROSA once but I need more listens for that one. It's pretty dense. Listening to CARCASS's latest as I type this. It's quite good. They seem to have opted for the NECROTICISM side of things with a little HEARTWORK thrown in. My absolute favourite new thing of late though is this band who are local to me (not for long though, they are relocating to Toronto). SHAHMAN is their name and their latest album is SOUNDS THAT LOOK LIKE US. Amazing stuff. Music is so dumb.

NEW RELEASE: I DIE SMILING

I DIE SMILING is now available.

Download it from my BANDCAMP

Download if from the DWYER RECORDS BANDCAMP

Buy a cassette from DWYER RECORDS

CD pre-orders are also available from my Bandcamp page. I expect to receive said CDs sometime around September 30th and will start mailing them out at once.

INVISIBLE ORANGES kicked things off with a particularly insightful album review (wherein there is speculation as to whether or not I'm "trolling" at times....trollcore?) and a full stream of the album itself. I have my good friend DAVE HALL to thank for setting that up, he of HANDSHAKE INC / MUTANTS OF THE MONSTER. Check the review out right HERE.

This album has been a long time coming for me. The songs range from gathering dust since 2007 to being brand new less than a year ago. The vault is now empty and it feels nice. Already hard at work on new stuff. An EP, cover tunes, another full length.....much more to come.

A MUSIC VIDEO - MR. YAWNING INFINITY CHASM/SUPERINFINITY

This is a music video for a song off my forthcoming full-length I DIE SMILING. All animation was done by PHIL OSBORNE of OSBORNE ODDITIES. He is genius at what he does and probably also at what he does not. Anyways, he animated the living shit out of this video all because I asked nicely. Actually, all I asked was that he put together a couple of minutes of abstract weirdness for possible use in a video culled from several different sources. Instead, he went and completed all 6+ minutes of it! Amazing!

MR. YAWNING INFINITY CHASM/SUPERINFINITY

Also, I recently played a house show with FUCK THE FACTS side-project MERDARAHTA. Here is video evidence of said show. The audio is pretty clear. The picture is KVLT as FVCK.

BEST OF 2012 ACCORDING TO TSTAT

I've been busy trying to mix my album, ok? It's hard. For me. It's hard because I don't have the slightest fucking idea what I'm doing. Did you know that the funny looking EQ waveform thingy actually has proper settings that can be adjusted using things like math and shit? Christ. All this time I was just dicking with it until it looked like a Geiger counter at Chernobyl. Anyways, I'm basically done now and probably ready to get this shit sent to James Plotkin for a wicked mastering. Also, my cousin/artslave Elena showed me some progress on the album art and it's looking sweet. Scummy and evil. So yeah, it's getting close to finished and I'm pretty excited.

In the meantime, here's a list of my favourite releases from 2012 that did get finished. Plus a little blurb about each and a link, if applicable. As usual, in no order.

1) MELVINS - THE BULL AND THE BEES "Featuring one of the best songs of their entire existence! Congratulations, 30-year old band!"

2) HIGH ON FIRE - DE VERMIS MYSTERIIS "Always a consistently good band but this one, in particular, is their best since Blessed Black Wings (my favourite)."

3) KILLING JOKE - MMXII "If you took the best songs off this and their last album and compiled them together, you'd be looking at a pretty untouchable classic (and also an additional album with a head-scratchingly high amount of filler)."

4) TORCHE - HARMONICRAFT "If Millencolin decided to be an amazing doom-metal band."

5) MELVINS LITE - FREAK PUKE "So weird how this band can keep rewriting the same riffs and have it be consistently awesome time and time again."

6) BARONESS - YELLOW & GREEN "I'd kind of written these guys off once I heard the Red Album but decided to give this a shot. Oops."

7) DEATH GRIPS - MONEYSTORE "This one is awesome. No Love Deep Web (also released this year) is my least favourite of the 3 full-lengths (despite the insane circumstances surrounding its release). And Ex-Military is still the best."

8) TEAM DOYOBI - DIGITAL MUSIC VOLUME I "Fantastic electronic weirdness. IDM done right."

9) SHAHMAN - BORED 7INCH "My new favourite Ottawa band. I go to their shows alone, largely due to the alienated nature of their songs. Just trying to do my part."
http://shahman.bandcamp.com/

10) REDD KROSS - RESEARCHING THE BLUES "I kind of fell in love with this once I heard what the album title was. Thank God it's also jam-packed with signature RK amazingness."

11) BELL WITCH - LONGING "A perfect doom metal antidote to the endless unremarkable onslaught that is 99% of all metal."

12) PS I LOVE YOU - DEATH DREAMS "Seeing what these 2 dopes actually looked like ALMOST ruined this whole thing for me."

13) HORSEBACK - HALF BLOOD "I was expecting a bunch of lovely guitar and piano ambience when I put this on, not stoner/doom....like....actual SONG songs with vocals and shit (interspersed with lovely guitar and piano ambience)."

14) LOCAL H - HALLELUJAH! I'M A BUM "I always have time for this band and they never disappoint with their Nirvana-through-a-Cheap-Trick-filter sound."

15) JK FLESH - POSTHUMAN "Somewhere between Grey Machine and late period Godflesh."

16) SNAKEDRIVER/LASER FLAMES ON THE GREAT BIG NEWS - SPLIT "2 fantastic bands on one album. Grindy sludge and Southern-fried stoner/doom. Nice pair."
http://mutantsofthemonster.bandcamp.com/album/snakedriver-laser-flames-split

17) BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW - COBRA JUICY "I didn't know this band existed until fairly recently. I miss out on a lot."

18) DEAD WRESTLER - 6 SONG EP "Another recent Ottawa favourite. Surf/jazz guitar with an almost Jesus Lizard rhythm section. No vocals."
http://deadwrestler.bandcamp.com/album/6-song-ep

19) KRALLICE - YEARS PAST MATTER "These guys seem to understand what all the worthwhile elements of black metal really are."

20) METZ - S/T "Weird, noisy rock songs. Very brief and very satisfying. This is what alt-rock is (not a bunch of fucking banjos, right?)."

21) LONGMONT POTION CASTLE - VOLUME 9 "This guy makes me cry tears of laughter every single time."
http://noisetent.com/DUCat.html

22) ALTARUS - AS ABOVE, SO BELOW "Progressive doom metal that just gets better and more complex as the album goes on."
http://altarus.bandcamp.com/album/as-above-so-below

23) BIIPIIGWAN - NIBAAK "Yet another (kind-of) Ottawa band. Furious sludge/grind meets AmRep style noise rock."
http://handshakeinc.bandcamp.com/album/nibaak

24) JODIS - BLACK CURTAIN "An amazing sound from James Plotkin and Aaron Turner. Somewhat doomish ambient/post-rock. Very different."

25) WIZARD RIFLE - SPEAK LOUD, SAY NOTHING "Like a version of Lightning Bolt that got tweaked in such a way as to be more pleasing to me personally. Not sure who to thank for that."

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

JAPANDROIDS - CELEBRATION ROCK
CONVERGE - ALL WE LOVE WE LEAVE BEHIND
OM - ADVAITIC SONGS
MY SLEEPING KARMA - SOMA
BLACK BREATH - SENTENCED TO LIFE
BORIS & JOE VOLK - SPLIT
KTL - V
PALLBEARER - SORROW AND EXTINCTION
MASERATI - VII
BOB MOULD - SILVER AGE
DINOSAUR JR. - I BET ON SKY
ECHO LAKE - WILD PEACE

I gave that Swans album a shot but it just didn't do it. I've given all their stuff a shot, actually, and the only one that really sticks is the Cop/Young God album (which I absolutely love). But seriously, why Swans? Why now? Someone should tell Einsturzinde Neubauten or Chrome to release an album next year. They might get to headline Coachella.

Studio 2012: Update 1 okTOBer dooooom

2 studio sessions so far. One for drums and one for re-amping guitars. The rest of the sessions took place here at my place. Randomly and sporadically from 2007 til a few months ago. 7 songs total. No more older songs in the vault after this. My next release will be made up of all current material, most likely. Anyways, nothing to do now but mix. I'm psyched to be working on this stuff in October. This weather is perfect. Gets my creative juices flowing. Killing Joke - Fire Dances on repeat.

THE BEAST HAS ARISEN....

Oh hi. No updates since the spring? Oopsies. I've been busy doin' nothin. But I've got songs written. 7 for the next release which shall be my first proper full-length. Tracking starts on the 1st of October at Apartment 2 Studios with Topon Das, my heavy metal colleague and favourite guy to complain about shitty metal bands with. In the meantime, I have to learn the drums for these annoying songs and possibly even teach myself how to properly blast a beat. That's proper as in Scum-era Mick Harris ND style. Not the way you youngsters go about it with all your "tricks". So yeah, updates to come (unless I get really lazy and don't bother posting updates). Follow me on Twitter @SUNTelescope. I'll post pics from the studio there maybe. In the meantime, have sex with each other.

THAT'S HOW KIDS DIE. interviews TSTAT

Well, here it is. My very first interview under the guise of TSTAT. Grazia multo to Josh Haun, he who is the brains behind the very funny and thought-provoking metal-blog known as THAT'S HOW KIDS DIE.

CLICK HERE FOR THE INTERVIEW

Here's what I've been enjoying lately....