FREELOADER: A THROATRUINER THREESOME
Welcome to the latest edition of “Freeloader” in which we review albums that you don’t have to feel like a douche for downloading for free. Today Satan Rosenbloom checks out three recent releases from Throatruiner Records.
Just because you’re offering your music for free doesn’t mean that presentation is unimportant. French label Throatruiner Records understands this better than most. Their press materials are thorough and totally professional, the bands they are all quality, they offer all of their albums for free download, and insist on awesome packaging to incentivize actual purchase. Since Throatruiner give us the goods gratis, we’re dedicating an entire installment of Freeloader to them.
As We Draw – Lines Breaking Circles
I washed my hands of “post-metal” long before Isis broke up. What began as a new way of writing songs, with process at the fore instead of structure, devolved into empty stylistic signifiers and soporific build-ups. As We Draw do it different. The French three-piece has some guitar atmospherics and climactic moments in common with yer Rosettas and Cults of Luna, but they offer a far more energized, varied take on post-metal than most of their contemporaries. The band uses its three-piece lineup smartly, making guitars subservient to the rhythm section on songs like “Shield” and “Draft,” pitting textured guitars in opposition to anchoring bass in “Shield” and “Drowned in Flames,” massing their vocals into gruff gang chants on “Sin of Addiction” and “Scum of the Earth.” Parts remind me of Cave-In’s Jupiter, parts remind me of ‘90s screamo. All reminds me of stuff I will listen to again.
(4 horns up)
Get it free here.
The Phantom Carriage – New Thing
Part whirring tech-metal robot, part cathartic screamo orgasm and part pimply Mr. Bungle wackjob, The Phantom Carriage’s debut New Thing throws a whole lot of shit at the wall, and only some of it sticks. I’m totally onboard when these Frenchies cast their Omegan Deathspells, as on the sheet-o-nails black metal that whips “The Horses Feed Their Birds” into action. Less successful is the through-composed “The Monument on Hendrick’s Hill,” which for all its tension building moments doesn’t really amount to much beyond disparate screams and assorted riffs. By the time the jazz clarinet enters to a cocktail jazz beat on “Black Rain Falls in Drops,” The Phantom Carriage ride off with the few shreds of focus they once had. Perhaps blastbeats have never been played underneath a bandoneon and violin duet. But is that fact alone an excuse for the throwaway instrumental “Les Fantômes Se Cachent Pour Pleurer?” Musical expansion is great, but only when it’s tempered by focus. And New Thing is anything but focused, quickly turning into quite a slog despite its meager half hour run time.
(2 horns up)
Get it free here.
Pariso – Sooner Insignificant Better
This London-based fivesome was originally called “Betty Pariso,” in reference to the oldest female bodybuilder currently competing in the sport. The band dropped the first name before recording their third release Sooner Insignificant Better, but it’s still muscular and more than a bit freakish, just like its namesake. Sounding something like a grindier Converge, Pariso rip through 12 and a half minutes of angry, discordant hardcore, with metallic overtones adding some ugly chunkiness. It’s great to hear Pariso dirty up post-punk (“Mystifier”) and indie rock (their cover of Crystal Castles’ “Birds”), though it’s really the grim and uncategorizable tracks like “Fevered Egos” and “Longqvist” that will take the longest to scab over.
(3 1/2 horns up)
Get it free here.
Find out more about Throatruiner here
-SR
