Morbid Saint, Swallowed By Hell (HR Records)
Still a lot of metal in the pipeline, folks, so let’s look at some of it, specifically from this Wisconsin band. This one comes to us “more than 30 years after their second LP, ‘Destruction System,’ was recorded but not finished, only to be officially published recently.” And so they’ve been very not-busy of late, these fellas, but the only thing that resulted from their hilariously long hiatus is that, well darn, they’ve gotten pretty good, to be honest. If you’ve ever really loved Slayer you’ll like this for sure; singer Pat Lind is still on board, tabling Tom Araya dead-ringer soundalike bellowing. The title track is rooted in Aughts-era black metal, which I’m sure you’ll want playing in your baby’s nursery; “Bloody Floors” is power metal, and such and so. They’ve got a great sound if you like this kind of thing. A
Mary Tominy, Untame The Tiger (Merge Records)
This Washington, D.C., lady has been a fixture in the indie-rawk world for 30 years, playing with such bands as garage-pop power trio Ex Hex and post-punk troupe Autoclave. Although her voice is still a bit awkward, she’s refined her style to a really noticeable degree; if you stick with album opener “No Thirds,” you’ll encounter some really stunning symphonics that put her in the same ballpark as Natalie Merchant. It’s jangly, vaguely hopeful and easily accessible. “Summer” comes off like a Versus A-side, which means it has no commercial hope whatsoever, not that that’s a bad thing of course, but in the meantime she does add something of a Sheryl Crow break to it. “Looking For The Sun” is pretty trippy, for sure; imagine Chrissie Hynde going through a ’70s Donovan phase, is how I’d put it. Overall she’s aging like a fine wine that won’t appeal to all palates, not that she cares about that by now, I’m sure. A
Playlist
A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases
• Yay, groan, New Year’s Eve is on the way, one of my least favorite days of the year, when my Grinch heart has to endure people looking all happy awaiting the mass amateur drinking contest that is the reason for the season, and we marrieds stay up until midnight, pretending to be relevant for whatever reason, watching all the Dua Lipas and Ricky Martins as they honk their Who-Flonkas and bash their Who-Bombas, and then they’ll sing and sing and sing, and then comes the thing I hate worst of all, watching Ryan Seacrest and Anderson Cooper doing their potted houseplant imitations while wearing actual ties in order to “check in” on concerts from Poppy and Taylor Swift and the Beibs or whatnot, which is of course your kids’ cue to run to their rooms in order to avoid catching a bad case of “Responsible Adult Cooties,” where they’ll listen to death metal and crunk and text their little friends about things you really don’t want to know about. I have no idea why we celebrate New Year’s Day; I mean, it’s the last gasp of the holidays that started on Halloween with everyone dressing up as sexytime monsters and rolls of paper towels or whatever they do, so really, what’s to celebrate? It’s just going to be freezing and slushy for the next few months, and all that New Year’s alcohol will be long worn-off by February. But let’s put that aside for a second while I take a look at the (I’m so sure) tons of new albums coming out on Dec. 29. If there are two I’ll be lucky to get through this column, maybe by riffing on a few other things, like the fact that I couldn’t find actual candy canes for my HannuKwanzzMas tree literally anywhere for a day or so. Right, right, what do we have here, literally no albums except for stompy German band Lord Of The Lost, whose stupidly titled covers album, Weapons Of Mass Seduction, is on its way! These goth-metal frauds like to dress up like the glittery, certifiably crazy dude in The Cell, and in this one they cover songs from Billy Idol, Bronski Beat, Judas Priest and — well, you know, Sia, because those bands always have to do stuff like that. The teaser single is a Rammstein-ized version of Cutting Crew’s “I Just Died In Your Arms” that’s just as bad as you’re imagining it, like they have a girl singer who has all the nuance and originality of a McDonald’s french fry, and the male singer just sings the same nonsense an octave lower than her, and there are ’80s synths in there. Ack, let’s move on, if there’s any place to move on to.
• Ack, ack, it’s another metal band, called Dominum, with their new one, Hey Living People, but you know who’ll want to know about this is famous local author and friend of the Hippo Dan Szczesny, because the leader of this euro-trash band used to be in the symphonic-metal band Visions of Atlantis. This band’s trip is sort of like a zombie-centric version of Abney Park, with zombie stuff instead of steampunk stuff. “Patient Zero” is awesome if you like bad acting and (actually good) sympho-metal.
• Ten years ago Irish indie-folkie Ciaran Lavery didn’t get enough attention for his album Not Nearly Dark, so he has re-rubbed the whole thing under the title Not Nearly Dark (10 Years Later). It’s stupid that the Bonnaroo crowd didn’t get into him, he’s like a cross between Jeff Buckley and Rod Stewart, so snooze on him this time, that’d be great.
• We’ll end the last column of 2023 (good riddance, am I right?) with Mexican oi band Malcría! This one is tough and loud and punkish, and it’s titled Fantasías Histéricas, which even I could roughly translate.
