Album Review: "Everything You Knew Before You Knew Everything" by Static in Verona

Everything You Knew....

Normally when do I an album review, I listen to it in the car or on my headphones so I am sequestered away from all distractions and I can feel the music. I then take notes on a single page.

I only have six words written about this album playing in my ears, but it's really so much more than those six words.

Static In Verona is a solo project by Rob Merz. I say solo project in the truest sense of the word.

He is handling all of the duties on this album from top to bottom. I've always been of the mind that even if you wrote an entire album and had hired hands play what you can't, it's not a solo album. Consider all of the albums by bands where one or two members wrote everything, but didn't play on them...

Album Review: "Mean Love" by Emmy Wildwood

Mean Love by Emmy Wildwood

Today our album review is a very different flavor that what's normally found here at Glacially Musical, but as music is always moving and ever changing, so do we.

Today's review introduces us to a new artist in the world, Emmy Wildwood. She has not only written this EP, but recorded every track and instrument on the album. Beyond simple artistic acumen, she is also a person of business.

The label releasing this EP, Tiger Blanket Records, is wholly owned by Wildwood. The Williamsburg based label also houses a record store, that of course she owns...

Aside from her business, her solo recording, the punk band, Velta...she has one other distinction as a musician. She plays guitar in Guns'n'Hoses, an all female Guns'n'Roses Tribute band.  However, we should move onto the current album.

Album Review: "Resurrection Denied" by Devangelic

Resurrection Deined by Devangelic

This is about to get very brutal and a bit blasphemous, but as per our usual policy, lyrical content is kind of off limits because frankly, they do not matter to me all that much.

Even if a band is serious...it's still just a piece of art, so we judge the art based on its merits as an art form. I always see a song like a movie. Regardless of what it's about, it doesn't mean it is encouraging or supporting that theme...

Because after all, it's just making a movie.

This is the full length debut by Devangelic. They hail from Rome, Italy.

This is an all star group of sorts. Members of Devangelic are also from Putridity, Vulvectomy, and Coprophilliac. Honestly, none of those bands ring a bell for me and the names are um, interesting.

Album Review: "Magical Dirt" by Radio Moscow

Magical Dirt by Radio Moscow

Please set your Wayback Machines for 1967.

For today's album review, we have the latest release by Radio Moscow.

Formed in 2003 in Story City, Iowa, of all places. They have been writing and recording for over ten years now.

Magical Dirt is their fifth studio album and their first release since 2012's 3 X 3.

For people who have grown up in this day and age, millennials, this record might seem very strange upon the first listen. Radio Moscow are delightfully retro in 2014, as they were in 2011 when I discovered their release, The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz. Based on this album, not much has changed....

Album Review: "The Dead Age" by Unicycle Loves You

The Dead Age

Noise Pop. Indie Pop. Fuzzy Rock.

I don't know what to call Unicycle Loves You other than by their name.

This is a band that likes to wear a lot of hats and they seem to desire to defy categorization.

Like many great bands, they have evolved record to record, and you may recall my saying that I look to the next album on a few bands to see if they have smoothed the edges or evolved into something a bit more than they were.

Unicycle Loves you wants to make sure that you cannot tell your friends what kind of music they are. Each album they have released has been vastly different than the one before it and this pattern will likely continue, but I'd imagine that would make it easy to notice the songs you know when they play them?

Album Review: "Soul Recall" by Rude

Soul Recall by Rude

Welcome to Berkeley, Calif. Where the colleges are liberal and the weather is fantastic, for folks who do not share my weather disposition.

This is not the place to find brutal death metal.

Of course it would probably be fair to say that this probably wasn't the place for Metallica, Slayer, Exodus, and more, but it's the genesis of some very heavy and very important music.

Today, the record in question is the debut album from Rude. A death metal quartet from this little slice of paradise on the West Coast.

Debut albums are always an interesting thing. The aforementioned Metallica, could you picture them 20 years after Kill'Em All releasing St. Anger or what about Lulu? I won't even get into Pink Floyd here. So let's stop talking about the bands that have come before and enjoy the coming out party that is Rude.

Album Review: "The Gates of Hell" by Day of Doom

The Gates of Hell

From Long Island, New York comes this brutal death metal band, Day of Doom.

This band has been around since 2000 chugging away in obscurity. They have recorded several demos that have not been seen by the wider world and they have also recorded two full length albums.

Both of those albums were self produced and self released. This is the first album that has been released by a label. The Czech metal label, Lavadome Productions, has signed them up and released their third album.

There is always an adjustment when a band changes from completely independent to being on a label, but did this calm down any of the extreme metal that was on their first few records or they still terribly evil and metal?

Album Review: "Mindhood" by Ashura

Mindhood by Ashura

In 2011, the brothers Gordillo decided they were going to stop playing Iron Maiden covers and start playing their own music.

The South American brothers then began an odyssey that took them through several other musicians and into the studio to record a demo.

In January of 2013 they met Enrico Cavion who helped them change their sound, their genre and their focus.

Finally, they ended up with the full line up that would birth the newly named Ashura's debut record.

They were  now ready to begin writing and recording and the produced a three song demo to begin their journey. Ashura is a Bay Area Thrash band in the modern age that stays true to the roots of the genre.

Album Review: "The Maximalist" by Megafauna

Maximalist by Megafauna

 It's time to meet a celebrated guitarist out of Austin, Texas.

Dani Neff.

You've never heard of her either? It's a crime against nature that this very talented woman has not been heard by the wider world. She has been chosen as Austin's best electric guitarist by the Austin Chronicle.

Considering the music scene in Texas's favorite weird city, that's high praise indeed.

Though she's oft referred to as a shredder, but that feels like an inappropriate tag for her style of play. There's nothing wrong with shred, from where I sit, but it implies notes for the sake of notes and often at the expense of the song, and that's not what she does.

Album Review: "BIG WEATHER" by 1, 2, 3

BIG WEATHER by 1, 2, 3

On Boxing Day, 2012, Nicolas Snyder, the primary songwriter for 1, 2, 3 quit the band.

In time, he returned to some sort of normalcy in his life. Living as a human being again instead of a person consumed by finishing a double album about weather, inspired by meteorological disasters.

However, in time, the itch that anyone who's played a song on stage knows all too well, came back. He listened back to the songs they had finished, that they had not finished, and that were barely written.

He then convinced them all one by one to return to the fold and the band lived and breathed once again. After listening and learning, they returned to the studio. They holed away for five months and finished this mammoth of a record...

Kill Devil Hill In St. Louis & My Conversation With Rex Brown

On a muggy Wednesday evening in May I arrived at The Firebird to meet with Rex Brown of Kill Devil Hill (and formerly Pantera).

As I made my way up to the door, I ended up having a conversation with some of the members of Crobot and their road manager. We spoke for about ten minutes before it was time for me to head in. There's something about that band that stuck with me, which I'll get to another time. They were opening up.

My nerves started to get the best of me. I've listened to Rex's music for a very long time. It was the first time I had the opportunity to interview someone whose music I loved. 16 year old me would be proud.

Rita Haney and Rex greeted me as though I was important. After a few minutes of chit chat with Rex a few things became as clear as an azure sky: he drops a few F-Bombs (I did soften this interview up a bit by removing some) and that he says exactly what he's thinking and it was equal parts a relief and a bit nerve wracking....

Album Review: "War Eternal" by Arch Enemy

War Eternal by Arch Enemy

Is there anyone who is not familiar with Arch Enemy?

Born of Carcass, Carnage, Mercyful Fate, and more?

Champions of women in metal?

OK, there has to be someone, so, a quick history lesson. The group was formed in 1996 after Michael Amott left Carcass.

Originally, the band's vocalist was Johan Liiva who was replaced by Angela Gossow in 2000.

In 2014, it was announced that at after 14 years, eight albums, and more, Angela was going to leave the band and she had even chosen her successor, Alissa White-Gluz, formerly of The Agonist. Angela and Micheal are still married and she is still involved with the band, but she has chosen to no longer participate in a musical capacity.

"More Primitive" by Lonesome Shack

 There are record labels that when I hear that they have an album coming that I know that I'm already interested in what it is.

Alive Natural Sound fits that bill.

Lonesome Shack is a blues trio based out of Seattle, Wash., but it would never be apparent to anyone listening.

In some ways, it's very nice when things do not change. When a style of music remains rooted in its past and holds onto the feeling, the power, and the structure, then you have tradition.

They tow the lines between 12 bar blues, boogie blues, and country blues, and all points within. Blues has had a bit of a renaissance over the last few years, but mostly Chicago blues with long solos, but this is very different than that.

"Endless Asphyxiating Gloom" by Sabbatory

I hope I didn't just bring you down there. This album is rather gloomily titled, but it's death metal and it is what it is. This is the debut effort from the quartet, Sabbatory.

It is a widely held belief that the location of a band will add to its air, its msytique, and even its sound. Consider Black Sabbath came from the poor industrial town of Birmingham, England. Tony Iommi even lost a finger in an industrial accident.

The biggest disconnect between location and music, naturally, is Tampa, Florida, but we're going to let that ride.

Sabbatory is not from a sunny beach town. They are not from an affluent metropolitan area. They are from Winnipeg, Man. If there ever was a cold, metal heart of Canada, Winnipeg would be it. The cold is so unbearable there that during the winter, the people walk in underground tunnels. The cold is beyond oppressive...it's asphyxiating there.

"Gets Loaded " by Hollis Brown

Hollis Brown is a roots-rock band based out of NYC.

They have been described as playing rock music that would have sounded fresh in 1966.

As they are on the Alive-Natural Sound roster, one could expect them to be a bit bluesy, a bit retro, and pretty rocking.

This is their sophomore album to their debut which was released last year. There is a story behind this record.

Originally this started off as a live tribute to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground in November of 2013. Hollis Brown was invited to the show to play The Velvet Underground's Loaded in its entirety. Originally it was released as a Record Store Day limited edition, it's now getting its own proper release a month later...