Best guitar solo

The Guardian asked the humble plebeian which its favourite guitar solo is. They suggested it might be one by David Gilmour or Jimi Hendrix. Original, right? And the final picks were actually okay. Not as good as mine, but better than the ones that made up the majority of the Tumblr site they published. They all seemed to be Gilmour, Hendrix or Slash.

Mine was either clearly not good enough to make the final 100000 entries, or no actual sorting process was applied. You decide! Here is my humble pick. If it’s a little blunt, that’s because the size limit was 200 words:

My pick is ‘Dimebag’ Darrell Abbott’s solo from Pantera’s exquisitely anguished ‘10s’. The song itself is ostensibly a ballad, but as fortified with distortion and attitude as one would expect from the Texan metal quartet. The solo is around a minute of perfection: it has everything I want from a lead. It sits comfortably within the flow of the song, an important criterion, but also offers its own take; choosing beautiful, aching melancholy over Philip Anselmo’s lyrical defiance. It’s essentially a microcosm of their often clashing personalities. This isn’t a traditionally flashy solo, choosing melody first and foremost, but its crescendo begins with a quite startling speed run which quickly gives way into heart wrenching high notes. Time stops when I hear this solo; one of many artistic peaks from the late, great guitarist who married Van Halen inspired virtuoso work with modern brutality (which he largely created) while never losing grip on his profound sense of soul and emotion.

The song is here!

P.S. Yes, I am blogging once more.

Albums in the year 2011

Cheating a bit here. Posting it for the end of 2011, but I’ve written it much more recently. Watch out for me filling in all the missing years. I started most of them at the right time, but ended up with a backlog of nearly a year.

I had started writing this article years and years ago. And then started again, fewer years ago. Not sure where it went, but it seems not to be on my Google Drive. Ah well. This is a look back at my favourite albums of 2011, with mainly my 2015 head on, and a hint of 2017. I’ve even spent a few minutes tidying it up in late 2019! Oh dear. That said, I don’t imagine much has changed; I also don’t well remember a couple of these entries. Let’s see how I get on then…

  1. Pulling Teeth – Funerary

This was very nearly a tie at the top. Funerary and The Magic Place were like two kindred spirits at the top of the 2011 music pile. Though utterly opposite in style, they shared a mournful intensity and ridiculous high standard of composition and performance. Based on the amount of play the albums have received from me, Funerary takes the top spot. Ostensibly a metallic hardcore album, the now late (as of the end of 2011!) Baltimore band run the gamut of great heavy sounds. 

The album opens with a run of frenetic, short metallic hardcore songs with more than a little Slayer snarl to them. They are catchy, chaotic and dazzling. The mood changes for the epic, doom-laden titular centrepiece, a trawl through sludge and damnation. From here, the slower pace takes over, but the songs aren’t simple doom tracks. You get melodic terrace chanting, unbelievably cathartic passages (“At Peace” gets almost unbearable, such is the intensity of the emotional outpouring), and the most edifying mix of metal styles since Botch and their ilk ruled the roost. 

I really need to check out the bands that emerged from the ashes of Pulling Teeth, because their skill and ability to pull anything off is not something I hear nowadays. 

 2. Julianna Barwick – The Magic Place

Super lovely stuff. Not quite ambient, not quite dream-pop, but it’s also both of those things to the nth degree. Julianna released an album prior to this one, and it had nice ideas and sounds, but was like a demo compared to this. You, the listener, get taken not on a journey, but into a world for three quarters of an hour. There is a definite ennui permeating these grooves (and outright mourning on “Flown”, linking thematically with Funerary), but the overall sensation is one of bliss. 

I’ve actually not dared listen to the 2013 follow-up, Nepenthe, on account of the singular nature of this work of art. 

3. Britney Spears – Femme Fatale

As magnificently-produced modern pop albums go, I’m not sure whether this tops the Ke$ha debut. It is, however, at least as consistent (the one blip being the awful Will.I.Am-produced “Big Fat Bass”), and the sound is a lot thicker and more housey, which I like. The fact a lot of the producers (Dr. Luke, Benny Blanco, Shellback) are the same on both records helps a lot, as their work is very of its time with a good sense of dynamics and attention to detail. 

Though “Toxic” gets all the plaudits, and “Baby One More Time” is the best-written Britney song, Femme Fatale is the Britney album with the overall highest standard of quality, the apex of a great trilogy that also includes Circus and Blackout. Sadly, 2013 follow-up Britney Jean was disappointingly flat and felt a bit rushed (and had a lot more Will.I.Am on it, rather than Dr. Luke). If you strike “Big Fat Bass” from the record, I can listen to this over and over. And I have. 

4. Cave In – White Silence

Cave In! I have a real soft spot for this lot, ever since they released one of my favourite ever albums, Jupiter, in 2000. Not only was it amazing, but its style being such a break from previous album Until Your Heart Stops, made it a pretty mind-blowing surprise. Then they signed to a major on the recommendation of Dave Grohl, stagnated briefly, were dropped from a major and went on hiatus after the okay-but-not-great Perfect Pitch Black. 

Six years of silence later (albeit a period including side projects and solo albums), the band came back with an album that just sounds like fun. The pressure of being on RCA was long gone, as were scenester accusations of selling out. White Silence had moments of silliness (is that a Danzig impression on “Iron Decibels”?), but this was no mucking about album. Songs like “Summit Fever” had elements of Queen in their grand sonic scale, and this is comfortably the band’s second best album. The bad news? They seem to be on a break again. 

5. Josh T. Pearson – Last of the Country Gentlemen

I love Josh, and this album is great. In fact, it’s a “better” album than at least the two above it. I reviewed it here. It’s just an ordeal to listen to, the “country album” he told me he would do before bringing Lift To Experience back, in a chat we had in about 2006 when he was selling CD-Rs in working men’s clubs. This is a beautiful record whose songs are well constructed and brilliantly performed, some being plaintive epics. I just can’t listen to it that much, so it’s not a favourite of mine, even if it is stunning quality. And, you know, it’s not Lift To Experience, and anything he writes that isn’t that will suffer. “Honeymoon’s Great! Wish You Were Her” is just devastating. 

6. The Weeknd – House of Balloons

This was an album Fact got me into, and man alive was I glad to find out about Weeknd’s trio of sexy, seedy party hymns, handily uploaded to Tumblr at the time. I think at some point I might write properly about this set of albums, as they were noticeably new-sounding and super-modern at the time, and hindsight has shown them to be positively epochal. 

Not only in the method of distributing music online for free (think how few people were using legit streaming services in 2011/12), but the close production and hyper sexual themes and delivery. Looking since then at the likes of Banks, FKA Twigs, Billie Eilish at al (not really many men, if we’re honest – ginger buskers?), these albums might sound a bit normal, but I’m not convinced any of those would have sounded like they do were it not for this hit. 

7. Rustie – Glass Swords

This is the result of coming back to this year so long after it ended. Fact Mag, as I recall, declared this their album of the year (turns out they didn’t, but it was high up), and I was unconvinced. After a few more listens, though, I’m enjoying it. It’s very 80s and airbrushed, the logical conclusion of Daft Punk’s Discovery album in a pre-Drive world. But Rustie makes it work. The musical shapes on this album are dazzling and crystalline, flawlessly produced and seemingly untouched by human emotion. Maybe that’s why I can’t really connect with it: it’s the soundtrack to a 2011 Patrick Bateman dinner party. 

8. Boris – New Album

This one is a little crackers. I think we all know I’ve had a lot of love for our favourite mixed-sex Japanese power trio (mixed-sex because I think I prefer eX-Girl for overall Japanese power trios) over the years. New Album certainly has its moments. “Tu,la la” is an absolutely gorgeous rock song (like something off Pink), and “フレア” has a fantastic sense of melody. 

The album as a whole is just so goddamn haphazard – early 90s indie here, heavy synth bombast there – that it loses cohesion. Granted, that’s because this is actually a version of two separate albums (Attention Please and Heavy Rocks). But still, if you’re going to mash two albums up, there will probably be some stylistic issues when you’re dealing with a band as eclectic as Boris. Certainly worth listening to, even if it’s far from their best album. 

9. Gridlink – Orphan
10. Kimbra – Vows

Why are these together? No idea. But try playing them together. The flip side of the coin from our Britney, Kimbra is a young New Zealander who’s written her own songs from an early age: that past is evident on Vows, where the styles change with regularity. You will have heard her on that Gotye song that spent a million years at number one. This one of hers is much better, anyway. She can get a bit chintz-souly at times, but the singles (“Cameo Lover” and “Settle Down”) are fantastic, and she’s a great singer. I even like that shlight shpeech impediment she sheems to have. Adds character, you know? I think she put out another album, so I should check it. 

Gridlink were just the most intense metal band since Discordance Axis, the other incredibly intense Jon Chang gridcore band. Maybe more so. Orphan followed where Amber Grey started (and final album in the triptych, Longhena, concluded) with its mix of science fiction and melancholy. But mainly the deluge of inordinately technically-composed rock noise.

Burzum – Belus

Belus

Byelobog Productions, 2010

Belus, the latest album from one man black metal machine Burzum, carries with it a great deal of baggage before even the first note is heard. The most infamous detail surrounding Burzum (aka Varg Vikernes; formerly Count Grishnakh) is the fact that he recently spent a decade and a half behind bars after murdering one-time collaborator and Mayhem member Øystein Aarseth, also known as Euronymous. Combine that with multiple counts of church-burning and a behind-bars transformation into a neo-nazi, and we have on our hands quite the jolly fellow.

Before he went to jail in the mid-90s, though, he released some incredibly impressive albums, most notably Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and Filosofem (1994, 1996; both Misanthropy Records). These were epic, bleak, wildly individual pieces that set Burzum aside in the black metal world from what was otherwise tinny symphonic thrash metal. This combination of quality artistic output and disgusting personal behaviour has led, in his absence from society, to Vikernes enjoying a rather misguided cult of personality. His music has been proudly revered in direct proportion to the lowlife scumminess of the man: thanks to the infinite word of mouth that is the Internet, and the perverse interest in the dark side of humanity, Burzum has become a legend. ‘But, you know, I don’t agree with what he did…’

His alleged brilliance has been blown out of all proportion, as evinced by a couple of dire spooky-synth albums he recorded while doing porridge, and now by Belus. Fans of dark music may well display demand characteristics upon hearing this album: ostensibly making all the right noises, it’d be easy to look at the nature-fetishising cover, listen to the long BM songs, and declare the KVLT leader well and truly back.

The shame is that Belus presents to the listener a washed out, cliché, concept of black metal. That thin production from the early 90s is present and correct: what was presumably a side-effect of the scene’s recording equipment eventually became an emulated aesthetic; tinnier than thou. Amusingly enough, posh boy BM act Cradle Of Filth started out with a great sound (‘Nocturnal Supremacy’ was actually a right tune), but as they got bigger, they got tinnier. Rarely does a band buy in, rather than sell out, as success beckons, but such is the world of black metal. So, having trapised around the Bergen woods in his sweatpants and stroked his beard, Varg decided his new album – that grand statement of freedom regained – would be as tinny as in the good old days. So everything here is low in the mix, and not in a cool, Burial, ‘ghosts in the radio’ way. It’s just quiet for an ostensibly heavy album.

The music itself is also lacking. I wouldn’t expect Vikernes to have stayed in touch with the movers and shakers in the scene (he likely hates what black metal has become), but one could be forgiven for thinking such a misunderstood genius would have at least developed his art individually, removed from the possibly restricting context of genre. Scott Walker disappears for years at a time (without killing, say, Tom Jones or Lulu) and re-emerges a transformed, inimitable, artist. Burzum has simply shambled into view with all the aplomb of a Resident Evil zombie, flailing about and making spooky noises. After the album’s yawntroduction (surely that 30 seconds isn’t deserving of its very own track), the black metal stereotype machine clunks into action with some washed out, speed-picked, slo-mo melodies and disembodied shrieking. It’s as though the last decade and a half never happened.

‘Belus’ Doed’ and ‘Glemselens Elv’ could be anyone, which is what is really gutting. Had Burzum returned with an album even close to the quality of Filosofem, we’d all be happy. But this could be anyone. That is not to say this is a bad record: the last couple of tracks do trad-BM rather well. It’s just disappointing and generic. Frustratingly, when Vikernes does move away from the cold drizzle that makes up the majority of the album, as on the two centre tracks, things pick up massively.

A real grower is ‘Kaimadalthas’ Nedstigning’ (‘Kaimadalthas’ Descent’ – answers on a postcard as to who he is, Norse mythology fans). Initially a bizarre mishmash of speed metal riffs, spoken work chorus and slightly embarrassed singing, the myriad loose ends of this song eventually intertwine into a triumph of dynamics, vocal arrangement and proper fantastic seediness. The melodic segments sound almost like 80s northern indie, eerie in their calm delivery and juxtaposition with the mania of the rest of the song. That goes straight into ‘Sverddans’ (‘Sword Dance’) which is refreshing in that it actually brings the riffage for once. It’s a spiralling descent of a melody; just don’t let on that you think it sounds like Apollo 440’s ‘Lost in Space’ theme. The corpsepaint brigade round your end probably won’t take kindly to that one. Part of its charm is the contrast with the wetness of all the other metal on the album: it shreds in its context, but not compared to, say, any Black Breath song ever.

Belus, then, is just a bit sad. And that’s worse than being a morally repugnant work of horror. When you strip away the new clothes of murder and arson, you’re left with an emperor who’s just a bit mediocre. Not a conquering return, nor a reclamation of past glory. This might sate the Burzum faithful, but if they’ve sat through Dauði Baldrs, they can probably handle tedium well. If you want a decent idea of modern black metal, then go for some Watain, Leviathan or Drudkh. If you fancy listening to a song that’s a nice break from the norm, check out ‘Kaimadalthas’ Nedstigning’. Overall, though, Burzum is about as relevant in 2010 as Iron Maiden were in the 1990s.

The Black Dog – Music for Real Airports

Real airports!
Soma (2010)

The Black Dog’s Martin Dust mentioned, in his recent interview with FACT, that he was disappointed with Brian Eno’s 1979 precursor to this album, Music for Airports, as it lacked reality. “It just seemed so out of place”, Martin observed, “like something from a sci-fi film”. I’m not sure whether it’s involvement in the art removing objectivity, or simply aesthetics evolving over time, but the main cultural reference point throughout numerous listens to this record for this writer has been Moon, the 2009 film by Duncan Jones. Moon, were you unaware, is a science fiction film.*

This isn’t your reviewer being a dick, rather it’s a hopefully understandable reaction to this record, before having read said interview. Both Moon and MfRA are super-modern, minimally beautiful and surprisingly poignant works that serve to remind us, in this world of overkill and hyperbole, of how effective a decent level of imagination combined with killer execution can be. There was some trepidation prior to hearing Music for Real Airports: after the ridiculously good recent one-two of Radio Scarecrow and Further Vexations, a concept album? A retort to Eno that pimps the importance of reality and legitimacy? Is this an album or an art installation?

While it begins with traffic noises and samples of disembodied welcomers (and how nice it would be to drift in and out of an airport within the hour it takes to play this record…), you do not have to be waiting in a departure lounge to feel the music on here. While it’s certainly true that the juxtaposition of haunting, trembling, arpeggio and ominous low frequency of ‘Sleep Deprivation 2’ benefits from contextualisation within the mass-dehumanity of the holding bays we pay for the privilege to perch in, the music is not dependent on location. A graduated ambient album, MfRA uses real world samples and cues as signifiers and enablers of a concept, rather than allowing them to become what the album is. Instead, the arrangement ebbs and flows while generally building, reminiscent of Ricardo Villalobos’ Fabric 36 set, albeit replacing South American sexual tension and catharsis with the satisfaction of (just about) getting home.

I very nearly went to Leeds Bradford Airport for this one. I didn’t, largely because I had nowhere to go, the World Cup was on, and I have a job. I did manage to listen to it while taking the train to Wakefield. Railway stations are like shitty little airports; you wait around, feeling your soul ebb gradually, yet inexorably, away. And then you get in a large vehicle and turn your brain off, lest the tedium of your situation divorce you from sanity. And, in this context, MfRA definitely worked. What’s refreshing, in this day and age of Sigur Ros and soft ambience, is that this record does not emulate the feeling of rising through the cloud canopy, nor does it enhance the sensation of being above the mortal Earth, peering down at seas and mountain ranges like so many patchwork quilts.

No, given their punk backgrounds amid the steel and perspiration of Sheffield and agit-electro, TBD focus on the more earthly ‘delights’ of your journey. ‘Future Delay Thinking’ and ‘Delay 9’ sum up the (non-)passage of time, while the heavy breathing of ‘Passport Control’ and snippets of barely audible voices mixed in with numbing aural thuds and blotches of ‘DISinformation Desk’ (love the sentiment, but the nomenclature is a tad heavy-handed) bring the paranoia you sometimes feel. Granted, when I was travelling from Iran to Turkey during the former’s post-election troubles in 2009, even I wasn’t quite as shook as your man on ‘Passport Control’ seems to be. But it takes all sorts, I guess.

What we’ve got here, then, is an album that is many things at once. It does convey, to a very real extent, the weariness and boredom of waiting around at various points of an airport-based journey, but it makes a virtue of it, somehow maintaining the ennui while transmogrifying it into something beautiful. It’s a fitting third part in the recent trilogy (so far) of albums. And, if we’re being honest, it hints at a desire to move into soundtrack work. But why not, when here is a collection of sonic vignettes that evoke on their own, yet combine to form a seamless whole? We’ll know in advance who Duncan Jones can call when the time comes to make Moon 2: Electric Boogaloo.

* If you really don’t want to think of this as a sci-fi record, despite its Death-Stargate front cover, you’ll do well not to listen to ‘BCN4’, from the limited edition Thee Lounge EP. While very good, its voice samples, banging on as they do about galaxies an ting, do little to back up Martin’s argument. Or perhaps it’s a sly dig at the whole ‘Music for Airports as sci-fi’ thing. Who knows?