Durf's Weekly Workout # 19: June 4th, 2021

Last week was one of those weeks where every second seemed to be packed to the gills with stuff to do.  My job was working ten hour days in the hopes of getting Friday off to make it a four day Memorial Day weekend (we succeeded).  The Durfette saw her job kick into overdrive in her second week back from maternity leave, and one or both of the Durflings decided it would be fun to bring a little head cold home from daycare.  Additionally, the Durfette's dad and his girlfriend came in for the weekend, so there was a lot of work to be done to get the house ready to host people who aren't used to living in the squalor that is two children under three.  So yeah, that's why you didn't get a Durf's Weekly Workout last week; honestly I'm amazed I had the energy to wake up and lift.  But after a terrific Memorial Day Weekend, I'm feeling well-rested (which will last about an hour, I imagine) and ready to go, so now we're back and hopefully better than ever.  Of course, I'm still writing this at the last minute, and then I spent too much time writing about a very surprising album, so some of these entries may be a little short.  Don't let that deter you.  Onward!

Durf's Weekly Workout # 17: May 14th, 2021

Next week is the Durfette's last week of maternity leave.  Aside from being amazed that it's already been almost three months since The Durfling Strikes Back was born, this means that I'm going to have to stop being a deadbeat during the week and help out when he wakes up and needs to eat.  So far, I've been taking weekends to let the Durfette get some uninterrupted sleep then, and she's been doing the week so that I can get a good night's sleep before work, but now the schedule is being upended.  And you know what that means: It's time to change up my workout routine!

Durf's Weekly Workout # 16: May 7, 2021

When I first decided to do this post every week, the idea was simple: I wanted to listen to more music than I had in years past, and I wanted to write more.  Durf's Weekly Workout is literally just the easiest way for me to do both, incorporating music and writing into my already daily routine of working out.  So now that it's been almost four months, I figured it was time for a check-in from me/update for you on how that's all working out.

As of April 30th, I had listened to 164 albums, EPs, splits, and singles; by the time you read this, there's a very solid chance that I've surpassed my 2020 total of 176 albums listened to.  So it's hard to complain about anything there.  I was curious when I began this quest as to whether or not increasing my musical intake would just lead to my listening to more trash, but quite the opposite has happened.  Sure, there's been a few duds, but the amount of solid or great music that I've listened to this year is almost overwhelming.  My fears of not finding anything new by listening to more music appear to be as dumb as they sound; there is SO MUCH great music being produced right now, and so it makes perfect sense that listening to more music in general would reveal more of that great stuff to me.  I've also become a lot more open to a few genres (hello, grindcore!) that I've normally shied away from, which is definitely a cool feeling.

Durf's Weekly Workout # 15: April 30th, 2021

This was one of those weeks where I have absolutely no idea how I got to five workouts, let alone how I found time to write about the five albums I listened to while getting those workouts in.  Small miracles, man, small miracles.  Anyway, because of that, I'm skimping on this intro a little, by which I mean it's now over already, and we're on to the lifts and music!

Dreadnought - Emergence

 

When I was lucky enough to interview the entirety of Denver progressive-doom outfit Dreadnought last July, there was one sentiment in particular that continued to stick with me. It's perhaps the closest thing I've ever heard a band personally divulge in an interview that best embodied the often blanket descriptor of "progressive." They operate under the ethos of "best sound wins." The label of the music is arbitrary as long as it vibes well with all of the members. After hearing doom guitars along with saxophones, flutes, keys, and clean vocals mixed with black metal shrieks, one can't deny that the band doesn't walk the walk in terms of owning this ideology. But the bar was set high with the band's prior release. 2017's A Wake in Sacred Waves intertwined the aforementioned stylings with melodic hooks that kept the experience as catchy as it was mesmerizing. Whenever a band releases what feels like their opus, however, one can't help but immediately wonder what the next step is going to be for them. The next step for Dreadnought is Emergence, an album that sees the band evolve their craft by letting all of their core-elements loose in a free-flowing expansion.

Coltsblood/Un - Split

For the longest time, I resisted splits.  The reason, I think, is that I wanted more music from bands, not less, and splits inherently feature less music from each band than an LP or (usually) an EP would.  "But Durf," you're saying, "Even though you get less music from each band, you're getting music from two bands! And besides, isn't something better than nothing?" Reader, I hear you, and I never said it was a good reason.  Like many things in my life, it could be explained by the fact that I am, quite frankly, an idiot a lot of the time.  But that is the past, because I have come around on splits.  It started two years ago with the incredible Chrch/Fister split, then continued on last year with Eye of Solitude/Marche Funébre release.  I actually purchased two Panopticon splits, one with Falls of Rauros, the other with Waldgeflüster.  They're good!  Great, even.  Basically everything I thought about splits was incorrect, and I am now more than willing to give them a listen, especially when they feature two bands that get me all tingly.  Such is the case with the new split between Coltsblood and Un.

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- Mick

Exclusive Interview - Dreadnought

Denver's Dreadnought are no strangers to us here at Brutalitopia. Their previous effort, A Wake in Sacred Waves, was my top album of 2017. By harnessing a wide array of instruments, the band is able to capture the ambitiousness of the progressive rock legends of old along with the heaviness of modern day doom. Also throw in the dichotomy of black metal screams and clean vocals, and you have one, for lack of a better term, unique sounding band. I had been dying to catch the band live for quite some time; and especially after Durf's glowing review of their performance at this year's Fire in the Mountains festival. Fortunately, I was able to catch them this past week as they past through Chicago on their current tour. I initially thought I was only going to be talking to frontwoman Kelly Schilling, but the whole band ended up wanting to partake. What ensued was a fun conversation about everything from the band's beginnings to what lies ahead for them.

Read the interview after the break!

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- Mick

Eagle Twin - The Thundering Heard

Since their debut full-length The Unkindness of Crows in 2009, Eagle Twin has quietly been one of my favorite bands.  ...Crows was like nothing I had ever heard when it came out; the band's shamanistic take on doom is weird and adventurous in a way that too little music is.  That weirdness was somehow pushed even further on The Feather Tipped the Serpent's Scale, the band's 2012 follow up, resulting in an album that still rewards listens with the discovery of something new.  Now, six years later, Eagle Twin has returned with The Thundering Heard (Songs of Hoof and Horn); after such a lengthy slumber, can Eagle Twin muster the same thundering weirdness that made them so hypnotically intoxicating?

Shroud Ritual - Five Suns

An interesting thing about instrumental music is the way it's judged as its own genre, as though a lack of vocals is the most notable characteristic of the music.  And while certainly instrumental music does provide a different listening and live viewing experience, I feel like labeling bands as simply "instrumental" lumps them all in together, as though they all sound the same, which is erroneous on multiple levels.  From the black metal of Tempel, to the post-metal riffs of Pelican, to the driving soundscapes of If These Trees Could Talk, instrumental bands are just as varied and cross-genred as their vocal counterparts.  Of course then there are bands like Shroud Ritual, a one man project out of Washington D.C.  Five Suns, the band's debut album, manages to blend and transcend genres, leaving instrumental as the easiest, laziest way to categorize their thoroughly unique sound.

Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper

Since the release of their self-titled demo in 2011, Seattle's Bell Witch has become one of the most talked about doom metal bands in the game.  Conceived as a bass and drum duo, Dylan Desmond and Adrian Guerra made their two instruments sound inconceivably large, crafting long, dynamic, intensely heavy doom tracks across their demo and a pair of LPs.  After 2015's Four Phantoms, Guerra left the band, with Jesse Shreibman taking over on drums.  As the new duo was beginning the writing process for their first album together, Guerra tragically passed away, which impacted the album in a profound way.  When such a devastating, monumentally personal event is intertwined with a record, it can become hard, even impossible, to extricate the two from one another.  On October 20, Bell Witch returns with Mirror Reaper, the composition of which, the band says, "sought to match the complexity and weight of these events."

Exclusive Interview - Rebecca Vernon (SubRosa)

This past weekend, comrade Durf and I were lucky enough to catch Salt Lake City's own SubRosa as they were playing the very last show of their tour opening for Wovenhand. The band has garnered plenty of notoriety over the past few years. 2013's More Constant Than the Gods and last year's For This We Fought the Battle of Ages have paved new paths for creating a different kind of heaviness within the doom metal genre; giving their compositions more emotional weight than just audible weight. We sat down with guitarist/singer Rebecca Vernon and just by chance drummer Andy Patterson to talk shop about the band's beginnings, their development over the years, and the tight-knit Salt Lake City music community.

Read the full interview after the break!

Primitive Man - Caustic

It feels like Primitive Man has been around forever, but in reality their debut full-length Scorn came out only four years ago.  Since then, however, they've released nearly a dozen singles, splits, and the EP Home is Where the Hatred Is, making them one of the more prolific bands going.  The Denver sludge trio has put out some of the darkest, most repulsive sludge around in the past four years, and with the release of their sophomore LP Caustic, it appears that was just a warm up.

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- Mick

Clouds - Departe

A few weeks ago, I was perusing No Clean Singing, as any self-respecting member of the human race should do daily.  On this particular day, I came across a stream of a song from a band I had never heard of, which is not an entirely rare phenomenon for me when exploring their wonderful site.  The band was Clouds, and the song was "How Can I Be There," from their then-upcoming release Departe.  I was hooked, and listened to it for the rest of the day.  I then learned that Clouds had released a previous album, Doliu, so I then started listening to that.  Hooked became obsessed, obsessed became Facebook stalking the band for any hint of new music from Departe, and I dove headfirst into the rabbit hole that one encounters when they find a new band that they really, really enjoy.  On Tuesday, November 1st, I woke up at 4am for work, and before my coffee had even finished brewing I had purchased and downloaded Departe.  Did it deepen my obsession with Clouds?  Or is Departe a sophomore slump album, and will I have gotten deliriously excited over the course of two weeks only to suffer a tremendous disappointment?

SubRosa - For This We Fought The Battle of Ages

In my experience, metal of the doom variety has more often than not boasted thunderous walls of guitar and drum rhythms that are so excruciatingly drawn out and slowed down over the course of an album that "serene" is the last descriptor that would immediately come to mind. Cue in SubRosa, a band that I happened to stumble across three years ago with the release of their last album, More Constant Than the Gods. Through harnessing the harmonious vocals of Rebecca Vernon along with layered violin work, I was blown away by how they incorporated these elements with the aforementioned doom metal tendencies. The result is a sound that can be as morose as it is blissfully uplifting. Despite the heavier aspects of SubRosa's sound taking the heft of the experimentation on For This We Fought the Battle of Ages, the spirit of this placid sound is still very much carried on in in their latest effort.

The Morningside - Yellow

 

The soft and bittersweet consonance of post-rock, the droning of depressive doom metal, and progressively-minded arrangements are three elements that shouldn't sonically "play nice" on paper. Moscow's own The Morningside shows with their latest album, Yellow, that not only can the aforementioned elements co-exist in the same thought but that they also can be separate components that make a much greater whole, one that is truly unique.

Bell Witch - Four Phantoms

There are two people in Bell Witch.  Their names are Dylan Desmond and Adrian Guerra.  They each play an instrument in addition to providing vocals, with Dylan playing bass and Adrian drums.  I bring this up so abruptly because before you read any more of this review, I want you to know that I cannot comprehend how two instruments played by two men can create the music that Bell Witch does.  Their 2012 debut Longing instantly catapulted them to the forefront of doom metal, as it seamlessly wove harrowing roars and pummeling, crushing walls of distortion and pounding drums with delicate, almost quivering clean singing set to sparse bass notes.  The overarching themes and feelings on Longing live up to its title in spades, and it remains one of the most cryptic, mournfully beautiful pieces of art I've ever experienced; it's telling that the band sampled audio from Vincent Price's Poe adaptation The Masque of the Red Death, and that sequence is merely another moment of gothic terror, rather than the standout.  I tell you this for a few reasons; first, you should listen to Longing if you haven't yet, and second, Bell Witch's new album Four Phantoms is out now, and I wanted to give you a taste of how excited I am for that.

Dorthia Cottrell - Dorthia Cottrell

So I have a confession to make, a confession of the sort that doesn't really fit the vibe of what we do around these parts: I'm a huge Mumford and Sons fan.  Legitimately, too; they aren't just my favorite of the Durfette's favorite music (which is Sufjan Stevens, probably, as long as I'm confessing things); I enjoy the hell out of their music, and seeing them live at Bonnaroo in 2011 was just as exciting and fulfilling as seeing Opeth at the same festival (NOT a slight on Opeth).  They write fantastic pop songs, and that folky, heart-on-your-sleeve style gets me.  Before their second album was released, one of the members said in an interview that their sound was changing, that it was going to sound like their first album crossed with Black Sabbath, that it was going to be "doom folk."  In case I haven't overshared enough, after I read that, my erection didn't go away for a week.  Of course, later I learned it was a joke.  Babel was good enough, but I was promised (not really) a doom folk album, dammit, and I wanted it!  Well, evidently good things come to those who wait, because I finally have my doom folk album, not from Mumford and Sons, but from Dorthia Cottrell, frontwoman for Virginia doom crew Windhand, in the form of her self-titled debut solo album.