Venetian Snares & Daniel Lanois - Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois (Timesig/Planet Mu, 2018)

Melvins and Lustmord released "Pigs of the Roman Empire" some...many years ago. Also an odd-duck-but-it-could-work collaboration. Much like Venetian Snares and Daniel Lanois here. Anyway not long after it came out King Buzzo made the comment that "some of the things people think he did were actually us and some of the things people think we did were him". That's the sign of a good collaboration, when all limbs get absorbed into one megalithic beast and the entity operates as an indiscernible One. Such is not the case for M. Funk & M. Lanois. It very much, almost constantly, sounds exactly like Venetian Snares' breakcore playing over Lanois' guitar glossolalia. Lanois is in dreamy, shimmery, ambient mode here, very cinematic and nuanced, and in fact it sounds like it would make a good listen on its own. Snares (whose game I know well and typically enjoy) just slathers his own beats atop with little regard for anything else that's going on. I know Snares is a smart, versatile and thoughtful musician - I guess that's why I'm disappointed he seems to be the one making zero effort to engage with Lanois. On a couple of tracks the duo come together well enough - the 9-minute centerpiece "United P92" does showcase Lanois' guitar snaking and unfurling around Snares' prickly beats and "Mothors Pressroll P131" is so furiously aggressive it almost beats you into submission. But overall the two just don't connect like they should which is too bad.

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Nachtmystium/Leviathan - In the Valley of Death, Where Black Metal is King: An Homage to the Roots (Ascension Monuments Media, 2018)

What the fuck is that title. Okay I get the first part is a Judas Iscariot tribute, but did we really need "an homage to the roots" in there? Hey wouldn't it be funny if these were actually covers of the band The Roots? Anyway. This album was supposed to come out 10 years ago, but it was blocked by the bands' respective labels. Now I guess they've figured out a way, or Blake Judd needs money for drugs so he's figured out a way, to put this out. The Bandcamp version has 8 tracks, 5 from Nachtmystium and 3 from Leviathan, but I've seen a 10-track tracklisting elsewhere. On the version I have, we have Nachtmystium covering Judas Iscariot, Ildjarn (twice), Von and Burzum. Leviathan tackles Ildjarn (twice) and Von once. I seem to be missing Leviathan's Judas Iscariot cover ("Where the Winter Beats Incessant") and one of Nachtmystium's Von covers ("Von"). Weird. Wonder if there were some licensing issues or something. All four Ildjar...

Corrupted - Felicific Algorithim (Cold Spring, 2018)

For whatever it means, this is the beginning of Corrupted's "Hollow" series. Maybe the clue is in the music? Unlike Corrupted's traditional ultra-slowed down, Spanish-sung, Japanese doom metal this is instrumental harsh noise. Still filthy and angry and depressive but sans vox and also more or less sans metal. Both untitled sides are meant to be played at either speed. The result? Meh. I miss Corrupted's brand of doom, this relatively anonymous harsh noise is fine and all but if I'm listening to Corrupted...well I know what I want. Skippable.

Legend of the Seagullmen - Legend of the Seagullmen (Caroline/Dine Alone, 2018)

You may be familiar with the hype surrounding Legend of the Seagullmen, mostly because of the involvement of Danny Carey (Tool) and Brent Hinds (Mastodon). I wasn't expecting much but these were key bands of my youth, so I gave it a whirl, and it's whatever. It sounds kind of like a more rock/less metal version of Mastodon, maybe a less punk-y Turbonegro, a touch of Melvins (minus all the inventiveness), with horribly stupid lyrics and power rock moves like anthemic choruses and extreme guitar soloing. It's not as bad as the first track "We Are the Seagullmen", a real piece of shit, threatens, but it's not much better. It's a concept album that takes itself only semi-seriously...with the marriage of technical skill and tongue in cheek humor it's along the lines of a Green Jello, Tenacious D or a Les Claypool sideproject. But musically there's nothing here of interest, give it a skip.

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