This week features touching piano
ballads and psychedelic death metal. I’ll let you figure out which one of those
is the new Coldplay track and which one is the new Blood Incantation track.
THE BEST:
‘Wolseley’ – Febueder
This is my first time listening to
Febueder. Their band name is a completely made-up word (according to their
Facebook bio) and their sound is equally undefinable. The closest comparison I
can come up with is Foals frontman Yannis Phillipakis jumping on a Bjork
instrumental. It’s a dense maze of xylophones, horns and synth swells in which
the vocals are half-buried. There’s little discernible rhythm until the last thirty
seconds of the song, and yet there’s enough of a melodic through line to keep
you hooked until the end.
‘Thinking of myself’ – Cloud Tangle
I’ve interviewed Cloud Tangle
before on this blog. The Brisbane solo artist’s latest song sees her gratefully
continuing to push forward her melancholy sound. The production is a little cleaner,
but her sighed-out vocals are still just as clawingly despondent while the
instrumentation is still as creative, containing some gloomy synths and a stumbling
drum beat. This is the first single off of Cloud Tangles upcoming debut album.
‘Belltown’ – Night Hikes
This new single from Seattle band Night
Hikes combines shoegazey guitars with soothing melodic vocals. It kind of reminds
me of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’ - but, well, dreamier. Part of me almost wishes it
evolved a little more, but there’s also something hypnotic about how the
strummed chords don’t let up.
‘Inner Paths (To Outer Space)’ –
Blood Incantation
I’m a little late discovering this
one, but it’s still worth sharing for all those metalheads like me that haven’t
been fortunate enough to experience what might be the best metal track of the
year. The single is largely an instrumental (there’s a lone growl at the end,
but otherwise it’s an instrumental) and it slowly transitions from time-stretched
cinematic ambience to prog rock to full out death metal. All the while, the
video takes the listener on a trippy journey through space before drowning the
viewer in blood. The talent that has gone into the production and composition of
this track is incredible. To steal a comment I read on the Youtube video, it makes ‘Tool look
like Smash Mouth’. The band have a new album out that I’ll definitely be
checking out over the weekend.
‘Daddy’ – Coldplay
Coldplay have released a fair
amount of dross over the last decade, but what I’ve heard of their recent album
has been surprisingly decent (I really enjoyed ‘Arabesque’). ‘Daddy’ turns out
to be a piano ballad about an estranged dad. It’s surprisingly tender and is accompanied
by a beautiful animated video. The celeste at the end momentarily makes it sound a bit
like Christmas ad music, but otherwise it’s very intimate.
THE WORST:
‘Ahimsa’ – U2 & A.R. Rahman
If Coldplay’s new music is too adventurous
for you, don’t worry – you can still depend on late career U2 to provide dull
and lifeless pop rock. Even with the inclusion of Indian choir vocals courtesy
of composer A.R. Rahman, it still somehow manages to be utterly flavourless.