Young Widows - Future Heart b/w Rose Window

2 tracks from the new young widows full length due out 4/12, the b side is a ripper, you may have heard the a side before. thanks to toxicbreed's funhouse for the link.

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GA'AN - Self-Titled

This album could just as easily be a lost krautrock classic that hasn't seen the light of day since the master tapes were locked away in the Amon Duul/Bader-Meinhoff compound. In reality GA'AN is from Chicago and initially released this collection on cassette only in 2009 before label captcha records made it available to the masses. Fitting in very nicely between the Tangerine Dream and mid-era Kraftwerk strains of german progressive music, GA'AN paints meditative soundscapes with angelic but repetitive and mantra-like female vocals, piles upon piles of mellotron, moog, and vintage synth tones, and driving yet incredibly tasteful percussion (sometimes fill-heavy but never scattershot or overplayed). Bass guitar rounds out some of the thicker, more driving sections, but is often played in the melodic pocket and blended with the almost choral nature of multiple synthesizers. The vocals at times act as almost a touchstone or backbone to songs that allow flights of fancy by the other instruments. Again this is incredibly meditative music, song structures emerge from and disappear into the miasma of whirling keys and grooving percussion. This is what you expect to hear in the moments after you trip over a coven performing a sacrifice in the woods, between getting caught and being chased to your own death. A beautiful listen that acts as background doing-homework type stimuli, or as tripping-yr-balls-off-man-this-is-amazing album that never gets old. Smoke a fat one, close your eyes, and sink into this album. Headphones recommended. 

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Food - S/T

Richmond, VA's FOOD plays loud, heavy, and sludgy rock with misanthropic themes, appealing to fans of the punk/crust/doom/pre-grunge that first came from the Pacific Northwest and the hardcore that followed. They remind me a lot also of early AmRep and (a very down-tuned version of) Richmond crust as they rip through five tracks (40 minutes) of grimy, feedback-laden rock. Rarely do these guys ease off of a driving tempo, punishing the listener not with painful sluggishness, but with relentless waves of bottom-heavy riffing. The opening track, "The Captain," is a perfect example, as it builds from a slower, sludgy opening before double-timing the riff and launching into a frantic period of pummeling drums and coarse yells. The rest of the record is chock-full of many more simple-yet-effective riffs and periods of gritty bliss, but it's the closer, "Oxbow," that seals the deal. The in-the-red production demands to be played loud, so crank this shit.

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Anagram - Majewski

Toronto's Anagram have apparently been around for quite some time, which totally pisses me off because I'm just now finding out about them with this album, their second full-length, Majewski. Anagram delivers a very twitchy and sinister take on early post punk with an almost garage-y sensibility. Taut, grooving bass lines reminiscent of genre pioneers joy division drive the proceedings here, snaking in and out of steady, almost motorik percussion. The lock-groove of the relentlessly focused rhythm section is counterbalanced with wiry, repetitive, at-times unhinged guitar playing and deadpan but incredibly riveting vocals spitting frustrated and sarcastic lyrics. If it all seems a bit harsh a certain acquired-taste tunefulness makes for an incredibly catchy (to the right ears) album that bears and holds up under repeated listening. Fans of The Jesus Lizard, Flipper, Wire, dischord records in general, and Hoover, people who like their punk with "post-" before it, and those who prefer the sketchy, shady, and seedy side of rock 'n' roll will appreciate this effort.

Standout tracks: "I've Been Wrong Before"; "Evil"

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