MOMM (33)

Gloomy Tuesday, indoors. Leftover Black Friday purchases are beginning to trickle in. These two are amongst them.

My Bloody Valentine - Isn't Anything

This is a 1988 release. Kevin Shields had already established his eccentric guitar-playing. Nobody cared back then unless you are into the disaffected fringes of music where being popular is unsettling. I'm digging MBV's past to understand how the dissonant, noise-centric guitar music became the core embrace. If you listen closely, the songs here observe a simple structure. The guitar's job was to throw everything off but being attractive & outlandish in defining perhaps contemporary psychedelia. Some acoustic numbers here which are not my thing, the rest are pure MBV.

Vader - Solitude in Madness

My Vader experience began with The Ultimate Incantation. The problem with these bands, the early death metal wave, is that, intensity is everything. Musicianship is optional. If you are able to draw people into your music with mere speed & unease, it adds much to your worthiness because the target audience for this kind of music didn't give a rat's ass when it comes to musicianship. I didn't pay much attention to Vader thereafter. Fast forward 2020 when Covid had just cast its veil unto the world, Solitude in Madness got my attention because the music seems to flip for the better when it comes to value musicianship, not just noise for noise's sake. Peter is the only remaining member of the initial Vader lineup but this album is about having the right people with the right capacity to push quality death metal through. I finally got the chance to purchase this one & it's money well-spent.