Not Metal » Sludge http://notmetal.net A heavy metal blog...really. Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:04:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Harvey Milk… (one of) the best albums in town http://notmetal.net/harvey-milk-one-of-the-best-albums-in-town http://notmetal.net/harvey-milk-one-of-the-best-albums-in-town#comments Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:43:05 +0000 admin http://notmetal.net/?p=11 Harvey Milk

Life…The Best Game In Town

Life...The Best Game In Town


This is a painful album. This album brings up feelings that I haven’t thought about in years; the awkward family reunions of people that don’t even really like each other but get together due to societal norms that dictate that people should love their families. Even if they fucking hate each other. This is that kind of face-your-life kind of therapy that is rarely pretty if easy to get through.

Case in point, the first song on the new Harvey Milk album, Death Goes To The Winner. With its opening light vocals of Christmas Eve it lulls you into thinking that this might be a clam or blasé opening (if you think you know what to expect, remember this is Harvey Milk*) it lurches into the honestly most depressing riff cycle this side of Eyehategod about awkward moments in life that brings back every fucked up family moment and maybe even some middle school dances too. Shit… this is really painful, but so rare that its going to be hard to turn away.

Emotional brutality of this exquisite caliber one just don’t see often, and it’s much appreciated. Any band can try and beat you into submission though blast beats, 300 BPM double bass, or singing about rape/torture/Christian-revenge plots. Few bands can bring about the awkwardness this band can bring forth with as little as they bring to the table. Slow ass songs, distorted guitars that reek of cheap beer and false hope, and a vocal wail that would could put Andrew W.K. down for the count. When was the last time Cryptopsy made you think about the girl that wouldn’t dance with you in 8th grade in a way that wasn’t completely self-referential in a Korn sort of way? Exactly. Doom in the most literal sense of it. YOU FUCKING FAILED YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT.

Harvesters of Sorrow

Harvesters of Sorrow

Desperation and feelings of pathetic-ness also permeate some of this album. Like a bar band full of 40-year-old fuck ups that still worship Priest and think the new shit sucks, the end of Decades clumps along like a bar band that’s off the rails but still has hopes of redemption in it. Then the song ends and another fuck-up cycle starts.

The best illustration of this brutal, ain’t no-ruby-lenses-here, theme is A Maelstrom of Bad Decisions. What starts out bad, horrible, fast, fucked up, and what could be perceived as poorly thought out just never gets better. Like all those horrible situations.

*On a happy note, they did make the best ZZ Top tribute album ever with ‘The Pleaser’.*

Fuck you guys for reminding me about the bad parts. Thanks too.

~ Chili Bowl Soul Vortex
(Calling you an asshole in front of your dad since 2001.)

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