Album Review: Deafheaven's "Ordinary Corrupt Human Love"

DEAFHEAVEN

*Ordinary Corrupt Human Love*

(Anti-Records)

Deafheaven’s fourth album *Ordinary Corrupt Human Love* is the band’s least brutal, the album that more evenly balances the beautiful guitar harmonies with the incoherent Banshee wails of singer George Clarke. Grindcore passages still exist during the seven-song, one hour playtime, but grooves instead of brutality seems to take precedence, most evident on “Honeycomb.” Opener  “You Without End” sets this tone as a song with a piano riff backbone amid guest vocalist Nadia Kury reading passages from a short story by Oakland author Tom McElravey--passages that celebrate the ordinary yet sublime moments of life, such as a flock of geese flying by. The early guitar interplay on “Canary Yellow” is an audio example of this seemingly ordinary beauty, with hardcore metal movements developing later during the song’s 12-minute playtime. “Near” is a dreamy, shoe-gazer ballad featuring clean vocal harmonies, and “Night People” again relies on piano and female vocals for maximum atmospheric effects.

The original print version of this review appeared in the October 2018 issue of Illinois Entertainer magazine: Click link and navigate the PDF file to page 55.

Album review: The Something Brothers' "Apollo"

The Something Brothers

*Apollo*

(Argosy Records)

The Something Brothers have gotten the band back together again. After first gaining national attention in the early 1990s, the Bloomington-Normal based five-piece returns with a crisply produced 10-track album *Apollo.* The title track is a soaring appeal for refuge from a crazy world: “Apollo help me hide away / where I can find some peace from this insanity,” frontman Scott Lee Wilson sings over richly layered guitar, drum and bass. “Fuzzle” is an exuberant rocker loaded with 1980s pop culture references and the catchiest guitar chord progression on the album. The band can be quirky too, as on the upbeat and rockabilly-twinged “Tree Full of Bees.” The guitar interplay is hectic and herky jerky and matches the lyrics, at times sung with a slight country twang: This metaphorical tree of bees “makes us smile /It keeps us young / Just like good drugs / It’s something not to be afraid of / It’s alive.” “Semi precious” is a self-deprecating, tears-in-my-beer rocker about hard-knocks. The lyrics “it’s been one on the chin after one on the chin after one on the chin” fade into a wall-of-sound guitar finale. The Bros get edgy and topical on “Burn The Evidence,” a rollicking help wanted ad for a “gun for hire”: “What to do with the body of the President? / Roll it up in a rug and burn the evidence.”

Appearing Dec. 15 at Martyr's in Chicago. Visit band's webpage for more information about album sales, including formats available.

Link to the original version of this review--appearing in the October 2018 issue of Illinois Entertainer magazine. Click the link the navigate PDF file to page 26.