The cover art for Murder By Death’s fifth release, in bocca al lupo, is quite fantastic: a barren tree’s labyrinthine root system descends (in thick, brunette curls) into a darkness populated with winged gnome-thingies, giving way to telling, burning rings of fire. All the elements of this engaging mini-mural seem to spell out the goings on of the album itself, but, contrarily, the album itself is not nearly as fantastic. Or engaging.
Continue reading →

Wolf Eyes is not the sort of band you listen to if you like music. They strike me, rather, as the sort of thing you might have playing in the background while brutally murdering your family with an axe.

They do make music in the broader sense, inasmuch as they create vibrations in the air which are then picked up by the timpanic membrane in your ear, either directly (should you be present while they perform) or indirectly via some sort of prerecorded medium. But somewhere in this otherwise normal process (which I have dubbed “hearing”), something has gone horribly wrong. You see, Wolf Eyes makes noise music.
Continue reading →