By It’s our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring Gloin’s righteously emotional ALL OF YOUR ANGER IS ACTUALLY SHAME (AND I BET THAT MAKES YOU ANGRY) and Dim Gray’s tastefully post-modern and proggy album SHARDS!
Gloin – ALL OF YOUR ANGER IS ACTUALLY SHAME (AND I BET THAT MAKES YOU ANGRY)
Genre: Post-Punk, Noise Rock
Favorite Tracks: “Bucket of Blood,” “Swamp,” “Salamander”
Gloin want you to be a better person. That’s why the Toronto outfit describe the 12-track ALL OF YOUR ANGER… as “a brutal but most-welcomed therapeutic musical onslaught.” Sure, all music is innately therapeutic—we can blast Aerosmith and/or DMX and work through the resulting tidal wave of feelings. But this album is akin to actual therapy. That begins, of course, with the subject matter. Be it the increasing blurring between man and technology, perpetual self-doubt, or living in our ever-maddening world, it’s a psychotherapy crash course. The depth and intensity of these subjects is near-perfect, with the sense we’re delving into real, organically imperfect feelings and sentiments.
But just because the record’s interested in, say, your daddy issues doesn’t mean it’s cliched. There’s a deep, abiding sense of confrontation and deliberateness that informs how the record engages listeners. “Bucket of Blood” is the best kind of modern Talking Heads, with the band taking those uneven, angular dance vibes to their extreme to cultivate a relationship that’s both satisfying but still demanding. On “The Treatment,” there’s deep catharsis amid swirls of noise and dissonance, and that process apes real life’s uneven trajectories toward personal growth. It’s not all sonic clashes; there’s more “playful” fare. Like “Missed call” (post-punk The Jerky Boys); the uncomplicated but deeply satisfying release within “Horse Fighting”; and how the uber cool “Swamp” lands as a mid-album breather (or a smoke break). These tracks aren’t any less cathartic; they extend the LP’s tendency to grapple with its audience in the name of exploring deep-seated emotions and things we like/don’t like about ourselves as reflected in the outside world. Rather, they’re a gentle hand squeeze or a handy Kleenex—essential texture and nuance for this robust personal dissection. Then, of course, there’s tracks that blur these lines outright. “Salamander” is techno made in a dystopian prison, and another way to introduce the body into this grand release process. “Big Boss” may feature crushing bass, but it lulls you into a better outlook through hypnosis (aka the refrain, “We all suffer from the same disease”). Having a “midway” point is more than added texture—it’s greater accessibility and more things to explore and process. It makes the LP even more of this essential construct, where dynamic themes and energies excitedly intermingle.
Ultimately, Gloin aren’t interested in merely leaving us to our feelings. They’re forcefully putting the onus on each of us to connect with this album, to grapple with whatever ideas and energies we need to leave this experience feeling hugely exposed and seeking further soul-cleansing confrontations. This isn’t a record about a dead parent or a nasty breakup; it’s a record about relishing suffering until that anguish lessens slightly through hard work and recognition. This album won’t make life easier, but it will pummel you into doing something for yourself. Whatever you take away from it, hold on to that white-hot core with endless joy. Listen to it now over on Bandcamp. [Chris Coplan]
Dim Gray – SHARDS
Genre: Progressive Rock, Post Rock, Alt Pop
Favorite Tracks: “Defiance,” “Feathers,” “Peril,” “Attakulla”
As a child of the midwest, it should come as little surprise that my taste in music has never been hip. My current bread and butter is country music (specifically of the neo-traditional vein) and in high school, my cravings were centered around progressive rock. I was brought up on Kansas by my dad, and I quickly expanded my taste to include any artists that scratched the same pseudo-orchestral itch. I still have a soft spot for many of those classic bands like Yes, Genesis, and Rush, but have regularly struggled with many of the modern groups that inhabit the progressive music movement. It’s not simply a matter of some bands being too heavy for my liking (I tap out at around a 7 on Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness), so much as the music just leaves me feeling cold, as though the bands either lack any sense of originality and sound like knock-off Emerson Lake and Palmer or are too afraid to commit to the bit and are holding back a bit of themselves, ashamed to be making the same kind of music that got clowned on by Christgau and Rolling Stone in the ‘70s. Needless to say, Dim Gray have been something of an outlier, exuding warmth while sharing only a fragment of the same DNA as the symphonic prog artists of yore.
Despite lead singer Oskar Holldorff’s membership in Big Big Train and being affiliated with Marillion, Dim Gray isn’t your typical prog magazine darling. They’re not flashy like Dream Theater, nor are they “profound” a la Radiohead or Opeth. Instead, Dim Gray fashion themselves first and foremost as earnest. It’s right there on opening track “Defiance,” an aspirational anthem which briefly alludes to the myth of Sisyphus and encourages listeners to “Heed your only dream and / Roll it up the hill again.” Sonically, it doesn’t sound anything like the prog titans from the 70s, instead bringing to mind mid-era Muse. Elsewhere on the album, the band marry the musical traditions of their country with bits of U2 style guitar shimmering, post-rock style ambience, and a Spector-esque wall of Sound. The latter element is perhaps best exemplified on “Feathers,” a midtempo ballad which finds our studded quintet accompanied by a Cellist and violinist to provide extra textures which add needed poignancy to a wintery image of heartbreak.
Lyrically, much of their songs appear to center on romance and how it lingers in the mind well after the relationship has ended. Yucky stuff for traditional prog-rock diehards, but looking at it from a more abstract view, one might see a band grappling with the fragmentation of the world order thanks to the rise of far-right authoritarians around the world (most pronounced in the United States). It certainly adds an extra bit of heft to the pseudo-title track, “Shards from a Broken Crown,” which reads like a scathing obituary to a crumbling empire. Looking at the album from this thematic lens certainly helps to enrich the material, though the overreliance on ambiguity somewhat deprives SHARDS of its emotional punch.
Regardless of whether Dim Gray could have pushed the needle further on SHARDS, it cannot be denied that this is a band with much potential going forward. This is a band who knows how to marry direct compositions with tasteful instrumental flourishes and textures, enough to hopefully satisfy both prog purists and those unfamiliar with genre but who yearn for something more in their music. Whichever group you belong to, we encourage you to listen to the SHARDS here! [Connor Shelton]
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