Lav's Music Corner

Ethel Cain is a singer-songwriter who broke through a few years ago on the back of Preacher's Daughter,  her lengthy debut album. The record trafficked in a Southern Gothic style that often reached harrowing climaxes and featured lyrical content darker than many of her contemporaries, yet Cain managed to become a breakout star on the back of the record regardless. Now 3 years later she's back with a sophomore album that seems deliberately designed to leave much of that audience behind. Trading out her more conventional styles of songwriting and production form a grueling droning 90-minute follow-up that will put anyone's commitment to her style to the test.  The first taste of the controversy that would eventually befall this record came on its lead single "Punish." I liked the song, though I wasn't head over heels for its format as a long, plodding durge with dreary vocals singing creaky refrains. It's better within the context of the album where the song...

Review by Lavender: Colin Stetson is a saxophonist whose experimental compositions have soundtracked some of the definitive horror movies of the past 10 years, while he's spent nearly twice that time collaborating with a wide variety of acclaimed artists. Simultaneously he's been releasing solo albums of his uncompromising sound. The newest is The love it took to leave you  his first purely solo recording since 2017's All This I Do For Glory . It also follows last year's standout When we were that what wept for the sea , one of my favorite of Stetson's projects to date.  Coming into this album I was pretty excited based on both Colin's reputation and the two singles. Opener and title track The love it took to leave you  didn't blow me away at first but it's at its best serving as a table setter for the album. It's got a surprisingly methodical undertone pacing away while bizarre and blurry sax passages wander over top of it. That leads perfectly into...

Jesu is the solo project of British musician and genre blender Justin Broadrick. It followed his pioneering experimental metal band Godflesh and took things in a different direction combining droning guitars with more conventional songwriting and lead vocals.  Review By Lavender: While I'm too young to have been able to appreciate Godflesh in their heyday I have spent a lot of time indulging with Jesu over the past decade plus. Whether it was with great albums like Conqueror  and Jesu , the pair of wonderful collaborative albums Justin made with Sun Kil Moon or the Before  EP he released this year that is still one of my favorite short form projects of 2020, I really enjoy the music of Jesu. While this is technically the 6th Jesu album the catalog runs extensively beyond this and would take far too long for me to unpack every part of it but what I will say is that as far as recent memory goes, Justin is on a hot streak ad Terminus  mostly keeps that up.  The re...

Uboa is an experimental noise project fronted by Xandra Metcalfe out of Australia. After nearly a decade of material she had a massive commercial breakout with 2019's The Origin Of My Depression  which reeled in acclaim for it's harsh sound and deep dive into personal issues, predominately her experience as a trans woman.  Review By Lavender: The Origin Of My Depression  totally blew me away last year. The record presented a fascinating mix of experimental metal, electronica, drone and noise that spoke to her struggles in an incredibly personal way that I totally fell in love with. Despite being really excited for what Uboa would do next I somehow missed this EP when it first dropped back in May and didn't hear it until a few weeks later. Now after reviewing long albums for a month straight with A.G. Cook, Blu & Exile and Matmos I finally found some time to properly review this project before Sufjan takes over next week. And I'm really glad I found the time because ...

Sunn 0))) is an experimental drone metal band who has been releasing material for over twenty years and has been pioneering and innovating within the drone genre for most of their career. The group released their 8th proper studio album Life Metal  earlier this year to generally favorable reviews. Pyroclasts was recorded in the same sessions as Life Metal  and is made up of four long tracks just like Life . Review By Lavender: Life Metal  was the best of the last few Sunn 0)) releases but that didn't have me convinced they were onto some new career renaissance. I had a feeling much like many projects released so close to each other that Pyroclasts  would just be the session material that wasn't good enough for Life Metal , and most records like it can't be as good as Untitled Unmastered  or Amnesiac .  Thankfully the creative wave the band was on seems to run deeper than Life Metal  because Pyroclasts serves up some excellent moments of its own....

Earth is a legendary west coast drone metal band who helped pioneer the genre in the early 90's. They dropped the now legendary album Earth 2  in 1993 that is considered by many to be one of the best and earliest examples of drone music. Since then the band has dropped a myriad of different project dabbling in various experimental rock genres but have never found quite the same level of success or innovation. Despite this the band continues to be revered for their contributions to drone's evolution. Review By Lavender: I would be the first person to tell you that Earth 2  is absolutely essential Drone listening. Not only did it finally re-contextualize Lou Reed's pioneering Metal Machine Music but it also kick-started the entire drone and harsh ambient movement that is so prevalent in independent music to this day. Since then they have released a lot of material and while much of it has great highlights and is worth diving into they haven't really had another tr...

Sunn 0))) are a pioneering noise metal band from Seattle that gained popularity in the 2000's with a blend of experimental soundscapes and creative experimentation in the realm of noise music. While they have a discography full of unique albums and exciting collaborations the band made the most impact with their universally acclaimed 2009 album  Monoliths And Dimensions . The album was a blend of drone metal, dark ambient, doom metal and avant-garde music that sounded heavier and more dense than almost anything else like it. Since then the band has released a few collaborative albums but only one studio project which was met with mixed reviews. Now Life Metal  is billed as a comeback record of sorts for the duo and has their fans anticipating another great release. Review By Lavender: I'll be the first to admit that I don't know every piece of the Sunn 0))) catalog like the back of my hand. I've heard every studio project behind the group and a handful of their ...