Even though Billy Joel is a world-renowned singer-songwriter and piano player, I only started listening to him recently. I discovered Joel through the movie “Uncut Gems”. The song “The Stranger” was included in the soundtrack. It fit well with the scene and overall was a killer track. I was intrigued and wanted to listen to the whole LP. I was not aware of it then, but it ended up becoming one of my favorite albums.
Welcome to the second installation of The Metal Minute. If you’re new to this series, I’m taking on the (impossible? delusional? moronic?) task of defining as many metal subgenres as I can.
Last time, I covered the basics of folk metal. This week, I’m shifting focus onto one of my personal favorite metal subgenres: prog.
Progressive Metal: The Foundation
To understand progressive metal, it’s important to first understand progressive rock.
Prog rock blossomed in the late 60’s and early 70’s as a way to imbue rock with “artistic” sensibilities, thus “elevating” the craft. Pretentious British intellectualism aside, the genre served as a platform for artists to subvert and ape the “archetypal” structure of rock.
Cover for “Gentle Giant” by Gentle Giant
Groups played with musical structure, tempo, timbre and instrumentation. They also incorporated experimental, classical, jazz, folk and psychedelic influences. Irregularity, complexity and melody defined the genre, paving the way for some truly amazing art.
Many sources state that progressive metal emerged in the late 80’s. What’s important to note here is the word “emerged.”
It would be inaccurate to claim that the genre “began” at a specific point in time, because prior to progressive metal’s “solidification,” the worlds of metal and prog rock had already melded several times.
In Jeff Wagner’s “Mean Deviation,” he mentions the influence of King Crimson’s 1974 album “Red,” which frontman Robert Fripp himself considered “a beautiful piece of heavy metal.”
Other groups like Led Zeppelin, Rush and Deep Purple experimented with sounds that could also be considered proto-progressive metal.
Cover for “The Verdict” by Queensrÿche
Music under the official title of “progressive metal” was spearheaded by bands like Queensrÿche, who fused the cerebral style of progressive rock with the characteristic aggression and heft of metal.
Though largely relegated to the realm of the underground well into the 90’s, progressive metal — like the genres that produced it — metamorphozed into a many-headed beast.
Rules and standards were continually established and surpassed as artists discovered new inspirations, furthered their experimentation and diverged from their peers.
As a result, it’s honestly kind of hard to lay out a concrete definition of progressive metal. But in this instance, is something concrete really necessary?
In the words of Wagner:
One thing prog metal certainly is, is metal. Hard and bold and brash, but refined, adulterated, and mutated; it is heavy metal taken somewhere illuminating and sometimes bizarre.
Jeff Wagner, “Mean Deviation: Four Decades of Progressive Heavy Metal,” pg. 19.
Progressive Metal Today
Today, the first band most people imagine when thinking of progressive metal is TOOL.
Formed in 1990, TOOL is lauded for its stylistic complexity. The band’s discography features uncommon time signatures, experimental sound and tonal effects, occultist themes and meticulous composition.
The band’s song “Lateralus” was so influential that it has its own Wikipedia page.
Songs by these artists are entrancing and multifaceted, often with several “acts” and incorporating styles from jazz, folk, psychedelic and many others.
If you’re hesitant about diving headfirst into the metal scene, prog might be a good place to start.
This “review” of Yo La Tengo’s “This Stupid World” is a companion piece to a “review” of MooM’s “Plague Infested Dump of the Future”. I explained some of my reasoning for talking about two completely different albums in that article and you are welcome to check it out if you feel inclined.
Yo La Tengo is one of my favorite bands of all time. The smooth symphony of sounds creeping up from the speakers to take my head into a comforting cradle leaves a lasting impact in my mind. The joy for music I have while listening to Yo La Tengo isn’t easily explained. (But who can really explain their emotions?)
In the past year of dragging “This Stupid World” around in my head, letting it bounce off the cavities of my brain, helping it incite hunger and different kinds of fear, I have truly enjoyed familiarizing myself with this album.
This album was the first in a few years that Yo La Tengo (YLT) released with what they call a “live sound”, and it takes us back to the well-loved sounds the band produced in the past (quote from their Bandcamp). “This Stupid World” was released on February 10, 2023 and released under Matador Records. The band includes Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew.
I don’t dislike a single track on this album. I could spend hours writing and re-writing my thoughts to try and accurately reflect my love and attention for these songs, but I don’t have time for that. As the opening song, “Sinatra Drive Breakdown” is a magnet for your ears. Thwumthwumthwum. The guitar and the bass beats into my ears and I’m enamored immediately by the beauty of fear that time is running out.
A little more upbeat, “Fallout” is a great followup to “Sinatra Drive Breakdown”. It still sinks back into regret and time’s manipulative interactions with our lives. Filled with the emotions of people that have been working in the music business for decades, YLT knows what “falling out of time” would allow them to see and feel. I can’t put it into words, but I don’t have to because YLT does that for me.
Hubley’s dreamy vocals are backed up by a beautiful and simple guitar along with ethereal background tunes to put our minds at ease as we turn towards regret once again. How are we not supposed to regret the silly things that we each perceive as mistakes? “Aselestine” is YLT’s acceptance and voice of beauty in the regret of not using our time efficiently because there’s beauty in mistakes.
Ah, the title track. How could any band not fall in love with their album’s title track? In this song YLT imbues every loving feeling they have into the deep throaty hums of their guitar, the echoing shakes of a tambourine and of course a quiet outcry from the vocals. YLT has the world’s attention when it complains about “this stupid world is killing me/ this stupid world is all we have”.
What A Stupid World
Yeah, this world is stupid. This world is also beautiful. And, as I mentioned in MooM’s album review, this world is filled with anger. In both “This Stupid World” and “Plague Infested Urban Dump of the Future” there exists the convoluted threads tying all of these unique expressions of emotion together.
Both YLT and MooM have their niche of people listening to their music. People filled with anger and surges of vengeance, and/or people lost and trying to find a way to accept that time isn’t going to give them what they want. (Both of these types of people are feeling the same thing but they react to their emotions differently). By appreciating the viewpoints of both these unique artists, we can find the beauty in the rage and the disgust in our fears.
Yo La Tengo will be in the Raleigh area later this year to perform live at the Haw River Ballroom. If you’re a fan like me, you might end up there.
This album reminds me of a nice tomato soup in the cold.
MooM's cover art for "Plague Infested Dump of the Future"
My goal in writing album reviews isn’t to rank albums and give them some arbitrary number. It isn’t to tell people they have to listen to a certain artist or track or they’ll be missing out for the rest of their lives. I think I want people to appreciate the time, effort and emotions poured into the music musicians create.
In the case of MooM and Yo La Tengo, each of these bands have viewpoints they want expressed into the world. With each of their recent releases (MooM’s being this month and Yo La Tengo’s being last year), they both express their frustrations they feel are rampant throughout our world.
In this article I’ll be talking about MooM’s perspective. In another article, I’ll be talking about Yo La tengo’s perspective.
MooM is a powerviolence/ hc band from Tel Aviv Yafo, Israel. “Plague Infested Urban Dump of the Future” was released on January 10, 2024 through Raleigh’s own To Live A Lie Records. This album was recorded at Polar Studios by Gad Torrefrancae. MooM’s members include Sima (Vocals), Ez Ra (Guitar), Gad (Bass) and Heshbon (Drums).
In an old article by Lixiviat Records that interviews MooM, they list a large number of projects the band members worked on in the past and bands they want to keep supporting that are local to them. It’s definitely interesting to read and understand a little bit of where this band comes from in terms of sound influences.
The first four tracks of this album blend together seamlessly. The transitions from “Intro” into “Adom” are like an invisible barrier and that same treatment goes into the next couple tracks too. MooM’s sounds are incredibly harsh, which is why I was drawn to them; this band exudes anger, resentment, chaos and sludge.
The next five tracks are also seamless. One flows into the next into the next into the next. By building up anger and grief and rage into your ears, MooM helps us explode in the faces of those creating our toxic dump urban sprawls. How do we stand up to those that allow harmful policies to continually destroy without loud opposition? Screaming at the tops of our lungs might be the first step, but how do we keep going if we’re running on fumes of rage?
Alright this section is quite as seamless, but that is because some of the tracks are meant to be more discordant than others. I really enjoy the guitar in this section of the album as it feels more violent and eruptive than earlier parts.
The vocals by Sima and backup guttural, throaty growls by another member are the highlights of this section of the album. A return to the never-ending, concussive drums creates a sense of fear and prickles crawling up and down my spine. This especially occurs in “Lo Babayt”. The final song of the album is a step down in pacing as it unwinds all the emotions ripping through our ears for the past nineteen minutes.
Sprawling City ‘Scapes of Green. Where Are You?
MooM’s PLague Infested Urban Dump of the Future” isn’t supposed to be a wakeup call to the horrors of our daily life. It’s a reflection on the terrible reality that people are constantly facing. It’s the emotions that leak out into the void and never echo back. Feeling and fueling the building discomfort from how the world is currently working is one way to help others find their own voice to critique the kinds of systems in which we live.
Bringing MooM’s recent release into the same circle as Yo La Tengo’s “This Stupid World” is strange. The sounds of the two albums couldn’t be more different, but Yo La Tengo’s subject matter of the fear of time can relate to MooM’s anti-oppression and fear induced anger themes. Both are afraid of how people react to the systems that are reaching around humanity and stringing us up like a puppet, moving our mouths and arms and legs.
Well, if you’re interested in a slower version of fear rather than MooM’s fast-paced anger, you can check out my thoughts on Yo La Tengo’s “This Stupid World”.
One of my favorite weird bands is coming out with another weird album.
The Minneapolis Uranium Club, known also as simply Uranium Club, are a four-piece band operating out of Minneapolis.
Most of Uranium Club’s songs sound like if someone gave a gnome a journal and then introduced it to existential angst and avant garde film.
Distinctly DEVO-esque, this (egg punk?) band defines itself by an eclectic, twangy style that straddles the line between new wave and punk.
The band got their start in 2016 with their first album, an originally cassette-only release titled “Human Exploration.”
Cover for “Human Exploration” by Uranium Club
It’s a great album. The tracks are jaunty and entrancing and the lyrics are weird, abstract and occasionally pretentious (though decidedly self-aware). It’s the kind of music best suited for late-night basement shows or long, manic drives.
The band’s recent announcement of their upcoming fifth album, as well as the release of the album’s first track, tacks on another element of excitement and intrigue.
According to the band, the album “…opens up the history books of unsolved mysteries – unidentified, unsolved, unanswered subjects of suspicious acts or individuals across the last century” to ask the questions “Who, what, when and where… but mostly, why?”
The band references several unsolved cases, such as the mysterious deaths of the Somerton Man and Peter Bergmann (content warning: postmortem photos) as well as the strange circumstances of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a man who wrote an entire manuscript while experiencing locked-in syndrome.
Details from these cases, apparently, will imbue the contents of the album.
“Small Grey Man”
The theme of “strange phenomena” is compelling, especially with the band’s track record for tongue-in-cheek humor and witty prose. A taste of this theme can be seen in “Small Grey Man,” the first track of “Infants Under the Bulb,” which came out as a single on January 18.
Like a spoken-word poem, the bizarre lyrics reference both the Somerton Man and Peter Bergmann (both the actor and corpse). Wordplay, entendre and fantasy come together to capture the incongruous sensation of stumbling upon an unsolved mystery and being left with questions forever unanswered.
Cover for “All Of Them Naturals” by Uranium Club
Throughout the song, the speaker’s identity appears to shift as he imagines himself as the two men, speculating that they were spies who found themselves as corpses upon the beach — perhaps murdered, perhaps victims of suicide — due to a strange twist of fate. The ambiguity of their circumstances and the mystery surrounding their identities rings out as the speaker questions, “What’s your name?” and “Who are you?”
If there’s so much apparent depth to just a single song on the album, I can’t wait to explore the other ten.
Here’s the official tracklist:
1. “Small Grey Man” 2. “Viewers Like You 3. “Game Show” 4. “The Wall Pts.1&2” 5. “Tokyo Paris L.A. Milan” 6. “The Wall Pt.3” 7. “2-600-LULLABY” 8. “Abandoned By The Narrator” 9. “The Ascent” 10. “Big Guitar Jack– In The Sky” 11. “The Wall Pt.4”
