With all the crazy heavy music releases coming out over the last month, even up to today, you’re bound to sleep on something. But fear not – that’s kind of what we’re here for, and today we ensure that you don’t miss out on the noisiest, nastiest offerings we could find.
A few months ago, we covered a single by Madison, Wisconsin’s Coordinated Suicides, who hit just about as hard as their name suggests. “Sarcoma” teased just the brand of noisy, utterly pissed tongue lashings we were after. Like Body Void, Chat Pile, and KEN Mode (who also put out an album today), Coordinated Suicides shine a unique, infrared light on the dimmest corners of harsh, post-everything noise.
But on their brand new album This Could Be Heaven, the band pulverizes it’s surroundings into a deeply overdriven mass of sludge. And hot damn, is it glorious.
Amidst all the piss and vinegar though, there’s a strange sweetness to be found. Underneath the band’s dissonant metallic screeds, vocalist and guitarist M. Martin introduces miserable, but beautiful melodies on songs like “Frankie’s Chrysalis” and “Mary Magdalene.” It’s difficult to encapsulate. As the band sonically disintegrates , it reminds us a little bit of that scene in Rick and Morty where the Tickets Please guy ends up spinning in a vortex of his own blood and guts. Sure, it’s horrifying, but the imaginative drive behind it is downright inspiring, and ends up topping a lot of the band’s current competition.
Well, we probably shouldn’t call it competition. If you look back at borderline vintage noise heroes like Slint, Jesus Lizard, or June of 44, it’s their sense of innate conviction and storytelling that makes them great, not a competitive edge. The same goes for the bands we mentioned earlier – they’re not trying to outdo each other. They’re trying to capture what they’re going through, what millions of us are going through, right now. As utterly drowned in distortion as This Could Be Heaven can be, there’s still a pervading sense of clear, personal perspective to it, like a well edited horror film that knows how to toe the line between visceral thrill and skull-scratching mystique.
This Could Be Heaven ended up being one of our favorite heavy releases of the year, both for it’s crunchy, relentless dynamic and it’s narrative execution. As refreshing as a face full of stinging nettle, it can be hard to sit with at times, but the pain is well worth it.
Well, that about does it for this insanely packed Friday, but we sure are glad we closed it out with Coordinated Suicides. In the meantime, check out the other two exclusives we dropped today with Fox Lake and Charger Port, both of which are certainly worth your time, albeit for completely different reasons. Check out the rest of the band’s music here, and for the last time this week, somebody buy us a goddamn coffee here. Just kidding. But not really. Thanks for reading!