Tag Archives: oregon

2014, albums, Bandcamp, Chicago, music, Portland, reviews

Stream: Sons of Huns – “Banishment Ritual”

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People may think of Portland as the place where all hipsters either live or aspire to live, but the fact of the matter is that there is a pretty lively metal scene in the Pacific Northwest and Portland’s own Sons of Huns comes pummeling through your speakers with a bone crushing album that’s packed with crunchy riffs and chaos.

This one just needs to be turned up. All the way. Every track introduces riff after shape shifting riff, slithering through multiple time signatures and tempi all while putting their virtuosic fretwork on full display. A song like “Heliolith” just keeps churning out memorable riffs and then casting them aside, moving to the next one.

Though, to be honest, calling this an all-out “metal” album isn’t completely fair. It’s not that far off, but really the songs show a lot of the influence of classic rock and garage rock. Think something like Ty Segall’s latest band “Fuzz.” That band chugs along thanks to the shredding of Charlie Moothart, and Sons of Huns shreds in a very similar way, but are just a touch heavier. The bass-work is more detailed and finely tuned, sometimes taking the opportunity to double the guitar lines, like on “Horror In Clay.”

“Banishment Ritual” offers the best elements from the worlds of thrash metal, and garage/psych rock with even a little classic metal thrown in for good measure (think Motorhead). And, hey, “Rollin’ the Dice” even shows that they can throw a little bit of swing into the mix. There’s also the classical guitar “Leyenda” style opening to “Super Kanpai Rainbow” and the dual guitar riffage of Iron Maiden lurking in the buildup after the guitar solo of the same song. Nothing’s off limits, and they can pull it all off exceedingly well all while plastering things with extended blues based guitar solos.

The album came out this past November and was released on limited edition Coke Bottle colored vinyl, with only a few still available. You can still, of course, download the album. This is their first full-length, so expect much more to come from these guys in the future. They are currently out on tour, check the dates below and listen to the full album above, and also check out some earlier tracks, also available to listen to on their bandcamp page.

Apr 26
Aftershock
Shawnee, KS

May 08
Launchpad
Albuquerque, NM

May 09
Club Red
Tempe, AZ

May 10
Cheyanne Saloon
Las Vegas, NV

May 13
Echoplex
Los Angeles, CA

May 14
SLO Brew
San Luis Obispo, CA

May 15
Strummer’s
Fresno, CA

May 16
Thee Parkside
San Francisco, CA

May 17
Branx
Portland, OR

May 18
Highline
Seattle, WA

May 20
In The Venue
Salt Lake City, UT

May 21
The Marquis Theater
Denver, CO

May 23
Red 7
Austin, TX

May 24
Fitzgerald’s
Houston, TX

May 25
Three Links
Dallas, TX

2013, Festivals, live, music, news, Portland

MusicFestNW 2013

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Oregon, and the rest of this corner of the country, has really been coming up the past few years with regard to music festivals. There’s Sasquatch, in central Washington, bringing in an impressive lineup of bands in May. The Treefort music festival in Boise in March that brought in a whole slew of great artists like Dan Deacon, Youth Lagoon, Earth and Quasi. Of course, as one of my recent posts pointed out, there is also the annual roots/folk festival just outside of Portland called Pickathon.

But, in my opinion, the most exciting of all of these is the SxSW style MusicFest NorthWest that happens all over the city of Portland for nearly an entire week at the beginning of September. The beginning of September, for those of you that aren’t fortunate enough to live in the Pacific Northwest, is when our weather tends to be absolutely perfect. Little to no rain, warm, sunny, everything you don’t think of when you think of the weather in the Pacific Northwest.

The artists that are brought to this area for each of these festivals keep getting better with each passing year. Last year Lightning Bolt, Deerhoof and Fucked Up playing MFNW were the bands that originally brought the festival to my attention and now that the full lineup has been released I would seriously urge people to sell a kidney if they had to in order to get there.

The full lineup and schedule have been officially released, which includes Neko Case, Animal Collective, Deerhunter, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Titus Andronicus, Dan Deacon, Superchunk, The Thermals, The Dodos, Surfer Blood and a whole bunch more that I would give anything to see. It’s the largest music festival in the Northwest and the 3rd largest indoor music festival in the country, no small feat.

Wristbands range in price from $90 to $200, each guaranteeing free entry to any show, though the cheaper ones are “space permitting” while VIP is “immediate entry.” You can also buy individual tickets for each show, for those of you that don’t want to spend a week running across Portland (though if you were going to run around a city, Portland would be a good one to do it in. The light rail is pretty fantastic there.) And being that it is very similar in style to SxSW there is, of course, TechFestNW that overlaps with the last two days of the music festival.

If you’re in the area, or even if you are within a few days drive I would say go for it. Catch all the shows you can, and if you can’t get in to all of the shows that you wanted to, hey, you’re still in Portland. Have a beer.

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2012, albums, music, reviews, Uncategorized

Album review: Foton – "Omega"

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Foton - "Omega"
Foton – “Omega”

From Portland, Oregon’s Field Hymns Records, Foton has produced an album full of electronic, mostly ambient sounds that fall somewhere between Boards of Canada and more experimental, free-form soundscapes that are (what I imagine to be) like field recordings from a trip to Mars.

Melodies and pulse fall in and out of focus across much of the 30 minute album. For example “There Was the Ruby Glade” keeps trying to leave the ground but sputters into Wagon Christ territory before concluding. Instead of one solid structure, or one solid idea, we have fragments of surging electronics that glitch and buzz,  held together by droning ambience.

“Slope 7F” provides the longest melodic line of any of the songs that hauntingly rings out unsupported by any harmony before the sound of a pipe organ comes crashing through in a swell of sound, that again is cut off completely. The song builds and falls continually leaving the listener hanging, before the lengthy melody returns only to be defeated by scratches of howling distortion and drums. This is probably the finest song on the album.

The closing track, a 15-minute magnum opus of pure, throbbing, ambient sound that builds to a loud organ sound once again, retaining the same harmony throughout and eventually fading away after several shifts in timbre. What’s interesting here is not so much what happens structure wise across the sprawl of 15 minutes, but it’s what happens timbre wise that changes the almost physical shape of the sound that emerges. The form is not in the division of sections here, because there is only one part, rather the form lies in how the pitch envelope is shifted slightly over that time.

This album is an interesting experiment in sound, creating shifting ambient soundscapes that aren’t afraid of straying from that archetype to allow melody and pulse emerge if need be.

Head to the Field Hymns page for Foton to purchase this release (out now!) for only $6, or click through the bandcamp link below. The album is being released on a limited edition of 100 cassettes, so don’t delay. Instant download upon purchase.

2012, albums, miscellaneous, music, news, songs

Download: Titus Andronicus Mixtape Vol. 1

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Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus has released a mixtape through their tumblr presence that not only includes properly recorded versions of two new tracks, but also a whole host of collectible material from their early days prior to the recording of their first album, outtakes from their 2010 masterpiece The Monitor, acoustic demos and even some Weezer (?!) covers. It’s travelling around the internet already, so grab it while it’s hot and pump yourself up for more new material from Titus Andronicus, but I would warn you against following Patrick Stickles on twitter as that dude stays up late and can be really annoying, but then again he also announces stuff like this via twitter so….consider yourself warned.

By the way, following the download link to their tumblr page will also provide you with several new live video clips. Be sure to check those out as well.

Download the mixtape.

Titus Andronicus:  Twitter | Tumblr | web

[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Titus-Andronicus-Upon-Viewing-Oregon’s-Landscape-with-the-Flood-of-Detritus.mp3|titles=Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape with the Flood of Detritus]