Sound Obsession

High on Fire, Kvelertak Date:  November 12, 2013 Venue:  Rock & Roll Hotel, Washington, DC My relatively recent dive into the pool of brutal rock & roll madness known as heavy metal proved fruitful earlier this week as I attended one of the most epic live shows of my life. No joke. No exaggeration. Oakland stoner metal titans High on Fire and Norway's "black & roll" powerhouse Kvelertak simply decimated the Rock & Roll Hotel Tuesday night. I had considered not writing a review at all, as there really aren't enough words to describe how ridiculously good this show was. Being as that I've got this blog to feed, I'll try anyway. . . Kvelertak I arrived midway through opener Doomrider's set. The Boston-based stoner/doom foursome just put out a new record produced by Kurt Ballou called Grand Blood (Ballou and Doomrider frontman Nate Newton are bandmates in metalcore band Converge). Despite looking great on paper, I just can...

Black Lips Date:  November 2, 2013 Venue:  Black Cat, Washington, DC 2011 was a pretty lackluster year for new music, save for decent albums from Mastodon, Beastie Boys, the Black Keys, and the Black Lips.  The latter was a surprise favorite.  In years when few new releases catch my ear I tend to catch up on older stuff I missed the first time.  That year I got deep into mid-60's psych and garage rock, with the infamous and influential  Nuggets box set as a guide. It was serendipitous that the Black Lips, a band I hadn't really paid much attention to prior, released their sixth album  Arabia Mountain that year.   Produced in large part by well known 60's sound fetishist Mark Ronson (responsible for Amy Winehouse's biggest Motown soundalikes), the album faithfully recreated the gonzo Animal House aesthetic of vintage Sonics, Kingsmen, and Wailers. Black Lips On Arabia Mountain the Atlanta, Georgia, based garage rock foursome sho...

Neko Case Date:  October 31, 2013 Venue:  Lincoln Theater, Washington, DC Every year it seems, in a subconscious effort to give myself a little break from the aggressive rock and electronic music that typically gets my adrenaline pumping, I gravitate to some form of innocuous, vaguely acoustic, pretty music.  I call it "chicken soup" music, and it usually comes in the form of some kind of tepid contemporary "Americana."  Nice melodies, nice singing, a lil' bit country, a lil' bit rock & roll - major plus for some pedal or lap-steel guitar .  Whatever evokes windswept southwestern deserts or misty Appalachian hills.  In recent years it's been Robert Plant with Alison Krauss, Patty Griffin, or Calexico.  This time it's Neko Case, who just put out a graceful new record called The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You . What is this, a concert for ants?! The veteran alterna-country/indie-pop singer...