SPIRITUAL POISON – INCORPOREAL If Many Blessings is a more harsh and industrial side of THE DROOD – THE BOOK OF DROOD Listening to an album by The Drood is a lot like getting on board for taking in a left field science fiction noir that comments on the effects of technology on human society and consciousness, but is rooted in our individual and shared experiences. Nathan Jamiel’s often nearly whispered vocals serve as an insightful confidant in sharing tales of wonder, horror and cathartic transcendence as the songs pull the listener through expansively melancholic and melodic soundscapes that are equal parts rhythm-driven, ambient art rock and languid psychedelia. This album includes contributions from Randall Frazier of Orbit Service and The Legendary Pink Dots on “Determinism” who further accent The Drood’s already impressive mastery of musical texture and subtle mood sculpting. Ethan Lee McCarthy’s exploration of noise, Spiritual Poison is radically different in its crafting of drones and atmosphere. Is it “dark ambient”? Sure, if the songs on this release that simultaneously flash into your mind are scenes from Baskin (2015), Leviathan (2012) and premonitions of the bleak future of humanity post-climate collapse. It’s almost more sound design than simply ambient. Distant, abstract metallic drones serve as the backdrop to post-human cries of labored agony, blurred out chimes, distorted dins, echoing rattles, pulses of scratchy white noise, mechanical harmonic backdrops, subterranean hovering, streaks of sorrowful, melting string sounds, and piano processed nearly beyond recognition all conspire to render this one of the most beautifully uncomfortable listens in recent memory. TAGGART - S/T One doesn’t need to have heard or seen Tokyo Rodeo and The Swindlers to understand where these four songs are coming from. Every track crackles with a nearly uncontained energy that seems to have been spawned in a youth playing in punk and hard rock bands. But the thrilling vocal harmonies point to an ear for a musical sophistication like a splintery, power pop version of X. Live, Taggart, as did Tokyo Rodeo, played a version of “Second Skin” by The Gits and that bluesy garage punk sound rages here in spirited performances. One of Taggart’s strengths is its frayed musical roots because while it exults in punk simplicity, the band has chops it employs with a paradoxically tasteful abandon. For more, visit queencitysoundsandart.wordpress.com BY TOM MURPHY
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