Vol 12 / Trk 06 / Out of My Mind / Dope Body

THIS was the track I wish I’d posted the last time. But alas, it only came into my possession two days after that post. Sorry, B.

A general rule I live by is that anything involving J. Robbins is worth a listen. He hits a sweet spot pretty much every time, always with an emphasis on crunch and melody. You can pretty much always identify one of his songs if you encounter it in passing. In recent years, he’s expanded his palette a bit—whether this has anything to do with the remnants of emo going away or the DC-Baltimore axis mutating is almost beside the point; it’s still quite nice to see a guy change things up.

So that’s where Dope Body comes in. I read a description of the band as “sludge-punk” and another as “bro-rock,” neither of which I’d normally associate with Robbins. What I love about this track—and the great majority of their new Robbins-produced album—is that he uses his sound as a base to build on, not the end result. So above his trademark ADD bass is a pummeling drum, throaty growl and skull-rattling guitar. And a semi-automatic cowbell. Above all, the melody is still vital, even if it’s pleasingly menacing. Hopefully this volume doesn’t veer into screamo territory, but if we do, at least I had a good time getting there.

m. joosse

Filed under: Mixtape, NEIMT, Vol 12, Lungfish

Vol 12 / Trk 03 / Screams of Joy / Lungfish

Mr. Klops, I love you but you’re bringing me down.

I had a visceral reaction to “Odessa,” and not in a good-want-to-barf way. That sound of math rock melding into nü-metal is painful. I can sort of appreciate the precision musicianship, but it’s been bled of heart and light and melody. It’s the sound of doors closing and walls appearing ever tighter. And aside from all that, it contains nothing that I admired about the Detachment Kit track—a slow burn, space between notes, raw emotion, an understanding that it was created by humans.

So I submit my own version of song-as-monolith, a recently dusted and polished track from Baltimore’s Lungfish, recorded in 1999 but finally given release in 2012. The slower—no, wait, I want to use the word ‘deliberate’ instead—tempo allows it to unfurl, giving you time to create peaks and valleys out of almost-imperceptible changes in the repetition. The drums pound rather than pummel, the multitracked vocal echoes across the valley. I respect the request to go heavy in this volume, but my version of heavy must be warmer and more organic.

m. joosse

Filed under: Mixtape, NEIMT, Vol 12, Lungfish