King Father Baboon – Surface
What a life! There are people whose houses are usually situated deep into some mountains in Bavaria or Nepal, who get paid enormous sums of money just to lay their hands on people. The deal’s done simply because it is assumed that only their touch can make the patients feel better.
And while there are millions of people who play guitar all over the world, and some of them practice their scales with a metronome each night, only a chosen few make audiences go ecstatic when they simply touch the strings of the guitar.
Who cares about lyrics running out? Who cares about the same song progression being used over and over again? The bands that will survive in the future will be the ones that will sound distinctive the moment that the musicians play a note on their instruments, bands like King Father Baboon.
Don’t bother studying the riffs for “Surface.” It’s all in that hidden touch. Besides, the song, a stoner-rock-derived sound, is either a self-fulfilling prophecy or a way to work through the thick clouds of smoke toward the real reason for deep anxiety. King Father Baboon make unpolished, emotionally direct heavy rock where every single note cannot be confused for anything else.
Ecco Tenebris – Inferno
It’s probably not unfair to say that hippies and people who work in offices doing accounting are rarely fans of the more extreme versions of heavy metal. This is because either they don’t need or don’t want to try to understand it.
On the other hand, it’s also fair to say that millions of fans worldwide use extreme metal as nothing less than therapy. In those pummeling drums, distorted riffs and, especially, the well-coordinated screams is the emotion that they can’t express freely in polite company.
And, with the world seemingly being lit on fire by freely elected government officials, there may have never been a better time to embrace the hellish pessimism of metal as there is today. Ecco Tenebris provide that.
But, of course, this type of modernised death metal is a blood sport. Ecco Tenebris advanced by way of their flawless command of technique as well as an aggressively misanthropic view of the world on ”Inferno.” The song, as it turns out, is as much a mythological call-back as a news bulletin soundtrack.
