Test of the Boomerang - Top Ten of 2008

I will dispense with the usual bullshit “Let’s take a look back…” year-end review. USA Today will have that shit in spades for the next four to six weeks. Nothing is ever truly over. There is no true end. Nor is there a true beginning.

Dramatic music swells in the background

In these past twelve months I have seen horror and I have seen wonder. I have seen triumphs

Cymbals crash

and I have seen the agony of defeat

Trumpets

and no doubt we shall see more. The utter collapse of our financial institutions and increasing aggression and war. I have seen the naked face of evil…

photo montage now strikes up of Sarah Palin and Ashley Todd shooting at wolves from a helicopter, Dick Cheney strangling a rosy-cheeked orphan with a telephone cord, John McCain eating a big greasy cheeseburger while his wife does a line of coke off of a small mirror, George W. Bush with a jet pack…

and I have seen images of hope…

Barack Obama and Joe Biden riding on a soaring magical eagle over a beautiful stretch of California coastline as the music comes to a soaring peak…

But enough of all that. Let’s get to the music, shall we?

My Top Ten of 2008.

10. Sunn O))) - Dømkirke 2-LP (Southern Lord)

Say what you will about the mighty Sunn O))) — at their fundamental core, deep beneath the waves of feedback and within their black robes, O’Malley, Anderson and company are a live band. Part performance, part transcendental experience. This limited edition double-vinyl set documents a performance by the band at a Gothic cathedral in Bergen, Norway. If that wasn’t perfect already, the band composed an actual piece of music specifically for the performance. Church organs, horns, strange electronics, vocals both sublime and guttural, soar within the old cathedral like a  medieval plague. Haunting, intense, (beautifully packaged) and definitely my favorite Sunn O))) release thus far. (more…)

It was the summer of 1985. There was me, Kromlock the Warrior, my friend Dennis, better known as Garmo the Wizard, and Peter, a.k.a. Hendrix the half-even ranger. We were wandering the dark woods of Falcomar at the mercy of Doug Dexter, our dungeon master.

Doug Dexter was the best dungeon master I had ever known. It was easy enough to read aloud the buoyant prose that framed “The Temple of Elemental Evil” or “Against the Giants,” but Doug Dexter was downright theatrical. He had a million voices, a million accents and dialects from Halfling to Lizard Man. When we stayed up for 32 hours straight trying to defeat “The Tomb of Horrors,” Doug Dexter’s Acererak voice was absolutely horrific. “WHO DARES DISTURB THE SLEEP OF ACERERAK!?!” He would roar with a flashlight shining under his chin.

Doug Dexter had cassettes of classical and baroque music that he had cadged from the local public library. These tapes would play quietly on his Radio Shack tape player under the table while we wandered the dark woods or asked around a sleepy hamlet for information about a local guild of thieves hiding in the area. But whenever we entered a combat situation, Doug would slam the tape player on the table, hit play, and the distorted assault of King Crimson, Rush, Black Sabbath, or Gustav Holtz ‘The Planets’ would blare from that crappy tinny-sounding speaker.

Those marathon D&D sessions were my first exposure to King Crimson and their fantastic Red album. To this day, when I hear the title track, that initial blast of wooshing keyboards and harsh guitars, I reach for an imaginary d20 on my dashboard or my desk to roll for initiative. In later games, things like Slayer or Metallica became our “battle music,” but there was something about that proggy King Crimson or Rush vibe that made the game feel more epic.

Which brings me to Black Mountain and their epic album, In the Future. Replete with trippy album art and a grimoire full of hype, “In the Future” is the Canadian band’s follow-up to their self-titled 2005 debut. You can get it on two big greasy slabs of vinyl or one shiny CD, though a 2-CD bonus edition exists. (more…)

The two biggest criticisms that Black Mountain’s In the Future is likely to receive are the following:

1. STONERS
2. They’re not doing anything “new”

These points do hold weight. It’s highly likely that this is a band that likes drugs, hard rock and heavy metal, particularly from the ’70s. Hell, they put the word “high” in the first song! That said, here are two rebuttals:

1. Neither of those things have stopped bands of a lesser caliber go on to meet some level of success (Wolfmother, for example — not to knock them, that album was fun for awhile, too.)
2. That doesn’t mean that this can’t be good. (more…)