Issues: Issue 276 - December 2011
Top 5 of 2011
To celebrate another year’s end, SLUG handpicked eight writers to spotlight one of their favorite releases of 2011 in an extended review. Read on for Top Five lists from SLUG’s contributors and genre-spanning reviews of artists such as Satan’s Host, Wugazi, Spindrift and locals The No-Nation Orchestra. … read more
Rejected
Two summers ago, I made a contact at Thrasher Magazine. It was just an email to one of their long-time staff photographers, but it was an in, and I felt like I had found a secret passage to the holy grail. Being the ambitious photo geek that I am, I started shooting as much as I could, sending him all the best sequences I shot, but nothing ever seemed to make the cut. … read more
Localized – December 2011
On Friday, Dec. 17, head down to the Urban Lounge (21+) to enjoy the lyrical stylings of Mark Dago and the live experience of Scenic Byway and DJ Chase One Two. As always, $5 gets you in. … read more
Top 5: Cold Cave
In 2003, if you would’ve told me that the singer from American Nightmare would eventually break edge, move to San Diego, do a metric ton of coke and write dance tunes for Pitchfork kids to off themselves to, I would’ve cried and then moshed you into a traffic median. No lie … but times change, edges dull and we realize that our Livejournal pages amount to little more than incoherent blathering. … read more
Top 5: Mr. Gnome
It’s hard to believe this album is the product of a duo rather than a full band, but having seen them live, I can testify that Cleveland-based singer/guitarist Nicole Barille and drummer/pianist Sam Meister are the only two musicians behind mr. Gnome—and with a box of pedals and a heap of talent, they’ve figured out how to execute their layered chaos on the road … read more
Top 5: The No-Nation Orchestra
The No-Nation Orchestra originally began as a solo project for Stephen Chai, demoing songs in his bedroom and copiously rewriting lyrics until finally (after several years) the work was ready to be introduced to friends Josh Dickson, Weston Wulle and Mike Sasich. The core members of No-Nation formed, and the four began spending time in Sasich’s recording studio polishing their own version of an afrobeat sound. The end result is The No-Nation Orchestra’s More More More EP. … read more
Top 5: PJ Harvey
I spent weeks buried behind my headphones listening to Harvey’s every word within the horrifyingly beautiful socio-political battle she created. When I came up for air, I had two words to describe this piece of work: bloody brilliant. Studying the anti-war poems of Harold Pinter and dedicating two years perfecting her writing of the lyrics, she paints disturbingly vivid images of conflict, war, death and grief over a backdrop of buoyant folk-pop melodies. … read more
Top 5: Satan’s Host
After twenty-four years away from the group, original vocalist Leviathan Thisiren (aka Harry Conklin of Jag Panzer) rejoined Satan’s Host in 2010, which spawned an album filled with the best evil and nasty heavy-metal ferocity released this year. The combination of black/thrash/death metal with a classic heavy metal-styled vocalist pushed Satan’s Host out of the realm of mediocrity and into the realm of pure awesome evil metal. … read more
Top 5: Spindrift
When Spindrift played Urban in November 2010, they opted to play a set of songs off of their then-unreleased album, Classic Soundtracks Vol. 1. The songs seemed moodier and spookier than their earlier work, but just as sexy. When the albums was released, my initial impressions of what I had heard were confirmed. Spindrift’s Classic Soundtracks unfolds much like the name suggests it would—a soundtrack to some long-forgotten, dusty spaghetti western. … read more
Top 5: Wugazi
I hate mash-ups. I hate DJs. I hate dance music in general and the culture that surrounds it. However, I love Fugazi and I love the Wu-Tang Clan. Wugazi was made specifically for people just like me. … read more