Trash Talk - "F.E.B.N."

The future is the past and the past is a grotesque animal.  Trash Talk is prepping a release for their new label, Odd Future Records.  Prepare yourself.

Anasazi - "I Saw the Witch Cry"

Hype has been strangely mute for NY deathrockers Anasazi, stranger still because of their association with hype-generator Sacred Bones Records.  The band is working on a follow-up to their self-released debut.  In preparation of that, they've released a single on Sacred Bones for the song "I Saw the Witch Cry".  It's all angular rhythms, ghostly synths, and a hoarse master barking orders at those subservient to him; exactly the kind of stuff Alien Sex Fiend would approve of.

Unstoppable Death Machines

The NY noise punks have finally emerged after kicking around for the past year or two in support of some stellar singles.  With a sound dedicated as much to alien melodies that embed themselves in the back of your skull as it is to the violent outbursts they were originally known for, We Come in Peace seems intent on kicking down as many doors as possible until the world at large finally takes notice of their existence.  Below is a stream of one of the album's "catchier" tracks, "Life is A Lot the Like Kindergarten".  The rest of the stream is available, oddly, over at the Huffington Post.  Buy it at UDM's bandcamp.

Weird Movie Club: She Wants Revenge

Ms. 45 (1981)

The revenge film typically is a very rigid format to work within.  Its dictates are simple: unrepentant evil, an easily relatable protagonist, and lots of blood.  And on a very basic level Ms. 45 fulfills that purpose, but beyond that it also stretches itself into much darker territory.

Given enough time, every genre will have individuals who will branch out into diverging paths.  Today it's so common that it's almost more shocking when a movie isn't incorporating or blending elements from various genres.  In the early 1980s the revenge film was still experiencing a nascent success propelled on the back of films like Death Wish and First Blood.  Despite this, there had already been some rumbling within the barely established structure of revenge-fueled thrillers.  In 1972, acting as a precursor to what would become an entrenched subset within revenge films, Wes Craven's Last House on the Left debuted to shocked audiences.  While being billed a straight horror movie, the story would influence decades of film to follow, specifically its success acting as a catalyst for distributors to begin releasing more sexually violent films.  This would culminate in the release of 1978's I Spit On Your Grave, another "horror story" that owed little to the era's supernatural thrillers of Hammer or undead gut-munching of George Romero.  With I Spit On Your Grave, a new sub-classification within revenge films was born: rape-and-revenge.

Top Albums: 19-17

19) WU Lyf - Go Tell Fire to the Mountain

Appearing out of seemingly nowhere, shrouded in an unusual amount of anonymity, and taking a name that means World Unite Lucifer Youth Foundation, Wu Lyf certainly has carved a unique niche for themselves.  But that wouldn't mean much if their "heavy pop" wasn't pleasing to the ears.

Unintelligible barks break between bursts of glistening organ and shards of glassy guitars.  This all builds to a thundering crescendo and then descends into an even more unintelligible call-and-response only to build once more.  WU Lyf definitely have a template for what they're doing, but, god damn, it's an effective template.

Top Albums: 22-20

22) Future Islands - On the Water

Theatricality is nothing new to the world of indie rock.  In the last ten years we've seen everything from the superbly overblown to the hilariously overwrought. Somewhere between those two points is Future Islands.

Top 25 Releases of 2011

It's that time of the season.  No, not Christmas.  It's time for lists!

As this is a music blog, and list-making is something music blogs are wont to do, the following should be considered the top 25 releases of the past year.  Over the next two weeks this site will chronicle albums and EPs that just about absolutely killed it.

So, time to dispense with the hyperbole: