Flush It Friday: Riff Wizard, Pt. 2
“A legend has passed on.”
Though it is without doubt a continuation of the project first started on Hot Damn!, 2009’s New Junk Aesthetic has moments such as opener “Roman Holiday” and the haunting-but-dancing “Turtles All the Way Down” that show the band taking their sound to different places. It’s not the most unexpected opening track in the band’s discography, but it has an entirely different mood and tone than so much of the rest of the album. But for this exercise, I’m going with the album’s penultimate track “Buffalo 666.” Andy and Jordan are absolutely slinging, and the culminating breakdown is mean as hell.
Here we go, y’all. We’re entering the period of Every Time I Die records I skipped. Who knows what happened between New Junk Aesthetic and Ex Lives, but I decided that the Every Time I Die that already existed was all the Every Time I Die I needed. So here’s a statement obvious to anyone who didn’t jump ship: Ex Lives is awesome and, I think, an improvement on the records before it. Maybe that’s just the excitement of finally getting to it. There’s a real frothing rage here, on which the band will continue to build with great success.
Who can say if I’ve ever mentioned music awards when writing about a band or about an album, but it’s of note that From Parts Unknown as well as the follow-up Low Teens received nominations for Album of the Year from the short-lived Alternative Press Music Awards. (It is worth it to look at who was nominated and who won for the various categories for the 4 years this awards show lasted.) I’ll take Ex Lives over From Parts Unknown, but the end of the record is aces. The absolutely smokin’ “El Dorado” is perhaps the best iteration of ETID-as-rock-and-roll-act.
I get the effusive praise for Low Teens, the band’s 2016 release and arguably best album since Gutter Phenomenon. There’s the famous interview with Keith about his approach to writing lyrics and attempting to try something other than ironic detachment. There’s also the album’s unrelenting heaviness, a kind of thick-toned wall-of-riffs that feels like the band smuggled Steve Brooks into the studio. I love the down-tuned churn of opener “Fear and Trembling,” the Florche-meets-American Nightmare urgency of “Awful Lot,” or even the jumpdafuckup-ness of “Nothing Visible; Ocean Empty.” Like ETID at its best, the band oozes confidence on Low Teens.
The band’s swan song Radical made my Top 10 in 2021, and I’ve never regretted a selection less. There was something about the video for “Post-Boredom” that brought me back home to the band. I listened to this album endlessly while walking through a snowy cemetery on Bucknell’s campus that winter and into 2022 before moving back to Georgia that summer. It’s not a perfect album, of course, but the good songs are great, and the great songs are awesome. We weren’t going to get new Every Time I Die, and now we really won’t, so cherish all we have.
What a journey. Let’s Flush.
A fun, free-wheeling interview with Falxifer and Colin M’arston on Krallice‘s latest record and more.
Aaron has little if any good to say about the latest from Ceremony.
Toilet Radio 645 features Joe ‘n Jordan doing the Lord’s work of diving far too deep into a bunch of awful bullshit.
Metal-Aged Mom is back with 5 Flaming Toilets (that’s the most you can get!) for the new Wraithstorm.
Bob Genghis Khan is also back and brings effusive praise for 10,000 Needles.
Aaron “awards” 2 Flaming Toilets to Anthrax‘s newest album, and I’d say that’s being generous.
Oh hell yeah. Roldy has an exclusive premiere of a new track from Veilburner.
Big week in the Bowl! Catch up on all the posts. Hear what’s good and what’s bad. Drop your GBUs in the comments. All my love.
