But the ratio of groove to melancholy is a little bit higher with Chained, nodding as much to earlier progenitors of bayou sludge (even though CTTBOTO aren’t, themselves, a New Orleans band-or even a southern band). And the influence of that great Louisiana metal band, a group we love so much around these parts that we’ve dubbed them certified Treble-core, is notable in that the band are guided by a similar juxtaposition of slow-churning heft and agony. Massachusetts’ Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean are named after a Thou song, so naturally I couldn’t resist. (Self-released) Plight of Acceptance by The Mosaic WindowĬhained to the Bottom of the Ocean – Obsession Destruction But what puts The Mosaic Window’s take on black metal on a higher tier is Andrew Steven Brown’s unique ability to craft spectacular melodies from candelabras and cobwebs, illuminating the crypt with songwriting that’s more haunting than haunted. But while Los Angeles’ The Mosaic Window are a relatively new entity, having debuted in 2021 with Hollow, on its excellent follow-up they possess exactly the qualities of what makes black metal worth delving into: razor-sharp guitar riffs, blistering intensity, an unceasing pall of darkness and more than a trace of danger. That’s always a difficult question to answer, because the temptation is to point to either something new and accessible or old and highly influential. Six albums that dare to dig deeper into that misery and malaise, sometimes for the sake of catharsis, sometimes to scream out the agony, and sometimes to find something more hopeful in the process.Ī handful of us on Treble’s contributor Slack channel had a brief chat about what makes a good black metal entry point for non-black metal listeners, spurred in part by a list published elsewhere that had some, we’ll say, odd choices. Last month I gave you a roundup of perfect summer metal rippers, which you should absolutely keep around to balance out the bummer, but this month it’s the complete opposite. But a lot of things that we once enjoyed or took for granted are being made worse, and that feels bad! We don’t have to accept this as a permanent state of being, of course, but for the time being there’s no getting around the fact that things just feel a little bit shittier globally right now and we all gotta get through it somehow. Now, look, I’m not saying we’re in a worse place now than the 1700s or the Dark Ages or anything, for a long and obvious list of reasons. (Which I recently touched upon when writing about Boards of Canada.) Every consumer product has been made into a film for us to know the story behind the consumer product, and AI is accelerating the enshittification. Every journalistic outlet and every online community is being stripped for parts and made infinitely shittier by billionaires who have nothing better to do than hoard whatever wealth is left to scrape into the barrel. Last week we experienced the hottest days on record on earth.
Is it just me or does everything kind of suck right now? Not music, which is always a source of hope and creative nourishment (even in a lackluster year, which this is not, in my opinion), but everything else.
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