A Diabolic Thirst!

2021 SOUNDWAVES

There was incredible music released in 2021, and I got to experience seeing live performances. The following albums and songs are what I returned to again and again over the year, and moments which really moved me.

First Christmas Tree in the New House, Polaroid SX-70 (2021)

West Memphis Is on Fire
Seeing Waxahatchee at Mempho, hands clasping the rail at the very front, absorbing the way it felt and sounded: true beauty, like once being at the Met and seeing room after room of neon-bright Eggleston photographs; and also true comfort, like an empty Waffle House at two in the morning after you’ve been on the road all day. It was a lovely hour and I was entranced.

Joined the Fan Club
The Weather Station, Weyes Blood, F——- Up, Fetid Zombie, Hectorine, Bleached, and Ripped to Shreds: I spent hours with the music made by these artists this year, all of it new to me or felt new to me. Anything else they do will be automatic.

Best Sprawling Resistance
F—— Up, Year of the Horse. A 90 minute song cycle about survival and loss, told through the lens of sorcerers and . . . something, with bursts of anthemic joy. A healing potion for your wounded mage.

Darkest Death Metal
Fetid Zombie, Transmutations. Mark Riddick’s striking black & white art is justifiably legendary, but his boisterous, wildly omniverous metal deserves a deeper look. (Also if you buy a tape he sends you all sorts of stickers and buttons).

This Is Transcendent
“Tried to Tell You” by The Weather Station is what first grabbed my attention, but it’s “Better Now” from the 2xLP Ignorance which floored me. “On the fourth day / I saw the mountain, I saw it everywhere” was a line which I have thought about again and again.

Best Old Gods
Darkthrone, Eternal Hails …… At this point Darkthrone encompasses nearly all of metal—hissing necro, lightning quick thrash, punk grit and 70s sprawl. The masters.

H.I.S.S., INCORPORATED
I’m very thankful to my friends Wes and Chaney and our ongoing text chain which continually cracks me up and leads me to new art. Some of the most incredible musical moments I’ve experienced in the past 15 years are because of them—like going to Evil Beat 2 last year, putting on a Pallbearer show in Jackson that kept blowing out the power, and putting out an incredible 7” EP by the Unwed Teenage Mothers nearly a decade ago. (SHAMELESS PLUG! End of All Music JXN has a few of these handmade beauties available now!!)

Literally in the Fan Club
I joined the club for Transylvanian Recordings a while back, and a few times every month I’ll get notifications that a new album has been automatically added to my Bandcamp. It’s a really fun and challenging way to experience new music (and inevitably leads me to checking what’s new on the Bandcamp metal charts).

Pappy & Harriet’s, Polaroid SX-70 (April 2021)

The Wolf Survived
I hadn’t planned on Los Lobos being the first band I saw after a long hiatus, but they were playing four shows at Pioneertown in California over two nights. Shivering in the desert night, I felt like I was coming back to life.

Wildest Thrash Metal
Evil, Possessed by Evil. [SCREAMING NOISES]

My attempt at a black metal album cover, Hueytown, Alabama, Polaroid SX-70 (2021)

Direst Black Metal
Lamp of Murmuur, Submission and Slavery
Hulder, Godlastering: Hymns of a Forlorn Peasantry
Grandeur, Aurea Aetas
Well of Woe, Well of Woe
Musta Suru, Viesti kuolemalta (demo)
Pan-Amerikan Native Front, Little Turtle’s War
Spectral Wound, A Diabolic Thirst (from whence this column title comes)

Knotty, thrilling, and overwhelming—each of these records relayed that unknowable intensity of true black metal.

OMG that solo!!
Lamp of Murmuur, “Deformed Erotic Visage;” Fetid Zombie, “Beyond Andromeda;” Evil, “Raizin”

Best 18 Minute Songs with Tortured Howls
Eremit, Bearer of Many Names

Twentynine Palms, California, Polaroid SX-70 (2021)

That Real Deal California Jangle
L.A. Exes, “Temporary Goodbye”

[Bangs head while wearing neon bracelets]
Beach Bunny, “Love Sick”

Life Hurts but It’s Beautiful
Noods, “Donkey Kong”

Best Chasing Ghosts of Your Past At Dawn Music
Cirith Ungol, Half Past Human EP

Best Soundrack to a Movie That Doesn’t Exist (but is a Lord of the Rings sequel)
Mountain Caller, Chronicle: Prologue

On a Dark Desert Highway
Mosara, Mosara

New Sunday Morning Stalwart
Hectorine, TEARS

Sure I’ll Go WAIT WHAT: Or, the Joy of Unexpected Harmonic Connection
The third and final show I saw this year was Santana in Brandon, Mississippi. A friend from work wanted to go and it seemed fine. I didn’t expect a supercharged two-hour show with thrilling jams and just joy in performance. The drummer was incredible and seemed familiar and then it clicked why. Only later did I run smack into the realization that I was swaying along to “Evil Ways” and everything felt right in the world and omg he played that song at Woodstock, omg.

You Broke My Heart, Fredo
Deafheaven, Infinite Granite. It can’t be said better than this insightful review, which captures my exact feeling of wistfulness at the end of a relationship:

Deafheaven spoke it in a language I could finally interpret. The howls and shrieks and drums and guitars, previously so impervious to my attempts at decoding, were suddenly utilized in a way that incorporated real emotion. A new world was revealed.

I still remember seeing them at the Hi Tone in Memphis on the Sunbather tour, a hoody pulled down over my brow, as waves of beauty washed over me. But that was many years ago, now.

Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Polaroid SX-70 (Dec. 26, 2021)

I LISTEN TO MUSIC mainly in four ways: digitally via Spotify and Bandcamp, and on LP and cassette.

Spotify crunched their numbers and told me I listened on their platform to these five artists the most: F—— Up, Bleachers, Waxahatchee, Japanese Breakfast, and The Beatles. This codes, but was surprising, as I don’t necessarily think of myself as a huge Bleachers fan (conversely, I’m wearing this Waxahatchee shirt right now). Maybe it was all that Springsteen crossover??

The pop and rock end of the records above all glow in my 2021 playlist DOUBLE DOSES, which also features great songs by Slothrust, Mdou Moctar, my faves Pillow Queens, and yes one song by Turnstile. MASH PLAY!!

Below is a list of what new albums I purchased (older records, like the copy of Abbey Road I picked up at the new location of End of All Music, weren’t recorded). Unless noted, these are all digital purchases via Bandcamp, the best way I’ve found to directly support an artist. Many were made on the essential (and I hope returning in ‘22) Bandcamp Fridays.

Black Wing - No Moon (cassette)
Evil - Possessed by Evil (cassette)
Hulder - Godslastering
Mother of Graves - In Somber Dreams
Razor - Armed & Dangerous
Ripped to Shreds - Luan
Noods - Blush
Pan-Amerikan Native Front - Little Turtle’s War (cassette)
Pan-Amerikan Native Front - Native Amerikan Black Metal
Pan-Amerikan Native Front - Tecumseh’s War
Slift - UMMON
Slift - La Planète Inexplorée
Slift - Space Is The Key
Slift - 2016 : Spacetrip for Everyone
Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher (cassette)
X - Xtras (Alphabetland b-sides)
Ripped to Shreds - 埋葬
Ripped to Shreds - Exhumed from Eastern Tombs
Ripped to Shreds - 魔經 - Demon Scriptures
Ripped to Shreds - Eight Immortals Feast
Tyranonaut - Marble Eye (double LP + 7”)
Putrescine - The Fading Flame (cassette)
Body Void - Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth (cassette)
Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee (cassette)
Bikini Kill - Revolution Girl Style Now (cassette)
Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising (cassette)
Tyranonaut - s/t
dai - ichi / Lamp of Murmuur - split
L.A. Exes - “Temporary Goodbye”
Civerous - LIVE PROMO MMXXI
Hollow Mirrors - II
Rotten Funeral - s/t
Abyzou - Aeternum
Fossilization - He whose name was long forgotten
Neyquam - Morbid Devourment
Graveolence - Anthropomancy
St. Vincent - daddy’s home (cassette)
Beachy Head - s/t (cassette)
Fetid Zombie - Decade of Death (cassette)
Fetid Zombie - Festering Abomination
Waxahatchee - Great Thunder (vinyl)
Waxahatchee - Ivy Tripp (LP)
Waxahatchee - Cerulean Salt (LP)
Waxahatchee - St. Cloud bonus songs
Molten - Dystopian Syndrome
Kruelty - Promo 2021
Glitter Grave - We Are the 99%
Glitter Grave - s/t
Really From - s/t
Sleater-Kinney - Live in Paris
Nightmärr - On Fire
Cirith Ungol- Half Past Human
Fetid Zombie - Transmutations
Awenden / Feminazgul (split cassette)
Thao & the Get Down - “Temple”
Phoebe Bridgers - Copycat Killer
Weyes Blood - “Titanic Risen”
Weyes Blood - Rough Trade Sessions
Japanese Breakfast - June
Japanese Breakfast - Where is my great big feeling?
Waxahatchee - Early Recordings
Waxahatchee - American Weekend
Waxahatchee / KM - “Farewell Transmission” single
Hulder - De Oproeping Van Middeleeuwse Duisternis (cassette)
Low Magic “The Traveller”
Lucie Wren “Mother Comfort”
Metal Massacre XV
La Exes “Skinny Dipping”
Low Flesh s/t
Mosara - s/t
deafheaven - infinite granite (June)
FU - David Comes to Life (reissue on yellow vinyl)
Bleached - don’t you think you’ve had enough? (cassette)
Hectorine - TEARS (cassette)
EREMIT - Bearer of Many Names
Winter Lantern - Festering Vampirism
F——- Up - Year of the Horse (vinyl) & 5”
Darkthrone - Eternal Hails ...... (LP)
Svierg - Once Still Cosmos (cassette split with Fetid Zombie)
GT “Easy to Blame”
Musta Suru — Viesti kuolemalta
Fetid Zombie - Death Covenant (cassette)
Hectorine - s/t (cassette)
Hectorine - Live at the Lost Church (cassette)
L.A. Exes - “Baby Let’s Pretend”
Mountain Caller - Chronicle: Prologue
Ghorot - Loss of Light (cassette)
Mortuary Punishment - Pride.Power.Punishment (cassette)
Swamp Witch - Gnosis (cassette)
Well of Woe — s/t
Spectral Wound - A Diabolic Thirst
Grandeur - Aurea Aetas
Ripped to Shreds - “Sacrificial Fire” (Decibel flexi)
Death catalog on cassette; Vivus! via tshirt purchase
Pussy Galore - Exile on Main Street (CD)
Boss Hogg - Drinkin’, Lechin’ & Lyin’
JSBX - Orange (LP)
Transgressive - Seize the Means of Reproduction
Lamp of Murmur - Submission and Slavery
Andrew Lee’s Heavy Metal Shrapnel
Chrome Ghost - Double EP (cassette)
Chrome Ghost - Choir of the Low Spirits (cassette)
So Hideous - None But a Pure Heart Can Sing
The Weather Station - Ignorance (deluxe 2 LP)
Waxahatchee - El Deafo soundtrack (preorder)

AS ALWAYS I am gorjusjxn on Instagram, and you can see more Polaroids at McCartyPolaroids.