OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

(have sneaking suspicion i am guilty of a number of this guy's sins myself tbh)

hey fashioned abrasive intelligence, enmeshed with instrumental chaos. It was absolute pandemonium. Yet all the mess and disharmony seemed professionally maintained. The irrefutable severity of tracks like 'Head To Wall' and 'Lie And Wait', elevate beyond anarchy. As snares penetrate incessant hi-hat slaps, sludgy riffs travel like aggressive circle pits. They permeate an authentic dissonance, accentuated by Shreifels’s husked, tonal wails.

Stop. Using. Words.

"The soulful whines of John Legend".

Dorian, I'm spiking your Nina Simone piece and getting Tom Watson to rewrite it.

why would you capitalize "Youth Crews"? like they were the Whig Party or something. maybe the capital Y is okay. it's a sub-genre...but even those don't get capitalized...hmmm....

grammar rules not my strong suit...

Dictionary.com has never heard of the word "consilient."

this is a certain kind of earnest solipsistic dude writing: the boy who thinks he can build style while retaining his authenticity by using a thesaurus, rather than reading good prose written by other humans....

http://www.cine-vue.com/search/label/Tom%20Watson?max-results=30

During the making of Metropolis (1927) Germany was caught in a tundra of political restructure and cinematic prosperity. Beneath the cindered waste cast aside by the First World War was a fatherland set for reform by the Weimar Republic and a film industry set to take the world stage. The so-called 'ethic of change' was in the air and the country's cultural isolation was dwindling. With the realities of war being all too real, the Expressionist movement was en vogue and German auteurs were at the forefront of an artistic uprising. The likes of Robert Weine and Fritz Lang were paving a macabre, fantastical path that would reshape the forms of storytelling. Deep in metaphor, heaped in rhetoric.

It's fortune telling and chaos as death that riddles Wiene's fantastical landscape. At the time, Caligari was said to have unsettled its audiences. Critics applauded its ability to "squeeze and turn and adjust the eye". It was also said to be a criterion for the slowly emerging intentions of Nazism. This is by and large a warped overstatement of a film that was impossible not to influence generations of artists, thinkers and, ultimately governing societies. Wiene's film was an inspiring footnote to the ever-increasing ascendancy of twenties Dada and Surrealism.

Approximately a year ago today, a swarm of antipathy left London in a choke-hold as a series of riots engulfed the capital. What began as a peaceful protest against police brutality mutated into a beast more brutal than anyone could have envisaged. Described as 'copycat violence' by the media, thousands upon thousands took to the streets in a tirade of hateful ignorance. And from this ignorance stemmed an easy target - youth culture. Thankfully, Tarun Thind's 2010 assured short English aims to bring vital balance to the debate.

his writing is a tundra of magisterial clichés and fantastical imagery, a swarm of antipathetic words embracing the reader in a choke-hold of helpless delight

Approximately a year ago today, a swarm of antipathy left London in a choke-hold

pfah, they shoulda took the train

"As snares penetrate incessant hi-hat slaps, sludgy riffs travel like aggressive circle pits. They permeate an authentic dissonance, accentuated by Shreifels’s husked, tonal wails."

Nothing beats that feeling when your authentic dissonance gets fully permeated by.... I have no idea...snares maybe? Sludgy riffs? what is a husked wail, let alone a husked tonal wail?

"The Shreifel's Husked Tonal Whale, a rarity in these sludgy riffs, permeates the authentic dissonance only to be attacked by a roaming gang of aggressive Circlepits, whose snares penetrate the beast's incessant hi-hat slaps."

That reads better tbh

I have a BS in copy

'Permeate', tbh, has needed a couple decades in the penalty box for... at least a couple decades

It was a revolution of the solar cycle ago when Dylan Carlson and this writer exchanged passionate thrusts of verbosity. No rheumy eruptions could be detected from where I resided, like all hominid creation, in a prison of flesh.

I'm getting this needlepointed.

Dylan Carlson and this writer exchanged passionate thrusts of verbosity.

can believe this

Is everyone taking Tom Watson inspired user names now?

Just changed mine again so we don't get too many people being flagrantly ceremonious.

how do we go about inviting tom watson to ilm btw

"Swarm of Antipathy" sounds like a Suffocation song (or album title).

speaking of antipathy

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/25/8840233/art-metal

"what value is there in saying that I like Rihanna and Tegan and Sara? Everybody likes Rihanna and Tegan and Sara."

that's the kind of thing that makes me want to stop talking about music in any medium in case there's even a sliver of a chance I come off like that

from what I understand of this dude though that isn't the kind of emotion he wrestles with right

I thought that piece was overall quite good. Are you saying that one part ruined the whole thing for you?

are any of those bands particularly arty? they're all pretty accessible through the medium of weed.

deboer way too self-impressed shocker

Think about the audience, though. This piece is on Vox - therefore it's aimed at, and being read by, half-aspie Poli Sci nerds who think listening to Sleater-Kinney means they're still hardcore, even though they spend all day fellating members of Congress in print. Introducing those people to metal is tough work, and even though to the half-aspie music nerds of ILM all these bands are gonna be the usual suspects and last decade's news, there are still plenty of people who've never heard them. Also, I like this part; it's a sentiment that needs emphasizing more often:

"If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. This is music, not church. 'It’s not for me' is one of the most freeing, most useful statements you can make."

Honestly, it's not perfect or anything, the High On Fire blurb in particular is kinda lazy (though I like the fact that he rides for Snakes for the Divine, 'cause I like that album a lot too - a clean production job really benefited them). But overall, the writing is much better - in terms of quality of prose, clarity of thinking, and absence of glaring spelling errors and grammatical fuck-ups - than 90 percent of Pitchfork, never mind the shit that usually lands in this thread. And frankly, that Tom Watson guy has set way too fucking high a bar for someone who can come up with something as funny as "The last time I tried to play a Sunn 0))) album I caught my dog writing a suicide note" to clear.

Based on this evidence, I would much rather read DeBoer on music than on politics.

the thought is sophomoric

half-aspie Poli Sci nerds who think listening to Sleater-Kinney means they're still hardcore

yawn at ever thinking of an audience in this way

yeah I mean doing a piece like this with a plan to appeal to your hypothetical audience's worst hypothetical nature just seems sad and self-defeating

point ...................................................... you

^ permeating slow-broiling illegitimacy imo

If Tom Watson never makes it here I could try to post more like him, if you like

should I have any idea what that means

lmao freddie deboer's debut dive into the DC media spawning tank and it's THIS

i can't type lololololololol enough

Man "half-aspie" is gross & mean

are you surprised

a 9/10 review of a deserving album but horrifying on pretty much every other level:
http://www.spin.com/2015/06/review-vince-staples-summertime-06/

writer seems like a real charmer too
http://defamer.gawker.com/read-the-insanely-weird-emails-this-music-journalist-se-1413243759

that kind of nonsense is what ILX sometimes sounds like at its worst

i agree, he does kind of write like ljagger

to borrow a phrase of WC’s

that writing is so early 2000s, it's kind of adorable in its just-outta-undergrad righteousness.

that whole "i just blew your mind, can you even stand it???1!!!" tone.

i mean i think people do still write "i'm blowing your mind" pieces (hot takes ahoy), but now they're couched in concern-troll language instead of openly oozing spite.

So ILM is still doing "aspie" in 2015, huh? Maybe we can bring back "cripple" and "spastic" if we work real hard.

Is there, like, a non-ableist word we can use for "aspie"/"autist" that describes when someone attention to detail and weird obsessions move from being cute/passionate to being a little... unhealthy?

Because I would don't want to surrender my right to make fun of posts like this

lol they put pierce after poehler alphabetically

― da croupier, Tuesday, January 27, 2015 7:32 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i was kinda hoping P-Z would be totally out of order after that, which would be a wainish bit of random humor, but no

― da croupier, Tuesday, January 27, 2015 7:34 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink