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Blackwolfgoat Premieres “Nadir” from Giving Up Feels So Good

Posted in audiObelisk on July 25th, 2019 by JJ Koczan

“For $10, one was allowed to stare into the void, to scream into it,” goes one of the standout lines from guitarist Darryl Shepard‘s short story/drone-piece “Screaming into the Void.” The story describes a black hole in the Midwest that becomes a tourist attraction. “‘Go ahead and scream into me,’ it seemed to say.” It’s not the first time Shepard has done vocals on a release from his solo-project Blackwolfgoat — his 2014 album, Drone Maintenance (discussed here), had some void-screaming of its own — but the 10-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) on the fourth Blackwolfgoat offering, Giving Up Feels So Good, is definitely a standout just the same. Backing the spoken word are waves of guitar distortion recorded by Chris Johnson at The Electric Bunker, creating a darkness through which some melody does gradually peak through, but which seems definitely geared toward manifesting the title in sound as well as narrative. It’s a fitting beginning for the five-track/39-minute Giving Up Feels So Good, which, though it doesn’t have any more vocals after that, is inarguably the heaviest work Shepard has produced in his work as Blackwolfgoat. “Screaming into the Void,” topped with words about screaming into a literal void. Yeah, that sounds about right.

For the Boston-based Shepard — known for his work in SlapshotMilligramRoadsawHackman, The ScimitarKind and most recently the grunge-punk duo Test Meat, among others — Blackwolfgoat has been since its inception and Small Stone-released 2010 debut, Dragonwizardsleeve (review here), a vehicle for guitar-based experimentation. A landing pad for ideas that by their nature wouldn’t fit anywhere else. The second record, 2011’s Dronolith, came out through this site’s then in-house label, The Maple Forum, on CD before being picked up by Kozmik Artifactz for an LP edition, and furthered the soundscaping cause, and while Drone Maintenance pulled back from that toward more traditionalist instrumental songwriting, it still felt conceptual, and five years later, Giving Up Feels So Good does as blackwolfgoat nadirwell. But the context has changed. As Shepard moves through the chugging eight-minute second cut “Nadir” (premiering below) and the grim psychedelic wash of the centerpiece “On My Way Now,” the personality of Giving Up Feels So Good proves to be not only consumingly dark, but based more than any other Blackwolfgoat release around weighted tonality and resonant low end. “Nadir” — how low can you go? — reminds of Earth or maybe some of Dylan Carlson‘s solo output for its raw here’s-a-guitar-style expression, and though Shepard fleshes out toward the midpoint with a some hard-strummed melody, the mood remains paramount.

The penultimate “Dust to Dusk,” based largely around one speedier progression, sounds like it would be space rock if it had drums behind it, which immediately relates it to Kind, whose second album has yet to manifest. Half the point of the track seems to be its long fade, which takes hold with about two and a half minutes left to go and gradually moves into oblivion, not so much casting off the forward thrust previously conjured, but watching it dissipate like a rocket fading from view as it gets higher in the atmosphere. That leaves only “Always Say Never” to close out as the shortest inclusion at 6:04, with a fervent wash of revel-in-it depressive, air-push tone. After the relative departure that was “Dust to Dusk,” “Always Say Never” — even its title seeming to play on the idea of basking in one’s own miseries, very much in the spirit of the name of the record itself — revives the downer drone of “Nadir” and “On My Way Now” that is so much at the core of Giving Up Feels So Good. It’s not about making a performance out of being depressed. It’s about accepting that not everything and not everyone needs to be so positive. Shepard, who is quite active on social media, seems to be responding to the idea of the curated self; that perhaps ambitious but ultimately half-true version of who we are that we share with others so very willingly. The self as advertisement for self. In Giving Up Feels So Good, he dismantles this notion, not through snide irony (snirony?), but by means of acknowledging the liberation of embracing one’s own complexity. One can’t be a complete human being and be so god damned happy all the time. Every now and again, we all want to scream into the void, even if that scream comes via howling guitar.

A proper release for Giving Up Feels So Good is in the works for this Fall, with tapes coming out through Fuzzdoom Records and CDs to be pressed and available from Shepard presumably through Bandcamp. Art will be handled by Alexander von Wieding (very interested to see what the Master comes up with for this one), and when I hear more about an exact release date, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, get down with “Nadir” (see what I did there?) on the player below, and please enjoy:

Blackwolfgoat, “Nadir”

Chris Johnson from Deafheaven/Summoner/Doomriders recorded, mixed and mastered it at his studio The Electric Bunker. The new album is called “Giving Up Feels So Good”. It’s five songs, just under 40 minutes long. Fuzzdoom Records is going to do a short run of cassettes for the album, and Alexander Von Wieding is going to do the artwork. I’m going to self release it on CD and through digital platforms. If someone steps in to do vinyl that would be great. I don’t have a definite release date yet but I’m shooting for late September or early October.

This album is all heavy, it’s not quite as experimental as the others. I just wanted to do a heavy record from front to back. One song has spoken word, it’s a short story I wrote, the other four songs are completely instrumental. The title “Giving Up Feels So Good” is a reaction to people who are overly positive and always looking on the bright side. Life isn’t easy, and it’s okay to acknowledge that. I think the overall sound and mood of this album is pretty dark, which is exactly what I wanted to achieve.

The track listing is:
1. Screaming Into the Void
2. Nadir
3. On My Way Now
4. Dust to Dusk
5. Always Say Never

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