Moments ago, as I was trying to think of a headline for this post, I recalled that I’d visited Redscroll Records in Wallingford, Connecticut, last year around this time. Creature of habit that I am, the date on that post is Oct. 25, 2010. Here we are, a year and three days later and I’m chronicling pretty much the same trip. Surprisingly, there was no band overlap. Small favors, I guess.

It had been or at least felt like a while since I did a good round of caution-and-common-sense-to-the-wind record shopping, which I find is good for the soul, and especially since my prior visit to the store had come up empty, I was stoked to make out pretty good this time. You can probably see the stack in the picture above, but in case you don’t feel like clicking to enlarge it, here’s the rundown:

Aldebaran, Buried Beneath Aeons
Cable, Cable
Desert Sessions, Vol. I/Vol. II
Desert Sessions, Vol. III/Vol. IV
Dove, Dove
Grayceon, All We Destroy
Orange Goblin, Time Travelling Blues
Patton Oswalt, Finest Hour
Reverend Bizarre, Death is Glory… Now!
Sunride, Magnetizer
VA, Judge Not…
Wooden Shjips, Dos
Wolves in the Throne Room, Celestial Lineage

Of those, I already own the Desert Sessions, Dove and Orange Goblin records — but I still have my reasons for buying each. The Orange Goblin was used, and as I looked at it on the shelf, I discovered it was the Japanese version of the record, with their cover of Trouble‘s “Black Shapes of Doom” for a bonus track. That cover originally appeared on the Bastards Will Pay tribute, and since I’ve never had any luck tracking down a copy of that (it’s in my canon of daily eBay searches), I figured all the more excuse to get the import on the cheap.

The Dove, on the other hand, is probably the least reasonable of the repeat offenses. Where the Desert Sessions stuff was priced new, it was also like $12 a pop, and screw it, if I’m already spending money, I’ll hit that up. I looked so hard for those CDs the first time around, I don’t mind having doubles. For the Dove disc, though, there really is no argument. It was there, it was used, and I bought it. It’s out of print, and I might use it in a trade or something at some point — hey, if anyone wants to switch it for that Trouble tribute, drop a line — but beyond that, it was an impulse and an excuse to revisit the album from the Floor offshoot, which I hadn’t heard in years.

Grayceon was one of two discs I knew I wanted to pick up going into the trip — the other was Rwake, which Redscroll was out of — and since I’ve had those songs stuck in my head for the last month, I was glad to have the full version of the album to sate that. That wasn’t used, but it is now. The Wolves in the Throne Room is also their latest record, which I had every intent of reviewing but never got around to, but only had a disc and top liner for. There’s always one or two tracks on their albums that justifies a purchase, and now I can take my time finding out which ones those are on Celestial Lineage. I don’t feel as bad for not reviewing it if I go out and buy the record.

I bought Sunride‘s Magnetizer (1998, Boundless Records) because of a discussion on the forum of the worst stoner rock albums ever. Not that it’s mentioned in there, but Sea of Green is, and I got the names mixed up in my head. I had wanted to buy it just to hear what the worst stoner rock ever sounded like. As Magnetizer isn’t even close to the worst stoner rock I’ve ever heard, I can’t help but feel like I inadvertently won out.

The Wooden Shjips I got because I need to review their new album, West, for work and wanted something to compare it to. It was used, as was the Underdogma Records compilation, Judge Not…, which proved yet again that I don’t like comps until they’re out of print and desirable for their obscurity. I don’t remember the last time I heard Ironboss (guns don’t kill people, they do), so I’ll take it, and with Gammera, Pale Divine, early The Quill and Puny Human on there, all the better. Two discs of heavy rock I didn’t own prior. Six bucks.

Buying Cable in Connecticut had some oddball novelty to me, and the 1997 comp of their early tracks was used and is raw as hell, so that was a yes, and I didn’t even know Patton Oswalt had a new record, but there it was. Since on his last special, he was talking all about his wife being pregnant, I figured this would be his “I have a kid now” material (every comic has it), and sure enough, it is. Still good. The Reverend Bizarre and Aldebaran discs were impulse buys — I grabbed the Aldebaran with all the forethought of snatching a pack of Reese’s on the way out of the grocery store — but reckless abandon is no fun if it’s not actually reckless, so there you go.

The Patient Mrs. — bless her heart — had come in a few moments prior to collect me so we could make our way back south to Jersey, but as we were leaving, the dudes behind the counter informed that they’ll be doing a special Black Friday sale post-Thanksgiving, opening at 6AM with markdowns on new and used CDs and vinyl — which, at this point, takes up a good deal of the room they have. Turns out I’ll be up that way for the holiday, so if I’m not all drowned out in vino and tryptophan, I may just make that happen for myself. Seems like it could be fun, anyway.

More info on that and the store is here, if you’re interested. I’ll spare you the lecture on preserving independent record-buying culture, because I think you probably know it by now, but anyway, they do good work.

Tonight I was supposed to go to the ball game in hopes of seeing a certain shortstop get his 3,000th hit (being a numbers guy myself, I can appreciate that), but it got rained out. My backup was to catch Sourvein and Kings Destroy in Brooklyn, but by the time I’d driven back to Jersey from The Bronx, well, I’d already driven to The Bronx and back, and Brooklyn‘s even harder to get to, so my motivation was pretty much dead. I’ve no doubt all parties will survive and the show will go/has gone on despite my absence. If you went, I hope you had a good time. I hung around the house and failed at several endeavors in succession. Most you lose. Some you win.

I wanted to close out this week with something modern, melodically satisfying and heavy as all hell, and the 17-minute “We Can” from Grayceon‘s All We Destroy fits all those bills perfectly. In the interest of honesty, I’ll confess that I’m not listening to it as I write this — as is my usual habit — instead streaming the new Sungrazer album for the umpteenth time on the Dutch 3voor12 site, which you might recognize as being where all those Roadburn audio links lead.

Yesterday I talked with guitarist/vocalist Mike Scheidt from YOB — whose new album, Atma, was reviewed Wednesday — for about 50 minutes, from which I’ll put a Q&A together hopefully in the next week or two. The plan is to take pictures at their NYC show Tuesday and use them with the feature, but you never know, a piano might fall on my head. If one does, the interview’s done anyway. It was killer.

Next week, I’ll have a review of that show, plus new albums from Ramesses and Borgo Pass, among others. Next Friday is also the Truckfighters gig at the Cake Shop in NYC where if you tell them you read The Obelisk, you get in for free. More info on that is here, but the short version is it’s a pretty sweet deal, and I hope one you’ll take advantage of if you’re in the area. Next week I’m also going to go back and revisit the top albums list from last year and see how it holds up. That’ll be fun. Maybe just for me, but fun all the same.

Alright, now the Sungrazer‘s over and I’m listening to Grayceon. No regrets. Wherever you are, have a great and safe weekend. See you on the forum and back here Monday with a track from The Brought Low‘s new EP and other goodies.

It was four years ago, so you’ll have to forgive me if I can’t remember just what it was that struck me as so problematic about cello-laden San Francisco three-piece Grayceon’s 2007 self-titled first album. I vaguely recall thinking the band were too smart for their own good, taking the tropes of doom and exploiting them while also somehow pretentiously positioning themselves above them intellectually. Or maybe I’m making that up and I just thought the songs sucked. I really don’t know. Whatever it was, it was enough to keep me away from 2008’s This Grand Show (released, like the first record, on Vendlus), and as Grayceon make their Profound Lore label debut with All We Destroy, and I revisit the trio’s sound – obviously developed some in the intervening time – it’s a mixture both intriguing and tight-knit. The cello of Jackie Perez Gratz (who has guested for Agalloch, Neurosis and Cattle Decapitation, and who also plays in Giant Squid) features heavily, counterbalanced by the guitar of Max Doyle and drums of Zack Farwell, both also of the thrash outfit Walken.

Gratz and Doyle contribute vocals to All We Destroy, though mostly the former, and Grayceon moves into and through different modes of heaviness as the six tracks play out. Second cut “Shellmounds” finds Farwell ripping through black metal blastbeats (cleverly mixed so as to not dominate Gratz’s overlying vocals), and opener “Dreamer Deceived” takes churning post-metal riffage and puts the onus on a vocal narrative and the varying atmosphere of the cello to stand Grayceon out, which, to the band’s credit, it does. Short cuts to quiet passages, interludes or whatever you’d want to call them, provide some respite from the crash, but there’s a tension in “Dreamer Deceived” that sets the tone for much of All We Destroy, and as Gratz and Doyle’s voices come together for combined semi-melodic chants, the experience is less that of a song than a performance. The diverse structures of the material – chorus-based but not necessarily chorus-dependent – feed that idea as well. Some background screaming (another black metal element to go with the drumming on “Shellmounds”) adds a glimpse of extremity, and the overall impression of the first two tracks is that while Grayceon have their feet in a variety of sounds, they feel no need to commit to one over the other. If you’re looking to pigeonhole them – as perhaps I was when I encountered their debut – they don’t make it easy.

“Shellmounds” has a satisfying linear build, made all the more effective by Doyle’s angular riff-work, but there’s no question that the meat of All We Destroy comes on with the staggering 17-minute “We Can.” Though it meanders some (how could it not?) with the metallic guitar at around eight minutes in, it’s Gratz’s most memorable vocal – the lines “As I live and breathe/You can’t save me” being especially chilling – and the point on All We Destroy where the band’s dynamic range most shines. An interplay of screams past the 10-minute mark reminds some of earlier Kylesa, but here, Grayceon are in territory all their own, and two minutes later, when they return to the huge central figure riff – the massive fucking plod of it – it’s as satisfying as the album gets, outshining the even-slower section that follows, Gratz running counter to Doyle and adding, true to the nature of her instrument, a melancholy and thoughtful feel to the song’s close. Honestly, “We Can” probably could have been the album itself and I’d still feel like I got my listen’s worth.

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