Controller

I came home from Pathology Lab No 2 today and decided it was time to get some work done on the slowly rising pile marked "to review with mild cynicism".

Unfortunately it's just not easy being cynical about Misery Signals. Produced as they are by my university bucket bong buddy Devin Townsend, this third album from the Canucks is pretty fuckin' awesome. And I'd be cheating myself if I didn't admit part of my love was a pure sugar kick from hearing decent metalcore for the first time since Norma Jean's Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child way back in War on Terror Year 2. Not that there's much in common between these two albums. Where Norma Jean wanted to stretch themselves and the listener Misery Signals goes in something of a different way by sticking intently to short sharp bursts.

Coma is a shimmering bit of wonder. Somehow the Townsend production only touches the guitars, leaving screamer Karl Schubach to himself. It makes me feel a bit better about a genre ready to die. I buy-in to the genre, the sub-culture and all of it because of the initial approach, yeah the fashion, yeah sometimes the sound but ultimately because I was always a bit player when it came to my obsessive hardcore and heavy metal buddies. It's the music I'd play if I could play.

Controller isn't the album I'd write but it is a fine riposte to much of the shit pedaled as somehow decent or even "groundbreaking", "massively heavy" and "brutal". And A Certain Death reminds me of the best band I never got obsessive about, Katatonia.