Kurt Ballou Overview — 2013

Nails — Obscene Humanity 7" 2013 — Southern Lord

Obscene Humanity was originally the 2009 debut release by Nails. To generate hype for the next record, they re-recorded 3 of the 7 songs from their debut with Ballou and released them as a 7". Not having heard their debut, I can’t compare these recordings to the originals, but I can’t imagine that the purpose of these recordings was to make it any less raw. The gain is so thick that the pitches are almost indiscernable for most of the brief running time, but there’s no denying that it all sounds monstrously heavy with the drums front and center and the massive bass. If you just feel like getting the shit beaten out of you for a few minutes, this should do the job. Special shoutout to the breakdown in ‘Lies’ and ensuing descent into noise.

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Baptists — Bushcraft 2013 — Southern Lord

Vancouver metalcore quartet Baptists were best known for featuring drummer Nick Yacyshyn (now of SUMAC). They disbanded in 2023 following allegations against their vocalist, Andrew Drury. (Why is it always the vocalists?) A decade earlier, they released their debut album, Bushcraft, a rather polished 30min barrage of d-beats, drop tuning power chord riffs, and hardcore screams. For anyone who’s been following Ballou’s work up to this point, it’s pretty standard fare. The clean production, tight playing, and relatively monotonous vocals prevent it from being one of the more energetic and exciting releases in this vein, though it’s perfectly serviceable.

With that said, there’s plenty of variety. ‘Still Melt’ veers into noise rock territory and stands out with some very creative drum fills, squealing feedback, a slower tempo, and a slinky Converge-esque main riff. ‘Mortarhead’ is one of the fastest and most exciting tracks here with its black metal-esque parallel minor chord riff, kicking off a string of fast tracks that are played nearly continuously. The harmonic language gets more dissonant and interesting on ‘Crutching Tails’. Closing song ‘Abandon’ has a particularly cool meter change at its midpoint. It’s all very effective and well-executed Converge worship, but ultimately that’s the problem — there’s nothing on here that we haven’t already heard Converge do repeatedly by this point, though Baptists are heavier on the d-beats and their song structures are a bit simpler. If Converge hadn’t still been releasing such high quality records, maybe this would’ve felt a little more exciting — but as is, there wasn’t a void that needed filling.

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Kvelertak — Meir 2013 — Sony/Roadrunner

The sophomore album by Norwegian black and roll band Kvekertak feels lighter than their first — less metal, more rock and roll. The guitar tones are pretty low gain and warm, and only feel metal thanks to the occasional tremolo pick or blastbeat — Ballou’s production aesthetic here feels close to Queens of the Stone Age. It’s got a feelgood vibe, which makes the vicious black metal shrieking on top feel perplexing. Over this music, the vocals almost feel like an extreme expression of joy.

Somehow, it works — it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why. Tracks like ‘Bruane Brenn’ feel like a truly integrated fusion between the two styles. ‘Nekrokosmos’ shows off the band’s full range, going on a journey through power chord riffs, dissonant arpeggios, and diatonic guitar harmonies. While the band’s debut is generally rated most highly, I think this one works better for me precisely because it’s a good bit stupider. It’s tighter, more diverse, and more fun. Workout to this album and you might just end up feeling like you’re in an overexcited montage.

Nails — Abandon All Life 2013 — Southern Lord

The sophomore album by Nails thankfully has a bit more of a balanced sound than the preceding EP, (though the gain hasn’t been dialed down one bit — they’re still in HM-2 buzzsaw mode), and a bit more vibe — the album cover really fits. This is amongst the most relentlessly, ferociously brutal music you will ever hear, with suitably distorted, raw, and hard edged production. Dynamics are provided almost entirely through tempo changes. For me, the slower moments are the most crushing — just tell me ‘Wide Open Wound’ doesn’t make you want to stomp everything in sight — but the contrasts with the faster sections makes them even more effective. Overall, I think I prefer this to their debut — it just feels more tightly written and more hellishly atmospheric.

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Converge — Pound For Pound: The Wolverine Blues Sessions 2013 — Self-Released

Converge covers ‘Wolverine Blues’ by Entombed with five different vocalists. In addition to the expected version by Jacob Bannon, there are also renditions by Nate Newton, Aaron Turner, Kevin Baker (The Hope Conspiracy / APMD), and finally a version where Kurt Ballou and Tomas Lindberg (At the Gates, Disfear) share vocal duties, all over the same backing track. The cover is relatively verbatim but with a bit of extra flair in the drums. Each vocalist has a unique delivery, and all of them sound a good bit different than the original. It’s a fun concept, albeit a novelty with little replay value, as listening to any recording five times in a row with different backing tracks would be — even if the song is brief.

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All Pigs Must Die — Nothing Violates This Nature 2013 — Southern Lord

This supergroup’s sophomore album starts out with ‘Chaos Arise’, an intense burst of manic energy with fast tempos, guitar harmonies, tremolo picking, and Ben Koller at his frantic best. The next song continues in the exact same vein, but they don’t stay there—they explore mid-tempo grooves and slow crushers with equal success. Truly, this is one of the most successful and fully integrated blends of hardcore punk and extreme metal I’ve heard. It’s got a bit more atmosphere this time thanks to the way they approach the extreme metal influence — there’s even a bit of Swedish sound on ‘Of Suffering’ and eastern flavor on the intro of ‘Bloodlines’. It’s without a doubt the band’s most successful and appealing release thus far in this review. Even the more generic tracks have some special flair (check out the winding intro riff in ‘Holy Plague’ or Koller’s triplets on ‘Sacred Nothing’). My only complaint is that Baker’s vocal performance is a bit monotonous and he rarely matches the speed and energy of the faster material.

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Oathbreaker — Eros|Anteros 2013 — Deathwish

Belgian Amenra-offshoot Oathbreaker’s sophomore album, EROS|ANTEROS, is about the ‘story of love and the anti-love (life and death), and the growth they have experienced through these trials’ (literally, as in the Greek Gods it’s named after) and features a hybrid of black metal, crust punk, and shoegaze — they really found their sound here. There are lots of evil black metal riffs with d-beats. They enlisted Ballou as a proper producer this time (he only mixed their debut, but here he produced, recorded, and contributed extra guitar to two songs). The sound is more raw than his usual early 2010s sound (or than their previous album), but still recognizably him.

While the opening tracks are enjoyable, the album really comes into its own when it slows down for the 9 minute epic ‘The Abyss Looks Into Me’, which has the evocative arboreal atmosphere and painful despair of the best black metal and an extended sung clean section. The quality is maintained from there, from the crunchy dissonant diads of ‘Condor Tongue’ to the ringing arpeggios and tritones in ‘Offer Aan De Leegte’ to the stacked fifths and dynamics of ‘Agartha’. The band explores their mellow side on the 11.5min closing epic ‘Clair Obscur’, which is mostly centered around a somewhat ominous repeating clean guitar pattern. The expected explosion comes quite late in the track and retains the hypnotic quality. This is a really solid album — be sure to check out ‘Abyss’ at the very least.

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Modern Life is War — Fever Hunting 2013 — Deathwish

The fourth album by Modern Life is War is a bit of a reunion album. For their third record, they replaced two of their members, recorded it with J. Robbins of Jawbox, then broke up. Four years later, the original lineup reunited, wrote an album, and returned to Kurt Ballou to record it. (It took them until this year to release their fifth record.) As such, this is basically a return to the team that created Witness, albeit with some extra backing vocalists.

The opening track ‘Old Fears, New Frontiers’ immediately lives up to that promise with a great ominous vibe and chord progression, even if it’s over far too soon. Thankfully, the second track ‘Health, Wealth, and Peace’ keeps up the quality, clearly declaring that the band is aiming for emotive mid-tempo rock rather than speed or aggression. They slow down further and increase the desperation on ‘Chasing My Tail’. There’s little of the more positive nostalgia that balanced Witness— the band is in full angst mode here. The vocals don’t feel quite as pained as on that record, but the music makes up for it. It’s often surprisingly pretty, as in the intro to ‘Blind are Bleeding’, but never loses the edge. It’s a surprisingly solid comeback record, even it lacks the immediacy and novelty of this lineup’s previous effort.

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Doomriders — Grand Blood 2013 — Deathwish

The third and final (at least thus far) album by supergroup Doomriders immediately opens with the lowest, heaviest note the band has played so far. Opening track ‘New Pyramids’ immediately makes good on this promise — it’s darker than the band’s past work, with a truly ominous sound. ‘Mankind’ opens like a Converge b-side with a Ballou-esque 7/8 motoric lead, but soon acquires a more stonerish flavor in its central sung section. While the album is certainly their darkest, most serious feeling work on the whole (for evidence, see ‘Dead Friends’), there are still moments of the old carefree fun, like the rock-and-roll flavor on ‘Bad Vibes’.

I’m sure this album is considered the band’s weakest by fans of their earlier records due to the lack of the spontaneous and carefree attitude, but it is certainly their most appealing to my personal sensibilities. With that said, despite the stylistic diversity here, none of it is particularly singular, and fans of the respective genres will have heard all of this before. However, novelty was never what this band was about, and they still delivered an enjoyable romp on their third offering. ‘Gone to Hell’ is especially catchy, while closing track ‘Father Midnight’ takes the listener on an auditory journey.

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Beastmilk — Climax 2013 — Svart

You may know vocalist Mat “Kvohst” McNerney from his tenure with black metal bands (Dødheimsgard, <code>, Decreptic Spectre), or perhaps for his folk project, Hexvessel, but this Finnish band saw him exploring an altogether different direction — post-punk. The band had formerly released a demo and an EP, and they decided to travel to Salem to work with Ballou for their debut full-length (and only record before they lost half their members and changed their name to Grave Pleasures).

Kvohst’s singing has always had an eerie, meditative, detached quality, and that is still true here — though he sometimes ventures into higher registers for a more classic post-punk delivery. It’s fascinating hearing that quality paired with more ‘fun’ and energized music, instead of his usual atmospheric black metal and folk. It lends the proceedings a somewhat uncanny quality, but it somehow works. Atmosphere is always the name of the game with his projects, and this one has it in spades. It’s a bit warmer than late 70s post punk, transforming the genre’s usual blue void into more of a blue haze. Aside from the slow 7/4 closer and the clean guitars in ‘Genocidal Crush’, the songs aren’t the most distinctive — it all blends together into said haze — but it’s a very enjoyable listen nonetheless.

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The Armed/Tharsis They 2013 — No Rest Until Ruin

This brief split has 2 songs by each band. Everything here is viscious, with The Armed including some faster metal drumming in their hardcore melange. The mathcore elements are heavily toned down in favor of straightfoward grooving, almost giving their half a party vibe, thus signalling another change in direction. Tharsis They, on they other hand, deliver much darker material in the vein of Nails or Full of Hell. Ballou’s contribution is purely in mixing the tracks by The Armed.

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