Rock epicness is a tricky proposition. Rock is, or should be, in opposition to all pretension. Epicness, on the other hand, invites pretension. They’re like oil and water—they don’t mix but can be combined, one spreading into a thin, almost invisible film across the other, rendering it unusable. Drinking large amounts of pretentious epic rock can kill you.
Rock epicness is Pete Townshend’s windmill guitar. Epic pretention is Roger Daltrey’s mannered screams and gym teacher moves. Rock epicness is the first three and a half minutes of Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny. Epic pretention is what makes “Eye of the Tiger” such a beloved subject of ridicule.
There’s a gray area, of course, which is why it’s so hard to figure out if Rush is any good. But not all Canuck rockers hang from the tendrils of pretention as a pair of massive new albums from up north well demonstrate. Year of the Horse, the longstanding Torontonian outfit Fucked Up’s new studio album, is an overblown oratorio of epic wonderment, a 90-minute song cycle several years in the making that pounds, screams and occasionally downshifts into quite lovely and likable pop passages. Big|Brave’s fifth release, Vital, finds the downtempo doom group inching back toward the song orientation of their debut without losing any of their construction-site slow pound. Both are epic. Both rock.
The nigh on ridiculous Year of the Horse is one huge arc spread across four 19- to 26-minute parts. It was released and on Bandcamp May 7 (where it can be streamed in full), with a double LP, double CD and edited single-sided five-inch vinyl for the love of Pete slated for August. It’s a shame the digital version wasn’t put out as a single file, because it deserves that kind of 90-uninterrupted-minute epic treatment. The individual sections are often more or less pop song length, but few would stand on their own as songs. They’re interdependent, and demand to be heard as such.
Wagnerian AF, Year of the Horse is, itself, part of a cycle of records built around the Chinese zodiac that the band has been working through for the last 15 years. They also hint at the Wagner with the brass fanfares of the fourth part. There’s an extended string section in the third part, too, but much of the album wavers between Motörhead and Portishead. It’s loud, wonderful, and fairly exhausting.
Unlike Fucked Up, Montreal’s Big|Brave isn’t much for pastiche. The trio rarely even goes for chord changes. Their records are, for the most part, slow pounds half-burying Robin Wattle’s plaintive yells. It’s not just chord changes they eschew. The songs don’t have much by way of choruses, either. It’s more like repeated patterns than anything hummable. Where Fucked Up’s zodiac albums in particular slither and scoot across all kinds of musical themes, Big|Brave has one mood per song, per album and across their discography, and that mood might best be described as “woke up angry.” Tempos vary a bit, but the feeling doesn’t.
When they do break from the beat, it’s generally for sustained reverb and feedback interludes, one of which gets a track of its own on Vital. At four minutes, it’s a bit less than half the length of the next shortest track, and separated out feels something like a charred ballad—radio friendly, if only.
Vital (released by Southern Lord digitally in April, on CD in May, and expected on vinyl this month) is streaming in full on Bandcamp. It was Recorded at Machines With Magnets in Rhode Island, where Battles, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Lightning Bolt and Neptune have all booked time, the album has a huge sound, but clean, uncluttered. It doesn’t have the quarter-hour meltdowns of Au de La or Ardor or the (relative) hooks of A Gaze Among Them, but it’s nearly as good, and with bands like Big|Brave, more is more.
Another group of Montreal crushers worth noting is the severe, 14-member Growler’s Choir. The nine-minute track “Hate.Machine” they released last fall on Bandcamp is the only thing they’ve released as yet, but it holds deep, dark promise. With blast beats and piercing riffs, it’s no goof on the idea of a heavy metal chorale. Instead, it’s a smart use of a full complement of vocalists adept at the guttural and grimel. They’ll be doing a joint concert with the more classically oriented Temps Fort choir in Montreal this month, with a video of the concert to be made available for streaming on demand in July. Find them on Facebook for more information.
Author
Kurt Gottschalk is a writer, journalist and broadcaster based in New York City.
