Cruel to be Khanate. The biggest news of last month, perhaps tied with Tina Turner and the debt ceiling, was the first new album by “drone doom supergroup” (so says Wikipedia) Khanate in 14 years. To Be Cruel popped up without prophecy on streaming sites on May 19, with a CD and the usual assortment of buy-me-please limited-edition vinyl designs coming from Sacred Bones on June 30. The digital release is three tracks, each about the length of an LP side, suggesting that either a fourth will come with the double vinyl or it’ll be a Rahsaan Roland Kirk three-sided dream. But dispense with the consumer baiting, it can be streamed and downloaded now and it’s gloriously crushing. All four original members are present and accounted for: vocalist Alan Dubin (primarily of OLD); guitarists James Plotkin (Phantomsmasher and countless epochal production efforts) and Stephen O’Malley (Sunn O))) and myriad other implementations); and drummer Tim Wyskida (Khlyst and latter day Blind Idiot God). The band doesn’t just toss out genre, they create horrifying scenarios with well-crafted, artisan art metal. “It Wants to Fly” sets a scene of terror with thick, slow, visceral guitar and Dubin’s starkly discernible lyrics. (“I’m going to take you apart / It’s alright, you can look away / Your body is alive / I can see the skin crawl / Look if you want to / You can look if you want”—needless to say it goes on from there.) The partially whispered title track is another horror. Their four previous albums have also been released for streaming and download for the first time with physical formats expected in the near future. It’s a drudge worth taking.
Spanish bombs. A more melodic doom, by way of Sevilla, can be found in the five-piece Pylar, featuring guitarist Bar-Gal (aka Ricardo Jiminez Gómez of the excellent Orthodox, whose 2022 album Proceed is well worth seeking out) and keyboards and French horn, violin, mandolin, hurdy-gurdy and modular synth all in the mix. Límyte (CD, LP, download out June 23 from Cavsas/Cyclic Law) is the band’s seventh studio album and the third part of a trilogy they began in 2019. “Límite,” the long first track, comes off something like a heavier, dirtier, Dirty Three. The closer, “Ruptura-afuera,” is a nervous sleepwalk through simple riffage. Between the two is a brief, psychedelic ritual titled “Aniquilación,” but strange proceedings are buried throughout the sludge. Where Khanate is in your face, and readying to peel your skin, Pylar is a threat on the horizon, but not one to be ignored.
Thicker than water. The recordings of South Portland’s Big Blood have always struck me as music for the weirdest campfire ever. That might be me projecting a fantasy onto their Maine home base (I’ve been to Maine twice, had fun both times, don’t recall any fires), but their music strikes me as somehow distant but intimate. It might have something to do with a couple making music together in their home for a very long time, going back to the mid ’90s, when they were part of the freak folk collective Cerebus Shoals. In the years since Shoals disbanded, Colleen Kinsella and Caleb Mulkerin have put out a couple dozen and then some albums, mostly recorded at home and self-released, while raising a daughter who would become a band member. Most of their records are available free or by donation through the Free Music Archive and their Bandcamp page, and the Massachusetts-based Feeding Tube Records has been making some of the old titles, originally released on CD-R, available on vinyl. That label is also issuing their new First Aid Kit (LP and download June 9), an immensely and immediately likeable record and not a bad place to start delving into their unusual song-making—endearingly enigmatic as ever, in their own, particular way. “1,000 Times” (“I think about you at least 1,000 times a day / I can’t get you off of my mind / what’s wrong, what’s wrong, what’s wrong with me?”) is every bit as catchy as that one 4 Non Blondes song, whatever you think of it, and not entirely dissimilar. It’s like a musical glue-trap but there’s always something gurgling underneath. “Never Ending Nightmare” also sticks to the ear with bubbly bass and synth masking the tension in the words. Daughter Quinnisa Rose Kinsella Mulkerin was entering her teen years (and marking a decade appearing on record) during the lockdown recordings, and First Aid Kit puts the women out front. Father Caleb doesn’t sing but with his smart production, the mix is big and bright enough to swim in. The album closes with the downtempo “Weird Road, Pt. 1,” following in reverse gear Part 2 on 2019’s Weird Road EP. It’s a long, less traveled and, yes, weird road they’ve been on these last 17 years, and not about the destination.
Pure pop punk for now gorgeous mothers. The second album by NYC duo Gorgeous arrives June 2 (CD, cassette, download from Cactus Records) and it’s deliciously odd, landing in my ears somewhere between Deerhoof and the marvelous Birthday Ass, who are well overdue for a second record themselves. (Oh, Birthday Ass, where are you?) Sapsucker is tauter, but still as frenetic as their 2019 debut Egg, with catchier songs and brighter production. The songs wobble around with a wonderful disjointedness, only sometimes anchored by Judd Apperman’s ADHD drumming. Dana Lipperman plays layered guitar lines while singing obtuse lyrics of everyday discontent. “Traffic director / Hannibal Lecter / Nobody asked him to step in / Hands got bigger and bigger / Everywhere and nowhere at all / Tumescent or tumorous / His hands grew voluminous / Hands got bigger and bigger,” she laments on “Big Hands,” one of the catchier tracks in the album’s fast-paced half hour. There a manic energy to their songs that rewards repeat listens. Gorgeous isn’t only skin deep. Meanwhile, a decade since their first release, Motherhood is issuing a two-track digital single (June 24, from Forward Music Group), following a full-length this time last year. The New Brunswick trio apparently affectionately known as “Mum” has a lot of story to their songs, helpfully explained in their press release since I’d never have picked up on it otherwise. What I pick up on is something that seems in-you-face gregarious, with a lot of energy and musicality. “Dry Heave” is a screamer with a detective theme interlude. “Wandering” is a bit softer with vocal harmonies and bouncing organ. The video has a cartoon dog. Understanding things is overrated.
