Music I Liked – EF, Chapel of Disease, Otoboke, Steve Gunn, MONO, Anemone

EF

Bandcamp Daily did a post on Scandinavian bands carrying the emo torch. I don’t know why I even bothered to read it, except that lately I’ve noticed people slinging the word “emo” around in contexts that don’t match up with my memory of the early 20th century. So I read it, and listened to a few tracks, and EF totally hooked me. Ceremonies sounds like a cross between Sigur Ros and Phosphorescent and you can’t go wrong with that. Too bad they haven’t posted new music since 2013.

Chapel of Disease

The name Chapel of Disease sounds like death metal. The name Mark Knopfler (at least to me) means The Princess Bride theme song. A title like “…And As We Have Seen The Storm, We Have Embraced The Eye” sounds like post-rock. I didn’t expect these things to unite in one project, but here they are, and they are … death metal. And I like it.

Otoboke Beaver

As regular readers know, I don’t often listen to punk. But when I do it’s Japanese teenagers who name their band after a love hotel and make feminist videos in which they take down gendered life-goal expectations and stereotypical Japanese behavior by destroying wedding dresses with food. I’m looking forward to the new album from Otoboke Beaver in April.

Steve Gunn

I’m always a sucker for guitar-centric music, regardless of genre. The Unseen Inbetween from Steve Gunn sounds like 60s folk at first blush. It reminded of Father John Misty at his debut best. And after listening for a little while, it made me want to go be creative.

MONO

Just about every music blog I follow assured me that I cared about the new MONO album, No Where, Now Here. Every music app on my phone sent me an alert when the album was released. I’d never listened to the Japanese post-rock band before, but with so much prompting I had to check them out. Every now and then the bloggy buzz and the app algorithms are right.

Anemone

New release Beat My Distance sounds like the opening montage in the 1980s the way the movies want you to remember them, instead of the awful decade that we actually lived through.

Two pop albums, some death metal, two very different bands from Japan and folk music to inspire your own muse. That was my week. How about you? Did you hear anything you liked?