Zach Hill
(Ipecac)
Zach Hill is a hell of a drummer. Best known for his work behind the kit for Hella and Marnie Stern, Astrological Straits is his first solo outing. Not surprisingly, its similarities to Hella are clear. Hill’s frantic, everywhere-at-once drumwork is never far from the foreground. The rhythms are tight and fierce, the melodies warped. Hill has always specialized in barely contained chaos, and Astrological Straits is no different.
But because Hill sticks to his guns, the record is hardly unexpected, and his style—consistent as it may be—offers little by way of dynamic. It’s a hurricane with no eye, and that can grow tiresome. The most unexpected and rewarding part of the album is its second disc, a 33-minute continuous take called “Necromancer” that sees Hill, with pianist Marco Benevento, finally giving the music a vital sense of dynamic that lets it breathe and makes his flurried intensity all the more powerful.
Standout Tracks: “Necromancer,” “Hindsight Is Nowhere,” “Tick On” BRYAN REED
Fucked Up
(Matador)
Fucked Up is probably the best punk band with national distribution 2008 has to offer. The incendiary Canadians built a reputation on limited-run EPs and contrarian aesthetics, but entered the indie-public’s consciousness with the 2006 release of Hidden World on Jade Tree. But despite the lengthy average duration of its songs, Hidden World, sounded pretty straightforward. It never got boring, but it never pushed too far, either.
Enter “Year of the Pig,” title track to a 2007 12” single. The 18-and-a-half minute suite blends Jennifer Castle’s calm, childlike vocals with Pink Eyes’ phlegm-gurgling growls; smoldering, suspended riffs with scathing distortion; plodding marches with surging rhythmic rushes. And sequenced as the opener for Matador’s repackaging of the single with its seven-inch edits from the US, UK and Japan, plus one new song (“Mustaa Lunta”), “Year of The Pig” becomes not only a true epic song, but ties the record together by reprising itself between tracks to create a sometimes confounding, always exhilarating 44 minutes of punk rock. Original b-side “The Black Hats” pushes its elastic rhythms through a dense mat of interwoven guitars. A low-rent Ramones melodicism and Pink Eyes’ snotty grumblings cast “Anorak City” as a seedier “Rockaway Beach.” And Year of the Pig (2008) becomes a powerful, lasting entry in the punk and indie rock canons.
Standout Tracks: “Year of the Pig,” “The Black Hats,” “Anorak City” BRYAN REED
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