Sacrosanct Space

I haven't played Sim City. I haven't played Dead Space 3. I haven't played Aliens: Colonial Marines. I haven't played any videogames except Penny-Arcade's On The Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness 3, Torchlight 2 and Bejeweled 3 in about a year. Wait. Maybe I've played Jamestown. I've played Diablo 3.

(Pretend I didn't list Jamestown. Shhhhhhhh.)

But I've seen a lot of people talk about DLC or "always-on" experiences and what comes to mind as a player is the idea that my experience of playing a videogame is being interrupted. In the case of always on, it means that I am at the whim of of a developer to make sure their own infrastructure is sound enough to play the experience I have already paid money for.

And that's not a thing that I should have to care about as a player. I've already put down my money. I've already showed, in some cases, sixty examples of good faith, plus tax. When I purchase a book, I don't have to worry about firmware updates to the paper getting between me and the experience.

One could make the same argument for videogame consoles before the current generation. I don't have to worry that my Playstation 2 will decide tomorrow that it needs to connect to the internet before I play a little Dragon Quest 8 before bed. I can play Dragon Quest 8, or maybe you'd prefer Burnout 3, or Persona 4 or whatever game I choose, because the architecture of the system is designed in a way to require the game and the tray and nothing else.

Anything always on changes that. Instead of needing two things, a player/customer now needs three. They need the disc to work. They need the system to work and they need the developers and publishers to be on the ball every day of each year going forward. That's a material change in the relationship between the buyer and the seller. I'm being asked going forward to take on faith that another party will have their ducks in a row.

That isn't a feature.

 

I would like whatever it is I bought to work when I have or carve out the time in my day to play it. I suspect that's why I read so many books as opposed to movies or videogames these days: I can pick up the book and it works immediately. I don't have to sit through five minutes of commercials for other products or anti-piracy warnings, I can just read the book. Books are also portable and easy to use, I say just a little bit facetiously. I can throw one in my bag and it's ready when I am.

I'm surprised I have to say this, but I'm enjoying the very retro feeling of having no popups appear on screen, whether it's an alert that a friend is playing the same game or the game announcing that "you got an achievement!"

What brings my interest in PS2 games and the aforementioned Steam games together is that at least once I'm playing, my playing experience isn't interrupted for an ad to buy more stuff. They take my time seriously.

I felt like I was in high school when I played Penny-Arcade's On The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness 3. It demanded me until 3 or 4 a.m.. It accomplished this by telling me a story I wanted to know more about, by interacting with me in a way that felt familiar, but had a couple really excellent twists on the concept and least of all, not interrupting itself to sell additional content.

To a lesser extent, I had this experience with Torchlight II and Bejewled 3. These are games that respect the players. You bought the game, and now, you ought to enjoy it. I don't want to say that it's an "old-school" kind of experience, because Journey exists. But: The idea that the best ad for the next game is the one you're playing right now is a powerful one.

The cardinal sin of Dead Space 3 is not that microtransactions exist inside it, but how those are implemented into the experience of playing the game. The team has spent two odd years and thousands of hours to create an environment that scares the player and all that work is destroyed when the offer is made to you that if waiting 10 minutes to get supplies is too long, you can cut the time in half in exchange for more of your local money.

That's an offer that takes me out of the game, first. Second: Had I paid $60, I'd be furious. I just paid sixty dollars for an entertainment experience and there was something built in for the specific purpose of detracting from the meticulously crafted thing I paid sixty dollars for? Get out of town.

I don't mind DLC. Shit, I like DLC. But don't interrupt my play experience, the thing that got you in the door, to hawk me more shit. Maybe this is my recognition that I am no longer the target market for these experiences and on some level that bums me out. I don't think it is, though. I don't mind being offered DLC. But I do mind how the offer is made.

I want to support developers and publishers that view the time I spend playing their game as sacrosanct. That indicates a respect for my time and my attention, which I am happy and excited to repay with cash dollars, which I suspect is all those developers and publishers wanted in the first place.

As Many Principal Creators As Reasons To Die Number One

I bought Twelve Reasons To Die #1 at a con. My very long two cents follow.

The Twelve Reasons To Die #1 credits page is a nightmare. Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge are credited as creators. Adrian Younge, Ce Garcia and Matthew Rosenberg are credited with the story. Finally, Matthew Rosenberg and Patrick Kindlon are credited as writers.

Rosenberg is credited a third time, somehow, as the bookrunner. It's a comic book, so hearing that there's enough balls in the air that someone deserves credit for keeping them going who isn't an editor is a worrying sign.

But okay, those designations can be parsed out. The characters are Ghost's (because Mr. Killah sounds a little bit too on the nose) and Mr. Younge's. The story is a collaboration between Mr. Younge, Mr. Garcia and Mr. Rosenberg and the actual script specifics are Mr. Rosenberg and Mr. Kindlon.

When you get to who's credited on the art, you may as well read tea leaves.

You have and this is no joke, two Illustrators, not one but three Guest Illustrators and this is the genius part, two Production Artists. Luckily, there's only one colorist and only one letterer, who do the herculean job of making sure there's at least some consistency between all of these pencillers. If anyone deserves a hand here, it's the colorist and letterer. Twelve Reasons To Die #1 doesn't have a chance to set a tone, because odds are good that if you flip the next page, a completely different penciller is telling the story.

(Oh, and the narration text takes an unexplained jump in size on the final page.)

Politely, it's a mess.

As a rule, the best comics tend to come from the singular vision of one person or a single writer/penciller team. By comparison, you have seven people pencilling this comic, and five people writing Twelve Reasons To Die.

The script makes me groan without pleasure.  In a scene where Ghost shows up to a club with his crew, wrecks some Italian mob goons with guns, the narration is, (from the perspective of the boss goon/strawman) and I quote: "He was something we had never seen before…we were soldiers…Anthony Starks was a fucking weapon." 

Rosenberg and Kindlon are both smart guys, so I find it very hard to believe they wrote something that stupid. Was this Ghost's people? Was this Ghost himself, making absolutely certain that he came off as badass as possible in his own vanity project? I have no idea. Given Wu-Tang's history with comics, it's hard to believe.

There's some solid panel to panel storytelling, for which Rosenberg and Kindlon and whomever pencilled it deserve credit, but there's one thing missed, which is kind of important.

Ghost dies and only one person mentions it.

Right. The conceit of comic, which, incidentally, I had to read an interview with Adrian Younge to figure out, was that Ghost was a mobster, who got killed as a certain record played, and through that, somehow, transferred his essence to 12 particular records, that when played, will kill the gangsters that killed him. I think? According to a different interview, these 12 gangsters are all heads of their own gangs. Awesome.

The problem is that Ghost dying off panel is incongruous, given the only other time he appeared, he was very much alive. The next time you see him, it's a disembodied face that comes out of a vinyl record.

Ghost makes an entrance in a club with his crew, shooting men with guns, beating them with chairs and then, taking a chair leg, slashing a dude's throat with it, then throwing that leg into the eye of a mobster and then after that, taking another chair leg and stabbing yet another mobster in the throat with the second chair leg. That's his entrance. He's got one word balloon and it sounds completely and utterly baffling with the rest of the story.

He says: "Niggaz heard y'all run the game 'round here. We got shit to talk about, ya nahmsayin."

Thus, the next time you see Ghost, with the implication he's dead, it makes no goddamn sense. The writers just set up Ghost as a walking Act of God, or if you prefer "a fucking weapon," so how in the fuck did he die? Old age? Venereal disease? High cholesterol? Because if the answer is he got killed by other gangsters, that flies in the face of how the character was portrayed the first time he showed up in the comic.

By and large, it's the parts that don't involve Ghost where the comic does well. I enjoyed the storytelling around finding these records and their effects on the gangsters they're meant for. My favorite scene, I think was the same gangster, I think, subcontracting out the finding of the pieces of vinyl to a young black man not too proud to take the job, but conflicted enough to desire respect for his work. The whisper: "We prefer the term crate-digger," is excellent.

I oscillate on how I feel about the gangsters. If there's a popular media portrayal of gangsters that the writers don't lean on, it's not for lack of trying. You've got gangster with the veneer of nobility. You've got slimy gangster. You've got "we're just businessmen and we fought the Nazis" gangster.  I'm surprised they haven't gotten to off-brand Scarface. Maybe that's the next issue.

I think it's the same gangster, actually. With the shifting pencillers in the first half of the comic, I'm not sure what's flashback and what's present day and who is who.

Maybe I'm too harsh. This is a vanity project comic about gangsters. Perhaps off-brand Scarface is part and parcel of obeying and enjoying the genre. I'm not sure. This is pretty obviously a review I'm writing to organize my thoughts. I wrote this originally because I was disappointed in the issue. The original conclusion was:

I paid $4 for this comic, mostly because I wanted to support Pat Kindlon and figured it was worth a roll of the dice to see if he and Ghost worked well together. I now know. I would not do it again.

Considering the comic again, there's enough other things in the comic that hit well, that I second guess the statement. It should go without saying, though, if you're a fan of any of the writers' musical endeavors, get those instead. $4 an issue is asking a bit much for a story I'm hot and cold on, but if you're a fan of Ghost's stories or Wu-Tang acolyte, I think you'll enjoy it.





I suppose I ought to use something from the album from which this comics comes, but instead, here, have Ghostface Killah as the champ. Enjoy.
                                     

Chris Wollard And The Solo Thieves

"Obey and enjoy the genre." Michael Moorcock.

"They said guitar solos aren't punk rock, well, fuck you!" Chris Wollard.

I'm gonna talk about Canyons, the newish record by Chris Wollard And The Ship Thieves now.

It sounds like Chris Wollard having fuckin' fun. Hot Water Music (from which the songwriter and performer cannot possibly be divorced from now) is, well, emotive and anthemic. I wrote about "Seein' Diamonds." I could also write about "Paper Thin" or "The End." Best I don't.

Canyons? Unlike that. Joyous, packed full of guitar solos. I don't even like guitar solos, but I succumb to this disc. Do you need me to tell you what "Poison Friends" is about? I don't think so. "Sick, Sick Love?" Nah. You want anthems? Get outta town. I suspect Hot Water Music songs are a document of his life, but Ship Thieves doesn't have to be. Ship Thieves is "oh man, this is awwwwwwwwwesome."

I think Canyons is Chris Wollard's id.

What I'm trying to say is that it's a long jump from Ship Thieves to Hot Water Music.

(There will be no swimming jokes. Canyons' cover has a bird in flight on it and I am committed to theme.)

None of these songs would be amiss coming through a speaker at a hardware store. Well, they might sound a lot more polished, more soundly constructed, a lot fucking better, but they'd still fit right in. Well, okay. "Dream In My Head" is a little short for 93X the Rock crowd ("Working for the weekendtm", with a forty five minute commercial free block coming up in three and a half hours) or whomever, but it's short enough for the Hot Water followers to get a grasp of what comes next.

The trick Chris Wollard and the Ship Thieves pull here is that they make it look casual. Tossed off. Of course it isn't. Of course it takes work. Of course these songs took days to put together, but the germs of them came naturally, I'm sure.

Ever hear a friend of yours talk about something they love and you get lost and enraptured in their enthusiasm for it and skill at it? That's what Canyons is. It is a vector for Chris Wollard's considerable enthusiasm for guitar rock. There's a ZZ Top shaped hole in my guitar music listening, so I have to be careful about how I talk about Canyons, because there's genre staples I know only from parody. Pretending to type with authority here sounds problematic.

In a sentence: I am prejudiced against guitar solos and I cannot help but enjoy Canyons.

Sadly, this song is not "Dream In My Head." It is called "Poison Friends." But! For "Poison Friends" not being "Dream In My Head," it's pretty good. Play guitar solos! Drink beer! Et al!
                            

It's Dessa In The Morning, But It's Good For Morale.

Talking about Dessa's music is an act that stretches my comfortable vocabulary. Maybe it's the M.A. Phil. after her name. Maybe it's the lyrics nerd in me. She's one of the artists that makes my obsessive attention to what's said worth it, I think. She...well...when the songs are played right, it feels like I'm reclaiming my vulnerability, to abuse a Thomas Barnett line.

One of my favorite moments from a Dessa song was a re-worked Frida Khalo line. She's an rapper who writes rhymes where Bertrand Russell gets as many big-ups as whiskey. Of course her new song, "Warsaw" sounds like a lead pipe covered in grime, left out in the pouring rain. You're supposed to dance to it. If The Knife menaced people with knives? Yes, it sounds like that.

This was an interview for AbsolutePunk.net in advance of Castor, The Twin and then Jason Tate ignored it, so here you go. First interview of the new cycle. Suuuuuuure. Read on.

What have you been reading recently? What books (if any) do you bring on tour? After tours, who has stuck around? What's surprised you positively about coming back to the bed, the books and the rotary phone after the U.S. tour?

I buy books constantly on tour. I usually go for dense, academic material: science or philosophy I'd always meant to explore, but never got around to--exactly the opposite of what's appropriate for a person living in a noisy, moving van. Most of these books end up on my coffee table. I resist shelving them to sustain the delusion that I will be reading them very soon. At the moment, however, I am 50 pages into The Tin Drum and 75 pages into Sting's autobiography, Broken Music (gift from Dad). 

"Dots and Dashes," that opening "vision quest at the Best Western, the best dressed wreck at the hotel lounge, I found out the message in the bottle is the booze" is pretty wicked. There's gotta be a story behind it, right? Do tell.

Um...not really. As a touring rapper, I guess I just spend a lot of time in economy hotels. Sooner or later, life seeps into the imagination and is re-expressed in a lyric. 

If Poe in the glovebox, Plath on the dash is true, how do you get up in the morning?

Most mornings I get up with some reluctance, hitting my stride right before bed. I suppose I've always tended toward the melancholic, and have always been attracted to dark narratives. To romanticize sadness is a teenage impulse, but to acknowledge it--rather than looking for a ray of cheeriness to blot it out--seems like the clear-eyed way to live. 

Let's say a venue wants to treat you right and leaves you some whiskey backstage. What do they buy? Or if that's too casual with the alcoholism, are you worried about the whiskey catching up to you or has it already?

I drink Godfathers: one part whiskey, one part amaretto, on ice. I'm more mindful of my drinking than I used to be, in part because the hangovers are more vengeful than they used to be.  

Will there be a Mineshaft III on the next one?

I think the Mineshaft narrative ends with the second installment, the prequel. Time to explore some new themes. 

There's a line in "Low Light, Low Life", where you say Bertrand Russell was right, but it's irrelevant. As an M.A., you know better than most, Russell wrote a lot. What else was he right about? Also: Does philosophy help with being in hip-hop? Does it complicate matters in a way that's useful?

Bertrand Russell wrote a book called Why I Am Not a Christian. I'm an atheist, and although I certainly don't spend a lot of time trying to talk people out of their faith, that book was a beautifully written, intelligent expression of some very elegant arguments. For me, the study of philosophy was game-changing, it informed my understanding of sex, conflict, faith, human rights, money, ethics, and art. Philosophy has affected everything I do, rap included. 

Your bartender (from before you were old enough to drink?) does backups, that woman from "Alibi" I assume is a friend and "Dixon's Girl" sounds like a character from a Chandler novel. How do you meet these people?

I'm taking this question as a compliment. I think we've all probably got some pretty compelling stories. There's a trick though in telling them well. 

Is there anything like "Dutch" or "Scuffle" on No Kings or your 2012 record? (I'm partial to the abrasive/rapping songs, but listening to "Palace" and those Minneapolis Public Radio sessions on YouTube has me convinced this whole singing on tracks has worked out pretty well for you.)

There are plenty of aggressive tracks on No Kings and on my new disc. Castor, the Twin is mostly wings; the next one's definitely got some teeth too. 

Judging by "The Man I Knew," it sounds like one of your friends has discovered cocaine. Is that gonna be awkward when this dude hears the song? Does he know about it?

I called him, and he said it was cool. Still not totally sure he's listened to it the whole way through. He's an awesome dude though, we'll make it just fine. 

There's tons more questions, but let's end it with the really important one: Now that Astro lives in Minneapolis, when are you and he going to sit down and do a song together about whiskey and rapping?
Very proud to say that I booked Astonautalis' housewarming show: just a few days after he moved to Minneapolis, I had him on stage at the Guthrie Theater. He's one of the smartest lyricists out there, glad to have him on the hometown team.

"Warsaw" sounds like a club jam from Blade Runner. I don't think I can say it sounds pretty, bleepity and distant all at the same time better than that.

Touch Keyboards Become The Teeth

     I think it was Jimmy Eat World who said that no one makes money on a split 7-inch, which is a shame. This one, featuring Pianos Become The Teeth and Touché Amoré deserves it. On this two song split, each band contributes an excellent song, with striking art direction from Touché Amoré guitarist Nick Steinhardt. The main colors are a deep blue and tan, both of which recur, in a small way, in the art for the other band. He finds urban decay photos interesting. The genre does nothing for me, so I pass over that.

     Looking over the .pdf of the layout, I think that's the birds from the "Gravity, Metaphorically" music video in the album art. Yes. Energy and thought were put into the package.

     It will not surprise you, I am sure, to hear both songs are about failing relationships. Touche's was one that was built with an expiration date in mind, apparently. "Gravity," of course, is used as a shorthand for knowing the thing you knew was coming came. "Hiding," starts out as one and then veers into avoiding people generally. The black text on tan backgrounds makes the "Hiding" lyrics hard to read without squinting.

     At four minutes, "Gravity" may as well be a double feature for Touché Amoré. I'd argue it is, actually. The first half sounds like Touché and the second half sounds like Envy. Perhaps that's a little pithy. I'm an absolute goon for Envy, and so are the Touché boys, so that's a net positive in my book.

     "Hiding," by Pianos Become The Teeth is real midtempo. It's one of the best sad bastard songs I've heard in the last couple years. I lived in Western Pennsylvania for four years. I know something about sad bastard songs. I'm struck by the lyric makes you almost miss the smell of smoke in your clothes. Like you knew the memories were bad, but you think fondly of them regardless.

     I bought the digital download for $1.50 from Deathwish, which comes with the full album art in the package. I think it's worth your time and a little bit of your money.

     A friend of mine said I should give that Pianos song a couple listens to let it click, because when it clicks, it's fantastic. He's right. "Hiding," by Pianos Become The Teeth. Enjoy.
                          

Feelin' Diamonds

     "Seein' Diamonds" by Hot Water Music was one of my curse songs.

     I remember early morning / In the car on the side of the road / You said you had something to say / I crawled out with my head spinning / I covered my ears too late

     Get me talking about them long enough and I will speak about "Seein' Diamonds." I think it's my favorite song of theirs.

     I discovered it on Punk-O-Rama 9, which also featured a Motion City Soundtrack b-side called Throw Down. I think I bought it for that b-side and "Seein' Diamonds." It's worth noting, I was even more of a casual fan of Hot Water Music then, so I'm not sure I remember my reasoning. Point is: I bought it in 2004 and found it more resonant than anything else on the compilation.

     "Seein' Diamonds" is about that shock of finding out that the person you love, enough to see yourself marrying them, tells you they don't love you. The blast from the loss leaves a crater.

     The lyrics ultimately boil down to the same feeling of loss and rejection. The partner? The scene of the crash? Metaphorically? Literally? Doesn't matter. What matters is that there is something in that lover or moment that draws the singer back. I listened to it a lot in college, to the point where I described it as like heroin, which is wildly hyperbolic and likely wrong, as I've never tried heroin. The idea I was reaching for was that there's a pleasure and an amelioration by something that ultimately does terrible things to my head. "Seein' Diamonds" does that. It is what that song was made to do.

     Just returning / Felt like murder / But I couldn't stay away

     So I saw Hot Water Music on their tour with La Dispute and the Menzingers. Hot Water Music was good. They've been playing together for 20 years this year. No surprise there. It was at the bar, though, that I talked for a couple minutes with the writer of "Seein' Diamonds" (Chris Wollard) about well, "Seein' Diamonds" and his second solo record, Canyons.

     (I enjoyed Canyons because listening to it I could immediately tell what the record was about. The record is about guitar solos. There's songs and lyrics in there, but it's not about those things, those things are a vehicle for the guitar solos. And those guitar solos? Bitchin'.)

     But the conversation we had about "Seein' Diamonds" was something that now overrides or at least colors my listening to the song now. I used to listen to "Seein' Diamonds" when I was in a bad place.  But now? I listen to it thinking of the Rays cap and the massive bear hugs and the "thank you for paying attention and thank you for caring." And that makes me smile.

     It was a hard song to write, he said.

    I'm glad he wrote it. I'm glad I heard it. His pain, and how he expressed it, resonated with me. That's what music is supposed to do.

     "Seein' Diamonds" doesn't hurt the same, now. I smile too much when I put it on. It doesn't hurt so much. It's a song designed to express pain. I'm at a loss, then, when the song stops being so painful. I'm too close to the event to express coherent thoughts about that. Pat from Self Defense Family will talk about how art should express something in a way that shows the individual and now I understand what he means. I think now, of the man who, if given an opportunity will nerd the fuck out about guitars and his obvious, guileless joy at being in a band with one of the people he looked up to before he formed Hot Water Music.

     I can put a face and a set of behaviors and a personality to the song now. No. I can do more than that. I can put a person to the song now. I didn't think the song came from somewhere anonymous before, but that I knew of Chris Wollard. I knew that is was his voice on it, so I assumed he wrote it. And meeting him colors my experience of listening to the song. When that happens normally, I'm used to it, because most of the songs aren't about loss and knowing that you shouldn't go back but do. The closest I've got is Dessa's "Matches To Paper Dolls" or "Go Home," but those aren't the songs I ask her about.

     I've met Crime In Stereo, but that doesn't color "...But You Are Vast" in the same way. The connection has an incredible value. "Seein' Diamonds" is about loss, but it's hard to feel real bad when you hear it recalling that time it's author hugged you for understanding and taking it to heart. Thank you, Mr. Wollard.

    

     I think you can intuit which song this is. I don't believe it's gonna surprise you.

Decomposition: 4:30 a.m.

Volume One, huh? They've never lacked ambition.

Decompositions: Volume Number One is Circle Takes The Square's first full length in, oh Christ, nine years. It really has been that long. The sun has set on screamo and since risen again in that time since As The Roots Undo. That's not to say Decompositions sounds dated, but that…shit, man. Things have changed.

Circle Takes The Square hasn't. If you liked As The Roots Undo, everything on Decompositions will be familiar to you. They remain a feral, sprawling screamo band and Decompositions is their most cacophonous and densest slab of the genre yet. Before I forget! You can buy Decompositions from bandcamp right now. If only Robotic Empire could have done that back in the day.

Do you like chanting? They still do that.

Do you like the abrasive, coiling, screams of the Mr. Speziale and Ms. Stubelek? They still do that. 

Do you like the whispering from Mr. Speziale and soft attempts at singing from Ms. Stubelek? They still do that.

There's now more of it. To a point, I suppose. Decompositions' first four tracks were released on their own in 2011. Decompositions clocks in at nine tracks and 55:30. As The Roots Undo was eight tracks, technically and about 44 minutes. Given that the first track is a one minute intro, it might be more truthful to say that As The Roots Undo was seven tracks in 44 minutes.

As for how Decompositions was recorded, I think the drums got a bum deal. The vocals are as clear as you'd want them to be. No one here is Pavarotti. Like As The Roots Undo, a lot of careful attention was paid to the album artwork. The pieces included with the record are detailed and usually involves spirals or gentle curves.

I don't hear any single tracks that are easy to break off, there's no "Crowquill" to be found on Decompositions. Yes, there's a three minute song, but it doesn't play nicely with other bands. If you're gonna listen to Decompositions, you're going to hear all of it. Or, I think you should. I'm not sure how their ornate lyrical, visual and musical style will play alongside any artist less baroque. I take the time to write this precisely because Decompositions as a single entity has such a powerful pull. It's taken me twenty odd listens to find when “Singing Vengeance Into Being” becomes “Arrowhead As Epilogue.”

As for what we call this, shit, that's half the fun. Grandiose skramz? Hyper-elaborate screamo? Vulgar, untidy riff compendiums for Sea Shepard GIs?

The individual tracks are hard to pick out without extensive listens. That's not a compliment, but they'll forgive me, I'm sure. The two reviews for this I've seen, Brian's at Alt Press and someone else's from Exclaim.ca, can't quite pin down the thread that pulls the record together. That thread is a South American author called Jorge Luis Borges.

I'll explain. Borges' stories, some of them had a massive sprawl and sweep: The Library of Babel, obviously, but also The Circular Ruins*. But what was important for those two stories was a sense of breathtaking, dangerous and immeasurable (or unknowable) landscapes. Decompositions has that sense of scope. (There's even a labyrinth in the Decompositions' art, for Christ's sake! See left.) If one was ever fast enough to outrun a wolf in menacing, alien woods, Circle Takes The Square would be the band to describe that terror. A quick look at Circle's website shows they use a Borges quote as an epigraph to "Way Of Ever-Branching Paths." I have a keen grasp of the obvious.

This leads them into melodrama occasionally (see below), but we forgive them.

And the praise / it was fraudulent/ Nothing sacred in my fingerprints / Shed my skin as a parting gift/ Slash and burn / and start again/ Through the lens of predation/ Monochrome interpretations /Only fit for the color-starved /Strip-mine my flesh / I will ascend

I wonder, sometimes, if they'd write a five minute emoviolence epic about stubbing a toe.

And then there's the final track, the mostly acoustic "North Star, Inverted." It's 10:55. It might be the best song on the record. No, seriously. Stop looking at me like that. Most Circle songs are mostly thrashy screamo with moments of chanting or pretty bits, before going back into the blast beats, right?

This one is made the other way around. Once you get past the minute or so of "oh right we're a screamo band" in the first movement (I use the word loosely. Our classical musician friends would blanche, I'm sure.) it's Mr. Speziale and his acoustic guitar with light accompaniment from the rest of the band.

It would be wrong to call it a lullaby, but the lion's share of the song is gentle. It's a song about the apocalypse, but the delivery makes it sound like it's something almost casual. Like staring at the ruined city from the front of your porch with your friends, with a guitar and a bottle.

The North Star / she nods out / Doused her torch / left us forever / Without promise or penance / We're left to merge with the trench / Taught the cruelties that it takes to survive /Just accept to be free.

So: If you're looking for a single, I suppose you could pick the final song, the epic 10:55 long closer. Go for it. See where that gets you. That's how I feel about the whole record, actually. See where it takes you. Like going to Venice as a tourist, getting lost in Decompositions is the point. Enjoy the trip.

Hi. Yes. This review has been updated, slightly, at roughly 8 pm on February 8, 2013. I feel I missed some description of the actual music, and added some, swapped out an image for another one and made minor changes. I couldn't write this and not leave you with "North Star, Inverted," right? Well, I suppose you could go look for the full-album stream on YouTube. It's not hard to find. But it's late, and frankly, these things should end on a good note.

*Many others, of course. If you haven't read Mr. Borges, his Complete Fictions will run you 20 odd bucks and will be a more worthwhile purchase than whatever piece of ephemera you've convinced yourself you need. Taken as a whole, his stories explicated an imagination that could traffic in ideas with nine figure budgets and execution dependent stories with tiny payoffs with life-defining significance. That he could go anywhere in between those two without any noticeable drop in quality is why I'm a Borges goon.