Famous Last Words -- Cornered by Zombies

Figured I'd promote another Salt Lake City metal band, Cornered by Zombies, since I just posted about Visigoth. The two are very different brands of metal, but both quite fun. Cornered by Zombies is a nice two-piece act who play some nice and thrashy instrumental metal. My main praise has to go to the drummer, who is pretty remarkable. I saw these guys when they opened for Red Fang this summer and they put on an opening set that was even more impressive than what you hear on their EP, Famous Last Words. Their performance was pretty spot-on; they were totally in sync with each other and there really were no missteps that I could hear.

Unfortunately their bandcamp page only features two of the songs from their EP, but they're good songs, particularly "Heads I Win, Tails You Lose". My lurking suspicion, based on the guitarist's shrugging reactions during the show, is that the song names don't have much bearing on anything -- kinda like Mogwai has claimed about their own song titles. The names are just good, silly fun. The music is, too. But a different kind of silly; the kind that seems to just be part of heavy metal generally, and is the reason the genre is cool.

I feel like metal always has a lurking dash of humor about its own form, where it knows the who genre of metal is kind of ridiculous, but in a cool, sometimes even profound way. Some of the doom metal I've been listening to lately (Morgion, I'm thinking of you) would probably disagree with me on this point, but I hold to it right now. A little absurdity isn't any more wrong than a little melodrama, or a little bombast -- let's be honest, Led Zeppelin and Richard Wagner are kind of ridiculous, but they're still pretty sweet. Sometimes it's precisely this dash of overblown pomp that tips a band into brilliance. The Sisters of Mercy perhaps stand as my most fond example of this. Point being (and it's by no means a new point), metal's excesses aren't a good enough reason to dismiss it. Most great art is kind of ridiculous in some way, and that ridiculous element is often what makes it brilliant.

Give Cornered by Zombies a listen and see what you think. The songs are good. The whole EP is a quality effort from this young duo. How far they can take their two-person approach has yet to be seen, but for now I'd say they're doing just fine. A full-length album might start to reveal some repetition, but I'm hoping it wouldn't. I think these guys have the technical proficiency and I hope they have the creativity to carry their style forward for a while.

Be sure to admire the cover art for their EP, too -- it's pretty great, in an Army of Darkness way. And then think about just how great that band name really is. Cornered by Zombies. The zombies are everywhere, already, and the band is cornered by them, "because there's only two of us," joked the guitarist. No one wants to be cornered by zombies, but too often that's how it seems to be. Alas. The only solution is more heavy metal, so rock on!  

Final Spell EP by Visigoth

I just listened to Visigoth for the first time tonight and am very impressed. This Salt Lake City-based act has a very solid sound; nice and epic, with plenty of emphasis on power and heroics not uncommon to metal's long relationship with fantastic and mythological themes. Such thematic in metal might be pretty old hat and there are lots of bands out there that milk it for all its worth. For my part, I found Visigoth's treatment to be a good one -- genuine and sincere, without pretense. Their skill as musicians is obvious, but they also show the potential for something just different enough, or just well-executed enough, to set them apart from the pack. For anyone looking for a fresh, young band, Visigoth's Final Spell EP is a great primer, with "Seven Golden Ships" as the (current) stand-out track. Hopefully we don't have to wait too long for an LP. I wish these guys luck and hope they'll be around a while.

Campus Noir

How last semester felt.

Maybe I should submit these to BYU Magazine.

Will to Power

Artisan

"Last night was the best night of my life."

Outside it's a beautiful day

Finding the Stallion in the Colt

This is Matt McDonald.

Taking in Water

Tintagel, England; Summer 2009

Joey's Guitar

Joey Burns of Calexico and his guitar. From Calexico's performance at the Urban Lounge, SLC, August 10, 2011.

Ride On

At the 2011 Tour of Utah in SLC

Black Marble - Weight Against the Door EP

 If you haven't heard of New York City's Black Marble yet, give them a listen below. Their track "Pretender" is a real standout from their Weight Against the Door EP, which will be available on 12" vinyl February 14. You can already purchased a digital copy at iTunes.

"Pretender" shows a remarkably adept new waver synth style, with a driving beat and bass riff that is all function with no frills. If the track is showing off its in just how direct and focused it is, where nothing is extraneous and everything is substantial. The accompanying track, "On My Head", shows much of the same focus, while not quite matching the intensity of "Pretender". But a solid track all the same, with a lighter, more optimistic charm that explores slightly different territory, but keeps all the technical skill and restraint. This is a band worth paying attention to.

It would also be shallow of me to not thank Jessy for putting me onto these guys. Thanks again, Jessy.

Telefunken

Kräftig, oder?

"a little willingness to see"

Antelope Island State Park. On flickr.

King of the Zombies

King of the Zombies [1941], dir. Jean Yarbrough



This deserves a watch.

Download the film for free at archive.org.

Antelope Island

Antelope Island, UT. On flickr.

My first visit to Antelope Island was a very nice experience. As was shooting this roll of Walgreens 400 speed. Something about these cheap rolls of film that I just really like. I took about a dozen shots with my D40 and didn't like any of them (except maybe one). I suspect the digital pictures could have turned out better if I'd exerted a more disciplined rigor toward shooting with a D40. But no matter how much effort I'd put into those digital shots, they still wouldn't look like this.

All That Could Have Been

A recurring pattern: I load the film, and fry the first image. Keeps me humble. Or something. A reminder that the whole process is rather delicate and it doesn't take much for your world to vanish. Still, from the look of that water, I'll bet this would have been the best oceanscape on the roll.

Waiting for the Man

Outside the Fourth District Juvenile Court, Orem

Self-Conscious Waterfall

Also found at LDS Earth Stewardship

I took this picture at BYU's south campus stream and trail, a landscaping/restoration project completed in April 2011. It was apparently quite a project, and thus somewhat amusingly became an Event.

I admit, it looks nice. But there's something rather (to use my brother's description) self-conscious about this project. My picture doesn't show the stream, or the trail, but shows one of five waterfalls along the stream and trail. It also shows how badly BYU's landscaping team wants to create a natural scene. But by wanting a natural look that also imbues each waterfall with "its own personality" (Bruce Maw, BYU Campus Landscape Architect) they have constructed a natural look that is so calculated as to become unnatural. It's basically an outdoor set piece, where nature is a prop used primarily for our personal pleasure, rather than an autonomous group of systems that each have their own patterns of behavior.

I appreciate having a place for students to "get away from it all" and enjoy some nature - I want that, too. It's important to have gardens and responsibly integrate nature into the urban space. But I get uncomfortable when part of the motivation seems to be to construct a superficial image of beauty and prosperity that values nature solely for what it can do for us, something to be tamed and controlled. BYU sits at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, where trails aplenty take you out of the city and human-constructed natural landscapes into much more vibrant, rejuvenating and adventurous territory. I worry that creating such docile and predictable spaces hinders us from taking nature on its own terms, where it is not simply a submissive prop. We think we know how best to handle the environment, which is hardly true considering the strain Utah Valley, and BYU, put on our desert environment.

The south campus stream and trail is a nice gesture, but it's incomplete. For my part, the south campus stream and trail still lacks a genuine personality, and instead displays a self-conscious and somewhat superficial personality I too often find at the university.

Turn on the Bright Lights

Pretentious

I don't typically do self-portraits for rather apparent reasons. But I had a roll to finish and my creativity was exhausted.

"Was ist die Befindlichkeit des Landes?"

Potsdamer Platz, Berlin; summer 2008

One of those lucky moments. This picture still just charms me and it's probably my favorite picture from Berlin. I don't think we have to be city people to be fascinated by the city and urbanity. Berlin is without a doubt my favorite big city and I'm hoping for the chance to go back.

Cascade

On flickr

Another shot from way back that seemed appropriate after this post. I'm still very fond of this one.

Broken, Pt. 3

Somewhere in SLC.

You

So It Goes

First time shooting Ilford HP5. I'm glad I have two more rolls of the stuff.

Find Your Note

My N65 is pulling the film through weirdly, resulting in some lines on my negatives, which often doesn't enhance the image in any way. Therefore, the N65 is taking a leave of absence while I consider my options. With Allen's Camera already willing to muck up my scans by not cleaning their scanner properly (they tell me it's really hard to keep it clean, which I don't doubt; but they're supposed to be pros, so I have no sympathy for their hardships), the lines are one challenge too many.

Still, despite the lines and dust, I thought this one turned out alright.

Two from Tennyson

On flickr

On flickr

It takes me a while to get to some things. These two pictures are personal favorites of mine, yet I had done nothing with them until now. Maybe I wanted them to myself for a while. But after two and a half years I think it's time to let them out.

Though I bet you can find them in here somewhere.

Nothing but You and Me

On flickr

Summer Ultramax

I didn't take a picture for four months. When I came back to it in mid-December and finished my roll, I found these. It feels like so long ago, but it was only August.

Kodak Ultramax film delivers.

Happy New Year

From First Beach, La Push, WA