-=- SHGZ -=-
* Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal *
ARTIST..: Full Of Hell And Nothing
ALBUM...: When No Birds Sang
GENRE...: Indie
STYLE...: Atmospheric Sludge Metal, Screamo, Shoegaze, Doomgaze, Dream Pop, Post-Rock
YEAR....: 2023
LABEL...: Closed Casket Activities
BAND....: Full Of Hell
COUNTRY.: USA
PLACE...: Ocean City, MD
FORMED..: 2009
BAND....: Nothing
COUNTRY.: USA
PLACE...: Philadelphia, PA
FORMED..: 2010
ENCODER.: FLAC 1.3.1 -8 -V
BITRATE.: 771 kbps avg
QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / 2 channels
SOURCE..: CD
TRACKS..: 6
SIZE....: 192.51 MB
URL..: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_No_Birds_Sang
https://www.discogs.com/artist/2408502-Full-Of-Hell
https://www.discogs.com/artist/2512314-Nothing-12
https://www.stereogum.com/2243674/full-of-hell-nothing-when-no-birds-sang/reviews/album-of-the-week
https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/87939/Full-of-Hell-and-Nothing-When-No-Birds-Sang
https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/full-of-hell-nothing/when-no-birds-sang
- TRACKLIST
1 Rose Tinted World 8:11
2 Like Stars In The Firmament 5:24
3 Forever Well 4:07
4 Wild Blue 4:32
5 When No Birds Sang 5:48
6 Spend The Grace 5:47
Total Playtime: 33:49
When No Birds Sang is a collaborative studio album by American grindcore band
Full of Hell and shoegaze band Nothing. It was released on December 1, 2023,
through Closed Casket Activities.
*
Like wolves of the same pack separated at birth, outliers instinctually
recognize one another. After twisting and turning through the underground on
parallel trajectories, the separate paths of Full of Hell and Nothing collide
on the collaborative LP, When No Birds Sang (out December 1st on Closed
Casket Activities).
At this meeting point, Full of Hell-Dylan Walker [vocals], Spencer Hazard
[guitar], Dave Bland [drums], and Sam DiGristine [bass]-and Nothing's Domenic
"Nicky" Palermo [vocals, guitar] and Doyle Martin [vocals, guitar] burst out
of genre confines together with a sound that's equally dangerous and dynamic.
"Both Full of Hell and Nothing deal with the same genre-phobia," laughs
Nicky. "We've been called any style you can think of, but we're both simply
intent on making soul crushers." "We're beyond limiting ourselves to a
genre," agrees Dylan. "There aren't any rules, but there's clearly an
identity. No matter what Nothing does, I can tell it's them. We're meeting in
the middle where it's lush and beautiful, but also sad and ugly if you look
closely at it. Out of mutual respect, we just decided to go for it."
Nothing and Full of Hell initially crossed paths in the twenty-tens, sharing
the bills of shows and festivals intermittently. Dylan and Nicky kept in
touch over the years, and the collaboration naturally followed. Together,
they built a new "wall of sound" in the middle out of Full of Hell's abstract
and harsh ambience and Nothing's searing shoegaze tendencies-conjuring
extreme peaks and valleys inspired by the likes of My Bloody Valentine and
latter day Swans.
"We've never done anything like this," Nicky goes on. "The contrast is huge
as we're putting two extremes together and making them work. We're just
bridging the gap."
Ambitious in scope and concept, When No Birds Sang not only showcases the
bands' creative highs, but also some of humanity's woeful lows- and they
introduce this body of work with "Spend The Grace." An unnerving melody gives
way to cathartic growls atop a sparse beat, and guitars buzz beneath gritty
vocals only to spiral out into trudging distorted crescendo. "We put the song
together as we went through this experience," recalls Nicky. "The whole
record built itself as it moved."
"Spend The Grace" arrives today alongside a high-concept, allegorical
cinematic feature. Directed by Mike Martinez and Tyler Way, the video is
opaque in nature but tells a devastating story. The directors comment, "In
our endless quest to navigate the profound intricacies of reality, we often
encounter a significant challenge: the limitations of language. However in
those decisive moments, when individuals are confronted with the choice of
determining their own paths versus succumbing to external influences, a
remarkable opportunity can unfold. Within a fleeting instant, liberation can
arise and a being can exist in one world while inhaling the essence of
another."
Full Of Hell and Nothing notably wrote When No Birds Sang face-to-face in
Ocean City, MD and collaborated in-person as much as possible. Eventually,
they entered the studio with GRAMMY Award-winning producer Will Putney. The
atmosphere contributed to the energy of the record itself.
"I was super happy to be in a room and not just throwing shit back and forth
online," Nicky states. "I have such a hard time when I'm not staring down the
barrel of a gun. Being in a room with these guys brought everything into
reality." "It's way more productive," Dylan continues. "This was the first
time any of us had worked with Will. His resume speaks for itself, and he
definitely added a great perspective." "It's an emotional record," adds
Dylan. "Once we decided on the concept, we followed a similar approach. We're
bringing you to this edge of an empty void."
Yet it feels good because it's undeniably real.
"When you hear it, I hope you feel devastated emotionally," Dylan leaves off.
"If we're doing our job, it will freak you the f*ck out in the best way,
because you're staring at the precipice of oblivion with us."
"'Devastation' is a good reaction for me," Nicky concurs. "From
top-to-bottom, this record is highly comprehensive and super detailed. For
me, the process itself was humbling. Every once in a while- with doing music
for the better part of my life -experiences like this sometimes erase the
imposter syndrome I feel playing music, and for a moment I forget how big of
a loser I am," he grins.
*
Stereogum - Album Of The Week: Full Of Hell & Nothing When No Birds Sang
"We're bringing you to this edge of an empty void... you're staring at the
precipice of oblivion with us."
This quote comes from Dylan Walker, frontman of grindcore outfit Full Of
Hell, about When No Birds Sang, their new collaborative album with shoegaze
band Nothing's Domenic Palermo and Doyle Martin. In the past, they've played
alongside each other and designed shared merch ("Full Of Nothing" T-shirts
were evidence that the crossover was effortlessly profound). Full Of Hell,
with unrelenting uproars balled into deafening spurts, test what a person can
handle by embodying horror, while Nothing pique someone's interest in the
unsettling with eerie, reverb-drenched meanderings. Full Of Hell provide an
overload; Nothing offer only a teasing glimpse. Despite their different
sounds, they are bridged by existential terror.
On When No Birds Sang, Nothing and Full Of Hell meet in the perfect middle.
The result is as colossal and evocative as Deafheaven's Sunbather while also
proving there's more than one way to combine shoegaze and extreme metal. The
album feels split up into acts or movements (the vinyl lists side A as North
and side B as South), a division encapsulated by the triptych on the cover,
depicting a cloud in a blue sky. The six songs range from four to eight
minutes, a world of flux contained within each. The patient flow of the music
lends it a classical texture; the record plays like a sweeping, sinister
symphony, with the focus placed on the mood and atmosphere above all else.
"Forever Well" is pushed forward by floating synthesizers like wisps of
smoke, before, two-thirds of the way through, it explodes into a wall of
Walker's growls harmonized with emotive exhales from Palermo and Martin. On
"Wild Blue," the ethereal sonic palette never ignites into ruthless metal; it
remains ambient, an unexpected move from both groups. Together, they are
unrecognizable, forming a whole new beast, ferocious and fascinating.
The unspoken goal of all art is to capture a glimmer of beauty. Even when an
artist sets out to make something ugly and grotesque, the real aspiration is
to reveal the unexpected allure in what also evokes disgust. When No Birds
Sang sees Nothing and Full Of Hell experimenting with this task in new, purer
ways. The title can be interpreted as a sort of thesis statement. The phrase
invokes quietness as a sort of death.
The album is loosely based on The Falling Man, the famous Richard Drew
photograph of a man plummeting from the World Trade Center on 9/11. Because
of the angle, his body, suspended upside down, is aligned with the edge where
the North and South Towers meet, a bizarrely perfect geometry. One of the
most disturbing aspects of the piece is the straightness of his figure, the
lack of visible struggle, the silent acceptance of violently falling to one's
death. "You could always hear them hitting the ground, like a sack of cement,
a big thud," Drew said about the people jumping from the buildings. "In some
ways, it might just be the last element of control that you have," Jack
Gentul said about his late wife Alayne in the Falling Man documentary.
"Everything around you is happening and you can't stop it, but this is
something that you can do. And to be out of the smoke and the heat, and to be
out in the air, it must have felt like flying."
Like The Falling Man, When No Birds Sang molds tragedy into devastating
beauty. It stares mortality in the face, while at the same time transcending
it - an endless fall into the unknown.
-=- SHGZ -=-
-=-=-==-=-=-
Shoegaze
is a genre of alternative rock that
originated in the late 80s. The genre is very
difficult to define, and it is even more difficult to evaluate music
within it. Generally, the genre is characterized by its
shimmering vocals, reverberating guitars, and
textural distortion that create
a tranquil, opaque
feeling.
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