Genre descriptions throughout the vast world of music can be useful. The micro-world of metal alone has dozens, many of them segmented by hyphens or backslashes in an effort to put a little more flesh on the linguistic bones. As an enticement (or a warning) they’re better than nothing at all for fans harried by time, but they can be deceptive too, because of their limitations.
“Powerviolence”, for example, is the most common descriptor used for the music of Nashville’s Thetan. To flesh that out, you might also see references to early hardcore or even European black metal from the ’90s.
But whatever thoughts those descriptions might provoke, consider also that this duo have crossed over to work with hip-hop emcees such as Kool Keith, Ultramagnetic MC’s, and LIL B. Consider further that the opening track of Thetan‘s new album, which will be released on October 13th, includes a monologue by Tennessee rap icon Crunchy Black of Three 6 Mafia.
Then contemplate the fact that the album also includes cello performances by Leslie Fox-Humphreys (a.k.a. Americana/folk soloist The Bandit Queen Of Sorrows), violin performances by Ashley Mae of Lost Dog Street Band, and the sounds of a harmonica being played by Benjamin Tod of the Lost Dog Street Band.
And wait ’til you find out who appears and what happens in the album’s closing track.
But it’s not just the guests whose contributions make Grand Ole Agony (that’s the album’s name) such an unorthodox form of powerviolence and hardcore. The core credit for that goes to the Thetan duo of Chad L’Eplattenier (drums, theremin), and Dan Emery (bass, theremin, vocals, mountain dulcimer). (Did you notice “theremin” and “mountain dulcimer” in those parentheticals?)
What they’ve done across the album’s ten tracks is dazzling in unexpected ways, including the ways in which Thetan mangle, mutilate, and blow apart their listeners’ minds. “Powerviolence” isn’t a wrong label to use, it just leaves a whole lot un-said.
The sensory and emotional assaults also leave a lot un-said, even when the lyrics are understood. There’s a story behind what inspired and produced every one of these songs, and the stories here happen to be just as interesting, and often just as devastating, as what you hear.
Which is why we’re not only premiering Grand Ole Agony in full today, but also including Dan Emery‘s track-by-track commentary. Trust us, you won’t want to skip that. You’ll find all of it at the bottom of this page, but we’ll include the first part of it now:
First, I feel that it is important to discuss the title of the album. Grand Ole Agony is an obvious take on Grand Ole Opry. We chose this name because, being Nashvillians and myself having a job in the music industry, we are up close and personal with the inner workings of the big machine, and its guts are as disgusting as any bloated roadside carcass strewn along I-40.
I absolutely despise what the industry stands for and how it manipulates and feeds off of young aspiring artists, while churning out an endless succession of automated robotic “commercial endeavors”. Though this opinion on big business music is nothing new, being as close to it as I am on a daily basis, I will never miss an opportunity to be cynical in its face. With that said, let’s deconstruct this compacted shitshow….
Honestly, what you’ve already read ought to be enough of a lure for most aficionados of unorthodox sonic upheavals to at least give this album a bite, without us dropping more worm-impaling lures into your waters. But what are we supposed to do with all these wriggling worms?
Maybe we should start by saying that you shouldn’t be misled by the preceding lures, because the hooks beneath them are often vicious, the kind that gut the catch wide open. That first song, “God’s America“, does include a strident monologue by Crunchy Black over the whine of feedback, but then it becomes a ruinous barrage of mind-mangling abrasion, punishing percussion, and throat-lacerating screams.
And then things get as bleak as a sucking chest wound in the opening moments of “Blackened Inside” before hammering hell breaks lose. Sounds of derangement quiver within the onslaught, and after another episode of uber-destructive pounding the music becomes… psychedelic and hallucinatory (and we’re talking about hallucinations of the nightmare variety).
“Blackened Inside” isn’t the only time on the album where it might feel like someone slipped you some lysergic acid while you were distracted by the sandblasting of your flesh and the fracturing of your bones. It happens again in “White Sheets Blowing In the Breeze“, along with lots of electrifying rhythm-section interplay. lots of tempo shifts, the radioactive sizzle of corrosive riffing which will become cancer one day, and screaming so intense that it seems likely to have left the mic sprayed with blood.
photo by Riley Johnson
It isn’t until “Gutted” that the string section make a noticeable appearance, an appearance that’s as heart-breaking as the surrounding sensations are destructive and grim.
And more surprises await, including the folk picking and harmonica melody in “Sad Endings And A Feeling Of Disappointment“, a song recorded outside at night beneath a magnolia tree with swarming mosquitos and a passing helicopter for company — an interlude that makes the sonic demolition job which follows it (“Coup de Grace“) even more startling (though it also bruises the soul before it’s done).
We also ought to mention “Note to Self“, and not only because it’s one of the album’s full-throttle rampages that segues into mind-bending territory (and from thence into sounds of shattering despair), but also because it’s the subject of a harrowing recent video. In Emery‘s words, it’s “about that voice that lives in your head that tells you that you’re garbage”.
Earlier we attempted to titillate you about the album’s closing track, “Eulogy“. Dan Emery‘s extensive commentary about it down below is especially worth reading. By way of further titillation, it’s more than 14 minutes long and it includes significant contributions by Dave Brenner from the noise/industrial project Gridfailure and by world-renowned jazz trumpeter Mac Gollehon, coupled with Emery bowing an upright bass… plus theremin… plus cello and violin…
And it really doesn’t sound like anything else on the album, though for a while it does sound like what its title portends. You should also know, however, that (as Dan Emery explains) “the lyrics concern a neutron star, and the once-life bearing planets that orbited it. It’s about eternal stillness and all planetary existence being forgotten”. The music is haunting and entrancing, but you may also get visions of all that life being brutally extinguished.
Now with all the lures in the water with all their wriggling passengers, we’ll leave you to all the ruinous and remarkable sounds.
Grand Ole Agony was recorded by Thetan, with all post-production including mixing, mastering, and an animated etching on the vinyl version of the album handled by Dan Emery at Black Matter Mastering. The album is completed with cover art by Kristen Ferrell and photography by Ericka Poore and Joseph Wyman.
Thetan will release Grand Ole Agony on Etched LP, CD, and digital platforms through Dan Emery’s own Anti-Corporate Music this Friday, October 13th. You’ll find preorder options via the links below.
And don’t forget about the track-by-track commentary.
PRE-ORDER:
https://thetan.bandcamp.com/album/grand-ole-agony
https://anticorpmusic.com/search?q=thetan
THETAN:
https://www.instagram.com/thetan_hc
https://thetan.bandcamp.com
THETAN Grand Ole Agony – Track-By-Track
First, I feel that it is important to discuss the title of the album. Grand Ole Agony is an obvious take on Grand Ole Opry. We chose this name because, being Nashvillians and myself having a job in the music industry, we are up close and personal with the inner workings of the big machine, and its guts are as disgusting as any bloated roadside carcass strewn along I-40.
I absolutely despise what the industry stands for and how it manipulates and feeds off of young aspiring artists, while churning out an endless succession of automated robotic “commercial endeavors”. Though this opinion on big business music is nothing new, being as close to it as I am on a daily basis, I will never miss an opportunity to be cynical in its face. With that said, let’s deconstruct this compacted shitshow.
1. God’s America (feat. Crunchy Black)
God’s America is about the national pastime of hating other cultures and placing ourselves above all human life. I wanted the lyrics of this song to be as direct as possible, and as a result they contain one of my favorite lines that I’ve ever written, “I am the shitstained star spangled sheets, a wholesale buyout with blood on the receipt”. We decided to start the album off with this track because it has the most explosive beginning and is a clear nod to how we sound live. The intro monologue was delivered by Crunchy Black of Three 6 Mafia. Three 6 has been one of my favorite music groups since I was a teenager. Aside from also being from Tennessee, I think we share a similar type of energy. Originally, I wanted to have 2 monologues on this album. One by Crunchy Black and another from New Jack, the wrestler from ECW back in the 90s. Unfortunately, New Jack passed away before we could get started on the album. I like to imagine he would have been into the idea, and I’m sure whatever he said would have been golden.
2. Blackened Inside
Most of the music for this song was written during the 2020 Covid lockdown. A lot of ideas were mulled over during that period that made their way onto this release, as we didn’t really know when we would ever get to be able to record or play out again. It was actually a really productive time, given the circumstances. Lyrically this song is about indifference in the face of adversity. If you get kicked around enough, you eventually stop reacting to it. Apathy is definitely not a glamorous thing, but it is a good defense mechanism in some situations.
3. White Sheets Blowing In The Breeze
I was named after my uncle. He was a piece of shit and a high-ranking member in the KKK. His claim to fame was helping some right wing preacher organize a book burning of any book that mentioned homosexuality at some library. He was in charge of providing security. He then apparently stabbed the preacher (who had been housing him) with a screwdriver and robbed him. I first met him when he got out of prison for this, and he wasted no time trying to indoctrinate me into living his way of life. The last line of this song was what he would always say when he was irritated with someone.
4. Bless Your Heart
The music for this song was the first that had been written for the album. We had actually been playing a version of it before the world ate shit in 2020. Lyrically it is about buying into whatever is noteworthy in the media. When I wrote the lyrics, I was in a hotel room in Guadalajara Mexico and pretty much the ONLY thing on a constant cycle on the TV was Chris Rock getting slapped by Will Smith. It was so mind numbingly repetitive, but it was all anyone could talk about. Even on social media, it was everything. It’s like we were being spoon fed bullshit, and we were just gobbling it up by the pound.
5. Gutted
In 2021 we had to put down our dog that we had for the past 16 years. It was an incredibly hard time, but as a family it brought us all really close. This song is my dedication to her. May she live on forever in these boxes upon boxes of records that fill my house like cholesterol lining American arteries. The string players on this song are Leslie Fox-Humphreys and Ashley Mae. When we wrote this song, I wrote a long simple intro so that we could have a sonic break in the live show. If you’ve ever seen us live, you most likely noticed that we don’t really pause between songs. Instead, we either slow down for certain parts or songs, or we have one instrument drop out. So, the intro was a utilitarian move. When we recorded it, it felt bare. I almost didn’t even want to put it on the album because I felt that the intro was just TOO bare. I was in a session, recording Leslie Fox-Humphreys’ project The Bandit Queen Of Sorrows, which is a one woman dark folk act, and at the end of day 3, she brought in a cello and just started ripping classical pieces to warm up. My jaw was on the fucking floor, because I knew that was the missing piece. She was more than happy to contribute and laid the groundwork for the string accompaniment. I had been working closely with Lost Dog Street Band during this time, so asking Ashley Mae to add classical style violin over the cello was a no brainer, and as a result, this song became one of my favorites.
6. Sad Endings And A Feeling Of Disappointment
I recorded this as a live take, in the same way that I engineer the Magnolia Sessions recordings, probably a year or so before we would start the recording of the rest of the album. For those unaware of the Magnolia Sessions, it is a live recording session, performed outside under a giant magnolia tree, during the late summer and early fall months in Nashville. There are a lot of insects, and nothing is overdubbed. I use a binaural microphone to capture the atmosphere as well as close mics on the instruments. Look up the name Magnolia Sessions on whatever streaming platform you listen to, and you’ll find about 20 or so albums that I recorded like this. Anyway, I was out there for maybe an hour or so in the middle of the night getting eaten fucking alive by mosquitos and playing this piece. Every take I did, there was just something small I didn’t like about it. The way I’d strum a chord on this one, the way I’d pluck a note in the finger picking section of another one. As I was playing this take, a helicopter started flying overhead, and I KNEW this take had to be the one, because you can’t plan for that kind of atmosphere, and surprisingly it was the best take of the night.
7. Coup De Grace
This is a song about acceptance. Accepting that things won’t always work out how you want. That sometimes they will fail miserably. It’s about taking that failure in stride and doing what you want to do anyway without feeling encumbered by your surroundings or circumstances. For instance, I accept that the majority of people will listen to this album on some dumb streaming platform that benefits me in no real way, despite the fact that we have really fucking handsome looking LPs, and we decided to go through with the manufacturing of said records because fuck it, why not.
8. Culo
I wrote this song about a boss that I used to have at an old job. I think it’s a relatable thing that most everyone can apply to someone in their life somewhere. People in power have a tendency to let it get all the way to their head until you despise them. After writing this song, I can think of maybe half a dozen people in my life that this song fits perfectly. Hopefully you all can do that too. Fuck those people.
9. Note To Self
Note to self is about that voice that lives in your head that tells you that you’re garbage. The voice that casts you into perpetual self-doubt and will eventually destroy you if given enough space to do so. Some people have an easy time telling that voice to shut the fuck up. Others can’t seem to get the voice lower than a scream ringing through their heads eternally. Musically this is one of my favorite songs of ours from the past few years. I originally thought about drawing the ending out way longer than it is on this recording, and really just deconstructing the arrangement piece by piece, until all that was left were just a couple elements meandering about, but the song just didn’t take that form. However, I did get to explore that deconstructed minimalism on…
10. Eulogy
If you have listened this far into the album, then you know that this song is not like the others. This song is like no other song that we have ever written. This was obviously the intention; however this song was never even written for the album, and it wasn’t until it really came together that it was actually considered to be on the album.
The concept for the song started out as Chad and I taking a break during the drum tracks for the rest of the album. We decided to just improvise something mid-tempo. We do this often while recording stuff for the hip hop collabs that we’ve done. I came up with a basic riff and we just jammed on it. After a while a loose idea came together, and we decided to hit record. That’s how the basic structure of the 1st section of the song came together. After more tracking for the rest of the album, we did the same thing, and came up with the 3rd section.
At this point these were just fuckaround parts that we were going to mine through for ideas. As the album progressed, I came up with ideas for how these could be part of a bigger idea, and that’s about when I started to get a bit obsessive with it. I probably spent as much time on the production of this one track as I did the rest of the album combined. I wanted to bridge the 2 parts together and felt that a really amorphous fucked up section would be perfect.
I asked Dave Brenner whose noise/industrial project Gridfailure is absolutely menacing and would fit the vibe perfectly, and he was into it. He asked Mac Gollehon, who is a world-renowned jazz trumpeter that’s played with fucking David Bowie among way too many more to list if he would play on it as well, and together Dave and Mac set the framework for the middle part on this piece. I play a bowed upright bass and theremin during this section, and Mac plays the trumpet, but literally everything else is Dave. The shrieking and weird horror movie sounding stuff is all him. Again, we enlisted Leslie Fox-Humphreys and Ashley Mae to lay the string section for this track.
The last collaborator on this song is Benjamin Tod, also of Lost Dog Street Band, who laid the harmonica part towards the end of this song. When we recorded his part, neither of us were optimistic that it would make the cut. It just seemed conceptually odd, but we decided to feel it out and see what it actually sounds like in place. Surprisingly it added a nice dimension that I don’t think I expected.
I cannot understate how much the guest contributors impacted this song. Without their visions, I doubt it would have ever been heard by anyone.
Lyrically, this song is about a theme that always interests me. Space. More specifically, this song is about a neutron star, and the once-life bearing planets that orbited it. It’s about eternal stillness and all planetary existence being forgotten. When I was young, I used to explore abandoned buildings, and my favorite ones were the ones that appeared as if everyone just left one day and never came back. Things left in their resting place for years like a time capsule. Mirrors hanging on walls to never see a human reflection again. This song is about that feeling, except on a much much larger scale.