Welcome to Part 12 of this ever-expanding list. More often that not, I’ve had some kind of organizing principle for the songs collected in previous installments, even if it’s been nothing more than the letters which begin the bands’ names.
Today I don’t have any kind of thematic or stylistic grouping. It’s just three songs I really enjoyed from last year and thought should be on this list.
(Andy Synn embraces the darkness with the new album from Sacramento’s Sky Pig)
It wasn’t meant to be like this…
No, really, it wasn’t. It was DGR who originally put out the call for the promo for this album but, due to a series of increasingly embarrassing blunders and comedic mix-ups behind the scenes it’s me who’s ended up writing about it.
But I’m glad it did, because otherwise I might not have taken the time to properly appreciate just how good this album is.
Time has become ill-defined for me as for everyone else this year, but I do realize that it’s not still Christmas Day. I just couldn’t get Part 2 of this round-up finished in time to post it yesterday before having a virtual get-together with close family members. Probably just as well, because stacking this much new music on top of what was in Part 1 might have drowned you, especially on top of another installment of DGR’s mountainous year-end list, which (by the way) ended today without caving in the site’s foundations, though that was a risk that left me in a cold sweat all week.
For Part 2 I’m starting with an album and then moving onto a couple of EPs and a couple of singles.
CASAVIEJA (Guatemala)
When Rennie (starkweather) first urged me to listen to this band a week ago, their new second album had just come out. He said they were from “South of the Border, South of Heaven”, but I didn’t realize until later that they hail from Guatemala. Without intending to be condescending, that’s not a nation that spawns typhoon waves of extreme metal bands, a fact that just made me more eager to hear them. Continue reading »