The Lacking Permanence

Supremely introspective and carefully arranged, this collection of songs that range from lushly orchestrated to uncomfortably angular makes for a great moody journey

The archivist’s breath misted in the freezing vault as gloved hands lifted the metal canister off the shelf. Getting to Greenland had not been trivial, driving the snowcats to Nuuk undetected had been a challenge, and breaking into the Katuaq Cultural Centre’s secret collection room, dug out of the permafrost, could be described as difficult. Now, locating the footage was close to impossible, given the hundreds of linear meters of shelving that were visible. The producer unspooled the first few feet off the reel, peering up through the film to the overhead light. The muffled sound of Persian hip-hop could be heard from the theater above. Maybe it was not so impossible.

One time, this robot arm at the plant started going haywire, flailing around, it was going to kill someone. We played it some Com Truise and it calmed right down.

After serving 11 years backing Mark E. Smith, this bands breaks out into a dark rock sound, thrilling with its edgy energy and monster riffing.

Mosh pit melodies for Daleks. Aggressive hardcore beats, with theremin, snarky bass, and chanting vocals instead of distorted guitar.

Once a Ramone always a Ramone, one supposes, but this is closer to Southern California chug-core than gritty Queens punk. Nonetheless, a fun time.

The earth rumbled into an appropriate angle of repose as the bucket wheel ground to a halt. On the ground, the sapper raised an arm to signal to the operator, sitting high above in an air-conditioned cab as disproportionately tiny as a brontosaurus brain. The sounds of Taiwanese ragtime could be heard on the earpiece now that the excavator had stopped digging into the hard Upper Peninsula soil. This machine was capable of extracting tons of copper ore in a single hour, but now it was digging for something far more valuable.

This Florida garage-rock combo provides complete party in audio format, featuring regrettable debauchery, frenzied dancing, and a desire to not have the fun ever end.

Having the word “daddy” in your band’s name is a tough bar to clear, and these guys have just the type of delta blues sleaze to make it over easy.

It’s catchy pop punk, and it’s clearly female-powered, but there’s more here than rainbow stickers, glorious hooks and riffs, and big puffy girl handwriting.