Slam Death Metal Has New Life

For me, in the form of Disfiguring the Goddess' new album "Sleeper" (Big Chocolate does everything ever now I hear. Good for him.)

I'm at least a month late on getting it/talking about it, I know, but it deserves all the praise imaginable. I've had an on-and-off relationship with DTG's music. Listening to it used to be like eating a band-aid; whether you do it quickly or slowly, it's unpleasant, but there's a sort of self-confidence you feel after successfully traversing the challenge. It's like an entry-level feat into maturity, like you haven't really become a god damn man until you try to listen to Disfiguring's slam death. Like an angry, gory bar mitzvah.

Yesterday, I decided (against some better judgement) to listen to their new EP which, by now, is at least a month old. Titled "Sleeper". At seven tracks, it feels like an EP; seven is right on the cusp of distinction between a demo and a full album for me. Anything below seven, often, I won't even bother downloading, because it's like half a meal. Especially when well-established, popular bands with a few albums release little samplers of their new music, I begin to develop a seething, deep hatred that often manifests itself in the form of pulling out my dick and slapping the vocalist of said band on stage. Hard.


But I digress.


Sleeper is, in short, fucking amazing.

Their last album, Circle of Nine, was well-crafted. A lot of what I used to have of them is pre-2011 garbage, and anything older than 2011 is almost exactly that. However, it had a few flaws which were difficult to get over. Most of them were specific to certain songs on the album (Void Leacher, for example, has the most annoying chanting right in the middle. You don't need that. If I wanted to listen to gospel opera, I'd go to church, and if I wanted to do that, I'd just blow my brains out right here and now), still it had a good overall feel, certainly better than any predecessor.

Sleeper manages to bridge any gaps between my musical taste and Disfiguring the Goddess' particular brand of ear candy. On this EP, the inclusion of synth sounds is more frequent, and far more articulate, improving the sound as a whole. I should clarify, I'm not a puss-fest who only enjoys music with a techno edge. On top of that, DTG  doesn't apply the use of synth in any sense that would classify it as "techno", or "normal". Imagine someone being bludgeoned with a Chromeo keyboard that was still plugged in. Sample that and throw it into some Sleeper songs and you've got gold. Pure gold. They've managed to be just as brutal (Disfiguring's probably the reason why people use that word to describe any metal ever), but with a sound that's cleaned up; compositional majesty. They even look at breakdowns from a new angle; the entire experience is fresh and I must say I'm pleased.

Go get it.

The Theatre Bizarre

Was an interesting, fruitful (yet at the same time, mildly disappointing) experience.

The six short films, presented as an anthology and touring the Film Festival (Toronto International, to name one) circuit for the past year - much to my chagrin - finally felt the cold, judgemental embrace my eyes provide to anything that isn't made by Oren Peli or stars Jack Nicholson. The films are very difficult to describe in entirety, since they were largely separate in subject matter and ran the gamut from terrible to excellent. The nice thing about the chronology was that they were evenly spaced; one segment, if it was a particularly emotional or deep trip, would be followed by a more humourous or shocking piece. It kept the entire film light, making sure you weren't stuck in one place emotionally for too long.
I don't like spoiling movies for those who read reviews by explaining or describing them in any great, lengthy detail. I will, however, say that if you're halfway through the set and find your interest waning, hang in there, because they saved the best one of the six for last.

The setting is inconsequential, and therefore I have no problem typing it here; a woman, obsessed with an abandoned theatre across the street from her hovel of an apartment, is shocked to see the doors open and, stupidly, decides to walk in. She's then presented six stories (supposedly true, at least in that world) about six different people in six situations. Sixuations.

Some levity, since this article has been so serious up until this point.

Once again, without giving too much away, I was pleased to learn that the stories were so wide in variety. Many deal with every day issues; mortality, relationships, life after death, etc.. but they do so in very fresh and unique ways. A few of them are even twisted and disturbing, pleasantly enough to keep me around through the whole sequence (since that was what I initially had thought I signed up for).
One in particular was especially well-done to me, because the reality it was set in was very concrete. I really hate it when a main character is thrust into a world that they're unfamiliar with, full of customs and normalcies that they haven't encountered and subsequently reject. Many of these stories operated on the principle that everyone involved was accustomed to the way things were. Nobody was shocked, like, "Oh my god, you keep children as pets until they're old enough to have their own? That's awful! Everyone's awful (This is an example, and it has nothing to do with any of the films)!" Then they're exiled or tortured or something because they can't get with the program. I don't enjoy watching that. Instead, each person involved in each story was fully aware of how that world worked and was fine with it. It was a welcome change.

Of the few issues that did arise for me, the largest would have to be the pacing of the films as individuals. It was kind of awful. Firstly, there's a difference between building atmosphere and dragging out a conversation to fill a time deadline, figure it out. Sometimes I got the idea that the directors didn't sit down to judge the length of time passing between lines or actions. A couple of the films were downright boring, right up until their climax. This is a problem. If I'm at the circus, it's cool that the bear's riding a unicycle. After watching that for twenty five minutes with the only difference being whether or not he rides clockwise or counter, I begin wondering what I'm going to have for dinner tonight. Then, by the time the handstand tightrope walker comes out, I don't really care, and he has to do an extra backflip to get me interested again. I found myself wondering whether or not it would be beneficial to skip through the first scenes of some of these pieces.

That's not to say the delivery at the end of the films wasn't sharp. In fact, two or three in particular became easy favourites for me because of their endings alone. It was odd, seeing a movie and thinking "I'll never watch this again", right up until the last bit, and feeling your thoughts change to "I'll watch this entire movie three times just for that four minute part." If that's what you were going for, director sir, kudos.

In conclusion, as I said after watching The Theatre Bizarre, the movie was a decent expenditure of my time. I'm glad I watched it. I'm especially glad I hunkered down through what I didn't enjoy. Honourable mention goes to the human-puppets who introduced each film; they are successfully the creepiest dolls I've ever seen in my life.


I no longer rate movies on a 1-to-10 scale, because I find it to be very confining. Read the review and take from it what you like.