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Drastic measures must be taken to ensure that the word hip in hip-hop remains legit and to avoid being dubbed unhip-hop. Unfortunately, due to the fact America is still obsessed with scaring the shit out of their dimwitted Christian grandmothers who, as children, had been so frightened by black people they often had nightmares about Buckwheat breaking into their homes and raping them. And now, just hearing any album featuring a Negro using profanity and talking about puttin’ a cap somebody’s ass, these parents will swear their child is possessed by the demon if he/she is listening to this. As a result, rap music can be loaded with clichés about the hood and can be recorded over “the tape that has the bass” and still bring in the easy money. Who wouldn’t easy cash or be considered the next Anti-Christ?

Hailing from Iceland, Ghostigital has gone to extreme measures into taking an entirely new direction for not only hip-hop, but music entirely. Consisting of ex-Sugarcube Einar Örn on vocals, multi-instrumentalist Curver, and a wide range of guests ranging from Dälek to The Fall’s Mark E. Smith, In Cod We Trust is perhaps the most experimental, uncompromising, noisiest, most insane form of music ever recorded.

While keeping hip-hop as its base for vocal structure, musically the album features elements of extreme noise, free-jazz/fusion, electronics, IDM, and experimental punk/hardcore. Ghostigital sounds nothing at all like any other rap artist that has ever cut an album. Einar Örn has a very distinct quality to him- imagine Curly from The Three Stooges infected with rage rapping with a deep Icelandic accent. Couple those vocals with guests who normally sound like hardcore street rappers and wicked sounds such as thrashing horns (featured on the album’s best song, “Black Sand” w/ Dälek); this is a record that can get under one’s skin. Fuck granny and the subdivision dwellers trying to scare the wig off of her, this record is for adventurous ears only.

Let us now salute a few others who, in these recent times, passed up the easy cash and went to the extreme measures to rap music not only hip, but a legitimate style of great music. Artists like Cannibal Ox, The Roots, Jurassic 5, El-P, MF Doom, Quasimoto, Dälek, Dizzee Rascal, and most members of The Wu-Tang Clan have kept rap music great. And may the styles of Ghostigital pave the way for new generations. 9.5/10

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There’s nothing better than listening to an instantly accessible album- a record that can be enjoyed during all hours of the days for whatever purpose, an instantly familiar album - a record that sounds as if you’ve been listening to it your whole life, and can not come up with an answer to either of the two million dollar questions:

1. 1. What do they sound like it?
2. 2. Who would you compare them to?

Regarding Helvetia , the answer to both questions is a shrug, and “I don’t know.”  (I personally will put them in the same category with The Sea and Cake even though they sound nothing alike- it’s the only band I’ve had this experience with. There is also a very slight resemblance to immensely underrated The Helio Sequence.)

Helvetia could be considered a bit eccentric or quirky, but not ironic or a joke band. While others have tossed around terms such as progressive or psychedelic, nobody has been able to accurately pinpoint this sound and often confess that the album is incomparable.

For some reason, this record seems nostalgic. It seems as if it could be played in a movie that features trippy flashbacks to strange things that have happened in the past. Perhaps a perfect soundtrack for certain scenes in David Lynch movies.

The Clever North Wind features the best drumming of any album this year and drummer Caanan Amber should be way more recognized and on the cover of magazines such as Modern Drummer.

The latter portion of the album is not only better than the first half (which alone is a statement considering the first half is better than 95% of what’s out there), it’s borderline flawless. The very last song, The Drowning End, is the best song on the album and maybe even the best song of the entire year- it’s on the shortlist of great songs for the entire decade.

Also noteworthy, Helvetia is from Seattle, two of their members formerly played for the band Duster, and toured this year with Built to Spill- another band they could somewhat be compared to in certain regards.  9.5/10

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Let’s face it, overly happy music sucks. In fact, sugary-sweet/cheesy-ass music more than likely causes more harmful behavior than anything. There is plenty good reason why a record number of cars were driven over cliffs when The Bay City Rollers were dominating the charts. Not only is cheerful music bad on its own, but in a lackadaisical attempt to get people to conform to foolish government/religious/capitalistic ideologies, cheesy/lame music constantly litters mainstream airwaves in an attempt to transform society into a conglomerate of complacent idiots; bad music blends well with public service announcements, fear-inducing news, and advertisements for bad products. And thanks to a select few corporations monopolizing the media, this tactic has worked brilliantly.

As a result, many others have become miserable. These people hate everybody; they hate the radio, hate reality shows, hate re-makes of bad movies, hate tabloid magazines, hate the government, the war, bad drivers, and everything else that comprises what is now known as “American society”. In the midst of despising 95% of popular culture, there is a sudden attraction to art that explores the darker side of life and often focuses its’ attention on those who are most at odds with what society is trying to dictate- often laced with heavy doses of sex, drugs, violence, obscenity, political righteousness, etc.

The name Candy Bars suggests that they may be a sugary pop band who appeals to people in the first paragraph- just like Joy Division suggests their music may represent joy and fruitfulness- just like The Jesus & Mary Chain suggests maybe they could be appealing to gleeful Christians. However, Candy Bars has the definitive sound people from paragraph two live for. Whereas Joy Division and The Jesus and Mary Chain represent their own categories of transgressional music (and rightly so because they are possibly the two best bands in history), Candy Bars is on target to create the next genre of transgressional bands.

Not Goth like Joy Division, nor noisy like The Jesus and Mary Chain, Candy Bars music is often acoustic-based that perfectly fluctuates from beautiful to nightmarish; these guys are very well-trained on their instruments and play a wide assortment of them. The instruments are tuned perfectly with one another that when combined (particularly the dark, fierce strums of the violin) create the perfect sound that defines neurotic-depressive-insomniacs. Furthermore, the vocals are hushed, almost whispered, yet up front and easily heard and understood… They are sung with angst, with a sneer, but as if they moved passed the initial rage and allowed discontentment to linger too far. Do not mistake this for an ambient sound, or post-rock, or something like A Silver Mt. Zion…these songs have catchy beats, choruses, and meaningful song structures. 

Simply put, Candy Bars belongs in the same category as Joy Division and The Jesus and Mary Chain, but explores new territory that neither of them ever attempted.  9.5/10 (potentially a 10 in a few years; the song Enough to Choke a Cold Air is a classic already)

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