Skip to main content

Wes Borland Releases New Single Ahead of Full Length Album

     Wes Borland, Limp Bizkit’s eccentric guitarist, returns with a new solo effort, the excellent Matadors and Daughters EP. Ahead of his Astral Hand full length, due out later this year, the 20-minute, two-song EP (or single, depending on how you slice it) offers a sampling of what to expect from Astral, which will surely be an entirely soundtrack-esque offering full of experimentation.
     Borland, known for his onstage flamboyance and unconventional musicianship, has long shed Limp Bizkit’s douchebaggery and continues to explore his dynamic methods beautifully, having ventured into solo and collaborative territory with Black Light Burns, Big Dumb Face, The Damning Well, and was previously offered positions in Nine Inch Nails and A Perfect Circle. Aside from the obvious pocket-filling to fund his other work, Borland mysteriously remains in Bizkit, a 90’s nu-metal frat-bro machine whose fans are forever adolescents with backwards Yankees ballcaps and pants midway down their asses. He has gone on record saying he has a love/hate relationship with the band and after making a name for himself, it would be great to see him permanently step away. Figuratively speaking, he is seemingly the only one who’s grown up, moved out from home and pays his rent, and has an immensely respectable artistry. (He’s also an accomplished painter). Borland’s work shines far brighter than anything Bizkit has ever released (2005’s The Unquestionable Truth, Pt. 1 was the only time the band marked adventurous ambition in terms of sound and lyrical content). He sticks out like a sore thumb, often wearing elaborate stage costumes while the rest of the band looks like they’re rehearsing in their garage. He’s also a bit of a metal-centric Adrian Belew on guitar. His musical abilities are often drowned in rap-rock drone, but it’s a great thing he has other creative outlets where his true talents shine.
     Matadors and Daughters’ two songs, the self-titled single and “Arcturus”, are a bridge between Borland’s work on his 2016 electronic post-rock album Crystal Machete and his commissioned work for Moogfest, in which he’ll play a four-hour durational set sometime over the festival’s four-day residence in Durham, North Carolina, happening May 17-20. The EP’s tunes are lengthy, trippy, and phantasmagoric excursions with slow buildups that culminate with majestic heights. While the new material is slightly different and follows a more traditional song pattern, it still adheres to the same rules Borland imposed on himself for Crystal Machete: no unprocessed vocals, no outside help from anyone else, and no distorted guitar. It’s a big departure from the tired nu-metal conjuring Bizkit delivers, a real shame as the band must dumb down their music for all the jocks with a single digit IQ to understand. They have a legitimate musical chemistry, sans vocalist Fred Durst, who still whines at nearly 50. Besides Deftones, who remain highly successful and evolutionary, most other bands from the nu-metal era have long burned out and can’t even pack a club anymore. (Alien Ant Farm managed to bring in only several dozens of the venue’s 500 person capacity at a concert in Colorado Springs, and it was a free event.) Even Aaron Lewis of Staind became a full on pro-Trump republican and is making country music just to stay relevant in some capacity, yet Borland himself never resorts to desperate attention and keeps things fresh and exciting. He continuously evolves and there is no end in sight, even as a member of Limp Bizkit. Matadors and Daughters is a pleasant listen from start to finish, best heard in a dim to dark minimalist environment where you can envision the music play out and come to life all around you. This is an album for atmospheric enthusiasts and true fans of his work, not nookie chasing misfits.
photo: blabbermouth.net
 
 

 
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Grim Folk: As Grim as It Gets

     San Antonio dark country/psychobilly band The Grim Folks have been taking the San Antonio music scene by storm, albeit in their own way. Not one to mix in with the rest, The Grim Folks deliver a fresh and exciting sound in a city obsessed with metal and Mexican regional music. It’s not to say they don’t fit the bill; simply, they aren’t the typical band you would expect to come across. That, however, is a damn good thing. At home with the punk and goth crowds, The Grim Folks play macabre songs inspired from “roots” Americana full of dark humor and superstitious folklore with an undisguised energy. They aren’t exclusive to particular crowds; they have a loose and inviting vibe anyone can enjoy.      “When it comes to writing lyrics, my influence is inspired by horror movies I watched as a kid or stories of the supernatural, “said Nathan Quintanilla, the band’s vocalist and rhythm guitarist. “That enticing feeling I get when seeing or hearin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Them Are Us Too Make Amends

      The Bay Area’s euphoric dream pop duo Them Are Us Too began in 2012 with schoolmates Kennedy Ashlyn and Cash Askew playing well balanced eighties inspired synth-pop shoegaze. In 2015, they released their debut album, Remain , a gloomy tour de force to incredible acclaim. They built up a dedicated cult following, and that success hyped the anticipation for the follow-up to their big debut. Tragically in 2016, a warehouse fire claimed Askew’s life at 22 years old, putting the band’s career in uncertainty. However, through the ashes of tragedy arose a new album, Amends , the band’s second and final as TAUT (as fans call them) and it is a beautifully haunting piece of work filled with ethereal elegance and atmospherics.      Amends , as Ashlyn describes, is “a collection of songs that would have been the second Them Are Us Too record, an amendment to our catalog cut short, a final gift to family, friends, and fans.” Amends is a celeb...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine Turns 30

     The humble beginnings of Nine Inch Nails sounds like a wild story: a young dude hanging around a recording studio doing whatever odd jobs he’s paid to do, working on his debut album during down time. He makes the right connections, sells millions of records, and becomes an iconic musician and producer. The rest, as they say, is history. Such is the story of a young Trent Reznor, who worked as a janitor at Right Track Studio in Cleveland. He used his down He used his and the studio’s down time, often the very late hours of the night, to work on his industrial project’s debut album Pretty Hate Machine , an album that would be an emblematic symbol of the EDM scene, and one that set the standard for industrial music to come.      Pretty Hate Machine was released through TVT Records on October 20, 1989. It was a hard-hitting, groove-filled, danceably dark effort, and it quickly gained traction. From the animalistic, demonic bassline of aggressive opene...
Post a Comment
Read more