3 minute read
This Little Underground
LOCAL RELEASES
It’s been almost a full year since I’ve written about Orlando no-wave standard-bearer Alien Witch. First, it’s because I wrote so much about their astonishing output in 2021, which averaged roughly an entire album per month. Second, it’s because 2022 has been somewhat fallow for this solo vehicle, with Dee Dee Crittenden shifting some focus into duo project Fabulous Weapon.
Of course, in Alien Witch terms, this relative lull has translated into four albums so far this year. Much of that material, though, has been more musical sketches rather than fully realized songs. However, the latest collection is single-mindedly cohesive, and it will pull you down into its dark rabbit hole like quicksand, slow and inexorable.
With a title that lyrically references the sketchy connection between Charles Manson and the Beach Boys, brand-new album Submission Is a Gift stays locked in a fever dream of droning deathrock over the course of 10 bloodletting tracks. From the pacing to the atmosphere, the album’s penetrating austerity is purposeful and strangely enveloping. As narcotic as it is nihilistic, this is the soundtrack of someone circling the psychic drain and beckoning you to follow.
Perhaps the album’s most salient spell is “Blood Witch” — a song that incidentally shares the name of one of my favorite fake bands (Graham Coxon’s ad hoc moniker for the soundtrack of Netflix’s I Am Not Okay With This). This is music so deathly serious that it makes most goth rock seem like Halloween LARPing.
Submission Is a Gift is available only on Bandcamp as a name-your-price download. It comes ahead of the upcoming launch of Pale Corpse Productions, Crittenden’s own DIY record label where most of their catalog will be issued, possibly along with other artists.
CONCERT PICKS THIS WEEK
Orange Blossom Revue: Unlike those mega-festivals that squeeze the depth out of the live experience with their crammed bills and manic proceedings, this annual roots music affair in nearby Lake Wales keeps the lineup tight and the pacing generous with full sets by each act. This format will pay major dividends this year since OBR has leveled up big-time with its deepest, most sterling roster to date.
Co-curated by host band the Wood Brothers, this outstanding bill features premier, alternative-leaning national names like swaggering country pistol Margo Price, modern soul savior Son Little, electrifying folk performer Langhorne Slim and homegrown indie-folk breakout Laney Jones, alongside Allison Russell, Neal Francis, Katie Pruitt, John R. Miller and Cat Ridgeway. Notably, proceeds from this event stay in the Lake Wales community to help underwrite art,
BY BAO LE-HUU
ALIEN WITCH | PHOTO BY JIM LEATHERMAN
education, and recreation programming. (3 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2, and noon Saturday, Dec. 3, Lake Wales Park, $55-$250)
Remedy Tree: This St. Augustine combo are a roots act that threads a smart needle between young and old-time. They’re a string band that manage sweet, strolling folk songs and greased-lightning bluegrass burners with equal aplomb. Most importantly, they do it without resorting to the pop cutesiness of the folkie boy bands. (8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 3, Blue Bamboo Center for the Arts, $25)
Exhumed, Hulder, Vitriol, Castrator:
This stacked heavy-metal onslaught both slays and bucks the patriarchy. Decorated California death grinders Exhumed lead the charge with their full-blast attack and maximalist gore jones, while Portland’s Vitriol will keep things breakneck with their blackened and blindingly technical death metal. Equal destruction will come via the women on the bill, from the titanic and medieval black metal of Hulder to the punishing death metal of New York’s Castrator. (7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 3, Will’s Pub, $20)
Kaonashi, ASkySoBlack, Bloom
Dream, Weak: Philadelphia’s Kaonashi are a dizzying post-hardcore whirlwind steeped in math, emo and all things diametrically opposed to easy listening. But their young supporting cast are at least as impressive. Fellow Philadelphians ASkySoBlack are a new band that deals in heavy, feeling rock that’s like Failure gone emo. Miami’s Bloom Dream wade into thicker waters with chunky shoegaze noise. Local hardcore band Weak are one of the more exciting new entrants into the area punk scene. (8 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 6, Will’s Pub, $15)
baolehuu@orlandoweekly.com orlandoweekly.com ● NOV. 30-DEC. 6, 2022 ● ORLANDO WEEKLY 25
