Viva La Vinyl
Panopticon - Kentucky (10th Anniversary Reissue)
It’s a Labor Day Viva La Vinyl special!
I’m not deep into the Panopticon catalogue. But I have tried out a couple of their more recent albums as they came out in the last couple years, and I’ve liked them.
I’m not one hundred percent sold on “Cookie Monster” vocals in metal — I can’t help it if I like to understand lyrics without having to read them — but sometimes they work for me. And this album does have some actual singing in it as well...
There are instrumental tracks and also full-blown bluegrass song on this album mixed in with the head-banging black metal that leaves you trying to catch your breath in those moments of respite. Banjos, flutes, I think bird noises too — this is an album of contrasts and dichotomies that illustrate the battle the South lost with itself that I mentioned in my last newsletter1.
There’s an electrical surge I get in the Dork Region of my brain when there’s something — music, movie, TV show — that is awesome and is triggering a primal engagement reflex, but then there is something with meaning behind it. It’s not being propped up with dollar bills and marketing like a paper tiger. There’s a solid stone (or metal?) foundation, that paradoxically, you can dig into to see intricasies and hidden marvels.
A perfect soundtrack for this historic “Hot Labor Summer” that hopefully bears fruit, and continues to nourish workers everywhere.
-bcp
Panopticon - Kentucky [Apple Music]
And listening to this album while I was writing it is probably why.