Artists-On-Albums: AOA#9 (High Places’ Rob Barber on Cause Of Death)

Rob Barber (High Places) on…

Obituary’s Cause Of Death (Roadrunner Records, 1990)

Obituary - Cause Of Death

As a little kid, I was always attracted to creepy weird elements in pop music that I would hear on the radio. The eerie banshee backing vocals in “Give Me The Night” by George Benson, the really awkward horny sounds underneath the surface of “Wild Boys” by Duran Duran, and the movie Gremlins made “Do You Hear What I Hear” gave me a(n enjoyable) panic attack every time I heard it, as I assumed some weird mohawked lizard Ray Harryhausen creature was going to jump out of the Xmas tree and tear my face apart. When I was a teen in the late-‘80s, I discovered the un-parent friendly music that would shape my musical development. Punk, hardcore, hip hop and a new style of metal (as conventional metal was becoming ‘corny’ upon the discovery of much more out-there sub genres) called death metal.

I first heard Celtic Frost after checking them out based on a T-shirt worn by NY hardcore band Sheer Terror’s guitarist Alan Blake. The logo was super gnarly, so I checked it out.  To Mega Thereion floored me, as it was so (cartoonishly) brutal and heavy and at the same time made me die of laughter because of the armour and swords wardrobe and the Giger Satanic serpent wearing a top hat using Christ on the cross as a sling-shot, which for some reason made me think of Dennis The Menace. I still think the record is the best death/black metal record of all time. But perhaps mostly out of timing and respect for how early it was (1985).

So imagine my surprise when 1990 roles around and just as I think you couldn’t make a more over the top and terrifyingly extreme record, I hear a record in my friend’s car by a band from Tampa Florida, of all places, called Obituary. Celtic Frost was from Switzerland.  Tampa is where the Philadelphia Phillies have spring training and is sorta near Disney World, and well, this is before I realized how twisted and dark Florida really is culturally. Most people think of tropical beach resorts, but frankly, if you have spent any time there, than you know that just going a mile or so inland, you have a wasteland of strip clubs, flea markets that sell cigarettes swept up off of the factory floor, overstock sport socks and nunchucks, meth houses, the high per capita rate of serial killers, and one of the most under-planned undeveloped Eric Estrada-endorsed suburban sprawls in the entire US. So perhaps this explains a lot as to why Obituary is from there, as well as the majority of the US death metal scene.

The link to Celtic Frost is obvious, as they cover “Circle Of The Tyrants” from To Mega Thereion on Cause Of Death, but there are artistic reasons that this record stands the test of time, and transcends genre for me. John Tardy’s un-effected and un-processed vocals rival the intensity and control of Yma Sumac or Diamanda Galás; guitars that are so thick and wide and clumsy that it comes across like 7 copies of “Smoke On The Water” playing at the same time slowed down to 16rpm; and typewriter kick drums. The guitar solos have a really slow liquid double-tracked delay that has the same creepy quality of that bowed saw melody in the original ‘60s Star Trek theme. All that and the amazing ambient soundscape passages, that when turned up super loud and you’re home alone will convince you Tibor Takács’ The Gate has formed in the backyard. I still listen to this album at least once a week; it still gives me chills; it still gives me the urge to head-butt plate glass until it shatters: and it still drives Mary crazy, because I always put it on really loud when I am doing late-night drives on tour, when she is trying to sleep. I would even say the extremeness of this record gives it an almost psychedelically-violent quality. But this is also the kind of music where it is socially acceptable to stage-dive feet first.

Notes On The Artist:

High Places

Rob Barber (pictured left) is one half of the now LA-based duo High Places, alongside Mary Pearson (pictured right).  The erstwhile Brooklyn-dwellers’ new and rightfully-lauded second album – High Places vs. Mankind – is readily available on Thrill Jockey.  Its two full-length predecessors - 2008’s eponymous debut LP and the numerically anointed early-singles compilation 03/07–09/07 – are also available on Thrill Jockey.  Recently, the twosome also shared one side of a 12” with Soft Circle on PPM Records.  Another 12” - featuring last year’s sublime digital-only “I Was Born” single, the previously unreleased “Can’t Feel Nothing” and two remixes – is due for limited release on Thrill Jockey sometime in May.

www.myspace.com/hellohighplaces

“Can’t Feel Nothing (remix)” by High Places

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