I’ve been so immersed in the metal world lately that sometimes I forget that I like other music. I especially forget that weird thrill of going mostly blind into a show. Sure, I may not know an opener or two, but it’s pretty rare for me to cover a band I haven’t listened to beforehand. It’s both exciting and nerve-wracking and, let’s face it, no one wants to be disappointed. Luckily for me, I at least knew of the other music projects of the artists on the night’s lineup, but even knowing that, did not prepare me for what I was about to experience.
The garage-doom record you always wanted, but were too afraid to ask for
Album cover for Crystal Fairy’s self-titled debut
If 2015 and 2016 were any indication, 2017 has certainly shows that supergroups are coming back to the forefront in a big way. While this is nothing new in the music scene, it has become more apparent, recently, that supergroups pose a necessity for most musicians, to escape redundancy and to experiment with new sounds. In the early 2000s, many big collaborative albums were produced, but were always under the guise of guest vocalist and musicians. It left a manufactured tone about the record, one that felt as though the labels were just trying to squeeze dime after dime out of shifting paradigms in musical taste. A true supergroup combines all the best attributes and skills of the players to create something fresh and exciting, for fans and musicians alike. It doesn’t always work, of course; Giraffe Tongue Orchestra is an excellent example of an extremely talented group of musicians whose full length album left far too much to be desired. The Dead Weather, on the other hand (featuring Jack White, Allison Mossheart [The Kills], Dan Fertita [Queens of the Stone Age], and Jack Lawrence [City and Colour, The Raconteurs]) have made a number of albums that continue to grab people in one direction or another. So when it was announced that King Buzzo and Dale Crover (Melvins), Teri Gender Bender (Le Butcherettes), and Omar Rodríguez-López (Mars Volta, At The Drive-In) were joining forces to create Crystal Fairy, the prospect was definitely a positive attention grabber.
