Receiving the Evcharist is our weekly feature where we pair choice albums with our favorite libations.  Drink from the cup of heresy.  This week’s offering: Bosse-de-Nage’s Further Still and Latitude 33 Brewing Company’s Native Trails. 

The Metal: Bosse-de-Nage’s Further Still

“Post-black metal” is a descriptor that can mean many things for many different bands.  Sometimes this means black metal that combines itself with the vast soundscapes and sludgy riffs of post-metal a la Neurosis.  Sometimes this means injecting the long-form cinematic grandeur of post-rock into its DNA.  Sometimes this means shoegaze by way of blast beats.  For the Bay Area’s Bosse-de-Nage, the “post” in their descriptor has always lent itself more to post-hardcore.  The band’s frantic rhythm section and florid lyrical content has always been more pg.99 than Paysage d’Hiver, but on Further Still, the band’s fifth full-length release, Bosse-de-Nage dig deeper into the black metal side of their sonic equation, trading longer song structures and swelling emotional content for a sound that is leaner, meaner, and more morose.  Cuts like “Crux” and “The Trench” are driven by the palpable tension between straight-ahead blasting and frantic skramz rhythms.  Couple that with the pained screams of vocalist Bryan Manning, and Further Still sounds like how I feel about three-quarters of the way through a good run; the whole album feels like its picking up speed as it goes, always on the verge of collapse at any second, yet you can’t help but just lean into it and see where it takes you.

The Booze: Latitude 33 Brewing Company‘s Native Trails

Fuck a damn calender, it’s past my birthday, which means in my head and in my heart fall has arrived.  To that end, I made a conscious effort to pick out something dark and roasty this week to celebrate, and that lead me to Latitude 33 Brewing Company and their Native Trails porter.  Native Trails is actually a rotating series of porters, and the one I was lucky enough to grab was their Black and Blue release, brewed with blackberries and blueberries.  Fruited porters are something you don’t see often, so I wasn’t quite sure what I had in store for me, and to be honest, this was one of the more challenging beers I’ve had lately.  I think going with dark fruit was a good choice to back up the chocolaty malts of a porter, but the initial sip was too much blueberry and had a pronounced bitterness in the finish.  It wasn’t until the beer got closer to room temperature that some of the more nuanced characteristics started coming out to balance things, and the more I tried of it, the more I actually ended up liking it.  Definitely for the more adventurous drinker, but for the open-minded, this is worth a shot.

I’ll catch you all next week.  Until then,

Cheers, and be good to each other,

– Vincent