Algebra Suicide was an oddball, avant-pop project from the mid-'80s, whose first album actually landed on the legendary noise label RRRecords; but the DIY ethos of Algebra Suicide was clearly an anomaly even for RRR! This outfit was a Chicago-based, husband/wife duo of Lydia Tomkiw and Don Hedeker, with the former being the lyricist and the latter the engineer / songwriter / guitarist. Musically, Algebra Suicide was incredibly primitive with lots of space around the drum machine, synth, bass, and guitars all of which would lend towards a Young Marble Giants reference, with a fragile naivete to these machined click tracks and the chicken-scratch guitars. But on first exposure to Algebra Suicide, you'll quickly realize that it's all about Lydia. Her recitations are a cross between Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, and Karen Finley delivered in a coy monotone all with a very Midwestern accent, ruminating on death, modern love, clever-as-fuck malaise, urban boredom, and misrecognized mythologies. The band received a considerable amount of press by the late '80s through airplay on WFMU (where else, of course?) and some choice reviews in the Trouser Press guide, but by the early '90s their marriage faltered and the band collapsed. Feminine Squared is a collection of works from all of their albums as well as a compilation track or two. Dark Entries has issued this album with a booklet filled with articles, interviews, and reviews from back in the day as well as a live dvd from a performance in Chicago from 1984.
A vibrant mix of early Serge Gainsbourg, Burt Bacharach, Ennio Morricone and Carl Stalling, Augusto Alguero was a Spanish composer for film and televison and this two disc survey is an incredible journey of his best output from 1968-1971. From space age bachelor pad music to ye ye pop with big lush orchestrations and swinging tunes. GROOOOOVY, baby!
One of two new releases from local label Time Released Sound, this one from Canadian songstress/soundscaper Lyndsie Alguire, who we had never heard or heard of before, and who apparently used to traffic in a sound more rooted in piano/vocal interplay. But the sonics here however are much more suited to TRS's aesthetic of field recording flecked cinematic ambience, with Alguire weaving a lush landscape of collaged sound, the vibe reminiscent in fact of Nurse With Wound's prettier moments at times, but exploring a sound much more tranquil and lovely at others, with her piano still the focus. After a brief opening track of swirling atmospheres and slow shifting layers, ominous rumbles and blurred soft focus psychedelic shimmer, the first song proper unfurls, lyrical lovely piano, set on a bed of processed voices, manipulated field recordings, all smeared into a dreamlike haze. But Alguire has more up her sleeve, the sound slowly shifting into something that sound much more 4AD or Projekt, a sort of gauzey shoegaze, driven by programmed beats, and ethereal vocals, all wreathed around her melancholic piano. The record finishes with the epic 10+ minute "All Possible Stories", a dense collages drift, sample voices and layered field recordings woven into a softly undulating field of warm whirring chordal thrum, the piano here washed out into hazy clouds of color, the whole thing a haunting, filmic, dreamlike drift. So lovely.
And as always, Time Released Sound has pulled out all the stops, no standard version on this one, just the pricey special art edition, a sealed printed envelope encloses a folded foot long accordion like insert, made from a hundred year old educational flash card, mounted with 8 reproductions of polaroid prints of the rather attractive artist mostly nude, the insert printed with sentence fragments, the whole thing as mysterious as the music it contains. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!
We can always count on Smithsonian Folkways to bring us amazing reissues from decades past (Elizabeth Cotten, Roscoe Holcomb, Leadbelly, and of course countless compilations from all over the world). But it's always such a nice surprise when they release something that is actually contemporary. Such is the case with this outing by Rahim Alhaj. Born in Baghdad, Alhaj started playing and studying the oud when he was just 9 years old and began giving concerts as an early teen. A student of Muni Bashir (we hope you checked out his amazing album that we listed last year!), Alhaj is a master of the oud whose skills are undeniable. The record has a a kind of solemn strength that makes it the perfect thing to listen to when you want everything else in the world to fade away so just these sounds can surround and envelop you. Alhaj is able to conjure sounds from the oud that manage to be both lovely and arresting. With percussion accompaniment courtesy of Souhail Kaspar this record reminds us of the rich musical heritage of a land that is too often only thought of in terms of war and despair. So nice.
Remastered 1972 studio recording of duets by Rashied Ali (drums and percussion) and Frank Lowe (tenor sax, japanese flute & percussion.)
Free jazz drum legend Rashied Ali (who recorded "Intersellar Space" with John Coltrane) teamed up with brilliant violinist/composer LeRoy Jenkins for this 1975 recording, now reissued as part of the Knitting Factory's "Survival Series". Extensive liner notes by jazz writer Stanley Crouch. Lovely, mesmerizing duets.
Remastered 1973 studio recording featuring Coltrane drum alum Rashied Ali accompanied by James "Blood" Ulmer on guitar, Bob Ralston on tenor saxophone, Earl Cross on trumpet and John Dana on bass.
As the title states, this cd is a collection of Alias remixes! Over the years along with his own compositions, Alias (alias Brendon Whitney) has also meticulously sliced, diced and craftily reassembled tunes by the varied likes of LaliPuna, Lucky Pierre, John Vanderslice, Sixtoo, 13 & God, Boy In Static and Giardini Di Miro among others. Processing their dream-tronica, hip hop and indie pop originals in richly contrasting shades, he brings bassy funkiness to the breezily poppy, washy atmospheres to the cleaner beats, and defined melody to the more abstract tracks. Came out last year, but just as nice now.
Nice little instrumental gem from Anticon soundsmith Alias, who's finally taking his lo-fi hip-hopscapes up a notch and giving DJ Shadow a run for his money. The sound here is moody, dark, gritty and cinematic, with loping downtempo beats, hazy sepia-toned ambience, and a dreamy, muted funkiness. Alias still keeps some of that Anticon under-produced weirdness intact, but manages to weave a thick sonic web that should appeal to Shadow fans as well as folks that dig Boards Of Canada and all sorts of dreamy/dreary electronica.
People tuning into this new Alias, looking for another dose of that Anticon off kilter whine-y avant hip hop we all love so much might be a little disappointed. Hopefully not to much though, as Alias has taken the Anticon sound to a whole new level. Other Anticon members have dabbled outside of hip hop with fairly dismal results, mostly of the tepid bedroom indie rock variety. This Alias record is something else entirely. Muted sounds like it could have just as easily been released on Morr Music or French electro-shoegaze-pop label Gooom, a gorgeously lush melange of chopped, loping beats, dreamy instrumental rhythmic workouts and glitchy avant pop. Think Massive Attack meets the Notwist. In fact Markus Acher from the Notwist sings on one song that sounds like it came straight off the Notwist's genius Neon Golden album. And actually, Neon Golden is probably the record that comes to mind most when listening to Muted. Imagine a less techno, more beat heavy, hip hop flecked, mostly instrumental new Notwist album. Hooky and epic, dreamy and hypntoic and totally amazing. Hip hop does surface once in a while, with big ol' beats, some human beatbox, brief snippets of somebody rhyming, but it's all subsumed into the gorgeously hazy and deliciously narcotic whole. Hip hop headz may be shaking theirs, but this could be the best Anticon record yet.
Do these guys have nothing to do but record a new record every week?! And how the hell do they manage to keep spitting out gems like this? Normally I'd be running around yelling 'Quality control!!!!!' at the top of my lungs, but damn if these boys don't keep coming through with the goods! You should all know the sound by now, but if you don't, here's a quick run down: dark, moody blissed out hip hop, with bizarre samples, gothy atmosphere, skittery spazzy drum loops, and a breathless, manic whiny white boy flow over the whole thing. And it's fucking great. A totally refreshing, original take on hip hop, with lyrical thoughtfulness that doesn't take away from the often venomous delivery, and some of the coolest most creative sounds we've heard in a long time. We've been singing the praises of Anticon since day one and this missive from Anticon producer/underdog Alias keeps the bar high and definitely makes him one of Anticon's shining stars. Also features AQ fave Dose One (from cLOUDEAD).
Wow, not sure what we were expecting with this new Alias album, but it sure wasn't this - a remarkably grand, ebullient and shimmeringly pretty album! It's as though Flaming Lips decided hiphop was their next avenue of musical adventure. No, really! Also quite reminiscent of late '90s IDM (such as Oval or Plaid) or early '00s jazz-tinged pop-tronica (such as Four Tet or Ulrich Schnauss), Resurgam is a lush affair that's blissed out yet driving at the same time. Fans of all of the above will surely find much to dig into here!
Despite what I am about to say, this is indeed an ultra groovy dream of an album and is well worth picking up. Really! It is unfortunate that these associations do tend to cloud the listening experience, but even without being much of a TV watcher I have to say that this new collaboration between Alias and his little brother Ehren (particularly the fifth track) really reminded us of that (albeit great) Aphex Twin track that was used in a bank commercial... alas! What distinguishes Alias & Ehren from Richard D. James here though is that they direct their spotlight to the sounds of saxophones for the melodic elements in their music. Overall, they're sound is more in line with the likes of Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel, Postal Service), Canada's Caribou, or the artists on the German pretty pop-tronic label Morr Music. Breezy and blissful, but not unexpectedly with a little more rhythm and bass presence.
Yup, it's another vintage Alice Cooper album, and it's worth grabbing for the title track alone. After the recent reissues (Pretties For You and Easy Action) spurred her to revisit Billion Dollar Babies, the song has been stuck in Cup's head for weeks! So sinister and bizarre... kinda makes you feel as though you've been crawlin' the back alleys of Detroit or crashin' out in a decadent Laurel Canyon mansion. So dirty. So good. Amazing rock musicianship and composition. Gnarly grungy bass and guitar riffs. Multiple awesomely strange vocal leads. An unexpectedly delicate piano interlude ("Mary Ann"). Social programming methods for patriots ("Generation Landslide"). Plenty of creepy cold sweat moments (the epic sprawling "I Love The Dead"). Although this album may be most remembered for the anthemic pop rock of "No More Mr. Nice Guy" - itself quite a snapshot of the mysterious 'fame' underbelly - the album is truly a vivid document of the burgeoning Detroit / LA glam / shock rock scene circa '72-'73... most importantly, Alice Cooper as a strictly kick ass band, not a celebrity!
One of the Alice Cooper Band's most successful albums, from 1973, gets the Rhino reissue treatment, complete with a bonus disc of rare stuff (mostly live cuts, plus a few outtakes that really maybe should have remained outtakes and a non-LP single track). While not our favorite of all Alice Cooper albums, "Billion Dollar Babies" is still a classic and this is certainly the version to add to your collection. But, if you already have it, you'll have to decide if you want to buy it again just for some pretty decent live versions of, mostly, the same songs. Someone out there definitely needs to get this, though, just to sample Alice's intro to 'Raped And Freezing': "This next song is DIRTY, you'll love it!" The main cd, in case you don't know, contains such hard-rock and glam-horror hits as 'No More Mr. Nice Guy' and 'I Love The Dead'. (Note, this is filed under A, as we hold that up until "Welcome To My Nightmare", the Alice Cooper Band LPs should rightfully be filed under A, since Alice wasn't yet a solo act and the other original band members should get their due.)
Ok, we know what you're thinking (maybe). Alice Cooper? Aquarius Record(s) Of The Week? Two of 'em?? If you're not familiar with these albums, you might be wondering... and while we know that many loyal AQ customers are of course extremely knowledgeable about all sorts of cool music, just as much or more so than any of us who work here, we also wouldn't be surprised if more than a few of you had never been exposed to these first two Alice Cooper albums before. Which is why we HAVE to list them and make them Records Of The Week!!�After being out of print for far too long, they've now been newly reissued on cd (in limited editions, see below for more about that), and we're excited to be able to tell you about 'em.
So, when most people think of Alice Cooper, what comes to mind? The big '70s shock rock act, up there with KISS, the guy who was the Marilyn Manson of the '70s, or maybe the regular on Hollywood Squares, or even the early '90s hairmetal Alice, of Wayne's World "we're not worthy" fame. Campy and kitschy and scholocky and alcoholic, with snakes and blood. All good things of course. But even if you are a fan of the Alice Cooper classics from the '70s, albums like Love It To Death, Killer and Billion Dollar Babies, the Alice Cooper Band's 1969 debut Pretties For You and its 1970 follow up Easy Action are often overlooked, and underrated. Originally released on Frank Zappa's Straight label (and whatever you might think of Frank Zappa, he had a good track record for releasing freaky music by other folks, Captain Beefheart ferinstance!) this early Alice Cooper stuff is NOT the heavy metal hard rock you might be expecting. That was a direction AC went in really only after moving from LA to Detroit and hooking up with producer Bob Ezrin. There's hints of heaviness, of course, but this is waaay more psychedelic and poppy and proggy. And weird. If you think you know what to expect, think again. You're in for a bizarre treat indeed. (Some Alice Cooper fans might not agree, but we hope most open minded AQ customers will!)
The front cover of Pretties For You has a painting that make it look like a Robert Wyatt record. And on the back cover, the band, posing in a gallery of strange modern sculptures, show off a visual style that makes 'em look something like a cross between Blue Cheer and Roxy Music. Intrigued? Throw the album on, and you're confronted with the first of this album's many non-sequiturs, the orchestral fanfare of "Titanic Overture", which segues into the why-be-normal, twisty-turny psych piece "10 Minutes Before The Worm" (actually only 1 minute, 40 seconds long). They weren't trying to ease anybody into their "thing" it seems. Better yet is track three, "Swing Low Sweet Cheerio", the album's first true pop gem, and still plenty weird. And that's what this is, a pop album, full of great pop songs, super Beatlesy, hummable stuff. But it's Beatlesy in a tripped out Sgt. Peppers way. And wait a second, Pretties For You? The Pretty Things' "SF Sorrow" might also have been an influence. There's a lot of quirky dynamics, theatrical art rock gestures, cryptic humor, wild psychedelic effects, screaming fuzz guitar, strange stops and starts... it can be off-putting at first, probably difficult listening for some, with as much in common with Amon Duul II or even Olivia Tremor Control as they do with Alice Cooper's later million-sellers. But, you like '60s garage psych right? Well early AC were really a Nuggetsy garage band (originally called The Earwigs, then The Spiders, and then The Nazz, finally settling on Alice Cooper following a legendary Ouija board session). Doing their thing on the Sunset Strip in LA, they gradually got nuttier and nuttier, more psychedelic and experimental. If AC hadn't gone on to such later success, we're certain this would be regarded by psych lovers as an obscure cult classic of late '60s freakdom, like 50 Foot Hose or West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band or something. Instead, it's the record that probably confuses average Alice Cooper fans, and isn't heard by anybody else, which we think is a shame...
Alice Cooper's swaggering second effort, Easy Action, is just a bit more straightforward, more of a "rock" album, proto-glam in fact, AC maybe trying to take on T-Rex? On it, with some wicked lyrics, Alice starts to develop his better known, "mentally ill" or "evil" sick humor persona, in a wittier way though than the cartoonishness that later took over in later years. His ever-so-slightly-raspy, steeped-in-decadence voice, of course, always had star power from the very beginning, but here he occasionally breaks out a snarl that never surfaced on Pretties, amidst more melodic crooning. And one of the tracks, the spasmodic tour de force "Still No Air", foreshadows Alice Cooper's later West Side Story obsession on School's Out.
And Easy Action proves to be still pretty darn trippy and weird, with plenty of progtastic twists, just like Pretties. Heck, "Lay Down And Die, Goodbye" is 7+ minutes of pretty much just sound FX laced freakishness. This album boasts several more glorious psychedelic pop gems like "Laughing At Me", the piano ballad "Beautiful Flyaway", and the very Beatlesy "Shoe Salesman", alongside the harder rockin' likes of "Return Of The Spiders"... Oooh so many good tunes. Compared to the debut, it's perhaps a more confident, slightly less confusional record, that set them up for major label success of their next album, another huge favorite of ours, Love It To Death, recorded with Ezrin after their relocation to Detroit - a move that made sense, considering they did have a lot in sonically common with The Amboy Dukes and even the MC5. You'll also hear parallels to very early Blue Oyster Cult and David Bowie... And (moreso on Pretties) an American version of Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett era mind you...) or even a more obtuse The Doors...
While Alice Cooper (both the man and the band) made a lot of classic music in their career(s), no other Alice Cooper records were ever quite as arty and bizarre, with the unique one foot in the psychedelic sixties mix of throbbing manic energy and melancholic moodiness that's found on Pretties For You and Easy Action. Are we going out on limb by making 'em Records Of The Week? Nope, what could be more AQ?? These have been favorites here for a long time, but rarely available. And Jim and Allan bonded over these back when they both first started working here years ago. Also, we know the guys in Harvey Milk will have to be stoked to find that their new album got ROTW honors alongside these two!
And by the way, we insist on filing these under A, not C. It's the Alice Cooper Band dammit. Alice himself didn't go solo 'til Welcome To My Nightmare in 1975. The original act, featuring guitarists Glen Buxton and Mike Bruce, bassist Denis Dunaway, and drummer Neil Smith, alongside the former Vincent Furnier on vocals and snake handling, deserves their due! One of the great American rock bands.
One final note: these reissues on this new Rhino "Encore" imprint are based around the (dumb) idea of doing releases that are only available for a limited time. It's like the way Disney puts out DVDs. So, all the more reason for us to shout from the rooftops about these two albums -- in six months, according to the label, these reissues will be out of print, again!! Argh. So get 'em while you can, if you don't already have them in your collection!! And buy a copy for a friend!
Here's a long lost gem of a concert film -- anybody remember concerts? We mean CONCERTS!! Full on pull out all the stops, real rock and roll show concerts!!
In 1973 the Alice Cooper Band were a hard-charging unit that packed just the right sort of killer riffs and creepy crawly sleaze that would make them one of the biggest tour draws that year, out-grossing Grand Funk and even the Rolling Stones (and we do mean out-GROSSING, um... sorry)! This "midnight movie" shows the band onstage plowing through the hits with plenty of power and tightness to spare. Alice wears the filthiest of stage outfits, at one point sporting a big dirty toothbrush chasing down and trying to 'brush' some leggy young ladies all dolled up like "female teeth"! Hmmm...
We probably oughta mention too, that this is not -just- a concert film, there IS a plotline to the film. Well, kinda.
Seems there is a German Film Director and Alice and his gang don't like the production and proceed to trash the set, and much hilarity and chaos and all out weirdness ensues. The film goes from a few minutes of this stilted storyline improv back to a few songs performed live, and then back again to the "acting". Lucky for us the DVD has a "play concert only" option so after viewing the movie in its entirety, you can just enjoy just the music, as the band fires up and totally delivers the goods to a very "saucer-eyed-for-some-reason" young audience who just eat it all up, the props, the theatrics, the power riffs and the chaotic insanity for which Alice "the Eighth Wonder of the World" Cooper was legendary.
Also included on this (the original cut) of the film is a new surround sound mix of the audio as well as some theatrical trailers that feature that guy who did all the stark & scary voice-overs from the horror thriller previews back in the day as well. Good to see you again, Alice! Close window [javascript: window.close()]
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Here's another $5 sale cd that, well, you must buy if you don't have it already. An utter classic - albeit one of the many classics that came out in 1971. Probably the original Alice Cooper band's best album, though that's a tough call. A lot of folks mistakenly think of this as their debut, 'cause it featured their first big hit, the anthemic "I'm Eighteen". But while it was the debut of Detroit-era Alice, it was actually the group's third album, following the two somewhat weirder and artier, more Sgt. Peppery poppy psych ones they did for Frank Zappa's Straight label before they moved to Detroit from LA (those being Pretties For You and Easy Action, the reissues of which we made Records Of The Week here!).
Love It To Death is plenty psychedelic too, and weird, but also really established the band's hard rock bona fides. They heavied up when they moved to the Motor City it seems, delving into high energy Detroit rock action in the vein of the MC5 on "Long Way To Go" amongst others here - heck "I'm Eighteen" could easily be a Stooges song. It's the record too where the Alice Cooper shock rock horror show image really came into focus for the first time. It includes such creepy cuts as "Black Juju" and "Ballad Of Dwight Fry", also their curious cover of Rolf Harris' catchy "Sun Arise" from the early '60s to end the album and demonstrate it's not all darkness. We'll also mention "Caught In A Dream", "Is It My Body" and "Hallowed Be Thy Name", but every song here is great. This album belongs in our 1971 top ten for sure, which is no mean feat!
Note: filed under A, not C: singer Alice hadn't gone solo yet, and the original band is called Alice Cooper, dammit!
Ok, we know what you're thinking (maybe). Alice Cooper? Aquarius Record(s) Of The Week? Two of 'em?? If you're not familiar with these albums, you might be wondering... and while we know that many loyal AQ customers are of course extremely knowledgeable about all sorts of cool music, just as much or more so than any of us who work here, we also wouldn't be surprised if more than a few of you had never been exposed to these first two Alice Cooper albums before. Which is why we HAVE to list them and make them Records Of The Week!!�After being out of print for far too long, they've now been newly reissued on cd (in limited editions, see below for more about that), and we're excited to be able to tell you about 'em.
So, when most people think of Alice Cooper, what comes to mind? The big '70s shock rock act, up there with KISS, the guy who was the Marilyn Manson of the '70s, or maybe the regular on Hollywood Squares, or even the early '90s hairmetal Alice, of Wayne's World "we're not worthy" fame. Campy and kitschy and scholocky and alcoholic, with snakes and blood. All good things of course. But even if you are a fan of the Alice Cooper classics from the '70s, albums like Love It To Death, Killer and Billion Dollar Babies, the Alice Cooper Band's 1969 debut Pretties For You and its 1970 follow up Easy Action are often overlooked, and underrated. Originally released on Frank Zappa's Straight label (and whatever you might think of Frank Zappa, he had a good track record for releasing freaky music by other folks, Captain Beefheart ferinstance!) this early Alice Cooper stuff is NOT the heavy metal hard rock you might be expecting. That was a direction AC went in really only after moving from LA to Detroit and hooking up with producer Bob Ezrin. There's hints of heaviness, of course, but this is waaay more psychedelic and poppy and proggy. And weird. If you think you know what to expect, think again. You're in for a bizarre treat indeed. (Some Alice Cooper fans might not agree, but we hope most open minded AQ customers will!)
The front cover of Pretties For You has a painting that make it look like a Robert Wyatt record. And on the back cover, the band, posing in a gallery of strange modern sculptures, show off a visual style that makes 'em look something like a cross between Blue Cheer and Roxy Music. Intrigued? Throw the album on, and you're confronted with the first of this album's many non-sequiturs, the orchestral fanfare of "Titanic Overture", which segues into the why-be-normal, twisty-turny psych piece "10 Minutes Before The Worm" (actually only 1 minute, 40 seconds long). They weren't trying to ease anybody into their "thing" it seems. Better yet is track three, "Swing Low Sweet Cheerio", the album's first true pop gem, and still plenty weird. And that's what this is, a pop album, full of great pop songs, super Beatlesy, hummable stuff. But it's Beatlesy in a tripped out Sgt. Peppers way. And wait a second, Pretties For You? The Pretty Things' "SF Sorrow" might also have been an influence. There's a lot of quirky dynamics, theatrical art rock gestures, cryptic humor, wild psychedelic effects, screaming fuzz guitar, strange stops and starts... it can be off-putting at first, probably difficult listening for some, with as much in common with Amon Duul II or even Olivia Tremor Control as they do with Alice Cooper's later million-sellers. But, you like '60s garage psych right? Well early AC were really a Nuggetsy garage band (originally called The Earwigs, then The Spiders, and then The Nazz, finally settling on Alice Cooper following a legendary Ouija board session). Doing their thing on the Sunset Strip in LA, they gradually got nuttier and nuttier, more psychedelic and experimental. If AC hadn't gone on to such later success, we're certain this would be regarded by psych lovers as an obscure cult classic of late '60s freakdom, like 50 Foot Hose or West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band or something. Instead, it's the record that probably confuses average Alice Cooper fans, and isn't heard by anybody else, which we think is a shame...
Alice Cooper's swaggering second effort, Easy Action, is just a bit more straightforward, more of a "rock" album, proto-glam in fact, AC maybe trying to take on T-Rex? On it, with some wicked lyrics, Alice starts to develop his better known, "mentally ill" or "evil" sick humor persona, in a wittier way though than the cartoonishness that later took over in later years. His ever-so-slightly-raspy, steeped-in-decadence voice, of course, always had star power from the very beginning, but here he occasionally breaks out a snarl that never surfaced on Pretties, amidst more melodic crooning. And one of the tracks, the spasmodic tour de force "Still No Air", foreshadows Alice Cooper's later West Side Story obsession on School's Out.
And Easy Action proves to be still pretty darn trippy and weird, with plenty of progtastic twists, just like Pretties. Heck, "Lay Down And Die, Goodbye" is 7+ minutes of pretty much just sound FX laced freakishness. This album boasts several more glorious psychedelic pop gems like "Laughing At Me", the piano ballad "Beautiful Flyaway", and the very Beatlesy "Shoe Salesman", alongside the harder rockin' likes of "Return Of The Spiders"... Oooh so many good tunes. Compared to the debut, it's perhaps a more confident, slightly less confusional record, that set them up for major label success of their next album, another huge favorite of ours, Love It To Death, recorded with Ezrin after their relocation to Detroit - a move that made sense, considering they did have a lot in sonically common with The Amboy Dukes and even the MC5. You'll also hear parallels to very early Blue Oyster Cult and David Bowie... And (moreso on Pretties) an American version of Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett era mind you...) or even a more obtuse The Doors...
While Alice Cooper (both the man and the band) made a lot of classic music in their career(s), no other Alice Cooper records were ever quite as arty and bizarre, with the unique one foot in the psychedelic sixties mix of throbbing manic energy and melancholic moodiness that's found on Pretties For You and Easy Action. Are we going out on limb by making 'em Records Of The Week? Nope, what could be more AQ?? These have been favorites here for a long time, but rarely available. And Jim and Allan bonded over these back when they both first started working here years ago. Also, we know the guys in Harvey Milk will have to be stoked to find that their new album got ROTW honors alongside these two!
And by the way, we insist on filing these under A, not C. It's the Alice Cooper Band dammit. Alice himself didn't go solo 'til Welcome To My Nightmare in 1975. The original act, featuring guitarists Glen Buxton and Mike Bruce, bassist Denis Dunaway, and drummer Neil Smith, alongside the former Vincent Furnier on vocals and snake handling, deserves their due! One of the great American rock bands.
One final note: these reissues on this new Rhino "Encore" imprint are based around the (dumb) idea of doing releases that are only available for a limited time. It's like the way Disney puts out DVDs. So, all the more reason for us to shout from the rooftops about these two albums -- in six months, according to the label, these reissues will be out of print, again!! Argh. So get 'em while you can, if you don't already have them in your collection!! And buy a copy for a friend!
West Side Story meets '70s glam metal.
With the release of Freaks In Love, from weirdo New York noise rockers Alice Donut, we realized we had never reviewed a single Alice Donut record. Ever. Most likely because most of them predated the list, but even so, that's no excuse, considering Alice Donut are one of our favorite bands EVER. And we know, it's a little like crying wolf, constantly trumpeting bands and releases as being the best ever, but we have loved, and been borderline obsessed with these guys for almost 25 years, playing every single record to death, seeing them live every time they played in San Francisco, and since they were on Alternative Tentacles, and played here so much, for a while, we just assumed they were an SF band, which really they might as well have been, cuz they were, and are, just the right amount of freaky and heavy, noisy and catchy, and are responsible for some of our favorite jams of the eighties and nineties, and many a mixtape has included at least one AD jam, often their kick ass cover of "War Pigs" with the vocals replaced by TROMBONE!
Anyway, recently a documentary about the band came out, and is presented here along with a two disc sort of greatest hits, which for the uninitiated, might just blow your mind, some of the finest weirdo rock EVER. And not just weird, but catchy as fuck to boot. Just check out the samples below for "Egg", and "Mrs Hayes", and "Dorothy", and of course the best titled song ever: "The Son Of A Disgruntled X-Postal Worker Reflects On His Life While Getting Stoned In The Parking Lot Of A Winn Dixie Listening To Metallica". Frontman Tomas Antona has one of the weirdest, coolest voices ever, and the songs, so twisted and weirdly hooky, this stuff sounds as weird and wonderful now as it did the first time we heard it. And while this 'greatest hits' is missing some of our favorites, odds are if you end up digging this, it won't be by half measures, and you'll find yourself tracking down all the records anyway.
But the real reason for this release is the documentary, which is actually super entertaining, we even watched it with someone who knew nothing really about Alice Donut, and not only dug the movie, but ended up wanting all the records afterwards. It's a pretty standard rock doc, notable for being super fun to watch, even though there were no deaths, or drugs, or overdoses, as dramatic as it got, was people getting kicked out of the band or tours getting fucked up, but all the band members are super cute and likable, and that only makes the music that much cooler.
The packaging is super sweet too, a weird oversized digipak, with a strange fold out triple disc holder, as well as a massive full color booklet, with liner notes and lyrics, and every available surface adorned with Antona's awesomely disturbing illustrations.
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If you have a radio or MTV you're probably already familiar with this band's cover of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal". It's actually pretty great. Too bad they didn't do a whole record of MJ covers. Instead, the rest of the disc is fairly standard nu-metal that *sounds* good but isn't super-catchy. Maybe it'll grow on us if we give it a chance, except that we keep skipping
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Record number two from these weirdo psychedelic outliers, their first under the newly hatched moniker Alien Ballroom, after jettisoning their previous name, Koolaid (Global Tyranny). Not sure if it was some sort of cease and desist from that giant pitcher after smashing through their practice space wall, or they jut decided this new name better suited their sound, but either way, if you dug that Koolaid record, you're gonna dig this one too, and the new name is definitely pretty apt, this just might be the kind of thing that would get played in an alien ballroom, assuming it was some fucked up alternate sixties there, where everyone was out of their gourd on alien drugs, and wanted to get totally lost in clouds of tranced out caveman psych.
Just get a load of the opening track here, the sidelong "The New Revelation", which ditches, at least initially, much of the random sampled weirdness that was all over the Koolaid record, in favor of a simple, fuzzed out, knuckle dragging garage dirge psych groove, that sounds a bit like a Cro-Magnon Wooden Shjips, warbly organs, tribal drumming, a simple motorik groove, a killer main riff, the vocals laid back and a bit washed out, the whole thing wreathed in clouds of effects and layers of buzz and hum and thrum, it's not really until 5 or 6 minutes in that the samples pop up, but instead of taking over, like on the Koolaid record, they drift into the background, taking that main riff with it, the drums switching to a simple pounding pulse, the song transforming into something way more freeform and tripped out, the bass slithery, the guitars drenched in effects, and drifting through an expanse of druggy haze and tangled melodies, the sound gradually regaining momentum, not to mention some HORNS, which sound amazing, the sound blossoming into something weirdly stately and majestic, before resolving in a final squall of psych garage crunch.
The flipside is all shorter tracks, and way more varied, the horns returning on the dreamily psych-poppy "banks Of The Dee" that almost sounds like some long lost Elephant Six outtake, minus the warped samples and fucked up FX, "Hogs Are Coming", is all droned out dirge, driven by big reverbed drum pound, and an absolutely KILLER heavy psych breakdown that sound like it must be a sample, murky and blown out, and wreathed in fragmented samples of the same freakout. "Street Beacon" is a dizzying heady backwards guitar / dubbed out vox freeform psych-drone freakout, while "Instant K" adds some woozy sitar shimmer and echoey vox, to a loping garage rock groove. "Ringstone Round" is all murky proto-metal garage punk dirge, woozy and washed out, and finally, "Forty Ton Rock" finishes things off in a blaze of freaked out glory, a swirling tangle of chaotic sound quickly coalesces into a tribal drum driven dirge, all reverbed guitar and deep crooned vox, laced with some soaring surprisingly sweet melodies, which pepper the otherwise woozy swaggery murk.
Killer stuff for sure, fans of all things heavy psych and weirdo space rock, the line starts here. Might be even better than the Koolaid record, which is most definitely saying a lot!
Also includes a download!!
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A beautifully packaged display of contemporary (but retro-flavored) pop-psych from Finland, from a band some might recall from that swell Fonal label comp Surrounded By The Sun. Alien Heat's Awake In A Dream is the brainchild of Teemu Elo, formerly guitar-player for (y)our Finnish faves Circle. This isn't at all like the space-prog weirdness of Circle, though. It's rather more like Swedish band Dungen, who mine similar influences: Syd Barrett and '60s SoCal sunshiney soft sike pop. Sometimes it's dusty and folkish and a little dark, and there's a wee bit o' flute which always appeals to us. Alien Heat's gentle, toe-tappingly melodic songcraft is certainly less "damaged" and abstract than fellow Fonal folksters Kemialliset Ystavat, but we'd imagine a lot of the same people'd like this as well, though it might be too "normal" for some of the real avant-folk heads out there...
Utilizing the same sort of packaging (dessicated leaves, twigs, and lichen encased between the jewel case and the tray) and exploring similar sounds as AQ fave l. chasse, this collaboration between Alio Die and Ora (here Andrew Chalk and Darren Tate) is a beautiful shimmering synthesis of dark ambience and organic droning. Recommended as with all of the Andrew Chalk releases we have heard to date!
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The long overdue return of these Belgian musical miscreants, whose last release, the super limited tape and then not so limited cd Luizig, was a huge favorite around these parts, and why the hell not, a blown out blackened smear of in the red doom dirge weirdness, that we compared to folks like Ash Pool and Akitsa and Ancestors. But that had a lot more to do with the quality of the sound, the timbre and tone, the brutally lo-fi recording, the music itself was much more twisted and blurred and tangled and whatthefuck.
For this two song follow up, Alkerdeel change gears pretty dramatically, opening up with nearly 4 minutes of super spare stripped down doom. The guitar distorted, but surprisingly clean by Alkerdeel standards, the drums a simple funereal plod, until finally the vocals swoop in, a hellish shriek, WAY up in the mix, before just as quickly drifting off, leaving the same skeletal doom, but this time, the guitar explores a bit more, more melody, more sprawling ambience, and again, the vocals come in and the track shifts gear into a pounding lo-fi midtempo dirge, all buzzy guitar, stumbly drumming, growled howled vocals, even a stretch of buzzing blastbeat blackness, before fracturing into something more mathy and woozy and off kilter, and for the remainder of the track (a long one at 13 minutes) slipping from super dirgey atonal crawl, to furious frenzy of chaotic buzz, to blurred washed out blackness. Pretty awesome stuff. This time we might add to the above mentioned bands outfits like Moss and Bunkur and the like, much doomier this go round.
But then band go and follow up with an Ildjarn cover, total raw and primitive buzz drenched black metal d-beat pound. As crusty and punk rock as it is kvlt and grim, simple pounding drums, hypnotic almost looped sounding riffage, even a sort of double time more punk rock second half, the whole thing laced with perfectly yowled whiskey soaked crusty vokills.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! We managed to get the last 20, it's already out of print, so once these are gone, they are gone forever. Packaged in a cool mini 3" dvd style plastic clamshell case, full color insert, each one hand numbered of course.
Brand new record from these blackened Belgian weirdoes, whose sound has changed dramatically from our first exposure to these guys, the grim noisy Luizig cassette, releases on Silvester Anfang's Funeral Folk label, which seemed apt at the time, a raw grim lo-fi sort of abstract black metal, along the lines of the blown out primitive fury of groups like Bone Awl and Akitsa, everything in-the-red, blown out and utterly chaotic and noise drenched. Not sure if you can just chalk it up to the natural progress of a band, but the now out of print 3" cd-r on Universal Tongue found the band shifting their sound considerably, tighter, not so distorted or damaged, yet they managed to make this shift and remain as head cavingly baffling as ever. Which thankfully remains the case here, three new loooong tracks of stripped down trancelike minimal black metal, that sounds almost more like some sort of noiserock or noisy krautrock. The band lock in a riff, and a blasting beat, and just pound away on it, over and over and over, the sound gloriously murky and muddy and blown out, the only things that really change are the vocals, which howl and mewl and shriek, occasionally becoming engulfed in reverb or delay (dub style) and spinning into a swirling cloud or processed voices, and the drums which shift from minimal pound, to super sizzly cymbal driven cacophony, the opening track finds the band spending most of their time pounding away relentlessly, only to shift gears about halfway through, get a little doomy, and then shift gears again and get all abstract and spaced out, sounding more like some weird sort of underground post punk band that any sort of black metal band. They do of course return to the murky muddy pound that started things off, only to stumble and collapse into heap of feedback and black buzz.
The second track is a super stripped down, minimal chunk of slowcore, abstract, doomy, but not heavy, just simple drumming, and skeletal guitars, it does eventually lurch into something more heavy, filthy and crusty, with sick vomited vokills and super distorted downtuned crunch, but it quickly slips right back into that doomy dirge complete with Sabbath style basslines, eventually exploding into a weirdly proggy almost Voivod sounding black metal workout, with long stretches of woozy bass driven doomy drift, and some super dense blowouts of churning riffage that is more dronelike than metal-like.
The final track is a 29 minute juggernaut, which begins with a cloud of grinding low end blackness, the drums eventually coming in, creating some sort of motorik hypnorock blackmetal dronedirge, which splinters into something way more frenzied and chaotic, and from there, the track is constantly shifting, long stretches of cinematic strings and mysterious samples, Khanate like ultradoom, more meandering downtuned metallic post rock, super spaced out minimal sludge, laced with ethereal vocals, and weirdly melancholy melodies, bursts of bass heavy prog, some Burzumic black metal, and finally a blast of frantic almost D-beat sounding blackened fury that finishes things off.
Another fantastic and fucked up batch of damaged doom and abstract avant black metal weirdness, needless to say this is the kind of shit that we live for. WAY recommended.
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We had a handful of customers recommend these fucked up doomdamagemetalnoise weirdos, and around the same time, in some glorious moment of serendipity, the band dropped us a line so we grabbed as many copies as we could of their super limited (only 66 copies) cassette, released on the same label that fellow countrymen Silvester Anfang call home...
These Belgians create a serious ruckus, pounding super distorted grim necro ultra raw dirgey droney doom metal, we saw it described as filthyblacksludgedoomdrone which pretty much sums it up. Pounding sludge, with blown out practice space production, grinding guitars, blasting super distorted drums, filthy super sick vocals,�with bursts of blackness and stretches of loping minimal crunch, sort of mathy, very doomy, all very very heavy and noisy and awesome. One of our favorite new bands easy.�
Essential for fans of Bone Awl, Ancestors, Ash Pool, Beherit, Akitsa as well as other practitioners of grim buzz and noise drenched sludge...
LIMITED TO 66 COPIES!!! In super DIY packaging, printed sleeve, photocopied insert, each tape hand numbered...
It's been a little while since we've heard from these Belgian weirdos. Their sound, an ever evolving black buzz sludge, having over the years seemingly drifted away from black buzz, to a more Gnaw Their Tongues style abject doom. But on this latest lp, the band explode from note one into a frenzy of wild, loose, spastic black metal buzzing - however, not sounding so much like a black metal band, but more like some weird noise rock / art rock combo doing their best black metal, which might have some folks crying 'poser', but as far as we're concerned it makes for something much more interesting. Just wait a few minutes for the songs to switch gears, the band grinding to a halt, then launching into an almost Shellac like bit of minimal math rock, albeit a bit more grimy and low fidelity. That opening track is 20+ minutes long, so the song goes through quite a few sonic permutations, adding some woozy droney shimmer, some chugging riffy churn, the sound almost more metallic krautrock at times, depressive black metal at others, eventually exploding into another stretch of stumbling flailing buzzing blackness, only to then add strange samples, squalls of psychedelic noise, and a final movement that's broody and slithery and seriously doomy.
The shorter middle tracks fall into more of a noise rock / dirge rock thing, grimey and downtuned, with the second of the two exploding into an almost D-beat pound, the sounds murky and muddy, flitting from loping crunch to punkish swagger, to noisy tangle, but constantly crusty and corrosive.
The final 13 minute jam, a sonic bookend to the epic opener, unfurls as a haunting hushed shimmer, blossoming into a sprawl of abject slo-mo ultra-doom, all tarpit riffs, and glacial drum damage, long tones and droned out melodies, super trancey and hypnotic and HEAVY, eventually splintering into more black blasts, the final blast getting seriously melodic and epic, making it sound like had the song not ended, it would have become some sort of Godspeed black metal blow out. Killer stuff as always. And yeah, SUPER limited.
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
La Paix is the very first US release from Alkibar Gignor, a garage rock band from Mali, who spends much of their time touring local villages, ferrying their gear around in a donkey cart, and over the last few years, they have become one of the most beloved underground groups in Mali. The songs hear appear to be recorded live, you can hear children laughing and playing, conversations, city life in the background, which only gives the music that much more of a lively intimate feel, there are even a few points where you can hear children singing along faintly in the background, not to mention the occasional blast of feedback. But this is not garage rock how we imagine it, the sound of Alkibar Gignor is a fusion of Western influenced rock, classic African high life, folk music, in fact, the opening track is super stripped down, just acoustic guitar and vocals, gorgeous and intimate, the vocals soaring and passionate, the guitar playing lush and dexterous, but that's only really one facet of the group's sound, the next track is all warm spidery melodies, a shuffling groove, call and response vocals, and a wild solo played on an instrument that sounds like a fiddle, and ends up sounding super psychedelic. Elsewhere, the band slip easily into buzzing almost raga like jams, still rife with playful folky melodies, before returning to the hushed folkiness that opened the record, then onto something way more bombastic and wild, megaphone vocals, shouted whoops and hollers, lo-fi buzzing guitars and crunchy pounding rhythms, and then back again. The sound so spirited and energetic, intense and alive.
Housed in a thick black and white jacked, and includes a fold out poster/liner notes.
Furious and screaming metal core from these Philadelphia kids. Lots of chugging riffs and howling vocals. Not super complex, but relentless and seriously kick ass. Also contains a 10 minute video!
Sprouting up out of the thawing pre-springtime earth like happy lil' crocuses is this new retro-pop quartet starring Jen from The Softies. Join them under their beach umbrella as they warm things up with their breezy, janglin' guitar melodies and sugary-fun harmonies heavily influenced by the '60s Brill Building pop like the Shangri-Las or the Ronettes. If you were/are a fan of that
We knew this was gonna be good. Long time aQ fave Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk (MZ.412, Toroidh, Folkstorm, etc.), who is responsible for some of the most haunting and unsettling dark ambient drones we've ever laid ears on, teams up with his countryman Tim Bertilsson (Fear Falls Burning, Switchblade) for a record of extreme minimal heaviness and gorgeously abstract and bleak grimness.
Mysterious and cinematic, every track here is immersive and overwhelming, like stepping through a portal into some hellish otherworld, a soundtrack to the subterranean depths, an endless expanse of charred remains and crumbling ruins, a bleeding black sky and an ash covered landscape, voices drift like lost memories, tones rumble and whir, melodies are pulled apart, their remnants left to float among the dead leaves and detritus. The deep low end slips from crystalline hush, to super distorted crunch, often ground into a wavering black streak, sometimes allowed to melt into oozing pools of reflective layered hum.
Organum like bowed metal underpins fragments of riffs, shards of guitar, engulfed in slow motion swirls of distant hiss, the various elements sometimes tamped down into a muted crawl, lit up from within by lightning like crackle, obscuring the strange incantations drifting up from below. Here and there the guitars do emerge from the roiling blackness nearly unscathed, offering up a handful of truncated riffs, before they are quickly subsumed by the surrounding darkness. The record culminates in an explosion of psychedelic skree, a chaotic confluence of brittle crunch and smeared high end clang, only to slip into an outro of ultra minimal hushed tectonic rumbles.
Gorgeous and grim, harrowing and heavy, dense and dark and so recommended.
I imagine some Thrill Jockey completists will be a little shocked when they throw on this record and discover a super moody, old school hip hop record. But the ones that actually give it a listen will find that once again the unflappable Thrill Jockey followed their own star and have managed to release probably one of the best underground hip hop records so far this year.
Dark and intense and with a certain anger and intensity bubbling right below the surface, All Natural manage to take simple old school beats, looped pianos and string swells, and a smooth lyrical intensity, and turn them into a seriously aggressive, totally funky and catchy, kick ass record. Recommended.
I think the Champs toured with these guys and loved 'em. At least, I know Josh from the Champs raved about them to me once. All Night are retro rock n' rollers from North Carolina, doing the seventies guitar rawk thing with rare authenticity. Bluesy, swaggering, Stonesy, drawling, kick ass stuff a la Cherry Valence, The Want, Gorilla and few others today. The kind of band you hope will be playing in the next bar you go in. They sound more '70s than the last dozen "stoner rock" bands you ever heard. Boogie!
It's a freeform pop LA fantasy from these moonshadowing members of Beachwood Sparks! All crazy colours and psychedelic effects. Modern indie-pop soaked in a blurring watercolor bath, with big '60s influences obviously, ending up a bit like Olivia Tremor Control and (hey!) just a bit like Beachwood Sparks. Maybe Flaming Lips and Beck too. These are loose lazy songs fulla sunshine, echoing vocals, ambient interludes... They've got a freaky kitchen sink approach to their arrangements, mixing in pedal steel, strings, horns, electronics, etc. And they're not afraid of piling on the reverb. While no one song entirely stands out as a hit here, the whole thing is still ear candy. Nice! (NB not to be confused with the band just called All Night.)
We'd been hearing about this new project for a little while, a duo featuring Katy Goodman from Vivian Girls (and La Sera, reviewed elsewhere on this list!) and Gregg Foreman of Delta 72 fame (as well as being a regular player in Cat Power's band). Watch out Best Coast, as this is another awesome duo featuring an indie rock veteran and a younger female vocalist creating totally warm and fuzzy timeless girl group inspired garage pop. We like how Foreman gets some really cool sounds with his organ and treated guitars, which create the perfect hazy backdrop for Goodman's reverb soaked enchanting vocals. It's a bit more dreamy and washed out then what many in this terrain have been making lately. Releases on Art Fag don't tend to stick around too long, so act fast on this one!
All Smiles is the new project by Jim Fairchild aka the former guitarist of the sadly defunct band Grandaddy. Ten Readings Of A Warning is his brand new indie rock album. It's considerably more stripped down and straightforward than his old band was, but no less charmingly slouchy and hook filled. Reverential nods towards the Beatles and Bread abound with gentle pop sweetness. You'll surely take the band name and these eleven songs to heart. So nice!
NOTE: If you buy this cd you'll also get a free 7 inch while quantities last!
We realized recently, that although we were huge fans of the black metal label Kunsthauch, and the metalheads around here have collections filled with Kunsthauch releases, we had for some reason, never actually reviewed ANYthing on the label. To address that oversight, we got in touch with Kunsthauch directly and are now beginning a campaign to shine some aQ light on some of our favorite Kunsthauch releases, new and old, beginning with this, a compilation from Russian outfit All The Cold, released in 2009 and collecting the group's earliest demos, tracks from various splits as well as a few unreleased songs as well. One Year Of Cold is actually the only proper sort-of-full-length the band has, their catalog being made up entirely otherwise of demos and splits.
All it should take is a couple minutes of opener "Last Winter" for you to fall under ATC's wintery spell, trafficking as they do in a sort of cold, frosty ambient black metal, a la Paysage D'Hiver, Alrakis and other aQ faves, and while the band seem to drift and drone and lumber doomily more than actually thrash and blast, it's precisely that slow temp and atmospheric focus that makes these tracks so mesmerizing. "Last Winter" unfurls a blurred hazy blackened dreamscape, that could go on forever, and really, is only barely black metal, before disappearing in a squall of whipping winter winds, only to have some proper black buzz emerge, creeping, a haunting doomy trudge, the melodies wistful and melancholy, floating above a field of washed out warm buzzing thrum, loping and melancholy, and again almost more dark dreampop that black metal, the music box like melody sounds almost like Burzum's "Rundgang Um Die Transzendentale Saule Der Singularitat" if it were in fact an actual black metal jam. "Through The Dead World" offers up more of the same, beginning with some plaintive harpsichord melody, before the guitars come in, all jagged and buzzy and chuggy, and while there seems to be potential for chaotic blackness, the sound instead sprawls and oozes and transforms into a thick black cloud of warm buzz, of pounding slo-mo drum damage, some seriously super distorted demonik vokills, and more of those plaintive melodies. Occasionally the tempo does get cranked up, and in come the blast beats, but weirdly enough, those moments are even LESS heavy, the sound growing more ethereal and washed out, only those wicked vox keeping the sound from floating into some sort of 4AD bliss out dreampop (albeit with blast beats!). And so it goes, wintery and haunting and dreamy, stretches of grim gorgeous blackened buzz interspersed with long expanses of gauzy ambience, and peppered with bits of classical sounding composition, creepy cinematic synthscapery, grim industrial dronemusic, and lovely winter-sun dappled chamber music, all woven into a fantastically frosty and phantasmagoric blackened songsuite. WAY recommended!
We're so stoked to get our hands on this limited edition release (on cassette, or black vinyl, or deluxe clear vinyl, take your pick) by this fantastic San Francisco goth/gloom duo. While there's been no shortage of new bands inspired by the sound of bleak '80s goth/industrial as of late, All Your Sisters stands way above the crowded pack as they infuse tons of raw emotion in their songs instead of just being concerned with nailing a particular sound/style.
It doesn't hurt that they do nail that sound/style so damn perfectly. Comparisons we've heard, bringing up records by folks like Clan Of Xymox, Skinny Puppy, and Ministry for sure hit the mark. We also hear hints of early Neurosis, Sisters Of Mercy, Bauhaus, and a dirty/nastier Nine Inch Nails. As the record goes on there is more of a dazed & doomy sound that will make fans of Lustmord and the like want to raise their ears to this.
But for us it all comes back to the feeling we get when we blast this record, as it gets right to our core and leaves no doubt that it was made with lots of guts, sweat, blood, and tears. So fucking good!
The cassette & both versions of the lp all come with a digital download, btw. And the 'deluxe' lp, besides being clear, comes with a special metallic printed insert.
