Doom! Not just doom...but maybe the best doomy release of the year, sez Allan...and it's a reissue. Of a demo tape, no less. NewYork's Blood Farmers (now defunct) recorded one self-titled album in 1995 for the (also now defunct) German label Hellhound, who are not to be confused with the Japanese label Leafhound responsible for this release. The Hellhound album was an obscure, now-out-of-print, but seriously heavy and deranged slice of doom-adelica in the vein of the masters Black Sabbath and especially Saint Vitus. But it turns out that the Blood Farmer's 1992 demo was easily as good if not better than their actual album (and has only one cut in common, "Bullet In My Head", which is a very different version here). Heads up, heads -- this starts with the 14 minute long psychedelic doom opus "Behind The Brown Door" ends with another 14+ minute epic "Deathmaster", a suite in five parts. Extended fuzz-wah terror ensues throughout those epics and all over the album as a whole, with guitarist Dave Depraved's soloing brilliantly channelling the heavy trippiness of Vitus' Dave Chandler. There's also more more concise rockers here like the aforementioned "Bullet In My Head" and "St. Chibes". Basically, imagine The Heads jamming with Vitus or Church Of Misery. Regarding the latter, the Blood Farmers share the same serial-killer obsession as do those Japanese doom freaks, but theirs is really more about the fiction films about the serial killers than the killers themselves. In addition to the original demo tracks, which are remixed and remastered, there's also a live bonus track from '96, itself followed by a hidden bonus track of ambient music/sound fx, accompanying a monologue, all doubtless lifted from one of the Blood Farmer's fave horror flicks. So if you'd like a severe dose of acid-sludge rock, look no further!
On our last list, we celebrated the return of this cult horror-obsessed heavy psychedelic doom unit, with their brand new album, Headless Eyes, which, believe it or not, was the Blood Farmers' first album since their self-titled 1995 debut! A long wait, but worth it, for all fans of moody, garagey, fuzzed out doomadelica.
We'd never reviewed that self-titled album, originally issued by Germany's now defunct Hellhound label. But when we got Headless Eyes direct from the band, we found they still had copies of the debut available, too - a cd reissue done a few years back by Japan's also-now-defunct Leaf Hound label. So we figured, heck if folks liked Headless Eyes so much (which they did, we had to restock) let's get some of their first cd too, to list - and here it is. You'll find that the Blood Farmers' sound is pretty similar on both albums, despite the nearly twenty years between 'em. The same core members are doing their thing - guitarist Dave Depraved kicks out the Sabbathy riffage and unwinds FX-laden, spindly acid rock leads, very much under the influence of Dave Chandler & Saint Vitus (and tons of '60s/'70s heavy rock obscurities), while vocalist Eli Brown bellows trippy tales of terror derived from a lifetime of watching '70s horror/exploitation cinema (the band is named after such a B-movie, Invasion Of The Blood Farmers, from '72, a film so low-budget the actors were paid with six-packs of beer). That's the Blood Farmers formula, basically, and it works darn well, making for a good mix of psychedelic atmosphere and heavy, headbanging catchiness. Anyone (like us) who thought Headless Eyes was killer will find this disc very enjoyable too, and vice versa. It provides more riffs, more fuzz, more horror, more cowbell!
And stick around for the lovely acoustic instrumental coda at the end, "After The Harvest".
One of two new records this list from the always kick ass Utech label, the other is from Vagusnerve, a tripped out bit of guitar and laptop sonic alchemy, and this dark gem right here, the first release from the mysterious Blood Fountains, which counts as a member artist Stephen Kasner, responsible for much of the amazing Utech artwork (and has an amazing book of his art, we have one or two in stock if you want one, and you should!), and counts as a guest, dooooom chanteuse Yoshiko Ohara, from avant doom merchants Bloody Panda.
And the sound? Well if you're familiar with Kasner's artwork, it's hard to imagine that this isn't exactly what his paintings would sound like. Creeping fluttery ambience, flecked with ethereal vocals, spidery tendrils of Eastern buzz, draped over soft shards of muted crumbling thrum, deep swells of Godspeed like rumble, all beneath soaring string like shimmers, while a dense Lustmordian buzz sprawls into a sea of whirring blackness, and deep resonant hum. A slow motion, ultra delicate soft focus dreamdoom, rendered in flickers of wistful flute, processed guitar feedback, and glistening slabs of synth, wrapped in ephemeral flurries of reflective tones and overlapping layered vocal harmonies. A grim blackened new age drift, dark and mysterious and quite lovely.
Like all Utech releases, gorgeous packaging, a lush full color fold out sleeve, featuring original artwork by Kasner himself (of course)...
Some stoner doom rockin' from the usually reliable Invada label (run by one of the guys from Portishead, oddly enough). But sadly, this one brings Invada's batting average down, not living up to the likes of The Heads, Atavist, Brain Donor, etc.
Mainly, 'cause oooh crickey the vocals are rough. Lines like "It's time for you to taste my wrath...oh yeah!" look better on paper than they sound coming from the totally "chainwallet" style singer. Plus some stilted singsongy almost rappy rhymes, no thanks. This would be way better if dude didn't sing. Hope he's also the guitar player or something, otherwise there's no excuse. Sorry.
Ukrainian black metallers Blood Of Kingu continue down the lefthand path, as their sound continues to move ever further from their earlier folk flecked roots, and if anything this latest one might be the best, and weirdest of the bunch so far, the new sound darker, and more denser, seemingly more raw and minimal the production too, lo-fi, but not shitty BM lo-fi, instead, all the sounds blur and bleed and ooze like some huge squirming slithering hell borne entity. But it's not just buzzing and blasting, although there is of course plenty of that, there's also some weirdly majestic percussion, just check out the opener, which seems locked into some seriously mesmerizing black buzz murk, even the vocals, are closer to a monstrous death metal cookie monster bellow, but all of those sound, when combined with the production, transform into some twisted dizzying psychedelic blackness, that at one point, explodes into something surprisingly (and subtly) melodic, complete with bombastic percussion booming in the background, while the guitars wind around each other into epic trills, and there even seems to be some buried shred, and then again, the song switches gears, and somehow gets faster and more furious, relentless and mesmerizing. Some of the coolest, weirdest, most original black buzz we've heard in ages.
And fear not, they haven't ditched their obsession with Sumerian and Egyptian mythology, nor have they totally abandoned the folky interludes, but you'll be hard pressed to think of any of that stuff once you're immersed in BoK's fucked up outsider black metal soundworld. Check out the second track, beginning with some haunting folkiness, but soon explodes into some seriously intense buzz, but when the vocals come in, they're a weird sort of choral croon just below the surface, and then later on, most of the buzz is peeled back, leaving but booming percussion, paired with relentless double kick drumming, some moaning guitar melody, and minimal vokills, it's crazy effective and evokes the creepiest of atmospheres, before swooping right back into it. Holy shit. We had forgotten how much we love Blood Of Kingu, and yeah, sure we love Drudkh, and Hateforest, and Lucifugum and Kladovest, and Astrofaes, and all the other bands these guys have played in, but Blood Of Kingu just might be the coolest, and the weirdest. And this record just might be our favorite so far...
It's been a while since we heard from Ukrainian black metallers Drudkh (and all of their albums seem to be currently out of print sad to say) or ambient side project Dark Ages (and of course Hate Forest, another band featuring the same members has been split up since 2005). So what has Drudkh mainman Roman Saenko been up to for the last little while? Why crafting an epic black metal album based around Sumerian and Ancient Egyptian mythology and histry of course! And this is it. Blood Of Kingu, a swirling blackened blast of buzzing guitars, blasting drums, buried vocals, soaring melodies, and the occasional traditional folk interlude. The root sound is not that far removed from older Drudkh or Hate Forest, but imagine that sound a bit more lo-fi, a little more drenched in buzz, the riffing more looped and cyclical, the mood more majestic and epic, and you'll get an idea of the Blood Of Kingu sound.
Each track is a drone drenched slab of relentless riffery, furious and lightning fast, the drums careening chaotically beneath a thick layered wall of frenzied buzz, the vocals chanted and almost like throat singing, super low in the mix, giving the proceedings a sort of ritualistic vibe, with each song made up of only really one or two parts, creating a super tense, ultra hypnotic black metal mesmer, with the guitars swirling occasionally into gorgeous surprisingly melodic harmonies, while below, the track continues to churn and thrash violently.
Fans of Drudkh and Hate Forest and other Ukrainian black hordes absolutely need this, as do folks who love their black metal drone-y and hypnotic and trancelike.
Record number two from this Ukrainian black metal horde, fronted by Roman Saenko, who plays or played in some other bands you might be familiar with, Hate Forest, Drudkh, Dark Ages, Lucifugum, and featuring members of Kladovest, Astrofaes, Lutomysl, Definition Sane, it's like pretty much the whole Ukrainian scene is represented here. But Blood Of Kingu is definitely Saenko's baby, a seething, blasting, filthy, hateful black metal baby at that. Still focused thematically on Sumerian, Egyptian, Tibetan and Indo-Aryan mythologies, the big change this time around is sonic, a way heavier production, as well as more metal and less folky interludes. The first record, De Occulta Philosophia, was marked by ambient breaks between most of the tracks, rhythmic and abstract, folky and moody, a method that seemed more about atmosphere and vibe than sheer power, but if anything on Sun In The House Of The Scorpion, Blood Of Kingu has managed both, evoking mood and atmosphere big time, but cranking up the crush, the riffs are massive, the sound is epic, dense and thick, blurred and droney and trancelike. The vocals are deep and bellowed and shamanistic, the songs are cyclical and repetitive, ritualistic and totally hypnotic, thick slabs of crumbling buzz and relentlessly blasting beats, a howling furious heaviness that few other black metal outfits could ever hope to achieve. The bulk of the record is frantic and frenzied, but the various tracks are infused with haunting mysticism, swirling atmospheric ambience, even the grimmest blackest parts exuding a strange spiritual quality, culminating in an awesome cover of Beherit's "The Gate of Nanna" complete with chanted monk-like vocals, long stretches of plodding doomy dirge, blasts of insanely frantic blasting buzzing blackness, some seriously demented effects drenched demonic vokills and a suffocatingly grim and bleakly abject atmosphere, a killer cover truly worthy of the original.
Fantastic Zdzislaw Beksinski cover art (same guy who did the artwork that adorned Leviathan's Verrater)!! And dedicated to the memory of H.P Lovecraft, of course...
A brand new record, the third since 2007 (not counting the split with Celestiial, whose awesome new record is also reviewed this list), from these doom metal / postrock / black metal / doomfolk / black ambient alchemists, the same folks who explore the darker regions of the spirit with their black ambient project Ruhr Hunter, although it's hard to imagine there's any place darker than whatever strange world Blood Of The Black Owl draw inspiration from. The opening movement of this single 41 minute epic (separated into 4 parts) finds the band spinning a black web of grim churning low end, softly roiling, like staring into a black hole, a bottomless abyss, dotted with dying stars, while over the top a guitar is strummed, unfurling a crystalline arrangement of glimmering notes, hovering above the inky blackness, a strange unearthly black folk, nearly static, mesmerizing and trancelike, eventually drums come in and the sound shifts dramatically, to something much more abstract and rhythmic, a sort of spaced out doomic skitter, which grows more and more ethereal, the bass buzzing, and a fluttering flute, marking a folky segue into the second movement, a much heavier downtuned dirge, a churning riffy crunch, that quickly dissipates into a cloud of chiming tones, disembodied voices and blackened shimmer before flitting back to that riffy pound although this time accompanied by some new age-sounding synth.
The third movement explodes in a burst of blinding feedback, only to dissolve into a washed out, ambient doom plod, the drums a distant pound, the sounds hazy and druggy, a lysergic sprawl of blackened psychedelia, that gives way to the final movement, a dark, low slung, almost Bohren like stretch of slowcore crawl, all whispered vocals, softly strummed guitar, barely there effects, a hushed drift that slowly builds to a fierce pounding electronic flecked shoegazey dirge, with growled vox, tribal drumming, a glorious crescendo, emotional and intense, finally dropping out, leaving a single voice to call out, then silence.
Incredible as always, and totally recommended for anyone into avant emotional heaviness and mysterious sonic darkness.
Not to be confused, as we sometimes (almost) do, with brutal black metallers Book Of The Black Earth, who also have a new album out, soon to be reviewed here as well. This band is the one whom we last heard sharing a dirgey split 12" with Celestiial. Here's there new full-length and, as we expected, it's some serious doom metal/post rock/black metal/ambient hybrid wyrdness from the same guy responsible for the shamanic, organic drones of Ruhr Hunter.
Ok, the first track, "Spell Of The Elk", mostly (gruffly) spoken and atmospheric, is cool enough but mainly serves as a 9-minute intro to track 2, "Crippling Of Age", when things really get intense, the guitar kicks into gear, the hammer drops, the fuzz explodes, the totemic blood of this black owl flows thick and dark. This is musick full of creepy guttural croakings, seasick shoegazing droned-out riffery, and some seriously doooooomic plod, along with sudden yet graceful dynamic shifts from apocalyptic destructiveness to introspective dreaminess, yeah!!!
Many of these nine fairly lengthy tracks seem like ceremonial mini-epics, with gentle keyboard melodies wandering in from some obscure '70s Italian horror flick soundtrack, haunted by heavy doses of fuzzed out riff-sludge, providing a terror-struck background to the disturbing internal monologue (prayer?) played out by the anguished, echoed vokills. So much of this is surprisingly beautiful, so much of it fantastically fuzzed. The mystic moodiness is enhanced by foresty flutes and bone rattles from Native American / New Age ritual amidst all the industrial-strength dirge. This is part Neurosis, part Godspeed, part Burzum. Maybe part Bohren, and even part Thuja too! Well, possibly an aboriginal Thuja, when it really quiets down and spaces out and enters the Dreamtime. One of those "metal" records we recommend to a wider audience of adventurous listeners for sure.
So moody. So atmospheric. So weird. So awesome. The fourth full album from this band we've previously described in an all-encompassing if imprecise way as "doom metal / postrock / black metal / doomfolk / black ambient alchemists" is another gorgeous and grim glimpse into their ceremonial soundworld, a realm that's dirgey, ambient, dreamlike, doubtless haunted by ancestral pagan spirits. Blood Of The Black Owl is one of the several projects of Chet W. Scott, who runs the Glass Throat label - some others being Cycle Of The Raven Talons (formerly Ruhr Hunter), The Elemental Chrysalis, and Cedar Spirits (reviewed this list too). All his music is pretty intense, and idiosyncratic, so it's hard to pick a favorite, but definitely we've always been big into Blood Of The Black Owl, and this new album takes this project to yet another level.
The disc begins with the croaking droning vocals of what sounds like a half-dead shaman, accompanied by the shaka-shaka sounds of hand percussion, witchy drones, and spooky nighttime noises, what could be horns, or hoot owls. Although the feeling is evident that Scott's intent is something deeply mystical, more secularly speaking, these twilight sounds could be the soundtrack to a cult 'giallo' horror movie, for sure, set out in the woods somewhere, ritual murder afoot, Native American relics factoring into the plot somehow. The next track continues the vibe, with mumbling invocations and a repetitively ringing bell, which reminds us for a second of Anton Batagov's Music For The 35 Buddhas. And so this disc goes, getting heavier and more sinister as it spins, always slow and spare and soundtracky. Part slowcore, part black metal (the rasped vokills, the fuzz guitar that comes as a shock when it bursts out, like on track four, "Sundrojan"), Light The Fires! is a mostly "mellow" but still devastatingly nightmarish trip conjured by chanting vox, plodding tick-tock percussion, eerie field recordings. Lovely melodic moments coexist with crushing doomic textures. Imagine Aluk Todolo teamed up with the Jewelled Antler collective, recording an album for the Neurot label, documenting a spirit quest they never came back from� Truly fantastic & recommended!
Comes in the oversized unique 6"x6" six panel gatefold Glass Throat style cd packaging. (Double vinyl version apparently upcoming too.)
The ritualist forest flecked dark ambience of the band Ruhr Hunter has always managed to somehow transcend its ambient classification and appeal to the metal crowd as much as to the ambient drone crowd. Not sure what it is, the foresty bent, the bold Teutonic iconography, the music's distinctly dark elements, or maybe folks could just tell that some metal was lurking within them thar dark drones...
And as if we needed proof, along comes Blood Of The Black Owl, the buzzing black metal project of Chet Scott, the man behind Ruhr Hunter. And true to form, this is no run of the mill black metal band, Scott expands his baritone guitar / drums palette to include stuff like thunder gong and brass tubular bells, organ, young ox horn, antique celestaphone, environmental recordings and black clay ocarina. It's almost like a blackened metallicized Ruhr Hunter.
The sound is an hypnotic, repetitive midtempo Burzumic buzz, often slowing down to a dirge like crawl, each track a relentless trudge through mud and swamp, thicket and forest, the riffs looping and cycling, mantra-like, the vocals a guttural growl one second, an anguished wail the next, in the background are howling wolves, birdsong, strange percussion, a truly mysterious black brew. Much of the record dips into dark ambience, and being that this is basically Ruhr Hunter, those passages are captivating, a dark dreamy ambient interludes underpinned in places by slow motion riffing, in others by chantlike vocals, and still others by throat singing, it's all very haunting and mournful, but this is NOT a RH record, so those brief passages are merely transitions, the songs themselves, the riffs and the melodies, weave their own dark magic, dismal and depressive, as doom as it is black, a mesmerizing fuzzy landscape of black riffs and simple pounding rhythms, gloriously bleak, strangely dreamlike, and most definitely imbued with the spirit of some ancient black forest.
Another underrated early seventies British horror soundtrack is brought back to life by Trunk Records, and this one is a doozy. Pastoral and creepily menacing, Marc Wilkinson's score for this 1971 Piers Haggard film is like a lost companion to The Wicker Man soundtrack or Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. Features the unusual instrumentation of the Ondes Martenot, one of the first electronic instruments, which provides the fiendish swoops and off-kilter tonal colors and the Cimbalom, an eastern European piano type instrument that's played with mallets providing the spine-tingling creep. The liner notes mention that the descending chromatic scale which features throughout the score omits the perfect fifth and therefore highlights the diminished fifth also known as the Devil's Interval! Truly spooky, and the gothic pics of ritual blood and female nudity make us all dying to see this film re-released. Obscure horror is what Trunk Records does best!!
On their latest album Liferz, Blood On The Wall keep playin' it primal, loose and low slung... y'know, bluesy New York gutter rawk. If you've dug the lanky sounds of Royal Trux and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, you might wanna dig into the raunch of Blood On The Wall.
Devonte Hynes has been a man behind the musical scenes for several years now, producing and writing tracks for the likes of Basement Jaxx, Florence & The Machines and Solange Knowles. But we are super glad he's finally taking center stage with his own project, as he is one of the best and most evocative voices we've heard in a long time. Listening to Coastal Grooves really feels like a sleek and steamy night out on the town. Wandering from one dark seedy nightclub to another, and blasting through city streets in a fast car with the windows down. The songs range from slow burning sensual ravers to more indie rocking driving anthems. Imagine some awesome combination of Hercules & Love Affair, Grizzly Bear, Twin Shadow, and Bloc Party, and you begin to get a picture of the sorts of sounds Blood Orange create.
Their imagery and overall aura have a strong queer sensibility evoking the drama of drag queens and the underworld of after-hours cruising bars. For sure there is also a huge '80s influence ranging from Culture Club to Tears For Fears to Bow Wow Wow. But unlike many others mining from that era there is no wink or nod or irony in Blood Orange's sound, as these are heartfelt songs that move and sizzle.
Debut 7" from this SF outfit (featuring members of aQ faves Ganglians), and goddamn if this band doesn't sound like they made this record just for us (and a lot of you presumably). A weird mix of fuzzy old school synth-pop and gloomy garage, weary, echo drenched vox, over programmed rhythms, and buzzing synths the A side almost sounds like some early Nirvana jam transcribed for synth-pop hooky as hell, with some wild squalls of distorted guitar and woozy synth freakout, totally drug addled, and while not heavy, super driving and hypnotic, and one of the best jams we've heard in ages. In fact, we listened to the A side about ten times before we could even bring ourselves to flip it over. But goddamn if the flipside isn't just as good, another robotic rhythm wrapped in crumbling distortion and zoner synth blur, the vocals almost entirely buried, and again, a sort of grunge-y punk lurking underneath all the electro-weirdness, the result, like the A side, some seriously ruling, heady, hooky, distorto synth punk that we can't get enough of. Counting the minutes til the full length...
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
Single number two from these local garage psych weirdos, and like the first, it�s another blast of warped and mangled pop, doused in reverb and echo, fuzz guitar draped over loose limbed drumming and soaring almost sunshiny vocals, the whole thing a glorious concoction that would be right at home on John Dwyer�s (Thee Oh Sees) Castle Face label, but is at the same time like some mutant strain of Best Coat-ian surf pop. It�s no coincidence that Blood Sister features members of aQ faves Ganglians, this stuff definitely shares some of the same sonic DNA.
The A side really is some sort of alternate universe Summer beach jam, al hazy, and dreamy, and laid back, but still gnarled and fractured, a drugged out chunk of feel good downer garage bliss out. The B side gets a bit darker, more minor key and angular, but then those multi tracked vocal harmonies come in, and give the sound a sort of outsider Beach Boys vibe. Seriously good shit. Don�t be surprised if these guys turn out to be the next big thing. Fans of Wavves, Crocodiles, Jeff The Brotherhood and other similarly stoned garage pop miscreants will flip.
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**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
First, classic album from the famous late '60s jazz/R&B/rock group. Now digitally remastered, with three bonus tracks and new liner notes. Totally fucked up proggy pop. Extended jams, crazy leads, stretched out languid blues. Hard to believe this stuff was top 40. If you loved that first Chicago record (and judging from how many we've sold, you do) then this will hit the spot.
Second, also classic album from the famous late '60s jazz/R&B/rock group. Includes hits "You've Made Me So Very Happy" and "Spinning Wheel", plus their cover/jam on Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" and interpretations of themes by Erik Satie! Now digitally remastered, with two live bonus tracks and new liner notes.
Three-song ep by a Swedish supergroup (guys from Opeth, Katatonia, and Edge of Sanity) who went into the studio to bash out this simple but very brutal tribute to old-school Florida death metal. Maybe you haven't bought a Cannibal Corpse or Obituary cd in a while, but this ep will bring back memories.
The band that started simply as a way for a bunch of friends from a few well-known Swedish metal bands to get together, drink beers, and make some old-school (early '90s style) death metal for the fun of it has actually turned into a REAL band, and is now on their second full-length recording! Nightmares Made Flesh is the worthy follow-up to Bloodbath's 2002 debut album Resurrection Through Carnage, which was an album that got some major imaginary windmilling action around here. Well, actually we all think that hair-spinning (rather than head-banging) thing a lot of death metal guys do is stupid, and sadly none of us have long enough hair for that anyway. But what we're saying is that it was a brilliant album in its own right regardless of its origins in tribute and nostalgia.
A few things are different with this release -- for one thing, singer Michael Akerfeldt of Opeth has been replaced on the mic by Peter Tagtgren of Hypocrisy fame. But apparently, in order to help preserve the old "feeling", Michael did phone up the studio every few days to talk to the guys while they were recording this. You can imagine the conversations...Dude is it brutal? Yah, brutal! Cool!
The other members of Bloodbath are: metalmeister Dan Swano (Edge Of Sanity, Pan-thy-monium, Karaboudjan, Nightingale, etc.), plus two guys from Katatonia, and a new drummer named Martin Axenrot -- who sounds like he should be from a band called Axenrot, right? but he's actually the drummer from Witchery and Satanic Slaughter. With Axenrot on board, first album skinbeater Swano has moved from drums to guitar, and provides some excellent, distinctive, melodic soloing on this album. Bloodbath is still all about their influences (Swedish DM greats like Dismember, Entombed, and Grave, along the likes of Britain's Carcass who had a Swede in the band anyway). But Nightmare is just a little bit more modern sounding (maybe it's the drumming) and even darker...still throughly laced with (deadly-virus) catchy, crunchy riffage and appropriately sick lyrics. We've now got the domestic version that differs from the import by boasting cover art from the one and only Wes Benscoter, and having two bonus tracks, demos from the band's initial Breeding Death ep sessions.
Bloodbath might sound like a generic death metal name, and that's kind of the idea. They're actually a Swedish metal supergroup paying tribute to the late 80's/early '90s death metal that they loved in their youth. Obituary, Cannibal Corpse, Carcass, Entombed, that kind of thing... Gory, grinding, blasting DEATH.
Bloodbath is made up of vocalist Michael Akerfeldt (mastermind of gods Opeth*), guitarist Anders Nystrom and bassist Jonas Renkse (both of AQ-faves Katatonia), and drummer Dan Swano (Dan Swano! he's been in a zillion bands, but we'll mention our favorites, Pan-thy-monium and Karaboudjan). They did a three-song ep a few years back, as a lark, and we never really expected a follow-up due to these dudes' busy schedules in their full-time outfits. But apparently the pleasures of unadulterated death metal beckoned irresistibly to them, and this "Resurrection" was thankfully at last spawned. And with this sort of musical braintrust, you know that Bloodbath isn't going to disappoint. Indeed they don't. Doomy, intricate, brutal, produced to perfection, and catchy in the blood-letting way that really only makes sense to death metal fans. Thanks guys!
*who have just released their eagerly anticipated new album, "Deliverance" (see nearby for our review) and we don't doubt the timing was coincidental...clever record company.
If you like Death Metal, we probably don't have to tell you to buy this. By the same token, if you don't happen to like Death Metal, you sure aren't gonna be interested in Bloodbath! Not for you would be all the chunky riffage littered with high pitched guitar squeals. Jud-jud-jud-jud-jud....skwee! skwee!... ZzrrrooOOOowww... Grunty-grunt-grunt. Well, that's what this might sound like to the non-DM fans. But those attuned to this sort of thing will appreciate the fully pro, old school DM heaviness on offer from this Swedish supergroup, featuring (this time) two guys from Katatonia, two from Opeth (including frontman Mikael Akerfeldt, back after a one-album absence), and someone else from a band we hadn't heard of, 21 Lucifers. But dude's nickname is "Sodomizer" so we assume he's cool. He'd better be since he's replacing Dan Swano.
Seriously, if you dig yerself some Death Metal then you can't go too wrong with Bloodbath's The Fathomless Mastery. No, it's not the best death metal album ever, or even Bloodbath's best, but it should get your hair a-twirling, and bring back nostalgic memories of the early '90s likes of Entombed, Dismember, Morbid Angel and so forth, which is the very blunt point of all this, moreso than the blasphemy and brutality of the lyrics, that keeps these guys getting together and doing the Bloodbath thing. Again, if you're not into DM, then you'll see this Bloodbath as half empty, while we see it as (more than) half full.
The packaging Peaceville put this in is kinda fancy for this music, one of those digipacks that looks a little bit like a hardcover book.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
"The first in a series of extremely heavy reggae soundclash/soundsystem inspired 7 inches" it says here. And the series is off to a good start with this entry by Bloodclaat Gangsta Youth, otherwise known as the harder-than-digital-hardcore beat terrorist DJ Scud. Brutal as expected.
It takes a LOT for a joke band to impress us. First, the joke has to be really funny. Second, the music STILL has to rule. Or at least be good enough to make the joke worthwhile. Nothing worse than a joke band that relies totally on their gimmick.
No need to worry about the mighty Bloodhag, the very heavy masters of all things Edu-Core. For those new to the 'Hag, imagine four nerds, white collared shirts (tucked in of course), totally obsessed with science fiction, so much so that each song is the name of an author, and of course the lyrics discuss the authors and their finest works, live the band hurls sci-fi paperbacks into the audience, and they even did an entire tour playing only in libraries!! It stops being a joke when it's this well researched and executed. Check out the cover too, a headless demon, laying atop a pile of books, the band dead with an 'overdue' notice stuck to one of their corpses, a warrior librarian, wielding a sword, clutching the demon's head, wearing sexy librarian glasses and of course with her library ID still around her neck. Awesome. Plus it's called Hell Bent For Letters! Fuck yeah! Check the Cavalar review elsewhere on the list for a rant on punny band names.
What do they sound like? Sort of like a thrash metal Karp, sludgy guitars, galloping drums, shouted vocals, sometimes thrashy and noisy, sometimes gloriously epic, sometimes sort of grunt and death metally. But pay close attention, you might learn something. The tracks this time around (and Andee's take on the books by the authors referenced):
"Gene Wolfe" (you must read his Book Of The New Sun series, so massive and dense and epic. One of the weirdest worlds ever written)
"Robert Silverberg" (just read Book Of Skulls on the recommendation of AQ pal Barbara D., disturbingly racist and misogynistic and homophobic (like many books written in the seventies) but if you can get past that, it's really intense and fucked up and so strangely mysterious. Being made into a movie which seems like a bad move)
"Douglas Adams" (recently re-read the Hitchhikers Guide 'trilogy' and it's still pretty darn funny. The movie was pretty good too)
"Orson Scott Card" (the Enders series is the series that made me love science fiction, just don't read any of the introductions or you'll realize what a Mormon kook he is and it might ruin it for you)
"Greg Bear" (The Forge Of God and Anvil Of Stars: one of the best sci-fi one-two punches ever. So epic and amazing!)
Okay, we could go on and on, the rest of the tracks / authors: "James Blish", "Anne M. Caffrey", "Iain M. banks", "Edgar Allen Poe", "Philip Jose Farmer", "Michael Swanwick", "Frederik Pohl", "Thomas M. Disch", "Franz Kafka", "Madeline L'Engle" and "Jack Womack".
If you like metal, you'll like Bloodhag. If you like science fiction, you -might- like Bloodhag. But if you love metal AND love science fiction, then pick up this slab of crushing edu-core, you just might learn something!
The full length, also heavy!
Pretty darn heavy, pretty darn rockin'. And despite what we heard and had hoped about '70s metal influences (Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, mebee even Bloodrock?) this Boston band sounds very much like something of this day and age, though with lots of stoned nodding towards said '70s past. That is, they fit right in with the likes of High On Fire, The Sword and Early Man. A pummelling power trio who play doomy yet rollicking rock with plenty of twists and turns.
Notable notes: Not an instrumental band but could be mistaken for one a lot of the time, jamming away without much thought to lettin' the singer sing (he's busy playing his guitar). Some bright n' happy (yet still heavy) moments. Rhythmically tight, dynamic songwriting that certainly gives the drummer some -- indeed, after a hard rockin' first couple minutes, the track "The Goat" is mostly a very atmospheric *drum solo* setting you up for the reintroduction of the woah-yeah main riff.
This debut "EP" is 6 songs, 36 minutes -- and we'd guess that many of those into heaviness who hear this, are gonna want to hear more.
You gotta respect a band when they thank their friends AND their enemies for inspiration. Certainly when it's a black metal band, because Sweden's Bloodline - featuring alumni from Naglfar, Shining, and Ondskapt - have channeled a good deal of misanthropy and concentrated hatred to produce an album of plodding, doomridden black metal with a couple extra heapings of all out negativity. The guitars are like napalm, the singer's got a great classic black metal scream, and even though they might hate to hear it, these songs are just plain catchy, filled with awesome riffs and moments of soaring guitar leads that stick in your head. Every once in a while, they will bring in some disturbing soundclips and whispy synths, which provide a nice contrast to the evil sound that defines most of Hate Procession. There are also moments of cold, windy ambience that make you pretty much want to curl up in a fetal position and die in the nearest snowbank. The tempos never reach the lightning fast speed that so many black metal bands go for, with the band instead focusing their energy on establishing a steady pound that helps bring out a quality many bands neglect - TRUE HEAVINESS. These songs are burly as fuck, and the steady beat in "Jerusalem Addio" and the industrial, stuttering rhythm of "Day Of The Vulture" are all Bloodline needs to put the posers in their place.
If the songs themselves weren't enough to fill you in on Bloodline's nihilistic m.o., the plethora of disturbing images should help to explain everything. Maybe a bit too extreme in certain parts for the casual observer, but those who like their metal mean will certainly find this much to their liking.
In our review of the recent archival release from Seattle/Aussie garage rockers Bloodloss, we went on a bit about the later years of Bloodloss, after their move to the states, when Mudhoney's Mark Arm took over on vocals, and then we realized we had never reviewed any of those Arm-fronted Bloodloss records, and then whaddayaknow, in drops this, the long lost final recordings from Bloodloss, in their final incarnation, still featuring members of Aussie noise rock legends Lubricated Goat, but firmly Americanized at this point with Arm up at the mic. Recorded way back in 1996 (we didn't realize they had broken up so long ago) and only unearthed and mixed last year, this is a healthy dose of swampy, punked up garage rock, still laced with some of the jazzisms (plenty of sax) that so defined the early years of Bloodloss, but for the most part, this sounds more like a grungier, scuzzier, swampier Monkeywrench / Mudhoney, although on opening track, someone else takes the mic, and delivers his lines in a Beefheart/Waits like raspy growl, but when the second track kicks in, we're off, propulsive tribal drumming, throbbing bassline, distorted buzz and crunch guitars, and that distinctive Arm wail, and from there on out, the record sort of flits back and forth, between slithery swaggery Beefheartian swamprock and post grunge Stooges-y stomp, with some wild drumming, gnarled guitaring, and plenty of twisted arrangements tangled up in both.
Sorta forgot how much we dug these guys, both pre and post Arm, but holy shit is this kicking our asses, and inspiring us to revisit all those Arm led Bloodloss records!
Includes a digital download of the album too!
When most people think of Bloodloss, they probably think of the Seattle based "supergroup" which included members of Lubricated Goat, Monkeywrench, and Mudhoney, Mark Arm of Mudhoney lending his oh so distinctive vocals, forever making Bloodloss a 'Mudhoney sideproject', but long before Mark Arm joined the band, Bloodloss were a Australia-based junk jazz / dirge blues juggernaut who totally destroyed. Scenemates with such Aussie post punk luminaries as Lubricated Goat, Scientists, King Snake Roost, Feedtime, the Scientists, Bloodloss fit right in, their sound swaggery and low slung, noisy and bluesy, punky and slithery, fitting perfectly right between King Snake Roost and Lubricated Goat, two of our favorite bands EVER. To be fair, their Seattle era sound was not all that removed from their classic early sound, the big change being their ditching of the jazz element which was a big part of their early sound.
Hell, their record is named after an Albert Ayler song, and they have a song about Archie Shepp, they've got sax on a handful of tracks, their songs are loose and wild, and while not necessarily 'free' (although a few tracks most definitely are), they definitely have the jazz spirit, a sound occasionally abstract and improvised, lots of jamming, killer freakouts alongside dense grooves and gnarled riffage, murky and low slung, the vocals seriously kick ass, deep and ominous one second, snarly and scowly the next, the guitars are dense and tripped out, wreathed in wah wah one second, all slippery slide the next, and the songs kill, catchy, noisy, heavy, wild and wooly, fans of all of the above mentioned bands, and that era of Australian post punk, who have yet to hear this stuff, holy shit are you in for a treat.
The first disc contains The Truth Is Marching In album from 1990, along with a handful of bonus tracks from their never released Hair Of The Future album from 1991, while the second disc contains highlights from their self-titled 1986 cassette, their 1987 lp Human Skin Suit and a bunch of unreleased tracks and rehearsals, and the older tracks feature vocalist Sharron Weatherill, who left before The Truth Is Marching In, and her distinctive vocals definitely give those older Bloodloss jams their own unique vibe, besides the fact that they're all noisier and way more lo-fi.
Super nice packaging with extensive liner notes and lots of photos. Memorandum continues to mine amazing gems from the Australian underground. Now we're just waiting for them to reissue all the old Lubricated Goat and King Snake Roost albums...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Great name for this new US occult rock outfit, with a Roky Erickson reference, priming us for Witchcraft/Pentagram styled retro doom-psych, but alas Bloody Hammers don't live up to the hype in our heads, just being kinda meh, rockin' metal stuff, not terrible but nothing special either. Oh well.
The opening song of this SF band's first cd finds them crunching out a rough'n'tumble garage pop with lots of snare drum that sounds a lot like Violent Femmes... but if Gordon Gano were replaced by more of a boyish crooner. The next track "Pipe Down!" does just that (bring things down a bit, that is!) as does the third song. These lower-key tunes which make up the better part of the album (and which gives you opportunity to catch hold of the lyrics), call to mind quirky storytellers such as Jonathan Richman, Microphones' Phil Elverum or Morrissey even. A promising indie pop debut!
This panda is bloody, dead, and gone...welcome to the funeral. Bloody Panda's debut full length, Pheremone, is a treat of funerary DOOM to be sure, but we get a lot of super rad doom don't we? It seems like every list there's another sky-melting, sun exploding super heavy band to flood your earholes (thankfully!). Among the heap of doomy metal Bloody Panda certainly stand out. First of all, the most obvious unique quality is the wailing, crooning vocals of front woman Yoshiko Ohara. Her beautifully chromatic singing adds a sort of otherworldly haunted vibe to BP's punishing sound. So weird and sick and ghostly. Also the band is just ruling! The musicianship on this is outrageous. Check out the drumming on the opening "Untitled" track, the pattern at the end (you'll know). That's some bugged out shit right there. There's organ, and guitars and basses tuned to the sublevels of hell, and really interesting rhythmic structures scattered throughout the entire record. There's also a ton of subliminal noise elements beneath much of the music. Basically if you're a fan of less-traditional, fucked up weird ass doom metal, this record is for you. Enough twists and turns to make it stand out among the hordes of heavy. Recommended.
New York doommongers Bloody Panda return with full length #2, this one courtesy of the always rad Profound Lore label. The band specializes in a style of glacial doom sounding like it was recorded in an enormous cathedral in the dead of night. Funereal keyboards and subsonic bass run alongside lumbering drums that put everything into a spiraling trance as the downtuned guitars puke out overwhelmingly negative sounding riffs. Then, there's the kicker, Bloody Panda's unassuming vocalist Yoshiko Ohara, whose beautiful and clear voice can just as easily switch from sweet croon to Yoko Ono howl to a throat ripping banshee scream to a guttural demon bark. Her super bleak lyrics focus on all the various aspects of mental instability that doom bands know and love, like a fever induced nightmare where Bloody Panda is the house band. Ohara's awesome and disturbing artwork perfectly mirrors the sounds within Summon, with lots of black space and faceless figures shrouded in slivers of hazy color. There are certainly some similarities to Neurosis' more, ahem, "tribal" moments, while the band's almost goth sensibility, not to mention the female vocals and organ, bring to mind Asva, but there is enough other stuff going on to make Bloody Panda stand out. This is only made clearer by the accompanying dvd, featuring a video for the 21 minute motherfucker of a song, "Miserere". Filmed by the band members themselves in various parts of Brooklyn in addition to shots taken in Indonesia, the dvd offers a stunning visual enhancement to Bloody Panda's sonic assault.
The first thing you notice is the super stylized metal logo, hard to tell exactly what it says, the first word is definitely probably 'blood', but the second is a jumbled tangle, looks like wall, BLOOD WALL? Or maybe Valet? BLOOD VALET? Or BLOOD VALE? Had we not known we most definitely would never have guessed BLOODY WALLET. What an amazing / ridiculous name. But as we listen to these guys, their fierce metallic crunch and sledgehammer pummel, the name starts to seem way more ominous, we're imaging some gruesome crime scene, bloody hand prints on the wall, sheet covered corpses, and in the corner an open wallet, cash spilled out, stuck in the center of a dried pool of crimson. Suddenly starts to seem like a pretty bad ass name for a metal band huh? Okay, maybe, but while some could perhaps argue with the name Bloody Wallet, now metalhead worth their salt could argue with the kick ass racket these guys lay down, it's heavy, melodic, mathy, the vibe is mostly classic metal, a little Champs for sure, but with definitely black metal shadings, the raspy hellish vokills, the churning riffage, the occasional furious blast beats, but then there's the mathy arrangements, the harmonies, the swooshing flanger effects, it's like a blackened hybrid of Iron Maiden and the Fucking Champs maybe? However you describe it, if you're in the market for some serious mostly instrumental metallic heaviness, that manages to be both brutal and melodic, classic and black, mathy and murky, with riffs that will stick in your (metal) head like crazy, duck under the crime scene tape, throw on some rubber gloves and pluck that Bloody Wallet from the floor, wipe off the blood (or not) and dig in. AWESOME.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Super sweet hand screened covers, designed by City Surgical (whose Gray Panic cd-r we also raved about on the list a while back).
I came to love folksinger Kath Bloom's frail, plaintive, birdlike voice through her recordings with the avant guitarist Loren Mazzacane Connors -- the pair made 5 gorgeous LPs in the '70s which are no longer available, but from which a current best-of cd has been compiled. (Highly recommended.) I've since been sort of obsessed with tracking down Kath Bloom and have finally succeeded. She is still making music, thank goodness, and thus we're proud to be carrying her self-released Come Here cd-r (I think we might be the only store to do so). Kath's voice is as fragile and trembly as ever, and the instruments accompanying here are likewise light -- airy guitar, harmonica, bittersweet fiddle. Most of the pieces are from the mid-'90s. Very nice, but an acquired taste, so make sure to listen to the soundclips.
Cult folk singer Kath Bloom's delicate voice and her fragile, often heartbroken lovesongs are, simply, just so sweet and so affecting. At age 50, Kath has perhaps built up a cult following, but is far from a household name. She's recorded sporadically since the early '80s, first in collaboration with avant-guitarist Loren Mazzacane Connors and subsequently solo. Motherhood took precedence over her musical career, though... She's best known really for her contribution to the soundtrack to the 1995 Richard Linklater film Before Sunrise ("Come Here", included on this disc). A while back, we used to sell a lot of copies of a cd-r bearing that title we got directly from Ms. Bloom herself. Maybe we can still get 'em, we'd have to check with her, but better yet anyway we now have this actual cd (fittingly named Finally), an Australian import compilation of some of her nicest stuff from the early '90s 'til now! Yay!
It contains 14 beautiful songs, spanning the years 1993-2005, and also includes detailed liner notes telling Bloom's story, plus an strongly worded appreciation written by one of her biggest fans, filmmaker Caveh Zahedi.
Former AQ-owner Windy was (and still is, we're sure) also a HUGE fan of Kath Bloom (which is why we had those cd-rs). Even she, though, suggested that taking a listen to the soundclips before you buy might be a good idea, as Bloom can indeed be an acquired taste. She sounds a bit like Judee Sill, maybe, more wavery and trembly though, definitely singing from the heart, accompanied by her own gentle guitar playing, harmonica, recorder, and sometimes further instrumentation played by various friends.
On her eighth album, Ms Kath Bloom proved she still has many stories to sing from her thick songbook with many pages still to be filled. As always, her voice and words are steeped with raw nerve honesty and open hearted emotion. Often Bloom's delivery wavers precariously on the edge of despair. Clearly it's a voice that's lived through the thick and the thin, but that has not lost all hope. Hers is utterly unadorned folk of the most fragile kind, but there is a palpable resolve that underscores the seemingly frail proceedings. As intimate and tenderly true blue as ever, Thin Thin Line is sure to please her loyal fans! Released on Mark Kozelek's Caldo Verde label... yes, a man with good taste!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
GORGEOUS. Windy's new favorite record. Folksinger Kath Bloom's frail, plaintive voice is perfectly suited to Mazzacane's meandering folk guitar. Here's what Mazzacane says in the liner notes: "These recordings were made between 1981 and 1984. I produced and released them on the St Joan label in editions of 200 copies. There were 5 LPs total, from which the best songs were taken for this release. While Bloom's songs were clearly in the 'new folk' style, my free-form playing and vocalizations were too unsettling for most folk music fans. The music therefore received more acceptance in the small avant music scene than in the much larger folk scene of the time."
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We reviewed an awesome triple cd box set from this seventies Chilean psych rock band a while back, and now the first of their three albums found there has been reissued as a super swank remastered 180 gram vinyl lp...
You'd think that there weren't any lost psychedelic treasures left to unearth. Especially considering the amount of garbage that gets released, being touted as some amazing find, some legendary lost gem. The fact that a record was released in some super limited pressing, or went out of print soon after it was released, or was maybe never released, is not enough to make it 'legendary' or 'essential' or even 'worth reissuing at all'! In fact often that speaks to the fact that no one gave a shit in the first place, and there's no reason for anyone to care now, except for the public's seemingly insatiable appetite for lost psychedelic treasures. As we quickly learned with the Radioactive reissues, there is no shortage of lame folk / sorta-psychedelia that can be repackaged and pushed on unsuspecting folks just looking to get their sixties/seventies psych rock fix. The folks at Shadoks, who did the Blops 3cd box set, seem to be a bit more discerning, and while we don't necessarily love everything they put out, they tend to hit way more than they miss.
But to be honest we were still a little bit skeptical, when that box set came out, of a yet another reissue of some psychedelic band we had never heard of, but c'mon, all the signs pointed to yes - they're from Chile, they're from the early seventies, have a great name, and most important of all, FLUTE!!! So we gave it a shot, and guess what, it's awesome. Lilting psychedelic folk, dreamy and pastoral, fluttering flutes, over sweetly minor key acoustic guitar, simple hand drums, moody crooning vocals, simple shuffling rhythms, warm fuzzy organs, all with just the slightest psychedelic tinge. Fans of Embrujo, also from Chile, will for sure want to pick this up too.
Interesting aside: this first Blops record (along with the second) was originally released on a label affiliated with the Communist youth, and the original tapes were destroyed by the military! Radical.
You'd think that there weren't any lost psychedelic treasures left to unearth. Especially considering the amount of garbage that gets released, being touted as some amazing find, some legendary lost gem. The fact that a record was released in some super limited pressing, or went out of print soon after it was released, or was maybe never released, is not enough to make it 'legendary' or 'essential' or even 'worth reissuing at all'! In fact often that speaks to the fact that no one gave a shit in the first place, and there's no reason for anyone to care now, except for the public's seemingly insatiable appetite for lost psychedelic treasures. As we quickly learned with the Radioactive reissues, there is no shortage of lame folk / sorta-psychedelia that can be repackaged and pushed on unsuspecting folks just looking to get their sixties/seventies psych rock fix. The folks at Shadoks seem to be a bit more discerning, and while we don't necessarily love everything they put out, they tend to hit way more than they miss.
But to be honest we were a little bit skeptical of a triple cd boxed set of some psychedelic band we had never heard of, but c'mon, all the signs pointed to yes -- they're from Chile, three records from 1970, 1971, and 1973, and most important of all, FLUTE!!! So we gave it a shot, and guess what, it's awesome. Each disc is a little different, but all three are super cool. Lilting psychedelic folk, dreamy and pastoral, fluttering flutes, over sweetly minor key acoustic guitar, simple hand drums, moody crooning vocals, simple shuffling rhythms, warm fuzzy organs, all with just the slightest psychedelic tinge. Fans of Embrujo, also from Chile, and recently raved about on the AQ list, will for sure want to pick this up too.
The second disc has all the same sonic elements but adds a bit of mariachi flair, and is a bit more electric than the mostly acoustic first album. There is more varied instrumentation and the sounds is a bit more poppy as well, with some definite Beatles-y moments here and there and occasional frenzied bursts of psychedelic freakout guitar. Record number three is the most psychedelic of the three and is definitely a bit more prog, lengthier tracks, more parts per song, groovy jazzy jams, wild super rocking complex drumming as well as some brief drum solos, probably the best (and wildest) flute playing of the three discs. more fuzzed out organ, lots more electric guitar, sounding a bit like Santana at times, but always infused with dreamy psychedelic folkiness. So cool.
Interesting aside: both the first and second records were originally released on a label affiliated with the Communist youth, and the original tapes were destroyed by the military! Radical.
Three jewel cased packaged in a gorgeous oversized box. Includes two tracks that weren't even on the recent, now out of print, vinyl reissues. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!!!
A while back we reviewed the reissue of this British band's wonderfully twee and surreal first album, "We Are Ever So Clean", from the paisley days of 1967. But on this, that album's 1969 follow-up, they left the Sgt. Pepperisms behind for an even freakier, and heavier, direction. It's kinda like how The Pretty Things went from "S.F. Sorrow" to "Parachute", but weirder. The Mothers Of Invention might have been an influence, certainly the lead-off track "Peace Loving Man" is crazy enough. Heavy too, with gruff vocals and loud guitar riffs. Yep, compared to the ornate, orchestrated psych-pop of "We Are Ever So Clean" this whole album is waaaay more (acid) Rock, but still full of melodic hooks and 60s zaniness. Pretty cool. Unfortunately this was to be their last album, but their guitarist did go on to join Family (we mention for those into the rock family tree thing).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
London, 1967: ground zero for the explosion of fab British pop psych rock bands, including many known today only to collectors -- among them, this bunch of mop tops, Blossom Toes. Here's a Japanese cd reissue of the first of their two albums. Their brand of psychedelic pop music was ornate, orchestrated, lush, and very British -- they songs called "Mrs. Murphy's Budgerigar" and "I'll Be Late For Tea" -- think Beatles, Zombies, Kinks, very early Bowie, with dashes of surreal Pythonesque zaniness ("The Remarkable Saga Of The Frozen Dog", "The Intrepid Balloonist's Handbook, Volume One", etc.). Indeed, they even played Captain Beefheart covers live! Produced by Swinging Sixties London scenester Giorgio Gomelski (their manager, who also managed the Yardbirds among other claims to fame). Note: "Packaged with the original artwork and lyrics (as opposed to the ugly-ass Heritage Entertainment version previously available)" sez Revolver.
