Celebration features former members of Baltimore's anguished depressives Love Life who've brought an ample dose of volatile darkness to their new band. Although their more rollicking paced songs may bring them within spitting distance of current bands such as Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade, methinks this heady band would like to lead you down a very different path than those predominantly 'up' sounding bands. Definitely more sinister and far less of a 'good time'. Slightly unhinged and perhaps intoxicated by some mysterious elixirs (Not boozily drunk, mind you! If that's what you're seeking, you should check out the latest Silver Jews album). If you like the formidable but sadly defunct band Pleasure Forever (or their predecessors Slaves and VSS), you're probably already familiar with these folks as they've shared plenty of stages... and if you're not, well, you should be! Jagged post-punk guitars and propulsive drumbeats slash through squalls from the organ and saxophone while lead singer Katrina Ford's howls, moans and slurs her blood-red vocals. Yeah, it's pretty darn great!
Much will be made about Brittle being the final Celer recording, as Celer's Danielle Basquet-Long died unexpectedly at the age of 26. Celer's lingering ambience has often focused upon the melancholy of echo and a somberness of sound through their heavily treated arrangements for piano, violin, bells, harpsichord, and whistles; and that sense of elegaic loss seems even more prescient on this record, even as it wasn't intended to be so. A monolithic, ever shifting album of elongated tone, drone, slippage, and elegant ambience, Brittle beautifully falls between the Leyland Kirby exercises in haunted ambience and the dark studies that Brian Eno offered on his seminal album On Land. Quite nice, indeed.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Celer is the husband and wife team of Dani Baquet-Long and Will Long, who currently reside somewhere down on the Southern California coast. They've released a handful of well-received ambient recordings on Spekk and Infraction, and they've found a good home on And/OAR for this driftscape of tapeloop interplay. As for the title, a nacreous cloud is found in the upper regions of the atmosphere at the polar regions. Well past sunset and well before sunrise, these clouds showcase a radiant brightness against an otherwise darkened sky; and it's this particular phenomenon that forms the inspiration for Celer's album of the same name. Having stretched the tones of various instruments into languid looping drones and bliss-out ambience, Celer presents 37 short tracks which actually work really well as a single composition, given the gentle flutter and restrained attack from all of their sounds. References abound to William Basinski's ambient work, Aidan Baker's soft focus facets, and of course the seminal work of Brian Eno.
Limited to 555 copies, each one hand numbered...
This is the debut full-length from Norwegian black metallers Celestial Bloodshed. Having only previously put out a demo and an ep, Cursed, Scarred and Forever Possessed (great title!) gives listeners outside of the utterly cvlt underground (who, like, don't live in Norway or trade obsessively over the internet) a chance to plumb their depths just a little deeper. Those lucky few already exposed to the charred sickness of these misanthropic underlords will recognize their place within the blackened realm ruled by bands like Burzum and Gorgoroth. Why do we mention those two bands specifically? Well, CB tend to go back and forth pretty solidly between both the more mid-paced buzzed out dirge of the former and the brutal blasts of the latter. At the same time, they've managed to incorporate some experimental soundscapery and some super cool and strange vocals, well beyond the usual black metal atmospherics. A gloriously grim, harsh and heavy collection of buzzing blackness, which will most definitely fit nicely in any serious metalhead's collection. Hail!
Celestial Sea is the unlikely collaboration between God Is Myth head honcho Todd Paulson, who is also responsible for Dormant, reviewed elsewhere on the aQ site, and Andrew Curtis-Brignell, of UK black metal one man band Caina. Not unlikely because of the folks involved, it's not hard to draw lines connecting Caina Dormant and God Is Myth, but more for the sound they produce. An epic cinematic post rock more influenced by folks like Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, Isis and Mono than any black metal or even metal in particular.
Granted the crossover between metal and post rock is pretty common these days with folks on both sides of the sonic divide borrowing freely from the folks opposite. And we're never ones to complain, we love both sounds, pummeling metallic crunch, and loping mathy instrumental jams, and the two together, well, you know where we stand.
So here we Have Celestial Sea, a (perhaps) one off, that finds the duo getting super spacey for the opening 5 minutes, simple minor key guitar figures unfurling over long drawn out drones, ratcheting up the tension, creating a brooding post rock ambience, that to be honest, we'd be happy to hear continue for the length of the whole record.
Instead, the band launch into the first proper song, soaring crystalline chords, breathless vocals, simple drumming, all swept up in a shimmering swell, building to a crescendo that instead of introducing crushing downtuned riffage, offers up some super proggy organs, but only for a moment, a few seconds later, the guitars drop, and the band is soaring majestically, and heavily through some epic major key chords, the drumming wilder and more chaotic, before blissing back out soon after.
Track three, "William Bentley's Grave" is another slow burner, with a definite prog vibe, lots of glistening shimmer, finally exploding in another epic climax, not crushing or heavy, just expansive and cathartic.
The closer, "Deep Inside The Cold" is the darkest of the bunch, and the most overtly heavy, sounding a bit like Opeth or Katatonia but more mathy and introspective. The guitars thick, ringing out, long passages of droning looped riffage, and finally the record's big payoff, high end guitars spiraling heavenward, the drums double time, a serious final blowout.
Definitely for fans of rock both post and math, and of course metalheads not averse to some sonic subtlety and lots of pretty pretty melody
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, housed in a plain white sleeve with a paste on cover and a printed insert.
There was a time where all you had to do was add umlauts to every vowel (heck how about a few consonants too?) to make your band name more evil. More mysterious. For glam rockers it simply meant changing s's to z's, BOYZ, TOYZ, NOYZE... oh and changing i's to y's, and double o's always helped... Bad Noose. But recently, there have been several examples of grim black and doom metal bands adding an extra 'i' for no apparent reason. When it was just French black metallers Mutiilation, we thought, okay, they're just French and little bit strange, or maybe it was a typo but they thought it was cool. We can dig that. But now with Minnesotan funereal doom lords Celestiial jumping on the double 'i' bandwagon, we're beginning to think something is going on. Something sinister. Er... siiniister we mean.
Anyway, we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled for more of the evil double 'i' but in the meantime, Celestiial has more than just the 2 i's going for them. They also have a gaggle of o's. that's right. Celestiial are definitely one of those bands who have earned the multiple o'd doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. They're in the tradition of bands like Skepticism, Thergothon, Disembowelment, Evoken, Winter and more modern practitioners of the ultradoom like Catacombs, Esoteric and the like, but Celestiial are no ordinary doom band, sure their songs are lengthy and glacial, guitars are nothing but black smears in a starless sky, the plodding drums are dropped reverently amidst a bleak and barren sonic landscape. Vocals growl and gurgle and float weightless like some dark wind. Celestiial's doom is even more spacey and blissed out than any of their influences. The guitars are thick and dense and tuned impossibly low, but they sound soft, like someone shaking out a huge black blanket and letting it settle over you, blocking out all light. The programmed drums are so dense with reverb, and the cymbals seem to sizzle endlessly, the percussion just turns into a wash of hiss and whir, that adds a strange fuzzy glow to the already murky and blissy sound. The other thing you can't help but notice, is the sound of nature, everywhere, in every song, crickets, wind blowing through the trees, frogs, whippoorwills, thunder, rain falling on leaves. You know how Skepticism sounds like it was recorded in a forest? This is like that too but it's not metaphorical, it really has forest sounds. It's almost like their is some black doom funeral procession, trudging through the forest, lit only by torchlight, the creatures of the night, gathered just outside the circle of fire. So intense and strangely serene, especially for a 'doom metal' record.
And the thing is it's not just for effect. Celestiial are from Minnesota and are quite possibly the first reflective, isolationist, naturist doom band ever. From the band's website: "Celestiial was created to mirror mysticism in nature. Its heart lies not in its medium but in its dreams. It is a reflection of astral light shown upon the earth--sinking into its soil--waiting and dreaming. It wishes to be the pulse of woodlands and water. Nothing more? Understand that funeral doom isn't always slow for the sake of being slow. It is slower than the beat of the human heart. Its pulse is dead. The pulse of CELESTIIAL aims at being completely parallel to continual motion in everything of this earth. From the seasonal changes to representations of myth."
Woah. But if you really listen, Celestiial's slow motion doom does sound perfectly at home amidst the sounds of nature. Like some living breathing shadowy doomic creature living among the insects and wild birds, lurking in tree tops and curled up upon soft piles of wet leaves. It's almost like a doom metal version of recent record of the week Osmose, by Ariel Kalma, but instead of synths and rainforests, it's doom and dark forests. And as if to further tie the music to the land, and the peoples of the land, Celestiial incorporate an unlikely selection of traditional instruments into their slow motion dirges, such as Celtic harp and Native American flutes.
All of that, strange instrumentation, nature sounds, the two i's, combine to make this wonderfully weird, hauntingly mysterious and quite possibly one of the dreamiest and most blissed out doom records ever!
Full length number two from this Minnesotan funeral doomlord, long anticipated around here considering how much we loved the last one, Desolate North, and this is another sprawling oozing missive from the dark forest, an epic chunk of woodland doom, similar to how the new wave of Cascadian black metal bands find inspiration from their surroundings, Celestiial look to the woods, the the water, the the world that surrounds them.
The record opens with a dense swirl of black buzz, nearly motionless, a thick heady drone, laced with feedback, and grinding industrial grit, 4+ minutes of heaving whirling blacknoize, that gives way to a field recording of a trickling stream, complete with birdsong, wind, what could be thunder, the perfect introduction to the record's 30+ minute centerpiece, "Great Storms Carry My Sadness", a gorgeous, minor key, ultra doom lament, as slow and low as any of the other doom outfits, but somehow the sound is warmer, more lush, it manages to glow with some sort of warmth, while remaining appropriately dark and dense, the song plods along dreamily, and then fades out, leaving still more sounds of the forest, running water, birds chirping, all underpinned by deep barely there metallic shimmers, super haunting and otherworldly, like wandering through the forest at dusk, eventually the doom swoops back in, and if anything it's even prettier and more minimal than before the break.
After a brief bit of lovely acoustic guitar, set to burbling brook and bird song, the record's other long track, another epic doom sprawl creeps into motion, laced with harp and hooting owls, another strange track in that it manages to be washed out and dreamlike, but also dark, and dense and heavy, but not like Bunkur or Moss, this is something way more ethereal, a hazy heaviness that leaves plenty of space for nature to intrude, birds and wind and rustling branches, all as much a part of the sound as guitar and drums and vocals. After another brief delicate bit of soft focus shimmer, of forest sounds and glistening acoustic guitar, the journey is over.
Where Life Springs Eternal is that rare funereal doom record, a collection of songs that are as beautiful as they are heavy, and like the record that came before, easily some of the most blissful and dreamy doooooom you'll ever hear.
A high concept split lp from two aQ faves, two different bands, two different sounds, their bond being that of nature, both expressing their visions of the world around them, of their place, and our place amongst the living things that surround us, forests, plants, animals, insects, it's that natural force that infuses the music of both of these groups, and thus links them in such a way, that this shared 12" could almost be the work of a single entity.
The first side features a single extended track from naturalist doomlords Celestiial, their track of course begins with the sounds of birds, of water and wind, insects, a forest at dusk most likely, before from below, rises deep ominous swells, rumbling drones, distant moaning melodies, a deep dark ambience that soon gives way to a big blown out doom, but, a very spacious, spare, airy sort of doom, not heavy as much as abstract, spaced out, the guitars not crumbling and downtuned, more like chiming and ringing out, somehow weirdly processed to make them seem like they are being stretched out, moaning and then fading out, before exploding in another burst, the drums and percussion sounds industrial, the vocals howled and buried in the mix, everything strangely harmonized, sounding a bit alien, near the end the drums speed up into an almost blast beat, but the music gets more and more melodic, minor key swells keeping time with the beat, unfurling a mournful melody, until the music fades out and the track finishes as it began with deep drones and the sounds of the forest.
The flipside features a long three part track by Blood Of The Black Owl, who begin proceedings with a plodding, almost metallic dirge, but backed up by a haunting chiming high end jangle, as well as distant flute like melodies that sound distinctly Native American, the vocals howled and industrial sounding, a bit like Swans or Cop Shoot Cop. The second movement begins with birdsong, deep, slow rubbery dubbed out bass, soft ethereal reverbed vocals, very medieval sounding, until the track switches gears and transforms into something more post industrial sounding, a doomy plod but with haunting mysterious melodies. The side ends with a very tribal sort of ritualistic piece, all simple hand drums and shimmering lowend ambience, growled spoken word, very minimal and haunting, almost like some ancient rite, being captured on vinyl for the very first time.
Gorgeously packaged. Incredibly thick vinyl, thick sleeves, full color inserts, and most likely quite limited...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
As Celluloid Mata only has a few very limited releases, their name probably won't seem as familiar as those who have been asked to remix them... nevertheless, you should expect to see their name popping up in the near future as their dark atmospheric breakbeats resemble all of things Skam. These remixes range from the electro fuckery of DJ Speedranch to James Plotkin's mutant electonica / prog rock and Drahomira Song Orchestra's clubby throb.
Celluloid Mata "Sable" is a dark (almost industrial) electronica album heavy on the distorted breakbeat crunch and the harsh electronic collage. Definitely for the Meat Beat Manifesto / Scorn crowd.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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It's been *how many* years that Celtic Frost fans have been waiting for this??? Well here it is! The first new album from Switzerland's extreme avant-garde metal pioneers since 1989's Vanity/Nemesis. We don't want to make you wait any longer, so we'll keep this review brief. What you want to know is, is this a disgrace to the hallowed CF brand name or did they manage to live up to their idiosyncratic and influential legacy?? Well, we think they have done the latter, and boldly too. (Besides, how can you disgrace the legacy when you've already made glam mistake Cold Lake like 20 years ago? though we hasten to add, Cold Lake is actually one of our FAVORITE Celtic Frost albums, perversely enough.)
Spinning Monotheist makes us think that CF mainman Thomas Gabriel Fischer has been listening to a lot of old Godflesh lately, not a bad thing! This has that uber-doomy industrial vibe to it, complete with feedback squeals and shuddering beats. Not dancey industrial, but factory/machine industrial. All that heaviness is accompanied by a large dose of melancholic melody. Add Tom's dramatic, almost Bowie-like spoken-sung vocals (and more than one instance of his famous death-grunt "uhh!"), and you've got a Teutonic, twisted, Type-O gothy, doom/industrial/prog/classical/black metal, non-rehashed return from Celtic Frost that's no disappointment at all. Uhh!!!
While supplies last, we've got the import slipcase digipack version with bonus track.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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We listed a fairly expensive vinyl reissue of this not too long ago, but just managed to track down some copies of the double compact disc version too, for those of you who would prefer that format...
One of our most popular Records Of The Week of recent vintage was the double cd by ambitious UK ensemble the Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere, and in our review of that we mentioned this, an unjustly obscure classic from the early '70s, a joyous symphonic jazz prog outpouring from another HUGE ensemble, that the UOA reminded us of just a bit - it probably was one of their inspirations, in fact. Centipede was a robust 50-piece orchestra, lead by composer Keith Tippett, featuring a host of rock and jazz musicians from the Canterbury scene (Robert Wyatt wrote the original liner notes), including members of King Crimson, Soft Machine, and Nucleus. Heroically recorded & produced by King Crimson's Robert "Bob" Fripp, Septober Energy was originally released in 1971 (yep), and has now been reissued by Klimt in a gatefold sleeve on double vinyl, that barely contains this sprawling, vibrant masterpiece, which morphs continually through jazz and prog and 20th century avant classical idioms, incorporating droning wordless vocal choirs, violin and cello scrape and skitter, crazed crescendos of jabbering kecak-like chant, delicate piano passages, masses of trumpets, saxes, and trombones, and more... Imagine William Sheller's Lux Aeterna album with a whole bunch of Albert Aylers on board, maybe, especially with Centipede's dynamic shifts from driftingly pleasant melodic horn passages to total free jazz freakout to righteous, swinging "hairy funk" grooves. Moments might possibly get too "fusiony" for some folks, but not for us though.
Fripp was supposed to play guitar, but instead he was too busy with his recording duties, so the fat fuzz riffery that occasionally appears comes courtesy of Brian Godding of Blossom Toes (who, even more germane to this music, later on played with Magma!). There's also lyrics by (and singing from) Tippett's then-wife Julie, who now actually often collaborates with UOA's Martin Archer, see.
Ok first of all, let it be known that this band contains many Chicagoans who also play in such outfits as Town and Country, US Maple, Chicago Underground Trio, Brokeback, Manishevitz, and Lofty Pillars. But before you go writing them off like I (Windy)
Cathedral + Celtic Frost styled doom debut from England. With some weird parts to make it interesting.
Whoops, we've had this for quite a while, but forgot to list it! After two discs for I Hate Records, the third album from UK metalcore doomsters CG came out via The Church Within earlier this year (way back in January, right before CG went on tour in Europe with the mighty Saint Vitus). But it's never too late for doom. And if you're looking for a fix of somethin' heavy off of this week's list, of the downtuned sludge variety of heavy that is, this oughta do the trick. With chunky guitars, hoarse HC vocal shouts, and pummelling drums (from the guy who also plays in Lord Vicar), Centurions Ghost sound like they mean business, and it's a mean business indeed! While a tad bit more trad doom than the average Neur-Isis effort, their sludge is far from slo-mo. And though they can scare up some stonery atmospherics, they don't come off as being very "ghostly" despite their name - the rather lovely and arcane cover drawing by Sami Hynninen (aka Albert Witchfinder of Reverend Bizarre) belies the brutality of the music within!
We like the name this British doom metal band picked for themselves, it's making references to both ancient history and supernatural phenomena, and more importantly, sets one up for a story to be told... at least we're curious about who the centurion was and why they're now haunting the place. This, the band's second album for the doom-centric Swedish label I Hate Records (whose records we definitely -don't- hate, as recently reviewed and recommended offerings from the likes of Jex Thoth and Fall of the Idols should attest) doesn't answer those questions, but it does sound in keeping with the general spooky concept, though it's not as 'old school' doom as you might expect. With lurching riffs, rhythms like a Roman legion on the march, cathartic screams (a bit Neurosis some of this), it's heavy and doomy all right. It rages more than it plods, the pace here often fairly fast and thrashy, the vocals often anguished and angry.
Previously (in our review of their A Sign Of Thing To Come debut a few years back) we'd said that this band sounds a bit like a weird Cathedral and Celtic Frost hybrid. Now we'd say they've got a lot more noisecore in their doom. Tracks like "In Defiance", for instance, sound like Isis with a more classically metal approach to melody (and guitar leads) as well as a dose of hardcore brutality. Or we could say that this band has more in common with the likes of Village Of Dead Roads, Mouth of the Architect, and Today Is The Day than it does, say, Revered Bizarre or Gates Of Slumber.
We've been playing catch up on cd-r's lately. We order a bunch, because they're so limited and we won't be able to order more later, but then we end up with way too much stuff to review so lots of those cd-r's end up sitting around for a while. Which is a bummer, but does mean a lucky few of you get a chance to nab some of these loooooong out of print cd-r gems well after the fact.
Take this one, limited to only 50 copies! Of which we had 10 or 12, and now have about 8. This baby has been out of print for over a year! And it's too bad too, cuz this is a slow burning doozy. Languorous sun baked electric guitar, wrapped in wah and delay, a little distortion, the notes and chords allowed to drift and shimmer. Two epic half hours of slow motion psych drift, lazy and blown out, blissy and druggy, the opening track is a lysergic sprawl that eventually builds to full on chaotic cacophony, so in the red, it nearly fried the speakers here. The second track is just as speaker punishing but instead of whit noise skree, it's long billowy stretches of low end buzz, and distorted drone, peppered with brief sprawls of squealing feedback and glitched out amp damage. Killer stuff. Too bad we only have 8 copies. You have been warned.
Super limited one sided live lp from these psychedelic headz. One sidelong blown out dub drenched psych rock heavy freakout, a dense layer of blurred buzz and sprawled static riffage oozes into thick billowing clouds, over which the drummer lays down a heavy groove, spare but seriously powerful, the instrumental backdrop isn't so much riff and rhythm as it is heavy swirls of sound, pulsing and driving. We weren't actually expecting vocals, but they bubble to the surface, heavily effected, doused in delay and reverb an echo, occasionally dubbed like crazy, the last word of a line spend spinning into the murk, it seems like an obvious homage to Japanese psychedelic heavies Les Rallizes Denudes, this jam has the same sort of loose feel, the vocals weirdly feral and abstract, all of the various sounds gradually seeming to blur into one heaving wall of churning psych, total drugged out zoner bliss, and as the track/side progresses, the band seem to gradually crank the sound, louder, faster, more frantic, everything cranked, even the vocals, wilder and more maniacal, all building to a frenzied final freakout. Super rad. Obviously fans of Burnt Hills, Carlton Melton, White Hills, The Heads, and all of those sort of psych combos will flip for this. Housed in an old school black and white bootleg style paste on sleeve, with a photocopied insert. And super limited, as in LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!
Dizzying! Mathematically advanced, metalcore deathgrind stoner madness (and more!) from these Colorado freaks. Definitely a worthy successor to their previous pot-fueled masterpiece, the labyrinthine Lucid Interval. In fine grind style, you get plenty o' samples and gargled inhuman vox on top of Cephalic's metallic geek frenzies. But just when you think you have a handle on what's going on, you'll find...anomalies. These guys like to mix it up, from Dillinger/Cryptopsy craziness to doom sludge to hardcore breakdowns, to the epic moody almost-goth creepiness of the disc's final track "Octogeny Of Behavior". And for those who think "stoner" rock is supposed to sound like Sabbath or Kyuss, well...just check out the heavy psych riffage that kicks off track five, that ought to make you happy! Overall, pretty amazing, as we expect from these guys. Just imagine a corrupted filesharing session between Meshuggah and Neurosis...
Colorado stoner-math-grind band's sample-filled, mind-melting 2nd album.
After the hyper onslaught of their recent masterpiece "Lucid Interval", this one-off experiment comes as a drastic departure for these grindmetalheads, though it's certainly in keeping with their allegiance to the sweet leaf! What do we mean? Well, "Halls Of Amenti" is but one 19 minute doom metal dirge, heavy on the DOOM. Downtuned slow motion sludge that would sit comfortably in your collection next to Thergothon, Skepticism or Esoteric! Think Sabbath or Candlemass or Trouble but slooooowwwwwed waaaaaaaay dooooooown. And fronted by a growling and shrieking death metal vocalist. Fans of the above mentioned bands as well as Corrupted, Boris, the Melvins and all things sludge should not pass this by. This beautifully packaged clear 3" cd is supposedly the first of a three part series.
It's hard to imagine that a bunch of semi-pro pot-smokers could motivate themselves to produce music this technical, fierce, and over-the-top insane, but they did. This ain't your typical "stoner rock" that's for sure -- although there are some weighty breakdowns of riffed-out doom, Cephalic Carnage's general modus operandi puts 'em at the top of the fast n' tricky league with the likes of Dillinger Escape Plan, Coalesce, Meshuggah. Heavy metalcore mayhem w/ grunting death metal vocals, hypnotic fusion-esque guitar figures, post-rock dynamics, random electronic noises, major drum beat-downs, cryptic samples, and hyper-shred musicanship. (And some surprises we won't mention.) Anyone into metal that's avant-garde in its complexity and brutal in its execution -- the above mentioned, and also Mastodon, Gorguts, Dying Fetus, Wicked Innocence, Cryptopsy, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, etc. -- probably already knows about these guys, but if you don't, you'll be glad to get to know 'em! Metal cluttered with lyrical references to the cannabis leaf might not seem so brainy, but with this, their third and best full-length album, Cephalic Carnage prove they're possibly the geniuses of the genre. They're kinda the anti-Electric Wizard, if you know what we mean, though of course we love the even-heavier Wizard's much simpler, slow n' low odes to the leaf as well -- and both bands transcend the cannabis-connection to hook those of us just interested in the music, anyway.
The first time we heard Cephalic Carnage was at a little club in San Francisco, and the band were easily the most insane thing we had ever seen, death metal via stoner rock, the drummer playing what sounded like a continuous drum solo, while the rest of the band spit out churning sped up stoner riffs, transformed into a lurching head spinning what the fuck chunk of outsider metal. They never quite captured that warped, druggy, damaged weirdness on record, but they definitely came close, a twisted death metal grind hybrid, with occasional drum machines, weird processed vokills, creepy samples, streaks of noise and disembodied chug, they were definitely way more outsider grind than death metal, but with every record, they seemed to shed some of that fucked up ness, which in one way was a shame, but in another was maybe unavoidable. They got better and tighter and less weird. Or did they?
On first listen, their latest, Mislead By Certainty, seemed crazily straight ahead, especially on the record opener, which was super melodic sounding Swedish style death metal, it sounded good, but it threw us for a loop, but it only took a few more minutes to realize these guys were just as fucked as ever, that song shifted over and over, eventually locking into one of the most twisted atonal freakout jams EVER, the sort of sounds that make you almost queasy, before slipping right back into some more melodic riffing.
And so it goes, the band leaping from furious blurred grind, to full on classic death metal riffage, to total NWOBHM melody, to awesomely thick and filthy dirgey doom, and the thing is, every song goes through a crazy amount of permutations, a song may go two minutes blasting relentlessly, before suddenly shifting gears and turning into some twisted glob of grinding off kilter whatthefuck only to slip right back into the song again. And let's not forget the awesome 12+ minute "Repangaea", which begins all low slung and creepy, a dirgey doomy bit of drift, there even seems to be some saxophone(!), it builds to a seriously epic blast of melodic power metal / noise rock bombast with clean vocals and a killer hook and everything, before getting all spaced out and blissy, then a little modern metal style chug and churn, before an awesomely dense slowed down death metal outro. Wow. And just so you know it's Cephalic Carnage, they follow that up and finish things off with a super intense one note grind blast, with some seriously ridiculous and sick twisted vokills. Somehow, with just one single all the way through listen, this record went from being a huge disappointment to one of our new favorite metal records. Fuck yeah!
Cerberus Shoal's newest offering is a slow, strange, earthy beauty. On each of the ten ever-shifting avant-folk songs (some quite lengthy jams), notes from the horns, flutes and mellotron (we're guessin') slink and slide hypnotically while percussion comes in the form of warm melodic wood block tapping. The ensemble singing and chanting conjured images of a pagan ritual conducted by Brian Eno. Bastion Of Itchy Preeves is a precarious balance of the dissonant and the delicate.
Look out, Windy's got a new favorite band, and it's Cerberus Shoal. Never mind that I'm a latecomer to the group -- "Crash My Moon Yacht" is their _fifth_ album -- it's never too late to experience the crashing beauty that is Cerberus Shoal. High time, too, as this band, who live and make music together in Portland, Maine, has been grievously overlooked throughout their career.
On such Western and ethnic instruments as bowed guitar, balalaika, flute, trumpet, dholak, woodblocks, oud, quena, radios, whistles, electric bass, hammond organ, xylophone, etc, Cerberus Shoal plays a stretched out, intense yet langurous blend of mostly-instrumental drone-rock similar to many of the bands AQ knows and loves. They're equally epic and emotional as Godspeed You Black Emperor, but less weepy. They're as careful as Tarentel, yet much more complex. As for other groups who feature ethnic instrumentation, Cerberus offers a worthy challenge: far more consistent than the spotty Sun City Girls, they don't try to wrestle their ouds, djembes and congas into pop song structures like Macha does, and they're more accessible and varied than Pelt. Without meaning to slight any of those groups, hopefully comparisons will make it clear to you just how amazing and worthy of your time this group is. Live and on record, the band displays amazing restraint -- although the stage is crowded with dozens of instruments, at any one time only 3 or 4 distinct sounds will be in play, making for any number of possible sonic combinations, all the while keeping the music simple and utterly respectful of each instrument's unique timbre. There are even parts that remind us of music as disparate as Boards of Canada and prog rock, that's how evocative it is. Very late night soundscape-y. I can't say enough good things about this band. If you've got the patience and the desire for meaningful music that's as substantive as it is lovely, Cerberus Shoal will make you so happy.
Please note that we also have in stock "Homb" (on Temporary Residence), Cerberus' breathtaking fourth album and Caleb's (Cerberus' frontman) own personal favorite.
The always-inventive Maine collective releases a two-song cd single for those who can't wait for their next album. Although Cerberus' strongest moments are its multilayered instrumental climaxes that come after several minutes of murky, evocative
Look out, Windy's got a new favorite band, and it's Cerberus Shoal. Never mind that I'm a latecomer to the group -- "Crash My Moon Yacht" is their _fifth_ album -- it's never too late to experience the crashing beauty that is Cerberus Shoal. High time, too, as this band, who live and make music together in Portland, Maine, has been grievously overlooked throughout their career.
On such Western and ethnic instruments as bowed guitar, balalaika, flute, trumpet, dholak, woodblocks, oud, quena, radios, whistles, electric bass, hammond organ, xylophone, etc, Cerberus Shoal plays a stretched out, intense yet langurous blend of mostly-instrumental drone-rock similar to many of the bands AQ knows and loves. They're equally epic and emotional as Godspeed You Black Emperor, but less weepy. They're as careful as Tarentel, yet much more complex. As for other groups who feature ethnic instrumentation, Cerberus offers a worthy challenge: far more consistent than the spotty Sun City Girls, they don't try to wrestle their ouds, djembes and congas into pop song structures like Macha does, and they're more accessible and varied than Pelt. Without meaning to slight any of those groups, hopefully comparisons will make it clear to you just how amazing and worthy of your time this group is. Live and on record, the band displays amazing restraint -- although the stage is crowded with dozens of instruments, at any one time only 3 or 4 distinct sounds will be in play, making for any number of possible sonic combinations, all the while keeping the music simple and utterly respectful of each instrument's unique timbre. There are even parts that remind us of music as disparate as Boards of Canada and prog rock, that's how evocative it is. Very late night soundscape-y. I can't say enough good things about this band. If you've got the patience and the desire for meaningful music that's as substantive as it is lovely, Cerberus Shoal will make you so happy.
Long awaited new album from the Portland, Maine collective known as Cerberus Shoal. Their signature sound is intact: a meandering, honey-slow drive towards perfection. They'll take so long to build up to the crashing climaxes that you sometimes forget you're
P.S.When people ask me about Cerberus Shoal, I usually quote this past review:
On such Western and ethnic instruments as bowed guitar, balalaika, flute, trumpet, dholak, woodblocks, oud, quena, radios, whistles, electric bass, hammond organ, xylophone, etc, Cerberus Shoal plays a stretched out, intense yet langurous blend of mostly-instrumental drone-rock similar to many of the bands AQ knows and loves. They're equally epic and emotional as Godspeed You Black Emperor, but less weepy. They're as careful as Tarentel, yet much more complex. As for other groups who feature ethnic instrumentation, Cerberus offers a worthy challenge: far more consistent than the spotty Sun City Girls, they don't try to wrestle their ouds, djembes and congas into pop song structures like Macha does, and they're more accessible and varied than Pelt.
Besides having probably the coolest/stupidest band name ever, Brooklyn skate punks Cerebral Ballzy return with another killer clutch of songs they claim to be about more high minded topics than their first record (chicks, skating, puking, etc.) but a quick scan of the song titles reveals, they haven't pushed the subject matter too far, fake I.D.'s, skating, fast food, and chicks, all still seem to be the focal point, but what has changed is the sound. That first record was a dizzying blast of short sharp punk rock in the style of the old school classics, equal parts Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendencies, but this time around the band have gotten downright poppy, injecting some serious power poppiness and loads of hooky melody into the jams, resulting in some seriously addictive, and seriously poppy post punk, that ends up ultimately being a lot more more sonically satisfying than that first record. More original for sure, a cool hybrid of that feral punk energy with more actual songsmithery. The tracks are longer, the sound is much more lush and well produced too, but more importantly, the songs themselves are killer, essentially pop songs in punk clothing, and we're not talking the dreaded pop punk, we're talking pop flecked punk rock, of noise pop, or fuzzy pop, or punkish pop, whatever you wanna call it, the vibe throughout touches on classic power pop of the past, post punk too, and while there are moments of straight up punk rock pound, for the most part, those parts are woven into what is essentially a killer batch of punky pop that should have fans of other like minded outfits like the Zig Zags, The Shrine, Hot Lunch and the rest, freaking out big time.
When we first went to the South By Southwest music conference in Austin, we were sort of overwhelmed by how many bands were playing, often at the same time, and everywhere, in clubs, on street corners, in bars, in empty lots, and we were even more shocked by how many bands were playing that we had never heard of. Literally thousands. And of all of those bands, there was only really one we wanted to see. Based entirely on their name. Yep, it was these guys. Cerebral Ballzy. The worst band name ever? Hardly. The best? Maybe. Needless to say, we were never able to actually see them, so we comforted ourselves by just assuming they must be amazing, cuz how could a band name themselves that and NOT be?
Funny thing is, we had no idea what they sounded like. We were guessing some sort of angular new wave, or some sort of snotty garage rock, we imagined they must be from Brooklyn, and it seemed like Vice would be fans, but really what kind of assumptions can you realistically draw from a band name like theirs? So out of the blue, their debut record dropped, and before even hearing it, we were still more impressed, the cover sporting a sticker that proudly proclaimed "'We Hate This Band' - Pitchfork Media", the Pettibon cover art, the faded photocopied old punk flyer booklet and their 'logo', a skeleton flipping the bird, wearing a cholo style buttoned-up-to-the-top shirt and a Suicidal cap with the flipped up brim (although instead of Suicidal it says Cerebral), which did all start steering us in a more punk rock direction, which is in fact what these guys sound like, old school classic punk rock, a little skate punk, a little Hermosa Beach, a little Suicidal, but filtered through a more modern sonic aesthetic. They ARE from Brooklyn, and Vice DO dig em, but beyond that, we were way off. This is classic punk rock, snooty, snarly, swaggery, pounding, knuckle dragging, sweat soaked, bruised and bloody, short sharp blasts of crunch and pound that we imagine would most definitely get that pit roiling, but whether they meant to or not, that sound is peppered with some surprising melodies, some subtle post rockisms, a killer production, and loads of hooks, but those moments are definitely fleeting, as this is, at its core, PUNK RAWK. And we dig it.
Fantastico! Here's an obscure Spanish psych rock reissue that we're so glad that Shadoks finally got their hands on. Get ready for some of the weirdest, most badass fuzzed out garage psych rockin' you have ever heard. Cerebrum, from Madrid, released just two 7" singles on Barcelona's progressive Dimension label, both in 1970. Soon after, they broke up, and never made a full-length album. So then, what's this? Shadoks, in cooperation with original Cerebrum guitarist Javier Esteve, have unearthed a bunch of previously unreleased early Cerebrum recordings by the band, five live-in-the-studio demos from 1969, presented here along with the four cuts from their 45s (one of 'em, title track "Eagle Death", heard for the first time in its full 6 minute 18 second glory, the original single track having been an edit).
That extended version of "Eagle Death", which opens the disc, is pretty wild, on par with Japanese craziness of the era like Food Brain or Brush!?, a schizophrenic garage rave-up of fuzz guitar explosions, distorted underwater-sounding vocals, manic harp blowin' and sudden tempo changes. Every element seemingly going off in its own direction, then slipping back together to sync up with urgent rhythmic umph. And, before it's over, into the midst of all this mayhem some nice classical piano melody weirdly drifts in from someplace else! With the harmonica, this track makes us think of some warped version of something by the Yardbirds or the Count Five - maybe even a track off of Count Five's totally fictional, totally grungy Carburetor Dung album, as imagined by Lester Bangs. Yep, it's gotta be one of the most wacked out psych singles cuts ever� until you hear the NEXT one on here, its B side, the awesomely titled "Read A Book", which juxtaposes some even gnarlier fuzz guitar soloing, with such gentle heartfelt vocals. The songs from their other 45 are equally killer - the percolating, high energy "Times Door" hits hard, and then its flip, "It's So Hard!" could kinda been Cerebrum's take on the sort of thing Cream was doing back then, yer basic blues rock jamming� but� it's just so SICK. Guitarist Esteve never lets up on the stinging fuzz action, delivering the distortion with demented glee.
Those four singles tracks - which could be aQ faves Los Dug Dugs on a bad, bad trip - are reason enough to get this, essential in and of themselves, but the other, previously unreleased material is woozy cool too. Those earlier tracks add swirling, whirling organ (played by one "Perry") to the mix, and are a bit more murky, and maybe also more good-time rollicking and rollin', than the sharper-edged Cerebrum of the singles. Most of 'em are covers, including versions of songs by Moby Grape, Bo Diddley, and Canned Heat - the endless boogie of "One Kind Favor" by the latter is probably our fave among those.
This reish comes complete with detailed liner notes and vintage photos, its truly a labor of love, and recommended to anyone into garage psych at its most, uh, extreme. aQ customers who bought Blue Phantom last time probably will be the ones who'll want this too.
We don't do this often, but sometimes, the easiest thing is just to link to a YouTube video. Especially 'cause it's what got us interested in tracking down this reissue in the first place! Made us kind of obsessed, actually. You'll see/hear why if you go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgGK4qBTwpw&ob=av2n, and check out the psychedelic video version of this album's title track. (For those who just want a quick idea, take a look at the album cover operating room scene, that's in the vid, complete with people dressed up in disturbing animal masks, a Rolls Royce driving through the desert, naked ladies in the jungle, and, well, just watch it...)
So, Jean-Marc Cerrone was/is a French dance music producer and badass drummer (elsewhere on YouTube you can see him live in concert, kicking out the massive drum solos). The more disco-savvy among us here had heard of him, he's up there with Giorgio Moroder in the Euro-Disco pantheon. And Supernature, from 1977, his 3rd album, is the jam. A disco-PROG masterpiece. The title track starts things off, the one that crazy video's for, and dominates, being almost ten minutes long in its album version. An epic. No ordinary club fare here, on the surface maybe, but the disco diva vocals (lyrics by Lene Lovich!) are about some dystopian sci-fi scenario wherein twisted science is turning men into monstrous beasts (which explains - sort of - some of the video's surreal imagery), these mutants rising up against their masters. Hauntingly, she sings lines like "how can I explain, things are different today, darkness all around, and no one makes a sound..." Woah, downer disco. It's pretty dark, and weird, and the thump thump thump of the music gets that way too, with some fat synth bass riffing at about the six minute mark that brings this into imaginary Magma doing disco territory, almost. Cerrone sure puts his state of the art ARP Odyssey Mk III to good use here. The track ends with hint of 2001's "Also Sprach Zarathustra", that's how epic this is. The rest of the side maintains the mood, "Supernature" segueing seamlessly into Cerrone's solo spot "Sweet Drums", his insistent beats heavily effected and spaced out, and that's followed by the more blissfully eerie electronics of "In The Smoke", which could be from a Goblin soundtrack.
Side two (tracks 4-6 on this cd), is the brighter side... More typical fusion-funked Euro-Disco anthems, all three songs with "Love" in the title ("Give Me Love", "Love Is Here", "Love Is The Answer"), great stuff though, top-knotch! Lush, lively dancefloor fodder for sure.
So, recommended to fans of Zombi, Goblin, Moroder, and the recently departed Donna Summer. This import reish, in one of those rounded-corner "Super Jewel Boxes", comes with extensively detailed liner notes in the cd booklet, illustrated in full color.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A live collision of the combined forces of Mick Harris (Scorn) and Tony Child (Surgeon) making freaky nightmare sonic landscapes.
Now domestic! This former import-only CeU album (originally released in 2005 on the Sao Paulo based Urban Jungle label) is now available here in the States courtesy of the Six Degrees label. The lovely Brazilian singer whose full name is Maria Do Ceu Whitaker Pocas draws easy comparisons to Bebel Gilberto, and will surely appeal to her labelmate's fanbase. At once sultry and fresh-faced, CeU's breezy, smooth groove of samba, dub and electronica laced with delicious horn and percussion accompaniments evokes gorgeous, warm summer evenings. Ah yes, the calendar might proclaim that it is April, but while this soulful, chill-out album is spinning it's a steamy August night in Sao Paulo.
Oops! It's the second full length from hyperactive emo / hip-hop / IDM whizkid Rjyan Kidwell. That's right, I said emo. In addition to the fluffy pop-laced hip-hop beats and whimsical sonic landscapes, Rjyan busts out his acoustic guitar and cries out
From Kid 606's label comes the newest album from nineteen year old kid Cex, who you may happily file next to those other bedroom electronica madmen such as Kid 606, Lesser, and Aphex Twin. He might even be a bit too young, as the material on this disc is more like perfectly executed homework rather than a wellspring of new ideas. For fans of Aphex Twin, Autechre, Kid 606, etc. Includes a Dismemberment Plan remix!
Cex sinks knee-deep in dub and industrial sounds on his latest full length. As usual his lower brow presence on the Temporary Residence label sorta sticks out like a sore thumb amid the often lovely, atmospheric post-rock recordings that make up the majority of the label's catalog. Admittedly we've had something of a love/hate relationship with Cex over the years, but this time around y'know what? We're leaning more towards the former... well maybe at least 'like'. Heh heh. Somewhat surprisingly Sketchi's a morass of gloom and grit with not a giggle or grin in sight... except for maybe some of the song titles (such as "Waiting 4 Yankovic"!). Quite a marked departure from his past mischievous, silly releases. An oddly limited pressing of 1000.
