[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 901 through 950 of 1631.

Those who have continued to follow Hersh thru her lengthy career post-Throwing Muses will already know that the beautiful ferocity of the Muses is completely gone, replaced by a more delicate and mature take on songwriting (read: we have to pay attention to the

RealAudio clip: Trouble

Perhaps Kristin Hersh's most subdued and spartan work to date. Threadbare emotions are conveyed via fragile voice and a loosely woven shawl of hushed guitars, piano and strings. She's joined by the solid presence of Howe Gelb of Giant Sand and Squirrel Nut Zipper Andrew Bird. Very intimate and lovely. For more of Ms Hersh, check out the new Throwing Muses' release - yes, they're back together! - which came out right at the same time as this solo full length. It stands in stark contrast to this work (for one thing it's completely amped up as opposed to this being fully acoustic), and together they make for a wonderfully well-rounded and enveloping Hersh experience. Psst... by the way, to save you from the puzzlesome search, we'll slip you the tip that The Grotto's song titles are printed on the digipak's spine. Cup finally spotted them after much scrutinizing.

RealAudio clip: Sno Cat
RealAudio clip: Ether

***Finnish Supergroup Alert! *** Lau Nau, Islaja, and Kuupuu all together in one band - it's like the dreamiest aQ daydream come true! All three of these ladies have been responsible for some of the most mystical and beautiful recordings of the last few years, all of which have become permanent favorites with everyone here. Lau Nau, and Islaja's recent recordings have shown them moving toward a more direct approach in their songwriting, but this project really lets all of these ladies dig deep into their textured, experimental roots. It's a bit like listening to a seance happening miles away. Distant and subtle rumblings, murmurs, and gently conjured spells. One of those records that you can't identify what instruments/electronics are being used, with many of the sound sources seeming to be drawn from nature. They use their voices as another haunting instrument that glides in and out of these four long tracks. It has us thinking of the Jeweled Antler crew performing an Arvo Part piece, or Grouper and Hala Strana collaborating on the soundtrack to a pagan solstice ceremony. Completely breathtaking!

MPEG stream: El�m�nnesteiden Sekoittuminen / Cocktail Of Life Fluids
MPEG stream: Mehukkaat Luut / Juicy Bones
MPEG stream: Uhrileipapoyta Katoaa / The Shewbread Vanishes

We made the last record from these Ohio noise poppers our Record Of The Week, and that one, Cartoon Violence, was the perfect mix of classic nineties indie rock, and the sort of hook heavy noise pop we can't even seem to get enough of, and seems like lots of you agreed cuz we could barely keep that one in stock. So we were of course super psyched to discover there was in fact a brand new record, and this is it, Boys. While it does have loads in common with Cartoon Violence, it's also different enough, and enough of a progression to make it both familiar, and super exciting and adventurous. The sound is noisier, and grittier, the production too, the whole thing sounds heavier, a bit more punk, but not in any way that disguises the pop geniuses these guys are, and with every listen we're more and more convinced that that's just what they are. Opener "Full Stick" is 100 seconds of impossibly catchy fuzz drenched bash and pound, with a sing along chorus that any other pop band would kill for. And from there on out, it never lets up. Every track here crazy catchy, lurching from fuzzy jangle, to blown out noise pop heaviness and back again, the guitars are thick and distorted, just listen to "Alcoholics", dig the jangly verses, and then let that super guitar heavy chorus get your pop head banging. It's tough to balance poppiness and heaviness so deftly, but these guys do it like it's nothing, the songs sound just loose enough to feel like that band that plays at the bar down the street from your house, the one you're convinced would be huge if just the right people heard them, and that's pretty much how we feel about these guys, why the fuck are they not MASSIVE. Like the Ovens, another pop fave, this band is so much better than so many of the other groups that get hyped to high heaven, so all we can do is hype the shit out of it ourselves and hope it gets into the right ears. Although really, the right ears are YOURS, cuz if you dig noisy, catchy, heavy pop, fuzzed out jangle, silly, sardonic lyrics, and sing along choruses that should be all over the radio (speaking of which, check out the Weezer like synth solo on "Publishing"!), this is so up your alley. But for now, like so many other amazing insanely talented bands we love, these guys will just remain our little secret, but it's one of those secrets we'd be so happy to NOT keep. Here's hoping this record is THE ONE, that finally gets the rest of the world to wake up and become as obsessed with these guys as we are, cuz goddamn, this stuff is so good. For now though, they're all ours. And yours...

MPEG stream: Full Stick
MPEG stream: Alcoholics
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A weird thing happens when we're figuring out our end of year faves. Beyond the record nerd arguing about -exactly- when certain records came out, and the endless struggling of trying to whittle down our lists to a manageable amount, we also often end up with two dramatically different lists. There's the one that we post and share, which features mostly stuff we've reviewed on the New Arrivals list, lots of our Records Of The Week, etc. But there's always another one, packed with slightly stranger faves, guilty pleasures certainly, things we thought maybe aQ folks might not care so much about, records we weren't able to get for the store, or weren't able to get enough to review, but every once in a while, a record that belongs on the first, somehow ends up on the second. Which is almost what happened with this, the first we'd heard from these Ohio indie rock geniuses. It was another instance of a record that just showed up in the mail, and immediately blew us away. We were instantly hooked, even before we heard it, first off, there's the band name obviously, c'mon, how good a name is Herzog, and then the awesome album title and the cartoonishly ultraviolent cover art featuring horrified onlookers peering through the glass at what appears to be a blood splattered nursery, with two very self satisfied looking seals wielding bloody clubs! And then there's the music, the opening two track one-two punch is perhaps the catchiest, most kick ass blast of fuzzed out indie rock noise pop radness that we've heard in FOREVER. So the pop nerds around here began listening to the record like crazy, as in ALL the time, and for whatever reason, it just didn't occur to us that hell, we should try to get these for the store, until someone pointed out just how obsessed we'd become. So we finally did, and after a few attempts to get in touch with the band, here it is, and right off the bat, before we go any further, just know that this is hands down, a contender for pop record of the year. Maybe even top spot on the year end top ten list, regardless of genre, certainly if you base it on how much we've listened to it. Anyone out there in aQ land who's been digging other recent aQ faves like Mrs. Magician, the Ovens, Violent Change, Telekinesis, etc. But really, Herzog sound like a band out of time, think of your favorite indie rock bands from back in the day, Weezer, Pavement, Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr., the whole record oozes with that classic sound. And while ANY band can fake the sound, no bands can fake the songs, and the songs here are SO crazy catchy, fuzzy, crunchy, hook filled, with super funny lyrics, killer choruses, weird arrangements, all wound up into pretty much perfect jangle rock noise pop jams. Just give a listen to opener "Fuck This Year", with its cool busy / frantic super dynamic stop/start verse, the awesome lyrics, the super catchy slithery guitar melody, the chorus that will stick in your head only slightly more than the verse, there's warm chiming harmonics, the sound lush and layered, hell, there's even some cowbell in there, and it rules! And as if the song wasn't catchy enough, near the end the band toss in a whole other part, that's somehow even catchier than the song proper. The second part of the aforementioned one-two punch is just as good, with it's slow build opening, and weirdly syncopated verses, wreathed in tangly spidery guitars, some cool crunchy riffage, and again, super memorable vocals, and impossibly hooky melodies, and then after some soaring falsetto vox, and some shredding noise guitar, they do the same thing here too, tossing in a part right near the end, two parts in fact, that are SO crazy catchy, any other band would have turned them into their own songs. But instead, it's just a barrage of constant catchiness that we can guarantee, doesn't lose anything, even after literally hundreds of listens. And while we could go song by song, we'll just nerd out over one other one, the awesomely titled "Rich People Ballad", which sounds again like it was transported here from 1995, with its crunchy super distorted J Mascis style guitar shredding, its lilting moody indie rock brood, not to mention, yet another classic pop chorus, super heavy guitars, wild drumming, the sort of song you might have expected to hear from Weezer circa the blue record, and yeah, it's that good. And these three songs have gotten so much play, we barely made it to the rest of the record, but there's so much more good stuff lurking further in. "You Clean Up Nice" threatens to give those first three a run for their money, with its flanged riffage, and classic pop hook-age, then there's "Dreaming Man II" which slows things down, even adds harmonica (!!) for something a bit more swoonsome and twang flecked, heck there's even some shimmery slide guitar too, and then comes "Feedback", which is all quirky organ driven garage rock, but peppered with cool oddball pop moments, sounding almost baroque at times, and laced with some seriously heavy noise pop blowouts throughout. There a few more seriously rocking noise pop blowouts... plus throughout, Beach Boys like vocals, Beatle-esque harmonies, and on one track a little Camper Van Beethoven (!), all get woven into the mix... Every song here a gem, worth it alone already for those first four for sure, but really Cartoon Violence is truly one of those rare pop records that really is all killer and no filler, AT ALL. So totally essential... Indie rock / noise pop nirvana! And for some of us here (Andee in particular), this has been almost the only thing that gets listened to literally every day, for going on six months now... Which is obviously about the highest recommendation we can give... The jackets are really nice too, the aforementioned amazing artwork with some super cool (and subtle) metallic ink printing, and includes a download code too!

MPEG stream: Fuck This Year
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For those list subscribers who picked up Scharpling & Wurster's hilarious "Chain Fights, Beer Busts, and Service with a Grin" cd of WFMU talk radio pranks from a few lists back, the high point was definitely when the 'music snob' condescendingly announced to the host that he had been listening to nothing but Air Mixes - compositions so pure as to have done away with all extraneous elements, like instruments, music, and sound, leaving behind recordings of pure silence. Felix Hess's "Air Pressure Fluctuations" may seem like one of those obnoxious Air Mixes, but rest assured it isn't. Although the recordings do consist of nothing but air. Read on. For this document, Hess has recorded the fluctuations of air currents (which do generate sound, but in the inaudible infrasound end of the sonic spectrum) at 360 times the original speed, thus bringing these sounds up to audible levels. The gray wash of sound which comes from this process immediately sounds like a quiet spring rain, but Hess in his well written, but brief liner notes explains that these tiny sounds are the cumulative sound of a door being opened and closed throughout the day. A deep droning hum that occasionally comes to the ground is the amplification of standing waves from the distant Atlantic ocean, and the increased density of these sounds every 4 minutes is attributed to an urban population waking up and starting its day. Yup, this is an Air Mix, but it's a damn good one, if sadly a mere 20 minutes long.

RealAudio clip: Air Pressure Fluctuations

Another missive from the wilds of foresty Finland, this time two of our favorites team up, we think, for maybe the first time ever. Jan Anderzen, he of Kemialliset Ystavat, Avarus, Islaja, Tomutonttu and Anaksimandros (phew!), and Hirvonen, he of the mighty and mysterious Uton (who have a new lp reviewed elsewhere on this list) together, as Hevoset. Between the two of them, these guys have probably released 50 or 60 records all told. maybe even more, and they definitely have similar methodologies, but each has their own distinct take on music making, mixing folk and free noise and ambience and drone, so it makes sense that the two would be drawn to each other, and the results are quite fantastic, infusing elements of both artists' various groups into something new, yet oddly familiar. The vibe here is definitely more drone-heavy, the tracks all seem rooted around various long tones, lots of layers, plenty of looped repetition. The opener begins with a scalding burst of grinding buzz and squealing feedback, what sounds like processed throat singing and strange keening high end tones, before slipping effortlessly into a murky lullaby, all muted plunks and shimmery whir, before wheezing high end melodies surface from below. The next track again roots itself in the drone, but this time, it's more washed out and dreamy, organs wheeze and whir, the melodies looping and overlapping, while over the top, a guitar feeds back and grinds out a strange burnished melody. A few tracks eschew the drone all together, instead, offering up strange tribal rituals, simple percussion, mewling wordless vocals, haunting abstract guitar groan and skree, others are super minimal stretches of shimmering tones, and woozy plucked strings, spread out into drifting amorphous soundscapes, while others sound like symphonies of scratched records, blurred and smeared into something much less distinct, but even those tracks take those disparate sounds and ground them in a loose drone framework, creating a surprisingly varied, but quite cohesive, and imminently mesmerizing collection of abstract drone divinity. LIMITED TO ONLY 500 COPIES!!!

Aaaaaarrrggghh!!! Total grindcore brutality here from these heavy Chicago-area punks. These guys originally formed when the guitarist of fellow Chicago-area power-violence kings Kung Fu Rick decided to give the drums a go, forming this band after playing for only a few months -- fairly mind-blowing once you hear his speed and intensity. This guy is seriously one of the fastest blasting drummers around. The band compliments him with a crushingly heavy sound, especially in the impossibly detuned bass riffs. The same smart-ass sense of humor evident in such neighboring bands as 7000 Dying Rats and Charles Bronson pervades just about every inch of what Hewhocorrupts does as well, from the lay-out to their (often nude) photos to such song titles as "I've Got Two Words for You and They Aren't Happy Birthday" and "I'll Give You a Candy Bar if You Get the Fuck Out of My Face" and "Young Boy Attacked By Bees (Boy Is Allergic To Bees)". This is a nearly complete discography (their self-titled LP on 625 Records is omitted for some reason) of early EPs, including their hilarious full-on assault on Metallica -- the "Master of Profits" EP with songs like "Sell 'Em All", "One Million Dollars", and "Ride the Limo", plus splits with Wilbur Cobb, Third Degree, Tusk (yes, the members-of-Pelican Tusk), Godstomper, Infestation of Ass, Don't Worry About It, comp tracks, live stuff, remixes, their first demo when they were called Optimus Prime and even a surprisingly faithful cover of "Welcome to the Jungle"! All in all, a must hear for fans of Pig Destroyer, Capitalist Casualties, any of the above hardcore bands and people who appreciate short fast funny bursts of controlled chaos.

MPEG stream: Master Of Profits
MPEG stream: Young Boy Gets Cancer (After Smoking Your Ass)

We first got an earful of P.E. Hewitt on that recent Spiritual Jazz comp, and we knew we had to hear more, we just didn't realize that it would end up being an massive triple cd / triple lp boxset collecting Hewitt's first three albums in their entirety. But we're definitely not complaining, this is some incredible stuff, especially considering that these three records were recorded when Hewitt was but a teenager, between the ages of 16 and 19, yet already an accomplished vibraphonist and composer. These albums, as good as they sound now, went mostly unheard then, the first, Jawbones, was released in an edition of 50 copies, his second and third, Since Washington, and Winter Winds in runs of 100. So until now, only 250 copies TOTAL of these three albums existed for the last 40+ years. Listening to these now, it's hard to believe what could have happened had Hewitt's fortunes shifted just a bit, record deals, world tours, there's really no reason someone so accomplished as a teen shouldn't have gone on to sit aside other legends in the jazz pantheon, but as it turned out, until the eighties, Hewitt stopped playing music entirely. There's loads more about Hewitt's life and music in the massive booklet, as well as a lengthy interview conducted right here in SF last year, not to mention original liner notes from the three records, tons of photos too, but it's still all about the music, and the sounds on all three records are some of the most amazing jazz you've never heard, not far out or free or freaky, not skronky or avant, instead, these records are classic, masterful, emotional and intimate and spiritual, the vibes warm and melodic, his equally young band tight and incredible, modal jazz that swings and grooves, rhythmic and soulful, piano, bass, drums, sax, trumpet, vibes and flugelhorn, occasionally vocals, not traditional jazz scat, but instead, Hewitt provided rhythmic words that functioned more as some sort of invented language, the result, again, mysterious and so soulful. So so recommended. Anyone who has been digging the recent spate of obscure jazz reissues from folks like Lloyd Miller, Nathan Davis and of course that Spiritual Jazz compilation will LOVE this, as will anyone into classic, timeless, lost genius jazz. Both the 3cd and the 3lp come in super deluxe boxes, with each record housed in exact reproductions of the original artwork, and a huge booklet of liner notes, photos and interviews.

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Record number two from these Virgina heavies, who kicked our asses with their Omen Mas debut. And this new one is just as good, if not even better. The core sound is still the same, thick, dense churning guitars, frenzied mathed out super complex drumming, thick sinewy bass, and cool howled/crooned vox, hell if this had been Omen Mas Mark II, we would have been perfectly happy, but from the first track it seems like these guys got a whole lot poppier. Or catchier, or both. For all the gnarled guitarnoise and noise rock grind of opener "Chub", it's also got a killer main melody, and a hook most pop bands wouldn't be able to pull off. And it's all the better for the fact that it's delivered wrapped in face melting noise rock crush. But don't panic, Hex Machine haven't gone soft. The second track opens with a barrage of double kick driven math rock noise, that's as heavy as anything on the last record, but then bam, in come the vocals, and goddamn if it ain't crazy catchy again. Seems like maybe these guys just unlocked the secret code. It's a tough thing to pull off, being super heavy, super noisy AND super catchy, in fact most bands who try to pull it off fail miserably. We don't need to tell you about the bands that DID pull it off (Torche, anybody?), but you can now add these guys to that elite pantheon of hook heavy heavies. And while there's plenty here that is absolutely and intentionally NOT poppy, the band seem to fall into it sort of naturally now, with even the noisiest, gnarliest, heaviest jams here displaying some serious hookage, even (and especially) warped weird unexpected catchiness which is the best kind, and the sort of thing most bands luck out and stumble on, but seems like something these guys just do. A Lot. Anyone into noise rock new or old, catchy or brutal, mathy or dirgey, heavy and hooky, if you've yet to discover these guys, this record is gonna kick the living shit out of you, and you're gonna love every second of it.

MPEG stream: Chub
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This was a nice surprise, just showed up in the mail one day, and knocked our fucking socks off. These Richmond Virginia noisemakers kick out the face melting, head spinning jams, equal parts gnarled Voivod-ish math metal and grunge infused Amrep style noise rock, the guitars chug and howl and churn, the drums pound, the vocals are all over the place. From howled feral shriek, to punk yelp, to weirdly melodic croon, all wound up into killer, sprawling, epic SONGS. Catchy, tangly, dense, and so heavy. From pounding midtempo dirges, all Jesus Lizard swagger and lurching Ved Buens Ende lope, to chugging nineties style post rock math metal, the Voivod-ness on tracks like "Lunatic Sun" are undeniable, but they're all tangled up with more modern noise rock like Young Widows or Daughters, a sound at once familiar and retro, but forward looking and utterly headbangable. "Black Skeleton" opens with a flurry of tangled riffage and chaotic drumming, before locking into a stuttery groove, the vocals wound around the constantly shifting arrangement, and somehow, while all this weirdness and complexity is going on, it manages to be CRAZY catchy and super rocking. "Godheads Full Of Candy", the 8+ minute centerpiece of the record, unfurls a weird, lumbering, almost Godflesh sounding industrial dirge, with some cool gnarled chug, flurries of double kick, clouds of tripped out processed guitar, eventually launching into some twisted, super mathy angularity, and for the rest of the track, flitting back and forth between the two, with some surprisingly melodic vocals, and yet another bunch of weirdly irresistible hooks. The second half of the record, sounds weirdly way poppier than the first, to these ears, which is in no way a bad thing, hints of Bleach era Nirvana for sure, especially on record closer "Vivisection", as well as OLD Queens Of The Stoneage, but all twisted up with plenty of the aforementioned noise and math, the result a killer collection of convoluted pop flecked mathy and metallic, noise rock bliss, that we find ourselves unable to stop listening to...

MPEG stream: Nurse Me Back To Hell
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Member of Hella, Who's Your Favorite Son God and Prints goin' percussion crazy here on this DIY slab of weirdness.

Most folks are probably more familiar with Mathew Kvohst McNerney as a member of avant post black metallers Code, or Dodheimsgard offshoot DHG, but in Hexvessel, MKMcN explores a different sonic path altogether, a sort of ritualist psychedelic folk, that has more in common with groups like Woven Hand and Comus and other modern freak folkers than any of the bands in his more metal pedigree. The coolest part about Hexvessel is McNerney's distinctive vocals. For us, the best part of Code were McNerney's clean vocals, especially set amidst churning black buzz, or Interpol like metallized gloom, so to hear those same vocals draped over sun dappled acoustic guitars and fluttering flutes, is pretty spectacular, and reveals that in many ways, his talents were wasted screeching and shrieking over black buzz. The tracks are dark and haunting, minimal and dreamily druggy, hazy and washed out, warm and woozy and psychedelic, conjuring that seventies acid folk vibe, buzzing metallic drones swirling around lush finger picked steel string Appalachia, the vocals crooned one second ominously whispered the next, the core sound of the group augmented by a fantastic array of musical instruments including mandolin, banjo, bandoneon, upright bass, gongs, harmonium, dulcimer, zither, psaltery, bells and more, the songs alternately ominous and sinister, hushed and dreamlike, sometimes set amidst the sound of a summer glade, all bird calls and whispering wind, other times wreathed in strange occultic ambience, the lyrics mysterious and cryptic, the delivery, passionate and urgent, a gorgeously timeless collection of old timey ballads, haunting laments, foresty folk dirges, and various other permutations of Hexvessel's mystical dark folke. Most definitely for fans of all strains of folk: psychedelic, apocalyptic, doom, freak and otherwise, as well as fellow folk brethren like Woven Hand, Comus, Sixteen Horsepower, Burial Hex, Espers, Six Organs Of Admittance, Timesbold, Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, etc. Super striking packaging, all metallic gold ink on full color matte finish, inside an equally striking booklet filled with haunting images, lyrics, liner notes and original artwork by Albert Witchfinder of Reverend Bizarre.

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For past releases from this UK noise rock combo, we've employed descriptors like: head caving, throbbing, distorted, bad trip psychedelia, fuzz-distorted metallic, rhythmic heaviness, sheer nihilistic sludge, bludgeoning... you get the point, these guys are sonic crushers of the highest order. Or maybe WERE. Cuz this new lp displays a whole 'nother side to Hey Colossus, one that falls much closer to the psychedelic space rock side of the sonic spectrum. The record opens with a super psychedelic groove, sorta space-kraut, chordal synth swirls wrapped in clouds of shimmer FX and laced with streaks of feedback, total hypno rock bliss out, that is until the vocals come in. Growly and demonic and raspy and intense, removed from HC's normally noisier sound, those voKILLS take on a much more sinister vibe, and make for a weird combo, mad man ranting over otherwise tranced out psychedelic mesmer, but it works. And those clouds of effects bleed right into the next track, all tribal drumming and spidery guitar melodies, and yup, those crazed vocals, the whole thing building to something much more noisy and rocking, but only briefly, before slipping back into a sort of proggy space kraut psychedelia. Minus those vocals (heck, even with 'em!), the sound falls somewhere closer to outfits like White hills, Mugstar and Carlton Melton, which is not a bad thing at al, just maybe a bit surprising. The B side though is a bit sludgier and heavier, with thick, almost metallic riffing, but still, kinda space-y and proggy, those swirling FX from the A side still all over the places, the B side remaining pretty dark and heavy, at least until the weird, almost croony, countryish outro, which adds dusky twang, to the broody space-y drift, and of course those vox! Cool weird stuff. Hey Colossus fans will probably still dig, but so might space/psych rock fans this time around.

London's heaviest, most hypnotic head-cavers, Hey Colossus, have found a home for their third album on the Riot Season label, who have previously brought us noize from the likes of Mainliner, Shit and Shine, and Aufgehoben. Heck, the label's logo features a trio of tanks, so of course Hey Colossus is a good match for their aesthetic. Being so brutally heavy and all, tank-like basically. Happy Birthday (ironic title we guess, this is about as far from "Happy Birthday" the song as you can get) sees Hey Colossus doing what they do best: throbbing, distorted, kill 'em all action. Uber heavy, totally bad trip psychedelic. From the feedback intro of opening track "War Crows" and the rasping, ranting throat abuse that follows amidst pulsating, amped up electric murk, this Hey Colossus album destroys like a more rockin' version of Khanate... the Khanate comparison even more apropos on the next track, the more slowly thudding "Tight Collar". Part metal, part punk, part psych... what to call it? Ugly rawk doom drone maybe? With wailing Hawkwindy ampfriedification n' FX, heading into tortured dead zones of sheer nihilistic sludge, Hey Colossus fits in with such faves as Indian, Brainbombs, Unsane, Cadaver In Drag, godheadSilo, Pissed Jeans, Vincent Black Shadow, Cavity, Rusted Shut... and those other Riot Season acts mentioned at the beginning of this review. In other words, glorious stuff for those so inclined (like us!), pulling the listener who dares inexorably into its extreme vortex. There's eight tracks here, 46+ minutes of the Hey Colossus experience, which threatens to run itself (and you) off the rails into total insanity as it rocks and rumbles on. Can't pick fave tracks really, they're all pretty badass, but the driving uptempo umph of the waveringly blown-out "Fire Up The Tambourine" is certainly quite wicked. Even more out there, "Permanent Vacation" parts 1 and 2 is full of bottom-of-the-abyss, buried alive vocals in a shitstorm of droning distortion... And how can we not like a track, especially a pounding, noisy, rhythmic near-13 minute epic, that's called "Overlord Rapture In Vines Part 2"?? It's the psycho-delic explosion that ends this album appropriately apocalyptically. Happy fuckin' birthday indeed.

MPEG stream: Tight Collar
MPEG stream: Fire Up The Tambourines

Throbbing, fuzz-distorted, metallic, rhythmic HEAVINESS. Loud too, of course. That's the modus operandi of London, England's oddly named Hey Colossus. Bludgeoning, repetitive riffing, with lotsa wonderful noisiness and modicum of hidden post-rock prettiness, that can definitely put you into a dazed and confused, headbanging trance, the same way our Finnish faves Circle/Pharaoh Overlord can and so often do, right? Described somewhere by somebody as a mix of "Fudge Tunnel and Can" (yes, the grungy UK dirge metallers meet the classic krautrock masters), Hey Colossus themselves would probably admit to sounding more like the former, but legitimately reference such bands as Can and Neu! as influences, along with '80s hardcore and psychedelic stoner rock and more... So while it might be hard to hear beneath the THREE bulldozer guitars, and droning feedback, and cathartic, raw-throat screaming, but a krautrock-inspired 'pulse' is kicking your ass too! If you don't remember Fudge Tunnel (a good band despite their dodgy name, rather like Hey Colossus) we'd also cite the likes of Zeni Geva, Melvins, Isis, godheadSilo, Shellac, Figure Of Merit, and the aforementioned Pharaoh Overlord as diverse batch of comparisons towards the primarily sludgey aspect of HC's sound.

MPEG stream: Raise The Flag (This Planet's Ours)
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When we originally got into UK heavies Hey Colossus some years ago, they were the epitome of brutal, noise rock extremity. Heavy, head caving stuff. But they also always had a psychedelic, krautrock-y side to 'em too (making for the 'Fudge Tunnel meets Can' comparison we cited in an earlier review). Lately, they've definitely been experimenting even more, not getting away from the heaviness, but emphasizing their psychedelic side, with their last album (on MIE) veering towards full on Carlton Melton/White Hills style space rock. This new album for Rocket Recordings finds Hey Colossus really opening things up, being different. Eclectic influences are GO!, starting off with a celestially spacey shoegaze blissout called "Hold On". After that, you'd think track two, "Sisters And Brothers" would be a crusher, suddenly bringing down the monolithic destructo heaviness, but instead it's a loose-limbed groove, spacey and fuzzy and quasi-funky, and 'groove' is something that's definitely, and very effectively, to the fore on this album. Track three, "Hey, Dead Eyes, Up!", is equally rhythmic, a bit heavier though, like some sort of slammin', swampy Circle-meets-Swans or Harvey Milk-meets-Endless Boogie party proposition. And it don't stop, not on next cut "Wired Brainless" that keeps us thinking No Wave sludge spaciousness. That's what's going on, on this album, a good use of space, the truly heavy bits strung out, stretched out, spaced out, for maximum less-is-more power. Or something. We like it. Then there's the title track, with drawled deep vocals and a wide open Western twilight vibe, accompanied by some big ol' crushing chords, indeed, for a Lee Hazlewood fronting Earth sort of sound, that soon morphs into a stoned motorik Wooden Shjips style jammathon!! Killer. And there's still another three tracks to go, including the nearly 10-minute, dubby "Lagos Atom", all of 'em full of beats and drones and noise and distortion, always getting that groove happenin'. So, definitely recommended, let's just mention a few more bands we wanted to reference earlier but didn't work in here yet: Lumerians, Television, Gun Club, early Pharaoh Overlord, the entire Cardinal Fuzz roster... Heck we're pretty sure if your ears have perked up at any of this review, you're gonna like In Black And Gold - which, by the way, sports some handsome black and metallic gold artwork/packaging.

MPEG stream: Hey, Dead Eyes, Up!
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It's the return of British sludge bludgeoners Hey Colossus, whose prior releases, including a split LP with Japanese doomsters Dot [.], we've recommended. Rhythmic and rumbling, this band plays a heavy hybrid of noisy punk and post rock, clearly conversant with both the unlikely extremes of krautrock and death metal. On Project: Death, the influence of the latter results in parts of such tracks as "On The Pleasure Of Hating" for short stretches approaching the pummelling tranciness of the Boredoms' Super Roots 3 (to reference a reissue recently reviewed). Shouting vox and down-tuned guitars also put these guys in league with such not-metal-but-even-scarier acts as Burmese and Unsane, their grinding grooves awash with an almost psychedelic level of FX (someone in the band plays nothing but Korg Kaoss Pad, apparently!). Menacing, murky, massive, murderous.

MPEG stream: Do They Ever Return?
MPEG stream: On The Pleasure Of Hating

Latest batch of noise rock pummel from these UK crushers, although the first few minutes had us thinking we might have stuck the wrong disc in the player, a cool droned out slithery expanse of dense layered shimmer, of mysterious ritualistic buzz, tribal percussion, disembodied vocals, all hazy and druggy and mesmerizing, but fear not, apparently that was just the intro, as track two comes stumbling in like some downtuned AmRep avalanche, all Melvins-y stomp and swagger, with knuckle dragging drum pound, bellowed processed vox, all beneath squalls of feedback and grinding FX, and let's not forget the guitars, there are after all THREE guitar players (four if you count the bass guitar, and we DO), a thick wall of crumbling blackened slo-mo tarpit riffage, churning and roiling, some sort of sonic mad scientist channeling the Butthole Surfers and Shit And Shine, and sort of like in the movie The Fly the two are fused in some horrible laboratory mishap, but in this case, the result is fantastic, a gloriously sludgy dirgey pound, heady and hypnotic, a looped sounding chunk of metallic mesmer, which is pretty much what these guys specialize in. The rest of the record offers up variations of that theme, "The Drang" slows things down to a swampy crawl, letting synths shimmer and feedback squall beneath a sea of swirling buzz and bellowing howls, while the title track blurs everything into a stretched out sprawl of FX drenched space rock bliss out, that gradually becomes more and more metallic, more and more pounding and propulsive as the track progresses, the last half sounding a bit like the Melvins covering Hawkwind, which is no way a bad thing at all. "Almeria, Spain" is an epic bit of post-sludge, sounding all majestic and mighty, a bit like Harvey Milk at their most melodic and bombastic, while "Warmer The Belter" gets all sensitive, acoustic guitars, some shuffling drums, dreamy melodies, and the vocals a deep dreamy croon, the whole thing underpinned by a symphony of demonic sounding effects and sinister drones, which finally gives way to the final jam, "I Am Bunga Bunga", which far from the crushing closer we were expecting pairs weird garbled vox with shimmery shuffling almost krautrock sounding thrum, which really only briefly explodes, offering up a final glimpse of these guys' crush and pummel proclivities, before slipping right back into a final minute or two of swirling effects wreathed ambience. As always incredible stuff, and a pretty awesome document of how these guys drag their noise rock kicking and not always screaming, far beyond the boundaries that define most of their similarly sonically inclined brethren...

MPEG stream: Teased From The Nest
MPEG stream: The Drang
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We don't hear a lot from Japanese sludgelords Dot [.], which is a shame, cuz they could really give Boris and Corrupted a run for their money. In fact, now that Boris have become more of a proper 'rock' band, Dot [.] and Corrupted are pretty much the only two bands left carrying the slow motion Japanese doomdirge torch. But both bands seem to be on an entirely frustrating one record every couple years schedule. Thankfully, we've just discovered something to keep our doomdeathdronedirge hunger sated, a brand new Dot [.] track. Only a track? Fear not, it's a side long and heavy as fuck. Massive crumbling downtuned dirge. Pounding and lurching, a pummeling behemoth stumbling through black tar and thick sludge. With super tripped out affected vocals, a cookie monster growl, wrapped in delay and echo, so each growled lyric, goes spinning dublike off into the ether. Like Corrupted with King Tubby handling the vocal production. Pretty cool. This is the second or third time we've noticed some bits of dub finding their way into massive doom tracks. When is someone gonna just go for it, and record the first ever DOOMDUBSLUDGE record? We can hardly wait. Dot [.]'s partners for this low slung musical split are the UK's Hey Colossus, who bring their own slant to the whole sludgy downtuned rock thing. HC offer up a much more spacious and epic sounding concoction. A definite post rock influence infuses their crusty sludge. A sort of Boris via Mogwai by way of Slint, or something. Creeping grooves that build into thick waves of grinding downtuned riffage, with weird shouted vocals, thick with Hawkwind FX and sent drifting over HC's spiky psychedelic krautrock stoner sludge grooves. Pretty freaking awesome, and a darn near perfect foil for Dot [.]'s more traditionally sludgy sound. Packaged in cool printed Rorschach design sleeves with a two color insert.

Latest Teutonic slab of colossal crunch from these slow motion UK sludge lords, and since we've last heard them, they have appended their already odd monicker with the even more confusional "And The Van Halen Time Capsule". But don't expect any drastic changes, or anything remotely Van Halen like, right out of the gate these guys throw down hard, demonstrating again, that even though they still tend to slip beneath most folks' radar, they might be one of the best slow and low heavy bands happening these days. A boiling cauldron of sonic black tar is upended and so begins the first track, as the black sludge oooooozes from the speakers, glacial riffage, weird looped samples, crushing 16rpm black hole drum plod, all sorts of gnarled glitchy distortion and buzz, which gives way to something weirdly dramatic, vocals clean and crooned one second, processed and garbled the next, while the music gets downright pretty, before spiraling into jagged shards of hiss and howl, the rest of the band stumbling back to a funereal crawl, and that's just the first song. The rest of the record is a dizzying assault of midtempo noiserock pound, drugged out abstract ambience, downtuned throbbing sludge, twisted crusty dooooom, and heavy heavy drones, but it's not just the sounds, it's what these guys do with them. The riffs don't just buzz, they drip and ooze and creep, the vocals are inhuman and alien, totally disturbing, the guitars chug and churn and rumble, the songs veer from total ultra dooooom to twisted post rock lumber, to abstract hypnorock stutter, to weird epic almost chamber sounding sludge, taking something filthy and foul and making it majestic. Not sure why these guys are not HUGE, but anyone into Harvey Milk, and other practitioners of slow low crush and dense doomic dronemusic, should definitely be freaking out over these guys, and this record.

Latest eruption of doom-sludge-drone heaviness from UK kill team Hey Colossus, here teamed up with the awesomely named Dethscalator, but more on them in a second. Hey Colossus continue to expand their epic dirge space rock, with three sprawling slow-jams, that oozes from slow burning drones, to lurching stumbling blackened crush, to metallic krautrock and back again, rumbling drones erupt into looped sounding riff heavy sludge workouts, the vocals a hellish bellow, feedback swirling all over the place, the band a beast, a lumbering sonic juggernaut, downtuned and crushing, but spaced out and psychedelic too. Folks into Shit And Shine might want to give these guys a try, the same sort of noise drenched fucked up mantra like mesmerizing heaviness. Amidst all that heaviness, the band do unwind into hypnotic post/space rock jams, simple and rhythmic, under a haze of murky buzz and jagged skree, but seem to eventually explode into either a squall of melting lysergic effects drenched freakout, or pounding black murk slow motion metal crush. We dig it either way! Which brings us to Dethscalator, who we liked already, cuz, well, they're called Dethscalator, we're like that. Thankfully the sound lives up to the name, a gnarled blend of Gore like repetitive heaviness, and lo-slung Jesus Lizard like noise rock, the vocals especially, a dead ringer for David Yow, all scowly and sort of sung / spoken, and super distorted, with the band swinging all downtuned and seasick, until they lock into bursts of cyclical riffage, that sound almost looped, occasionally lifting off into some serious space rock territory, before falling back into another stretch of woozy metallic noise rock, culminating in the weird brooding noise rock slowjam that ends the record, murky and washed out and gloomy, weirdly melodic and super dark and creepy. Rad rad rad. Definitely need more Dethscalator in our lives, and heck more Hey Colossus while we're at it! Features some awesomely fucked up and garish (and badly photoshopped) cover art, one eyed creep and headless biker anyone??

Hey Mercedes has almost everything down pat to be as good of an emo / power-pop band as the Get Up Kids, Jawbreaker, or Rival Schools, but it seems that Bob Nunna doesn't really love the girl he's singing to in all of his songs. He doesn't really want to

RealAudio clip: A-List Actress

It's taken quite a while for local boys Hey Willpower to have their debut full length come out here in the states. But finally it has arrived, and the party jams are a plenty. The mastermind of Will Schwartz, also of Imperial Teen with most of the music and beats created by Tomo Yasuda from Tussle & Coconut. Hey Willpower have really perfected their live show over the years with impeccable and endearing dance moves and a stage presence that's as sassy as it is sincere. P.D.A. has a couple tracks re-recorded from their debut ep as well as nine brand new songs that tap into their feel good take at unadulterated dance minded pop that lands somewhere between the Junior Boys and Justin Timberlake.

MPEG stream: Hundredaire
MPEG stream: In The Basement

Hip party kids around town have been droolin' for this one for months! Yup, sliding in beside their old Stacy Q and Kylie records, it's the debut release from local candy electro partymeisters Will Schwartz (formerly of Imperial Teen) and Tomo Yasuda (formerly of The Boy Explodes). In response to those naysayers who've been expecting to find irony amid the cheese (we mean that nicely!), Schwartz has proclaimed emphatically that their '80s dance pop love is true... and yes, unlike many music-makin' kids these days whom you know weren't even born when that music was first made, Schwartz is indeed old enough to have experienced it first hand. These cats genuinely adore the most fluffiest and shiniest sounds -- ones that many folks perhaps would've preferred be kept in the past. They along with their pair of dancers have dusted them off and brought them back to their basement discotheque hideaway, along with their shiny rainbow patches and gold sequined skirt 'n' pumps set (except for Schwartz who's opted for the shirtless beefcake pose!). They've offered up just four songs to get the good times rolling, but they've loaded 'em up with fun fun fun! Actually that might be all you can take in one dose before succumbing to sugar-shock. HW partner in crime Yasuda has programmed up a remarkable replication of that decade's lip-glossy backing tracks, while Schwartz has come up with an avalanche of coy, naughty lyrical cliches such as those that pepper the giddy second track "Magic Window". "I play you like a baby grand, I feel you melting in my hands" and "I can make you scream, I'm better than a Krispy Kreme" and "Come to the party in my pants!" Oh my!

MPEG stream: Magic Window
MPEG stream: Double Fantasy II

If you live in San Francisco, you've probably seen Tom lending his remarkable pedal steel skills to a bevy of local country acts. Formerly of the band Go To Blazes, currently doing time in The Court and Spark, Tom finally releases a record on his own. He has already proven himself an amazing player, but this records shows him to be quite a songwriter, as well as a pretty great singer. Fans of the Court and Spark, Uncle Tupelo and all that should definitely check this out.

While Architectural Failures may be the first release from Brooklyn, NY quartet Hi Red Center they have been making quite a footprint live, having played with the likes of Deerhoof, Cheval De Frise and USAISAMONSTER. Like these contemporaries, Hi Red Center are masters of wedding rock hooks with avant-jazz & prog structures/harmonies. Although only a mere four person line-up Hi Red Center creates a big and varied sound through their battery of instrumentation which includes guitar, trombone, vibes, drums, electronics and vocals.

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Planet Pimp's Sven loves 'em and so does BAM. What does this tell you.

The problem with a split lp featuring two bands who are somewhat unfamiliar, when there is no specific info on the record labels or cut into the grooves on the vinyl, is deciding which band is which, going on number of track (here both bands have three), instrumentation (HGP list no instruments, Zond have a guy credited with skateboard, which seemed like it would be a dead giveaway but sadly we could hear no skateboard), but then, usually we decide fuck it. It doesn't really matter until you decide you need more by either / both bands, which unfortunately (or fortunately!) you probably will after listening to this twisted slab of sonic weirdness. We'll tackle the B side cuz that's what we threw on first, and we'll assume that this is actually Zond, who we have never heard before, but are digging BIG TIME. Super distorted and blown out, sludgey dirgey noise rock, howled vocals barely audible over the din of downtuned riffage and in-the-red psychrock squalls, the drums a buried muffled pound, the whole thing a churning, grinding, gloriously filthy trudge. Maybe imagine a more Dead C-ish Brainbombs and you'd be close. That is until the extended final track, the eschews all the damaged outrock that came before, and offers up a stretched out expanse of buzzing shimmering ambient drone, not really tranquil, still a bit noisy, a little off kilter, the sounds bathed in distortion, wrapped in feedback, but stretched out into a weirdly hypnotic noisescape. So working under the assumption, that the B side is Zond, then the A side must be Hi-God People, who we have heard once before on a split with none other than the Dead C, but the sound here is dramatically different, which is probably what threw us off in the first place. The first and longest track, is a sort of fractured free folk, detuned acoustic guitar twang, sitar like buzz, crooned atonal vocals, wreathed in shimmery effects, swirling clouds of wah wah guitar, strange bleepy bloopy ambience, it almost sounds like some sixties hippy jam, but completely fried and fractured. A more spaced out, free folk, No Neck, or maybe a Sunburned Hand / Avarus musical summit. Until the track slips into something a little different, unleashing more of a krautrock vibe, a subtle pulsing propulsive jam, underneath all of the twisted twang and abstract strum. The second track is much more abstract, a tripped out buzzy dronescape with random clattery percussion, wheezing organs, swooping melodies, fluttery woodwinds, all very creepy and somewhat cinematic, finally finishing off with the brief closer, a gorgeous, hazy, druggy buzz drenched psych jam, that begs for a whole 'nother side for it to drift and unwind. Good stuff, from both bands, whichever is which. Super limited of course, and housed in super swank hand screened sleeves!

Light and funky hip hop from Reflection Eternal producer Hi Tek. You might remeber the Taleb Kweli /Hi Tek record from a while back. Well, the sound is similar, but this time around he's got a bunch of guests on board: Common, Taleb Kweli, Mos Def, Jonell, Buckshot, Slum Village and more.

Featuring guests Common, Vinia Mojica, Talib Kweli and DCQ. Four versions of "The Sun God" and three of "Get Back Pt. 2".

Finally! This long in the works vinyl version of a long out of print comp gathering up pretty much everything ever recorded by late great SF punks Hickey, is available again, thanks to the folks at 1-2-3-4 Go! In fact, even if you have the cd version, this swanky vinyl version has NINE extra songs, as well as some super extravagant packaging (more on that in a second). For those of you who were around back in the nineties, you no doubt experienced Hickey once or twice (or EVERY time), their live shows wild and loose and ramshackle, frontman Matty Luv (who passed away in 2002), the funniest fucking guy ever, whose onstage banter was brilliant and baffling, drummer Aesop, who would go on to drum for Ludicra, Agalloch and others, an animal behind the kit, never averse to leaping over the kit and into the fray if some sort of confrontation required it, the band generally wasted and fucked up and brilliantly on the verge of collapse, and the songs, punky and a little bit metallic, noisy and hooky and heavy and catchy as fuck, the lyrics hilarious, just check out some of the song titles: "Make Sure There Aren't Any Squares At My Funeral", "Hickey Is About Long Hair And Getting High", "Everything I Know About Sex I Learned From KISS", they even recorded a tribute to El Farolito, thee late night Mission burrito joint, then and now. The recording surprisingly hi-fi all things considered, and sounding better than ever here. Some of the songs pure pop perfection, others feral blasts of punk fury, most of the jams here somewhere right in between, and yeah, the quality definitely varies a bit, seeing as most of these tracks came from different sessions, from comps and singles, but the energy is through the roof, and is a glorious tribute to this awesome band, who really could have/should have been a WAY bigger deal, and it definitely speaks to a vibrant time in SF's music history, when the Mission was a fucking hotbed for weirdo punks and killer DIY rock bands, and pretty much any night of the week you could end up at some wild house party or some crazed club show or just hanging out on a corner drinking beer eating burritos and shooting the shit. RIP MATTY LUV! LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!! Packaged in a super swank full color gatefold sleeve, adorned with all the various record covers and a bunch of flyers and an old tour diary, inside is a massive booklet jammed with still more old photos and flyers, original record covers, some liner notes, there's even a Hickey patch, and a download coupon.

MPEG stream: Crepe Paper Hearts
MPEG stream: The Naked Cult
MPEG stream: Make Sure There Aren't Any Squares At My Funeral
MPEG stream: Hickey is About Long Hair and Getting High
MPEG stream: Everything I Know About Sex I Learned From KISS

Not a new release, but perhaps new to you! This disc is undoubtably already a fixture in the cd collections of anyone calling him/herself a Bill Hicks fan, but for anyone needing an introduction... buy this now! This performance contains some of his most astute and hilarious material (and some of his best voices too!). This was the first of a slew of posthumously released cds documenting Hicks' fierce, scathing stand-up performances (some were reissued, some had never before been unleashed on the unsuspecting cd-buying public). Others include Rant In E Minor, Arizona Bay, and Relentless. Aw heck, get 'em all 'cause although there is repeated material amongst the releases, he injects each performance with its own distinct fire and plants unique nuggets of wisdom and wit throughout. That said, as we've mentioned somewhat profusely in the past, the Bill Hicks Live: Satirist, Social Critic, Stand Up Comedian dvd is definitely a fantastic place to begin your Hicks indoctrination, but we're sure you'll be seeking more in a jiffy.

MPEG stream: Flying Saucer Tour
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We've been sitting on this one for a couple weeks 'cause we wanted to be sure it got everyone's full attention.�On the surface�this may appear to be just another comedy dvd, but�it's considerably more than that. It's a�potent posthumous release and historical document of, for lack of better words, 'highlights' of the mighty Bill Hicks' career as a stand-up comedian.� Arguably, the bulk of the current crop of incisively insightful comedians are reduced to mere fluff when held up to the unforgiving fire of Hicks (who passed away in 1994 at the age of 32)... and they fuckin' know it! Many (David Cross, Patton Oswalt, Dave Attell to name a few) bow their heads in deep reverence to the memory of this seriously groundbreaking individual, and others would do well to do the same. Much of their material comes directly from the provocative seeds this man sowed. Much of his material comes across as fresh and as relevant as it did over a decade ago. When you hear him speak of President Bush, it's startling to realize he's speaking of Bush 41 not Bush 43. He blazed his own trail in much the same unrestrained and unrelenting tradition as Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce or�George Carlin. Not always funny nor entertaining per se, and not always giving the audience what they want... that wasn't the point. He had things to say. He raised�and skewered topics -- often scathing and remarkably direct -- that other people (comedian or otherwise) would cower away from. Don't be mistaken though, when Hicks deemed it time to be 'funny', he laid to waste all in his presence. The title says it all. It's impossible and completely inaccurate to simply peg this man solely as a comedian. It can truly be said that he was one of the best in each category. With the increased prominence of indie comedians -- particularly stand-up and sketch on television (Mr. Show, Insomniac, etc) -- over the past half decade, the time is more than ripe for this dvd which contains three of his 1991 performances (in Chicago, Montreal and London which for years have only been circulating in grainy vhs copies) plus a documentary. His diehard cult following has certainly grown over the years, but now with this dvd and the aforementioned individuals' giving props to him in their interviews, Hicks will hopefully receive the attention and respect long overdue. This dvd includes one of�Hicks' most moving and insightful segments --�his�imagined editorial comment�for a news broadcast: "Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves... Here's Tom with the weather." Fucking brilliant. Seriously. Not to be missed!

Fans of the late Bill Hicks will surely welcome this new dvd which features the first complete Hicks stand-up performance ever filmed -- the year was 1989, the place Austin, TX. In fact, you'll probably be well acquainted with most if not all of his material on Sane Man, but that said, there's still a bunch of bonus stuff that will surely pique the interest of even his most diehard fans (unseen footage, outtakes, etc). Keep in mind that, the sound and picture quality are far from pristine, but if you've seen the homespun VHS copies that have been circulating for years, you know that Hicks' fury and message burn right through the murk. If you've yet to familiarize yourself with this man's fierce, vitriolic wit and incredibly prescient and topical subject matter, you might wish to start your education with the Live - Satirist, Social Critic, Stand-Up Comedian dvd which we were raging about last year (please see our review, please see the dvd!), and then proceed to this. Nonetheless, truly amazing and empassioned.

This composition for 12 prepared pianos sounds pretty much just like what you would expect, being heavy on the muted percussive thwap of objects stuffed in between all of the strings. Originally released on Cramps back in the '70s from this Spanish avant-garde composer.

"Una Voz", written by Spanish conceptual artist Juan Hidalgo, read by Javier Martinez Cuadrado and recorded by Walter Marchetti (who also added some extra sounds by opening the windows during the reading during an evening in Madrid on September 1967). As Juan Hidalgo wrote for the liner notes: "I spent about 10 years reading, hearing and meditating, outside, around and inside Zen

We love our metal here at aQ. A LOT. But there a two distinct strains that tend to drive us wild. There is of course the ultra precise, super heavy, complex and punishing perfectly crafted metal. Be it black, or thrash, stoner or doom. But then there's its bastard offspring, its deformed sibling, the one kept locked in the cellar, the damaged, demented, completely bizarre, totally unhinged and utterly and beautifully impossibly fucked metal. Total outsider metal. It may be doom or sludge or black metal, but composed and played and recorded with total disregard for anything but the personal vison, no matter how skewed or off kilter. In the past we have worshipped before the likes of Benighted Leams, Urfaust, Striborg, Wold, Rehtaf Ruo, Spektr, Necrofrost, Furze and all of a similarly demented nature. And now we have Hidden. A sort of doom / thrash hybrid, pre-occupied with some impossibly ridiculous science (fiction), the record is called Aleisstar Morphalite, some of the song titles: "Hydrodynamic Physics", "Interplanetary Space Physics And Climatology", "Planets Of Metal", "The Search For Where Life May Have Existed", you get the drift. And their sound is equally as scientifically and musically obtuse. Buzzing downtuned thrash metal, lighting fast riffs buried WAY down in the mix, the gutteral inhuman vocals way UP in the mix, spitting out impossibly complicated lyrics, you can catch a word here and there, 'radiation' gets mentioned a lot, as does the 'universe', 'carbon dioxide' does too, each line containing just a few too many words to fit in the designated space, so it comes out all gargled and jumbled together, a bit like old Slayer actually at least in terms of cadence, the sound though is like nothing you've ever heard, a sort of deathmetalized alien shriek. Then there's the songs, the riffs and the song structures are super convoluted, lots of stops and starts, pauses where there will be no sound but a weird wheezing synthesizer, or some random droning rumble, creepy synths and almost Cradle Of Filth keyboards surface all over the record, sometimes in a thick sheet draped over everything, there are some weird trashcan sounding electronic cymbals that hover in weird spaces when the music sort of hiccups and skips a beat, sometimes just a haunting background, occasionally a black thrash attack will slowly peter out and turn into a strangley gorgeous melancholic doom dirge, but still peppered with haunting piano and all sorts of random sound effects and sonic weirdness, and of course the vocals slithering and shrieking out some strange alien scientific propaganda over the top. But weird and bizzare and damaged and demented are not enough (well, almost), there has to be songs, you know actually songs, riffs and hooks and parts that stick in your head. And well, as impossible as it may seem, this record is full of 'em. Completely and impossibly catchy parts. The first song in fact, "Interferometer", has to be the catchiest damaged-alien-doom-black-thrash-sci-fi song EVER! Even the weird double kick / warbly space synth battle part way through gets stuck in our heads. Holy crap! This record is so completely nuts, but so completely heavy and kick ass. These guys should totally have a crazy metal science show on PBS, where kids learn about gravity and time travel and wormholes, but each lecture is delivered as a sludgy buzzing convoluted blast of demented space metal! In our dreams!

MPEG stream: Interferometer
MPEG stream: Hydrodynamic Physics

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. Oh Canada! More and more wonderful music just keeps flowin' outta you, doesn't it? The Hidden Cameras have caused quite a stir just as much for their on-the-table queer politics as their pop eccentricities. This is the band's second full length and it's a pretty good place to get yourself acquainted. Mississauga Goddam is filled with some of the most uplifting songs around. We might even say that they rival the Polyphonic Spree for feel-good-ness! Super infectious, they make you wanna clap and sing along (that is, if you're not a total stick-in-the-mud!). Characterized by emotive, slightly quirky vocals (around these parts, the lead singer's delivery has been compared to a young Michael Stipe of R.E.M., Fleetwood Mac's Lindsay Buckingham and John Denver), strings flourishes, jangly guitars, glistening harp sweeps, bombastic percussion fills and of course some tambourine too, the band can do the unabashed bright and jubilant as well as the spartan slow and wistful with equal ease. Highlights of the former are the first, fifth, sixth and eighth songs (aka "Doot Doot Plot", "I Believe In The Good Of Life" "In The Union Of Wine" and "Bboy" respectively), whereas they totally shine in the latter department on the second, ninth and final songs ("Build The Bone", "We Oh We" and the title track). They're three pretty, lilting numbers that sound a lot like an indie pop "Rocky Mountain High". So, that makes for six songs from a total of eleven that we'd categorize as being immediately engaging. A pretty good starting point, don't ya think? And it seems that this charming album will only grow on ya more and more with each listen. Psst, Cup's listened to it at least once every day for the last week, and finds herself humming choruses during the day. As has already happened up in Canada, we suspect that these Hidden Cameras can't/won't stay hidden for long here in the States -- fortunately for grand indie folk pop fans everywhere, becoming a not-so-well-kept secret. Yay!

MPEG stream: Doot Doot Plot
MPEG stream: Build The Bone

We've been so excited for this one, because when it comes to smart, infectious records that you listen to over and over and memorize every lyric and melody, it doesn't get much better or more rewarding then the Hidden Cameras. Origin: Orphans finds the band with a new level of confidence and definitely displays shows the range they've developed from their trademark peppy and catchy anthem like zingers to more subdued and brooding mopers that unfold with a richness that gives the record a weight and gravitas that we've really been appreciating, borne of song writing and arrangements that are the most fully realized of their career. We're always reminded of John Cale's brilliant album Paris 1919 when we listen to the Hidden Cameras as they tap into the same kind of swirling and infectious melody, which manage to be both sophisticated and so damn pleasing. We also hear nice hints of Arthur Russell, Paul Simon (in a good way!), Magnetic Fields, and Robert Wyatt when he was a young buck back in the day. With all the success Grizzly Bear has received this year, we hope Hidden Cameras get some of that same recognition because they've crafted another of the best pop albums of the year! And if course, this IS on cd too, but unfortunately our supplier was out of 'em this week, argh. Hopefully we'll have more back on Tuesday, and will list the cd next time around...

MPEG stream: In The NA
MPEG stream: Do I Belong?
MPEG stream: The Little Bit

While they haven't quite exploded like their neighbors Arcade Fire, there is still no doubt that Hidden Cameras are one of the more fresh sounding indie-pop bands of the last several years. Their debut The Smell of Fear was an ambitious and totally successful offering of grand pop songs, layered production and smart arrangements. Their follow up Mississauga Goddam showed them to have staying power as the catchiness along with their smart and queer/sex-positive lyrics found them in top form again giving hints to what a less repressed Michael Stipe might have sounding like in his early R.E.M. days. This new e.p. which was previously only available as a 10" shows the stripped down side of the Hidden Cameras, 4 track demos from the last album which for some weird reason is sadly already out of print. Because the Hidden Cameras do use so much oomph and pizzazz in their production it is quite a different listen to hear these songs in a much more raw bare bones style. But what shows most is that they write really good songs which can flourish in all sorts of arrangements and recording qualities. While we were already itching for a new album from these guys this will have to hold us over in the meantime.

MPEG stream: Fear Is On
MPEG stream: In The Union Of Wine

Are you ready to bounce your head up and down and sway side to side and jump up and down and all around in your bedroom when you are all alone and the new Hidden Cameras is blasting from your stereo. Cause that's what we've been doing pretty much nonstop since Awoo has come out. The third full length from the glorious pop band from Toronto does not disappoint one bit. With an impeccable ability to write hooks that will stay in your head for days and weeks and months to come. This is pop music at its smartest and most delightful level of catchy bliss. While some recent reviews of this record have harped over the fact that the lyrics aren't as dirty or sexual as past releases we think those minds are missing the point. This was never a novelty band about a simple joke or dirty one-liner. Their queer politics are for sure still strong in their heart and more then almost anyone else they have an amazing ability to sing songs that both talk to the body and the heart. Taking some of the best parts of R.E.M and Belle & Sebastian, Hidden Cameras have carved a spot for themselves as one of the pop bands who most definitely matter!

MPEG stream: Awoo
MPEG stream: Hump For Bending

The much-loved Wino, grizzled underground doom-metal guitarist and vocalist extraordinaire, who first gained fame with the legendary bands The Obsessed and Saint Vitus and more recently fronted the popular Spirit Caravan (R.I.P.), is back, riding high in the saddle again in not one but two new bands. OK, Place of Skulls isn't actually new (more on them in a sec) but The Hidden Hand is. Basically they're the continuation of Spirit Caravan by other means it seems. Wino recruited a new rhythm section -- one without overt substance abuse problems -- that really allows him to fire up his trademark heavy stoner rock into punkier, more aggro realms than before. They really kick ass with some complex instrumental stuff goin' on. Definitely further out on a limb musically than the Caravan. Lyrically, Wino indulges in a lot of ridiculous conspiracy-theory -- he's really gone off the deep end with post 9/11 paranoia. But his heart's in the right place, politically revolted with the Bush/Cheney/Ashcroft coup. It's redneck radical rock for X-files fans. Heavy riffs, heavy concepts, there's even a reading list. Meanwhile, Wino also joined up with Place of Skulls, the band of ex-Pentagram guitarist Victor Griffin (whoo-hoo! supergroup!). Their first album Nailed came out last year on Southern Lord and we gave it a bit of mixed review, criticizing the vocals particularily. But they had potential, and now with Wino in the band they're much much better. It's a funny thing, actually, 'cause they already sounded a lot like Spirit Caravan or The Obsessed, but I guess they needed the talents of the man himself to really shine. His vocals help a lot. Victor still sings, too, but he's somehow better now thanks to Wino's example I guess! Dunno if they're still a Christian band, I'm not sure how Jesus fits into Wino's conspiracy theories... but he's certainly a 'spiritual' dude, so it works. Anyway, both Place Of Skulls and The Hidden Hand worthy successors to Wino's previous projects, with Place Of Skulls more straight-up doom metal for doom heads and The Hidden Hand harking back in ways to The Obsessed's DC punk roots, Bad Brains jazz fusion lurking in the grooves, though neither band would exist if not for Black Sabbath of course. And the Place Of Skulls album cover wouldn't exist if it weren't for Steppenwolf's "7"...

MPEG stream: Bellicose Rhetoric
MPEG stream: Tranquility Base

Mother Teacher Destroyer is the second album of spiritually and politically radical heavy rock music to be revealed by The Hidden Hand, a trio lead by veteran guitarist/vocalist Scott "Wino" Weinrich (The Obsessed, Saint Vitus, Spirit Caravan, Place Of Skulls, Probot). Wino's past tends to define him, but with The Hidden Hand there's been a bit of a fresh start. He's no longer treading water, in the moat of the doom castle. The Hidden Hand harks back to Wino's harDCore roots, the band's energetic, complex nature shaking off any residual doom/stoner stupor. Not that this isn't still psychedelic and doomy too (some of it sounds like early The Obsessed meets Pink Floyd), it's just got an aggro edge to it. Wino and crew are angry about the state of our nation, that's for sure -- "The Deprogramming Of Tom Delay" is an actual song title here! And while some of his ideas might be a little far out, his instincts are right-on.

MPEG stream: The Crossing
MPEG stream: The Deprogramming Of Tom Delay

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