[ aquarius records catalogue

IMPORTANT (Please read to avoid confusion): Some items below may be tagged with a bold, red, all-caps OUT OF PRINT/UNAVAILABLE notice. This does NOT mean that all other items not so tagged are, in fact, in stock — or for that matter, in print and available, though there's a good chance they are. Some folks get confused on this point, and we can see why, so please read this for further clarification and other important before-you-order information. Unlike some mailorder websites, we don't have an electronic inventory system linked to our site, so you can't be sure of what we actually have or don't have in stock at any given moment without asking us — please email our mailorder department for availability status — or better yet, just go ahead and place your order using our shopping cart function and we'll get back to you with the status of each item. If you have general non-mailorder questions, email the store.

Showing results 251 through 300 of 687.

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

SORRY. Rare, demo, whatever tracks collection from this Bay Area "shit metal" band, local favorites for their excellent Carcass-inspired riffage.

Everybody's favorite Oakland-based Carcass-worshipping death metallers Impaled are back, with another bloody slab of gore, this time under the auspices of the Century Media label -- a step up from previous label Deathvomit, we think. They also seem to have dropped the shit schtick. They're less fecal, more foresnic this time around. Musically, they continue to improve as well, and although you can't accuse 'em of being the most original band ever, at least they are true to their roots and at this point must be the world's leading "medical metal" outfit (followed closely by the County Medical Examiners), proudly keeping the Carcass legacy alive -- they even NAME their guitar solos a la Carcass! Interestingly, Death After Life was produced by Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle/Secret Chiefs 3, who also makes some instrumental contributions, and handles the string arrangements!! Also new on (fret)board: guitarist Jason Kocol who a few of you might know as the collaborator of Steven Schultz in Puny Humans and Stalin Claus Superstar!

MPEG stream: Gutless
MPEG stream: Medical Waste

Local gorecore heroes Impaled (Ludicra bassist Ross Sewage's *other* band) vomit forth another gnarly dose of their death metal medicine. It's definitely the cure for those wasting away from a lack of Carcass in their diets -- Carcass, y'know, being the UK grindcore greats who Impaled ape so well. Nothing wrong with that, we love Carcass as much as Impaled do. Well, maybe almost as much, 'cause we didn't actually start a band to try and emulate the razorsharp riffing and sickening lyrics of those Brits. But Impaled have other influences as well, to be fair: Italian splatter cinema and, um, shit. (We didn't say they were *wide-ranging* influences...) Anyway, this Impaled is a good 'un, go get it you death grind freaks!

RealAudio clip: The Worms Crawl In

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

SORRY. The Bay Area's finest...shit-metal band? Their brethren Exhumed had cover art featuring bloody butchery in the kitchen, now Impaled (with ex-Exhumed guys) come along with even more disgusting cover art illustrating gory toilet follies. What's next, carnage in the rec room? Or the den? Anyway, Impaled play fast, fierce death-grind with titles like "Immaculate Defecation" and "Faecal Rites".

We gave up on Impaled Nazarene a long time ago, once they made the switch from evil nasty goat-raping black metal to pseudo-industrial ROCK AND ROLL!! Well, the sound is still kind of rock and roll, maybe a little less industrial, and with a fair

RealAudio clip: Absence Of War
RealAudio clip: The Lost Art Of Goat Sacrificing

Now featuring the shred-master fella from Children of Bodom on lead guitar, this Finnish "Nuclear Cybersex Black Metal" band returns, in much better form than on their rather weak, too-punk prior effort "Rapture". Slower and doomier by IN standards (but still fast and furious by most anyone else's), "Nihil" again makes IN a scary proposition.

They call what this Finnish band plays "cybermetal" but there're no technobeats to be found, and the lyrics fixate on S/M more than sci-fi. Perverted super super fast Black Metal thrash. Satanic sex metal, quite extreme, yet somehow good-natured. Some dainty songtitles: "Motorpenis," "Goat War," "66.6 S. Of Foreplay," "I Eat Pussy For Breakfast."

Imperator is a Los Angeles (via New York) underground hip hop specialist and freestyle lyricist blending East and West Coast styles of abstract often jazzy hip hop. Tons of guests appear from members of Jurassic Five, Freestyle Fellowship, Cipher 7, and Project Blowed.

Another in our ongoing campaign to get caught up on reviewing cd-r's that somehow slipped through the cracks, and have ended up no getting reviewed until now! And as usual, these are WAY out of print, the equivalent of a warehouse find, we have about 10 copies of this one, never to have more. A while back. Robert Horton was releasing a record a week it seemed like, threatening to out Aidan Baker, Aidan Baker himself. This disc is from back then, and was one of the discs we never managed to get through, being so busy reviewing all of the others. Anyway, it's a pretty great slab of abstract folky strum and haunting jazzy horns. The Imperfect Masters finds Horton teaming up with Dan Plonsey, and the two, create some sort of alien jazz folk. Horton's guitar is brittle and high end, lots of slippery slide and squalls of buzz and scrape, Plonsey's horn is wild and unhinged, hooting and skronking over the top. It threatens to be too much, when they shift gears and lock into a killer muted forest groove, all plucked strings, and pulsing bass, still slightly unhinged, but more haunting and hypnotic. The rest of the disc is tripped out and droney, the horns taking a backseat to buzzing guitars and sporadic percussion. The disc finishes with a 22 minute epic, a slow build, guitars and horns, some bass and other noisemakers, slowly building layer upon layer, to a frenzied free jazz climax, then winding down for the tracks final 5 minutes or so, locking into a droning almost bagpipe like dirge jam. Cool stuff. And again, this is almost 2 years old, so once the 8 or so copies we have are gone, we will not be able to get more.

MPEG stream: Phantom Of The Lunch Cart
MPEG stream: The Old Revolutionaries Of Bughouse Square

Imperial Teen are back from their major label excursion and now grace Merge Records with this cd filled with poppy, catchy songs, some with Clinic-like danciness. This is their best record by far. The melodies and harmonies get stuck in my head and are

RealAudio clip: Sugar
RealAudio clip: Million Dollar Man

Imperial Teen are back with what might be their brightest, bubblegum-iest album ever! All the familiar faces are back in the fold -- Roddy Bottum, Lynn Truell, Jone Stebbins and Will Schwartz! You probably know that the latter has been keeping busy during the band's five year hiatus with his fun-fun-fun dance party Hey Willpower! He might've been workin' it on out on the dancefloor, but he's not gonna get much rest with the equally energetic Imperial Teen. Packed with crunchy electric guitars, boy/girl vocals, snappy drumming and hooks galore, this is some jubilant, ultra carefree pop! It begs for an endless supply of exclamation marks!!!!! Go on, whatever age you are, take a gleeful sock-footed bound around your living room! And like any kind power pop band should, Imperial Teen give you a sweet slower closing number for you to cool off to! For fans of Redd Kross, Tralala, The Go! Team, and The Rondelles.

MPEG stream: Everything
MPEG stream: 21st Century

Limited edition. Black metal. Norway. Cult. Custom packaging. Stephen O'Malley from Sunn 0))). That should be enough to have some of you in a froth. And rightfully so, as this is a super limited little slice of black metal history with custom packaging courtesy of Mr. O'Malley. Imperium were a Norwegian black metal band, who only ever recorded a single EP that has been unavailable until now. Featuring members of Emperor, Gehenna, Dismal Euphony and Theater Of Tragedy, Imperium spew a blackened brew of fast and raw, chaotic and buzzing, super grim and frosty black metal. Limited to 500 copies, never to be re-pressed (we only managed to get 20, not sure if we'll be able to get more) this is a one sided 12", music on one side, brown branches and bird silhouettes silkscreened on the other, packaged in a clear sleeve with a huge black bird and some spiky brambles silkscreened around the band's hard to read logo. The overall effect is quite stunning. And again VERY LIMITED.

We love death metal as much as the next guy (okay, maybe not the NEXT guy, but possibly the next guy after that!), we love all the classics, Incantation, Suffocation, Morbid Angel, but as you might imagine we do lean toward the stranger and more fucked up side of the death metal spectrum. The more twisted and tweaked and off kilter the better, which is probably why we were so into Portal, the Aussie horde whose sound was like a death metal lp left in the back seat of your car all summer, only to be played back on a Fisher Price turntable plugged into a foghorn, everything about that band was so geniusly wrong, the beats were off kilter, the riffs were fractured, the arrangements were dizzyingly chaotic, but totally a case of so wrong it's right, all of those random fucked up elements came together to form what we considered to be one of the coolest and weirdest death metal records ever. Which brings us to Impetuous Ritual, featuring members of Portal, supposedly channeling the spirit of classic death metal, and were pleased to say, these guys playing classic death metal is still completely and utterly removed from how it actually sounds. Sure compared to Portal, IR is definitely a smidge more traditional, but it's still massively demented and OUT THERE. The opening track "Elegy" begins the proceedings with an awesome sprawling doomy slow motion chug, that goes on and on and on, like the slow doomy part from a Morbid Angel song, but even filthier and murkier, it's so good, we sort of wished it went on for the whole record, totally mesmerizing and minimal, and thankfully, while that specific part doesn't happen again, much of the record is spent trudging along doomily, a lumbering series of tarpit chugs, and even though the band continually launch into sounds more death metal, the overall sound stays weird and obtuse for the whole record. Even when the band are blasting full speed ahead, the recording is so murky, and the sound so lo-fi, that the riffs become washed out blurs, sheets of undulating buzz, peppered with bursts of frenzied death metal freakouts, demarcated by stretches of weird blackened drones, and lurching chugging start / stops. The record finishes with the appropriately titled "Dirge", which is more of that lumbering lysergic muddy death metal doom, that sounds like your stereo is melting, or the tape deck is slowly swallowing your tape. So fucking twisted, and so unbelievably awesome. Another metal record of the year contender for sure...

MPEG stream: Elegy
MPEG stream: Convoluting Unto Despondent Anachronism
MPEG stream: Dirge

What a title!!! And it's another weird death metal album from these guys, to match.

The debut album from Chicago's Implodes is a quintessential Kranky release. It's a darkly beautiful production of pop narcotic smeared in layers of shoegaze distortion, monochromatic psychedelia, and slumping atmospherics, harkening back to Kranky's early releases from Bowery Electric, Amp, and maybe even the first Labradford record. That said, Implodes does fit nicely in with the current Kranky roster of Belong and Tim Hecker as well, and moreso Disappears, as Implodes is a conventional rock quartet crafting their tuneful sludge balanced with radioluminosity through pedals and amps. Throughout the album's humid, smoldering fuzz and droned distortion, Black Earth perpetuates the creeping violence and midwestern depression, spoken through the album's cover art, a creepy photograph of a woman's silhouette brandishing a knife in a rather hostile pose. The suitably downer melodies and androgynously murmured vocals flicker amidst the muffled guitar haze like the best of all shoegaze acts, but unlike most who reference My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, or Ride, Implodes is more attuned to Flying Saucer Attack, Bailter Space, or even the desolate drone-rock of Higuma. Tracks like "Screech Owl" and "Experiential Report" slowly burn from downer acoustic strumming into the plodding rhythms and intertwining male / female vocal mumblings buried beneath the narcoleptic atmospheres of muffed guitar haze. But if there was to be a 'hit' on the album it would be "Meadowlands" with its disco-ping synth notes that must be a reference to Joy Division's "She's Lost Control" instead of anything remotely hedonistic. Out of all this fuzz and distortion, sad melodies and muffled androgynous vocals sing of woe and heartache with a psychic conviction that doesn't need anything explicit like lyrics. The music is perfect in delivering this bleak mood all on its own.

MPEG stream: Marker
MPEG stream: Screech Owl
MPEG stream: Meadowlands

Album number two for Chicago's heavy shoegazing quartet Implodes picks up exactly where they left off with their Kranky debut, bridging the blur of Slowdive with the depressive post-punk of Joy Division (or more accurately, the first New Order records which held over much of the existential bleakness of Joy Division before switching gears entirely in offering forth "Blue Monday"). Recurring Dream is an apt title, although whatever dreams these guys are channeling, they ain't pretty. Every song is a monochromatic fug of blurred vocals, heavily pounded slow motion rhythms, and black/blue maelstroms of overdriven, reverb laden guitars that might be pegged as psychedelic if everything weren't so dark and so cold. A somber atmosphere from their icy drone-rock introduces the album's first three cuts, leading up to the comparatively dynamic "Necronomics" with its propulsive rhythms and Mogwai-like explosions and crescendos. The harmonic, lead guitar lines of "Ex Mass" are right out of the Daniel Ash playbook for Bauhaus / Tones On Tail but grafted onto a sullen, slow-core arrangement all caught in a sonorous tarpit of murk and blur. The album ends on a perfect downer note with "Bottom Of The Well", with an exasperated Matt Jencik emoting a very sad tale even as the words are entirely obfuscated in echo and reverb, while the rest of the band propels forward into a black hole of twin guitar solos and swirling synths akin to Emeralds rehashing The Cure's Pornography. Awesome.

MPEG stream: Sleepyheads
MPEG stream: Ex Mass
MPEG stream: Bottom Of A Well

So if you were disappointed by the new Weezer, and thought maybe Weezer don't sound as much like Weezer as they used to, well, the Impossibles do. Starting life as a pop-ska-punk band, the Impossibles have mutated into a catchy heartfelt power pop band, and a

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

SORRY.

We found a handful of titles, maybe only 5 or 6 of each, from Aussie label Diagnosis� Don't! We've had these for ages, and odds are these are long gone as they were pretty limited to begin with, but for a few of you, here's your chance to grab one (or all) of these super limited 3" cd-r's. The Impromptulons are an improvising (get it?) free noise collective from Brisbane, who use a confusional mix of instruments to create their sound, from found objects to actual percussion, lots of feedback, very rhythmic and ritualistic, one single extended jam, equal parts Avarus and the Dead C, very tribal, with plenty of click and glitch, rumble and thump, all wrapped in a swirling haze of tape hiss and distant bowed strings, not really noisy so much as much as hypnotic. Strings are plucked, drones shimmer, percussion clanks and clunks, and somehow the result is a gorgeous piece of rhythmic dronemusic. Packaged in thick cardstock mini 3" sleeves, with a printed (band name, label info, liner notes) Japanese style obi. And again, we only have a VERY FEW of these....

MPEG stream: Swamp Hobo (excerpt 1)
MPEG stream: Swamp Hobo (excerpt 2)

The entity that released the phenomenal and weighty 10-cd wooden box set known as "Improvised Music From Japan" (box, label, website) is now also a magazine. Printed in both English and Japanese, this squarebound, digest-sized debut issue runs to about 132 pages (with the Japanese text occupying the second half, or first if you read it back-to-front Japanese style). And, it comes with a cd compilation bound inside the front (or back) cover. Reviews, interviews and essays by and about the likes of Otomo Yoshihide, Seiichi Yamamoto, Ami Yoshida, Uchihashi Kzuhisa, Phew, Aki Onda, Taku Sugimoto, Sachiko M, Toshimaru Nakamura, Utah Kawasaki, and many others make for fasinating reading if you're the sort of avant-garde music fan at all curious about the underground Japanese improvising scene. There's a review of, and translated excerpts from, a book called "The History Of Japanese Free Jazz" which us English-only types will find to be extremely tantalizing. Perhaps a full English translation of the book could be future project for the industrious Improvised Music From Japan folks? Info about such artists as Masayuki Takanyangi, the Taj Mahal Travellers, and Kaoru Abe is certainly hard to come by in the West, so it would be nice... Meanwhile, on the compact disc, there's works by Toshimaru Nakamura, Haco, Yoshio Machida, Masahiko Okura and others. Creaking door ambience, silence, acoustic guitars, shortwave static crackle, field recordings, laptop computers, trombone drone... it's a really nice disc, proof of why this scene deserves such a journal.

RealAudio clip: Start Up + No Wave
RealAudio clip: MALHAR

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

SORRY. Oh Lordy, it's here. Weren't you just asking us about when the next issue of Improvised Music From Japan was going to arrive? All 200 pages (half in English, half in Japanese) of it, plus two compliation cds. Do any of these names interest or excite you: Kazue Sawai, Aki Onda, Kazuo Imai, Tetuzi Akiyama, Uchihashi Kazuhisa, Sachiko M, Taku Sugimoto, Haco? Then this is for you, and you probably *were* asking us about it... All those folks and more appear in these pages, along with a bunch of tantalizing reviews. And there's a special section from Otomo Yoshihide all about making connections with the Korean free jazz scene, in which he interviews saxophonist Kang Tae Hwan. So, if Japanese free jazz / 'onkyo' / improv electronics etc. is your thing, here you go, plenty of good readin'. Not to mention listenin', as the two discs are crammed with all sorts of interesting and diverse performances from many of the artists mentioned above. We were particularily chuffed to check out the "improvised extreme optical core unit" Optrum who provide five noisy tracks on disc two.

MPEG stream: New Motorhead Banging & DC/DC
MPEG stream: untitled

The wait is over -- now that it's 2006, the 2005 edition of Improvised Music From Japan is here! It's an indispensable journal to those of you, like us, who are confirmed musical Japanophiles and/or into the extremes of improvised sound activity. This time around, IMJ consists of a beautifully designed 128 page digest-sized book accompanied by two cds tucked under its front and back covers. The print portion of this is devoted entirely to write-ups about new albums from 2004 and 2005, over 350 of them (of which 21 are Merzbow releases!). Some are full articles all about a particular artist, others are briefer descriptions or impressions of the music, sometimes written by the artist in question (so we won't call these "reviews" in the consumer-guide sense, though this could be used that way). As always, the text is presented in both Japanese and English, along with thumbnail album cover pics. Besides all the Merzbow, there's plenty of names you might know here, and plenty more you probably don't. And you also find some non-Japanese artists in here as well (David Grubbs, Bastard Noise, Carl Stone, etc.) included because they've been released on a Japanese label or have collaborated with Japanese musicians. Perusing this, you're gonna start making a list of releases you hadn't heard of before to try and hunt down -- we certainly did. One revelation was that Omoide Hatoba released a new album in 2004, we hadn't known that!! Gosh. Gotta get a hold of that somehow. Meanwhile, the cds, like the magazine, feature both relatively well-known improvisers and (to us) newcomers. Among the 21 tracks spread across these two cds, you'll find pieces by familiar names like Toshiya Tsunoda, Merzbow and Kiyoshi Mizutani. But also you'll be introduced to the likes of VOIMA, sim and Tetsuya Umeda (whose track "Error Piano", featuring Yasuhisa Mizutani improvising on the piano whilst Umeda "loiters" nearby, with a portable radio, is indicative in its peculiarity and spontaneity of the variety of music to be heard on these discs and read about in the pages of the magazine). Out-jazz, mimimal electronics, brutal noise, all of the above and everything in between, that's the IMJ aesthetic”a good match for many curious AQ customers wethinks.

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

SORRY. Second issue (sort of, they call it "Extra") of this print and audio journal devoted to the underground Japanese electro-acoustic improvisation scene. Definitely THE place to go to get enlightened about what's happening on that front. In both English and Japanese, this thick 128 page magazine features interviews with Ami Yoshida, Shoji Hano, and numerous others we're less familiar with, quite a few of 'em from a young generation of musicians here dubbed "Improv's New Waves". There's also a ton of reviews of intriguing cd releases that you'll probably only find out about here (and never see in a shop outside of Japan), and of course there's the magazine's audio portion: this time around, two discs full of cuts by artists from that "New Waves" scene, everything from jazz trumpet to turntables to death metal drums n' laptop. There's couple bonus cuts as well, including one from, um, old wave improvisor Shoji Hano.

Swedish blackened death metal. Heavy and speedy.

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

SORRY. "Some of the most imaginative and accessible experimental sounds around at the momement" says The Wire magazine of this solo project from American visual artist Steve Roden, which involves a plethora of acoustic and electronic instruments and sound sources, mixed together in an interesting ambient brew.

Nope, this is not the old 4AD band featuring a member that later went onto the Wolfgang Press. Rather, this In Camera is a collaborative project between Christoph Heemann and Timo van Luijk (Noise Maker's Fifes, Af Ursin), marking the first recordings that Heemann has made since the dissolution of Mirror. Not surprising, In Camera exhibits plenty of similarities to Mirror and a couple of interesting detours. These recordings are available only on vinyl, like the bulk of the Mirror catalogue; and Heemann and van Lujik conjure a beautifully dark atmosphere, full of murk and mystery. However, the two also push to the foreground a constant stream of sonic details which Mirror might have blurred into a miasma of abstraction. The use of the piano is the most obvious element, with a subdued monotony tickled from the keys broken by occasional heavy fists on the lower registers. Similarly, In Camera also crackle a range of elemental objects, which curiously enough give the impression of sounding like Andrew Chalk's old project Ora. Regardless, this marks an exceptional recording and hopefully the beginning of another fruitful collaborative project for Christoph Heemann.

Aquarius' favorite German volk metallers (think Rammstein at a Rennaissance faire) return with their third domestic release. They seem a bit less medieval, more metal than we remember -- or so it seems, until the bagpipes kick in after a few minutes. And some of their catchy and quite heavy songs are still sung in Latin! Totally rockin', and kinda industrial despite their pre-industrial trappings. The multimedia (cd-rom) portion of this disc includes bio, discography, and video clips. There are interviews and live footage, as well as an MTV-style music video for their song "Vollmond", which has a modern-day goth/vampire concept featuring a leggy, toothy model and crossbow-wielding vampire hunters in a black car!

RealAudio clip: Wind
RealAudio clip: Omnia Sol Temperat

Germany's In Extremo strikes again, bringing their unique medieval fire-breathing, costume-wearing, bagpipe-wielding folk-metal into our racks (and maybe your home), like a crazed cross between Rammstein, Comus, and Accept. Whoops, I may have just insured that no one will ever buy this record...but it's really pretty great, as was their debut. Electric guitar riffs borrowed from Sabbath meet flutes and lutes and Latin lyrics declaimed in a peculiar Popeye voice. And then they do a Sisters of Mercy cover to make it all even more ridiculous!

In our continuing tradition of bringing you the weirdest metal around, we now present to you: In Extremo! Nobody describes a band better than their press release: "Menacing and enraged, the band performs dressed in historically correct costumes from the middle ages. Dancing and wildly carousing, presenting their songs, you can imagine how our ancestors must have celebrated. Bagpipers tread madly back and forth across the stage in front of head-banging guitarists. Wildly manic tribal drum rhythms enhance the happenings." Essentially, In Extremo are an above average power metal band (ala Blind Guardian or Hammerfall) fronted by bagpipers and a vocalist that sounds like either Popeye or a Tuvan throat singer. Pretty excellent actually.

Gothenburg's finest return. Swedish melodic Maiden-inspired death metal to the max.

Ultra limited (already out of print) blast of bizarrely beautiful outsider noise, a la Skaters, Dead C, Yellow Swans and all that groovy shit! Only 100 copies and we got about 5...

A collection of demos and live tracks of super lo-fi recordings from the stateside equivalent of the Fall. Recommended.

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

SORRY. A working definition of self-reflexivity, the in Out asks the question "What is the in Out all about," when the answer is quite clear... The best Fall record that was never released... Right down to imitating Mark E. Smith's Damo Suzuki, the in Out out-Fall The Fall. Brilliant.

Two song Svart seven-inch from Swedish sensations In Solitude. The A-side originally appeared on their 2011 The World. The Flesh. The Devil. album, so you should have heard it already (unless you're only into 'em for their more recent disc, Sister). The B-side is a Samhain cover, recorded in 2011 - so perhaps part of the band's transition from the more trad Mercyful Fate-ish metal of The World. The Flesh. The Devil. to the gothier, rockier Sister stuff...

Light the seance candles and ready the Ouija board, Sweden's In Solitude have returned from realms unknown to deliver the third installment in an unholy trinity of ominous occult heavy metal, this time distilling their sound with a healthy dose of '80s goth rock and some serious stadium sized chops. While In Solitude's previous records wore their Mercyful Fate infatuation well and truly on their tattered sleeve, Sister takes their sound to strange new frontiers. While the misshapen shadow of King Diamond certainly still looms large over this record, there's just as much influence from bands like The Mission U.K., Fields of the Nephilim, and '80s Damned to name but a few! The production is perfectly sparse and simple, seeming to stretch and creak like rotting floorboards leading to dimly lit entry ways. Singer Pelle Ahmen sounds like a man in a trance, a restless spirit faintly crying out from the astral plane. He still definitely conjures the lower register ghostly wail of King Diamond, but just as often his crooning drawl recalls Danzig, Nick Cave, The Cult's Ian Astbury, and on the album's acoustic opener especially The Sisters of Mercy's Andrew Eldritch (could the album title be an homage??). While the fist pumping heavy metal of In Solitude's previous two records often revealed Ahmen's limits as a vocalist, in the context of their newly stripped down, more rock and roll sound he works absolutely perfectly, totally dominating the record with his unearthly presence. And for all the arcane occultism and haunting imagery, Sister is absolutely full to the brim with hooks and accessibility, often sounding a bit like Ghost (whom they're rumored to be aligned with member-wise somehow!) without all of the Scooby-Doo cartoon hokiness, but with just as much of an eye toward pop songcraft and classic rock'n'roll. "Lavender" is almost like The Doors soundtracking a haunted house horror film with its Technicolor hints of '60s psychedelia and guitars spiraling with a circus acrobat's abandon over that ever present haunting vocal croon. Album closer "Inmost Nigredo" opens with a lush dreamy opium den crawl, like Pink Floyd at their most clinically depressed, before slumping into a doomy graveyard lurch layered with echoey fluttering black metal guitar leads, sounding a bit like a less obtuse Negative Plane or Occultation. Meanwhile the album's title track and possible album highlight grooves with a serious slithering swagger, seeping through the speakers like the undead sibling of G'n'R's "Mr. Brownstone" unearthed from some forgotten unmarked burial plot! Sister is the perfect example of tweaking a band's sound subtly, but just enough that it absolutely changes everything. In Solitude sound imbued with a vibrant new energy and a renewed sense of purpose, and Sister is most certainly a late in the game contender for metal record of the year, even though some might argue that this isn't (entirely) metal anymore. (Heck Andee and Allan are both convinced that Sister reminds them a bit of an old fave from the '90s, the reverby Southern Gothic indie garage act the Rock*A*Teens.)

MPEG stream: Death Knows Where
MPEG stream: Lavender
MPEG stream: Sister

Last time we highlighted the 2nd album from Mercyful Fate/King Diamond (and Satan) lovin' Swedish true metallers, Portrait. Now this week we've got another sophomore album from ANOTHER Swedish heavy metal act on Metal Blade that's ALSO heavily influenced by Mercyful Fate, and they're pretty rad too! This is the first time we've listed anything by In Solitude, though they were on Earache's Heavy Metal Killers comp that we recommended some time back - they appeared there alongside, yes, Portrait, as well as Cauldron, Ram, and a bunch of other cool bands we like from the "New Wave Of Old School Metal". This new In Solitude, their first disc for Metal Blade, is a triumphant affair of twin guitar riffage, and soaring vocals, both quite melodic AND powerful. Never quite getting as ridiculously falsetto as ol' King Diamond, In Solitude's singer does however traffic in similar melodies and lyrical themes, wailing about demons, devils and darkness. Musically, In Solitude boast dynamic songwriting with a variety of sounds and speeds, structures incorporating moody acoustic guitars, and plenty of Maidenesque gallop... By the time epic, 13+ minute finale "On Burning Paths" rolls around, your arms will be tired from hoisting those "invisible oranges" in reaction to this music. Perhaps they're not quite so gnarly / ancient / evil sounding as Portrait, though you certainly can imagine 'em dwelling in some bat-infested castle somewhere, surrounded by pentagrams and black candles for sure (and empty beer cans and old Mercyful Fate lps). In Solitude definitely captures that '80s metal "Mr. Crowley" vibe of occult-induced danger and despair. In terms of pop/rock elements, they come slightly closer to that other Satanic Swedish sensation, Ghost, and the singer also sports subtle, spooky facepaint that's a bit Ghost-like too. Horns up!

MPEG stream: We Were Never There
MPEG stream: Poisoned, Blessed And Burned
MPEG stream: To Her Darkness

[ aquarius records catalogue — I ]