[ 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 601 through 650 of 1150.

Germany's Night In Gales return with their fourth album. This time out, they've added an '80s Bay Area thrash/Metallica element to the melodic death metal sound that their previous releases shared with so many popular Swedish bands like In Flames and Soilwork. Fast, intense songs with truly "sung" vocals are the rippin', rockin' result.

We loved the last Night Marchers record, See You In Magic. It perfectly pushed all of those Rocket From The Crypt buttons, which had remain sadly unpushed for years, while at the same time soothing the hurt we were experience due to the recent dissolution of the Hot Snakes, 3/4 of which made up the bulk of the Night Marchers including of course Mr. John Reis himself, he formerly of Rocket, and of course the late great Drive Like Jehu. On record number two, very little has changed, but then very little needed to. The songs are just as driving and catchy, the vibe maybe even more RFTC-like this time around, slithery and swaggery, lots of crunch and stomp, howl and slither. It took a while for us to make it past the opener, "Tropical Depression", which we found ourselves listening to over and over and over, the perfect mix of Jehu, Hot Snakes and Rockets, and while initially, the rest of the record doesn't quite reach such great heights, repeated listens seem to prove otherwise, as every song here reveals itself as a dark, twisted, gem, and within the framework of the sound these guys have mastered, they mix it up big time, frantic shuffles (complete with harmonica), pounding groovers, loping poppers, stonery blooz jams, catchy call and response jangle (with horns!), after listening to this whole record a bunch of times, gets harder and harder to pick a favorite, needless to say fans of RFTC, Hot Snakes and even Jehu (and definitely all three), will dig this big time.

MPEG stream: Tropical Depression
MPEG stream: Loud Dumb And Mean
MPEG stream: Roll On
MPEG stream: Fisting The Fan Base

Another Record Store Day release we were super excited about, a split 7" between the Night Marchers, which is essentially Hot Snakes redux, with John Reis of Rocket From The Crypt and crew kicking up some super hooky Rocket style noise pop - including this little gem, which might be the poppiest thing we've heard from them yet, with lilting melodies, a bouncy rhythm, and hooks galore, a big chorus, and lots of "la-la-la" style vox, which sort of makes sense since they're sharing this split with San Diego pop combo Mrs. Magician, whose Strange Heaven record (released last year on Reis' Swami label) was easily our pop record of 2012, and MM's side of this here split is more of everything we loved about the full length, a little bit surfy, a little bit garage-y, the sound washed out and reverby, lots of chiming harmonics, fuzzy jangle, kinetic drumming, amazing vocal harmonies, the whole thing a insanely hooky blast of crazy catchy practically perfect garage pop, that has us hankering even more for a new full length. As mentioned above, this was a Record Store Day release and thus was extremely limited - we do have a handful left, far fewer than we'd like though, and the last we'll see. White vinyl, with a thick printed full color insert.

It was a sad day when The Hot Snakes called it a day, after delivering three of the most impassioned and fiery rock albums of this decade. So we were super excited when we learned that 3/4 of the band had come back together (minus vocalist Rick Froberg) to form a new band called the Night Marchers. With John Reis taking lead vocal duties this really does sound and feel like a mix of the melodic qualities of Rocket From The Crypt and the more driving and charged elements of Hot Snakes. We can't stop listening to the first half of this record filled with burners that made us remember why we fell so hard in love with Reis in all of his incarnations in the first place (Drive Like Jehu, Rocket From The Crypt, Hot Snakes, etc). While there are a couple slower middle of the road tracks towards the end that don't quite do it for us, when the songs are on fire, this is still one damn fine rock n' roll album not to be missed.

MPEG stream: In Dead Sleep (I Snore ZZZZ)
MPEG stream: Total Bloodbath

The latest from local label Time Released Sound, and another fantastic discovery, this one a collaboration between Russian trio Night Shift and Olli Aarni, who is a member of a Finnish combo we have yet to hear called Ous Mal. Together, they've created a dizzying plunderphonic soundscape, weaving together field recordings, old Russian folk songs, popular song snippets, damaged electronics, all manner of effects into something that manages to be hauntingly atmospheric, but also quite musical as well. The opening track is one of the catchiest sampledelic soundscapes we've heard in a while, backwards melodies and warped pop songs woozily drift from speaker to speaker, surfacing and fading like sonic swells, wreathed in mysterious found sounds, and fractured melodies, very reminiscent sonically of Philip Jeck, we actually had trouble moving past the first track, it's so good, but once we did, there was more to discover, the record quite possible some sort of linked sonic narrative, the vibe definitely cinematic, atmospheric, lush textures, and an incredible amount of sonic minutiae, headphones are definitely the way to go. Music box melodies blur into the chirping of crickets, voices appear and disappear, samples fragment and fade, bleeding into one another, the sounds coalescing into lush sprawls of warm shimmer and epic expanses of near symphonic soft noise, before fading into intimate musical glimpses of some other universe, or some other time, each song a seemingly self contained sonic travelogue, or an alternate universe, rendered in sound. Really fantastic stuff. The deluxe version is limited to 100 copies, and as as with all the TRS deluxe versions it is indeed quite deluxe, this one a super striking pop-up faux-rigami mini book, the pages of the pop up made from 100 year old hand written ledger paper, and bound in antique hardcover book covers, which are then housed in hand made / hand stamped black slipcases. The standard version is also limited, to 150 copies, and comes housed in a full color digipak.

MPEG stream: Stoned Hitchhiker
MPEG stream: Lift To Where?
MPEG stream: School For The Gifted

MPEG stream: Stoned Hitchhiker
MPEG stream: Lift To Where?
MPEG stream: School For The Gifted

Yet another amazing discovery in the realms of unheralded heaviness from the '70s. Krautrockers Night Sun released this, their only album, back in 1972, and probably the only heavier sounds produced on earth that year were produced by Black Sabbath (and,

RealAudio clip: Slush Pan Man
RealAudio clip: Got A Bone Of My Own
RealAudio clip: Plastic Shotgun

Wow, just a bit different from other stuff we've heard from Australia's Homeless label, who usually specialize in gutter-dwelling punk noize (Cuntz, Bits Of Shit, etc.). The Night Terrors aren't punk, they're prog, being all about instrumental suspense film soundtracky synthscapes and spacey theremin vibes - in fact, they supported Goblin on the recent Australian tour by those Italian soundtrack-prog maestros. So, yeah, this is one for fans of artists like Umberto, Zombi, Steve Moore, Majeure, and The Oscillation. Again it's a bit surprising this came out on Homeless; it sounds more like it belongs on Death Waltz!! But while quite cinematic, The Night Terrors are undeniably a (post)rock band, albeit one with more lead theremin than lead guitar. Sometimes gently atmospheric (someone mentioned Sigur Ros), sometimes noisy and distorted (someone mentioned MBV), always compelling and evocative, The Night Terrors almost seem specifically designed for aQ appreciation. Plus, this is one of the song titles: "Existential Revelation In The Circle Pit At Slayer"! So yeah, pushing all our buttons: there's lots of lovely moody moments on this record, with the theremin suggestive of wordless female vocalizing, as well as plenty of heavier parts too - the majestic melodic synth swoosh going toe to toe with the churning rhythm section, all heaving Magmoid bass burble and propulsive drumming. It's import, gatefold, numbered, colored double vinyl, remastered from the original cd release circa 2009. Includes download. We've got the last 5 copies we could get of this record (the label is sold out), but if you miss snagging one, don't despair entirely 'cause they DO have a brand new album, Spiral Vortex, on the way quite soon, we're told.

MPEG stream: Sesquipedlian
MPEG stream: Righteous

You know Australian synth & Theremin laden all-instrumental prog band, The Night Terrors? Hopefully yes, since we made their last release, Spiral Vortex, a Record Of The Week earlier this year! So, here's an idea: get them to create an album using what's reputed to be the Southern hemisphere's largest Grand Pipe Organ. Have 'em record it on Friday the 13th and release it on Halloween. (Yep, we've had this in for just a little while� but it's perfect 'nightmare before Christmas' timing on our part listing it now.) Really, what could be better? The Night Terrors, who specialize in sinister, bombastic, soundtrack-sounding stuff, going to town on a big ol' pipe organ, plus their usual synthesizers, percussion, and of course trademark Theremin. The results are atmospheric, spooky, a grand sonic hallucination you could dance the jitters to. The human-yet-inhuman voice of the Theremin sings intensely over propulsive suspenseful beats and electronic zipzap, while the organ looms ominously behind/above/below it all. It's like John Carpenter goes to church. Very Death Waltz, and pretty darn cool! Two "movements" / sides, eight tracks, vinyl-only.

MPEG stream: Megafauna

We got turned on to the synth-heavy, cinematic post-rock of this Aussie outfit last year, when their previous album Back To Zero was released on vinyl. Their secret weapon, a virtuoso theremin player, who coaxes all manner of weepy, wavery giallo-worthy ooohs and aaahs from that electronic instrument, its lovely, lachrymose vocal-like-timbre soaring over some seriously intense sci-fi zip-zap synth sounds and the massive momentum of the heavy, propulsive rhythm section. So powerful, and melodic! We're excited that they're now back with a brand new album, albeit with a stripped-down lineup: they're just a duo now, not that you could tell, having shed a couple of synth players in the interim (and switching out drummers, too). Multi-instrumentalist Miles Brown, he who plays the theremin, as well synths, bass, and "noise", takes up any and all slack, however. This sounds BIG. When we reviewed Back To Zero, we noted that they had opened for Goblin, and that their own brand of soundtrack-y, Goblin-y horror movie prog sounded like it should have been released as an lp on the Death Waltz label. Perhaps you should just go read that review elsewhere on our site ('cause for one thing, the compact disc version of this new record is actually a double disc set, also including a reissued cd of that album as well), but we'll quote ourselves a bit: "Sometimes gently atmospheric (someone mentioned Sigur Ros), sometimes noisy and distorted (someone mentioned MBV), always compelling and evocative, The Night Terrors almost seem specifically designed for aQ appreciation." Indeed they do. We love this stuff! The new record has perhaps less of the gentle moments, devoting even more of its considerable energy to the crunching keyboards and math-rock rhythms. Tracks like "Monster" even hint at some form of adrenalized Euro-disco techno. Taken in sum, this almost approaches overload. Spiral Vortex is the perfect title; the sheer buzz and bombast of it all becomes quite headspinning. And demands to be played LOUD!! In a car, driving fast, even better. Makes us think of, like, if Emeralds got hopped up on Red Bull and challenged the Trans Am guys to a synthesizer drag race (whatever that means, but you know what we mean). This could be the soundtrack to all manner of suspenseful, futuristic action noir scenarios. Melody, majestic melody, is effectively employed throughout, not just on moodier cuts like "Celeste". Always, the awesomely distorted, low-end tones from the synths and bass are perfectly balanced by the more ethereal, high-end "singing" of the theremin. Technically, though, this is mostly instrumental, but for some uber-distorted robot vox on the very last track, "Force Field". We mentioned Zombi in our other review - and basically these guys sound a lot like an over-the-top Zombi, if Clara Rockmore (you know, the famous classical thereminist) joined that band. Other obvious "recommended-if-you-like" references include: Umberto, The Oscillation, Maserati, Majeure, Nightsatan, and even the likes of Fuck Buttons and Black Moth Super Rainbow. As mentioned, the cd edition, is a double with Spiral Vortex on one disc and Back To Zero on the other. Whatta deal! Meanwhile, Spiral Vortex is also available by itself on limited edition 180 gram red vinyl w/ download code.

MPEG stream: Lasers For Eyes
MPEG stream: Space Sickness
MPEG stream: Force Field

MPEG stream: Lasers For Eyes
MPEG stream: Space Sickness
MPEG stream: Force Field

Yet another new label enters the increasingly crowded horror movie vinyl reissue field (alongside Death Waltz, Waxwork, No Static, etc.) although their first foray is an especially bold move, in two ways, the first, it's a 7", and not an lp, the second, it's not the creepy, incidental score, the Carpenter like synths or Hermann like strings, nope, it's the 'hit song', a cheesy eighties rocker called "Everybody But You", from the 1985 cult classic Night Train To Terror. Perhaps you recall that movie, a crazy cool, cheesy horror flick, in which God and Satan are on a train together, to discuss the fates of three unlucky (or potentially lucky) souls, a sort of Creepshow style anthology, featuring a crazed killer who hoards body parts of his victim, a death obsessed woman and a weird Russian roulette ritual, and a Holocaust survivor terrorized by the son of Satan. It's been a while since we've seen this (20 years at least), so we're not sure how the song here fits into the movie, but it's just what you'd expect from the token rock song from an eighties slasher flick, all wheedly guitar shred over pulsing new wave-y rock, a throbbing synth rhythm, cheesy lyrics, wild sorta funky saxophone solo, the best part is when the song fades out, and plays in the background beneath this exchange between the band (?) and a sinister voice that sounds a lot like the Tall Man from Phantasm: "Hey George, I'm starving, how about some hamburgers and beer?" "There's no food on this train." "What kinda train is this?" "Some call it the heavenly express. Others Satan's Cannonball! But we guarantee to deliver every passenger to his right destination." "Like I really wish our bus hadn't broken down, you know?" "No way! This train is cool!" "From the top!!!!" And then it's right back into it. The flipside features a track from an entirely different film, called Gretta, at first we didn't get the connection, but then we discovered that Night Train To Terror was in fact, a sort of cash grab, created from chopping up three other films, and editing them into one, and one of those original films was in fact, the aforementioned Gretta, which was included as a bonus on the recent dvd issue of Night Train. That track is just tinkling music box, and parlor room piano, not so much creepy as wistful and melancholy, easy to imagine that music playing beneath the credits, lulling the viewer into a false sense of safety, before letting the hammer fall. Or machete. Or chainsaw. You'll just have to see the movie(s) to know for sure. Swank packaging, full color front cover with scary Night Train cover art, the back with a still from the film, three new wavers rocking out (we're guessing) and the legend: A rock band gives their final performance on a hell bound trip into the outer reaches of horror! Obviously fans of Death Waltz and Waxwork and all the rest are gonna want this for sure. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each one hand numbered.

MPEG stream: Everybody But You

We're a sucker for a band name, you should definitely know that about us by now. And a lot of you are the same. The thinking is, if you're that creative with just the name of your band, imagine how nuts the music must be?? Sure, that doesn't always hold true, but in the case of the awesomely monickered Tremor Of The Black Manx, the name couldn't suit the music more. On the same label as last week's record of the week, the bizarre black metal weirdness of Jute Gyte, comes TOTBM, who we know NOTHING about, but it hardly matters, what does matter is that this is some awesomely confusional and fucked up stuff, like some sort of fractured electronic hyper grind, or maybe we could call it grindtronica, or something like that. The structure is definitely grind, the songs are short, the arrangements are head spinning, but all of the sounds seem to be synths and not guitars, although sometimes the sounds DO seem to resemble guitars, maybe they're just super processed, regardless, the result is a strangely synthesized bit of frantic buzz, tangled melody, moody murky drift, all wrapped around skittering, stuttering programmed drums, that go from plod to pound to inhuman blast in the blink of an eye, dragging the rest of the sounds along with it. Really rad, and WAY weird. TOTBM are teamed up here with Night Troll, who sound like a slightly electronic, WAY fucked up, ultra lo-fi raw primitive black metal. Ildjarn, Bone Awl, Akitsa, if you love that stuff but wish it was WEIRDER, more damaged and demented, with throbbing sub bass, tangled atonal guitars, processed death metal grunts, and all sort of other random fuckery, then this is for you. Total lo-fi stumbling ultra raw outsider electronic black metal. Which to us reads: SUPER RAD.

MPEG stream: Circle Of Witches
MPEG stream: Dungeon Forest
MPEG stream: Opal Blondes
MPEG stream: Carving Sea Altars

East Coast weirdo rock label Corleone gets a West Coast blood transfusion, but the results sound just as Providence damaged as anything actually raised and bred in Rhode Island. Best known around these parts as the label that brought us the rubber encased, supremely damaged metallic onslaught that was Throne Of Blood (and rest assured we have been hassling the label constantly for a repress), Corleone offer up this latest blast of off kilter propulsive noise rock drone jam groove that fits pretty cozily amidst their like minded but opposite coasted noisemaking brethren. Night Wounds have all the right ingredients, angular scrape and skree guitar, chaotic but strangely funky drums, blown out bass, strangled almost new wave vocals, even a saxophone that manages to skronk and kick ass and not sound at all cheesy (which is quite a feat, apologies to Gerry Rafferty). The cool thing about Night Wounds is they almost sound like they could be some forward thinking no wave/new wave band from back in the day. A killer blend of Crispy Ambulance, James White And The Contortions (due mostly to the sax and the damaged jazz vibe), Pylon, and a handful of others whose names escape us right now. All tangled up with bursts of nineties style mathy complexity, stretched out hypnotic grooves, and squalls of noisy chaos. Imagine if Factory Records had continued on, it's not difficult to imagine that Night Wounds might have embodied "The Factory Sound" circa 2007. A weirdly catchy, super groovy, damaged and demented, gloom infused tribal workout, alternatingly woozy and weird, freaky and funky, as likely to send the dancefloor into a herky jerky frenzy as it is to make the pit explode in a sloppy sweaty tangle of limbs.

MPEG stream: Allergic To Heat
MPEG stream: Less Dead

Full length number two from one of the most revered US black metal bands around. And for good reason. Their Death And The Black Work record was near flawless, a swirling epic, spaced our psychedelic blackness, with insane insectoid riffing, inhumanly blazing drumming, filthy demonic vox, and some of the most tangled, gnarled and complex arrangements ever. Especially the guitars. Strip the guitars away, and you'd still be looking as a practically perfect BM framework, blasting, chaotic, dense, ultra heavy, to that you could add some generically grim and frosty riffage and have a decent slab of black metal, or you could add some warped and dizzyingly fractured Nightbringer style riffing, and suddenly, we're in a whole 'nother dimension. In some ways the sound is more death metal than black metal, in structure at least, furious and relentless, so fast, but cloaked in a filthy patina of grim ambient buzz, shot through with spidery mournful melodies, and those guitars, soaring and howling and tangly and layered and totally epic and relentless, as close to manic blackened riffing can get to non stop shredding without losing cohesion, instead it makes every track seem more epic, more spacey out, as if the band were trying to craft some impossible black metal ur-drone raga, a constant build, getting more and more and more frantic, the energy spilling forth it huge gouts of incendiary buzz and blast, totally exhausting, but also utterly exhilarating, one track feels like a whole record by other, less ambitious bands, like some strange hybrid of Deathspell Omega, Leviathan and Liturgy, the last especially in the way Nightbringer seem to transcend black metal, taking the traditional tropes and stretching them into something almost more akin to 20th century composition, black metal rendered in sprawling expansive soundscapes of light and dark, buzz and blast, grind and crunch, howl and shimmer, occasionally slipping into gorgeous swirling guitar drones, other times, pounding majestic doomlike lumber, and still other times face melting bursts of white noise blasts of grinding black crunch. Nightbringer are easily one of the best USBM bands, and Apocalypse Sun is just latest in their ever expanding black world of sound, and is most definitely a contender for black metal record of the year. As if we were expecting anything less...

MPEG stream: I Am I
MPEG stream: Supplication Before The Throne Of Tehom
MPEG stream: Serpent Of The Midnight Sun
MPEG stream: Upturning The Seventh Chalice

The return of Nightbringer! One of the best USBM bands going, hailing from the frosty, wintry climes of Colorado, whose last release (or at least the last one we got) was an insanely kick ass split with Temple Of Not (a sort of drone-y Nightbringer side project), a record that most of the black metal folks we know consider a masterpiece. Ourselves included. So there were seriously high expectations for this, their first full length. We can safely say, even after only a few listens, this will WAY surpass expectations and will likely be topping a lot of year end lists, a total contender for black metal record of the year. There is a cd version that we'll be getting eventually, but this vinyl version is SO much cooler. First off, it comes in a killer box, but more importantly, it contains nearly 30 minutes more music! So odds are the troo grim black metalheads are gonna want one of these super limited boxes. The rest of you can wait a couple weeks for the cd. Nightbringer's sounds is a dense swirling blackness, spaced out and subtly psychedelic, incredibly thick and textured, a bizarre hybrid of Darkspace and Deathspell Omega, but also plenty of old school raw black metal, long stretches of lurching doom, the sounds are not necessarily unfamiliar, but it's how they're employed. The guitars are the strangest of all, slipping from classic buzzing riffage, to sweeping majestic epic chords, to super strange ultra fast trills, almost like a tremolo, something we've heard very few BM bands do, it's really haunting and otherworldly, and adds to the sort of blackness of space vibe, and offers a cool counterpoint, the main riff lumbering along, the drums a chaotic slowed down plod, but then that strange guitar part unfurling these rapid fires runs, that almost sound like drones, long drawn out tones, making the whole thing so haunting and tense, in fact for a black metal record, much of Death And The Black Work is spent not playing fast at all (minus that awesome weird guitar part), the band is almost more like some alien blackened doom, that occasionally erupts into a thunderous blast, before slipping back into their buzzing black sprawl. But when they do get fast, it's fucking manic, frenzied, gloriously fucked up and feral, a buzzing blurred onslaught, that has few equals. We could go on and on but fuck it, this is IT. This is black metal supremacy. Mysterious and otherworldly, furious and blackly epic, total grim and frostbitten outer space brilliance. And yeah, this just might be black metal record of the year after all. LIMITED of course. And fair warning, ALL the boxes have some sort of very light cosmetic damage, actually damage might be too dramatic, they all have light scuffs on the edges, or seem a bit worn in places, but that just make them seem even more like some lost sacred scroll, some ancient book of the dead, discovered beneath the ruins of a church, and minus those slight imperfections, these boxes are precious black jewels, emanating a timeless malevolence, that will no doubt feel right at home on that candle lit skull laden black altar you keep all your records on at home.

MPEG stream: Caput Draconis - Black Saturn
MPEG stream: Womb Of Nyx
MPEG stream: Feast Of The Manes

One of a handful of new releases on the always kick ass Starlight Temple Society, the new Temple Of Not, and the Void Of Reveries cds, both reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and this, a killer collection of demos and rare and unreleased tracks, from Colorado's best black metal export, Nightbringer, whose previous two records were huge favorites around here, both Death And The Black Work and Apocalypse Sun, buzzing blasting works of black art. This compilation gathers up various tracks from the last decade, two from a 1999 demo, two from Nightbringer's split with Serpentinam from 2004, and most excitingly, two unreleased tracks from the Death And The Black Work sessions. The demo tracks are awesomely raw, after a brief ambient intro, the band explodes into a serious murky sprawl of blackened buzz, the sound so lo-fi and murky, all the sounds blur into a glorious stretch of smeared blown out blackness. Laced with weirdly lush keyboard swells. The split tracks are a bit more produced, the first track raw and trebly, the sound epic and majestic, but still harsh and grin and hellish, the second more moody and atmospheric, midtempo, still buzzing and black, but with some cool weird keening high end guitar skree, and some doomy ambience, a pretty epic slab of lumbering crush. The Death And The Black Works tracks are as epic as you would hope, unclear why they got left off the record proper, soaring, frantic, blasting buzzing blackness, pounding double kick drumming, intense insectoid riffing, raspy vokills buried in the mix, and some super cool parts where all the low end drops out, just leaving frenzied high end riffing soaring over chaotic drumming. The final track is another more doomy jam, the frantic riffing spread out over lurching lumbering drum plod, howled anguished vox, lots of swirling black atmosphere, and plenty of twisted dynamics, like guitars dropping out and then swooping back in, as well as some totally epic arrangements. Killer stuff, especially for an odds and ends collection. Definitely recommended, for fans obviously, but also for disciples of the grim black buzz. LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!!

MPEG stream: Oblivion's Descent
MPEG stream: Scorn Of The Enlightened
MPEG stream: Womb Of Nyx

We've long been fans of this grim kvlt Colorado horde, whose uniquely twisted sound seems to merge classic Norwegian style black metal, with the gnarled, warped blackness of bands like Deathspell Omega, their hybrid a furious, frenzied, impossibly complex and totally maniacal black metal that while reminiscent of other bands, is most definitely a pure and extremely virulent strain of blackness few bands can ever hope to attain. We often joke that even the black metal savvy among us have trouble telling one band from another, but there's no mistaking Nightbringer, their sound strangely distinctive, tonally, compositionally, this latest record, their third, delves even deeper into the warped world of post blackness that their Deathspell brethren are constantly exploring, for every burst of blast beat driven fury, there's a stretch of twisted super melodic mathiness, for every chunk of churning doomic plod, there's some progged out moment of soaring majesty, the songs slip and slither, transform and constantly shift shapes, the riffs besides being gnarled are strangely slippery, sounding almost at times like they're being played with a slide, and lending a warped psychedelic vibe to much of the proceedings, with much of the black filth tempered by moments of surprising loveliness, or bits of classic metal that find their way into an otherwise furiously fractured squall of black hole buzz. But like the records before, there's something going on well beyond the playing, or the production, an ineffable something that infuses the music here with something special, a mood, and ambience, evocative and mysterious, pretty much every black metal band is grim and brutal, dark and blackened and EVIL, but Nightbringer seem unconcerned with all of that, instead crafting this incredible black metal worlds, where the mood is built into the sound, into the order of notes, the choice of tone and timbre, it seems like it must be unconscious, but whatever it is, and however these guys do it, it's what makes THIS the real transcendental black metal!!

MPEG stream: Rite Of The Slaying Tongue
MPEG stream: Eater Of The Black Lead
MPEG stream: Psychagogoi

What better way to find a band to release a split with than to just pick a band that features essentially the same members? Such is the case with this two way split between buzzing black hordes Nightbringer and ritualistic dark ambient ensemble Temple Of Not. Most bands would probably just combine the two, and have a black metal band with long drone passages, or vice versa, but these are two entirely different sonic entities, and both are amazing. Hailing from Colorado, these groups were brought to our attention by Wrest from Leviathan, who is VERY selective about the metal he listens to, so much so that when he repeatedly sang (growled?) the praises of both these bands we knew we had to check it out. Nightbringer buzz darkly through a thick black void, with loping midtempo tempos over furiously fast riffing, and some completely insane drumming, not just blast beats, but wild fills and strange unlikely rhythms. Occasionally the band slows down, at which point the music takes on a creepy majestic air, like court music for some hellish black temple, but it's not long before the band bursts back into full speed blackness. Super atmospheric with bizarre blasts of hyper speed buzz as well as stretches of dense droning riffage. Heavy and dense and evil. These guys definitely wouldn't sound out of place on NED alongside Deathspell and Antaeus. Nightbringer's occultic ambient alter ego Temple Of Not is just as dark and heavy, but realizes their evil through drone not buzz, with two lengthy glacial crawls, thick soundscapes of whirring rumble and dreamlike shimmer. But be prepared, this is not normal ambient music. Part way through the first track, the song is disrupted by huge speaker shredding bursts of what sounds like a garbled black metal transmission from an alternate universe, repeated over and over building into a strange fuzzed out super distorted rhythm before drifting off again, allowing the song to wind down into blackness. The second ToN track is even more spare, but still haunting and ominous, disembodied vocals drift above a slowly shifting, layered landscape of throb and thrum, warble and whir, guitars and synths intertwined and tangled up in a slow drift skyward, the last few minutes punctuated by a simple distant pulse-like distant drum beat. Very primal and ritualistic. And the perfect compliment to Nightbringer's hellborne onslaught. Recommended by AQ and Wrest endorsed!! You know what that means...

MPEG stream: The Void
MPEG stream: Mors Philosphorum
MPEG stream: Temple Of Not

A rare live recording from uber-obscure early Tangerine Dream worshippers, Nightcrawlers, a three piece out of New Jersey who released cassettes of their "cosmic floating space music" between 1979 and 1992. Recorded in a church in 1985, these two 30 minute tracks take full advantage of the reverent resonance of the live cathedral environment with beautiful bowed drones, glacial organ and intensely meditative flourishes of futuristic kosmiche. Super-Limited to 50 copies, this group presaged the new age krautrock revival by about 20 years and are long overdue for rediscovery.

MPEG stream: Part 1
MPEG stream: Part 2

What do you get when you mix a bunch of high school kids, the Champs, Dungeons And Dragons, Hammerfall, stadium rock, a record collection filled with black metal, and ridiculous instrumental prowess? Nightfist of course. These kids are like a power metal Champs, spewing forth galloping, rollicking melodic majestic instru-metal, complete with Maiden-ish duelling guitars, squiggly guitar solos, wicked double bass drumming, silly song titles, ridiculous opening/closing narrations and thankfully less irony than you might think, despite being released on Temporary Residence, not usually the home of Euro-styled metal mania.

MPEG stream: Chapter 1: The Hero's Overture
MPEG stream: Chapter 2: Acidrainfuckhell

We've been trying to list this for ages, but our first batch was destroyed in the post, and our second batch took its own sweet time getting here from Poland, but here we are, almost a year after we initially ordered 'em, and we can finally unleash the bizarre tech prog metal of Poland's Nightly Gale on the masses. So yeah, this is definitely doom. Maybe even toss in a few extra 'o's, cause this is damn doomy. But it's also pretty freaking weird. Four massive lengthy epics, each with its own strange vibe. The opener is a slow plod, epic guitars, soaring over downtuned chug, a glacial trudge but with super dramatic prog rock crooning over the top, sometimes almost slipping into a sort of yodel. Then suddenly, the rhythm lurches into a strangely technical start stop stutter, with gurgling keyboards and space rock FX, and some harsh black metal vocals. The second track is more of that strange tech-prog-doom, with fuzzy synthesizers, programmed drums, at times it almost sounds like Meshuggah slowed waaaaaaaay down, strangely technical, but as if played in slow motion, with weird processed underwater prog vocals, and some almost Viking growls. Some delicate dreamlike piano, gently placed amidst super harsh screams and massive downtuned crunch. It's like prog Cradle Of Filth at 16 rpm. Actually, we have no idea what this is like... It's at this point that one is forced to think, WHAT THE FUCK?!? How have we not heard this band? Why aren't more people completely obsessed with these guys? WE DON'T KNOW. Tracks 3 and 4 continue on in the same sort of schizophrenic, prog doom direction. With long expanses of swooshing ambience, moody melancholy acoustic passages, epic emotional guitar harmonies, huge cinematic synths, track three almost sounds like a doom metal Genesis, if such a thing were possible, and we're beginning to think it is! The track ends with a groovy little shuffling Nine Inch Nails sort of murky electronic dirge with hissed whispery vocals, before launching into the 15 minute closer, which initially sounds like it might be the most straight ahead doom track on the record, until about halfway through, where the band breaks down into a creepy nursery rhyme sort of interlude with bizarre production, freaky sound effects and haunting vocals, before launching back into a killer mathy jam, lurching and stuttering hypnotically before fading out into some dreamy dirgey melancholy dream doom, complete with strangely Alice In Chains-like vocals (a good thing btw) and a repeating minor key piano figure. So freaking heavy, and weird and goddamn great! We only have about 20 copies, and we're pretty sure that since it took us so long to get these that it's probably out of print, so odds are once these are gone, we won't be able to get more...

MPEG stream: At Your Command
MPEG stream: Illusion Of Evil

A far cry from the Sheffield bleep techno that Nightmares on Wax, Sweet Exorcist, and LFO were forging to make Warp the seminal label that it is today... Carboot Soul wouldn't be out of place on Mo' Wax or Ninja Tune with a VERY mellow trip hop album loaded with jazzy vibes and downtempo beats.

Funky breaks, slightly uninspired mix. It's a Studio K7 DJ Kicks release, wherein artists basically perform their dream DJ set and then it gets released as a cd. Nightmares on Wax includes in his set: himself, DJ Paul Nice, A Tribe Called Quest, Freddy Fresh, and more. If you're a fan of N.O.W., you'll like this mellow hiphop infused groove.

Oh man, why isn't Nightmares on Wax totally famous? This is the most "radio ready" of NOW's albums thus far, which in lesser hands could be a turnoff or a disaster... yet I find this record utterly entrancing. It's just so good, a nicely executed take on KMEL-style R&B, albeit *super* stripped down but still complete with diva vocals, hip hop flavor, and a slowed up pace. Super pretty, hook-filled chord progressions -- articulated via pastoral basslines and blunted, easygoing beats -- dominate practically every song here. Occasional excursions into dub and 'trip hop' are similarly well-handled. It's all very accessible and unassuming, with no weird juxtapositions or noisiness to interrupt the reverie you'll fall into while listening. And that's a good thing, mind you -- this isn't sonic wallpaper. I can't remember the last time I liked a "downtempo" record, with no 'difficult' IDM affectations, this much! Maybe that Kid Loco album, A Grand Love Story... Highly recommended!!! The first 10,000 copies have a free extra disc which features Mr Nightmares on Wax himself, George Evelyn, a.k.a. E.A.S.E., mixing older NoW tracks.

RealAudio clip: Know My Name
RealAudio clip: Date with Destiny
RealAudio clip: Thinking of Omara

Finland's self-proclaimed Undisputed Kings of Lasermetal are back! Note that 'Lasermetal' as a genre exists ONLY in connection to Nightsatan, and is definitely NOT actually metal, though these guys do look pretty metal - you've got one guy, Inhalator II, wearing all sorts of studded gear, including studded headband; another guy, Wolf-Rami, who has a scary skull face inside his motorcycle helmet; and a third, Mazathoth, who wears a Boba Fett style helmet, and a cape, and has antlers inexplicably growing out of his back. But they're an instrumental synth trio, not metal in the slightest, except conceptually perhaps. If you recall, we made Nightsatan's debut album Midnight Laser Warrior an aQuarius Record Of The Week a few years back, blown away by their brand of "crazy, futuristic, electro prog", a soundtracky, synth-heavy sound inspired by John Carpenter and Tangerine Dream, not unlike Zombi or Umberto, but taking that into a ridiculously fantastical Finnish realm of over-the-topness. Well, with this new release they somehow go even FURTHER over the top, 'cause instead of just sounding like a soundtrack, it IS a soundtrack, to a real movie that's included here on its own dvd disc packaged with the cd. And the movie stars Nightsatan, playing themsleves, as surreal sci-fi superheroes wandering a futuristic wasteland encountering (and slaying, or having sex with) strange characters. It's an homage of sorts to Italian '80s post-apocalyptic exploitation cinema, complete with dialog dubbed in Italian (English subtitles are provided). It comes across like a mix of Mad Max and Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain, truly bizarre and absurd, full of gory special FX and nudity. Sex, violence, and synthesizers! Basically, an extended, insane music video for Nightsatan. It's a professional production, including some impressive special effects (it's worth watching the 'making of' bonus feature to see how they did it - 'cuz we didn't think they had deserts in Finland), with a plot involving, yes, 'loops of doom' - we can't explain it but it does sort of make sense. it's really a bit disturbing at moments, and twistedly funny too, and of course the music is pretty rad, and you can enjoy it alone on the soundtrack cd, which is twice as long as the movie, consisting of 14 tracks, 48 minutes of Nightsatan's retro-futuristic synth-splorations, droning and glistening, often underlaid with propulsive beats via Inhalator II's 'laserdrums'. Mood-wise it ranges from sinister suspensefulness, to exciting electro-rock, to maudin, melodic 'love theme' moments. Fans of Umberto, Trans Am, Blizaro, Emeralds, all ought to dig - imagine a mix of all those, but with an added element of pure Finnish WTF?-ness. It's hard to believe that Nightsatan are NOT one of the so-called NWOFHM bands put together by the guys in Circle, like Steel Mammoth. But nope, they're just friends, apparently this sort of thing just what they do in Finland these days. Ah, Finland. Ah, Nightsatan!

MPEG stream: Theme From Loops Of Doom
MPEG stream: Secret Of The Mystery
MPEG stream: Battle Knights

They're from Finland. They're called Nightsatan. Their record is called Midnight Laser Warrior and features on its cover some helmeted ghoul with a knife, and a sawblade, and a bullet belt, and tons of spikes and studs on the leather jacket that barely obscures his rotting zombie flesh. They have song titles like "Four Eyed Cyclops", "Death Chess 2000", "Karelian Stairmaster (Evil Lucifer)". The record was mastered by two members of aQ faves Finnish hypnorockers Circle. We saw a YouTube clip of Nightsatan performing, where a certain member of the crowd got so worked up he decided to sing along, that person was none other than Albert Witchfinder of the mighty Reverend Bizarre (and The Puritan, among others). Their drummer is credited with player "Laserdrums". And most importantly, they play "LAZERMETAL". Which is in fact, not metal at all, nor even "NWOFHM", instead it's some sort of crazy, futuristic, electro prog, like Goblin or John Carpenter, or any of the current crop of Carpenter worshipping retro futurists (Majeure, Umberto, Zombi, Blizaro) but filtered through some ELP, or Yes, or even more obscure prog faves like Il Balleto Di Bronzo or the New Trolls. Sure the sound is synthy, and retro and electro and will no doubt appeal to those folks, but it's also twisted and proggy and FINNISH, which makes this something else entirely. The cool thing about these guys, ONE of the cool things, is that they're a proper band, this isn't just a studio project, assembled at a desk with a computer, no these guys are a BAND, and there's tons of footage of them playing live, and most notably, they have a DRUMMER, who plays drums, electronic drums sure, but they give the sound a sweaty, urgent, human element missing from lots of similar stuff, not to mention, these songs are epic and complex and again PROGGY. Opener "Four Eyed Cyclops" begins with a bit of Tangerine Dreamy synthiness, accompanied by some growled cookie monster vox, but it doesn't take long for the track to get going, with some awesome syncopated rumming, locked tight with the synths, then another buzzing bit of low end synth swoops in, and while it's not metal, we can definitely feel the same sort of power and energy and intensity. All the synths drop out, leaving just the buzzing low end one to unfurl a serious slithery riff, the drums come back in, and it's like some weird electronic electro-doom, the metal vibe, more in the vibe than the sound, but it's definitely weird and heavy and electronic, with lots of bent notes wound into electro leads. Awesome. "Death Chess 2000" starts off with more buzzing low end synth riffage, some "Iron Man" style kick drum, before slipping into another bit of electro-doom, only to have everything suddenly speed up, and transform into a car chase Autobahn soundtrack that returns briefly to that opening electro doom, before stripping down to just minimal synth and a skeletal rhythm, and more of those weird raspy vox, finishing off in a blaze of swirl and buzz. "Karelian Stairmaster (Evil Lucifer)" might be the proggiest of the bunch, another swirly Logan's Run sounding intro, all arpeggiated melodies underpinned by thick wheezing synth buzz, while the snare drum drives the rhythm, before blossoming into a hazy, futuristic soundscape (which more than one customer mistook for the Tron soundtrack! If only!), that warbles woozily, and eventually switches tempo and becomes the perfect score for some lost eighties VHS tape horror movie futuristic dystopian city montage. Throughout, the song offers up some strange detours, intense super dynamic stop/starts, with pounding drums, and some gorgeous woozy video game soundtrack balladry (which again has us thinking how much better these guys would have been for scoring Tron). "Ninja Apocalypse" is creepy, and haunting, with the sound of fake rainfall, deep bass swells, and a main keyboard melody that would most definitely not be out of place in a Halloween or Friday The 13th movie, but like all the songs, the track continually shifts and transforms, minimal and hauntingly creepy one second, supper progged out and propulsive the next, soaring and majestic the next, and druggy and psychedelic the next. "Steel Diamond Part 4" (parts 1 and 2 are on the 7" reviewed elsewhere on this list, not sure where part 3 is though), is another electro prog workout, that features a super soundtracky main melody wreathed in layer after layer of synth buzz, the drums dense and intricate, the sound swirling and shimmering, evoking images of alien planets, of crashed starships, of subterranean lairs, of strange creatures chained up and walking into the depths, of the blackness of space, which leads right into the final track "Stars, Our Destination", which takes that space synth sci-fi sound even further out, pulsing and throbbing, the melodies tangled and intricate, hypnotic and totally mesmerizing, the sound dramatic and emotional and epic, and so totally cinematic, every track in fact here plays out like the music to some climactic scene from some lost eighties sci-fi adventure epic, with "Stars, Our Destination" being the perfect culmination, the drums less rhythmic, and more dynamic, pounding alongside the synths, the vocals more breathy exhalations, soon joined by thick rubbery low end pulses, everything growing more and more intense before fading into a swirling drift of warbly synths, swirling FX and whispered urgent voices. There's a short hidden track, another sort of Halloween gone electro synthwave, with a pulsing house-y beat, creepy raspy vocals, and a main melody that sounds like it had to be created for some horror movie, tense and intense, this final coda brooding and moody, but also propulsive and weirdly motorik, the perfect sci-fi, electro house, futuristic synth wave hypno krautrock finish to a pretty much perfect sci-fi, electro house, futuristic synth wave hypno krautrock record! And all this talk of soundtrack and cinema is not just us, the artwork on the back cover, which features a modular synth, with the various patch bays altered to read as song titles, also includes various inputs for things like "Doom & Gloom", "Heavy Pounding" and maybe most tellingly "Extra Giallo". So good. Easily our favorite of this new batch of synthy soundtracky sci-fi sounds. There is vinyl, but it's not out yet, a few weeks still. And if you dig this, be sure and grab one of those 7"s too!!

MPEG stream: Four Eyed Cyclops
MPEG stream: Death Chess 2000
MPEG stream: Karelian Starmaster (Evil Lucifer)
MPEG stream: Stars, Our Destination

If you found your way here without reading about and most likely buying the full length Nightsatan record, best to take a second and go check out that review, we get WAY more in depth there about the band and their fantastic futuristic sounds. And if you already added the cd to your cart, and just need MORE, then heck, skip the rest of this, and throw one of these in your cart too. But for those who need to know more. Nightsatan are from Finland, and play "Lazermetal" which is in fact less metal, and more futuristic soundtracky sci-fi synth wave prog. "Steel Diamond" parts 1 and 2 make up the bulk of the 7" (part 4 is on the full length, no idea where part 3 is), and is a sprawling synthscape of fat, fuzz drenches electro future prog, swirling synths, propulsive electronic drums, sweeping arrangements, epic swells, the bass buzzy and blown out, all wound into some sort of electronic krautspacefunk soundtrack. There are some breakdowns and interludes that are so thick and heavy, the bass SO buzzy, that it almost does sound metal. The second part of the "Steel Diamond" quadrilogy offers up a plodding super dramatic space opera lazer prog workout, wild tangles of synth leads, evoking the final march up to the castle, the final battle, knights versus aliens, the vibe is definitely doomy, but synth-doom, building to a wild proggy break, that gets all electro-metallic before slipping right back into that spaced out synthy futurism. The other track here, "Space Revenger" (awesome title!), is a pounding Teutonic bit of synthy electro prog metal, but with all the metal guitars replaced by MORE SYNTHS, epic and dramatic and intense and cinematic, with some surprisingly crushing parts that remind us a bit of MIDI metal (those cheesy electronic versions of classic metal sounds, YouTube it) but cranked WAAAAAY UP! The cover art here is cool too, the band in metal T's and studded wristbands, huge black shades, obscured by red lights, looking very metal, with a shiny silver sticker that says "Finland's No#1 Nightsatan - File Under LAZERMETAL", while the back boasts two different legends, one reads "No guitars played on this record", the other "DEATH TO FALSE LASERMETAL". Fuck Yeah. Pressed on LAZER-RED vinyl too...

The Greek answer to Monster Magnet! Seriously.

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

SORRY.

UK label Barl Fire has a darn near perfect record with kick ass releases from James Blackshaw, Rameses III, Robert Horton, Lamp Of The Universe, Floating World, United Bible Studies, The North Sea, Uton and more. Their focus seemingly on drone folk and free rock. Their last two releases however, this one, and the James Reid (reviewed elsewhere on this list) have begun to drift more toward straight ahead folk, or at least the sort of modern folk of New Weird America and similar minded hippies. Where as the James Reid channels the spirit of Nick Drake, the Nihil Project is more of a pagan ritual, a sort of Renaissance Wicker Man mystickal magickal folk. Sitars and zithers, tablas, harpischords, violins, along with more traditional acoustic guitars and flutes as well as some little more modern electronic flourishes. Crooning vocals, lilting melodies, occasionally dark and ominous, but just as often playful and festive. Definitely for fans of the Wicker Man, Pentangle, Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Forest, Comus, as well as the new breed of modern folk a la Devendra, Brightblack, Newsom and the like...

MPEG stream: Unquiet Grave / Twa Corbies
MPEG stream: Weaving Wheat

Here we have the collected recordings of a young (average age fifteen years old!!!) band by the name of Nihilist that would (several personnel changes later) become THE Swedish death/thrash cornerstone known as ENTOMBED. Without Entombed, it's a safe bet to say that death metal would not be what it is today. Some of the members of Nihilist also went on to start other bands you may have heard of like Dismember and Unleashed. But with this long awaited Nihilist reissue, we can go back to where it all began! Assembled here for your aural pleasure (along with in-depth liner notes/photos, etc.) are all the known demos (as they were originally released) and some extra cuts, i.e. a track recorded for a 1989 split ep with Paradise Lost, Carcass, & Bolt Thrower, and a couple more cuts for a 7" EP (a Repulsion cover, etc.). Sound-quality you ask? Well, we're talkin' teenagers in the late 80's here. But nonetheless, they sound pretty damn good. The tracks have all been "remastered" for this release, but you wouldn't know it. They sound that good. Not GREAT mind you, but good. Just how a killer nineties death metal record should sound. Remember we're talking demos here! One of the demos herein was recorded by (unknown at the time) famous producer Tomas Skogsberg. So yeah, you get it (if you know your Swedish death metal).� There are a few tape drop outs here and there, but they are almost unnoticeable. Besides, this stuff is CLASSIC material that blows away sooooooo much of what is out there today. These guys were so ahead of their time -- and at such a tender age! This will go great next to your Repulsion discography and maybe that Disembowelment box set from a few lists back, and maybe next to some Sodom or Obituary or Possessed too. But really, this is the cream of the crop for Swedish (death/thrash) metal and we'd be suprised to find a shelf of cds that already holds power of this magnitude!

MPEG stream: Sentenced To Death
MPEG stream: Carnal Leftovers

This one is definitely for the noise crowd. Doomlords might find this latest joint from Northwester dronedoomdirge duo (now trio apparently) Blue Sabbath Black Cheer a little too punishing. We can only assume it's the influence of Nihilist Assault Group, not that BSBC didn't have noisy tendencies before, but here, the two combine forces to unleash a blackened Merzbowian beast, two side long blowouts of grinding white noise drenched hiss and glitch and howl and buzz. At low volume, like much of this ilk, one might mistake this for TV static, or a vacuum cleaner, or the needle slipping off the record and scraping over the label, a cacophony of crunch and scrape and gristly fuzz, blurred into heaving clouds of NOISE. Strap some headphones on though if you dare, and there's definitely more going on than meets the ear, some churning almost rhythms, cool textures, tangled strands of drone and rumble and whir, but that's all buried underneath an avalanche of satanic hiss and skull caving, amp destroying white noise brutality. Awesome stuff, if your ears can handle it. Again, very little in the way of doom, or even low end to be found here, but if you like to sit back, and relax to some Incapacitants, dine to a little Merzbow, or entertain to the strains of Hijokaidan, then heck, this might be the perfect soundtrack for your next nihilistic dinner party. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Gorgeous black and white jackets, with a thick printed insert.

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY.

This is the third release on the famed Japanese label Alchemy from the London, Ontario group the Nihilist Spasm Band, who since the mid-1960s have been making gloriously evocative and weird improvised music (and have released many other records for a variety

RealAudio clip: I Dreamt I Was Living in Paradise

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY.

Everyone's favorite bunch of old Canadian guys making crazy noise, the one and only Nihilist Spasm Band of London, Ontario, teamed up with outside jazz saxophonist Joe McPhee for this double cd set of studio and live improvisations. Armed with their usual array

RealAudio clip: Going Too Far
RealAudio clip: Maneater

The second Grond begins, it all becomes clear: this is EXACTLY what you want to be listening to! Nihill follows a similar path to progressive black metal heavies such as Deathspell, Blut Aus Nord, and S.V.E.S.T., meaning this is modern black metal done the right way, but they also inject a significant amount of dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom into the mix, ala SUNNO))) and Bunkur. So, uh, do we really need to say it? We're giving this one our seal of approval like you wouldn't believe. Grond is part II of a trilogy (check out our review for the recent reissue of part I, Krach, from a few lists back), and it kicks off in grand fashion with "Aard," a blitzkrieg of pummeling blast beats, seasick guitar riffs, and forceful growling vocals. The song is a bit like wandering in a psychedelic dream state through a blackened, frozen wilderness, and it doesn't let up one bit for the duration of its 11 furious minutes, at least not until its feedback drenched conclusion, which segues into the next song, "Antimoon", a plodding doomscape pierced with discordant, siren like guitar notes and shrouded in infinite layers of fuzz and murk for the first 8 of its 17 minutes, after which the song spirals into an abyssic crevasse of windy, electronic ambience. "Vacuum" is a brutal and relentless lesson in Satanic riffage that works its way into the depths of your mind with its constant repetition and the singer's harsh, demonic croaks. The song is unrestrained and beyond the control of anything but the band themselves. The final selection here, "Pulsus", is another lesson in abject, doomed out black metal, a glacial, slow moving vortex ready to pull you deep into the misery. As the minutes progress, the song stops and starts like an animal gasping to crawl out of a blizzard, only to repeat its into eternity, or at least until an ever growing fuzz takes over everything in its path. So yeah, this one pretty much fulfills the requirements for a metal record around this neck of the woods - equal parts speed and barely mobile dooooooooooooooom, all mixed into a hateful brew of metallic fury. We can only wonder where things will go with part III.

MPEG stream: Aard
MPEG stream: Antimoon

It's hard to not love a band that sounds like some unholy spawn of Deathspell Omega and SUNNO))), a blackened ritualistic blend of furious black metal and epic doomdrone, and while that combination in and of itself is not outrageously novel, since lots of BM record incorporate ambience and drones, it's all in the execution, and Nihill have managed to spin a sinister black web of sound that while familiar in some ways, is truly unlike anything we've heard before. The first in a supposedly already completed trilogy of albums, Krach is a droning black beast, that begins with a short intro, a barely there bit of dark ambience, before exploding into�blasting chaotic, almost industrial black metal, so intense and blown out it basically ceases being black metal and becomes some droning buzzing black noisescape, the relentless blast beats the only thing holding everything together, huge swaths of ugly buzz and furious tangled black riffing. About part�way through the brutality abates, leaving a fuzzy free floating tangle of�strange voices, and circusy guitar melodies, whirring drones and abstract ambience, before a black blast shatters the tranquility and we're sucked right back down into Nihill's fuzzed out hellish sonic abyss. The rest of the record is primarily the epic, three part, 42 minute�Gnosis song suite. Each movement a cinematic slab of black doomdronedrift,�huge ultra distorted swells of chordal crunch, over�haunting plodding percussion that sounds like it was recorded in some massive underground cathedral, these�glacial sonic shifts lumber beastlike through sprawling black hole soundscapes, the various layers and drones shifting from hateful industrial pummel to gorgeous ambient shimmer and back again. Imagine a more druggy SUNNO))) but with actual percussion, some demonic propulsion driving this epic's 16 rpm engine. The trilogy is broken up by another burst of DSO style blackened chaos, a completely deranged off kilter sonic assault, but the last two movements follow, one right after the other, finishing off the record with a nearly half hour of glacial, suffocating, brutal black drift.� Any one remotely into any of the following bands absolutely NEEDS this: SUNNO))), Deathspell Omega, Moss, Khanate, Bunkur, S.V.E.S.T., Trollmann, Tenhornedbeast, Monument Of Urns, Marzuraan, Black Boned Angel... we could go on and on and on. A new deathdoomdronedrift favorite, with the added bonus of some seriously buzzing blackness.� And we're already dying for the rest of the trilogy....

MPEG stream: Mundus Subterreanus
MPEG stream: Gnosis Pt. 1
MPEG stream: Dreams Upon The Scaffold

The return of this Dutch black metal horde, full length number three, and their M.O. remains fully intact, a grinding, churning gnarled blackness that sonically fits in the twisted black pantheon of groups like Deathspell Omega, S.V.E.S.T., Ascension, Hell Militia, Ondskapt, and the like. And while Nihill has a definite doooooooom component, you'd never know it from the opening track, the ten minute "Vuur: The Deathwind Of Resurrection", which after a brief bit of noisiness explodes into a roiling blast of furious buzz, only switching it up in the shape of a more classic metal gallop, quickly returning to the frantic blast of the first few minutes, the multiple guitars creating a dense black wall of sound, that is SO buzzy it almost blurs into a full on drone, but listen close, and there's all sorts of crazy tangled melodies and slithery slippery riffage going on beneath the surface, dizzyingly furious and utterly relentless. The second track "Spiral: The Tail Eater" finds the band slowing down the tempo, but shedding NONE of the buzz, in fact if anything, it's somehow buzzier, the sound so thick and corrosively distorted, it again makes the sound even more tranced out and hypnotic. "Orbron: Returning To The Primal Matter" is another one that's impossible dense and chaotic, suffocatingly intense, buzz drenched blackness that seems to swallow all other sound whole. After a tripped out stretch of ambience, the final track finds the band infusing their psychedelic blackbuzz fury with some 'classic' black metalisms, some chugging riffage, some swirling melodies, the sound still buzzy and blown out, but also murky and mesmerizing, a mildly more melodic coda to a record that borders of total blackhole / black buzz collapse. So fucking killer.

MPEG stream: Vuur: The Deathwind Of Resurrection
MPEG stream: Spiral: The Tail Eater

An ultra brief blast of grim, depressive, doomy ambience, from this Swedish one man horde known as Nihilum. Also spreading his harsh hateful message of metallic doom and gloom in the groups Durthang and Hypothermia, Nachtzeit, the man behind Nihilum, here weaves lush, lonely synthscapes of minor key melody, rumbling drones, soaring faux strings, and mournful melancholia, all over drawn out pulses and epic sweeping expanses of slow shifting fuzz. A gloriously lo-fi dark ambience, cinematic and sad, weirdly dramatic and hauntingly pretty. Not so much metal, or doom, or even heavy really, as lilting and lovely, dark, dreamy and depressive.

This is record number two from NYC electro synth-wave downer poppers Nihiti, who as we mentioned in our review of their first record, are infamous for their tripped out light heavy live shows, and who traffic in a sound equal parts witch house, big beat electronica and home brewed electronic experimentalism, which is what we were expecting from this new ep, but in fact, the band have offered up something totally different, and in fact, totally acoustic. No electronics, no beats, no glitches or buzzes, instead, it's all acoustic guitars, strings, even trombones, and vocals, real songs, darkly folky and at times sort of psychedelic, definitely poppy, and in a way, they almost sound like the more song based tracks from the first Nihiti record, arranged for acoustic guitar and violin. Almost. So fans of that first records, it's not a lock that this will be your cup of tea too, but it is pretty great, folky, but still a bit gloomy, the vocals are fantastic, lush intricate harmonies, slipping from croon to falsetto and back again, dark and dramatic, moody and moving, a little seventies British acid folk, a little bit modern psych folk, the strings soar and sing, adding tension and drama, the vocals and guitar often playing off each other, the B side gets a little bit waltzy for a track, the violin so mournful and melancholy, sounding very gypsy-ish, but it quickly returns to something more psychedelic strum. Cool stuff and a nice surprise for sure. Guardedly recommended for fans of the first record, but heck, we dug that and we're digging this too.

We've long been fans of this mysterious NY outfit, whose past records found these guys brewing up a dizzying concoction of warped electro wave, haunting witch house-y minimalist creep, fuzzed out shoegazey ambience, and home brewed big beat crunch, all blurred and smeared into something way more abstract and psychedelic that its constituent parts. But here on their third and most recent, the band dial things way back, and craft a dark, gorgeous slab of introspective, electronic soundscapery, opening the proceedings with thick swaths of gristled, pixelated Tim Hecker like sonic haze. All washed out and dreamy and woozily lysergic, perfectly leading into a stunning Marissa Nadler cover, the already dark original transformed into an even darker lament, all swirling churns of mumblecore drift, heaving swells of black blurred fuzz, over skeletal rhythms, and moaned barely there vox, smeared and subtly processed, a plaintive whispery croon becomes a lush landscape of layered drones drifting dreamily and druggily, a ghostly and spectral electro-ambient threnody, that builds to a near squall of roiling riffs and tangled black melodies, the result still somehow warm and soft and utterly trancelike. Elsewhere, the group unfurl smoldering cinematic soundscapes, strange slivers of shadowy sound, moaning fragmented melodies, all over a haunting heartbeat like pulse, a sort of slo-mo electronica, laced with strange hummed/sung vocals that remind us a bit of country weirdos the Reveries, who sing with cell phone speakers in their mouths, the same effect here, a wordless warble that ebbs and flows, slipping from near insectoid buzz to deep softly dramatic, barely there croon, and back again, all over slow swooping backwards guitars, and disembodied fragments of guitar melody. Some tracks, like "Eisenbahnstrasse, January 1st 1946" shed some of the darkness, and blossom into dreamily prismatic swirls, all tinkling chimes, clean guitar jangle, soft psychedelic shimmer, all interwoven with random samples and brief blurts of FX heavy skree, but the sound always seems to drift back into the darkness. As the record progresses, heavy machine like industrial beat, lumber through fields of clang and clatter and thump, all constructed into a dense driving blast of junkyard groove, the whole thing swaddled in a distant buzz, and slowly building swells of layered static drones, a sort of ultra minimal hypno-hop, like something you migh have heard on an old DHR record, or on one of those Electric Ladyland comps alongside Techno Animal, Spectre and the like. Eventually, the sound slows to a crawl, still beat heavy, but this time a tar pit drag, a lurching, looped lumber, all downtuned thrum, and disembodied voices, and some buried shuffling skitter. "Sun Shatterer" is a heady sprawl of minimal gloom pop, minor key guitars, chiming through a cloud of woozy sonic warble, weird clipped whispers, tense strings, keening high end tones, what sounds like Hermann Nitsch like brass, which resolve into soft whorls of crumbling distortion and lush waves of fuzzed out feedback, before unexpectedly exploding into something much more in keeping with their old sound, big beats, a sort of post industrial electro wave downer dirge, with clean, dramatic new wave vocals, big melodies, buzzing synths, but all still wreathed in the weird droned out sounds that started the track off, like a noiser, more abstact Interpol maybe... After a couple brief tracks of creepy, psychedelic ambience, the 30 second "Campfire Ashes" way too short, sounding like it could have blossomed into some dark Demdike Stare style epic, which thankfully is in a way what happens, as that track leads directly into the closer, a nearly nine minute sprawl called "Hymn Division". that lays down a simple pulsing beat, over which Nihiti lay thick swaths of black buzz, dense swirls of ribcage rattling low end reverberations, and finally deep, dramatic minor key melodies, that infuse the song with serious pathos, it's not hard to imagine this as the sound track to the denouement of some twisted, modern, avant indie film, a dizzying expanse of moving, emotional, electronic minimalism, but here drifting towrd maximalism, the tones expanding and exploding in slow motion, the melodies, bright, and eventually blinding, the tones strecthed way out, tense and intense, the coda a sort of Hecker / Nadja dreamdronedrift, but more soft focus here, heady and heavenly.

MPEG stream: Siobhan's Song For Jakob
MPEG stream: Ghosts And Lovers
MPEG stream: Eisenbahnstrasse, January 1st 1946
MPEG stream: Sun Shatterer
MPEG stream: Hymn Divisions

[ aquarius records catalogue — N ]