[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 51 through 100 of 915.

U.K. import.

Ex-Talk Talk people making ethno-ambient bleepy music very much like Mouse on Mars. Subtle, measured, nice.

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SORRY. San Francisco's electronica maverick O.S.T. has unfortunately not been doing as well career-wise as he deserves, as several records which were originally intended for release Plug Research and Reflective got shelved by the labels. Not too smart on their part, as all are great. And thankfully, at least this one got a proper release at last. On the Pthalo label, Chris Douglas (aka O.S.T. as well as Rook Vallard) presents his third album as O.S.T. "Death Notice," which despite its morose title is his most delicate record. It's a collection of poetic vignettes of delicate electronica melodies. While the palette used is similar to O.S.T.'s previous abrasive work, there is an interest not so much in the caustic but the beautiful, resulting in an album not unlike Coil's rejected "Hellraiser" soundtracks or Aphex Twin's "Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2". Recommended!

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SORRY. San Francisco's dandy of damaged electronica - Chris Douglas aka OST aka Rook Vallard aka Church Steps (when working with Mike Dial) - presents another installment from his increasingly prolific output. 'Deflect' is an epileptic album of erratic drum programming, skittering and sputtering alongside counterpoint flanges of digital bell-like resonations and oblique washed out melodies. It's actually quite close to the painterly electronica of Mouse On Mars though a bit more darkly hallucinatory and twisted.

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SORRY. Along with the roster of L.A.'s Plug Research, O.S.T. dispels any notion that West Coast electronica need be sunny and pleasant. San Francisco's maverick has also recorded for the Worm Interface label as Rook Vallard and here, sculpts malevolent soundtracks of distant washes of noise which have been pushed intensely into the foreground. Highly recommended.

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SORRY. This album was intended for release on Jonah Sharp's Reflective label but never saw light of day, until Phthalo manufactured 250 cd-r's of the album. O.S.T.'s metallic tones and piercing squiggles sit above crunchy distorted beats for a very dark and alienating piece of electronica.

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SORRY. Yup, this is one of the limited Phthalo cd-r releases. O.S.T. took his array of computers and electronic gizmos to the academic realms of Mills Collage. Retaining his caustic sensibility, Chris Douglas (aka O.S.T./Rook Vallard) mimics the late '60s sound of academic computer music within the more structural sounds of post-Aphex electronica.

Ominous shadows lurk in the dank maze of sewer tunnels beneath the city, and O.S.T. has lured them to the surface. Well, not literally, but this does sound pretty close to what you might imagine... that is, if the tunnels were inhabited with tiny electronic spiders weaving webs of prickly circuitry. Subdued bleep'n'click rhythms keep things on an even keel through the layers of synthetic strings, severely processed samples and vaporous drones. This was probably pretty great to experience live in a darkened club setting, but you surely can scoop up a copy of this limited cd-r and recreate an equally suitable atmosphere at home. Just shy of an hour long.

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SORRY. This cd-r from the maverick Phthalo label showcases San Francisco's O.S.T. at his most punishing. Recorded live at the rotating if sporadic Static club, O.S.T.'s arsenal of distorto-Aphex-crunch beats smash against agressive melodic chords, all wrangled through his banks of effects. A very nasty piece of electronica.

Chris Douglas (aka O.S.T. / Rook Vallard / Rook Vallade) returns with more of his 'chemically imbalanced', willfully difficult electronica. For "Seimlste," Douglas appears to have done away with much of the post-Aphex drum machine damage which dominated many of his earlier recordings in favor of incredibly caustic Max / MSP filters that are heavy on the DSP downpitching and fractalization to achieve a ton of digital snow, covering O.S.T.'s electronic wasteland, at times occasionally venturing into territory similar to MB's early recordings of misanthropic ambience.

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Perhaps his most polished work to date, O.S.T. covers a lot of sonic terrain on his newest album. As opposed to many of his previous releases on which you might encounter just one of his sonic personas - extremely abrasive confrontations, spacey atmospherics, arachnidian electronic glitchiness - on D.N.P.W.W.O. he incorporates all of them. This provides for a vast contrast from one track to the next, but not jarringly so. You'll get the droning heaviness, clusters of electronic shards, distorted carnivalesque melodies (check out "Jeux"), gluey minimal pulses and more throughout these eighteen tracks.

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The band name definitely had us envisioning the tree beasts from Lord Of The Rings, wandering through the blackened forest, their hulking forms casting ominous shadows, their skeletal branches outlined against the moonlit sky. And you know, the music fits pretty well with that image. Oakeater is a blackened ritualistic 'power' trio made up of dudes from noise outfits the Coughs and Panicsville, but this is not noise music, well, at least not 'noisy' noise music. Instead the sound of Oakeater is dark and mysterious, abstract and black ambient. Primal and raw, primitive and ritualistic. There might be a drummer, and a guitar player, and even a bass player, or it could be three guys hunched over effects pedals on the floor, regardless, they conjure up some seriously evil sounding black sonic mojo. Almost the whole of side A is made up of whispery shimmer, hushed alchemical whirs, creepy voices way down in the mix, flickering fluttering melody, creaking industrial groans and moans, until nearly the end, when the various sounds coalesce into something more musical, but no less evil sounding. Big black resonant chords ring out, over a heartbeat like throb, the vocals a weary liturgical chant, the sound like some industrial abstract doom metal, but way more spacious and moody and minimal. The flipside follows a similar pattern, beginning all hushed and whispery, building gradually into a buzzing almost-song. But here the drone is much more pronounced, a buzzing layered Niblockian tone that seems to run through the whole track, while all around it strange fragments of melody and percussion drift and shimmer, the track looping and mesmeric, strangely hypnotic and almost pretty, drone-y and soft focus, only slipping into something slightly more sinister in the last few minutes, the tones becoming more and more warbly and atonal, until some more melodic organ drifts in and the record fades out more dreamy that dreary. Packaged in killer hand silk-screened sleeves, silver and black and grey ink on plain black jacket, with a silk-screened insert inside.

One of two new releases on Sige Records, the new imprint run by Aaron Turner of Hydra Head / Isis fame, the other is the formerly on cd House Of Low Culture / Mamiffer split, and this, another Mamiffer split, this time teamed up with mysterious power electronics ambient drone trio Oakeater. Oakeater, whose Molech lp on Nihilist we dug big time, return again, with their usual UNusually arsenal of noisemaking devices: guitar, voice, percussion, tapes, modular synthesizers, feedback, electric piano and oscillators. Here they take their ritualistic dronescaping even further, ditching their noiserock background/pedigree almost entirely (Oakeater is members of the Coughs and Panicsville), to delve deeeeeeep into dark drifting drones and sprawling expanses of cinematic shift and shimmer. Slow and smoldering, lushly layered, hushed muted whirs and high end chimes, haunting melodies, all very dramatic and soundtracky sounding, before slipping into something else entirely, a long stretch of shimmering cymbals, lots of space, streaks of feedback, a weirdly meditative, subtly rhythmic, metallic dronescape, which is quickly subsumed by SUPER distorted synths, fuzzy and buzzy and blown out, the sort of low tones some dubstepper would KILL for, transforming the track completely into something way more spacey and tripped out. Mamiffer counters with one of the heaviest, noisiest tracks we've heard from her (aka Faith Coloccia), using just guitars, pianos, tapes and apparently jars, Coloccia weaves together and chaotic but strangely lovely bit of heavy, abstract guitar noise, some strange mix of SUNNO))) and Skullflower, chugging churning looped guitars, swooping backwards production, a thick corrosive buzz, a sort of static riffage, but those stretches of glacial buzz and howl and keen are stretched out into more avant drone directions, loads of overtones, subtle rhythmic shadings, still buzzy and heavy and metallic for sure, but wrangled into something impossibly melodic and meditative and downright pretty. There's hiss and static and crunch and buzz, and on the surface it's noisy and quite chaotic, but Colaccia manages to shape it all into a soft tangled swirl of psychedelic guitar noise, that is easily as entrancing as it is abrasive. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Each one hand numbered, packaged in super swank, ultra heavy silk screened sleeves.

The same people who have been going on and on about the death of the record store, have also been heralding the end of print media. But you know what, screw them. Who wants to spend their whole life sitting in front of a computer? Listen to music at your desk, shop for mp3's, read that article on the laptop... whatever. Sure that stuff is convenient, and we all partake a bit, but nothing will ever replace your local record store, thumbing through bins of lps or digging through stacks of cds, just like a gorgeously designed and laid out magazine will never be�replaced by a website. Especially a magazine as gorgeous and jam packed with black metal weirdness as Oaken Throne.� Beginning life as a super strange, WAY oversized zine, impossible to ship, and difficult to display, but brilliant in its obstinacy, Oaken Throne has just gotten better and better, easily the best magazine devoted to underground black metal and strange heavy musicks. With amazing writing, great art, and some of the most stylish, but subtle layout and design of any magazine we can think of. The cover is always metallic silver on black, inside, the ads are often as striking as the illustrations accompanying the articles (which makes sense considering one of the two OT head honchos designs many of the ads as well). But Oaken Throne is not just another pretty corpse painted face. Nope, it's packed with articles and interviews on and with some of the most infamous artists in the black metal (and generally heavy) underground.� This time around, a bunch of AQ faves: Asunder (featuring John from Weakling), Harvey Milk, Wold, Portal, Moss, Coffins, Caina, as well as some other amazing groups who have yet to get reviewed on the AQ site:�Acrimonious, Adorior, Archgoat, Blacklodge, Cult Of Daath, Dapnom and Necromorbus... Tons of killer photos and yet another amazing illustration from AQ pal Justin Bartlett (whose art has also adorned a bunch of SUNNO))) and SUNNO))) related records). In addition to all that, there are a bunch of record reviews too... easily one of the best mags, metal or otherwise going today... This is the first issue that includes comes with a cd, containing tracks from each of the bands featured in the magazine, none of them exclusive or rare really (except maybe the Asunder track, recorded live on KFJC) but a pretty killer metal mixtape (er... cd) for sure... As always, totally recommended and essential.�

Finally a new issue of the mighty Oaken Throne magazine, and they continue to gradually expand their scope, moving slowly and slightly further away from their position as thee ultra grim and ultra true "Elite Black Metal Skripture" and toward a much more varied and AQ like tome. We're certainly not complaining obviously, but there must be a whole lot of troubled true black metallers, as most of the two intros by editors Ben West and John Mincemoyer are spent apologizing for / explaining the lack of grim corpsepainted hordes and explaining the new shift. But as far as we're concerned, Oaken Throne just keeps getting better, focusing on black metal, but expanding enough to allow for other blackened musicks. This time around, the line-up reads almost like an AQ list: Black Boned Angel, Celestiial, Thralldom, Graves At Sea, Wolves In The Throne Room, Nachtmystium, Villains, L'Acephale, Temple Of Baal, Withered and Vorkreist. All the articles are super in depth are gorgeously laid out (as is the whole magazine), well written and interesting (one of the pieces, the Black Boned Angel one was written by our very own Andee) most with killer photos and/or amazing illustrations (including the most bad ass drawing of Wolves In The Throne Room by AQ customer Justin Bartlett). Also includes tons of reviews (also super varied and all over the map, from Solar Anus to Bone Awl to Dead Raven Choir to Mrtyu to Moss To Nadja!) and the cover is that immediately recognizable and super striking, silver ink on matte black paper, and once again, the Ben West designed tUMULt ad on the back cover (he also designed the I Hate Your Band poster!) looks so cool, it's almost nicer than the actual magazine cover! One of our favorite magazines and of course HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

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SORRY. Awesome new black metal magazine. Grim and Elite and very very big. Well, tall actually. In fact this magazine is so big (a foot and a half high) you will probably have to have it shipped separately. Worth it though. Gorgeous matte black cover, silkscreened in silver metallic ink. This is the debut issue and has features on/interviews with Antaeus, Manticore, Destroyer 666 and Arkhon Infaustus as well as a handful of reviews (inlcuding local black metallers Ludicra!). Very cool.

It's finally here, the latest issue of one of the best magazines going, Oaken Throne, specializing in the grim black metal underground, but gradually expanding their scope to cover all things dark and heavy and droney, definitely our kind of rag, and yours too judging from how many we sell, and how many emails we've been getting asking about this new issue. The latest issue has indeed arrived, and is mindblowing as always, bigger than ever, now a perfect bound 7" x 7" book style mag, the covers printed silver metallic ink on black cardstock, as always, a gorgeous tUMULt ad on the back cover (designed by OT designer Ben West) and inside tons of aQ faves and then some. Canadian black metallers Akitsa, French metallic post rockers Aluk Todolo (featuring members of Gunslingers and Diamatregon), Swedish black metal duo Avsky, long time aQ favorite, Dialing In, weird black doomscapers Gnaw Their Tongues, Polish black metal folk freak Dead Raven Choir, legendary death metallers Immolation, Swedish black metal supergroup IXXI (featuring members of Ondskapt, Lifelover, Dimhymn and Zavorash), Dutch brown metal weirdos Lugubrum, Nordvargr's black metal incarnation Vargr, legendary Polish black metallers Throneum, German blackened death metallers Necros Christos and Swedish death metallers Necrovation. The layout and design is fantastic, with illustrations by Justin Bartlett, Ben West, Adam Watson, Scott Langlais, Chris Parry, as well as tons of striking photography, plenty of reviews, and loads of ads for stuff you need. Pretty much ace all the way through. And as if the magazine on its own wasn't enough, it also comes with a cd featuring a track by every single band covered in this issue, two of 'em (for now at least) exclusive to this comp. The price of OT has gone up slightly, but holy shit is it ever worth it. This is the kind of magazine you'll save forever, that will sit on your bookshelf with the BOOKS, not in a pile with the rest of the magazines, OT is something you'll read over and over, and odds are, eventually you'll need to at least check out all the artists covered. So totally recommended. We're already looking forward to the next issue!

The return of Oaken Throne, one of the best, if not the only, magazines focusing on the true, the grim, the real underground black metal (as well as other heavy musicks). As much as we loved the crazy oversized format of the last few OT's, everyone is a little relieved that this new format is much more managable (and no longer requires an extra shipping charge!). Size change aside, Oaken Throne is still gorgeously black, printed in silver, and is still chock full of some of the best and weirdest metal around. This time: Ancestral Fog, Ofermod, Ondskapt, Xasthur, Otesanek, Bunkur, Eternal Majesty, Averse Sefira, Bolt Thrower, Malhkebre as well as tons of record reviews. They continue to explore the phenomenon of "religious" Black Metal perhaps less skeptically than we might, but we do find those discussions interesting, if a little bit disturbing. This 'zine is super well written, well researched, tons of photos, and a gorgeous layout. Sad that all the "real" music mags are so shitty and poorly written and ultimately pointless while the folks with a real passion for music, and a totally original grasp of the music they're writing about, as well as a keen eye for design and layout are doing zines. Not that there's anything wrong with zines. But let's say we take all the money wasted on Rolling Stone and Spin and Hit Parader and stuff like that, and give it to all the folks who could DESTROY given enough money and resources like Ben and John from Oaken Throne, Kevin from Salt, the guys who do F.T.Y.K.P., Jon from Astronauts, and all the other folks keeping the underground alive.

The return of the only true, cult, black metal magazine out there. Immediately recognizable beacuse of it's unweildy format (17" by 5" or thereabouts) and it's gorgeous silkscreened silver on black cover. This time around there's articles on / interviews with SF black metallers Ludicra, the mighty Watain, Crebain (who had a recent split with Leviathan on Andee's tUMULt label), Unearthly Trance, Atomizer, Gospel Of The Horns, Hell Militia, and of course Leviathan. As well as some record and demo reviews. Well written, and nicely laid out. With some serious financial backing these guys could easily topple the Terrorizer / Metal Maniacs / SOD / PIT / BWBK metal mag monopoly in one fell swoop. Be sure to peep the gorgeous tUMULt ad on the back cover, designed by Oaken Throne designer Ben West. Wow! Maybe even nicer than the actual cover! And remember, that due to the magazine's size, unless you want it folded up, you're gonna have to spring for a little extra postage for it to be shipped separately. But well worth it!

If your cover art looks like a lost Unleashed album, sign me up. Portland's Oakhelm arrived at our fortress walls with axes in hand -- both electric guitars and battle weapons, yes. Their debut album, Betwixt & Between, shows these rookie Vikings doing some serious shredding that would easily make it onto Dan Swano's iPod, possibly even Peter Tagtgren's just because of the vocals. That being said, these North-Westerners probably don't think you should be laughing because this ain't no joke, it's a call to arms. What are we fighting? Our best guess is dragons and Christian invaders. But seriously, all of the necessary ephemera is here, while a sense of irony is thankfully conspicuously absent. A very good thing. Now that that debate is over, you're free to embrace everything fantastic and mystical that died out alongside the popularity of many of the classic Century Media bands of the past. This is a die-hard attempt to re-create the glory of mid-'90s Northern-European death/black/Viking metal. We're especially reminded of ol' Viking horde Mithotyn at their most dark and doomful. Go ahead and headbang, but make sure not to fall off your horse. Did we mention that they have members of Fall of Bastards, Wormwood, L'Acephale, Black Queen and Assuck among their ranks?! Well, they do. Recommended!

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More rollicking honkytonk inspired tunes from these Brooklynites.

Second album of sunkissed honky-tonk from Brooklyn-based Oakley Hall, featuring a former member of Oneida. Reminiscent of '70s California soft roots rock like Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks or the Anonymous / J. Rider reissues we listed awhile back. Sunny male and female harmonies and lazy day fiddles ride a solid foundation of electric psych-tinged country rock. Only the final track, a great cover of Buffy Saint-Marie's "Cod'ine" (which was also very successfully covered by Dan Hicks earlier group, The Charlatans) points at a darker alt-country vibe we wish there was more of.

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If one is to believe those VH-1 "Behind The Music" specials, the brotherly disputes between Noel and Liam Gallagher are ancient history and both have been getting along splendidly in their relative sobriety. Yet, the music that their Oasis has been producing as of late is far from being "godlike" (to paraphrase Liam's coke-induced megalomania during "Wonderwall" era Oasis). As blasphemous as it may sound, Oasis' second album "What's The Story Morning Glory" is probably the best Beatles album that McCartney and Lennon didn't pen themselves. If you're going to commit an artistic felony, you should do it on the grandest of scales; and that's exactly what the Gallaghers did in their outright pilfering of the Beatles on that album. It's possible that during the aftermath of that album, the numerous reconciliations, drug intervention programs, and general turmoil, Oasis started to feel guilty about their theft and have attempted to re-invent themselves as sounding 'unique.' "Heathen Chemistry" is the third album following "What's The Story Morning Glory" and it sounds exactly like you'd expect: recycled UK-beat / psych riffs, the twin vocal sneer from the brothers, and an upbeat pop sensibility crafted out of minor-keys. Yet without the thrill of the swindle, neither Liam nor Noel seem to rock with any enthusiasm. So, this album is pretty good, and will probably do well enough for them. But it's clear that Oasis won't be winning any new fans with this one.

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Music aside, their career has been a fun trash novel to read, but Oasis' recent grandstanding hasn't been as bombastic as before--no longer are they claiming to be better than the Beatles. Maybe it's that they haven't done as much coke as in the past. Maybe it's that this record isn't as good as the previous outings. Maybe they just realized that they aren't now, never were, and never in a million years could be better than the Beatles!!

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Female fronted stoner doom stuff, like what's popular now... Not quite as good as they look though.

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Okay folks, here's a release that hardly needs an introduction or a description because the masses are gonna be grabbin' this up regardless of what we say... many already have! Conor Oberst has pretty much become a household musical name and face, and we'll surely be seeing more of him in the coming months following the release of what is perhaps his most accessible album to date. No question, he's a talented Americana songwriter, but the thing that made his music so immediately distinct, so emotionally charged and so darn endearing was his youthful quivering-verge-of-breakdown-shivering-rain-drenched-puppy-ness. That's far less apparent these days which makes his music more appealing for some, and less for others. In fact, it was more than a little bit unsettling for us when we realized that on a few numbers Mr. Oberst (yes, he's definitely a man now) sorta sounds like a second rate Tom Petty (whom many of us love!), but also a deadringer for John Cafferty And The Beaver Brown Band as well as the Fabulous Thunderbirds (uhhh, whom less of us love!). Album highlight? Definitely the quite Elliott Smith-esque "Lenders In The Temple".

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Remember our review not long ago praising the spaced out heaviness of Utah's Iota? We mentioned how we've learned now to pay attention to the label they're on, Small Stone, for such heavy psychedelic gems. Here's another, Obiat! Small Stone are ostensibly a "stoner rock" label, but this London based band (with members from England, Poland, and Hungary), while certainly quite HEAVY and also certainly sometimes spacey, perhaps belong more in the "Neur-Isis" metalcore post rock fold, they've got those post rock loud-soft dynamics anyway... Well, mostly loud, though the six-minute "Passive Attack" is all delicate atmosphere. Vocally, though, they remind us more of doomlords Yob, soaring Ozzishly in a higher pitched mode with what we could call "dark grunge" overtones (we see both Alice In Chains and Jesus Lizard t-shirts in the band photos). In fact, if you were to combine Yob with Iota and also, say, Samothrace, you'd get something like this awesome and oddly titled Obiat album, their third since 2002 though we've never seen the other self-released ones. Gotta start looking. The seven songs here are all pretty long, 5, 6, 9 minutes, they stretch things out to 12 on the most epic one, "Serpents' Rites". And every minute is either crushingly heavy or quietly fraught with haunting portents of impending doooooom. We most definitely like. Chalk another one up for Small Stone, who went out a bit further on the stoner rock limb with this one, to where it branches into international alt-prog-ambient-post-rock not quite like anything else.

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The third full length from this post-Drive Like Jehu / Hot Snakes combo explodes right out of the gate with the furious "Taste The Diff", which finds frontman Rick Froberg's already feral raspy caterwaul sounding even more gristly and grizzly, sounding like a mix of Mark Arm and Kurt Cobain, Froberg's yowling rasp the perfect match for the music, which is maybe the fiercest we've heard these guys yet. Swaggery and caustic, tightly wound and minimal, but energetic and seriously fucking rocking. In our reviews of the other Obits records, we talked much about how their sound was much more mature than previous projects, which makes sense, cuz, well, these guys are old like us! But that maturity worked, the songs darker and broodier, so we were thrown for a loop by "Taste The Diff", with its blast of youthful exuberance, and while there are moments like that popping up throughout, the bulk of Beds & Bugs definitely lines up closer with the sound of the past records, the songs sinewy and slithery, occasionally swaggery and stompy, but for the most part, low slung, darkly melodic, the guitar playing as always, totally ruling, understated at times, explosive and chaotic at others, and Froberg's voice, sounds better than ever, heck, maybe even better than back in the day. And the new songs, holy shit, we often wonder why old bands can come back and are somehow capable of conjuring up that sound we love, but not the songs, but nothing like that going on here, then again, this is no nostalgia trip, and the songs this time around, more than ever, KILL, groovy and dark, crazy catchy, moody and super melodic, loud and raucous, one of those records we just can't seem to stop listening to... Killer cover art too, the cd is a reversible gatefold, with a dizzying printed pattern and a printed inner sleeve, the lp kinda like a giant old school 7", or a seventies disco 12"!

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We know, we know, it's too much to hope for, and it's never gonna happen, but somehow we just can't seem to stop thinking about it, and we're sure these guys are sick of hearing it too, and will no doubt be annoyed that it gets mentioned in ANOTHER review, but heck, that's what happens when your frontman fronted one of the greatest post punk bands of all time! And yeah, we're talking about a Drive Like Jehu reunion, and yeah, we called them post punk, cuz what else do you call a band like that, a band that is essentially sounds like no one else. But whatever, we're wiping it from our minds. Then though, there's Hot Snakes to contend with Rick From Jehu's post-Jehu and pre-Obits combo, who were nothing like Jehu, but instead were a raw, sloppy, garage-y ball of super rocking fire. Which brings us to the Obits, who on first listen do in fact sound quite a bit like the Hot Snakes, due in no small part to the fact that it's Rick Froberg (or as Rick From Jehu as he's still know to many) singing and playing guitar, but this is altogether something new, a bit more refined and perhaps, a little like an older wiser Hot Snakes maybe, where the Hot Snakes were all pent up aggression, and wild thrashing garage stomp, the Obits traffic in something much more measured, but no less rocking. Still garage-y and super stomping, but tighter, more varied. Froberg sings as much as he howls and wails, the guitars here don't just crash and clang, they shimmer and twang, there's definitely a surf element, the drums crisp and tight, the guitars spidery and crystalline more than crunchy and heavy. These guys played at our SXSW showcase and were awesome, so kick ass and energetic, and so so tight, taking that garage rock thing they have down pat and adding in all sorts of unlikely -other- stuff, some Beefheart bits, plenty of Mudhoney rawk swagger, but all filtered through the Obits unique take on rock and roll, and that's basically what this is, rock and roll, not punk rock, not post punk, not post rock. Just rock, or okay, maybe RAWK. Needless to say, if you're a fan of any of Froberg's bands, especially Hot Snakes, this will definitely hit the spot. But even if you don't know what the hell we're talking about, Jehu this, Hot Snakes that, as long as you're into bad ass rock and roll, groovy garage, indie jangle, or any combination thereof, you should definitely check these guys out. Cool packaging too (Froberg's an incredible artist as well btw!), all vintage and old comic book looking, the cd is in a cool Japanese style mini gatefold jacket with an equally cool (sort of creepy) printed inner sleeve, the lp similarly housed...

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

SORRY.

It's really kinda hard to know what to say about Obits, when we first HEARD ABOUT the band, we were basically already primed to be blown away, c'mon, this was the new band fronted by Rick Froberg, he of late great math rock/post punk masters Drive Like Jehu, not to mention the mighty and mighty missed Hot Snakes. Froberg's guitar playing and super distinctive wail (rivaled only perhaps by his labelmate Mark Arm of Mudhoney) are indie rock underground treasures, and wherever they end up, you can bet, we'll be there front and center, digging the sounds. And we are digging this new Obits big time, it's not a huge departure from their Sub Pop debut I Blame You, which already was a bit of a shift from the looser, more rocking Snakes... Obits offered up the same sort of garagey rock, but maybe it's that the band was no longer youngsters, in fact most were married with kids and thus, the sound was way more mature, in a good way, the songwriting concise and tightly wound, and if anything, they continue to shift in that direction on Moody, Standard And Poor, the sound still low slung and swaggery, stomping and propulsive, but even more broody and dark, the sound much more stripped down, a serious Wipers vibe to these ears, that same sort of classic songsmithery, wreathed in more modern post Stoogesy stomp. And the songs here are fantastic, they suit a more minimal approach, it's like a modern punk rock take on classic rock, harkening back to a time when bands were as concerned with songs as they were with songs, and thus, these are the kind of songs that will remain lodged in your head. The sort of record, that sounds pretty great on first listen, but by listen 10, and then 20, and beyond, well, then it gets harder and harder to imagine listening to anything else. Easily one of our new favorite records. So good. (PS comes out Tuesday, so you won't find it in the store 'til then, but you can certainly order it now.)

MPEG stream: You Gotta Lose
MPEG stream: I Want Results
MPEG stream: I Blame Myself

When it comes to full throttle driving and anthemic guitar driven rock, our hearts are so closely aligned with the San Diego scene of the 90's. You know, the one that spawned such awesome bands as Drive Like Jehu and Rocket From The Crypt. Rick Froberg, who was in Drive Like Jehu and then later in Hot Snakes is back with a brand new band, Obits. Their debut is this smokin' two song 7" that finds him picking up right where he left off with Hot Snakes. His delivery, guitar playing and vocals have this ability to just make us melt as his songs always sound so good on first listen but its the repeated listens where they really start to burn in our ears so so right.

Genius death metal album with soooo much arty (but not artsy) atmosphere.

We have a friend, who reads our list regularly, and who automatically skips any review with references to �hordes� or descriptions of the sound being �grim� or �blackened� or �frostbitten�, assuming that it�s something he just wouldn�t dig. We always threaten to review some record we KNOW he�d love, using all that metal terminology, just to mess with him, and yeah, we know, by prefacing the review with the above, we�ve kind of let the cat out of the bag, but fuck it, didn�t want to confuse the rest of you... So here it is, the first �full length� from this grim horde of blackened psychedelic garage rockers, with this hellish set of frostbitten anthems, a furious onslaught of buzzing swagger bloozy blackness... OK fuck it, these guys are from Texas, and opened for local garage pop heroes Thee Oh Sees on their last tour, and this set was captured live at the Chapel, just down the street from aQ, and is the third in the Live In SF series (after Fuzz and White Fence) and displays these guys in their element, although we�ve never heard any of their recordings, so we can only assume that this blast of swaggery psych blooze fused to fuzzed out garage rock pound is precisely what these guys traffic in. And the sound is glorious, sweat soaked and a bit blown out, the guitars fuzzy, distorted and in the red, the vocals a super distinctive bluesy bellow, the songs short and sharp and laced with plenty of hooks, it�s easy to tell this show must have been a humdinger, super energetic, wild and woolly, loose as fuck, but plenty swagger and snarly and noisy and punky, and as much as we�re digging this live set, it�s also priming the pump and getting us psyched to get our hands on a proper studio full length!

MPEG stream: Off The Grid
MPEG stream: Runnin' On Fumes
MPEG stream: So What If We Die

First we've listed from Obnox, the side project of Lamont Thomas, drummer for aQ faves Puffy Areolas, and like that group, Obnox traffics in similarly noisy, lo-fi dissonant, garage punk dischord, the difference is that Thomas adds some serious poppiness, and a bit of soul, and a smidge of glam, positioning Obnox more alongside noisy garage pop groups like Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees, albeit a whole lot grimier and noisier. The four tracks here are INSANELY catchy, a noisy trashy garage punk, that's feedback drenched, driven by wild chaotic drumming, wreathed in blown out buzz and laced with tanged distorto leads, BUT, it's also poppy as fuck, with super cool. dramatic, soulful vocals, that at times even reminds us of Guided By Voices, in that effortless melody making, the sort that stick in your head forEVER. The opening track starts out all noisy and remains that way, but does blossom into some extreme catchiness with a tossed off chorus that poppier bands would kill for. And pretty much all the tracks here follow suit, vocal driven garage pop gems doused in grit and grime, at times the sound almost glammy, one song reminded us of the late great Lee Harvey Oswald Band. The B side adds some blown out big beat rhythms and sing along vox, even some chipmunky falsetto background vocals, but finishes things off with the title track, which sounds like it could be a cover of some long lost musical, soaring and dramatic, and again hooky as hell, and yet still noisy as fuck.

At this point it seems like weirdo psychedelic noise rockers and aQ faves the Puffy Areolas must be done for, cuz PA drummer Lamont Thomas, aka Obnox, can't seem to stop releasing records, it seems like one every couple months, and not just that, but every single one of those records RULE. Not to take anything away from drummers, but holy shit, who knew what this guy had up his sleeve when he was back there bashing away. Now we all know, a dizzying barrage of soulful garage noise and hip hop flecked psych rock, a clutch of wicked songs, and some seriously and deliriously wacked out covers. And while we often reach a saturation point with some bands, we're not even close with Obnox. Boogalou Reed explodes right out of the gate with some blown out organ drenched groovery, that sounds like some weird alien proto metal, Deep Purple via Castle Face or something. And it just never lets up, the songs doused in distortion, the recording super hot, but the vocals surprisingly melodic, in fact, the awesomely titled "Cynthia Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" sounds a little like Purling Hiss mixed with Malachai, which makes no sense, but somehow it DOES. In fact a lot of Boogalou Reed reminds us of the weird retro psych of Malachai, albeit delivered via face melting amplification, and rickety drum kit, captured on a busted 4 track, and blasting from a shitty car stereo as we ride shotgun, white knuckling it while Thomas does his thing. And while it's all gloriously and rambunctiously noisy, buried amidst all the noisiness, like on past records, are the sorts of jams, that are damn near timeless/classic ("Too Punk Shakur" sounds like some old soul song sped up and doused in distortion, while the title track gets all spaced out and seriously trippy). Not sure what else to say about Obnox that we haven't already, other than he rules, and this rules, and you should buy everything you can get your goddamn hands on. Includes a download too.

MPEG stream: Cynthia Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
MPEG stream: Boogalou Reed

The return of Obnox, aka Lamont Thomas of psychedelic garage punks Puffy Areloas, and this double 7" is chock full of surprises, none more so than the A side, a weird, noisy, lo-fi garage hip-hop jam, that's right, hip hop, and it's KILLER, the groove is funky but fuzzy and damaged and perfectly lo-fi, soulful and so good. a killer flow over a blown out dirgey groove, with some seriously super distorted bass. But fear not, flip the record over and Obnox take on two short sharp punk as fuck covers, one by the Urinals, the other by Gaunt, both noisy, and chaotic, and distorted and buzzy kick ass. The second single starts off with a cover of the McCoys' "Hang On Sloopy", plenty sloppy and garagey and chaotic, but plenty groovy and soulful as well, which leads right into the final track, a killer cover of the gospel soul classic "He's Forever" by The King James Version, and Obnox basically just roughs up the edges a bit, retaining much of it's soulful gospel groove, but here wedded to distorted guitars and wrapped in a lo-fi production. Kick ass stuff. Some seriously ruling soul punk from this Puffy Areola gone rogue! Packaged in a full color gatefold sleeve, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!

Latest from Mr. Lamont Thomas, aka Obnox, former member of the Bassholes and This Moment In Black History, current member of Puffy Areolas, Corrupt Free Enterprise his EIGHTH release in 3 years, a sprawling double lp that finds Thomas, a drummer, who only recently taught himself to play guitar and all the rest of the instruments here, kicking out some of the sweetest jams of his brief solo career. After a clutch of killer singles, and a handful of full lengths, Thomas delivers a mighty blow in the form of these four sides of howling, super distorted, soulful garage punk bash and howl, crunch and buzz, the whole of the A side a blown out blast of furious pound and stomp, in the red and doused in distortion, some seriously fierce noise rock garage pop crush, it's not until the side closer that some of that soulful side that popped up on past singles surfaces, with Thomas getting all woozily groovy. The B side begins with a blast of distortion drenched hip hop, all blown out beats and echoey vox, groovy and soulful for sure, but also raw and lo-fi, which leads directly into a handful of covers, all delivered Obnox style, including a totally reworked version of Tom Waits' "Way Down In The Hole", doused in buzz and noise and transformed into some seriously psychedelic garage noise, and rendered nearly unrecognizable, but holy shit, so rad! And so it goes, the second lp delivering track after track of gristly, speaker shredding garage punk, and fuzzed out noise pop, with the occasional bit of soul infused into the proceedings. Like all the Obnox before, totally recommended! Packaged in a super heavy full color gatefold jacket, with printed inner sleeves, featuring photos, liner notes and lyrics.

Regular readers of the aQ list no doubt know by now, how obsessed we are with Obnox, aka Lamont Thomas, drummer for psychedelic noise rockers Puffy Areolas, who on his own, has been kicking out jam after jam, a body of warped, distortion drenched soul infused garage punk that is quickly eclipsing that of the Areolas mothership. Due in part to the relentless release schedule for sure, about a million records in the last year, but also, there's just something about Thomas' solo stuff, noisy and weird as fuck, home brewed and constantly on the verge of collapse, but also impossibly catchy, twisted idiosyncratic noise pop / garage rock, that doesn't shy away from slipping into blown out hip hop / punk hybrids, or delivering some straight up fuzz pop, or some wah wah guitar dosed soul punk, a sound that combines the noisiness and psychedelia of PA, with something much more personal and WTF?! The opening one two punch here, "Prime Time Sista", might be the catchiest Obnox jam yet - fuzzy, dirgey, noisy, heavy, a little druggy droniness, a little stonery swagger, but melodies galore, and a hook / chorus most bands would kill for. But then comes "Molecule" which sounds like a garage punk Cypress Hill, all staccato groove, FX heavy wah guitar, almost rapped vox, but noisy as fuck and super lo-fi. imagine Rage Against The Machine covered by Rusted Shut! That fucked up, that weird, and that cool. And on it goes, the record veering wildly from jams like "Raindrops", another blast of fuzzed out garage pop bliss, this time rife with some super dramatic over the top vox, to tracks like "How To Rob (The Punk Years)" which is straight up lo-fi punk rock hip hop, and in between, all stripes of fuzzy punk, groovy noisy psychedelia, funk flecked garage rock, shredding epic jammage, short sharp punk-buzz stomp and distorted soulful ballads. Check out closer "Feeling Real Black Today", a distorted soul-punk dirge/ballad, that sounds like it could have come off that killer Forge Your Own Chains comp. Fuck yeah. Best Obnox yet for sure, every record he just keeps getting better and better... Includes a download code too!

MPEG stream: Prime Time Sista
MPEG stream: Molecule
MPEG stream: Raindrops
MPEG stream: How To Rob (The Punk Years)

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