Holy shit. Doom fiends rejoice, for NWN! and BBT&D have unearthed *another* disc of rarities from the most Sabbathy of NWOBHM bands, the illustrious, infamous doom metal pioneers Witchfinder General. Like the live cd that came out last year this one is again material from the archives of original guitarist Phil Cope, who provides liner notes in the cd booklet (which is also filled with vintage photos and graphics) discussing the music herein, which consists of tracks from Witchfinder General's 1981 debut 7" single ("Burning A Sinner" b/w "Satan's Children") and their 1982 12" single Soviet Invasion (three songs: "Soviet Invasion", "Rabies", and a live one, "R.I.P."), along with four further live tracks recorded at a pub in Birmingham circa '81. The songs from the 7" and 12" are all raw, riffy, heavier-than-thou tunes bearing all the hallmarks of the material we know and love from the General's subsequent classic albums Death Penalty and Friends Of Hell. "Burning A Sinner" (which Cope mentions was often referred to as "Burning A Singer") was later re-recorded for their first full-length Death Penalty, but the other songs remained available only on those original two hard-to-find single releases -- until now. Reason enough for most Witchfinder General fans to want this! In addition, the rather rough-sounding live stuff here is a headbanging hoot, singer Zeeb Parkes charmingly and so obviously a (drunken) pupil of Ozzy's in the stage banter dep't. and vocal style too... and also they do a totally unreleased composition, "Phantasmagorical", never heard elsewhere. So definitely a bit of history there, and all the more reason that this collection of early tracks is essential for all true fans of the band and old school doom metal in general! In fact, considering that currently we can only seem to sporadically get copies of the reissue of Friends Of Hell, but never Death Penalty, this is all the more welcome of a release, being a good place as any to start for anyone keen on hearing what this cult doom band was all about.
"Death Penalty" is one of the lost metal albums from the early '80s, falling victim to its own indecisiveness, not that such is a bad thing. Never really staying "true" either to the glam metal of Hanoi Rocks, Fastway, and Motley Crue or to the shocking horror
Oh yeah! We've been eagerly awaiting this ever since we heard Buried By Time And Dust was putting it out. A deluxe box set containing 180g vinyl reissues of this cult NWOBHM band's original two full-length albums, 1982's Death Penalty (featuring classics like "Free Country" and "No Stayer") and 1983's Friends Of Hell (equally cool, with such songs as "Love On Smack" and the under-rated "Music"). Part Sabbathy doom, part psychedelic punk, and part party metal. Initially best known for their risque album covers, featuring topless witches/wenches in tableaus that combined "historical reenactment" with Page Three Girl cheesecake, WfG's lasting legacy has more to do with their Sabbathy sound, they being one of the first (and few) bands in the '80s to so overtly worship Ozzy, Tony and Co., and establish the "doom metal" genre, along with Saint Vitus, Trouble, Pentagram, and Candlemass.
With this collector's set, you get not just the two lps, and nice box to keep 'em in, but also a huge 20 page booklet featuring unpublished outtakes from those infamous album cover photo sessions, plus full lyrics, liner notes from guitarist Phil Cope, newspaper clippings, and more previously unseen photos (live and promo shots), making this quite a treat for all true WfG fans.
Here's what AQ's Jim Haynes (not our usual metal reviewer!) had to say about these two albums when we first listed compact disc reissues some years ago...
Death Penalty is one of the lost metal albums from the early '80s, falling victim to its own indecisiveness, not that such is a bad thing. Never really staying "true" either to the glam metal of Hanoi Rocks, Fastway, and Motley Crue or to the shocking horror shows of Ozzy and Iron Maiden, Witchfinder General alternated between both worlds, with the first half of Death Penalty being rowdy party numbers about drinking beer and dropping acid. These songs followed standard blues based rock, but as Witchfinder General was pretty amped up on the aforementioned substances, they were quite a bit more distorted and quick tempoed. By the time Witchfinder General gets to their anthemic "Witchfinder General," this album takes an impressive turn down the dark path of mythologically laden proto-doom metal, loaded with super-heavy (for 1982) Sabbathy grooves and aggro lyrics mostly about killing witches. They also throw in some grave robbing, just to prove how evil they are. A confused classic... Witchfinder General's second album Friends Of Hell picks up right where Death Penalty left off, with an album split evenly between the party rock elements from the New Wave of British Metal back in 1983 and their undeniable influence from Sabbath. Just as bipolar (between comical and evil) as the first album, and just as great. One of Jim's (!) favorite metal bands, and that goes for most of the rest of us here at AQ too.
Not that probably if you're in the market for this, you need US to tell you that Witchfinder General is great. Though, we were shocked, shocked, to find out not long ago that one of our good friends and customers, who shall remain unnamed, had not only never heard any Witchfinder General but had never heard OF them, despite being a huge fan of Sabbath specifically and stoner, doom, black and other metal music in general! We were like WTF? How can you not know WfG??! What are you, -not- high?
Witchfinder General's second album picks up right where "Death Penalty" left off, with an album split evenly between the party rock elements from the New Wave of British Metal back in 1983 and their undeniable influence from Sabbath. Just as bipolar
This one is for fans only. You know you're a fan if you saw the words Witchfinder General above and your heart sort of skipped a beat at the thought of a Witchfinder General record you didn't know about. Witchfinder General were pretty much the only NWOBHM band to base their entire sound on Black Sabbath, thus making them pioneers prior to pretty much all doom to follow: Candlemass, Cathedral, through to Witchcraft today. This disc, recorded live in 1983, is an awesome testament to just how kick ass the 'General were. The recording quality however is not. Thus, the for-fans-only disclaimer. The band sounded great, and the songs of course are totally killer, but as with most live records recorded from the sound board, the vocals dominate, the guitars are not as loud as they should be, and the drums sometimes get lost, but like the recent Bedemon release reviewed elsewhere this list it sort of just adds to the underground vibe (though Bedemon is recorded better than this, for sure). And who gives a shit about sound quality, this is mother fucking Witchfinder General!! Live!!! In 1983!!! It sounds a little bit like actually being at the show, but maybe hearing them from the dirty bathroom beside the stage. The way all real metal was meant to be heard! Regardless, this is an amazing (re)discovery, and along with the Bedemon disc we have been in blown out lo-fi stoner fuzz doom heaven!
ULTRA LIMITED! We only have about 20 copies and this is supposedly already out of print, so act fast!
A black noise project of unknown origin, Witchgrass could very well be some obstinant, apocalyptic cult of survivalist malcontents, shading toward animistic ecoterrorism and politically anarchic nihilism. In all likelihood, Witchgrass is the work of one dude with a crusty collection of pedals and maybe a monosynth; but it's way better just to let the imagination run with the who / what / where / when. So, we're going with Witchgrass as a cult. The aesthetics of the mysterious cabal is one that bridges the more corrosive aspects of the Cold Meat Industries agenda and a handful of bootleg copies of Broken Flag tapes (esp. those with Matthew Bower flying his fucking freak flag in the megaphone vocal department); but given this is 2013, Locrian's pall of post-black metal noise clings to the eviscerated distortion, sporadic rhythmic dirge ploddings, apparitions of raw guitar buzzsaw drone, and harrowing vocal caterwauling. Ritualized blood letting music, sure why not? We've told enough lies today; but it ain't no fabrication that Witchgrass have made one hell of a great tape in Sigil Infection for the equally mysterious Vaald Tapes imprint. Unspecified pressing, but probably out of print at the source already.
Rejoice O Doomlords! From the venerable Rise Above comes this heaving slab of UK true doom, the debut from Witchsorrow, an immediately classic sounding hunk of lumbering heaviness, of downtuned mournful melodies, of plodding rhythmic thud, totally raw stripped down monolithic doooooooooom.
Channeling the spirit of Cathedral, Candlemass, Saint Vitus and other doom purveyors, into a sound that falls quite close to that of their sonic brethren (and sistren) in Electric Wizard, Witchsorrow don't go so much for groove or Sabbathy swing, as they do for churning crush. Occasionally, like on the 6 minute "Hail To Guy Fawkes", they crank up the tempo, and unleash something that sounds more like Trouble or Acid, a sort of doom-ed speed metal, but even then it's peppered with bits of slow motion dirgery. And there are moments where the distortion gets dialed back a bit, leaving a bit of mopey meander, but it never lasts, an avalanche of crumbling distorted doom-ed riffage is never far away.
No reinventing the wheel, nothing super fucked up and far our, Witchsorrow traffic in TRUE doom, for true doomlords, who just need it to be slow and heavy and epic and majestic, all of which this most certainly is.
Witchy Poo is the on again off again project featuring Slim Moon and Steve Fisk along with an ever expanding cast of Olympia, Washington, musicians and friends. While this record must have been a lot of fun to MAKE, upon first LISTEN it sounds more like a snickering in-joke, with silly synth interludes between the covers of Melvins, Paul Simon, the Cars, Mel Brooks(?).
This much hyped super group finds the original rhythm section of aQ beloved doomlords Electric Wizard (who also played together in Ramesses) teaming up with metal legend and Rise Above Records head honcho Lee Dorrian (Cathedral, Napalm Death) for some seriously crushing, classic doom heaviness. But somehow, With The Dead doesn't sound as much like Electric Wizard or Cathedral as it does like the Melvins or Torche! The guitar is fuzzed to within an inch of its life, and the vibe is groovy, distorto sludge-pop as much as it is metal, in fact, opener "Crown Of Burning Stars" really could be a cover of either the Melvins or Torche (or maybe Floor). And while this is definitely a metal record, that sludge-poppiness seems to run throughout the whole record, along with some classic doomisms, and some near Hawkwindy heavy psych blowouts. But really, doom metal or sludge pop, or both, it fucking rules!
What a great band name. Conjures up visions of all sorts of thrashing brutal metallic heaviosity for sure. Or perhaps it just reflects this duo's (not so) secret obsession with metal and their desire to constantly confuse and confound? Either way you won't bee finding any sort of metal here. This might be HEAVY but in a totally different way. This is some seriously deep listening, from the momentous meeting of Mr. Birchville Cat Motel / Celebrate Psi Phenomenon himself, Campbell Kneale, and Mr. Pseudoarcana Antony Milton. Extended fluttering organ drones, shifting like sonic sand dunes, elemental forces dragging melodies and chords out over thousands of years, the glacial flow of sound, warm and dreamy, recorded live in old bunkers and tunnels, these two tracks of primieval ur-drone, reverberate and shimmer, like clouds of crystal shimmer, meditative and tranquil, a gorgeous almost static haze! Some more perfectly pristine drone music from these two masters! SUPER LIMITED AS ALWAYS!! NOT SURE WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE WHEN THESE ARE GONE!
Everyone hates the term supergroup. But sometimes a group is SO super, you're really left with no choice. Check this out: Campbell Kneale (Birchville Cat Motel, Black Boned Angel, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon head honcho), Antony Milton (AM, Mrtyu, Nether Dawn, PseudoArcana head honcho), James Kirk (Sandoz Lab Technicians, Gate) and Richard Francis (Eso Steel). With a pedigree like that we'd be happy to just sit outside their studio and listen to the guys talk about the weather. As cool as that would maybe be, this is most definitely a lot cooler. A massive sprawl of organic drone all recorded in the great outdoors using battery-powered instruments. A thick swirling fog of sound, warm drifts of drone and rumble, shimmery and soft focused. This is far from the recent spate of metallic sludge some of these dudes have been slinging, instead this is dark and delicate, crystalline and so completely gorgeous. Whispery ambient whirls, subtle pulses, all sort of blurred and dreamlike, with lots of natural reverb, and subtle intrusions form the world around them. So goddamn beautiful.
Packaged in a plastic sleeve with a sleeve made from the most gorgeous paper we have ever seen, a soft cottony blend of blacks and reds and purples and yellows, sort of like a soft oilslick rainbow. Nice!
- MPEG stream: One
- MPEG stream: Two
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
In terms of DOOM CRED, you really can't do much better than a split with legendary German doomlords Worship, and that's pretty much the only thing these Australians had on their doom resume before this here brand new ep.
Two long-ish songs (the cd version adds a couple short tracks, an intro and an outro), not as bleak and heavy as Worship or lots of other doom outfits, instead Wither do a sort of washed out and weary melancholic blackened doom, falling somewhere between the abject plod of ultra doom, and the shimmery black drift of suicidal depressive black metal. It's a pretty nice mix. The guitars buzz and shimmer, raw and lo-fi and not at all heavy, instead, they drone in the background, beneath a skeletal rhythm, and a echo drenched rasped vocal. The pace is indeed glacial, or at the very least, on the low side of midtempo, the melodies are melancholic, miserable, forlorn, but also surprisingly pretty. Strip the vocals away, and you'd almost have something bordering on shoegazey, and definitely some nocturnal soporific dronemetal drift.
The second of the two tracks is the blacker, the guitars a bit more jagged, the howls a bit more hellish, but again, it's dark and sorrowful and pretty in that looking-at-a-cloudy-sky-through-eyes-full-of-tears way. Suicidal black metallers (fans of Make A Change fer instance) will dig this big time, as well as all you depressive doomsters.
The extra tracks on the cd are brief but lovely, the intro very Factory Records sounding, with reverbed clean guitars, streaked with high end synths, while the outro is all harmonized guitars, and majestic melody, stretched out into a sprawling albeit brief classic doom sounding instrumental.
Issued on cd for the first time since its original 1974 release, soul singer Bill Withers' final record for the Sussex label, +'Justments finally sees the light of day. It's a record that bears the weight of the world on its shoulders, recorded at a time when both his personal and professional relationships were falling apart. Fatigued from touring and fighting against label pressures to become more of a high-production showman, Withers created a more introspective and often melancholic soul folk record closer in spirit to Terry Callier than to Marvin Gaye. It's both been lauded as one of the major lost soul records of the seventies and dismissed as a critical disappointment, as it didn't have any of the winning singles previous releases had such as "Ain't No Sunshine", "Lean On Me" or "Use Me". And it pretty much sounded the death knell for the Sussex label that folded shortly after its release, which probably meant it didn't get as much promotion as his other releases did. It's a shame too, because as a whole, it's a really great record. Even though it's proven just to be as polarizing here in the store with some of us loving it and some of us hating it, though those of us who do love it are arguably bigger fans of soul, disco, and R&B than those who don't. Granted, it is a record that focuses on softer and bittersweet soul qualities rather than funk and groove, but it never ever gets treacley. So this may not be the heavy-hitter soul crossover record you are looking for, but for those who like to venture into classic soul's more obscure corners, this one yields plenty of rewards. A great rainy day record!
**SALE **SALE* *SALE** (well, the cd is on sale, the vinyl isn't.)
Bill Withers' second album Still Bill was not only one of the essential soul/funk records of the seventies with hits like "Use Me", "Lean On Me", and "Who Is He (And What Is He To You?)", but "Use Me" and "Kissing My Love", it's also been sampled on endless hip-hop records from Eric B. & Rakim, Jungle Brothers, Scholly D., Dr. Dre, Jamal-Ski, WC & The Maad Circle just to name a few. Stoned soul jams rarely get better than this. Compact disc version available at the **SALE **SALE* *SALE** nice price of just 5.00, or you freespending turntable types can get the freshly reissued 180 gram vinyl version!
Swiss experimental, improvising "jazz" guitarist Stephan Wittwer presents his first solo disc in eleven years. It's guitar, both live and digitally processed, that's been layered into a dense and abstract sound-shimmer. Droning, noisy, rhythmic, skronky, ambient: he does it all! Another great Grob label release, for those into difficult, avantgarde styles of guitar manipulation.
Of the many wonderful Wizards in the world, Electric Wizard, Glitter Wizard, The Lizard Wizard (pals with King Gizzard), etc., we've always been especially partial to The Wizar'd, they of the oddly-placed apostrophe in the name. This eccentric outfit from the antipodal island of Tasmania plays old school doom metal, sorta coming across like an idiosyncratic DIY blend of Black Sabbath (natch) and US epic metal legends Manilla Road, who are another obvious big influence. We've always dug everything from The Wizar'd, and have to say that with Ancient Tome Of Arcane Knowledge they're catchier than ever. If you liked their last album, Pathways Into Darkness, which we raved about, you'll bow down to this too. And those of you yet to experience The Wizar'd, but who, say, like Uncle Acid and Satan's Satyrs and Salem's Pot, give this a shot... 'Tis plodding gothic doom rockin', with majestic riffery, some sweet lead guitar, and, the make-or-break factor for most folks we figure, flamboyant 'clean' vocals so extremely gnarled and nasal you might imagine the singer as just a big nose - it's freaky and weird and works for us, though some might think otherwise. Definitely part of the Manilla Road comparison. All in all, amazingly hummable considering how 'wretched' The Wizar'd general vibe is. Heck, portions of "Far Away Castles", for instance, are almost psychedelically blissful.
This actually came out on vinyl over a year ago, sorry we never listed it, but finally we have the cd version, and it's got EIGHT bonus tracks anyway, all from a live show on Friday September the 13th, 2013, including songs from this album and Pathways both, along with a couple older Wizar'd faves.
**SPECIAL MINI-INTERVIEW ADDENDUM**
Since we got these (along with the awesome Outcast ep also reviewed this week) directly from the cool underground heavy metal label run by Wizar'd frontman Ol' Rusty Vintage Wizard Master, he was nice enough to do a little Q&A for us, we asked about a few things we'd been wondering, like...
AQ: So, what's the deal with the apostrophe??!
Ol' Rusty: The apostrophe is there to differentiate between stage wizards and those who possess true magickal abilities.
AQ: How would you describe the "progression" of the band over the years?
Ol' Rusty: The sound has ventured in a more dark heavy metal direction, which I believe is the true essence of doom metal. Doom metal is heavy metal. Life is death.
AQ: Can you say something about the 'scene' in Tasmania? What's it like being in a band there?
Ol' Rusty: Tasmania has limited opportunities to play live in a satisfactory manner, there is only really one venue in Hobart where we play. Most of the other bands in Hobart play in styles that do not interest me, modern stuff, boring technical death metal, etc.
AQ: Speaking of the metal scene in Tasmania, we've gotta ask, you ever encounter Striborg??
Ol' Rusty: I've seen Striborg play twice at two events put on by MONA (look that up if you haven't heard of it, pretty interesting stuff) and both times it was absolutely horrible, the guy was sitting on a wooden chair playing guitar to pre-recorded drum and vocal tracks...
AQ: We know you've got some other projects, like Tarot ('70 Uriah Heep-ish heavy prog) and Dracula (Mercyful Fate-ish black metal), if you wanna say anything about them...
Ol' Rusty: Dracula will begin spreading darkness over the mainland of Australia in 2015, while Tarot is working on their first full length album.
AQ: And what's next for The Wizar'd?
Ol' Rusty: The Wizar'd are working on new material, most likely an EP that will be released through Heavy Chains Records.
AQ: We really like the trippy artwork on Ancient Tome Of Arcane Knowledge, apparently it's by your brother Barney, can you say something about him?
Ol' Rusty: His art is truly incredible, in my opinion he is one of the most interesting and unique artists doing album covers today. He has also designed some tattoos. I strongly recommend people check out his stuff at www.waning-gibbous.com
AQ: Who is Frankie and what's up with his dungeon? [The song "Frankie's Dungeon" is one of our faves from The Wizar'd's previous album Pathways Into Darkness, and also appears on the live portion of the new cd.]
Ol' Rusty: Frankie's Dungeon is the place we must all go...
AQ: Ozzy or Dio?
Ol' Rusty: Hard to say, of course I'm a huge fan of the Ozzy Sabbath albums, and his early solo stuff, but I think overall Dio had a more consistent output, from Rainbow to Sabbath to his own band, it was all killer, and he never gave in, and never became a parody of him self. All hail RJD!
AQ: Saint Vitus or Candlemass?
Ol' Rusty: Another tough one, I think both bands have stellar albums, and boring ones. Saint Vitus for me is Scott Reagers, those albums especially Die Healing are some of my favorites of all time. With that said the first two Candlemass cannot be touched.
AQ: Favorite Manilla Road album?
Ol' Rusty: Crystal Logic!!
It's hard not to love the Wizar'd. C'mon, "Wizar'd"??? Exactly. What the fuck? Is it a verb, like "you'll get Wizar'd?" Or is it just some ancient spelling of Wizard, taken from some old dusty book of spells. Is Wizar'd darker and more evil and mysterious than the tired old traditional Wizard? Either way, the Wizar'd traffic in classic epic old school doom. Or according to the cd booklet "Crushing Gothic Slime". Massive plodding true doom from down under. The Aussies explore their inner Sabbath, each track rife with plodding tempos, mournful minor key melodies, slow motion downtuned riffs, soaring clean vocals, folky acoustic breakdowns, stonery grooves, psychdoom guitar leads, even some soaring King Diamond-ish wails, tons of reverb and loads of haunting dark ambience, think Witchfinder General, Candlemass, Reverend Bizarre, Trouble and of course Black Sabbath. The first time we listened to this, it sounded a bit too doom derivative, and the vocals were really strange, almost TOO strange, but the more we listen to this, the more we find ourselves returning again and again and again, and now those weird vocals, sort of Ozzy meets the chantlike drone of Om are quite possibly our favorite part. Recommended for the demented and doomed!
Can we write a Wizar'd review without mentioning the weird unexplained apostrophe in their name? No we can't!
With that behind us, here's what we think about the latest lethargic lamentation let loose by these lords of lo-fi doom metal, down n' out and drowned in sorrow Down Under. Their new album, Infernal Wizardry (hey, shouldn't that be Infernal Wizar'dry??) features eight new, agonized outpourings of distorted dirge. Eight Sabby slabs of fuzz filled sludge, with spacey psychedelic lead guitar, trudging beats, and misery-evoking vox that vary from an Ozzyish warble to a deep slowed-down mumble to a more punkish shout. Fans of Saint Vitus, Reverend Bizarre, Electric Wizard and of course Black Sabbath are of course the sort of folks likely to become ensorcelled by the oozing audio of this Wizar'd. At least, those that can appreciate true, traditional doom at its most raw and primitive.
As serious and sincere as their music sounds (tracks like "Witchwither" and "Depressive Holiday" are truly moving, morose monuments), the Wizar'd obviously have a (drunken?) sense of humor too, judging by their slightly silly pseudonyms: Ol' Rusty Vintage Wizard Master is the vocalist and lead guitarist, Blackie the Crimson Heretic Of A Thousand Eyes plays bass, Iron Tyrant is on the drums, and Sir Nunn Piss handles the other guitar parts. Heck you've gotta have *some* fun, when you otherwise seem as negative and dejected as these suffering dudes do!
They pick up the pace a bit on the aggressive "Crushing Gothic Slime" (which, as we now realize, is NOT how they label their music, but rather an expression of animosity toward Goths) but mostly this is glacial and gloomy... culminating in the nearly 13 minute epic "The Megalomaniac". What we really like about these guys (besides the apostrophe) is how their poverty-stricken sound works towards the dual goals of doominess and drugginess. What Wizar'd lack in production, they make up for in feeling. It's old school doom done with the same fucked up aesthetic of our favorite bizarre, far underground black metal. Utterly, wretchedly recommend'd.
Our favorite apostrophe'd doomsters from Down Under return! We've had a heck of a time tracking down the compact disc version of this, haven't been able to get it in yet (their supposed US distro won't email us back, helloooooo?), but thankfully Buried By Time And Dust just put the album out on deluxe vinyl, we got it from them along with Solstice's New Dark Age reish we reviewed last list. Usually BBTAD do reissues of classic doom (Witchfinder General, Pagan Altar, etc.) but they decided to get ahead of the curve here and release what simply sounds like something they'd eventually be reissuing anyway, if they're still doing this in 20-30 years.
With Pathways To Darkness, their second full-length, Tasmania's most Sabbathy DIY doommongers offer up a crude, yet catchy album that posers will doubtless despise. Normal folks will find the vocals too weird and nasal, the riffs too raw and remedial. But those that don't mind their doom a little damaged and psychedelic, ought to dig this wretched and rockin', emotional and eccentric, seven song opus. Less murky than some past recordings, this is, in fact, perhaps The Wizar'd at their poppiest. Seriously, slumberously.
There's lots for the True (and Truly Demented) Doom fan to love here... The slo-mo pop of "Living Dead". The melancholic triumph of "Rainbow's End". The almost gothic epic "Frankie's Dungeon". The tearful trudge of "Some Like It Dead". The spooky, droning Hammer Horror keyboards that herald "Disease From The East"... You gotta delve in, and revel in the sheer doominess of it all, that in its own outsider, down under way, retardedly rivals Electric Wizard, Reverend Bizarre, and Saint Vitus. Folks who enjoyed the recent, ridiculous, Sabbath-centric Furze might also find this to their liking as well.
By the way, there's been a few lineup changes for The Wizar'd since their previous album from 2008, with rhythm guitarist Sir Nun Piss having left the band, causing bassist Blackie The Crimson Heretic Of A Thousand Eyes to move over to guitar, alongside vocalist and lead guitarist Ol' Rusty Vintage Wizard Master, with Iron Tyrant on drums, and new bass recruit Tangerine Dream holding down the low end (of which there's plenty). Yes, those are their stage names, and aren't they great?!
Ultimately, though, even with the obvious sense of humor such names convey, we suspect that any such frivolity on the part of the The Wizar'd is part of a "sad clown" scenario, y'know? This is DOOM to the core, in the truest sense. Feel it, folks.
Being on BBTAD, it's a nicely done 180 gram vinyl slab, packaged with a booklet and a giant obi, AND they've included 3 live bonus tracks not on the cd version: "Crushing Gothic Slime", "Burned Lord", and "Smouldering Sinners"!
The return of our favorite apostrophe challenged true dooooom overlords, Wizar'd! We've yet to figure out why exactly that apostrophe is in there. All we can figure is that the band name is actually a verb, as in "You have been Wizar'd!!!!"
Regardless, these guys rule, fans of classic doom, Sabbath, Pentagram, and the like need to bee into this band. After a brief organ intro, complete with creepy guitar harmonics, the band launch into "Smouldering Sinners" [sic], total classic old school doom, killer riffing, really strange vocals, nasal and whiney, but super distinctive and cool, in much the same way Ozzy's vocals always were. Plus the recording is bizarre as well, making the drums sound a bit like a drum machine. The flipside is their theme song "The Wizar'd" and is more of the same, plodding classic true metal doom, the vocals less whiney, but just as cool.
And if there's any question as to where these guys are coming from, the liner notes offer up the dedication to the "masters of metal: Manilla Road, Pagan Altar and Death SS." Hell yeah! ----* ----* Compilations : ----*
Normally, you can assume it's Andee or Allan reviewing the metal offerings around here. But Jeff was so unexpectedly entranced by this new disc (their fourth, we're told) from German speed metal outfit Wizard, that he had to have a go... With songs like "Drink
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
ATTENTION SUN CITY GIRLS FANATICS!!!
Apologies to Wizard Prison for beginning the review like that, but it strikes us that fans of the late great Sun City Girls would definitely dig the strange sounds found on this disc, no huge surprise as half of Wizard Prison is none other than long time SCG collaborator and producer and Climax Golden Twins mainman Scott Colburn.�
Not that II is any sort of SCG rip off, in fact, in most ways it doesn't actually sound like SCG at all, but the vibe and the mood, are quite similar, a sort of alien world music, modern instrumentation channeling old world sounds. The disc begins with what first appears to be an electronic trip hop jam, but quickly reveals itself to be a bizarre krautrock style jam, simple and propulsive, peppered with electronic bits and a young girl singing and speaking in some other language. It's a bit Portishead, if they put out a record on Abduction. The second track is similar, a sort of electronic rhythmscape, that quickly begins to sound less specifically electronic, and more -electric-, a pulsing tone over simple drumming, a relentless pulse hovering over strange growling animal sounds and subdued low end melodies, again, it doesn't -sound- like it, but it somehow reminds us of the Butthole Surfers, not sure if it's the strange slowed down vocals, or just the vibe again, but it's dark and damaged and haunting, but also strangely hypnotic and groovy.�
The whole record is a series of simple rhythms and looped melodies, mesmerizing, repetitive and hypnotic, most songs with a single riff, a sole part repeated over and over, but with a constantly shifting backdrop of strange sounds and disembodied voices. Almost like a more alien lo-fi Circle, or a more krautrock Nurse With Wound, or like some DJ took their favorite Sun City Girls parts and looped them into endless jams. Some of the tracks are super dark and heavy, others are more murky and mysterious, all seem to have some strange drifting electronic element to them.�
The second to last track stands out as super creepy and cinematic, and sounds a bit like Goblin, with haunting minor key melodies draped over slow shuffling rhythms and atonal guitar fragments, and the final track is super spare, and sounds as if it was cobbled together from radar, sonar and the Conet Project, minimal and mysterious.�
Plus the whole record is a concept album (the story is printed inside the booklet), and you should know by now how much we love concept records...�
Really fantastic, and a nice surprise. Not at all what we expected (not sure what we expected really), but definitely recommended. A new favorite around these parts...
Say revery shoddy, Blizzard Trifle fizz rack!!! Err... Sorry, what we meant to say is: Hey everybody, Wizard Rifle is back!!! Excuse us, it's just a very disorienting experience listening to this band, and things like logic and language tend to lose all meaning. But of course, anyone familiar with these Portland-spawned nutjobs first record Speak Loudly Say Nothing (which we rightly raved about when it came out) knows the sweaty shaky delirium that comes with Wizard Rifle's gonzo progged out noise rockin' math metal, and this record certainly shows the band in no danger of relenting in their sonic/psychological assault. In fact if anything, Here In The Deadlights might find them in an even more venomous, aggressive and ultimately metal mode. And possibly even a little more, dare we say... serious?? Sure, there are still song titles like "Buzzsaw Babes" and "Paul the Sky Tyrant", but there's also a consistent rumble of dissonant dread running across this record's five tracks, as well a genuinely frightening and twisted fury that brings to mind the aggro-avant-heaviness of early Mastodon and Today Is The Day (whose new album we've reviewed elsewhere on this list!). Across the album's relatively brief running time there are also hints of Sabbathian stoned out dirges, apocalyptic Neurosisian tribalisms, High On Fire-ish ale-soaked riffery, and Botch-esque teched out hardcore wizardry. But it's a blink and you'll miss it affair, as the songs seem to speed by in a whiplash blur of incomprehensible time signatures, while at the same time the band's use of repetition can induce a sort of hypnotic fever-trance, like being pumped full of morphine while someone shakes you by the shoulders and screams in your face for half an hour straight. Like we said... a disorienting experience! But one you'll want to experience again as soon as this record's over...
Vinyl version upcoming soon, btw.
This is another one of those cases, where we were sort of obsessed before we even heard a note of music. They're called Wizard Rifle, which is simultaneously the raddest and stupidest band name ever, they claim to play 'scrap metal', they have songs with titles like "Tears Won't Soften Steel" and "Leathery Gentlemen", they even have a song named for legendary fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, and then there's the band photo, which has one guy dressed like and old timey dandy in a rocking chair holding a rifle, while the other guy is wearing zebra print spandex, is wearing hand made wings, is painted all over and is brandishing a scythe, that band photo could have gone either way actually, but when combined with all the other stuff, we had a feeling...
And holy shit, sometimes you CAN judge a book by its cover, and these Portland scrap metallers totally destroy, taking their cues from groups like Karp, that sort of relentlessly pounding metallic churn, and Lightning Bolt, that sort of frenzied hyper prog bombast, in fact, in some ways, that's the perfect equation to describe these guys, Karp plus Lightning Bolt. BUT, and this is critical, they take those two sounds, and totally make them their own, they're definitely as frantic and mathed out as Lightning Bolt, and maniacally metallic as Karp, but they've created something even more poppy and proggy, and totally wild and fucking over the top fun. One of those rare bands that sound like they just might be one of the funnest bands to see EVER. We'd happily base that on the first track along, the 6+ minute hyper-pop-prog-metal workout that is "Tears Won't Soften Steel", which begins with a little flurry of hazy guitar, which is then joined by some furious drum pound, all wreathed ins swirling bleeps and bloops, the guitar offering up shards of angular riffage, soaring and squiggly, before finally launching into some seriously Karp-ed out krunch, but here wedded to some crooned Torche-like pop song vox, a weird combination that kills, the Karp-ness at times is uncanny, but then the band will explode into crazy mathiness, or some weird sing along start-stops, or some doomy metallic chug and churn, and then some awesome harmonized guitars that make this sound like the heaviest pop record of all time, the sort of part that sends you diving for the rewind button the second it finishes, thankfully, the band hammer away at that part, soaring and melodic and so catchy, before the final super rocking sing along finish.
And while the opener might be our favorite, the rest of the record is fast catching up, "Frazetta" has the coolest heaviest opening, before locking into some swirling dizzying pop infused metallic mayhem, there are samples too, and the band seem to flit from part to part at the drop of a dime, so tight, so heavy, and yeah, so totally fun. From there on out, the band dip their toes into some brooding minimal shimmer, only to see it splinter into a slithery sludge pop groove, with some haunting harmonized vocals, while elsewhere they take frantic frenzied blasts of metal and pepper them with progged out breakdowns, and wrap them in surprisingly poppy vox, and finally, they finish things off with "Leathery Gentlemen" which in some ways sounds basically like a culmination of everything that came before, grinding metallic crush, blasting sludge pop bliss, soaring harmonized vox, wild dueling guitars, mathed out progginess, and a surprise bit of swirling psychedelic backwards guitar flecked drift, only to explode into a blastbeat driven stretch of soaring metal majesty, that might be the most furious part of the whole record, only to devolve in the last minute into a warped woozy, increasingly dizzying noise pop freakout.
Hidden City Of Taurmond is like an all out caffeine attack that only grows more furious as it all plays out. In it's first few minutes things start pretty sweet, simple, driving and propulsive, kind of like Apparat Organ Quartet's tougher older brothers bringing some extra melody with their keyboards and more spastic rhythm with their drums, always with a can of red bull ready and waiting. As the record unfolds the pace grows faster and the rhythms get bigger and badder and the drummer, wow the drummer just totally loses control in the best of ways. Which makes sense when you realize that the drummer is none other than Brian Gibson of Lightening Bolt fame. Teamed up with the fun keyboard sounds of Rich Porter, they make sounds equally influenced by prog rock, 70's soundtracks, 80's electro, video games and that crazy carnival down the block that your mother would never let you visit. Hidden City Of Taurmond is an adrenaline rush that you never want to end. Think Trans Am in full rock mode, after a case of pixie sticks and something to prove. We can't stop listening to this, there's just something so full on and wildly charged about these songs that make us get all bouncy and launches us into a wickedly fun frenzy.
With AQ fave Philip Jeck in the band!
Wobbly (aka Jon Leidecker) cites Dilated Peoples, Goran Bregovic, Julio Iglesias, Stilluppsteypa, Dr. Dre, Montell Jordan, and Daniel Miller as the most 'blatant' samples found within this documentation of his mutated electronica live performances around
Wobbly's plunderphonics were born out of his work on Negativland's weekly "Over The Edge" radio show on KPFA; and have developed into a distinctive sound fitting roughly in the Negativland comedy / commentary style of media cut ups. His work never smacks of provocation, as he has been very keen on disfiguring his pop culture references to stand clearly within the parameters of "fair use." As can be inferred from a couple of those aforementioned references, Wobbly's recent work has been venturing into hip hop, but not as another whiteboy ironic appropriation. Rather, it's an exuberant decontextualization of all of hip hop's hyperboles: scratching becomes so excessively technical as to lose all recognition of the rhythm, diva vocals wail and wander through impossible notes for an eternity, breakbeats are decimated into ungroovy robotic anti-funk. Wobbly's closest comparison is in how Matmos performs surgery on house music, sewing everything back together with ample semantic and compositional counterpoints.
What is also amazing about Wobbly's live shows is that they involve no laptops, no sequencers, no midi. He edits in real time using just a mixer, a couple of cd players, and several cheap samplers. With an album coming soon on Tigerbeat 6, Wobbly's definitely one to watch!!!
Multiple Peady features four remixes from two of the tracks from Wobbly's Playlist EP, which recontextualized the intrinsically idiotic marketing babel of the corporate music world into a cut 'n' paste collage of clunky electronic jigs and deconstructed vocal samples. For this 12", the remixing artists -- Sutekh, People Like Us, Blevin Blectum, and Wobbly himself -- drew from the damaged electronic rhythms of the EP and stayed clear of the media plunderphonia. Sutekh provides the most structured remix with a dance-floor friendly number of his inimitable goof-ball techno. Blevin Blechtum's jiggly remix smashes the original into tiny maniacal fragments and spiralling time-stretched events. For his own remix, Wobbly turns the damaged hip-hop found on Wild Why with all of the quick tempo changes and erratic jump cuts. People Like Us takes us back to the open range of mutated Americana, much like her collaboration with Wobbly and Matmos on Wide Open Spaces. Limited to 440 and pressed on translucent green vinyl.
Disguising itself as a demonstrational disc from Broadcast Programming, a corporate music marketing and programming group developed to "help you stay on top of your market", the latest ep from Jon Leidecker presents itself as a conceptual piece
For years now, Jon "Wobbly" Leidecker has skirted around the edges of the electronica community, collaborating with People Like Us and The Weatherman (that amazing voice in Negativland), and finding more than a few unreleased samples of his work popping up on
Aquarius favorite Wobbly's first release for Kid 606's Tigerbeat6 label and it's possibly his best yet! Taking source material solely from S.F. Bay Area radio broadcasts, Wild Why is the end result of over two years worth of work which began originally as a live set before being slowly and painstakenly honed and sharpened into a carefully rendered studio project. Those who were fortunate enough to catch Wobbly's instore here early this year got a sneak peak at some of the insane plunderphuckery already. Given the nature of the source material (Destiny's Child, Eminem, y'know the type), and the artist's intention that they remain completely recognizable it's logical to expect that this would be a party pleasing mix a la the Kid's "Action Packed Mentallist...", but such a conclusion would be wrong. Wild Why is like a condensed and expanded homage to John Oswald's seminal "Black" or "Brown". Wobbly twists and turns the cliched utterances of contemporary hip hop in upon themselves rendering even the most macho posturing utterly slapstick. And if that's not enough to show Wobbly's dedication to the art of plunderphonics, then one needs only to open up the accompanying booklet to reveal a transcript of the entire vocal contents of the CD. Take and excerpt of track #18 for instance: "come buy, yo play radishes part (bola bo) judgement day (uh huh) I, I, I, I, quit. hey yo, me. Now now, now, now, lust two two three, back, you know what I'm sayin', we about to give you need y'all, jack d with the key, bounce, die peeps..." etc. So you can even read along with the disc. We asked Jon how long it took him to transcribe all this, but he merely chuckled, sighed and changed the subject. Highly recommended!
Not gonna spend a lot of time on this one, not because this isn't a good record; rather it's just that by the time you've finished reading about this record, it might already be gone. We have limited stock on this collaborative album of plunderphonia from People Like Us, Matmos, and Wobbly, and it's apparently already gone out of print, without any plan for future repressings. All in all "Wide Open Spaces" sounds an awful lot like People Like Us' previous album "Fistful of Knuckles," a cavalcade of bawdy jokes culled from Western storybook records, but that isn't to say that neither Matmos nor Wobbly can be heard. On the contrary, there's plenty of Maymos' twisted rhythms and Wobbly's mutant samples splattered throughout the album. Recorded live at the San Francisco Art Institute on October 5, 2002.
MPEG Download: "Clawing Your Eyes Out Down To Your Throat" [/audio/wmpluclawingyour.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Clawing Your Eyes Out Down To Your Throat" [/audio/wmpluclawingyour.m3u]
From the seemingly infallible Paradigms label, who in the past have brought us amazing releases from (we're gonna have to stop doing this, pretty soon the list of killer Paradigms releases will be longer than most reviews): Hjarnidaudi, Amber Asylum, Throne Of Katarsis, Blueprint Human Being, Utlagr, the Angelic Process, Titan, Jarboe and that amazing Walking With Ghosts compilation. Avid readers of the list probably own all or most of those by now. Each one totally unique and amazing in its own way. This time around we have two more releases just as unique and amazing, the droning doomed classical of Hallvardur Asgeirsson reviewed elsewhere on this list, and this disc of bizarre, convoluted, super dynamic, avant garde doomy post rock from German outfit Woburn House.
Hailing from Germany, the strangely monickered Woburn House at first listen sound a but like Dutch hypno-metallers Gore, with an immediately catchy and crunchy riff that repeats and repeats. Actually it's almost so heavy and modern sounding that it makes us think more of some sort of avant metalcore version of Gore. Gloriously grinding, churning riffage, complex yet melodic, over pounding drums. But suddenly, the vocals kick in, a soft, sort of chanted croon, while beneath it, the guitars shift to strange minor key angularity, before the whole song twists dramatically into some super complex Voivod-y metallic prog. And it's then that you realize there's still nearly thirteen minutes to go in the track! And in those thirteen minutes the band will twist and turn and shift and explore pretty much every post rock or metal nook and cranny you can conceive. Blown out high end freakouts, creaking and groaning swells of shipwreck doom, muted slow core minor key jangle, loping dreamlike slowcore, but always returning to that killer opening riff. It's very much like a doom influenced metalcore Slint, super complex, incredibly emotional, with all sorts of disparate parts and melodic fragments that fit so perfectly together, it's hard to imagine the song any other way.
Track two revisits the Voivod-y prog of the opener, beginning as a lurching dirge-like doom, with HUGE dynamics, and strange howled vocals, before shifting into a much more propulsive mathrock prog a la Bastro or Drive Like Jehu. Ominous and threatening, but super hypnotic and complex, eventually unwinding into strange strummy minor key jangle, and eventually a soft shimmery expanse of warm church organ whir.
The third track is all metallized math rock. See-sawing between spare finger picked guitar and simple shuffling drumming, and huge distorted angular crunch and complex prog pound. Again like a modernized version of Slint or Bastro, the same sort of arpeggiated minor chords, shuffling rhythms and mesmerizingly obtuse arrangements, albeit with much more metal vocals, and some ambient field recordings mixed in.
The final track is another epic (all four songs are 10 minutes +) offering up their own take of that whole Isis, Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, sort of dramatic post rock slow build majesty. And they nail it. The choruses are massive slabs of downtuned chug, the in-betweens are swirls of shuffling rhythms, finger picked guitars, simple strum, melancholy melodies, drifting and shimmering, slowly building to their inevitable climax.
We been loving the whole doom dirge sludge meets post rock thing (Isis, Tides, Mouth Of The Architect, Village Of Dead Roads, Irepress, Baroness, Conifer), but we're sort of extra smitten with Woburn House, who sound like we WISHED math rock and post rock sounded back in the day. Instead of making their sludgey metal, sound a little post rock, they sound like they could have been a post rock band back in the nineties, albeit with much bigger amps and much more metal souls!!
Unlike most of the Paradigms releases, which come in cardboard sleeves wrapped in hand stamped, brown paper, this disc is in a digipak, with some seriously intense and disturbing (but quite beautiful) drawings...
We've been dying for this one, the latest from German post rock avant metallers Woburn House, whose last Paradigms release Message To Ourselves Outside The Dreaming Machine totally blew us away, with its weird mix of black buzz, post rock drift, metallic prog and noisy discordant math rock. And while on first listen, it seems not too much has changed, as we get further into the record (heck, further into the first song!), it seems that Woburn House have indeed begun exploring a new sonic direction...
It only takes a few minutes for this record to establish it's utter dominance, beginning with a drifty lilting spidery guitar melody, soft and jangly and minor key, before slipping into a lurching downtuned chug, all stop start crunch, before slipping back into the opening drift, this time accompanied by some skittery rhythms, and so it goes until finally the vocals come in, a warm ethereal crooned harmony, with a distinctly shoegaze-y vibe, way down in the mix, allowing the song to grow more jagged, and get a bit Voivod-y, before finally stretching out into a gorgeous looped sounding sun dappled post metal drift, all soaring chiming guitars, and those warm vocals, the track finally winding down in a swirling swell of epic sun dappled psychedelia. Wow. Okay, so yeah, things have changed quite a bit, in as much as WH have managed to expand their sound even further, and taken their metallic sound in a distinctly less overtly metallic direction.
The more we listen, the more it becomes evident that this record is much more mellow and poppy, than it's more metallic predecessor, the core sound falling somewhere between the twisted blackened metallic pop of Lifelover and the grandiose doom pop of Katatonia, the result is awesome, emotional, intense, epic, with the songs often building to huge chaotic climaxes, but just as often loping along dreamily, and metalheads fear not, while it is poppier, there is still plenty of crushing heaviness, gnarled riffage, and lurching chug to balance the blissy mathy pop and haunting shimmery drift that makes up much of the rest of the record.
"Globus" is some dark dreamy spacedrone, with its tribal drumming, dense fuzz bass, effects drenched guitars, all locked into a looped motorik groove that wouldn't be that out of place on a Expo 70 or White Hills record. "Transmitter" brings the metal back, but definitely drifts into some serious Katatonia territory, with some woozy drifty almost-prog, occasionally giving way to huge swells of metallic heft, and more of those warm crooned vocals, the entire song wreathed in a gauzy washed out sheen.
And finally, there's the 23 minute closing track "Transformer", which opens with the most black metal bit on the whole records, a buzzing blast, peppered with warbly minor key melodies, and warm swirling drones, but at its core, this is pounding and thrashing and heavy, until before you know it, the band have shifted gears once again, unfurling a glimmery driftscape of crystalline guitar and warm blackened ambience, when the track does kick back in, it's in a whole new form, a cool, lumbering post rock tangle of metallic buzz and complex start stop arrangements, there's even a long stretch of that sort of blown out Jesu-style metalgaze, before everything drops off, and all that's left is a field recording of birds, and cars, the side of the highway presumably, people talking, all manner of ambient sound, eventually the song does drift back in, and finishes with a few minutes of woozy laid back slow core pop drift, hazy and weary and like much of the rest of the record, dreamy and melodic.
Folks looking for lots of buzzing blackness or crushing chugging metallic pummel, might not find enough of that here, but for folks who love their metal infused with all manner of pop, and dig stuff like Amesoeurs, Katatonia, Lifelover, Alcest, and that sort of stuff, will definitely dig this a LOT.
We've long championed these German post black metallers (metallic post rockers), their sound most definitely heavy and brutal, but also moody and atmospheric, and with every record, their sound seems to continue to move well beyond the confines of 'black metal', the genre which is where they seem to be most often (and increasingly inappropriately) lumped with their more grim brethren. While some black metal tropes surface here and there, the sound of WH is more recognizably marked by clean soaring vox, intricate proggy arrangements, spidery Slint-like melodies, even the occasional synth. In the past we've compared them to Dutch instru-metallers Gore, even Voivod, as well as groups like Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky. This time around we're hearing Swans (mostly in the deep vox), lots of Slint, with those distinctive arpeggiated minor key guitar parts, there's also the brooding moody bombast of Katatonia, but don't let all those comparisons lead you to believe these guys are just a mess of conflicting influenced and purloined sounds, those are merely references, cuz with this record, maybe even more than last releases, the band continues to carve out its own truly unique sound, one that here is at it's most lush, layered and melodic.
In fact this time around, the metal component is almost entirely removed, only vestiges remain, buzzing guitars, pounding drums, but even those elements, at their most metal, are defined by context, and here the band is capable of taking a blast beat, and letting it pound quietly beneath crystalline guitars, and haunting crooned vox, or taking very black metal sounding melodies, and transcribing them for acoustic guitar, and turning black buzz into some strangely alien pastoral folk. And the vocals, even more varied this time around, the deep Michael Gira like croon is present, but so is a super emotive raspy wail, not to mention so super cool (and strange) falsetto, all woven into the group's sprawling mini-epics, super dynamic, and emotional, and alternatingly epic and majestic, brooding and moody. At this point, we're not sure we'd recommend this to most metalheads. Especially black metallers, but hell, folks who dig Alcest and Amesoeurs and Les Discrets and Katatonia as well as the more metallic side of the post rock spectrum, and heck even prog nerds after something more far out, these guys might be just the ticket.
Full length number two from this UK neo-pagan black metal horde, and like the first one, and much like their sonic brethren in Winterfylleth (they also share members with another aQ fave, Atavist) the band continue to be focused on nature and Anglo-Saxon history, and their sound is appropriately epic and sweeping and atmospheric. And while that sound hasn't changed too much since the first record, they've definitely honed that sound, and if anything, this new record is quite a bit heavier, more fierce, and dense, the keyboards still present, big time, but their presence in the mix is a bit more subtle, sweeping to the fore on the slower atmospheric parts, but fading into the background when the band are at their most brutal.
The songs are super long, and almost proggy, ultra dynamic and constantly shifting, from explosive blasts of furious black buzz, to brooding, dense atmospheric sprawls of moody blackened psychedelia, replete with gorgeous clean vocals, swirling synths and tribal drumming, even some fluttering flutes here and there, and from midtempo classic metal majestic to shimmery, acoustic guitar flecked drift, the drums pummeling and intricate, the vocals shared now by the various members, so super varied, from demonic shriek to banshee howl, so surprisingly melodic crooning, the guitars shifting constantly from soaring fast picked flurries, to old school metal chug, to tranced out buzz, the band totally capable of laying down some seriously gnarled Deathspell worthy riffage, or Wolves In The Throne Room Cascadian epicry, but always returning to the atmospheric black buzz they do so well.
As we mentioned in our review of the first Wodensthrone record, it's not that the music of Wodensthrone is super original, or twistedly bizarre or even really that radical, it's more that it's just so well crafted, so full of emotion and energy, so epic and intense, headbangable for sure, but also darkly introspective, it's easily one of the best modern iterations of that classic black metal sound, and much like when we got the first one, we find ourselves wanting to listen to little else!
Recommended for fans of Wolves In The Throne Room, Primordial, Negura Bunget, Drudkh, etc.
Sometimes it gets pretty overwhelming with all the black metal we get coming through these doors, not that we don't love it, but it can become easy to lose track of everything. Which of course makes it really awesome when something just blows you away and reminds you why you got into black metal in the first place. Britain's Wodensthrone happen to be one of those bands. Not that there's anything mindblowingly original about these guys, it's just that Loss is delivered with a sincerity, not to mention an expert musical prowess, that really makes this one stand out among the sea of bands currently making the rounds. Featuring members of Atavist and Winterfylleth and recalling the majestic approach of bands like Emperor, Enslaved, Weakling, and Wolves in the Throne Room, Wodensthrone would be a pretty good example to explain what black metal sounds like to the uninformed. "Epic" would definitely be the word to use here, and this actually caught us a bit off guard considering how many bands have been taking a more raw approach as of late.
Wodensthrone are one of those bands who will remind you that synthesizers can be used for more than creating Cradle of Filth styled ridiculousness, as the keyboards here are both cinematic and sprawling, adding essential atmospherics to make you aware of black metal's obsession with the natural world. While these elements could very easily suck in the wrong hands, here they fit perfectly in conjuring Britain's pagan past. The production on Loss is enormous, and it makes total sense that the band ventured to Romania to record with members of Negura Bunget at their studio. Like Negura Bunget, Wodensthrone expertly merge folk-inspired elements from the respective country with a gigantic metal sound. It's worth noting the pagan influence here, as the melodies and overall mood of the album appear to be a little more, shall we say "positive", when compared to the all out evil of satanic black metal. There seems to be a serious awareness of classic British folk with melancholy acoustic guitars, mandolins, and flutes all commanding a pretty significant presence here, even in moments of all out metallic fury, and it's really refreshing to hear this stuff done so well. Definitely a nice surprise here, and enough to ensure that Loss will be on seriously HEAVY rotation for quite some time.
Debut full length from this East Coast one man black metal band, and from note one, A Spell For The Death Of Man reveals itself as something not even remotely typical, a distinctly different, and surprisingly melodic take on the old blast and buzz. The opening minute or two of the nine minute "Solitude" is just guitar, all soaring mournful and minor key, playing out a distinctly post rock riff, unfurling lazily, wreathed in reverb, majestic and epic, sorrowful and distinctly indie, gradually growing slower and slower, before stick clicks bring on the blackness, a furious tangle of squiggly buzzsaw riffage and blasting beats, buried blackened shrieks. Somehow, even though on the surface the song seems to have switched gears completely, elements of the intro remain, within and beneath the roiling heaviness, lending the music a distinctly 'indie rock' vibe, especially when the track shifts again, and suddenly it sounds a a little like Superchunk or Seam, only supercharged and blackened and Satanized. Not to say this is super poppy and jangly, but it is, sort of. Once you hear it, it's tough to ignore, but then why the heck would you want to? Folks with a super limited musical scope, say, ONLY metal, probably won't hear it as much, especially if they're open to more melodic stuff like Alcest or Amesoeurs, but for those who maybe didn't grow up listening to only metal, as we're guessing is the case with Woe mainman (and only man) Xos. Just wait until the breakdown near the end, when that opening riff is wrapped around some muffled chugging, and some dense tribal drumming, suddenly it's equal parts Husker Du, Bastro and black metal.
The rest of the record is a bit more traditionally black, but even then, with galloping rhythms and dizzying black riffage, the songs still manage to sound strangely melodic, and in some super abstract sense, kind of poppy. But again, all of this pop and jangle and post rock, is totally tangled up with some seriously dense thrashing and super heavy, blasting black metal. It's that unlikely mix that makes Woe sound so different, and makes this record so awesome, deftly balancing the grim and the kvlt with the moody and hooky and melodic. The record closes with an even less black metal number than the opener, strange angular midtempo minor key guitars, plodding drums, very postrock / mathrock, the vocals still in black metal shriek mode, but draped over a lilting almost dirgey slowcore groove, definitely pretty, and a bit woozy and mysterious, but still heavy, and just the slightest bit black.
Fans of more melodic blackness will definitely dig, while dabblers and newbies might have just found the perfect black metal gateway drug.
