[ aquarius records — Metal Black Metal ]

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Showing results 501 through 550 of 2429.

Four song, 20 minute ep of blistering black metal from the frosty environs of...North Carolina. At least that's *North* Carolina. Darkmoon vocalist/guitarist Jon Vesano has recently joined America's reigning kings of death metal, NILE, so that ought to get some folks into this band, folks who perhaps overlooked their previous, excellent album "Seas of Unrest".

"War metal" from North Carolina, basically an American take on Scandinavian black metal and pretty great.

Along with the stunning new album III I, we also managed to get a handful of the first demo from everyone's favorite Swiss black cosmic sci-fi space metal cyborgs, two tracks, originally released way back in 2002, and like all the records, cryptically titled with just numerals (these two tracks in the negative of course) and housed in another super minimal black sleeve. Sonically, the template for all four future records was already perfectly laid out here, the sound while a bit more raw, really isn't that far removed from the records proper, the same sort of horror score, sinister ambience, the arrangements simultaneously lush and expansive, dense and tangled, in fact if anything, -I might be the meanest sounding of the bunch, with some of their cosmic tendencies yet to come, here the group find themselves engaged in some sheer sonic brutality, albeit one that manages to be blackly beautiful and stunningly complex. And even back then the band flirted with dub and electronics, not hiding the fact that their drummer was a machine, but embracing it, the second track, a haunting swirling morass, held down by a slow motion programmed beat, laced with heavily effected vox, and some grinding, crumbling swaths of distortion, a black dub, that while soon overwhelmed by an avalanche of blown out guitars,quickly transforms back into a final bit of almost industrial sounding droned out dubbiness. Killer stuff, and again, as essential as any and all of their other records. Once again, fair warning, we got these direct from the label in Italy, and it took FOREVER, so when we run out, it will likely be a while before we're able to get more, so buy now, or be prepared to wait a while later!

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We know the black hearted AQ legions rely on us to trawl the dark depths and the fiery pits, in search of any essential blackness, that their cursed souls would wither without. With that in mind, we have been trying, for ages now, to get a hold of these two mysterious releases from Swiss black metal horde Darkspace. Those of you in the know, probably realize, that one of the cloaked and corpsepainted members of Darkspace is the man responsible for the epic frosty buzz drenched majesty that is Paysage D'Hiver. And judging from how big a hit Paysage was around these parts, it's no small leap to think that EVERYONE who bought the Paysage absolutely NEEDS this as well.� Whereas Paysage was one man's vision, twisted buzzing glorious epic blasts of grim black metal and extended Tangerine Dream like sythnscapes, gorgeous subterranean drones and hushed ambient shimmer, based around themes of winter and spirituality, darkness and astral projection, the music stitched into expansive worlds of sound, Darkspace is an actual band, and in many ways is WAY heavier than Paysage. The focus is on the riff as much as the ambience, if not more so, and the riffs are some of the best we've ever heard, downtuned and super distorted, minor key and crunchy, thick and dense, twisted and black, gnarled but incredibly catchy, often, the band explodes into furious wintery blasts, dense chaotic furies, topped off by huge sweeping melodies that sound like washes of keyboards (although no keyboards were used), before settling back into a gorgeously loping buzz encrusted mid tempo, a weird black groove, haunting and intense. But fast and fierce is the order of the day, and these guys are indeed true Blizzard Beasts, whipping up nearly impenetrable walls of swirling, roiling black frost. Which is sort of why the slow parts have such impact, the riff just sort of emerges from the dense black blur, to chug briefly before being swallowed up again. And whereas in most music, sound samples and snippets of dialogue from films, usually mean less re-playability, and often eventually bug more than they enhance, here are used to fantastic effect. Darkspace are futuristic black metal voyagers, the stars, planets, the universe the cosmos, the music is all about space, and it sounds like it, epic and so MASSIVE, simultaneously like a black hole sucking up all light, and a blinding supernova, the bits of dialogue are buried in the mix and delivered like some mysterious transmission from the farthest reaches of the galaxy. The fast bits and Burzumic passages are balanced by tripped out ambience, crazy dub drenched interludes, long drawn out SUNNO)))-scapes, huge walls of guitar, riffs splayed and spread out over epic expanses of low end drone, rumbling murmuring ambience.... Listening to Darkspace, we almost wish we hadn't used so much hyperbole in the past, or described other black metal bands as epic, or majestic, or even intense or brutal, or frosty and grim, because this is the music those adjective were designed for. In fact, we're almost compelled to create new words, a handful of superlatives, black metal specific, in order to do justice to these sounds. To explain just how fucking massive and intense this stuff is. NOW is the time for hyperbole, but it's not hyperbole if it's true right? And never has anything sounded this intense and blown out, heavy and black, we almost forgot how completely mind blowing this stuff was. But hearing it again, it makes us wonder why most black metal bands even bother... The first album is separated into seven parts (1.1-1.7), with song lengths averaging about 10 minutes. Each one a burst of black chaos, little epics compressed into the length of a normal song, like it must be some trick of the light, as if unleashed they would expand and stretch out forever. Their second album is split up into just three tracks, two of them 20 minutes plus, with a much more ambient bent, a ten minute sprawling drone separating two lengthy black metal spacescapes, and much of those are taken up by drifting black hole ambience as well, but the metallic fury everywhere else is positively overpowering... And�there's a reason that both these releases have the same review, besides the fact that they are both sonically similar, it's that BOTH are essential, they are two parts of a bigger whole (with a third in the works), they might as well have been released as a double cd, they flow perfectly into one another, one massive journey through the endless blackness of space... You can certainly buy one without the other, but you will quickly find that you need more and can not live without both... As if the music wasn't enough (and it is), their aesthetic is just as intense and mysterious. The band, all in matching corpsepaint and high necked robes, look like some alien black metal priests, or cenobites even, the band's logo, simple and subtle, a pentagram within a crescent moon, the artwork, spare and sparse, just the band logo, and the name of the record, either I or II, the song titles are numbers, "Dark 1.1", "Dark 1.2", "Dark 2.8" (you can go to their website and download the first demo, titled -I for free), a barely visible alien image beneath the tray card, everything printed in bluish silver on black, very austere and space-y... A gloriously blinding sonic dying sun, a burst of pure blackened brilliance, both discs, separate or together, obviously black metal record(s) of the year, this year, or whatever year they actually came out, maybe black metal record(s) of forever. And yeah, we're serious.�

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There have been plenty of contenders so far for metal record of the year. The grim noise drenched buzz of Korean one man (boy) band Pyha, the fucked up almost industrial dramatic dirges of Urfaust, the freaked out flute flecked prog blackness of Quest For Blood, the blown out blacknoise of Nekrasov, Leviathan's latest (read: last) and greatest of course, Jumalhamara, Wrnlrd, Fen, Varghokarghasmal, Happy Days, Leaden, we could go on and on and on... But the thing is, for any and all of those records to even be metal record of the year contenders, one simple requirement had to be met. That there was no new Darkspace record. And the fact that the long anticipated III was just released, means that all of those other records will have to settle for runner up status. Because the music of Darkspace is not just black metal, not just metal really, and in some ways not even simply music, Darkspace is in fact the sound of 'dark space', of vast black expanses, of collapsing suns and colliding galaxies, rendered in a black metal template, only insomuch as there are distorted guitars, harsh wailing vocals, and blasting drums, but even within a somewhat familiar framework, those parts become something alien in the hands of Darkspace, and are woven into epic black tapestries of sound, like ancient sonic maps, depicting the whole of the universe, all of creation, laid out before us in a series of super distorted noise drenched howling black blasts of drone and buzz. The songs are long, and repetitive and hypnotic, so much so that they often seem to smooth out into pure drone, like staring at something until your vision blurs and the object is transformed into a series of streaks and smears, there are structures here, and parts, and melodies, but those basic elements are more often than not subsumed by furious roiling black clouds of buzz, a relentless blur that stretches into mesmerizing black shapes, the drums barely exist, if anything, they are the beast's bones barely visible through its skin, machinelike and industrial, rigid and dense, but wrapped in thick veils of rich thick blackness. Synths are everywhere here too, but unlike most metal bands, Darkspace don't employ keyboards as delicate little melodic interludes, instead those swirling swaths are an essential part of the blackened soundscapes, adding soft swells of warm whir, or near static single note tension, adding a distinctly psychedelic vibe to the proceedings, like 1349 crossed with Tangerine Dream, but often bearing the brunt of the song's heft, relegating the buzzing guitar to a supporting role, but without losing any power or heaviness. While most of the record is in fact spent droning relentlessly, one gloriously massive blown out ethereal blast of blurred buzz after another, when the band does shift gears, slowing things down into a sea sick chug, or a doomy pound, it only serves to sound that much more intense, but even then, when the band seems to be exploring something much more traditional, the chug and pound is routinely unfurling beneath a gauzy veil of swirling spaced out synths, peppered with glimmering star like harmonics, deep swoonsome swells, strange super effected guitar glimmer, most notably on the second half of "3.13" (all the songs are named numerically), an intense repetitive space math black groove that is as heavy and brutal as it is dizzying and ethereal, and the end of the final track "3.17", where for the first (and last) time, the band slows things down into much more traditional songform territory, a fingerpicked clean Slint style guitar melody, space-y synthesizers, simple understated drumming, a gorgeously melancholy and musical outro to a record that in its extreme and abstract beauty, up until the very last few moments, seemed to exist in a world entirely of its own invention. As with all sounds transcendent, the magic here is ineffable, there is definitely some sort of musical alchemy going on. The sound of III is rooted enough in black metal orthodoxy to appeal to fans of the more traditional forms, but at the same time, the sound is so abstract, so free, the process is so transformative, that fans of all things heavy and dark, minimal and repetitive, should be equally enthralled. It's impossible not to hear elements of new age, of modern minimalism, of free drone, all deftly woven around an incredible collection of churning black heaviness. Once again packaged in that immediately recognizable minimal black packaging, housed in a black and silver slipcover, adorned with mysterious diagrams of some 'dark space'.

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We've now been waiting for six years for this record, and been trying to track down copies for a year, but it's finally here, and it was totally worth the wait. the latest sprawling cosmic black masterpiece from Swiss black metal cybernauts Darkspace. Titled III I (not to be confused with IV, or even IIII), Darkspace's latest is a continuation of the three previous records, right down to the packaging, and the numeric song titles, and of course the sound, with III I beginning life as some abstract ambient soundtrack, a Hellraiser worthy cloud of electrified blackness, martial percussion, shimmering synths, like a nightmarish planetarium show gone haywire, creepy and otherworldly, and when the programmed drums come in, it almost sounds like gabber techno, if it weren't for the swirling cyclical melodies, and chugging riffage, the slowly build and build and build, until the sound explodes into the relentlessly furious galactic blur we've missed so much. Somehow symphonic and orchestral, but wound up in Blizzard Beastly squalls of blacknoise, and those drums, WAY up in the mix, and even what sounds like some vocodered vokills, that main melody constantly resurfacing, giving the sound a majestic, almost power metal feel at times. And we're not even ten minutes in. The opening track, clocking in at nearly a half hour, mutates constantly, from doomy creep driven by wild double kick drumming, to dizzyingly ferocious blasts of kosmische blackbuzz, to what sounds almost like a black metal Massive Attack, a sort of industrial black dub, wreathed in thick cascades of distorted buzz. The other two tracks, are essentially a continuation of the first track, a tripped out psychedelic black metal songsuite, with choral vocals, with strange electronics, weird almost krautrock sounding synths, some bits that almost sound like 8bit bleeps and bloops, still more stretches of ominous ambience that sound like the score to some alternate reality Blade Runner, and some seriously classic metal sounding chug, all blurred and smeared and stretched into a mind blowing, sonically confusional, eerily lysergic batch of next level black cosmic crush. Super striking packaging as always, pressed on black cds, in minimal black packaging, in an equally minimal black slipcase. Also we got these direct from the label in Italy, and it took FOREVER, so when we run out, it may be a while before we're able to get more, so buy now, or be prepared to be very very patient later!

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The raw yet epic 1991 release from the notorious Norwegian trio of Fenriz, Nocturno Culto & Zephyrous. A black metal classic that's been practically impossible to find domestically until quite recently.

Today's Darkthrone is a totally different beast than the Darkthrone of old. Back in the day, Darkthrone conjured up visions of mysterious corpse painted figures, of epic Norwegian black metal, of vast fields of ice, of shadows dancing in firelight, they were THEE ultimate black metal band. Transylvanian Hunger, A Blaze In The Northern Sky, Under A Funeral Moon... But at some point, the punk and classic metal influences that so obviously informed the music of Darkthrone, really took over, and the sound of Darkthrone, instead of being influenced by that music, began to SOUND like that music, WAY more punk, with smatterings of classic NWOBHM, which we definitely dug, and with that sonic shift, came a shift in, well, seriousness? Their public persona became goofier. Photo ops consisted almost entirely of shots of the group on camping trips. And there's drummer Fenriz, outspoken as always, consistently holding court, schooling the kids on cool metal records, weird obscure bands, to the point of filling cdd booklets with liner notes, comparing their songs to classic metal jams, as well as including a list of albums to buy. So while a lot of troo grim black metalheads probably jumped ship by now, the rest of us can dig these crazy punk metal jams, the goofy lyrics, the over the top vocals, the squiggly guitar leads, totally retro, but all twisted up into something distinctly Darkthrone. The sound here is less classic metal, and almost kinda more like any of those "NWOFHM" metal Circle side projects, Steel Mammoth, Mercedes Hell, Motorspandex, and well, let's let the track-by-track liner notes from Fenriz point out their actual sonic inspirations: Motorhead, Inepsy, Agent Steel, English Dogs, old Metallica, Deathside, Puke, old Slayer, Omen, Savage Grace, one song is even described by Fenriz as a "Mix of speed metal and hard rock, with 40s nostalgic notes in the verse-riff". Not sure what else to say. When asked in a recent interview if Darkthrone performed "extreme metal", Fenriz responded by saying that Darkthrone is "moderate metal. With UGLY vocals." Which pretty much nails it. It's heavy, punk as fuck, definitely metal, loose and sloppy, but super melodic, weirdly catchy, with some seriously killer riffs, some ridiculous and over the top vocals, and some of the best liner notes you'll ever read. Plus more bad ass Dennis Dread artwork. Recommended of course, but only for those of you who know what you're getting into!

MPEG stream: Those Treasures Will Never Befall You
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None more self-referential. (Not even Manowar.) This album actually has the words "Dark" and "Throne" in the title. Dark Thrones & Black Flags, could they make it any more plain? Implying the grimnity of Darkthrone's traditional necro Nordic black metal with a severe dose of '80s punk (and metal) infesting the proceedings, which is basically the Darkthrone formula of recent years. If you liked, say, last year's Darkthrone album, F.O.A.D., you'll like this (and if you didn't, you won't!). While we can't expect 'em to replicate old classics like A Blaze In The Northern Sky or Transylvanian Hunger, we do know they can make F.O.A.D. Part II! Heck, it even looks almost identical. Similar cover art, same rounded-corner jewel case. And as with F.O.A.D., the text in the cd booklet delves into fannish detail, including another page of interestin' record-buying recommendations from drummer Fenriz, and individual liner notes for each song on this disc, explaining their inspirations. Which often have to do with obscure '80s bands only collectors know about. Or, have to do with camping trips! These guys love the great outdoors, and thus the cd booklet is illustrated with many photos of Norwegian forests and lakes taken by these "Hiking Metal Punks" (yes, that's a song title here!). You gotta love it. So many black metal bands claim to be "of the forest", but these guys prove they are. They also prove, again, to have a sense of humor... yet remains totally cvlt 'cause heck they're Darkthrone! Musically, this album rocks, it's a punked-up slab of riffy, raw black metal. Utterly old school - even though it's Darkthrone's new school sound (for the actual ye olde Darkthrone stuff, we still have a few copies of their deluxe demos collection The Frostland Tapes reviewed 2 lists back). There's anthems like "Hiking Metal Punks" and icy epicks like "Norway In September", but whatever the style, headbangingness is job number one. The production is typical Darkthrone filth, the vocals (from both Fenriz and stringed-instrument wielder Nocturno Culto) range from the usual rasping croaks to higher pitched yelps and even some weird, clean vocals (like the chorus of the opening track, "They Winds They Called The Dungeon Shaker" - that's an awesome title by the way, whatever it means). Fenriz does a Tom G. Warrior (Celtic Frost) sometimes, and even gets kinda witchy, sounding just a bit like ol' King Diamond on "Hanging Out In Haiger". On the drums, he bashes away enthusiastically as always. Guitarwise, Nocturno keeps it grim (of course) but throws in the occasional surprisingly widdily solo. So, basically, the cold, old ones are back with another album of all about their favorite stuff: metal, camping, Darkthrone. It mixes their punk side (which they took to the furthest extreme a couple albums back on The Cult Is Alive) with hoary heavy metal homage, again a la F.O.A.D. And there's definitely a bunch of tracks on here that give that album's biggest hit, the catchy "Canadian Metal", a run for its money! We like.

MPEG stream: They Winds They Called The Dungeon Shaker
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If metal fans/dilettantes Circle were to actually make a metal album, as opposed to a "metal" album (one that in the end really sounds like Circle), maybe it would come out something like F.O.A.D., the latest (number thirteen, uh oh!) full-length from Norwegian black metal icons Darkthrone. This album, entitled F.O.A.D. (which stands for something Off And Die, you figure it out), is a collection of nine songs, each one of them with a specific inspiration or inspirations that will resonate with all true metal fans, which Darkthrone obviously are. We know this not just 'cause the old school vibe of these songs, retro-riffed and raw and fueled with punkish attitude, but also 'cause Darkthrone drummer Fenriz has kindly provided notes on each track in the photo-illustrated cd booklet. So you can scope snapshots of Darkthrone's summer camping trips whilst reading about how the track "Canadian Metal" is lyrically a tribute to their favorite Canadian metal bands (natch) but musically is inspired more by (non-Canadian bands) DeathStrike, Onslaught, Darkthrone and Motorhead -- and, for the heck of it, is dedicated to their Central American fans! Or learn that the song "The Church of True Metal" is dedicated to Manilla Road and the late singer of another '80s American true metal cult, Omen. Or see that Fenriz claims that "Pervertor Of The 7 Gates" is inspired by "Axegrinder/Darkthrone, Humble Pie (!), Celtic Frost (duh), Impostor... and Poison Idea!". You may have noted how ridiculously, circularly self-referential (reverential?) it is, when several times they cite Darkthrone (themselves!) among a particular track's influences. At least they're being honest! The cd booklet also includes a shopping list of 20 true metal (mostly, though The Residents are on here too) recommendations from Fenriz and guitarist Nocturno Culto, their suggestions to get your music listening back on the proper, perverse track. Can't argue with any of their picks, and in fact we're gonna be on the lookout for the few we didn't already have, but again it's a funny thing to find in a cd booklet. We guess they're concerned about "the kids" these days not knowing what's what. But the reason we mentioned Circle above is 'cause this seems to be a very "conceptual" metal album, metal for metal's sake made by fans in a very explicit and nostalgic fashion. There's a metallic version of Comic Book Guy, record-collector nerdism in equal doses with a punk WTF? approach. Circle calls it NWOFHM. Darkthrone's making NWOBHM. No it doesn't compare to any of their past classics like A Blaze In The Northern Sky or Transylvanian Hunger. Less grim, more grins. This sort of thing tends to demystify what is (was?) one of the seminal, scary bands from the notorious Nordic church-burning, corpse-painted black metal scene. But we've already gotten the idea that Darkthrone don't take themselves too seriously anymore, and maybe never did, nor do they care what other folks think. We realized that long ago when we read an interview with 'em that mainly talked about how much they loved the Simpsons TV show. Also there was the silly message that Andee once got on his answering from Fenriz (thanks to a mutual friend who was over in Norway working on an as-yet-unreleased black metal documentary). And of course not long ago we reviewed the DVD of Nocturno Culto's bewilderingly mundane home movies. The curtain has been pulled back, and what we find are two none-too-serious yet none-more-black dudes from Norway who loooooove metal (and camping). And happen to be fuckin' Darkthrone. So they can say F.O.A.D. then you gotta take it. If it's too crude and dumb and retrogressive and punk for you, fuck off and die. Otherwise, let the headbanging commence.

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Released to coincide with the band's 21st anniversary (!!!), Frostland Tapes collects a bunch of super sough after rarities, lost and live recordings and most importantly (at least for Darkthrone fanatics), the unreleased instrumental version of their Goatlord album. As much as we're tempted to say every metalhead probably should own almost anything these guys release, this one, while pretty fucking excellent, might just be more of a 'For Fans Only' sort of thing. Although if you've never heard Darkthrone before, and want to jump in way back at the beginning, and experience the band through rough lo-fi live recordings or raw primitive demos, then hell yeah, this will definitely do the job. But if that sounds a bit too intense of an introduction, then try either Transylvanian Hunger or A Blaze In The Northern Sky, we guarantee you'll be hooked, you can always come back for this one later! For the rest of you, who have all the records proper, odds are you're gonna want this too... the 1988 Land Of Frost demo, the 1988 A New Dimension demo, the Thulcandra 1989 demo, the legendary 1989 Cromlech demo, a 1990 show recorded live in Denmark, and of course a rare instrumental version of Goatlord recorded in 1991. Lots of songs you know, some you probably don't, varying degrees of fidelity, but c'mon it's Darkthrone, the more raw the better!!!! Housed in a super fancy hardcover book style package with tons of rare photos, liner notes and a funny (aren't they all?) interview with Fenriz...

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Album number ten from perhaps the most revered (or as the band prefers, most hated) of black metal's old guard, the dynamic duo of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto. Clocking in at just over a half an hour and according to the liner notes, recorded AND mixed in a mere 26 hours, Hate Them is the latest installment in more than a decade of Christ crushing, poser smashing, misanthropic, grim and buzzy black metal. Emperor are gone, Mayhem are old news, Immortal are cartoons, Satyricon are techno, which leaves Darkthrone to carry the torch of simple, hateful, aggressive and virtually-unchanged-since-1990 black metal. You don't fix what ain't broke! Howling barbed wire guitars, bloodied vocal chords, and Fenriz's 'unique' mostly midtempo drumming, thrashy and sloppy. The blast beats may be 1/10 the speed of other black metal bands, but what Darkthrone lack in speed and finesse they make up for in grim atmosphere and raw aggression. Possibly the only true black metal band left. MPEG Download: "Rust" [/audio/darkthronerust.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Rust" [/audio/darkthronerust.m3u]

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Like the passing of a rare comet, the appearance of a new Darkthrone disc is a time for God-fearing natives to cower and tremble, and for the chosen, corpse-painted few (black metal fans) to revel in barbaric worship. Yes, Nocturno Culto and Fenriz (who, along

RealAudio clip: Weakling Avenger
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MPEG stream: Snowfall (Demo 1988)
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MPEG stream: Iconoclasm Sweeps Cappadocia (Demo 1989)

Perhaps the most essential, archetypal Norwegian black metal act ever (along with Emperor and Satyricon if you want to quibble) get an early-years "best of" treatment from former label Peaceville, for whom they recorded a bevy of classic (and currently hard-to-find, some of them) albums. The 70 minutes on offer here feature cuts from the sought-after "A Blaze In The Northern Sky" album, from utter classic "Transylvanian Hunger" (the full album of which we also have in stock at the moment, as it's domestically available unlike much of their other output), and from "Soulside Journey" and "Under A Funeral Moon" as well. That's enough for the Darkthrone novice -- get this if you can't track down all those records, for a taster (but note that obviously there's nothing here from their more recent discs on the Moonfog label). Then, for the true fan, we get rare live and demo material from the late '80s, before Darkthrone's first LP: truly "cult" stuff indeed. And, the nicely-done digipackaging (four panels folding out in a cross-shape) includes handwritten liner notes from the band, from which we learn that he of the best black metal name ever, Nocturno Culto, is actually called "Ted" by his friends.

Norwegian black metal legends, the self-proclaimd "most hated band in the world" Darkthrone, come out of semi-retirement to surpise us all with a long-awaited new release! Cold, grim, & evil, guaranteed! My only disappointment with this disc is that band member Nocturno Culto, who possesses my favorite black metal name ever, has for some reason seen fit to change his moniker to the somehow-less satisfying "Nocturnal Cult". Despite that, though, the Celtic Frost inspired winter forest doom-ride of "Ravishing Grimness" more than upholds the Darkthrone legacy (and is a worthy answer to the amazing "Darkthrone Holy Darkthrone" tribute compilation released last year).

Hail the return of Darkthrone! The elder statesmen of Nordic Black Metal! Still cult and true, and still sonically stirring up the blackest pits of hell. Ahhh, some things never change. Sardonic Wrath. What a cool fucking title. But then Darkthrone are no slouches when it comes to naming records. Plague Wielder. Ravishing Grimness. A Blaze In The Northern Sky. Hate Them. Transylvanian Hunger. And the cover is an amazing painting of sword wielding angels tumbling from heaven, through a rent in the black night sky. And the sound is classic Darkthrone. A thrashing, blackened assault on all that is holy. HUGE riffs, buzzy and blurry, simple pounding drumming, occasionally stumbling into breakneck blast beats, but more often, the speed remains a lumbering midtempo or sometimes a galloping punk rock boom-bap boom-bap boom-bap. Darkthrone have always been old school, and nothing has changed here, taking Venom-ous riffery and Celtic Frost-y melodies and Bathory brutality and sculpting them into the distinctly Darkthrone blueprint for modern black metal. If one thing has changed it could be that the lyrics and song titles have gotten a little...er...strange. Sardonic Wrath features such unlikely song titles as "Information Wants to be Syndicated", "Straightening Sharks In Heaven" and "Rawness Obsolete". Just adds to the eccentric appeal though. Darkthrone are truly one of the only black metal bands blazing their own blackened path, often finding other black metal hordes desparately trying to follow.

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The cult is alive indeed. However, now more than any time over their 15+ year career, the cult sounds less black than ever, and instead like the heaviest, most kick ass eighties hardcore band you've never heard. Darkthrone have always had a punky edge, but this time the riffage is so straight up hardcore it's hard to even classify this as black metal. Sure the artwork looks like a Darkthrone records, and the vocals for the most part are appropriately grim, but there is no disguising the white hot boot stomping spiked and leathered streak of hardcore energy running through every track on The Cult Is Alive. Song titles like "Graveyard Slut", "Atomic Coming", "Shut Up", "Whisky Funeral", the riffs more than anything, and there are still blast beats, but when they do happen, they don't really blast as much as they sort of gallop, a reckless careening hardcore/fastcore, wild and almost out of control. Think Discharge, the Meatmen, GBH, but WAY heavier, and with a bit more evil atmosphere. And take away those blackened vocals, and you'd definitely be hard pressed to pick this out as a record by one of the founders of Norwegian black metal. And even the vocals, while mostly demonic black metal growls, just as often veer into a weird grunty hardcore shout a la Tesco Vee. There are still some very black moments, the strange slippery blackened main riff of "Whisky Funeral", long stretches of buzzing guitar that sort of swirl and drone, some Burzumy midtempo dirges, but those are just brief black flashes, cuz no matter how deep you delve into this dark forest, this is punk rock my friend, too old and too cold!

MPEG stream: The Cult Of Goliath
MPEG stream: Too Old, Too Cold
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Norway's number one "hiking metal punks", the Darkthrone duo of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto are back with another album (their 16th!) that melds the grim frozen Nordic black metal of the '90s (typified by their own corpsepainted classics from the era like A Blaze In the Northern Sky and Under A Funeral Moon) with '80s NWOBHM, punk, crust, and speed metal, as they have been doing for the past six or seven years. We'd heard before we got this that the new Darkthrone was heavily influenced by Agent Steel, and while Fenriz does pull of some amazing high pitched shrieks in the style of John Cyriis from that cult '80s speed metal outfit, we suspect that people were saying that 'cause a copy of Agent Steel's Skeptics Apocalypse lp is prominently displayed behind Fenriz in his picture on this album's back cover. What also should have been in that picture is a copy of Celtic Frost's Morbid Tales, 'cause plenty of this has that brand of '80s underground doomic deathliness to it too. Mercyful Fate and Venom, the '80s originators of black metal, are also clear inspirations. A good example of what that means, is the album's truly epic final track, the 13 minute 49 second "Leave No Cross Unturned", written/sung by Fenriz, which opens with an impressive balls-in-a-vice scream, the song speeding along with rapid riffage ornamented by soaring swooping vox. But then, whomp, it slows for a sluggish doomed out break, chugging thenceforth under a Hellhammered, Frosty vibe. Eventually the velocity ramps up again as do Fenriz's operatic affectations, and then back again into the doomy depths, the song a tour de force display of what Darkthrone dig in metal, as well as serving as a representation of the entire album in microcosm, it's got it all. A headbanging masterpiece right there. That could be the only song here and we'd still be into this, but wait, there's more. Six tracks total, three by Nocturno Culto (the guitarist) and three by Fenriz (the drummer). Fenriz sings his compositions with an extreme/eccentric mix of falsetto wails and guttural deathgrunts, while on his tracks Nocturno employs a capable (if less WTF?) black metal rasp. They alternate songs throughout the album, beginning with Nocturno's gnarly snarly punked out black metal opener "Dead Early", followed by the more-likely-to-get-you-staring-at-your-stereo "Valkyrie" of Fenriz, some very epic wailing metal, fast but glorious, like a weird mix of Bathory and Manilla Road, maybe. Nocturno is back on the mic with track three, the dense churning rocking riff-fest of "Lesser Men". Fenriz responds with the rollicking "The Ones You Left Behind", sorta like "Valkyrie" but with some Motorhead added in? It's hard to describe actually, and that's what's cool about Darkthrone these days, while these guys wear their influences on their sleeves (and can do so with impunity 'cause they themselves were once so influential), the stuff they come up with here is still original, somehow channelling their obvious inspirations into weird hybrids never before attempted or envisioned. Then to the album's penultimate track, Nocturno's own pounding epic, the 8:37 "Come Warfare, The Entire Doom", which is indeed doomy, but cranks at speed too, and almost would be this album's more metal than thou piece de resistance if we didn't know that the massive "Leave No Cross Unturned" was coming up next. But it sure comes close. All we can say is, if you love metal, you gotta love Darkthrone. Long may they reign. As long as they're around, metal will never die. The cd comes packaged in a hardcover digibook, 20 pages, necessary 'cause of course the ever talkative Fenriz takes up a lot of space with his notes on each song, etc. One of his songs ("Leave No Cross Unturned", natch) even has its OWN lengthy "thanks list", separate from the two page thanks list Fenriz himself has. Nocturno Culto, aka Ted, more taciturn, limits himself to just one page for his thanks list and doesn't deign to analyze his songs, unlike Fenriz, who practically writes reviews for 'em, listing precise inspirations for each section of each of his compositions. Also, in recent Darkthrone tradition, Fenriz provides a list of recommended new bands he likes, in his role as tastemaker for a new generation of metallers. So folks who download this, illegally or otherwise, are missing out on a lot!

MPEG stream: Valkyrie
MPEG stream: The Ones You Left Behind
MPEG stream: Leave No Cross Unturned

MPEG stream: Transilvanian Hunger
MPEG stream: Over Fjell Og Gjennom Torner

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

SORRY.

This is not really new, but we've never been able to get enough of these to list until now. From the label that brought us Benighted Leams, Contra Ignem Fatuum, Dark Ages and Meads Of Asphodel comes another confounding blast of black metal, this time from a mysterious group called Dawnfall. The first three tracks are 11+ minutes each, every one a convoluted, twisted swirl of stumbling midtempo black metal weirdness and swooshing keyboardy ambience, with some of the most tortured vocals we've ever heard. Somewhere between the anguished shriek of Weakling and the inhuman howl of Rehtaf Ruo. Each prickly spikey tangle of blackness is peppered with squirrelly Greg Ginn like guitar freakouts, random tinkling chimes and warm wooshes of synthesizer. Dizzying and totally brilliantly confusional. Warm fuzzed out guitars wrapped loosely over a framework of thudding pounding drums, while maddeningly slippery guitar squiggles slip and slide in and around the blackness colliding with the harsh vocal wails. Amazing. But that's just three tracks in. Track four is some sort of faux harpsichord driven electronic ambient soundscape, like Benighted Leams playing Dead Can Dance covering Autchre or something? Skittery beats and a dense wash of thick metallic string strum. As if it couldn't get weirder, the next track is mostly sped up and slowed down vocals, mixed with strange spacey effects, swooshes, and beeps and a hiccupping dsrum machine. Weird! But it's not over yet, the second to last track is a ten minute soundscape of skittery synthesizers, warbly keyboard squiggles, all smothered in reverb and other space-y ambience. A creepy, splattery minimal crawl through some outer space fun house. Finally, the record finishes with a weird one minute blast of synthesized circus music, maybe like a lite Killing Joke, with wooshy synth stabs and casio style drum beats. Woah, not sure what to make of this. We love it. For sure. Just not sure why. Definitely too weird for most metalheads, you all can quit after the first three tracks, that is if -those- aren't already too weird for you. But folks who have been digging all the crazy shit Supernal puts out, and anyone up to trying to wrap their brains around something amazingly weird and wonderfully obtuse, definitely check this out!

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MPEG stream: Drei Raume II

Naming your black metal band after the only record by arguably one of the most important USBM bands ever, and around here definitely one of the most revered, is most certainly setting the bar pretty high, but then as we mentioned in the review of Dead As Dreams debut, you could do a lot worse than look to Weakling for inspiration. We dug the first DaD release big time, a split tape with another Weaking obsessed outfit called Aurvandil, and on that split, DaD definitely did their best Weakling impression, a sprawling epic single track, rife with wild blasting beats, frenzied riffing and hysterical shrieks, but in the process, did manage to infuse enough of their own vibe to keep it on the homage side of hero worship. So here we are, a year later, and Dead As Dreams have returned, and if anything, the Weakling worship has only intensified, not only did the band travel to San Francisco to record with Tim Green, who recorded Weakling's Dead As Dreams, the credits on the inside of the booklet are also in that weird, impossible to read vertical font, and are a dead ringer for the Weakling record, but musically, some things have definitely changed. The template is similar, one single massive multi-movement 25 minute track, long swaths of frantic insectoid buzzing, wild chaotic blasting, but unlike the trancelike mesmer of Weakling, Dead As Dreams have crafted something much more multifaceted, those stretches of frenzied blasts are tempered by lumbering bits of black doom, the guitars tangled into gnarled harmonies, long drawn out expanses of murky buzz and spidery melody, the arrangement much more mathy and dynamic, relying less on repetition, and instead creating what is essentially a songsuite blurred into a single 'track'. Loping mid tempo Burzumic buzz gives way to gnarled Deathspell style riffery, which blossoms into blackened pound, laced with almost NWOBHM style melodies, as well as lots of cool woozy almost psychedelic sounding slow parts, not doomy so much as just droned out and seasick sounding. The blasting buzzy bits are definitely still beholden to Weakling in some ways, but hell, how is that any different than the millions of other bands following in the footsteps of Mayhem, or Immortal, or Satyricon. Weakling seems like a way more obscure and inspiring influence. And it definitely sounds like these guys were inspired, Their Steps Become Unbearable is a huge leap forward from that split cassette, which besides the songwriting, is also probably thanks to Tim Green's production, and the fact that the band that recorded this was made up of SF black metal veterans including members of Horn Of Dagoth, Elk and Palace Of Worms. Removed from the shadow of Weakling, Dead As Dreams are most definitely an awesome band, but even acknowledging the group's unfettered love for their sonic forbears, these guys totally shred, and anyone who digs epic tranced out black buzz, should definitely check this out. And even though technically this is only an ep, it feels like a full length, a black expanse of parts and textures and layers and movements all spun into a glorious black epic.

MPEG stream: Their Steps Become Unbearable (exceprt 1)
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What hath the mighty Weakling wrought? Surely that legendary SF black metal band spawned a legion of followers and worshippers, but few underground bands have had such a noticeable impact, spawning bands blatantly and openly paying homage to the masters. First there was Jabladav, who began basically as a tribute, even releasing a couple records called Dead As Duck and Drunk As Duck, both references to Weakling's only album, Dead As Dreams which came out on tUMULt way back in 2000. Now there's the BAND Dead As Dreams, a USBM band who apparently loved Weakling enough to name their band after the group's seminal record. And as if that weren't enough, Dead As Dreams are paired up on this split with a band called Aurvandil, who have a song called "As Dead As Dreams". But you know, bands could do a lot worse for inspiration than Weakling, and if you ask us, and since you're reading this review you sort of are, a band could hardly do better. So Dead As Dreams, offer up a single looooong song, carving out their own sound, which is definitely heavily influenced by Weakling, but manages to be pretty unique and most assuredly their own. The fast bits are the most Weakling inspired, with similarly hysterical shrieks, drone infused blackened riffing, relentless drumming, but then the band whip out these really awesome depressive slow parts, all mournful and a bit abstract, plodding and melancholic, with some long slow decays and awesome wailing keening high tones, that almost sound like guitar and voice harmonizing, however they do it, it's really dramatic and makes the song! Aurvandil are from France but sound like they're from Norway, very Buzumic, gloriously buzzy, midtempo, drum machine, but not distractedly so, some awesome riffs for sure, the sound not as murky or muted as Dead As Dreams, more chaotic, but still melodic, definitely need to hear more from both these bands, but especially Dead As Dreams, we find ourselves returning to that track again and again, THAT one part burned into our brains. Released on the always kick ass Tour De Garde label!!

One of two new releases on Flingco Sound, the other being the new one from outsider black metal horde Wrnlrd, reviewed elsewhere on this list, and this one, a brand new 7" from a group called Dead Meat, who apparently call the Bay Area home, even though this 7" is the first time we'd heard of 'em. But we want to hear more, cuz these guys are SO right up our alley, and yours we'd imagine. A twisted blend of old school noise rock, hypnotic spaced out psychedelia, gloomy post punk, and old school Midwest Touch & Go style pigfuck heaviness, the guitars crush and churn, the drums pound, the vocals lazy and laid back, drenched in reverb, the songs stretched way out, brooding and hypnotic, sinister and swaggery, exploding into squalls of full on crunch. Imagine maybe Killdozer crossed with Interpol, or Joy Division recording for AmRep, or Drunkdriver jamming with King Snake Roost, or Clockcleaner doing Wipers covers, however you slice it, this stuff RULES. We need more, NOW.

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From the same label that brought us the bafflingly brilliant WOLD record from a few lists past comes Canadian black metal juggernaut Dead Of Winter, who feature an old AQ fave totally out of his element, digital hard core technician Schizoid. In the past, Schizoid has hinted at his barely under the surface metal obsession by inserting all sorts of buzzing blackened riffs into his hyper distorted techno as well as once covering Burzum. But don't expect any sort of techno black metal hybrid from Dawn Of Winter -- this is full on, grim and frosty, lightning fast, spikes and corpsepaint black metal. A buzzy blurry mix of Darkthrone and Mayhem, furiously fast blast beats under a near drone of insectoid BM riffs and thunderous basslines. You can totally imagine these guys set up on the edge of a massive glacier, knee deep in snow, overlooking a blackened forest, blasting out a sheet of hellish black metal, in front of the swirling shifting northen lights, while lighting bolts rain down from the pitch black sky!

MPEG stream: Total Hate Final War
MPEG stream: Across The Vast Storm Front

Dead Raven Choir, a one man band, now living in Poland, formerly of Texas, purveyor of damaged free folk, abstract strum and of course utterly grim black metal. We tried desparately to keep up with his non stop cd-r release schedule and his constant flitting from folk to metal and back again, sometimes pausing beautifully right in between, a gnarled hybrid of campfire twang and lo-fi buzz, then there's Wolfmangler too, his country doom outfit! But, as is often the case, most of those cd-r's disappeared in no time flat. So it's Weird Forest to the rescue, compiling 4 LONG out of print cd-r's (Sheath & Knife, Grand Ravishing Extravaganza, Sevenfold Songs Of Death, and Sturmfuckingleider) onto three lps and packaging them in this "dark forest-clad" box. This one is definitely for the true, the grim, the cult, this is utterly dismal, freaked out and fuzzed out lo-fi black metal. But while sonically it may fit somewhere between the foresty buzz of early Ulver, the midtempo droning hypno plod of Burzum, and the thrashy blur of Darkthrone, this is Dead Raven Choir after all, so beneath and amidst all the buzzing and riffing, there are plenty of banjos, mandolins, and lots of percussion, a creepy clattery folk undercurrent, albeit all bathed in hiss and drone and distortion, black metal folk may be more accurate, closer in feel to Abruptum, a black pagan ritual, shrill and noisy and harsh and HEAVY, but in that home-recorded, perfectly underproduced way. Awesome! This comes packaged in a printed black box, the three lps are housed in thick black sleeves, there are seven inserts, beautifully printed on thick vellum, with liner notes in perhaps the most illegible black metal font EVER! LIMITED TO 999 COPIES WORLDWIDE!

Oooh. That cover photo of the fog, sheep and trees is nice. A misty meadow for your imagination to wander in as you listen to this, which happens to be the debut "real cd" release from the previously cd-r only label Jewelled Antler. For the occasion, they've chosen an artist from outside their SF-based "collective", their friend Smolken's Dead Raven Choir. (A bit like picking Merzbow, that, since he's so prolific, but still a good choice quality-wise.) Smolken is the guy who has discovered the secret commonality between anguished black metal and emotional folk-minimalism (such as that of Japanese troubadours like Kan Mikami). Some of his releases tend towards the noise and distortion of black metal, others towards the broken Jandekian folk of one man and a guitar. Death To Dead Wolves is yet another haunting/haunted DRC album on the sparser side of that spectrum. If you're already a fan, go ahead and get this one, it's good. If not, perhaps some explanation is in order. Smolken's modus operandi on this disc is to intone poetry (all lyrics here are from the works of 20th century American poet and sometime monk, William Everson) in a heavy Polish accent, sounding rather like a B-movie vampire. Smolken's sinister stage-whisper melds with piano and guitar, all notes struck stark and creepy, with drones and silence both adding to the eerie mix. Electric guitar is utilized, but the playing is in his usual damaged folk style. The final song, "A Canticle To The Waterbirds" is 23 minutes long, the music loosely based on a traditional folk melody. An epic ending to an evocative disc.

MPEG stream: Red Sky At Morning
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The latest from the ever so prolific Smolken, AKA Dead Raven Choir, who we haven't heard from in a while, at least as DRC, most likely because he's been spending time recording as Wolfmangler. So makes sense that with his return to the Dead Raven Choir monicker, along with him came some sonic vestiges from his time exploring a depper darker blackness in Wolfmangler. Which is fine with us. The darker the better. Selenoclast Wolves, much like past DRC efforts, is a bleak world of dark twangy dirges, abstract acoustic guitars, strummed, plucked, picked, notes hanging in the grey air, beneath strange spoken soliloquies, slippery upright bass, sweet female vocals, creaking strings, mournful piano, the whole record swathed in a suffocatingly sorrowful ambience. Like Jandek on Peyote, left to wander aimlessly through some alien soundscape, or to trudge wearily through the fiery underworld. A stumbling detuned free folk smotherd in blackness and left to wither and die. So totally creepy and really frikkin' weird.

MPEG stream: January
MPEG stream: Corpse-Washing
MPEG stream: A Sibyl + The Lunatics

Polish Texan avant folk experimentalist Smolken has released three cd-rs so far of his Dead Raven Choir output on the Jewelled Antler label. Now DRC makes an appearance on Jewelled Antler side-imprint Pink Skulls, with a disc that is just too nasty and noisy to fit in with the JA aesthetic... With "Sevenfold Songs Of Death" he really indulges his black metal inspired side, resulting in 32 minutes of what might be called noise-folk. It's as if you took all the most raw, distorted, shrill, buzzy, chaotically noisy parts of your favorite black metal albums, cranked 'em up to 11, and tried to pass it off as folk music (supposedly, all words and music here, with the exception of one song, are "traditional"). Sure, Smolken and his friends are playing mandolin and banjo and percussion, but all that's buried beneath so much grinding hiss and drone that if you listen to this at more than the barest, most minute volume you'll endanger your ears/lease/stereo/sanity (not necessarily in that order). A low volume, you can make out the folky melodies and scary vocals. Turn it up at all, and it's like Merzbow meets Abigor meets Kemialliset Ystavat... More evil atmosphere than even Abruptum, seriously. Apparently, this was originally intended for an aborted split release with AQ black metal fave Leviathan, and we'd have to say that Leviathan's probably lucky that he didn't have to go up against this!

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Another transmission from the Dead Raven Choir, the work of a Polish ex-patriate Texan who calls himself Smolken. Followers will understand when we say that this falls into the sparse, dramatic folk half of his ouvre, rather than on the black metal noise folk side of things. Whispered, accented vox deliver the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Hilaire Beloc, Charles Baudelaire, A.A. Milne and others over doleful strings and abstractly strummed guitar. Smolken seems to be a creepy, well-read Eastern-European version of Jandek, and he's a master of atmosphere, going totally over the top with minimal means. Every note played, and every hiss between notes, turns the blood colder. If an album could sound cursed, this is it. Fans will of course pick this up, but if you haven't yet delved into Smolken's haunted sound-world, perhaps this is the one to try. For one thing, it's the man's first 'proper' cd after many cd-rs and tapes. And one of his best album titles too! The clincher, perhaps, is that aside from Smolken himself, the only other musician to appear on this recording is our friend, Jewelled Antler stalwart Glenn Donaldson (Thuja, Blithe Sons, Birdtree, Skygreen Leopards, etc.). Ever since, he's had a hollow look in his eyes and his beard seems paler and wispier... Or so we imagine.

MPEG stream: The Kings Of The World Are Growing Old
MPEG stream: The Owls

One of our all time absolute favorite outsider weirdo black metal records, long out of print on cd, with no plans to re-press, is finally available again, on cassette, for a super limited time. If you missed out on the cd, don't blow it again (and new 2cd coming soon on Andee's tUMULt label)... When it comes to black metal, our tastes most definitely run� toward the damaged, the demented, the fried and freaked out, the totally baffling, the weirder the better. And there's no shortage of black metal misanthropes, holed up in their caves, or their cabins, or their flats, or their grandfathers' basements, meticulously crafting, ultra personal, maddeningly idiosyncratic outsider black metal. And we are constantly digging for more. The bar has been set pretty high, Benighted Leams obviously, the reigning champions of damaged outsider black metal, then there's Furze and his�'cogent black metal necrosis', let's not forget Emit, Rehtaf Ruo, Necrofrost, Hidden, Vorak, Contra Ignem Fatuum and the elusive Striborg. Phew. That's a pretty heady constellation of bizarre black metal royalty, for sure. So you know, that it is not without some serious soul searching that we would dare declare a record quite possibly the weirdest black metal record ever. But we have searched, and it is thus. Dead Reptile Shrine, from Finland, the record is A Journey Through Darkened Forests and it does indeed sound just like that. We had practically given up on getting these for the store, Andee had even contacted the band about re-issuing the disc in the states, but luckily we discovered a distributor in Australia who had 30 copies and we took all of them. Now the cd is gone, and while they last we have the tape version... Hmmm. Finland to Australia to the United States, a long journey but it was well worth it we think. Everything about this band is bizarre, the name obviously, the song titles: "A Cave Full Of Corpse Lanterns", "The Snakes Of The Earth Pt. II", "Exekutioner Of The Final Solution", "Above The Ziggurat They Dance", "Clouds Of Doom Gather..." and of course "A Beastcults Procession", the artwork, an appropriately illegible band logo and album title, both peppered with eagles and stars and scorpions as well as loads of squiggles, the band photo of DRC, in a an army jacket, head hung low, hair obscuring his face, in front of what appears to be a huge mound of mud and sticks, with a waving hand emerging from a tiny hole in the mound, and the music, oh the music, so warped and lo-fi, buzzy and doomy and just plain freaky and far fucking out. Wrest from Leviathan bought a copy, and even he could barely handle the Dead Reptile Shrine, which speaks volumes!� A stumbling, staggering black metal buzz, struggling through walls of haze and fuzz, sounds a bit like a Burzum record with someone constantly fiddling with the pitch control, a warbly seasick black droning whir, with splattery drums, clanging super loud cymbals, and some of the weirdest vocals ever, going from the evil black metal rasp, to an atonal Jandekian croon, to a strange falsetto, to a warm whiskey soaked growl, often within the same song, sometimes within the same line! The entire record is murky and thick with oozing black atmosphere, some songs are loping doom dirges, others race along at breakneck (for DRS at least) speeds, threatening to fall apart completely, riffs sometimes stumble to a halt, before lurching back into action, rhythms stutter, pause, leap forward, the vocals a chaotic swirl around the rickety song structures, minor key melodies and woozy guitars tangle and untangle as the songs slither and slide, leap and careen wildly, there are warbly mumbly soundscapes of droning rumble and otherworldly creaks and groans, tracks of spoken word over chanting monks, an electronic beatscape with garbled growls and haunting clean vocals, even a couple�bizarre acoustic tracks, one with throaty crooned vocals and deliberately strummed steel string guitar, some sort of Jandekian forest folk, with a riff that almost sounds like Nirvana. In fact the forest folk tag is not that far off really. Must be something in the Finnish atmosphere, but without the vocals, huge swaths of Dead Reptile Shrine could be some lost Uton or Avarus recording, or a furtively captured Tivol live session, and yet even with the vocals it still retains some haunting wild woods feral feeling. A Journey Through The Darkest Of Forests is indeed a fearful traipse through a black forest, the overhanging trees blotting out the moonlight, the sounds of the forest a murky buzz, insects and demons, wild beasts and lost souls. A baffling and frightening sonic world that should appeal to metalhead and free folkie alike.� This tape is super limited (300 copies we think) and will be gone in a flash.... We have a bunch, but we're not sure we'll ever be able to get more...

MPEG stream: Bones In The Dungeon
MPEG stream: A Cave Full Of Corpse Lanterns
MPEG stream: Fire And Flame

More damaged demented Finnish madness from outsider black metal weirdos Dead Reptile Shrine. We only got EIGHT copies of this, so we won't bother going into too much detail as we tried to order three times that. Needless to say, this is fucking unhinged and completely brilliant. From the first track, a lurching soundfield of disembodied vocals, a strangled evil mewling, and chunks of downtuned guitar, spread out into a weird slow motion staccato rhythms, it just gets more and more amazingly confusional. After that, the band lurch wildly from slithering doom metal beneath wailing vocals that squeal, howl, wail and moan, the rhythms convoluted, the guitars a rumbling buzz, to thrashing raw grim buzz, still peppered with stumbling drums and bizarre over the top vocals. Might be ultra weird, but it also might be DRS at their heaviest as well... Again, we only got 8 copies, so be prepared to leave Dead Reptile Shrine-less (or better yet, grab the other DRS cassette we're listing elsewhere on this week's list).

We're always �going on and on about the weirdest, most fucked up black metal bands ever, even elsewhere on this list, we review the new one from Tasmanian one man band Striborg, and declare it maybe the weirdest yet. But there's weird, and then there's Dead Reptile Shrine, who beyond being weird, are barely even black metal, the metallic elements far outweighed by the fractured folk and total whatthefuck elements, and the blackness, well that infuses pretty much every sound they produce, just not in the way most folks are used to or most metalheads want. Instead, DRS do their own thing, and their own thing is some fucked up mix of dark dronemusic, detuned free folk, stumbling chaotic black metal, some orchestral bits, tortured vocals, all wound into a confusional world of black rituals and mysterious sonic otherworlds. While we anxiously await the forth coming double cd on tUMULt, we have THREE new tapes to tide us over, two reissue of long out of print rarities, and another brand new album, to be released soon on cd and vinyl as well, but for now on the oh so cult cassette format. Each of these is limited to 400 copies, we got a bunch, 30 or so, but odds are those will go fast and we probably won't be able to get more. Burning Black Intensity is the new album, and offers up a taste of what will be found on the soon to come sprawling tUMULt 2cd full length, and if BBI is any indication, then two whole cds of this stuff is going to DESTROY. This record begins with some creepy, orchestral Peter And The Wolf type sounds, strings and percussion, sampled we assume, while DRS croon over the top, offering up wavery clean vocals, strange incantations, and various other vocalizations, the result is truly twisted. This goes on for several tracks before the band launch into some black metal, but DRS black metal is a whole other thing, the drums buried in the mix, barely audible, the guitars strangled, and gnarled, buzzing, blurred and murky, dueling vocals, one a high howled screech, the other a rumbling demonic gurgle, both drenched in reverb, both howling maniacally, and relentlessly, while the guitars churn and the drums stumble, the whole thing lurching drunkenly, super raw and primitive and lo-fi and fractured and FUCKED for sure. The next track demonstrates that no matter how weird it gets, everything they do is deliberate, the guitars are thick and fuzzy, the drums simple but propulsive, the riff a near static black groove, the bass, pulsing and undulating, more typical black metal vocals screeching over the top, while way in the distance a voice shrieks hysterically, the two vocals all tangled up, the guitar spewing forth a super mesmerizing singular riff, totally hypnotic and trancelike, the vocals growing more and more unhinged. The next track is a murky muddy Wold style soundscape, melodies and guitars smeared and blurred into bleary eyed streaks of sound, the vocals an ominous rumble, the drums a chaotic blast beat, while the guitars swoon woozily, the whole track dizzy and druggy and weirdly dreamlike, the vocal eventually growing more and more warped, almost cartoonish, sing songy and almost operatic, wrapped in fluttery flutes and more distorted soft buzz. Needless to say, this is brilliantly twisted stuff, totally wacked, outsider blackness, as true as any of the more classically TROO black metal, but unlike those, DRS are true only to themselves, any resemblance between their music and other black metal is not only coincidental it's a fluke, as most of this sounds like nothing you've ever heard.

We're always going on and on about the weirdest, most fucked up black metal bands ever, even elsewhere on this list, we review the new one from Tasmanian one man band Striborg, and declare it maybe the weirdest yet. But there's weird, and then there's Dead Reptile Shrine, who beyond being weird, are barely even black metal, the metallic elements far outweighed by the fractured folk and total whatthefuck elements, and the blackness, well that infuses pretty much every sound they produce, just not in the way most folks are used to or most metalheads want. Instead, DRS do their own thing, and their own thing is some fucked up mix of dark dronemusic, detuned free folk, stumbling chaotic black metal, some orchestral bits, tortured vocals, all wound into a confusional world of black rituals and mysterious sonic otherworlds. While we anxiously await the forth coming double cd on tUMULt, we have THREE new tapes to tide us over, two reissue of long out of print rarities, and another brand new album, to be released soon on cd and vinyl as well, but for now on the oh so cult cassette format. Each of these is limited to 400 copies, we got a bunch, 30 or so, but odds are those will go fast and we probably won't be able to get more. Isth Naral Ja was one of two full lengths released in 2002, but whereas N.t.K. was a proper DRS release, Isth Naral Ja was a three track, 65 minute, all ambient record, originally given away with another disc, and later reissued, but both times in incredible limited amounts. While much of DRS's output is truly twisted, sometimes to the point of sounding a bit goofy to the untrained ear, the sounds found on Isth, while still twisted, are woven into what seems to be a much more serious soundworld. Epic sprawling expanses of whirring low end, deep throbbing bass, strange disembodied voices, fractured truncated guitar melodies, very haunting and peculiar, incantations surface throughout, long long long streaks of sound, trance inducing minimal rumbles, hissing almost industrial high end, long stretches of hushed murmured blackness, that bass pulse creepy and recurring, the whole thing very cinematic and evocative of some grim black wood, or some abandoned house, or some vast black sea, seemingly serene on the surface, but with who knows lurking beneath. Isth manages the difficult task of being twisted and strange, haunting and mysterious, still embodying the musical ethos of Dead Reptile Shrine, while pushing the sound into new directions, without losing any of its power, any of its mystery, its blackness. Whereas other DRS records are most definitely an acquired taste, this disc, while definitely still essential listening for DRS fans, would most definitely please the abstract drone and cd-r crowds. Tunnels, Bones Of Seabirds, Drommer, Expo '70, Nordvargr, Acre, Bonus, Encomiast, Starving Weirdos, Metal Rouge, Trollmann, folks who dig any or all of those might just dig this particular chunk of Dead Reptile Shrine black ambience.

We're always �going on and on about the weirdest, most fucked up black metal bands ever, even elsewhere on this list, we review the new one from Tsmanian one man band Striborg, and declare it maybe the weirdest yet. But there's weird, and then there's Dead Reptile Shrine, who beyond being weird, are barely even black metal, the metallic elements far outweighed by the fractured folk and total whtthefuck elements, and the blackness, well that infuses pretty much every sound they produce, just not in the way most folks are used to or most metalheads want. Instead, DRS do their own thing, and their own thing is some fucked up mix of dark dronemusic, detuned free folk, stumbling chaotic black metal, some orchestral bits, tortured vocals, all wound into a confusional world of black rituals and mysterious sonic otherworlds. While we anxiously await the forth coming double cd on tUMULt, we have THREE new tapes to tide us over, two reissue of long out of print rarities, and another brand new album, to be released soon on cd and vinyl as well, but for now on the oh so cult cassette format. Each of these is limited to 400 copies, we got a bunch, 30 or so, but odds are those will go fast and we probably won't be able to get more. N.t.K was one of two full lengths released in 2002, originally a super limited cd-r, and yet another piece of the missing pieces puzzle that is the bizarre soundworld of Dead Reptile Shrine. The opener is a super creepy slab of ritualistic drone, the low end drenched in hiss and disrtortion, the vocals a harsh whisper, seriously haunting and intense, a murky mystery that soon gives way to a more 'traditional' DRS, a fractured buzz drenched fragmented black metal, ultra lo-fi, the guitars so distorted they almost sound like a solid hum, the drums a buried muffled thump, the vocals harsh and venomous, until they shift gears and become swoonsome wailing, the sound more Urfaust or Jandek, a wailing clean voice that goes from deep bellow to off kilter howl, as fucked up and out there as the music behind it. Later, the sound veers into all sorts of unimaginable territories, one track offers up a weird almost bouncy stumble, with sing songy clean vocals, underpinned by a super creepy death metal gurgle, the track like some blackened chunk of French outsider new wave, the vocals slipping from hysterical shriek a sort of creepy scatting, another track unleashes some super grim, old school raw plodding black metal, like Darkthrone and Von, but filtered through a broken boombox and a fractured psyche, while still another is a gorgeous black folk drift, all muted strum and mumbled melody, before it suddenly transforms into a stuttering dizzying off kilter doom, with some deep demonic vocals that sound almost like Darth Vader, and another sounds almost like crusty punk, pounding riffage and simple drumming and weird nasally punk rock vocals. It's all over the place, but some twisted black thread holds it all together. We've mentioned it time and time again, but the music of Dead Reptile Shrine is not for the faint of heart, or even the black of soul, it's for the twisted, the warped, the musical misanthropes, in search of sounds mysterious and baffling, and no band was ever more of both than DRS.

We talk quite a bit about our favorite weirdest black metal bands here: Furze, Necrofrost, Spektr, Striborg, Circle Of Ouroborus, Benighted Leams. Urfaust, Rehtaf Ruo, Wold, the weirder the better. But one of the weirdest, and most amazing, hails from Finland, the home to most of our favorite weird music, black metal or otherwise, and goes by the curious monicker Dead Reptile Shrine. With only one full length (now sadly out of print, with no plans to repress) and one split (with fellow Finnish BM weirdoes Torturium), and a bunch of impossible to find cd-r's, this might just be the year of the Dead Reptile Shrine. A new cd coming on Skulls Of Heaven (the label run by the guys in Davenport) as well as a new DOUBLE cd coming out on our own Andee's tUMULt label, but until then, we've got this super limited tape to tide us over. Sabbat is not so much a proper DRS album as it is some sort of black pagan ritual, a sonic incantation to the dark spirits, incorporating feedback, samples, bits of metal bowed and struck, percussion, as well as random bits of electronic interference and damaged tape manipulation. On first listen, this could be lumped in with other noiserockers, Merzbow, Wolf Eyes and the like. But this is Dead Reptile Shrine, their approach to noise is unlike the others', this is black, but not black metal, this is some pagan ritual performed in a forest clearing, beneath a sky rife with falling stars, the moonlight painting the trees silver, the sound coming out of busted amps and rusted speakers, glowing like some portal to hell. Thick squalls of detuned guitar and amp buzz, blown out fuzz and murky low end rumble, twisted into strange and haunting shapes, beneath it all, a gentle stream of plinking plonking FX, whispery whirs and outer space warble, rhythms surface and drift apart, drones explode into jagged shards of white noise before settling back into a cavernous throb. Strange incantations, snippets of schoolyard song, intercepted radio broadcasts, all tangled up into super distorted riffing, and bursts of abstract guitar growl. Freaked out and FUCKING AWESOME!!! LIMITED TO 166 COPIES. Not sure if we'll be able to get more once these are gone....

We've established that Finland is a strange place. And it's a strange place that produces some seriously strange sounds. None stranger we think than weirdo (sort of) black metal horde Dead Reptile Shrine. And placing them at the top of the fucked up and freaky Finnish music heap is definitely saying something. Especially when you consider that means they are outweirding: Circle Of Ouroborus, Aanal Beehemoth, Circle, Aavikko, Cleaning Women, Jumalhamara, Keuhkot, Nightsatan, Oranssi Pazuzu, Ride For Revenge, Will Over Matter, and that's just scratching the surface. And those last two should really make it clear just how baffling these guys are, cuz as far as we're concerned, Ride For Revenge / Will Over Matter are like the pinnacle for fucked up Finnish weirdness, that is except for Dead Reptile Shrine. The Sun Of Circles And Wood was originally slated to be a double cd on Andee's tUMULt label (and hopefully still will be), is now available as a massive double lp, released by the super cool Weird Forest label. And if you think Weird Forest is kind of a strange label for a Finnish black metal band, you probably haven't heard Dead Reptile Shrine, who are only sort of a black metal band much of the time, in fact, they are like Circle Of Ouroborus in that respect, beloved by almost every black metaller we know, but sonically, often about as far removed from actual black metal as you can get. Just check out the 11 minute opener, "Summoner Of Clarity", which does contain some riffs, some subtly blackened buzz, but it sounds more like some sort of twisted No Neck Blues Band / Avarus jam than any black metal we've heard. the riffing chugs along for a minute before fading out, and then returning a few seconds later, seeming to offer more texture than anything, while multiple voices moan and chant, intoning ominously over pulsing electronics, a fuzzy low end synth, rumbling and undulating, peppered with haunting melodies, atonal and abstract, there are bird sounds, bits of buzz and hum, the sound seeming to melt into a woozy swirl, we just realized those bird sounds were actually just the vocalist 'caw'ing, the synths shimming, weaving dreamy crystalline melodies over that buzzing pulse, and those haunting vox, it never explodes into a burst of black buzz, or a churning doomy pound, it just sort of hums and shimmers and eventually blinks out. And the Dead Reptile ritual has begun! Probably a bit of overkill to go track by track, there are TWENTY after all, spread out over 4 sides, and while the next track opens up with some serious guitar buzz, it's abstract, and the riffage sprawls and oozes and weaves a bombinating backdrop for more strange chanting. It occurs to us that really anybody who loves Circle Of Ouroborus, should really love these guys too, especially if they're after something a bit less overtly folky, and more weirdly ritualistic. And when the band does dip into some 'proper' black metal, like on "Blasphemous Cover" it sounds downright demented, blorpy basslines, detuned guitars, stumbling off time drumming, maniacal strangled mewling vocals, the song lurching and lumbering, like a black metal Shaggs, so totally 'off' and twisted and whatthefuck it almost makes your eyes water. Elsewhere the band explore some meandering clean guitar doom, which definitely suits them, again all woozy and stumbly, definitely reminiscent of German 'wooden metal' outfit Varghkoghargasmal, the song still driven by chanting, and some demonic croaked vokills as well, the guitars warm and buzzy and almost krautrocky, but still totally fractured and fucked up. And so it goes, the record veering wildly all over the sonic map but definitely dipping heavily into black metal, at least various twisted Finnish outsider strains of black metal. "Forcefield Across Odensland" is a sort of buzzing post rock, with some seriously fucked up vocals, and some of the most awesomely constantly shifting tempos ever, "Walking Under The Winter Sun", is a blast of blown out blackness, oozing with strange effects, sounding almost like black metal Butthole Surfers, but insanely blown out and lo-fi, "Beholding The Necrocult Relic" is a gorgeous stretch of medieval sounding synthscapery, "Solstice D'Hiver" might be our favorite 'black metal' jam here, the drums tinny and lo-fi, the guitars so muted they're barely audible, the vocals, crazy, on of them a wild falsetto shriek, all over this strange skeletal muted barely there blast. So weird and so INCREDIBLE. And that's just the first lp! The second one starts out all loping slowcore post rock, with some ominous dramatic crooning vox, some spidery guitar melodies, still more chanting, lots of feedback, before launching into a cool droned out raga, all deep vocal drones and sitar like buzz, which leads directly into some stumbling demented, strangely melodic doom, which in turn leads directly into some blurred blackness, that is about as traditionally old school black metal as these guys get, mostly cuz it's all a buzzing black blur. From there on out, it's a series of twisted blackened missives, slipping (un)easily from abstract experimental ambience, to churning punky chant flecked blackened noise, from weird almost new wave sounding lo-fi dirgery, to tripped out almost dubby spaciness, and from chaotic abstract ritualism to stumbling, atonal, almost catchy weirdo new wave blackened pop, which finishes things off. Needless to say this stuff is fucking NUTS, and absolutely RULES. Circle Of Ouroborus fans line up, and anyone who like us, loves Finnish weirdness, and demented blackness, this is about as good as it gets! LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! Housed in a super swank, full color gatefold jacket.

MPEG stream: Summoner Of Clarity
MPEG stream: Weapon, Crucifixion And Drowning
MPEG stream: Blasphemous Coven
MPEG stream: Throne Of Stone
MPEG stream: Summer Forest's Magic
MPEG stream: Our Enemies Face Misery And Oblivion
MPEG stream: Through The Gleaming Darkness Into Eternity

Apolgies to all who fell under the spell of the beautiful and bizarre Dead Reptile Shrine. As we mentioned in our review of their cd a few lists back, we were only able to get 30 copies, and judging from the universal freakout we probably should have had 100 or so. We're still trying to track more of those down, thanks to the folks who have been waiting patiently. But to tide you over, we got a whole bunch of this brand new release, a super limited (of course, only 500 copies) split lp with their Finnish black metal brethren in Torturium. Hard to describe Dead Reptile Shrine. Weird. Wonderfully weird, check the review of the DRS cd elsewhere on the AQ site for the full skinny, needless to say, fans of the demented damaged side of black metal a la Benighted Leams, Striborg, Furze, Urfaust and the like will fall hard for Dead Reptile Shrine. On this 12", DRS fill their side to overflowing with what might be described as Jandekian black metal, super lo-fi, tortured riffing, howling anguished wails over mumbled sing songy vocals, the whole thing produced in this really strange way that makes it sound almost like Darkthrone recording in a submarine fronted by dueling vocalists Mark E. Smith and Blixa Bargeld. Woah. There's a brief interlude of creepy ambience, like the muffled sound from some forties news reel filmstrip, all crackly and antiquated, sounding a bit like Jeck or Basinski, but surrounded on every side by deep ravines of ultra personal black metal stumble and rrrroooaaar. Fellow Finns Torturium are a bit more traditional, with a blown out super distorted Viking tinged old school thrash sound, with creepy stretches of reverb drenched ambience and completely INSANE shrieking vocals, somewhere between, Urfaust, Weakling and Bathtub Shitter (!). Occasionally proceedings stumble and slow to a drowsy druggy sludge, there's even a bit that sounds quite Eastern with weird modal guitar figures over warped and warbling riffs. Killer stuff. Packaged in a cool black and white sleeve, with a full size insert / lyric sheet. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. WE GOT 30, AND WON'T BE ABLE TO GET MORE.

We've long been obsessed with a black metal band simply called The Stone, from Serbia, but we've never been able to get enough of their records to list, and we recently got turned on to a Stone side project called May Result, who we'll have to track down for the list one of these days. And this, the debut from Dead Shell Of Universe is yet another offshoot of The Stone, but these guys are doing something much more dissonant, and frankly a little French sounding. Which as far as we're concerned is most definitely a good thing. Avant post black metal or whatever you want to call it, spaced out spidery post rock guitar lines, furious buzzing dissonance, frenzied blast beats, and super twisted and complex arrangements. Hearing a little Deathspell, yep, and also a little Spektr and some Blut Aus Nord too, but with less of an industrial angle and more of a blackened twisted psychedelic vibe. Three songs, the shortest one just about 9 minutes, the longest a little over 13, each one a multi part epic, that deftly shifts from grinding black fury to midtempo downtuned crunch, with vocals that go from wild banshee shriek to haunting Viking croon and back again in the midst of mere seconds. The riffing is super tight and definitely catchy. The first track does splinter off into woozy atonal near ambient interludes, the drums spitting out skittery almost tribal flurries, sometime slipping into some strange woozy doom, shot through with strange chords and slippery melodies, before erupting into another blast of blackened chaos. The second track is even more complex, with some of the most amazing drumming in ages, furious and impossibly fast, skittery and off kilter one second pounding and precise the next, locked in tight with the riffs as they continuously stop and start, change tempos in a heart beat, explode into blasting buzz and dissipate into a spaced out sort of doomy lurch, finishing off with what can only be described as classic Satyricon pulled apart into a strange looped clanging chords, while beneath the drums never stop their relentless pound. The record finishes off with a strange sort of industrial dirgescape, all glitched out electronics submerged in strange metallic rhythms and shortwave buzz, distant downcast piano, soaring faux strings, climaxing with a squall of processed cymbal sizzle, chopped and looped voices, and wavery layered drones. It's really only two proper songs, but they're so dense and so packed with parts and riffs and rhythms and changes and textures, that we're not sure we could handle any more than 2. But whenever they're ready we're happy to try. Now to track down The Stone...

MPEG stream: Sanjar
MPEG stream: Tamo Gde Pupoljak Vene

Deadwood the group, existed long before the HBO series of the same name, but it some ways, they have a lot in common, mostly in the bleak, hopeless, windblown vibe that permeates them both. Featuring a member of Swedish black metal horde and long time AQ faves Blodulv, Deadwood offer up extended tracks of ultra creepy low end explorations, that run the gamut from abrasive power electronics, to slithering drone drenched black ambience. Fans of stuff like MZ412 and other purveyors of bleak abstract sounds will definitely dig this. From thick squalls of white noise hiss, like rain on a metal barn roof, to super blown out Merzbowian hiss, almost black metal in its buzz and intensity, to crumbling landscapes of tape hiss and low end rumble, slowed down vocals, and mumbled scrape and shimmer, to strange murky tribalism, to skipping soundscapes of demonic vocals and ultra distorted slowed down beats, to decayed orchestral snippets chopped and looped into impossibly mesmerizing rhythms, a dark and damaged world of sound, though while at its heaviest could be the harshest, hissiest BM you've ever heard, spends most of its time crawling and lurching through slow motion fields of rumbling sound. Awesome.

MPEG stream: Antabus
MPEG stream: Crushing On

After originally surfacing on a very limited hand xeroxed cassette back in 2010 (kvlt!), Deafheaven's first and only demo is now finally widely accessible on beautiful vinyl for rabid blackgaze enthusiasts the world over! Beautifully and minimally packaged (looking a bit like some long lost Smiths single), the recordings found herein - though a bit rougher around the edges perhaps than their most recent 'Sunbather' LP - showcase one of those rare groups that entirely skipped that awkward gestation period that even the best bands typically go through. There's no finding their footing going on here, no beginner's mistakes - Deafheaven's signature sound was already as fully formed and realized as most bands could hope for after years together. If you've heard any of Deafheaven's more recent recordings then you know what to expect: Epic post rock and shoegaze tinged black metal. Equal parts forlorn and life-affirming, aching and jubilant. Endlessly beautiful cascading melodies to get lost in, perfectly juxtaposed with anguished venomous vocals. Wonderfully bittersweet but without ever sacrificing an ounce of fury. Being a demo, this finds the band a bit looser and (comparatively) more stripped down. The drumming is more raucous and off kilter than on Sunbather - the blastbeats imbued with a manic, almost uncontrollable energy - while likewise the guitars are less awash in layers and effects, a bit more traditionally black metal if you will! But it only adds to urgency and raw emotion on display. Deathwish snatched up Deafheaven in the blink of an eye after this demo started making the rounds originally, and it's not hard to see why. The origin point for a totally unique vision in heavy music - one that hopefully lasts a good long while. And did we mention they're from right around the corner from us too? ...Not that we're bragging or anything!

Deafheaven are a new band from right here in the Bay Area, who have been causing quite a stir lately in the metal underground, their soaring epic, super melodic black metal dividing the grim hordes right down the middle. Obviously, purists don't consider this to be black metal at all, which in some ways is fair, just listen to the opening 4 minutes of record opener "Violet", there's not a trace of blackness to be found, instead, you'll here Explosions In The Sky, Godspeed, Mogwai, majestic, bombastic, melodic, gorgeously lush and expansive. But then wait a few more seconds... and BAM, the band EXPLODE in a frenzy of buzzing and pounding blackend crush, rife with howled vokills, gnarled riffage, and there's no doubt that this is black metal, but not Immortal / Mayhem / Darkthrone black metal, no, it's more in line with the more melodic end of the BM spectrum, think Alcest, Fell Voices, Fauna, Wolves In The Throne Room, Deafheaven definitely have that Cascadian BM vibe going on too, but all of their blackness and buzz is most definitely tempered with heaping helpings of melody. Even at its most frenzied, Deafheaven essentially sound like Mogwai or EITS supercharged and metallized, it's still soaring and epic and majestic, just wrapped in thick swirling sheets of black metal buzz, and hell, it sounds pretty goddamn amazing. The production is lush, the sound MASSIVE, the guitars thick and distorted, except when they're ringing out all clear and chiming, the arrangements are pretty expansive and epic too, blasting buzz giving way to droned out drift, which in turn gives way to another blast of furious melodic blackness. Just four tracks, but they're all long, lots of parts, all moody and melodic, a dizzying hybrid of black metal, screamo and post rock, reminds us a little of a WAY more metal version of recent Record Of The Week-ers Pianos Become The Teeth, but where that band melded old school screamo to epic post rock, Deafheaven do the same with buzzing melodic black metal, the result, while perhaps not grim enough for some, is pretty tough to resist. And while we love how the songs shift from slow build brood to black blast, and back again, the real magic of Deafheaven is how they combine the two, taking churning buzzing blackness and laying some soaring coruscating shoegazey guitar chords over the top, or winding majestic, chiming, impossibly melancholic clean guitar melodies and lush textures into howling vokills and grinding black riffage, and while in battles between good and evil, we usually bet black, in this case, melody always seems to prevail, transforming what could have been just another chunk of blasting buzz into something gorgeous and transcendental.

MPEG stream: Violet
MPEG stream: Language Games

Album number two from these local lads and the term "sophomore slump" has clearly never entered into their lexicon. Sunbather is an enormous slab of post-rock tinged black metal (or black metal tinged post-rock??) that expands and improves upon everything that made Roads to Judah such a buzzed about debut. Imagine Godspeed! You Black Emperor in a blender with Filosofem-era Burzum and you might get an idea. Or try and picture Ihsahn circa In the Nightside Eclipse howling over classic Smiths or U2 at a hyperspeed 666rpm and you might come even closer. The end result is like a far more furious Alcest (Neige even pops up to provide a bit of spoken word on one of the album's several ethereal interlude tracks). But what really makes Sunbather such a success is how it takes these myriad influences and melds them together so seamlessly. Not a moment of it sounds forced or contrived. The production is perfect. The guitars are an immense wall of grinding shimmering beauty. The drums a precise and deadly frenzy. The vocals an anguished wail, wonderfully at odds with the album's minimal luscious pink cover art. Sunbather is like hearing an emerging genre finally coming into its own. Deafheaven aren't the only band to combine post-rock and black metal, but they might be the first band to make it sound like something entirely new, but entirely natural at the same time. Vinyl version, with a nice die-cut cover, includes bonus track not on cd (which we don't have yet anyway).

MPEG stream: Dream House
MPEG stream: Sunbather
MPEG stream: Vertigo