This is full length number SIX (!) from this Israeli one man black metal band, and regular readers of the list might remember that we recently reviewed his Joy Division tribute (of which we have a few copies left), and while there were moments of black buzz throughout, it was fought to get a measure of what Die Entweihung actually sounded like until now. And it's not hard to see why he might end up wanting to make a tribute to Joy Division, as his sonic palette is dour and gothic, heavy on the minor key miserablism and the synths, in fact, the synths are mixed SUPER loud, so much so that it gives the proceedings a pretty demented/damaged vibe, like some sort of blackened "Final Countdown", but it's even cooler when the guitar slips into some metallic shred, and the synths and guitar get locked in strange harmonies and at times seem to duel. The programmed drums too add their own dimension, and when the keyboards pull back, the guitars crank and get super heavy, just check out the first sample, and you get a little bit of everything, even when the synth swoops back in and is laid over the loud synths, dizzying and WTF, but pretty killer too. And that's just the first track. From there on out, it's a constant battle between the manic riffing, the soaring synths, gurgling vocals, frantic drum programming, some killer riffing, dense intricate arrangements, the sound grim and blackened part of the time, almost psychedelic part of the time, and on tracks like "Time" it gets almost proggy, like some sort of psychedelic, depressive black prog, which as you might imagine, we dig a BUNCH.
There's even a Summoning cover, "Lugburz" (also the name of one of Andee's cats btw), which deftly captures the spirit of the original, and recasts it as a perfect Die Entweihung track, the synths dialed a bit back, but otherwise, a gloriously epic and majestic slab of lumbering, Tolkeinesque doom black metal buzz.
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!!
We're always psyched on checking out black metal from places we don't normally associate with that sort of sound, whether it be Iceland or China, Iraq or India. There seems to be quite a metal underground happening in Israel too, with Arallu and Melechesh being some of the more well known outfits...
But there are plenty of other groups worth checking out, Salem for one (not to be confused with the witch house outfit), Geist (whose new record is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), and now these guys, brought to us but kick ass Israeli label Total Rust. R.U.S.T. is the debut release from this Israeli horde, who traffic in a seriously catchy and kick ass strain of old school orthodox blackness, heavy on the blasting and buzzing obviously, but equally heavy on the melody, which makes Dim Aura's sound totally reminiscent of the first and second waves of Scandinavian black metal. Not inventing the metal wheel by any stretch, but playing classic BM with a passion and energy that takes what could be a tired rehash and transforms it into something fierce and epic, catchy as fuck, rife with galloping tempos, awesome shrieked vokills, wild dense drumming, some seriously ruling riffs, plenty of classic metal-isms and epic melodies too, all wound into the otherwise roiling blackness, plus lots of midtempo stretches where the band dial back the blackness a bit and get downright riffy and groovy (reminding us of Khold at times), but the songs never seem to stray too far from their furious black buzz core. Awesome.
From the same label that brought us recent bouts of brilliantly fucked black metal from Wolok and Lorn as well as classic releases from Blodulv and Glorior Belli comes this killer split, featuring two grim legends from the Swedish black metal underground.
The awesomely named Dimhymn do some impossible to describe black doom classic rock? Or something. Not sure what else to call it. Super blown out distorted black chug, haunting high end guitar licks, and incredibly catchy little bridges, a plodding dirge that sort of lopes along before the music suddenly screeches to a halt and is replaced by some classical piano, only to immediately be stomped on by a huge black cloud. A massive furious riffy freakout, guitars in the red and crumbling all over the place. The drums so hot that the cymbals' sizzle threaten to overwhelm everything. And before you know it the music blinks out again and in its place a haunting alien ambience that bloops and bleeps before once again the blackness descends. The song ends with mournful reverbed trumpet that sort of drifts off into the ether. WHAT THE FUCK? So awesome.
The second track is a huge chunk of black drone, pointillist piano dropped into a bleak soundscape of thick grinding fuzz and insect like melodies.
The final track starts off with melancholy guitar melodies before launching into a SUPER catchy groovy black thrash, with soaring melodies, and massive almost Nirvana like breakdowns, the sound still totally overblown and in the red. And again, the weird reverbed trumpet pops in without any warning, disappearing just as fast. The track ends with more of the classical piano from the first track. Wow. So amazing. We hear lots of weird black metal, but Dimhymn's half of the split has catapulted them damn near right to the front of the fucked black metal line!
Tough to follow up something like that, so fellow Swedes Hypothermia don't try to out-weird Dimhymn, but somehow manage to be just as bizarre but in an entirely different way. Epic fuzzed out glacial dirge, thick riffs spread out in a black smear, the drums a caveman plod, and some of the most fucked vocals ever. From weird, something-caught-in-the-throat sort of strangulated grunts and mewls, to guttural growls that occasionally break into falsetto-y squeaks as if the vocalist hit puberty right in the middle of recording. Sounds funny, but the overall effect is more creepy than anything. The finish the disc off with an epic 16 minute midtempo buzzscape. Looped riffs, totally repetitive and hypnotic, occasionally the drums break into a not-so-fast blast, but for the most part this is drone drenched monochromatic black dirge rock. Almost like a grim black metal Circle, or a blackened Spacemen 3, all stretched out fuzz guitar and endless trancelike riffing. So great.
A pretty much perfect split. Two more impossibly damaged and absolutely essential outsider black metal bands to add to the ever growing list!
Okay, true grim metalheads, scoff all you like, but we can NOT stop listening to this. Not because it's a great black metal record (although it sort of is), in fact, this is barely black metal at all really. There was a time where Dimmu Borgir were Norwegian black metal royalty, but they committed the ultimate offense, which was to become popular, as in mainstream popular. And instead of fighting that popularity, they embraced it, and in the process became even MORE popular. In fact, the new record, at least special versions of it, are only available in your local mall via Hot Topic! And if there's anything less kvlt, we'd be hard pressed to think of it. But. And this is a very big but, for what DB has shed in true black metal cred, and classic black metal sound, they've made up for by transforming into something totally other and else. Sure there's still some blasting beats, some buzzing riffage, sick vokills, but where DB used to employ orchestras and orchestral filigree for bombast, and sheer epicness, that orchestral side of DB seems to have lapped their BM side, and now they sound like a black metal score to the most amazing pirate/adventure/action movie that could never live up to such an epic over the top soundtrack. Which means this is fucking FUN, and ridiculously bombastic, and now the guitars take a back seat to the strings, and you know what? It suits them.
Check out "Born Treacherous", which sounds remarkably like their Norwegian brethren Khold, sort of groovy and grungy, but then the strings come in, and the flutes, the horns, the percussion, but before the can launch into it, the explode into some serious black metal, but even then, that buzz and blast is wrapped in strings and soaring dramatic swells, and there are plenty of stops and starts so the strings can soar dramatically. This is power metal writ WAY over the top, super intricate and proggy and pretty brilliantly orchestrated, but it's not until about halfway through that the brilliance is driven home, by a dizzying breakdown, a super dynamic stop/start interlude, with creaking ship's riggings, chantlike vocals, sampled spoken word, grunting pigs, choirs, even Tuvan throat singing, and then it comes together, descending pizzicato strings, dense swirling swells, launching directly into another almost trad sounding burst of black metal, but again soon the orchestra takes over. It's overwhelming and exhausting and totally thrilling. If we were designing a video game, this record would be the soundtrack, it's so evocative and over the top and you can't help but feel like you should be battling or swashbuckling or something.
And beyond the music, DB always had the craziest outfits, the biggest spikes, the most ridiculous costumes, and for this new record they've totally outdone themselves, ditching black entirely, now clothed entirely in white leather, all dusted with what seems to be powder, strange rams horn helmets, long white leather dusters. Check out the video for "Gateways" on YouTube (it's also included as a bonus here, the special 'cross' digipak version of Abrahadabra, which we'll have til they run out), it's easy to see why these guys are so popular, in fact, it makes us wonder why they're not ever MORE popular. Fuck the boring jeans and sneakers shoegazers, if we pay $20, we want flames, and bigger than life characters, and ridiculous drama, and that's pretty much what you get with Dimmu Borgir, especially on Abrahadabra. AWESOME!
Epic, gothic black metal in the Cradle of Filth vein.
"Eliza, the whore of the night/attends the sabbath, the theatre of lust/The hunter is in the ring, caressing folds of flesh/Diabolical intercourse profound." Words and music with no equal?...from Norway's answer to Cradle of Filth, and one of the most popular metal bands in Europe at present. This ep contains new songs, an Accept cover (!), and some live cuts, eight tracks in total.
You like your metal raging and misanthropic? Probably you do. After all, mellow, have-a-nice-day metal just isn't that popular, we've noticed. Well this second album from up n'coming Moonfog act Disiplin sure as heck ain't filled with a lot of love for their fellow man! Instead these Norwegians are full up with aggression and negativity. A powerful production here showcases Disiplin's violent blend of black and death and thrash metal brutality...thrash blackened thrash! But very modern and mechanized mayhem this is, and unrelenting. Maybe a song will start swith a sample, and/or a few moments of atmospheric string-scrape...however it's not long before you (or the inner demons you intend to exorcise with this particular listening regime) are being trampled by vicious riffage, blasting drums, and the throat-scorching bile-spew of the vocalist. For fans of more recent Satyricon, Myrkskog, Grimfist, Zyklon, etc. Includes bonus video clip for the title track.
It's almost enough for us just to say "new on Moonfog", isn't it? That label, run by Satyr of Satyricon, has definitely become synonymous with quality Norwegian black metal, bringing us both experimental stuff like Dodheimsgard/DHG and the current work of pioneers Darkthrone, with the likes of Thorns and Satyricon themselves bridging the old and new schools. So any new release on Moonfog is certainly worthy of our -- and your -- attention. Disiplin don't fail to meet our expectations. Fierce and raging yet, well, disciplined, Disiplin play black metal heavily infused with the energy and chops of thrash and death metal. Classy and kick-ass. But with just enough strange ambient/industrial/folky weirdness to keep things interesting. This is the band's first release, with guitarist/bassist "General K" having served time in Myrkskog. Guests include ex-Emperors Bard Faust and Zamoth. Folks in desperate need of a Satyricon fix will find everything they've been hankering for on Disiplin's crushing debut.
This Austrian band's earlier records on Napalm *were* truly dismal--and this (their last for the label, before being picked up by the giant Nuclear Blast conglom) may also be tough to stomach, but they're doing the combination of black metal, operatic female vocals and classical passages better than before and I'm sure somebody out there will thrill to the ludicrous bizarreness of it all.
Troo Cvlt types everywhere have been waiting for this, the second "demo" tape from heralded Bay Area black metal / doom artists Dispirit, the band featuring guitarist/vocalist John Gossard, previously of Asunder, The Gault, and most crucially, USBM legends WEAKLING.
The joke around here has always been, Question: Hey, have you seen Dispirit play live? Answer: Yes, well, no, not really - since you usual can't actually SEE them through all the fog they use on stage, putting even SUNNO))) to shame in fog machine abuse. They've got those suckers cranked to 11. And guess what? Their music SOUNDS foggy too.
Once again recorded live at "Oboroten" (presumably, their practice space), here's three more long lo-fi excursions into Dispirit's hazy, obscured world of blackened, doomy, slowcore infused metal. Endless depressive trudge, utterly lugubrious lumbering plodding, with Gossard's anguished vocals (excuse us, vokills) a blown-out despairing howl barely rising above the din... And boy is it mesmeric.
But then a strange thing happens. When you think you have 'em pegged, the shit gets much more metal and gallopy, the vocals more aggro, the riffs sharper, and even squiggly leads emerge (though still cutting through a dense miasmatic murk). Dispirit know how to rip, in their own way, it turns out. Whew! We're even hearing some Sabbath in there.
Side B is back to the slow, sludge trudge, with Dispirits exhalations of doom pretty soon lulling the listener into a trancelike state, the music drifting off on textural, suicidally shoegazy waves of sound, ominous and... oh wait, it's the first song again, turns out "the program is repeated on side B." Aha.
Also not sure what's up with the numbers as the tape title, oh maybe it's the date this was recorded. And the three song titles are given in a tiny, gothic blackletter font that's super hard to read (kinda like on the Weakling cd). Maybe the first song is called "All Baths End The Same"? Or probably it's "Paths" but we like "Baths". Which would go with song two, "Beneath The Waves", pretty sure we got that one right. Then there's "The Drinker" or "The Drifter" or "The Drinser"?? As you can see this music has muddled our minds.
We probably don't even need to bother with a review for this one if we start out with this detail: Dispirit is the latest project from John Gossard, best known as the mastermind behind SF black metal legends Weakling as well as gothed out metallers the Gault and doom merchants Asunder. But that wouldn't be giving something as awesome as this the respect it deserves, because this shit SLAYS. That part probably isn't too much of a surprise. What IS a surprise is how Dispirit can crank out a rehearsal tape that shames pretty much any other black metal band out there today. The lo-fi recording actually works perfectly in establishing an atmosphere that is, yes, grim, but also just HUGE and cavernous sounding, not to mention just plain eerie. The end results are the perfect soundtrack to dying in a mud pit in some war torn hell hole with flames all around. Or a score for the end of the world, civilization crumbling, the world as we know it descending into the pits of hell. We can only wonder what the future holds when this band sets out to make a record proper. No doubt the reason for this cassette's success is the fact that these guys can tear shit up like no one's business. Their use of mournful, heavily sustained guitars will certainly appeal to fans of Weakling, while the plodding doominess that leads these two songs to their furious, blast ridden midsections and majestic outros shows the link to Asunder. In a world where there is simply too much black metal, it's bands like this that make you realize why you became obsessed in the first place. Gossard possesses the perfect black metal vocal style, a terrifying banshee shriek that refuses to be buried beneath the equally impressive relentless instrumentation and blitzkrieg drumming. While retaining the essence of black metal, Dispirit also remain unique and true to themselves with a style of black metal that is distinctly American. Unbelievable stuff.
Here's the new, post-incarceration Dissection "comeback" album that we sorta dissed in our review of the Storm Of The Light's Bane reissue.
Long overdue, super deluxe double disc reissue of this long-time Aquarius favorite / black metal classic. After a not-so-great past few years for Dissection, including a lengthy jail sentence for frontman Jon Nodtveidt, and a recent disappointing 'comeback/reunion' record (not yet reviewed here), this black classic returns to remind us just how mindblowingly kick ass Dissection really were. And while of course this is a fave of all the metalheads around here, and our metal-lovin' customers, it's also loved by the less metal inclined -- for instance, former AQ staffer Byram, not normally a big metal consumer, ranks this as one of his favorites amongst the Nordic hordes. In fact, it's one of the few metal cds in his collection. It's that great. It came out originally in '94, reissued as a digipak a few years back, and now sees a super duper double disc re-release with a whole disc of bonus tracks (more on those later).
With Storm of the Light's Bane, Dissection perfected their melodic, blackened Swedish death metal approach -- that means TRUE, original metal, with elements of everything from Morbid Angel to Mayhem to Iron Maiden, suped-up and super-grim, with raspy vocals, wicked drumming (the guy is AMAZING), truly memorable, majestic melodies, and tons of cold winter atmosphere. They take long breaks to let their acoustic guitars gently weep, then tear back into the brutal, razor-edged rifferama. Serious stuff, seriously great. This was to be their last album, a mighty swan song, as Dissection called it quits soon after when their frontman ended up in jail as accessory to murder -- but their -very- tangential role in any of that over-sensationalized Scandinavian black metal true crime stuff has nothing to do with why you should be interested in this band. Like we said, the band reformed last year when Nodtveidt got out of jail, and just recently released a mediocre new record, but it couldn't hold a candle to Storm Of The Light's Bane, nor could most metal records actually. Dissection was a brilliant band, and Storm of the Light's Bane is an all time classic that belongs in every metal collection. If you haven't already gotten this album, here's your chance. And even if you already have one of the previous versions, the extra disc might make it a necessary repeat purchase.
The second disc is crammed with bonus tracks and unreleased material. First up, the Storm Of The Light's Bane unreleased alternative mix '95, which might have been for completist nerds only, but a closer look reveals an extra track not on the album proper. Then there's two tracks from an unreleased 1994 demo. And finally the Where Dead Angels Lie ep, also remastered. Lots of liner notes and packaged in a spiffy slipcover. SO RECOMMENDED!
Reissue of a long-time Aquarius favorite. Not just of AQ metalheads Andee and Allan, or our metal-lovin' customers, but others on the staff here too -- for instance, Byram, not normally a big metal consumer, ranks this as one of his favorites amongst the Nordic hordes. In fact, it's one of the few metal cds in his collection -- it's that good (he was a music student y'know). It came out originally in '94, and now sees a digipacified re-release with bonus tracks from their out of print Where Dead Angels Lie cdep. With Storm of the Light's Bane, Dissection perfected their melodic, blackened Swedish death metal approach -- that means TRUE, original metal, with elements of everything from Morbid Angel to Mayhem to Iron Maiden, suped-up and super-grim, with raspy vocals, wicked drumming (the guy is AMAZING), truly memorable, majestic melodies, and tons of cold winter atmosphere. They take long breaks to let their acoustic guitars gently weep, then tear back into the brutal, razor-edged rifferama. Serious stuff, seriously great. This was to be their last album, and Dissection is no more -- front man John Nodtveidt ended up in jail as accessory to murder -- but their tangential role in any of that over-sensationalized Scandinavian black metal true crime stuff has nothing to do with why you should be interested in this band. No, regardless of their unfortunate history, Dissection was a brilliant band, and Storm of the Light's Bane is a classic that belongs in every metal collection. If you haven't already gotten this album, here's your chance.
2nd edition, re-designed digipak with new artwork for this collection of early demos from the infamous Swedish melodic death/black metal band. With main composer/guitarist/vocalist Jon Nordviet recently thrown in jail for an alleged murder, this may be the last Dissection release for twenty or thirty years...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The best Swedish death/black metal band's demos and rarities, cd format soon.
A reissue of these long-defunct Swedish black/death metallers' debut long-player, recorded in 1993 at Dan Swano's studio. It's melodic, with majestic riffs and folky acoustic interludes, but also quite fast, heavy and brutal. Here Dissection established their "blackened" style of Swedish Melodic Death Metal, a sound that they perfected on their next album, the classic Storm Of The Light's Bane. That's the one to get first, and then when you're hooked on 'em, you'll want this one as well. Why is Storm Of The Light's Bane better? It's just the subjective choice of the AQ-staff. Superior songs, we feel. But this is a fine effort too. (By the way, unlike the Nuke Blast reish of Storm, there's no bonus tracks to be found here.)
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
And if the Cradle of Filth's coffin box doesn't sate your need for Black Metal packaging gimmickry, how about a *shaped* cd? (Some kind of upside-down cross.) This six-song ep collects rare compilation and Japan-only bonus tracks from this truly superior Swedish death/black majestic metal band, including, guess what, a Slayer cover.
Two records from weirdo "post-post-digital bubblegum black/death metal" one man band Disunicorps on this week's list, elsewhere you'll find the new record, Synonymy, and then there's this one, not precisely a remix record, more of an alternate version. When we were ordering the new record, Mr. Disunicorps, informed us that he also had a version of the first record "run through a crappy cassette deck and slowed way down", and if you're anything like us (and we're guessing you probably are), then you had the same reaction, YES PLEASE!
So here is Re:Try, the above mentioned cassette deck-ed slowed down version of Try, which we raved about way back when, and probably best for folks who never heard the original, to just describe that one first a bit, and then how it sounds in this reworked version.
Try was a gnarled chunk of churning frantic machinelike riffing and programmed blasting, croaked vocal rumbles, the guitars super distorted and crumbling, a pretty fierce blast of programmed black buzz, bubblegum at times for sure, minus the harsh vokills, it occasionally sounds like some sort of electro pop, or a less damaged Fastest (former aQ Record Of The Week!) even, major key melodies, bouncy jaunty rhythms, almost video game music at moments, but the vocals, and the weird echoey reverby production transform things into, well, into post-post-digital bubblegum black/death metal, offering different shades of dirgey heaviness that sounds like a horror movie soundtrack, programmed loping rhythms that sound like some machine post rock, some seriously grinding blackness, goofy blackened fuzz pop that almost sounds like a black metal Dickies and fuzzy, washed out almost blissy 8-bit sounding new wave drift.
Sounds pretty amazing, cuz it is! Or was! Now all of those sounds have been rerouted through some old tape deck, and in the process, slowed down a bit, so essentially, the above still describes the sounds on Re:Try, the main difference is really that it all sounds a bit heavier and doomier and dirgier, the sound more raw and low fidelity, as a test, just check out the Del Shannon cover here, which sounds more like some sinister electro doom, the little main lilting melody somehow super creepy, the dirgey death metal vibe more prominent, everything sludgier and murkier, and for folks like us whole like everything better slowed down, maybe even better!
Not sure HOW essential this is if you own the other one, but odds are some of you are strange like us, and even the idea of this slower, tape deck-ier version had you flipping out a little, and thus, this is for you, and if you somehow missed Try the first time around, this might just hit the spot (oh yeah, and we do have a small handful of copies left of Try if you want one.
The latest from weirdo electro black metal warped pop weirdo Disunicorps, whose music we've described in the past as "post-post-digital black/death metal, and like the last 'new' record, not so much a new album, as a reinterpretation of a record we've already reviewed. Re-Try found the man behind Disunicorps taking his record Try, and slowing it down via crappy cassette deck, and somehow, the results were even better (and definitely weirder) that the original.
So when he recently contacted us to let us know, that his first record, Synonymy, had been redone, and the new version was "fucked up slowed down n fazed", we knew we had to get some. And guess what? As you might imagine, it's like the original, but more! More warped. More weird. More demented. More woozy. The opening track is a garbled FX heavy creep, everything slowed down and warbly, and then when the first song proper kicks in, the blasting digital metal of Synonymy becomes a murky blurred electro black doom, everything melty and oozy, the guitars muted and muddy, some definite 'creep' added to the mix, not to mention tons of echo, and reverb, and probably a phalanx of other misused and abused effects. What it ultimately does is remove the sheen of the original, which was super well recorded, and had a distinctly classic power metal feel, but here, those moments become something else entirely, there's still the weirdo progged out Champs-y tech metal thing going on, but it's been given a caveman makeover, and dipped in a vat of whatthefuck. To be fair, it's not all THAT far removed from the original, at least as much as we remember, but it's definitely weirder, and a weirder version of already pretty goddamn weird is never a bad thing.
You can check out our review of the original and listen to some sound samples, and see what you think, we're pretty sure most folks who dig that one, will feel the same about Sobotomy. But if you do, act fast, limited to FIFTEEN COPIES, of which we got all fifteen, each hand numbered, and housed in a spray painted, hand decorated paper sleeve.
A while back, we raved about a crazy cd by a one man band called Disunicorps, his cd-r just showing up in the mail one day, with this simple one sentence description: "post-post-digital bubblegum black/death metal", needless to say, we were totally sold, and the record more than lived up to that too-good-to-be-true description. And to seal the deal, there was THEE most amazing cover of Del Shannon's "Runaway" (we still have copies of that first disc, as well as a new disc, which features the original run through a crappy old cassette player and slowed waaay down, that one is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list). But it wasn't just the cover, that whole record was a blast, a series of twisted buzzing pop flecked electro pop digi-metal jams, heavy and hooky, an impossible fusion of black metal buzz and hooky fuzz pop and glitchy electronics. We played that to death, and were super psyched to discover there was in fact a brand new Disunicorps record!
This one begins all warped slowed down vocals tangled up with think swirling tendrils of woozy synth, a garbled psychedelic into, that leads right into the opening jam, a synth heavy metallic churn, circusy melodies, over programmed pounds, processed vox, and once again hooks galore, there's definitely a classic/power metal vibe in the progged out synths and majestic melodies, but it's all tangled up and blackened, blurred and warped, which is pretty much how the whole record plays out, weirdly woozily melodic, chugging mathy metallics infused with playful poppy hooks, the songs lurching from blasting metal to bouncy electro pop buzz to washed out lo-fi electronic death metal, usually some dizzying simultaneous hybrid of all of those sounds, fantastically confusional, heavy as fuck, but also wildly goofy and super fun, the sort of thing, that gets crazy attention every time we play it in the store. And fear not, this is not some joke metal thing, there's plenty of classic riffing and real metal going on, it's just that all of THAT stuff is all tangled up with all of that OTHER, less metal stuff. The result is pretty fantastic though, twisted and kaleidoscopic, definitely psychedelic, with a pretty high whatthefuck quotient, which is always a good thing. Everyone who bought the first one, should probably just buy this one too, and if you missed out on Disunicorps the first time around, give this one a listen, odds are you'll flip out like we did, and most likely end up wanting both!
LIMITED TO 15 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered!
This was another mystery submission, originally presented to us described (maybe not so) simply as "post-post-digital bubblegum black/death metal". And while the first track had us thinking that description was WAY off, a gnarled chunk of churning frantic machinelike riffing and programmed blasting, croaked vocal rumbles, the guitars super distorted and crumbling, a pretty fierce little chunk of programmed black buzz. But then BAM, in comes the second track, and it makes way more sense, bubblegum for sure, minus the harsh vokills, it sounds like some sort of electro pop, or a less damaged Fastest even, the major key melody, the bouncy jaunty rhythm, almost video game music at moments, but those vocals, and the weird echoey reverby production transform it into, well, into post-post-digital bubblegum black/death metal.
And if you needed even further proof of this record's PPDBGBDM sound, skip all the way to the last track, a totally ruling, and bafflingly brilliant, cover of Del Shannon's "Runaway", totally transformed into a buzzy, dirgey epic, and when the weird guitar/synth finally plays that immediately recognizable back ground vocal "Wah Wah Wah Wah Wonder" melody, you sort of want to laugh and bang your head at the same time, and then when the track locks into the super frenzied version of the original song's bridge, it's about the coolest heaviest thing ever, oh and the end of the chorus is transformed into a cool descending depressive riff that totally changes the feel of the whole song.
And in between the opening salvo, and the Del Shannon cover, are a whole mess of twisted, bedroom brewed black metal weirdness, from dirgey heaviness that sounds like a horror movie soundtrack, to programmed loping rhythms that sound like some machine post rock, which slips into some seriously grinding blackness, or from goofy blackened fuzz pop that almost sounds like a black metal Dickies to fuzzy, washed out almost blissy 8-bit sounding new wave drift. It's pretty nuts, and any metalheads who bough the Fastest record, even though it's resolutely NOT metal, will LOVE this, and anyone into twisted weirdo outsider black metal, or post-post-digital bubblegum black/death metal, well, this is for YOU.
Armed with a seriously bad ass band name, these Dutch avant black metal merchants throw their hats into the gnarled dissonant experimental blackness ring alongside groups like Deathspell Omega and Katharsis, and do their best to up the ante, taking that sound we already dig so much and making it more twisted, more chaotic, more dense, more progged out, and to a degree pull it off.
The first track is all it should take, the opening a pounding wash of atonal riffage, and moody atmospheres, which soon explode into a furious white hot blast of buzz and howl, the opening atonal melody continuing on, drifting amides the dense swirl of sound, a sound so dense, that minus headphones it might be difficult to suss out exactly what's going on, which is a LOT. At one point the group add a layer of high end industrial skree, which sounds totally bizarre, but transforms the sound into something fucked up and geniusly far out. But that's only the first two minutes, the song splinters into a woozy psychedelic doomy breakdown, a swirling morass of intricate drumming, spidery minor key melodies, and some seriously bust, super melodic bass lines, not to mention some super dramatic crooned vocals, and then when the song explodes back into the black fray, it's like an anvil to the skull, and if anything, the sound emerges even more densely layered and complex. If you ever wondered what would happen if DSO were faster and more fucked up, well, this is most likely your answer. The second track is more of the same, a dizzying barely controlled chaos, ultra mathy and impossible intricate, some of the drumming utterly mind boggling, and the guitar playing not just fast and furious, but also super abstract, a torrent of twisted unlikely melodies and seriously warped chordal crush, all interspersed with some blown out black drones, industrial soundscapes, mysterious glitched out ambience, and other aural oddities.
Then there are tracks like "Vanitas" which finds the band slowing way down, and spitting out some seriously harsh abject doom, with processed alien sci-fi vox, swirling cinematic atmospheres, the vibe gloomy and depressive, but still the sound fantastically lush and blackly beautiful. The record finishes with a 22 minute three part epic, that fuses some classic metal riffing, with more of the groups impossibly gnarled blackness, managing to make much of it surprisingly catchy, or at least as catchy as stuff this fucked up and heavy can be. In fact the main riff of the first movement might be the catchiest chunk of black metal we've heard in ages. But over the next two parts, the sound slips easily from psychedelic slo-mo drift, to woozy black-prog, and from churning grim doom to epic, majestic and surprisingly catchy heaviness, the whole thing rife with insane bizarre and brilliantly fucked up guitar parts, and fractured calculus arrangements, the band fusing some serious (but still subtle) hooks with some absolutely crushing blackness. Definitely a new favorite, and absolutely recommended for fans of DSO, Katharsis, Antaeus, Ascension and all the rest, which is a whole lot of you!
Black metal from Norway, taking the weird path previously explored by the likes of Arcturus, Solefald and Borknagar...piano is often as important as guitars, and clearly they've been listening to a lot of drum n' bass type stuff. Members of various famous bands participate.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Leaving aside the question of whether it really is "satanically artful" to have your record cover adorned with a stopaction photo of a pole vaulter in motion, we can say that musically this is a very weird Norwegian black metal ep. Pianoswoon, devilish samples, goofy babbling and of course metalevil constitute this disc's highlights, and although the total running time of this ep is only 13 minutes, we can say that it is worth it to fans of bizarre and sinister bands like Solefald, Arcturus, and Emperor.
Full length number three from this fucked up Finn, a one man band called Dodkvlt, who we'd never heard until now, but holy shit is this stuff amazing. It's Finnish, so of course we were expecting it to be weird, and it does not disappoint, the first track, the sprawling 12 minute "Dark Void Architect" definitely lays all of Dodkvlt's warped experimental black metal cards on the table. After a sweeping orchestral opening, the song launches into a dense blast of frenzied blackness, churning and furious, only to then splinter into something much more minimal, all drums and acoustic guitars, over swoonsome moaning drones and what might be cellos, before chugging guitars transform the sound into some classic metal riffing, and some black metal demonik croaks, not to mention, some surprisingly melodic guitar harmonies, which return throughout, giving the sound a definitely proggy/classic metal vibe at times, a weird mix with the serious grim black buzz, but precisely what makes it so weird/good. Then after a wild bit of progged out blackness, the song explodes into something super mathed out and super melodic, before the piano comes in, and the song becomes a weird piano / bass driven dirge with weird bellowed vox and rubbery basslines (which will resurface later). The song ends with the symphonic elements from the opening resurfacing.
The rest of the record is equally twisted, balancing classic blasting black metal, with weirdo vox, super strange arrangements, unlikely sounds, from weird tripped out, heavily flanged psychedelic freakouts, to shuffling, almost funky balladic breakdowns, and from soaring string laden slow builds, to almost flamenco sounding interludes, but none of this weirdness would mean a thing, if they weren't balanced by some serious heaviness, and the thing is, the heavy parts here are fucking fierce, brutal blasting blackness, but when those parts get all tangled up with the twisted WTF elements (especially the weirdly funky bass), it only makes it that much better.
Dodsferd are another black metal band that we all dig, but that has somehow managed to remain unlisted and unreviewed, until now.
This one man band from Greece, personifies misanthropy and hate, misery and total disdain for humanity. Just have a look at the liner notes: "Dodsfred does not belong to any kind of scene! No begging for anything! Support nothing, no-one should need anything from no-one! Dodsferd is Wrath and Wrath is Dosferd, no compromise, no respect for anything at all! Dodsferd is an ideal, a philosophy that only wrath stands for! Ignorance is the ultimate gift to your stupidity! I feel nothing for you leeches, you are a big nothing and you know it! I am getting stronger and stronger everyday! I am becoming sicker and sicker everyday with your pathetic existence and stupidity! Your incompetence makes me puke! Make a favor to yourselves and suicide! Bastard sons following ridiculous shepherds!"
And the music is appropriately hateful and harsh. The record begins with some sort of evil incantation, some dark ritual, minor key guitars drifting through black clouds of blackened shimmer, and a harsh rasp, reciting some sort of unholy prayer, and then the metal kicks in and we're into some seriously raw old school thrashing blackness, so stripped down it's almost crusty and punky more than metal, fans of Akitsa and Ash Pool and Malveillance and Bone Awl will definitely dig. But then Dodsferd launches into something much more bleak and black, a lurching midtempo Burzumic dirge, all minor key and miserable, before lurching into a full on blackened blast, chaotic and frenzied and fierce as fuck, that spills over into the next song, another thrashing chunk of black hate, all blast beats and buzzing riffage.
Denying With Arrogance is actually an older demo, recorded in 2004, and available briefly in 2007 as a split with Ganzmord, now finally available on its own, in all it's hateful black glory, with the 4 tracks from the original demo, plus a killer live track, ultra raw and necro and brutal, and a live Burzum cover, appropriately heavy and blown out and super distorted.
And as if the liner notes didn't convince you that Dodsferd indeed despised you, there's a note in the special thanks: "A big fuck-off to all those who tried to gain power and respect from my ideal! Retarded people! For another time, a big "go fuck yourselves and die" to all those who tried to take advantage of the name of my band and gain things that they didn't deserve! Losers and parasites! Go hide in your shit holes again!"
Elsewhere on this list you'll find a kick ass split 7" featuring dueling Hungarian hordes Marblebog and Vorkuta. This 3"s cd is the work of a group called simply DOG, which just so happens to feature the mainmen from both Vorkuta and Marblebog, teaming up to create some of the most twisted damaged and fucked up primitive black thrash EVER. Really. It's says "recordead in miasmatic moors under a puss moon" and we believe it.
The record starts off with some cool harmonized guitars, a super catchy riff that sounds like a lo-fi Melvins or maybe Torche, but then with a grunt, the song splinters into a super lo-fi blast of stumbling chaotic blackness, the drums simple and almost stumbling, the guitars raw and punky, and then the vocals, holy shit, completely insane and over the top, grunted and howled, a bit Cookie Monster, a bit like the deep voiced rapper from Hawd Gangstuh Rappuhs MC's Wid Ghatz, or maybe Abruptum or Vondur at their most twisted and tweaked, adds a whole other level of whatthefuck to the lumbering blasting thrashy black chaos underneath. Consider us blown away. We bow before the Carrion responsible for this insanity. It didn't take long at all for DOG and their Ancient Crypt Metal to be inducted into our pantheon of fucked up black metal genius, SOOOOOOO recommended!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Folks outside of the Bay Area may not be privy to the burgeoning black metal scene known as the Black Twilight Circle, a small insular group of musicians all playing in multiple bands, all on different instruments and in different arrangements, a scene modeled after the legendary French Les Legions Noires, which featured Mutiilation, Belketre, Aakon Keetrah, Torgeist, Vlad Tepes and others. In the case of the Black Twilight Circle, the bands include Blue Hummingbird On The Left (the only one we've reviewed on the aQ list until now), Volahn, Ashdautas, Axeman, Arizmenda, Kalathonn, Kuxan Suum and others, but Dolorvotre is the first group to get a proper cd release, and on the ruling Ajna label to boot, previously released on tape, several times in fact, this is the first full length from the duo Dolorvotre, and is raw and lo-fi, primitive in part, but also surprisingly progressive and experimental, the band offering up simple slabs of black blast alongside haunting doomy creeps, their songs laced with surprising melodies, weird little guitar filigree, the vocals often doused in strange effects, the tempos shifting constantly, the two piece managing to sound surprisingly lush and full, even with the primitive recordings, the vibe crusty and almost D-beatish at times, those elements though woven deftly into something much more grand, with headphones, much of what sounds raw and primitive reveals itself as way more layered and complex, the record peppered with haunting folky interludes, acoustic guitars draped over chanted vox and swirling synths, the haunting moodiness of those interludes bleeding over into the songs proper, and imbuing the record with a strange black energy that definitely transforms it into something much intense and unique.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
A few lists back we reviewed a disc of utterly freaked out, super heavy and weird as fuck black metal from a band called Vacuum Era Gelid Atmosphere (we actually just got more back in, in case you missed out last time, see elsewhere on this list). We got this, the debut from Dom Dracul from the same place, but it couldn't sound any more different. Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. This is, after all, still a hatefully raw and furious slab of grim buzzing black metal. But where V.E.G.A. wrapped their black buzz in all sorts of sonic sickness and warped weirdness, Dom Dracul stick a little bit closer to the classic sound of old skool Norwegian black metal, some serious Darkthrone / Immortal / Ulver worship going on for sure, and some nods to Bathory as well, in fact they even do a Bathory cover!
We get so wrapped up sometimes in finding the weirdest most fucked up black metal EVER, that once in a while we forget how much we love the pure, raw, grim, cult sound of straight ahead, buzzing, black metal. After all, that's exactly the sound that lured us all over to the darkside in the first place. And still, whenever we throw on some Immortal or Satyricon or Emperor, it totally blows us away and reminds us why we love this stuff so much. Dom Dracul are proud bearers of that black flame, taking that instantly recognizable sound and giving it their own little twist. The result is certainly not groundbreaking, but fuck it, that's not what we're after here, eyes closed you'd be hard pressed to figure out this wasn't in fact a late nineties Scandinavian legend. Which is actually a good thing. Very good. Thick snarling blackened riffs thrash wildly over grim rhythmic blasts, a howled demonic voice, soaring and epic and so gloriously frosty, occasionally lurching into a loping midtempo Burzumic buzz, only to explode into a furious black blast moments later. Anyone itching for some classic grim blackness would do well to drink deep from the black blood of Dom Dracul.
The latest from local black metal tape label Brotherhood Of Light (Sunchariot, Surt, Uruk Hai, Haar, Sirius, Cosmic Breath) comes the debut from Domus Mactibilus, another group featuring BoL head honcho, the BoL scene starting to get very Ukrainian, as in a bunch of bands, with the same members, but hell, we're not complaining, we've dug pretty much everything we've heard and Domus Mactibilus is no different, although from the first track on this rehearsal tape it's hard to tell exactly what to expect. A tripped out noisescape, all buried synth melodies, creaking groaning industrial buzz, lots of clatter and crunch, swaths of effects drenched thrum, sheets of feedback, the vibe is definitely black ambient / industrial, a droned out fractured psychedelic creep, that seems to get more trippy and chaotic as the track progresses, we were initially imagining that maybe that first track was an intro, and some black buzz would explode into aktion at the beginning of track two, but nope, it seems that DM is not black metal, more a sort of blackened industrial kraut-drone thing. Track two is rhythmic and hypnotic, a pulsing, softly churning sprawl of soft noise shimmer, and murky muted throb, reminding us a bit of a previous Record of The Week from Torlesse Super Group, albeit this is much more primitive and raw.
The third track cranks up the noise again, the throbbing rhythmic pulse buried under clouds of skree and buzz, but the noise here is muted, and muddied, that makes it more sort of droned out and darkly psychedelic, strap on some headphones, and what through speakers may have sounded like swaths of grey noise, reveal themselves to be dense layered dirgescapes, rife with shifting layers, crumbling textures, fractured melodies, and all manner of hypno-noise drift.
As with all BoL releases very very LIMITED!
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Recently Romanian black metal horde Negura Bunget, big time aQ faves for years now, found two of their three members leaving to form a new group, which left just the drummer to continue on as NB, with the other two forming the oddly named Dordeduh, a name that in English might be a tad bit goofy, but in Romanian, actually means 'longing for spirit', and as you might imagine, with 2/3 of Negura Bunget making up the core of Dordeduh, the sound is not that far removed from Negura Bunget, a sort of black metal / folk hybrid, as was Negura Bunget, but there seems to be even more folk here, and certainly more clean vocals than there ever were in NB. The first thing we noticed was the fact that there were THREE people playing hammered dulcimer on this record! There's also flute, panpipe, and a handful of other distinctly non metal instruments, al put to great use here, the opening few minutes sets the scene, all rumbling drones, mysterious percussion, chanted monklike vocals, ethereal swirls of female background vox, bells and chimes, haunting spoken word, we briefly considered the possibility that perhaps Dordeduh would be all ambient/folk, and not metal at all. But at about 2:40, we were shown otherwise, the band launching into a serious blast of dense, gnarled black buzz, the sound blurry, and echo drenched, noisy and washed out, a gorgeous heaving avalanche of sound, underpinned by thick sonic swells, the folk element seeming to run through the heaviness as well, super tranced out and hypnotic, so much so that we wish it had locked into this woozy buzz and never let up. The sound shifts again, and displays more of the groups folk/BM hybrid, with the churning blackened riffage, peppered with some sort of woodblock percussion, which changes the vibe completely, even more so as the song shifts into a weird folky prog, all swirling synths, classic metal chug, before slipping back into more black buzz, before transforming again, lacing some serious black riffage with soaring flute melodies, only to blossom into some clean vocal driven metal epicry, sounding almost liturgical, that is if a black metal band blasted away beneath the hymns. The rest of the song breaks down as a dreamy, softly psychedelic folk dirge, tribal and ritualistic, but lush and lovely, finally leaving some sort of campfire folk hoedown, all strummed acoustic guitar, simple hand drums, panpipe and call and response vox. Woah. A seriously epic and ultra varied 16+ minute opener, and over the next hour, the rest of the record unfolds in a similarly idiosyncratic fashion, soaring synths over folky percussion, chugging guitars over impossibly catchy melodies, soaring clean vocals that give much of this a sort of Alcest vibe, haunting expanses of folky psychedelic drift, loping stripped down low end almost post rock, furious black metal blowouts, rife with impossibly fast blast beats, but then clean vocals and spiraling melodies and even some piano, the record gets into some serious progginess, getting almost fusion-y at points, but for every twisted chunk of folky prog, there's an epic blast of majestic buzz drenched blackness, more often than not, those two sides of Dordeduh's sonic personality bleeding gloriously into each other. There's a definite Enslaved vibe as well, after all Negura Bunget and Enslaved were always sort of sonically linked, there's even an Enslaved cover on the bonus disc here, alongside two earlier, much rawer sounding demos.
Fans of Negura Bunget, Enslaved and other folk flecked, nature obsessed black metal outfits, will find much to love here, the balance pretty evenly split between black buzz and folky flutter, so metalheads looking for something relentlessly black might be disappointed, but the rest of us can happily revel in Dordeduh's gloriously blackened foresty folky soundworld. Packaged in a swank full color six panel digipak, with a big booklet. While they last we have the double disc version, not sure how long those will last.
From the man who runs the amazing God Is Myth label, responsible for recent AQ faves like Godheadscope, Caina and Procer Veneficus, and who used to record as Uvall, comes the new 'group' Dormant, which takes the more traditional black metal sound of Uvall and abandons it almost entirely, focusing more on mood and melancholia, texture and timbre, songs as much as sonics, a sort of orchestral dark doom pop sound, run through with streaks of buzzing blackness, and plenty of dark dark ambience.
With some help from folks like Caina and Celestiial, Dormant weaves an unlikely blackened sonic brew, gloomy and dark, but strangely pretty and poppy, epic and almost orchestral at points, there are brief moments of grim buzz and blasting black fury, but they are relatively few and far between, instead most of the record drifts delicately, mournful strummed steel string guitars, moaning drones off in the distance, deep baritone, near spoken vocals. Sounding very much like Swans or Angels of Light. Even the heavier songs spend much of their time moping mournfully, shimmery clean guitar twang, reverbed soft focus riffage, sometimes eventually transforming into midtempo black metal, but still suffused with that distinctly pop element, occasionally even turning pitchblack and offering up some buzzing riffs and harsh vocals, but only briefly, usually slipping back into a lilting dreamy dark folk, or a strange loping industrial dirge, or a haunting expanse of barely there drone.
Definitely for the super adventurous blackmetalheads out there, or for darkfolk freaks who don't mind bits of buzz and blast peppering their spacey jangle, moody gothic miserablism and abstract late night drift.
The first 200 copies of this cd come housed in a hand screened digipak with an insert and a sticker. We have about a dozen of those. Once we run out, we'll have copies from the rest of the pressing, a version that comes in a DVD case instead.
The first sonic onslaught from these UK black/death/doomlords, 2009's Hatred For Mankind, boasted some twisted Justin Bartlett cover art, which perfectly reflected the sort of sick sounds that lurked within, sludgey, downtuned blackened death metal dirges, blasting black ritualistic heaviness, abject anguished vokills, feedback drenched crumbling psychedelia, and samples galore. While all of that stuff is still present on Widowmaker, it's presented in a much different context, a sprawling three part, 40 minute, single song, concept record, the sort of thing that just might frustrate extreme metal fans who reveled in the first record's face melting immediacy and skull crushing pummel, but the sort of thing that most of us dig big time.
The first part is a slow building brood, all layered clean guitar, minimal samples, the mood haunting and harrowing, lots of softly swirling drones in the background, a sort of blackened Godspeed is definitely the vibe, it's not until seven minutes in that the song shifts, the clean guitars growing darker and more minimal, droned out and sinister, underpinned by metallic reverberations (cymbals? gongs?), and what sounds like a piano, a creepy, bleary soundscape, with some definite twang, there's even some fiddle (which we initially mistook for harmonica) adding a bit of a gypsy folk vibe to the proceedings, all very unexpected considering the last Dragged Into Sunlight record, in fact, the whole of the first track is essentially an intro, the metal not kicking in until the second part, a grinding blackened riffscape, loping and roiling, a black downtuned swirl, that quickly transforms into a lurching dynamic stop/start, wreathed in feedback, and laced with samples, finally launching into a strange midtempo death metal churn, all grunted vokills, and droned out riffage, the sound weirdly proggy, and super epic, constantly shifting, laced with melodies here and there, eventually, after nearly ten minutes locking into a surprisingly catchy hypno-rock jam, that could seem out of place, but somehow doesn't, which is even more surprising as it leads directly into the third part, which begins all slo-mo tarpit doom sludge creep, but even then, the arrangement is super dynamic, the riffs fading out, leaving just some muted, distorted bass rumbles, over which more samples surface, and from there on out, we imagine the final part to be especially confounding for some metalheads, as it constantly switches between epic, downtuned riff heavy crush, and weird squiggly psychedelic drift, pounding metallic pummel, and dreamy, hushed melodic shimmer, grinding almost black metal blasts, and mathy post rocky groove, before finally seeming to collapse all of those disparate elements into one final, furious, heavy as fuck, blackened sonic blowout.
We've seen lots of negative reviews of this record, but we're guessing it's mostly from metalheads who wanted Hatred For Mankind part 2, as far as we're concerned, for folks into twisted, avant, experimental heaviness, Widowmaker might be tough to beat.
Who knew so much pure evil lurked deep in the depths of (supposedly) sunny California, especially right here in San Francisco. The legendary Weakling (R.I.P.), the ungodly blackened evil of Leviathan, the blazing, bleak torment of Crebain (also coming soon on tUMULt), and now the grim, funereal, majestic savagery of Draugar's From Which Hatred Grows.
Haunting and atmospheric, brutal and buzzing, blighted and black. Fingerpicked acoustic guitars explode into roaring, soul-shearing riffs, pounding drums demarcate hazy blackened soundscapes of misanthropic brutality and gorgeously melodic impurity, damaged and demented arrangements underpin hellish profane howls of utter anguish. Yeah, black metal at its best with nary a glacier or fjord in sight. Yet, as Burzumically brutal as it all is, you could be listening to this and suddenly forget and mistakenly think you've got some fucked up experiment in lo-fi ambient drone psychedelia on your stereo instead. Keyboards warble WAY above the mix, drums and vocals and guitars are whipped into Merzbow-ic blasts of white noise, blast beats are obliterated into gentle expanses of delicate acoustic guitars and droning ambient hum, the whole thing a gorgously perplexing blast of bizarre blackened sonic experimentation. Much like the infamous Benighted Leams confused and astounded us once upon a time with its outsider genius, Draugar transcends black metal musical norms, making truly abnormal, artistic sound with unknown boundaries. Like Leviathan and our other favorite California black metal act Xasthur, it's the one-man-alone, far from the "scene" aspect that seems to foster a creativity beyond that of many ordinary black metal bands. From Which Hatred Grows is one of those rare metal records that manages to be true and grim, buzzing and black, but also a truly unique sonic vision that should find its way into the collection of every adventurous music lover.
The black ice continues to spread, a grim black metal glacier slowly enveloping all with ears to hear. The West Coast black metal contingent's influence grows steadily, until one day hell walks the earth. Sorry, getting carried away. If the above scene had some sort of hierarchy, Leviathan would undoubtedly be the king. Xasthur would be a prince, or perhaps another king vying for supreme power. Crebain would be a knight, sent to slay all who shall dare oppose, and then Draugar, well Draugar would be the kings ex-vizier, locked in a dark dank dungeon, insane and murderous and demented, from years of no light, eating bugs, lack of sleep, and staring endlessly into blackness. Draugar is definitely the black sheep of this already black family, imbuing his home recorded evil, with the grim buzz of classic black metal, but with a healthy dollop of damged brilliance a la Benighted Leams, Lurker Of Chalice, or Striborg. Buzzy and black, droning and depressive, Draugar more than holds his own amidst the blackened elite, but somehow, everything he touches turns to what-the-fuck? Gentle clean arpeggiated clean guitar melodies are way up in the mix, layed atop a sluggish stream of indistinct guitar fuzz and Whitehouse-ish vocals. Sounding a little like somebody taped Darkthrone over a Slint record on an old C90 that had been in their back pocket for a month. Loping midtempo buzz over buried angelic choruses, like Morricone's The Mission performed by Graveland. Occasional ambient breaks, where guitar melodies wander aimlessly across barren soundscapes of distant rumble and creepy shimmer. Sometimes the riff seems to just splinter apart and what was moments earlier a galloping black metal juggernaut, has become a seasick drone. contructed from fuzzy almost melodies and vocals so distorted and so affected they sound like bursts of radio static. As always, heavy and grim and completely fucked!
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Never reviewed this, just have a couple copies. Draugsang are Norwegian, Morker are Swedish, they did this split record of Black Metal fury back in 2006. Limited to 500 copies then, likely out of print now. Calling all Vikings!
Another blast of cassette encased demented blackness this time from a mysterious Brazilian black metal horde called Draugurz, who in the past have shared a split with AQ faves Marblebog.
Draugurz are of the ultra anguished midtempo doom drenched black metal persuasion, with a super buzzy and brittle guitar sound, stumbling drums way up in the mix, fuzzed out murky minor key keyboards and EXTREMELY tortured vocals, the kind that howl and scream and caterwaul...
A Yell From The Past (awesome title!) is a collection, a sort of greatest hits, drawn from two demos and the split with Marblebog, and the whole thing is a gorgeously lo-fi, dark and torturous journey through a black musical wasteland. Slow trudging doom gives way to lurching midtempo buzz gives way to a furious blast that is so blown out it threatens to transform into a smear of Merzbowian white noise. Heavy and weird and mysterious, haunting and heavy and so very dementedly black.
Killer cover too, some sort of cartoonish ghost drifting above the forest.
Warning: the tape has some drop outs and some serious sonic inconsistencies, but just consider that another element of Draugurz's weird world and they sound almost like they belong... ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This is one of two new releases on the Colloquial Sound label, a Michigan tape label we had somehow totally overlooked, but are making it our mission to get caught up with, cuz everything we've heard so far has been sorta mind blowing. Including this, the latest from this US black metal band who play "atmospheric Indian black metal", which when we first read about it, we actually thought it was in fact a band from India, but instead, this American outfit mixes murky soaring majestic buzzing blackness with actual Indian music, the A side here starts off with a sample of some traditional Indian music, all buzzing sitars, skittery tablas, intense emotional vocals, then all of a sudden, furious riffing swoops in, the sound exploding into some echo drenched buzzing blackness, the vocals a deep raspy demonic bellow, the drums not blasting so much as pounding, while the guitars are sharp and jagged, and doused in effects, the whole thing noisy, and reverby and sorta psychedelic. The sound gets even more psychedelic as the track progresses, slipping into long stretches of tranced out drone metal and even erupting into something near symphonic at one point, the sound laced with synths (?), giving the track a seriously tripped out vibe, and then near the end, it gets super melodic, and crazy catchy, before finally fading out in a cloud of blackened swirl and atmospheric synth shimmer.
The second track/side is more of the same, a dense dizzying swirl of sound, frantic and frenzied, tons of echo and reverb, the sound bordering on utter chaos, but constantly slipping into something more structured, with some cool chugging almost math metal parts, not to mention more epic synth swells, and as if to bookend the two tracks, the blackness fades out leaving just tablas, that mesmerizing Indian rhythm this time wreathed in strange demonic hiss and softly shimmery synths. Super cool. These are the VERY LAST copies we'll be able to get. And apparently Handmade Birds will be doing a Dressed In Streams compilation cd eventually, but get an earful of this now, and grab one before they're gone, you won't be sorry!!
A few lists back we reviewed a tape from an American Black metal band called Dressed In Streams, who specialized in "atmospheric Indian black metal", and while the black metal wasn't so much Indian as the sound was a mix of Indian music samples and buzzing black metal, we still dug it like crazy, and could barely keep it in stock. That tape is sold out now, but managed to get a hold of a handful of another tape release, the LAST handful in fact. There's meant to be some sort of cd compendium happening at some point, but not sure when that's happening, or if these tapes will be included, but for folks who dug that first tape, or who are intrigued by the idea of "atmospheric Indian black metal", you might want to grab one of these before they're gone.
Two sidelong tracks, the usual buzz and blast augmented here by swirls of synths, and weird echo drenched vocals, stretched out sprawls of psychedelia, chiming melodies, in fact part way through the first track/side, barring the vocals, this could be some weird mathy avant psych space jam, total heart of the sun trance out heaviness, tribal drumming, soaring guitars, squiggly synths, spacey FX, all before building back to more serious black buzz, before splintering into some fierce mathiness, all dense drumming, and super distorted chug, definitely the coolest thing we've heard from this guy (these guys?).
The flipside begins with more synth swirl, some tense minor key guitar shimmer, before launching into a woozy doomic plod, again, sounding almost more spaced out psych than black metal, it's not really until a few minutes in that the black metal kicks in, and even then, super melodic, and textured, the post rock vibe is huge, minus the harsh vokills and the blast beats, the vibe is way more moody and atmospheric, but the combo of the two is pretty potent, the song seesawing back and forth between melodic black buzz and loping minimal post rock meander, all wreathed in swirls of synth and shot through with surprising melody.
Killer stuff for sure. Can't wait for the comp, but in the meantime playing these tapes to death. We have less than 10 copies of this one, and after that it's gone for good, so grab one while you can!
A while back we reviewed two tapes from this mysterious black metal band, who play "atmospheric Indian black metal", and as we mentioned in those previous reviews, we actually assumed Dressed In Streams was from India, although we later discovered they are in fact from right here in the US. Sadly, both those tapes went out of print, super quick, and there was even a third, that we were never able to get at all. So kudos to Handmade Birds, for reissuing on cd, two of the three tapes (wish it was all three!), Azad, and the most recent self titled cassette (and the one we were unable to stock!), along with a bonus track, from an also now out of print compilation...
For those who missed out on those tapes, Dressed In Streams mixes murky soaring majestic buzzing blackness with actual Indian music, the first track from Asad starts off with a sample of some traditional Indian music, all buzzing sitars, skittery tablas, intense emotional vocals, then all of a sudden, furious riffing swoops in, the sound exploding into some echo drenched buzzing blackness, the vocals a deep raspy demonic bellow, the drums not blasting so much as pounding, while the guitars are sharp and jagged, and doused in effects, the whole thing noisy, and reverby and sorta psychedelic. The sound gets even more psychedelic as the track progresses, slipping into long stretches of tranced out drone metal and even erupting into something near symphonic at one point, the sound laced with synths (?), giving the track a seriously tripped out vibe, and then near the end, it gets super melodic, and crazy catchy, before finally fading out in a cloud of blackened swirl and atmospheric synth shimmer. The second track (side two on the original cassette) is more of the same, a dense dizzying swirl of sound, frantic and frenzied, tons of echo and reverb, the sound bordering on utter chaos, but constantly slipping into something more structured, with some cool chugging almost math metal parts, not to mention more epic synth swells, and as if to bookend the two tracks, the blackness fades out leaving just tablas, that mesmerizing Indian rhythm this time wreathed in strange demonic hiss and softly shimmery synths. Super cool.
The cd is rounded out by DiS's most recent cassette which offers up three more tracks of psychedelic blackness, the first a plodding, doomy dirge, wreathed in strange swirling melodies, majestic synths, the drums lo-fi and LOUD, the vokills more of a background rasp, everything sort of blurred and washed out, the guitars too, less buzzy and black, and more sort of background sonic coloration, and then near the end, when the track settles down into a darkly strummy drift, it's really super haunting and strangely lovely. The second track is much more traditionally black, a lo-fi buzz, blasting and black, but given a sort of Caretaker makeover, the sound cavernous and smeary, the various sounds loose and almost weightless sounding, with bits of melodies, or crashing drums occasionally surfacing from the murky miasma, and there's some amazing synths too, that are super loud, and leap out of the mix, the vibe like some ancient martial ceremony. Finally, the last track launches right into a frantic furious black buzz, the sound gradually getting blurrier and murkier, furious and blown out, before getting all strummy and melodic for the second half, a sort of smoldering post rock epic-ness, that gradually builds to one final black buzz squall, before a brooding synth coda.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!!!
