From the label that brought us the amazing Deathspell Omega that we listed a few months back, comes yet another missive from the black metal underground, this time it's the German horde Katharsis and it doesn't get much more grim than this. A buzzing blasting winter wind of thrashing riffs and furious blast beats. Primitive and lo-fi and totally brutal and ferocious. You'll be sold in the first ten seconds, with the opening scream, a terrifying glass shattering shriek, like a flock of angry ravens, over a throbbing fuzzed out riff. The whole record is a mesmerizing slab of droned out black metal riffery, all soul shredding buzz and warm subterranean buzz. Fans of ultra raw black metal will definitely be blown away. Packaged in a cool black on metallic silver sleeve with the image of a crucified black metal ghoul.
Similar to the West Coast axis of US black metal, Leviathan, Xasthur, Draugar, Crebain, etc... there is another less geographically based hub, centered around French label Norma Evangelium Diaboli, a label that has managed to gather up most of the super intense, ultra progressive new wave of black metal bands: Deathspell Omega, Funeral Mist, Antaeus, Katharsis... Every record gorgeously designed, and inside each, all manner of black metal conventions twisted into uniquely hellish shapes. It's a bit surprising NED hasn't swooped in and tried to add Leviathan to their elite black brood. But while Leviathan is indeed twisted in his own way, there is definitely a distinctly European feel to the bands on NED.
Where as DSO are like a black metal Slint, with epic arrangements of black buzz and plenty of brooding post rock passages, and Funeral Mist are a grim black horde with massive production, creeped out ambience and thick swaths of impossibly pummeling brutality, Katharsis are a spastic, "Kommando Metal" blast of blackened thrashing drums and buzzing insect guitars, bizarre reverb drenched psychedelic leads and freaked out vocals that scream, howl, growl and shriek, all smeared into massive black squalls of relentless blackthrash. This German outfit are not about subtlety, their sound is intensely furious burst after harsh hellish blast of ultra intense, brittle and buzzy black metal, channelling the old school classics through their own cracked and screwed perspective.
But it's the epic album closer, the 16 minute title track "VVorld VVithout End" where the band really push the limits, and take their own peculiar black metal into totally new realms, slowing down to a buzzing Burzumic midtempo lope, slipping into a weirdly propulsive groove, when suddenly insane falsetto vocals, and keening high end lead guitars whirl into a bizarre super dramatic, super tense minor key crescendo, then returning to the same buzzy groove. This happens a few more times, before everything sort of collapses into thick swirling thrashing chaos, multiple vocals, some shrieking, some grunted and spoken, bits of hysterical laughter, tangled and convoluted buzzing riffs, angular melodies, all crashing and slamming into each other, drunkenly slipping from lightning fast blast to lugubrious crawl to midtempo lurch in a dizzying fade to black. So goddamn good.
And as with all NED releases, amazing packaging!
The sophomore release from this up-and-coming Norwegian black metal band crushes and kills just as much as their amazing 1998 debut did. Heavy and complex, a surefire hit with fans of Satyricon and Immortal.
Not sure what band leader Obsidian C.'s day job is, maybe he's a doctor or a lawyer or plays guitar on tour with Satyricon, 'cause whatever he does it obviously keeps him pretty busy, to the detriment of his band getting releases out in a timely fashion. Between their 2nd and 3rd release was a span of five years, and now it's been like two years since that 'comeback' ep came out. So, Obsidian and Co. are not rushing it, which is good. Plenty of time to craft a solid piece of Norwegian black metal fury, pure black/death/thrash art, which is what Armada is! Insane drumming, lots of unexpected twists (Spanish guitar!), technical flourishes, original and intense. This band, whose 1999 debut Through Times Of War we heralded as being on the level of heavyweights Emperor, Enslaved, Immortal, and Satyricon, still deserve to be mentioned in such illustrious company, even if they don't get as much recognition from the metal-buying masses.
Black metal fanatics ought to remember the band Keep Of Kalessin, who released two albums on the Avantgarde label in '98 and '99, including the magnificent debut Through Times Of War, a disc that placed Keep Of Kalessin (in our minds at least) in the forefront of a second wave of Norwegian black metal acts, following the lead of such bands as Satyricon and Emperor. But, after those two records, nothing at all was heard from KoK. Until now. Though, this isn't quite the same Keep of Kalessin, as guitarist/composer Obsidian C. has shed his previous bandmates, replacing them with none other than Frost (Satyricon, 1394) on drums and Attila (Mayhem, Tormentor, Aborym) on vocals!! While we wish former members Ghash, Vyl, and Warach were still on board, we'll admit that Obsidian C. sure found some excellent, well-qualified replacements! Musically, this is fast, fierce, devastating black metal in the tradition of KoK's previous efforts. Indeed, one track is a re-recording of a cut from the first KoK album. With their dark synth atmospheres and gradiose, raging metallic assaults, we hope the five songs on this new Reclaim ep aren't all we'll hear from KoK for the next five years!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Norwegian black metal, very much in the style of heavyweights Emperor, Enslaved, Immortal, and Satyricon (the later most of all). A very impressive debut, very heavy stuff indeed. Recommended! (Allan and Andee both took one home...)
We've been waiting for this one for ages, since we first heard rumors about a new Bay Area black metal band featuring P. Helmkamp (Angelcorpse, Revenge, Order From Chaos), J. Read (Cremation, Revenge, Axis Of Advance) and local shredder B. Wolaniuk, formerly of local black metal horde Horn Of Dagoth. And this 4 track chunk of frenzied filth definitely does not disappoint. A crushing, atmospheric, blasting occultic black metal blowout, the riffs lurching from frantic insectoid buzz to angular woozy tangle, the drums pounding and chaotic, effortlessly shifting from caveman pound to lighting fast blast, the record begins super creepy and ominous, militaristic and doomy, but explodes into a frantic black thrash, that twists and turns, stops and starts, the arrangements super dense and complex, it's easy to hear the band's pedigree, but we also hear plenty of more modern influences, like Deathspell and Katharsis. It's a churning, roiling black abyss, rife with jagged shards of black riffery, glass gargling demonic hell-vox, and the drums, holy shit is Read a monster behind the kit.
The sound of Kerasphorus is like a massive black force, enveloping everything in its path, lumbering demonic crush gives way to frenetic blur, a dizzying, exhausting, punishing brutal black cloven hoof to the soul, but it's not all blast and buzz, the melodies are serpentine, and wind their way through even the most fractured and fucked up parts, the riffs are strangely gnarled and occasionally transform into loping, almost seasick sounding slithery stretches, the drums locked in tight following right along, with Read's weird hissing high hat black waltz rhythm leading the way, the band always eventually returning to the grim black blast, furiously pounding away, a relentless, dynamic, unstoppable blackness. Fucking awesome.
By now, avid readers of the AQ list should be well aware of German black metal horde Ruins of Beverast, responsible for one of our favorite black metal records EVER. Then of course there's Nagelfar, the band that came before RoB, who were responsible for another of the greatest black metal records of all time, Virus West. If that weren't enough, these guys also run an amazing record label, responsible for the RoB record, the Nagelfar reissue, the deluxe double lp version of the only release from SF's very own doomlords the Gault, and two brand new releases, the super blazing blackness of Funeral Procession, and this, the very Ruins Of Beverast-like debut from fellow countrymen Kermania!
Much like RoB, Kermania, are as much about atmosphere and mood, ambience and melody, as they are about blackness and buzz. This is massive, epic, sorrowful, melodic black metal. The opening track is almost 25 minutes long, an expansive journey that touches on all sorts of moods and sounds. From the lilting midtempo intro, with swoonsome clean vocals buried way down in the mix and dark, doleful minor key melodies, to some super harsh hateful suicidal black metal buzz, to drone drenched dream folk, to strange militaristic ambience, to full on and furious black thrash, and back again, culminating in a glorious droning, dreamy chantlike blasting black soundscape. And that's just the first song. Most bands would have called it a record after that... but Ahnenwerk still has more than a half hour left to go.
The second track is brief, but just as epic and majestic sounding, a perfect blend of black buzz and mournful melancholia, this time with killer fuzzed out riffing beneath loud, clear vocals, bookended by blasts of utterly harsh grimness. The whole thing suffused with haunting mournful melodicism. The final track is a seasick waltz, a Viking style folky black metal shanty, with clean vocals and acoustic guitars beneath the black buzz.
But before we get to that, there's another 20 minute plus epic to wade through, beginning with simple strummed guitars, the sounds of horses and footsteps, an hypnotic loping drawn out melody, weird processed vocals, a midtempo trawl through dark nights and long forgotten dreams. Dark and dreary and gorgeously miserable. About halfway through the sorrowful trudge suddenly explodes into a hellishly blasting buzz, all fuzzy riffs and lightning fast blast beats, howled demonic vocals, stopping only briefly to shimmer dreamily, before bursting into black action again. Dizzyingly epic and gloriously despondent. Folks who like their metal harsh and hateful, sad and sorrowful, murky and miserable, will feel right at home...
Yet another strange release on the increasingly difficult to pin down Handmade Birds label, run by R. Loren of Pyramids, White Moth and Sailors with Wax Wings. In a matter of months, Handmade Birds has more releases than most labels have over the course of years! But hell, we're not complaining. So far we've had Blut Aus Nord's Mort, Celestiial's Desolate North, Evan Caminiti's When California Falls Into The Sea, His Name Is Alive's King Of Sweet (reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), and about a million more on the way (Der Blutharsch, Human Quena Orchestra, The Rita, Crooked Necks, Swamp Horse, Servile Sect and more!!), but this one, this is odd even by Handmade Birds admittedly far out criteria. This is a triple 10" boxset reissue of three long out of print demo tapes from Finnish black folk weirdos Key, a duo consisting of Kaarna from drone outfit Somnivore and Rauta from outsider black metal horde Circle Of Ouroborus, and all the mentions of 'black' above could be a little misleading, as this is far from black, and not at all metal. It's more in keeping with the later Circle Of Ouroborus recordings, a sort of fractured folk, a jangly, gloomy folk pop, all clean guitars, and haunting atmospheres, the vocals plaintive and hushed one second, deep and dramatically crooned the next, the sound slipping easily from psychedelic folk, to haunting almost new wave, to creepy doomy ballads, to reverby proto punk, but all gloomy and moody and fantastically strange, sounding a lot at moments like some lost nineties New Zealand outfit, maybe a bit like the Moles, or some obscure band on Flying Nun or Xpressway, the melodies are lilting, the basslines gloomy and a little gothic, the songs minimal, but strangely catchy, and definitely haunting and otherworldly, fans of Finnish stuff like CoO and Dead Reptile Shrine will definitely dig, as will anyone into fractured freak folk, and outsider gloom pop.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, housed in a silver foil printed box, each of the three 10"s pressed on colored vinyl (white with black splatter, milky clear, ultra clear), each record in its own printed sleeve.
Fast and furious death metal from this Finnish band featuring members of the totally amazing Finnish black metal band Horna. No black metal here though, just massive downtuned, super heavy and super fast traditional death metal ala Incantation and Morbid
Whenever anyone asks us what Khold sounds like, we often tell them, well, a bit like a black metal Nirvana. Which is not entirely accurate and maybe not totally fair, but it definitely is the most succinct description we can come up with, and it does at least give you a rough idea of where this Norwegian outfit's sound lies. Or at least how it sounds to us. A surprising amount of 'groove' and catchy riffery for such a grim black metal band. Lurching swaying midtempos, impossibly catchy melodies, plenty of frosty buzz, but the occasional hook that just kicks your head in and makes you want to throw on a flannel and some corpse paint and bang your head like mad. A couple tracks sound like they could have been your favorite Sub Pop singles of the month. Had they existed they would have surely occupied THE prized position in your record collection (the most likely contender on Krek is track three: "Innestengt I Eikekiste"). The whole record sounds like the meanest, heaviest songs on Bleach, painted black, set afire, and set hurtling through the forest and straight to hell. Khold do for black metal what Nirvana did for pop, turning it inside out and taking all the most unlikely elements, and making them sound perfect, like they could never have been any other way. Which is even more impressive in the case of Khold, as BM tends to be a lot more stodgy and resistant to such un-grim concepts as catchiness and hooks and groove. And of course, let's not forget Khold frontman Gard, who as we have mentioned before, puts pretty much all other corspepainted metal dudes to shame with his bulky fuzzy black cloaked visage, his half black face, glowing white pate, and the blackened tendrils creeping up the side of his head as if some black beast from hell is slowly enveloping his body. So awesome.
Super limited new lp from this free form blackened doom-drone-noise combo, two sidelong sprawls of twisted improvised blacknoise, each track awesomely and hilariously titled ("Satan Fe" and "Denvhorr"), and featuring at least one member of LA black metal horde Harassor, but this is far from black metal, there is most definitely a blackness, but the sound Kilt conjures up is more like droned our power electronics, lush and layered but corrosive and chaotic, churning low end burbles beneath grinding sheets of burnished white noise, streaks of feedback wrapped around heaving swells of super distorted thrum, blasts of super blown out buzz that sound almost like DHR beats recontextualized, clouds of cymbal shimmer, the sound woozy and warped, slipping from hushed drift to roiling speaker melting ferocity. There seem to be vocals too, chant like, but before they can form they seem to melt into the sounds around them. The sound is also fairly dynamic, with some of the low end peeling away, and leaving blasts of keening high end, or swirling fields of static, even a weird whistling melody at one point, or a wheezing chordal thrum, but even at its most ferocious, for a 'noise' record, it's surprisingly listenable, the textures and fractured melodies, the tone and timbre, not as harsh as it might seem at first blush, it's pretty tranced out and mesmeric. The second side starts out with a blast of fractured sound, jagged jump cuts and blasts of noise, before settling into a warm swirl of muted crunch and blurred rumble, and from there on out, the sound drifts from washed out crackly drift, to face melting howl, and back again, seeming to attain a sort of sonic equilibrium right in the middle, making this more mesmerizing than brutal, and we're far from being proponents of harsh noise, but this is the sort of sculpted noise, the sort of blown out power electronics and textured blacknoise dronemusic that we can't seem to get enough of.
LIMITED TO 120 COPIES!! Each in a swank hand silk-screened cover.
His Satanic Majesty returns with another of his trademark concept albums, this one telling a story based around an alternate version of the life of Jesus, one in which he does not die upon the cross... Good stuff, with more high King Diamond screams than ever before, and plenty of classic Andy La Rocque guitarwork.
A few lists back we reviewed a killer disc from a German band called Woburn House, who traffic in a killer blend of repetitive hypno rock a la Dutch outfit Gore, but blended with a heaping dose of mathy post rock, a combo that totally kicked our asses. But then we discovered that there was in fact a Woburn side project called Klabautamann, who were supposedly a super weird black metal band!! This we had to hear. So after some internet sleuthing, we got in touch with the band and managed to get a bunch of the Klabautamann debut cd Der Ort, and if anything, it's even cooler, and WAY WAY weirder than we would have ever hoped.
Take the first track, it begins like most black metal songs, with a buzzing insectoid riff, which explodes into some epic blackened riffing, we love it already, but then suddenly, the guitars drop out, and leave a skeletal post rock jam, lilting clean guitars, but with blasting double kick drums and growled demonic vocals, a weird combo for sure, but so good. Then the song transforms into some mathy metallic breakdown, before blissing out into some dreamy melodic drift, before bursting back into full on black blast again. And that's just the first track.
The second track begins with acoustic guitars and drums, a dreamy strum and pound that could easily be some weird indie rock band, the vocals kick in, a sort of sing song monotone, with little melodic curlicues underneath, until the song lurches into some complex stop start groove, with wild octopoidal drumming and little bursts of squiggly guitar leads. After a gorgeous classical breakdown, the drums kick in, a blazing blast beat accompanying this lovely finger picked guitar, another bizarre juxtaposition that sounds amazing.
The next track is a dense tangled black angular workout, all impossibly convoluted Voivod-ish riffs over furious drumming, before again breaking into a weird loping post rock jam, punctuated by brief bursts of blazing blackness.
It's hard to explain exactly what's going on, but whatever it is, it's awesome. Every track is dense with riffs and parts, gorgeous clean sections are butted up against filthy frosty blackness, acoustic guitars routinely jam alongside metallic blast beats, crazy complicated riffs are chopped into stuttery fragments, and rearranged around mathy rhythms...
Then there's the final track, a total out of the blue mind blower, a nine minute epic, that is still sort of black metal, but also sounds like Tool or Coheed And Cambria, chugging riffs, wailing vocals, both male and female, all tangled up in killer harmonies, the whole thing shoegazey and kind of emo and super poppy, the guitar weaving elaborate textures, but it's the vocals, so weird and cool, it almost has us wishing the whole record had singing like this. So unexpected and so goddamn great.
After the recently reviewed Lifelover, probably our most listened to new 'black metal' disc for sure!
Third full length from these German post-black metallers, long time favorites around here, which of course means a new Klabautamann record is always a cause for celebration, as is any record by any band related to this ever shifting collective, who play in a bunch of different outfits, including other aQ faves like Woburn House, and Island. But Klabautamann is probably the 'blackest' of the bunch, the guitars buzzy, the vocals harsh and hellish, the drums furious, but that's really where the resemblance to typical black metal ends, take the first song, exploding out of the gate with a loping mathy post metal groove, a bit Slinty, all wound tight, gnarled rapid fire guitar chug, wild drumming, when suddenly, the song shifts and the band are locked into some sort of prog / folk thing, with spidery guitars, and polka like rhythms, which gives way to a dreamy waltzy folk breakdown, but peppered with brief dynamic bursts of metallic crunch, only to slip right back into the opening churn and chug.
The next track is another woozy, doom flecked bit of black lope, but it changes constantly, at its fiercest reminding us of classic Satyricon, but at it's least metal, reminding us of some sort of avant prog pop. Which is the cool thing about Klabautamann, the fact that they're constantly flitting back and forth between the two, but in such a away that it sound totally natural and organic. The songs, as convoluted and complex as they are, seem to flow perfectly, slipping from grim raw blackness, to weird pretty pop in the blink of an eye, often finding some way to meld the two in transition. The playing here is incredible, dexterous, nimble, frenzied and freaking fast, super prog, only in so much as the parts are intricate, and there's so many of them, without digging too deep, this is definitely easy to enjoy as just a super varied black metal record, the band do tend to return to blasting buzzing blackness, but there's so much going on, that to try and enjoy it on just that one level would be a waste, Merkur, much like the records before it, is a lush, layered complex black prog beast, one best enjoyed slowly, immersing yourself in every nuance, from the harsh and heavy to the ethereal and delicate. Amazing stuff.
Ultra limited seven inch picture disc from these German black metallers. But Klabautamann aren't at all your typical black metal group, beginning with the fact that most of them also do time in metallic math rockers Woburn House, who we raved about on a past list. And that math rock pedigree definitely finds its way into the sound of Klabautamann. As always there's plenty of growling demon-vox, blasting beats, and buzzing riffage, but more than half the time is spent in various non-metal forms, from blissed out dreamy folk interludes, to simple slowcore crawls, to weird angular prog workouts. And even in full blasting metal mode, the sound is anything but typical, the buzzing and blasting is infused with haunting melancholy melodies, ultra catchy hooks, weird burbling underwater bass, but all deftly wrapped up in the curious freaked out, gloriously demented black-post-math-metal-whatever that is Klabautamann.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each copy hand numbered, packaged with a cover/sheet of liner notes with the credits and lyrics, and the picture disc is an eye popping full color illustration of dancing gnomes and faeries on one side, a sleeping witch, curled up with here staff and bugle and mysterious book of spells on the other. The best part is the 7" also comes with a cd-r with the tracks from the single, so you can throw those right on your iPod and hang that single on your wall right where it belongs...
Second disc from this mysterious blackened outfit, that just so happens to feature members of AQ faves Woburn House, a modern metallic post rock combo, who knocked our socks off with their recent Message To Ourselves Outside The Dreaming Machine record on UK label Paradigms. Where Woburn house took math rock and metallized it, creating a sound much more akin to some unlikely blend of Shellac and Gore, in Klabautamann, they take the buzzing blur of black metal, and add all sorts of melody and strange convoluted arrangements.
The record opens with the crunch of winter footsteps and glistening arpeggiated guitars, a lilting swoonsome introduction to the record proper, which erupts out of the gates as track two lurches into black aktion, manic drumming, buzzing crusty riffage and growled demonic vocals. But that's where any resemblance to traditional black metal ends. The songs buzz and thrash and pound, but it's so much more melodic, with cool little Iron Maiden-y guitar harmonies, strange mathy breakdowns, all sorts of strange guitar parts lurking around and under the main riff, lots of jangle and shimmer, even at its fiercest, there always seems to be some sort of sweet melody lurking underneath. The riffs too are much more rock than black metal, giving the record another strange twist. Lots of parts even sound like a blackened Treepeople, with multiple guitar lines all tangled up into gorgeous melodic knots. So cool and so weird. Could very well be the perfect gateway black metal band for folks who may have been a bit shy about taking the plunge into the dark side. And for the rest of you, whose musical souls are already tainted, this is strange and twisted, mathy, melodic, buzzy and blackened heaven!
The Old Chamber is the latest from these oddly monikered German post black metallers who have been long time faves, along with the various other bands like Woburn House, Island, and Valborg, who all seem to share members, and definitely share an distinctive aesthetic. The new Woburn House is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and while that group seems to be moving further away from metal, Klabautamann seem to be doing precisely the opposite, infusing their sound with a healthy dose of classic old school black metal. Just check out the opener, a pounding melodic blackened dirge, depressive and minor key, but melodic enough that it could be Khold or Katatonia, but then the vocals change everything, a sick, glass gargling raspy black croak, which makes for a strange combo, the music lilting and loping, the vocals venomous and hateful, but it works. Even stranger is when the band's post black metal proclivities shine through, like when the song shifts gears, and gets sort of soaring and proggy, chuggy and mathy, only to slip right back into that melodic lumber, adding some melancholic guitar leads to boot.
The second track "Bog Spawn" finds the sound shifting more toward the sound we remember, a little bit Slinty, but still super heavy, spidery melodies, descending arpeggios, all sort of woozy and sea sick sounding, minus the vocals, it could be some heavy math rock band, the vocals just give it a little bit of black grimnity. On past records, it seemed like the sounds were separate and distinctive, pretty post rocky parts would collide with blasting crusty blackness, and then back again, but it seems like on The Old Chamber, while the overall shift seems to be toward a sound more melodic, it also sounds like those two halves of Klabautamann's sound have been fused into something pretty fantastic. The melodic side definitely seems to hold sway, but it wouldn't sound as good as it does without the grim black energy underneath. Needless to say, this is the sort of avant heaviness and melodic blackness, that we can never get enough of, and while we loved their last record Merkur, we're beginning to think we like this one even more. And along with the Woburn House, we've barely been able to bring ourselves to listen to anything else.
First record we've reviewed from these Portland crushers (who count a member of aQ faves L'Acephale among their ranks), whose sound has changed dramatically over the last 4 years and 3 full lengths, having started life as something much more noisy and chaotic, initially some sort of twisted power electronic / grindcore combo, their sound blackened considerably, their music growing more and more dense and darkly metallic, arriving here, at Tresspass, where they have essentially made the transition to full on black metal band, but what makes these guys so good, and this record so compelling, is that it's informed by that transformation, for all the black buzz, and gnarled riffing, there are gouts of grinding fury, or weird stretches of processed vocals sounding like a symphony of gurgles. In some ways they're like a more punk rock Deathspell Omega, they have a similarly dense sound, and a similar knack for creating lush blackened crush from multiple layers of droned out guitars, tangled riffage, and impossibly chaotic drumming.
Even at their blackest, their punk roots show through, whether it's a barrage of squealing pick slides, or some serious punked out D-beat pound, the guttural vocals more death metal, but again, it just adds another cool element to their already wildly hybridized sound. Relentless and furious, the production MASSIVE, the sound epic and crushingly brutal, downtuned and HEAVY, the tracks occasionally splintering into droned out doom, or blurry stretches of rumble and thrum, or crumbling industrial blurscapes, but just as often exploding into wild gouts of metalpunk chaos, before slipping right back into another blast of grinding blackbuzz churn.
Super swank gatefold sleeves, with printed cardstock insert.
First release we've managed to get from this weirdo from the Northwest, whose sound is a sort of abstract doom / outsider electronica? Or something, kinda tough to describe, but if you can imagine some fucked up hybrid of Wolf Eyes and Blue Sabbath Black Cheer you might be getting close, oh but only if you imagine they sometimes made techno music, which sounds weird, and it is, but it a good way.
After a weird vocal intro, the sound is all detuned bass warble, thick rumbling dronemusic, wreathed in buzzing and flecked with little mysterious sonic events, sorta creepy and abstract and spaced out, that is until 'the beat' comes in, a simple pulse, over a bed of gurgled vocals and what sounds like bleating sheep, or maybe quacking ducks, all of which is soon overwhelmed by sheets of staticky noise, and super processed demonic vokills. And that's just the beginning, soon the sound blossoms into a super distorted down tuned creep, a noisy industrial doom death march, that quickly transforms into another weird stretch of beat driven electro-noise, strange pitch-shifted tones and unsettling vocal mewlings draft atop a bed of undulating buzz, all anchored by that beat. Soon the sound becomes sort of Butthole Surfers-ish, woozy, melty riffage, dirge caveman thump, and processed vocal drawls, lo-fi and again, laced with all kinds of FX and creepy voices. Finally, things finish off with a 10 minute epic, that might be the least weird of the bunch, at least at first, all simple spidery guitar melody, moody cello rumbling in the background, which is soon joined by more tweaked and twisted vox, the sound devolving into a churning morass of distant drones, electronic squelches, malfunctioning FX, and just a creepy grim ambience, before exploding again into some sort of pounding industrial noise-psych finale, echoey howled vocals, pounding drum machines, all wrapped in the tracks suffocating blackness and fractured prismatic psychedelia.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!
The Outside is the second full length from this Hungarian black metal duo, who initially kick things off with some pretty fierce, but ultimately straight forward black buzz. It's a sound we seem to never tire of, so a wall of furious fast picked guitars, and furious blastbeats like this definitely still pushes all our BM buttons, but there's a lot more going on here than straight black buzz. In fact that opening salvo barely lasts two minutes before the sound splinters into a weird doomy crawl, with some sick, raspy vokills, before launching into a churning midtempo, almost post rocky sounding lope, fuzzed out bass, spare driving drumming, the guitars offering up little bits of melodic filigree here and there, but ultimately the band lock into some seriously tranced out mesmer, before finally returning to another stretch of epic buzzing blackness.
The rest of the record delivers a series of buzzing epics, heavy on the creeping atmosphere, the core still being a raw blasting black metal, but with much of the group's time spent locked into downtuned dirges, and doomy lumbers, the guitars spiraling into woozy tangled harmonies, clouds of chiming harmonics over the motorik rhythms, at times sounding like some blackened strain of hypnorock (check out "Drowning"), and when the the black metal does kick in, it's fierce and majestic, soaring and utterly epic, sometimes, though, the band drops out, and those tell tale buzzing guitars begin to build momentum, but then instead of bursting into blasting blackness, the drums emerge as a doomy slow-mo pound, creating a weird sort of blackbuzz/doomdirge hybrid. And so it goes, the sound shifting from blackened churn, to furious buzzing frenzy, from surprisingly minimal melodic blackened gloomrock (a la Khold), to raw black buzz and back again.
Super striking, black and white, digipak style packaging too.
After a long absence, here's a new, third album from these former Napalm Records recording artists, the sometimes very weird Austrian black metal outfit Korva, now rechristened Korovakill. They've always been one of our favorites, playing unclassifiable epic metal with baroque keyboards and downright bizarre male and female vocals (too silly for some, it must be said) that on their first album even reminded us of the Sun City Girls! The album after that dabbled in electronica, ending up even stranger than some of Arcturus' experiments, but with this disc they rely on more standard, blasting black metal techniques, making for probably their most "accessible" release, but definitely still one for fans of the weird in black metal, along the lines of the aforementioned Arcturus, Borknagar, Enslaved, etc. We haven't had this disc long enough to fully comprehend the watery concept at play here, but "Waterhells" seems to refer to a mythology of the sea that ties together the songs (interesting subject matter for a band from the Alps).
The first appearance on the aQ list by these Texas based guitarnoise terrorists, was a recent collaboration with Irish doomdronedirge outfit To Blacken The Pages, but this is the first proper record of theirs we've managed to get enough of to list. And it's a doozy.
Previously a one man band, and previously more of an oozing blacknoise Skullflower psychguitar buzz drone dirge freakout-fit, the band has expanded to a duo (unless the new member is just the drum machine), either way, the sound has definitely shifted gears, less abstract, less noisy, and more industrial, with proper songs; a lurching, lumbering, downtuned chunk of miserable abject slo-mo heaviness. The programmed beats minimal and robotic, the guitars murky and crusty, the vocals a super reverbed and heavily effected demonic croak, the songs, creeping and crawling, haunting and harrowing, shades of the Swans, Godflesh of course, the label compare their sound to Loop crossed with Abruptum, and we can definitely here that in places.
The sound is way less caustic than in the past, and more psychedelic and hypnotic, "Ouroboros: First Lesson", for all its croaked vocals and grim guitar buzz, locks into a looped mesmer and gets downright psychedelic, like Spacemen 3 covered by some basement black metal band, it's pretty bad ass. And a bunch of the tracks follow a similar path, building to a lurching groove and then getting all spaced out hypnorock. Then there's tracks like "The City Of Lost Girls", that are downright pretty, the guitars smoldering, laced with piano, mournful and melancholy, drifty and droney and dreamlike. And even in the harsher jams, hidden amidst all that crunch and pound and howl are strange melodies, unlikely hooks, gorgeous textures, all woven into a dense industrial tinged, blackened psychedelia, that will most likely have lots of you scrambling for all those Korperschwache releases you missed.
Includes a link for a download to a companion record, featuring early/alternate versions and a handful of unreleased tracks.
Full length number two from these SF heavies, and while they haven't sacrificed any of their Teutonic crush, or noise rock heft, they do display a surprisingly melodic side on Container Ships, a soft white sonic underbelly that was hinted at on their recent split 7" with Thou, on which they covered a Low track, and it feels like much of the sensibilities that not only drove that choice, but determined what they did with it as well, are all over Container Ships. And while nothing here is quite as darkly delicate, the band do definitely dial back the heaviness, letting the sounds linger, letting clean guitars spread out and set the mood, and when the hammer does fall, the sound this time around is much more crisp and lush, even when the guitars are downtuned, churning and chugging, they ring out, the sounds reverberant and rich. The debt to the Unsane and Helmet no longer so obvious, at least not all the time. On the opener, which might be the prettiest song here, the band offer up their own sort of slowcore minimal math rock / noise rock sprawl, subtly nuanced, and super melodic, another big change on display here is frontman Scott Evans' vocals, which have transformed from a gruff bark, to a serious croon, still rough around the edges, but way more emotive and the perfect match for the band's ever developing sound.
But fear not, get an earful of the second track, "50's Dad", which is all loping, chugging noise rock crush, Evan's vocals higher than on past record, which definitely changes the vibe throughout, and makes even the heaviest tracks here, less of a knuckledragging vibe, and more of an emo edge, which again totally suits them, especially when the band lock into a weird loping groove, and Evans sings himself ragged, his voice rough and raw and impassioned. Not to mention the burst of tangled psychedelic guitar leads that are wrapped around the middle of the track.
The guys have been busting their asses for years now, and we always sort of wondered why they weren't huge, but goddamn if this record doesn't change all that nothing will.
The whole record is a sort of push and pull between the muscled mathy noise rock of the early records, and this desire to make beautiful music, even if it's dark, mean, ugly, hard and heavy beautiful music, which this most certainly is, and it's that balance that makes this record, and these guys so good. The title track here is a dirgey doomy drag, the chords ringing out, the vocals carrying all the melodic weight, and transforming a dirgey chugfest into something epic and intense, the song revealing a grasp and mastery of dynamics that was most definitely underutilized on past records, but gets a serious workout here.
"Cornerstone" is about as poppy as these guys get, and again, they not only mange to pull it off, they also make it this hook heavy noise-pop fit seamlessly into the way heavier rest of the record, not to mention demonstrating another element the band have in their arsenal but obviously choose to employ very judiciously. The record finishes off with the 9 minute epic "You Don't Have Cancer", which again reveals their slowcore proclivities, and demonstrates their ability to subsume that sound into their own, the resulting hybrid another sprawling, gut wrenchingly emotional, crushingly heavy, surprisingly melodic epic, that would, and does, put most other heavy bands to shame.
Killer 3 way vinyl split of extreme heaviness, starting off with SF's own Kowloon Walled City, who by now really have to be one of the best and one of the most criminally under-hyped heavy bands in the city, super brutal and intense, their sound dense and crushing and epic, equal parts modern metal and old school AmRep style noise rock, a hybrid few can pull off as well as these guys, yet outside of a select few, it seems these guys have yet to be discovered by the world at large, but with every record, it seems like they can't remain a secret much longer.
And here they bring the noise (rock) big time, their first track a lurching stop/start mini-epic, the guitars corrosive and downtuned and THICK, driven by some seriously kick ass thumping drum damage, the vocals a frenzied (but still melodic) yowl, the arrangement strange and super dynamic, the whole thing hooky as hell, one of those tracks that had it come out in 1997 as a single it would probably be one of your most treasured 7"s. Their second track is totally different, reigning in that wanton bash and crush for something a bit more low slung and brooding, a weird sort of Neurosis / Killing Joke hybrid, super melodic, dark and moody, but with no shortage of extreme sonic crush.
We had never heard (or heard of) Ladder Devils before, but they're a pretty good match for KWC, they too have a sort of noise rock thing going on, their take a bit more punky and grungy, still hyper rhythmic and heavy as fuck, but way more loose, some awesomely howled vocals, thick syrupy low end, chugging guitars, hooky riffs, both tracks rule, even recorded evoking wild and sweaty live cub destroying chaos. Definitely psyched to hear more.
And finally Jersey metallic post rock sludgelords Fight Amp, who are only now making their first appearance on the aQ site, even though a few of us have been fans for a while. Fight Amp have a sound not all that far removed from folks like Baroness, Kylesa and the like, a sort of Southern sludge via slow brooding Neur-Isis style heaviness, and their two tracks here offer up a seriously heavy heaping helping of just that, churning and thick and epic, a little groovy, WAY downtuned, a little mathy and proggy too, giving it a sort of Voivod feel, albeit quite a bit more crusty and sludgey, but it's a pretty killer combo, and again, a pretty perfect match for both Ladder Devils and Kowloon Walled City...
Killer packaging too, a thick PVC style jacket, hand silkscreened, housing a printed folded sleeve, the back half of the sleeve cut away to reveal the clear vinyl and the printed images beneath it. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!
Nice. Black Metal supergroup Krallice return with record #2, and much like the first self-titled album, Dimensional Bleedthrough is full of nonstop, dizzying musical virtuosity that will send your jaw dropping to the floor. This stuff sounds IMPOSSIBLE to play, which for most mortals, it would be. But Krallice count among its ranks avant indie-metal guitar gods Mick Barr (Crom Tech, Orthelm, Ocrilim, etc.) and Colin Marston (known usually for his bass duties in groups like Dysrhytmia and Behold the Arctopus), as well as the hot-shit drumming skills of Lev Weinstein and the burly basslines of Nick McMaster. It's cool to hear what many people would have written off as a side project really take off into new territory where the music is allowed to shine through instead of hiding behind a facade of what black metal should be. In the end, Krallice effortlessly lay waste to so much of the black metal out there these days. The complexity of these songs is pretty unbelievable, but luckily things remain very musical throughout. The songs are forceful but super melodic and catchy, and listening to Krallice is like taking off on a mind altering journey. The vocals here are great and classically black metal, and anyone familiar with Barr's high pitched shrieking days in Crom Tech might be a bit surprised to hear him passing the test with flying colors. Soundwise, Krallice adhere to the template perfected by groups like Weakling and Wolves In The Throne Room, but they definitely put their own unique spin on things. Things get a bit proggy here and there, but not in a bad or dorky way at all. This is really the sound of dudes who know their way around their instruments like few others, and they have combined their talents to deliver hands down one of the most impressive metal records this year.
NOTE: We're listing this at a special sale price of $11.98 for the next two weeks only, after which it'll go back to the regular $13.98 list price.
Thee latest blast of confusional sonic chaos from this sort-of black metal supergroup, featuring avant outsider axeman Mick Barr (Orthrelm, Ocrilim, etc.) and bass shredder Colin Marsten (Behold The Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, etc.) is Krallice album number three, the follow up to the awesomely titled Dimensional Bleedthrough, and it's pretty much another opus of epic, soaring and majestic, yet convoluted and confusional black metal as only these guys can play it. There are moments, where you might, MIGHT think this could be some other black metal band, but those moments pass, and before long, when the band lock into their blazing blasting fury. As with the other records, the real surprise is how melodic Krallice can be, judging from the pedigree, one might be forgiven for assuming this would be incredibly difficult, and it is, in some ways, but it's also weirdly catchy, a pretty good mix of classic black metalisms, and the player's obtuse and obviously idiosyncratic take on the genre. The sound this time around actually seems a lot cleaner, and arrangements a bit more straight ahead, and the melodies much more pronounced, and it definitely suits them, but just when we begin to think that, the song we're listening to will fracture into some impossible tangle, or some super tripped out sort-of guitar lead, before slipping right back into more soaring buzzing melodic black metal. Which is just fine with us. Be sure to check out the epic 15 minute closer "Forgiveness In Rot", which is maybe the most melodic thing they've done, with some impossible hooks, and some subtle poppiness, all woven into the buzzing and blasting, almost like Krallice channeling Alcest AND some sort of epic post rock!
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That pesky 'dimensional bleedthrough' thing has happened once again, with the buzzing, super-teched out sounds of whatever weird astral plane wherein Krallice dwell making it all the way to our humble ears here on Earth, causing much headbanging and more mindboggling. Yes, indeed it's the fourth album of epick black metal shreddness from this NYC unit, which features the inhuman guitar chops of both Mick Barr (Orthrelm, Octis, Ocrilim, Oldest, Crom-Tech, etc.) and Colin Marston (Dysrhythmia, Behold�The Arctopus, Infidel?/Castro!, etc.).
Once again, if you want blasting majesty and grim complexity� you got it!! Just press play and give yourself up to the numbing force of these intense exercises in extremity, an hour's worth of Krallice's controlling chaos.
All we can say is, for this precise (and it is precise) style of black metal - music that's as difficult to play as most black metal logos are to read - at this point Krallice have nothing left to prove. And very little competition.
We've currently got the digipack cd version, self-released by the band this time rather than on Profound Lore like the three previous (on account of how PL's release schedule was a bit backed up), with the double vinyl version on Gilead Media on the way to us next week.
The unchallenged masters of space-tech interdimensional black metal, Krallice, have returned with a new slab of labyrinthine insanity. Krallice, strangely, is Mick Barr and Colin Marston's most restrained project, and with each release, they continue to refine the songwriting that their other projects (among them Behold The Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, Infdel?Castro!, Gorguts, Orthrelm, and Encenathrakh) don't necessarily focus on, and despite most of us already being huge Krallice fans, this was the first to really impress this particular reviewer. On Ygg Huur, you obviously get the dizzying space-riffage, but refined into easily their best written SONGS yet. Incredibly hard to pigeonhole, too, Krallice have managed to craft a sound that isn't strictly black metal but definitely isn't death metal either. Idiosyncratic, obtuse, and strange, yet somehow catchy and powerful. Tech done right.
It has come to this. Just as we somehow suspected. And desired. Underground guitar maestro Mick Barr, he of such monomaniacal hypershred mosquito-like guitar and drums (or drum machine) bands as Orthrelm, Octis, and Ocrilm, has finally unleashed the bona fide black metal album that we always knew he probably wanted to do. And should do. After all, in our review of the last Ocrilm album Annwn released earlier this year on Hydra Head, we'd said that not only did Barr's guitar buzz remind us of black metal music, but that if it were a black metal album it would be one of the best (and most fucked up, too) of the year.
So, now Barr and equally tech-y cohorts guitarist/bassist Colin Marston (that's right, of mathy mindbogglers Behold...The Arctopus!) and drummer Lev Weinstein (Bloody Panda) have started the utterly blackened Krallice, releasing their self-titled debut on the respected Profound Lore label. And the rest of the USBM scene should take notice, these guys mean business. Sure, anybody with a MySpace page can have a black metal band, make a cool unreadable, thorny logo (like Krallice's) and come up with song titles like "Wretched Wisdom", "Timehusk", "Energy Chasms", and "Forgiveness In Rot" (as Krallice have done) but probably not that many can actually back up all those black metal signifiers so seriously with their MUSIC, music of such sheer power and perfection that we find here. Wintry winds are blowing here (i.e. it's not hot air), as majestic melodies ride the crests of tsunami-sized waves of distorted, buzzing guitar. The six mesmerizingly lengthy tracks found on this Krallice disc are quite technically complex, and buzzingly relentless, much as you'd expect from Barr and Co. It's a blasting blizzard, with raging vokills and hyperspeed drumming but most importantly, shreddingly gorgeous guitar leads, densely woven, that build and build always to new forbidden plateaus of melancholic, misanthropic triumph. Imagine maybe the epick grimnity of Weakling or Wolves In The Throne Room, already badass in the guitar department, with an extra dosage of divebombing fretboard squiggle, interstellar energies continually released in the form of six string shred... yes, Krallice certainly "bring it" as it were, and should appeal to both fans of Barr's previous quasi-metallic, mathy mindfucks as well as those looking for quality USBM, advanced structures or not. (Although, in regards to neo-classical shred, they haven't quite unthroned the true Yngwie's of USBM, the late lamented Windham Hell.)
Final black and bleak missive from metal misanthrope Imperial and his black metal horde Krieg. Practically an institution, Krieg spew a particularly hateful and depressive strain of black metal, falling somewhere between the old school (Judas Isacriot) and the new school (Xasthur) of US black metal. A buzzing chaotic blur, mostly plodding midtempos, guitars a droning hypnotic whir, the drums a splattery framework way down in the murky swirl, the vocals squirming tentacles of howl and shriek, tangled amidst the buzzing riffs and the careening rhythms. Not nearly as harsh as past efforts, this final album is downright melodic at times, some classic sounding thrash riffs surface here and there, huge expanses of droning doom metal share the spotlight with the grim black thrash, the melodies minor key and truly sorrowful sounding, some tracks trail off into ambient stretches of white noise guitar, sounding a bit like Total or Hototogisu here and there. Blue Miasma is hate fueled and harrowing, harsh but weirdly mournful and melancholy, even the ultra fast parts end up sort of blissing out into droning doomy miserablism. Fucking Awesome.
Word of warning, Krieg and Imperial have been know to espouse truly abhorrent views, political, racial and otherwise, sort of comes with the black metal territory a lot of the time. It's a personal choice, whether you can enjoy the music and ignore the politics of its creator. You have been warned.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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This is about as raw as black metal can get. Overblown, superdistorted, chaotic, thrashing buzzing brutality. Vocals so loud that at their peak they overload the speakers, and begin to crumble, pushing all the other sounds out of the way. Very creepy and disconcerting. This is supposedly the last Krieg record ever, and what a way to go. An homage to Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, and the Patrick Bateman that lives in all of us, bloodlust, greed, selfishness and violence. Two dense tracks of head splitting ultraviolence, one which splinters into a creepy militaristic march, with heavily reverbed drums, and the most anguished howls of fury imaginable. The other three tracks are samples taken from the movie of American Psycho, which seems to be Krieg's perfect filmic muse.
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Krieg are like a USBM institution. Going on 15 years now, with an insane number of lineups, and close to 30 releases, yet they somehow remain so much more underground than their USBM brethren, Krieg are indeed, truly KVLT. Krieg mainman Imperial's public persona definitely got a bump recently with his involvement in the black metal supergroup Twilight, and some of that band's experimentalism has definitely bled into Krieg, a little, and the new line up reflects that, with Leviathan's Wrest on bass and Woe's Chris Grigg on drums, not to mention Sanford Parker of Minsk (among others) on "grinding synthetic nausea. With that sort of roster, you might in fact be expecting some tripped out psychedelic blackness, or some sort of droned out grim blacknoize, but Krieg remain TROO and offer up some seriously grim and buzzy blackness, furious blast beats, howling hellish vokills, and some dense gnarled riffage, the sound grimy and gritty and filthy, the way true black metal was meant to sound.
Sure there are moments that deviate a bit from the black path, "All Paths To God" is practically poppy, a moody and melancholy dirge with a surprising hook, there's the tripped out spaciness of "Depakote", and the blown out glitchy staticky dronefield that finishes off "And The Stars Fell on" as well as a couple shorter tracks that ditch the buzz and blast altogether, offering up instead stretches of moody melancholic meander, and the last track blasts wildly until it seems to slow down, melting into a droning black morass, but for the most part this is Black. Metal. Heavy on the black. And heavy on the metal. Dense, and dark, black and buzzing, ominous and sinister, harsh and hateful, brutal, grim and fucking awesome.
Super limited (500!) picture disc reissue of these two slabs of black brutality. One side features Bael, who spew forth an ugly, super blown out, ultra distorted black thrash, furious and so fast it often slips into a black blur (reminds us a bit of Diamatregon). Super lo-fi and recorded way too hot (in a good way), all the levels in the red, you can practically feel the evil seeping through the speakers. Originally released in 2003, features a bonus track with Imperial from Kreig on vocals! The flipside features the mighty Krieg, and it's a vinyl reissue of The Church mini cd from way back in 2001. Mega murky and also extremely lo-fi, but where Bael are blasting and blinding, Kreig are muddy and murky and mournful. Plodding midtempo depressive black metal, blasting drums over fuzzed out riffs, hateful and harsh. Also includes an exclusive bonus track, a cover of Earth's "Charioteer" which is awesome. Clean guitars picking out a majestic melody, a spare melodic dirge, meditative and hypnotic, with creepy snatches of conversation mixed in, not heavy as in huge guitars and pounding drums, but heavy like ominous and subtly dark. Cool. Weird that Nachtmystium covered the same Earth track as a bonus track on a recent cd. Hmm....
Black and white picture disc, one side is a blurry washed out photo of some ruins or old church, the other side features a creepy diseased hand.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
Another blast from these Brazilian death metal lunatics!!
Holy shit! SIX POUNDS OF METAL. There are certain things, that as metalheads, one feels might just be utterly essential, something every self respecting metaller NEEDS to own, and this friends is one of those things, the long in the works hardcover book compendium of every single issue of long running (25 years!) Norwegian metal magazine Slayer. You might remember not long ago we reviewed the ultra deluxe hardcover version of the final issue of Slayer Magazine, which went out of print in a flash, that's included here too, but more on that in a second.
Bazillion Points, who also released the equally amazing and almost overwhelming Touch And Go zine compendium, not to mention Hellbent For Cooking,The Heavy Metal Cookbook, Tom Gabriel Fischer's Only Death Is Real Hellhammer / Celtic Frost book, and Daniel Ekeroth's Swedish Death Metal book, phew, has really outdone themselves with this Metalion book. It really does weigh SIX POUNDS, and is gorgeous, super striking front and back cover, printed in foil stamped red metallics. Inside you'll find EVERY PAGE of every single one of the zine's twenty issues, but that's not all, it's also, as the title suggests, a diary/memoir of sorts, kept by Slayer Mag mastermind Jon Kristiansen, all about the magazines, the story behind each issue, as well as his life in metal. It also includes the pre-Slayer zine Live Wire, of course tons of rare photos, and like that out of print Slayer Magazine issue XX. While the outside is super swank, the inside is total classic cut and paste old school zine style, lots of drawings and cartoons, different typefaces, photos, no efforts made to smooth the edges, to hide the bits of tape or the staples that might have show up in the photocopies, total DIY, kvlt metal zine, just fancied up and presented in book style. And over the course of 20 issues and 25 years, the magazine featured pretty much every metal (and metal beloved) band that mattered: Watain, Morbid, Whiplash, Bathory, Sadus, Kreator, Master's Hammer, Sadistik Exekution, Funeral Mist, Nifelheim, Destroyer 666, SUNNO))), Grotesque, Savage Thrust, Medieval, Invidious Deathrash, Obscurity, Nocturnal Graves, Pagan Altar, Strid, Mayhem, Emperor, Slayer, Nihilist, Celtic Frost, Cathedral, Entombed, Morbid, Napalm Death, Metallica, Opeth, Cradle of Filth,�Sadus, Satyricon, Enslaved, Pentagram, Jarboe, Immortal, Possessed, Overkill, Ulver, Dark Angel and more more more.
Also included are multiple forwards from publisher Ian Christie, SUNNO)))'s Stephen O'Malley, Fenriz of Darkthrone, Tomas Lindberg from Grotesque, Chris Reifert from Death/Autopsy, and Erik Danielsson from Watain.
We've barely cracked the book and we're already totally captivated and will no doubt get sucked further in. Kristiansen is a great writer, his interviews are funny and cool, the bands really open up, and it's really interesting to read interviews with all these bands from the last two decades, and Kirstiansen's life story is pretty amazing, he's self deprecating, includes lots of embarrassing photos of himself as a child and a teen and at every stage of his metal evolution, and the way he tells his story is a pretty great read on its own, and the magazines are way more enjoyable now, with Kristiansen offering context and history and all the drama and various tales behind the assembly of each issue. Needless to say, this is metalhead nirvana, and even if you never read it, it'll look amazing on your coffee table, but odds are you won't be able to resist, and like us you'll get sucked in, and lost in 25 years of METAL.
Be warned, mailorder folks, this book is MASSIVE, and HEAVY, and we don't mean heavy like metal, we mean heavy like SIX POUNDS, so this book will be shipped by weight, not by the usual per-item flat rate price, but it's SO worth it...
We first discovered Krohm after Wrest from Leviathan suggested we check them out, if we were in the mood for some super dirgey, cold and miserable, almost doom-like suicidal black metal. When aren't we? And whaddayaknow? He was right. Nortt, Xasthur, even some Leviathan are the main touchstones for Krohm's super mournful doomic black metal. Nary a blast or furious riff to be found. Instead this is midtempo buzzing blackness. Like Malefic from Xasthur, Numinas from Krohm, weaves a bleak depressive instrumental back drop, all fuzzed out guitars, simple martial drumming, thick slabs of bass rumble, above which he drizzles haunting and heart breaking guitar melodies, peppered with his way down in the mix howls. This is a sea sick drift across a pitch black sonic ocean. Lurching and loping, riding the gentle swells, each track a sort of sea sick waltz, or a death march across a muddy swamp, trudging head down, eyes cast Earthward, body racked with sorrow, a sky full of cold rain. A soul as black as your broken heart, dead and done beating forever, walking and wandering and waiting for the ground to swallow you whole. So awesome.
Essential for fans of Xasthur and Nortt and all manner of depressive black doom...
An entirely new (and entirely grim) prospect to us here at aQ HQ, Mysterium Coniunctionis brings together two hitherto unheard of corpse-painted practitioners of the dark arts: Italy's Krowos and France's Malepeste, both of whom thrive in the murkiest depths of mid tempo depressive raw black metal. The three Krowos tracks ply almost exclusively in a shuffling Burzumic plod (with the occasional daliance into a Transilvanian Hunger-esque blast) - a dreadful and inevitable suicide trance - the vocals anguished and shrill, the guitar work simple, patient, repetitive and hypnotic. The sound is muddy and lightless (as it should be), a slow motion abyssian slog into nothingness. Malepeste's contribution are no more uplifting, peppering their marching funereal thud with some deep droning Attila Csihar-esque vocals. Musically, they mine a similar field as Krowos, their brand of black metal slow, simple and bleak, but accented by an off kilter looseness that adds a certain sickening delirium to the proceedings. Those interested in black metal's darkest, most hopeless canals need look no further than this staggering, bleeding husk of a split.
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Austrian metallers Silenius (of Summoning) and Martin Schirenc (Hollenthon, ex-Pungent Stench) have crafted this disturbing and confusing collage of sampled sounds. If I knew more German we might have a better idea of their intent, but what we can tell you is that this combines snippets of fascist-era speechifying, ominous horror-movie keyboards, folky themes, WWII sound effects, militaristic drumbeats, electronic noise, mysterious dialogue, and brief industrial-dance interludes. It's a bit like being trapped in a bunker circa 1944 as the bombs fall, tuned into a shortwave radio that is somehow, at moments, picking up a Rammstein broadcast from the future. A very intriguing and creepy listen indeed.
Perfect for the dead of winter, it's another quietly creepy, digital dronedoom opus from this two-man stupor group, featuring Stephen O'Malley (SUNNO))), Khanate, etc.) and Peter Rehberg (Pita), this time with production assistance from Jim O'Rourke. If you've heard KTL's I, II, or III (which was vinyl-only) you have an idea of what to expect - and are probably already plotting to purchase this. This is their first studio album constructed entirely for their own dark purposes, as opposed to having been commissioned as a soundtrack for live theatrical performance or film, though it certainly still has mysterious, soundtrack-y qualities. The sort that usually causes us, in reviews of KTL (and other dronesters too) to paint word-pictures of what the music evokes in our mind's eye. Subterranean caverns, bottomless pits, fallen angelic choirs, airplanes buzzing over dark forests... but we won't bother this time, you should just listen to this and your own imagination should have no difficulty providing all sorts of esoteric imagery. It may be soothing, it may be scary. Probably scary, it's up to you though. We find a lot of this to be as sinister and grim as Dick Cheney was in his Dr. Strangelove wheelchair at Obama's inauguration!
These six tracks are full of seismic rumble, high end hiss, eerie abstract glitch, sweeping drones, ringing electronics... some more epic and/or active than others. Distorted industrial rhythms shudder through several cuts, notably the disc's longest piece, the 21+ minute "Paratrooper", which features doomic beats by the drummer from Japan's Boris (who also brings his gong for an appearance on the disc's final track). While that's KTL IV at its heaviest, most of this is more like the sound of SUNNO))) sighing and whispering... or, conversely, Pita busting out a guitar to play along to a half-melted Swans record he found in the ashes of a burned-down church.
It was beginning to get pretty ridiculous, for ages we were hearing all about this band, how great they were, reading about them in metal mags, hearing other metal bands rave about them, much talk of how amazing their record was, appearances in top ten lists, pictures of the super striking John Baizley cover art everywhere, even beginnings of a backlash on the blogs about how overhyped they were, but the only problem was, you couldn't find the record ANYWHERE! At least in the US, we spent months and months, trying every metal distro, every non metal distro, we had just about given up, when voila, it finally got picked up and released domestically, with a whole mess of bonus tracks to boot. So was the wait worth it? Does Kvelertak live up to the hype?
Well, yeah, actually it was. This stuff IS pretty awesome, and bizarre, a weird blend of blasting black metal and D-beat cock-rock Turbonegro style over the top rock. Just have a listen to the opening track, which explodes in a frenzy of buzz and blast and shriek, only to switch gears into a way more groovy heavy metal punk pound, the shrieked vocals the only thing keeping it from going full Turbonegro. In fact, the NON black metal parts kind of sound like a supercharged Hellacopters, which is not at all a bad thing. And the sound is epic, the production massive, the energy through the roof.
But it's that sort of heavy rock groove thing, that might deter lots of the more true and kvlt metalheads. "Mjod" is all pounding pianos and tamborines, and big rock riffage, epic and swinging, that Hellacopters vibe huge, and the vocals are shrieky, not counting the deep bellowed gang vocals on the chorus, there's even a little acoustic guitar break, and then suddenly, a stretch of blasting black metal, which slips right back into the soaring cock rocky chorus. And so it goes. Hard to tell if these guys are black metallers indulging their inner KISS (or Turbonegro, or Hellacopters, or...), or if it's just some heavy rockers who toss in a blast here and there or a little tremlo picking to add some cult cred. Cuz it is a weird mix, and it doesn't always flow so smoothly, but we're digging it a lot, and if anything, it sounds like these guys probably KILL live. And that definitely comes across here big time.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
