[ aquarius records — Metal Black Metal ]

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Showing results 1651 through 1700 of 2429.

Latest blast of black filth from right here in SF, from one man band Palace of Worms, aka Balan, who also does time in Elk, and in Weakling worshipping outfit Dead As Dreams. The first PoW record was a huge hit around aQ land, a killer mix of grim black buzz, and avant post rock weirdness, everything we had read about this new record talked about how all the post rock and other stuff had been ditched in favor of a sound more raw and old school, but to these ears, this is anything but, the weirdness that made The Forgotten so good, still pretty much in full effect. The opening intro eases us back into PoW's black underworld, a sprawling smoldering melodic drift, all serpentine guitars, minimal tribal drum pound, buried vokills, which leads directly into a lumbering chunk of midtempo dirgery, laced with some serious melody, and finally some raw blasting blackness, and the rest of the tape seems like a push and pull between those two influence, the melody and intricacy, the raw blast and primitive buzz, but it's that constant tension that gives Lifting The Veil its energy, even when songs are in full on blast mode, the sound is still weirdly textured and melodic, check out the first half of "No Exit", appropriately grim and frantic, but the chords are lush, and there seems to be all sorts of melodic shading going on, not taking away from the grimnity of the sound, just adding texture and depth. "The Scroll Of Kimiris" is similarly crafted, on the surface, a frenzied blackened buzz, but the guitars soar, the melodies epic, the sound weirdly spacious and spare. "Wounded Pride" also begins all mathy and melodic, a doomy trudge, a lurching arrangement that ends up sounding noise rocky and majestic, before eventually crumbling into buzz and blast, but it's "Hellish Journey" that's the record's focal point, easily the heaviest, most sonically dense track, and its longest at nearly 10 minutes, the melodic aspect is downplayed a bit, but still surfaces all over the place, especially in the dreamy clean voiced outro, but those parts are well balanced by the sheer black force of the surrounding sonics. Packaged with super nice, printed, heavy-stock fold-out full color inserts, and of course, SUPER LIMITED!

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MPEG stream: The Scroll Of Kimiris

For a while, San Francisco seemed like some sort of black metal mecca, record after record and shows galore, all sorts of grim and kvlt hordes, Leviathan, Draugar, Crebain, Horn Of Dagoth, Elk, Necrite and more. And while some of those bands are still active, the recordings have seemed to dry up, more a trickle than a torrent. We know there is a Crebain record in the works, there's the forthcoming Mastery 2cd on tUMULt, a rumored Leviathan, but there are lots of new bands too, Botanist, Kerasphorus, and these guys, or rather this guy, Palace Of Worms, and finally a new slab of fucked up freaked out blackness from SF to obsess over, and believe us, this is well worth obsessing over. Anyone into any of the above mentioned bands will dig PoW for sure, a dizzying blend of troo black metal buzz, and experimental post rock, which is evident from the first few seconds of the record, beginning with haunting majestic synths, then a brittle lo-fi blast of metal, that sounds like it was played on a mandolin, or pitched up, before the song proper kicks in with a wall of frenzied super saturated black buzz, croaked vokills, and buried in the mix blast beats, switching gears multiple times throughout the song, chugging doomic sprawl, to gnarled Deathspell style blackprog, with plenty of tangly guitar lines and lurching tempo changes, clean guitar, very reminiscent of another aQ BM fave Woe, the same sort of melodic sensibility fused into a seriously harrowing chunk of grim black aggression. The rest of the record follow suit, dipping occasionally into ultra raw, old school black metal pound, weird almost industrial shoegazey ambience (sounding a bit like Nadja or Jesu), classic midtempo Burzumy blackness, awesomely creepy Eastern tinged black ambience, almost Katatonia moody sounding melodic blackness, but always returning to that furious heaviness, all lightning speed riffage, hellish vox, dizzying complex rhythms, soaring synths, but all infused with that strange, and subtle pop element that turns grim and black into something much more interesting, and makes Palace Of Worms another band to add to SF's black pantheon.

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New on local label the Flenser, two of SF's best one man black metal bands join forces, Palace of Worms offer up nearly a whole new record, while Mastery (whose insane double disc demo collection was released recently on tUMULt) kicks down an 8 plus minute sprawl of blackened metal insanity. PoW launch straight into it, starting things off with some surprisingly classic metal riffery, loads of melody, lots of texture, and a cool woozy breakdown, before the second track blackens considerably, erupting right out of the gate with gouts of black buzz and blasting beats, but even here, the sound soon grows blurry and doomy and weirdly psychedelic, PoW's sound seeming to drift between the two, classic black riffery, and tripped out doominess, culminating in the super chuggy black psych dirgery of closer "Temple Of Failure" which weds churning riffage and black buzz, to swoonsome chordal swells, so fucking cool! Mastery counters with something much more gnarled and frantically gnarled, "Egregorian Synapse" is a warped slab of lighting speed sci-fi blackness, that slips easily from dense blast-buzz to twisted tangles of melodies, the sound never letting up for the whole 8+ minutes, but constantly flitting between different arrangements and sounds, like some warped ADD black metal mutation, the rhythms too, blasting furiously one second, stuttering chaotically the next, the guitars wild warped squalls, the riffs slippery, slithery, warbly and blackly psychedelic, the track fading out mid frenzy, leaving us to imagine that this is only a fragment of the endless epic from which it was so clearly culled.

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Some furious buzzing blasting blackened grimnity from right here in SF, the 4 song debut from Pale Chalice, a local black metal band who slay, this is not avant black metal, or post black metal, or experimental black metal, this is total, raw and furious, hateful and brutal old school classic black metal. The vocals are incredible, you might recognize that raspy demonic alien croak - those rotted pipes belong to Ephemeral Domignostika, of one man black metal band Pandiscordian Necrogenesis (who we've raved about on past lists), who's also one man black metal band Mastery (whose complete discography is coming out any day now on Andee's tUMULt label), but the rest of Pale Chalice ain't so shabby either, not sure if any of the others do time in other local outfits, but it hardly matters, this shit is fierce and frenzied and frantic, the sound huge, the guitars buzzing, the riffs gnarled, the bass a buried low end throb, the drums relentless and seriously blasting, the 4 tracks here hovering mostly in full on blast mode, but occasionally slipping into punkish pound, or woozy midtempo lope, even a little acoustic guitar drift near the end, the songs are massive and majestic, four tracks in about 30 minutes, sprawling blackened buzz drenched epics, intricate and intense, the vocals cranked WAY up in the mix, which makes the whole thing sound seriously fucked up and SICK. Fast and furious, grim and black, one of the best new black metal records we've heard in a while� and yet another group to add to the ever expanding Bay Area black metal pantheon!

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Another Osmose-label double cd reissue. Pan-Thy-Monium was Swedish metalmaster Dan Swano's avant-death-metal project, which culminated in the totally Zornified AQ-fave "III: Khaooos & Kon-Fus-Ion" disc some years back. Utterly off the wall experimental metal. More recently, Dan spawned the similarly-inspired Karaboudjan ep which received high marks on AQ-List #115. This double cd

RealAudio clip: Under Ytah

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

SORRY. Instead of worshipping Satan, these bizarre Swedish metallers made up their own pantheon of gods, foremost among them "Raagoonshinnaah," the mythology of whom they celebrate on the four epic tracks of this release. The music ranges from bluesy psychedelic rock, to grunting grindcore, to free jazz, to ambient synth-scapes...A few spins of this and you too might find religion.

The return of thee only one man black metal band in the world!!! But wait you say, what abut Xasthur, and Striborg, and Leviathan, and... And you go on and on naming all the SUPPOSED one man black metal bands, but then we point out, that those bands are indeed populated by a single member, but they record like a band, one instrument at a time, the drums, then while listening to the drums, the guitar, and then the bass, finally the vocals, and they don't play live, because THEY CAN'T. That's what makes Pandiscordian Necrogenesis aka Lord Ephemeral Domignostika (also known as Mastery, the man behind the SF black metal monster of the same name, who have a double cd coming out any day now on tUMULt, and who was also the vocalist and bass player for Horn Of Dagoth), the only truly TROO one man black metal band, cuz he DOES play live, ALL the instruments at once, playing drums with his feet, riffing wildly with his hands, and of course spitting out some hellish vokills, and if that wasn't enough, it's all improvised, these tangled twisted, gnarled black metal blowouts are made up on the spot. Pretty incredible. Granted, some of the magic is lost on a recording, we're thinking a dvd or a VHS tape might be more appropriate, to watch this corpsepainted figure, hunched over his strange drum contraption, a snare with a kick drum pedal, and a bass drum with a DOUBLE kick drum pedal (he only just upgraded to double kick), while his hands flutter wildly over his axe, his contorted face spewing blackened vitriol into the mic. But hell, even minus the visuals, Cerebral Quasaric Lacerations is some seriously raw and grim blasting blackness, the guitars grinding and superdistorted, the riffing frenzied and frantic, the drumming fast and fucked up, laced with flurries of double kick, the vocals croaked and shrieked, the songs dense twisted serpentine arrangements, this shit is definitely primitive, seriously lo-fi, and way KVLT, and the crazy thing is, even though this stuff is mostly improvised, there's some incredible riffing, some super catchy blackness, some impossibly tight vocal/guitar/drum interplay, the songs slipping from old school classic thrashing blackness, to twisted Black Flag flecked BM gnarl, and back again, spitting out classic sounding black metal off the cuff, the sort of shit most black metallers couldn't come up with after months in a proper practice space. Gloriously buzzy and black, twisted and demented and about as true and grim as it gets, like the first, long out of print cd-r, another fucked up chunk of bafflingly brilliant outsider blackness. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Each one hand numbered and screen printed, the cover a weird snake sword brain intestine thing on a smeared blood red backdrop that actually IS BLOOD. The whole cover is in fact soaked / painted in actual blood! It looks amazing, every one is different, and they all smell a bit odd, not dramatically so, but enough to know this is in fact REAL BLOOD. Doesn't get much more grim than that. We got nearly a quarter of the pressing, but if the last record was anything to go by, these won't be around for long...

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One man black metal bands are a dime a dozen these days. Heck we review one or two every list, and that's only a fraction of the one man bedroom grimnity going on in the world at any one time. Anyone with a 4 track, a black heart, and a rudimentary grasp of riffs and programming a busted up old drum machine, through the magic of the internet, can become a mysterious kvlt BM figure overnight. That said, there are plenty of one man black metal bands who transcend, some of our favorites in fact, Leviathan, Draugar, Xasthur, I Shalt Become, Striborg, Nekrasov, AmocomA, Moloch, Paysage D'Hiver we could go on and on. But the thing is, none of those 'groups' are truly one man bands. They are one man, and they are technically bands, but none are proper one man bands, you know, like the old timey sort of one man band, bass drum on the back, harmonica on a rack around the neck, tiny cymbals on the knees, squeezebox in front, ONE MAN BAND. So as far as we know, there has never been an ACTUAL one man black metal band. UNTIL NOW. Pandiscordian Necrogeneis is the project of Lord Ephemeral Domignostika, also known as Mastery, the man behind the SF black metal monster of the same name (who have a double cd coming out soon on tUMULt) and who is also the vocalist and bass player for Horn Of Dagoth. But in Pandiscordian Necrogenesis, Lord plays all the instruments himself, AT THE SAME TIME. Right foot plays the kick drum, left foot plays the snare, while he sings and plays guitar simultaneously. As if that weren't enough, all the songs and sounds here are totally improvised on the spot. WTF?? This shit is insane, and ridiculous, and incredible. Imagine a spike laden corpsepainted dude, sitting in the forest on an old rotted log, his feet pounding away on a kick drum and a weirdly rigged snare, his hands a blur on the guitar as he howls and shrieks into a microphone dangling from the branches above. Well, that's at least how we imagine it. But seriously, this shit is amazing. Frenzied and furious, the drums, a relentless D-beat pound, a sort of almost blast beat, the vocals sometimes a hellish croak, other times a demonic shriek, the guitar though, the riffs are incredible, tangled and gnarled, slipping from garbled chug, to insectoid buzz, sometimes soaring and majestic, other times murky and atonal, the songs shifting from stumbling blast to Burzumic plod, pretty hard to believe that one guy is playing all the instruments at once, AND that he's making up this shit off the top of his head. Most actual black metal bands recording one track at a time, couldn't come up with something this heavy and buzzy and grim and black. Essential listening for the true black metal hordes, a brief, but gloriously blasting slab of outsider blackness, indeed performed by the only ACTUAL one man black metal horde in the world... LIMITED TO 88 COPIES. Each one hand numbered with a printed insert, with liner notes / lyrics / packaged in dvd cases, the cover a cool tangled snake on a smeared blood red backdrop that actually IS BLOOD. The whole cover is in fact soaked / painted in actual blood! The effect is pretty cool an creepy, every one different, all with a strangely coppery scent, that will most likely drive your pets insane if you leave it out. We got about half the pressing, but these will be gone before you know it...

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Originally released on cd a while back, this latest sprawling blackened missive from our favorite anarcho vegan pagan one man black metal band, Kentucky's Panopticon, is now available on vinyl, and combines the material from two splits, one with Idaho naturalist black metallers When Bitter Spring Sleeps, the other with Canadian / Cascadian horde Skagos. The tracks from the Skagos split, which we had reviewed before, display everything we love about Panopticon, crusty weirdo mathy abstruse black metal, a buzzing blasting pounding onslaught of Pagan fury, rife with samples and all manner of strange sonic filigree. Beginning with a strange sampled folk song, simple percussion, lots of cheers and group vocals, very Teutonic, the sound finally explodes in a gnarled frenzy of furious blasting blackness, dense and brutal and weirdly melodic, an epic jam shifting from mathy churning stutter to frantic lightspeed buzz to loping post rock meander, and finally to shimmery shoegazey ambience. The next track shifts to a gauzy rhythmic dronescape, washed out and hypnotic, the drums sound programmed, stuttery and shuffly, while melodies unfurl and blur, the whole thing hazy and dreamlike, until the guitars come in, instantly transforming into some churning Neurosis like heaviness, breaking down at one point, to just super fuzzed out bass, drums, and weirdly tortured and effected vokills, before finishing off in a blaze of total blackened sonic chaos, which somehow manages to still sound melodic and melancholy. And holy shit, the final track from that split is a monster, right out of the gate, an impossibly insanely complex squall of looped buzzing riffage and frenzied drumming, so heavy and dense and intense, over the course of the track, shifting to hushed soft focus drone laced with tinkling chiming melodies, to spacious post rock drift, wreathed in echo-ey shoegaze guitars and maniacal shrieked vocals and anchored by still more incredible drumming, grinding to a halt, leaving a just a strange sample of deep chanted singing, and a mysterious German conversation, angelic choirs, and the sounds of birds and streams in the background. We hadn't heard the tracks from the split with When Bitter Spring Sleeps, but it's more of the same twisted folk flecked super melodic and mathy blackness, mysterious samples, woozy, intricate post rocky mathiness, swirling foresty ambience, the sound hazy and washed out, the first track super melodic and dreamy, the drums busy beneath clouds of tangled melodies, before suddenly shifting into a blast of murky blown out black buzz, which seasaws back and forth between melodic post rock and double kick driven black buzz, often the two bleeding into one another, the songs also occasionally drifting into folky strum, soaring classic metal harmony, and haunting piano laced ambience. The next track is way more grim and buzzy, but even at its grimmest, Panopticon still surprise, grinding to a halt midsong and unfurling soaring streaks of metal guitar harmonies, totally majestic and moving, before slipping into something a bit mysterious and mathy, before finishing off in a final burst of black fury. And the last track eschews black metal entirely, instead offering a bit of gauzy melodic drift, minimal drumming, warm fuzzy guitars, lilting melancholy melodies, more strange samples and mysterious voices, a very epic, Godspeed like slow build finish to an already pretty epic collection of twisted melodic blackness. The tracks have been remastered, the records gorgeously packaged in a thick full color gatefold sleeve, pressed on heavy vinyl, a double lp mastered at 45rpm, and LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!!

MPEG stream: A Message To The Missionary
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US black metal has come a long way since the caveman primitivism of Von and Judas Iscariot. It seems like, finally, American musicians are pumping out quality, top-shelf black metal at a rate that's quickly approaching that of the early Scandinavian masters. Panopticon's Austin Lunn has been a part of that explosion, arguably peaking with 2012's Kentucky, a melodic and twangy tribute to his current home. On Autumn Eternal, gone is any trace of Scandinavian kvlt grimness, as Lunn has opted for boisterous, sun-drenched production which suits these songs magnificently. Gone, too, is Lunn giving equal time to bluegrass banjo and blackened buzz, instead focusing almost exclusively (minus a pitch-perfect opening track and some interludes) on the power of his black metal songwriting, which has admittedly improved in every way. There's nothing exceptionally flashy here, just pure, powerful, epic metal. Gorgeous.

MPEG stream: Into The Northwoods
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We get a lot of weird black metal here, that is after all some of our favorite stuff, but this may just be the first disc we've gotten from an anarcho vegan pagan black metal band! We've gotten a few cd-r's from this Kentucky based one man black metal band over the last little while but have been waiting patiently for a proper full length, that we could get enough of to list, and this, Collapse, is it. And it was well worth the wait, a crushing, expansive, super varied chunk of crusty outsider black metal. Rife with news samples, killer mathy and not typically black metal drumming, spidery guitars wrapped around the usual buzz drenched riffage, the sound not just grim and buzzy, but epic and majestic and melodic. The first song is nearly 16 minutes long, and shifts through more parts and moods than most black metal full lengths. The opening 5 minutes is all intro, or seems it, a lilting minor key drift in the beginning, a pounding blackened buzz later, all underpinning depressive newscasts, before the song really explodes, literally almost, as the blasting and buzzing and pounding is interspersed with recordings of gunshots and explosions, perfectly tangled up with the music so it's difficult to tell what's drumming, and what are reports from tanks and guns, pretty effective, and noisy and chaotic, the song shifts gears a few more times, from doomy plod, to furious blast, to stripped down bluegrass, pretty sure that's a banjo, maybe even some slide guitar, but weirdly haunting and twangy, and somehow it doesn't sound out of place at all. The second track is another 15 minute epic, which begins as many metal tracks do with the sound or thunder and rainfall, before more acoustic guitar joins in, still more slide, very twangy as well, then the drums come in, and some chimes or bells, a strange combination, loping and folky and darkly mysterious, it's not until nearly halfway in before the track explodes in another frenzy of black buzz, croaked vox, frenzied riffage, blasting drums, building to a super noisy coda, before an outro made up entirely of insect buzz. After another 10 minute blowout, equal parts menacing majestic pagan blackness and abstract drifting folkiness, comes the strangely melodic final track, all hand drums, bongos maybe, almost jaunty guitar melodies, hushed whispered vocals, minimal, but strangely distorted drums, all wound around a stomping murky insistent doomfolk outro. Needless to say, way recommend, an exciting new variant of the ever evolving sound of black metal, one we definitely never expected, but are digging big time.

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How does a black metal band from Kentucky start off a recorded tribute to his own state, a record inspired by the gorgeous Kentucky woods, with a percentage of the proceeds from the sale of the record going to help preserve said woods? Well with a Southern style bluegrass hoedown obviously, which is precisely how the latest from one man black metal band Panopticon begins, three minutes of backporch banjo picking and furious fiddlin', loping upright bass, but fear not, Panopticon hasn't suddenly abandoned the buzzing blackness, in fact, the second track "Bodies Under The Falls", explodes into a furious blast of howling hellish fury, blasting drums, buzzing riffs, shrieked vokills, but Panopticon have never been an ordinary black metal band, so that whole opening salvo is accompanied by what sounds like a tin whistle, giving it a weird folky flavor, and then of course the songs' furious buzz, blossoms into some serious classic metal replete with wild shreds and killer guitar harmonics. And whattayaknow? About halfway through, that opening bluegrass jam resurfaces, the black buzz fades out, leaving this lilting folkiness, which instead of disappearing completely, is sort of absorbed into the song proper so when the heaviness comes back in, it drags that bluegrassy melody with it, making for a cool final stretch that sounds like a country flecked black metallized Godspeed, soaring and epic, strings alongside guitar buzz, all wrapped in that strange little tin whistle melody. So weird, and so goddamn great! And that bluegrass/black metal hybrid seems to extend throughout the whole record. The next track is a straight up ol timey bluegrass jam called "Come All Ye Coal Miners", and as much as we're digging this, we can imagine some metalheads being quite confused! That song too is laced with samples of folks talking about miners, and the land around the mines being disposable. "Black Soot And Red Blood" is another cool black and blue hybrid, starting off with soaring guitar buzz, dueling clean/harsh vox, pounding drums, before fading out and leaving just acoustic guitar, over which plays an interview with a coal mining talking about the trials and tribulations of mining, that whole stretched with strange distorted echo drenched drum crashes, and then finally, the song explodes into another soaring black metal epick, fading out into the cries of an angry mob. Intense stuff for sure. And so goes the rest of the record, the shorter songs, bluegrass ditties, the final black metal epic, furious and frenzied, but with a long stretch midsong, minor key and melancholic, a woozy shimmery bed for more stirring samples, the final two tracks eschewing the blackness all together, at least sonically, focusing instead on the black lungs of mine workers, and the black expanses of ruined landscapes, the first a cool psychedelic drone, the last, a gorgeous minor key bluegrass lament, called of course, "Kentucky".

Full length number three from Kentucky one man black metal horde Panopticon, aka Austin Lunn, hot on the heels of his split with Wheels Within Wheels, which displayed a much different side of Panopticon's sound, one that was all hazy and washed out and super melodic, a sound we imagine was tailored to WWW, the two bands sounding eerily similar on that split, and while some of that washed out loveliness remains, the sound on Social Disservices is more of a return to the sound of his past full lengths, long tracks, epic and progged out, tons of parts, grim buzzing blackness woven into psychedelic drifts, loping stretches of post rock splintering into black buzz chaos, and Panopticon is definitely a band with a message, we've joked in past reviews that he was the first (and only) anarcho / vegan / pagan black metal band, but judging from the album title, and the samples, which consist of crying babies, sobbing children, etc, the message here is definitely a critique of children's treatment by the system, and in the extensive liner notes, much is written about Lunn's first hand experiences with kids slipping through the cracks while working at a shelter. Pretty intense stuff, and that intensity is definitely reflected in the music, tense and emotional, dramatic and epic, the four songs woven into a distinct narrative, "Resident", "Client", "Subject" and "Patient", each song a constantly shifting narrative in sound, slipping effortlessly from frenzied black blast, to droned out drift, the drumming as insane and chaotic as ever, the melodies mournful and melancholic, the sound thick and lush and layered, with what sounds like strings swooping in occasionally, adding extra gravitas to the proceedings. "Client" might be our favorite of the bunch, after an extended sample of crying children, eventually underpinned by some ominous distorted drones, the song explodes into some super intense, and darkly melodic black buzz, shot through with all sorts of extra guitar lines, keening and melancholic, the whole vibe, so emotional, and darkly miserable, it's rare that a black metal track can evoke such emotion, but the whole song just exudes a sort of sorrowful vibe, that infuses the song with such power, and the various guitar lines and leads, are super catchy, unfurling even more sonic melancholia. The song eventually twists and shifts, more guitars layered and interwoven, the structure growing more jagged, more complex and intricate, finally fragmenting into some serious chug and churn, before the soaring dramatic final movement. Awesome stuff. And we're only two songs in. The 9+ minute "Subject" is a whole other sonic story, a lurching distortion drenched doom, that quickly transforms into all clean guitar and echoey vox, before transforming again into some blackened post rock, super melodic, almost indie rock sounding if it weren't for the distorted guitars, sick vokills and black buzz, but otherwise, totally melodic and hooky and POPPY, the weird thing is it totally suits him, reminding us of an even poppier Lifelover. And finally, the 20 minute closer "Patient", which sounds appropriately dreary and depressive, a lumbering mid-tempo trudge, all melancholy melodies and sorrowful ambience, but at 20 minutes, you know there's gonna be parts like crazy, and Lunn does not disappoint, flitting from post rock, to dirgey blackened doom, to spaced out shimmer, to churning black blasts, to string laden melancholia, to epic soaring majesty, and finally to hushed psychedelic skitter, ending with two minutes of just the sound of night, crickets, wind, hard to say if it's meant to be a happy ending or not, but it's definitely a cool way to end a darkly powerful and sonically ambitious epic like Social Disservices.

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

SORRY.

Originally released as a super limited (and super pricey) cassette earlier this year, Das Tor is the latest blast of swirling near psychedelic black buzz grimnity from Swiss one band band Paysage D'Hiver, aka Wintherr, who also happens to be a member of Darkspace, a group whose grim black buzz is set somewhere in deep space, as opposed to the mysterious icy forests that seem to be the source of the Paysage demos and adorn most of the demo's covers. And while we're on the subject, it does seem kind of silly to keep referring to every Paysage record so far (ten since 1998) as a 'demo', seeing as we're not really expecting any of these demos to suddenly surface, re-recorded and super polished as a proper 'album'. Plus demos are just way more kvlt and underground� The sound on Das Tor, which comes six years after the last release, 2007's Einsamkeit, definitely sounds like maybe months have past, not years, a continuation of past records, the songs remain sprawling majestic epics, most begin with the sound of wind, softly swirling synths, the bulk of the tracks made up of tranced out, droned out blasts of icy buzz, the riffs blurred into sweeping swaths of thrum, swaddled in soaring shimmering synths, the drums blasting away, a tangled rhythmic skeleton buried in the mix, the vokills a demonic rasp that bleeds into the surrounding guitar buzz, listening to it in the store, it sounds like thick billows of blown out blurry noise, but strap some headphones on and details begin to emerge, textures and melodies, dynamics, in some places those dynamics are super dramatic. On opener "Offenbarung", the whole first half is all bleary, smeary droned out buzz, when suddenly, the song blossoms into something super melodic, and droney and doomy, a second guitar swooping in, laying down a creepy dirgey riff, wreathed in haunting melodies, the drums slowed down to a death march pound, the effect is stunning and super intense, this woozy, creepy crawl continues for several minutes, the sound blissing out to just a single guitar, before the sound explodes again into a furious blizzardy blast, beneath which, melodies and textures roil and churn, and then suddenly, the black buzz is peeled back, revealing more of that whipping wind, mysterious whispered voices, what sounds like some arctic field recordings, ghostly and abstract, which seems to explode right back into some churning doomy crush, only to bliss out again into a soft focus drift of ethereal atmospheric synth swirl and haunting cinematic ambience. The rest of the tracks - all epic, the shortest clocking in at 14:20 - follow a similar pattern, a brooding slow burn intro, often a lumbering, lurching doom, exploding into full on furious winter blast bliss out, synths swirling throughout, the songs dissipating in clouds of wind and icy ambience, the tracks laced with long stretches of smoldering droned out black buzz mesmer, wrapped in fields of gauzy synth, the melodies mournful and melancholic, the record finishing with an extended stretch of hushed kosmische synthscapery, again, swaddled in wintery winds and a grim foresty ambience. And while sonically, it's very reminiscent of past PdH record, it's surprisingly lush and not lo-fi, blown out and buzzy, but also super lush and layered and gorgeously mesmerizing. Total tranced out black metal bliss for sure. And like the other 'demos', Das Tor comes housed in an oversized A5 sized 8 panel fold out book style digipak, the whole thing sealed in a black envelope, the band name and album title printed in blank ink on the black sleeve. We have a bunch of these, but once they sell out, might take a while to get more from overseas, so grab one quick before they're gone, or be prepared to wait patiently for a restock!

MPEG stream: Offenbarung
MPEG stream: Macht Des Schicksals

Black metal may be all about the buzz and the blast, the insane insectoid riffing, the furious blast beats, the howled hateful shrieks, the epic arrangements and grim production, but it's also about drama, and mystery. Lots of folks scoff at the corpsepaint, and the forest photos, the spikes and the fire, but it's all part of the magic, the mood, it may seem played out and overdone, and often a little silly, but it is part of what makes black metal so weird and wonderful. And for us the weirder and more mysterious the better.� There is Immortal, the Blizzard Beasts, strange pro wrestling looking dudes tromping around in the snow. The is Absu, alchemical musical warlocks, conjuring up all sorts of demons. And there are about a million other corpsepainted ghouls lurking in black forests and staring out from blurry black and white photos. The thing is, with most of those guys, you can imagine them donning their corpsepaint after a pint down at the pub. You can imagine them lounging around in jeans, ordering Chinese food. The corpsepaint and their character in the band are things they put on like a costume. It's a little like when you realize one of your favorite artists is a normal person, you see them at the laundromat or the grocery store and some of the mystery is lost.� Thus, we seem to find ourselves drawn to the weirdest, most mysterious, most bizarre black metallers we can track down. Necrofrost is one. We know nothing about them, other than their strange blackened sounds, their demented corpsepainted visages staring out at us from the back of the record covers, their fucked song titles. It all helps create some alternate reality where those guys lurk in some primeval forest and create that impossible damaged and brilliantly fucked up music.� Such is also the case with Paysage D'Hiver, a one man band from Switzerland, who in addition to recording by himself as Paysage D'Hiver, is also a member of the equally mysterious black horde�Darkspace in which PD'H mainman Wintherr is called Wroth and is one of three creepy corpsepainted wraiths who all look strangely like�Pinhead from Hellraiser (we're doing our best to track down the Darkspace discs for the store too). Where Darkspace is some sort of science fiction cosmic black metal weirdness, Paysage is more of a blown out buzzy ode to nature and spirituality, to winter and of course to darkness. Paysage D'Hiver have,�over the last 8 or 9 years, released eight cassettes. That's it. Almost no one we know had ever heard them, or had owned one of those cassettes. But the mystery had everyone curious. And when we did finally hear the music, it was just as magical and mysterious as we had hoped. Recorded back in 1999, Die Festung was one of three Paysage demo tapes released that year, and the second in this comprehensive reissue campaign, which will find all 8 tapes being reissued on cd, each�packaged in a gorgeous oversized A5 book style sleeves, adorned with amazing wintry art and sealed in super subtle black on black printed envelopes. Unlike the other Paysage D'Hiver reissue reviewed elsewhere on this list (Schattengang), Die Festung is an epic and expansive series of ambient soundscapes, and not specifically black ambience, instead, the sound is much more along the lines of classic Krautrock a la Tangerine Dream or Popol Vuh or Cluster. Some folks here also heard some Gooomy trancelike bliss, like Cyann And Ben or M83, but way more minimal and spacey. All glistening soundscapes of looped synthesizers, simple keyboard figures repeated over and over and slowly shifting, layers of minor key whir, and vocal like melodies, epic and grand, smooth shimmery swells and majestic sweeps, sparkling clouds of electronic twinkles all glimmering and sparkling. Paysage D'Hiver translates to landscape of winter, and Die Festung sounds precisely like that. It's hard not to imagine long tracking shots of soft blue glaciers, of snowy peaks and forests that go on forever. A view from above of frosty landscapes and endless fields of snow and ice. So totally mesmerizing and lovely. The perfect companion to the buzzing black murk of�Schattengang. Packaged in an oversized A5 book style digipak, a gorgeous snowy forest and mysterious distant castle drawing adorning the front, inside a booklet full of drawings and photos, but of course almost no information or liner notes. So completely recommended. And as with most things, super limited, not sure how long these will be around....

MPEG stream: Eishalle
MPEG stream: Koenig Winter
MPEG stream: Prinz Frost

Finally! The wait is over. The final 4 releases in what is now a nearly complete reissue collection of all 9 demos from mysterious Swiss black metal horde Paysage D'Hiver. By now, most folks are probably more familiar with Swiss sci-fi black metallers Darkspace, whose mainman Tobias Mockl, aka Wroth, was the sole force behind the frosty, grim, wintry Burzumic blur that was Paysage D'Hiver. Calling himself Wintherr in Paysage, over the course of nearly a decade, Mockl crafted 9 full length demos, and two split releases, each one a stunning landscape of frostbitten buzz and buried blasting beats, of shrieked vokills, and haunting windswept interludes, of creepy footsteps and crunching ice, of lilting blackened folk and of totally epic black metal mastery. Paysage trafficked primarily in sprawling wintery epics, up to 20 minutes in length, rife with trancelike riffage, and long stretches of haunting ambience, the sort of black trance-inducing monotone mesmer that we can't seem to get enough of, although occasionally, Mockl would unleash something totally different, a record of Tangerine Dream like kraut synth drone ambience, or in the middle of a squall of furious black blasting, a strange lurching lumbering clean guitar lope, or long stretches of almost orchestral soundtrack like drift, but always the atmosphere was grim and cold and grey, the production blurred and buzzy and murky and lo-fi, but not shitty 4-track lo-fi, instead, that low fidelity was a part of the sound, just adding to the miserable freezing chill of the proceedings, casting a patina of dour despondency, evoking the shadow of dead trees and their skeletal branches, of epic expanses, buried in snow, inhospitable, barren, forlorn, of loneliness and sorrow, emptiness and death. Easily some of the most intense, otherworldly, creative and evocative black metal ever made, and one of our all time favorites for sure... Einsamkeit was the final release from Paysage D'Hiver, originally released on cassette in 2007, but the 'band' never officially 'broke up', so who knows, there could be a new Paysage some day, but for now, Einsamkeit was the band's last missive, three sprawling tracks, all right around 15 minutes, the first, a warm swirl of abstract krautdrone, deep murky pulses beneath shimmers of glimmering melody, all woven together by a strange barely there machine like whir, the track a sort of cinematic ambient drift, wheezing rumbles bleed into strange field recordings, almost industrial sounding clatter and creak underpin the barely there whisper of brushed percussion, and mysterious music box melodies, gorgeously creepy and abstract. As is the next track, another stretch of dreamlike ambience, but this time around it's hardly wintery, instead, the sound is warm and lush, almost sun dappled sounding even, warm wisps of melody, long languorous streaks of blurred chordal drift, it almost sounds like something that could be on Root Strata or Type, far removed from most black metal, even more black metal ambience. Drifty and hazy and gauzy and washed out and lovely. Finally, the first epoch of Paysage D'Hiver draws to a close, beginning with the whirling winter wind, then some seriously filthy distorted guitar buzz, laid over ominous minor key synths, droney and buzzy and blissed out, only to dissipate nearly right away, leaving just a strange militaristic drum beat, and a deep rumbling thrum, and some glimmering ethereal synth shimmer, the squiggly bits of sci-fi melody, reminding us a bit of Oneohtrix or Innercity, that same sort of retro-futuristic vibe, but here the sound is rendered as something much more grim and foreboding. The guitar eventually returns, more filthy black buzz, and vocals surface for the first time, harsh and hellish, but way down in the mix, like another layer of hiss, suddenly the drums drop out, and for some reason the tension ratchets WAY up, and the buzzing guitar and mewling vokills drone on and on, riding an undulating low end swell, before dropping out completely, leaving nothing but the wind, and the blackness beyond. Totally amazing, and essential! Like all the Paysage reissues, Einsamkeit comes in a gorgeous oversized A5 style digibook, with a cool super abstract starscape on the front, and inside a fold out booklet, with beautiful winter landscapes and minimal text. The whole thing sealed in a black envelope, the band name and album title printed in black ink, on the black background.

MPEG stream: Einkehr
MPEG stream: Kraft

At long last! One of the most anticipated black metal reissue campaigns EVER, moves forward with the 4th and 5th installment in the comprehensive cd rerelease of the entire recorded output by Swiss one man horde Paysage D'Hiver. Judging from past installments, and how often we get asked when the next disc is coming out, most of you have already freaked out a bit, added this to your cart, and begun 'the preparations', lighting the torches, blacking out the windows, turning your freezer on high and leaving the door open to produce thick drifts of snow throughout your house (well, it worked in Tom And Jerry cartoons), in anticipation of finally getting to immerse yourself in the frostbitten winter world of Paysage D'Hiver. Paysage are almost universally revered, as THEE ultimate grim and frosty black metal band, the soundscapes and sprawling epics the make up the 11 Paysage releases so far are truly transcendent, each one dramatically different than the last, but somehow a continuation, another chapter in a hopefully never ending saga. Much like how Darkspace creates a black metal that seems at once futuristic and alien, evoking distant planets, dead suns, black holes, strange ships and mysterious beings, Paysage invokes, crumbling stone walls, set amidst icy peaks, cloaked in year round snow, thick forests painted white, the branches heavy with frost and snow, flickering firelight bravely battling against the ever encroaching coldness, of darkness, and night, of moonlight and death, of earth and sky, seasons and most importantly Winter. Makes perfect sense then, as most of you already know that Wintherr, the man behind Paysage, is also a member of Darkspace. Both bands transcend the genre, using sound, by deftly arranging sounds similar to many other bands, in a whole new way, to create something wholly original, something that is more than just music, powerful sounds that transport and transform. Like Darkspace, the music of Paysage is made up of course by buzz and blast. And there are riffs and vokills. There are drums, and keyboards and bass. But right there is where any similarity to other black metal bands ends. The world of Paysage is a world of alchemy, it's far more difficult to imagine Wintherr hunched over a four track, than it is to picture him in a cave over a fire mixing potions. When we listen to Paysage, we don't picture someone in jeans and a t-shirt playing a guitar, we imagine a lonely figure wrapped in furs, hunched over, walking up an icy path toward a black structure in the foothills of some mighty mountain range, the windows glowing amber, a distant flicker barely visible through a wall of falling snow. And somehow that's exactly what makes this music so magical, and so utterly mind blowing. Kerker was originally released on cassette in 2000, and is essentially a single piece, split into movements, and of all the reissues so far is the murkiest, all of the requisite parts are present but the fidelity is so low, the recording so strange, that all of the constituent parts are rendered one swirling muted organic whole. Bands like Wold, Amocoma, Yoga, Paysage take it to a whole 'nother level. Beginning with a rumbling ambience, the main riff soon surfaces, barely audible over the din of the intro, and very little changes when the vocals and the drums join in, the sound becomes a bit more frenentic, headphones reveal more details, but even then, the sound is a swirling churning roiling black sea of buzz and blur and hum and rumble and whir occasionally coalescing into discernible black metal before seemingly blurring before your very eyes and slipping back into the abyss. So incredibly haunting and mysterious and beautifully fucked up. The second movement is all ambient, thick swaths of keyboard, and pounding industrial drums, a gurgling blackened drift, like trudging through some underground cavern populated with demons and monsters, huddled by firepits, trying desperately to escape the blizzard that lurks above. Here too the sound is incredible, lush, yet lo-fi, muddy and indistinct, but within that muddy swirl all manner of subtle details and slow shifting colors reveal themselves. Voices too, demonic, ominous, bubbling up from below. The third movement continues the descent, the ice melting, soon the rocks themselves liquefying into viscous black pools, the sound of this approach to hell is one of deep low end buzz, a blown out distorted rumble that seems to swirl malevolently beneath a haze of blurred whir, until finally a keyboard enters, adding a glimmer of light to the pitch black sprawl. Finally, the cycle is completed with another super distorted, murky blast, this time with synthesizers adding demented shards of melody, the drums an avalanche of pound and crash, the guitars a maniacal frenzied buzz, the vocals a subterranean gurgle, and again all blurred and smeared into a gorgeously hazy washed out smear of abstract buzzing blackness, dark and dramatic, haunting and enigmatic. Like all of the reissues, the cd is housed in a book sized A5 digipak, adorned with haunting images, this time a grim looking dungeon (Kerker means Dungeon) and a swirling black hole, with lyrics and NO liner notes. The digipak is housed in a black envelope, with the name of the band and the record printed in barely legible black ink.

MPEG stream: Tiefe
MPEG stream: Schritte

At long last! One of the most anticipated black metal reissue campaigns EVER, moves forward with the 4th and 5th installment in the comprehensive cd rerelease of the entire recorded output by Swiss one man horde Paysage D'Hiver. Judging from past installments, and how often we get asked when the next disc is coming out, most of you have already freaked out a bit, added this to your cart, and begun 'the preparations', lighting the torches, blacking out the windows, turning your freezer on high and leaving the door open to produce thick drifts of snow throughout your house (well, it worked in Tom And Jerry cartoons), in anticipation of finally getting to immerse yourself in the frostbitten winter world of Paysage D'Hiver. Paysage are almost universally revered, as THEE ultimate grim and frosty black metal band, the soundscapes and sprawling epics the make up the 11 Paysage releases so far are truly transcendent, each one dramatically different than the last, but somehow a continuation, another chapter in a hopefully never ending saga. Much like how Darkspace creates a black metal that seems at once futuristic and alien, evoking distant planets, dead suns, black holes, strange ships and mysterious beings, Paysage invokes, crumbling stone walls, set amidst icy peaks, cloaked in year round snow, thick forests painted white, the branches heavy with frost and snow, flickering firelight bravely battling against the ever encroaching coldness, of darkness, and night, of moonlight and death, of earth and sky, seasons and most importantly Winter. Makes perfect sense then, as most of you already know that Wintherr, the man behind Paysage, is also a member of Darkspace. Both bands transcend the genre, using sound, by deftly arranging sounds similar to many other bands, in a whole new way, to create something wholly original, something that is more than just music, powerful sounds that transport and transform. Like Darkspace, the music of Paysage is made up of course by buzz and blast. And there are riffs and vokills. There are drums, and keyboards and bass. But right there is where any similarity to other black metal bands ends. The world of Paysage is a world of alchemy, it's far more difficult to imagine Wintherr hunched over a four track, than it is to picture him in a cave over a fire mixing potions. When we listen to Paysage, we don't picture someone in jeans and a t-shirt playing a guitar, we imagine a lonely figure wrapped in furs, hunched over, walking up an icy path toward a black structure in the foothills of some mighty mountain range, the windows glowing amber, a distant flicker barely visible through a wall of falling snow. And somehow that's exactly what makes this music so magical, and so utterly mind blowing. Kristall & Isa was originally released on cassette in 2001, and is another blast of frostbitten brilliance, a furious buzzing trek across snow choked tundras, and right out of the gate, this is one of the fiercest of the Paysage discs, the guitar a furious buzz so in the red that it's blurred into a near static streak of sound, the vocals are harsh and hysterical, buried in the mix, the drums a motorik pound, and within the swirling chaos there seems to be strange melodies lurking, what sounds like flutes or keyboards surfacing and then disappearing in the blink of an eye, definitely lending a strangely psychedelic vibe to the proceedings. The record quickly shifts gears and transforms into lo-fi bedroom ambience, sounding like it was recorded on a boom box, all manner of clatter and clunk, the music and the vocals super low, it almost sounds like someone held up a microcassette recorded to the speaker of their stereo, super intimate and creepy. The follow up is much the same, only this time the music is a whooshy soft focus blur, but still the shifting microphone can be heard, as well as lots of tape hiss, a truly creepy ambience, like listening surreptitiously from afar. "Der Kristall Ist Eis" explodes into a bleary eyed buzzy black blast similar to the album opener, and again the sounds are so blurred and blown out that the track seems to gradually shift into some spaced out buzz drenched dronemusic, hypnotic and mesmerizing. A near static blast, that pounds away while all around it clouds of static and buzz swirl, and eventually, beautiful warm melodies surface from the din, and it suddenly sounds like two records playing at once, but in a really good. really strange way. After one more extended stretch of bedroom lo-fi field recordings, this one the most ambient and abstract of the bunch, a series of hushed whispers and some barely there shimmer, the final track explodes once again in a relentless frenzy of buzzing high end, machine like jackhammer pound, and a wall of blown out static rrrooooaaar. This track is the most varied of the bunch, slipping at one point into a lurching Burzumic lope, but only briefly before returning to the relentless wintery black onslaught. The band pause for breath, while cold winter winds blow through, the band offer up a tangled convoluted off kilter outro that sounds almost Deathspell-ish, before darkness falls once again and all that is left is the sound of the windswept wintery night. Like all of the reissues, the cd is housed in a book sized A5 digipak, adorned with haunting images, this time a beautiful winter forest and a snowy stream, with lyrics and NO liner notes. The digipak is housed in a black envelope, with the name of the band and the record printed in barely legible black ink.

MPEG stream: Isa
MPEG stream: Kalte

Finally! The wait is over. The final 4 releases in what is now a nearly complete reissue collection of all 9 demos from mysterious Swiss black metal horde Paysage D'Hiver. By now, most folks are probably more familiar with Swiss sci-fi black metallers Darkspace, whose mainman Tobias Mockl, aka Wroth, was the sole force behind the frosty, grim, wintry Burzumic blur that was Paysage D'Hiver. Calling himself Wintherr in Paysage, over the course of nearly a decade, Mockl crafted 9 full length demos, and two split releases, each one a stunning landscape of frostbitten buzz and buried blasting beats, of shrieked vokills, and haunting windswept interludes, of creepy footsteps and crunching ice, of lilting blackened folk and of totally epic black metal mastery. Paysage trafficked primarily in sprawling wintery epics, up to 20 minutes in length, rife with trancelike riffage, and long stretches of haunting ambience, the sort of black trance-inducing monotone mesmer that we can't seem to get enough of, although occasionally, Mockl would unleash something totally different, a record of Tangerine Dream like kraut synth drone ambience, or in the middle of a squall of furious black blasting, a strange lurching lumbering clean guitar lope, or long stretches of almost orchestral soundtrack like drift, but always the atmosphere was grim and cold and grey, the production blurred and buzzy and murky and lo-fi, but not shitty 4-track lo-fi, instead, that low fidelity was a part of the sound, just adding to the miserable freezing chill of the proceedings, casting a patina of dour despondency, evoking the shadow of dead trees and their skeletal branches, of epic expanses, buried in snow, inhospitable, barren, forlorn, of loneliness and sorrow, emptiness and death. Easily some of the most intense, otherworldly, creative and evocative black metal ever made, and one of our all time favorites for sure... Nacht was originally released on cassette in 2004, and features 4 looooong tracks, all between 12 and 18 minutes longs, and like most of the other Paysage records, the tracks are introduced, and separated by long stretches of wintery ambience, whipping winds, cracking branches, howling wolves, the opening track here introduces creepy deep organ drones, swirling synths, all super dramatic and atmospheric, perfectly woven into the howling winds, croaked demonic gurgles, a super haunting atmospheric black winter drift, that leads right into an extended stretch of mesmerizing black metal buzz, the riffing relentless, the drums machinelike and buried in the mix, the melodies epic and majestic, the vocals a sick alien gargle, the track shifting from blast, to doomic lumber, to buzzing black ambience and back again, underscored by barely there swaths of synth, before finally fading back out into the wintery ambience. The next track is more a sort of blackened buzzy drone, the riffs stretched into streaks of melody, layered into undulating sheets of frosty buzz, the vokills a constant creaking rasp, building in intensity, eventually becoming a super melodic dirgescape, all coruscating high end melodies and crumbling distorted low end, finally finishing off with just a single buzzing guitar, unfurling its riffage over the ever present winter wind. And finally, the record finishes with a gloriously epic chunk of freezing black buzz, relentless and intense, frantic riffing blasting beats, shrieked demonic howls and soaring synths, all gradually fading into the distance, as everything is swallowed up by the swirling snow and the bleak endless winter. Fucking incredible! Like all the Paysage reissues, Nacht comes in a gorgeous oversized A5 style digibook, with a super creepy, ultra minimal cover image, where you can just see a corpsepainted face in the light of a burning torch, inside is a foldout booklet, with another creepy image and some lyrics, all sealed up in a black envelope, with the band name and album titled printed on the front, black ink, on black background.

MPEG stream: Ein Getriebener Im Schneestreiben
MPEG stream: Finsternis, Tod Und Einsamkeit Ersticken Meinen Atem

Finally, the third Paysage D'Hiver reissue, in the continuing comprehensive reissue campaign, of what is quickly becoming our favorite 'new' black metal outfit. A mysterious Swiss one man band (who also plays in the equally mysterious Darkspace) who released a series of cassette demos beginning in 1998, most of which we never heard (and we're guessing very few of you did either) all of which are getting re-released as super deluxe cds, in fancy A5 book style digipaks, sealed in black envelopes. And so far, each one absolutely essential. We raved about the first two a few lists back, Schattengang, a three song, 40 minute frosty epic, equal parts blown out buzzy, blurry, hyper repetitive, trance-like black metal, and swirling rumbling black ambience, and Die Festung, which was all ambient, a krautrocky keyboard excursion more Tangerine Dream than Burzum. Paysage D'Hiver, the self titled demo originally released in 2000 (one of two that year) is another side of Wintherr's (great name!) Paysage D'Hiver, this time, it's all black metal, relentlessly buzzing, taking the mesmerizing looped repetitive nature of our favorite BM groups, and seriously pushing the envelope, taking riffs and pounding them out for close to twenty minutes. The ultimate blissed out buzz. Frosty and grim and creepy and seriously dark, but totally hypnotic and strangely beautiful. The first track, "Der Weg", sets thee tone, launching immediately into a murky insectoid riff, buzzy and majestic, then locking into it, creating a duper tense droning blackened landscape of buzz and blast. Over which the vocals wail and croak, the guitars so blurry and relentless, the actual riffs seem to fade away leaving a never ending buzz, just a constant whir of distorted guitar. Like a black metal Niblock. But in, and amidst, and over, and around, things mutate and shift, and turn an already bizarre droney buzz into something even stranger. The most surprising element is the violin. It moans and soars, unfurling haunting melodies, slightly off key, but just makes it that much more creepy, at first it sounds really out of place, but as the song drones on, the violin seems more and more an organic part of 'the sound'. Elsewhere there are strange melodic crooned vocals, female maybe, or a high male tenor, that soar ghostlike above the ever buzzing din, there are one or two momentary respites from the relentless onslaught, one a synthy sprawl, the other an acoustic interlude, but it's always back to that gloriously mesmerizing buzz. The second track is more of the same, and if anything even more droning, lots of epic keyboards, offering up subtle ambience, lurking right below the ever buzzing riffage, the pounding blast beats so low in the mix, they just sound like another layer of buzz, and the tortured anguished howls. Near the end of track two, the song drifts into a barely there black ambience, only to immediately resume, but instead of a furious blast, a loping sea sick waltz, very Burzumic, swaying and strangely sorrowful. The final track is another nearly 20 minute blast, the first half a wall of dense buzz, the second half, a keyboard drenched swirl of blackness, each based on the same riff, creating this slowly mutating buzzing black drone, with the keyboards gradually becoming more and more intense, eventually becoming the focal point as the black buzz drifts away, and for the last 5 minutes, a gorgeous Tim Hecker-ish, gauzy landscape of muted melody and slow shifting low end, all bathed in a swirling cloud of soft focus buzz. Dreamy and divine. So goddamn good. It's amazing, that until now, music this epic and intense, this emotional and utterly amazing, could be relegated to barely distributed cassette tapes. If you missed the last two, you are absolutely gonna want all of them. We're loving this like crazy, listening to it non stop, but already we're counting the minutes until the next one... Like the other two reissues, packaged in an oversized A5 book style digipak, this time with a gorgeous windswept forest hillside, and a mysterious dark figure hunched over, near the top adorning the front, inside a fold out booklet with another alternate image of the cover, but of course almost no information or liner notes. So completely recommended. Probably super limited as these things usually are...

MPEG stream: Welt Aus Eis
MPEG stream: Gefrorener Atem

Black metal may be all about the buzz and the blast, the insane insectoid riffing, the furious blast beats, the howled hateful shrieks, the epic arrangements and grim production, but it's also about drama, and mystery. Lots of folks scoff at the corpsepaint, and the forest photos, the spikes and the fire, but it's all part of the magic, the mood, it may seem played out and overdone, and often a little silly, but it is part of what makes black metal so weird and wonderful. And for us the weirder and more mysterious the better.� There is Immortal, the Blizzard Beasts, strange pro wrestling looking dudes tromping around in the snow. The is Absu, alchemical musical warlocks, conjuring up all sorts of demons. And there are about a million other corpsepainted ghouls lurking in black forests and staring out from blurry black and white photos. The thing is, with most of those guys, you can imagine them donning their corpsepaint after a pint down at the pub. You can imagine them lounging around in jeans, ordering Chinese food. The corpsepaint and their character in the band are things they put on like a costume. It's a little like when you realize one of your favorite artists is a normal person, you see them at the laundromat or the grocery store and some of the mystery is lost.� Thus, we seem to find ourselves drawn to the weirdest, most mysterious, most bizarre black metallers we can track down. Necrofrost is one. We know nothing about them, other than their strange blackened sounds, their demented corpsepainted visages staring out at us from the back of the record covers, their fucked song titles. It all helps create some alternate reality where those guys lurk in some primeval forest and create that impossible damaged and brilliantly fucked up music.� Such is also the case with Paysage D'Hiver, a one man band from Switzerland, who in addition to recording by himself as Paysage D'Hiver, is also a member of the equally mysterious black horde�Darkspace in which PD'H mainman Wintherr is called Wroth and is one of three creepy corpsepainted wraiths who all look strangely like�Pinhead from Hellraiser (we're doing our best to track down the Darkspace discs for the store too). Where Darkspace is some sort of science fiction cosmic black metal weirdness, Paysage is more of a blown out buzzy ode to nature and spirituality, to winter and of course to darkness. Paysage D'Hiver have,�over the last 8 or 9 years, released eight cassettes. That's it. Almost no one we know had ever heard them, or had owned one of those cassettes. But the mystery had everyone curious. And when we did finally hear the music, it was just as magical and mysterious as we had hoped.� Recorded back in 1999,�Schattengang was one of three Paysage demo tapes released that year, and the first in this comprehensive reissue campaign, which will find all 8 tapes being reissued on cd, each�packaged in a gorgeous oversized A5 book style sleeves, adorned with amazing wintry art and sealed in super subtle black on black printed envelopes. Schattengang is three long tracks, the longest almost 21 minutes, the shortest just under 7. Forty one minutes of haunting ambient foresty buzz. The opening track begins with some�gorgeous shimmery tranquil ambience, which soon�gives way to a murky muddy black buzzing smear, super blown out, and washed out, thick swaths of epic keyboards, over barely audible riffing, buried drumming, and vocals that are another murky layer of sound. Occasionally, the clouds part and you can hear some grim primitive riffing, but soon they are sucked back into a swirl of whirling blackness and dense FX, it's so fuzzy, and droney, it's almost more hypnotic and mesmerizing than blasting, but listen close and there is some serious black fury within Paysage's thick wash of whirled sound. The buzz eventually shifts gears�to a lugubrious, glacial funereal doom, plodding and monstrous, with huge simple drums, and long drawn out crumbling chords, guttural vocals, all stretched into a slithery blackened crawl. It's difficult to explain precisely why this stuff is so compelling, but it's just so dark and murky, and buzzy and dreamy, but not really like some of the other buzzy dreamy blackness we have championed in the past.� The second track begins with more drifting surreal ambience, tinkling�sleigh bells, before�a huge wave of fuzzy guitar drone, and swirling spaced out keyboards engulfs everything, a dense black blur, all the parts so fast and furious, so tangled up and smeared together, it sounds almost like some strange buzzing drone underpinned by sweeping cinematic keyboards, laced with�bits of dialogue and found sounds... About halfway through the song winds down into a dark droning�interlude all dreary synths, strange thumps and creaks, disembodied voices, the distant cry of wolves, the whir of the night winds, but it's not long before it's back to�full on droneblast, before finally slowly blissing out into a very mournful Xasthur like arpeggiated minor key coda, a loping almost sea sick waltz that loops and loops hypnotically before fading out. So epic. So black yet so strangely beautiful.� The final track is all ambient,�shimmering swaths of keyboard, glistening and glimmering, very Tangerine Dream or maybe Popol Vuh,�while beneath the surface, voices whisper and groan quietly, haunting hiss and bits of wind-like whir drift by, quite haunting and again very cinematic. Our new favorite blast of freezing grim black mystery for sure.� Packaged in an oversized A5 book style digipak, a gorgeous snowy forest drawing adorning the front, inside a booklet full of drawings and photos, but of course almost no information or liner notes. So completely recommended. And as with most things, super limited, not sure how long these will be around....

MPEG stream: Moloch
MPEG stream: Atmosphaere

Finally! The wait is over. The final 4 releases in what is now a nearly complete reissue collection of all 9 demos from mysterious Swiss black metal horde Paysage D'Hiver. By now, most folks are probably more familiar with Swiss sci-fi black metallers Darkspace, whose mainman Tobias Mockl, aka Wroth, was the sole force behind the frosty, grim, wintry Burzumic blur that was Paysage D'Hiver. Calling himself Wintherr in Paysage, over the course of nearly a decade, Mockl crafted 9 full length demos, and two split releases, each one a stunning landscape of frostbitten buzz and buried blasting beats, of shrieked vokills, and haunting windswept interludes, of creepy footsteps and crunching ice, of lilting blackened folk and of totally epic black metal mastery. Paysage trafficked primarily in sprawling wintery epics, up to 20 minutes in length, rife with trancelike riffage, and long stretches of haunting ambience, the sort of black trance-inducing monotone mesmer that we can't seem to get enough of, although occasionally, Mockl would unleash something totally different, a record of Tangerine Dream like kraut synth drone ambience, or in the middle of a squall of furious black blasting, a strange lurching lumbering clean guitar lope, or long stretches of almost orchestral soundtrack like drift, but always the atmosphere was grim and cold and grey, the production blurred and buzzy and murky and lo-fi, but not shitty 4-track lo-fi, instead, that low fidelity was a part of the sound, just adding to the miserable freezing chill of the proceedings, casting a patina of dour despondency, evoking the shadow of dead trees and their skeletal branches, of epic expanses, buried in snow, inhospitable, barren, forlorn, of loneliness and sorrow, emptiness and death. Easily some of the most intense, otherworldly, creative and evocative black metal ever made, and one of our all time favorites for sure... Steineiche was the very first Paysage D'Hiver demo, originally released in 1998, and over the course of four tracks, the shortest 11:34, the longest 24:27, pretty much every side of the Paysage sound is introduced, opening with a creepy intro, clean guitar, plucking out a mournful minor key melody, swirling winter winds, a croaking creaky vocal, like stumbling upon some reanimated skeleton in a cave on the side of a mountain, and having it begin to speak in some strange language, until finally, and quite abruptly, the track explodes in a frenzy of furious blasting, the guitars frantic, the buzzing woozy and warped, the vocals a continuous demonic shriek buried way down in the mix, almost an alien squeal, the whole track the musical equivalent to a raging snowstorm. Eventually, the track sputters to a halt, the drum machine skittering into a stretch of creepy drift, with more clean guitar, only to immediately burst into frenzied action again, listen closely and you'll here some super creepy deep voice intoning some mysterious passages WAY down in the mix, before taking off again, finally, the riffage grows weirdly angular, mirrored by strange choir like voices, the drums a half tempo pound, the vocals getting more and more garbled, before fading out with a tolling bell laced lumbering chug. The second track is an odd one, even by Paysage standards, huge downtuned chugging riffs, a guitar that almost sounds like a banjo, more tolling church bell, total grim frostbitten doom, but with that guitar/banjo, it sounds almost like some strange doomfolk Appalachia, the track does occasionally grow more dense, swirling warped synths, gurgling vokills, the riffage super thick and distorted, the whole thing almost dronelike, and so it goes slipping back and forth between the strange folky doom chug, and the churning garbled black grind, only to finally finish off with some haunting campfire folk, all moaning sorrowful fiddle, all wrapped in reverb, draped over the distant howl of the whipping wind. The longest track, is all ambient, lush synths over murky percussive pulses, a soundtrack like dronescape, laced with mysterious voices, fragments of minor key melody, deep rumbles, and distant shimmer, the tolling of bells, haunting operatic vocals, super atmospheric and cinematic, which leads directly into the final track, a seemingly super minimal drone / field recording, the whirring of winds, a distant low end pulse, a hushed bass rumble, it's not until about 6 minutes in, when what sounds like a radio broadcast of choir like voices, and they sound backwards too, tinny and mysterious, so creepy when paired with the rumbles and wind, and with the little bits of crackle, that give way to a murky washed out black metal buzz, wrapped wound those same voices, a strangely shoegazey sort of drift, that peters out quickly leaving just the wind, and tinkling chimes. So goddamn weird and amazing, and still more than a decade later, better than nearly any other black metal out there! Like the other reissues, Steineiche comes packaged in a gorgeous oversized A5 style digibook, some mysterious gnarled shapes on the cover, with a fold out booklet revealing winter scenes and lyrics, the whole thing sealed in a black envelope, with the band name and record title printed in black ink, on the black background, subtle, and nearly impossible to read.

MPEG stream: The Tree Woman
MPEG stream: The Tree

Finally! The wait is over. The final 4 releases in what is now a nearly complete reissue collection of all 9 demos from mysterious Swiss black metal horde Paysage D'Hiver. By now, most folks are probably more familiar with Swiss sci-fi black metallers Darkspace, whose mainman Tobias Mockl, aka Wroth, was the sole force behind the frosty, grim, wintry Burzumic blur that was Paysage D'Hiver. Calling himself Wintherr in Paysage, over the course of nearly a decade, Mockl crafted 9 full length demos, and two split releases, each one a stunning landscape of frostbitten buzz and buried blasting beats, of shrieked vokills, and haunting windswept interludes, of creepy footsteps and crunching ice, of lilting blackened folk and of totally epic black metal mastery. Paysage trafficked primarily in sprawling wintery epics, up to 20 minutes in length, rife with trancelike riffage, and long stretches of haunting ambience, the sort of black trance-inducing monotone mesmer that we can't seem to get enough of, although occasionally, Mockl would unleash something totally different, a record of Tangerine Dream like kraut synth drone ambience, or in the middle of a squall of furious black blasting, a strange lurching lumbering clean guitar lope, or long stretches of almost orchestral soundtrack like drift, but always the atmosphere was grim and cold and grey, the production blurred and buzzy and murky and lo-fi, but not shitty 4-track lo-fi, instead, that low fidelity was a part of the sound, just adding to the miserable freezing chill of the proceedings, casting a patina of dour despondency, evoking the shadow of dead trees and their skeletal branches, of epic expanses, buried in snow, inhospitable, barren, forlorn, of loneliness and sorrow, emptiness and death. Easily some of the most intense, otherworldly, creative and evocative black metal ever made, and one of our all time favorites for sure... Winterkalte was originally released in 2001, and begins with the sounds of screaming winds, and strange footsteps, and various random sounds, in fact it almost sounds like field recordings, or lost tapes from some doomed winter expedition, finally recovered after years and years, the sound buzzy and lo-fi, finally the guitars come in, sharp and harsh and brittle, the drums a machinelike skitter, exploding into a super raw and ultra intense blast of frosty blackness, the vocals so distorted and lo-fi they almost sound like white noise, the blasting is relentless, and trancelike, until finally some synths drift in, adding some super creepy texture and melodic counterpoint, and then with about 7 minutes left, the buzz and blast drop out, leaving just acoustic guitar, over the same whipping wind, and the lonely crunch of footsteps in snow, which trudge right into the next track, a very Burzumy plodding trudge, the guitars thick and buzzy, the vocals again blasts of near white noise, the melodies haunting and mournful, the vibe super intense and dramatic, the swirling synths in the background adding even more gravitas to the already abject winter miserablism of the doom drenched black dirge. The next track is nearly nothing but wind and wintery ambience, all but for a brief bit of haunting choral music right near the beginning, ghostly harmonies drifting spectrally over the sounds of winter. And so the mysterious personage trudges onward through the wind and snow and the black night, the ambience laced with tinkling distant melodies, before once again the song kicks in, a loping woozy riff, a galloping beat, and those whitenoise vox, all wrapped in a whirring blanket of soft noise and blurred hiss, only letting up occasionally, allowing in the wind, delicate crystalline melodies, and the percussive crunch and boom of distant mysterious goings on, but always lurching back into the blast and buzz. And so it goes, one more track, a blurred monochromatic blast of frozen blackness, gives way to the final movement, still more blasting and buzzing, shrieking and blackened flailing, furious and frenzied, again leaving space for frozen winds, and melancholy acoustic guitars, before the final squall of wintery buzz, finally finishing with acoustic guitars and ethereal synths, fading into the cold black night. Incredible, and as essential as all of the Paysage records. And like the other reissues, Winterkalte comes packaged in a gorgeous A5 style oversized digibook, the front adorned with a cool painting of some bleak winterscape, while inside, a fold out booklet, featuring lyrics. The whole thing sealed in a black envelope, the band name and album title printed on the outside, black on black!

MPEG stream: Ich Schreite
MPEG stream: Ich Starre
MPEG stream: Winter

Super cool embroidered patch from one of our favorite black metal bands. Black and white and silver, the band's logo frosted with snow. Your denim vest wants one of these soooooo bad. We only have a tiny handful of these so don't be too bummed out if they're gone before you get one...

Second full-length from this operatic black metal outfit featuring guitarist/vocalist Ihsahn of black metal overlords Emperor and his wife Ihriel (plus her brother Lord PZ and drummer Per Eriksen)... They construct dark convoluted castles with spires of gothic female vox and electronic ambience, and foundations of labyrinthine metal rifferama. More ridiculous than sublime, to be sure, but fans of Emperor will no doubt appreciate this, perhaps even those who might not have gotten into Peccatum's debut (as this is a lot less heavy on Ihriel's vocals than past efforts). The new AND improved Peccatum, we should say.

New ep from this Emperor side-project. Ihsahn, his wife, and his brother in law, making more absurd operatic pomp metal.

Ihsahn of Emperor, his wife and her brother collaborate on this ambitious attempt at grandiose black metal opera. Rather insane, once you get past the first quasi-lame track. Classical musical training in the service of Satan!

Killer ep from this one man US funeral avant doom outfit. The sound here veers wildly from tripped out doom-ed psychedelic experiments to moody post rocky instrumentalism to bizarre drum machine flecked drone plod, and yeah, finally to some buzz drenched bizarre doom. And bizarre it is. Of the four tracks here, only one is actually doom metal all the way through, and even then, it's fractured and fucked up and freaky as all get out. Makes sense that this was released on the same label that gave us a recent Gnaw Their Tongues release, as PiM are definitely another obtuse doom metal variant, and we LOVE it. The opening track begins with some classical guitar, draped over distant cacophonies, and fluttery flute, glitched out electronic buzz, clouds of swirling effects, strange detuned melodies, thick slabs of corrosive buzz, anguished wails, before the second track kicks in and the band pound out a slow motion doom crawl, the distortion brittle and crumbling, the vocals in the red and hyper distorted, in fact, all the sounds are super blown out, and then near the end, some weird way up in the mix acoustic guitars drift in, as the doom pounds on beneath. Then comes a brief instrumental interlude, all gentle piano, simple guitar strum, and some obtuse, slightly out of tune slow motion leads, until the doom drops, and the song lurches woozily toward the final track, a warped dronescape, all whirring electronic low end, distorted voices transmitted beneath some rubbery bass, so detuned you can hear the strings rattling against the frets, and then out of nowhere, some super primitive drum machine surfaces, its stilted machinelike skitter, draped over the throbbing buzzing electronics below, so bizarre, and so brilliant. We tried to order a bunch of these, but only managed to get a handful, limited to 100 copies, packaged in cool mini dvd sleeves, with full color artwork, each one hand numbered, last copies ever.

MPEG stream: The Season Of The Devil
MPEG stream: A Grim Pageant Of Death

Latest blast of twisted druggy slo-mo heaviness from this Oakland outsider doomlord, whose sound seems to have reached some sort of bizarre apex with Confessions, the first song alone tells the tale, plonked funeral piano, all manner of sampled voices, the vocals a demonic shriek, the riffs blackened and buzzy, what sounds like crickets, beneath spidery minor key melodies, it's haunting and harrowing, almost like a more 'musical' Gnaw Their Tongues, the same sort of sprawling cinematic vibe, the sound weirdly industrial too, an ominous creep, that in places reminds us of Wolf Eyes. And the whole record pretty much follow suit, like some twisted soundtrack, the sound a bleak, miserable drift through various horrifying tableaus, the voices croon, weep, howl, the piano seems to underpin it all, some mysterious bit of miserable melodicism, underpinning the grinding, buzzing blackness above, the sounds coalescing into riffs here and there, laced with spidery acoustic guitars, occasionally splintering into metallic shards, clattery and cacophony, blown out and blackened, all the while, strangely melodic, utterly haunting, definitely noisy, but muted and muddy, as if these sonic horrors were being viewed through a dirty blood smeared window, in a dilapidated old house, or through a crack in the wall of an old musty cellar. And it's almost as if all of these sounds, and all of this music, was fighting some unseen black force, an invisible hand reaching from the beyond, the music in a constant state of struggle, of anguish, the sound of a tortured soul, a sonic glimpse into the blackness that lurks beneath the everyday, a sound desperately clawing its way heavenward, while some grim force forever drags it right back down into the depths� WAY recommended for fans of Gnaw Their Tongues, Bunkur, Celestiial, HQO, Loss, Monument Of Urns and other purveyors of bizarre bleak blackness. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!

Upon first glancing at The Undead Shall Rise, we just assumed it was, ya know, another metal record. That all changed within the first two seconds or so, and before long we realized we were being confronted by one of the most bizarre metal records we've heard in some time, and nothing could really prepare us for the utter weirdness pouring out of this record's filthy grooves, so weird in fact, that we weren't even sure what speed the record was supposed to be played at (it's 33, we decided). Closer inspection revealed that this is, in fact, a concept record about... ZOMBIES!!! YES!!! Conveniently separated into two movements, Before (Side A) and After (Side B, duh), the album plays out like a nightmarish piece of cinematic horror. Filthy, molten guitars, subsonic doom bass, and the kind of vocals that make small children cower in absolute terror weave a story of the post-Zombie apocalypse, while, not surprisingly given the theme, Italian-inspired synths swirl about like an inescapable disease ready to take you straight to hell. The intense demon croaks (or zombie croaks, more appropriately) are just about as uncomfortable and vile as you could ever hope for, and the heaps of creepy ambience and the overall spaciousness of the recording help to add a truly disconcerting vibe. While much of the record plays out as an abject, lumbering doomscape, there are other moments that almost bring to mind Neil Young's soundtrack to Dead Man. Obviously for a record about zombies to succeed, it needs to recall a certain loneliness and sense of despair - check. The record makes you feel like you have lost all sense of control as the zombies fuck shit up and make existence generally unpleasant. So, if that's your idea of a good time, you may have just found your favorite new record. Limited to an insane 250 units, each copy of The Undead Shall Rise also comes with a hand scrawled note covered in movie blood, conveying the narrator's last moments before everything goes to shit.

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

SORRY.

Pretty much as soon as we heard this, we knew it was going to be Record Of The Week, and not just black metal record of the week. In the past, Peste Noire seems to have always been unfairly categorized as an Amesoeurs / Alcest sideproject (we plead guilty of that as well) due not only to the presence of Neige, the mastermind behind both Amesoeurs and Alcest, but the seemingly shared membership between all three bands, and while Neige did no doubt contribute much to Peste Noire's sound, it seems Peste Noire was much more the brainchild of only remaining original member, Famine, whose other main musical outlet is the almost equally twisted Valfunde, and as if to prove the validity of the above claim, has assembled an almost entirely new lineup (although Audrey from Amesoeurs contributes some vocals) and cobbled together the most damaged, most fucked up, most gloriously bizarre Peste Noire record yet. Which if you've heard any of the other records is definitely saying something! The record is weirdly arranged, five proper songs, with 2 minute or shorter song fragments and interludes, some that play like proper songs themselves, only truncated, others that act as intros or just totally tweaked unhinged sound experiments, but somehow, songs and non-songs alike hold together beautifully, and bafflingly, the band having created some sort of crusty, blackened, melancholy, depressive French folk flecked classic metal. The intro begins with sizzling shimmering cymbals, simple percussion, eventually joined by beautiful ethereal female vocals, as well as some raspy blackened not-really-harmony vocals, then the riff comes in, and damn if it isn't a riff from Star Wars, but super distorted and blown out, pounding, crusty, epic and majestic, the rasped vocals over a haunting military sounding speech. And then straight into the first 'proper' track, which begins as some sort of sea shanty like French folk song, but with the addition of some hellish black vokills, you can almost imagine a table full of French soldiers, and one dripping slimy otherworldy beast, all singing along, glasses raised to the sky. Then in comes a very classic sounding metal riff, but the guitars muted and woozy, the tempo lurching and seasick, all manner of different vocals, crooning, shrieking, howling, then an awesomely weird squiggly bit of low end, super tripped out and psychedelic but somehow subtle and buried in the mix. Guitars soar and sing and jangle, wrapped around equally dramatic vocals, a total French folk crust anthem. The follow up track begins all dark acoustic guitars and birdsong, martial percussion, eventually exploding into a super buzzy distorted march, pounding away, midtemp and melancholy, before returning to a super gorgeous, hauntingly depressive gothic crust almost-ballad, blackened and distorted, but also post rocky and strangely emotional and moving. The 'interludes' include some warped and warbly haunted house piano, doused in hiss and crackle, ghostly female vocals drifting amidst the warm whir, sinister laughter, squalls of maniacal shrieks, dueling male / female vocals, almost operatic, soon joined again by that monstrous blackened croak, warm woozy calliopes, soundtracky keyboards and the sound of storms, tons of reverb and delay, tape hiss and softly crumbling distortion, all creating perfect segues between loping depressive midtempo blackened post metal lurch, super blown out in the red almost D-beat pounding buzz, those vocals transforming from hellish howl to deep moan, there's even some wheezing harmonica, all leading up to the final track, "Soleils Couchants", which begins with birdsong again, and an awesomely angular and beautifully twisted guitar part, paired up with a gorgeous minor key harmony, before slipping into a moody downtuned creep, complete with weird frog like vocals, and a looped bit of beeps and chirps, total post-doom weirdness, literally like nothing you've ever heard, it sounds a little like that first part of the Pirates Of The Caribbean ride at Disneyland, where you're just floating through the dark bayou, lit only but slivers of moonlight and the flickering light of fireflies, it's like a soundtrack to that, swampy and doomy and mysterious, until the band launches into a strangely melodic black doom midtempo jam, the guitars minor key, multiple vocals merging into raspy otherworldly harmonies, before breaking down into a long stretch of just guitars and vocals, the guitars twisted and spidery but still melodic, the voices tortured but super passionate, yet again infusing the fucked up twisted blackness with pathos and emotion, keeping it from being weird for weird's sake, this is something else entirely. What sounds like a child's voice joins in, twisted around that hellish vokill, all draped over a gorgeously catchy riff, reminding us a bit of Katatonia or Lifelover, before spiraling and sprawling into a seriously melodic blackened post rock jam, and then finally returning to the doomy lurch that began the song some seven minutes earlier. Peste Noire have (again) managed the seemingly impossible, creating a record both totally twisted and damaged, but also lovely and moving and melodic, a record that ranks up there in our pantheon of most bizarre and fucked up black metal records ever, while somehow appealing to even the not so metal inclined, a confusional mix of black and crust and pop and folk, all twisted and tangled up and forced through Peste Noire's cracked musical sensibilities, the result, a record fucked up and fantastical, and this review not withstanding, almost impossible to describe.

MPEG stream: Neire Peste
MPEG stream: La Mesniee Mordrissoire
MPEG stream: Ballade Cuntre Les Anemis De La France
MPEG stream: Soleils Couchants

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

SORRY. We have been totally obsessed with French black metallers Amesoeurs, from the second we first heard their debut ep (and only proper release), Ruines Humaines, absolutely one of our favorite black metal records ever, a disc of glistening, My Bloody Valentine like buzz rife with strangely melodic indie rock jangle and occasional female vocals, all wrapped in sonic spikes and buzzing guitars and blasting beats, a bliss pop disc in black metal clothing if there ever was one. In reviewing that disc we mentioned that there were various other related bands we were feverishly trying to track down, one was the even less metal, and more blissed out Alcest (whose debut cd is out of print, but whose brand new full length should be out soon) and the super demented, slightly more typically black metal Peste Noire. Now, when we say "slightly more typically black metal", it's all relative, by any other standards, and compared to any other BM bands, Peste Noire is anything but typical, but compared to the relative poppiness of Alcest and Amesoeurs, this stuff is as black as it gets. We had been trying to track down their debut for ages, but since it took so long, a brand new full length dropped in the meantime, this disc right here, so we figured we oughta start with this and work our way back. We do have the first record in stock, and it's just as amazing and fucked up and freaked out and absolutely recommended as essential, so if you want this one, odds are you're gonna need that one too (so just ask), but just so you know what you're getting into, let's investigate the bizarre soundworld of France's Peste Noire.... The problem is, it's really hard to describe just what the heck Peste Noire sounds like. They are definitely black metal, but the arrangements are so bizarre, and often not very black, everything is fuzzy and off kilter and distorted, dizzying and haunting and creepy, stumbling and whatthefuck as often as heavy or buzzing. Take the opening track, some sort of crumbling distorted soundscape, lots of fuzz and hiss, plenty of reverb and druggy murk, industrial percussion and washed out ambience, some super beautiful clean guitar, that fragments into fractured weirdness over which harsh blackened vocals howl and shriek, the guitars eventually growing more and more distorted and FX drenched, while all around swirl strange sounds and demonic voices. But then the second track kicks in and things settle down for the most part. A relentless black buzz, but not typical in any way, a sort of old school thrash, but all twisted and tangled, the guitars are all over the place, the background is a constant wash of fuzzy roar, while up front, the main riff is sharp and angular. The vocals are a hateful hissy howl, the drums a stumbling blast, but amidst all this chaos are bits of perfect poppiness, killer melodies, amazing (and unlikely grooves), super hooky and catchy, but in a way that seems impossible. Within three minutes, Peste Noire go from buzzy blast, to dreamy melodic drift to midtempo groove to lumbering doom, but always imbued with a strange pop sensibility and always wrapped in all manner of fucked up sounds and damaged production. Some bands are obviously 'fucked', the drums a crumbling mess, the recording quality ultra shitty, the mix all over the map with LOUD drums or super inaudible guitars, we love that stuff, but Peste Noire is fucked in a completely different way, listening to this, you can tell these guys are amazing musicians, and have an absolutely solid idea of what they're trying to do, It's just that what they're trying to do would never occur to anyone in their right mind, Which is exactly what makes their music so compelling and so totally mind blowingly bizarre. As with all music, metal in particular, it's all about the riffs, and thus the guitars, and the guitars here are fucking amazing, sometimes spun into crystalline melodies, delicate and sparkling, other times super dense downtuned buzz, occasionally weird and angular and super mathy, the quality of the guitar sound too is ridiculously varied, from clean and clear, to muddy and murky, often at the same time, and always in the same song. At some points it almost sounds like these guys were mad musical alchemists who took two different records and crammed them together creating some unholy sonic beast, poppy and catchy, but bleak and brutal and demented, an unnatural blackened buzzing freakshow of sound, but always as beautiful as it is fucked up. The whole record is peppered with non musical weirdness too. The extended intro of "Maleicon", an extended rant in French, growled and spat out over a backdrop of moans and drones, or the brief "Extrait Radiophonique", which sounds like a crackly record of maniacal screams, tolling bells, and all sorts of slamming and banging, but somehow even those parts all essential to the demented and damaged vision that is FolkFuck Folie. Definitely another contender for black metal record of the year!! Includes a bonus track, an older track from a split with Finnish black metallers Horna (not out yet at the time of this list), which is way more black than the rest of the record, but is just as weird and amazing. Packaged with a huge booklet of lyrics, photos, liner notes, drawings and plenty of other strangeness.

MPEG stream: L'envol Du Grabataire (Ode A Famine)
MPEG stream: Chute Pour Une Culbute
MPEG stream: La Fin Del Secle
MPEG stream: Paysage Mauvais

A while back, it seemed like everyone, ourselves included, was totally obsessed with a French black metaller called Neige. Doesn't ring a bell? How about his shoegazey post-black metal outfit Alcest? Or his fuzzy black metal gone bliss pop combo Amesoeurs? His fracutured new wave black metal combo Valfunde? Or even his more 'traditional' black metal outfit Peste Noire? Yep, you got it now. Been a while since we've heard from Neige, since then, he joined another 'dark metal' band, and he's also joined long time aQ faves Forgotten Woods. While that's pretty exciting, and we're always up for hearing more of what Neige has to offer. We also sort of wish he'd just cut down on the various side projects, so we wouldn't have to wait nearly as long for a new Amesoeurs, Alcest or Peste Noire record. But while we wait patiently, we can now revisit the first Peste Noire full length, with the unwieldy title La Sanie Des Siecles - Panegyrique De La Degenerescence, finally reissued! We've been dying to list this, but until now we haven't been able to get enough. Above we call Peste Noire Neige's more traditional black metal group, but that designation is really relative, as the music of Peste Noire, while being black and buzzy and heavy and grim, is also totally tweaked, fractured and fucked up, rife with all manner of whatthefuck, from gorgeous sweeping melodies, to strange samples, so completely confusional arrangements, to bits of liturgical music mixed into the buzz, to some serious pop tendencies. But somehow it all works. That is if by works, you mean, constitutes one of the most awesomely fucked up lo-fi melodic outsider black metal records ever!! We raved about the latest Peste Noire a while back, the awesomely titled FolkFuck Folie, and everything we loved about that record (also just reissued) is present here as well, but if anything, all of those things are just, well, MORE. More fucked up, more freaked out, more melodic, more lo-fi. Just take the opener, "Nous Sommes Fanes", begins with some record crackle, before the band lurches into a weird drunken waltz, sounding more like the Reeks And The Wrecks than any black metal. The guitars and drums swing woozily, the drums and cymbals super blown out, over the top, an ultra distorted guitar spins a web of damaged leads, before slipping into a strange moody post rocky drift, replete with big boomy reverb drenched chords. But then the second track kicks in, and we're back in more recognizable black metal territory, and even though it's buzzy and black, it is incredibly melodic, poppy almost, the melodies soaring and epic, the track is peppered with blasts of blasting grimness for sure, a bit of a crusty punk vibe all tangled up with the buzzing blackness, but even when the song is blasting blackly, close listening reveals all manner of melodic weirdness going on beneath the surface, and it doesn't stay below the surface for long, as the song shifts into loping minor key almost-dirge, before finish up how it started, with that strangely emotional super melodic soaring blackened buzz. And so it goes, the band lurching from midtempo lope to roaring furious blast, to almost doomy plod, all strangely muddy and murky, the various parts twisted and gnarled into something totally unique. The guitars are incredibly varied, going from Ved Buens Ende like Slint-worship, to filthy Darkthrone-d crunch, to gorgeous almost folky finger picking, some serious moments of Opeth-y flutter peppered amidst the crusty blackness. The second to last track "Dueil Angoisseus (Christine De Pisan, 1362-1431)" is all gorgeously bleak and buzzy, midtempo and melancholy, but then draped over the top is super clean, classical guitar, way up in the mix, that gives the track the strangest vibe, makes it sound strangely pretty. Finally, the disc finishes off with "Des Medecins Malades Et Des Saints Sequestres", which begins with a tangle of effects drenched hammer-ons, unfurling a haunting, off kilter melody, the drums a distant lo-fi pound, when the song kicks in, it's almost eighties metal, albeit filtered through a grim French black metal lens, but the riffing, so classic, and so cool sounding when cloaked in a filthy production and that demonic rasp. But this song too, shifts into some strange other space, and is suddenly infused with what sounds like a wall of whirring organs, those hammer-ons return, and the song is some strange minor key doom pop epic, that flits back and forth between that eighties riffing, super distorted, and that sprawling metallic poppiness, before transforming into a blaze of super effected metallic chug, finishing off with a strange super distorted almost-jig (!), the drums huge and pounding, while the guitar plucks out a strange distorted melody, much like the opening track. Needless to say (funny how we always say that after SAYing it for several thousand words), this is one of our favorite black metal records ever. Fucked up, but black and heavy, poppy and hook filled, but still grim and buzzy, if you loved FolkFuck Folie, you'll love this, if you dig Amesoeurs and Alcest but want to hear that sound dipped in filth and painted black, well then this will definitely do the trick. If this was brand new and had just come out, it would be, without a doubt, one of our records of the year (not just black metal either), but as it is, this is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL AND RECOMMENDED!

MPEG stream: Nous Sommes Fanes
MPEG stream: Le Mort Joyeux
MPEG stream: Laus Tibi Domine

It seems like every time there's a new Peste Noire record we make it Record Of The Week. Which only seems strange until you actually hear it. And hear how fucked up and totally bafflingly brilliant it is. With every record Peste Noire seem to move further and further away from the grim black metal that birthed them, but to be fair, no one in Peste Noire has spent much time playing what anyone might consider 'typical' black metal, especially mainman Famine, now rechristened La Sale Famine De Valfunde, who used to play in Alcest. Though we should note he took extreme umbrage when we suggested that Alcest / Ameseours mainman Neige had anything to do with the music of Peste Noire, which is also surprising considering that one member of Alcest and one member of Ameseours are also members of Peste Noire and we assume do contribute musically. But really, none of that matters as much as the very very strange sounds these folks create, and the fact that metalheads still dig it. In fact, we're constantly perplexed by certain bands that for no good reason remain beloved to even the truest grimmest metalheads. To be fair, Peste Noire, for all their twisted sonic proclivities, are still masterful black metallers, it's just that those blasts of brilliant black metal are often separated by strange accordion driven French folk music or some twisted bit of confusional psychedelia. Which brings us to L'Ordure A L'Etat Pur, the latest, and yes, perhaps greatest from these French misanthropes. And as always, it only takes the first track, a shot across the bow, to reveal their true intentions, as twisted and unlikely as they may be. The sound of wind and rain, of crashing surf, distant foghorns, underpinning some reverbed clean guitar, riffs ringing out over these sounds of the sea, a second guitar adds some melody, and there seems to be a wolf howling, or a voice imitating a wolf, there are tolling bells too, and the beginning of what sounds like it could be a jig, or some sort of gypsy folk, maniacal rambling vocals surface, the guitars growing more distorted, the sound tense and dramatic and growing moreso, before no not launching into furious black buzz, but instead some sort of shuffling post rocky groove, the vocals unhinged and maniacal, wrapped around a chugging riff, and some simple propulsive drumming, not so much metal as rock, and then the sound does erupt into a kind of blackness, soaring and droney but before full blackness is achieved, it returns to that sort of sea shanty that opened the proceedings, and the howling wolf returns. Some double kick drumming ups the ante, and finally, the song lurches into more metal territory, but again, more sort of blackened rock, like Khold than Darkthrone, with some seriously catchy riffs, and then, HORNS, moaning ominously, adding some cool texture, and giving the song a sort of "Tusk" vibe, until the metal peels away completely, leaving just horns and acoustic guitar, a sort of oompa oompa polka, with a trombone playing the main melody. Oh yeah, and some accordion. We're in full on French street music territory now, and then the metal guitars swoop back in, as do the vokills, but now they're playing a killer metallized version of that polka, with some strange trilled vocal harmonies and some weird droned out guitars, which suddenly stop, leaving just the sounds of what sounds like sword fighting, and the song shifts gears again, bursting into an almost ska sounding punkish sprawl, only to moments later shift again into a gnarled bit of noise rock, and it's right back into the oompa oompa metalized ska, the vocals transforming into a sort of goregrind gurgle, the music stopping briefly to reveal the sounds of a barnyard, all chickens and roosters, then when the music kicks back in, the vocals simulate the sounds of chickens, Famine singing variations of "Ba-kaaaw", before finishing off in a killer mathy tangle of dynamic chug and pound. And that's just the first song. And fear not, we won't go through every song here part by part, although we could, and reading this without listening would make this new Peste Noire sound like thee most bizarre record EVER, and heck, maybe it is, but impossibly, it also sort of works, in a dizzying, whatthefuck sort of way. The rest of the record does offer more surprises, as well as some more traditional black metal, but even at its most buzzy and blasty, the sound will splinter into some strange super distorted can-can, guitars will suddenly unfurl wild squiggles of high end, the sound suddenly devolving into a sort of effects heavy progged out swirl that then transforms into a pounding almost industrial crunch, wreathed in more moaning horns, or a fight will seem to break out in the middle of the song, shattering glass, sirens, all while the song continues to chug and churn, the sound slipping easily from dark, gnarled crusty pound to woozy meandery clean guitar post rock and then to glistening soaring sonic majesty, only to have a chorus of weirdly chanted vocals surface and totally change the vibe to more of a stein hoisting sing along. The blasting buzz here tends less toward the grim blur of classic black metal and more toward a sort of goofy gallop, but one that suits the band more than the other ever would, and amidst all this weirdness, PN can whip out a stretch of impossible beauty or extreme blackened bliss, the sort of parts you want to go on forever, but in the ADD world of Peste Noire, those moments are fleeting, and will soon be subsumed by some new, stranger sound. Elements of power metal abound, but like all of the other musics bastardized here, it becomes just another twisted / fractured facet of Peste Noire's bizarre musical universe. All culminating in the beautifully mournful slow core doom of closer "La Condi Hu", a creeping lament, heavy and distorted, but darkly melodic and melancholy, laced with clean hushed vocal harmonies, but then you couldn't have expected that to be all, in swoop some sad sad strings, some chugging guitars, building to a minor key bit of blackened post metal, and unlike the rest of the record, nothing gets super weird, the band remain heavy, the music tense and dramatic and emotional, continuing to build, the sound intense and moving, laced with mysterious proggy sections, cool female vocal harmonies, dense intricate drumming, there's even a cool wild sort-of-drum solo, with the drums spitting our an avalanche of beats, beneath spoken female vox, which leads right into a super gorgeous stretch of minor key, slithery bass driven heaviness, that any band would kill for, but these guys leave for last, letting the sound wind down, and displaying without a doubt, that there is some sort of method to Peste Noire's extreme and utter musical madness.

MPEG stream: Casse, Peches, Fractures Et Traditions
MPEG stream: Cochon Carotte Et Les Soeurs Crotte
MPEG stream: J'Avais Reve Du Nord 1

Ever since we listed the Amesoeurs record a while back (and actually even before) we've been trying to track down records by two related bands, the equally blissed out black bliss combo Alcest, and the much more primitive and black Peste Noire. While we've been unable to track down either cd, we did manage to get a bunch of copies of this brand new Peste Noire lp, one side featuring 4 songs from a rehearsal, the actual versions of which will be on the upcoming full length, while the B-side is a sidelong black buzz epic recorded a couple years ago. Nothing about Amesoeurs will prepare you for Peste Noire. There is a similar melodic sensibility, but beyond that, it's a whole different beast. The four new tracks are killers, and for rehearsal tracks sound amazing, so much so that most bands would be pretty happy with the versions here, loud and heavy and recorded super hot. The forthcoming full length on which these songs will appear is to be titled Folkfuck Folie just for a brief glimpse into the twisted minds behind the music. Things begin with a weirdly majestic and martial intro, with complex drums and strange arrangements, almost like some medieval carnival music, before bursting into full on furious blackness, buzzy and relentless, but even in the blasting things are slightly off kilter, damaged and demented sounding, and very very melodic, mathy and complex, super harsh vocals over the top but they can hardly disguise how utterly hooky these songs are. In fact, after hearing Amesoeurs and Peste Noire and Alcest, it seems to be these guys' M.O., write killer pop songs, amazing hooks, unforgettable melodies, then try to disguise them as best they can as buzzing black metal. It never works completely, which is why this stuff is so remarkable. Some of the songs have tons of syncopated chug, giving the songs an almost proggy vibe, almost like some weird mix of Emperor and Voivod. Blooping bass, cascading sheets of guitar and gorgeous minor key melodies. Can't wait for the new record. If these are only sketches, we can hardly fathom how freaked out and amazing the actual songs are gonna be. The B-side is an older recording and is much more rough and lo-fi, raw and blown out. Lots of reverb and effects, but still rife with plenty of surprising melodic breakdowns, impossible catchy and lovely for something this black and raw. It gets even weirder near the end, with a long stretch of scratchy record crackle and monklike chants, and then a super pretty laid back acoustic outro. So amazing. Everything these guys touch turns to black gold! Packaged in a super striking black and white sleeve, band photos and liner notes on the back, including the legend 'Hooligan Black Metal' that seems to make almost no sense when paired with the music inside... Vinyl only, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!

Okay black metal freeks and fanatics. We've all been going apeshit for everything and anything from the super tangled and inbred French micro-scene that spawned Alcest, Amesoeurs, Mortifera, Valfunde and of course Peste Noire, and we had been trying to track down enough of these double cassettes to finally list, and obviously we did, but odds are these will FLY out of here, and as we're not sure how limited these actually are, and how long it will take to get more, if indeed we can, please be prepared to maybe be disappointed, or very patient as we try to get more. We reviewed Peste Noire's second full length FolkFuck Folie a while back, and the Lorraine rehearsal lp, both were amazing, stumbling chaotic, filthy fucked up blackness, and these two tapes are no different. If anything, they're more raw, and more gritty and blown out. Lo-fi and ultrablack. The first track is so fast it almost sounds like it was recorded at the wrong speed. But much like the records proper, the sound lurches from furious black blasts to stumbling midtempo buzz, to plodding almost-doom, but even on these early ultra lo-fi recordings, the mood and vibe is already in place, haunting and creepy, demented and freaked out, borderline psychedelic at times. Noisy as fuck, crumbling and super distorted, everything painted a washed out black, grime-y but at times weirdly melodic and blissy. Collects pretty much all of Peste Noire's recordings outside of their 2 proper cds and the rehearsal lp (including their problematically titled 2001Aryan Supremecy demo, which seems out of character since according to Encyclopedia Metallum, their lyrical focus is on "Aesthetics of Evil, Medieval Demons and Decadent Poetry") including a couple unreleased bonus tracks. But probably, unless you're a crazy obsessed tape trader, you haven't heard any of this stuff anyway. Needless to say, WAY recommended, and again, probably super limited, so act fast. Cool packaging too, two cassettes, laid side by side in a small printed black cardboard box, with two inserts, old demo covers on one side, liner notes on the other.

Depths is the latest blast of grim melodic blackness from this Aussie black metal horde, and the first we've reviewed on the list. This came highly recommended by weirdo black metaller the Botanist, and for fans of dense blasting buzz infused with plenty of moodiness and melody, you'd be hard pressed to do better than these guys. Just check out the opening track, pretty much everything we love about black metal, the sound is dense and murky, the guitars are thick and buzzy, the drums pounding and furious, the vocals an anguished how buried in the mix, the arrangement constantly shifting, from the opening salvo, a face melting black blast, to the more midtempo majesty of the middle stretch, replete with soaring epic guitar melodies, to an abstract, clean guitar spacey interlude, an back again, PS infuse their furious blackness with a surprising amount of emotion, giving the impression that with the drums and guitars stripped away, this might sound like Godspeed or Explosions In The Sky, that same sort of brooding, slow building intensity, which sound even cooler here, wedded to thick black guitars, and churning buzzing heaviness. The band do introduce some cool twists, surprising almost clean vocals, draped over some ultra melodic almost Katatonia sounding riffage at one point, and chugging pop flecked almost Khold style grooves here and there, but those elements are definitely not the focal point, there guys are all about blast and buzz, howl and crush, the sound is epic and massive and heavy and BLACK, a glancing listen, and you might think this was just a wall of furious buzz, but closer listening reveals all sorts of texture and melody, but without taking away from the power or ferocity, it's almost as if all that melody, and all that sonic moodiness, was unintended, a natural byproduct of this sort of buzz and blast, but it's too well crafted, and too much an integral part of PS's sound, which manages to totally transcend the typical grim buzz of most black metal, offering up something much more epic and melodic, and ultimately way more sonically rewarding.

MPEG stream: Lost Geists Of The Sunlight Sphere
MPEG stream: Tribulations Of Man
MPEG stream: Depths

A short sharp blast of buzzing grim blackness from Canada, from a horde known as Pestkreuz, whose sound is all classic buzz and blast, combining the sound of the early Norwegian greats with some of the more recent modern BM outfits. Think Funeral Mist and Katharsis via Satyricon and Immortal; while this may not be pantheon-worthy as any of those, it's definitely a pretty excellent chunk of orthodox black metal, one that should most certainly hit the spot for all of you who need a dose of furious, frenzied black buzz, there's even some passages that dip into the punkier side of BM, but for the most part, PK engage in the sort of corpse painted, Christ defiling, blast beating, tremolo picking, demonik vokill-ed heaviness, that we (and many of you) can't ever seem to get enough of.

MPEG stream: Night Movement
MPEG stream: The New God Has Risen

Latest from the always awesome Khrysanthoney label, who so far have given us killer records from Sleeping Peonies, Clair Cassis, Velvet Cacoon and Necktarium, as well as, in their previous incarnation as Starlight Temple Society, records by Lonesummer, Marsh, Schrei Aus Stein, Nightbringer, Temple Of NOT, Void Of Reveries, Hamnskifte and Roba El Khaliyeh, a pretty varied and musically elite lineup for sure, and yet this new group, a one man band with the cryptic monicker Petrychor, seems to be the perfect addition, another outfit that manages to appeal both to the true grim hordes, while pushing that sound to its very boundaries, creating in the process a distinctly original variant, which us why this stuff is so appealing to the sonically adventurous extreme music obsessives. It's definitely black metal. Frenzied and hyperspeed, blurred riffage, frantic blastbeats, this true grim blackness melded to avant experimental abstraction, conjuring up a sound like a more warm and less wintry, woozy and washed out Paysage D'Hiver, or a less crusty, more melodic Wrath Of The Weak, or even, perhaps more accurately and definitely less distinctly metal, like a drum machine driven, demonic vokill-ed Lovesliescrushing, with a sound that slips from delicate and haunting, all spidery steel string guitar, and what sounds like mandolins, to lush layered choral ambience, and mysterious droney drift, to full on dense blurry blackness. But the sonic devil is most definitely in the details here. The pretty acoustic parts are not just run of the mill haunting minor key strum over creepy keyboards - it's obvious Mr. Petrychor is an incredible guitarist, unfurling what sounds like some Fahey style Appalachia one second, some wildly percussive, densely strummed Michael Hedges like mesmer the next, even some flamenco style workouts, the (im) perfect and unlikely foil for the heavy parts, which are super distorted, and strangely murky, with the drums weirdly produced, blown out and in the red, sometimes almost like a techno beat, the way they pulse and pound, clipping constantly and creating strange decayed rhythmic thuds that seems to drive the swirling chaotic sonic maelstrom, other times slipping into something that sounds like an IDM style electronic skitter, but buried beneath layer after layer of buzz and thrum and whir. Meanwhile, the riffs are less 'riffy' and more indistinct and amorphous, those 'riffs' seeming to ooze and smear into lush chordal swells, often wreathed in a swirling minor key haze, or roiling beneath warped, churning melodic tangles, rife with haunting synths and what sounds like strings, with a subtle gypsy folk vibe seeming to surface here and there, Petrychor's blast beat-ed whir and thrum less about black metal and more about some sort of abstract blackened ambient buzz, the fierce and obviously intense propulsive crunch deftly transformed into something almost dreamy, without losing any of it's grim energy and chaotic ferocity, culminating in the 14+ minute final track, that again finds blurred riffage, and swirling keyboards held together by a dense Teutonic techno sounding pulse, the sound growing more and more buzzy and murky, before splintering into a wild blacknoise buzzpsych crumble, before slipping into a lush, hushed ethereal outro. SO incredible. We can definitely see this being our black metal record of the year (and maybe yours too!). The perfect balance of blackened heft and dreamlike shimmer, of buzzdrenched skull caving crush and thick blurry blissout. And as if that wasn't enough, also included is a second disc, which contains Petrychor's first demo, Dryad, three songs, 23 minutes, a slightly rougher and more raw, but no less blown out and blissed out, version of Effigies And Epitaphs, the same sort of frenzied riffage, blurred swirly melodic heaviness wedded to haunting acoustic guitars and deep dense dronemusic, but the title track here might be the most epic and majestic of the bunch (both records in fact), sounding like a blackened Godspeed playing in triple time, the melodies seeming to spiral heavenward in thick churning clouds of buzz all wreathed in frantic wildly intertwining melodies, while the closer finishes the whole set off with gorgeous and downright creepy chunk of dense black rumble, a thick, undulating sprawl of tarpit blackdronedrift, underpinning haunting piano plinks and some incredible steel string strum, like some seriously sinister otherworldly cinematic black Appalachia. LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!!!! Housed in a cool 6 panel full color eco-wallet style sleeve with printed insert. Also included is a link to a free download of a third record, a companion release called Artistry Of Exhaustion II.

MPEG stream: In Remembrance
MPEG stream: Of Grandest Majesties
MPEG stream: Dryad (I Make My Home)

Demo 1 is the debut release from a New Orleans one man band called Phantom Feel, who traffics in a sort of black metal, but a strain far removed from the grim buzz and black blast of most BM, instead, the vibe is much more woozy and washed out, the opening intro is all lush, smeary swaths draped over skeletal skitter and programmed pulses. The track blossoms into mournful almost shoegazingly melodic sweeps, shimmering dreamily over murky muted riffage, and clouds of soft focus hiss, the sound tied together by spidery minor key guitar melodies keening way off in the background, and cool crooned vocals. The vibe is almost cold wavey, a little gothy, much more like a blackened M83 actually. The second track definitely gets a bit more grim, the buzz more to the fore, the sound a bit more bleak and melancholy, the vocals more tortured, but even then, the sound continues to be more pretty and psychedelic than black and malefic. But flip the tape over, and the sound slips right back into PF's woozy warbly soundscapery, this time strange processed sampled voices, buried beneath a creeping almost Portishead-y style dirge, warm and liquid, lots of thrum and buzz, all blurred and bleary, the black metal riffage here smeared into hazy distant streaks, while in the foreground the haunting sonic haze roils and churns. Gorgeous stuff for sure. And really only barely black metal. In fact, much of this is WAY too weird for meat-and-potatoes metalheads. Much likelier that if you're into strange dark drone music, psychedelic ambience, creepy slowcore, abstract blackened electronica and other twisted sonic strains, then this is for you. LIMITED TO 50 COPIES. Each one hand numbered, and each copy with a hand painted/stamped sigil on the front.

MPEG stream: I

Holy mission to Mars! What a fantastic discovery, the first we've heard from Phobonoid, a one man black metal / industrial / noise outfit from Phobos, and yep, that's one of the moons of Mars, and the music on Orbita is a high concept soundtrack to the end of civilization on Mars, as viewed from Phobos, and also BY the god Phobos, culminating in the eventual meeting between Phobos and his brother Deimos, on the scorched surface of the ruined red planet. And sonically, that's sort of what it sounds like, opening with a dense cloud of blacknoize, darkly billowing, ominous and sinister, eventually frenzied riffing begins to emerge from the blackness, a roiling sonic chaos, that instead of bursting into blasting black buzz, blurs and swirls into a grinding, almost orchestral buzz, a lurching doom-drone creep, wreathed in electronic fuzz and glitched out crumbling distortion, before erupting into a blown out Godflesh style industrial dirge, the sounds mutated and on the verge of collapse, electronic flecked heaviness, that buried blackness bleeding over the mechanized rhythms and the insectoid riffing. And that's just the first track! From there on out, Phobonoid paints a bleak sonic picture of Mars' ruination, achingly melancholy guitar buzz blossoms into blackened industrial blasts, the vocals a demonic rasp, the programmed drums relentless and robotic, inhumanly fast at times, but constantly slipping back into a monstrous, crushing plod, the sound almost psychedelic, dense and lushly layered, noisy and super distorted. Throughout the 7 songs here, the sound is in constant flux, a dizzying barrage of black tarpit creep, churning atonal blasts, mechanized metallic buzz, with one gorgeously austere stretch of blurred, almost blissed out industrial ambience, before one final blast, of majestically epic mechanoid black buzz. So good!

MPEG stream: Phobos
MPEG stream: Ex
MPEG stream: Vuoto
MPEG stream: Deimos

Well, this is a bit of a weird one. Planet Aids is actually the side project of a band we've yet to review beacuse their records have been so difficult to get. But whatever, here's the story, there's a Belgian ultra doom band called Bunkur, whose records are supposedly on the way to us right now and should be reviewed on the next list. They are of the slow motion funereal doom variety, like Skepticism or Thergothon or Khanate. In fact they sound quite a bit like Khanate but with weirder dubbier rhythms. Well, in the process of trying to get Bunkur records for the store, Bunkur mainman Manuel suggested we check out his other band Planet Aids, who he said were way more fucked up and noisy, and damn if he wasn't right. The problematically monickered Planet Aids offer up one 30 minute track of sick glacial death doom, ultra de-tuned guitars, gargling hellish howls, and rumbling bowel churning bass. Sounds good huh? Well, it gets even better, as every once in a while, the crusty murk gets interrupted by bursts of bizarre industrial rhythms, that sound like a malfunctioning Godflesh. Weird as fuck but so so cool. On the same label that released the two equally amazing Urfaust records.

MPEG stream: Apokalyptik AIDS (excerpt)