[ aquarius records — Metal Black Metal ]

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Full length number two from this French Satanic crew, featuring members of aQ faves Peste Noire, but don't be expecting the warped WTF? weirdness of that group, instead, Christicide deliver some seriously epic and brutal blackness, with a production that dispenses with the tinny/lo-fi/practice space sound that plagues most black metal records, and delivers its malevolent message in gouts of crushing heaviness, with thick swirls of insectoid buzz, blasting pounding drums, and croaked demonic vokills. Just the sound alone had us from the first track, thick and heavy and massive, but the songs too - wildly complex tangles of woozy riffage, furious intricate rhythms, all locked into a tranced out blackmath crush, but rife with melodies too, just give that opening track a listen, the sound lurching from droned out riffiness, to furious blasting blackness, to weirdly psychedelic and surprisingly melodic epic-ness and back again, definitely shades of Katharsis, Deathspell, and other modern masters of avant blackness, but Christicide fuse those avant influences to more traditional old school black buzz, resulting in something that manages to sound both classic, and modern, the sort of furious blackened heaviness that we definitely don't hear enough anymore...

MPEG stream: Upheaval Of The Soul
MPEG stream: Black Knowledge
MPEG stream: Solitude With The Devil

Way back in the nineties, when we were first getting into black metal, we discovered an Austrian horde called Korova, that were pretty much everything we wanted in a weirdo black metal band, blasting riffage, soaring baroque keyboards, over the top male/female vox, their sound constantly mutating and getting weirder and weirder, the band eventually introducing electronica and other non-metal weirdness into their sound, and transforming into what was essentially an experimental blackened pop band. Sort of. The band eventually transformed into Korovakill and released a sort-of concept record called Waterhells, which continued the band's descent into sonic madness and progression towards a grim/kvlt-metalhead-alienating whattthefuckness that we of course LOVED. That record came out nearly a decade ago, so we just assumed that Korova/Korovakill were no more. That is until a few weeks ago, when we got an email from a band with the odd moniker of Chryst, who it turns out were the latest incarnation of Korova. We got a copy of the record, and were a bit confused by the bizarre and surreal cover art, the front of which features a plastic model of christ crucified on one of those wind turbines, a silhouette of which forms the 'Y' in the Chryst logo. Flip over the record and there's a strange man with a head of hair, a beard and mustache made from photoshopped clouds, oh and alongside his head is a fish floating in the air. Pretty ridiculous for sure, but once we threw the record on, it all made sense. Sonically, the record sort of sounds exactly how the artwork looks, surreal and over the top, twisted and confusional, and pretty geniusly baffling. Our first impression was that Chryst sounded like a crazy mash up of Hammers Of Misfortune, Uz Jsme Doma, Hollenthon, Judson Fountain doing that witch voice, Cradle Of Filth, and Orff's Carmina Burana (which they do an a cappela version of at one point!!), look those up on the aQ site and see if it doesn't make perfect sense. And it's really not that far off the mark, the sound is super theatrical, and totally twisted, and not a little bit ridiculous, and in lesser hands it could have been a total clusterfuck, but there does seem to be a method to their madness, moving well beyond the weird metal dabbling of their previous incarnations, and leaving other weird metal contemporaries of theirs like Dodheimsgard, Borknagar, Arcturus in the dust. And creating a sort of modern avant black metal cabaret. There's really too much going on, and the songs change direction and sound it would take forever to describe the whole record, but let's go through the first few songs and you should definitely get a feel for how fantastically freaky and totally ruling this really is. The opener "The Awakening" starts off like some traditional black metal, some killer buzzing riffage, pounding drums, howled demonic vokills, then it switches gears, into a furious blast, still pretty straight ahead except for the weird insectoid theremin melody, and then the deep dramatic crooned vox, but still well within the realms of black metal for sure, that is until the background vocals come in, a weird falsetto choir, and the strange extra percussion, the productions seeming to shift, until everything stops, leaving just a haunting stretch of chimes and harmony vocals, only to lurch right back into that blasting metal, only to have the track start changing speed, slooooowing waaaaaay down, then speeding back up super fast, then slooooooowing doooooown again, and finally finishing off in a blaze of hyperspeed buzz, which leads directly into the super dramatic synth/vocal opening of "I Are You", which is where those croaky shrieky Judson Fountain witch-like vox surface for the first time, then some orchestral percussion, some strange pseudo operatic vocals, and then the band launches into some furious blackness, with some insanely fast drumming, and those operatic vocals continue within the buzzing and blasting, a strange mix, but it definitely works in some weird way. Then there's "Leaving The Ashes" with its buzzing cold wave synthy opening, which leads to some seriously ruling keyboard/vocal heavy epic power metal replete with horns, which abruptly shifts into "Storming Outside", a furious blast of punky heaviness, rife with slippery atonal guitars and more moody vox, all wreathed in swirling maniacal synths. And so it goes, not necessarily getting stranger and stranger, merely keeping the already off the charts level of weirdness throughout. Most of the tracks are quite short, more like movements, all woven together into a single flowing epic, the sound shifting constantly and relentlessly, lots of black buzz, and the black metal parts are definitely black enough for the true grim hordes, but even those parts are twisted all up into new freaky fantastical shapes, but as should be obvious by now, for every bit of black blast, there's plenty of other stranger sounds, that range from carnivalesque cabaret to strange almost sun shiney Beach Boys vocal flecked freakfolk/Appalachia, but ultimately the key to this fractured fucked up schizophrenic avant metal opus, is that every part, be it straight ahead (relatively) or twisted beyond recognition, is impossibly catchy, so the ADD arrangements become an embarrassment of sonic riches, with your initial disappointment when a part ends, mitigated by the beginning of a new, equally kick ass part, which is most definitely a rarity in most music, metal especially. Absolutely recommended for all the aQ-ers out there who love their metal demented and damaged and totally ridiculously over the top, and for the metal shy, this might just be the sort of gateway record that could very well lure you over to the dark (weird) side� Here's hoping!

MPEG stream: The Awakening
MPEG stream: I Are You
MPEG stream: Leaving The Ashes
MPEG stream: Storming Outside
MPEG stream: The Surge Lands

Debut full length from these Demlich obsessed death metalers, and damn, is it a good one! And, even though it seems as if these precocious Quebecois riffers take a little online umbrage at constantly being compared to those masters of warped Finnish space riffing, we don't think it's a bad thing to be held up amongst the absolute best-of-the-best death metal records of all time! It really is remarkable what a nasty, unholy, labyrinthine record these guys managed to crank out at such a young age - ugly, knuckle dragging riffs lock in with drumming that is equal parts furious hyper blasting and groovy, mid-tempo stomp, all drenched in a putrid atmosphere that actually does, at times, incorporate actual swamp sounds. Not to mention unpronounceable, quasi-Lovecraftian terminology & mythology they made up themselves. We think this will be an automatic new obsession for fans of the aforementioned Finns Demilich, but also fans of all manner of twisted death metal like Portal, Abyssal, Timeghoul, and Gorguts. Heck, Melt Banana fans might dig parts of this too. Tres magnifique!

MPEG stream: Into The Vaults of Ingurgitating Obscurity
MPEG stream: Voidspawn
MPEG stream: The Voices From Beyond the Well

As regular readers of the AQ New Arrivals list might guess, we're pretty much always in a state of simmering enthusiasm for Finland's Circle here at AQ. But our fannish obsession has gotten even more feverish this month, as our favorite band of far-out Finns is taking their amazing hypno-kraut, repetitive pseudo-metallic space rock on a rare US tour and will be playing here in San Francisco on September the 27th! And if all goes according to plan, they may also be doing an Aquarius in-store performance (we'll keep you posted). So naturally we're excited, it's always great to see them, and also it's gonna be cool to hear material from this amazing new album of theirs live and in person. New album? Yes indeedy. Their fourth this year, or fifth if you count the recent compact disc reissue of Arkades too. Prolific they are, but have yet to disappoint. So, what's the deal with Katapult? (Assuming you need to know and didn't already just "add to cart" like we guess most folks will.) The press material that the label has been circulating makes reference to influence from the likes of seminal black metallers Venom and Celtic Frost. And we know that these boys do like their metal, witness the Steel Mammoth side project reviewed last list. But while they've always championed their own so-called New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal, they're always far from being an actual metal band (even in the case of Steel Mammoth). And Katapult brings them no closer, even as it displays a definite ease with metal idioms. Sure it's got heavy guitars and the eccentric vocals sometimes approximate a black metal rasp -- there's even a few trademark Tom G. Warrior style death grunt "unghs!" in there -- but the only people who would think this really sounds like Venom and Celtic Frost are those who've never actually heard those bands. Opener "Saturnus Reality" does start with riffing that Norwegians churchburners wouldn't turn up their corpsepainted noses at, but the use of keyboards is much more Tangerine Dream than Dimmu Borgir. Later on, you'll hear as much Can and Goblin as anything Frosty. Song titles like "Torpedo Star Throne" and "Skeletor Highway" also seem a bit metal, don't they? But what about "Snow Olympics" and "Understanding New Age"? It's Circle being Circle, the NWOFHM an unserious moniker for their own, uniquely Circle style, that here takes what they were doing on Tower and Miljard and goes evil hard rock with it. Or not even hard rock, just evil -- ferinstance, track six, "Four Points Of The Compass" is a throbbing, suspenseful instrumental totally in the John Carpenter/Zombi vein, with stabs of guitar, spooky synths, and burbling rhythms like a diabolic version of the tracks on Circle's Tower album. Circle bassist and bandleader Jussi Lehtisalo had told us in an email that Katapult was "sixties black metal"... which he followed up with a characteristic "hahahahahaha". Sixties black metal? After hearing it, what we think he meant is that it's a mix of psychedelic space rock effects (as usual, and especially in the vein of the synthy ambient zoneouts on their recent Panic album) with a dark, heavy, maybe mystical moodiness. The rhythms have all the usual mesmerizing motorik Circle urgency, moreso than usual even. And the spiked fist of metallic chug is always gloved within an astral ambience of shimmering trippy bliss, sinister bliss. Part of the proggy psych / Nordic black metal crossover here can be ascribed to the primitive recording conditions -- they tracked it at a summer cabin in the Finnish countryside -- for an especially raw and live feel. No other band in the realms of post-rock, modern day psych, and/or NWO-anyplace-HM sparks our imagination and instills such a gleeful response in us as much as does Circle. They've always got a left-field, extra-dimensional, conceptual something that makes us shake our heads and wonder what next? even as we press repeat again and again on their current disc. Again, can't wait to hear this live!

Ultra limited release from local label Flenser, of the debut from this mysterious Bay Area trio, featuring members of Sutekh Hexen, Necrite and Swampwitch, and while that pedigree might have you imagining some sort of blacknoise blackbuzz blowout, this is actually something else altogether. Three long tracks of creeping, ambient ritualism, if you had to classify it as some sort of metal, it would definitely be doom, but only barely, there are thick, coruscating guitars, crumbling distortion, but they're not riffs so much as atmospheric smears of black sound. It's more a sort of blackdrone creep. The vocals a demonic bellow, the sound creeping and oozing over a backdrop of distant shimmer and muted rumble, the result like some sort of demonic ritual, performed by firelight in some mysterious cavern. The guitar erupting occasionally into wild tangles of noisy skree, but quickly settling back down into a more haunting tranquil drift. In fact the two tracks on the B side pretty much forego the downtuned slo-mo riffage entirely, instead, weaving spidery guitars, and hushed ambient shimmer, growled and mewled vox (sounding like more demonic Eugene from Oxbow), the sound much more spare and sparse, cinematic and soundtracky, the whole tape like some oozing black mass (both meaning intended), a gorgeously tripped out blackened sonic mystery that will probably appeal to the ambient doom set and weird drone fans more than metalheads, even though at it's core, this is some sort of super abstract atmospheric ethereal metal. Regardless, we dig big time. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!

MPEG stream: Penumbra (Awoken)
MPEG stream: Woe Betide The Worms (Dirge For Eternity)

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The latest limited release from the the Handmade Birds label, a new and already insanely prolific sonic imprint run by Pyramids' R. Loren, comes from long time aQ faves, Finnish outsider black metal weirdos Circle Of Ouroborus. And a new record from CoO means it's time again to wonder why we even still consider these guys black metal, since it's been several years and many records since they were a proper black metal band (if they ever were at all). We are constantly baffled by groups like CoO, who are so beloved by so much of the black metal world, and we're talking the true grim hordes, yet they continue to create music that we imagine would not be pleasing AT ALL to such folk. Maybe we're selling black metallers short. Or it means the appeal is more than purely sonic. It speaks to the spirit of the sound, the black energy put into the music, which eventually must come out, even if it does as some sort of twisted Jandekian fractured folk or some minimal synth wave weirdness, at its core, the sound is dark, black, evil. All of this talk in some ways is moot, as this latest record finds the band doing what they do, which is sort of black metal, sort of post rock, sort of whatthefuck, but it's all objective, and this music's 'blackness', or even its 'metalness', by most typically metal measures would be found wanting, but as far as we're concerned, this is exactly the sort of metallic blackness we love, murky, muddy, washed out and woozy, warped and stumbling, equal parts dark pop, fragmented folk, otherworldly creep, oh yeah and a little black buzz. It only takes a few seconds to realize this is not at all like any black metal you've heard (unless of course you've heard lots of Circle Of Ouroborus!), the band launch into what almost sounds like Ariel Pink playing black metal, or some murky chunk of mysterious James Ferraro style lysergic pop, which just so happens to be laced with some evil vox, the riffs are blurry streaks of melody, that almost sound more like horns or keyboards (which they could be), warbly synths wheeze and sputter, the vocals alternate between gruff growl and dramatic croon, the drums distorted and stumbly, everything wreathed in a druggy haze, the sound like some alternate universe pop, or some strange mutant strain of new waves, especially when the drums switch to an almost disco beat, the blackness really only represented by the vokills, otherwise this is some gloriously warped melodic doom pop weirdness. The B side brings things down even further, unfurling a haunting mournful bit of balladic dirgery, the sound bleary and blurry and drowsily depressive, the vocals doused in echo, those weird keyboard/horn guitars continuing to undulate and oscillate, surge an swell, creating strange ethereal melodies, which remind us of synth guitar weirdos Xynfonica / Shevalreq, the same sort of medieval majesty, but here buried in sonic murk and mire, the vocals so expressive, and strangely plaintive, the drums slipping from lazy plod to urgent pound and back again. In fact, the B side seems pretty evenly split between druggy propulsive post pop warble, and downright dreamy drift, all ephemeral and gauzy, the whole thing laced with chiming harmonics, warped melodic tangles and weirdly fluctuating production, the sound occasionally slipping into near perfect (albeit extremely damaged) pop, but more often then not, oozing and billowing, the sound seeming to melt before our ears into a warm whirling, almost liquid sound. A strangely soporific and somnolent sprawl of blurred blackness and murky melodicism, that truly is some of the weirdest, most beautifully baffling shit you will ever hear. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES! Gorgeous packaging too, super striking artwork on a gatefold reverse board jacket, with a big booklet, featuring hand inked artwork, black and white, with gold and silver metallic detail. Gorgeous!

MPEG stream: Warpath
MPEG stream: Staining The Paper To Create

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Once again, Finnish 'black metal' weirdos distance themselves even further from what most of us would consider to be black metal. This compiles two 'sides' originally recorded for 2 planned split lps with another bunch of outsider black metallers, Urfaust. For whatever reason, said splits failed to materialize, thus we have this, two part bit of oddness called Old Ghosts, not a new album technically (part 3 of the Shores - Stream - Islands trilogy is coming out soon) but heck, new album or not, this is in fact a new full length from our of our favorite purveyors of damaged, off kilter blackness. And as we mentioned above, CoO were never really the black and buzzy type, instead they took those elements and fused them with their more sort of abstract folk flecked, Jandekian stumble, the result something we found genius, but a fair amount of TROO black metal warriors found to be hard to handle. Moody, noodily slow motion almost new wave sounding guitars, reminding us quite a bit of some lost Cure demo, dark and spidery and creepy, the vocals sort of sung/spoken, often slipping into weird out of tune crooning, it's easy to see how these jams were intended to be on a split with Urfaust, the same sort of dramatic poppiness, a lurching, bizarrely rendered bit of not very metal blackness. After the first track, the drums kick in, there's then a bit more buzz, but other than that, the sound remains essentially the same, dour and depressive, stripped down, almost jangly, more a sort of lo-fi doom-pop than black metal, very much along the same lines as the last few Hypothermia records, or maybe Dead Reptile Shrine at their most folky and poppy. For being two different records, the two sides flow together fairly seamlessly, a sprawling collection of lumbering, loping, downtuned depressive, jangle flecked, blackened, gothic new wave pop weirdness. Further cementing these guys' position as one of our favorite groups around. Both sides finish off with short bursts of urgently strummed atonal acoustic folk, that sounds a bit like a more fucked up blackened Mountain Goats?! So cool. Comes with a printed insert, with liner notes and lyrics, and features one of the best covers we've EVER seen on a 'metal' record for sure.

Not any black metal band can share a split with the mighty and mighty bizarre Urfaust, with their blustery buzz and crazy crooning. But Finland's Circle Of Ouroborus were well up to the task. In fact they actually sound quite bit like Urfaust, albeit in a way more damaged way, which is saying a lot. On the split with Urfaust we reviewed recently, Circle Of Ouroborus offered up their own cracked take on buzzing black metal, murky almost punky, super lo-fi, practice space production, mumble warbly guitars, drums tinny and buried in the mix, and a totally demented vocalist wailing in a growling cracked croon, WAY up in the mix, shouting and howling. We thought they sounded a bit like a grim black metal Fall. On Shores, the band stretch out a bit, but still hew close to the sound they share with their sonic brethren in Urfaust, a loping lurching, midtempo buzz, sing songy melodies, a murky black swirl, downtuned and droney, but stumblingly propulsive. Seasick and swaying drunkenly, these tracks sound more like blackened versions of some eighties British post punk band than some cult black metal band. And when the vocals kick in it pretty much seals the deal. When Mark E. Smith dies, and the Fall are no more, he'll strike a deal with the devil, come back from the dead, and this is where he'll end up. Crooning, in that nasally whine, sing/speaking for some mysterious jangly black metal post punk rock band. And if there was any doubt, Circle Of Ouroborus cover "She's Lost Control" by Joy Division. It's not particularly black either, it's gloomy and gothy and propulsively punky, guitars slide and slither, the vocals a dark croon. It almost sounds like a lo-fi live recording of Interpol or some long lost Damned track. Which is a very good thing for sure. It's just weird that these guys exist as a underground, grim and cult black metal band, when sonically, they owe as much to punk rock, and goth rock, and new wave as they do Darkthrone or Mayhem. Sure there's plenty of buzz and suffocating black atmosphere, but to truly dig this you'll definitely need either a love of totally bizarre and not entirely black metal, or a soft spot for classic newwavepostpunk (Fall, Wire, Gang Of Four, Joy Division) or preferably BOTH! And we definitely have both in spades, so as you might imagine this is WAY recommended!

MPEG stream: Nothingness
MPEG stream: She's Lost Control (Joy Division)
MPEG stream: Invocation

We've said it before, we'll say it again, pretty much all good things come from Finland. Okay, maybe that's us being all hyperbolic again, but c'mon, Finland blows our minds, STILL! Especially with music. Let us count the ways: Skepticism, Mieskuoro Huutajat, Vladislav Delay, Thergothon, Tiermes, Circle, Pharaoh Overlord, Shape Of Despair, Kiila, Children Of Bodom, Es, Hanoi Rocks, Smack, Kroko, Kemialliset Ystavat, Anaksimandros, Avarus, Uton, Doktor Kettu, Islaja, Clandestine Blaze, Horna, Ride For Revenge, Baptizm, Cleaning Women, Paavoharju, Stumm, Chainsmoker, Tivol, Reverend Bizarre, Dead Reptile Shrine, Loinen, Magyar Posse, Itavayla, Exordium, Aaviko... Phew! We could go on and on, but what other region has produced so much weird and wonderful music, from damaged outsider black metal to dreamy foresty folk, to clattery free noise to droning sludge rock and pretty much every strange stop in between.� But even amidst this veritable who's who of AQ faves, this lineup of damaged and demented, dreamy and brilliant and beautiful music makers, another Finnish band still manages to stand out.�Circle Of Ouroborus. Ostensibly a black metal band, but the more we hear and with every successive record, we begin to wonder why any one ever considered them a metal band at all. But that only makes us love them all the more.� As we've mentioned in the past, it takes some serious weirdness to share a split with the buzz croon blackness of Urfaust, but CoO pulled it off easy, even managing to outweird the already impossibly weird Urfaust pretty much across the board. Their debut full length was a ramshackle stumbling blackened mess, all atonal guitars, and haphazard percussion, wailed, crooned and spoken vocals, detuned acoustic guitars, some black buzz, but for the most part it was some strange slightly metallic mix of Jandek and the Fall, the vocals constantly switching from Mark E. Smith whine to Jandek drawl, the music beneath following suit, going from fractured folk to hyperkinetic almost new wave black pop. And we dug it. A lot. It was difficult listening certainly, but it grew on us like crazy and became a daily listen.� So we've been waiting and waiting for the new record. We were warned by the band that it was really strange and that there was some seriously not-metal-at-all moments, so we were pretty excited, but damn if it isn't weirder and way better than we expected.� On Shores, the band sounded constantly on the verge of falling apart, blasting was an iffy proposition as they sounded like they might derail at any moment, the vocals were definitely tough to listen to at moments, and the guitars were tangled and mangled in gloriously messy clumps. And while some of that remains on streams, it's almost like a different band. The vocals are so much better, still weird and haunting and not always in key, but stronger, and more evocative, more emotional, often buried amidst buzzing guitars or crashing drums, allowed to croon and howl and the results make them sound like a real band. But what sort of real band is the real question. Certainly not a black metal band, although a few songs do have brief blasts of buzzing blackness, instead, they seem to have taken that Fall like sound and stretched it out into some weird gnarled gothy doom pop, at some points they sound like�damaged atonal psych pop like Times New Viking maybe, but most of the time, they sound a bit like a�super lo-fi live recording of Joy Division or Crispy Ambulance, albeit slightly blacker, or maybe some buzzy gothy modern doppelganger of Alien Sex Fiend or Specimen. Sounds weird, and it definitely is, but it's also pretty awesome. It's the sort of not entirely black, black metal record that will definitely appeal to folks just looking for something dark and moody and buzzy and far out. That said, the sound of Streams is about as black metal as CoO have ever gotten, some serious blasting buzz and some grimly buzzing blackness. But that blackness is always muted or smeared into shades of grey, draped over and amidst a collection of haunting and mysterious songs that while strangely connected and cohesive, range from the gloomy fuzzy drama of "Streams Of Depression" to the gorgeous acoustic Sentridoh-like "Anonym". Definitely for fans of Urfaust, Nuit Noire, Lifelover and all of those peripherally black musical experimentalists... Super striking and bizarre cover art, black and white pencil drawings of an old man's bald head sporting the CoO ouroborus symbol, the snake eating its own tail, as well as cool pencil sketches of the two band members inside, detailed down to one guy's Isengard t-shirt!

MPEG stream: Wounds Are So Indifferent
MPEG stream: Streams To Depression
MPEG stream: The Rotten Temple
MPEG stream: The End

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Circle Of Ouroborus recently shared a split with AQ faves, weirdo black metal crooners Urfaust and nearly stole the show. Not heavier really, and maybe not weirder, just so completely different. Like a black metal Jandek maybe. A new genre born, Jandekian black metal. Detuned guitars, acoustic strumming and picking, atonal clean vocals, all very minor key and mournful. We just can't get enough. You can read about CoO's new full length elsewhere on the list, but we also managed to get just a handful of this ultra limited single, where on which Circle Of Ouroborus go even further into the indie jangle doom left field. Woozy seasick guitars underpin strange sung / spoken vocals, not really metal at all, more like a fuzzed out Joy Division or a black metal Velvet Underground. Indie jangle, muted buzz, loping rhythms, minor key melodies, slightly processed vocals, a little gothy, doomy, depressive, less heavy than just haunting and creepy. Limited to 400 copies, each copy is hand numbered and comes with a lyric sheet. We only got a dozen so act fast!

Along with the cd reissue of CoO's awesome Eleven Fingers album reviewed nearby on this week's list, comes this brand new, vinyl-only record from Finland's post black metal gloom pop weirdos Circle Of Ouroborus, whose sound really was barely ever actually all that black metal to begin with, but has continually been drifting further and further away, finally arriving here, at a sound that at this point is one distinctly their own, still subtly informed by black metal, but essentially pop music, a gloomy, occasionally buzzing, dour and darkly depressive pop music, but pop nonetheless. And with this record, that sound has mutated once again, taking their low fidelity a step further, and somehow wreathing it in a sonic murk, this new record impossible muffled, and muddied, womblike might be more accurate, the music is all soft focus, the sharp edges smoothed, the notes and chords, the various instruments, blurred and smeared into something more like an abstract chordal drift, the songs less songs, and more like impressions of songs. The only elements seemingly exempt are the vocals, still a haunting deep croon, and the drums, which occasionally stumble, occasionally pound, the combination is pretty stellar, and definitely bizarre, but it most certainly suits the group's dour blackened pop. The vibe here extraordinarily woozy and warped, washed out and slurred, at times gauzy and nearly meditative, and when the band crank up the intensity, the hazy murk is dragged along as well, and instead of sounding heavy or rocking, it just sounds slightly heavier, but only really slightly. The songs tend toward the midtempo, and the dirge, but do occasionally erupt into some punky pound, but it's all behind a sheet of muffled murk, which again changes everything. The coolest moments are when the band introduce dueling vocals, clean and crooned, croaked and metallic, making for some strange harmonies, which are the perfect match for CoO's depressive blackened jangle pop, which throughout the record sounds alternately melty, detuned or oozing, often all three, a darkly and deliriously druggy songsuite that we're digging just as much as we did Eleven Fingers, which is a whole lot! LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! The lps pressed on super thick 180 gram vinyl. Housed in a super swank textured card stock jacket, with a 7" x 7" booklet, printed on nice heavy paper, with illustrations and lyrics!

We've always held a special place in our darkened hearts for Finnish black metal weirdos Circle Of Ouroborus. The duo churns out a very strange brand of metal that would appear to share just as much, or maybe even more, with melancholy gloom merchants like Joy Division (who they have covered) and Dead Can Dance, as it does with black metal. They definitely share some of the influences of groups like Lifelover and Amesoeurs - you know, a gothy 4AD shimmer, cleanly arpeggiated guitar melodies, and vocals that don't rely exclusively on shrieks or growls - but to compare Circle Of Ouroborus to those bands, or anyone else really, is to neglect just how unique these guys are. For one, an ever present murkiness permeates all COO recordings, giving their songs a weird dreamy quality that seems to exist completely out of any time or place. The vocals, which have garnered understandable comparisons to the off kilter approach of Mark E. Smith, are hardly what you would expect from a "black metal" band, but there is obviously an acute awareness of the bleak realities of life that is TOTALLY black metal. Maybe more than anything, Circle Of Ouroborus have completely sidestepped any expectations of what a black metal band is supposed to be, and redefined it for their own purposes. In doing so, they have carved out a unique place in the metal underground and never failed to blow our minds with their bizarre sound. Now, after the completion of their Shores/Streams/Islands trilogy of records (we're still trying to track down Islands for y'all!), COO have progressed way beyond the awesome but at times amateur practice space sonics of some of their earlier work and delivered Tree Of Knowledge, not only their most accomplished and well thought out work to date, but certainly one of the best and most interesting metal releases we have heard this year. The album begins with "A Root Casket", and it pretty much sounds like a more beefed up (and better) version of the COO we originally lost our shit over. The band sounds full and spacious, but still raw and lo-fi, like a ninth generation cassette dub of a lost Factory Records band. A catchy keyboard melody carries the song majestically, while murky guitars spin a sustained droniness that works perfectly with the vocals. At the same time, it manages to give a glimpse into their weird folky side. The seasick queasiness of the band's past releases endures, it just seems like they've better grasped how to work with their limited recording technology. "Demon In Iron" is a slightly atonal piece that makes perfect use of the band's cyclical guitar riffs and shimmery keyboards. It's so melodic and sad, but just BEAUTIFUL and even a bit punky, and you'd be forgiven if you mistook this one for some gloomy as hell indie band from the early '90s. "Show Me The Way To The Wishing Wall" is a midtempo downer with more cool circular guitar and steady, midtempo drumming. The singer's croon goes perfectly with the hazed out nature of the songs, and the natural overdrive on the otherwise clean guitars definitely help to make COO sound unlike most metal bands. Of course, around the 4 minute mark a Xasthurian black metal croak reminds you that, yes, this is some evil shit and not just another shoegazey black metal band. "Dead Eyes, Dead Soul" (how's that for further Joy Division comparisons?) follows another beautifully sad melody with phased out guitars and a discordant chorus that offers a cool transition to the tunefulness of the rest of the song. Instrumental number "Summer Graves" features sustained synth strings and an exotic touch with guitars that, at moments, *almost* brought to mind Polvo... Weird, but not quite as weird as the addition of a trumpet on the closing song, "Through My Fingers". Slow picked guitars and a chorus that manages to throw in some metal as fuck pinch harmonics with the contemplative dreaminess are accompanied by the sustained trumpet melodies that seem almost hopeful. Of course, the lyrics prove otherwise... Like all COO releases, Tree Of Knowledge features totally amazing artwork, with 8 unique icons (each corresponding to a different song, it would seem) wrapped in the roots of a broken tree. It's rare that a band is able to achieve such a unique and perfectly realized vision, especially within a genre known for its dogmatically orthodox bullshit. But Circle Of Ouroborus are hardly just another band, and with Tree Of Knowledge, they have made that abundantly clear.

MPEG stream: A Root Casket
MPEG stream: Demon In Iron
MPEG stream: Show Me The Way To The Wishing Wall

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

SORRY.

The return of weirdo Finnish black metal outsiders Circle Of Ouroborus, whose sound continues to mutate, and move well beyond the bounds of black metal. In fact, the opening track here sounds like some lost eighties minimal synth wave jam, with it's weezing keyboards, reverbed Teutonic percussion, and dual vocals, one crooned, the other spoken, all the folks who have been snapping up the vinyl reissues on Dark Entries might be surprised and converted to the way of CoO. The sound is super saturated and ultra distorted, in a way that makes it sound warm and whirling and washed out. The follow up track is ostensibly more black metal, but it mostly just ups the tempo and wraps the guitars in a little blackened buzz, but the vocals are still cold and crooned, the sound fantastically murky, the crashing climaxes causing the sound to buckle and crumble, a propulsive bit of cold wave punkishness. The rest of CoO's half of this split follows suit, from brooding minimal crush, to loping meandery murk, the vocals atonal and bordering on Anton Maiden-ish at times, but just as often lush and gorgeously crooned, accompanied by a sound that while constantly distressed and distorted, veers from washed out brittle shimmer, to thick molasses-y mush, but always minor key and melancholy and moody, and just like all the other Circle of Ouroborus releases, twisted, and bafflingly brilliant. Some of you probably remember the group Frail, who we described as sounding exactly like the Cure, just with harsh black metal vokills. Well Frail has transformed into Crooked Necks, and guess what? They still sound just like the Cure, new wave-y and jangly, a little dark wavey and goth poppy, the guitars chiming, the bass all Joy Divisiony, the drums propulsive and motorik, and of course the vocals, still harsh occasionally, but also, clean crooning here and there. The new sound is slightly more polished, still quite melodic, the perfect match for Circle Of Ouroborus's new more gothy cold wave-y sound. There are some heavier more black metal moments, but it's more like Lifelover style black metal pop than traditionally blasting and buzzing grimness, and the rest of Crooked Necks' sound could have been lifted straight off some goth rock / eighties new wave mix tape, The Cure, Echo And The Bunnymen, Icicle Works, if it wasn't for the vocals, these guys could be on Captured Tracks or Sacred Bones, and could be opening for Cold Cave or Blessure Grave, hell, maybe they still could be...

MPEG stream: Ideals In Rust
MPEG stream: Rhythm Of The Spring
MPEG stream: Poisoning The Seed
MPEG stream: Time Of Disaster

We won't get into too much detail with this one, as we managed to get just TEN of these from a supplier who had a stash tucked away, so these are probably the last copies we'll ever be able to get. The aQ faithful are no doubt by now familiar with weirdo outsider post black metal weirdos Circle Of Ouroborus, and their tracks here do not disappoint, twisted and mournful and melancholy, detuned blackened folks melded to chaotic murky black metal buzz, with plenty of indie rock jangle and stumbling lo-fi drumming, crooned dramatic vox, and a twisted eighties new wave vibe, the sounds muddy and muted and washed out, dreamy and darkly hypnotic, all three tracks are mesmerizing and awesome. Australia's Drowning The Light counter with their somewhat more traditional black metal, raw and depressive, with soaring frenzied guitar buzz, blasting lo-fi drumming, harsh vokills, shimmering keyboard atmospheres, moody melodies, and some super strange deep crooned vox as well, the perfect blend of harsh, blackened primitivism, and epic minor key melodic black buzz. Great stuff from both bands... LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!

It's been a good long while since we've heard from aQ faves Circle Of Ouroborus, a damaged outsider blackened folk flecked post metal combo who confound in creating gorgeously fractured ritualistic soundworlds. This latest missive is one half of a split 12" with the equally mysterious Somnivore. When we last heard from CoO, they sounded a bit like a black metal version of Jandek or the Fall, but things have definitely changed, the sound is not so lo-fi, and the sonics are definitely much improved, but without losing any of their signature damaged weirdness. Chant like vocals, very reminiscent of older Swans, drift over dark distorted spidery guitar lines, the drums, only occasional, dubbed out and also distorted, while in the background lurk slither little minor key melodies, before in swoops a swirl of clean detuned guitars, being strummed frantically black metal style, but instead of buzzing, the sound blurs and smears into a bleary eyed wash, crooned Jandekian vocals soaked in reverb clamber over the top, and the result is something more like some ost nineties Homestead band than a black metal band. But soon CoO kick into gear and offer up the first hints of anything remotely metallic, distorted drumming, buzzing black riffs, but again, less buzzing as much as muted and muddy, the vocals crooned and dramatic, veering into Urfaust territory. Eventually, the buzz fades to a fuzzy washed out drone, that shimmers and drifts before a clean riffy buzz re-emerges accompanied by more deep crooning vocals, emitting a sort of not very black, and not very metal black metal, that seems to be CoO's specialty. Difficult to describe for sure, but we can't seem to get enough. Somnivore take up the flipside, the first half is all crystalline clean guitar, urgently strummed, strange whispered vocals, chimes and bells, subtle percussion. All very strident and apocalyptic, like a more ominous and creepy Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat. Effects everywhere, the track eventually devolving into a swirling morass of deep drones, shifting from hushed whirs to barely there shimmer, to throbbing rumble, eventually dissipating in a cloud of delicate glimmering hush. Nice! Gorgeous full color cover, printed full color insert, with lyrics and liner notes, and LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!!!

Now on vinyl, the second, sort of self titled ep (aka CCII), from post Velvet Cacoon outfit Clair Cassis, LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, and housed in ultra thick, case wrapped gatefold jackets, on clear vinyl while they last, here's what we had to say about the cd version when we first reviewed it back in 2010: The final(?) twisted blackbuzz missive from outsider black metal weirdos Clair Cassis, whose -other- posthumous record we made our Record Of The Week a few lists back. Clair Cassis, for those who don't already know, was the short lived post Velvet Cacoon outfit, made up of essentially the same members, but whose sound was a poppier, prettier, and in some ways an even weirder version of what they had been doing in Velvet Cacoon. Whereas VC offered up sprawling expanses of droned out black buzz (originally purported to be played not on guitars, but on a diesel powered harp) and deep black ambience, CC take those same elements and craft them into more concise chunks of gloomy almost poppy black metal, with Joy Divisiony bass lines, chiming Cocteau Twins like guitars, lots of unlikely hooks, all woven into sheets of black buzz, galloping blast beats, and some seriously freaky croaked Gollum-like vokills. This ep and the one before it barely crack 50 minutes combined, so this is essentially side 2 of CC's 15 track swansong. And like the first installment, this stuff is twisted, warped and bafflingly brilliant. The gothy post punk vibes even more pronounced here, the bass thick and sinewy, the guitars even more melodic, and the sound dangerously closer to blackened pop than poppy black metal, and it definitely suits them. The record explodes right out of the gate a buzzing black blast, but even within those first few seconds, it's easy to hear that there's way more going on, the low end is thick and layered and lush, the melodies mournful and melancholy, almost like a blacker buzzier Lifelover. The first two tracks flit from melodic buzz to midtempo dirgey gloom, it's not until the third track "Praline Civet", that the band let loose and stop trying to disguise their sound as black metal, it soars and pulses, it's a glorious blackened gloom pop, surprisingly epic and emotional, for a band of legendary cynics and charlatans. "Bronzed Ash" might be the prettiest song here, a moody midtempo lope, that has strange drumming, lots of clean chiming guitars, lush washed out atmospheres, super blissy and shoegazey, and it ends way too soon after about 90 seconds. The final track too is super cool, and strange and not at all typically black metal, with trippy processed harmonized guitar melodies, over a churning swirl of muddy riffage and motorik drum pound, super psychedelic and dreamily noisy, and poppy and really sort of noise poppy. So good. And might as well be considered another Record Of The Week, the second half of their FIRST Record Of The Week (their FIRST s/t record that we did in fact make ROTW), a moody, blissy, shoegazey collection of psychedelic, droney, buzzy tripped out blacknoisepop.

MPEG stream: Aged French Absolutes
MPEG stream: Concord Ambergris
MPEG stream: Praline Civet

Record number three from this drug driven blurwave blackgaze Velvet Cacoon offshoot. Longtime readers of the aQ list are no doubt already familiar with that Northwestern horde, whose exploits, sonic and otherwise, included a ridiculous band backstory (eco-terrorists?), made up instrumentation (diesel harp?) some purportedly plagiarized sounds (a whole record supposedly stolen and redone as VC), not to mention a whole mess of angry, bitter and confused black metallers in their wake. And while we bought into it all, when the truth was revealed, that VC was in fact, just a guy and a gal, taking lots of drugs and making some blissed out black buzz, we actually thought it was funny. The for some strange reason, VC mainman Josh decided to disband Velvet Cacoon, and immediately created Clair Cassis, a band that was quite sonically similar, the same sort of washed out buzz, droney black mesmer, the biggest difference being that CC trafficked in WAY shorter songs, and those songs were WAY heavy on the bass (infamous for it's absence in almost all black metal) and traded in much of the drone and drift for something distinctly more poppy. And we were, and are, pretty into it. Dense thick whirling hazy black metal, formed into dark almost new wavy chunks of blackbuzzpop, sure still black and buzzy on the outside, but strap on some headphones, and the basslines become sinewy and serpentine, the melodies and buried hooks reveal themselves, step back and its a glorious blackened blur. After two self titled eps, comes this, Luxury Absolute, another short (ish) collection of CC's unique brand of black and buzzy, midtempo dronegaze doompop, the sound here though even more tripped out and psychedelic than on past releases, with the bass MASSIVE, even moreso than usual, with the sound so blown out and in the red, that the sound continually peaks, and clips, the sounds distorting and crumbling, adding a strange sort of bleary, blurry decay vibe to the already woozy minor key proceedings. Just check out opener "Antique Sea Smoke", a warped lumbering almost dirger, with the guitar melodies swirling amidst grey clouds of whir and thrum, the bass thick, and driving, the drums distorting like crazy, all of that overblown sound pushing CC even further into shoegaze territory. The rest of the record follows suit, barring a few creepy stretches of haunting rumbling black ambience, the rest of Luxury Absolute unfolds as a series of brief dreamlike black blurs, melancholic and mesmerizing, the drums a lurching programmed pound, the vokills a demonic croak, but the guitars, so warm and whirling, thick and layered, the doom vibe is huge here too, partially because of the tendency toward dirgery, but also cuz the sound is so thick and viscous, imagine diSEMBOWELMENT or Skepticism trying their hand and shoegaze cold wave, and you might be getting close. Either way, this is some awesome stuff. Occasionally frustrating, cuz the songs are so short (longest 3:31, shortest 1:51, 19 minutes total), and we would love to hear these jams stretched out into tranced out dronepop blackbuzz drifts, but the brevity seems to reinforce than in their own twisted and fucked up way, these really are just pop songs, albeit, buzzy, and sludgey, and dirgey and BLACK. Might be our favorite CC yet. Hope it's not their last. Packaged in a super swank DVD sized digipak. LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!

MPEG stream: Antique Sea Smoke
MPEG stream: Rosewater Take
MPEG stream: The Royal Nocturne

When we first discovered mysterious Northwestern black metal outfit Velvet Cacoon, it wasn't just their blown out buzz that had us enraptured, it was all the rumors and weird stories about the band itself, that they were some sort of eco-fascists, who had built a huge gasoline-driven HARP which was responsible for their massive buzz. We later discovered that the whole eco-fascist / droneharp thing was a ruse, a put on, the band intentionally fucking with what they considered to be a contemptible black metal scene. It was then revealed that Velvet Cacoon were in fact a couple of drug obsessed dandies, who when they weren't crafting some of the most stunning black metal weirdness, were waxing about the various drugs they took, and their decadent lifestyle. But all that stuff only made them more interesting, and gave the sound a certain twisted cachet, coming as it did from these unlikely creators. As it happened, the band got fed up with the drama and the internet message board bullshit, and decided to scrap Velvet Cacoon entirely and start fresh. A new band, a new name and a new sound. Thus we have Clair Cassis, whose sound really is not all that far removed from the washed out black buzz of VC, but does distinguish itself in some important ways. The first being the song length. The band described CC in an interview as being a more pop Velvet Cacoon, and so it is, the shortest song is under 3 minutes, the longest just less than 7, the band forcing themselves to be more succinct, to move through their musical ideas in a more structured and less unhindered way, instead of letting songs and parts drone on and on. Not that we minded before, in fact, we like it when our black metal drones and buzzes endlessly, but there's something to be said for the opposite approach, which tends to force the write to craft SONGS more than SOUNDS. The other big difference is the bass. And with that the above mentioned pop element. The lack of bass in black metal is practically a running joke, the brittle buzz and furious blasting of most black metal generally relegating bass to a barely there buzz, so when a black metal band takes the bass, and makes it as much a part of the sound as the guitar, it changes the whole shape of the sound, in the case of Clair Cassis, gives it a sort of woozy, gothic, cold wave vibe, black metal is dour and depressive by its very nature, but here it's gloomy and haunting, an emotional sort of darkness and depression. This new sound/direction is immediately noticeable on opener "Ambercandle" which begins all warped and woozy, the riffs twisted and seemingly melting over the pounding doomy drums, when the track finally kicks into gear, the bass drives the songs, thick and dense, the notes slippery, haunting gloomy low end swells that add some pathos to the already loping minor key dirge, besides that it makes the sound so much heavier. Even on the next track, "The Feathered Fog" which begins with a somewhat standard burst of blackness, droney and relentless, still the bass is there adding heft, and a melodic counterpoint to the frenzied riffage, and then when the song switches gear, lurches into halftime, the bass swoops right to the front and the song transforms into a woozy seasick dirge. And as you listen, the record definitely reveals itself as more than buzzing black metal, and knowing what we do about the folks behind it, it's not hard to imagine them creating this otherworldly pop music, and simply choosing to cloak it in black metal finery, which definitely explains the catchiness, the heavy bass and buried grooves, but it's probably best to not analyze it too much. A casual glancing listen will definitely provide plenty of black metal pleasure, the guitars are thick and gnarled, the drumming (real this time it sounds like) heavy and blasting, the arrangements trancelike and hypnotic, with long stretches of deep shimmering drone music, as well as plenty of pounding doomic dirgery, Velvet Cacoon fans won't be disappointed, but digging deeper reveals all the other subtle sonic alterations that make Clair Cassis simultaneously much more accessible, but also even weirder than VC. The songs may be shorter, but they're no less complex and convoluted, in fact in some ways, they're even more, considering parts don't drone on, the band flits from part to part, from blast to plod to drift to blast again. "Pearls & Pinesmoke" is another standout, a soaring blasting droner, thick with bass rumble and throb, grim enough, the drums a little loose and chaotic, the vocals a creepy croak, and then the breakdown comes, and it's total melodic black nirvana, half tempo, the guitar still buzzy, but the bass unfurling an insanely melodic and ridiculously catchy part, that totally transforms the song, and then the sound shifts again back to blasting buzz, somehow the bass remains, adding unlikely melody to even the blackest bits, and fear not, a part that good comes back again, fans of Alcest and Amesoeurs will be in heaven. And after a strange interlude, the track shifts again, into another woozy, differently melodic dirge, laced with more melodic bass, but this time wrapped around spidery acoustic guitars, all still wreathed in crumbling buzz. Finally the record finishes with the awesomely titled "Hazelhearted In The Seaparlour", which explodes immediately into a dense churning blast, heavy and harsh and layered, with a strange midtempo bridge/chorus, that features a strangely bouncy, and again surprisingly melodic bassline, way up in the mix, changing the focus of the song, before dropping out again and letting the guitars take over, before the track finally fades out, leaving nothing but the wheezing strains of what almost sounds like elevator music, or the music they play in the middle of the night at outside malls, the sound here replete with random bits of found sound, footsteps and other curious ambience. And just leave it to the fickle folks who disbanded Velvet Cacoon at the height of their popularity to nip their new band in the bud as well, which apparently is exactly what happened. Clair Cassis is no more. But what a way to go. There is a second record floating around, who knows if it will ever get properly released, but for now, this one is not surprisingly shaping up to be a serious contender for black metal record of the year!

MPEG stream: Ambercandle
MPEG stream: The Feathered Fog
MPEG stream: Kir Royale
MPEG stream: Our Overwinter In The Ivories

BACK IN STOCK!! Yet another twisted blackbuzz missive from outsider black metal weirdos Clair Cassis, whose -other- posthumous record we made our Record Of The Week a few lists back. Clair Cassis, for those who don't already know, was the short lived post Velvet Cacoon outfit, made up of essentially the same members, but whose sound was a poppier, prettier, and in some ways an even weirder version of what they had been doing in Velvet Cacoon. Whereas VC offered up sprawling expanses of droned out black buzz (originally purported to be played not on guitars, but on a diesel powered harp) and deep black ambience, CC take those same elements and craft them into more concise chunks of gloomy almost poppy black metal, with Joy Divisiony bass lines, chiming Cocteau Twins like guitars, lots of unlikely hooks, all woven into sheets of black buzz, galloping blast beats, and some seriously freaky croaked Gollum-like vokills. This ep and the one before it barely crack 50 minutes combined, so this is essentially side 2 of CC's 15 track swansong. And like the first installment, this stuff is twisted, warped and bafflingly brilliant. The gothy post punk vibes even more pronounced here, the bass thick and sinewy, the guitars even more melodic, and the sound dangerously closer to blackened pop than poppy black metal, and it definitely suits them. The record explodes right out of the gate a buzzing black blast, but even within those first few seconds, it's easy to hear that there's way more going on, the low end is thick and layered and lush, the melodies mournful and melancholy, almost like a blacker buzzier Lifelover. The first two tracks flit from melodic buzz to midtempo dirgey gloom, it's not until the third track "Praline Civet", that the band let loose and stop trying to disguise their sound as black metal, it soars and pulses, it's a glorious blackened gloom pop, surprisingly epic and emotional, for a band of legendary cynics and charlatans. "Bronzed Ash" might be the prettiest song here, a moody midtempo lope, that has strange drumming, lots of clean chiming guitars, lush washed out atmospheres, super blissy and shoegazey, and it ends way too soon after about 90 seconds. The final track too is super cool, and strange and not at all typically black metal, with trippy processed harmonized guitar melodies, over a churning swirl of muddy riffage and motorik drum pound, super psychedelic and dreamily noisy, and poppy and really sort of noise poppy. So good. And might as well be considered another Record Of The Week, the second half of their FIRST Record Of The Week, a moody, blissy, shoegazey collection of psychedelic, droney, buzzy tripped out blacknoisepop.

MPEG stream: Aged French Absolutes
MPEG stream: Concord Ambergris
MPEG stream: Praline Civet

BACK IN STOCK!! When we first discovered mysterious Northwestern black metal outfit Velvet Cacoon, it wasn't just their blown out buzz that had us enraptured, it was all the rumors and weird stories about the band itself, that they were some sort of eco-fascists, who had built a huge gasoline-driven HARP which was responsible for their massive buzz. We later discovered that the whole eco-fascist / droneharp thing was a ruse, a put on, the band intentionally fucking with what they considered to be a contemptible black metal scene. It was then revealed that Velvet Cacoon were in fact a couple of drug obsessed dandies, who when they weren't crafting some of the most stunning black metal weirdness, were waxing about the various drugs they took, and their decadent lifestyle. But all that stuff only made them more interesting, and gave the sound a certain twisted cachet, coming as it did from these unlikely creators. As it happened, the band got fed up with the drama and the internet message board bullshit, and decided to scrap Velvet Cacoon entirely and start fresh. A new band, a new name and a new sound. Thus we have Clair Cassis, whose sound really is not all that far removed from the washed out black buzz of VC, but does distinguish itself in some important ways. The first being the song length. The band described CC in an interview as being a more pop Velvet Cacoon, and so it is, the shortest song is under 3 minutes, the longest just less than 7, the band forcing themselves to be more succinct, to move through their musical ideas in a more structured and less unhindered way, instead of letting songs and parts drone on and on. Not that we minded before, in fact, we like it when our black metal drones and buzzes endlessly, but there's something to be said for the opposite approach, which tends to force the write to craft SONGS more than SOUNDS. The other big difference is the bass. And with that the above mentioned pop element. The lack of bass in black metal is practically a running joke, the brittle buzz and furious blasting of most black metal generally relegating bass to a barely there buzz, so when a black metal band takes the bass, and makes it as much a part of the sound as the guitar, it changes the whole shape of the sound, in the case of Clair Cassis, gives it a sort of woozy, gothic, cold wave vibe, black metal is dour and depressive by its very nature, but here it's gloomy and haunting, an emotional sort of darkness and depression. This new sound/direction is immediately noticeable on opener "Ambercandle" which begins all warped and woozy, the riffs twisted and seemingly melting over the pounding doomy drums, when the track finally kicks into gear, the bass drives the songs, thick and dense, the notes slippery, haunting gloomy low end swells that add some pathos to the already loping minor key dirge, besides that it makes the sound so much heavier. Even on the next track, "The Feathered Fog" which begins with a somewhat standard burst of blackness, droney and relentless, still the bass is there adding heft, and a melodic counterpoint to the frenzied riffage, and then when the song switches gear, lurches into halftime, the bass swoops right to the front and the song transforms into a woozy seasick dirge. And as you listen, the record definitely reveals itself as more than buzzing black metal, and knowing what we do about the folks behind it, it's not hard to imagine them creating this otherworldly pop music, and simply choosing to cloak it in black metal finery, which definitely explains the catchiness, the heavy bass and buried grooves, but it's probably best to not analyze it too much. A casual glancing listen will definitely provide plenty of black metal pleasure, the guitars are thick and gnarled, the drumming (real this time it sounds like) heavy and blasting, the arrangements trancelike and hypnotic, with long stretches of deep shimmering drone music, as well as plenty of pounding doomic dirgery, Velvet Cacoon fans won't be disappointed, but digging deeper reveals all the other subtle sonic alterations that make Clair Cassis simultaneously much more accessible, but also even weirder than VC. The songs may be shorter, but they're no less complex and convoluted, in fact in some ways, they're even more, considering parts don't drone on, the band flits from part to part, from blast to plod to drift to blast again. "Pearls & Pinesmoke" is another standout, a soaring blasting droner, thick with bass rumble and throb, grim enough, the drums a little loose and chaotic, the vocals a creepy croak, and then the breakdown comes, and it's total melodic black nirvana, half tempo, the guitar still buzzy, but the bass unfurling an insanely melodic and ridiculously catchy part, that totally transforms the song, and then the sound shifts again back to blasting buzz, somehow the bass remains, adding unlikely melody to even the blackest bits, and fear not, a part that good comes back again, fans of Alcest and Amesoeurs will be in heaven. And after a strange interlude, the track shifts again, into another woozy, differently melodic dirge, laced with more melodic bass, but this time wrapped around spidery acoustic guitars, all still wreathed in crumbling buzz. Finally the record finishes with the awesomely titled "Hazelhearted In The Seaparlour", which explodes immediately into a dense churning blast, heavy and harsh and layered, with a strange midtempo bridge/chorus, that features a strangely bouncy, and again surprisingly melodic bassline, way up in the mix, changing the focus of the song, before dropping out again and letting the guitars take over, before the track finally fades out, leaving nothing but the wheezing strains of what almost sounds like elevator music, or the music they play in the middle of the night at outside malls, the sound here replete with random bits of found sound, footsteps and other curious ambience. And just leave it to the fickle folks who disbanded Velvet Cacoon at the height of their popularity to nip their new band in the bud as well, which apparently is exactly what happened. Clair Cassis is no more. But what a way to go. There is a second record floating around, who knows if it will ever get properly released, but for now, this one is not surprisingly shaping up to be a serious contender for black metal record of the year!

MPEG stream: Ambercandle
MPEG stream: The Feathered Fog
MPEG stream: Kir Royale
MPEG stream: Our Overwinter In The Ivories

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY.

Latest blast of audial mayhem from Finland's grim buzz horde Clandestine Blaze. People around here forget what a metal stronghold Finland is. It's not all faeries and forests and drum circles and acoustic guitars. There is a serious black cloud hanging over the land. As is demonstrated by the various black minions who call Finland home. It's strange, for being one of our favorite BM outfits, we've actually never reviewed a Clandestine Blaze record before (not counting the split with Deathspell Omega), thankfully, this new one is as good if not better than any of the other CB releases. Frontman Mikko Aspa in addition to being the single soul behind CB, is also a member of Finnish ultra doomsters Fleshpress, and strangely enough, also sings for AQ faves Deathspell Omega. But Clandestine Blaze is not doom, nor avant black metal, no this is old school black buzz, grim and frosty, primitive and necro. Each track is based around a single riff, played over and over, inducing a glorious trancelike state, the guitars relentlessly buzzing, the riffing so drenched in reverb that the notes wash into each other becoming one long buzzing drone, the vocals a hellish croak, dripping with FX as well. This is true black metal for sure, but as with a lot of that stuff, a purity of vision often produces unintended sonic results, much like isolation, a sound develops, that while at it's root is indeed pure and true, contains elements that gradually seep in to the sound. Usually making the music even more special and unique. Such is the case for sure with CB, while a cursory listen reveals a simple buzzing black metal, closer listening reveals mysterious depths, layers upon layers, arrangements that coalesce into strange shapes. A perfect example is the 12 minute long, midtempo centerpiece "Ashes Of The Eternal Wanderer", a completely hypnotic blackened blur, the guitars and drums buzzing into a thick snarling drone, almost dreamlike at times, which is one of the reasons we love the buzz of black metal so much, that trancey dronelike element, and that is all over Church Of Atrocity. It's not so much about the riffs, or the arrangements, it's the sound, a whirling buzzing blackness that wraps your head in a dark cloud, fills your ears with black buzz and carries you off... But heck, don't let all this high falutin' talk of drones and purity of vision, scare you off, Church Of Atrocity is just as enjoyable as a simple blown out chunk of brutal old school blackness! Either way, highly recommended.

MPEG stream: Church Of Atrocity
MPEG stream: Ashes Of The Eternal Wanderer

Even though one band is from France, and the other is from Finland, you couldn't ask for a more perfect pairing. This split was originally released in 2001, and only recently was repressed so we could get enough to list, unfortunately it seems to already be out of print again so the 30 or so we got will most likely be the last for a while. Finland's Clandestine Blaze specialize in ultra primitive black metal, paying homage to Bathory, Beherit, Darkthrone and the like, with buzzy sludgy riffs, thrashing and blasting mostly, but occasionally slowing down to a near doomy crawl. Their sound a buzzing murky blur, so much so that when they're not plodding along like Celtic Frost at 16rpm their black metal bombast smears into a gloriously hypnotic blur. Clandestine Blaze are paired up here with Deathspell Omega in (appropriately) their earlier, more raw incarantion. DSO spew forth their buzzing blackened thrash, very much like the other DSO reissues, raw and grim on the surface, but with plenty of subtle compositional and sonic irregularites right below the surface, adding a definite depth not found in lots of similar musics and a hauntingingly unlikely catchiness very rarely (if at all) found in any black metal. So good!!

MPEG stream: Will To Kill
MPEG stream: The Suicide Curse

Slithering slimily forth from our very own San Franciscan tombs comes this arcane analogue artifact of bestial bewitchment, the debut burnt offering from decrepit black/death/punkers Cloak! Indeed their label Transylvanian Tapes (run by none other than Jimmy from East Bay doomlords/aQ faves Swamp Witch) describes Cloak as "pummeling black/death metal executed by punks", but we would go so far as to describe them as "pummeling black/death metal executed by punks WHO ALSO WORK AT AQUARIUS!!!", since Cloak features our very own Kirk wrenching out malignant bass guitar asphyxiations and general low-end terror! Cloak's debut demo is a writhing, twitching leviathan mass of primitive draconian horror, squirming back and forth between glacial doom-vertigo, shadowy crypt-dwelling death metal buzz, and gutter-crawling crusty grooves. The sound is immediately musty, dusty and cemetarial (Is that word?? It is now!), but remarkably catchy and well recorded. The riffs absolutely infectious, the drums a merciless militaristic pummel, the vocals grotesquely dripping with thick droplets of venom - a mid range throaty rasp as opposed to DM's typical low-end gurgle. But for as simple and primal as Cloak's songs can be, there's also a deadly focus and tightness, a sense of sadistic regal purpose. It's a perfect blend of hazy nightmarish atmosphere, hectic energy and genuine fist-pumping metal intoxication free of gimmicks or tricks - organic, pulsing and suffocating! And having had the privilege of catching them live we can say with confidence that it ain't no studio fluke, Cloak is the real dirty deal. Definitely highly recommended for fans of death and black metal's filthiest crevices. Prepare to succumb!

MPEG stream: Tank Vs. Tank

Mories, the madman behind the avant, blackened, symphonic, cinematic doom project Gnaw Their Tongues, returns with his fourth full length in 5 years as Cloak Of Altering, a sonically similar project that retains the grim noise and blackened ferocity of GTT but fuses it to some sort of fractured breakcore, adding frantic programmed drum machines, and wild glitched out rhythmic splatter to the proceedings, which only manages to make a fucked up sound even more fucked up. We're reminded of aQ fave Igorr, Venetian Snares too, but that sort of programmed weirdness is then wedded to grinding metal and blackened buzz. More often the sound erupts as a gout of damaged grindcore, but throughout, the sound continually splinters and morphs, crumbles and blossoms, into all manner of fucked up experi-metal shapes, sometimes barely metal, sometimes IMPOSSIBLY metal, but throughout, always a damaged blacknoise, electro-grind, black-wave, post-metal sci-fi doom WTF?, that should have weirdo metal nerds losing their shit.

MPEG stream: Parasitic Altering Sickness

Latest disc ov blasting lo-fi fucked up blackness from this Northwestern one man horde, another super limited self released jam (the last one was limited to 24 copies, which all came to us and all disappeared pretty much immediately). So fair warning, if you want to get your hands on this sick shit, be quick, or be very very disappointed. No idea what F.D.K.L.S.O.M.F. stands for, but this is some super intense, super pummeling, buzz drenched, grim, kvlt, frosty, lo-fi, raw and primitive black metal skree. Stumbling, mostly midtempo, the guitars buzz frantically, the vocals shriek wildly, the drums are chaotic and confusional, the songs don't really blast or plod, instead they seem to veer wildly, and druggily from tempo to tempo, slowing down, speeding up, this is about as raw as it gets, mostly brittle high end, guessing it's just drums and guitar, if there is a bass, it follows in the long tradition of inaudible black metal bass, but it hardly matters, this is all about the riff, and the atmosphere, and both are stellar, the riffs destroy, dense and angular and atonal, the atmosphere is definitely primitive and basement / practice space / dungeon / cave, lots of echo and reverb, and at its most frenzied it's a white noise squall, the vocals especially, but when it's not so in-the-red, it's like listening to some weird lost classic outsider black metal demo, which is pretty much what this is. ULTRA LIMITED AGAIN, home brewed packaging, a weird little devil deer insert, all the cds in very generic, and entirely UNmetal primary colored paper sleeves. GRIM!

MPEG stream: Untitled 1
MPEG stream: Untitled 2
MPEG stream: Untitled 3

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

SORRY. We originally discovered Cloak Of Displacement, via baffling black metallers Gargotheron, whose cd-r we went a little nuts for when we had it way back when. But it didn't take long for CoD to win us over, transforming the "Bone Awl meets Lightning Bolt" sound of Gargotheron into something filthier and blacker and doomier, a downtuned crusty blackened sprawl that seemed to ooze evil. Totally not typically black metal, or even metal really, more a chaotic stumbling super distorted electronic flecked blacknoize. Needless to say, we were down with the Cloak. So we waited patiently, for going on two years now, and finally it's here, actually, THEY're here, two new discs from the mysterious Cloak Of Displacement, both of these are ultra limited, and we mean ULTRA, as in there are ONLY 24 COPIES!!!! That's it, and of those 24, we got TWENTY of them. So you know what that means, first 20 evil bastards to jab a gnarled claw into that add to cart button, will be feasting on CoD's grim black sonic banquet(s). And yeah, you're probably gonna want both, cuz they're both way different... Frusen Bjork Lund is 4 tracks, nearly 50 minutes, of raw, pounding, lo-fi, filthy, fucked up and BIZARRE primitive black metal, the buzz is muted and way down in the mix, the drums are a chaotic stumble, the vocals are sick and inhuman and go from guttural growl to mix destroying caterwaul, not that the already damaged mix needs and more destroying, it's a confusional, head spinning, brittle bit of crunch and blast and howl, weird as fuck, definitely essential listening for folks (like us), who like their blackness as baffling and as unhinged as (in)humanly possible. There's warped feedback, bizarre kitchen sink percussion, sprawling non-arrangements, some killer riffing, but also some what the fuck guitar strangulation, the closing track is a stretched out Burzumic buzzscape, wreathed in hiss and amp buzz, the drums plodding, the vocals hysterical, reminiscent of Striborg, but this makes Striborg sound downright polished and stable, which is definitely saying something. Once again, these are crazy limited, and handmade, each one comes with a hand-glued sleeve (made from the very evilest of construction papers, and in various grim shades) each with a pasted on front and back cover image, burned around the edges by the flames of hell...

MPEG stream: Doda Krop I Deer
MPEG stream: Appel Av Natten

It's been a while since we've heard from one man, lo-fi, outsider, doomdrone, blacknoise weirdo Cloak Of Displacement, and fans of any of the other CoD cd-r's we've raved about in the past know just what to expect, which is to NOT know what the fuck to expect. This time around, it's three tracks, all dramatically different, the first hint being the instruments listed on the sleeve: guitar, knife, drums, vocals, and POWER SAW. Hell yeah. And the first track, the epic 21 minute "Torture Beckons Me" definitely follows through on the implied promise of sonic whatthefuck. A spaced out abstract ultra doom crawl. But instead of heaving avalanches of blown out downtuned riffage, and massive pummeling beats, the reality is way more bizarre and baffling, tons of space, occasional swells of muted guitar buzz, some SUPER abstract drum thump and plonk, and some seriously SICK vokills, super skeletal and minimal and in its own way sort of hypnotic. Like a way less harsh, way more spaced out blackened Khanate maybe? The riffs pulled so far apart they're more like occasional squalls of thrum, the track nearly free of momentum or propulsion, more an ooze or drift, the vibe ritualistic and primitive and totally fucking strange. The second song picks up the pace, but if anything gets even WEIRDER, with some muted rhythmic riffing, lots of seriously stumbling drumming, and twisted freaked out hysterical vox that make the dude from Lifelover sound like Neil Diamond. The song weaves and wobbles drunkenly, reminding us a bit of Varghkoghargasmal or a more brain damaged Hypothermia. And finally, the saw make an appearance, the brief closing track / outro, that plays like the bloop bleep of ambient Burzum, but the whole thing is wrapped in the harsh buzz of the power saw, which is presumably being used, at least judging from the song title, in the "Disposing Of The Body".

MPEG stream: Torture Beckons Me
MPEG stream: The Session

Some of you might remember Gargotheron, whose cd-r we reviewed a while back, a blurred baffling black metal horde from Arizona, whose sound was grim and raw, primitive and pummeling, spastic and hyper kinetic, octopoidal drumming, insectoid riffing, we described it as "Bone Awl meets Lightning Bolt", so what might we expect from Cloak Of Displacement, a strange ritualistic avant doom offshoot of the mighty Gargotheron? How about long expanses of processed downtuned guitar drone, gurgled distorted vocals, abstract riffage and clouds of glitch and buzz and electronic interference, brief bursts of in-the-red ultra distorted noise drenched black metal. And more fucked up weirdness. We're tempted to describe it as a black metal Faxed Head, but it's not quite so purposefully damaged, although it's plenty demented. There are stretches of almost prettiness, in the guise of sprawling low end buzz, a little Earth (circa 2), a little Khanate, a pinch of SUNNO))), but filtered though some sort of sick Abruptum like sonic ritual, in fact ritual is an apt description, as the performance was literally part of a REAL ritual, with a real live witch performing incantations and spells, at one point snipping locks of hair from the various band members while they recorded, even the packaging, sealed with wax, have been cursed, so open at your own peril! Grim and fucked up, mysterious and abstract, definitely essential listening for ambient noise metal freeks into stuff like Abruptum, Emit and the like, but also might hit the spot for the slow and low obsessed, Khanate, SUNNO))), Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Vulture Club and other purveyors of minimal blackened filth. Packaged in a hand stamped black envelope, sealed with wax, hand numbered, LIMITED TO ONLY 45 COPIES! We took most of those, inside a hand written missive from Cloak Of Displacement, to YOU.

MPEG stream: Storm Conjuring Improvisation
MPEG stream: The Dissident

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

SORRY. We originally discovered Cloak Of Displacement, via baffling black metallers Gargotheron, whose cd-r we went a little nuts for when we had it way back when. But it didn't take long for CoD to win us over, transforming the "Bone Awl meets Lightning Bolt" sound of Gargotheron into something filthier and blacker and doomier, a downtuned crusty blackened sprawl that seemed to ooze evil. Totally not typically black metal, or even metal really, more a chaotic stumbling super distorted electronic flecked blacknoize. Needless to say, we were down with the Cloak. So we waited patiently, for going on two years now, and finally it's here, actually, THEY're here, two new discs from the mysterious Cloak Of Displacement, both of these are ultra limited, and we mean ULTRA, as in there are ONLY 24 COPIES!!!! That's it, and of those 24, we got TWENTY of them. So you know what that means, first 20 evil bastards to jab a gnarled claw into that add to cart button, will be feasting on CoD's grim black sonic banquet(s). And yeah, you're probably gonna want both, cuz they're both way different... Vernal is all ambient, a 43 minute black ritual, that finds the man behind CoD, teamed up with two other players, one who simply wields "magick", while the other two handle guitar, keyboard and percussion. Guitars throb and drone, low end rumbles reverberate ominously, sheets of feedback undulate, layers and tones lock into a sort of Niblockian drift, super hypnotic and intense, eventually, the drone begins to fragment, pelted by FX and various shards of buzz and hum, seemingly crumbling to pieces but always coalescing back into something heavy and hypnotic, thick throbbing pulses, over shards of high end skree, bits of abstract minimal almost doom, barely there rhythms, strange processed crunch collides with lush doomdrone riffage, bursts of distorted rrrooar, strange clunks and creeps, definitely less metal and more abstract free drone weirdness. Way recommended for sure, and not just for weirdo metalheads, dronelords and ambient explorers will find a lot to dig here too... Once again, these are crazy limited, and handmade, each one comes with a hand-glued sleeve (made from the very evilest of construction papers, and in various grim shades) each with a pasted on front and back cover image, burned around the edges by the flames of hell...

MPEG stream: Vernal (excerpt)

Another release from the newly launched KV&GR/Recs label, run by weirdo black metal one man band Cloak Of Displacement. All of the releases so far (Mavra, Edasi) criminally limited, and this one is no different. LIMITED TO JUST 20 COPIES, of which, we got ALL twenty. But judging from the last batch, these will likely be gone in a flash, so don't dawdle. Cloak Of Displacement, a long time aQ outsider black metal fave, offers up another set of twisted low fidelity blackened what the fuck, murky warbly riffs, primitive recording, stumbling damaged drumming, and some of THEE weirdest vocals ever, slipping from goofy grunt to croaking quack, the sound itself stumbling from abstract drift, to pounding dirge and back again. Occasionally within these three tracks, the sound does explode into a sort of blast, but it's a lurching lumbering blast, on the verge of total collapse, a chaotic careening black weirdness that sort of rule. Elsewhere the sound shifts to something more abstract, a sort of spaced out doom, a demented detuned creep, all warbly chords and rehearsal space drum splatter, and those creepy alien vox. Folks who loved past CoD releases will NOT be disappointed. The flipside is taken up by another one man band, the mysterious and oddly monikered Blood Escutcheon, whose sound is more of an ambient blacknoize, riffs stretched out into layered drones, warm and whirling one second, caustic and buzzy the next. The side opens up with some dreamlike ambient drift, that slowly builds to a blowout of Merzbowian noise, infused with fragmented riffage an strange disembodied heavily effected vocals, which leads directly into a super creepy stretch of processed vocal dronemusic, a sea of hiss and static, underneath which a super processed voice drift creepily, before the sound blossoms into some blurred blown out almost Skullflowery noise, which with headphones strapped on, reveals all manner of sonic weirdness lurking below the surface, the side ending with some cool, softly distorted industrial crunch, blurred out and smeared into something much more soft focus and ambient. And again, we only have 20 COPIES of these, and there are in fact ONLY 20 copies, so act fast. Includes killer cover art from Blood Escutcheon mastermind Thaniel Lee. Each copy hand numbered.

MPEG stream: Seasoning The Lamb
MPEG stream: Hymn To Eostre
MPEG stream: Untitled

Another mysterious musical missive from Finland, record number two of alchemical magickal dronemusic and deep otherworldly black ambience from a group that features members of one of our favorite Finnish combos, the mighty Dead Reptile Shrine (who have a new double cd coming out on tUMULt this year). We raved about the last C+B disc, a collection of raw and primal sound rituals, not all that far removed from the music of countrymen Tiermes. Separated into 4 suites, Cloak Of Fire, Cloak Of Doom, Cloak of Darkness, and Cloak Of... um.. well Cloak Of Cloak oddly enough, this disc is in fact a reissue of a long out of print cd-r, originally released in an edition of 100 copies. As with the other Cloama & Blutleuchte disc, the sounds here are dark and ominous, rumbling and whirring and shimmering, but this is not mere ambient music, or drone music, there is much more going on, texture and noise, and all manner of difficult to describe sonic happenings. The drone is for sure the root of the sound, but that drone is twisted and stretched out, wreathed in strange effects and peppered with bursts of hiss and buzz. Some tracks are simple sprawling black blurs, while others, incorporate haunting sung spoken vocals, simple tribal percussion, a bit like a more raw and freaked out Muslimgauze, while others are thick grinding walls of distortion, dense crumbling heaviness, shot through with haunting melodies, and creaking groaning crunch, as well as strange voices and snippets of conversation, and still others are rich swirls of blurred soft focus colors and slowed down riffs, mysterious crawls through vast expanses of deep stellar buzz. String sections wrap around military speeches, industrial percussion is buried beneath seas of grinding metallic shimmer, long long stretches of deep hushed thrum, and haunting chantlike vocals, all culminating in what sounds like a hissy, washed out, black metal blur, a swirling digitized buzz laced drone, that slows and thickens until it becomes an ominous flickering downtuned dirge-y drift. Gorgeous packaging, the booklet filled with all manner of symbols and landscape photos as well as some seriously strange liner notes.

MPEG stream: Cloak Of Fire (Part I)
MPEG stream: Cloak Of Fire (Part II)
MPEG stream: Cloak Of Cloak (Incarnation)

Two fantastic new releases from the Khrysanthoney label, elsewhere on this week's list, you'll find the latest from UK dreamo / screamo blackened bliss-pop combo Sleeping Peonies, and then there's this, the first full length from Pennsylvania one man shoegaze / blackgaze / blackbuzz bliss metal outfit Clouds Collide, and holy cow, the opener is maybe the blissiest black metal we've maybe ever heard, wintry winds over spidery minor key guitars, haunting and melancholic, warm shimmery chordal strum, and then suddenly, the song explodes in a gloriously prismatic blast of blown out beats, and blurred snowstorm riffs, all wreathed in a fuzzy cloud of crumbling shimmer, thick swaths of swirling sonic glimmer, and hazy smears of fragmented melodies, all tangled up into a softly having blackened dream pop psychedelia, before switching gears and slowing down to a darkly moody post rock lope, still wrapped in sheets of soft focus shimmer, harsh vokills surface at this point, but do nothing to distract from the pure buzzing blissiness of the sound. Fans of outfits like Alcest, Fen, and other post BM shoegazers will be in heaven. Elsewhere it does get more metal, and more black, but even on tracks like "Endless Silence", with its shrieked vokills and brittle insectoid guitar buzz, the sound is still doused in FX, pushed WAY into the red, and blurred into indistinct black-gaze smears, and when things slow down, it gets all echo drenched and drifty, the guitars weightless and ethereal, the drums, booming and reverby way off in the distance. The record flits easily between pure dream pop shoegaze shimmer and wintry black buzz bliss outs, with most tracks settling somewhere perfectly right in between! LIMITED TO 125 COPIES, housed in a blue parchment envelope, with a printed cardstock Japanese style obi, an 11" x 17" poster, an 8 page 5.5" x 8.5" booklet, the envelope hand decorated with metallic ink!

MPEG stream: As If A Dead Leaf
MPEG stream: Endless Silence
MPEG stream: Glaciate

It's been about 3 years since we last heard from these avant black metallers, whose first record, Nouveau Gloaming, we described as sounding like a black metal Interpol, and whose second, Resplendent Grotesque, managed to take everything we dug about that first record, and hone it into the perfect hybrid of croony, gothy gloom rock and furious blasting grim blackness. And while we talked a lot about the poppier, gloomier side of their sound, sonically they were and are definitely beholden to the first wave of truly avant/post black metal outfits like Dodheimsgard and Borknagar, the bombastic almost symphonic arrangements, the clean vocals, all wound up into a framework that at its core is classic buzzing black metal, made for a pretty revolutionary sound back in the day, and while that sound might be passe at this point, we're pretty sad that bands don't make music like that anymore, although apparently these guys still do. This time around, the sound is definitely even further removed from the black metal that, at least partially, defined Code's sound in the early days, sure there's plenty of black buzz, and sick vokills, even blast beats, but much of the record is spent in a strange black-prog gloom metal netherworld that make their sound tough to classify, for true grim metalheads, Augur Nox is likely too all over the map, too poppy, and not nearly metal enough, but for folks into gloomy poppy heaviness, who can handle sounds seriously fucking fierce and frantic, there's so much to dig here, which is precisely what makes this record so appealing, even when the band are in full on goth pop mode, they'll bust out with a grinding tangle of buzzing blackness, or a furious flurry of insectoid riffing and mathed out drum pound. And by the same token, songs buzzing and blasting full bore will suddenly splinter into weird poppiness, or some crazy catchy melody or guitar line, will suddenly transform the song. To our ears, this time around there does seem to be a bit more moody, dramatic dour poppiness a la Katatonia, but it's supercharged and revved way up, and some of the proggier moments like "Harmonies In Cloud", sound a bit like a black metal Marillion, which sounds weird, but is actually pretty goddamn great. Like the last two Code albums, Augur Nox is quickly turning into one of our most listened to new records, and with every listen, the songs reveal themselves more and more as avant black gloom masterpieces, masterful arrangements of dark, psychedelic hookiness, churning, buzzing crush, and epic sonic majesty. Another record that swoops right in, just in time for year end top ten lists, and we can guarantee this will be on ours!

MPEG stream: Black Rumination
MPEG stream: Becoming Host
MPEG stream: Ecdysis

When we first threw this on we were greeted by a huge frosty gust of blackened brrrrrrr, like nothing we'd heard since the first few Satyricon records. In fact we were all ready to push this as the perfect record for everyone who missed the good ol' days of Dark Medieval Times and Nemesis Divina. And it definitely is just that, but only some of the time. The rest of the time, Code traffic in some strange sort of haunting blackened metallic cabaret. Thick swaths of Burzumic fuzzguitar, a seasick swoon, droning and drifting hypnotically, like a smeared Slinty black metal a la Ved Buens Ende, and with similarly strange croony vocals, but here they are a sort of sea shanty croon, like old timey vocals broadcast on an old forties radio or maybe even like that cartoon frog that only sings "Hello My Baby" when no one else is listening. It's not humorous or anything, but that is definitely the timbre, old and sing songy, sort of wearily melodic, sometimes turning into a gorgeously mournful sort of gothy vocals that are a dead ringer for Interpol. Sounds weird, and like it couldn't possibly work, but it really is quite amazing. Beneath all this buzzing and crooning, the music occasionally slips into full on doomy Swans-y stuff, but still sort of lush and majestic like later Swans, with some truly odd warbly underwater basslines, slippery and woozy, giving the whole record a sort of dizzy dreamy vibe. But even those tracks that are mostly midtempo with the lush crooned vocals, veer back into ultra blackness now and again, with howled demonic vocals, huge thick riffing, very Khold-like at times, thick and snarling and buzzing wildly, before eventually slipping back into some kind of loping black waltz. Another blast of black metal that manages to retain its black heart while pushing in all sorts of not-so-black directions!

MPEG stream: The Cotton Optic
MPEG stream: Brass Dogs

We'd been trying to get copies of this record for ages, but couldn't find it anywhere. We loved the first Code record so much, a record we described as sounding a bit like a black metal Interpol, and we had heard bits of the new one, and if anything the two disparate elements that made the first record so good, the strange croony gothic component, and the blasting classic Norwegian style black metal, were both somehow MORE and BETTER, if that was even possible. Well finally, we managed to get in touch with the band directly, and ordered a bunch from them, and it's just as good as we hoped or imagined. Like the first record, the root sound is full bore, super tight and polished Norwegian black metal, a la Satyricon, incredible blackened riffs, insane super technical drumming, majestic melodies, dense convoluted arrangements, but here, those elements have a strangely industrial vibe, not to mention that weird coldwave goth pop influence that so infused their debut. The arrangements this time around are impossible, constantly shifting and twisting, dizzying song structures that manage to baffle and confuse, but remain fierce and furious and most importantly catchy. The band are not shy about their black metal, often lurching into furious bursts of black blasts, howling shrieking thrashing mayhem, but just as often, they shift gears, and the music stretches out and in come the clean vocals, very much like later Borknagar, and like we mentioned before, Interpol, although on Resplendent Grotesque if we needed to break it down comparison-wise, we might describe the sound as Satyricon meets Katatonia meets Deathspell Omega, the pop element is certainly undeniable, but even at its poppiest, the guitars are still grinding away underneath, or the band is lurching through mathy breakdowns or seasick rhythmic changeups, there's plenty of other weirdness too, spaced out collaged interludes, with processed vocals, and delayed acoustic guitars, super hooky Khold-like riffing, but it's the songwriting that really makes Resplendent Grotesque so transcendent, "The Rattle Of Black Teeth" almost sounds like black metal Morrissey, and "Jesus Fever" has a super impassioned wailing clean vocal finish, that is as dramatic and emotional as any of the blacker more metal moments, if not more so, and "A Sutra Of Wounds" starts out as pure pop, before the clean vocals are teamed up with harsh vokills, for a seriously demonic harmony, that extends throughout the whole track. The whole record is a constant battle between light and dark, pretty and ugly, harsh and melodic, and that battle is exactly what makes the sound so unique, so intense, so weird, but so utterly enthralling and fucking brilliant. Definitely a weird record, and probably not for everybody, grim TROO metalheads might scoff, but we're all about pushing the boundaries of the genre, and moving beyond the typical tropes, hearing sounds and songs that confound and confuse and perplex, we love pure black metal, the grimmer and colder the better, but we also love the endless hybridization of that sound, seeing where it can go, and how far out it can be taken, and these guys have taken the sound somewhere entirely new, and we're loving it. Definite contender for black metal record of the year...

MPEG stream: Smother The Crones
MPEG stream: In The Privacy Of Your Own Bones
MPEG stream: The Rattle Of Black Teeth

Ahhh Coffins. Japan's masters of primitive, dirgey, filthy, crusty death metal return with this massive double disc collection gathering up all the group's singles, splits and compilation tracks, including the tracks from their splits with Otesanek and The Arm And Sword Of A Bastard God, which we'd carried in the past. But besides those, we'd basically heard almost none of the rest of this, and like their records proper, this is some fantastically ruling heaviness, sludgey downtuned pummel colliding with classic old school death metal crush, resulting in a nearly two hour barrage of grunted and belched demonic vokills, pounding skull caving drum damage and of course plenty of sick, murky metallic riffing. The song titles alone tell much of the story: "Eat Your Shit", "Corpse Parade", "The Cracks Of Doom", "Abysmal Blood Sea", "Cremated Remains", "Wasteland Of Terror", "Decapitated Crawl", "Bonesawer", "Acid Orgy", we could go on but you get the drift, the music sounds exactly how it would have to to go with those titles, the sound slipping from dirgey doom sludge lumber, to stumbling blasting DM blowout, but even in dirge mode, the songs are peppered with frantic riffing and double kick drumming, and similarly, even when blasting away, the sound oozes and creeps, the band sounding like they could collapse at any moment and slip right back into a blackened tarpit creep. Way recommended for fans of Acid Witch, Decepitaph, Skeletal Spectre, Wooden Stake, Hooded Menace and other modern old school death metal outfits, as well as classic combos like Autopsy, Dismember, Hellhammer and the like� Comes housed in a massive 8 panel double digipak.

MPEG stream: Eat Your Shit
MPEG stream: Corpse Parade
MPEG stream: Offalgrinder
MPEG stream: The Cracks Of Doom
MPEG stream: Abysmal Blood Sea

Great Bringer Of Night was the 2009 demo from these Midwestern blackened doomlords, and has now been remastered by James Plotkin, had a couple extra tracks tacked on (alternate versions of tracks from their Profound Lore release), and been made available again, this time on vinyl, via local label Flenser. Folks who dug Coffinworm's When All Became None cd on Profound Lore, will most likely dig this as well. On Great Bringer Of Night, like on When All Became None, Coffinworm offer up a dense churning black sludge, crusty and corrosive, the guitars thick and caustic, the drums pummeling, the vocals a glass gargling howl, the songs lumbering and lurching, abject and miserable, slowing to a tarpit crawl and times, while at others surprisingly cranking up the tempo and getting downright melodic, like on "Start Saving For Your Funeral", which sounds like Lifelover with a doom metal makeover, the song slipping from chugging full-on rocking, to gnarled downtuned churn and back again. Then there's "The Inner Caligula" that fuses slow-mo sludge to something almost punk sounding, like an ultra doom version of a metalcore breakdown. There's even some full on thrashing on "Spitting In Infinity's Asshole", some blast beats too, but for the most part, Coffinworm spend their time chugging and churning, dirging blackly through a hellish sonic wasteland, equal parts Eyehategod, Unearthly Trance, early Cavity, a crusty, filthy, sludge-y, blackened doom dirge that's LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!!

MPEG stream: High On the Reek of Your Burning Remains
MPEG stream: Start Saving For Your Funeral
MPEG stream: The Inner Caligula

The 2010 full length from these Dutch avant shoegaze black metallers was one of our favorite records that year, but for whatever reason we were never able to get enough copies to review on the list. So when we discovered there was in fact a new record, we got in touch with the label directly and got a whole bunch. That first record took super blown out black buzz, and transformed it into something washed out and blissy, dreamlike and majestic, lots of bands do the whole shoegaze black metal thing, but CBR were the first band who did it so perfectly, conjuring up a sound, both heavy and beautiful, in way that was equal measures of both, taking the dreamy dronedirge of groups like Nadja and Jesu and infusing it with some seriously blackened buzz, which instead of darkening the sound, somehow just made it more brilliant and prismatic. If anything, this new record dials back all the black and buzz, revealing what is essentially a blissed out shoegaze dream pop record, one that sans BM pedigree would have indie rockers and pop kids losing their shit big time. That said, there is still some heaviness, and a blast beat or two, but really for the most part, Deer Twilight is some sort of blissy psychedelic heavy pop, with soaring super saturated guitars, big bombastic drumming, swirling synths, warm clean crooned vox, a super lush layered sound, slow builds and explosive crescendos, super catchy hooks, and dark, dreamy meditative interludes. Think some killer mix of Mogwai, Sigur Ros, Godspeed and Nadja, released on 4AD, or Constellation, or Creation, or somehow all three, the sounds minor key and melodic, moody and melancholy, the bass thick and driving, low slung and rhythmic, the drums subtle but powerful, the guitars and the keyboards woven into lush undulating swells and prismatic bursts of melody, the songs epic and intricate, slipping from darkly doleful, to hauntingly hushed, to explosive and psychedelic and back again, super cinematic and emotionally intense, some of the big loud parts, so dramatic and soundtracky, it's easy to imagine them as the score for some super intense heartbreaking epic, and when the band does lock into something more rock and slightly more blackened, it sounds more like the doom pop of Katatonia, gloomy and melodic, and the sound soon shifts into something more laid back and stripped down, sun dappled and hazily dreamy, the tracks laced with swoonsome strings, that add even further to the cinematic vibe. To be honest, we weren't expecting this new record to be so NOT metal, but we're loving it, A LOT. And while there may not be a whole lot here for metalheads, for folks into epic dramatic shoegazey dreampop and metalgaze and post rock and gloom pop, this is most definitely your new favorite record.

MPEG stream: Deer Twilight
MPEG stream: Make Believe
MPEG stream: Yes, Maybe The Stars