THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Here is, quite literally, a "warehouse find"... the first two cds by Japanese mega-psych-mongers DMBQ aka Dynamite Masters Blues Quartet, the only two actual DMBQ albums that were ever really available in the USA before, and barely, on the seemingly-now-defunct Japanese indie label Less Than TV. Allan was visiting one of our suppliers and dug these up, they happened to have about a dozen copies each of these cds stuck in a dark and dusty corner of their warehouse. So we grabbed 'em all, knowing that a bunch of you out there would be stoked to get yr hands on these, seeing as how we sold so frickin' many of the DMBQ's Esoteric Black Hair EP. That cd-r compiled some of their more recent material, and if you liked those cuts we imagine you'll dig this earlier material too. It's rawer and maybe even wilder. The usual "act fast since we've only got a few" warning applies of course!
Their self-titled 1995 debut cd really throws down the dirty distorted heavy-psych garage rock gauntlet. It's just a massive blow-out of raucous, stomping, fuzz and feedback-filled punk blooze rockin' freakiness that'd give Hendrix a headache. Basically imagine the Boredoms playing Blue Cheer and you've got the idea. They get into some cool '60s surf stuff on here too. Hopefully some day we'll be able to stock their newer albums but in the meantime fans of DMBQ and/or their brand of mayhem ought to be happy to score one of these while they last...which won't be long we're pretty sure.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Issue 1.5 of the infamous Doomed Nation dvd magazine, we only got 5 copies of this, already our of print according to the guy who makes these, so once these are gone they're gone for good.
Just like volume 2 (reviewed elsewhere on the AQ site) this is jam packed with tons of doom and sludge and all sorts of downtuned brutality. Just look at the bands: Sleep, Saint Vitus, Indian, 16, Buried At Sea, Sourvein, Hidden Hand, Jumbo's Killcrane, Meatjack, Rwake, Fistula, Terminal Lovers and more. Videos interspersed with clips from eighties teen movies, Godzilla movies, horror movies, super lo-tech, but totally killer!
Limited to 666 copies, each one hand numbered, pretty sure we can't get more, so act fast. Comes in a white dvd case, with killer blood splattered artwork, and all sorts of flyers and stickers inside!
The Relapse Contamination fest just plowed through town, so for a couple days, our store was jam packed with bell bottoms, greasy long hair, bizarre facial hair, tattoos, piercings, beards beards beards and of course lots of bands hawking all kinds of crazy tour shit. On tour with the bans was the guy responsible for the legendary Doomed Nation video magazine. We managed to get about 20 copies of the almost out of print volume 2 (limited to 999 copies, and 999 upside down IS 666 after all...) and it is fucking awesome! Doom freaks will already be diving for the buy button. And you should too if you hope to get your grimey mitts on one of these. Here's the lineup: SUNNO))), Ufomammut, Buried At Sea, Indian, Ramesses, Church Of Misery, Weedeater, Lair Of The Minotaur, Venomous Concept, and more.
And these aren't just live clips. Well, some are, but most are real videos, filmed with weird effects, interspersed with all manner of fucked up imagery, and all the videos are sort of strung together with tons of super gory horror movie clips, the whole thing is pretty lo-fi and ghetto, but really well done. Definitely essential for all you doomlords and doomladies, just look at the band list fer chrissakes!!
LIMITED TO 999 COPIES, not sure we can get more, so act fast. Comes in a clear dvd case, with killer blood splattered artwork, and all sorts of flyers and stickers inside!
Like we mentioned in the review of volume two, it's easy to tell when it's time for another Doomed Nation dvd. Suddenly the store is filled to overflowing with band dudes, and everywhere you look there's nothing but denim and leather, spikes and studs, tattoos and piercings, and acres and acres of facial hair....
Which is precisely what happened today, and thus when the pot smoke cleared, we had a heaping handful of dvds, volume three of the always amazing Doomed Nation series, featuring tons of amazing videos and live clips from the best of the doom underground. Loads of AQ faves, and a handful of bands we had never heard, or at least heard very little from, as well as a short attention span barrage of movie clips and snippets of TV shows filling up the spaces between the doom, and in keeping with the theme of the artwork, an old woodcut of a mass hanging, most of the clips are indeed of hangings, some funny, some gruesome, from horror movies and period dramas, all sliced and diced and shot rapid fire and scattershot all around massive slabs of bulldozing doom.
Up first, an amazing live clip of AQ faves Baroness (lots of beards, mostly shirtless) in full on blown out post rock mode, these guys are so amazing. We can never get enough. And from there on out it's a relentless river of doom, and other assorted heaviness, some archival footage of a shirtless (and pantsless) GG Allin, Black Tusk, who we've never heard before but who are appropriately sludgy and heavy, Facedowninshit, live totally tearing shit up, a super pro Goatwhore video, very dangerous for the epileptic and light sensitive, Raise The Red Lantern who are super awesome, with killer lights and the most active and chaotic stage presence of the bunch, Saint Vitus live, reunited in 2003 with Wino (we also have a dvd of the whole show for sale! See elsewhere on the list), Swarm Of The Lotus with a super intense and gorgeously gorey and creepy video (at least the parts without the band) and a singer who keeps his glasses on, which we always love, some awesome live footage of Grief, killer lo-fi live footage of the mighty Buzz-Oven practice space jams from Black Cobra intercut with, you guessed it, tons of snake footage, as well as clips from Indian (a strangely brief, bordering on non-existent blip of a performance), Rwake, Hawg Jaw, Asschapel, Hope And Suicide, Stereochrist and Mala Suerte!
LIMITED TO 2007 COPIES, each one hand numbered, packaged with super striking blood splattered cover art...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
First in a super limited series of lp-only releases from everyone's favorite Japanese doom-drone-psych-rock overachievers Boris! For this limited double lp, they've teamed up with Boston's Doomriders, which just so happens to feature members of Converge, Old Man Gloom, There Were Wires and more...
These records capture live shows recorded back in 2006 when the two bands toured together.�
The Doomriders for those who don't know, are a straight up Motorheady rock and roll band, they even start their set with a bellowing roar: "We are the Doomriders from Boston, and WE PLAY ROCK AND ROLL!!!" And they do, pounding and simple, not thrashing or blasting just riff heavy big drum blasts of kick ass RAWK. The perfect sonic match up for the more rock side of Boris.�
The first track, though, on one of Boris' two lp sides had us fooled, a massive churning droned out low end sludge, the heaviest thing we've heard from them since Flood (not counting the Altar collab with SUNN) but after that it's back to the full blown, in the red, ultra distorted pedal to the metal blasting Pink-style wild psychedelic garage rock stomp that have become their modern sound. And it sounds great. Super saturated production, amazing sound, loud Loud LOUD!!! Obviously essential for all you Boris freeks...
And of course super elaborate packaging as always. Deluxe metallic gold gatefold, super thick stock, killer Screaming For Vengeance Judas Priest homage artwork, clear yellow vinyl...
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, half red, half yellow, the copies we have are yellow, and this is ALREADY SOLD OUT and selling for crazy $$$ on eBay. We tried to get 100 copies, and got less than half that. Needless to say these will be gone before you know it. ONE PER CUSTOMER.�
Did you know there were Vikings in Italy? Yep, these guys, who are back with an excellent new disc. They're just as obsessed with swords and glory, axes and honor as Manowar, but with a bit more of a serious historical slant (though that doesn't stop them from taking cool noms de guerre like Deathmaster and The Forger).
Let Battle Commence takes up where their last record, Resound The Horn, left off. It's a concept album of sorts, concerning itself with Danish King Ivar The Boneless's conquest of York on November 1st, 866 AD, apparently one of the few pagan triumphs over Christians, according to the band. With lyrics like "We shall fill the air with spears to turn black this Christian sun" and "Odin guide my sword!" you might think you know what side Doomsword is on. But, even then, other songs acknowledge the horror and loss of warfare, showing ambivalence by the victors in lines like "Of this land / Of glory, battle and death / All I recall is the look in the eyes of the dead" and "Woman I never saw / I am sorry if you can believe me / I killed your man in my last fight" (from "Deathbringer - Blood On My Hands").
Still, these are stirring heavy metal anthems that could certainly be used to lead men into battle. I can imagine the helicopter gunships in Apocalpyse Now blaring Doomsword instead of Wagner, just as effectively.
Cult Cult Cult. Doom Doom Doom. It's thee fourth album of HEAVY and EPIC war metal anthems from this (metaphorical) sword and axe wielding bunch, and maybe their best yet. Italy's pagan doomsters Doomsword (that's doom-sword not dooms-word, just to be clear) are a true metal outfit, with clean, manly vocals. The Viking tales of Bathory are the closest they come in comparison to the black metal realm...but they're NOT a bit like the fruity and fantastical power metal of countrymen Rhapsody either. No, this is for fans of underground olden metal acts like Solstice, Wotan, Candlemass, and former labelmates Slough Feg. Doom done heavy metal style, not sludgy-droney or stoner-Sabbathy, but epic.
Sure, with songs like "Days Of High Adventure", "Steel Of My Axe", and "Thundercult" you might expect some kind of D&D metal here. Well sorta, but as we've said before there's a serious slant to Doomsword's stuff, even if you'd be prone to thinking 'em silly. And their hymns to myth and might will stick with you, thanks to their morose melodies and sheer metallic chug. Mostly midtempo, sluggishly so, but with some storming numbers too. There's acoustic intros, catchy choruses, and (most importantly) many massive RIFFS. Stuff to awaken ancestral memories! Listeners will be unconsciously be girding their loins and preparing for battle. The unironic metal of Doomsword is "keeping it real" about stuff that went down over 1000 years ago, and doing so with much passion, intensity and skill. Classy and damn good. Cult Cult Cult. Doom Doom Doom.
Dark, epic, doom (duh) metal from Italy. "Our fate is written: Sword and shield, born to die on the battlefield" is their motto, and their songs thus focus on tales of ancient Viking and Celtic warfare. Heavy and atmospheric, with decent clean vocals and grand, morose melodies. For fans of the likes of Candlemass, Cirith Ungol, Manowar, Manilla Road, and Solstice. Despite the inherent silliness you might attribute to heavy metal songs of swords and battle, there's something about this just seems very SERIOUS. They've created a vibe quite far from the happy fantasy power metal of countrymen Rhapsody, that's for sure!
Yeah, they're named after an Electric Wizard record, and while they definitely share some Wizardisms with their namesake, groovy Sabbathy riffage, and low slung stoner doom swing, their brand of drug fueled slo-mo sludge seems to owe more to bands like Eyehategod or Bongzilla, although the tempos get cranked well beyond either of those groups' preferred BPM's. The riffs are total stoner rock nirvana, big and thick and groovy and catchy, occasionally getting crunchy and chuggy, the drums muscley and pounding, the most interesting thing are the super processed almost black metal sounding vox, which definitely transform the sound into something else entirely. Which is one of the things that makes these guys tough to pin down. Opener "Demonsmoke" is total downtuned Sabbathy sludge, while "Abraxis" sounds almost like classic rock, and then "Wizard's Sleeve" gets all woozy and wah wah guitared, a wasted druggy lope, and "Power Violence Forever" is just super rocking and hooky, and "Legalize Murder" has some bad ass wailing leads, and gorgeous harmonized guitars, and minus those harsh vox sounds like Nebula or something.
Dopethrone lace their songs with plenty of samples, most about drugs of course, and those vocals definitely tie everything together, and help make these guys sound different than the rest of their stoner/sludge brethren, and make this one of our new favorite chunks of slow and low heaviness.
If you dig Electric Wizard, Eyehategod, Bongzilla, Grief, Sleep, Green Machine, Buzzov*en, Kyuss, Acrimony, Sourvein and all that downtuned druggy Sabbathy stuff, odds are you're gonna love this...
We sorta flipped for these Canadian stoner sludge doomlords, their self-released Demonsmoke record was a huge hit around here, but when we ran out, we were suddenly unable to get more. Then, the group released two more records, and both seemed somehow impossible to track down. We couldn't even get 'em from the band, so we just assumed they were living up to their Electric Wizard beholden moniker, all seated in massive, spiked dopethrones, high as fuck, and unable to do anything more that stumble into the practice space and lay down some of the heaviest, grooviest, stoner sludge EVER.
Well, record number three FINALLY showed up at one of our distributors, so we grabbed as many as we could, while we could, before they disappeared back into a cloud of bongsmoke. And like Demonsmoke, this most recent record is about as sick as stuff like this gets. Laced with samples, the guitars are MASSIVE, thick, and super distorted, the drums crushing, the vocals a demonic, almost black metal rasp, swaggery and stonery and very very Sabbathy, it's easy to hear Eyehategod and Bongzilla and Church Of Misery and all the rest in their sound, and yeah, fans of any and all of those bands will lose their shit for these guys, cuz somehow they take that sound and crank it WAY up, it's fiercer and more fiery, blown out and seriously crushingly HEAVY. Total wasted stoner metal doom sludge bliss out of the highest order. Surprised these guys aren't way more popular, but then, considering how hard it is to track down their records, maybe it makes sense. Regardless, if this is your cup of bongwater tea, grab one of these before they're gone!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, pressed on blue/brown wax, in heavy full color psychedelic covers, with a 4 page booklet.
Do these bands mean anything to you: Boris, Corrupted, Harvey Milk, The Melvins, Sunn 0))), Earth? Well, if they do, you are definitely gonna need this. One of two new releases from the amazing Kult Of Nihilow label from Finalnd. Dot [.] are most certainly the best Japanese doom band you've probably never heard. We even listend to one whole side of this 10" at 45 thinking that it sounded too slow at 33! Yes, they are that slow and sludgy and downtuned and fucking amazing. Impossibly heavy and relentlessly glacial.
Unfortunately, this is limited to 332 copies and we managed to get our hands on a mere 12 of those, never to get more. So you'll have to move a lot faster than these fellas if you want one of these to end up stuck to your turntable. Super thick colored vinyl, gorgeously packaged in transparent, screened sleeve!
We managed to get the last 40 or so copies of the third and (supposedly) final pressing of only 175 copies of this massive slab of Japanese heaviness. So act fast.
BORIS! CORRUPTED! EYEHATEGOD! JAPANESE DOOM SLUDGE! If those words mean anything to you, drop everything you're doing RIGHT NOW and order yourself up one of these massive slabs of earth flattening, face melting downtuned dirge. Slow slow slow like their sludgy countrymen Boris and Corrupted, Dot [.] focus less on the drone, and more on the riff, sounding much more raw and aggressive, aligning themselves a bit more with Eyehategod, Bongzilla, Grief and the rest of the US slow motion doom contingent. Huge riffs, pounding relentless drumming, hellish shrieking vocals, amps until forever, everything (even the drums?) tuned as low as they will go, a soul sucking metallic black hole of sound. Four lengthy tracks, only one of which even comes close to almost breaking the midtempo mark.
AGAIN, SUPER LIMITED!!!!! To only 175 copies, and we got about 40, most likely never to get more again. You have been warned.
The first in a new series of eps from stoner/sludge super group Down, which for the uninitiated, includes members of Pantera, Crowbar, Corrosion Of Conformity and Eyehategod. No doubt fans of all those bands are already hip to these guys, their sound heavy and stonery more than sludgey, but recent converts to Electric Wizard would do well to dabble in some Down as well. Down are a strange bunch, not sure if it's the music, or their musical pedigree or both, but seems like EVERYone we know, metalhead, nonmetalhead, stoner rockers, death metallers, they all seem to love Down. But then it's easy to see why, the sound is pure psychedelic stoner sludge Sabbath worship, massive riffs, Phil Anselmo's killer vox, some wicked leads and classic guitar harmonies, hooks galore, bombastic drumming. Doesn't get more headbangable than these guys. All the tracks here slay. Groovy, riffy, slithery, Sabathy heaviness to be sure, but the best jam here is most definitely "Witchtripper", immediately catchy, heavy as fuck, with an insane main riff, a crazy catchy chorus, and and a hilarious (and hilariously literal) video, with Anselmo dressed up as Aleister Crowley:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fCoz5P3foY
The first song on the last Down record is easily one of the best (if not THE BEST) stoner-metal/New Orleans sludge rock song ever. EVER. The rest of the record didn't stand up to the opening track, but it was still a pretty solid record of ultra heavy stoner
Stoner rock really gets a bum rap, not sure what it is, but there's really nothing not to like, it's heavy, groovy, the guitars are thick and distorted and blown out, the drums pounding, the vocals wailing, the riffs are epic, it's one of those sounds that even still we can't seem to stop digging. C'mon, Kyuss, Orange Goblin, Roachpowder, Acrimony, Solarized, Los Natas, Spiritual Beggars, Freedom Hawk... Plus there are plenty of bands that aren't technically stoner rock, but essentially are, Sleep, Monster Magnet, Soundgarden. Maybe tastes changed, or the scene got saturated, or there were just too many shitty stoner rock bands, but as far as we can tell, groups like Sleep really aren't that far removed from groups like Kyuss, the Sabbath worship, the drugs, the groove. But fuck it, we're not here to mount a defense of stoner rock (or are we?), we're here to extol the virtues of one of our favorite stoner rock outfits ever, Sweden's Dozer, whose kick ass first two records have just been reissued as a double disc, with a bunch of bonus demo tracks to boot.
So what's the big deal about Dozer? Well after Kyuss, they're probably the band that most embodies that classic stoner rock sound, in fact, in some ways they're a dead ringer for Kyuss, the sun baked guitars, the wailing vox, the killer riffs, needless to say if you LOVE Kyuss, and have never heard Dozer, man are you in for a treat, and
Every single person who bought either or both of the Freedom Hawk records a while back or either of the Acrimony records (and we know that's a LOT of you!), you're almost definitely gonna want this too. Mesmerizing, hypnotic, the grooves locked in tight, killer psychedelic leads, hooks galore, and riffs, we mean RIFFS, massive super rocking RIFFS. For all the blasting black metal and creepy crawling ultra doom, neither evoke the same sort of visceral headbanging response as this stuff, how could it, like all classic stoner rock, this is Sabbath, sped up and supercharged, totally heavy, and totally rocking, and few do it or have done it better than Dozer. This collects their first two long out of print Man's Ruin records, In The Tail Of A Comet from 2000 and Madre De Dios from 2001, both now augmented by extra demo tracks, that sound just as good as the records proper.
We were actually a little surprised how goddamn good this stuff sounds still 10 years later, but man, it sure does. Any one into groovy heaviness, or Sabbathy headbanging riffage, this shit will definitely hit the spot!
Comes packaged in a super swank full color six panel digipak.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Swedes who sound EXACTLY like the late and undoubtedly much-missed Kyuss. Somebody should hold a festival of all the Kyuss-clone bands, with Natas, Fireball Ministry, Unida, etc. They could compete to crown the new Kyuss II. Anyway, you know what this sounds like (that is, if you're a Kyuss fan--and otherwise, you won't care): lots of heavy bass, rockin' vox, psychedelic sunburn guitar. Pretty darn good, but this trend has to come to an end. I mean, originality isn't the number one virtue in rock n' roll (and certainly not in the "metal" and "stoner rock" realms and not at all in the Kyuss-o-centric "desert rock" subgenre) but this is getting ridiculous. Still, better to copy Kyuss than Korn, I suppose.
Stoner rock, that's this.
Whoa. Argentina's most "weird-ass" Sabbath stylers seem to have gone totally black coffee, forget the decaf. Grinding growling galloping METAL here, folks. Sure there's still proggy changes and acoustic guitars and mad laughter and all sorts of whatnot, but the main focus of these eleven tracks is pretty much kicking your ass with crunchy guitar riffage!! And then barking savagely in gruff Spanish at your crumpled form. Sabbathy doom is still an aspect of their sound, but we'd never mistake this for Cathedral, let alone Kyuss. It's way too fierce and thrashy. If you've heard their previously reviewed (and highlighted) Luciferatu album, or their split with Abdullah, just imagine that but with less crazy "clowning around" we guess you could say. Less eccentric / more EVIL. Or less '70s / more '80s. Perhaps they've been listening to a lot of old Slayer and Celtic Frost lately?! In any event, they're still pretty much our favorite metal band from Argentina, no doubt (we're counting Los Natas as more of a stoner/psych outfit). By the way, we imported these directly from South America and when/if we run out, it'll probably be a while before we get more, just so you know.
Doom metal bands by their very nature are solitary, backwards-looking, miserable creatures. It's not the most popular of rock (or metal) genres, nor does it always attract the most normal or ordinary musicians. Often, doom bands conform to the established Black Sabbath blueprint for the genre, but sometimes in their isolation they wind up going in weirder and weirder directions, influenced by the progressive rock of the '70s that Sabbath themselves began to dabble in circa Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage... Argentina's Dragonauta are one of these weirdo doom bands. When we first heard them (on a split cd with fellow Argentinans and AQ-faves Los Natas some years back) they were your basic Sabbathy/Kyussy stoner doom outfit, but now their debut full-length, Luciferatu, shows them to belong to what might be considered the most eccentric, deviant strain of 'doom metal' alongside the obscure, cult likes of Paul Chain, Northwinds, and Dirty Lust... It's a like progged-out, jazz-flecked mixture of Los Natas and Cathedral at their most ridiculous. Heavy riffage, maniac growling Lemmy/phlegmy vox (in a Spanish accent), and much psychedelic strangeness of songwriting and instrumental coloration abound on this album. Definitely one where it's hard to predict where each song will go next! Creative and chaotic yet crushing. Definitely if you like the proggier, bizarro elements of the last couple of Los Natas albums, you'll want to check out Dragonauta!! Includes a video track for your computer by the way with almost twenty minutes of live footage and interview.
So, maybe you're like us, we get curious when we learn about a reissue of some obscure metal band we'd never heard of before, especially if they're from, say, Eastern Europe, and have a cool album cover/motto like this one does ("Dragon music of Prague / Mystic metal" it says on the cover, below a painting of a bug-eyed Oriental dragon). But, even then, we don't expect it to be anything THAT great, just, well, a curiosity. But, turns out that late '80s/early '90s Czechoslovakian band Drakar are more than a mere Iron Curtain metal novelty, they're actually pretty good, this is a legit contender, on par with much better-known Western metal classics, seriously. Ask anyone (who has heard it). And yeah it's a bit weird, too!
This release is a reissue of their debut album from 1990, two versions of it actually (hence the two discs), one in Czech, the other an English-language version. Despite the year, this isn't generic thrash or speed metal, though it is often speedy - and it's certainly not death metal or black metal, either, though fans of Root and Master's Hammer might well enjoy it. Drakar have obviously got '80s (and '70s) classic, melodic heavy metal roots, sounding even a bit like Thin Lizzy at times, but also incorporate unexpected usage of sampling; collages of commercial radio broadcasts and snatches of classical music and the like are woven in here and there. Also especially of note are the whining, wailing guitars. The guitar work is awesome, though they don't let the shred get in the way of the songs, it's just one element, likewise with the chunky riffs and gruff, sneering, sometimes soaring, vocals.
Speaking of vocals, the stand out song might be the one where they seem the silliest, on "Crazy Boy", the title/chorus being in English, in both versions. Can't get the way he sings "crazeee boohoy" out of our heads. It's a bit funny, yes, of course we like it 'cause of that, and even the mostly-non-metal-inclined among us here at AQ found this interesting/amusing as well. But that song, and the rest of the record, are also worthy 'cause the melodies are strong, and the harmonies are plentiful and lovely.
Ok, probably that's enough, we've made it clear this is quite recommended, and also it's limited to 500 copies, and our suppliers are all out already... when we contacted the label in Sweden to get some to list, they were down to their last 25! We got a bunch of those from them, but this handful will be gone soon, and then it doesn't look like we'll be able to get any more, so be warned.
Lovingly packaged by I Hate Records, the thick cd booklet including lyrics, liner notes about the band, and old photos. Also the cd contains a video clip for one of the songs, that you can watch on your komputoor.
The first proper full length from Drcarlsonalbion, the alter-ego of Dylan Carlson, he of twang flecked dronelords Earth, who along with Earth drummer Adrienne Davies, has crafted this gorgeous bit of psychedelic drift, a soundtrack to a film called Gold, and really, fans of recent Earth records might think they've stumbled onto a new Earth record, although the music on Gold is much more spare and minimal, especially considering that mostly it's Carlson on guitar, with just a bit of percussive filigree from Davies. It's a sort of washed out and woozy, sun baked Appalachia, a definite desert blues vibe, most of the tracks here super short, many more like the film cues they are, than proper songs, with Carlson unfurling hazy, bluesy riffs, and letting them ring out, slowly decay, in clouds of reverb and delay, echoey shimmers ringing out like ripples in water, each track here some sort of dark folk ritual, some smoldering and cloaked in shadow, others bathed in sunlight, but most of the tracks here, just Carlson on some back porch, with an old broken bottle for a slide, and playing through a busted old combo, the notes wreathed in soft FX and let loose to drift on the afternoon breeze, or be carried skyward by soft swirls of black smoke, the campfire vibe is huge here too. It's hard to say what the movie Gold is all about, having not seen it, or even read anything about it, but we're imagining some sort of Cormac McCarthy style bleakness, vast expanses of dusty roads, and dilapidated farmhouses, dying crops and slope shouldered workers toiling in the fields. It has that sort of wasted, hopeless feel, endless days, and the brief respite of night. Gorgeous stuff for sure.
Packaged in an oversized heavy weight tip-on style sleeve, includes a download code as well.
Reissue of this obscure doom-death classic, the precursors to Penance. Definitely a hefty footnote in the history of heavy.
Massive slow motion funereal doom metal matchup between two relative unknowns, Drear and Great American Desert. Both traffic in that sort of slow motion doom drenched sludge we can never seem to get enough of. Huge downtuned riffs, simple spaced out drum pound and thick swaths of black fuzz. Doomlords into the usual suspects, Moss, Esoteric, Corrupted, Noothgrush, Catacombs, Eyehategod, Monarch, Stumm, Dot [.], Winter, Disembowelment, Skepticism, Thergothon, will pretty much HAVE to own this.
Drear are up first, and just happen to feature one member from AQ faves Contra Ignem Fatuum (aka Circumscriber), their brand of UK black doom definitely falls somewhere right between Esoteric and Moss, three massive lengthy epics, dense and fuzzed out, but sort of dreamy and melancholic at the same time. The vocals are harsh and hellish, but they are draped over fuzzy soft focus buzzscapes, dreary, dreamlike and shimmery, the whole thing anchored by a simple Godflesh at 16rpm drum machine plod.
Drear are teamed up with Oklahoma based Great American Desert, who have a whole different take on funeral doom. The sound is less massive and more minimal. Distorted guitars spin a murky muddy web in the background, the drums a simple spare framework, but the vocals, holy shit the vocals, some sort of super processed, demonic alien mechanical growl, metallic and distorted, like dragging huge pieces of metal across sharp rocks, recording them onto a metal cylinder and playing them back through a wall of tweeters run through a pitchshifter and a battery of distortion pedals. Occasionally the background is a weird lo-fi clean guitar tangled up with some low end rumble for some minimal doom metal Low action. But always with those vocals!
Both bands are amazing and fucked in their own unique way, so needless to say this is some essential low end for the doom obsessed among you...
Earlier this past year we reviewed (and Record Of The Week'd) a crushing slab of druggy psychedelic space doom sludge called Ghost In The Fire, from a band with the VERY unlikely moniker Drug Honkey. Initially we sorta assumed they must be a joke band, but there was nothing funny about the head spinning din these guys whipped up on that record. And as much as we loved Ghost In The Fire, for us it all started with this disc, Death Dub, which we had hoped would be some sort of impossible dub / death metal hybrid, and while it wasn't quite that, it was still seriously warped and fucked up, like a sludgier more metallic Butthole Surfers, sort of. Dirgey, and noisy, and crusty, sludgey and actually in fact, kinda dubbed out. We managed to get a handful of these finally (as well as DH's Hail Satan cd-r, if you want one of those too, just ask!), and now everyone can revel in Drug Honkey's glorious sonic filth, a constantly shifting metallic sound world, that's all churning riffage one second ("The Devil Lasts Forever"), tripped out dubby doom the next ("Death Threats"). The Butthole Surfers comparison is pretty apt, these guys just unfurl these sprawling epics, low slung bass throb, tribal caveman drumming, weird FX heavy vox, bellowed demonic howls that can easily transform into hysterical shrieks, everything wrapped in sheets of crumbling distortion, clouds of swirling effects, total tripped out heaviness, that as the title promises does get dubby, check out the vox on "Death Threats", throat shredding vokills disappear in a field of echo and delay, and go spinning into the blackness, while underneath the band continue to pound out a spacey psychedelic dirge. Or there's "Communion", the vocals sick and hellish, but seemingly being real time processed, so each bellow, launches little flurries of sped up shrieks or garbled grunts, all tether to the bands lumbering, monstrous, downtuned crush.
The sound constantly gets super psychedelic, and sort of krautrocky and motorik, spacey and heavily tripped out, like some weird mutated hybrid of the Psychic Paramount, Terminal Cheesecake and Painkiller, some tracks almost sound like hip hop, albeit some sick, distortion drenched industrial strain (Techno Animal, Ice, God, etc.). In fact the Pathological Records vibe looms large over pretty much all of Death Dub, the whole record an electronic flecked, FX heavy, metallic mindfuck of the highest order. Which obviously means ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL!!!
We first discovered the awesomely named Drug Honkey a few years back, via their 2008 record Death Dub. And at the time, before having actually heard it, or then, we figured it was probably too much to hope for, that a band called Drug Honkey would actually be good, and not some dumb bad band inside joke, and that a record by said band, called Death Dub, would and/or could actually deliver on the promise of a title like that. Dubbed out death metal? Metallic dub? Some sort of blackened dubbed out weirdness? Well, happy to say we needn't have doubted, these Chicago experimental drug doom space psych heavies did not disappoint, that record a churning morass of noise drenched, dubbed out blackened heaviness, equal parts droned out, pounding almost-industrial crush, woozy, sludge-y slo-mo creep, and crumbling distorto-dub noise rock weirdness. Imagine the Butthole Surfers via Godflesh via the Scientist via Eyehategod. Noisy, druggy, damaged, super intense, and blown out, and heavily psychedelic, the vocals only adding to the WTF level, a super harsh demonic bellow one second, a weird high pitched yelp the next, the vocals bleeding into the sounds around them, and all of those sounds then doused in FX and super processed, into some seriously heady heaviness.
We were never able to get enough copies to review/list, so when we discovered there was a new Drug Honkey,
full length number four if you're keeping track, we knew we had to get copies, and had a feeling it was probably gonna have to be Record Of The Week. And once again, Drug Honkey do not disappoint, if anything, Ghost In The Fire is like Death Dub part two, but if anything, everything we loved about Death Dub has been cranked up even more this time around, it's heavier, slower, dubbier, more tripped out, the production is MASSIVE, the sound filthy and crumbling and blown out, the band unfurling a loping, lumbering super psychedelic sludge-dub that once again sounds a bit like the Buttholes jamming with Godflesh, which is in fact a very very good thing.
Opening with a blast of detuned guitar churn, a pounding motorik rhythm, chiming distorted guitar melodies, looped and lurching, super tranced out and hypnotic, the vocals a bellowy demonic belch, that gets doused in FX and like much of the surrounding sounds, sometimes slows down to a grunting gurgle, other times splinters into weird swirling shards of sound, the music too, subtly dubbed out, but for the most part, roiling and churning relentlessly, the sort of super heavy psych-sludge trance-out, that could easily have stretched out for another 45 minutes and made for a super sweet single track drone-sludge epic.
But these guys have more sonic filth up their sleeves. The title track even slower, and dubbier, the guitars tarpit thick, the riffing spread out over a plodding death march rhythm, the vocals a throat shredding howl, and again, accompanied by various other processed voices, slowed down, sped up, doused in distortion, pitch shifted, like some sort of drugged out demonic choir, all over swirls of gristly effects, and crumbling distorted effects, and all driven by the group's impossibly dense chugging doom-sludge dirge, slipping from driving almost headbangable 16rpm demonic deathdub groove, to fractured, fucked up, psychedelic black-noise drift, but more often than not fusing the two into some seriously unholy union.
Some tracks are way more 'dubby' than others, like "Weight Of The World" which creeps and slithers, the guitars pushed into the background, laying down a softly undulating backdrop of droning rumble, over which a monstrous rhythm, pounds away in slow motion, beneath streaks of soaring fragmented high end melody, and some seriously fucked up and freaky vocals, lots of space and drift, swooping backwards effects, super psychedelic, totally hypnotic and tranced out, about as dubby as these guys get, but then there's tracks like "Dead Days ("Heroin III"), where the core sound is a super downtuned ultradoom sludge, the dubbiness seeping through in the form of the Gibby Haynes like vocals, and the atmospheric swirls, at one point slowing down to a near static drift, the only thing keeping it heavy, a super blown out distorted bass riff, over which all this other tripped out shit swirls and shimmers, and when the weird guitar that sounds like a proggy synth (or maybe a sitar?) pops up, total genius WTF trip out, the song drifting even further into tripped out zoner-psych territory. They even do a Scorn cover, which makes sonic sense for sure, Drug Honkey transforming the dark electronic skitter of the original into what sounds like a spaced out psychedelic sludge metal Necks, super drone out and loop-y, a little bit jazzy, but still heavy as fuck, before finishing off with a final fierce blast of dubbed out, super aggro, speaker shredding, doom-dub psych-sludge dirgery that KILLS. Holy shit. Imagine UK psych-drone space drifters Bong jamming with Godflesh, a dizzying concoction of super tripped out heaviness, ultra abstract sludge and blackened psychedelic dub that anyone into weird heaviness / heavy weirdness will lose their shit over! WAY WAY WAY recommended!
Oakland's ironic cock rock masters bounce back from the demise of their former label Man's Ruin with this new album for Tee Pee. Ironic? Yep, that's the one problem we might have with these boys. Otherwise, they rock hard, crankin' out good party tunes like something from your older stoner bro's record collection circa 1973-1980. They fit right in with other modern bands doing that retro rock thing, like Cherry Valence, All Night, Boulder, and even Drunk Horse pals The Fucking Champs in their more Thin Lizzyish moments. Drunk Horse are great players, indulging in total '70s worship...but I can't help thinking that they learned their riffing from Cheech & Chong's "Earache My Eye" rather than from the real, non-goof rock bands of the era. Maybe that's not fair, but I can't help but imagine how good these guys would be if there wasn't the joke element going on. Sure, these are smart guys playing dumb rock...but can't you be genuine about it though? Maybe it wouldn't have to be so dumb if they didn't make it intentionally so, with songs about Lube Jobs and so forth. That said, this is pretty darn good AND kinda funny too so maybe I should just enjoy the witty lyrics, kick-ass guitars, and sweaty songwriting regardless. Plus when they go off instrumentally you know they are -- or could be -- more than just a campy pastiche of '70s rock cliches. There's hints of jazz fusion, genuine pop smarts, and mucho guitar intelligence, so someday I want to hear the Advanced Drunk Horse record. Whatever, whoop it up!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
With "Dirty Mind" on the flip -- yep, both are Prince covers, done up all rock n' roll by SF's smartest '70s style rockers.
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Pretty damn good sophomore effort from San Francisco rockers Drunkhorse. Basically, these guys play a heavy, '70s inspired style of honkin' hard rawk, a la Fu Manchu and other "stoner" outfits also found on the Man's Ruin roster. But, unlike a lot of those bands, the Drunkhorse musical and lyrical IQ isn't really down in the double digits. Like current tourmates The (Fucking) Champs, Drunkhorse work on several levels at once. It's definitely music to party to, but not if you can't deal with the occasional sideways lurch into jazz fusion or musique concrete. No, don't worry, that sort of eclecticism is carefully employed, so there's always a heavy groove or boogie woogie piano break or something to balance any overt weirdness. And the singer's rock drawl conceals a great sense of hipster wit. It's hard to decide if Drunkhorse are at heart overachieving stoner rockers or dumbed down art rockers, and it doesn't matter. Get drunk, play this loud, and simultaneously exercise and destroy brain cells. If you're wondering about the title, by the way, we're told this is two miniature concept albums in one...for more info, buy it!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Here's an interesting new single from Drunkhorse, that SF/Oakland crew of '70s lovin', hard rockin' stoner dudes who are smarter than you think they are. As the purported volume two in a series of "Unearthed Gems" releases, it features Drunkhorse covering two way rare, obscure tunes by their rock n' roll forebears: "The Weed Elf" by Sri Lankan '80s metallers Zilla, and "Pismo", by late '70s Cali bar-rockers Andy Sherman And The Sherms. Yes, we said obscure...maybe suspiciously so... Liner notes by Dr. Armando "Mondo" Johnson of Great Crates! Magazine (which, we must confess, we've never heard of either...) provide more info, in copious detail (Zilla's lone album was called "Heavy Yeti"...believe it, or not).
The Zilla tune, which in the hands of Drunkhorse comes across like a cover of something by Slough Feg, is a NWOBHM styled romp with jaunty, folky Thin Lizzyish guitars and Dio-esque lyrics. It's like Drunkhorse crossed with their pals the Fucking Champs. On the flip, the Andy Sherman and the Sherms composition is revealed to be a good-times, summer-time, all-the-time rocker, an ode to Pismo Beach were one can "relax and play hackysack".
Here's to Drunkhorse for digging up these "gems" and giving them such loving treatment -- hopefully we'll see these influences shine through on their next album of originals.
And as promised last list, when we made the reissue of seventies Mexican psych legends Los Dug Dug's 1971 self-titled debut a Record Of The Week, here's their equally Record Of The Week worthy second album, 1972's Smog, now also reissued on both cd and, for the first time, vinyl! And as we said then, we love this band! Why? 'Cause Los Dug Dug's kick out jams that are part garage rock grooviness, part Beatlesy bliss, part power pop, part proto-metal, and part prog (with flute!!). What's not to love? And we haven't even mentioned the heavy dosage of FUZZ they supply, either!
Unlike the debut, which was Mexico's first rock record sung all in English, Smog is sung in Spanish, and sees Los Dug Dug's stripped down to an amped up power trio format, led as always by guitarist/vocalist Armando Nava (he's on the right in the cover picture, with the dyed grey long hair and beard, looking like some pensive psychedelic wise man or wizard). Pretty sure he's also the one playing the flute here, pumping up the progginess in a hard rock context that could kinda be likened to Jethro Tull meets the MC5, yeah, and reminds us of Italian prog faves Osanna, too.
Smog is one smokin' album, it's hard to pick favorite tracks, as they're all so good, but we'd have to mention both the lovely ballad "Voy Hacia El Cielo (Voy Hacia El Sol)" and the motorcycle revving, ecological protest rocker "Smog". Yep, just like their self-titled debut, this one's got plenty of both the heavy rockers and the gentler, poppier stuff, but leans towards the former, and seems more '70s than their first album, which had more of a '60s feel to it.
Air pollution is certainly a '70s theme, also something that any band based in Mexico City would be concerned about, and the title Smog gives this a heavier vibe than if they'd called it something like Flowers & Incense, eh? In keeping with their new style and attitude, they do a Spanish-language remake / update of the debut's frantic garage beat number "Let's Make It Now", stretching it to almost 12 minutes, as a totally progged out, flute-fortified five part suite, now titled "Hagamasolo Ahora (2a. Parte)", while retaining all the energetic excitement of the original. The energy level of this entire album is exhilarating, there's a couple pleasant acoustic numbers but otherwise it's quite rough, rhythmic, and riffy.
As we said when we reviewed the reissue of the debut, we've listed this album (and several others by the band) before, but it was always tough to keep enough of 'em in stock, they were Mexican imports and never reliably available, seemingly going in and out of print in quite random fashion. Hopefully these new editions will be around longer, and remain easy to stock. Also, these reissues are the very first time we've seen any Dug Dug's reissued on VINYL, yay!!!
As with the self-titled debut, the new cd version of this comes packaged in a handsome plastic-protected miniature lp style sleeve, complete with obi strip. Other than the text on the obi, there's no liner notes for this reissue, which we're told is a result of the difficulties inherent in licensing a release like this from a major label (it's owned by Sony BMG). In any case, we're glad it got reissued again, at all, and it's nice enough! Sooo recommended, equally up there with the debut, maybe even better, especially for folks who dig the cowbell-knockin', fuzz rockin' action.
Rather surprisingly, vinyl of this was one of this year's Record Store Day releases. Wish we still had 'em but we sold all the copies we could get already. However, they also reissued it, as a two-for-one disc, on cd, and not being a RSD release we were able to get some of those to list. We've had reissues of both Dust albums before, most recently as rather expensive Repertoire imports, so here's the reviews of both of these proto-metal essentials.
For those who need to know: the American hard rock trio known as Dust are another of those legendary early '70s bands that get mentioned in the same breath with heavies like Captain Beyond, Sir Lord Baltimore, The James Gang, Bang, Stray, Leafhound, Highway Robbery, and the like. They cut two excellent lps of late-psychedelic-era proto-metal back in '71 and '72. Of their two albums, the first, self-titled one is swampier, with a lot of slide and country/southern rock moves on tracks like "Stone Woman" and "Chasin' Ladies". But then there's the lugubrious and weighty 10-minute epic "From A Dry Camel", and conversely, the gentle acoustic dreaminess of "Often Shadows Felt". Mostly, though, the album kicks ass with uptempo hard rockers, including the ripping, rollicking instrumental "Loose Goose" that closes the album quite frenetically.
Following that is 1972's Hard Attack, generally considered the harder of Dust's two albums, the more metal. Though that may be in part 'cause of the awesome Frank Frazetta cover painting, and album title! But perhaps it is somewhat more Sabbathian. "Downer rock" they called it back then (we're told). Their song "Suicide" (the penultimate track on side 2 of the original vinyl) - whooah, that could be Pentagram! That song alone makes this an essential purchase for any true doom/psych fan. It's an all time classic.
But it's not all doom n' gloom n' barbarians - Hard Attack has its lighter side, but unlike a lot of their peers, the poppier and/or less rockin' stuff Dust do here is actually really great. Sure, a song like "Thusly Spoken" features strings and a Beatlesy melody, but the lyrics still name-check Satan and speak of dancing demons. Lush, gorgeous downer-pop that sets you up to be crushed by the following, urgently hard-rockin' track "Learning To Die". They do that throughout the album, alternating gentle - even acoustic - numbers with the proggy proto-metal workouts that the headbangers of 1972 must have loved.
It's hard to understand why Dust didn't "make" it, as this stuff is certainly the equal of big sellers from their era by Deep Purple or Uriah Heep. Great singing, riffs, melodies, and that "feel" - it's all here.
We mentioned Pentagram above - if you've got that Relapse anthology of Pentagram's original seventies recordings, First Daze Here, you should definitely check out the work of Dust, who were both contemporaries of, and an influence on, the Ram's Head boys. Yes, Dust are an important name on the list of forgotten but godlike '70s hard rock bands that make today's so-called stoner rockers sound like punk/grunge wanna-bes. In a word (again): classic. Too bad you'll never hear 'em on your local "classic rock" radio station...
Oh, and Dust featured the future Marky Ramone on drums, by the way, before he decided punk was the way to go (or even had that option).
This remastered reissue sports its own new cover design, but inside the thick cd booklet there's smaller versions of the original album art, plus lots of vintage photos, and plenty of liner notes (including some from Marky), etc.
Of Dust's two albums, this 1972 LP is considered the harder of the two, the more metal, the somewhat more Sabbathian. "Downer rock" they called it back then (we're told). Their song "Suicide" (track 9) -- whooah, that could be Pentagram! This track alone makes this an essential purchase for any true doom/psych fan. It's an all time classic. Between that and the awesome Frank Frazetta cover painting, what more could you want?
But it's not all doom n' gloom n' barbarians -- "Hard Attack" has its lighter side, but unlike a lot of their peers, the poppier and/or less rockin' stuff Dust do is actually really great. Sure, a song like "Thusly Spoken" features strings and a Beatlesy melody, but the lyrics still name-check Satan and speak of dancing demons. Lush, gorgeous downer-pop that sets you up to be crushed by the following, urgently hard-rockin' track "Learning To Die". They do that throughout the album, alternating gentle -- even acoustic -- numbers with the proto-metal workouts that the headbangers of 1972 must have loved.
It's hard to understand why Dust didn't "make" it, as this stuff is certainly the equal of big sellers from their era by Deep Purple or Uriah Heep. Great singing, riffs, melodies, and that "feel" -- it's all here.
We mentioned Pentagram above -- if you bought that awesome Relapse label anthology of Pentagram's original seventies recordings that we recommended a few lists back, you should definitely check out the work of Dust, who were both contemporaries of and an influence on the Ram's Head boys. Dust are an important name on the list of forgotten but godlike '70s hard rock bands that make today's so-called stoner rockers sound like punk wanna-bes (bands like Lucifer's Friend, Highway Robbery, Orang-utan, Toad, Budgie, Sir Lord Baltimore, Captain Beyond, Leafhound, etc.). In a word (again): classic. Too bad you'll never hear 'em on your local "classic rock" radio station...
Not a new release, but listed for the first time 'cause we love it: The American hard rock trio known as Dust are another of those legendary early '70s bands that get mentioned in the same breath with heavies like Captain Beyond, Sir Lord Baltimore, The James Gang, Bang, and the like. They cut two excellent LPs of late-psychedelic-era proto-metal back in '71 and '72. This the first, self-titled one, and of their two albums, this one's swampier, with a lot of slide and country/southern rock moves on tracks like "Stone Woman" and "Chasin' Ladies". But then there's the lugubrious and weighty 10-minute epic "From A Dry Camel" and the gentle acoustic dreaminess of "Often Shadows Felt". Mostly, though, the album kicks ass with uptempo hard rockers. Maybe they could be considered the American version of Nazareth (with vocals somewhat less soaked in whiskey). What we're saying is: pretty great!
Dust features the future Marky Ramone on drums, by the way, before he decided punk was the way to go.
Eccentric outsider doom metal from the '80s, from waaaaaay down underground. Now hold up, if the words "doom" or "metal" make you think, not for me, think again (maybe). This isn't like any metal you've ever heard, really. More like spaced out '60s heavy psychedelic guitar rock (one song's called "Heavy Vibrations", man), overloaded also with shrill synth symphonics and trippy effects... That's where the "outsider" tag comes in, Dwarr being a one-man band, all the work of South Carolina multi-instrumentalist (but especially guitar!) Duane Warr (hence the name Dwarr), whom we get the impression is quite a character. It's so DIY that the cds have his phone number on 'em, in case you want to get in touch. His privately pressed music comes off like a cough-syrup dosed mixture of Black Sabbath and Todd Tamanend Clark (whom you should know from the double cd anthology we raved about a few years ago). Or, The Happy Dragon Band playing Pink Floyd, from beyond the grave. Maybe a lo-fi Captain Beyond, on even more drugs than Captain Beyond were ever on. Or imagine if Bobb Trimble was an '80s metaller, perhaps (and worked out in the gym a lot more?). Sorry to use so many almost equally obscure references, but it's hard to compare this confusional beast to anything else.
Look at that insane cover painting, a surreal post-apocalyptic landscape (that's a malevolent-looking Statue of Liberty sunken in polluted looking water next to a cave populated by long-haired, skull-faced cannibalistic mutants, with an avatar of Dwarr himself, we're guessing, striking a heroic he-man pose in the upper right hand corner). The music itself is as surreal and apocalyptic and ridiculous as that image, matching up to it much more than most other "metal" albums ever match up to their cover art, both in subject matter and, ah, execution.
Just from the cover painting, let alone the music, this Dwarr album is SO perfectly Aquarius, you'd almost think we made it up. But no, Dwarr's for real, something we'd vaguely heard tell of and been curious about for years, and finally went to the trouble of tracking down (not so hard, thanks to the Internet, now that everybody and their grandmother's bands are on MySpace). And lo and behold, it turned out Dwarr had issued ALL four of his albums (two from the '80s, two from the '00s, believe it or not!) on compact disc. So we had to get a bunch of this one, his second, from 1986, probably his best and "heaviest". A Record Of The Week, easy.
There's 13 tracks, each one incredible (or incredibly strange). There's nothing that's NOT freaked out about this. Even the poppiest songs (like the title track "Animals") are full of sluggish grooves, druggy lyrics, buzzing electronics, melodic stoned vocals, acid rock guitar (and acid WTF synth). Elsewhere it gets away from rock/metal song structure entirely, with interludes of eerie atmospherics, spacey soundscapes overlaid with ominous whispered declamations, and weirdass instrumentals, like the squirrelly, proggy bombast of "Chocolate Mescalyne", a track that if you sped it up a lot would almost fit in on a Orthrelm album.
And then there's the DOOM. Oh yeah, while it's not "normal" doom it IS doom. Sludgy, Sabbath-riffed doom indeed, despite the trebly production. "Ghost Lover", for instance, gives us the feel of both the Sabs' "Iron Man" and "Electric Funeral", and Duane's vocals are particularly Ozzy-ish on the uber-heavy "Evil Lures" too... Great stuff if you really really appreciate the stranger, more psychedelic aspects of true doom artistry, the spirit is HERE.
Three cheers for avant garde new wave downer rock hippie heavy metal weirdness! That gives special thanks "to the Columbia High School Band for the use of their percussion instruments". We are so pleased to play a role in sharing this culter than cult classic with you, which by the way comes in fairly no-frills packaging, the cd in a thin cardboard sleeve with full-color album art front and back but no lyrics, liner notes, nothin' like that. It's pretty cheap though. Not that you should need any further incentive to pick this up, after reading our ravings above...
We don't always get everything that stoner rock specialists Small Stone put out, but the stuff that we do, is always really good. Case in point, this new disc from a trio we'd never heard of before, Dwellers. We're guessing there's some sort of Lovecraftian connotation to their name, though the ropy intestines / psychedelic tentacles in the portrait painting of the band on the cover are presumably referencing the album title too, but not in a gross way. Anyway, Dwellers are a heavy duty stoner metal band from Salt Lake City, with some grunge going on, the vocals in particular definitely giving it a bit of that old school Seattle vibe.
Actually, after getting this Dwellers in, and digging it, we realized that while we hadn't known who they were, we HAD reviewed, and really liked, an album by the singer/guitarist's previous band, Iota, also on Small Stone. These lines from our review of Iota's Tales pretty much also apply to Dwellers' debut: "A mixture of trippy Hawkwindiness and more aggressive blues based hard rockin', sorta like (early) Soundgarden or Skin Yard meets the heavier, more spaced out sounds of Sons Of Otis or UFOmammut. One reason we mention Soundgarden and Skin Yard is 'cause of the grungy melodic vocals, which bear a certain resemblance to that of those bands, but otherwise this is HEAVIER and SPACIER than any Seattle grunge for sure."
So, sweet. Dwellers definitely continue to a large degree in that Iota tradition, these six tracks being damn heavy, fuzzed-out, and graced with the gruff, drawling, grunge-worthy vox of Iota's Joey Toscano (the rhythm section here having their own pedigree, being from the band Subrosa). Maybe in comparison to Iota there's something a little bit earthier, and even bluesier, to these jams, which while they can get lengthy (up to ten minutes), don't orbit quite as far out in space as some of Iota's more extended, alien assaults. Instead, there's a greater focus on, say, Southern-fried slide guitar in service of Dwellers' gritty rockin'. There's slowburn builds ("Old Honey") and catchy groovers ("Lightening Ritual"), Good Morning Harakiri sometimes stompin', and sometimes spaced out, with lots of loping riffage and raspy holler. Maybe imagine a much more succinct Earthless, gone grunge? Dead Meadow channelling some Alice In Chains? CoC circa Blind, playing the blues?? Ah, we're not quite getting it right. But anyway, if you're into the stoner rock stuff and want a good dose (of something a bit different, but still familiar), give this a listen! Recommended.
By the way, we like how this album, despite being on cd, is obviously sequenced with a Side One / Side Two concept in mind, the tracklist on the back cover making this obvious with a gap between tracks 3 and 4.
Stellar 2nd album from Salt Lake City psychedelic stoners Dwellers - whom our Andee just got to see play live when they opened for A Minor Forest's tour stop in their town. He says they were GREAT, which we'd have expected since we liked their first album, and this one too. Compared to the debut, this new one seems a bit more mellowed out, at first anyway, but really it runs the gamut, from dusky balladry to heavy jams (often delivering both at the same time), getting especially epic on numbers like "Rare Eagle" and album-closer "Call Of The Hallowed Horn". Loping and bluesy, with a bit of a down home, Southern feel, this pure good heavy, hazy music from a trio that knows what they're doin', employing (besides guitars, bass and drums) such additional instruments as cello, organ, and Rhodes piano, along with "real" singing for sure... previously we'd mentioned how the vocals made us think of some good old Seattle grunge, now that comparison could resolve into a more specific Mark Lanegan reference. Recommended! FYI, vinyl version due in July.
Hey all right!! We hadn't heard much from these local, long haired, lost-in-time rockers for far too long, 'cause their singing drummer moved away for a while, but is back in town, and now they have a new album out, however only released on limited edition vinyl, a European import (which by the way comes with a cd-r burn of the album as well). We just got some of the last few copies there are direct from the band. If we weren't already familiar with 'em, and didn't deal with these guys in person, though, we'd coulda been fooled into thinking it was a reissue of something from the early '70s proto-metal era, or ever earlier, as they so convincingly channel the likes of Sir Lord Baltimore, Blue Cheer, Highway Robbery, Speed Glue & Shinki, James Gang, Dust, and other inspirations of that ilk in their badass heavy psych groove, totally authentic circa 1969-'72 sounding (well, except that we think we hear 'em head 'em make an anachronistic reference to Beyonce in the lyrics to "Nasty Girl"). And amidst the lumbering riff-rock, they also get into what's simply fuzzed-up '60s garage, Nuggets style, so bands like The Seeds are probably big influences too. Plus, most of the lyrics pertain to girl trouble, a traditional, very garagey subject.
So if you're into heavy fuzz rockin', this is quite recommended. Furthermore, we were delighted to discover that side one contains a Rodriguez cover!! They do "Only Good For Conversation", the fuzziest one from the Detroit Dylan's cult classic 1970 debut Cold Fact, a track we described in our review of the Cold Fact reissue as a "stone(d) cold classic when it comes to heavy duty fuzz guitar crunch" so it's a natural for the Dzjenghis Khan boys. Very cool. Also very cool is that side two starts off with a recording of Dzjenghis Khan's best song ever, or at least our favorite, called "God Damn", we remember it from probably the first time we ever saw 'em play, always a show stopper, encapsulating everything rad about this band.
By the way, we still have a couple (literally, two) copies of their self-titled cd debut from a few years back, on the the now defunct Japanese stoner metal label Leaf Hound, otherwise totally out of print.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The European label Who Can You Trust? brings us two new tapes in their series of limited live cassette-only releases by some of our favorite heavy/psych bands, that began with their instantly-out-of-print White Hills live at WFMU tape last year. One from Massachusetts doompunk stuporgroop Witch (featuring J Mascis on drums), and one from SF's own retro-proto-metal power trio Dzjenghis Khan, basically the second coming of Blue Cheer, y'know...
Prehistoric Rock - Live In San Francisco is as advertised. The Dzjenghis Khan boys recorded live at the Elbo Room, a few blocks down Valencia Street from aQ, in 2006. And this is a band that's AWESOME live, it's what they're all about. We know, that's why we had 'em play our 40 anniversary party the year before last. They bring it, and amid the 8 tracks on this tape not only do their signature song "God Damn!" (which gives their singing drummer some) but also a cover of the classic "Green Manalishi" by Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac (a tune that's also been covered by Judas Priest, and the Melvins). Their acid rock here is raw and rollicking, as it should be.
Djenghis Khan are the real deal, they should be huge (and woulda been, say back in '71) but at least a few cool folks know what's what, and we wish they had more stuff we could push on you. But everything they've put out so far has been limited and is out of print. So, while they last, we're glad we have this tape and you will be too if you're quick enough to snag one, assuming you dig long haired, heavy riffing, cowbell knocking, bellbottomed, weed smoking good times.
Orange cassette, super limited (150 copies only!), and we only have a few...
This San Fran retro-rockin' power trio, a deliberate throwback to the proto-metal stylings of the Frisco ballroom daze's bad boys Blue Cheer, at last presents their debut album, a split release from Japanese label Leaf Hound and Dutch label Motorwolf, (both) home to likeminded heavies Orange Sunshine. We've been waiting for an album from this band for a while, having gone to see 'em play every chance we got, going on a few years now. We forget how we first discovered 'em, they were opening for somebody else at a sparsely attended show at the Hemlock, and we were like, Pentagram T-shirt, shaggy hair, vintage gear? Hmm, wonder if these guys will be good... oh yeah!
What other current SF band sounds so Blue Cheer? That'd be Parchman Farm... whose bass player extraordinaire, "Binksebus Eruptum", happens to hold down (and shimmy 'round and 'round) the bottom end in this band too. Live, his showmanship is part of the attraction, but the band's true charisma belongs to singing drummer Tommy Tomson, whose aw shucks, "God Damn", stoner authenticity talks the talk and walks the walk. Just like the rest of the band, who very definitely look the part. None of these kids were probably even born in 1971, but they sure seem like that's when they come from. It's not just Blue Cheer that inspires 'em, they're fully versed in vintage vinyl proto-metal from Highway Robbery to Road, Juan De La Cruz to Toad. Putting all that love of early '70s hard psych into this album, they've come up with a worthy ten tracks of fuzzed-out, blooze-based, badass guitar/bass/drums swagger, with raspy whisky vox, simple bashing beats, wah wah guitar rippage, and bellbottomed bass lines. It's a fairly raw recording, giving it a bit of a punk feel, reflective of their youthful energy and enthusiasm, not unlike seeing 'em live. The rather lo-fi, garagey production also makes it sound extra olden and all, as does the folky acoustic coda "Sister Dorien". Sure, you're not gonna feel like nobody's ever made this sort of music before, in fact the opposite is quite the point, but if you like proto-metal like we (and they) do, you gotta appreciate the purity of this band's approach, their knowing naivety. It's not just pot, these stoners are totally high on the Speed, the Glue, -and- the Shinki! Right on we say.
By the way, they wuz formerly known as Genghis Khan, the "Dzj" now tacked on at the beginning presumably both to try to differentiate 'em from what's probably about 10,000 other bands also named after the Mongol warlord, and also to reflect the lineup changes that have occurred since their inception (the drummer being the sole surviving member from the first time we ever saw 'em, which is fine 'cause he was clearly the star, though their original guitarist was responsible for writing some cool riffs it must be said).
When Andee and Allan were in Austin last spring for SXSW, they stumbled into a record store (the very cool End Of An Ear) only to be unexpectedly pummelled by two scruffy dudes set up in the corner, guitar and drums, kicking up a head splitting ear shredding low end racket, that was so powerful it almost made record shopping impossible, but then who wants to record shop when you can immerse yourself in an avalanche of sound so thick and viscous that it was almost a physical presence in the room? The guy with the axe seemed familiar too, and it wasn't until afterwards that we realized it was Gentry Densley of Iceburn fame, and we had just witnessed a live performance by his new duo project, Eagle Twin!
So, here we have the full length, and it's just as dark, and heavy and sprawling as it was live, not nearly as terrifying or ear drum destroying but records rarely are. What it is, though, is HEAVY AS FUCK, downtuned and massive, if we didn't know Densley was guitar player we would have almost assumed this was another one of those rhythm section only bands (a la Om).
Not sure if we're hearing too much Iceburn in Eagle Twin, it's definitely twisted and proggy, with lurching abstract arrangements, so in that it's similar, but this is more of the new slow n' low school, a la SUNNO))), Earth, Corrupted, Moss, Bunkur, etc.
The album begins by confusing the hell out of you. Opener "In The Beginning Was The Scream" sounds like some strange doom/free jazz hybrid, or maybe like a metal version of the Stooges song "LA Blues". You might notice that the vocals flow with a similar eccentricity to someone like Attila Csihar, but more than likely, you'll be blown away by what you soon realize is Tuvan throat singing and tons of gong-laden percussion. This is some weird and intense stuff for sure, and there is a peculiar aggressiveness to the instrumentation that many doom bands unintentionally eschew by trying to be slower than everyone else. Eagle Twin understand the power of built up tension and negative space, while never neglecting to utilize a heavy groove when necessary. The subsonic distortion and raspy spoken vocals on songs like "Storytelling Of Ravens" stir up plenty of blackened negative vibes for sure, but elsewhere, like on "Crow Hymns", Eagle Twin actually rock out pretty hard with boatloads of fuzzed out harmonic distortion and some awesome tom-heavy drumming. Densley's raspy voice, which at times carries a bit of a country drawl, works perfectly on "Carry On, King Of Carrion", which blends the sounds of both early and modern day Earth with doomed out Southern rock riffage.
The vocals sort of sound like dude in Scissorfight (if anyone gives a shit), or even like Wino, the songs are surprisingly catchy at times, Southern rock sounding even here and there, but then there's also all kinds of weird exotic shit and definitely some themes that show an Eastern influence, and some incredible riffing, as Densley is a fucking shredder, and even in downtuned minimal mode, he SLAYS. This is definitely about the heaviest record you may here all year, and totally puts to shame pretty much every other heavy duo we can think of, except maybe early godheadSilo...
We obviously don't need to say much to convince all the Earth / Sunn 0))) / doom-dirge-drone obsessives out there that this disc is ESSENTIAL. Most of them are willing to shell out $50 or $100 or even more for limited vinyl releases by any band even tangentially related to Sunn 0))) or Earth, anyway. But for those of you who are new to the Earth phenomenon, as long as you already own their ALL TIME CLASSIC album Earth 2, you might also want to check this disc out (and the OTHER, NEW Earth cd reviewed elsewhere on this list!). 070796LIVE collects the WAY out of print, one sided live lp from a few years back, the equally WAY out of print tour only split 12" with KK Null, an unreleased live recording on WNYU, and a remix by James Plotkin (O.L.D. / Khanate / Phantomsmasher, etc.) In terms of eBay value alone this disc is worth at least $100 if not more!!! But so what? More importantly it's another essential slab of crushing, mesmerising, slow motion drone-metal! The first two tracks are "070796" (from the live lp) and the live radio recording "Dissolution III (Oversaturated Intervallic Collisions)". These tracks are classic Earth, stumbling, droning, rambling, and endlessly heavy. The funny thing with Earth though, is sometimes they sound like they must be taking the piss. A couple scraggly haired dudes, wacked out of their minds, tuning and fumbling for twenty minutes, sometimes sitting there in a stupor, letting the feeding-back guitar do all the work, sometimes plucking and scraping and manipulating the sound into rumbling sheets of drone and skree. But sometimes, that fumbling becomes absolutely divine, which is, we suppose, the magic of Earth. The ultimate outsider drone outfit. Who somehow manage, with the same amps and guitars and effects as the rest of us, to simply stumble into dronerock nirvana! The third track, from the KK Null split tour 12", features the current incarnation of Earth with Adrienne Davies on drums. Bookended by that classic stationary Earth feedback-drone, this track eventually morphs into an actual song, with a fuzzed out, minor key riff, and simple hypnotic drumming, falling sonically somewhere between moody post rock and midtempo Burzumic black metal. Throbbing and loping, and totally mesmerizing. The last track, the Plotkin remix, takes the live track and stretches it into thick ropy drones, with the original track's constituent parts blurred into indistinct smears of fuzz and rumble, a slowly shifting glacial crush, with occasional squalls of buzzy white noise and electronic filligree. Really really nice. And of course as we now know, the rumour we had been hearing, about a BRAND NEW Earth record has proven to be the truth, with the release of Living In The Gleam Of An Unsheathed Sword (read all about it elsewhere on this list), which IS a new record, but features live tracks recorded in 2002. And while one of the tracks here is inexplicably duplicated on the new cd, both discs are well worth the price, with 070796LIVE including three tracks essentially unavailable anywhere else, and Living In The Gleam containing an epic one hour track only available on that cd.
THIS LP IS COMPLETELY OUT OF PRINT AND WE WILL NEVER HAVE IT AGAIN BUT WE THOUGHT WE'D LEAVE IT IN THE CATALOG FOR POSTERITY'S SAKE. PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is the shit. Earth were the masters of the downtuned slow motion dirge, boasting both Joe Preston of the Thrones and Kurt Cobain as one time members. Their second record, 'Earth 2' (which we also carry) is an absolute classic and essential for lovers of doom, metal, sludge, or any sort of heaviness.
This lp collects an alternate version of their first album as well as the two ultra rare '16 rpm' 7"s. It is clear vinyl, housed in a breathtaking hand screened clear sleeve, and limited to 360, of which we only got 20. So don't dawdle or you'll be kicking yourself later.
Crushing and glacial tar pit metal. Like your Melvins records at 6 rpm. Like listening to Black Sabbath on a walkman with dying batteries at the bottom of a swimming pool. Like the last 10 seconds of your life, played out in slow motion, as tons of 'rock' crushes you to death.
You must buy this.
Totally fucking essential if you already like Earth, but definitely for fans of the Melvins, Corrupted, Esoteric, Skepticism and the like.
We made this a Record Of The Week on our special Halloween in-between list last week, here it is again in case you were out trick-or-treating and missed it:
Man, were we ever bummed when Sub Pop told us that Earth's first album (or ep?), their seminal doom-drone debut Extra-Capsular Extraction, had gone out of print (again). WTF? How could that be? That's so wrong. Well, thankfully, it hasn't stayed OOP for long. Southern Lord has just repackaged, remastered, and reissued it, incorporating a whole bunch MORE music recorded at the original Extra-Capsular sessions back in 1990, material that previously appeared only on bootleg 7"s long ago (and/or showed up as bonus tracks on the also-quite-out-of-print Sunn Amps And Smashed Guitars Live disc). So what you get here is the COMPLETE Extra-Capsular album as Earth mainman Dylan Carlson originally intended it. So if you don't have the Sunn Amps disc, this is totally worth getting again even if you already have the Sub Pop version! Plus, the packaging is aces, with gorgeous new art by Simon Fowler, designed by Stephen O'Malley, and there's new 2010 liner notes from Carlson. He talks about how they got signed by Sub Pop after opening for L7 at a show in Seattle, fortuitously 'cause they had been having no luck up 'til then finding a label interested in putting out the record they'd recorded, this one. Apparently it cost just $300 to make at Smegma studios, and the "guest musicians worked for Pabst and Percodan"... Earth back then consisted of Dylan Carlson (guitar/vocals), plus Dave Harwell (bass) and Joe Preston (bass/percussion). Joe of course later went on to fame and fortune in the Melvins, and later, his one man band Thrones (and High On Fire, and Harvey Milk, etc.). Oh, and this is the Earth record that one Kurt Cobain (spelt "Kobain" here), sings on as well, which we know confused and dismayed a lot of frat/jock guys back in the day, who bought this hoping for something that smelled like teen spirit and instead got what turned out to be the inspiration for SUNNO)))!
So, here's what we said about this when we reviewed the prior version, back on list #135 in 2002, when Sub Pop repressed it (at our urging, we like to think):
Kind of a holy grail for those who didn't pick up the long-out-of-print original version of this when it was first released, the 1991 debut cd by the Pacific Northwest's late great drone/doom masters Earth. Originals sell for big $$$ on eBay. And those who DO have one consider it an old friend. Now Sub Pop has finally got their act together (prodded by the pleas of many an Earth fan, including Allan here at AQ, who takes full credit, so you can thank him) and have reissued it at last - this time in a jewel case instead of the mere cardboard sleeve of the original version (another triumph for Allan). The artwork is the same, though: the medical-text inspired 'Postgraduate Seminars: Eye Surgery - Concepts and Problems' graphics. There's no extra tracks or anything, but the original three tracks ("A Bureaucratic Desire For Revenge Parts 1 & 2", "Ouroboros Is Broken") are more than enough: 32 minutes of downtuned dirge, metallic slow-motion sludge riffery that goes to extremes of low, slow heaviness that even the mighty Melvins never achieved. The lengthier, airier follow-up "Earth 2" might be Earth's masterpiece, but "Extra-Capsular" was their devastating opening act, sounding like the grand, ominous martial music meant to accompany an invasion by malevolent Underearth Dwellers. We remember when I first got this, most of our friends thought it was the most retarded record ever. Now they know better. Well, actually, they probably don't, but WE know. So recommended. Also "Geometry Of Murder" seems to sneak in a Saint Vitus riff!
So NOW thanks to Southern Lord, this album by the still great (and no longer late!) Earth is back in print, as God and/or Satan intended, in its complete version for the first time, extended to seven tracks over 55 minutes. The extra stuff fits right in, more-Melvinsy-than-thou slow-mo sludge riffery that outshines almost anything that came after.
An obvious Record Of The Week, and perfect for our special Halloween list, as it's super heavy and menacing, as well as such a long-time fave - and also the eye-surgery theme of the cover art always gave us the chills.
And FYI, Southern Lord will also being doing this on double vinyl, due out November the 22nd!
The further Earth evolves, the harder it is to believe they were once THEE progenitors of the doomdronedirgesludge sound that's so prevalent these days. They began life as a sludgey, druggy, slo-mo avant riff behemoth, no one could have imagined they would have turned into this, a dusty, twangy, deserty, moody minimal slowcore combo, with a sound that has essentially evolved into a score to some stark, spare, imaginary black and white independent film, more soundtrack, imagined or not, than proper rock band, let alone, METAL band, which is how they have been traditionally categorized. But Angels Of Darkness, like the last few Earth records before it, is most definitely not metal, not even heavy really, at least in the traditional sense, this one even in the NON traditional senses, instead, it's again dark and brooding, evocative and emotional, cinematic and soundtracky, the core sound has again been expanded to include strings, which only adds to the whole moody minimal soundtrack vibe. But hell, it still suits them, we now have enough other bands doing the whole slow and low dirge and drone thing, and if anything, Angels Of Darkness might be Earth's most full realized stab and capturing their 'new' sound. No pretenses, no strings attaching them to the old Earth, very few allusions, sonic or otherwise, to the ghost of doom past, they're even more secure on the new path they set out on years ago, and it shows, each of the long tracks here unwinds gradually, a slow, swirling smoldering bit of twang flecked slowcore, a little bit droney, the guitars spidery and crystalline, the bass and drums super minimal, the cello doing much of the heavy lifting this time around, its deep throaty buzz, the perfect compliment to the band's sun baked shimmer, and bleak drowsy moodiness. Not a huge shift in sound, but then nobody wanted that, we just wanted more, more slithery, sun dappled darkness, more summery shadowy twang, and that's what Angels Of Darkness is, more just a honing and perfecting of a sound that's already pretty perfect, and exactly what you'd want to be playing in the background as you wandered down the dusty street of some old ghost town, and a perfect fit alongside the rest of your 'Ghost Town' mix alongside Scenic, Tulsa Drone, Barn Owl, Calexico, Sixteen Horsepower, and the rest.
It's remarkable when a band is so influential, they essentially create a new genre, and in the process, inspire a legion of sound alikes and wanna-be's, but for a band to do that TWICE in their career, and each time with a distinctly and dramatically different sound, that's practically unheard of. But that's exactly what happened with slow Seattle heavies Earth, who these days are more slow than heavy, but back in the day, they pretty much invented the slo-mo tarpit sludge that so many bands continue to ape to this day, probably most notably, SUNNO))), who even began life as an Earth tribute band. But as has been well documented here, after Earth disappeared for a while, they suddenly resurfaced with a whole new sound, a sort of dusky twang, a deserty slowcore, that seems to have once again created its own cult of sonic supplicants. Few of which can hold a candle to the originals.
This is essentially, as the title would suggest, the second part of the band's Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light duology, so really most of what we wrote about the first part applies here too, and needless to say, if you got the first one, you're gonna want this one too, and it does take up right where the first one left off, after a brief bit of abstract strum and drift, the sound really takes shape on "His Teeth Did Brightly Shine", a lazy, drawled bit of Southern slowcore dirgery, all interwoven guitars, and sun dappled shimmer, no drums to speak of yet, just clouds of cymbal sizzle and the occasional minimal percussion, otherwise, it's a super hypnotic sprawl of looped desertdrone mesmer. It's not til track three "A Multiplicity Of Doors", that the sound becomes rhythmic, with super minimal drumming, over moaning cellos and Morricone-esque twang, there is a bit of slow build, but not to an explosive crescendo, it's more like the sound intensifies and grows more lush and full bodied, propulsive, but only just, laid back, dreamy and druggy, the sound of a warm summery afternoon, or the soundtrack to a wander though rolling windswept desert hills, which is pretty much how the rest of the record plays out, only closer "The Rakehell" cranks up the momentum, but again, just a little, with the guitars more buzzy, and the sound a bit more darkly intense, but still ultimately just meandering through Earth's dusty sonic wasteland, with no particular place to go, and in no particular hurry to get there. Lovely as always.
Kind of a holy grail for those who didn't pick up the long-out-of-print original version of this when it was first released, the 1991 debut cd by the Pacific Northwest's late great drone/doom masters Earth. Originals sell for big $$$ on eBay. And those who DO
Earth on this disc consisted of mastermind Dylan Carlson (guitar/vocals) plus Dave Harwell (bass) and Joe Preston (bass/percussion). Joe of course later went on to fame and fortune in the Melvins, and later, his one man band Thrones.
Oh, and this is the Earth record that one Kurt Cobain plays on as well, which I know confused and dismayed a lot of frat/jock guys back in the day!
