Record number two from the strangely named Human Quena Orchestra, whose first record, Means Without Ends, was one of the most devastating slabs of blackened post industrial ultra doom ever, an abject crawl through layer upon layer of impossibly thick downtuned buzz, massive walls of crumbling distortion, pounding percussion, we mentioned groups like Godflesh and Pitchshifter and Swans, as well as Moss and Bunkur, but even on that record, HQO were going somewhere darker, and deeper, heavier and way more extreme. Take those same bands and mix in some Whitehouse, some Khanate, diSEMBOWELMENT, Thergothon, Lustmord, HQO is the soundtrack to a descent into hell, or at least sounds exactly how we imagine that must sound. Pants shittingly terrifying.
For the follow up, HQO mainman (and only man) Ryan Unks, was joined by his former Creation Is Crucifixion bandmate Nathan Berlinguette, and the two spent months and months meticulously crafting this slab of bleak aural terror. Sampling drums, recording guitars and basses, creating loops and samples, layering and assembling and arranging, recording and rerecording and mixing and remixing, two sonic alchemists poised above their slumbering golem, waiting for the perfect moment to bring it to life.
The Politics Of The Irredeemable is absolutely epic, monstrous, stunning in its scope, if the first record was the soundtrack to an earth stripped bare, of death and destruction and pestilence, then this record is the sound of the end of all life in the universe, of planets hurtling into suns, of stars collapsing into black holes, but the thing is, the music here is much more personal and emotional, it carries the weight of a universal apocalypse, but is more the sound of sadness, personal hell, not a literal trip down the rabbit hole, gnashing teeth and eternal hellfire, this is much more tactile and REAL, it's easy to describe music like this abstractly, but this is some seriously intense and brutal, and stunningly introspective heaviness.
Unlike most of the sludge and doom, where the bands play as low as they can, tune down until the stings are hanging loose on the fretboard, playing as loud as they possibly can, and as slow and they are able, the elements that make up Human Quena Orchestra's sound world are deliberate, are crafted to evoke specific emotions, to conjure up images, to help your mind relate to the message within the music. Four long long tracks, two split into distinct parts, the opener "Progress" plays out like most bands' entire records. A heaving crush of downtuned crunch, the vocals wild and hysterical, wrapped in reverb and often left to wail in the wide open, only occasionally joined by the pound of a drum, or the slow motion avalanche of the next chord. All the while the sky is streaked with feedback and long buzzing tones, all woven into undulating smears, lit from below by buried melodies and a patina of cymbal sizzle. For 13 minutes, the darkness becomes sound, and that sound swallows the listener whole, preparing him for the harrowing musical journey to come.
The rest of the record is split pretty evenly between sprawling expanses of windswept ambience, distant moaning whir and barely audible subterranean drones, deep bell like tones drifting along slow swirls of muted melodies, and lurching crushing slow motion sludge, but sludge seems too dismissive in the case of HQO, this is not filthy or crusty or lo-fi, it's definitely dark and harsh, but hauntingly beautiful, the crush and crunch are strangely lush and rich, layered and textured, the sound becoming almost orchestral at points, often receding into the background, an ominous backdrop to the slow slither of sounds up front, at its harshest, the sounds gather up into a squall of white noise, but even then the edges are dull and rounded, the noise is muted so instead of being brutal or painful, it manages to throb and pulse like the beating of a dying heart, that beating echoed by the reverbed crash of a lone drum, pounding out a simple rhythm, nearly obfuscated by the haze of rumble and buzz, the record finally coalescing into something resembling hopefulness, the last minute or so, a warm glowing ember of drone, drifting, drifting and then slowly fading out. It seems impossible that something this heavy and harsh and brutal and blackened could be so beautiful...
If Argentina's awesome Los Natas was once considered a Kyuss clone (a band that had many clones) what does that make fellow Argentines Humo del Cairo? 'Cause it'd be easy to tag 'em as *Los Natas* clones, indeed at first we thought they were a Los Natas side project, maybe 'cause Meteorcity put this out and they also recently did the Ararat album too, which was indeed Los Natas related. But, while the Los Natas comparisons are unavoidable (long haired psychedelic stoner rock from Argentina!), and of course Kyuss comparisons are too, this trio is quite worthy of attention on their own, for sure.
'70s sounding heavy rock here, of course, with fat riffs, wild wah-wah solos, Spanish-language vocals, lots of skilled percussive coloration, and pot-headed mystic desert atmospheres. The Egyptian pyramid painting on the cover sets the vibe, an otherworldly ancient scene at dreamy dawn or dusk... No big surprises for those familiar with Los Natas, for sure, but the jams HdC are kicking out are being kicked out quite well, mighty and melodic and very jammy indeed. And, as we listen to this, we realize, wow, this band has really got a knack for suddenly putting things into a sort of psychedelic energetic overdrive about partway through several of songs on here, there's often a moment where they hit on a repetitive hypnotic part a la Pharaoh Overlord or something, but also crank it up a notch, and you really understand why they call it stoner ROCK. Can't really explain it, but you'll know it when you hear it. Say opening track, "A Tiempo", at about 6:25 (it's an 11 minute long song), or in "Fuego De San Antonio" at just past the 3 minute mark. Those amphetamine moments are balanced by the other sort of trance-inducing stoner rock, when they bring it down, slow it up, just lumber along, reveling in the riff, like the nod-scene that is "Nimbo", a track which also blasts into a full-blown wailing by the end. Yeah, within their chosen style, Humo Del Cairo mix it up nicely, rockin' out garage-like at times, or just drifting peacefully along, some parts drenched in heavy FX, others stripped down to acoustic bones ("Errantes" being their most backporch number, complete with bluesy harmonica blowin').
We'd recommend this for fans of Los Natas, naturally, also Tia Carrera, Sons Of Otis, Colour Haze, Monster Magnet, La Ira De Dios, '70s Argentine heavies Pappo's Blues, and we're even thinking Jimi Hendrix, who gets hinted at at times. ANOTHER winner from Meteorcity, who have been on a massive roll lately!
Dark, droney, dirgey metal...our favorite! Yep, this new band called Hyattari is an immediate AQ sludge/art metal fave, from West Virgina but sounding like they hail from the deeps of space, giving your ears a cold void embrace in the style of such bands as Skullflower, Halo, and Earth. Hyattari's music consists of uber-heavy sheets of low-end echoing riff-drone on bass and guitar that sound SO GOOD, joined (not even right away, but a little while into the record) by plodding, rigid, militaristic programmed percussion. It's sorta like Growing meets Godflesh! The seven tracks here (with doomy titles like "14,000,000,000 Years Ago", "Collapse", and "Harvesting Sod") pretty much slowly flow unbroken from one to the next, although within a few of the songs you'll find some sudden, short interludes of gentle melody. Haunting and lonely lulls in the sheer HEAVINESS that fills so much of this disc like glacial ice advancing over the globe during the last Ice Age. And it's mostly instrumental, with a small smattering of Neurosisy shouted/screamed vocals, augmented by sampled voices, buried in the massive mix like lost shortwave transmissions or ghostly EVP intercepts.
Besides the abovementioned, a few other artists that this reminds us of include: SUNNO))), Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Isis, Pelican, Cult Of Luna -- and the natural VLF radio recordings of Stephen P. McGreevy, 'cause this disc ends (though it doesn't seem like it ever should end, instead continuing on eternal and infinite like space itself) with a lengthy, mysterious field recording (maybe?) that might just be sferics or other electro-magnetic phenomena from the Earth's atmosphere. Very nice.
Originally self-released, and now wisely picked up by Earache's new avant/extreme Codebreaker imprint (run by the guy who used to do the now defunct Rage of Achilles label), The Light Carriers gets a big AQ recommendation to anyone into this sort of slow n' low majesty.
Bombastic '70s progressive rock proto-metal from Italy! I Teoremi were a quartet who really kicked out the jams hard, specializing in muscular, complex stuff that, amazingly enough, at its most extreme reminds us of the prog-punk of much more recent bands like Stinking Lizaveta, Breadwinner, and Ruins! Seriously. For 1971 (when this, their only album, was released), they're one of the heaviest and most spazz-tastic we've heard. Sure, you have to enjoy some grandiose vocals in the typical dramatic Italian prog style, but mostly this is about their instrumental ass-kicking. With its herky-jerky riffing and spiralling guitar patterns, "Il Dialogo d'un Pazzo" could be a song off of one of the first two albums by Greg Ginn's Gone for gosh shakes! Now, we should mention that there's actually a somewhat more recent reissue of this on Arkarma, in one of their mini-lp style digipaks, that's got a bonus track...but we won't be getting any of those 'til we get rid of the two copies of this older jewel case version we happen to have. So we're selling 'em cheap, come n' get 'em! Everyone (well, two people) into early '70s hard prog and metal need to hear this.
Gruesome/frosty looking logo, very metal-sounding name, morbid b&w cover art. looks like proto-metal... maybe even proto-BLACK-metal?! Icecross has intrigued us for years. Long ago, we read about 'em in one of those encyclopedic psychedelic record collector reference works (Scented Gardens Of The Mind, most likely) and were struck by the description. An ICELANDIC hard rock band from 1972, comparable to Black Sabbath, supposedly! Man we wanted to hear that. Certainly the scary album cover and song titles ("Jesus Freaks", "Nightmare", "Scared", "The End") suggested they played some sort of heavy, Satanic psych-metal. Of course, the book said the record was super rare and impossible to find. Oh the despair. Then, some years ago, a bootleg cd edition surfaced, and we got to hear it. Was it everything we were hoping for? Yes and no - no, it didn't sound much like Black Sabbath, not nearly as heavy as that, or metallic. But, yes, it was pretty darn cool, and weird. Once past the relatively normal first track "Wandering Around" (a standard bluesy boogie with lyrics about "looking for my baby"), then things get hella freaky. Icecross definitely deliver the dark and twisted psych, with songs full of sharp slashing tangles of dissonant guitar, total primal-prog power trio action, playing hard and fast on cuts like "Scared", with wailing psych leads. The vocals remind us a bit of the drama of Van Der Graaf Generator - or on downer-ballad "A Sad Man's Story", of uber-mopey krautrockers Paternoster. Lyrically, the anti-Christian "Jesus Freaks" stands out, with the line "They believe in Jesus, we believe in ourselves" - though the liner notes to this new, at long last legit cd release, indicate that one of the former members of the band did later become religious. This new edition also states the original lp was released in '73 by the way.
So, while not exactly an early Icelandic example of heavy metal as described in that reference book, these demented Viking hippies maybe do belong somewhere far back in the lineage of Scandinavian blackness, yeah.
Thanks to Vintage/Rockadrome for reissuing this, complete with a booklet full of vintage photos and firsthand accounts of the band's history. And, they're doing a vinyl version too, upcoming in a few months.
We were lucky enough to get a sneak peak at these new Neurot Recordings signees at the Bay Area premiere for the new Blood, Sweat + Vinyl documentary, all about independent record labels, focused on three of our favorites, Neurot, Hyrda Head and Constellation. To commemorate / celebrate, the screening was turned into a show, featuring one band representing each label, Evangelista for Constellation, Oxbow for Hydra Head and this trio Ides Of Gemini for Neurot. Since they didn't have a record out yet, we weren't sure what to expect, other than that metal scribe J Bennett played guitar, and when they took the stage, the shaved headed bushy bearded Bennet sat in a chair, hunched over his guitar, accompanied by two willowy women, both with long dark hair, both wearing what appeared to be white wedding gowns. The effect was striking, even more so when the fog machine came on and wreathed the band in smoke, and the sound was appropriately haunting and witchy, not so much metal as gloomy and ethereal, the drums simple and propulsive, the guitars washed out and warm, and the vocals, lush and layered, hazy and hypnotic, with lush swirling harmonies. The resulting sound reminded us of slowcore indie gloom outfit Warpaint, albeit a bit heavier, the sound being a bit more ritualistic, and the guitar occasionally (and quite suddenly) launching into full on black metal buzz, but instead of the rest of the music following suit, the brief buzzing blast soon dissipated leaving the song to return to its woozy mesmer. This is the kind of dark heaviness (or heavy darkness), that evokes Mazzy Star as much as The Devil's Blood or Blood Ceremony, if not moreso, the tracks here don't blast or pound or thrash, these or haunting funereal ruminations, witchy and otherworldly, hazy fuzz drenched dirges, a gauzy sort of ethereal doom, that is more mesmerizing than it is heavy, a blackened siren song that is utterly hypnotic, especially the last track, the main melody/hook stayed stuck in out head long after that show, and hearing these tracks again, that one especially, has us dying for a proper full length.
The cd is LIMITED TO 333 COPIES, packged in gorgeous metallic blue/silver sleeves, multiple printed panels, super swank, the tape is LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each one hand numbered, the J-cards on the same sort of metallic paper, and includes a sticker!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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We love death metal as much as the next guy (okay, maybe not the NEXT guy, but possibly the next guy after that!), we love all the classics, Incantation, Suffocation, Morbid Angel, but as you might imagine we do lean toward the stranger and more fucked up side of the death metal spectrum. The more twisted and tweaked and off kilter the better, which is probably why we were so into Portal, the Aussie horde whose sound was like a death metal lp left in the back seat of your car all summer, only to be played back on a Fisher Price turntable plugged into a foghorn, everything about that band was so geniusly wrong, the beats were off kilter, the riffs were fractured, the arrangements were dizzyingly chaotic, but totally a case of so wrong it's right, all of those random fucked up elements came together to form what we considered to be one of the coolest and weirdest death metal records ever.
Which brings us to Impetuous Ritual, featuring members of Portal, supposedly channeling the spirit of classic death metal, and were pleased to say, these guys playing classic death metal is still completely and utterly removed from how it actually sounds. Sure compared to Portal, IR is definitely a smidge more traditional, but it's still massively demented and OUT THERE.
The opening track "Elegy" begins the proceedings with an awesome sprawling doomy slow motion chug, that goes on and on and on, like the slow doomy part from a Morbid Angel song, but even filthier and murkier, it's so good, we sort of wished it went on for the whole record, totally mesmerizing and minimal, and thankfully, while that specific part doesn't happen again, much of the record is spent trudging along doomily, a lumbering series of tarpit chugs, and even though the band continually launch into sounds more death metal, the overall sound stays weird and obtuse for the whole record.
Even when the band are blasting full speed ahead, the recording is so murky, and the sound so lo-fi, that the riffs become washed out blurs, sheets of undulating buzz, peppered with bursts of frenzied death metal freakouts, demarcated by stretches of weird blackened drones, and lurching chugging start / stops. The record finishes with the appropriately titled "Dirge", which is more of that lumbering lysergic muddy death metal doom, that sounds like your stereo is melting, or the tape deck is slowly swallowing your tape. So fucking twisted, and so unbelievably awesome. Another metal record of the year contender for sure...
Proto-metal fiends, give praise to the fine folks at Rise Above Relics. They've been doing a great job lately reissuing some crucial obscurities from the early '70s - Necromandus, Steel Mill, that Bang box set - and now here's another one we were excited to get in. The one and only, and quite collectable, album from 1973 by a band of heavy rockers from England who went by the somewhat silly name of Incredible Hog (apparently a porcine variation on the Incredible Hulk??). There's been songs of theirs included on a few comps we've had (A Visit To The Spaceship Factory, The Electric Asylum Vol.4) but this is the first ever proper cd reissue of the full album, authorized and remastered and all.
The first track is called "Lame" but the 'Hog definitely ain't. If you like your psychedelic blues rock big and burly, raucous and rollicking, the 'Hog are the seventies heavies you're looking for. That lead-off cut, "Lame", is an excellent intro to the album in general; a stomping, distorted rocker with loads of swingin' riffage and wailing vox, that sounds a whole lot like Led Zeppelin mixed with a bit of glitter/glam a la Slade (with the hey hey hey's and handclaps). The next track, the dazed 'n' confused dirge "Wreck My Soul" is even more on the Zepped-out blooze rawk tip, with some blues harp blowin' showing up. They venture into folkier territory on the following cut, "Execution", one of a few quite affecting, mellower melodic compositions found on the record. But mostly they're about banging out the heavier stuff, and they're back at it with the next number, "Tadpole", an uptempo stormer laced with sound FX samples (crashing thunder, crying babies, crazy laughter) giving it a bit of a proggier vibe, which is followed by the cowbell-knockin', Eastern-tinged "Another Time"... and so it goes, Incredible Hog kicking ass all up and down this album, one that any fan of the Led Zeppier side to '70s heavy rock oughtta lay their ears upon pronto. So if you dig bands like Leaf Hound, Budgie, Granicus, Lucifer's Friend, Jerusalem, Possessed (UK), Tucky Buzzard, and Stray, then prepare to add Incredible Hog to that list of proto-metal awesomeness. Bands today can't compare (although, Rise Above's Gentlemans Pistols come close, and no doubt are big 'Hog fans).
As always, Rise Above Relics does a bang-up job with the cd packaging, it's ensconced in a slipcover with fat 40 page cd booklet full of detailed notes and vintage pics, all put together with the help of the original band members. They've also managed to dig up four long lost, unreleased bonus trax (hence the "+4" in this reissue's title), recorded back in the day, some of which were meant for a second 'Hog album that never happened. At least one of 'em, a rip snorter called "Burnout", is easily up there with anything on the album itself in terms of sheer proto-metal power, and the others are worthy bonus trackage too.
All hail the 'Hog! Incredible, indeed.
We had never even heard of this long running UK doom/death horde, who have apparently been plugging away for going on 12 years now, even though this is just their second proper full length, but kudos to Profound Lore, who definitely seem like the perfect home for Indesinence's classic British doom, a sound that seems to be channeling of course the early versions of Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride, as well as other doom heavyweights like diSEMBOWELMENT, the sound lurching malevolently from churning, stumbling tarpit doom, to that strange strain of midtempo death metal, that ultimately has much more in common sonically with doom metal, but it's a sound we love, blasting double kicks, frenzied riffing, all somehow reigned into a loping, chugging, downtuned lumber. Indesinence often slip into full on funeral doom creep, letting loose soaring minor key melodies, all buried beneath a shroud of abject blackened ambience, but eventually seem to always return to that death/doom gallop. The sound is laced with clean guitar melodies, the vocals both shrieking and gurgling monstrously, the tracks drifting between mournfully melodic and blackened and brutal, at their best obviously when fusing the two.
Packaged in a super swank oversized hardcover book style digipak.
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Rarely does someone just come in off the street and drop off a record that kicks our ass as much as this record by Chicago doomsters Indian. Two tracks of fuzzed out, stoner doom, with big crunchy distorted riffs, chaotic drumming, and weird (especially for a band like this) shrieked, almost black metal vocals. Really cool. Think Melvins, Kyuss, Eyehategod, Electric Wizard and you'll definitely have a good idea of where these guys are coming from. The A side has a strange sampled voice that sounds like an agitated foreigner yelling outside your car window -- turns out it's sampled from a Tarkovsky film! Cool. We look forward to their full-length scheduled for next spring...
It's a while since we've heard from these Chicago heavies, almost three years in fact, but 4 full lengths and 8 years in, and these guys still sound as good as ever. Massive downtuned droned out doom, shrieked vox over post rock and math rock flecked doom, a sound that distinctly their own, definitely positions them alongside Isis, Neurosis, Mastodon, Conifer, Tides and the rest of the many Neur-Isis bands, but they also have a serious sludge thing happening, reminding us of groups like Khanate, Melvins, Buried At Sea, Eyehategod, their stonery sludge and epic bombastic post-doom seemingly more polished and melodic this time around, the songs mini epics, slow building sprawls of cyclical repetition, tension and releases, often blossoming into full on poppiness, but just as often collapsing into gouts of curdled black tar trudge and plod. The sound laced with strange electronics and effects, the vocals often heavily effected, give them a sort of tripped out psychedelic vibe.
Opener "No Grace" seems to meld AmRep style noise rock to epic Godspeed style majesty, all wound around murky downtuned riffage, and peppered with some surprising bits of melody, while "The Fate Before Fate" almost sounds like a more screamo style Neurosis, crumbling avalanches of grinding riffage offset by soaring tangles of high end melody and the vocals super distorted and intense. The title track slows it WAY down, a creeping blackened crawl, the guitars undulating strangely, the drums mathy, but slowed way down, and those vox, managing to transcend mere shriek and actually sound like 'singing' even though they're harsh and hellish.
After a brief bit of noise drenched low slung slithery detuned blues, the record finished off with the epic 9 minute "Banality" a heaving, hauntingly atmospheric bit of lurching lumbering heaviness, a strange mix of tranced out droniness, and extreme intensity, culminating in a weird stretch of warped metallic psychedelia, the chords and riffs seeming to bleed and ooze and melt, the vocals even more blown out, wrapped in effects, and over the top all manner of strange shimmer, and warbly psych guitar filigree, the sound getting more and more noisy and intense before blinking out in a brief blast of staticky hiss.
Way way recommended.
Sorry, we never got for y'all the limited vinyl 12"s that are now (thankfully) combined onto this 2-on-1 compact disc full-length (and then some) offering from Chicago doomcore dirgemasters Indian. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. But heck, here's all four tracks from Slights And Abuse and five tracks from The Sycophant on one handy 5" digitally encoded disc. And anyone into the HEAVY (that would be, a lot of you) damn well ought to check it out. This is the follow up to Indian's previous Seventh Rule album The Unquiet Sky, and it crushes just as much or more than that impressive debut did.
The initial attack of Slights And Abuse's first three tracks had us a bit staggered with their speedy spew... it's a vicious thrashing all right, the band ripping through some tricky riffing and unleashing the wretched vokills with frenzied ferocity. But then that record's 15 minute finale "Fatal Luck" slows things down, waaaay down, and we remember why these guys remind us so much of the Melvins. And Khanate. Buried At Sea, Boris and Cavity too!
The second half of this disc, The Sycophant half, is the weirder one, with experimental interludes like the eerie ambient piano instrumental "Allotriophagy". More distorted drone abounds on "Gloat". Yet the metallisms of part one certainly bleed through, from the doomy triumph of "The Sycophant" to the chunky chuggery of "Pigs In Your Open Wound"... truly, each song on this whole disc being pretty killer in its own weird and/or wrathful way. And you gotta like the cover paintings, 'specially the one on the back for The Sycophant, depicting a Pope doing the bloody bird-biting routine a la Ozzy.
When someone just walks in off the street and hands you a 7" and tells you to "check it out, you'll probably dig it," odds are that's not always necessarily true. But a ways back, someone did just that, and handed over an Indian 7", and we were completely blown away. Super heavy and sludge-y stonery doom from a band who we had never heard of and by all rights should have been up there rocking along side bands like Pelican and Isis and Mastodon. So we played our 7"s to bits, just biding our time for a full length, cuz let's face it, super droney stretched out druggy stoner doom doesn't really have the space on a 7" to unwind and trudge through epic 10 minute plus songs the way that music was meant to. It's almost cruel keeping that sort of band confined to a 7". Like keeping a wooly mammoth in a tiny enclosure at the zoo. Before long those steel bars will be gone and there will be plenty of blood and gore and folks trampled under foot. And we can't imagine a more apt description of the finally unveiled Indian full length. The first track is a glacial Earth / SUNNO))) like drone, thick guitars squirming and slithering in a big tangly cloud of feedback, but that's only to ease you into the mighty ass kicking you're about to receive. Massive, lumbering, feedback soaked, groove flecked stoned and drugged out space sludge of the highest order. A bit like Eyehategod mixed with Kyuss, this is bile spewing evil stuff, maybe even a bit like Khanate if they decided to 'rock' and get some girls to like their band. Then there's the vocals, instead of a Kyuss-y raspy growl or an EHG sort of bellow / howl, the vocals here are a grim icy demonic screech, each track an unholy union, equal parts stoner sludge and frosty black metal invocation. Fucking awesome. Fans of the new breed of post rock / metal hybrid (Pelican, Isis, Tides, Conifer), and the sludge-y doom of bands like EHG, Khanate, Sleep, Electric Wizard, SUNNO))) as well as ALL things drone sludge shriek buzz and blur, might as well just get the rusty razor out right now and carve INDIAN right there on your scarred and tattooed forearm along side the rest of 'em! Killer crown-of-thorned-monkey cover art too!!
Unexpectedly good album from this Maryland doom metal band, whose previous releases (from, like, six years ago) were pretty bad. But I guess they've been honing their craft and now their Sabbathy, Saint Vitus-like sound has taken on an even more bluesy, hard rock quality that sets them apart from their doom/stoner peers and makes "Unearthed" quite a pleasure.
The much anticipated debut from this new dooooooooooom outfit, featuring 2/4 of late great legendary doom/death metallers diSEMBOWELMENT, and we have to say fans of that group's legacy will not be disappointed, the same mix of spaced out reverb drenched loping doom, and pounding, lurching death metal churn, a sound that definitely doesn't fall to far from the withered and gnarled sonic tree. The opening few minutes lull the listener into a false sense of trippy bliss, before the track explodes into a murky, muddy blast of old school blackened guttural death metal, mathy and intricate, but also primitive and raw, a sound that's echoey and downtuned, that sounds in its own way timeless, although it most definitely sounds like it could have come straight from the same era as diSEMBOWELMENT. The track slipping into a creeping chugging dirge, wreathed in squiggly metallic leads, before exploding again in an avalanche of crumbling distortion and almost a sort of caveman Voivod sort of crush. And then without warning, the song slips into a cool sort of swirling tribal drum driven riff heavy midtempo psych metal space out, that could easily have come from some young metal bucks, the song finishing off with a long stretch of cavernous hushed ambient drift.
The other two songs follow suit, with "The Menin Road" unfurling like some demonic death march, definitely earning some extra o's in their doom, a glacial tarpit creep, but laced with some cool shimmery distant guitar melodies, about as close to a ballad as these guys get, before winding it up with "Shadows Of The Flame", which returns to the sound of the opening track, a dizzying mix of true doom sludge and frenzied blackened death metal gnarl, even some more psychedelic metal drift, flecked with soaring melodies, haunting atmospheres and some seriously killer riffing, and all with a seriously crushing production, that makes everything here sound massive and majestic, heavy and so epic.
Detroit's Small Stone label is the one of the most reliable "stoner rock" standard bearers these days. While we don't necessarily like everything they put out, you can bet your bong it's ALL stoner rock. And they do have some great bands on their roster, a few that really push the stoner rock thing into interesting psychedelic directions, including recently reviewed discs from AQ faves Los Natas (El Nuevo Orden De La Libertad) and Sons Of Otis (Exiled), both highlights on our last couple lists. So we figure its worth checking out other stuff on the label, and guess what? Here's one from last year that we had overlooked when it came out, but just one listen and we knew we should get some copies in and review it!
Basically, we could describe Salt Lake City's Iota as being 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. And it's not like the singing is the focus of any of this, whereas interstellar jamming IS. However, it's easy shorthand to say Soundgarden + Sons Of Otis, when you hear this you know what we mean.
The five tracks on this 50 minute disc are programed so you get the two stormers out of the gate, tracks 1 and 2 being the throbbing metallic riff attacks of "New Mantis" and "We Are The Yithians", respectively. Then, it's time to blast off and bliss out, as tracks 3 and 4 are extended trips into the alien drug fantasies depicted in the disc's cool cover art. Those two cuts, "The Sleeping Heathen" (10:42) and the even more massive, nearly 23 minute "Dimensional Orbiter", are equally as heavy as the disc's first two tracks, but just a lot more spaced out. Then there's the fifth and final track, Tales closing with the 8+ minute bluesy nod scene that is the harmonica-laced "Opiate Blues", though it still seems it's a transmission from outer space, despite the earthier overt blues element.
Like we said, one listen and we were bowing down, Iota's Tales pushing all our psychedelic stoner rock buttons, with killer guitar soloing, scifi freakiness, sheer heaviosity, and surprisingly excellent vocals. Very, very cool.
Rockadrome's Vintage label has been on a roll of late, delving into the misty, musty, mystic proto-metal past to find some heavy holy grails - first and foremost, our recent Record Of The Week, 1972's self-titled album by Jerusalem! Also a reissue from New Zealand heavies Human Instinct, and now this, the eagerly awaited yet ultra obscure collection of previously unreleased tracks from a '70s Scottish band called Iron Claw. Well, previously unreleased except for bootlegs, which accounts for the anticipation with which we looked forward to this fully authorized, carefully compiled disc. Iron Claw never managed to put out an album in their lifetime, but they did record quite a few studio demos circa 1970-1974, which is what you'll hear here. And yes the Claw is HEAVY.
We've heard plenty of bands over the years who have tried to sound like Black Sabbath in various ways. A lot of our favorites in fact, being as into doom metal as we are. But before Witchfinder General and Saint Vitus and Trouble, before Candlemass and Cathedral, before Sleep and Sheavy and Electric Wizard and Witchcraft... there was Iron Claw. They didn't grow up listening to Black Sabbath albums. No, this is a band who fell under Black Sabbath's spell after seeing 'em play... in 1969! That was *before* the first Sabbath album came out, please note. (Which brings up another interesting story - apparently Iron Claw's bassist had actually recorded that Sabbath gig - and not long ago made a pretty penny selling the tapes to Ozzy and Sharon, it being the earliest known live Sabbath material extant.)
Pretty soon after this "revelation" of seeing Sabbath, the mostly teenaged blues rock combo Iron Claw became what must have been the world's first Black Sabbath tribute band, doing Sabbath covers, while simultaneously working on original material for the first time. So the influence of Sabbath over Iron Claw's own songs is pretty strong, especially in the guitar dep't, less so with the vocals. But for heaviness and a general doomy vibe, Iron Claw are clearly indebted to Iommi & Co., while also reminding us of such bands as T2, May Blitz, Nazareth, and Budgie. Maybe some Grand Funk Railroad too. This was heavy stuff, especially for the era. Heck you've got to admit that the band name (which comes from the lyrics to King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man") is pretty darn metal. IRON CLAW!!! Plus, good grief, they did a song called "Skullcrusher" in 1970 when everybody else (except for Sabbath) was all peace and love and flowers and beads. Inspired by Sabbath they sure were, but they get credit for being one of the first, taking it (down?) to the next level of underground downer rock worship and metallic menace. Later on when bands like Judas Priest and then the whole NWOBHM thing took over, these guys must have known they'd been ahead of the curve.
The sixteen tracks here span several years and several slightly differing Iron Claw lineups, and we were impressed by all of 'em, from their earliest, rawest recordings like the lumbering, blown-out "Clawstrophobia" (about the mental breakdown of someone stuck in an elevator!) to the riffy blitz of "Crossrocker" to their occasional attempts at something more 'pop' (but still heavy, even with horns, as on "Loving You").... all the way to the proggier final phase of Iron Claw's existence, on tracks like "Winter", with flute, yay! There's also a bit o' harmonica on "Strait Jacket" (a la "The Wizard"). But mostly, the Claw is all crunching guitar distortion, pounding drums and wailing vocals. Plus, psychedelic freakiness abounds in interludes (like the backwards Mellotron at the start of "Pavement Artist" and the spooky tripped out FX going into "Devils" - a song inspired by the band seeing the premiere of the Ken Russell movie of the same name at the Edinburgh Film Festival).
It's all pretty badass early doom action. Seriously we think folks into Sabbath (of course), Witchcraft and suchlike are gonna be blown away by a lot of this. And it's a really nicely done disc, the cd booklet featuring photos and several pages of band history, along with lyrics and notes on each track written by one of the surviving Iron Claw dudes (sadly, a couple of the members have passed away already). Sound-wise, it varies, generally lo-fi but pretty decent for demos, and not nearly so rough as that Bedemon disc ferinstance. No complaints there. Way to go Rockadrome, again! Now that they've unearthed the Claw, perhaps we can look forward to a sequel second cd of archival live material - we'd love to hear Iron Claw's cover of "War Pigs" with complete with their use of Ozzy's original, alternate lyrics....
Here 'tis, the long awaited (with our review longer awaited still, perhaps) fourth full-length opus from a veteran Maryland doom metal band who have finally gone a bit beyond the obvious Black Sabbath emulation that their name suggests. Ok, they still DO sound a lot like Black Sabbath: current vocalist Joe Donelley was frontman for a Sabbath tribute band (and looks a fair bit like Ozzy, in one of his more bloated phases), and of course guitarist Al Morris III is an accomplished riffmeister who's known as "the African-American Tony Iommi" not just 'cause he's a black man who plays an SG and wears fringed leather jackets.
We've previously reviewed a reissue of this band's 1994 album The Passage, and if you liked that one, you'll probably like this, despite the, uh, passage of so many years since that one. The vocalist on that record had more of a Dio thing going on, though, but as we said the singer in their lineup these days is definitely an Ozzy disciple, without doing an outright impersonation all the time, so he's kinda in the mode of Wino.
This new album definitely -sounds- good (and HEAVY), with nice thick, almost slick production, the guitars full and fuzzy. As doom goes, this is on the uptempo side, and it's darn catchy too! Too bad Ozzy didn't simply hire these guys to write/record his last few albums for him (including the vocals!), the title track here for instance would easily be a radio hit, if only it had Ozzy's name on it, far superior to whatever computer-generated product the Oz-man has crapped out lately. Ah well, Ozzy's not doin' it, so Iron Man has to, even without hope of hits.
Sabbath/Ozzy fans open to a modern take on that trad sound, and heck grunge fans looking for something a bit more metal, should welcome the return of Iron Man.
This long-running Sabbath-derived doom band get another shot at fame and fortune, garnering a release on Rise Above, good for them! Unfortunately, their latest singer (one of many) is waaaaay too "chain wallet" for us to dig. Ok, there's moments that sound like Down, which we like, but Iron Man are supposed to sound like Sabbath, aren't they?
Maryland's Iron Man, as you might be able to guess from their name, started off as a Black Sabbath tribute band. And we bet they were a pretty good one! Guitarist Alfred Morris III is basically the African-American Tony Iommi, complete with facial hair, fringed leather jacket, and Gibson SG. Total Iommi-worship. We wouldn't be surprised if to find out he'd cut off the tips of a few of his fingers to be more like his hero. So, obviously, old school doom metal is the name of the game here, and this album, originally released in 1994, is a minor classic of the genre for fans of Sabbath (natch), The Obsessed, Trouble, Candlemass, Witchfinder General, Saint Vitus, Solitude Aeternus, etc.
Aside from the fact that the band had black guys in it ("blacker than Black Sabbath" they were billed!), Iron Man didn't really get much notice back when their records came out in the early '90s. Now the metal scene is different, doom is a bit more popular, and at last maybe this band will finally get their due. Certainly it's cool that this album has been reissued, 'cause we always thought it was their best, with their best singer -- who doesn't try to sound like Ozzy. To man the mic on The Passage, Iommi-dude Alfred Morris III found his very own Ronnie James Dio, by the name of Dan Michalak. He's the rather beefy-looking fellow with feathered hair in the back cover band photo. No elf, he. But he sure sounds a lot like Dio, his muscular, melodic, dramatic delivery giving the heavier-than-thou Sabbatherian riffage of Iron Man an extra dose of that epic doom magic that should have been heard by more folks the first time around. We can thank Japan's Leafhound label for bringing this back (newly remastered), much like they've rescued some other out of print doom discs by Revelation and Blood Farmers that also originally appeared alongside Iron Man in the early nineties on Germany's Hellhound label (clearly a big inspiration for Leafhound).
Today, Iron Man's still around, dooming on, with (another) different lineup... speaking of lineups, this album has got Gary Isom on drums, a stalwart of the now-legendary Maryland doom scene from whence Iron Man hail, having played in Unorthodox, Pentagram, and Spirit Caravan among others.
If you're a fan of the sadly defunct pagan British doomsters Solstice - whose final recording, New Dark Age, was one of the best metal albums of the '90s, or ANY decade (you can read our review of last year's reissue elsewhere on our website) - you should be chuffed about this.
A few years ago, former Solstice leader Rich Walker (who runs the cult Miskatonic Foundation label, and also now plays in Pagan Altar) assembled a triumphing true metal supergroup called Isen Torr, dedicated to 'Anglo Saxon Battle Metal' exclusively. The band featured, in addition to Walker on guitar: vocalist Tony Taylor (Twisted Tower Dire), Lovecraft-lovin' guitar whizz Perry Grayson (Falcon, Destiny's End), bassist Oliver Zuhlke (Ritual Steel), and drummer Martin Zellmer(Ritual Steel)...
They released a vinyl-only, limited edition 10" ep in 2003, and nothing since, possibly 'cause Walker hails from England, while Taylor and Grayson are Americans, and the rest of Isen Torr hail dwell in Germany. So, what's this then? It is, at long last, the compact disc version of that 10", including both epic songs/sides from the vinyl, "Mighty & Superior" and "The Theomachist", plus a bonus third track, a fairly different, instrumental demo version of the latter. 26:06 minutes total.
Written by Walker, musically these songs do sound sorta like Solstice, except for being rather faster and more Maiden-y. And in comparison to Solstice, Tony Taylor's high-pitched vocals are a bit more generically metal. But the lyrics are straight up Solstice. An example: "Through an undulating sea, Of proselyte harlequins/An empyreal harbinger, The hellae maleficent". That's typical Solstice vocabulary right there. Like we said, fans will be chuffed, likewise anyone into majestic, mighty and superior metal as well. Too bad this ep was never followed-up by the rest of their proposed trilogy of 10"s... On the other hand, we're glad the band didn't stick with their original old school insistence that their music would never, ever be released on cd...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Debut full length from these French atmospheric doomlords who weave a gorgeous dreamlike doom from lumbering slo-mo heaviness, majestic gloom pop moodiness and classical bombast, heavy on the synth and mournful melody, sounding at times like a doom version of Alcest / Amesoeurs, that sort of wistful indie pop sound, but here rendered in swaths of soaring swirling atmospheric synths, delicate hushed pointilist pianos,
and crushing, classic old school style melodic doom metal a la My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost. The sound is a deft balance between the chugging churning riffs, and the hazy dramatic synthy swirl, the vocals mostly growled and demonic, but occasionally cleanly crooned, hushed and emotional, and there are even horns, which add a haunting and stately elegance to the proceedings.
While this is definitely doom, and a somewhat classic strain at that, it's so melodic and so infused with a dour depressive moodiness, that it does seem to veer into distinctly gloom pop territory, which is not a bad thing at all, in fact it kind of transforms this into something much more interesting. The tracks almost orchestral and symphonic, the sound anguished and abject one minute, dark and dreamy the next, but always epic and dramatic and cinematic, like the soundtrack for some futuristic art film about outer space, the musical vibe evoking sweeping celestial vistas and the bleak blackened landscapes below.
What's the scariest and creepiest of instruments? Could it be the downtuned electric guitar, that sound that marks all things dark and heavy and brutal and grim? Or could it be the cello with its soaring keening deep throated moan? Well we might posit, especially in light of this Jacula record, that the creepiest of all instruments is most certainly the church organ. Surprising that an instrument used chiefly to inspire and praise can illicit such utter unease and create such a pervasively creepy ambience. And that's pretty much what Jacula is all about, creepy ambience. Thick and haunting washes of warm rich church organ drone, resonant and reverberant, sometimes accompanied by simple pounding drums or mournful folky guitar melodies or wild psychedelic freakouts or soaring female operatic vocals or even occasional lyrics spoken ominously in Italian, but more often than not it's just the massive and ominous swells of a church organ. So effectively and utterly evil sounding. Jacula are sort of like a doom metal soundtrack to a Dario Argento movie. Goblin meets Skepticism! A Krautrock Thergothon? But is's not all mellow murky moodiness, tracks three and four, "Triumpratus Sad" and "Veneficium", both feature seriously fuzzed out, almost punk rock riffs, that sound about a decade before their time, insistent and completely heavy, even more so when they're eventually joined by a pounding one-drum beat or strident atonal piano or wild swirling progrock keyboards. Amazing! It's no wonder we sold the first couple of copies we got in of this to members of local black metal bands Ludicra and Leviathan!
In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum (literally "The Poison Is Always At The End"), which was supposedly recorded in an English castle, was originally released in an edition of only 300 copies in the late sixties and has been completely unavailable until just recently (this reissue cd is not entirely new, but it took us until now to get enough copies to list). Formed in 1968, Jacula even counted a medium as a member of their band who we assume was critical to the process of creating this record, considering that In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum was "Composed By Spiritualist Seance (1966-1969)" Woah! And for those of you well versed in sixties and seventies prog, be aware that this reissue is NOT the same as the Jacula record released in the early seventies (1972's Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus), even though for some strange reason Black Widow has given it pretty much the exact same cover.
We read about this recently on Julian Cope's Head Heritage website -- he picked it as his Album of the Month for July 2005. We had to hear it. And having heard it, we liked it enough to order a few of 'em in! The punningly titled Jamnation isn't quite like anything we've come across before. It's, um, stoner rock spoken word. Huh?
We've never been all that big on the "spoken word" thing here at AQ, not really. Stand up comedy, maybe -- of course we like our David Cross records. And Bill Hicks. Even there, the good stuff is a rarity. But spoken word? You say spoken word, we start thinking poetry slam. Not good. Though we'll concede that there's been some worthwhile practitioners of the form. Steven Jesse Bernstein was interesting. And Rollins we have to say has had his moments. And we'll listen to This American Life all day -- we guess that stuff counts as spoken word, right?
But get this. Jamnation is a spoken word album, the voice and words of one Dan McGuire. But it's also a killer stoner/psych rock compilation of sorts. That's 'cause McGuire has gotten it into his head to speak his spoken words not over some tired Beat-style bongo jam or loungey jazz backing, but over searing electric guitar ramalamajama, epic-length tracks he's chosen out by some far-out and obscure heavy rock bands who happen to be faves of his, old and new (American '70s psych monsters the JPT Scare Band and Josefus, modern day stoner space rockers Gas Giant and ILD HU from Holland, and Japan's retro doom hippies Eternal Elysium). Which goes a long way to explaining just how McGuire's Jamnation wound up being so honored by Julian Cope. We certainly can't improve on what Cope wrote -- fella's got a way with words, y'know -- so we suggest you go read it yrself. 'Specially since you should be checking out his site anyway, a recommendation we've made before to all AQ-list readers who are into the psych/heavy side of things. Visit it at www.headheritage.co.uk.
Having picked these tracks out of his record collection (much easier than actually working with actual live musicans, claims McGuire, and we're sure he's right) he then finds the space in each song for his verbal embellishments. It's the same idea really the old Jamiacan DJ's had when they first started "toasting". This really works 'cause McGuire's verbiage is equally billed with the music. Actually it takes a back seat to the music a lot of the time, really. It's not all about him, its about the jams. Sometimes it seems whole minutes will pass while McGuire lets the guitars take center stage. Wow -- a spoken word dude that shuts up when necessary. Cool. And when he is talking, he weaves his words perfectly into the rhythms of the music. His voice is husky and laidback, a little bit like John Wayne / Henry Rollins hybrid, spinning visions of gritty reality and far out freak scenes. What he says is sometimes amusing, often cryptic, and never laughably embarrassing at any rate. It's sorta druggy rambling ranting stuff that fits perfectly with this tunage! Truly, we need to let what he's saying sink in more to give a good account of it...the thing is, McGuire's speech goes so well with the wailing guitars and chugging riffs that we're not always paying the closest attention to what he's on about, we're just digging the totality of the listening experience.
So, in sum Jamnation is a pretty excellent heavy jams comp with a guy talking over it at times, in a pretty cool, Lizard King way that fits in with the music anyway.
Here's one of those albums that we KNEW we'd make Record Of The Week - IF ever it was reissued. And now it has been! Here's a fully legit reish of this cult '70s hard rock rarity, a record by one of those bands who seem simultaneously to be both testosterone-tanked young men and wizened ol' wise wizards. Yeah, a Record Of The Week easy, on account of it not only being an old fave of some of us here, but something that immediately caught on with the AQ staffers who hadn't heard it before, this reissue getting played in the store quite steadily (and loudly!) since it arrived. Let's listen in, as Jerusalem's vocalist belts it out, in an emotive yowl a bit like Robert Plant but with Ozzy Osbourne's paranoid feelings: "Hey girl, will you never learn? Who d'you think you're fooling with your lyin' and your cryin'? You'll only be happy the day you see me dyin'!" But then, in more of a normal speaking voice, we get the casual aside: "Oh yeah, that's the way it happens sometimes. Ha."
Right on, brilliant. That's from "Frustration", the first of nine fantastic tracks on the one and only album by this English band, recorded in 1971, released in '72 on Deram/Decca, produced by Deep Purple's Ian Gillan. Why Jerusalem didn't get big is a mystery, though the liner notes give some clues as to why they disbanded. Heck they're even fairly unknown (or a well-kept secret) among connoisseurs of '70s heavy psych and hard rock, with this being its first ever official, non-bootleg reissue on compact disc. Now, there's lots of great obscure heavy rock rarities from the early '70s. We've raved about reissues of many of them (Dust, Leaf Hound, Toad, Bang, T2, etc.). But as far as unheralded proto-metal goes, this belongs pretty much at the top of that longhaired, bellbottomed heap, as essential as any of 'em anyway. Pentagram, Bedemon, Blues Creation, Budgie, Night Sun, you name it.
Allan here first heard Jerusalem a few years back when a friend who shares his taste for proto-metal passed along a cd-r copy of this otherwise unavailable album (thanks, Glenn!). Killer stuff indeed, damn it was good. One of the heaviest things from the era he'd ever heard, Jerusalem took it to an extreme that most of their peers didn't approach. With elements of both biggies Sabbath and Zeppelin, but more frenzied and frantic on one hand, more plodding and suicidal on the other.
Crashing, fuzzed out guitars. Energetic hectic riffage. Doomy, thudding blues. Wicked stinging, sliding soloing. Punkish attitude (competitive with contemporaries Crushed Butler). The vocals often hoarse, on the verge of screaming, or gone over that edge. Yeah, pretty heavy for '72! This is rough, raw, proto headbanging mania mixed with mystical, melodic proggy interludes, of course we love it. Plus it's got a genuine dark, occult, despairing vibe, with poetic lyrics about madness, murder and death... And you can't get much more "downer rock genocidal" sounding than the truly, uh, primitive bludgeon what might be the heaviest track here, "Primitive Man".
Pretty darn metal when it comes down to it, forget the "proto". In their own way though, Jerusalem sounding halfway betwixt '60s garage rock and '80s New Wave Of British Heavy Metal... which on balance puts them a bit ahead of their time. In fact, since what's old is new again, this actually sounds like if could have been made now, not because it sounds modern (it doesn't) but because it's so line with certain stonery retro-stylings popular today, particularly in Sweden. In other words, if you like Witchcraft, you'll love Jerusalem!! We always thought that of all the obscure '70s bands that are their forebears, Witchcraft sound most like Jerusalem (well, next to Pentagram). Remember what we said in all caps about Witchcraft's debut? "PERHAPS THEE BEST '70s INSPIRED DOOM ALBUM EVER!" Well the same would go for this, except that it's the real deal, which makes it even better.
Anyway, to return to our story, after Allan got that cd-r dub, he knew he had to find a proper cd. There HAD to be one, this was too good not to have been reissued, right? But, after looking and looking, no luck. Then, one day, Allan came to work at Aquarius and lo and behold what did he hear, but Jerusalem blaring from the store stereo! No, it wasn't this reissue. This was still a few years ago. Turns out, Andee had found a used copy of a bootleg cd someplace, and had bought it simply 'cause he thought the cover looked cool (he's like that), without knowing anything about the band. Life is so unfair, thought Allan. But he was able to eventually guilt Andee into giving him the cd for a birthday present (thanks, Andee! You can have that one back now). Later on, we discovered a Japanese reissue that may or may not have been a boot but in any event was way too expensive and hard to get, nothing we could easily stock and sell for a reasonable price. But NOW, we happily are able to share Jerusalem with you thanks to this nicely done reissue on the Rockadrome label's Vintage imprint! Yeah!
In addition to the nine songs from the original LP, this cd comes with five bonus tracks, including non-album single "Kamakazi Moth". The thick booklet is filled with lengthy liner notes, complete lyrics, vintage photos, all that good stuff you want in a reissue. Once more, yeah!
Now this is a holiday record we can get behind. Originally released a couple years back, now reissued with a bonus remix, Justin Broadrick, of Godflesh, Ice, Techno Animal, JK Flesh, Final, Pale Sketcher, etc., tries his hand at writing a modern metalgaze Christmas carol, and pretty much pulls it off. Although the only real Christmas-y bits, are the lyrics, some chiming holiday bells, and the song's sort of wistful lullaby like vibe - otherwise, it's a primo slice of blissed out psychedelic shoegaze post metal chug and shimmer, Jesu style, with swoonsome swirling verses, all hushed vox buried beneath whorls of woozy crystalline thrum, and churning chugging downtuned choruses, laced with strange squiggly melodies and distant tangled melodic filigree, much of "Christmas" plays out like a slowed down, super distorted M83, which seems to a reasonable shorthand description of Jesu's sound in general. The song balances heartfelt melodic dreaminess, specifically the Christmas-y break midsong where the aforementioned bells toll over lush acoustic guitars, and the hazy dreamy vox, with some serious metallic heft, the results perhaps not appropriate for your family holiday get together, but perfect for that heavy holiday mixtape.
Broadrick tacks on three remixes, each by one of his other projects/alter egos. Up first is the new track, credited to JK Flesh, which hadn't really happened when this was first released, but in that guise, Broadrick, pushes the sound back a bit toward his bleak industrial roots, transforming the blissful holiday shimmer into a brooding expanse of grim blackened ambience, anchored to a plodding death march beat, which is soon augmented by some murky jungle breakbeats, the tolling bell drifting on long stretches of droned out minor key shimmer, the vocals too reimagined, and transformed into a strange alien chant, a serious slab of not very Christmas-y electro-industrial blackened jungle grimnity. The Pale Sketcher version heads for the exact opposite of the sonic spectrum, stripping the original down into a hazy swirl of barely there beats, echo drenched vox, lots of softly billowing synths, everything gauzy and sun dappled and so dreamily washed out. And finally, Broadrick slips back into his Final persona, originally more of a solo guitar project, and takes the original version of "Christmas" and Caretaker-izes it, blurring the sounds into ghostlike ambience, and long softly undulating tones, a smeared sprawl of drifting melodic fragments, of soft focus sonic shards, the track building to a sort of crescendo, a softly roiling, dreamily psychedelic climax, before settling right back down into something even more muted and minimal, a bleary stretch of shadowy, soft around the edges chordal shimmer.
SUPER LIMITED!! Once we run out, odds are we won't be able to get more.
Seems like Jesu's Justin Broadrick is making up for lost time. Following the sporadic releases in the later years of Godflesh, and a long period of near silence immediately afterwards, since the launch of Jesu Broadrick has been offering up one disc after another, as if there was some untapped wellspring of blessed out metallic pop that had been building pressure since well before he folded Godflesh. And this record seems to cement the fact that he's gradually moving away from the metallic pummel of his former outfit, toward a soundworld of glistening light and fuzzy shimmer. After the very Godflesh sounding self titled debut and Heartache ep, the sound of Jesu began to morph into something much softer, much dreamier, and very evocative of the late nineties shoegaze scene. Lifeline pushes it even further. The sound still wrapped in distorted guitars, but the sound and melody sounding even more like eighties mainstream pop. Like if John Hughes was making movies today, the big climactic scene at the end where the guy finally catches the girl at the airport to declare his love for here, well we can guarantee the title track of Lifeline would be blasting on the soundtrack. And it's not hard to imagine John Cusack, standing in the rain, holding up a boom box blasting "You Wear Their Masks." None of this is a bad thing, just a little surprising. Well, maybe not so surprising anymore. But looking back on the first Jesu, and of course Godflesh, who would have thought Broadrick would be weaving dreamy blisspop jams that sounded more like Ride or Slowdive or even Simple Minds than Pitchshifter.
That said, the guitars here are still crunchy, they definitely chug now and again, but the vocals are breathy and wistful, the melodies are sweet and melancholy, the drums don't really pound any more, they sort of shuffle.
But hold on. "End Of The Road" is all metallic guitars and simple pounding drums, and a hook to die for, not hard to see this track on MTV right next to Blink-182 or whoever. Which we're all for, but halfway through the track changes direction again, becoming all clean and super poppy and downright dreamy.
The only real 'oof' to be found here, are the guest vocals on "Storm Coming On", a crooned sort of R&B female vocal line, maybe they were going for something Portishead-y, and for the first part of the song it sort of works, but when she starts to wail soulfully, OOF. Not so good. You might just want to skip this track...
Barring the aforementioned number, which we'll choose just to ignore, Jesu is all about texture, and Broadrick does some amazing thing with his guitar and laptop, whipping up orchestral chordal swells, lush soundscapes, wrapping billowy spaced out FX and warm sun dappled reverb around everything, making every note sound like big glorious snow flakes of sound.
We can get the domestic version on Hydra Head, but as is usual, the Japanese import has extra stuff, in this case, two bonus tracks, in this case alternate versions of two of the tracks on the record. The version of "Lifeline" is slower, a bit more lo-fi and lazy, actually a nice and subtle variation. But it's SO worth it for the alternate version of "Storm Coming On", which ditches the soulful vocals, replacing them with Broadrick's buried in the mix whisper, and adds TONS of crunchy metallic guitar, making this version maybe the heaviest track on Lifeline.
And as with all Daymare releases, the packaging is super striking, an ultra glossy digipak, Japanese obi, a glossy 2 panel color insert and a foldout insert with loads of liner notes, all in Japanese.
Not a brand new Jesu record, instead, this ep collects the three tracks from Jesu's split lp with Eluvium from last year, and adds two alternate versions to flesh it out a bit. Folks who missed out on that now out of print 12", or those amongst you who remain turntableless, will for sure want to pick this up, and Jesu fanatics, might just find this worth it for the two extra alternate takes. First the songs proper:
Three new songs from Jesu, and as if we didn't already see Broadrick and Co. heading in this direction, they've almost entirely jettisoned the heaviness, in favor of a blissy new wave-y drift. Really! No massive sludge, no blissed out crunch, in fact, most of this sounds like Jesu doing the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie, all drift and croon and no crunch and pummel, but it's really nice, and pretty, and still suitably Jesu-like. Imagine Simple Minds or the Cure but raised on Slowdive and Chapterhouse and Swervedriver and My Bloody Valentine, doing the theme song for Sixteen Candles 2008 (which if our calculations are correct would be more like Forty Candles). The first song would be a massive hit, sort of melancholy and romantic, dark and dreamy, but still sort of catchy and hopeful, like sunbeams barely making it through grey storm clouds. The final track sounds like it could be from that last scene in Sixteen Candles 2008, the one where the boy and the girl finally make it to the dance after all of the crazy mishaps and misunderstandings and are finally sharing that slow dance... lugubrious and fuzzy, and soft focus and so great actually. It's weird, and a bit unexpected, but as much as we love the glacial crush of past Jesu discs, this new-wave-y drift really suits them, which is a good thing, since they seem to be heading even more and more in that direction with each new release.
The two extra tracks are definitely not -drastically- different, but different enough certainly to make them worth having. "Farewell" gets even more washed out, the whole thing muted and over saturated, the chugging guitars, disembodied and more textural than heavy, the whole song suffused with chiming harmonics and sun dappled soaring bittersweet melodies. "Why Are We Not Perfect", the above mentioned Sixteen Candles 2008 closer, hews closely to the original, the change more in timbre and texture than anything, the vocals still weary and woozy, the beat a loping skittery shuffle, surrounded by shimmering clouds of effervescent streaks of warm buzz, swirls of backwards melody, all whirling softly and dreamily.
Beautifully packaged in a super thick oversized Japanese style mini lp cd jacket, with a thick printed inner sleeve.
Yay, we mean uh oh, we mean yay, heck it's a new ep from the controversial ('round here anyway) psychedelic doom chanteuse Jex Thoth and her band of the same name. Controversial? Well, let's just say her trademark theatrical vocal stylings are a subjective, love 'em or hate 'em proposition, though we all pretty much agree the band's heavy, hazy music is awesome. And among the AQ staff, Allan at least has finally succumbed entirely (it was inevitable) and now proudly declares himself a true Jex Thoth fan, which means he was quite happy to see 'em play last week at the Roadburn Festival in Holland. In live performance, Jex's apparent thespian background proved quite effective, she had excellent stage presence not to mention witchy sex appeal, cape-draped and with candles burning. They played to a packed house and it was quite obvious they had lots of fans in the audience!
We also know Jex has plenty of fans out there among the AQ faithful, and they'll be pleased with Witness, comprised of three new recordings, suitably dramatic and lugubrious, clocking in at just over 15 minutes total: "Raven Nor The Spirit", "Slow Rewind", and "Mr. Rainbow", the latter a cover of a song by '70s European art rockers Slapp Happy (a good choice, if you didn't know better you'd think it was a Jex Thoth original). Bearing a dedication to the late Jack Rose, and again graced with cover art by Reverend Bizarre's Sami "Albert Witchfinder" Hynninen, this ep is a fine continuation of the eccentric underground doom-prog sounds heard on Jex Thoth's 2008 self-titled full-length, although apparently there's been another lineup change in the band since that release (for one thing, Silas Paine, aka Jewelled Antler's Glenn Donaldson, is no longer playing guitar). However, they still sound like a bit like Curved Air taking downers with Electric Wizard (or something), totally vintage, bass heavy '70s psych sounds with prominent Hammond organ action, both bombastic and atmospheric, over which Jex's cleanly-sung, clearly enunciated vocals soar. Probably if you're at all interested in this ep, you've already got the earlier full-length, and if you liked that, you'll like this, need we say much more? Uh, how 'bout for fans of Jacula, Blood Ceremony, The Devil's Blood, and Witchcraft (capital 'W' and otherwise)?
Here we go again. Maybe you remember our review a year or so ago of an ep by a psychedelic doom band from Wisconsin called Totem, related to "New Weird America" folkies Wooden Wand? We thought it was great, EXCEPT for one, possibly deal-breaking catch: the female lead singer's soaring vocals, which put it in the love 'em or hate 'em category, with most of us at AQ unfortunately forced to select the latter option, or at least do our best to live with 'em since we liked the music.
Well, as if to challenge us, Totem have changed their name to Jex Thoth (after the "stage name" of that selfsame singer!), and are back with their debut full-length album, again released by the doom metal purveyors at Sweden's I Hate Records, who previously have brought us music from Burning Saviours, The Puritan, Fall Of The Idols, Lord Vicar, Gates Of Slumber, and lots of other awesome heaviness.
That we have to have any reservations about this album at all is too bad, 'cause on the face of it, you probably couldn't deliberately design anything more likely to appeal to us at AQ, really! Not only is it psychedelic pagan DIY doom metal, to begin with, but check it out: Jex Thoth's guitar player Silas Paine is actually Jewelled Antler linchpin Glenn Donaldson (Thuja, Skygreen Leopards, Blithe Sons, etc. etc.). Also in the band, another AQ friend, Clay Ruby (Davenport, Burial Hex). The cover art is by our Finnish pal Albert Witchfinder from doomlords Reverend Bizarre. And the album itself is dedicated to the memory of Cayce Lindner, from Flying Canyon, whom we too miss very much.
Also, Jex Thoth's "thanks list" is very much up our alley: they give props to Circle, Slough Feg, Silvester Anfang, Bobb Trimble, and Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott, among others. And why are they thanking Bobb Trimble, whom hopefully you know as the '80s psych singer-songwriter outsider genius whose at-long-last reissued albums we made Records Of The Week last year? Because they do a cover of his apocalyptic song "When The Raven Calls" from Iron Curtain Innocence on here!! Yep, a Bobb Trimble cover! Brilliant. (And actually, we'll admit, a good choice for Jex Thoth's vocal style.)
So... plenty of indications that this is going to be something we'd LOVE. The music here is great, kind of an acid-folky New Weird Doom, all about ye olde '70s Sabbathy guitar riffage and Purplish organ jamming, fuzzed out and dirgey and druggy, full of spaced out fx, droning synth, lumbering distorted wah-wah riffs. It's not always so heavy, sometimes more of a melancholic moodiness, as much trippily atmospheric freek-folk psych and prog as it is doom (especially on the epic four-part "Equinox Suite"), their style of "metal" not solid steel or iron, but softer precious metals unearthed from an ancient treasure trove, like gold, silver and mythic mithril. We WANT to love this, and it shouldn't be hard... except for Jex Thoth's singing (again), which for most of us is just too high in the mix, too dramatic in a "thespian" sort of way, too sleek and clean and earnest, drawing out each word, each syllable with forced emotion... we're reminded of Grace Slick, with a side of Geddy Lee. But such things are subjective, your mileage may vary, and certainly Jex Thoth (the band) consider Jex Thoth (the vocalist) to be their major focal point, for better or worse. Her vocals ARE distinctive, and do give this band quite a unique vibe all right. And maybe they'll grow on us, actually they already have on Allan here, he'll admit, who while he still cringes a bit at some of her delivery, finds this working for him more often than not. So although we can't give this an unqualified recommendation, we're gonna highlight it anyway, and you can listen to the sound clips and see what you think. (We DO know some peeps who love her singing, actually, so maybe it's just us.) After all, in a lot of ways, this is the Jewelled Antler meets Jacula doom trip we've always dreamed of! A "New Weird Witchcraft" isn't far off the mark either. Acid folk classic doom, we approve of that!
Oh, and if you are already a Totem/Jex Thoth fan, you might be interested to know that we also have just a couple copies left of Jex Thoth's limited edition split 7" with '80s UK doom legends Pagan Altar (!), featuring the track "Stone Evil" from this album, we weren't able to get enough to list, but you might get lucky if you ask us quick, they're $12.98.
This disc has occasioned major debate here at AQ as to its merits... or demerits. Released on Sweden's usually pretty reliable I Hate Records label, home to such doomy acts as Gates Of Slumber, Fall Of The Idols and big AQ faves Burning Saviours, this debut ep from Wisconsin's Totem is a three-song doom trip of '70s inspired hippie heaviness in the retro-proto-metal vein of both Witch and Witchcraft, those three tracks being "Kagemni", "Luna Moth Speaks", and the 11-minute "Tauti" (featuring a major freeform freakout). Their backwoods pagan image and DIY production are probably a big part of what attracted I Hate to this band, as Totem really do capture a special, "authentic" vintage stoned doom vibe. The riffs are worthy. And the truly blown-out low end bass heaviness, psychedelic wah wah guitar and Hammond organ jammage are fully to this band's credit. Sounds pretty good so far, eh? So what's the problem? Well, simply put, most of us here at AQ simply couldn't stand the singing. The vocal stylings of Jex Thoth are presented as Totem's main draw when we think this would be so much better without her. Granted, liking someone's voice or not is a fairly subjective thing, and we know people who don't mind hers at all, but since the entire AQ staff gives it the thumbs down, you might want to check out the sound clips before buying, that's all we're saying. Part of what's hard to take about her singing isn't just the timbre of her voice, it's that she just *enunciates* everything way too clearly, like she's doing musical theater. It's not very rock and roll. That said, Allan DID end up digging this, after spinning it a bunch and performing the mental exercise of pretending the singer was a guy, which made it seem that much weirder, like he was some sort of insane androgynous metal weirdo, making up for the cringe inducing elements of her vocals that everyone else here just couldn't get past. And it's truly her singing that bugs us, not the idea of another set of indie psych folksters jumping on the doom bandwagon (as this is actually a Wooden Wand side project!), really. Heck, half of Witch are members of Feathers and we LOVE Witch.
FYI, this band has a full-length coming out on I Hate, as well as a split 7" with cult British doomsters Pagan Altar! And Allan at least is curious to hear those upcoming efforts. Also, apparently they've changed their name from Totem to Jex Thoth... so it seems unlikely they're gonna take our advice to ditch the singer, eh? Ah well...
Okay. Jex Thoth. The band. The woman. A very polarizing proposition for doom fanatics. The music is pitch perfect, a folk flecked fuzzy groovy, dirgey doomy seventies style classic doom, the vocals, clean and dramatic and soaring and way up in the mix. Definitely changes the vibe and feel of the music. But anyway, you can read all about the full length elsewhere on this list, but this single track, from the album, might just be the best thing we've heard from Jex Thoth (the band) yet.
Beginning all spacy and seventies folky, fluttering acoustic guitars, all drifty and dreamlike, the track soon gives way to some SERIOUS classic doom. Like we mentioned above, druggy and fuzzy and groovy, wah wah guitars, distortion, fuzz, leads, a stone cold killer, then Thoth (the singer) joins in and the song is transformed into something less distinctly doomy, into something more classic rock, the Jefferson Airplane comparison is apt for sure, which is not a bad thing, the vocals not so high in the mix, less clean and measured, a little more loose and feral sounding. Which makes this probably our favorite track from the full length. Pretty damn great.
But the flipside, holy shit how much do we love Pagan Altar?! That's a rhetorical question, cuz if it wasn't the answer would be SO FUCKING MUCH!!!! Super blown out fuzzy groovy doomy brilliance, a re-recorded version of their second recording ever from 1976. Recorded in 2007 but you'd never know it. And the sound of Pagan Altar here is not so much doomy, as classic rock, like Jex Thoth, but where JT are channeling Jefferson Airpolane, PA are whipping up some Blue Oyster Cult shit, seventies arena rock heaviness, slightly doomy sure, but totally rocking!
Packaged in a super heavy sleeve with original artwork from Reverend Bizarre / The Puritan mainman Albert, pressed on thick vinyl with a printed color insert.
Already out of print we think so these are the last copies we'll get...
The label describes Journey To Ixtlan as "new age doom & occult desert rock", and heck, who are we to argue? The sound here is dark and swirling and mysterious, the guitars are dusty and sun baked, the production is lysergic, the drums pound abstractly through a haze of pot smoke and sandstorms, the bass is a beast like growl, the melodies are woozy and weary and laid back. Imagine the music Kyuss must listen to when they want to chill out. Or maybe picture Earth, but if instead of being based in the Northwest, wreathed in clouds and surrounded by verdant mountains, imagine they called the desert home, endless expanses of sand, an unforgiving sun hanging in a vast slate grey sky - and then maybe they'd be churning out druggy ritualistic doom like this instead of the gospel flecked slowcore they've grown into.
Journey To Ixtlan introduce mantra like chants, the sound of rain, of crackling fire, distant crashes, strange percussion, warm whirring keyboards, channeling the slow motion blackness of Skepticism, but filtered through something much more lo-fi and much less heavy, the heaviness here rendered in a tarpit thickness, huge heaving walls of crumbling sound, that give way to soft, shimmery, slow motion folk, the guitar still psychedelic, drifting like smoke through a hazy expanse of barely there buzz, a simple spaced out drum beat, and some seriously ominous gurgling vokills over the top.
This is most definitely some glorious drug addled desert hippy folk drone doom heaviness, the songs blending cookie monster gurgles and warm sun dappled synths, wrapping fluttery flutes, and ominous glacial riffing, around hushed whispered voices and cool soulful crooning, tripped out effects swirling around gorgeous blown out high end ur-drones, peppered with the croak of some underworld priest, or mysterious beast, shimmery chiming guitars spread out over abstract drums and more of those creepy vox, shakers and hand drums, gongs and rattles give way to a seriously downtuned stoner dirge, laced with insane prog keyboards, at once genius and totally bizarre, until the record closes with some sort of low end chant drone ritual, minimal, haunting, and otherworldly.
Definitely drone-y, and doomy, and dirge-y but maybe a bit to tripped out and fucked up and psychedelic for the troo doomlords out there, as for the rest of us, Journey To Ixtlan offer a mind bending, soul searching psychotropic soundworld that we're more than happy to get lost in...
Some time ago we raved about a disc entitled Shake Your Brains by a real-deal '70s stoner rock band from the Phillipines called the Juan Dela Cruz band. Turns out that disc, now long-gone and out of print, was actually a compilation of tracks taken from the Juan Dela Cruz albums Himig Natin and Maskara, which we discovered have just recently been reissued in their native land. Our mission was clear, and now we've managed to track down copies of both discs from a Phillipine supplier. They're supposedly "digitally remastered" but suffer from no-frills packaging, though, without much in the way of a booklet (pet peeve #493 strikes again) and chintzy "now on cd!" graphics marring the cover art repro. Still, these are the only way to acquire the most killer stuff by these obscure heavy rock legends. Here's some of what we said about that Shake Your Brains disc if you missed it:
"Juan De La Cruz (a band, not a man, so it's filed under "J") was a hard-rock powerhouse powertrio from the Phillippines. If you're hip to other obscurites from the era, imagine a cross between Buffalo and Los Dug Dug's! Totally rocked out bluesy stoner jams, with brilliantly fucked sex and party obsessed lyrics ("get drunk all day, get down all night", "I'll just wait for you down in the alley / and I'll show you how it can be"). And guitarist Wally Gonzales has got his acid-psych leads down, man! It's not clear who's singing (it might be the drummer, who previously played in the equally primal Japanese psychrock band Speed, Glue, & Shinki) but whoever it is, he's got the perfect delivery for this stuff, which includes one of our all-time favorite garage-psych songs, "I Wanna Say Yeah" -- perhaps the ultimate rock n' roll song title/lyric *EVER*. I mean, yeah! None of today's punks, stoners, or garage revivalists can touch that."
That Shake Your Brains disc consisted of ten songs -- taking four of Himig Natin's nine tracks and six of Masakara's dozen -- about half of each. And probably the better half of each, we have to say. But some stuff not selected that you'll find on these albums is just as good, and besides which you can't get Shake Your Brains anymore. So if you want to hear "Beep Beep" and "I Wanna Say Yeah" and "Shake Your Brains" you've gotta get these two discs!
Himig Natin came out originally in 1973 and features, as both albums do, the line-up of Wally Gonzales (guitar), Mike Hanopol (bass), and Joseph Smith (drums, acoustic guitar). It's got the aforementioned "I Wanna Say Yeah" and the song with the "down in the alley" lyrics, "Take You Home" (also recorded by Speed Glue & Shinki), among other highlights. Some cuts are on the bluesier side, they do one Chuck Berry song ("Round And Round"), and another one's a Greatful Dead cover! It's a rollicking version of "Big Boss Man", not being a Deadhead I don't know if that's an obscure cover or not, and I also wouldn't have guessed it was a Dead song either. The album winds up with the rather pretty title track, wherein Smith's acoustic comes into play.
Some time ago we raved about a disc entitled Shake Your Brains by a real-deal '70s stoner rock band from the Phillipines called the Juan Dela Cruz band. Turns out that disc, now long-gone and out of print, was actually a compilation of tracks taken from the Juan Dela Cruz albums Himig Natin and Maskara, which we discovered have just recently been reissued in their native land. Our mission was clear, and now we've managed to track down copies of both discs from a Phillipine supplier. They're supposedly "digitally remastered" but suffer from no-frills packaging, though, without much in the way of a booklet (pet peeve #493 strikes again) and chintzy "now on cd!" graphics marring the cover art repro. Still, these are the only way to acquire the most killer stuff by these obscure heavy rock legends. Here's some of what we said about that Shake Your Brains disc if you missed it:
"Juan De La Cruz (a band, not a man, so it's filed under "J") was a hard-rock powerhouse powertrio from the Phillippines. If you're hip to other obscurites from the era, imagine a cross between Buffalo and Los Dug Dug's! Totally rocked out bluesy stoner jams, with brilliantly fucked sex and party obsessed lyrics ("get drunk all day, get down all night", "I'll just wait for you down in the alley / and I'll show you how it can be"). And guitarist Wally Gonzales has got his acid-psych leads down, man! It's not clear who's singing (it might be the drummer, who previously played in the equally primal Japanese psychrock band Speed, Glue, & Shinki) but whoever it is, he's got the perfect delivery for this stuff, which includes one of our all-time favorite garage-psych songs, "I Wanna Say Yeah" -- perhaps the ultimate rock n' roll song title/lyric *EVER*. I mean, yeah! None of today's punks, stoners, or garage revivalists can touch that."
That Shake Your Brains disc consisted of ten songs -- taking four of Himig Natin's nine tracks and six of Masakara's dozen -- about half of each. And probably the better half of each, we have to say. But some stuff not selected that you'll find on these albums is just as good, and besides which you can't get Shake Your Brains anymore. So if you want to hear "Beep Beep" and "I Wanna Say Yeah" and "Shake Your Brains" you've gotta get these two discs!
The title of 1974's Masakara might possibly relate in some way to the sleeve photo of the band in facepaint... So cool. They mellow out on a few of the tracks, but mostly these are heavy duty rockers! A few highlights: "Pinoy Blues", "Nadapa Sa Arina", "Beep Beep", "We Love You", "Palengke", and "Pagod Sa Pahinga" -- a lot more Tagalog language lyrics/titles here than on the previous album. And no covers this time, as far as we know.
Juan De La Cruz (a band, not a man, so it's filed under "J") was a hard-rock powerhouse powertrio from the Phillippines who flourished in the nineteen seventies. If you're hip to other obscurites from the era, imagine a cross between Buffalo and Los Dug
We'll soon have another Juan de la Cruz reissue, a 1970 recording called "Up In Arms" that Shadoks is putting out real soon. Apparently it's got a ton of unreleased live stuff on it, can't wait!
Jucifer made me woozy. Not a bad thing! When it started with delicate female vocals over shoegazer psychedelia, I thought "one part My Bloody Valentine, one part Lush, one part Veruca Salt", but that didn't last too long. Add "five parts Melvins". The breathy female vox soon meet ballsy thick fuzz guitars. Pretty damn rockin'... and it all gets progressively more so. By the fourth song ("Queen B"), the heavy duty nutbusters have been unleashed, although they pretty things up again later, always keeping you guessing as to when the crushing riffs will come in. If you've been paying attention (unlike me) you'd have been expecting this from our review of Jucifer's previous effort, "The Lambs EP". To recap: Jucifer are a massively-amped two-piece from Georgia or someplace, with a frenzied, hard-hitting male drummer and a heavier-than-thou female guitarist, who also handles the singing, a blend of beastly and beautiful that is this duo's forte. "Death Pop" they call it. The 15 tracks here vary the predominant drums/guitar brutality with some hypnotic keyboard atmospheres and effects. Boris meets the Breeders?
Sweet southern shoegazer stoner dirge metal?? Well it makes lots of sense here. It's been two years since this band's last release, the (excellent) ep War Bird. A long wait but worth it, as Jucifer have become one of our go-to bands for music that's both punishingly heavy yet also thoroughly laced with indie-pop prettiness, and this new one does not disappoint on either score. For those of you that need the intro, these fuzzed-out faves of ours are a male/female two-piece from Georgia (home to Harvey Milk as well, and we imagine some sort of kinship), the guy on drums and the gal on guitar and vox, pushing more air than most five-piece bands, amp on 11, crushingly heavy but with enough spaciousness in the mix to allow for the lady's lovely, breathy vocals to soar over her doomier than thou riffage. She can also manage some stressed out banshee screams when necessary. We've always compared Jucifer to an unholy mixture of the Melvins and the Breeders and that holds true here on If Thine Enemy Hunger, their first album for diverse metal label Relapse. And we're not sure why we never thought of it before, maybe it's more noticeable on this album, but listening to this we're thinking Nirvana Nirvana Nirvana, it's very In Utero sounding at times!! Which we can't help but like. Some of it's just that catchy, and that moody. Just in time for the current AQ grunge obsession! (Though this is more like a stripped down, alt-rock Boris than a grunge band, we should note). We're in love.
We first heard Boston post metal heavies on a recent split with fellow post metallers Rosetta, and were surprised by just how UNmetal these guys were, they're still heavy, but more like Katatonia or 'Radiohead' era Cave In, bombastic and epic, majestic and yeah, heavy, but clean vocals, soaring and dramatic (right down to some hazy dreamy female backup vox), the songs proggy and sprawling, unfurling brooding dramatic slow build verses, that build to massive crushing choruses, but never getting fully metal, instead blossoming into some sort of epic doom pop, the sound is a bit mathy too, and weirdly enough, some of the tracks remind us of Three Mile Pilot, albeit a much more metallic version, but the phrasing and hypnotic rhythms definitely draw from the same sonic well. As we mentioned in the review of that split with Rosetta, we can definitely see that this stuff might be too poppy and wimpy for a lot of metalheads, in fact, these guys opened up for some metal show here recently, and were definitely not appreciated, but hell, get these guys on a tour with Katatonia or Opeth or Lifelover, and people would be losing their mind. And really, this stuff could and should be all over the radio, the songs are that good, the production massive, the sound incredible, just like Cave In, if there were any justice in the world, these guys would be huge. And honestly, we weren't totally sold on these guys, but after a handful of listens, we find ourselves a little bit obsessed, playing this record like crazy. So, recommended if you like your metal tempered with plenty of poppiness, or alternately if you can handle your pop music on the seriously heavy side. A new favorite for sure.
We've long been fans of progressive post metal combo Rosetta, every record is a super ambitious sprawling multi-part epic, that manages to do MORE than just cram a million parts into a twenty minute song. They are as adept at meaningful song construction as they are at shredding, and they manage to make their metal art crazy catchy to boot. Which is true here too, their half of this split cdep is a single ten minute track, but it's fantastic, opening with a long stretch of chiming guitars and muscly drumming, definitely post rock, then the bellowed vox come in, and the song begins to metallize, but they haven't really gotten into it yet, cuz a minute or so later, the song proper kicks in, and the already epic jam gets that much more epic and heavy and loud, the band unwinding a thick tangled chunk of psyche metal crush, slipping from mathy post rock to churning downtuned sludge and back again, before shedding the heavy and unfurling a moody, shuffling, shimmering post rock interlude, with chiming guitars and some killer intricate drumming, a slow build smolder as the band builds their way back up, eventually erupting into a wild proggy mathy freakout, some killer guitar playing intricate and a little bit shreddy over what is almost a continuous drum solo, the sound getting more and more blissy and blown out, until the final minute or two, a seriously dense and heavy as fuck stop/start chug fest, with more insane drumming. Holy shit do these guys slay. When we haven't listened to them for a while we tend to forget how incredible their records are. But we just listened to this one song about 4 times in a row.
Never heard Junius before, but these Boston heavies definitely have their own take on the whole post metal thing, their take being a way more melodic one, with the vocalist front and center, his voice soaring and clear, which gives the music, no matter how heavy the sounds in the background, a much more commercial feel, definitely reminding us of Cave In during their Radiohead period, which is not a bad thing at all, in fact, after hundreds of records of screeching and howling and yowling and grunting, it's kind of excellent to hear seriously heavy music paired with real vocals. And while much of the music here is heavy, the band do stretch out into a sort of progged out shoegazey metallic pop, the sound epic and emotional, perhaps a bit to wimpy for a certain segment of metalheads, but we're digging it a lot, and this one song definitely has us wanting to hear more.
Killer packaging too, a nice digipak, but with one of those 3" cds within a 5" cd, so the outer ring is clear plastic, with the printing on the top, done so that when you look at the underside of the disc, there's readable text underneath the disc art. So cool. Also includes a download coupon for extra exclusive songs!
Just take one look at this record's cover - if you guess these longhaired & bearded hippie boys in their vintage duds are another retro-proto-metal band in the Sabbathy style of Witchcraft, Graveyard, Horisont, and Noctum, you'd be guessing correctly!! Only thing is, time trippers Kadavar aren't from up in Sweden like those bands, they're from Berlin. But damn, just like all those Swedish faves, they are sure good at kicking out the jams with authentic sounding, bellbottomed bombast. The six tracks here are like the March Of The Riffs, unstoppable; from start to finish it's a rollicking ride of fuzzed out retro-riffery frequently adorned with ripping wah wah psych guitar leads, and some even psychier synth (that to be found on the spaced out final track, "Purple Sage", courtesy of guest synth wiz Shazzula, she of Black Mass Rising fame). The tones are fat, the grooves loping, the vibe very much 1972 or so, harking back to the likes of Sir Lord Baltimore and Kadavar's hard (kraut-)rockin' countrymen Night Sun and Tiger B. Smith� funnily enough, the drummer here is named "Tiger". The rest of this classic power trio is rounded out by "Mammut" on bass and "Lindemann" (ok that sounds like a real name) on guitar and vocals, which are in a generally more gentle mode than his dun-dun-dundering heavy riffs, suggestive of folky ritual at times.
Kadavar's debut gets a hell yeah recommendation to all fans of any of the doomy '70s sounding stoner rock, particularly the Swedish bands mentioned above and their counterparts over here like Danava, Witch, and SF's own Dzjenghis Khan.
Digipak cd release or colored (translucent vanilla?) vinyl with digital download.
Killer split/collaboration between German retro heavy rockers Kadavar and French psychedelic spacerock heavies Aqua Nebula Oscillator, three new tracks from each band, and then two side long epics, where both bands team up and play together. Kadavar kick down a sort of proto metal style heavy blues rock, with bellbottom riffs, fat fuzzed out bass, and a wailing vocalist, total seventies hard rocking riff-o-mania, with some serious psych overtones, and one track that has some killer start/stop dynamics, and one that's a slithery southern stoner jam, all swaggery and snarly, with a second half that cranks the tempo into a frenzied bas heavy freakout. Aqua Nebula Oscillator counter with a sound that's much more noisy and abstract, space rocking and heavy, spaced out and hypnotic, they do indulge in some retro riffing action, the bass driven breakdown on the very seventies titled "Purple Sage", replete with wild tangles of psych guitar shreddery, or the weird percussion and deep dramatic vox on "Jungle Man", which totally sounds like it could be a cover of some old sixties groover, by the Animals maybe? There's even some fake animal sounds, tiger roars and everything! And then finally there's their organ driven blooz ballad, that sounds like a heavy psych version of the Moody Blues, all drowsy and moody and dreamily dramatic, a little Pink Floyd in the mix too.
Those tracks are all well and good, but it's the collaborations that are the real reason to pick this up. The first, epically titled "From The Flying Dutchman", weaves a spaced out sprawl of wild drum splatter, and heavily effected guitar swirl, a dreamy droned out psychscape, that gradually builds to dizzying squall, all flanged and phasered, but still loose and free, never quite locking into a song proper, at least until about 5 minutes in, when the song finally coalesces into a serious guitar heavy chunk of kraut-psych heaviness, the drums (dual drumming), dense and driving, the drums too doused in flanger, the song sprawling out endlessly, constantly morphing from riff heavy crunch, to ethereal psychedelic shimmer, to brooding murky drift, to chiming almost jangly shimmer, and finally, to bass driven dirgey, that finishes things off in a cloud of murky FX and slow decaying chords. Awesome. As is the title track, a similarly structured epic, but one that launches immediately into a drum heavy stretch of fuzz guitar psych, occasionally settling down into something droney and tranced out, but for the most part never letting up, the guitars swirling and howling, grinding and crunching, multiple leads spiraling into wild tangles, the bass throbbing, the drums pounding, total heavy psych bliss out for sure.
Super swank, embossed, heavy stock gatefold jacket, includes a download code as well.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Kaptain Sun are from Sweden and obviously owe quite a bit to their fellow countrymen Entombed. They mix in a bit of Cathedral, make it a bit more melodic, a little more straight ahead and mid tempo and add some heavy stoner groove. Pretty cool. On UK label Rage of Achilles.
Latest and possibly greatest album by this always kinda-good-but-not-quite-there-yet-until-now-perhaps stoner rock band. What sets Karma To Burn apart from their peers is that they're a purely instrumental outfit, despite label-forced flirtations with having a vocalist. This stuff is dark and heavy and metallic and chock full o' riffs. You'd think a band like this, without singing, would
Excellent collection for the Katatonia newbie, with some rarities for fans... though the fans here already had most of the rare tracks. Recommended for those not yet acquainted with this Swedish band's gloomy doom-pop (kinda like a metal Cure).
