Light Of Shipwreck, while a long time favorite around here, has always been a tough outfit to describe. In the past we've compared the sound of LoS to Wolf Eyes, This Heat and the Necks, but that only scratches the surface. There was all sorts of blurred digital shimmer, dubby beats, lurching almost metallic heaviness, it really was a wild assemblage of sounds, but they were somehow woven into something listenable, heck, more than listenable, something pretty fucked up and far out.
So finally, another full length, and as we might have expected, while some of those references still apply, In The Empty Wreckage Of A Dream is a whole 'nother beast.
Two loooong songs, the first clocking in at nearly half an hour, and beginning with a strange cacophony of industrial clatter, warm low end pulsations, a sort of muted noisescape, that manages to be heavy, but strangely soothing, until the drums come in, and then it's just chaos, programmed beats careen all over the place, skittering and pulsing beneath a suddenly active swirling squall of moaning feedback, of grinding metallic crunch, a dark billowing cloud shot through with bits of melody, chunks of throbbing bass, but for the most part the sounds is an ever shifting cloud of hiss and buzz and blur surrounding a looped skeletal beat. Eventually all of the skitter and pound, the skree and crunch slough off, leaving a gorgeous heaving river of low end drones and layered buzz, thick and dense and blackened, slowly drifting like some sonic black tar, until the sound again shifts, more of the low end falling away, leaving a gleaming and glistening shimmer, all soft edged high end that is swallowed up by the darkness almost as quickly as it emerged. The track buzzes and crawls, a moaning drone behemoth, before it finally dissipates leaving nothing but a spectral whisper.
The second track, slightly shorter at 21 minutes, is another multi part epic. This one a gloomy gothic sprawl, again, a sky full of dark clouds, wrapped around more off kilter programmed skitter. The tones thick and heavy, moaning and groaning, like the sound of hellish beasts letting out their final wails of anguish, or some blackened city crumbling to dust, with nothing but the drums to play it out. Weirdly tribal and raw, it could almost be some super obscure eighties goth rock combo, jamming out, drugged out of their gourds, unfurling some impossibly otherworldly murk jam, but it too gives way to something more ethereal and ephemeral, the drums still present, more as echoes, eventually dropping out completely, leaving nothing but shadowy tones to drift weightless in a sky full of FX. Weird as hell, even for a band who already traffic in the weird, but if you're into droney heavy fucked up ambient drum heavy noise drenched weirdness, then In The Empty Wreckage Of A Dream should definitely hit the spot.
First and final release from this now defunct UK trio who meld crushing slow motion doomdronesludge with haunting prog and drifting abstract ambience.
A swirling, slow moving prog-doom juggernaut. Massive downtuned riffage churns around fluttery flutes, while wheezing accordions whirl beneath angelic female vox and warm whirring organs, all wound into subtly complex expanses of slow motion heaviness and epic cinematic dronemetal...almost like a magnificent, hypothetical Boris/Bardo Pond collaboration.
Three looooooong songs, the shortest just shy of ten minutes, the longest clocking in at twenty, each a slow burning slow build, layers of drones and hushed shimmer, often taking upwards of half the song before the various elements coalesce into actual riffs, the drums kicking in and the band lurching into a massive ultradoom start / stop groove, explosions of blown out buzz giving way to long stretches of hushed whisper, only to be swallowed up again by another roiling onslaught, a heaving wall of downtuned guitars, a pounding barrage of thunderous percussion.
All the while, a simple, repeating motif, hovers above, or lurks just below the caustic grinding heaviness, floating like some sonic specter, the vocals dreamy and drifty, a subtle seventies pagan folk vibe infusing the otherwise crushing doom. The flute unfurling dreamy melancholic melodies over vast expanses of crumbling distortion, laced with glistening harmonics, and warm blurred soft focus shimmer. The drums slipping from abstract minimal crush to monstrous lumbering groove. Hypnotic, repetitive, mesmerizing, trancelike.
At once familiar, and essential listening for fans of SUNNO))), Harvey Milk, Earth, Monarch and all thing slow, low and heavy. But at the same time, strangely alien, with a subtle muted beauty lurking at the heart of LAKOM's gloriously epic crumbling black mass of sound, within each song a breathless subtlety, a deep haunting otherworldliness, transforming dense low end explorations into something much more expansive and divine. Even at its very heaviest, it still manages to sound woozy and dreamlike, haunting and pretty, and utterly breathtaking.
This week's AQ-list has got the goods for Hawkwind fans all right - not only do we have that Harvestman / Minsk / U.S. Christmas disc of Hawkwind covers, but we're also highlighting the latest from Litmus, the Head Heritage and Rise Above approved British band who are basically a more-metallic Hawkwind for the current millennium. We doubt they'd deny it. Taking off (in rocket ships, of course) from where their countrymen left off (not that Hawkwind ever actually did leave off, we're pretty sure that venerable institution is still at it in some incarnation or other, but you know what we mean), Litmus do the space rock thing with an abundance of youthful energy and verve, rocking hard and spacing out in the best spirit of vintage '70s Hawkwind, to the over-the-top utmost really. Not only are the riffs big and heavy, not only are the rhythms propulsive and ecstatic, not only is everything infused with all the electronic sci-fi whooshings, bloops and blips, zips and zaps, etc. that you'd expect, but most crucially they also possess the POP element that Hawkwind also had, something that often gets overlooked by a lot of the other current bands who cite Hawkwind as an influence. These songs are damn hooky and melodic, destined to lodge in your skull, and not just due to the use of mantra-like repetition, which of course is also a Hawkwind derived feature too. Bands like White Hills and Cave share some of these tendencies, but none are more Hawkwindlike than Litmus!
We loved their 2007 Rise Above debut Planetfall, and this follow-up pushes all the same buttons, providing another excellent, epic hour of heavy duty space-prog bliss, complete with soaring vocal uplift, loads of searing synth, and ripping guitar leads. These lads are so pro, and aglow.
Needless to say, for fans of Hawkwind. Also other old, bold, cosmic prog. And more modern stoner(henge) metal. Thus for fans of labelmates Astra, too. Man, we'd love to see 'em live...
We're pretty sure that the guys in England's Litmus, a new space rock / stoner metal outfit on Lee Dorrian of Cathedral's Rise Above records (home to Electric Wizard and Witchcraft among others), won't mind us -- and everybody else who reviews this -- saying that, basically, Litmus is a more modern, much more metal, version of Hawkwind. If you're at all familiar with the peculiar genius of that British prog/psych institution, particularly their early '70s classics like Hall Of The Mountain Grill and Space Ritual, you'll hear the Hawkwind just as soon as you start spinning Litmus' debut album Planetfall. And that's no bad thing. In fact, we're all for it. This is awesome!
Litmus kick out an absurd, energetic overload of outer space anthems, mixing headbanging riffage that Lemmy would love with a mad scientist's laboratory's worth of sci-fi bleeps and swooshes, on songs with titles like "Destroy The Mothership" and "Expanding Universe (Twinstar Pt.2)". The album's centerpiece is the 15 minute fourth track, "Under The Sign", a triumphant and impetuous epic full of heavy heads-down chuggery and soaring refrains. Among the five psychic space warriors in the band, there's one guy credited with playing these three things: "Mellotron, synthesizers, and gong". So prog! As are the contents of the cd booklet: pages of lyrics (we assume) inscribed in some sort of alien glyphs or ancient runes or something. We also appreciate that the "space noises" with which this disc is abundantly and enthusiastically littered are mixed pretty much higher than just about anything else. It really makes it sound like Litmus are rocking out from within some sort of cosmic storm of chaotic radiation. Where else are you gonna hear the howling Hawkwind blowing with such gusto? We doubt that the actual Hawkwind, in whatever incarnation they currently exist, could match this. Only maybe Acid Mothers Temple comes close, but they aren't metallized OR poppy enough to be exact competition for what Litmus is doing here. Voivod circa "Outer Limits" and old Pink Floyd are also orbiting in proximity to Litmus, with the likes of Tarantula Hawk and Morkobot somewhere in nearby space.
All 72 minutes of Planetfall are utterly black-hole dense with bombastic, hooky, Hawkwindy space metal gloriousness. Even if you haven't ever heard Hawkwind, this is recommended (but of course then you should check 'em out too)!
These guys sent us an lp a long while back, and somehow we totally slept on it. Not sure why, a 12" x 12" image of a cloudy sky, the sun glinting in the background, and the words "PURE TRANSCENDENTAL BLACK METAL" writ large in big black records across the front, and inside, just what the cover promised some seriously buzzing blazing blackness. It's not surprising these guys found there way to 20 Buck Spin, a pretty good fit for sure for this NY horde.
Unlike the blissed out blackened ethereal transcendentalism of the lp, back when Liturgy was a one man bedroom black metal band, Renihilation finds Liturgy expanded to a 4 piece, and the sound is much more raw and organic, still blown out and pretty blissy, goddamn soaring and epic in fact, but it sounds more like a proper rock band, although the drumming is still inhumanly fast, and the band lock into these cool, weird, and very un-black metal sounding high end trills, that only make the sound that much more mysterious and mystical. The band claim some unlikely non-metal influences, but as you get into Renihilation, it's easy to hear that there's way more going on here than Ulver or Darkthrone worship, the band slipping into lurching, almost mathy breakdowns, incredible dynamics, that almost sounds like Harvey Milk at 78rpm, the sort of stop start, sway and lumber, that only works if the band is tight as fuck.
These songs are not super long either, but they feel majestic, and sprawling, and never ending, in a good way, the guitars are frantic, the drumming relentless, the guitars seem to exist only in the upper registers, like wild psychedelic leads transformed into some sort of blackened tremolo picking, so instead of black metal, these jams almost sound like modern classical compositions, like Arvo Part composing for black metal band, when a song ends, you feel exhausted, and drained, like at the end of a long journey, but before you can even catch your breath, the band explode into action once again. And before you know it, they're locked into another high end blast of extreme tension, no let up, no slipping into acoustic interludes, it's almost like the musical version holding your breath, soaring as high and for as long as (in)humanly possible, so when the band does pause briefly, it knocks you on your ass, of when they switch gears and get all spacious and dynamic, it nearly blows your mind.
When we first got this, we only listened to it a couple times, and thought it was pretty cool, but on repeated listens it is proving itself to be truly transcendental, and unlike almost all of the other black metal out there, and is quickly becoming a contender for black metal record of the year.
It makes sense and everything... Finland is dark and cold, with a winter that is bleak and inhospitable, forests, and huge expanses of frosty tundra, but it still seems impossible, or at least extremely unlikely, that there can be a seemingly neverending stream of gloriously depraved doom that continues to emanate from our favorite far away land. But who's complaining? Not us that's for sure. We can't get enough frozen Finnish weirdness, especially when it's of the doomy and sludgelike variety. And Loinen is most certainly both sludgelike and extremely doomy. But that's not nearly all.
Loinen (parasite in Finnish) traffic in "nihilist sludge core" and while that may be true, they do manage to add some interesting little sonic twists to what could be just another tarpit trudge through a downtuned wasteland. Which is not a bad thing, not at all, we could happily spend the rest of our days wrapped in a pair of headphones, crawling through a sonic wasteland as black as pitch, but when a band can create a bleak landscape that manages to transcend the typical, we're all the more thrilled.
The core sound is of course familiar, crumbling downtuned and ultra distorted guitars, churning riffs, pounding drums, and the glacial groove of dual bass crunch and drum pound makes up the framework of this whole disc, but Loinen, take a few liberties. One is a strange flair for the dynamic, no static slow motion riff trudgery, instead, the guitars, crunch and grind, stop and start, allowing lots of space to seep in, and building strange rhythms out of the doom. Very reminiscent of Dutch hypno-rockers Gore at times, with the churning looped vibe and the hypnotic repetitive arrangements. But the weirdest part of Loinen's doom-iverse is the vocals, a haunting croon, like some impossible mix of Scott Walker and Urfaust, sure there are howled demonic shrieks, but they spend most of the time buried way down in the mix, coming to the surface here and there, but it's those creepy soulful vocals that add an unexpected dimension to Loinen's doomy dirges. Turning some tracks into expansive epics that almost sound like some sort of doom metal Swans. Plus they even cover obscure Finnish punk legends Terveet Kadet! Awesome!
Packaged in an eye popping gatefold, all scrawled black and white madman illustrations, the sort of art you'd expect to see on the wall of a cell at an insane asylum, a tattooed figure, a toothy grimace, all sorts of crosses and clouds, little beasts and lots and lots of text. Cool.
LIMITED TO 524 COPIES!!!
Atmospheric doom from Canada.
Witchy doomy heaviness from Rhode Island, home of ultra avant doom heavies The Body, electro rockers Six Finger Satellite, spastic hyper noiserock duo Lightning Bolt, and hardcore legends Dropdead, among others, but female fronted doom rockers Loon have way more in common with the current crop of heavies like Jex Thoth, The Devil's Blood, Sub Rosa, Blood Ceremony, Cauchemar, Christian Mistress and Purple Rhinestone Eagle, and fans of any of those bands will definitely dig Loon's stonery psychedelic grooves, and pop flecked Sabbathy doominess, but Loon definitely have their own take on that sounds, beyond the doom aspect, which is really pretty minimal, sure it IS doomy, but it's way more groovy, there's also a serious slowcore vibe going on, a downer pop woven into the group's more metallic heaviness, which ends up reminding us of a way heavier more traditionally metal True Widow, which is totally NOT a bad thing. And then there's the vocals, which are amazing, slipping from demonic screech, to sweet melodious croon, powerful and intense, and often reminding us of country chanteuse Neko Case surprisingly enough. So if you can imagine Neko Case singing for a Sabbathy doomy downer pop stoner metal combo, well then, you might have an idea of what Loon has going on. And while the vocals might be the best we of the bunch, in terms of actually singing, the songs are pretty fantastic too, spacey and psychedelic, groovy and heavy, a little bit proggy, super hooky, with just enough pop, the guitar sound buzzy and crunchy, the drums powerful, the whole sound hooky and heavy, doomy and sort of dreamy at the same time.
After a gorgeous hazy bit of psychedelic acoustic guitar, the record finishes with the nearly 10 minute "Grackel" which is the perfect Loon track, mixing all the various elements, the Neko Case like vocals (sounding surprisingly twangy here!), the shrieked demonic howls, the groovy Sabbathy riffage, the super melodic poppiness, the dirgey slowcore, all culminating in a woozy washed out feedback drenched spacey psychedelic outro, that could have (and probably SHOULD have) gone on for ANOTHER 10 minutes. Definitely a new favorite. Anyone into ANY of the above mentioned bands should for sure check this out.
The packaging is incredible too. The vinyl is black and green swirled, and is housed in an elaborate silkscreened fold out cover, green and metallic gold, a skeletal soldier wreathed in flowers, beneath the groups's tendril-y root-like logo, includes several inserts and a download code!
Slow, massive, majestic Italian stoner rock, from the label that brought us Pawnshop. Heavy, with unusually gravelly/goth-y vocals for the genre.
Portland sludge merchants Lord Dying are back to beat you up, beat you down, beat you all around with their second album for Relapse. It's doom metal clobberin' time, Lord Dying laying down the lumbering riffs, solo shred, and mean, bellowing vokills (though this time, we noticed some clean singing amidst the guttural roar, at least on "An Open Sore").
Songs like the oh so optimistic "(All Hopes Of A New Day)...Extinguished" wallow in sheer morose chuggery, this album approaching groovy death metal territory at times, sounding more 'core at others.
While wouldn't want ALL metal to always sound like Lord Dying, there is something about this that couldn't be any MORE metal. They do their thing just about perfectly, for when you really want to indulge in the simple, extreme, aggro pleasures of riffs, solos, and gruff/tuff vocals.
Again, for fans of High On Fire, that sort of doomed out, cranked up, heavy rockin' punishment - and also, once again, nice cover art, that looks like it belongs on a '70s dark fantasy paperback novel by Karl Edward Wagner or something.
First off, LOVE the cover painting, by Orion Landau, and his artwork elsewhere on this release, all of occultic subjects like skull faced spectres and winged demons, rendered in garish colors, greens and purples. It's art that looks like it's been taken from the cover to some lurid old pulp sci-fi/fantasy paperback. Then there's the music. Lordy lordy. Portland's Lord Dying sure kick out the hard-hitting sludge jams here on their debut full-length for Relapse - take heavy, and make it heavier! (The Sanford Parker production doesn't hurt.)
As attested to by the ugly, throat-ripped vokills, there's a bulldozing, brute force approach to Lord Dying's sometimes thrashing, sometimes grooving doom, but their metallic constructs have more to 'em than that, with the sheer aggression of their sinewy, sledgehammer riffage enhanced by roiling drum patterns, interesting progressions, and inspired leads, along with the artful use of feedback, distortion, and electronic effects. It's extremely satisfying "extreme music" when you're in the mood for a heavy-duty headbang. Definitely for fans of High On Fire, Red Fang, and the late great Karp (a band whom Lord Dying covered on a self-released 7" single that preceded this Relapse release), among others.
Many moons ago, we gave a plethora of positive hand signals (thumbs up, devil horns, 'hang loose'...) in written review form to the debut disc by a Russian stoner doom band, this one, Lord Of Doubts, who impressed the hell out of us both -despite- and -because- of their uncanny resemblance to those aQ (and everyone's) fave stoner doom metal mongers, Electric Wizard. Nothin' original about 'em, no doubt about it, Lord Of Doubts were (and are) Electric Wizard worshippers, but sometimes that's ok. When done right. Which they did. Basically, it's about the sound AND the riffs. If you got 'em, you got 'em. We declared Lord Of Doubts "heirs to the Dopethrone" and there was high demand for that disc, which unfortunately was somewhat limited and went out of print all too soon...
But now, we've learned of a NEW opus from LoD, well an ep at least, which we just ordered direct from the Russian Federation. Ensconced in a handsome digipak, this golden disc contains a brief introduction, and then two longer, bonged-out songs, "The Gates Of Doom" and "Kali Ma - Black Mother", over 20 minutes total. Once again, damn if they don't sound just like the Electric Wizard... Crushing riff repetition. Crashing cymbals. Gnarled vocal chant. Everything slowly pulsating in a dense druggy haze. But, now it's as if Electric Wizard, in the tradition of the Beatles, travelled to India to get high with their guru... Maybe it's the cover art, and the droning chants of "Kali Ma", and the buried, distorted dialog samples from some Hindi movie... but Lord Of Doubts do seem to bring an Eastern ceremonial vibe to these lugubriously heavy, sprawling psych proceedings! Electric Wizard and The Temple Of Doom, anyone?
If not utterly impossible, it would certainly still be silly to write a review of this debut by Russian dope n' doom trio Lord Of Doubts without mentioning that they sound a heck of a lot like UK stoner doom titans Electric Wizard. In fact, those two words would easily do for a brief review of this: ELECTRIC WIZARD! You could almost leave it at that, really. Citing a few of their song titles would work well too: "Temple Of The Riff", "Satan's Magic Smoke", "Heavier Than Universe". You get the idea, eh?
Of course, this list, we're highlighting the domestic release of EW's latest slab of psychedelic sonic Satanism, Black Masses. But if you're still jonesin' for more of an Electric Wizard fix, here you go. Lord Of Doobies, whoops, we mean Lord Of Doubts, deliver the same brand of bong-smoke-shrouded, slow n' low riffage that Electric Wizard fans are hooked upon. Drugula obviously put the bite on these Russians too. Their riffs are as massive and mesmeric. The rhythm section likewise a pounding, lurching throb. And, clinching it, the vocals are similarly a ragged, wretched, wasted drawl. It's total EW worship, no doubt about it. We can't imagine they'd deny the Electric Wizard influence, but original or not (and EW themselves of course owe something to predecessors Black Sabbath), Lord Of Doubts do what they do quite well. It's not just the *sound* that they emulate, but they also prove themselves capable of writing worthy riffs, so rather than a rip-offs, we regard them as talented acolytes, and possible heirs to the Dopethrone when and if EW ever pack it in. Seriously, we were a bit skeptical about this before we first put it on, but soon found ourselves utterly hypnotized by the heaviness, and how can you argue with that?
Lordy. From the same label that brought us Lord Vicar, comes another doom metal act with Lord in the name, Lord Of The Grave! They like their Lords over there at The Church Within.
So yeah, of course this is some doomy stuff. This Swiss power trio plays raw doom metal along the lines of Sleep, Electric Wizard, and Eyehategod. Slow and low, but not quite glacially ultradoomic, though definitely on the sludgy side of Sabbath, with swinging, swaying, repetitive riffs pounding themselves pleasantly into your (possibly) stoned skull. Simple but effective! The relentless blown-out riffage sometimes segues into spacey, nod-scene atmospherics (where they really begin to sound like Om, approaching that style of psychedelic metal minimalism).
There's five tracks here, none of 'em short, most around 7-10 minutes long and the final number clocking in at 17:33 (a track long enough, and with enough tripped out guitar soloing, to draw comparisons to Earthless). Any one of 'em though seems like they could (or should, or maybe even do) go on forever, lumbering along heavily and hypnotically. Adding to the mesmeric vibe are the rhyming incantations of the singer, his voice a hoarse holler, or sometimes a spoken-sung stoned mumble, buried in the mix. Again, we're reminded of Sleep/Om.
Not much else to say, you either like this sort of stuff or you don't. And if you do, we probably don't even need to mention that the first track is entitled "Holy Vitus", do we?
A brief blast of grim nekro blackness from this offshoot of LA's black metal mavens Harassor, Lord Time offers up 4 tracks of punked out, super raw heaviness, with a sound that alternates between weirdly melodic bursts of frenzied black blast and churning murky d-beat crush, the vocals a bizarre alien croak, the drums buried in the mix, but the guitars, gloriously blown out and buzz drenched, managing to sound thick and heavy even with some seriously lo-fi production, the songs twisted and tangled into convoluted arrangements, lurching from frantic demonic fury to pulverizing punkish pound and back again, often fading out into tripped out psychedelic ambience or blackly droned out drift before lurching right back into it again. And while it may be on the short side, the whole program repeats on the flipside, but with significantly different mixes and arrangements, the B side sounding distinctly more distorted and lo-fi, but at the same time laced with seemingly more stretches of psychedelic black ambience�
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each tape smeared with actual blood, and housed in gorgeous letterpressed #'d J-cards (also smeared with blood!), printed on sparkly reflective gold paper.
Supergroup - or as Julian Cope would put it, stuporgroup - doom action here folks! Even before we heard it, we were chuffed about Lord Vicar's debut full length. We'd already had a taste of the Vicar via their 7" last year on I Hate Records, and so as soon as we heard there was an album out we HAD to have it... we made contact with the label in Germany directly, and now some weeks later here they are. Even if we hadn't heard that 7", this is a no-brainer for anyone (like us) into traditional doom metal, just based on the heavyweight pedigree of the band's members. From Sweden, singer Christian Lindersson aka Lord Chritus, former frontman for Count Raven, Terra Firma, and (on the album after Wino left the band) the legendary Saint Vitus! From Finland, guitarist Peter Inverted formerly Peter Vicar, of Reverend Bizarre (R.I.P.) as well as VDGGish progsters Orne. From England, drummer Gareth Milsted of Centurion's Ghost. Also from Finland, there's bassist Jussi "Iron Hammer" Myllykoski who is not from any band we know of, but makes up for it by having a cool nickname. And then, giving this even more cult cred, there's a guest guitar solo on one song by Don Angelo Tringali of Slough Feg and Cold Mourning from the USA.
If any of these names mean anything to you, you know you're gonna be well and truly doomed when you put this on. There's slo-mo, mouldering witchburning riffs played on loud, fuzzed out axes, hand in cloven hoof with the weepy, whiney, sometimes effected and always affecting vox of Lord Chritus, extremely Ozzy-esque yet utterly distinctive. Anything with these guys is gonna be steeped in Sabbath-iness. And as Peter Inverted's post-Reverend Bizarre project, this basically sounds a lot like his old band (and thus also like Sabbath, and Sleep, and Cathedral...) but with a few new wrinkles. The songs on Fear No Pain range from the super sludgy to a plodding swing to even more uptempo ("The Last Of The Templars" is in the rockin' mode of "Cromwell" by RB for sure). In addition there's some morosely folky parts that also remind us of Witchcraft, Lord Vicar certainly having supped from the same '70s folk-prog nectar-filled chalice as those Swedish retro doom sensations. Especially on this album's last track, the truly epic 14 and a half minute "The Funeral Pyre" which begins all acoustic-guitary before eventually unleashing monumental riffage (echoing Sabbath's "Lord Of This World" perhaps), all of which is graced by Chritus's most raw and lachrymose performance, almost a la Paternoster, ending this album with a heavy '70s prog vibe indeed...
For fans of all the bands abovementioned, no doubt, also the likes of Witchfinder General, Electric Wizard, Solstice... heck you get the idea. Highly recommended to all doomhounds.
Another chunk of classic old school style doom from Sweden's I Hate Records. This time from a band called Lord Vicar, whose name should give you a clue as to what they're all about. From Reverend to Vicar? That's right, Reverend Bizarre's axeman Peter Vicar has joined up with vocalist Christian Lindersson of Count Raven, Terra Firma and St. Vitus to craft some total Sabbath worshipping heavy doom. And it is pretty excellent. Killer loping tempo, druggy doomy guitar, wailed almost Ozzy-ish vocals, think Pentagram, Pagan Altar and the like� fans of that sort of classic doom will dig this big time. There is some surprising folkiness to be found here and there, but it never takes long for the band to lurch back into full on doom groove destruction. Lord Vicar also include in their ranks members of Centurions Ghost, While Heaven Wept and Revelation for extra doom cred, if any more were needed!
LIMITED TO 700 COPIES! Packaged in a thick matte sleeve, pressed on heavy vinyl, with a color insert with lyrics and liner notes.
These Spanish masters of monumental ultra doom stoner sludge return, with four new tracks. And as we mentioned last time, don't confuse these guys with the Master Musicians Of Bukkake, while both take their name from a somewhat problematical source (Google it - or maybe don't), the Lords are a much heavier proposition, as becomes pretty obvious a few minutes into the first track. Although they do start out with a wild tangle of chaotic psychedelic noisemaking, a squall of swirling skree, all set to some monster drumming, but soon, the song proper kicks in, and the band lock into some groovy stoner metal, all slithery riffage, and propulsive drumming, but this is not just rehashed riffage, the band whip out some wild squiggle guitar harmonies, and the vocals, not at all what you might expect, a sort of super processed, demonic, underwater shriek/gargle, totally changes the tone of the band, especially when they kick out some stonery wah wah guitar shred, but then it's wrapped around those crazed vokills, a dizzying mix for sure. And those guitars, that's really what halls make this something else entirely, when the guitars go careening off course, and instead of churning away, the riff splinters, leaving will blasts of psychedelic freakout, or groovy shred, or just tripped out noisiness, always to eventually somehow return to the roiling riffiness. The songs are long too, so they go through all sorts of transformations/permutations, from doomy creeps and crawls, to psychedelic blooze blowouts, super stretched out slo-mo ultradooooooom to Sabbathy swing, all pocked with spacey FX, wild guitar aktion and more of those twisted alien vox. Killer!
Not to be confused with the Master Musicians, these LORDS Of Bukkake are Spanish, and specialize in a particularly twisted, sick, sludgey, electronic flecked ultradoom. The label describes their sound as Iron Monkey meets the Swans meets Godflesh meets Esoteric meets Eyehategod, and while something like that may be too good to actually exist, this definitely comes close. The first few minutes set the stage with a squall of wild glitched out electronics, swirling squiggles of damaged effects, mewled maniacal vox, before quickly slipping into a low slung almost twangy groove,a ll super busy drumming, and spidery reverbed guitars, not to mention more swirls of weird effects, dubby reverb and whatnot, and the drums are so bizarre super chaotic and all over the place, soon some chiming guitars come in, but it still sounds more tripped out and abstract and psychedelic than specifically doomy. It's not until about 4 minutes in, when out come the big guns, and by big guns we of course mean, crushing downtuned, super distorted riffage, and then the vocals, holy shit. Like Burning Witch but even MORE fucked up and freaked out, raspy and alien and sick, like some cartoon supervillain, perfectly matched to the sort of twisted psych doom these guys lay down.
The second track is another sprawl of slo-mo doom trudgery, all downtuned glacial guitaring and octopoidal caveman drumming, this time peppered with stretches of droned out layered high end, but again, it's those vocals, seriously freaky and haunting and EVIL.
The last two tracks continue on in much the same way, lacing the sick black doom with squalls of effects, of warped wah wah drenched psych guitars, swirling spaced out atmospheres, the final track especially, starts out all total hazy psych rock before the guitars drop out completely, leaving just the drums and some insect like buzzing electronics, suddenly sounding like Geronimo or Bastard Noise, before finally launching back into some doom, this time though, the tempo is cranked up and it's almost groovy, a little stonery, a LOT Sabbathy, but corrupted by those awesomely damaged vokills, and then finally the song collapses into yet another sun baked stretch of shredding washed out psychedelia, the only thing keeping it from total druggy psych rock bliss out, those vox, turning it instead into something wholly other.
Twisted, sick, heavy, slow and low, psychedelic and totally gloriously fucked. It's almost like someone whipped this up just for the aQ weirdos out there, a seriously WAY recommended batch of what-the-fuck avant psychedelic outsider doom sludge radness!
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This has a lot going for it. First off, they're called Lords Of Falconry, which is kinda cool. Lordly, even. And this, their debut full-length, comes to us via the also quite lordly Holy Mountain label, who have a pretty stellar track record as far as we're concerned. In fact, Holy Mountain probably has had a higher number of AQ Records Of The Week per capita than almost any other label. Furthermore, our discerning pal JW who runs Holy Mountain tells us that THIS is precisely the sort of thing he's always wanted to release on his label. So far, so good. Our appetites are whetted. And then, there's the music. ULTRA fuzzed, freaked out, high energy, heavy psychedelic guitar jams, to put it plainly. Can't complain about that, no siree. But (you knew there had to be a but), we do have one minor caveat for you potential emptors... it concerns the vocals. If this was all-instrumental, there'd be no hemming and hawing. But, some of the vocal stylings struck some of us as, well, a little bit goofy. Self-consciously "rawk" or something. You may not mind a bit, and we actually don't much either.
Anyway, it's hard to be picky about the vocals when Lords Of Falconry's guitars are blasting jet-engine like, turning the air into cottage cheese they way they used to do back in Blue Cheer's daze, the wild FX and throbbing distortion turning yr head inside out so your brain is being caressed and cudgeled by these riffs and rhythms without any help from your ears.
Recommended to folks who get off on bands like Julian Cope's Braindonor, DMBQ, Midnite Snake, The Heads, Hawkwind, High Rise, and other fuzz-laden, pedal-stomping, heavy-duty psychedelic throwbacks. And by the way, though Holy Mountain didn't tell us this, we're pretty sure that one of these Lords Of Falconry is in fact none other than guitarist Steven Wray Lobdell of Davis Redford Triad, Sufi Mind Game, and Faust fame! If true (it is), that explains a lot about this. The other dude in the band we believe to be one Sammy Adams, formerly the drummer for Fireballs Of Freedom. Talk about a power duo. So, despite a slight case of what we might call the Scissorfight syndrome, this gets a solid recommendation from us!
Ahh, the Body. One of our favorite crushing sludge behemoths. Purveyors of pulverizing brutality. Khanate, Moss, Corrupted, all sonic brethren of the mighty metallic monsters known as the Body.
So what might you think if you heard that two of the guys from The body had a side project called Lorna Doom? Well, you'd probably be thinking the same thing we were. Fuck yeah! The Body, Lorna DOOM. How could we not be psyched?! Okay, well what if we told you Lorna Doom was in fact The Body's HIP-HOP side project? Then what? Run screaming? Or would you still be intrigued? Maybe more than intrigued, maybe kind of excited? Well we were, and we still are, cuz this is pretty fucking dope.
Woven together from simple drum machine beats, weird post rock guitar lines, jazzy horns, bizarre samples, and AWESOME loops (the first track is made from a loop of Rob Base's ("it Takes Two"!) and of course some bad ass white boy rapping. At first we were sort of thrown for a loop. But the more we listened to this, the more we dug it. Not hard to see these guys rocking the mic and holding their own alongside the big boys. Funky and funny, but not joke-y at all. This disc had us reimagining Eminem's movie 8 Mile, but recast with these two bearded indie rock metal dudes in the part of Rabbit (or Rabbits I guess), how fucking awesome would that be?
Anyway, not necessarily for fans of the Body, although we are and we dig this a lot. Regardless, some seriously solid, funky, outsider, homemade hip hop. Cool stuff for sure.
Now known as *Los* Natas rather than just plain Natas (to avoid confusion with the hiphop group of the same name?), this excellent Argentinian stoner rock outfit are back at last with a follow-up to their highly regarded (around AQ anyway) 1999 album Ciudad de Brahman (which is sadly out of print now, as it was released by the now defunct Man's Ruin label -- at the time we proclaimed it one of said label's best releases ever). An atmospheric Kyuss flavor is still present, but they've really developed from their humble beginnings into a powerful and original band. Harking back to lost wonders of obscure 1970s Latin American heavy psych, the Los Natas trio's music is heavy, rumbling stuff with stretches of spacey, almost jazz improv, acoustic breaks, and of course Spanish language vocals... They rock out on tracks like "Lei Motive" (with some unexpected almost boogie-woogie piano dropping into the middle of the song) and get all abstract and avantgarde on gently droning, drugged out trips like "Planeta Solitario". Recorded in Argentina by SF's own master of heaviness Billy Anderson (producer for Neurosis, High On Fire, Cathedral, Melvins, etc.), this is definitely one of the best heavy, psychedelic rock releases of the year thus far! (PS look out for another upcoming Los Natas disc to be released on Jussi of Circle's Ektro label someday.)
Attentive Aquarius customers probably already know Argentina's Los Natas as a band that, over their career to date, have recorded riffy Kyuss-inspired albums for seminal stoner rock label Man's Ruin (RIP) -and- also released proggy, droned-out space rock experiments for Circle's Ektro imprint, in all cases solidifying our Los Natas fandom here at AQ. Not that the stylistic distance 'tween the Man's Ruin and Ektro albums is that much of a stretch -- certainly not for these guys, who have become masters at making modern psychedelic hard rock that harks back to the druggy daze of '70s krautrock and their own South American hippie heroes, as much as it does the "desert rock" of Kyuss.
Well, we're glad to report that Los Natas are back and bringin' it with this, their latest album, the long-awaited, full-on follow-up to their previous Small Stone release Corsario Negro from back in 2002. They've definitely got the stoner rock rolling here, El Hombre Montana being on the more metallic side of the Los Natas equation, super heavy and percussively driving and seemingly haunted by the spirit of Black Sabbath in the guitar crunch department. Full of fuzz and distortion, these songs spiral in intensity -- lots of wild acid rawk GUITAR bursting out all over the place -- but also find room for some gruff vocal melodies (all songs sung in Spanish only). There's even a track of lovely, acoustic campfire folk. So we'd say that this is a stoner-rock-en-Espanol album with broad appeal to people into the likes of, say, Six Organs of Admittance, Comets On Fire, The Heads, and Boris.
Indeed, while Stateside these guys have their fans (we know quite a few AQ regulars are into 'em), they still don't have quite the profile of another AQ fave, Japan's Boris. And while Los Natas don't -quite- ever go to the extremes of heaviness and weirdness as Boris sometimes do, both bands occupy a lot of the same middle ground in the '70s inspired psychedelic hard rock realm, so we'd like to point out that there's not reason why anyone who loved Boris' Akuma No Uta, or Pink, or (especially) Heavy Rocks shouldn't also thrill to the music of Los Natas!
For fans of Argentina's heavy psych stoner rock overlords Los Natas, we've FINALLY managed to snag enuff copies of this sprawling live-in-the-studio double cd to list... These Munchen Sessions were, as you might expect from the title, recorded in Munich, Germany, in 2003. With the tape rolling courtesy of Electrohasch head honcho (and Colour Haze guitarist) Stefan Koglek, who also makes a guest appearance on one track, the Los Natas guys took this opportunity to jam out on material both new and old; hints of their heroes Black Sabbath (or is that a Bang riff we're hearing??) seem to surface amongst themes fans will recognize from past Los Natas efforts like Corsario Negro. The two discs bear two long tracks apiece, song suites really, each the appoximate length of a vinyl album side, wandering through all kinds of moods both heavy and mellow...basically progged-out in the same laidback way as the amazing Toba-Trance volumes Los Natas released a while back on Circle's Ektro label. Though Los Natas started their career off as (pretty killer) Kyuss klones, their interest in/influence from '70s psych and krautrock like Agitation Free has become more evident over the years, and we'd say that folks into the likes of Pharaoh Overlord and the heavier Acid Mother Temple material who haven't yet heard Los Natas need to check 'em out, and there's plenty to check out here!
Flailing long hair, jamming guitar solos, and gruff vocals (in Spanish). Weirdly looming desert cacti with electric instruments. Astral drug trips to the tops of holy mountains. Thick clouds of marijuana smoke forming into the shapes of totemic birds and animals. Campfire acoustic ceremony. And utter, utter HEAVINESS. Oh yeah, these guys from way down south in Argentina are one of our favorite "stoner rock" bands ever. We sound stoned just talking about 'em.
We've been fans of Los Natas for around ten years now, ever since we heard their 2nd album, Ciudad De Brahman, released in 1999 by thee primo purveyors of stoner rock, Man's Ruin, now defunct. In a world of approximately 1,257,523 Kyuss clones (about half of 'em from Sweden, according to the most recent data we have available), Los Natas stood out as particularly excellent example of the Kyuss style desert rock thing, fat guitar tone and all. And then, they took that sound and went all wonderfully weird with it, releasing a couple "Toba-Trance" discs of folk-flecked, pot-headed, spaced-out '70s sounding progginess on the Finnish label Ektro, run by another AQ fave band, Circle. And yet they also managed to get even heavier and more aggressively metallic elsewhere on other albums, like Corsario Negro and Le Hombre Montana. It's been three long years since we last heard from 'em, and wow, this new one could be their best yet!
As displayed by the fierce urgency of the storming, spiraling, and very metal instrumental "David Y Goliath" to then the hushed and lovely contemplative string-pluck of "Bienvenidos" that immediately follows it, El Nuevo Orden De La Libertad provides everything we want from these South American fuzzfreaks. It's loud, pounding and grinding, sooo heavy and rockin', yet with many memorable, melodic moments. And their interest in sprawling spaced out krautrocky improvs hasn't exactly abated, with detours into a nod-zone of blissful piano/acoustic guitar interplay (on final track "Dos Horses" ferinstance, that reminds us of Circle's Miljard) and stuff like that, as Los Natas wander about a mystic desertscape, dreaming and destroying with drug-fueled fervor.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again. As much as we love Japan's Boris, there's no reason that this equally heavy and psychedelic band shouldn't be as adulated.
Argentina's Los Natas were once a Kyuss clone (and a good one) but now they're really come into their own. First they impressed us with last year's mighty rockin' "Corsario Negro" opus (second in our personal Stoner Rock Of The Year estimation only to "Heavy Rocks" from Japan's Boris, maybe even tied with 'em), now they branch out further with this psychedelic "trance" album released on Jussi of Circle's Ektro label. And they fit right in with the likes of Ektro labelmates Circle and Acid Mothers Temple. The Los Natas trio has emerged from the pot haze of their Buenos Aires "Death Studios" to unfurl the banner of "Toba-Trance", a mostly instrumental (though we like the brief vocal "hoo hoo" bit in the middle of track 2) laid-back spacey exploratory opus that's not really "heavy" in the way we were expecting. The metal part of the stoner rock equation is mostly missing. Rather, the acoustic guitars and Latin flavored jazz improv elements of the druggier, more atmospheric tracks found on "Corsario Negro" set the standard here. Droney, melodic, extended (three tracks, fifty-two minutes total)...this is a very nice lil' trip. Guitarist Sergio Chotsourian channels his '70s heroes with some lengthy psych solos. Flutes and South American Indian instruments also show up in the mix. Immediate references might be Circle's stoner-rock side-project Pharoah Overlord, or the lighter side of Boris's semi-acoustic "Flood". Byram's thinking of Grateful Dead jams (and we know Jussi loves the Greatful Dead) but this is as much Agitation Free or some other Krautrock hippy stuff. What it definitely is, is spacerock, mostly mellow and quite pretty, mesmerizing and intricate, great going-to-bed-at-night music. As we said, it never gets really heavy, though there's some riffier moments throughout and distorted noisiness that kicks in towards the end of track three, not loud but satisfying nonetheless. The more we listen, the more we like. Recommended.
MPEG Download: "Que Rico..." [/audio/losnatasque.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Que Rico..." [/audio/losnatasque.m3u]
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Argentinian stoner rock heroes Los Natas are a band that definitely seems to have shifted their allegiance from the all-too-common-inspiration Kyuss to the real ancient old stuff, getting really into Pink Floyd and the Greatful Dead and all their own '70s South American psychedelic forebears (obscure bands we gringos don't even know about). You can still hear the Kyuss in 'em, but filtered through an original Latin American/psych record collector creativity. Los Natas' last two records have been great -- both the harder-rockin' Corsario Negro and the spacier, mellower, mostly instrumental Toba-Trance. Now comes Toba-Trance II! While it reprises many of the elements of the first Toba-Trance (ending even with a live version of "Que Rico..." from that album), in parts this sequel seems way proggier. Hard prog. With flutes. Squawking fucked up horn bleats. Serious riffage. Especially on the eleven-minute "Tracion En El Arrocero" which we could imagine as music for some sort of medieval asskicker procession. That's not the lengthiest track on here, either: the 15 minute "Humo de Marihuana" is a genuine spaghetti western epic. Of course it wouldn't be Toba-Trance (or Los Natas) without hippy percussion and limpid, liquid bass undulations, mellow stoned spaced out maaaann. And mention must be made of the Flamenco stylings and psychedelic soloing of guitarist Sergio -- he smokes! Gently beautiful and meltingly mesmeric, the Latin American answer to Pharaoh Overlord or Ghost perhaps. And it's as beautifully packaged as the first Toba-Trance -- great looking graphics, Ektro!
Despond marks the very first proper full length from these Nashville funereal doomlords (whose frontman also plays in doom outfit Mourner, whose most recent record came out on Paradigms a short while back), after a whole mess of splits and demos, and if ever there was a record that captured the true spirit of depressive ultradoom, it's Despond. Epic musical miserablism, the sound HUGE, the production massive, but the sound is only part of it, the mood, the atmosphere. Song after song, with titles like "Open Veins To A Curtain Closed" and "Silent And Completely Overcome" and "Cut Up, Depressed And Alone", peppered with haunting bits of spoken word, recorded as if the speaker were sitting alone in their room, in the dark, contemplating the end. It's seriously grim and powerful stuff, and the gorgeously varied music reflects that, by exploring different shades of dark, this is not all churning, roiling black sludge, it's way more nuanced than that, just check out the opener "Open Veins To A Curtain Closed", which begins with just gristly gurgly vocals over big plodding drums, the effect truly harrowing, before the guitars come crashing in, and briefly, the track is a plodding sprawl of broken souled doooooom, but then the downtuned dirge peels away, leaving just spidery clean guitars, shuffling drums, woozy wandering super melodic basslines, strangely psychedelic, much of the song is spent in this haunting ethereal drift, before finally, the song slips back into churning chugging, guttural voiced black heaviness, loping and melancholy, but peppered with brief blasts of grinding metallic crush, only to finally unwind with a lumbering stretch of surprisingly melodic, but still crushingly mournful dirgery. And that's just the first song. The rest of the record plays out similarly, the melodic component a real surprise, with the band seemingly more beholden to classic doom like My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost, than the ultra doom sludge that followed, with much of the music on Despond sounding downright poppy, still dark, and dreary, and depressive, but the melodies are surprisingly catchy, a timeless melancholy woven into a more modern funeral doom framework, but it makes for a much more satisfying listen.
That said, the band do get seriously slo-mo sludgey, like on "Shallow Pulse", where they wed some more melodic guitar lines to some tarpit black ooze riffage, the vocals gurgling over the top, the drums pounding out a Neanderthal plod, or on "Silent And Completely Alone", which begins all clean vocaled, which might have you scratching your head, until the song slips right back into the roiling black abyss, and back into a blurred black doomsludge drift, but with the addition of those clean vocals, adds a whole other element to the song, and the sound, and while perhaps taking away from the pure grimnity for some, to us, it only makes the music that much more emotional, and makes that song quite possibly our favorite.
There are also some mysterious interludes, gorgeous ambient experimentation, thick Tim Hecker like crumbling doomscapes, creepy reverbed piano drive drifts, even a gorgeous, mostly clean choral sounding guitar/organ/chanted vox closer, but those only add to the overall vibe, the doomed soul, black hearted, and yeah, despondent atmosphere, the whole record a fantastically tense push and pull between collapsing black hole ultra doom and a more melodic classic dreary miserablism.
New one (getting better) from this popular San Francisco hard rock trio. Not 'stoner rock', not 'punk', not 'metal', not 'grunge'...not exactly. Loud guitars, tough girl vocals, lots of attitude and rock action. Members of Amber Asylum show up to add
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Kyussism. A religion? A 'zine? Both? Either way, someone from Kyussism claims this band Lowrider to be the new Kyuss, so I guess they know what they're talking about. If you're into that so-called "desert rock" sound, the fat bass, stoner groove, '70s worshipping thing, you must love the late and (to you) great Kyuss and probably will love these guys too. THEY certainly love Kyuss. File with all the other Sabbath-by-way-of-Kyuss psychedelic heavy rock bands, and put 'em at or near the top of the pile.
From the vaults of the legendary krautrock label Brain comes another cool digipacked reissue on Revisited. We've been fans of this particular album for a long time, previously stocking a Repertoire reissue when we could get it. In fact, looking into our archives, we see that we reviewed it on two separate occasions, giving it quite similar but different reviews. Well, here's a third, based on those.
This self-titled 1970 debut album is one of the two early Lucifer's Friend albums we recommend, the other being its 1972 sequel, Where The Groupies Killed The Blues, which perhaps will be reissued again as well. After that, the records we've heard aren't as good. But THIS, this is a great piece of '70s proto-metal very much akin to Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Budgie, and (especially) Uriah Heep! Some psychedelic weirdness, lots of heavy riffing (on guitars and organ) and total wailin' rock god vocals (courtesy of British singer John Lawton, who later DID join the Heep). As krautrock goes, they're more like early Scorpions than the more out there stuff you might be thinking of (Faust, Can, Kraftwerk, Cluster...) but this -was- recorded by Conny Plank.
The first track, the triumphal rocker "Ride The Sky" (recently covered by doomsters Trouble on their abortive comeback Simple Mind Condition) begins with a trumpeting French horn motif that will definitely make you think of Led Zep, sounding uncannily like the "ah ahhhhhh ahh" intro to "The Immigrant Song", though this came first. There's a cool live video of this track on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5DpOdf-_yM&feature=related.
If you dig that, you'll dig this album... !!!
(FYI, Revisited has included 2 bonus tracks this time 'round.)
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Starting with an introductory minute of electronic drone distortion, the half of this split cd by Belgian black metallers Lugubrum, entitled "Al Ghemist" is, simply, awesome. Unlike most black metal bands, Lugubrum aren't concerned with playing fast. But they do care about atmosphere. Slow, doomy, heavy, dirgey, dark, bleak atmosphere. The production is kinda lo-fi, but densely textured.
The opening noise piece leads into "Hunted Ordure", one of the best doom songs we've EVER heard. Buy it for this track alone and you'll be happy. Happily doomed. But the other Lugubrum tracks are good too. They do some faster stuff, but it still sounds like music from the bowels of the earth. The croaking vocals, fuzzed-out guitars, the weird non-standard rhythms, it's so nice. As they say, "Your discomfort and damaged speakers nourish Lugubrum eternally!!!"
Finsternis (a Lugubrum side-project) aren't quite as odd an outfit. They play good old-fashioned necro black metal, excuse me, "alcoholic bonesaw metal" exclusively. You've heard the likes of them before. But their half of this split does provide some hateful blasting rock n' roll for those that dig this sort of primitive, grimy black metal.
Oh, thanks to AQ customer Roberto for pointing out to us that the old man on Lugubrum's "Al Ghemist" cover art appears to be holding a carrot. For some reason that didn't convince Roberto that this was amazing, but it only added to our love for Lugubrum.
This is the debut release from these Finnish heavies, and is a crushing slab of gloriously abject doomsludge infused with plenty of old school slo-mo death metal crush, the label mentions bands like Coffins, Autopsy, Winter and Celtic Frost, and we're definitely feeling all of those, but we're also hearing plenty of Melvins (especially in the vocals) even some diSEMBOWELMENT, not to mention all those other modern death metal outfits like Disma, Vasaeleth, Vastum, Encoffination and the like. Lurk mix long stretches of droned out ambience, layered guitar buzz and effects drenched thrum, with bursts of churning chugging heaviness, pounding doomic sludge, the drums massive and pummeling, the vocals slipping from a growling guttural howl to a surprisingly melodic bellow (hence the Melvins comparison), there are some surprising melodies too, even some hooks, but they're less noticeable once they've been stretched way out and slowed way down. The songs often fracture into lurching lumbering stop/start workouts, or disappear in squalls of white noise, slipping into near-grooves, before splintering into something much more abstract and dirgey. The closer is the fastest of the bunch, but even then it's still basically a crawl, but when the drums and the riffs fall just right, and the band lock into a serious chunk of blackened chugging sludge, these guys become fucking monstrous, and that sort of sonic power and black hole metallic fury, should have all those other modern death metal outfits looking over their shoulders, and running for their lives.
One of two new releases on local label The Flenser, the other being the latest full length lp from LA black metallers Lake Of Blood (reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), and this one, the first demo from Oakland funeral doom band Lycus, who existed briefly years ago in Sacramento, but reshuffled their lineup and relocated to the East Bay, and finally released their first record, and it's a doozy. A gorgeous sonically lugubrious crawl, glacial and downtuned, the sort of sludgey ultra-doom bliss that should hit the spot for folks into Skepticism, dISEMBOWELMENT and the like. And like those bands, there's a huge melodic component, this is not the sort of slow motion tuneless ultrasludge (which we also dig!), this is like classic doom, slowed waaaaaay down, there's even some groove, a little Sabbathy swing, but it's subtle, the band creeping and lumbering for the most part, but with a surprising amount of complexity, in the arrangement, the melodies, the drumming quite busy for music this slow, and the riffing active, with all manner of intertwined melodies and churning riffage. The sound slipping from classic metal to funereal dirge and back again, often letting the two bleed into each other, the resulting hybrid, impossibly catchy, heavy, and doomy all at the same time. In fact, when we were playing this in the store, it got Allan to come investigate, he being notoriously finicky about his doom, but it's that sort of sound, grim and slow and murky and dirgey enough to appeal to the doomlords, but melodic and subtly poppy enough to immediately stick in your head, rare is the sort of doom that is actually catchy, and catchy without losing any of its dark energy and blackened heft. The band also mix the typical doom vocal gurgle with clean vocals, monklike chants in places, but that dramatic croon just adds another element, not just melodic but also textural. There are even some strange melodies that sound almost like horns in one track, and the band also don't hesitate to explode into blast of furious black metal crush, but when they do, it's only briefly, then it's right back to that loping, lumbering impossibly catchy, melodic downtuned churn.
Cow bell knockin', kick-ass hard rockin' seventies proto-metal here folks! Michigan power trio Mad Dog's lone album, cryptically entitled 617, was a private press LP originally released in 1977, though recording began back in '74. It features a raw production, heavy guitars, rough and ready vocal wailin', and songs that blend urgent, punkish energy with more languid psych stylings. Sounds like these guys didn't live too far from Detroit. And it's got a whiff of Blue Cheer and even the Pink Fairies, at least enough that we expect this tuff lil' low-budget obscurity might well charm those of you into that sort of thing.
These guys have been getting a ton of hype lately, not to mention some controversy, and not necessarily because of their music, although that has something to do with it. These modern doomlords have a classic sound not that far removed from say, Black Sabbath or Pagan Altar or Witchfinder General - lumbering, true doom riffage, and some seriously wailing Ozzyish vocals - which is nothing new obviously, but these guys caused quite a stir cuz this true doom combo is in fact made up of a handful of Boston hardcore luminaries, guys who used to play in Mind Eraser, Rival Mob, Battle Ruins and Doomriders. So that fact had punk rockers crying sell out and metalheads crying poser, certainly everybody kind of shocked/surprised. And while there remains not a shred of their punk past, really, metalheads have nothing to complain about, just give "Scream Evil" a listen. Holy shit, who thought these punks had it in them? Especially the vocalist, who manages to conjure up a killer Ozzy beholden wail, without falling in to the Sabbath copycat trap lots of other doom vocalists seem unable to avoid. It's hard to say exactly what it is, but the phrasing is different, and the timbre of his voice, more rough and raspy, which gives these songs a different kind of emotion and energy, and a raw urgency. And heck, let's not forget about the riffs, which KILL. When you're done with "Scream Evil", give "Magic Circle" a try. There a distinctive pop element running throughout, making the songs crazy catchy, besides being heavy, and sorta psychedelic, the overall sound is actually quite minimal, the occasional classic metal lead, some harmonized guitars once in a while, but lots of tempo shifts, the band not afraid to crank it up, "Magic Circle" morphs into "Cloven In Two", which adds some serious swing, slipping into something very NWOBHM sounding. And "Scream Evil" too, gets downright rocking, launching into some metallic pound that sounds more like Angel Witch.
Those two tracks, originally released on a super limited 7" are buried WAY deep on the record, but opener "Winter Light" sets the stage just fine, with it's slithery downtuned main riff, a classic doomy dirge, and those vocals soaring over the top, a killer chorus, the whole thing darkly psychedelic and totally epic, as are the other three tracks, the most notable being the furious galloping onslaught of "Rapture" which almost has a Tokyo Blade feel too it, and has some seriously kick ass lead guitar, that sounds super processed and tripped out, but "Conquering Nocturnity" is pretty amazing too, another jam that sounds like it could have been transported here from back in the day, classic, soaring, majestic, emotional doom of the highest order. Fuck the haters, the doomlords around here have been digging this like crazy, and all you aQ-ers into true doom, past and present, enter the Magic Circle!
NOW ON VINYL!!!
These guys have been getting a ton of hype lately, not to mention some controversy, and not necessarily because of their music, although that has something to do with it. These modern doomlords have a classic sound not that far removed from say, Black Sabbath or Pagan Altar or Witchfinder General - lumbering, true doom riffage, and some seriously wailing Ozzyish vocals - which is nothing new obviously, but these guys caused quite a stir cuz this true doom combo is in fact made up of a handful of Boston hardcore luminaries, guys who used to play in Mind Eraser, Rival Mob, Battle Ruins and Doomriders. So that fact had punk rockers crying sell out and metalheads crying poser, certainly everybody kind of shocked/surprised. And while there remains not a shred of their punk past, really, metalheads have nothing to complain about, just give "Scream Evil" a listen. Holy shit, who thought these punks had it in them? Especially the vocalist, who manages to conjure up a killer Ozzy beholden wail, without falling in to the Sabbath copycat trap lots of other doom vocalists seem unable to avoid. It's hard to say exactly what it is, but the phrasing is different, and the timbre of his voice, more rough and raspy, which gives these songs a different kind of emotion and energy, and a raw urgency. And heck, let's not forget about the riffs, which KILL. When you're done with "Scream Evil", give "Magic Circle" a try. There a distinctive pop element running throughout, making the songs crazy catchy, besides being heavy, and sorta psychedelic, the overall sound is actually quite minimal, the occasional classic metal lead, some harmonized guitars once in a while, but lots of tempo shifts, the band not afraid to crank it up, "Magic Circle" morphs into "Cloven In Two", which adds some serious swing, slipping into something very NWOBHM sounding. And "Scream Evil" too, gets downright rocking, launching into some metallic pound that sounds more like Angel Witch.
Those two tracks, originally released on a super limited 7" are buried WAY deep on the record, but opener "Winter Light" sets the stage just fine, with it's slithery downtuned main riff, a classic doomy dirge, and those vocals soaring over the top, a killer chorus, the whole thing darkly psychedelic and totally epic, as are the other three tracks, the most notable being the furious galloping onslaught of "Rapture" which almost has a Tokyo Blade feel too it, and has some seriously kick ass lead guitar, that sounds super processed and tripped out, but "Conquering Nocturnity" is pretty amazing too, another jam that sounds like it could have been transported here from back in the day, classic, soaring, majestic, emotional doom of the highest order. Fuck the haters, the doomlords around here have been digging this like crazy, and all you aQ-ers into true doom, past and present, enter the Magic Circle!
Another Swedish psych stoner throwback band!
We find stuff all the time, tucked away in the close, in the backroom, copies of records that somehow slipped through the cracks, record we hoped to eventually get more of, but eventually forgot about, it's pretty exciting to (re)discover these mysterious releases, even more exciting when we can't for the life of us remember where they came from, who ordered them, or when we actually got them.
Which is the case with this killer split of ultra heavy funereal doom metal, which we've had for almost 5 years, but only just now realized we had never listed. Which is a shame, cuz both these bands are pretty incredible.
Maiden Voyage are from the UK, and traffic in some seriously extreme miserablist doom, not crushingly heavy, as much as depressive and dark, reminding us a bit of Esoteric, that same sort of weird production, spaced out and a little bit brittle, making the sound more druggy and psychedelic, the guitars are still thick and fuzzy, the riffs glacial, the rhythms a snail's pace pound, the vocals a belched demonic grumble, but the melodies are skeletal, and the songs seem to dissipate into near ambience, the riffs ringing out, leaving just ghostly traces of spidery psychedelic guitars, it's actually more like some sort of doom-d slowcore, than any sort of true doom, which is what makes it so cool. Haunting, and creepy and atmospheric and a little bit damaged.
Maiden Voyage are teamed up with another UK funeral doom combo, the awesomely monickered Amaranthine Trampler, whose sound is strikingly similar, which makes sense, as both bands are one man bands, and than one man is THE SAME GUY! Amaranthine Trampler offers up another weirdly lo-fi bit of lumbering bleak misery, the vocals a bit more chantlike, the vocals a little bit more caustic, but overall, still moody and miserable, a bit ambient and abstract, thick swaths of chugging, some almost groove, giving way to grim funereal crawls, and like Maiden Voyage, those spidery psychedelic melodies and the weirdly lo-fi vibe and doom-ed slowcore feel.
Needless to say, if you're a fan of haunting mysterious outsider doom, and depressive ambient grimness, twisted drugginess and damaged black psychedelia, all spread into thick swaths of downtuned creep and crawl, then best snag one of these before they're gone...
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, each one hand numbered, but since this came out close to 5 years ago, odds are it's undoubtedly out of print by now. We only have 4 or 5 copies, so if you want one, you'll have to move a little faster than either of these guys...
Sometimes music is more than just pure sound, or the exposing of deep personal secrets and emotions, or even an homage to one's inspirations. Sometimes it's meant to tell a story... a vessel for a message. Then again sometimes music can combine all of those facets, AND MORE! Such is the case with Mammatus' sophomore effort, The Coast Explodes. On a purely sonic level, this record is absolutely amazing (we'll get there), but it's amazing on a conceptual level as well.
This record is the second installment of Mammatus' gradually unfolding tale of the battle between Light and Darkness. Goodly Light vs. the Evil of Man. Communion with Nature and the casting out of the corrosive agents of Man's doooom. The inhalation of divinity's smoke/breath... exhaling peace from every pore of the translucent flesh. Harnessing the power of Nature in your throat and fingers... swinging the sword to the heart of darkness. Bludgeon the dragon's foul heart! Mammatus is here to bare the Blade of Truth against nature's corrupters, and to ROCK against the cowardly haters of peace! Ahem, their "blade" is of course music, so lets talk about that for a sec.
This epic journey continues right where their self-titled debut left off. The first track "Dragon of the Deep part 3 (Excellent Swordfight)" is a continuation of the Dragon saga (the first album ending with "Dragon of the Deep" parts 1 and 2), and right off the bat you can hear the development. Holy shit! PROG!!!!! Where the last record was more of a trippy blend of hypno-kraut Can-ishness with the slaying heavitude of stoner lordz Sleep, this record somehow maintains that comparison and adds an incredible dose of YES! and YES!!! it rules! So the album starts with a creeping guitar drone, almost as if directly continued from part 2, before bursting in with a driving and hypnotic groove, a la Circle or the above mentioned Can, with little time change shreds at the end of each phrase (kinda proggy) and then suddenly the tempo breaks and we hear a killer stoptime, full-band SHRED! bringing us into another mesmeric groove with beautiful guitar leads soaring perfectly over the everchanging trance. The track builds and builds, ever climbing. Just when you think it can't get more ripping, another amazing riff is unearthed, the band playing so tightly we suspect they might share one cosmically unified mind. In tune with the alignment of the planets and such. All of this is building to something, you can feel it, when suddenly the song crescendos into a freeform cacophonous skronk! Cowbells, drums, and about 500 simultaneous guitar solos! FREAKOUT!
What emerges from this undulating swell is just about all a worshipper of heavy could hope for, an earth shaking riff with the first vocals of the record. Singer Nicky Emmert enters with his first cry to battle, calling us to raise the sword! The vocals are as trippy as ever, beautiful, as if sung from the back of a deep cave. This brutally sick aural climax ends almost as soon as it begins only to plunge axe first into the second track, "Pierce the Darkness", Starting with a gong crash and woodflute solo (!) then charging directly into another trance like groove. The vocals this time start right away, floating and glistening over the motorik pulse, again seemingly a call to arms. The track eventually develops into a blasting free time psychedelic guitar jam which then decompresses into some serious blissy drone.
And what happens next is one of the highlights of the record. The sound of synthesizers enter the drone and build up to a spine tingling harmonized guitar/Moog solo! You know the euphoric feeling you get when listening to shimmery synth part in Yes's "Close to the Edge", and the triumph in the pit of your stomach when Wakeman's church organ finally enters ("I get up, I get down")? A similar energy is in operation here. After this shining moment the song takes another turn towards the HEAVY and some kick ass riffage again fills the speakers. After a bit of strange synth tweakage, the mood of the album changes. Track 3, "The Changing Wind" is an all out drum circle folk jam! Acoustic guitars, propulsive hand drum rhythms, and another lilting melody from Nicky, praising mother nature and her unknowable ways. Hypnotic and blissful for sure. Suddenly the sounds of waves crashing and sea lions barking brings us seamlessly into the final movement, and title track, "The Coast Explodes". Starting with one of the catchiest "stoner" riffs we've heard for a long time. In fact this riff gets stuck in our heads for days at a time. So groovey and catchy, it makes the trees dance. Ahem. This song is a slow builder, rising subtly, and then dipping once more till it finally becomes an almost whisper. The vocals again invoking mother earth, sung in a beautiful falsetto. After this quiet respite the amps again get cranked to 11 and we are blessed with another monolithic slab of heaviness! So satisfying and perfect, it almost makes ya weep. At the end of this journey the chanting of some mythic and mysterious wizard is heard, as if belted out from the peak of a snow covered mountain, beckoning to the children of nature to rise up and join the crusade! The song then gently winds down and the whooshing sounds of the ocean again take over the mix, leaving the listener in a state of utter peace. SHIT! This album really takes you on some sort of transcendental adventure... We got lost there for a minute.
At the most basic level, Mammatus make some of the most inventive and inspired heavy music of our day. Combining diverse inspirations and molding them into something that comes across as totally genuine and pure, and of course TOTALLY RULING! Crushing and mesmerizing and beautiful all at the same time. The story behind the music makes the album all the more powerful. The listening experience of this record is akin to reading a super epic novel, one where the payoffs happen in all the right places. So duh, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!! For fans of Sleep, Yes, UFOmammut, Can, Circle, King Crimson, and all things heavy and trippy and shredding and rocking and ruling! And by the by, if you have not yet, catch them live for one of the best live shows ever! On tour now with Acid Mothers Temple in the USA!
Whoa, heavy!! This is a whole-body vibrating, brain-melting, serious amplifier worship ceremony! The first time I (Allan) saw these guys, last year sometime at the Hemlock here in San Francisco, I was blown away... I'd been told the were a heavy 'stoner rock' outfit from Santa Cruz and worth checking out, but I didn't realize they were gonna be quite so AMAZING. Hairy backwoods hippy dudes, the drummer wearing what looked to be a home-made Whysp t-shirt, guitars turning the air to cottage cheese a la Blue Cheer while creating a trance-zone worthy of Finland's Circle!! So good that I immediately bought the live cd-r they were selling... we were gonna try to get some for the store, in fact, but then we found out that local label Holy Mountain run by our pal JW was on the case already and would be issuing Mammatus's debut studio full-length cd Stateside (with Rocket Recordings, home to the most recent UFOmammut, putting it out in Europe).
So yeah, heavy stoner rock this is, but waaay psychedelic and Hawkwindy, kinda like what maybe you thought Circle side-project Pharaoh Overlord was gonna (and sometimes does) sound like. Loud, massive and mesmerizing, swirling sludge psych! Their songs, often of epic length, are ever chugging skyward, dripping molten goo, full of feedback and fx. Their energetic riffage and warm drones are adorned by drifting vox (not unlike Dead Meadow, with whom they share certain proclivities) and fantastic, metallic, progtastic imagery. Take note of titles like "Dragon Of The Deep" (parts one and two!) and the Roger Dean-esque cover art by Arik "Moonhawk" Roper.
Further musical comparisions aren't hard to come up with -- Mammatus belong in the company of such bastions of cosmic heaviness as Sleep, Boris, YOB, UFOmammut, Earthless, old Monster Magnet, Acid Mothers Temple (at AMT's heaviest, like on Starless & Bible Black Sabbath), Tarantula Hawk, and even Amon Duul (especially on the druggy, krautrocky jam "The Outer Rim"). And of course they're now labelmates with OM, which also makes perfect sense. If you love many, or even just any, of those bands and the sounds they make, this comes highly recommended.
Time sensitive note: Mammatus are playing tomorrow, Saturday April 1st again at the Hemlock with AQ faves the Grey Daturas!
The latest (third) and greatest album from this impressive Swedish stoner rock band, one that does more than most to avoid the nu-grunge "Kyuss-clone" tag, and really comes into their own on this disc. Sure, thanks to their big sound and pop sensibility,
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Swedish band that with 70's stoner rock influences, but elements of prog and indie-rock too. They've got a great, big sound, not too far off from the Queens of the Stone Age debut, and then wind down at the end with some acoustic tracks. Well-liked around these parts.
While last year's brillant "A Single Book Of Songs" is surely this uniquely progressive Swedish stoner rock band's masterpiece to date, fans will definitely want to pick up this disc, which puts 17 tracks from Mammoth Volume's old demo(s) circa '97 on a proper cd for the first time. Unlike the majority of bands from Sweden and elsewhere who have embraced the "stoner rock" tag, Mammoth Volume aren't just another Kyuss clone (even if at times they do sound a bit like Queens of the Stone Age). No, their influences are REALLY from the '70s, and more diverse: Black Sabbath, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Yes, Deep Purple, King Crimson. They can be super heavy and riffin', then sensitive and acoustic, then jazzy and weird -- they don't limit themselves.
BACK IN PRINT! This exceedingly weird '80s fantasy metal band has another of their many obscure albums reissued on cd! We first listed this way back in 2000, and it's a reissue of a 1983 album in the first place. But these days, Manilla Road is probably much better known than they ever were, whether nine or 26 years ago, now being cited as an influence by everyone from The Gates Of Slumber to Wormsblood, so it's about the time this cd was available again, particularly 'cause it's also pretty much our favorite of their whole weird ouvre (though they're still going strong even today).
When you talk about a cult metal band, they don't get much more "cult" than this one... Hailing from the state of Kansas, but more at home in some sub-Robert E. Howardian prehistoric epoch of swords and sorcery, this band is beloved by the same folks who worship Cirith Ungol and The Lord Weird Slough Feg, and should appeal to bizarre-minded fans of Iron Maiden, Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, Manowar... "Crystal Logic" is a perfect illustration of what's great (and ridiculous) about Manilla Road: eccentric (to say the least) vocals, a totally wrong (tinny, thin, poverty-stricken) guitar sound that paradoxically sounds fantastic & punk, doomy bass, mythological/intellectual lyrics, and lets not forget the so-bad-it's-good cover art... But most importantly, Manilla Road had the talent and imagination to write some great songs, and truly rule their own unique sub-genre of progressive, remarkably catchy garage-metal. This reissue includes the crazed guitar instrumental "Flaming Metal System" as a bonus track. On the album proper, you'll find true Manilla classics like the oft-covered "Necropolis", the doomy "The Veils Of Negative Existence", and the especially epic "Dreams Of Eschaton".
Surprise solo album by Mark Deutrom, the cowboy-hatted Melvins bass player through their Atlantic years (on "Stoner Witch", "Stag", etc.). He also produced some early Melvins stuff like their "Ozma" masterpiece. On this disc, the man plays everything
Latest release from one of our favorite proponents of drone/doom/dirge, alongside folks like SUNNO))), Corrupted, Earth, Khanate, Boris, Eyehategod, etc. But as we've mentioned before, unlike many of those other bands, UK's Marzuraan always seemed to approach their sound with one eye on the sludge, the other on the pop. Imbuing even the heaviest and murkiest of dirges with crystalline shimmer, or subtle muted melody, or even buried hooks, without sacrificing any of their sheer power or skull caving heaviness.
This disc collects a whole mess of odds and ends, from live shows, to rehearsals, to practice space recordings, random jams, improvised grooves and awesome unlikely covers. And if anything give us a glimpse into the development of their sound, from primitive noise dirgescapers to full on heavy pop band and back again.
The opening track is a cover of "After Glow" by Loop, and Marzuraan covering Loop is only one step removed from Boris covering Swervedriver, meaning a fucking grungy shoegaze goth drone bliss out match made in heaven. And the band don't change it up too much, it sounds like it could be some lost live Loop recording. Dark and dreamy and groovy and intense, the guitars washed out, the drums propulsive and tribal, the vocals weary and lightly effected, helps that it's one of our favorite tunes already, but Marzuraan nail it.
The other unlikely cover is "Turned Inside Out" by the Rollins Band, recorded live in 2005. A dark roiling filthy groove, all tightly wound Greg Ginnish guitars, raspy wailed vocals, the guitars muddy and massive, the drums pummeling, the whole track a relentless lurching groove.
The comp is loosely in reverse order, starting now, and ending way back when, so track by track, the sound becomes more and more simple, moving away from the progressive drone pop and blown out shoegaze drone of recent recordings to something much more primitive and noisy.
There's "Moneybox" recorded live in 2006, an abstract noisescape that manages to shimmer and drift, eventually coalescing into a gorgeously doomy plod, the drums an occasional crunch, the guitars spread out in thick sheets of crumbling low end and fluttering feedback. Like a much prettier more washed out Khanate. Then there's "Bad Flange", another live track, from 2004, which finds the band drifting even further into pummeling glacial doom, slow slithery heaviness, spread out over a pounding spare beat, and fragmented melodies tangled up in the downtuned caveman riffage.
"Martian Deconstruction" spreads out a thick undulating guitarscape, like a supercharged Fear Falls Burning, the guitars smoldering and whit hot, the notes and chords pulled apart into crumbling cascades of crackly buzzing sound, wound up into warm melodic swells. "Earth 3" sounds just like you might imagine, thick guitars, unwinding lazily, over a plodding propulsive bass line, very skeletal and almost unfinished sounding, a dreamy sort of slowed down dronefuzz jam. The disc finished with the oldest Marzuraan track, "HARMed" from way back in 2002, and is a massive processed soundscape of tangled downtuned guitars, sheets of buzz and hiss, stuttering jabs of grinding fragmented riffage, deep resonant metallic shimmer, shrieking feedback smeared into soft high end whirs, a muddy, murky, super distorted melted guitar blur.
Amazing Thumbprint Press packaging. A six panel, thick cardstock sleeve, printed in black and clear gloss, super striking. The inside featuring a full Marzuraan discography.
Chances are, you probably haven't heard of the UK's Marzuraan. But if Earth, SUNNO))), Khanate, Boris, Corrupted, Eyehategod and others of that ilk mean anything to you, then you will probably want to add Marzuraan to that illustrious list of low-end, slowed-down, heavy-as-hell heroes. This is the band's debut cd from last year, that we recently tracked down in enough quanity (we hope) to list. Marzuraan wear their influences on their sleeve -- quite literally, in fact, as this disc comes in a nice cardstock package that folds out into a cross, designed by none other than Stephen O'Malley of SUNNO))) and Khanate. And the band's name is derived, we're pretty sure, from song by James Plotkin of Khanate's old band, OLD. So, no surprise then (only expectant satisfaction) that this starts off (and continues) in doomy dirge mode, heavy and sludgey, definitely very Earth-like, but live-recorded at high volume for maximum murk and grit and distortion. The proceedings are mostly instrumental, although what sounds like the snarl of feeding zombies breaks out at least once, to terrifying effect. Could almost be a battle between the vocalists for Caninus and Hatebeak!
Mainly, though, these folks are all about crushing you with their droning ambient metal riffs, as helped along by the sparse plod of the drums, and the constant presence of feedback, feedback that reaches a pinnacle on the third track "Martian Dub". By the end of the disc, though, Marzuuran have also gotten into some really nice lo-fi, distorted post-rock psychedelia, that then freaks out into an improv frenzy at the finish... Five tracks, one full hour. The raw production really works for this (they're not quite the Doktor Kettu of doom-drone, but close). We'll certainly be on the lookout for a limited edition (of course! argh!) double LP from these guys which we're told is upcoming.
A brand new black hole slab of metallic tar from Marzuraan, part of the NWOSMDGS, aka the New Wave of Slow Motion Doom Grind Sludge!!! Taking their sonic influences from the holy trinity of Boris, SUNNO))) and Earth (specifically Earth 2) and taking their name (presumably) from pre-Khanate outfit OLD, the UK's Marzuraan deliver their own brand of doom drone. With a raw, very live sounding production, Solid Wood deviates a bit from the recent spate of sludge releases, as Solid Wood infuses its slow motion apocalyptic dirges with mournful melancholy melodies, warm washes of guitar, and a darn near post rock shuffle. A lot of Solid Wood sounds like a heavy metal Codeine, or a seriously beefed up and tuned down Low. Sure it's crushing and heavy as fuck, but it's also dreamy and blissy as it lopes lazily through a haze of thick guitar and dense sonic reverberations. Occasionally the crush outweighs all else. but more often than not, this is one of the dreamiest prettiest pummellings we've received in a long long time.
Exquisitely packaged (as wilth all things Kult Ov Nihilow) in a strange gatefold half-sleeve, with a striking silver ink on cardstock printed insert and a full color poster.
The Universal Consciousness label returns with another batch of tapes, following the Moon Knight and Lord Time cassettes we reviewed a few lists back. There's another amazing Lord Time release, and this one the debut from this mysterious outsider ambient doom one man band (whose sole member also does time in Lightning Swords Of Death and Endless Blizzard). The label describes the sound as funereal and majestic and it most definitely is, the guitars soaring, epic and melodic, the drums minimal, super echoey, like this was recorded in some black cavern, the strange mix of off kilter percussion and the super mournful melodic guitars makes this sound almost psychedelic. Eventually the sound shifts into more classically doomy plod, but even then, the echoey drum pound is all dubbed out, and the guitars chug and churn, often unfurling long stretches of droney buzz, before slipping right back into those majestic melodies. The sound spends as much time drifting ominously as it does plodding and lumbering, those ambient stretches are hauntingly beautiful, not just your typical metal synth interludes, instead, it's a sort of blackened kosmische, lush and layered, infused with streaks of feedback, and grinding muted industrial thrum, all blurred into dark passages of sinister rumble and buzz, the sound of which seems to ooze into the doom proper, making the creep and crunch a bit more abstract and psychedelic, mysterious and otherworldly. This is the sort of rare 'doom', that could very well appeal to non metal folks into strange dark sounds and more abstract avant heaviness. And it may be a bit too out there for your typical metalhead, but if you like your doom twisted, tripped out and drone drenched, then this will definitely hit the spot.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Packaged in super deluxe, embossed, heavy textured metallic paper J-cards, each one hand numbered and sealed with a sticker.
