At last, for those of you whose turntables are built sturdily enough to withstand the massive heaviness, here's some VINYL from former AQ Record Of The Weekers, Megaton Leviathan, those droning Portland doomsters who, while as heavy as their name so inadequately attempts to indicate, are surprisingly somnolently mesmeric too!
Released on their own label, it's a limited lp pressing of their original 2009 demo tape, five tracks, around 34 minutes of doooOOOOOooooom. The first two tracks, "Water Wealth Hell On Earth" and "Guns And LSD" both were later rerecorded for their cd debut that we made ROTW, while the other 3, "Repeating Patterns Of Love", "Time Fades", and "Turlock", all appeared redone on their 2011 demo cassette as well. So, no new songs, but if you don't have the original demo, you haven't heard these versions before, and in any case this is the only way to weigh your turntable down with their doom, as we said... though as we also have said, ML's doom is a special sort of "soft doom", as much spacey slowcore shoegaze as it is anything else, uniquely so even on these, their debut recordings.
Finally! New music from these aQ faves, Megaton Leviathan Northwestern masters of psychedelic doom, or doomgaze, or, well not sure what we should call it now. When we made their Water Wealth Hell On Earth album an aQuarius Record Of The Week, their sound was definitely doom, like doom with MANY oooooo's, but even then it was blurry and washed out and super psychedelic, and at times, barely even metal. Which is where this new one lands for sure. It's definitely heavy, but it's more spacey, and droney and dreamy, two epic songs per side, the first more of a slowcore shoegaze blissout, slow, but not a doomy crawl, just sort of mesmerizingly hypnotically midtempo, the guitars warm and billowy, the vocals whispery and washed out, almost like another layer of drone, the whole thing a dreamy dirge that really could go on forever. Gorgeously tranced out psych-doom bliss of the highest order. There are strings too, courtesy of Amber Asylum's Kris Force, which just adds to the epicness and spaciousness, fans of Godspeed and all who sail with her, if you've yet to discover Megaton Leviathan, now is the time, and this is the record, er, tape. Soaring, slow building musical majesty. Henry Barnes from Amps For Christ contributes sitar and 'oscillations', again, adding to the trancey raga-like mesmer of the songs.
The B side is a bit more doomy, but only a bit, the heavy downtuned churn is blurred into extended chordal streaks, and hazy black ambience, the sound on the B side hews closer to the minimal dub-doom of OM, fans of that band will flip for these guys too, the same sort of lumbering, minimal, metallic crush, but here, wreathed in swirls of effects, constantly shifting atmospheres and textures, laced with minor key melancholic melodies, pulsing, undulating until the momentum begins to ebb, leaving just a field of abstract chug, clouds of cymbal shimmer, only then to blossom into something even heavier, a murky death march plod, the bass and guitar impossibly distorted, the drums a rib cage rattling crush, locked into Gore-like minimal-metal mesmer, before exploding again, into some serious psych-doom drift, replete with FX heavy guitars and angelic female vocals.
The tape finishes off with maybe the oddest of the bunch, a sort of slowcore psych folk ballad, all clean guitars and crooned vocals, still plenty murky and druggy, and HEAVY, even sans metallic heft. Only on tape for now, but rumors of more formats in the future. For now, this is extremely limited, nice full color printed J-cards and green cases, sadly, no download.
We all went a little crazy for the debut from Portland doomlords Megaton Leviathan, whose particular brand of doom was on the poppy, melodic, washed out and dreamy side of the doom spectrum. So much so that we felt obligated to come up with a new term for their sound, 'soft doom', when we made their cd a Record Of The Week. And we still can't get enough of these guys' woozy, spacey slowcore laced, drone flecked soft doom. So we were psyched to discover a brand new cassette, their newest demo, a teaser for their forthcoming full length, and if anything, the 'softness' of their doom has been transformed into something more like spaciness this time around. At least on the opening track, that sounds like Hawkwind crossed with Spacemen 3 and slowed down to a plodding, nodding dirge, hazy squalls of wah guitar, sung/spoken vocals, everything drenched in effects, shards of vocals, slivers of guitars, sent spinning into space trailing streaks of echo and reverb and delay, a sprawling drug rock space drone epic, that rivals most of the other bands out there who set their controls for space rock. In the case of Megaton Leviathan, it somehow sounds more organic, like their quest for slo-mo soft doom heaviness just somehow ended up here.
And as the record plays on, it becomes evident that the first track was no fluke, the doom almost entirely replaced by drugged out space rock and psychedelic slowcore, sure it's still dark and heavy, and slow and dirgey and okay, a bit doomy, but it's way less 'doom' and way more washed out, woozy, lysergic, hazy, gauzy, hypno-dronerock, repetitive, and cyclical, and hypnotic, the production simultaneously lush and lo-fi, the distortion cranked way up, but instead of making it heavy, it makes the sounds crumble and wash out and crystallize, making the overall sound seem that much more warm and rough and organic, especially when the band slips into slow spaciness, all low slung bass, melodic guitar echoes, and big drums, lumbering and loose, the sort of thing Three Mile Pilot were masters of in the old days, loads of space, all held together by sinewy basslines and krauty rhythms, and then the guitars come back in, and again, we're well past doom, the sound lifting free of the surface, and drifting heavenward, somehow mixing Hawkwind, Codeine, Low, Spacemen 3, Loop, a little doom, lots of drugs, and even more effects, into the sort of thing that should have fans of the current crop of space rockers (Wooden Shjips, Carlton Melton, White Hills, Moon Duo, Heads, Lumerians, White Noise Sound) losing their shit.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Each one hand numbered, and record on swank reflective gold cassettes.
It's hard to know what to expect from a band with a name like Megaton Leviathan. You might guess heavy. Probably loud. And you'd be right on both counts, but you probably wouldn't guess that these guys play some sort of super melodic, poppy, and very pretty doom. Or sort of doom. Soft doom? We sure as heck didn't.
But that's pretty much what ML are all about. Even categorizing them as doom doesn't do them justice. The tempos are slow, the mood is doomy, but unlike the typical downtuned sludgery and lumbering slo-mo pummel of most doom combos, these guys infuse their dirges with soaring shimmering clean guitars, the vocals are clean, not howled or grunted, but crooned, bathed in reverb, and draped over the almost ethereal sounding heaviness.
The drums are strange, big and boomy, but they perfectly suit the Nadja-like doom-gaze, the washed out blissy reverbed doom pop, the hazy, gauze-y, space-y doom flecked psychedelia these guys so effortlessly conjure up.
The 19 minute opener is split into two parts, the first half, is a gorgeous dirgey creep, with a melancholy main melody, swirling synth textures, and those moody crooned vox, all stretched out into a glorious bit of space doom dream pop haze, the effects swallowing the instruments up and sending them spinning into the cosmos, woozy, and dreamy and mesmerizing and strangely emotional with some of the best most beautiful hooks you'll ever hear in a 'doom' band.
The second half almost sounds like a dub version of the first, the riffs are stripped away, leaving a glistening filed of layered vocal mantras and electronic effects, the drums spare and abstract, the sound thick and lush and distorted, but blurred and free and swirly and psychedelic, some sort of alien spacedoom ur-drone, the perfect balance for the more riffy bliss of the first half.
After another short track (and by short we mean almost 6 minutes), which is another dirgey crawl, through fields of cloudy effects and smeared electronics, sounding like a modern space doom Codeine, all pretty and melancholy but still dark and heavy, comes the 33+ minute closer, "A Slow Death In D Minor", the whole first half of which sounds like SUNNO))) covering Tangerine Dream, thick downtuned glacial thrum, underpinning, swirling kosmische synths and jangly shimmering clean guitar chords. This could go on forever, and practically does, until about 18 minutes later, the drums come in, and pound out a strange skeletal beat, atop the still drifting buzz and shimmer, buried vocals and muted melodies churn just below the surface, until finally, the sound grows more and more melodic, and what sound like strings surface, and the track is transformed into some sort of chamber doom, until eventually, just the strings are left, to soar dramatically over a barely there layer of crackle and hum, before slipping into silence.
This could definitely be our new favorite doom record, if it didn't feel so wrong to and reductive to call Megaton Leviathan doom. But it's definitely a new favorite, for fans of all things dark and heavy and dreamy and melodic, droney and drifty and pretty and poppy and trance inducing.
Twenty-six songs! This used to be a mere ten. Yes, "26 Songs" is an expanded reissue of the out of print "10 Songs". Recorded live to 2-track in 1986 by the line-up of Buzz, Dale, and then-bassist Matt Lukin (who later defected to Mudhoney), this was indeed 10 songs from the mighty Melvins' earliest daze, when their Black Flag / Black Sabbath meld was at its most obvious, potent, raw (and fast, some of the time!). Utterly essential heaviness in other words. Did we say "mere" ten? Not really, since every one of those ten songs is forever embedded in the mind of this Melvins fan. "#2 Pencil" -- so doomy and vile a song. "Snake Appeal" -- the guys rip through what could be an old Corrosion of Conformity thrasher. "At A Crawl" -- well, that's the Melvins right there. Etc., etc. And, like Ipecac's reissue of another early Melvins classic, "Gluey Porch Treatments", there's a bunch of garage demos and alternate takes added on to make Melvins fans salivate, as you can compare multiple, grungier, faster takes on "10 Songs" songs (and some other tunes you'll recognize). The disc winds up with the drug-addled ramblings of their old pal "Hugh" as an added bonus (which means that this disc, despite the title, really features "only" 25 actual songs). It's just too bad the new cover design for this new version is so computer-done and busy and typical of recent Melvins packaging (forget the flowers, guys!). We much prefer the stylish simplicity of its earlier incarnation(s). But, the extra tracks certainly make up for our aesthetic quibbles about the graphic design!
MPEG Download: "Easy As It Was" [/audio/melvinseasy.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Easy As It Was" [/audio/melvinseasy.m3u]
MPEG Download: "Grinding Process" [/audio/melvinsgrinding.mp3]
Hard to believe the Melvins are still around. And that they STILL don't suck. After like, what... 200 albums? Equally hard to believe that they have somehow morphed from one of the most difficult and gloriously difficult bands to ever sign to a major label (outside of the Butthole Surfers) into purveyors of super kick ass, head banging stoner Stooges stomp rock. But hell, we're not complaining...
And who cares if this is release #1 or #201. Or how many bassists they've pile up in their "morgue" (like Spinal Tap was with drummers), it still packs a mighty wallop, and gives us just what we've come to love and adore and expect from the Melvins, almost too much so, but more on that in a minute.
A Senile Animal is the first "true" Melvins album since 2004's Pigs of the Roman Empire teamup with infrasound specialist Lustmord, and sees the Melvins circa 2006, aka Buzz & Dale, join forces with the equally chaotic duo of Jared & Cody, otherwise known as Big Business (Jared also ex-Karp).
Together as the (new) Melvins they are bigger and badder than ever. With the power of THREE vocalists, TWO bass players, and most excitingly, a DOUBLE DRUM attack, a sort of hybrid drum kit manned by two different drummers!!
We haven't seen it yet, and heard they share cymbals or hit some of the same drums, or maybe hold hands while rocking out, but however they get it done, it WORKS. BIG TIME!
This record will definitely hit the spot for those of you craving more of that heavy / catchy sludge pop, found on past Melvins classics like Houdini or Stoner Witch. In fact, a lot of A Senile Animal sounds like it was just plucked from those very same sessions. Not a bad thing mind you. It's just that some of us, especially after the gorgeous fucked up heavy weirdness of Pigs of the Roman Empire, imagined that the Melvins might have been headed down a much more twisted and fucked up musical path. And while that is not necessarily the case, we're not too disappointed. In fact this disc's got most of us too busy rocking out and banging our heads and air guitaring and flailing wildly about to even notice.
And we sure as heck can't wait to see the crazy drum kit thing everyones talking about, and to have our asses thoroughly kicked by the NEW Melvins, not so much a quintet as much as a POWER-POWER trio! Fuck yeah.
Well, they're here. Melvins fans, giddyup. Seriously, what to say? The four classic early Melvins records newly reissued on these two double lp sets (why'd they do it like that? dunno) are all ESSENTIALS. Back on (remastered) vinyl for the first time in 15 years, they're too old to have much in the way of reviews from us previously, when originally released, so we figured we'd have to write new ones, and we could, heck we could go on and on about 'em. But really, most folks who are likely to buy these already know what they're all about, right? And if for some reason you are a fan of sheer heaviness, and buy records, and these AREN'T in your collection, then, well, all we can keep it simple and say YOU MUST BUY THESE!
This paring brings together the Melvins' "holiday" record (at least, we always put in in our holiday music section when that time of the year came 'round, and it always sold!!), a four song ep from 1991, originally released on 10" vinyl, that featured three short rippin' tracks on the A-side (including the mighty "Hog Leg"), and an epic sludge drone fest on the B-side, "Charmicarmicat", over 12 minutes long, that sounds more or less like the blueprint for the first Earth album (though that was released the same year, so it can't really be). Meanwhile, 1992's Lysol, excuse us, for legal reason they're now calling it Lice-All, another fucked up Melvins classic, that features, along with several originals, covers of both Flipper (they do "Sacrifice") and Alice Cooper (not one but two songs!) all sounding perfectly Melvins-y.
Includes download!
Fact: the Melvins are one of the best bands ever, and continue to be one of the best bands ever.
Fact: the Melvins are always awesome when it comes to doing covers (their version of "Candy-O" by The Cars from Ozma being our favorite, closely followed by their version of KISS's "Going Blind" from Houdini), usually "making them their own" 100 percent.
Fact: they've just released a disc that's all covers, with some guest vocalists, and the song selection is quite eclectic to say the least, occasionally obscure too, including one that maybe only folks from San Francisco will freak out over - they do a song by the Pop-O-Pies!!! Cool.
Our only complaint about this, really, is that with the presence of the guest vocalists, some of the covers, while totally spot-on or otherwise interesting & well-done, maybe don't sound as much like the Melvins as we'd like - if Buzz woulda sung 'em all, we'd be even happier. But it's a quibble.
So, what more do you need to know? Well, the dang tracklist, perhaps. Here it is:
1. "Warhead" by Venom, featuring Scott Kelly of Neurosis
2. "Best Friend" by Queen, featuring Caleb Benjamin of Tweak Bird
3. "Black Betty" not by but as performed by Ram Jam
4. "Set It On Fire" by the The Scientists, featuring Mark Arm of Mudhoney
5. "Station To Station" by David Bowie, featuring J.G. Thirlwell of Foetus
6. "Attitude" by The Kinks, featuring Clem Burke from Blondie
7. "Female Trouble" by Divine
8. "Carpe Diem" by The Fuggs
9. "Timothy Leary Lives" by the Pop-O-Pies
10. "In Every Dream Home A Heartache" by Roxy Music, featuring both Jello Biafra and Kevin Rutmanis (formerly of both the Cows and the Melvins)
11. "Romance" by Tales of Terror
12. "Art School" by The Jam, featuring Tom Hazelmeyer of Halo Of Flies
13. "Heathen Earth" by Throbbing Gristle
Wow, quite a diverse & cool selection, eh? If you're a Melvins fan, you probably want this (unless, perhaps, you hated The Crybaby, which also featured a lot of unlikely covers/collaborations). 'Cause after all, heck, everybody does love sausages!
Mike Patton re-issues his Melvin buddies' awesome "Gluey Porch Treatments" album from 1986 and for this we are thankful -- it's nice to have a cd of this godly album all on its own, instead of merely appended to the "Ozma" cd (even though that version is still available for those who want to make their Melvins dollar go further--however, as added value incentive, this stand-alone "Gluey" includes the previously unreleased "garage demos" of the entire album!...thus making it an essential purchase for true Melvins fans even if you already have the "Ozma" cd!). Now, the Melvins have made a lot of records, some better than others, but let me tell you that this is one of the best. Heck, if they'd only made this one record they'd still be one of my all-time favorite bands, it's that good. This is the one that, prior to masterpieces like "Ozma", "Bullhead" and "Lysol", really established their unique Black Flag-meets-Black Sabbath heavier than thou sound.
The words "Footloose and fancy-free and out of school" come from your speakers, beginning the disc and thusly, we embark on the career of that "juggernaut of pummel" known as the Melvins.
Here is a collection of "never heard before" (demo, live, rehearsal) recordings dating back to 1983! Remember 1983? I do...ugh! Anyways, a "pre-Dale Crover" line-up (which includes a young punk-ass named Matt Lukin on bass, you might also know him from another little band, Mudhoney?) bashes and thrashes it out with songs and tone reminiscent of Flipper / Bad Brains / Fang / Poison Idea / Black Flag -- this is NOT to say they sound like they are emulating the aforementioned legends, we're just saying that the Melvins, at such a tender age and still without the "other greatest drummer" Dale Crover, pretty much came into this world screaming and wailing. Buzz Osborne definitely is / was / is blessed / cursed as a "5-string motherfucker". Word. The liner notes by Buzz go on about how they were hacks at the time, but LEGIONS (after listening to this) will attest to "the power of the riff" that a (pre) King Buzzo packed at the age of 20 somewhere in Shithole City, WA (or maybe it was the town next to it?). This release is packed with all the fury and "pent-up-ness" that only comes from growing up on the outside of "cool" or "rich". (Well, it speaks to me, anyways...) There are songs on here that show up shortly after -- and many years later -- down that ugly road of "former bass players"...
It's refreshing to hear (punk) rock like this right now. There are even funny moments of (drunken?) banter on here that will make you laugh and think back and reminisce (or not) on your own "destruction ride" through your late teens/early twenties, etc. The actual sound on this thing is incredibly solid too, for something from the "golden age of hardcore".
A must own, if you will. But you already knew that, didn't you?
Y'know, the Melvins have been one of our favorite bands for so long we practically take 'em for granted. But when a new album comes out, it's still pretty exciting. Almost like it must have been in the '60s when, like, a new Beatles LP would be released, that's what it's like for us and the Melvins... except heck the Melvins have been around now for, like, 100x as long as the Beatles' whole career lasted.
So, yes, yah, yay, it's a new Melvins! Again on Ipecac, which means it's yet another Melvins cd with the front cover on the back and the tracklist on the front. You think they'd be over that by now, but the Melvins are all about being quirky now aren't they? Well, being quirky and HEAVY. And we're pleased to report that Nude With Boots is plenty heavy! As expected, though with the Melvins you also have to expect the unexpected too. But from the get go, Nude With Boots hammers it down, maybe a bit more uptempo rockin' than typical, lead-off track "The Kicking Machine" being just that, ass kicking that is, a hooky slab of classic rockin' riffola. Replete with chunky guitars, catchy vocal choruses, and splattering percussion to spare. The next track up, "Billy Fish" is another big, bangin' number. And then when track three, "Dog Island" hits, though, it's CRUSHING. And you realize that the album's only getting started. That song's 7 and a half minutes of herky-jerky slo-mo heaviness, creeped out and melodically fist-waving too. Yep, this is shaping up to be a quite satisfying Melvins experience, one that so far stacks up with the likes of Houdini. No kidding.
How do they do it? The Melvins have such an *authoritative* sound. Heavier than thou for sure. Distinctively untouchable. It's like they have access to better stuff than anyone. Stuff? Dunno, gear, drugs, organic vegetables, whatever it is that makes them sound like they do, the Melvins are in a league unto themselves.
One not so secret weapon: Buzz's always amazing, melodic yet gritty vocals, which we realize sound like Gene Simmons crossed with Ozzy Osbourne. And, as well, his usual cryptic, imagistic lyrics.
Furthermore, there's simply so much geetar badassitude on this album, Buzz blasting riffs and sweet licks all over the place, and of course Dale's drum fills are sweet (and punishing) too. We defy you to try to listen to this album and not a) air-guitar b) air-drum or c) at the very least, headbang. Maybe even sing along! If you can figure out the words that is.
Of course, along with the rippin' rock, this also has its copious share of abstractly wacked weirdness, ambient interludes like the 1:05 "Flush" ferinstance. Or the atmospheric moody SUNNO))) styled murk of the cleverly titled "Dies Iraea". Or the bizarre bludgeon n' scrape of "The Savage Hippy" and the even more out there "It Tastes Better Than the Truth", a twofer in the extreme tradition of Melvins album-enders, the latter practically sounding like a chaotic Khanate on a ketamine bender. Or Wildildlife...
So, sometimes it almost sounds like this is a uber-produced Ozzy or Alice Cooper album from the '80s or '90s that's been taken over by the real inmates of one of the padded cell insane asylums that those two cartoon characters always were checking into/outof (on the album covers anyway, rehabs in real life), hard rock pop that's been utterly warped and weirded out...
Maybe it's just as well that Melvins never got as huge as pals Nirvana during the Grunge years. They had a major label dalliance, yes, but survived it, and are still with us to crank out what's simply the classic rock of our generation (with a heavy dose of weirdness). Nude With Boots makes you remember, oh yeah, ROCK MUSIC. We love rock music. Damn, it's good. We've been really into the rejuvenated Harvey Milk lately, a Melvinsy band for sure, but you've gotta give it up to the originals, the one and only Melvins. All hail.
Well, they're here. Melvins fans, giddyup. Seriously, what to say? The four classic early Melvins records newly reissued on these two double lp sets (why'd they do it like that? dunno) are all ESSENTIALS. Back on (remastered) vinyl for the first time in 15 years, they're too old to have much in the way of reviews from us previously, when originally released, so we figured we'd have to write new ones, and we could, heck we could go on and on about 'em. But really, most folks who are likely to buy these already know what they're all about, right? And if for some reason you are a fan of sheer heaviness, and buy records, and these AREN'T in your collection, then, well, all we can keep it simple and say YOU MUST BUY THESE!
Ozma, from 1989, is the one that first turned us on to the genius of this band. Nonsensical lyrics, Black Sabbath meets Black Flag heavosity like nothing heard before (yeah, Flipper, yeah Gore, sure but Melvins took it to another level). Dale's drumming, Buzz's vocals, sheer brilliance. Bullhead, from 1991, was maybe even better, and heavier, really, somehow. Among other great tracks, it's got the song "Boris", which inspired a certain band from Japan. 'Nuff said.
Includes download! Which has a bonus track!
Well, if you're a Melvins fan you know that not only do these weirdos still make awesome albums (their most recent, The Bride Screamed Murder, we raved about when it came out a year ago) but they also still utterly slay live. With, what, almost 30 years of experience, they are as potent as ever. We just saw 'em live the other day, on the first evening of a two-night stand here in SF, doin' songs from Houdini, Lysol, and Eggnog, and boy their current 2 drummer line up sure packs a wallop. And guitarist/vocalist Buzz still looks striking in his mumu and outlandish 'fro. The Melvins are a heavy band of world-historical stature and we expect 'em to keep on rocking for at least as long as their forebears KISS!
So, as fans, of course we're curious about this new live album, and expectations are met, performance-wise they're on top of their game. The real question surely any fan has, is just what songs get the Melvins/Big Business treatment, there's 13 tracks here mostly showcasing the best of their more recent material but also digging into their massive discography for a few old faves. The first five tracks are Big Biz era stuff, from 2008's Nude With Boots (this recording comes from that tour) and 2006's Senile Animal, then they reach waaay back for an epic rendition of "Eye Flys" from 1986 opus Gluey Porch Treatments, followed by "Tipping The Lion" from 1996's Stag (a good choice, just 'cause we hardly ever pull that one out to listen to, but this makes us want to), and then it's back to Senile Animal stuff, four in a row, before, wha? a voice and drums version of "The Star Spangled Banner", that's right. They were feeling patriotic, apparently. Or just wanted to fuck with people, more likely. Then, for the grand finale, they offer up an anthem of their own, a crushing, extended version of "Boris" from Bullhead (1991), which will remind you why the band Boris chose that name!
If you're a Melvins fan from way back, but haven't acquainted yrself with their modern double drummer incarnation, this should convince you it was a good idea, and that they've still got songs to compete impressively with past "hits", a few a which you get to hear here as well. And if you're not a Melvins fan, well obviously live albums like this aren't intended for you anyway, so why are you still reading this review?
Has it really been two whole years already since the last Melvins long player, the supremely rockin' Nude With Boots? They've been around so long and yet remain so vital and prolific and reliable, it always seems like they just put something out the other day, yet each release is a marvelous surprise. This is their third album since they recruited bass/drums duo Big Business into the band, and this phase of the Melvins' storied career has been a fruitful one.
The first minute or two of the first track "The Water Glass" starts off sounding very much typically thunderous heavier than thou Melvins... but woah, hey, it then takes a MAJOR turn into, what, a rhythmic marching band drumline thing (why not, they've got two drummers), with call and response vocal chant, the Melvins as cheerleaders or drill sergeants gettin' pumped up and ready to go. We're smiling like fools, and confused, what IS this? It's somehow like the MC5 or Dictators meet the Boredoms or go-go music or, we dunno, it'd be awesome and hilarious to see this live. Wow. All right, fair warning, this is clearly the Melvins getting weird on us, something of course they've have always had a knack for. Nude With Boots had its experimental moments, as all Melvins records do, more than moments sometimes, to varying degrees of accessibility, and this one ups the ante, coming closer in WTF?-ness to their recent radical remix album Chicken Scratch... and this time in ways that we don't think we've heard from them before.
All the while keeping it damn catchy, and HEAVY too, at least some of the time. Right on cue, track two again kicks out the jams in old school Melvins style... but a percussive breakdown isn't far away. Neither are cinematic keys, herky jerky prog parts (Ruins-esque, even, or Nomeansno-ish), quirky POP, frenzied metal, and plenty more random what the fuck weirdness, as warned. Such as a ploddingly odd, semi-abstract cover of "My Generation", ferinstance, or the lonely harmonica and hymn-like a cappella of the album's final track, "PG X 3" (and that's not even what's weird about that one). As always, they're part Kiss and The Cars, heavied up and punk rocked, and now we're realizing that Sparks just might be another big fave of theirs.
So, go along for the ride, trust us. And them. Ok, maybe "Hospital Up" is a bit of a throw-away (random improv scatter there). But otherwise, we're sold. And maybe it's the frequent vocal holler, echoing with chorus effect, or the double drummer bombastic battery, but this album sounds particularly triumphant. As well it should. One of the best bands ever, once again deliver the goods. And it can't be easy, after, what, 30 albums??? All we know is, THE MELVINS RULE. End of story.
A Melvins album without Dale Crover playing drums? What's next, is Buzz gonna get a normal haircut? Well, wait a sec, let's explain. On their latest, Tres Cabrones, Dale moves over to bass (no prob there, he plays guitar in Altamont, and played bass long long ago in Fecal Matter with a pre-Nirvana Kurt Cobain) letting one Mike Dillard take over the drum stool. Mike Dillard having such rights 'cuz he was in fact a founding member of the Melvins, leaving the band long before they ever made a name for themselves. Now (temporarily, we assume) he's back, and the band gets to hang out with their old buddy and pretend like it's 1983 again (that's why it sez "1983" on the back, or is it the front, speaking of which, why just one goat, shouldn't there be three?). But they're not playing old songs, at least, it doesn't sound like it. Sure, there's a bit of juvenile silliness (such as, a truncated cover of "99 Bottles Of Beer"!!) not that the Melvins don't always often include some silliness on all their records. But mainly it sounds like the usual solid Melvins music they've been making for decades, heavy and catchy and all that good Melvins stuff, topped with Buzz's distinctive vocals. They once again display their brilliant ability to meld off-the-wall weirdness with classic sounding, hard rockin' riffage, so there's plenty of new tunes here that any Melvins fan will be fully stoked on, whether it be the chugging slow-and-low creepy-crawl of something like "American Cow" or the distorto-glam stomp of a track like "Doctor Mule", among many highlights here. As "reunions" go, a total success!
What's next, we wonder? We guess when you've made sooo many albums (this is, like, their 22nd) to such a high standard of quality, you wanna keep things interesting and challenging and find ways to be different. Hence of late Los Melvins have seemingly been approaching each recording session as a stand-alone concept/project, what the all-covers disc that preceded this, and the Melvins "Lite" album that came before that (with Mr. Bungle's Trevor Dunn on bass), etc., etc. Heck whatever works for them, we're just happy they're still going and going strong.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Just got this in TODAY, no time to really "review" it, no need to either, as we only got a handful and it's limited edition vinyl from the MELVINS after all. Here's the facts: "A limited edition three-track 12-inch EP from MELVINS featuring a long version of "Dies Iraea" and a remix of "It Tastes Better Than The Truth" on the A-side, and a 9-minute version of The Wipers' "Youth of America" on the flip. None of these tracks have appeared on vinyl prior. Limited to 2,000 copies (with 1,500 for distribution) pressed on silver/gray vinyl, with artwork by Steven Parrino".
NOW ON VINYL!! What we said about this great Melvins album when it came out on cd last year on Ipecac:
Folks have been chomping at the bit for months since it was first announced that the kings of sludgy goofy heaviness were to team up with the master of creepy, sinister ambience. And we do mean 'team up' as in write and record together, not a split record or anything like that, a good ol' collaboration! So here it is. The first track is a creepy slithering dark snippet of sound, super minimal and slowly shifting. So much as we thought, the only way these two behemoths of the underground could cooperate and have it work would be for it to be a drone record. Well the second track blows that theory out of the water. A wickedly fierce, super dynamic barn burner, with a KILLER riff, and some spooky drone-y breakdowns complete with a haunting little melody played on the strings above the neck, and then some serious shredding leads. Maybe the best Melvins song in forever!! But what excatly is Lustmord doing while the Melvins rock? Maybe he strapped on a guitar and joined in the riffing. Or more likely, he supplied the track with all of its weird little sounds and murky background noises. Either way, who cares? It's an incredible track. The next track is a weird tribal workout done Melvins style, with exotic tribal percussion over rumbly drones and distorted guitars providing the melodies. Sounding not unlike a way heavier Muslimgauze! The centerpiece of the record though has to be the 20+ minute title track which sounds like the perfect hybridization of the two bands. Massive slow rolling drones slip and slide through clouds of machine like whirs and muffled outer space sounds, distant clatter and swirling sonic splatter. Eventually the guitars roll in like a huge crushing wave of sound, very Earth-like before it slowly develops into another killer riff, repeated over and over and over, bombarded on all sides by strange effects, swooping chunks of sound and strange, clipped 'almost-vocals' before trailing off into a slowly decaying barely there minimal hum. The rest of the record sort of seesaws back and forth between pounding and churning classic Melvins style sort-of-metal riffing, and really haunting otherworldly minimal dronescapes. VERY reminiscent of Old Man Gloom's drone / dirge combo. But hey, you can't argue with more drone or more dirge or more sludge or more Melvins or more Lustmord. Not at all. When all is said and done, Pigs Of The Roman Empire sounds like someone took a really great Melvins record, and a really great Lustmord record, and sort of chopped them up, and mixed and matched and made the perfect hybrid of the two. Which when you think about it is pretty awesome. We've thought of doing that all the time. Earth and George Winston, Bjork and Thuja, Squarepusher and Jandek, Motorhead and PJ Harvey, A Minor Forest and Keiji Haino (well that one's mainly to piss Andee off), and the list goes on and on and on.
If you were going to create a comic book that would appeal equally to fans of Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) and punk metallers the Melvins, Brian Walsby's Manchild would be it. It IS it. Autobiographical, confessional comix about his life, love, and music. Lots and lots of music. Much of this is devoted to stuff about indie/punk/HC/metal, back in the day... Especially for anyone of a certain age, with nostalgia for the '80s and '90s underground rock scene, this is a must! Walsby is a good artist, and writer, and in fact almost each and every panel found on these many, many pages (this is thick!) is packed with text you'll need to squint a bit to read, but it's worth it.
We haven't read the whole thing yet, but we can tell you that in this issue, there's a bunch of stories about bands he's been in (ferinstance Walsby played drums for Snake Nation, with CoC's Woody Weatherman and Mike Dean, and he was also in Shiny Beast, wow, we had no idea) and stuff about his life now, like how he met his current girlfriend, who has a toddler, what what that's been like.... He illustrates some other folks' tales about quitting their jobs, there's a two-page piece about Jason Newsted, all sorts of random, cool shit, usually pretty funny or weird or interesting, sometimes really something to think about.
In addition to the longer stories, there's plenty of one-page and half-page bits, good laughs like the one about reformed '80s hardcore bands, renamed: 700 Seconds, Middle Aged Threat, Adult Brigade, Youth Of Yesterday, Post-Adolescents, Semi-Negative Approach... Or the one about Jimi Hendrix in Heaven, getting pissed that he's required to "jam" with every other rockstar who dies and goes there after him (he's like, "I finally get Janis and Jerry off of my back... and then I have to play with this...'Dimebag Darrell'?").
The comic book would be worth it by itself, but sweetening the deal, this is shrinkwrapped with a LIVE MELVINS CD! Entitled Pick Your Battles, it's about 50 minutes long, presenting 15 tracks taken from two shows, Berkeley back in 1989 and Boston 2008. True Melvins fans want this, even if they don't like comic books, but why wouldn't you like comic books, especially this one?
It's a comic book! It's a Melvins cd! It's pretty darn cool is what it is. Cartoonist Brian Walsby spoofs and skewers various icons of old school punk/alt rock culture, and puts his own personal family history on the page too ("My Old Man!"). It's mostly subversively funny, sarcastic stuff. Lots of chuckles for those with a bit of nostalgia for the good ol' days of '80s punk rock for sure!! One of our favorite comix in here is "Whatever Happened To You Favorite Eighties Hardcore Mascots" which imagines the DRI "thrash guy" finding a new career as a school crossing guard, and the Black Flag bars being sold to Hank Williams III who "dropped one bar and used the rest for his new logo." Some of the other pieces in this fairly thick book include an illustrated article celebrating TV's SCTV, a Walsby/Melvins 2006 tour diary, a memoir entitled "How I Survived Grunge", "The Rules Of Young Rock Bands" (which include holding the microphone like a glass of wine, and combining two kinds of bad singing: whiny, nasal and hysterical screaming), several comic strips about The Dios (a la The Osbournes), a tribute to Cheap Trick, and much much more. If you like stuff like Peter Bagge's Hate or Chunklet magazine this is for you.
This book makes a perfect team up with Walsby's old pals, wise ass scene vets the Melvins, who contribute a 20+ minute cd to the package, entitled "The Making Love Demos". These eight songs are DIY four-track recordings from back in '87, from the Buzz/Dale/Matt lineup, several of which later wound up in re-recorded form on their classic Ozma album, and some you've never ever heard before. Wow. Melvins fans are gonna be stoked. Heavy grinding nastiness, perfectly filthily home-recorded, that's way more punk than grunge.
Melvins LITE? What? That makes no sense. We want our Melvins HEAVY.
Well don't worry, 'cause the godlike Melvins, despite their many many years and many many albums, never ever disappoint (unless perhaps deliberately, as with 'difficult' stuff like Prick and Colossus Of Destiny). So of course Freak Puke is heavy. 'Tis their usual (unusual) blend of rockin' heaviness and utter weirdness. They're just calling themselves Melvins Lite on this record because it's a trio this time, with Buzz Osbourne and Dale Crover joined by bassist extraordinare Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, Fantomas, etc.), rather than being the four-piece unit that has constituted the Melvins as of late. However, their dual-drummer lineup, with Buzz and Dale and the two dudes from Big Business, is just on hiatus. Apparently Buzz and Dale thought it would be interesting to pull a temporary lineup switcheroo and record with their old pal Trevor, who plays a stand-up bass and thus brings in some 20th century avant-garde string-scrabble elements to the lurching, lumbering mix, particularly on track 2, "Inner Ear Rupture". Elsewhere, ingredients include gloom-doom atmospheres, mathrock dynamics, druggy grunge, AND uptempo noise pop catchiness, as you'd expect from these guys. Plus all the UNexpected stuff you'd also expect. With Trevor's upright bass getting in its licks all right.
Opener "Mr. Rip Off" has an oddly spaced out, loose '60s/'70s Floydian psych feel (in a way), with dreamy droney vox and distorted guitar. That vibe recurs, among plenty of 'Melvinsy' twists and turns throughout the disc. Oh, and they do a cover of "Let Me Roll It" by Paul McCartney and Wings!
For fans of any of these folks (possibly including Paul McCartney), Freak Puke by 'Melvins Lite' is an interesting detour / change of pace that's not so different, really.
Latest (third, I think) release by this Swedish band who are heavily influenced by the dark, epic, doom metal of countrymen Candlemass, circa '88. The chugging riffs, melancholic lead guitar, and the lamentation of their singer (whose soaring and sad wails are not quite as over the top as those of former Candlemass vocalist Messiah Marcolin, but close) all fit that doom blueprint, and will meet acceptance from fans of Solitude Aeturnus, Memento Mori, and the like as well.
Some of us were lucky enough to go to the Stella Natura festival recently, and one of the bands we were most excited to see was Hell. Longtime readers of the aQ list no doubt remember reading reviews of the first two Hell lps, both oozing blackened ultra-doom, and live, they were awesome, especially the drummer's backwards-pig vocals, but then a strange thing happened, a Hell related band ended up stealing the show. This band in fact, Merkstave, who take the already depressive doom of Hell, even further into the ether, self described ' cosmic funerary drone', Merkstave deliver three epic cosmic crawls on this, their debut lp, which finds the band reworking some tracks from earlier and impossible to find demos. And their sound on record, like live, is stunning, achingly mournful, the first few minutes of the two part nearly 30 minute epic "Lament For Lost Gods", is a woozy sprawl of slowcore creep, lots of space, the notes suspended in air, the drums minimal, the whole sound delicate and tenebrous, even when the heaviness kicks in, somehow the sound remains spare and spaced out, the guitars distorted and crumbly, brittle and blackened, the vocals, a monstrous bellow, the notes ringing out, the sound at times almost choral, especially when the clean vocals join the grim vokills, reminding us a bit of Bell Witch, the same sort of heaviness meets slowcore beauty. Although Merkstave's sound is by far more grim and abstract, depressive and harrowingly haunting. Then suddenly, about 10 minutes in, the song explodes into full on black metal blast and buzz, the vocals transformed into a super dramatic shriek, the sound blurred and blackened, a smeary expanse of furious churning heaviness, before slowing down again and slipping into some tarpit ultra doooooom sludge, the vokills shrieked, the drums flitting from caveman plod, to weird motorik pound. The second movement/part opens up with more clean guitars, draped over simple rhythmic drum pound, the vibe her more trad doom, super melodic, epic and majestic, before transforming again into a churning, chugging classic metal workout, replete with pinch harmonics, and some seriously murky riffage. The final track is a dense sprawl of crumbling doom / sludge that oozes ominously, and is laced with some soaring melodic guitars, the sound almost psychedelic, with the occasional clean part, super melodic interludes interspersed between the downtuned doomic bombast, and then finally, a haunting piano outro. The cool thing about Merkstave is the sound versus the sound, as in they've crafted this majestic, uber epic ultra doom, but the recording is really raw and low fidelity, the guitars brittle, it's an idiosyncratic heaviness that perfectly suits the bands strange sonic brew.
As with all Pesanta Urfolk releases, the packaging is stellar, heavy vinyl, full color heavy sleeves, the whole record mastered, produced and recorded completely analog. And who knows, probably pretty limited too...
Super limited debut release from these Quebecois funeral doomlords, whose sounds definitely hews closer to the sort of washed out dronedreamdrone doom we've been digging so much lately, that strange liturgical murk of Skepticism, mixed with the doom-ed psychedelia of Megaton Leviathan, the sound shimmery and almost shoegazey, the guitars warm and soft focus, the vocals airy and ethereal, in fact the A side is downright blissed out, and when the more metal VOKILLS finally come in, a rumbly demonic growl, even then it manages to sound sort of blurred and bleary, especially with the other more clean and chantlike vocals, a seriously dreamy chunk of downtuned dirgery that almost sounds like a doom metal Low.
The B side slows it down even further, adding some keening mournful melodies, the guitars massive and warm, lush and layered, the vocals another layer of low end, gorgeously viscous and beautifully blackened, a haunting melancholic creep, that is more tranquil and mesmerizing that pummeling or pulverizing. The second half of the song adds some extra clean guitar melodies, and what sounds like swirling synths, and in a surprising twist gets a little bit mathy, but a slow woozy mathiness, that only manages to make it sound even more strange and psychedelic.
LIMITED TO 550 COPIES!!! Pressed on green vinyl, with a printed full color cardstock insert.
It's hard to argue with a mysterious ritualistic ambient doom outfit from France, especially, when there are six members, four of whom are credited with 'low frequencies', while the other two are credited with 'deep pulses', and then on top of that, spread out between all six: ultrasounds, 'ondulations', horns, bowls, incantations, screams, organum, bells, bowls and 'arpegiatas'. As well as the fact that they are each credited with the honorific 'frater' before their names, casting Mhonos less as a musical group and more as some sort of arcane religious sect, formed around a slavish devotion to the drone, specifically a blackened strain of doom-ed drone, cobbled together from multiple, thick, layered, downtuned bass dirges, minimal percussion, looped rumbles and chanted vox, creating a seriously liturgical, choral vibe, the first twenty three minutes of the opening thirty four minute track, a totally mesmerizing, lurching, lumbering and looped creep, a hybrid of SUNNO)))-like slo-mo-dirgery, and the vocal driven low end ritualism of recent aQ faves Phurpa, all tethered to a ritualistic death march rhythm, and we're talking total blissed out atmospheric ambient doooooooom, which eventually transforms, albeit briefly, into a couple measure of more traditionally metallic heaviness, as if the song was finally going to launch into some serious riffery, only to almost immediately zone out into some spacey longform layered drone/drift shimmer, the tones descending, the chordal whir seeming to detune, as various low end tendrils begin to swoop and sway, the drums returning, but more as filigree than propulsion, before finishing off with a surprising squall of chaotic psychedelia.
Which leads directly into the shorter (relatively, at 8 minutes) second track, which right out of the gate sounds like Tuvan throat singers teamed up with Skepticism, a whirring organ like blur, stretches out like a grim black haze, the drums a primitive pound, the vocals deep raspy rumbles, somewhere between throat singing and death metal gurgle, the sound dark and dense and ominous, but also strangely meditative and mesmerizing, this song too gradually blossoming into something strangely warm, and again abstractly psychedelic.
The record finishes with a nearly 35 minute long sonic bookend, starting out with some serious distorted metallic bass riffing, which again hints at an eventual explosion into some sort of black blast or furious pounding blowout, but instead, the sound lurches into a crushing slab of tribal drum driven slowcore pummel, dizzying and almost industrial, the sound fracturing into a grinding blackened almost-noise rock, the multiple basses providing both heft and melody, the vocals here transformed into more of a punk rock yowl, the whole sound heaving and roiling malevolently, before suddenly and surprisingly evolving into a strange sort of tripped out psych drone drift, all effected bass melodies and swirling FX, hazy and heady, washed out and woozy. Eventually, the basses swell and the heaviness returns, and the song becomes a depressive blackdoom creep, with slow motion riffs, and more demonic drum pound, everything blown out and super distorted, sounding a bit like Cop Shoot Cop or Swans at 16rpm, heaving and heavy, the various low end buzzed and drones peeling way one by one until just strangled mewling vocal, and a pounding echo drenched drum remain, a haunting and harrowing finish for sure.
So great. Most definitely for fans of SUNNO))) and other likeminded purveyors of low slung slo-mo heaviness, as well as anyone into mysterious vocal driven ritualism, a la Phurpa, Huun-Huur-Tu, etc, and generally all and any manner of funeral doom metal, droned out black ambience and atmospheric bass driven tarpit creep...
We know a lot of you, like us, are fans of the supreme sludge majesty of Portland, Oregon's mighty Yob. Over the course of four albums, Yob reigned as one of the heaviest, spaciest doom-prog outfits ever, sounding something like a tripped-out Rush on 16rpm, mixed with the riffs of Sabbath and Sleep, all super epic, doomy and psychedelic. What's not to love? Not only that, but they always stopped in to shop at Aquarius whenever in town.
So, we were certainly sad when Yob broke up, a while ago. But now, we're very glad to report that Yob mastermind Mike Scheidt has bounced back with a new band, Middian, who have just made their debut on Yob's old label Metal Blade. And Middian pretty much take up where Yob left off. It's again a trio, it's again totally doom, and Mike's trademark combination of soaring, electronically effected clean singing and growling gutturalisms is still in place. But the five new tracks that comprise Age Eternal's 57 minutes are if anything darker and denser than anything Yob had yet achieved, yet also maybe more melodic. Middian is at times faster paced (not all doom, even with songs as long as these, has to be slow all the time) than Yob ever was, but Middian's songcraft embraces a wide array of emotions and dynamics. The aggro impetus of opener "Dreamless Eye" definitely reminds us that Mike was often looking for death metal records when visiting our shop, while elsewhere on this album the listener is enveloped by blissful swirling layers of slo-mo, melodic drone. If you liked Yob, if you like Mammatus, if you like Neurosis, if you like Lesbian, this should be right up your alley. However we're not sure if Metal Blade's marketing idea (as expressed on the cover sticker-blurb) that this is for fans of The Sword, High On Fire, and the Obsessed is quite correct... while fans of those bands could and should love Middian, this is still quite a bit more sonically and structurally "extreme" than any of those. Maybe add Boris and Ufomammut to that list, at least, to come closer to Middian's mean between psychedelic stoner metal and brutal doom.
PS we noticed online that Middian is playing a record release party for this album in Portland tonight, Friday April 13th, with both Asunder and Slough Feg also on the bill -- damn, wish we could be there!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Drunken, Dirty, Dave, Misery, and Migg are back, stumbling out of the gutter and into the studio to record a follow-up to 2002's self-titled Mistress debut. England's answer to Cavity or Eyehategod (but way more wasted), Mistress make rock n' roll with much feedback and bad feelings. Some of these guys are involved with the amazing Anaal Nathrakh, and what that band is to polished black metal symphonics these guys are to good times stoner rock. In other words, they're not so much about cracking open a brew and smoking pot as they are about smoking crack and, uh, brooding. Well maybe that's not true, they're all smiles in the band photos. Musically, though, this is some mean-ass, serious stuff. On II: The Chronovisor, Mistress tear through eight tracks of ugly, raw, punkish sludge-metal with titles like "Rat Piss" and "Wanker Colony" before wrapping things up with an epic 13-minute ninth track, entitled "38". Their debut did the same thing, culminating in a lengthy doom opus as well. Clearly these boys don't want to mess with a winning formula!
Hailing from Birmingham, England, the five-piece sludgemetal annihilation squad called Mistress is miserable, drunken, and dirty, quite literally -- just take a look at this list of the band members names and what they're credited with --
Misery: notes
Drunken: noise
Dirty: bulldozerbassing
Dave Cunt: voice
Migg: total destruction of wooden coffins (and cymbals)
That tells you something right there, doesn't it? On their self-titled debut cd, this filthy fivesome crank out wretched distortion/fuzz laden doomgrind in the vein of Eyehategod and Iron Monkey, with some effective black metal touches here and there (keyboards used sparingly), as on the track "Rebecca". Which makes sense, since singer Dave is a member of awesome British black metal act Anaal Nathrakh that we love so much! Of course Mistress isn't nearly as intense as Anaal (what is?), and actually as doom sludge stuff goes they're also not on par with the likes of Khanate or Corrupted, quite. But they're still pretty good. They get all rock n' roll (kinda in the style of Floridian sludge-meisters Cavity) with midtempo Sabbath-dragged-through-the-mud cuts like "Goatboy" and "Necronaut". But Mistress are at their best when they take that brand of doominess to its utter extreme on the closing, twelve minute long psychedelic noise/feedback filled drone metal epic "Lord Worm". Good stuff, that.
Props to Thrill Jockey. Not only did they come up with a batch of Record Store Day releases this year that were all truly worthy (unlike some other RSD stuff that seems more about collectability than good music), they also made sure that they'd last a bit beyond Record Store Day itself, being limited but not soooooo super limited that they're already on eBay. So, you'll find a bunch of 'em on this list, like the Oval/Liturgy 12", and this, the vinyl-only debut lp from the guitar duo of Mitchell and Manley.
If you're familiar with Isaiah Mitchell's playing in his band Earthless, you kinda know what to expect... endless, tripped out, set the controls for the heart of the sun electric guitar soloing... Meanwhile, Phil Manley is no slouch on the axe himself, as he's demonstrated in Trans Am, The Fucking Champs, Oneida, Jonas Reinhardt, etc. Plus, if you've heard his recent solo album Life Coach, you know he's totally tuned in to '70s kosmiche krautrock electronics. In this context, Isaiah is perhaps more about fingers on frets, and Phil about feets on pedals, but the division of labor isn't all that clear-cut.
And if you were here on Sunday for their instore (their first ever live performance together!), you got a taste of what the two of them are capable of (and, probably already bought this lp). However, that instore was, despite everyone's best intentions (sorry, neighbors!) a bit louder and "face melting" than how Mitchell and Manley come off on record, which Phil had told us was kind of "new-agey". And Norcal Values does mellow it out a bit, on two side-long cuts, "San Francisco Values" (we're proud of them, dammit, and just love Nancy Pelosi!) and "Sausalito Values" (adding a little Marin to the mix).
Basically, this is just what we expected (and wanted)... something that combines the never-ending jamming aspect of Earthless, with the more blissed out vibe of much of Phil's solo album. Shred vs. shimmer, here. Improvised live, with no overdubs. Guitar solos, like it says on the cover.
Although this was released on 4/16, for Record Store Day, it could just have easily come out on 4/20... what we're sayin' is that this is stoner music. Not sure how long these will be around, they are limited to 1000, so better hurry and grab one now - you can mellow out and relax (and light one up) AFTER you've scored a copy. Comes with digital download, btw.
By way of Madrid Spain comes Moho (mold in Espanol), a three piece juggernaut of dirt head rock fury so ferocious they give seasoned rockers like High On Fire, Electric Wizard, EyeHateGod & Grief a serious run for the (drug) money.
"....He Visto La Cruz Al Reves" (loosely translates to "I Have Seen The Cross Of The Misfortune" or better yet "I Have Seen The Cross Inverted!") is a furious groovy sludge rock jam, a stoned stumble through the garden at midnight.
Many of the songs start with big fat riffs, slowly building into some serious sludgy groove, drifting way off, gradually working up to a loping midtempo, before dragging it back down into the murk.
Moho are fully capable of kicking it up a notch too, but on this release (their second outing), Moho tend to lay way back "in the pocket" and just bludgeon your blissed-out melon over and over again in a "let's-beat-these-instruments-to-death-till-they-are-destroyed -over-and-over-again!!!" kind of way, and at the same time, a furious throat-full-of-rocks vocalist is howling wildly right in your ear - in Spanish no less - so don't fight it, just GIVE IN to the supreme Hessian power of Moho!
Comes with a DVD chock full of live footage of the band in small venues, "passing the pipe" and rocking out at a house party. They definitely look like they are a fun band to see play live...
A great hard to pin down metal outfit you should most definitely check out!
UK label Rage of Achilles again dredges the depths of America's metal underground and comes up with a winner. Alabama's Molehill are slow and dirty and dirgy and ultra heavy. Oh, and did I say slow? Screamy slow-motion southern dirge-rock with plenty of
Not to be confused with the Russian black metal Moloch, this Moloch is something much grimier and grittier and doomier, treading a path closer to Eyehategod, and of course the current crop of ultra doomlords like Moss, Bunkur, Monarch, and of course Noothgrush and Corrupted. In fact, if it sounds like we just described your collection, you might as well stop right now and grab one of these, cuz if sloooooow, ultra heavy, doomic crush is your thing, then Moloch will definitely hit the spot.
Four songs, 25 minutes, this UK foursome offer up some pretty fearsome heaviness, slipping easily from plodding lumbering slow motion, to swinging stonery groove and back again, the guitars thick and viscous, the drums pounding and pummeling, the vocals a wild shriek. The more we listen to this we're also hearing plenty of Grief and Bongzilla, the riffs like 16rpm Sabbath, the band's crawl druggy and dissonant, but laced with some super swinging NOLA-esque grooviness, and some surprisingly Pantera-ish vox, which makes some of this sound like Down, but only if Down were WAY crustier and filthier and DIY and lo-fi. Which is most definitely not a bad thing. Heartily recommended for you drugged out, stoner rock, ultra doom, slow and low misfits, some seriously crushing black hole brutality, with just enough swing to keep it interesting.
Released on the same label that did that kick ass Ghast / Yoga split!
Doesn't get much heavier than this. Louisiana sludgelords Thou matched up with UK ultradoom heavies Moloch (not to be confused with the Ukrainian black metallers Moloch).
By now, like us, you're probably pretty obsessed with Thou, of the multitudes of practitioners of the incredibly slow and low, Thou probably come closest to capturing the spirit of the bands who got us into that sort of heaviness in the first place, Eyehategod, Bongzilla, Weedeater, Noothgrush, disEMBOWELMENT, Winter, Sleep, 16, Buzzoven, the Melvins, but they do it so well and they do it in a way that few others can, and that's by infusing some serious pop into their sound. Fear not, it's not obvious, not at all, and most folks might not hear it, but it's there, and it transforms their sludge entirely.
The first track is the perfect example, sludgy and sour, everything wrapped in a warm distortion blanket. Great vokillz as always. The drums pounding away mercilessly, the guitars sounding like they're in slow motion, churning and chugging, the tone insanely corrosive and blown out, but then there are these intense chiming melodies, that change the vibe completely, some weird hybrid of the Melvins, Nirvana and Eyehategod, slipping from NOLA style Southern sludgey groove, to full on ultradoom plod, to what sounds almost like death metal slowed down to a crawl, to what sounds like their cover of Nirvana's "Sifting", which finally answers our prayers, whenever a killer band does a cover of another band, and it's amazing, and we can't help but wish there was just a band that sounded LIKE THAT, not just when they were covering songs by other bands, well, here you go!! The second track offers up more heavy bliss, opening with a riff like Sleep's "Jerusalem" before the rest of the band kicks in and things get all tense and dark before breaking out into some melodic serpentine riffery. So grim and doomy and sludgy but you can still hear all the definition of the song, before it eventually builds into an ultra depressive lament. Fuck yeah.
Moloch counter with some of their own filthy crusty sludge. Opening with a glacial squall of barely moving but steady black buzz riffage. Hardcore vocals and Neanderthal drum pound and knuckle dragging amp buzz that rides out with seemingly infinite sustain, evolving into an abject midtempo sonic beatdown. The second track introduces some groove, but Moloch's idea of groove is way less groovy and way more menacing, the lurching lumbering crush laced with hateful throat shredding howls, and some super harmonic riffage.
Super nice woodcut style packaging with a heavy printed inner sleeve and nice thick jacket, pressed on cloudy clear vinyl, LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Disclose and Discharge covers!! One sided, and etched!
For a band who supposedly broke up, Monarch sure have managed to put out a whole bunch of music, post mortem. And while this is funeral doom and everything, we're not talking some Biggie Smalls / Tupac Shakur music from beyond the grave thing (although you never know!), it seems the announced breakup was premature, and lucky for all the doomongers among you, the Monarch is alive and (un)well.
Avid readers of the AQ list should need no introduction to French downtuned slow motion sludge doom trio Monarch. A band truly worthy of many multiples of 'o's (dooooooooooooooooooooom), whose plod and crawl is so slow it often veers near static drone territory, and who also manage to deftly mix in a bit of subtle loveliness into their harsh metallic trudge, AND whose peculiar sense of humor, and album art, and unlikely front woman, definitely make them stand out in an increasingly crowded field...
For those new to Monarch let's recap shall we?
Quite possibly the world's only female fronted deathdoomdronedirge outfit. An unholy mix of Khanate, Corrupted, Bunkur and Moss, but with a petite young French woman on lead vocals, usually clad in Converse hightops, a skirt and a sweater, hair in a pony tail, no tattoos or spikes or leather, but when she opens her mouth, out comes the foulest demonic shrieks and hellish gurgles you have EVER heard. Certainly from a woman, maybe from ANY one, man, woman or beast.
Then there are the record covers, always covered in grade school like doodles of cute big eyed skulls, puffy ghosts, burning churches, and hearts all over the place. They're like a Sanrio doom band. And not surprisingly are obsessed with Hello Kitty (their email address is sanriosabbath!!). But eyes closed, and these guys and gal can most definitely hold their own amongst the slow motion elite. With the added bonus of a singer who can actually sing and does occasionally, adding a definite creepy melodic moodiness to the music.
So this double disc collects two ultra limited lps (the band seem to lean toward lps, AND double cds, with songs clocking in at 10, 20, sometimes 30 minutes), one that we carried a while back and sold out in the blink of an eye, the massive and amazing Speak Of The Sea, and weirdly enough, another 2 song lp, that's not really out yet entitled appropriately enough Die Tonight.
So what has us so smitten with Monarch? Besides the above that is? Let's start with Speak Of The Sea, a massive pummeling wall of headsplitting ultra doom, an impossibly glacial plodding thud wrapped in ear shredding sheets of corrosive feedback that will tear your insides out and fill your ears with black tar. A gorgeously dense. ultra caustic and corrosive funereal doom that manages to be dreamy and darn near pretty while it's pummeling you to death. Easily one of the slowest heaviest dooooooooom records ever, three looooong tracks. Each so slow it's almost ambient. It's a bit like listening to SUNNO))) or Earth 2 when some caveman drummer decides to crash the party and start drumming slowly along. Riffs stretched out into huge droning smears of black rumble, ringing and reverberating, pulsing and wavering unsteadily before the next ten ton riff drops. Each track is a slow plodding ultradoomscape, like the ultimate doom metal intro stretched into actual songs, smeared across nearly an hour. The vocals don't even come in until the first song is almost over, a shrieking black coda, after twenty minutes of slow burning doom drone tension. The second track features some distant Ozzy-like crooning way off in the distance before the scowling growl kicks in. So slow and heavy. On the AQ doooooomscale, this ranks more O's than we could possibly include in this review!
And for the cd release, they've tacked on a whole 'nother song to the first disc (album), a creepy, pretty near ambient crawl, nothing but the sound of the surf crashing on the shore, a thick hissy staticky sound, slowly swelling and drifting, very meditative, with hushed urgently whispered vocals hovering above the crashing sea, very strange, but quite nice.
Then we get to Die Tonight, a record most of us (if not all of us) have not heard until now. And if anything it's everything Speak Of The Sea was and MORE. Heavier (as if that were even possible), slower (ditto) and more blurred out, buzzy and dronelike, with bits of the song so blissed out, the drum hits and chaotic crashes are so far apart, you can almost forget you're listening to a doom band, wallowing in the glorious shimmering drones of the drawn out chords, before a howled shriek and a massive crunch knocks you near out of your seat. There's also more singing, with gorgeous drifting vocals that hover alongside long stretches of buzzing guitar making for haunting harmonies, giving the proceedings brief moments of surprising tranquility. And the vocals continue to twist and turn, from hushed and whispery, to girlish and sing songy to inhuman demonic screech, all the while, the band trudging along dronelike, weaving impossibly pretty soundscapes from downtuned crunch and skull cracking thud.
This is absolutely essential doom. If you like Esoteric, Boris, Moss, Bunkur, SUNNO))), Earth, Esoteric, Skepticism, Eyehategod, Marzuraan, Atavist, Catacombs, Khanate, Pale Horse, Monument Of Urns and you NEED this! And the drifting drone element is in full effect, so those who have yet to dabble in the doom pool, might check this out, the long drawn out shimmers and Niblock like layers of guitar rumble might hit the spot and have you digging deeper for more and more dooooom.
Gorgeously packaged in a black gatefold, printed in silver ink, decorated with big eyed ghosts, a sailing ship with upside down crosses and a heart on the sail, lots of stars, some cute birdies, and an anchor with a heart on it. Inside are two silver on black printed inserts, with all the lyrics, the liner notes and a thanks list that says it all: Moss, Noothgrush, Otesanek, Corrupted, Bastard Noise, Rainbow Of Death, Nuit Noire and of course "our lucky stars"!
Back in March we made the double cd Dead Men Tell No Tales, by France's Monarch, our Record of the Week. A crushingly heavy, breathtakingly beautiful slab of ultramegadooooooooom divinity. That record just so happened to combine two lp releases,
Speak Of The Sea, that we listed a long time ago, well before the cd came out, now sadly out of print, the 12" that is, and this one, Die Tonight, that in some strange rupture in the space time continuum arrived months after the cd version. But regardless, if you had been holding out, waiting for Speak Of The Sea's vinyl companion, wait no further. And heck, if you're new to the whole Monarch thing, by all means, this is as good a place as any to start.
Here's an altered version of the cd review, focusing just on the Die Tonight half:
Avid readers of the AQ list should need no introduction to French downtuned slow motion sludge doom trio Monarch. A band truly worthy of many multiples of 'o's (dooooooooooooooooooooom), whose plod and crawl is so slow it often veers near static drone territory, and who also manage to deftly mix in a bit of subtle loveliness into their harsh metallic trudge, AND whose peculiar sense of humor, and album art, and unlikely front woman, definitely make them stand out in an increasingly crowded field...
For those new to Monarch let's recap shall we?
Quite possibly the world's only female fronted deathdoomdronedirge outfit. An unholy mix of Khanate, Corrupted, Bunkur and Moss, but with a petite young French woman on lead vocals, usually clad in Converse hightops, a skirt and a sweater, hair in a pony tail, no tattoos or spikes or leather, but when she opens her mouth, out comes the foulest demonic shrieks and hellish gurgles you have EVER heard. Certainly from a woman, maybe from ANY one, man, woman or beast.
Then there are the record covers, always covered in grade school like doodles of cute big eyed skulls, puffy ghosts, burning churches, and hearts all over the place. They're like a Sanrio doom band. And not surprisingly are obsessed with Hello Kitty (their email address is sanriosabbath!!). But eyes closed, and these guys and gal can most definitely hold their own amongst the slow motion elite. With the added bonus of a singer who can actually sing and does occasionally, adding a definite creepy melodic moodiness to the music.
So what has us so smitten with Monarch? Besides the above that is? Well just lend an ear to Die Tonight, a heavier and slower (if that were even possible) partner to Speak Of The Sea. It's somehow also more blurred out, buzzy and dronelike, with bits of the music so blissed out, the drum hits and chaotic crashes are so far apart, you can almost forget you're listening to a doom band, wallowing in the glorious shimmering drones of the drawn out chords, before a howled shriek and a massive crunch knocks you near out of your seat. There's also more singing, with gorgeous drifting vocals that hover alongside long stretches of buzzing guitar making for haunting harmonies, giving the proceedings brief moments of surprising tranquility. And the vocals continue to twist and turn, from hushed and whispery, to girlish and sing songy to inhuman demonic screech, all the while, the band trudging along dronelike, weaving impossibly pretty soundscapes from downtuned crunch and skull cracking thud.
This is absolutely essential doom. If you like Esoteric, Boris, Moss, Bunkur, SUNNO))), Earth, Esoteric, Skepticism, Eyehategod, Marzuraan, Atavist, Catacombs, Khanate, Pale Horse, Monument Of Urns and you NEED this! And the drifting drone element is in full effect, so those who have yet to dabble in the doom pool, might check this out, the long drawn out shimmers and Niblock like layers of guitar rumble might hit the spot and have you digging deeper for more and more dooooom.
Gorgeously packaged in a off white matte sleeve, a simple illustration in black, and little cartoon stars in metallic silver. Also includes a big fold out poster of the record cover. And as always. EXTREMELY LIMITED. Once these are gone we probably can't get more.
We've worshipped at the altar of Hello Kitty obsessed French ultradoom trio (now quartet) Monarch for years and years now, harboring a secret crush on Monarch frontwoman Emilie and a not so secret crush on their absolutely pummeling black cloud of sound.
Originally released as a super limited lp on Spanish label Throne Records back in 2008, this two part doom drone dirge epic, is now available on cd, the separate sides, "Mer" and Morte" now reunited into one single sprawling nearly 35 minute opus, a glacial expanse of creeping crawling detuned drift, of psychedelic black ambience, of tarpit doomic dirge, of extreme abstract heaviness, of near static pummel. As gorgeous as it is harsh, as heavy as it is atmospheric, the drums so spare, the drummer has time to go outside for a smoke between snare hits, riffage so lugubrious that SUNNO))) sound like speed metal in comparison.
Think Flood era Boris, Corrupted, Moss, Bunkur, Khanate, Orthodox, Catacombs, but then slow it down even more, take those sounds and smear them into washed out blurs, the vocals a distant mewl, an occasional shriek, the cymbals unleashed in hazy clouds of sizzling shimmer. The guitars heavy for sure, but the riffs allowed to ring out and fade to near silence, before the next one hits, more than any of the other Monarch records, Mer Morte finds the band exploring ambience as heaviness, allowing long stretches of guitar rumble to drift unaccompanied except for some hushed wordless crooning.
The second half, formerly just "Morte", cranks up the tempo to a blasting (well, for Monarch at least) 10 or 12 bpm, the vocals way more intense, and in the mix the Khanate vibe is much more obvious, a pounding hellish dirge, utterly intense and cathartic and emotional and brutal, but after a few minutes, the drums drop out, and the guitars are left to drone and undulate and pulse, streaked with feedback, a gorgeous blackened dronescape, peppered with occasional drum pound, but any semblance of 'beat' has been jettisoned, the record plays out, a trancelike stretch of downtuned doomic minimalism, laced with more of those ethereal ghostlike vox, haunting and mysterious and otherworldly, and grimly beautiful.
Gorgeous packaging too, a four panel gatefold Stumptown sleeve, with gold metallic ink on black matte. So cool.
The latest from these French ultra doomlords (and lady) begins all spaced out and ritualistic, shimmering clouds of metal, keening feedback, a droned out psychedelia that almost sounds like some modern take on legendary Japanese psychdrone gurus the Taj Mahal Travellers, but before long, that ritualistic drift collapses beneath the weight of crushing downtuned riffage, and pounding slow-motion drum pummel. But as with other recent Monarch records, the group have definitely managed to create a sound all their own, moving well past trudge and lumber, churn and crush, toward something a bit more blissed out, and definitely more droney. While the sound is rooted in roiling riffage, the riffs are underpinned by distant layered vocals, giving the sound a distinctly psychedelic vibe, and then the vocals proper kick in, they're feral and feminine, none of that gurgling or growling, instead a wild witchy wail, almost punk sounding, providing a strange sonic dichotomy, but one that make this way more interesting than your average dirge. Not to mention all manner of strange percussion, muted melody, and some surprisingly lush textures, wreathing everything in a softly psychedelic swirl, hazy and druggy, and surprisingly dreamy and meditative, especially the second half, which gets all blissed out, warm and whirling and super hypnotic. And that's just the first track. After a bit of an interlude, the blackened ambience of "Transylvanian Incantations", all murky voices and glimmering high end shimmer, the band finish things off with the 19+ minute "Black Becomes The Sun", the guitars gristly and oozing crumbling distortion, the sound seeming to drift toward classic doom metal, but then the vocals come in, all ethereal and angelic, and the whole sound is transformed into something much more washed out and shoegazey, almost like an ultradoom 4AD sort of sound. Partway through, the song shifts, and an avalanche of drum chaos launches a much harder and harsher second half, much sludgier, and crustier, the melodies of the first half still present, but beneath shards of feedback, and tangled howled vox, moments of true doom splintering into hellish downtuned crush and back again, the drumming mathy, the banshee vocals soaring and swooping wildly over the top, Monarch again managing to make a sound hellish and heavy, into something hypnotic, and weirdly, and grimly lovely.
Killer black on black artwork, housed in a 6 panel style fold out digpak style sleeve.
Latest from these French ultra doom sludgelords and sludgelady, a single song spread out over two lp sides, a sprawling, lugubrious, blackened slow motion tarpit crawl, and if it was even possible, Sabbat Noir sounds and feels even more abstract and spaced out than any of the other Monarchs, which is saying a lot. Sabbat Noir is also the band's first proper full length to feature their new drummer, Robert from the Grey Daturas, who makes himself right at home, his spare hard hitting style perfectly suited to Monarch's weirdly dreamy doomic drift.
The record/song begins with a dense cloud of rumbles and whirs, a slow motion sub-SUNN guitar crawl, wrapped in shimmery cymbal sizzle, an epic, smoldering, slow building low end creep. Thick, almost liquid guitars ooze beneath abstract drumming, the hits ages apart, long stretches of layered guitardrone, a nearly stalled doom, that hovers and floats more than crushes or pummels. The vocals exist way off in the distance, haunting and spectral, just another layer of slow shifting sound, which gives way here and there to hushed ambience, it's not so much a song as a sound, drifty and shimmery, and nearly ambient, it's not until near the end of the first side that things get a little mathy and metal, the riffs coalescing into black hole crunch, the drums pounding out an almost-rhythm. The side ends, and the song picks right back up on the flipside a la Lynyrd Skynyrd, more tarpit creep, streaked with feedback, the vocals moving gradually to the fore, their presence more intense, the riffs coalescing into a more traditional doom, mournful and melancholy, like Paradise Lost or My Dying Bride, but slowed waaaaaay down, the now shrieked vox drifting over this lumbering swoonsome dour doomic miserablism, a gorgeous, desolate, somber dronedoom, that slowly sheds the doom, eventually blissing back out into some more blackened guitardrone dreaminess.
The packaging is incredible, super glossy, metallic prismatic jackets, you have to see them to believe them, easily one of the coolest looking covers ever, the front cover the Monarch logo all shiny and metallic over what appears to be hair, but follow that hair to the other side of the sleeve where you'll find a sexy evil pic of Monarch's vocalist Emilie all corpsepainted and hoTT, the records are pressed on 180 gram vinyl, and of course LIMITED TO ONLY 400 COPIES!!!
First new full length in two years from this French ultradoooooooom combo, the lineup now expanded to include SEVEN players, fronted as always by ultra-cutie Emilie Bresson, whose wholesome appearance and Hello Kitty obsession does nothing to dull her demonic bellow - although here, the opening track starts off hushed and dreamlike, with Bresson crooning dreamily, over a slow, smoldering doomscape, but it's only a matter of minutes before she lets loose with that banshee wail, doused in delay and reverb, allowed to slowly decay, and fade gradually into the whirling blackness below, the band quickly locked into a death march creep. The processed vocals get almost dublike at points, processed and layered, and that had us wishing they almost went all out, and applied some King Tubby action. While it's not quite that crazy, it does get pretty psychedelic, as all the while, the riffage churns and roils and thick swells of darkly melodic slo-mo sludge unfurl dreamily. The vibe at times is almost tranquil, less ferocious and furious and more mesmeric and hypnotic, especially when Bresson adds her sweetly shimmery croon, and when the guitars join along, it's like the Monarch version of 'classic' doom, but before long, the sound splinters and collapses, and we're right back into another stretch of downtuned demonic trudge, those heavily effected vocals swirling into crazy, blown out howls, blurred into thick vocal smears. And so it goes, the three songs here essentially part of the bigger whole, three movements bleeding into one singular ultradoom epic, laced with moments of hushed beauty, as well as abject sonic brutality, the band deftly navigating a slow moving psych-doom dirge, employing a new set of dynamics and subtleties that were maybe not so evident on past records, making much of Sabbracadaver sound downright subdued, some of it properly lovely as well, but those moments are more than made up for by many more moments of shrieking fury and skull caving, soul shearing pummel.
Super swank packaging too, a stark black and white digipak, with clear spot varnish printing, and a booklet with strange, shadowy, ritualistic photos inside.
In transit across the Pacific for months now, we had almost given up, but this grim little slab of droned out ritualistic slo-mo sludge finally showed up from Australia. Previously a tour only release from this aQ beloved female fronted French ultradoom horde (now featuring Robert Macmanus from Grey Daturas on drums), Sortilege is a single 11 minute track, and is of course everything we (and you) have come to love about Monarch, sprawling expanses of low end buzz, deep drones, minimal drum pound, blurred downtuned guitarage, but "Sortilege" is something a bit different, with the song never fully exploding into actual churn and crunch, instead, it seems to be Monarch's take on black ambience, and we have to say it most definitely suits them. The sound atmospheric and haunting, the rumbling buzz of the guitars a thick backdrop for all manner of wordless vocalizing, of warm washed out streaks of feedback, of buried melodies, and constantly shifting textures, not harsh or heavy, but still harrowing and haunting, the eleven minute running time is a bit frustrating, cuz this is the sort of jam you want to keep going and going and going. But otherwise, a seriously dense slab of hypnotic blackened drift, a sonic full moon ritual, corpsepainted and candelit, deep in the forest, in some underground cave, the sounds seeping from beneath the ground, and enveloping the listener like some grim black cloud. Awesome.
Really swank reflective black digipaks, with some super striking photos of frontwoman Emilie, multiple Emilie's in fact, face painted, dagger in hand, presiding over the ritual, whose soundtrack is captured on Sortilege.
We sure are going to miss Monarch. In a black and sludgy sonic world, they were a little ray of sunshine. Errr. Well, not really. But they did manage to infuse their tarpit doomdeathdronedirges with a goofy sense of humor, without turning Monarch into an ironic pisstake.
So here it is. The final missive from France's Monarch. Possibly the world's only female fronted deathdoomdronedirge outfit. Imagine Khanate or Corrupted or Bunkur or Moss, fronted by a slight young French woman, in a sensible skirt and blouse, hair pulled back in a pony tail, somehow emitting the sort of vulgar demonic yowls that usually come from some stooped hunchbacked axe wielding hairy beast. Thus is the magic of Monarch. their records are decorated with cute doodles, cartoons of burning churches, big eyed skulls, and hearts everywhere. They have an unhealthy obsession with Hello Kitty, their email name is sanriosabbath for chrissakes! How can you not help but be cuted-out by these cute little doomsters? Well, the massive pummeling wall of headsplitting ultra doom might be a start, the impossibly glacial plodding thud and the ear shredding sheets of corrosive feedback help too. However mislead you might be by the cuteness on the outside, be prepared to have your insides torn out and your ears filled with black tar by the caustic corrosive funereal doom on the inside. Easily one of the slowest heaviest dooooooooom bands in the world, this is quite a swansong. Two side long tracks. Each so slow it's almost ambient. It's a bit like listening to SUNNO))) or Earth 2 when some caveman drummer decides to crash the party and start drumming slowly along. Riffs stretched out into huge droning smears of black rumble, ringing and reverberating, pulsing and wavering unsteadily before the next ten ton riff drops. Both tracks are slow plodding ultradoomscapes, like the ultimate doom metal intro stretched into actual songs, smeared across both sides of the record. The vocals don't even come in until the song is almost over, a shrieking black coda, after twenty minutes of slow burning doom drone tension. The B-side features some distant Ozzy-like crooning way off in the distance before the scowling growl kicks in. So slow and heavy. On the AQ doooooomscale, Monarch rank more O's than we could possibly include in this review! So sad these doomlords (and doomlady!) are hanging it up. But what a way to go. Essential doom. If you like Esoteric, Boris, Moss, Bunkur, SUNNO))), Earth, Esoteric, Skepticism, Eyehategod, Marzuraan, Atavist, Catacombs, Khanate, Pale Horse, Monument Of Urns and you don't have any Monarch in your collection, get with the program! Or else we'll have Miss Monarch come over there and stomp you to death with her Hello Kitty Keds!
Beautifully packaged in thick black sleeves with red text, the cover is a doodle of a big eyed skull being stabbed by big knives, over a glowing heart. Includes a big poster, a Monarch calendar, marking the dates from 6/6/6 until 7/7/7, the year of the Monarch!! Each lp hand numbered in metallic marker.
LIMITED TO 666 COPIES. WE GOT 50!! It's already out of print so once these are gone they are gone for good.
In lieu of the long rumored 3cd, 3 hour, single song Corrupted record (that may be a rumor but we WILL have the new single disc, single hour long track cd El Mundo Frio in the next week or two!) all you drone doom sludge freeks can hold yourself over with this black hole heavy slab of utter crush and total annihilation. Two discs, almost ninety minutes, THREE TRACKS, of impossibly downtuned, ridiculously slow, creeping crawling funereal sludge doooooooooooooooooooom (that's right TWENTY o's, this is some serious doom). This French three piece (four piece at the time this was recorded) trudges the same long, slow and blackened ultradoom path as Khanate, Burning Witch, Corrupted, Boris, Bunkur, Moss and the like. Sounding a bit like Eyehategod, trapped in some sort of dimensional time rift, so each riff is stretched out into an entire song of chugging tarpit riffs, squealing solid state feedback and pounding percussion, each beat so far apart, it's unclear whether the drummer actually plans on coming back with another. And of course insane vocal chord shredding shrieks. Howling banshees and hellish demons ain't got nothing on Monarch's vocalist, who, it might be interesting to point out, is in fact a woman. Not that you would necessarily guess from hearing her demonic screech. But there is definitely a feminine sensibility going on with Monarch. The sort of cutesy heart album cover. The cartoony artwork and website. The random bits of Sanrio silliness, and lots of taking the piss out of black metal and corpsepaint and the whole macho metal thing. Monarch are most definitely the slow motionist, crust sludgiest, satan worshippingest, Sanrio obsessed, Sabbath fixated, cute girl fronted band in the world!
This was super tough to get, each of the three runs of 500 copies selling out before we could get enough to list. So we got a huge chunk of this pressing, but we can't be sure what will happen when these run out, so as always, if we run out, we might not be able to get more.
Finally! Been waiting for the vinyl version of this for a while now. Taking the slow boat all the way from Spain, but it was well worth it, sounds awesome, looks amazing. Metallic gold and black on shimmery silver matte finish, all new artwork. SUPER LIMITED, we got a bunch, but we won't be able to get more. Here's more about the music inside:
A while ago we were informed that French ultradoom combo Monarch had called it a day. We were crushed. One of our favorite purveyors of filthy slow motion doooooooooom, fronted by a woman, a rarity in doom for sure, and with a penchant for smiley skulls and Hello Kitty. A band that seemed tailor made for the very bizarre tastes of the AQ faithful, seemed to be no more.�
But before we could begin our campaign of mourning, black clothes spray painted with cute skulls, black Hello Kitty armbands, we discovered that in fact we were misinformed, or maybe the band had taken a break, or something, but we cared not, for whatever reason, Monarch was still alive, and would live to doom another day. And doom they did. Gracing us with more and more glorious downtuned heaviness, including their bad ass cover of Turbonegro's "I Got Erection"!
So now that we're pretty comfortable with the continued existence of our favorite cute doomsters, we can wait patiently for each new, massive slab of harsh slow motion glacial dooooooooooooooooooooom. And for folks new to Monarch, don't go expecting this to actually -sound- cute. They may be fronted by an adorable French girl, who spins playfully on the beach in their videos, but when she opens her mouth to sing, it's the sound of blackness and misery, a demonic caterwaul, unrivaled by most male metal vocalists. And sure the art on their records may be cute cartoon burning churches and big eyed ghosts, but the sounds inside are slow and black as tar, guitars tuned so low they rumble instead of roar, drum beats so far apart, the drummer can probably smoke a cigarette between beats.�And we're happy to report that this 16+ minute chunk of doom is all that and more. The more being the haunting ethereal female vocals partway through... Crushingly heavy, weirdly beautiful. A plodding symphony in slow motion. Essential Monarch beautiful brutality.
The surprise here is the Grey Daturas track, also a 16 minute epic, that on first listen sounds surprisingly doomy, and a lot like the Monarch track. The Daturas are often heavy, but rarely doomy like this, but it suits them. And they pepper their doom with all sorts of sonic weirdness, bits of electronic fuckery, strange modulated feedback, subtle FX, until about 13 minutes in, when the song suddenly morphs into a muted wall of smeared and crumbling white noise, a blast of blurred sound that eventually fades into nothingness.�
Pretty amazing stuff, from both bands. Doom hounds will be well pleased.
Stoner rock from this side-project of the Queens of the Stone Age/Kyuss bass player. A little more "punk" sounding than those bands, in parts, but there's plenty of extended psych guitar jamming as well.
Shambling from the darkness of Saint Petersburg's deepest wooded overgrowth into the even darker darkness of Saint Petersburg's dankest dampest cave (we presume), comes Mondsaal! An entirely new prospect to us, this bizarre disc of murky, woozy Russian cosmic hatefulness arrived seemingly out of nowhere, but we're finding ourselves pretty damn smitten by its lurching weirdness. The esteemed Encyclopaedia Metallum describes Mondsaal as "dark/black metal", and we have to say "dark metal" is a pretty great way to describe these weirdos. Aesthetically it's sort of black metal. There's Burzum-esque midpaced plodding, there's otherworldly synthesizer strings draped over almost everything, but there's also a thick murkiness to their sound that feels more reminiscent of Swedish crypt-dwelling death metal or the warm bloodletting anesthesia of funeral doom bands like Skepticism or Until Death Overtakes Me. Even the mid-range vocal growls lean more towards the death than the black, and the blast beats (on the rare occasion that they do decide to show up) are eerily slow and shambolic. It's a sound that's strange, sorrowful, damaged, ugly, but weirdly warm & enveloping all at the same time. The constant droning of soft synth pads and the squonking of dissonant horns (yes, that's right, there's horns) stand in stark contrast to the naked writhing ugliness of everything else that's happening, and the result is pretty psychedelic & spacey (in a bit of a similar way to the Dunnock/Intergalactic Holocaust split we reviewed on the last list!). The whole affair closes out with a hazy ritualistic rainy desertscape ambient piece, leaving the impression that you've just passed through some living slow motion morphine nightmare. It's a pretty entrancing experience - either hideously beautiful or beautifully hideous, we're not sure yet, but either way: very very recommended.
As some of you already probably know, this limited 12" is a split release on both NYC based post rock label Temprorary Residence, and now-L.A. based thinking man's metal label Hydra Head. Accordingly there are about 7 or 8 different versions, some on Hydra Head, some on TRL, some with different colored labels, but you know what? That's just tough. We have to draw the line somewhere, and it's now right here. We have about 30 copies of the Temporary Residence version, which is already out of print. When we run out of these, we might get some of the HH version(s). Not sure which ones. This collectable vinyl business is beginning to obscure the whole reason we all buy records, because we love music, and we love to hear amazing music, and this record is absolutely fantastic. So try to stop worrying about the color of the vinyl or the number pressed or any of that stuff and just pick this up because it's so damn beautiful. Pelican deliver a massive slice of gorgeously grandiose post rock, sweeping and emotional, melancholy and but weirdly hopeful with its minor key arrangement. Not a trace of 'metal' to be found here. Which is fine by us. Imagine a slightly heavier version of the song that plays during the final scene at the end of the movie, after the boy has gotten the girl and we finally realize everything is going to be okay. It sounds a little like that. Really beautiful. The second track makes up for it though, as James Plotkin (Khanate, Joy of Disease) takes Pelican at their dirgiest / sludgiest and adds tons of extra grind and grit and grrr and effects and crumbling distortion and malfunctioning electronics. Like your favorite Pelican song dipped in blood and rolled in the dirt. Wow.
Mono, who are often touted as being metal, stick closer to their mighty epic post rock sound with a sidelong track that is as Godspeed You Black Emperor as a non-Godspeed band is likely to get. Brooding and melancholy, building to a huge explosive coda, before drifting back into a creeping maudlin dirge, that sort of drifts and fades into the dark. So nice. And as we mentioned before, far too limited.
