Another missive from these Northwestern musical miscreants, and another sprawling black-doom ultra-sludge, grim-dirge epic, two tracks, nearly 30 minutes, opening with a haunting expanse of creepy droned out ambience, like the score that might play over the credits to some super arty horror film, all ominous ritualistic percussion, black sonic swirls and heaving low end rumbles, all of which are soon subsumed by dense squalls of keening feedback, building to a furious frenzy, before the hammer falls, and the song proper lurches into aktion, a monstrous, lumbering, slo-mo tarpit creep, all spaced out drum crashes, 10 seconds a part, avalanches of chordal crush, that ring out endlessly, wreathed in shards of feedback, the vokills a sick demonic rasp, the tempo glacial, total abject blackened ultra-dooooooooooom heaviness of the highest order. Well within the sonic realms of fellow doomlords like Moss, Monarch, Bunkur, Corrupted, Khanate, The Body, Fleshpress and the like. Trees don't necessarily add anything brand new to the equation, but they do craft a pretty gorgeous sprawl of droning doomic miserablism, which toward the end of the first track, begins to blur and smear into something much more psychedelic and abstract.
Which perfectly leads into the second track, which begins all feedbacky and freeform, all swirling keening feedback, chanted vox buried in the mix, and abstract drum splatter, before, like the first track, the sounds coalesce into another grim doooooom creep, this one even more spaced out, the notes further apart, the chords left to ring out and fade even more gradually, the timbre of their crumbling decay as much a part of the sound as the notes themselves, maybe even moreso, a slow, trudging, downtuned tranced out chunk of mesmerizing hypno-doom mesmer, that ends way too soon, even at close to 15 minutes...
Ough!!! Let's get that out of the way right off the bat. It only takes 30 seconds into the first track to get that trademark verbal expulsion, courtesy of metal's most uncompromising (and often misunderstood) artisan Tom G. Warrior. And that's worth the price of admission alone! But luckily there's plenty more bleak metal greatness to be found here as well. After already cementing himself a Metal Legend status with his early works in Hellhammer and Celtic Frost (not to mention 2006's superb CF reunion record Monotheist), Tommy G is back with the second full length of his most recent passion project Triptykon, and man oh man it does not disappoint. Sickening, slithering grooves are bent to their breaking point. Riffs seem to go in and out of tune even in the middle of a single note. The riffing is simple yet compelling - hypnotic and enveloping, like some musty lightless cocoon. Tom Warrior's vocals are as commanding as ever. He seems to be hurtling dogma from a pulpit with the passion of a mad zealot - his influence on vocalists like Satyricon's Satyr or Immortal's Abbath never more apparent. The drumming, freeform and almost jazzy at times, nicely offsets the vocals and the guitars, bringing something a bit more organic and human into the fold, but they still get very tribal and seriously heavy when they need to be. It's a rotting alien obelisk of an album. Even the brooding gothic balladry of "Boleskine House" with its ethereal female vocals, or "Aurorae" with its drifting reverbed guitar and lazy drum shuffle, seem to lurch and twist on a nauseous alien wave. And although occasionally we'll be assaulted with a thrashy downbeat pummel, Melana Chasmata is almost entirely a downtrodden affair - wallowing in the pits of mid-paced despair and dreadfully doomy inevitability. But for all its forlorn pallid squalor and slimy dissonance, it's still a bewilderingly catchy record - the chorus from opener "Tree Of Suffocating Souls" almost guaranteed to earworm its way into your psyche, whether you want it there or not! At over an hour, it's an exhausting, all encompassing experience, more akin to something like Swans' The Seer than your average metal record. And like that album, while it may not always be the easiest listen, it's more than worth the effort if you're willing to follow the dark corridors and shadowy labyrinthine passages of Melana Chasmata.
We wrote extensively about this mysterious and bizarre caveman doom duo a few lists back, and plan on reviewing all 4 of their amazing releases eventually, this being the second (we reviewed Forest Of Doom on list #254). And elsewhere on this list you'll also find a review of the equally amazing Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch, a Trollmann side project which is essentially the exact same band. But for those of you who are discovering Trollmann for the very first time, let's recap:
We have been obsessed with this band since the very first time we heard them years and years ago. We have spent the last 6 years or so trying to track down their records, as well as a place where we could order enough so we could review them and share them with the AQ faithful, who like us, truly appreciate the bizarre and the fucked.
And you don't get more bizarre and fucked than Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. Well, to begin with, they're called Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg!! They have record titles like Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars and Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice and Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity and Forest Of Doom. They have a similar sounding side project called Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch! The band members are pictured in drawings on the back of the cd, one as a strange little bearded gnome/elf sitting on a huge toadstool, the other a bearded furclad mountain man leaning on a mighty axe. The gnome is named Belegur and is credited with "Cosmic keys to gates unknown." The mountain man is Thundarr, and is credited with "Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come." For those of you well versed in that sort of thing, you'll realize that this duo is just bass and keyboards, which is remarkable in its own right. But the fact that Trollmann play a sort of medieval Skepticism style slow motion doom sludge with just bass and keyboards it seems even more amazing.
So there it is, if you're anything like us, it almost doesn't even matter what they sound like. But thankfully they are just as amazing and fucked as all that would lead you to imagine. While ostensibly Trollmann are a doom band, their peculiar brand of doom owes as much to William Basinski and Philip Jeck, at least sonically, as it does to Skepticism or Thergothon. Part of that is due to the incredibly lo-fi recording quality, tape hiss, and amp crumble, distortion that threatens to fall to pieces, a slow loping dronelike dirge that traverses strange landscapes of grit and glitch, of rumble and murky murmur. It's almost like Skepticism recorded by William Basinski, the tapes shoved in a box and stashed in an attic for 30 years, only to be rediscovered and released in all their slow motion crumbling drone doom glory.
Just bass and keyboards, Trollmann trudge through 4 songs in 51 minutes, huge sprawling expanses of murky muddy black ooooooooze, Black Mayonnaise cover Burzum? Maybe, if the results were then dubbed hundreds of times onto the crappiest tapes imaginable. But this is almost too delicate and dark, too lilting and lovely to be doom. But doom it is. A glorious soft focus dreamlike doom. Way less melodic than Forest Of Doom, Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars just might be our favorite Trollmann yet, imagine the songs of SUNNO))) and Thergothon and Skepticism reimagined by Tim Hecker, William Basinski and Philip Jeck. A late night, moonlit, drift through the branches of a black forest, the crackle of dead leaves, the creaking of bare branches, the black cloak of night a thick fuzzy shroud. So completely and utterly mind blowing. One of our all time essential 'doom' discs for sure.
Not sure what else to say about these guys that we haven't already said. If you've somehow managed to miss our reviews of their first couple records, Forest Of Doom and Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars, as well as the Trollmann side project Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch, for chrissakes, do yourself a favor and just order all three. And this one while you're at it. Check out the other reviews for a more in depth history of what has to be our all time favorite caveman doom duo, but to briefly recap:
Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. C'mon, they're called Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg!! They have record titles like Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars and Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice and Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity and Forest Of Doom. They have a similar sounding side project called Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch! The band members are pictured in drawings on the back of the cd, one as a strange little bearded gnome/elf sitting on a huge toadstool, the other a bearded furclad mountain man leaning on a mighty axe. The gnome is named Belegur and is credited with "Cosmic keys to gates unknown." The mountain man is Thundarr, and is credited with "Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come." For those of you well versed in that sort of thing, you'll realize that this duo is just bass and keyboards, which is remarkable in its own right. But the fact that Trollmann play a sort of medieval Skepticism style slow motion doom sludge with just bass and keyboards it seems even more amazing.
Phew, there's more of course, but that's it in a nutshell. Not only are they mysterious, and weird, and possessing a what-the-fuck quotient that's through the roof, the music is fucking amazing! This is not that so weird it's good, or so retarded it's amazing kind of thing, this is absolute genius. Dark and creepy, heavy and sloooooooooooooooow, minimal sludge soaked abstract ambient doom. Or something. Just bass and keyboards, spewing an unholy flow of low end throb, and grinding downtuned slither. The keyboard drones and spreads out in a fuzzy blur, only occasionally offering up some sort of melodic counterpoint to the bass, as it trudges sluggishly onward.
Of all the Trollmann records, Dark Clouds is probably the heaviest, the meanest, the least melodic and the most intense. The first two tracks, both shockingly under 3 minutes, set the tone, the first, is some sort of slow motion post rock drift, a thick wash of grinding low end sludge beneath garbled demonic whispers while above drift absolutely dreamy slow drifting harmonics. The second track is a stunner, almost 'rocking', at least by Trollmann standards, some sort of primitive caveman hardcore, huge throbbing, ultra distorted downtuned buzz, with fuzzed out Butthole Surfers-ish guitar leads, and super distorted death metal grunts a stumbling hyper aggressive pummel. But after that, it's back to business as usual. Long slow extended doomy drifts. Average track length hovering at about 15 minutes, the bass a throbbing, glacial presence, the riff stretched out into eons, each note reverberating and pulsing into oblivion before the next kicks in. The keyboard just adding another layer of buzzing sludge. The bass sometimes starts to stutter and pulse, creating some sort of super blown out low end rhythm, stumbling over a thick wash of keyboard buzz, before settling back down into its glacial groove.
Epic and massive and bewildering, hypnotic and bizarre and fucking brilliant!
We have been obsessed with this band since the very first time we heard them years and years ago. We have spent the last 6 years or so trying to track down records by this band, as well as a place where we could order enough so we could review them and share them with the AQ faithful, who like us, truly appreciate the bizarre and the fucked.
And you don't get more bizarre and fucked than Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. Well, to begin with, they're called Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg!! They have record titles like Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars and Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice and Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity and Forest Of Doom. They have a similar sounding side project called Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch! The band members are pictured in drawings on the back of the cd, one as a strange little bearded gnome/elf sitting on a huge toadstool, the other a bearded furclad mountain man leaning on a mighty axe. The gnome is named Belegur and is credited with "Cosmic keys to gates unknown." The mountain man is Thundarr, and is credited with "Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come." For those of you well versed in that sort of thing, you'll realize that this duo is just bass and keyboards, which is remarkable in its own right. But the fact that Trollmann play a sort of medieval Skepticism style slow motion doom sludge with just bass and keyboards it seems even more amazing.
How can you not love this band already? It gets even better when you finally face their dreamy doomic meanderings. Huge downtuned bass, long stretches of droning crumbling low end. Minor key guitar lines drifting lazily over the top. Playful Renaissance faire style melodies hover over super doomy slow motion bass riffs. Long stretches of massive funereal sludge, each one a lower register death march like trudge, but with creepy quivering keyboards above the roiling blackness. Deep spoken vocals intone mysterious wisdom, over simple wandering bass lines and fluttering flute like synth. Once in a while, the keyboards and the bass will sync up and begin playing the same melody, which turns the song into some weird sounding caveman classical music.
This band is so totally out there. So gorgeously lugubrious and depressive, but with strangely cheerful and sometimes completely incongruous keyboard melodies. It's like wandering through some ancient world, wandering from tiny village to creepy haunted woodland and back again. So totally amazing. One of our favorite bands EVER. We'll try to review all the other records soon as well as the Trollmann side project Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch!! Stay tuned.
If Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg were a cult, a shadowy forest horde of trolls and cavemen, like we had always imagined (hoped?), we would be right there beneath the heavy canopy, eyes wide in the arboreal darkness, bowing before Thundarr and Mordraaneth, trudging through the woods all glassy eyed, chanting in unison, letting Trollmann's subsonic vibrations lull us into a strange doomed trance, filthy and unkempt, clad in loin cloths, faces painted with black mud, spears in hands, first-borns sacrificed, we would gladly give up our daily lives, to serve their trollish dominion. But instead, Trollmann are just a human UK doom duo, keyboards and bass, and if our wild obsession alluded to in the above ramblings didn't clue you in, we LOVE these guys, and for now, will have to make do with raving maniacally about how awesome they are and getting our hands on every possible shred of recorded music they've produced. At least until they actually do become a cult.
To be honest, we were always sort of convinced that Trollmann was some bedroom recorded side project. Some metal guy just sort of experimenting and exploring sounds and soundscapes. The purported facts were just too good to be true, a caveman/troll duo, one member named Thundarr, responsible for "Rumblings of doom" and "Prophecies of times to come", the other member called Mordraaneth, he responsible for "Cosmic keys to gates unknown". The band members always pictured on the record sleeves in drawings, bearded, carrying clubs, seated on huge toadstools. Album titles like Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars and Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice. It all seems sort of absurd, until you actually hear the music, then it all suddenly makes some sort of impossible sense. It's like a doom metal Land Of The Lost. We all headed down to the club to see some doom band play, but got sucked into some other dimension, and ended up prostrate before Thundarr and Mordraaneth, as they proceeded to create a music, both beautiful and otherworldly, heavy and dreamlike, spreading over us like a black cloud.
So imagine our surprise when we discovered, there was a LIVE recording of Trollmann. Performing on this plane, in this time, to be witnessed by mere mortals. How could that be possible? And where could such a momentous performance take place? Well, here it is. Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg's very first live Aktion, a low end doom drone ritual performed where else but... IN A PUB!!! That's right, the Tut 'N Shive. The good ol' pub down on the corner.
Even just listening, you can practically hear the pub slowly transforming into some vine draped cave, dank and dark, lit from within, some unearthly glow, while two shadowy figures lurk on a small stage-like outcropping of rock. And proceed to fill the room, with viscous black beauty. The only real distraction from this sonic transformation is the between song reaction. 20 or 30 punters, pints in hand, cheering, clapping and hooting, laughing and talking before the next huge wave of black bile comes washing over them. It's not so much distracting as surreal. To imagine this music actually being performed, in a pub, in front of a crowd. It's actually pretty amazing, if not a little unreal.
Three looooooooooooong tracks. The first, begins with a strange throbbing bass, pulsing beneath a glimmering, shimmery keyboard drone, the bass slowly transforming into a huge lurching bass riff, repeated over and over, a totally mesmerizing slow motion doom groove, with huge monstrous guttural vocals all wrapped in thick sheets of amplifier buzz and cavernous reverb. Most definitely the heaviest Trollmann yet, but as it progresses, the sound becomes more fuzzy and the notes less distinct... eventually fading into black.
The second begins with a thick swirl of rumbling low end, glowing and growling, shifting glacially, the overtones beating against each other, a thick dense black cloud of sound, slowly modulating and subtly changing shape. While beneath the roiling blackness, the keyboard offers up a drifting melancholy shimmer, simple mournful melodies that hover and slowly fade, Trollmann at their most dreamlike and ambient. But before long, this droning black shimmer begins to build, slowly swelling into a super majestic, cinematic dirge, massive soaring low end melodies, howled anguished vocals, like Moss playing Godspeed, but then slowed down and somehow rendered impossibly fuzzy and blissy, while remaining intense and threatening.
The final ritual, sounds a bit like Total or Sunroof!, but only if their instrumental arsenal consisted of nothing but bass guitars and HUGE Stonehenge like speaker cabinets, a near static wall of throbbing low end sound wrapped like thick black drifts around a soft shimmery, distant melody, a melancholia drifting well beneath the rumble and whir, eventually becoming more and more tangled, the track becoming so blown out and blurry, so grainy and soft focus it almost sounds like some sort of Pop Ambient Doom.
As disappointed as we are, that Trollmann do in fact exist in the mortal plane, and do practice their strange sonic alchemy in local pubs, the music still compels us, mesmerizes us, possesses us, it blackens our ears and our souls, and thus we are at the ready, to gather up an army, to slip free of this world, to strip off our clothes, to paint our faces and march bravely into the black forest, to serve the mighty Trollmann...
The time has come. Hard to believe. Trollman in the flesh. Live. Their mortal forms revealed to all. Thundarr and Mordraaneth. Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come, Cosmic Keys To Gates Unknown. All before our very eyes.
Not sure what we were expecting, so much of Trollmann was mystery, those strange drawings on the cds, the bizarre monickers, the lengthy song titles. And hell, the sound. Huge expanses of slow motion doom. Hellish drones spread out like a black fog. We were sort of expecting some sort of SUNNO))) thing. Dry ice, hoods, robes, back lit shadows. But nah, that's a little too contrived. Maybe they would be hidden behind some stones, or huge curtains. Or maybe they would be monsters, creatures of the night, exposed for the very first time, a horrific but impossibly compelling sight.
No matter how you slice it, with a mysterious band, it's hard not to be disappointed, and to be totally honest we were a little at first, but then, the whole thing became more and more surreal, and it was hard not to love these guys even more.
It starts with skeletal, taciturn looking long hair man in a long sleeve Burzum t-shirt, seated at a keyboard in front of a huge black tapestry of a long haired, mustachioed skull wearing an Indian headress above crossed swords. Beside him, stands another long haired fellow, in jeans and a black t-shirt, holding a black bass. All to the strains of a skull rattling low end doomdrone. But then the camera pulls back to reveal the fact that they seem to be outside, DURING THE DAY! They also seem to be under a bridge. Beneath a brick arch, with a muddy hillside in the background, trees and bushes. On the wall behind the band in the background a strange brass plaque, and what appears to be a pig's head on a stick. The whole thing is filmed with a super jittery camcorder, sudden unexpected zooms, face, fingers on strings, the dirt hillside in the background, the skull on the tapestry, and while the band plays, you can hear people talking, obviously not that into the band, one guy even comes to the front of the stage, beer in hand, and begins to taunt the band, making hand gestures and mugging fro the crowd. Someone in the audience yells "You're fucking SHITE!!!". People laugh, but the band remain expressionless, intent on the harsh soundworld they're weaving beneath this bridge.
The second track begins the same way, the taciturn man seated at his keyboard, beneath the Indian skull, but at this point, either the cameraman is getting bored, or has gotten too drunk to really keep the camera still or keep his attention on the band. Lots of jittery shots of the floor, the wall beside the band, the band members' feet, the crowd, drunk dudes and cute metal girls, amps, the trees behind the stage, the houses on the other side of the bridge, and most bizarrely of all, a couple of little dogs, one of whom proceeds to run back and forth in front of the stage, seemingly unperturbed by the roaring doomic dirge emanating from the speakers. And the cameraman seems unduly interested in the dog, considering he is meant to be capturing the slow motion might of Trollmann. Much more crowd chatter this time around, but somehow it just adds to the sound. Laughing and inane drunken conversations are inadvertently woven into the black fabric of Trollmann's sound. A bespectacled man mouths "Awesome. Fucking awesome... " Someone holds a cigarette beneath the camera letting the smoke whip by the lens like the world's most inexpensive special effect. All the while, Trollmann remain impassive, statue like, emitting an impossibly gorgeous ambient dirge, chanted vocals, over a pulsing bass drone and shimmery keyboards. Almost like Moss crossed with SUNNO))) only with Gregorian chant-like vocals. The whole thing is incredibly surreal, the camera bobbing from the ground to the sky to the band to the crowd and back again, the sky darkening behind the band, the crowd growing less and less distinct, and more like featureless shadows, wraiths... it's somehow sort of perfect.
Outside of the camera panning back to reveal a troll atop a toadstool clutching his keyboard, and a huge furry caveman with a club in one hand and a bass guitar in the other, performing on the edge of a fiery abyss, wreathed in clouds of vampire bats and thick curls of black smoke, we really couldn't have wished for more...
It's finally here. The fourth part of the Trollmann quadrilogy, a mysterious assemblage of four recordings, once kept together in a hidden temple, far beneath the Earth's crust. But over millennia, scattered far and wide. We have long been searching. It took us years to find all four. We first searched in the Forest Of Doom, and soon discovered the first recording, wrapped in a blood soaked cloth and kept at the bottom of a deep well, protected by a strange group of deformed bear like creatures. Once this was in our possession, we struck out in search of the second piece of this mysterious dronedoom puzzle. We soon discovered the second sacred recording by reciting a series of Arcane Runes which Adorned The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars. We holed up in our secret lair, every time the two recordings were brought together they gave off an unearthly glow and emitted some impossibly slow heavy dirgelike sound. We knew we were on the right path.
Years passed, and we found ourselves in a truly strange land, arid and barren, always dark and freezing cold, when suddenly, Dark Clouds Blackened The Sky and it became apparent that it was in fact The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice, and had we tarried a moment longer, the third recording would have been lost to us. Three pieces collected, each recording, a bleak rumbling world of black sound leading us closer and closer to whoever, or whatever is Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. Perhaps we will never know. We may perish before we have discovered the truth.
Here it is, seemingly ages since we first set out upon this quest, with our final breath, our last ounce of strength, we began Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity, and lo and behold, there it was, the fourth part, the key, the last part of the fourfold sonic grail that is Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. We may be bidding farewell to this plane, and it may have taken us many lifetimes, but we shall die with a smile on our lips, and ears full of black buzz and cavernous rumbling. Adieu.
What the hell are we talking about? Well, if you're just tuning in, only our most favorite, caveman ultra doom duo EVER, Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg, who we first discovered years ago and as the story above suggests have ever since been trying to track down the rest of their recordings. Recently we finally did, and have been wallowing in Trollmann's peculiar brand of funereal ambient doom ever since. Just bass and keyboards, no drums, no guitars. Each record sonically similar, but each with its own particular sound, every one a different facet of Trollmann's strange sonic world. First their was Forest Of Doom, then there was Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars, after that there was Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice, and now, we have Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity, quite possibly the prettiest and most ambient of the four, but no less ominous and dark.
Tolling begins with a simple, subtle slow motion bass line, over which drifts a dreamy melancholy synth melody. Dark and mournful and vaguely foresty, this drifts on and on an on, very trance like, until about half way through the track's 15 minutes, the bass suddenly becomes distorted, and the track becomes somehow creepier and more intense, the same melody, the same loping rhythm, but wrapped in a tattered cloak of crumbling distortion. Some strange blend of new age, dark ambience and doooooom. At times it almost sounds like a doom metal Three Mile Pilot.
Track two is another epic, 17 minutes, beginning with a simple buzzing low end, a rumbling drone, that seems to spread like some viscous black liquid, gradually growing more and more dense, the low end pulses closer and closer together until a rhythm seems to surface. The keyboard joins in, offering haunting atonal notes, that hover and drift above the monotonous throb, angular and ultra creepy. The bass and keyboard all tangled up in unlikely melodies and weird dissonant tangles, almost like abstract free jazz Trollmann if you can imagine such a thing. But even at its most jagged and atonal, it still manages to be dark and droney. And really really creepy.
The album closer, the 11 minute long title track, begins with some shimmery harmonics, before the bass kicks in, all super fuzzy and ultra blown out, not so much weaving a melody, as laying down layer after layer of thick fuzz, a haunting black riff stretched out into long stretches of rumbling whir, while the harmonics in the background become more and more dense. The entire track building in intensity, a furiously buzzing lugubrious crawl, that suddenly fades to silence.
We've written plenty about the mysterious men behind Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg, Belegur on "Cosmic keys to gates unknown" and Thundarr on "Rumblings Of Doom and Prophecies Of Times To Come", and the other recordings, just check elsewhere on the AQ site, but Tolling is as good a place to start as any, and if you're anything like us, you too will be mesmerized by the strange sounds of Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg, and will embark on your own spiritual quest to track down all of their sacred recordings (we've made it a bit easier, as we carry 'em all! Including an amazing live record, AND a live dvd, where the men of Trollmann reveal their mortal forms!)
Needless to say, utterly recommended.
First, some background. Just as black metal began back in the '80s, with Venom and Mercyful Fate, so did "white metal", its Christian opposite, developing into a scene of bands like Barren Cross, Bloodgood, Bride, Sacred Warrior, and most famously Stryper, most of whom who recorded for specifically-Christian record labels, the bands themselves often considering themselves primarily as ministers, more than musicians. Most of those bands for some reason sounded a lot like Queensryche - and a lot of 'em are quite good, if you don't mind the preaching.
Then there's Chicago's legendary Trouble. These guys were tagged as a Christian band, and yeah they're believers, and you can hear it in their lyrics, but they stuck to the secular music industry, and probably broke a few commandments - among 'em "thou shalt have no gods before me", 'cause they definitely worshipped Black Sabbath first and foremost!! Pretty sure they had some other secular interests too, like pot and LSD. They fit in more with Candlemass and Pentagram than with Stryper that's for sure.
Run To The Light was Trouble's third album, from 1987, and it's some folks' here's favorite next to their Rick Rubin produced self-titled fourth album from 1990, which is still out of print. While their earlier two albums, which we've reviewed before, Psalm 9 and The Skull, are revered classics, we think Trouble stepped it up here, with better production and a new drummer, delivering everything you'd want from a Trouble platter: the killer heavy riffs, the twin guitars, the slow sad melodies, the psychedelic studio effects, the prayerful doomed vibes...
It's trad, classic doom metal without being super slow. While there's chugging doom paced parts, for sure, there's also galloping fast speed metal riffery and drum beats in lots of the songs. Ripping solos too.
The lyrics are Christian-based, but in an allusive, suggestive way, rather than citing chapter and verse like many more overtly preachy Christian bands. They're in the tradition of Black Sabbath's "After Forever" - warnings about bad stuff that might happen if you don't live right, in the light: "In the light is our salvation / pain is just a memory / in the light you will find the truth / all the answers for those who want to know / I wanna know", which goes well with the dire, doomy music. And again, like Black Sabbath, they really sound like they mean it, giving this music so much more emotional and spiritual weight than most other rock, pop, or metal. Their singer, Eric Wagner, didn't exactly cop Ozzy though, he has his own unique voice and vocal style, nasal, raspy and piercing, sometimes low and melodic, often wailing and shrieky, always gripping, urgent and sincere. Perfect for Trouble.
Now, Run To The Light!!
Must be a cold day in Hell. The long rumored, NEW Trouble album is finally here. Been a long time coming. In fact, it seemed like Judgement Day might get here first, that this would never happen, but it has. Chances are, those looking to pick up this expensive import are probably only gonna be fans already, so there's not much need for us to explain just how legendary these Chicago doom metallers are. Let's just say that along with Pentagram, Saint Vitus and Candlemass, in the eighties these guys were the bearers of the Black Sabbath torch...with hints of more psychedelic '60s stuff like Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and the Beatles surfacing in their music as well. Rick Rubin tried to break 'em big back in 1990 but it wasn't to be, though their eponymous Def American debut remains a (sadly out of print) classic. Various breakups, lineups, fuckups, and troubles befell, the band last releasing a studio album in 1995, Plastic Green Head, which easily could have been their swansong, their final epitaph. But twelve long years later they have reconvened (more or less) with the most crucial factor being that original vocalist Eric Wagner is at the mic. When we last heard him, on Dave Grohl's Probot project, it seemed criminal that Trouble wasn't happening at the time and that their future was, as ever, in doubt. Now, at last, at least, they're back (even if this release was damn hard for us to get) and at this point is just nice to hear Wagner crooning in his sincere soaring gargle over some heavy riffs once again!! Like Dio and his rainbows and wishing wells, Eric Wagner has still got Heaven on his mind. Other familiar Trouble tropes, musical and lyrical, abound, from swinging Sabbathy riffage to mellow stoner psych balladry about reaching "the end of my daze". Better than Plastic Green Head? As good as Manic Frustration? Up there with Run To The Light? Er, well, each fan must judge. One thing that's most definitely rad about this record is that they chose to do a cover of "Ride The Sky" by krautrock proto-metallers Lucifer's Friend!
Last list we highlighted the doomier-than-thou deluxe cd+dvd reissue of the 1984 debut from Chicago's classic doom metal squad Trouble. And now, here's the reish of their equally heavy second album, The Skull, originally released on Metal Blade in 1985, which features such Trouble 'hits' as "Fear No Evil" and "Wickedness Of Man", along with its epic centerpiece, the nearly 12 minute "The Wish". As with the debut, you can expect plenty of Christian angst, ponderous Sabbathy riffage, and twin guitar duels!
And, the bonus dvd disc this is packaged with has gotta be pretty exciting for fans: a complete live Trouble concert, filmed at a club called Malo's in Aurora, Illinois, circa 1984. There's an on-screen note at the beginning saying: "The following program is historic in many ways. One of the historic elements of this rare program is the old recording technology." And yeah, sure it's a Nth generation video dub, ultra-grainy and wavey. But with so much heavy metal atmosphere!! Lights, smoke, hair, headbanging... So cool. And they play nearly every song from Psalm 9 and The Skull, plus a couple more, including what would eventually become the title track of their third album, Run To The Light.
We had a reissue of this beloved badass '70s psychedelic proto-metal obscurity some years back (list 127) on the now-defunct Monster label. Rockadrome kinda took over from Monster, and now they've gotten around to making this available again as part of their Vintage series. The graphic design has been improved, but otherwise it's the same as the previous edition (including the bonus tracks) with no additions.
Here's what we said about it before: Reissue of a rare 1976 album by this legendary (among collectors anyway) trio of hard-rockin' Midwesterners. Truth & Janey were heavy and energetic and had some great songs but disco apparently killed 'em off. We're left with this album and the the bonus singles tracks that comprise this cd. Guitarist/vocalist doesn't quite have the voice for the two blues covers they attempt, but the rest is mighty good. These longhaired youngsters were into bellbottoms and fully-cranked Marshalls -- so if you are too, check this out! Another authentic '70s stoner rawk classic for today's fans to listen to and learn from!
Reissue of a rare 1976 album by this legendary (among collectors anyway) trio of hard-rockin' Midwesterners. Truth & Janey were heavy and energetic and had some great songs but disco apparently killed 'em off. We're left with this album and the the bonus
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Man's Ruin has dug up yet another band of young Kyuss emulators. As usual, pretty good for that crowded stoner rock genre. These guys are from Ohio or somewhere, but you can find these bands from Finland to the Philipines I'm pretty sure. Bongs away!
Finally, now you can not only proclaim your love for Andee's record label and all the killer bands who have released records on tUMULt: Weakling, Leviathan, Iran, Hammers Of Misfortune, Harvey Milk, Bathtub Shitter, Souled American, but also your disdain for all other bands! Or maybe just ALL bands...
This two button set features one button with the ubiquitous tUMULt upside down cross logo, a logo so heavy it seems to have slid down the button, to settle near the bottom, the other featuring the ever popular "I hate your band" legend printed all by its lonesome. Perfect as a non verbal response to the age old query "So, what did you think of my band" or even "How did you like the cd I gave you". Just point, and problem solved! So c'mon, represent!!
Both buttons are extra big too, not tiny band button sized, but also not huge weird soccer mom button size either, just a little bit bigger than your typical 1" button (they're 1.5" just so you know), so they're small enough to decorate your favorite denim vest or trucker hat or tube top, but big enough to make the rest of your buttons cower in terror! ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
Second record from this nature obsessed one woman black metal band from Sweden, whose last record, the flora focused Herbarium, paralleled another record we were freaking out about at the time, a double disc from one man, drums and dulcimer black metal weirdo Botanist (released on Andee's tUMULt label), the two 'groups' both with unique sounds, and both with a fixation on plantlife, nature, and man and womankind's perilous place in the the ever evolving ecosystem, one in which it seemed both groups were convinced plants would eventually, and perhaps rightfully take over.
While the first Turdus Merula record was most definitely beholden to Burzum and Xasthur and the like, it definitely infused a sound we already dug with all sorts of cool sonic weirdness, whether it was blown out drones, or weird almost poppy jangle, it all resulted in a record that managed to be both grim and black, but also plenty tripped out and damaged sounding. On Mentem Recipere, while some of the elements from the first record are still present, the vibe overall is much darker, more doomy and dismal, the atmospheres more bleak and harrowing, there's a dedication in the booklet, to a lost loved one, and it doesn't seem like it's reading to much into the sound here to realize it must have been influenced by that loss. Opening with a dark balladic creep, all reverbed piano and hushed ethereal vox, it's not until the second track that the metal kicks in, and even then it doesn't so much kick in as slowly ooze and drift, the guitars woozy and washed out, the melodies minor key, the vocals tortured, the buzz blurred into smears of black thrum, eventually the song does actually begin to blast and buzz, but even then, while the drums and vox intensify, the guitars seem to continue on all haunting and soft focus, which makes the sound less black, and more sort of grey, almost in a strange way, warm and soothing, tranced out and mesmeric. Which is pretty much how the whole record plays out. The sound shifting from doomic plod, to loping crush, to blasting blackness, but all the while, the sound, the mood, the vibe, remains haunting and melancholic, that's not to say that it's not heavy, or buzzy or black, it most definitely is. But it seems that the underlying emotion give the sound a mournful quality that makes it not only darkly personal, but also keeps it from sounding like every other black metal record out there, which it absolutely does not.
Fans of the first record will want this too, but anyone into gorgeous depressive buzz and heavy psychedelic blackness will definitely dig big time.
No, not a Fleetwood Mac cover band. Far from it. Instead, as you might expect from a side project deriving from Chicago's Pelican -- which is what this is -- Tusk are on the side of HEAVY. Deranged too. Only five songs, in 22 minutes. But there's a LOT of insanity crammed into that timespan, man. Tusk (great name, just say it, Tusk) are a mood-swinging, crazy-talking metallic morass, veering moment to moment from twittering-bird atmospheres to the machinegunnery of doom. There are fans of Pelican who might find this too messy and abrasive (like, it's got vocals!) but that can be good too. File w/ the likes of Melvins, Today Is The Day, Old Man Gloom, and Gore...
First we've heard from this oddly monikered duo, just bass and drums, who traffic in a sort of sludge/doom dirgery, the bass super distorted and blown out, sounding in places more like a guitar than a bass, but unfurling thick slabs of buzzing low end, while the drums deliver a plodding caveman accompaniment. The vocals might be the strangest of all, a sort of sung/spoken demonic growl, which give Tuurd a much more abstract experimental vibe. It really does sound like a Neanderthal version of OM. The groove is dark and stonery, thick and sludgey, but when it slows down, and gets a little mathy and dynamic, stripped down while the vocals gurgle malevolently, it's transformed into something else entirely. Which is also what happens on the second track, at least in the first half, the band ditching the sludge for some dense mathy noise prog, the bass and drums in a wild tussle, which finally gives way to a more slithery downtuned groove.
It's hard to really nail these guys down, the label mentions all sorts of other duos, from Lightning Bolt to the Ruins, as well as other bands that occupy a similar sonic space, Sleep, Abruptum, Killdozer, Slug (someone needs to reissue all the Slug records!), Black Sabbath and a bunch of others. But to our ears, Tuurd sound like slowed down power violence, like Man Is The Bastard covered by Corrupted, or some rare Slap A Ham 7" spinning at 5 or 6 rpm, but that's only one side of the Tuurd, the band totally capable of whipping out some seriously dense downtuned progginess, the combination of the two is what makes this stuff so good. Murky and muddy, dirgey and doomy, crusty and filthy, heavy as fuck obviously, proggy and mathy and not without a sense of humor (check out "Eating Ice Cream With Satan"). Definitely recommended for fans of any and all of the above mentioned bands, and anyone who like their music sloooooow and loooooow.
Super striking cover art, the album titled drawn in dirt on the front, the band name smeared in mud (please let it be mud!) on the back. Pressed on brown vinyl (of course) and includes a digital download.
Whoo-hoo! Epic awesome proggy proto-metal krautrock alert!! Germany's oddly named Twenty Sixty Six And Then concocted these heavy, organ-overloaded tracks back in 1972, jamming hard and crazy in that they-don't-make-'em-like-they-used-to mode we love, bringing to mind such much better known bands as Iron Butterfly, early ELP (or The Nice), Deep Purple Mk1, Jethro Tull and Uriah Heep, plus fellow krauts like Out Of Focus, Necronomicon, Murphy Blend, Hairy Chapter and Birth Control. It's groovy and dramatic, sometimes jazzy, often complex, definitely getting pretty wild and rippin', with kinda hoarse, bluesy vocals in English, lots of Iommi-worthy guitar soloing, a dose of Mellotron, and FLUTE!!! What's not to like? Psychedelic "hairy funk" heaviness, with both soft melodies and a harder edge, like on the mathy attack of the 9+ minute "Autumn", that reminds us also of some of our fave '70s Italian prog, too, like I Teoremi.
We should note, for accuracy's sake, that we're pretty sure this cd reissue contains the same tracks as the (out of print) one done by the Second Battle label back in 1994, called Reflections!, featuring in fact alternate, extended versions of all but one of the songs from the band's Reflections On The Future lp originally released in 1972, plus 4 bonus tracks from the same era. Which is just fine by us, if confusingly not precisely how this reissue presents itself.
Always thought this was one of the best over-the-top (yet melodic) heavies in the prog-kraut canon, nice to have it available on cd again... Connoisseurs of obscure, unfettered krautROCK will find this essential.
Yet another Kyuss-clone band, complete with high, John Garcia-style vocals.
Every year, we like to have a band play on Sunday after Record Store Day, as part of the festivities. We'd have 'em play ON Record Store Day, but it's just too crazy busy for that. Plus it's nice to keep the RSD party vibe going all weekend. This year, it was the turn of Twin Trilogy, the new power trio headed by fave local guitarist Sean Smith, whom we originally got to know via his guitar soli work, like on the Tompkins Square compilation Berkeley Guitar, where he appeared alongside Matt Baldwin and Adam Snider. But he likes to rock out, too, and Twin Trilogy is his vehicle for indulging in heavy, spacey, proggy jams!
And in addition to doin' the instore, TT also provided us with a RSD exclusive - the first in a series of limited edition, one-sided 12" vinyl releases from the band, this installment featuring two lengthy instrumentals. The multipart suite "Descent To The Pounding Surf/Strings Of The Sea/Flood Of Moonlight On The White Sea" is an epic exercise in lumberingly doomy, mathy surf rock psychedelia, full of 'seasick' woozy parts, dramatic crescendos and majestic metallic riffs, while 2nd track "Surreal Tilt" is an even heavier, fist pumping number, gloriously massive and rollicking. We got to hear these tracks and more at the instore, they were great, though in deference to our upstairs neighbors they toned down the volume a bit (go see 'em on Sunday April 27th around the corner at the Make Out Room if you want to hear them at their facemelting usual). For fans of Mammatus, Stinking Lizaveta, Earthless, Lesbian, Nels Cline, Hedvig Mollestad�
We sold a bunch of these on Record Store Day, and a few more at the instore (which we understand if you missed, it was Easter after all, and also we later realized they played at approximately 4:20 on 4/20, so all the stoners that would have been into 'em were otherwise engaged). But being the exclusive vendor so far, we still have copies left for out of towners and others not around last weekend.
Limited to 330 copies, in reclaimed, hand painted/printed jackets, with download code!
Last list we reviewed Guru Guru's UFO. This UFO has nothing to do with that, but at the same time more than you might think, considering the obvious connection between the genres of krautrock (Guru Guru) and space rock (UFO). If necessary, ignore the goofy bigfoot-emerging-from-crashed-flying-saucer artwork that they've put on this package (though, actually we kinda like the concept if not the execution of that image) and just please read the following, fans of heavy '70s stuff...
Although this is called Beginnings, it also represents an entire, complete oeuvre - the early '70s proto-metal/psych era of this band, whose more commercially successful, pop-charting output afterwards was quite a bit different (but awesome in its own right, in fact, most folks only know that stuff and haven't heard this material). Later in the '70s, on albums like Phenomenon, Force It, Light's Out, and Strangers In The Night, they became hard rock royalty, showcasing guitar whizz kid Michael Schenker (originally from Germany's Scorpions). But before arena rock success, before Schnenker, UFO's guitarist was a fellow named Mick Bolton. This earlier UFO incarnation much more psychedelic and spacey, that's where they got their Unidentified Flying Object name, playing self-described "space rock". Their second album, UFO 2, was subtitled "One Hour Space Rock" in fact. That sounds totally krautrocky, doesn't it?
This double disc set is a pretty good deal, containing all the tracks from this era of UFO: their debut UFO 1, the aforementioned UFO 2, and their live album, uh, UFO Live. The 1970 debut is definitely one for the proto-metal freaks out there, having much in common with early Blue Cheer and contemporaneous Black Sabbath... it's a heavy boogie album all right. They do a song simply titled "Boogie" and boy does it, chooglin' along all awesomely distorted and heavy. In addition, they do for Eddie Cochran's '50s hit "C'mon Everybody" what Blue Cheer had done for his "Summertime Blues". And then there's their own "Evil", another brutal blues-based rawk number indeed. It's not all hard rockin', though, there's a few sluggish, spacey ballads like "(Come Away) Melinda" and "Treacle People" to up the moodiness quota and make full use of Phil Mogg's powerful voice.
It's 1971's UFO 2 where they really launched out into space, with such tracks as "Silver Bird" and "Star Storm". The latter is almost 19 minutes long, but title track "Flying" is even longer at 26:30. They don't neglect the proto-metal riffery here, with "Prince Kajuku" in particular seeing 'em kicking out that brand of jams, but "Flying" and the other extended pieces are psychedelic spaceouts akin to Hawkwind... you could also imagine Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mothers Temple enthusiastically air-guitaring along to this at home!!
The 1973 live album offers more of the spacey stuff, along with the boogie, drawing from both UFO 1 and 2 for material, its tracks filling up the remainder of disc two here, along with the non-album "Galactic Love" single, making for an excellent value for your $16.98.
Interestingly, the three UFO albums represented here weren't hits in England, but did pretty well in Germany and Japan... When guitarist Bolton quit, they replaced him briefly with Larry Wallis from the Pink Fairies, then future Whitesnake axeman Bernie Marsden, before snatching the young Schnenker away from the Scorpions... and the rest is history. THIS is history too, just more the hidden kind!
Pretty sure we don't have to do much in the way of introducing this mammoth, UFO-nic Italian trio by now. They've only chalked up, what, at least two past AQ Records Of The Week honors? We've loved all of their records (and collaborations) and this latest opus was eagerly awaited, especially after seeing 'em play live for the first time here in SF this past winter, which was, wow, HEAVY. Of course. And Eve does not disappoint.
We've described this outfit as "druggy doom-from-space" and this slipcased new disc is yet another excellent (but different) example of their cosmic and compelling sounds. Rather than descending from outer space to jam out on Earth, this time it definitely seems like you're riding with UFOmammut INTO the deeps of space, being swept along on the cosmic rays, into some sort of swirling spinning black hole vortex, kinda like the psychedelic beginning to those old Dr. Who TV episodes. After a dramatic intro (huge monolithic thudding... swooshing space-FX sounds... Hawkwind blowing... feedback and distortion) it's a slow build, the first couple tracks starting off relatively quietly and calmly, up to a point, generating unsettling ambient atmospheres, with spacey keyboards, faintly chanted vocals, and restrained percussive rhythms building up... and up... to the massive heavy guitar riffage you know is about to be unleashed, and soon IS. Wham! Blast off! Track two hints at the band's '70s Italian prog ancestry, with drifting female (?) vocals, and piano, before the tribal drum pound kicks in full bore, and it's dooooom in SPAAAAAAACE time, kids! Like music for martial marching Martians, or armies of astronauts in jackbooted spacesuits. It's hypnotic and heavy, indeed. The next track dispenses with the buildup, jumping right into the fray...
The five (long) tracks on Eve tend to seamlessly segue from one to the next, it's almost like one piece, stretching to infinity... it's actually 45 minutes total but if it could go on and on we'd let it, happy to get lost in UFOmammut's deeps of space (and the deeps of their bass!). A beautiful thing to our ears (remember in a past review, when we told the story of how we accidentally played a UFOmammut dvd disc, thinking it was the cd, and were mesmerized by the dvd menu music, not realizing it was on an endless loop?).
Yeah, it's a trip listening to this band, and quite possibly the "trip" they're evoking isn't into outer space as we've been suggesting, but rather inner space. Of course it is, inside your mind, their music at work on your imagination. This aspect is highlighted when in when in the final track, the beat goes into a double-tlme, and a buried bedlam of chattering voices infiltrate the sound-field. It's like Electric Wizard, or Sleep, trapped in the asylum. That feeling is accentuated by the use of insistent repetitive piano chords and piercing electronic tones out of some psychological suspense thriller.
We mentioned that we saw 'em live, and that they are a trio, yet it's sorta hard to believe when you listen to this... sounds more like hundreds of people were involved, massed in ritual observance... or maybe no people at all, no human beings, just the spaceship's onboard computer gone haywire HAL style...
Having your head dipped in some sort of molten hallucinogenic liquid...or steamrollered by a flying saucer.... or headbanging with Lovecraftian gods somewhere far out in the ocean of space... that's our meagre attempt to colorfully describe the experience of enjoying this slab of psychedelic stoner doom rock, the 1999 debut disc from Italy's UFOmammut! Chances are, though, that you have some idea already about this might sound like, 'cause UFOmammut's other album, the mighty Snailking, was immediately crowned as an Aquarius Record of the Week when it came out last year, and is still a steady seller hereabouts. Hopefully you already got one of those. This too, we've had before, but it's been out of print for quite a long time and only just got reissued. We figured that since folks liked Snailking so much, and Godlike Snake was just as good, and could easily have been missed out upon the first time around, we shouldn't pass up the opportunity to relist this and make it a Record of the Week as well now that it's back in print. After all, the whole reason we were so instantly amped on Snailking when it came out was in part 'cause we'd been waiting for it for, literally, years, after being blown away by the band's first album, this one. Our review of Godlike Snake ran something like this: "...this stoner rock band is a good 'un, taking a way spacier route to the Dopethrone than most. Wonderfully heavy and mesmerizing, with loads of effects, Moog, and (pardon the expression) "fat" churning drone-grind-groove... A new fave for us in the stoner/doom realm... Especially recommended for those that miss the old Monster Magnet sound, or relish the idea of a heavier Hawkwind." Listening to it now (which a bunch of us have been doing *every day* in the store), we're if anything EVEN MORE into it. Something we hadn't noticed before was how some tracks come across like Godflesh or early Killing Joke melded to Hawkwind. Crushing and enveloping and sooooooo good. It's like Electric Wizard gone spacerock, or an industrialized Dead Meadow.
As with its original incarnation, this includes a trippy video track for the song "Where?" for those with computers. It's now packaged in a standard jewelbox, instead of a cardboard digipack, but the artwork remains pretty much the same. If you like heaviness like we do, don't miss it this time!! Definitely to be considered an AQ doom/sludge/psych ESSENTIAL.
Been waiting for this for a while! While their collaboration with Lento on the Supernaturals Vol. 1 disc (last year) was excellent and sure sounded a heck of a lot like an "actual" UFOmammut record, technically these Italian lords of druggy doom-from-space haven't released an album of their own since 2005's Lucifer Songs. So it's about time we heard from them again.
Reeling from the impact of opening ritual "Stigma", we are immediately made aware that Idolum finds the band's heaviness intact (of course it's heavy, did bears stop shitting in the woods? is the Pope no longer a Catholic??). UFOmammut are still a psychedelic juggernaut, their trance-inducing riffing aswirl in a densely layered, lysergic morass of outer space FX that the Acid Mothers Temple would envy. It's certainly up there with their previous output, we can't praise it much more highly. Found amidst the seven tracks (66 minutes, 6 seconds total, how 'bout that?) of Idolum are a few new twists, including a guest female vocal performance on a few tracks, adding an extra haunting element to the proceedings. Overall, this album manages a hard-to-beat, skull-smashing cosmic balance of tripped-out melody, ambient hypnosis, and utter crushing sludge dirge destruction equal to our high expectations. Definitely worth waiting for!
The cd we have is packaged in jewel case, the kind with rounded corners (same as the Lento debut that Supernatural Cat also just released, reviewed this list too). We didn't get any of the incredibly expensive limited cd version, but we did get a couple (really, just 2) copies of the even more incredibly expensive super limited numbered 2lp vinyl box edition. It's hefty and handsome enough to be worth the money to huge UFOmammut fans, so act fast if you want one (please). Otherwise, the cd version is more than recommended.
As you may know, Italy's UFOmammut are one of our absolute favorite psychedelic/doom/drone/dirge bands, up there with Electric Wizard and Yob and Boris. Both of their previous albums, Godlike Snake and Snailking, were Aquarius Records Of The Week in their day. This new album, Lucifer Songs, could quite possibly be a Record Of The Week too when we get the cd version -- well actually, we *did* get a cd version, but it was super fancy, screen printed and limited and we only were able to get a handful and they're all gone, sold out now, sorry. BUT don't worry, a regular cd edition is supposed to be pressed in February, and we'll definitely get a lot of those! And in the meantime, we DID get enough of this vinyl version to list... but act fast! Like the limited cd, it comes with a bonus DVD that won't be a part of the regular cd package.
Lucifer Songs (no beating about the bush with that title) is another multi-ton brick in the cosmic-heights reaching pyramidical temple these guys are building with each album, each heavy riff shifting the load like tens of thousands of the pharoah's slaves sweating and heaving in unison to get the job done. And sometimes they really push those slaves hard, the stoned riffery shifting into a higher gear. Though it often sounds more like the slaves couldn't handle the weight and the bricks are crashing down, massive and crushing... with some stretches of relatively calm drone ("Hypnotized", "Astdronaut") to let the dust settle. These five tracks of space-sludge nirvana are perhaps marred only by the over-use of sound samples, something in metal of which we've always been critics... remember our review of the first Mastodon album? If you're not Necroticism by Carcass, leave the samples alone...
And like we said, this handsome vinyl release comes with a DVD, featuring low-budget videos for three of the album's tracks as well as what they term "soundscape" abstract psychedelic visuals for all of 'em (including "Lucifer Song", which takes up all of side two of the LP but doesn't appear on the cd version, though of course it's here on the DVD and you can download it too) which is cool to have, though considering that UFOmammut is the sonic arm of the Malleus art collective (known for many a trippy album cover and rock show poster) we weren't quite as blown away by all of it as we thought we would be.
However, the DVD is well worth it not only for the many visuals that ARE cool but also for the music that plays when you're just looking at the menu (a snippet of "Lucifer Song"). If you have a DVD player that's hooked up to your stereo, put it in and just listen to it! We did... accidentally. You see, our store cd player is also a DVD player (though we have no TV monitor hooked up to it) and so when we got the cd in, we put in what we thought was the audio disc and spent about a half an hour listening to what we later realized was the DVD menu music! We were really in to how this creepy synth drone with plodding percussion just looped and faded out and back in again, like the UFOmammut guys were all stoned and just turning the volume knob up and down in the studio. Allan even came out from the back of the store to see what was playing. We kept waiting for it to fade out and then surprise us by launching into a brutal riff a la Corrupted or Boris but then Irwin figured out that we were just listening to the DVD menu music! Pretty cool though, we'll do it again...
Question: what's better than one new album by Italian space-doom masters UFOmammut? Answer: another one!! Oro: Opus Primum came out a few months back, and now here's the 2nd installment that we've been waiting for, Oro: Opus Alter. Another five HEAVY tracks (making for a ten-part sonic ritual over the two discs) from thee incredibly potent musical aspect of the Malleus psychedelic art collective, UFOmammut. Once again, it sounds kind of like a (more!) drugged out and synth-ed up Electric Wizard, riding a rocket with Hawkwind at the controls, far into outer space. There's some of the screaming, extreme elements of UFOmammut's heavy pals Neurosis in the mix, too. It's a punishing, yet trance-inducing sci-fi ceremony of pounding drums, thundering bass, gobs of distortion and sizzling synth. Gee, we have basically run out of science-fictional superlatives to describe two-time previous aQ Record Of The Weekers UFOmammut; you don't need to hear 'em from us anyway 'cause if you got the first part you already want this - and if you don't already have it, please go look up our review of that, and all other UFOmammut output for that matter, to read us rave about 'em further.
So, if like us, you've been in your basement ever since Opus Primum came out, awaiting the next visitation from these space dwellers, perhaps obsessively building a scale model replica of Devil's Tower a la Richard Dreyfus in CEOT3K, now you can take a well deserved break, and kick back with this blasting from your stereo!
Calling all psychedelic warlords, your spaceship is about to blast off! Space is the place, the place for dooooom! Yes, those mystical wizards of doom-riffed space rock, Italian power trio UFOmammut, have returned from the stars to crush all Earthlings with a new album, this time released domestically by the Neurot label, run by the Neurosis folks. Which makes a LOT of sense. Their mutual love of Hawkwind being but one thing that would make these two bands likely BFFs.
Track one, "Empireum", is a typical UFOmammut slow-build of sci-fi synth drone that only kicks into maximum density at about the 10 minute mark, with crashing drums, howling guitar, and spaced out screams. Actually, everything is spaced out, druggy, and heavily effected, of course, with heaviness and FX being two of UFOmammut's hallmarks after all. And it's no wonder that almost everyone involved is credited with both "synths" and "screams".
Next up, the equally epic, fuzz pounding "Aureum" could simply be a continuation of "Empireum", and really, the entirely of Oro: Opus Primum, while divided into 5 individual "songs", could almost be regarded as one lengthy, continuous piece, each track synth-ily segueing into the next... In fact that's the plan, UFOmammut envisioning Oro as a ten-part, alchemical composition; the second half of which, Opus Alter, being due for release in September. So we have that to look forward to, after allowing several months for the five part Opus Primum to blast away at our brains by itself.
We could go on, and on, describing the heavy FX-laden chuggery - and occasional interlude of cosmic calm - of this first of the two Oro opi. But heck we've made a couple previous UFOmammut slabs Records Of The Week, so you know we love 'em, and you probably do too, and this one is no disappointment, following on perfectly from the trippy "dooooom in SPAAAAAAACE" sound of their prior album Eve, and others. Doubtful we could outdo those earlier reviews of ours in describing UFOmammut's sound(z), so please refer to those write-ups if you are new to the band. Otherwise, as we said, all aboard, blasting off!
We've been waiting for, like, five years for this! The Italian stoner-prog band Ufomammut's debut Godlike Snake sure was a 'heaviness' hit here at AQ a few years back. A real SLEEP-er. Sadly, it's been out of print for quite a while now, and we've been waiting even longer for 'em to release their long-rumored follow-up, Snailking. But at loooong last, it's finally here! And it lives up to the promise of its predecessor while being sufficently different from it as well to really have made this worth the wait. For starters, though, here's the easiest description of Ufomammut, simply put: Electric Wizard meets Hawkwind. Space rock really doesn't get any heavier (though Tarantula Hawk is up there too). And this new one sure is heavy too. But it's also weirder, darker. Eerie. Sinister. Lots of tripped out frightmare quietude, spacious expanses of fx and ominous drum thwap for your drug-addled imagination to fill with visions cosmic. There's a free jazzish electronics freakout in track five ("God") worthy of Comets on Fire. It's doomed out, bad-trip psychedelia with mumbling, repetitious voice-in-your head samples. You know they must like Sabbath, but their favorite songs may have been perhaps "Planet Caravan" and "Solitude" and "Fx"... Not that they neglect the RIFF, the kind that goes beyond headbanging, that makes you just want to throw yourself against the wall or onto the floor and then curl up in a ball, eyes closed, rocking back and forth. So heavy it's almost mellow. And does manage to be melodic, even when the singer sounds like he's coming down a mountain glowing green...what's he seen? One song seems to be about an atomic blast, with sampled test-site announcements. And whatever the final 28-minute track "Demontain" is about, it *could* be about the aftermath...a spacey dire droning dirge for the nuclear winter, with riffing returning as the rise of the mutants begins, building into a full-on gamma world...? If you've been into any recent AQ 'heaviness' recommendations (Boris, Buried At Sea, Yob...) you NEED this. 'Nuff said.
Stalwart AQ customers, especially the ever-burgeoning subset of AQ customers into the heavier, (low-) end of the musical spectrum, should already be very familiar with one half of the Supernaturals Vol. 1 equation. That'd be Italy's most spaced-out, doomadelic band of amps-to-11 psychonauts, the very very heavy UFOmammut, whose previous albums Godlike Snake, Snailking, and Lucifer Songs have all garnered massive praise both from us and pretty much anyone who thinks that if only we'd been able to put Hawkwind, Electric Wizard and Om albums into the "cultural cache" stowed on board the Voyager spacecraft, the planet Earth would surely long ago have been visited by big hairy aliens eager to smoke up and doom out. And the resultant interstellar jam would sound a heckuva lot like UFOmammut! So a new UFOmammut album, which this is more or less, is cause to celebrate.
Meanwhile, this disc introduces us to another underground psych band from Italy, by the name of Lent0, who are described as specializing in instrumental "ambient postcore". As near as we can tell from this collaborative effort, they must have a lot in common with their friends UFOmammut. We can't really tell who's doing what on this, but certainly these six fairly long tracks of uber distorted rumble, throbbing repetitive riffage, and haunting deep space shimmer are hitting all the mesmeric, droned-out highs we associate with our previous UFOmammut experiences. Maybe it's the eerie sampled voices that occasionally drift through the quieter parts of this that are Lent0's doing? Or the stretches of calmer, more Isis-like, post-rock heaviness that stand like gleaming outerspace monoliths amidst the churning, explosive jams heard elsewhere on this disc? We don't know -- but we'll certainly be curious to check out Lent0's own upcoming album Earthen whenever it comes out. What we do know is that these two bands are right on together at making this brand of mindblowing "metal". To hear anything remotely similar, you'd have to team some Tibetan monks up with Circle AND those aforementioned hairy aliens!
Important info: yes this import cd isn't cheap, but it's a handprinted, numbered, LIMITED EDITION release, in special packaging (accordion folded vellum "booklet" between thick covers) designed and executed by the Malleus psychedelic art collective, of which UFOmammut is the primary musical arm. When these are gone (and they soon will be) we'll eventually be able to get a regular, not-so-deluxe digipack version. You should further be aware that this is but the first in a series of collabs between bands on the Supernatural Cat label. Not a bad start that's for sure!
Apparently full length number three from these Belgian experimental heavies, though the first thing we've heard from these guys, and it's kicking our asses big time, but then, really we shouldn't be surprised, hell, it's on Riot Season, home to Shit And Shine, Skull Defekts, Black Boned Angel, Aluk Todolo, Todd, Hey Colossus and loads of other aQ faves, and Ultraphallus fit right in, with their twisted avant doom and experimental sludge, a sort of twisted sprawling avant noise rock, that should most definitely appeal to fans of any or all of the above mentioned bands. The cool thing about Ultraphallus is that their sound is al over the place, when we were just cranking this in the store, someone thought it was Unearthly Trance, someone else though it was some nineties noise rock band, both of which could very well have been the case, instead it's a twisted, fucked up hybrid of the two, along with some creeping blackdrone ambience, some blown out ultra doom, some grinding blackened crust and whatever other fractured heaviness these guys can cook up.
The record swings wildly from black ambient noisescapery, thick clouds of swirling crumbling distorted sound, massive buzzing bass, and strange processed vox, to pounding almost Melvins-y sounding noise rock crush, heavy but hooky, with shrieked vox and some seriously catchy melodies, to mathy dirgey droned out doom, all downtuned riffage and pounding dirgey rhythms, to creepy swaggery swampy slither, sprawling and spacious, the vocals a croaked growl, the guitar sinewy, all laid over a grim black expanse of rumble and drift, to full on speaker shredding, crumbling blacknoise, to twisted free jazz drone sludge, squalls of skronking horns over clouds of cymbal sizzle and staticky hiss, to lumbering banjo (?!) flecked sludge pop, to experimental ambience, all layered drones and creepy atmospheres (with some wailed vocalizing by special guest Eugene from Oxbow), to one last jam, a haunting expanse of rumbling, shimmering dark dronemusic, laced with strange samples, stretched out into a hellish landscape of buzz and whir and creep and blur.
Awesome stuff, and most definitely a worthy addition to Riot Season's ever expanding roster of twisted and damaged heaviness.
Uncle Acid's debut came out of nowhere to be the runaway heavy rock hit of last year. And like the last Electric Wizard album, it was one of those rare records that seemed to leap all genre lines. Quickly becoming one of the most played records at aQ, with metalheads and non metalheads alike. Similarly, we sold TONS of them, and not just to heavy music folks. And it most definitely IS heavy. But like Ghost, and Goat, and other heavy bands people flipped for recently, the group's heaviness was tempered by heaping helpings of poppiness, that transformed what at first blush might seem simply like more Sabbath worship into something else entirely.
Originally released in such tiny numbers that initial pressing disappeared before most anyone got a chance to grab it, that and the weird band name, and of course the 'mystery' surrounding the group and its members, resulted in the sort of hype most bands would kill for. But once we (and everybody else) got an earful, we were sold. Heavy and groovy and hooky, super psychedelic, totally rocking, with a very Ozzy-ish vocalist, killer songs that would have translated seemingly just as well to a non metal band, but metal it most definitely was, but the kind of groovy hook filled metal they just don't make so much anymore.
Our first taste of this highly anticipated new record, Mind Control, came in the form of first single "Poison Apple", which pretty much takes up right where Blood Lust left off, sounding like it could have been a deep cut plucked from the first record, a woozy, slithery main riff, that kills, the vocals sing-songy and crazy catchy, lots of swirling psychedelic organ, if anything a little bit darker than the first record, but that's most definitely not a bad thing at all. When we finally did get Mind Control, we were initially convinced that in fact it was much darker and more woozily psychedelic, opener "Mt. Abraxis" is a smoldering slither, all fuzz drenched minor key Sabbathian grooviness, and we were LOVING it, and were totally prepared for a whole record of dark, minor key, psych-metal doom, but then BAM, the song explodes into some seriously catchy, and almost proggy sounding poppiness, still fuzzed out and heavy, but crazy groovy and rocking and sorta FUN sounding if that makes any sense, but then before you know it, they slip right back into another classic doom-ic dirge. Which is pretty much the magic of Uncle Acid, balancing epic Sabbathy true doom groove, with what is essentially heavy popsyke, which results in what will no doubt be lots of folks fave heavy record of 2013, which it's fast becoming for us too.
And it seems a strange coincidence that the new Uncle Acid would come out around the same time as the new Ghost, cuz the two bands definitely share some sonic DNA. Check out tracks like "Evil Love", which sounds exactly like Ghost's modern channeling of Blue Oyster Cult, but of course Uncle Acid crank that sound WAY up into something more lysergic and metallic, but at its core, it's still essentially classic hard rock for sure. Or there's "Follow The Leader" that almost sounds like a more metallic Spacemen 3, super droned out and psychedelic, and laced with slide guitar and a bit of twang, wrapped in clouds of hazy heady buzz, but seriously fuzzed out and dreamily druggy. And while we talk about how hooky and poppy Uncle Acid are, they do deliver the doom, it heaping sludgy spoonfuls, with plenty of tracks unfurling like long lost Sabbath B sides (the whole record way better Sabbath than the new ACTUAL Sabbath song we just heard), and it all culminates in the epic closer "Devil's Work", which seems to be the best fusion of all of the group's disparate influences, a droned out main riff, a dense metallic chug, that churns beneath some super poppy seventies classic rock sounding melodies, and eventually mutates into a hushed, dreamy, drifty, slow burn psych jam fade out.
So fucking great. With this AND the new Ghost, it's a wonder we've managed to listen to anything else at all lately.
Elsewhere on this week's list you'll find our review of the new full length, Mind Control, from UK psychedelic stoners Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, but this right here is the teaser single that came out a few months back. We got a bunch and sold out, and just managed to get a handful more, most likely the last copies we'll be able to get. We won't go into too much detail, as a single like this is mostly for the rabid fans, seeing as it's $15 for two songs, one of which is on the new full length. So basically you're paying for one exclusive track, but it's a doozy, and as we've discovered, Uncle Acid fans are an obsessive bunch, so if you are one, might want to grab one before they're gone.
The A side is "Poison Apple", from the new record, which pretty much takes up right where the last record Blood Lust left off, sounding like it could have been a deep cut plucked from that first record, a woozy, slithery main riff, that kills, the vocals sing-songy and crazy catchy, lots of swirling psychedelic organ, if anything a little bit darker than the first record, but that's most definitely not a bad thing at all. The B side even more than "Poison Apple" sounds like it could have come straight off Blood Lust. swaggery and swinging, groovy and stonery, a wicked main hook, and a kick ass almost classic metal sounding riff. And unlike much of the new record, that does tend toward a sound that's darker, and slower, and more laid back, "Under The Spell" sounds like what Mind Control could have sounded like if the band just made a Blood Lust part two, a poppy heaviness that few bands can pull off as well as these guys, and the more we listen to this track, the more we think it just might be worth the $14.98. Obviously recommended, mostly for fans, but odds are if this ends up being the first thing you hear from Uncle Acid, you'll end up wanting everything else as well!
As we wait anxiously for a new full length from these aQ beloved psychedelic stoners (as well as their first ever SF show coming up soon!), for now we have one new track to tide us over. And fear not, it's a groovy good one. Nothing new really, but then we didn't actually want any sort of massive seismic sonic shift, we just wanted MORE, and that's just what you get. A new track called "Runaway Girls" that sounds like it could have been plucked right off of either of their albums proper, with a cool slithery riff, distorted wailing vocals, super melodic Sabbathy basslines, shambolic drumming, wild psychedelic leads and gorgeous guitar harmonies, the whole thing all warm and washed out and dreamily distorted, sounding like it could have been transported from some hard rocking alternate universe sixties, the song twisting and turning, from almost metallic riffing, to shimmery, melodic drift and back again.
The flipside is an acoustic version of what might have been our favorite track from Mind Control, that record's closer "Devil's Work", here recast as something darkly dreamy, and hauntingly folky, the track still fantastic, but more hushed and moody, like some lost Wicker Man track, or some deep cut by an ultra obscure seventies British acid folk combo. Cool!
SUPER DUPER LIMITED!! The batch we got is on blue vinyl, but hard to say if we'll be able to get more when we run out, and what color the next batch will be. And oh yeah, it's a pretty pricey import!
Hell yeah, at last! When this now-semi-legendary album was first released by UK heavy psych doom metal specialists Rise Above in 2011, it came out in an ultra limited edition of just three hundred vinyl-only copies, which proved almost impossible to come by. That first edition sold out instantly and those lps started trading for seriously ridiculous amounts of money on eBay and elsewhere. Even though, really, who the heck were Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats? Well it wasn't just the cool band name generating a buzz, the music was awesome, as we later were able to ascertain. Eventually Rise Above did a repress, of which we were able to get a few, though those were expensive too and we were never able to get enough of 'em to actually list. But, we did figure out why this record was in such demand (as we'll discuss in more detail in a moment). We also learned that Blood Lust had also come out on compact disc, but oddly enough via a small Finnish label instead of Rise Above, and again we never were able to get enough of those to list, either. But we had hope that someday, somehow, we'd be able to review this for you, 'cause eventually most Rise Above stuff gets released in the USA by licensees Metal Blade, and while its been a damn long time, we're now pleased to, ta da, finally have Blood Lust on cd at a domestic price. Record Of The Week? You bet!
So, what we thought we were in for, way back when all we knew about band was their name & label, was some lysergic sludgey doomy jamming, like maybe Electric Wizard (another Rise Above band) or UFOmammut. Which we would have been perfectly happy with, of course. But, instead, Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats proved to be a lot more song-oriented and more melodic than we expected, with a kind of poppy '60s garage psych rock side to 'em, amidst their heavy fuzz-filled riffage. The singer (that's ol' Uncle Acid himself, natch, also on guitar in this power trio, and mellotron and synths too) croons his twisted tales of witchburning, black magic, and murder, in a languid whine, his voice nasally pinched and reverb effected, reminding us a bit of Kyle Thomas of aQ faves Witch (and King Tuff and Happy Birthday too by the way). His delivery lends a delicate, decadent touch to the band's brand of both despondent plod and swinging catchiness, able to render lines like "I was born a bitter man, no hopes or dreams / I get my kicks from torturing and screams / I lust for womens blood, and their evil ways / I twist my words to what the good book says" with sick sincerity -and- showmanship, in a way that is surprisingly not very much metallic, instead staying (despite the music's undeniable heaviness) more in the pop realm, though one obsessed with vintage horror films.
These rollicking, but dread-infused tunes are further full of ripping fuzz guitar leads, and lumbering downer riffs. Without a doubt, doom originators Black Sabbath are a major factor in this band's sound, but they're doing something rather different with that particular inspiration than most do. And we're also reminded of some other British '60s/'70s proto-metallers like Stray, High Tide, T2, and May Blitz, who were quite heavy but psych-pop catchy as well. Perhaps very early, very psychedelic Alice Cooper could be added to Uncle Acid's roster of influences too, we're thinking of the way the song "Ritual Knife" marries a pounding tribal beat and urgently chugging ominous riffery with glorious bursts of shining melody come chorus time.
One much more recent band that these guys also remind us of, is Swedish occult rock sensations Ghost, another act whose "pop side" is so effective as to possibly threaten their "metal cred" among the more closeminded. We'd also recommend Uncle Acid to fans of that other recent, equally retro stunner from Rise Above, Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell. And, like last week's Record Of The Week by Golden Void, this has that laidback classic sounding '70s psychrock vibe, immediately familiar, though Uncle Acid comes across as much more dark and sinister to be sure. And lastly, fans of Witchcraft should pay attention - we'd rank this up there with that band's celebrated Rise Above debut, we're pretty sure this is gonna be considered a classic too. We're sooooooo glad they didn't just press only those 300 vinyl copies and leave it at that!! You will be too.
This cd reissue includes a bonus track not on vinyl, which provides a nice coda to the record proper, relinquishing the fuzz guitar for acoustic strum and hand percussion, Uncle Acid doing their doom-pop-psych in a more folky style a la, say, Bolan's Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Now available on domestic PICTURE DISC vinyl!
Hell yeah, at last! When this now-semi-legendary album was first released by UK heavy psych doom metal specialists Rise Above in 2011, it came out in an ultra limited edition of just three hundred vinyl-only copies, which proved almost impossible to come by. That first edition sold out instantly and those lps started trading for seriously ridiculous amounts of money on eBay and elsewhere. Even though, really, who the heck were Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats? Well it wasn't just the cool band name generating a buzz, the music was awesome, as we later were able to ascertain. Eventually Rise Above did a repress, of which we were able to get a few, though those were expensive too and we were never able to get enough of 'em to actually list. But, we did figure out why this record was in such demand (as we'll discuss in more detail in a moment). We also learned that Blood Lust had also come out on compact disc, but oddly enough via a small Finnish label instead of Rise Above, and again we never were able to get enough of those to list, either. But we had hope that someday, somehow, we'd be able to review this for you, 'cause eventually most Rise Above stuff gets released in the USA by licensees Metal Blade, and while its been a damn long time, we're now pleased to, ta da, finally have Blood Lust on cd at a domestic price. Record Of The Week? You bet!
So, what we thought we were in for, way back when all we knew about band was their name & label, was some lysergic sludgey doomy jamming, like maybe Electric Wizard (another Rise Above band) or UFOmammut. Which we would have been perfectly happy with, of course. But, instead, Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats proved to be a lot more song-oriented and more melodic than we expected, with a kind of poppy '60s garage psych rock side to 'em, amidst their heavy fuzz-filled riffage. The singer (that's ol' Uncle Acid himself, natch, also on guitar in this power trio, and mellotron and synths too) croons his twisted tales of witchburning, black magic, and murder, in a languid whine, his voice nasally pinched and reverb effected, reminding us a bit of Kyle Thomas of aQ faves Witch (and King Tuff and Happy Birthday too by the way). His delivery lends a delicate, decadent touch to the band's brand of both despondent plod and swinging catchiness, able to render lines like "I was born a bitter man, no hopes or dreams / I get my kicks from torturing and screams / I lust for womens blood, and their evil ways / I twist my words to what the good book says" with sick sincerity -and- showmanship, in a way that is surprisingly not very much metallic, instead staying (despite the music's undeniable heaviness) more in the pop realm, though one obsessed with vintage horror films.
These rollicking, but dread-infused tunes are further full of ripping fuzz guitar leads, and lumbering downer riffs. Without a doubt, doom originators Black Sabbath are a major factor in this band's sound, but they're doing something rather different with that particular inspiration than most do. And we're also reminded of some other British '60s/'70s proto-metallers like Stray, High Tide, T2, and May Blitz, who were quite heavy but psych-pop catchy as well. Perhaps very early, very psychedelic Alice Cooper could be added to Uncle Acid's roster of influences too, we're thinking of the way the song "Ritual Knife" marries a pounding tribal beat and urgently chugging ominous riffery with glorious bursts of shining melody come chorus time.
One much more recent band that these guys also remind us of, is Swedish occult rock sensations Ghost, another act whose "pop side" is so effective as to possibly threaten their "metal cred" among the more closeminded. We'd also recommend Uncle Acid to fans of that other recent, equally retro stunner from Rise Above, Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell. And, like last week's Record Of The Week by Golden Void, this has that laidback classic sounding '70s psychrock vibe, immediately familiar, though Uncle Acid comes across as much more dark and sinister to be sure. And lastly, fans of Witchcraft should pay attention - we'd rank this up there with that band's celebrated Rise Above debut, we're pretty sure this is gonna be considered a classic too. We're sooooooo glad they didn't just press only those 300 vinyl copies and leave it at that!! You will be too.
This cd reissue includes a bonus track not on vinyl, which provides a nice coda to the record proper, relinquishing the fuzz guitar for acoustic strum and hand percussion, Uncle Acid doing their doom-pop-psych in a more folky style a la, say, Bolan's Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Another uber pricey 7" single from these much hyped UK psychedelic doomsters, their second from the band's most recent full length Mind Control, the A side here, "Mind Crawler", is a doozy (as is most of Mind Control really), a heavy psych, doom-pop groover, thick fuzzed out riffage, keening vocals buried in the mix, super tranced out and hypnotic, with a killer hook to boot. Not to mention a CRAZY video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW_GWB9VQCc
But the real reason to pick this up is for the exclusive B side, a cover of Charlie Manson's "Get On Home", which in the hands of Uncle Acid becomes a bit more psychedelic, but ultimately, other than some added volume and amplification, doesn't stray to far from the original.
Obviously SUPER limited, pressed on green transparent vinyl, and of course, ONE PER CUSTOMER!!!
For some bands, "in the red" is just studio/recording jargon for distortion, volume, overload... and surely so it is for New York doom metal juggernaut Unearthly Trance on this, their second long-player. But we're guessing that with the title In The Red they're also referring in the abstact to zones of extremity -- aesthetic, emotional, philosophical. In The Red is their trip through (or, at least, to) Hell, as they see it, and embrace it. For those that haven't heard UT's previous album Season Of Seance, Science Of Silence we should explain that they're a trio (although "feedback" could almost be a fourth member) fully aligned with the likes of Eyehategod, Khanate, Cavity, and Corrupted. Their songs are leaden dirges, with riffs like anvils dragged by snails to a precipice, to be dropped into the abyss. The singer's throat-torn vocals are devoted to unholy blasphemies. He croaks lines like "the trident guides me through the storm" like he means it. Another lyric: "I hear flowing lava". We do too. Evil hot, glowing red, molten heaviness, slowly flowing...
Great title, that. Try saying it ten times fast. Anyway, this debut from New York's Unearthly Trance is something that we've been waitin' for ever since we witnessed their solid set opening for Electric Wizard and Sons of Otis a year or so ago. Dirgey and ugly doom metal, y'know, the kind of thing that makes our hair hard. They were good then and so is this album, lovingly co-produced and mixed (and graphically designed) by like minded lost soul Stephen O'Malley of SUNN0))), Khanate, and Burning Witch infamy. And yes, this sounds A LOT like O'Malley's Khanate in particular -- the "vokills", the feedback, the mammoth tarpit mogadon [insert additional heavy n' slow metaphor here] riffage. Which means it also sounds a lot like those grandads of the sludgecore scene, Eyehategod. Definitely music of the bat-bitten, wrist-slittin', hard drugs not-quittin' variety. No shittin'. Compared to Khanate, though, UT are a bit more "rock n' roll" at times, and also specialize it what we can only call the "march of doom"! Oh, and for additional chills (and thoughtful life advice) they cop some lyrics from ol' Mr. Crowley...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Now on vinyl, and a beautiful gatefold to boot!!
Great title, that. Try saying it ten times fast. Anyway, this debut from New York's Unearthly Trance is something that we've been waitin' for ever since we witnessed their solid set opening for Electric Wizard and Sons of Otis a year or so ago. Dirgey and ugly doom metal, y'know, the kind of thing that makes our hair hard. They were good then and so is this album, lovingly co-produced and mixed (and graphically designed) by like minded lost soul Stephen O'Malley of SUNN0))), Khanate, and Burning Witch infamy. And yes, this sounds A LOT like O'Malley's Khanate in particular -- the "vokills", the feedback, the mammoth tarpit mogadon [insert additional heavy n' slow metaphor here] riffage. Which means it also sounds a lot like those grandads of the sludgecore scene, Eyehategod. Definitely music of the bat-bitten, wrist-slittin', hard drugs not-quittin' variety. No shittin'. Compared to Khanate, though, UT are a bit more "rock n' roll" at times, and also specialize it what we can only call the "march of doom"! Oh, and for additional chills (and thoughtful life advice) they cop some lyrics from ol' Mr. Crowley...
Herewith the third visitation from New York doom-dirge demons Unearthly Trance. Like their previous two blackened death marches, The Trident drags listeners down into the depths of a dark, hellish place and leaves them there to dwell! In comparision to their past efforts, though, this one is somehow, amidst the mire of punishing doom distortion, more tuneful -- at least in the vocals, which venture into real, "clean" singing at times. We can still describe Unearthly Trance as a militarized, motorheaded version of Khanate or Eyehategod, but we're now also reminded of the relative melodicism of such bands as Today Is The Day and Acid Bath. So don't worry, Unearthly Trance are still safely ensconced within the inner circles of Hell on The Trident. Imagine, maybe, a really depressive and negative, black metal Pelican?
The Trident wielded by UT digs deep, leaving scars in the psyche the way the passing of an ancient glacier does to the landscape...though they aren't always, just sometimes, paced that slow. A definite dooOOOOooom recommendation.
We have been massively obsessed with the mysterious doom duo Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. Two musical cavemen, one wielding some sort of primitive keyboard, the other a bass tuned so low it sounds like the tectonic plates slipping. Together they weave a sprawling and expansive world of minimal sludge, an epic slow motion doom crawl, equal parts Skepticism, Thergothon, SUNNO))) and Earth. Glacial riffs that slither and lurch, moving so slow they seem to almost be standing still. The keyboards adding the occasional melodic flourish to the duo's black hole dirges.
So why would the two mysterious members of Trollmann, Belegur and Thundarr, masters of "Cosmic keys to gates unknown" and "Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come" respectively, start a new band, with the tongue twistingly Lovecraftian monicker Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch, and with the exact same members?
Well how about if the glacial doomic trudge of Trollmann was just NOT slow enough, NOT low enough, what if the two members wanted to jettison melody completely, and perform strange magickal rituals with low end sound, conjuring up vibrations of doom, from deep within the center of the earth. A huge booming, cavernous, resonant rumble rife with overtones and subtle sonic shadings. A doom metal Phill Niblock if you will. Simple tones, distorted and murky, stretched into huge expanses of drone, allowed to slowly shift, various low end frequencies beating against each other. So glorious!
Well, that explains the epic opening track, but then what about track two? A dreamy expanse of pointillist piano, wrapped in reverb, a flurry of twentieth century piano abstraction dropped into a shimmering swirl of empty space. Track three makes a bit more sense combining the two, little bits of piano melody subsumed by a massive wash of low end rumble, a wave of monstrous drones, dense and multilayered, strange monk like chants buried in the roiling murk, before a haunting high end melody surfaces becoming more and more intense, building and building into a sort of Birchville style ur-drone.
The ten minute 4th track is another low end ritual, this time a simple rhythmic throb anchors a shimmering thrum, beneath which strange vocals hum and murmur, a deep dark and very ancient sounding sonic ritual for sure.
Finally, the record closes with the title track, a brief blast of doomdronedirge wrapped in white hot sheets of coruscating feedback, a snarling squall of hiss and fuzz, sizzling and buzzing, a blinding ball of sonic fire with a massive black hole center.
All bow before the mighty and mystical low end lords of Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Since the demise of Kyuss, we've been waiting for John Garcia, or any Kyuss alumni for that matter, to live up to the high standard their band set for desert/stoner/grunge rock. And this is about as close as anyone's come (excepting the 3 song Slo-burn ep of a few years back). Huge riffs, stretched out and sun baked, wailing low-mixed vocals, and some pretty catchy song writing. Definitely a step in the right direction, and a godsend for disenchanted Kyuss fans.
Here's the the vinyl debut from this eerie experimental drone duo, their second album after a cd on Utech. Last list, you may recall, we had a record by Cleared, featuring Stephen Hess of Haptic, On, and Locrian. He's 1/2 of Ural Umbo as well. The other half is Reto Mader, best known to AQ customers for his excellent Utech release as RM74. Together, these two utilize a variety of instruments and electronics (bass, organ, synth, kalimba, tapes, bowed cymbals, percussion, chimes, etc.) to conjure up (or rather, carefully construct) a powerful selection of detailed, dense "nebulous post doom" soundscapes, both amorphous and atmospheric, thick and physical. Yet their heavy drones, however ominous, are soft around the edges, and seem to be lit by a glow from within. 'Tis often more dreamlike than nightmarish, although with an active imagination the listener could find themselves growing frightened, as one wonders not so much about the music itself, than about the darkened spaces beyond it.
Aptly titled Fog Tapes, and not just because it was recorded to analog tape, this record conjures layers of blurry, obscured images in the mind's eye. Nothing fully ever comes into focus, these half-developed images superimposed and fading from one curious scene to the next. At times it sounds like the vibrations that might still lingering in the air in the aftermath of an occult ritual, by an assembly of robed monks conducting arcane, abstract rites. Or maybe it's the sounds of the rites themselves, isolated, slowed down, ghostly, heard through a gauzy veil, dimmed and distant. Ural Umbo's gentle echoes, crackling distortion, swelling drones, mysterious clattering, indistinct voices, and other manifestations, can be quietly creepy, or massively grinding, but at the same time seem mystically serene if you give yourself over to it - possibly psychologically disturbing otherwise. At its heaviest, on tracks like "The Mediums Feed", this should appeal to fans of SUNNO))) and Aun, but also bears comparison to some stuff by Steven R. Smith, and many of the haunting soundscapey things specialized in by labels like Miasmah, and Utech - in fact, this puts us in mind of the "black metal Taj Mahal Travellers" comment we made regarding Utech's Tetragrammaton release.
A quite excellent 8 tracks, 44 minutes! Swiss import, limited edition. Nice silver-printed sleeve, with fold-out poster enclosed.
We're excited to get this brand new second release from England's Urthona, bursting with more of what we termed "shoegazing freeform rural-psych-noise-guitar-drone" in our review of their first disc. The liner notes credit "all sounds, including field recordings in Devon and Wiltshire" to Neil Mortimer, he who is one man mystic band that is Urthona. Ah, field recordings. You know we love nature sounds here at Aquarius. Wind, water, uh... massive howling psychedelic electric guitar blow outs? Since when did you need earplugs for an out of doors ramble? Well, maybe you do, if it's with Urthona! After all, the cover for Urthona's first album I Refute It Thus showed Mr. Mortimer standing atop some Cyclopean stones out on a moor, posed with his Gibson Les Paul guitar thrust downwards like he was summoning feedback from the granite, and the cover of this one depicts an waterproof-anorak-wearing Mortimer again with guitar on a mossy green rock in the middle of a series of cataracts somewhere on a wooded mountainside deep in the wilds of Dartmoor. Does Neil Mortimer always take his electric guitar along on hikes? When he's hiking with his pal, druid dude Julian Cope (who took the photos), apparently so...
Thus, while woven into these tracks there are some environmental audio samples taken from Mortimer's soggy tramps about the West Country, including "footfall squelches" mentioned in the liner notes, there's also mega amounts of amped-up guitar (played through his favorite "Durham Electronics Crazy Horse fuzz pedal"). Of course, he's not really recording the guitar out in the great outdoors. But definitely when he's back in the studio making Urthona music, he's got the ancient English landscape he so loves on his mind, channelling that earth energy into waves of glorious rumbling guitar fuzz. There's moodier moments, but mainly what Urthona unleashes is an ever expanding, exploding, grinding white light distortion drone meant to be played loud, generating vibrations as physical and solid as those giant rocks and stones found on the album covers. Amidst which, once acclimated, listeners will discern melodies slowly moving, gentle and glacial. It's something like a more organic, psychedelic, pastoral SUNNO))). Remember think global, act local? Urthona thinks local, acts cosmic.
Just as with Urthona's previous disc, this one also consists of three loooong instrumental tracks, this time they are: "Urthona's Barbaric Yawp Sounds Over The Roofs Of The World" (19:06), "The Waters Of The Fen Have Brought Forth Flowers" (17:43), and "Born Psychedelic" (19:56). Each one makes you glad to be alive and appreciative of such "barbaric yawp", indeed! (At least, if you too were born psychedelic.) It's on cd-r rather than cd this time, but the packaging is still super fancy, just like that of the debut, in a tri-fold eco-friendly wallet with insert cards of William Blake artwork and various evocative quotations.
"Feedback-laden West Country psychedelic free-noise garage metal" eh? Released by the record label division of druid rock dude Julian Cope's indispensable Head Heritage website? Gotta check that out!! And so we did, and so here it is... Urthona's I Refute It Thus.
The cover of this disc bears a picture of a giant granite outcropping on a remote moor in England, beneath white clouds and a curiously pink sky. These massive, lichen-encrusted rocks have loomed over this particular Dartmoor hilltop for untold ages. If you look closely at this photograph, you'll see the figure of a long-haired man standing amidst the stones, facing the dawning sun, holding an upside down electric guitar, headstock jammed into the earth. Now imagine that his guitar is actually powered up, feeding back, plugged in somehow to the cyclopean stones, themselves both a source of earth-energy and also an obvious visual parallel to a wall of Marshall amplifiers... well, that's just about what the music on this cd sounds like!! Rock, from the rocks. (Except, Urthona use Fender amps not Marshalls... the liner notes also tell us Urthona play Les Paul guitars, and "make frequent use of the Durham Electronics Crazy Horse fuzz pedal", aha.)
There's three long instrumental tracks on this mystic silver disc... beginning with the woozy, vertigo-inducing electric strum and howl of the ten minute "Urthona Cannot Be Destroyed", which sorta sounds like the Dr. Who theme being played on primitive feedback guitar by krautrock hippies Amon Duul... nice. Track two, "The Bright Burst Of Morning" (19:34) is dronier, calmer, yet expectant with doomic potential. And finally, the third track, "Sun And Moon So Heavy" (21:44) does indeed do justice to its title. Waves of deep, grinding, spaced out guitar, so heavy indeed. Blissful at low volumes, vibrationally destructive at louder ones... seriously you need to be carefully turning this disc up! It's certainly heavy, but in an in-the-red atmospheric way that can reward a quiet listen...
The primal sheets of shrieking skree and dense distortion unfurled by Urthona's guitars (multitracked, as it's a one-man-band; Neil Mortimer take a bow) are also intertwined with pretty, folkish melodies, with also brief bouts of hand percussion or field recordings of gurgling waters mixed in... We're put in mind of the gritter moments of Steven R. Smith's Ulaan Khol I. Or perhaps a heavy Keiji Haino session, if he were channelling some cosmic acid-folk concept in his mind's ear. The other Neil (Young) and SUNNO))) could be further comparisons.
This cd comes in a unique eco-friendly tri-fold cardboard sleeve, with card inserts bearing details of art by William Blake and quotations from Walt Whitman and Albert Einstein, amongst other thought-provoking text found here. The photograph of the "Hound Tor" on the front is by J. Cope himself... The packaging, designed by like minded pagan droner and fellow Cope associate, Holy McGrail, is fantastic, except that we have preferred if the cd itself had been given its own paper sleeve. The pocket it sits in, along with the two inserts, isn't snug enough to hold it completely securely, and some minor cosmetic scuffing might occur to the disc's playing surface as a result.
Bah, but that's a minor complaint, and interferes not a whit with our enjoyment of Urthona's glorious shoegazing freeform rural-psych-noise-guitar-drone!! We love this, and a lot of you are sure to, too.
Some seasons have passed, earth energy forces have again gathered, and now we are happy to herald the return of Urthona - aka Neil Mortimer, guitar-wielding Briton from the West Country, a man who channels the pagan spirits of his native land in the way the ancients intended - with massive psychedelic electric guitar/amplifier feedback! Just ask Urthona's sometime accomplice, the archdruid dude himself, Julian Cope, he'll tell you. Or ask us. We've raved about Urthona's "heavy rural sound" over the course of several releases. For this one, Urthona conjures up a storm, seriously, that's the idea - this is a concept album about a historic storm that swept across the southern British Isles in November of 1703, or so we're told (we didn't consult an almanac). Must have been a doozy to deserve this disc, which consists of a single epic track (38 minutes and 3 seconds, no more no less). Don't get the wrong idea - this "storm" is portrayed with a lot of nuance, moments of respite, suspenseful dynamics; it's not a full-on blow-out for the duration. All-instrumental, as always, this begins with the (ominous) calm before the storm, a mix of windy, watery field recording ambience and quietly keening guitar feedbackdrone, slowly building, surging, unfurling, as the storm approaches. Mortimer's carefully collected and edited environmental field recordings lend verisimilitude, concept-wise, but it's how they blend with the howl of his guitar that gives this its amazing power, you hear the wind and rain but also what the imagination can only conceive of as celestial sounds, like sad angels singing wordlessly (don't laugh). 'Tis glorious stuff. Imagine, if you can, a Caspar Brotzmann / Chris Watson collaboration.
Even at about ten or twelve minutes in, the storm hasn't fully struck, in fact, maybe there's a break in the clouds, some sun shining through, but you know that's not going to last... no, but it's another tantalizing and beautiful feedback-sculpted ten minutes or so more, before the drones of Mortimer's guitar and ambient weather recordings truly build into storm-of-the-century proportions, at the tempestuous climax of which Mortimer's abstract axe/amp wrangling (talk about guitar "squall") is further augmented with some "destroyed drumming" (or maybe this is when the drumming really kicks in, it could have been there all along, just buried under / indistinguishable from the distortion). Better batten down the hatches if you haven't already. And then, at the end, feel cathartic peace, the (sonic) storm having washed away all cares. Altogether a lovely experience for those who dig the elements: wind, water, electric guitar.
We're always impressed with the amount of thought and care that Urthona/Mortimer puts in to his music, conceptually and compositionally - and that's carried through with its packaging every time as well. So once again, a super nice physical artifact, the disc coming in a T-shaped four-panel folding sleeve bearing color photos of Mortimer in a red anorak, with his trusty Les Paul, clambering around on WWII era anti-tank defenses on a beach in Dorset. It includes two inserts, a small hand-printed one and a larger, folded one; the latter with b&w photos of stones accompanied by some intriguing quotes.
Time once again, we're honored to announce, that we all are enabled to plug directly into the Earth's own Ur-Drone, 'cause we've got the new album from England's Urthona, psychedelic drone warriors heavily inspired, or even empowered, by the mythic natural landscapes of their rural West Country home, a green and pleasant and pagan land...
Previous Urthona missives have all contained long, epic tracks, but this one takes things further, as it's but one single piece, clocking in at 47 minutes, 59 seconds, conceptually concerned with the "elemental cyclic seasons" and patterns of weather in the Southwest of England. "Super-Heavy Hamoazian Reverie" lives up to its title, and you don't even have to know what "Hamoazian" means (The Hamoaze is a stretch of river in Devon and Cornwall, it turns out). There's field recordings from the area's moors and ancient tors woven into/buried under the hazy, echoing guitar distortion, feedback and assorted electronics of the main Urthona dude/druid Neil Mortimer - whose usual amped up, windswept guitar and synthesizer is augmented by more modular synth from prior Urthona collaborator The Asterism, as well as for the first time on an Urthona recording, drums! Though we feel like we've heard some subtle hand percussion on other Urthonas, before. The drums here, though, are more to the fore, when unleashed - while much of this is droning, drifting drumlessness, when they do start pounding the skins, additional krautrocking power is manifested, and maybe it's no surprise that one of the guest drummers here is longtime Urthona associate Julian Cope, who knows a thing or two about ritualistic rock n' roll. The other two (!) drummers are Mr. E from Cope's band Braindonor, and one Albert Snazz. We're beginning to think of the Boredoms, say circa Super Roots 5. And as always, we'll mention Ulan Khol, Keiji Haino, and maybe Neil Young a la Arc.
Cope you may remember once appeared on a SUNNO))) album, spouting pagan poetry... and while this is all-instrumental (they confine the poetry to the text found on the cd's sleeve and its inserts), Urthona could definitely (again) be compared to a pastoral SUNNO))) of sorts. This album is a sometimes blissful, but often blistering, trip, certainly meant to be played LOUD for full submission/submergence. There's feedbacky frenzies and quieter, calmer stretches too... sometimes The Hamoaze is flowing strongly, water roiling, other times it meanders gently, into an estuary with "strange eddies and weird tides", where you could certainly still slip beneath its placid surface and drown, down among the "conger eels and U-boat nets"... we're quoting here from the text that accompanies the cd, which is packaged, as with previous Urthona releases, in a handsome, eco-friendly cardboard tri-fold sleeve, with lovely photos/art, including two card inserts bearing quotations from William Blake and Fredrick Douglass.
Chuffed to get another gorgeous transmission from the pagan UK dronester known as Urthona! Previously we've enjoyed the heavy organic sounds of his J. Cope approved "shoegazing freeform rural-psych-noise-guitar-drone" via Urthona's I Refute It Thus cd on Head Heritage and Amid Devonia's Alps cd-r on Further. Now he's back, teamed up with a likeminded mysterious entity known as The Asterism, for a cd (not cd-r) on Further called Murmurations. There's two tracks here, "River Severn Bore" clocking in at 24 minutes 20 seconds and the title track, a mere 19 minutes 50 seconds... about what we'd expect, epics! Both pieces are titled after natural phenomena that even though admitting of scientific explanation, still may appear mystically significant even to modern day observers.
"River Severn Bore" refers to an unusually high wave that in ancient days inspired legends, "Murmurations" are what vast swirling swooping flocks of starlings are called, as they dance in the air, seemingly synchronized in their movements. Both titles make for excellent inspirations for the sonics here, Urthona and The Asterism's amped up guitars building buzzing drones massive enough to match such awesome spectacles, with their own field recordings captured on hikes in the English countryside mixed in perfectly, the electronic fuzz eventually morphing into a wash of rain/water sounds at the end of "River Severn Bore" ferinstance. That's the denser/darker of the two pieces, throbbing thickly, grinding drones licked with feedback, SUNNO))) and Boris fans should bow down... "Murmurations" is heavy too, but as befits its subject, displays more agile, active movement, sounding somehow exotic and raga-like, with delicate high-end shimmer from guitars and amps echoing the cries of birds from the field recordings that are also present in the mix, as is, we think, some gentle percussion... it falls somewhere between James Blackshaw and Bong, perhaps. Quite lovely -and- fuzzy.
Packaging is again a trifold "eco-wallet" affair, recycled cardstock, vegetable based inks, these fellows nature worship taken pretty seriously, in more than just the music...
Yay, it's Christmastime again. Well, US Xmas time that is. We don't know why they picked that odd name (abbreviated here to USX, dunno if that's an official change or what), but it doesn't matter now anyhow, since we've become firm fans of this band of Southern, psychedelic space rock, Hawkwind-worshipping, country-flecked heavies. Fans like us will be happy that they've got a new album out, and it's good, real good. However, The Valley Path may or may not be the best one for the uninitiated to start with, as it consists of but one long (38:53) song! A real doozy, obviously. Listening to this, we realize USX remind us of True Widow, if they stretched out and drew more on the majestic post-rock dynamics of the Neur-Isis contingent (USX are on Neurot after all), big and bombastic yet seriously moody and atmospheric at the same time. This album/song is replete with weary vocals, epic wailing psych guitar eruptions, wide open drone-twang, sweeping strings, martial drums, ambient field recordings, and sizzling synth FX... Yeah, we think you'll like it, if you dig anything/everything from latter-days Earth and Barn Owl to Godspeed You Black Emperor! to Six Organs Of Admittance to Grails to more recent Zoroaster. Merry USX everybody!
