Fans of the band that began as Japan's answer to the Melvins, and then took a wayback machine ride into the '70s, Boris, can start rejoicing now. After a long while, we've finally got a whole bunch of Boris back in stock. AND, we've got a whole brand new recording as well! Whoo-hoo. Akuma No Uta is a 32 minute, six song mini-album that offers up a smorgasbord of styles from past Boris albums, drawing from the heavier-than-thou rumble of Absolutego, the exquisite beauty of Flood, and the sheer jams-out-kickin' of Heavy Rocks. Starting off with a two and half minute Earth-esque drone-metal intro (although for some reason unknown to us, the intro track on the vinyl version is seven minutes longer than that on the cd, so drone freaks may have to get the lp, or what the heck, get both!), the record then slams into the riffed-out, noisy stormer "Ibitsu". Distorted, manic, tear-shit-up stuff. After another song in the same Hendrix meets the Stooges style psych-punk rawk vein, Boris switch gears again, for the album's centerpiece, a twelve-minute opus entitled "Naki Kyoku" that begins all super languid, quiet and pretty before building into a soaring psychedelic jam. The jams continue on the next track, another stoner rockin' blow-out. Finally, title track "Akuma No Uta" winds things up with a return to the immense sludge grind of track one, melded into a headbanging groove, ending the disc on an adrenaline high. I'm sure there's mulleted, pot-smoking high-schoolers in Japan scribbling Boris logos on their binders...or so we'd like to think.
You'll note from the price that the yen isn't doing us Americans any favors right now. Ah well. Boris is worth a few extra bucks, as fans will no doubt agree. Worth their weight in yen for sure, and well, you know they're heavy. The vinyl version is even pricier, but it's perhaps got the cooler artwork (yes, they're different) with a cover that perfectly re-creates Nick Drake's Bryter Layter! Except with double neck electric guitar-bass instead of acoustic guitar... Real nice.
And be aware (beware?), for soon to come is another Boris, the bottom-heavy full-length known as Boris At Last aka Feedbacker. We should have that as soon as it's out, we'll keep you informed!
Yowza! We are *so* excited to finally have stock (and at a nice price, too) of this masterpiece of heaviosity by the amazing Japanese band Boris, who have become big AQ-faves over the past few years. The more-than-aptly-titled "Amplifier Worship" is their
A good shorthand description of "Amplifier Worship" would be to say that it sounds like a cross between the low-end riffage of Boris' obvious heroes the Melvins, and the more recent, rhythmic trance experiments of their countrymen the Boredoms. Psychedelic punk metal, utterly crushing. Pretty much essential to anyone who is into "heavy"! If you like the dirgey sludge of Corrupted and Earth, as well as the more rocked-out sludge of Sleep and Melvins (circa "Ozma" and "Bullhead"), you'll love Boris! Recommended!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Good news, Boris fans. Thanks to Southern Lord, we now finally have stock again AGAIN of this masterpiece of heaviosity and former AQ-record-of-the-week by the amazing Japanese band Boris, who have become big AQ-faves over the past few years. The more-than-aptly-titled "Amplifier Worship" was their 2nd full-length release (after their mighty one-song drone-slab "Absolutego" but before the mind-blowing, semi-acoustic "Flood" and the stoner-rockin' genius of "Heavy Rocks"); it originally came out in 1998 and has been, on and off, pretty much unavailable in the US. Man's Ruin was going to release it domestically a while back, actually, but that fell through because of that label's sudden, unfortunate demise. Now our friends at Southern Lord, who made "Absolutego" available over here, have gotten around to releasing "Amplifier Worship" in the States. A happy day indeed. It's cheaper than the import, we should be able to keep it in stock for more than just a week, and, of course, it still rules!!
A good shorthand description of "Amplifier Worship" would be to say that it sounds like a cross between the low-end riffage of Boris' obvious heroes the Melvins, and the more recent, rhythmic trance experiments of their countrymen the Boredoms. Psychedelic punk metal, utterly crushing. Pretty much essential to anyone who is into "heavy"! If you like the dirgey sludge of Corrupted and Earth, as well as the more rocked-out sludge of Sleep and Melvins (circa "Ozma" and "Bullhead"), you'll love Boris! Recommended!!
And don't feel too bad if you already bought the more expensive Japanese import version. First off, you're that much cooler. Secondly, there's no bonus tracks or anything on this edition to make it any better. Thirdly, the redesigned, green-tinted package, while striking, happens to incorporate a GUMMI WORM in the spine of the jewel case. I'm sorry, that's just not a good idea... But if you don't already have the import, this is a must-have and a bargain even with the gummi worm, which should still be edible when you get your copy and so thus is easily dealt with.
It's that time again. When AQ regulars start coming in every day like junkies looking for a fix, "Do you have it yet? C'mon man, when are you gonna get it?" And in fact, they are junkies, only they're looking for their HEAVINESS fix. That fix that only Japanese sludge/doom gods Boris can provide. We were pretty into Boris' recent Akuma No Uta cd ep, that added all sorts of sonic weirdness to their new found super-charged Stooges, stoner rock sound (a la Heavy Rocks). But some of us were still longing for a return to the glacial, slow motion doom/drone days of old: Amplifier Worship, Absolutego (sadly now out of print) even the comparatively serene Flood (Allan's favorite). And while we can't tell you this is entirely that return, it's darn close, and we'd say it's easily one of their best records yet. At Last (aka Feedbacker) is a breathtaking, 50 minute epic, split into five movements. Things start with a slow slow build, drones and rumbles and huge sheets of distorted guitars, weaving a heaving tapestry of sonic unrest, a static buzz that towers over you like an ancient stone wall, threatening to heave forward, bricks of sonic sludge crushing you beneath their suffocating weight. The big surprise though comes in the second movement as the wall of sludge dissipates into the ether, leaving a smoky hazy gauze, through which Boris emerge, as an almost-pop band, simple spare drumming, heavily reverbed shimmery chords, subtle muted wah guitar with a distant swirling backdrop of wind tunnel effects and howling feedback. Then vocalist Takeshi joins the fray with mumbled, keening sad boy vocals reminding us of Greg Dulli in his Afghan Whigs days, and then drums get all dubbed out, and suddenly everything is druggy and trippy, like the whole record was soaked in cough syrup. All the while Boris' guitar goddess Wata spits out super distorted leads, all melancholy and emotional, strings bending, feedback threatening to overwhelm the notes. The mellow parts definitely remind us of Codeine, which is a VERY good thing. Also, Windy and Carl, the Wipers a little, and even that eighties Homestead records sound. But it wouldn't be Boris if things didn't get HEAVY. And they do. Really heavy. The rest of the record is an aural tug of war between Boris' Earth/Sunn 0))) doom tendencies and their gorgeous, shimmery, druggy psychedelia. Imagine Godspeed You Black Emperor, raised on doom metal and seventies psych, and fronted by a female Hendrix! It's that fucking amazing.
As you may know, Boris are perhaps Japan's number one Melvins worshippers! But that's not to say they're unoriginal, rather the opposite, since the Melvins themselves are so unpredictable and eccentric. But in terms of heaviness, Boris measure up. If you
"Heavy Rocks" is -- to state the obvious if you've heard it -- a more than apt title for this newest (and long-awaited) collection of tuneage from everyone's favorite Japanese heavy rockers, Boris. Yes, the thunderous Tokyo trio of Takeshi, Wata, and Atsuo are back! We promised last year in our write-up of their amazing (but uncharacteristically mostly mellow) album "Flood" that Boris' next disc would be a return to the ROCK. And it is. No acoustic stuff here, nor even the lengthy droning dirges in which they have also indulged in the past. Nope, this one simply rocks hard and heavy, start to finish. Fans know that every Boris album is different, and this one can perhaps be characterized as Boris' "stoner rock" effort. Total Kyuss action! Still, with some grizzled nods to their all-time heroes, the Melvins. The first track, "Heavy Friends", is VERY Melvins (metallic, thudding, glacial) -- and even has a walk-on spoken contribution from Melvins drummer Dale Crover's ex-wife Lori (of Acid King). Speaking of heavy friends, guests pop up all over this release, actually -- there's some lead guitar by Eddie Legend of Japanese garage/rockabilly band The Mad 3, a track with analog synth twiddle courtesy Maso Yamazaki (Masonna/Christine 23 Onna), and another with some laptop computer fuckery from Masami "Merzbow" Akita (who also just completed a full-on collaborative album with Boris, see nearby for a review of that opus, the drone yin to this album's rock yang).
With or without the help of noiseniks Merzbow and Masonna, noisy, fuzzed-out psychedelic atmospheres abound here, but generally in the context of high energy, superheavy rockin'. Really, the album relaxes only for the spaced-out guitar bliss of "Soft Edge" halfway through. Tracks like "Korosu", "Dyna-Soar", "Death Valley", "Rattlesnake", and "1970" are all catchy, riff-laden showcases for Boris' brand of kick-ass rock n' roll. Even if you aren't into stoner rock, you should check this out because it easily surpasses most of the other bands operating within the genre. Irresistable. Honestly.
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. More on that at the end of the review -- and we definitely suggest you read that stuff before you buy! But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds. Packaged in a gorgeous chipboard slipcover die cut sleeve, with a dozen cd sized photos, presumable from the film, with stories printed on the other sides, unfortunately all in Japanese.
So here's the complicated stuff. There are FOUR versions of this record. All of them slightly different. This is the Japanese cd version. comes in a chipboard diecut sleeve and is NOT limited. In the next week or so we will be getting the vinyl version, which comes with a dozen 12x12 photo prints and IS limited. Only 500 were made and we're getting about a fifth of those, but as with all things Boris they will not last long. So if you want one, best to preorder it now. There will be another cd version, released by the Brazilian label Essence, and there will be two versions of that. A super deluxe boxed version, and a regular digipak version. The deluxe version is super limited. Only 120 copies made. We're getting half. Those will all be spoken for by the time we get them, so if you want one of those, pre-order it now. The regular Brazilian version is the same as the deluxe version just with less packaging. And is not limited.
Confused yet? Well, stick with us just a little bit longer. The Brazilian version has more music than the Japanese version. BUT, the Japanese version has music NOT on the Brazilian version. Okay. So if you just want to make sure you have ALL the music, you need both the Japanese version AND the Brazilian version. And since the Japanese cd and the Brazilian regular cd are not limited, you can easily pick up both. The lp and the deluxe version are just for those of you who need the fancy versions or feel compelled to collect them all. Finally, the Brazilian cd version won't be out until end of August or thereabouts, so orders WILL NOT be held for those! If you want both, we'll send you the Japanese cd now (lp when we get them) and the Brazilian version when they show up in a month or so. Phew!
We figured that since this list was so chock full of new Boris releases we oughta let folks know that we also got back in the Brazilian version of Boris' Mabuta No Ura soundtrack, so for those of you who somehow missed it last time around, check it out:
Finally! The Brazilian version of the Boris soundtrack Mabuta No Ura. And why is another version of a record you may already own so essential? Well, for the precise reason we all find Boris so enticing and simultaneously frustrating. This new version is SIMILAR, but NOT identical to the Japanese version. Obviously the packaging is completely different. But the music is too, which means all you Boris obsessives will need this as well as the Japanese version if you want all the Mabuta No Ura music there is. Some of the tracks here are -not- on the Japanese version, however, there are a few tracks on the Japanese version that are not found here. ARGHHHH. But thankfully Boris are so good, and Mabuta is so completely amazing, that it makes all this multiple version craziness go down just a little bit easier. But as we said before:
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds.
The Brazilian version comes in a nice thick oversized mini lp gateflod sleeve, housed in a deluxe die cut slip case. Inside are mini reproductions of the inserts that came with the original lp. So nice.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. More on that at the end of the review -- and we definitely suggest you read that stuff before you buy! But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds. Packaged in a gorgeous chipboard slipcover die cut sleeve, with a dozen cd sized photos, presumable from the film, with stories printed on the other sides, unfortunately all in Japanese.
So here's the complicated stuff. There are FOUR versions of this record. All of them slightly different. This is the Japanese cd version. comes in a chipboard diecut sleeve and is NOT limited. In the next week or so we will be getting the vinyl version, which comes with a dozen 12x12 photo prints and IS limited. Only 500 were made and we're getting about a fifth of those, but as with all things Boris they will not last long. So if you want one, best to preorder it now. There will be another cd version, released by the Brazilian label Essence, and there will be two versions of that. A super deluxe boxed version, and a regular digipak version. The deluxe version is super limited. Only 120 copies made. We're getting half. Those will all be spoken for by the time we get them, so if you want one of those, pre-order it now. The regular Brazilian version is the same as the deluxe version just with less packaging. And is not limited.
Confused yet? Well, stick with us just a little bit longer. The Brazilian version has more music than the Japanese version. BUT, the Japanese version has music NOT on the Brazilian version. Okay. So if you just want to make sure you have ALL the music, you need both the Japanese version AND the Brazilian version. And since the Japanese cd and the Brazilian regular cd are not limited, you can easily pick up both. The lp and the deluxe version are just for those of you who need the fancy versions or feel compelled to collect them all. Finally, the Brazilian cd version won't be out until end of August or thereabouts, so orders WILL NOT be held for those! If you want both, we'll send you the Japanese cd now (lp when we get them) and the Brazilian version when they show up in a month or so. Phew!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Finally! The Deluxe Brazilian box set version of the Boris soundtrack Mabuta No Ura. And why is another version of a record you may already own so essential? Well, for the precise reason we all find Boris so enticing and simultaneously frustrating. This new version is SIMILAR, but NOT identical to the Japanese version. Obviously the packaging is completely different. But the music is too, which means all you Boris obsessives will need this as well as the Japanese version if you want all the Mabuta No Ura music there is. Some of the tracks here are -not- on the Japanese version, however, there are a few tracks on the Japanese version that are not found here. ARGHHHH. But thankfully Boris are so good, and Mabuta is so completely amazing, that it makes all this multiple version craziness go down just a little bit easier. But as we said before:
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds.
This box set version is limited to 120 copies, 70 of which we got here. The normal Brazilian version of Mabuta is packaged insied a white painted and textured box, wrapped in white cord. Along with the cd inside you'll find dried flowere and flower petals as well as a ton of extra inserts, photos, and text. Really beautiful, ultra limited and most likely by the time you read this out of print.
There's a show coming up you can't miss. Next month, July 9th, Saturday night. ALL NIGHT. The cream of the Japanese stoner sludge crop. All perfroming in the same venue on the same night. Boris, Green Machine, Church Of Misery and Eternal Elysium! (Plus 'special guests' Pelican!) Holy Crap!! C'mon, let's go!! Oh, wait. The tickets may be only $30, but the plane fare to get there is $800, 'cause it's happening in Tokyo, Japan of course. And of course hotels will cost us about $600 for the weekend. And then of course food and all that. So right around $1600, to see the ultimate Japanese Heavy Rock Showcase?! Well, if there ever WAS a show worth $1600, it would probably be this one. Thankfully, we've got this $35 dvd for those of us with a much more sensible show-going budget. Beautifully packaged (designed of course by a certain member of Boris aka Fangs Anal Satan) the Wizard's Convention DVD gathers live footage from all four bands from 2003-2004 at various venues in and around Tokyo. Shot professionally, all the sets are awesome, super high energy, ultra kinetic, wild and rocking, hair flailing, lights flashing, all before very polite (but headbanging) Japanese crowds. The coolest thing about this disc is seeing that most of the purveyors of this filthy, sludgy, crusty, doomy, metallic brutality, are not in fact the scraggly tattooed beasts you imagine when listening to this stuff, instead they all seem to be not-scraggly-at-all skinny ultra cuties. Especially the serial killer obssesed Church Of Misery, who in a different setting could be some kind of boy band. And of course we can never get enough of Boris guitarist Wata whose tiny girl frame belies the crushing guitar god she proves to be, unleashing an ultra heavy torrent of relentless riffing, seemingly without even breaking a sweat.
This DVD is ALL REGION!
We've listed this before, long ago, but have been out of it for a while...but now, along with Boris' "Amplifier Worship" and the Keiji Haino w/ Boris disc, we've got this back in stock *and* at a much cheaper price than before (while supplies last). This is a
Will it never end? We sure hope not. Release after release from quite possibly our favorite Japanese stoner doom sludge outfit Boris and they just keep coming. As should probably be expected by now, this one is vinyl only, and VERY VERY LIMITED. But unlike the recent Akuma No Uta picture disc reissue (now out of print, so DON'T ORDER it please) this is indeed a new release. Boris and Merzbow have met once before on the compact disc field of battle, the result was the very drone-y Megatone, but this meeting takes place only on vinyl, and the results are much more rocking. In a nutshell, this sounds like Boris's penultimate stoner rock record Heavy Rocks, run through the Japa-noisy hands of Merzbow, resulting in fuzzed out garage rock riffery with plenty of guitar psych freakout, furiously pounding drums, rumblling throbbing bass lines, and some weirdly wrong speed vocals, all splattered with occasional bursts of jagged analog buzz, super distorted whitenoise skree, and sheets of shrieking squeals. Totally heavy and fuzzy but also completely damaged and noisy. What more could you ask for? Packaged in a super swank, heavy duty black and silver metallic sleeve. Really gorgeous. And as always be warned. This lp is limited to 500 copies. We got almost 20 percent of the pressing, but they won't last, and when they're gone they are GONE.
AQ faves Boris (masters of Melvins-esque slow-motion dirge metal) team up with sometime AQ fave Masami Akita (who as Merzbow basically invented 'noise' as a genre) to unleash this three track cd of monster drone! Both camps represent with some of their most gorgeous work. Boris contribute what sounds like the prettier more minimal stuff from their moody album "Flood", with guitar only evident on one track, and even then it's slowed down, stretched out and buried under a thick blanket of Merzbow-y haze and Boris-y rumble. Akita keeps his noise side in check (although there are some truly caustic moments) opting instead for dark, processed low end with the occasional sonic flare. Created using guitar, e-bow, space echo, Powerbook and feedback conduction (!), "Megatone" finds itself situated closer to the drones of Coleclough or Karkowski than it does to the metallic pummel of the Melvins or the Corrupted. The opening track is a deep 20+ minute rumble, with white noise spread thinly above, while Akita's Powerbook gradually becomes more and more sonically intrusive and the processed guitars form subtle melodic overtones, throbbing and pulsing in ultra slow motion. The second track is constructed out of far away, psychedelic, Keiji Haino-esque guitar leads, buried under some Merzbowian ear piercing skree, allowing Akita to unleash some of that 'noise' he is so famous for. The final track lets the guitars do the talking one more time with huge walls of distortion, still heavily reverbed and distant sounding, but much more serene and almost ambient, with Merzbow's noise contributions much more complimetary and distinctly less harsh. A massive, gorgeous totally enthralling collaboration from two of the most exciting artists in music today!
Outside of being Japanese, and VERY VERY loud, one wouldn't necessarily think Boris and Merzbow had a whole lot to offer each other sonically. But as we know, that is most certainly not the case. Their first outing together was the legendary Megatone record, a stretched out doom drenched drone of mammoth proportions, sure there were guitars and basses and plenty of laptop fuckery and analog squiggle, but it was all smeared into a totally mesmerizing , incredibly dense drone record. Match up number two, the recent LP only 04092001, threw some people for a loop, especially folks all ready for the drone. Instead they were given what was essentially a Merzbow produced Boris ROCK AND ROLL set. Like their Heavy Rocks record, an energetic blast of overdriven, Stooges-esque sludge stomp RAWK, but for 04092001 mixed on a Fisher-Price mixing board, broadcast through a transistor radio stuck between stations. Cool for sure, but much more noisy and messy. So here we are with the awesomely titled Sun Baked Snow Cave, which finds Merzbow and Boris together again, and returning to a sound much like Megatone, but with a definite nod to Flood as well (our favorite Boris record btw). In fact we might go out on a limb and claim that this is the best (non-rock) Boris record since Flood!
Gorgeous ghostly guitars, simply strummed or delicately picked, each note and chord set adrift in a vast expanse of barely there sound, spare, drifting and languid. After about ten or twelve minutes the guitars are suddenly darkened by a slow building cloud of distant rumble and reverberant thunder, with lightning flashes of electronic grit, hiss and flicker. Then, about twenty minutes in, the bottom drops out (or IN) and the sky falls when a MASSIVE slab of super distorted downtuned guitar is laid out, a constant buzzing roar, over which Merzbow drapes all manner of glitch and stutter and crunch and crackle. A dizzyingly dense swirl of free noise drone, thick and slowly shifting, noisy, but in a muted controlled way. Eventually the storm passes, and the last twenty minutes of the record is one extended stretch of dreamy drift, surrounded by Merzbow at his most subtle, little smears of sonic haze, sort of like the audio equivalent of the afterimages you see when you stare at the sun. A haunting coda that gradually dissipates and fades to grey, and then black. Packaged in an exquisite Japanese style mini gatefold, with lovely black, white and blue metallic artwork by Stephen O'Malley.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Boris, a heavy Tokyo band that falls somewhere on the heaviness scale somewhere between the Melvins and Earth, team up with countrymen Barebones (who are also pretty heavy, but more in a garage-y, Stooges kinda way) for this split release of both live and studio tracks. Some of Boris' other releases (like the collaboration they did with Fushitsusha's Keiji Haino) tend towards the amazingly dirgey, droney and spacey, but for this release Boris (and Barebones) stick to pure ROCK.
Stooges. That's not what these guys are, but it's who they'd like to be! As in Iggy and the. They wanna be your dog and do a damn good job of it. A couple years ago we reviewed an import album and single from this band, the "stuporgroup" brainchild of psych rawk aficionado Julian Cope (of The Teardrop Explodes, now equally well known for his expertise in such subjects as krautrock and megalithic Europe), featuring Cope plus collaborators Thighpaulsandra (of Coil) and some pseudononymous guys from Spiritualized (Doggen and Kevlar). This domestically released cd compiles the key tracks from Brain Donor's 2001 Love Peace & Fuck album (the one we listed) and their Too Freud To Rock'n'roll, Too Jung To Die album from 2003.
As we said before, they play propulsive, heavy Stooges-style punk rock (Iggyish vox, loads of distorted psychedelic/metal guitar skree), packing a lot of rock action into these tracks. Pure Detroit worship, done by guys who know what they're doing! With amps set to 11, titles like "My Pagan Ass" and the band done up in full glam regalia, it's hard to say this is more than dumb, good fun, but really that's enuff isn't it? Hopefully they'll follow up this release with a new album soon (supposedly being recorded here in San Francisco with members of Monoshock!)...otherwise we'll be left waiting for the next Mudhoney, or a Thee Hypnotics reunion, to get our Stoogey rock fix.
Some of the AQ shoppin' stoner rock contingent ought to remember Buffalo, an honest to gosh band of Austrialian proto-metal pioneers from the early '70s. We used to stock a 2-fer-1 disc (can't get it anymore, dang) that collected their more Monster Magnet than Monster Magnet ever wuz albums Volcanic Rock ('73) and Want You For Your Body ('74). Missing that disc as we do, we were happy to find a few copies of this, a cd reissue of their prematurely tired-of-living debut from 1972. Dead Forever (nice title, they had a knack for that) was originally released on Vertigo, and at the time Buffalo were probably tipped as an Aussie version of Vertigo best sellers Black Sabbath. Close, no cigar, but what they're smoking has its charms anyhoo. This album's a graveyard of grinding dirgey yeah-yeah-yeah rockers, the kind that demand (as the back cover literally does) you to "play this LOUD". You've got to 'cause this band's lurching riffs and electric psychedelic blues bashings need all the help they can get since producers back then didn't yet know exactly what real metal required. True, this has a few quiet, balladic numbers on it (not bad ones either) but will be 'specially valued for trudging lead-foot boogie blooze proto-DOOM like you get with the album-closing title track coffin-nail-hammerer. For folks who also dig the similarly lost and wasted, stoned guitars and wailing vocals of such acts as Captain Beyond, Randy Holden, Juan de la Cruz, Toad, Leafhound, and Sir Lord Baltimore.
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Another recent release from the same Argentinian stoner rock label that brought us that weird-ass Dragonauta album we highlighted on our last list. If the Dragonauta is somewhat akin to the more "progressive" direction taken by their fellow countrymen Los Natas on recent albums, then Buffalo hews closer to early Los Natas -- that is, they are heavily into the "desert rock" cult of Kyuss. Catchy, heavy, groovy stuff with some definite Josh Homme worship in the guitar dep't. But Kyuss isn't their only influence, as the first track "Gracias" makes clear -- it's a recording of someone fumbling with a cassette deck, playing snippets of classics by everyone from Sabbath to ZZ Top to the Misfits. But Buffalo come closer to Kyuss -- or actually, Homme's even more successful, post-Kyuss outfit Queens Of The Stone Age -- than anything else. And they're damn good too. Whatever they lack in originality they make up for in energy and attitude and musical talent. Not to mention that taking after QOTSA requires some measure of eccentricity -- spacey prog keyboards, musique concrete elements, and acoustic folk jams do get incorporated into their stoner rock ass-kickery as well. Good stuff! Includes live video Quicktime clips as well.
NB. not to be confused with the '70s Australian band Buffalo, though I'm surprised these guys weren't aware of those far-off forerunners to their sound.
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Fans of the currently popular "stoner rock" contingent (Fu Manchu, Monster Magnet, Kyuss, that sort of thing) should definitely check out this 2-on-1 reissue of some authentic heavy '70s cock-rock, from Australia's answer to, if not Sabbath, at least Grand Funk...no, better than that. Did we say cock-rock? Hell, there's a penis on the cover. The lyrics are of the sort that confuse being sexist with being sexy, but are delivered with gusto and backed by some powerful riffing that could teach some 90's bands a thing or two for sure. If these dudes were around today, chances are they'd have a picture disc 10" out on Frank Kozik's Man's Ruin label...
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'70s heavy rock from Poughkeepsie...rockin'.
Here's a heavy AQ fave, finally repressed after more than a few months MIA, and back in stock! From our New Arrivals list #184 last year:
Buried At Sea are a bulldozer, shovelling clods of earth down your earcanal. Clods of toxic corrosive landfill, to be precise. And if you love heaviness and doom like we do, you'll understand that we mean that's a good thing, and you'll definitely want to pick up this, the first release from a quartet of Chicago doom-mongers who possibly named their band after the Saint Vitus song "Burial At Sea" (and are not to be confused with fellow doomsters Graves At Sea!). Slow, sludgy sickness for doom-heads. Crushing. Feedback. Disturbed vocals (or indeciperable samples?) buried in the mix. And once in a while, the Buried At Sea guys strip the mastodon they're riding down to a skeleton of bones and bask in the beauty of its terrible form (i.e. quiet parts, occasional interludes of even doomier loneliness and despair). Three untitled songs, 39 minutes! Thus it's closer to a full-length than an ep, although ep priced. The nastiness of Khanate meets the post-rockiness of Pelican, with the heaviness of both. The hole they're digging has also previously been excavated by the likes of Electric Wizard, Eyehategod, Warhorse, the aforementioned Saint Vitus, and all the other bands who operate heavy machinery under the influence of drugs and alcohol in hopes of unearthing the long-buried lich-corpse whose Satanic shadow Black Sabbath was but the first to glimpse...sorry...getting a little carried away there! But with their relentless grinding riffage and use of space and dynamics Buried At Sea are worthy newcomers whose Migration is an excellent debut.
We don't know how they do it. Black magic presumably. If you thought that Sweden's Witchcraft were eerily able to conjure the spirit of early '70s proto-metal doom rock a la Black Sabbath and Pentagram (which they are) and you want MORE (of course you do), well, you're in luck. We've discovered that Witchcraft have some friends, another Swedish band called Burning Saviours who ALSO possess this arcane ability, incredibly enough! You've gotta hear 'em. Burning Saviours are pretty much dead ringers for Witchcraft, which means that they are equally inspired by Pentagram (heck, they're named after a Pentagram song, "Burning Saviour"), Sabbath, Witchfinder General and all sorts of decades-past, metal-prog-psych heaviness. Their songs have got all the bellbottomed basslines, laidback soloing, gentle folky melodies, Ozzy-sincere vocals, and doomful riffs needed to make for an authentic-sounding escape to that mystic, misty, downer domain that we (and bands like Burning Saviours and Witchcraft) like to imagine the '70s to be...long-haired lads worshipping pagan gods with guitars and amplifiers and flutes -- yes, flutes, much to Andee's approval (Andee's been taking flute lessons for a few months now, in a bit do become even MORE prog, and he knows how to play four whole notes already!). Burning Saviours wield flute with aplomb on two tracks, "Spread Your Wings" and "Trees And Stones", which will doubtless garner 'em comparisions to Jethro Tull, although we doubt they go in for the one-legged flute pose, and besides there were lots of other '70s heavy psych/prog acts that utilized the flute -- Murphy Blend, Gravy Train, Clear Blue Sky, Mammut, Los Dug Dugs, Out Of Focus, McChurch Soundroom, Nosferatu, Alrune Rod, Culpeper's Orchard and plenty more obscure acts who were probably more inspirational to Burning Saviours, not that we're knocking Tull. And let's not forget that Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath was known to set aside his guitar and pick up the flute upon occasion -- once, famously, in concert when we was so stoned that he spent, like, two minutes with his eyes closed, holding the flute nowhere near his lips, while blowing directly into the microphone as bandmates Ozzy, Bill and Geezer looked on and tried to restrain their mirth. Or so the story goes. ANYWAY, our point is sort of that if any of those bands mean anything to you, and/or you also dig Black Sabbath, then this should be right up your alley! We only wish this album was longer than the relatively lean 34 minutes that it is. But if you've been lovin' Witchcraft's recent Firewood, you'll be happy to have this -- indeed, it might even be BETTER than Witchcraft. We're not sure yet. And that by itself is about as high a recommendation as we can give!!
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"This album is dedicated to the greatest band of all time -- Black Sabbath." So it says, quite rightly, in the liner notes of this release. This is the second effort by the reformed (not reunited) Candlemass, the Swedish metal legends who in the '80s almost single-handedly established the genre of "Epic Doom Metal."
The *new* Candlemass, tho, harkens back earlier in time, wallowing fully in the early '70s heaviness of the gods Sabbath. Gone are the high pitched operatic vocals of their old singer, gone are the shred guitar leads of their old axe-slinger (not that there was anything wrong with those things...) Instead, the band's massive riffs are supported by dirgy, Ozzy-like vox and spacy, psychedelic electronic effects. There's even sounds of rain and bells to complete the Sabbath homage. The abstract song titles ("Arx/Ng 891", "Cyclo-F") and sometimes mysterious atmospheres make this its own record though, kind of a timeless art-doom for the nineties.
This isn't really a new cd, just an old favorite that we thought we'd list for the first time 'cause the name sometimes comes up in our reviews of present day heavy psych/stoner rock bands: LA's legendary Captain Beyond. This cd reissues their classic 1972
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Dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. No, we mean it. This is dismal, despairing, ultra doom. Not doom like Sabbath or Candlemass. No, this is mega doom. Or death doom. Or funeral doom. Or whatever you call it. But whatever you do call it, this is most certainly, dark and dreary and completely and gorgeously miserable. So slooooooooow and plodding, it threatens to grind to a complete halt. Guitars tuned unbeleivably low, riffs thick with graveyard dirt and the flesh flecked bones of the dead, haunting siren-like melodies, wrapped in tattered shards of ultra-reverb, and vocals that sound like tectonic plates slowly shifting and grinding against each other, thousands of feet below the surface of the earth. This is essential doom for those of you who bow before the dark art of Skepticism, Thergothon and Disembowelment.
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Wow! Back to the DOOM for these jolly British gents, no more of the tongue-in-cheek discofied retro '70s rock pastiche that, well, sucked, and rendered the majority of their output over the last decade (excepting their mighty debut) pretty much worthless. It's
Ok, raise your hands, everybody into Electric Wizard and Moss and Sleep and Reverend Bizarre and Om and, uh, Solar Anus, do you all have a copy of Cathedral's 1990 debut album Forest Of Equilibrium in your doom collection?? If not, total doom-foul. You must rectify that immediately, we decree. And now's the time, 'cause Earache has just reissued this all-time doom classic with not only an entire out of print ep tacked on as bonus tracks, but also with an extra dvd disc featuring a 40 minute documentary shot in 2009, about the band's early daze... which means folks who DO already have the original might want to consider the upgrade.
Now, as we've said before, British band Cathedral's debut was one of the saddest, heaviest slabs of doom ever heard, magically melding slowed-down Sabbath riffage, depressed prog-folk flutes, and ex-Napalm Death throat Lee Dorrian's gravelly vocals. It belongs in any doom metal top 20, maybe top 10, we would argue. And the band never made a better record, though the four song Soul Sacrifice ep that immediately followed this was also pretty fine (and that's what's included here as bonus tracks!).
From the morose, molasses-slow strains of album's opening, the acoustic guitar and flute intro entitled "Picture Of Beauty And Innocence" that leads into the majestically crushing "Commiserating The Celebration", the unique quality of Forest Of Equilibrium's take on classic, epic doom metal is evident. Early Cathedral's gruff gothic exhalations and chugging downtuned doomic riffs is something quite special to behold, preferably sitting on a pillow or lying prone on the floor, perhaps wreathed in pot smoke, directly in front of a very loud set of speakers. There's something warm-blanket soothing about it, the utter sobbing misery expressed somehow comforting.
These guys never made a secret of their heavy progressive, proto metal, psychedelic '70s influences (proudly listing obscure bands known only to bearded record collectors and aging hippies in their cd booklets' thanks lists at great length) but unlike Witchcraft, for instance, Cathedral didn't attempt to emulate those bands exactly, rather they incorporated certain elements of '70s prog (like the occasional flute!) into their much heavier-than-thou Sabbath/Candlemass derived sludge metal, going to an epic extreme (at the time) hitherto unmatched of sheer glacial-paced melancholia. Remember, frontman Lee Dorrian's former band Napalm Death was one of the FASTEST bands ever, so his next band Cathedral had to be the SLOWEST, the equivalent of grindcore at 16rpm. With of course ultra-long songs (the first track clocking in at over 11 minutes). The Soul Sacrifice ep did see the band speeding up a bit, and Lee letting loose with a few Ozzy-derived "All right!" exclamations, which led eventually to the slightly too much tongue in cheek let's boogie '70s kitsch stoner rock that characterized the middle period of their long career. But never fear, that came later, Forest Of Equilibrium is deadly serious, utterly doomed and despairing. And oh so beautiful.
For those who have the original, some further notes on the extra stuff included here:
Soul Sacrifice ep includes an extended version of the title track, also on Forest, plus three others: "Autumn Twilight", "Frozen Rapture", and "Golden Blood (Flooding)", all of which could have fit in perfectly well on the album itself style-wise, though the production is a bit different sounding.
Then, the bonus dvd documentary about the formation of the band and the making of Forest Of Equilibrium is going to be quite interesting to fans. It even includes an interview with the artist responsible for all of Cathedral's fantastical cover art, and concludes with the music video for the track "Ebony Tears".
Cathedral. No, don't think light and airy, magnificent house of God. Think massive, weighty, and ancient -- lair of gargoyles, temple to superstition. Despite debuting with one of the heaviest slabs of doom metal heard in 1990 ("Forest Of Equilibrium", which melded slowed-down Sabbath riffage, depressed prog-folk flutes, and gravelly vocals), the blokes in Cathedral soon took a tongue-in-cheek "stoner rock disco" detour for most of their career, only to regain their relevance with last year's seriously doomy comeback "Endtyme". Now, "VIIth Coming" fortunately demonstrates that "Endtyme" was only a new beginning for the band. Straight out of the gate, opener "Phoenix Rising" gives notice that these guys mean business, that business is good, and that their business is, as you may have guessed, killing. The next cut, "Resisting The Ghost", is even faster (for them) and more furious. They still do slow, though, as the following track "Skullflower" demonstrates. It's monolithic '70s riffing and ultra-heavy doom groove all the way, pretty much the formula for the whole album. Sure, the keyboards and spoken-singing of "Aphrodite's Winter" come as a departure, but Cathedral for the most part walk the straight and narrow (left-hand) path here, avoiding the overt silliness and intentional kitsch of past Cathedral travesties. Compared to "Endtyme", this does swing Sabbath-like a bit more, but without reverting to taking the piss like they did for so many years. No, they're now taking seriously their own talent for achieving atmospheres of heaviness and despair (even whilst rockin' the cowbell). Thank you Cathedral, for making it possible for an old fan to like you once again!
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Ex-Kyuss folk doing what comes naturally, that being heavy "desert-rock" stoner riffage. Quite competent of course. For fans of the big K, as well as Queens of the Stone Age. Head nodding if not head banging music.
This album comes directly after my glorifying / praising review of their 12" on Flapping Jet in list #140. I said this full length couldn't come fast enough and BAM! It's here. I feel the same as I did two weeks ago, if not more so. This recording is as tight and energetic as the 12". Vocals with that perfect amount of grit and soul, blazing electric guitars, and their full throttle double-barreled drum attack. It was recorded by the flawless Tim Green at Louder Studios here in SF. Rock'n'roll revivalists The Cherry Valence bringing the 70's right to your doorstep with rock riffage a la MC5, Stooges, and Kiss. Hot!
Cool 5 song collection from Japan's serial killer obsessed stoner sludge rockers Church Of Misery. The first four tracks were recorded over the last few years and of course concern all your favorites, the Boston Strangler, Ted Bundy, the Candy Man, and El Topo. Crunchy and fuzzed out loping stoner rock ala Fu Manchu, Nebula, Heavy Rocks-era Boris. Fucking great stuff. The fifth track is tagged on to track four and is ostensibly an improvisation. Titled Invocation Of My Demon Brother. Not sure if it's some sort of homage to Kenneth Anger, but to these ears it just sounds like more of that sweet sweet crushing tarpit sludge.
BACK IN PRINT! Previously this was an import from the Japanese label Leafhound, sadly now defunct. But fortunately someone has just reissued it, domestically! Here's what we said about this essential anthology back when we first listed it in 2004:
Will the Japanese stoner sludge serial killer onslaught never end?? We sure hope not. We're finally able to list this double cd collection of old, rare, unreleased and out of print tracks from one of the heaviest bands in Japan. Corrupted may have the market cornered on sludge, and Boris definitely has the drone-dirge segment all sewn up, but that leaves Church Of Misery to duke it out with the equally brutal Green Machine for the groovy, druggy, sludge-y stonery BIG RIFF contingent. Early Works definitely helps the cause, with two discs bursting with splattery serial killer soundbites, plague-of-locusts riffery, skull crushing drumming, and a truly hellish howl of a lead vocalist. Plus unlike many of their metallic brethren, CoM can indeed SHRED, and whip out squiggly acid soaked leads at the drop of a hat, giving the proceedings a classic psych-rock / drug-rock feel, on top of the already suffocatingly heavy sludge already oozing from every crack. Disc one collects the long out of print split with sHEAVY, featuring odes to Manson, Charles Whiteman, and Jim Jones, as well as the Taste The Pain mini-album with songs about Dahmer, Graham Young, and Ed Gein, as well as an insane version of Iron Butterfly's "In A Gadda Da Vidda." Disc two collects lots of random compilation tracks including a Trouble cover, a Black Widow cover, a Death SS cover and an unreleased track. Church Of Misery are so amazing, it's too bad that their singleminded obsession with serial killers, and their continued use of serial killer soundbites keeps them from appealing to a wider audience. It is too bad, but who can argue? The music is strangely and perfectly suited to CoM's tales of murder and mayhem, victims and killers.
A killer live DVD from our favorite Japanese, serial killer obsessed, stoner groove doom lords, Church Of Misery. We've gone on and on in the past (and elsewhere on this list, their debut was just reissued) about how much we love these guys. Some impossible mix of Sabbath, Electric Wizard, Eyehategod, Antiseen and Boris. Heavy as fuck, groovy and spacey, blown out and super psychedelic. Live it's everything we would have hoped for. A band of crazy Japanese hippies in ripped concert shirts, bell bottoms, berets, dreadlocks, furry coats, big ol' silver rings on every finger, flying V's, on a tiny stage, heads banging, hair swirling, in a closet sized dark club, packed to the gills with a heaving, sweaty, head banging crowd. The sound is amazing. A truly MASSIVE guitar sound, huge blown out crumbling riffs, the band a whirlwind of lurching groove, and a bass player who wears his bass lower than anyone we've ever seen (even the Ramones!). SO low in fact, that the body of the bass is at shin level and he ends up sort of playing way up on the neck. Awesome! Three live shows filmed over the last two years, a handful of CoM classics as well as some free form freaked out space jams. Also included are videos for "Filth Bitch Boogie" and "I, Motherfucker" (best song title ever maybe), both look quite similar, filmed in creepy black and white, on fuzzy degraded film stock, haunting shots of two emotionless girls making out, dead bodies in forests, plenty of violence and gore (mostly perpetrated on the band themselves) and of course the band trudging through mysterious woods all very Sabbath-like. So cool.
Packaged in a blood red Japanese style DVD case. NTSC and ALL REGION!
The first actual full-length from these serial-killer fixated Japanese doom-mongers. Super sludgy psychedelic doom metal like a sloppy Sabbath with samples from documentaries about John Wayne Gacy and other famous murderers mixed into the musical mayhem.
Originally released in 2004, this long out of print (at least on cd), classic slab of serial killer obsessed, stoner sludge, downtuned heaviness from these Japanese doomlords finally gets a spiffy new cd reissue via Metal Blade!
Seven massive slabs of pounding, pummelling ultra heavy stoner groove. Crunchy and throbbing, pummelling and MASSIVELY HEAVY rock and roll. Fuzzed out, drugged out, super distorted and punishingly heavy. Quite possibly, you will have your stoner / doom metal credentials REVOKED if you don't go nuts for this, although odds are most of you already have a little thing for these freeks. As always, each song is based on an infamous serial killer, this time around, the subjects of CoM's worshipful sludge are Ted Bundy, Mark Essex, Andrei Chikatilo, Aileen Wuornos and more! And it's just as sonically depraved as that sort of subject matter demands. Churning riffage, knuckle dragging drum pound, howled vox, thick sinewy bass grooves, all peppered with plenty of ultra creepy samples and snippets from various newscasts, detailing the killers' grim transgressions, all set to some fantastically punishing, ribcage rattling, slo-mo lumbering Sabbathy swing.
Fans of Boris, Green Machine, Eternal Elysium, Bongzilla, Eyehategod, Sleep, High On Fire and other heavy groovies should already have a shelf full of CoM records, but if some reason they (you?!) don't this is as good a place to start as any...
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This underground Japanese band surprised and delighted us with this crazy fuzzed-out stoner-rock meets grind metal release. Clotted Symmetric Sexual Organ (let's just call 'em CSSO) really kick 'em out, wallowing in total wahwah-happy heavy psych guitar overdrive. It's wild and distorted and super-energetic, a blend of '60s garage, '70s hard rock, and '90s noise-thrash. Forget Acid Mothers Temple, this is the real Japanese freak-beat! Indeed, CSSO could learn Kawabata Makoto a thing or two about over-the-top motorpsycho guitar. Imagine AMT or High Rise with a garagey Guitar Wolf edge, going nuts with that style of psychedelic freakout, then breaking into a speedy grind part with blast beats and cookie monster vocals! It's like a weird, wonderful mix of The Groundhogs and Napalm Death or something. When CSSO's stoner/grind rock attack isn't going full-tilt they throw in spacey sections of shoegazing drone tones, trippy electronics, and other cosmic krautrock inspired soundz -- sometimes sheer, blissful noise. Then it's back to the catchy rockin' stuff, like Hendrix gone grind. Like AMT or the Boredoms, they can be quite playful and confounding -- for instance, one song features what might be the world's longest fade-in, it's two minutes before you can really hear anything at all!
Partially 'cause this was so unexpected (we thought they might be a good but generic grindcore band) but also because it's so great, this just totally blew us away. A new favorite in the long line of genre-bending, rule-defying bands from Japan (Boredoms, Melt Banana, Boris, et. al.), and thus highly recommended!
Sadly, the legendary Japanese label HG Fact, longtime home to sludgelords Corrupted, closed up shop recently, rendering loads of amazing records gone for good, but Corrupted managed to acquire a handful of remaining copies of this otherwise out of print doom/sludge classic, and we got as many as we could from them - not many. So this is indeed available again, for what we're guessing will be a very, very limited time...
Here's our review from way back in 2000 when we first listed the all-time classic Llenandose de Gusanos, and in fact made it a Record Of The Week:
Japanese sludge-core doom merchants Corrupted return with this monumental effort. Their previous album consisted of one long, crushing song. Llenandose improves upon that by taking TWO full discs for two tracks. WARNING: if you already intend to purchase this incredible album, read no further. Your enjoyment will be enhanced by not knowing the precise musical details that we are about to reveal...Disc one begins not with the expected wall of brutalizing guitar, but with quiet, hypnotic piano playing. An eerie voice begins to croak softly in Spanish (did we mention that for some reason Corrupted's lyrics are always in that language?) but the music is almost pretty, lulling the listener into a stupor that sets them up for the eventual entry (after 25 minutes or so!) of a slow-moving but awesomely heavy guitar/drums dirge. Eventually the piano re-enters and the disc comes full circle. Beauty and depression co-exist on this disc like none other, it's like George Winston at 16 rpm with Burning Witch playing in the background (and diabolical whispers in your head).. Disc two is the "ambient" disc, and is also really well done, a creepy quiet grey wash of sound, the sound left in the world AFTER its destruction... One of the best releases of 1999. Fans of Esoteric, recent Neurosis, Sleep, Earth, Skullflower, etc. should bow down to Corrupted. Additional information for Japanese-music-o-philes: Corrupted's drummer Chew used to play in Omoide Hatoba.
And here's a 'customer review' (which just happens to back up our claims above), emailed to us by recent purchaser-of-Corrupted and classical music fan John Botz: "The Corrupted album (Llen...Lleandos...uh...something about 'Gusanos,' i.e. 'worms') absolutely kicks ass. It's hard to accurately describe just how far beyond my expectations this album is. I was totally willing to go with Andee's recommendation on this one, but I was half expecting the three main parts of the album to be: banal, new agey, minimalist piano followed by some fairly generic bongtar sludge riffs, followed by fifty minutes of gray-washed amp noise. Not Even, dudes! These guys have obviously had some classical training, and this album is further proof of how much more depth
ANY music acquires when there is some solid classical training behind it. The opening piano section, far from sounding like ambient/new age drivel, sounds like Rachmaninoff on codeine and muscle relaxers. The entry of the 'metal section,' with portentous feedback, makes a real impact, and the choral ambience of the keyboards at the end, added to the piano sound, sinister vocals, and distorted guitar makes for an even more ominous feeling at the apocalyptic conclusion of the first disc. Wow! But maybe disc two was the most pleasant surprise of all! This is genuinely atmospheric (and good) ambient drone, with enough variety and layering of sounds to keep one interested for the full 74 minutes. I kept thinking of the spacey, eth-eerie-al, sections of 2001: A Space Odyssey (one of my two favorite movies, by the way; and my favorite soundtrack: Kubrick's choice of Ligeti's otherworldly choral/orchestral music juxtaposed with the majesty of R. Strauss, the grace of J. Strauss, and the austerity of Khachaturian's adagio was truly an inspired stroke of genius). Perhaps the Corrupted is the REAL 'Soundtrack of the Apocalypse.' Anyway, your description was apt/excellent, and this album become one of my instant favorites, not just a curiosity. And, by the way, whoda thunk that the Spanish vocals would be so effective, adding an esoteric arcaneness to the album?"
Sadly, the legendary Japanese label HG Fact, longtime home to sludgelords Corrupted, closed up shop recently, rendering loads of amazing records gone for good, but Corrupted managed to acquire a handful of remaining copies of this otherwise out of print doom/sludge classic, and we got as many as we could from them - not many. So this is indeed available again, for what we're guessing will be a very, very limited time...
Here's our review from way back in 2004 when we first listed Se Hace Por Los Suenos Asesinos (and back when Boris were still a doom/sludge band as well):
It's time.
Be afraid.
Very afraid.
Or if you're a typical AQ customer and love your rock music glacier slow, tarpit thick and skull crushingly heavy, well then, in that case there's nothing to be afraid of!
Everyone may quake and tremble when the mighty Boris unleash a new slab of black hole mega dense heaviosity. And rightfully so. Few can keep up when it comes to slow motion riffage, tectonic pummel and massive planet destroying rock. But there is another....one who came before....one who resurfaces occasionally....to remind the world that this sleeping behemoth can rise at anytime and raze all that dare proclaim themselves HEAVY. That beast...is known as... the Corrupted. One of the few bands in Japan, nay the WORLD, that can go toe to toe with Boris and hope to survive, perhaps even triumph. Some of you may remember Corrupted's massive two disc set Llenandose de Gusanos, from 3 or 4 years back, one disc of minimal drones, one disc of crushing sonic sludge (and piano). Maybe the finest document of death/doom/drone/sludge ever recorded - except perhaps for the rumoured-to-exist triple disc (!) SINGLE SONG (!!) Corrupted epic that has yet to surface. But for now, we'll have to be happy with this new 35 minute monster. The disc opens with a 17 minute ambient folk dirge, just acoustic guitar and harshly whispered/grunted vocals. In Spanish (as always) and rumblingly hypnotic. Like a ultra grim, creepily acoustic Neurosis, all stripped down and stretched out. Never imagined just a voice and an acoustic guitar could be so fucking scary, but for almost twenty minutes, the low end folk sludge stretches on seemingly forever, narcoticizing and mesmerizing, before the second track drops like a ton of lead Marshall stacks. Massively loud and perplexingly heavy, HUGE slabs of downtuned guitars pour molten riffs down your willing throat, filling you with black tar melodies, jagged limb smashing drumming, and bass so low it seems to loosen the earth's crust around you. The final track picks up the pace, to barely midtempo, but certainly a breakneck speed for a lumbering behemoth like the Corrupted. Drummer Chew (formerly of Omoide Hatoba) gets to go all Animal on this track, smashing everything within reach, the only thing keeping him behind the kit is the impenetratable wall of mile-thick ocean-deep sonic sludge, like pouring a bucket of hot molasses on a porcupine. Or dropping a sea anenome in a vat of hot glue, or like listening to Black Sabbath with your ears full of mud. Where Boris is channelling all sort of seventies rock, and stoner riffage, albeit through their own slow motion filter, Corrupted are just really fucking scary. A huge uncontainable, slithering, squirming, unstoppable, slow-motion, crusty metallic black hole.
"Got Live If You Want It" (or maybe "If Yo Want It", which appears on the spine) is a surprise live release from a band with only two studio albums to their credit. Now, in the past we've given good reviews to Dead Meadow, really liking their retro stoner rock sound, heavy psychedelia derived from Blue Cheer and other past masters, along with tinges of their modern-day indie rock lineage. But we've always made one caveat: the singer's whiny voice simply sucks. One would hope that live, his nasal drone would be helpfully drowned out by the band's massive amp-abuse. But, on this recording at least, such is not the case. However, like their studio albums, much of this is instrumental anyway, and if you're already a fan, you can deal with this -- you either actually like the vocals (good god!) or have learned to tune 'em out (as I did) and will certainly enjoy wallowing in the spacey, jammed-out, lopingly heavy live Dead Meadow live experience as presented here: over 45 minutes (eight tracks total) of well-recorded versions songs from both of Dead Meadow's LPs, plus two we don't recognize (new tunes perhaps), all as performed live in Hoboken in the winter of 2002. Not much more needs to be said. Those new to the band would be better advised to start with either of their two albums on Tolotta: "Dead Meadow" and/or "Howls From The Hills" -- see elsewhere on our website for reviews. Or, wait 'til next year when they're scheduled to release a new album on Matador! (Where they'll fit in well with the likes of Bardo Pond).
Anything recorded at a "mobile mystic gnome studio" has got to be good, right? Well, at least if you're in the mood from some suitably stoned, retro-rocking, Blue Cheer worship from this very heavy and psychedelic Virginia-based band. "Howls From The
Apparently time-travel is possible, 'cause there's just no way these guys could be of our day and age. With this, their third album and Matador label debut, Maryland thud-psych rockers Dead Meadow take things to an even higher, ahem, level of '60s/'70s inspired stoner delight. It's downer rock that swings like a pair of bellbottoms on a body hanging from a noose but is also certainly warm and enveloping, like a big fuzzy blanket. Heavy riffing with some nice mellow acoustic hippy jams as well. Basically drone-on bliss both ways. Kinda like if Sleep were a krautrock band.
We've said before that our only real problem with this band is the vocals. But on "Shivering King", although they're still super-nasal, they've managed via a combination of effects and mixing to somehow at last make 'em nicely palatable -- they're the high end counterweight to all the bass frequencies over which they drift. Fantastic!
NB. It's a bit weird Dead Meadow's on Matador now, but I guess they fit in with Bardo Pond (who've moved on to a new label, however) and it's not any stranger than the Champs being on Drag City!
Vinyl version is a double LP on 150 gram vinyl.
This band's most recent album, Feathers, was one of our favorites of last year so it's nice to get this opportunity to revisit their first record which has been out of print for quite a while, the label (Joe Lally's Tolatta) that released it originally went out of business and the record was sort of lost in limbo. Their stoner-psych-rock prowess can be found here in its full glory connecting the dots between Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer, Bardo Pond and Kyuss. One of Dead Meadow's best attributes is their ability to make records that totally grow on you and seep into your skin listen after listen. This has been hitting the spot for us so much as of late that literally not a day has gone by that this hasn't been blasting out of our speakers here in the store! Such a welcome reissue, and for sure a must-have if you missed it the first time around in 2001, when we said the following about it:
Dead Meadow are a retro stoner psych rock power trio playing fuzzed out space-jams in a heavy and rollicking yet still kinda mellow mode. For fans of Blue Cheer and their fellow Tolatta act Spirit Caravan. They're also reminiscent of a more jammed-out, psychedelic Sleep, but with some gentle touches -- there's even interludes of acoustic guitar indie-pop. This one grew on us! [See!] It's definitely more "out-of-time" than most other stoner rock efforts, harking back not to the arenas of the '70s but to the garages and hippie pads of the late '60s. As such it stands apart from the current legions of Kyuss / Fu Manchu clones. The one weak point, the slightly whiny vocals, hardly matter amid the instrumental majesty of the electric fuzz guitar and bass action that dominates this album!
Xemu should soon be reissuing Dead Meadow's 2nd Tolotta album Howls From The Hills as well, also a must for those working backwards from the band's excellent Matador output.
Guitarist/vocalist and "desert rock" big-shot Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, ex-Kyuss) likes to get his musical friends together for jammin' jamborees. Homme's friends this time include Mark Lanegan, and, allegedly, somebody from Motley Crue.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Just the sight of that immediately recognizable underlined, lower case 'd' logo sends shivers up our spine. Some of you already know exactly what we're talking about, and just reading this far has probably got you all in a tizzy as well. For those of you who are new to the lower case 'd', prepare yourself for diSEMBOWELMENT!! Even the name, replete with mandatory case change, conjures up all sorts of bleak lifeforce snuffing, soul crushing sensations, at least for fans of mysterious otherworldly doom and bizarre slow motion grind!!
diSEMBOWELMENT were but a brief flash in the underground doom metal scene, existing for a scant three years in the early nineties, but in that time, they recorded one of the all time classic HEAVY records ever, Transcendence Into The Peripheral. A mind blowing record that somehow melded extreme brutality with delicate beauty, a record that totally changed the way some of us listened to heavy music. Referring to the music of diSEMBOWELMENT as doom might give folks the wrong impression. This is not regular old doom like Black Sabbath or My Dying Bride, it's not even funereal doom like Skepticism or Esoteric, although it definitely spends most of its time a lot closer to the slow motion sludge end of the spectrum. diSEMBOWELMENT most definitely inhabit their own unique sonic space. It's slow, sure, but not always, bursts of pounding blast beats will erupt from a bleak tranquil soundscape, gutteral inhuman grunts, machine like percussion, buzzing riffs, all intertwined into a blazing near-death metal onslaught, but it's not long before big reverb drenched guitar melodies begin to fall like some sort of black rain, the metallic pummel sort of stumbling to a seasick lumber, turning the whole thing into a creepy crawl, lurching, plodding, downtuned guitars and spare, simple rhythms, a crushing slow motion dirge, with haunting atonal clean guitar parts and moaning melodies. And even during these vast expanses of atmospheric tranquility, you can never rule out sudden blast beat, or a throat shredding vocal part, or a sudden crushing riff. The magic of diSEMBOWELMENT though is that somehow the metallic crush and the melancholic ambience are perfectly balanced. The whole thing is a dark and depressive, minor key and mournful masterpiece. But it's all so fucking heavy! Even the not-so-heavy parts manage to sound completely massive and totally crushing! So intense and emotional and just absolutely beautiful. Yep, beautiful. Lovely even. Like few records we can remember, and certainly one of the only records this heavy and brutal that manages to be absolutely beautiful. Sonically it's a bit like Napalm Death's Scum, and Carcass's Reek of Putrifaction, that classic Earache sound, a bit lo-fi, lots of reverb, big drums, buzzing guitars, all boiled down into a viscous blackened sludge, sprinkled throughout with brief melodic flares and occasional glistening guitars, like rays of sunlight just barely penetrating the suffocating atmosphere of thick low hanging riffs and bleak, brutal ambience.
Disc one contains all of Transcendence Into the Peripheral, and hell, we would have been happy with just that, a long overdue reissue of one of our all time favorite discs. But disc two contains the quite rare Dusk ep, as well as a rare compilation track and the five track Mourning September demo, all of it suitably genius! And, for a very limited time, we have managed to get a hold of the "mailorder only" version of this diSEMBOWELMENT reissue (limited to 1000 copies worldwide) that comes with a whole extra, third, disc! Disc three contains an unreleased version of "The Spirit Of The Tall Hills" (from Transcendence Into the Peripheral), as well as rehearsal versions of The Spirit Of The Tall Hills and Your Prophetic Throne Of Ivory (also from Transcendence Into the Peripheral). These versions are a lot weirder than the album versions, faster, with way more deranged and damaged vocals! Also includes a Necrovore (who we'd never heard of) cover, a murky, fuzzy, droned-out thrash workout! Wow.
Obviously totally and completely essential. Like we mentioned before, the three disc version is super limited so we're not sure how long we'll have those. Packaged in an oversized 3cd jewel case, with a booklet of photos and liner notes, including lyrics and a history of the band from drummer Paul Mazziotta. When the 3cd version is gone we will have the 2cd version, which is cheaper and comes packaged in an embossed double digipak.
It's too easy to call this band a blend of Black Sabbath and the Allman Bros. but they do share elements of both. '70s lovin' stoner rock from three long-haired Southern boys in power trio formation. The star of the show is Trinidad Leal, their singing
These guys and gal from Japan should need no introduction, eh? I mean, I think we've done our best to already familiarize AQ customers with the rock n' roll awesomeness of the Dynamite Masters Blues Quartet, right? We've certainly sold a ton of their Esoteric Black Hair ep, that's for sure! Plus, they've been on a stateside touring assault recently that is clearly pulling more and more fans into their orbit. In our review of EBH, we predicted that sooner rather than later some clever American label would pick this band up...and lo, Estrus has done the deed. They're a label perhaps known for a retro sound more garagey than these guys, but it's definitely a good fit with DMBQ's brand of wild rock n' roll abandon.
On The Essential Sounds From the Far East (terrible title, although no falsehood), DMBQ's Boredoms-playing-Blue Cheer attack continues unabated. Tons and tons of guitar with tons and tons of effects. Swooshing sizzling wah-wah mayhem. Howling, raucous vox. Groovy drumming. Exuberant energetic explosions of sound. Sonic starbursts and brightly coloured visuals absolutely must accompany rock that's kicking out the jams this hard. Imagine the most in-your-face elements of Hendrix and Led Zep I taken to absurd extremes by some extroverted Japanese freaks, right now, today, in your town if you're lucky. Anyone who likes Acid Mothers Temple when they pay a visit to "electric heavyland", or digs the psychedelic, '70s rawk side of Boris, will love cranking this up.
As mentioned, they've been touring more in the US. DO NOT MISS SEEING THEM. Their showmanship has to be seen to be believed. They're always upping the ante. They were just here last month, and the crowd at the Hemlock got to witness frontman Shinji pass the drum kit into the audience, piece by piece, assemble it there, then grab DMBQ's new drummer China (ex-Shonen Knife) and hand *her* into the crowd, from where she picked up the beat and finished the song, drumming in the midst of the sweaty multitude. Wow. But as good live as they are, they don't slack in the studio either.
You can tell they mean to impress with this, their first-ever US album release (EBH being both an ep and a collection of previously released tunage). This does include a version of "Are You Satisfied?", a song that's also on EBH... but everything else is new. It's one loud pounding, swirling, throbbing psych-out after another, with only the spaced out six and a half minute "Dm" providing a bit of relaxation. Damn we love this band. Now if only all their other, also-excellent previous Japanese releases would get reissued over here...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Here is, quite literally, a "warehouse find"... the first two cds by Japanese mega-psych-mongers DMBQ aka Dynamite Masters Blues Quartet, the only two actual DMBQ albums that were ever really available in the USA before, and barely, on the seemingly-now-defunct Japanese indie label Less Than TV. Allan was visiting one of our suppliers and dug these up, they happened to have about a dozen copies each of these cds stuck in a dark and dusty corner of their warehouse. So we grabbed 'em all, knowing that a bunch of you out there would be stoked to get yr hands on these, seeing as how we sold so frickin' many of the DMBQ's Esoteric Black Hair EP. That cd-r compiled some of their more recent material, and if you liked those cuts we imagine you'll dig this earlier material too. It's rawer and maybe even wilder. The usual "act fast since we've only got a few" warning applies of course!
EXP is their second album, from 1996. Every track on EXP has the words "EXP" in the title, from "A House EXPosed To Every Wind" to "Everybody Got Something To Hide EXPect Me And My Monkey" (yes, that's what it says, and yes it is a rather demented rave-up cover version of the Beatles tune with the not-quite-the-same title). And you can EXPect that DMBQ are at their distorto-blues-psych best here, total rock n' roll mayhem and big-riff heaviness bustin' out all over this disc. Definitely for fans of both Blue Cheer and Boris. A lot of the tracks sound like "Dazed And Confused" bathed in sludge, while the last track "EXPlosion" brings in some free-blowin' horns for a Funhouse effect. And it comes with a sticker.
