Despite being on a label called "Sweden Rock Records" these guys aren't Swedish. They're Americans, from the doom capital of the world, Maryland. (You didn't know Maryland was the doom capital of the world? well now you do!) And they're veterans of several of Maryland's legion of doom acts, including former Hellhound label act The Wretched. Obvious influences, as illustrated by their t-shirt choices, include MD doom/stoner legends The Obsessed and Spirit Caravan (along with, it goes without saying, the usual Sabbath/'70s spectrum of heaviness). Heavy and very groovy with smooth rawk vocals that might conjure bad grunge flashbacks for some of you. Wino-worship with hints of The Cult? Actually they worship someone else too -- like Place of Skulls, they happen to be Christians, but we know that's not necessarily a strike against doom-oriented bands. And they do rock like pros, so stoner/doom fanatics in the mood for some Maryland doom groove, waiting on the new Wino (his new band Hidden Hand is coming out on Meteor City this summer) should check 'em out.
Slow, massive, majestic Italian stoner rock, from the label that brought us Pawnshop. Heavy, with unusually gravelly/goth-y vocals for the genre.
Now known as *Los* Natas rather than just plain Natas (to avoid confusion with the hiphop group of the same name?), this excellent Argentinian stoner rock outfit are back at last with a follow-up to their highly regarded (around AQ anyway) 1999 album Ciudad de Brahman (which is sadly out of print now, as it was released by the now defunct Man's Ruin label -- at the time we proclaimed it one of said label's best releases ever). An atmospheric Kyuss flavor is still present, but they've really developed from their humble beginnings into a powerful and original band. Harking back to lost wonders of obscure 1970s Latin American heavy psych, the Los Natas trio's music is heavy, rumbling stuff with stretches of spacey, almost jazz improv, acoustic breaks, and of course Spanish language vocals... They rock out on tracks like "Lei Motive" (with some unexpected almost boogie-woogie piano dropping into the middle of the song) and get all abstract and avantgarde on gently droning, drugged out trips like "Planeta Solitario". Recorded in Argentina by SF's own master of heaviness Billy Anderson (producer for Neurosis, High On Fire, Cathedral, Melvins, etc.), this is definitely one of the best heavy, psychedelic rock releases of the year thus far! (PS look out for another upcoming Los Natas disc to be released on Jussi of Circle's Ektro label someday.)
For fans of Argentina's heavy psych stoner rock overlords Los Natas, we've FINALLY managed to snag enuff copies of this sprawling live-in-the-studio double cd to list... These Munchen Sessions were, as you might expect from the title, recorded in Munich, Germany, in 2003. With the tape rolling courtesy of Electrohasch head honcho (and Colour Haze guitarist) Stefan Koglek, who also makes a guest appearance on one track, the Los Natas guys took this opportunity to jam out on material both new and old; hints of their heroes Black Sabbath (or is that a Bang riff we're hearing??) seem to surface amongst themes fans will recognize from past Los Natas efforts like Corsario Negro. The two discs bear two long tracks apiece, song suites really, each the appoximate length of a vinyl album side, wandering through all kinds of moods both heavy and mellow...basically progged-out in the same laidback way as the amazing Toba-Trance volumes Los Natas released a while back on Circle's Ektro label. Though Los Natas started their career off as (pretty killer) Kyuss klones, their interest in/influence from '70s psych and krautrock like Agitation Free has become more evident over the years, and we'd say that folks into the likes of Pharaoh Overlord and the heavier Acid Mother Temple material who haven't yet heard Los Natas need to check 'em out, and there's plenty to check out here!
Argentina's Los Natas were once a Kyuss clone (and a good one) but now they're really come into their own. First they impressed us with last year's mighty rockin' "Corsario Negro" opus (second in our personal Stoner Rock Of The Year estimation only to "Heavy Rocks" from Japan's Boris, maybe even tied with 'em), now they branch out further with this psychedelic "trance" album released on Jussi of Circle's Ektro label. And they fit right in with the likes of Ektro labelmates Circle and Acid Mothers Temple. The Los Natas trio has emerged from the pot haze of their Buenos Aires "Death Studios" to unfurl the banner of "Toba-Trance", a mostly instrumental (though we like the brief vocal "hoo hoo" bit in the middle of track 2) laid-back spacey exploratory opus that's not really "heavy" in the way we were expecting. The metal part of the stoner rock equation is mostly missing. Rather, the acoustic guitars and Latin flavored jazz improv elements of the druggier, more atmospheric tracks found on "Corsario Negro" set the standard here. Droney, melodic, extended (three tracks, fifty-two minutes total)...this is a very nice lil' trip. Guitarist Sergio Chotsourian channels his '70s heroes with some lengthy psych solos. Flutes and South American Indian instruments also show up in the mix. Immediate references might be Circle's stoner-rock side-project Pharoah Overlord, or the lighter side of Boris's semi-acoustic "Flood". Byram's thinking of Grateful Dead jams (and we know Jussi loves the Greatful Dead) but this is as much Agitation Free or some other Krautrock hippy stuff. What it definitely is, is spacerock, mostly mellow and quite pretty, mesmerizing and intricate, great going-to-bed-at-night music. As we said, it never gets really heavy, though there's some riffier moments throughout and distorted noisiness that kicks in towards the end of track three, not loud but satisfying nonetheless. The more we listen, the more we like. Recommended.
MPEG Download: "Que Rico..." [/audio/losnatasque.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Que Rico..." [/audio/losnatasque.m3u]
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Argentinian stoner rock heroes Los Natas are a band that definitely seems to have shifted their allegiance from the all-too-common-inspiration Kyuss to the real ancient old stuff, getting really into Pink Floyd and the Greatful Dead and all their own '70s South American psychedelic forebears (obscure bands we gringos don't even know about). You can still hear the Kyuss in 'em, but filtered through an original Latin American/psych record collector creativity. Los Natas' last two records have been great -- both the harder-rockin' Corsario Negro and the spacier, mellower, mostly instrumental Toba-Trance. Now comes Toba-Trance II! While it reprises many of the elements of the first Toba-Trance (ending even with a live version of "Que Rico..." from that album), in parts this sequel seems way proggier. Hard prog. With flutes. Squawking fucked up horn bleats. Serious riffage. Especially on the eleven-minute "Tracion En El Arrocero" which we could imagine as music for some sort of medieval asskicker procession. That's not the lengthiest track on here, either: the 15 minute "Humo de Marihuana" is a genuine spaghetti western epic. Of course it wouldn't be Toba-Trance (or Los Natas) without hippy percussion and limpid, liquid bass undulations, mellow stoned spaced out maaaann. And mention must be made of the Flamenco stylings and psychedelic soloing of guitarist Sergio -- he smokes! Gently beautiful and meltingly mesmeric, the Latin American answer to Pharaoh Overlord or Ghost perhaps. And it's as beautifully packaged as the first Toba-Trance -- great looking graphics, Ektro!
New one (getting better) from this popular San Francisco hard rock trio. Not 'stoner rock', not 'punk', not 'metal', not 'grunge'...not exactly. Loud guitars, tough girl vocals, lots of attitude and rock action. Members of Amber Asylum show up to add
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Kyussism. A religion? A 'zine? Both? Either way, someone from Kyussism claims this band Lowrider to be the new Kyuss, so I guess they know what they're talking about. If you're into that so-called "desert rock" sound, the fat bass, stoner groove, '70s worshipping thing, you must love the late and (to you) great Kyuss and probably will love these guys too. THEY certainly love Kyuss. File with all the other Sabbath-by-way-of-Kyuss psychedelic heavy rock bands, and put 'em at or near the top of the pile.
Cow bell knockin', kick-ass hard rockin' seventies proto-metal here folks! Michigan power trio Mad Dog's lone album, cryptically entitled 617, was a private press LP originally released in 1977, though recording began back in '74. It features a raw production, heavy guitars, rough and ready vocal wailin', and songs that blend urgent, punkish energy with more languid psych stylings. Sounds like these guys didn't live too far from Detroit. And it's got a whiff of Blue Cheer and even the Pink Fairies, at least enough that we expect this tuff lil' low-budget obscurity might well charm those of you into that sort of thing.
Whoa, heavy!! This is a whole-body vibrating, brain-melting, serious amplifier worship ceremony! The first time I (Allan) saw these guys, last year sometime at the Hemlock here in San Francisco, I was blown away... I'd been told the were a heavy 'stoner rock' outfit from Santa Cruz and worth checking out, but I didn't realize they were gonna be quite so AMAZING. Hairy backwoods hippy dudes, the drummer wearing what looked to be a home-made Whysp t-shirt, guitars turning the air to cottage cheese a la Blue Cheer while creating a trance-zone worthy of Finland's Circle!! So good that I immediately bought the live cd-r they were selling... we were gonna try to get some for the store, in fact, but then we found out that local label Holy Mountain run by our pal JW was on the case already and would be issuing Mammatus's debut studio full-length cd Stateside (with Rocket Recordings, home to the most recent UFOmammut, putting it out in Europe).
So yeah, heavy stoner rock this is, but waaay psychedelic and Hawkwindy, kinda like what maybe you thought Circle side-project Pharaoh Overlord was gonna (and sometimes does) sound like. Loud, massive and mesmerizing, swirling sludge psych! Their songs, often of epic length, are ever chugging skyward, dripping molten goo, full of feedback and fx. Their energetic riffage and warm drones are adorned by drifting vox (not unlike Dead Meadow, with whom they share certain proclivities) and fantastic, metallic, progtastic imagery. Take note of titles like "Dragon Of The Deep" (parts one and two!) and the Roger Dean-esque cover art by Arik "Moonhawk" Roper.
Further musical comparisions aren't hard to come up with -- Mammatus belong in the company of such bastions of cosmic heaviness as Sleep, Boris, YOB, UFOmammut, Earthless, old Monster Magnet, Acid Mothers Temple (at AMT's heaviest, like on Starless & Bible Black Sabbath), Tarantula Hawk, and even Amon Duul (especially on the druggy, krautrocky jam "The Outer Rim"). And of course they're now labelmates with OM, which also makes perfect sense. If you love many, or even just any, of those bands and the sounds they make, this comes highly recommended.
Time sensitive note: Mammatus are playing tomorrow, Saturday April 1st again at the Hemlock with AQ faves the Grey Daturas!
The latest (third) and greatest album from this impressive Swedish stoner rock band, one that does more than most to avoid the nu-grunge "Kyuss-clone" tag, and really comes into their own on this disc. Sure, thanks to their big sound and pop sensibility,
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Swedish band that with 70's stoner rock influences, but elements of prog and indie-rock too. They've got a great, big sound, not too far off from the Queens of the Stone Age debut, and then wind down at the end with some acoustic tracks. Well-liked around these parts.
While last year's brillant "A Single Book Of Songs" is surely this uniquely progressive Swedish stoner rock band's masterpiece to date, fans will definitely want to pick up this disc, which puts 17 tracks from Mammoth Volume's old demo(s) circa '97 on a proper cd for the first time. Unlike the majority of bands from Sweden and elsewhere who have embraced the "stoner rock" tag, Mammoth Volume aren't just another Kyuss clone (even if at times they do sound a bit like Queens of the Stone Age). No, their influences are REALLY from the '70s, and more diverse: Black Sabbath, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Yes, Deep Purple, King Crimson. They can be super heavy and riffin', then sensitive and acoustic, then jazzy and weird -- they don't limit themselves.
Surprise solo album by Mark Deutrom, the cowboy-hatted Melvins bass player through their Atlantic years (on "Stoner Witch", "Stag", etc.). He also produced some early Melvins stuff like their "Ozma" masterpiece. On this disc, the man plays everything
Chances are, you probably haven't heard of the UK's Marzuraan. But if Earth, SUNNO))), Khanate, Boris, Corrupted, Eyehategod and others of that ilk mean anything to you, then you will probably want to add Marzuraan to that illustrious list of low-end, slowed-down, heavy-as-hell heroes. This is the band's debut cd from last year, that we recently tracked down in enough quanity (we hope) to list. Marzuraan wear their influences on their sleeve -- quite literally, in fact, as this disc comes in a nice cardstock package that folds out into a cross, designed by none other than Stephen O'Malley of SUNNO))) and Khanate. And the band's name is derived, we're pretty sure, from song by James Plotkin of Khanate's old band, OLD. So, no surprise then (only expectant satisfaction) that this starts off (and continues) in doomy dirge mode, heavy and sludgey, definitely very Earth-like, but live-recorded at high volume for maximum murk and grit and distortion. The proceedings are mostly instrumental, although what sounds like the snarl of feeding zombies breaks out at least once, to terrifying effect. Could almost be a battle between the vocalists for Caninus and Hatebeak!
Mainly, though, these folks are all about crushing you with their droning ambient metal riffs, as helped along by the sparse plod of the drums, and the constant presence of feedback, feedback that reaches a pinnacle on the third track "Martian Dub". By the end of the disc, though, Marzuuran have also gotten into some really nice lo-fi, distorted post-rock psychedelia, that then freaks out into an improv frenzy at the finish... Five tracks, one full hour. The raw production really works for this (they're not quite the Doktor Kettu of doom-drone, but close). We'll certainly be on the lookout for a limited edition (of course! argh!) double LP from these guys which we're told is upcoming.
A brand new black hole slab of metallic tar from Marzuraan, part of the NWOSMDGS, aka the New Wave of Slow Motion Doom Grind Sludge!!! Taking their sonic influences from the holy trinity of Boris, SUNNO))) and Earth (specifically Earth 2) and taking their name (presumably) from pre-Khanate outfit OLD, the UK's Marzuraan deliver their own brand of doom drone. With a raw, very live sounding production, Solid Wood deviates a bit from the recent spate of sludge releases, as Solid Wood infuses its slow motion apocalyptic dirges with mournful melancholy melodies, warm washes of guitar, and a darn near post rock shuffle. A lot of Solid Wood sounds like a heavy metal Codeine, or a seriously beefed up and tuned down Low. Sure it's crushing and heavy as fuck, but it's also dreamy and blissy as it lopes lazily through a haze of thick guitar and dense sonic reverberations. Occasionally the crush outweighs all else. but more often than not, this is one of the dreamiest prettiest pummellings we've received in a long long time.
Exquisitely packaged (as wilth all things Kult Ov Nihilow) in a strange gatefold half-sleeve, with a striking silver ink on cardstock printed insert and a full color poster.
The words "Footloose and fancy-free and out of school" come from your speakers, beginning the disc and thusly, we embark on the career of that "juggernaut of pummel" known as the Melvins.
Here is a collection of "never heard before" (demo, live, rehearsal) recordings dating back to 1983! Remember 1983? I do...ugh! Anyways, a "pre-Dale Crover" line-up (which includes a young punk-ass named Matt Lukin on bass, you might also know him from another little band, Mudhoney?) bashes and thrashes it out with songs and tone reminiscent of Flipper / Bad Brains / Fang / Poison Idea / Black Flag -- this is NOT to say they sound like they are emulating the aforementioned legends, we're just saying that the Melvins, at such a tender age and still without the "other greatest drummer" Dale Crover, pretty much came into this world screaming and wailing. Buzz Osborne definitely is / was / is blessed / cursed as a "5-string motherfucker". Word. The liner notes by Buzz go on about how they were hacks at the time, but LEGIONS (after listening to this) will attest to "the power of the riff" that a (pre) King Buzzo packed at the age of 20 somewhere in Shithole City, WA (or maybe it was the town next to it?). This release is packed with all the fury and "pent-up-ness" that only comes from growing up on the outside of "cool" or "rich". (Well, it speaks to me, anyways...) There are songs on here that show up shortly after -- and many years later -- down that ugly road of "former bass players"...
It's refreshing to hear (punk) rock like this right now. There are even funny moments of (drunken?) banter on here that will make you laugh and think back and reminisce (or not) on your own "destruction ride" through your late teens/early twenties, etc. The actual sound on this thing is incredibly solid too, for something from the "golden age of hardcore".
A must own, if you will. But you already knew that, didn't you?
NOW ON VINYL!! What we said about this great Melvins album when it came out on cd last year on Ipecac:
Folks have been chomping at the bit for months since it was first announced that the kings of sludgy goofy heaviness were to team up with the master of creepy, sinister ambience. And we do mean 'team up' as in write and record together, not a split record or anything like that, a good ol' collaboration! So here it is. The first track is a creepy slithering dark snippet of sound, super minimal and slowly shifting. So much as we thought, the only way these two behemoths of the underground could cooperate and have it work would be for it to be a drone record. Well the second track blows that theory out of the water. A wickedly fierce, super dynamic barn burner, with a KILLER riff, and some spooky drone-y breakdowns complete with a haunting little melody played on the strings above the neck, and then some serious shredding leads. Maybe the best Melvins song in forever!! But what excatly is Lustmord doing while the Melvins rock? Maybe he strapped on a guitar and joined in the riffing. Or more likely, he supplied the track with all of its weird little sounds and murky background noises. Either way, who cares? It's an incredible track. The next track is a weird tribal workout done Melvins style, with exotic tribal percussion over rumbly drones and distorted guitars providing the melodies. Sounding not unlike a way heavier Muslimgauze! The centerpiece of the record though has to be the 20+ minute title track which sounds like the perfect hybridization of the two bands. Massive slow rolling drones slip and slide through clouds of machine like whirs and muffled outer space sounds, distant clatter and swirling sonic splatter. Eventually the guitars roll in like a huge crushing wave of sound, very Earth-like before it slowly develops into another killer riff, repeated over and over and over, bombarded on all sides by strange effects, swooping chunks of sound and strange, clipped 'almost-vocals' before trailing off into a slowly decaying barely there minimal hum. The rest of the record sort of seesaws back and forth between pounding and churning classic Melvins style sort-of-metal riffing, and really haunting otherworldly minimal dronescapes. VERY reminiscent of Old Man Gloom's drone / dirge combo. But hey, you can't argue with more drone or more dirge or more sludge or more Melvins or more Lustmord. Not at all. When all is said and done, Pigs Of The Roman Empire sounds like someone took a really great Melvins record, and a really great Lustmord record, and sort of chopped them up, and mixed and matched and made the perfect hybrid of the two. Which when you think about it is pretty awesome. We've thought of doing that all the time. Earth and George Winston, Bjork and Thuja, Squarepusher and Jandek, Motorhead and PJ Harvey, A Minor Forest and Keiji Haino (well that one's mainly to piss Andee off), and the list goes on and on and on.
UK label Rage of Achilles again dredges the depths of America's metal underground and comes up with a winner. Alabama's Molehill are slow and dirty and dirgy and ultra heavy. Oh, and did I say slow? Screamy slow-motion southern dirge-rock with plenty of
Stoner rock from this side-project of the Queens of the Stone Age/Kyuss bass player. A little more "punk" sounding than those bands, in parts, but there's plenty of extended psych guitar jamming as well.
Hard to believe that there was a time when Monster Magnet were not goofy cartoon parodies of metallic space rock (and we mean that in a good way). We love their ridiculous lyrics, overblown I AM GOD themes, their obsession with hotrods and honies and loads and loads of drugs, and of course their sound, that Hawkwind on steroids super RAWK. But there was a time, when Monster Magnet were fucking scary. A drug drenched musical outerspace acid trip, a BAD trip, all blown out guitars, every pedal turned all the way up, amps to infinity, face behind a greasy mop of hair, house lights off, black lights on, one riff beaten to death and launched heavenward. This was that time. It was a satanic drug thing they used to say. And it sounds like it. Originally released in 1991, "Tab" is arguably the band's finest moment, 30 minutes of outerspace drug rock divinity. The ultimate slab of psychedelic downer drug rock. The first 6 or 7 minutes are a primitive Krautrocky jam, simple propulsive drum beat, wordless vocals, sparse instrumentation, before the drugs really kick in, then "Tab" becomes a supecharged Loop or Spacemen 3, all fuzzy guitars, and swirls of reverb and delay and every other effect under the sun. Over the course of the next 20 minutes the guitars get more freaked out, the vocals get distorted and delayed and shot into space, the effects take over completely until the band is barely audible under the dizzying sonic chaos. So blissfully divine. "25" is way more rocking, a pounding drum beat, and a ripping garage rock riff, vocals a super distorted smear of sound, again the whole thing drenched in space rock goo and blown out rawk madness. "Longhair" is a lazy laidback psychdrone groove, stoned and staggering, giving Kyuss a style and sound to rip off for sure. And the final track "Lord 13" is a shuffling spacerock raga, with shuffling percussion, hand drums, strummed acoustic guitar, all under that ubiquitous druggy haze.
For this new reissue, they've tacked on a 7 minute live version of "Spine Of God". Murky and lo-fi, but appropriately druggy and spacey, with plenty of hilarious crowd conversations between folks who were oblivious to the fact that they were standing RIGHT next to the guy taping the show, but the mighty power of "Spine Of God" is untouchable, a slowly uncoiling dirge, that is somehow only enhanced by the dipshit telling his friend about some new tape he got.
It's a satanic drug thing. You wouldn't understand.
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Hands down, Monster Magnet are Andee's favorite stoner metal / cock rock band. Huge riffs, catchy songs, and the most brilliantly inane lyrics about the universe, sponge baths, asteroids, volcanoes, muscle cars, love slaves, Satan, pot, death, and of course, penises! Really.
Now available domestically, for those who sweated out their Monster Magnet addictions and held off buying the expensive import version that we've had for a few months. The same reveiw applies: the newest record from the reigning kings of drugged out
Bigger! Dumber! Sillier! Better than ever! Who else could we be talking about but Monster Magnet! It's time for the return of the modern gods of spaced out sexed up cock rock. Heavy and trippy and druggy and catchy, Monster Magnet are the perfect mix of Hawkwind, Black Sabbath, Kiss, and Spinal Tap. What started out as a "satanic drug thing you wouldn't understand" has turned into the catchiest, silliest, most enjoyable band you're likely to see on MTV. While this may not be as subversively sludgy as their brilliant early classic Spine Of God, or as perfectly polished as the more recent Power Trip, it's still pretty fucking great. Frontman Dave Wyndorf spits an endless flow of sexual non sequiters and boastful proclamations, tales of outerspace exploration, sexual escapades (often coincidentally occurring in space), rocking, sex, and... well... even more rocking and more sex! Massive slabs of perfect sludgy stoner space rock with HUGE guitars, classic riffs and hooks galore keep all Wyndorf's silliness grounded -just- this side of Kiss-like buffoonery. But Monster Magnet wear it well. Really well. They may have begun life as an underground drug metal cult, but this is where they always knew they'd end up, in a space-ready tour bus, cruising the galaxy looking for new worlds to rock and new babes to bed. And if you need to know just how anticipated this record was around these parts, Andee will count this as his THIRD copy of Monolithic Baby! purchased, having bought the import lp, and then the import cd and now this (as this version has two extra tracks not on the import) and his housemate Josh is also on number three, having bought an import cd version, then the import version with the DVD, and now this domestic version. Was it worth it? Andee and Josh both say "Hell yeah!" Comes with a DVD containing two videos (one involving lots of scantily clad ladies, and one involving a computer generated space ship hurtling through the void), two live tracks and an interview.
"It's A Satanic Drug Thing ...You Wouldn't Understand". Monster Magnet's motto, emblazoned on the back of the cd booklet, is something that they really did live up to, sonically and otherwise, back in the day. Maybe not the healthiest lifestyle choice (frontman Dave Wyndorf actually almost died recently from, yes, a drug overdose), but it sums up Monster Magnet, musically speaking. If you want to hear some "stoner rock" that's both spacier and scarier and Stoogier than most, early Monster Magnet (before they got big) is the way to go.
We reviewed their droniest bad trip masterpiece, the reissued 25...Tab ep a couple lists back, and now follow-up with a review of another favorite, their debut full-length entitled Spine Of God, originally released by Caroline in 1992 and now reissued by SPV with snazzier graphics and bonus track (a demo version of "Ozium").
This came out at the height of the grunge era, but sounds just as Stonehenge (a la Hawkwind) as it does Seattle (a la Mudhoney). It includes their Grand Funk cover, "Sin's A Good Man's Brother", alongside such downer, druggy hits from some parallel just-say-yes universe as "Pill Shovel", "Nod Scene", and "Zodiac Lung". A wasted, burn-out classic, laid-back and leaden, dazed and phased.
We've had this before, but it's not always that easy to find. So while we have a few in stock we thought we'd list it. It's the very first aluminum slab of Satanic Drug psych-metal to come from the demented minds of Dave Wyndorf and Co., released on
1971 strikes again! Proto-metal freaks, rejoice! Connoisseurs of the "early heavy" have reason to be excited about this, the lone album from this raw n' heavy psychedelic blues rock power trio from Denmark, originally released in '71, finally available as a legit cd reissue complete with liner notes and vintage photos in the cd booklet.
Recalling Vincebus Eruptum era Blue Cheer (big time!!) and early, bluesy Black Sabbath a bit too, Moses deliver blown-out, fuzz-bombed, acid-laced, hairy hippy proto-metal of Biblical proportions. Full of stoned vocals, loping riffs, and lots of wailing, wasted acid rock guitar soloing (worthy of Blue Cheer's Leigh Stephens and/or Randy Holden), Changes is highly recommended to anyone whose interest has been piqued by anything we've just mentioned or referenced. There's six songs here, nothing complex, certainly catchy though, what more to say? Each one provides the good vibes of ye olde primitive proto-metal, starting with the thudding blues brutality of title track "Changes" (which has nothing to do with the Black Sabbath piano ballad of the same name, by the way). Later on, "Beginning" gives the drummer some, ready for some DJ to mine for a crude breakbeat. "Skaev" is the only one here sung in Danish, but the lurching, surging riffage requires no translation. We're glad the final track, 7 minute track "Warning" is in English, though, 'cause we're getting a kick out of the lyrics, a story of a "straight" falling in with a turned-on crowd, which include lines like: "...and suddenly the girl gives him two feeling good pills, eat them if you can, a little after in a big discussion, forgotten everything about his wife, moving with the others in a big procession, he shouts out, this is life!" Awesome.
So, anyone into early Blue Cheer, Randy Holden's Population II, and the recently reissued Speed Glue & Shinki from Japan, stuff like that, will dig Moses for sure. Also, having just reviewed a bunch of '70s garage fuzz monsters from Africa, like Ngozi Family and Witch, we're hearing a lot of similarities here (minus the African thing, of course, but not the fuzz and groove). We bet if we said this was from Zambia or Nigeria, people would be freaking! Denmark is less "exotic", but that's not what's important when banging your head to these 1971 sounds.
Abject, miserable, mournful, agonized, anguished, tortured and tormented ultra mega doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom! That's right. We've officially reached an all time high in o's (40 in case you were counting), and an all time loooooow in DOOM. Every time we hear from these crushing creeps they've pushed it even further into the deep dark damnable depths, forcing us to add more and more o's. That's right, it's the return of Moss, the UK's heaviest, slowest, sludgiest slow motion downtuned doom metal behemoth. Moss take the paint peeling acidic abrasiveness of Khanate and combine it with the warm suffocating murk of bands like Skepticism or Thergothon, or even aQ faves Nadja (who did a split with Moss a while back). Ultra minimal and nearly static in its sludginess, with the simple caveman plod of the drums the only thing keeping this from turning into a full on drone, this is like one HUGE riff, pulled and stretched into two epic streaks of fuzz and pound, with vocals that might even give Alan Dubin from Khanate a bit of a fright, like a demon howling through a mouthful of broken glass and rusty bottlecaps, teeth black with the blood of a thousand vanquished souls, the sound that finally comes out is a noxious black cloud that causes everything it touches to wither and die, totally blown out and so harsh it makes our throats sore just listening to it.
But like the best sludge / doom, there is some sort of subtle melodic undercurrent going on, maybe it's deliberate and these guys are on some whole other musical level or maybe it's just some chance occurance, some strange alignment of overtones or some lucky bit of abstract composition, it hardly matters, the end result is somehow both hauntingly beautiful and horrifically harsh, there's definitely some dark beauty hidden beneath Moss' black sludge exterior, but the joy of music like this is the fact that the music's beauty is buried and bruised, battered and brutalized, the sonic search for the beauty within is like wading waist deep through boiling hot pitch, ears plugged with hot tar, all the while being showered from above by the tears of angels.
ULTRADOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. Or MEGADOOOOOOM. Whatever you want to call it, this is DOOM. Capital D. Lot's of o's. Lots of incredibly slow motion downtuned guitar sludge, pounding caveman drums, and a rumbling bowel churning low-end. This is the first recording we've been able to get enough of to list (we only have a handful of the out of print Moss / Bunkur split cd-r's left, email us if you want one) after a ton of super limited releases and demos. And if this doesn't hit the doom spot something good, then nothing will. Bunkur, Skepticism, Catacombs, Rigor Sardonicous, Esoteric, Planet Aids, Thergothon. And now Moss. The first track is a 15 minute slab of classic funereal doom. Soooooo sloooooow. Sooooooo heavy, crushing, pounding, chugging drone drenched sludge. Recorded live in 2004. The second track is taken from their long out of print split with Nadja, but here, the track is "fucked up and buried", and the result is a massive and abstract ambient soundscape, downtuned guitars are pushed way back into the distance, while in the foreground all sorts of rumble and crackle and what sounds like the burbling of a bong. A druggy, space-y ambient excursion through the massive decaying skeleton of what was once a doom metal beast.
Moss is joined by the brilliantly monickered Wolfmangler. Wolfmangler just happens to be the work of one Smolken who you might know as the man behind Dead Raven Choir! Weird but true. For all his Jewelled Antler folkiness, Smolken made no secret of his black metal obsession. As Wolfmangler, Smolken takes that love of metal and doom and tempers it with his love of folk and country, and the results are truly weird and wonderful. Best exemplified on the track "Survive" a doom-ed version of a Hank Williams Jr. song. Fuzzed out drone guitar, random percussion, weird rubbery bass lines, and growled raspy vocals. Like a black metal Souled American? Johnny Cash covering Skepticism. Something like that. The rest of the WM tracks are weird, slow motion, fuzz drone dirges, with strange barely there melodies, occasional guitar twang, and lots of ominous ambience!
Amazingly packaged in a vellum sleeve, printed in black on the outside, so the inside has a weird x-ray negative effect. Includes an insert for each band printed on thick vellum. SO NICE!
Limited to 500 copies. We got 50 of those and will not be able to get more! So act fast!
Album number two from this Swedish stoner rock outfit. Vocalist Spice, now an ex-Spiritual Beggars member, definitely still brings in much of the vibe of his former band. The Mushroom River boys rock hard and heavy, playing Kyuss/Monster Magnet style, seventies-inspired stuff just as you'd expect. As with their first album, another solid but same-y Swedish entry in the stoner rock sweeps.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This "mystic crew" are an all-instrumental New Orleans Southern stoner rock supergroup of sorts, with members of the already incestous acts Eyehategod, Down, and Crowbar. Featuring good ol' '70s style Hammond organ, this is definitely more on the havin' fun psych-jam side of the stoner spectrum than the doom-death-dirge side. They take their New Orleans roots seriously, too, as much of this has a festive Mardi Gras vibe, kinda funky like they've been alternating Meters LPs with the Sabbath, Skynrd, and Floyd on their turntable. This disc is no stranger to mellowness, either, with some spacey moments when you can contemplate the Tibetan wisdom explained in the liner notes, before the jams get kicked out yet again in righteous fashion. Cool.
Crashing waves of balls of yarn. That's one attempt to explain this band's sound... Along with bringing in the usual Earth, SUNNO))), and Boris comparisons. The Toronto based duo of Aidan Baker (guitars, vocals, flute, piano, drum machines) and Leah Buckareff (bass and vocals) are an "atmospheric doom" band whose slow moving, heavy and heavily distorted music definitely shares something with the likes of early Earth, but although they've done a split 3" with UK doom nasties Moss (among several previous underground releases) you can't really define them as being a "metal" band at all. Their gauzy, droney, doom-spelled-backwards music has a warm, melodic underpinning, somewhere within the billowing clouds of distortion that form the three long tracks found here. I guess it's something like the churchy, "funereal" doom of Finland's Skepticism, really, but even more calm, echoed and ambient. Melancholic but very pleasant, with both growled vocals and gentle singing hovering just beneath the surface, this music somehow suggests rays of pure white light shining down from on high to illuminate their low-end murk... and during the final third of the last track "Breakpoint" the heaviness drops away altogether for a quietly sung coda that could be from the most mellow and poetic of indie-pop albums. Nadja's music is definitely more abstract and altered than, say, Ocean (another sludge-dirge outfit reviewed elsewhere this list), and is so much more beautiful than the monochrome darkness dwelt in by many other doom bands. If you can imagine an ultra-distorted hybrid of Growing, Codeine and, uh, Ras Algethi you'd maybe come close to the sound of Nadja... Recommended!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This band from Argentina, at times are a dead ringer for desert rockers Kyuss, while at others, they blend an unbelievably lush tapestry of hypnotic rhythms and droning tribal space rock, to make this probably the best thing Man's Ruin has released in ages.
Stoner rock split cd from these two South American bands, both falling somewhere in the Kyuss/Sabbath realm.
This collects the two eps (duh, dos eps) from the preeminent fuzzed out stoner rock combo, Nebula. This includes their Meteor City ep and their split with Lowrider as well as 3 brand spanking new tracks. Overblown, super fuzz guitar, drawling lazy stonerboy vocals and big b i g B I G drums. Sounds as good as ever. Cruisng through the desert with the top down kind of lazy hazy summertime RAWK.
Attention, all you stoner-rock freaks (man, we need a new name for this stuff): ex-Fu Manchu (and better-than-Fu Manchu) dudes Nebula have a new album out. Maybe this is Sub Pop's way of veering back into "the new grunge"? Anyway, just from the cover shot of the band's equipment stacked out in a desert somewhere, this looks like it'll meet your rawk requirements.
Does the name Hellhammer mean anything to you? The raw, Venom-worshipping, Melvins-inspiring cult metal band that later morphed into Celtic Frost? Well it meant A LOT to the guys in Necro Schizma, a Dutch doom band whose 1989 demo tape has just now been
In addition to the six tracks from Necro Schizma's demo tape that appear here, there's another seven tracks recorded at a live gig in 1990. They do a cover version of Hellhammer's classic "Triumph of Death" both live and on the demo, and it easily could be one of their tunes (except maybe it's a little *faster* than their own stuff!).
Aside from Hellhammer, they also list as inspirations Venom, Bathory, Celtic Frost, Manowar, Angel Witch, Messiah, Judas Priest, and Slaughter (we're pretty sure that'd be the Canadian thrash act, not the the American hair metallers). They don't mention Saint Vitus, but boy does the guitar sound like vintage Dave Chandler!
Doom. Pure doom. Made by fans back in the day, luckily unearthed for fans today. We only have a few copies, and may or may not be able to get more, so if you think you want one, be quick. Thanks to Greg Anderson (Southern Lord/Goatsnake/SUNNO)))) for turning us on to this!
Slow and sludgy doom metal from New York, simple but effective. Their basic approach seems to be a repetitive riff played at an agonizingly slow pace with some throat-tearing vocals and NASA samples thrown in, plus some spacy fx. These guys seem obsessed with astronauts and outer space (the cover art features pyramids on the Moon), it's not surprising that the bonus track is a
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Negative Reaction is the New York sludge combo. Ramesses is the band formed by the (drunk, stoned) guys that quit Electric Wizard.
Freaked out Japanese hard rock supergroup, a '70s inspired power trio featuring the talents of million-notes-per-second, whammy-bar-crazy guitarist Kawabata Makoto (of Acid Mothers Temple, Musica Transonic, Mainliner, Toho Sara, etc. etc.),
Back in stock!
Doom/psych fans: a few of you might remember this eccentric, underground French band from their second album entitled Masters of Magic that we reviewed a few years back. And anyone intrigued by the rather weird and melodic psychedelic-doom-metal-folk hybrid crafted by 'em on that disc ought to be interested in hearing their out-of-print first album Great God Pan from 1998, which we intimated was the superior record. Well, maybe it got repressed or someone found a stash of 'em in a closet or crypt or somewhere, but lo and behold, we've managed to get our hands on, like, ten copies of Northwinds' debut! So, if you're both a fan of Sabbathy doom metal and '60s/'70s styled heavy progressive psychedelia, you might want to grab this now. Assuredly not to everyone's taste, as Allan (who loves 'em) will freely admit and Andee (who can't deal with the French accented vocals) will attest...as we've said previously, Northwinds might be one of the most "twee" heavy bands ever what with the folky flutes, acoustic guitars, and those French vocals...yet the unique blend of proggy Paganism, soft '60s sike-pop balladry, and of course massive Iommi-worthy doom metal guitar riffage that intermix in these looong songs could also really make this a favorite find for a freaky few of you out there! With so much feeling, solid songwriting, and unexpected elements (wiggy studio effects and tape manipulations) they truly capture the spirit of pre-metal, pro-prog Black Sabbath (in fact, they cover the Sabs "A National Acrobat" on here) and others in that vein, not far from a warped version of early Cathedral, obsessed with Sabbath *and* Comus... If you dug the two other Sabbathy bands we reviewed recently, Witchcraft and Dragonauta, there's definitely a chance you could be a Northwinds fan too!
Northwinds did a record a few years ago called "Great God Pan" that came out of nowhere (well, France, actually!) to become one of Allan's all-time favorite heavy-psych-doom-metal discs. It's out of print now but the band is back with a new, not quite as good
For some reason, cult Italian metallers Death SS provide the intro and outro tracks.
Finally available again, one of our favorite slabs of doomy black buzz. Remastered, reissued and on a new label! Here's the review from when we first got this in:
Our doomiest customer, "Rick from Thrasher", came in the other day to ask about an album he saw on www.doom-metal.com, some band called Nortt who were supposed to be amazing; so good in fact that according to that website, Nortt's label was almost justified in charging about thirty euros for their cd (an astronomical amount, like US$40)! We didn't of course have that absurdly-expensive opus, but we actually did have this, Nortt's previous album released for a much more reasonable price on a different label. And it is pretty darn good, if you're in the mood for some "Pure Depressive Black Funeral Doom Metal" as it says on the back cover. Nortt are a one-man band from Denmark in the black metal tradition (complete with corpse paint and everything), but their fuzzing, buzzing music is sloooowww and full of despairing piano intonations and distorted minor-key laments. The vocals and the guitars both sound like last breaths, dying gasps, exhalant spirits... It's a drone-hiss of massive, gothic proportions. Nortt definitely inhabit the same gloomy petrified forest as AQ-faves Skepticism!! Perhaps if you get this and it succeeds in bringing your most suicidal thoughts to the fore, you can make it through life a little longer by trying to search out that other incredibly expensive Nortt album... (By the way, that www.doom-metal.com website is pretty cool one, for doom-fans only of course, with info on hundreds of doom acts!)
Fresh off their killer split release with Xasthur last year, Danish black metal funereal doom lords (or lord, really, since it's just one guy) Nortt offer up a full length for your pleasure...if you can deal with the depression!! If you haven't heard Nortt before, they're a bit like Skepticism meets Burzum. SOOOO doomy and atmospheric. Ligfaerd is a sinister expanse of spooky soundtrack ambience bombarded (at relaxed intervals) with boulders... No, not boulders -- fuzz-distortion depth charges, dropped deep and echoing in the abyss, wherein dwell the cave-blind creatures that make Nortt's music... or so it would seem from this disc's raspy, weary vocal exhalations and monstrous awakenings. The thudding percussion could be gigantic footfalls amidst the droning, morose melodies, that insinuate themselves slowly into your consciousness, as there are lots of quiet passages on this depressive, lethargic record. We bet Bohren and Der Club Of Gore would love this band! We sure do. Definitely one of the exclusive several doom and/or black metal acts that we think non-habitual listeners to such musics might appreciate, if such extremes of feeling and weirdness as described above are more than tolerated.
This went out of print almost as soon as we got the original Total Holocaust import version in four or five months ago but has now been resurrected and re-pressed domestically thanks to the dark souls at Southern Lord, who apparently like this stuff as much as we do. Here's what we had to say about it first time around:
We barely even have to review this. Just the names of the two artists should be enough. Nortt, whose "Pure Depressive Black Funeral Doom Metal" was a massive favorite around here, and of course Xasthur, who rivals Leviathan as perhaps the most brilliant and important of the modern USBM hordes. Nortt offer up four tracks of miserable drone dirge, with mournful piano over a swirling abyss of black riffs and simple drumming, each chord slowly dissipating into nothingness before the next chord hits. Depressingly gorgeous and wrist slittingly sorrowful. Reminiscent of Corrupted's Llenandose, albeit way more grim and dismal!
Xasthur gives us three tracks, equally depressive, but here, instead of tarpit tempos and drone-like dirges, the depression and misery is communicated through creepy minor key riffing, mournful melodies and what sounds like clean chant-like singing, almost choral, but buried so low in the mix it almost sounds like just another instrument. Xasthur has totally perfected the swaying seasickly black metal waltz, with relentless double kicks, anguished vocals struggling to communicate from beyond, and warm and woozy, arpeggiated guitars. So good.
There are those of us at this fine institution who wish to declare open season on Jim O'Rourke, and start blasting shotgun shells at him, his bunny suit, his 'post-irony' (whatever the fuck that is), and his chameleon-like approach towards all forms of music.
Promoted as his electronic glitch album, "I'm Happy, And I'm Singing, And A 1, 2, 3, 4" has been conveniently released on the Austrian electronic glitch label Mego. Just like Mego's uber talented Christian Fennesz, O'Rourke fuses elements of antique melodic signatures within a Powerbook generated disfiguration into complex networks of sound that retain the timbre and colour of the original sounds in spite of the digital glitch manifestation. Initially, this album is nothing more than another pleasantly playful recombination of the current glitch aesthetic. He applies the Supercollider treatment to an accordion to dislocate the souce material with a fluctuating system of interlocking repetitive samples sounding like a digitized update of Frippertronics or even Terry Riley's time lag generator. Nice, but is completely overwhelmed by the same idea found on the Keith Fullerton Whitman album "21:30 For Acoustic Guitar" He follows this up with some fey dinner jazz piano lines and summertime guitar picking run through gossamer digitalized syncopations. Again, nice but nothing that Stephan Mathieu, Ekkhard Ehlers, or Fennesz haven't done better.
*However* if you were to stop listening to these two tracks, before getting to the 20-plus minute finale, you would have missed one of O'Rourke's finest moments alongside the criminally overlooked "Disengage" and slowly antagonistic "Happy Days." "And A 1, 2, 3, 4" (it appears that the song titles are just fragments of the album's title) is beautiful digital threnody with sombre violins passing through a Feldman like alternation through a harmonic series of notes. While it could be said that O'Rourke is *again* mimicking another artist, he does apply an ample amount of digtal signal processing (lots of warbled tremolo, granular dispersion, etc.) offering that which I've rarely heard from Jim O'Rourke: something "new."
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
You know an artist has special 'cult' standing when not only do their actual albums get reissued but so do their outtakes and rarities. Actually we're still waiting on The Obsessed's album reissues (coming soon we're told on Southern Lord) but the Lord has first blessed us with this enhanced reish of Incarnate, a collection of demos, seven-inch tracks, and so forth from the infamous doom metal (pre-stoner rock) trio The Obsessed. You know, the band led by guitarist/vocalist/recent Arthur 'zine cover star Scott "Wino" Weinrich both before and after he was in Saint Vitus. After The Obsessed folded for the second time, Wino bounced back with Spirit Caravan, and now does time in both the Hidden Hand and Place Of Skulls. But you DO probably know all that or you wouldn't have read this far in this review...
Anyway, what we said about it the original edition released in '99 still holds true: in the still ongoing stoner rock boom/glut, this stands out as fairly essential. They've managed to put together stuff from various eras (1983-1994 or so) and line-ups (some including members of Kyuss and the Melvins, and our friend Guy who's in Acid King now: dig the pictures of him here w/ long hair!) and got it all to sound excellent and flow well, more like an actual album than the odd-n-sods comp that it is. The highlight is perhaps their rulin' cover of Eric Burdon's "Inside Looking Out" (perhaps inspired by the Grand Funk Railroad version). Originally this came out semi-simultaneously with Spirit Caravan's debut, now it follows up Meteor City's 2003 Spirit Caravan compilation The Last Embrace. Oh, we said it was 'enhanced' didn't we? Yep it's got five bonus tracks (four more demos and one live cut) and a mpeg video ("Streetside") not found on the original! So all true Wino fanatics (we know you're out there) now have the opportunity to give their old copies to unenlightened friends and buy this new edition for themselves. Double LP version coming in May...
This band from Portland, Maine is the latest to lumber into the realm of the uber-heavy. Now, don't confuse 'em with the band called THE Ocean, from Germany, whose uber-heavy Fluxion album we listed not too long ago. Although you certainly could confuse them, as uber-heaviness has its hallmarks. Indeed, this line from our review of The Ocean's cd actually describes this Ocean quite well, as well: "The basic sound will be familiar for sure, massive guitars, pounding drums, propulsive, relentless riffing, blissed out, post rock parts that build and build and build into huge squalls of gargantuan guitarnoise, throbbing and pulsing, minor key and epic." Yep, another one of those bands, here we go again. Just how much single-riff repetition and down-tuned sludge trudge can we take? Quite a lot, really! Ocean's Here Where Nothing Grows debut consists of three long songs, each one an ultra-slow doomful dirge ridden with gutturally growled vocal angst. Yet, there's a sorta melodic post rock thread running through this, for a sound somewhere betwixt Corrupted and Isis. You could file this alongside the likes of Buried At Sea, Mare, Indian, Pelican, Tides, Yob and Conifer, too. If you're a fan of all that sort of stuff you'll like this. It's nothing you haven't heard before but it's exactly what you like. Extreme sludge, but droning and artful enough to catch the ears of a non-metal label like Important... and on the more soothing side of the sludge spectrum, not so nasty and harrowing as something like Khanate, Bunkur or Graves At Sea. We'll admit that this took a little while to seep in, but as the waves of this Ocean wash over you, you'll happily sink beneath its depths (sorry, it's hard to avoid such aquatic metaphors with these guys, as you'll see the cover sticker blurb writer also found).
Have you been missing Sleep? No, not your forty winks, we mean the mighty stoner metal behemoth that was San Francisco's Sabbath n' sweet leaf worshippers Sleep. The endlessly repetitive riffs, the swinging molasses sludge jams, the massive, mantric starscapes of drugged-out space rock drone and dirge? Yeah, we've been missing Sleep too. They broke up after their magnum opus, the one-hour/one-song album Jerusalem (aka Dopesmoker), members eventally resurfacing in The Sabians and High On Fire. And now Om, the closest thing to the Jerusalem of olde! So if High On Fire's loud and speedy Motorheaded heaviness hasn't quite been giving you that same Sleepy feeling, then here's -another- post-Sleep outfit that might just do the trick.
First get rid of the guitars ('cause this is just Sleep's rhythm section, bassist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Hakius). All they really need is a drum kit, a bass guitar and about 10,000 watts of amplification. Then set the controls for the heart of the sun, and ride all the way there seemingly on a single churning, hypnotic mesmerizing riff, stretched over three long tracks. A super distorted, fuzzed out magic carpet ride into oblivion. The main difference between Sleep and Om (besides the lack of guitar) are the vocals by Al Cisneros. Lots of vocals. And not screaming or growly, we're talking clean, chanting, trance-like vocals, WAY up in the mix. Well, they do sound a bit like the singing in Sleep, just way more prominent. It may be the single thing that keeps folks from getting into Om. But the vocals definitely grow on you, and the laconic sort of slurry sing song-y delivery just further enhances Om's druggy mesmerism. Al's stiffly delivered, endless nasal incantations are in fact now being imitated by the staffers here at Aquarius in our everyday conversations. They definitely give the whole thing a definite Hawkwind / Pink Floyd vibe, which is a VERY good thing. This is most definitely not 'metal', although metalheads will probably dig it. Electric Wizard fans especially! This is relentlessly riff heavy, ultra repetitive, simple, spaced out, hippy drug rock of the highest order. Musically it almost sounds like a Lightning Bolt record played at 16rpm, that effortless bass / drum interplay slowed down to a loping lumber, a slow motion slither, a creepy crawl. Head nodding music for head bangers. A swirling, fuzzy, spacy, mesmerizing, drone rock trip! No wonder ol' Julian Cope wrote it up as a record of the month on his great Head Heritage website...
