Sad sad news, UK underground heavy/spacey/metallic/psychedelic magazine/compilation Bad Acid is no more. Longtime readers of the aQ list have no doubt enjoyed an issue or two (or three or four) of this sprawling publication, a combination printed zine, and computerized PDF zine, complete with an audio component that usually clocks in at at least 12 hours, sometimes twice that. It's been 10 years, and Bad Acid editor Dave Gedge has a family, and kids, has been losing money (magazines, even ones as amazing as Bad Acid are most definitely a labor of love) and furthermore is a Buddhist, so in addition to simplifying his life, Gedge has simply been burnt out, which is why this final salvo is called The Burnout Issue. And this final issue is the only bit of silver lining, but WHAT a silver lining it is. This final issue is in fact, THREE issues, #10, #11 and #12, and while the printed part might be the most minimal yet, it's more than made up for by the contents of the 3 dvd-r's. This time, the magazine itself is more of an index, as it takes EIGHT pages, in tiny text, to list all the bands and songs and videos and interviews and articles.
As usual, it's split into sections, the first is the PDF magazine, accompanied by music from each band as well as a review of the band's most recent record. Some of the bands in the magazine this time around: Carlton Melton, Aluk Todolo, Bong, Plastic Crimewave Sound, Sylvester Anfang, Residual Echoes, White Hills, Der Blutharsch, GNOD, Jazzfinger, Grey Daturas, Hooded Menace, Necro Deathmort, The Gates Of Slumber, Flood, The Wounded Kings, Full Blown Expansion, Hey Colossus, Ancestral, Isis, Pelican, Scott Kelly of Neurosis, Sutcliffe Jugend, The Accused, Inade, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Atomic Bitchwax, Snail, The Twilight Sad, Ramesses, Ufomammut, Witchsorrow, Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, Slomatics, Root, Nordvargr, Antonius Rex, Russian Circles, Centurions Ghost, Nebula, Freedom Hawk, Steve Von Till of Neurosis, Leeches Of Lore, Dianogah, Sardonis, Torche, Turzi, Ancestors, L'Acephale, and loads more, including TONS of bands we had never heard of.
The second section is the interviews, and features Meads Of Asphodel, Nadja, Expo 70, Centurions Ghost, Vincent Black Shadow, Gnaw, Unearthly Trance, At War With False Noise, Old Corpse Road, Alice Donut, and more! The next section features label profiles of Denovali, Rocket and Future Noise, featuring loads of recordings from lots of bands on each label.
Then there's a section of bonus audio, with still more tracks, including jams from Sundial, B*Tong, Disappears, Fire Witch, Realmbuilder, Jex Thoth, White Buzz, Rich Hoak, Loscil, Jonas Reinhardt, Fauna, Big City Orchestra, and once again, a whole mess of bands we've never heard.
There's also a bunch of videos, by Total Fucking Destruction, White Hills, Psychofagist and a bunch more, some short films as well, and finally, a section of bonus MP4's, featuring promo videos from Expo 70 and others, and more short films and live footage.
Phew! It's epic and sprawling, and is equal parts rad bands you know and new discoveries. Way recommended for anyone who likes music AT ALL. But definitely Bad Acid leans toward the heavy and the psychedelic and the left of center. So yeah, obviously WAY recommend, and while Bad Acid will continue on in a different, bloggier, form, it just won't be the same, so you best buy this final issue of Bad Acid and add it to that shelf of magazines you keep and treasure and reread...
We'd been hearing about these guys for a while, lots of people we trust, kept telling us we'd love these guys, and just how crazy heavy and hooky they were, and you know what? They were right. Imagine the bastard son of the Melvins and Harvey Milk, ok? Now imagine that son got it on with the bastard son of Thin Lizzy and the Champs, and then the resulting bastard son got super into Deep Purple and ZZ top, and ended up hooking up with some hot metal chick into Motorhead and the MC5, and they had a baby, and all they played that baby was nineties AmRep 7"s until it grew up and was basically doomed by several generations of rock genetics to start a band, well, then this is probably the band he or she would start.
With any sort of band like this, there's a bit of tongue and cheek going on, not that it's a joke band, but bands like this are meant to be FUN, especially live, the sort of show you go to and end up getting home, beaten and bruised, sweat soaked and drunk as fuck, with about twenty years worth of classic riffs lodged in your head. And they've done a pretty good job of capturing that on vinyl, huge thick guitars, monster drumming, bellowed vox, that sound like that have to be coming from some massive bearded mountain man, the sound flitting easily from dense progged out math metal radness, to punked out metallic stomp, to swaggery classic rock crunch, harmonized leads, cowbell, all the ingredient of ROCK, deftly wielded by these barbarians. Opener "Brick Toothpick" starts out all Champs-y before stumbling into some Melvins style lumber, "Fake Tan" is all fist-pumping, head-banging stadium rock epic writ punk-as-fuck, "Bore" is all churning math metal swagger, with big hooks, big drums, and some awesomely ridiculous lyrics.
Elsewhere, the sound slips from super distorted Torche like sludge pop, to -almost- arena ready heavy rocking a la Mastodon or Queens Of The Stone Age, even some tripped out krautrockiness and swirling psychedelia here and here, but these guys don't get weird or musically high falutin', this is the sort of RAWK, that's about drinking and fucking and fighting, this is the sort of hard rocking good ol' boy soundtrack we all hear in our heads as we're making one glorious bad decision after another. Fucking AWESOME.
Let's just go on the record and say, that British comedy is far superior to American comedy. Especially in the realm of the ultra-uncomfortable. Love Curb Your Enthusiasm? Just wait until you check out Peep Show. Can't get enough of the Office? Well the British original is way funnier, and WAY more brutal. And you haven't even begun to feel massive gloriously hilarious discomfort until you've seen Alan Partridge (review of the series DVD elsewhere on the AQ site).
But way back when, the Brits were already showing us a thing or too, with the utterly amazing, very DIY, and funny as fuck Young Ones, finding its way to American TV in the '80s... the tale of a hippy, a mod, a punk, and a creepy money obsessed shyster, all living in a run down house together, with a talking hamster, an insane landlord, and bands like the Damned or Madness showing up every week to rock out in the living room. After the Young Ones dissolved, the punk and the hippy and the mod went on to the long running meta-sketch comedy show The Comic Strip. Super smart and sharp, but not afraid of being really really dumb once in a while (but in a really smart way).
Hence we have Bad News. The worst heavy metal band you've never heard. Taking the whole Spinal Tap thing in a much more dismal, depressing, volatile and gut busting direction. Culled from two episodes of The Comic Strip, the disc captures all of their 'hits' as well as track after track after track of the band bickering and even physically abusing each other.
As if you couldn't tell already, this is one of the funniest records ever. EVER! And unlike lots of 'joke' musical projects, the songs are completely kick ass. In fact the song "Drink Till I Die" sounds like some lost Motorhead B-side. Hell, A-side even.
They do a painfully bad version of "Bohemian Rhapsody", a Christmas single, and a handful of amazing originals, like their theme song "Bad News" and the super kick ass "Warriors Of Ghengis Khan". But the songs, as good and as funny as they are, are merely musical interludes for the fighting that comes between. And the cool thing, is it's not just clips from the show, it's band meetings, aborted recording sessions (including an amazing bit where they spend forever trying to make 'scary woodland sounds', resulting in one of them moo-ing like a cow, and yet another fight ensues since 'cows are not scary or evil'), confrontations over who re-recorded whose parts, lots of screaming and yelling and tons of profanity. It's intense and brutal and so goddamn funny. It's so relentless you can barely take it after an hour. Any one who is into Longmont Potion Castle or the Great Phone Calls record or Jon Wayne (the band) or Spinal Tap will love Bad News. Plus, if you can, rent the video, which is just as funny as the cd. You get to see Bad News actually perform at a British Metal festival, and get pelted with bottles and eventually beaten to a pulp, as well as all your favorite metal stars (Ozzy, Scorpions, Def Leppard, Lemmy) talking about how much Bad News suck.
Soooooooo goddamn funny and amazing and essential.
Sure, "You don't mess with Texas" is a cliche as old as the hills, one that has lost much of its import, but those are definitely words to live by if "messing with Texas" means messing with these guys. Houston's Bahimiron return with the aptly titled Southern Nihilizm, a furious slab of blasting grim blackness, that owes no small debt to the mighty Gorgoroth, giving that classic Norwegian sound through their own cracked Texan twist, the guitars are crunchy and buzzy, the drums are buried in the mix, but are wild and frenetic, and the vocals are seriously demented, going from processed guttural growls, to monstrous roar to almost Cradle Of Filth shriek, often in the same song.
The other weird thing about Bahimiron's sound is the production, tons of effects and what sounds like reverb, so everything is dense and noisy, and the riffs sort of blend into one another, turning a black buzz into a droned out buzzing blacknoize. There are some strange moments scattered throughout the record as well, the end of "The Cauldron Born" features a bizarre, awesomely out of place chromatic sort-of-guitar solo, "Agonist The Filth" has killer squiggly leads draped all over the place, "Chambers Empty" features deep bellowing clean vocals doused in effects that transform them into confusional speaking in tongues garbled mumbles then moments later into hysterical howls. The title track has a cool melancholy breakdown in the middle with a distorted guitar playing out a mournful minor key melody, before the band explodes into another blown out black frenzy. And "War Whiskey Sodomy" closes the record with a brief lumbering sludge soaked doom outro. But all that weirdness is deftly tangled up and tucked away in and within the band's furious noisy black metal buzz, making it just weird enough for us, but just grim and true enough for everyone else.
Cool cover art, the band's logo and evil goat image rendered in super subtle gloss black ink on a flat matte black booklet.
Originally released (albeit only digitally) in 2005, Songs Of Flowers & Skin reveals a side of Aidan Baker we love, but only rarely get to see, and it's his slowcore side, channeling the spirit of groups like Codeine and Bedhead and Seam, creating dark, drifting slow motion pop songs, that creep and crawl and unfurl gorgeously and gradually. Like we said, those moments do surface in his discography, especially solo, where he seems more inclined to introspection and less to doomgaze, but this record offers up a whole disc of proper songs, slow, languorous, dark, haunting, melancholy songs, with singing and lyrics and proper rock band instrumentation, augmented by trumpet and violin, it's really quite lovely.
The record opens with "Skin Like Sand", a serpentine guitar figure wraps around simple minimal skeletal drumming, vocals are crooned softly, actually sung, but this IS Aidan Baker, so it's not nearly that simple, the track is laced with bits of glitch, streaks of crackle, and the vocals are strangely processed, so in the background, little vocal snippets echo the main voice, making it sound ghostly and dreamlike. The next few tracks get almost jazzy sounding, upping the tempo a bit, but keeping the mood dour and depressive, "Dance Dance Dance" is a smoky trumpet flecked ballad, all reverbed guitar and sizzling cymbals, "Second Selves" sounds almost Spanish, a little bit of a Morricone vibe, a regal almost march, the horns and strings, sweeping and dramatic, very cinematic, "Take Me Out Of My" is another skittery slow groove, that sounds almost like it could be American Music Club, if it weren't for the strange static and whirling organ drones.
Almost the entire second half of the disc is taken up by the nearly half hour long "Flowerskin" (although some of that is silence hiding a secret track, more on that in a second), begins as a slowly building driftscape of long tones, mysterious electronic glitches and truncated rhythms, before the song proper kicks in, another brooding meander, the glitch and crackle and hiss even more pronounced here, sometimes almost blotting out the song completely, there is an almost Nadja worthy climax, but it's more soft focus and subdued, a swirling cloud of warm washed out drones and tangled streaks of buzz, before sputtering out and leaving nothing but silence. Which is eventually supplanted by a gorgeously dark and melancholy dirge folk ballad, just acoustic guitar and vocals, hushed and haunting and quite beautiful.
Maybe not for the Nadja doombliss dronemetal obsessives, but fans of past AB solo outings, as well as anyone into dark, intimate, minimal slowcore and dark brooding doom pop, will definitely want to check this out.
Much like the Trinity cd we listed a while back, Trinitarian, finds the Canadian doomdronebliss duo Nadja offering up a whole lp of new material, including a solo piece by each member as well as a brand new massive sidelong dreamdirge.
Baker's contribution is a gorgeous expanse of breathless shimmer, all billowy and dreamlike, soft swirls of muted chimes and bell-like tones, woven into almost choral sounding passages, warm and hushed and reverent, but with a slightly ominous tinge that only grows more pronounced as the track progresses.
Buckareff balances Baker's more tranquil contribution, with a piece much more sinister, a deep, dark and creepy soundscape of crumbling distorted buzz and shimmering metallic whir, lots and lots of space creating a bottomless black ambience rife with minor key melodic fragments and undulating layers of textured drone. Intense and intensely haunting.
The Nadja track takes up all of side 2, and begins with blissed out harmonized guitars, super spare drums, a digitally treated, slightly glitchy soft minimalism that drifts delicately until the inevitable crush, but this time the crush is not only massive, it's weirdly warped and warm and soft, processed and distorted making it sound a bit alien and otherworldly, almost more warm and washed out than heavy, a bit like a doom metal Galaxie 500, sun dappled and multihued, dreamy and ethereal, while somehow managing to remain incredibly heavy. The song grows slightly less blissy and more intense and ominous by the end of the side, but even then, the sound is still mysteriously transcendent.
LIMITED TO ONLY 200 COPIES!!! These are probably the only copies we'll ever get!
The four-color sci-fi fantasy evoked by bombastic British metal band Bal-Sagoth is perhaps best explained by their long-winded, esoteric song titles: "The Splendour of a Thousand Swords Gleaming Beneath The Blazon of the Hyperborean Empire (Part III)", "Star
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Britain's most bombastic barbarian metallers soar forth with a new disc, taking their epic heavy metal ballet music into outer space with this scifi-themed album. The insane keyboards, keyboards, keyboards, frenetic drums, and a theatrical voice intoning the cosmic/comic lyrics to songs like "The Thirteen Cryptical Prophecies Of Mu" and "Behold, The Armies Of War Descend Screaming From The Heavens" make for some awe-inspiring ridiculousnes all right, yet despite making fun of this both Andee and Allan somehow had to own copies...
As we've no doubt mentioned before, metallic post rock seems to be its own little cottage industry, spawning more bands that it's possible to keep up with, and causing lots of bands to suddenly shift their sound, to be either more metal (for the post rock bands), or more post rock (for the metal bands). But as we've also mentioned before, it's tough to complain about a sound that combines two of our favorite musics. Metal, heavy and crushing, doomy and massive, and post rock, with its mathy rhythms, moody melodies, and soaring arrangements.
One of our favorite purveyors of this sound is Rosetta, from Philadelphia, who gave us one of our favorite postrockmetal records a few years back in the form of The Galilean Satellites. The approach for that release was unique, in that one disc was song based, with all the requisite crushing riffs and mathy metallic crush, while the second disc was all ambient, long tracks of swirl and shimmer, drone and rumble.
With the postrockmetal feeding frenzy, we were sure Rosetta were on the fast track to being big names in the scene, but they seem to still remain just below the spotlights, which seems to have done them no harm in terms of new music, their half of this split destroys. Albeit beautifully and dramatically. Two tracks, both topping 10 minutes. Both beginning with plenty of soaring jangle and Godspeed like cinematic build. Guitars chime and ring out, the drums are simple, perfectly supporting the rest of the instruments as they drift skyward. The first track builds and builds in intensity, only becoming truly metallic near the end, when the chiming high end guitars drift off leaving a churning downtuned riff, but even that riff is wrapped in effervescent streaks of glistening far away guitar harmonics, and strange vocal snippets, and rumbling whirring low end drones.
The second track follows a similar pattern, but the heavy parts STAY heavy, with howled guttural vocals, and a very Neurosis-y riff, but again, still surrounded by all sorts of incandescent guitars and dense swirls of ambient buzz.
Rosetta are teamed up with fellow Philly noisemakers Balboa, who also do their own version of the metal math rock, but theirs has a foot firmly planted in punk rock, hardcore to be exact. The first track starts off like a super charged nineties math rock jam, with angular guitars and BIG drums, vocals that are sort of sad boy, but build into full on howls, when all of a sudden, the band lurches into an almost blast beat, a furious punk rock blast, that shifts gears again, into a seriously hooky hardcore groove, sounds like a weird mix, but it sounds amazing. And a perfect foil to the languid expansiveness of Rosetta. The other two songs, don't get as punk rock as the opener, instead, mining more of that nineties math rock sound, Polvo, Dazzling Killmen, Hoover, the songs are loping stretched out grooves, the bass and guitar locked in tight, the drums almost tribal, everything crashing together in huge bursts of metallic emo fury. Pretty great.
And as if that weren't enough, the two bands combine forces for the closer, the title track, which to be honest sounds like it could be either band, as easy as both, BUT, it's amazing, a seriously gorgeously executed, heavy and hooky chunk of mathy metallic rock. From the beginning, a propulsive, almost krautrock jam, that slowly and steadily builds into a seriously thick bout of massive roiling guitars, and chaotic drumming, all downtuned and dripping with distortion, the only hint that this is actually two bands is about three quarters of the way through, when the drummers engage in a relentless double kick dual, over which ALL the guitarists spit out spidery glistening guitar lines, a huge glimmering tangle of melodies that sparkles and shimmers, and as you might expect is quickly sucked under another crushing wave of grinding growling guitar. Awesome stuff. Fans of the usual suspects (Isis, Baroness, Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, Pelican, Tides, Conifer, Minsk, etc..) most definitely NEED this.
Longtime readers of the aQ list and followers of Andee's tUMULt label are no doubt familiar with Pyha, whose Haunted House album still ranks as one of our favorite black metal records ever, made even more noteworthy by the fact it was created by a Korean teenager! It was a personal and intimate study (by a teenager) on loss and death, focusing on Korea's wars, the music bleak and blown out, weirdly atmospheric and hypnotic, any black metalheads out there who have yet to check it out, do yourself a favor. SO what the heck does that have to do with this new full length from Korean punk/grind duo Bamseom Pirates? Well, Mr. Pyha is all grown up, he's been in and out of the military (it's compulsory in Korea), he's engaged to be married, and he's still politically active, but his protests now come in the form of short sharp blasts of grinding punk rock. Granted, the Pyha connection might be a bit of a tenuous connection to convince metalheads to pick this up, and really, unless you're into punk rock and grindcore, odds are you're not gonna dig this. That said, there are plenty of metallic moments, and some of the grinding is wicked fierce, and as metal as anything else out there, but there's definitely a serious sense of humor running through the proceedings, and the more metallic grind numbers are outnumbered by the punk rock jams, so metalheads you have been warned, everyone else, this is pretty fucking ruling. Just bass and drums, the bass super distorted to the point that it basically sounds like a guitar, the vocals are yelped and howled and grunted and squealed, we're reminded of legendary power violence jokers Spazz as well as Japanese grinders Bathtub Shitter, all the lyrics in Korean, the booklet too, so much of the lyrical content, and any of the politics are definitely lost on non-Korean speakers, but if you're after some wild pounding punk and some seriously furious grind, with some twisted weirdness and a little bit of goofiness mixed in, this will definitely hit the spot. And if you're like us and CRAZY obsessed with Pyha to boot, well then even more reason to grab one.
- MPEG stream: 1
- MPEG stream: 2
- MPEG stream: 3
- MPEG stream: 4
- MPEG stream: 5
Dust, Captain Beyond, Toad, Pentagram, Highway Robbery, T2, Buffalo, Budgie, Blue Cheer, Lucifer's Friend...if these names mean anything to you, you're probably one of our customers who dig that heavy '70s acid rock proto-metal stuff. Whenever we find a reissue of another lost gem from the era we try to share it with you. So, here, at last, are discs by the legendary Bang, a trio from Florida (by way of Philly) circa '71-'73 who managed to crank out some Sabbath-like riffing to go with the very Ozzy-like vocals of lead singer and bassist Frank Ferrara!
Bang never got big -- although they did share stages with everyone from Alice Cooper to the Allman Brothers to Chuck Berry to Funkadelic to Black Sabbath themselves, apparently had a #1 hit in Hong Kong and at one point owned their own private plane! They released three albums in their career (for a US major label in fact) plus they recorded some singles and made an entire unreleased album as well. Their entire output has now been reissued on two cds, the first of which (this one) contains their self-titled debut, recorded in February of '72, as well as their follow-up sophomore album recorded that same year in November (groups back then didn't dilly dally with putting out one album every couple of years like today's bands).
As we said, Bang, especially on their first album, bore a remarkable resemblance to the Sabs, which was really unusual for their era, when bands were more likely to copy Zeppelin or Purple or just be stuck in the '60s. Kinda lo-fi, but quite heavy, "Bang" delievers doomy hard rock, with a kinda Comus-y Pagan slant, that also brings to mind the most powerful early King Crimson. Like most heavy bands of the period, Bang weren't cognizant of the "metal" concept, and probably saw themselves as a pop rock group -- a dark and pyschedelic pop rock group to be sure -- and so sometimes the hard riffing lets up to allow for some happier or more gentle fare, which is not always a bad thing anyway (this a phenomenon we discussed in our review of the Dust albums not long ago).
Bang's 2nd album was oddly presented as two distinct side-long mini-albums, each with its own 'front' cover. Side one (the heavier) being "Mother" with side two dubbed "Bow To The King". Both sides together were not as Sabbathy as the debut perhaps, but still excellent '70s proto-metal indeed.
Recorded in Hollywood, California in 1973, "Bang Music" was quite a bit more of your standard '70s rock/pop fare, not nearly as heavy as their earlier efforts. But it's nicely melodic and has a few rockin' tracks on it, like opener "Windfair".
Then we step back chronologically a couple of years for the conceptual "Death Of A Country", which was Bang's never-released first album, recorded in 1971 prior to their self-titled debut that came out the next year. With visions of societal corruption and ecological disaster, this album's doom-filled lyrics are certainly Sabbathian, although the music really doesn't get as apocalyptically heavy as what they came up with on "Bang". But still, a decent slab of downer psych-rock, more '60s hippie than '70s metal.
True heavy music connoisseurs really need this disc, though, for the two of the three "lost singles" included: the tracks "Slow Down" and "Feels Nice". They're the highlights here for sure. "Slow Down" woulda fit in well on their debut, while "Feels Nice" has more of Led Zep vibe.
Bang's slogan was always "Music Shot From Guns". Of the two cds reissues, it's the first ("Bang / Mother - Bow To The King") that's definitely using the higher caliber ordnance. But this one also gets off some good shots.
Note, unlike cd versions you might have seen before, these aren't bootlegs -- these reissues were done by the band themselves through their website. Initally they reissued 'em as cd-rs, but now they've done real cds, professionally printed. The cd booklets have the lyrics and credits, but we'd have liked some more art, photos, notes, etc. And as 2-on-1 releases, they've scrunched the cover art for two albums into each booklet's front panel, along with using some not-so-'70s Macintosh computer fonts. So, visually these could have been better, but oh well -- it's the music that matters. And much of Bang's music should definitely stoke those into early metal a la Black Sabbath and the aforementioned obscure greats.
All right! We're happy to report that Rise Above Relics is back in business, with an impressive new batch of proto-metal reissues including albums by Steel Mill and Necromandus... gotta get 'em all reviewed, but we're gonna start with a Bang. A box set of Bang, in fact. We've long stocked the self-released cd reissues of this early '70s American answer to Black Sabbath, but THIS is the definitive Bang reish for sure. Physically much nicer than those previous reissues, this handsome yellow box contains all 4 of Bang's full-lengths on 4 individual cds in mini-lp style gatefold sleeves, plus bonus material, and a thick (40 page) booklet stuffed with detailed liner notes and photos... and there's a Bang sticker too!
Essential for Bang fans, and that means all lovers of '70s heavy psych rock action. Here's a revamp of what we had to say about Bang before, when we reviewed each album:
Dust, Captain Beyond, Jerusalem, Toad, Pentagram, Highway Robbery, T2, Buffalo, Budgie, Blue Cheer, Lucifer's Friend...if these names mean anything to you, you're probably one of our customers who dig that heavy '70s acid rock proto-metal stuff. Whenever we find a reissue of another lost gem from the era we try to share it with you. So, here, at last... the legendary Bang, a trio from Florida (by way of Philly) circa '71-'73 who managed to crank out some Sabbath-like riffing to go with the very Ozzy-like vocals of lead singer and bassist Frank Ferrara!
Bang never got big - although they did share stages with everyone from Alice Cooper to the Allman Brothers to Chuck Berry to Funkadelic to Black Sabbath themselves, apparently had a #1 hit in Hong Kong and at one point owned their own private plane! They released three albums in their career (for a US major label in fact) plus they recorded some singles and made an entire unreleased album as well.
As we said, Bang, especially on their first self-titled album, recorded in February of '72, bore a remarkable resemblance to the Sabs, which was really unusual for their era, when heavy bands were more likely to copy Zeppelin or Purple or just be stuck in the '60s. Kinda lo-fi, but quite heavy, it delivers doomy hard rock, with a kinda Comus-y Pagan slant, that also brings to mind the most powerful early King Crimson. Like most heavy bands of the period, Bang weren't cognizant of the "metal" concept, and probably saw themselves as a pop rock group - a dark and psychedelic pop rock group to be sure - and so sometimes the hard riffing lets up to allow for some happier or more gentle fare, which is not always a bad thing anyway (this a phenomenon we discussed in our review of the Dust albums once upon a time).
Bang's second album, which followed later in '72 (groups back then didn't dilly dally with putting out one album every couple of years like today's bands) was oddly presented as two distinct side-long mini-albums, each with its own 'front' cover. Side one (the heavier) being "Mother" with side two dubbed "Bow To The King". Both sides together were not as Sabbathy as the debut perhaps, but still excellent '70s proto-metal indeed.
They then went to Hollywood in '73 to cut Bang Music, their third album. It's quite a bit more of your standard '70s rock/pop fare, not nearly as heavy as their earlier efforts. But it's nicely melodic and has a few rockin' tracks on it, like opener "Windfair".
Then we step back chronologically a couple of years for the conceptual Death Of A Country, which was Bang's never-released first album, recorded in 1971 prior to their self-titled debut. With visions of societal corruption and ecological disaster, this album's doom-filled lyrics are certainly Sabbathian, although the music really doesn't get as apocalyptically heavy as what they came up with on Bang. But still, a decent slab of downer psych-rock, more '60s hippie than '70s metal.
True heavy music connoisseurs really need this 4th disc, though, for the two of the three "lost singles" included: the tracks "Slow Down" and "Feels Nice". They're the highlights here for sure. "Slow Down" woulda fit in well on their debut, while "Feels Nice" has more of Led Zep vibe. As an additional bonus, Rise Above have included a half-hour radio interview.
Bang's slogan was always "Music Shot From Guns". Of their albums, it's the first two, Bang and Mother - Bow To The King, that definitely use the higher caliber ordnance. But the other two discs here also get off some good shots. And the whole package is a huge improvement over the band's previous official reissues that we stocked, not to mention the bootleg editions that have also circulated. More room for the art, better design, and the other goodies in the box.
One of the best unsung heavy rock acts ever, finally gets the box set they deserve. BANG!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This is the first we've heard from German ambient doomlords Bann, and the first release on the fledgling Grief Foundation label (already a well respected UK metal distro) and we're pretty smitten. This is epic and heavy stuff, with a slightly medieval flair. Three looooooong songs, the first, beginning with what sounds like some creepy Carpenter / Goblin horror movie score, until the drums gradually fade in and we're in Skepticism style doom land, and then finally the guitars kick in and we're in the midst of some seriously crushing medieval doom, a plodding swinging lurching dirge, that quickly segues into an almost Renn Faire sounding bridge, complete with fluttering flutes and sweeping keyboard swells and an awesomely ridiculous spurt of classical strings before resuming its glacial plod. Halfway through the guitars fade out leaving a swirl of whispery synths, delicately plucked acoustic guitars, hushed vocals, strange sound effects, all drifting ominously, before that folky medieval crush crashes back in. Simultaneously lilting and lovely, buzzing and brutal.�
The second track begins with a roaring fire, looped snippets of conversation that become more and more frenzied, grandiose King's court keyboards, finally enveloped by a gorgeous melancholy riff, that trudges along, beneath a sprinkling of pointilist piano, another break partway through reveals rain and thunder, whipping winds and strange reverbed German voices, a creepy cinematic interlude, that quicklygives way to that same loping melancholy dirge, the piano just making� it that much more emotional and dark. Very classic sounding, My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, but with a demented medieval twist.�
The final track begins with melancholy folk guitar, warm swells of synthesized strings, soon joined by buzz drenched riffage, slow and droning, the whole track sounding quite a bit like classic Burzum, slowed down, and with weird witchy vocals and an epic Viking-style recurring melody, Gorgeously mournful and completely trance inducing.
Total epic�medieval ambient doom!!!
Very first solo record from one Mr. J. Bannon, who most of you might know better as the frontman for the mighty Converge, as well as the head honcho of Deathwish Records. But don't let the whole Deathwish / Converge angle mislead you, Bannon also did time in a group called Supermachiner, a more abstract project exploring drones, and blissed out post rock and epic cinematic ambience, and while this 7" is a bit closer to Supermachiner than it is to Converge, it's actually very little like either.
A single track, beginning with a slow whispered shimmer, a simple throbbing distorted bass, very spare and spacious, pulsing amidst soft sonic swells, a creepy minor key melody, a soft dirge. Eventually the vocals come in, mirrored by plinking piano, underpinned by simple percussion, the vocals plaintive and melancholy, a mournful croon, the piano adding some instrumental gravitas, a slow slow slow build, only truly exploding near the very end, and even then it's not so much an explosion as a culmination, a sort of Godspeed like pinnacle, which quickly fades back into the record's opening shimmer. Very reminiscent of Low actually, a dark, dreamy, drifting, abstract slow core. A tempting teaser for the forth coming full length.
And most folks know that beyond playing in Converge, Bannon is also an amazing graphic designer, and that becomes plainly obvious when you see the over the top packaging. The records are pressed on various colors of vinyl, silver, gold, creme, it's a one sided 7", the flip side features a super intricate etching, a winged skull, flowers, and tiny text, all housed in a gorgeous screen printed card stock sleeve that folds together origami style. Each record also includes a download coupon so you can get these analog sounds on your digital player of choice.
Since we're reviewing the brand new record from Israel's Barbara, we figured we would get a handful of their first record, so all of you who missed out on this killer disc the first time around could have anther chance...
How could we resist? A band called Barbara. From Israel. On the cover, the name Barbara is written in ornate olde English, with the middle 'b' extending into a huge crucifix. The record is called A Blessing From The Angel Of Death! Song titles include "Heart Of Thorns", "Concrete Heaven", "Morbidity" and "Hotdog" (?). We knew before we even heard it that this was AQ through and through. Thankfully, the music was just as good as we had hoped. Noisy and raw, Blessing... was recorded live in Tel Aviv in 1999, and sounds like it. Overblown and a bit lo-fi, with super saturated vocals and crumbing guitar distortion, this is wild and chaotic and furiously intense. Imagine a black metal Hella, or the Ruins playing Darkthrone in a concrete bunker, or an even more damaged sounding Lightning Bolt. Just bass and drums, a super tight, uber distorted sludge-metal rhythmic chaos engine, spitting out relentless metallic mayhem, wild unpredictably spastic drumming, huge throbbing mud bass, and howled and shrieked vocals. Occasionally, the band stretches out into ambient post rock, doomy Khanate-isms, all syncopated bursts of musical bile, melodies hidden amidst prickly pounding riffage. And as with lots of live recordings, it's totally disconcerting to hear the barely there smattering of applause in the black hole vacuum of silence between each song. This is the sort of monstrous brutality that you imagine being played atop Valhalla, across a valley of cowering minions, bowed in reverent worship. Or at least in the corner of a sweaty, writhing, jam packed little club!
When it rains it definitely pours -- as long as we're talking about this new breed of metallic post rock we've been digging. We think to ourselves, "Man, we can't get enough of this stuff" (um, because we always refer to ourselves as 'man', when we're thinking) and then whaddaya know? A new ep from the mighty Baroness, whose first ep we raved about not too long ago (what is it with this band and eps?) describing it as Electric Wizard meets the Fucking Champs metal stoner sludge crush. Which is still pretty accurate, but now that we've gotten more familiar with this post rock / sludge metal stuff, I think maybe we'd describe it more as Isis / Pelican majestic sludge metal meets Rodan / June Of 44 style moody post rock. However Baroness lean way toward the metal side of things. Plus, their songs are really weird, strange meters, complex arrangements, lots of slippery guitar harmonies, weird psychedelic wah guitar, spacey electronic burbling, some stretched out slow motion sludge, some intricate riffing and some of the most insane drumming we've ever heard. Not sure if we could handle another ep from these guys (okay, we probably could) but this will tide us over until the FULL LENGTH we're all dying for! C'mon guys!
And like their debut ep, this boasts some killer cover art, kinda like Pushead doing '60s Fillmore poster art.
You just can't win with fans sometimes. You change your sound too much, and they give up on you; you don't change enough and you get accused of just making the same record over and over. It seems to be more difficult for metal bands, especially metal bands who have aspirations of pushing their sound beyond the strictures of metal. For instance, one of our favorite bands, Cave In, went from being incredible insanely ultra heavy, to sounding like Radiohead, and weirdly, back again. Finally ending up with a sound that improbably fused the two disparate sounds, which we love, but that whole series of transitions definitely cost them a lot of fans. And any metal band, who moves away from metal, is bound to lose the metalhead vote, which brings us to the latest from long time aQ faves Baroness who for a while now have been moving steadily away from the sort of post metal heaviness that defined their early sound, and who have finally arrived here, with this sprawling double cd, which is about as UNmetal as we've heard them. When we first threw this on, we were sort of put off, and joked about the Foo Fighters, Three Doors Down, and the like, basically the sort of mainstream stuff that these guys probably never gave a second thought to, even though they now actually sound a little bit like both. Even back on the Blue Record, we mention that "gone is the sludgey Southern stoner sound, and in its place an insanely catchy, super poppy prog metal, that sounds alternately like Torche with Brian May guitars, or Queens Of The Stoneage mixed with Mastodon." Which would essentially apply to this record too, although they're not nearly as heavy anymore as Mastodon OR Torche, but the QOTSA comparison is definitely apt.
But you know what, fuck it, if you approach this as a record by a metal band, you're bound to be disappointed, but if you approach it as something much more mainstream, well then it's actually pretty weird and cool, and sure, a little bit heavy.
We're on our 3rd or 4th listen, and it's definitely grown on us, but really this is absolutely not a metal record at all, in fact it's barely a heavy rock record, but it is pretty good, and some of the songs are pretty goddamn catchy, and there are moments of heaviness that totally hit the spot, but also inevitably had us missing the Baroness of old. But listen to the sound samples, and you'll pretty much immediately know where you stand. If you do dig some more mainstream sounds, which we definitely do, then like we said, this will definitely fall on the heavy/weird/psychedelic side of that stuff and will probably hit the spot.
Looking at some of the song titles here, you'd think these bands were French, but they're actually from the American South: Savannah, Georgia to be precise, where both Baroness and Unpersons are stalwarts of the metal/hardcore scene.
Actually most AQ customers of the metallic persuasion should be familiar with recent Relapse-signees Baroness, masters of sludge metal mathy post rock prog shred, like some sort of unholy mix of Pelican, Mastodon and the Fucking Champs. Always happy doing an ep-length release, they get in two songs here -- six and twelve minutes apiece, respectively -- while Unpersons contribute four songs, 15 minutes total for their half of this split. The twisty brutality of Baroness is matched by the heavy-duty stop-start and hardcore, almost Oxbowish vox of Unpersons. Baroness as usual destroy us with their effortlessly complex mix of modern chunkiness and very classic, heavy metal guitars. Good stuff for fans of either band or sorta arty, ultra heavy metalcore in general, and it's got us really looking forward to Baroness's Relapse debut (also their first ever full-length!), entitled The Red Album, due out on September 4th.
Now on vinyl!
Looking at some of the song titles here, you'd think these bands were French, but they're actually from the American South: Savannah, Georgia to be precise, where both Baroness and Unpersons are stalwarts of the metal/hardcore scene.
Actually most AQ customers of the metallic persuasion should be familiar with recent Relapse-signees Baroness, masters of sludge metal mathy post rock prog shred, like some sort of unholy mix of Pelican, Mastodon and the Fucking Champs. Always happy doing an ep-length release, they get in two songs here -- six and twelve minutes apiece, respectively -- while Unpersons contribute four songs, 15 minutes total for their half of this split. The twisty brutality of Baroness is matched by the heavy-duty stop-start and hardcore, almost Oxbowish vox of Unpersons. Baroness as usual destroy us with their effortlessly complex mix of modern chunkiness and very classic, heavy metal guitars. Good stuff for fans of either band or sorta arty, ultra heavy metalcore in general...
Just got these in today, list day, four new aRCHIVE dvd titles (Ai Aso, Mick Barr, Khlyst, and Suishou No Fune). So, we haven't had a chance to watch 'em yet but since they're limited and all we figured you'd rather we just went ahead and listed 'em now rather than waiting 2 weeks. And all four artists are pretty cool after all.
Man, even if we got this last week we're not sure we'd have been able to give it a proper review in time for tonight's list - it's two whole dvds fergoshsakes, and watching even a few minutes of either of 'em is probably likely to induce seizures, seeing as how they document the INSANE guitar playing of our pal Mick Barr, from such techy/mathy/metally acts as Octis, Orthrelm, and Ocrilm. It's billed as "an inclusive look at Mick Barr's estoeric approach to guitar playing", featuring solo stuff, various groups, and footage of an improv meeting with Hella drummer Zach Hill. Essential for any fan of Barr and/or crazy guitar shred.
4 panel foldout cover, tons of vellum everywhere, with scribbly art on the vellum obi by Mick himself. Limited, OF COURSE, to a pressing of just 500 copies.
Most folks probably no Mick Barr as the guitarist for black metal outfit Krallice, but long before Krallice, Barr was making seriously difficult music in the duos Crom-Tech and Orthrelm, as well as making equally difficult music solo as Ocrilim and Octis, and how you feel about those other Barr projects will definitely affect how you feel about this new solo lp. We've seen it described in different places as "genius", and as "difficult" and as "totally unlistenable", and well, we're inclined to say all three might apply depending on how you feel about Barr and his shredding. Since that's essentially what this is, two side long solo guitar shreds. Guitar nerds will be in heaven, as will avant outsider music weirdos, Barr is sort of a genius, wild trills and insane lightning fast runs, tripped out chords and bizarre sounds, in its own way, it's kind of hypnotic, we find ourselves getting a little lost whenever we put it on. But for folks who are after songs, or specifically want METAL, or are expecting Krallice, well, you'll be very very disappointed. Actually, all the folks who bought that triple lp on Rock Is Hell, this might hit that same weirdo difficult guitar music spot. You have been warned, weak eared posers steer clear!
Comes in a heavy matte finish jacket with some super creepy artwork, and includes a super swank embossed poster featuring some of Barr's distinctive artwork.
Good grief. Nobody but nobody plays such INSANE guitar as our pal Mick Barr (Crom-Tech, Orthrelm, Octis, Ocrilm, etc.). Makes sense he's got a new album out on John Zorn's Tzadik label, we figure Zorn would have to appreciate Barr's idiosyncratic high-end, hyper-speed shred. Zorn's right, Barr belongs in Tzadik's "composer series", with his name on the cover alongside that of his "band" Octis (which is just him solo, sometimes accompanied by an exhausted drum machine). Barr's spasmodic seizures of precision six-string technicality end up constituting some sort of cryptically-constructed, convolutedly-complex avant-garde new music, with maddening minimalist repetition and maximal metallic tones, a swarming symphony of extreme earhole abuse that certain folks (like us) just LOVE subjecting themselves to, and maybe even trying to understand. Imagine Yngwie interpreting Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music album and you're at least part-way there.
Somehow we managed to miss the debut full length on Handmade Birds from Barren Harvest, the duo of Lenny Smith from Atriarch and Jessica Way of Worm Ouroborus, and we're kicking ourselves now, 'cause this new release of theirs, on local label Black Horizons, reveals a compellingly mysterious soundworld, that owes more to groups like Comus and Death In June than it does to anything properly metal. While technically this is their latest release, what's on here are actually the earliest recordings from Barren Harvest, early demos, many of which would go on to be reworked and rerecorded for their full length, but they sound fantastic here just the way they are. Skeletal, minimal, bare bones, hushed and intimate, simple spidery arrangements of steel string buzz, delicate piano, moaning strings, darkly crooned male and female vocals, harrowing harmonies, almost liturgical at times, the sound a sort of neo-folk torch song, haunting, elegiac threnodies that seem to be emanating from those dark woods, or seem to be crooned by those robed figures surrounding that crumbling altar amidst the brambles by the seaside, the vibe windswept and overcast, grey, otherworldly and mysterious.
LIMITED TO 233 COPIES, fantastically packaged, three 7"s, each packaged in their own sleeve, each one adorned with a drawing of a flower on one side, a sigil on the other, and each with a little printed lyric sheet, all printed in metallic silver on black, all housed in an inner AND outer slipcover, each again adorned with metallic silver artwork, and inside a small printed piece of owl art, very very very nice.
Latest solo outing from one member of space-doom outronauts Bong, and like the Bong mothership, Basillica traffic in a murky, druggy, blackness, but where Bong is definitely rocking and have a sort of sitar-ed Hawkwind going, Basillica are way more free form and abstract, a sort of oozing lysergic black ambience, here a single track that sprawls like some thick slowly swirling cloud of rumbles and whirs, of muted melodies and cavernous chordal washes, at moments it sounds almost like a gamelan at 1rpm, a warped underwater warble, the melodies like strange shadow beasts struggling in vain to extricate themselves from the black sonic tarpit that is the core of Rotting Desert Queen And The Black Isolator Radar Strip.
And for a murky druggy bit of abstract ambience, there's definitely a lot going on here, wah guitars are effected until they barely resemble guitars at all, vibrating strings create ripples in the slowly pulsing sea of sound, occasionally shards of high end, or fragments of melodies break through, almost like a stray beam of sunlight, creating even more shadows, and causing the surrounding sounds to slowly swarm and swallow the sunlight whole.
Muddy and washed out, haunting and subterranean sounding, these sounds are also strangely soothing, as if you were floating in some underwater tributary, just below the surface, the water heated by the molten rock beneath, the black tide carrying you through all manner of caverns, the sound and light reflecting off the constantly undulating surface of the cavern walls, and then filtering through the swirling currents, becoming warped and warbly before finally settling in your fluid filled ears. Cool cool cool. Not to mention dark and heavy and druggily dreamy.
We first got a glimpse of the newly invigorated, and newly METAL-ized Bastard Noise on the recent split with The Endless Blockade, with BN sounding like the second coming of Man Is The Bastard, all heavy and noisy and bassy, but still rife with noise and electronics, incorporating our favorite elements of Bastard Noise offshoot Geronimo into a dizzying hybrid, that hit the spot like crazy. So with this new full length, Bastard Noise have pushed that sound even further. Opening with a brief spoken word monologue, the band explode in an electronic flecked bass heavy crush, the bass and drums locked tight, a lumbering lurching dirge, proggy and intricate, and weirdly melodic, with some of the SICKEST vocals ever, alternating death metal growls and throat shredding shrieks, and all over the place, thick shards of damaged electronics and fractured effects, careening wildly until finally locking into a groove that just won't quit, chaotic drumming, low slung bass buzz, the heaviest, most bad ass thing we've heard in ages. "Me And Hitler" is another blast of Man Is The Bastard style bass driven powerviolence, but with the addition of those shrieked almost black metal vocals, and still more caveman electronics... and when the band again get all proggy and intricate and heavy and groovy, they almost sound like Nomeansno, if NmN were WAY meaner and brutal and caustic, which is in NO way a bad thing.
The whole record is a crushing downtuned post-punk avant prog powerviolence electronic kraut-dirge motherfucker, the songs lurch and swing and grind and blast and pound and pummel, bursts of double kick underpin shards of crackling electronic glitchery and analog skree, there are some really strange stretches of almost jazzy drift, crooned reverbed ambience, operatic abstraction, spaced out dronemusic and moody instrumental skitter, but those brief moments only serve to balance the otherwise insanely and genius-ly brutal heaviness. Fuck, this totally rules!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
How could we not be intrigued by this? Not only is this DIY, US black metal band on the same label that recently brought us the excellent Electric Wizard worshipping doom of Windhand, but they are named after a song on the first album (the one released on our own Andee's tUMULt label) by local prog metal masters Hammers Of Misfortune! And, they have had various folks online, including the BrooklynVegan blog, raving about 'em like crazy. (In fact, via BrooklynVegan, you can listen to a full-album stream of the record here: https://soundcloud.com/brooklynvegan/sets/bastard-sapling-dragged-from, so check it out, we think you'll be convinced.)
Although named after a Hammers song, Richmond, VA's Bastard Sapling (featuring members of Cannibis Corpse and Battlemaster) would seem to have more in common with another San Francisco tUMULt metal artist, the late great Weakling. Thus the classic '90s Norwegian likes of Immortal, Darkthrone, Mayhem, and Emperor have without a doubt been a steady part of Bastard Sapling's listening diet and serve as the influences for the frosty, frozen, grim, galloping epic black metal found here on these four long tracks (with titles like "Cold Winds Howled Across The Desolation"). Blasting and buzzing, the rasping croaking shrieking vokills stabbing like icicles in your ears amidst the blizzard-like onslaught of drum battery, guitar riffage, and keyboard atmosphere. What Bastard Sapling really have going for them, besides a lock on that classic sound, is a knack for bleakly melodic, miserablist majesty. Whether blazing away at speed or slowing down for a detour into post-rock-ish moodiness (like the intro to "Beyond The Void Of Life"), Bastard Sapling's songwriting gets a serious grip on the listener and doesn't let go. Full on quality black metal, with not just a Norwegian scene vibe, but maybe a Ukrainian one as well, and definite hints of Swedish greats Dissection as well. Good thing they named themselves after that Hammers so we'd check 'em out!
Limited to 500 copies, vinyl-only as far as we can tell (on "marbled obsidian black & cocaine white vinyl" to be precise!). Gatefold, with insert and patch!
Bow down and bleed! 'Tis the punishing return of black metal upstarts Bastard Sapling, who hail from Virginia rather than the cold northern climes, though their blasting, majestically-riffed sound is so very Nordic in the grand, grim tradition. However, Bastard Sapling's take on tradition features some interesting twists, and a lot of extra oomph, no surprise 'cause most of the band are also members of a much less genre-specific metal outfit we love, Inter Arma, those ambitious masters of math-sludge-psych-post-metal.
Bastard Sapling (named after a song on the debut Hammers Of Misfortune album that Andee's tUMULt label put out, we're always amused to note) find ways to diversify their brutal blackness; for instance the album's most epic track, "Lantern At The End Of Time", features an ethereal vocal cameo from Windhand's Dorthia Cottrell, and on the likes of "The Killer in Us All", they even really 'rock out', if you will. Hail!
When it rains, it pours. Especially when we're talking about, um... shit? Bathtub shitter that is. Now that the world has discovered the joys of Bathtub Shitter and the 'Shitter are no longer just an underground grindcore secret, the band have systematically been re-releasing their long out of print (and unbelievably kick ass) early seven inch singles. Bathtub Shitter were pretty dang prolific with more than a dozen singles and even more compilation tracks under their belts before they finally released a proper full length. So here we have the Angels Save Us 7" from 2002 and the Mark A Muck 7" from 2001, as well as a bonus track from a long out of print grindcore compilation. So if you're new to Bathtub Shitter, here is as good a place to start as anywhere. Imagine a grindcore band that incorporates bits of Zeppelin, and surf rock, and metal into their grind, occasionally veer off on questionable tangents and explore truly bizarre musical flights of fancy the way Japanese bands are often wont to do. But as with most bands, it's the vocals that -make- the band, but most bands probably don't have a skinny Japanese vocalist who bellows like an overwight demon with indigestion one minute, and screeches and squeals like an hysterical teenage girl the next. Sounds weird? It is. Really weird. But so funny and cool. A completey unpredicatable and super fun blast of chaotic grinding metallic rock and roll weirdness.
Limited to 1000 copies and hand numbered!
Every kid dreads finding a lump of coal in their stocking come Christmas morning, so much so that many spend the weeks or months before the big day doing their very best to ensure their spot on Santa's 'Nice' list. No more teasing the siblings, no more grousing about yardwork, cheerfully doing all their chores, eating all their vegetables, doing all their homework. Whatever it takes. But this year kids have something else entirely to worry about. Sure finding a lump of coal is a drag, but how about finding your stocking full of shit!! Well around here, that's something to be excited about. Because this is the year that Brown Santa comes to town. And who better to fill our hearts with Christmas cheer and regale us with tales of Brown Santa than Japan's shit obsessed grind lords Bathtub Shitter? That's right, it's a Bathtub Shitter Christmas. Record! Forget your Nat King Cole, and Perry Como, and Bing Crosby, and Barbara Striesand, this is the only Christmas record you need! And it's conveniently stocking sized, a cute lil' 3" cd, jam packed with furious grind, howling pummeling brutality, and lots and lots of shit.
For those of you new to the wonderful world of Bathtub Shitter, let's refer to a past review that perfectly and succinctly describes the Bathtub Shitter Experience:
Imagine some strange mix of Drop Dead, the Boredoms, Brutal Truth, CSSO, death metal, grindcore, and well....um...shit! Crunchy riffs swing from almost-surf rock, to Zeppelin groove to metallic crunch, but spend most of their time in grind mode, splattered and speeding out of control. Crazy drumming, farting bass and some wicked guitar noodling add to the sick sonic stew. But the vocals are where things get really weird. The main vocals are of the burping, grunting, cookie monster death metal variety, belching out indecipherable tales of shit and shitting, but their foil is a squealing, squeaking little girl of a man voice, sounding either like a babblingly hysterical middle age housewife shrieking at the top of her lungs or a horror movie cheerleader being evicerated, screaming in that terrified way only dying cheerleaders in horror movies do. The two vocal styles swing and switch and battle and butt heads like some sort of bastard grindcore Beastie Boys. Or imagine Chuck D as Chris Barnes in his Cannibal Corpse days and Flavor Flav as the aforementioned shrieking dead cheerleader. With the everpresent S1Ws made up of members of S.O.D. and Angelcorpse. Other sorts of vocals are occasionally introduced like the 'dog barking underwater' and the 'asthmatic yodel'. The truly strange part is that all of the various vocals come from the very same guy!
Speaking of vocals, our Bathtub Shitter Xmas starts off with the a cappella "Brown Santa", a confusing and brilliantly bizarre series of shrieks and gurgles, grunts and wheezes. This guy could very well give Jaap Blonk a run for his money. Track two is the reverential hymn "Holy Shit", a grinding blast of Japanoise flecked surf-sludge-grind-rock, with insane squiggly guitars, chugging downtuned riffs, blasting octopoidal drumming and of course the 'Shitter hi / lo, shriek / growl vocal battle is in full effect. And finally, what better way to finish things off, than with a classic holiday chestnut, this time roasted over roaring hellfire!! WOOOAHHHAAAA. "Little Drummer Boy" turned into a sludgy slab of slow motion drone metal, huge churning guitars, the only glimpse of the original being the martial snare drum rat a tat tat-ing beneath all that sludge and of course the impossibly guttural growling cookie monster vocals spweing out a barely recognizable "parumpapumpum".
Wow! Now if that doesn't sound like something everyone would want to find in their stocking or under the tree Christmas morning then we don't know does!
"We're dreaming of a... Brown Christmas!"
Holy shit!!! A brand new record from our favorite Japanese stoner grind sludge punk rock group. Possesor of quite possibly the best band name ever. And most appropriate too, as the band seems strangely pre-occupied with shit (although not bathtubs so much). It's been raining 'Shitter reissues as the band works through their considerable back catalog of singles and split eps, so we ordered this thinking it was another reissue, but lo and behold, it's a whole disc of brand spanking new Bathtub Shitter. For those of you new to the world of Bathtub Shitter, imagine the bastard spawn of Brutal Truth, the Boredoms, Celtic Frost, Black Sabbath, and Dick Dale. Stoner grooves collide with buzzing goregrind, surf rock licks sit unexpectedly amidst sludge metal riffs and lightning fast blast beats. A glorious goofy grinding metallic mess as only the Japanese can do it. But the star of any Bathtub Shitter is Masato Henmarer Morimoto, the owner of quite possibly the most ridiculous and breathtaking set of vocal chords ever. On first listen, we were convinced that BS must have had at least two vocalists, maybe more, but it's all the work of one man, Masato. Once you hear it you'll understand why it's so hard to believe. There is of course the requisite goregrind gurgle, a rumbling, phlegm spewing demonic growl, then there's the sort of punk rock yelp, that balances the first voice a bit, but it's the third distinct voice that blows the mind. A piercing, falsetto, damsel in distress, horror movie massacre, cheerleader / housewife shriek. It's so crazy, but sounds so great, especially when engaged with the aforementioned growl in a sort of unholy duet, like a grindcore Beastie Boys, but battling atop a swirling squirmy mass of downtuned guitars, rumbling bowel loosening bass and blasting splattery drumming. WE LOVE BATHTUB SHITTER.
Packaged like the last few BS releases in an oversized 7"style sleeve with really cool and creepy cover art!
Ah, Bathtub Shitter. Even the mere mention of the band gets us all smiling. Not just because Bathtub Shitter is quite possibly the most stupidly brilliant band name ever, and not just because their lyrics are composed in a dizzyingly bizarre confusional sort of Japanglish, and not just because they sing mostly about shit, but because they are still one of the coolest, weirdest grind bands we have ever heard. If you're a regular AQ customer, you are probably already well aware of how much we love Bathtub Shitter, and probably have a good idea of why, but those of you yet to be acquainted with the 'Shitter, let's recap. Imagine if you will, the Boredoms covering Agoraphobic Nosebleed, or maybe a wacky, damaged Japanese Pig Destroyer. Wild and splattery grind, huge downtuned guitars, blazing fast, super complex riffs, pounding blast beats, and a vocalist who manages to grunt with the best of 'em, a guttural gargling demonic gurgle, but who, in the blink of an eye, can switch to a hysterical shriek, that sounds a bit like a mad housewife or a terrified cheerleader in a horror movie as she is about to be ritually disemboweled. Amazing! Seeing them live, it's completely baffling to see these two voices coming from the same skinny little Japanese guy, so much so that until we actually did see them, we were convinced there had to be two vocalists.
This is Bathtub Shitter record number three, and is quite possibly the best of the bunch, compiling all of their long out of print seven inches, compilation tracks, songs from splits as well as some demos and unreleased tracks. Packaged in an oversized seven inch sleeve, with cool gory cover art on one side, one of those goofy punk rock / heavy metal style collages of onstage / backstage hi-jinks on the other, and of course all the lyrics inside. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES WORLDWIDE, AND HAND NUMBERED!
...And coming soon, in plenty of time for the holidays, you knew it had to happen... a Bathtub Shitter Christmas record!! On Andee's tUMULt label!! Holy shit!!
If you've been hanging out with me (Andee) much lately, you've undoubtedly heard me singing the praises of Bathtub Shitter. In fact before I had even heard them, I knew Bathtub Shitter had the potential to be my favorite band. C'mon, they're Japanese, they are called Bathtub Shitter, oh and did I mention they only sing about shit? For a while I was fantasizing about releasing a split with the two best bands in the world (as determined at the time solely by monicker as I had yet to hear either) Bathtub Shitter and Fuck I'm Dead. I'm still thinking about it, but while I ruminate, we're lucky to have this, the first full length Bathtub Shitter record and their only cd. We spent a good long while tracking down 7"s, but since the world leans heavily in the digital direction we had to wait until this beautiful shiny shit-obsessed marvel fell into our hands! What's it sound like you're probably wondering by now. Well, imagine some strange mix of Drop Dead, the Boredoms, Brutal Truth, CSSO, death metal, grindcore, and well....um...shit! Crunchy riffs swing from almost-surf rock, to Zeppelin groove to metallic crunch, but spend most of their time in grind mode, splattered and speeding out of control. Crazy drumming, farting bass and some wicked guitar noodling add to the sick sonic stew. But the vocals are where things get really weird. The main vocals are of the burping, grunting, cookie monster death metal variety, belching out indecipherable tales of shit and shitting, but their foil is a squealing, squeaking little girl of a man voice, sounding either like a babblingly hysterical middle age housewife shrieking at the top of her lungs or a horror movie cheerleader being evicerated, screaming in that terrified way only dying cheerleaders in horror movies do. The two vocal styles swing and switch and battle and butt heads like some sort of bastard grindcore Beastie Boys. Or imagine Chuck D as Chris Barnes in his Cannibal Corpse days and Flavor Flav as the aforementioned shrieking dead cheerleader. With the everpresent S1Ws made up of members of S.O.D. and Angelcorpse. Other sorts of vocals are occasionally introduced like the 'dog barking underwater' and the 'asthmatic yodel' but I don't want to give away too much. It's better if you just let the Bathtub Shitter unfold before you like a beautiful, shit-filled flower.
What else to say about Bathtub Shitter at this point? We've gushed and gushed in review after review. If you're a loyal AQ list reader, you probably know all there is to know about these guys. But for those of you who have somehow missed out on the goofy grind glory that is Bathtub Shitter, check the AQ website to read all about Japan's masters of shitgrind! But in a nutshell, BS are a whirling blast of super technical downtuned metallic grind, with plenty of groove and surf rock (!) and any other weird musical bits they choose to incorporate. Fast and furious and sometimes funny. A buzzing blasting metallic maelstrom, topped with some of the coolest, weirdest vocals EVER! A grunting guttural death metal growl, gurgling and demonic, but that in the blink of an eye, can suddenly switch into hysterical falsetto, like a screeching cheerleader, or a yapping lap dog. So weird, but somehow so goddamn perfect too. They are Japanese after all, and seemingly any idea that sounds too ridiculous or dumb, can be pulled off by a Japanese band without even breaking a sweat.
Shitter At Salzgitter was recorded in Germany back in 2004 and features tons of BS 'hits': "War Of World Is Words", "Bathtub Shitter", "Fuck Hip Raper" and the brilliantly titled "Everybody Has The Wet"!
Nothing dramatically different, just some alternate versions of your Shitter faves as well as a handful of killer tunes you probably haven't heard. Between song banter is always the best part of a live record, and while BS keep it to a minimum, it's cool to hear the songs introduced in either haltingly polite English or raspy monster growls, sometimes both!! Rumor is these guys will make it over here this year so we can experience this stuff LIVE!! We can't wait.
ALL HAIL THE 'SHITTER!!!
OK. By now any avid reader of the AQ list doesn't need to know anything more than this: NEW BATHTUB SHITTER. If you're like us, that's more than enough to send a tingle down your insane Japanese grind metal lovin' record nerd spine. But if that's somehow not enough. How about 5" vinyl ep? SO much cooler than a boring old 7". Still not enough? Okay, this has to do it, the lyric sheet is printed in shit brown ink on a PIECE OF TOILET PAPER!!! So just do it. You know you want it. NEED it. But just in case you need more, or this whole 'Shitter business is new to you, let's go back to an old review where we summed up the whole Bathtub Shitter experience as perfectly as we'll ever be able to:
"Imagine some strange mix of Drop Dead, the Boredoms, Brutal Truth, CSSO, death metal, grindcore, and well....um...shit! Crunchy riffs swing from almost-surf rock, to Zeppelin groove to metallic crunch, but spend most of their time in grind mode, splattered and speeding out of control. Crazy drumming, farting bass and some wicked guitar noodling add to the sick sonic stew. But the vocals are where things get really weird. The main vocals are of the burping, grunting, cookie monster death metal variety, belching out indecipherable tales of shit and shitting, but their foil is a squealing, squeaking little girl of a man voice, sounding either like a babblingly hysterical middle age housewife shrieking at the top of her lungs or a horror movie cheerleader being evicerated, screaming in that terrified way only dying cheerleaders in horror movies do. The two vocal styles swing and switch and battle and butt heads like some sort of bastard grindcore Beastie Boys. Or imagine Chuck D as Chris Barnes in his Cannibal Corpse days and Flavor Flav as the aforementioned shrieking dead cheerleader. With the everpresent S1Ws made up of members of S.O.D. and Angelcorpse. Other sorts of vocals are occasionally introduced like the 'dog barking underwater' and the 'asthmatic yodel'. The truly strange part is that all of the various vocals come from the very same guy!"
Yeah, we know it seems lazy to just crib that description from an old review, but that's EXACTLY what they sound like. Not sure we could describe it any better than that first time we discovered Bathtub Shitter. In fact, just reading that again gets us all excited about the 'Shitter all over again!!
Packaged in a striking full color mini lp style sleeve, with aforementioned toilet paper lyric sheet, and as with most things like this, very very limited!
We won't go into too much gushing detail about our obsession with Bathtub Shitter. For more on that, check the review of their debut Lifetime Shitlist. Needless to say, Bathtub Shitter are the greatest band ever. And definitely have the best band name ever! Okay, so hyperbole aside, the Shitter are the kind of band only Japan seems capable of producing, a chaotic, pounding grind metal juggernaut, with a lead vocalist who switches from demonic gurgling growl, to shrieking hysterical old lady squeal, often within the same verse, and an unhealthy obsession with all things shit. Yep, Japan is amazing. And so is Bathtub Shitter. Heavy enough to please metalheads and grind freaks, but weird enough for everyone else! This is a reissue of their out of print 10", on cd for the first time and with bonus tracks!
When it comes to heaviness - interesting heaviness - the Seventh Rule label is pretty dang reliable. This list we're getting caught up with some of their latest, with THREE new Seventh Rule releases reviewed. This one's the follow up to this NYC band's mammoth full-length debut Furnace, a hate-and-pain-fueled aQ fave back in 2011. Again Batillus punish the listener with mammoth industrialized sludge. It's total deathmarch of doom, uber-distorted noizerock churn that's equal parts Godflesh and Eyehategod, super blown out and often epic, their "blackened doom metal" sound strangely, rhythmically catchy and wide open to loud/soft post-rock-like experimentation, sometimes finding the desolate beauty amidst the ruins. The vokills and loosely-strung guitars vie for which can be harsher, while the machine-like (but not drum machine) percussion grabs you and maintains forward momentum down, down through the glorious, hellish realms of Batillus's sick sound. The lyrics deal in decay and despair and the music follows suit. The Sanford Parker production is the icing on this crushing cake. Nicely done, definitely recommended to all those who liked their earlier effort, or dig similarly antisocial, ultra-heavy doomcore (and doomed-out post-rock) a la The Body, Thou, Cough, Fleshpress, Kowloon Walled City (who turned us on to Batillus in the first place), etc., & also fellow Seventh Rulers Atriarch and Author & Punisher for sure!
Vinyl version also available, via Vendetta.
Thanks to local noise rock heavies Kowloon Walled City for introducing us to these guys. And as we've mentioned before, when a kick ass heavy band, goes on and on about how kick ass and heavy ANOTHER band is, well, then you best pay attention. And boy are we glad we did. These NY doomlords, named for a massive seventies supertanker, are most definitely as heavy as their namesake, their sound a heaving, churning slow motion crawl, the riffs tarpit thick, the vocals caustic and wreathed in effects, the drums a lumbering pound, the band unfurling epic swaths of creeping slithering sludge, an oozing sonic blackness that reminds us of groups like Cough and Thou, who they seem to be compared to often. The band lace their sound with woozy, slightly detuned clean guitars, stretches of swirling ambient shimmer, and sometimes infusing their sound with a seriously epic post rock vibe, some of the songs building to surprisingly melodic crescendos, the opener deftly balancing some extreme ultradoom, and some unlikely hookiness. The rest of the record slips from lumbering death march doom, to pounding almost noise rock churn, to near static, Monarch/Moss/Bunkur like black sludge, fusing bits of Eyehategod like groove to total black hole doomdirge crush. Fucking killer. And WAY recommended for fans of the above mentioned groups as well as The Body, Atavist, Human Quena Orchestra, Fleshpress, Habsyl, Wicked King Wicker, Trees and other similarly sludgey heavies.
Just dug up a small handful of these, the only release from this killer California black metal horde who weirdly enough craft a very wintery and frosty sort of ambient technical black metal, very reminiscent of the Norwegian elite, Emperor, Immortal, Satyricon, but stripped way down, like a more raw and primitive take on that sound, trancelike and hypnotic, the tracks super repetitive and hypnotic, pounding relentless drumming, soaring epic riffage, howled hellish vokills, blurred bursts of furious buzz and blast. The sound is awesomely murky and muddy, all the various instruments smeared together into heaving black swells, the band do get super moody and depressive, and those stretches are especially compelling, dark and intense, the minor key guitars creeping through clouds of swirling black ambience, the vocals growing more and more tortured, sorrowful and miserable, the perfect downer balance to the rest of the record's frantic sonic frenzy.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Hopefully you've delved into the metallic weirdness of the Max Planck compact disc reissue Kill The Pain we highlighted a few weeks back. Eccentric true cult heavy metal from the depths of the eighties. It was one of the first three releases in the Stormspell label's new archival "Red White Heavy Arcane Collector Series For The Initiated" (and if you read our list, consider yourself initiated), dedicated to rescuing obscure '80s metal demos that they consider hidden gems.
Now we've got the other two they've done so far, Fist Of Steel from SoCal's unfortunately named Aerian Rage, and this one, Cry Of The Warrior by Belgium's Battlecry, who offer up six tracks here, nearly a half hour of their galloping European metal glory, originally from a demo tape recorded in 1985. Battlecry live up to their name with high pitched wails o'er pounding metal. This is straight up, stirring stuff in the grand tradition, the band obviously inspired by Priest and Maiden (and Pretty Maids and Accept...). Despite the obvious quality of their material, they didn't rise above the glut of all the other metal bands back then. Maybe they were a couple years too late, and it probably didn't help being from Flanders. However, nowadays, hearing their authentic old school stylings is nothing but charming! To our ears, well deserving of being unearthed again, so thanks Stormspell!!
The 12 page cd booklet contains liner notes about the band's brief history, plus lyrics and vintage b&w live photos of the Battlecry guys enthusiastically rockin' out in their shredded shirts and spandex pants. Limited to 500 hand-numbered copies.
Ordinarily, we'd think, there were enough rad bands back then that put out actual albums that still need reissue, is it really necessary to dig up demos too? Well, Stormspell answer that question with a resounding yes, it is! Killer metal is killer metal, even if the band in question broke up before they got a real record deal - and sometimes, some of the most interesting bands were not quite commercial enough, or based near enough to LA or London or wherever (Max Planck on both counts) to get signed. Lookin' forward to more in this series, volumes 4-7 announced so far, from Hades, Cold Steel, Chalice, and Oppression...
According to No Colours, the strangely named Be Persecuted are in fact the first Chinese black metal band. Not sure how one determines if a band is in fact the first from a country, especially one as big as China, but Be Persecuted are certainly the first Chinese black metal band -we've- ever heard, and I.I. is really pretty fantastic.
Strange song titles like "Painful Assemble" and "Be Resented For Livelihood" barely hint at the strange mournful melancholia inside. Beginning with a very Eastern style synth intro, the band launch into some blasting buzzing super grim classic sounding black metal. But then the keyboards surface, and for the rest of the record seem to always be lurking in the background giving the sound a very creepy sorrowful vibe. And the distortion. Not sure what these guys use for distortion pedals, but holy shit, it's some of the harshest and thickest fuzzy hiss we've heard in ages. Like Darkthrone and Burzum if they ran their guitars through a thousand hair dryers set on high.
The best tracks are the more midtempo numbers, where the band totally excel in finding their own Burzumic path, like on the 13 minute "Wilderness", a slow loping buzz drenched midtempo plod, as depressive and doomy as any BM we've heard. But the track that seals the deal is "Some How", which is the only song here actually sung in Chinese, and that begins with a lovely lilting acoustic guitar, gently fingerpicking a melancholy melody, before the distortion and drums kick in, but the song doesn't really change, it's the same lilting lope, just wreathed in a dense field of crackling buzzing distortion. It's almost like some slow core rock ballad but dipped in a boiling cauldron of Burzum! Pretty weird for sure, but so fucking cool. The record winds down with a reprise of the intro, only this time the notes are dirty and distorted, grinding and buzzing through the same melody but with a completely different result...
Awesome!
