Finally, a full length from these Finnish post punks, fronted by none other than Mat 'Kvohst' McNerney, who also fronts aQ beloved avant black metal weirdoes Code, as well as apocalyptic psych-folk combo Hexvessel. Fans of those Code records no doubt dug the many Interpol-isms, woven into the group's black buzz, and for us, it's what made that band so weird and special, and that brooding, post punkiness takes center stage in Beastmilk, whose sound falls more in line with groups like the Holograms, Iceage, Grave Babies, Cold Showers and yeah, Interpol. Fans of that sound, that sort of modern, Joy Division beholden, gothic gloom punk, will flip their shit over Climax, which is chock full of noisy guitar squalls, angular minor key melodies, angsty, dramatic vox, pounding drums, angular riffage, all woven into tight, taut, tense, Wire-y jams that push all those same buttons. There's even a sort of Woven Hand vibe happening, McNerney's vocals a dead ringer at times for David Eugene Edwards, and Beastmilk's sound not that far removed from WH's more rocking apocalyptic swampy swagger. Noisy, punky, sinewy, hooky and still pretty heavy, Climax is a pretty perfect chunk of modern post punk gloom rock that we can't seem to stop listening to, although we haven't been trying all that hard either!
Second single (we have a few copies of the first, just ask) from this Finnish apocalyptic post punk combo, which features members of Hexvessel, Code, DHG, and sounds a lot poppier than we expected, reminding us a bit of the Holograms (whose full length is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), or like a punkier Interpol, which is not a bad thing at all, the music is murky and washed out, the guitars a buzzy blur, driving drums and cool crooned clean vox, making this sound like some goth pop new wave artifact, doomy and melodic, propulsive and cold wave-y, at times a bit like a gothier post punkier Katatonia, the same sort of super hooky melody but still plenty heavy hybrid, the track "Void Mother" might be our new favorite jam, a seriously hooky and heavy slab of gloom pop that in a perfect world would be a post punk mixtape staple. Super rad. And very limited!
Yep, you guessed it... Beatles songs rocked out Metallica style! Like us, you might've marvelled at Beatallica back in 2001 when a number of their mp3s were making the rounds around the thing called the Internet. Over the years they've received the blessing from the Metallica camp, but were threatened with legal action by Sony (who hold a major chunk of The Beatles publishing rights).
This is the first time their tunes have been available in the retail arena, so it seems nothing further came of that scare.
Anyhoo, 'twas funny then and it's funny now. Don't know if we really need a full album's worth. We got our yuks'n'chortles out after a couple tunes, but we do give these Milwaukee-ites kudos for their stamina and gusto and good taste in music. A hoot in small doses.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Latest from these Dutch stoner rock stalwarts. Sure, we like it 'cause our pal Guy Pinhas used to be in the band and co-wrote some of the stuff on this album, but even if Guy wasn't involved we'd still think this was pretty darn good, really. Heavy, rockin, and kinda weird and arty in spots. Modern psychedelia that's sorta like a cross between Wino's Spirit Caravan and something a little
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
DOOM HISTORY HERE FOLKS! And not just that, it's a fantastic album. Ok, you know something is up when almost EVERYONE here at AQ absolutely loves a doom metal album. Not just the regular metal heads (Andee, Allan, Jason, Lauren) but also Jim and Cup too. Indeed, Cup's two cents for this review is this: "fucking awesome!"
So what's all the fuss about Bedemon? Well some of you may be familiar with the band Pentagram from Maryland, who have about a 30+ year history, going on 40 in fact. Well Bedemon are essentially an obscure but very worthwhile footnote to Pentagram's history, being the "solo" recording project of original '70s Pentagram guitarist Randy Palmer, the majority of this recorded circa 1973-74 with a few tracks from a 1979 Bedemon session as well. They never played out, or even released any records. Bedemon were more of a practice room, basement-recording project that involved Palmer and friends, including the other members of Pentagram, most significantly the uniquely talented vocalist Bobby Liebling who sings on all of these cuts. It was just a way for Palmer to get his own songwriting down on tape, stuff that wasn't recorded by Pentagram. It's totally in the same vein as Pentagram though, if anything MORE dark and doomy than Pentagram's '70s output. Very heavy, and heavily Black Sabbath influenced, also with echoes of Blue Cheer, Randy Holden's Population II, and Iggy & The Stooges (the track "Time Bomb" is very Stoogey, in a way similiar to Pentagram's "Last Days Here"). And for '73, this is definitely about as heavy as it gets, Sabbath and Pentagram themselves excepted. There's so many great tracks on here, each one more sorrowful and wrought with doomful emotion than the next, all of 'em throbbing and (awesomely) distorted. Yes, the quality of these rehearsal tape recordings is downright grungey and murky, but in our opinion that isn't a distraction nor a detraction. In fact, it only makes this better, totally capturing that spirit and raw energy of jamming in the garage for your own enjoyment. And it also sounds doomier that way too. Hands down, Randy Palmer wrote some of the best Pentagram songs, and many of these are just as good. Some of his riffs absolutely lay to waste those of his contemporaries. Just imagine if Palmer had decided to promote his doom skills rather than keep them for the most part to himself. Holy shit. At least we have this, one of the best "lost" albums ever uncovered in the realm of heavy, underground music.
Sadly, Palmer died in a tragic car accident just a few years ago, so the official release of this material at long last is also something of a tribute to his memory. Some of this stuff has been bootlegged before, but this legit release has been done with the blessings of Randy's survivors and the input of the other Bedemon musicans. There's even a Wes Benscoter cover painting based on Palmer's own hand-sketched ideas, as well as lots of photos, a Bedemon history written by Palmer before he was killed, and some very fascinating, detailed, and heartfelt liner notes from fellow Bedemon/Pentagram bandmate Geof O'Keefe.
Essential to all true fans of Pentagram, and also to anyone into heavy '70s Sabbathy psychedelic garagey proto-metal!!
Pentagram fans, Trouble fans, The Obsessed fans, Black Sabbath fans, lend us your ears!! Underground old school occult metallers Bedemon are back, which is a minor miracle, considering that their main songwriter died over ten years ago�
We weren't expecting this to be as good as it is. But it's pretty great. Now, we all loved the other Bedemon cd we reviewed back in 2005, Child Of Darkness, the one that consisted of vintage lo-fi old demo / practice space recordings that this band did back in the '70s, 'cause as you may know, Bedemon was formed in '73 as a solo side project by then-Pentagram guitarist Randy Palmer - but Bedemon never released an album during Palmer's lifetime (he was tragically killed in an automobile accident in 2002). Those Child Of Darkness tracks had Pentagram vocalist Bobby Liebling on the mic, so they really sounded like long lost Pentagram songs, really good ones. And of course we thought that that posthumous collection was all we were ever going to hear from Bedemon, for obvious reasons. But then we heard that this was coming out, an album of hitherto unreleased Bedemon songs that Randy Palmer had been working on before he died, those recordings at last completed by the surviving members of the band, consisting of fellow former original Pentagram member Geof O'Keefe (drums/guitars), and Mike Matthews (bass), both of whom were on those basement Bedemon demos from the '70s, plus 'new' vocalist Crag Junghandel, replacing Liebling - and doing a good job of it, bringing a dramatic intensity to the role, kind of a Dio to Liebling's Ozzy if you will.
Hearing this, you can tell why these guys felt that they HAD to finish this album, in tribute to the true doom songwriting talent of their friend Palmer, whose songs are super Sabbathy for sure (some of this is very "Electric Funeral") but also have their own sinister vibe, one that's strangely funky at times too, even on a lumbering tune like 9+ minute "Godless", that one also an example of how some of the tracks are pretty long, sprawling and psychedelically jammy, with wild guitar soloing and some gloomy organ. The vibe here is dark and doomy, but also rockin', some passages replete with handclaps and cowbell. The atmosphere, the riffs, all of this is definitely what any Bedemon/Pentagram fan could wish for, much much better recorded than Child Of Darkness of course but still raw and powerful, and clearly still rooted in the '70s.
Rest In Peace, Randy Palmer, and keep on rockin' wherever you are.
A few lists back we reviewed a one sided 7" square plexiglass lathe cut from Death Cheetah, aka local visual artist / musician Kevin Taylor, and it was a doozy, a twisted mix of electro-black metal, all pounding drums and blooping synths, we found ourselves listening it over and over like crazy. Apparently, that was just the first in what is looking to be a series of super limited, handmade lathe cut 7"s, the latest being this, the first we've heard from a group called Beheadings, which comes complete with super illegible black metal logo, in a hand screened, hand numbered sleeve. The group, includes Taylor of course, but also Tim Cohen, he of The Fresh & Onlys and Amocoma (whose record is out on Andee's tUMULt label), and while they're not quite as metal as the Death Cheetah, this record is a pretty fantastically twisted slab of experimental sound, all pulsing synths, weirdly programmed drums, woozy twang flecked riffage, lots of cool effects, everything dubbed out and droney, the sounds panned and constantly shifting from speaker to speaker, some wordless vocals wrapped in reverb and left to drip in the background, some cool blasts of zoner guitar buzz, and wild effects drenched squiggles, dizzying backwards swoops... And then toward the last few minutes, things begin to go nuts, the vocals effected in real time, swooping and swirling, speeding up and splintering into crumbling shards, a second vocal yelping wildly over the top, while the music grooves and pulses, before everything seems to collapse in a swirl of dubbed out chaos. So cool. We want these guys to make a whole album of this stuff.
But remember this is a lathe cut, so the above mentioned sounds are buried under a layer of crackle and hum, of buzz and rumble, adding a patina of hazy, gauzy washed out whir to the proceedings, that somehow makes it sound even cooler, all blurry and blissy and dreamily drugged out.
And as mentioned above, it's LIMITED TO JUST 50 COPIES, each one hand numbered, in hand screened sleeves, we have about a dozen copies, but like that Death Cheetah lathe cut, these probably will go fast (though, we do have one or two of those Death Cheetahs left, if you're quick).
Amazing Polish black/death metal. Ultra heavy and brutal with twin guitar leads, really bizarre vocals and song structure, and all sorts of digital fuckery. Any band where the main man is credited with spiritual obsession, alchemic fantasies and star devouring(!) has got to be good.
State-of-the-art black/death metal from these Polish superstars (who're apparently considered sell outs to their own scene, 'cause they're not "true black metal" anymore, but whatever, they're great). Brutality, melody, blasphemy, weirdness. A fine follow-up to their breakthrough "Satanica" opus.
Satanic sci-fi metallic ritual enacted by a band led by a metalhead Brian Eno lookalike! The brutality and intensity (and weird, star-devouring vision) of Polish death/black metal masters Behemoth are unmatched. In the realm of extreme metal, they're a sure bet, and this lastest release only ups the ante. Fast n' furious, "Zos Kia Cultus" is a juggernaut ride through epic vistas, crammed with baroque detail. Are you (as you should be) a fan of the Mesopotamian majesty of mighty death metal kingpins Morbid Angel? Or their proteges Nile? And of the panache & extremity of black metal innovators Satyricon? Well you're probably a Behmoth fan then too! While supplies last, we've got the import digipak version w/ bonus cd-rom video track.
It's funny that we mentioned the Dead C in describing the last blackened missive from the mysterious outfit known as Behemothaur, since we later discovered that there was in fact a definite New Zealand noise rock connection. Some very well know dudes from some very well known NZ outfits (well, at least around here) apparently spend their nights lurking in caves, and in dark woods, performing unholy blacknoise rituals, the latest of which is presented here in all it's filthy, hellish buzzing droning noisedrenched glory.
While Behmeothaur is presented as a sort of outsider black metal project, they really hew closer to good old noise rock, or some sort of post industrial freerock. The darker dronier tracks sound a lot like the various members musical day jobs, soundscapes of rumbles and whirs, shimmering and throbbing expanses of crumbling low end, the sound that has become ubiquitous among cd-r labels. That said, these guys do add some blackness, some serious grimnity, their own take on the abstract drone is appropriately dense and heavy.
Then there's the other side of the band, their more 'rock' side, more abstractly 'metal', and this is where the bands NZ noise lineage really shows. Huge grinding slabs of blown out, slightly blackened lurching noise rock, the guitars ugly filthy squalls, the bass a rib cage rattling throb, the drums blown out and chaotic, the entire sound so in the red, the production sounds like another instrument, the Dead C are of course an obvious comparison, so is Wolf Eyes, a massive crumbling noisy doomy dirge.
The band do spit out a brief blast of buzzing blackness near the end of the disc, but even then it's so doused in fuzz and hiss the fidelity is so low, that again it ends up sounding like some super obscure nineties noiserock outfit, albeit with some definite blackened tendencies.
Awesome stuff, just fair warning to black metallers to be prepared for some abstract noise, but the rest of you, who are into all that sort of cd-r style droning and bashing and buzzing, this will obviously, and summarily kick your ass.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES! Packaged in a cool oversized screenprinted cardstock sleeve, with creepy red ink blood splatters all over the front, inside a 12 page printed black and white booklet packed with creepy images and some liner notes.
The AQ-list has seen its share of cds from the grim Nordic corpsepainted hordes, has it not? Almost every list nowadays has some new cult attraction for those already into black metal, or who are willing to take a chance. But there's plenty of now-classic BM that we've never written about, 'cause it came out before our store stocked as much of the blackened stuff. So the occasional blast from the past, the reissue of a '90s BM must-have, is worth mentioning we think! Sure, you should get all the Marblebogs and Striborgs and Wolds and Emits and Lorns and Negative Planes, but you shouldn't miss out on their less obscure precursors, the Satyricons and Immortals and Abigors, and (to get to the point) Beherit, whose Drawing Down The Moon from 1993 is THE album to get from these Finnish black metal maniacs... it was their full-length debut after a bunch of demos and eps. (Later Beherit albums are cool too, but quite different, more like industrial/ambient solo albums from band leader Nuclear Holocausto.)
So simple and Satanic. Raw and underground. Plodding and droning. The spirit of Venom, Bathory and Hellhammer rendered even more fucked up and primitive and minimalistic by this bunch of sick Finns. It's not so much music, as it is the distorted, deviant belchings of Satan himself. If you don't 'get' Drawing Down The Moon, if songs like "Nocturnal Evil" and "Werewolf, Semen And Blood" don't speak to you... then, well, you're mom is probably happy about that. But if you really want to understand the appeal of real deal black metal, all you need is this, some beer, and no friends. Except Satan.
Actually, listening to this now, we aren't surprised at all by the 'ambient' direction taken by the later Beherit incarnation. This is ambient too... ambient evil invocation. Even moreso than Abruptum.
If you asked us at the beginning of the year what records we were anticipating the most, we wouldn't have mentioned anything from Finnish black metal pioneers Beherit, simply because their rebirth was really the last thing we expected. Following the band's super blasphemous and chaotic odes to Satan in the early '90s, leader Nuclear Holocausto took over the reigns to become Beherit's sole member, steering the project into dark ambient waters with nary a trace of metal remaining, eventually pulling the plug altogether in 1995. But here we are with Engram in 2009, and the big question is, duh, what does it sound like? After a brief glitchy noise, you are confronted by an accented voice that proclaims, "Because. I just fucking hate this world," and then we're off into the hate filled world of Beherit that we know and love best. These guys could certainly show the younger generations a thing or two, as it becomes immediately clear that Beherit has returned as a furious and totally unrelenting black metal force that retains plenty of what made the original band so great, but with enough surprises to show that there is plenty left to say.
Joined by his longtime partner in crime Sodomatic Slaughter on the skins, as well as two new members, Nuclear Holocausto has created an album that serves Beherit's legacy quite well indeed. In terms of the actual fidelity, it would appear that Beherit has embraced modern recording technology, as they sound significantly beefier than on their earlier efforts, which essential as they are, generally sound a few steps below "piss poor". This album sounds burly as hell, with thick, super heavy riffs and classic black metal blasts, all topped off with Holocausto's croaking vocals and plenty of atmospheric synths adding an exciting and unexpected element to the songs. Like the classic Drawing Down The Moon album, Engram is full of weird, spaced out keyboards that, even today, put Beherit in a realm of their own. The way the keyboards go against the main riffs really bring things into psychedelic territories, and while there are plenty of super fast numbers here, some of our favorite moments are when the band take things down a notch, like on the monolithic 15 minute closer "Demon Advance", a doomy two chord juggernaut with strange oscillating noises and some of the most vile vocals we've heard in a while.
Engram seems to have metalheads across the globe divided, but Beherit were never really an easy band to pin down. Of course, the use of synthesizers will always be an area of controversy when it comes to metal, but Beherit have always taken a unique approach with their electronics, venturing into spacey realms that most black metal bands don't even know exist. If you're willing to spit in the face of orthodoxy, and if you like hellish riffs, awesome puking vocals, and powerful drumming, Engram should be an obvious choice. It's good to have them back.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Time to right another wrong. Finnish black metal horde Behexen are woefully under represented on the aQ site. One listing, no review. Bah! That is not right. So here we have the latest blast of sickness from these legendary buzzing black legions, and they sound as fantastic as ever. We love Finnish black metal, nearly as much as we love French black metal, ditto with Norwegian, there's just something so unique about the sound of Finnish black buzz. Like most black metal, heavily indebted to the Scandinavian elite, but they Finns make that sound their own, Horna, Ajattara, Satanic Warmaster, Clandestine Blaze, Baptism, Beherit, Barathrum, Azaghal and of course Sargeist, two members of which also do time in Behexen.
The production is incredible: so heavy, the guitar so thick and dense; the riffs are amazing, buzzy and black but weirdly melodic, the band blast furiously one minute, slipping into a midtempo lope the next, the vocals a guttural howl, the arrangements cool and not at all typical, some bits of Khold-like groove here and there, deep clean vocals, almost chant-like, long drawn out sections of melancholy dirge that almost sounds like Katatonia, creepy haunting high end harmonics laced over blurred buzz beneath, all bookended by ultra sick, ultra grim blast and buzz.
"O.O.O." is the weirdest of the bunch, and maybe our favorite, with just guitar unfurling a depressive minor key melody, while a deep vocal mumbles and murmurs, and the sound of what could be a knife being sharpened surfaces throughout, but there are strange unlikely bits all over the record, making it weird enough to keep it interesting, but not so weird that it doesn't remain true and grim and KVLT.
More teched-out uber-complex instru-metal madness from this celebrated math-metal unit, at last! Technically (and these guys are technical all right) this is only their 2nd full-length album, though they have released several densely-packed eps as well. But this is their first release in several years, following 2007's Skullgrid, about which we said: "chock full of their usual blazing fast fretboard acrobatics (on instruments with WAY more strings than most guitarists would want to contend with) and blasting superprogalistic complexpialidocious drumming."
Well, after all these years, things haven't changed much in the BTA camp, except that they have the infamous Weasel Walter (Flying Luttenbachers, Hatewave, Burmese, etc.) on drums now, making 'em even scarier! He's the newest crazed cog in the chaotic clockwork of this trio, also featuring guitarist Mike Lerner (Direwolf) and Warr guitar maestro Colin Marston (who is also a member of technical black metal maniacs Krallice, alongside Mick Barr).
So, slap this on, stand back, and prepare to be both blasted and boggled, via such dense, deathly, demented ditties as "Monolithic Destractions" and "Putrefucktion"... For fans of Electro Quarterstaff, Krallice, Melt-Banana, Meshuggah...
First lesson you learn from these guys: you don't mess around with something like nano-nucleonic cyborg summoning. Leave it to the pros. It's dangerous, but that's what they're paid to do. Paid handsomely, in fact, as this $14.98 cd turns out to be only 17 minutes and 38 seconds long. But again, start cutting costs and those nano-nuke cyborgs could just get loose and wreak havoc. But the only havoc being wreaked here is all by the Behold The Arctopus guys, whom it will be remembered last blew our prog-lovin' minds with the instrumental tech-metal tour-de-force of their Arctopocalypse Now...Warmageddon Later 3" cd. Now that they've graduated to the 5" cd format, you can only imagine how much more insane their music has gotten! These musical nerd-athletes will bring a gleeful smile to the face of anyone into the extremes of technical complexity practiced by, say, Meshuggah or Melt-Banana. Headspinning stuff, recommended to all who think that the Chapman Stick is the under-utilized lead instrument that most other metal bands are lacking, and that somebody should do something about it -- that somebody being Behold The Arctopus' Colin Martson (also of Infidel!/Castro?, who have a new double cd coming soon on Crucial Blast by the way). Those for whom straightforward, 4/4, less than triple digit bpm drumming is a problem will also happily approve of this.
So, again, sorry this is so relatively expensive for the length -- but for sure they do cram a fuck of a lot of music in those 1,058 seconds!!
In the time it takes to read this review, your head would have spun around about 1000 times if you'd been listening to this album, instead. It's the latest tour de force from hyper technical math metal geeks Behold The Arctopus, and it's chock full of their usual blazing fast fretboard acrobatics (on instruments with WAY more strings than most guitarists would want to contend with) and blasting superprogalistic complexpialidocious drumming. Imagine a jazz fusion band called Melt-Meshuggah, with Eddie Van Halen sitting in to shred, that's kinda what BTA is all about. Whew! We can really only stop and stare at the stereo when these boys get going, though they do let up for some post-rock atmospheric bits too at times. It's all instrumental, also as per usual, with song titles like "Canada", "Scepters", "You Are Number Six", and the sorta Champs-ily named "Some Mist".
Wherein these two bands try to outdo each other (and everyone else in the world) at being absolutely the most INSANE, frenzied, complex, technical-prog-metallic-masturbatory band ever. Good thing it's so short (two tracks, a little under nine minutes total for the disc) 'cause both bands (and listeners!) would be utterly exhausted if they went on any longer.
In one corner, you've got Behold The Arctopus from New York, who have wanky prog gizmo the Chapman Stick in their instrumental arsenal. In the other, from right here in San Francisco, guitarist Mick Barr's Orthrelm, and Mick don't need no stinkin' Stick. Well, get this and you can judge who is the winner.
Pretty clearly, fans of either or both bands need this for sure, and will additionally be tickled pink by the cool cover artwork, by none other than Voivod drummer Away (who's got an art book coming out on Troubleman sometime soon, we hear).
Second full length from these epic metal masters from LA. Their debut cd-r was a big hit with the metalheads around here (and we do have copies in stock), but for some reason never got around to reviewing them til now. But album number two is just as good. Fusing soaring epic true metal majesty with the lumbering bongsmoked doom of Sleep and Electric Wizard with the massive big arena riffing of Mastodon and the furious alcohol fueled metal of Motorhead and Venom. In fact, anyone who, like us, has been flipping out over the most recent record from Denver metalheads Speedwolf, might as well just add this to their cart right now, cuz this definitely pushes all the same buttons. Massive riffing, furious drumming, whiskey ravaged vokills, the songs heavy as fuck, catchy like crazy, this is the sort of classic headbanging shit they just don't seem to make anymore. Slipping easily from monstrous downtuned black doom crush, to NWOBHM style classic metal shreddery, to punked out metal pound, to Sabbathy stoner rock grooves, all somehow woven into a singular sound, one that we can NOT get enough of. For all the grim buzz and twisted damaged weirdness or filthy slo-mo sludge we obsess over, sometimes, when it comes to metal, real, true METAL is all you need.
Just check out the sprawling 3 part nearly 14 minute epic "Cast On The Black / Lamentor / Guided By The Southern Cross", that begins all melodic doom, with harmonized guitar melodies, and a churning downtuned trudge, before slipping into some clean guitar drift, a haunting bit of spaced out dirgery, that leads into a blast of metallic crunch, which unfolds as a super melodic doom, all clean guitar melodies wedded to woozy loping buzz and fierce shrieked vox, the vibe almost eighties metal, especially when the heaviness is dialed back, and it's all drums and clean guitar, soaring synths, it gets downright proggy and so epic, before slipping right back into some heaving classic doom heaviness, rife with some killer leads, and an old school style fade out. Fuck Yeah!
Just check out the samples, you'll be sold in no time!
Killer futuristic robot bird dragon warrior cover art too.
On the last list, we reviewed the latest cd-r from LA metal masters Behold! The Monolith, and as we mentioned in that review, we had already had this self-titled debut of theirs for a while, and had been digging it big time, before we got the new one. And since the new one was such a hit, we figured we oughta go back and list the one that started it all. Our thumbnail description from that other review still definitely applies, we reference Sleep and Mastodon, Electric Wizard and Venom, Motorhead, epic metal mastery and big arena riffing, doomy stonery sludge and classic thrash, this record if anything is a bit more raw that the follow up. Opener "Battlestagg" the first we'd ever heard from these guys, so still in some way it's the defining song, with its churning metallic crunch, the raspy vokills, the massive drum pummel, not to mention the middle stretch where the distorted bass takes on the melody all on its own before the band kick back in. That's right, amidst all this metal pound, the band kick out some serious melody, and hooks galore, in fact, that sensibility, combined with the thick guitar tone, definitely reminded us of sludge poppers Torche too, albeit not nearly as poppy, and WAY more thrashing and metallic.
"Battle For Balls Deep" is one of the two epics here, starting out with some misleadingly funky drumming, and some guitar scratch to match, the band soon explode into some dizzying mathiness and progged out heaviness that should have most weirdo metalheads in heaven, before the band launch right back into some serious Sabbathy dirgery, the track is all over the map, even slipping into some weirdly twangy country drift midway through, complete with some gorgeous sun dappled lapsteel, slowly building to what almost could be some sort of Mogwai / Godspeed slowbuild epic, before lumbering right back into some churning downtuned crunch, but managing to still retains some of that soaring melody and subtle poppiness, before finishing off with a wild psychedelic guitar freakout over a grinding churning metallic crush. The record finishes off with another epic, a 12 minute, three parter that starts out all post rocky, and deceivingly jangly, this record deviating from the group's metal core much more than the follow up, this song offering up long stretches of hooky sludge pop, of crunchy stoner metal pound, of woozy post rock lope, even some weirdly psychedelic wah wah guitar driven classical infused moodiness midway through, but with all that weirdness, they manage to sound heavy as fuck, the metal parts massive, and the whole sprawling dizzying multipart epic somehow falling together perfectly.
Needless to say, if you bought the more recent record, you're gonna want this one too. And this might actually be an even better place to start, the sort of metal record that just might drag nonmetalheads over to the dark side, and alternately, the sort of heaviness that just might convince metalheads, that there's more to music than metal.
Like the other record, totally bad ass fantasy cover art, this time some sort of axe wielding antler-ed gorilla riding a demon deer through a wall of hellfire. Fuck yeah!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Seattle doom duo Bell Witch have been lauded for being one of the heaviest doom outfits around, their sound achingly crushingly despondent, made all the more remarkable for the fact that they're just a duo of bass and drums. On the one hand, that makes sense, all low end, the perfect ingredients for dismal dirgery for sure, but the weird thing is, the most appealing part of this new record, and easily the most special, is the parts that are most definitely NOT metal at all. Not even not doom, we mean not METAL. On this, their debut full-length, the band have crafted an incredible hybrid of plodding miserablist ultra doom, and classic, minor key, slowcore, it's like Codeine crossed with Esoteric, or something.
Admittedly, the band do conjure up a pretty devastating sound, the bass super distorted and downright guitar like, churning and blown out, the drums a monstrous plod, the tracks laced with aching minor key melodies (also played on the bass we presume), the vocals an inhuman demonic rasp, perfectly suited to the group's death march trudge, but then, suddenly, the buzz and distortion peels away, leaving just a spare minimal rhythm, and soft warm chords, drifting in long expanses of soft focus shimmer, softly loping, a minor key slo-mo lament, made even more perfect by the clean crooned vox, emotional and heartfelt, hell, we probably would have dug this record just as much sans the crushing doom, but the two parts together, make this pretty spectacular.
"Rows (Of Endless Waves)" explodes right out of the gate, as a churning slab of downtuned extreme heaviness, bellowed howls, pounding drums, laced with demonic shrieks, the bass buzzing and blackened, but then suddenly, the sound begins to grow more melodic, even still in the heavy part, and then like the opener, the heaviness is gradually shed, and the song is reborn as a super spare stretch of haunting, softly strummed slow motion sad pop, sounding quite a bit like Low in fact, slightly heavier perhaps, but not much, and here, the heaviness creeps back in gradually, but without the track following, instead it seems to wrap its shadowy sonics around the dark dolorous sadcore, making it just that much darker and dolorous.
Almost the entirety of "Longing (The River Of Ash)", is spent in slowcore mode, the heaviness relegated to lazily crashing chords, but it's the sort of dark doom pop gem that could easily find its way on to some indie kids breakup mixtape. In fact in many ways, this is the kind of record that could very well open the doors to darker and heavier sounds.
For a heavy doom record, it's remarkable how much of the record is spent sounding not that heavy, or perhaps more 'emotionally' heavy, than sonically heavy. We'd almost classify this as some sort of slowcore/sadcore record with elements of doom, than the other way around. However you approach it, it's definitely one of the darkest, saddest, and most beautiful doom records we've heard in ages. Or if you'd rather, one of the doomiest, heaviest slowcore records. WAY recommended.
They had us at DOOM BAND, NO STRINGS. Just drums, sax, and TUBA. That's IT. FUCKING tuba and sax, seriously, no guitar, no bass, just two horns and a drum kit, and these guys kick up a sound that dwarfs plenty of bands with axes to spare. Bellows is the perfect name for these guys, cuz the lungs on these guys must be like bellows, the horns moan and howl, the sax especially, the lead instrument, is wrapped in effects, and essential lays down some wailing, FX drenched, leads, that squeal and howl, the bands lock into killer lurching groove, the tuba, letting loose with an elephant roar low end, the sax just as often laying down a weird sheet of hiss or washed out drone, sometimes so effected it sounds like some fucked up synthesizer. And the drums, heavy and chaotic and mathy, the band locked into lurching lumbering dirges, post rocky workouts, and full on noise rock freakouts. It's a little like a marching band gone over to the darkside, some sinister assembly held in the deepest recesses of hell. The vocals are also bellowed, distorted and growled, venomous and malevolent, giving the sound a distinctly nineties East Coast noise rock Cop Shoot Cop sort of vibe. There's always a groove, but it's typically a woozy doomic one, the drums driving the sound big time, but those horns are just insane, some of the sounds they get out of 'em, on "Haunts" it's all drums and tuba, while the sax unfurls a creepy minor key melody, over and over, so hypnotic, before the track breaks down, and the low end is transformed into what sounds like a choir of throat singers, while the sax bleats and trills, and the drums just bludgeon.
There are moments, where the sound borders on jazzy, it's sort of unavoidable, but we're talking face melting Brotzmann style jazz, and that jazziness is inevitably all filtered through some crusty, creepy, blown out super distorted space doom filter, that makes these guys sound absolutely like no one else, and just as often as it gets jazzy, it gets something else, "Story Of A Giant" is all spaced out and almost waltzy, and there's no way you could tell the instrumentation, the sax unfurling shimmery psychedelic clouds of tangled melody, the tuba a thick bass throb, all wrapped in a druggy haze, and on the record closer, "Half-Life", the sax is super processed and becomes some fractured angular noisemaking machine, leading the group into an extended drone-out, all long tones, chanted vocals, swirling effects, total psych drone trip out, before finally slipping into a woozy jazzy outro, and finally a crushing chugging closing burst of ultra distorted crunch.
Fuck yeah. Came close to making this a fourth Record Of The Week!
Live record from this Austrian black/death metal band. Featuring butchered babies and distorted Last Suppers on their album covers, Belphegor have been spitting out their brand of satanic black metal for three albums now, and this cd collects some of the best tracks from those records. Sharing some elements with the mighty Marduk and their countrymen Abigor, Belphegor are raw and blurry buzzsaw black metal, mostly lightspeed tempos with furious drumming and a wash of minor key anguish. Live, black metal seems to not hold up so well, but this recording is quite good, with just enough separation between the instruments to keep it from becoming a big distorted mess, and a brutal and intense performance to boot.
Third demonic blast from this Austrian black metal band, and easily their best. Takes the primitive buzzsaw blur of their earlier records a step forward, with better production, better songs, better playing and even more pictures of naked demon ladies,
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Latest in a long line of dopesmoke driven, Sabbath worshipping, downtuned stoner sludge heavies, these guys hail from Poland, and take their drug rock cues from all the usual suspects: Sleep (of course), Eyehategod, Electric Wizard, etc. It's all instrumental, so it's all about the riffs, and the riffs here are pretty goddamn great, dense, blackened, skull caving, slabs of thick, ugly, crumbling, distorted buzz and crunch, riding atop some of the sickest bass rumble around, the drums a Neanderthal pound driving the lurching dopesick creep, the slithery stoner swing and lumbering doomic plod laced with spidery melodies, and brief blasts of psychedelic wah wah guitars and woozy FX, the tempos are occasionally cranked up to a serious stonery groove, the band sounding like some lost Meteor City band, but Belzebong seem to always eventually slip back into a more woozy, warped, glacial tarpit trudge. The lack of vocals is made up for with some strange tripped out samples, and the tracks sprawl and ooze and stretch way out, to the point that they definitely seem less HEAVY, and more sort of tripped out and wasted... Definitely not reinventing the bong, but hell, folks who love their shit hard and heavy, low slung, blown out and burnt, this will definitely hit the spot.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Wow. Possibly the most fucked up, ridiculous black metal "band" ever, with their (his, actually, it's one guy) newest disc, some kind of pseudocerebral spacemetal epic with *amazing* songtitles like "Aurora of Despondence on Valles Marineris" and "Hermetically Leering As Frigid Blores Obumber" and "Sinister Demurral Estranged The Seductive Looming". Seemingly produced at home by someone probably not entirely familiar with how to work his four-track, and definitely struggling to operate his drum machine properly! Thus, so great that both Andee and Allan have purchased one. Also, recommended by Josh from the Champs.
THE RETURN OF POSSIBLY THE MOST RETARDED BLACK METAL BAND EVER!!! That may not sound like the ideal way to start a review that's goal is to convince you just how fucking crucial this record is. But then maybe you're not familiar with Benighted Leams or our absolute, possibly-misguided worship of their last two (sadly, out of print) records. Benighted Leams is another grim, cult, one man black metal band, but that's where any similarities end. Benighted Leams are so weird and so damaged and so completely fucked it boggles the mind. On past records, the rule of the day was utter chaos, levels would fluctuate EXTREMELY, with the vocals so high in the mix they threatened to blow your speakers, the drumming would wander from almost blast beats to clumsy midtempo stumbling, guitars were a murky muddy blackened beast, riffs smeared into fuzzy rooooaaaars and the whole thing a dizzingly nightmarish blackmetal soundscape and a completely baffling trip through the a dark musical minefield. We're happy to report that very little has changed. Could have something to do with the fact that the music on Ferln Centesms was composed 7+ years ago and the lyrics written over the past 4 years. Not that the lyrics matter all that much, as the vocals this time around are buried and totally indecipherable (enough so that a few people here thought it was instrumental). This is droning buzzing, stumbling mid tempo blackness. All the songs seem to almost follow some sort of template, a minute or two of blasting buzz, then a minute or two of hushed gurgling forestdrone, and then more buzzing. Very hypnotic and repetitive. And did we mention weird? The blurb we initially read about this new record compared it to Voivod and we must admit we were pretty skeptical. However, the songs are indeed surprisingly reminiscent of classic Voivod, jagged and complex, with convoluted song structures and weird arrangements. However, to be fair, it sounds much more like some random, slightly inept garage band covering Voivod's Dimension Hatross! So, to understand Benighted Leams, imagine the weirdest 4-track oustsider metal you've ever heard, mix in a stumbling, blackened Voivod, include song titles like "The Ormod Liss Of Transuranical Nortivagations" or "Sullen Slumber Of Swooning Gloom" and a record called Ferln Centesms, include gorgeous forest-y artwork and a band photo that appears to be Mr. Leams himself captured in mid stride, running through the snow, and strangely headless (?). Wow. We LOVE this band. Some (just some) of you might too...
Way back in 1999, the first time we ever heard them, we referred to Benighted Leams as "possibly the most retarded black metal band ever"! A level of dementedness and fucked up-ness by which all others would be measured. Leams mainman A.K. took umbrage, wondering why we would possibly describe his band that way, and how such a review could be expected to sell records?
Funny thing is, we sold tons and tons, Benighted Leams becoming THE sort of AQ black metal band. Gloriously damaged and demented, fucked up and oh so weird. Perhaps 'retarded' was not the ideal word choice, but we were trying to capture the essence of BL's then-sound, a sort of stumbling, struggling WTF black metal buzz. The drums were programmed and off time, often too loud, the guitars and vocals were alternately buried in the mix, and ear shreddingly loud. BUT! It was one of those perfect moments, where all of those various accidents and musical mistakes combined to create something vastly superior to its constituent parts. Still to this day, one of the greatest, weirdest, most inspired outsider bands EVER.
So here we are, almost 8 years, and a few Leams discs later, when we got word of a brand new Benighted Leams!!! Holy Shit were we excited!! A new Leams on the way. We had been hovering around the front door waiting for the mailman like kids at Christmas, when the day suddenly came and there was a big ol' package for us (and you!) from the UK, and inside we knew, lurked the new Leams!!
A lot has changed in the Benighted Leams camp -- no struggling damaged fucked up black metal stumble anymore, nope, the new Leams is thick and heavy, relentless, and HUGE sounding, like maybe it was recorded in a real studio, the guitars are massive and crunchy, the riffs killer and grim, the drums could still be programmed, but they sound much more organic, settled perfectly in the mix, a swirling, mostly midtempo blackness, with brief bursts of glorious blasting buzz. The vocals are buried, alternating with bits of found sound and purloined speeches. On first listen the untrained ear might not necessarily realize that this was Benighted Leams, but we know! There's no disguising the gloriously bizarre blackness that is Benighted leams. From the album title, Obombrid Welkins, to the song titles, "Kevin Macdonald's Theory Of Eurocentralism As A Group Evolution Strategy", "There Descends A Nauseating Dampness", "Alopaecia", to the strange but gorgeous design and layout, complete with a photo to accompany each track's lyrics (including a shot of a head obviously afflicted with "Alopaecia"), to the murky band photos (one half of BL is female apparently!), to the music! Drone drenched black metal, relentless and hypnotic, single riffs repeated over and over, simple and mournful and mesmerizing, minor key melodies tangled up in fuzzed out buzz, the vocals and samples making the songs sound ghostly and haunting.
Definitely not the weirdest Benighted Leams record, but possibly the best! As with all things Leams, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
Crushing political East Bay grind from the Bay Area's masters of blazing crustcore intensity. 32 tracks. Complex and heavy, right on lyrics addressing the sad state of world affairs, and as usual, a huge comprehensive list (with contacts) of all the cool bands and labels.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
West Coast vs. East Coast!! Grindcore tag team battle royale. Benumb offer up 3 tracks of grunted, growling metal/grind, with some cool strangely recorded sub-bass rumble (not sure if it's on purpose or not). The mighty Pig Destroyer spit out 7 tracks of pummelling, incredibly tight metallic grind, heavy and intense. Super distorted vocals and crushing riffs. Suypposedly them just fucking around, testing the equipment during the recording of their amazing 'Prowler...' record, but it sounds pretty serious to me. Even a blazing cover of the Dwarves' 'Fuck You Up And Get High.' 10 tracks in seven minutes. Fuck yeah!!
Hydra Head, the home to lots of AQ faves, from Isis to Pelican to Khanate, has gradually been dipping their toes into much blacker waters, reissuing the Heresi record in the US, and signing USBM hero Xasthur, and now offering up the latest full length from Sweden's melodic black metal weirdos Bergraven.
These guys are tough to describe. A deliriously unpredictable listen. Dodsvisioner is not thrashing blasting grimness, although it is grim in its own peculiar way. The tempos are mostly mid, the guitars soar and warble and rumble and emit damaged atonal melodies, more than they actually buzz. The vocals are appropriately raspy and demonic, but when they are draped across strange clean reverbed guitars, or weird circusy keyboards, or even -- stranger still for black metal -- pedal steel, they take on a whole different vibe.
The closest comparisons that come to mind are Lifelover and Katatonia, if you somehow mixed those two bands, Katatonia's moody melancholia, and Lifelover's strange off-kilter blackened pop sensibility, you'd be close, but the music of Bergraven is it's own dark weirdness entirely.
It's melodic for sure, but the melodies are strange, almost alien sounding. And the arrangements are full of space, whether it's stretches of ambience, or loping post rock, clean guitars and simple mathy drumming.
Everywhere there lurk strange haunting minor key chords, and when keyboards do join the fray, they're strange and almost new wave-y sounding. The main guitar parts are gnarled and detuned, often not distorted, but clean and reverbed, eventually giving way to some dense black chug but even then, a lot of the time they're drenched in whooshy chorus or shimmering delay. Often those bits sound a little like Joy Division, but on a malfunctioning turntable. Weird and woozy. Elsewhere the guitars get all 'blue' and moody and smoky and sound like they were purloined from some Chris Isaak tune. The vocals are hushed dramatic whispers as often as they are anguished howls. Bursts of double kick underpin loping darkwave jangle, beautiful post rock rhythms get all washed out and smeared with layers of indistinct blackness, there's so much going on, and so much of it is not at all metal, but manages to sound dark and black and intensely grim. A gloriously tangled blackened sonic web for sure.
This definitely pushes a lot of our 'fucked' metal buttons, as well as our demented black pop buttons (bet you didn't think we had those!) and the more we listen to it the further we get sucked into Bergraven's damaged metallic black pop universe...
After 2007's much lauded Dodsvisioner album, Sweden's Bergraven returns with another set of odd gothic-tinged post-rocking blackness. While the music of Bergraven definitely fits well within the realm of black metal with its overall mood and spirit, Till Makabert Vasen is a hard one to pin down. Things never get insanely over-the-top metal, at least not in a typical way, instead opting to create a decidedly eerie and disconcerting atmosphere with all the tension found in the build up. The instrumentation here seems to imply an expert awareness of restraint, and how effectively it can be used for achieving a certain uneasy feeling. Not that this bears any resemblance to the Doors, but think of "The Crystal Ship" to get an idea of how negative space can be used to create a powerful sense of focus without getting all aggro. The gruff vocals are upfront and strong, sounding pretty pissed, but as they are sung in Swedish we can only assume... But they are definitely very interesting, as black metal vocals are generally known for being shrieky or bellowing, often buried in the mix as just another part of the maelstrom. Here Bergraven mainman Par Gustafsson's voice retains a surprising clarity that you simply can't ignore. While the vocals never seem to get too frantic or out of control, they retain a forcefulness that, at the heart of it all, is pretty damn metal.
Another noteworthy aspect of Bergraven's approach is the seriously impressive musicianship and the overall song structures, which are just plain weird and quite unexpected. The guitars seem to have just as much to do with '90s indie rock heroes like Drive Like Jehu or Unwound as they do with black metal, while the Slinty rhythm section keeps things moving in a winding, snakelike manner with all sorts of mathy weirdness. The songs kind of swirl within their own self-contained world, never getting too expansive or wandering, but retaining a high degree of concentration. One is reminded at times of Lifelover, or even Deathspell Omega's weirder, jazzier moments from Fas, with sour, discordant guitar chords and plodding, sometimes sparse drumming helping to set the generally unwavering vibe that keeps this one flowing evenly.
Whatever it is that Bergraven sings about, one certainly detects a sense of isolation and loneliness. The artwork features strange images of an empty chair in a forest and a man, presumably Gustafsson, sitting in a cabin in front of a fireplace with his face blurred out, making it clear that you will never know too much about the mastermind behind the music.
With Dodsvisioner, everyone seemed a bit confused that Hydra Head was venturing into such dark waters, but to us, it makes total sense. That label has always championed a unique commingling of art and metal, and it is clear that Bergraven has no problems stepping outside the norms of its genre.
