[ aquarius records

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Only one of the most important debut albums in the history of rock and roll!!! Essential.

From the same label that brought us the amazing Vomit Orchestra discs comes this killer 3 way split, an exploration of black ambient, dark ritual, ambient drone music.... Up first is Black Seas Of Infinity from Salt Lake City. Having started life as a black metal band, they now find themselves, exploring a much more minimal dark ambient world of haunting melodies, mysterious vocals and muted industrial percussion. The first track is based around a mesmerizing melodic fragment, a bit of minor key melody that is looped hypnotically over a strange rhythm that sounds like someone trudging through snow or old brittle branches, while over the top, a slowed down, slightly distorted voice intones a strange litany, making the whole thing sound like some sort of liturgical rite. The next track is a dense martial soundscape of grinding industrial drones and distant distorted drumming, a simple militaristic march, like Wiseblood meets Death In June, before eventually transforming into a roiling wave of low end rumble and whir. BSOI's final track is a 12 minute epic, a series of haunting low end sonic occurrences, situated around a strange rhythm that sounds almost like the wheeze and clatter of an iron lung, the sounds around it constantly crumbling like the tape had decayed, very textural and creepy, like a more industrial Jeck or Tim Hecker almost... Next up Is Kaniba, who offer up their own creeping crawling blackness. A rumbling soundworld of thumps and bumps, distorted and wrapped in dense sheets of black buzz, there are rhythms, but they don't drive the music, instead they are small creatures that scurry amidst it's black folds. The second of the two tracks is much more spacious and possibly much more harrowing. What begins almost serenely quickly becomes a monstrous moaning living black shadow of sound. Listening is almost like cowering amidst the ruins as some unseeable shape soars above, it's shadow cloaking you in darkness every time it passes. A symphony of low end, almost sounding like an orchestra slooooooowed waaaaaaay dooooown, its epic fanfare twisted into a shapeless squirming blackened thing. Finally, the strangely named Ugegi Aoiveae A Ser wrap things up with a 16 minute drone coda. Much more minimal than the other contributors, but just as bleak and oppressive. A ringing harmonic shimmer slowly slips further and further into darkness, the high end peeling off like flayed skin, revealing a murky cloudy expanse of dark sound underneath. A slow moving swell, a static, barely shifting wall of sound, layers upon layer, like some hellish Phill Niblock composition. Ultra spare and quite intense. Plenty here for the drone obsessed, lovers of weird music, and all the black souls in need of dark musical mystery...

MPEG stream: To Receive The Perplexity Of The Soul Of Liberation
MPEG stream: When The Hurricane Comes
MPEG stream: Alignment In Opposition II

What the heck's up with Glasgow these days? Until recently, Glasgow was all sunshiney jangle pop and brooding epic post rock. Or so it seemed. Maybe we haven't been paying attention. Maybe it's been a while since we took a good hard look at the seedy underbelly of Glasgow's music scene, but something sinister is definitely going on over there, cuz all sorts of filthy, brutal, heavy, sick sounds are oozing across the sea and into our cowering frightened ears. Next list we'll probably be listing a record by another Glaswegian crew called De Salvo, who are scary as shit, and here we've got the latest from Black Sun. Black Sun is a bit of a name over there, but they're a new name to us, although it only took a few minutes of this filth for us to realize folks over here, especially the ones into massive dronedirgedeathcrush and slow motion ultra doooooom will likely be freaking out big time. Three tracks, all 'versions' of the same song, the first, 19+ minutes taking up the whole of side one, is all lurching downtuned lumber, squealing harmonics, all locked into step with the pounding drums, the vocals tortured and anguished and WAY up in the mix, the sound somewhere between Khanate, Eyehategod, and Neurosis. About halfway through the sound simmers down a bit, a low slung softly churning bass rumble, clean minor key guitar lines all spidery and skeletal, warm whirring keyboards, that eventually slip into a groove that sounds uncannily like a slowed down Three Mile Pilot. Clean crooned vocals, laid over the woozy rhythm, before exploding back into stuttering metallic stop start lurch, gradually growing more and more noisy and unhinged. The flip side takes the same track and jacks up the industrial vibe, way more low end crunch, a bit murkier and muddier, the vocals buried in the mix, little streaks of feedback peeking out from behind thick caustic slabs of rhythmic pound. Very reminiscent of Godflesh or Pitchshifter, relentless and machinelike, but wreathed in swirls of strange keyboards, and mysterious effects and all manner of fucked up guitar filigree. In some ways superior to the A side, at least to these ears. And finally, the second half of the B-side offers up the 'dub' version, which takes the more industrial version of "Paralyser" even further, the rhythm stripped down, the guitars processed and clipped, the vocals twisted and doused in effects, the arrangement all spaced out, the drums pounding one second, careening from speaker to speaker the next, the whole track actually is panned pretty hard, making headphones essential for experiencing the full dizzy drift. Definitely left us wanting more... Essential listening for the usual suspects. If your favorite sounds are most often described with the adjectives doomy, crumbling, blackened, pummeling, crushing, heavy, crusty, metallic, slow motion, glacial, filthy, then my friends, you should prepare to kneel in supplication, and stare directly into the Black Sun... LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, housed in a very Godflesh looking sleeve, with a heavy cardstock insert, liner notes on one side and strange bloody symbols on the other.

MPEG stream: Paralyser (Prison Of The Cross)
MPEG stream: Paralyser (Dub Mix)

It's been a while, more than a year in fact, since we last got a batch of TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA, but it's finally that time once again. We were beginning to jones pretty hard. For those of you who can't quite figure it out from the name of the genre, this stuff is black metal, and psychedelic, and most (if not all) of the bands hail from Sheffield in the UK. Beyond that, this stuff is pretty hard to describe, from blown out grinding blackened psychedelic post rock to chugging in-the-red blacknoise to glistening soft focus krautdrone to pounding distorted sludge to processed machinelike buzz and stutter, and we're not even just describing the genre, most of the bands somehow manage to incorporate all of those elements into one fractured fucked up and seriously and gloriously schizophrenic sound. We'd been waiting for a proper real cd (non cd-r) release from any of these guys, and while there have been rumors of a new Ice Bound Majesty full length on tUMULt (!), it was Black Vomit who were ultimately immortalized in aluminum and plastic first, thanks to those twisted freaks at Rusty Axe. But even by Rusty Axe's already freaky standards, Jungle Death is some seriously twisted avant heavy black weirdness. The sort of stuff that will have your standard black metal knuckle dragger scratching his head and reaching for the nearest Dimmu Borgir cd. The metal component of black vomit is a sort of metal that sounds like it was cooked up by Tim Hecker, Philip Jeck, Aidan Baker and Justin Broadrick would have conjured up in some underground lair, with no small amount of black magic. Guitars that roar and howl, piled on top of one another until they're so thick, they threaten to collapse your stereo speakers like miniature black holes, the riffs grind and buzz, blurred and smeared into huge heaving walls of blown out white hot sound, usually weirdly processed too, so buried beneath the roiling surface, lurk all manner of electronics and glitch and hiss and static. Sometimes the heaviness stumbles into streaks of sonic black tar, slowing the sound down into some blown out glacial trudge, and even then, it's no ordinary doom, the sound glistens and glows, it's heaviness more a function of staring into some alien sun, the beams of light transformed into sound, wrapping you in thick sheets of effulgent buzz and black hued shimmer. The various bits of skull crushing heaviness are balanced by some of the coolest drone and ambient music we've heard, from the rumbling, muted and melodic low end intro, that sounds like some creepy krautrock bassline slowed waaaaay down, to the glistening glitched out sun dappled shimmer of "Conderlint5", with it's mysterious alien voices and skittery crystalline textures, to the moaning lonely spidery guitar drift of "Last Cries Of The Lost". The record starts out damaged, and just gets more and more fucked and freaked out as it progresses, looped tribal drumming wreathed in swirling static, laced with strange samples, gives way to stuttering processed electronic grind, which slowly transforms into a sea of warped drones and Oval like glitches, all smoothed out into an undulating underwater soundscape, wrapped in jagged shards of distorted crunch and sonar like beeps. A brief bit of indie jangle, all minor key strum and sad lilting melody, explodes in a flurry of crumbling stumbling ultra distorted post rock pound, before slipping into some almost Pop Ambient sounding drift, only to again transform into some impossibly twisted bit of cinematic mood music, complete with haunting strings, and dubbed out drums, finally opening up into "Dark Beloved Cloud", the longest track on the record, all Burzumy and murky and buzzy and blackened, woozy and off kilter, with more processed vocals, tons of effects, long stretches of tripped out psychedelic minimalism, before the pounding D-beat climax, and then a soft focus shimmery fade out, which leads directly into the record closer, a warm warped swirl of deeeeeep thrum, and slow moving melodic murk, again shot through with echo drenched voices and bits of electronic twinkle and glimmer, fading out into nearly 5 minutes of near silence. Weird. But so fucking mind blowing. Totally wiping out any boundaries between drone music and black metal and ambient noise and electronic grind and whatever other fucked up sounds these freaks fuse into their totally genius and totally unique TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA!!

MPEG stream: A Premonition Of Inevitable Doom
MPEG stream: Deluge From Hell
MPEG stream: Vigilance Night
MPEG stream: Constdernt

These oddly monikered aQ faves return with a brand new full length, and return to the True Sheffield Black Psychedelia fold, aka their original label Frequency Thirteen, after a release on aQ beloved and now sadly defunct label Rusty Axe. And what a return! Like past records, Black Vomit's sound is one that's tough to pin down, an ever shifting tangle of blurred and blackened sound collage, blown out super rhythmic noise rock, field recording flecked spaced out psychedelia, they pretty much all apply at one point or another, and impossibly sometimes all at once. It takes a while for things to get rolling, a weird creeping noise drenched into, all strange samples and shimmery layered low end, all glitchy and warbly, then some Sunroof! style high end raga drone, then finally, a thick low slung bassline slithers into action, beneath a black cloud of growling croaked disembodied vox, and then finally, true to the track's title "Forbidden Dub", the various sounds peel off, leaving just a tripped out spaced out dub, everything wreathed in echo and reverb, the drums careening wildly through clouds of cymbal sizzle, more mysterious samples, moaning guitar melodies, it's like a way more grim and blackened version of Sun Araw almost, a bastardized dub, that is teetering on the edge of collapsing into full on doomy dirge. Which is where things seem to be heading until the next track, "Riding Below A Sky Threatening Snow To The Very End Of An Empty World", explodes into what quickly reveals itself as some sort of fucked up dubstep jam, but Black Vomitized, so the sounds are all blurred and tangled, chaotic and abstract, a thick bass warble holding everything together, while beats stutter and stagger, and all of the other sounds blown out and in the red, before the record switches gears once again, laying down a bit of shimmery abstraction, before an avalanche of super distorted drums come crashing through a field of swirling electronics, the whole thing like an IDM Lightning Bolt. And so it goes, every song something entirely different, yet somehow linked to the song before it, and to the whole, a twisted songsuite of beats and buzz, of low end rumble and caustic crunch, slipping from synth heavy shoegaze blur, to tripped out reverb heavy space rock jangle, from creepy almost John Carpenter-ish soundscapery to bleary minimal low slung creep, and from distorted sun dappled dreambuzz ambience, to a final 20 minute slab of abstract synth-squelch, blur-bliss shimmer. So good. SUPER DUPER LIMITED too, ONLY 40 COPIES!! we got 20 of those, which won't last long...

MPEG stream: Forbidden Dub
MPEG stream: Riding Below A Sky Threatening Snow To The Very End Of An Empty World
MPEG stream: The Loneliness Of A Rainy Dawn Enshrouded Me Quietly

More True Sheffield Black Psychedelia!!! Which is quickly becoming our new favorite microgenre. As the name implies, the sound is black metal, psychedelic, and of course from Sheffield in the UK. Although black and psychedelic only barely scratch the surface of what's going on with these discs. Post rock, blacknoize, krautrock, furious grind, blissed out ambience, hypnorock, all tangled up into fierce blasts of whatthefuck atmospheric heaviness. We've already listed amazing releases from Ice Bound Majesty, Skultroll and a split between Dukkha and Black Vomit (see the reviews on the AQ website for more on Treu Sheffield Black Psychedelia). And we were so smitten with Black Vomit, we figured we'd track down more from them. So here's another blast of Black Vomit, this time teamed up with the equally distastefully monickered Rape Rack. Black Vomit start things off with some haunting ambience, that quickly gives way to some crusty fuzzy drone, eventually erupting into some fuzzed out metallic groove, which transforms into some grunting psych power violence, the programmed drums occasionally shorting out DHR style, a blur of garage fuzz pound, murky blackness, and relentless hyperspeed krautrock. After a brief bit of ambience, the band kick out the jams on a super space-y, hyper processed Circle-style jam. Hypnotic, and relentless, the riff wrapped in FX, the drums slipping from motorik pulse to furious blast and back again, over the top, harsh howled demon vox, a weird washed out blackened krautrock, that after another brief bit of drone tranquility explodes into some straight up black buzz. Awesome. Black Vomit are like Immortal's Blizzard Beasts crossed with Circle's Zopalki. We definitely need a full length from these guys. Rape Rack offer up their own take on black psychedelia, eschewing drums completely, for some intense textural black ambience, rough and gritty, hissy and crumbling, distorted and buzzing, melodies falling to pieces, being sucked under corrosive drones, the 16 minute epic that finishes things off, is smoother than all that, glistening shimmering cavernous expanses of digital buzz smeared into soft streaks of shadowy grey streaks. Not sure about the last track, it's definitely too heavy and fucked up to be Rape Rack, maybe it's the two bands together, but it's a killer, furious lightspeed buzz, processed and heavily effected, the vocals deranged and over the top, huge echo-y bellows howling in clouds of reverb and delay, threatening to drown out the din below. A furious black coda, that leaves us wanting WAY more.

MPEG stream: Dripping Red
MPEG stream: Witchtrial
MPEG stream: Gorgon

We've long been huge fans of experimental, outsider, bedroom, black metal outfit Have A Nice Life, so much so, that at one point, Andee was gonna release one of their records on tUMULt. Since then, the world has seemingly caught up, and caught on to the twisted genius of Dan Barrett's Have A Nice Life, and in the process, have also begun to discover the various other projects Barrett somehow finds time to mastermind. One of which, this record right here, might be our favorite so far. Not entirely removed sonically from Have A Nice Life, but at the same time something completely different. Apparently inspired by a recent illness, and the surrounding machines that barraged Barrett with various beeps and bleeps and tones, Black Wing is not even remotely metal, although it is dark, an it's not difficult to draw a line back to Have A Nice Life, but essentially, Black Wing traffics in a sort of gloomy electro pop, a downer darkwave that seems to be equal parts post punk, and new wave, but filtered through Barrett's cracked sonic aesthetic. The resulting record is a moody collection of droned out, minor key jams, built from cascades of sequenced synths, and primitive drum programming, all wrapped in a blurry, psychedelic song fug, and all in service of plaintive, echo-drenched vox, drifting way down in the mix. But don't get the idea that this is some straight up bummer rock, just check out "Luther", which sort of lopes and lumbers, until a second synth comes in and unfurls a gloriously melodic, and nearly sun dappled sounding melody, reminding us of a happier Cure, and when the vocals build into a lush chorale, this could almost be some outsider indie rock. The whole record is rife with those sorts of sonic surprises, the eighties production, the booming reverberant drums, the tones and drones, the buzz and shimmer that seems to underpin all the tracks, and the vocals, lilting, plaintive, a little bid sad boy indie sounding, but that's kind of what makes Black Wing so cool. It's indie pop doused in industrial crunch, a little bit burnished and blackened, but a crazy catchy melody, or sweetly swoonsome vocal hook is never far away, and really almost every track eventually blossoms into something impossibly pretty. "Black Wing" sounds like a home brewed, lo-fi, industrial-wave Postal Service, while "My Body Betrayed Me" sound like it could be some weird eighties reissue on Medical Records. While there are a few moments of twisted heaviness, the rest of the record plays out way more like some lost eighties synth pop record, albeit with extra fuzz and grit, especially the last track, which has an almost dance-y vibe, but one that is balanced by the strange harmony group vox, and a dense swirl of softly psychedelic noise. So good! Includes a download code as well.

MPEG stream: My Body Betrayed Me
MPEG stream: Unemployed

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

MPEG stream: Baphomet
MPEG stream: Under The Spell Of Black Moors

This is the stuff!!! Pure, grim, cult, frosty, necro, dirge-y, buzzing, midtempo, Burzumic and Mayhemic black metal from Russia! No keyboards, or corpse paint, or even long hair for that matter! Just simple, brutal, stripped down TRUE black metal. Swarming guitars, pounding drums, and anguished, tortured vocals (ala SF black metal legends Weakling) make up this nihilistic hellbrew of cacophonous brutality. Blackdeath are the brilliantly monickered duo of Para Bellum and Abysslooker, and Fucking Fullmoon Foundation will surely sate your unquenchable thirst for primitive grimness.

MPEG stream: Das Kriechende Chaos
MPEG stream: Unholy Church

The return of grim Russian black metal horde Blackdeath, the awesomely monickered brotherly duo of Abysslooker and Para Bellum, now joined by the much more simply named Maya, for this their most recent blast of glorious blackness. And glorious it is, and as fucked up and fantastically off kilter as past outings, the buzzing guitars in full effect, but the new drummer definitely pushing the sound into new and exciting directions. Intricate, and lush, but also raw and furious and weirdly prog, in fact, the vocals have always been super strange in Blackdeath, and this time around they're strange in a whole different way, loud, and dramatic, and crooned, way up in the mix, almost over the top, to the point that it almost sounds how we might imagine a black metal Circle might sound, the same sort of theatricality, proggy and operatic, a little bit like a black metal cabaret, and the music suits the new singing, not so frantic and frenzied as woozy and gnarled and twisted and atonal and abstract, the sound slipping from more traditional black buzz to this new tangled black squall, laced with organ, bits of warped ambience, surprisingly melodic leads, lumbering doomic plods rife with weird psychedelic spidery guitars, but still for the most part fuzzy and blackened and furious, blurred blasting, but the vibe completely altered by those incredible vocals. A little off putting for some most likely, but folks who like their black metal a bit bizarre, this batch of epic blasting black buzzery definitely fits the bill.

MPEG stream: Licht Ist Mein Tod
MPEG stream: Besessenheit Die Ich Brauche
MPEG stream: Die Verzweiflung Der Letzten Folter

Phobos is the 7th full length since 2001 from these Russian black metallers, who most folks probably know from their split with Leviathan, or longtime aQ list readers probably remember that Blackdeath feature two of our favorite named black metal musicians, Abysslooker and Para Bellum, not to mention that they also happen to have one of the few female drummers in black metal. And while in the early days, BD trafficked in super raw, grim black buzz, over the last few records, their sound has gotten weirder and weirder, coinciding seemingly with a sudden shift to the German language (which seemed odd for a Russian band). When we reviewed the last BD record, we mentioned that some of the parts sounded how we imagined a black metal Circle might sound, as well as pointing out the strange vocals, and the proggy arrangements, all of which are still present, in fact, if anything, the vocals have gotten even stranger, and the group's avant tendencies have definitely come to define their sound. The opener definitely hews closer to the classic Blackdeath grimnity of old, but as the song unfolds, it reveals itself to be a strangely technical, gnarled loopscape, with the main riff extremely cyclical, the sound churning and roiling, almost sing songy, which is accentuated when the leads come in, and follow along with the almost robotic riffing. And then the vocals go from black metal shriek, to dramatically howled, complete with lots of trilled 'r's, sounding, again, not unlike Mika from Circle, just way more metal. But the vibe is over the top, buzzy and black, but also twisted and a little avant. Which is actually how much of the rest of the record plays out, a sort of proggy black buzz, each track locked around a single riff, repeated trancelike, and more often than not, at some point splintering into something dizzyingly intricate, or warped and jagged. Unlike most bands whose weirdness stems from strange sounds, or unlikely sonic elements, the strangeness of Blackdeath is purely musical, working within a fairly well established set of sounds and tropes, they manage to twist those sounds all up, and arrange them in ways that are confusing, confounding, and manage to push both our grim black metal buttons, and our what the fuck, outsider black weirdness buttons at the same time. A rarity for sure. And while we could go through the record song by song, part by part, pointing out twisted little psychedelic filigrees here, damaged rhythms there, or the various warped textures, dizzying black prog arrangements, and super trippy melodies, that stuff is so well integrated, that it wouldn't make sense. It's quite a feat too, making all that weirdness sound like an inexorable part of the sound, all without taking ANYthing away from the pure grim black energy that oozes from pretty much every note here. Still one of our favorite black metal outfits around...

MPEG stream: Der Letzte Untergang
MPEG stream: Also Sprach Schopfer-Psychopath
MPEG stream: Lucifer Rising

MPEG stream: Satan Macht Mich Frei
MPEG stream: Unter Der Schwarzsonne

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. While we're waiting to get restocked on the cd version of this killer split (in the next week or two!), which flew out of here after our last list, we managed to get 30 copies of the picture disc vinyl version. Unfortunately that's all we're ever gonna get, so as always, act fast! Hard to know what to say about Leviathan that we haven't said already. Quite possibly the most innovative outfit in black metal today. The man behind Leviathan, Wrest, has taken traditional black metal and turned it into something new and strange and completely out there, while somehow remaining totally grim and true to the black metal tradition. Here, he is teamed up with Russian black metal group Blackdeath, who specialize in extremely primitive buzzy and blurry black metal a la Burzum, Darkthrone and the like. The most remarkable thing about Blackdeath besides their simple droning fuzzed out riffs, and frosty atmosphere, is the vocals, a weird raspy warble, that slips from black metal shriek to weirdly anguished falsetto, reminding us a lot of SF BM legends Weakling. And the guitars are so thick and buzzy and blown out that you almost can't hear the drums, which lends the whole thing a super hypnotic drone quality that we LOVE. As if playing off of Blackdeath's primitive grimness, Leviathan hits right back with four tracks of his own full on grim buzz, but as with everything he does, no matter how true and grim the sound is, no matter how blasting the drums or buzzing the guitars are, there is always lots of stuff going on beneath the surface, or in the arrangements, not always easy to explain, just this intangible something that makes Leviathan's sound so unique and so much creepier and intense. Minor key melodies, weird stretches of industrial ambience, strangely affected vocals, haunting drones and bizarre soundscapes, all woven into the already twisted framework of Leviathan's uniquely hellish black metal. WE WERE ONLY ABLE TO GET 25 COPIES. ONCE THEY ARE GONE, THEY ARE GONE FOR GOOD!!!

MPEG stream: Der Absolute Bose
MPEG stream: Derision

This Canadian doom-psych-prog-metal band's 2008 debut was a big fave 'round here, we likened their female-fronted n' flutey, Hammond organ driven occult heaviness to "Electric Wizard given a medieval, madrigal makeover" and compared 'em to a hypothetical Atomic Rooster + Jacula + Jex Thoth hybrid. So, stoked are we to announce the arrival of a brand new Blood Ceremony, still damp and crimson, and damn good! There's a few ways, we figure, a band like this could go: get darker and more extreme metal (a la Wooden Stake), or lighten up and develop more in their prog direction (we could imagine 'em sounding something like Curved Air in that case). Or, of course, they could provide more of the same, which would elicit no complaints from us. And that's what Blood Ceremony pretty much opted for, this album coming off like a continuation / perfection of their debut, nine more songs of vintage '70s sounding, witchy rockarolla. With plenty of rollicking Hammond organ and swinging retro riffery, they deliver the progged-out proto-metal goods like it's 1971 and they've just come from getting stoned with their groovy coven. Complete with a flute happy instrumental ("The Hermit"). And definitely, with a lot hinging on the dramatic, stagey, sometimes soft, sometimes soaring, vocals of Alia O'Brien. Again, VERY much in the vein of Jex Thoth. O'Brien and Blood Ceremony are almost the Burning Saviours to Jex Thoth's Witchcraft, if you follow that doom-nerd analogy. Another would be Black Sabbath with a sex change, and Deep Purple or Uriah Heep's keyboards hired on... as Sabbath's actual keyboardy stuff, courtesy caped wonder Rick Wakeman on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath ferinstance, was a lot more "synthy" sounding than the classic Hammond vibe heard here, played in kick ass fashion by O'Brien by the way, a triple threat talent who's also the band's flautist, flaunting it indeed, what would they do without her? Not that the guitarist, for one, doesn't get to shine as well, in the riff department, and dueling leads with the organ, like during the swirling, surging tour de force of the epic "Oliver Haddo" (the album's second longest song, not quite beating out the 10 minute plus closer, "Daughter Of The Sun", another extended, involved rite, all right). This time, produced by Sanford Parker (Pelican, Yob, Zoroaster, Samothrace, The Gates Of Slumber, etc.), which perhaps accounts for some of the added thickness/heaviness we sense here, though the debut was heavy too. He also supplies some Moog. This disc's too-dark cover photo of the band is about the only disappointment, whereas the cover painting for their first album, by fantasy artist George Barr, was something to look at. But for listening, this is indeed the answer to your prayers to the Great God Pan. So good, we simply can't get enough of this, and if you too are truly in the mood for some beauteous and bombastic, rockin' pagan prog heaviness, then it's time to begin Living With The Ancients!

MPEG stream: Coven Tree
MPEG stream: My Demon Brother
MPEG stream: Oliver Haddo

Come, come to the sabbat!! It is now upon us, The Eldritch Dark, album number 3 from one of our top favorites amongst the burgeoning new wave of female fronted occult rock bands, Toronto's Blood Ceremony. And there's a LOT of good bands in that "scene", a bunch of 'em on the same label(s), Rise Above/Metal Blade. Blood Ceremony are a bit heavier than their UK compatriots/competition, Purson, reviewed last list, but a heck of a lot more folky and Comus-y than The Devil's Blood (RIP - that band's final release comes out next week). While vocalist/flautist/keyboard player/witchy woman Alia O'Brien is once again the star of the show, there are evocative male vocals on here too, from bassist Lucas Gadke, first noticeable on track 3, the semi-acoustic "Lord Summerisle" - that's right, a reference to the Wicker Man movie there, hardly a surprise, considering their inspirations. All the songs are about black masses, dark woods and witchery, dontcha know. And capture a '70s Britfolk, Wicker Man vibe for sure, being both catchy and atmospheric, total progged-out pagan hoedown material, full of not just flute but fiddle too. Plus synth and Hammer Horror organ as well, and of course some seriously doomy guitar riffage, that you can dance a reel too (but you'll halfway expect to get a sacrificial dagger in your heart at some point in the fun). Obviously recommended without reservation to fans of the aforementioned bands, also Jex Thoth, Jess And The Ancient Ones, and their non-female fronted psych-folk-doom godfathers Pagan Altar. We should also mention Jethro Tull and Black Sabbath here just to be complete!

MPEG stream: Witchwood
MPEG stream: Ballad Of The Weird Sisters
MPEG stream: The Eldritch Dark

Been looking forward to this one! The debut album from this seemingly time-lost Toronto band, the latest in the current spate of retro-proto-doom-metal bubbling up from the underground. All the heavy '70s Sabbath/Pentagram riffs -and- occult vibe of a band like Witchcraft, with soaring female vox and a thick coating of vintage Hammond organ, spooky and bombastic. It's an equation along the lines of Atomic Rooster + Jacula + Jex Thoth, maybe. Yeah, we're down with this. And that's just after hearing the first song. Then track two kicks in with some proggy flute! With LOTS more flute to follow on the rest of this album. So now they've added some Jethro Tull to the mix... Black Widow, Uriah Heep, Rainbow, and a mess of other more obscure '70s acts could also be cited as references too, along with the much more recent likes of the aforementioned Witchcraft and Jex Thoth. Now, if you hate Jex Thoth's singing, you might have a similarly tough time with Blood Ceremony, but we found that the lady here isn't quite as polarizing a proposition. And it's her dramatic vocals that gives Blood Ceremony their special sound, along with her flute playing. She's also the organist. But let's not forget the guitars... it's tough not to grow your hair long and sprout bellbottoms when exposed to these lumbering, loping riffs, all of 'em seemingly from the school of Sleep's Sabbathier-than-thou classic "Dragonaut"! Or imagine Electric Wizard given a medieval, madrigal makeover. And the lyrics... "I see witches in the sky, flying toward the quaalude eye"?? Ok. These guys and gal are definitely "smoking black drugs from Satan's bong" (I think that's what they said). Speaking of witchcraft, the dark arts of pagan ritual are of course Blood Ceremony's main subject matter, on tracks like "Into The Coven". The grooviest black mass we've attended in a while, right here. After spinning this for a while, if you find toads hopping about near your stereo, we wouldn't be surprised...

MPEG stream: Master Of Confusion
MPEG stream: I'm Coming With You

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

Blood Cult are as far as we know, the only purveyors of Redneck Black Metal around, or maybe more accurately the only ones who admit to it. And Blood Cult are damn proud of being BM rednecks, as their apparent theme song "Redneck Black Metal" proves (oh, and it's printed in huge letters along the spine of the cd!). This is the first proper release from this Illinois horde after a slew of cd-r, cassettes and demos. Definitely their best -sounding- record by a long shot, equal parts splatter rock, crossover, early black metal, NWOBHM, and thrash. Think Venom, D.R.I., the Accused -- primitive and thrashy, noisy and chaotic, with some killer riffs n' some splattery chaotic drumming. They're definitely a little tongue in cheek for sure with some of the lyrics and song titles ("The Moweaqua Coal Mine Disaster", "Cheap Guitars", "Illinoisan Thunder", etc.). This boasts some killer catoony artwork too, from the same label that brought us Enbilulugugal!!

MPEG stream: The Moweaqua Coal Mine Disaster
MPEG stream: Redneck Black Metal

Never much cared for Blood Duster. Sort of a bad joke turned into a band. And not a whole lot has changed. Fairly generic grind, with occasional groovy '70s metal bits thrown in with lots of stupid between song samples. A look at the song titles should tell

We first heard from Blood Escutcheon, aka Thaniel Lee, on a recent split cassette with weirdo black metal aQ faves Cloak Of Displacement, BE's modus operandi then was a blurred and blackened soundscape of blacknoise and grimdrone, which seems to continue here, with Lee weaving epic expanses of feedback wreathed low end thrum, big billows of metallic buzz drifting through abject, almost industrial wastescapes, like a more metallic Wolf Eyes, the same sort of post apocalyptic, blackened skies, end of days sonic vibe. But like the split, just strap on some headphones and sink into the abyss, and the whirring vacuum cleaner like buzz blossoms upon closer inspection, the sounds softening, the edges blurring, the sound much prettier, and warmer than on first listen. A softly roiling world of layered tones and swirling overtones, of buried melodies and constantly shifting textures, it's noise, but soft noise, dreamlike noise, the sort of noise that lulls and mesmerizes, a hypnotic sprawl of otherworldly soft focus dreamlike chaotic drift, that in some realms would be the perfect music to sleep to. A gorgeously gauzy stretch of grim black mesmer, that should appeal to dronelords as much as metalheads. LIMITED TO ONLY 20 COPIES!!!! We have 15 of those! Each one is hand numbered, and housed in a hand spraypainted sleeve, with a photocopied insert.

MPEG stream: Excerpt

Appropriately enuff, back from the dead it would seem. Bear witness to the long, long awaited return of psychedelic doomsters the Blood Farmers! After almost twenty years, the cult is alive. Still unhealthily obsessed with Z-grade schlock horror films - we'd love to dig into the the insane VHS collection we figure these guys must have - this NYC stoner/sludge/doom trio hit us here with only their second proper full-length album since their self-titled debut from 1995! (There's been just one other Blood Farmers cd, Permanent Brain Damage, previously reviewed by us, containing an earlier demo + live tracks). It's been worth the wait, for those of us who love fuzzed-out downer psych trudgery with oodles of heavier-than-thou atmosphere, yep. Not much has changed over the years, Blood Farmers still sounding beholden to Black Sabbath, Saint Vitus, and that aforementioned vintage VHS collection - this album's title track, ferinstance, is inspired by the 1971 film The Headless Eyes, about a one-eyed, eye-gouging serial killer/artist. Fans of some bands that have become popular more recently, like Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, definitely ought to check this out, they'll appreciate the synthesis of '70s exploitation cinema subject matter and Sabbatherian riffery that Blood Farmers dish out here. Part psych, part metal, it's a stripped down, garagey, lumberingly groovy sort of sound they have, embellished with some sinister synths, and the use of samples from the old movies they reference. Imagine The Heads, jamming with Electric Wizard. Or early Monster Magnet, but much more doom, with a huge horror vibe. There's plenty in the way of moody, spaced/nodded out, almost-ambient interludes betwixt the more punishing fare, lots of this largely instrumental - however, the deep voiced holler of singer Eli Brown (often treated with underwatery FX) is definitely heard from, alongside the slo-mo six-string wizardry of guitarist Dave "Depraved" Szulkin, whose blown out riffs and acid rock leads have a hypnotic effect, abetted by the thumping rhythms of drummer Tad Leger (formerly of '80s technical thrashers Toxik, not that that has much to do with anything you'll hear here, nor does the further trivia that he also played with The Great Kat too at one time). Blood Farmers do an amazing job of creating a heavy MOOD as well as making heavy sounds, a mood in keeping with their cinematic inspirations, but actually much more affecting and less ridiculously kitschy than a lot of those low-budget movies actually are. Speaking of mood, one of our favorite tracks here is the final one, an especially doomed-out cover of a beautiful song called "The Road Leads To Nowhere" from the David Hess soundtrack to The Last House On The Left (the vinyl reissue of which was reviewed by us not loo long ago). It's real nice, taking that song and turning it (after an acoustic guitar intro) into a heavy rock track, quite different from the original, but retaining the melodiousness of it, Eli's vocals also more restrained and melodious here as well. We're really digging that song, and the rest of this, A LOT, and just hope they don't take another 19 years to make their next album! FYI, vinyl folks, an lp version is planned for release on the Patac label in the (hopefully) near future...

MPEG stream: Headless Eyes
MPEG stream: The Creeper
MPEG stream: The Road Leads To Nowhere

Doom! Not just doom...but maybe the best doomy release of the year, sez Allan...and it's a reissue. Of a demo tape, no less. NewYork's Blood Farmers (now defunct) recorded one self-titled album in 1995 for the (also now defunct) German label Hellhound, who are not to be confused with the Japanese label Leafhound responsible for this release. The Hellhound album was an obscure, now-out-of-print, but seriously heavy and deranged slice of doom-adelica in the vein of the masters Black Sabbath and especially Saint Vitus. But it turns out that the Blood Farmer's 1992 demo was easily as good if not better than their actual album (and has only one cut in common, "Bullet In My Head", which is a very different version here). Heads up, heads -- this starts with the 14 minute long psychedelic doom opus "Behind The Brown Door" ends with another 14+ minute epic "Deathmaster", a suite in five parts. Extended fuzz-wah terror ensues throughout those epics and all over the album as a whole, with guitarist Dave Depraved's soloing brilliantly channelling the heavy trippiness of Vitus' Dave Chandler. There's also more more concise rockers here like the aforementioned "Bullet In My Head" and "St. Chibes". Basically, imagine The Heads jamming with Vitus or Church Of Misery. Regarding the latter, the Blood Farmers share the same serial-killer obsession as do those Japanese doom freaks, but theirs is really more about the fiction films about the serial killers than the killers themselves. In addition to the original demo tracks, which are remixed and remastered, there's also a live bonus track from '96, itself followed by a hidden bonus track of ambient music/sound fx, accompanying a monologue, all doubtless lifted from one of the Blood Farmer's fave horror flicks. So if you'd like a severe dose of acid-sludge rock, look no further!

MPEG stream: Behind The Brown Door
MPEG stream: Bullet In My Head

On our last list, we celebrated the return of this cult horror-obsessed heavy psychedelic doom unit, with their brand new album, Headless Eyes, which, believe it or not, was the Blood Farmers' first album since their self-titled 1995 debut! A long wait, but worth it, for all fans of moody, garagey, fuzzed out doomadelica. We'd never reviewed that self-titled album, originally issued by Germany's now defunct Hellhound label. But when we got Headless Eyes direct from the band, we found they still had copies of the debut available, too - a cd reissue done a few years back by Japan's also-now-defunct Leaf Hound label. So we figured, heck if folks liked Headless Eyes so much (which they did, we had to restock) let's get some of their first cd too, to list - and here it is. You'll find that the Blood Farmers' sound is pretty similar on both albums, despite the nearly twenty years between 'em. The same core members are doing their thing - guitarist Dave Depraved kicks out the Sabbathy riffage and unwinds FX-laden, spindly acid rock leads, very much under the influence of Dave Chandler & Saint Vitus (and tons of '60s/'70s heavy rock obscurities), while vocalist Eli Brown bellows trippy tales of terror derived from a lifetime of watching '70s horror/exploitation cinema (the band is named after such a B-movie, Invasion Of The Blood Farmers, from '72, a film so low-budget the actors were paid with six-packs of beer). That's the Blood Farmers formula, basically, and it works darn well, making for a good mix of psychedelic atmosphere and heavy, headbanging catchiness. Anyone (like us) who thought Headless Eyes was killer will find this disc very enjoyable too, and vice versa. It provides more riffs, more fuzz, more horror, more cowbell! And stick around for the lovely acoustic instrumental coda at the end, "After The Harvest".

MPEG stream: Albino
MPEG stream: Bullet In The Head
MPEG stream: Twisted Brain (Part 2)

Some stoner doom rockin' from the usually reliable Invada label (run by one of the guys from Portishead, oddly enough). But sadly, this one brings Invada's batting average down, not living up to the likes of The Heads, Atavist, Brain Donor, etc. Mainly, 'cause oooh crickey the vocals are rough. Lines like "It's time for you to taste my wrath...oh yeah!" look better on paper than they sound coming from the totally "chainwallet" style singer. Plus some stilted singsongy almost rappy rhymes, no thanks. This would be way better if dude didn't sing. Hope he's also the guitar player or something, otherwise there's no excuse. Sorry.

MPEG stream: I Am The King
MPEG stream: For The Sake Of Clarity

Ukrainian black metallers Blood Of Kingu continue down the lefthand path, as their sound continues to move ever further from their earlier folk flecked roots, and if anything this latest one might be the best, and weirdest of the bunch so far, the new sound darker, and more denser, seemingly more raw and minimal the production too, lo-fi, but not shitty BM lo-fi, instead, all the sounds blur and bleed and ooze like some huge squirming slithering hell borne entity. But it's not just buzzing and blasting, although there is of course plenty of that, there's also some weirdly majestic percussion, just check out the opener, which seems locked into some seriously mesmerizing black buzz murk, even the vocals, are closer to a monstrous death metal cookie monster bellow, but all of those sound, when combined with the production, transform into some twisted dizzying psychedelic blackness, that at one point, explodes into something surprisingly (and subtly) melodic, complete with bombastic percussion booming in the background, while the guitars wind around each other into epic trills, and there even seems to be some buried shred, and then again, the song switches gears, and somehow gets faster and more furious, relentless and mesmerizing. Some of the coolest, weirdest, most original black buzz we've heard in ages. And fear not, they haven't ditched their obsession with Sumerian and Egyptian mythology, nor have they totally abandoned the folky interludes, but you'll be hard pressed to think of any of that stuff once you're immersed in BoK's fucked up outsider black metal soundworld. Check out the second track, beginning with some haunting folkiness, but soon explodes into some seriously intense buzz, but when the vocals come in, they're a weird sort of choral croon just below the surface, and then later on, most of the buzz is peeled back, leaving but booming percussion, paired with relentless double kick drumming, some moaning guitar melody, and minimal vokills, it's crazy effective and evokes the creepiest of atmospheres, before swooping right back into it. Holy shit. We had forgotten how much we love Blood Of Kingu, and yeah, sure we love Drudkh, and Hateforest, and Lucifugum and Kladovest, and Astrofaes, and all the other bands these guys have played in, but Blood Of Kingu just might be the coolest, and the weirdest. And this record just might be our favorite so far...

MPEG stream: Crowned Scarlet Moon Is Waiting for Eclipse
MPEG stream: He Who Is Not To Be Named
MPEG stream: Mother Hydra

It's been a while since we heard from Ukrainian black metallers Drudkh (and all of their albums seem to be currently out of print sad to say) or ambient side project Dark Ages (and of course Hate Forest, another band featuring the same members has been split up since 2005). So what has Drudkh mainman Roman Saenko been up to for the last little while? Why crafting an epic black metal album based around Sumerian and Ancient Egyptian mythology and histry of course! And this is it. Blood Of Kingu, a swirling blackened blast of buzzing guitars, blasting drums, buried vocals, soaring melodies, and the occasional traditional folk interlude. The root sound is not that far removed from older Drudkh or Hate Forest, but imagine that sound a bit more lo-fi, a little more drenched in buzz, the riffing more looped and cyclical, the mood more majestic and epic, and you'll get an idea of the Blood Of Kingu sound. Each track is a drone drenched slab of relentless riffery, furious and lightning fast, the drums careening chaotically beneath a thick layered wall of frenzied buzz, the vocals chanted and almost like throat singing, super low in the mix, giving the proceedings a sort of ritualistic vibe, with each song made up of only really one or two parts, creating a super tense, ultra hypnotic black metal mesmer, with the guitars swirling occasionally into gorgeous surprisingly melodic harmonies, while below, the track continues to churn and thrash violently. Fans of Drudkh and Hate Forest and other Ukrainian black hordes absolutely need this, as do folks who love their black metal drone-y and hypnotic and trancelike.

MPEG stream: Your Blood, Nubia! Your Power, Egypt!
MPEG stream: Mummu Tiamat
MPEG stream: Stronghold Of Megaliths, Thorns And Human Bones

Record number two from this Ukrainian black metal horde, fronted by Roman Saenko, who plays or played in some other bands you might be familiar with, Hate Forest, Drudkh, Dark Ages, Lucifugum, and featuring members of Kladovest, Astrofaes, Lutomysl, Definition Sane, it's like pretty much the whole Ukrainian scene is represented here. But Blood Of Kingu is definitely Saenko's baby, a seething, blasting, filthy, hateful black metal baby at that. Still focused thematically on Sumerian, Egyptian, Tibetan and Indo-Aryan mythologies, the big change this time around is sonic, a way heavier production, as well as more metal and less folky interludes. The first record, De Occulta Philosophia, was marked by ambient breaks between most of the tracks, rhythmic and abstract, folky and moody, a method that seemed more about atmosphere and vibe than sheer power, but if anything on Sun In The House Of The Scorpion, Blood Of Kingu has managed both, evoking mood and atmosphere big time, but cranking up the crush, the riffs are massive, the sound is epic, dense and thick, blurred and droney and trancelike. The vocals are deep and bellowed and shamanistic, the songs are cyclical and repetitive, ritualistic and totally hypnotic, thick slabs of crumbling buzz and relentlessly blasting beats, a howling furious heaviness that few other black metal outfits could ever hope to achieve. The bulk of the record is frantic and frenzied, but the various tracks are infused with haunting mysticism, swirling atmospheric ambience, even the grimmest blackest parts exuding a strange spiritual quality, culminating in an awesome cover of Beherit's "The Gate of Nanna" complete with chanted monk-like vocals, long stretches of plodding doomy dirge, blasts of insanely frantic blasting buzzing blackness, some seriously demented effects drenched demonic vokills and a suffocatingly grim and bleakly abject atmosphere, a killer cover truly worthy of the original. Fantastic Zdzislaw Beksinski cover art (same guy who did the artwork that adorned Leviathan's Verrater)!! And dedicated to the memory of H.P Lovecraft, of course...

MPEG stream: Those That Wander Amidst the Stars
MPEG stream: Cyclopean Temple of the Old Ones
MPEG stream: Incantation of He Who Sleeps

A brand new record, the third since 2007 (not counting the split with Celestiial, whose awesome new record is also reviewed this list), from these doom metal / postrock / black metal / doomfolk / black ambient alchemists, the same folks who explore the darker regions of the spirit with their black ambient project Ruhr Hunter, although it's hard to imagine there's any place darker than whatever strange world Blood Of The Black Owl draw inspiration from. The opening movement of this single 41 minute epic (separated into 4 parts) finds the band spinning a black web of grim churning low end, softly roiling, like staring into a black hole, a bottomless abyss, dotted with dying stars, while over the top a guitar is strummed, unfurling a crystalline arrangement of glimmering notes, hovering above the inky blackness, a strange unearthly black folk, nearly static, mesmerizing and trancelike, eventually drums come in and the sound shifts dramatically, to something much more abstract and rhythmic, a sort of spaced out doomic skitter, which grows more and more ethereal, the bass buzzing, and a fluttering flute, marking a folky segue into the second movement, a much heavier downtuned dirge, a churning riffy crunch, that quickly dissipates into a cloud of chiming tones, disembodied voices and blackened shimmer before flitting back to that riffy pound although this time accompanied by some new age-sounding synth. The third movement explodes in a burst of blinding feedback, only to dissolve into a washed out, ambient doom plod, the drums a distant pound, the sounds hazy and druggy, a lysergic sprawl of blackened psychedelia, that gives way to the final movement, a dark, low slung, almost Bohren like stretch of slowcore crawl, all whispered vocals, softly strummed guitar, barely there effects, a hushed drift that slowly builds to a fierce pounding electronic flecked shoegazey dirge, with growled vox, tribal drumming, a glorious crescendo, emotional and intense, finally dropping out, leaving a single voice to call out, then silence. Incredible as always, and totally recommended for anyone into avant emotional heaviness and mysterious sonic darkness.

MPEG stream: Intent (Movement I)
MPEG stream: The Statement Of Will (Movement II)

Not to be confused, as we sometimes (almost) do, with brutal black metallers Book Of The Black Earth, who also have a new album out, soon to be reviewed here as well. This band is the one whom we last heard sharing a dirgey split 12" with Celestiial. Here's there new full-length and, as we expected, it's some serious doom metal/post rock/black metal/ambient hybrid wyrdness from the same guy responsible for the shamanic, organic drones of Ruhr Hunter. Ok, the first track, "Spell Of The Elk", mostly (gruffly) spoken and atmospheric, is cool enough but mainly serves as a 9-minute intro to track 2, "Crippling Of Age", when things really get intense, the guitar kicks into gear, the hammer drops, the fuzz explodes, the totemic blood of this black owl flows thick and dark. This is musick full of creepy guttural croakings, seasick shoegazing droned-out riffery, and some seriously doooooomic plod, along with sudden yet graceful dynamic shifts from apocalyptic destructiveness to introspective dreaminess, yeah!!! Many of these nine fairly lengthy tracks seem like ceremonial mini-epics, with gentle keyboard melodies wandering in from some obscure '70s Italian horror flick soundtrack, haunted by heavy doses of fuzzed out riff-sludge, providing a terror-struck background to the disturbing internal monologue (prayer?) played out by the anguished, echoed vokills. So much of this is surprisingly beautiful, so much of it fantastically fuzzed. The mystic moodiness is enhanced by foresty flutes and bone rattles from Native American / New Age ritual amidst all the industrial-strength dirge. This is part Neurosis, part Godspeed, part Burzum. Maybe part Bohren, and even part Thuja too! Well, possibly an aboriginal Thuja, when it really quiets down and spaces out and enters the Dreamtime. One of those "metal" records we recommend to a wider audience of adventurous listeners for sure.

MPEG stream: Crippling Of Age
MPEG stream: He Who Walked Away From The Fire And Laughed As He Bled
MPEG stream: Void

So moody. So atmospheric. So weird. So awesome. The fourth full album from this band we've previously described in an all-encompassing if imprecise way as "doom metal / postrock / black metal / doomfolk / black ambient alchemists" is another gorgeous and grim glimpse into their ceremonial soundworld, a realm that's dirgey, ambient, dreamlike, doubtless haunted by ancestral pagan spirits. Blood Of The Black Owl is one of the several projects of Chet W. Scott, who runs the Glass Throat label - some others being Cycle Of The Raven Talons (formerly Ruhr Hunter), The Elemental Chrysalis, and Cedar Spirits (reviewed this list too). All his music is pretty intense, and idiosyncratic, so it's hard to pick a favorite, but definitely we've always been big into Blood Of The Black Owl, and this new album takes this project to yet another level. The disc begins with the croaking droning vocals of what sounds like a half-dead shaman, accompanied by the shaka-shaka sounds of hand percussion, witchy drones, and spooky nighttime noises, what could be horns, or hoot owls. Although the feeling is evident that Scott's intent is something deeply mystical, more secularly speaking, these twilight sounds could be the soundtrack to a cult 'giallo' horror movie, for sure, set out in the woods somewhere, ritual murder afoot, Native American relics factoring into the plot somehow. The next track continues the vibe, with mumbling invocations and a repetitively ringing bell, which reminds us for a second of Anton Batagov's Music For The 35 Buddhas. And so this disc goes, getting heavier and more sinister as it spins, always slow and spare and soundtracky. Part slowcore, part black metal (the rasped vokills, the fuzz guitar that comes as a shock when it bursts out, like on track four, "Sundrojan"), Light The Fires! is a mostly "mellow" but still devastatingly nightmarish trip conjured by chanting vox, plodding tick-tock percussion, eerie field recordings. Lovely melodic moments coexist with crushing doomic textures. Imagine Aluk Todolo teamed up with the Jewelled Antler collective, recording an album for the Neurot label, documenting a spirit quest they never came back from� Truly fantastic & recommended! Comes in the oversized unique 6"x6" six panel gatefold Glass Throat style cd packaging. (Double vinyl version apparently upcoming too.)

MPEG stream: Caller Of The Spirit
MPEG stream: Soil Magicians
MPEG stream: Disgust And The Horrible Realization Of Apathy

The ritualist forest flecked dark ambience of the band Ruhr Hunter has always managed to somehow transcend its ambient classification and appeal to the metal crowd as much as to the ambient drone crowd. Not sure what it is, the foresty bent, the bold Teutonic iconography, the music's distinctly dark elements, or maybe folks could just tell that some metal was lurking within them thar dark drones... And as if we needed proof, along comes Blood Of The Black Owl, the buzzing black metal project of Chet Scott, the man behind Ruhr Hunter. And true to form, this is no run of the mill black metal band, Scott expands his baritone guitar / drums palette to include stuff like thunder gong and brass tubular bells, organ, young ox horn, antique celestaphone, environmental recordings and black clay ocarina. It's almost like a blackened metallicized Ruhr Hunter. The sound is an hypnotic, repetitive midtempo Burzumic buzz, often slowing down to a dirge like crawl, each track a relentless trudge through mud and swamp, thicket and forest, the riffs looping and cycling, mantra-like, the vocals a guttural growl one second, an anguished wail the next, in the background are howling wolves, birdsong, strange percussion, a truly mysterious black brew. Much of the record dips into dark ambience, and being that this is basically Ruhr Hunter, those passages are captivating, a dark dreamy ambient interludes underpinned in places by slow motion riffing, in others by chantlike vocals, and still others by throat singing, it's all very haunting and mournful, but this is NOT a RH record, so those brief passages are merely transitions, the songs themselves, the riffs and the melodies, weave their own dark magic, dismal and depressive, as doom as it is black, a mesmerizing fuzzy landscape of black riffs and simple pounding rhythms, gloriously bleak, strangely dreamlike, and most definitely imbued with the spirit of some ancient black forest.

MPEG stream: Kills In Timber
MPEG stream: The Thunderous Hooves Of Two Goats In The Sky

Three-song ep by a Swedish supergroup (guys from Opeth, Katatonia, and Edge of Sanity) who went into the studio to bash out this simple but very brutal tribute to old-school Florida death metal. Maybe you haven't bought a Cannibal Corpse or Obituary cd in a while, but this ep will bring back memories.

The band that started simply as a way for a bunch of friends from a few well-known Swedish metal bands to get together, drink beers, and make some old-school (early '90s style) death metal for the fun of it has actually turned into a REAL band, and is now on their second full-length recording! Nightmares Made Flesh is the worthy follow-up to Bloodbath's 2002 debut album Resurrection Through Carnage, which was an album that got some major imaginary windmilling action around here. Well, actually we all think that hair-spinning (rather than head-banging) thing a lot of death metal guys do is stupid, and sadly none of us have long enough hair for that anyway. But what we're saying is that it was a brilliant album in its own right regardless of its origins in tribute and nostalgia. A few things are different with this release -- for one thing, singer Michael Akerfeldt of Opeth has been replaced on the mic by Peter Tagtgren of Hypocrisy fame. But apparently, in order to help preserve the old "feeling", Michael did phone up the studio every few days to talk to the guys while they were recording this. You can imagine the conversations...Dude is it brutal? Yah, brutal! Cool! The other members of Bloodbath are: metalmeister Dan Swano (Edge Of Sanity, Pan-thy-monium, Karaboudjan, Nightingale, etc.), plus two guys from Katatonia, and a new drummer named Martin Axenrot -- who sounds like he should be from a band called Axenrot, right? but he's actually the drummer from Witchery and Satanic Slaughter. With Axenrot on board, first album skinbeater Swano has moved from drums to guitar, and provides some excellent, distinctive, melodic soloing on this album. Bloodbath is still all about their influences (Swedish DM greats like Dismember, Entombed, and Grave, along the likes of Britain's Carcass who had a Swede in the band anyway). But Nightmare is just a little bit more modern sounding (maybe it's the drumming) and even darker...still throughly laced with (deadly-virus) catchy, crunchy riffage and appropriately sick lyrics. We've now got the domestic version that differs from the import by boasting cover art from the one and only Wes Benscoter, and having two bonus tracks, demos from the band's initial Breeding Death ep sessions.

MPEG stream: Outnumbering The Day
MPEG stream: Draped In Disease

Bloodbath might sound like a generic death metal name, and that's kind of the idea. They're actually a Swedish metal supergroup paying tribute to the late 80's/early '90s death metal that they loved in their youth. Obituary, Cannibal Corpse, Carcass, Entombed, that kind of thing... Gory, grinding, blasting DEATH. Bloodbath is made up of vocalist Michael Akerfeldt (mastermind of gods Opeth*), guitarist Anders Nystrom and bassist Jonas Renkse (both of AQ-faves Katatonia), and drummer Dan Swano (Dan Swano! he's been in a zillion bands, but we'll mention our favorites, Pan-thy-monium and Karaboudjan). They did a three-song ep a few years back, as a lark, and we never really expected a follow-up due to these dudes' busy schedules in their full-time outfits. But apparently the pleasures of unadulterated death metal beckoned irresistibly to them, and this "Resurrection" was thankfully at last spawned. And with this sort of musical braintrust, you know that Bloodbath isn't going to disappoint. Indeed they don't. Doomy, intricate, brutal, produced to perfection, and catchy in the blood-letting way that really only makes sense to death metal fans. Thanks guys! *who have just released their eagerly anticipated new album, "Deliverance" (see nearby for our review) and we don't doubt the timing was coincidental...clever record company.

RealAudio clip: Buried By The Dead

If you like Death Metal, we probably don't have to tell you to buy this. By the same token, if you don't happen to like Death Metal, you sure aren't gonna be interested in Bloodbath! Not for you would be all the chunky riffage littered with high pitched guitar squeals. Jud-jud-jud-jud-jud....skwee! skwee!... ZzrrrooOOOowww... Grunty-grunt-grunt. Well, that's what this might sound like to the non-DM fans. But those attuned to this sort of thing will appreciate the fully pro, old school DM heaviness on offer from this Swedish supergroup, featuring (this time) two guys from Katatonia, two from Opeth (including frontman Mikael Akerfeldt, back after a one-album absence), and someone else from a band we hadn't heard of, 21 Lucifers. But dude's nickname is "Sodomizer" so we assume he's cool. He'd better be since he's replacing Dan Swano. Seriously, if you dig yerself some Death Metal then you can't go too wrong with Bloodbath's The Fathomless Mastery. No, it's not the best death metal album ever, or even Bloodbath's best, but it should get your hair a-twirling, and bring back nostalgic memories of the early '90s likes of Entombed, Dismember, Morbid Angel and so forth, which is the very blunt point of all this, moreso than the blasphemy and brutality of the lyrics, that keeps these guys getting together and doing the Bloodbath thing. Again, if you're not into DM, then you'll see this Bloodbath as half empty, while we see it as (more than) half full. The packaging Peaceville put this in is kinda fancy for this music, one of those digipacks that looks a little bit like a hardcover book.

MPEG stream: At The Behest Of Their Death
MPEG stream: Mock The Cross

It takes a LOT for a joke band to impress us. First, the joke has to be really funny. Second, the music STILL has to rule. Or at least be good enough to make the joke worthwhile. Nothing worse than a joke band that relies totally on their gimmick. No need to worry about the mighty Bloodhag, the very heavy masters of all things Edu-Core. For those new to the 'Hag, imagine four nerds, white collared shirts (tucked in of course), totally obsessed with science fiction, so much so that each song is the name of an author, and of course the lyrics discuss the authors and their finest works, live the band hurls sci-fi paperbacks into the audience, and they even did an entire tour playing only in libraries!! It stops being a joke when it's this well researched and executed. Check out the cover too, a headless demon, laying atop a pile of books, the band dead with an 'overdue' notice stuck to one of their corpses, a warrior librarian, wielding a sword, clutching the demon's head, wearing sexy librarian glasses and of course with her library ID still around her neck. Awesome. Plus it's called Hell Bent For Letters! Fuck yeah! Check the Cavalar review elsewhere on the list for a rant on punny band names. What do they sound like? Sort of like a thrash metal Karp, sludgy guitars, galloping drums, shouted vocals, sometimes thrashy and noisy, sometimes gloriously epic, sometimes sort of grunt and death metally. But pay close attention, you might learn something. The tracks this time around (and Andee's take on the books by the authors referenced): "Gene Wolfe" (you must read his Book Of The New Sun series, so massive and dense and epic. One of the weirdest worlds ever written) "Robert Silverberg" (just read Book Of Skulls on the recommendation of AQ pal Barbara D., disturbingly racist and misogynistic and homophobic (like many books written in the seventies) but if you can get past that, it's really intense and fucked up and so strangely mysterious. Being made into a movie which seems like a bad move) "Douglas Adams" (recently re-read the Hitchhikers Guide 'trilogy' and it's still pretty darn funny. The movie was pretty good too) "Orson Scott Card" (the Enders series is the series that made me love science fiction, just don't read any of the introductions or you'll realize what a Mormon kook he is and it might ruin it for you) "Greg Bear" (The Forge Of God and Anvil Of Stars: one of the best sci-fi one-two punches ever. So epic and amazing!) Okay, we could go on and on, the rest of the tracks / authors: "James Blish", "Anne M. Caffrey", "Iain M. banks", "Edgar Allen Poe", "Philip Jose Farmer", "Michael Swanwick", "Frederik Pohl", "Thomas M. Disch", "Franz Kafka", "Madeline L'Engle" and "Jack Womack". If you like metal, you'll like Bloodhag. If you like science fiction, you -might- like Bloodhag. But if you love metal AND love science fiction, then pick up this slab of crushing edu-core, you just might learn something!

MPEG stream: Gene Wolfe
MPEG stream: Robert Silverberg
MPEG stream: Orson Scott Card
MPEG stream: Greg Bear

Pretty darn heavy, pretty darn rockin'. And despite what we heard and had hoped about '70s metal influences (Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, mebee even Bloodrock?) this Boston band sounds very much like something of this day and age, though with lots of stoned nodding towards said '70s past. That is, they fit right in with the likes of High On Fire, The Sword and Early Man. A pummelling power trio who play doomy yet rollicking rock with plenty of twists and turns. Notable notes: Not an instrumental band but could be mistaken for one a lot of the time, jamming away without much thought to lettin' the singer sing (he's busy playing his guitar). Some bright n' happy (yet still heavy) moments. Rhythmically tight, dynamic songwriting that certainly gives the drummer some -- indeed, after a hard rockin' first couple minutes, the track "The Goat" is mostly a very atmospheric *drum solo* setting you up for the reintroduction of the woah-yeah main riff. This debut "EP" is 6 songs, 36 minutes -- and we'd guess that many of those into heaviness who hear this, are gonna want to hear more.

MPEG stream: Son Of Man
MPEG stream: Sparks

You gotta respect a band when they thank their friends AND their enemies for inspiration. Certainly when it's a black metal band, because Sweden's Bloodline - featuring alumni from Naglfar, Shining, and Ondskapt - have channeled a good deal of misanthropy and concentrated hatred to produce an album of plodding, doomridden black metal with a couple extra heapings of all out negativity. The guitars are like napalm, the singer's got a great classic black metal scream, and even though they might hate to hear it, these songs are just plain catchy, filled with awesome riffs and moments of soaring guitar leads that stick in your head. Every once in a while, they will bring in some disturbing soundclips and whispy synths, which provide a nice contrast to the evil sound that defines most of Hate Procession. There are also moments of cold, windy ambience that make you pretty much want to curl up in a fetal position and die in the nearest snowbank. The tempos never reach the lightning fast speed that so many black metal bands go for, with the band instead focusing their energy on establishing a steady pound that helps bring out a quality many bands neglect - TRUE HEAVINESS. These songs are burly as fuck, and the steady beat in "Jerusalem Addio" and the industrial, stuttering rhythm of "Day Of The Vulture" are all Bloodline needs to put the posers in their place. If the songs themselves weren't enough to fill you in on Bloodline's nihilistic m.o., the plethora of disturbing images should help to explain everything. Maybe a bit too extreme in certain parts for the casual observer, but those who like their metal mean will certainly find this much to their liking.

MPEG stream: The Great Becoming
MPEG stream: Jerusalem Addio
MPEG stream: Day Of The Vulture

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

Great name for this new US occult rock outfit, with a Roky Erickson reference, priming us for Witchcraft/Pentagram styled retro doom-psych, but alas Bloody Hammers don't live up to the hype in our heads, just being kinda meh, rockin' metal stuff, not terrible but nothing special either. Oh well.

This panda is bloody, dead, and gone...welcome to the funeral. Bloody Panda's debut full length, Pheremone, is a treat of funerary DOOM to be sure, but we get a lot of super rad doom don't we? It seems like every list there's another sky-melting, sun exploding super heavy band to flood your earholes (thankfully!). Among the heap of doomy metal Bloody Panda certainly stand out. First of all, the most obvious unique quality is the wailing, crooning vocals of front woman Yoshiko Ohara. Her beautifully chromatic singing adds a sort of otherworldly haunted vibe to BP's punishing sound. So weird and sick and ghostly. Also the band is just ruling! The musicianship on this is outrageous. Check out the drumming on the opening "Untitled" track, the pattern at the end (you'll know). That's some bugged out shit right there. There's organ, and guitars and basses tuned to the sublevels of hell, and really interesting rhythmic structures scattered throughout the entire record. There's also a ton of subliminal noise elements beneath much of the music. Basically if you're a fan of less-traditional, fucked up weird ass doom metal, this record is for you. Enough twists and turns to make it stand out among the hordes of heavy. Recommended.

MPEG stream: Coma
MPEG stream: Fever

New York doommongers Bloody Panda return with full length #2, this one courtesy of the always rad Profound Lore label. The band specializes in a style of glacial doom sounding like it was recorded in an enormous cathedral in the dead of night. Funereal keyboards and subsonic bass run alongside lumbering drums that put everything into a spiraling trance as the downtuned guitars puke out overwhelmingly negative sounding riffs. Then, there's the kicker, Bloody Panda's unassuming vocalist Yoshiko Ohara, whose beautiful and clear voice can just as easily switch from sweet croon to Yoko Ono howl to a throat ripping banshee scream to a guttural demon bark. Her super bleak lyrics focus on all the various aspects of mental instability that doom bands know and love, like a fever induced nightmare where Bloody Panda is the house band. Ohara's awesome and disturbing artwork perfectly mirrors the sounds within Summon, with lots of black space and faceless figures shrouded in slivers of hazy color. There are certainly some similarities to Neurosis' more, ahem, "tribal" moments, while the band's almost goth sensibility, not to mention the female vocals and organ, bring to mind Asva, but there is enough other stuff going on to make Bloody Panda stand out. This is only made clearer by the accompanying dvd, featuring a video for the 21 minute motherfucker of a song, "Miserere". Filmed by the band members themselves in various parts of Brooklyn in addition to shots taken in Indonesia, the dvd offers a stunning visual enhancement to Bloody Panda's sonic assault.

MPEG stream: Gold
MPEG stream: Pusher
MPEG stream: Miserere

The first thing you notice is the super stylized metal logo, hard to tell exactly what it says, the first word is definitely probably 'blood', but the second is a jumbled tangle, looks like wall, BLOOD WALL? Or maybe Valet? BLOOD VALET? Or BLOOD VALE? Had we not known we most definitely would never have guessed BLOODY WALLET. What an amazing / ridiculous name. But as we listen to these guys, their fierce metallic crunch and sledgehammer pummel, the name starts to seem way more ominous, we're imaging some gruesome crime scene, bloody hand prints on the wall, sheet covered corpses, and in the corner an open wallet, cash spilled out, stuck in the center of a dried pool of crimson. Suddenly starts to seem like a pretty bad ass name for a metal band huh? Okay, maybe, but while some could perhaps argue with the name Bloody Wallet, now metalhead worth their salt could argue with the kick ass racket these guys lay down, it's heavy, melodic, mathy, the vibe is mostly classic metal, a little Champs for sure, but with definitely black metal shadings, the raspy hellish vokills, the churning riffage, the occasional furious blast beats, but then there's the mathy arrangements, the harmonies, the swooshing flanger effects, it's like a blackened hybrid of Iron Maiden and the Fucking Champs maybe? However you describe it, if you're in the market for some serious mostly instrumental metallic heaviness, that manages to be both brutal and melodic, classic and black, mathy and murky, with riffs that will stick in your (metal) head like crazy, duck under the crime scene tape, throw on some rubber gloves and pluck that Bloody Wallet from the floor, wipe off the blood (or not) and dig in. AWESOME. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Super sweet hand screened covers, designed by City Surgical (whose Gray Panic cd-r we also raved about on the list a while back).

MPEG stream: Isobel
MPEG stream: Dark Horse

Besides having an awesome band name (that perfectly suits their sound), and killer song titles ("My Ice Cream Fell On The Ground And Someone Ate It!", "Rotten Demon Shit", "Boo Boo Halloween"), these NY knuckle draggers specialize in the sort of down tuned caveman creep we can't ever seem to get enough of. Thick, gristled guitars that ooze, loooong songs that rumble and lumber, the sound lo-fi but still heavy, shrieked almost black metal sounding vokills, landing somewhere between the Body, Noothgrush, Megaton Leviathan and Prizehog, or like a way more home brewed punk rock Corrupted, these guys deal in abject doom sludge misery, but one that's shot through with all sorts of sonic weirdness, be it long stretches of hushed drift, weird breakdowns of barely there drums and distant guitar twang, or wild almost psychedelic squalls of swirling feedback and black noise skree. Oh and did we mention the creepy monk like vocals, or the strings, the free jazz drum splatter? At times sounding like No Neck Blues Band, at others like some strange minimal experimental soundscape, and at others sounding like some slow core dirge gone haywire. Twisted, trippy, heavy and KILLER. Super limited of course, swank packaging too.

MPEG stream: My Ice Cream Fell On The Ground And Someone Ate It!
MPEG stream: Rotten Demon Shit

Figured we should list this, the third album by '60s San Francisco proto-metal acid rockers Blue Cheer (you can't get much more "acid rock" than Blue Cheer -- they're named after a type of LSD after all!), since it was recently reissued in Akarma's midpriced "karma price" series. And also 'cause on the second side of this 1969 album (titled New! Improved! with about 50 percent accuracy) you'll hear the guitar playing of Randy Holden, whose rare, classic Population II record was recently reissued on LP and subsequently purchased by throngs of old time heaviness-lovin' AQ customers. If you've got that, you've gotta have this too. Holden, formerly of LA garage rockers The Other Half, was Blue Cheer's replacement for original axeman Leigh Stephens, but Holden lasted only a few months in the Cheer, recording just half of this record with 'em, three songs total: the fairly epic "Peace Of Mind" and "Fruit & Iceburgs" and brief coda "Honey Butter Lover". Then he split to make the Pop II album as a duo with drummer Chris Lockheed, which basically sounds a lot like the second side of this album... indeed you'll find versions "Fruit & Iceburgs" on both records. That's what you want this for, the Holden side, which sounds like a more wasted, doomedelic Cream. It's the last hurrah of Blue Cheer as a "heavy" guitar band, really. Whereas the first side of New! Improved!, recorded after Holden left and featuring ex-Kak guitarist Gary Yoder, has got a lot of honky tonk piano and comes across more like something the Rolling Stones would do, either rustic and rollicking or really melodic and mellow. Not heavy at all, though certainly very hippie and of its time with songs like "West Coast Child Of Sunshine". So we're mainly just recommending this for the approximately 15 minutes of wailin' Randy Holden stuff on here. However -- if you don't already have Blue Cheer's first two albums, Vincebus Eruptum and Outside Inside, though, get those first! Especially Vincebus, if you want to hear the REAL birth of heavy.

MPEG stream: Peace Of Mind
MPEG stream: When It All Gets Old

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. Also from '68, these San Francisco anti-hippies' second album, another classic of super-heavy (for its time) psychedelic proto-metal.

**SALE **SALE* *SALE** When we listed this on our site before, we were pretty succinct, 17 words: Their 1968 debut, the birth of metal? With "Summertime Blues". Dumb yet so brilliant. Essential heavy history. And yeah, that's basically it. The first album from San Francisco ballroom badasses Blue Cheer, is a seminal heavy psych proto-metal power trio document indeed. Druggy biker blooze that taught so many later bands - from Pentagram to Comets On Fire, Fushitsusha to Dead Meadow - how to turn it up to 11. Have Dickie Peterson, Paul Whaley, and Leigh Stephens been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame yet? Apparently not and it's a travesty. While we like other, later Blue Cheer albums and lineups, THIS is the one that belongs in the early annals of metal history. In '68, what else was this heavy? Blue Cheer themselves never were again. Produced by Abe "Voco" Kesh (yes, that's where that band got their name), this includes Blue Cheer's aforementioned monster cover of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues", also their killer version of Mose Allison's "Parchman Farm" (which they call "Parchment Farm" for some reason), BB King's "Rock Me Baby", and bunch of equally lumbering, blown-out Peterson originals like "Doctor Please" and "Out Of Focus". While they sound closer to Hendrix and Cream than to the yet to be birthed Black Sabbath, this is ye olde acid rock at its rawest and heaviest. Chances are, if you're into metal and/or psych, you already have this, but if you don't, now's the time to grab it!

MPEG stream: Doctor Please
MPEG stream: Parchment Farm
MPEG stream: Second Time Around

[ aquarius records — Metal ]