On this, the 6th album from this unique transcontinental sludge/jazz/prog/improv unit, Combat Astronomy seriously bring the noise by providing not one but two whole discs of their extreme sonics, their most ambitious onslaught yet - part John Zorn style skronk, part industrial beatdown, part ambient dronology, part Magmoid symphonics, always reminding us of a certain strain of artists in the early '90s like 16-17, Painkiller, and God, all longtime faves of ours, as Combat Astronomy are now, too!
Disc one takes advantage of the potential to sprawl out in epic fashion that a double disc set affords, offering four pieces, all of 'em long ones, starting with the 17 minute "Tenser Quadrant", that opens with a stuttering, satisfyingly-distorted bass solo, soon joined by martial drumming, horns, and keyboard pulsations. It's a good intro to Combat Astronomy's incredible sound if you haven't heard 'em before: a powerful concoction of super thick heavy bass tones, rubbery rhythms, and suspenseful coloration from the horn section. By 'horn section' we mean Sheffield, UK's Martin Archer (known also to aQ customers also for his Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere project), who plays all the trumpets, saxophones, and clarinets on here, along with organ, electric piano, mellotron, glockenspiel, tuning forks, "snorks" (?), and more... Also on board, of course, is the other half of the usual Combat Astronomy collaboration, Minnesota-based James Huggett (5 string fretless and fretted basses, guitar, drum programming). Additionally for this release, drummer Peter Fairclough is employed as well, along with vocalists Julie Archer and Kelli Denoyer on selected tracks - but note, they are credited not with vocals but with 'voices', suggesting a more experimental, textural, abstract role.
Ok, back to our report on the first disc: Track two, "Unity Weapon", is even longer at over 21 minutes, and sounds like a BIG ensemble in full flight, a bunch of mekanik kommandos marching into an orchestral fray, lots going on, getting mesmeric in its repetition and layering, and then entering into a dense, atmospheric dream-space once a little past the half-way mark. The many moods of Combat Astronomy!
The intense skronk, distortion, and staggered rhythms then come roaring back on the nine minute title track, while disc closer "Hypnogeous" is a 14 minute descent into dark ambient drone, haunting and heavy, winding up in more-or-less power electronics territory.
If disc one wasn't devastating enough, there's another eight tracks in store on disc two. The second track, "SuperFestival", might be the most 'pop' thing we've ever heard from CA, while a lot of the others on this disc could vie for the most intense and speed-driven. Many moods, again. But in interest of not making the review quite as epic as the album, we'll skip the detailed rundown on all of 'em and let you investigate for yourself - which we recommend you do!!
This isn't metal exactly, but it is HEAVY. And it's not punk, although it is raucous, unruly and unkempt. It's not screamo though there is a LOT of screaming. And it's not noise, but boy is it noisy! And it's for sure not powerviolence, even though it is indeed quite powerful and most definitely violent. This is more like a drum kit, a bunch of guitars, a bass, HUGE amps, and a guy screaming his lungs out, all loaded into a cannon and fired at your ear, mere inches away, blowing you head into a million pieces. Grinding, thrashing, chaotic, relentless, brutal metallic punk rock noise. Wow. 42 songs, 32 minutes, average song length about :40 (the shortest clocking in at :10, the longest still a brief 1:30) and some of the best song titles EVER: "Dead Parents, Yea!", "We Sticks Butter", "My Foot, The Catheter", "Plastic Bullets Are So '84", "Also Comes In Red, Orange And Fuck You", "Shit 3:16", "Q: What Kind Of (A Band) Name Is Scrotum Grinder? A: A Terrible One.", "Cumbersome Ant People" and thirty six more!
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Remember the old days, when if you sang about suicide, or even hinted at suicide in your songs, dipshit kids all over the world would listen to your records and kill themselves, and then their parents would sue you and ultimately lose since it's absurd to blame anyone but the kids or their parents. We always joked about having songs called 'You Suck, Give Up And Kill Yourself' or 'Nobody Likes You, You Might As Well Die' and stuff like that. But a lot sure has changed since the old days. Movies are more violent, TV is more nasty, music and especially lyrics are way more extreme. You have to go soooo much further to even seem the least bit shocking or offensive. This band just reminded me of how cool it would have been 'back then' to have a band called Commit Suicide. No beating around the bush, no backward masking, no subtle lyrics, just a big 'kill yourself' sort of band name! And in keeping with the misanthropic band name, Commit Suicide spew ugly gobs of grinding death metal, or metallic grindcore with lots of blazing guitars, chugging downtuned riffs, insane blast beats, stop start ultra complex songs and glass-gargling cookie monster vocals. Good stuff.
Pittsburgh grinders return with their second full-length of fierce death metal, and it's a doozy indeed. With Synthetics, Commit Suicide have achieved that rarest of accomplishments -- delivering a follow-up album that stays completely true to all of their original elements while bolstering every component that made them such an immediately powerful force on their debut. Everything seems just punched up a notch here. Be forewarned, this is relentless death metal without the slightest breach of accessibility for those not interested in the fastest most aggressive style of music possible. But if you're willing to submit, the execution is flawless. Non-stop blazing riffage with a million stops and changes between speeds varying from fast to pretty fast to full-on blasting, with a vicious growler roaring overtop. There really isn't a single stand-out member though -- the band functions seamlessly as a whole, with all changes felt on guitar bass and drums as one. For fans of Death, Dying Fetus, Morbid Angel and the like, look no further for uncompromising brutality.
We got a very small handful of these, the last copies in fact, released as an exclusive for the Stella Natura festival, which took place a few weeks back in the woods up near Lake Tahoe, and featured a crazy collection of bands performing on stages set up in the forest. Some of the performers included Esoteric, Stargazer, Sutekh Hexen, Saturnalia Temple, Ash Borer, Hell, Aldebaran, Dispirit, Hexvessel, Kinit Her, Loss, Knelt Rote and a bunch more.
This document of local experimental ambient doom-drone outfit Common Eider (which now boasts our very own Andee on drums), features four lengthy tracks, and documents CEKE's shift into darker realms, featuring Andy Way from Sutekh Hexen on vocals, CEKE's usual haunting arrangements of ritualistic chorales, and swoonsome viola drones, are augmented by harsh, whispered vokills, that occasionally erupt into near demonic shrieks.
The opener, "Uksur" is a dark ritualistic incantation, that fuses black ambience to Arvo Part like sweeping epic-ry, infusing that hybrid with a blackened malevolence, the whole thing blurred into a darkly dreamy, ashen sonic sprawl. "As The Soil Rises Up Past Our Bodies" continues the descent into darkness, layered vocals drift atop a bed of tape hiss and distant rumbles, meditative and liturgical, a harrowing and haunting soundscape that evokes barren wastelands, crumbling cathedrals and black skies casting entire civilizations in shadow, the vocals slipping into a higher register for the final movement, adding a dramatic pathos to the proceedings. Also included is an excerpt of the fantastic "Sense Of Place", which was released via aQ as a super deluxe book/cd/dvd combo (later as a stripped down bookless version), chronicling the building of a cabin in Alaska, the music split into two parts meant to be played simultaneously. And finally there's "Caribou People", which is anchored by a dreamy, softly reverbed guitar loops, and gradually blossoms into a beautifully brooding dirge, laced with clouds of buzz drenched noise guitar, woozy Spacemen 3 like basslines, and minimal percussion, all whipped up into a wildly psychedelic squall, that fades into a hazy druggy drift. Fantastic.
And, fantastic packaging - the tape is housed in a multi panel, pocketed mini sleeve, hand silkscreened, bundled with a charred block of wood, the wood silkscreened with the CEKE sigil, the tape, the sleeve, and the wood, wrapped in a silkscreened oversized slipcover, held shut with a printed sticker. SUPER LIMITED. Last copies ever. So act fast if you want one... Mailorder folks, be aware that 'cause of the size and weight of the charred wood block, this will count as more than one item (which will probably only matter if it's all you were to order), so media mail or UPS will be your best domestic shipping options.
It's tough to resist a black metal record that is, according to the label: "an ambitious and profound concept album about the "spleen", the suffering of everyday life". Hmmm. Do they really mean the spleen? Does the spleen represent the suffering of everyday life? Weird. Guess they must be archaically referencing the melancholy humor, not the internal organ. But what do you expect? These Italian miserablists have crafted a single massive 64 minute epic, divided into eight movements, each flowing smoothly into the next, a sprawling doomic depressive emotional black metal, that spends as much time soaring majestically, or drifting melodically as it does blasting grimly.
The perfect mix of classic old school doom, a la My Dying Bride or Paradise Lost, and the more modern depressive folk infused black metal like Drudkh as well as plenty of darkened suicidal buzz (think Shining, Forgotten Tomb). Bleak and austere, the guitars seem to weep and moan, the melodies mournful and emotional, the vocals an anguished wail, a deep bellowing howl more than a black shriek, the drums relentless, even the midtempo parts underpinned by frenetic double kicks, all very moody and evocative, sweeping long stretches of epic blackened doom, separated by lilting clean guitar folk interludes as well and bursts of furious blackness, even some gnarled bits of mathy Deathspell style weirdness, but through it all runs a weary black sonic stream, a melodic thread that turns these songs into one epic songsuite, a gorgeous sprawling expanse of doom-ed melodic blackness.
Someone at aQ commented recently, when they discovered there was a stoner doom / sludge outfit called Conan, that it was just too easy, too obvious. But we're not sure they realized this horde of UK stoner sludgelords play "caveman battle doom", and thus, what else could you call your, band really? Especially when it sounds exactly like what Conan evokes. Shirtless warriors, painted up for battle, marching in formations to destroy and decimate, personally, we add a sort of futuristic twist, so they're actually cyborg warriors, trudging across the scorched surfaces of alien planets, onward into battle, but onward very very very very slowly.
The sound of these battles, or at least the music these cyborg warriors march into battle to, is all downtuned riffery, knuckle dragging caveman drum plod, churning tarpit death march creep, lumbering, stumbling heaviness, slow and low that is most definitely the tempo, tranced out and droney, psychedelic for sure, like an even more zoned out Electric Wizard, the vocals though are a bit surprising, not metallic shrieking, or cookie monster gurgles, instead it's bellowed and a little operatic, a sort of epic croon, that reminds us a lot of Harvey Milk, and gives Conan a whole different vibe than their doom/sludge brethren, more musical in a way, but also just more strange, and strangely more epic. Some of the tracks crank up the tempo a bit, others get sort of mathy and noisy, some get sort of Sabbathy, adding a bit of stonery swing, and still others get super psychedelic, adding swirls of FX, but ultimately, and inevitably, the sound always settles back into a gloriously head nodding, gut churning, rib cage rattling, riffy plod. The song titles ("Gravity Chasm", "Altar Of Grief", "Horns For Teeth", "Crown Of Talons", "Foehammer", "Total Conquest") and the smoke shrouded demon warrior cover art just seals the deal.
Obviously, if you're gonna call your band Conan, your sound had better be pretty darn burly! And barbaric. Well, this UK doom outfit is definitely worthy of the name. Their music is not by, nor for, wimps. Slow, low, and loud = HEAVY. Even Arnold might have had trouble bench pressing these riffs! The plodding, shuddering distortion on display here is kinda like ultradoom in the vein of Moss or Bunkur, but not quite so slow, speeding up as necessary when the crushing riffs are really ready to go in for the kill. The production is amazing, as are the downtuned sounds these dudes get out of their guitars and amps, sooooooo bludgeoningly blown out. Conan's a guitar/bass/drums trio but sounds more like bass/bass/bass/bass/bass/bass/bass... oh yeah and drums which hold up their end of the heaviness equation just fine. Meanwhile, the vocals, when there are any, are a distant bellow, a high wailing, soaring over and staying out of the way of the massively occupied bass frequencies. They make us think of Yob for sure, but quite not so Geddy Lee, a bit more shout-y, so Harvey Milk would be another good comparison. For a lot of this, actually, not just the vocals. And the Melvins too, say one of their epic sludgeathons like "Charmicarmicat" or "Night Goat". And as long as we're namechecking other bands, how 'bout godheadSilo? Corrupted? Early Sleep (circa Volume One)? Yeah Conan is worthy of being cited amongst such legends. Again, they'd better be, with a name like Conan.
Originally released on limited vinyl last year by Throne over in Spain, sadly, we didn't get any of those. But now thanks to Aurora Borealis, we have it on compact disc, in a nice silver and black digipack. 4 songs, 33 minutes, infinite heaviness.
These British warriors of 'Caveman Battle Doom' return once again, this time to wreak their particular brand of sonic, um, Revengeance. And like past installments, it's another punishing, knuckle dragging, sword wielding, foe vanquishing crusher, equal parts stonery sludge, furious metallic pound, and brutal downtuned doom. The vocals remain super unique, one a deep bellow, the other a whiney wail, both wound together over the group's impossibly heavy churn. So if the Melvins, Sleep, Corrupted, Harvey Milk, godheadSilo, Karp, Electric Wizard and the like are your cup of sludgey black mead, then saddle up, strap it on and bow before the sonic skull-cavers of Conan.
Kick ass doom / sludge split from these two UK outfits, and in the spirit of the split, we figured we oughta do a split review as well, so Allan will tackle Conan's half, and Andee's got the Slomatics half. Allan's up first...
I just know Andee's gonna write, like, a novel about Slomatics, and to do the mighty Conan justice, I should give them an equally lengthy writeup too. Or, on the other hand, maybe I should just keep my bit short. After all, there's really not much more to say about the barbaric doom-drone metal that Conan offers up here, than we already said in our review of their 2010 cd on Aurora Borealis, Horseback Battle Hammer. To wit, "Their music is not by, nor for, wimps. Slow, low, and loud = HEAVY. Even Arnold might have had trouble bench pressing these riffs! The plodding, shuddering distortion on display here is kinda like ultradoom in the vein of Moss or Bunkur, but not quite so slow, speeding up as necessary when the crushing riffs are really ready to go in for the kill." We went on to compare 'em to Yob, the Melvins, and Corrupted, among others, as well. These 3 new tracks are in the same vein what we'd heard before from Conan, meaning bass-heavy blown-out bludgeon, though there's a subtlety here we should note as well. Their first cut, "Older Than Earth", is a six+ minute miasmic trudge. That's followed by the brief, unexpected electronic interlude of "Obsidian Sword", and then the epic "Retaliator" rounds out Conan's contribution to this disc, being an eleven and a half minute creepy-crawl that melds Conan's brawniest rumble and howl with more atmospheric synth-sizzle, kinda reminding us of Thrones. Very cool.
Now for the Slomatics half, take it away Andee...
It's been two years since we last heard from UK slo-mo heavies Slomatics, who we discovered initially via an impending split with late great prog-sludge combo Like A Kind Of Matador (whose great full length on tUMULt is still available btw), and whose full length debut was a huge hit with the doomlords (and ladies) around these parts, their sound a heaving, churning morass of murky tarpit sludge, heavily beholden to Harvey Milk, Eyehategod, Bongzilla, the Melvins of course, even Electric Wizard, thick crumblingly distorted riffage, massive tectonic drum pound, laced with little bits of melody, short stretches of mellow drift, but for the most part all about the pound and pummel. We got another taste of the Slomatics' heaviosity on a split with Seelah, their sound slightly more rocking, and a wee bit poppier, but ultimately more of the glorious dirgey same. Which brings us to this brand new split, with another band of heavy aQ faves, Conan, and while much of that Slomatics sound is intact, something has definitely changed. There's definitely a slight pop edge, which did seem to be present on past outings, but here is much more openly on display, especially on the first track "Lose The Five", which peppers the thick Sabbathy riffage, with cool harmonized melodies, and buried hooks, with the song dangerously close to sludge-pop territory at times, definitely like a murkier, less poppier Torche (which weirdly is how we described one of the tracks on the Seelah split). There's also some seriously majestic Harvey Milk like moments too, that sort of creep anthemic epicness. "Black Blizzard" find the group ditching all of the above poppiness, for some pure grimey, filthy dirgery, reverbed vocals over death march downtuned trudge, but wait, strap those headphones on, and you'll hear all manner of melody buried in the murk and the mire, not to mention some super cool dynamic stop/starts, and a crazily blown out production that gives the sound a trippy washed out vibe. Finally, Slomatics finish off the split with "Mont Ventoux", which begins all abstract and psychedelic, cards-in-spokes skitter, over off-in-the-distance drumming, then some howled reverbed vox give way to another stretch of doomic churn, this time sounding weirdly dubbed out and a little bit industrial, a bit of a Godflesh vibe all tangled up with the bands more gnarled and grinding chug. So ruling! Still hard to fathom why these guys aren't in everyone's doom/sludge pantheon...
This split sure makes sense, these two bands belong together, and well deserve the super bad ass sci-fi, mysterious warrior, snail steed, dual mooned, skull mountain cover art!
We've been meaning to review this for a while now, the latest from local rocker Conan Neutron, and his Secret Friends (which just so happen to include members of the Melvins, Coliseum, and Oxbow, and apparently also David Yow of the Jesus Lizard, who supplied the tripped out cover art) and while that might have you expecting some sort of fucked up noise rock, or warped metal weirdness, you'd be WAY off the mark. The sound is straight up hard rock, crunchy pop, arena rock, rife with classic seventies riffage, big choruses, hooks galore, plenty of phaser and flanger, a little new wave, a little power pop, shades of Van Halen, seventies Ted Nugent, Boston, BTO, Kiss and for some reason, we get a serious Aldo Nova vibe! Rare is the band that attempts to pull off this sort of thing, rarer still is the band that succeeds. The best part about Neutron and his pals, is there's no tongue in cheek, hipster, nudge-and-wink, ironic retro-rocking going on, this is just some seriously solid, goddamn rock and roll, that we find ourselves listening to like crazy!
Shadow Kingdom sure has become one of those labels, that whatever they put out, whether it be some rare '80s metal reissue by a band we've never heard of, or an equally unknown release by a brand new band, we know want to hear it, 'cause the label is definitely focused on the sort of obscure cult metal we love, usually doomy, often epic, quite classic and sometimes a bit eccentric. From lost NWOBHM treats like Wolfbane and Deep Switch to modern day doom like Garden Of Worm and Crowned In Earth, they've been bringing it.
So, listen up, here's another good one from 'em. A Painful Journey Into Nihil is the debut full-length from Chilean doomsters Condenados (which means "Doomed" in Spanish, we're not surprised to learn). Of course, we immediately thought of Procession, another doom trio from Chile that we happen to love (and who have a new album out we hope to be getting soon!), and that's not far off the mark. Both bands traffic in trudge, extruding glacially epic dark doom that sounds a bit like Swedish gods Candlemass, but even more bummed out and despairing, maybe 'cause Candlemass was actually a pretty successful band, while these guys are struggling away in the depths of South America...
The six sluggish songs on here, the first two sung in Spanish, the others in English, are straight up serious quality old school doom all right, heavily weighted with lumbering, fuzzed out riffs in ye olde Sabbathy style, but even sadder and slower, their grinding graced with deep, somber vocals (rising to a higher pitch at some choice moments), and some nicely gnarly guitar solos amidst the melody. And we're pleased to report that Condenados has thrown a little flute in here too, just to make the album even better (and proggier). Keyboards and samples are also used to atmospheric effect. But none of that wimps this out, at all, it's HEAVY, regally so. A track like "Centuries Of Darkness" sounds like a classic that true doom devotees should have already been (slowly) banging heads to for, well, centuries.
Highly recommended to fans of the likes of Candlemass, Warning, Reverend Bizarre, The Wizar'd, Procession... and something about "Welcome To My Grave" reminds us a bit of The Obsessed.
"A fucked up mix of Trouble and Watchtower" is how Arch Enemy/Spiritual Beggars guitarist Michael Amott characterizes North Carolina's Confessor, who were Earache labelmates with Amott back in his days in Carcass in the early '90s. That is indeed a very accurate and -- if you know who Trouble and Watchtower both are -- useful description of cult metal act Confessor's sound. Definitely one of the more idiosyncratic pioneers of absurdly technical metal. Not death, not doom, not grind, not thrash... but all of the above, somehow. Confessor's main ingredients are uber-insane drumming (Stephen Shelton is a god), complex song structures being navigated by two guitars and bass, and high-pitched love 'em or hate 'em vocals that seem to follow their own wailing logic, as if the singer isn't even listening to the same music as the rest of the band. Yet it works. Though perhaps not to everyone's taste. Well, after making one amazing album, 1991's Condemned, and an ep that included a Trouble cover, Confessor disappeared into even deeper obscurity, seemingly gone but not forgotten by hardcore fans of tech-metal madness (I recall our pal Josh Smith, formerly of The Fucking Champs, telling me that the Champs used to have a rule of ONLY listening to Confessor when on their way to play a show). Recently, Shelton re-surfaced in the band Loincloth, but even cooler than that, now Confessor themselves are back! Yes! This ep, with two new 2004-recorded songs (definitely in their old style of proggy doom mastery, with the vocals now somewhat deeper and grungier), is but a teaser for their upcoming comeback full-length entitled Unravelled due in September! This limited-edition ep itself we'd pretty much have to recommend to pre-existing Confessor fans of the dedicated variety since aside from the two new songs ("Sour Times" and, fittingly, "Hibernation") it includes a 1990 demo version of the title track to Condemned, a radio edit of "Sour Times" (why?) and such for-fans-only "enhanced cd" extras as a screen saver and archive of band photos. However, if you're a fan on the fence about spending $13 for basically two songs, be aware that this also includes five minutes or so of Quicktime video footage of them live 1996, which proves that the singer can hit those high notes even as he's jumping around on stage. Wicked!
So, if you're a fan of this cult metal band (most of whom could be also described as rabid), then the news that a cd has been released containing rare early demo versions of the songs from Confessor's 1991 Earache debut Condemned, demo tracks that actually sound heavier than the recordings that ended up on the album, and is accompanied by a bonus dvd disc of live footage, is all we really need to tell you, to get you to hit the "add to cart" button with excessive force. But maybe even folks who aren't (yet) Confessor fanatics should check this out. 'Cause we know a lot of you like technical / progressive / math metal, and also a lot of you like traditional epic Sabbath-styled DOOM, and for that matter a lot of you like plain ol' weirdness, and that's what Confessor's unique sound was all about, and they were unique, at the Venn diagram intersection of prog metal and doom metal, characterized by riffs inspired by Sabbath and, especially, Trouble, chaotically crazy, complex stop-start song structures and time changes out of the mathrock playbook, the INSANE drumming skillz of sticksman Steve Shelton (now in Loincloth), and high pitched vocals wailing disconsolately o'er it all, which might be the weirdest component of the whole Confessor calculation.
If that sounds good, we'd of course recommend getting the Condemned album itself, it's a classic - BUT it's out of print, and also the band thinks the guitar tone is better on these demos anyway.
There's eleven songs on the cd, including all the tracks from band's three demo cassettes circa 1988-1990, plus two cuts from comps and two live tracks from the era. The cd is also enhanced with live video of the band from a show '92. Then there's the limited dvd disc, which includes tons more archival live footage of the band over the years, including video from an outdoor performance at a waterpark that the guys from The Fucking Champs always loved to talk about. Yeah, Confessor, perfect for a sunny day of fun at the waterpark, people must have been into that.
The cd booklet boasts liner notes by Jeff Wagner, who wrote THE book on prog-metal (Mean Deviation: Four Decades Of Progressive Heavy Metal, published by Bazillion Points), plus lots of old photos, gig flyers and demo tape graphics.
So it's definitely a deluxe deal, for Confessor's rabid fans and maybe some new ones too.
Earlier this year, North Carolina tech/doom metal cult act Confessor emerged from "retirement" with an ep called Sour Times, the teaser to this here full-length -- the band's second ever album and first since 1991! We were pretty excited that Confessor was back, so we gave that ep a big write-up. Here's a bit of a recap of what we wrote for those that missed it:
"A fucked up mix of Trouble and Watchtower" is how Arch Enemy/Spiritual Beggars guitarist Michael Amott characterizes Confessor, who were Earache labelmates with Amott back in his days in Carcass in the early '90s. That is indeed a very accurate and -- if you know who Trouble and Watchtower both are -- useful description of cult metal act Confessor's sound. Definitely one of the more idiosyncratic pioneers of absurdly technical metal. Not death, not doom, not grind, not thrash... but all of the above, somehow. Confessor's main ingredients are uber-insane drumming (Stephen Shelton is a god), complex song structures being navigated by two guitars and bass, and high-pitched love 'em or hate 'em vocals that seem to follow their own wailing logic, as if the singer isn't even listening to the same music as the rest of the band. Yet it works. Though perhaps not to everyone's taste. Well, after making one amazing album, 1991's Condemned, and an ep that included a Trouble cover, Confessor disappeared into even deeper obscurity, seemingly gone but not forgotten by hardcore fans of tech-metal madness (I recall our pal Josh Smith, formerly of The Fucking Champs, telling me that the Champs used to have a rule of ONLY listening to Confessor when on their way to play a show). Recently, Shelton re-surfaced in the band Loincloth, but even cooler than that, now Confessor themselves are back! Yes!"
We went on to say that the new Confessor material as heard on the ep was definitely in their old style of proggy doom mastery, with the vocals now somewhat deeper and grungier. Unraveled pretty much follows suit, with two of the ep's tracks appearing again. The lugubrious tempos, downer riffs and sorrowful vocal wailings make this sound something like a mix of Solitude Aeturnus and Alice In Chains, but way more technical (with lots of "parts" and shifting rhythms). And the drumming is as godly as ever. The way this flows, we'd say maybe this will be a little bit easier on most folks' ears than some of their old stuff, and yet it's still unmistakably Confessor and definitely worthy of their cult status.
If we had to pick a favorite, out of all the post rock / math rock / post metal hordes, a sound we do admittedly dig a whole lot, and one we can't seem to get enough of, Maine's mighty Conifer would be right there at the top. Which is saying something, as up until this brand new full length, we'd only heard from them twice, their debut, and a split with Ocean. As compared to some of the other bands who have released 2, 3, 4 maybe more records in the same amount of time. The first Conifer disc was fresh when it came out, taking classic math rock and beefing it up with huge swells of Neurosis crush, but the thing with Conifer is that they never completely buried that post rock vibe, even at their most metallic, when they were slipping into full on doom territory, they hung on to those loping rhythms, those fractured melodies, and figured out a way to infuse those elements into the roiling heaviness. On the debut we were hearing Slint and Bastro and Seam as much and as often as Isis or Neurosis, probably even more so.
In that way, the sound of Conifer hasn't changed all that much, their sound is still rooted heavily in mathrock, the metal elements more adorning the postrock instead of the other way around. In fact more than ever, they sound like a nineties mathrock band supercharged and transported to the oughts. Even at their heaviest, they don't get HEAVY, as in metal heavy, they get louder, and more dynamic, more intense, the sound gets fuller and more expansive. And this time around the band we can't help but hear all over this record is Polvo. The guitar parts are all woozy and warbly and angular and sort of seasick, the opening track is the perfect example, it almost sounds like some metal band covering the opening track from Polvo's Cor Crane Secret, with its multiple parts, its liquid arrangements, the clean guitars, layered and indeed woozy, the drum part and the arrangements, loping and mathy and not a little bit groovy. We hate to go on and on about mathrock and Polvo, cuz it could all be a big ol' coincidence, but we doubt it. Every song on Crown Fire is mathy and melodic, sometimes locking into repeating figures for just a tad longer than would be comfortable for most bands, opening up and drifting through wide open spaces, all glimmering harmonics and shuffling rhythms, backwards guitars floating in a sea of muted soft drones, tripped out almost Pink Floyd action here and there, complete with space-y synths and fluttery flutes. "Into The Gauntlet" almost sounds like a heavier Codeine, a bit doomy, with a strange lurching arrangement beneath glistening sparkling chimes, and flurries of shuffling snare drum and floor tom. Hard to say what it is exactly,
as it should be with music, but regardless, this is definitely a new high for a genre that becomes more and more overpopulated every day. Whenever we find ourselves listening to one of these new post rock / metal hybrids, as much as we love metal, and we do, we find ourselves longing way more for the intricacies and arrangements and dynamics of the post rock side of the equation, it's too easy to just turn it up and let downtuned guitars chug, and Conifer prove that you can make a super heavy, super catchy, epic record, without even bothering with faux metal chug, which is something else for sure.
If that weren't enough, the record closes with the 13 minute title track, featuring Eugene from Oxbow on guest vocals (normally Conifer are instrumental). The result is pretty excellent, and finds the band, doing their best Oxbow, a sort of abstract bluesy groove, that over the course of the song gets a little bit mathier and more complex, while Eugene sing-talks, howls, mewls, wails, growls, shrieks, moans, The track is super spare until about halfway through where it dials up the metal, offering up being churning chords and pounding drummage to support Eugene's increasingly unhinged and manic vocals, the song building to a furious climax, before drifting out in a haze of whispered mutterings and fractured electronics. It's a pretty awesome track for sure, but for us, it somehow works better when taken almost as a separate record. The first 6 tracks are so perfect together, a brilliant 38 minute post-math-metallic-rock suite, which just so happens to come with an equally brilliant bonus single song, 13 minute ep, featuring Conifer backing up Oxbow's Eugene Robinson.
However you slice it, WAY recommended!
Bands have been naming themselves after all manner of objects and creatures since the beginning of rock and roll. Heavy bands tending toward the mighty, the fierce or at least the very large. All manner of monsters and demons, various tigers and lions and even some sea creatures have been represented. But the largest, most imposing objects in nature have been sadly neglected as a source for inspiration and band-naming. TREES. So we have Conifer to right that wrong. And in doing so, judging from this ferocious slab of indie rock / metal sludge hypno-pummel, you'd certainly be forgiven for thinking this particular tree could take on any of the rock demons and metallic beasties that came before.
Conifer sleepily trawl through the dark recesses of post rock, taking the languorous slow burning churn of bands like Slint or Seam Or Bastro, all dark and brooding, simple and insistent, and stretching the riffs and melodies into expansive stretches of moody melancholy, swathed in Pink Floydian swoosh and whirl, before dropping the bomb. Massive downtuned guitars explode, splitting post rock atoms into clumps of corrosive riffage, peppered with raspy howls and screeching banshee melodies, sometimes gaining momentum and becoming unstoppable exercises in epic doomy drone-metal ala Neurosis or Isis, sometimes becoming glacial explorations into slow motion doom a la Khanate, and other times employing distorted ghostly computer vocals and buzzing psychedelia into Butthole Surfers-like sonic freakouts. A lot of this does definitely sound like Isis, Neurosis, Pelican or Buried At Sea, which is obviously a good thing, but more often it sounds like a doom-sludge A Minor Forest or a post rock Boris or a very metal Slint. Which is an even better thing!
It's pretty hard to go wrong with two heavy hitters like Conifer and Ocean, and predictably, this split lp is about as right as it gets. It's been ages since we heard from Conifer, one of our favorites of the new breed of post rock / metal hybrids, due in no small part to the fact that they tend toward the mathy / post rock side of that sound. And if anything, on this latest track (yep, one sidelong epic) they seem to have jettisoned any sort of metal completely. Not to say it's not heavy, it most certainly is, it's just not really sludgy, or that metallic, and it suits them. Right out of the gate, they lock into a super intense, relentless propulsive krautrock groove, hypnotic, mathy, complex, unfurling a super mesmerizing jam. But things shift dramatically when the vocals kick in, the band lurch into serious Harvey Milk territory, which is a very good thing, a strange crooned vocal line over a strange convoluted rhythm. Catchy, melodic, and weirdly poppy.
But the last 10 minutes or so totally seal the deal (if it wasn't already), a super stripped down Southern style (?) kraut jam, looped riff, simple propulsive drumming, and some killer guitar harmonies that go from epic and soaring to weird and warbly, and it's all we can do to not use one of our three wishes to get that last part to go on until the end of time...
The flipside features Maine's Ocean, not to be confused with THE Ocean, these guys aren't so much a part of that post rock metal thing as they are glacial doom merchants, and here they offer up a sidelong slab of multiple o'd dooooom. Things start out as a super pretty slowcore crawl, before a black hole wall of guitars drop and it's still a slowcore crawl, just a massive crushing funeral dirge of a slowcore crawl! Plodding and epic, but still haunting and weirdly lovely, sounding a lot like a metallized Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, depressive and mournful, mysterious and haunting... The vocals are a hellish howl, the guitars grinding and buzzing, a lot of this actually sounds like some unearthed slab of nineties funeral doom, albeit with that Bohren-y prettiness mixed in.
Packaged in super swank Important Records style, this time a black and white printed sleeve inside a grey and orange silk screened vinyl outer jacket, giving it a cool sort of 3-D affect. And as you might have assumed, SUPER LIMITED, only 1000 copies...
Those of you who managed to catch Andee and Allan guest DJing on Brian Turner's show On WFMU a few months back got an earful of all the craziest metal they could muster (if you didn't hear it, go to WFMU.org and you can listen to the whole thing!) in a desperate attempt to stump Brian the musical genius. Of course we cheated and played a bunch of unreleased demos!! One of which was some amazingly damaged keyboard heavy black-drone metal from Circumscriber. No idea when that record will finally see the light of day, but we just discovered that Benighted Leams label mates Contra Ignem Fatuum is in fact a group comprised of members of Circumscriber. Which makes perfect sense as CIF traffic in the same ultra repetitive black drone metal that so blew us away. We weren't sure what to expect as the majority of Detritus is ambient. No drums, no guitars, just dreamy streaks of smeary sound, delicate ghostlike melodies, warm synthesizers, chanting monklike vocals, majestic melodic swells, distant martial percussion, a bit like In The Nursery or Dead Can Dance or a lot like the recently listed Dark Ages disc. The second of the three tracks is the little black secret here, bookended on both sides by ethereal ambience, the 14 minute long title track is a brutal and mega-catchy, completely hypntoic, endlessly repeating KILLER riff, a swarm-of-locusts kind riff, buzzing and twisting, pounding and pulsing repeating over and over, a bit like a black metal Circle or more heavy metal Pharoah Overlord or even a way heavier Gore. The track builds and builds until the drums burst into a blazing fast blast beat and utter chaos is unleashed, the whole track becoming a swirl of demonic vocals, shrieking, swarming guitars, warm washes of keyboard and spastic lighting fast drumming, as everything becomes less and less distinct and more a black flurry of sound. Wow. When the riff kicks in, you'd have to be totally ROCK-less to not leap out of your chait and start banging your head and whipping your hair around like a windmill. It's like that Khold riff, the sort of riff bands kill for. So fucking great. So enjoy this while you can and steel yourself for the eventual arrival of Circumscriber.
Some bands mellow with age. That's just the way it is... sometimes. Converge is definitely NOT one of those bands, and almost two decades into their career, they're still just as furious as ever and showing no signs of age (though they were only teenagers when they started, it's not like they're a bunch of old dudes). It's almost unbelievable to think how a band like this could maintain such an insane amount of energy, but we're happy to report that things don't appear to be slowing down by any measure. There's tons of crazy guitar leads, super aggressive bass playing that holds things down like an anchor, tight as fuck drumming, and of course, frontman Jacob Bannon's throat-ripping banshee screams.
Axe To Fall, like the other post-Jane Doe Converge records, retains the unfathomable brutality of that definitive record and adds an approach that, as weird as it may sound, seems to exude a heavy rock n' roll influence. There's really no other way to put it: this shit rocks hard. Perhaps the best thing about Converge is, even in the moments of sheer metallic evil (which is most of them), they are still highly musical and catchy, and the band's incredible musicianship allows them to take things where few other hardcore groups are capable of going. Yep, nothing quite hits the spot like Converge. Featuring contributions from an assortment of noteworthy heavies, including dudes from Cave In, Entombed/Disfear (the awesomely monickered Ufe Cederlund), Himsa, Neurosis, Genghis Tron, and probably some others. Awesome stuff.
It's raining blood in Boston with the release of this new, state-of-the-art Converge album. These New England metalcore masters (the closest rivals to the now-defunct Coalesce) have produced their most vicious, best-sounding disc yet; pummelling, complex,
Metalcore is sort of a dirty word these days it seems; conjuring up images of Warped Tours and Hot Topic's. All the short haired emo guys are now playing brutal-tech-death metal while the dirty long haired metalhead guys are slowing it down, making all kinds of epic post rock and convoluted math rock. What gives? Converge continue to blaze their own path and break down the boundaries between hardcore and metal, while incorporating bits of noise and other weird sounds, the REAL crossover.
Converge were sort of always the hardcore black sheep, too noisy, too metal, not punk enough. Going on 15 years now, Converge have been the kings of the underground, subtly or not so subtly influencing all the metalcore outfits that have gone on to be HUGE. It's time for the world to recognize that Converge have been making some of the most progressive, and beautifully fucked up metallic punk rock music of the last two decades.
No Heroes falls sonically somewhere between the all time metalcore milestone Jane Doe and their more recent, but equally as punishing and original You Fail me.�The pace is furious, hovering around warp speed most of the time, but these guys are masters, and amidst the cacophonous, chaotic din lurk all sorts of sonic surprises, tone of space and atmosphere, discordant, jagged, chunky, choppy riffs, incredibly complex rhythms, as well as hooks galore, all masterfully whipped into a glorious metalcore frenzy.
Highly recommended.
What to say about the mighty Converge? Not sure I can top Allan's description from a few lists back:
"Pummelling, complex, and super heavy. There's dizzying changes and lots of textures, from razor-sharp guitar riffing to theremin squiggles to throat-shredding screams. Going beyond your usual technical metal/hardcore brutality, Converge utilize Shellac/Slint style post-rock style dynamics and non-screaming vocals as well."
Converge are probably one of, if not our favorite metalcore bands ever (along with Coalesce, Heaven Shall Burn, From Autumn To Ashes and a few select others) and have continued to progress musically, taking their Slayer meets NYHC to completely new and original places.
This DVD basically chronicles the hundreds of live performances from 1994 to the present. It's cool to see this stuff live, it's way more palpable and dangerous, and the virtuosity takes a back seat to the sweat and aggresion and fury and chaos and fun. Swirling pits and bouncing band members and flailing stage divers. Recorded at huge festivals, little clubs and tiny low-ceilinged basements. Super intimate and really cool. Two sided disc, with the first side being the feature, 20 or so songs, recorded live all over the world, some on film, some on video, all varying degrees of sound/picture quality, but all furious and awesome to watch. The bonus footage on side 2 is three entire live shows as well as a super arty music video.
Converge just happen to be responsible for quite possibly the best metalcore record of last year (maybe ever?!?), Jane Doe. Pummelling, and complex, heavy and brutal but drone-y and dirgey, death metal mixed with hardcore mixed with punk rock mixed with post rock mixed with grindcore. A totally unique musical statement, stretching the envelope of the often too predicatable hardcore/metalcore sound. So how did they get to that point? Well here's a singles/rarites collection that gives us a little glance into the past to see how this band turned into the powerhouse they are now. Singles, compilation tracks, as well as a handful of previously unreleased tracks make this essential for the Converge completist as well as a decent introduction for the uninitiated, to a band that continues to blow our minds, although if you are taking your first plunge, we might recommend the godlike Jane Doe instead.
Converge have always been one of the best metalcore bands around. But with the release of Jane Doe a few years back they quickly moved right to the head of the line, having crafted what is most definitely the most amazing, heaviest, most complex, catchiest and most chaotic metalcore record ever. EVER. So once again we're faced with what would almost have to be a massive disappointment after the total Godhead that was Jane Doe. But we should know better than to doubt Converge. While this record may not be quite as good as Jane Doe, it almost doesn't matter. In fact it's a whole different kind of record. Not nearly as dense and chaotic as Jane Doe, You Fail Me is strangely melodic and dare we say almost new wave at times. Now don't get all scared off. You Fail Me is still heavier and more brutal than almost any record you'll hear this year, but there's a lot more weirdness going on. A lot more space, and more experimentation. Not so much being 'experimental' per se, but more dabbling in some distinctly un-Converge like sounds, pop melodies, acoustic guitars, clean singing, angular new wave-ish guitar, bouncy almost emo-ish rhythms, folky ambience, but all safely ensconced in a jagged, prickly nest of swirling metallic guitars, chugging downtuned riffs, ridiculous drumming and throbbing punch-in-the-gut bass. Definitely weirder, but quite possibly just as good as Jane Doe. Just in a wonderfully different way.
If you're anything like us, you saw the names of these two bands and immediately added this to your cart. Cuz really, what more do you need to know about either of these bands that you don't already? Anyone into heavy music, who isn't obsessed with either or both of these groups is missing out big time. Both now celebrating their 20 year anniversaries, and commemorating that fact with this split 7", featuring one track from each band, recorded last year. The Converge track is a killer (of course), pairing grinding blasting furious verses with an impossibly melodic / catchy refrain, that's downright poppy. DropDead counter with what they do best, a blasting, thrashing, pounding slab of political hardcore, no frills, howled vox over grinding riffage and pounding drums, furious and frenzied and somehow catchy like crazy. We imagine fans of both or either will absolutely need this, and this also works as a pretty sweet introduction to two of the most important punk rock / hardcore bands of the last two decades! Pressed on blue vinyl, includes a download coupon as well, and guessing it's also probably pretty limited.
Split cd with Boston's Converge and Japan's Hellchild. Converge take their normal metal core sound and twist it a bit, adding weird stop-start arrangements and bizarre keyboards making for a super heavy prog workout. And then try their hand at a Depeche
Hellchild slow down their grinding metal to a more midtempo 80's thrash. One new song and a Bulldozer cover! Both bands finish up with some live tunes. Pretty great.
- RealAudio clip: Thaw
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We're always on the lookout for new music metal magazines, cuz as much as we love Decibel and Terrorizer, it's the cool DIY mags that really cover the stuff we love, in a way that seems totally genuine, driven purely by a love of the music, whether it's the now defunct Oaken Throne, or Salt (not strictly metal), or Asgard Root, we can't get enough. Which is why we were so thrilled to discover the curiously named Convivial Hermit, while at the same time confused as to how we missed the first 4 issues of this incredible magazine. Based in Warmonster, Pennsylvania (!!!), TCH covers a wide array of dark and heavy underground music, black metal, doom, psychedelic folk, industrial, and pretty much everything in between, as well as artists and filmmakers and whatever the hell else they feel like. This is issue five, and it's a doozy, featuring legendary slowcore doomlords Skepticism, Chinese neo-folk outfit Baishui, USBM horde Nechochwen, Korean metallers Sad Legend, Norwegian metal outfit Wallachia, filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, Orson Welles' film Mr. Arkadin, mysterious Russian black metallers Walknut, black metallers Algaion, symphonic neo-folk group Rome, longtime aQ fave Steven R. Smith, Russian doom metal label Solitude Productions, Lovecraftian metal weirdos Fungoid Stream, funeral doom outfit Helllight, an essay on the dying art of compilations and reviews of some of the editor's faves, French Illustrator Chris Moyen, death metallers Affliction Gate, Spanish black metallers Beelzeb, German black metal horde Drengskapur, Italian black metal unknowns Adversam, an essay on hermits (!), acid folk legends and ALL time aQ faves Comus, Czech black metal weirdos Master's Hammer, French black metallers Aorlhac, legendary dark ambient soundscaper Raison D'Etre, Chinese label Pest Productions (whose releases we have featured on the aQ list recently!), an thoughtful essay on record stores and the future of recorded media (for which this 'zine would get our recommendation alone, read this!), and then of course, TONS of reviews, records, magazines, shows.
The magazine is massive, beautifully laid out, fun to read, packed with old faves and new discoveries, just might be out 'new' favorite metal mag!
Latest issue of this massive metal (and more) mag, only number six, in maybe twice as many years, but we look forward to every issue, it's sort of like Ugly Things for metalheads, but as the 'and more' above suggests, CH pushes way beyond just metal, there's industrial, folk, experimental, psych, electronic, drone, in addition to all the various strains of metal, and each issue is packed with tons of reviews, great articles and interviews, and as for the bands covered, tons of old favorites and even more new discoveries. All that and some seriously excellent writing to boot!!
So this time around, long time aQ faves Blut Aus Nord, Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, as well as Russian pagan black metallers Vspolokh, Finnish black metal weirdos Funerary Bell, neo-folkers Larrnakh, Icelandic experimental electronic duo Gjoll, Russian neo-folk combo Neutral, folkish black metallers Falls Of Rauros, German black metal horde Bergthron, old school Lusitanian BM outfit Cripta Oculta, Italian trad black metal combo Movimento D'Avanguardia Ermetico, Finnish death metal outfits Purtenance and Rippikoulu as well as a killer retrospective of Finnish death metal.
There's also UK death metallers Cruciamentum, an awesome primer on Japanese experimentalist Aube, a live review of Merzbow and Charles Cohen, post diSEMBOWELMENT outfit Inverloch, ambient neo-folkers Trial Of The Bow, spaced out doomlords Monolithe, Belorussian folk ambient outfit Dalina, ultradoomsters The Sullen Route, Israeli black metallers Dagor Dagorath, German BM horde Infestus, French black metal outfit Christicide, the Temple Of Torturous label, Philly record store Digital Ferret, a killer compendium of the worst metal of 2009-2011 (which had us sort of wishing for a whole mag's worth!), a review of 2011's Killtown Deathfest in Copenhagen and an interview with the festival's organizer, fantasy/horror novelist Joe Abercrombie, several really great essays by Convivial mainman Yury, as well as a visit to St. Peter's Village in rural Pennsylvania, some train hopping action (excerpted from another zine we love, Bogus Rendition), a bunch of zine reviews, record reviews, book reviews and more more more!
Easily one of the best, and more passionately put together music mags out there, metal or otherwise!
Yet another release from Campbell Kneale's (of Birchville Cat Motel) Battlecruiser label, a sub division of his free drone Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label, specializing in METAL, or at least sort-of-metal, or maybe more accurately very heavy music that is the sort of 'metal' music ambient dronesters make when they're trying to get heads banging. So far in the series we've had loads of slow motion sludge metal, some Steve Reich style repeated NWOBHM riffs and even some almost ambient metal. Now we have the Cops. Who don't really sound all that metal at all on first listen. But then again, one man's metal is another man's circus organ flecked industrial sludge spazz grind. Or something like that. The Cops sound a little like the Locust, if the lead guitarist played one of the Fisher Price guitars with the buttons on the neck that unleash noodly squiggly guitar solos, and if the whole thing was recorded on a boom box. Massively overblown recording, super ultra-distorted angular riffs (some very metal indeed), loads of squealing feedback, suffocating washes of distortion over howled banshee vocals, programmed blast beats, and occasional Godflesh like industrial rhythms. Weird but pretty effing cool! Maybe a bit aggro for your typical metalhead. But anyone who wants a quick (11 minutes) furious electronicly grinding drum-machined metallic knee to the nards can definitely count on these Cops!
SUPER LIMITED AS ALWAYS!! NOT SURE WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE WHEN THESE ARE GONE!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Here's one of our all-time favorite black metal bands, and even we are guilty of ignoring them a bit now that they're HUGE rather than being a raw, cult, underground one-man-band operation like a lot of the stuff we've been trumpeting lately. But that's not fair. Cradle of Filth, though some purer-than-thou types see 'em as sell-outs, are pretty much just as 'extreme' as they ever were, and in terms of songwriting have really only gotten better. And they're one of the reasons that we're even black metal fans in the first place -- CoF were the first 'modern' black metal band that Andee, for one, ever heard and got into (along with Satyricon)...and then one thing lead to another. Not everyone's cup of absinthe, but you can't deny their brew's potency.
So, we really should have reviewed this new album the week it came out, but better late than never. Of course, we also know that if you're already into CoF, all you need to know is that this latest album is simply another great CoF opus -- gothically bent, vicious and heavy. Its perfumed and perverse atmosphere of baroque excess lacks not for Dani Filth's trademark screech and snarl (more snarl than screech this time), and some sweet female vox too (a Nymphette, of course, and doubtless corseted), ornate Hammer horror keyboards, blasting drums, and a good deal of very 'heavy metal' guitar riffage. More and more the Filthies have been taking after classic metal mentors like Iron Maiden and Metallica, with some very trad sounding melodies and harmonies cropping up amidst their occult-sexual black metal blasphemizing. Fans needn't know much more, you ought to be happy with this. On the other hand, if you haven't yet been, um, rocked by this Cradle, well, this would be a very accessible starting point (although we certainly must also recommend our absolute fave, Dusk And Her Embrace). And for those of you who once were CoF fans but turned your backs on 'em as they got more popular and more tuneful and better produced...well never mind about Nymphetamine then, I guess. But you're missing out on some damn good metal music!
This is the cd you must buy if you are at all interested in Norwegian dark metal (even though they're not Norwegian). Melodic. Heavy. Fast. Beautiful. The current kings of black metal, just amazing.
Writing a guest review here two years ago, Wrest of Leviathan called Craft's previous album Terror Propaganda a "lesson in the grimmest of expession". We just got this new, third (and final? maybe not) Craft disc in stock so we haven't checked with Wrest yet to see what he thinks of it, but subjecting it to our own finely black metal attuned ears, we say, YEAH!
Fuck The Universe is another bog-blast of genius from one of the best bands in the Swedish black metal underground. For the black at heart, grim pleasures abound in Craft's negative metal mixture of misanthropic spittle, dismal drone and headbanging hooks, the band bulldozering through the uncaring cosmos with the feeling being mutual. Or worse. There's something very rock and roll gone wrong about this, slowed down thrash executed with a sneer of competence, nodding to the gods Darkthrone and Mayhem with a "don't worry, we've got it covered" sort of look (and sound). Recommended. Plus, this domestic version is released on the undeniably hip label Southern Lord, whose doom roots have of late seemingly been overtaken by the love of black metal, and they love the good stuff, we're on the same page there!
This bit of black metal wisdom comes courtesy of AQ pal Wrest from the mighty Leviathan:
As things change and weaken in the ranks of older "black metal" bands, a hellish shriek sounds from the Swedish underground. Unlike their fellow countrymen, Mardukee and Dork Fun-eral, Craft have developed a formula for taking the sound of '90s era B.M. and breathing new life into its whithered black lungs. Terror Propaganda, Craft's second effort, is a lesson in the grimmest of expession. "False Orders Begone" rides a riff that matchs the genius of old Celtic Frost while "616" is a thrashy, dark intrumental voyage. These 8 hymns may seem to some like mere Darkthrone worship, but upon closer listening, this hard to find gem shines far brighter than most new Scandanavian B.M. coming out these days. May Craft rot in glory.
Blazing fast primitve Swedish black metal in the style of Darkthrone, old Ulver, or Immortal. Blurry buzzsaw guitars, pounding blasting drums and raspy growling screams. Pure and evil and totally cult.
Finally! The return of Swedish black metal horde Craft, six years after their crushing Fuck The Universe record, purported to be their last at the time, but it was well worth the wait, and we're happy to report very little has changed in whatever negative grim underworld these guys call home, in fact, if anything, Void sound even more misanthropically miserable, the sound seriously cranked, a killer production that doesn't take away from the sound's raw immediacy or caustic filth at all, just makes it that much more powerful. As always, these guys weave dizzying blackened riffs into plodding doomic trudges, creating a strange dichotomous sound that find the guitars riffing furiously, while the rest of the band lumbers ominously, their debt to Mayhem and Darkthrone more than paid, as they take the classic sound of vintage Scandinavian blackness and make it all their own, peppering their dirgey miserablism with cool little melodic trills, processed backwards guitars, weird effects, all employed judiciously, and subtly, letting the core black buzz and demonic pound speak for itself, the vocals even more harsh than before, and so blown out and high in the mix that occasionally you can almost hear the needles in the studio peg, but for all the lumbering midtempo dirgery, it's not just all doomy blackness, and while the band rarely go full bore frenzied blast, they do crank up the tempo here and there, although they do tend to slip right back into some gnarled and churning dirge before too long. There's also plenty of classic metal mixed into their black buzz too, which makes these songs surprisingly catchy, but again, without at all sacrificing the band's grizzled hellish blackness.
Ten years on and Craw (remember them?) are still at it. Combining some of the best parts of the Dazzling Killmen, Bastro and Jesus Lizard and coming up with a bass heavy, groove laden, crushing metal onslaught. Equal parts metalcore and post rock, Craw spread out expansive rhythmic structures, with the bass and drums tightly wound together while guitars roar above and around, riffs weaving in and out, slowly building into walls of sludge-thick guitars. Craw's weak point has always been the vocals. So much so that a lot of people I know would probably cite Craw as one of their all time favorite bands, if it wasn't for those damn vocals. Well, the vocals are still a bit of a problem, but they are so much better than before. Not sure if the singer is singing better, or the vocals are more buried in the mix (more like both methinks) but whatever it is, makes this new Craw record go down way easier and means that this is WAY RECOMMENDED!
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Not sure why we never reviewed this back in the day, Cream Abdul Babar were one of our favorite weirdo noise rock / sort of metal combos, with what is arguably the worst / best band name EVER. On this all-covers ep they tackle "Burning Inside" by Ministry, "Rid Of Me" by PJ Harvey, "Born Annoying" by Helmet, "Gladiator" by the Jesus Lizard and "Space" by Mira. There's also a hidden bonus track, "Material Girl" by Madonna! And as you might imagin, Cream Abdul Babar's versions KILL!!!
One of the best bands with one of the worst band names. But if we can love Japancakes and Flaming Lips and the Butthole Surfers then by God we can love Cream Abdul Babar. CAB are a southern fried noise rock outfit who channel all that was good about Amrep, Homestead, the aforementioned Buttholes, and twenty years of indie/post/dirge/noise rock chaos. This 2cd collects their first LP on disc one, and on disc 2, all of their splits and comp tracks as well as a wicked live number. CAB are notorious for the addition of trombone to their otherwise traditional guitar/bass/drum/vocal lineup. The trombone adds even more low end and gives the proceedings a woozy sort of seasick feel. This is awesome, ass kicking aggro noise rock in the tradition of Butthole Surfers, Halo Of Flies, the Cows, Jesus Lizard with plenty of dynamics and melody to keep things interesting. Highly recommended.
This monstrous 7 piece experi-metal ensemble has been around for years now. Alternately referred to as either 'that metal band with the trombone player' or 'that band with the worst name ever.' Let's address both of those issues right off the bat. They do
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Ultra brutal, extremely technical metal/hardcore. Four new songs amidst a collage of noise. All with an extremely political anti-technology bent.
Awesome co-operative release between southwestern political grindsters Creation is Crucifixion, Critical Art Foundation and the Carbon Defnese League. Beautiful box with a cd/cd-rom and a huge perfect bound book. The book examines the 'reverse engineering of
What is it about California that spawns such fury and hatred and musical malevolence? Must be the weather! Or its proximity to HELL! There's been a remarkable number of cold and frosty, cult black metal bands coming from the Golden state in the last few years, all of them worthy of inclusion in black metal's elite: SF's legendary Weakling, Ludicra, Leviathan, Xasthur, Draugar (coming soon on tUMULt) and now CREBAIN. Another one man project, Crebain is Ancalagon The Black, who handles "Majestic Hellcommand Of Kataklysmik Deathstrings, Nightmarish Throatshredding and Percussive Programming." This is classic black metal, hateful and misanthropic, buzzy and hypnotic, ala Burzum, Darkthrone, Judas Iscariot, and the like. Named for Sauron's huge black birds in Lord Of The Rings (what would black metal bands do for names without Tolkien??), Crebain exudes a similar malevolence on Night Of Stormcrow, replete with howling, guttural, hyper-distorted wails of anguish, hellish riffs, buzzing insect-swarm guitars and some masterful programming that thankfully turns the drum machine into a hellish instrument of evil. Less atmospheric than Xasthur, and less fucked up than Leviathan, but equally true and black, Crebain follows his own dark path straight to the pits of hell. And as Ancalagon states in the liner notes: "To all those who have dared to cross me, your time is coming. Eventually, I will kill you all." This cd-r is strictly limited to 66 copies and numbered in BLOOD!
MPEG Download: "Night Of The Stormcrow" [/audio/crebainnight.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Night Of The Stormcrow" [/audio/crebainnight.m3u]
We had a handful of Crebain's ultra limited demo Night Of The Stormcrow a few years back, and they sold out in no time at all. You've now got yourself another chance to pick it up, on VINYL no less, with this here super limited picture disc version of these very first recordings from SF black metal horde Crebain. Nice thick picture disc vinyl with the logo on one side and an amazing photo of Crebain mastermind Ancalagon The Black on the other, weilding the most metal of weaponry, the sledge hammer! So fucking cool. Here's what we had to say about Night Of The Stormcrow first time around:
What is it about California that spawns such fury and hatred and musical malevolence? Must be the weather! Or its proximity to HELL! There's been a remarkable number of cold and frosty, cult black metal bands coming from the Golden state in the last few years, all of them worthy of inclusion in black metal's elite: SF's legendary Weakling, Ludicra, Leviathan, Xasthur, Draugar, and now CREBAIN. Another one man project, Crebain is Ancalagon The Black, who handles "Majestic Hellcommand Of Kataklysmik Deathstrings, Nightmarish Throatshredding and Percussive Programming." This is classic black metal, hateful and misanthropic, buzzy and hypnotic, ala Burzum, Darkthrone, Judas Iscariot, and the like. Named for Sauron's huge black birds in Lord Of The Rings (what would black metal bands do for names without Tolkien??), Crebain exudes a similar malevolence on Night Of The Stormcrow, replete with howling, guttural, hyper-distorted wails of anguish, hellish riffs, buzzing insect-swarm guitars and some masterful programming that thankfully turns the drum machine into a hellish instrument of evil. Less atmospheric than Xasthur, and less fucked up than Leviathan, but equally true and black, Crebain follows his own dark path straight to the pits of hell. And as Ancalagon states in the liner notes: "To all those who have dared to cross me, your time is coming. Eventually, I will kill you all."
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, WE GOT 60 AND WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO GET MORE, SO IF YOU WANT ONE ACT FAST. ONE PER CUSTOMER!!!
