[ aquarius records

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

SORRY.

We've long been fans of the druggy stoner grooves of the UK's Acrimony, ever since 1996's�Tumuli Shroomaroom, a record that has been out of print for a while now, otherwise we would have most certainly given it some long overdue love on the AQ list. Just recently, Japanese label Leaf Hound reissued�Tumuli Shroomaroom (which we now have in stock, and will list next time) but also this killer odds and sods collection called appropriately enough Bong On - Live Long! So we figured we oughta tackle the newest release first, plus for long time fans like us, there's tons of amazing out of print stuff on it we'd been dying to hear. Acrimony exist in a similar sonic universe as their metallic countrymen Electric Wizard (as well as folks like Boris, Church Of Misery, Kyuss, Bongzilla, etc.) and while not quite as filthy and blown out and Sabbath obsessed, they are definitely just as heavy, but probably way more groovy and spaced out, adding some Hawkwind to the mix, and some organ (fuck yeah!) turning crushing druggy jams into crushing freaked out groovy druggy SPACE jams which is never a bad thing.� Collecting tracks from old eps, compilations, and a split with Church Of Misery (even a badass Status Quo cover!), every song here is a sludgy groovy stoner space jam of the highest order, the riffs are massive and downtuned, the drums a barrage of pounding pummel, the vocals a raspy howl, wah guitar everywhere, hooks galore, lots of swing and groove, throbbing distorted bass, churning riffage that often slowly morphs into a spaced out sprawl a la Monster Magnet or Hawkwind, even the folks who don't get high here (Andee, and...?), can imagine that this is exactly what that must (or at least -should-) sound like, heavy and freaky and groovy and mind blowing.� Fans of bands like Electric Wizard and Nebula and Ufomammut and Orange Goblin and Spiritual Beggars and the like who have somehow missed out on these guys might just have found a new favorite band...

MPEG stream: Spaced Cat #7 (Hammond Moon - Bong Mix)
MPEG stream: Earthchild Inferno
MPEG stream: O Baby

A few lists back, we reviewed a newly released collection of odds and ends from stoner doomlords Acrimony, a UK band, who combined all the best parts of many of our favorite bands, Electric Wizard, Kyuss, Monster Magnet, Hawkwind, Church Of Misery, Boris, Bongzilla, that list alone should have many of you already leaping for the 'buy' button, and that's as it should be. These guys destroy. Unbelievably heavy, crazy catchy, killer riffs, hooks galore, and plenty of spaced out druggy drone. But YEARS before that comp, Bong On- Live Long!, we were already huge fans of this here disc right here, Tumuli Shroomaroom, now reissued with new improved sound, maybe one of the best stoner rock records EVER. High praise indeed, but not unwarranted we think. The guitars are massive, downtuned and crunchy, spitting out groovy Sabbathy riffage, but way more psychedelic, plenty of wah guitar, streaks of wild leads, all over a super dense rhythmic foundation. The drums heavy as fuck, pounding away, the bass throbbing and buzzing and holding it all together. The vocals a rough raspy, but melodic caterwaul. And the songs, as catchy as they are heavy, super charged and blown out, like someone took perfect pop songs, dipped them in LSD, rolled them in broken shards of Monster Magnet, wrapped them in thick sheets of Hawkwind, lit them on fire and smoked them, and then picked up guitars and this was the result. Not sure why these guys weren't huge. Besides being a kick ass band, heavy and catchy, they also have a serious thing for repetition, and drone, most of the songs have long stretches of churning riffage that just repeats and repeats, mantra like, mesmerizingly headbanging, lots of them also lock into some sort of endless groove near the end, the song often transforming into an ultra heavy hypnorock workout, looped over and over, repeating sometimes for minutes, and then sometimes unexpectedly slipping right back into the song. Definitely part of what gives them such a druggy vibe. The best example of that is the track "Motherslug (The Mother Of All Slugs", a massive stoner rock jam, that is constantly locking into perfect looped grooves, so tight and hypnotic they almost sounds like the cd is skipping, a single riff churning again and again, so completely trancelike, while all around the main riff, other guitars swell and swoop, shimmering in little squalls pf psychedelic FX, sort of like those kick ass spaced out Hawkwind outros but way less spacey and more relentlessly and repetitively rocking, until the track suddenly and effortlessly slips back into the main groove again, eventually drifting apart into some awesome spacious doom jam, the guitar and drums locked in big crashes, spaced way far apart, the guitar chords crumbling and fading almost completely before the next crash comes, finally fading into some throbbing drone, buzzy and muted, maybe a didgeridoo or faux throat singing or something, finally fading out into the space-rock Sabbath riff that opens the next track. Hard to know what else to say, one of our favorite heavy records ever, every track on here is a killer. Heavy and groovy, droney and hypnotic, druggy and spaced out, the ultimate stoner rock doom disc for sure. As we mentioned above, folks into Monster Magnet, Sleep, Electric Wizard, Ufomammut, Orange Goblin, Kyuss, Black Sabbath, Spiritual Beggars, Nebula, Bongzilla, Green Machine, Boris, Lowrider, Spirit Caravan, Solarized, Fu Manchu, Dozer and Mammoth Volume and have somehow made it this far without hearing Acrimony, might just have discovered their new favorite band.

MPEG stream: Hymns To The Stone
MPEG stream: Million Year Summer
MPEG stream: Vy

There are very few black metal bands we can think of from Turkey (although metal archives lists a bunch), this one man outfit delivers a unique take on black metal, which like many of his Dusktone labelmates is probably more commonly (and often derogatorily) referred to as post black metal. But around here we love this stuff. What could be better than post rock mixed with black metal? Here however, the mix is at times decidedly on the post rock side of things. The opener is mostly piano, drums and dramatically crooned vox, but quickly the sound erupts into something much more metal, but not necessarily black metal, sure there's buzzing and blasting, but the vibe is almost more like math rock, and with the bits of weird percussion, and unlikely melodies, it also reminds us of local drum and dulcimer weirdos Botanist, in fact the second track sounds like it might actually include some dulcimer. The song soon stutters to a halt, and transforms into a weird sort of spaced out math rock groove, all atonal guitars, and stop/start arrangement. The rest of the record splits its time pretty evenly between pounding blasting and buzzing, and more abstract, avant rockisms, with strange vocal harmonies, droned out layers, still more piano, even accordion (!!), one track that sound like jazzy slowcore, and a closer that sounds like some lost downer rock goth jam, and ends up being crazy catchy in spite of itself, all of that is balanced by some truly mesmerizing (post) blackbuzz.

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MPEG stream: Ramblin' In The Shadows
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Southern psychedelic post-metal heavies Across Tundras are another one of those bands, that for whatever reason we've neglected on the aQ list, even though some aQ-ers have been big fans for a while. This trio's latest, Sage, is another riffy, mathy, psychedelic sprawl, a bit like a less sludgey Neurosis, the same sort of instrumental heft, and moody epic heaviness, but spread out into something a bit more spacious, the postrock outweighing the metal, but only just barely, the songs slipping smoothly from downtuned bombast to spidery lope, from hazy psychedelic drift to almost Southern rock sounding stomp. The label references Neil Young and Johnny Cash, and we definitely hear some Crazy Horse going on, even weirdly enough some Raging Slab, even some Skynrd or Outlaws, as the record unfolds, the songs definitely reveal themselves to be some sort of metallized modern variant of classic Southern Rock, and it's a pretty bad ass mix, unlike most metal, where it's about the tone and the riffs and the distortion, Sage is definitely as much about the songs, melding hooks and killer choruses, actual singing, with stretches of soaring epic crunch, as well as moody minimal drift. Many of the tracks don't get heavy at all, or at least conventionally heavy, instead, brooding and dark, dense and layered, sounding more like True Widow or the most recent Young Widows, that same sort of creeping post rock slowcore, while in places, the sound even drifts into Woven Hand style apocalyptic folk, all muted percussion, urgently strummed acoustic guitars, twang and jangle, even some boy / girl harmonies. Not to downplay the heaviness entirely, cuz plenty of this record IS heavy, big riffs, pounding drums, slow building metallic crescendos, shades of Neurosis (Crossed with Godspeed), sludge via Morricone, doom via Barn Owl, but all woven into their own distinctive sound, one that should most definitely appeal to any of the above mentioned outfits, as well as anyone into, sprawling psychedelic heaviness of any stripe.

MPEG stream: In The Name Of River Grand
MPEG stream: Hijo De Desierto
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Two chunks of heavy-handed black ambience courtesy of Actuary and Gnaw Their Tongues. The former hails from Los Angeles, mustering gristly slabs of toxic noise and low-end rumble all enshrouded in electronic dread and hellbound sonic monstrosity. Aside from a well-received album on Crucial Blast a while back, much of their work came and went through the sub-underground noise networks of small edition cassettes and cd-r's. This cacophonous slab of blackened noise pummel from Actuary easy holds up against the tortured groans and blackened miasma that exude from Gnaw Their Tongues on the other side of this lp. On their oppressive tracks, Gnaw Their Tongues presents a couple signature pieces of atonal chunks of cinematic horror drones incorporate thick reverberations of crawling noise, mysteriously mechanical textures, and the distant bellowings of a screaming madman.

MPEG stream: Into The Ring Of Fire Thou Servant Of Pain

It's unclear what it is exactly that differentiates Aderlating from Gnaw Their Tongues, both are masterminded by mysterious noisemaker Mories, both feature garish frightening artwork, both feature extended wordy song titles like "And Thou Shall Breathe Sulfur As Last Breath" and "Travel The Fog As Death Reaping The Lands" and "The Ravenous Bloodlust Of Fallen Angels", and both bands are grim and blown out and epic and cacophonous and blackened and harrowing and loud as fuck. The key differences seem to be these: Aderlating is in fact a duo, whereas GTT is a one man band, and Gnaw Their Tongues is much more cinematic, and atmospheric, while Aderlating seems to be more dense and dark and layered. Which is evidenced by the opening track here, a seemingly static wall of undulating layered dronemusic, the sound of 100 Sunroof!s playing simultaneously, a noise drenched ur-raga, a furious white hot sprawl of trancelike crumbling crunch, which over the course of nearly nine minutes goes from Merzbowian blast, to haunting black ambient creep, exploring all sorts of sonic mysteries in between. Devotional Hymns is a collection of sounds black and bleak, hymns perhaps, but to some fallen lord, grinding black shards collide with creaking ambient drifts, epic industrial wastelands, roiling, churning, every track a black hole of sound, when melody and light do escape, they are damaged, limping along, like some charred beast, some damaged machine, crawling through a soundscape of apocalyptic decay. A few of the tracks here get rhythmic, sounding a bit like a blackened Wolf Eyes, a rotting sea of sounds supported by a rickety industrial skeleton, while others get almost black metal, but are so blurred and obscured that any riffage or blast beating, becomes blown out smears of grim sound, culminating in the hellish fury of the 12 minute title track, a sort of black industrial noise jam, that is simultaneously hypnotic and trancelike, filthy and raw, black and brutal. Incredible stuff as always. Essential for Gnaw Their Tongues fans obviously, and anyone into buzzing black filth or crushing industrial black ambience. And these Shadowgraph cd-r's are in super swank digipaks, but are usually still quite limited, often to 100 or less, which means these will be gone before you know it...

MPEG stream: And Thou Shall Breathe Sulfur As Last Breath
MPEG stream: Devotional Hymns
MPEG stream: The Shallow Waters Of The Styx

Another dose of 'blackened symphonic cinematic doom' (as we happen to have it classified in our iTunes), but really it would take a few more descriptors to adequately describe the abject soundscapes of Aderlating, a side project of Mories, perhaps better know for his other outfit, Gnaw Their Tongues. And while there does seem to be a distinct difference between the two entities, it's not always so obvious, which is most definitely true on Gospel Of The Burning Idols. The opening track could easy be either, thick layers of corrosive rumblings, keening distant melodies, guttural demonic vocal rumblings, monk like chants, swirls of blacknoise, industrial clank and clang, murky slow motion rhythms, orchestral swells, a hellish slow build that unwinds like a harrowingly hellish Godspeed. And so it goes, Mories never-minding any sort of genera constraints, the sound slipping into a weird sort of broody slow-motion almost trip-hop one second, a grinding squall of moaning, groaning low end thrum the next, and creepy noise drenched free jazz freakout tribal rituals the next. All of these seemingly disparate sounds bleeding into one massive oozing sprawl of black sound, that's at once bleak and dismal, epic and cinematic, grim and darkly depressive, textured and nuanced, brutal and punishing. Gnaw Their Tongues fans who have yet to discover the 'joys' of Aderlating, are definitely in for a soul crushing, ear shredding treat.

MPEG stream: A Vulture's Tongue Disease
MPEG stream: The Burial Gown Reeks Of Semen
MPEG stream: Dragged To The Smouldering Pits Of Infinity

Latest from this blackened noise drone doom duo, an offshoot of aQ faves Gnaw Their Tongues, which finds GTT mastermind Mories teamed up with a guy from a band called Mowlawner (awesome name!), for some very GTT-like audial pure pain punishment. Much like GTT, the sounds here are grim and harsh, lots of black buzz, and dense drones, sprawling fields of abject blacknoise and soundtrack like horror ambience, but unlike Gnaw Their Tongues, which tends toward the orchestral and symphonic, Aderlating seems more rough and raw, wild and loose, and according to the sticker on the front of the disc, also improvised, which makes sense listening to the opening track here, which sounds a bit like some demonic free jazz via Abruptum style black noise minimalism, the sound churning and roiling, bellowed demonic vox buried beneath an avalanche of downtuned heaviness and rumbling low end crunch, sounding almost like a blackened free jazz Wolf Eyes, the same sort of bleak blackened miserablism, but here driven by some chaotic loose drumming, the only thing really anchoring the otherwise billowing blackness. But that's only really one side of this most recent incarnation of Aderlating, elsewhere the band unfurl thick coruscating sheets of crumbling dronemusic, or unleash stumbling chaotic blasts of low fidelity black metal, or epic expanses of cavernous droned out industrial noise, the sound most mesmerizing when it's somehow all of those combined, like on the 18+ minute "Engel Der Wrake", which at times sounds like a blackdrone version of Aussie jazz minimalists the Necks, fusing some mesmerizing, almost krautrock like motorik mesmer to near orchestral expanses of blackened musical majesty, with strange horns, sampled sounds, industrial clatter, it could be the soundtrack to some strange sci-fi art film perhaps, and is the most ambitious, but weirdly the most fully formed and listener friendly track of the bunch. But just to make sure you know they're not getting soft, they finish with another blast of near jazzy blackness, on the surface, it's noisy and caustic and chaotic, but dig deeper, and like the lest of the record, it reveals itself as a dense, layered, rhythmic construct, that again fuses abstract black jazz to industrial noise, and creates something wholly original, that while obviously is essential for fans of Gnaw Their Tongues is also brutal and black enough for noise enthusiasts, while being plenty tripped out and psychedelic enough for adventurous metalheads and weirdo outsider music nerds as well.

MPEG stream: Black Emperor At The Temple's Gate
MPEG stream: Engel Der Wrake
MPEG stream: A New Plague For Triumph

A quick glance at this, the first release from the strangely named Aderlating, will reveal some very telling clues, the record is called The Nectar Of Perversity Springs From The Well Of Repression, the cover features a terrified figure, clad only in a bit of cloth, cowering from the darkness, and on the other side some sort of ritual that involves a naked woman with burning candles inserted in her ass, laying on an altar in front of mysterious cloaked figures. The songs are titled things like "Cut Off My Penis In Praise Of Black Satan", "Rope, Pig's Blood, Dead Flesh And Two Candles", "Death Knell" and "Doodstorm", so even before we get to the caustic gritty blackened filth on the disc, we're feeling a pretty heavy Gnaw Their Tongues vibe, which makes perfect sense as Aderlating is in fact another project by Gnaw mastermind Mories. It's a little unclear what differentiates this from a proper Gnaw Their Tongues release, there's plenty of harsh black noise, rumbling mysterious drones, buried riffage and mysterious chanting, creepy almost choral sounding voices, pounding percussion, harsh hissing feedback, crumbling distortion, buzzing black metal guitars smeared into blurred buzzscapes, howling harsh vocals buried in the mix, static, whir, glitch, all doused in effects and buried under layer after layer of distorted noise and noisy distorted. Hell, even sounds like we're describing a GTT record. Fuck it, anyone into Gnaw Their Tongues, you're gonna want this, it could essentially be the new GTT record, the only difference we can hear really, is that it's a little more harsh, a little less orchestral, where GTT employed all sort of almost cabaret like sounds, Aderlating is a much more furiously aggressive and abrasive beast, but even amidst all the white noise and grinding feedback drenched distortion, there lurks all sorts of sonic mystery, be it buried melodies, haunting disembodied voices or fucked up fragmented loops. Needless to say, we dig it. Heavy and harsh and droney and dark and just what we needed to tide us over until the next Gnaw Their Tongues record... LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!!! We got about a quarter of those but judging by past Gnaw Their Tongues releases, those won't be around for long...

MPEG stream: Death Knell
MPEG stream: Rope, Pig's Blood, Dead Flesh And Two Candles
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We've kind of had writer's block about doing this here review of the new album by British heavy retro-rockers Admiral Sir Cloudsley Shovell, just cuz we loved their first one so much, and anticipation for this new one was so high, it was hard to come up with anything to say, other than YEAH!! But that wouldn't really constitute a review, would it? So we put it off, hoping we'd come up with something better, but maybe that's good enough - so we finally took the advice of the opening track here, "Do It Now". Basically, if you like high energy hard rockin', the Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell are kickin' out the jams for you, once again, on this their second record. Another batch of rad tunes from 'em. Heck, if this was another band's first album it'd be easy to rave about it for paragraphs, but since it's this band's 2nd album, and we already raved about their debut, it seems so much easier just to say, hey it's their 2nd album! Right on!! YEAH!! Er, however, for those that don't know, "The Shovell" are a power trio from England, featuring, we now realize, at least one of the guys from the stoner rock outfit Gorilla, whose two albums we reviewed back in the day. They play riffy, groovy, kickass heavy rawk'n'roll, often very much in the epic fuzz mode of their '70s forefathers with the sorta-similar name, Sir Lord Baltimore. Also, Budgie, Dust, Buffalo, Toad, James Gang, Leaf Hound, et. al., and of course ye olde Black Sabbath!! Plus, sometimes, due to a gruffness to the vocals and/or some quasi-punk speediness, these guys crank up some Motorhead vibes too, on a rave-up like "Happiness Begins" ferinstance. Motorhead meets Sabbath, yep, coulda just said YEAH! We're digging all the tracks, but there are a couple stand-out song TITLES to mention: "2 Tonne Fuckboot" and "Late Night Mornings" (the later, this album's lengthy, surprisingly melodic finale, part ballad, part badass jam). Also, there's a song named after their previous album, kind of a classic move there. Whew! Did it! Now, get it!!

MPEG stream: Do It Now
MPEG stream: Captain Merryweather
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First of all, now that's a name! To which your reaction might be, okay, this band must really be into 17th and 18th century British military history, to name themselves after a heroic naval officer who perished in a shipwreck in 1707. Or, if you're like us, you might think, hmmm, seems a bit like the moniker of Sir Lord Baltimore, the fuzzed out early '70s proto-metal greats. And that's definitely relevant to Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell's also very much fuzzed out sound, all right. Like Witchcraft, Gentlemans Pistols, and the elusive Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats, these guys are another band on Rise Above (licensed to Metal Blade in the USA), who kick out the Sabbathy jams and sound like they actually -really- belong on Rise Above Relics, that UK label's imprint for reissues of swaggering '70s heavy rock obscurities. Yeah, the Shovell (as they like to be called, for short) deliver the goods, a ramalamajama of high energy brutal boogie with distorted to heck vocals, and noisy psych geetar explosions all over the place. 'Tis total guitar heavy, FX laden, rifftastic kickass rock n' roll. Extreme enough that while they've got one foot firmly in '70s rockarolla, they've almost got the other in, like, '90s noiserock� We say that 'cause sometimes the guitars break out stuff that's so sinewy and mathy, and the vocals get even more gruff and gnarly, that suddenly we start thinking the Melvins (meet Blue Cheer). It's just that they're waaay more freaked out and crazier than, y'know, mere Led Zep copyists. Much more like, The Heads, if they were all proto-metal about it. In fact, we'd say that this is definitely recommended to both fans of The Heads -and- Sir Lord Baltimore, of which we'd imagine there'd be plenty. Also if you like Danava, the aforementioned Gentlemans Pistols, Harvey Milk circa The Pleaser, Dzjenghis Khan, plus oldies like High Tide, Budgie, Toad, Dust, Buffalo, the Groundhogs (whose Tony McPhee gets in a guest guitar solo on one track here!), Captain Beyond, etc. In a word, Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell SLAY. And do so in style. Which includes, slipcase packaging. Oh, and there's a hidden bonus track, a cover of "Bean Stew" from Buffalo's Dead Forever, so stay tuned at the end�

MPEG stream: Mark Of The Beast
MPEG stream: Devils Island
MPEG stream: Red Admiral Black Sunrise

The last few non-Nadja Aidan Baker releases have found Baker delving deeper into a hushed minimalism, which was definitely always a part of his sound. In the old days it seemed like Nadja records were loud and heavy, and his solo records were hushed and haunting, recently though, the sound Baker seems to gravitate toward is a sort of Necks like minimal skitter, still hushed and haunting for sure, but more rhythmic, and often more jazzy, whether it be the brooding torch songs of his Already Drowning record, or the psychedelic krautrocky shimmer of Smudging, a record he made with his brother. So we were expecting more of the same with this new project, a drum and bass duo in which Baker handles the drums, and at first, at least for a minute or two, it did sound like that's what we were in for, albeit with a thick swath of buzzing bass over the top, but as the first 27 minute track unfurls, it reveals itself as something WAY heavier, the drums a simple driving pound, the bass thick and distorted, there's definitely an OM vibe going on, not hard to imagine those distinctive chanted vocals swooping in, but instead, the duo lock in tight for the long haul, dishing out a totally instrumental, droned out, roiling, slomo low end dirge, one that's super hypnotic and super heavy - and it only gets heavier as it goes, with the bass getting more and more cranked, spitting out thick chordal washes and huge gouts of buzzing rumble, while Baker pounds away beneath, the song seesawing between trancey churn and almost shoegazey blown out thrum. The second track is even longer, and spends its first few minutes shuffling jazzily, the bass woozy and melodic and ethereal, wreathed in a lush reverby haze, while beneath Baker conjures up clouds of cymbal wash, and soft flurries of hushed snare skitter, before once again, the bass heaves and splinters into something much more aggressive and distorted, not so much riffing, and filling the speakers with a thick corrosive low end drone, while Baker goes apeshit on the drums, sorta free jazz, sorta free noise. Eventually it settles down into a slow wind down creep, the bass still mostly shapeless, pulsing and swirling, sounding like way more than a single instrument, while Baker, holds it together with his simple pound, the last stretch peppered with some almost metal moments, that eventually fade into a final drone drenched death march dirge. Fans of Nadja (and OM) must check this out, it's some seriously heavy, slow and low, doom-duo minimalism!

MPEG stream: Careful With That Death Machine

Been meaning to list this for a while now, the debut from a group we originally discovered due to the fact that it features members of longtime aQ faves, instrumental heavies Pelican. So we were expecting something similar, heaving atmospheric heaviness, slow burn post metal majesty, but instead, we discovered a sound much closer to the sludge pop of Torche - thick churning riffage, crushing drumming, clean soaring vox, hooks and harmonies galore, like a slightly less heavy Torche crossed with the post stoner rock heaviness of QOTSA, which for all the warped and weird shit we listen to, is actually a pretty badass combo to these ears. But actually, the more we listen, the more Aeges sounds like latter era Cave In, not the Radiohead period, but right after that, when they switched back to a heavier more metallic sound, but taking some of that stadium rock bombast back with them. Hooky as hell, with a sound that's massive and heavy, the guitar gnarled and buzzy, distorted and often thick, crumbling and corrosive, plus there are cool stretches of guitar riffing, where the sound is super processed and doused in effects, and those clean vox, slip occasionally into raspy glass gargling vokills, but almost always slips right back into something more melodic. We could go song by song for sure, but really if you dig super catchy, meldoic heaviness, and groups like Cave In, Torche, Queens Of The Stoneage, even Swervedriver and the heavier side of the shoegaze sound, this record will hit the spot big time. Aquarius pal Lauren came in the shop when we were playing this, and said it sounded like something that she would have listened to in the nineties, which is pretty spot on. Classic old school, heavy nineties style indie rock heaviness that is one of those sounds they just don't make like they used to, except in the rare cases, like this, when they DO!

MPEG stream: Wrong
MPEG stream: My Medicine
MPEG stream: Southern Comfort

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

SORRY. One half of epic cinematic ambient black chamber doom soundscapers Pussygutt strikes out on his own to create an epic bit of abstract doom creep, that strips down the Pussygutt sound to its essence, and creates something equally as haunting and harrowing. Clean spidery guitars unwind over squalls of distorted rumble, drums offer the occasional thud, feedback streaks and shimmers, the sound subtly intensifying, but never really moving beyond a slow motion moonlit drift. It almost sounds like Slint at 16rpm, a glacial post rock, laced with hints of doom, allowed to creep and crawl through an ever shifting field of whir and buzz and shimmer. The song(s) continues on the B side, the drums and guitar dropping out leaving just a high end shimmer like a soft focus Sunroof! ur-drone, until some of the doom drifts back in, lush swells of ominous keyboard, muted chugs, sloooow minor key guitars, distant vocals, the overall affect way more pop and pretty than Pussygutt, but still retaining the same overall grim vibe, eventually finishing off with another soaring sheet of harmonized high end which gives way to that original spidery guitar line, drifting all by it's lonesome in an epic expanse of black, only to be joined by delicate pointillist piano for the slowly slipping away outro. So nice. Beautiful packaging, a silver on black silkscreened tri-fold sleeve, released on Pussygutt's Wolveserpent label. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, hand numbered...

It's getting a little bit hard to keep track of their various permutations, but in a nutshell, first there was Pussygutt, a male/female duo from Idaho who trafficked in sprawling blackened folk flecked dronescapes. That band transformed into Wolvserpent, with the sound remaining essentially the same, weaving blackened drones, fluttery folk, and corrosive doomic dirges into something heavy and psychedelic, cinematic and atmospheric. So now we have Aelter, which just so happens to be the solo project of Blake Green, one half of Wolvserpent / Pussygutt, who takes the sound of WS/PG as a starting point, crafting something much more melodic and soundtracky, eschewing much of the metallic crush of the former in favor of shimmery deserty twang, swirling strings, lush layered drones, choral vocals. This double disc collects two super limited lps, and weirdly enough, the first half of disc one, sounds a little bit like Barn Owl, but infused with the spirit of Goblin, and with vocals (!), breathy and ethereal. The label mentions that this sounds more like something you'd find on 4AD, and we can definitely hear that, it's a delicate almost shoegazey dreamfolk blackdrone drift, which is less heavy than it is mesmerizing and hypnotic, the guitar twang, delicate piano and swoonsome synths woven deftly into the minimal downtuned riffage that again is less about metal, and more about mood. In fact, for folks who were looking for more Wolvserpent, this might be a bit of a let down, cuz this is something else entirely, a sort of soundtracky post rock, or atmospheric black ambient soundscape, the second disc offers up more of the same, hushed shimmer, melancholy melodies, distant drones, the drums do come into play on disc two, and there is a bit of a slowcore doom vibe, but even then, it's more darkly ominous than doomy, more haunting than heavy, but as a gorgeous lab of abstract ambience and cinematic soundscaping, it's pretty tough to beat. Fans of the current crop of Goblin / Carpenter worshippers who are after something a bit darker and a lot less synth heavy, might find this is just what they were looking for.

MPEG stream: Dusk
MPEG stream: Beloved

We recently listed a double cd reissue from this blackened experimental soundscaper, which compiled two supposedly out of print lps, but good news for you vinyl fiends, after we posted that review, the band got in touch with us to let us know they had a stash of the Follow You Beloved half of that reissue, on vinyl, which we had never had before, so we got a handful of copies for the store... It's getting a little bit hard to keep track of their various permutations, but in a nutshell, first there was Pussygutt, a male/female duo from Idaho who trafficked in sprawling blackened folk flecked dronescapes. That band transformed into Wolvserpent, with the sound remaining essentially the same, weaving blackened drones, fluttery folk, and corrosive doomic dirges into something heavy and psychedelic, cinematic and atmospheric. And now we have Aelter, which just so happens to be the solo project of Blake Green, one half of Wolvserpent / Pussygutt, who takes the sound of WS/PG as a starting point, crafting something much more melodic and soundtracky, eschewing much of the metallic crush of the former in favor of shimmery deserty twang, swirling strings, lush layered drones, choral vocals. The label mentions that some of this sounds more like something you'd find on 4AD, and we can definitely hear that, it's a delicate almost shoegazey dreamfolk blackdrone drift, which is less heavy than it is mesmerizing and hypnotic, for folks who were looking for more Wolvserpent, this might be a bit of a let down, cuz this is something else entirely, a sort of soundtracky post rock, or atmospheric black ambient soundscape, on Follow You Beloved, it's all hushed shimmer, melancholy melodies and distant drones, and drums too, which don't normally play a big part in Aelter's sound, that rhythmic component adding a bit of a slowcore doom vibe, but even then, it's more darkly ominous than doomy, more haunting than heavy, but as a gorgeous lab of abstract ambience and cinematic soundscaping, it's pretty tough to beat. Fans of the current crop of Goblin / Carpenter worshippers who are after something a bit darker and a lot less synth heavy, might find this is just what they were looking for. Gorgeous red on black packaging, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered...

MPEG stream: Beloved

We just reviewed the double disc reissue of Aelter I and II, a double cd reissue of two lps from this Wolvserpent / Pussygutt offshoot, the sound a sort of shoegazey dreamfolk blackdrone drift (as we described it in that review), so really we were expecting more of the same on the latest Aelter, his first for boutique outsider metal label Handmade Birds, but we were pretty surprised by what it actually ended up sounding like, both sides, part one and two of one album long song, dramatically different, and neither like anything we'd heard from Aelter before. The A side was maybe the biggest surprise, as it's all synths, no drums, no guitars, just swirling dreamy synths, a sort of Tangerine Dream / Emeralds style drift, hushed and layered and new agey, dreamily droning, the layers softly pulsing, all hazy and washed out, minimal and mesmerizing, until the last minute or so, where things turn dark, and the sound gets low and distorted, sounding almost like throat singing, which is right where the B side takes up, those throat singing like drones a backdrop for some dirgey woozy metal, definitely the most metal we've heard Aelter get, all low slung bass and dreamy almost shoegazey vox, peppered with almost atonal sounding crescendos, tense and haunting and quite dramatic, but that metal blossoms into something entirely different for the second half of the track, a gorgeous sprawl of hazy gloom pop, fuzzy bass, and swirling synths, and dreamy female vox, the shoegaze element in full effect, a gorgeous, surprisingly pop final movement! packaged in super swank purple and black covers, with a printed full color 12"x12" insert. And be warned, we got VERY FEW of these, way less than we wanted, and we won't be getting any more, they're out of print already, so grab one quick if you can (apologies if they're gone by the time you order).

This 22 minute cd-r is the debut for Aerial Ruin, the solo project of Erik Moggridge (guitarist for SF's bearded metal stalwarts Old Granddad). He was assisted in this dark endeavor by Eric Peterson of fellow Bay Area hard rock vets Lost Goat. Don't be expecting a rush of thunderous volume, guitar solos and downtuned heaviness though! Taking a considerably different path, Moggridge has crafted a half dozen songs of somber acoustic folk. Very hushed and slow creeping. The man himself likened it to slowcore leaders Low, but we hear more shades of Mark Lanegan or the solo efforts of Neurosis' Steve Von Till and Scott Kelly.

MPEG stream: To Slave

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

SORRY. Hopefully you've delved into the metallic weirdness of the Max Planck compact disc reissue Kill The Pain we highlighted a few weeks back. Eccentric true cult heavy metal from the depths of the eighties. It was one of the first three releases in the Stormspell label's new archival "Red White Heavy Arcane Collector Series For The Initiated" (and if you read our list, consider yourself initiated), dedicated to rescuing obscure '80s metal demos that they consider hidden gems. Now we've got the other two they've done so far, Cry Of The Warrior by Battlecry from Belgium, and this one, Fist Of Steel from SoCal's unfortunately named Aerian Rage. We've already had to explain to a few customers that no, this isn't a Nazi black metal band!! Instead, they were young Orange County hair metallers with an aggro edge, who were clueless enough to just thing the name sounded cool. Their lead guitarist also thought the name Johnny Roxx sound cool, too, so there you go. As a friend of ours who really likes this a lot observed, "I can't think of a better band that wanted to be Motley Crue but also picked up on what early Metallica was up to." And that's true. Formed in 1981, Aerian Rage were influenced by thrash bands like Slayer (who they opened for) as well as the likes of WASP and Lizzy Borden (with whom they also played). So you get explosive spandex clad rockin' here, with a bit of a nasty vibe. Catchy songs, high pitched screams, guitar shred, tons of energy, the works. Even a full on noisy freakout at the end of theme song "On The Rage". Fans of certain other LA area bands of the era like Omen, Savage Grace, Leatherwolf, Armored Saint, and even Cirith Ungol, should love this. And you get a lot of bang for your buck, with 3 demos crammed onto this compact disc, tapes from 1983, '84, and '85, twenty tracks total. (Note: the tracklisting doesn't always seem to quite match up with the order of the songs, but you'll figure it out.) They're raw and rough garage demos but that's just part of the charm, they sure sound good to us, and beg to be cranked loud. Comes with a 12 page booklet, full of photos and lyrics and liner notes, including nostalgic reminiscences from each band member. Limited to 500 hand-numbered copies.

MPEG stream: Night Of The Wild
MPEG stream: Kill Or Be Killed
MPEG stream: On The Rage

**SALE **SALE* *SALE**

From the same label that brought us the blackened witchy doomdirge of Charnel House, and the abstract black metal doomscapes of OS, and the droned out cosmic weirdness of Sky Projection, comes this mysterious new release, from a one man band called Agakus, whose debut release is a heavy sprawl of caustic abstract industrial dronescapes, bleak abject expanses of churning downtuned rumble, of crumbling black noise clatter, as well as lots and lots of space, the doom and noise coming in waves, leaving near silence in between, like the musical version of listening to the thunder to figure out how soon the storm will arrive. And thunder is definitely an apt comparison, as the sounds here are massive low end reverberations, and when the storm DOES finally hit, it's almost symphonic in scope, a droned out psychedelic skree that's a thick cloud of layered tones, a slowed down pulled apart melody, the sounds massive and dense, and so blown out that they seem to blot out the other sounds, like the dinosaur footsteps in Jurassic Park, everything in your house will rattle, books will slide off shelves, plaster will fall from the walls, as this plodding, blackened behemoth crawls beastlike from your speakers. This plodding low end underpinning sheets of hum and hiss, mesmerizing looped melodies, and stuttering textures. Elsewhere groaning slabs of blackbuzz churn beneath anguished wails and dense squalls of feedback, again separated into some strange sort of super spare, super spaced out death march rhythm, burst of bleak brutality, then hushed ominous shimmer, waiting for the next blast to come. Dark and dense, sinister and seriously grim, this is some black sonic energy, some bleak ultradoom blackdrone minimalism that should definitely appeal to fans of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Pig Heart Transplant, Wolf Eyes, Stalaggh, Wolvserpent, Abruptum, MZ412, Pussygutt, Khanate and other similarly black spirited dronelords� Packaged in a cool Chinatown fireworks style paper sleeve, stickered, with a full color sticker as well as a printed, hand numbered insert inside. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!

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

SORRY.

A few lists back, when we reviewed the (now already out of print!) 1996-1998 demos collection by this Pacific Northwest based cult, we mentioned we now realize we were quite foolish in not having paid sufficient attention to their career. Considering how much we ended up liking those early demos, seriously delving into the subsequent bulk of their discography seemed to be in order, though potentially a daunting task. Making things easier though, they've just come out with a new album, so let's focus on that. This latest from these difficult to describe grim blackened metal artists is via the Profound Lore label, who have established an admirable and eclectic track record lately of signing the best in the underground - their two other most recent releases were by extreme doomsters Salome and epic true metal rockers Slough Feg! Agalloch fit right in, in the sense of not fitting in, as they, like those bands, are nothing if not unique. Well, ok, Agalloch are nominally black metal, and "arty", and thus always draw Opeth comparisons, but that's just 'cause it's tough come up with something -really- accurate in that dep't. Another would be Wolves In The Throne Room. Or Ludicra, though they're supposedly so citified, and Agalloch are definitely of the forest. Fans will know that Agalloch recently enlisted our pal Aesop from Ludicra on drums. One of Aesop's bandmates from that outfit told us that Agalloch sounds like Weezer doing black metal. Maybe that was meant as a criticism (of Agalloch, Weezer, and/or black metal) but for some of us it sounds like a recommendation!! And while we're not sure we really hear that anyway, we guess there is a "pop" side to Agalloch, at least, some occasional clean vocals crop up alongside the usual raspy style ones, and certainly plenty of melancholic melody factors into their exquisitely crafted, carefully orchestrated black metal onslaught, a warm and -gentle- onslaught some of the time we must say, one that even veers into post rock territory a bit, a la Explosions In The Sky or Godspeed or something like that gone black metal, maybe. And the whispery "To Drown" hints at Current 93, tremulous and atmospherically epic. So chamber rock, art rock, post rock, folk rock... Agalloch are perhaps all these things and sundry, in some small measure. But definitely black metal is the crux of this, with those vokills, and blasting beats, and the crunch and whine of the guitars much of the time... whilst Moog and piano, cello and glockenspiel, field recordings and vibraphone, even "petrified bone, glass & metal sheet percussion", all are also woven into the compositions here, making for a lulling sound easily associated with woods, smoke, antlers, mists - even without support from the artwork that suggests such things. Speaking of which, the tri-fold digipack this comes in is handsomely designed, with the band's logo subtly done in raised clear spot varnish on the front cover, likewise with the track listing on the back. Nice! NB. for those into "six degrees of separation" games, a glance at the credits here will allow you connect Agalloch to krautrockers Faust in approximately one move! Amber Asylum also. On sale, $2 off regular price (normally $13.98) for the next two weeks, through December 3rd!

MPEG stream: Into The Painted Grey
MPEG stream: The Watcher's Monolith
MPEG stream: Ghosts Of The Midwinter Fires

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

SORRY. In addition to the eagerly awaited new Agalloch full-length on Profound Lore that we're listing this week, a few copies of this ultra-limited new Agalloch 7" just walked in the door, too - originally only available at their album release shows in Portland and Seattle! The two tracks here are to be considered as missing material from The Serpent & The Sphere. Get it while you can, we're told it's already on eBay for crazy dollars. Pressed on clear wax and limited to a hand numbered 500 copies!

Herein we find some early, early material by Portland's grim forest lurkers, the artistic, atmospheric black metal entity known as Agalloch. Eight songs taken from limited edition demo tapes circa 1996-1998, recorded before they got a record deal. Only a couple of the songs, meant for a 7", were later released on a limited cdep now also long gone. And listening to this, you can hear why they eventually got signed (and went on to develop the cult following they have today). These songs are both heavy and depressive, and metallically, melancholically melodic, coming off way more Iron Maiden-y than some black metal for sure, with extra folkiness that makes us think of early Abigor. And definitely fans of old Opeth should investigate this (you'll like the 11 and 13 minute long songs). Coming as no surprise to anyone whose heard their later material, Agalloch's demo archives incorporate rasping anguished vokills, jaunty folk-like melodies, trance-inducing battery, buzzing guitars, and calm, near-ambient interludes. One song is all acoustic strum and woodfires burning. If you're already into this band, you'll want this. And it's also as good a starting point as any (considering these songs were THEIR starting point). Actually some of us here who hadn't really gotten into Agalloch before are finding this to be a bit of a treat, and realize we should pay more attention to what they've been up to lately, as well.

MPEG stream: The Wilderness
MPEG stream: Of Stone, Wind, And Pillor

It's full length number five from Agalloch, and after releasing undoubtedly the most critically acclaimed metal record of 2010 (not to mention an equally well received EP in 2012) we find these titans of earthen blackened folk metal undeniably at the height of their powers. The Serpent & The Sphere greets the listener first with sparse solitary folk guitar, the minimal plucking of strings, like the last dying embers of a bonfire - before a doom dirge erupts, layered with enormous thunderous toms and shimmering clean guitar. It's a sound that verges on funeral doom, only a few steps away from Asunder. And then things drop down again into a folky acoustic strum, before morphing into a melodic doom plod accentuated by epic harmonized guitar leads and cryptic rasped vokills. And this organic doominess seems to color much of this album. Agalloch draw not just from classic Norwegian black metal here (we always thought early Ulver was a pretty good reference point for these guys), but also from the organic expanse of latter day Neurosis and even the melodic death doom of bands like Shape Of Despair. There's a progressive flair too, some of the guitar leads bringing to mind newer Enslaved, while the hints of acoustic psych folk recall '90s Opeth. The focus on doomier plods and more midpaced driving rhythms over blastbeats or hectic time signatures really allow the melodies space to take center stage, resulting in a more streamlined and immediate Agalloch record, not to mention maybe their most headbangingly heavy metal yet! Note, we also got a super limited new Agalloch 7" too, kind of a companion to this full-length, see our listing nearby...

MPEG stream: The Birth And Death Of The Pillars Of Creation
MPEG stream: Celestial Effigy
MPEG stream: Plateau Of The Ages

Majestic, gothic, vampiric black metal from Germany in the vein (open and bleeding) of Cradle of Filth.

More UNBLACK metal from the seemingly infallible E.E.E. label, home to some of the most amazing black metal we've heard in ages, which all just so happens to be not so black, as in white, as in Christian! And we're not talking Stryper here, this stuff is as fierce and furious and fucked up and black as any of your Striborgs or Lugubrums.� As far as we can tell, although we're not entirely sure, Agathothodion seems to be the work of the same man behind massive AQ faves Light Shall Prevail, who is also a member of Glaciial, an unblack metal supergroup, as well as the man who runs the E.E.E. label and seems to be single handedly spreading the unblack gospel. When does this man do anything but spew thick torrents of glorious black buzz?! Who cares as long as we're continually treated to music this gorgeously bleak and intense, this buzz-drenched and brutal, and even if it's not the same guy, whoever this mysterious black mystic is, the music he conjures up is both majestic and epic as well as dark and buzzing.� Kan Guds Gjort is split into two looooooong tracks, one twenty minutes and one more than a half an hour, both sprawling and expansive, the perfect form for drone-y buzzy black metal, allowed to stretch out to trance-like proportions. Mostly midtempo, a loping relentless rhythm, the guitars buzzing and swirling, the riffs circular and hypnotically repetitive, the drums going from simple pound to furious blast, but as is often the case with E.E.E. bands it's the utterly distinctive vocals that make it, here it's a guttural growl, that howls in a truly creepy raspy way, buried in the mix, so it's just sort of a fuzzed out wash of distorted ggggrrrrrrrowl on top of the layers of buzz and hiss. The other cool thing is the songs work up to a fever pitch, and suddenly it's a super dramatic Godspeed style crescendo, but rendered in soaring sheets of buzzing blackness and dense tangles of thrashing drums and anguished wails. Here and there, the tracks smooth out into extended almost math rock jams, with jangly guitars buried under a wash of layered guitar, the drums simple and solid, those are the parts that are truly mesmerizing, a doomy depressive drone drenched blackened post rock that oozes into the more traditional blackness around it.� As�always super limited, we got a bunch but E.E.E. stuff flies out of here and we usually can't get any more...

MPEG stream: By The Sea
MPEG stream: Man Born Blind

BACK IN STOCK! We're beginning to think EEE is our new favorite black metal label. After last list's brilliant Light Shall Prevail, and now this disc from Agathothodion (with tons more still to review). We're ready to convert! Convert? Oh yeah, we forgot to mention, this is WHITE metal, as in the opposite of black metal. Un-black metal. This is not satanic or hateful, instead it's hopeful and holy. But you'd never know it from listening. Agathothodion is bizarre and creepy and dark and, well, very very black sounding. And the thing is, while some of us have problems with religion being so dogmatic, this particular sonic representation of Christianity is anything but dogmatic. In fact it points out just how cookie cutter the majority of black metal really is. What we're getting at here, is this is some totally demented, freaked out, blissed out and drone-y, haunting and hypnotic ambient experimental black metal. They list their influences as GOD, JESUS CHRIST, Xasthur, Burzum, Leviathan, Isis, but they might as well have also listed Benighted Leams, Urfaust, Dead Reptile Shrine... you get what we're talking about. This stuff is fucking amazing! Traum Von Gott collects two long out of print eps, Stavkirke and Telos, and adds a bonus track) So what the hell does it sound like? A buzzing blackness that's spread out into a thick loping wash of blurry buzz, super dreamy, fuzzy warm midtempo black metal, soft swirls of midtempo trudge, totally hypnotic and drone-y, but it's the vocals that had us. Some sort of ancient sounding ghostlike falsetto croon. Drenched in reverb, not singing lyrics so much as just sort of moaning, and groaning. It almost sounds like the guy from Urfaust when he's 100 years old, his wheelchair pushed up to the mic, as a reedy disembodied voice drifts from his parched lips. Totally intense and creepy, definitely some of the most unique vocals we've heard. And while at first they sound completely bizarre, after a while, you really can't imagine the vocals sounding any other way. But that's not all that's strange about this band. They also break their song down into strange little post rock interludes with weird bloopy underwater bass, almost like a black metal Three Mile Pilot. But it really is the vocals, a nearly hysterical sounding completely chilling tortured cry spreading over the proceedings like a blood red fog. Almost like the sound you could imagine coming from behind a locked door in an insane asylum, that strange inmate who has been sitting in the corner for 20 years, mouth and eyes covered, but who continues to wail at all hours of the day. Man, this is so great, pretty much all we've been listening to. We were all ready to proclaim the Light Shall Prevail record as our new favorite black metal record (the same guy behind that band too we think) but now we're not so sure. Might just be easier to begin singing the praises of white metal and proclaim EEE our new favorite label...

MPEG stream: Endless Snowfall
MPEG stream: Deep Midwinter
MPEG stream: Parabole
MPEG stream: Telos

MPEG stream: The Green Office And The Dark Desk Drawer
MPEG stream: The Flow At 09:30 AM

Not sure what it is about the number 9 but it somehow figures heavily into the mythos of these mysterious grindlords from Australia. Their first release was a super limited 9". This latest disc, another blown out blast of pummeling technical grind, is 9 songs packed into 9 ultradense minutes. Hmmm. 9. 9. 9. Upside down is... 6. 6. 6. Ahem, anyway... As with all great grind, these guys pack more riffs and parts into 9 minutes than most bands can manage in an hour! 9 mini epics, each a dizzying squall of whirlwind riffs, shrieking vocals, chaotic drum splatter and a wall of low end that hits you like a block of concrete to the sternum. The guys in Whitehorse hipped us to these guys so you can get an idea of the sort of heaviness we're talking here. But where Whitehorse destroy with glacial malevolence, AoA annihilate with frenzied fury! Awesome. Cool little 3" cd-r packaged in a deluxe oversized slim DVD case, with full color insert.

MPEG stream: Dead End
MPEG stream: Heart(less)
MPEG stream: Sleepwalker

How can you not love a band called Agents of Abhorrence? Or a record called Covert Lobotomy? Well, with names like those you can probably guess what sort of business these agents get up to. A thrashing grinding buzz of epic proportions. Swarms of bombinating riffs and spastically thrashing drums, howled vocals and ultraprecise ultracomplex song structures. Massive and masterful grind! Pete from the mighty Whitehorse hipped us to these guys and he was right on the money. Clear vinyl packaged in a gorgeous cut-away sleeve, hard to describe but really, really cool looking. Beautiful and of course VERY LIMITED!!

Folks who went to metal shows in SF in the nineties no doubt remember seeing some crazy grind metal band, fronted by a maniacal one armed vocalist, who would do flips constantly during the set, landing flat on his back, due to the fact, that he was holding the mic with his one hand. The music a gloriously chaotic blown out powerviolence, very reminiscent of the Slap A Ham stable (Spazz, No Less, etc.). Short blast of furious grinding riffage, sick vokills that swooped from guttural cookie monster death metal bellow, to hysterical shriek, the music lurching from lurching doomy churn, to chaotic blasting fastcore, with song titles like "Rape Your Ass With Drugs", "Silver In Christ's Cornhole", "Snatch In Your Eye", "Cut Off My Dick", "Vomit tar" and "Crust = Glam". While some of this is just goofy noisemaking, some of the tracks here are fierce blasts of metallic mayhem, and punishing bursts of hardcore ferocity. Unsung Bay Area grind from back in the day, leave it to the madmen behind Ormolycka to dig this up and give it new life. Some folks might remember AoS from their split with Burn The Priest (later to become Lamb Of God), this tape collects pretty much everything, and it KILLS. It's also, like most Oromolycka stuff, crazy limited...

MPEG stream: Black Scabs
MPEG stream: Rape Your Ass With Drugs
MPEG stream: Silver In Christ's Cornhole
MPEG stream: Crust = Glam
MPEG stream: Cut Off My Dick

Fair warning, we only have a dozen copies of this, and given our druthers, we probably would have had 3 times as many, in fact at one point we wanted to make this a Record Of The Week, but were never able to get enough, and now it's out of print, so these are the VERY last copies of the debut record from this heavy Aussie duo, whose sound, as the record title might suggest, is definitely doomy, not so much jazzy, but most definitely HEAVY. Beginning with a melodic little ditty all wheezing accordion and minor key guitar, very Parisian sounding weirdly enough, but it doesn't take long before the band lurches into action, and by action, we mean chugging, slow motion dirgery, super abstract and dynamic, a churning ultra math doom, stop / start, with occasional bursts of all out heaviness, but returning to that strange doomic chug, and somehow even as minimal and abstract as it is, it's sort of catchy, not poppy, not at all, but the repetition, and the chordal structure, it gets lodged in your head. The whole record sort of follows a similar pattern, as if each track was a part of the bigger whole, the clipped chug, the explosive downtuned metallic blow out, occasional harsh vox too, some stretches of shimmery near silence, even some spidery melodic grooviness, which reminds us quite a bit of Harvey Milk, in fact, overall, if we had to pick a band to compare these guys too, it might just be HM overall, the same sort of willful antagonism, the same sort of subversive hookiness. It also reminds us of a slooooowed down sludgier Stinking Lizaveta (who also label their music "Doom Jazz"), sinewy and mathy, either way, this is some crushing heaviness that should definitely appeal to fans of Harvey Milk, and the more metallic of post rockers, as well as dooooomlords like Monarch, Moss, Bunkur and the like (and if you believe the sticker on the cd, Yob, Neurosis and Pelican too)... LAST COPIES EVER, less than a dozen left, apologies for not being able to get more, but figured it would be cool if at least a few folks could get their hands on one of these....

MPEG stream: 2
MPEG stream: 3
MPEG stream: 7

Much like when the Butthole Surfers signed to a major label, who would have thought that a band with a name like Agoraphobic Nosebleed (and a sound like theirs for that matter!), would reach the point they're at now. For the longest time, Scott Hull kept Agoraphobic Nosebleed a dirty little secret, like the deformed child you keep locked in the basement, while focusing on his 'real' band Pig Destroyer (another bad ass band name), Agoraphobic Nosebleed a much spazzier and more drum machined grind proposition, which Pig Destroyer kept drifting more and more toward a somewhat more mainstream metal sound. As much as we love PD (see the Natasha review elsewhere on this list) our bleeding blackened hearts always belonged to Agoraphobic Nosebleed, every record packed with 30 second long tracks, amazing artwork, insane song titled, a fully fucked and warped sense of humor, killer artwork, and let's not forget that amazing 100 song 3", what wasn't to love? They were just so twisted and heavy and brutal, their sound a lightning speed burst of grinding ultraviolence, 1000 mile an hour hyperspeed fury, complex, convoluted, stuttering, blown out sonic insanity. So we've been waiting patiently for a new AnB record, it's been almost 3 years since the PCP Torpedo / ANBRX comp / remix record 2cd, and finally, lo and behold, the band resurface, with a new member (a lady no less, and not just ANY lady, the vocalist from ultra doom outfit Salome) and a new sound. We of course expected 30 or 40 songs, but there are only 13, and the sound is not so fast, not so unhinged, definitely still grind, but more a sort of fast core / power violence variant. At first we were a little disappointed with that, but the more we listen to this, the more the songs sink in, with slower tempos and longer track lengths, comes more melodies, more hooks, it's now a bit more about the songs, and THE RIFF, than just a twisted blown out blast of tangled grind. Not that we don't love us a twisted blown out blast of tangled grind, but between all the AnB records we already own, we have about 300 tracks of that, so this new record is pretty exciting. Still a drum machine, but the programming is wicked, it sounds almost like a real drummer (there's even a sort of drum!!), the guitars are still amazing, jagged and corrosive, the riffs much more like riffs instead of shards of guitar grind, lots of chug, and super almost technical squiggles, a bit of groove too, and some definite Greg Ginn-ish worship, the whole sound is still plenty gnarled and harsh and brutal, it's just that now you have time to get into the songs. There's some bits of plodding doominess, some long stretches of churning crunch, but for the most part this is a gloriously grinding chunk of damaged metallic chaos. And be sure to check the negative track, that's right, rewind past the beginning, and there's a whole other secret track (well not secret, it's listed on the disc and there are lyrics in the booklet), and speaking of the booklet, it's jam packed with fucked up cartoony drawings of death and cocks and naked women and sex acts and drugs and snakes and gore (it is a grind record after all) as well as the band's twisted non-PC lyrics. And while they last, the jewel-cased cds come packaged inside old school long boxes, the amazing cover art spread out over one of those big cardboard boxes cds used to come in back when they had to fit in bins stores previously were using for vinyl, but the extra dough is not just for the box, it also comes with pins, a poster and a bad ass embroidered patch. The vinyl has none of that stuff, but does have a huge full color booklet, and is housed in a sweet deluxe jacket.

MPEG stream: Agorapocalypse Now
MPEG stream: Timelord One (Loneliness Of The Long Distance Drug Runner)
MPEG stream: Dick To Mouth Resuscitation
MPEG stream: Flamingo Snuff

The grand return (albeit slight) of the masters of hyperspeed, crushing, gore-y metallic grind. We raved about their most recent full length Frozen Corpse Stuffed With Dope, hailing it as the best grind record of last year, which it was! So how does this new one stack up? Well, musically, it's got everything its predecessor had, drums like handfuls of ball bearings hurled at your windshield, guitars like electric carving knives hooked up to a car battery and used to saw your ears off and low end like a hot tar blanket wrapped around your head. But the concept rules on this one. 100 songs (the first being tracked -before- track one to accomodate the 99 song cd limit), the majority clocking in at or a little under 10 seconds, all on a 3" cd. Pretty cool. But the listenability of 4 second blasts of short sharp grinding carnage is maybe a bit debatable. And taking into consideration how unbelievably complex and convuluted AnB songs are, it seems like all 100 tracks could've been woven into 3 or 4 proper tracks. But where would the fun be in that?! And those of you who have been hankering for more of that sick, sick, fast as fuck, brutal blurred grinding metal that only a few bands can pull off (AnB, Pig Destroyer, etc.) and miss song titles like 'Children Blown To Bits By The Busload', 'When Taking A Shit Feels Sexy', 'Mosquito Holding Human Cattle Prod', 'Holiday Bowl Full Of Asshole' then look no further. The 100 song 3" grindcore ep of the year without a doubt! MPEG Download: "Spreading The Dis-Ease" [/audio/agoraphobicnosespread.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Spreading The Dis-Ease" [/audio/agoraphobicnosespread.m3u]

MPEG stream: Spreading The Dis-Ease
MPEG stream: 4 Leeches (40,000 Leeches)

How can you not love a band called Agoraphobic Nosebleed? Especially when some of the members also do time in a group called Pig Destroyer? And when they spew forth a ear splitting, skull cleaving, gore drenched stew of hyperspeed buzz and grind, complete with impossibly fast drum machine blast beats, soul crushing downtuned riffage and insanely frenzied vocals. You can't. Not love them that is. And thus we do love these deranged grind freaks. So much so that we proudly proclaimed their Frozen Corpse Stuffed With Dope album one of the best grind records ever! And we were equally enamored of their 100 song 3" cd released not soon after. But this is the one we've been waiting for. ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX TRACKS, two whole discs compiling everything they ever recorded before they signed to Relapse, which is a whole heck of a lot. Every long out of print seven inch, every impossible to find compilation track, even thirteen previously unreleaed tracks! All absolutely the most furious, most fucked up grind you'll ever hear, million mile an hour tempos, fifty parts per minute-long tracks, blurry and buzzy and thrashing and pummeling and mind meltingly complex, replete with bizarre ambient interludes, sludgy doom metal breakdowns, freaked out ultranoise, all scattered amidst prickly thorny squalls of glorious gut ripping grind! Gorgeously packaged with tons of liner notes, track listing, discography, as well as some impossibly Pushead-like artwork credited to someone who is NOT Pushead!

MPEG stream: 5% Control
MPEG stream: Prey For Death / Hollowpoint / Conform to...Death / Life Is Paing Profit Is The Motive
MPEG stream: Victims As Dogs
MPEG stream: Dead Above The Neck
MPEG stream: 10,000 Bullets
MPEG stream: Centipede
MPEG stream: Cut To Happy Hour
MPEG stream: Military Scientist

Second full length by this outfit led by Scott Hull (of Pig Destroyer and formerly of Anal Cunt). The distinction between Hull's other project Pig Destroyer and ANB (both are furious grind metal units) is maybe a little nebulous, but the most obvious differences are: ANB uses a drum machine instead of a live drummer, and their songs are way more varied and for the most part, WAY weirder. Totally inhuman, lightning speed hyper-blast beats, harsh and brutal guitar tone, insane riffing, and super distorted totally sick vocals. Most of the tracks are blazing fast and brutal as fuck, but occasionally they slow it down to a midtempo old school thrash attack (speaking of old school thrash, there's even a Nuclear Assault cover with Dan Lilker on bass/vox!). The production is really bizarre with lots of samples, weird electronic bits, and lots of digital fx and processing on the vocals and guitars. There's even a weird almost techno number that manages to be just as fearsome as the rest of the more metal tracks. All the production craziness and occasional electronic bits remind us a little of James Plotkin's WAY far out glitch-grind Atomsmasher album we dug so much. And the cover art courtesy of Hydra Head honcho and member of Isis, Aaron Turner, is also very cool. So far, "Frozen Corpse" is easily the best grindcore record this year, as far as Andee and Allan are concerned!

RealAudio clip: Machine Gun
RealAudio clip: Dead Battery
RealAudio clip: Hungry Homeless Handjob
RealAudio clip: Bitch's Handbag Full Of Money
RealAudio clip: Unwashed Cock
RealAudio clip: Kill Theme For American Apeshit
RealAudio clip: Doctored Results

"All records should be six minutes long!! I just listened to this whole record, and it was awesome!" - Me (Andee) ranting when I threw this on the first time. By now, it takes a whole lot for us to give a shit about a 'remix' record. Pretty strange that one of the first remix records in ages to totally kick our asses would come from grindlords Agoraphobic Nosebleed and avant post metal label Hydra Head. But remixes aside for the moment, metalheads and grindfreaks should be thanking their lucky stars that AnB's legendary PCP Torpedo 6" has finally been released on cd. All SIX minutes of it. One of the most perfect slabs of mechanized grind metal EVER. Dense, convoluted, heavy, ridiculous, scary, blazing fast, buzzing and snarling, short and sweet. PERFECT GRIND! So it would almost be worth it for PCP on cd alone (okay, maybe $15 for 6 minutes is a bit steep, but it's soooo good!). Thankfully, PCP's 6 minutes gets rounded out by an hour long bonus disc of remixes from folks like Justin Broadrick (Jesu, Godflesh, etc.), James Plotkin (Khanate, Phantomsmasher), DJ Speedranch, Merzbow, Jansky Noise, Vinda Obmana, and a bunch more. From Plotkin's timestretched, ultradistorted industrial freakout mix, to the Godfleshy sludge and pummel of Broadrick's mix, to the skittery acid fried IDM Dev/Null mix, to Vinda Obmana's bleak wasted industrial soundscape mix, it's all totally weird and wonderful, most of it very very noisy. But what would you expect when the source material is the violent and vitriolic hate fueled fury of Agoraphobic Nosebleed?! And then there's the packaging! HOLY SHIT. Totally deluxe double disc digipak, all in vivid yellows and reds and oranges, the front some sort of factory, with multicolored flames licking the sky as pills rain from the heavens. The inside is a dizzying blur of pills and capsules, each disc covered in tiny little flames, the six minute PCP disc a little black 3" cd embedded in a 5" plastic disc, all flickering little blue flames, the remix a 5" black disc with red flames, so completely and overwhelmingly gorgeous. Includes a black and white insert with all the liner notes and lyrics confusingly tucked amidst and within a litany of pharmecutical jargon, suggestions for dosages, various health warnings and lists of side effects. Awesome!

MPEG stream: Thanksgiving Day
MPEG stream: Thinning The Herd
MPEG stream: James Plotkin - Phantomsmasher Mix
MPEG stream: Justin Broadrick - Flesh Of Jesu Mix

A.N.: Super fast, brutally heavy grind, courtsy of Scott Hull (ex- Anal Cunt) and a drum machine. Converge: East coast metal core, pounding and shrieking, ala Colesce. Excellent.

[ aquarius records — Metal ]