The cover of this month's issue of this must read metal mag heralds the pretty darn killer tour package that Decibel has put together, on the road now: Behemoth, Watain, The Devil's Blood, and In Solitude! Wow, what a lineup. And the local opening acts they've picked are all pretty cool too. It's the first ever Decibel sponsored tour, let's hope they keep doing this. So there's details on that - the San Francisco stop is at Slim's on Monday April 23rd, btw.
Also inside: Corrosion Of Conformity, Meshuggah, Overkill, 3 Inches Of Blood, Aura Noir, Inverloch, Psycroptic, a studio report on the new Baroness, plus plenty more. Oh, and it's about time: Megadeth's Rust In Peace gets the Decibel Hall Of Fame induction treatment this issue!
The usual funny columns by John Darnielle et. al. are also funny as usual, especially J. Bennett's only tangentially metal related tale of being rear-ended by Russell Brand.
Heck y'know, even if you don't like metal, you might still enjoy reading this magazine (probably more than listening to some of the bands covered!).
This issue's got Paradise Lost on the cover ("metal's most underrated band"). Also inside: Torche, High On Fire, Unsane, Suffocation, Prong, UFOmammut, Occultation, Royal Thunder, Nachtmystium, and for their monthly album hall of fame honors, the story behind the making of Pantera's seminal Vulgar Display Of Power... Along with the usual reviews, news, ads, snark, etc.
More metal reading material here! Every month we enjoy Decibel's coverage of the latest metal releases, tours, etc. Plus their columns, reviews, etc. are often quite amusing. This time, Phil Anselmo of Down glares from the cover. Inside: C.O.C., Incantation, The Sword, Exhumed, My Dying Bride, Sarcafago (in the Hall of Fame feature), and more. Including, the magazine's picks for the top 40 best albums of 2012, always a fun read and surefire argument starter.
Uh, yeah that's Chuck Billy from veteran Bay Area thrashers Testament on the cover, in a headdress. Haven't heard their new album yet but our customer Monte says its good.
Also in this issue of America's best/smartest/funniest glossy metal mag: Ghost, Gojira, The Darkness (!!!), Evoken, Wolf, Candlemass, Marty Friedman (y'know, ex-Megadeth), Grand Magus, Samothrace, and Isis enters the 'Decibel Hall Of Fame' for their Oceanic album...plus of course more!
We still don't understand why more Mountain Goats fans don't buy this magazine from us, just for John Darnielle's back page column... maybe you all subscribe???
Soundtrack to the classic metal documentary!
Not sure how many of you remember the group Code, and their record Nouveau Gloaming, from maybe 3 or 4 years ago. A dizzying blend of blasting Norwegian style blackness a la Satyricon (circa Nemesis Divina) and Interpol, or at least some modern post Joy Division gothiness, and no small amount of Swans like doomic crush as well, oh and a bit of Khold like groove. That record destroyed us (and before you order it, we're not entirely sure it's even still available sad to say). We had been wondering though, quite recently in fact, what happened to Code, only to discover... a new Code record in June (!) and this little project right here: Decrepit Spectre. Featuring Code vocalist Kvohst, who also sings for Dodheimsgard, which should give you a clue as to what sort of blackened crooning to expect from Decrepit Spectre. The rest of the band is rounded out by some serious black metal muscle as well. Members of Ved Buens Ende, Manes and Seth among others.
We're happy to report that Decrepit Spectre basically sounds like Code mk. II, which is a very good thing indeed. A killer mix of frenzied blasting blackness, and moody brooding doom-ed gothiness. At its heaviest, sounding quite a bit like classic Satyricon, but maybe more than Code, DS is rife with those awesomely dramatic vocals, that definitely makes Coal Black Hearses sound like a black metal Interpol record, which as far as we're concerned is pretty much something we always fantasized about, or would have if it even seemed like a possibility. The arrangements are mathy and dense and complex, the riffs buzz and snarl, but there's also plenty of winding twisted guitar melodies, haunting harmonies, and the cool thing here is that even the loping gothy parts, are often underpinned by furious double kick drumming, and conversely, the flurries of vintage black buzz, are often wound around deep moaning sorrowful vocals. A strange combination, but one that still works, and still totally hits the spot for us. We were a bit bummed out by the later Dodheimsgard records, not sure what it was exactly, but THIS is exactly how we hoped those DHG discs would sound, super tech, post black metal, melodic and gloomy, mysterious and dramatic, but at the same time heavy as fuck, crushing and thrashing and pounding, with plenty of creeped out interludes, washed out woozy blackness, harsh hellish vox, insane relentless drumming and the occasional stretch of abstract psychedelic weirdness.
A bit of a bummer this is only 16 minutes long (just 3 tracks), but it definitely has us chomping at the bit for a full length. For now, we'll keep on doing what we're doing, playing this over and over and over, while we wait for the full length (and that upcoming Code full length as well!)...
Released on UK label Paradigms, who seemingly can do no wrong. A limited edition, but unclear just how limited.
Wayne "Elektrokutioner" Sarantopoulos is everywhere these days. Encoffination, Wooden Stake (see elsewhere this list for their new 7"), Father Befouled (whom we really still need to review), Scaremaker, Tombstones, Festered... if you like your doom metal deathly and/or your death metal doomy, he's your man! Playing not just drums, but other instruments as well, and often writing the music too. Decrepitaph, under examination here, is another of his many blasphemous bands. It started off as a solo project, but these days is a duo, with David "Sinworm" Clark on vocals and guitars. Their third disc, Profane Doctrines Unburied, is chock full of Decrepitaph's usual dense dirty decompositions of chunking crunching death metal, utterly in keeping with the Razorback roster's revitalization of old skool '90s death metal style a la Asphyx, Obituary, Incantation, etc. This album takes thick, sick white noise trudge to epic extremes, especially on the nine minute plus finale, "The Crucifix Crumbles (A Decrepit Epitaph)". They go fast, and they go slow. In fact, "Mortified Spirits" contains what might be one of the most lethargic and lugubrious drum solos ever, that you could maybe still call a drum solo.
Elsewhere, it's a barrage of battery, hand in hand with relentless riffs that scrape and scrub with steel wool like fuzz buzz... plus putrid guttural vokill belchings buried beneath... and last but not least, eerie adornments of keyboard synths, played by Elektrokutioner, whom we should add has quite an extensive collection of sleeveless metal band logo t-shirts. His bald and bearded self is looking mean in a Sodom shirt in the cd booklet here, and glaring intensely in a Voivoid shirt on the Wooden Stake 7" sleeve.
Deep Jew was one of those good bands with a horrible name; and had they been born a decade earlier, these LA noiseniks would have counted amongst the numerous crustpunks touring alongside Man Is The Bastard or maybe even Corrupted throughout the '90s. Yet, as it stands, Deep Jew released a couple of things including a split single for Not Not Fun and this LP (of which we managed to dig up a few copies!) before calling it quits in 2008. But no matter how you look at it, Deep Jew's slow-motion, dirge-punk, power-violence is a force not to be taken lightly. Even if they do have a questionable name.
Five cuts of post-MITB brutalist sludge and murkscaping distortion grace the A side of Ugliest Man / Dog Blood with howling vocals, caveman bashing drum kit abuse, low-slung bass buried way way down deep, and thick guitar / amplifier pedal noise which might have something in the way of Swans-like riff if all of that distortion hadn't crumbled everything into filthy noise. The flip is a monstrous side-long car-crash captured at quarter-speed with chugging, stumbling dirgecore rhythms that lurch amidst a lock-stepped bass throb all of which tugs and / or pushes against relentlessly overblown amplifier punishment and blister-popped feedback. Silkscreened covers and limited to something like 400 copies.
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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Proving that the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal's bounty is seemingly limitless, Shadow Kingdom does it again with another killer NWOBHM find. Actually, we'd read about this band on the internet a while back and wanted to hear 'em ever since, finally here's a reissue of their only album, complete with bonus disc of demo rarities! We've barely listened to that disc, though, interesting as it is, 'cause we just keep spinning the actual album. That's one sign of a good record, another is that after only listening to it a couple of times, we felt like we already knew the songs, there's a lot of individuality here.
Deep Switch (named after a bass-boosting option on an amp one of them owned) and their Nine Inches Of God album, originally released in 1986, are hardly typical NWOBHM fare though. You might have guessed that from the cover art, a psychedelic cartoonish painting of a tripped-out, half-naked, lysergically melting nun (done by the guitarist's dad!) No, they're weird ones, these Deep Switch boys, lead by one "Reverend Nice"; irreverent, intelligent, idiosyncratic (just look at their colorful facepaint and top hats!). Combining a bit of a punk attitude with heavy metal chops, Deep Switch are sex-obsessed and anti-religious, making commentary on society and politics in songs that range from total prog epics to ahead-of-their time alt-metal (and one pretty ballad).
Lead-off track "Pigfeeder!" really threw us for a loop when we first heard it. NWOBHM... with rapping?? Well a little bit of rapping, but it doesn't sound like any "rap-metal" we've ever heard before. Not even sure if that was their intention. Weird but it works, in a Blondie "Rapture" man from Mars, eating cars kind of way, but it's actually saying something, while taking the piss at the same time. Ultimately "Pigfeeder!" is THEE super-catchy, uber-rhythmic song that Deep Switch shall be remembered for when the Big Book of Heavy Metal is written at the end of days. At the very least, in our book, it's up there with "Diggin' That Grave" by Jesters Of Destiny. But there's lots else on this album we dig too, other songs where the widdly guitars and falsetto vocals are put in more typically metal context, reminding us of Mercyful Fate and LA's Warlord at times. Another fave of ours would be the history lesson of "Time Machine", a poppy, proggy gem with lines advising a certain Harold not to "go down to Hastings".
So if you can deal with a little British humor in your old school metal (the killer guitars, catchy riffage, and vocal harmonies should certainly help), you should flip (for) the Deep Switch. And again, Shadow Kingdom do the reissue thing right, there's that whole other disc featuring earlier, different demos of several of the album tracks, plus some previously unreleased material, including a parody of their own "Pigfeeder!" in the form of a Christmas song called "The Festive Zone". And then there's the thick booklet, full of crazy photos, lyrics, and copious liner notes from Reverend Nice himself. Informative, and amusing - we loved the part where he talks about a pub gig at which their bass player Johnny Blade, unable to decipher the set list, comes over to ask what song they're doing next... when told, his response was "It couldn't be - I just played that one!". Classic. As is this album, in its way. Very much recommended.
"No, Def Leppard don't suck. Their first few albums are pretty great." So we said in a postscript to our review of Savage's Loose 'N Lethal last time. Well let's put our money where our mouth is, and do what we do here, which is write about music we like, dammit. So, here's Def Leppard's 1980 debut, On Through The Night. Despite the most ridiculous "space truckin'" cover art, and Def Leppard's eventual commercial hair metal success-to-excess trajectory, this is a kick ass album. A bona fide NWOBHM classic. Not over produced and over cheesed like some of their later million sellers. Though definitely pro and polished, heavier than you'd expect, and full on rockin', right out of the gate with the anthemic call to arms "Rock Brigade". Next up is the prescient "Hello America", Def Leppard dreaming big, some keyboard synths creeping in... but they're just an embellishment on that one song alone, as there's plenty of guitar riffage to go around on this disc! Lotsa snakey licks, some slide on the big beat of "It Don't Matter". Yeah, on and on through the night you'll hear Def Lep's six stringers Steve Clark (R.I.P.) and Pete Willis duking it out over Rick Savage's bass lines and the solid (two-armed, at the time) drumming of Rick Allen. While wailing over it all are the distinctive, nasally pipes of Joe Elliott (hmm, he's credited here with "throat" just like HR in the Bad Brains).
As the NWOBHM did, Def Leppard take the '70s sounds of British arena rockers like Led Zep and UFO and inject some new vitality and purpose. Youthful energy and all that. And they had learned their lessons well. (It took a few albums into the '80s before they fully fumbled the torch they'd been passed.) There's some mellower, melancholic moments (parts of "Sorrow Is A Woman", of course, ferinstance) but nothing like a ballad, this is mostly a headbanging good time with flashes of royal majesty.
A few further comments on this record: the Leps continue to prophesize their own impending fame with the cheering crowd mixed in on the urgent "Rocks Off". And "Answer To The Master" is just a classic heavy metal song title ain't it? As is (another prophecy?) "Wasted"...
Unlike the primitive American black metal ususally found on Killjoy's Baphomet label, this dometic debut from this Japanese band fits better into the technical, brutal death metal scene, a la Cryptopsy and Gorguts -- but with more of an old school, metal feel
Only got three of these, found a little stash in the closet, pretty sure we won't be able to get more so grab one of these quick if you're into twisted Ukrainian black metal. And really how could you not be. The Ukraine has a small but killer scene that's given us bands like Drudkh, Nokturnal Mortum, Astrofaes, Hate Forest, Khors, Shadows Ground and Blood Of Kingu. And weirdly enough, Definition Sane features the drummer of BoK, but their sound is a whole different beast. This comp collects the group's two demos, the sound murky and moody, buzzy and black, melding depressive and ambient elements with more classic buzz and blast, and there's a definite technical death metal element too (they even cover Deicide!), but at its core, it's a fantastically twisted blackness, not sure whether it's the composition or the recording, but the sound is warped and warbly, with the sound constantly shifting into weirdly atonal and angular parts that make the sound more ugly and damaged and 'difficult' than most black metal. It also gives the sound a sort of 'avant' vibe, which when coupled with the overall grim sound, makes for something pretty ruling.
Again, we only have three of these, and once they're gone, that's it...
Swedish thrashers Defleshed, whose previous disc Under The Blade was one of the ragin'est, catchiest, most METAL releases of '98, return with an equally fierce followup, the aptly titled Fast Forward! Energetic speed/death metal with no guitar solos. Like a buzzsaw to your skull, guaranteed to induce violent headbanging. Great songtitles abound: "The Iron And The Maiden", "Feeding Fatal Fairies", "Domination Of The Sub-Queen", "Lightning Strikes Thrice", "Snowballing Blood"...
Also includes two bonus live cuts.
The hyper-caffienated trio of Swedish thrashers known as Defleshed return with this, their fourth studio effort, and again whip up a storm of headbanging heaviness -- 32 minutes of aggressive old-school metal mania. While their insidiously catchy 1998 masterpiece "Under The Blade" is their best release, fans may find "Royal Straight Flesh" a blast, more-or-less literally. This is more of a drilling grind, still bereft of time-wasting guitar solos, but mostly without the staggering hooks of "Under The Blade". Yet is is every bit as energetic and powerful, which counts for something! And at points we're reminded of recent Immortal output, which is also no bad thing.
One of 1998's best metal releases gets a digipak reissue with a multitude of bonus tracks! Harkening back to '80s thrash masters Destruction (whose "Curse The Gods" gets covered here), this hyper- andrenalized Swedish power trio somehow created what might
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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It's still so confounding to us that anyone into heavy music doesn't love the Deftones. Sure, they may have started life as a nu-metal band, but even then, it was obvious that they were destined for more. And it didn't take long for them to make good on that potential, transforming into a seriously kick ass, brooding avant post metal juggernaut, as capable of whipping out some Slayer-esque riffage, or some downtuned drop-D crunch, as some spare moody electronica flecked slowcore or some blissed out metalgaze. And the fact that they often effortlessly did all of the above simultaneously only made us love them more. Plus you gotta love any band that covers the Cocteau Twins, the Smith, Duran Duran, the Cure, Sade, Helmet, Lynyrd Skynrd and Jawbox. And that should also give you an idea of the sort of sounds that informs the sounds these guys conjure up.
In some ways Diamond Eyes is a bit less experimental than Saturday Night Wrist. That record had some seriously weird shit going on, long tripped out electronic jams with foul mouthed female spoken word, almost like some sort of cold Teutonic electro, mixed with plenty of dark balladic dirges and chugging metallic blow outs. It could be that the proposed follow up, Eros, might have been just as far out, but that record was put on hold indefinitely, as the Deftones bassist is in a coma after an automobile accident. Even so, while the weirdness is maybe not so overt, their sound is so unique anyway, equal parts doomy gothy miserablism, epic melodic bliss pop, and metallic crunch, a combo others have definitely tried, but no one does it quite like these guys. Another killer disc of heaviness and hooks, metal and moodiness, most definitely a new favorite...
So, knowing full well that I am impervious to any mockery, having weathered plenty with my past admissions (Tool, Fastway, Warlord, Bad News), I will stand tall, and say that the new Deftones record is amazing. Maybe even better than their last record, 'Around The Fur', 'White Pony' puts the Deftones even more safely apart from the 'nu-metal' crowd they are often (and unfairly) lumped in with. Sure, there's the occasional Rage-Against-The-Machine-isms, but that's not so bad (we all loved the Refused record which bordered on RATM territory) and this record is just fucking great. Heavy and weird and catchy and dark, and sometimes slow and creepy (their admitted Depeche Mode obsession is in full effect). Plus some guest vocals from Tool frontman Maynard, make for the best Tool song that never was. Fucking essential.
God, I love the Deftones. I can't help it. And why should I even try? I've proudly proclaimed it in the past and I will continue to do so. Their records strike this perfect balance between thunderous, skull crushing heaviness and heartbreaking, soul shattering lovliness. Sweet, wispy melodies flit delicately between falling slabs of impossibly heavy sound, downtuned guitars spew molten rivers of roiling riffs and frothing feedback, Chino Moreno's gorgeous velvety croon, wraps itself lovingly around your head, filling your ears with warm melodic gauze before exploding into a banshee-like wail and splitting your skull into a thousand pieces. Crushing metallic dirges dissipate into drone-y, whirring soundscapes of hushed, almost whispered vocals and delicate, crystalline melodies. So perfect.
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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When you think 'death metal' you probably think Deicide. Or Morbid Angel. Or at least you should. The two bands that basically define modern death metal (without sucking). While Morbid Angel twist death metal into weird shapes and sprinke it liberally with
Beefy Satanic dude death metal. Another in a long line of blasting blasphemies.
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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Fellow doom junkies, you'll agree: what could be better than a 3-way sludge split?? Especially when the three bands are all from Finland, 'cause you know we love Finland. Only one of the three bands here, the mighty Frogskin, had we previously heard, but it turns out, ALL of 'em are awesome, and very well-matched, stylistically. In fact, to tell the truth, at first it's hard to tell when one band leaves off and another begins. Demonic Death Judge (great name!), Semtex, and Frogskin each in turn dish out tremendously heavy, lumbering, loping riffage, with a liberal application of feedback, and rasping ugly vokills. Their sludge has a Sabbath-derived swing to it, for sure, and features plenty of psychedelic guitar shred soloing, especially from DDJ. So these three represent the warped Finnish branch of a doomed-out, drugged-up family that includes both Eyehategod and Electric Wizard in its lineage.
First up is DDJ, with three tracks, each over 7 minutes long, their dirty stoner grooves betraying a love of classic '70s psych and metal. They also aren't afraid of some shining melody in their songs, like on one of this album's highlights, "Beneath The Monument", which also makes good use of disturbing samples, layered and looped. Epic, glorious stuff, which is not what we'd usually say about sludge. Then comes the pot-lovin' Semtex, who boast the best and/or cutest logo. Their four tracks are more overtly drug-oriented, the band a bit like the Finnish answer to Bongzilla, delivering lotsa lazy, bluesy, doped out doominess. And then Frogskin wrap things up, their three contributions to this sludgey split taking it into an even filthier, nastier, crustier direction. It's been doomy all along, but now it's time to run and hide, kiddies.
Wow, what a wicked, wasted 3-way! Better than most single-band discs of this ilk we've ever heard. If it's any recommendation - and it is - we've been listening to this A LOT since we got it in. And are also hoping that a Vol. 2 is indeed on the way, as well as new full-lengths by all 3 of these great bands�
When we first got a promo of this, we looked at the cover painting (a real dark and cool-looking depiction of the title characters) and wondered...black metal, death metal, or power metal? Turns out it's all of the above. And pretty damn good too, so we ordered copies for the store right away. Demonoid is apparently a side project of Therion, a symphonic Swedish metal band we don't particularily care about, but this sounds nothing like Therion these days that's for sure. Epic and technical but totally brutal and heavy. The vocals are of the growling variety, but not cookie monster grunts. The '80s thrash influences on display here remind us of Defleshed -- but with guitar solos. Which are amazing, as is the drumming (by the guy from Soilwork). And it's a concept album -- with a concept that is explained in the liner notes and boils down to this: "among all the rubbish written in the Bible, there was as a matter of fact only one thing that was correct; the description of the 4 Riders of the Apocalpyse". So we get songs about mankind's crimes through the ages, and the punishments that the Riders eventually visit upon us... Full devil horns up for this one!
With a name like Demonologists and a title like Sermons Of Death And Eternal Damnation, you probably already have a good idea of what sort of sonic sickness these guys have in store for you. And you'd be right.
A bleak, noisy, super distorted, atmospheric bit of blown out, crumbling, industrial doom laden trudge and lumber, the sky a black swirl of metallic crunch and shrieking feedback, what must be guitars are transformed into heaving avalanches of blacknoise, the voices (if they are voices) just add more chaos to the already confusional din, streaks of melodies and a buried slow motion propulsion drag the sound like some blackened carcass, being wheeled into the bowels of hell. Huge shards of moaning melody surface now and again, adding a strange sort of cinematic gravitas, but most of the subtle stuff is swallowed up by the harsh churning crush and pummel on the surface, heavily layered and super texture, so blown out and in the red, the tape gets overloaded, and the sound becomes strangely warm and muted before collapsing again into paroxysms of skree and scrape and howl and buzz.
It's like 10 different black metal records being played at once, and then being remixed by some Japanoise DJ's, the speeds shifting, the tempos dragging and threatening to spill into oozing black puddles of sound, this is definitely rough stuff, but like the best rough stuff, this is not just pedal masturbation or white noise punishment, although to be fair, it is punishing, there is plenty of white noise (and pink, and brown, and BLACK) and heck, there's probably some pedal abuse, but it's all whipped up into a serious speaker melting frenzy, the sort of sound that will definitely appeal to students of the school of Merzbow and Masonna, but also, folks into the noisier and more abrasive end of the black spectrum like Gnaw Their Tongues, BSBC, Aderlating, Alkerdeel, Black Mayonnaise, Grief No Absolution, Endless Humiliation, etc.
Sweet packaging, silver ink on black card stock. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, we have less than ten!
Latest chunk of grim blacknoise from Ohio duo Demonologists, comes in the form of this super limited split cd-r, with the mysterious Deathstench. We first heard from Demonologists on a cassette from Waves Of Decay, and we described that record as sounding like ten different black metal records all being played at once and then remixed by a Japanoise DJ. Which should tell you all you need to know, brutal, harsh, intense, black buzz brutality. On their half of this split, Demonologists start off each track with some black ambient drift or some creepy cinematic dronemusic, only to eventually explode into full on blacknoise, an avalanche of speaker shredding, ear piercing Merzbow/Masonna style fury, only in this case, buried in there somewhere are buzzing riffs and shrieked vokills, and if you can brave the first few minutes, the songs tend to open up, peeling back some of the noise, revealing all the murky weirdness inside and underneath, whether that's wild squalls of fractured effects, surprising shards of jagged melody, or just stretches of black metal buzz. Headphones seem the way to go, this is the sort of all out aural assault that in a room with regular speakers, just sounds like a vacuum cleaner symphony, but strap on those cans, and you're plunged into a blacknoise abyss, a skull caving collision between Incapacitants and Wrath Of The Weak, a whirling black buzz dervish of unparalleled proportions. Metalheads tread carefully, one must have iron ears as well as a black soul to truly survive this sonic onslaught!
Deathstench start their side off with a creepy sample and some sick, gurgling low end buzz, a churning black expanse of downtuned heaviness and murky oozing creep, the sound super distorted and on the verge of crumbling to pieces, textural and heavily layered, black and black but surprisingly listenable. Which is how these guys roll, balancing the relentless blown out pummel of Demonologists, Deathstench are a bit more subtle with their bleak, grim, abject soundscaping, creating looped landscapes of industrial whir, and buzzy black drones, of machine like rhythms buried in the sonic murk and mire, wreathed in haunting drifting melodies, and swirling black ambience, finally finishing things off with a 15+ minute horrorscape, beginning with some hushed ultra minimal shimmer, but quickly blossoming into something much more evocative and sinister, distant demonic vokills, disembodied voices, churning black low end, lots of spaced out drift, super cinematic and downright scary.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! With full color glossy artwork!
Power metal dudes and dudettes! We can't call ourselves a "metal specialty" store without listing this. Well actually we're not a "metal specialty" store but that's what it said in the New York Times article about "intelligent metal" a few weeks ago, quoting Andee talking about some of the bands the Times thought were so smart. Not among them, Demons and Wizards, though if you really like metal you should dig this as much or more than SUNNO))) and Pelican and so forth. It's the second album from the dream team of Blind Guardian vocalist Hansi Kursch and Iced Earth guitarist John Schaffer. Well ok we're not big Iced Earth fans here (the early stuff was good, though). But Blind Guardian get all kinds of AQ props. And one of the main reasons is 'cause of Hansi's vocals. He's not just some cookie cutter smoothly crooning power metal vocalist. He's got personality, some roughness, an edge. He's also way better than anyone who's ever sung for Iced Earth (well, Ripper's got a good voice, but Hansi's way more original!).
Anyway, Demons & Wizards are pretty great and fans of either 'parent' band won't be disappointed.
Though we haven't polled everyone, the general consensus around here seems to be that Demontage is a cool name for a heavy metal band. But is Demontage also in fact a cool heavy metal band? Yeah, they are, or we wouldn't have ordered a bunch to highlight! They're a fairly eccentric outfit from up in Toronto, Canada, a peculiar but exceedingly powerful power trio comprised of Abominable Reverend (drums), Perverted Priest (bass), and Spatilomantis (guitars/vocals), playing an off-the-rails mix of old school and more modern extreme metal styles with frenzied abandon and plenty of idiosyncratically Satanic spirit, more metal than thou, no doubt. The Principal Extinction is their 2nd full length (but first real cd, as their previous album Sacrilege 'n Miscreancy was but a cd-r release), consisting of six tracks that we can barely describe 'cause these guys are insane. The songs aren't short (in the 6-10 minute range) and boy do they cram a lot into 'em, from NWOBHM gallop to black metallic fuzz to proggy synth sizzle to majestic epicness to utterly doomy crush, always with aggressive riffs, ripping leads, thrashy drums, and (obviously) a LOT of twists and turns. Somehow it all flows beautifully, like blood from a demon's maw. Heck, Demontage is an appropriate name for them on account of how they mash together so much in their crazy compositions, which sound like, we dunno, Saviours on a lot of drugs? Danava doing an advanced version of Venom? Brocas Helm in a hellish hot tub with Celtic Frost? The vocals don't help us to pin 'em down either, as they're mostly gruff, but spiced with occasional high pitched screams, and there's melodic & manly cleanly sung parts too.
Certainly Demontage remind us a bit of the sort of anything-goes metal played by the diverse likes of Root, Dragonauta, and Sigh. But with much more of a denim and leather '80s beer drinking vibe, if you can imagine. Headbanging catchiness is a priority, in other words, but that doesn't get in the way of 'em being weird as well (& as hell). We wish more bands were willing to be both this darn metal AND this out-there original. Cool stuff, quite recommended.
It's been AGES since we last heard from this black metal horde (all the way back in 2009), and at the time, we were pretty obsessed. Definitely a supergroup, featuring members of Shining, Diabolicum, Naer Matron, 1349, Pantheon I, Gehenna, Aeternus AND Doheimsgard, Den Saakaldte (named for a Ved Buens Ende song!) crafted a twisted avant garde depressive blackness, the sort of thing that would have sounded right at home on the Moonfog label back in the day, shades of Thorns throughout for sure, that first record a twisted mix of classic Norwegian black buzz and all manner of fucked up ambience, fractured electronics, WTF production and strange instrumentation (trumpet! accordion!). On Kapittel II: Faen I Helvete, the sound remains twisted and dramatic, although the sound is a bit more of a classic, churning epic blackness, until the vocals come in, they're a bombastic caterwauled croon, that transforms the otherwise grim buzz into something way more over the top, but compared to that first record, this is some almost traditional sounding black metal. Midway through one track, there's a stunning stretch of epic harmonized guitars, tense and intense, until the song swoops back in all melancholic and melodic, it's pretty bad ass! And even one of our other favorite tracks, the sound immediately erupts in a roiling black churn, furious fast picked guitars, progged out octopoidal drumming, bursts of frenzied blasting, it's a few tracks in, that things get truly avant, the sound a bit like a strange hybrid of a melodic modern metal dirge, and some sort of Victorian sea shanty, but instead of sounding weird, these guys simply transform it into something equally black, moody and malevolent, and sure there are some soaring clean vocals, that add yet another dimension, but it manages to stay just this side of weirdness, and instead, ends up crushingly majestic and dramatic, and so it goes for the rest of the record, a dense black sprawl of tangled black buzz, of furious metallic heaviness, of epic blackened majesty, not nearly as doomy or depressive as the first, and way less trumpet (as in, none), but the group seems to have sacrificed some of their twisted experimental streak for a sound much more concise, and more directly beholden to the classic Norwegian blackness that came before...
A list of the members of this new group should be enough to have most black metallers diving for the add-to-cart button: Kvarforth of Shining and Diabolicum, Skyellg from Naer Mataron and Paradigma, Seldemann from 1349 and Pantheon I, S. Winter from Gehenna and Aeternus and finally Jormundgand from Dodheimsgard. Odds are you probably have records by most, if not all of those bands in your collection, and while the sounds of those various groups are pretty varied, it will probably not prepare you for the sound of Den Saakaldte (which some might recognize as a Ved Buens Ende song title!).
Self described as "depressive black metal music with a modern avantgardist touch", the record begins with a long stretch of haunting choral voices, processed FX, soaring strings, swirling synths, deep rumbling drones, cabaret piano, shortwave interference, bits of hiss and glitch. It's an intro, sure, but only inasmuch as it's at the beginning of a black metal record, there are plenty of avant free-rock groups who would kill to come up with a track this cool and weird. But it is a black metal record, and it is after all an intro, so when the first song kicks in all heavy downtuned guitar, we're ready, but what we're not ready for is the trumpet, yep TRUMPET, the guitar trumpet drum mix is pretty cool, but soon gives way to something much more black, a churning blackened chugfest, heavy as fuck, with super deep howled processed vocals, killer drumming, amazing guitar playing, and super catchy main riff, the song twisting and turning and returning to the intro with an Eastern sounding guitar melody replacing the trumpet, before exploding back into that unmistakable Norwegian buzz, before slipping into some woozy doom, before lurching to a stop, leaving just a muted crackly clean guitar, and moaning almost choral vocals, before one final flurry of black buzz and a creepy drifty outro.
The rest of the record follows suit, channeling the spirit of the Norwegian legends: Gorgoroth, Ulver, Arcturus, Burzum, but with a definite dramatic vibe, and plenty of avant flourishes, whether they be weird acoustic guitar / accordion interludes, or strangled maniacal almost operatic vocals, or whole songs of dubbed out rhythms and processed piano, skittery electronic beats and disembodied horn sections.
The record finishes off with the nearly 12 minute lone "Jag Ar Den Fallna", featuring a guitar part that is total Thorns, but again, laced with minor key trumpet flourishes, as well as spidery guitar melodies, a groovy doomy depressive dirge, that explodes into a blast of black fury before crumbling into a sort of stumbling depressive Joy Division-y lurch, the track slipping effortlessly back and forth, from moaning minor key lumber, to blasting shrieking blackness, and back again, eventually the two disparate elements becoming one, the song turning into some blackened My Dying Bride, all epic classic doom, before that Thorns-like riff returns to finish things off, leading directly into the sub-minute long coda, a super creepy collage of little girl voices and atonal synths, wrapped in a gauzy otherworldly swirl of dense delay and reverb.
It might sound cliched to say, but they really don't make records that sound so much like this anymore, that nineties Norwegian sound, heavy and dark and catchy and majestic and mysterious and brutal and black, these are the sounds that lured us over to the dark side, and it's easy to see why, and strangely enough it still sounds as good today as it did 15 years ago. WAY recommended.
Even if the two blood red slabs of thrashing blackened demonic death metal weren't enough to sell you on this here ultra evil double 7", then the obscenely extravagant packaging almost certainly would. Packaged in a thick black gatefold, printed in metallic silver ink, like some ancient lost book of magic, alchemy and evil, with the inner pages printed on parchment, edges actually burnt and candle wax dripped here and there, portraying horrific images of demons and planets with all the text in some mysterious lost language of runes and symbols. This is seriously one of the most intense and insanely packaged records we have ever seen (hence the price, hand made, and according to the band they take forever to assemble and burn and melt!). We passed it around when we first got these, gawking and examining them like they were some priceless artifacts, and for you metalheads and record geeks they just might be! SUPER SUPER LIMITED!!!
This is the self titled debut from Texas black metal horde Depths, which starts off more like a noise tape, a thick swath of billowing blackness, crumbling, grinding blacknoise, pulsing and swirling rhythmically, a pretty fierce intro, which leads directly into some cavernous blackened riffing, ultra lo-fi, sounding as if it was recorded at the bottom of a black pit, the guitars a muddy swirl, the drums a layer of hiss over the top, the vocals a reverb drenched bellow, the sounds so blurred and indistinct, the black metal buzz is more like a swirling sea of roiling buzz and blurred white noise. Eventually, the band slow things down, and the song seems to coalesce, into a loping almost post rock, but those vocals, a harsh hellish bellow that must melt faces live, but here keeps the proceedings from veering too far from the black path, the group displaying a surprisingly keen melodic sense, in the slower parts, while everything is utterly obliterated when the group explode into blasting blackness. This is definitely KVLT, sounding like some lost nineties rehearsal tape, which is not a bad thing at all, but is definitely more for the true grim hordes. Would definitely dig hearing what these guys could come up with in a real studio, assuming this isn't exactly what they were shooting for in the first place - raw, primitive lo-fi blackness.
Guitarist/vocalist and "desert rock" big-shot Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, ex-Kyuss) likes to get his musical friends together for jammin' jamborees. Homme's friends this time include Mark Lanegan, and, allegedly, somebody from Motley Crue.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Another obscure legend of the NWOBHM gets the fancy reissue treatment (on cd AND vinyl) from the Buried By Time And Dust label. This self-titled album was Desolation Angels' full-length debut from 1986, predating the band's ill-fated and short-lived relocation to Los Angeles the very next year. Dunno why they thought they'd be able to make a go of it on the Sunset Strip at the time, 'cause this album is much more gloomy than glammy. A rough-hewn, riff-strewn headbang, galloping headlong from deep underground in the NWOBHM bog, full of doomy sub-Sabbath bashing and some epick Viking vox (wailing about "Valhalla" and so forth, & some Satanic subjects too). It chugs along with a lot of charm, and should appeal to fans of Witchfinder General, Bleak House, Mythra, and other such BBTAD excavations of NWOBHM rarities. Packaged with that label's usual care, including a bonus 7" (on the vinyl, bonus tracks on the cd) of a single of theirs from '84.
All the NWOBHM fanatics here at aQ are pretty excited about this one, we've been awaiting a reissue for ages!
The return of grindlords Agoraphobic Nosebleed, here teamed up with fellow grinders Despise You, who offer up their first new material in a decade, although their sound has definitely not changed. Despise You traffic in furious, punishing hardcore heaviness, blurred buzzing riffs, wild thrashing drumming, dense super intricate arrangements, slipping from chug and churn to frantic blast, punk pound to mathy lurch, the songs short and sharp, cramming 18 songs into about 16 minutes, even tackling Fear's "I Don't Care About You", the boy/girl vocals (mostly boy) yelped and howled, the sound rough and raw, filthy and crusty, total fast core power violence style, definitely harkening back to the old school Pessimiser / Theologian / Slap A Ham sound of the nineties. Which we STILL love like crazy...
Agoraphobic Nosebleed counter with their own take on that sound, starting their half out with some downtuned doomed out sludge, the vocals a heavily effected guttural bellow, the sound grooving and slithery, a chugging churning almost Black Flag-ish bit of gnarled hardcore, it's not until the second song that the band explode in a frenzy of hypergrind, complete with dive bombing Slayer style leads, the sound thick and corrosive, the riffing insane and intense, super intricate and mathy, cramming tons of parts into super short blast of sonic fury, finishing off with another chunk of tangled doom flecked midtempo hardcore pound, that grinds and howls and creeps until it fades into a spaced out sprawl of psychedelic feedback and swirling distant drones. Killer.
Furious old-school blackened death metal from Australia. This record was quite a surprise considering how much their earlier efforts sucked. But this is the shit. Incredibly heavy and surprisingly catchy with relentless Norwegian style blast beats mixed
