Comeback attack from '80s German thrash legends, the trio known as Destruction! And it really is a comeback, 'cause this rules. Not year 2000 updated at all, just their patented ferocious twisting guitar thrash, catchy and headbanging indeed, just like their old classics. Fans of current bands in the speed/death vein like the
Destruction-worshippers Defleshed should be sure to get this. And they still spell "disaster" "desaster"! The unlisted bonus track, a cover of Metallica's "Whiplash" is a little predictable of a choice, though.
Destruction!!! The '80s German thrash masters are still at it, and they've still "got it" too. We slipped up and didn't review their last album, 2003's Metal Discharge, so let's make up for that by mentioning this one, another old school flashback for sure. If you just want to bang your head and fantasize about bloody cleaver-wielding maniacs, you can't go too far wrong with Destruction's latest (or the one before this one, or the one before that, or all way back to their pre-reunion '80s classics). This is metal music that looks good in a bullet belt, nothing more, nothing less. Simple and aggressive and to the (sharpened) point.
Metal fans should also note that the track "The Alliance Of Hellhounds" features a gang of guest vocalists -- the singers from Dimmu Borgir, Candlemass, Soilwork, Doro, Rage, Death Angel, Hypocrisy (Peter Tagtagren, who produced this album as well), and Iron Maiden (Paul, not Bruce or Blaze) alongside Destruction's own Schmier!
Here's the sophomore comeback album for Germany's flagship thrash outfit, '80s vets Destruction. Chainsawing their way through 11 tracks of their trademark high energy, uh, thrash, they prove that last year's "All Hell Breaks Loose" wasn't a fluke. They're
What kind of sounds would you expect from a band called Destructo Swarmbots? Don't bother guessing because you'd probably be way off. No squealing, grinding metallic mayhem here, instead this mysterious duo offer up three extended tracks of warm and creepy, fuzzy rumbling drone. As if you were sneaking through a mazelike series of tunnels, only to discover a whole legion of Destructo Swarmbots, secretly toiling away in an underground cavern, assembling some mysterious organic machine, and the huge space reverberates with the ominous humming and whirring of the 'bots incessant laboring. Definitely for the drone minded among you. Cool 3" cd packaged in a normal sized jewel case.
Every once in a while, we run across some obscure old school metal reissue that really, really makes us go "heck yeah, that's why we love obscure old school metal!!!" Max Planck, Drakar, Coven, Dark Quarterer, Wolfbane, the list goes on. The latest discovery we've been freaking out about is this one from Swedish band Detest, who released a five song mini-lp in 1990 with the very metal title of Thundersteel (a name already used by Riot for an album 2 years earlier, so don't be confused), now reissued with tons of bonus tracks from the band's demos (filling up two whole cds!) by the cult metal Stormspell label as part of their archival "Red White Heavy Arcane Collector Series For The Initiated", which previously brought us that Max Planck among others.
Maybe what first attracted us to Detest was the intriguing cover art, a cartoony black & white & red drawing of a (despondent? pensive?) man-creature with sword, crouching at the top of some steps, apparently on a mountainside, near an altar (?), with lightning in the background and a small lizard in the foreground. Very curious. On the back cover of the cd booklet, the scene is the same, but the humanoid is gone, his sword left stuck in the earth. Did he go back down the steps? Or climb further up the cliff? Or jump off?
While wondering about all that, we started listening to the music - and were blown away. The first disc opens with the title track, "Thundersteel", and immediately you'll be smitten like we were, if you're into heavy, epic, glorious metal in the style of Manowar, Candlemass, and Doomsword - with a 'deeper' lyrical twist, as it's about the hypocrisy and evil of Christian crusaders killing heathens. It's got classic stamped all over it. And Detest keep up the quality, galloping through the rest of the disc with quite a few more killer songs that vary from the doomy to the thrashy, always pretty dang catchy and HEAVY. There's more riff monsters like "Chains Of Hell", another epic romp; insidious Bay Area thrash influenced attacks like "Cold Steel Tears Your Flesh"; and even some dementedly WTF? heaviness in the form of the plodding, extra-sludgy "Steinhurst's Chainsaws". Detest kick out plenty of memorably melodic cuts too, like the powerful "Crossfire", "Zone Of Nowhere" and the singalong mead-hall folkmetal of "One Too Many"; there's even a pretty decent, heartfelt ballad with 12-string acoustic guitar, "Angel Of Mine", but elsewhere it's more or less all about chunky riffage, ripping twin leads, rough wailing vox...
Disc two has its share of gems on it too, but to be honest disc one is SO good that we keep playing it over and over and haven't yet really given the second disc enough spins to write much about it in this review! Nice to know it's there to get into when/if we ever tire of disc one, though. 28 tracks total on this anthology, and somehow, despite the DIY recording of most of this, the production quality is pretty excellent overall regardless if the tracks are from the mini-lp or from demos.
The very thick cd booklet includes a band bio, full lyrics, and detailed notes on each track from the band's vocalist/guitarist Micke Darth. There's also an interview with him, where he answers various questions including why the band was called Detest: "Slayer was taken". Plus there's more drawings by the guy that did the cover, of that guy on the cover, Detest's scrappy little red naked furry sword wielding mascot we suppose.
Definitely something special about this band, we're SO glad Stormspell dug this up 'cause we'd never have heard 'em otherwise. Clearly a talented, intelligent band (with kind of a weird sense of humor but also a serious, sincere vibe) that were making this music in their garage more for themselves than for any larger audience - which is insane since so much of this stuff is so much better than a lot of things released by other bands of the era who "made it", y'know? Highest recommendation to anyone into cult underground '80s heavy metal!
Originally intended to be a Record Store Day release, the awesomely and confusionally titled Racial Golf Course No Bitches is the first full length from UK noise rock weirdos Dethscalator, fulfilling the promise of their kick ass split with fellow heavies Hey Colossus from back in 2009, somehow managing to trump their jams from that split, pushing the sound even further, getting heavier, filthier, noisier, and weirdly more melodic, and even dubbier too.
On the surface, these guys are total old school AmRep knuckle dragging numbskulls, sounding like a revved up Brainbombs or (slightly) less drug addled Rusted Shut, but dig deeper to discover all sorts of twisted shit going on. The above mentioned dubbiness is all over the place, drums, vocals, guitars, doused in echo and reverb and sent spinning into clouds of distorted noise, it's subtle in places, but not even remotely in others, the sound, like on the split, feeling almost looped in places, the band locked into churning cyclical riffage, that just grinds endlessly, while all around it, drums pound, FX swirl, vocals howl.
Check out opener "Black Percy" which pairs a Motorhead riff with some Butthole Surfers style tribal drumming, before exploding into a full on metal punk blowout, with wild unhinged David Yow (Jesus Lizard / Scratch Acid) style vocals, but then out of nowhere in swoops a crazy metallic melody that's so catchy, it almost sounds like another song. But it works somehow, and ends up being probably the catchiest jam here, which, as surprising as it might sound, is saying something, cuz there's a lot of unlikely catchiness tucked amidst all this skull caving, rib cage rattling noise. Tracks like "Grotto Crank" take a riff and work it to death, stretching it way out, while yowled vox disappear in clouds of dubbed out FX and are transformed into another layer of buzz, the song lurching and lumbering, almost like some sort of brain damaged slo-mo prog, before finally launching into some serious metallic pummel, only to almost immediately splinter, and collapse into some feedback drenched dirgery, again, everything dubbed out like crazy, turning an otherwise noisy plod into a freaky psychedelic damaged dirge. Fuck yeah. Another favorite is the awesomely titled "World War Two Hitler Youth Dagger", which adds some serious math to the mix, a roiling sprawl of tangled riffage and caveman drum pound, but laced with some soaring guitar shreddery, some droned out psychedelia, and again, some seriously damaged dubbiness as well.
We could go track by track, but by now, having read the above, and presumably listened to some of the sounds below, you know if this is your cup of PCP laced sonic tea or not. It most definitely is ours. Easily the best noise rock record of the year, and most certainly vying for a year end top ten spot, noise rock or otherwise.
Needless to say, fans of Brainbombs, Drunkdriver, Rusted Shut, Violent Students, Billy Bao, Twin Stumps, No Balls, Mayyors, White Mice, Liquorball, Hey Colossus, Homostupids, Shit And Shine, and other sonic shit stirrers, you can add Dethscalator to your arsenal of room clearing, ear drum destroying, speaker shredding crush.
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!!! Pressed on 140 gram pink bubblegum vinyl.
Pakt is a harrowing, abject experiment in doom-ed blackness, the debut from this Norwegian duo, who weave a suffocating expanse of dense layered blackness, a dizzying hybrid of blacknoize, dark hypnotic dronemusic, and funereal doom. But even as a strange hybridized bit of sonic experimentalism, Pakt still stands out as one of the coolest, weirdest records we've heard.
The opening track lays it all out, the dark chaotic crunch, the pulsing throbbing blackness, the strange, seemingly out of place melodicism, from the first few minutes, a strange sound like an approaching train, distant reverbed vocals, a slow build to a sort of post industrial black drift, the chug of the 'train', overtaken by another layer of buzz, that sounds more like a helicopter than any sort of instrument, then in comes some achingly mournful minimal minor key melodies, while that helicopter sound, becomes an almost riff-like pulse, and coalesces into thick syrupy SUNN-y sludge, before slipping right back into that pulsing chug, this time accompanied by crooned clean, high vocals, almost like a pop song set amidst all the roiling blackness, a strange mix for sure, but it works, creating a sort of dour black industrial pop.
The rest of the record is equally as striking, spreading out swaths of coruscating feedback, over deep tectonic rumbles, letting the sounds build into undulating sheets of doomgaze, before becoming a proper slabs of glacial doom, tamping down thick buzzing riffage into hushed, blurred downtuned shimmer, laced with field recordings, disembodied processed voices, buried melodies, creaking machinelike percussion, simple strummed acoustic guitars, butted up against massive squalls of blackpsych guitarnoise, 16 rpm riffage gradually slowing down and easing into brooding Godspeed style slow build post rock, or exploding into brief flares of Nadja like doomdronedirge, but seemingly always settling back into something darker and hauntingly tranquil. Awesome stuff. Most definitely for fans of Nadja, SUNNO))), Troum, Skullflower, To Blacken The Pages, Robedoor, Bong, Have A Nice Life, Fear Falls Burning, Marzuraan, Snowblood and other purveyors of avant blackness, brooding post metal, and all things slow, low, heavy and blackened.
Features super striking red and black Justin Bartlett artwork...
By now all readers of the aQ list understand our obsession with fucked black metal. Demented, damaged, bizarre and brilliant. We can't get enough. From Benighted Leams to Rehtaf Ruo to Furze to Necrofrost to Striborg. Now, bow before the mighty black metal warriors of Detsorgsekalf.We discovered them quite by accident. Andee saw their video online (check it out here: http://www.eyeblister.com/inframe_main_1.html) and was so immediately smitten that he emailed them and first offered to play drums for them (they were drummerless, see the video), and barring that, offered to release a record for them. So with a forthcoming release on tUMULt in the works, we managed to get a handful of copies of their first self released cd-r, and if anything it more than lives up to the promise of the video.
Once you see the band and the video, you might get the impression that there's some sort of humor going on, maybe it's some sort of joke, but be aware this is as troo and grim as it gets. So serious in fact, that the band has already received numerous death threats from other disgruntled black metalheads, the contents of which will provide the conept and story for the upcoming full length. Lead vocalist Balfobar Nosugref is a massive behemoth of a man, clad in spiked armor and smeared in corpsepaint as he spews all sorts of necro wisdom in a demonic screech WAY up in the mix. Then there's the ultrahot Morksjal The Necrowench, who wields a bloodied black axe like a woman posessed. The whole band is a motley crew of blackened misfits form the bowels of the earth, sprung forth to spread musical disease and pestilence. The sound is a Burzumy buzz, with blasting drum machine beats and no bass! Just buzzing guitar after buzzing guitar, a swirling droney blast of black frost. Balfabar's vocals are absurd and insane, spotuing all manner of satanic drivel as well as rants about his girlfriend and other evil thoughts. There are some strange falsetto vocals, some random funk bass, strange samples, all mixed in amdist the evil buzz. Sometimes things get almost a bit too goofy, reminding us a little bit of a necro Steven Schultz (who we obviously love), but the band is at their best when they are in full on black buzz mode, then they can hold their own with any of the above mentioned black metal bands. The demented elite for sure.
They may be true and grim and evil, a black metal fist crushing all false metal, but Detsorgsekalf (their name being "frosted flakes" backwards but with a "g" instead of an "f" we just figured out, maybe) manage, in the process of being evil and true, to take the wind out of the sails of all those black metal blowhards that take themselves too seriously. Not that this isn't serious, because it is. Really.
Just check the bonus tracks "Keyboard Solo" and their holiday chestnut "Black Xmas." Or the video. And enjoy the Troo Grim Warriors Ov The Necrokkult while you anxiously await the new full length: A.B.B.A. -- Apocaalyptic Blasphemed Battle Anthems!!
On first listen, we weren't entirely sure what to think. After all, Deutrom once handled bass for the Melvins, did a solo album a while back that sounded more like Queens Of The Stone Age, and he also recently released a cd-r made entirely out of the sounds of a squeaking gate, a record even Deutrom admitted he couldn't listen to. Thus we have Iraq, that on first listen, does indeed have us thinking about that infamous squeaking gate record. But on closer listening, and knowing the sound source, it becomes much more interesting (and maybe even a slight bit more listenable). Iraq is a single hour long piece, consisting of a crackling skittering slightly percussive squelch, chopped and repeated, looped and stretched, sometimes it sounds like Autechre, albeit WAY stripped down, sometimes it sounds like a bug zapper, sometimes it sounds like someone shaking pop corn in one of those readymade popcorn pans you cook on the stove, sometimes it sounds like super high pitched crickets, sometimes... well, you get the idea. Sonically it could easily have been a piece by Ikeda or Hauswolff or one of those folks. But once you realize where the sounds came from, it's a whole different story. Every sound on this disc was generated from a single loop of 7 different recordings of George W. Bush saying the word Iraq. All taken from important speeches, two from this year's State Of The Union Address, two from a speech during which Bush announced the beginning of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in 2003 and three from Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech also in 2003. Hard to understand how 7 "Iraq"s became this crazy stuttery staticky piece, until you realize that there are 14,112,000 repetitions of the word "Iraq" per minute in the piece. Woah!
Hard to explain Deutrom's concept, repetition equals obsolescence, intrinsic veracity through absolute negation, etc.... yeah yeah yeah, okay, but basically, this is just one fucked up piece of sound art. And who can argue with some subtle sonic Bush bashing? Not us!!
SUPER LIMITED! ONLY 500 COPIES MADE!! Each one hand numbered and signed! Packaged in cool hand screened cardstock sleeves with two printed inserts and liner notes.
Mark Deutrom might be best know for (previously) playing bass in the Melvins, but as longtime readers of the aQ list can attest to, his solo records are pretty goddamn great, and weird, and heavy, and freaking cool. And this new one is no different. A brief three song 12", the title track of which is the soundtrack to a totally eye popping video, check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r22d9BxVV_8
And it's not just the visuals that are amazing, the music more than lives up to the crazy video, a wild, mathed out, prog-metal, noise rock jam, that's bombastic and crazy catchy, freaked out and super psychedelic, an instrumental blowout, that we played like 5 times in a row, and would have probably played more had we not wanted to check out the other two jams here, both of which, equally awesomely mathy and metallic, progged out, intricate, super dynamic, catchy like crazy, wild and weird, and really really good. It's a wonder more folks aren't hip to this guy and his solo records. It's short, but totally worth it. Killer cover art too, with artwork from the Ruckus Juice video. LIMITED TO 207 COPIES, each cover hand silkscreened!
Another disc of horrifying progressive creepiness from Italian underground masters of the bizarre and the frightening, Devil Doll. Never was a band more suited to scoring horror films (since Goblin), but Devil Doll don't, they just weave epic and haunting
- RealAudio clip: One
- RealAudio clip: Two
- RealAudio clip: Three
Still even more haunting and lush frightscapes from this Italian troupe of musical miscreants. Orchestral and progressive and heavy and occasionally carnivalesque. Super distorted creep-out piano abruptly shifts to a melancholy soundscape underpinning mad
Another Devil Doll record that we finally managed to get our hands on. This is apparently a fan club only re-release and the sleeve warns that "this music can alter your mental health". It sure is strange enough that it might make you wonder what the hell
More Devil Doll insanity. It seems unfair to always compare Devil Doll to Goblin, but it's sort of unavoidable as they both traffic in the same creepy proggy nightmarescapes and they are both so good. To be fair though, Devil Doll have more room to play
Although this is not a new release, we finally found a way to get these and keep them in stock. It's really tough to explain what this band sounds like, and apparently it's really hard for most people to even like them, seeing as they have a ton of records
Profound Lore brings us this cd ep (five songs, nigh on 28 minutes) from The Devil's Blood, a female-fronted Dutch psychedelic hard rock act from Holland, who possess (or are possessed by?) a Satanic/occultic lyrical bent. Claiming inspiration from vintage sixties and seventies proto-metal and psych, The Devil's Blood have quite a lot in common with another "Blood" band with a witchy female vocalist reviewed here just last list, Blood Ceremony. We bet the two would get on famously. They sound different enough though, TDB not being so overtly retro-doom-metal, and more of a rockin' deal, no flutes or nothin'. Some '70s progginess comes in from the keyboards, infusing these tracks with cinematic bombast, but while this doesn't quite sound modern, it's not like they're trying to recreate the music of an earlier era, exactly, either. Although, like Witchcraft, they're big Roky Erickson fans, and cover the Rok's "White Faces" here.
Vocally, Jex Thoth haters might again have issues, but perhaps not. We're reminded a bit of Heart (who kicked ass upon occasion, don't you forget it, or let Sarah Palin ruin "Barracuda" for you). How else to describe this? Maybe imagine if Shocking Blue sang about Satan, and of course were quite a bit heavier too...
Sorta a surprise from Profound Lore, and a pleasant one. I guess not so strange since it kinda fits in with their recent Hammers Of Misfortune opus, the female vocals and keyboards and melodic content and all. Oh, and if you care, which we think you should, they get the thumbs up from Fenriz of Darkthrone, who included 'em on his list of record recommendations in the liner notes to Dark Thrones and Black Flags, reviewed here last list.
Ah, scenes, waves, movements, trends, genres, we all know rock critics love 'em. We gotta admit we do too, if only 'cause it makes writing our reviews a bit easier sometimes, when you can stick something in a category. To wit, take this thing happening now with all these "female fronted, occult-oriented, rock/metal" bands, one of the most popular examples of such, being Dutch outfit The Devil's Blood. While some of these bands are super sludgey and doomed-out (Wooden Stake, The Wounded Kings) and others hark back to the '70s proto-metal psych scene (Blood Ceremony, Jex Thoth), and still others are straight up NWOBHM steel (Christian Mistress), this one, The Devil's Blood, while displaying elements of all the styles just mentioned, is by far the most "classic rock", with almost a '60s vibe, reminding us especially of Heart! Huh, well that's cool 'cause we heart Heart.
One of our friends theorizes that as modern metal has gotten more and more extreme, it's reached a point where, with bands like The Devil's Blood and Ghost, it's gotta go full circle back to completely classic, melodic roots. That's the new extreme! That's his theory, anyway.
And scenes and theories aside, we are digging this new Devil's Blood for sure. Eleven new tracks of their swirling, retro rockin', sweetly Satanic sounds, laced with great guitarwork and graced by THAT VOICE, which will be the deciding factor for most listeners, the soaring singing of "F. The Mouth Of Satan" (yep that's what she calls herself!) being an un-ignorable element, the crucial crux of this band, and either you'll fall under her spell or you won't. If you do, the rest of their witchy wall o' sound will fall in line, the dramatic organ, the urgent rhythms, the powerful production, the catchy choruses...
Heck, but chances are you already have found yourself smitten, as we sold plenty of this album's predecessor The Time Of No Time Evermore, and before that, their debut ep Come, Reap. If you liked those, you'll like this, as The Thousandfold Epicentre builds on their strengths, maybe generating more of a mystic mood than the last one. Their talents are especially on display during this album's tour-de-force finale, the 15 minute ritual of "Feverdance". There the band's balance of melody and menace tips to way outside of pop territory by virtue of sheer eerie epicness alone.
Another friend of ours, who runs a local label that puts out a lot of vinyl reissues (mostly '80s era new wave / electronic / coldwave stuff), was in the store the other day when we were playing this new album by The Devil's Blood. He thought it sounded like a band from the sixties, the vocals anyway, reminding him of acts like The United States Of America, Ultimate Spinach, and probably Jefferson Airplane, stuff like that. And he was quite taken with it, funny 'cause he's a guy who would normally not have been checking out a band with the evil/metal look and name The Devil's Blood has! They're not only for metalheads, that's all we're saying. Even though The Devil's Blood is happily (la-la-la!) serving Satan all the while.
All right! Time to rock, AND worship Satan (what else is new?), 'cause the debut full-length from Holland's The Devil's Blood is finally here, released a few months back as an import but now also available through domestic distribution channels, although it's really still the import digipack on Germany's excellent Van label (who also just unleashed in the US the latest Ruins Of Beverast, as well as the massive/morose debut from Swedish doomsters Griftegard, both of which we'll be reviewing next time). Lots of folks (including us, and Darkthrone's Fenriz) were really into the 5-song Come, Reap ep by this female-fronted "occult rock" act, which made a big splash via the Profound Lore label back in 2008, and the alluring promise of that ep is borne out by the eleven tracks of this album. As before, they've got a '70s, doom metal-ly vibe, playing psychedelic heavy rock that draws from the same well of inspiration share by bands like Witchcraft (e.g. Roky Erickson, Black Sabbath, Pentagram, early Scorpions, to cite some they'd mention, or that we think we hear), with ripping guitars and wailing vocals that push all our buttons for this sort of thing. But, we don't know if we'd really call 'em doom metal, they're almost more in full on classic rock mode, these songs uptempo and rockin', bombastic and downright anthemic, buxom singer "The Mouth" in possession of a powerful voice, one that's loud and proud (of Satan!). Delivering the goods across this album, The Devil's Blood come on like an unholy mix of funky Led Zeppelin, Heart, Thin Lizzy, and a bit of Mercyful Fate (for their love of Lucifer, and also the dual guitar action, like some of those others).
THE killer jam here is "Queen Of My Burning Heart", a super groovy number with an incredibly infectious twin guitar riff, it's like Jex Thoth jamming with Birds Of Avalon! Another band we could mention is, believe it or not, the Dead Weather, this kicks ass on them though by being more metal and '70s and devil worshipful. And by the way, we're pretty sure The Devil's Blood are fairly serious about the Satan stuff, heck one of the songs here was co-written by one of the dudes from bloody black metal masters Watain (though this isn't at all black metal like them, maybe black classic hard rock would fit).
When we first got this in, based on the name of this UK band, and the mysterious cover, we were expecting something more like Witchcraft, or Ghost, or In Solitude, that sort of retro classic metal, equal parts churning heaviness, and hook heavy poppiness, and the opening track gave us no reason to assume we were mistaken, starting off with some ominous rumbling drones, swirling faux strings, darkly majestic and hauntingly baroque, laced with monklike chants, then when the band comes in, it's spare chugging metallic riffage, simple drumming, minor key and dramatically epic, making us think a little bit of early Katatonia. But that opener is really just an intro, which did little to prepare us for what The Devil are really all about. Which is a strange strain of minimal metal, all instrumental, and heavy on the samples. Reminding us a lot of old '90s industrial music, each song based on a theme, whether it's space exploration, Roswell or 9/11 (!!), the band chugs away, weaving lush minimal landscapes of riffy metallic crunch, Goblin like cinematic synths, the sound soaring and dramatic and moody, the music really only a backdrop for the samples. "Universe" musically is a gorgeous sprawl of metallic melancholia, which in a different form, with say, Ghost (the band) style old school NWOBHM vocals, would have been something else entirely, instead, the band pepper the track with various snippets from news broadcasts, NASA mission control, etc., pretty sure we heard some Reagan in there too. And while the record is primarily sample heavy melancholic metal crunch, there's tracks like "Astral Dreamscape", which sounds just like the title would suggest, all swirling synths, dreamlike kosmische shimmer, laced with indistinct samples of radio static, garbled transmissions, buried voices, very surreal and VERY cinematic. Or "Transcendence", which does indeed sound transcendent, whirling winds whip below ethereal streaks of keening synth shimmer and deep rumbling drones.
And we'd be remiss if we didn't mention some of the stranger tracks, like "World Of Sorrow", The Devil's 9/11 track, which is another sweetly sorrowful slab of minor key synth swirled metal, intense and dramatic, made only moreso by the samples, news reporters broadcasting live as the towers fell, even what appears to be actual sounds of the towers falling, it's definitely moving, and the music is suitably somber, and then the track shifts, and the samples suddenly become a litany of conspiracy theories, discussing the various 'explosions' and planted explosive devices (argh sez Allan). Then there's "Intervention", where the band essentially set Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have A Dream' speech to moody melancholic metal, and the record finishes off with a nearly 29 minute synthscape, the first few minutes of which sound a bit like Emeralds by way of the Caretaker, before slipping into a strange ultra minimal pulsing tone, that sounds like it would have been right at home on some mysterious Raster Noton release, and while we imagined at some point the metal would kick back in, it never does, instead, that softly pulsating tone plays the record all the way out.
Eight-song effort from this Misfits-inspired Marduk sideproject. In fact, half the tracks are Misfits covers!
A long time ago, we became pretty obsessed with a record called Your Children Left With The Stranger, from weirdo outsider metal murk merchants Devoid Of All Mercy, one of a handful of releases on the now defunct Battlecruiser label, a sort-of-metal sublabel of the also now defunct legendary New Zealand boutique label Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. The weird thing was, the sound of Devoid Of All Mercy was barely metal at all, instead, it was some strange Bohren / Low style slowcore, a super minimal, skeletal post rock, that slithered and oozed and creeped, gorgeously and oh so lugubriously.
We hadn't heard a peep since, but then out of the blue, a clutch of these showed up, an ultra limited (and we mean ULTRA, as in, limited to THIRTY COPIES, of which we got half), hand cut lathe all the way from New Zealand, in a cool, transparent cover, the whole thing hazy and see through.
The record finds DOAM refining their sound even further, at low volume, we weren't sure at first if there was any sound at all, but in headphones, the record unfolded, a whispery, hushed, barely there creep, the guitars spidery and ethereal, the melodies detuned and warbly, the vocals, a demonic gurgle, but it too is almost a whisper, in the background, are footsteps and voices, and all manner of room sound, as if Mr. Devoid was just hunched over in the corner, pouring this blackened mystery onto tape, while the world just went on around him, oblivious to the delicate and haunting grimness taking place right under their noses.
Imagine a WAY less lush, WAY more abstract, WAY more metal (in spirit if not actual sound) Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore, a dark shuffling abstract anti-rock, more ambient than rock, but plenty harrowing and haunting.
Again, LIMITED TO 30 COPIES, we have LESS THAN 15!!!
Some records walk through the doors of aQuarius with a gravitas about them, some sort of heavy indefinable weight that's apparent before we even hit play for our first listen. Oceanclots, the umpteenth release from Dhampyr but only the second one we've stocked, is one such album. Written and recorded by the minimally monickered H.L. after the tragic death of his girlfriend (with the help of some collaborators, including vocal contributions from Jacob Thomas of local blown-out hypno-black metallers Dunnock), Oceanclots serves as a harrowing, cathartic, beautiful, singular tribute to her - a swirling, mesmerizing watercolor flurry of hazy blissful psychedelic black metal. Everything about the album is immersive, not least of which the in-the-red wall of sound production, almost indiscernible at first, inaccessible, and then as your ears adjust suddenly alive with lush shimmering detail, like your eyes adapting to the darkness of a jungle. Everything blends together and then seems to come apart. The distant ghostly spoken vocals and the anguished piercing screams. The cloudy melodies like half-memories drifting in and out, impossible to determine even what instrument they might belong to. The crumbling static of white-noise guitar enveloping everything (apparently all of which, due simply to H.L. not having any other way to record, are acoustic, but altered later on to sound like a blistering avalanche of gravelly static - just another piece of evidence that this is an album born of raw emotional necessity.) The truly blissful quiet passages, draped in alien echoes, haunting reverb, and glittering ambience. But beyond the music, as wonderfully and brutally psychedelic as it is, there are so many other details that complete the surreal portrait of this album. The ocean theme, a perfect compliment to the sounds you'll hear, which are like your eardrums bursting and the blissful drift of floating atop the ocean waves all rolled into one. The gorgeously labyrinthine song titles like "Mine Isabella Of Frosts & Poppypins" or "A Kodak Of Guncotton Shipwrecks". The surrealistic and heart breaking free form prose that adorns the booklet. And the final track, the beautiful dreamlike "Sea-Eclogue For Genevieve", seemingly an abstract drift of melodic reverb complimented by pulsing bass & plodding percussion, but which is in fact composed entirely using manipulated recordings of H.L.'s late girlfriend's voice, molded and twisted into an unending landscape of woozy hypnotizing beauty. The perfect end to such an exhaustingly harrowing yet euphorically cathartic album. An essential listen.
Not sure how we had gone this long without hearing this weirdo Rhode Island black metal / metalgaze / depressive ambient horde, especially considering that a quick check on the Metal Archives site reveals that these guys (this guy?) have released SIX full lengths, and about 20 or 30 demos and splits and eps. But this latest, Withdrawals & Candy Heavens, didn't take long to convince us that we have been seriously missing out. Based on the title alone, you might envision this as something that easily could have ended up on Khrysanthoney or Starlight Temple Society, and you'd be right. Dhampyr's sounds as much blissed out shoegaze jangle, and trancey blackened buzz pop as black metal, the anguished, tortured vokill mewlings, the main tether tying the sound to actual black metal. Otherwise, the sound soars and shimmers, dreamily stumbling through sundappled post rock, and spidery minor key clean guitar buzzscapes, the opener, a sprawling near 18 minute epic, is all you really need, heady and hypnotic, droning and dirgey, trance-y and hypnotic, darkly poppy, and moodily melancholy, the first ten minutes, pure post-black metal bliss out, and then the song collapses into a sonic black hole of gnarled, tangled buzz, all blurred and smeared into a hazy psychedelic ambience, buried samples add a strange garbled alien vibe to the proceedings, all the while, the guitars unfurl achingly melodic peals, buried beneath the strange sampled softnoise dronescape, emerging on the other side, a lumbering dirge, replete with deep dramatic vox, and more wails, and a black buzz fade out finale. The rest of the tracks are much shorter, but no less dramatic or twisted, the second track, delivers a raga-like blast of fast picked soaring guitar riffs, the sans drums or vocals, almost sound like some strange avant garde experimental guitarnoise, and when the rest of the instruments swoop in, it only gets weirder, with some strange fractured rhythms, distorted drumming, and more of those wild whooping vocals, the sound blown out and on the verge of crumbling. The last two tracks split their time between, murky lo-fi drones, noisy post rock mathiness, tranced out black-psych mesmer, the final track impossibly melodic, sounding like it could be some lost demo from some obscure math/post rock outfit from North Carolina in the nineties, albeit a bit more blackened, and with some wild double bass drum blasting.
EXTREMELY LIMITED!!! Only FIFTY COPIES!!! We have a bunch, but they won't last long, and once they're gone, that's probably IT!
Electronic beats and synths collide with majestic black metal for this dark, bombastic album from Finnish band Diablerie. Grandiose stuff, kinda like Samael, or Covenant, but weirder.
You know how much we love Finnish music, forest folk, drifty drones, motorik hypnorock, but there's something in particular about Finnish black metal... something so utterly distinct, something so, well Finnish. It's hard to describe, but Finnish metal bands seem to have a certain vibe that permeates their sound, whether they be super buzzing and black, or primitive and stumbling, or somewhere in between.
Beherit, Ajattara, Sargeist, Satanic Warmaster, Finntroll, Horna, Behexen, Barathrum, Clandestine Blaze, Baptism, if you're familiar at all with most of those bands you probably see what we mean. It's something sonic but not obvious. A nod to the old school, but without sounding totally dated or retro. Finnish BM is grim and buzzing and brutal and black and totally Finnish.
One of the longest running Finnish BM hordes would probably have to be Diaboli, and The Antichrist, their 6th album since 1996, has everything we've come to love about them, and Finnish black metal in general. Lots of buzz, and simple riffing, the tempo is not midtempo, but also not a furious blast, it's fast for sure, but the tempo is tempered by the melodies, the arpeggiated chords spread out over each track like some melancholy shroud. The vocals are appropriately growled, the whole sound drenched in blackness and buzz, but it's that 'Finnish thing', whatever it is, that makes them stand out.
The first track is a classic blast of old school black metal, relentless blast beats, cyclical hypnotic riffing, epic majestic melody, the whole thing wrapped in delay and reverb, a dense black cloud, the track a galloping monster, but with some hidden bits of emotion and melody lurking underneath. Mysteriously pretty but disturbingly black. And maybe that's the thing we can't put our finger on. The strange melancholy melodiousness of track 5 "Emptiness" also hints at some strange heart of gold. albeit wrapped in a tattered black musical cloak. The guitars are muted and sound almost post rock, while the drums blast along solidly beneath. Each new guitar line introduces another unlikely and surprisingly melodic element. But let's not overstate the melodic aspect, and the 'prettiness' here, even though it is present, and is a vital part of the sound, ultimately, you gotta love the buzz, the brutal blasting blackness of old school black metal. Fans of Finns like Horna, Beherit, Clandestine Blaze will definitely dig this...
So this is the new Diabolical Masquerade album and it actually IS an "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" (not one of those 'soundtrack to an imaginary film' things) for a film about a man who somehow cheats death, and his mind is seperated from his body and he is forced to try and free his mind from the 'not alive' netherworld and rejoin it to his body. Sounds pretty cool. Doubt
We love weirdo black ambience almost as much as we love weirdo metal. So when a member of one of our favorite damaged fucked up black metal bands, strikes out on his own and spits out a completely cracked ambient drone record, that veers wildy from fierce and freaked drug drenched delirium to gorgeous blown out bliss, we hardly need to tell you that we are ALL OVER IT.�
This particular slab of cracked sonic chaos comes courtesy of Nattramn, vocalist for Swedish doomic suicidal black metallers Silencer, most notable perhaps for Nattramn's outrageously over the top falsetto shrieks. Here, the vocals aren't so much the focal point, although there are plenty, and while they may not be as hysterical and harsh, they are just as bizarre. In fact this whole record is pretty strange, and if you're a fan of labelmates Stalaggh, this could easily function as Stalaggh's dreamier dronier, equally demented cousin.�
The disc begins with a big smear of SUNN-y downtuned guitar crawl and�some dizzying warped carnivalesque warble before morphing into a simple plodding throb. Gradually, that throb transforms into an Autechre meets Amon Tobin skitter, albeit much filthier and more industrial sounding. Scuzzy and crusty and grinding, all beneath a cloud of buzzed out crumbling synths, and hoarse raspy vocalizing. The next track is almost the polar opposite, a�dreamy, wispy ambient drift, minor key melodies and strange�blown out whirls of frosty whir and strange, spacious, almost majestic sounding drones. Later�moaning mysterious chantlike vocals are woven into a warm murmury backdrop, with muted percussion, while over the top a distorted voice intones all manner of strange prophecy. Not soon after the record shifts gear again and becomes a eerie�neo classical slab of militaristic folk industrial, all epic and grandiose, almost like the sound from some old newsreel footage, but much more haunting and damaged sounding, a looped march, beneath thick swells of sound and that voice again, howling out invective, the various notes and chordal shimmer becoming more and more dissonant, eventually fading into a�grinding low end drone buzz, that hovers beneath the terrified sounds of a weeping child, and a dungeon's worth of mournful wails and creepy clatter, all wrapped in thick reverb, making it feel like wandering through some ancient keep, wreathed in fog.
As we reach the halfway point, the sound shifts again, this time an inadvertent homage to the glistening glimmer of Tim�Hecker and Philip Jeck, those beautiful sounds quickly sucked into a black void, a swirling morass of dark sound and low tones, and that voice again, reverbed and distorted, the whole thing sounding like a low end Whitehouse spun lazily at 8rpm, when all of a sudden, proceedings are shockingly disrupted by a super distorted techno pulse, some sort of ultra aggro industrial pound, with shouted sloganeering and more buzzing synths,�before reverting to a super distorted, glitchy, crumbly low end glacial rumble, a synth drenched SUNNO))) style crawl with bits of vocal fragments and buzzing streaks of groan and grind, until the whole thing becomes a dense roiling cloud of black ambience.
And it's still not over. Gorgeous washed out clouds of�gorgeous gauzy atmospheric shimmer drift in, all sepia toned and dreamlike, a long expanse of lazy blurred soft focus bliss, left to sort of float weightless before being overtaken by a�confusional collage of overlapping vocal snippets and out of tune, distorted piano, eventually building into a dense squall of swirling spinning sounds.
The finally, the�epic final track, more black ambience, rife with mysterious sound samples, more disembodied vocals, distant rumbles, weird electronic FX, the whole thing building to a massive damaged doom drone, with epic sheets of keening feedback and thick washes of distorted guitar and churning industrial whir, while over the top, the most demented, damaged, drug addled vocalizing yet, like an inmate in an insane asylum ranting and raving incoherently, the sort of vocals that most certainly wouldn't be at all out of place on one of the Stalaggh records.
A seriously damaged and ultra fucked up sonic trip, as beautiful as it is baffling. In other words, AWESOME.�
Three years or so on from their debut, here at last is more bombastic mostly instrumental prog from this hotshot young British outfit, in the grand tradition of great ye olde bands from their land of the seventies like Yes, King Crimson, Van Der Graaf, Genesis and even Comus (who weren't all instrumental of course, but sure excelled in that dep't as do Diagonal). A complex blend of powerful grooves and lovely moody bits, Diagonal deliver the prog rock goods for any fan of this style.
Diagonal, come to think of it, is a good name for a prog band - going off in their own direction, not aligned with either the X or the Y axis y'know, but still operating with straight-line precision. Well zig zagging a bit actually, when you think about it. But with precision, that's for sure. Lotsa moving parts (organ, heavy bass lines, horn-laced freakouts, etc.) but everything locking together TIGHT. Heck they should go play in Japan with one of Tatsuya Yoshida's bands like Koenjihyakkei, they'd for sure go down a storm (as they say in England when something goes over well).
Aside from some wordless ahh-ahh-ahh vocals on track 2, "These Yellow Sands", it's not until track 4 of 5, "Hulks", that we really notice Diagonal busting out any singing here, and it's melodic and gentle, again quite in the tradition of Yes and the like, with female backing vox. "Hulks" features some stirring sax as well, as it builds over the course of ten-plus-minutes into quite the majestic opus, and could have remained instrumental without really any lessening of impact, though the vocals are nice.
While, like so many fellow Rise Abovers, such as Astra, Diagonal are rather deliberately retro-minded and thus more circumscribed in approach than, say, Circle (who have a much more WTF? attitude to prog and everything else), nonetheless Diagonal's The Second Mechanism is an impressive exercise in prog-music-making that's quite exciting and vital.
We've been going pretty nuts for French occult rock rhythmatists Aluk Todolo, their most recent record, appropriately titled Occult Rock, we made Record Of The Week, and could barely keep in stock. Hell, we made all THREE Aluk Todolo albums our Record Of The Week. But before there was AT, there was Diamatregon, a furious black metal beast featuring essentially the very same lineup, their second and third records released on Andee's tUMULt label, their sound, at least early on, a blown out raw satanic blackness, the drenched the usual buzz and blast it crumbling distortion and speaker shredding noise, but seeming to mature into something much more experimental and polished, which makes the eventual formation of Aluk Todolo less surprising. We're not entirely sure if Diamatregon is still a going concern, what with the members doing time in lots of other bands including Aluk Todolo and psych rock outfit Gunslingers, which is further suggested by this 'new' single, which is not in fact new at all, but recorded back in 2006, but it definitely reminds us of why we loved Diamatregon so much in the first place.
The A side starts of with a creepy soundtracky piano intro, but it's not a sample, it's part of the song proper, the piano continuing on into the first part of the song proper, even after the super distorted guitar comes in, the combination is truly haunting, we would have been happy for a whole side of this weird piano driven blackness, but soon, the sound explodes into some classic black buzz, with some seriously super sick vox, over frenzied insectoid guitars, the vibe raw and old school for sure.
The B side explodes out of the gate with a barrage of blasting beats and tangled anguished vokills, which gives way to some classic midtempo metal chug, before peeling away and leaving a long stretch of sinister black ambience, all detuned guitars, random drum hits, woozy FX, swirling sinister shimmer, darkly psychedelic and seriously creepy, eventually the band come back in proper and finish off with a blast of fierce metallic blackness. So killer! Has us hoping these guys are still a band, and hankering for a new full length!!
Diamatregon are a French black metal band who specialise in violently thrashing, ultra chaotic, on-the-verge-of-losing-control, over-saturated, super distorted and noisy, TRUE black metal. Fast and furious with the occasional midtempo breakdown and a once-in-a-while doomy dirge. But they also happen to have an amazing way with melodies, as 1000 mile an hour blasts can get pretty tedious, pretty quickly. So even though the songs sometimes sound like a black metal band being hurled down a stairway (a good thing, mind you) the songs stick in your head more than you would think possible. And the occasional midtempos, full of fuzzed out guitars and simple relentless drumming, definitely bring to mind the mighty Burzum. A thick, hyperspeed and hellish brew of harsh, inhuman howls, amp melting, overdriven guitars, thrashing drums with a lo-fi, but remarkably heavy production. They even cover the Misfits' Death Comes Ripping, turning it into a 90 second blast of sinister, speaker shredding, head banging, church burning high end brutality.
Blasphemy For Satan is eight metal thrashing mad tracks clocking in at 45 minutes.
Twenty of those minutes just happen to make up the crushing final track, an extended doom epic, equal parts, moody post rock, Sabbathy dirge, and all out noise assault, complete with bizarre samples, found sounds, and super complex arrangements, and as reminiscent of old AMREP bands as it is Norwegian black metal.
Diamatregon actually sent their cd to Andee/tUMULt because they were huge fans of the label as well as Circle and Acid Mothers Temple and lots of decidedly non metal music, and were really wanting to release their record on a not-specifically-metal label, which seems to work well with tUMUlt's good-music-is-good-music mantra and their mission to expose non-metalheads to metal, and metalheads to non-metal!
But whether you're a metalhead or not, Diamatregon spew forth some amazingly heavy, undeniably catchy, and totally intense blackened sounds.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Super limited 7" from France's Diamatregon who you may remember from their devastatingly brilliant Blasphemy For Satan record released on tUMULt last year. So while we're waiting for the next full length to drop, we have this 5 track 7" ep. The first track is a howling blasting black metal epic titled "I Drank The Blood Of The Black Snake", a totally different version of the song they recorded for Andee and Heather's wedding! Awwwww. Two more originals and two awesome covers (Carnivore and Darkthrone) fill out this slab of utter blackness. Limited to 500 copies of which we were only able to get a handful.
It's hard to believe it's been almost SEVEN years since we've heard from French black metal horde Diamatregon. Their last record, Blasphemy For Satan, was an absolute beast, fucked up and frenzied, furious and insanely noisy and chaotic. Released on Andee's tUMULt label (as is this one, although the vinyl is on Paragon), Blasphemy still puts to shame most other black metal, past or present. And somehow, Crossroad, as impossible as it may seem, is poised to one up Blasphemy in almost every way.
In the preceding years, a few things in the Diamatregon camp have changed. Thankfully, the band are still the furious frenzied blackened juggernaut they always were, a band whose sound we once described as "violently thrashing, ultra chaotic, on-the-verge-of-losing-control, over-saturated, super distorted and noisy, TRUE black metal", and that definitely still applies. But Diamatregon's rhythm section has been moonlighting in both the alchemical post rock outfit Aluk Todolo, as well as in wild psychedelic combo the Gunslingers, and that has definitely influenced their sound. Not to mention that Crossroad is in fact a sort of black metal homage to the blues, the title referring to the legendary crossroads where many a musician struck a deal with the devil. And we can only assume these guys have bought into some similar sort of bargain, as Crossroad is mind blowing, still black metal at its core, full of buzzing insectoid riffing, pounding blasting beats, and raspy demonic vokills, but the arrangements are epic and convoluted and so complex, the various riffs and beats often seeming to melt into each other creating long droned out buzzscapes, the textures too are weirdly murky and washed out, tons of reverb and delay, seemingly lo-fi on the surface, but that low fidelity is just another tool in the band's extensive sonic arsenal. And then there's the blues aspect, this is after all a tribute to the blues, and close examination does in fact reveal some surprising bits of bluesiness, deftly woven into the corrosive black fabric of Diamatregon's freaked out grim buzz. A casual listen will reveal no blues at all, but strap on some headphones and let that swirling blackness swallow you whole, and suddenly the songs open up, revealing layer after layer, and within all of that buzz and rrroooar there lurks subtle blues structures.
But that's not all, the songs constantly shift gears sometimes, the guitars drop out completely, leaving just a garagey bass heavy groove, other times the guitars soar and sing, chiming and ringing out, eventually collapsing into yet another black hole of sound. Here and there the band slow things down, and get a bit depressive and Burzumy, loping and melancholic, woozy and warbly, but even within a fairly well defined sound, Diamatregon fuck it up and make it all their own, infusing warm whirring major key melodies, adding all sorts of drones and layers, the vocals a deep ominous rumble, before slipping into some post rocky clean guitar, beneath some twisted Orc-ish vox, and a jam that is total loping post rock, mathy, and minimal, a bit blackened, but it's not difficult to hear and feel the link between Diamatregon and Aluk Todolo.
The title track is the record's centerpiece, beginning with some crumbing lo-fi guitar, soon lurching into a lumbering bit of chaotic blackness, the drums WAY up in the mix, the vocals strange and strangled sounding, the guitars thick and corrosive, the sound of the whole song seeming to warp and warble, until everything drops out minus the guitars which are left to drone and rumble and reverberate, creating thick sheets of chordal buzz, so gorgeously minimal and hypnotic, eventually joined by soaring slow motion leads draped over the top, before exploding into another stretch of chaotic pounding blackness.
The final track, "He Was Not A Believer", is probably the heaviest and harshest of the bunch, a pounding relentless blackened onslaught, but even here the band infuse all sorts of melody and texture, and again, let the song break down into an abject doomic crawl, all grunted anguished voices, monstrous drum plod, warped guitar, droney moodiness, eventually getting almost Sabbathy, before slipping back into an even more frenetic black blast, and finally finishing off with a long stretch of blackened distorted crumble and ooze, that seems to slip slowly away.
Blasphemy For Satan was so extreme, so overdriven, so insanely distorted blown out, that there was really nowhere to go, but deeper, darker, weirder, and yeah, maybe bluesier. Crossroad has so much going on, it definitely plays out like grim blasting black metal, but it's so much more, a sprawling expansive experimental landscape of abstract blackness and deconstructed rock tropes, a constantly shifting soundworld of convoluted heaviness, of layered drones and crumbling abstract otherworldy ambience, at once heavy and brutal and grim, but also rhythmic and melodic, a twisted, outsider, idiosyncratic slab of fucked up and brilliant black metal, that manage to stay true and kvlt while seeming to disregard any and all sonic restrictions placed on the genre. So fucking amazing.
Oooh. A real sharp reissue (deluxe, all-white slipcase packaging!) of this seminal NWOBHM classic. If you recognize that acronym, then you should know this album. That's New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, and this album by Diamond Head is in our NWOBHM top ten with the best of Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Venom, Angel Witch, etc. Just TRY not to bang your head to this heavy, rockin' tunage!! The seven songs on this, their ultra catchy and energetic 1981 debut, proved that the vocals of Sean Harris and the guitar riffs of Brian Tatler were a dynamite combo. "Am I Evil", "It's Electric", "Sucking My Love", "Helpless", "The Prince"...all their best stuff is right here. (Plus this disc also includes seven more tracks from early singles, etc.)
Yup, they shoulda-coulda-woulda been "the next Zeppelin", but they never fulfilled their early promise... still this album is an all-time metal essential, and also Diamond Head should get a LOT of the credit for a band plenty more folks have heard of, by the name of Metallica. Big big Diamond Head influence there. As Metallica acknowledged by covering quite a few DH songs over the years, the originals all found here. What about Diamond Head's influences? Well, Zeppelin, and definitely Thin Lizzy -- but they sound quite different to those other Thin Lizzy influenced NWOBHM giants, Iron Maiden.
Basically, if you like metal(lica) and you don't have this album... get it! This is also the best cd edition we've seen to date. Nice packaging simulating the original autographed white sleeve, remastered sound, bonus tracks, with liner notes explaining the whole DH saga...
Damn, this has been in stock for a little while now -- some months now, in fact! -- but for some reason we didn't get around to checking it out 'til just the other day (even though we liked this band's previous ep, Once We Were Diamonds, reviewed here last year). Like we've said before, it's hard to keep up with everything... But better late than never. Everything that was cool about that ep is even cooler here on the full-length, which actually includes the two best songs from the ep, would-be/should-be hits "That Girl's Attractive" and "Destination Diamonds". If the latter track were the only thing you ever heard by Diamond Nghts you'd think they were fully trying to emulate both The Fucking Champs (and/or Thin Lizzy) and The Darkness. But DN have more tricks up their sleeves than just that -- the rest of Popsicle isn't all (ironic?) metal like that... though the adrenalized "It's A Shokka" definitely demonstrates a maybe tongue-in-cheek Judas Priest influence, and also sounds a heckuva lot like Queen's "Stone Cold Crazy". But other tracks here show that besides the Thin Lizzy and Queen albums that these guys undoubtedly love (there's no denying it), they have other influences too that aren't classic rock/metal. On tracks like "Drip Drip" (not the Comus song!) they've got a dancey '80s new wavey thing (hmm, also like Queen got into) going on. And at other moments the hooks and the vocals remind us of the White Stripes, and the chops underlying the pop make us think of 31 Knots... So while Diamond Nights can't lay claim to being the most original band ever, they're definitely talented and have managed to meld their collective influences together in some unexpected ways. Basically, this is everything that we wished the second, disappointing Darkness album would have been.
It seems a bit weird to review this double disc demo compilation from French black metal freaks Diapsiquir before we've reviewed their record proper. All the cvlty metalheads we know loved that record, Virus STN, and it came out way back in 2005, but somehow it just never made it onto the aQ list. So we'll try to make up for that oversight by raving about this here comp, which collects the band's first two demos from 1999 and 2001, both even freakier and more raw and more fucked up than the full lengths that followed.
And this stuff is indeed bizarre, it's hard to know even where to start. They definitely sound French, a sort of frenzied buzz, mixed with hints of industrial, soaring Nordic style melodies, but all tangled up in a totally chaotic lo-fi churning chugging doom laced black blast. Sabbathy riffs are pulled apart, while the vocals grunt and howl, the drums stumble and pound, blast once in a while, the vibe is definitely punky and d-beat here and there, but the whole thing is infused with a haunted doominess, and when the band launches into hyperspeed it sounds more bizarre and fractured than fast and furious. Riffs loop, rhythms stutter, totally ridiculous keyboards surface every now and again, adding a bit of a circusy vibe, but everything is always drenched in buzz and harsh satanic atmosphere. Never goofy, just confusing and brilliantly twisted. Diapsiquir almost sounds like a less technically adept, WAY more drug addled Blut Aus Nord, blending creeped out ambience, industrial crunch, with buzzing blackness, but as with most stuff like this, it's as much about the mood and the vibe and the feel and the atmosphere as it is about the music, and the feel here is simultaneously grim and harsh and hateful, but also woozy and warped and unhinged. The band employ an insane arsenal of sound effects which thy liberally sprinkle amongst the churning riffage, the soaring buzzscapes and the crushing doomic pound, plenty of fractured keyboards, fucked up samples, the 2001 demo strangely enough is the more brittle and lo-fi and fucked sounding.
The older demo from a couple years earlier is much more traditional sounding, definitely heavier, the sound super thick and corrosive, the drums pounding, and some awesomely demented vokills. There are some weird keyboards, and the song structures are definitely complex and convoluted, a definitely Deathspell vibe for sure, but overall, the sound is heavier and blastier and blacker, and ends up being a good foil for the utterly depraved sonic sickness on the first disc...
We were never able to get enough of these to list, the 2005 full length from French avant industrial black metal weirdoes Diapsiquir, which is a bummer, cuz this is some of the most twisted, fucked up heaviness you'll ever hear. We did go on at great length about the Hospital double disc comp, which collected the band's first few demos, but this, holy shit, a head spinning, gut wrenching, skull cracking chunk of whacked and wrecked whatthefuck black metal damage. Be warned, we only have 3 or 4 of these, and we're not sure we can get more, but this way, at least a few loyal aQ-ers, who dig this sort of sonic sickness, can get their grubby mitts on one of these.
After a brief intro, of almost cheesy synth and skittery drum machine, which gradually grows more and more manic and frantic, the band explode into lurching, blasting, gnarled almost circusy blackness, the sound constantly changing direction, female vocals howling, pounding beats and frenzied dizzying riffage, with what sounds like kazoo solos, or someone singing through a kazoo, some seriously doomic chug, howled tortured vox, loads of effects, the song swinging wildly from sound to sound, mood to mood, a wickedly schizophrenic grinding black freakout. And that's just the first song. The record continues to get weirder and weirder, introducing bits of opera, wheezing organs, RAPPING(?), found sounds and sound effects, folk music, and whatever other weirdness these guys can think up, tangling all that stuff into their already WAY fucked up alien nightmare sound. A drug addled soundtrack for the listener as he gradually descends into madness.
WAY recommended. Had we been able to get more, we'd probably have highlighted this, or heck, some of us might have even pushed for Record Of The Week status, but as it is, weirdo music freaks have 3 or 4 chances to nab one of these, be quick, or be listening to something WAY less bizarre...
Bruce comes pretty close to Chemical Wedding pt. 2 here -- not a bad thing! And it's waay better than Maiden's disappointing Dance Of Death.
Two strange releases on this week's list from local black metal label Acephale Winter Productions, the other is a twisted tape of blackened industrial ambience from a UK outfit called Synsophony, and this one, which somehow might be even weirder, a collection of Joy Division covers from an Israeli black metaller called Die Entweihung, who manages to transform these classic tunes into something slightly blacker, but only slightly, just check out his version of "Love Will Tear Us Apart", which minus the raspy vokills, and the programmed drum machine rhythms, is not that far removed from the original, in fact, the chorus is even clean vocal crooned, but the bridge does get a metallic makeover, and there are little flurries of robotic double kick drum, so ultimately it's a pretty faithful rendition, with some blackened filigree, which is fine with us. And that said some of the other covers do get a bit more far out, the metallic component cranked on some, the synths getting a bit krautrocky on others, and one or two get almost punky, sped up and frenzied, the synths all swirly and way up in the mix. "Warsaw" is furious and blackly grim, so is "They Walked In Line", those tracks balanced by some of the others, since clean vocals are far more prevalent than the howled demonic rasp, so it's sort of split right down the middle, the perfect balance between faithful renditions, and warped weirdo reworkings, both of which we ended up digging a bunch.
This is full length number SIX (!) from this Israeli one man black metal band, and regular readers of the list might remember that we recently reviewed his Joy Division tribute (of which we have a few copies left), and while there were moments of black buzz throughout, it was fought to get a measure of what Die Entweihung actually sounded like until now. And it's not hard to see why he might end up wanting to make a tribute to Joy Division, as his sonic palette is dour and gothic, heavy on the minor key miserablism and the synths, in fact, the synths are mixed SUPER loud, so much so that it gives the proceedings a pretty demented/damaged vibe, like some sort of blackened "Final Countdown", but it's even cooler when the guitar slips into some metallic shred, and the synths and guitar get locked in strange harmonies and at times seem to duel. The programmed drums too add their own dimension, and when the keyboards pull back, the guitars crank and get super heavy, just check out the first sample, and you get a little bit of everything, even when the synth swoops back in and is laid over the loud synths, dizzying and WTF, but pretty killer too. And that's just the first track. From there on out, it's a constant battle between the manic riffing, the soaring synths, gurgling vocals, frantic drum programming, some killer riffing, dense intricate arrangements, the sound grim and blackened part of the time, almost psychedelic part of the time, and on tracks like "Time" it gets almost proggy, like some sort of psychedelic, depressive black prog, which as you might imagine, we dig a BUNCH.
There's even a Summoning cover, "Lugburz" (also the name of one of Andee's cats btw), which deftly captures the spirit of the original, and recasts it as a perfect Die Entweihung track, the synths dialed a bit back, but otherwise, a gloriously epic and majestic slab of lumbering, Tolkeinesque doom black metal buzz.
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!!
When you think Bay Area and 'metal', you probably think Metallica, or Exodus, maybe even Testament. But had things gone a little differently, you might be thinking Dig That Body Up, It's Alive. Okay, well, maybe not, but if you were us, and you had been lucky enough to experience the freaked out metallic damage of this SF trio back in the day, this record would be having you losing your mind. And hell, even if you missed out on the DTBUIA years, which most folks probably did, one listen to this record, will immediately transport you to some dark sweaty hole in the wall, right into the middle of a heaving mass of sweaty kids, while right at the center, a guitarist and a drummer duel to the death, while the vocalist grunts and growls, climbing into the rafters, hanging� from pipes, leaping into the crowd, rolling around on the floor. You may not have been there, but it's easy to hear what it must have been like.�
Dig The Body Up, It's Alive featured SF luminary John Dwyer (Coachwhips, OCS, Ohsees, Pink And Brown, Landed) on guitar and Oren Canfield (Child Abuse) on drums and the mighty Nate Denver (Total Shutdown, Nate Denver's Neck) on vocals. Dwyer's guitar is most definitely the focal point, his guitar emitting short bursts of convoluted metallic fury, the riffs squiggly and angular as often as downtuned and chugging, the drums the perfect foil, blasts of double kick, strange mathy grooves, full on blast beats, everything lurching and stumbling, stop start stop and start again, chaotic and furious, like some alien strain of death metal filtered through these three guys' cracked musical filter.�Above it all, Denver growling and grunting, death metal gurgles, telling tales of dragons and monsters and other completely off the wall stuff.�
Side A is a serious of brief metallic bursts, riff after riff, squealing and grinding, thrashing and flailing. Dizzying and confusional, heavy and dense and completely damaged sounding. The flip side however is a whole 'nother thing entirely. A single side long jam. A single riff, repeating and looping, mesmerizing and hypnotic. Like a more aggro and angular Circle. Totally crushing, but strangely trancelike. Near the half way point, everything stops, Denver hisses out some creepy lyrics and the band launch right back into it. A couple more false endings, but each time the band head right back in, picking up right where they left off, pounding that riff into utter oblivion.�
Finally, when the song really does end, the last note rings out, a shimmering ominous metallic drone, over which Denver recites a lengthy and super tweaked chunk of spoken word, more princesses and monsters and the like... So awesome.�
Originally slated to come out on tUMULt before the band died a premature death, this is finally seeing the light of day thanks to the always killer Rock Is Hell label. Vinyl only, limited to 333 copies. The covers are hand screened, inside and out, and there's an insert with Denver's history of the band.
And as if we even needed to say it, WAY RECOMMENDED!
This metal-math-core band's first full-length album destroys with completely unbelievable musical dexterity combined with crushing riffs, blazing speed, calculus-style time shifts and a barely-under-the-surface jazz fusion obsession. Relapse's ads for this release have trumpeted the fact that the Dillinger boys were just taken out on tour by Mr. Bungle, and I can imagine that fans of that band looking for a metal fix might really be blown away by DEP!
The Dillinger Escape Plan has to be one of the weirdest coolest bands I have ever seen live. The last time I saw them was in NY, and there were three things I distinctly remember, besides how unbelievably complex and heavy they were. The first thing was the drummer, who was absolutely insane, playing impossibly complex stuff, but wearing a goofy bandana and smiling maniacally the whole time, as if he was exerting no effort at all. The second thing was the number of stage divers. I think maybe I was the only one in the crowd who didn't take a turn. At some points there were 40 people on stage. So much so you couldn't even see the band. But easily the most memorable part, was the guitarist, who had his guitar all the way up beneath his chin Buddy Holly style. And who repeatedly charged right off the edge of the stage, into the pit, and would constantly run full bore into folks in the pit, guitar and all, often ending up laying on his back in the middle of the pit, but NEVER MISSING A BEAT. Played every part perfectly. It was amazing! Okay, then. That was years ago, and since then, Dillinger has collaborated with Mike Patton, signed to Relapse, and gotten a new singer.
So how do they stack up now? Pretty good actually. Musically they are still unbeatable. Ultra complex, and dizzingly complicated, with lots of angular riffing and hooky little bits that definitely lift this stuff above standard grind / metalcore / whateveryoucallit. And the new vocalist is not bad either. The only troubling bit is how much the new vocalist seems to be channelling Mike Patton. Conicidence? We think not. But that's okay. It suits the music actually. And when he's not doing patton he's a howling deathmetal / emo demon hovering somewhere between Guy from Fugazi and Sean from Coalesce. For a limited time, Miss Machine comes with a bonus DVD featuring behind the scenes "making of" footage and some other cool stuff.
A new four-song ep from New Jersey's out-of-control mathcore metallers Dillinger Escape Plan, with Mike Patton (Bungle, Fantomas, Faith No More) as guest vocalist! With the unmistakable throat abuse and tuneful croon of Patton, this new Dillinger ep is a bit different from their previous recordings, which were some of the most extreme, complex metalcore efforts ever.
Irony sounds more like a blend of Slipknot (especially with the yappy, almost rap-like vocal cadences of Patton), Melt Banana (again, the 'yiyiyiyiyi yi yi' vocals and sharp dynamic bursts), and Faith No More (when Patton's vocals and the music take turn into more melodic, lush realms). It's still extreme and complex, just less so, which Dillinger fan Andee found a little disappointing, but others might disagree. (Allan's always been *impressed* with Dillinger, but finds 'em hard to listen to, believe it or not -- so this is in some ways an improvement, to him.) Whether you like "Irony" will have a lot to do with your taste for Patton's vox. There will probably be a lot more to like here for fans of Mr. Bungle, Faith No More, Melt Banana, Fantomas or Slipknot than those just looking for a new metallic grind fix. But it could be Dillinger's ticket to a wider audience, which is definitely a good thing!
Oddly enough, not released on Relapse (as with prior DEP discs) or through Patton's Ipecac imprint, but on big punk label Epitaph. Imagine, Tom Waits and Dillinger on the same label, that's getting weird!
We're always psyched on checking out black metal from places we don't normally associate with that sort of sound, whether it be Iceland or China, Iraq or India. There seems to be quite a metal underground happening in Israel too, with Arallu and Melechesh being some of the more well known outfits...
But there are plenty of other groups worth checking out, Salem for one (not to be confused with the witch house outfit), Geist (whose new record is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), and now these guys, brought to us but kick ass Israeli label Total Rust. R.U.S.T. is the debut release from this Israeli horde, who traffic in a seriously catchy and kick ass strain of old school orthodox blackness, heavy on the blasting and buzzing obviously, but equally heavy on the melody, which makes Dim Aura's sound totally reminiscent of the first and second waves of Scandinavian black metal. Not inventing the metal wheel by any stretch, but playing classic BM with a passion and energy that takes what could be a tired rehash and transforms it into something fierce and epic, catchy as fuck, rife with galloping tempos, awesome shrieked vokills, wild dense drumming, some seriously ruling riffs, plenty of classic metal-isms and epic melodies too, all wound into the otherwise roiling blackness, plus lots of midtempo stretches where the band dial back the blackness a bit and get downright riffy and groovy (reminding us of Khold at times), but the songs never seem to stray too far from their furious black buzz core. Awesome.
