Two records from weirdo "post-post-digital bubblegum black/death metal" one man band Disunicorps on this week's list, elsewhere you'll find the new record, Synonymy, and then there's this one, not precisely a remix record, more of an alternate version. When we were ordering the new record, Mr. Disunicorps, informed us that he also had a version of the first record "run through a crappy cassette deck and slowed way down", and if you're anything like us (and we're guessing you probably are), then you had the same reaction, YES PLEASE!
So here is Re:Try, the above mentioned cassette deck-ed slowed down version of Try, which we raved about way back when, and probably best for folks who never heard the original, to just describe that one first a bit, and then how it sounds in this reworked version.
Try was a gnarled chunk of churning frantic machinelike riffing and programmed blasting, croaked vocal rumbles, the guitars super distorted and crumbling, a pretty fierce blast of programmed black buzz, bubblegum at times for sure, minus the harsh vokills, it occasionally sounds like some sort of electro pop, or a less damaged Fastest (former aQ Record Of The Week!) even, major key melodies, bouncy jaunty rhythms, almost video game music at moments, but the vocals, and the weird echoey reverby production transform things into, well, into post-post-digital bubblegum black/death metal, offering different shades of dirgey heaviness that sounds like a horror movie soundtrack, programmed loping rhythms that sound like some machine post rock, some seriously grinding blackness, goofy blackened fuzz pop that almost sounds like a black metal Dickies and fuzzy, washed out almost blissy 8-bit sounding new wave drift.
Sounds pretty amazing, cuz it is! Or was! Now all of those sounds have been rerouted through some old tape deck, and in the process, slowed down a bit, so essentially, the above still describes the sounds on Re:Try, the main difference is really that it all sounds a bit heavier and doomier and dirgier, the sound more raw and low fidelity, as a test, just check out the Del Shannon cover here, which sounds more like some sinister electro doom, the little main lilting melody somehow super creepy, the dirgey death metal vibe more prominent, everything sludgier and murkier, and for folks like us whole like everything better slowed down, maybe even better!
Not sure HOW essential this is if you own the other one, but odds are some of you are strange like us, and even the idea of this slower, tape deck-ier version had you flipping out a little, and thus, this is for you, and if you somehow missed Try the first time around, this might just hit the spot (oh yeah, and we do have a small handful of copies left of Try if you want one.
The latest from weirdo electro black metal warped pop weirdo Disunicorps, whose music we've described in the past as "post-post-digital black/death metal, and like the last 'new' record, not so much a new album, as a reinterpretation of a record we've already reviewed. Re-Try found the man behind Disunicorps taking his record Try, and slowing it down via crappy cassette deck, and somehow, the results were even better (and definitely weirder) that the original.
So when he recently contacted us to let us know, that his first record, Synonymy, had been redone, and the new version was "fucked up slowed down n fazed", we knew we had to get some. And guess what? As you might imagine, it's like the original, but more! More warped. More weird. More demented. More woozy. The opening track is a garbled FX heavy creep, everything slowed down and warbly, and then when the first song proper kicks in, the blasting digital metal of Synonymy becomes a murky blurred electro black doom, everything melty and oozy, the guitars muted and muddy, some definite 'creep' added to the mix, not to mention tons of echo, and reverb, and probably a phalanx of other misused and abused effects. What it ultimately does is remove the sheen of the original, which was super well recorded, and had a distinctly classic power metal feel, but here, those moments become something else entirely, there's still the weirdo progged out Champs-y tech metal thing going on, but it's been given a caveman makeover, and dipped in a vat of whatthefuck. To be fair, it's not all THAT far removed from the original, at least as much as we remember, but it's definitely weirder, and a weirder version of already pretty goddamn weird is never a bad thing.
You can check out our review of the original and listen to some sound samples, and see what you think, we're pretty sure most folks who dig that one, will feel the same about Sobotomy. But if you do, act fast, limited to FIFTEEN COPIES, of which we got all fifteen, each hand numbered, and housed in a spray painted, hand decorated paper sleeve.
A while back, we raved about a crazy cd by a one man band called Disunicorps, his cd-r just showing up in the mail one day, with this simple one sentence description: "post-post-digital bubblegum black/death metal", needless to say, we were totally sold, and the record more than lived up to that too-good-to-be-true description. And to seal the deal, there was THEE most amazing cover of Del Shannon's "Runaway" (we still have copies of that first disc, as well as a new disc, which features the original run through a crappy old cassette player and slowed waaay down, that one is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list). But it wasn't just the cover, that whole record was a blast, a series of twisted buzzing pop flecked electro pop digi-metal jams, heavy and hooky, an impossible fusion of black metal buzz and hooky fuzz pop and glitchy electronics. We played that to death, and were super psyched to discover there was in fact a brand new Disunicorps record!
This one begins all warped slowed down vocals tangled up with think swirling tendrils of woozy synth, a garbled psychedelic into, that leads right into the opening jam, a synth heavy metallic churn, circusy melodies, over programmed pounds, processed vox, and once again hooks galore, there's definitely a classic/power metal vibe in the progged out synths and majestic melodies, but it's all tangled up and blackened, blurred and warped, which is pretty much how the whole record plays out, weirdly woozily melodic, chugging mathy metallics infused with playful poppy hooks, the songs lurching from blasting metal to bouncy electro pop buzz to washed out lo-fi electronic death metal, usually some dizzying simultaneous hybrid of all of those sounds, fantastically confusional, heavy as fuck, but also wildly goofy and super fun, the sort of thing, that gets crazy attention every time we play it in the store. And fear not, this is not some joke metal thing, there's plenty of classic riffing and real metal going on, it's just that all of THAT stuff is all tangled up with all of that OTHER, less metal stuff. The result is pretty fantastic though, twisted and kaleidoscopic, definitely psychedelic, with a pretty high whatthefuck quotient, which is always a good thing. Everyone who bought the first one, should probably just buy this one too, and if you missed out on Disunicorps the first time around, give this one a listen, odds are you'll flip out like we did, and most likely end up wanting both!
LIMITED TO 15 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered!
This was another mystery submission, originally presented to us described (maybe not so) simply as "post-post-digital bubblegum black/death metal". And while the first track had us thinking that description was WAY off, a gnarled chunk of churning frantic machinelike riffing and programmed blasting, croaked vocal rumbles, the guitars super distorted and crumbling, a pretty fierce little chunk of programmed black buzz. But then BAM, in comes the second track, and it makes way more sense, bubblegum for sure, minus the harsh vokills, it sounds like some sort of electro pop, or a less damaged Fastest even, the major key melody, the bouncy jaunty rhythm, almost video game music at moments, but those vocals, and the weird echoey reverby production transform it into, well, into post-post-digital bubblegum black/death metal.
And if you needed even further proof of this record's PPDBGBDM sound, skip all the way to the last track, a totally ruling, and bafflingly brilliant, cover of Del Shannon's "Runaway", totally transformed into a buzzy, dirgey epic, and when the weird guitar/synth finally plays that immediately recognizable back ground vocal "Wah Wah Wah Wah Wonder" melody, you sort of want to laugh and bang your head at the same time, and then when the track locks into the super frenzied version of the original song's bridge, it's about the coolest heaviest thing ever, oh and the end of the chorus is transformed into a cool descending depressive riff that totally changes the feel of the whole song.
And in between the opening salvo, and the Del Shannon cover, are a whole mess of twisted, bedroom brewed black metal weirdness, from dirgey heaviness that sounds like a horror movie soundtrack, to programmed loping rhythms that sound like some machine post rock, which slips into some seriously grinding blackness, or from goofy blackened fuzz pop that almost sounds like a black metal Dickies to fuzzy, washed out almost blissy 8-bit sounding new wave drift. It's pretty nuts, and any metalheads who bough the Fastest record, even though it's resolutely NOT metal, will LOVE this, and anyone into twisted weirdo outsider black metal, or post-post-digital bubblegum black/death metal, well, this is for YOU.
This one's pretty much a no brainer for you doomlords and drone freeks out there. From the same label that brought us the horror funereal doom of Wraith Of The Ropes, the epic majestic blackened doom of Mourning Dawn, and the mega multiple o'd ultra doom of Funeralium, comes this, the debut demo from Israeli doom merchants Divanity. Sloooooooow, sick, plodding, crushing, miserable, abject, harsh, hateful, brutal, hellish, slow motion ultra mega funeral ambient doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. And if that wasn't enough to get you doom-ed ones salivating, Divanity also just so happens to feature members of Israeli noisemakers Grave In The Sky, Lietterschpich and Poochlatz, so you know there's some twisted, demented, fucked up, noisy weirdness lurking in there as well.
Leaden is one track, one long slow musical death march. A thick low-end drenched crawl, a trudge through thick black tar, the vocals an anguished howl, a crushing, pummeling chunk of supreme sludge, heavy and nearly static. Not sure why they stopped at 15 minutes, this is the kind of sound that could have continued on for hours, forever, oozing forever onward, swallowing up everything in its path. The weird thing is that the main riff is surprisingly catchy, not always noticeable, but every once in a while, you realize there's a nifty little hook buried in there somewhere, but if you're not looking you'll miss it, being way too busy having your skull caved in by the bands relentless plod. Gloriously and fantastically slow and heavy, just how we like it. If you need bands, think Moss, Khanate, Planet Aids, Bunkur, Catacombs, Otesanek, Monarch, Monument Of Urns, Nihill, Whitehorse, Stumm and that sort of dire musical decay.
It's too easy to call this band a blend of Black Sabbath and the Allman Bros. but they do share elements of both. '70s lovin' stoner rock from three long-haired Southern boys in power trio formation. The star of the show is Trinidad Leal, their singing
These guys and gal from Japan should need no introduction, eh? I mean, I think we've done our best to already familiarize AQ customers with the rock n' roll awesomeness of the Dynamite Masters Blues Quartet, right? We've certainly sold a ton of their Esoteric Black Hair ep, that's for sure! Plus, they've been on a stateside touring assault recently that is clearly pulling more and more fans into their orbit. In our review of EBH, we predicted that sooner rather than later some clever American label would pick this band up...and lo, Estrus has done the deed. They're a label perhaps known for a retro sound more garagey than these guys, but it's definitely a good fit with DMBQ's brand of wild rock n' roll abandon.
On The Essential Sounds From the Far East (terrible title, although no falsehood), DMBQ's Boredoms-playing-Blue Cheer attack continues unabated. Tons and tons of guitar with tons and tons of effects. Swooshing sizzling wah-wah mayhem. Howling, raucous vox. Groovy drumming. Exuberant energetic explosions of sound. Sonic starbursts and brightly coloured visuals absolutely must accompany rock that's kicking out the jams this hard. Imagine the most in-your-face elements of Hendrix and Led Zep I taken to absurd extremes by some extroverted Japanese freaks, right now, today, in your town if you're lucky. Anyone who likes Acid Mothers Temple when they pay a visit to "electric heavyland", or digs the psychedelic, '70s rawk side of Boris, will love cranking this up.
As mentioned, they've been touring more in the US. DO NOT MISS SEEING THEM. Their showmanship has to be seen to be believed. They're always upping the ante. They were just here last month, and the crowd at the Hemlock got to witness frontman Shinji pass the drum kit into the audience, piece by piece, assemble it there, then grab DMBQ's new drummer China (ex-Shonen Knife) and hand *her* into the crowd, from where she picked up the beat and finished the song, drumming in the midst of the sweaty multitude. Wow. But as good live as they are, they don't slack in the studio either.
You can tell they mean to impress with this, their first-ever US album release (EBH being both an ep and a collection of previously released tunage). This does include a version of "Are You Satisfied?", a song that's also on EBH... but everything else is new. It's one loud pounding, swirling, throbbing psych-out after another, with only the spaced out six and a half minute "Dm" providing a bit of relaxation. Damn we love this band. Now if only all their other, also-excellent previous Japanese releases would get reissued over here...
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Here is, quite literally, a "warehouse find"... the first two cds by Japanese mega-psych-mongers DMBQ aka Dynamite Masters Blues Quartet, the only two actual DMBQ albums that were ever really available in the USA before, and barely, on the seemingly-now-defunct Japanese indie label Less Than TV. Allan was visiting one of our suppliers and dug these up, they happened to have about a dozen copies each of these cds stuck in a dark and dusty corner of their warehouse. So we grabbed 'em all, knowing that a bunch of you out there would be stoked to get yr hands on these, seeing as how we sold so frickin' many of the DMBQ's Esoteric Black Hair EP. That cd-r compiled some of their more recent material, and if you liked those cuts we imagine you'll dig this earlier material too. It's rawer and maybe even wilder. The usual "act fast since we've only got a few" warning applies of course!
EXP is their second album, from 1996. Every track on EXP has the words "EXP" in the title, from "A House EXPosed To Every Wind" to "Everybody Got Something To Hide EXPect Me And My Monkey" (yes, that's what it says, and yes it is a rather demented rave-up cover version of the Beatles tune with the not-quite-the-same title). And you can EXPect that DMBQ are at their distorto-blues-psych best here, total rock n' roll mayhem and big-riff heaviness bustin' out all over this disc. Definitely for fans of both Blue Cheer and Boris. A lot of the tracks sound like "Dazed And Confused" bathed in sludge, while the last track "EXPlosion" brings in some free-blowin' horns for a Funhouse effect. And it comes with a sticker.
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From Japan...DMBQ!! (Formerly known as the Dynamite Masters Blues Quartet.) Damn, did you see these guys (and gal) play last year?? If not, don't miss 'em this time, they're gonna be touring the West Coast this month (June '04). If you DID see 'em last time, of course you'll be at their shows again this time too. One of the ultimate over-the-top rock experiences... a spectacle of backbends, stagedives, sweat, awesome polyester outfits, and let's not forget heavy psych-rock chops!! An AWESOME live band -- they had rock moves I've never seen before. Are DMBQ tongue in cheek fantasy? Or totally sincere love of rock n' roll overload? Probably both. It's a blend of Hendrix and Blue Cheer played with the attitude of Guitar Wolf or the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. What The Darkness would be if they were Japanese and inspired by '70s acid riff-rock instead of '80s hair metal, perhaps. I've been a BIG fan of this band for a long time, and was always super frustrated not to be able to get any of their recent cd output to sell here at Aquarius. They're on a major label in Japan, and it's just impossible to get their discs for any reasonable price. But now, we've got this, their first and only domestic US release, a thirty minute cd-r compiling a selection of choice cuts from some of their Japanese albums. There's seven songs here, each crazier and heavier and more rockin' than the last. If you liked Boris' Heavy Rocks or Akuma No Uta albums, you'll like this!! (And Acid Mothers Temple, you'd better get out of the way.) It's too bad we can't get their 'actual' albums, but for now this will have to do, and it makes for a nice, budget priced sampler/intro to the band's brand of bellbottomed insanity. I bet some smart label will pick 'em up and we'll have more domestically released DMBQ to look forward to soon. So get this, and don't miss their shows, if you've got a rock bone in your body. They'll be debuting a new drummer on this tour (China-Mana from Shonen Knife) and tell us in an email about playing with her: "It is VERY fun! We can show you more crazy show surely. I feel we could get more EVIL musical power through her...! We are very excited." So are we!
NB. if you got the cd-r 'bootleg' that DMBQ was selling at their shows last year, be aware that Esoteric Black Hair is an *entirely* different disc.
This came out a while ago, and for some reason we never reviewed it, but we were listening to it recently, and realized how fucking kick ass these guys were, and figured there were probably some other folks out there who would dig this as well.
SF heavies kicking out some serious skull crushing jams, falling somewhere between the punkish metal bombast of Northwestern groups like Karp and the Melvins, godheadSilo, and any of the heavier hitters from the classic Amphetamine Reptile stable, so you know what that means, relentlessly rocking churning chugging noise rock / punk metal blowouts, huge downtuned riffage, bad ass drumming, howled vox, the band locking into full on burly grooves, about as fierce and furious as it gets, not sure why these guys didn't blow up, never saw them live, but it sounds like they must have slayed, this stuff is dense and dark, loud and intense, frenzied but also right as fuck, with plenty of melodies, and lots of hooks hidden amidst the pound and pummel, fans of any of the above mentioned bands should grab these while they last, got a handful left, and as the band is dead and gone, we might not be able to get more.
Working in a record store I've learned that records released with merely someone's given name attached -- unless they're very famous -- often tend not to receive as much attention as something released under a more fanciful, made up "group" moniker. Maybe it's that a plain ol' person's name just doesn't fire the imagination. It seems wise that Jeff Mangum was Neutral Milk Hotel, that Chan Marshall calls herself Cat Power, that Campbell Kneale makes music as Birchville Cat Motel (and Black Boned Angel, etc.), and that Tara Burke is Fursaxa, amongst many other examples -- though we're not sure how Malefic recording as Xasthur, where you've got two made up names, fits into this. So, to anyone contemplating a solo project, we'd suggest making up a "band" name for it...
Which is our way of saying, don't ignore this cd, just 'cause it's being presented under the name of Toby Driver. He's actually the main guy from the avant-metal outfit Kayo Dot, whose debut album on John Zorn's Tzadik label has been quite a favorite 'round these parts since it was released in 2003. Heavy and weird and droney and strangely poppy too, all sorts of things we like.
In the L..L..Library Loft is a solo project from Toby, with some help from his friends -- there's eight other musicians credited, a remarkable number of 'em playing the lowly tuning fork, along with other things! Another unusual instrument credit is "remote snare drum". Plus there's a more conventional array of instruments like guitar, bass, piano, violin, cello, drums, trumpet, trombone, etc. That should give you the idea that this shares with Kayo Dot an interesting style of proggy chamber rock experimentation -- indeed, the four, fairly lengthy tracks here are kinda like Kayo Dot with most of the metal removed. Though, the rumbling waves of percussion, guitar distortion, and buried screams on the track "Kandu Vs. Corky (Horrorca)" still hint at Neurosis. But there's also many non-metallic elements here as well -- fragile singing and dark, quietly moody ambience. Definitely a disc worth exploring, especially if you're already a fan of Kayo Dot (or Kayo Dot's earlier formation as Maudlin Of The Well).
And look out for Kayo Dot's new album, just released on Crucial Blast, to be reviewed here next time, hopefully!
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Another blast of un-blackness from the E.E.E. camp, the home to some of the most amazing un-black metal we've ever heard. What the heck is unblack metal you ask? In a nutshell, well, it's Christian black metal. And any avid readers of the AQ list will remember us raving about pretty much everything we've heard: Light Shall Previal, Agathothodion, Glaciial and this here band, Drommer.
Unlike the buzzing black hordes these guys call labelmates, Drommer is A. not buzzy, and B. not religious. So what we have is some serious secular black ambience. Or maybe still un-black ambience. Drommer unfurl two epic slabs of spaced out shimmer. The first is a gorgeously layered drone, lots of high end draped over deep resonant whirs, the sounds beating against each other like all the best minimal drone music, creating all manner of subtle tonal variations and gorgeous abstract overtones. Sixteen minutes, simple tones stretched all the way out, all the action and the color and the musical movement comes from the interaction between the various tones, subtle, but utterly hypnotic.
The second track, is more in the dark ambient vein, a nearly 30 minute trawl through some haunting mysterious landscapes. There's some definite Lustmord action going on, which is always a good thing, but where Lustmord is abject and utterly desolate, Drommer lace their dour drones with shimmers of glistening melody and stray beams of sunlight. But even with these brief glimpses of blue sky, for the most part, it's a gorgeous black cloud of sound, chimes are muted and spread into dreamy blurs and laid over a sluggishly flowing stream of mumbled murk and dark dolorous glimmer.
As with all E.E.E. stuff, this is ultra limited, usually only 50 copies, so once these are gone, that may very well be it.
More from the unblack camp!! E.E.E. Recordings, the Christian black metal label that brought us some of the best (un)black metal of the last few years, Light Shall Prevail, Glaciial, Agathothodion, strike again, but this time displaying a whole new side and sound.
This latest release is from a band called Drommer, who the label describe as "non-religious dark ambient", and their debut Channeling Natural Forces is a "soundtrack to nature", and indeed, there is plenty of rain, thunder and found sounds, all woven into thick, reverby soundscapes, slow burning, glimmering murky crawls, stretched out melodies, some huge grinding almost industrial drones, crumbling distortion, soaring keyboards, very dramatic and super epic, but fuzzy and buzzy and lo-fi at the same time. Makes it sound very intimate and organic.
The opening track sets the tone, a slowly growing ambience bathed in strange digital distortion and reverb, making what might otherwise be simply a dreamy drone, more a bizarre textured buzzy pulse, a haunting swell, that is constantly shifting and shimmering, the various overtones creating minimal murky rhythms amidst the static buzz. These effects surface throughout the record, giving those tracks a very alien vibe, but managing to remain true to their purpose, reflecting the sounds around us, and creating dramatic sounds to accompany natural events. Most of the tracks sound like the music we hear in our heads when the sun finally breaks through the clouds after weeks of rain and black skies. Not happy so much as glowing and subtly effulgent. Other tracks let nature do the talking offering a simple minimal counterpoint to the sound of the surf, or dripping water, deep dramatic rumbles, raga like buzz, way in the background, while nature performs her particular brand of music making over the top.
A few of the tracks get downright heavy, one when Drommers drones are all tangled up in the sounds of a torrential downpour, which ends up sounding like a natural Sunn 0))), the other, where the tones become sharp and intense, a buzzing high end skree wrapped in hiss and static that eventually crackles and flares wildly before blinking out.
Pretty amazing. Definitely a unique angle on ambient music and a cool way of incorporating field recordings, almost like a black metal Jewelled Antler!!!
As with everything E.E.E., way recommended.
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!
Still more bizarre and amazing unblackness from one of our favorite new record labels, E.E.E. Recordings. The home of the cream of the UNblack metal crop. For those of you who have yet to discover unblackness, well, quite simply, it's christian black metal, which we know, seems like it would not compute, and for lots of folks it doesn't, since black metal is predicated on the message more than the music, but fuck it, some of the best black metal we've heard in the last few years has been from un-black bands. However, we almost don't need to have this discussion here since Drommer are not Christian, and are not really black metal. The are, according to the label 'non-religious dark ambient', but the music of Drommer is way to weird and varied to be summed up that simply. It most certainyl is dark, and ambient, at least sort of, hard to gauge the religious part as they are instrumental and ambient.�
But dark ambient gives the impression of swooshiness and dreaminess and drifty droniness, but this, the third disc we've reviewed from Drommer is so much more.�
Our favorite track might be "Shallow Water Residence", a swirling squall of crumbling white noise chopped and layered over moody mournful piano, the two elements constantly battling, it's quite intense and dramatic. But the rest of the record is just as unexpectedly amazing. The opener, "Oceans", is a long stretch of decayed drones, wavering and beating against one another, emitting sporadic rhythms, and coalescing occasionally into fragmented melodies, all very buzzed out and fuzzy, and with a constant tense minor key quality to it, almost like a Niblock piece recorded onto some old tape in William Basinski's attic. A lot of the record sounds like the sort of ambience one might expect to find on a Wold record. All damaged and corrupted, the sound quality so degraded that the imperfections are like another part of the composition. But then all of a sudden, the band will whip out some crazy majestic slab of moody instrumentalism like on "Ashen Sea Of Grey", the beginning of which sounds like it came straight off a Daniel Higgs record, before halfway through it splinters into shortwave interference, and becomes some murky childlike lullabye. Then there's the final track, all simple percussion and dramatic acoustic strum, like the rough mix of some lost Woven Hand song or a Nick Cave outtake, albeit peppered with strange digital glitchery and buzzy reverb...�
This record is just so gorgeously demented, and unpredictably intense.�Imagine if you can, Tim Hecker making (un)black ambient music, and you'd get a rough idea, but Drommer is way more schizophrenic, somehow without losing cohesiveness, every bizarre twist, or jarring shift, sounds completely natural, it's almost like Oceans is the soundtrack for the strangest film you've never seen. One of our new favorite records for sure... black, unblack or otherwise.�
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The metalcore onslaught just won't let up. Drowningman traffic in the same sort of howling and chugging as Coalesce, Converge, etc. However instead of hyper-virtuosity (that's not to say they aren't dynamic and complex, because they are) they temper their metal with some melodic pop punk. And the harsh screeched vocals are balanced by some emo style broken-harted-boy vocals. But
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Quite possibly our favorite Ukrainian black metal band. And before you scoff, there's plenty of competition, Hate Forest, Nokturnal Mortum, Astrofaes, Lucifugum (and about 200 more according to the Encyclopaedia Metallum), but Drudkh somehow manage to prevail.
Drudkh's particular brand of black grimness, is of the midtempo Burzumic variety, but they infuse their buzz with a surprising amount of epic majesty, mournful melody and strange chords and phrasings that lend all their riffs a strangely haunting gravity. It's kind of hard to explain actually, but every Drudkh song is just so intense, so emotional and so full of mystery. A few things have changed on Blood In Our Wells though, the first is all the Ukrainian folk music and random dialogue purloined from some Ukrainian film, that really adds another strange layer to Drudkh's already dense sonic world, the other thing that's different, is the surprising amount of guitar leads, not the squiggly lightning fast black leads you might expect, but some super melodic strangely glam rock leads. Really! Sounds strange, but it totally works. And just manages to make Drudkh even weirder and cooler.
There's plenty of buzzing blackness for the true and grim and black hearted, but folks who dig Godspeed and Isis, and that whole slow build, explosive climax, quiet-loud-quiet thing might find this Drudkh to be their gateway drug. The perfect moody blackness to drag all those indie rockers to the dark side. TOTALLY RECOMMENDED!!!
Lots of folks have been pretty down on the last few releases from Ukrainian black metal horde Drudkh, as their sound moved further and further away from the classic grim blackness, toward something very post black metal, and downright poppy and jangly. So while some of you out there were steeling yourself for what a new Drudkh might bring, you'll have to wait a bit longer to find out, as this is actually a compilation, gathering up several super rare eps, most of which were only available in fancy boxsets or in extremely limited vinyl editions.
The Anti Urban ep from 2006 is classic Drudkh, mournful and melancholic, the guitars jagged and brittle with buzz, the first track a doomy midtempo lope, aching sonic miserablism, all instrumental, and weirdly lovely. The second track cranks up the tempo a bit, but doesn't add much in the way of blackened heft, the main riff is still more jangly then buzzy, but harsh vokills, and creepy minor key melodies, keep this firmly rooted in blackness, the whole thing mostly one part, trances out and mesmerizing, droney, and blackly hypnotic. Slavonic Chronicles was released in 2010 and features two covers, the first, Drudkh's version of a Sacrilegium track, which begins all blissed out and jangly, before exploding into some seriously blackened Viking classic metal chug, the sound grimey and distorted, and super heavy, this time, plenty of blast beats and swirling synths. Finally, from last year, three tracks from the Thousands Of Moons Ago ep, a split with Winterfylleth. Again, all covers, the first, a Hefeystos cover, which could easily be a Drudkh original, grim and black, epic and majestic, replete with soaring synths, and some seriously heavy black buzz, blast beats, and furious riffing. Which leads directly into an Unclean cover, all dirgey and murky, laced with acoustic guitars, and booming percussion, before launching into some epic classic metal crush, with a wild outro, mathed out drumming, more of that strange percussion, and cool droned out guitar buzz, sorta wished that end portion stretched out for another 10 minutes. Finally, another Sacrilegium cover, a brutal blast for furious buzzing classic blackness, but laced with some gloomy midtempo dirgery part way through, and wreathed in still more shimmery synth swirl. Killer stuff, and plenty to tide you over until the (hopefully) forthcoming full length...
After the gorgeous dark folk of Songs Of Grief And Solitude, Ukrainian black metallers Drudkh return to their roots, offering up a 5 song ep, with four looooong tracks of sprawling, epic, depressive, nature obsessed, foresty blackness.
Definitely the best sounding Drudkh yet, the drums are awesome, way up in the mix, the guitars soar and ring out, so mournful and majestic, the vocals too are much more intense than in the past, a raw feral roar, passionate and emotional and surprisingly musical for BM vocals. And then there's the bass, a whole new addition to Drudkh's sound, not that there wasn't bass before, but now the basslines are as crucial to the sound as the guitar parts, not just a simple thump thump thump, the bass is slippery and intricate, unfurling dense webs of complex low end, creating a thick black backdrop, so the guitars can buzz and howl, and the drums can blast wildly.
The core of the record are the first three songs, each 10+ minutes, and each a stirring sonic journey. This is the sound of dark forests, and windswept peaks, of rushing rivers and snow cloaked mountaintops, full moons and firelight. The tracks vary greatly, often in the same song, the tempos shifting effortlessly from doomy plod, to midtempo lope to furious blast, but the riffs this time, wow, so totally catchy and melodic, without losing any of the grim fury, powerful and hauntingly heartbreaking, soaring in long drawn out melodies as often as buzzing maniacally. In fact more often. The drums are way different too, sort of sloppy and chaotic, but it suits the sound, no clinical super tight blasting, but instead, the rhythms have feeling, some swing to them, letting them lurch and stumble, and work in perfect concert with the ever shifting riffage. The sound is definitely reminiscent of classic Drudkh discs like Forgotten Legends and Autumn Aurora, but revamped, and recharged, imbued with a surprising amount of drama and moodiness and emotional intensity. No more so than in the last track, the briefest of the bunch, but what a grandiose blast of epic black beauty. Beginning with acoustic guitar, it soon launches into a glorious blissy midtempo blow out, that would sound pretty good right next to some Alcest. It even has a super intense guitar lead, that wails wildly over the roiling black bliss beneath. Woah. So fucking awesome, and so recommended.
And of course, a review of Drudkh is never complete without a mention of the bands problematic politics. While they do seem somewhat removed from all that, at least musically and lyrically, focusing instead more on nature, it is worth mentioning as it is a distinct part of what they're about. We talked about it in a past review, and since we don't think we could write about it again as eloquently, here it is again.
We've been through this before with Burzum and Graveland and umpteen others, we love the music, but abhor the message. In some cases, like with Drudkh, it's easy to just enjoy the music and ignore the problematic politics, there are no printed lyrics, no fucked up song titles, just images of forests and sky and rain and darkness, a mysterious booklet with more images of trees and forests and the sky and rivers, all very mysterious and evocative. For some though, there is no ignoring the message, no matter how subtle or indirect, and the thought of giving any sort of support is unacceptable. That's perfectly fine. But for us, the music -can- transcend the message, and does at least in this case.
The last record from these long time aQ faves, Ukrainian black metal horde Drudkh, was a polarizing record for sure, one that found the band injecting their sound with much more melody, and a distinct poppiness, pushing them in surprisingly black pop direction, the new sound more akin to something we might have expected from Lifelover or Hypothermia. Plenty of jangle, and again poppy melodies all over the place. Sure there was plenty of buzz and blast, but that poppiness also seemed to supplant the band's folky side was well, which was another big change to contend with. And while some of us still dug the new sound, we had made peace and were ready to bid farewell to the Drudkh of old. But their latest, Eternal Turn Of The Wheel, finds the band once again in classic form, gone is the overt poppiness of Handful of Stars, and in it's place, the soaring majestic blackness of old, the thick crunchy riffage, the howled vokills, the bursts of frenzied blasting buzz, the stretches of haunting folkiness, but most importantly, the mood and atmosphere that only Drudkh can conjure up. The sound shifting easily from dirgey almost doomy crush, to loping folk flecked blackness, to full on blasting black crush, still plenty of melody for sure, but the sort we were more accustomed too, minor key and melancholic, folky and blackened, the sound at times downright pretty, at others mournful and moody, at others fierce and furious and malevolently majestic. Folks who jumped ship with Handful Of Stars, it's time to climb back on board, cuz Eternal Turn Of The Wheel is another classic Drudkh record for sure...
We've gone on and on in the past about Ukranian black metallers Nokturnal Mortum and the NM side project Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra. Bands that perfecty straddle the line between true grim blackness and total what-the-fuck weirdness. But the Ukraine has a load of other bands who are just as buzzy and brilliantly black and fucked up. And it just so happens that they all seem to share at least one (the same?) member. Astrofaes, Hate Forest, Lucifugum, and of course Drudkh. All of these projects traffic in the same sort of buzzed out atmospheric blackness that we can't get enough of. Loping stumbling midtempo folk flecked blasts of Burzumic fuzz, long LONG tracks, melancholy melodies swathed in buzzing guitars and anguished vocals, with brief bursts of blast beats and mosquito buzz riffing. Very droney and atmospheric as well as fiercely fuzzy blackly brutal. Fans of Burzum (obviously) and bands like Graveland, Woodtemple and the like definitely need everything by any of these bands they can get their hands on. This is the first Drudkh record from a few years back, we'll be listing the others soon (inlcuding a brand new album for 2006) but we figured we might as well start at the beginning. Forgotten Legends (and all the Drudkh records for that matter) is so good. Dark and bleak and depressive, droney and dirgey and black, but weirdly lovely as well.
Unfortunately, no discussion of any of these bands is complete without a brief look at their politics, always a troublesome sore spot with most black metal. Drudkh focus on 'Slavonic pride, culture and mythology', an ideology only slightly removed from the full on racism of Nastional Socialist black metal bands. Their name in fact means wood in Sanskrit, "the first language of the Aryan race." Oof. We've been through this before with Burzum and Graveland and umpteen others, we love the music, but abhor the message. In some cases, like with Drudkh, it's easy to just enjoy the music and ignore the problematic politics, there are no printed lyrics, no fucked up song titles, just images of forests and sky and rain and darkness, a mysterious booklet with no information but for the words: "sadness, bitterness, pain, despair, loss, agony, solitude, betrayal, melancholy, sorrow," all very mysterious and evocative. For some though, there is no ignoring the message, no matter how subtle or indirect, and the thought of giving any sort of support is unacceptable. That's perfectly fine. But for us, the music -can- transcend the message, and does at least in this case, and the sound of Forgotten Legends is nebulous enough that each listener can take whatever they want from this music, a series of totally mesmerizing, gorgeously depressive black buzzing drone metal epics.
Latest from these Ukrainian black metal masters, and by now faithful readers of the aQ list most likely know how much we love Ukrainian black metal: Hate Forest, Nokturnal Mortum, Lucifugum, Astrofaes, and of course Drudkh, and while there is much of the old Drudkh present, there have been some seriously dramatic sonic and stylistic shifts which somehow manage to change the sound completely without losing the essence of what makes Drudkh so great.
After a dark brooding piano intro, the first proper song kicks in and the first thing you notice is the almost jangly guitar tone, and the busy almost mathy drumming, and suddenly, the sound is more Katatonia / Alcest than anything we might have expected from Drudkh, there are still harsh vocals, and blasting double kick drumming, but combined with the almost clean guitars, it sounds more like Lifelover. It's a little jarring for sure, but the new sound definitely suits them, and over the course of that first track, there are cool stop / start arrangements, midtempo drifts of post rock that build to super tangled complex mathy blowouts, verging on black blasts, but more blissed out and shoegazey almost.
The second track begins similarly, with lightly flanged clean guitar, a strummed minor key melody, with a second guitar adding Smiths-y shimmer, and then again, the song kicks in and it's super melodic, the only true element of blackness the vox. It's at this point that something else becomes noticeable for its absence, no synths, and no folky interludes, for years an integral part of Drudkh's sound, but seemingly ditched in favor of melody, and harmony, and a definite pop element.
All that said, the songs are still pretty fantastic, the drumming, super original and complex, often adding strange rhythmic filigree to a part that is seemingly simple on the surface, the guitars too are lush and layered and offer all sorts of melodic shadings, the final track offers up the final word on this sonic shift with a long stretch of bass driven lope, spidery guitars, thick low end pulses and simple solid drumming which gives way, peppered with bursts of Godspeedy crescendos, and a super melodic classic rock sounding lead, only to finish off in a tangle of howled vokills, intricate drumming, and lush layered guitars.
We were definitely thrown for a loop at first, but after a few listens, it's easy to hear Drudkh in these seemingly UN-Drudkh like songs, and we love the soaring heavy black pop sound, and hell, this might be the gateway record for the black metal shy to give this Ukrainian thing a try, it only gets blacker and grimmer from here...
We've proudly proclaimed Ukrainian black metal horde Drudkh to be our favorite band from that particularly kick ass region (although we pretty much love all of those bands: Hate Forest, Nokturnal Mortum, Astrofaes, Lucifugum, etc.) and we've been meaning to get some of their back catalog in after reviewing their most recent record Blood In Our Wells.
Lebedynyy Shlyakh aka The Swan Road, just might be our favorite of all of their records, released barely a year before Blood In Our Wells, it's a super dark and emotional, brittle lo-fi dronelike blast of Burzumic buzz but with all sorts of strange parts and sounds, weird arrangements and very distinctly Drudkh-like elements. It definitely gets harder and harder to describe exactly what makes one frosty grim black metal record stand out, they all buzz and blast, everything is fuzzy and black, and of course grim and harsh and cult and cold and brutal and pummeling. So it usually comes down to the songwriting, the riffs, the arrangements, even some sonic subtleties that just can't be so easily put into words.
With Drudkh, it's just that. They imbue their sound with all sorts of unlikely sonic elements that perfectly balance the more traditional black metal sounds. Lots of the riffs are strangely angular and distinctly un-black metal, almost like post rock parts of classic metal riffs. There are brief bits of acoustic guitar, often hovering beneath a thick swirl of blackened hiss and crumbling fuzz. Plus there are all sorts of strange folky elements, and some super emotional minor key leads, that just sort of soar and hover, all majestic and so epic. But it's not so much those parts and pieces as the way they are integrated, the way the songs exude a sort of magic and chemistry. And the thing is, Lebedynyy Shlyakh is not so hateful and grim, it's weirdly hopeful sounding, more musical than a lot of black metal. Minor key sure, but more melancholy than miserable. And the arrangements and strange melodies evoke a sort of epic loping post rock more than the bleak buzz of Burzum or Mayhem. Which definitely makes Drudkh a whole 'nother beast. Mathy and melodic, with lots of unexpected twists and turns, structural and melodic, buzzing and black, but a buzzing blackness twisted into entirely new shapes. Revisiting this disc it's easy to see why we were (and still are) so blown away. SO RECOMMENDED!
The return of Ukrainian black metal legends Drudkh! In the past, the Ukraine have given us Hate Forest and Nokturnal Mortum and Astrofaes and Lucifugum and so many more, but Drudkh somehow always manage to overshadow their blackened brethren, their sound transcendent and otherworldly, at once grim and frosty and black, but at the same time timeless and epic and majestic and melodic. Few black metal bands could release an all acoustic folk record, and imbue it with the same sort of intensity and emotion, but Drudkh did just that with Songs Of Grief And Solitude, a folk record that one might assume would most definitely not appeal to metalheads, but we've yet to meet a black metal freek who didn't also love that record. Definitely speaks to the band's power and originality and energy.
Something strange seems to be going on currently with Drudkh and their catalog though (or maybe with Drudkh and their old label Supernal), all of their previous records are currently out of print and unavailable, which makes the arrival of Microcosmos even more timely. Continuing on from where the brilliant Estrangement left off, the sound of Drudkh is a dizzying blend of old world folk music, melodic metal, and of course grim buzzing blackness. The record begins with a brief bit of baroque court music, some old school folk, all buzzing strings and simple percussion, Eastern melodies and warm wheezing textures, before the second song kicks in with a flurry of frenetic buzz and wildly blasting drums, the main guitar immediately unfurling a totally epic and timeless sounding melody. The band establishing in a matter of seconds that they have returned, and all other black minions must bow down or be smote. The nearly ten minute epic is packed with twists and turns, as we described Drudkh songs in a past review, an epic sonic journey, from soaring washed out melodic whir, to howled blasting fury, to woozy mid tempo grooves laced with heart rending minor key melodies, stretches of Deathspell-ish gnarled riffage, even a drifty acoustic interlude, with steel string guitars, weird bits of buzz and fragmented riffage and some scraped atonal bass, before lurching back into a blown out Godspeedian majestic black coda.
And so it goes for the whole record. Four songs, all hovering around ten minutes, the guitars intense and massive, the melodies and arrangements so unlikely but so perfect. Strip away the buzz and take away the vocals, and this would be some super dense tripped out folk flecked post rock epic, but as it is, Microcosmos is next level black metal, their naturalist vibe is totally present, the songs and sounds organic and lush, evocative of forests and fjords, of grey skies and snow covered mountains, but the magic most definitely lays in the songs, even the harshest heaviest parts are impossibly melodic, and even the pretty parts often splinter into total buzz drenched chaos. The bass is all over the place (a rarity in the realm of black metal), throbbing and pulsing, adding melodic counterpoint as often as it does texture and ambience, the vocals appropriately harsh and howled, but really, they seem to just merge with the music, a gorgeously blackened metal that easily slips from relentless blasting, to Burzumic plod, to seasick lurch, all blended into a sound that while on the surface is most definitely black metal, is ultimately a strain of blackness that could only be Drudkh.
In the past we've mentioned the bands possibly problematic politics, but recently the band issued a statement to the effect that the absence of lyrics and information, the no photos, no interviews, no website policy is purposeful, and this dearth of information is what led some folks to posit that the band espoused ideals in line with the NSBM movement, when in fact, the band claim to be apolitical, and to promote "individualism, self-improvement and estrangement from modern values." So there.
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The long awaited folk record from Ukrainian black metal gods Drudkh. And it's amazing! But before we get into it, we have always wondered, what it is exactly with black metal and folk? Why does a record, that to the untrained ear, sounds like Renaissance Faire music, get lauded as still being 'grim'? And why do black metallers, one of the seemingly most close minded group of music fans in the world, deem certain sorts of folk music worthy of their adoration, when they have utter disdain for all other musicks that are not grim or true? And what makes a certain folk music grim or true?
Who really know, and who really cares. What we do know is that Songs Of Grief And Solitude is gorgeous and mournful, melodic and mysterious, and you would never know this was the work of one of our favorite buzzing black hordes!
Based on Ukrainian legends, traditional songs and fairy tales, Songs Of Grief And Solitude is a gorgeous folk record. Acoustic guitars and flutes, woven deftly into super moving emotional arrangements. VERY reminiscent of Comus, the Incredible String Band, and similar minded seventies folkies, haunting and minor key, dark and dreamy, unlikely melodies and unusual arrangements help avoid the usual Renn Faire vibe, although when the flutes join in, it's a bit difficult to deny. But the majority of the record is quite dark, very cinematic, moody and haunting, sounding like it could very well be the work of any number of modern day freak folk outfits, but with the added weight of the band's black background giving the music more musical heft. Each song begins with the sound of a crackling campfire or chirping crickets or tolling bells or the whir of night time nature, as if each of these songs was a tale being related around a campfire, or told to friends in the field. Normally we would suggest that maybe Drudkh fans would not necessarily dig this, but pursuant to the above black metal/folk discussion, and the fact that all the Drudkh fans we know LOVE this record, we'd have to say it's pretty damn essential. But it should also be essential listening for all the modern free folk freaks as well. Might be their black metal gateway record (even though there is NO black metal here). Songs Of Grief And Solitude would fit perfectly between your Comus record and your Vetiver record, next to your Brightblack Morning Light and Feathers records. Check it out. All hail Drudkh!
Earlier this past year we reviewed (and Record Of The Week'd) a crushing slab of druggy psychedelic space doom sludge called Ghost In The Fire, from a band with the VERY unlikely moniker Drug Honkey. Initially we sorta assumed they must be a joke band, but there was nothing funny about the head spinning din these guys whipped up on that record. And as much as we loved Ghost In The Fire, for us it all started with this disc, Death Dub, which we had hoped would be some sort of impossible dub / death metal hybrid, and while it wasn't quite that, it was still seriously warped and fucked up, like a sludgier more metallic Butthole Surfers, sort of. Dirgey, and noisy, and crusty, sludgey and actually in fact, kinda dubbed out. We managed to get a handful of these finally (as well as DH's Hail Satan cd-r, if you want one of those too, just ask!), and now everyone can revel in Drug Honkey's glorious sonic filth, a constantly shifting metallic sound world, that's all churning riffage one second ("The Devil Lasts Forever"), tripped out dubby doom the next ("Death Threats"). The Butthole Surfers comparison is pretty apt, these guys just unfurl these sprawling epics, low slung bass throb, tribal caveman drumming, weird FX heavy vox, bellowed demonic howls that can easily transform into hysterical shrieks, everything wrapped in sheets of crumbling distortion, clouds of swirling effects, total tripped out heaviness, that as the title promises does get dubby, check out the vox on "Death Threats", throat shredding vokills disappear in a field of echo and delay, and go spinning into the blackness, while underneath the band continue to pound out a spacey psychedelic dirge. Or there's "Communion", the vocals sick and hellish, but seemingly being real time processed, so each bellow, launches little flurries of sped up shrieks or garbled grunts, all tether to the bands lumbering, monstrous, downtuned crush.
The sound constantly gets super psychedelic, and sort of krautrocky and motorik, spacey and heavily tripped out, like some weird mutated hybrid of the Psychic Paramount, Terminal Cheesecake and Painkiller, some tracks almost sound like hip hop, albeit some sick, distortion drenched industrial strain (Techno Animal, Ice, God, etc.). In fact the Pathological Records vibe looms large over pretty much all of Death Dub, the whole record an electronic flecked, FX heavy, metallic mindfuck of the highest order. Which obviously means ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL!!!
We first discovered the awesomely named Drug Honkey a few years back, via their 2008 record Death Dub. And at the time, before having actually heard it, or then, we figured it was probably too much to hope for, that a band called Drug Honkey would actually be good, and not some dumb bad band inside joke, and that a record by said band, called Death Dub, would and/or could actually deliver on the promise of a title like that. Dubbed out death metal? Metallic dub? Some sort of blackened dubbed out weirdness? Well, happy to say we needn't have doubted, these Chicago experimental drug doom space psych heavies did not disappoint, that record a churning morass of noise drenched, dubbed out blackened heaviness, equal parts droned out, pounding almost-industrial crush, woozy, sludge-y slo-mo creep, and crumbling distorto-dub noise rock weirdness. Imagine the Butthole Surfers via Godflesh via the Scientist via Eyehategod. Noisy, druggy, damaged, super intense, and blown out, and heavily psychedelic, the vocals only adding to the WTF level, a super harsh demonic bellow one second, a weird high pitched yelp the next, the vocals bleeding into the sounds around them, and all of those sounds then doused in FX and super processed, into some seriously heady heaviness.
We were never able to get enough copies to review/list, so when we discovered there was a new Drug Honkey,
full length number four if you're keeping track, we knew we had to get copies, and had a feeling it was probably gonna have to be Record Of The Week. And once again, Drug Honkey do not disappoint, if anything, Ghost In The Fire is like Death Dub part two, but if anything, everything we loved about Death Dub has been cranked up even more this time around, it's heavier, slower, dubbier, more tripped out, the production is MASSIVE, the sound filthy and crumbling and blown out, the band unfurling a loping, lumbering super psychedelic sludge-dub that once again sounds a bit like the Buttholes jamming with Godflesh, which is in fact a very very good thing.
Opening with a blast of detuned guitar churn, a pounding motorik rhythm, chiming distorted guitar melodies, looped and lurching, super tranced out and hypnotic, the vocals a bellowy demonic belch, that gets doused in FX and like much of the surrounding sounds, sometimes slows down to a grunting gurgle, other times splinters into weird swirling shards of sound, the music too, subtly dubbed out, but for the most part, roiling and churning relentlessly, the sort of super heavy psych-sludge trance-out, that could easily have stretched out for another 45 minutes and made for a super sweet single track drone-sludge epic.
But these guys have more sonic filth up their sleeves. The title track even slower, and dubbier, the guitars tarpit thick, the riffing spread out over a plodding death march rhythm, the vocals a throat shredding howl, and again, accompanied by various other processed voices, slowed down, sped up, doused in distortion, pitch shifted, like some sort of drugged out demonic choir, all over swirls of gristly effects, and crumbling distorted effects, and all driven by the group's impossibly dense chugging doom-sludge dirge, slipping from driving almost headbangable 16rpm demonic deathdub groove, to fractured, fucked up, psychedelic black-noise drift, but more often than not fusing the two into some seriously unholy union.
Some tracks are way more 'dubby' than others, like "Weight Of The World" which creeps and slithers, the guitars pushed into the background, laying down a softly undulating backdrop of droning rumble, over which a monstrous rhythm, pounds away in slow motion, beneath streaks of soaring fragmented high end melody, and some seriously fucked up and freaky vocals, lots of space and drift, swooping backwards effects, super psychedelic, totally hypnotic and tranced out, about as dubby as these guys get, but then there's tracks like "Dead Days ("Heroin III"), where the core sound is a super downtuned ultradoom sludge, the dubbiness seeping through in the form of the Gibby Haynes like vocals, and the atmospheric swirls, at one point slowing down to a near static drift, the only thing keeping it heavy, a super blown out distorted bass riff, over which all this other tripped out shit swirls and shimmers, and when the weird guitar that sounds like a proggy synth (or maybe a sitar?) pops up, total genius WTF trip out, the song drifting even further into tripped out zoner-psych territory. They even do a Scorn cover, which makes sonic sense for sure, Drug Honkey transforming the dark electronic skitter of the original into what sounds like a spaced out psychedelic sludge metal Necks, super drone out and loop-y, a little bit jazzy, but still heavy as fuck, before finishing off with a final fierce blast of dubbed out, super aggro, speaker shredding, doom-dub psych-sludge dirgery that KILLS. Holy shit. Imagine UK psych-drone space drifters Bong jamming with Godflesh, a dizzying concoction of super tripped out heaviness, ultra abstract sludge and blackened psychedelic dub that anyone into weird heaviness / heavy weirdness will lose their shit over! WAY WAY WAY recommended!
With an album title that sounds like it could be the name of the next Immortal record, this new release from Chicago guitar experimentalist Kevin Drumm takes the inspired-by-black-metal aesthetic of his recent Mego-label cd "Sheer Hellish Miasma" even further (what's he been doing, hanging out with Weasel Walter?). In fact, he teams up here with an actual Norwegian! Lasse Marhaug of noisy electronica act Jazzkammer joins Drumm for this live-in-Oslo session, his laptop computer vs. Drumm's guitar and analog synth. Their collaboration/clash results in some dark and droney sounds that are semi-appropriate to the apparent black metal concept, being generally quiet and creepy rather than massive or mayhemic. The guitar, when you can tell it's a guitar, is more Derek Bailey than Burzum. And the arctic winds evoked on here hiss rather than howl. But, there's no mistaking the simulation of the sinister crackling of burning churches, and perhaps even the twittering of malicious goblins in dark forests, via Drumm and Marhaug's electronics. So, of course, we love this. Leaving aside the black metal business, this is atmospheric ambient glitch drone improv at its best -- and most eeveeiil.
Oakland's ironic cock rock masters bounce back from the demise of their former label Man's Ruin with this new album for Tee Pee. Ironic? Yep, that's the one problem we might have with these boys. Otherwise, they rock hard, crankin' out good party tunes like something from your older stoner bro's record collection circa 1973-1980. They fit right in with other modern bands doing that retro rock thing, like Cherry Valence, All Night, Boulder, and even Drunk Horse pals The Fucking Champs in their more Thin Lizzyish moments. Drunk Horse are great players, indulging in total '70s worship...but I can't help thinking that they learned their riffing from Cheech & Chong's "Earache My Eye" rather than from the real, non-goof rock bands of the era. Maybe that's not fair, but I can't help but imagine how good these guys would be if there wasn't the joke element going on. Sure, these are smart guys playing dumb rock...but can't you be genuine about it though? Maybe it wouldn't have to be so dumb if they didn't make it intentionally so, with songs about Lube Jobs and so forth. That said, this is pretty darn good AND kinda funny too so maybe I should just enjoy the witty lyrics, kick-ass guitars, and sweaty songwriting regardless. Plus when they go off instrumentally you know they are -- or could be -- more than just a campy pastiche of '70s rock cliches. There's hints of jazz fusion, genuine pop smarts, and mucho guitar intelligence, so someday I want to hear the Advanced Drunk Horse record. Whatever, whoop it up!
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With "Dirty Mind" on the flip -- yep, both are Prince covers, done up all rock n' roll by SF's smartest '70s style rockers.
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Pretty damn good sophomore effort from San Francisco rockers Drunkhorse. Basically, these guys play a heavy, '70s inspired style of honkin' hard rawk, a la Fu Manchu and other "stoner" outfits also found on the Man's Ruin roster. But, unlike a lot of those bands, the Drunkhorse musical and lyrical IQ isn't really down in the double digits. Like current tourmates The (Fucking) Champs, Drunkhorse work on several levels at once. It's definitely music to party to, but not if you can't deal with the occasional sideways lurch into jazz fusion or musique concrete. No, don't worry, that sort of eclecticism is carefully employed, so there's always a heavy groove or boogie woogie piano break or something to balance any overt weirdness. And the singer's rock drawl conceals a great sense of hipster wit. It's hard to decide if Drunkhorse are at heart overachieving stoner rockers or dumbed down art rockers, and it doesn't matter. Get drunk, play this loud, and simultaneously exercise and destroy brain cells. If you're wondering about the title, by the way, we're told this is two miniature concept albums in one...for more info, buy it!
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Here's an interesting new single from Drunkhorse, that SF/Oakland crew of '70s lovin', hard rockin' stoner dudes who are smarter than you think they are. As the purported volume two in a series of "Unearthed Gems" releases, it features Drunkhorse covering two way rare, obscure tunes by their rock n' roll forebears: "The Weed Elf" by Sri Lankan '80s metallers Zilla, and "Pismo", by late '70s Cali bar-rockers Andy Sherman And The Sherms. Yes, we said obscure...maybe suspiciously so... Liner notes by Dr. Armando "Mondo" Johnson of Great Crates! Magazine (which, we must confess, we've never heard of either...) provide more info, in copious detail (Zilla's lone album was called "Heavy Yeti"...believe it, or not).
The Zilla tune, which in the hands of Drunkhorse comes across like a cover of something by Slough Feg, is a NWOBHM styled romp with jaunty, folky Thin Lizzyish guitars and Dio-esque lyrics. It's like Drunkhorse crossed with their pals the Fucking Champs. On the flip, the Andy Sherman and the Sherms composition is revealed to be a good-times, summer-time, all-the-time rocker, an ode to Pismo Beach were one can "relax and play hackysack".
Here's to Drunkhorse for digging up these "gems" and giving them such loving treatment -- hopefully we'll see these influences shine through on their next album of originals.
Been trying to get some Drunkdriver into the store before South By Southwest, as these guys are gonna be playing our showcase, and here we go, finally, their first (?) 7", and it's a fist in the face, ice pick in the ear doozy. It sounds exactly what you might imagine a Drunkdriver might sound like, if instead of getting behind the wheel, they got up on stage with a pile of amps and a beat up old drum it, a super chaotic, unhinged, wildly careening, ultra distorted in the red chunk of drugged out, FX drenched noise rock damage. Churning riffage, wild proggy drumming, feral throat shredding vox, but the sound is surprisingly dynamic, lurching start stops, catchy melodies, weirdly hooky riffs, the A side, "Knife Day" could be some sort of noise rock anthem.
The B side takes care of that right quick, even noisier, the band lock into a stuttery lurch, a controlled stumble, all crunch and crumble, the vocals unhinged and hysterical, with a killer, almost classic metal sounding breakdown, some more seriously hooky riffage, all kinds of good stuff buried beneath the blackened avalanche of skin peeling rooooaaaaar.
White vinyl!
We first heard Irish indie rockers on a split with Japanese heavies Boris, and even then we were a bit flummoxed, Boris delivering their usual monstrous slab of downtuned psychedelic Japanese fuzz rock, and The Dudley Corporation countering with some sweetly melodic indie jangle, not that we were complaining, we'd always rather hear lots of different sounds, on records, at shows, 5 bands playing sludge metal, are not nearly as entertaining as a weird metal band, a catchy pop band, a cool synth outfit, you get our drift, anyway, beyond the strange juxtaposition, we ended up digging these guys a lot, and it's been a while since we've heard from them, but here on their fourth full length, much of what we dug about the old DC sound is still present and accounted for, jangly guitars, hooks galore, bouncy rhythms, crazy catchy melodies, but actually, it does seem like their sound has darkened, grown a bit more intense and complex, with the songs more intricate and almost proggy sounding, with some electronics, some serious heft, crunchy guitars, and lots of moody, broody intensity, in fact, the vibe these days is almost more Radiohead or Cave In (during their Radiohead phase) - check out opener "DLQ", with its shuffling minor key main riff, its dense driving moodiness, proggy pound fused to almost new wave sounding crunch, maybe also reminding us of Franz Ferdinand or Maximo Park, not the sound we remember, but one we dig, a LOT, and one that seems like it should have these guys poised for some serious mainstream success.
And in the past we described DC as sounding a bit like Pinback, but now, along with this heavier sound, and more dense and complex arrangements, while that resemblance is still present, it almost sounds more like pre-Pinback outfit Heavy Vegetable, not nearly as tangly and super mathy, but with the vocalist still often sounding like a dead ringer for Rob Crow, and some serious mathiness creeping in, it's definitely closer, and pretty goddamn great (check out "Under The Lamb")! WAY recommended for folks who like their pop dark and complex, proggy and melodic, which we're guessing is a whole lot of you...
And as promised last list, when we made the reissue of seventies Mexican psych legends Los Dug Dug's 1971 self-titled debut a Record Of The Week, here's their equally Record Of The Week worthy second album, 1972's Smog, now also reissued on both cd and, for the first time, vinyl! And as we said then, we love this band! Why? 'Cause Los Dug Dug's kick out jams that are part garage rock grooviness, part Beatlesy bliss, part power pop, part proto-metal, and part prog (with flute!!). What's not to love? And we haven't even mentioned the heavy dosage of FUZZ they supply, either!
Unlike the debut, which was Mexico's first rock record sung all in English, Smog is sung in Spanish, and sees Los Dug Dug's stripped down to an amped up power trio format, led as always by guitarist/vocalist Armando Nava (he's on the right in the cover picture, with the dyed grey long hair and beard, looking like some pensive psychedelic wise man or wizard). Pretty sure he's also the one playing the flute here, pumping up the progginess in a hard rock context that could kinda be likened to Jethro Tull meets the MC5, yeah, and reminds us of Italian prog faves Osanna, too.
Smog is one smokin' album, it's hard to pick favorite tracks, as they're all so good, but we'd have to mention both the lovely ballad "Voy Hacia El Cielo (Voy Hacia El Sol)" and the motorcycle revving, ecological protest rocker "Smog". Yep, just like their self-titled debut, this one's got plenty of both the heavy rockers and the gentler, poppier stuff, but leans towards the former, and seems more '70s than their first album, which had more of a '60s feel to it.
Air pollution is certainly a '70s theme, also something that any band based in Mexico City would be concerned about, and the title Smog gives this a heavier vibe than if they'd called it something like Flowers & Incense, eh? In keeping with their new style and attitude, they do a Spanish-language remake / update of the debut's frantic garage beat number "Let's Make It Now", stretching it to almost 12 minutes, as a totally progged out, flute-fortified five part suite, now titled "Hagamasolo Ahora (2a. Parte)", while retaining all the energetic excitement of the original. The energy level of this entire album is exhilarating, there's a couple pleasant acoustic numbers but otherwise it's quite rough, rhythmic, and riffy.
As we said when we reviewed the reissue of the debut, we've listed this album (and several others by the band) before, but it was always tough to keep enough of 'em in stock, they were Mexican imports and never reliably available, seemingly going in and out of print in quite random fashion. Hopefully these new editions will be around longer, and remain easy to stock. Also, these reissues are the very first time we've seen any Dug Dug's reissued on VINYL, yay!!!
As with the self-titled debut, the new cd version of this comes packaged in a handsome plastic-protected miniature lp style sleeve, complete with obi strip. Other than the text on the obi, there's no liner notes for this reissue, which we're told is a result of the difficulties inherent in licensing a release like this from a major label (it's owned by Sony BMG). In any case, we're glad it got reissued again, at all, and it's nice enough! Sooo recommended, equally up there with the debut, maybe even better, especially for folks who dig the cowbell-knockin', fuzz rockin' action.
Drunk and disorderly. Wild and wooly. Kick your ass. Steal your car. Sleep with your sister. Throw up in your lap. Beer drinking. Pill popping, sloppy noise-y three chord (okay, maybe 4 chord) rock and roll. Falling somewhere between Motorhead, the Dwarves, and the MC5. These guys may all be metalheads (blokes from British stoner/doom acts Iron Monkey, Orange Goblin, and Acrimony), but this is punk fucking rock.
One of two new blasts of "True Sheffield Black Psychedelia" from one of our favorite labels, UK weirdo sound stronghold Frequency 13, the True Sheffield Black Psychedelia descriptor covering a whole lot of sonic territory, from groups as varied as Black Vomit (whose new record is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), Ice Bound Majesty, Rape Rack, Skultroll, not to mention these guys right here, Dukkha, whose latest, the awesomely titled Grim Disco, is a single, 70 minute sprawl, that merges Butthole Surfers like atonal guitar melodies, with thick swaths of churning low-end, and looped propulsive programmed rhythms, into something heavy, hypnotic and WAY tripped out.
A dirgey, murky, krauty groove, submerged in a sea of chug and buzz and crunch, wound up with all manner of spidery melodies, the 'riff's a sort of blurred black metal, tangled up with something much dirgier and noise rockier, the sound slipping from caustic distorted buzz to weirdly tranced out cyclical churn, but that's only the first 6 or so minutes, the rhythmic pound and chug fading out into a cloud of glitched out digital shimmer, a bit like Oval, hazy and hypnotic, before splintering into something much more ominous, a whirling cinematic stretch of buzzing epic synthscapery, all soaring low end buzz and haunting majestic melody, thick and lush and layered, seriously dark and creepy, before it too fades out, this time into a field of glitch and glimmer, which gives way to some Melvins-y detuned dirge-y pound, the guitars gradually growing more and more chaotic, streaks of feedback, shards of fragmented riffage, moaning melodies, jagged atonal crunch, swirling low end murk, all wound around some tribal rhythmic pound, a doomy, downtuned final sludgey, weirdly groovy coda.
Killer stuff, as always. CRAZY LIMITED too, ONLY 40 COPIES!! we got 20 of those, which are bound to go fast...
The return of TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA!!!
A few lists back we listed two discs of mysterious blackened post rock ambient epic weirdness, one from a band called Skultroll, the other from a group called Ice Bound Majesty, both offering up tangled sounds not easily to pin down. The hypno krautrock of Circle, the dirgey black doom of Bunkur, mixed with epic space prog, damaged drones, and whatever the fuck else those weirdos could cram in.
So as we continue to fly through copies of both, it seemed like maybe it was time to dig deeper into this bizarre black scene of freaky fucked up musical madness, dubbed by these outfits True Sheffield Black Psychedelia, and needless to say, it is indeed black, most definitely psychedelic and oddly enough, also from Sheffield!
So this time around we picked up a split, two more mysterious Sheffield combos, Dukkha, and the appetizingly named Black Vomit.
The odd tracks are Black Vomit, three long ones, culminating with a nearly 20 minute closer. But what the heck does Black Vomit sound like? Not as black as you might think. The opening track is a gorgeous drum heavy krautjam, the drums plugging along, with little double kick drum flourishes, relentless and motorik, as a huge warm washed out black cloud of swirling fuzz and hissy shimmer drifts in, a bit like Tim Hecker, dense and layered and constantly shifting, thickening as the song progresses, shot through with streaks of feedback and speaker rattling low end pulses, little flurries of effects and grinding industrial whir, sounds like a dronemetal Necks or a way more blessed out and dreamy Pharaoh Overlord. The second Black Vomit track, clocking in at nearly eleven minutes, is a much blacker beats, the middle portion a chaotic psychedronemetal freakout, the drums a blurry blast, the guitars tangled and angular, all wrapped up in a throbbing low end buzz, eventually mellowing out and stretching out into a hissy buzz drenched static drone, beneath which the sounds of frogs and crickets, bits of TV or radio broadcasts, a drifting barely there bit of simple guitar strum, super intense and creepy and cinematic. The final track, The Black Vomit's closer, a bruising 19 minute jam is a long form ambient sprawl, beginning with some epic tribal drumming, some industrial clatter, and thick corrosive drones, before the drums drop out leaving just the low end to drift and throb, swell and shift, a gorgeous dreamy thrum, until the drums kick back in near the end, finishing off with a flurry of mathy chaos, the drones and buzz building in tandem, a corrosive final moments prog psych blowout.
Then there's Dukkha, who sound like Black Vomit's kissing cousins. Their opener is nearly 23 minutes long, and is a loping post rock dirge, the drums a simple pound, the bass looping and loping in the background, the guitar in thick sheets buzzing dronelike, and occasionally locking into weirdly groovy stoner jams and then unwinding again into static sheets, the vocals a demonic distant wail, the riffs surfacing and locking into endless loops and super hypnotic hypno metal jams, like a crusty black metal Gore. The second track sounds like the first one, with the drums pulled out, the whole thing dipped in a bucket of busted effects pedals, and dumped over a wall of feeding back amplifiers. Maybe the 'dub' version of the first track, a Dense cloud of fucked up electronics, jagged melodic fragments, freaked out FX, and massive groaning walls of crumbling ultra distorted slow motion riffing.
Fucking awesome. Black enough for the true grim kvlt, but rhythmic enough to appeal to folks who dig Circle, This Heat, Aluk Todolo and the like and who aren't averse to something equally rhythmic, but way more blackened and brutal.
One of three new releases from local label Acephale Winter, this one possibly the most notable, as it's the debut release from the man behind the label, and apparently, he almost didn't let us hear it, but did once he was assured that our tastes in black metal ran very much toward the damaged and demented, and while this might not be as fucked up as Benighted Leams (but then what is!), it is pretty strange, and seriously far out, definitely a primo slab of outsider blackness, as is evidenced but the first few minutes, an intro of sorts that involves field recordings of rain and storms, dense rumbling drones, haunting synths, moody piano figures, a killer swath of crumbling distortion, even some strange samples, all of it leading up to the first song proper, which is a noisy, chaotic beat, EXTREMELY lo-fi, the guitars an insectoid swarm, the drums a barely there pulse, mostly just the snare audible over the churning blackbuzz din, but then some even weirder stuff starts to happen, the sounds blur and bleed, the buzzing becomes suffused with organ thrum, the vocals transformed into a sort of cult-like chant, the whole thing woozy and psychedelic, before lumbering back into more blasting stumble and howl.
Some of the other tracks are much more straight up raw black primitivism, but others are wild concoctions of atonal clean vocals, programmed machine like rhythms, and squalls of guitarnoise, there are weird lullaby like stretches that almost sound like renaissance faire children's music, there are haunting dronescapes, there are warped, blown out slowcore dirges that almost sound like Nirvana's Bleach demos, slowed way down, and doused in blown out distortion, and the record bookends with another blast of stormy field recorded ambience and a seriously confusional brief bit of sonic schmaltz right at the end. Killer stuff, warped and WTF for sure. Definitely excited to hear more...
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!!
Latest from this local one man band, the project of the man behind black metal cassette label Acephale Winter, and one of two new tapes from AW offshoot imprint Psalm 88. This 3 song demo is much more raw and primitive than the last Dunnock - the opening track is a furious blast of old school drum machine driven blackness, swirling and chaotic, the vocals a hellish howl above a backdrop of relentless riffing and machinelike drum churn, still plenty atmospheric for sure, but definitely reminiscent of the old days. As is the second track, which cranks up the distortion to dangerous levels, the sound reaching Japanoise like levels of crumbled distorto-garble, but just the sort of tweaked, twisted shit we love. there must be some riffs, and maybe even drums in there, but it's buried beneath layer upon layer of blurred guitar buzz, and howling, FX drenched vokills, everything bleeding and oozing, into one thick, corrosive, churning morass of bliss black noise, and blissful it is, for all its caustic crunch, it's also warm and woozy, and sort of psychedelic. Even though demos are generally raw versions of finished tracks, we're hoping this is the direction Dunnock is heading, cuz we're digging this like crazy. Then finally, the all too brief demo ends with a brief bit of atmospheric blackness, cinematic, creepy and hauntingly melancholy, a soft swirl of synths beneath more harrowing demonic vokills.
But probably the coolest part of this tape is the B side, which features a spaced out ambient synthscape, INDIVIDUAL TO EACH TAPE, as in Dunnock recorded EIGHTY EIGHT tracks, one for each tape made, with every tape containing its own individual and unique B side!!!!!
LIMITED TO 88 COPIES!!!
Darkness hath descended upon aQ HQ for here we have found ourselves ensnared by a truly abyssal double helping of murky space-themed black metal hurled shrieking from the The Lightless Void. One who has (dis)graced our ears already several times before in the form of one man local BM despair merchant / overlord of Acephale Winter Productions, Dunnock (although joined here by a co-conspirator on electric viola!), and one an entirely new prospect to us: the bleak cosmic terrornaught that is Australia's Intergalactic Holocaust. Dunnock contributes two tracks of in-the-red plodding black metal (along with two dark ambient tracks - one of which even reminds us of some nightmarish reinterpretation of the intro to the Star Trek: The Next Generation theme!), the sort of sound that lurches onto the listener's back, dragging them closer to the dirt with every measure. Lamenting synth pads and barely audible muttered samples drift over the dirge, hazy and surreal. Thematically the tracks both deal with the USA/Soviet Cold War space race - "Jan 28th" regarding the Challenger disaster, and "Kudryavka" the death of Russia's space dog Laika. Intergalactic Holocaust's contributions are comparatively a bit easier on the ear, but no easier on the psyche! Less blown out than Dunnock, and instead murky and expansive - the effect of IH's sound is more ominous, engulfing and maybe a touch Lovecraftian: The drums a forgotten thud in the distance, the guitars seeming to writhe in slow motion like an oily leviathan, the synths and vocals oozing over everything like Burzum gone interstellar. A nightmarish gauntlet through pitch black oxygenless infinity from both artists, and proof perhaps that in space at least some screaming can be heard!
There are different sorts of buzz. Especially in black metal, where the buzz is God. Or Satan. High brittle ear shredding buzz. Thick, layered My Bloody Valentine blissed out buzz. Super downtuned SUNNO))) style buzz. In fact, if a band can discover a super unique, totally distinctive sounding buzz, they're halfway there. Everything else will hopefully fall right into place.
The second we threw this tape on, we were floored. What a completely overwhelmingly heavy and strange sounding buzz. Durthang are Swedish and play a plodding slow motion black doom. But the buzz!! Such a gloriously thick and dense sounding guitar tone, sort of blown out and tinny, but with the bass pumped way up so there's this ghostly low end. It's one of those sounds that is so pleasing to our ears, there almost doesn't even need to be any song, just single chord or a single riff churning out that perfect buzz forever and ever.
Thankfully the band back up their divine buzz with some killer songwriting, some super memorable riffs, and some amazing dark depressive atmosphere. An utterly bleak and depressive slab of brilliant slow motion black metal doom. So recommended.
Rather surprisingly, vinyl of this was one of this year's Record Store Day releases. Wish we still had 'em but we sold all the copies we could get already. However, they also reissued it, as a two-for-one disc, on cd, and not being a RSD release we were able to get some of those to list. We've had reissues of both Dust albums before, most recently as rather expensive Repertoire imports, so here's the reviews of both of these proto-metal essentials.
For those who need to know: the American hard rock trio known as Dust are another of those legendary early '70s bands that get mentioned in the same breath with heavies like Captain Beyond, Sir Lord Baltimore, The James Gang, Bang, Stray, Leafhound, Highway Robbery, and the like. They cut two excellent lps of late-psychedelic-era proto-metal back in '71 and '72. Of their two albums, the first, self-titled one is swampier, with a lot of slide and country/southern rock moves on tracks like "Stone Woman" and "Chasin' Ladies". But then there's the lugubrious and weighty 10-minute epic "From A Dry Camel", and conversely, the gentle acoustic dreaminess of "Often Shadows Felt". Mostly, though, the album kicks ass with uptempo hard rockers, including the ripping, rollicking instrumental "Loose Goose" that closes the album quite frenetically.
Following that is 1972's Hard Attack, generally considered the harder of Dust's two albums, the more metal. Though that may be in part 'cause of the awesome Frank Frazetta cover painting, and album title! But perhaps it is somewhat more Sabbathian. "Downer rock" they called it back then (we're told). Their song "Suicide" (the penultimate track on side 2 of the original vinyl) - whooah, that could be Pentagram! That song alone makes this an essential purchase for any true doom/psych fan. It's an all time classic.
But it's not all doom n' gloom n' barbarians - Hard Attack has its lighter side, but unlike a lot of their peers, the poppier and/or less rockin' stuff Dust do here is actually really great. Sure, a song like "Thusly Spoken" features strings and a Beatlesy melody, but the lyrics still name-check Satan and speak of dancing demons. Lush, gorgeous downer-pop that sets you up to be crushed by the following, urgently hard-rockin' track "Learning To Die". They do that throughout the album, alternating gentle - even acoustic - numbers with the proggy proto-metal workouts that the headbangers of 1972 must have loved.
It's hard to understand why Dust didn't "make" it, as this stuff is certainly the equal of big sellers from their era by Deep Purple or Uriah Heep. Great singing, riffs, melodies, and that "feel" - it's all here.
We mentioned Pentagram above - if you've got that Relapse anthology of Pentagram's original seventies recordings, First Daze Here, you should definitely check out the work of Dust, who were both contemporaries of, and an influence on, the Ram's Head boys. Yes, Dust are an important name on the list of forgotten but godlike '70s hard rock bands that make today's so-called stoner rockers sound like punk/grunge wanna-bes. In a word (again): classic. Too bad you'll never hear 'em on your local "classic rock" radio station...
Oh, and Dust featured the future Marky Ramone on drums, by the way, before he decided punk was the way to go (or even had that option).
This remastered reissue sports its own new cover design, but inside the thick cd booklet there's smaller versions of the original album art, plus lots of vintage photos, and plenty of liner notes (including some from Marky), etc.
Of Dust's two albums, this 1972 LP is considered the harder of the two, the more metal, the somewhat more Sabbathian. "Downer rock" they called it back then (we're told). Their song "Suicide" (track 9) -- whooah, that could be Pentagram! This track alone makes this an essential purchase for any true doom/psych fan. It's an all time classic. Between that and the awesome Frank Frazetta cover painting, what more could you want?
But it's not all doom n' gloom n' barbarians -- "Hard Attack" has its lighter side, but unlike a lot of their peers, the poppier and/or less rockin' stuff Dust do is actually really great. Sure, a song like "Thusly Spoken" features strings and a Beatlesy melody, but the lyrics still name-check Satan and speak of dancing demons. Lush, gorgeous downer-pop that sets you up to be crushed by the following, urgently hard-rockin' track "Learning To Die". They do that throughout the album, alternating gentle -- even acoustic -- numbers with the proto-metal workouts that the headbangers of 1972 must have loved.
It's hard to understand why Dust didn't "make" it, as this stuff is certainly the equal of big sellers from their era by Deep Purple or Uriah Heep. Great singing, riffs, melodies, and that "feel" -- it's all here.
We mentioned Pentagram above -- if you bought that awesome Relapse label anthology of Pentagram's original seventies recordings that we recommended a few lists back, you should definitely check out the work of Dust, who were both contemporaries of and an influence on the Ram's Head boys. Dust are an important name on the list of forgotten but godlike '70s hard rock bands that make today's so-called stoner rockers sound like punk wanna-bes (bands like Lucifer's Friend, Highway Robbery, Orang-utan, Toad, Budgie, Sir Lord Baltimore, Captain Beyond, Leafhound, etc.). In a word (again): classic. Too bad you'll never hear 'em on your local "classic rock" radio station...
Not a new release, but listed for the first time 'cause we love it: The American hard rock trio known as Dust are another of those legendary early '70s bands that get mentioned in the same breath with heavies like Captain Beyond, Sir Lord Baltimore, The James Gang, Bang, and the like. They cut two excellent LPs of late-psychedelic-era proto-metal back in '71 and '72. This the first, self-titled one, and of their two albums, this one's swampier, with a lot of slide and country/southern rock moves on tracks like "Stone Woman" and "Chasin' Ladies". But then there's the lugubrious and weighty 10-minute epic "From A Dry Camel" and the gentle acoustic dreaminess of "Often Shadows Felt". Mostly, though, the album kicks ass with uptempo hard rockers. Maybe they could be considered the American version of Nazareth (with vocals somewhat less soaked in whiskey). What we're saying is: pretty great!
Dust features the future Marky Ramone on drums, by the way, before he decided punk was the way to go.
Another one of them 'supergroups', this one featuring members and ex-members of Witch, Earthless, Golden Void, Annihilation Time, Lecherous Gaze, 27, and The Ruffians! With a cover by Alan Forbes (so you'd almost think it was on his label Valley King). Definitely in the ballpark of Valley King stuff like the recent Feral Ohms. Rock!!
Isaiah Mitchell of Earthless, etc. puts down his guitar to just do vocals, but there's two other guitarists on here to provide plenty of axe umph, don't worry. Consequently, like Mitchell's Golden Void, the two songs on this 45 are very "classic" sounding with long haired '70s influences, these punks doing their best to make music like their dads would have done if they were in bands back then, as perhaps indeed some of their dads were.
