Eccentric outsider doom metal from the '80s, from waaaaaay down underground. Now hold up, if the words "doom" or "metal" make you think, not for me, think again (maybe). This isn't like any metal you've ever heard, really. More like spaced out '60s heavy psychedelic guitar rock (one song's called "Heavy Vibrations", man), overloaded also with shrill synth symphonics and trippy effects... That's where the "outsider" tag comes in, Dwarr being a one-man band, all the work of South Carolina multi-instrumentalist (but especially guitar!) Duane Warr (hence the name Dwarr), whom we get the impression is quite a character. It's so DIY that the cds have his phone number on 'em, in case you want to get in touch. His privately pressed music comes off like a cough-syrup dosed mixture of Black Sabbath and Todd Tamanend Clark (whom you should know from the double cd anthology we raved about a few years ago). Or, The Happy Dragon Band playing Pink Floyd, from beyond the grave. Maybe a lo-fi Captain Beyond, on even more drugs than Captain Beyond were ever on. Or imagine if Bobb Trimble was an '80s metaller, perhaps (and worked out in the gym a lot more?). Sorry to use so many almost equally obscure references, but it's hard to compare this confusional beast to anything else.
Look at that insane cover painting, a surreal post-apocalyptic landscape (that's a malevolent-looking Statue of Liberty sunken in polluted looking water next to a cave populated by long-haired, skull-faced cannibalistic mutants, with an avatar of Dwarr himself, we're guessing, striking a heroic he-man pose in the upper right hand corner). The music itself is as surreal and apocalyptic and ridiculous as that image, matching up to it much more than most other "metal" albums ever match up to their cover art, both in subject matter and, ah, execution.
Just from the cover painting, let alone the music, this Dwarr album is SO perfectly Aquarius, you'd almost think we made it up. But no, Dwarr's for real, something we'd vaguely heard tell of and been curious about for years, and finally went to the trouble of tracking down (not so hard, thanks to the Internet, now that everybody and their grandmother's bands are on MySpace). And lo and behold, it turned out Dwarr had issued ALL four of his albums (two from the '80s, two from the '00s, believe it or not!) on compact disc. So we had to get a bunch of this one, his second, from 1986, probably his best and "heaviest". A Record Of The Week, easy.
There's 13 tracks, each one incredible (or incredibly strange). There's nothing that's NOT freaked out about this. Even the poppiest songs (like the title track "Animals") are full of sluggish grooves, druggy lyrics, buzzing electronics, melodic stoned vocals, acid rock guitar (and acid WTF synth). Elsewhere it gets away from rock/metal song structure entirely, with interludes of eerie atmospherics, spacey soundscapes overlaid with ominous whispered declamations, and weirdass instrumentals, like the squirrelly, proggy bombast of "Chocolate Mescalyne", a track that if you sped it up a lot would almost fit in on a Orthrelm album.
And then there's the DOOM. Oh yeah, while it's not "normal" doom it IS doom. Sludgy, Sabbath-riffed doom indeed, despite the trebly production. "Ghost Lover", for instance, gives us the feel of both the Sabs' "Iron Man" and "Electric Funeral", and Duane's vocals are particularly Ozzy-ish on the uber-heavy "Evil Lures" too... Great stuff if you really really appreciate the stranger, more psychedelic aspects of true doom artistry, the spirit is HERE.
Three cheers for avant garde new wave downer rock hippie heavy metal weirdness! That gives special thanks "to the Columbia High School Band for the use of their percussion instruments". We are so pleased to play a role in sharing this culter than cult classic with you, which by the way comes in fairly no-frills packaging, the cd in a thin cardboard sleeve with full-color album art front and back but no lyrics, liner notes, nothin' like that. It's pretty cheap though. Not that you should need any further incentive to pick this up, after reading our ravings above...
Gotta give it up to the folks at Drag City, they're (weird) music lovers after our own hearts, all right. Not only did they reissue the eccentric 1986 outsider "doom" "metal" "masterpiece", Animals, by one-man-band Duane Warr aka Dwarr (an album that we at aQuarius had previously made a Record Of The Week, back when we were ordering an earlier, self-released cd version directly from Dwarr himself, we might add), they have now reissued that album's predecessor, 1984's privately pressed Starting Over - which, despite its title, was in fact Dwarr's debut. Thereby proving that they didn't just put out Animals for a lark! They're serious about their love for Dwarr, and really think people should hear his stuff - and people should, we agree. Maybe not all people, but certainly people who appreciate the finer things in, well, wacked out, downer DIY psychedelia, occasionally dosed with Eddie Van Halen style guitar shred. It's the '60s in the '80s, the dark sides of both decades distilled down to a unique, entertainingly demented essence. And not just entertaining, but truly affecting.
Now, we hope you already have Animals (go read our rave review of that right now, if you haven't!). If you do have it, we probably only need say you want this too. If you don't, well, while we would have to say Animals is the #1 best Dwarr, this one comes close, certainly possessing a similar vibe, and since it was the man's first album, there's no reason not to start with it if you wish to delve into the weird world of Dwarr. In fact, depending on your inclinations, this one might just be a bit more accessible, as it's not so overtly metallic, but perhaps even more sparse and psychedelic (if possible). Super slow but for the soloing. Black Sabbath is perhaps less of an influence on this one, than Pink Floyd... Or at least, rather than riff monsters like "Iron Man" and "Electric Funeral", this one takes its cues from the mellower, pot-wreathed Sabbath numbers like "Solitude" and "Planet Caravan". This is a gentler, folkier Dwarr, sort of. But definitely druggy and proggy (like Captain Beyond, circa Sufficiently Breathless), very odd and home-brewed, and certainly sometimes heavy too. Well, always "heavy", maaaann.
The songs are moody and melancholic, with hushed, woeful vocals. The production is lo-fi, of course, with tinny, trebly guitars indulging in widdly, effect-drenched soloing. Heck, there's a gnarly two-minute instrumental called "Christmas Shopping" that sounds like something Mick Barr might do, overdosed on cough syrup! Or anyone remember the '90s Mexican prog/psych band Humus? Probably not, but it totally could be them. And is that a genius song title or what? We also like "Lonely Ecstasy" as a title, that's another one here. Well, he's got a lot of interesting ideas, that Dwarr. And, as with Animals, this has an amazing piece of album cover artwork, to match the music in outsidery strangeness.
Along with Sabbath and Floyd, another "ordinary" comparison we could make would be to, maybe, solo Steve Hillage in the '70s. And Hendrix is a likely influence (Dwarr's vocals on "I've Been Thinking" kinda remind us of Jimi). Uli Jon Roth's solo stuff, too?? But given an even more eccentric, living-in-his-mother's-basement makeover. Then there's the pantheon of other outsiders we love, with whom Dwarr totally belongs... Michael Yonkers, Bobb Trimble, Todd Tamanend Clark, and more recently, and possibly more precisely too due to the doom metal element, Tony Tears.
Ok, enough said really. Either we've piqued your interest, or your life will stay sadly Dwarr-free. And again, if you're already a fan, you'll want this for sure!
Hmmm. Maybe 25 years from now Drag City will be reissuing Fastest albums too...
We don't always get everything that stoner rock specialists Small Stone put out, but the stuff that we do, is always really good. Case in point, this new disc from a trio we'd never heard of before, Dwellers. We're guessing there's some sort of Lovecraftian connotation to their name, though the ropy intestines / psychedelic tentacles in the portrait painting of the band on the cover are presumably referencing the album title too, but not in a gross way. Anyway, Dwellers are a heavy duty stoner metal band from Salt Lake City, with some grunge going on, the vocals in particular definitely giving it a bit of that old school Seattle vibe.
Actually, after getting this Dwellers in, and digging it, we realized that while we hadn't known who they were, we HAD reviewed, and really liked, an album by the singer/guitarist's previous band, Iota, also on Small Stone. These lines from our review of Iota's Tales pretty much also apply to Dwellers' debut: "A mixture of trippy Hawkwindiness and more aggressive blues based hard rockin', sorta like (early) Soundgarden or Skin Yard meets the heavier, more spaced out sounds of Sons Of Otis or UFOmammut. One reason we mention Soundgarden and Skin Yard is 'cause of the grungy melodic vocals, which bear a certain resemblance to that of those bands, but otherwise this is HEAVIER and SPACIER than any Seattle grunge for sure."
So, sweet. Dwellers definitely continue to a large degree in that Iota tradition, these six tracks being damn heavy, fuzzed-out, and graced with the gruff, drawling, grunge-worthy vox of Iota's Joey Toscano (the rhythm section here having their own pedigree, being from the band Subrosa). Maybe in comparison to Iota there's something a little bit earthier, and even bluesier, to these jams, which while they can get lengthy (up to ten minutes), don't orbit quite as far out in space as some of Iota's more extended, alien assaults. Instead, there's a greater focus on, say, Southern-fried slide guitar in service of Dwellers' gritty rockin'. There's slowburn builds ("Old Honey") and catchy groovers ("Lightening Ritual"), Good Morning Harakiri sometimes stompin', and sometimes spaced out, with lots of loping riffage and raspy holler. Maybe imagine a much more succinct Earthless, gone grunge? Dead Meadow channelling some Alice In Chains? CoC circa Blind, playing the blues?? Ah, we're not quite getting it right. But anyway, if you're into the stoner rock stuff and want a good dose (of something a bit different, but still familiar), give this a listen! Recommended.
By the way, we like how this album, despite being on cd, is obviously sequenced with a Side One / Side Two concept in mind, the tracklist on the back cover making this obvious with a gap between tracks 3 and 4.
Stellar 2nd album from Salt Lake City psychedelic stoners Dwellers - whom our Andee just got to see play live when they opened for A Minor Forest's tour stop in their town. He says they were GREAT, which we'd have expected since we liked their first album, and this one too. Compared to the debut, this new one seems a bit more mellowed out, at first anyway, but really it runs the gamut, from dusky balladry to heavy jams (often delivering both at the same time), getting especially epic on numbers like "Rare Eagle" and album-closer "Call Of The Hallowed Horn". Loping and bluesy, with a bit of a down home, Southern feel, this pure good heavy, hazy music from a trio that knows what they're doin', employing (besides guitars, bass and drums) such additional instruments as cello, organ, and Rhodes piano, along with "real" singing for sure... previously we'd mentioned how the vocals made us think of some good old Seattle grunge, now that comparison could resolve into a more specific Mark Lanegan reference. Recommended! FYI, vinyl version due in July.
First release on a new label, co-conspirators as it were with long time aQ faves Paradigms, whose roster, as most aQ peeps know by now is a truly esoteric collection of metal, psych and drone: Hjarnidaudi, Titan, Utlagr, Amber Asylum, The Angelic Process, Wraiths, Ondo, Gnaw Their Tongues. But as Paradigms seems to be moving away from the metal side of things, it makes perfect sense that they would team up with a label that specializes in "jet black cutting edge extreme metal esoterica".
And thus we have Eichenwald Industries, who in some strange way do compliment the wide ranging Paradigms catalog, and with two new releases, show a surprising amount of breadth themselves.�
Elsewhere on this list you'll find the epic occult psychedelic doom metal of The Wounded Kings, while this right here is the debut release from Dwellers Of The Twilight, a French duo who channel the hateful blackness of groups like Anaal Nathrakh and Carpathian Forest (the bands that the label references), but also plenty of super clinical heaviness a la countrymen Blut Aus Nord, as well as a bit of that classic Scandinavian sound, we hear a lot of 1349 in the mix actually, with the impossibly furious drumming (programmed not played) and lightning fast riffing. The production is super tight and polished, the sound is massive and heavy, the band shift effortlessly from blazing blasts of black, to lurching doomy grooves, to long blown out guitardrones, to crushing megadoom, the fast bits rife with fucked up mathy twists and turns, the slow parts peppered with dissonant chords and woozy Deathspell like arrangements, and while there are plenty of experimental flourishes, the trippy ambient guitar buzz of the record's closer, the awesome stretch of murky muted full band rocking closing out "Domus Mundi", the abstract guitar drone dirge of the title track, as a whole, this is less experimental, and more a fierce and furious head shearing super technical black metal blast from below. Way recommended, for fans of any of the above mentioned bands, and pretty much anyone into the classic sounds of both French and Norwegian style buzzing blackness.
Everyone's always trying to be more extreme, whether it's ass piercing, eye gouging or penis splitting, bungee surfing or rollerblading or in-line vert bio para-gravi-sailing. Nowhere is this more true than in the realm of heavy metal. Every band, in every interview and every article, claim to be the heaviest and most extreme. And for the most part, they never are. But Dying Fetus -- they actually stand a chance. And having recently witnessed them live, I have to say that so far they've got my vote. Super blazing fast, impossibly complicated and convoluted songs that somehow manage to be kind of catchy, as well as being maybe the tightest band I've heard in forever. And absolutely the most unbelievable drummer I have ever seen. So fast, I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it, and still managing to hit really hard! The record doesn't quite do them justice (the main problem being a snare drum that sounds sort of like 'doink', kind of losing some of its power) But other than that, this record is fucking awesome, super heavy and totally essential.
This record is pretty amazing, if just for the fact that it sounds so much like the one before it even though it's almost an entirely different band. Which does make sense I suppose, as remaining original member John Gallagher sings and plays guitars and basically writes all the songs. Still, it seems pretty impressive that you could assemble such a crack team of death metal technicians two times in a row! But here's the proof. Grinding, thrashing downtuned death metal, convoluted, churning serpentine rhythms, impossibly precise and perplexingly tight, this band just destroys all comers. The only complaint is the new drummer. Don't get me wrong, he is unbelievable, and definitely sends me back to the practice space head hung in shame, but he had the unenviable task of replacing original drummer Kevin Talley, who is without a doubt, one of, if not THE, best metal drummers I have ever seen, hard hitting, ultra complicated, but still swinging. But that's really a minor quibble, 'cause once you're immersed in this record, you won't have much time to think about anything but how hard your ass is being kicked.
The cool thing about metal bands is that you can usually tell a lot about them before you even throw on the record. Take The Dying Light. They're on Willowtip, home to Watchmaker, Necrophagist, Crowpath, Cephallic Carnage, Gorod and more. Their record was recorded in Death Metal USA: Tampa, Florida! Produced by Eric Rutan from Morbid Angel and Hate Eternal. So now we're thinking death metal, but with some grind elements maybe, technical but still dense and aggressive. Fast but appropriately chugging. Let's go a little further and check out the band photo, four guys, three with short hair, one with really long hair, some tattoos, even a few hand tattoos(!), but it's the t-shirts that tell the real story, one Morbid Angel, one Dimmu Borgir, and one Wetnurse, who as you might remember are a weird East coast tech-post-rock-detah-metal outfit. A quick listen, proves that we weren't all that far off, with The Dying Light you've got a serious downtuned slab of chugging, thrashing, blackened death metal grind, awesomely intricate, bizzare complex rhtyhms, with some amazingly fucked up drumming, howled almost BM vocals, and leads! Solos! Squiggly, melodic tangles of shred, that almost sound out of place, but do a lot to add to the songs as most bands like this forgo the guitar solo completely. But as always it's the riffs. Always the riffs, that drive this record, a series of thick, dense, heavy twisting and buzzing riffs that make your head spin. Someone else listening to this just said "those riffs are killer but those guys don't own any of 'em" which is fair maybe, you can hear lots of Carcass, the Accused, Necrophagist, Slayer, Morbid Angel and a good heaping of NWOSDM, but the Dying Light manage to infuse each song with just enough of their own ideas to keep it interesting. They're certainly not the weirdest or heaviest or the most extreme, but if you're in the mood for any of the above mentioned groups, or especially some weird mix of ALL of 'em, then this is well worth checking out.
If you're a fan of virtuoso instrumental math-rock madness, look no further... there are two new releases on Relapse for you to nerd, we mean rock, out to! One is the long awaited fifth album from scene grandaddies Don Caballero (without whom...) and the other is from the more whippershapperish Dysrhythmia.
We're totally enjoying the new Don Cab, 'though the world has caught up with 'em -- wise ass instrumental math-rock is all the rage (these guys should get royalty checks from Hella, Chevreuil, Orthrelm, Behold The Arctopus, et.al.), and so this new album, their first in six years, can't have the same impact as their records did back in the mid-'90s. But lone remaining original member drummer Damon Che still has crazy chops and his all-new lineup does the Don Cab brand name justice, getting a bit more metal in the process perhaps ('cause they're on metal label Relapse now?).
And then for those whose heads want even more scrambling, Dysrhythmia's new one is also recommended. Their complex compositions are played energetically and octopoidally, and are maybe a bit more metallic than the Don Cab, though they do dabble in proggy, atmospheric passages here and there. Indeed, while both World Class Listening Problem and Barriers and Passages have plenty of the technical herky-jerk, they are also strangely relaxing. Not just the relaxation of sheer exhaustion when it's all over -- both records give the listener some welcome chances to chill while they're still playing as well.
Really cool, instrumental post-rock / metal with lots of super complex playing and weird jazzy-ish bits. Definitely check it out if you're into Don Cab, Bozart, The (Fucking) Champs, etc.
It's been a while since we've heard from NY math/post/prog metallers Dysrhythmia, but we're happy to report that very little has changed in the years since 2009's Psychic Maps (which for some reason we never got around to reviewing). Right out of the gate it's a glorious blast of heavily textured, dense and complex, super melodic metallic mathiness. Probably the closest comparison would be the late great Don Caballero, but maybe with a healthy dose of Voivod / Vektor, and of course, Dysrhythmia infuse their math metal crunch with plenty of epic post rockisms, making for a sound that satisfies our yen for both dizzying tech-metal mayhem and moodily melodic epic post-metal majesty.
The songs are lengthy and serpentine, the band insanely dexterous, unfurling ultra intricate landscapes of crunch and grind, chug and soar, buzz and shimmer, occasionally exploding into some seriously headspinning, angular / atonal / tangly avant prog freakouts, but somehow always grounded in something much more actually songlike, which is what makes this stuff so good, and keeps it from ever getting at all boring, which is always a BIG risk with purely instrumental music. Thankfully, Test Of Submission offers no time to be bored, heck, there's hardly even time to catch your breath, between songs, or even between parts, gloriously and relentlessly dense and busy and brutal, crazy catchy and super melodic, and really fucking great.
Here's a split release we couldn't have anticipated, but certainly are enjoying: a pairing of NY math-metallers Dysrhythmia and sleepy British soundscapers Rothko (longtime faves of ours). Really it's not so strange, both bands are instrumental and fall into the "post rock" category thereby. Quite a contrast though, how they go about things. On Dysrhythmia's half, they offer up "Earthquake", a quarter-hour EPIC of soft-loud dynamic math rock, that percolates through wound-up metallic frenzies and moody stretches of heavy-duty ambience both. Pretty amazing. Imagine a mix of Isis and Crom-tech, or Don Cab playing Mogwai. Then Rothko lets you catch your breath and relax with their two rather more ambient-sounding tracks, adding much more low-end hum and drone to the proceedings... beautiful stuff. An unexpected split this, but satisfying start to finish, showcasing both the technical and the textural (Dysrhythmia more the former, Rothko very much the latter). FYI, Dysrhythmia's song is a reworking of one from an early, self-released album of theirs (before they signed to Relapse).
It's all about tapes now. Underground noise, black metal, the real raw shit, the weird underground stuff, it all seems to be finding its way to us mostly on super limited cassette tapes. Apparently tapes are the new tool of the underground. The new OLD tool of the underground. Way more true and grim and cooooool. CD-r's are so 2005. Sheesh.
Anyway, we got a whole mess of amazing and demented and brilliantly fucked up black metal recently, so we'll be trying to get them reviewed cuz you all you AQ weird metal fanatics will not want to miss out on any of these.
Dyster is a French one man band, dark depressive and suicidal (the band logo even incorporates a razor blade) who buzzes and blasts with the best of them, and is very reminiscent of French black metal legends Mutiilation. Mostly midtempo, with loud drums and buzzing insectoid riffing. Thick and furious, with killer harsh howled vocals that sometimes become hellish hysterical shrieks. Strange arrangements with most songs veering wildly from frantic blasts to stretches of slow motion doom with haunting arpeggiated guitars to pounding old school black buzz.
Not sure what it is, but we have been listening to this over and over since we first got it. Very recommended.
SUPER LIMITED. Each tape hand numbered.
One of two amazing new records released by recently discovered (by us at least) Pest Productions, a record label in China specializing in mysterious outsider black metal of all stripes, from black depressive black buzz, to blown out shimmery shoegaze black metal drift. The other, reviewed elsewhere on this list is a bizarre bit of depressive blackness by a Chinese one man band called Heartless, this though comes all the way from Iceland, another one man band, but this one not so depressive as dark and moody. Beginning with a haunting and very cinematic bit of piano driven ambience, the record soon lumbers into the 10+ minute "Mirthless", a buzz drenched bit of midtempo blackness, the distortion super crunchy and thick, the main bit of riffage, laced with shimmery bits of crystalline melody, the vocals a harsh hellish shriek, the riffing occasionally stuttering into spurts of clipped chug, before slipping right back into the woozy buzz. Over the course of the track, the song veers from melancholy folky shuffle, complete with strange sound effects and clean minor key guitar melodies, to churning doomy plod, to creepy chanted vocal ambience. "Rotten And Diminished" begins with some stately strings, moaning cellos, orchestral percussion, and even after the black metal kicks in, the strings remain, underpinning the blast and buzz with some epic pomp, a strange black metal classical hybrid, with the track again constantly switching gears, one of the coolest parts is when one guitar unfurls a staccato chug, the other a sheet of distant high end shimmer, over which the vokills, gurgle and grumble, before the track finishes off with acoustic guitar, reverbed piano, and some creepy monstrous backwards growls.
The rest of the record continues in a similar vein, taking the melodic blackness of groups like Lifelover, Shining, Forgotten Tomb and the like, and twisting it up a bit, adding plenty of strange interludes, folky and drifty, classical and cinematic, but it's the songs themselves, the unique riffing, the melodies and arrangements, that make this stuff stand out. In fact, that guitars constantly do weird little things that are a bit hard to explain, but mid riff, they'll modulate, or transform into a little melodic trill before slipping right back into the riff, or slow down into a sort of slowcore drift, or suddenly sound double tracked, super dense and extra loud, and the way those odd guitarings are woven into blasts of black buzz, and washed out stretches of doomic plod and creepy expanses of blackened ambience, is exactly why Dysthymia's The Shivering Opus sounds so awesome. And why we can't recommend it enough...
Hey all right!! We hadn't heard much from these local, long haired, lost-in-time rockers for far too long, 'cause their singing drummer moved away for a while, but is back in town, and now they have a new album out, however only released on limited edition vinyl, a European import (which by the way comes with a cd-r burn of the album as well). We just got some of the last few copies there are direct from the band. If we weren't already familiar with 'em, and didn't deal with these guys in person, though, we'd coulda been fooled into thinking it was a reissue of something from the early '70s proto-metal era, or ever earlier, as they so convincingly channel the likes of Sir Lord Baltimore, Blue Cheer, Highway Robbery, Speed Glue & Shinki, James Gang, Dust, and other inspirations of that ilk in their badass heavy psych groove, totally authentic circa 1969-'72 sounding (well, except that we think we hear 'em head 'em make an anachronistic reference to Beyonce in the lyrics to "Nasty Girl"). And amidst the lumbering riff-rock, they also get into what's simply fuzzed-up '60s garage, Nuggets style, so bands like The Seeds are probably big influences too. Plus, most of the lyrics pertain to girl trouble, a traditional, very garagey subject.
So if you're into heavy fuzz rockin', this is quite recommended. Furthermore, we were delighted to discover that side one contains a Rodriguez cover!! They do "Only Good For Conversation", the fuzziest one from the Detroit Dylan's cult classic 1970 debut Cold Fact, a track we described in our review of the Cold Fact reissue as a "stone(d) cold classic when it comes to heavy duty fuzz guitar crunch" so it's a natural for the Dzjenghis Khan boys. Very cool. Also very cool is that side two starts off with a recording of Dzjenghis Khan's best song ever, or at least our favorite, called "God Damn", we remember it from probably the first time we ever saw 'em play, always a show stopper, encapsulating everything rad about this band.
By the way, we still have a couple (literally, two) copies of their self-titled cd debut from a few years back, on the the now defunct Japanese stoner metal label Leaf Hound, otherwise totally out of print.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The European label Who Can You Trust? brings us two new tapes in their series of limited live cassette-only releases by some of our favorite heavy/psych bands, that began with their instantly-out-of-print White Hills live at WFMU tape last year. One from Massachusetts doompunk stuporgroop Witch (featuring J Mascis on drums), and one from SF's own retro-proto-metal power trio Dzjenghis Khan, basically the second coming of Blue Cheer, y'know...
Prehistoric Rock - Live In San Francisco is as advertised. The Dzjenghis Khan boys recorded live at the Elbo Room, a few blocks down Valencia Street from aQ, in 2006. And this is a band that's AWESOME live, it's what they're all about. We know, that's why we had 'em play our 40 anniversary party the year before last. They bring it, and amid the 8 tracks on this tape not only do their signature song "God Damn!" (which gives their singing drummer some) but also a cover of the classic "Green Manalishi" by Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac (a tune that's also been covered by Judas Priest, and the Melvins). Their acid rock here is raw and rollicking, as it should be.
Djenghis Khan are the real deal, they should be huge (and woulda been, say back in '71) but at least a few cool folks know what's what, and we wish they had more stuff we could push on you. But everything they've put out so far has been limited and is out of print. So, while they last, we're glad we have this tape and you will be too if you're quick enough to snag one, assuming you dig long haired, heavy riffing, cowbell knocking, bellbottomed, weed smoking good times.
Orange cassette, super limited (150 copies only!), and we only have a few...
This San Fran retro-rockin' power trio, a deliberate throwback to the proto-metal stylings of the Frisco ballroom daze's bad boys Blue Cheer, at last presents their debut album, a split release from Japanese label Leaf Hound and Dutch label Motorwolf, (both) home to likeminded heavies Orange Sunshine. We've been waiting for an album from this band for a while, having gone to see 'em play every chance we got, going on a few years now. We forget how we first discovered 'em, they were opening for somebody else at a sparsely attended show at the Hemlock, and we were like, Pentagram T-shirt, shaggy hair, vintage gear? Hmm, wonder if these guys will be good... oh yeah!
What other current SF band sounds so Blue Cheer? That'd be Parchman Farm... whose bass player extraordinaire, "Binksebus Eruptum", happens to hold down (and shimmy 'round and 'round) the bottom end in this band too. Live, his showmanship is part of the attraction, but the band's true charisma belongs to singing drummer Tommy Tomson, whose aw shucks, "God Damn", stoner authenticity talks the talk and walks the walk. Just like the rest of the band, who very definitely look the part. None of these kids were probably even born in 1971, but they sure seem like that's when they come from. It's not just Blue Cheer that inspires 'em, they're fully versed in vintage vinyl proto-metal from Highway Robbery to Road, Juan De La Cruz to Toad. Putting all that love of early '70s hard psych into this album, they've come up with a worthy ten tracks of fuzzed-out, blooze-based, badass guitar/bass/drums swagger, with raspy whisky vox, simple bashing beats, wah wah guitar rippage, and bellbottomed bass lines. It's a fairly raw recording, giving it a bit of a punk feel, reflective of their youthful energy and enthusiasm, not unlike seeing 'em live. The rather lo-fi, garagey production also makes it sound extra olden and all, as does the folky acoustic coda "Sister Dorien". Sure, you're not gonna feel like nobody's ever made this sort of music before, in fact the opposite is quite the point, but if you like proto-metal like we (and they) do, you gotta appreciate the purity of this band's approach, their knowing naivety. It's not just pot, these stoners are totally high on the Speed, the Glue, -and- the Shinki! Right on we say.
By the way, they wuz formerly known as Genghis Khan, the "Dzj" now tacked on at the beginning presumably both to try to differentiate 'em from what's probably about 10,000 other bands also named after the Mongol warlord, and also to reflect the lineup changes that have occurred since their inception (the drummer being the sole surviving member from the first time we ever saw 'em, which is fine 'cause he was clearly the star, though their original guitarist was responsible for writing some cool riffs it must be said).
When Andee and Allan were in Austin last spring for SXSW, they stumbled into a record store (the very cool End Of An Ear) only to be unexpectedly pummelled by two scruffy dudes set up in the corner, guitar and drums, kicking up a head splitting ear shredding low end racket, that was so powerful it almost made record shopping impossible, but then who wants to record shop when you can immerse yourself in an avalanche of sound so thick and viscous that it was almost a physical presence in the room? The guy with the axe seemed familiar too, and it wasn't until afterwards that we realized it was Gentry Densley of Iceburn fame, and we had just witnessed a live performance by his new duo project, Eagle Twin!
So, here we have the full length, and it's just as dark, and heavy and sprawling as it was live, not nearly as terrifying or ear drum destroying but records rarely are. What it is, though, is HEAVY AS FUCK, downtuned and massive, if we didn't know Densley was guitar player we would have almost assumed this was another one of those rhythm section only bands (a la Om).
Not sure if we're hearing too much Iceburn in Eagle Twin, it's definitely twisted and proggy, with lurching abstract arrangements, so in that it's similar, but this is more of the new slow n' low school, a la SUNNO))), Earth, Corrupted, Moss, Bunkur, etc.
The album begins by confusing the hell out of you. Opener "In The Beginning Was The Scream" sounds like some strange doom/free jazz hybrid, or maybe like a metal version of the Stooges song "LA Blues". You might notice that the vocals flow with a similar eccentricity to someone like Attila Csihar, but more than likely, you'll be blown away by what you soon realize is Tuvan throat singing and tons of gong-laden percussion. This is some weird and intense stuff for sure, and there is a peculiar aggressiveness to the instrumentation that many doom bands unintentionally eschew by trying to be slower than everyone else. Eagle Twin understand the power of built up tension and negative space, while never neglecting to utilize a heavy groove when necessary. The subsonic distortion and raspy spoken vocals on songs like "Storytelling Of Ravens" stir up plenty of blackened negative vibes for sure, but elsewhere, like on "Crow Hymns", Eagle Twin actually rock out pretty hard with boatloads of fuzzed out harmonic distortion and some awesome tom-heavy drumming. Densley's raspy voice, which at times carries a bit of a country drawl, works perfectly on "Carry On, King Of Carrion", which blends the sounds of both early and modern day Earth with doomed out Southern rock riffage.
The vocals sort of sound like dude in Scissorfight (if anyone gives a shit), or even like Wino, the songs are surprisingly catchy at times, Southern rock sounding even here and there, but then there's also all kinds of weird exotic shit and definitely some themes that show an Eastern influence, and some incredible riffing, as Densley is a fucking shredder, and even in downtuned minimal mode, he SLAYS. This is definitely about the heaviest record you may here all year, and totally puts to shame pretty much every other heavy duo we can think of, except maybe early godheadSilo...
BACK IN STOCK AGAIN!!! This all time AQ fave and former record of the week continues to be super difficult to restock for some reason. But it's again, so don't miss out!! And there's a new Earl Shilton expected in the next little while so be prepared! Here's what we had to say about Earl Shilton when it was Record of the Week a long time back:
We somehow knew this was an Aquarius Record of the Week the minute we first laid eyes on it. Well, okay, maybe that's not entirely true. But it had the potential, that much we knew for sure, just from the cover: a huge double bass drumkit, set up in the middle of the forest with the name 'Earl' scrawled on one of the bass drums. A very evocative image, combining our love of heavy rock (the kit), with my personal thing for drums (the kit again) and our love of all things forest-y: nature sounds, field recordings, animal sounds and all that. My mind was reeling. Was it a drummer just playing solos out in the woods? Was it some sort of Jewelled Antler style rock band / field recording hybrid? Or something else entirely? Stranger yet, the song titles were all in German while the label was British. Intriguing. Better give it a listen... Well, the first track revealed very little. A weird minimal rhythmic workout composed entirely of backwards drums and cymbals. Thhwwp....thhhwwwwip...sssssssp.... Very cool, but was that the gist of it? After a minute or so of that, the record exploded into something entirely unexpected -- a crushing metal riff, with weird syncopated drumming, a sort of chunky Pantera / Prong meets the Fucking Champs vibe, with whispered vocals. Then it shifted gears again and entered into a super melodic Carcass-style death metal breakdown with howled black metal vocals before it shifted back to the machine-like opening riff. And then I knew for sure. Record of the Week!
Only later, with some Internet research, did we figure out what the heck was going on. The dedication on the inside to UK death metal crusties Bolt Thrower should have been our first clue, as it turns out that Earl Shilton is a pseudonym for Alex Thomas, former drummer for those very same metalheads. For some unknown reason, Earl Shilton is the name he has assumed for this project "of crushing death metal brutality and total corpse raping necro-blast carnage" as his website puts it. Indeed!
Furthermore, that website tells us that on tour, the band features a quite young, brother and sister rhythm section! Live, Earl steps from behind the kit to handle the guitars and vocals, while the brother plays bass, and the 16 year old sister mans the drums!!! Fuck yeah! This is getting more Record of the Week by the minute, we're thinking! And the music is well worthy too, lest we forget -- Two Rooms (Full Of Insects) is a blasting, hyper complex, super varied blast of metallic mayhem. From motorik, ultra-precise technical riffery, to stop/start math-metal complexity, from grooving, galloping death metal fury, to screeching blasting black metal, from eighties Earache style thrash to modern metallic fury, with all sorts of tripped out breakdowns, fucked up production and some really really weird parts, like the breakdown a little more than halfway through the album where everything drops out except for a simple, quietly played hypnotic tom tom rhythm, joined by backwards, super creepy Orcish vocals, and the hissing backwards drumming that started the record, before the whole thing bursts back into motion, in an explosion of grandioise Maiden-ish metal. Whew, so good. And while it may not be the best (or truest) metal record on this list, it certainly is the weirdest. And the coolest. And certainly the one most suited to being Record of the Week!
Didn't last too long on Matador, but never fear, these headbanging heshers and their retroish riffage are soldiering on now for much more metal label The End. The four songs on this new ep are all fairly fast and furious, Early Man incorporating even more of a thrash aspect into their sound, which is no surprise since a) they already sounded a lot like early Metallica and b) thrash is back...
Their singer still has his Ozzyish moments (especially on the final cut "Suck Me Dry") but it's Metallica that's most in evidence in their music. We're also reminded of Defleshed (if they had guitar leads) and, especially with regard to the high pitched screams Early Man's singer pulls off on the title track, another band of "indie-metallers", Deadchild.
So, grab this and hear Early Man kill 'em all on the best ep we've heard lately to so convincingly warn of the danger of shark attack!!
These guys hit us last year with a three-song ace to the face taster of their very VERY heavy metal music, and we've been waiting to get hurt with more ever since. Now is the time. That utterly ass-kicking demo (released as a cdep on Monitor) led to this NYC based duo getting signed to Matador, who have just released their debut full-length album. It's already in our mental list of top ten metal discs of the year and we recommend these eleven songs (including one, "Death Is The Answer", reprised from that ep) to everybody and everybody with a headbanging bone in their body. But of course, the fact that these guys, despite totally looking the part of long-haired heshers (and, more importantly, sounding like it), are on an indie rock label and used to have indie scene notable Dave Pajo (Slint/Tortoise/Aerial M) holding down the bass position, might cause some metal purists to question their cred. Not to mention that this disc was produced by Matt Sweeney (of Chavez and more recently Superwolf with Will Oldham fame) and he threw some of his own six string action on there. But whatever. Suspect poserdom all you want, but the fact remains, this band rules. These songs are just so darn heavy and aggressive and catchy, with real vocals, sing-along refrains, and plenty of energetic, killer riffs. Can't argue with the riffs. Simply classic stuff.
Our pal Josh holds that music is never really "about" anything, other than music itself, referencing and commenting upon prior musical forms and examples (he should know, having been the guitarist for The Fucking Champs, who've always been very upfront about admitting and celebrating the influences they synthesized into their own distinctive sound). This notion certainly seems to apply to the music of Early Man, big time. And perhaps it could act as a defense against those who will accuse Early Man of sounding too much like certain other bands. Which it can't be denied that they do -- Early Man makes it easy to spot their influences, as was already made plain by that ep release last year. You'd have to be deaf, or I guess really old, not to hear the Metallica and the Black Sabbath in there. But hey, what's wrong with that? Metallica's NWOBHM influences (a la "Am I Evil") have also trickled down to Early Man for sure. So, if you dig the Sabs and the 'tallicatz and the NWOBHM (don't you??), you should definitely give Early Man a listen. Likewise if you're into such current bands as Wolf, High On Fire, The Champs, and Sheavy who keep the '70s and '80s metal spirit alive. Packaged in a digipak, with a nice stencil included so you can more easily spraypaint Early Man graffitti all over your neighborhood.
We've been fans of Early Man since their early days, we used to get their self-released 3-song demo cd from Matador of all places, who then put out their debut full-length in 2005. Yeah, they played metal for PBR-swillin' Brooklyn indie scenesters, and got a lot of attention 'cause Dave Pajo of Slint was in the band for a while, but that had nothing to do with why we liked 'em (though, we do like Dave Pajo and Slint). Heck, even if Dave Matthews was in the band, it wouldn't have made any difference. It had more to do with us, and them, liking Black Sabbath, Diamond Head, and Metallica a hell of a lot. Over the years they've gone from hipster metal (that rules) to retro-thrash (that also rules). Their 2008 ep Beware The Circling Fin was the thrash-tastic teaser for this new album, their 2nd full-length, finally here and causing many heads to bang. Frantic battery, chugging guitars, squealing leads, it's 1989 all over again. It's on The End label but we can't help but expect to find a Megaforce logo on this slab of speedy, heavy, ripping rifferama. The clearly sung vocals sometimes sneer like Mustaine, sometimes do the tough guy croon like Hetfield. Also in the vocalist's arsenal are a wailing power metal shriek, a stoned monotonous chant, and a rapidfire hardcore patter.
For a second we thought track five was a cover, but no, wait, it's not, it's a new version of Early Man's own "Fight", a killer track originally from that 3-song ep that started it all. Definitely one that lead to Metallica comparisons, though elsewhere on this disc we're hearing the influence of Anthrax, Overkill, Slayer, and Nuclear Assault as well. They also re-do "The Undertaker Is Calling Me", another of the songs from that self-released 3-song ep (the remaining track from that disc, "Death Is The Answer To My Prayers", they had already re-recorded for their Matador debut). Also "Unseen Tormentor" is a version of "Tormentor Of The Unseen" from their more recent split 7" with Rammer in the Relapse "Speed n' Spikes" series. The album is 12 tracks long, though, so you get plenty of brand new material too! Produced by grunge guru Jack Endino, who has been twiddling the knobs on a lot of metal releases lately (3 Inches Of Blood, Skeletonwitch), this is recommended to all the heshers out there, hipster or otherwise.
We listed this hip NYC metal band's three-song, self-released demo cd a few months ago, now here it is again as an "offical" release on Monitor Records, with the exact same three songs but better packaging (i.e. in a jewel case with cover art!). Seems like Early Man are doin' pretty good -- they also just got signed to Matador (!) with a full-length debut coming up soon! So, what's the fuss all about? Refresh yr memory with our prior review of these tracks:
It seems like everybody likes metal nowadays. Somehow it got to be hip and cool again. Who should we blame -- Stoner rock? The Fucking Champs? Black metal? 30-something dudes getting nostalgic? The Osbournes? The Metallica Drummer? Dave Grohl? Aquarius Records? (naw) Or maybe the fact that metal can be damn good music?!? So now that indie rockers aren't afraid of metal anymore, the world is ready for a band like NYC's Early Man, a trio which currently includes none other than David Pajo of Slint/Aerial M/Tortoise fame on bass (though we're not entirely sure if he's on this recording, as the solid core of the band is the guitarist and drummer, with bassists coming and going). Dave Pajo or no, though, Early Man should be of interest anyway for their metallic mastery. There's three songs here on this 17-minute ep release. First track, the shortest and punchiest (appropriately since it's called "Fight!"), rips along like vintage Metallica, with the singer doing semi-Hetfield vox with suitably dumb but cool lyrics. But on the next two tracks, he sounds a lot more like Ozzy which makes sense as these are Sabbath styled epics (circa Sabotage, "Symptom Of The Universe" -- actually on the third song dude is actually pretty much singing the vocal line from "Symptom..."). And there's healthy doses of the NWOBHM here too. Yup it's retro and derivative sometimes but that's OK, so too fer instance were Sleep (which some of this surely reminds us of), and besides a killer riff's a killer riff and you can't argue with sheer metal might can you? There's no extraneous soloing just riffs riffs riffs. Wait, no soloing? Maybe they are ironic poseurs. I just hope they're for real. Their website (nicely done) definitely has a bit of hipster 'tude...but in the live photos of them, they look metal even if the audience doesn't. For fans of High On Fire, The Fucking Champs, and of course all ye goode olden metal. We want to hear more!
Neo-thrash attack! Two of our faves among new breed of, uh, hipster-approved metal acts, Early Man (with a cut called "Tormentor Of The Unseen") and Toronto's even heavier Rammer (doing two tracks, "Street Trash" and "A New Imperium"). Vicious stuff, seven thrashing inches to spin again and again as you pound cans of PBR and hook the devil horn hand gesture skywards. Seriously.
On see-thru orange vinyl. Limited to 1000 copies.
We obviously don't need to say much to convince all the Earth / Sunn 0))) / doom-dirge-drone obsessives out there that this disc is ESSENTIAL. Most of them are willing to shell out $50 or $100 or even more for limited vinyl releases by any band even tangentially related to Sunn 0))) or Earth, anyway. But for those of you who are new to the Earth phenomenon, as long as you already own their ALL TIME CLASSIC album Earth 2, you might also want to check this disc out (and the OTHER, NEW Earth cd reviewed elsewhere on this list!). 070796LIVE collects the WAY out of print, one sided live lp from a few years back, the equally WAY out of print tour only split 12" with KK Null, an unreleased live recording on WNYU, and a remix by James Plotkin (O.L.D. / Khanate / Phantomsmasher, etc.) In terms of eBay value alone this disc is worth at least $100 if not more!!! But so what? More importantly it's another essential slab of crushing, mesmerising, slow motion drone-metal! The first two tracks are "070796" (from the live lp) and the live radio recording "Dissolution III (Oversaturated Intervallic Collisions)". These tracks are classic Earth, stumbling, droning, rambling, and endlessly heavy. The funny thing with Earth though, is sometimes they sound like they must be taking the piss. A couple scraggly haired dudes, wacked out of their minds, tuning and fumbling for twenty minutes, sometimes sitting there in a stupor, letting the feeding-back guitar do all the work, sometimes plucking and scraping and manipulating the sound into rumbling sheets of drone and skree. But sometimes, that fumbling becomes absolutely divine, which is, we suppose, the magic of Earth. The ultimate outsider drone outfit. Who somehow manage, with the same amps and guitars and effects as the rest of us, to simply stumble into dronerock nirvana! The third track, from the KK Null split tour 12", features the current incarnation of Earth with Adrienne Davies on drums. Bookended by that classic stationary Earth feedback-drone, this track eventually morphs into an actual song, with a fuzzed out, minor key riff, and simple hypnotic drumming, falling sonically somewhere between moody post rock and midtempo Burzumic black metal. Throbbing and loping, and totally mesmerizing. The last track, the Plotkin remix, takes the live track and stretches it into thick ropy drones, with the original track's constituent parts blurred into indistinct smears of fuzz and rumble, a slowly shifting glacial crush, with occasional squalls of buzzy white noise and electronic filligree. Really really nice. And of course as we now know, the rumour we had been hearing, about a BRAND NEW Earth record has proven to be the truth, with the release of Living In The Gleam Of An Unsheathed Sword (read all about it elsewhere on this list), which IS a new record, but features live tracks recorded in 2002. And while one of the tracks here is inexplicably duplicated on the new cd, both discs are well worth the price, with 070796LIVE including three tracks essentially unavailable anywhere else, and Living In The Gleam containing an epic one hour track only available on that cd.
THIS LP IS COMPLETELY OUT OF PRINT AND WE WILL NEVER HAVE IT AGAIN BUT WE THOUGHT WE'D LEAVE IT IN THE CATALOG FOR POSTERITY'S SAKE. PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is the shit. Earth were the masters of the downtuned slow motion dirge, boasting both Joe Preston of the Thrones and Kurt Cobain as one time members. Their second record, 'Earth 2' (which we also carry) is an absolute classic and essential for lovers of doom, metal, sludge, or any sort of heaviness.
This lp collects an alternate version of their first album as well as the two ultra rare '16 rpm' 7"s. It is clear vinyl, housed in a breathtaking hand screened clear sleeve, and limited to 360, of which we only got 20. So don't dawdle or you'll be kicking yourself later.
Crushing and glacial tar pit metal. Like your Melvins records at 6 rpm. Like listening to Black Sabbath on a walkman with dying batteries at the bottom of a swimming pool. Like the last 10 seconds of your life, played out in slow motion, as tons of 'rock' crushes you to death.
You must buy this.
Totally fucking essential if you already like Earth, but definitely for fans of the Melvins, Corrupted, Esoteric, Skepticism and the like.
(For some reason we never listed this before, so rather than just adding it quietly to the website we thought we'd put it on our email, timely since we're also listing the reissue of Earth's "Sunn Amps..." cd.)
Earth. The band that launched a thousand drones. The band that started it all. The heaviest band ever (maybe). Earth was the singular vision of only-permanent-member Dylan Carlson, the long haired guy pictured on the back cover wearing the Morbid Angel longsleeve (whom you might remember from the Kurt & Courtney movie). For 1993's Earth 2, Dylan's guitar was joined by the bass of Dave Harwell, who is pictured holding a cup of coffee on the back cover (and who would go on to disappear completely).
All you kids who thrive on an unhealthy diet of the Corrupted, Boris (who even borrowed the Earth 2 tagline "Special Low Frequency Version" for the Southern Lord version of their "Absolutego" album), the Melvins, Thrones, and sludge like that, as well as you avant-art rockers who enjoy 'dronology' and stuff like Mirror and Jonathan Coleclough and even those of you who sit at home in front of your dream machines and wallow in the historical drones of Angus Maclise and Tony Conrad, need look no further than Earth 2 to experience the drone the way it was meant to be heard: huge downtuned guitars playing riffs so slow that each one lasts forever, LOW END that slides and lurches like a blackened glacier of fuzz and hiss, slow motion notes stretched so far that they become a single note washing over you like a sticky wave of tar and molasses, melodies that are indistinguishable because the notes are pulled so far apart they threaten to come apart completely. When we tell someone that a record is heavy, Earth 2 is the barometer by which all other supposedly 'heavy' music is measured. Even recent AQ faves Sunn 0))) are an Earth tribute band (they will even say as much) named for Earth's amp of choice. There are very few records that are 'classics', that stand the test of time, that remain as vital now, as when they originally came out, ten, twenty, or even thirty years earlier, that have influenced so many bands so much, or that have been unequalled, even with so many people trying so hard to be the heaviest or most extreme. The drug addled, accidental brilliance that is Earth 2, to this day remains a complete and utter classic.
We made this a Record Of The Week on our special Halloween in-between list last week, here it is again in case you were out trick-or-treating and missed it:
Man, were we ever bummed when Sub Pop told us that Earth's first album (or ep?), their seminal doom-drone debut Extra-Capsular Extraction, had gone out of print (again). WTF? How could that be? That's so wrong. Well, thankfully, it hasn't stayed OOP for long. Southern Lord has just repackaged, remastered, and reissued it, incorporating a whole bunch MORE music recorded at the original Extra-Capsular sessions back in 1990, material that previously appeared only on bootleg 7"s long ago (and/or showed up as bonus tracks on the also-quite-out-of-print Sunn Amps And Smashed Guitars Live disc). So what you get here is the COMPLETE Extra-Capsular album as Earth mainman Dylan Carlson originally intended it. So if you don't have the Sunn Amps disc, this is totally worth getting again even if you already have the Sub Pop version! Plus, the packaging is aces, with gorgeous new art by Simon Fowler, designed by Stephen O'Malley, and there's new 2010 liner notes from Carlson. He talks about how they got signed by Sub Pop after opening for L7 at a show in Seattle, fortuitously 'cause they had been having no luck up 'til then finding a label interested in putting out the record they'd recorded, this one. Apparently it cost just $300 to make at Smegma studios, and the "guest musicians worked for Pabst and Percodan"... Earth back then consisted of Dylan Carlson (guitar/vocals), plus Dave Harwell (bass) and Joe Preston (bass/percussion). Joe of course later went on to fame and fortune in the Melvins, and later, his one man band Thrones (and High On Fire, and Harvey Milk, etc.). Oh, and this is the Earth record that one Kurt Cobain (spelt "Kobain" here), sings on as well, which we know confused and dismayed a lot of frat/jock guys back in the day, who bought this hoping for something that smelled like teen spirit and instead got what turned out to be the inspiration for SUNNO)))!
So, here's what we said about this when we reviewed the prior version, back on list #135 in 2002, when Sub Pop repressed it (at our urging, we like to think):
Kind of a holy grail for those who didn't pick up the long-out-of-print original version of this when it was first released, the 1991 debut cd by the Pacific Northwest's late great drone/doom masters Earth. Originals sell for big $$$ on eBay. And those who DO have one consider it an old friend. Now Sub Pop has finally got their act together (prodded by the pleas of many an Earth fan, including Allan here at AQ, who takes full credit, so you can thank him) and have reissued it at last - this time in a jewel case instead of the mere cardboard sleeve of the original version (another triumph for Allan). The artwork is the same, though: the medical-text inspired 'Postgraduate Seminars: Eye Surgery - Concepts and Problems' graphics. There's no extra tracks or anything, but the original three tracks ("A Bureaucratic Desire For Revenge Parts 1 & 2", "Ouroboros Is Broken") are more than enough: 32 minutes of downtuned dirge, metallic slow-motion sludge riffery that goes to extremes of low, slow heaviness that even the mighty Melvins never achieved. The lengthier, airier follow-up "Earth 2" might be Earth's masterpiece, but "Extra-Capsular" was their devastating opening act, sounding like the grand, ominous martial music meant to accompany an invasion by malevolent Underearth Dwellers. We remember when I first got this, most of our friends thought it was the most retarded record ever. Now they know better. Well, actually, they probably don't, but WE know. So recommended. Also "Geometry Of Murder" seems to sneak in a Saint Vitus riff!
So NOW thanks to Southern Lord, this album by the still great (and no longer late!) Earth is back in print, as God and/or Satan intended, in its complete version for the first time, extended to seven tracks over 55 minutes. The extra stuff fits right in, more-Melvinsy-than-thou slow-mo sludge riffery that outshines almost anything that came after.
An obvious Record Of The Week, and perfect for our special Halloween list, as it's super heavy and menacing, as well as such a long-time fave - and also the eye-surgery theme of the cover art always gave us the chills.
And FYI, Southern Lord will also being doing this on double vinyl, due out November the 22nd!
The further Earth evolves, the harder it is to believe they were once THEE progenitors of the doomdronedirgesludge sound that's so prevalent these days. They began life as a sludgey, druggy, slo-mo avant riff behemoth, no one could have imagined they would have turned into this, a dusty, twangy, deserty, moody minimal slowcore combo, with a sound that has essentially evolved into a score to some stark, spare, imaginary black and white independent film, more soundtrack, imagined or not, than proper rock band, let alone, METAL band, which is how they have been traditionally categorized. But Angels Of Darkness, like the last few Earth records before it, is most definitely not metal, not even heavy really, at least in the traditional sense, this one even in the NON traditional senses, instead, it's again dark and brooding, evocative and emotional, cinematic and soundtracky, the core sound has again been expanded to include strings, which only adds to the whole moody minimal soundtrack vibe. But hell, it still suits them, we now have enough other bands doing the whole slow and low dirge and drone thing, and if anything, Angels Of Darkness might be Earth's most full realized stab and capturing their 'new' sound. No pretenses, no strings attaching them to the old Earth, very few allusions, sonic or otherwise, to the ghost of doom past, they're even more secure on the new path they set out on years ago, and it shows, each of the long tracks here unwinds gradually, a slow, swirling smoldering bit of twang flecked slowcore, a little bit droney, the guitars spidery and crystalline, the bass and drums super minimal, the cello doing much of the heavy lifting this time around, its deep throaty buzz, the perfect compliment to the band's sun baked shimmer, and bleak drowsy moodiness. Not a huge shift in sound, but then nobody wanted that, we just wanted more, more slithery, sun dappled darkness, more summery shadowy twang, and that's what Angels Of Darkness is, more just a honing and perfecting of a sound that's already pretty perfect, and exactly what you'd want to be playing in the background as you wandered down the dusty street of some old ghost town, and a perfect fit alongside the rest of your 'Ghost Town' mix alongside Scenic, Tulsa Drone, Barn Owl, Calexico, Sixteen Horsepower, and the rest.
It's remarkable when a band is so influential, they essentially create a new genre, and in the process, inspire a legion of sound alikes and wanna-be's, but for a band to do that TWICE in their career, and each time with a distinctly and dramatically different sound, that's practically unheard of. But that's exactly what happened with slow Seattle heavies Earth, who these days are more slow than heavy, but back in the day, they pretty much invented the slo-mo tarpit sludge that so many bands continue to ape to this day, probably most notably, SUNNO))), who even began life as an Earth tribute band. But as has been well documented here, after Earth disappeared for a while, they suddenly resurfaced with a whole new sound, a sort of dusky twang, a deserty slowcore, that seems to have once again created its own cult of sonic supplicants. Few of which can hold a candle to the originals.
This is essentially, as the title would suggest, the second part of the band's Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light duology, so really most of what we wrote about the first part applies here too, and needless to say, if you got the first one, you're gonna want this one too, and it does take up right where the first one left off, after a brief bit of abstract strum and drift, the sound really takes shape on "His Teeth Did Brightly Shine", a lazy, drawled bit of Southern slowcore dirgery, all interwoven guitars, and sun dappled shimmer, no drums to speak of yet, just clouds of cymbal sizzle and the occasional minimal percussion, otherwise, it's a super hypnotic sprawl of looped desertdrone mesmer. It's not til track three "A Multiplicity Of Doors", that the sound becomes rhythmic, with super minimal drumming, over moaning cellos and Morricone-esque twang, there is a bit of slow build, but not to an explosive crescendo, it's more like the sound intensifies and grows more lush and full bodied, propulsive, but only just, laid back, dreamy and druggy, the sound of a warm summery afternoon, or the soundtrack to a wander though rolling windswept desert hills, which is pretty much how the rest of the record plays out, only closer "The Rakehell" cranks up the momentum, but again, just a little, with the guitars more buzzy, and the sound a bit more darkly intense, but still ultimately just meandering through Earth's dusty sonic wasteland, with no particular place to go, and in no particular hurry to get there. Lovely as always.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Do we even need to discuss this? You know you need it. Especially all you Sunn 0))) obsessives. You did realize after all that Sunn was basically an Earth tribute band? Well, here's another chance to go straight to the source. Super limited, on all different colors of vinyl, in a beautiful full color sleeve. Side A is a demo of the track "Divine And Bright" from 1990, which had previously been released on a rare bootleg 7" and later compiled on the reissue of Sunn Amps And Smashed Guitars. This is not Earth at their slowest and droniest, but instead a rocking dirge, mesmerizing and gorgeous, heavy and spacy, with Kurt Cobain on vocals. So great. Kinda sounds like Nirvana at 16rpm. The B side is the same track, re-recorded in 2003 live in Seattle featuring Earth mainman Dylan Carlson and new drummer Adrienne Davies. Missing some of the gut wrenching drug addled angst of Side A but still pretty great. As we said before VERY LIMITED. We have a bunch but they won't last long, so therefore only one per customer.
Kind of a holy grail for those who didn't pick up the long-out-of-print original version of this when it was first released, the 1991 debut cd by the Pacific Northwest's late great drone/doom masters Earth. Originals sell for big $$$ on eBay. And those who DO
Earth on this disc consisted of mastermind Dylan Carlson (guitar/vocals) plus Dave Harwell (bass) and Joe Preston (bass/percussion). Joe of course later went on to fame and fortune in the Melvins, and later, his one man band Thrones.
Oh, and this is the Earth record that one Kurt Cobain plays on as well, which I know confused and dismayed a lot of frat/jock guys back in the day!
It's all been leading up to this. In the early nineties, when most of us heard Earth for the first time, our minds were totally blown. What was that massive slab of fuzzy sludge doing on Sub Pop? Why didn't it sound like Soundgarden or Mudhoney or Tad? It didn't take long before we stopped asking questions like that and began wondering where the hell were all the other bands that sounded like Earth. Well, it took 10 years, but now that whole downtuned slow motion sludge thing is an actual genre. With more and more new bands popping up every day. All honoring the mighty sludge that was Earth. But those of you who were into Earth the first time around, might remember the band changing directions pretty dramatically, adding a drummer, and playing actual songs, even doing a Hendrix cover at one point, the Earth of old having mutated into a groovy sort of stoner post rock, propulsive swinging riffs, relentless chugging guitars, all wrapped in a druggy spacy swirl. Back then we were all a bit bummed out, as Earth became, well, more normal, at least to our ears. It was as close to selling out as Earth were liable to get.
Back to the present day. Recordings started popping up here and there, along with rumors of actual Earth shows, limited 7"s and tour only 12"s, all filling us with an impossible anticipation. Earth was back. But if they were back, why were all the recordings from live shows and all several years old? It made sense, the sound of the new Earth practically picked up right where they left off, stretched out, spaced out, druggy post rock with simple drumming and wavering distorted riffs, not heavy per se, but dark and dreamy and mesmerizing. But none of that could have prepared us for the desolate, sun baked, slow crawl, shuffle and twang beauty of long-awaited new studio album Hex. Definitely hewing closer to Earth's more recent post rockisms, Hex is warm and expansive, slow building and contemplative, with simple drums, heavily reverbed, not distorted, guitars, occasional lapsteel, the whole thing unfurling into a haunting twang, a ghost town desert lullaby, a Cormac McCarthy novel in song, tumbleweeds, miles of scrub and windblown landscapes, old dead trees, plenty of space for the cymbals to sizzle and each riff to drift into black clouded skies. Drone / doom / dirge / sludge purists (if there can be such a thing) may well be a bit disappointed, or at the very least confused. And Earth's history / reputation for black hole heaviness might be an albatross at this point as this new sound falls squarely within the territory of groups like Low, Codeine, Friends Of Dean Martinez, Calexico, Scenic, Torrez, Sixteen Horsepower, even Mazzy Star or Godspeed You Black Emperor. But ultimately none of that has anything to do with the fact that Hex is just simply beautiful. A dark and mysterious and truly haunting record. Huge swells of instrumental tension dissipate into warm washes of drift and shimmer, melodies are slowly uncoiling snakes, waking drowsily and slithering off sun baked rocks, every note and every drum beat, every slippery lapsteel swoop, every stretch of near silence, are all draped lazily over broken fences, fallen power lines, rusted out tractors, fallow fields. Dark clouds drift above, across a steel grey sky, sending small shadowy shapes scurrying across the landscape like mysterious creatures, the breeze is warm and smells of death and desolation. Every one is lost and alone, out of money, out of time, just waiting around to die. The mood is bleak, but the sound of Hex is so so beautiful. Somehow hopeful and full of joy, but the sort of joy that comes from being powerless and close to despair, and simply choosing joy over misery, finding happiness the way animals in the desert seek out moisture. The heart of Hex is heavy, the sound appropriately heavy as well, but in a way few conventionally heavy records can manage. A brooding, storm about to break, dam about to burst, soul about to loose itself from its earthly moorings and escape to a better place kind of heavy. The sound of the desert, and the human spirit, of death, of sadness and horror, of loneliness, of abandonment, of hearts breaking, lovers lost and drifting apart, of life. The sound of laying in the dry dirt, the breeze stretched across you like a moth eaten old blanket, eyes closed, the sun sending all sorts of shapes spinning behind your closed eyelids, memories becoming fuzzy and drifting away, your whole body and soul wrapped in a warm darkness, the world fading into nowhere, you fading into nothing.
Ding, ding! (x4) Something ring a bell? That's cuz Eight Bells is the new group formed from the ashes of veteran spacerockers Subarachnoid Space, whose last album before they disbanded in 2010 was titled, Eight Bells. Since we liked that record a lot, we're happy to report that Subarachnoid Space guitarist Melynda Jackson has teamed with erstwhile Subarachnoid Space drummer Chris Van Huffel, plus bassist Haley Westeiner, to take up where Subarachnoid Space left off, this trio continuing Subarachnoid Space's latter-day trajectory into heavier and heavier territories, to the point that it makes sense that this would be recorded by Billy Anderson, and come out on Seventh Rule. And woah this is good, damn good. Mostly instrumental (even when there is singing, it's often kinda used as another instrument), and definitely progressive, with sinuous song structures and intricate epic arrangements, they play a kind of mathy, moody spacerock that at times even ventures into black metal territory - Cascadian black metal we guess, to be precise, since that's where they're based, up in the Pacific Northwest. Seriously, if you didn't know the context, there's stretches where you'd think it was a BM record for sure. And as space rock or post rock, it's definitely rockin'. Think Kinksi meets Wolves In The Throne Room...
A good example of Eight Bells' dynamic, apocalyptic mathrock is how the urgent angular quickstep of track two, "Fate And Technology" takes a sudden shift into slower, quieter, more placid territory adorned by dreamy, gentle female singing, but then builds up again to sheer, near black metal blasting complete with harsh, throatripped vokills. Those vokills and vocals are both handled by Haley, but the title track does bring in guest vocalist Kris Force of Amber Asylum to add her haunting pipes to the mix, for some extra atmosphere, that track reminding us, with its scrambling riffery, of Stinking Lizveta, at first anyway, then getting seriously epic in a postrock way, 12+ minutes full of drama and majesty (and intense chops!), climaxing with thunderous drum pound and wordless high end operatic vocalizations from Force. Here and elsewhere there's droning synths, echoing effects, and a thick, muscular bass presence, part of what makes Eight Bells so heavy and propulsive.
For fans of Subarachnoid Space (of course) and Liturgy and maybe the likes of Worm Ouroboros too. Recommended!!
Andee's label tUMULt is a lot of things. From country dirge (Souled American) to avant-prog (Guapo) to experimental indie-pop (Iran). And then there's a black, leathery wing of tUMULt devoted to the art and science of black metal, with several examples drawn from the fertile local San Francisco scene (Weakling, Leviathan, Draugar) and one outlier from France (Diamatregon).
And now Eikenskaden, who also happen to hail from France. Andee and Allan here at Aquarius had been fans of Eikenskaden and related band Mystic Forest for some time, we've raved about 'em before. As it turned out, they happened to be fans of tUMULt in turn. Strange how things work out. So here's a new Eikenskaden on tUMULt! Like tUMULt's other black metal releases (or other releases, period), you can be assured that Eikenskaden is not quite the norm for its genre, which is a genre where norms are oft-perverted anyways. There's something just a little bit fucked about their approach, the extreme combo of nasty distortion and neo-classical melody perhaps?
Yup, you can say a lot about how this band (or guy, it's one dude, Mr. Stefan Kozak) revels in the wall-of-fuzz sound of Norwegian black metal primitivists like Burzum. But then he takes it and merges it with freakin' Beethoven! Not only that, but like the best metal (from Iron Maiden to Katatonia) he doesn't forget this is rock music and it's gotta have a pop element. There are simply just some great SONGS here beneath all the distortion and violence. We couldn't be happier -- not only did tUMULt get to put out an Eikenskaden album, but it lived up to all our expectations. Which means that even if you've never heard of Eikenskaden before, we'd recommend checking this out.
A little while ago we gave a thumbs (and pointy spikes) up review to an album called "Green Hell" by a French black metal band known as Mystic Forest. As we mentioned then, Mystic Forest's main guy, one Stefan Kozak, has another band called Eikenskaden ("Oaken Shield") which is almost *exactly* the same. The line-up is different, but the songwriting, production, and even the graphic design bear marked similarity. Apparently Eikenskaden is the project in which Kozak blows off steam and indulges even further in ridiculous black metal concepts, and it's true that of the two bands, this one is perhaps the best, though it's a close call. "The Last Danse" is Kozak's second Eikenskaden album, and is as amazing as anything else he's done -- totally frenzied, quirky, and Burzumic, more distorted yet more melodic than you could imagine.
I was listening to this at home the other night, and my housemate thought it sounded like two things playing at the same time. The very pretty, baroque sounding keyboard lines coexist bizarrely with a hellish wash of fuzz and distortion. Raw yet extremely melodic. You can hear in Eikenskaden (and Mystic Forest) the gothic black/doom "pop" of Katatonia, as well as the neo-classical shred of Windham Hell. It's a weird combo, maybe, but it works really well. Imagine Burzum or Khold possessed by Mozart or something, with Immortal/Popeye vocal growls too. Really, it's so insanely full of reverb and distortion it's crazy -- HSShshshhHZZHZZCH!!!
Also new in stock and recommended: Mystic Forest's third album, "Waltz In the Midst of Trees" ($13.98, see review elsewhere on this list/site).
The French buzzing black metal cult of Eikenskaden ("Oaken Shield") returns with a new album, their fourth, the follow up to their numerically-titled 2004 release, 665.999, which appeared on our own Andee's tUMULt label! So of course we're excited. Eikenskaden is one of those genius one man BM bands (that one man being Stefan Kozak, also the main guy in Mystic Forest). Both Mystic Forest and Eikenskaden specialize in blending almost-classical, melancholic melodies with some of the most distorto-buzz Burzumic black metal out there, with Eikenskaden being the darker and harsher of the two acts. And, as the title of There Is No Light At The End Of The Tunnel already indicates, this cd is certainly dark! Quite "necro" and yet grandiose, this boasts some truly memorable compositions, which has always been one of Kozak's strong suits -- he writes actual songs, not relying entirely on atmosphere even though Eikenskaden's got plenty going on in that area too. Somehow he's got a knack for writing material that's both driving and depressive, with many interesting details amidst the distorted wash of sound. Recommended, especially if you like both Xasthur and Khold, for instance (and don't you?).
Metalheads, buy this! Author Daniel Ekeroth, a Swedish death metal expert (and Swedish death metaller himself, from the band Incision) has collected and presented an invaluable resource with this book, a weighty tome indeed. Due to a dearth of information on this fairly specific subject, the material within was compiled via a practical attempt to synthesize an accurate retelling of the history of Swedish death metal, based on varying accounts in zines and such, then by bouncing those stories back and forth in interviews with key band members, label bosses, etc. The book itself begins by outlining the myriad of influences behind the Swedish sound: San Francisco Bay Area thrash, NWOBHM, and the Tampa Bay Florida scene. Keep in mind, this was well before the internet, so tape and zine trading, and word of mouth, were the only ways to find out about music. Thus some of these band members were true metal geeks. There are accounts of various artists' own early exposure to metal and some really interesting stories about a few of the early Swedish bands, obscurities crossing over from the hardcore punk scene and so forth. Gripping reading for anyone into the book's subject matter. The second half of the book covers the pinnacle and strength of the scene at its brightest. But then there was black metal, and Ekeroth details how it helped usher out the popularity of old school death metal. He also delves into subgenres like grind, death n' roll, and of course the melodic Gothenburg sound.
And then in the back, there is an incredibly useful, opinionated encyclopedia of (possibly) all Swedish death metal bands. Awesome! Complete with band members and releases, where Ekeroth substitutes the term 'deathography' for discography. And this book covers not only the big shots, like Dissection, Unleashed, Entombed, Marduk - hey their first record was recorded with Dan Swano and their first singer was the guitarist from Edge of Sanity - but there are tons of lesser known bands that the Ekeroth goes into detail about. Graphics-wise, there are tons of flyers, demo tape covers, cool pictures, and everything else relevant that you could possibly want in print. It's pretty sweet.
There's not much else to say, really. You know who you are. There are those that would read a 456 page book on the Swedish death metal scene, and there are those who would not. If you are one of those people who WOULD, or just want it as a rad reference point, you need this. In a word, it's totally fucking killer. Recommended! And by the way, this is the new, expanded (and cheaper than the import) US edition, with extra art and interviews.
The first in Paradigms Recordings second act, the first being pretty impressive as long time readers of the aQ list can no doubt attest to. Here's a partial list of some of act one's notable releases: Hjarnidaudi, Amber Asylum, Throne Of Katarsis, The Angelic Process, Utlagr, Titan, Gnaw Their Tongues, Woburn House, Wraiths, Ondo, Plants and tons more. Not too shabby. So how to launch act 2? How about with a gloomy doomy black metal mystery from Germany, and their single song, 30+ minute full length debut. Indeed!
With nothing but a split to their name (released way back in 2002), Expyrosis offer up a sprawling multi part avant black epic, that will undoubtedly have aQ black metalheads frothing at the mouth. The guitars unwind haunting minor key melodies, woven into dense shimmering textures, the drums lock into a static blast, while over the top shards of melody drift and dissipate, before the track shifts, and the guitars explode, spreading out in thick sheets of warm buzz all tangled up with twisted mournful melodies, and underneath it all, voices moan and chant, giving the whole track a distinctly miserablist, almost gothic vibe, like Joy Division all revved up and wreathed in blackness. There's some serious math happening too, and plenty of whirling black ambience, and for every blast of black buzz, there's a creepy stretch of midtempo plod and soft focus smeared shoegaze guitar. The melodies soar majestically, the vocals are crooned and dramatic, almost spoken at times, the whole track locks into these woozy grooves, totally hypnotic and mesmerizing, occasionally splintering into something more jagged and off kilter, droney or drifty, meandering or blazing and chaotic, only to eventually be swept back up into a dizzying buzz drenched blur.
Strangely pretty and mysteriously heavy, yet still plenty buzzy and blackened. A pretty auspicious start to what looks to be a kick ass second act for Paradigms.
Here's El Cuy, the other cool Peruvian "stoner rock" band we promised to review a few weeks back when we listed the Cosmos Kaos Destruccion disc by their countymen and labelmates La Ira De Dios. Like them, power trio El Cuy kick out some seriously FUZZED rock action! They've a bit less Hawkwindy though, more garage rawk, straight up punkish without all the extra psychedelic FX but lots of gritty guitar. Imagine a less poppy, much heavier version of the Hives. Or the Lyres. It's high energy garagey rock, too frenzied really to be your usual stoner rock. Heavy, freaky, catchy - heck downright melodic when they want, as on the surfy "El Vertigo". But usually it's all about badass riff wrangling as these ten songs speed by in a little over 35 minutes total. Muy excellente!
The booklet with this cd includes the lyrics in Spanish plus English translations.
Despite being called Elder, the guys in this stoner/doom trio look pretty young! Nevertheless, this is their 2nd full length for the quite reliable Meteorcity label. We actually never listed Elder's first, self-titled album, from back in 2008, that one somehow slipped by, for whatever reason, but hope to make up for that by highlighting this new one, which we do dig big time, particularly 'cause of how it possesses a blissful lightness within its considerable heaviness.
And it's worth pointing out that, like a lot of things we list, it's by choice, we didn't have to list it y'know, there's lots of other things we could have listed instead, but it's something we liked enough to go to the trouble of ordering in and writing up to share with you 'cause we think you'd really like it too - well in this case, especially if you're into the stoner/doom sounds like we are.
They traffic in extended bouts of churning, blown-out heaviness, sludgey and psychedelic, with lumbering riffs, wailing guitars, hypnotic rhythms, and some nice, almost folky melodies (the 12 minute title track has some bits in it that remind us of early Wishbone Ash!). Theirs is not exactly a groundbreaking style, but boy do they bring it all together and do it right. And even though they're from Massachusetts, they've got the desert-y vibe down (these kids obviously having consumed much Kyuss), heavied up further to swing with the likes of Electric Wizard, Yob, Sleep, UFOmammut, and Boris (note the similar Roger Dean inspired logo). The vocals here are mostly an echoed afterthought, with the urgent instrumental unfurling of that desert-y doom being their main mode of mesmerization.
While the whole disc delivers those goods, they perhaps save the best for last, "Knot", another epic at 11:56 (well, all their songs are pretty darn long), which somehow seems to channel the essence of some of Elders' elders - ye olde '70s proto-metallers that is - into its bulldozing rifferama.
