Last list we slobbered all over an album called Under Sided by UK psych rock rulers The Heads, and in the course of the review we mentioned we also had an even newer disc by them, the live-in-rehearsal album At Last. We quickly ran out of Under Sided (hopefully we'll be getting more of 'em back in soon) but At Last is still here, and it's a great freaking freakout record too. With a band like The Heads, ALL their albums might as well be live, it's just that with the actual live album you get versions of classics culled from earlier albums, plus new material n' improvisations never heard before (or again). To quickly recap, The Heads are an unsung uber-awesome heavy duty psychedelic garage rock band that takes their inspiration from '70s masters like Hawkwind, The Stooges, and the Pink Fairies. We're also reminded a bit of Lubricated Goat and some other Aussie acts. So if you're into any of that, and/or current acid-rock acts like Monster Magnet, High Rise, Comets On Fire, and suchlike, you ought to like The Heads. Apparently they recorded this while getting ready to open up for Mudhoney, who, good as they are, must have been blown off the stage. As good as Under Sided (a few tunes from which get the live treatment here) and equally as recommended!
AWESOME, REPRESSED!!!! Originally released in 2009, out of print for years. If you missed it, at last here it is again - for a little while anyway. What we said originally...
As much as we dig the new breed of psychedelic space rockers, none of them can touch the Heads, whose sound is some impossible union of Hawkwind, the Stooges and Monster Magnet, able to whip off a 3 minute pounding garage psych jam one minute, and a 30+ minute free form metallic space drone the next, usually choosing to meld the two into super rocking, ur-psych blowouts, sprawling and heavy and blown out and EPIC.
This 2lp live set, recorded while the band were on tour with SF's own Wooden Shjips, finds the Heads in fine form, effortlessly kicking out the jams live, BIG TIME, and in the process offering up a primer for all those young psych rock whipper snappers.
Brooding slow burn space-out to full on supernova lysergic psych meltdown, effects everywhere, swirling clouds of hazy blurred distortion, drums, heavy and pounding and rock solid, but occasionally getting all skittery and abstract, the songs slip from dirgey and doomy to hypnotic and heavy to super rocking and chaotic, the vox (when they do surface) are distorted and howled and buried in the mix, and the riffs, oh the riffs, for all the atmosphere and the vibe and the effects, the riffs slay, the melodies are insanely catchy, the leads stick in your head as if they were the chorus from a pop song, hooks buried everywhere beneath the roiling incendiary space rocking and free form psychedelia.
So goddamn good, the band's already heavy and unhinged sound gets even more far out live, the songs and sounds let loose, the unfurling into super spacious drone drenched spaced out psychedelic heaviness. Fuck yeah.
SUPER LIMITED, once again. Gorgeous Day Of The Dead sixties style psychedelic cover art, thick stock, nice heavy vinyl, killer sound, essential...
This band kicks out raw, spacey, psychedelic acid jams that any psych rock freak who likes it hard and heavy (you! c'mon, stand up!) will spazz over. We've been fans of England's The Heads for years. They put out a few records on the now-defunct Man's Ruin label a while back, and they sure stood out from the general run of the usual stoner rock and punk on that label's roster. But its been much more recently -- in the last year, really, after being exposed to their harder-to-find, post-Man's Ruin output -- that we've realized just how great a band The Heads really are. Really f**kin' great! Carrying the swirling smoke spewing torch of fuzz wah wah fx freak rock handed down from The Stooges and Hawkwind, adding a post-punk edge, The Heads here serve up a sonic maelstrom that makes their Japanese contemporaries like Mainliner and Acid Mothers Temple sound like wimps and poseurs. No US bands come close either, really, but if you dig Comets On Fire and Monster Magnet's garage groove and stoner trance, you'll dig The Head's Under Sided, from three minute riffers like "Dissonaut" to the 29+ minute album closer "Heavy Sea". At long last we've got some import (but inexpensive!) copies of this, their most recent studio album, released last year, recorded in '01. Supply is limited, so act fast or be patient... And we've also got some copies of their brand new live disc, At Last, that we'll review on our next list. The Heads are right on. Super freakin' recommended!
Hailing from Bristol, England, the ultra-powerful power trio known so appropriately as The Heads are here to freak you out again. We've been waiting for, like, three years for a new full-length album from these guys, who are just about our favorite heavy-psych-stoner-garage-rawk band currently existing in this blessed world. Under The Stress Of A Headlong Dive is finally here and we are NOT disappointed. Totally chuffed is more like it.
This, their seventh album, contains 19 new tracks, some of them weird under-a-minute droning FX interludes, others fuzz-fueled manic marathons lasting upwards of a quarter hour. Oh god the fuzz! This is some heavy, heavily distorted wailing swirling insanity indeed. Comets On Fire can't even compare. You have to go to Japan, maybe, and stick your head right next to the amps of a band like High Rise or Mainliner to approximate The Heads' in-the-red, pedals-to-the-metal, flyin' high, inner eye stare down acid energy sound. But we also have to imagine that they think of themselves as a pop band of sorts. The Fall would be one reference (the vocals do remind us of Mark E. Smith). And the Stooges were a pop band too, let's remember, and along with Hawkwind must be one of The Heads biggest sources of inspiration. But The Heads ain't a retro act, this is future/now rock action we're glad to be around to witness (on disc, that is, never seen 'em live but would love to!!).
Punkishly menacing and kind of metallic (with bongos, though!), or spacey and mantric, this never lets up and never gets dull. Over the course of this 72 minute platter they always seem to have a new trick up their sleeves, or a new pedal to step on... all heads should agree that The Heads have outdone themselves with this one!!
We recently discovered 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. Heartless are also from China, and whip up some seriously gorgeous and utterly despondent blackness, just check out the opening track here, after some minimal skeletal clean guitar strum, the song explodes in a thick washed out buzz drenched blur of mournful doom drenched black buzz trudgery, the melodies sad and bittersweet, the drums mechanical and spare, the vibe haunting and grim, dreamy and depressive, hypnotic and hellishly dreamy, the sort of sound we could listen to forever, a little bit Lifelover, with simple soaring melodies over the top, deliriously dreary. But that's just the opener.
The second track explodes in a frenzy of blast beats and insectoid buzzing, the drums buried in the mix, minus one REALLY LOUD cymbal, and that's just the first clue, that stuff is about to get really WEIRD. The second clue? The insanely hysterical falseto shrieked vocals, that are WAY up in the mix, reminding us right off the bat of the Judson Fountain radio plays, and his crazy old woman voice. It's that twisted and over the top. So much so, that we think all but the most obsessive weirdo black metallers will most likely be quite put off, cuz it is totally ridiculous, we have to admit, the first time we heard it, we were totally thrown for a loop, we definitely cracked up. But then something happened, and the more we listened to it, the more we dug it, and the more its sheer craziness made some sort of WTF sense.
The record sprawls in all sorts of different sonic directions, from churning midtempo buzz drenched chug to reverby doom pop, to warped trudging blackened slowcore, to skeletal black folk drift, to full on furious black buzz, the production changing just as much as the sound, the kick drums sometimes lost in the murk, other times a thick throbbing pulse, the guitars muted and murky one minute, sharp and jagged the next, but all that sound is just a backdrop for the insane maniacal vocals, equal parts Mr. Doctor from Devil Doll, the inhuman black shrieks of Silencer, and of course the aforementioned Judson Fountain old woman voice, it's pretty demented, totally fucking wacked, but so unique, and so weirdly intense, and the music is so dark and heavy and melodic, it all melds into something totally twisted, and for those with a taste for the TRULY bizarre, something absolutely essential.
You would never in a million years guess that this band wasn't Swedish. And you would never guess they weren't a real metal band. I mean, they -are- a real metal band, but listening to this record, you imagine long haired Swedes banging their heads with one
Named after Miami's basketball team, or perhaps not, this heavy band of psychedelic stoners hails from Berlin, Germany, and really rip it up here on this disc, brought to us by This Charming Man Records, who also first turned us on to aQ faves Kadavar. They are very '70s sounding, in the vein of Kadavar, yep, and Witchcraft, Graveyard, and the like. Hard rockin' stuff, with vaguely Ozzy-ish vox (but not as Ozzy-ish as some bands) wailing over twin guitar jamming, lotsa bellbottomed wakka-wakka-wah-wah action, and some Hammond organ too, Heat riffing away like it's still 1973, pretty darn kick ass really. They have a melodic side to 'em too, on moody but still energetic numbers like "The Golden Age", and deploy plenty of non-lame bluesiness as well (the band features ex-members of Samsara Blues Experiment, by the way). This sort of thing is of course the result of years of study of the masters: Sabbath, Zeppelin, Lizzy, early Scorps, Wishbone Ash, etc., but besides the worship and woodshedding, you've gotta have an authentic spark, and Heat sound like they have it for real.
Heat will surely warm the hesher hearts of all who've been digging the recent likes of Spiral Shades, Electric Citizen, Ovvl, Sons Of Huns, Carousel, Admiral Sir Cloudsley Shovell... man we're living in a real heavy retro rock renaissance these days!!
The return of Heatdeath, record number two, and once again, just as hard to describe as the first one. A sprawling soft cacophony of buzz and whir and drone, laced with bits of glitch and hiss all woven into a multi part abstract freenoise epic, that plays out like some futuristic symphony gone haywire.
Fuzzy staticky whirs drift above warm shimmers, mechanical crunch is smoothed into blurred anti-rhythms, thick layers of distortion ripple over roiling depths of hiss and buzz, occasionally a metronomic sonar like beep keeps the time, waves of pink noise crash over shard of keening feedback, occasionally coalescing into thick roiling shoegazey sort-of-doom, all abstract and dreamy, but still rough and raw and doused with crumbling distortion, wild drum freakouts muted and muffled until they become skittery landscapes of thump and shuffle, long stretches of washed out Tim Hecker like ambience, and a long stretch of warped haunted house creep, peppered with soft chimes and deep cavernous drones. All over the place sonically, but the various parts blend perfectly, drifting into one another, taking the form of one single epic abstract chunk of noisy drone-y buzzy doomy mystery.
Gorgeous packaging, thick jackets in super thick PVC sleeves, black inner sleeves and heavy vinyl. Each record comes with a download coupon as well! LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!
This band is definitely tough to pin down sonically. Their sound is equal parts black metal, industrial, free jazz and electronica, but the resulting sound resembles none of those. Or perhaps all of them simultaneously. Hard to tell.
Which is sort of what makes this band so magical. A duo from Minnesota, whose first release is on a Belgian label, continues to confound from the sound to the dearth of information on the sleeve. But as confounding as this record is, it's also fantastic. Totally vibrant and alive and freaked out and joyous, while somehow managing to be grim and brutal and weird as fuck.
But how to accurately describe them... They are a duo, so of course one is tempted to throw some reference to Lightning Bolt in there, and there is some LB to Heatdeath's sound, a relentless churning, maniacal energy, it's impossible to imagine the drummer can play like that nonstop for whole sides of an lp, but he does, and the axeman keeps up just fine thank you. A closer and slightly more accurate comparison, might be a black metal, or black industrial Necks. There is a definite element of slow shifting stasis, no distinct riffs, and no real distinct rhythms, but more a roiling black hole of chaotic drumming and denatured riffing, like the Necks covering Abruptum. Wow. Indeed. The two tracks constantly shift, moving from slightly more tranquil drift, to fullbore crash and buzz, and it sounds improvised for sure, but at the same time, it almost seems composed, the two players shifting seamlessly from part to part, mood to mood, creating gorgeously expansive soundscapes of intense instrumental interplay, and churning abstract ambience, often the two colliding and getting gloriously tangled up.
Packaged in thick plastic sleeves, black on black fold over jackets, and each lp includes a coupon so you can download the whole record for your iPod.
LIMITED TO ONLY 250 COPIES!!!!
Fannish "true metal" from Finland.
In keeping with the duality within this band's name, there's probably two sorts of people reading this review. There are those who are dedicated fans, familiar with the latter-day Black Sabbath saga, awaiting this album with eager anticipation. And then there's those who need to be told that Heaven & Hell IS Black Sabbath, in all but name - hence this album's title, The Devil You Know. For the latter folks, we'll help 'em get with the program by explaining that this so-called Heaven And Hell band is the Black Sabbath lineup - Ronnie James Dio on vocals, Tony Iommi on guitar, Geezer Butler on bass, and Vinnie Appice on drums - that last appeared on a studio album seventeen (!) years ago: 1992's Dehumanizer, which in hindsight was a pretty good record. Dio of course was original Sabbath vocalist Ozzy Osbourne's replacement in the band, joining up in 1980 for the Heaven and Hell album (natch), followed by Mob Rules and Live Evil. He then quit for a solo career, and Sabbath's fortunes soon declined... a decade later, Dehumanizer was a short lived reunion, scuttled when Sabbath sans Dio agreed to open for Ozzy's so-called "retirement" show... Ozzy obviously didn't ever retire, and eventually rejoined Sabbath himself, for several successful tours - but no new studio album. And it seemed that there never would be another Sabbath album... until now, though it's not called Sabbath! Getting restless just going around doing "Paranoid" and "Iron Man" with a doddering Ozzy, recently Tony and Geezer were lucky to persuade Dio to let bygones be bygones and get back together with his old Sabbath mates for a tour and live album under this new name (Black Sabbath with Ozzy remaining on some sort of official hiatus we suppose).
We saw 'em play in San Jose and good grief, for a 66 year old frontman, Dio was AMAZING. Full of energy and as impressive/expressive/excessive vocally as ever. It's no wonder that inspired by their touring, these senior citizens (well perhaps Vinnie isn't quite so old) answered the prayers of Dio/Sabbath fans everywhere and recorded a brand new album! (Now the first batch of people referred to at the top of this review can tune back in.)
The truth is, we sorta had low expectations for this. As good as they were live doing old classic tracks, could they really write a worthy new record? The 3 new Dio-fronted studio tunes that were included as a bonus on Sabbath's The Dio Years anthology in 2007 were kind of weak, though they sounded better in concert, we must admit. And many a venerable band has stumbled when a long-awaited reunion album has finally happened (The Stooges being a good, or rather bad, example).
So we were pleasantly surprised to find, when we finally heard it, that The Devil You Know was actually pretty darn good! Great, even. Apparently they took their time and did this right, with serious intent. They didn't try to modernize their sound, nor is it a half-assed cash-in, they simply did what they know best how to do - heck, what they invented. EPIC DOOM METAL. No, it's not the equal of Heaven and Hell or Mob Rules, but who could expect that? It IS at least as good or maybe better than Dehumanizer, and certainly blows any other attempt at epic doom you're gonna hear this year out of the castle moat. How could it not? It's Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler and Ronnie James effin' Dio!! (Too bad for Candlemass that they just put out a new album, too... but they'd probably even agree.)
From the very first song, the lumbering "Atom And Evil", you'll hear this is firmly in their own grand tradition. Dio era Sabbath lives! The wizardly elfin one's vocals are mighty and majestic, Tony's guitar tone sounds straight from the '70s, he and Geezer offering up surging heaviosity o'er which Dio weaves his vocal spell, with portentous lyrics to match the dark doominess of much of the music. Not that it's all a dirge, they rock out plenty too, maybe too much so on "Rock N' Roll Angel", though you gotta love it that there's still a band who'd write a song with a (non-ironic) title like that. Tony gets in some choice solos, and his regal riffage leaves his "riffmaster" reputation unblemished, although what may be more memorable are the melodies of Dio's vocal lines. Possessed by the phantoms of past glories, this is, wonderfully so.
While the debate among Sabbath fans over the relative merits of the band's various vocalists will forever rage (similar to the debate over who's the best James Bond), what's certain is that in the here and now, the ancient yet ageless one known as Dio is clearly the superior, only choice for Sabbath frontman. Can't imagine them making anything as remotely as solid as this if they'd tried it with Ozzy! Celebrity/corporate crapola would ruin it... plus Ozzy's voice these days seems almost entirely computerized. Also, for these guys, it'll never be 1971 again. But 1981, via 1992, is a lot easier to conjure. Dio's still got it, and with him, they truly "click". He'll tell you himself, that despite his many years solo and with other groups, Rainbow, Elf, going back to Ronnie And The Redcaps in 1959, Black Sabbath is THE best band for him.
Who knows if Heaven & Hell aka Black Sabbath will ever make another album (did we mention Dio is pushing 70 years old?), but if they don't, this one is a proud ending to an illustrious career, a classy comeback and/or grand finale, upholding (reinstating?) their legacy indeed.
I was in Japan, in a record store and they were playing the most amazing record. I went to the counter to find out what amazing Japanese band I had discovered, and after some struggling with my poor (read: non-existent) Japanese, the clerk handed me a cd, and it ends up we were listening to a German metalcore band called Heaven Shall Burn. It's a bit silly to call this metalcore
The Last Heaven Shall Burn record was one of my favorites of last year. A metalcore band that wasn't just a bunch of punk kids trying to play metal, they kicked out the metal jams better than most 'actual' metal bands. And we wouldn't have known about them
Totally essential.
Attention Finnish music freaks, yet another weird and wonderful discovery from our favorite far away sonic Mecca. Colossal is the debut full length (released in 2008) from this Finnish stoner sludge combo, whose sound is gloriously thick and viscous, blown out and blisteringly heavy, a mix of Kyuss-y desert buzz, churning aggro AmRep-y noise rock, Eyehategod slo-mo Sabbathy dooooom and crumbling Torche style distorto pop, all tangled up into a super (subtly) hooky and heavy psychedelic brew. Plenty of stonery swing for sure, so fans of recent aQ faves like Black Pyramid, Orchid, Obrero, Freedom Hawk and all things Meteor City should definitely check this out, but ONLY if they're ready for something WAY more fucked up, sludgey and super distorted, with lots of the songs smoothly segueing from grinding, howling tarpit heaviness to groovy near poppiness, sometimes laced with wild psychedelic leads, wah wah guitars, other times, just utterly filthy and distorted and blackened, the drums bombastic, the arrangements mathy and super dynamic, with the occasional stretch of woozy stripped down slither, and sprawling expanses of detuned ultradoom crawl, but generally spending most of its time in either super sludgey stoner mode, or wildly pounding noise rock mode, usually some unholy union of the two. The magic to the record really is the recording though, which is impossibly heavy, ridiculously blown out, the sound super saturated and in the red, it sounds like the tape is frying or the speakers are melting, the guitars so distorted they become heaving swells of crumbling buzz, anchored by the drums and transformed into some seriously fierce riffage, the sort of tranced out riffiness that turns this into something just as spaced out and psychedelic as White Hills or Carlton Melton or any of those outfits (just check out the tranced out closer "Death") albeit WAY WAY heavier. Definitely recommended if for folks who dig the EXTREMELY slow and low, Sleep, Bunkur, Conan, Monarch, the Body, Otesanek, Slomatics and the like, but these guys definitely have their own twisted take on that sound, one that has us already tracking down their newer one, which will hopefully show up on a future list...
British black metal, excellent if unoriginal: they sound almost exactly like the mighty Cradle of Filth! Fans of the Filthies and their brand of gothic, epic, fast, screeching black metal will feel right at home.
We're liking this Nordic notion of 'jazz fusion', all right. The heavy duty debut from the Hedvig Mollestad Trio comes to us from Norway's Rune Grammofon label, who specialize in such things - the 'death jazz' of Supersilent, for instance, and also the likes of Scorch Trio, Ultralyd, and Bushman's Revenge - the latter of whom even covered Motorhead on their latest disc. Well, not to be outdone, the Hedvig Mollestad Trio cover the Melvins, here! That ought to give you an idea of where they're coming from, jazz-wise.
These guys - actually, two gals and one guy, on electric guitar, bass and drums, respectively - are a skronky power trio who rip it up instrumentally, their tunes twisty, turny, and full of distortion and feedback. In other words, they rock, rollercoaster style, reminding us of AQ instrumental faves Stinking Lizaveta at times, and eponymous guitarist Hedvig Mollestad has a dash of Nels Cline in her playing.
Though the band members are all jazz-trained musicians, their brand of fusion is heavy on the grungy rock side of the equation, though they tone it down for the moody meanders of "Doom's Lair" and "The Valley" amongst a few mellower moments. Not to be counted among those moments, of course, is that Melvins cover (the chunky, rockin' "Blood Witch" from A Senile Animal), the only song here to feature vocals.
All in all, this is catchy stuff, as far as noisy noodling jazzrock goes! Recorded live in the studio with minimal overdubs, capturing a lot of raw energy and jaunty glee indeed. Available as a digipack cd, or on lp w/ download code.
Another mysterious black metal horde, this time from the Netherlands, brought to our attention by the seemingly infallible Total Holocaust, who in the past have brought us discs by Heresi, Sortsind, Malcuidant, Hell Militia, Make A Change... Kill Yourself, Blodulv, The One and of course Nortt and Xasthur. That is one seriously brilliant black elite for sure. Hekel have no problem measuring up though. They too traffic in that Burzumic buzz punctuated by EXTREMELY tortured vocals, a la Weakling, Sortsind, Bethlehem, Silencer and the like. And like those bands, we're talking -seriously- tortured. Total Holocaust's website describes the singing here as "painfully performed vocals" and that pretty much nails it. Utterly anguished, damned and tormented, howling demonic screeches, like the sound of flesh being flayed, or of being burned alive. That tortured. All sprawled bruised and bloodied over a haunting sound world of minor key buzz. Mostly midtempo, everything wreathed in suffocating doom, lots of that mournful arpeggiated guitar, huge layers of fuzz and buzz, a loping, lurching depressive blackness. And those vocals. So intense and emotional. If there was some sort of designation for 'emo' black metal, this might qualify. You hear old stories about Rites of Spring rocking out, and getting so into it, that the band members actually broke down and cried. You can almost imagine Hekel doing the same. Blasting and buzzing in utter darkness, tears streaming down their faces, corpsepaint smeared into streaks of black and grey, guitars and drums drenched in blood.
The disc starts off strangely, with simple martial drumming, haunting forest sounds, wolves, owls, wind, while a raspy voiced demonic invocation is spewed out over the top. From then on, it's a super expansive seasick swirl swinging from buzzing blasts of black blur to plodding mournful doom drenched buzz.
A harsh and harrowing, super emotional, ultra depressive exploration of a truly tortured black metal soul.
"This is the Age of Nefarious!"
Originally released on kvlt Northwestern black/metal/doom/drone label Woodsmoke as a super limited (100 copies) cassette, this is the first release from Hell, a one man black drone sludge outfit from Salem, Oregon, now remastered, and reissued as an ultra deluxe lp by Pesanta Urfolk, and (un)holy shit, is this a monster! Massive, crushing, crumbling heaviness, heaving low end miserablism, plodding death march pound that gives way to blown out in-the-red blackened guitardrone buzz, and thence to stonery sludge groove. Hell slips from doomic and lumbering, to super intense and mesmerizing, to groovy and rocking, all in the same song. Think Khanate, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Corrupted, Moss, Bunkur, but also Eyehategod, and the legion of EHG worshipping groovesludge merchants.
Just take album opener "Brutus", which begins as a hateful sonic trudge, the drums a caveman slo-mo pound, the vocals inhuman and alien, the guitars thick and tarpit black, the sound stumbling and hellish, only to have the vocals and drums drop out leaving a dense blast of buzzing, layered guitars, a weird black harmony of heaviness, droned out and mesmerizing, like a SUNNO))) record spinning at 78rpm, wreathed in siren like feedback, and all manner of echo, until the guitars coalese into a proper groove, Sabbathy almost, and then the song explodes into some serious stoner sludge crush, the main riff MASSIVE, with a cool ascending lick at the end that seems almost at odds with Hell's extreme grimnity, the vocals heavily effected and all twisted up, eventually slipping right back into the plod and lumber of the track's opener, until it grinds to a halt, in a weird cloud of ambient room noise, cartoon music, and glitched out channel surfing. Fucking bizarre and AWESOME.
"Infernus" is much more minimal, a barely propulsive beast, the guitars stretched out into thick streaks of black blur and keening high end skree, the vocals a distant anguished wail, the riffs gnarled and atonal, seeming to come apart before your ears, when the band to lock in, it's an impossibly slow sludge, the sound thick, the chugging weirdly percussive, as if the bass was tuned so low the strings were slapping loose against the bass. "Tyranno" is similarly sludgey, but way more noisy and murky, a blurred swirl of black filth, and spaced out glacial riffage, with some cool lurching stop start dynamics, and another near groove, that dissipates before it really gets rolling.
"Deflagatio" ups the tempo a bit, but just a bit, somewhere between abject crawl, and slo-mo groove, the guitars tuned so low, the vocals a demonic glass gargling shriek, but some surprising melody tucked amidst all the buzz and crumble. "Lethe" begins with a cloud of strangled guitar buzz, which gives way to a heaving bit of monstrous plod, the vocals way up in the mix and heavily echoed, giving them a weird dubbed out feel, the sound gradually shifting from lumber to lope to full on blown out drift, hovering in a field of black psych noise, before slipping right back into it, only to almost immediately be sucked into a cloud of swirling effects, while the guitars continue to buzz and drone.
Finally, the record finishes off with the 15+ minute "Maeror", a gorgeous mostly ambient sprawl, a symphony of whirling minor key shimmer, and strange clouds of tape hiss, the notes drawn way out, haunting and ominous, the speed warbling and constantly shifting, giving the whole thing a warped warbly vibe, breifly, some guitars explode from out of the murk, unleashing gouts of super distorted buzz, and shards of jagged feedback wreathed crunch, not to mention strange keening melancholy melodies, and some tripped out FX, before drifting off, and leaving a long warped expanse of minimal creeping haze to finally lay the record to rest. So killer, and obviously essential for fans of all things slow and low, black and buzzy, glacial and grim.
LIMITED TO 322 COPIES. Each one hand numbered. Pressed on nice thick black/blood red vinyl, and housed in heavy, super striking blood red/black woodcut sleeves, includes a massive poster (and we mean HUGE) of the woodcut cover art, and a printed cardstock insert. Also includes a download coupon.
Record number two from this black/doom/sludge outfit from Salem, Oregon, the second in a proposed trilogy, this one taking the already grim and abject sound of the first installment even further, dragging them even deeper into the infernal pits, the sound hellish and hateful and harrowing, the opening track beginning life as a bleak slab of churning slow motion dirgery, a filthy, crusty tarpit creep, the sound raw and blown out, the guitars tuned WAY down, the vocals a demonic hellish croak, the crushing black doom eventually swallowed up by a cloud of psychedelic guitar swirl, a sort of black metal buzz, but blurred into stasis, before the whole thing collapses into a black hole of crumbling low end and Merzbowic black noise, before briefly returning to the initial doomic plod, before spacing out completely into a hazy stretch of almost Earth like twang, although here it's wreathed in heaving black clouds of buzz, the sound constantly shifting over the course of the rest of the song, from shimmery drift, to wild tangled guitar freakout, to stumbling churn, to blurred drone. And that's just the first track. Although it does lay the groundwork for the rest of the record, the guitars seeming to grow even more blown out, the vocals more and more anguished, the downtuned riffs, even more downtuned, as if the whole thing was melting right there on your turntable. "Metnal" mixes in some actual black metal blasts, as well as some swirling ethereal ambience, "Trucid" too, unfurls some black buzz, strangely twisted and tangled, and in-the-red, so it almost sounds like the tape is malfunctioning, all woozy and warped, before slipping into the prettiest stretch on the album, a lilting clean guitar drift, that leads directly into "Umbilicus", which at nearly 8 minutes is the shortest of the bunch, but which also manages to be the heaviest, the sound so dense and blown out, it pushes the black buzz into the realms of Tim Hecker, the crumbling buzz becoming a wall of roiling texture, the track lurching into a weird convoluted noise rock groove, stonery and sludgey, eventually shedding the sludge, leaving just some muted drumming, and a brittle layer of guitar buzz, that drifts into the weirdly melodic doom-sludge coda. Epic and crushing, brutal and beautiful, we can hardly wait for part three...
LIMITED TO 646 COPIES, pressed on black/oxblood vinyl (hold it up to the light, so cool!), three sided, the fourth featuring a super detailed etching, housed in a thick black and red jacket adorned with super striking woodcuts, inside a 12" x 24" woodcut poster/insert, as well as a digital download coupon.
We could easily fill several paragraphs talking about the historical significance of Hellhammer (speaking of metal history, not world history, of course, though for some of us the two are of equal importance). But if you're reading this, and possibly already considering buying a deluxe double cd (or triple vinyl!) set of the band's early demo recordings, you probably already know something about the seminal significance of Swiss primal metal trio Hellhammer, the precursors to Celtic Frost. If you do want to know more, we'd point you to the liner notes to this release, written by HH/CF mainman Thomas Gabriel Fischer (aka Tom G. Warrior, aka Satanic Slaughter), which were adapted from his forthcoming book Only Death Is Real, all about the early '80s origins of those two bands.
As you probably know, Hellhammer started off as an amateur but enthusiastic exercise in teenage worship of NWOBHM black metal originators Venom, but took Venom's defining sound to further extremes, becoming a pioneering band not only in the black metal genre, but also for death metal and sludgy doom metal as well. And all this without much of a recorded legacy, just the 1984 Apocalyptic Raids ep and some compilation tracks and these demos, the band's initial recording sessions at long last presented officially on cd and vinyl, remastered from the original master tapes.
These three demo cassettes -- Satanic Rites, Death Fiend, and Triumph Of Death -- were released in mere handmade handfuls back in 1983. Including raw(er) versions of such later classics as "The Third Of The Storms", "Triumph Of Death", and "Revelations Of Doom", as well as many otherwise unheard Hellhammer hammerings, such morbid morsels as "Dark Warriors", "Crucifixion", "Decapitator", "Ready For Slaughter", and, er, "Bloody Pussies", it's 29 tracks, 102 minutes of truly ancient evil that any self respecting black/death/doom metaller should revel in. With a twanging low-end of rubbery bass, lurching riffs, pogoing rhythms, echoed vocals, these decidedly lo-fi recordings sound almost like a no-wave take on metal. Accidentally avant-garde (unlike Celtic Frost's later efforts to intentionally be so), Hellhammer were so wretched and fucked up that they've defined "necro" for all time. Hear here how they began.
The limited edition double cd version is packaged in a handsome, slipcased hardback digibook, 5.5" x 7.5", with a 36 page booklet bound inside, plus a small poster. Within the booklet, you'll find hella vintage black and white necro photography, xeroxed flier artwork, the original cassette covers, lyrics and liner notes from the band. Along with occult artwork, including a previously unpublished demonic pencil sketch by bassist Martin Eric Ain that, since it's rendered on graph paper, has us speculating that these guys probably were playing D&D in their bunker as well as recording the metal of death.
Meanwhile, the vinyl edition (also quite LIMITED, the eight we have are probably all we'll ever have) is a truly weighty proposition, 180 gram vinyl in a thick gatefold package with the aforementioned booklet, etc. as well.
Once the deluxe cd edition is gone, we'll have the regular, less-deluxe (but also less expensive) version.
Japanese crazy metal. Very '80s.
Awesome German retro-thrash.
Awesome German retro-thrash.
Hellvete is the work of one of the members of Belgian funeral folk collective Sylvester Anfang, and while in many ways, the two outfits are similar, Hellvete takes the loose abstraction, and stumbling freeform mystery of SA, and tightens it up, into epic slow burning pieces that sound and feel more composed, majestic one moment, haunting and hushed the next, strings and subtle percussion, buzzing steel string guitar and thick undulating drones, a sprawling epic soundtrack to an imaginary film, flickering images of some forgotten world, a time lapse exploration of the birth and death of the black forest.
Long drawn out, almost sitar like buzz, drifts beneath ethereal female vocals, super minimal Eastern sounding percussion underpins some skeletal folky twang, a slow building bit of dronemusic, like Godspeed gone black Appalachia. Strings swoop in, upping the cinematic vibe, minor key, tense, dramatic, echoey vocals wrap around buzzing steel strings, transforming into thick raga like drones, laced with druggy space rock pulses, a sort of Spacemen 3 vibe, buried beneath the smoldering black shimmer. Tinkling chimes dapple the soaring strings, all wound into bursts of Sunroof! like skree.
Abstract free drumming hurls out swirling clouds of cymbal shimmer, fields of speckled skitter, way off in the distance, wordless voices moan and chant and hum, eventually swallowed up by thick grinding sheets of coruscating guitar buzz, a furious explosive crescendo, slipping back into that black Appalachia, before finishing off with a muted, but still intense burst of full on swirling psychedelic drug rock. Awesome stuff. In many ways even better than the Sylvester Anfang jams that came before, as if SA had somehow evolved, the sounds and compositions grown more lush, more expansive, while at the same time, gotten even darker, heavier, and more epic. WAY recommended.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A killer slab of blackened lo-fi doom from these Texas misanthropes, whose sound is echo drenched and dismal, a murky, muddy abyss of downtuned guitars, and reverby vox, that are WAY up in the mix, so when the vokills bellow, everything else disappears into the background. It's the sort of muddy hellish sonic miasma that seems to ooze black energy, the band plodding though tarpits of riffage and pounding slomo dirgery, the songs peppered with the (very) occasional burst of buzzing blackness, but for the most part, remaining in the realm of doomic creep, grim, filthy, crusty, blackened rituals that lurch and lumber like some hellish black beast, dragging itself from the pit.
Hellvetron features members of another group called Nyogthaeblisz, who like lots of black metal bands, definitely have a problematic ideology, but in Hellvetron, the focus seems to be on something much more abstract, the usual black metal stuff, darkness, hell, oblivion, death and damnation, demons and of course SATAN, the sound thus appropriately foul, the doomic churn laced with some surprising elements though, chantlike background vox, what sounds like swirling synths, which adds a strange sort of liturgical vibe to the proceedings, as if these were indeed some sort of sonic rites being performed for the dark ones, the sound blurred and smeared and gloriously washed out, the black buzz muted and muddied, making it strangely meditative and trancelike, which weirdly enough ended up making this sound surprisingly soothing to us, infusing our blackened souls with some sort of demonic tranquility, the perfect grim black trance.
Epic heavy metal fans know that it's been fairly frequent occurrence of late that we've gotten new a reissue of an old '80s album by US underground metal eccentrics Manilla Road, and also once in a while, a brand new release from that still active (and still epic) cult unit. But this is a bit more unexpected - the debut from a Manilla Road SIDE PROJECT, called Hellwell, featuring MR main man Mark "The Shark" Shelton. The Hellwell name we thought was kind of faux-scary goofy, until we learned that the other driving force behind the band was a personage in fact named Ernest Cunningham Hellwell, who plays organ and synths. Also on board, Bryan "Hellroadie" Patrick, sharing some of the vocals with lead guitarist Shelton much as has been the case on Manilla Road albums of recent vintage. And really, name aside, this is basically another new Manilla Road album, and a good one. MR fans will feel right at home with it, it's hardly a big departure. Except, imagine Manilla Road with ornate Deep Purple style keyboards, loads of 'em (courtesy of the eponymous E.C.), AND an extra emphasis on the more "extreme" side of the MR equation - lots of fuzz, some guttural death metally vox and the like - whilst keeping it quite epick and eldritch indeed. Think Poe and Lovecraft. 'Cause lyrically, these songs are rooted in good old pulp literature. It's tale-telling of the horror story variety, in the grand tradition of Mercyful Fate/King Diamond and of course Manilla Road themselves, among others� Music to listen to after dark, in other words, especially if you can get yourself in the mindset of someone in the '40s listening to a creepy radio play or something, as delivered by a band part '70s prog, part '80s heavy metal, part gothic doom, part modern extreme metal� It's a cool mix, again one that most MR fans will dig 'cause that's basically what MR is all about anyway. You know how Slough Feg has gotten their share of Manilla Road comparisons? Well, perhaps Hellwell could likewise be compared to Hammers Of Misfortune.
A few weeks back, we highlighted Acid Witch. Now, Hellwitch! What (or which, or witch) will they think of next? Although, Hellwitch aren't really new. This is a reissue of an obscure Florida death metal album from 1990, done up deluxe with hella-witch bonus tracks. Wait, wait, make that a TOTALLY BATSHIT INSANE Florida death metal album, i.e. the sort of thing that we think AQ customers who aren't necessarily big death metal fans but who DO like really weird fucked up music would dig. Sound intriguing? Heck, they had us at "syzgial miscreancy" whatever that might mean. We had to look it up. (In astronomy, "syzygy" is when the sun, moon, and earth are aligned in a straight line, apparently... now make that villainous, somehow.)
So we gave Hellwitch a listen, and it turned out to be some freakin' gonzo stuff. Experimental death/thrash music, we guess, super chaotic and complex. The vocals are more thrash/HC punk sounding that cookie monster DM, often electronically treated especially on the bonus demo tracks. Or at least, we hope they're electronically treated... otherwise how on earth to explain the truly disturbing shrieks in the track "Mordirvial Dissemination" that sound like Judson Fountain singing black metal??! Electronic effects about elsewhere as well, there's tons of flange on the guitar solos ferinstance. The music itself is spastic and technical, songs crammed with angular non-repeating riffs, soloing that sounds like swarms of insects, aggro-octopoidal drumming, and plenty of WTF? extras, like the when in the midst of a particularly brutal passage Hellwitch will switch into an acoustic folky jig. Makes the likes of Melt-Banana not seem so strange.
Recorded, like all good Florida death metal, by Scott Burns at the infamous Morrisound studios, this is an unearthing of an immediately forgotten gem that anyone into the cult avant-edges of weirdass tech-death-grind should check out, fans of the likes of Obliveon, Kataklysm, Nocturnus, Atheist, Gorguts, Pestilence, Exit-13...
According to this reissue's detailed liner notes, written by lead guitarist/vocalist and founding member Pat Ranieri, the band started off, in the context of smoking lots of pot and listening to old '70s prog rock and then-current '80s crossover thrashpunk, with a mission to be as original as possible, to quote: "Each riff was to sound like no other. Each lyric/title was to be completely fresh and never before read." Well, he goes on to admit that the band didn't always succeed at these quixotic goals, specifically and humorously citing the obvious, their name, as not quite living up to the concept: "With originality as key, we chose the most generic name possible to define something never heard before." Whoops! But heck, they tried, how they tried, and the results we think are pretty special, and we're damn glad this got reissued 'cause somehow we missed out on 'em back in 1990...
The cd booklet, in addition to Ranieri's notes, includes full lyrics, photos, lots of full-color graphics (demo tape covers, and old show fliers - they played with Morbid Angel and Die Kruezen, among others), and even a Hellwitch comic strip. Also it sports the album's original, kinda goofy cover painting that makes a bit more sense when you know what syzygy means.
This remastered cd reissue includes not only the band's sole album but also a dozen crucial bonus tracks, taken from demo and rehearsal tapes recorded between 1984 and 1989. It doesn't get any more syzygial than this, miscreants!!
Review courtesy of Justin Foley, long time aQ customer, and member of fellow Hydra Headers The Austerity Program!
Long time readers of the AQ mailing list may remember Northwest sasquatch-metallers Harkonen, whose two EPs and full-length or two charted out a wooly mass of distortion-laden virility. Harkonen's pummel stumbled across the line between Cavity's fierce crust/metal and Schlitz-dripping barn burners. At the head of this obviously unshaven trio was Ben Verellen, pumping out distorted bass lines and howling a great rock yell that is probably a family heirloom. �
Harkonen broke up a few years back and after a while word got around that Ben was in a new band - Helms Alee. Putting on their first full length - Night Terror - those who know some or all of the history above won't be too surprised at first. Ben's driving, fuzzed-up bass starts things off with an off kilter riff that spins into the instrumental intro "Lefty Man Handle", sounding a bit like Harkonen dipped in the soundtrack to a Sergio Leone movie. At the beginning of the second track, the same voice that bellowed over Harkonen's amps builds up from a measured sing to a top-of-the-mountain whoop - I'm telling you he's got a set of pipes on him. And by the time the song really opens up, the drummer is slamming on the cymbals, the bass and guitar are locked in a hypnotic two note riff and that guy's just roaring at you.
Then something truly wonderful happens.
And this is why the Helms Alee is surely my favorite record from 2008. Because while I love the ripping stomp that the song had purposefully built into, the band suddenly drops out the bottom and the drums, takes a breath and shifts into a guitar shimmering break. A two part female harmony picks up the song and carries it to what you later realize was the only place that it could have gone. It's like coming out of a tunnel into early daylight. And for the next 35 minutes or so, they deftly weave the pounding, yelling sweat-rock of the best Harkonen stuff with the equally strong and bittersweet beauty of an unexpected melody and harmony. Some times this happens at the same time, at others they switch back and forth. But it's done nearly perfectly over the course of the whole record, resulting in a sound that's equally poignant and heavy. �
Make no mistake - it's still a loud rock record that probably eviscerates live. But the thing that's really special about this band is the unexpected space they've found in a type of music that often seems like it runs out of new room. Special mention should be made of two things. First, the recording work on this is great - clear, physical and very unobtrusive. Second, those who buy it and sit for a full listen will really be rewarded by "Shmnna" - a record closer (almost, there's actually a nice coda song) that's obviously the climax of what the whole thing's building toward. The song's final guitar bit absolutely brings down the house. So good!
I've noticed that AQ likes to give reference points, so I'd suggest anyone who craves the male/female juxtaposition of X or Barbaro, the aging prizefighter nobility of Tar, or even some of the more rock parts of My Bloody Valentine must buy this record now. There's probably whole other groups who I should target as well - anyone who's into other stuff on the label, anyone who likes loud rock music at all, anyone who is signed up for the AQ mailing list, anyone who's not my sister - because this thing is a real, unexpected treat.
Although we've never technically reviewed anything from post-noise rock combo Helms Alee, we have actually listed one of their records before, the review was just not written by any of us. Nope, in fact, Helms Alee's Night Terror was reviewed by Mr. Justin Foley of The Austerity Program, who while perhaps not THEE most objective reviewer, considering his band is in fact labelmates with Helms Alee, was definitely of the same mind as us that Night Terror was in fact, a killer record. It definitely helped that we were all pretty nuts for pre-Helms Alee outfit Harkonen. And while we can't hope to match Foley's unique way with words, we figured that on the occasion of the new Helms Alee record, Weatherhead, the time had come for us to weigh in ourselves.
As Mr. Foley mentioned, there are still plenty of residual Harkonen-isms In Helms Alee, but HA are definitely their own band, a much more melodic beast for sure, the first track immediately brings to mind Torche and Big Business and even Cave In, that sort of sludge pop drum heavy melodic crunch, and that opener "Elbow Grease" is a doozy, not even two minutes but packed with plenty of buzz, wild tribal drumming, woozy tangled guitar harmonies, and cool multitracked vocals, which leads right into "8/16", which begins again, all super melodic, but quickly shifts gears into something seriously bombastic and aggro, howled vox and downtuned guitars, a lurching lumbering crush, but still shot through with tons of melody, and the first appearance of female vocals, which definitely change the vibe, and that song is all over the map, frantic and mathy, tripped out and psychedelic, chugging and churning, and that sort of plays out over the whole record, which for the most part is WAY more varied and melodic than the already admittedly melodic and varied Night Terror, lots of acoustic guitars, shimmering harmonies, and meandering slowcore, hazy angelic vocals, low slung bass creep, pure jangle pop, tripped out almost looped sounding riffage, seriously unhinged bellowed boy vocals, total classic rock sounding crunch but wrapped in super crumbly distortion, and rife with cool boy/girl harmonies, all that peppered with brief blasts of serious heaviness, like on the closing title track, which explodes with a super intense mathy workout, then gets all warped and punky, before getting dirgey and doomy, only to finally blossom into something totally melodic and hooky. Definitely all over the map, but the various bits and pieces do manage to all come together into a seriously kick ass and crazy catchy chunk of post everything heaviness.
Jussi from Circle recommended this Swedish band to us (we've found out about a lot of cool bands thanks to our friend Jussi), and after we tracked down some copies of their cd, we realized we needed to recommend 'em to you, too! Helvetets Port (which means Gate of Hell or something like that) are a current band playing a very deliberately retro, almost tongue-in-cheek style of '80s heavy metal. Not a joke though. They're totally for real, yet revel in the most ridiculous aspects of the music they love so much and strive to emulate. You can immediately see how this would appeal to Jussi (and us), since the next better thing than Circle's "NWOFHM" is of course the actual NWOBHM, which this band is obviously especially inspired by. Helvetets Port are four metal-lovin' Swedes playing dress up in color-coordinated spandex and scarves, but going beyond that to deliver the goods with galloping guitars, piercing falsetto shrieks, wonderful lyrics about diamond claws, Japanese warlords, and the threat of being killed by a reaper. That's what's most charming about this band, their (inadvertently?) silly, seemingly earnest songwriting in the best "story-telling" Iron Maiden-esque tradition. Their songs, though none of 'em long (2-3 minutes, most of 'em), are all mini-prog epics, utterly over the top, the band pushing to the limit of their ability and beyond, always totally catchy but also a bit awkward, their ambitious arrangements quite quirky. The accent-laden vocals, too, sometimes seem a bit strained, but these factors are overruled by their enthusiasm and just add to this band's "real people" feel, making their retro NWOBHM worship (and not just NWOBHM, as we suspect they like other, over the top old schoolers like Manowar and Thor too) seem all the more authentic, bound for cult fandom if they can keep it up.
They remind us a bit of the USA's Harbinger, another young band who like to pretend it's 1983, in real life as well as on record, in fact, if you watch the impressive/hilarious video that's supposed to be included as a bonus on this disc (we couldn't actually find it, but it's on YouTube anyway) for their song "Lightning Rod Avenger" you'll see these kids doing things the old fashioned way...
This was produced by the singer from Enforcer, another spandex-clad Swedish metal band of retro persuasion whom we've recommended previously, though Helvetets Port way outdoes Enforcer with their sheer, sincere, imaginative eccentricity (if not in other ways too). Hail Helvetets Port!!
Shredding instrumental math-metal played in happy, major keys on downtuned guitars with dual (or even triple) harmonies?? Sounds good? Check. Sound familiar? Double check. If you're a fan of San Francisco's The Fucking Champs it should. But this ain't the Champs. A glance at the colorful, Aaron Turner (Isis/Hydra Head) designed packaging reveals that this is a band called Hematovore, and they're from Alabama. We guess it had to happen. The Champs had some downtime, people got antsy, and then along comes a band that sounds so much like 'em it's absolutely uncanny. Unoriginal maybe, but what the heck. If you've been eagerly waiting for a Champs VI, well, you need to get this now!! It's just what the (rock) doctor ordered.
What's weird is that according to their online bio, they've been around for, like, 13 years (just like The Champs). And no mention is made of them as an influence. So perhaps it's a case of parallel evolution, inspired by the same cool things -- Carcass, Thin Lizzy, Metallica, Maiden, technical death metal... But we doubt it. They've GOT to be really into The Champs. Though, there's a few differences. Hematovore rocks with THREE guitars and a bassist, whereas The Champs make do with two guitars (sometimes three, when the drummer isn't drumming) and no bass. And the blend of extremes, death metal on one end, indie/post-rock on the other, seems more pronounced with Hematovore. They get more hardcore METAL than the Champs do at times, but at others also more mellow and pretty.
There's almost no point in describing this further, 'cause if you're NOT already into The Champs you either wouldn't like this, or need to get some Champs cds first. But if you're a Champs fan (and why wouldn't you be??) then this is basically the new Champs album you've been wanting, just under a different name. More ear candy for Champs fans basically. So we can't help but recommend it!!
Black metal grunge. And yeah, it's as good and weird as it sounds.
First Psalm from this buzzing blazing Swedish black horde. Ex member of Ondskapt!
The first thing you'll notice about the newest from Swedish black metallers Heresi is the amazing artwork, a dark shadowy tangle of demon parts, gnashing teeth, sharp claws, desiccated flesh, all with that awesome oil on canvas texture from the original painting. Flip it over and feast your eyes on a baby head in the grips of a taloned claw, its blood emptying into a blood filled dish held by the very same demon, his teeth flashing in the corner. Ugh. Why does the art look so familiar? It just so happens to be from a painting by Wrest from Leviathan and is totally striking and super creepy. Perfect for this newest release from Skamfer, and his one man black horde Heresi. This is the sequel to last years Psalm I and is even heavier, faster, more grim and more darkly depressive. Skamfer is an ex member of the mighty Ondskopt and it sounds like it. Furious blazing black metal fuzz, a thick wash of mosquito buzz riffage, pounding blast beats, howled guttural vocals, but like with Ondskapt, a surprisingly melodic flair. A soaring mournful majesty buried beneath the swirling wall of blackness. Think Deathspell Omega, Onskapt obviously, Ofermod, Funeral Mist, and you'll get an idea of where Heresi fall. Very Swedish sounding, with lots of death metal elements, but also plenty of weird psychedelic guitar leads, creepy harmonies and dense tangled arrangements, all doused in black blood and wrapped in spiked fury. Heavy and hypnotic and so fucking great.
Hermano, for those of you who don't know, is the post Kyuss band of vocalist John Garcia. While Josh Homme took his sunbaked fuzz guitar to MTV with Queens Of The Stoneage, Garcia stuck to the underground with his VERY Kyuss sounding new band. This is a super limited lp recording of Hemano live in the Netherlands back in 2004. We only got a couple of these, not sure if we can get more, but if we can it will probably take a while. But if you're dying for some sort of Kyuss fix, and QOTSA's new mainstream pop trajectory isn't doing it for you anymore, then hearing Garcia's instantly recognizable wail over a groovy slab of deserty stoner rock will for sure hit the spot.
What's not to love? They're called Hessian. The record cover features a dagger wielding, be-robed, tongue waggling, skeleton, presumably performing some sort of arcane ritual, one that most certainly utilizes his Bachelor Of Black Arts degree, plus there are song titles like "Eyebite", "Cloven Lady", "Funeral Disco", "Iron Baby" and "Homonculator". Definitely one of those cases where we were ready to love these guys (and gal) no matter what. Thankfully, sonically, they do not disappoint, delivering a classic, witchy old school psychedelic hard rock, sure it's a teensy bit doomy, but it's actually more like seventies proto metal, groovy, a little proggy, super rocking, and the boy/girl vocals RULE, giving it a cool kind of punky/poppy vibe as well. Beyond all that, the songs kill, the sound is heavy and hooky, and again, way more psychedelic and groovy than doomy and dirgey. In fact, fans of Deep Purple and Captain Beyond and those sorts of bands are likely to dig this way more than folks into Electric Wizard or Saint Vitus, although as you'd imagine, there's enough overlap that psych-onauts and doom-lords both should find lots of love here. Basically, if you like it heavy and psychedelic, groovy and hard rocking, you'll dig Hessian. A LOT.
This was a nice surprise, just showed up in the mail one day, and knocked our fucking socks off. These Richmond Virginia noisemakers kick out the face melting, head spinning jams, equal parts gnarled Voivod-ish math metal and grunge infused Amrep style noise rock, the guitars chug and howl and churn, the drums pound, the vocals are all over the place. From howled feral shriek, to punk yelp, to weirdly melodic croon, all wound up into killer, sprawling, epic SONGS. Catchy, tangly, dense, and so heavy.
From pounding midtempo dirges, all Jesus Lizard swagger and lurching Ved Buens Ende lope, to chugging nineties style post rock math metal, the Voivod-ness on tracks like "Lunatic Sun" are undeniable, but they're all tangled up with more modern noise rock like Young Widows or Daughters, a sound at once familiar and retro, but forward looking and utterly headbangable.
"Black Skeleton" opens with a flurry of tangled riffage and chaotic drumming, before locking into a stuttery groove, the vocals wound around the constantly shifting arrangement, and somehow, while all this weirdness and complexity is going on, it manages to be CRAZY catchy and super rocking.
"Godheads Full Of Candy", the 8+ minute centerpiece of the record, unfurls a weird, lumbering, almost Godflesh sounding industrial dirge, with some cool gnarled chug, flurries of double kick, clouds of tripped out processed guitar, eventually launching into some twisted, super mathy angularity, and for the rest of the track, flitting back and forth between the two, with some surprisingly melodic vocals, and yet another bunch of weirdly irresistible hooks.
The second half of the record, sounds weirdly way poppier than the first, to these ears, which is in no way a bad thing, hints of Bleach era Nirvana for sure, especially on record closer "Vivisection", as well as OLD Queens Of The Stoneage, but all twisted up with plenty of the aforementioned noise and math, the result a killer collection of convoluted pop flecked mathy and metallic, noise rock bliss, that we find ourselves unable to stop listening to...
