For past releases from this UK noise rock combo, we've employed descriptors like: head caving, throbbing, distorted, bad trip psychedelia, fuzz-distorted metallic, rhythmic heaviness, sheer nihilistic sludge, bludgeoning... you get the point, these guys are sonic crushers of the highest order. Or maybe WERE. Cuz this new lp displays a whole 'nother side to Hey Colossus, one that falls much closer to the psychedelic space rock side of the sonic spectrum.
The record opens with a super psychedelic groove, sorta space-kraut, chordal synth swirls wrapped in clouds of shimmer FX and laced with streaks of feedback, total hypno rock bliss out, that is until the vocals come in. Growly and demonic and raspy and intense, removed from HC's normally noisier sound, those voKILLS take on a much more sinister vibe, and make for a weird combo, mad man ranting over otherwise tranced out psychedelic mesmer, but it works. And those clouds of effects bleed right into the next track, all tribal drumming and spidery guitar melodies, and yup, those crazed vocals, the whole thing building to something much more noisy and rocking, but only briefly, before slipping back into a sort of proggy space kraut psychedelia. Minus those vocals (heck, even with 'em!), the sound falls somewhere closer to outfits like White hills, Mugstar and Carlton Melton, which is not a bad thing at al, just maybe a bit surprising.
The B side though is a bit sludgier and heavier, with thick, almost metallic riffing, but still, kinda space-y and proggy, those swirling FX from the A side still all over the places, the B side remaining pretty dark and heavy, at least until the weird, almost croony, countryish outro, which adds dusky twang, to the broody space-y drift, and of course those vox!
Cool weird stuff. Hey Colossus fans will probably still dig, but so might space/psych rock fans this time around.
London's heaviest, most hypnotic head-cavers, Hey Colossus, have found a home for their third album on the Riot Season label, who have previously brought us noize from the likes of Mainliner, Shit and Shine, and Aufgehoben. Heck, the label's logo features a trio of tanks, so of course Hey Colossus is a good match for their aesthetic. Being so brutally heavy and all, tank-like basically.
Happy Birthday (ironic title we guess, this is about as far from "Happy Birthday" the song as you can get) sees Hey Colossus doing what they do best: throbbing, distorted, kill 'em all action. Uber heavy, totally bad trip psychedelic. From the feedback intro of opening track "War Crows" and the rasping, ranting throat abuse that follows amidst pulsating, amped up electric murk, this Hey Colossus album destroys like a more rockin' version of Khanate... the Khanate comparison even more apropos on the next track, the more slowly thudding "Tight Collar". Part metal, part punk, part psych... what to call it? Ugly rawk doom drone maybe? With wailing Hawkwindy ampfriedification n' FX, heading into tortured dead zones of sheer nihilistic sludge, Hey Colossus fits in with such faves as Indian, Brainbombs, Unsane, Cadaver In Drag, godheadSilo, Pissed Jeans, Vincent Black Shadow, Cavity, Rusted Shut... and those other Riot Season acts mentioned at the beginning of this review. In other words, glorious stuff for those so inclined (like us!), pulling the listener who dares inexorably into its extreme vortex.
There's eight tracks here, 46+ minutes of the Hey Colossus experience, which threatens to run itself (and you) off the rails into total insanity as it rocks and rumbles on. Can't pick fave tracks really, they're all pretty badass, but the driving uptempo umph of the waveringly blown-out "Fire Up The Tambourine" is certainly quite wicked. Even more out there, "Permanent Vacation" parts 1 and 2 is full of bottom-of-the-abyss, buried alive vocals in a shitstorm of droning distortion... And how can we not like a track, especially a pounding, noisy, rhythmic near-13 minute epic, that's called "Overlord Rapture In Vines Part 2"?? It's the psycho-delic explosion that ends this album appropriately apocalyptically. Happy fuckin' birthday indeed.
Throbbing, fuzz-distorted, metallic, rhythmic HEAVINESS. Loud too, of course. That's the modus operandi of London, England's oddly named Hey Colossus. Bludgeoning, repetitive riffing, with lotsa wonderful noisiness and modicum of hidden post-rock prettiness, that can definitely put you into a dazed and confused, headbanging trance, the same way our Finnish faves Circle/Pharaoh Overlord can and so often do, right? Described somewhere by somebody as a mix of "Fudge Tunnel and Can" (yes, the grungy UK dirge metallers meet the classic krautrock masters), Hey Colossus themselves would probably admit to sounding more like the former, but legitimately reference such bands as Can and Neu! as influences, along with '80s hardcore and psychedelic stoner rock and more... So while it might be hard to hear beneath the THREE bulldozer guitars, and droning feedback, and cathartic, raw-throat screaming, but a krautrock-inspired 'pulse' is kicking your ass too!
If you don't remember Fudge Tunnel (a good band despite their dodgy name, rather like Hey Colossus) we'd also cite the likes of Zeni Geva, Melvins, Isis, godheadSilo, Shellac, Figure Of Merit, and the aforementioned Pharaoh Overlord as diverse batch of comparisons towards the primarily sludgey aspect of HC's sound.
It's the return of British sludge bludgeoners Hey Colossus, whose prior releases, including a split LP with Japanese doomsters Dot [.], we've recommended. Rhythmic and rumbling, this band plays a heavy hybrid of noisy punk and post rock, clearly conversant with both the unlikely extremes of krautrock and death metal. On Project: Death, the influence of the latter results in parts of such tracks as "On The Pleasure Of Hating" for short stretches approaching the pummelling tranciness of the Boredoms' Super Roots 3 (to reference a reissue recently reviewed). Shouting vox and down-tuned guitars also put these guys in league with such not-metal-but-even-scarier acts as Burmese and Unsane, their grinding grooves awash with an almost psychedelic level of FX (someone in the band plays nothing but Korg Kaoss Pad, apparently!). Menacing, murky, massive, murderous.
Latest batch of noise rock pummel from these UK crushers, although the first few minutes had us thinking we might have stuck the wrong disc in the player, a cool droned out slithery expanse of dense layered shimmer, of mysterious ritualistic buzz, tribal percussion, disembodied vocals, all hazy and druggy and mesmerizing, but fear not, apparently that was just the intro, as track two comes stumbling in like some downtuned AmRep avalanche, all Melvins-y stomp and swagger, with knuckle dragging drum pound, bellowed processed vox, all beneath squalls of feedback and grinding FX, and let's not forget the guitars, there are after all THREE guitar players (four if you count the bass guitar, and we DO), a thick wall of crumbling blackened slo-mo tarpit riffage, churning and roiling, some sort of sonic mad scientist channeling the Butthole Surfers and Shit And Shine, and sort of like in the movie The Fly the two are fused in some horrible laboratory mishap, but in this case, the result is fantastic, a gloriously sludgy dirgey pound, heady and hypnotic, a looped sounding chunk of metallic mesmer, which is pretty much what these guys specialize in. The rest of the record offers up variations of that theme, "The Drang" slows things down to a swampy crawl, letting synths shimmer and feedback squall beneath a sea of swirling buzz and bellowing howls, while the title track blurs everything into a stretched out sprawl of FX drenched space rock bliss out, that gradually becomes more and more metallic, more and more pounding and propulsive as the track progresses, the last half sounding a bit like the Melvins covering Hawkwind, which is no way a bad thing at all.
"Almeria, Spain" is an epic bit of post-sludge, sounding all majestic and mighty, a bit like Harvey Milk at their most melodic and bombastic, while "Warmer The Belter" gets all sensitive, acoustic guitars, some shuffling drums, dreamy melodies, and the vocals a deep dreamy croon, the whole thing underpinned by a symphony of demonic sounding effects and sinister drones, which finally gives way to the final jam, "I Am Bunga Bunga", which far from the crushing closer we were expecting pairs weird garbled vox with shimmery shuffling almost krautrock sounding thrum, which really only briefly explodes, offering up a final glimpse of these guys' crush and pummel proclivities, before slipping right back into a final minute or two of swirling effects wreathed ambience.
As always incredible stuff, and a pretty awesome document of how these guys drag their noise rock kicking and not always screaming, far beyond the boundaries that define most of their similarly sonically inclined brethren...
We don't hear a lot from Japanese sludgelords Dot [.], which is a shame, cuz they could really give Boris and Corrupted a run for their money. In fact, now that Boris have become more of a proper 'rock' band, Dot [.] and Corrupted are pretty much the only two bands left carrying the slow motion Japanese doomdirge torch. But both bands seem to be on an entirely frustrating one record every couple years schedule. Thankfully, we've just discovered something to keep our doomdeathdronedirge hunger sated, a brand new Dot [.] track. Only a track? Fear not, it's a side long and heavy as fuck. Massive crumbling downtuned dirge. Pounding and lurching, a pummeling behemoth stumbling through black tar and thick sludge. With super tripped out affected vocals, a cookie monster growl, wrapped in delay and echo, so each growled lyric, goes spinning dublike off into the ether. Like Corrupted with King Tubby handling the vocal production. Pretty cool. This is the second or third time we've noticed some bits of dub finding their way into massive doom tracks. When is someone gonna just go for it, and record the first ever DOOMDUBSLUDGE record? We can hardly wait. Dot [.]'s partners for this low slung musical split are the UK's Hey Colossus, who bring their own slant to the whole sludgy downtuned rock thing. HC offer up a much more spacious and epic sounding concoction. A definite post rock influence infuses their crusty sludge. A sort of Boris via Mogwai by way of Slint, or something. Creeping grooves that build into thick waves of grinding downtuned riffage, with weird shouted vocals, thick with Hawkwind FX and sent drifting over HC's spiky psychedelic krautrock stoner sludge grooves. Pretty freaking awesome, and a darn near perfect foil for Dot [.]'s more traditionally sludgy sound.
Packaged in cool printed Rorschach design sleeves with a two color insert.
Latest eruption of doom-sludge-drone heaviness from UK kill team Hey Colossus, here teamed up with the awesomely named Dethscalator, but more on them in a second.
Hey Colossus continue to expand their epic dirge space rock, with three sprawling slow-jams, that oozes from slow burning drones, to lurching stumbling blackened crush, to metallic krautrock and back again, rumbling drones erupt into looped sounding riff heavy sludge workouts, the vocals a hellish bellow, feedback swirling all over the place, the band a beast, a lumbering sonic juggernaut, downtuned and crushing, but spaced out and psychedelic too. Folks into Shit And Shine might want to give these guys a try, the same sort of noise drenched fucked up mantra like mesmerizing heaviness. Amidst all that heaviness, the band do unwind into hypnotic post/space rock jams, simple and rhythmic, under a haze of murky buzz and jagged skree, but seem to eventually explode into either a squall of melting lysergic effects drenched freakout, or pounding black murk slow motion metal crush. We dig it either way!
Which brings us to Dethscalator, who we liked already, cuz, well, they're called Dethscalator, we're like that. Thankfully the sound lives up to the name, a gnarled blend of Gore like repetitive heaviness, and lo-slung Jesus Lizard like noise rock, the vocals especially, a dead ringer for David Yow, all scowly and sort of sung / spoken, and super distorted, with the band swinging all downtuned and seasick, until they lock into bursts of cyclical riffage, that sound almost looped, occasionally lifting off into some serious space rock territory, before falling back into another stretch of woozy metallic noise rock, culminating in the weird brooding noise rock slowjam that ends the record, murky and washed out and gloomy, weirdly melodic and super dark and creepy. Rad rad rad. Definitely need more Dethscalator in our lives, and heck more Hey Colossus while we're at it!
Features some awesomely fucked up and garish (and badly photoshopped) cover art, one eyed creep and headless biker anyone??
We love our metal here at aQ. A LOT. But there a two distinct strains that tend to drive us wild. There is of course the ultra precise, super heavy, complex and punishing perfectly crafted metal. Be it black, or thrash, stoner or doom. But then there's its bastard offspring, its deformed sibling, the one kept locked in the cellar, the damaged, demented, completely bizarre, totally unhinged and utterly and beautifully impossibly fucked metal. Total outsider metal. It may be doom or sludge or black metal, but composed and played and recorded with total disregard for anything but the personal vison, no matter how skewed or off kilter. In the past we have worshipped before the likes of Benighted Leams, Urfaust, Striborg, Wold, Rehtaf Ruo, Spektr, Necrofrost, Furze and all of a similarly demented nature. And now we have Hidden. A sort of doom / thrash hybrid, pre-occupied with some impossibly ridiculous science (fiction), the record is called Aleisstar Morphalite, some of the song titles: "Hydrodynamic Physics", "Interplanetary Space Physics And Climatology", "Planets Of Metal", "The Search For Where Life May Have Existed", you get the drift. And their sound is equally as scientifically and musically obtuse. Buzzing downtuned thrash metal, lighting fast riffs buried WAY down in the mix, the gutteral inhuman vocals way UP in the mix, spitting out impossibly complicated lyrics, you can catch a word here and there, 'radiation' gets mentioned a lot, as does the 'universe', 'carbon dioxide' does too, each line containing just a few too many words to fit in the designated space, so it comes out all gargled and jumbled together, a bit like old Slayer actually at least in terms of cadence, the sound though is like nothing you've ever heard, a sort of deathmetalized alien shriek. Then there's the songs, the riffs and the song structures are super convoluted, lots of stops and starts, pauses where there will be no sound but a weird wheezing synthesizer, or some random droning rumble, creepy synths and almost Cradle Of Filth keyboards surface all over the record, sometimes in a thick sheet draped over everything, there are some weird trashcan sounding electronic cymbals that hover in weird spaces when the music sort of hiccups and skips a beat, sometimes just a haunting background, occasionally a black thrash attack will slowly peter out and turn into a strangley gorgeous melancholic doom dirge, but still peppered with haunting piano and all sorts of random sound effects and sonic weirdness, and of course the vocals slithering and shrieking out some strange alien scientific propaganda over the top. But weird and bizzare and damaged and demented are not enough (well, almost), there has to be songs, you know actually songs, riffs and hooks and parts that stick in your head. And well, as impossible as it may seem, this record is full of 'em. Completely and impossibly catchy parts. The first song in fact, "Interferometer", has to be the catchiest damaged-alien-doom-black-thrash-sci-fi song EVER! Even the weird double kick / warbly space synth battle part way through gets stuck in our heads. Holy crap! This record is so completely nuts, but so completely heavy and kick ass. These guys should totally have a crazy metal science show on PBS, where kids learn about gravity and time travel and wormholes, but each lecture is delivered as a sludgy buzzing convoluted blast of demented space metal! In our dreams!
The much-loved Wino, grizzled underground doom-metal guitarist and vocalist extraordinaire, who first gained fame with the legendary bands The Obsessed and Saint Vitus and more recently fronted the popular Spirit Caravan (R.I.P.), is back, riding high in the saddle again in not one but two new bands.
OK, Place of Skulls isn't actually new (more on them in a sec) but The Hidden Hand is. Basically they're the continuation of Spirit Caravan by other means it seems. Wino recruited a new rhythm section -- one without overt substance abuse problems -- that really allows him to fire up his trademark heavy stoner rock into punkier, more aggro realms than before. They really kick ass with some complex instrumental stuff goin' on. Definitely further out on a limb musically than the Caravan. Lyrically, Wino indulges in a lot of ridiculous conspiracy-theory -- he's really gone off the deep end with post 9/11 paranoia. But his heart's in the right place, politically revolted with the Bush/Cheney/Ashcroft coup. It's redneck radical rock for X-files fans. Heavy riffs, heavy concepts, there's even a reading list.
Meanwhile, Wino also joined up with Place of Skulls, the band of ex-Pentagram guitarist Victor Griffin (whoo-hoo! supergroup!). Their first album Nailed came out last year on Southern Lord and we gave it a bit of mixed review, criticizing the vocals particularily. But they had potential, and now with Wino in the band they're much much better. It's a funny thing, actually, 'cause they already sounded a lot like Spirit Caravan or The Obsessed, but I guess they needed the talents of the man himself to really shine. His vocals help a lot. Victor still sings, too, but he's somehow better now thanks to Wino's example I guess! Dunno if they're still a Christian band, I'm not sure how Jesus fits into Wino's conspiracy theories... but he's certainly a 'spiritual' dude, so it works. Anyway, both Place Of Skulls and The Hidden Hand worthy successors to Wino's previous projects, with Place Of Skulls more straight-up doom metal for doom heads and The Hidden Hand harking back in ways to The Obsessed's DC punk roots, Bad Brains jazz fusion lurking in the grooves, though neither band would exist if not for Black Sabbath of course. And the Place Of Skulls album cover wouldn't exist if it weren't for Steppenwolf's "7"...
Mother Teacher Destroyer is the second album of spiritually and politically radical heavy rock music to be revealed by The Hidden Hand, a trio lead by veteran guitarist/vocalist Scott "Wino" Weinrich (The Obsessed, Saint Vitus, Spirit Caravan, Place Of Skulls, Probot). Wino's past tends to define him, but with The Hidden Hand there's been a bit of a fresh start. He's no longer treading water, in the moat of the doom castle. The Hidden Hand harks back to Wino's harDCore roots, the band's energetic, complex nature shaking off any residual doom/stoner stupor. Not that this isn't still psychedelic and doomy too (some of it sounds like early The Obsessed meets Pink Floyd), it's just got an aggro edge to it. Wino and crew are angry about the state of our nation, that's for sure -- "The Deprogramming Of Tom Delay" is an actual song title here! And while some of his ideas might be a little far out, his instincts are right-on.
Here's the moody, massive return of Scott "Wino" Weinrich's state-of-the-art progressive stoner rock power trio, their third full-length. Wino's gnarled croon and distinctive, fat guitar tone is at this point a national treasure (of the Doomed Nation that is), and The Resurrection Of Whiskey Foote gives all of us fans another chance to bask in his dark glory. Bassist Bruce Falkinberg performs his share of vocal duties as well, belting out the lead on several songs with a sort of ragged Blackie Lawless rasp, sounding better than previous albums when we wondered why the heck Wino wasn't singing all the songs.
The Hidden Hand is sort of like an advanced version of Wino's previous outfit Spirit Caravan: more adventurous, more complex, more melodic. The songs here range from plodding psych to raging grunge, calling to mind Sabbath (of course), the Southern rock of Skynyrd, and (thus) Pepper-era Corrosion Of Conformity. The 46 year old Wino is definitely keeping one foot in the '70s here, as always... and the other in the 1700s, as apparently this album ("thinking man's" stoner rock for sure) has a semi-conceptual historical fiction storyline having to do with the made-up title character in post Revolutionary War America. It's all very cryptic of course, but we think perhaps reference is being made to the anti-tax Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s, that was squashed by President Washington. That would fit in with what we know to be Wino's suspicions about our Federal government today. Hmm, well while we take Wino's conspiratorial notions with a grain of salt, we are fully accepting of his powerful guitar riffs! And we never before thought that taking AP American History in high school would help us review a stoner rock record...
Ok, Wino/stoner rock fans. Time to decide how big a fan you really are. This split features two quite excellent new tracks from Wino's current outfit, The Hidden Hand. Like their debut album from last year, they have injected a greater dose of conspiracy theory and musical chops into the music of Wino's previous outfits Spirit Caravan and The Obsessed, resulting in what we might term "advanced stoner rock". Heavy in so many ways. Then there's also two tracks from newcomers Wooly Mammoth, another stoner rock outfit who play music that's kinda groovy and grungy and almost as heavy as The Hidden Hand. In addition, there's a bonus Meteor City label sampler disc, with unreleased/upcoming tracks from the likes of Atomic Bitchwax, Black Nasa, The Obsessed, Weedeater, Yob and others. So, here's the decision part. Are you into Wino enuff to pay $15 for two songs? And/or are you into stoner rock enough to pay $15 for the sampler and the two Wooly Mammoth tracks, along with the two Hidden Hand cuts? Time for some careful cost/benefit ratiocination. If it helps, remember that the sampler has an old Yob demo track on it from '99.
Some 'supergroups' seem more likely than others, often made up of guys who already played together, or who had shared histories, maybe toured together, but then there's this one, called The High Confessions, which barring some secret connections (which probably do exist), seems pretty dang mysterious and unlikely, but then the unlikely ones are always the best ones.
One part Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, one part Chris Connelly of Ministry and Revolting Cocks, one part Sanford Parker (Minsk, Nachtmystium and Twilight) and one final part, Jeremy Lemos of White/Light, who has also recorded Smog and Stereolab among others. Wow. A pretty motley crew for sure, but it definitely works. And like all good collaborations, it never obviously points to a single member. There's definitely an industrial vibe, especially on the opener "Mistaken For Cops", with its Teutonic pound, and sung/spoken vox, but then there's spidery swirls of psychedelic guitar, thick washed out production, deep low end pulses, there's even a little bit of a proggy vibe as well. The 17 minute "Along Came The Dogs" begins with a rumbling stretch of black drones, and martial drums, sampled voices and collaged vocals, thick warbly low end synth buzz, a skeletal motorik pulse, which gradually transforms into a sort of industrial / krautrock hybrid, all swooping muddied electronics, a little bit Can or Faust, more sung/spoken vocals, this time tangled and overlapping, a strange sort of round almost, the jam wreathed in swirling clouds of buzz, and peppered with thick stabs of reverbed bass synth crunch, growing more and more stripped down and skeletal before finally grinding to a halt. Only to have "The Listener" creep in, a brooding moody drift, all minimal percussive pulse, driven by lush piano chords, and woozy dramatic vocals, shot through with bits of feedback, the vibe still pretty krauty, and proggy, spaced out and psychedelic.
"Dead Tenements" begins with a thick corrosive churn of synthdrone, which is soon joined by some smoldering guitar growl, some muted feedback, and an I-am-Iron-Man kick drum throb, before the vocals come in, a snarled croon, a gorgeously bleak sonic death march, that about halfway through explodes into something much more fierce, dense tribal drumming, the various strands of drones growing more incendiary, the vocals more intense, before dropping out completely and leaving the drums to drive an awesomely hypnotic heavy krautdrone coda, trancelike and divine. Finally, "Chlorine And Crystal" finishes things off, another brooding dirge, the bassline thick and distorted, wreathed in fuzz, the guitars crystalline and lysergic, a pop song slowed way down and transformed into a sort of depressive Wipers style ballad, albeit with a bit more crunch, a lumbering chunk of hypnorock dirgery, that seems to crumble as the track progresses, eventually leaving a strangely distorted rhythm, pounding it's way through a cloud of glistening harmonics, held aloft by some low slung bass fuzz, and a slowly fading industrial kraut groove.
Stoner/doom heads, alert! The Man's Ruin-released cd of this album is now out of print (although, we stocked up right before the label went under, and still have a few copies). Now, however, there's vinyl! It comes complete with new (better) cover art courtesy of the Roger Dean of the stoner rock scene, Arik Moonhawk Roper, and a bonus 7" with two new tracks, including a cover of
The Bay Area's slowest, heaviest, potsmokin'est doom metal combo Sleep (RIP) lives on in the form of ex-Sleep guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike's new band High On Fire. Sleep's last album, the infamous "Jerusalem", consisted of but one, super-long super-slow track. High On Fire speeds things up a bit (only a bit) but maintains the heaviness and the trademark Sleep sound. Right on.
Flap flap flap. More like flwwaapp flwwaapp flwwaapphhgh. Blessed Black Wings cast a shadow across the land, blotting out the sun in their demonic leathern flight. It's the third album from the Bay Area's louder-than-thou High On Fire, the first to feature new bassist Joe Preston (Thrones, ex-Melvins, ex-Earth) and it's not going to disappoint any fans of their previous discs, that's for sure. On this Steve Albini recorded effort, the sheer volume and pummel is cranked to full force, ex-Sleep guitarist Matt Pike's Lemmy-vs-Cronos styled vox doing damage atop a fast-marching mountain of riffery. It really sounds like these guys are beating the bejesus out of their instruments, and not just the drums. It's like an angry, aggro version of Sleep, really. And more than ever, this is somehow sludgily reminiscent of the underground metal thrash of a decade or 15 years ago...I'm hearing Nuclear Assault, Laaz Rockit, Exodus, and oh yeah, Slayer!! Includes (while supplies last, we assume) a bonus dvd disc with five live tracks. So, "Cometh Down Hessian" (that's one of the song titles) and buy this!
FINAL VINYL, BACK IN STOCK.
The fire yet burns. Guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike's three-piece pissed-off stoner metal juggernaut presents their fourth album, and while we can't say we were disappointed or anything (you get what you've come to expect from HoF), neither were we super blown away either, really. Though we never would have predicted it a few years ago, to our minds it would seem that Pike's former bandmates from seminal stoned-on-Sabbath dopesmokers Sleep are up to something a little more interesting at this juncture, in their outfit Om. Or, we're just more in the mood for Om's brand of mystical, minimal weirdness rather than the more bloodyminded bludgeon being beaten into our skulls by High On Fire. But if that's what you want, look no further. Death Is The Communion delivers the goods: Wardrums pound. Lemmylike vocals gargle forth and froth. Clenched fist riffage rakes your flesh. Yeah!
And, as the album bulldozers along, some diversity is to be had, from majestic keyboard melancholia and somber guitar soloing to surprisingly introspective, un-metally acoustic guitar interludes. So, another fine HoF outing. And by the way, bassist Joe Preston is gone, High On Fire just another notch on his bedpost of one-night-stands-in-bands (as per his stints with Earth and the Melvins). His replacement, Jeff Matz of Zeke.
The fire yet burns. Guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike's three-piece pissed-off stoner metal juggernaut presents their fourth album, and while we can't say we were disappointed or anything (you get what you've come to expect from HoF), neither were we super blown away either, really. Though we never would have predicted it a few years ago, to our minds it would seem that Pike's former bandmates from seminal stoned-on-Sabbath dopesmokers Sleep are up to something a little more interesting at this juncture, in their outfit Om. Or, we're just more in the mood for Om's brand of mystical, minimal weirdness rather than the more bloodyminded bludgeon being beaten into our skulls by High On Fire. But if that's what you want, look no further. Death Is The Communion delivers the goods: Wardrums pound. Lemmylike vocals gargle forth and froth. Clenched fist riffage rakes your flesh. Yeah!
And, as the album bulldozers along, the mood gets more somber, and some diversity is to be had, from majestic, morose keyboard melancholia to surprisingly introspective, un-metally acoustic guitar interludes. So, another fine HoF outing. And by the way, bassist Joe Preston is gone, High On Fire just another notch on his bedpost of one-night-stands-in-bands (as per his stints with Earth and the Melvins). His replacement, Jeff Matz of Zeke.
And by the way, this edition comes with a bonus DVD disc featuring 40 minutes of in-the-studio footage n' stuff.
Now on vinyl!!
Limited Edition. Live. High On Fire. Those are the crucial concepts that need to be conveyed in this here review. Clearly, anyone who might possibly consider buying this doesn't need to be told who (ex-Sleep stoner metal masters) High On Fire are. You might be interested to know that it was recorded back in January 2003 at one of the band's last shows with now ex-bassist George Rice, that is, before Joe Preston joined the band, and before their latest Blessed Black Wings was recorded. Thus, their 34-minute set is mostly drawn from the then-current Surrounded By Thieves album (including "Razorhoof" and "Hung, Drawn, & Quartered") but they also dish out old favorite "Blood From Zion", introduce an early version of BBW's "To Cross The Bridge", and top things off with a cover of Venom's "Witching Hour"!
The sound is good, the band is raw n' raging, and High On Fire fans who would like to authentically recreate their live experience at home need only this disc and some way to amplify it a million times more than what a mere stereo system can do! But next to having them come and bring their amps into your living room it's the closest you can get!
Limited Edition. Live. High On Fire. Those are the crucial concepts that need to be conveyed in this here review. Clearly, anyone who might possibly consider buying this doesn't need to be told who (ex-Sleep stoner metal masters) High On Fire are. You might be interested to know that it was recorded back in January 2003 at one of the band's last shows with now ex-bassist George Rice, that is, before Joe Preston joined the band, and before their latest Blessed Black Wings was recorded. Thus, their 34-minute set is mostly drawn from the then-current Surrounded By Thieves album (including "Razorhoof" and "Hung, Drawn, & Quartered") but they also dish out old favorite "Blood From Zion", introduce an early version of BBW's "To Cross The Bridge", and top things off with a cover of Venom's "Witching Hour"!
The sound is good, the band is raw n' raging, and High On Fire fans who would like to authentically recreate their live experience at home need only this disc and some way to amplify it a million times more than what a mere stereo system can do! But next to having them come and bring their amps into your living room it's the closest you can get!
It's pretty much a given at this point: High On Fire can do no wrong. For over a decade now, they have been one of the most reliable and awesome metal bands on the planet... so reliable in fact, that it's easy to almost take them for granted. But every time a new album hits the streets, we have the same reaction, which includes foaming at the mouth, an increased heart rate, and the urge to destroy everything in sight. They're that good.
Snakes For The Divine is the band's first post-Relapse album, brought to us by E1 Entertainment, formerly Koch. Not sure what the deal is with this label, but the change has done the band some good for sure. The biggest surprise here is the slightly more polished production courtesy of hot shit producer Greg Fidelman, who you might remember from Slayer's recent World Painted Blood and, cough, Metallica's Death Magnetic. But fear not, because words like "polished" are really only used relative to the band's back catalog and do not in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER take away from the sonic beatdown Oakland's favorite sons have delivered since day one. They've just moved on, but there will be no mistaking who this is. Matt Pike's throatshredding vocals and guitar mastery (seriously, who else in metal today can rival this guy?) will tear you apart in the best way imaginable, and then you got the rhythm section, without question one of the best and most punishing in the biz. Des Kensel's intense whirlwind drumming and Jeff Matz's low end rumble are the perfect accompaniment for Pike's onslaught, making High On Fire sound like an uncontrollable force of nature, or maybe some ancient army storming across the mountains toward their ultimate victory. At the same time, this is the kind of metal that people who aren't really into heavier music can still dig, just because everything is done so perfectly. There's really nothing not to like here, and goddamn, this is some catchy stuff. Considering how brutal it is, that's definitely saying something. For a band that hasn't strayed too far from the sound they established early on, it's amazing that High On Fire can remain so vital and awesome. But they've once again delivered, in fact we'd go as far as to say that this is their best effort since 2002's Surrounded By Thieves, and we have no doubt Snakes For The Divine will have you raging into the next morning. Fuck yeah.
Eight new weighty sonic slabs from San Francisco's premier stoner metal outfit, High On Fire (fronted by Matt Pike, formerly of Bay Area doom legends Sleep). Yes, this is HoF's brand new second album, following hard on the heels of the Tee Pee reissue of their debut "The Art of Self Defense". We know that anticipation has been running high for this new disc -- and to our ears, it's no disappointment, full of bludgeoning guitar riffery, ragged vox and relentless drum-pound as per our expectations. As heavy as Matt's old band, but not so slow -- their black as pitch, tar pit dirges are cranked up faster into violent headbanging territory. Sludgey rock n' roll that's perfect bloody battle music for the axe-wielding barbaric warrior depicted on the album's front cover. Fed on juicy steaks of Black Sabbath, Celtic Frost, Melvins, and Eyehategod beef, "Surrounded By Thieves" is a ravening brute that means to trample you underfoot, but if you're a fan of all things heavy instead of running away, you'll let it give you a big senses-numbing, trance-inducing bear hug.
The demise of Man's Ruin was a big blow to the stoner rock scene, weeding (ha) out some crappy bands, to be sure, but also rendering some worthy albums out of print. Thankfully, in the case of San Francsico's favorite potsmoking doomsters High On Fire,
The Bay Area's slowest, heaviest, potsmokin'est doom metal combo Sleep (RIP) lives on in the form of ex-Sleep guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike's new band High On Fire. Sleep's last album, the infamous "Jerusalem", consisted of but one, super-long super-slow track. High On Fire speeds things up a bit (only a bit) but maintains the heaviness and the trademark Sleep sound. Right on.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Yay! So many good things combined here with this release, it's like a crazy cosmic convergence of cool. First off, it's a Skin Graft comic book single. That's right, this colored-vinyl 7" record comes with a full-color comic book by the guys at Skin Graft, getting back to their roots as a combo of weird-music label and underground comix publisher. They haven't released anything in this format for ages, but we have fond memories of similar releases from way back by UFO or Die, Zeni Geva, Dazzling Killmen, Space Streakings, Mount Shasta, Brise-Glace... The comic doesn't have much to do with the music, but it's pretty cool.
And yeah, then there's the music. Side A: High On Fire. You know 'em you love 'em (or you should). Motorhead on Sabbath on Slayer on 11. They contribute a song from their latest, probably greatest release Blessed Black Wings, called "Brother In The Wind". And on Side B: Ruins. You know 'em you love 'em (or you should). Magma meets Lightning Bolt. Their track is a previously unreleased number entitled "Gwodhunqa" that encompasses everything that's great about Ruins: nimble, bass-heavy grooves and crazed yet catchy complexity. Parts of this sound like it's on 45, even though it already is on 45, if you know what I mean.
Never thought High On Fire and Ruins would share a split, but why not? Whoever thunk this up, give 'em a raise.
Where does the esteemed Professor Chris Black find the time?? Surely the most prolific man in heavy metal, with one of the best track records out there too, fronting Dawnbringer and Superchrist, drumming in cult epic power metal faves Pharaoh, doing that Aktor project with Jussi from Circle - oh yeah, and now ALSO fronting a Metalucifer tribute act called... wait for it... MetalUSAfer! (featured elsewhere on this list!), and while basically everything the man lays his hands on turns to heavy metal gold, if we had to pick a favorite here at aQ it just might be the motivational montage heavy metal High Spirits. They're just too fun, too catchy, too rock & roll.
2013 is more of a stop-gap release, made up of demos from the last couple of years, but we'll take whatever we can get when it comes to this band. And since these are demos there's an added rawness which is not at all unwelcome, giving these songs even more of an added sense of urgency than usual. For those not in the know, High Spirits play driving, fist pumping NWOBHM style metal perfect for speeding down a desert highway in the dead of night, hands clutched on the wheel in a pair of fingerless leather gloves. Opener "One Last Chance" is the perfect example - the kind of song you'd listen to when you've only got one more shot to make the grade, before the moment is lost forever... You know, that kind of thing! "Be My Shelter", with its harmonized leads over a fragmented rock & roll groove, is a bit reminiscent of early Devil's Blood - perfect for galloping down a dusty trail en route to an old West duel. "If I'm Gone" is a midpaced heartbreak rocker that wouldn't sound out of place on that recent Falcon album we raved about - the kind of track that might be playing while you flip up the collar on your leather jacket and turn away from your lady for the last time, in slow motion, a single tear only concealed by a tasty pair of aviator sunglasses. And while there's definitely a sense of genuine fun in High Spirits music like we mentioned before, the vocals and lyrics are delivered with such earnestness that the songs never devolve into homage, pastiche or parody. It's just street level, night time rock & roll - either you get it or you don't, and we are fully on board.
Like we said, these are demos, and we're looking forward to High Spirits' new full-length album, You Are Here, coming out in April on Hells Headbangers and High Roller.
Hot damn, we're in high spirits indeed to be gettin' this new full-length from High Spirits, whose self-titled demos disc we raved about last year, and proved to be a bit of a sleeper hit here at AQ. We've been waiting for their "debut" album proper ever since, and now here it is, High Spirits offering up nine new, completely classic-sounding songs that you could mistake for NWOBHM gems circa '79.
The mastermind behind High Spirits is multi-instrumentalist Chris "Professor" Black, best known for his critically acclaimed one-man-band Dawnbringer on Profound Lore. High Spirits is another one man band, although Chris has recruited a color-coordinated lineup for live performances. Here, however, he handles all the vocals, guitars, drums, songwriting, etc., heck he even self-released the cd. And even moreso than with Dawnbringer, which grew out of a black/death metal basis to incorporate more melody and traditional speed metal shred, with High Spirits he's utterly indulging his love of good ol' fashioned, and downright poppy, metal. And damn is he good at it. Gorgeous guitarwork, catchy tuneage... What's more, these songs rise above being merely ear candy for retro-metal nostalgics (though ear candy it is!), because of his distinctive, dare we say delicate, high voice (often harmonized with himself) and heartfelt, non-ironic lyrics. The melancholic tinge to his singing, juxtaposed with the hot rockin', headbanging riffage, gives this a very special, unique vibe. Compared to a lot of other current "New Wave Of Old School Metal" bands we like (Cauldron, Enforcer, Zuul, Twisted Tower Dire...) there's something about High Spirits' sound and songwriting approach that comes across as particularly honest and uncontrived, whether the songs be about love, or partying. Somehow even the sorta cheesy, "nighttime in the big city" stuff a la the album cover/title track, comes off as innocent and sincere. Listening to High Spirits is like listening to a good friend (or an inner voice) giving you a psychological pep talk, backed by powerful, warmly fuzzed guitars. If we're making comparisons, we'd say this probably comes closest to last year's highly praised debut from Christian Mistress, no foolin'.
Color us quite impressed, anyway, with the good Professor's memorable-metal-making abilities! F'n recommended, yeah!!
Yay, You Are Here is here! Man, we love this band - or man, since the band is just one fella, Chris "Professor" Black, one of metal's most prolific and prodigious talents at the moment. He's guy behind Dawnbringer, for one thing. Just a little while ago, we listed High Spirits' latest demo disc, as well as another brainchild of Chris', the MetalUSAfer 7" (a brilliantly conceptual tribute of sorts to cult Japanese true metal stalwarts, Metalucifer). Not long before those, we had that unique Aktor single, featuring Chris in cahoots with Jussi from Circle.
So we, and hopefully you too, are pretty well primed for this brand new full-length album from Chris' purest (purist?) metal project, High Spirits, full of more of the NWOBHM-inspired, 'motivational montage metal' (our phrase) we love about them, er, him. (High Spirits do have a live formation, by the way, with Chris joined by guys from Zuul, but in the studio, it's all Chris.)
The prime paradox of High Spirits' songs are that they're seemingly deliberately calculated to be the soundtrack for rainslick city streets at night, illuminated in neon light (kinda cheesy and cinematic, on the poppier side of '80s heavy metal stylings, right?), but they're also, in part due to Chris' earnest voice, very sincere and heartfelt sounding too, not ironic or anything. On this album, High Spirits pulls it off again. Great stuff, super catchy as always, from the uptempo opener "When The Lights Go Down" (the only track here to also appear on that demo disc), to anthemic rocker "I Need Your Love", to moody but also rockin' breakup track "Reminding You Of Me", to their fantastic theme-song closer "High Spirits" (reprised from their debut demo of 2009), heck all nine cuts are great. There's tons of fuzz on the guitar, tasty solos abound, and lyrically it's all about loves won and lost, mostly the latter. Simple, fun stuff in a way, but who does this anymore? And does it so well? And with such gravitas and aplomb? Gotta love it. Also gotta love the cover art, High Spirits' ditching the usual metal graphic conventions for a celebration of public mass transit.
Ok, we could go on and on, but we already told ya how much we love High Spirits, just listen to the sound samples if you're still undecided; if the songs don't tug on your heartstrings and/or get your head to banging, then you're no friend of ours (not really, but it always sounds cool to say that).
We have cds, and colored vinyl while they last.
When we were making our top tens for 2010, Allan realized that one of the discs he loved and listened to the most this year was something we hadn't even reviewed yet - and actually came out in 2009. Finally, we just got it in, though, direct from the band. It's this, High Spirits' self-titled debut, which consists mostly of material from two demo cd-rs, but they're the sort of demos with songs that some bands with a career's worth of proper albums could never better. So, some background on the Chicago-based High Spirits... Maybe you recall, in our review of Profound Lore's recent release by Dawnbringer a few lists back, we mentioned that the mastermind behind that outfit, Chris "Professor" Black, was also in a NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) worshipping band called High Spirits. What with the critical acclaim that Dawnbringer has received, we expect some folks will be interested in this too - especially since as far as we're concerned, High Spirits is even better. Rather than trying to synthesize a variety of metal methodologies the way Dawnbringer does, High Spirits does one thing and does it so well... catchy, classic, honest to gosh pop songs in retro-metal guise, sounding so authentically NWOBHM that it's uncanny. Seriously, if someone told us that lead-off track "Torture" was a long lost single recorded by a band from London or Liverpool in 1980, we'd believe it.
Dunno how he does it, the Professor surely is talented a talented fella, with this, like Dawnbringer, being a one-man operation (though he's got accomplices for live performances, including two dudes from like minded retro metallers Zuul). The lo-fi demo budget production only adds to the atmosphere of awesomeness, as far as we're concerned. High Spirits simply rules, with warm, wonderfully FUZZED guitars, relentless riffing, tasteful solos, and Professor Black's slightly strained, ever so vulnerable, melodic vocals... and let's give it up for his lyrics, not something that we usually notice on most metal albums... they're pretty well-written for what they are, rock n' roll boy meets (or loses) girl cliche. Lyrics about loving and dreaming and yearning and running away, coming across as quite heartfelt, done with subtle cleverness. One line that stood out was: "Everything is what it seems / Just like in your dreams". Another we liked: "You left me crying on the day you said goodbye / But we both know you were so good at telling lies".
Memorable, melancholic, majestic, rockin'... Oooh. So good, can't wait for a new full-length. But even if this was all they ever did (and they have put out a 7" since), High Spirits should get some recognition, for conjuring such a classic sound - and songs - in this day and age. It's indeed about the songs, and the spirit - which is high indeed. Of all the new school of old school metal bands we've come across, High Spirits is one of the most worthy, please don't miss this. Heck, if NWOBHM means nothing to you but a jumble of letters, give this a shot, even folks into the current crop of indie garage pop with fuzzy guitars might just have a new favorite metal band!!
Available in either compact disc or vinyl formats, the cd in a digipack, the lp in a gatefold sleeve, both with minimal, black text on plain white graphic design that's simple but striking, lets the music speak for itself, and contributes to the super old school and underground vibe too.
For those of you who miss the big ol' fuzzed out desert rock of the mighty Kyuss, or can't get enough of the throbbing blown out RAWK of Fu Manchu and Nebula, this here SF band will almost definitely hit the spot. High Tone Son Of A Bitch mix the above bands sounds with some Thin Lizzy melody, some Eyehategod sludge, and some quirky complex arrangements to come up with some first rate stoner/sludge/doom rock. This 4 song ep also features appearances from Dave Edwardson of Neurosis playing Moogs... and our very own Andee behind the drum kit (but just for this ep)!
MPEG Download: "Fortune's Crown" [/audio/highfortunes.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Fortune's Crown" [/audio/highfortunes.m3u]
Latest blast of downtuned, crusty, sludge-soaked ultra doom from these Kentucky killers, released on the always kick ass Israeli label Total Rust. Somehow we missed out listing the first Highgate record, which we're kicking ourselves for now, cuz this new one is a pretty brutal and twisted slab slow and low heaviness.
Three tracks (and one brief sampled intro), a little over 40 minutes of extreme, hateful, filthy slow motion, grim, grinding ultramegadoom. A lumbering, lurching, stumbling slo-mo sludgefest, creeping and crawling and slithering sickly, the guitars thick and tarpit black, the drums a Neanderthal pound, and the vocals, howled, growled and bellowy, but weirdly metallic and effected, as if they were sung through a length of pipe, making them sound sick and alien and awesomely fucked up.
This is about as doomy and dismal as it gets, no swing, no Sabbathy groove, a little bit of clean guitar shimmer, a sort of minimal outro in the second song, but other than that, Shrines To The Warhead is all death march trudgery, lead foot dirgery and blackened and filthy hellish crush and pummel. The sort of sick shit that should be sonic sweetness for folks into Eyehategod, Khanate, Bunker, Moss, Corrupted, Otesanek, Habsyll, Moloch, Monarch, Salome, Trees, Whitehorse and the like.
An obscure early '70s American power trio that we'd never heard of until a bootleg cd recently crossed our path. Intrigued by the cover photo of three long-haired stoner dudes, we checked it out (hoping for something akin to Sabbath or Budgie but perfectly aware that we were more likely to discover something more like unsuccessful ... wannabes). Lo! Highway Robbery turned out to be bonafide heavy-hitters, playing proto-metal in the Led Zep vein, with moments recalling Sabbath and the Who. Huzzah! Double huzzah, 'cause we then discovered that this, their only album (originally released by Capitol in 1973) had serendipitously just been reissued by Collectables, and we could share our discovery with the lucky patrons of Aquarius. It's almost all super heavy and rockin, despite the obligatory misguided pop efforts made by all not-metal-yet hard rockers of the era, it's got a singing drummer, they've got the look, what more do you want! Fans of current or vintage "stoner rock" should jump on this. Wow, it's always nice to find that there's stuff out there remaining to surprise us.
Who could possibly be a match for Mick Barr's (Crom-Tech, Orthrelm, Octis, Ocrilm) insane avant sci-fi guitar shredding? We would have thought no one... But it makes sense, that the only true match for Barr's fretboard wiggery would be Zach Hill, a sort of Yngwie Malmsteen of the drum kit. A spastic octopoidal drum freak, who can cram a million more beats into a song than the busiest drummer you can think of. Not sure why no one thought of getting these guys together sooner. Their first meeting took place on last year's Shred Earthship, and now we have ZH/MB Volume 2.
And the results, much like on Shred Earthship are just what you would have expected. A mind blowing, ear shredding, speaker melting squiggle and noodle shredfest. Dense squalls of wildly dueling drum splatter and guitar freakout. Often note for note. Is it free jazz? Is it avant metal? Is it outrageous instrumental wankery? Well yeah, it sort of is, ALL of those. Ultra complex, incredibly convoluted, might be a stretch to call these songs, instead they seem to be exercises in instrumental dexterity, each one an over the top psychedelic metal freakout that has the listener panting and about to pass out after only thirty seconds, lord knows how these guys can keep it up for a whole record. The opener is the jazziest, due in no small part to some surprisingly melodic sax, but after that, it's one on one, drums vs. guitar, each wrapped around the other in some sort of insane ultimate fighting chokehold, a non stop barrage of notes and beats... imagine that someone had been collecting every note ever played, and every drum beat, and just piling them up in a huge dumpster, they're tiny, they don't take up that much room, but a trillion, or a million billion trillion, have that dumpster just about full. Now imagine being strapped down to a huge slab of black concrete, with strange metallic implements holding your ears wide open, then imagine that entire dumpster being upended and all of those notes and beats showering down on you like some sort of musical avalanche or metallic hailstorm. Sound good? Well then, my friend, this is indeed the record for you...
Packaged in killer white cloud on bright yellow sleeves, most are on black vinyl, a few are on yellow, so you might just get lucky. But don't ask, we said: YOU. MIGHT. GET. LUCKY.
Limited to 303 copies!!! We got a handful, and will NOT be able to get more.
Woah. What the heck is this? Pretty badass, as reissues of '70s sci-fi inflected proto-metal glam rock we've never heard of before goes!! Now, we're not sure why these guys were called Hillary Blaze, there's no girl nor guy named Hillary (or Blaze) in the band, but maybe it's an Alice Cooper kind of move, they must have been big AC fans for sure. They started off as a '60s psych pop act called The Paper Garden, but by the mid-'70s, after a name change and some lineup changes too, were MUCH more metallic (though still spaced-out enough for this to get a positive mention in the Acid Archives book). So, yeah, all you proto-metal lovin' folks, you'll want to pick this one up and crank it loud, another excellent obscurity rescued by the reliable Rockadrome/Vintage label, whose Cain and Poobah reissues could kinda be seen as foreshadowing this one...
Originally released in 1977 on "30th Century Fox Records", this, the sole album from Hillary Blaze, is a dramatic, high energy entertainment attack, full of sizzling sci-fi synths (and plenty of distorto geetar too), quite theatrical in the vocal dep't, indeed full on freaky overall, their glammy '70s sounds influenced not only by AC and Ziggy Stardust, but also The Sweet, most definitely! A real Rocky Horror Show of early heavy metal histrionics, before heavy metal was codified into more a conventional/conformist direction in the '80s, commercially and otherwise (and '80s "glam metal" has NOTHING to do with what we're talking about here with regard to Hillary Blaze).
No, these guys have more in common with such eccentrics as Zolar X and White Boy And The Average Rat Band, really. Heck maybe Queen's Flash Gordon soundtrack could be another contemporary comparison. And today, maybe Danava??
Cool stuff, thanks once again to the folks at Rockadrome for bringing this to our attention, we're lovin' it... not sure why they made a new cover, though (the original mushroom cloud one can be seen thumbnail sized on the back, however).
Here's an archival ep from Eighties SoCal thrash titans Hirax, featuring their three song demo from '87 and one bonus track ("Bombs of Death") from '84.
Hirax is back! At least, with these three songs, recorded in 2000 by a line up featuring the original vocalist, bassist and drummer (dunno about the guitarist). They don't sound much different than they did back in the '80s, it's SoCal thrash with Katon W. DePena's trademark high-pitched vox. Supposedly there's a full-on full-length on the way from these reunited metal
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Er...we think that's the title. Anyway this appears to be a collaboration between Jojo Hiroshige (boss of the Alchemy label and guitarist for legendary Japanese noise band Hijokaidan) and one-half of the all-girl psych-rock duo Doodles (who you'll also hear on the first Night Gallery comp of "21st Century Psychedelic Underground" music, also on Alchemy), plus a couple other friends. And it's great. Press start and you're immediately confronted with some totally heavy, thudding noise rock, dense and rhythmic. With the ripped-from-the-throat vocals of Jojo (screams of anguish as much as they are singing), this reminds us of KK Null's Zeni Geva. Track two follows, a lumbering, stoner rock, slow-mo stomp. These gals and guy are a noise band, a psych band, a tripped out doom band. What's not to like? And it's not quite ALL distortion-infused bludgeoning, dundering, damaged Blue Cheer riffage. There's some spacier, haunted sound-worlds to wander lost and lonely in on here as well, melodic minor key melancholia that soon enough is joined by crashing waves of heavy guitar and drums. We wonder, has Jojo borrowed Keiji Haino's shades and black clothes? Certainly Jojo and the Doodles girl's mutual love of heavy psych and krautrock freakiness bear massive, ripe, deformed fruit here. Goes well with the Up-Tight album, also new on Alchemy, reviewed this list too!
We first heard this Italian outfit on a split 7" with aQ faves Nuit Noire, whose weirdo 'faerical blasting punk' sounded pretty much perfect alongside the goth-stomp noise rock of His Electro Blue Voice. So much so that we found ourselves trying to track down everything we could. We were then thrilled to discover a His Electro Blue Voice track on this year's Sub Pop 1000 Record Store Day sampler, a track we described as "a gloriously twisted chunk of noisy, synthy, distorted garagey new wave weirdness that might be worth the price of admission alone" and which sadly is not included here, but that sound is in full effect, gnarly, gritty, crusty, swaggery, it's actually a LOT more aggressive and blackened than we remember, at least on opener "Death Climb", which adds some grim black buzz to their brooding, nightmarish punk wave gloom garage pound, but soon enough the band settle into something a bit more tranced out, check out the new wave krautrock of "Spit Dirt", a sprawling 8 minute motorik groove, that wraps spidery chiming guitars and thick low slung bass chug around a seriously hypnotic ultra propulsive rhythm, before exploding into the aggro noise rock new wave murk and howl of "Sea Bug", that reminds us of Iceage or the Holograms, but even more rough and ragged and supercharged, and infused with the sort of hookiness most proper pop bands would kill for.
After that, the band dip into some churning, thud rock pigfuck noisiness on "Tumor" (shades of Aussie thugs Lubricated Goat, as well as late great SF knuckle draggers Steel Pole Bathtub), with some super cool tripped out psychedelic weirdness part way through, then some super pop punkiness via P.I.L. on "The Path", with yet another psychedelic breakdown, this one all synthy and shimmery, but still driving and hypnorocky. "Born/Tired" might be the prettiest of the bunch, the chiming intro is a dead ringer for some classic indie rock song we can't quite put our finger on, but then the howled vox and gristly guitars swoop in, managing to rough things up without taking way any of the poppiness, and then ditching the buzz and crunch and slipping into some laid back space rockiness, totally mellow and mesmerizing. Finally, things finish off with "Red Earth", which begins as a softly glimmering drift, all washed out thrum and psychedelic spaciness, which is soon joined by some simple tribal drumming, hushed vox, eventually swirls of chiming guitars add a woozy minor key feel, as do processed synths, the song drifting into more of a dark jangle pop, before eventually fading out, leaving just a dark shadowy swirl of ominous synth thrum and some seriously sinister vokills, which also fade out before you can even figure out what's going on. So cool!
Killer 'ruthless sperm' cover art too!
Way back in 2002 we listed a record by Norway's Hlidolf, who whipped up (or, er... down) a slow motion swirl of spacey, dark, drifty, deep, and droney doom sludge. Channelling Earth 2, SUNNO))), Lustmord, Klaus Schulze and the like. Obviously it was a huge AQ fave. Unfortunately that release seems to have faded and disappeared into the ether, but thankfully we now have this epic three track disc from Hjarnidaudi, who are the rightful sonic heirs to the space doom drone throne once occupied by Hlidolf (due in no small part to this being the new project of Hlidolf's Vidar Ermesjo). But where Hlidolf was all darkness and doom, winter and wastelands, Hjarnidaudi is white hot light and blinding bursts of fuzz and sparkle, like the impossible birth of a new universe. Sure it's still slow and doomy, but much like the recent Fleshpress III record, this is a doom band moving beyond the confines of pure doom. Huge expansive stretches of majestic slow moving melody, a sort of doom certainly, but instead of murky downtuned gurgling sludge, these doomscapes are constructed from jagged buzzy brittle slabs of crystalline guitars, brief explosive smears of almost ambient fuzz, held together by an impossibly glacial rhythm section. Sunroof! by way of Esoteric, a shoegazer SUNNO))), a WAY less propulsive Jesu, or Skepticism broadcast through the M83 soundsystem. A gloriously thick and rich, warm and shimmering expanse of stretched out buzzing guitars, dreamy melodies, minor key and melancholy, but with a strangely warm embrace. If most sludge-doom-death-drone is like dunking your head in a tarpit, the world a dripping black dirge, Hjarnidaudi is like falling into the Sunn, hot and blinding, the world splintering into a million tiny sparkling pieces.
Limited to 750 copies, packaged in a mini lp style sleeve wrapped in a hand stamped brown paper outer sleeve.
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We first discovered Hjarnidaudi via the always amazing Paradigms label, but at the time we were even more excited by the fact that the man behind Hjarnidaudi was one Hlidolf, who was responsible for one of our all time favorite (and sadly now out of print) doomdronedirge records, a massive slab of slow motion spaced out sludge that was the perfect combination of SUNNO))) slow motion sludge and blissed out psychedelic space drift a la Klaus Schulze. So we were surprised to learn Hjarnidaudi was a full on band, still heavy and doomy and slow, but a band, who didn't traffic exclusively in slow motion sludge, but created glimmering shimmering doomscapes, that took the slow and low and wreathed it in fuzz and warmth and shimmer, on Paradigms' Pain:Noise:March.
And now it's 3+ years later, and we discover there's a NEW Hjarnidaudi, so we order a bunch cuz we loved the last one (made it a Record Of The Week!), and whattayaknow, we're surprised once again. The band is barely even doomy anymore it seems, instead offering up some looped, hypnotic heaviness, the guitars dense and heavy, the drums big and booming, the sound a sort of epic post metal mathiness, guitars moaning and keening, while another offers up weird high end tangles, super propulsive, downright rocking and a little proggy.
But hold off, that's only the first song, the other three tracks are definitely a lot doomier and darker, pounding and plodding, with guitars ringing out, chiming and shimmering, wreathed in crumbling distortion, woozy and washed out, but definitely dark and depressive and dreamily doomy, however, also strangely clean, the guitars more loud and effected than downtuned and distorted, some moments this actually sounds like a more blissed out less gloom pop Katatonia... and by track three the distortion becomes totally blown out and the band slips into full on metallic Jesu / Nadja territory offering up a deafening blown out coda.
First we've heard from this Swedish black metal horde, and we were surprised by the sound, which is quite polished and well produced, not nearly the raw grimness we were expecting, instead, it's more like some super technical blackened death metal, with tons of melody, every burst of blasting black buzz, countered by some super slick melodic heaviness, but it's a pretty potent combo for sure, the musical math of cold grim BM plus Swedish DM tough to argue with. At various moments in the record, the sound does veer decidedly toward one or the other, but more often than not landing right in the middle.
The fierce riffage, harsh vokills and technical drumming are all crystal clear, super heavy, but nearly glistening with machinelike precision. And as mentioned above, the melodies are a huge part of Hladomrak's sound, melancholy and minor key, with every song repeatedly lurching from churning chug, or soaring majestic blast, to melodic moodiness, doom melancholia, and in many cases impossible poppiness. But that poppiness does not detract from the record's heft or heaviness, instead it positions Hladomrak in a whole different sonic realm, one well removed from the environs of raw grimness.
And while musically, this is already pretty stellar, the record is peppered with some cool subtle weirdness, whether it's little squiggly tangles of shred, progged out mathiness, broody almost doomy breakdowns, blasts of grinding ferocity, cool clean guitar folkiness, or soaring majestic almost Viking sounding epicry, it's all in service of the songs, which are technical, and catchy, and melodic and should definitely appeal to fans of In Flames, At The Gates, Dissection, Unleashed and other sonically similar outfits.
Does spacey, dark, drifty, deep, and droney sound good to you? Then pay attention: "Darkwave" (i.e. industrial, ambient) label Dragonflight Recordings (who last brought us the experimental black metal of Proscriptor) has just established a sub-label for, well, the sub-sonic specialty that can be described as 'doom' (metal or otherwise), and their first release is the debut cd from Hlidolf.
Not sure what the name means, or how you're supposed to say it, and actually we don't know much of anything else about Hlidolf except that it's the project of one fellow from Norway, Vidar Ermesjo. He recorded this in "Hlidolf Studios" (his home, we presume) in the dark and cold of last winter. It's one loooooong instrumental track (70min!), sorta somewhere betwixt Earth "2" and Maeror Tri or Lustmord. SUNNO))) and Skepticism also come to mind, and especially the obscure and defunct Neptune Towers project of Darkthrone's Fenriz, which this release pays tribute to in its liner notes ("Not for collective listening...recommended listening with headphones, or large, black stereos...").
Like Neptune Towers, this sounds like Krautrock electronics maestro Klause Schulze gone over to the dark side, all evil and ominous, yet soothing -- good late night, creepy going-to-sleep music, if you like that sort of thing (which I do, though unfortunately it's not the preference of my girlfriend...) Glacial, bass-heavy, beautiful. It's almost religious.
