On the same label that released the recent live White Hills tape as well as a post Brainbombs No Balls jam we were never able to get, comes this brand new 7" from these San Francisco psychedelic stompers, thick with blown out guitars, classic rock riffage, wild octopoidal drumming, Stooges-y stomp and wild manic almost Jello-like vocals, the sound a glorious tangle of sixties style psych, eighties punk rock, hairy fuzzy proto-metal and seriously shredding guitar mastery, the lyrics and unhinged vox remind us of some lost proto-punk classic, but then it's all set amidst some BIG riffs and killer melodic leads, which sound way more heavy seventies. Either way, killer stuff, and we're definitely hankering for a full length. Features some super scary green-goo'd space teeth cover art.
We just have a very small handful of these limited split singles, and when they're gone, they're gone... So you probably already know if you want to (quickly try and) get one, if you're a big fan of one or more of the four badass SF rawk groups on here, all throwbacks to sweet times in the heavy, glammy '70s for sure.
Of special note, two of the bands do covers: Dirty Fences taking on Blondie, and big aQ faves Hot Lunch covering the obscure yet mighty UK proto-punks Crushed Butler - a perfect choice for 'em!
Once again, the clock strikes 13!! And that means, it's DOOM time. This is the third album of from Hour Of 13, the Sabbatherian side-project of guitarist Chad Davis from psychedelic spacerockers US Christmas (aka USX). As before, he's joined in Hour Of 13's fuzzy, chugging rituals by promiscuous Ozzy-ish vocalist Phil Swanson (also of Seamount, Briton Rites, Nightbitch, and a bunch of others).
All modern-day doom metal bands can of course trace their lineage back to Black Sabbath, but some also have obvious influences from other acts in the doom family tree. The lumbering Gates Of Slumber, for example, owe a lot to Saint Vitus. As did Revered Bizarre - who themselves provided the template more recently for Pilgrim. Other bands take after Candlemass, or Pentagram.
In the case of Hour Of 13, we're hearing a lot of Trouble. But, these guys for sure ain't no Christians. Song titles like "Deny The Cross" and "Rite Of Samhain" are one clue. There's definitely something darker and more disturbing and dismal about Hour Of 13, even as their music riffs and rocks with a lot of obvious '80s metal inspiration. Listen to an hour of Hour Of 13 (or in this case, 47 minutes, totalling 7 tracks) and you're NOT gonna feel uplifted. You'll feel doomed. Which is what you wanted, right? Thus, 333 (hmm, only half of 666, does that mean something? are you supposed to buy two and listen to them together?) is another slab that any Hour Of 13 and/or Phil Swanson fan is gonna want to grab.
With a name like Hour Of 13, you know this is a doom metal band. "Trad" doom, in fact, the most Black Sabbathy kind, sludgy and old school, with a dark and occult vibe, compete with a vocalist who sounds a little something like Ozzy. He's Phil Swanson, who also sings in Seamount (reviewed here previously) and Briton Rites (whom we hope to review too), amongst others. The main guy in this outfit, though, is Chad Davis, who wrote and recorded all the music. He's also a member of country-flecked space rockers US Christmas (and used to play drums for death metallers Father Befouled) among many other band connections.
After an interestingly atmospheric and melodic opening track, laden with synths, they get into harder and heavier headbanging fare, from stuff that evokes early '80s Ozzy to, slowing down, the chunky majesty of Trouble. Mostly, though, Hour Of 13's thick tones remind us of The Obsessed, and that whole "Maryland doom scene sound" (though they're from NC); they're also a bit like Lord Vicar, with the sadness and "Ozziness" factor in Swanson's voice being similar to Lord Vicar's singer Chritus.
Way more sinister than stoner, this is though, keep that in mind. Hour Of 13 definitely venture into the dark side, psychologically, singing of demons that aren't entirely mythological. What might be the fastest song here, is also the longest, an almost 9 minute epic entitled "The Crawlspace", Swanson taking on the role, with perhaps unseemly relish, as perpetrator of an abduction/rape/murder scenario, and demonstrating that doom doesn't have to feature the anguished "vokills" of extra-o'd ultradooooom to be disturbing.
We'd wanted to list this a while ago, but never could get enough, and then couldn't get any at all, but now that's all be solved 'cause this has just been reissued (and remastered) by good ol' Earache, having previously been an Eyes Like Snow/Northern Silence release last year. Glad to finally get it, to give it a recommendation for all you doom lovers out there.
We had never heard of House Of Lightning, but who can resist a sticker that says: Members of Floor, Cavity & Dove? Not us that's for sure. And we're guessing plenty of you as well. And it only took about 30 seconds to convince us that we were right to not resist. The Sound is immediately recognizable as that sort of Torche style sludge/pop heaviness, but if anything, HoL is way weird, simultaneously more punk, and MORE METAL. It's strange but the first song explodes into a punk rock gallop, before devolving into some classic metal riffery, plenty of chugs, and pick squeals, and double kick drumming, it's not hard to imagine some wailing air raid siren vocals, but instead, it gets all math metal, a churning, roiling sonic swirl. The second track too, is a weird mix of ethereal wispy vocals, draped over wild progged out drumming, and furious helicopter riffing, the song so intricate and mathy, at times it almost sounds like a wild chaotic jumble, that is until it all manages to fall perfectly into place, and those dreamy drifty vocals swoop back in, for some shoegazey metalpop, before once again, fracturing into some proggy tech-metal. Imagine Breadwinner or Don Caballero mixed with a little Cynic and a lot of Torche, sounds like a weird mix, and it is definitely pretty weird, but it sorta works. In fact as much as we love Torche, from what we've heard of the new one, House Of Lightning is WAY weirder and trippier and more experimental, and is pushing lots of our math metal and weirdo prog buttons, while remaining just poppy enough to be impossibly catchy, even amidst all this tangled weird time signatured freak out. And as you get deeper into the record, the sound get even more varied and twisted, at one point the sound gets all super melodic, the bass CRANKED so much so, that it's like the lead instrument, all the while, the rest of the band is spitting out metallic mathiness just beneath the surface, that bass resurfaces on the B side, as the sound gets briefly super doomy, before erupting into more noisepop-techmetal mayhem, catchy and crunchy, shredding and soaring.
Comes in a full color jacket, with a heavy printed inner sleeve. Pressed on clear green vinyl, but sadly no download, and thus, no sound samples.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Ultra limited live document of Aaron Turner's (Isis, Old Man Gloom, Hydra Head) minimal ambient outfit House Of Low Culture. This one sided lp is 20+ minutes of lowercase rumble and barely there thrum, interrupted only by a brief track of staticky buzz, sounding a bit like droning electronic bagpipes. Subtley gorgeous. And as always, superbly packaged, this time on blue vinyl with flowers and spiders silkscreened in blue over in a gold sleeve. Wow! Be warned, this is very limited so we're not sure how long we will have this or if we can get more. Also be warned that as with a lot of picture discs of late (Table Of The Elements?), these 12"s are housed in those brittle hard plastic sleeves that more often than not, split or crack.
What's not to love about these guys (and gal)? Crushing, riff heavy grooves, sludgey, and Southern sounding (even though they're from Rhode Island), downtuned, low slung, brutal, but weirdly catchy too, with a bit of a post rock vibe here and there, totally headbangable and epic. If you had to situate Howl sonically, they would probably fall somewhere between Baroness, High On Fire, Soilent Green, and Sleep, you get the drift, a sort of stonery Sabbathy sludge, that doesn't wallow in tarpit tempos, but instead bulldozes through dense clouds of grinding buzz, slipping from midtempo crush to woozy metallic swing, to blasting thrashing pummel, the drums like battering rams, the guitars murky and muddy, with occasional bursts of psychedelic leads, that help balance the band's predominant low low low end, the vocals a monstrous bellow, all that wound into churning, almost proggy arrangements, some of the moments recall the heaving might of Neurosis, while others, channel classic metal into something way more dark and dirgey, the whole record is a headspinning, neck snapping riff fest, but the final track, "The Day Of Rest" might be our favorite, the slowest and most sprawling of the bunch, slipping from serpentine Sabbathy slither to cool start stop ultra dynamic lurch and lumber, to almost Maideny melodicism, churning chug underpinned by pounding double kick drumming, while guitars harmonize over the top, before getting almost shoegazey near the end, finally winding down with some droned out layered guitar feedback. Fuck Yeah.
For some folks, it might just be enough to say that the debut release from Howling is indeed a howling, heavy slab of WEREWOLF-themed death metal. Add that the band features members of aQ faves Wooden Stake and we're ready to crank this loud (after stocking up on wolfsbane and silver bullets). The beautifully rendered, kitschy cover painting, which looks like it belongs on the front of some '70s Italian erotic-horror "fumetti" comic book, ought to give you some idea of what sort of sick slasher-thrasher outfit this is. A trio that teams up shredding guitar player Tony P. with screaming, guttural vocalist Vanessa Nocera (Wooden Stake, Skeletal Spectre, Scaremaker, etc.) and pounding drummer Electrokutioner (Wooden Stake, Encoffination, Father Befouled, Scaremaker, etc.), Howling doesn't just play straight up death metal, though there's plenty of that, old school style; there's also lots of classic '80s metal melodicism to the guitar licks and soloing, giving this a bit of a Carcass feel at times. And Howling happily delve into some doomy bongsmoked jams too, like the lumbering stoner riffage of "A Night In The Crypt", that Acid Witch fans ought to dig. Lycanthropic death at its best.
Before even hearing a note, we were sold. You really can't argue with an album called Into The Cryosphere, not to mention the fact that this bears the stamp of the always amazing Profound Lore label, AND this duo features Ryan Lipinsky of doom lords Unearthly Trance and punkers Villains. The Howling Wind definitely writhe in some of the same blackened sludge as UT, but with an approach that is heavily indebted to the hateful black metal we can never get enough of, with a thrashiness that is hypnotic, relentless, and pretty much the kind of thing your mother wouldn't ever want you listening to. Their punked out approach snakes around the Cryosphere through all sorts of passages, taking you along for a super negative death trip reminiscent of Deathspell's more thugged out excursions on Kenose. The riffs are thick and burly, the drums heavy as fuck, and you will marvel over how appropriate a name like The Howling Wind is, as the whole album seems shrouded in an uncontrollable, icy wind. Not surprising then that the band would cook up song titles like "Teeth Of Frost", "Ice Cracking In The Abyss", and "A Dead Galaxy Mirrored In An Icy Mirage". Lipinsky certainly sounds like a man of conviction here, with his super tough, throatshredding vocals telling you how it's gonna be. Totally nihilistic and hateful with a sense of fuck all despair, it's also surprisingly catchy with riffs just won't let up, which will surely keep this one blasting out of our speakers for quite some time.
The Howling Wind is the duo of Tim Call and Ryan Lipynsky, whose combined black metal CV is kinda ridiculous/amazing: Aldebaran, Serpentine Path, Saturnalia Temple, Villains Mournful Congregation, Hail, Thralldom, Unearthly Trance and loads more. Needless to say, these two make a potent pairing, and this one is a cassette version of their 2012 release Of Babalon (there's a new one one since called Vortex), which sounds a bit like you might imagine from the above list, sure there's dense, buzzing furious blackness, but there's also churning, downtuned doomi-ic sludge, most of the tracks are laced with psychedelic leads, or wild metal shredding, and the sound itself, while plenty grim, offurs much in the way of ambience and atmosphere, with even the blurriest of blasts infused with plenty of haunting moodiness, and the guitars layered into epic swaths of sonic fury, soaring majestically, and becoming almost psychedelic at times. There's also a seriously proggy vibe as well, the tracks lurching from tangled chaos to looped harmonic wooziness and back again. Definitely a good balance between classic black metal and the new wave of modern avant/post USBM, and some of the tracks definitely remind us of other likeminded outfits, like Yellow Eyes or Ash Borer or Krallice (Colin Marston from Krallice did produce this record after all), one even reminds of Norwegian BM groovers Khold! But Howling Wind situate themselves somewhere closer to the classic sound of orthodox black metal, albeit, reworked for the modern age...
Latest from this post Unearthly Trance / Thralldom outfit, whose sound has shifted a bit since their last full length Into The Cryosphere, which still seemed more rooted in the blackened sludge of UT, with hints of some blacker force driving the music, a blackness that was more evident on their debut Pestilence & Peril, and a blackness that has again been fully unleashed here, the sound right from the get go, a blasting ice cold onslaught of gnarled black buzz, the opening track, "The Seal Upon The Tomb", the perfect hybrid of classic Unearthly Trance pound, and the furious blackmathbuzz of Deathspell Omega, the sound shifting effortlessly from punkish black pummel to swirling soaring blasts, the churning riffage wreathed in wild squiggles of psychedelic leads, and infused with a surprising amount of melody and mathiness, all over a bed of snake charmer synths, that add a haunting texture to the already dense proceedings. The template is thus laid out for the rest of the record, a collection of frantic, frenetic heaviness, equal parts downtuned crush and dizzying black blasts, the wild squalls of guitar, giving the sound a seriously psychedelic vibe, that transforms Howling Wind into something much more twisted and transcendent. But then, as if to demonstrate their black credentials, they finishing things off with an appropriately grim blast of black crustiness in the form of a Hellhammer cover. Fuck yeah.
Not to be confused with Howlin' Magic, Howlin' Rain or Howling Hex! This Howling, the Wind one, is appropriately enough a black metal band. Of the more primitive, thrashing variety... screaming morbid cacophony, with deathgrunts and raw pounding riffs raging amidst a murky metallic miasma.
This duo is spearheaded by Brooklyn's Ryan "Killusion" Lipynsky, a musically misanthropic gentleman whom you may know from such fine bands as Unearthly Trance, Villains, and the (un)godly Thralldom, to which this project is perhaps the sequel. Here he (and Portland, Oregon based drummer Parasitus Rex) bring the noise old school black metal style. They definitely owe allegiance to the likes of Darkthrone and Hellhammer. There's some doomic dirge on here too, and 'ambient' bits as well.
And yep, The Howling Wind ain't a bad name at all for this - a lot of this really does sound like it's been recorded in a howling wind. That's more than the case on the final track, "The Inevitable Conclusion", which sounds like a howling wind itself, being rather more of a creepily abstract, droning, power electronics track than anything "metal".
We've been meaning to review this for a while now, record number two from the East Coast post-hardcore sludge pop combo Hull, whose first record positioned them alongside aQ faves Torche, with that sort of extreme heaviness fused to extreme poppiness thing, but on the new record the band have had a serious sonic makeover. The opening track alone, after a brief bit of sludginess, explodes into a furious blasting metalpunk blowout, with shrieked vox, buzzing guitars, slipping into chugging almost-breakdowns, before exploding into a roiling bit of lumbering doom, the guitars super distorted, the band lurching through some cool stop/starts, peppered with wild double kick drumming, and some psychedelic guitar shred, before shifting gears and locking into a super blown out mathy churn, before slipping right back into a strange sort of sing along punk dirge, and heck, the song is 11+ minutes so the band go all out, jamming wildly and flitting from sound to sound, managing to string it all together into something cohesive, and pretty massively crushing.
The rest of the record is just as varied, with the second track getting all spacey and droney, never really metal more a sort of acoustic guitar driven dirge, big drums wedded to some almost Appalachian style buzz, swampy and bluesy, but still dark and heavy, before the title track finds the band launching right back into some bellowed, downtuned heaviness, all angular guitars, and pounding drums, the poppiness of their first record still finding its way into their sound, but more subtly, with this new sound being much more about texture and mood, riffing and metallic pound, but it definitely suits them, in fact in some ways, while this new sound is still beholden to many that came before, it's a much more original sound, and one they've definitely made their own, and one we're still exploring after repeated listens. Epic and varied, sludgey and thrashy, melodic and mysterious, and most definitely psychedelic, this is the kind of record that should hit the spot for heavy music obsessives of all stripes. WAY recommended.
Silence... thunder... shudder... shadow... those are some of the things evoked even by the first minute or so of this isolationist dark ambient piece crafted by the multi-talented Scott Hull, best known as the guitarist of grind heroes Pig Destroyer, also of Agoraphobic Nosebleed fame. The whole thing, which mostly just gets darker and more disturbing as it flows on, is about 12:36 in length, one track fitting neatly on a 3" cd (not cd-r, cd). We love it when we get actual 3" cds! Though we really like it when they come in those tiny little jewel cases (like tUMULt's Bathtub Shitter and Professor 3" releases). Whereas this is packaged in a cardboard sleeve. Looks good though, with appropriately atmospheric graphics by Seldon Hunt.
Titled Audiofilm 1, this is presumably the first in a series of limited edition 3" cds on Crucial Blast. Hull's "audiofilm" is a scary one. Dramatic, sudden percussive clashings. Dronological whoosh. Nightmare heartbeat pulsations. The hiss and gurgle of some malevolent monster. Waves of whispery electronic terror... Don't worry, it's just a little 3" cd. It can't really hurt you. And some of it is actually lullingly beautiful, as with the gentle bell sounds tinkling about 7-8 minutes in.
LIMITED EDITION. 1000 copies only (which seems like a lot, but Pig Destroyer are pretty popular). We only got a few, and don't know if we'll be able to get more. (But we also have a Scott Hull solo full-length on Relapse, another imaginary soundtrack styled ambient effort, to be reviewed in future.)
Heavy-ish prog/psych power trio action outta Edinburgh, Scotland circa 1969, here's the sole album by this obscure but well-regarded band. This is its first fully official cd reissue, done with the help of the band members themselves, and boasts a 16 page booklet full of vintage photos, lyrics and reminiscences. This moody Beast was apparently much heavier in live performance than on this comparatively tame studio recording (a common problem for bands back then, lamented in the liner notes by bassist Ed Jones, who claims that only about 45 seconds of the record really reflects their earbleeding live sound). Even then, Volume One isn't without, well, volume. And power. Explosive electric guitar breaks and urgent rhythms, alternating with plodding and poetic dreamscapes. Wah-wah'd chicka chicka chicka guitar with Eastern-inflected melodies wending around and around. The first song is called "Mystic Man" and indeed the entirety of The Human Beast's album evokes a mystic, almost creepy feeling, accentuated by cryptic lyrics, lines like "We celebrate the feel of human meat" and "Mind escapes you, flies to freedom / Leaves your hollow gargoyle kingdom". There's certainly a special weirdness to The Human Beast, a peculiar, pagan freakiness. Their cover of The Incredible String Band's "Maybe Someday" fits right in. Very effective.
And while the production never lets them get quite as Beastly as they wanted to be, for 1969 this is still pretty badass. These guys probably never heard Randy Holden's Population II, but they probably would have liked it. And they'd certainly heard their share of Jimi Hendrix and Iron Butterfly... While more '60s psych than '70s proto-metal (at their heaviest here, closer to Cream than Sabbath), we'd certainly rank 'em in alongside the likes of High Tide, Sam Gopal, NSU, The Dark, Arzachel, and Andromeda...
Part three in the Human Quena Orchestra's ever evolving sonic mission to create what could possibly be the darkest, and most intense post industrial metallic blacknoise EVER. Not like there's a lot of competition, and having worked our way now through all three records, even if there were any other outfits foolhardy to have a go at HQO, they'd most likely be dispatched in short order. As anyone who's heard either Means Without Ends or The Politics Of The Irredeemable can attest to. Easily, two of the bleakest, most abject and miserable collections of hellish hymns and burntblack dronescapes ever committed to tape. HQO's modus operandi is a combination of caustic black buzz, of pounding machine like percussion and howling anguished shrieked vokills, all wound tight into throbbing, churning, nightmarish chunks of jagged black filth, and crusty musical misanthropy. Think the usual suspects, Khanate, diSEMBOWELMENT, Winter, Skepticism, Esoteric, even Swans, and then tune it further down, slow it further down, pile on layer after layer of suffocating buzz, of oozing soul crushing low-end, and let it fester, and rot, and crumble and decay, and you'll begin to get close to the strange and sick soundworld of HQO.
A Natural History Of Failure finds HQO mastermind Ryan Unks, joined by a handful of likeminded volunteers, each adding their own secret ingredients to Unks' noxious brew, and weirdly enough, if anything, more players has not resulted in more sound, or more accurately, the sound itself does seem MORE, more dense, heavier, thicker, more filthy and fraught with emotional peril, but the songs, the structures, somehow seem even more minimal. The opening track is more a thick, pulsing drone, a dense layered funereal creep, the sounds burnt and blown out, a single riff slowed down to near static, and left to churn and chug in slow motion, while more and more buzz and thrum and hiss is piled on top, a sound so heavy and so dense, it seems constantly on the verge of collapse. The second track two is more drone than crush or pummel, beginning as a hushed distant throb, an impossibly deep low end that drifts beneath ethereal streaks of grey melody, processed voices, and textured whirs, the sound builds to a furious roil, only to settle back down into what sounds like a symphony of warped SUNNO))) records, being played simultaneously with the needle stuck in the runoff grooves. And so it continues, a warped tarpit drift, vocals only show up in track three, and even then, so low in the mix, they just sound like jagged shards of static, nearly suffocated by the heaving rumbles above.
The whole first half of the record is constant low end punishment, but part 5 is where it changes, a processed voice, stretched into a perpetual moan, a looped bit of human bred sonic texture, over a lumbering bit bit of low-end, soon subsumed by a dense cloud of corrosive hiss, of swirling white noise, which leads directly into the most minimal track on the record, a hushed minimal pulse, warm and languid, but still subtly menacing, laced with high end shimmer, and blurred tinkling melodies, leading you gently into a truly ominous and monstrous plod, a robotic pound, trudging along a series of deep buzzing swells, being slowly torn apart by some sort of static driven industrial grey noise demon, the sound rendered and recontextualized into a slowly stuttery field of deep whirs and jagged shards of crumbling static, before finally finishing off with a brief bit of muted beauty, again, the sound impossibly thick and heavy, but blurred into something almost shoegazey, but still grim and gorgeously hopeless.
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Various permutations of this disc have been floating around for a while, each in various states of completeness, but every one we'd heard sounded even better than the last. But this is the one, the final, finished product. The long in the works Human Quena Orchestra, the work of Ryan Unks, formerly of techgrind combo Creation Is Crucifixion, but don't be expecting grind, or even technicality, this all the way on the other side of the spectrum. Abject, filthy, pummeling, slow motion noise drenched doom. A plodding sonic monster, guitars, not just distorted, but treated and twisted into harsh, skin scraping, caustic slabs of sinister sound, a low end so thick, it's like dunking your head in a cement mixer, insane sounding drums, each snare crack like the recording of a million breaking windows, each kick drum the sound of a slowed down car wreck. And beneath it all, thick swells of black ambience, drifting and slithering, pulsing and swelling. A lurching, stumbling blackened doom dirge behemoth.�
Think�Swans, Godflesh, Pitchshifter, that sort of machinelike apocalyptic industrial pound, mixed with some funereal ultra doom a la Moss, Bunkur, etc., but filtered through a druggy psychedelia, with a minimal shimmery drone bent, that ends up sounding like a way more�brutal, way more harsh, tripped out, psychedelic, industrial version of Jesu, that sort of blissed out sun baked vibe, but as if played by some misanthropic black metal horde,�harsh blackened vocals, shrieking hysterically and growling demonically over the relentless amp melting metallic trudge. Every track is rife with layer after layer of undulating low end. Like being tossed about on a stormy sea, but instead of water, it's an endless expanse of roiling black sound waves, rumbling drones, and thick snarled streaks of throbbing bass.�
The magic Of Unks' Human Quena Orchestra though is that this hellish harshness is balanced with a nearly equal amount of meditative ambience, long stretches of deep shimmer, and even some of the harshest tracks are tempered by the swirling low end drift lurking beneath. So brutally gorgeous. Definitely essential listening for fans of all the above mentioned outfits, as well as Monarch, Nadja, the Angelic Process, Fear Falls Burning, Skullflower, Abruptum, Monument Of Urns, Trollmann, Khanate, The Body and all our favorite purveyors of crumbling downtuned beauty and dreamy damaged doom.
Packaged in a gorgeous hand screened multiple panel fold over sleeve with super striking ADD style microscopic super detailed artwork.�
Record number two from the strangely named Human Quena Orchestra, whose first record, Means Without Ends, was one of the most devastating slabs of blackened post industrial ultra doom ever, an abject crawl through layer upon layer of impossibly thick downtuned buzz, massive walls of crumbling distortion, pounding percussion, we mentioned groups like Godflesh and Pitchshifter and Swans, as well as Moss and Bunkur, but even on that record, HQO were going somewhere darker, and deeper, heavier and way more extreme. Take those same bands and mix in some Whitehouse, some Khanate, diSEMBOWELMENT, Thergothon, Lustmord, HQO is the soundtrack to a descent into hell, or at least sounds exactly how we imagine that must sound. Pants shittingly terrifying.
For the follow up, HQO mainman (and only man) Ryan Unks, was joined by his former Creation Is Crucifixion bandmate Nathan Berlinguette, and the two spent months and months meticulously crafting this slab of bleak aural terror. Sampling drums, recording guitars and basses, creating loops and samples, layering and assembling and arranging, recording and rerecording and mixing and remixing, two sonic alchemists poised above their slumbering golem, waiting for the perfect moment to bring it to life.
The Politics Of The Irredeemable is absolutely epic, monstrous, stunning in its scope, if the first record was the soundtrack to an earth stripped bare, of death and destruction and pestilence, then this record is the sound of the end of all life in the universe, of planets hurtling into suns, of stars collapsing into black holes, but the thing is, the music here is much more personal and emotional, it carries the weight of a universal apocalypse, but is more the sound of sadness, personal hell, not a literal trip down the rabbit hole, gnashing teeth and eternal hellfire, this is much more tactile and REAL, it's easy to describe music like this abstractly, but this is some seriously intense and brutal, and stunningly introspective heaviness.
Unlike most of the sludge and doom, where the bands play as low as they can, tune down until the stings are hanging loose on the fretboard, playing as loud as they possibly can, and as slow and they are able, the elements that make up Human Quena Orchestra's sound world are deliberate, are crafted to evoke specific emotions, to conjure up images, to help your mind relate to the message within the music. Four long long tracks, two split into distinct parts, the opener "Progress" plays out like most bands' entire records. A heaving crush of downtuned crunch, the vocals wild and hysterical, wrapped in reverb and often left to wail in the wide open, only occasionally joined by the pound of a drum, or the slow motion avalanche of the next chord. All the while the sky is streaked with feedback and long buzzing tones, all woven into undulating smears, lit from below by buried melodies and a patina of cymbal sizzle. For 13 minutes, the darkness becomes sound, and that sound swallows the listener whole, preparing him for the harrowing musical journey to come.
The rest of the record is split pretty evenly between sprawling expanses of windswept ambience, distant moaning whir and barely audible subterranean drones, deep bell like tones drifting along slow swirls of muted melodies, and lurching crushing slow motion sludge, but sludge seems too dismissive in the case of HQO, this is not filthy or crusty or lo-fi, it's definitely dark and harsh, but hauntingly beautiful, the crush and crunch are strangely lush and rich, layered and textured, the sound becoming almost orchestral at points, often receding into the background, an ominous backdrop to the slow slither of sounds up front, at its harshest, the sounds gather up into a squall of white noise, but even then the edges are dull and rounded, the noise is muted so instead of being brutal or painful, it manages to throb and pulse like the beating of a dying heart, that beating echoed by the reverbed crash of a lone drum, pounding out a simple rhythm, nearly obfuscated by the haze of rumble and buzz, the record finally coalescing into something resembling hopefulness, the last minute or so, a warm glowing ember of drone, drifting, drifting and then slowly fading out. It seems impossible that something this heavy and harsh and brutal and blackened could be so beautiful...
Massive collection of everything these legends of grind/metal ever recorded. Surprisingly, for such an influential band (their influence due in no small part to drum god Dave Witte who would go on to play in Atomsmasher, Burnt By The Sun, etc.) they only ever released one proper EP, and a handful of 7"s and compilation tracks. This 2 cd set includes their EP, the 7"s, the comp tracks, an unreleased tune and all of their demos (4 to be exact). Human Remains were the masters of metallic grind, kicking out ultra complex jams with amazing musical dexterity, unbelievably crushing riffs, devastatingly heavy parts, and of course INSANE drumming. All of you grindcore freaks out there that managed to miss out on Human Remains, now's your chance to make everything right.
If Argentina's awesome Los Natas was once considered a Kyuss clone (a band that had many clones) what does that make fellow Argentines Humo del Cairo? 'Cause it'd be easy to tag 'em as *Los Natas* clones, indeed at first we thought they were a Los Natas side project, maybe 'cause Meteorcity put this out and they also recently did the Ararat album too, which was indeed Los Natas related. But, while the Los Natas comparisons are unavoidable (long haired psychedelic stoner rock from Argentina!), and of course Kyuss comparisons are too, this trio is quite worthy of attention on their own, for sure.
'70s sounding heavy rock here, of course, with fat riffs, wild wah-wah solos, Spanish-language vocals, lots of skilled percussive coloration, and pot-headed mystic desert atmospheres. The Egyptian pyramid painting on the cover sets the vibe, an otherworldly ancient scene at dreamy dawn or dusk... No big surprises for those familiar with Los Natas, for sure, but the jams HdC are kicking out are being kicked out quite well, mighty and melodic and very jammy indeed. And, as we listen to this, we realize, wow, this band has really got a knack for suddenly putting things into a sort of psychedelic energetic overdrive about partway through several of songs on here, there's often a moment where they hit on a repetitive hypnotic part a la Pharaoh Overlord or something, but also crank it up a notch, and you really understand why they call it stoner ROCK. Can't really explain it, but you'll know it when you hear it. Say opening track, "A Tiempo", at about 6:25 (it's an 11 minute long song), or in "Fuego De San Antonio" at just past the 3 minute mark. Those amphetamine moments are balanced by the other sort of trance-inducing stoner rock, when they bring it down, slow it up, just lumber along, reveling in the riff, like the nod-scene that is "Nimbo", a track which also blasts into a full-blown wailing by the end. Yeah, within their chosen style, Humo Del Cairo mix it up nicely, rockin' out garage-like at times, or just drifting peacefully along, some parts drenched in heavy FX, others stripped down to acoustic bones ("Errantes" being their most backporch number, complete with bluesy harmonica blowin').
We'd recommend this for fans of Los Natas, naturally, also Tia Carrera, Sons Of Otis, Colour Haze, Monster Magnet, La Ira De Dios, '70s Argentine heavies Pappo's Blues, and we're even thinking Jimi Hendrix, who gets hinted at at times. ANOTHER winner from Meteorcity, who have been on a massive roll lately!
Originally recommended to us by fellow Northwestern psychedelic doomgaze heavies Megaton Leviathan, Portland's Hungers return with their first full length lp, and like the previous tape we reviewed, it's another blast of churning, blackened, noise rock heaviness. We mentioned the tape sounding like the most recent Satyricon, but on The Unobserved, the band sound a bit more old school AmRep, at least on opener "The Devouring". After a stretch of trippy droned out ambient shimmer, the song erupts into a roiling sprawl of bass heavy, thick riff-ed churn and pound, the vocals a raspy growl, the band locked into an lost tranced out grind, before a brief bit of chuggy breakdown, just to lurch right back into it, sounding almost like a more upbeat, more punk rock Brainbombs, a similar sort of minimal heaviness, which seems to seep into the whole rest of the record, but then on tracks like "Ablution", things get downright melodic, sans the harsh vox, it wouldn't be hard to imagine the band on Temporary Residence, but before you know it, the song splinters and explodes into a jagged, chugging, churning noisy punk metal blowout. And so it goes, the band whipping up dense dervishes of sound, whether it be blown out blasts of metallic crush, wild flurries of tribal drummage, or lumbering doom crawls, the sound throughout locking into mesmeric metallic throbs in places, grinding noise rock freakouts in others, the band at their best when they weave everything into mesmerizing stretches of super heavy hypno-rock, lacing the sound with minor key melodies, lush textures, and plenty of epic atmosphere. Which thankfully is most of the record, barring the acoustic guitar driven closer, which takes the group's metallic heft, and fuses it to something WAY more melodic, sounding almost like some lost B-side or demo from Alice In Chains or Soundgarden, albeit a bit dronier and heavier. Killer stuff. Comes house in a eye popping red and black cover, includes a heavy card stock insert too.
These Northwestern heavies came highly recommended by aQ faves Megaton Leviathan, but don't be expecting a similarly spaced out psychedelic doom, instead Hungers deliver a super dense, blackened heaviness, that actually reminds us of the newest Satyricon, but these guys have more up their sleeve for sure. After blasting out of the gate with a mid tempo black metal / heavy rock churn, they switch gears into something more melodic and post metal, only to then explode into a dense progged out squall, only to return to that opening blackness. The sound is epic and thick, almost like Pelican crossed with Satyricon if that makes any sense, the raspy vokills definitely contributing much of the blackness, the music itself, lush and layered, dense tangled melodies, thick, distortion drenched chug, veering from blasting buzz, to woozy lope, to smoldering epic slow build, to mathy metallic crush, to churning Neur-Isis style majesty, super epic, and crushingly heavy, but still super melodic and nuanced. Not at all what we were expecting. These guys sonically are well beyond self releasing their own tapes, they sound like they should be on Relapse or Century Media, or back in the day, even Moonfog. Check out the sound samples, it's kind of a tough sound to describe, other than they kind of mash a bunch of stuff we love together, which shouldn't work, but does, big time. Epic, blackened, melodic, post metal, math-prog heaviness that we can't stop listening to, and we're guessing means big things to come for these guys.
Limited of course, and includes a download code as well.
Some of the power metal nerds around aQ (okay, just one) had anxiously been awaiting this release, partially based on the ridiculous big budget video for the first single that had been making the YouTube rounds, but also, cuz of how much vitriol had been directed at the band based entirely on their lead vocalist, a busty blonde former stripper (we assume?), who dresses in crazy revealing outfits and smears herself with warpaint and blood, and well, if you're not with us already, thinking, hell, that sounds like an awesome metal band frontwoman, well, then you're probably not gonna dig this regardless of what we say. One could make the argument that one might perhaps rather watch a beautiful busty blonde up there on stage instead of a hairy shirtless dude, and one has, repeatedly, but most of the metalheads we know just weren't having it.
But you know what? Fuck it, this shit rips, and whatever problem you have with vocalist Jill Janus' image, and her fake boobs, she's a total babe, and cuts a seriously impressive figure up there all draped in furs and covered in blood, and more importantly she's got a killer voice, equally capable of singing melodically, and shrieking demonically, and at times chirping maniacally, apparently she was a trained opera singer and has something like a 4 octave range, and it definitely sounds like it. And then there's the band, shit, crazy tight, super heavy, furious riffing, crushing drumming, with wild shredding solos, killer classic harmonized leads, the songs intricate and progged out, mathy and power metally, but also sort of speed/thrash metal with hints of classic NWOBHM, which might all be less surprising when you realize that one of the guys in Huntress used to play Skeltonwitch.
Just check out the video for Eight Of Swords: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SKELDVRJDY&ob=av3e
If that doesn't sell you, we're not sure if anything will...
There was a lot of drama around the release of Huntress' debut Spell Eater, most of it focused on front woman Jill Janus, who besides having a sick vokill style, equal parts raspy metallic howl, and old school classic metal croon, also happened to be kinda super hot, a busty blonde usually dressed in furs and medieval bikinis and adorned in blood and warpaint, some metalheads seems put off by it, but to be honest, we're still not entirely sure why, especially when coupled with Huntress' ripping metal, which on that first record fused classic NWOBHM-isms with more modern thrash, the band does after all feature an ex-member of Skeletonwitch after all. Which means intricate and proggy power metal infused speed metal, which of course means if you liked Skeletonwitch, just imagine that band fronted by a bad ass metal chick with a voice that kills. What's not to love? Exactly.
So here's record number two, and right out of the gate, we're even more smitten, mostly, cuz they seem to have slowed things down, and pushed their sound even more in a retro classic eighties metal direction, in fact opener "Blood Sisters" totally sounds like a proper eighties metal jam, Janus doing her best Doro from Warlock, with super melodic leads, kick ass chugging old school riffage, and a KILLER chorus, the sort of chorus you probably haven't heard since the eighties, and it suits them, it was after all what for us at least made Huntress more than just another new metal band, that old school classic metal vibe, but here it's huge, "Blood Sisters" is maybe our favorite Huntress track so far, but then hot on the heels of that jam, comes the provocatively titled "I Want To Fuck You To Death", with lyrics by none other than Lemmy from Motorhead, not sure if it's meant to be a love song TO Janus, or written FOR her from her perspective, but Huntress give it the proper slightly Motorheady classic metal musical backdrop, and again, the vibe is total eighties metal, sounding like a track some band from the era might have written for the soundtrack of some low budget horror movie (Trick Or Treat? Black Roses?), which is not a bad thing at all. It's a sound we LOVE, and these guys (and gal) do it so well. And while we kept expecting their to be more modern thrash happening, like they would suddenly explode into some Skeletonwitch worthy crush like the first record, instead, they stick to their classic eighties metal guns, and it rules! Fans of Warlock, Lita Ford, Acid, Girlschool and old school eighties style metal will definitely dig big time! Bonus track: a cover of "Running Wild" by Judas Priest!
Years and years ago, a handful of cd-r's showed up in the mail, obviously black metal, it took us a while to figure out what or who it was, the group's logo, fantastically illegible, the artwork abstract and black and white, shapes and skulls, altars and shadows, and the music, woah, dark and ritualistic, buzzy and blackened and pretty goddamn weird, we eventually discovered it was in fact a 'band' called Homunculus, but were never able to get copies for the shop. We've been fans of Texas industrial noisescapers and black drone technicians Husere Grav for a while now, and only just discovered, that the man behind Homunculus is in fact also Husere Grav. But don't be expecting black metal here, HG traffic in a bleak, blackened, post industrial ambience, huge heaving swaths of Lustmordian rumbles, sprawling bleak soundworlds that are equal parts Wolf Eyes at their most minimal, and the grim, kvlt ritualism of Abruptum, all blurred and smeared into hazy expanses of black sonic murmur, and abstract metallic shimmer, abject soundworlds of blunted blacknoize and crumbling squalls of static, most of the tracks here surprisingly tranquil, heady, meditative soft noise minimalism, which sounds at times quite a bit like The Caretaker, albeit a bit noisier and low fidelity, or Caretaker offshoot The Stranger, sculpted static, and buried murky melodies. While folks into black metal, and black ambience, and ritualistic dronemusic will of course dig, the sound here is shot through with a buried beauty, that casts You Are Transparent, as something almost more aligned with Philip Jeck, Tim Hecker or Leyland Kirby, which is most definitely a very good thing.
Super deluxe packaging, the disc, housed in a dvd case, with a sixteen page black and white art zine, wrapped in a Japanese style obi, with a sticker and a button. LIMITED TO 400 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
Yet ANOTHER amazing slab of extreme, gnarled grim blackness from the seemingly bottomless depths of the French underground, this time from a horde known as Hyadningar. The Weak Creation is the second full length from these evil wicked warriors, and finds the band whipping up serious storm of grim, technical, melodic black metal, a strange mix of Deathspell-ish complexity, epic soaring melodicism, dour depressive miserablism, and even a hint of Viking metal hear and there.
That's a lot to cram into one sound, or one record, or even one band, but these guys pull it off, twisting those various sounds into something all their own, and then weaving them all together into some strange blackened patchwork. The first song veers from woozy clean guitars and soaring chantlike vocals, to lurching Burzum-y trudge, to haunting almost martial sounding breakdowns with tangled guitar harmonies, military snares, and haunting spoken word, but it all somehow flows, an expansive, complex bit of black metal chaos.
The vocals are frenzied and frayed, maniacal and feral, slipping from shriek to croak to howl, courtesy of Marquis, whose vokills might sound familiar from his time spent in Bethlehem, Funeralium and Ataraxie, and they perfectly compliment the twists and turns and ever shifting arrangements that make up these convoluted epics. Most of the songs here spend the majority of their time blasting along furiously, the guitars dense and jagged, the drumming impossibly mathy and complex, the melodies mournful and intricate, but the band continually mix things up, whether it's a sudden shift into a soaring melodic crooned breakdown, or a warped bit of folky flutter, or exploding into a totally epic almost psychedelic blast of heart-of-the-sun black majesty.
Dark, droney, dirgey metal...our favorite! Yep, this new band called Hyattari is an immediate AQ sludge/art metal fave, from West Virgina but sounding like they hail from the deeps of space, giving your ears a cold void embrace in the style of such bands as Skullflower, Halo, and Earth. Hyattari's music consists of uber-heavy sheets of low-end echoing riff-drone on bass and guitar that sound SO GOOD, joined (not even right away, but a little while into the record) by plodding, rigid, militaristic programmed percussion. It's sorta like Growing meets Godflesh! The seven tracks here (with doomy titles like "14,000,000,000 Years Ago", "Collapse", and "Harvesting Sod") pretty much slowly flow unbroken from one to the next, although within a few of the songs you'll find some sudden, short interludes of gentle melody. Haunting and lonely lulls in the sheer HEAVINESS that fills so much of this disc like glacial ice advancing over the globe during the last Ice Age. And it's mostly instrumental, with a small smattering of Neurosisy shouted/screamed vocals, augmented by sampled voices, buried in the massive mix like lost shortwave transmissions or ghostly EVP intercepts.
Besides the abovementioned, a few other artists that this reminds us of include: SUNNO))), Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Isis, Pelican, Cult Of Luna -- and the natural VLF radio recordings of Stephen P. McGreevy, 'cause this disc ends (though it doesn't seem like it ever should end, instead continuing on eternal and infinite like space itself) with a lengthy, mysterious field recording (maybe?) that might just be sferics or other electro-magnetic phenomena from the Earth's atmosphere. Very nice.
Originally self-released, and now wisely picked up by Earache's new avant/extreme Codebreaker imprint (run by the guy who used to do the now defunct Rage of Achilles label), The Light Carriers gets a big AQ recommendation to anyone into this sort of slow n' low majesty.
It's been four years since we first encountered this drone-doom-doom-drone band from West Virginia's debut album The Light Carriers. And its heavy vibrations made such an impression on us, we'd been wondering when we'd heard from them again... of course, for these guys, whose music is sooooo sloooow and seemingly transmitted from the deeps of space, four years probably isn't a long time, not on the grand galactic scale. So we waited, and we're glad they've now at last resurfaced, with, uh, They Will Surface. Considering all the droney, dooooooomy music we sell, having more Hyatari here at AQ is a good thing. Really, it seems these guys should be just as popular as bands like Ufomammut, Atavist, Nadja... certainly if you like the likes of those, you should check out Hyatari!
This new disc picks up where the last one left off, pretty much. A musical 2001: The Space Odyssey monolith of epic, moody, synth sludge DIRGE, built from slabs of Earth/SUNNO)))/Skullflower style distortion and lumbering, crushingly heavy riffs, which seem to explode out of the near-stillness of their more ambient, drifty, spaced-out passages. And it's (mostly? all?) instrumental, so nothing so insignificant and small as a pesky human voice enters into the majestic, black-void-encompassing soundfield. But instead of the Godflesh-y programmed drum beats of the debut, this time around it sounds more like there's a physical being behind the drumkit, pounding away with the pulse of the cosmos. Although, no drummer is credited, so it's probably a machine. Heck, all of Hyatari might just be a machine. We imagine the depressed robot from Hitchhiker's Guide, but serious and scary and for some reason intent on playing ultra-heavy post rockish drone-doom!
High-octane, leather-clad thrash metal from a trio of young Swedes who really know what they're doing, old-school style. Everybody in Sweden must play in a metal band, for them to have this many good ones! 35 minutes of pure neck-sprain.
Here's another band for all those folks freaking over the blissed out post black metal jangle pop of groups like Alcest, Amesoeurs, Les Discrets, Sleeping Peonies and all the rest. This Dutch one man band began life as something much more black and grim, but gradually shed all of that as the sound drifted toward something way more shoegazey and poppy.
And that's essentially what this is, a shoegaze record, a fuzzed out dream pop record, albeit one with buzzing brittle guitars, occasional squalls of frenzied fast picking, and once-in-a-while blast beats, and any of the elements that would normally go toward creating a grim black buzz, are transformed into a prismatic psychedelic shimmer, a fuzzy, a blissed out shoegaze buzz equal parts super sunny jangle pop and slow building instrumental crystalline post rock, soaring and epic and emotional, oozing with glistening melodic shimmer, wreathed in warm sonic swirls. If we had to pick one band to compare Hypomanie to, it would probably be Slowdive, a sort of blackened post rock Slowdive, but that same sort of wistful melancholia, and epic shoegazey swells, not to mention the occasional sweeping string like synths. There's also a huge Jesu vibe in the guitar tone and the epic crescendos (which also remind us of M83), and there's a strange looped vibe to many of the tracks, as if the songs were constructed and assembled, which gives the whole thing a dizzying, alien feel, which certainly suits the strange dreamlike sounds. And throughout the record, there are definitely some subtle hints of Hypomanie's black metal roots, in the buzzing guitars, the tremelo picking, the strange production, and here and there, the sound does actually explode into some serious black metal, like the closing bit of the opening track, which bursts into some furious soaring frenzied buzzing, anchored to some double kick driven blast beats, but even then it's all kaleidoscopic and dreamy, the blasting drums buried in the lush sonic swirl, a sound so epic and cinematic and fantastically grandiose. Gorgeous stuff for sure, and ANYone into the post black metal jangle pop usual suspects (mentioned above), will definitely dig this big time.
The latest from this Dutch one man shoegaze black metal band, whose A City In Mono record was a big hit around here, with it's fuzzed out dream poppiness and weirdly looped sounding construction. Well if anything, on Calm Down, You Weren't Set On Fire it's gotten even harder to refer to Hypomanie as a black metal band, no matter how much you qualify it, any black buzz here is wreathed in prismatic swaths of sun dappled shimmer, the soaring guitars are processed to the point that they almost sound like horns and the programmed drums aren't driving as much as they are textural. Utterly blissed out and airy, fuzzy and dreamily soft focus, even when the sound is in fact blasting, the blast seems to be floating heavenward, in a cloud of blurred chordal thrum and majestic bleary eyed shimmer. But the band spend relatively little time bliss-blasting, instead unfurling long expanses of jangly shimmer, and post rocky dream poppy lope. And on tracks like "Alissa Loves Perfume", while the band do rock, all driving and intense, with the guitars super distorted to the point that they seem to crumble, it doesn't make it sound heavy at all, just fantastically produced and poppy, making us think of a more home brewed M83, which is not a bad thing at all, in fact, we've been listening to this like crazy. It's just that for all intents and purposes, Hypomanie are not a metal band, they are instead a heavy shoegaze dream pop band, and a really good one, the songs here super catchy, and almost soundtracky at times, the sort of jams you can imagine would be on the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie, if he was making Sixteen Candles in 2012. Fans of M83, Phoenix, Craft Spells, Beach House, and yeah okay, Alcest, Amesoeurs, Les Discrets and the like.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!!
A brand new three song 12" 50 minute ep from Swedish Black metal outfit Hypothermia, whose black metal, is both strangely not metal, and surprisingly not all that black. Much like German 'wooden metal' horde Varghkogargasmal, Hypothermia spend much of their time playing clean jangly guitar, or offering up meandering post rock jams, minor key guitar strum and simple propulsive drumming, sure there are howled vocals and thick swaths of buzzing blackened riffs now and again, but what is so intriguing about Hypothermia is that they manage to evoke the same sort of suicidal emotions and grim atmosphere, without resorting to typical black metal tropes.
Gratoner is three parts of the same song, side A has parts one and two, while side B has the "Repression" version. Truth be told, all three are quite similar, which in fact plays to Hypothermia's benefit, in that Gratoner plays like one long song, repetitive and cyclical, hypnotic and repetitive, which once drawn in, keeps the listener absolutely ensorcelled.
The core of the track is a loping clean guitar groove, a sort of post rock minor key figure, repeated over and over, alternating between fingerpicked and strummed, the drums too, a simple propulsive midtempo rhythm, all minor key and slightly melancholy, a few minutes into part one, an inhuman shriek surface, and soon after the song switches gears, the same loping jam now overlaid with fuzzy washed out distorted riffage, and the track slips back and forth, clean, distorted, clean, distorted, until part two, where the drums and guitar bliss out, weaving a minimal jangle scape, over which anguished vocals moan and wail, it's a strange combination, but quite compelling, the vocals drop out soon after, and almost the whole second half of the record is just that mesmerizing guitar and drums jam, all jangle and lope, sort of drifty and dreamy and moody, very subtly intense and hypnotic.
The flipside is quite similar, but much more time is spent in black buzz mode, the guitars a thick layer of prickly buzz, over that main riff the anchors all three versions, the track again slipping seamlessly from Burzumy midtempo buzz, to post rock bordering on krautrock groove, the vocals more prevalent, but still that main looping cyclical riff and rhythm keeps us totally enthralled, and could go on forever and ever and we'd keep listening. We're told that these songs may be reworked and added to for a later release, but we actually like them quite a bit how they are, minimal and stripped down, and totally and endlessly mesmerizing.
Pressed on 180 gram vinyl, in an incredibly thick full color gatefold sleeve. The cover and gatefold adorned with gorgeous images of caves and forests, trees, and leaves and lakes, the lp is housed in a printed 12" style inner sleeve (with a hole in the middle), and also contains a small poster of the cover.
Kim Carlsson seems to getting soft on us, or at least more melodic. Gone, it seems, are the days of ultra grim buzzing abject suicidal blackness, the sort of sonic filth he spewed in the early days of his group Hypothermia. But we're not complaining, not at all. In fact, even though we've witnessed the sort of consternation this shift has caused in some of our troo black customers, the rest of us are really digging Carlsson's somewhat surprising new trajectory. Most notably in his group Lifelover, who have basically transformed their black metal into a haunting epic doom pop, albeit one rife with demented weirdness (see the review of the new Lifelover elsewhere on this list), but lately more and more in his group Hypothermia, who were never the heaviest band to begin with, but they did buzz and howl with the Burzumic best of them, but record after record, the sound of Hypothermia has grown more and more skeletal, more jangly even, resulting in a shift almost completely away from black metal, and ending up as a sort of lo fi dark jangle post rock, just guitars and drums, the recording very 4track sounding, the guitars mostly clean, very little distortion, the arrangements spare and sprawling, bordering on Krautrock at times.
Carlsson's latest two track chunk of Hypothermic post post black metal comes in the form of Kaffe & Blod (translated to: you guessed it, Coffee And Blood). The title track, takes up a whole side, and for the first half is a loping meandering lazy lope, the guitars spidery and brittle, the drums simple and stripped down, plenty of jangle, the two instruments in a woozy dance, looped into a mesmerizing mantra like progression, that while shifting subtly, manages to entrance in its gorgeous and seemingly unending repetition. The second half does actually offer up some distorted guitar, and just in contrast to the opener it does sound like black metal, but once the track settles in, the sound reveals itself once again to be more of a jangly blackened indie pop, which should definitely hit the spot for folks into Alcest and Amesoeurs and the like. Epic and softly buzz, a little mathy, dark and emotional, but like the first track, no vocals, and a definite hypnotic looped element, ending with a reverby slowcore outro that wouldn't sound out of place on one of our favorite nineties Touch And Go records (Seam anyone?). Really strangely gorgeous.
The flipside, "Dagg" is a 14 minute improvised track, a bit darker, slower, a bit dirgier, the same stripped down lo-fi sound quality, the drums way up in the mix, the guitars clean, but unfurling dark minor key chords, and minimal moody jangle, and even more than the A side, "Dagg" sounds straight out of some nineties mope rock classic. Moody and mournful and meandering, skeletal but still haunting and catchy and mysteriously lovely.
The true black metal hordes might was well give up it seems. As there doesn't seem to be much hope for a return to utter grimness, but in it's own way the music of Hypothermia is still grim and depressive and dark and a bit black, just cloaked in lope and jangle instead of buzz and blast, which suits us just fine.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES! Pressed on super thick vinyl with heavy printed inner sleeves and striking black and white jackets.
There couldn't be a more appropriate name for this Swedish duo, as it's unlikely you'll ever hear anything colder or frostier. This is harsh and frostbitten, depressive and miserable black metal. Full length number two, after last year's Veins, Kold takes their monochromatic miserablism a step further, two tracks, two riffs, okay, maybe four at the most, one track twenty seven minutes long, the other nineteen, each one a loping midtempo buzz, the drums a relentless plod, the guitar a buzz so blurry and indistinct it almost sounds like a drone, and the vocals, well, you thought they were weird on Veins, they're even more strangled and bizarre here, somewhere between an Orcish death rattle and some sort of beast vomiting up its last meal, sometimes mumbling in a strange mewling grunt, other times a leather lunged glass throated growl, you can almost feel the blood and spittle. But it's the perfect compliment to the music. Hateful, sorrowful, suicidal, depressive, the sound of Kold is just that, so cold and lonely, emotional and intense. About three quarters of the way through the first track, the distorted guitar drops out leaving just a jangly clean guitar, drums and vocals, which is unexpected for sure, but ends up sounding strangely emotionally charged. Soon the vocals drop out too and it's just drums and clean guitar and it almost sounds like some outsider bedroom indie rock, before the buzz kicks back in and the track unwinds in a Burzumic blaze of frosty buzz.
The second track may be even weirder, a blown out buzzy riff, and even doomier rhythmic plod, and the vocals are completely unhinged, falsetto screams, what sounds like that weird breathing-in-backwards singing, growling and grunting and shrieking and wailing hysterically, all over a surprisingly lilting minor key dirge, buzzing and droning, epic yet surprisingly melodic, with another surprise right at the end, a three minute clean-guitar and drum coda, simple garage-y drumming, sort of shuffling and crashing beneath some truly moody jangly strum.
Another gloriously grim and frostbitten slab of ultra depressive black metal dirge from these Swedes. Their last two discs were serious AQ faves, their monochromatic blackened plod totally mesmerizing and entrancing. And this one is no different. Rakbladsvalsen begins with an epic 34 minute blast of suicidal black stomp, but like the last few discs, there is a seriously melodic element lurking beneath the buzzing and pounding. In fact, at moments, the melody is almost dreamy, like some jangly indie rock band was possessed by the dark lord, transforming their bright jangle into dark buzz, but never fully letting go of that innate melodic purity.
Mournful and melancholy, the main riff repeated over and over and over and over, the drums shifting occasionally from simple plod to stumbling blast and back again, the vocals harsh and haggard, so pained and anguished, but again, like the music, strangely pretty (in a strangled to death sort of way). The song is relentless, the only real shifts over the 30+ minutes are when the drums drop out, leaving the riff to buzz and hover briefly, until the drums once again kick in and the band lurches back into it's crushing black dirge. Theoretically, even though the disc is separated into 4 tracks, they are parts one through four of the same track, and minus the gaps, they do sort of sound like it, the same (or very similar) key, the same lurching loping tempo, harsh and brittle and buzzing and black, but always subtly jangly.
The final track is the surprise, expanding on what the band had only hinted at before on past releases, a gorgeous post rock jam, simple and minor key, the guitar sound clean, the riff moody and melancholy, the drums a simple math rock groove, the guitar switches lazily between muted minor key melodies, like some June Of 44 or Slint rehearsal recording, two simple parts, both quite lovely, no blown out buzzing blackness, just a dreamy extended instrumental workout, that demonstrates quite well, that slow and moody can be just as powerful and dark as grim and buzzy.
Finally after years of demos and splits and cassette tape releases, the first proper full length from Swedish suicidal black metallers Hypothermia. You might remember Hypothermia from their split with Dimhymn, in the review of which we described their sound as "Epic fuzzed out glacial dirge, with thick riffs spread out in a black smear, the drums a caveman plod, and some of the most fucked vocals ever: weird, something-caught-in-the-throat sort of strangulated grunts and mewls, guttural growls and strange falsetto-y squeaks." And not too much has changed. In fact, Hypothermia's final track on that split was an "epic 16 minute midtempo buzzscape, [with] looped riffs, totally repetitive and hypnotic..." and dang if Veins isn't three of those, each a massive buzzing midtempo black dirge, slowly pounding drums, simple raw hypnotic riffing, repeated and repeated, into a mesmerizing musical mantra, the relentless buzz blurring into near drones, and anguished, cries of utter agony, over swirls of dismal black buzz.
Definitely for fans of Burzum, Nortt, Make A Change... Kill Yourself, Silencer, Xasthur and other purveyors of doomic black hate.
And if the music weren't depressed and dismal enough, the sleeve sports some seriously horrific and blood drenched images, bloody slit wrists, the word failure carved into an arm, a bathtub splattered with blood, and all the lyrics written in blood on blood soaked paper towels...
You might remember Hypothermia from their amazing split with Dimhymn a few months back, and we review the killer Durthang tape elsewhere on this list. But these two Swedish purveyors of bleak lifeless doomic black metal are the perfect match up.
Hypothermia's side is an ultra lo fi blast of midtempo buzz, super murky, almost like a practice space recording, with strangled vocals, and some killer riffing. Definitely some serious cult black brutality.
The flipside is two loooong tracks from Durthang, and further convinces us that this could very well be one of our new favorite black metal hordes. A strangely clean sound, but nice fuzzy riffing and way up in the mix drumming. Mournful melodies over relentless double kick drumming. Cool arpeggiated guitar lines over swirling buzzing blackness and blown out distorted vocal shrieks. A darkly depressive Burzumic buzz wrapped around melancholy minor key misery. So good. And so far the only Durthang recording available are on ultra cult cassette tape only!!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
Yet another archival release from grim suicidal one man black metal outfit I Shalt Become, aka S. Holliman, who hails from Illinois of all grim places, and who, as far as we can tell, has been pretty much inactive for the last decade. This release was recorded way back in 1998 and was originally released as a demo credited to Birkenau, the name Holliman used before switching to I Shalt Become.
Like Wanderings before it, In The Falling Snow is a fantastic, and fantastically twisted chunk of sorrowful black misery. As doomy as it is black, heavily indebted to Burzum of course, but I Shalt Become shares much in common with other more modern practitioners of this sort of ultra grim, plodding midtempo blackness, Xasthur, Krohm, Nortt, Make A Change Kill Yourself, the riffs buzzing and crumbling, the temps loping and dirgey, the mood grim and dour, super atmospheric, not lo-fi necessarily, but murky and muddy and washed out sounding, dreary and drone-y, sweeping swaths of epic keyboard, and the vocals, an exhausted miserable sounding croak, as if most of the lifeforce has already drained away, not leaving enough vitriol to howl or shriek, just enough energy to barely get out these last words from a moldering old deathbed, the wasted, dead quality of the vocals perfectly matching the depressive mood of the music.
But even as miserable and despondent and depressive as these sounds are, they're also hauntingly and harrowingly beautiful, soaring strings, minor key melodies, super dramatic and ultra personal, everything weirdly soft focus and dreamlike, the buzz and plod blurred into gauzy dronemetal soundscapes, the double kick, a pulse buried beneath thick layers of billowing fuzz, the riffs looped and repeated into black buzzing mantras. Way recommended of course, for the miserable and the black hearted.
The latest from Illinois one man black metal band I Shalt Become bears the strange title Louisiana Voodoo, not sure if this some sort of bizarre concept record, but sonically, it does pretty much start up right where 2010's Poison left off, the muddy, Burzumic, Xasthur-like murk of the earlier releases, transformed into something twisted and symphonic, the sound more strings and orchestra than black buzz, but fear not, ISB's finest moments, are when the two collide, creating a sort of symphonic black doom creep that fuses washed out murky guitar buzz, and buried barely there drum plod, to swirling symphonic strings, dramatic piano, even some Carpenter like synths, all topped with raspy, demonically croaked vokills. It's strange stuff for sure, but as much as we loved Poison, we're digging Louisiana Voodoo even more, all of the twisted symphonic elements, and the newly expanded sound palette, are even more expansive and wonderfully warped this time around, Louisiana Voodoo sounding like some sort of Broadway black metal production of Phantom Of The Opera, all bombastic and dramatic, creepy chamber music wrapped in swaths of grim black buzz, it's almost like a more lo-fi home brewed version of Dimmu Borgir or Fleshgod Apocalypse, but somehow even less metal, or at least less buzzing and blasting, instead more creepy and loping, lumbering and muddy, sweeping and soundtracky, it's not difficult to imagine these sounds accompanying some twisted big budget art film, the arrangements are intricate and epic, the sounds majestic and soaring - think Xasthur via Arvo Part, or Make A Change Kill Yourself performing with a symphony. Although it's obvious that ISB is not just cramming some fake orchestra sounds into a black metal template, this stuff is meticulously crafted, and the results are stunning, and while there's still plenty of metal going on, metal references definitely don't do this justice, instead, think of some blackened hybrid that's equal parts Devil Doll, Death SS, Jacula, Gnaw Their Tongues, Xasthur, Seirom and Dimmu Borgir. Awesome.
The return of Immortal!!! These frosty warriors may have hung up their spiked gauntlets, but their legacy still looms large. Easily one of our favorite black metal hordes EVER, these records have been frustratingly tough to keep in stock over the years. Thankfully, they've all been reissued, in all their frostbitten black blurred glory!
Finally, this, the final Immortal album, from 2002, gets the deluxe reissue treatment, now with a bonus DVD!
From the cold frozen north (Norway) comes this, the very last (R.I.P.) cd from one of our favorite corpse-painted bands ever, Immortal. It's their seventh album but their first (and sadly last) for new, big-time label Nuclear Blast, so expectations were indeed high. And Sons Of Northern Darkness delivers, in fine Immortal fashion. It's got the unmistakable Popeye-gone-metal vocal stylings of guitarist Abbath, who rasps out the frostbitten fantasy lyrics penned by their former guitarist, the crippled Demonaz, all backed by a blizzard of drums from hefty skinbeater Horgh.
Followers of Immortal's career know that they began as your basic, howling at the moon, primitive blasting black metal outfit. They quickly developed a reputation as the fastest band out there, reaching a peak of pure speed with the classic Battles In The North. Unable to top that, they did an album of Morbid Angel worship, the hectic Blizzard Beasts...and then Demonaz left the band, unable to play guitar due to "arm disease". Regrouping, Immortal shifted in a newly melodic, heavy-metal-riff oriented direction, releasing the brilliant At The Heart of Winter. Some old fans (Josh from The Fucking Champs, you know who you are) were disappointed that the songs wasn't as fast, and the production not as "necro" as before, but the drums still blazed and the better production (courtesy of Peter Tagtgren's Abyss Studio) combined with their improved song-craft made for a true masterpiece. They followed that up with At The Heart of Winter Part II (actual title: Damned In Black), and now here we are with what is essentially part three, Sons Of Northern Darkness. No, it doesn't top At The Heart of Winter but it's indeed more of the same quality Immortal, totally satisfying! While their blasting abilities are still incredible, this disc is perhaps at its best on the slower songs, like "Tyrants". Cold, cold stuff. There's even a song about Antarctica! The DVD captures an entire live show recorded in 2003 live at BB Kings Club in New York, filmed with a camcorder, this is raw and fuzzy footage, but the sound is good and there's plenty of corpepaint and windmilling hair, and that unmistakable Immortal frostbitten black metal blur. Immortal. Sometimes, there's nothing better.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Rare, demo, whatever tracks collection from this Bay Area "shit metal" band, local favorites for their excellent Carcass-inspired riffage.
Everybody's favorite Oakland-based Carcass-worshipping death metallers Impaled are back, with another bloody slab of gore, this time under the auspices of the Century Media label -- a step up from previous label Deathvomit, we think. They also seem to have dropped the shit schtick. They're less fecal, more foresnic this time around. Musically, they continue to improve as well, and although you can't accuse 'em of being the most original band ever, at least they are true to their roots and at this point must be the world's leading "medical metal" outfit (followed closely by the County Medical Examiners), proudly keeping the Carcass legacy alive -- they even NAME their guitar solos a la Carcass!
Interestingly, Death After Life was produced by Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle/Secret Chiefs 3, who also makes some instrumental contributions, and handles the string arrangements!! Also new on (fret)board: guitarist Jason Kocol who a few of you might know as the collaborator of Steven Schultz in Puny Humans and Stalin Claus Superstar!
Local gorecore heroes Impaled (Ludicra bassist Ross Sewage's *other* band) vomit forth another gnarly dose of their death metal medicine. It's definitely the cure for those wasting away from a lack of Carcass in their diets -- Carcass, y'know, being the UK grindcore greats who Impaled ape so well. Nothing wrong with that, we love Carcass as much as Impaled do. Well, maybe almost as much, 'cause we didn't actually start a band to try and emulate the razorsharp riffing and sickening lyrics of those Brits. But Impaled have other influences as well, to be fair: Italian splatter cinema and, um, shit. (We didn't say they were *wide-ranging* influences...) Anyway, this Impaled is a good 'un, go get it you death grind freaks!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The Bay Area's finest...shit-metal band? Their brethren Exhumed had cover art featuring bloody butchery in the kitchen, now Impaled (with ex-Exhumed guys) come along with even more disgusting cover art illustrating gory toilet follies. What's next, carnage in the rec room? Or the den? Anyway, Impaled play fast, fierce death-grind with titles like "Immaculate Defecation" and "Faecal Rites".
We gave up on Impaled Nazarene a long time ago, once they made the switch from evil nasty goat-raping black metal to pseudo-industrial ROCK AND ROLL!! Well, the sound is still kind of rock and roll, maybe a little less industrial, and with a fair
Now featuring the shred-master fella from Children of Bodom on lead guitar, this Finnish "Nuclear Cybersex Black Metal" band returns, in much better form than on their rather weak, too-punk prior effort "Rapture". Slower and doomier by IN standards (but still fast and furious by most anyone else's), "Nihil" again makes IN a scary proposition.
