[ aquarius records

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Showing results 2651 through 2700 of 5570.

They call what this Finnish band plays "cybermetal" but there're no technobeats to be found, and the lyrics fixate on S/M more than sci-fi. Perverted super super fast Black Metal thrash. Satanic sex metal, quite extreme, yet somehow good-natured. Some dainty songtitles: "Motorpenis," "Goat War," "66.6 S. Of Foreplay," "I Eat Pussy For Breakfast."

It demonstrates a lot of confidence to name your deathly black metal (or blackened death metal?) band something like Imperial Triumphant, but this NYC outfit really do mean business, business that includes not only brutal, technically twisted death/black metal but also lots of avant-garde, arty elements from free jazz sax squeal & piano improv to dramatic, droned-out 20th century classical passages, at times making the one wonder if you've put on a Cecil Taylor or Krzysztof Penderecki disc instead of this one! Lots of atmosphere, lots of shred, with swarming fuzz, lurching seasick song structures, dissonant breaks, crazed battery, and confusional genre-jumping interludes that would make John Zorn proud. No surprise this was produced/mixed/mastered by eccentric metal guru Colin Marston of Krallice, Behold The Arctopus, Gorguts, Encenathrakh, etc. Will appeal to fans of such recently-raved about avant-death weirdness like Aevangelist and Chthe'ilist, we're pretty sure, along with Portal, later Gorguts, Liturgy, Deathspell Omega, and other extreme metal strangeness.

MPEG stream: The Palaces Of The Hive
MPEG stream: Dead Heaven
MPEG stream: Black Psychedelia

Limited edition. Black metal. Norway. Cult. Custom packaging. Stephen O'Malley from Sunn 0))). That should be enough to have some of you in a froth. And rightfully so, as this is a super limited little slice of black metal history with custom packaging courtesy of Mr. O'Malley. Imperium were a Norwegian black metal band, who only ever recorded a single EP that has been unavailable until now. Featuring members of Emperor, Gehenna, Dismal Euphony and Theater Of Tragedy, Imperium spew a blackened brew of fast and raw, chaotic and buzzing, super grim and frosty black metal. Limited to 500 copies, never to be re-pressed (we only managed to get 20, not sure if we'll be able to get more) this is a one sided 12", music on one side, brown branches and bird silhouettes silkscreened on the other, packaged in a clear sleeve with a huge black bird and some spiky brambles silkscreened around the band's hard to read logo. The overall effect is quite stunning. And again VERY LIMITED.

We love death metal as much as the next guy (okay, maybe not the NEXT guy, but possibly the next guy after that!), we love all the classics, Incantation, Suffocation, Morbid Angel, but as you might imagine we do lean toward the stranger and more fucked up side of the death metal spectrum. The more twisted and tweaked and off kilter the better, which is probably why we were so into Portal, the Aussie horde whose sound was like a death metal lp left in the back seat of your car all summer, only to be played back on a Fisher Price turntable plugged into a foghorn, everything about that band was so geniusly wrong, the beats were off kilter, the riffs were fractured, the arrangements were dizzyingly chaotic, but totally a case of so wrong it's right, all of those random fucked up elements came together to form what we considered to be one of the coolest and weirdest death metal records ever. Which brings us to Impetuous Ritual, featuring members of Portal, supposedly channeling the spirit of classic death metal, and were pleased to say, these guys playing classic death metal is still completely and utterly removed from how it actually sounds. Sure compared to Portal, IR is definitely a smidge more traditional, but it's still massively demented and OUT THERE. The opening track "Elegy" begins the proceedings with an awesome sprawling doomy slow motion chug, that goes on and on and on, like the slow doomy part from a Morbid Angel song, but even filthier and murkier, it's so good, we sort of wished it went on for the whole record, totally mesmerizing and minimal, and thankfully, while that specific part doesn't happen again, much of the record is spent trudging along doomily, a lumbering series of tarpit chugs, and even though the band continually launch into sounds more death metal, the overall sound stays weird and obtuse for the whole record. Even when the band are blasting full speed ahead, the recording is so murky, and the sound so lo-fi, that the riffs become washed out blurs, sheets of undulating buzz, peppered with bursts of frenzied death metal freakouts, demarcated by stretches of weird blackened drones, and lurching chugging start / stops. The record finishes with the appropriately titled "Dirge", which is more of that lumbering lysergic muddy death metal doom, that sounds like your stereo is melting, or the tape deck is slowly swallowing your tape. So fucking twisted, and so unbelievably awesome. Another metal record of the year contender for sure...

MPEG stream: Elegy
MPEG stream: Convoluting Unto Despondent Anachronism
MPEG stream: Dirge

What a title!!! And it's another weird death metal album from these guys, to match.

Swedish blackened death metal. Heavy and speedy.

Aquarius' favorite German volk metallers (think Rammstein at a Rennaissance faire) return with their third domestic release. They seem a bit less medieval, more metal than we remember -- or so it seems, until the bagpipes kick in after a few minutes. And some of their catchy and quite heavy songs are still sung in Latin! Totally rockin', and kinda industrial despite their pre-industrial trappings. The multimedia (cd-rom) portion of this disc includes bio, discography, and video clips. There are interviews and live footage, as well as an MTV-style music video for their song "Vollmond", which has a modern-day goth/vampire concept featuring a leggy, toothy model and crossbow-wielding vampire hunters in a black car!

RealAudio clip: Wind
RealAudio clip: Omnia Sol Temperat

Germany's In Extremo strikes again, bringing their unique medieval fire-breathing, costume-wearing, bagpipe-wielding folk-metal into our racks (and maybe your home), like a crazed cross between Rammstein, Comus, and Accept. Whoops, I may have just insured that no one will ever buy this record...but it's really pretty great, as was their debut. Electric guitar riffs borrowed from Sabbath meet flutes and lutes and Latin lyrics declaimed in a peculiar Popeye voice. And then they do a Sisters of Mercy cover to make it all even more ridiculous!

In our continuing tradition of bringing you the weirdest metal around, we now present to you: In Extremo! Nobody describes a band better than their press release: "Menacing and enraged, the band performs dressed in historically correct costumes from the middle ages. Dancing and wildly carousing, presenting their songs, you can imagine how our ancestors must have celebrated. Bagpipers tread madly back and forth across the stage in front of head-banging guitarists. Wildly manic tribal drum rhythms enhance the happenings." Essentially, In Extremo are an above average power metal band (ala Blind Guardian or Hammerfall) fronted by bagpipers and a vocalist that sounds like either Popeye or a Tuvan throat singer. Pretty excellent actually.

Gothenburg's finest return. Swedish melodic Maiden-inspired death metal to the max.

Two song Svart seven-inch from Swedish sensations In Solitude. The A-side originally appeared on their 2011 The World. The Flesh. The Devil. album, so you should have heard it already (unless you're only into 'em for their more recent disc, Sister). The B-side is a Samhain cover, recorded in 2011 - so perhaps part of the band's transition from the more trad Mercyful Fate-ish metal of The World. The Flesh. The Devil. to the gothier, rockier Sister stuff...

Light the seance candles and ready the Ouija board, Sweden's In Solitude have returned from realms unknown to deliver the third installment in an unholy trinity of ominous occult heavy metal, this time distilling their sound with a healthy dose of '80s goth rock and some serious stadium sized chops. While In Solitude's previous records wore their Mercyful Fate infatuation well and truly on their tattered sleeve, Sister takes their sound to strange new frontiers. While the misshapen shadow of King Diamond certainly still looms large over this record, there's just as much influence from bands like The Mission U.K., Fields of the Nephilim, and '80s Damned to name but a few! The production is perfectly sparse and simple, seeming to stretch and creak like rotting floorboards leading to dimly lit entry ways. Singer Pelle Ahmen sounds like a man in a trance, a restless spirit faintly crying out from the astral plane. He still definitely conjures the lower register ghostly wail of King Diamond, but just as often his crooning drawl recalls Danzig, Nick Cave, The Cult's Ian Astbury, and on the album's acoustic opener especially The Sisters of Mercy's Andrew Eldritch (could the album title be an homage??). While the fist pumping heavy metal of In Solitude's previous two records often revealed Ahmen's limits as a vocalist, in the context of their newly stripped down, more rock and roll sound he works absolutely perfectly, totally dominating the record with his unearthly presence. And for all the arcane occultism and haunting imagery, Sister is absolutely full to the brim with hooks and accessibility, often sounding a bit like Ghost (whom they're rumored to be aligned with member-wise somehow!) without all of the Scooby-Doo cartoon hokiness, but with just as much of an eye toward pop songcraft and classic rock'n'roll. "Lavender" is almost like The Doors soundtracking a haunted house horror film with its Technicolor hints of '60s psychedelia and guitars spiraling with a circus acrobat's abandon over that ever present haunting vocal croon. Album closer "Inmost Nigredo" opens with a lush dreamy opium den crawl, like Pink Floyd at their most clinically depressed, before slumping into a doomy graveyard lurch layered with echoey fluttering black metal guitar leads, sounding a bit like a less obtuse Negative Plane or Occultation. Meanwhile the album's title track and possible album highlight grooves with a serious slithering swagger, seeping through the speakers like the undead sibling of G'n'R's "Mr. Brownstone" unearthed from some forgotten unmarked burial plot! Sister is the perfect example of tweaking a band's sound subtly, but just enough that it absolutely changes everything. In Solitude sound imbued with a vibrant new energy and a renewed sense of purpose, and Sister is most certainly a late in the game contender for metal record of the year, even though some might argue that this isn't (entirely) metal anymore. (Heck Andee and Allan are both convinced that Sister reminds them a bit of an old fave from the '90s, the reverby Southern Gothic indie garage act the Rock*A*Teens.)

MPEG stream: Death Knows Where
MPEG stream: Lavender
MPEG stream: Sister

Last time we highlighted the 2nd album from Mercyful Fate/King Diamond (and Satan) lovin' Swedish true metallers, Portrait. Now this week we've got another sophomore album from ANOTHER Swedish heavy metal act on Metal Blade that's ALSO heavily influenced by Mercyful Fate, and they're pretty rad too! This is the first time we've listed anything by In Solitude, though they were on Earache's Heavy Metal Killers comp that we recommended some time back - they appeared there alongside, yes, Portrait, as well as Cauldron, Ram, and a bunch of other cool bands we like from the "New Wave Of Old School Metal". This new In Solitude, their first disc for Metal Blade, is a triumphant affair of twin guitar riffage, and soaring vocals, both quite melodic AND powerful. Never quite getting as ridiculously falsetto as ol' King Diamond, In Solitude's singer does however traffic in similar melodies and lyrical themes, wailing about demons, devils and darkness. Musically, In Solitude boast dynamic songwriting with a variety of sounds and speeds, structures incorporating moody acoustic guitars, and plenty of Maidenesque gallop... By the time epic, 13+ minute finale "On Burning Paths" rolls around, your arms will be tired from hoisting those "invisible oranges" in reaction to this music. Perhaps they're not quite so gnarly / ancient / evil sounding as Portrait, though you certainly can imagine 'em dwelling in some bat-infested castle somewhere, surrounded by pentagrams and black candles for sure (and empty beer cans and old Mercyful Fate lps). In Solitude definitely captures that '80s metal "Mr. Crowley" vibe of occult-induced danger and despair. In terms of pop/rock elements, they come slightly closer to that other Satanic Swedish sensation, Ghost, and the singer also sports subtle, spooky facepaint that's a bit Ghost-like too. Horns up!

MPEG stream: We Were Never There
MPEG stream: Poisoned, Blessed And Burned
MPEG stream: To Her Darkness

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. This is one of my all time favorite grindcore bands. They combined unbelievably kick ass grinding fastcore with the kind of sense of humour you wish all bands had. This is a posthumous collection of everything they did, including the brilliant 'Nutty Antichrist' lp (that featured a demonic Jerry Lewis on the cover). Pummeling and punsishing, fast and brutal, and funny as fuck. Awesome.

Umpteenth album (first on Necropolis, though, after quite a few for Relapse) from these underground American death metal stalwarts. Incantation have always been one of Allan's (few) favorite death metal acts, because they understand that being heavy isn't always about unrelenting, monotonous blasting. Indeed, bands that play fast all the time often don't end up sounding very heavy at all. Incantation contrast their fast parts with slow, doomy parts too -- that really IS heavy. In addition, they're creative with their dissonant guitar riffs, reminding us just a bit of the avant-gardisms of another fave, Gorguts. Brutal, blasphemous (of course) stuff, with speedy, dense textures and awesomely dirgey breakdowns.

RealAudio clip: The Fallen

Another from our favorite long-running doomy dirgey death-metal act Incantation.

Umpteenth album from one of our (few) Death Metal faves.

MPEG stream: Primordial Domination
MPEG stream: The Fallen Priest

One of Allan's favorite heaven-hating death metal combos returns with a new album. Again they blasphemize and destroy. What I like about Incantation is that, unlike a lot of run-of-the-mill Satanic death metal, these guys don't just blast at a completely monotonous hyperspeed at all times. There's more texture and better use of slower tempos than most. It's doomier and dirgier death metal, thick with strangeness and evil.

Incantation maintain their status as one of our all-time death metal faves (of which there aren't that many) with this devastating new album. However, we've noticed that death metal per se is perhaps not the most popular of metal genres that we stock at aQ, but if we described Incantation's music as 'extreme blackened doomic death-dirge' or somesuch, that should hopefully pull in a few of you!! While there are some who would have it that long-running, line-up-changing death metal institution Incantation's glory (gory?) days belong to the '90s, with Vanquish In Vengeance, their first in more than 5 years, it would seem that these vets have their mojo back! You probably won't hear a more solid slab of doomed-out death metal this year. Perhaps because their brand of old school blasphemic blasting and slo-mo brutality has become the 'in' thing amongst the death metal underground, what with acclaimed acts like Hooded Menace, Encoffination, Vasaeleth, and Disma (ex-Incantation members, that one) all righteously worshiping at the Incantation altar, the originators wanted to demonstrate who does it best. Though, they do it here with powerful production (and a mix by Dan Swano) that's not quite as 'underground' sounding as that of their older stuff, or that of most of their current followers, but is no less brutal - if anything, moreso. And they remain dirgey as hell - just check out the 12+ minute album-closer, "Legion Of Dis", an epic of majestic morbidity.

MPEG stream: Haruspex
MPEG stream: Profound Loathing
MPEG stream: Legion Of Dis

Proto-metal fiends, give praise to the fine folks at Rise Above Relics. They've been doing a great job lately reissuing some crucial obscurities from the early '70s - Necromandus, Steel Mill, that Bang box set - and now here's another one we were excited to get in. The one and only, and quite collectable, album from 1973 by a band of heavy rockers from England who went by the somewhat silly name of Incredible Hog (apparently a porcine variation on the Incredible Hulk??). There's been songs of theirs included on a few comps we've had (A Visit To The Spaceship Factory, The Electric Asylum Vol.4) but this is the first ever proper cd reissue of the full album, authorized and remastered and all. The first track is called "Lame" but the 'Hog definitely ain't. If you like your psychedelic blues rock big and burly, raucous and rollicking, the 'Hog are the seventies heavies you're looking for. That lead-off cut, "Lame", is an excellent intro to the album in general; a stomping, distorted rocker with loads of swingin' riffage and wailing vox, that sounds a whole lot like Led Zeppelin mixed with a bit of glitter/glam a la Slade (with the hey hey hey's and handclaps). The next track, the dazed 'n' confused dirge "Wreck My Soul" is even more on the Zepped-out blooze rawk tip, with some blues harp blowin' showing up. They venture into folkier territory on the following cut, "Execution", one of a few quite affecting, mellower melodic compositions found on the record. But mostly they're about banging out the heavier stuff, and they're back at it with the next number, "Tadpole", an uptempo stormer laced with sound FX samples (crashing thunder, crying babies, crazy laughter) giving it a bit of a proggier vibe, which is followed by the cowbell-knockin', Eastern-tinged "Another Time"... and so it goes, Incredible Hog kicking ass all up and down this album, one that any fan of the Led Zeppier side to '70s heavy rock oughtta lay their ears upon pronto. So if you dig bands like Leaf Hound, Budgie, Granicus, Lucifer's Friend, Jerusalem, Possessed (UK), Tucky Buzzard, and Stray, then prepare to add Incredible Hog to that list of proto-metal awesomeness. Bands today can't compare (although, Rise Above's Gentlemans Pistols come close, and no doubt are big 'Hog fans). As always, Rise Above Relics does a bang-up job with the cd packaging, it's ensconced in a slipcover with fat 40 page cd booklet full of detailed notes and vintage pics, all put together with the help of the original band members. They've also managed to dig up four long lost, unreleased bonus trax (hence the "+4" in this reissue's title), recorded back in the day, some of which were meant for a second 'Hog album that never happened. At least one of 'em, a rip snorter called "Burnout", is easily up there with anything on the album itself in terms of sheer proto-metal power, and the others are worthy bonus trackage too. All hail the 'Hog! Incredible, indeed.

MPEG stream: Lame
MPEG stream: Execution
MPEG stream: There's A Man
MPEG stream: Burnout

Featuring members of a whole mess of USBM outfits, most notably, Nightbringer, Demoncy, and Kult Ov Azazel, Incursus are a seriously grim and furious black beast, who after a brief bit of ominous piano, and crumbling ambience to set the mood, explode into a murky morass of Deathspell style gnarled blackness, frenzied riffing, soaring majestic melodies, slipping from woozy midtempo dirges to lightning speed blurred blowouts, and it's at that lightning speed that these guys spend most of Eternal Funeral Trance, but it's not all about speed, although the intense buzz and blast, creates a seriously trancelike vibe, sometimes the sound so fast and buzz drenched that it almost sounds like an undulating black drone, but the band are equally capable of conjuring up hypnotic and weirdly mesmerizing atmospheres, haunting and horrifying, every note infused with a demonic darkness, the sound a sort of Norwegian style blackness, but filtered through a twisted, tangled distinctly American underground sound, infused with the black spirit of Deathspell, Katharsis and Nightbringer, a furiously chaotic, misanthropic, ultraviolent collection of black hymns to the cursed and the fallen. Thus, 'tis WAY recommended.

MPEG stream: A Ravenous Despair
MPEG stream: When Death Enthrones Our Darkness
MPEG stream: Phantasmagoria

We had never even heard of this long running UK doom/death horde, who have apparently been plugging away for going on 12 years now, even though this is just their second proper full length, but kudos to Profound Lore, who definitely seem like the perfect home for Indesinence's classic British doom, a sound that seems to be channeling of course the early versions of Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride, as well as other doom heavyweights like diSEMBOWELMENT, the sound lurching malevolently from churning, stumbling tarpit doom, to that strange strain of midtempo death metal, that ultimately has much more in common sonically with doom metal, but it's a sound we love, blasting double kicks, frenzied riffing, all somehow reigned into a loping, chugging, downtuned lumber. Indesinence often slip into full on funeral doom creep, letting loose soaring minor key melodies, all buried beneath a shroud of abject blackened ambience, but eventually seem to always return to that death/doom gallop. The sound is laced with clean guitar melodies, the vocals both shrieking and gurgling monstrously, the tracks drifting between mournfully melodic and blackened and brutal, at their best obviously when fusing the two. Packaged in a super swank oversized hardcover book style digipak.

MPEG stream: Paradigms
MPEG stream: Vanished Is The Haze

We started our review of the last Indian record with the words "It's been a long time since we've heard from these Chicago heavies", which had we not checked first, was exactly how we were gonna start this one, cuz once again, it seems like ages since that Guiltless record, and it has actually been a little over three years. Thankfully, very little has changed since Guiltless, as From All Purity is another crushing, abject, slab of shrieking, downtuned doom sludge crush, with some of the sickest, filthiest distortion we have ever heard. The guitar tone on track two, "The Impetus Bleeds", sounds like they're playing through cabinets full of blown speakers, huge riffs that devolve into rapidly decaying crumble, while elsewhere, like on "Directional", that crumbling distortion becomes something else entirely, sounding a bit like malfunctioning electronics (which to be fair it actually could be), but it sounds killer, and it gives the track a weird sci-fi, zoner-psych vibe, which when mixed with the churning riffage, and tarpit stoner doom swagger, transforms the doomy sludge into something way more next level. A few tracks crank up the tempo, but even then, the arrangements are such, that the sound swings and lurches and lumbers more than blasts or pounds. And when the sound collapses into serious psychedelic churn, it's easy to see why these guys are so special. Check out the end of "Rhetoric Of No", sure it's dirgey and filthy and brutal, but the roiling black sludge is wreathed in swirling electronics that seem to swing wildly from speaker to speaker, in fact, it's mixed so that when you have headphones on, that weird insectoid buzz seems to be circling your head, it's totally disorienting, the group locked into some serious hypno-sludge mesmer, the vocals too a strange mush mouthed demonic incantation, fucked up and twisted avant doom genius for sure. The second to last track is all noisy, feedback drenched, shrieking, power electronics, but then the record closes with the epic doom crush of "Disambiguation", which drops in a few little black metalisms right at the end, each burst a frantic salvo of blackened riffage, shrieking vokills, and furious double kick drumming, the sound lurching back and forth, between that black buzz, and a more lugubrious creep, before a surprisingly sudden finish, the sound almost just cutting out. A twisted, unexpectedly dramatic end to a record that's definitely one of the coolest, weirdest, doom / sludge records we've heard in a while. And for a genre that can definitely sound same-y, and can so easily end up being boooooring, Indian will make your avant-doom loving head spin. Awesome!

MPEG stream: Rape
MPEG stream: The Impetus Bleeds
MPEG stream: Rhetoric Of No
MPEG stream: Disambiguation

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. Rarely does someone just come in off the street and drop off a record that kicks our ass as much as this record by Chicago doomsters Indian. Two tracks of fuzzed out, stoner doom, with big crunchy distorted riffs, chaotic drumming, and weird (especially for a band like this) shrieked, almost black metal vocals. Really cool. Think Melvins, Kyuss, Eyehategod, Electric Wizard and you'll definitely have a good idea of where these guys are coming from. The A side has a strange sampled voice that sounds like an agitated foreigner yelling outside your car window -- turns out it's sampled from a Tarkovsky film! Cool. We look forward to their full-length scheduled for next spring...

It's a while since we've heard from these Chicago heavies, almost three years in fact, but 4 full lengths and 8 years in, and these guys still sound as good as ever. Massive downtuned droned out doom, shrieked vox over post rock and math rock flecked doom, a sound that distinctly their own, definitely positions them alongside Isis, Neurosis, Mastodon, Conifer, Tides and the rest of the many Neur-Isis bands, but they also have a serious sludge thing happening, reminding us of groups like Khanate, Melvins, Buried At Sea, Eyehategod, their stonery sludge and epic bombastic post-doom seemingly more polished and melodic this time around, the songs mini epics, slow building sprawls of cyclical repetition, tension and releases, often blossoming into full on poppiness, but just as often collapsing into gouts of curdled black tar trudge and plod. The sound laced with strange electronics and effects, the vocals often heavily effected, give them a sort of tripped out psychedelic vibe. Opener "No Grace" seems to meld AmRep style noise rock to epic Godspeed style majesty, all wound around murky downtuned riffage, and peppered with some surprising bits of melody, while "The Fate Before Fate" almost sounds like a more screamo style Neurosis, crumbling avalanches of grinding riffage offset by soaring tangles of high end melody and the vocals super distorted and intense. The title track slows it WAY down, a creeping blackened crawl, the guitars undulating strangely, the drums mathy, but slowed way down, and those vox, managing to transcend mere shriek and actually sound like 'singing' even though they're harsh and hellish. After a brief bit of noise drenched low slung slithery detuned blues, the record finished off with the epic 9 minute "Banality" a heaving, hauntingly atmospheric bit of lurching lumbering heaviness, a strange mix of tranced out droniness, and extreme intensity, culminating in a weird stretch of warped metallic psychedelia, the chords and riffs seeming to bleed and ooze and melt, the vocals even more blown out, wrapped in effects, and over the top all manner of strange shimmer, and warbly psych guitar filigree, the sound getting more and more noisy and intense before blinking out in a brief blast of staticky hiss. Way way recommended.

MPEG stream: No Grace
MPEG stream: The Fate Before Fate
MPEG stream: Banality

Sorry, we never got for y'all the limited vinyl 12"s that are now (thankfully) combined onto this 2-on-1 compact disc full-length (and then some) offering from Chicago doomcore dirgemasters Indian. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. But heck, here's all four tracks from Slights And Abuse and five tracks from The Sycophant on one handy 5" digitally encoded disc. And anyone into the HEAVY (that would be, a lot of you) damn well ought to check it out. This is the follow up to Indian's previous Seventh Rule album The Unquiet Sky, and it crushes just as much or more than that impressive debut did. The initial attack of Slights And Abuse's first three tracks had us a bit staggered with their speedy spew... it's a vicious thrashing all right, the band ripping through some tricky riffing and unleashing the wretched vokills with frenzied ferocity. But then that record's 15 minute finale "Fatal Luck" slows things down, waaaay down, and we remember why these guys remind us so much of the Melvins. And Khanate. Buried At Sea, Boris and Cavity too! The second half of this disc, The Sycophant half, is the weirder one, with experimental interludes like the eerie ambient piano instrumental "Allotriophagy". More distorted drone abounds on "Gloat". Yet the metallisms of part one certainly bleed through, from the doomy triumph of "The Sycophant" to the chunky chuggery of "Pigs In Your Open Wound"... truly, each song on this whole disc being pretty killer in its own weird and/or wrathful way. And you gotta like the cover paintings, 'specially the one on the back for The Sycophant, depicting a Pope doing the bloody bird-biting routine a la Ozzy.

MPEG stream: Cursed Reform
MPEG stream: Fatal Lack
MPEG stream: Lust

When someone just walks in off the street and hands you a 7" and tells you to "check it out, you'll probably dig it," odds are that's not always necessarily true. But a ways back, someone did just that, and handed over an Indian 7", and we were completely blown away. Super heavy and sludge-y stonery doom from a band who we had never heard of and by all rights should have been up there rocking along side bands like Pelican and Isis and Mastodon. So we played our 7"s to bits, just biding our time for a full length, cuz let's face it, super droney stretched out druggy stoner doom doesn't really have the space on a 7" to unwind and trudge through epic 10 minute plus songs the way that music was meant to. It's almost cruel keeping that sort of band confined to a 7". Like keeping a wooly mammoth in a tiny enclosure at the zoo. Before long those steel bars will be gone and there will be plenty of blood and gore and folks trampled under foot. And we can't imagine a more apt description of the finally unveiled Indian full length. The first track is a glacial Earth / SUNNO))) like drone, thick guitars squirming and slithering in a big tangly cloud of feedback, but that's only to ease you into the mighty ass kicking you're about to receive. Massive, lumbering, feedback soaked, groove flecked stoned and drugged out space sludge of the highest order. A bit like Eyehategod mixed with Kyuss, this is bile spewing evil stuff, maybe even a bit like Khanate if they decided to 'rock' and get some girls to like their band. Then there's the vocals, instead of a Kyuss-y raspy growl or an EHG sort of bellow / howl, the vocals here are a grim icy demonic screech, each track an unholy union, equal parts stoner sludge and frosty black metal invocation. Fucking awesome. Fans of the new breed of post rock / metal hybrid (Pelican, Isis, Tides, Conifer), and the sludge-y doom of bands like EHG, Khanate, Sleep, Electric Wizard, SUNNO))) as well as ALL things drone sludge shriek buzz and blur, might as well just get the rusty razor out right now and carve INDIAN right there on your scarred and tattooed forearm along side the rest of 'em! Killer crown-of-thorned-monkey cover art too!!

MPEG stream: No Able Fires
MPEG stream: Ration

There's a whole series of these, split cd releases from the cult-minded metal label Stormspell, giving some of the new breed of thrash metal bands from all around the world a snazzy showcase, two bands per disc. Head to head headbanging, as it were. They're all been pretty cool, and we probably should be listing each one, but can't write reviews 24/7... however, we really wanted to at least do a write up regarding this volume in particular. It pits California's Infantry against Finland's Pyrotoxic... and if you know AQ, you won't be surprised to learn that it's Pyrotoxic that really got us all excited. FRENZIED FINNISH THRASH METAL MADNESS!!! Don't get us wrong, Infantry are good, but Pyrotoxic simply kill. Part of what gets us about these maniacs is their uber energetic off-the-rails speediness (they make Infantry sound slothful) but it's also the awesomely wretched and rabid vokill delivery of the singer. Furthermore, while their more chaotic approach is quite frazzled, and feedbacking, and frothing mad, amidst all of it they've got hooks happenin' too, really rockin' and rollin' on such tracks as "Nuclear War (Has No Rules)" and "The Secret Of Steel". This is the true NWOFHM! Though Pyrotoxic are our faves here, Infantry bring it too, they're just in comparison much more restrained, polished and precise, but certainly slay it up with such tunes as "Desecrate The Church" and the instrumental "Inhumane". Heck, their half comes first and listening to 'em rage you wouldn't think they'd get upstaged by the Finns, no sir. Which makes Pyrotoxic all the more impressive. Well, not much more to say, there's 6 songs here from Infantry and 5 from Pyrotoxic. songs, and we'll be definitely on the lookout for more from either band, but especially those crazy Finns! PS to give you a further notion of what these bands are all about, we'll mention the influences they each cite in the cd booklet. Infantry give props to "Slayer, Demolition Hammer, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, Destruction, Kreator, etc." We get the idea they like black metal too, since one song is called, "Black Metal", and we already mentioned the one about church desecration! Meanwhile, Pyrotoxic hail "Dark Angel, Bulldozer, Tankard, (early) Slayer, Destruction, Armagedom, Sadus".

It's a funny thing, a lot of times, for us at least, as black metal bands get better, and tighter and more polished, they don't necessarily get better. Or more specifically, we don't actually like them any more than we did when they were struggling to realize some musical vision well beyond their technical grasp. I suppose that's true of any music maybe, but it seems more obvious with black metal in particular. When a band finally records in a studio, and has spent the last year honing their chops, it often sounds -amazing-, but just not as weird or personal or uniquely inspired. A good example is Behemoth, who we do love, still, but who are now a super tight technical, nearly overproduced, slick, fast, sharp and super complex black metal juggernaut. But in the beginning, they were making buzzing Burzumic black metal, with basically just acoustic guitars and drums. So they would be playing these classic sounding riffs, right there alongside stumbling blast beasts, but with some janky acoustic steel string guitar. And the results were totally inspired! It's that sort of inspiration and invention that can only come from absolute necessity. Which is precisely what is so appealing about so much black metal. But there are exceptions, one obvious one being this new record from Inferi. Previous recordings (two tapes) found the band a stumbling, chaotic, mess, a glorious mess, but a mess nonetheless, lots of buzz and blackness, but terrible recording quality and some super stumbling performances, which in that case, kept the band from expressing the sounds they were hearing in their heads. But on Shores Of Sorrow, Inferi, have done everything right. The sound is loud and heavy, thick and clear, but without losing the grim buzz that so defined them. And the playing is better too, but instead of trying to become some super technical BM band, they continued to hone their gorgeously sorrowful, midtempo blackness, and the result is totally captivating. Quite possibly one of the saddest sounding black metal records ever. Each of the four lengthy tracks is a blurry, buzzing, minor key dirge, thick swirls of distortion wrapped around totally emotional and super sad sounding melodies, all draped over loping lurching midtempo rhythms. Occasionally some awesomely unexpected double kick drumming surfaces, but all it does is up the tension factor, and make the song seem even more sad and intense. The opening track sets the tone, 12 minutes of mournful acoustic guitar, a gently lilting minor key melody, drifting beneath sheets of raw blown out black buzz, sort of seasick and dreamlike, harsh vocals howl above the melancholy blackness. The drums don't even kick in until the last few minutes, and then this black near-ballad turns into a heartbreaking dirge. The next two tracks follow a similar pattern, epic and sorrowful, gloriously miserable droning buzz. It's everything we love about Burzum and Xasthur and Nortt and Make A Change... Kill Yourself, stripped to its very essence, the simplest buzzing black representation of utter misery, so completely mesmerizing and totally soul stirring. The final track is blazing fast, at least compared to the first three, a furious not quite blast beat, over dense drifts of swirling black buzz, and like the rest of the disc, still totally minor key, utterly doleful and despondent, austere and disconsolate, and so goddamned good. Fans of any of the above mentioned bands, and any one into buzzing beautiful sad blackness might just have a new favorite disc to drown your sorrows in...

MPEG stream: To The Once So Sad World
MPEG stream: Dance Of Shadows

"Satanic Holocaust Metal" featuring current and ex- "warriors" from several excellent Scandinavian metal outfits: Dark Funeral, In Aeternum, and the amazing Defleshed.

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

MPEG stream: In The Black Clouds Of War
MPEG stream: The Ancient Order

Final release from Polish horde Infernum, which is essentially as far as we can tell just a different version of Graveland. Although there seems to be some complicated backstory and two different Infernums from the same town. One made up entirely of session members (Rob Darken and Capricornus of Graveland) the other fronted by the protege of the original founder who killed himself. Weird. The liner notes are funny / disturbing, explaining that Darken and Capricornus were grateful that the other guy killed himself and that their only regret was that he died at his own hands instead of theirs. Woah. But whatever, this is some awesome, buzzing black metal done Polish style. The Graveland sound is all over Infernum. The original version of this was released as a bootleg back in 1996 without keyboards or vocals, and after the death of Anextiomarus, Darken and Capricornus finished it and released it as you hear it now. Keyboards all over the place. Thick washes of epic grandiose synths, howled vocals, over furious midtempo black thrash, buzzing insectoid riffs, blasting drums, weird choral vocals, but the coolest part of this disc is the weird sort of post rocky breakdowns, with clean guitars and tribal rhythms, minor key and moody, they sort of jangle and lope along lazily until the blackness drops and the band explode again into freaked out grim black furor. Fans of Graveland will obviously NEED this, but folks into weird black metal will probably find this much to their liking...

MPEG stream: Black March
MPEG stream: Inverted Prayer

A few years back we were intrigued and amazed by a disc entitled Case Studies In Bioentropy, the debut from this very strange band. Experimental drone prog noise textural rock weirdness. We went on and on about how "strange" it was. Now Infidel?/Castro! are back, on the Crucial Blast label, with what might be an even stranger album. Maybe twice as strange in fact 'cause it's two discs instead of one! An overwhelming sprawl of chaotic geek-tech glitch abstraction, lovely melodic improvisations, and conceptual nerdy noisenik metal-riffed surreal insanity... is it serious? Is it science? Can't tell. The music is accompanied by equally hard-to-grok computer art and text. Song titles include "Temporarily Desolving Into Plasma During A Moment To One's Self" and "Bedsores (for G.W.B.)". Hmm. At least we know who G.W.B. is. These two discs are certainly interesting, sometimes beautiful, and yes most definitely strange. Recommended to anyone who doesn't mind spinning from ambient drone to fractured prog to electronic mayhem -- like a collison of Fantomas and irr. app. (ext.), maybe. Or Isis, Merzbow, MBV, and Behold The Arctopus, perhaps. The latter of which features Colin Marston, also a member of Infidel?/Castro! by the way. So that might give you an idea...just an idea... of what this is all about. The real answer, we're still looking for. But in the meantime, we're enjoying this album!

MPEG stream: Damage Fractal Series 1: Dismantle
MPEG stream: (in)voluntary emotional response

It's a whole new world now, discovering music. MySpace, Youtube, people emailing MP3's and JPEG's. Easier maybe, but not nearly as romantic or as exciting as receiving some mysterious package in the mail, or stumbling upon some strange looking record in a dusty old bin and some tiny record store. And to be totally honest, almost all of the amazing discoveries that have ended up being big AQ faves, began life as a weird little package that just showed up in the mail one day. None maybe weirder than the package we got from a band called, wait for it, Inh Halentropy. Yep. They had us at Inh Halentropy. It's a weird enough name, but it's two words?!? So inside the package was a cd with that classic image of Bigfoot, walking through the clearing, staring at the camera, and over the top, the band logo, very eighties metal looking, in the middle of a hand drawn spiderweb. Still we had no idea what to expect inside. But we did discover a note. Which read in part: "Dark Greetings. For your grimnatious becryptlement�" signed appropriately enough: "In ancient solemnity, none so grimm�" OK. We were sold, now all that was left was to actually listen to the cd-r. And as with most things, certainly the most exciting and satisfying things, the music was nothing at all like what we expected� Inh Halentropy seem to be a metal band, black metal more specifically, yet most of the disc is distinctly not metal. Or at least not typically metal. Beginning with the sound of surf on the shore, the calls of sea birds, the band crawls into action, a huge rumbling bass tone, clouds of electronic FX, a simple drawn out melody, clean guitars unwinding in an expanse of dark shimmer, when suddenly, a massive speaker destroying low end growl surfaces, and as far as we can tell, maybe those are the vocals. Church bells toll, the ambience gets thicker and more grim, the closest comparison might be funereal doom, but it's sort of ethereal. And sort of pretty. But definitely ominous and creepy. Like Low crossed with Goblin crossed with Esoteric. Elsewhere, the black clouded skies are filled with the clatter of chimes, strange harmonics ringing out, all over thick lustrous black ambience, the sound of rain, at times it almost sounds like a blackened new age, which sounds weird but is most definitely a very good thing. "Golden Beast Altered Axe" might be the most trippy, a simple drum plod, spread out over a slowly squirming synthscape, everything wreathed in ephemeral clouds of twinkling electronic effects, a mournful melody drifts over the top, while running through the entire a track, a creepy ominous low end melody of buzz and whir, all beneath a constant sheet of rain. Very cinematic and evocative. Our favorite track might be "A Door Is A Tomb", thee most propulsive of the bunch, but we're still talking a glacial crawl, more ambient forest sounds, water and wind, insects in the background, but here, flutes flutter over a backdrop of downtuned riffage, but smeared into a warm moaning blur, over the top, bells chime, mysterious vocals croak and growl, the drums a simple machinelike rhythm, everything eventually breaking down into a plodding bass-ic doom, wrapped in a midnight storm, and suffused with thick ropy drones and grinding minimal low end whir. Really pretty fantastic, and totally baffling. New age doom? Black ambient nature music? Not sure what to call it, but it's completely killing us. Add to that, the fact that the date on the back of the disc says 1980, and other than the song titles and an email address (oh and a few more pictures of giant hairy beasts) there's really not much else to go on. But the music is plenty. A perfectly freaky, haunting cinematic slowcore new age black doom sprawl that should for sure hit the spot for those of you who could barely make it through that descriptor without thinking that this might already be your new favorite record. We are suitably grimnatiously becryptled. As shall you be, wethinks�

The long anticipated return of Inh Halentropy, a band we know very little about, other than they make a sound like almost nothing we've EVER heard before. A band who introduced themselves to us with a random package in the mail, containing a cd-r, and these simple words: "Dark Greetings. For your grimnatious becryptlement�" as well as the similarly mysterious sign off: "In ancient solemnity, none so grimm�". We expected black metal, and that's what we got. sort of. Their sound was most definitely black, but not metal in any way we were familiar with, instead they unfurled a cinematic new age-y black ambient doom, equal parts Esoteric, Goblin, and Low, a sort of mysterious blissed out yet grim slowcore. Or something. Their cd-r release disappeared in no time, and no word from the band until recently, a new cd-r just showed up one day, that familiar two part band name, an owl and all sorts of strange symbols, we were soooo excited. We originally thought it was a record called Dull Knife, but soon discovered Inh Halentropy were sharing the cds with another like minded horde CALLED Dull Knife. So what has changed in the last two years, if anything? Well, the sound is still grim, and haunting, a swirling slo-mo mix of atmospheric doom and creepy crawly slowcore, an eighties horror movie soundtrack vibe infused with a shimmery drifty bit of new age ambience, two tracks, the first a plodding cinematic sprawl, with abstract programmed drums, dark swells of distant rumble, smears of almost cheesy sounding synths, what sounds like faux horns (also probably synths), deeeeeeep bass that throbs underneath, all wrapped up with super lyrical, haunting minor key melodies, definitely like the soundtrack to some lost 30 year old European horror film. The second Inh Halentropy jam is even trippier and more spaced out, beginning with heavily effected falsetto vocals, that almost sound like wild animal calls or that little 'cooo' sound from Serge Gainsbourg's "Bonnie & Clyde" albeit way more evil, some woozy detuned guitars, and some shimmery squalls of warped warble, eventually spreading out into a slow burning sprawl of spidery guitars, hushed whir and glistening tinkles, and some seriously disturbing slowed down samples. So creepy and kick ass. Hate to think we might have to wait 2 more years for another full length. Inh Halentropy set the bar pretty high, but Dull Knife are undeterred, and offer up their own sort of creepy ambience, deep warped low end tones, unfurling grimly in an expanse of muted buzz and crumbling distortion, reminding us quite a bit of Trollmann, in its minimal low end heaviness, over the course of the track, the low end grows more abrasive, and more active, fluctuating more wildly, like some weirdly distorted symphony for foghorn and black buzz. The second DK track's another bleak bit of minimal grimness, this time even more harrowingly dense, the sounds thick and corrosive, the swells coming faster and faster, eventually blurring into a single oozing slab of blackdrone, shot through with shards of crunch and strange bits of glitch. Wow. Guess we need to hear more from these guys as well. Needless to say, anyone into sounds slow, low, grim and black, spaced out and atmospheric, haunting and heavy, should grab one of these right quick. SUPER LIMITED of course. Each one hand screened, different colored ink, on different colored textured paper, every one different.

MPEG stream: Hobgoblin's Oracle
MPEG stream: A Plan For Reverse Reaping

[ aquarius records — Metal ]