This was a warehouse find, managed to dig up 4 or 5 copies, been hiding away for 5 or 6 years now, which is a shame cuz this is some pretty bad ass black metal. Split records are always funny when both bands share members, but even more funny when both bands are one man bands, and that one man is the same guy. Thus we have this split from way back in 2004, featuring Inimical and Sect, both the work of J. Del Russi, who hails from New Jersey, and MIGHT be more recognizable under his other name, Xathagorra Mlandroth, which is what he used in another one man band, long time aQ faves, ultra funereal doomlord(s) Catacombs.
But before the blackened slo-mo tarpit crawl of Catacombs, Russi/Mlandroth was trafficking in some serious old school raw and grim black metal, all frantic riffing, furious drumming, and some sick raspy vokills, the sound murky and lo-fi, the arrangements repetitive and trancelike, very hypnotic and mesmerizing, in fact almost weirdly looped sounding, which only adds to the mesmerizing vibe.
Where Inimical was more murky and washed out, the sound of Sect was more brittle and buzzy, the sound blown out and buzz drenched and thickly atmospheric, but similar to Inimical, the sound is cyclical and repetitive and trancelike and again weirdly looped, few parts repeated over and over, almost mantra like, although Sect did mix it up, with some weirdly industrial rhythms, abstract droned out ambience, and some weird spacey song structures, often ditching the blackness entirely for something way more abstract and tripped out. Cool stuff for sure. And in Sect maybe hints of what was to come in Catacombs.
Got very few of these, not sure if it's even still available, but we're guessing not, so grab one of these quick before they're gone.
Long, long awaited final release from this now sadly defunct Philadelphia band, who blazed their own musical trail combining emo punk rock, math-core, electronics, and no-wave...that unique formula, not to mention their kick-ass guitarist and of course their band-defining obsession with vampires, made Ink & Dagger a big AQ favorite. This self-titled album, released after many months delay, sees them incorporating more of a riffy '70s metal influence, while still retaining their moody, complex mix of weirdness. For fans of Circus Lupus, Ruin, Coalesce, Fugazi, and, let's face it, Led Zeppelin! In other words, recommended.
We have no idea where this band is from, who is in the band, we could find nothing at all about them on the internet, but whoever they are, we like them. A lot. Ultra lo-fi midtempo black metal buzz, a la Burzum and about a million followers, but like many acolytes of the mighty Burzumic one, a handful of killer riffs, some strange sonic ideas, and some serious emotion and passion, and it's easy to transform that worship into something that stands up on its own. Inmitten Des Waldes starts things off with wild streaks of feedback, and maybe the most lo-fi drum recording EVER, with the guitars not far behind. This is definitely some serious boombox, garage / rehearsal space recording, but even with cymbals and hi-hats sizzling all over the place, and the guitars sort of washed out by the drums, it's still easy to feel the power of these riffs and what could be if these guys made it to a proper studio. That said, the sound is almost as much a part of what makes this so great as the music. The fuzz and hiss, the super intimate raw vibe. Plus it seems to be instrumental, or if there are vocals, the guy was shouting them NOT into a mic, so they are lost and buried, but that's kinda cool too, making Inmitten Des Waldes sort of like a black metal Gore!
This is for everyone who flipped out about Inquisition's latest album Magnificent Glorification Of Lucifer, the one we highlighted on our last list (and which, unfortunately, we're all out of already, though more are on the way from Germany, never fear). We've just managed to get in a few copies of the band's earlier output, of which this is their debut disc, originally from 1998 (repressed in 2003). Compared to MGoL, it's equally super Satanic and weird, but a bit rawer in production (something that a certain sort of black metal fan would perhaps prefer). Their uniquely monotonous, croaking, creepy style is fully evident already, and the music surely suits their lyrics about black blood, chalices, red eyed beasts and horned moons. Ah yes, it's creaky crushing droning doomed demon moon moan metal at its best, or soon to be. And now I want to see all the terrible old black magic movies they sampled their song intros from...
True black metal fanatics know this band, whose album on No Colours, The Magnificent Glorification Of Lucifer, was Allan's number one black metal pick of 2005, for sure, Satan help me. Well here's the hard to find second Inquisition, the 2001 record that preceded that slab of infernal genius that Allan likes so much, and which cultish aficionados of plodding, aching black metal should delight in as well. It took us forever to get (just a handful) more of these to list, and they probably won't be around for long. As we've said, this one is Wrest from Leviathan's favorite Inquisition opus, and not only just because it features guitarist/vocalist Dagon croaking the immortal line: "Touch me with your magic hoof"!!
Can the No Colours label do no wrong? Inquisition's Magnificent Glorification Of Lucifer is definitely Allan's favorite black metal release of the YEAR. So grim, so eerie, so very metal, and weird in a weird way. That is, there's nothing else out there quite like this band. They do that thing that the best black metal bands do: they're both totally of their genre (a formulaic genre, to be extra-redundant) yet manage to be utterly their own thing too. Fans of the elite likes of Burzum, Graveland, Mutillation, Xasthur, and Immortal ought to immediately bow to Inquisition whilst also recognizing just how different a band they are. And it's also the sort of black metal I might spring on an extremity-friendly music fan even if they were unaware of the above mentioned artists.
Although this was the first I'd heard of Inquistion, it's actually the third album from this American (Seattle-based, but with Columbian connections?) Satanic black metal band. Redundant again? Sure, all black metal by definition is supposed to be Satanic. But these guys are so SERIOUS about it (well, I don't know for sure... the Inquistion duo of Dagon and Incubus do look kinda silly in the cd booklet photos...but I don't think that's intentional). That they go so over-the-top in their Satan worship is part of what moves them beyond mere stylistic formula and into a realm of obsessive uniqueness.
This record works so well 'cause it's simultaneously weird as fuck (hypnotically croaking vocals, the aforementioned Satanically overloaded lyrix, and strange, keening high-end guitar parts that make this the EERIEST black metal I've heard in aeons) while being fully metal with a rock n' roll backbone: slow-to-mid tempos, memorable riffs, and killer old-school fuzz guitar tone. Indeed, were it not for the love of Lucifer they express with every breath, Inquisition could just has easily have opted to call this album The Glorious Magnificence of Fuzz (though a strain of fuzz quite different from the '60s garage fuzz as heralded elsewhere on this week's list in our review of the Plastic Cloud reissue)! Sonically, that's a big part of what satisfies here, a crucial factor in of Inquisition's equation of extremity. It's truly a heavy, buzzing, trance-like blurr.
It's got to mean something when I (Allan) play something over and over and over again, considering how much (too much) music I'm getting every week. But this was -- is -- in heavy rotation in my home and even though I put it on my iPod I still took the cd itself along with me on vacation as a talisman/token/icon/fetish object just to look at... good thing I don't actually believe in Satan! I even had to go and track down their harder-to-find first two albums, also both excellent, though I do think this is their best... and if you want someone to back me up, note that Leviathan's Wrest himself is a big Inquistion fan, partial to their second album but also of the opinion that this one is brilliant too. So, an AQ black metal rave, make no mistake! Mesmerizing, crushing, gloomy, fucked up, beautiful, genius.
Ready to be touched by the magic hoof?!
Two years ago, we just about sold our souls to Satan in tribute to the glorious magnificence of this band's Magnificent Glorification Of Lucifer album. Allan's favorite black metal record of 2005 by far. Now this two-man cult is back with a new album for No Colours and we're sacrificing babies over here in celebration. Well not really but guitarist Dagon and drummer Incubus would probably like to hear that. And if anyone was gonna convince us through the power of stabbing riffage, flashing battery, and croaking vox that Satanism is the way to go, these are the dudes to do it!!
What makes the storming black metal of this Seattle duo so special? Certainly not just their love of Satan, though they do seem more sincerely devoted than most. No, they're just -different- from the hordes of hordes out there. For one thing, Dagon's vocals aren't the usual high-pitched anguished rasps, nor are they deathly grunts. They're more like droning crypt-creakings, layered and insidious, truly "nefarious dismal orations", an integral part of Inquisition's trance-inducing doomic atmospheres -- along with the varispeed velocity of their attack, seemingly simultaneously plodding yet blurred with speed. Then there's the RIFFS. You can't argue there. Inquisition understand old school heavy metal hookiness without being overtly retro, y'know? And this stuff oozes METAL as much as it gives off a sinister shine of actual originality and serious Satanic faith. Pure metalness plus weirdness (in the arcane, occult sense of "the weird"), yeah! We're spellbound. And what the heck is going on with the buried, backwards masked munchkinisms we think we're hearing at the end of the amazing title track?
Clearly Germany's No Colours, a label with lots of staggeringly excellent, evil bands, is well aware that Inquisition is indeed a cut above and deserving of special treatment. They've produced a limited edition initial run of this cd, a thousand copies packaged inside a black cardboard slipcase with a die-cut pentagram!! If that wasn't enough, there's also a full-colour poster folded up and inserted inside the slipcase too. We got a bunch of 'em but don't know how long these will last.
It would be wrong and misleading to say that this sounds like Om meets Watain, but somehow it we think it has the EFFECT of what such a indescribable hybrid would sound like. But if we did have to compare Inquisition on this album to anybody, we're reminded the most of good ol' Immortal. Recommended as if you couldn't tell already.
Is this, like, the fourth straight album in a row now from Inquisition that we are compelled to proclaim a top contender for Black Metal Album Of The Year? Hell yes it is. Guess that's no surprise. The duo of Dagon and Incubus, originating in Columbia, South America, now based in Washington State, North America, are on top of their game; Obscure Verses For The Multiverse is yet another jewel in their crown. We hope even the non-black-metal fanatics among you are paying attention, 'cause this is one of those records that we'd suggest to try to get you INTO black metal, it's that good. Part of Inquisition's genius is that while they deliver evil, grim vibes galore, and cosmic concepts too, they also don't forget that black metal is METAL, which means it's also rock n' roll, and so their grim musick seriously rocks, impressively so for a two-piece (even live - when we've seen 'em they've been amazing, couldn't believe two guys could pull it off like that). They are also just original enough to be undeniably their own thing, while proudly upholding tradition at the same time.
On Obscure Verses, Inquisition once again deploy the chop-chop-chop of blizzard force drum battery, suddenly easing the pace to unleash perfectly lurching mid-to-slow tempo riffage, played with seasick "bent" guitar tones, fuzzed and frozen, all adorned by the distinctive rasping croak of the vocals and majestic leads of Satan-glorifiying, vertigo-inducing virtuosity. As the album oozes forth, or hurtles onward, as the case may be, from moment to moment, each and every one of those moments - whether the crush of a catchy riff, a springy, spiraling guitar lick, a miasmatic atmospheric interlude of subterranean ceremony - EVERY molecule of Inquisition's music here contains and conveys their utter original metal mastery and evil intent in full, there's nary a wasted moment, nothing that doesn't usefully contribute to the totality of effect and stand on its own as well, either to cause a headbanging frenzy or thrust you into melancholic, nauseated trance.
Despite their origin in this hemisphere, definitely up there with the most celebrated Norwegian elite, this album (and several preceding it) belonging alongside our favorites by the likes of Enslaved and Immortal in particular. If you're into black metal, we expect you're already an Inquisition fan and know you NEED this; if you're not (yet) into black metal, well you couldn't find too many better albums to point you down the left hand path of no return.
Available as a jewel case cd, or double vinyl with bonus track. (There's also a deluxe, specially packaged import cd box edition that also includes that bonus track, and also comes with a goat-leather key ring, but we've sold out of those, not sure if they'll ever be back...)
Time once more to touch the magic hoof! As we mentioned in our write up of Negative Plane's long awaited new one last list, we're also basking in the evil radiation of a new release from another cult back metal fave of ours as well, and finally have enough copies of 'em in to not only review, but make Record Of The Week, as our Lord Satan commands, and this incredible musick deserves, laced as it is with killer riffs and curious weirdness. That'd be the latest from the duo known as Inquisition, who, although they sound like they hail from some alien Hell, actually currently dwell in the grim fog of the Pacific Northwest, originating however from the jungles of Columbia.
Ominous Doctrines Of The Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm (a great title, and one that makes this review itself perhaps not seem so verbose and purplish of prose) is again full of what we expect from Inquisition: blazing battery, buzzing guitars, and most crucially the bizarre croaking of the "robot frog" as the Invisible Oranges blog so pithily describes the vocal stylings of guitarist Dagon. His unique voice, unlike any else in black metal (though most closely akin to Abbath of Norwegian blizzard beasts Immortal, whom they remind us of in other respects as well) is one of the main things we like about the idiosyncratic Inquisition. In a way, his rasping ribbetting and our reaction to it is representative of the whole of what makes Inquisition so great. It's absurd, it's eccentric, it's evil, it's impossible to forget once you've heard it. Likewise with their eerie guitar tones and occult atmospherics, no one else sounds quite like them even within the highly formalized realm of black metal. Furthermore, the eccentric and otherworldly elements of their music are like 1000X more brilliant because Inquisition are simultaneously rooted in pure old school metal, meaning memorable riffs, indeed actual, quite catchy SONGS. Which has a lot to do with why we were so blown away when we finally got to seem them play live on tour last year. If you saw 'em too, you know it was one of the best 2 piece performances by a metal act ever. Very very metal, a churning maelstrom of axes and spikes and swords given musical form. Listening to this album, it's all here, the keening guitar soli that burrow into your brain, the riffs like the lashings of a whip, and the vokills such stern Satanic admonitions. And moments of majestic melody amidst the buzz and blurr, including one cheery passage we might have to play 'round Xmas time, hahaha.
So, another one to worship from Dagon and Incubus! And once again, adorned with excellent Antichrist Kramer artwork, more third eye skull psychedelia of morbid metalhead fantasies, something which we could also say of the music itself.
Oh man, that just made us think of something insane, what if Daniel Higgs teamed up with Inquisition someday, a la one of our other Records Of The Week this list, by The Skull Defekts?! That would be awesome.
This former Record Of The Week, now issued for the 2nd time on vinyl via Hell's Headbangers, this edition being all super deluxe and stuff, more expensive too but you're getting laser etched artwork on side D, a poster insert, and custom trifold 'tome' style packaging, which features the original Antichrist Kramer artwork on an inner fold out, while the outside now is black, with a big metallic blue die-cut "I" affixed to the front cover. Neat-o. Here's our original review of the music portion of this release:
Time once more to touch the magic hoof! As we mentioned in our write up of Negative Plane's long awaited new one last list, we're also basking in the evil radiation of a new release from another cult back metal fave of ours as well, and finally have enough copies of 'em in to not only review, but make Record Of The Week, as our Lord Satan commands, and this incredible musick deserves, laced as it is with killer riffs and curious weirdness. That'd be the latest from the duo known as Inquisition, who, although they sound like they hail from some alien Hell, actually currently dwell in the grim fog of the Pacific Northwest, originating however from the jungles of Columbia.
Ominous Doctrines Of The Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm (a great title, and one that makes this review itself perhaps not seem so verbose and purplish of prose) is again full of what we expect from Inquisition: blazing battery, buzzing guitars, and most crucially the bizarre croaking of the "robot frog" as the Invisible Oranges blog so pithily describes the vocal stylings of guitarist Dagon. His unique voice, unlike any else in black metal (though most closely akin to Abbath of Norwegian blizzard beasts Immortal, whom they remind us of in other respects as well) is one of the main things we like about the idiosyncratic Inquisition. In a way, his rasping ribbetting and our reaction to it is representative of the whole of what makes Inquisition so great. It's absurd, it's eccentric, it's evil, it's impossible to forget once you've heard it. Likewise with their eerie guitar tones and occult atmospherics, no one else sounds quite like them even within the highly formalized realm of black metal. Furthermore, the eccentric and otherworldly elements of their music are like 1000X more brilliant because Inquisition are simultaneously rooted in pure old school metal, meaning memorable riffs, indeed actual, quite catchy SONGS. Which has a lot to do with why we were so blown away when we finally got to seem them play live on tour last year. If you saw 'em too, you know it was one of the best 2 piece performances by a metal act ever. Very very metal, a churning maelstrom of axes and spikes and swords given musical form. Listening to this album, it's all here, the keening guitar soli that burrow into your brain, the riffs like the lashings of a whip, and the vokills such stern Satanic admonitions. And moments of majestic melody amidst the buzz and blurr, including one cheery passage we might have to play 'round Xmas time, hahaha.
So, another one to worship from Dagon and Incubus! And once again, adorned with excellent Antichrist Kramer artwork, more third eye skull psychedelia of morbid metalhead fantasies, something which we could also say of the music itself.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Another warehouse find (or closet find, since we don't really have what one might call a warehouse), this one, the 2005 full length from Russian funeral doom duo Intaglio, whose sound is a ponderous downtuned plod, a blackened, sprawling slo-mo creep, the guitars oozing and droney, the drums a spare thud, the vocals a guttural gurgle, the sound melancholic and mournful, this is the sort of doom that is tranced out and meditative, not sick and sinister, trafficking in a vibe similar to Skepticism or Thergothon or Evoken, these guys create epic expanses of slow, smoldering heaviness, no extreme dynamics, no blasts of black buzz, instead, simply, an ever expanding black cloud of sound, woozy and washed out, the chords ringing out, the notes fading into blackness before the next chord crashes in and takes its places, the melodies unwinding almost dreamily, minor key, darkly melodic, this may be heavy and 'doom', but to these ears it almost sounds like perfect late night drift off music for metalheads.
Only a few copies of these in stock, once they're gone, we might not be able to get more...
We'd been meaning to review this record for a while, but before managed to get it listed, we noticed it popping up on some customers' 2012 top ten lists, and then we just discovered Inter Arma apparently features members of another recent aQ fave, Bastard Sapling. So here it is, finally, the debut 12" from these Richmond heavies,
who traffic in a sort of dark, mathy noise rock, rife with psychedelic flourishes, bursts of furious black metal buzz, and swaths of sludgey downtuned crush. Sounds like a wild concoction, and it is, but somehow these guys make it work. Check out opener "Wailing Moon", which starts out all woozy angular guitars, and dense driving, super busy drumming, making us think of a more metallic Polvo, but then BAM, the song turns metal, churning and chugging, only to splinter into full on buzzing blackness, only to shift again into epic, riff heavy, doom flecked metallic bombast. The vocals flitting from demonic shriek, to warrior like below and back again, the sound too, slipping easily right back into a bout of furious blasting, and soaring fast picked riffage, only to collapse right back into that opening mathy tangle. They pack a lot into those nine minutes, even some soaring classic metal leads at one point, which transform the last few minutes into a sort of blackened epic heaviness, that sounds a bit like some weird hybrid of Opeth and Ash Borer, with a little classic noise rock mixed in. Which is some seriously good band math as far as we're concerned. The second track starts off with some acoustic guitar, wrapped in wild squalls of feedback, even some slide(!), a weird bit of twang flecked psych, that leads directly into "The Long Road Home", which for longtime readers of the list, we'll say reminds us of country stoner rock combo Antler, but for those not familiar, it's a sort of brooding twangy, countrified rock, but HEAVY, and when the lead comes in, it's like a metalized version of the Outlaws, all minor key, melancholic country jam, not at all what we were expecting for sure, but holy shit it sounds amazing, and when the song freaks out, the drums getting wild and chaotic, the guitars shredding wildly, the bass super busy, the result is super dramatic and tense and intense, until with about 2 minutes to go, the sound shifts, and the band explodes into another stretch of black buzz, which somehow retains the melodic component of the preceding country part, giving it a weird sort of melancholic emotional heft. Epic and dramatic. Finally, things finish off with the title track, a killer main riff, that instead of launching into another blast, is droned out, and becomes a cool trance-y dirge, bellowed vox over the stretched out riff, and churning low end beneath, still warped and blackened, punctuated by some creepy, raspy, dynamics, but slipping right back into that churning raga-like heaviness.
Awesome! Full length coming soon on Relapse, we can't wait.
We were sorta late to the game on these guys, having only recently reviewed their second record earlier this year, Destroyer, when their debut for Relapse (record number three) was all ready to drop - and here it is. But late or not, we're happy to have discovered this Richmond crew, whose sound is a tough one to classify. In the review of that 12", we described their sound as "dark, mathy noise rock, rife with psychedelic flourishes, bursts of furious black metal buzz, and swaths of sludgey downtuned crush." Which really definitely pretty much sums it up, but on Sky Burial, they're given plenty of space, which is essential for a band whose song lengths tend to average about 10 minutes.
Like on Destroyer, Inter Arma let their songs unfurl gradually here, exploding out of the gate with a churning blastbeat driven blowout, which quickly settles into a woozy, almost looped sound dirge, which churns and roils for the next several minutes, this churn laced with all sorts of dynamics, heady and hypnotic, and in a weird way, we'd be perfectly happy, if this record had been on hour long song, and this was all it did. The drums explode in chaotic patterns throughout, the vocals a demonic rasp, the sound slipping occasionally back into that opening blast, but always seeming to lumber right back into that head nodding churn. Finally, at the halfway mark, the sound settles into a super spaced out minimal drift, spidery tendrils of melody, of skeletal drumming, all underpinned by a distant rumbling drone, a brooding post rocky drift, that soon splinters into some dense downtuned mathiness, reminding us of the late great Dazzling Killmen. Before finally returning to a swirling chaotic blast to finish things off. And that's just the first track!
Here's where we'd normally say something like, "and the rest of the record continues on in a similar fashion", only it doesn't. Acoustic guitars, drift over slippery slide guitars, the vibe a little deserty, a little Morricone, disappears in a cloud of white noise static, before slipping into a haunting, slo-mo organ driven creep, spare and moody, a melancholic slow build, that reminds us of True Widow (who coincidentally enough also have a new record coming out on Relapse soon!). Psychedelic leads drift in, the drums get more loose, the sound unfolds and expands, building to a sort of coda, all whispering wind and wheezing organ, before abruptly launching into a furious howling blast of black metal buzz!
It doesn't get any more predictable from there on out, ultra slow funeral dubbed out doom, gives way to droned out dirgery, a pounding crescendo, total metal Godspeed majesty, before a serious Neurosis like tribal drum driven downtuned tangle of FX drenched guitar swirl and downtuned riffage, all beneath bellowed vox, the sound slipping in an out of clouds of FX, minimal and muted one second, explosive and blown out the next. Chugging doom, laced with hellish shrieks, devolves into dense mathy tangles, before slipping into another stretch of acoustic psychedelia, this time wreathed in what sounds like a theremin, haunting and mysterious, all leading up to the epic 13 minute closing title track, which again finds the band in epic doom mode, wild drumming wrapped around alternately chugging/soaring guitars, moody and droney, but before too long, the heaviness peels away, leaving more shimmery strum and minimal drum pound, over which the vocals howl, exploding into a long stretch of dense, blackened mathiness, some serious melodic and metallic guitar crunch, bordering on poppy, but before that can happen, the song evolves again into another sprawl of soaring epic doom, before getting all Champs-y, super technical and mathy, classic metalisms all wound up into dizzying progged out tangles, cycling through some classic true metal riffing, before collapsing into a chaos of chug and swirl, pound and churn, and finally, a dreamy bit of folky strum.
Super dense, crazy technical, proggy and epic, noisy post rock meets Neur-Isis style doom, laced with blast beats and psychedelic drift - phew, for how hard these guys make it to actually describe their sound, they sure make it easy to dig it!
It's kind of a 'thing' now, heavy bands releasing an album that consists of just one long (loooooong) track. Well, actually the big year for it was way back in 1996, when Edge Of Sanity, Boris, Sabbat, and (most famously) Sleep all released one-long-song albums! But, more recently, we can cite single-song, full-album efforts from Corrupted, Pig Destroyer, Jesu, and Lesbian, among others. Then there's that obscure old aQ fave by Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra... and of course, Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick, if you wanna go waaaay back. Ok, so maybe not enough bands have done it that we could actually make it a theme for one of our in-between lists, but still, it's a thing. And now Inter Arma has done it too.
Richmond, VA's impressive Inter Arma have proved themselves an ambitious and capable "kitchen sink" metal band, hybridizing all sorts of extreme heaviness and postrock strategies, their usual compositions already pretty long and densely packed to begin with, so to discover that they'd come up with a 45 minute, 46 second long track/album called The Cavern is not exactly a surprise - but most definitely something we were excited to hear. And, yep, they pull it off, one massive majestic march-like song that doesn't end (for a long time). With some quiet and lots of loud, it incorporates raging Neur-Isis crush, bellowing vokills, mathy technical instrumental wig outs a la Don Caballero, proggy, droning chamber music ambience (like maybe something on Constellation), and even, at about a half-hour in, some heartfelt, country-flecked indie rock epic-ry with lap steel twang and clean, sincere vocals. Holy fucking wow. A lot of that we'd have expected from Inter Arma, but some of it came as a surprise - a good thing when it's a 45+ minute song you're dealing with. There's harmony guitar parts here to make you cry, also techie metal shred to spin your head; it can sound like True Widow one second, The Fucking Champs the next (or at the same time). The band brings in theremin, violin, extra synthesizers, and more, courtesy of a bunch of guest players; it's a BIG dang enterprise with room for it all, and they manage to keep kicking things up a notch every little while as the piece progresses. Granted, we'll need to listen to it a bunch more times to really begin to take it all in and understand (and critique) it as a whole, but that's some good attention-span exercise. Heck, if you can binge-watch an entire TV series any given weekend, you can spend 45 minutes getting into this 'song'. And certainly if you liked their last album, Sky Burial, you should be up for this. Another one for the pantheon.
Unexpectedly good album from this Maryland doom metal band, whose previous releases (from, like, six years ago) were pretty bad. But I guess they've been honing their craft and now their Sabbathy, Saint Vitus-like sound has taken on an even more bluesy, hard rock quality that sets them apart from their doom/stoner peers and makes "Unearthed" quite a pleasure.
Been meaning to list this for a while now. Wild, thrashy black metal complete with pounding rhythms, growled black metal shrieks, shredding leads, weird acoustic break downs and ghostly clean vocals. This one man band was originally given the name Mikael and on this disc he is soley responsible for: "burning ax onslaught, nuclear thunder, holocaust cannons, mesmerising atomospheres, and all tortured screams of sorrow and hatred." Nice. Very reminiscent of Mercyful Fate (partly because of the slightly silly falsetto parts), Celtic Frost, Destruction and the like, but with some definite Norwegian black metal bits. But there is plenty of that one man band weirdness that seems to come with that following of that elusive metal muse: off kilter melodic breakdowns, bizarre choruses (kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself), the aforementioned falsetto, bizarre song titles: "Meditations In A Cold And Dimly Lit Room", "Tantric Lunar Slumber", "Grim Vendetta", "Headbanging Maniac" and one of the best thanks lists ever:
"Hail to the metal gods: Mercyful Fate, Voivod, Destruction, Iron Angel, Living Death, Necrovore, Possessed, Bathory, Celtic Frost, Necropolis, Piledriver, Exorcist, Malhavoc, Hobbs' Angel Of Death, Slayer, Necrophagia, Metal Church, Nasty Savage, Running Wild, Vectom, Goatlord, Nigro Mantia, Acid, Sepultura, Venom, Razor, Omen, Desexult, Desecration, Onslaught, Massacre, Kreator, Fates Warning, Death, Destructor, Dark Abbey, At War, Carnivore, Destroyers, Carrion, Judas Priest, Flames, Pokolgep, Sacrifice, Violent Force, Oz, Savatage, Iron Maiden, Attila, Sodom, and so many others ingrained in my psyche!!! I spit on those who choose to pose, and thrash with all the rest!" He even thanks Jesus Christ. Really amazing and amazingly strange.
The much anticipated debut from this new dooooooooooom outfit, featuring 2/4 of late great legendary doom/death metallers diSEMBOWELMENT, and we have to say fans of that group's legacy will not be disappointed, the same mix of spaced out reverb drenched loping doom, and pounding, lurching death metal churn, a sound that definitely doesn't fall to far from the withered and gnarled sonic tree. The opening few minutes lull the listener into a false sense of trippy bliss, before the track explodes into a murky, muddy blast of old school blackened guttural death metal, mathy and intricate, but also primitive and raw, a sound that's echoey and downtuned, that sounds in its own way timeless, although it most definitely sounds like it could have come straight from the same era as diSEMBOWELMENT. The track slipping into a creeping chugging dirge, wreathed in squiggly metallic leads, before exploding again in an avalanche of crumbling distortion and almost a sort of caveman Voivod sort of crush. And then without warning, the song slips into a cool sort of swirling tribal drum driven riff heavy midtempo psych metal space out, that could easily have come from some young metal bucks, the song finishing off with a long stretch of cavernous hushed ambient drift.
The other two songs follow suit, with "The Menin Road" unfurling like some demonic death march, definitely earning some extra o's in their doom, a glacial tarpit creep, but laced with some cool shimmery distant guitar melodies, about as close to a ballad as these guys get, before winding it up with "Shadows Of The Flame", which returns to the sound of the opening track, a dizzying mix of true doom sludge and frenzied blackened death metal gnarl, even some more psychedelic metal drift, flecked with soaring melodies, haunting atmospheres and some seriously killer riffing, and all with a seriously crushing production, that makes everything here sound massive and majestic, heavy and so epic.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Black Sabbath guitarist (and the onetime unquestioned ultimate riff-lord of the universe) Tony Iommi at last releases a "real" solo album, instead of solo albums under the latter-day Sabbath guise. What with his higher profile due to the successful Sabbath/Ozzy reunion, it's time for him to cash in with this long-awaited solo disc. Chock-a-block with guest vocalists (once rumored to include the likes of Alanis Morrisette and Rob Halford, but actually including Ian "The Cult" Astbury, Peter "Type O Negative" Steele, Ozzy himself, Billy Idol, and others). While some of the tracks seem like rather typical, commercial radio/Ozzfest fare (such as the horrid Dave Grohl and Henry Rollins cuts early in the album), on others the guest stars obviously requested that Mr. Iommi write something "Sabbathy" and thus the Phil Anselmo, Serj Tankian (I think he's the guy from System of a Down), Billy Corgan, and Ozzy tracks, among others, are heavy, non-embarrassing, and quite worthy of repeat play. Also on board, in instrumental capacities: Brian May, Bill Ward, and some guys from Soundgarden...
We must admit, we don't know too much about these mysterious local post-metallers. Here's what we do know: They're from San Francisco (we think?), this is their debut full length (maybe??), and they're called Ion (we're actually pretty sure about that one). Oh, and they play totally killer, frenzied, chaotic, hyperblasting post black metal. Ion are all about contrasts: Beautifully melancholic melodic riffs suddenly dissipate into a whirling disarray of dissonance. Frantic blast beats give way to wide open minimal spaciousness before becoming enveloped again in an avalanche of buzzing guitars and pummeling drums. The vocals alternate between anguished rasps and bellowed death metal growls. During their downtime, the songs may descend into disembodied shortwave ambience. Hushed acoustic guitars haunt the landscape. A full five minutes may go by spent on reverb soaked drifting sonic post-rock bliss, before the music erupts again into a wall-of-noise onslaught of rolling double bass and grinding guitars. The affect is certainly suffocating, overwhelming and emotionally draining, but also somehow sleek, postmodern and bleak, kind of bringing to mind Altar Of Plagues' last record that we loved so much around these parts. And although Ion are definitely melodic (even downright pretty) and certainly fit comfortably into the post-black metal spectrum, their music feels too technical and scatterbrained to stand right alongside bands like Alcest or Deafheaven (although there's no reason they won't appeal to fans of those bands). Instead their relentless approach, while still maintaining a constant ear for lush melody, recalls someone like Panopticon. Meanwhile the hints of Isis-style doom and prog-metal flirtation bring to mind bands like Vatnett Viskar or even a much less earthy Agalloch. It's one of our favorite things here at aQ when a local band we've never even heard of comes out of the blue with a release this good. We're thinking they won't be going unnoticed much longer!
Detroit's Small Stone label is the one of the most reliable "stoner rock" standard bearers these days. While we don't necessarily like everything they put out, you can bet your bong it's ALL stoner rock. And they do have some great bands on their roster, a few that really push the stoner rock thing into interesting psychedelic directions, including recently reviewed discs from AQ faves Los Natas (El Nuevo Orden De La Libertad) and Sons Of Otis (Exiled), both highlights on our last couple lists. So we figure its worth checking out other stuff on the label, and guess what? Here's one from last year that we had overlooked when it came out, but just one listen and we knew we should get some copies in and review it!
Basically, we could describe Salt Lake City's Iota as being a mixture of trippy Hawkwindiness and more aggressive blues based hard rockin', sorta like (early) Soundgarden or Skin Yard meets the heavier, more spaced out sounds of Sons Of Otis or UFOmammut. One reason we mention Soundgarden and Skin Yard is 'cause of the grungy melodic vocals, which bear a certain resemblance to that of those bands, but otherwise this is HEAVIER and SPACIER than any Seattle grunge for sure. And it's not like the singing is the focus of any of this, whereas interstellar jamming IS. However, it's easy shorthand to say Soundgarden + Sons Of Otis, when you hear this you know what we mean.
The five tracks on this 50 minute disc are programed so you get the two stormers out of the gate, tracks 1 and 2 being the throbbing metallic riff attacks of "New Mantis" and "We Are The Yithians", respectively. Then, it's time to blast off and bliss out, as tracks 3 and 4 are extended trips into the alien drug fantasies depicted in the disc's cool cover art. Those two cuts, "The Sleeping Heathen" (10:42) and the even more massive, nearly 23 minute "Dimensional Orbiter", are equally as heavy as the disc's first two tracks, but just a lot more spaced out. Then there's the fifth and final track, Tales closing with the 8+ minute bluesy nod scene that is the harmonica-laced "Opiate Blues", though it still seems it's a transmission from outer space, despite the earthier overt blues element.
Like we said, one listen and we were bowing down, Iota's Tales pushing all our psychedelic stoner rock buttons, with killer guitar soloing, scifi freakiness, sheer heaviosity, and surprisingly excellent vocals. Very, very cool.
Subtitled: Visual / Aural Fragments And Excerpts 2001-2005. That means, if you're an Isis fan you'll be buying this, we're pretty sure. But actually, it's also the sort of thing that might turn you INTO an Isis fan, if you weren't already. Check it out -- a selection of live performances, seven individual songs filmed at various venues 'round the world in 2001 and 2005, plus a full 70+ minute live set captured in Australia last year. The full scope of Isis's blend of crushing heaviness and mesmerizing post-rock beauty is on display here, much of it professionally shot and edited. Totally arty and moody like we'd expect from 'em. Even the dvd menu and chapter title screens are works of art.
Besides the live footage, the music video for "In Fiction" is also included, along with miscellaneous extras like a discography and photo gallery. Plus a 20 page dvd booklet with liner notes, art, graphics, and even lyrics. Pretty sweet. Heck we don't really think you can call yourself an Isis fan if you don't get this, eh? So, pick this up and ready yourself and your DVD player for a devastating dose of the dark, dynamic, precision post-metal that you've hopefully already experienced Isis delivering live in person (if you haven't, all the more reason to invest in this).
It's weird to think of Isis as a real band. And by that we mean, the sort of band that plays arenas and makes videos and you might see on MTV if MTV played videos anymore. And we've been fans for so long, it's sometimes difficult to get a handle on just how popular they are. And they are HUGELY popular. And rightfully so. They rule. They are one of the metallic post rock elite. Straddling the sounds of Mogwai and Neurosis, mixing the two into their own potent brew. We've yet to be disappointed by an Isis record, and we predict we won't be anytime soon. But we were surprised by some of the tracks on their most recent full length. How much they've evolved, and it's never more evident than on "Holy Tears", easily the most epic, and weirdly enough commercial sounding track we've heard from them. All clean vocals, barring a few monstrous bellows, and long stretches of moody meandering; hearing this, it's no surprise that Isis toured with Tool. This is the sound of a real rock band. An arena rock band even. It's an awesome song, but not nearly as feral and crushing as other tracks, which makes it the obvious choice for a single. That said, the heavy parts here are still MUCHO heavy, but even when the band is at their heaviest here, it's still melodic and dare we say, accessible. There's a live version of "Holy Tears" too, which is pretty cool, but probably the track that most folks will be after is the Melvins / Lustmord remix of "Not In Rivers, But In Drops", which takes the original, and seems to strip away all the guitars, replacing it with a layer of buzzy murk, and takes some of the vocals and process them into something super alien. The drums remain, still tribal and heavy, but the whole track is rendered hauntingly barren, mysteriously muddy, fuzzed out and druggy, almost dubby at times. The guitars return later, but even then they're buried under layers of blurred buzz and wrapped around super loud industrial percussion. The vocals are let loose to howl wildly over just drums, before everything coalesces into a final blow out of roiling crumbling guitar, fuzzed out bass, and a chugging feedback drenched finish. Fucking awesome. Would love to hear a whole Isis record remixed by those guys (and we bet it might just exist already).
Also added on as a bonus is a gorgeous video for "Holy Tears", a super stylized slow motion shot of a body falling from a building, haunting, abstract, so creepy, cutting to black as he hits the ground, then revealing some beautiful and intense shots of veins and organs and fetuses, like some Max Aguillera Helweg photos come to life. Before finishing off with some ultra fucked up footage of the jumper's face 'on impact'. Cool!
What can we say about Isis that we haven't already said at this point. They are the masters. The Lords of epic, brooding, slow burn, metallic post rock majesty. And rightfully so. Every record has managed to push forward, exploring new territory, without losing what it is that makes us like them so much. Which is tough to do. But Isis make it seem effortless.
Sure, you can blame them for the recent glut of mediocre moody epic math rock. But it's really not their fault. Everytime a band happens upon a 'new' sound, a sound that is dramatic, and exciting, a sound that captures the ears of jaded music fans, well, undoubtedly in the wake of that band will follow an army of wannabees.
But Isis remain unfazed. They sit within their castle, atop a mountain of mighty riffs, and sharp craggy melodies, gazing down from the heavens. Free to do whatever they want with their sound, even if it pisses off the masses, especially if it pisses off the masses.
So with In The Absence Of Truth, Isis have again redefined and reassessed, resulting in a new record that is distinctly less metal, and much more moody and expansive. Lots of tribal drumming, crooning vocals, the metallic chugs aren't huge back-breaking riffs, instead they are part of the sonic landscape, contributing to the texture almost more than the overall heaviness. Where Isis were once worshippers at the altar of Neurosis, they have now pretty much entirely shed their Neurotic trappings and emerged butterfly like to display their new shape and blindingly resplendent colors. Rare is the heavy band that is as adept at crafting epic soundscapes, creating tension and weaving elaborate sonic tapestries as they are at crushing and pounding and pummeling, but Isis are definitely that rare band.
However, don't be misled by all this talk of mood and ambience, a lot of In The Absence Of Truth is very heavy, and is quite metal, vocals howl and downtuned riffs crush, drums pound and the bass throbs, the band transforming into a swaying lurching metallic behemoth. BUT, these huge bursts of metallic might are placed with care, used sparingly, the way a writer judiciously doles out his exclamation points, each blast nestled between lengthy sonic explorations and slow meandering moody mathiness, resulting in a super dynamic and entirely captivating slab of subtle heaviness.
OK, now Isis are getting in on the confusing multiple version thing, but, c'mon, you know you love it!! This is the fancy imported Japanese version, on Daymare Recordings, of the most recent Isis record In The Absence Of Truth. Not to be confused with the domestic version on Robotic Empire. This is of course incredibly limited, the ones we have are on either clear, or red vinyl, and which color you get will be COMPLETELY RANDOM, so please DO NOT request a particular color. Nice thick gatefold jackets, printed inner sleeves. These are super expensive, they're imports, they have almost the exact same artwork as the domestic version, except for a Japanese style obi, and obviously the colored vinyl. But knowing you Isis fans, you'll probably want both this one AND the Robotic Empire one, and why the heck not, it's a fucking kick ass record:
What can we say about Isis that we haven't already said at this point. They are the masters. The Lords of epic, brooding, slow burn, metallic post rock majesty. And rightfully so. Every record has managed to push forward, exploring new territory, without losing what it is that makes us like them so much. Which is tough to do. But Isis make it seem effortless.
Sure, you can blame them for the recent glut of mediocre moody epic math rock. But it's really not their fault. Everytime a band happens upon a 'new' sound, a sound that is dramatic, and exciting, a sound that captures the ears of jaded music fans, well, undoubtedly in the wake of that band will follow an army of wannabees.
But Isis remain unfazed. They sit within their castle, atop a mountain of mighty riffs, and sharp craggy melodies, gazing down from the heavens. Free to do whatever they want with their sound, even if it pisses off the masses, especially if it pisses off the masses.
So with In The Absence Of Truth, Isis have again redefined and reassessed, resulting in a new record that is distinctly less metal, and much more moody and expansive. Lots of tribal drumming, crooning vocals, the metallic chugs aren't huge back-breaking riffs, instead they are part of the sonic landscape, contributing to the texture almost more than the overall heaviness. Where Isis were once worshippers at the altar of Neurosis, they have now pretty much entirely shed their Neurotic trappings and emerged butterfly like to display their new shape and blindingly resplendent colors. Rare is the heavy band that is as adept at crafting epic soundscapes, creating tension and weaving elaborate sonic tapestries as they are at crushing and pounding and pummeling, but Isis are definitely that rare band.
However, don't be misled by all this talk of mood and ambience, a lot of In The Absence Of Truth is very heavy, and is quite metal, vocals howl and downtuned riffs crush, drums pound and the bass throbs, the band transforming into a swaying lurching metallic behemoth. BUT, these huge bursts of metallic might are placed with care, used sparingly, the way a writer judiciously doles out his exclamation points, each blast nestled between lengthy sonic explorations and slow meandering moody mathiness, resulting in a super dynamic and entirely captivating slab of subtle heaviness.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We only got a handful of these, so odds are they will be gone quick, as the last volume disappeared in the blink of an eye. This long in the works vinyl version of the now out of print cd is finally available, but not for long
There was a time not so long ago, where the idea of mixing metal with post rock was a unique one. The thought of taking massive slabs of downtuned heaviness and mixing 'em up a bit with some moody rhythmic bits or some angstful angular bits was just a flight of fancy. A whole slew of metal bands influenced as much by Slint as Neurosis? Hardly. Well, here we are, 2008, and you pretty much can't turn around without bumping into a post rock metal band, or a metallic post rock band. Which is okay, cuz it's a sound we can definitely get behind, in fact we've been championing that sort of stuff for ages, maybe even before it had a name or was an actual musical movement. Isis were definitely one of the first of this new breed of metallic post rockers, and as such continue to hone their sound, push the boundaries and give all those young whippersnappers something to shoot for. The last proper full length was epic and majestic. A deft Neurosis / Godspeed hybrid. Expansive and majestic, but controlled and precise. Some folks have labeled it intellectual metal or something similar, but for us, it's just heavy, and complex, cinematic and gorgeous kick ass rock. In addition to proper releases, Isis have released a series of live recordings, capturing the band live, where, not only do they sound slightly heavier, and a little bit more loose (a good thing), they also stretch out, and let the songs breathe, let riffs repeat, add parts, even improvise, from dark moody drones to blown out space jams. It's awesome to hear a band at the top of their game, a band who seem to be all about control, let loose and just rock (or drone or shuffle or whatever). Live Selections 2001-2005 is the 4th live release so far, and collects material from 2001 through 2005, including on air radio performances, as well as live shows from the Troubadour, CBGB, the Middle East and more. Of all the live records, this is probably the loosest and weirdest. The songs sound great (of course) but the band takes way more chances, parts are twisted and stretched out, long parts turn into epic jams, there's even a lengthy improv / jam loosely inspired by Nirvana's "Endless Nameless". The songs sound fantastic, epic, soaring, heavy, brooding, beautiful, great recordings, amazing sound, essential for Isis fans for sure.
But the packaging, wow! Custom letterpressed gatefold jackets, really minimal and quite striking, we have the HONEY colored vinyl, a sort of translucent brown, limited to 524 copies, we only got about 10 of those, so act fast...
There was a time not so long ago, where the idea of mixing metal with post rock was a unique one. The thought of taking massive slabs of downtuned heaviness and mixing 'em up a bit with some moody rhythmic bits or some angstful angular bits was just a flight of fancy. A whole slew of metal bands influenced as much by Slint as Neurosis? Hardly. Well, here we are, 2006, and you pretty much can't turn around without bumping into a post rock metal band, or a metallic post rock band. Which is okay, cuz it's a sound we can definitely get behind, in fact we've been championing that sort of stuff for ages, maybe even before it had a name or was an actual musical movement. Isis were definitely one of the first of this new breed of metallic post rockers, and as such continue to hone their sound, push the boundaries and give all those young whippersnappers something to shoot for. The last proper full length was epic and majestic. A deft Neurosis / Godspeed hybrid. Expansive and majestic, but controlled and precise. Some folks have labeled it intellectual metal or something similar, but for us, it's just heavy, and complex, cinematic and gorgeous kick ass rock. In addition to proper releases, Isis have released a series of live recordings, capturing the band live, where, not only do they sound slightly heavier, and a little bit more loose (a good thing), they also stretch out, and let the songs breathe, let riffs repeat, add parts, even improvise, from dark moody drones to blown out space jams. It's awesome to hear a band at the top of their game, a band who seem to be all about control, let loose and just rock (or drone or shuffle or whatever). Live Selections 2001-2005 is the 4th live cd so far, and collects material from 2001 through 2005, including on air radio performances, as well as live shows from the Troubadour, CBGB, the Middle East and more. Of all the live records, this is probably the loosest and weirdest. The songs sound great (of course) but the band takes way more chances, parts are twisted and stretched out, long parts turn into epic jams, there's even a lengthy improv / jam loosely inspired by Nirvana's "Endless Nameless". Cool.
Heavy and droney and epic and of course SUPER LIMITED!
Packaged in beautiful black on brown letterpressed sleeves with insert/linernotes and sealed with a little mosquito sticker.
This one barely needs a description, fifth in the ongoing limited series of cds documenting the Isis live experience. This one from way back in 2006 when the band was invited to play the All Tomorrows Parties Don't Look Back series, where bands play classic albums in their entirety, so for Isis it was Oceanic, a killer record for sure, although the liner notes point out that they weren't really sure about doing it, seeing as that record was not that old at the time. Buy they went for it, and in the liner notes discuss how they arrived to play their classic Oceanic set, not nearly as prepared as they thought they were, so some tracks, at least in their estimation were smooth and perfect, and others were on the verge of collapse, but as an objective listener the whole thing sounds pretty excellent, heavy, and majestic and moody, sprawling and proggy and heavy as fuck. There's a reason these guys rule the post/math metal roost. For sure a little loose, but in some ways some of these songs sound even better that way. And live engineering courtesy of Justin Broadrick (Jesu, Godflesh, etc.) probably didn't hurt either.
Gorgeous packaging as always, letter pressed green on green 6 panel sleeves, in a plastic envelope sealed with a sticker. Not necessarily the place to start for Isis newbies (that would be Oceanic proper), but hell, this sounds nearly as good as the studio version, and would definitely have us hankering for more, certainly essential for Isis fans, and as always, somewhat limited...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Aaron Turner has had his hand in many of AQ's favorite metalcore albums, whether releasing them through his Hydrahead imprint (Neurosis, Sunn, Cave In, Coalesce, Atomsmasher / Phantomsmasher, etc.) or doing artwork for them (Agoraphobic Nosebleed) or making the music himself on 'em through his continuously impressive projects Isis and Old Man Gloom. Isis' second album "Oceanic" is quite possibly the strongest work to date for Turner. That is quite a feat considering how great those Old Man Gloom albums were. Where Turner shaped Old Man Gloom into an uncompromising drone 'n' grind outfit that speculated upon the sci-fi themes of alien-monkey hybrids, Isis is a bit more straightforward in tightening up the complex orchestrations of Neurosis with a whip-smart pop sensibility. Don't let the 'pop' of Isis fool you; "Oceanic" is a brutal album of dynamic metalcore that sculpts its propulsion by intertwining huge chugging riffs and counterpointed rhythms into the band's already massive percussive pummel. Isis' use of those grinding riffs is so hypnotic through its monochromatic distortion that when the band works up to a chord change (which can take 3 or 4 minutes to get to), it becomes a catastrophic pop hook as the New Pornographers, Get Up Kids, or Pinback but just super fuckin' heavy and aggressively dramatic. As the album unfolds, an emo vein to Isis becomes apparant, in part due to the reliance upon urgent minor keys and Turner's scream-against-the-void-or-maybe-just-my-parents vocals filled with rage and angst. Isis have also employed the talents of Maria Christopher of the Relapse post-rock band 27 on one the album's later tracks "Weight", where her breathtaking vocal mantra is the perfect harmonious complement to Isis' crushing dissonance. This track matches the only other well-executed arrangement we've heard for female vocals in a metalcore song found on From Autumn To Ashes' "Too Bad You're Beautiful." Yeah, this one totally rules.
This is hardly a tough sell. AQ faves Isis, the 'indie rock Neurosis', masters of the metal meets post rock pummel, with a flair for epic emotional song writing and capable of tempering their fist-in-your-face brutality with gorgeous melodies and strangely tranquil post rock passages, remixed and reinterpreted by an impossibly perfect lineup that reads as if they were handpicked by us! (Or you!) Fennesz, Thomas Koner, Venetian Snares, James Plotkin, Dalek, JK Broadrick, Tim Hecker, Speedranch and more! Most folks have already leapt out of their seats and tossed this puppy in their shopping cart, and we can't blame you. But for those of you who need a more in depth look, here's a track by track synopsis.
Disc One:
Fennesz offers up his immediately recognizable glistening sun dappled digitization, dreamy and otherworldly.
Ayal Naor of the band 27 delivers a version that is pretty true to the original but with some extra production tweakery and effects fuckery.
Thomas Koner unfurls a crumbling militaristic nihilistic drone, with creepy whispering voices, industrial whir and claustrophobic ambience. So good.
James Plotkin's version of "The Other" is all dreamy and melodic, with backwards drums, and isolated vocals, and plenty of deconstructed riffs and melodies, smeared into warm ambient noisescapes
The first of Tim Hecker's two takes on "Carry" is a wash of shimmering guitar, stretched into an epic thrum, a pulsing throbbing swirl of overblown guitar with minor key melodies buried underneath.
Teledubgnosis (featuring Ted Parsons of (Prong, Godflesh, Jesu, Swans) offer just what you'd expect, a modern dub version, with everything stripped away except the vocals and the background ambience.
Mike Patton adds his particular damage to "Maritime" turning in a super tweaked version with bizarre vocals, lots of random sound effects and loads of studio weirdness.
Disc Two:
Venetian Snares spits up a bizarre mix of dubbed out drums, super stereo panned guitars, isolated growly vocals, and reverb all over the place. Almost like a King Tubby / Lee Perry metal dub!
Tim Hecker's second version of "Carry" is a dense landscape of churning whorls of fuzzed out guitars, and warm whirls of ambient blur.
The Oktopus (aka Dalek) turns "False Light" into an industrial hip hop jam, with buzzing analogue synths, and the original's howled vocals careening from speaker to speaker. Like African Head Charge meets Neurosis.
Speedranch isolates the female vocals and douses the drums in massive reverb, and then chops the song into new shapes with hypnotic cd skipping riffs. Definitely the coolest, least annoying thing Speedranch has ever done!
The mysterious Destructo Swarmbots' track is a murky subterranean trawl through underground caverns and bottomless pits of droning rumbles and minimal distant melodies.
And JK Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu) takes on "Hym", staying pretty close to the original, adding his machinelike rhythms and turning the majestic midtempo metal of the original into a lost Godflesh / Jesu track, which is most definitely a good thing.
Admittedly, when we first heard Isis, it was like we had discovered another Neurosis. The similarities were striking, the downtuned sludge, the massive riffs, the earth crushing epics. But there can be only one Neurosis, and Isis were quick to figure that out, gradually embracing melody and mathrock as much as metallic bombast. The result was a divine melding of Neurosis and Godspeed You Black Emperor. On Panopticon, Isis move even further from their crusty metallic forbears, becoming much more contemplative and measured, subtle and melodic. Roiling waves of minor key metal-crush do still bookend most of the tracks, but the emphasis is on dreamily seasick waltzing post rock intricacy. Minimal and massive, melancholy and and cinematic, you could definitely imagine that this is what it would sound like if a band like Tarentel decided to make a 'metal' record.
The tracks here are all epic and mesmerising, slow burning post rock workouts that build and build and build. Lots of clean vocals too, a definite Alice In Chains vibe here and there, which is not at all a bad thing. Many of the songs slowly devolve into Loop-like psychedelic jams, guitars to oblivion. And it's sonically divine. Isis still get lumped under the metal umbrella, but this sounds much more like a rock band, an experimental heavy rock band who just happen to like their guitars loud and who at the drop of a hat, can whip out a riff that destroys all comers!
Fronted by Hydra Head honcho Aaron, Isis were always The indie rock metal core band, fusing their pummelling metallic crush with plenty of Slint-isms, making them the perfect band for Allan and Andee, who are always saying, 'I don't understand why that post rock band doesn't just play metal'. On this, their newest ep, Isis do get heavier as well as a bit more varied. Half the songs
Post metal heroes Isis may be long gone, but their legacy looms large, in the hundreds (thousands?) of bands they inspired certainly, but also in the fans they left behind, dedicated FANATICS who continue to worship at the altar of Isis, and no doubt anxiously await any sonic scraps left to be repackaged and offered up to the hungry hordes. And while we're tempted to suggest that this most recent collection, a double disc AND dvd, is only for those particular fans, this collection of demos, rarities and remixes spanning the decade from 2001 to 2011, is pretty goddamn great, and really anyone into post metal, experimental heaviness and/or metallic post rock, Isis fan or not, might wanna check this out, it's the rare sort of odds and ends collection that could easily win over new fans for sure.
The first disc (first half of the 3lp set) is mainly demos spanning the whole decade mentioned above, and thus early version of tracks that would end up on various records proper, some recorded in studios, others in practice spaces, but sound quality varying quite a bit, from raw and urgent, the vocals way up in the mix, to less heavy and more abstract, glimmering and glistening, slow builds to big bombastic metal crush, and still others super lo-fi, rehearsal boombox style, but even those sound pretty great, the sound you'd hear if you were seeing Isis in a tiny club. Overall though, the songs sound great, not sure how different they are, but as a whole, it makes for a pretty great Isis 'album', especially the epic closer "Grey Divide", which KILLS.
The second disc (or second half of the 3lp set) though is really the reason to get this. Starting off with Isis' version of Godflesh's "Streetcleaner", which the band manage to pull off, right down to the machinelike rhythms and jagged guitars, which leads right into their cover of Sabbath's "Hand Of Doom", crazy drum heavy mix, but still pretty bad ass. There's a couple remixes, including the genius reimagining by the Melvins and Lustmord of "Not In Rivers, But In Drops", which adds electronics and noise, and all sorts of woozy warped atmosphere. Then there's Thomas Dimuzio's remix of "Holy tears", which recasts the original as something much more washed out and murky and darkly psychedelic, and almost ambient industrial. There's the brief ambient title track, then the two tracks from Isis' split with the Melvins, both of them progged out metallic crushers, and finally, a gorgeous, surprisingly lush acoustic version of "20 Minutes / 40 years" that is exactly what you'd imagine Isis would sound like if they ever got to do an MTV Unplugged.
Both the cd and lp versions include a dvd with all the band's videos, the cd housed in a swank 8 panel digipak, with a big booklet, the lp similarly. Absolutely recommended for Isis obsessives obviously, but as mentioned above, as good a place to start for newbies, as any of their albums proper, and listening to this (and these guys again), it's not hard to see why so many bands aped their sound, cuz even now, all these years later, it still sounds pretty fucking amazing.
After flirting with mainstream success, and a more mainstream sound, it sounds like Isis have finally gone and done it. Which is not at all a bad thing, they've slowly been drifting that direction since day one, doing their best to shrug off the 'Neur-Isis' stigma that has dogged them since the beginning, and like any band, gradually expanding their sonic scope, looking for new sounds, new directions, trying to find a way to make music exciting and fresh, while still keeping true to the vision of the band, no matter how much that vision has changed.
Thus comes Wavering Radiant, easily their most fully realized record yet. Tighter. More concise. More about songs than sounds and textures. Lots more clean singing. Overall less heavy and more, well, poppy for lack of a better word.
Isis have finally made the transition from rulers of the underground, now existing in a strange place, for them at least, the mainstream. Playing arenas, getting written up in Rolling Stone and Spin, playing shows with HUGE bands, rockstars even, and the sound sort of reflects that. Or maybe more accurately, their shifting sound pushed them in that direction. It's not at all hard to imagine these songs in an arena setting, or even hearing them on modern rock radio, we're reminded of Tool a lot of the time, epic, sprawling, chugging churning minimal metallic grooves, hooks everywhere, but often draped over obtuse riffage or brooding post rock pound, but thankfully, Isis are not nearly as dark as Tool, they're still heavy, but the heaviness is more measured, more controlled. In fact, the bellowing 'metal' vocals are almost a distraction a lot of the time, and we never thought we'd say this, but we almost wish they would ditch them entirely, and pursue their pop muse, continue to create well crafted metallic post rock, but push even further, they are well adept at creating heaviness out of un-heavy elements, just check out album closer "Threshold Of Transformation", an epic slow burning build, that just keeps ratcheting up the tension, layered guitars, crooned clean vocals, might be the best jam on the record.
If you've been with Isis since the beginning, nothing on Wavering Radiant should surprise you, it's more like a distillation of what they'd been aiming for all along. It's probably not heavy enough for the Isis fans who still count Celestial or Oceanic as their favorites, the crushing chugs are few and far between, but for the rest of us, it's a pretty great balance between the Isis of old, and whatever it is they're poised to become. And the more we do listen to Wavering, the more it reveals a band at the top of their game, and the more it reveals ITSELF, as a record that will most likely grow on even the most jaded of ears....
It's been a while since we've heard from either Woburn House or Klabautamann, two German post rock / metal combos we dig big time, who both share various members, and count themselves as part of a loose musical collective. Some of those shared members also do time in another group called Island, who while hewing much closer to the sound of Klabautamann, mix in enough meandery post rock and minimal shimmer and skitter, that it's easy to make the Woburn House connection as well.
We've been meaning to list this for a while, as it came out last year, and is a collection of the band's first two demos, originally released in 2004 and 2005.
Island's sound is a bit tough to describe. Folks familiar with the two above mentioned bands might be able to suss it out generally, but Island are indeed a strange beast. Slipping from Opethy folk flecked epic metal, to dense convoluted math rock, to soft shimmery ambience, to lurching classic metal, to almost doom, each song here tends to stray into two or more of those sounds, but each definitely has a distinct mood.
Album opener "Journey Through The Jewel" sounds like classic melodic black metal, Opeth, Dissection, that sort of thing, with descending arpeggiated melodies, dense chugging riffs, and some fluttery folky breakdowns, where as the follow up "River Source", could almost be Polvo or Pitchblende if it weren't for the blackened vokills, the arrangement very nineties mathrock, with indie sounding melodies melded to cool arrangements and crunchy metallic riffing.
The record shifts fluidly from mathy to metal throughout, from hooky and almost poppy to convoluted and progressive, the vocals too, shift from clean croon to harsh howl, often pairing the harsh vocals with the more indie sounds and vice versa, the result is something that should definitely please fans of Woburn House and Klabautamann, as well as folks into the current crop of less grim, more poppy blackness, a la Amesoeurs, Alcest and the like.
Late '70s Swiss prog rarity, complete with Giger cover art. For fans of ELP.
The return of a new favorite, Russian black metal outfit Ithdabquth Qliphoth, deliver a 20 minute black okkult ritual, following up their Fyre Walk With Me full length which has been pretty much impossible to keep in stock. It seems this duo has shed a member and is now solely the work of the oddly named AL-LA-ShT-ORR, who is also responsible for the Cadaver Yelleth At Amber Tower cd reviewed elsewhere on this list (does this guy have a way with names or what!).
So how to follow up a confusional collection of far out fractured black metal weirdness and buzzing blown out black ambience? why with the even more oddly titled "Funeral Spirit Of Holy, Holy And Holy Tranceformation", a single twenty minute epic, which begins as a thick churning chunk of grinding low end, what could be super distorted martial drumming, or maybe just thick blackened static, whatever it is, it's intense and dense and in its fluctuations creates a sort of incidental rhythm. Eventually sampled vocals join the fray, as do little bursts of static, the track transformed into some industrial black creep. Soon soaring guitars drift in from the distance, offering washed out chordal buzz and keening feedback, the sound referencing groups like Wolf Eyes and Prurient especially, the pounding and buzzing soon gives way to a mysterious blown out dronescape, of stretched out high end tones, and downtuned rumble, before lurching into something more metallic about the halfway mark, a Burzumy doomic trudge, just crashing drums and WAY up in the mix voKILLS, all held together by a gloomy bass line, and some swirling background ambience, finally the guitars come crashing down, the drums explode into double kick, but instead of black and buzzy, it's moody and mournful like classic old school doom, majestic and epic before everything drops out, and suddenly it's a super minimal shimmer, all muted bass tones, deep reverberating low end, soft barely there chords, spare and abstract and hushed, the sampled voices return again, harmonics pluck out an atonal bell like melody, the rumbles seem to growl and grind, but still muffled and murky, the bells tolling ominously, the melancholy melody leading the song to its eventual end. So creepy and haunting, black and mysterious, otherworldly and magickal. All hail AL-LA-ShT-ORR and his unholy vessel Ithdabquth Qliphoth!!
Black metal logos by their very nature are cryptic, for most impossible to read, a jumble of squiggles and spidery lines and upside down crosses, pentagrams, sharp angles and jagged edges. But once translated into actual letters, the magic is lost, it's usually BLOOD something, or DEMON something, or perhaps a very common word with wintery connotations, or some variation of the word forest. But what of the band with no 'logo', as their very name is an impossibly tangled web, whose letters have no right to be side by side, an unpronounceable jumble that somehow still manages to evoke mystery, to conjure up images of darkness and despair, even though we've never met anyone who knows how to actually pronounce it?
Such is the case with Russian duo Ithdabquth Qliphoth, who are another one of those bands who have long been aQ black metal favorites, but whose records we were never able to attain in enough abundance to review on the list. Until now.
But it's not just the name that makes these guys a mystery. Three long multi part songs, each an epic suite, with titles like "3 142 742 836 021 Times Hotter Than Earthly Fire", and "Your Fucking Creation Is Bleeding Away" or "Thy Omnislaying Revelation". And instead of names, the two band members are represented by strange Anthony Braxton like diagrams, many of the lyrics appear to be in Hebrew, and include shapes as well as words, and then the sound, at once raw and buzzing, furious and hateful, at the same time strangely melodic, the record begins with a jumble of samples, church organ, yodeling, the sound of terrified screams and the sound of fire, until the band lurch into action, a woozy midtempo black buzz, underpinned by a relentless double kick, strange processed inhuman vocals buried in the mix, all wreathed in a gauzy haze, even when the band switches gears and channels some classic Norwegian buzz, they still sound weirdly off kilter, a bit like Katatonia crossed with Immortal crossed with Burzum, but way more twisted. The melodies haunting and mournful, the guitars buzzy, but still dripping with effects, as if the whole record was being broadcast from within a fog filled cave.
The three song suites are just that, not single epic tracks, but each, three shorter tracks somehow linked, lyrically, thematically, hardly matters, they seem quite varied but do manage to flow into each other, from moody melancholia to blown out super distorted blackness, from weirdly melodic to harsh and raw, IQ take these opposing forces and tangle them up into something gloriously confusional. The opening track of the second suite, "Introduction To Burning Death" is a dramatic shift from the almost relentless onslaught of the opening salvo, a loping melodic metallic groove, that gives way to a half time, even more melodic breakdown, all epic and doomy, and almost dreamy, before shifting gears into a weirdly groovy, almost punky jam, that reminds us a bit of Khold, but super charged , with the relentless double kick drumming, and a harsh distorted ambience wrapped around the whole thing, By the third part of the second act (each act is numbered 0., 00. and 000. by the way) the band have returned to something much more gnarled and truly black, but still shot through with streaks of melody and melancholy. Which segues smoothly into the final 3 part suite, from furious epic black buzz, to grinding downtuned crunch, to soaring melodic blur, to crunchy chugging chaotic mathy pummel, to brief folky drift to warped doomy dirge, sounding almost like a black metal Paradise Lost for a moment, before ending everything with several minutes of crumbling distorted blackened drones, deep resonant tones, gurgled voices, strange percussive crunch, blurred rumbles and what almost sounds like some super distorted ping pong, all buried beneath layer after layer of smeared bleary black buzz.
Packaged in 6 panel black and white digipacks adorned with all manner of symbols and lyrics and mysterious liner notes. LIMITED TO 777 COPIES. Every one hand numbered in silver ink.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Debut full length from these French atmospheric doomlords who weave a gorgeous dreamlike doom from lumbering slo-mo heaviness, majestic gloom pop moodiness and classical bombast, heavy on the synth and mournful melody, sounding at times like a doom version of Alcest / Amesoeurs, that sort of wistful indie pop sound, but here rendered in swaths of soaring swirling atmospheric synths, delicate hushed pointilist pianos,
and crushing, classic old school style melodic doom metal a la My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost. The sound is a deft balance between the chugging churning riffs, and the hazy dramatic synthy swirl, the vocals mostly growled and demonic, but occasionally cleanly crooned, hushed and emotional, and there are even horns, which add a haunting and stately elegance to the proceedings.
While this is definitely doom, and a somewhat classic strain at that, it's so melodic and so infused with a dour depressive moodiness, that it does seem to veer into distinctly gloom pop territory, which is not a bad thing at all, in fact it kind of transforms this into something much more interesting. The tracks almost orchestral and symphonic, the sound anguished and abject one minute, dark and dreamy the next, but always epic and dramatic and cinematic, like the soundtrack for some futuristic art film about outer space, the musical vibe evoking sweeping celestial vistas and the bleak blackened landscapes below.
Sure it's lame calling bands supergroups, but we haven't really thought of another word that has the same connotations. I mean, how would -you- describe a black metal band that featured members of Dimhymn, Ondskapt and Zavorash, and was recorded by one of the guys from Marduk? Exactly. So for now, we'll have to stick with super group. But since this is evil black metal, maybe we should try something like ultra-horde, or mega-kult... ummm, well, maybe not...
Anyway, it's pretty tough to fuck with a band with this sort of pedigree, and while the label describes this disc as "a dirty piece of Black 'N Roll" which had us fearing the worst, this is actually way more fierce and buzzing and black than that description might lead you to believe. The band photos don't help much either, the band all walking along the railroad tracks, or looking all tough in front of a barbed wire topped chain link fence, tank tops, bandannas, and even a ski mask in effect! But fuck it, it's all about the music, and the music here is pretty awesome. Mostly midtempo, downtuned chug, with raspy howled BM vocals, pounding drums, occasional flurries of double kick drum, massive throbbing bass, but all with a serious streak of classic eighties metal running through it all, huge sweeping epic melodies, reminding us a bit of maybe At The Gates or Dark Tranquility, even some punky stomp a la Turbonegro. And actually, the more we listen, it definitely has that Khold vibe, sort of groovy and thick, like a pop song blackened and buzzed... Minus the occasional too obvious movie sample, or brief spoken word part, this is pretty relentless and rocking, with haunting interludes of choral cathedral keyboards and monklike chants separating crushing slabs of hooky heaviness.
Also includes a video playable on your computer, that while pretty striking, looks like it was filmed with a camcorder and s single flashlight. Pretty cool.�
