A few lists back we reviewed a killer disc from a German band called Woburn House, who traffic in a killer blend of repetitive hypno rock a la Dutch outfit Gore, but blended with a heaping dose of mathy post rock, a combo that totally kicked our asses. But then we discovered that there was in fact a Woburn side project called Klabautamann, who were supposedly a super weird black metal band!! This we had to hear. So after some internet sleuthing, we got in touch with the band and managed to get a bunch of the Klabautamann debut cd Der Ort, and if anything, it's even cooler, and WAY WAY weirder than we would have ever hoped.
Take the first track, it begins like most black metal songs, with a buzzing insectoid riff, which explodes into some epic blackened riffing, we love it already, but then suddenly, the guitars drop out, and leave a skeletal post rock jam, lilting clean guitars, but with blasting double kick drums and growled demonic vocals, a weird combo for sure, but so good. Then the song transforms into some mathy metallic breakdown, before blissing out into some dreamy melodic drift, before bursting back into full on black blast again. And that's just the first track.
The second track begins with acoustic guitars and drums, a dreamy strum and pound that could easily be some weird indie rock band, the vocals kick in, a sort of sing song monotone, with little melodic curlicues underneath, until the song lurches into some complex stop start groove, with wild octopoidal drumming and little bursts of squiggly guitar leads. After a gorgeous classical breakdown, the drums kick in, a blazing blast beat accompanying this lovely finger picked guitar, another bizarre juxtaposition that sounds amazing.
The next track is a dense tangled black angular workout, all impossibly convoluted Voivod-ish riffs over furious drumming, before again breaking into a weird loping post rock jam, punctuated by brief bursts of blazing blackness.
It's hard to explain exactly what's going on, but whatever it is, it's awesome. Every track is dense with riffs and parts, gorgeous clean sections are butted up against filthy frosty blackness, acoustic guitars routinely jam alongside metallic blast beats, crazy complicated riffs are chopped into stuttery fragments, and rearranged around mathy rhythms...
Then there's the final track, a total out of the blue mind blower, a nine minute epic, that is still sort of black metal, but also sounds like Tool or Coheed And Cambria, chugging riffs, wailing vocals, both male and female, all tangled up in killer harmonies, the whole thing shoegazey and kind of emo and super poppy, the guitar weaving elaborate textures, but it's the vocals, so weird and cool, it almost has us wishing the whole record had singing like this. So unexpected and so goddamn great.
After the recently reviewed Lifelover, probably our most listened to new 'black metal' disc for sure!
Third full length from these German post-black metallers, long time favorites around here, which of course means a new Klabautamann record is always a cause for celebration, as is any record by any band related to this ever shifting collective, who play in a bunch of different outfits, including other aQ faves like Woburn House, and Island. But Klabautamann is probably the 'blackest' of the bunch, the guitars buzzy, the vocals harsh and hellish, the drums furious, but that's really where the resemblance to typical black metal ends, take the first song, exploding out of the gate with a loping mathy post metal groove, a bit Slinty, all wound tight, gnarled rapid fire guitar chug, wild drumming, when suddenly, the song shifts and the band are locked into some sort of prog / folk thing, with spidery guitars, and polka like rhythms, which gives way to a dreamy waltzy folk breakdown, but peppered with brief dynamic bursts of metallic crunch, only to slip right back into the opening churn and chug.
The next track is another woozy, doom flecked bit of black lope, but it changes constantly, at its fiercest reminding us of classic Satyricon, but at it's least metal, reminding us of some sort of avant prog pop. Which is the cool thing about Klabautamann, the fact that they're constantly flitting back and forth between the two, but in such a away that it sound totally natural and organic. The songs, as convoluted and complex as they are, seem to flow perfectly, slipping from grim raw blackness, to weird pretty pop in the blink of an eye, often finding some way to meld the two in transition. The playing here is incredible, dexterous, nimble, frenzied and freaking fast, super prog, only in so much as the parts are intricate, and there's so many of them, without digging too deep, this is definitely easy to enjoy as just a super varied black metal record, the band do tend to return to blasting buzzing blackness, but there's so much going on, that to try and enjoy it on just that one level would be a waste, Merkur, much like the records before it, is a lush, layered complex black prog beast, one best enjoyed slowly, immersing yourself in every nuance, from the harsh and heavy to the ethereal and delicate. Amazing stuff.
Ultra limited seven inch picture disc from these German black metallers. But Klabautamann aren't at all your typical black metal group, beginning with the fact that most of them also do time in metallic math rockers Woburn House, who we raved about on a past list. And that math rock pedigree definitely finds its way into the sound of Klabautamann. As always there's plenty of growling demon-vox, blasting beats, and buzzing riffage, but more than half the time is spent in various non-metal forms, from blissed out dreamy folk interludes, to simple slowcore crawls, to weird angular prog workouts. And even in full blasting metal mode, the sound is anything but typical, the buzzing and blasting is infused with haunting melancholy melodies, ultra catchy hooks, weird burbling underwater bass, but all deftly wrapped up in the curious freaked out, gloriously demented black-post-math-metal-whatever that is Klabautamann.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each copy hand numbered, packaged with a cover/sheet of liner notes with the credits and lyrics, and the picture disc is an eye popping full color illustration of dancing gnomes and faeries on one side, a sleeping witch, curled up with here staff and bugle and mysterious book of spells on the other. The best part is the 7" also comes with a cd-r with the tracks from the single, so you can throw those right on your iPod and hang that single on your wall right where it belongs...
Second disc from this mysterious blackened outfit, that just so happens to feature members of AQ faves Woburn House, a modern metallic post rock combo, who knocked our socks off with their recent Message To Ourselves Outside The Dreaming Machine record on UK label Paradigms. Where Woburn house took math rock and metallized it, creating a sound much more akin to some unlikely blend of Shellac and Gore, in Klabautamann, they take the buzzing blur of black metal, and add all sorts of melody and strange convoluted arrangements.
The record opens with the crunch of winter footsteps and glistening arpeggiated guitars, a lilting swoonsome introduction to the record proper, which erupts out of the gates as track two lurches into black aktion, manic drumming, buzzing crusty riffage and growled demonic vocals. But that's where any resemblance to traditional black metal ends. The songs buzz and thrash and pound, but it's so much more melodic, with cool little Iron Maiden-y guitar harmonies, strange mathy breakdowns, all sorts of strange guitar parts lurking around and under the main riff, lots of jangle and shimmer, even at its fiercest, there always seems to be some sort of sweet melody lurking underneath. The riffs too are much more rock than black metal, giving the record another strange twist. Lots of parts even sound like a blackened Treepeople, with multiple guitar lines all tangled up into gorgeous melodic knots. So cool and so weird. Could very well be the perfect gateway black metal band for folks who may have been a bit shy about taking the plunge into the dark side. And for the rest of you, whose musical souls are already tainted, this is strange and twisted, mathy, melodic, buzzy and blackened heaven!
The Old Chamber is the latest from these oddly monikered German post black metallers who have been long time faves, along with the various other bands like Woburn House, Island, and Valborg, who all seem to share members, and definitely share an distinctive aesthetic. The new Woburn House is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and while that group seems to be moving further away from metal, Klabautamann seem to be doing precisely the opposite, infusing their sound with a healthy dose of classic old school black metal. Just check out the opener, a pounding melodic blackened dirge, depressive and minor key, but melodic enough that it could be Khold or Katatonia, but then the vocals change everything, a sick, glass gargling raspy black croak, which makes for a strange combo, the music lilting and loping, the vocals venomous and hateful, but it works. Even stranger is when the band's post black metal proclivities shine through, like when the song shifts gears, and gets sort of soaring and proggy, chuggy and mathy, only to slip right back into that melodic lumber, adding some melancholic guitar leads to boot.
The second track "Bog Spawn" finds the sound shifting more toward the sound we remember, a little bit Slinty, but still super heavy, spidery melodies, descending arpeggios, all sort of woozy and sea sick sounding, minus the vocals, it could be some heavy math rock band, the vocals just give it a little bit of black grimnity. On past records, it seemed like the sounds were separate and distinctive, pretty post rocky parts would collide with blasting crusty blackness, and then back again, but it seems like on The Old Chamber, while the overall shift seems to be toward a sound more melodic, it also sounds like those two halves of Klabautamann's sound have been fused into something pretty fantastic. The melodic side definitely seems to hold sway, but it wouldn't sound as good as it does without the grim black energy underneath. Needless to say, this is the sort of avant heaviness and melodic blackness, that we can never get enough of, and while we loved their last record Merkur, we're beginning to think we like this one even more. And along with the Woburn House, we've barely been able to bring ourselves to listen to anything else.
"Organic free metal from Malaysia" is what we had heard about Klangmutationen. Wow, really? Utech doesn't provide much information at all about this band, other than to describe them as a "mystery" (how helpful), and compare their music to the work of outside '70s free improv artists from Europe (the FMP label) and Japan (Masayuki Takayangi, Kaoru Abe). We're also told that this mysterious group hails from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Do we believe it? Maybe. We'd like to.
Certainly their music has a dark, strange vibe - literally, vibrations - cycles of low-end droning, sounding like giant metal springs being vibrated... or more likely, electric guitars, detuned. Strings/springs flapping loosely, arcing with electricity. Weird and atmospheric. Like Harry Bertoia meets Caspar Brotzmann!?
That's the first track (2:19) and part of the second into which it flows (25:05). But before long, the lengthy track two develops a serious case of screaming, saxophone/flute/clarinet skree, definitely giving some skronked-out substance to those free jazz comparisons. It's pretty intense and extreme, right on for those into Rudolph Grey's Blue Humans, John Zorn's Painkiller, Peter Brotzmann, Charles Gayle, Arthur Doyle, Albert Ayler, cats like that... yet it's definitely not, y'know, jazz. More like "jazz" for fans of SUNNO))) and Aufgehoben... or drone music for fans of Borbetomagus. Dense and distorted, this is the sound of plunging into the abyss, with a witches' chorus of reed-squealing cacophony as company.
The third track, clocking in at 19:42, is almost as much of a juggernaut. More whale-call feedback guitar grind, murk and moodiness. And then this disc comes to a close with the brief (1:58), relatively quiet caresses of fourth, final track. An eerie, wispy coda that could be the soundtrack music heard as a landing party from TV's Star Trek beams down to some strange, oddly lit world... and they should be glad they don't have to face whatever alien threats the album's earlier tracks would provide cues for!
Curious stuff, this Klangmutationen. Heavy too. We're enjoying repeat spins of this disc, and also should mention we have another release of theirs, yet to be reviewed - an LP on the Holy Mountain label (which affiliation in itself is a recommendation).
Yet another bit of doomy weirdness from Reverend Bizarre's S.A. Hynninen, aka Albert Witchfinder, whose recent Puritan doomdirgedrone project received aQ Record Of The Week honors, and while we extolled the overall freakiness and what-the-fuckness of The Puritan, it ain't got nothing on KLV, a band that Albert was in prior to Reverend Bizarre, circa 1992-1998. Reverend Bizarre drummer Earl Of Void was also a member. This cd had been out for some years now but after listing The Puritan, and also even more recently Albert's Opium Warlords project, we figured it would be a good idea to review this also, and were lucky enough to find a supplier that had a few copies (that strangely enough, come with T-shirts too!).
KLV stands for Kehitysvammaisen Lapsen Vanhemmat, which is Finnish for "parents of a deficient child', and the sound is meant to be classic gothic doom, but filtered through Hynninen's cracked sonic lens it comes out as anything but. This is no My Dying Bride or Paradise Lost, instead it's a confusional sort of doom pop, with long stretches of electronic flecked dreaminess, fluttering flutes, male / female vocal harmonies, whirring keyboards, jangly clean guitars, and yea, some lumbering gloomy doom. But this is not the crushing slow motion tarpit dirge of The Puritan, or even the classic Sabbathy crunch of Reverend Bizarre, instead, the sound is sort of stripped down, the vocals deep and dramatic, even at its heaviest, the sound is still surprisingly melodic, and weirdly poppy, of the 13 tracks, there are 4 or 5 extended proper doom jams, while the rest of the record, consists of shorter, stranger, poppier and more abstract mini-epics.
The opener, sets the tone, sounding a bit like a doom Aavikko, clean guitar strum, burbling bass, deep crooning, lovely harmonies, flutes, and a super poppy main hook, and a sort of post rocky final portion that segues directly into the first 'doom' track, a somber, smoldering bit of slowcore, again quite melodic and way more pop than metal.
After a few brief bits of haunting ambience and a flurry of hysterical howling and laughter comes the organ driven "Kannel Karhun Morsiamesta" that almost sounds like Circle at their most dramatic, slow and cabaret, before busting out into a super rocking jam, but not so rocking that it's not wrapped in full on flutes, culminating in the almost Renaissance Faire sounding last couple minutes. Wow.
And so it goes. Slipping from doom pop, to lumbering doom, to low slung, baritone voiced doomjazz, to grinding super distorted crunch, bookended by jangle and croon that sounds a bit like Beat Happening, to Doorsy psychedelic groove, to Bohren-like dimly lit minimal creep, to skeletal space rock, to Sabbathy pound, to slow, epic mournful dooooooom, it's definitely all over the map, but something manages to keep things cohesive, or at least somewhat cohesive. And we joked in a past review about KLV / Puritan / Opium Warlords / Rev Bizarre mainman Hynninen being Jussi from Circle's long lost brother, but never has this seemed sonically so likely as it does here, on Niin Musta On Maa, which means, of course, doomlords, and Finnish hypnorock weirdos will both find plenty to dig here...
While they last, for some unknown to us reason, each disc comes with a free KLV T-shirt! You can specify in the comments section what size you want (Large or Extra Large are the two choices), and we will try to accommodate, but eventually we'll be down to just one size and you'll just get whatever we have left. And once this batch of cds is sold, the T-shirts will be gone for good.
First record we've reviewed from these Portland crushers (who count a member of aQ faves L'Acephale among their ranks), whose sound has changed dramatically over the last 4 years and 3 full lengths, having started life as something much more noisy and chaotic, initially some sort of twisted power electronic / grindcore combo, their sound blackened considerably, their music growing more and more dense and darkly metallic, arriving here, at Tresspass, where they have essentially made the transition to full on black metal band, but what makes these guys so good, and this record so compelling, is that it's informed by that transformation, for all the black buzz, and gnarled riffing, there are gouts of grinding fury, or weird stretches of processed vocals sounding like a symphony of gurgles. In some ways they're like a more punk rock Deathspell Omega, they have a similarly dense sound, and a similar knack for creating lush blackened crush from multiple layers of droned out guitars, tangled riffage, and impossibly chaotic drumming.
Even at their blackest, their punk roots show through, whether it's a barrage of squealing pick slides, or some serious punked out D-beat pound, the guttural vocals more death metal, but again, it just adds another cool element to their already wildly hybridized sound. Relentless and furious, the production MASSIVE, the sound epic and crushingly brutal, downtuned and HEAVY, the tracks occasionally splintering into droned out doom, or blurry stretches of rumble and thrum, or crumbling industrial blurscapes, but just as often exploding into wild gouts of metalpunk chaos, before slipping right back into another blast of grinding blackbuzz churn.
Super swank gatefold sleeves, with printed cardstock insert.
First release we've managed to get from this weirdo from the Northwest, whose sound is a sort of abstract doom / outsider electronica? Or something, kinda tough to describe, but if you can imagine some fucked up hybrid of Wolf Eyes and Blue Sabbath Black Cheer you might be getting close, oh but only if you imagine they sometimes made techno music, which sounds weird, and it is, but it a good way.
After a weird vocal intro, the sound is all detuned bass warble, thick rumbling dronemusic, wreathed in buzzing and flecked with little mysterious sonic events, sorta creepy and abstract and spaced out, that is until 'the beat' comes in, a simple pulse, over a bed of gurgled vocals and what sounds like bleating sheep, or maybe quacking ducks, all of which is soon overwhelmed by sheets of staticky noise, and super processed demonic vokills. And that's just the beginning, soon the sound blossoms into a super distorted down tuned creep, a noisy industrial doom death march, that quickly transforms into another weird stretch of beat driven electro-noise, strange pitch-shifted tones and unsettling vocal mewlings draft atop a bed of undulating buzz, all anchored by that beat. Soon the sound becomes sort of Butthole Surfers-ish, woozy, melty riffage, dirge caveman thump, and processed vocal drawls, lo-fi and again, laced with all kinds of FX and creepy voices. Finally, things finish off with a 10 minute epic, that might be the least weird of the bunch, at least at first, all simple spidery guitar melody, moody cello rumbling in the background, which is soon joined by more tweaked and twisted vox, the sound devolving into a churning morass of distant drones, electronic squelches, malfunctioning FX, and just a creepy grim ambience, before exploding again into some sort of pounding industrial noise-psych finale, echoey howled vocals, pounding drum machines, all wrapped in the tracks suffocating blackness and fractured prismatic psychedelia.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!
This record has been out for a while in Europe, but is only now being released in the U.S. by the folks at Hydrahead. Knut (pronounced like newt, not like nut) are a punishing metal core powerhouse from Switzerland, who play heavy downtuned midtempo
Switzerland hasn't exactly been known for their metallic output. You could probably count all the great Swiss metal bands on one hand (Celtic Frost, Coroner, uhhhh...Krokus....uh) but when they do metal, man do they do it right. This is album number two from
It's been a while since we've heard from Swiss heavies Knut, who we've always loved, their sound a head caving hybrid of mathy crush and epic post metal majesty, they were exploring Neurosis / Isis slow burn big blowout metallic post rock territory long before it became the flavor du jour. But the real appeal was that they could craft these expansive dirgescapes and then explode into noise rock freakouts, or super complex mathy grooves, and if anything, on Wonder, it sounds like Knut have moved way further into mathy noise rock territory, which we're actually pretty psyched about, heck, the world has enough long songs that build slowly into epic metallic heaviness, and yeah, okay, maybe the world has enough gnarled grinding math metal juggernauts, but we think not.
And Knut are indeed masters, putting most other heavies to shame, really in the space of a single song. "Leet" explodes in a frenzy of churning riffage and pounding chaotic drumming, bellowed vox, a deft chugging stuttering lurching start stop convoluted mathy workout, but infused with little bits of melody, some super cool, weirdly obtuse breakdowns, a relentless math metal freeforall that practically out-Don-Caballero-s Don Cab themselves.
There are a few tracks, where the bands reel in their insane time signatures and frenzied riffing, letting their sound ooze and sprawl, droning and buzzing, where they unfurl epic brooding heaviness, much like the above mentioned post metal, but even those moments are peppered with little mathy bursts, little gnarled and convoluted twists, there are a few interludes too, more sort of droned out guitar ambience, before they finish off with the 8+ minute "Wonder/Daily Grind", the first half of which is a gorgeously lysergic dronescape of layered slow motion chords and thick psychedelic guitar smolder, it does eventually lurch into some lumbering chug and pound, but just as quickly it slips back into some minimal ambient buzz and drone.
Some seriously awesome heaviness.
Knut are an intense Swiss metalcore band from Switzerland that seem to have found the perfect home on Hydra Head, their sound having much in common with Isis, Old Man Gloom and the like. This is their newest e.p. and teaser for their upcoming full length.
The Outside is the second full length from this Hungarian black metal duo, who initially kick things off with some pretty fierce, but ultimately straight forward black buzz. It's a sound we seem to never tire of, so a wall of furious fast picked guitars, and furious blastbeats like this definitely still pushes all our BM buttons, but there's a lot more going on here than straight black buzz. In fact that opening salvo barely lasts two minutes before the sound splinters into a weird doomy crawl, with some sick, raspy vokills, before launching into a churning midtempo, almost post rocky sounding lope, fuzzed out bass, spare driving drumming, the guitars offering up little bits of melodic filigree here and there, but ultimately the band lock into some seriously tranced out mesmer, before finally returning to another stretch of epic buzzing blackness.
The rest of the record delivers a series of buzzing epics, heavy on the creeping atmosphere, the core still being a raw blasting black metal, but with much of the group's time spent locked into downtuned dirges, and doomy lumbers, the guitars spiraling into woozy tangled harmonies, clouds of chiming harmonics over the motorik rhythms, at times sounding like some blackened strain of hypnorock (check out "Drowning"), and when the the black metal does kick in, it's fierce and majestic, soaring and utterly epic, sometimes, though, the band drops out, and those tell tale buzzing guitars begin to build momentum, but then instead of bursting into blasting blackness, the drums emerge as a doomy slow-mo pound, creating a weird sort of blackbuzz/doomdirge hybrid. And so it goes, the sound shifting from blackened churn, to furious buzzing frenzy, from surprisingly minimal melodic blackened gloomrock (a la Khold), to raw black buzz and back again.
Super striking, black and white, digipak style packaging too.
Latest clutch of epic psychedelic doom heaviness from these Swedes, four sprawling tracks that shift easily from chugging, churning riffiness, to soaring, super melodic heaviness, the sound epic, the production massive, The roots of their sound obviously reach back to Neurosis and Isis, and beyond to classic old school doom, but with the clean vocal choruses, the majestic melodies, makes much of this have an almost Soundgarden / Alice In Chains vibe, which is not a bad thing at all, just means that for every sprawl of roiling, downtuned dirgery, there's some serious hookage and a chorus most non-doom bands would kill for. And sure, the vocals often slip into death metal growls and glass gargling rasps, on "Tamed Brute" in fact, the sound slows to a crushing creep, maybe the heaviest point on the record, the sort of tarpit sludge groove that we can't resist, but on the title track, there's lots more melody, even some cool stretches of cool loping post rock, with chiming melodies, tribal drumming, squalls of feedback, and again, those soaring vox, makes for something super psychedelic and sorta trance-y. And the main riff, while definitely doomy, is also a killer, especially when the two guitar harmonize, totally epic, and then when the stomp boxes are stomped, and the song proper kicks in, it's a crusher for sure.
The second half of the record finds the band doing more of that heavy/poppy mix and match, with some almost Agents Of Oblivion style slithery swagger, wedded to some seriously chugging doom, and more grinding chug. The last track is a slow burn, slow build epic, the first half all spaced out and ethereal, softly psychedelic, shuffling drums under spidery distorted melodies, and fuzzed out bass rumble, it's not until about halfway through that things kick off, and again, we're getting a huge AoO vibe, which we love! Surprisingly soulful and emotional doom-ed heaviness, that slips once again into some tripped out psych-doom drift, before building to a finale that's like a more doomy Godspeed, all swirling distorted shoegaze guitar, detuned metallic chug, tribal drum bombast, all gradually fading into a haze of gauze-y distortion, and blissed out psychedelic shimmer.
After a long absence, here's a new, third album from these former Napalm Records recording artists, the sometimes very weird Austrian black metal outfit Korva, now rechristened Korovakill. They've always been one of our favorites, playing unclassifiable epic metal with baroque keyboards and downright bizarre male and female vocals (too silly for some, it must be said) that on their first album even reminded us of the Sun City Girls! The album after that dabbled in electronica, ending up even stranger than some of Arcturus' experiments, but with this disc they rely on more standard, blasting black metal techniques, making for probably their most "accessible" release, but definitely still one for fans of the weird in black metal, along the lines of the aforementioned Arcturus, Borknagar, Enslaved, etc. We haven't had this disc long enough to fully comprehend the watery concept at play here, but "Waterhells" seems to refer to a mythology of the sea that ties together the songs (interesting subject matter for a band from the Alps).
The first appearance on the aQ list by these Texas based guitarnoise terrorists, was a recent collaboration with Irish doomdronedirge outfit To Blacken The Pages, but this is the first proper record of theirs we've managed to get enough of to list. And it's a doozy.
Previously a one man band, and previously more of an oozing blacknoise Skullflower psychguitar buzz drone dirge freakout-fit, the band has expanded to a duo (unless the new member is just the drum machine), either way, the sound has definitely shifted gears, less abstract, less noisy, and more industrial, with proper songs; a lurching, lumbering, downtuned chunk of miserable abject slo-mo heaviness. The programmed beats minimal and robotic, the guitars murky and crusty, the vocals a super reverbed and heavily effected demonic croak, the songs, creeping and crawling, haunting and harrowing, shades of the Swans, Godflesh of course, the label compare their sound to Loop crossed with Abruptum, and we can definitely here that in places.
The sound is way less caustic than in the past, and more psychedelic and hypnotic, "Ouroboros: First Lesson", for all its croaked vocals and grim guitar buzz, locks into a looped mesmer and gets downright psychedelic, like Spacemen 3 covered by some basement black metal band, it's pretty bad ass. And a bunch of the tracks follow a similar path, building to a lurching groove and then getting all spaced out hypnorock. Then there's tracks like "The City Of Lost Girls", that are downright pretty, the guitars smoldering, laced with piano, mournful and melancholy, drifty and droney and dreamlike. And even in the harsher jams, hidden amidst all that crunch and pound and howl are strange melodies, unlikely hooks, gorgeous textures, all woven into a dense industrial tinged, blackened psychedelia, that will most likely have lots of you scrambling for all those Korperschwache releases you missed.
Includes a link for a download to a companion record, featuring early/alternate versions and a handful of unreleased tracks.
Kosmos is the new group from Michel Langevin (aka Voivod's drummer Away!) deeply inspired by '70s instrumental space prog and vintage sci-fi movies. For the most part it's a cleanly executed journey, but occasionally treads along -- but never into -- the aggressive, thrashy outer limits of Voivod. Even then, Kosmos' wild guitar and keyboard acrobatics maintain a defined trajectory. Kosmos are at their best when exploring cosmic (natch), cermonial-sounding, krautrock-inspired instrumental vistas... they even do a track called "Krautrock" (no, not a cover of the Faust song). That stuff should appeal to fans of Zombi, ferinstance. Unfortunately there's a few less successful tracks marred by vocals, the band rockin' out for fans of some less hip prog styles of the past... groovy, grungey prog Quebecois isn't totally our thing. So you might hit 'skip' on a track or two, but this definitely has its moments.
Full length number two from these SF heavies, and while they haven't sacrificed any of their Teutonic crush, or noise rock heft, they do display a surprisingly melodic side on Container Ships, a soft white sonic underbelly that was hinted at on their recent split 7" with Thou, on which they covered a Low track, and it feels like much of the sensibilities that not only drove that choice, but determined what they did with it as well, are all over Container Ships. And while nothing here is quite as darkly delicate, the band do definitely dial back the heaviness, letting the sounds linger, letting clean guitars spread out and set the mood, and when the hammer does fall, the sound this time around is much more crisp and lush, even when the guitars are downtuned, churning and chugging, they ring out, the sounds reverberant and rich. The debt to the Unsane and Helmet no longer so obvious, at least not all the time. On the opener, which might be the prettiest song here, the band offer up their own sort of slowcore minimal math rock / noise rock sprawl, subtly nuanced, and super melodic, another big change on display here is frontman Scott Evans' vocals, which have transformed from a gruff bark, to a serious croon, still rough around the edges, but way more emotive and the perfect match for the band's ever developing sound.
But fear not, get an earful of the second track, "50's Dad", which is all loping, chugging noise rock crush, Evan's vocals higher than on past record, which definitely changes the vibe throughout, and makes even the heaviest tracks here, less of a knuckledragging vibe, and more of an emo edge, which again totally suits them, especially when the band lock into a weird loping groove, and Evans sings himself ragged, his voice rough and raw and impassioned. Not to mention the burst of tangled psychedelic guitar leads that are wrapped around the middle of the track.
The guys have been busting their asses for years now, and we always sort of wondered why they weren't huge, but goddamn if this record doesn't change all that nothing will.
The whole record is a sort of push and pull between the muscled mathy noise rock of the early records, and this desire to make beautiful music, even if it's dark, mean, ugly, hard and heavy beautiful music, which this most certainly is, and it's that balance that makes this record, and these guys so good. The title track here is a dirgey doomy drag, the chords ringing out, the vocals carrying all the melodic weight, and transforming a dirgey chugfest into something epic and intense, the song revealing a grasp and mastery of dynamics that was most definitely underutilized on past records, but gets a serious workout here.
"Cornerstone" is about as poppy as these guys get, and again, they not only mange to pull it off, they also make it this hook heavy noise-pop fit seamlessly into the way heavier rest of the record, not to mention demonstrating another element the band have in their arsenal but obviously choose to employ very judiciously. The record finishes off with the 9 minute epic "You Don't Have Cancer", which again reveals their slowcore proclivities, and demonstrates their ability to subsume that sound into their own, the resulting hybrid another sprawling, gut wrenchingly emotional, crushingly heavy, surprisingly melodic epic, that would, and does, put most other heavy bands to shame.
More and more every day we miss that brief period in the nineties when rock music was heavy, and noisy, and LOUD. Not necessarily metal, although to some ears it probably sounded like metal. It was more about BIG riffs, lumbering tempos, huge pounding drums, throat shredding vox. Think: Unsane, Halo Of Flies, Today Is The Day, Tad, Killdozer, Tar, Helmet, Lubricated Goat, Karp, Unwound, we could go on and on, but you understand what we're talking about.
There are very few modern bands who can channel the same sort of sonic energy without being retro, and typically, the heavier they are, the more they get lumped in with some metal subsect. But goddamn if there doesn't seem to be a bit of a modern noise rock scene brewing, bands popping up here and there, pushing all those noise rock buttons, and totally hitting the spot.
Which brings us to local boys Kowloon Walled City, whose recent Turk Street ep knocked us on our asses with it's noise rock / doom sludge hybrid. Weirdly enough, with this here debut full length, Gambling On The Richter Scale, the band somehow sound WAY heavier, but at the same time way less metal. Tapping into the rich noise rock history, and creating a disc that's both intense and punishing, melodic and heavy, and yeah, still a bit metallic here and there..
Opener "Annandale" is a churning hook filled noise rock jam, with big guitars, some killer melodies, harsh vox, wild dense drumming, some awesomely soaring high guitar parts, as well as the occasional burst of super melodic almost indie rock, before lurching back into the chug and crush. The sound definitely veers closer to a band like Torche or Floor than Neurosis or Eyehategod.
The second track though totally reminds us of the Unsane, with its roiling distorted bass, looped churning riffage, and weirdly mathy arrangement, some cool dynamics and some stop / starts that definitely had us in math rock heaven. But even here, the band inject some clean guitars, and some downright pretty melody before getting all aggro again.
It's a pretty relentless record, but thankfully KWC mix it up, changing up tempos, letting the drums breath here and there, giving riffs space to ring out and decay once in a while, stretching out into spaced out slowmo ambient drifts, pulling tracks apart into almost groovy sounding doomy dirges, slipping in plenty of subtle pop, heavy hooks galore. The title track is a monster, beginning with some clean guitar strum, minor key and tense, before lurching into a fierce chugging plod, with some Maideny guitar harmonies, plenty of palm muted guitar throb, an impossibly heavy downtuned chorus, and subtle melody mixed in throughout.
The record finishes off with the 6+ minute "More Like The Shit Factory", a sprawling slowjam, the guitars droning out in long streaks, peppered with bursts of downtuned crunch, the drums never really kicking in, the guitars all intertwined and layered, beating against each other, a cloud of swirling overtones, while the vocals howl, the drums sporadically pound, eventually everything dropping out entirely, leaving just a blown out psychedelic dual guitar drone, which crumbles and gradually fades out over the last minute, although. we'd have been perfectly happy had they let those guitars drone endlessly and fill up the rest of the record. Next time maybe.
So yeah, if you're in the market for some heavy, catchy as fuck, NOISE ROCK, okay, maybe call it metal, then Gambling On The Richter Scale is IT, and by the sounds of this record, they probably destroy live. On that same label that that brought us Catalyst, another bad ass noise rock band well worth checking out.
Packaged in full color gloss varnished jackets, pressed on colored vinyl (either clear, or black/silver haze), comes with a cd version of the record (it's an actual cd not a cd-r) housed in a separate hand screened sleeve. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
Pretty much every metalhead in SF went to see Carcass at the Grand Ballroom the other night (in fact, we were joking that a well placed incendiary device could have wiped out the entire scene in one fell swoop). And yeah, of course Carcass destroyed, but the very same night, all the way across town, a band called Kowloon Walled City were faced with the daunting task of laying waste to a room not exactly full of the few metalheads who for whatever reason were not at the Carcass show.
And listening to this, the debut release from this SF foursome, we'd be hard pressed to say that the folks at Carcass, ourselves included, didn't miss out on something serious. Thankfully, unlike Carcass, KWC are a going concern, so we'll get another chance, but until then, get a load of this five song ep, of fierce, furious, crushing heaviness. Think Unsane, old Helmet, the Melvins, Buzzov-en, Neurosis of course, this is some seriously heavy shit. The guitars massive and downtuned, a relentless sea of roiling chug and churn, the drums dense and pounding, the vocals a throat shredding howl. The AmRep vibe is all over these songs, the sound incredibly thick and corrosive, the rhythms alternatingly pounding and lurching, most often settling into a lumbering almost-groove, the melodies buried amidst the crunch and rumble, sometimes surfacing as the band slips into something more dynamic, letting the guitars moan and keen, the drums getting all spacious, sheets of Eyehategod style feedback, a weirdly doomy sort of abstract sludge, before slipping back into a furious grinding metallic crush. Pretty fucking excellent, and definitely has us looking forward to finally seeing what we missed that fateful night.
The vinyl is limited to 300 copies, and is pressed on cool swirled red and black vinyl. The cd-r is limited to 100 copies, packaged in super nice, silkscreened cardstock style sleeves with a printed insert, each one hand numbered.
Killer 3 way vinyl split of extreme heaviness, starting off with SF's own Kowloon Walled City, who by now really have to be one of the best and one of the most criminally under-hyped heavy bands in the city, super brutal and intense, their sound dense and crushing and epic, equal parts modern metal and old school AmRep style noise rock, a hybrid few can pull off as well as these guys, yet outside of a select few, it seems these guys have yet to be discovered by the world at large, but with every record, it seems like they can't remain a secret much longer.
And here they bring the noise (rock) big time, their first track a lurching stop/start mini-epic, the guitars corrosive and downtuned and THICK, driven by some seriously kick ass thumping drum damage, the vocals a frenzied (but still melodic) yowl, the arrangement strange and super dynamic, the whole thing hooky as hell, one of those tracks that had it come out in 1997 as a single it would probably be one of your most treasured 7"s. Their second track is totally different, reigning in that wanton bash and crush for something a bit more low slung and brooding, a weird sort of Neurosis / Killing Joke hybrid, super melodic, dark and moody, but with no shortage of extreme sonic crush.
We had never heard (or heard of) Ladder Devils before, but they're a pretty good match for KWC, they too have a sort of noise rock thing going on, their take a bit more punky and grungy, still hyper rhythmic and heavy as fuck, but way more loose, some awesomely howled vocals, thick syrupy low end, chugging guitars, hooky riffs, both tracks rule, even recorded evoking wild and sweaty live cub destroying chaos. Definitely psyched to hear more.
And finally Jersey metallic post rock sludgelords Fight Amp, who are only now making their first appearance on the aQ site, even though a few of us have been fans for a while. Fight Amp have a sound not all that far removed from folks like Baroness, Kylesa and the like, a sort of Southern sludge via slow brooding Neur-Isis style heaviness, and their two tracks here offer up a seriously heavy heaping helping of just that, churning and thick and epic, a little groovy, WAY downtuned, a little mathy and proggy too, giving it a sort of Voivod feel, albeit quite a bit more crusty and sludgey, but it's a pretty killer combo, and again, a pretty perfect match for both Ladder Devils and Kowloon Walled City...
Killer packaging too, a thick PVC style jacket, hand silkscreened, housing a printed folded sleeve, the back half of the sleeve cut away to reveal the clear vinyl and the printed images beneath it. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!
What more do you need to know, than this is two of our favorite heavy bands, doing killer (and WAY unlikely) covers, on by Low, and one by Soundgarden? OK, how about the fact that this was a super limited installment of a subscription only series, really the only way to get your hands on one of these was to subscribe, unless, the guys in KWC offered us a little handful of their copies, the LAST copies in fact, so you should know what that means by now, grab one before they disappear.
KWC tackles Low's "July", and besides cranking up the guitars, and adding some downtuned crunch, stay pretty true to the original, and wisely got a guest vocalist, Lisa Papineau, who we had never heard of before, but who has sung for Air, M83, Farflung and others, but who is the perfect fit, here vocals emotional and powerful, darkly tinged, one of those rare, practically perfect covers, where the cover manages to be as good as the original, different enough to be interesting, but faithful enough to make not singing along impossible.
Thou take on Soundgarden's "4th Of July", and like KWC, stay sort of faithful to the original, and like with the KWC track, via the vocals. In place of Thou's usual throat shredding shrieks, the band unveil some seriously powerful crooning, a kick ass voice that definitely has us wondering what these guys would be capable of if they chose to go in that direction. But fear not, not only is the main riff an oozing, downtuned creep, but after that first verse, the more recognizable Thou vocals come in, but instead of replacing the clean vox, they team up, for a really bizarre duet, and some twisted not-quite harmonies, the song itself, unfurling as a lumbering, surprisingly still super melodic, dirge doom monster.
Rare that we dig both sides of a split this much, but both these tracks totally KILL. And again, super limited, we have about 15 copies, these are the last ones we'll be able to get. Not sure you can even still sign up for the subscription series, so probably better to get one now, before you're kicking yourself later. Insanely gorgeous cover art / design as well!
Czech death metal vets Krabathor's new disc continues their brutal career, never letting up on the heaviness or the crazy Morbid Angel-ish guitar solos. They've drafted American death icon Paul Speckman (ex-Master) into their ranks, but that thankfully did
Nice. Black Metal supergroup Krallice return with record #2, and much like the first self-titled album, Dimensional Bleedthrough is full of nonstop, dizzying musical virtuosity that will send your jaw dropping to the floor. This stuff sounds IMPOSSIBLE to play, which for most mortals, it would be. But Krallice count among its ranks avant indie-metal guitar gods Mick Barr (Crom Tech, Orthelm, Ocrilim, etc.) and Colin Marston (known usually for his bass duties in groups like Dysrhytmia and Behold the Arctopus), as well as the hot-shit drumming skills of Lev Weinstein and the burly basslines of Nick McMaster. It's cool to hear what many people would have written off as a side project really take off into new territory where the music is allowed to shine through instead of hiding behind a facade of what black metal should be. In the end, Krallice effortlessly lay waste to so much of the black metal out there these days. The complexity of these songs is pretty unbelievable, but luckily things remain very musical throughout. The songs are forceful but super melodic and catchy, and listening to Krallice is like taking off on a mind altering journey. The vocals here are great and classically black metal, and anyone familiar with Barr's high pitched shrieking days in Crom Tech might be a bit surprised to hear him passing the test with flying colors. Soundwise, Krallice adhere to the template perfected by groups like Weakling and Wolves In The Throne Room, but they definitely put their own unique spin on things. Things get a bit proggy here and there, but not in a bad or dorky way at all. This is really the sound of dudes who know their way around their instruments like few others, and they have combined their talents to deliver hands down one of the most impressive metal records this year.
NOTE: We're listing this at a special sale price of $11.98 for the next two weeks only, after which it'll go back to the regular $13.98 list price.
Thee latest blast of confusional sonic chaos from this sort-of black metal supergroup, featuring avant outsider axeman Mick Barr (Orthrelm, Ocrilim, etc.) and bass shredder Colin Marsten (Behold The Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, etc.) is Krallice album number three, the follow up to the awesomely titled Dimensional Bleedthrough, and it's pretty much another opus of epic, soaring and majestic, yet convoluted and confusional black metal as only these guys can play it. There are moments, where you might, MIGHT think this could be some other black metal band, but those moments pass, and before long, when the band lock into their blazing blasting fury. As with the other records, the real surprise is how melodic Krallice can be, judging from the pedigree, one might be forgiven for assuming this would be incredibly difficult, and it is, in some ways, but it's also weirdly catchy, a pretty good mix of classic black metalisms, and the player's obtuse and obviously idiosyncratic take on the genre. The sound this time around actually seems a lot cleaner, and arrangements a bit more straight ahead, and the melodies much more pronounced, and it definitely suits them, but just when we begin to think that, the song we're listening to will fracture into some impossible tangle, or some super tripped out sort-of guitar lead, before slipping right back into more soaring buzzing melodic black metal. Which is just fine with us. Be sure to check out the epic 15 minute closer "Forgiveness In Rot", which is maybe the most melodic thing they've done, with some impossible hooks, and some subtle poppiness, all woven into the buzzing and blasting, almost like Krallice channeling Alcest AND some sort of epic post rock!
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That pesky 'dimensional bleedthrough' thing has happened once again, with the buzzing, super-teched out sounds of whatever weird astral plane wherein Krallice dwell making it all the way to our humble ears here on Earth, causing much headbanging and more mindboggling. Yes, indeed it's the fourth album of epick black metal shreddness from this NYC unit, which features the inhuman guitar chops of both Mick Barr (Orthrelm, Octis, Ocrilim, Oldest, Crom-Tech, etc.) and Colin Marston (Dysrhythmia, Behold�The Arctopus, Infidel?/Castro!, etc.).
Once again, if you want blasting majesty and grim complexity� you got it!! Just press play and give yourself up to the numbing force of these intense exercises in extremity, an hour's worth of Krallice's controlling chaos.
All we can say is, for this precise (and it is precise) style of black metal - music that's as difficult to play as most black metal logos are to read - at this point Krallice have nothing left to prove. And very little competition.
We've currently got the digipack cd version, self-released by the band this time rather than on Profound Lore like the three previous (on account of how PL's release schedule was a bit backed up), with the double vinyl version on Gilead Media on the way to us next week.
It has come to this. Just as we somehow suspected. And desired. Underground guitar maestro Mick Barr, he of such monomaniacal hypershred mosquito-like guitar and drums (or drum machine) bands as Orthrelm, Octis, and Ocrilm, has finally unleashed the bona fide black metal album that we always knew he probably wanted to do. And should do. After all, in our review of the last Ocrilm album Annwn released earlier this year on Hydra Head, we'd said that not only did Barr's guitar buzz remind us of black metal music, but that if it were a black metal album it would be one of the best (and most fucked up, too) of the year.
So, now Barr and equally tech-y cohorts guitarist/bassist Colin Marston (that's right, of mathy mindbogglers Behold...The Arctopus!) and drummer Lev Weinstein (Bloody Panda) have started the utterly blackened Krallice, releasing their self-titled debut on the respected Profound Lore label. And the rest of the USBM scene should take notice, these guys mean business. Sure, anybody with a MySpace page can have a black metal band, make a cool unreadable, thorny logo (like Krallice's) and come up with song titles like "Wretched Wisdom", "Timehusk", "Energy Chasms", and "Forgiveness In Rot" (as Krallice have done) but probably not that many can actually back up all those black metal signifiers so seriously with their MUSIC, music of such sheer power and perfection that we find here. Wintry winds are blowing here (i.e. it's not hot air), as majestic melodies ride the crests of tsunami-sized waves of distorted, buzzing guitar. The six mesmerizingly lengthy tracks found on this Krallice disc are quite technically complex, and buzzingly relentless, much as you'd expect from Barr and Co. It's a blasting blizzard, with raging vokills and hyperspeed drumming but most importantly, shreddingly gorgeous guitar leads, densely woven, that build and build always to new forbidden plateaus of melancholic, misanthropic triumph. Imagine maybe the epick grimnity of Weakling or Wolves In The Throne Room, already badass in the guitar department, with an extra dosage of divebombing fretboard squiggle, interstellar energies continually released in the form of six string shred... yes, Krallice certainly "bring it" as it were, and should appeal to both fans of Barr's previous quasi-metallic, mathy mindfucks as well as those looking for quality USBM, advanced structures or not. (Although, in regards to neo-classical shred, they haven't quite unthroned the true Yngwie's of USBM, the late lamented Windham Hell.)
Final black and bleak missive from metal misanthrope Imperial and his black metal horde Krieg. Practically an institution, Krieg spew a particularly hateful and depressive strain of black metal, falling somewhere between the old school (Judas Isacriot) and the new school (Xasthur) of US black metal. A buzzing chaotic blur, mostly plodding midtempos, guitars a droning hypnotic whir, the drums a splattery framework way down in the murky swirl, the vocals squirming tentacles of howl and shriek, tangled amidst the buzzing riffs and the careening rhythms. Not nearly as harsh as past efforts, this final album is downright melodic at times, some classic sounding thrash riffs surface here and there, huge expanses of droning doom metal share the spotlight with the grim black thrash, the melodies minor key and truly sorrowful sounding, some tracks trail off into ambient stretches of white noise guitar, sounding a bit like Total or Hototogisu here and there. Blue Miasma is hate fueled and harrowing, harsh but weirdly mournful and melancholy, even the ultra fast parts end up sort of blissing out into droning doomy miserablism. Fucking Awesome.
Word of warning, Krieg and Imperial have been know to espouse truly abhorrent views, political, racial and otherwise, sort of comes with the black metal territory a lot of the time. It's a personal choice, whether you can enjoy the music and ignore the politics of its creator. You have been warned.
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This is about as raw as black metal can get. Overblown, superdistorted, chaotic, thrashing buzzing brutality. Vocals so loud that at their peak they overload the speakers, and begin to crumble, pushing all the other sounds out of the way. Very creepy and disconcerting. This is supposedly the last Krieg record ever, and what a way to go. An homage to Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, and the Patrick Bateman that lives in all of us, bloodlust, greed, selfishness and violence. Two dense tracks of head splitting ultraviolence, one which splinters into a creepy militaristic march, with heavily reverbed drums, and the most anguished howls of fury imaginable. The other three tracks are samples taken from the movie of American Psycho, which seems to be Krieg's perfect filmic muse.
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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We're so used to seeing Scandanavian black metal records with photos of forests, and fjords, and burning churches, and Viking ships, or corpse painted guys lurking in the dark with torches, or huddled over a fire. All the things that are part and parcel of the Nordic pride / black metal package. So what would be the image or images one would associate with American Black metal? Until now it's been mostly ghastly gory paintings or European woodcuts depicting demons or some borrowed Nordic imagery. But the new Krieg album, The Black House, perfectly encapsulates the darkness and depression of American black metal with a stark black and white cover image of a dilapitated house beside a leafless tree under a dark and forboding sky. You see thousands of houses like this all over the United States, but every one of those houses represents some sort of misery or depression of tragedy. Which is what black metal is all about. And what Krieg has been all about for the past nine years. Along with this perfect image comes what is probably the best Krieg album yet. A suffocatingly dark and depressive masterpiece. From crushing midtempo dirges to buzzing melancholy waltzes to crushing nightmarish blasts of frosty black metal, to a surprising cover of the Velvet Underground's "Venus In Furs", handled quite deftly, keeping the original's droning hypnotic jangle, but adding more darkness and despair through extra ambient sounds and unholy demonic vocals. The result is surprisingly effective and emotionally charged and adds a some surprising depth to Krieg's already ultra personal and truly grim black metal onslaught. NB although the album doesn't have any overt Nazi-ish stuff on it, you might want to look for the used if you're worried about the political views of your black metal purchases...
Krieg are like a USBM institution. Going on 15 years now, with an insane number of lineups, and close to 30 releases, yet they somehow remain so much more underground than their USBM brethren, Krieg are indeed, truly KVLT. Krieg mainman Imperial's public persona definitely got a bump recently with his involvement in the black metal supergroup Twilight, and some of that band's experimentalism has definitely bled into Krieg, a little, and the new line up reflects that, with Leviathan's Wrest on bass and Woe's Chris Grigg on drums, not to mention Sanford Parker of Minsk (among others) on "grinding synthetic nausea. With that sort of roster, you might in fact be expecting some tripped out psychedelic blackness, or some sort of droned out grim blacknoize, but Krieg remain TROO and offer up some seriously grim and buzzy blackness, furious blast beats, howling hellish vokills, and some dense gnarled riffage, the sound grimy and gritty and filthy, the way true black metal was meant to sound.
Sure there are moments that deviate a bit from the black path, "All Paths To God" is practically poppy, a moody and melancholy dirge with a surprising hook, there's the tripped out spaciness of "Depakote", and the blown out glitchy staticky dronefield that finishes off "And The Stars Fell on" as well as a couple shorter tracks that ditch the buzz and blast altogether, offering up instead stretches of moody melancholic meander, and the last track blasts wildly until it seems to slow down, melting into a droning black morass, but for the most part this is Black. Metal. Heavy on the black. And heavy on the metal. Dense, and dark, black and buzzing, ominous and sinister, harsh and hateful, brutal, grim and fucking awesome.
Super limited (500!) picture disc reissue of these two slabs of black brutality. One side features Bael, who spew forth an ugly, super blown out, ultra distorted black thrash, furious and so fast it often slips into a black blur (reminds us a bit of Diamatregon). Super lo-fi and recorded way too hot (in a good way), all the levels in the red, you can practically feel the evil seeping through the speakers. Originally released in 2003, features a bonus track with Imperial from Kreig on vocals! The flipside features the mighty Krieg, and it's a vinyl reissue of The Church mini cd from way back in 2001. Mega murky and also extremely lo-fi, but where Bael are blasting and blinding, Kreig are muddy and murky and mournful. Plodding midtempo depressive black metal, blasting drums over fuzzed out riffs, hateful and harsh. Also includes an exclusive bonus track, a cover of Earth's "Charioteer" which is awesome. Clean guitars picking out a majestic melody, a spare melodic dirge, meditative and hypnotic, with creepy snatches of conversation mixed in, not heavy as in huge guitars and pounding drums, but heavy like ominous and subtly dark. Cool. Weird that Nachtmystium covered the same Earth track as a bonus track on a recent cd. Hmm....
Black and white picture disc, one side is a blurry washed out photo of some ruins or old church, the other side features a creepy diseased hand.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
Look out, it's the fifth album from Brazil's most deadly death metal band (you know 'em, you love 'em). Rollercoaster, lightspeed guitars and drums (mixed a little too loud, unfortunately) in the service of Satan!
Another blast from these Brazilian death metal lunatics!!
The Brazilian death metal maniacs are back. Not exactly with a new full-length album though...this is more of a mini-album's worth of new tracks, but additionally stacked with some out of print early stuff. There's eight over-the-top tracks from 2004, plus four raw rarities from the band's Unmerciful Order ep of 1993. Makes a nice package for Krisiun fans, eh? As with all their recordings, this is a hyper-speed roar-de-force that should conjure visions of machine guns firing full-auto and shark feeding frenzies and moshpits named Yngwie. Between the 1993 and 2004 material the biggest difference is the latter's improved production. And we also love the droneily ambient outro track, which proves that they don't *always* sound like Morbid Angel on 45.
Is it making fun of poor English skills to note that it says here "All recording here are 100% analogous"? That's great news for reviewers like me, who'd like to drawn an analogy between these Krisiun tracks and...uh...well let's say that Krisiun is to regular death metal what Michael Jackson is to ordinary eccentric millionaires. No, no, no, I'm not saying that Krisiun are pedophiles, just that they're really...extreme.
