Seems like rumors regarding the end of Leviathan were greatly exaggerated. Not only is Leviathan still a going concern, but then out of nowhere pops this brand new, bad ass split, with a Greek band called Achernotas, who we knew by name but had never heard until now.
Needless to say, most aQ metalheads won't need much more prodding than the words "new Leviathan record", then there's the fact that the cd AND vinyl version of this split are both insanely limited, which means once we sell out of these, odds are we won't be able to get more, which is a huge bummer, because not only are the Leviathan tracks awesome (obviously), but we're pretty psyched on Acherontas as well.
The Leviathan tracks sound like maybe they're a bit older, perhaps before the shift from electronic drums to acoustic drums, the sound is murky, but still gnarled and chaotic and dense, the arrangements furious and frenzied, the drumming insane, and that unmistakable demonic croak. Lots of glitch and buzz, tangled atonal melodies, a heaving wall of blackened chaos, but it is Leviathan, so there's plenty of dark brooding ambience, some classic metal sounding chug, some spaced out almost doomy sounding blackness, the sound here falls somewhere right between classic Leviathan and the more twisted sonic soundscapes of Lurker Of Chalice.
The Acherontas tracks start off with haunting reverb drenched piano, creating a creepy otherworldly vibe, before the band launches into some super grim sounding black pound, the drums simple but intense, the guitars super distorted, the riffs woozy and minor key, the sound slipping easily from loping Burzumic plod, to proggy almost folky swirl, with clean guitars and strangely complex drumming, smothered in ethereal effects, the vocals especially harsh, dripping with demonic intensity, then suddenly transforming into deep haunting croon, the guitars following suit, growing more and more melodic and lovely, still all wrapped in a haze of distorted buzz, eventually fading out in a blur of minor key miserablism. Really awesome stuff. Definitely need to hear more from these guys.
But for now, if you do want one of these, cd OR lp, act fast, these have been selling like crazy and we're down to about half of what we started with. The cds come in a nice digipak (although be warned, some of the edges are a little worn in shipping, nothing we can do about it, these are probably all we're gonna get), and the lp is a super striking pictured disc, that comes in a heavy sleeve with a printed 12" x 12" insert.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This week's AQ-list has got the goods for Hawkwind fans all right - not only do we have that Harvestman / Minsk / U.S. Christmas disc of Hawkwind covers, but we're also highlighting the latest from Litmus, the Head Heritage and Rise Above approved British band who are basically a more-metallic Hawkwind for the current millennium. We doubt they'd deny it. Taking off (in rocket ships, of course) from where their countrymen left off (not that Hawkwind ever actually did leave off, we're pretty sure that venerable institution is still at it in some incarnation or other, but you know what we mean), Litmus do the space rock thing with an abundance of youthful energy and verve, rocking hard and spacing out in the best spirit of vintage '70s Hawkwind, to the over-the-top utmost really. Not only are the riffs big and heavy, not only are the rhythms propulsive and ecstatic, not only is everything infused with all the electronic sci-fi whooshings, bloops and blips, zips and zaps, etc. that you'd expect, but most crucially they also possess the POP element that Hawkwind also had, something that often gets overlooked by a lot of the other current bands who cite Hawkwind as an influence. These songs are damn hooky and melodic, destined to lodge in your skull, and not just due to the use of mantra-like repetition, which of course is also a Hawkwind derived feature too. Bands like White Hills and Cave share some of these tendencies, but none are more Hawkwindlike than Litmus!
We loved their 2007 Rise Above debut Planetfall, and this follow-up pushes all the same buttons, providing another excellent, epic hour of heavy duty space-prog bliss, complete with soaring vocal uplift, loads of searing synth, and ripping guitar leads. These lads are so pro, and aglow.
Needless to say, for fans of Hawkwind. Also other old, bold, cosmic prog. And more modern stoner(henge) metal. Thus for fans of labelmates Astra, too. Man, we'd love to see 'em live...
We're pretty sure that the guys in England's Litmus, a new space rock / stoner metal outfit on Lee Dorrian of Cathedral's Rise Above records (home to Electric Wizard and Witchcraft among others), won't mind us -- and everybody else who reviews this -- saying that, basically, Litmus is a more modern, much more metal, version of Hawkwind. If you're at all familiar with the peculiar genius of that British prog/psych institution, particularly their early '70s classics like Hall Of The Mountain Grill and Space Ritual, you'll hear the Hawkwind just as soon as you start spinning Litmus' debut album Planetfall. And that's no bad thing. In fact, we're all for it. This is awesome!
Litmus kick out an absurd, energetic overload of outer space anthems, mixing headbanging riffage that Lemmy would love with a mad scientist's laboratory's worth of sci-fi bleeps and swooshes, on songs with titles like "Destroy The Mothership" and "Expanding Universe (Twinstar Pt.2)". The album's centerpiece is the 15 minute fourth track, "Under The Sign", a triumphant and impetuous epic full of heavy heads-down chuggery and soaring refrains. Among the five psychic space warriors in the band, there's one guy credited with playing these three things: "Mellotron, synthesizers, and gong". So prog! As are the contents of the cd booklet: pages of lyrics (we assume) inscribed in some sort of alien glyphs or ancient runes or something. We also appreciate that the "space noises" with which this disc is abundantly and enthusiastically littered are mixed pretty much higher than just about anything else. It really makes it sound like Litmus are rocking out from within some sort of cosmic storm of chaotic radiation. Where else are you gonna hear the howling Hawkwind blowing with such gusto? We doubt that the actual Hawkwind, in whatever incarnation they currently exist, could match this. Only maybe Acid Mothers Temple comes close, but they aren't metallized OR poppy enough to be exact competition for what Litmus is doing here. Voivod circa "Outer Limits" and old Pink Floyd are also orbiting in proximity to Litmus, with the likes of Tarantula Hawk and Morkobot somewhere in nearby space.
All 72 minutes of Planetfall are utterly black-hole dense with bombastic, hooky, Hawkwindy space metal gloriousness. Even if you haven't ever heard Hawkwind, this is recommended (but of course then you should check 'em out too)!
What is it about this band that inspires such controversy? Sure, any band of short haired hipsters that decides to play black metal is bound to get some heat from the true grim hordes, but with Liturgy it's off the charts. Could be frontman Hunter Hunt-Hendrix's diatribes on the intellectual roots of his band and music, maybe that combined with his pretty boy looks and his valley girl like diction - but hey it's all about the music, and as far as we're concerned Liturgy have definitely taken black metal and twisted it all up and made it their own. Sure we love the true grim classics, corpsepaint and raw primitive buzz, blasting necro metal, we do, and we maybe always will, but we gave up long ago on the whole 'troo' thing. If being true means only listening to one kind of music, and even then, only made by a certain approved sect of musicians, who would want that. It's a discussion that could go on for ages, and does on pretty much every metal messageboard on the web, but if you're reading this, odds are you're like us, you like cool, weird, GOOD music, and you don't care if someone thinks the music you love is 'true' or 'pure' or whatever, and odds are you don't just like black metal.
Which we think is probably a prerequisite for liking Liturgy. Because while this is most definitely black metal, all of HHH's intellectual posturing, just might not be posturing after all, cuz this stuff is WEIRD. FUCKED UP. SUPER COMPLEX. Minimal, but somehow totally maximal too. The black metal tropes are present and accounted for, super fast picking, soaring minor key melodies, insectoid buzz, frantic blast beats, howled vox, but, the arrangements, the song structure, even the sound, is far removed from Burzum and Immortal and Satyricon and Mayhem and all the rest. In the past, we've described Liturgy as sounding like a black metal Arvo Part, and that definitely still applies, it's as if these guys filter their BM through Part and Feldman and some sort of modern minimalism. The songs are rife with drones, and intricate harmonies, the rhythms complicated and convoluted, the buzz often wound up into soaring sheets of high end frenzy, the drums locked tight with the guitars, the songs often, a series of short phrases repeated over and over, very minimal and mesmerizing.
Opener "High Gold" is the perfect example, with it's soaring majestic black metallisms, arranged into seemingly brief blasts, lush high end swells, a sort of psychedelic ur-drone rendered in blasts and buzz. "True Will" is slightly more traditionally black metal, but even here, the band lock into these impossibly dense drones, where all the instruments lock onto a single high note and hold it, and keep holding it, creating so much tension, before splintering back into something more traditionally buzzy, but only slightly. The sound is ALL high end, all upper register, brittle and soaring. There did seem to be one other element in play, but on we couldn't put our finger on until
"Generation" which finds the band loosing a serious math rock onslaught, super technical, totally repetitive, the guitars churning, locking tight into these gnarled bits of crunch and chug, the drums mathy and meticulous, it's like these guys took 2 or 3 of their favorite riffs from Don Caballero songs and composed a super heavy, super minimal, almost looped sounding in places, math rock epic. It's so good. And you can hear the other element that finds it's way into the more black metal jams on the record, AND you can also observe the band's unique compositional strategy more easily in the math rock context, so when the next track begins, it's a killer mix of blasting soaring blackness, and gnarled mathiness, AND of course modern minimalism.
So yeah, the true grim corpsepainted hordes should definitely avoid this, they wouldn't enjoy it, or even get it, anyway, but for everyone else, this is some epic, majestic, and yeah, transcendental, math infused minimal black metal majesty of the highest order.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
These guys sent us an lp a long while back, and somehow we totally slept on it. Not sure why, a 12" x 12" image of a cloudy sky, the sun glinting in the background, and the words "PURE TRANSCENDENTAL BLACK METAL" writ large in big black records across the front, and inside, just what the cover promised some seriously buzzing blazing blackness. It's not surprising these guys found there way to 20 Buck Spin, a pretty good fit for sure for this NY horde.
Unlike the blissed out blackened ethereal transcendentalism of the lp, back when Liturgy was a one man bedroom black metal band, Renihilation finds Liturgy expanded to a 4 piece, and the sound is much more raw and organic, still blown out and pretty blissy, goddamn soaring and epic in fact, but it sounds more like a proper rock band, although the drumming is still inhumanly fast, and the band lock into these cool, weird, and very un-black metal sounding high end trills, that only make the sound that much more mysterious and mystical. The band claim some unlikely non-metal influences, but as you get into Renihilation, it's easy to hear that there's way more going on here than Ulver or Darkthrone worship, the band slipping into lurching, almost mathy breakdowns, incredible dynamics, that almost sounds like Harvey Milk at 78rpm, the sort of stop start, sway and lumber, that only works if the band is tight as fuck.
These songs are not super long either, but they feel majestic, and sprawling, and never ending, in a good way, the guitars are frantic, the drumming relentless, the guitars seem to exist only in the upper registers, like wild psychedelic leads transformed into some sort of blackened tremolo picking, so instead of black metal, these jams almost sound like modern classical compositions, like Arvo Part composing for black metal band, when a song ends, you feel exhausted, and drained, like at the end of a long journey, but before you can even catch your breath, the band explode into action once again. And before you know it, they're locked into another high end blast of extreme tension, no let up, no slipping into acoustic interludes, it's almost like the musical version holding your breath, soaring as high and for as long as (in)humanly possible, so when the band does pause briefly, it knocks you on your ass, of when they switch gears and get all spacious and dynamic, it nearly blows your mind.
When we first got this, we only listened to it a couple times, and thought it was pretty cool, but on repeated listens it is proving itself to be truly transcendental, and unlike almost all of the other black metal out there, and is quickly becoming a contender for black metal record of the year.
Controversial as always, Brooklyn's Liturgy, the band 'troo' black metallers love to hate, is back. And it's not just purists who have found Liturgy's self-proclaimed 'transcendental black metal' (and accompanying manifesto) to be way too pretentious, arty, overly intellectual and dare we say hipsterish. And yeah, sure, Liturgy ARE intellectual and/or pretentious, but they also make some freaking amazing, weird music. So let's get all that out of the way by saying, they can call it whatever they want, just don't expect us to read the manifesto. To us, ok, maybe we wouldn't really consider them a bonafide black metal band, but the music they make wouldn't exist (probably) if there weren't such a thing as black metal. It's a part of their sound that they, well, have transcended? They're definitely their own 'thing' whatever it might be, a thing that beyond the black metal elements also incorporates math rock and academic new music and IDM electronica and other strange stuff besides. Totally up our alley in other words - although making The Ark Work an aQ Record Of The Week was also was a wee bit controversial here, 'cause we'll admit right off the bat that this isn't an easy album to sit through all at once. It's just so tripped out and CRAZY and exhausting, as you mentally process what you're hearing. But even if you can't take it all in one sitting, it's the sort of thing where we swear you'll be compelled to play individual tracks on repeat, over and over, just to get your head around 'em, and because certain parts can be so intense and mesmerizing, you want to really try to fully absorb/understand the awesomeness of them before experiencing the next draining yet uplifting track. So Record Of The Week it is, none can deny that it's an impressive piece of work and unlike anything else really. It's gonna have you going, what IS this? Very aQ-worthy, indeed.
Liturgy's bandleader, guitarist/vocalist/composer Hunter Hunt-Hendrix (whose name is only slightly less plausible than, say, Guy Mann-Dude, anyone remember that '80s metal shredder?) is one ambitious & talented dude... man... guy. Some pretentiousness may be a side effect of that, but whatever. It's not like we're paying attention to the conceptual lyrics about who knows what (though you might, they could be worthwhile). We're just busy being blown away by all the choppy stop-start arrangements; the symphonic horn parts; the insectoid guitar buzz that sounds like a Glenn Branca guitar orchestra made up of a whole bunch tiny, tiny, pygmy-like black metal guitarists; the mesmeric, trance-inducing drumming by the inhuman Greg Fox (Guardian Alien); the glitchy digital stutter that, seizure-like, grips bits of these tracks occasionally; the post-rocky, sea-saw way these tracks can build and build; the sheer proggy/mathy grandiosity of the whole thing, and all the other surprises, including, despite this music's difficulty-factor, some really beautiful, blissful parts too.
There are bagpipes, too, along with the trumpet and trombone, all played by guest musicians, but in addition there are also synthesized MIDI horns on here, the latter giving a bit of the vibe of an outsider composer realizing his epic opus with DIY bedroom recording technology. Then there are the processed vocals, also kinda melodic, but chant-like, a mantric supplication, sorta sounding like Om, but with the tape sped up perhaps or otherwise manipulated, and still quite emotive.
Yeah, we said they sure came up with something that doesn't sound like anything else, at least not anything that exists, though we can come up with some this-meets-that, hybrid of this-and-that esoteric band math equations to try to describe it, like, um, Orthrelm doing their version of Om (if Om attended the Church Universal and Triumphant), or Phantomsmasher goes to conservatory... or how 'bout this: the track "Vel Valhaal" sounds like a song by outsider epic metallers Realmbuilder, remixed by Venetian Snares, with a gamelan thrown in for good measure, mashed up with a Herman Nitsch aktion. How's that? We're trying.
If all that's not ridiculous enough, oh then there's the fact that Liturgy recently they appeared on an episode of NBC TV show The Blacklist, with freakin' Peter Fonda behind the drum kit. WTF? If haters gonna hate anyway, you might as well cash in with surreal shit like that.
You've got your whole life to listen to this Liturgy album, so don't delay, get it now! While maybe we can't say yet for sure, we think it's one we will be coming back to when some other, more acceptably 'troo black metal' albums are long forgotten.
Oh, and 'cause we told 'em we were making it a Record Of The Week, Thrill Jockey has kindly offered a special BONUS for folks who buy it from us, and only us, this week. While they last, we'll be including a download coupon with each purchase that gets you an mp3 of the crazy remix that Soft Pink Truth (Drew from Matmos) did of the track "Vitriol", which is otherwise is only available on the version of the cd released in Japan. It's not as if Liturgy isn't already insane and fucked up enough sounding, but you can imagine what SPT does to 'em.
FYI the swank gatefold double vinyl version includes a download of the full album, too, while the gatefold cd version has no need of that.
Premonicion De Guerra is the debut release from this grim black metal horde, and it's two 20+ minute tracks of glorious, haunting, hateful black metal. There isn't a ton of information to be found on this project. Hailing from either Santa Cruz or Mexico (or both), and featuring possibly only one member, Lluvia specializes in orthodox black metal performed with utmost precision, class and respect. The record opens with a lonely torrent of rain and the crack of distant thunder whispering underneath listless clean guitars. It's a very literal calm before the storm, because before too long we're met with the foreboding buzz of a single grinding guitar that seems to exist in stasis for an unnaturally long time, lulling the listener into a false sense of calm before the blasting begins. When all of the pieces finally come together it's an overwhelming wall of sound. Pummeling blast beats and mournful, oppressive guitars give way to heart-wrenching mid-paced breakdowns. The whole record is awash in tons of reverb, soaking every moment with the cavernous atmosphere of a moss specked catacomb. The vocals are distant and echoed, like some hateful unsilent spirit craving revenge from the afterlife. The drums are enormous, every fill sounding like an avalanche. On paper it would be easy to say that Lluvia are dealing in the same traditional, Transilvanian Hunger style black metal as someone like Sargeist, but in execution the scope seems to be much larger. Instead the affect isn't far off from the hypnotic transcendence of Ash Borer or Fell Voices, but with a much more orthodox approach, which makes the results all the more impressive. The end result is overpowering yet strangely distant, sorrowful yet proud - invoking a feeling ancient and sad. It's black metal that can truly be called atmospheric in the purest sense of the word, but without one iota of the hate or the fury sacrificed.
Limited to 333 copies, on 180 gram gray/black swirl vinyl, gatefold jacket w/ inserts.
First we've heard from this local outfit, released on the Brotherhood Of Light tape label (Sunchariot, Haar, Sirius, Cosmic Breath, Surt, Uruk Hai, Domus Mactibilus, Worldscape:18), and like much of the stuff on BoL, we're assuming it's the work of the same core folks, much like the Black Legions and the BM scenes in Russia and the Ukraine, it seems like a handful of folks in multiple configurations make up the multitude of groups, but we're not complaining, in fact, as BoL continues to move away from black metal, or at least push the boundaries, we're digging their releases more and more. A couple lists back we reviewed a tape by a group/person called Worldscape:18, which was some weird sort of collaged/noisescape/electronica. And this week, we have one of several new releases from Llyr, whose tape starts out with the gentle slightly sinister lilt of drifting synths, sounding like it could explode into some serious Goblin style action at any point, but instead, sprawls out, soft billows of almost new age-y shimmer, until finally, some super distorted guitars surface, and some seriously sick, anguished vox, wouldn't say it was black metal, but it's definitely blackened, and sort of metallic. More free form and abstract, the guitars churning in thick billows over those shimmery synths, the vokills howling and rasping in the murk. Tangled melodies unwind beneath the vocals, as well as strange sci-fi electronics, maybe not sonically, but most definitely spiritually, Llyr reminds us of outsider metal acts like Circle Of Ouroborus, Tomb Of, Varghkoghargasmal and Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg.
And that pretty much sets the template for Llyr's sound, long stretches of icy synth, chiming ethereal melodies, beneath sheets of blurred guitar buzz, disembodied riffs, wraithlike rasps, and even some drums, stumbling programmed drums that bring to mind Fastest weirdly enough, and when the electronics peel back, and leave just lurching drums and woozy riffage, it's like some gloriously damaged primitive black metal ritual, that soon disappears into another cloud of dense, swirling WTF weirdness.
Second release from this mysterious outfit, their second for local black metal tape label Brotherhood Of Light, and like their previous tape, Heathen, the sound maybe be blackened, but it's definitely not black metal. At least not for much of the time... Opening with some creepy hushed barely there ambience, the sound explodes into a sprawl of crumbling distorted buzz, wrapped around what sounds like a programmed beat, the result is a sort of post industrial blackened electronica? The guitar is fuzzy and minor key, the melody melancholic and mournful, a blurry cloud of drifting buzz, driven by that beat, and draped over some buried vokills that growl and occasionally shriek in the background. For being buzzy and black, it's surprisingly washed out and softly trancey, almost dreamy at times.
The sound does drift more toward a blackness that's more traditionally depressive, but it remains kinda blissed out and shoegazey. Before drifting into an almost kosmische sounding stretch of dreamy celestial glimmer, before again exploding into some much more traditional black buzz, but even then, the sound is murky and muddy and blurred into something more tranced out and hypnotic, and the sound is shot through with some strange keening melodies, that again, add a strange avant melodic vibe to the proceedings.
And then it seems like Llyr settle into something much more straight ahead, midtempo black metal, buzz and pound, dark and sinister, when all of a sudden, BLAM, another programmed beat lurches into action, churning away beneath another sprawl of swirling hazy buzzy blackness, the sound once again a weird sort of black electronica... Cool, and darkly twisted, another weird winner from Brotherhood Of Light, and like all the previous BoL tapes, SUPER LIMITED.
Latest from these blackened doomdrone soundscapers, once again demonstrating that these guys definitely don't let any sort of genre classification define what they do, cuz what they do here is let their krautrock freak flag fly, whipping up a gorgeous chunk of hazy, rhythmic psychedelia, a reinterpretation of a classic Popol Vuh jam (from 1976), which does indeed channel the same sort of brooding, blissy mesmer, a dreamy, dark dirge, hypnotic and hazy, spidery guitar melodies over simple spare propulsive drumming, all wreathed by distant synth shimmer, the female vocals adding an ethereal angelic vibe to the proceedings. The track explodes about halfway through in a little squall of blackened psychnoise, only to slip right back into it, albeit a bit louder and heavier, some seriously mesmerizing metallic shoegaze krautrock heaviness, that had us sort of wishing these guys sounded like this all the time.
But then the B side goes ahead and reminds us why, as cool as that would be, we would most definitely miss what these guys do already. And what they do here is, lay down some frantic buzzy black metal riffing, letting the riffs unfurl into long streaks of tangled melodies and layered lush blackdronebuzz. Howled vokills come in, and the sounds drifts ever closer to pure black metal, the tension in waiting for the song to kick in, the blasting beats, the galloping crush, but instead, a sort of liquid black drone surface from below, and begins to envelop the sounds, the whole track growing darker and more dense, until finally, inexplicably, the band introduce melancholy acoustic guitar, and what sounds like piano, changing the tenor of the song completely, the buzzing riff no longer defining the sound, but instead acting as a blurred shimmery backdrop for the creeping dirgey drift that's now at the forefront, the drums minimal and spare, the sound seeming to build once again for an inevitable black metal blow out, but instead, the song shifts and fades out an soft squall of hazy shimmer and slowly dissipating psychedelia.
Maybe the best stuff we've heard from these guys, which at this point is saying a LOT.
Gorgeous packaging too, a striking black on black 4 panel sleeve, includes a sticker and a download code. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES.
Somehow this is exactly what we've been hankering for. A sprawling blackened songsuite, equal parts, dark ambience, dense drones, heavy electronics, buzzy lo-fi almost new wave sounding keyboards, spidery post rock guitars and soft noise. Even writing it, that seems like a pretty unworkable, or unrealistic combination, but somehow these Midwesterners make it work. Big time.
They definitely could be considered sonic brethren of bands like SUNNO))), Pussygutt, MZ412, Troum, To Blacken The Pages, Wolf Eyes, Vulture Club and the like. However, Locrian take that sound someplace all their own, creating actual SONGS, as opposed to just soundscapes or drones. And there's a definitely black metal component for sure, no matter how abstract. Guitars are everywhere, seemingly the foundation for Locrian's sound, although as often as the guitars are unfurling spidery post rocky melodies, or distant reverbed riffs, they are also smeared into warm whirling clouds, left to drift and gradually change shape, or pulled apart and allowed to crumble into jagged little shards. Noise in a big component too, often the prettiest parts are treated with a patina of grinding soft focus electronics, or groaning downtuned tones.
The record opens with a gorgeous, elegiac guitar part, simple and stripped down, like it could be a black metal intro, until the organ comes in, wheezy and warbly, giving the track a weirdly lo-fi almost industrial vibe, definitely had us wishing it was in fact more than just a two minute intro.
That is until track two, "Ghost Repeater" takes over. An epic slow motion drift, strange echoey sounds floating in a warm muted sea of buzz and drone, glitched out bits of electronics, and eventually, a very epic black metal riff, that remains off in the distance, repeated and repeated until it too simply becomes another layer of sound.
"Barren Temple Obscured By Contaminated Fogs" (another great title), begins again with some creepy spindly guitar, draped over a deep pulsing low end, before transforming into some seriously abject and WAY abstract blacknoise. Shrieked distorted vokills over that same spidery guitar, Abruptum like ambience meets warped Goblinesque synth drones, the whole track twisted and warbly, eventually the vocals dropping out, leaving the buzzing guitars and wheezing keyboards to play out a super haunting horrorscape. "Epicedium" is delicate and crystalline, noodly guitar lines looped beneath a glimmering softly throbbing drone, peppered with fragmented strums, soon the track begins to grow gradually more and more distorted, the guitars more tense and frantic, the mood so haunting and weirdly beautiful and so subtly dramatic, reminding us of a super twisted soundtrack to some lost Giallo.
The record proper ends with another awesomely titled jam: "Obsolete Elegy In Cast Concrete", tolling bells, space kraut drones, all washed out and shimmery, the bed for some seriously corrosive guitar buzz and grind, adding layer after layer of crunch and rumble, but also slipping to some seriously black chug, joined by still more harsh hellish vox, a strange combination for sure but manages to be both beautiful and brutal, until the very end, where the track shifts gears and becomes all dramatic and melodic and weirdly majestic.
The cd features a bonus track called "Greyfield Shrines", which is nearly as long as all of the other tracks combined, a sprawling slow building blackened world of sound that slithers from hushed drift, to fractured buzz, to woozy moody ambience to blown out speaker shredding crunch, absolutely epic, super cinematic, mysterious, and even at it's noisiest, still quite melodic and blackly beautiful. Most definitely a track that could have been (and we think maybe was) a record all on its own.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. Cool fold over arigato-pack style sleeve, with a full color printed booklet. And for anyone going to the Matchitehew metal/noise festival in Chicago in a few weeks, you'll be able to catch these guys live.
Latest jam from these atmospheric black metal drone ambient soundscapers. Now expanded to a trio, this epic two track workout finds the band sounding better than ever. Slow burning riffs churn relentlessly over a swirl of electronics and rumbling drones, vocals drift ghostlike throughout, melodies peal amidst the crumbling low end and heaving blackness, like some epic post doom, stripped of it drums and blurred into whirling shimmering riffscapes, haunting and otherworldly, abject and post industrial, pulsing and throbbing, gradually transforming from doomdrone to dreamdrift, but remaining heavy and mysterious.
The second track begins with a buzzing black riff, but instead of exploding into a blast of black fury, the riff seems to melt into the background, the various drones and tones bleeding into the riff, all smeared into a swirling black cloud of slow burning blackness, washed out and gauzy, growing more and more abstract, the riff pulled apart, the notes left to drift amidst a vast sea of wheezing chordal shimmer and crumbling glitched out electronics. So awesome. And if that wasn't enough, the flipside features a palindromic rendering of the two songs, the whole first side played in reverse, a warped woozy, swooping bit of twisted droned out black mystery.
Super sweet packaging, silver reflective sticker on the tape, seven panel, silver ink on black matte j-card. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!
Super limited tour only 7", we got the very last handful. Unlike the blackened drones on Locrian's full length, this is way more in the realm of guitar heaviness, not quite black metal, but there is definitely some shades of black happening. A killer riff fragment, looped over and over, hypnotic and trancelike, slowly evolving in tone and timbre, getting higher and more jagged, while all around it, the ambient sounds build to a thunderous almost industrial cacophony.
The B side is a billowy bit of spaced out drift, trippy synth shimmer, another looped bit of abstract guitar, swirling effects, layered textures, erupting into a stretch of slow motion doominess right at the end. More dark heavy beauty from this Chicago duo.
All white cover, white labels, very little info, a Xeroxed insert with liner notes. 300 copies, these are the last ones ever.
The duo of Andre Foisy and Terence Hannum, aka Locrian, may have started life as purveyors of grim black ambience, and even with the addition of drummer Steven Hess, and an expanding sound that found their black buzz dronescapes blossoming into more rhythmic, and fully realized sonic sprawls, we still weren't entirely prepared for Return To Annihilation, which finds the group's crystallizing into something surprisingly melodic, what in the past might have been slow shifting fields of static rumble, and churning dark psychedelia, here has been transformed into something, dare we say poppy. Opener "Eternal Return" begins with some sinister synth buzz, darkly sci-fi and ominous, so we were prepared for more classic Locrian, but then BAM, the song explodes into some seriously prismatic, synth heavy dirge pop bliss out, think M83, Jesu, Mogwai. Minus the shrieked black metal vokills, this could be any of those groups, super melodic, dense and lush and layered, crazy melodic, epic and majestic, almost a crime it's over after less than three minutes.
But fear not, there's plenty more of this 'new' Locrian to be found. "A Visitation From The Wrath Of Heaven" begins like the opener, all crumbling, pulsing synths, woozy minor key swirls, again, seemingly setting us up for some droned out black mesmer, but instead, in come the drums, some swirly backwards melodies, and the track gradually settles into a sort of dreamy, drifting slow-core, something you might expect to be on Kranky, everything wreathed in psychedelic shimmer, but all smeared into a softly fuzzy, hypnotic rhythmic churn. Although they do drop in some harsh vox right near the end, really, again that's the only thing keeping this from being some weird minimal experimental drone pop. That and the crushing minute long doom/sludge finale, that soars majestically, the buzzing guitars wrapped around wordless vocals, and draped over some seriously crushing drum damage.
And so it goes, the record unwinding in all sorts of sonic directions. "Two Moons" is all softly tangled acoustic guitar, over a buzz drenched post rock lope, a sort of Mogwai / Tim Hecker hybrid, heavy certainly, but more heady and hypnotic than anything, then there's the title track, which begins as a brooding gloom pop, before blossoming into a freeform bit of black metal riffing, but blurred into something much more abstract, a gorgeous sprawl of minor key distorted guitar crumble, before returning to a sort of Mogwai / Godspeed style post rock slow build, albeit augmented with some extra metallic heft and more vokills. The final three tracks drift from hushed buzzy thrum, beneath soft curlicues of reverbed guitar shimmer, noisy blown out freeform guitar noise, laced with wild drum splatter, and harsh howled vox, to the final 15+ minute sprawl of "Obsolete Elegies", which begins as an acoustic guitar / piano threnody, dark, twang flecked swirls, set amidst billowing clouds of soft psychedelia, brooding and dusky, a little bit of Barn Owl maybe happening, moaned vocals, buzzing sci-fi synths, the sound transforming part way through into some strange dubbed out synth-prog, before once again launching into some epic, super distorted post rock majesty, soaring melodies, churning drum crush, all of which fades out into a field of synth swirl and disembodied sitar buzz, muted and haunting, only to eventually explode into a final blast of heaviness, of blasting black metal in fact, chugging and churning at first, before in swoops a second guitar transforming the sound into some insane and epic black prog heaviness, and suddenly we find ourselves wishing for a whole record that sounds like the last two minutes. Fingers crossed for next time.
With every single release these guys get better and better, their sound, a constantly evolving, ultra dense blend of abstract black metal and deep ambient dronemusic, the early records were more about energy and vibe than execution, still eminently listenable, heavy and atmospheric, black and brutal, but their skills as composers and arranges have definitely made leaps and bounds, arriving finally at Territories, the latest sprawling epic from this Chicago duo, here, aided and abetted by a whole bunch of guests, including Blake Judd from Nachtmystium, Andrew Scherer, drummer for black metallers Velnias, and Mark Solotroff, power electronics maestro, and man behind Bloody Minded and the BloodLust! label.
And the guests make their presence felt right away, on opener inverted ruins, a smoldering doomic plod, more power electronics than black metal, with Solotroff ranting over a sea of swirling buzz and skree, glitched out electronics, and some simple stripped down drumming. Over the course of the track, it begins to coalesce into a more ominous creep, shedding noise as it goes, before finally slipping into a deep shimmering drone, which introduces the next track, a lush, slow building cinematic dronescape, constantly shifting layers, drifting through clouds of cymbal shimmer and blackened buzzing strings. It's not until nearly the end of side one that black metal rears it's ugly head, a flurry of manic riffing, and they're off, a pounding midtempo blast of raw feral blackness, insane shrieked vocals, chaotic drums, muted riffs, all blurred into a blackened haze, lo-fi and muddy, but also epic and intense.
The flipside opens with another bout of power electronics, dueling synths unfurl undulating layers of wheeze and warble and buzz, laced with shimmering overtones and fragmented melodies, a churning black sonic sea, that eventually fades out leaving, a smoldering stretch of shadowy guitar, of blissed out ambience, a short stretch of crystalline chiming guitars laid over a warm whir, shoegazey and blissed out, which finally leads into the closing track, the weirdest of the bunch, with organ and saxophone, acoustic guitars, and pretty much all the gusts present and accounted for, a bleak buzzing driftscape, sort of post industrial, keening melodies over fractured buzz, and deep rumbles, creaks and skree and groaning low end, finally explode into full on melodic black metal, martial drumming, epic riffing, more tortured vokills, cool tangled woozy minor key melodies, a swirling druggy ambience, weirdly catchy and otherworldly, but still heavy and psychedelic, maybe our favorite track, and the perfect way to wind down this serpentine blackened outsider drone metal journey...
The Clearing is the latest from the Chicago duo of Andre Foisy and Terence Hanuum, now seemingly permanently expanded to a trio with Steven Hess on drums, and like past records, these guys effortlessly conjure up another series of haunting dronescapes and blackened ambience, opening with a creeping sprawl of funereal piano, wreathed by all manner of distant industrial clatter and metallic buzz, before finally transforming into a proper song, complete with clean vocals, loping drums, laid atop a wild squall of feedback and squealing guitars, all blurred into an undulating stretch of softly caustic mesmer, the result a sort of noise drenched slowcore, dramatic and intense, a little bit doomy, before finishing off with a sort of Sunroof!-style ur-drone.
"Augury In An Evaporating Tower" starts off all power electronics buzz, the sounds layered and shifting like some sort of deconstructed riff, which could have gone on forever as far as we're concerned, but instead the band slip into some serious buzzing and blasting blackness, the transition is fantastically abstract and creepy, but once they're in it, it's about as black metal as we've heard these guys, the black buzz rife with al manner of tangled melodies, the sound strangely muted and woozy, eventually giving way to a buzzing psychedelic second half, that sounds a bit like a more fracture blackened Barn Owl, moody and melancholy, before slipping right into "Corprolite", which begins with a gorgeous bit of decaying sound, a little Tim Hecker, a little Philip Jeck, warbly and crumbling, which is soon joined by some acoustic guitars, and some tribal drumming, until other guitars surface, adding heft and turning it into something resembling a Swans jam, albeit still minimal, instrumental, and wreathed in crumbling crackle.
The 17 minute title track finishes things off with a slow build epic, starting with some John Carpenter like pulses, overlaid by some heavier synth buzz, some spidery guitars, and lots of other layers gradually creeping into the picture, while way off in the background, vocals howl, drums pound, electronics hum and whir, the sound staying pretty abstract the whole time, but eventually building to a sort of wall of black buzz, before fading out in a squall of sine waves, throbbing synths, fractured electronics, and looped industrial noise. Seriously killer stuff. We're often skeptical when bands release so much stuff, but these guys never fail to deliver.
Packaged in super glossy jackets with some of the coolest cover photography we've seen. Includes a printed insert and a download card.
This two-fer is a strange sort of reissue, ostensibly a re-release of Locrian's 2011, previously vinyl-only The Clearing album on cd for the first time, but also including a whole disc of unreleased material called The Final Epoch. More on that disc in a second. First up, The Clearing, here's our review from when we listed the lp version last year:
The Clearing is the latest from the Chicago duo of Andre Foisy and Terence Hanuum, now seemingly permanently expanded to a trio with Steven Hess on drums, and like past records, these guys effortlessly conjure up another series of haunting dronescapes and blackened ambience, opening with a creeping sprawl of funereal piano, wreathed by all manner of distant industrial clatter and metallic buzz, before finally transforming into a proper song, complete with clean vocals, loping drums, laid atop a wild squall of feedback and squealing guitars, all blurred into an undulating stretch of softly caustic mesmer, the result a sort of noise drenched slowcore, dramatic and intense, a little bit doomy, before finishing off with a sort of Sunroof!-style ur-drone.
"Augury In An Evaporating Tower" starts off all power electronics buzz, the sounds layered and shifting like some sort of deconstructed riff, which could have gone on forever as far as we're concerned, but instead the band slip into some serious buzzing and blasting blackness, the transition is fantastically abstract and creepy, but once they're in it, it's about as black metal as we've heard these guys, the black buzz rife with al manner of tangled melodies, the sound strangely muted and woozy, eventually giving way to a buzzing psychedelic second half, that sounds a bit like a more fracture blackened Barn Owl, moody and melancholy, before slipping right into "Corprolite", which begins with a gorgeous bit of decaying sound, a little Tim Hecker, a little Philip Jeck, warbly and crumbling, which is soon joined by some acoustic guitars, and some tribal drumming, until other guitars surface, adding heft and turning it into something resembling a Swans jam, albeit still minimal, instrumental, and wreathed in crumbling crackle.
The 17 minute title track finishes things off with a slow build epic, starting with some John Carpenter like pulses, overlaid by some heavier synth buzz, some spidery guitars, and lots of other layers gradually creeping into the picture, while way off in the background, vocals howl, drums pound, electronics hum and whir, the sound staying pretty abstract the whole time, but eventually building to a sort of wall of black buzz, before fading out in a squall of sine waves, throbbing synths, fractured electronics, and looped industrial noise. Seriously killer stuff. We're often skeptical when bands release so much stuff, but these guys never fail to deliver.
So as mentioned above, included here with The Clearing is also The Final Epoch, a collection of previously released material, from various cassettes and things, on labels like Small Doses, Deathsmile, Tape Drift and Black Horizons. Five long songs that while not a proper record, definitely play out as one, and are a pretty good foil for the Clearing. The opening track is a gorgeous bit of droned out tension, all deem billowy rumbles, warm swells of melodic feedback, almost like a darker more intense and metallic Expo 70, the shrieked vox buried in the mix pushing it from meditative kosmische into abject blackened industrial, but without making it any less blissed out and mesmerizing. From there on out the disc drifts into Our Love Will Destroy The World like chaotic swirl and skree, building lush landscapes from heavily reverbed guitars and keening high end shimmer, dubbed out and droney, lush and layered, slipping into hushed minimalism here and there, but more often flitting from churning black thrum to dense tangled melodic mesmer, many of the songs laced with cool little looped guitar figures that remind us of Durutti Column, those elements woven into Locrian's blackened soundscapes makes for something tripped out and weirdly transcendental.
The final two tracks find the sound starting out as an abstract bit of spaced out subtly twangy atmospheric riffage, hints of Earth and Barn Owl, but that dark dreamy drift is soon subsumed by more thick viscous washes of crumbling blackness, before finishing things off with a gorgeous gristly noisy droned out closer, that sounds like the Dead C but more spare and spacey, lots of buzz, and crackle, tangled atonal feedback, rumbles and thrums, a churning droned out muted riffscape, that eventually blossoms into a soaring, keening noise drenched celestial ur-drone. So good.
Both discs housed in printed inner sleeves, those sleeves in a super fancy old school tip-on full color mini lp style gatefold jackets.
Full length number three from these black drone audio alchemists, offering up their latest sprawling epic, this one conceptually based on a JG Ballard novel about a leper colony, and the mysteriously crystallizing forest that threatens their existence. Heady stuff, but the sort of concept perfectly suited to Locrian's sprawling sonic mystery, epic and cinematic, haunting and harrowing, the music of Locrian already plays like a soundtrack, their sound evoking all manner of other worlds and alternate realities, lost civilizations and spiritual planes, underworlds and inner worlds and what lies between.
Normally a duo, here Locrian have been expanded to a trio, with an additional member contributing electronics and percussion, allowing the band to expand their sound even further, stretching out into lengthy explorations, drifting from deep buzzing drones to starry fields of glitched out electronics, swooping spacey black ambience to lumbering blackened doom, abstract post rock to churning crumbling low end dirges.
After what plays like a black metal power electronic intro, all corrosive black buzz, layered drones, distant buried melodies, howled anguished vox, and delicate tinkling chimes, the record shifts into a more tranquil blackness, the two tracks connected by those tinkling chimes, that melodic refrain, distant melodies drift beneath chant like vocals, processed guitar throb and thrum, eventually evolving into a stretch of gorgeously epic doomic plod, deep ominous vocals over keening high end melodies, subtle tribal drumming, and swirling ambience, a glacial groove that finally dissolves into a squall of white noise.
Gorgeous looped proggy guitars drift over electronic squelches, dizzying and hypnotic, multiple guitars layered into a mesmerizing harmony, eventually, another melody, and a thick crumbling distorted riff join in, drums too, and it's a fantastic bit of hypnotic chaos, laced with squealing guitars and bursts of free drum splatter.
The record unfurls an epic bit of hushed dronemusic minimalism, that also eventually erupts into some abstract rhythmic churn, looped and cyclical, all over grinding guitars and FX drenched squealing electronics, before slipping into some caustic blackened drones, abject and grim, the guitars rumbling and crumbling and super distorted, while voices wail and howl way off in the distance. Finally the record finishes with a long stretch of moody melodic doom, acoustic guitars, crooned wordless vox, swirls of psychedelic guitar, high end electronic streaks, which expand into another pounding dirge, this one strangely pretty, even the anguished vokills can't take way from the track's lilting loveliness, a hazy bit of metallic slowcore, wrapped in increasingly frantic psychguitar, before all of that fades out completely, leaving just acoustic guitar, strings and what sounds like harmonium or accordion, a darkly emotional outro, culminating in a wild tangle of frenzied freaked out strings.
But that's just the first disc. Disc two continues with a nearly 54 minute single track, all instrumental, an epic sprawling, ever shifting chunk of blackened dronemusic, that could have easily been its own record. Deep ominous pulses, give way to hazy washed out melodies, laid over that ominous low end creep, which slips into spaced out looped electronics and haunting stretches of chantlike chorales, blown out blasts of white noise psychguitar splinter into blurred expanses of soft focus static, all wrapped around buried melodies, and muted metallic riffage, huge pummeling sheets of blown out black rrrrooaar plunge directly into black hole shimmer, laced with woozy bass thrum, and finally a stretch of tinkling echo drenched ambience, a swirling cloud of tinkling guitar melodies wrapped in thick black rumbles, and creepy looped laughter.
Epic and gorgeous, LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES! Housed in a super swank Stoughton style cd gatefold with gorgeous grim art by aQ pal Justin Bartlett, aka Vuberkvlt.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Ultra crazy limited tour only 3"cd-r from these Chicago blackened dronelords, we tried to order a ton of these, but managed to get less than a dozen. Considering it was limited to 93 copies, and most of those went on tour with the band, these are most likely the last and only copies we'll ever get.
Which is a bummer cuz this is really great. Two tracks, both the same length, the second is the exact reverse of track one - which makes this a musical palindrome. Prettier than most of the other Locrian stuff, delicate and drifty, washed out and woozy, long fuzzy layered drones, a little bit space-y, very hypnotic and trancelike, the end of the first track (and thus the beginning of the second) builds to a buzzing blown out looped sounding coda, which then follows the reverse path through the length of the second track eventually settling back down into some soft sun dappled dronebliss, before finally fading out completely. Quite lovely, even the heavy parts are more pretty than heavy. Only 10 or so of these in stock. Be quick, or be without...
LIMITED TO 93 COPIES. Housed in a mini plastic sleeve, with a cool black on black fold out insert.
Christoph Heemann (of HNAS , Mirror, and many other storied tape music/drone outfits), finds himself in yet another collaboration, this time with none other than aQ faves, Chicago's blackened doom drone duo Locrian, and the results are fruitful to say the least. Albeit a bleak and black fruit, that the shiny and happy amongst you might be hesitant to taste. But then, there's much to enjoy, even for the less adventurous, in the moody drifting darkness conjured up here.
We see Locrian dialing back the harshness in favor of a more hushed and dreary post apocalyptic soundscapery. Opener "Hecatomb" starts with a creepily stark, almost Nitschian drone, complete with what sound like a cacophony of burbling horns, with disassociated fragments of 12 string guitar floating atop a heady haze of drifting textures. Part way through a lush drift of beautiful piano harmonies intermingle with a pulsating tom tom, while scraping doom-laden electronics lie buried beneath the surface, creating a haunting whirlpool of mesmeric aphotic bliss. The proceedings take a much grimmer turn with "Loathe The Light". As the title suggests, this is a dark one. Wonderfully depressive skeletal guitars outline the overall feeling of doomed helplessness. Scraping cymbals swell and clang and hiss, tortured blacked screams reverberate inside some long forgotten cavern. The mood is tense and forlorn and beautiful. "Edgeless City" has more of a lost in the cold depths of space vibe. Writhing guitar textures seep out across a barren moonscape, buzzing and dubbed out, it builds subtly into a spacious brooding stasis. A throbbing grumbling underpins the whole thing, a moody desolate soundtrack for impending end times. The last cut "The Drowned Forest" is a deep and murky miasma of death time vocal crooning and cold twisting drone harmonics, completely enveloping and angelic, like a much bleaker depressive Tim Hecker, the track as a whole developing into a churning lush hypnotizing swirl of glacial black drone. A stunning collaboration brought to us by the always ruling Handmade Birds imprint. RECOMMENDED!
Fyi, there's a cd version too, we have a handful, waiting to get more though...
Killer collaboration from these two aQ faves, both trafficking in a similarly ominous abstract minimalism, and who together have conjured up something pretty epic. The opening track begins as if to creep abjectly through some expanse of blackened thrum, but instead blossoms into something almost more Godspeed like, minimal propulsive drum pound, spare haunting piano melodies, distant vocals drifting ethereally over clouds of distorted buzz, and peppered with little bits of backwards effects. Haunting and heavy, epic and brooding, a cinematic sprawl that has one more surprise up its sleeve, the surprisingly heavy and metallic last couple minutes, buzzing guitars over monstrous drum pummel, transforming the sound into something even more epic and heavy.
Most of the rest of the record, seems to meld Locrian's penchant for distorted blackened dirgescapes and droned out psychedelia, to Mamiffer's stately haunting abstract chamber music, the tracks unfurling dark swirls of shimmering thrum and roiling, crumbling crunch, often smoothed into blissed out ambience, but just as often blurred and blackened into something much more corrosive and caustic, over which drift various tendrils of bleak melancholic piano melody, moaning whorls of bowed-string low end, sheets of gristly electronics and industrial clatter, as well as slow shifting clouds of smeared grey shimmer.
The record closes with a nearly 19 minute three part epic, which perfectly encapsulates the two groups' symbiotic collaboration, dark dolorous piano, ghostly angelic vox, over lush swells of chordal thrum, monk-like chants, spare acoustic guitar strum, which all disappears in a cloud of feedback drenched psychedelic guitar skree, before transforming into a stretch of FX heavy power electronics black-noise crunch, and then transforms again, into some sort of black doom trudge, gnarled super distorted guitar wrapped around booming almost jazzy drum damage, and a throat shredding metallic bellow, the result a glorious sprawl of minimal blackened industrial doom that eventually fades out to just a low level hum, and a slow, funereal, martial drum plod.
Gorgeous packaging too, both the vinyl and the cd in swank sleeves, with super striking artwork, the cassette version in a cd sized box, with a hand sewn booklet, and two stickers. The tape version limited to 200 copies...
Another fantastic split, on a list jam packed with killer splits, this one featuring recent aQ Record Of The Week honorees Locrian, whose The Crystal World double disc was a big hit around here, and Century Plants, a duo we dig who are WAY under represented on the aQ site, with only a single cd-r having ever been reviewed.
Unlike the black and buzz of The Crystal World, Locrian explores a sound world more hushed and minimal, more cinematic and soundtracky, two long tracks, that flow into one another, the first beginning with streaks of shimmering buzz, over deep ominous drifts, tinkling melodies way off in the distance, soon overcome by thick swaths of swirling thrum and whir, gorgeous shards of keening high end, bits of electronics and feedback, the sounds thickening as the track progresses, sounding more like a lost John Carpenter soundtrack that some avant/post black metal thing, haunting and atmospheric and mysterious. Which leads directly into the second track, pulsing, throbbing, muted melodies, a brooding tense slow build, strangely pretty, but still dark and ominous, plenty of murky buzz and roiling blackness beneath the surface, the track never exploding into something strictly heavy, instead, drifting darkly and dreamily as a suite of mysterious cinematic dronemusic.
Century Plants dial it down even further, an ultraminimal strum and drift, whispering riffage over a cavernous low end hum, tendrils of minor key melody intertwine with smears of moaning low end, soft swoops of backwards guitars, and super subtle effects, the sound gradually becoming more insistent, the guitars subtly buzzier and blacker. The second track begins similarly, a soft hushed shimmer, but quickly blossoms into something much more sinister, a thick slab of churning black SUNNO)))-ed buzz, a glacial low end drift, that heaves and roils, but is deftly smoothed into something more tranquil and otherworldly, than heavy and harrowing.
Fantastic stuff from both bands. Definitely needing to hear more Century Plants, and of course can never get enough of Locrian.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, housed in a beautiful silkscreened blue metallic ink on matte black sleeve, with heavy printed insert.
Finally on cd (the 7" got a headstart earlier this year) and with bonus tracks to boot! This ep also includes their songs from the puddle-shaped split 7" they did with Arab On Radar. If you're familiar with this San Diego quartet, you already know that their
Not to be confused with The Locust's self-titled 3"cd *album* from 1999, this self-titled 3"cd is classified as an EP... it only has eleven songs after all! It was originally released back in 1997 on 7" vinyl. So all of you that missed out the first time around, and all of you who are new to the spasmodic surging splendor and analog assault of this fierce San Diego foursome (perhaps via their considerably more widely available Plague Soundscapes album on Anti Records), strap your tourniquet around this baby!
A while back someone (Adam from Spaceboy, maybe) told me about a new band called Loincloth that featured ex-members of Breadwinner (guitarist Pen Rollings) and Confessor (drummer Steve Shelton). And now it has come to pass that said band has released a 7" single bearing the Southern Lord stamp of approval (and heaviness). First off, isn't Loincloth a great name for a metal band? Secondly, Breadwinner and Confessor?!?!? Whoo-hoo! All the mathy metal chops that made those bands so great are present in this all-instrumental four piece -- two guitarists, with Pen in the left channel and another dude on the right -- that's technical and complex yet heavy and metal. With just two songs here, it's a bit more difficult to fully get into this than we feel a whole album would be, so we look forward to a full-length release at some point soon -- perhaps on the Swami label, 'cause you'll find another Loincloth track on the Swami label comp recently reviewed here (for which we made an audio sample if you want to get a further idea of their sound).
Wuz all set and excited to write a review of the eagerly anticipated (by Allan here in particular) new album by technical sci-fi thrash wunderkinds Vektor, entitled Outer Isolation, which just came out last week. Unfortunately, our suppliers dropped the ball and we couldn't get enough to list this time, but hopefully will next time - remember the name! However, totally making up for that, guess what suddenly shows up early, giving us our technical math metal mega fix? The long awaited debut full-length album from Loincloth! And by "long-awaited", we mean since 2003!!! Yep, it's been years and years since Loincloth debuted with a two-song 7" on Southern Lord, so we weren't really expecting this full-length to ever materialize, yet here it is. And we're as stoked now, as we were when that 7" came out. Why were we so stoked? 'Cuz, if you didn't know, Loincloth was formed by members of both ex-Earache tech-doomsters Confessor (drummer Steve Shelton, bassist Cary Rowells) -AND- brilliant math rock pioneers Breadwinner (guitarist Pen Rollings, also ex-Honor Role, ex-Butterglove)!
Now, Richmond, VA's Breadwinner, were only one of thee most significant bands of the '90s, for some of us anyway. According to Encyclopedia Metallum (where were were sorta surprised to find an entry for 'em), they coined the term "math rock". Dunno if that's true, but it could be. Meanwhile, Confessor, from Raleigh, NC, they're the band that The Fucking Champs ritualistically listened to a tape of in the van before every show they ever played...
And yes, Loincloth basically does sound like a hybrid of Breadwinner and Confessor. It's an all-instrumental, massively heavy prog-doom riff fest for sure. This album packs sixteen mind-jarring tracks into a little over 39 minutes, each one a chunky, chuggy, see-sawing, stop-start, on-off attack of wicked sick sludge tech. You wouldn't even know that Pen Rollings ISN'T in the band anymore (though he's thanked for "contributions" so perhaps he penned some of these riffs?). On the original 7", Pen was in one channel, with 2nd guitarist Tannon Penland in the other, now it's all Penland's show, and he takes care of the six string biznez just fine by himself.
You DO kinda have to have iron balls of steel to name your album Iron Balls Of Steel, but they pull it off, of course. Plus they're having some fun with macho manly metal tropes too, in the manner of their band name. But this ain't jokey when it comes to the music. Gloomy, grim, grindy, this is like the music of a more ordinary death or doom band that's been fractured and fragmented, pasted back together with post-rock glue... or just falling down the stairs, but with exquisite precision. We're talking jazz chops. As for vocals, who needs 'em? They'd only get in the way here. And if the interplay of the guitar riffs and intricate drumming weren't enough, there's also some quirky production shenanigans keep things interesting... Loincloth, with or without Pen Rollings, are still an underground instru-metal sensation, for fans of Confessor, Breadwinner, Gorguts, Electro Quarterstaff, Stinking Lizaveta, etc.
PS Kinda hoped they'd include the songs from the out of print 7" and Swami comp, but they didn't, oh well.
It makes sense and everything... Finland is dark and cold, with a winter that is bleak and inhospitable, forests, and huge expanses of frosty tundra, but it still seems impossible, or at least extremely unlikely, that there can be a seemingly neverending stream of gloriously depraved doom that continues to emanate from our favorite far away land. But who's complaining? Not us that's for sure. We can't get enough frozen Finnish weirdness, especially when it's of the doomy and sludgelike variety. And Loinen is most certainly both sludgelike and extremely doomy. But that's not nearly all.
Loinen (parasite in Finnish) traffic in "nihilist sludge core" and while that may be true, they do manage to add some interesting little sonic twists to what could be just another tarpit trudge through a downtuned wasteland. Which is not a bad thing, not at all, we could happily spend the rest of our days wrapped in a pair of headphones, crawling through a sonic wasteland as black as pitch, but when a band can create a bleak landscape that manages to transcend the typical, we're all the more thrilled.
The core sound is of course familiar, crumbling downtuned and ultra distorted guitars, churning riffs, pounding drums, and the glacial groove of dual bass crunch and drum pound makes up the framework of this whole disc, but Loinen, take a few liberties. One is a strange flair for the dynamic, no static slow motion riff trudgery, instead, the guitars, crunch and grind, stop and start, allowing lots of space to seep in, and building strange rhythms out of the doom. Very reminiscent of Dutch hypno-rockers Gore at times, with the churning looped vibe and the hypnotic repetitive arrangements. But the weirdest part of Loinen's doom-iverse is the vocals, a haunting croon, like some impossible mix of Scott Walker and Urfaust, sure there are howled demonic shrieks, but they spend most of the time buried way down in the mix, coming to the surface here and there, but it's those creepy soulful vocals that add an unexpected dimension to Loinen's doomy dirges. Turning some tracks into expansive epics that almost sound like some sort of doom metal Swans. Plus they even cover obscure Finnish punk legends Terveet Kadet! Awesome!
Packaged in an eye popping gatefold, all scrawled black and white madman illustrations, the sort of art you'd expect to see on the wall of a cell at an insane asylum, a tattooed figure, a toothy grimace, all sorts of crosses and clouds, little beasts and lots and lots of text. Cool.
LIMITED TO 524 COPIES!!!
Latest demo from Philly one man black metal band Lonesummer, and it's a doozy. Like on the last record, What We Were, Lonesummer's sound continues to confound and baffle, only black metal on the surface, there's way more going on that just blast and buzz. On what We Were it was sampled jazz records, female vocals, all kinds of backwards effects, a serious heaping helping of noise, not to mention some shoegazey poppiness, all wound up into a swirling tripped out chunk of psychedelic blackness. On this latest, if anything, both the poppiness AND the noisiness have been cranked way up, for yet another amazing blackened slab of heavy/pretty whatthefuck.
The record opens with a crumbling wall of feedback and buzz, before the song erupts in a total blast of in-the-red metalgaze, all pretty pop drift buried beneath an avalanche of distortion and Merzbowian buzz, which leads right into a track that is WAY at the other end of the spectrum, softly buzzing guitars, simple skeletal drum machine, a bit like a lo-fi bedroom brewed Cure, but with harsh demonic vox, and a weird almost new age sounding synth solo. Sounds weird, and it is, but if you didn't want weird, you would most definitely have bailed out of this review about ten sentences back.
From there on out, it's a series of schizophrenic sonic freakouts, from ultra lo-fi grim garage style raw primitive black buzz, to washed out woozy blackened melancholy drift, brittle guitars, trash can drums, shrieked vokills, but all drifting on a dreamy pure pop melody, to super blown out chaotic noise rock, but even then, shot through with some sort of unlikely melody, the entire sound threatening to collapse beneath the weight of so much distorted buzz and amp shredding crunch.
"Hyalophagia" is a blast of almost pure white noise, with some sort of thrashing blackness going on underneath, finishing off with a bizarre collage of foreign language samples and elevator music melodies. "9-25" is all dour spidery slowcore guitars, unfurling crystalline melodies in a wide open expanse of reverbed shimmer, peppered with sizzling cymbals, and chiming swaths of almost lush sounding harmonies. "Watch The Walls Instead" sounds like Casio black metal, a skittery programmed beat shuffles beneath sheets of warm muted buzz, as if there was a depressive black metal shoe gaze demo preset on those little keyboards. The final three tracks are variations on extreme black noisiness, flitting from raw primitive blast, to in the red pounding crunch, and finally back to loping minor key lo-fi blissed out blackened pop.
LIMITED TO 125 COPIES. Nicely packaged in printed envelopes with cardstock gatefold inserts...
Any band that stirs up tons of shit on the net, inspiring vitriolic tirades, definitely gets us interested, whether they can back it up sonically is another thing entirely.
Velvet Cacoon might be the best example, beginning life as a supposed Eco-Fascist black metal band, who created their dense drone-y buzz with a 'diesel harp', only later revealing that they were taking the piss. But it hardly mattered, cuz the music they made was totally transcendent, their sick sense of humor and antagonism toward the rest of the black metal scene only added to their appeal. So it should come as no surprise that Lonesummer, who share a label with Velvet Cacoon, are inspiring similarly heated reactions. In their case, it's not because of any bullshit mythmaking, it's because their sound is seriously fucked up, like nothing you've ever heard. Taking inspiration from the new wave of buzzy poppy shoegazey black metal, but twisting it all up into a noise drenched, chopped and looped. barrage of beats and riffs and damaged effects and bizarre vocals, and delicate melodies and strange samples, a dizzying jumble, that for some might be total torture, but for us, and we would guess most adventurous listeners out there, What We Were might just become a fast favorite.
Obviously if you dig bands like Alcest and Lifelover and Amesoeurs, you should for sure check this out, and while Lonesummer do share some of the same sonic elements, this is SO MUCH WEIRDER.
Best to probably just go song by song, it's too varied and all over the map to really boil it down to a single descriptor.
"The Ones Who Grab My Hand, The Lost Souls" is a crushing barrage of noise, there seems to be some metal underneath the noise, but it's so obfuscated it's more like a pulse, or another layer of static, like a more rhythmic Merzbow, but laced with some hysterical shrieking vokills, before the song fragments and begins to crumble, and gets all mathy and chaotic and industrial, while underneath, some super distorted vocal jazz surfaces, scatting female vox, skittery drums, piano and bass, but all tangled up with Lonesummer's frantic crumbling buzz, so fucked up and so weird, but super cool.
The second track is more traditionally buzzy and black, but it's all relative, 3 minutes of the same muted muddy riff, programmed drum skitter, occasional demonic growl, but all smeared with hazy soft focus melodies, the whole thing blurred into a woozy mesmer, a bit like a Pop Ambient Wold. Then there's "Long Winter Way" that fills the first half of the track with delicate chiming minor key guitar, softly swaddled in reverb and delay, only to get all bleary eyed and gauzy and soft poppy and shoegazey toward the end, sounding more like Ariel Pink or John Maus than any metal we've ever heard. Backwards drums sizzle beneath loopy flurries of notes, all swirling in a cloud of soft hushed shimmer. The rest of the record is equally disparate, from lurching crushing low, blackened and super distorted, to blasting brittle black metal, all repetitive and wrapped in still more layers of fuzz and buzz and whir, to the blown out in-the-red distorto noise bliss of the title track, to the psychedelic smoldering crumble of "We All Looked So Perfect", like a music box plugged into a million distortion pedals, to the closer, a loping, super melodic slow core depressive dirge, with lovely clean guitars, howled vokills, and a shimmery vacuum cleaner buzz wrapped around everything, simultaneously ultra melodic, warmly washed out and blissfully otherworldly.
Guaranteed to piss off purists, but so is about 90 percent of the stuff we dig, but for anyone into fucked up and freaky, baffling and bizarre blackness, this might be your new favorite band.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!!! Gorgeously packaged in a full color oversized 7" style sleeve.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This awesomely confusional weirdo black metal split now available on cd (cd-r actually), in a dvd case with printed insert and black and white cover art, the digital version of the tape we listed a while back (we still have a couple of those left if anybody wants one before they're gone)...
Second missive from black metal weirdo Lonesummer, whose What We Were cd-r from last list was a huge hit around here. A twisted blend of strange samples, totally blown out black metal buzz, and weird sun dappled melodic pop, all wound into a massively confusional, incredibly fucked up bit of blackened avant noise pop, or something, tough to know exactly how to describe this. We have to imagine that most black metallers would find Lonesummer just way too damaged and freaky, but for us, it's exactly the sort of weirdness we've been dying for.
The opening track sums it up pretty nicely, beginning with some sample conversations, street noise, a hushed minimal drone, which explodes into a crumbling in-the-red almost white noise blow out, the sound so saturated, it's impossible to pick out instruments, the sound just a thick cloud of swirling buzz and skree, as the track progresses, riffs seem to materialize out of the ether, but instead of taking the form of a proper BM jam, it seems more than anything to add a sense of rhythm, creating a fucked up, looped bit of buzz drenched mesmer, before, the buzz fades out, leaving some sampled African music, which eventually fades out. Phew. The next song is just s far out, beginning with some new age swoosh, some sampled wind (or is it tape hiss?), a delicate chiming melody, before a tiny bit of drum skitter leads into another explosion of impossibly distorted, but weirdly pretty and shoegaze-y blacknoise. 4 tracks total from Lonesummer, and goddamn we already want more!!!
Lonesummer are paired up here with Marsh, a one man band from Minneapolis, whose take on black metal is much more primitive and raw, a bit punky, with a definite D-beat vibe, so folks into Akitsa, Malveillance, Bone Awl, this is definitely your cup of tea, but Marsh manage to infuse their own vibe, the repetitive almost looped sounding arrangements, the cool hazy washed out production, loads of effects and like Lonesummer, a weirdly off kilter pop element too. Need to hear more from these guys as well.
We only got about 10 of these, and sadly that's all we'll ever be able to get, a new blast of twisted what-the-fuck black medal weirdness from aQ faves Lonesummer, teamed up with new-to-us Planning For Burial.
Lonesummer are in fine form, introducing their tracks with a weird sampled TV jingles before unfurling sheets of white hot, ultra brittle blasting black metal buzz, super lo-fi, and chaotic, but shot through with strange melodies, and mysterious textures, shifting from frantic frenzied blowouts, to mournful depressive doomic crawls, the vocals a buried inhuman shriek, the guitars so caustic, the sound totally high end, as if they were being played through speakers consisting of nothing but tweeters, finishing off, with a gorgeous bit of melancholy clean jangle guitar pop, the vocals sweetly sorrowful, like a more twisted lo-fi Richard Youngs, that poppiness, no doubt present in the other songs as well, just buried under avalanches of crumbling corrosive crunch. Awesome.
Planning For Burial are not nearly so abrasive, in fact, they're barely black metal at all, instead, they craft a sort of buzz drenched dreamlike slowcore, the opening track is all creepy crawly, measured emotive vox, wheezing organs, all beneath a churning layer of crumbling distortion, the result is actually quite lovely. Then the drums come in, programmed and electronic, and it gets more dramatic and majestic, and sounds almost like some twisted, 4 track, buzz doused take on Antony And The Johnsons, which is absolutely a good thing. The second track takes a woozy, depressive Cure like drift, all tinkling minor key melodies, and shuffling rhythms, and wraps it in thick buzzing bass, and swirling ethereal synths, the beats big and electronic here too, sounding not at all unlike some of the more minimal and moody Witch House jams we've heard. Finally, PFB finish off with a gorgeous softly psychedelic guitar dronescape, all washed out, blurred and bleary, the vocals buried, the guitars lustrous and thick, total hazy shoegazey dream pop drift. So killer.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES and already out of print. We have the last 10 copies, so act fast...
We've been trying to get enough copies of anything on the amazing Sylvan Screams Analog label to review and list, but previous releases were so limited, that we were only able to get a couple. And while they're just as limited, we did now manage to get a handful of the two most recent releases, this one comes from a band from right here in the Bay Area, called Longing And Silence, whose sounds is a gorgeous depressive plod, a grim slo-mo black buzz, all mournful and melancholy, the vokills a harsh demonic rasp, but minus those vocals, it's another band whose sound found be mistaken for some weird shoegaze/slowcore outfit, the sort of avant metal weirdness you might expect to find on The Flenser, but -with-those vocals, this remains firmly in the realm of depressive black metal, remaining us a bit of a more orthodox Lifelover, the same sort of loping, minor key miserablism, but with some seriously melodic bass, notable also considering how little bass is even audible in most black metal. But it makes for some cool, woozy, downtuned blackened slowcore, with some surprisingly melodic moments, that has some of these bordering on downright poppy. Long songs, mesmerizingly miserable, and gorgeously bleak. As the label suggests, definitely for fans of Burzum, Silencer, Strid and Bethlehem.
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!! Each one hand numbered.
Atmospheric doom from Canada.
Witchy doomy heaviness from Rhode Island, home of ultra avant doom heavies The Body, electro rockers Six Finger Satellite, spastic hyper noiserock duo Lightning Bolt, and hardcore legends Dropdead, among others, but female fronted doom rockers Loon have way more in common with the current crop of heavies like Jex Thoth, The Devil's Blood, Sub Rosa, Blood Ceremony, Cauchemar, Christian Mistress and Purple Rhinestone Eagle, and fans of any of those bands will definitely dig Loon's stonery psychedelic grooves, and pop flecked Sabbathy doominess, but Loon definitely have their own take on that sounds, beyond the doom aspect, which is really pretty minimal, sure it IS doomy, but it's way more groovy, there's also a serious slowcore vibe going on, a downer pop woven into the group's more metallic heaviness, which ends up reminding us of a way heavier more traditionally metal True Widow, which is totally NOT a bad thing. And then there's the vocals, which are amazing, slipping from demonic screech, to sweet melodious croon, powerful and intense, and often reminding us of country chanteuse Neko Case surprisingly enough. So if you can imagine Neko Case singing for a Sabbathy doomy downer pop stoner metal combo, well then, you might have an idea of what Loon has going on. And while the vocals might be the best we of the bunch, in terms of actually singing, the songs are pretty fantastic too, spacey and psychedelic, groovy and heavy, a little bit proggy, super hooky, with just enough pop, the guitar sound buzzy and crunchy, the drums powerful, the whole sound hooky and heavy, doomy and sort of dreamy at the same time.
After a gorgeous hazy bit of psychedelic acoustic guitar, the record finishes with the nearly 10 minute "Grackel" which is the perfect Loon track, mixing all the various elements, the Neko Case like vocals (sounding surprisingly twangy here!), the shrieked demonic howls, the groovy Sabbathy riffage, the super melodic poppiness, the dirgey slowcore, all culminating in a woozy washed out feedback drenched spacey psychedelic outro, that could have (and probably SHOULD have) gone on for ANOTHER 10 minutes. Definitely a new favorite. Anyone into ANY of the above mentioned bands should for sure check this out.
The packaging is incredible too. The vinyl is black and green swirled, and is housed in an elaborate silkscreened fold out cover, green and metallic gold, a skeletal soldier wreathed in flowers, beneath the groups's tendril-y root-like logo, includes several inserts and a download code!
Slow, massive, majestic Italian stoner rock, from the label that brought us Pawnshop. Heavy, with unusually gravelly/goth-y vocals for the genre.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
I kid you not. This is the album where Lopez goes metal. Not the recording of sheet metal resonance, not the amplified vibrations of metal molecules, not even the inactivity of two pieces of sheet metal thoughtfully sitting alone in a room with nothing to ponder but their own existential (in)audibility. The normally sedate Lopez goes metal like Emperor, Slayer, or Cradle of Filth.
If anybody has recently witnessed the cascading power of Lopez's recent live shows, then "Untitled 104" is certainly not a surprise. Of course, Lopez sets everything up with 4 minutes of his usual silence, before a tumultuous assault of sampled metal blast beats destroys any semblence of serenity. Lopez layers wave after wave of rhythmic clatter that reveals an incredible amount of textural noise. One blast beat takes the aural center stage, and you find yourself asking "Huh? Is this Cannibal Corpse? Or was that last one from Morbid Angel? I don't know." (Actually, we suspect that all the samples are from one band, but even the metal minds here at AQ haven't confidently guessed which one.) Lopez could have unwittingly devised the ultimate trivia contest for metalheads to name the sample. 35 minutes pass (35 head spinning, if not head banging minutes) and then the metal rhythms stop. Ten more minutes of silence provide the coda.
While this record is really fucking good (indeed, it's one of Jim's favorites of the year along with Reynols' "Blank Tapes"), it is also another example of the academic / art world colonization of metal. Like Matthew Barney's awe-inspiring image in "Cremaster 2" of Dave Lombardo hammering at his drum kit behind the sound of swarming bees, Lopez's "Untitled 104" effectively translates the pure masculine power of metal to an audience who may not care for the, uh, aesthetics of metal. Fortunately, it appears that Lopez and Barney do not approach metal with a snobbish irony (like Harmony Korine's reprehensible photo-enlargements of black metal album covers that sold for tens of thousands of dollars), but such appropriation nevertheless marginalizes metal as nothing more than a texture or an attitude, far from the vibrant and deviant culture that it is.
Rant aside, if this record causes one fan of Bernhard Gunter to get into Burzum, then, as far as Aquarius Records is concerned, Lopez has succeeded. Recommended.
Portland sludge merchants Lord Dying are back to beat you up, beat you down, beat you all around with their second album for Relapse. It's doom metal clobberin' time, Lord Dying laying down the lumbering riffs, solo shred, and mean, bellowing vokills (though this time, we noticed some clean singing amidst the guttural roar, at least on "An Open Sore").
Songs like the oh so optimistic "(All Hopes Of A New Day)...Extinguished" wallow in sheer morose chuggery, this album approaching groovy death metal territory at times, sounding more 'core at others.
While wouldn't want ALL metal to always sound like Lord Dying, there is something about this that couldn't be any MORE metal. They do their thing just about perfectly, for when you really want to indulge in the simple, extreme, aggro pleasures of riffs, solos, and gruff/tuff vocals.
Again, for fans of High On Fire, that sort of doomed out, cranked up, heavy rockin' punishment - and also, once again, nice cover art, that looks like it belongs on a '70s dark fantasy paperback novel by Karl Edward Wagner or something.
First off, LOVE the cover painting, by Orion Landau, and his artwork elsewhere on this release, all of occultic subjects like skull faced spectres and winged demons, rendered in garish colors, greens and purples. It's art that looks like it's been taken from the cover to some lurid old pulp sci-fi/fantasy paperback. Then there's the music. Lordy lordy. Portland's Lord Dying sure kick out the hard-hitting sludge jams here on their debut full-length for Relapse - take heavy, and make it heavier! (The Sanford Parker production doesn't hurt.)
As attested to by the ugly, throat-ripped vokills, there's a bulldozing, brute force approach to Lord Dying's sometimes thrashing, sometimes grooving doom, but their metallic constructs have more to 'em than that, with the sheer aggression of their sinewy, sledgehammer riffage enhanced by roiling drum patterns, interesting progressions, and inspired leads, along with the artful use of feedback, distortion, and electronic effects. It's extremely satisfying "extreme music" when you're in the mood for a heavy-duty headbang. Definitely for fans of High On Fire, Red Fang, and the late great Karp (a band whom Lord Dying covered on a self-released 7" single that preceded this Relapse release), among others.
First there was the NWOBHM, back in '79... The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal: Iron Maiden, Saxon, Angel Witch, Diamond Head, etc. Then, later, there was the NWOFHM... The New Wave Of FINNISH Heavy Metal, a tongue in cheek, self-proclaimed description for the metal-obsessed, but not in fact actually really quite "metal" output of Finnish hypnorock outfit Circle and their various offshoots. Flagship acts Circle and Pharaoh Overlord occasionally dabbled in the NWOFHM, mixing metal tropes into their space rock motoriks, while certain side projects like Steel Mammoth and Krypt Axeripper went full-on NWOFHM, 24-7. But still weren't really metal bands, not exactly - too much pop, and prog, and psych, and pure WTF? going on, also.
Ok, but then there's what we'll have to call NWOFHMBSFRTT: The New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal But Seriously For Real This Time. Hesher youngsters from Finland, into ye olden metal of the '80s, not as a semi-ironic side project, but as their primary passion. And naturally, Circle & Co. have taken some of these true metal bands under their wing, putting out their stuff on their own label. Two of the best NWOFHMBSFRTT-er's we've got for you now, new releases from NWOBHM-styled throwbacks Lord Fist, and raging thrash maniacs Ranger!
Taking their cues from such classic acts as Maiden and '80s Scandinavian forebears Heavy Load, with some of the mystical, cult qualities of Manilla Road, this is underground old school inspired awesomeness all the way. The vocalist screaming to the sky, the guitarist blazing away with energetic abandon, shooting off sparkling leads, the rhythm section galloping along... It's super hooky and headbanging, fist-pumping even (as befits their name), a rollicking good time.
Lord Fist don't shy from the epic fantasy majesty stuff - the title track seems to tell a cryptic story of post apocalyptic devastation and alien revenge (???), but we're less inclined to puzzle out lyrics about a "neon exodus" than to simply revel in the album's hectic, pedal-to-the-metal rippers. Recommended to fans of other such current heavy metal revivalists as Borrowed Time and Enforcer, and of course all NWOFHM lovers who want to take it to the next (-BSFRTT) level!!
The Lord Fist is available on cd and also on gatefold vinyl, all the better to enjoy the gorgeous artwork of raven-winged, psychedelic motorcyclists speeding through a tripped-out, green-tinged, ruined landscape.
Lord Fist is a neat/dumb name that sounds pretty metal, eh? And yep, Lord Fist are metal all right, from Finland, via Jussi from Circle's Full Contact vinyl imprint. Now, Jussi's Ektro and Full Contact labels have brought us plenty of "NWOFHM" - New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal - bands before, yeah. But those quasi-joke (or are they?) bands were never quite the real deal like Lord Fist, who on this debut four song 12", actually sound authentically NWOBHM - New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, a la Angel Witch, Cloven Hoof, Satan, etc.!
And dang, they're good. The youthful foursome of Lord Fist dish out rippers like "Lord Of The Night" and "Velvet Gods", chock full of high pitched screams (for vengeance!), jaunty galloping riffage, wailing leads, catchy choruses, and epick & mystickal vibes.
Could easily be up there, someday soon, with the best of today's crop of throwback metal bands like Enforcer and Cauldron, though the 'cult' feel here surpasses those. Man, Finland is making our heads bang lately, with the Ranger 12" (also on Full Contact) and now this!
This document of raw and primitive American black metal has been resurrected and reissued on vinyl by the Dais label. An unlikely choice, considering the rest of the Dais catalog, but in its own way, this collection of outsider blackness is a pretty good fit. This Kentucky one man band recorded only two cassette demos, between 1993 and 1994, only one of which was ever released. Originally thought to be a joke, the liner notes in this new edition state explicitly that "the hatred radiating from these recordings is real!", and while the man behind these sounds was known as Roach back in the day, he now goes by the name James Brown III, and is a member of LA black metallers Harassor (and is responsible for the awesome Moon Knight tape we reviewed a while back)!
Eleven blasts of blasting, pounding blackness, primitive and raw, fierce and feral, the guitars buzz maniacally, the drums super lo-fi, boomy and rehearsal space sounding, the vokills so awesome, a sick demonic croak, all woven into short sharp bursts of true black metal grimnity, the songs slipping from mid-tempo plod to furious blast and back again, the sound fantastically lo-fi, blown out, murky and muddy, buzzy and black.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each one hand numbered, incredible packaging, black matte finish sleeves, with red metallic foil stamped artwork, the lp is one sided, with a cool satanic etching on the B side, inside is a huge 12"x12" booklet with lyrics, photos, and two interviews with Lord Foul from way back in 1994.
Full length number two from this Chicago sludge metal supergroup, featuring folks from a whole bunch of other aQ metal faves, Nachmystium, Von, Amichi and Indian, and really if you did do some weird metal math, and combined those various bands, you'd probably come out with something like this, a furious, roiling sprawl of blackened sludge metal churn, the riffs, thick and dense and downtuned, the drumming fierce and pummeling, the vocals slipping from intense blackened rasp, to demonic screech, to monstrous death metal bellow, with those vox sometimes spiralling into clouds of psychedelic FX and blurred reverb. But this is definitely not your run of the mill sludge, it's not all creep and slither, instead the band chug and pound and blast furiously, but all of that energy seems to go towards density rather than propulsion, the songs tranced out and almost looped sounding, the actual tempos slow, but within those slow tempos, the drums flail wildly, explosive blasts of tribal frenzy, the guitars unleash dizzying tangles of riffage, and wild squiggles of melody, the sound slipping from gnarled Deathspell like blackness, to pounding grunted goat metal, and from tripped out psychedelic heaviness to death metal dirgery, and more often than not, some gloriously twisted combination of all of the above. A new favorite for sure with the metalheads around here.
Killer grim artwork courtesy of aQ pal Justin Bartlett.
Many moons ago, we gave a plethora of positive hand signals (thumbs up, devil horns, 'hang loose'...) in written review form to the debut disc by a Russian stoner doom band, this one, Lord Of Doubts, who impressed the hell out of us both -despite- and -because- of their uncanny resemblance to those aQ (and everyone's) fave stoner doom metal mongers, Electric Wizard. Nothin' original about 'em, no doubt about it, Lord Of Doubts were (and are) Electric Wizard worshippers, but sometimes that's ok. When done right. Which they did. Basically, it's about the sound AND the riffs. If you got 'em, you got 'em. We declared Lord Of Doubts "heirs to the Dopethrone" and there was high demand for that disc, which unfortunately was somewhat limited and went out of print all too soon...
But now, we've learned of a NEW opus from LoD, well an ep at least, which we just ordered direct from the Russian Federation. Ensconced in a handsome digipak, this golden disc contains a brief introduction, and then two longer, bonged-out songs, "The Gates Of Doom" and "Kali Ma - Black Mother", over 20 minutes total. Once again, damn if they don't sound just like the Electric Wizard... Crushing riff repetition. Crashing cymbals. Gnarled vocal chant. Everything slowly pulsating in a dense druggy haze. But, now it's as if Electric Wizard, in the tradition of the Beatles, travelled to India to get high with their guru... Maybe it's the cover art, and the droning chants of "Kali Ma", and the buried, distorted dialog samples from some Hindi movie... but Lord Of Doubts do seem to bring an Eastern ceremonial vibe to these lugubriously heavy, sprawling psych proceedings! Electric Wizard and The Temple Of Doom, anyone?
If not utterly impossible, it would certainly still be silly to write a review of this debut by Russian dope n' doom trio Lord Of Doubts without mentioning that they sound a heck of a lot like UK stoner doom titans Electric Wizard. In fact, those two words would easily do for a brief review of this: ELECTRIC WIZARD! You could almost leave it at that, really. Citing a few of their song titles would work well too: "Temple Of The Riff", "Satan's Magic Smoke", "Heavier Than Universe". You get the idea, eh?
Of course, this list, we're highlighting the domestic release of EW's latest slab of psychedelic sonic Satanism, Black Masses. But if you're still jonesin' for more of an Electric Wizard fix, here you go. Lord Of Doobies, whoops, we mean Lord Of Doubts, deliver the same brand of bong-smoke-shrouded, slow n' low riffage that Electric Wizard fans are hooked upon. Drugula obviously put the bite on these Russians too. Their riffs are as massive and mesmeric. The rhythm section likewise a pounding, lurching throb. And, clinching it, the vocals are similarly a ragged, wretched, wasted drawl. It's total EW worship, no doubt about it. We can't imagine they'd deny the Electric Wizard influence, but original or not (and EW themselves of course owe something to predecessors Black Sabbath), Lord Of Doubts do what they do quite well. It's not just the *sound* that they emulate, but they also prove themselves capable of writing worthy riffs, so rather than a rip-offs, we regard them as talented acolytes, and possible heirs to the Dopethrone when and if EW ever pack it in. Seriously, we were a bit skeptical about this before we first put it on, but soon found ourselves utterly hypnotized by the heaviness, and how can you argue with that?
