Lordy. From the same label that brought us Lord Vicar, comes another doom metal act with Lord in the name, Lord Of The Grave! They like their Lords over there at The Church Within.
So yeah, of course this is some doomy stuff. This Swiss power trio plays raw doom metal along the lines of Sleep, Electric Wizard, and Eyehategod. Slow and low, but not quite glacially ultradoomic, though definitely on the sludgy side of Sabbath, with swinging, swaying, repetitive riffs pounding themselves pleasantly into your (possibly) stoned skull. Simple but effective! The relentless blown-out riffage sometimes segues into spacey, nod-scene atmospherics (where they really begin to sound like Om, approaching that style of psychedelic metal minimalism).
There's five tracks here, none of 'em short, most around 7-10 minutes long and the final number clocking in at 17:33 (a track long enough, and with enough tripped out guitar soloing, to draw comparisons to Earthless). Any one of 'em though seems like they could (or should, or maybe even do) go on forever, lumbering along heavily and hypnotically. Adding to the mesmeric vibe are the rhyming incantations of the singer, his voice a hoarse holler, or sometimes a spoken-sung stoned mumble, buried in the mix. Again, we're reminded of Sleep/Om.
Not much else to say, you either like this sort of stuff or you don't. And if you do, we probably don't even need to mention that the first track is entitled "Holy Vitus", do we?
Most recent solo record from the drummer of LA black metal grimlords Harassor, another collection of raw blackened primitivism, two side long songsuites, each one a constantly shifting soundworld, from droned out black buzz mesmer to something much more raw and minimal to straight up outsider experimentation. Droned out ambient murk transforms into a loping goat metal gallop, buzzing, droney-y churn blurs into wild noise drenched post rock lumber, a few parts get downright dreamy, the sounds coalescing into something bordering on blackened shoegaze, while others devolve into almost psychedelic ambience, swirling squalls of guitarnoise and stumbling drum damage and abstract vokills, all blurred into a strange sort of freeform dirgery. In fact, much of A Destiny Of Death is spent outside the confines of buzzing blackness, especially on side one, and while the second side has plenty of trippy ambience and weird psychedelic dronemusic moments, it's also heavier on the, well, heavy, with some seriously harrowing black buzz, raw metallic noise and hateful howling crush.
Every tape individually blood splattered. And yeah, also EXTREMELY LIMITED.
Another blast of nekro-black "morbid dead metal" filth from this aQ fave, the solo project of Andorkappen, the drummer of LA black metal trio Harassor. And like the previous tape on Universal Consciousness, this is some dark, sinister, hateful heaviness, the sound raw and primitive, filthy and crusty, the sound lo-fi, but still somehow weirdly lush and LOUD, buzzing guitars, pounding practice space drumming, and some seriously sick demonic croak vokills. The sound is all over the map, slipping from super brittle and tinny, to murky and muddy and sludgey, the songs too, dirgey ritualistic creeps, frantic lightning speed blasts, pounding punkish d-beat blowouts, the sounds not at all typical, with clean effects laden guitars and warped FX, wild tangled psychedelia, field recordings, all woven into this twisted black epic. 36 minutes, 20 brief blasts, plus a super creeped out almost 20th century sounding piano dirge outro, spare and abstract, percussive and darkly ominous. The whole track repeats on both sides. The label describes this as "primitive devotional caveman soul music" and who are we to argue.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Packaged in super deluxe, embossed, heavy textured metallic paper J-cards, each one hand numbered and sealed with a sticker, each copy marked with Mr. Lord Time's actual blood!
Latest blast of nekro morbid death metal primitivism from the drummer of LA black metallers Harassor, and like on previous tapes, Drink My Tears is a twisted, lo-fi, blackened, psychedelic freakout, a warped strain of primitivism, the recording this time around even shittier (read: genius), the guitars brittle and buzzy, but not black metal buzzy, more sort of tinny, the drums cardboard box thumps, everything super distorted and in the red, the vocals a raspy grumbly croak, heavily processed, and made super trippy, the sound surprisingly melodic, with what sounds like piano, the recording not so black metal as damaged lo-fi dirge pop with black metal elements? Maybe. Well, really, it IS black metal obviously, but seriously mutated, black metal the way Circle Of Ouroborus is black metal, as much the mood and atmosphere and intent as the sound, cuz really some of the tracks here are weirdly hypnotic slabs of lo-fi psychedelic weirdness, that out of context, we might not even classify as black metal. But then there are tracks that are raw as fuck, and black as fuck, but those are far outweighed by the trippy, the tranced out, the droney, the woozy and wonderfully weird. Swirls of distorted guitar melodies emulate carnival organs, a sort of blackened kosmische, others are lurching lumbering dirges that again seem too heavy on the chiming clean guitar to be truly black metal, but fuck it, not of that matters, this is some super rad, super twisted, outsider sonic weirdness, that whether it sounds psychedelic, or grim and black, or freaky and WTF?, to you, or hell even all of the above, this is some amazing, inspired, dementedly genius stuff that is KILLING us. So totally and absolutely recommended.
Comes in swank packaging, colored cases, stickered red tapes, heavy cardstock J-card, each one marked with real blood, and each one with two buttons.
A brief blast of grim nekro blackness from this offshoot of LA's black metal mavens Harassor, Lord Time offers up 4 tracks of punked out, super raw heaviness, with a sound that alternates between weirdly melodic bursts of frenzied black blast and churning murky d-beat crush, the vocals a bizarre alien croak, the drums buried in the mix, but the guitars, gloriously blown out and buzz drenched, managing to sound thick and heavy even with some seriously lo-fi production, the songs twisted and tangled into convoluted arrangements, lurching from frantic demonic fury to pulverizing punkish pound and back again, often fading out into tripped out psychedelic ambience or blackly droned out drift before lurching right back into it again. And while it may be on the short side, the whole program repeats on the flipside, but with significantly different mixes and arrangements, the B side sounding distinctly more distorted and lo-fi, but at the same time laced with seemingly more stretches of psychedelic black ambience�
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each tape smeared with actual blood, and housed in gorgeous letterpressed #'d J-cards (also smeared with blood!), printed on sparkly reflective gold paper.
Supergroup - or as Julian Cope would put it, stuporgroup - doom action here folks! Even before we heard it, we were chuffed about Lord Vicar's debut full length. We'd already had a taste of the Vicar via their 7" last year on I Hate Records, and so as soon as we heard there was an album out we HAD to have it... we made contact with the label in Germany directly, and now some weeks later here they are. Even if we hadn't heard that 7", this is a no-brainer for anyone (like us) into traditional doom metal, just based on the heavyweight pedigree of the band's members. From Sweden, singer Christian Lindersson aka Lord Chritus, former frontman for Count Raven, Terra Firma, and (on the album after Wino left the band) the legendary Saint Vitus! From Finland, guitarist Peter Inverted formerly Peter Vicar, of Reverend Bizarre (R.I.P.) as well as VDGGish progsters Orne. From England, drummer Gareth Milsted of Centurion's Ghost. Also from Finland, there's bassist Jussi "Iron Hammer" Myllykoski who is not from any band we know of, but makes up for it by having a cool nickname. And then, giving this even more cult cred, there's a guest guitar solo on one song by Don Angelo Tringali of Slough Feg and Cold Mourning from the USA.
If any of these names mean anything to you, you know you're gonna be well and truly doomed when you put this on. There's slo-mo, mouldering witchburning riffs played on loud, fuzzed out axes, hand in cloven hoof with the weepy, whiney, sometimes effected and always affecting vox of Lord Chritus, extremely Ozzy-esque yet utterly distinctive. Anything with these guys is gonna be steeped in Sabbath-iness. And as Peter Inverted's post-Reverend Bizarre project, this basically sounds a lot like his old band (and thus also like Sabbath, and Sleep, and Cathedral...) but with a few new wrinkles. The songs on Fear No Pain range from the super sludgy to a plodding swing to even more uptempo ("The Last Of The Templars" is in the rockin' mode of "Cromwell" by RB for sure). In addition there's some morosely folky parts that also remind us of Witchcraft, Lord Vicar certainly having supped from the same '70s folk-prog nectar-filled chalice as those Swedish retro doom sensations. Especially on this album's last track, the truly epic 14 and a half minute "The Funeral Pyre" which begins all acoustic-guitary before eventually unleashing monumental riffage (echoing Sabbath's "Lord Of This World" perhaps), all of which is graced by Chritus's most raw and lachrymose performance, almost a la Paternoster, ending this album with a heavy '70s prog vibe indeed...
For fans of all the bands abovementioned, no doubt, also the likes of Witchfinder General, Electric Wizard, Solstice... heck you get the idea. Highly recommended to all doomhounds.
Another chunk of classic old school style doom from Sweden's I Hate Records. This time from a band called Lord Vicar, whose name should give you a clue as to what they're all about. From Reverend to Vicar? That's right, Reverend Bizarre's axeman Peter Vicar has joined up with vocalist Christian Lindersson of Count Raven, Terra Firma and St. Vitus to craft some total Sabbath worshipping heavy doom. And it is pretty excellent. Killer loping tempo, druggy doomy guitar, wailed almost Ozzy-ish vocals, think Pentagram, Pagan Altar and the like� fans of that sort of classic doom will dig this big time. There is some surprising folkiness to be found here and there, but it never takes long for the band to lurch back into full on doom groove destruction. Lord Vicar also include in their ranks members of Centurions Ghost, While Heaven Wept and Revelation for extra doom cred, if any more were needed!
LIMITED TO 700 COPIES! Packaged in a thick matte sleeve, pressed on heavy vinyl, with a color insert with lyrics and liner notes.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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These Spanish masters of monumental ultra doom stoner sludge return, with four new tracks. And as we mentioned last time, don't confuse these guys with the Master Musicians Of Bukkake, while both take their name from a somewhat problematical source (Google it - or maybe don't), the Lords are a much heavier proposition, as becomes pretty obvious a few minutes into the first track. Although they do start out with a wild tangle of chaotic psychedelic noisemaking, a squall of swirling skree, all set to some monster drumming, but soon, the song proper kicks in, and the band lock into some groovy stoner metal, all slithery riffage, and propulsive drumming, but this is not just rehashed riffage, the band whip out some wild squiggle guitar harmonies, and the vocals, not at all what you might expect, a sort of super processed, demonic, underwater shriek/gargle, totally changes the tone of the band, especially when they kick out some stonery wah wah guitar shred, but then it's wrapped around those crazed vokills, a dizzying mix for sure. And those guitars, that's really what halls make this something else entirely, when the guitars go careening off course, and instead of churning away, the riff splinters, leaving will blasts of psychedelic freakout, or groovy shred, or just tripped out noisiness, always to eventually somehow return to the roiling riffiness. The songs are long too, so they go through all sorts of transformations/permutations, from doomy creeps and crawls, to psychedelic blooze blowouts, super stretched out slo-mo ultradooooooom to Sabbathy swing, all pocked with spacey FX, wild guitar aktion and more of those twisted alien vox. Killer!
Not to be confused with the Master Musicians, these LORDS Of Bukkake are Spanish, and specialize in a particularly twisted, sick, sludgey, electronic flecked ultradoom. The label describes their sound as Iron Monkey meets the Swans meets Godflesh meets Esoteric meets Eyehategod, and while something like that may be too good to actually exist, this definitely comes close. The first few minutes set the stage with a squall of wild glitched out electronics, swirling squiggles of damaged effects, mewled maniacal vox, before quickly slipping into a low slung almost twangy groove,a ll super busy drumming, and spidery reverbed guitars, not to mention more swirls of weird effects, dubby reverb and whatnot, and the drums are so bizarre super chaotic and all over the place, soon some chiming guitars come in, but it still sounds more tripped out and abstract and psychedelic than specifically doomy. It's not until about 4 minutes in, when out come the big guns, and by big guns we of course mean, crushing downtuned, super distorted riffage, and then the vocals, holy shit. Like Burning Witch but even MORE fucked up and freaked out, raspy and alien and sick, like some cartoon supervillain, perfectly matched to the sort of twisted psych doom these guys lay down.
The second track is another sprawl of slo-mo doom trudgery, all downtuned glacial guitaring and octopoidal caveman drumming, this time peppered with stretches of droned out layered high end, but again, it's those vocals, seriously freaky and haunting and EVIL.
The last two tracks continue on in much the same way, lacing the sick black doom with squalls of effects, of warped wah wah drenched psych guitars, swirling spaced out atmospheres, the final track especially, starts out all total hazy psych rock before the guitars drop out completely, leaving just the drums and some insect like buzzing electronics, suddenly sounding like Geronimo or Bastard Noise, before finally launching back into some doom, this time though, the tempo is cranked up and it's almost groovy, a little stonery, a LOT Sabbathy, but corrupted by those awesomely damaged vokills, and then finally the song collapses into yet another sun baked stretch of shredding washed out psychedelia, the only thing keeping it from total druggy psych rock bliss out, those vox, turning it instead into something wholly other.
Twisted, sick, heavy, slow and low, psychedelic and totally gloriously fucked. It's almost like someone whipped this up just for the aQ weirdos out there, a seriously WAY recommended batch of what-the-fuck avant psychedelic outsider doom sludge radness!
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!
This has a lot going for it. First off, they're called Lords Of Falconry, which is kinda cool. Lordly, even. And this, their debut full-length, comes to us via the also quite lordly Holy Mountain label, who have a pretty stellar track record as far as we're concerned. In fact, Holy Mountain probably has had a higher number of AQ Records Of The Week per capita than almost any other label. Furthermore, our discerning pal JW who runs Holy Mountain tells us that THIS is precisely the sort of thing he's always wanted to release on his label. So far, so good. Our appetites are whetted. And then, there's the music. ULTRA fuzzed, freaked out, high energy, heavy psychedelic guitar jams, to put it plainly. Can't complain about that, no siree. But (you knew there had to be a but), we do have one minor caveat for you potential emptors... it concerns the vocals. If this was all-instrumental, there'd be no hemming and hawing. But, some of the vocal stylings struck some of us as, well, a little bit goofy. Self-consciously "rawk" or something. You may not mind a bit, and we actually don't much either.
Anyway, it's hard to be picky about the vocals when Lords Of Falconry's guitars are blasting jet-engine like, turning the air into cottage cheese they way they used to do back in Blue Cheer's daze, the wild FX and throbbing distortion turning yr head inside out so your brain is being caressed and cudgeled by these riffs and rhythms without any help from your ears.
Recommended to folks who get off on bands like Julian Cope's Braindonor, DMBQ, Midnite Snake, The Heads, Hawkwind, High Rise, and other fuzz-laden, pedal-stomping, heavy-duty psychedelic throwbacks. And by the way, though Holy Mountain didn't tell us this, we're pretty sure that one of these Lords Of Falconry is in fact none other than guitarist Steven Wray Lobdell of Davis Redford Triad, Sufi Mind Game, and Faust fame! If true (it is), that explains a lot about this. The other dude in the band we believe to be one Sammy Adams, formerly the drummer for Fireballs Of Freedom. Talk about a power duo. So, despite a slight case of what we might call the Scissorfight syndrome, this gets a solid recommendation from us!
The Italian black metal horde Lorn specialize in COLD BLACK METAL. It says so right there on the record cover. And indeed, Towards The Abyss Of Disease, their second full length, is cold. Freezing cold. Frosty and grim as all good black metal should be. But Lorn offer up something unexpected. Ridiculously catchy songs. And yeah, we talk about black metal bands being catchy all the time. Weird hooks buried under vast swaths of black fuzz. But Lorn, whether purposeful or not, outdo them all, managing to inject some impossibly catchy melodies into the chorus (and sometimes the verses too) of each of these six black hymns. And we mean stuck in your head like crazy. Humming it for the next week. That sort of thing. It doesn't really take away from the band's grim evil atmosphere, but what it does do is add a weird haunting hooky melancholy that is not often found in COLD BLACK METAL bands. The opening salvo, the title track, is a buzzing midtempo burzumic blast, but when the chorus drops, the guitars lock into a haunting minor key sing song melody that is equal parts lullaby and long lost classic pop song. Granted, it's buried under a mile of buzzing prickly spike encrusted fuzz, but that's exactly what makes these songs stand out. The impossible alliance between hooky pop catchiness and cold grim blackness. The blackness rules of course, the surface of every track is a barren wasteland of black buzz, thrashing percussive pound and growled demonic screech, but the catchiness lurks just below the surface, barely audible through a storm of swirling blackness and ultra distorted blown out fuzz. But it informs all the sounds around it, giving Lorn a truly creepy (and catchy sound) that with close listening unfolds like some hellish black flower. So awesome!
Ahh, the Body. One of our favorite crushing sludge behemoths. Purveyors of pulverizing brutality. Khanate, Moss, Corrupted, all sonic brethren of the mighty metallic monsters known as the Body.
So what might you think if you heard that two of the guys from The body had a side project called Lorna Doom? Well, you'd probably be thinking the same thing we were. Fuck yeah! The Body, Lorna DOOM. How could we not be psyched?! Okay, well what if we told you Lorna Doom was in fact The Body's HIP-HOP side project? Then what? Run screaming? Or would you still be intrigued? Maybe more than intrigued, maybe kind of excited? Well we were, and we still are, cuz this is pretty fucking dope.
Woven together from simple drum machine beats, weird post rock guitar lines, jazzy horns, bizarre samples, and AWESOME loops (the first track is made from a loop of Rob Base's ("it Takes Two"!) and of course some bad ass white boy rapping. At first we were sort of thrown for a loop. But the more we listened to this, the more we dug it. Not hard to see these guys rocking the mic and holding their own alongside the big boys. Funky and funny, but not joke-y at all. This disc had us reimagining Eminem's movie 8 Mile, but recast with these two bearded indie rock metal dudes in the part of Rabbit (or Rabbits I guess), how fucking awesome would that be?
Anyway, not necessarily for fans of the Body, although we are and we dig this a lot. Regardless, some seriously solid, funky, outsider, homemade hip hop. Cool stuff for sure.
Now known as *Los* Natas rather than just plain Natas (to avoid confusion with the hiphop group of the same name?), this excellent Argentinian stoner rock outfit are back at last with a follow-up to their highly regarded (around AQ anyway) 1999 album Ciudad de Brahman (which is sadly out of print now, as it was released by the now defunct Man's Ruin label -- at the time we proclaimed it one of said label's best releases ever). An atmospheric Kyuss flavor is still present, but they've really developed from their humble beginnings into a powerful and original band. Harking back to lost wonders of obscure 1970s Latin American heavy psych, the Los Natas trio's music is heavy, rumbling stuff with stretches of spacey, almost jazz improv, acoustic breaks, and of course Spanish language vocals... They rock out on tracks like "Lei Motive" (with some unexpected almost boogie-woogie piano dropping into the middle of the song) and get all abstract and avantgarde on gently droning, drugged out trips like "Planeta Solitario". Recorded in Argentina by SF's own master of heaviness Billy Anderson (producer for Neurosis, High On Fire, Cathedral, Melvins, etc.), this is definitely one of the best heavy, psychedelic rock releases of the year thus far! (PS look out for another upcoming Los Natas disc to be released on Jussi of Circle's Ektro label someday.)
Attentive Aquarius customers probably already know Argentina's Los Natas as a band that, over their career to date, have recorded riffy Kyuss-inspired albums for seminal stoner rock label Man's Ruin (RIP) -and- also released proggy, droned-out space rock experiments for Circle's Ektro imprint, in all cases solidifying our Los Natas fandom here at AQ. Not that the stylistic distance 'tween the Man's Ruin and Ektro albums is that much of a stretch -- certainly not for these guys, who have become masters at making modern psychedelic hard rock that harks back to the druggy daze of '70s krautrock and their own South American hippie heroes, as much as it does the "desert rock" of Kyuss.
Well, we're glad to report that Los Natas are back and bringin' it with this, their latest album, the long-awaited, full-on follow-up to their previous Small Stone release Corsario Negro from back in 2002. They've definitely got the stoner rock rolling here, El Hombre Montana being on the more metallic side of the Los Natas equation, super heavy and percussively driving and seemingly haunted by the spirit of Black Sabbath in the guitar crunch department. Full of fuzz and distortion, these songs spiral in intensity -- lots of wild acid rawk GUITAR bursting out all over the place -- but also find room for some gruff vocal melodies (all songs sung in Spanish only). There's even a track of lovely, acoustic campfire folk. So we'd say that this is a stoner-rock-en-Espanol album with broad appeal to people into the likes of, say, Six Organs of Admittance, Comets On Fire, The Heads, and Boris.
Indeed, while Stateside these guys have their fans (we know quite a few AQ regulars are into 'em), they still don't have quite the profile of another AQ fave, Japan's Boris. And while Los Natas don't -quite- ever go to the extremes of heaviness and weirdness as Boris sometimes do, both bands occupy a lot of the same middle ground in the '70s inspired psychedelic hard rock realm, so we'd like to point out that there's not reason why anyone who loved Boris' Akuma No Uta, or Pink, or (especially) Heavy Rocks shouldn't also thrill to the music of Los Natas!
For fans of Argentina's heavy psych stoner rock overlords Los Natas, we've FINALLY managed to snag enuff copies of this sprawling live-in-the-studio double cd to list... These Munchen Sessions were, as you might expect from the title, recorded in Munich, Germany, in 2003. With the tape rolling courtesy of Electrohasch head honcho (and Colour Haze guitarist) Stefan Koglek, who also makes a guest appearance on one track, the Los Natas guys took this opportunity to jam out on material both new and old; hints of their heroes Black Sabbath (or is that a Bang riff we're hearing??) seem to surface amongst themes fans will recognize from past Los Natas efforts like Corsario Negro. The two discs bear two long tracks apiece, song suites really, each the appoximate length of a vinyl album side, wandering through all kinds of moods both heavy and mellow...basically progged-out in the same laidback way as the amazing Toba-Trance volumes Los Natas released a while back on Circle's Ektro label. Though Los Natas started their career off as (pretty killer) Kyuss klones, their interest in/influence from '70s psych and krautrock like Agitation Free has become more evident over the years, and we'd say that folks into the likes of Pharaoh Overlord and the heavier Acid Mother Temple material who haven't yet heard Los Natas need to check 'em out, and there's plenty to check out here!
Flailing long hair, jamming guitar solos, and gruff vocals (in Spanish). Weirdly looming desert cacti with electric instruments. Astral drug trips to the tops of holy mountains. Thick clouds of marijuana smoke forming into the shapes of totemic birds and animals. Campfire acoustic ceremony. And utter, utter HEAVINESS. Oh yeah, these guys from way down south in Argentina are one of our favorite "stoner rock" bands ever. We sound stoned just talking about 'em.
We've been fans of Los Natas for around ten years now, ever since we heard their 2nd album, Ciudad De Brahman, released in 1999 by thee primo purveyors of stoner rock, Man's Ruin, now defunct. In a world of approximately 1,257,523 Kyuss clones (about half of 'em from Sweden, according to the most recent data we have available), Los Natas stood out as particularly excellent example of the Kyuss style desert rock thing, fat guitar tone and all. And then, they took that sound and went all wonderfully weird with it, releasing a couple "Toba-Trance" discs of folk-flecked, pot-headed, spaced-out '70s sounding progginess on the Finnish label Ektro, run by another AQ fave band, Circle. And yet they also managed to get even heavier and more aggressively metallic elsewhere on other albums, like Corsario Negro and Le Hombre Montana. It's been three long years since we last heard from 'em, and wow, this new one could be their best yet!
As displayed by the fierce urgency of the storming, spiraling, and very metal instrumental "David Y Goliath" to then the hushed and lovely contemplative string-pluck of "Bienvenidos" that immediately follows it, El Nuevo Orden De La Libertad provides everything we want from these South American fuzzfreaks. It's loud, pounding and grinding, sooo heavy and rockin', yet with many memorable, melodic moments. And their interest in sprawling spaced out krautrocky improvs hasn't exactly abated, with detours into a nod-zone of blissful piano/acoustic guitar interplay (on final track "Dos Horses" ferinstance, that reminds us of Circle's Miljard) and stuff like that, as Los Natas wander about a mystic desertscape, dreaming and destroying with drug-fueled fervor.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again. As much as we love Japan's Boris, there's no reason that this equally heavy and psychedelic band shouldn't be as adulated.
Argentina's Los Natas were once a Kyuss clone (and a good one) but now they're really come into their own. First they impressed us with last year's mighty rockin' "Corsario Negro" opus (second in our personal Stoner Rock Of The Year estimation only to "Heavy Rocks" from Japan's Boris, maybe even tied with 'em), now they branch out further with this psychedelic "trance" album released on Jussi of Circle's Ektro label. And they fit right in with the likes of Ektro labelmates Circle and Acid Mothers Temple. The Los Natas trio has emerged from the pot haze of their Buenos Aires "Death Studios" to unfurl the banner of "Toba-Trance", a mostly instrumental (though we like the brief vocal "hoo hoo" bit in the middle of track 2) laid-back spacey exploratory opus that's not really "heavy" in the way we were expecting. The metal part of the stoner rock equation is mostly missing. Rather, the acoustic guitars and Latin flavored jazz improv elements of the druggier, more atmospheric tracks found on "Corsario Negro" set the standard here. Droney, melodic, extended (three tracks, fifty-two minutes total)...this is a very nice lil' trip. Guitarist Sergio Chotsourian channels his '70s heroes with some lengthy psych solos. Flutes and South American Indian instruments also show up in the mix. Immediate references might be Circle's stoner-rock side-project Pharoah Overlord, or the lighter side of Boris's semi-acoustic "Flood". Byram's thinking of Grateful Dead jams (and we know Jussi loves the Greatful Dead) but this is as much Agitation Free or some other Krautrock hippy stuff. What it definitely is, is spacerock, mostly mellow and quite pretty, mesmerizing and intricate, great going-to-bed-at-night music. As we said, it never gets really heavy, though there's some riffier moments throughout and distorted noisiness that kicks in towards the end of track three, not loud but satisfying nonetheless. The more we listen, the more we like. Recommended.
MPEG Download: "Que Rico..." [/audio/losnatasque.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Que Rico..." [/audio/losnatasque.m3u]
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Argentinian stoner rock heroes Los Natas are a band that definitely seems to have shifted their allegiance from the all-too-common-inspiration Kyuss to the real ancient old stuff, getting really into Pink Floyd and the Greatful Dead and all their own '70s South American psychedelic forebears (obscure bands we gringos don't even know about). You can still hear the Kyuss in 'em, but filtered through an original Latin American/psych record collector creativity. Los Natas' last two records have been great -- both the harder-rockin' Corsario Negro and the spacier, mellower, mostly instrumental Toba-Trance. Now comes Toba-Trance II! While it reprises many of the elements of the first Toba-Trance (ending even with a live version of "Que Rico..." from that album), in parts this sequel seems way proggier. Hard prog. With flutes. Squawking fucked up horn bleats. Serious riffage. Especially on the eleven-minute "Tracion En El Arrocero" which we could imagine as music for some sort of medieval asskicker procession. That's not the lengthiest track on here, either: the 15 minute "Humo de Marihuana" is a genuine spaghetti western epic. Of course it wouldn't be Toba-Trance (or Los Natas) without hippy percussion and limpid, liquid bass undulations, mellow stoned spaced out maaaann. And mention must be made of the Flamenco stylings and psychedelic soloing of guitarist Sergio -- he smokes! Gently beautiful and meltingly mesmeric, the Latin American answer to Pharaoh Overlord or Ghost perhaps. And it's as beautifully packaged as the first Toba-Trance -- great looking graphics, Ektro!
Despond marks the very first proper full length from these Nashville funereal doomlords (whose frontman also plays in doom outfit Mourner, whose most recent record came out on Paradigms a short while back), after a whole mess of splits and demos, and if ever there was a record that captured the true spirit of depressive ultradoom, it's Despond. Epic musical miserablism, the sound HUGE, the production massive, but the sound is only part of it, the mood, the atmosphere. Song after song, with titles like "Open Veins To A Curtain Closed" and "Silent And Completely Overcome" and "Cut Up, Depressed And Alone", peppered with haunting bits of spoken word, recorded as if the speaker were sitting alone in their room, in the dark, contemplating the end. It's seriously grim and powerful stuff, and the gorgeously varied music reflects that, by exploring different shades of dark, this is not all churning, roiling black sludge, it's way more nuanced than that, just check out the opener "Open Veins To A Curtain Closed", which begins with just gristly gurgly vocals over big plodding drums, the effect truly harrowing, before the guitars come crashing in, and briefly, the track is a plodding sprawl of broken souled doooooom, but then the downtuned dirge peels away, leaving just spidery clean guitars, shuffling drums, woozy wandering super melodic basslines, strangely psychedelic, much of the song is spent in this haunting ethereal drift, before finally, the song slips back into churning chugging, guttural voiced black heaviness, loping and melancholy, but peppered with brief blasts of grinding metallic crush, only to finally unwind with a lumbering stretch of surprisingly melodic, but still crushingly mournful dirgery. And that's just the first song. The rest of the record plays out similarly, the melodic component a real surprise, with the band seemingly more beholden to classic doom like My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost, than the ultra doom sludge that followed, with much of the music on Despond sounding downright poppy, still dark, and dreary, and depressive, but the melodies are surprisingly catchy, a timeless melancholy woven into a more modern funeral doom framework, but it makes for a much more satisfying listen.
That said, the band do get seriously slo-mo sludgey, like on "Shallow Pulse", where they wed some more melodic guitar lines to some tarpit black ooze riffage, the vocals gurgling over the top, the drums pounding out a Neanderthal plod, or on "Silent And Completely Alone", which begins all clean vocaled, which might have you scratching your head, until the song slips right back into the roiling black abyss, and back into a blurred black doomsludge drift, but with the addition of those clean vocals, adds a whole other element to the song, and the sound, and while perhaps taking away from the pure grimnity for some, to us, it only makes the music that much more emotional, and makes that song quite possibly our favorite.
There are also some mysterious interludes, gorgeous ambient experimentation, thick Tim Hecker like crumbling doomscapes, creepy reverbed piano drive drifts, even a gorgeous, mostly clean choral sounding guitar/organ/chanted vox closer, but those only add to the overall vibe, the doomed soul, black hearted, and yeah, despondent atmosphere, the whole record a fantastically tense push and pull between collapsing black hole ultra doom and a more melodic classic dreary miserablism.
This is some truly dark and depressive doom, from the name of the band, Loss, to the cover image, a headshot of a man being hung, to the song titles like "Cut-up, Depressed And Alone" and "Conceptual Funerealism Into The FInal Act (Of Being)", to the inner sleeve image, a huge razor blade, to the lyrics: "And these wounds of mine will never fucking heal, all that's left is loneliness, there's nothing left to feel". Woah, really bleak and harsh and lonely and miserable, which is what makes the music such a strange surprise. You might expect some impossibly downtuned slow motion sludge, or some blackened midtempo buzz, but instead, what you get is closer to bands like Katatonia or Paramecium or My Dying Bride than Esoteric or Moss. Sure it's slow, and heavy, but it's also strangely melodic. VERY melodic in fact, melancholy and minor key, a plodding, miserable prettiness. Distorted melodies swirl and swoop and keen mournfully beside vocals so low and demonic they almost sound like snarling wild animal. Long stretches of clean guitar moodiness, slow and sorrowful, before the guitars creep up and launch into another melodic dirge. That's what makes Loss so compelling, the musical tug of war between the pretty sad melodies and the buzzy black sludge. The last two tracks are live, one is a 10 minute version of Katatonia's "Brave" which sounds perfect, like it could be a Loss original, and demonstrates the huge sonic influence Katatonia has obviously had on these guys, they're joined by Imperial from Krieg on vocals (with a really funny intro, in a thick Tennessee drawl, the vocalist from Loss announces: "We've got our guest vocalist, he drove all the way down here from fuckin' New Jersey, welcome to the stage, Imperial from the fucking black metal cult Krieg..."). The last track is also live (and comes complete with another goofy song introduction) and is the fastest and blackest track here, pummeling double kick, and buzzing riffs swirl into full on black metal before slowing down and spreading back out out into more of that depressive melodic doom. So fucking good...
We have never heard of this Aussie duo before, but our pal Jonathan who runs the Flenser label has been freaking out about these guys, and is planning on putting out a record for them in the near future. For now though, we have this ultra brief three song cd-r demo the band put out, that while described to us as black metal, is something else entirely.
The opener is a sort of gloomy, dirgey creep, at least in the beginning, all chiming guitars, and woozy, moody atmospheres, sinewy basslines and crumbling distorted chords, all hanging weightless in a field of what feels and sounds like classic shoegaze, the drums super distorted and blown out, the vibe laid back and languorous, at least until the last 45 seconds (the song's only 2 minutes long after all), where the song explodes into a dense tangled blast of blackened math metal, all shrieked vokills, pounding drums, squiggly psychedelic guitars, and swirling hazy atmospheres.
The second track is more of the same, starting off galloping furiously, but the sounds washed out and gauzy, yeah, there are vokills here too, but the music is downright dreamy, sans the vocals, this would be pure shoegaze pop, lots of jangle and chiming chords, which is precisely what you can expect on track three too, although everything is slowed way down, the drums a swinging shuffle, the guitars woozy and bleary, everything sun dappled and prismatic, the sound slowly building to a epic, majestic, swirling post rock style crescendo, before finishing off with a final blast of pounding black shoegaze blissout. Killer stuff for sure. Super short though, three songs, nine minutes, but it's cheap, and comes in cool homemade packaging, LIMITED TO 63 COPIES and we have LESS THAN TEN!!!
We reviewed the self-titled demo from this Australian duo a while back, and were immediately smitten by their twisted take on black metal, which was in fact way less metal, and more a sort of shoegazey minimal post punk noise pop, that just so happened to contain some black metal elements, but whatever you call it, we dug it like crazy. That whole demo is included here as secret hidden bonus tracks, we'll include the review of that demo below, but first, the new Loss Of Self record, Twelve Minutes, which thankfully clocks in at nearly seven minutes more than that! No sprawling epics, no 30 minute megajams, nope. Ultimately, even though they're on Flenser, and are constantly described as a black metal band, they are ultimately really just a weird blackened pop band, so under 3 minute song lengths are ideal. Opener "Paradise Overgrown" is pretty much the perfect sonic representation of what these guys do, clan indie guitar jangle, soon joined by a sort-of-blastbeat, raspy vokills too, but the music, super melodic, fuzzy and shoegazey, minus those vox, this would be some seriously blissed out pop, even with the blast beats, and then midsong, when it slows down and gets even more pretty and melodic, it really is only those vokills that keep this from being pure pop. "Isolt" strives to be more black, but purposely foils that plan, adding deep dramatic clean vocals, and thick swaths of fuzzy guitar shimmer, all wrapped around more grim vox and another blast beat, but this song too, near the end this time, transforms into a weird almost new wave sounding post punk. The title track too, soaring and super melodic, total fuzzy dream pop, with weird mathy drums, and a cool super melodic bassline, this track IS peppered with some actual black buzz blasts, but they're surrounded on all sides by some seriously sun dappled shoegaze poppiness. And so it goes, the second half of the record a push and pull between melodic poppiness and blackened buzz and blast, to be fair, there are more moments on the second half that approach proper grimnity, but even then, the sound can never seem to shrug off that poppiness, although we're guessing they're not trying that hard anyway. Love this stuff, and so psyched that the insanely limited cd-r demo is included here too. Here's what we had to say about that one:
The first demo track is a sort of gloomy, dirgey creep, at least in the beginning, all chiming guitars, and woozy, moody atmospheres, sinewy basslines and crumbling distorted chords, all hanging weightless in a field of what feels and sounds like classic shoegaze, the drums super distorted and blown out, the vibe laid back and languorous, at least until the last 45 seconds (the song's only 2 minutes long after all), where the song explodes into a dense tangled blast of blackened math metal, all shrieked vokills, pounding drums, squiggly psychedelic guitars, and swirling hazy atmospheres. The second track is more of the same, starting off galloping furiously, but the sounds washed out and gauzy, yeah, there are vokills here too, but the music is downright dreamy, sans the vocals, this would be pure shoegaze pop, lots of jangle and chiming chords, which is precisely what you can expect on track three too, although everything is slowed way down, the drums a swinging shuffle, the guitars woozy and bleary, everything sun dappled and prismatic, the sound slowly building to a epic, majestic, swirling post rock style crescendo, before finishing off with a final blast of pounding black shoegaze blissout.
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New one (getting better) from this popular San Francisco hard rock trio. Not 'stoner rock', not 'punk', not 'metal', not 'grunge'...not exactly. Loud guitars, tough girl vocals, lots of attitude and rock action. Members of Amber Asylum show up to add
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Finally, on cd. Digipak in fact. One of San Francisco's most popular hard rock verging on metal by way of grunge groups... They're no Sir Lord Baltimore, but it ain't the seventies no more either.
Nope, nothing to do with the 1930's book/movie about Shangri La. This Lost Horizon is a different sort of paradise, one for fans of over-the-top European power metal. A troupe of buff Swedes in body paint and capes, galloping musically across the galaxy, with soaring vocals, shredding lead guitar, and sci-fi keyboard coloration. This is their second full-length, which sees two new band members, Equilibrian Epicurius (responsible for "string romanticism...translation for mortals: guitars") and Perspicacious Protector (playing the "soulhealing euphoria generators...translation for mortals: synthesizers"), joining the crew of Transcendental Protagonist, Preternatural Transmorgifyer, Ethereal Magnanimus, and Cosmic Antagonist. These comic-book names might sound tongue in cheek, but we think these guys are actually pretty serious in their view of heavy metal music as being a ruling, spiritual force in the universe. Certainly they're channeling something beyond most mortals... And, there's even a song -- eleven minutes long -- about the movie Highlander, of course called "Highlander (The One)"!
Cheesy in *such* a good way. Even more melodic (and a bit mellower) than their debut, this definitely gets thumbs up from Andee and Allan, and Cup's a fan of their names/conceptualization/packaging. It's a transdimensional revelation (translation for mortals: pure ridiculous power metal genius).
Much debate has occurred between the metalheads here at AQ because of this cd. Originally, we saw an ad for this record in a magazine, and knew, by the cover alone, that this was going to be the best 'power metal' record ever. Hell, maybe the best record
Let's start with the cover (and the ad we saw): four post apocalyptic Mad Max-ish war-painted metal warriors strut purposefully through the clouds above some sort of battlefield, where blindfolded human puppets are controlled by humanoids with the heads of pigs, vultures, and what appears to be badgers. The back of the cd of course shows our metallic heroes in complete control, with the animal-headed humans chained up and being whipped mercilessly by the members of Lost Horizon.
Then there's the band members names and their Lost Horizon duties: Cosmic Antagonist: "Orchestrating of thunder and seismic harmonising." Ethereal Magnanimus: "Laments of the souls and primal victorious warrior cries." Preternatural Transmogrifyer: "Keeping of the Universe's pulse and taming of chaos." Transcendental Protagonist: "Poesy of spiritual enlightenment, the entire string romanticism, soul healing euphoria generators."
And for those confused by all this, each band member has an 'earthshape' which is apparently their real name, and a 'translation for mortals', i.e. "Keeping of the Universe's pulse and taming of chaos" means -drums- to us mortals.
So if you're anything like me, you're sold already, who cares what it sounds like?
Well happily enough, this is some of the most kick ass power metal we've heard in a while. Blazing fast Iron Maiden/In Flames/Blind Guardian style epic and over the top power metal. The difference here being the extreme catchiness of the songs, the complete silliness of the band, and some really cool and quite bizarre arrangements. So for those of you already into power metal and classic eighties metal, this is a must have, and for those of you who aren't sure and are looking to try something like this, I can't think of a better place to start than Lost Horizon. They're from Sweden, if it matters -- although I think they'd prefer we thought they came from some metallic universe beyond.
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Straight from the Relapse "Polish Assault" compilation to their debut full-length, these blasphemous death metallers from the burgeoning Polish metal scene (Behemoth, Vader, Decapitated, Yattering, etc.) are out to kill.
Caves is the latest sonic ritual from this mysterious Greek horde whose sounds is a blackened doomdrone, that seems to have more in common with the strangely hypnotic solo guitar psychedelia of aQ faves Blackwolfgoat that any of the more typical black/doom metal outfits we've reviewed in the past. No drummer, we can only assume LC is a one man band, and his M.O. is the sort of thing we love. A sort of post SUNNO))) sort of doomdronedirge, unfurling a churning slo-mo riff, and then looping it, over and over and over, a mesmerizingly cyclical core, around which various other sounds are arranged, blurred streaks of rumbling buzz, haunting chantlike vocals, clouds of FX drenched chordal whir, streaks of high end, buried melodies, bits of murk other sonic detritus, the result is indeed very ritualistic, record opener "�To Witness Under The Stars" spends a good four minutes chugging away, before the riff drops out, leaving just a strange swirl of overlapping voices, very liturgical, wreathed in crackle and hiss, before a new riff takes over, this one more brittle, wrapped in feedback, and more distinctly metal, but still essentially a slow motion bit of doom-ed riffery, one that seems to grow more downtuned as the surrounding sounds grow more horrific and blackened.
And so it goes, "Dawn Of A Dead Sun" follows a similar pattern, but wraps it's droned out feedback soaked riff in banshee wails and blackened vokills, and as the track progresses, it seems to grow more psychedelic, more raga like, inspiring a sort of trance state, a gloriously droned out blackriff ritual that is utterly entrancing. "Secret Entities" is the most 'rock' of the bunch, sounding like it might explode into proper song form at any time, but instead the chords ring out into the ether, the melodies fading into blackness, while "From The Depths" wraps the core riff in a weirdly processed almost slappy synth sound, which at first sounds odd, but soon more effects join the fray, and it becomes a strangely heady hypnotic crawl, and finally "Plutonian Funeral", finishes things off with the creepiest and most minimal sprawl of the bunch, layering a sort of creepy carnivalesque synth, beneath an oozing layer of crumbling low end, peppered with weird reverbed twang, and wrapped in distant melodic shimmers, as well as the occasional hellish shriek, a dark, occultic coda for sure.
Gorgeous haunting heaviness, that just might appeal to fans of black psychedelia and abstract guitardrones more than metalheads...
As if these guys weren't busy enough with their 'day jobs',�Stephen O'Malley (Khanate, SUNNO))), Burning Witch, KTL, Thorr's Hammer),�James Plotkin (Atomsmasher, Phantomsmasher, Khanate, OLD, Flux, Romance) and�Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom, House of Low Culture) still somehow managed to find time to get together and do something a little less... heavy, or sludgy, or crushing, or even drone-y for that matter.�
Wurmwulv is the latest chunk of ambient drift, minimal clatter, and abstract soundscaping from the trio known as Lotus Eaters. Three looooong songs, 50 minutes of strange drifting sound.�
The opening track is a slowed down pipe fight. A warped wander through a sea of chimes and bells, of resonant metal and shimmering metallic drones. Avarus, Anaksimandros, have got nothing on these guys. Ominous and dark, but strangely melodic. From delicate tinkling to dense metal on metal pound, single notes fluttering in space, to flurries of clang and clatter, all the while, way in the background, a deep swirling tidal low end shifts and shimmers.�
The second track is brief, 5 minutes of high end drift, strange electronic interference, gristly rumbles and hissy whirs, while beneath it all, machines creak and groan, mysterious objects scrape and rattle until near the end, the track is suddenly overtaken by a lush wall of warm guitar whorl.
The final track, another lengthy exploration, is an effects laden trawl through a world of constantly shifting low end. Nearly static, layers of rumble and whir, gently and almost imperceptibly shuffling, while over the top, drift tiny alien sonic events and muted squiggles of FX, helicopter like whup-whup-whup's, and faux animal calls, clicks and thumps, all manner of mysterious sound. Eventually, a flurry of high end streaks takes the form of some sort of effervescent symphony, glistening in their own all high end universe, before the low end returns, bringing with it a muted folky drift, a lazy sun dappled slow burning outro...
Gorgeously�packaged in an oversized 6 panel A5 sized digibook, with paintings by Stephen Kasner, layout and design by Aaron Turner. So nice.
Love Monster is what the mighty Monster Magnet were called before they became Monster Magnet. These seven songs were recorded in 1988 on a four track, and it sounds like it. The cock rock swagger of later Monster Magnet is woefully absent, and in its place a garage-y hard rock that sounds a bit like Iggy Pop fronting Kiss. Or something. Not a bad thing, just really rough and raw and for
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Kyussism. A religion? A 'zine? Both? Either way, someone from Kyussism claims this band Lowrider to be the new Kyuss, so I guess they know what they're talking about. If you're into that so-called "desert rock" sound, the fat bass, stoner groove, '70s worshipping thing, you must love the late and (to you) great Kyuss and probably will love these guys too. THEY certainly love Kyuss. File with all the other Sabbath-by-way-of-Kyuss psychedelic heavy rock bands, and put 'em at or near the top of the pile.
A little while back, we listed issue #2 of one of our favorite comics, starring the big, hairy, doll making, lovestruck punk rock behemoth better known as Wuvable Oaf! But now for a very limited time, we got a handful of copies of the super limited special edition version of Wuvable Oaf #2. And we're the only store that's got em. So what's so exciting about the special edition you ask? More on that in a second, first a bit about the Oaf...
We've been champions of Luce's crazy creation since the moment we first laid eyes on Oaf and his equally hirsute cadre of pals and lovers and hangers on. Not to mention the kitties! For those new to the Oaf, in a city, suspiciously like San Francisco, lives the Wuvable Oaf, who spends his days making cool little stuffed dollies, filling them with his shaved body hair, living in a house full of kitties, and pining after Eiffel, the diminutive lead singer of the band Ejaculoid, who are constantly battling their arch rival band, Sphincterine, and that's just scratching the surface. There's lots of unrequited love, nightmarish dream monsters, wild punk rock gigs, nightmare dates, aggro-massage, jilted evil ex-boyfriend chefs, blind dates, bands with names like Muff 'N' Top Grrrlz and Wasp Women, a broKENCYDE shirt pops up during a show, so do the bad guys from Superman 2, as does our very own Andee! It's definitely a wild ride, the art is amazing, super detailed, over the top, there's so much hair everywhere, on the big beefy dudes, on the kitties, it's no wonder why it takes Luce ages to finish each issue, but it's well worth the wait, funny, and fun, and sexy and silly, now we're dying for issue 3, especially after the back page teaser, a big hairy, horned, devil tailed man-beast with the legend "Who is Gote Blud?". Well?? WHO IS IT??????????????
So okay, the special edition, what's so great about it? Well howsabout a custom glow in the dark cover, each one signed and hand numbered by the artist? Or what about a set of custom Ejaculoid picks, affixed to a special printed insert? Okay, well if that ain't enough, the special edition comes with a bonus 7" SINGLE, one sided, featuring Ejaculoid's synth punk grind jam "Fearce" on one side (and just so you know, the musical Ejaculoid is made up of members of Limp Wrist, Los Crudos and Needles!), the flipside featuring an awesomely gory etching, that goes along with the super gory eviscerated super model record cover, and it includes a torn ticket stub with info on where you can download a digital version of "Fearce"! All in a plastic bag sealed shut with a kitty sticker (of course). Only 200 in existence, and we're the only store, comic, record or otherwise that has 'em!
We've been waiting to hear THIS for YEARS. An extremely rare and mysterious circa '71 underground UK psych LP of which we knew little and had been able to find out less. But it seemingly promised great things, as we shall explain in just a sec. Now that, thanks to the Dynamic label who have reissued this at long last, we've -finally- heard the thing, we can say that while it's not exactly what we hoped it would be, it turned out to be something quite, um, remarkable nonetheless. And after all, what we'd hoped for might have been a (literal) pipe dream anyway... Lucifer really couldn't be all it was cracked up to be, could it?? I mean, the band's very name, the all-black Smell The Glove style cover, the hairy/scary band photos, the song titles -- "Banshee", "Prick", "Winter", "What Was That Thing I Saw You With Last Night" -- all portend something impossibly dark and heavy, leaving us hoping that Lucifer would sound like some sort of unknown, underground, creepy cousins to Black Sabbath! And the album's original, rather confusional liner notes also hint in that direction, spouting wonderful nonsense about how the band has "this cave in Arizona" where they like to record their "evil music"! We're also informed that they did a single called "Fuck You" that was never released, having been confiscated by the police!! Sounds pretty darn metal, right? Add to that the fact that the first time we ever heard of Lucifer, years ago, was in an old interview with none other than Ozzy Osbourne, wherein he mentioned this album as being something he and his Black Sabbath mates dug back in the day! That's a lot of expectation to build up. And the truth of course is that Lucifer sound NOTHING like Black Sabbath, or metal in general. They're not even particularly heavy in the guitar dep't -- heck, quite a lot of this is acoustic. Yet they ARE totally weird and fucked up and cool and a bit ridiculous, and definitely "heavy" in the "heavy, maaaan" stoner hippy sense of the word. We'd compare 'em to contemporaries in the British busking free fest hippy druggy psych scene like the Edgar Broughton Band and (lighter) Hawkwind, or (maybe) to NYC's Godz. And at their heaviest, when guitars are plugged in and all, some of this is murky and dismal enough to sound like something by AQ obscure Krautrock faves German Oak. Some other primitive, blues-damaged Krautrock we like also comes to mind, like Kalacakra, Siloah and Zippo Zetterlink.
The unlucky thirteen tracks here consist in the main of meanderingly simple and repetitive hippy guitar riffing, gruff freaky vocals, subversively anti-establishment lyrics ("working is just a bore, smoking's against the law, I'm just a natural man"), and junky rhythms, all contributing to a definitely underground, overwhelmingly wastoid vibe. It makes the Pink Fairies sound almost straight. Definitely dated, yeah, but a charming artifact of a long-gone, LSD-lifestyle...
NB just in case, be aware there are other Lucifers out there, including one from 'round the same era but from NY instead, more of a garage band that one.
This mysterious Swedish band sounds kind of like a cross between Jethro Tull (but with not just one, but two duelling flutes!) and Black Sabbath (due to the heavy riffs and Gibson Les Paul guitar work)� Although they're a current band, they began in the early '70s, but just hadn't record an album until recently!! (1998's "Underground And Beyond", on which the original band lineup used vintage equipment to record vintage written-in-'72 tunes... making for one of Allan's favorite records of that year, 'cause they really don't make 'em like that anymore!) Now, this, their second album, expands upon their Tull / Sabbath sound, becoming a little more prog rock, with the addition of the ultimate prog rock instrument, the mellotron (and not one, but two, of course!) and a new, more capable, vocalist. This goes straight into Allan's year 2000 top ten. There's one song that's a little too, uh, poppy that I tend to skip over, but the rest is amazing '70s style psych/metal/prog nirvana. Flutes! Riffs! Genius!
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Their second album from '72, as great as the self-titled first one. This one is a bit weirder, more proggy, now more like Queen than Zeppelin. The complex arrangements and overall heaviness again make us wonder: why isn't this band a lot more famous? An instant favorite from the moment we heard it. I guess it is nice to know that there's always the undiscovered gem out there awaiting. Again, recorded by Conny Plank.
From the vaults of the legendary krautrock label Brain comes another cool digipacked reissue on Revisited. We've been fans of this particular album for a long time, previously stocking a Repertoire reissue when we could get it. In fact, looking into our archives, we see that we reviewed it on two separate occasions, giving it quite similar but different reviews. Well, here's a third, based on those.
This self-titled 1970 debut album is one of the two early Lucifer's Friend albums we recommend, the other being its 1972 sequel, Where The Groupies Killed The Blues, which perhaps will be reissued again as well. After that, the records we've heard aren't as good. But THIS, this is a great piece of '70s proto-metal very much akin to Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Budgie, and (especially) Uriah Heep! Some psychedelic weirdness, lots of heavy riffing (on guitars and organ) and total wailin' rock god vocals (courtesy of British singer John Lawton, who later DID join the Heep). As krautrock goes, they're more like early Scorpions than the more out there stuff you might be thinking of (Faust, Can, Kraftwerk, Cluster...) but this -was- recorded by Conny Plank.
The first track, the triumphal rocker "Ride The Sky" (recently covered by doomsters Trouble on their abortive comeback Simple Mind Condition) begins with a trumpeting French horn motif that will definitely make you think of Led Zep, sounding uncannily like the "ah ahhhhhh ahh" intro to "The Immigrant Song", though this came first. There's a cool live video of this track on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5DpOdf-_yM&feature=related.
If you dig that, you'll dig this album... !!!
(FYI, Revisited has included 2 bonus tracks this time 'round.)
Another Great Love Song? Yes that's the unlikely title of this, the second album from this supremely confident and capable and sometimes confounding Bay Area black metal band. Ludicra, whose very name seems a veiled, half-ironic challenge to black metal orthodoxy, are one of several bands making a black metal name for the San Francisco scene, alongside Leviathan and Weakling (R.I.P.) and Crebain, etc. Ludicra are indeed a band (more than just one damned soul) and include members of Hammers Of Misfortune and Impaled among others. And they are just a bit different from most black metal acts, even if sonically you'd swear they were among the Norwegian elite. For one thing, their line up is 2/5ths female (including one of the most fearsome vocalists), for another, this new album sure doesn't look like your typical black metal record, and...they're now on Alternative Tentacles! Yup, Jello probably heard the tinges of Neurosis in their music we guess...indeed it's there (the two bands share some guest musicians in fact, members of Amber Asylum perform strings with Ludicra as they have on past Neurosis releases). But Ludicra is also a very very black metal entity. With keyboards and raging guitars and blasting drums and screams of triumph and despair, it's got a density of sound put to tape that incorporates both the heaviest violence and the prettiest melancholy...in fact a lot of this is really quite pretty, to our ears, when they get into a midtempo plod and let the little melodies up for air... Black metal fans will find this band bows to no one, even as it reminds us of Enslaved, old Emperor, Opeth, old Solefald, and others of their ilk. Ludicra, however, are urban not ancient, emotional not evil...musically they do conjure the wolves and longboats of Nordic black metal even though any such references (there IS a song called "1000 Wolves") are allegorical in nature. We thought their debut Hollow Psalms was great, and this is an equally fantastic follow-up.
The evil, epic sounds of San Francisco's Ludicra ooze forth once again, their third album demonstrating that they're still among the most highly emotive and intelligent masters of brutality in the business, no less despairingly obsessed with urban decay and man's inhumanity to man than on previous efforts Hollow Psalms and Another Great Love Song. Interestingly (perhaps) this album is their second for Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles label, hardly a bastion of nihilistic black metal art -- indeed, they haven't signed any MORE black metal bands since Ludicra, but we'd imagine that's 'cause they rightly figure that they already have one of the best! And also one of the most unique -- how many black metal bands feature not one but two female lead vocalists (one of 'em on guitar as well), alternating demonic rasps and moaning clean singing? Not exactly typical. Something that has also been said of their sister band, the amazing Hammers Of Misfortune (both share the talents of guitarist John Cobbett). And Ludicra are in some ways a crustier, filthier, bleak black metallized version of Hammers, with similar progressive urges and social concerns...and displays of neo-classical, heavy metal guitar! Which is where the most sophisticated "beauty" is to be found amidst the midtempo grimy grim grind of these five tracks (none of 'em short -- in fact the album terminates with the twelve minute "Collapse", gripping guttural symphonic sickness with cello courtesy of one of the members of Amber Asylum).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
And the 'Road goes ever on... You gotta hand it to Mark "The Shark" Shelton, 50-something-year old guitarist/vocalist/mastermind behind long-running underground American metal institution Manilla Road. His band, founded in 1977, has never really been popular, except maybe in Greece, but they're up to their 15th studio album now, and are the definition of "cult fave", getting namechecked nowadays all the time, whenever anything true, epic, and eccentric is under discussion in the realm of metal. Well, there's also the likes of Cirth Ungol and obscure Italians Dark Quarterer to reference, sure, but those bands aren't still around and cranking 'em out like the 'Road.
So, here's their latest, an album that surely exists for the love of all that's metal, heavy, epick, and weird, and for no other reason. We probably don't even need to really review it, 'cause a) we wouldn't expect anyone to START their Manilla Road collection/obsession with this album and b) the folks who would want to buy this really only need to know that it's out, and we've got it in stock!
But, still, some details... Once again, Shelton's distinctive, wavery nasal vocals are supplemented on some songs by the voice of 2nd singer Bryan "Hellroadie" Patrick. If you're a fan of Shelton's singing (and you kinda have to be, to like his band) then you'll be rooting for him throughout to really belt it out, "Hellroadie" step aside! Shelton's signature guitar shred, however, needs no assist. There's plenty of fine fretwork from him here, and lots of melody (Shelton seems to be going for a bit more of a catchy pop thing than you might expect, amidst all the doom and damnation, somehow). In fact, there's moments when we begin to think it would be cool if Shelton would sometime do an all-acoustic solo album, just him and his guitar and his worse-for-wear, weary voice. But that wouldn't be metal, which this most definitely is.
Also, unlike some other recent 'Road efforts, this isn't a concept album, and there's no multi-part epics, though it's still EPIC anyway, of course. The songs' themes vary, inspired by ancient history and horror; there's one called "Grindhouse", inspired by that style of low-budget exploitation flick. Speaking of low-budget, this disc a bit rickety sounding production-wise, particularly the drums, which sound tinny and clickety-clackety-clattery, whilst the mix in general could do with a little less muddy muffle. But MR fans won't mind much, being used to such things. Still, what had its charms on vintage '80s albums like Crystal Logic isn't necessarily a selling point here...
What is a selling point, for fans at any rate, is that the "modern" (not really!) Manilla Road still sounds nothing much like any other band, and always like themselves, whatever strange turns they may take. So, chalk yet another quirky old school album up to Wichita's weirdest!
Two 'new' releases from the USA's most cult '80s era true/power/heavy/epic metal band. We've lauded them before, as being a uber-eccentric low-budget take on Maiden and Manowar, with hints of '70s prog, precursor to the likes of The Lord Weird Slough Feg and near-contemporaries Brocas Helm. Like Brocas, Manilla Road are still around. With a revised line-up, "Spiral Castle" is their 13th album in a 27 year career. A lot more melodic than their year 2001 comeback disc "Atlantis Rising", this really sounds like classic Manilla Road of old, complete even with their Edgar Allen Poe fixation (his story "Shadow" inspires a track here) and Mark "The Shark" Shelton's distinctive guitar and vocals. Cool!
"Mark of the Beast" also sounds like old Manilla Road -- 'cause it's actually an unreleased album from 1981, originally titled "Dreams of Eschaton". The band didn't like the recordings at the time and shelved them, but bootleg tapes have circulated among the Manilla Road faithful for years. Now Monster Records have persuaded Shelton & Co. that it's time to give the album a proper release at last. Boasting cover art from Thin Lizzy cover artist Jim Fitzpatrick, "Mark of the Beast" is a worthy addition to the Road's official catalog, though not their heaviest -- it's a doomy but kinda mellow and psychedelic album of epic, sad melodicism and majesty. Like all Manilla Road, this doesn't fit any generic metal template...some of this reminds us of Rush's early songs, and there's even a proto-Current 93 narration thing happening on one track too!
The (obviously) cult metal Shadow Kingdom adds two more Manilla Road jewels to their crown/catalog, with the domestic reissues of both 1985's Open The Gates, and 1990's The Courts Of Chaos. We'd once had an import of Open The Gates, but had never reviewed Into The Courts before. Both are recommended (if you don't already have 'em) to all Manilla Road fans, and by extension, anyone with a yen for thee true epick metal.
Last gasp of the original run of the Road, pretty much. Even though we today think of 'em as monolithic epic metal forefathers, Manilla Road morphed quite a bit over their career, from their '70s space rock origins to, in the late '80s, fast n' technical stuff influenced less by Hawkwind and more by the speedy Slayer and various Bay Area thrashers... But this album, often overlooked 'cause of its 1990 release date, sees 'em bringing it all together, really. It's got quite a few classics on it all right, including one of the Road's most epick numbers ever, album ender "The Books Of Skelos", which whips up a bombastic orchestrated onslaught of brutality, Manilla Road style.
Mark Shelton's weird croon wraps itself around the various twisted tales here, but he also breaks out some rasping black/death vox here that, heck, Absu fans oughtta dig. Furthermore, fyi, the drums on this ARE programmed, but still sound cool to us, sounding more maniacal than mechanical. So they keep it cutting edge to the end, while also delving back into the depths of 1970 for a cover of Texas proto-metallers Bloodrock's spooky downer rock opus "D.O.A.", which fits right in. Glad this got reissued 'cause it gave us a chance to revisit it and realize how damn good it actually is, Manilla Road perhaps past any chance of "making it" here, but still going for it like they're metal's number one representatives on Earth, and they know it.
A few months ago, "Open The Gates", now, "The Deluge" -- it's a deluge indeed, of Manilla Road reissues! Manilla Road? They're the ultimate obscure American fantasy metal band from the '80s, a cult group if there ever was one, having a bit of a resurgence today
