The long overdue return of aQ faves The Mausoleums, whose last record was a confusional swirl of grim black buzz and weird jangle pop, blown out bliss and thick dense noise. A record we fell in love with, on the recommendation of an aQ customer, long before we discovered that The Mausoleums was in fact a he, and not a they, and just so happened to be a beloved aQ mailorder customer!
For this second record, the Mausoleums seem to have turned down the buzz (just a bit) and turned up the pop. That's right. POP. Not that there wasn't pop all over the last Mausoleums disc I Am The Mausoleum, but the opening track on Blackened Fawns Cleanse The Earth With Fire, "Livelihood", is a gorgeous organ drenched slab of crunchy distorted shoegaze jangle. And we're not talking about the new wave of "metalgaze" that so many metal bands seem to be glomming onto, this is just glorious and resplendent and soaring, shimmering blisspop nirvana, the guitars jangly but washed out and fierce, the melodies sprawling and sun drenched, the sound crumbling and gloriously distorted. In fact, one song in and we're thinking it well worth the price of admission.
But it doesn't take long for the band to dip back into their other true love, the next track, "The One Who Sees", finds the band returning to a furious blackened buzz, howled vocals, pounding drums, insect like riffage, but even then, the sound is still rife with disembodied pop jangle and soaring guitar buzz, an impossible hybrid that sounds way better than it should. The next track is neither, instead a dense processed soundscape of soaring guitar feedback, little curlicues of buzzing melody, looped stuttering drums, dizzying minor key strum, all tangled up in a gloriously seasick hypnotic whirl.
"Thief" begins as straight up pop, like some super distorted Pavement outtake, or lost Sebadoh jam, all fuzzy jangle and simple propulsive drumming, until the vocals come in, a super distorted black metal shriek, bringing with it another layer of buzzing blown out distortion.
And so it goes for the rest of the record, careening from glorious shoegaze distortion drenched buzz pop, to in-the-red lo-fi black metal crunch, but with those two various sonic strains constantly bleeding and leeching into the other, resulting in the record's finest moments, the impossibly dense, epic, majestic guitar drone shoegaze blowout of "Old Woman In The Woods", impossibly heavy, yet gorgeously melodic at the same time, the strange distorted folky raga buzz of "His Reward", the frenetic ultra distorted surfy twang of "Skeletal" and finally the brief closer, "The Bees", a lovely chunk of overdriven steel string Appalachia that near the end explodes into a brief blown out buzz-drenched burst of looped digital fuzz.
Be warned, these are hand made, each and every one. And by hand made, we mean, made by hand, with scissors, and glue, and perhaps not a ruler anywhere in site. Each copy is different, most of them strangely fitted together, a paper gatefold, some slightly smaller than others, some seriously skewed, the color varied from copy to copy, some slightly wrinkled, some almost normal looking, others like maybe they were made as an arts and crafts project at a grade school. But heck, that just adds to the coolness, and makes each one TRULY unique. Cool cover image (but one that has been used before, several times, sadly) and a full color thick paper stapled insert. And probably limited as most things like this usually are...
A customer turned us on to the Mausoleums, a super distorted buzz drenched experimental 'black metal' combo, which we later discovered was in fact an aQuarius mailorder customer! Small world for sure. But even if we had no idea who the heck this was, we would still be suitably blown away.�
You think Wold and Velvet Cacoon know a thing or two about buzz and distortion, well, those guys have nothing on the Mausoleums...
It's hard to even quantify how blown out and buzzy the sound is here, it might make more sense to reference Japanese noise music cuz this almost sounds like straight up super distorted speaker melting N.O.I.S.E., on the surface at least. Until you notice a roiling whirlpool of blackened riffing and howled vocalizing, just beneath all that harsh hiss and brutal buzz. It's almost like Ildjarn or Beherit recorded by Masonna and produced by Merzbow. Blasting and relentless, face melting fury, guitars so distorted they sound like they might crumble into jagged shards, drums that sound like bursts of white noise, but all deftly shaped into riffs and songs and chunks of seriously scalding blackened metal.�
But then the band will unleash something like "Cicada", a gorgeous�loping slowcore jam, again doused with delay�and buried under a layer of distorted grit, but strangely lovely, with a bit of melancholy twang mixed in.�
Or the freaked out blackpsych blast of "Joan Of Arc" a track that sounds like a dense slab of pure black buzz and howl, until suddenly a�gorgeous chunk of indie jangle surfaces, still dripping with distorted buzz, but so goddamn dreamy and melodic, like an even more distorted damaged My Bloody Valentine,�the drums and cymbals so corroded and decayed, they balance out the dreamy jangle. Elsewhere, riffs are dipped in molten hellfire and pushed all the way�into the red, crumbling distortion is draped over lilting minor key guitar, strange Greg Ginn-ish angular guitars are twisted and melted down into more black buzz...
And while the majority of the record is some of the filthiest, blackest buzzingest metal you'll ever hear, the buzzing blackness is split up by all sorts of unlikely and not that black jams, the strangely skeletal Stereolab-ish post rock of "Lenin Not Lennon", the creepy black electro (replete with strangely Beatles-esque guitar) of "Insignificance", the metalized buzz wrapped Neu!-isms of "Running Through The Reeds", the warbly organ flecked garage stomp of "I Guess I'm Like A Prince, Maybe" and the Spacemen 3 like druggy drone of "Like A Prince", all seemingly out of place, but when listened to as a whole, seem to perfectly balance the extreme brutal buzz of the rest of the disc.�
Maybe too fucked up and far out for most metal heads, but folks into super damaged heaviness, and freaked out whatthefuck metal will dig this BIG TIME.�
The Universal Consciousness label returns with another batch of tapes, following the Moon Knight and Lord Time cassettes we reviewed a few lists back. There's another amazing Lord Time release, and this one the debut from this mysterious outsider ambient doom one man band (whose sole member also does time in Lightning Swords Of Death and Endless Blizzard). The label describes the sound as funereal and majestic and it most definitely is, the guitars soaring, epic and melodic, the drums minimal, super echoey, like this was recorded in some black cavern, the strange mix of off kilter percussion and the super mournful melodic guitars makes this sound almost psychedelic. Eventually the sound shifts into more classically doomy plod, but even then, the echoey drum pound is all dubbed out, and the guitars chug and churn, often unfurling long stretches of droney buzz, before slipping right back into those majestic melodies. The sound spends as much time drifting ominously as it does plodding and lumbering, those ambient stretches are hauntingly beautiful, not just your typical metal synth interludes, instead, it's a sort of blackened kosmische, lush and layered, infused with streaks of feedback, and grinding muted industrial thrum, all blurred into dark passages of sinister rumble and buzz, the sound of which seems to ooze into the doom proper, making the creep and crunch a bit more abstract and psychedelic, mysterious and otherworldly. This is the sort of rare 'doom', that could very well appeal to non metal folks into strange dark sounds and more abstract avant heaviness. And it may be a bit too out there for your typical metalhead, but if you like your doom twisted, tripped out and drone drenched, then this will definitely hit the spot.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Packaged in super deluxe, embossed, heavy textured metallic paper J-cards, each one hand numbered and sealed with a sticker.
Damn, the metalheads here are geeking out over this gem! As super obscure cult '80s metal bands go, Max Planck from up in the boonies of Port Townsend, WA, are definitely one of our faves. A few years back, Buried By Time And Dust did a pricey vinyl reissue, now out of print, of this bizarro band's 1985 demo, that we never managed to review, so we're stoked that Stormspell has just done a nice new, less expensive (but still limited) compact disc version, complete with bonus track.
Of all the demos that could be rescued from the dusty past, this one is so very worthy. Max Planck were a three-piece playing a charming homebrewed brand of DIY metal, putting on their own shows out in the woods, though they also played clubs in Seattle too. Epic and melodic, rockin' and catchy, eccentric and sorta psychedelic, this should definitely appeal to those into the marginally less obscure likes of Manilla Road, Cirith Ungol, Brocas Helm, Black Hole, and even Dwarr and Zolar X.
We were surprised to learn that the guitarist and bassist were husband and wife, with kids!! That'd be Rod Freeman, also the vocalist, and Colleen "Spike" McCormick. The trio was rounded out by 15 year old drummer Eddie Forcier.
Proggy and punky at the same time, their song titles include "Fucked Up" and "Everywhere Is Nowhere", but they weren't really such a negative, nihilistic bunch. The song "Starscream" is in fact about the Transformers cartoon, a sci-fi subject that makes a lot of sense considering that Spike and Rod were raising two small children and Eddie was basically still a kid himself.
Weird and nerdy as their metal is, it makes sense that they'd be named after a famous German physicist, the founder of quantum theory - but, the name of the band was in fact selected through a chance operation that also involved the help of a mystical forest druid. Read the liner notes.... (And also be aware that though we're not reproducing it due to the limitations of our website's coding, the band's official spelling of their name of course includes a very metal umlaut over the "a" in Planck.)
Max Planck's namesake scientist won a Nobel Prize in 1918, and if they gave out an award for quirky, inspired, old school metal-making, Max Planck the band would be a deserving recipient.
Limited edition, hand-numbered, 500 copies only. The cd booklet includes biographical liner notes, full lyrics, gear specs, vintage b&w photos, and graphics from their rare vinyl appearances (on the Metal Meltdown lp compilation, and on a split 7").
Definitely an auspicious start for Stormspell's new "arcane collector series" of obscure '80s metal demo reissues, look for other volumes by Aerian Rage and Battlecry to be reviewed here soon...
And, as they liked to say, it's now time to CRANK THE PLANCK!!!!
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Warning: extremely graphic cover photo of their singer, not long after his rather messy shotgun suicide. Besides that, and the performance of equally dead guitarist Euronymous (who perhaps snapped said photo after sampling some delectable brain, or so he bragged), this live album has renditions of Venom and Celtic Frost classics to recommend it.
It's here, the first full-length studio recording from these Norwegian black metal legends in years! This is the notorious band that at one point featured black metal martyr Euronymous in its ranks, along with vocalist Dead. Both are, of course, dead now--you can read all about it in "Lords Of Chaos" if you haven't already. But all this murder and suicide didn't stop these guys. Whirlwind drummer/black metal pin up guy Hellhammer and bassist Necrobutcher, along with early Mayhem vocalist the Marylin Mason-ish Maniac and new guitarist Blasphemer soldier on, with a new, more death metal, more extreme, more technical sound. "Grand Declaration of War" simply kills. While Maniac's semi-spoken, semi-pretentious vocal style takes a little getting used to, and some trip hop beats crop up on the more experimental second half of this disc, for the most part this is some very intense, melodic, heavy black metal similar to the intricate attack and evil atmosphere of the late great Dissection (not that Mayhem needed any more help in the evil atmosphere department).
Live stuff recently recorded in Europe and the U.S. by this seminal black metal act. Knowing perhaps that they have perhaps already released too many live albums (granted, some are boots, which isn't their fault), some value is added by the inclusion of a half-dozen or so "preproduction" tracks (i.e. demos) from their "Grand Declaration of War" opus. A fan's disc, therefore. And
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One of Nordic black metal's most legendary, infamous bands returns with a brutal recording featuring new members replacing various deceased ones. Euronymous (R.I.P.) would be proud, though perhaps not happy that his band is now on the same label that releases the albums of that guy that killed him...
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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The Meads Of Asphodel are a strange bunch, everything about them has always been just a bit off, but brilliantly so, their sound sonically schizophrenic, their black metal flecked with whatever weirdness mainman Metatron feels like throwing into the mix. In their band photos, they're always wearing medieval Crusader armor, wielding shields, maces and swords, their song titles are bizarre, their records filled with unlikely guests, and seemingly designed to baffle or piss of in equal measure, and while much of what they do seems like it must be a joke, like they're constantly taking the piss, arriving now at full length number six (and that's not counting splits and eps), it's more obvious now than ever, that these guys are deadly serious, it's just that they're also kinda nuts. And it's that seriousness, that dedication to their high concept warped songcraft, that makes this new record make a bit more sense. Just a bit.
While there's no shortage (unfortunately) of Nazi black metal, there has not yet been, as far as we know, a black metal concept record about the holocaust, not celebrating it in any way, just exploring the horror, from both the perspective of the perpetrators AND the victims. Well, at least until now. That's right, like the last Meads concept record, also a pretty intense one, about the life and death of Jesus, titled The Murder Of Jesus The Jew, Sonderkommando is another concept record, one that is indeed about the Holocaust. The music is the usual twisted batch of Meads weirdness, with another collection of ridiculous guests, who only add to the confusional sonic chaos, but the lyrical content this time around is appropriately harsh, as is the gruesome cover art, and while folks will no doubt cry foul, this is serious stuff, even if sonically, it doesn't always seem like it. Mainman Metatron spent YEARS researching and conceptualizing, and the bafflingly brilliant results bear that out, an epic sonic sprawl equal parts grim black buzz, murky blackened prog, and over the top, super dramatic, melodic Broadway musical style glamminess. Yup. But what did you expect, it's the Meads after all. And just to drive that point home, in the band pictures they're still dressed like medieval warriors!
The core Meads lineup this time around is augmented by a whole mess of guests, including members of Hawkwind, God's Tower, Amebix, Sigh, even Gnaw Their Tongues, and hell, Metatron's son even makes an appearance as well.
It all begins with the 12 minute title track, which begins like you might expect, with samples of archival voices, all scratchy historical recordings, which is soon joined by a strange bit of wheezing almost gypsy folk, piano, female vox, but then what you might not expect, is the song exploding into some Bowie-esque glam, or what sounds like some strange stage musical, with wailed dramatic vocals, singing "You don't have to die to walk in hell, for here is hell", sounding a bit like a number from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, all over a backdrop of weirdly swirling, murky slithery jazziness. It's not until about 6 minutes in, that the sound explodes into some furious black buzz, but it's the Meads, so no straight ahead black metal here, instead it's super tangled, near proggy weirdness, laced with twisted melodies, multiple dueling vokills, cool expanses of churning chug, some stop/start dynamics, a dizzying black tangle, before returning to the glammy over the top melodic musical style bombast of the beginning, this time paired with a little black buzz.
From there on out, all bets are off, the sing-songy almost folky "Wishing Well Of Bones", the synth swaddled black buzz of "Aktion T4", then there are tracks like "Silent Ghosts Of Babi Yar", which like the title track, are exactly what makes the Meads so good, and so fucking nuts, blasting out some seriously buzzing blackness, all churning riffage and pounding drums, harsh hateful vox and dizzying blasts, before blossoming into another stretch of fill on epic glam pop, soaring clean vocals, over swirling synths, all wedded to some black metal buzz, a twisted, but weirdly appealing combo, and then paired with the lyrics, and the concept, totally over the top WTF genius for sure. Dig deeper and there's still more weirdness, the creepy dramatic reading of "Lamenting Weaver Of Horror", a dialogue between a child (Metatron's kid) and death, all over some murky black ambient rumbles, and some creepy atmospherics, dripping water, distant creaks and groans, which splinters into some twisted blackened power metal, before transforming into some loping spaced out psychedelia, then there's the insanely titled "The Mussulmans Wander Through The Infernal Whirling Fires Amongst Silent Shadows To Be Fed Into The Thirsting Jaws Of A Godless Death Machine To Cough Up Their Souls To The Nazi Moloch Who Sits Within A Ring Of Smoking Infant Skulls", which begins with a weird looped vocal round, and soon explodes into some almost Viking sounding black metal, laced with soaring female vocals, wildly proggy and super melodic, psychedelic too, with dueling vokills/vocals, the whole thing suddenly devolving into a woozy, slithery blackened blooz jam, replete with harmonica! There's plenty more strangeness throughout, the clean vocals pop up everywhere, giving the record a super dramatic over the top vibe, but for every bit of melodic bombast, there's some twisted blackness, all tangled up into one epic sonic headtrip, that might be the Meads finest moment yet. Certainly their most brilliantly baffling!
By this point, if you're at all familiar with Britain's weirdest black metal bunch The Meads Of Asphodel you know to expect the unexpected. You'll be unphased by breakbeat breakdowns, trumpet solos, and syrupy strings amidst Venom-inspired vocals and Cradle of Filth-worthy black metal bombast. And you already know there's gonna be spacerockin' Hawkwind guitar on here from an authentic old Hawkwind guitarist. Yet somehow we still suspect that at some point whilst listening to their new, third album Damascus Steel, even the most dedicated Meads fan will have a "what the fuck is this, what the fuck are they doing??" moment. And that's one big reason why you're a Meads fan after all! Maybe that point will be when they burst into a sarcastic version of Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful Life" with the lyrics altered so that vocalist Metatron is delivering lines like: "I see newborn graves / dirt dimmed with steam / open womb flesh / death and disease / and I think to myself, what a wonderful world," over that familiar melody, his gravelly voice really rather reminiscent of Satchmo's! Or maybe it will be at the very start of the album, when you're confronted with a sampled speech by George W. Bush. They don't manipulate his words with cut and paste tricks, either, he just says what he said. It's as if in the black metal competition to be the most EVIL they couldn't think of anything more effective than to incorporate our President into their band! Though, we suspect Bush is sampled for reasons of geopolitical commentary, as he's speaking about his views on the Middle East, a region that has long figured centrally into The Meads' peculiar musical and lyrical vision (this album's entitled Damascus Steel, remember).
There's a been a few metal bands with Middle Eastern obsessions -- Melechesh, Absu, Morbid Angel -- and maybe that's because of the ancient mysteries and mythology of man spawned from that land. Just the Biblical associations alone give it resonance for both the Christian and (in this case) the anti-Christian. Not to mention that it's the location today of so much suffering and strife. Warfare has always been a metal topic, terror too. So it's no wonder that metal bands would look to the Middle East for subject matter. But in the case of The Meads, we'd always assumed that it also had to do with the fact that, well, they like to wear medieval armor a la the Crusaders. Maybe that's how their interest first was stoked. But it's clear that they have something subversive to say about religion and politics and that flashpoint region of our world. Of course, Metatron's words (and song titles like the Bal-Sagoth worthy "Behold The Kindred Battle Carcasses Strewn Across The Bloodred Dunes Of Gilgamesh Mute In The Frenzied Clamour Of Death's Rolling Tongue And Ravenous Bursting Steel") take some deciphering, and it doesn't help that his band has set your head spinning with their bent blend of metal and psych and techno and ethnic music... In one song, for instance, blasting blasphemies segue into a groovy keyboard guest solo from Mirai of Japan's Sigh (one of the few bands in the world also so eccentric that they're naturally soulmates with the Meads blokes). And you'll think to yourself, what a wonderful Meads album!
MPEG Stream: "Satanic Black Nubian Pharaohs" [/audio/meadsofsatanicblack.m3u]
We made this Record of the Week a couple months ago, then promptly ran out of 'em -- as did their label in England, who have now pressed more copies. So here it is again, in case you missed it before. The UK's amazing, eccentric Meads Of Asphodel are back with their second, long-awaited full-length. From the get-go, this had an inside line on becoming an AQ Record of the Week -- indeed, we were so excited about its impending release that even before any of our wholesale suppliers had imports of this in stock, Andee went ahead and mail-ordered two copies from England, one for himself and one as a Christmas gift for Allan! Now, we've managed to get copies for the store to share with all of you. What's so special about the Meads Of Asphodel, besides their unusual name? Well, if you've been a long-time AQ list reader/customer maybe you'll remember how much we liked their debut, The Excommunication of Christ. Well as good as that crackpot example of medieval metal was, this new one is even more esoteric and ridiculous and incredible. As AQ's coverage of the genre has demonstrated, black metal can be a lot of different things. In the Meads of Asphodel's case, it IS many different things, all at the same time! First off, apparently nobody told them that an ostensibly black metal band shouldn't write pop songs. Sure, they are really really heavy and decidedly grim, but Meads have a pop sensibility that can't be denied. The album's second track, "God Is Rome", will have you staring at your stereo as its gruff-voiced chugging brutality gives way to an acoustic guitar lick and subsequent pop hook that is more Nirvana than necro. Not to suggest that this isn't a massively metal album. It is. Their brand of metal is like Venom mixed with Bal-Sagoth: sparkling keyboards strewn over rough-hewn riffage and pounding drums. They're also quite psychedelic (drugs involved for sure), with weird changes and spacey synths. Landing rocketships in the Middle Ages, Meads make for a creditable space rock band. Indeed, these Hawkwind obsessives do a killer Hawkwind cover ("Utopia") with two actual Hawkwind members sitting in! Other guests on this album include Mirai from another AQ fave, Japan's Sigh, one of the only other "black metal" bands on the planet as far-out as the Meads, and Vincent Crowley, somewhat infamous as an underground death metal Satanist. His presence, however cartoonish, illustrates another important point about this record. As random and spicy a goulash their music is, Meads remain a steadfastly black metal band where it most counts: in their opposition to God and religion. Indeed, unlike the majority of black metal acts whose anti-Christian, anti-clerical, pro-Satan stance is indeed just that, a stance or pose, just to conform to the standard black metal aesthetic of being "evil", Meads of Asphodel seem to take this issue more seriously. What we mean is that their lyrics are more about WHY they don't believe in God, than about how cool that makes them. So it turns out that as tongue-in-cheek as so much about them seems (from the cover pics of the band in the guise of armored knights looking rather more hapless than intimidating, to such song titles as "On Graven Images I Glide Beyond The Monstrous Gates Of Pandemonium To Face The Baptised Warriors Of Yahweh In The Skull-littered Plain Of Esdraelon") they actually have a message, if you will. Delivered quite bizarrely and confusingly of course. And that's what we like best, the confounding mixture of the serious and the silly where irony is left in the dust, replaced by question marks and half-smiles, and gleeful enjoyment of some remarkable music. This album is definitely the sort of thing that we at AQ think will both satisfy open-minded metal fans and provide a varied enough dish for folks seeking something weird on the pop/spacerock/electronic side of things. Indeed, did we mention that the aforementioned lengthy song title belongs to a ten minute epick of When-like eclecticism, that brings in techno electronica, Middle Eastern music, and even some acid-jazz organ jamming -- utterly instrumental except for samples of an utterly blasphemous nature? This is indicative in many ways of their bizarro modus operandi. Appealing in so many ways to the extremes of what we might call the AQ-aesthetic, it would have been hard *not* to make this a Record Of The Week.
We all knew the Meads Of Asphodel were a weird bunch. Every record was a baffling slab of confusional black metal, often laced with all manner of VERY non-black metal sounds and ideas. Well, no matter how weird we though they were in the past, they've totally outdone themselves this time. So much so that we would hesitate to even classify this as black metal.
There's a lot to be confused by here, from a bizarre collage of military speeches and snippets of random dialogue, to huge swelling synths, super dramatic and over the top, to strange synthesized spaghetti western jams, to not-all-that-metal blasts of propulsive spaced out rock and roll, with groovy Stooges-y riffing, simple pounding drumming, some serious guitar leads, and over the top some Motorhead gone black metal vocals... but that's not all. There are lots of lots of pianos, and soaring female vocals, blissed out stretches of space rock whoosh, some full on old school punk rock. And then there's the completely fucked final track, called "Aborted Stygian Foetus", a sort of industrial electronic metal jam, drum machines, heavy riffing, weird vocals, like some weird mix of Ministry and My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. But it's not over. After about 20 minutes of silence you'll find the secret track, an intense and seriously silly and fucked up stretch of testifying, over a swirl of church organs, a heavily (British) accented 'preacher' gives a fiery sermon on how we are all wankers and how we are all full of shit. Woah.
The new sound could have something to do with the addition of a whole mess of new Meads: Alan Davey of Hawkwind, Mirai from Japanes metal weirdos Sigh, Lesion from Worms Of Sabnock, as well as some synth, trumpet, and not one but TWO female vocalists.
The more likely reason for this new direction should be obvious from the cover, all sepia toned, with a crucifix, and piles of dead bodies and that instantly recognizable Crass style text. Like maybe they were going for some sort of Flux Of Pink Indians / Crass / Rudimentary Peni sort of crust vibe!! Although on the inside they're still clad in their armor and chainmail and helmets...
So fucking weird.
More distinctly not very black metal weirdness from some of our favorite black metal weirdos. If you might remember back to the most recent Meads release, In The Name Of God, Welcome To Planet Genocide, we were all sort of knocked for a loop by the band's new direction. Or directions. From the very Crass like cut and paste political cover art, to the punky crust and other weirdness inside, these freaks had gone and outweirded even their own weird selves. So now we have the latest single, and it seems, at least for these three songs, the band have abandoned the black metal entirely. All covers. All classics. Stiff Little Fingers, The Ruts and The Stranglers. All done pretty straight, not black metallized or anything, just raw crusty pounding melodic old school punk rock. The Stiff Little Fingers cover is a jam, an awesome song so done straight it's still an awesome song, the vocals appropriately raspy, the guitars buzzing and the drums pounding. The Ruts cover features original Ruts guitarist Paul Fox and sounds as kick ass as the original. The only place things get extra weird is on the final track, the Stranglers cover, where the vocals are strangely processed and sound about as close to black metal as anything here, but then we've got Mirai from the band Sigh with insane blasts of crazy prog synths, and some new wave female background vocals. Sounds like a bit of a mess, and it sort of is, but it's also awesome and totally rocks in this amazingly unhinged way.
Meads fans who were thrown off by the lack of buzzing blackness will be even more confused by this triple shot. But if you're into metal and punk rock, you could do way worse than hearing these killer tunes revamped and twisted up a bit by the always brilliantly baffling Meads.
Cool old school black and white skull cover. All the records are hand numbered and signed on the label by all the band members. Probably limited too...
The Meads of Asphodel have been a longtime favorite around these parts, not surprisingly, since they've been pushing the boundaries of how black metal is defined with their bizarre, often hilarious brand of nutso, super anti-Christian metal with notable medieval and Middle Eastern influences. Though you will find it impossible to stifle (nervous?) laughter at various moments, the Meads, however, are no joke. In fact, one could argue that their highly unorthodox stance is actually WAY more real and bad ass than the plethora of groups all adopting the same boring, pseudo-Satanic bullshit pose. Maybe some find it difficult to take seriously a band with a penchant for dressing up in medieval armor, but why not? It's certainly no less ridiculous than corpsepaint. The notes in this collection of demos from the band's first phase (1998-2002), penned by group leader Metatron, make it clear that sucking up to record labels and metal fans in general was never part of the agenda. Instead, the Meads have been, and continue to be, true to only themselves. Fuck yeah.
With this anything goes mentality, the Meads have delivered some of the weirdest, most incomprehensible metal maybe ever. The influence of NWOBHM greats, notably Venom, shines bright, but how many other black metal groups would you expect to punctuate their evil riffage with parts that sound like drunken medieval wedding parties, disco breakdowns, and country western hoedowns? Not too many. The strangest part about all of these is how randomly they will pop up, when you're never expecting it.
Symphonic keyboards are also pretty central to the Meads' sound, with heavy as fuck church organs and harpsichord-styled synths adding a decidedly atmospheric element to it all. There are even some moments of strummed 4AD style jangle, but take note of the covers by GBH and Italian thrashers Bulldozer to get an idea of the band's more aggressive influences. Heavy D-Beats, punkish power chords, and harsh bellowing (in addition to some nice black metal croaking, of course) exist in the mix in pretty much equal measure to everything else.
We would be lying if we said this band was for everyone. But for those who like their metal adventurous, totally fucked, and pretty much without precedent, we couldn't recommend this highly enough!
A UK black metal troupe unlikely to become the next Cradle of Filth, if only because people are always scratching their heads and asking "What the heck are meads?"
Regardless of their prospects for wide success, *we've* been eagerly anticipating this release, ever since reading about The Meads in a Terrorizer article on unsigned British metal bands. A mysterious band with esoteric interests, inspired by the shamanic use of psychedelic drugs, and always clad in medieval armor, The Meads of Asphodel immediately intrigued us... and others too, as they've caused quite a buzz with their several demo releases. Now here's their compact disc debut, brought to us by the same label responsible for the ungodly Benighted Leams (THEE most ridiculous and fucked one-man black metal band EVER, remember?) as well as the most recent and also quite fucked Fleurety disc. That ratcheted up our anticipation another few notches. And we have to say that while as it turns out The Meads *aren't* quite as utterly strange as we were expecting, not as insane as Sigh or as ridiculous as fellow Brits Bal-Sagoth, they're still pretty strange, lacing their super-heavy doom-riffed black metal with "medieval" keyboard melodies that seem inspired by King Arthur by way of Return To Forever's "Romantic Warrior"... Silly and tongue-in-cheek they may be (one of the booklet photos depicts the band in full armor, lined up along a wall, apparently urinating), but they seem oddly serious too in the occult details of their lyrics and their elaborate presentation, thereby keeping us guessing. The list of guests who contributed to this disc also is indicative of their unusual approach to black metal: they get help from A.C. Wild of '80s Italian Venom-clones Bulldozer, ex-Hawkwind guitarist Huw Lloyd Langton, vocalist Kobold of fellow UK black metallers Old Forest, and an electro-goth act called History of Guns...weird! The Meads of Asphodel come across as certainly smarter and more eccentric than your average black metal band. Heavy, catchy, and possibly crazed -- recommended!
What happens when a band that's pretty darn strange as it is on their "proper" albums, goes and lets their hair down (and takes their helmets off) and does a limited-edition release documenting live-in-the-studio alternate versions of some of their songs alongside a previously unheard extended epic entitled "My Beautiful Genocide"? Well if you spin The Mill Hill Sessions by English black metal weirdos the Meads Of Asphodel you'll find out...suffice to say, anyone who was amused and/or amazed by their previous efforts will find this equally far out, or further even. Their spaced-out black metal blend of Venom and Hawkwind is as extreme and eccentric as ever here. Actual Hawkwind alumni Alan Davey and Huw Lloyd Langton are heard jamming alongside Meads band members Metatron, Urkkarmeel et. al. for these sessions, by the way! Intended for loyal fans, this cd isn't seeing wide distribution and we probably won't have it for very long...
First, you get six tracks originally recorded for a British metal radio show, including versions of tracks from their The Excommunication of Christ and Exhuming The Grave Of Yeshua albums, and their split ep with Mayhem. And they also do an unexpected cover of Sepultura's punkish "Refuse/Resist" as well! Then you get a second session, one long 20+ minute track that's described as a "work in progress", and it is quite a schizophrenic piece of work indeed, as absurd and insane as you'd expect. Stopping and starting with sloppy abandon, there's metal leads, many jangly acoustic parts, black metal blur, punk breaks (sounding like Stiff Little Fingers says Byram), jazzy interludes, all sorts of stuff thrown in, including vocalist Metatron's endless, half-whispered, half-growled poetic sermon/rant on the subject of...well you can try and figure it out.
Compared to your (ahem) "normal" Meads albums, these Mill Hill Sessions employ no studio trickery or extra keyboard overdubs...these tracks are more stripped-down and guitar-oriented. And since apparently they've never played a live show, this is the next best thing, although in the rehearsal space/studio (as pictured in the booklet) the band don't wear the medieval armor with which they are normally fitted out on their album covers and other photo shoots. Shocking! They do promise that their next release will see them back in their "helms and mail" however.
"On a cold Spring morning, around AD 30, a man was hung on a tree, upon a mound of dirt, this is his story, of a man named God."
And so it begins, the latest batch of Christian baiting musical propaganda from weirdo UK black metal outfit Meads Of Asphodel, and what might be their most fully realized record, both conceptually and musically, is also not surprisingly their most bizarre, and least black metal. But to be fair, Meads were never your typical black metal band, whether it be jamming out on punk covers, getting a member of Hawkwind to join their grim horde, or infusing their blasting blackness with loads of space rock Frippery and distinctly un-black metal swoops and swirls and fucked up sonic weirdness. It's of course what makes us love these guys so much. Not to mention their hilarious / irreverent approach to playing an inately grim and true and kvlt style of music.
The Murder Of Jesus The Jew plays like an Off-Broadway musical, if someone decided to combine a wildly sacrilegious rant and twisted black metal into an Andrew Lloyd Weber style spectacle, and while we wish some day someone would, this is most likely about as close as we're gonna get. And right from the start, this is like no black metal record you've heard, after that haunting narration, the record blossoms into a strange cabaret, like old timey European street music, all horns, and strings, and orchestral bombast, it's not hard to imagine a cobblestone street, and a candlelit tavern, the motley collection of patrons being entertained by this strange musical combo, decked out in full armor, until suddenly, they launch into a blast of buzzing howling black metal, which lasts less than a minute until the horns come in, and the song shifts to a much more major key sounding melody, and then you realize, if you stripped away the blasting drums and the buzzing guitars, you'd still be back in some cabaret stage production, an evil / anti-Christian version of Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar. Sounds bizarre, and it is, so bizarre, we imagine lots of black metallers will be put off big time, but for the rest of us, this is some twisted, genius shit. And twisted it is, there's not a stretch of buzzing blackness that makes it more than a minute without any weird sonic impudence, usually in the form of a swoonsome melodic bit of overly dramatic balladry, or some sweetly soaring female vocals, those parts so dramatic, and SO good, they really COULD be from some musical...
"My Psychotic Sand Deity" flits back and forth between horn laced black metal, to that sort of end-of-the-show schmaltzy big finish, where everyone holds hands and sways back and forth, but it's Meads, so that sweet sunshiney tranquility is shattered in the last few seconds by a burst of black metal that is about as black and frenzied as it gets.
And so it goes, a gloriously schizophrenic sonic treatise on the myth of God, and the foolishness of his followers, told in the form of the REAL life story of God, complete with more ominous narration, buzzing black electronics, soaring strings, swirling new agey keyboards, creepy monk like chants, twisted apocalyptic folk ("Stiller Of Tempests" almost sounds like Woven Hand via Godspell, but a bit more evil), "Dark Gethsemane" is a swoonsome shuffling dark pop ballad, but it's quickly followed by "Jew Killer", which is a creepy crawly chunk of lurching, lumbering, atmospheric doom, and it continues to veer wildly from atmospheric power metal classic rock epicness, to bouncy Pogues style drunken metal folk, back to some buzz and blast, and then again to something more black metal Broadway sounding. And finally, the band close the show, with the ridiculously titled "A Canticle for the Lost Amputees of Aelia Capitolina Who Have Been Trampled Under the Iron Shod Hooves of Salivating Hell Rams and Impaled on the Shimmering Tusks of Salvation Within The Abandoned Tabernacle Of A Bronze Age Myth", which according to the liner notes, is sung in ancient Aramaic, and is of course a lengthy twisted bit of warped cabaret laced, piano and electronics flecked, super dramatic, epic and melodic over the top (only sort of black metal) weirdness, and the perfect finish, to a dazzling, bafflingly brilliant record. As absurd as it seems, we would kill for someone to make this into a proper musical, stranger things have happened. Well, okay, not THAT much stranger.
As always the core group of Metatron (posing in the booklet, in full armor, with his dog!), J.D. Tait and Vrakbarameel, augment their merry band of armored metal soldiers with a sprawling selection of guests, no less than 14 this time around, including Hoest from black metal horde Taake, Mirai and Dr. Mikannibal from weirdo Japanese metallers Sigh, and Alan Davey from Hawkwind (of course) among many many others. Includes a massive booklet, with tons of photos, and a 'program' with lyrics so you can follow along!
MPEG Stream: "My Psychotic Sand Deity" [/audio/meadsoamurmypsy.m3u]
The return of our favorite crust punk obsessed black metal horde, Meads Of Asphodel. Not sure if they've always been so into eighties punk, but over the last few records, the band have seen fit to mix it up, sprinkling classic covers amidst their epic pagan black metal jams, seems like a weird mix, but somehow, in the twisted sonic world these guys inhabit, it sort of works.
Two new tracks, a creepy, medieval intro, buzzy synths, rumbling drones, a growled distorted proclamation, some weirdly cheesy piano, tinkling chimes, sirens, a serious dose of whatthefuck, which gives way to 7 minutes of totally majestic, and classic sounding pagan blackness. NWOBHM inspired guitar harmonies, wrapped around pounding drums, chugging black riffs, the arrangements convoluted and complex, peppered with soaring synths, creepy processed vokills, some haunting interludes, with more of that creepy spoken word, and then right back into the tangled epic thrashing. And then it's on to the covers, some of which make perfect sense, some of which don't at all, which only makes them that much cooler. Doom, Hellbastard and Conflict, the Meads versions of which are appropriately raw and pounding and thrashing, the Hellbastard track has some strange piano melodies draped over chugging guitars and monklike chants, the Conflict cover is weirdly produced, turning the metallic crust punk into something almost cabaret sounding. We had never heard Skeptix before, but the Meads version is awesome, fierce and fast and melodic and heavy as fuck, definitely gonna have to track down the original. Then there's the last cover, going waaaaay back to the roots of heavy metal, The Kinks' "You Really Got me", which the Meads tweak, making the main riff minor key, so it definitely sounds black metal, the vocals over the top and WAY goofy, at first it seems so silly, but as the track plays on it makes some sort of twisted sense, and definitely suits the Meads' fucked up sound.
The Meads share this disc with countrymen Old Corpse Road, a sort of naturalistic folk flecked black metal band, but barring the intro of the first song, there's nary any folk to be found, the band spitting out epic, almost orchestral sounding blackness, not that far removed from Cradle Of Filth, with keyboards WAY up in the mix, wild shrieking vox, even some creepy plonking piano melodies, and that's when the folk comes in, the band breaks down into a sort of jig, launching into a jam that wouldn't be out of place on a Finntroll record, complete with group sing along, incredibly catchy, and the more we listen to this, the more we find ourselves digging these guys. Three looooong tracks, super dramatic, over the top, keyboards all over the place, wild vocals that slip from deep croon to hysterical shriek, a tangled almost circusy bit of blackened chaos that is totally kicking our asses. Which means WAY recommended, for both Meads AND Old Corpse Road, and we definitely need to hear more OCR...
It seems like most of the music coming out of Brooklyn these days has been tending toward fey eighties beholden electro pop or gloomy Cure worshipping synthwave, but it's not all eyeliner and Siouxsie lunch boxes happening over there, at least based on the debut from Meek Is Murder, who might as well be called The Meek SHALL BE Murdered, cuz this is some seriously kick ass poser disposing heaviness, displaying a darker, seriously more fucked up and chaotic sonic side to everyone's favorite borough.
Recorded by Converge's Kurt Ballou, and definitely not that far removed from the Converge / Coalesce sonic axis, Meek Is Murder traffic in a dense, gnarled mathy metalpunk crush, that shifts deftly from dirgey downtuned sludge to crazed hyperdense metalcore fury, with plenty of twists and turns in-between. Nine short sharp blasts of tangled metallic mathpunk, most of the tracks clocking in at 2 minutes or less, 3 or 4 closer to 60 seconds, culminating in a final 6+ minute epic.
The record begins with an intro of sorts, a churning seasick dirge, with rad syncopated drums and rib cage rattling metallic chug, all wreathed in woozy spidery leads, before launching directly into "Return Void", the opening blast the sort of shit that makes pits explode, but then the double kick comes in, and the song blossoms into a weirdly melodic mini-epic, a sort of metalcore Godspeed almost. But it's the title track that might be our favorite, a galloping Speedwolf like classic thrash, laced with a tangled shreddery that at times sounds like a less demented Mick Barr, unfurling woozy harmonized classic metal harmonies over the roiling metalpunk below. From there on out, it's some of THEE best mathed out heaviness, we've heard in ages, we're reminded at time of Kiss It Goodbye or Deadguy, heavy as fuck, with almost proggy arrangements, but shot through with some serious melody, fractured by super dynamic stop/starts and wreathed in thick sheets of feedback. The bulk of the record clocks in at less than 15 minutes, but the songs are so jammed with tripped out parts and intricate arrangements, killer riffing, rad melodies, it feels like way longer, until the record finishes off with "Garbage Collector", which sounds like a more metal Dazzling Killmen, churning noise rock math metal radness, with some amazing, weirdly melodic, droned out breakdowns, as well as a seriously epic, brooding, slow build Godspeed-ish final movement, that pushes MiM's sound way beyond most other typical punk/metal outfits, and is fast making this, and these guys, a new aQ favorite.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! 100 of which are white, and while they last we've got the white ones. Hand numbered.
Reissue of this seminal thrash band's finest moment (although Allan insists 'Rust In Peace' deserves that honor). 'Killing...' is heavy and fast and loud and catchy. Mustaine spent some time in Metallica and there was plenty of mudslinging from both sides as
While Rust in Peace is arguably Megadeth's finest and most cohesive album, it is Peace Sells that is generally considered the best of their old-school 80s thrash releases, especially among the diehard fans who are the least forgiving. From the overt Satanism of "The Conjuring," and "Bad Omen" and the possibly Slayer-influenced graphic depiction of a serial killer's crimes in "Black Friday" to the oddly domestic infidelity of "Wake Up Dead" Peace Sells� contains Megadeth's darkest lyrical content. Plus you get their dubious cover of Willie Dixion's "I Ain't Superstitious" which I suppose is no less embarrassing than "These Boots" from the first album or "Anarchy in the U.K." on So Far, So Good, So What! The massive guitar crunch on "Devil's Island" and "Good Mourning/Black Friday" are archetypal 80s thrash -- classics of the era, and when you sit down and think that these tracks are nearly twenty years old, I'd say they hold up far better than most from the time. You may never need buy another metal album again after this one. I've personally had this record for over half of my natural born life and it's still just as good now as when I first bought it at 13. How many of the records you're buying now are you going to be able to say that about in 2018? Like the others in this reissue batch, remixed/remastered and includes alternate-mix bonus tracks.
During the summer of 1990, while enjoying a three month holiday in Oslo, Norway, I (Elliott) came across a magazine that would be of untold influence to my thirteen-year old ears -- the 1990 Metal Hammer "Thrash Spectacular". This would serve to be my introduction to an obsession with extreme bands that would consume an unhealthy amount of my time and interest throughout middle and high school -- bands such as Exodus, Sepultura, Pungent Stench, Testament, Sacred Reich, and on and on. But the centerpiece of the issue was four articles on what Metal Hammer referred to as the "Big Four" of thrash, namely: Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeth.
And now we have a re-mastered re-issue of Megadeth's Rust in Peace, originally released coincidentally enough, within weeks of my return from the land of fjords. Why is this significant? Well, because with the very notable exception of Slayer's Seasons in the Abyss, Rust in the Peace was arguably the last great album of the great '80s thrash bands. Sure most, if not all, of these bands continued to release albums up to the present, but really -- which of them would you seriously consider to be on par with their '80s predecessors? Exodus, Testament, Slayer, Anthraxit's like 1990 was an impenetrable divide that dictated, "No decent thrash may pass". And let's not even discuss the Black album. Anyway, the release of Rust in Peace heralded the end of an era, and did so with august aplomb, the group topping even their own previously great achievements. It was as if all bands of the ilk recognized that nothing more could be done within the confines of what was considered thrash. Thrash had, as they say, "jumped the shark".
But most importantly, Rust in Peace is simply a magnificent album, harkening back to a time when metal records were still collections of great songs. Every song on here is unique and there's not a bit of filler to be found. Take a look at the tracks: you get the MTV-friendly alien conspiracy hit single "Hangar 18"; the sheer aggression of "Take No Prisoners," one of their heaviest songs ever; the eerie occultism of "Five Magics"; the upbeat, almost poppy quality of "Poison Was The Cure"; the coke-sweating solipsism of "Lucretia"; the forlorn desolation of "Tornado Of Souls"; the austere drum and bass death march creepiness of "Dawn Patrol," (where you get to hear Dave's hilarious affected British accent) all book-ended by two of the finest thrash epics ever recorded -- the relentless juggernaut of an opener, "Holy WarsThe Punishment Due," and the apocalyptic groove of the closing title track. Rust in Peace also showcases the finest musicianship of their career, featuring the relentless guitar dueling between Mustaine and newly recruited Shrapnel recording artist Marty Friedman. Very rarely has such guitar-shop wankery been harnessed into such tastefully well-crafted songs -- the intro to "Holy Wars" alone is a must-hear. As for the vocals -- some have been at worst annoyed and at best amused by Dave's whining snarl but when you hear him scream "Paid by the alliance, to slay all the giants" I think you'll agree his delivery is perfectly fitting.
Like Black Sabbath's Volume 4 or Celtic Frost's Morbid Tales or Iron Maiden's Killers, Rust in Peace is a milestone of metallic perfection and one which you are doing your metal collection a grave disservice to be without. If you have any genuine interest in metal, any whatsoever -- a single Century Media sampler in your collection, even -- you MUST own this record. Do yourself a favor, hear one of the absolute pinnacles of thrash. It was the last of its era, setting a standard that the genre as a whole would be unable to match again. And don't just take my word for it...Allan's backing me up on this one too: Rust In Peace is a metal essential. This reissue is remixed and remastered, with four bonus tracks (3 demos of album tracks featuring original 'Deth guitarist Chris Poland and the unfinished, unreleased "My Creation").
Ah the Mega-re-issues just keep on coming! As it stands, So Far, So GoodîSo What! ranks as the least essential of the set, but definitely still an excellent album and a more than adequate selection if you�re still hungry for more Megadeth after Rust in Peace and Peace Sells. On this, Megadeth�s third overall album we have the excellent opening pair, the atomic instrumental "Into the Lungs of Hell" and then the massive riffing of "Set the World Afire," plus Megadeth�s first two quasi-ballads, the surprisingly decent "Mary Jane" and "In My Darkest Hour". Fear not though, they�re both still plenty heavy! Closer "Hook in Mouth" has another classic riff and plenty of classic Mustaine sneer. Plus you get their laughably bad rendition of the Sex Pistols� "Anarchy in the U.K." What�s not to like? Come on, go for the �Deth triumvirate! Like the others in this reissue batch, remixed/remastered and includes alternate-mix bonus tracks.
A name like Megasus can only mean one thing. METAL. That's right, pounding, thrashing, ass kicking head banging metal from Providence Rhode Island, which just so happens to feature Brian from Lightning Bolt on drums. But NOT Brian Chippendale, nope, that's bass player Brian (Gibson!) pounding the skins, and hot damn, he's a pretty sick drummer for being such an insane bass player.
For those of you out there that play Rock Band or Guitar Hero, odds are you've probably heard Megasus before, one of their tracks was a huge hit on one of those games, downloaded about a million times, but for us, Megasus came out of nowhere, and proceeded to pummel us into submission!
Shredding classic style heavy metal, with a definite punk rock flavor, reminding us a bit of bands like Karp, that sort of punked up metal vibe, although with Megasus it's mostly the vocals, for the most part this is some seriously TRUE metal. Wild soaring leads, guitar harmonies, relentless drum pound, lots of chugging riffage, proggy arrangements, some stretches of doominess, the vocals a distorted howl, but for the most part this is just some seriously kick ass metal radness!
And the packaging, we talk about amazing packaging all the time, but wow, does this take the cake, an full color eye popping outer gatefold jacket, some sort of bloody winged goat, the logo and song titles embossed and stamped with gold foil, printed inner sleeve, pressed on 180 gram swirled orange and black vinyl, comes with a poster, sticker AND a patch. As well as a full album download. Phew. Also LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. We got about a dozen, might be the last we see of these.
At last, for those of you whose turntables are built sturdily enough to withstand the massive heaviness, here's some VINYL from former AQ Record Of The Weekers, Megaton Leviathan, those droning Portland doomsters who, while as heavy as their name so inadequately attempts to indicate, are surprisingly somnolently mesmeric too!
Released on their own label, it's a limited lp pressing of their original 2009 demo tape, five tracks, around 34 minutes of doooOOOOOooooom. The first two tracks, "Water Wealth Hell On Earth" and "Guns And LSD" both were later rerecorded for their cd debut that we made ROTW, while the other 3, "Repeating Patterns Of Love", "Time Fades", and "Turlock", all appeared redone on their 2011 demo cassette as well. So, no new songs, but if you don't have the original demo, you haven't heard these versions before, and in any case this is the only way to weigh your turntable down with their doom, as we said... though as we also have said, ML's doom is a special sort of "soft doom", as much spacey slowcore shoegaze as it is anything else, uniquely so even on these, their debut recordings.
Finally! New music from these aQ faves, Megaton Leviathan Northwestern masters of psychedelic doom, or doomgaze, or, well not sure what we should call it now. When we made their Water Wealth Hell On Earth album an aQuarius Record Of The Week, their sound was definitely doom, like doom with MANY oooooo's, but even then it was blurry and washed out and super psychedelic, and at times, barely even metal. Which is where this new one lands for sure. It's definitely heavy, but it's more spacey, and droney and dreamy, two epic songs per side, the first more of a slowcore shoegaze blissout, slow, but not a doomy crawl, just sort of mesmerizingly hypnotically midtempo, the guitars warm and billowy, the vocals whispery and washed out, almost like another layer of drone, the whole thing a dreamy dirge that really could go on forever. Gorgeously tranced out psych-doom bliss of the highest order. There are strings too, courtesy of Amber Asylum's Kris Force, which just adds to the epicness and spaciousness, fans of Godspeed and all who sail with her, if you've yet to discover Megaton Leviathan, now is the time, and this is the record, er, tape. Soaring, slow building musical majesty. Henry Barnes from Amps For Christ contributes sitar and 'oscillations', again, adding to the trancey raga-like mesmer of the songs.
The B side is a bit more doomy, but only a bit, the heavy downtuned churn is blurred into extended chordal streaks, and hazy black ambience, the sound on the B side hews closer to the minimal dub-doom of OM, fans of that band will flip for these guys too, the same sort of lumbering, minimal, metallic crush, but here, wreathed in swirls of effects, constantly shifting atmospheres and textures, laced with minor key melancholic melodies, pulsing, undulating until the momentum begins to ebb, leaving just a field of abstract chug, clouds of cymbal shimmer, only then to blossom into something even heavier, a murky death march plod, the bass and guitar impossibly distorted, the drums a rib cage rattling crush, locked into Gore-like minimal-metal mesmer, before exploding again, into some serious psych-doom drift, replete with FX heavy guitars and angelic female vocals.
The tape finishes off with maybe the oddest of the bunch, a sort of slowcore psych folk ballad, all clean guitars and crooned vocals, still plenty murky and druggy, and HEAVY, even sans metallic heft. Only on tape for now, but rumors of more formats in the future. For now, this is extremely limited, nice full color printed J-cards and green cases, sadly, no download.
We all went a little crazy for the debut from Portland doomlords Megaton Leviathan, whose particular brand of doom was on the poppy, melodic, washed out and dreamy side of the doom spectrum. So much so that we felt obligated to come up with a new term for their sound, 'soft doom', when we made their cd a Record Of The Week. And we still can't get enough of these guys' woozy, spacey slowcore laced, drone flecked soft doom. So we were psyched to discover a brand new cassette, their newest demo, a teaser for their forthcoming full length, and if anything, the 'softness' of their doom has been transformed into something more like spaciness this time around. At least on the opening track, that sounds like Hawkwind crossed with Spacemen 3 and slowed down to a plodding, nodding dirge, hazy squalls of wah guitar, sung/spoken vocals, everything drenched in effects, shards of vocals, slivers of guitars, sent spinning into space trailing streaks of echo and reverb and delay, a sprawling drug rock space drone epic, that rivals most of the other bands out there who set their controls for space rock. In the case of Megaton Leviathan, it somehow sounds more organic, like their quest for slo-mo soft doom heaviness just somehow ended up here.
And as the record plays on, it becomes evident that the first track was no fluke, the doom almost entirely replaced by drugged out space rock and psychedelic slowcore, sure it's still dark and heavy, and slow and dirgey and okay, a bit doomy, but it's way less 'doom' and way more washed out, woozy, lysergic, hazy, gauzy, hypno-dronerock, repetitive, and cyclical, and hypnotic, the production simultaneously lush and lo-fi, the distortion cranked way up, but instead of making it heavy, it makes the sounds crumble and wash out and crystallize, making the overall sound seem that much more warm and rough and organic, especially when the band slips into slow spaciness, all low slung bass, melodic guitar echoes, and big drums, lumbering and loose, the sort of thing Three Mile Pilot were masters of in the old days, loads of space, all held together by sinewy basslines and krauty rhythms, and then the guitars come back in, and again, we're well past doom, the sound lifting free of the surface, and drifting heavenward, somehow mixing Hawkwind, Codeine, Low, Spacemen 3, Loop, a little doom, lots of drugs, and even more effects, into the sort of thing that should have fans of the current crop of space rockers (Wooden Shjips, Carlton Melton, White Hills, Moon Duo, Heads, Lumerians, White Noise Sound) losing their shit.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Each one hand numbered, and record on swank reflective gold cassettes.
It's hard to know what to expect from a band with a name like Megaton Leviathan. You might guess heavy. Probably loud. And you'd be right on both counts, but you probably wouldn't guess that these guys play some sort of super melodic, poppy, and very pretty doom. Or sort of doom. Soft doom? We sure as heck didn't.
But that's pretty much what ML are all about. Even categorizing them as doom doesn't do them justice. The tempos are slow, the mood is doomy, but unlike the typical downtuned sludgery and lumbering slo-mo pummel of most doom combos, these guys infuse their dirges with soaring shimmering clean guitars, the vocals are clean, not howled or grunted, but crooned, bathed in reverb, and draped over the almost ethereal sounding heaviness.
The drums are strange, big and boomy, but they perfectly suit the Nadja-like doom-gaze, the washed out blissy reverbed doom pop, the hazy, gauze-y, space-y doom flecked psychedelia these guys so effortlessly conjure up.
The 19 minute opener is split into two parts, the first half, is a gorgeous dirgey creep, with a melancholy main melody, swirling synth textures, and those moody crooned vox, all stretched out into a glorious bit of space doom dream pop haze, the effects swallowing the instruments up and sending them spinning into the cosmos, woozy, and dreamy and mesmerizing and strangely emotional with some of the best most beautiful hooks you'll ever hear in a 'doom' band.
The second half almost sounds like a dub version of the first, the riffs are stripped away, leaving a glistening filed of layered vocal mantras and electronic effects, the drums spare and abstract, the sound thick and lush and distorted, but blurred and free and swirly and psychedelic, some sort of alien spacedoom ur-drone, the perfect balance for the more riffy bliss of the first half.
After another short track (and by short we mean almost 6 minutes), which is another dirgey crawl, through fields of cloudy effects and smeared electronics, sounding like a modern space doom Codeine, all pretty and melancholy but still dark and heavy, comes the 33+ minute closer, "A Slow Death In D Minor", the whole first half of which sounds like SUNNO))) covering Tangerine Dream, thick downtuned glacial thrum, underpinning, swirling kosmische synths and jangly shimmering clean guitar chords. This could go on forever, and practically does, until about 18 minutes later, the drums come in, and pound out a strange skeletal beat, atop the still drifting buzz and shimmer, buried vocals and muted melodies churn just below the surface, until finally, the sound grows more and more melodic, and what sound like strings surface, and the track is transformed into some sort of chamber doom, until eventually, just the strings are left, to soar dramatically over a barely there layer of crackle and hum, before slipping into silence.
This could definitely be our new favorite doom record, if it didn't feel so wrong to and reductive to call Megaton Leviathan doom. But it's definitely a new favorite, for fans of all things dark and heavy and dreamy and melodic, droney and drifty and pretty and poppy and trance inducing.
The Khrysanthoney label returns after a bit of a break, with a barrage of new releases. Including this, the debut full length from Russian depressive black metal one man band Melankoli, whose sound is a perfect fit for Khrysanthoney, melding the downtuned dirge and melancholic creep of depressive black metal, with something much more lush and cinematic. The nearly 20 minute opener begins with lush synth swirls, strange field recordings, tinkling chimes, dramatic pianos, swirling FX, it almost sounds like M83, or some strange sci-fi soundtrack, the drums come in gradually, a spare, echo drenched pound, a deep dramatic spoken vocal, over a shimmery swirl of piano, total haunting shoegaze slo-mo blissout, swirling harmony vocals, wreathed in the sound of wintery winds, until finally, the guitars come cascading in, and the harsh vokills, but even then, they're paired with the more dreamy, dramatic sounds of the first few minutes, lilting and lovely, anguished and aching, epic and majestic, at times, the sound does grow dense and blackened, seriously heavy, but just as quickly, those moments dissipate, leaving soft synth swirls, or weirdly processed sprawls of electronic flecked drift, the programmed drums transformed into something much more trippy, before once again returning to the brooding, moody, cinematic churn, sprawling like the score for some end of the world epic. And while nothing else on the record is nearly as grandiose, the other four, shorter tracks here conjure up similarly stunning sonic moments, from the whispery electronic intro to "Embrace Of Winter", which runs throughout the whole song, giving it a weird electronic gloom pop, goth wave vibe, to the moody minimal blackened slowcore of "Coma", which should have Alcest / Amesouers fans in heaven, to the synth soaked sprawl of "Through The Shining Stars", which true to its title, sounds like the score to some super psychedelic sci-fi epic, images of huge expanses of space, of endless starfields, super melodic and darkly emotional, peppered with minimal percussion, and lilting electronic melodies, again, hard not to hear a little M83 (maybe M83's recent score for the movie Oblivion?).
Melankoli finishes things off with a Death Aura cover, a weirdly epic, murky, moody death march dirge, the sounds blurred and washed out, the vocals a buried-in-the-mix demonic rasp, the melodies minor key and melancholic, a beautifully brooding bit of black buzz loveliness.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!!!
Ok, so American death metallers Nile might have the market for Egyptian-themed metal all to themselves. And they're damn good at it. But what about the rest of the Middle East? Well, the guys in Melechesh play "Mesopotamian Metal"! And, they actually hail
Holy crap this band SLAYS. What (the death metal band) Nile are to Egypt, this black metal outfit is to Iraq... That is, Melechesh consider themselves to play "Mesopotamian metal", lyrically focused on the mythology and mysticism of ancient Sumer. Except that, moreso than Nile, the music of Melechesh more fully incorporates influences from the traditional folk musics of the Middle East. So they're kind of an extreme metal version of the '60s Turkish psych bands we love so much, the garagey fuzz guitars replaced with downtuned distorted METAL guitars, making bellydance music with blastbeats. And, unlike Nile who are Americans, the guys in Melechesh actually all originally hail from the region (they're Arabs, emigrated to Europe). Well, they used to have a Texan in the band, the illustrious occultic drumbeast known as Proscriptor (of Absu fame) but on this album he's been replaced with a new drummer, Xul. Proscriptor's a tough act to follow but this Xul guy manages to do so quite well! Wow.
We've raved about 'em before, so hopefully you've already got some Melechesh in your collection and are as excited as we are about this new release, which is from the get-go a raging maelstrom of vicious riffage and masterful metal composition. Crushing AND catchy, technical, and very very METAL, yet with that extra Middle Eastern X-factor that makes it even better in our book, and allows the band to slow down for extra-ethnic, atmospheric interludes like "The Scribes Of Kur". Really, there's nothing we can find fault with here at all. A seriously great Middle Eastern metal assault, which even includes a cover of a song by a (Middle Eastern influenced) Canadian pop band, The Tea Party, weirdly, and cooly, enough. It's a shame that it's impossible to think about the ancient cultures and traditions of Middle East, and Iraq in particular, that Melechesh drawns such inspiration from, without of course dwelling on the current fucked up situation there, which sadly hasn't gotten any better since the release of Melechesh's last album back in 2003...
Good grief, but Melechesh certainly makes it tough for other 'extreme' metal bands to compete. If it wasn't enough that they're masters of razor sharp, ripping blackened deathly thrashy metal, they've also got the Middle Eastern thing going for 'em. Not just lyrically (they're into Mesopotamian mythology) but musically as well this has Middle Eastern motifs, heck there's even some bouzouki on here, and you know how much we like Middle Eastern influenced rock music, all that '60 Turkish psych stuff, well this is the modern metal equivalent! Plus these guys are a lot "closer to the source" than, say, those Egyptology obsessives in Nile, who are Americans. Melechesh are Palestinian Arabs, originally from Israel, and this album was recorded at a studio in Istanbul.
It's been four years since their last album, the amazing Emissaries, and they haven't changed much, except to get even better if possible. These songs are, as always, both crushing and catchy, as well as mystically, "magickally" atmospheric... mesmerizingly so, via the heaving heaviness of such tracks as "The Magickan And The Drones" (the magick wins out), full of sinuous, serious, seasawing riffage that leaves us utterly hypnotized. Elsewhere, the blazing fast battery does the same trick. Yet another AQ-approved aspect of Melechesh is how fist-pumpingly metal they manage to be, showing that their Middle Eastern sound might also have something to do with Iron Maiden's "Powerslave"!
Definitely for fans of Absu (whose Proscriptor was in fact a Melechesh member for a while), with whom they share some similarities of sound and vision; also of course the aforementioned Nile (though those guys are much more death metal) and Morbid Angel (who also are inspired by ancient Sumer). For another concocted comparison, imagine Dissection with a Middle Eastern makeover, maybe.
Highly recommended, this pushes a lot of buttons for us, definitely gonna be a major contender for 2010 top tens. Like we said, when you're listening to this, it's hard to see what else could compete. Comes packaged in a digipak, with suitably esoterically evocative artwork.
Those crazy "Mesopotamian" metallers Melechesh are back, following up their last album, Djinn, considered a best of 2002 metal release 'round here, with this equally killer collection of tunes. The band consists of two Arab-Israelis now living in Europe and, perhaps the key to how Melechesh has become such a force to be reckoned with, percussion perfectionist Proscriptor of Texas black thrashers Absu. Dunno how they get together to practice or write songs, but whatever they do seems to work! As on Djinn, they meld traditional Middle Eastern music with black/death metal, kind of like an extreme update of the way those "Turkish Delights" garage-psych bands did it. They take their influences seriously -- in fact there's an enhanced portion of the cd that will fill your computer screen with lengthy explanations of their musicology, complete with guitar tablature, drum beat analysis, and even pictures of the "oriental" instruments used alongside the usual electric guitars, bass and drums on the album! Then again, this is also state of the art metal. Sphynx is crammed with riffs, complex detail, constant changes, the utmost in headbanging tech. Totally adrenalized, thrashy and catchy. Fans should happily note that this includes their awesome track from the last Osmose World Domination sampler. Oh, and in case you're wondering, we found no overt references to the war in Iraq. These guys are more interested in ancient supernatural stuff than they are in our less-than-mystical world of strife.
This is the first we've heard from this one woman black metal band, the work of a single entity almost comically named Climaxia, but there's nothing comical about Hel, an epic and super progressive slab of experimental atmospheric black metal. Inspired by Fritz Lang's Metropolis, this six part songsuite finds ME weaving an impossibly lush landscape of black buzz, industrial murk, dreamy almost psychedelic ambience, part one pretty much lays it all out, loping black metal, more muddy and washed out than buzzy, giving the whole thing a seriously dreamlike quality, the sound sound shifts, and splinters into a strange soaring blackened majesty, with some insanely deep demonic bellowed vokills, which get processed and transformed into clouds of hisses and whispers, before the buzz peels away, leaving clean guitar, murky drumming, a sky full of tangled voices, the sound super cinematic and WAY creepy, and then in swoop some angelic clean female vox, the effect choral, almost liturgical really, the sound seeming to grow more and more abstract, more psychedelic, the metal elements disappearing in a cloud of druggy FX heavy swirl. But we're still only partway through, the sound explodes into a grinding gout of heaviness, before once again transforming into a sort of gloomy dirge rock, the vocals now a throaty croon, haunting and heavy.
The second track begins in full black metal buzz mode, but again, the timbre and quality of the sound makes it much more dreamy and tranced out, those growled demonic vokills the only thing making it sound truly black metal, and even here, after a minute, the sound devolves into a stretch of clean guitar drift, before launching into another blast of blackness. The whole record, while heavy on the black buzz, spends much of its time drifting through fields of psychedelic shimmer, distant buzz, and slow, dirgey atmospheric creeps, and it's those interludes and non-metal parts that seem to seep into the blacker buzzier parts, transforming them into something much more moody and melancholic, not to mention all sorts of strange effects, warble guitars, twisted harmonies, dubbed out drumming, each song imbued with a sort of soft cacophony, that constantly threatens to overtake the black buzz, and often gloriously does!
Packaged in a super swank black and gold six panel embossed digipak...
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In the bizarre musical world of Japan's Melt Banana, seven inch singles are hedgehogs, and MB's got a whole mess of em, most WAY out of print and long unavailable. So finally, all of these long sought after hedgehogs, all released between 1994 and 1999, have been gathered up, gussied up, digitized and released on one single compact disc. 13 Hedgehogs featuring all of MB's tracks from the singles "Hedgehog", "It's In The Pillcase", "Untitled (Piano One)", "Eleventh" and "Dead Spex" as well as their tracks from splits with God Is My Co-Pilot, Discordance Axis, Pencilneck, Target Shoppers, Stilluppsteypa, Plainfield, Xerobot, and Killout Trash. Phew. 56 tracks of maniacal squealing and squeaking, stop-start, ultra dense, mega complex confusional punk / grind / pop / whatthefuck! So ridiculous and so totally amazing!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We recently reviewed a record by the Deadsea, a chaotic mix of black metal, and post rock and prog and sludge metal which we all dug like crazy, and as we mentioned in the review, one of the Deadsea guys used to be in the band Three Studies For A Crucifixion. So we managed to get a just a handful of these long out of print 8" eps for those of you who wanted more -- oh, and for you Melt Banana fans as well!! Here's what we had to say about it when we first had it way back when:
Tokyo's Melt-Banana have made a much welcome return to their hardcore roots with six new songs, fast and furious as ever. Three Studies for a Crucifixion, from Athens, OH, contribute two tracks of technical spazz and grind. VERY limited, so act fast.
One of four new releases on the always fascinating, and often perplexing UK tape label The Tapeworm. This one comes courtesy of long time aQ customer and pal, bad ass artist, and scribe for the mighty Wire, Mr. Edwin Pouncey, aka Savage Pencil, along with his partner Sharon Gal, a UK artist and broadcaster. Besides doing time together in a noisy rock outfit called Pestrepeller, the duo unleash a pretty grim din as Meltaot, whose sound is a strange assemblage of abstract guitar drones, whispered incantations, abstract percussion, all woven into a candlelit crawl through some subterranean sonic doomscape, equal parts harrowing atmosphere, noisy abstraction and blackened beauty. Imagine a more artrock Abruptum, lots of squealing feedback way off in the distance, thick chordal buzz up front, lots of space, plenty of scrapes and creaks, moans and whispers, the female vocals are feral and haunting, sometimes slipping into some sort of demonic processed chantlike vokills. We also definitely hear some Angelblood, but picked apart and stretched out into some sort of unholy soundtrack to an endless night lost in a haunted forest, pursued by some unspeakable evil. Intense, and weirdly beautiful, each side a single track, each titled a 'rite', which is precisely what these sound like, the mysterious rites of some forestkult, conjuring up all manner of sonic demoncy.
Fans of atmospheric blackness and grimnoize will for sure dig, and even people into other abstract foresty weirdness, a la Sylvester Anfang, Avarus and the like, as long as they're up for something a bit darker, could do with a wonder through these black woods.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES! With a killer Savage Pencil cover illustration.
Twenty-six songs! This used to be a mere ten. Yes, "26 Songs" is an expanded reissue of the out of print "10 Songs". Recorded live to 2-track in 1986 by the line-up of Buzz, Dale, and then-bassist Matt Lukin (who later defected to Mudhoney), this was indeed 10 songs from the mighty Melvins' earliest daze, when their Black Flag / Black Sabbath meld was at its most obvious, potent, raw (and fast, some of the time!). Utterly essential heaviness in other words. Did we say "mere" ten? Not really, since every one of those ten songs is forever embedded in the mind of this Melvins fan. "#2 Pencil" -- so doomy and vile a song. "Snake Appeal" -- the guys rip through what could be an old Corrosion of Conformity thrasher. "At A Crawl" -- well, that's the Melvins right there. Etc., etc. And, like Ipecac's reissue of another early Melvins classic, "Gluey Porch Treatments", there's a bunch of garage demos and alternate takes added on to make Melvins fans salivate, as you can compare multiple, grungier, faster takes on "10 Songs" songs (and some other tunes you'll recognize). The disc winds up with the drug-addled ramblings of their old pal "Hugh" as an added bonus (which means that this disc, despite the title, really features "only" 25 actual songs). It's just too bad the new cover design for this new version is so computer-done and busy and typical of recent Melvins packaging (forget the flowers, guys!). We much prefer the stylish simplicity of its earlier incarnation(s). But, the extra tracks certainly make up for our aesthetic quibbles about the graphic design!
MPEG Download: "Easy As It Was" [/audio/melvinseasy.mp3]
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MPEG Download: "Grinding Process" [/audio/melvinsgrinding.mp3]
Hard to believe the Melvins are still around. And that they STILL don't suck. After like, what... 200 albums? Equally hard to believe that they have somehow morphed from one of the most difficult and gloriously difficult bands to ever sign to a major label (outside of the Butthole Surfers) into purveyors of super kick ass, head banging stoner Stooges stomp rock. But hell, we're not complaining...
And who cares if this is release #1 or #201. Or how many bassists they've pile up in their "morgue" (like Spinal Tap was with drummers), it still packs a mighty wallop, and gives us just what we've come to love and adore and expect from the Melvins, almost too much so, but more on that in a minute.
A Senile Animal is the first "true" Melvins album since 2004's Pigs of the Roman Empire teamup with infrasound specialist Lustmord, and sees the Melvins circa 2006, aka Buzz & Dale, join forces with the equally chaotic duo of Jared & Cody, otherwise known as Big Business (Jared also ex-Karp).
Together as the (new) Melvins they are bigger and badder than ever. With the power of THREE vocalists, TWO bass players, and most excitingly, a DOUBLE DRUM attack, a sort of hybrid drum kit manned by two different drummers!!
We haven't seen it yet, and heard they share cymbals or hit some of the same drums, or maybe hold hands while rocking out, but however they get it done, it WORKS. BIG TIME!
This record will definitely hit the spot for those of you craving more of that heavy / catchy sludge pop, found on past Melvins classics like Houdini or Stoner Witch. In fact, a lot of A Senile Animal sounds like it was just plucked from those very same sessions. Not a bad thing mind you. It's just that some of us, especially after the gorgeous fucked up heavy weirdness of Pigs of the Roman Empire, imagined that the Melvins might have been headed down a much more twisted and fucked up musical path. And while that is not necessarily the case, we're not too disappointed. In fact this disc's got most of us too busy rocking out and banging our heads and air guitaring and flailing wildly about to even notice.
And we sure as heck can't wait to see the crazy drum kit thing everyones talking about, and to have our asses thoroughly kicked by the NEW Melvins, not so much a quintet as much as a POWER-POWER trio! Fuck yeah.
Well, they're here. Melvins fans, giddyup. Seriously, what to say? The four classic early Melvins records newly reissued on these two double lp sets (why'd they do it like that? dunno) are all ESSENTIALS. Back on (remastered) vinyl for the first time in 15 years, they're too old to have much in the way of reviews from us previously, when originally released, so we figured we'd have to write new ones, and we could, heck we could go on and on about 'em. But really, most folks who are likely to buy these already know what they're all about, right? And if for some reason you are a fan of sheer heaviness, and buy records, and these AREN'T in your collection, then, well, all we can keep it simple and say YOU MUST BUY THESE!
This paring brings together the Melvins' "holiday" record (at least, we always put in in our holiday music section when that time of the year came 'round, and it always sold!!), a four song ep from 1991, originally released on 10" vinyl, that featured three short rippin' tracks on the A-side (including the mighty "Hog Leg"), and an epic sludge drone fest on the B-side, "Charmicarmicat", over 12 minutes long, that sounds more or less like the blueprint for the first Earth album (though that was released the same year, so it can't really be). Meanwhile, 1992's Lysol, excuse us, for legal reason they're now calling it Lice-All, another fucked up Melvins classic, that features, along with several originals, covers of both Flipper (they do "Sacrifice") and Alice Cooper (not one but two songs!) all sounding perfectly Melvins-y.
Includes download!
Fact: the Melvins are one of the best bands ever, and continue to be one of the best bands ever.
Fact: the Melvins are always awesome when it comes to doing covers (their version of "Candy-O" by The Cars from Ozma being our favorite, closely followed by their version of KISS's "Going Blind" from Houdini), usually "making them their own" 100 percent.
Fact: they've just released a disc that's all covers, with some guest vocalists, and the song selection is quite eclectic to say the least, occasionally obscure too, including one that maybe only folks from San Francisco will freak out over - they do a song by the Pop-O-Pies!!! Cool.
Our only complaint about this, really, is that with the presence of the guest vocalists, some of the covers, while totally spot-on or otherwise interesting & well-done, maybe don't sound as much like the Melvins as we'd like - if Buzz woulda sung 'em all, we'd be even happier. But it's a quibble.
So, what more do you need to know? Well, the dang tracklist, perhaps. Here it is:
1. "Warhead" by Venom, featuring Scott Kelly of Neurosis
2. "Best Friend" by Queen, featuring Caleb Benjamin of Tweak Bird
3. "Black Betty" not by but as performed by Ram Jam
4. "Set It On Fire" by the The Scientists, featuring Mark Arm of Mudhoney
5. "Station To Station" by David Bowie, featuring J.G. Thirlwell of Foetus
6. "Attitude" by The Kinks, featuring Clem Burke from Blondie
7. "Female Trouble" by Divine
8. "Carpe Diem" by The Fuggs
9. "Timothy Leary Lives" by the Pop-O-Pies
10. "In Every Dream Home A Heartache" by Roxy Music, featuring both Jello Biafra and Kevin Rutmanis (formerly of both the Cows and the Melvins)
11. "Romance" by Tales of Terror
12. "Art School" by The Jam, featuring Tom Hazelmeyer of Halo Of Flies
13. "Heathen Earth" by Throbbing Gristle
Wow, quite a diverse & cool selection, eh? If you're a Melvins fan, you probably want this (unless, perhaps, you hated The Crybaby, which also featured a lot of unlikely covers/collaborations). 'Cause after all, heck, everybody does love sausages!
Mike Patton re-issues his Melvin buddies' awesome "Gluey Porch Treatments" album from 1986 and for this we are thankful -- it's nice to have a cd of this godly album all on its own, instead of merely appended to the "Ozma" cd (even though that version is still available for those who want to make their Melvins dollar go further--however, as added value incentive, this stand-alone "Gluey" includes the previously unreleased "garage demos" of the entire album!...thus making it an essential purchase for true Melvins fans even if you already have the "Ozma" cd!). Now, the Melvins have made a lot of records, some better than others, but let me tell you that this is one of the best. Heck, if they'd only made this one record they'd still be one of my all-time favorite bands, it's that good. This is the one that, prior to masterpieces like "Ozma", "Bullhead" and "Lysol", really established their unique Black Flag-meets-Black Sabbath heavier than thou sound.
The words "Footloose and fancy-free and out of school" come from your speakers, beginning the disc and thusly, we embark on the career of that "juggernaut of pummel" known as the Melvins.
Here is a collection of "never heard before" (demo, live, rehearsal) recordings dating back to 1983! Remember 1983? I do...ugh! Anyways, a "pre-Dale Crover" line-up (which includes a young punk-ass named Matt Lukin on bass, you might also know him from another little band, Mudhoney?) bashes and thrashes it out with songs and tone reminiscent of Flipper / Bad Brains / Fang / Poison Idea / Black Flag -- this is NOT to say they sound like they are emulating the aforementioned legends, we're just saying that the Melvins, at such a tender age and still without the "other greatest drummer" Dale Crover, pretty much came into this world screaming and wailing. Buzz Osborne definitely is / was / is blessed / cursed as a "5-string motherfucker". Word. The liner notes by Buzz go on about how they were hacks at the time, but LEGIONS (after listening to this) will attest to "the power of the riff" that a (pre) King Buzzo packed at the age of 20 somewhere in Shithole City, WA (or maybe it was the town next to it?). This release is packed with all the fury and "pent-up-ness" that only comes from growing up on the outside of "cool" or "rich". (Well, it speaks to me, anyways...) There are songs on here that show up shortly after -- and many years later -- down that ugly road of "former bass players"...
It's refreshing to hear (punk) rock like this right now. There are even funny moments of (drunken?) banter on here that will make you laugh and think back and reminisce (or not) on your own "destruction ride" through your late teens/early twenties, etc. The actual sound on this thing is incredibly solid too, for something from the "golden age of hardcore".
A must own, if you will. But you already knew that, didn't you?
Won't go into too much detail here, since if you're not already a bit obsessed with the Melvins, you're probably not gonna need a 200 page book about em. But thos of you who ARE into the Melvins. WAY into the Melvins will definitely need this. Over two hundred pages of artwork, photos, tour diaries, discographies, interviews, stories, inserts, ALL the artwork from all their releases and more. Also includes a greatest hits cd. Odds are you have most of it, but there are a few surprises. Definitely super cool and gorgeously laid out. And of course, limited!
