If the letters N-W-O-B-H-M in a review get your attention, then this is for you. Buried By Time And Dust have done another of their typically deluxe vinyl reissues, of an obscure but worthy NWOBHM classic. Lots of NWOBHM bands were "one-hit" wonders, recording a killer single and that's it. Mythra managed a bit more, though their reputation as a long lost legend is primarily based on what was originally a collectible 4-song 7" released in 1979, the Death & Destiny EP. It was later expanded to full-length status with the addition of demo tracks from 1980 and '81, thus this, the full 13 track Death & Destiny LP� And it's all pretty good, mostly on the ripping, rollicking, rough and tumble side of the NWOBHM equation, very much in the vein of somewhat better known acts like Diamond Head, Angel Witch, Blitzkrieg, and Raven. Basically, if you like NWOBHM, you'll like this. Allan's owned the (long out of print) cd edition of Death And Destiny for many years now, and considers it a bit of a prize amidst his NWOBHM collection.
This limited edition vinyl reish comes with a 12 page booklet featuring lyrics, liner notes, band interview, and photos. Plus, you get a reproduction of a poster for a gig Mythra played opening for Motorhead, Saxon, Girlschool, Angel Witch, White Spirit, and Vardis in 1980 (wow!).
Oh, and for anybody who read this far and is still wondering, NWOBHM stands for the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal!!!
Brand new disc from Imperial, who for the last 12 or so years has been spewing a gorgeously grim and noxious black buzz under the banner of Krieg. As well as contributing his own black brand to BM super group Twilight (along with Wrest from Leviathan, Hildolf from Draugar and Blake from Nachtmystium) We were sort of just expecting more kvlt�Kriegish blackness, which would have been fine, we dug the last Krieg big time, and in some ways, much of this does sound like a continuation of Krieg, but in other ways it's definitely a whole 'nother sort of blackened beast.
N.I.L is much more minimal and drone-y, augmenting the usual bass, guitar and drums with some seriously non-black metal instruments like mandolin and Tibetan Singing Bowl, creating slow moving black sonic blurs, reminding us much more of Xasthur than Krieg, each song basically a single riff, repeated mantra-like, smeared into hypnotic and mesmerizing, drawn out and murky doomic black dirges.
There are a few fast tracks, and those definitely sound more like Krieg, blasting and furious, swirling and chaotic, raw, primitive black metal brutality, but it's the slower tracks that make this record so weird and cool, from the haunting opening, wrapped in record crackle, a simple acoustic guitar weaving a mournful and melancholy dark folk melody, to the gorgeously fuzz drenched Burzumic plod of "Here I Found No Shelter" to the depressive miserablist strum of "Serpent Circle" to the gorgeous washed out Xasthur meets Katatonia style black epic that is "Negative Frequency Entity", and let's not forget a killer, and fairly straight, cover of Big Black's "Bad Houses", the only real difference being buzzier guitars, and the growled demonic vocals, but what a classic riff, malevolent and dramatic and so goddamn catchy, and yet somehow it meshes perfectly with the bleak black buzz of the rest of the record...
Within the last few years we have witnessed Chicago's Nachtmystium evolve from a grim exercise in nihilistic, kvlt as fuck black metal to a group that seems to be completely ignoring the accepted rules of the genre and pretty much surpassing all the competition. It would be flat out stupid to deny the blackness on display here, and yet it is so much more than just a black metal album. We've always loved Blake Judd and his cohorts (featuring here, in addition to long time guitarist Jeff Wilson and synth lord Sanford Parker, Will Lindsay of Wolves In The Throne Room and the incomparable Wrest of Leviathan on drums) but with the release of Addicts: Black Meddle Pt.2, it is now abundantly clear that they are one of the best metal bands in operation. The songs venture all over the place, never failing to surprise with their unique structures and brutal instrumentation, and the greatest success here is the fact that these are, get ready: some of the catchiest, blackest, and most psychedelic POP SONGS we have heard in forever. This album is just as amazing as the recent Twilight record, and not surprisingly, three of the players had a hand in that as well. And while Twilight caused some jaws to drop with things like emo breakdowns and beautiful choral vocals, the sick minds in Nachtmystium have found even more ways to astonish. Oh, and it's a bit of a concept album about, you guessed it, the fun and timeless subject of drug addiction.
Beginning with intro "Cry For Help", in which creepy, guttural voices spell out a negative statement (we won't ruin it for you) that sets the tone for the album over echoed drumbeats, the band then kicks into "High On Hate", a thick whirlwind of classic black metal riffs flying around some darkened vortex. It's melodic and catchy, but also terrifying and uncompromising, and Judd's vocals are as killer and harsh as always. It's surprising how many interesting ideas Nachtmystium is capable of injecting (ha!) into their songs, which take you on a crazy black metal journey in generally 5 minutes or less. Nothing here is formulaic, especially the next number, "Nightfall". Your first reaction will be along the lines of, "Holy fuck! Is that a tambourine?" It is, and by the end of the song Nachtmystium has also thrown in an awesome woah-woah gang vocals (wonder if they're Naked Raygun fans, being from Chicago and all) and a giant classic rock guitar solo. You may wonder where they can take things next, but then they hit you with the biggest mindfuck on the album, "No Funeral", which will be described as "new wave black metal" until a better term comes to light. The song is carried by Parker's spacey synth melody and a heavy industrial dance beat that is so damn poppy we kinda can't believe it. There's some mind altering progginess on display, like on "Blood Trance Fusion," but thankfully things never get too academic or concerned with shit like time signatures. Instead, synths squiggle like parasites worming through your veins and blast beats jolt you out of your trance as the band holds things down like it's what they were born to do. "Ruined Life Continuum" resurrects the, um, new wave black metal we heard earlier, another too catchy to ignore number, before ending on a suitably bleak note with "Every Last Drop", where acoustic guitars and throat singing are consumed by a lumbering dirge and some soaring clean vocals courtesy of Yakuza's Bruce Lamont. When the sounds of an oscillating synth note bring Addicts to a close, you will probably be just as blown away as we were.
So yeah, once again, these guys have furthered the cause and raised the bar higher for anyone who thinks they are up for the task of making black metal in 2010 and beyond. If there's a Part 3 in the works, we're down for it, if not, we can't wait to see what Nachtmystium cooks up next.
Illinois' "psychedelic black metallers" Nachtmystium are back with their eagerly anticipated (and somehow controversial) new full-length album for big new label Century Media (after several on Southern Lord). The underground is abuzz, and we couldn't wait to hear it, being big fans of their previous album, Instinct Decay (and intrigued by their recent Worldfall ep, featuring a couple unexpected covers). Probably what's controversial isn't their psychedelic musical direction, which we already had major clues about from the catchy, buzzy, dreamy, E-bowed and bizarre Instinct, but just that Nachtmystium are moving on up from the underground, getting more "indie" scene attention... for instance, a review on Pitchfork, who even wonder if this is really a black metal album. The fact that Pitchfork is even writing about it, makes all the "true" black metallers wonder the same thing. But whatever, yes it's a black metal album, albeit one with lots of Moogy synths and backwards tape effects and even some saxophone (from Yakuza dude) on the three-part, 12 minute "Seasick" opus that ends this disc, and other left field, post/prog/psych rock twists and turns. There's a track ("Away From The Light") of pure ambience. But also quite a few tracks of pure black metal brutality. And beautiful blends of both.
Overall, Nachtmystium mostly remains a raging black metal beast, dosed with spacey FX. Think (later) Satyricon meets Neurosis, maybe, with the controls set for the heart of a dead black sun. Really, if black metallers can deal with the likes of Sigh and Arcturus and gone-prog Enslaved, they can't possibly have a problem with Nachtmystium. In fact, quite the opposite!!
And as far as we're concerned, this is possibly Nachtmystium's best yet. Certainly best produced, and most ambitious. The fullest realization to date of this band's genre-bending progression. And the punny title is pretty clever. Black Meddle, get it? You do if you're a Pink Floyd fan. And it's not the only Pink Floyd reference here. We're not sure that if Pink Floyd circa Meddle were to have made a black metal album it would sound like this, or even if this is supposed to be Nachtmystium's best guess at what that would sound like, but the inspiration at any rate has worked to create something pretty special. There's utter blasting blackened riffarama with rasping vokills, moody stretches of instrumental psychedelic '70s space-out bliss, and, well, what more do you need to know? Already sounds like a thumbs-up AQ item, right? We have always wanted post rock bands like Pelican to be just a bit more metal, and Nachtmystium shows that can work perfectly from the other direction. Recommended. What will Pt. 2 hold in store we wonder?
Black metal by its very nature is fairly isolationist, especially considering that one of the mains strains consists of one man bands holed up in their bedroom / attic / shed / shack / cave, shunning humanity, sunlight, any sort of personal interaction, filtering all of that negative hateful energy into their grim black buzz. Even proper black metal groups, with more than one member, are often quite tribal, kvlt-like you might even say, performing sonic rituals in some dimly lit rehearsal space, channeling all manner of dark energy and creating music both bleak and brutal, evil and cathartic. That sound, created by a group, is still intensely personal and to a certain degree is created more out of a need to create, than a need for adoration or success.
But what if you turned that whole dynamic completely around. Removed all aspects of kvlt-ishness, of individualism, what if you created a black metal horde open to anyone, anyone with an amp and a guitar, or even just a computer, could record tracks, and contribute to what would eventually be woven into the first open source black metal record.
And here it is, masterminded by the guys behind gloomy bliss metal duo Have A Nice Life, Nahvalr is indeed, as far as we know the very first "open source" black metal band. Parts and songs were solicited online, contributed via email, handed off in person, donated anonymously, and eventually the HANL guys took all the various tracks and deftly assembled them into this buzzing black behemoth. And there is in fact, plenty of buzz obviously, layer upon layer of crushing downtuned insectoid buzz, but also loads of creepy ambience, weird warbly doomy bits, super lo-fi blasts of near white noise, insane grinding drum machine stutter, haunting black ambience, deep ominous rumbles and softly glowing shimmers, weird chanted vocals, industrial scrape and pound, blown out blissed out blackened drifts of crumbling soft noise, it's all very schizophrenic, but it doesn't at all sound like a hodge podge, it sounds more like a truly expansive sprawling chunk of demented abstract black metal weirdness. Which is precisely what it is. It just so happens that there's way more than 4 or 5 guys "in the band."
Some songs are so steeped in buzz it sounds like records by Ildjarn, Velvet Cacoon and Wrath Of The Weak all being played simultaneously, other tracks are loosed from their black metal moorings and sound like Skullflower, thick sheets of sound, spaced out noise drenched ur-drones, others are gloomy and darkly melodic, simple guitarlines unfurling over streaks of feedback, howled anguished vocals, and shimmering black drones, while still others are furious dense blasts of raw, noisy black metal, in the red, speaker destroying missives from hell, swirling and roiling and churning maniacally, but often splintering into creepy doomic crawls or fucked up abstract Abruptum like blackened soundscapes.
The record begins with a sample of conspiracy theorist and radio talk show host Art Bell, talking about digging a hole to hell in Siberia, before launching into blown out super saturated black metal blast, but the source material is so varied, that even the parts that sound like black metal on the surface, have so much going on just below, twisted warbly melodies, keening wails, disembodied voices, textures and layers, so immersive and expansive, headphones are like X-ray goggles, revealing a whole other world hidden to the casual listener. The record then swerves from warped slow motion ambient doom, to soundscapes of high end skree and garbled guitarnoise, to grinding blacknoize fury, to downright gorgeous blissy drones and all the other various sonic stops mentioned above. Not at all typical black metal, instead, more of a weird sound experiment, based around black metal tropes, and created with a core of buzzing blackness, but allowed to sprawl WELL past the usual boundaries that define the genre, creating something extraordinary yet still distinctly black in the process.
Also found we had a couple of these, never listed. Another band doing the whole old school thrash metal revival thing, this time from Finland. The cleverly titled Apocalyspe. Now Or Never is their debut full-length. While they don't quite attain the rabid off-the-rails insanity of our particular Finnish thrash faves Pyrotoxic (RIP), they're still pretty entertaining if you're into the current wave of thrash nostalgia. Fast, frazzled, chugga-chugga-chugga bleaaaargh right out of the gate, and it doesn't let up. Wretched vokills lay down the thrash law over pummelling battery and razor sharp riffin' guitar grind. For fans of Slayer and the like.
A record this short should probably get an equally short review, just don't want to sell Nails short, cuz for what their record lacks in length, it makes up for in sheer crushing ferocity. 10 tracks in 14 minutes, a relentless onslaught of classic Earache Records style grind from these SoCal crushers, downtuned guitars blasting beats, guttural vocals, screeching feedback, gnarled tangly leads, the occasional bit of lumbering doom, a frantic whirlwind of powerviolent brutality, a nearly non-stop blast of face melting Napalm Death style classic old school grind. Heavy as hell and definitely recommended for folks who like it fast and furious and filthy as fuck.
Hard to resist a record with a bloody teddy bear on the cover, its fuzzy arm torn off and laying in a pool of blood, bone and sinew and gristle exposed. The record simply titled Dismember. Even harder to resist when you realize it's actually a country band, covering songs by Swedish death metallers Dismember, and far from being a joke, it sounds amazing, grim and dark, twangy and catchy, the twang and shuffle offset by horns, which add a strange funeral vibe to the proceedings.�
Some of the song titles sound like they could very well actually be country songs, "I Saw Them Die", "In Death's Cold Embrace", "Dreaming In Red",�but others maybe not so much so: "Where Ironcrosses Grow", "Let The Napalm Rain"... The record begins with a brief whispery intro,�hushed female vocals, crooning all intimate right in your ear, before the band launches into a rollicking campfire stomp, all minor key twang, shuffling percussion, warbly Hammond organ,�insistently strummed steel string guitar, and a world weary�whiskey soaked drawl, culminating in a�soaring epic chorus with the repeated line "I tasted blood, now I want more". Sounds like it could be the Old '97's or Sixteen Horsepower. Even a little Decemberists. Elsewhere the band dip into truckstop honky tonk, old time folk, gorgeous languorous swampy blues, epic over the top super dramatic Godspeed bombast (that inexplicably gives way to a super strange electro country tinged new wave jam), Southern rock and shuffling rockabilly...
Our favorite track has to be the darkly doomy and twangy "In Death's Cold Embrace", with its loping rhythmic slither, it's mournful funereal horns, some seriously Woven Hand like vocals, a killer warbly trombone solo, the whole thing just steeped in gothic grandeur, even the lyrics, what little bits you can catch, add to the track's gorgeous creepiness.
It almost doesn't matter that these are covers, fans of Slim Cessna, Sixteen Horsepower and that sort of muddy woodsy gothic swamp blues will definitely dig, but it's sort of thrilling to realize these are bastardized death metal songs, and to realize that melodically, thematically and especially lyrically, country blues is not all that far removed from death metal...
It's probably no surprise that we were intrigued when we first heard about this disc, after all the press release claims that it "researches the dark associations of post-black metal". And they go on to recommend it to fans of Burzum's masterpiece Filosofem! However, it must be the ambient aspects of Filosofem they're referencing, as you'll find no true frosty guitar buzz here, instead this is a purely digital, all-electronic album released by the UK's ever reliable, experimental Touch label, home to the likes of Fennesz, Philip Jeck, B.J. Nilsen, Chris Watson, and others. Intriguing, eh?
Of course, if we hadn't read that press release, we might never have related this to anything black metal at all, but we'd still like it. It's a very pleasant and varied dronological document, suggestive of field recordings, even though all these sounds are abstract ones, mostly realized inside a computer. There's passages that seem like buzzing insect swarms ("Process Philosophy"), or lashings of wind and rain ("Space-Time Continuum"), or Tibetan temple bells ("Semantic Shift"), or the gentle swaying of leaves and branches in a breeze ("Sun Wind Darkness Eye"). That particular track goes on to generate a mysterious low, soft hum, eventually accompanied by a beating electronic pulse, like much of the minimal techno we enjoy...
It's all quite evocative and lovely, although now that we think about it, some of these sounds could also be, like, cold winds blowing across frozen fjords, or sinister rumblings heard inside a subterranean crypt... And who knows, perhaps Nana April Jun (aka Christofer Lamgren), who hails from Sweden, wears corpsepaint whilst working with his digital tools. Probably not, though, since the majority of the text we read pertaining to this release was on the academic side of things. And although discussions of subjects like "the ontology of noise" and other psuedointellectual concepts can be a mite pretentious, regardless of that, all the whooshing, hissing, droning here is very good listening indeed.
Another essential grind metal classic available on vinyl for the first time in years. Exact reproduction of the original sleeve and on colored wax! Just like the Carcass vinyl reissue last list, if you don't already know who they are, you probably don't need this, but 'Scum' is definitely Napalm Death's finest moment. Short sharp bursts of ripping, pounding super political sort-of-lo-fi crusty metallic grind. A classic! And for those of you turntable-less fools out there, it is of course still available on cd!
First off, this is going to be a good review. Maybe even a great review. But first we have to talk about something. I was in New Jersey a while back, in a little rock club, out in the middle of nowhere, and there was a flyer on the wall looking for a lead
Over the past couple of years we've listed, and recommended, a half-dozen or so titles from German one-man-black-metal-band mainstay Kanwulf aka Nargaroth, including his most recent effort, Prosatanica Shooting Angels, just this last December. But we've never had enough stock of this most essential Nargaroth title to stock -and list- until now! No Colours has repressed this, Kanwulf's seminal third No Colours release from 2001, and we've got 'em. And you should get one too. If you're into the real raw necro black metal that is! And if you've got any Nargaroth, you need this too, and if you don't have any, this is the one to start with!
Subtitled "A Dedication Monument", this seems to be an album of black metal *about* black metal. The song titles indicate as much, from the title track to such cuts as "The Day Burzum Killed Mayhem" and "Possessed By Black Fucking Metal". Hard to resist, eh? And it's very clear the black metal he worships is the cult necro stuff, not "nowadays" black metal as he puts it. None of that gothy commerical keyboard black metal here -- not to say WE don't like that stuff too. But we do understand how undergroundier efforts like this MEAN more. Y'know? Somehow a guy obsessed with Burzum and Mayhem and the length of the spikes on his leather arm-brace sometimes (like in the case of Nargaroth) just makes THE most intense, weird, blackest of black metal. It's that sound we can't ever get enough of. Endlessly droning riffs, lengthy and hypnotic arrangements, buzzing Burzumic melodies stumbling galloping rhythms and of course Kanwulf's demonic demon screech. A spiky, scratchy grim black cloak of cult black fuzz.
Nagaroth IS Kanwulf, but on Black Metal Ist Krieg he's aided by guest musicians from Maniac Butcher and BM legends Moonblood.
This one is definitely for the true fans only. The grim, the troo, the obsessive. A double dvd collection designed to give the listener / viewer a glimpse into the soul and spirit of Kanwulf, the man who IS Nargaroth. Through the music of Nargaroth obviously, but also, plenty of more personal stuff, some introspective writing, and lots of Vietnam, but more on that in a second.
The first disc, is the live stuff, all shot pretty lo-fi, handheld camcorders, either from the crowd or the side of the stage, the sound super blown out and buzzy, the vocals so high in the mix they nearly swallow up the rest of the music. But the band are tight, the crowds wild, head banging, thrashing, horns held high, recorded live in Belgium, Austria, Portugal and Italy. Having listened to Nargaroth for so long, not only is it weird to see them/him performing live, but also weird to see them playing in what appears to be a school gymnasium, or a small rock club. The music of Nargaroth is so epic and sweeping and majestic, we always envisioned flaming chariots, and dark snowy forests, storm clouds and black skies, so it takes a minute to adjust to the idea that they are in fact an actual band. And even the shit sound quality doesn't detract from the fierce performances.
The second disc is where it gets weird and personal, but in doing so, makes this so much more interesting than your run of the mill music dvd. The first section is called "Dead Shoots", one subsection is marked "Private" and is a slide show of band photos, live shots, images of hills, and seas and trees and skies, plenty of candid "dudes at rock clubs" shots, LOADS of photos of Kanwulf, hanging out with other metalheads, lurking in the forest, or sitting on a station wagon in front of his parent's house, intercut with images of Kanwulf when he was in the army, or sporting Vietnam style camo, all set to some neo-classical soundtrack. But then, Kanwulf is obsessed with the Vietnam War, the last record was called Semper Fi after all, and the next section of the dvd, called "'Nam" is nothing but images from the Vietnam War set to the music of Jefferson Airplane and classical music. Weird! But pretty interesting.
The next section is called "Live Shoots" and is all clips from the various live shows on he first disc, a slideshow set to Nargaroth songs, not sure what these are for, since the other disc has all the same images LIVE, but still some cool shots.
Next up is a section called "Digital Thoughts", personal writings and thoughts from Kanwulf, on making the dvd, and on his development as a person and an artist, very cool and personal, and not at all hung up on the usual grimmer than though stuff.
The there's LOTS more Vietnam. First a section called "Swamp Thing", A sort of homemade Vietnam documentary featuring some amazing shots of the war, images of helicopters and soldiers, jungles smothered in smoke, this time set to the Doors' "The End", Hendrix and other sixties rock, with voiceover from Kanwulf (we presume) telling the story of Vietnam, and its affect on him.
In the same section, another menu leads us to another section, this one called "Vietnam", where Kanwulf writes extensively on Vietnam, his feelings on the war, and how the war influenced his thinking, feeling and music making, as well as his plans to visit Vietnam to try and understand and experience what went on.
There's also a documentary called "No Mexican Tequila Massacre", which is a short film about an aborted Mexican tour, lots of rehearsing, hanging out and drinking, smoking, some jamming, but lots of nothing going on, the guys in the practice space, changing strings, waiting for the show(s) to be confirmed, which they never are. Plus you get to see Kanwulf in Birkenstocks�
The final section is called "A Way" and is a surprisingly personal missive about Kanwulf's development as a person from when he started Nargaroth, moving away from hate and emptiness to become more of a real person with real feeling and emotions, scene politics be damned, not at all what you might expect from a black metal legend, but pretty refreshing and heartfelt.
The first disc will definitely appeal to true black metalheads, some awesome rare live footage, appropriately lo-fi and grim, thrashing and black, but the second disc turns this into something way weirder, and way more intimate, as Kanwulf constantly states on the dvd, this is not the sort of thing that endears him to 'the scene', sharing and feeling and honesty are not typically selling points for black metal, but then, this is far from a typical black metal dvd.
Packaged in a full color cover, with a complete discography (including shirts even!) on the flip side visible through the clear dvd case, full color booklet, with notes, and photos, and strangely the second disc seems to be a dvd-r, while the first disc is a proper factory produced dvd. All region.
We haven't been able to list much Nargaroth, unfortunately, mostly because we've been unable to get enough in stock. But as far as elite black metal goes, Nargaroth stands tall in a dubious pantheon that also includes AQ faves Graveland. Hateful German TRUE black metal, Nargaroth have been spewing anti-Christian vitriol for years now, culminating in their legendary Black Metal Ist Krieg album from 2001. So here we have Kanwulf's (the man who is Nargaroth) latest missive, and it's as bleak and miserably misanthropic as ever. Four epic tracks of brittle frosty guitars, plodding midtempos, struggling simplistic drumming, occasional fuzzed out blast beats, throat shredding howls and truly cold cold atmospheric ambience. It's all about the DRONE and the DIRGE. Ten plus minutes of the same riff, sawing away and lulling you into a trancelike state, letting the minor key melodies drift from beneath the sheets of icy guitars and and settle on your lifeless body, entranced by the endless riffage. Seriously, this is like a black metal Gore (Dutch hypno metallers who specialised in repetition). So endless and hypnotic and totally transcendent. And like most black metal we champion, just to keep you confused, there are lots of ambient forest sounds, birds, dripping water, rain, and of course didgeridoos(!). Plus inexplicably, the photo of Kanwulf on the inside of the digipak has lyrics from the Moody Blues' "Knights In White Satin" printed over it!
By now, you should know what you're getting into with every new Nargaroth record. A blast of hateful, misanthropic, buzzing lo-fi black metal madness, grim and sorrowful, a Burzumic hatescape of midtempo pummel and stumbling blast beats with creepy ambient interludes of rumbling drone and gutteral vocalisations (and even a Blue Velvet sample). If that sounds like your particular blackened cup of tea then by all means, you're gonna love this. But as they say, the devil is in the details, and with Nargaroth the details are always completely baffling and brilliant. Beginning with the "band" photo in the booklet. Above the picture in huge letters: "No Dark Throne Fan!" and below it the words: "Poser picture of Kanwulf inside a barn". And the photo does indeed show Kanwulf (who is Nargaroth) wielding a rifle and posing in front of huge bales of hay! Then there's the song titles: "Love Is Always Over With Ejaculation", "Be Dead Or Satanic", "Satan Industries", "Thinking Below The Ocean". And of course there's a dedication section, divided into "Thoughts about Death Cocks" and "Thoughts About Black Spikes", both of which hail a handful of bands, specifying of course the OLD versions or DEMO versions of most of them. And finally there's a paragraph detailing an infamous shootout that Kanwulf sampled gunfire from, and his final quote pretty much says it all: "Most of melodies and riffs were created during the recording itself, by making mistakes or by playing something just to fill up some empty spaces between two different melodies. I didn't spent much time for the creation. That's the way so called "satanic art" should created! The "Satan" within us acts! He does not try!"
Talk about cult black metal! Nargaroth's Rasluka Part II (not sure what happened to Part I...) pretty much defines it. This four song, 25 minute ep is the latest blast of hate-filled mayhem from infamous German black metal maniac Kanwulf and his hordes.
Like all true black metal, this begins with a creepy intro track, featuring someone playing a recorder along to a bunch of morosely-quacking ducks, which then gives way to Naragoth's equally morose but much louder buzzing guitar/drum pound and vocal rasping, a la Burzum, Mayhem, Darkthrone. Nice n' evil like it should be. But despite the almost symphonic, ambient cascades of distortion in which their music is bathed, as well as Kanwulf & Co.'s questionable ideology, this is still at heart simply rock n' roll -- which goes some way to explaining why track four is preceded by sound samples discussing the drunken death of AC/DC's original singer Bon Scott!
With black metal's focus on Nordic pride, Satanism, anti-Christianity and EVIL, it's easy to forget how ultra personal and intense the music making process can be. A way to purge the soul, keep depression at bay, satisfy the need to create, and in the case of Nargaroth's Rasluka eps, to mourn the loss of a friend. This is Rasluka part one, not to be confused with part two which came out first, but both have been lyrically and spiritually based on Kanwulf's (the sole member of Nargaroth) experience of losing a close friend and going through the emotions of that loss, the grief and the anger and the regret. The story inside the booklet is truly heart wrenching, and the music is appropriately buzzing and snarling, a thorny sonic miasma of violent emotions laid out in sound, the usual black metal elements are present, the droning simple riffs, the relentlessly pounding drums, the demonic vocals, but coupled with the story behind the songs, they music seems imbued with just that much more intensity and brutality and hopelessness. The fact that the first two tracks are based on Chopin's "Funeral March" seems a bit hokey at first, but that too-familar melody is soon obliterated by a massive overblown black metal onslaught, that pounds away relentlessy, abating only occasionally to allow haunting heavily reverbed piano to shimmer sadly and then fade into the distance before it's quickly subsumed again by a churning, roiling wave of fierce blackness. So good.
Originally recorded back in 2001, and intended to be a musical 'fuck off' and 'farewell' to the black metal scene, which as far as Nargaroth mainman Kanwulf was concerned had turned into something sad, sorry and distasteful, finally sees the light of day after 6 years of laying dormant. Not sure what changed after the recording of Semper Fidelis ("always faithful"), but Kanwulf continued to record, letting this vitriolic slab of scene directed hate sit hidden and covered in dust, to fester and remain nothing but a musical myth.�
The original version of this disc was limited to 99 copies, and to receive one, you had to write a letter to Kanwulf, explaining to him some personal secrets or weaknesses, sharing some dark part of your soul. In exchange, not only did you receive the record, but also various personal and intimate belongings from Kanwulf's home and private collection. Needless to say, no one here or anyone we know, managed to�be one of the lucky 99, thankfully, Kanwulf decided to release the record anyway, allowing the rest of the scene enjoy his blackened scorn and brutal contempt.�
Good thing too, cuz this stuff is amazing. Ultra raw, super fierce. The sound is pretty lo-fi, the guitars a corrosive buzz so thick that the riffs are sometimes smeared into near drones, the drums are buried underneath it all, more of a throb than a beat, and the vocals are probably as harsh as they've ever been, a raspy howl, acidic and bitter, a hellish hoarse caterwaul. The songs too are raw and simple, pounding monochromatic blasts of blackness, laced with sorrowful melodies, but for the most part straight ahead and generally midtempo, no furious blasts, no plodding doom, just a relentless black crush, primitive, raw and very very kvlt indeed. But as with much music like this, the key is close listening, the various riffs and melodies, changing shape and revealing hidden darknesses not necessarily obvious at first glance, the relentless mesmeric riffing, only a few steps removed from the ultimate soundform, the drone. These tracks are epic and majestic in their stripped down simplicity, hypnotic and repetitive and so gloriously trance inducing.�
The liner notes give some hints as to the background of this record, and the strange mindset of Kanwulf, a missive directed at fans and enemies, a description of the recording, and the amp used (set afire when left on the stove, hurled from the window, beaten with the guitar), and most strangely, the dedications, to Klaus Kinski, the German Federal Armed Forces and the US Marine Corps in Iraq. Semper Fi indeed.�
What a perfect pairing! Together the Dirty Three's Jim White and Ms Nina Nastasia strip things down to their bare essentials -- drums, guitar and voice -- to lay their musical hearts bare. With the additional positive of producer Steve Albini, You Follow Me is at once vulnerable and powerful. On songs such as "In The Evening", Nastasia sings with a much more steadfast, resolute strength than usual, and it fits well with the album's overall starkness. Meanwhile White accompanies and punctuates her vocals with dynamic restraint. For fans of dusky, raw melancholia.
What should have been a joyous celebration of pounding grinding metal madness and a massive tribute to one of the greatest grind bands ever, instead is a eulogy of sorts for Nasum frontman Mieszko Talarczyk who was killed in the South East Asian tsunami of two years ago while vacationing in Thailand. A dark day indeed for friends and family, but also for their legions of fans all over the world. And they were indeed legion, even our own Elliott (formerly of the aQ mailorder team) would be the first to proclaim Nasum one if, if not THE, best grind bands in the world. Tough to argue. They might not be the fastest or the sickest, but as a complete grind package they're tough to beat. Buzzing, snarling guitars, blasting beats, and Mieszko's glass gargling growl swooping madly from punk rock bark to black metal screech to death metal grunt. Most of the songs hover around one minute, but are jam packed with riff after riff, part after part, heavy and dizzyingly aggressive, and pretty dang catchy too. No self respecting grindfreak should ever be caught dead without every bit of Nasum thay can find stuffed into their collection.
This double disc set collects EVERYTHING the band ever recorded (besides their full lengths proper): split 7"s, compilation tracks, unreleased tracks, demos, rare out of print tracks, outtakes, cover songs, Japanese bonus tracks and more! 152 tracks! Two hours! All amazing. Packaged in a beautiful mini hardcover book, with loads of photos, song credits, heartfelt liner notes from the other two band members, extensive notes and reflections on each recording session/song as well as all the lyrics!
It goes without saying that the extent of death and destruction in Southeast and Sub-Continental Asia following the recent tsunami was catastrophic beyond measure, and to single out one death among many stands the potential of belittling the tragedy of others. But Nasum were and are one of my (Elliott's) all-time favorite bands, and this list is meant to inform of musical happenings. So in case fans of the genre haven't heard by now- Mieszko Talarczyk, singer, guitarist and co-founder of one the longest running and most influential grindcore bands in the world -- Sweden's Nasum-- was still missing and presumed dead in Ko Phi Phi, Thailand. It still seems unreal that a community as seemingly far removed from the quake's epicenter as the Scandinavian grindcore scene would be so gravely affected by the disaster, but perhaps this is as demonstrative as anything just how wide-spread was the destruction.
And so we are left with Shift. What was to be simply their fourth stunning full-length of unmatched aural ferocity is instead an inadvertent swan song and an elegy to the voice of its fury. Still setting new land-speed records in the genre they helped define, Nasum were newly a four-piece for the Shift sessions with a second guitarist from Regurgitate and a new bassist from the similarly brutal Sayyadina. Recorded only a year after 2003's masterly Helvete record, Shift features some of the strongest and most diverse songs yet from the band, with all four members contributing to the song-writing -- though of course the default speed of most every song is still set to FUCKING FAST. Blast beats careen nearly out of control until a surgically precise breakdown cuts in to let you know Nasum are never anything less than fully in control of the whirlwind maelstroms their songs evince. Comparable only to the band's own previous output, the sheer mastery of this relentless portrait of violent virtuosity is a constant painful reminder of how dearly Mieszko and his music will be missed by his fans worldwide, and of equivalent losses to thousands more worldwide.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This band from Argentina, at times are a dead ringer for desert rockers Kyuss, while at others, they blend an unbelievably lush tapestry of hypnotic rhythms and droning tribal space rock, to make this probably the best thing Man's Ruin has released in ages.
Stoner rock split cd from these two South American bands, both falling somewhere in the Kyuss/Sabbath realm.
We most definitely have a thing for Russian black metal, Old Wainds, Stielhas Storhett, Forest, Branikald, Raven Dark, Nav, Ithdabquth Qliphoth, we could go on and on. So we're always psyched to discover some new band we had never heard, or heard of before, such was the case with Native In Black, whose 2008 disc At The Gates Of Eternal Winter we just managed to get in, and it's a killer, but the cool thing is it's a whole different take on black metal than we're used to, especially from Russian bands.
Their sound is cold and grim and frosty and buzzy, but it's not really furious or fast, it's also not stripped down or raw, instead it's almost like some weird variant of classic eighties metal, mixed with a little blackness, and a lot of thrash. It's hard to describe, but much like the Ruins cd reviewed elsewhere on this list, the more we listen to this the better it sounds. Most black metal is droney or blurry, barely headbangable, but this shit is epic, and totally rocking, midtempo most of the time, and when it is fast, it's not blast beats, but more furious and sort of punk rock. Lurching and lumbering, pounding fists in the air. The vocals are awesome too, definitely a black metal shriek, but also frenzied and super dramatic, a bit like Mr. Doctor or something, giving the black metal a distinctly over the top Devil Doll vibe. In fact the more we dig into this record, the less distinctly black metal it sounds, and the more it sounds like some fucked up noise rock band, who just so happen to have some metal roots, a tangled mathy buzz, wrapped around those crazy vox, and shot through with a bit of stumbly punk rock, and streaks of blackened grimnity. Live these guys could easily either be corpsepainted and bespiked, or a bunch of bearded dudes in jeans and tshirts, leaping all over the stage, flailing wildly and stage diving, hardly matters, either way this shit rules!
This NYC metal band, making their debut on Earache, have a name & logo that seems more appropriate for a bunch of tree-hugging pagan black metallers than what they are, in fact - throwback '80s style NWOBHM inspired earthdogs. And heck yeah, we like that brand of metal! Particularly in the USA, bands like Christian Mistress, Saviours, Dawnbringer, Hour Of 13, High Spirits and DarkBlack are bringing it back; add Natur to the pack. Unpretentious, but not entirely unambitious true heavy metal for the denim and leather, chips and beer crowd. Heavy and galloping with 'decent enough' clean (but not too clean) vocals; the guy's no Bruce Dickinson but he puts it across okay. We do hear some Hetfield in his yowl. While not especially original, they're quite competent, and there's a lot on this disc for old school lovin' metalheads to enjoy, such as the fact that they're doomily heavier sound-wise than almost all 'actual' NWOBHM bands back in the day. And they lean a little bit proggy in parts ("Spider Baby" even hints at Goblin, a bit, with some eerie keys).
The album is (for us) a grower, it took us a couple spins to really get hooked, maybe 'cause their songs are a bit more nuanced and sophisticated than we realized at first. But now we're off the fence and happily headbanging the way Natur intended!
For those of you patiently awaiting the newest opus from Russian black metallers Old Wainds, expected any day now, this might just hold you over. Two demos of ultra raw black buzz from Old Wainds offshoot Nav, fronted by OW drummer Izbor, available on cd for the first time. Nav's last record, the surprisingly polished and weirdly melodic The Wolf Sun, definitely rubbed a few people the wrong way, with a sound way more NWOBHM than black metal, not so much blasting and buzzing as riffing and rocking. Sure it was unexpected, but we dug it anyway. Maybe precisely because it was so awesomely confounding.
But this is something else entirely. Something more like the Nav (and the Old Wainds) we know and love. Imagine the first Nav, Halls Of Death, via Old Wainds' Wither Of The Wainds, and you'll get something very much like From Nav To Jav, the sound on these demos, originally released in 1996 / 1997 is raw raw raw, super lo-fi, chaotic and frenzied, the guitars are murky and muddy, the riffing surprisingly complex, but plenty blurry and washed out, the drums wild and splattery, the vocals a harsh demonic croak, with long swaths of fuzzy warbly keyboards, the recording in the red and ultra distorted, causing the songs to seemingly warp and crumble as they come careening out of the speakers. Sort of like the EEE un-black releases, the recording here is as much a part of the sound as the songs. A sound so saturated and fucked up, it almost sounds like Faxed Head, but still with that unmistakable Russian sound, so distinctive and evocative, hateful and harsh, shot through with a drone drenched buzz, killer riffing, everything completely fried and fractured and gloriously blown out.
Essential obviously for fans of all things Nav, Wainds, Russian and black, but maybe just as crucial for anyone into raw metallic chaos, and droney distorted buzz (lots of overlap there wethink), or heck, even if you just wished Faxed Head were deadly serious and way more heavy, then this is most definitely for you.
Very much like how all the black metal bands in the Ukraine seem to be made up of the same 5 or 10 people, just in different combinations, black metal bands in Russia also tend to revolve around the same 2 or 3 visionaries, along with whatever black legions they can enlist from their little scene to help shape their black musical world.
We recently reviewed the only currently available disc from Russian cult underground legends Old Wainds, who as we mentioned in that review, are THE grim cult horde of choice among the black metal elite. And almost appropriately, all of their records, minus the just reviewed demo disc, seem to be way more difficult to track down than they should be, and thus of course, are seriously big ticket items on eBay.
So here we have the group Nav, also known in Russian as HABb, a black metal band made up of 50 percent of Old Wainds, primarily the project of Old Wainds drummer Izbor, so as you might imagine, the sound does not wander far from Old Wainds' grim frosty buzz. Which is of course a good thing. The same sort of fuzzed out primitivism, a gloriously murky production. But Nav add plenty of their own unique style, everything is so strangely mixed, with loud LOUD drums and guitars that swirl into a nearly impenetrable blackened haze. Demonic vocals that go from buried way down in the mix to a blown out raspy roar often within the same song, and bits of chaotic rhythmic stumble and haunting ambient weirdness, complete with the thunderous sound of horses hooves.
And unlike the straight black buzz of Old Wainds, Nav sounds a slight bit more melodic, with much of the riffing displaying a classic metal vibe, as well as rhythms that vary from the old black stand-by, the blast beat, lurching lopes, galloping thrash, pounding doom, lots of fuzzed out midtempos, all twisted amidst some strange breakdowns, where the rhythms constantly shift and the riffs contort and morph into slightly different shapes, there are even some super demented LEADS! Still, all the while the band continues to forge a wholly unique pitch black path. Fans of all things dark and frosty and cult and grim would do well to bow before the black knights of Nav!
We haven't been able to track down the cd, but we do have the ULTRA LIMITED vinyl version. Gatefold sleeve. Limited to 300 copies!
Old Wainds. Maybe one of our favorite black metal bands ever. They're from Russia, and bands like Crebain and Leviathan and pretty much every metal band we know LOVE them. And while they're not fucked up and damaged and freaked out and fractured like much of the black metal we love, they manage to move us in a similarly strange way, by employing the usual black metal tropes, the buzz, the blast, the grim necro vocals, the furious riffing, but turning them into something emotional and dark and unique, which is a rarity in a genre that in many ways insists on uniformity, to remain grim and cvlt and true.
In our obsession we also discovered Nav, HABb in Russian, the project of former Old Wainds drummer Izbor, and featuring at least one other member of Old Wainds. Their sound was not all that far removed from the OW mothership, if anything they managed to sound a bit more chaotic and a lot more like classic eighties metal. More old school riffing and melodies, but that sound still somehow woven into OW's super distinctive black metal.
As we wait hopefully for word from Old Wainds, regarding the rumored new album (and while we wait for news about all of their other releases, none of which we've been able to track down for ages, sorry), we've got a brand new Nav record, 4 years on from their debut, and if anything, they've gone even more classic old school metal. So much so, that minus the vocals, and some extra grim buzz, one might be forgiven for thinking this was some unearthed blackthrash rarity from1988.
Just take the first song, starting with a lo-fi classic metal riff, that quickly ramps up to full strength, some noodly leads, a splatter of chaotic almost-blast beats, until the song lurches into a full on metal gallop, the riffing not black at all, instead totally timeless, with shouted background vocals, some woozy arpeggiated breakdowns, and then about halfway through some full on tweaked and trippy keyboards that ooze and warble and buzz and make the whole thing sound slightly maniacal. But soon the keyboards are replaced by some furious leads, until the end, when haunting swells fade in and out until the end.
And then just like that, we're hurled back into the melee, more speed metal riffing, pounding drumming, freaky spaced out keyboards, every song featuring long stretches where the band drops out and the guitarist just riffs all on his own, often 2 or 3 times per song! Plus there's even a track called "Old Wainds" which is a total slow doomy groove, almost a black metal ballad, with swooshes of synth, and a total eighties metal main riff, which does eventually give way to some buzzing blackness, but throughout the song they continue to return to the old school.
It's hard to imagine ANY metalhead that wouldn't dig this like crazy, the sound is huge and heavy, the riffs are crazy catchy, might not be black enough for some, but for what it lacks in blackness, it more than makes up for in true metal!
Another new Nebula record. Definitely their best record although not a whole lot has changed. These ex-Fu Manchu folks play fuzzed out, drugged out, groovy stoner rock and play it well. And just because this is nothing new, doesn't mean it isn't still loads
This collects the two eps (duh, dos eps) from the preeminent fuzzed out stoner rock combo, Nebula. This includes their Meteor City ep and their split with Lowrider as well as 3 brand spanking new tracks. Overblown, super fuzz guitar, drawling lazy stonerboy vocals and big b i g B I G drums. Sounds as good as ever. Cruisng through the desert with the top down kind of lazy hazy summertime RAWK.
Attention, all you stoner-rock freaks (man, we need a new name for this stuff): ex-Fu Manchu (and better-than-Fu Manchu) dudes Nebula have a new album out. Maybe this is Sub Pop's way of veering back into "the new grunge"? Anyway, just from the cover shot of the band's equipment stacked out in a desert somewhere, this looks like it'll meet your rawk requirements.
Along with the gorgeous washed out ambient nature doom of Celestiial, and the epic outsider black metal mystery of the most recent Blood Of The Black Owl comes this, another new release on the cult Bindrune label, the first record from amazing one man band Nechochwen, a black metal act of sorts, whose intent is to explore Native American Indian heritage, through sound, but this is a strange hybridized exploration of Native American culture for sure.
Beginning with classical guitar, tribal hand drums, ominous spoken word, streaks of keening high end guitar, wailed emotive wordless vox, it definitely sounds a bit Native American, until the band launch into some seriously blasting full on metal, thrashing blackened riffage, pounding drums, with flurries of double kick, growled gruff vokills, rife with sprawling arrangements and epic melodies. It's thematically focused on the tribes that dwelled in the Ohio River Valley nearly two millennia ago, not that you'd necessarily know that from just listening, but it definitely infuses the sound with a unique vibe, that you're unlikely to find in much music, let alone black metal. Acoustic guitars, simple loping drumming, and chantlike vocals, in fact much of the record is acoustic, darkly melancholic, lush and warm and hauntingly beautiful, with fluttery flutes, hand drums, sitar like steel string buzz, occasionally erupting into blasting blackness, or twisted bits of rhythmic churn, or plodding ambient doom, or creepy black ambient drone, masterfully exectued, an expansive, incredible exploration of history through blackened folk flecked sound. Like other those Bindrune releases, not quite like anything else.
From the same label that brought us the most recent Clair Cassis ep, and the Velvet Cacoon Dextronaut reissue, comes this, the gorgeous hazy, shoegazey depressive black drone pop debut from Pakistani one man band Necktarium, whose sound is just barely black metal, sure, there's plenty of buzz, and some hellish vokills, but those elements are buried in billowy layers of gauzey fuzz, and washed out shimmer, woozy melancholy melodies, and tinkling pianos, all cloaked in blurry Burzumic thrum, the tempos lazy and laid back and a little waltzy, the sound lush and warm and rife with clean spidery guitars, whirling chordal swells and lovely field recordings. Burbling brooks and bird calls drift beneath a haze of translucent glimmer, soon buried beneath an avalanche of blasting blackness, but that blackness is burnished and glows with a strange warmth, wrapped in tendrils of swoonsome melody, everything indistinct and otherworldly, even at its fiercest, Dreamblur manages to be both, dreamy and blurry, like an even more washed out and druggy Velvet Cacoon, Necktarium paints gorgeous landscapes of abstract sonic drift, black metal rendered in shades of blues and greys, moon lit and obscured by flickering shadows, the sound shifting from murky muddy churn, to hushed chiming ambience, from melancholy lullaby to creeping, lumbering sorrowful blackdoomdrift, from gorgeous crystalline atmospheric minimalism, to lo-fi in-the-red blackblur bliss.
Totally fantastic, and absolutely recommended for anyone into dreamy depressive blackness, washed out shoegazey buzz and dreamy droney blurred and bleary blissiness, and tragically LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES!!!!!
Local label Flenser is quickly becoming the Bay Area's primary bastion of blackened buzz, with a seriously stellar first batch of releases, Bosse De Nage, Ghast, Palace Of Worms, Panopticon, Skagos and now the first proper full length from West coast USBM-ers Necrite, whose sound is really only loosely black metal, instead, these guys traffic in creeping, crawling, atmospheric dirgery, as much about atmosphere and texture as blasting riffs.
The sixteen minute opener sets the stage with a haunting skeletal guitar party, all spidery and minor key, a chilling sonic refrain that sort of drifts over spaced out mathy drums and inhuman hellish shrieks, that sometimes slip into belching death metal grunts, or even now and again almost Tuvan sounding humming vocal buzz. But fear not, these guys definitely offer up some ferocious blackness, bursting into face melting stretches of woozy blurred blast beating and frenetic insectoid riffing. In the case of the first track, the blasting subsides leaving some strange abstract post rocky ambience, crumbling abject atmospheres rife with creepy vocal mewls, and all manner of buzz drenched noise, only to explode again into some seriously intricate noisy blackness, infusing it with all manner of twisted melody and gnarled rhythmic weirdness.
The next three tracks follow a similar pattern, the band deftly slipping from super abstract ultra doom creep, to soaring Norwegian style raw and primitive black buzz, to tangled mathy post rock blacknoise psychedelia, plenty of ambience, lots of intricate melodies, even some sort of guitar leads weaving lush harmonies over and within the proceedings. All of this is wound into some super twisted arrangements, and the weirdly cavernous production only adds to the fucked up feel.
Then there's the nearly half hour title track, the majority of which is hushed blackened ambience, reverbed streaks of blackened shimmer, rumbling vocal murmurs, shards of guitar melody, building to a huge almost static wall of glacial crumbling black buzz, spare doomy drumming, it's not even until more than halfway through that the band offer up some buzzing blasting blackness, and even then, it soon splinters into weirdly tangled heaviness, before fading into some gorgeous minimal droney drift.
Which leads directly into the final track, "Worship The Sunn ((O))", which as you could probably tell from the title, is a sprawling chunk of SUNNO))) worship, but Necrite make it their own, adding mysterious chant like vocals, roughing up the guitars a bit, adding church bells and other ambience, the superdistorted riffing is not as static as it would seem, constantly undulating and squirming, making for a gorgeously bleak and ultra heavy bit of blackened and tangled ambient guitardrone.
Way back in 2010 we made the debut from this UK outfit our Record Of The Week. This awesomely named outfit, with an equally awesomely named record (This Beat Is Necrotronic) delivered what was at the time, and really still is, one of the weirdest sonic combos we could imagine, churning downtuned drone-doom heaviness, and wild programmed electronics, a crazy collision of metal ambience and electronic beats, that had the potential to be a modern Judgment Night soundtrack (and by that we mean AMAZING, but reviled, hate mail welcomed). And while rap and metal never made the best mix to some ears, there was no arguing with Necro Deathmort's musical math, which resulted in the sort of dancefloor heaviness that just didn't exist, and perhaps some would argue shouldn't. We however flipped out, this was like dance music for metalheads, electronica for dronelords, big beats and brutal blackness fused into something spaced out, hypnotic, fucked up and seriously dementedly genius.
So after raving endlessly about three records in a row from these guys (This Beat Is Necrotronic, Music Of Bleak Origin and The Colonial Script), EP1 marks NdM's first ever vinyl release, and we're happy to report that everything we loved about these guys is still in full effect, after a creepy ominous synthed out intro that sounds like the beginning of some druggy planetarium show, the record really kicks off with "Titan", which sounds like dubstep at 16rpm, the beats doused in echo, dubbed to high heave, the tempo a lumbering, lurching lope, and all around that beat, thick swaths of gristly glitched out low end, dense swells of crumbling thrum, thick synth bass throb, we'd have been perfectly happy to just listen to that creeping droned out pound endlessly, but instead, the sound blossoms into something nearly house-y, a little bit Carpenter/Goblin too, pulsing synths, twisted minor key melodies, only to collapse into something a bit more introspective, as "Probe" starts out all kosmische and shimmery, before a driving beat surfaces, and the sound becomes more a sort of psychedelic space rock, the sort of thing you might expect to hear on Agitated or Rocket, a spacey groove, surrounded on all sides by strange electronics and atmospheric swirls.
"Kingdom" is where things darken again, a smoldering creep, thick washes of buzzing synth, a pulsing 4/4 throb, lots of churning, roiling low end, and then surprisingly, things get downright dance-y, sounding like some fucked up Kompakt release, maybe remixed by James Plotkin or Stephen O'Malley, the core sound skittery and electro, but the sounds themselves, thick and buzzy, blackened and crunchy, again, a seriously dancefloor darkening jam for sure. "Void" sounds like SUNNO))) run through Dom Fernow's new Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement project, spare and murky, moody and atmospheric, blackened and bleak, with buried beats barely audible through the sonic murk, while close "Scanner" finishes things off on a surprisingly upbeat note, with some blown out glitch-step, the beats super warped and fragmented, and set amidst a backdrop of billowing serene synth dreaminess, a strange juxtaposition that results in a sort of new wave draped electro-glitch, that sounds like our favorite classic IDM gone haywire. Which is most definitely a good thing.
Includes a download code as well!
The second installment in a proposed trilogy of 12"s from one of our favorite weirdo electronic outfits, UK duo Necro Deathmort, who besides having a grim and brootal, almost metallic sounding moniker, kick up a sound that's seriously warped, an atmospheric, blackened electronica, with the early records sounding a bit like SUNNO))) meets Squarepusher, the sound seems to be delving deeper and deeper into texture and nuance, beat driven moodiness, and almost cinematic sounding, tripped out psychedelic dub.
Still plenty ominous and sinister, EP2 opens with "Sundive", a droned out, industrial sprawl, that sounds more like the minimal techno murk of Silent Servant crossed with the grim-goth rhythms of Vatican Shadow, the pulsing echo drenched beat draped over a thick backdrop of ominous, rumbling thrum. "Mirus" begins life as a hushed swirl of low end pulsations, and gauzy synthesizer squelch, but before too long, the song explodes into some full on metal, a lumbering droney doom, thick down tuned riffage, minimal metallic drum pound, some serious metalgaze style hypno-dirgery, but the whole thing is wreathed in thick swirls of synth shimmer, and more droniness, the vibe almost like John Carpenter by way of Godspeed by way of Neurosis or Nadja. "Channel Fever" lays down a framework of gated beats woven into a skittery eighties sounding rhythm, again, drifting atop undulating waves of synthdrone and atmospheric shimmer, all spacey and washed out, still a bit ominous, but even more so in the last coupe minutes with some ribcage rattling bass, and some slowbuild atmospherics.
The second half of EP2 delivers more of the same. "Bleeding" sounding like it could have been borne of some obscure Justin Broadrick project, or perhaps a remix of Moss or The Body, a churning blackened doomic riffscape spread out over a sea of squelch and a backdrop of crumbling distortion, harsh metallic vokills, a lurching slab of electro-doom, swaddled in arcs of blurred melody, adding a strangely melancholic vibe to the proceedings, but for all the little electronic bits this is some straight up metal crush, that should have doooooooomlords digging it big time, but also probably a little confused, especially when that track bleeds directly into "Deadlight", which sounds like some creepy Carpenter soundtrack, all woozy synths and sinister minor key melody, kosmische drift meets eighties horror VHS ambience, sounding like it could easily have been an alternate soundtrack for recent dystopian seventies style sci-fi art flick, Beyond The Black Rainbow. That sound continues right into the closer "Are", all pulsing synths, and swirling cinematic ambience, unfurling like more soundtrack drift, before the drums come swooping in, transforming the sound into something weirder and heavier, a spaced out doom-psych maybe, or some cinematic psychedelic synth doom, not sure what to call it, but it's pretty fantastic, a lumbering landscape of rumbling, atmospheric drones, swirling synth shimmer, moody melodies, and minimal drum pound, all brooding and tense, super atmospheric, haunting and heavy, again sounding like the score to some lost avant / arthouse sci-fi epic.
LIMITED TO 333 COPIES!!
We made the debut from the awesomely named Necro Deathmort our Record Of The Week way back in January of 2010. As we mentioned in that review it was pretty much a no brainer, the band name to begin with, the album title (The Beat Is Necrotonic), but then the sound, heaving walls of SUNOO))) like heaviness wedded to skittery beats, blackened drones wrapped around low slung rhythms, a sort of SUNNO)) meets Squarepusher electro-metal-blackened-dubstep, beat flecked slo-mo doom bliss wreathed in hazy spaciness, all drifty and mesmerizing, psychedelic, hypnotic and HEAVY.
If anything, this new one, record number two, even more evocatively titled Music Of Bleak Origin, is exactly what you would hope for as a follow up. In some ways, the gimmick of the first record was almost enough, sludgey metal guitars AND beats, granted, those two elements, not usually good bedfellows, were deftly woven into something special, heavy enough for the metalheads, but atmospheric and rhythmic enough for everyone else, but here, it's like that first record reimagined, and re-engineered, sonically, compositionally, it's heavier, more melodic, the songs are more catchy, more actual proper songs, the beats are bigger too, with much of the record REALLY sounding like a metal dubstep record, with the sound shifting easily from doomy skitter, to lurching electronics laced lumber, at its heaviest, definitely worthy of any self respecting metalhead's attention (adventurous metalheads we might qualify), but those heavy moments are not JUST heavy, their tangled up with squelchy synths, spaced out effects, keening vocals way down in the mix, almost like they decided to add space rock to their already eclectic palette, and when they're more concerned with beats, that heaviness, and doominess, and bleak origin, seeps into every beat, every twisted loop, or fuzzy buzzy synth.
The brief opener is the perfect intro, a stuttery beat, pelted with squelches, laid over thick undulating bass, all wrapped in thick layers of buzz and long streaks of high metallic skree, a perfect chunk of electro metallic dirgery. It's not until the second track that NdM really get to let loose, starting out with a super skeletal beat, draped with fragmented melodies, hushed muted effects, a sort of spacerock Portishead, but then the big guitars come crashing in, and then the sound becomes a churning psychedelic doom, lumbering, lurching, the thick crumbling guitars wrapped in swirling synths, the vocals heavy with effects, a sort of metalgaze spacedoom that RULES.
Which makes the next track even more of a surprise, "Temple Of Juno" is straight up dubstep, like it could have been yanked off some Hyperdub 12", until the music swings in, changing the vibe to low slung and again sorta doomy, but riff with woozy synths, wordless vocals, another dirgey bit of psychedelic electro doom, that builds and builds until again, the guitars are massive, roiling and churning, now strapped to buzzy dubsteppy synths, and so it goes swinging from dubbed out metallic lumber to spacey synthy drift and back again.
"Uberlord" is total blackened guitardrone, wall of crumbling buzz, but again, liberally does with swirls of static, fractured FX, and shinnery synths, the result way more spaced out and psychedelic that heavy, which gives way to "For Your Own Good", which starts out all murky and muted and heroin house-y, gradually getting more and more dubbed out, the beats building in intensity, more buried vocals, it's not until about halfway through that the beat splinters into a way more propulsive rhythm, still motorik but more muscly, all wreathed in a synth spacey haze, hypnotic and dreamily blissed out.
"Devastating Vector", unwinds a stuttery techno beat, and some glitchy synths, and lays them out over a dense layered sprawl of ominous low end rumble and buzz, which transforms into some undulating buzzed out bass, the song a sort of dubbed out techno flecked dirge, until it gets SERIOUSLY electro, the sound wrapped in zig zagging synth melodies, dizzying and almost housey, but still the beat and the low end churns along relentlessly, it is actually sort of funky, but in a way that manages to kick ass, not what you would expect from 'funkiness' in this context at all. And of course it's Necro Deathmort, so halfway through, the song explodes in a burst of static, only to come out the other side all thick and buzzy and sludge, the bass blown out and blackened, the beat a lumbering lurch, the whole thing oozy and melty like the whole thing is some huge black mass pouring from your speakers. "Blizzard" sounds like part two of "Devastating Vector", less funky and more plodding, the synths set on swirl, lots of crunch and distortion, moody and murky and woozily washed out, the song rife with subtle melody, the vibe sort of melancholy.
"The Heat Death Of Everything" starts out all big booming beat, and keening high end drones, sounding like Jesu or Nadja or something, and then the hammer falls, and by hammer, we mean massive, thick, sludgey downtuned riffage, about as metal as these guys get, a death march trudge, all howled distorted vocals, pounding drum pummel, squealing feedback, almost industrial / mechanical, but with a Moss / Bunkur sort of ultradoom vibe as well, the sound eventually begins to glow, with subtle color, and buried melody, eventually transforming into a swirl of washed out shimmer and gauzy droned out drift, only to lead straight into the final track, "Moon", a haunting hushed outro, all muted moaning melody, and echo drenched skeletal rhythms, like a doomdronedirge Portishead, total druggy, late night chill out minimal electro-doom slowcore drift.
Fucking awesome, AGAIN. Anyone who bought the first one is DEFINITELY gonna want this one too, and anyone who somehow missed out on these guys the first time around, here's another chance. Absolutely contender for fave record of the year, metal, electronic, otherwise or BOTH.
Super swank packaging, a massive, gorgeously illustrated fold out poster sleeve, housed in a stickered PVC plastic sleeve.
When we first discovered Necro Deathmort, they were recommended to us as sounding like Squarepusher style electronica fused to SUNNO)))-like sludge, and that was actually not far off the mark, with most of the record sounding precisely like that, thick crumbling distorted guitar buzz laced with all manner of stuttery skittery beats, and then the second record, found the band seeming to focus that sound, relying less on the electronica-meets-metal thing, and instead creating songs that just happened to be both electronic AND heavy, and while it wasn't as quirky or fucked up as the debut, it was definitely a better records, with proper songs, and one that does get plenty of repeat play even still (although so does the first one, which we still love), but we were super excited to discover there was yet another NdM record, a brand new one called The Colonial Script, and we knew from the second we put it on, we were gonna dig it as much as the first two.
For folks new to NdM, just check out the first two sound samples below to get a feel for what these guys are all about, which on the Colonial Script, definitely hews closer to the second record but does feature some seriously metallic moments.
Opener "Imperial" starts of all skeletal and spaced out, and when the drums drop, it's like the heaviest, darkest dubstep you've ever heard, the beats pounding away over thick buzzing rumbles and whirring low end, all wreathed in swaths of hum and thrum, and super dynamic, with the track stopping to creep along like some industrial doom, before gradually building back up again, the second half of the track super melodic and melancholy, all minor key and midtempo, a sort of true doom electronica if that makes any sense, building and building to a final few minutes blow out of metallic industrial pummel, which leads directly into "Led To The Water", which is all blown out metallic dirgery, the guitars thick and corrosive, the beats all Godfleshy and mechanical, the vocals a howled feral wail, the vibe is somewhere between black metal, Neurosis and Godflesh or Neurosis, the churning heaviness underpinned by all sorts of subtle melodic shimmer, the metal sort of peeling away, leaving a stripped down skeletal lumber, that fades out, the sounds growing more and more brittle before disappearing in a dubbed out haze. Hard to resist, another one of those bands that we sort of always wished existed and now does. This is some dancefloor destroying heaviness, the sort of stuff that no proper DJ in their right mind would drop, but if they did, people would lose their shit.
Much of this record plays out more like some blackened industrial metalscape, not electronica so much as programmed beats driving big riffs and grim atmospheres, but that can change when you least expect it, like on "Endless Vertex", when another sprawl of downtuned lumber gradually shifts into a gorgeous glimmery bit of beat heavy skitter, or the sort of DJ Shadow-ish blackened hip hop of "Shadows of Reflections of Ghosts Past", or even the sort of droned out krautrock shuffle of "Starbeast", that track adding swirls of synth, and thick undulating low end, resulting in a fantastically broody slab of low end beat driven minimal mesmer.
But again in between those instances of overt electronica, NdM are a seriously heavy outfit, trafficking in the sort of effects drenched programmed drum driven doom, that will have Nadja obsessives losing their minds.
As always, WAY recommended! For folks into electronic music, heavy music, or obviously both, and like the other two records, a shoe in for end of year top ten lists, even though it's only May. Packaged in a cool super black 6 panel digipak.
We've been meaning to review something by this Canadian atmospheric/ambient black metal horde for ages, but there records have been surprisingly difficult to get in numbers enough to review and list. But finally we got enough of this one, not brand new, but a reissue of an ep from 2009, with a single from the same year tacked on, four tracks, 42:23 in all, of some of the best, tranced out black ambience and buzzing blackness we've heard. Check out the first track, the slow building "Loudon" which sounds like an even blacker more lush Locrian, beginning with a recording of some preacher, condemning a witch to burn at the stake, all over a deep rumbling whir, the sound blossoming into a thick lush drone, all woozy warped tolling bells, swirling synths, mysterious reverbed percussion, and finally a guitar, the slowly erupts into a caustic roiling buzz, a thick crumbling distorted swell over a hunting Jeck like loop, which gives way to near silence, and recordings of what sounds like running water, beneath an acoustic guitar, the vibe sort of Comus-y, but even more harrowing and haunting, finally finishing off with another strange sample, which leads directly into the epic "Rituel Incantatoir Du Grimoire Du Sorcier", which erupts immediately into a fierce frenzied black buzz, the drums so fast they sound almost like a drone, the guitars blurred and frantic, the arrangement cyclical, weirdly looped with a little stutter, making the song swing hypnotically, and then the song explodes into an almost-waltz, epic and majestic and melodic, the blazing double kick returning, now accompanying the waltz like main riff, the sound seeming to grow ever grander, only to bliss out part way through, the guitars smeared into a lush layered sprawl, over which another mysterious sampled voice surfaces, and then it's back to the loping buzz, finishing off in a squall of synth soaked black doom churn.
The final track of the ep is all ambient, a haunting liturgical drift, all chanted voices blurred into woozy drones, delicate piano melodies, subtly manipulated sounds, almost like tape experiments, hazy and washed out and totally mesmerizingly hypnotic. Which leads directly into the single track, the even more epic 18+ minute "Thanatonaut", which spends its first 5 minutes droning ominously, swirling winds, the sound of workers toiling in the dungeons, then finally, the guitars come in, massive and heavy and huge, unfurling creeping chugging doom, an ominous creep, with more swirling synths, and some impossibly gurgly demonic vokills, the song a sonic death march, subtly psychedelic, wreathed in ambient shimmer and atmospheric swirl, a gorgeously abject slab of blackened doom, which trudges resolutely to the very end. So fucking great. While very little of this release is in fact black metal, black energy oozes from every note, and will no doubt convince the uninitiated, that Neige Et Noirceur could very well be their new favorite band.
