[ aquarius records

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Showing results 3651 through 3700 of 5570.

Ex-Empyrium guy doing proggy metal.

It's a little difficult to consider Noisegate a metal band. Although their live persona, which features lots of slow motion headbanging while they hold down various keys on their samplers, clearly gives reason to peg them as metallers, a careful

So here's the deal. Nothing is heavy enough for you. Nothing is fast or furious enough. Hardcore techno, drill and bass, none of those offer up the beats you need, none of that stuff kicks your ass. And grindcore, no matter how heavy or fucked up or insane, is just not brutal enough. Sound about right? Have you been loving the Drumcorps shit, did you go nuts for that Drum:Machinegun comp? A damaged and delirious hybrid of metal and spastic blown out beats what you're craving? Well have we got the thing for you. Japanese duo Noism. Two dudes, a guitar and a drum machine. And all hyperbole aside, this is probably the most fucked up, furious and frenzied grindmetaltechnowhatthefuck you will ever hear. Imagine Drumcorps remixing Orthrelm, but then the results tossed in a computer, chopped up and spit out double time. Or along those same lines, take your favorite grind records and spastic drill and bass 12"s, throw those in that same computer, smash them to bits (and bytes) and then compress them all into 21 minutes of face melting tech(no) metal fury. There are no songs really, well there are, but they, super convoluted fucked up alien 'songs', no 'arrangements' (see: songs). Just lighting speed riffing, squiggly guitars all over the place, blasting 300+ bpm beats that stutter and skip and skitter, all tangled up into a blurred grinding metallic beat heavy onslaught, it sort of sounds like free jazz played by a malfunctioning drummachine and a robot guitarist set on shred. Like if you had some computer that was meant to emulate the music of any performer, and you entered Masayuki, Takayanagi and Mick Barr and Venetian Snares, and it overloaded the program and cause the mainframe to fail, but somehow it still spit out a result, it might sound a little like this, Which Is, as far as our iron ears are concerned, a very very good thing. Recommended, if you think you can handle it...

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Our favorite Ukrainian black metal band releases, not a new album, but a cd containing the music from their early demo cassette, previous to their "Goat Horns" debut. Majestic grimness from the pagan forests! If you don't already have their "NeChrist" disc,

RealAudio clip: Perun's Celestial Silver

Imagine the Charlie Daniels Band jammin' with Emperor. Or rather, playing at the same time in adjoining practice rooms -- out in the forest. The ancient forests of the Ukraine, to be precise. That's where Nokturnal Mortum hail from. This is their third album. You may remember the big fuss we made over the amazing Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra disc last year? Well, Mr. Varggoth is the main guy in this band Nokturnal Mortum. With "NeChrist", he and his comrades have created a unique sound, one that combines a raw, roaring black metal attack with the pipes and fiddles and "yee-haws" of folk/country music, Ukrainian style. And, to make us AQ-ers enjoy this EVEN MORE, all of a sudden all the music will stop and the middle part of a track will be occupied by the croaking of frogs! And you know we like frogs and the noises they make. Similarily, the final song on the disc is preceded by 78 short (3 sec.) tracks of twittering birdsounds and forest ambience. Therefore, if you play the disc in "shuffle" mode, you get lots of cut-up bird calls mixed with the occasional actual fantastic Nokturnal Mortum song! The unanimous AQ black metal pick of this lunar month!! Brilliant. Yee-haw! (Recommended.)

RealAudio clip: The Funeral Wind Born In Oriana

There's very few comparisons to listening to Nokturnal Mortum. The Charlie Daniels Band jammin' with Emperor? Bizarre black metal hoedown? Some sort of line dancing campfire jamboree gone horribly horribly wrong? The unholy spawn of the grimmest black metal and a hauntingly festive medieval gypsy folk? Okay, so maybe there are more than a few comparisons, but they all tend to center around NM's unlikely country-gypsy-folk / black metal hybrid. Precisely what makes them so completely and bizarrely brilliant. This Ukranian horde unleash the ghost hounds and the battle commences with the sounds of galloping horses, strange battle horns, the strangled cries of wounded beasts, the clatter of steel on chain mail, sounds that continue throughout the entire record. It's almost like a field recording of some epic medieval battle, a mad dash through corpse strewn villages, with occasional bursts of black metal buzz from some random corpsepainted ghouls playing in the smoking rubble of a burnt and blackened tavern, or from within a copse of twisted trees, the metal soon drifts into the background as you head deeper into the forest, are farther out upon the battlefield. Nokturnal Mortum's particular take on black metal tends toward the buzzing midtempo gallop and lope, thick and gnarled and fuzzed out, a la Burzum, Graveland, Woodtemple, etc. But more often than not, these black bursts twist into unlikely shapes, blackened metallic jigs, strangely festive and rollicking but still razor sharp and dense with guitar buzz and ripping riffs, jubilant (yet still slightly ominous) gypsy stomps, but laced with spiky guitars and blasting drums. Most noticeable this time around are the extensive ambient interludes, swooshy, starlit night twinkle and shimmer, lush wooshes over tinkly melodies, almost new age-y at moments, but it's not long before you are felled once again by a sharp slab of utter blackness, or a rollicking jubilant mace to the temple, all part of the curious journey through Nokturnal Mortum's bizarrely blackened world. While they last we have the super deluxe oversized hardcover book version (limited to 1000 copies), once we run out of those you'll get the regular jewel case version (which also happens to be cheaper!).

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It seems like recently, the world has finally begun to openly embrace the joys of sludge-doom-death-drone or whatever you want to call it. Boris, Corrupted, SUNNO))), Earth, Marzuraan, Bunkur, Moss, Khanate, Nadja, nobody can seem to get enough downtuned sludginess, or glacial metallic pummel. And we couldn't be more thrilled. But if you were around the Bay Area way back in the late nineties, you might remember a band who were prime traffickers in such gloriously low end brutality, but who have seemed to have been completely forgotten. That band would be Noothgrush, who back in the day, released records and toured with Corrupted, released tons of killer splits, and who were known to lay waste to tiny clubs all over SF. Having broken up way back in 2001, and with almost their entire catalog out of print, Noothgrush seemed to be about a decade too early. If they were around now, we can guarantee people would be losing their shit (and tons of money on eBay) over this low slung, sludge rock power trio. And way before sludge nerds all over the world were smitten by the diminutive Wata wielding her mighty axe in Boris, Noothgrush were being driven by a young woman by the name of Chiyo, an equally diminutive rocker bashing the living shit out of her drums! Sonically, there's a definite resemblance to early Corrupted. Huge plodding doom, massive downtuned guitars, riffs stretched out into near-drones, glass gargling vocals, a slow motion glacial black hole of crumbling doom destruction. This cd collects the band's final studio recordings, all of their splits as well as a handful of unreleased material. The first half of their 'discography' was released on Slap-A-Ham and is now unfortunately out of print. But this 2nd part has most of our favorite Noothgrush material. The band really shone on their splits, and this disc collects all of their material from long out of print splits with Corrupted, Suppression, Gasp, Wellington and Carol Ann. Plus a handful of unreleased tracks. Hell yeah! So completely and absolutely essential. Fans of SUNNO))), Boris, Corrupted and other plodding drone doom behemoths who somehow missed out on the glorious brutality that was Noothgrush can now see what they've been missing. Includes a big booklet with liner notes, photos and lyrics.

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Available again, this killer compilation of early material from legendary Bay area slo-mo sludge/doom crushers Noothgrush, who recently reformed and are about to play a show with the also together-again East Coast doomlords Winter. Back in the nineties, Noothgrush were a ubiquitous presence, playing all the time, and releasing records at a crazy clip, splits to be precise, Noothgrush were the master of the split 7", sharing records with Corrupted, Gasp, Agents Of Satan, Deadbodieseverywhere, Black Army Jacket, Carol Ann, Wellington and more. And the interesting thing is the band never actually recorded a proper full length. In fact, the two 'albums' they released were both compilations, collecting all the comp tracks and singles. We reviewed Erode The Person, which is sadly now out of print again, which gathered up the later recordings of the band, and in the review we lamented the fact that this one was sadly out of print. Well it's available again, and is here to again remind the world, that there was some serious downtuned pummel and tarpit doomsludge creep happening LONG before Boris / SUNNO))) / Whitehorse and all the rest threw their dirge-doom hat into the ring. And like we mentioned before, Noothgrush were just about a decade too early. So Failing Early, Failing Often, originally released on Bay Area powerviolence/fastcore label Slap A Ham, is brimming with Sabbath-at-16rpm dirgery and creeping blackened crawls, loads of feedback, the drums a glacial stumble, provided by the cute and diminutive Chiyo (she most definitely a nineties SF metalhead crush), the vocals a howled raspy bellow, lots of samples too, from movies, and politicians, the sound crusty and blackened, with many of the tracks here from the WAY early days, old demos and cassettes, which means the sound on those is even more filhty and lo-fi and raw. Punishing and heavy as fuck, droned out and dreary and druggy and so good, even all these years later. Fans of the current crop of doomlords and dirge merchants, who somehow missed out on these guys (and gal) would do well to check this out. And if you loved Erode The Person, well this is the second part to what with EtP is essentially one massive compilation/career retrospective.

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Hot on the heels of the recent reissue of early material from Bay Area doom/sludge combo Noothgrush, comes this killer live record, collecting two live-on-the-radio performances, one from 1996 on KZSU Stanford, the other from 1999 on KFJC in Los Altos Hills, and both are just what you'd expect, heaving, downtuned heaviness, churning riffage, cavewoman drum pound, glass gargling vokills, all wound into a lurching lumbering doom juggernaut, the older stuff much more beholden to classic doom, featuring the band as a foursome with Matt Harvey (Exhumed) on second guitar, winding some mournful melodies into the groups dirgey plod. The sound is great, dense and crushing, the guitars massive and heavy, they even take on a Celtic Frost song and totally make it their own. The KFJC recording (introduced by aQ pal and longtime KFJC DJ Number 6), finds the band stripped back down to a trio, but the sound is just as epic, and in fact, it's a super strange recording, echoey and reverby, the drums SUPER loud, which makes everything, especially the drums, sound super dubbed out, with some of the slo-mo snare rolls sounding purposefully dubby, but all it does really is add a psychedelic vibe to the proceedings, the band unfurling another sick set of sonic tarpit misery, gloriously miserable and darkly depressive, the sort of stuff that should be heaven (or hell?) for fans of Corrupted, Whitehorse, Monarch, Eyehategod, Monument Of Urns, Khanate, Fleshpress, Bongzilla and the rest the slow and low doomlords...

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This is easily one of the best new metal-core bands we've heard. We had a split cd of theirs a while back, but three songs wasn't nearly enough to realise what these guys were truly capable of. Certainly worthy heirs to the Coalesce/Converge/Deadguy throne. Super heavy and well produced. They actually kind of sound like a heavy metal Jesus Lizard. Distorted bass with lots of

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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. Everyone's favorite metal magazine. Dodheimsgard on the cover, with Darkthrone, Immolation, Godflesh, and more. Ridiculously brutal reviews and bizarre nonsensical writing to the point of being surreal. Plus their newest and silliest feature; a 'sexy death goddess' will pose for readers per their suggestions (hopefully they'll heed my suggestion in a future issue and she'll dress up like a Hot Dog On a Stick girl!!).

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. More "entertainment for maniacs" from this seminal Norwegian black metal magazine. Cover stars: Gorgoroth ("What an astonishing and Devilish album 'Incipit Satan' really is. That's what we think, and therefore Infernus and Tormentor had some questions to answer"), plus Notre Dame, Necromantia, Impaled Nazarene, Necrophagia, Carpathian Forest, and more. The Gorgoroth interview is demented, as they somehow answer all the questions in even more bizarre a manner than they were asked. And, as usual, there's a ton of reviews written in the now-infamous fucked up Nordic Vision vocabulary, as well as their dumb "Sex & Satan" pictorial feature, and the "Soundcheck" department where black metal celebs like Fenriz, Shagrath, Samoth, Maniac, and Frost rate current releases. Another eccentric, silly, fascinating issue of our favorite Norwegian metal magazine. Sample editorial comment: "We have dived into the Necro World of bands like Necrophagia, Necrodeath, and Necromantia."

The return of black ambient darklord Nordvargr. A quick look at the aQ website reveals a long love and appreciation for the dark art of Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk, from his early days in black ambient terrorists MZ412, to more recent guitar based dronemusik, to his collaborations with MZ412 Drakh, heck, Andee even released the last Nordvargr / Drakh disc on tUMULt. Needless to say, for folks into dark drones and ambient blackness, sinister soundscapes and bleak and abject sounds, it's hard to do any better than Nordvargr.� While the last few discs have displayed a renewed interest in the guitar, with a much more song oriented approach, Helvete finds Nordvargr returning to the miserablist blackdrone world of his past, offering up some seriously intense and caustic brutality, a collection of grim, utterly hellish soundscapes, all crumbling low end, cavernous black rumbles, haunting mysterious blackness, a definite old school industrial vibe. This disc has been anxiously anticipated due to the fact that Leviathan's Wrest contributes vocals to one track, and his demonic croak is totally unmistakable. He growls and gurgles ominously over deep black drones and all manner of distorted crash and crunch, some seriously frightening stuff for sure. If you think stuff like Lustmord is way too lightweight, then this is definitely for you. "Dronevessel Part II" is a harrowing expanse of dense metallic low end buzz, sprawling like the roots of some gnarled black tree, impossibly heavy and suffocatingly black. "Part III" begins with a series of strange grinding metal klaxons, before slithering back into the pitch black from whence it came. Drakh offers up vocals on "Exit Cult, Enter Hell", a super distorted snakelike hiss, draped over a crumbling churning black sonic sea. The final track begins with almost a minute of near silence, before a raw metal buzz surfaces, stumbling blast beats, buzzing riffage, harsh demonic vocals, some full on lo-fi grim black metal for a brief moment, but it quickly blackens and slips back into sinister grimnity. But beyond that brief dalliance with the black blast, this is indeed a soul consuming black hole of sound. This is easily one of the darkest, heaviest, scariest black drone discs EVER. And we don't make that proclamation lightly. WAY recommended.

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For now, the AQ list / site may not reflect it, but we have been MASSIVE, almost obsessive fans of the work of one Nordvargr, who we first discovered as the driving force behind the mysterious black metal dark ambient outift MZ412. He would later go on to record some of the most gorgeously bleak, martial ambient / drone musick as Folkstorm, Toroidh, and under his given name Henrik N Bjorkk. He is a modern master of dark ambient death drone. Most of his records have been really tough to track down, so we were super excited to be able to get enough of these to list. The name Drakh may be even less familiar to you than Nordvargr, but some of you may immediately recognize him as Nordvargr's partner in MZ412! So the hopes were quite high for what basically amounts to a new MZ412 record. And thankfully, you dark ambient death drone doom fanatics will not be disappointed. This is a crushing black souled threnody. Massive sheets of dark sound, shift and shimmer, disembodied voices crumble into sonic shards, oppressive walls of suffocating rumble, roll endlessly into the dark oblivion. But what sets this apart from other dark ambient / drone records is the guitars. Yep, guitars. About halfway in, bookended on either side by bleak shimmering lowend ambience, sirens wail, and drones creep slowly onward, as huge downtuned guitars unfurl slow motion riffs, lugubrious and lumbering, so distorted, and tuned so low you can hear the chords crumbling into pieces, while the whole thing lurches forward, through a cloud of black tar mist. It's like a Sunn 0))) track stuck in the middle of a Lustmord record. Like endless blackness being painted even more black. Like dropping a black hole into another even blacker hole...

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By now we shouldn't have to go into too much detail regarding or massive love of all things Nordvargr, from the militaristic folk of Folkstorm, the martial industrial sounds of Toroidh, the bleak black ambience of BM legends MZ412, to the various recordings and sounds perpetrated under his own name, pretty much everything he's touched as turned to black gold.� But no matter how much we love everything Nordvargr, our hearts will always belong to MZ412. When we first discovered that band we were totally thrown for a loop, we were loving the sounds of black metal by then, and here was a band with a cryptic monicker, amazing album design, burning churches on their record covers and the band members in full corpse paint. We were ready to be totally blown away, and we were, just not in the way we expected. Their sound was not metal, no buzzing guitars, no shrieking vocals, no blast beats, instead, theirs was a dark world of mysterious blackness, bleak and barren, frosty and and grim, and impossible JUST AS HEAVY as any of the other black metal we had been listening to. This was ambient music, but it was intense, and brutal, and scary. The band ceased to exist and Nordvargr moved on to the above mentioned projects as well as numerous collaborations and projects under his own name. Then a few years back, a strange thing happened, a record surfaced credited to Nordvargr and Drakh, who just so happened to be Nordvargr's partner in MZ412, and as far as we were concerned, it was the rebirth of MZ412 in everything but name. Several more releases followed, all delicately balanced between dark ambience and buzzing blackness, culminating in this, the brand new record from the duo that once was MZ412.� The two have some dark chemistry together, weaving elaborate worlds of black sound, not just ambience, not just drone music, but songs, with parts, and riffs and melodies, lots of guitars, occasionally trudging glacially like some slow motion doom behemoth, other times buzzing like some disembodied ghost� of black metal, and at others, glistening and drifting in vast expanses of shimmer and whir.� The Betrayal Of Light was originally meant to be releases on several well known dark ambient labels, who all rejected the record for being too heavy, and that's all we needed to hear. Nordvargr, Drakh, too heavy, too much guitar.... Thus it ended up on tUMULt (run by our very own Andee), quite possibly where it belonged all along, fitting quite comfortably amidst a roster of black metal and drone music, embodying at least a handful of descriptors that seem to apply to most tUMULt releases, dark, droney, and fucked... The Betrayal Of Light is one massive sonic event, a black cloud of sound, separated into movements, the first, begins as a slow beautiful crawl, a murky soundfield supporting a delicate web of softly plucked guitar strings, until a wall of downtuned buzz swallows it whole, a massive mournful dirge,�stately and majestic, classic old school funereal doom, but�super dramatic, and strangely melodic, sounding a bit like Earth or SUNNO))) playing the procession at a funeral or the royal march for some ancient court. Minor key and so gorgeous, a lonely lament rendered in amp buzz and smeared riffage, but completely nestled amidst a sea of churning low end, and that ever present minor key guitar line... Not long after, the duo explode in a frenzy of buzzguitar, moving�as close to black metal as they've ever gotten, after a slow building� shimmer, the track coalesces into a furious buzzing riff, with what sounds like some buried demonic vocals,�no drums, so it's a sort of unmoored black metal drift, the riff cycling hypnotically while all around low end roils and whirls and in the distance the landscape is peppered with�reverberant subsonic booms, and low level rumbles... The album's centerpiece is the nearly eleven minute long "Vessel", a lengthy, meditative guitarscape, delicate minor key melodies unfurled over a web of strange whirs and buzzes, the melodies occasionally being overwhelmed by waves of oscillating industrial detritus, before drifting back to the surface where they are joined by rumbling guttural throat singing, or heavily reverbed monklike chants, all the while, a constant ominous drone, grinds and crumbles just below the surface, culminating in a bizarre symphony of processed guitars and grinding insectoid vocals, simultaneously epic and intense, and weird and disturbing. The rest of the record is a harrowing journey through the dark woods, through a warren of underground passages, through a vast wasteland of barren frost and black sun, thick coruscating guitars buzz and howl, sheets of thick riffs one after another, create an ever shifting wall of crumbling distorted sound, voices drift ghostlike beneath a murky swirl of distant feedback and warbling whir, tones and notes and bits of muted melody are stretched out and blurred into gorgeous hazy smears, pulses and barely audible throbs shift and shimmer just below the surface... everything creeping and slithering through a constant cloud of drifting damaged drones.� Finally, the journey comes to an end, a gorgeous low end lurch, a thick serpentine shamble with gorgeous bits of backwards guitar, and shards of minor key melody. The low end is lopped and pulses like some mysterious machine, the low end growing in intensity, like some black star about to implode, dreamy backwards vocals drift in, like some reverse angelic chorus, until a deep voice, drenched in reverb and distortion, intones a mysterious apocalyptic warning, and then suddenly... it's done.� An intense and overwhelming sonic journey, as heavy and brutal as it is delicate and beautiful. Doomy and blackened, drifty and drone-y, soft focus and hazy, dense and devastating... and of course, so so recommended.�

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**SALE **SALE* *SALE** Did some cleaning in the back of the store, found a stash of these that we reviewed back on list #187. So, last ever copies, marked down, get 'em while you can... Once again, another soul chilling blast of frosty grimness from Sweden's Total Holocaust Records (who were responsible for recent AQ black metal faves Blodulv and The One!). Northstream are from Russia and are just about as raw and primitive as it gets. Guitars buzz and hiss sounding alternately like a vacuum cleaner or a blender, only occasionally like an actual guitar, but those six shrieking strings wrapped in white noise evoke ambience of the darkest and grimmest sort. The buzzing blazing black metal is balanced by stretches of mid tempo 'doom', where you can almost hear the sounds of the frozen wastelands from whence Northstream come. But it's not your typical doom, it's 'doom' only in comparison to the Merzbowian blacknoise surrounding it, a blackened doom that's all brittle ear piercing guitars, primitively programmed beats and skull piercing shrieks. Interesting album title, by the way, did they just take a particularly refreshing shower?

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Lastest from these psychedelic French doomster weirdos.

Back in stock! Doom/psych fans: a few of you might remember this eccentric, underground French band from their second album entitled Masters of Magic that we reviewed a few years back. And anyone intrigued by the rather weird and melodic psychedelic-doom-metal-folk hybrid crafted by 'em on that disc ought to be interested in hearing their out-of-print first album Great God Pan from 1998, which we intimated was the superior record. Well, maybe it got repressed or someone found a stash of 'em in a closet or crypt or somewhere, but lo and behold, we've managed to get our hands on, like, ten copies of Northwinds' debut! So, if you're both a fan of Sabbathy doom metal and '60s/'70s styled heavy progressive psychedelia, you might want to grab this now. Assuredly not to everyone's taste, as Allan (who loves 'em) will freely admit and Andee (who can't deal with the French accented vocals) will attest...as we've said previously, Northwinds might be one of the most "twee" heavy bands ever what with the folky flutes, acoustic guitars, and those French vocals...yet the unique blend of proggy Paganism, soft '60s sike-pop balladry, and of course massive Iommi-worthy doom metal guitar riffage that intermix in these looong songs could also really make this a favorite find for a freaky few of you out there! With so much feeling, solid songwriting, and unexpected elements (wiggy studio effects and tape manipulations) they truly capture the spirit of pre-metal, pro-prog Black Sabbath (in fact, they cover the Sabs "A National Acrobat" on here) and others in that vein, not far from a warped version of early Cathedral, obsessed with Sabbath *and* Comus... If you dug the two other Sabbathy bands we reviewed recently, Witchcraft and Dragonauta, there's definitely a chance you could be a Northwinds fan too!

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Northwinds did a record a few years ago called "Great God Pan" that came out of nowhere (well, France, actually!) to become one of Allan's all-time favorite heavy-psych-doom-metal discs. It's out of print now but the band is back with a new, not quite as good For some reason, cult Italian metallers Death SS provide the intro and outro tracks.

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If we had to pick the ultimate doom outfit, the band that most embodies ultra depressive sonic misery, who is able to weave vast expanses of utter blackness, able to create vast soundscapes of both brutality and beauty, glacial waves of slow motion heaviness, it would be a tough call. There are the pure dronedoom outfits like SUNNO))) who create black energy with long stretches of static buzz, or the more sort of true doom combos, who wield riffs and write songs, and then there are the black metal bands, who play slooooooow and instead of buzzing maniacally instead crawl and slither, and then there are the ultra doom outfits, the ones we use many multiples of 'o's to describe, and somewhere in amongst all of those, but not quite fitting in any particular one, is the mighty Nortt. This one man band from Denmark, is a long time aQ fave, melding the black buzz of Burzum, with the regal abstract slow motion doom of Skepticism, the result, some otherworldy demonic trudge through barren landscape and moonlit skies. Nortt have always employed a deft hand in crafting their doomscapes, generously peppering record with as much tranquil blackened drift as lurching doomic pummel, but on this latest disc, Nortt have embraced the moodier more ambient side of their sound, with looooong stretches of drift and shimmer, sometimes almost whole songs, and while the heavy parts remain heavy, they seem to grind slowly to a halt, leaving just shadows and ghosts, soft traces and outlines of what came before, which are allowed to hover and float amongst black smears of sound, interrupted by rhythms spread out into occasional bursts of lugubrious slow motion. The disc begins with some dark delicate shimmer, that is downright dreamlike, deep resonant chimes, the washed out whir of softly struck bells, which quickly gives way to the disembodied doom of the second track, the riffs crumbling and stretched waaay out, the drums, an abstract plod, and in the background, warm streaks of high end, that drift throughout the entire record, even at it's heaviest, those keening tones, drift mournfully in the distance. Even the longest tracks here, spend most of their time in some blackened dronestate, rumbles and whirs, ghostly moans, flurries of low end piano, disembodied melodies, all blurred into grey sonic snowdrifts, occasionally, the guitars roar back in, but it's more like a passing storm, as it soon drifts off, leaving just the lilting black minimalism that came before. We joked in past reviews that Nortt played a minimal black doom that Bohren & Der Club Of Gore would like, but on Galgenfrist, it sounds more like a minimal black doom Bohren would PLAY! A similar sort of impossibly brooding blackness, a gorgeous lush creep, abstract and ambient, not as jazzy, but just as moody and minimal, murky and mysterious. As we mentioned in the past, this is the sort of black doom band that could totally appeal to non-metalheads, and might just be the gateway band so beware, but fear not, this is plenty grim and heavy and black for all the rest of you.

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MPEG stream: Til Gravens Vi
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Finally available again, one of our favorite slabs of doomy black buzz. Remastered, reissued and on a new label! Here's the review from when we first got this in: Our doomiest customer, "Rick from Thrasher", came in the other day to ask about an album he saw on www.doom-metal.com, some band called Nortt who were supposed to be amazing; so good in fact that according to that website, Nortt's label was almost justified in charging about thirty euros for their cd (an astronomical amount, like US$40)! We didn't of course have that absurdly-expensive opus, but we actually did have this, Nortt's previous album released for a much more reasonable price on a different label. And it is pretty darn good, if you're in the mood for some "Pure Depressive Black Funeral Doom Metal" as it says on the back cover. Nortt are a one-man band from Denmark in the black metal tradition (complete with corpse paint and everything), but their fuzzing, buzzing music is sloooowww and full of despairing piano intonations and distorted minor-key laments. The vocals and the guitars both sound like last breaths, dying gasps, exhalant spirits... It's a drone-hiss of massive, gothic proportions. Nortt definitely inhabit the same gloomy petrified forest as AQ-faves Skepticism!! Perhaps if you get this and it succeeds in bringing your most suicidal thoughts to the fore, you can make it through life a little longer by trying to search out that other incredibly expensive Nortt album... (By the way, that www.doom-metal.com website is pretty cool one, for doom-fans only of course, with info on hundreds of doom acts!)

MPEG stream: Gravfred
MPEG stream: Sorgesalmen

Fresh off their killer split release with Xasthur last year, Danish black metal funereal doom lords (or lord, really, since it's just one guy) Nortt offer up a full length for your pleasure...if you can deal with the depression!! If you haven't heard Nortt before, they're a bit like Skepticism meets Burzum. SOOOO doomy and atmospheric. Ligfaerd is a sinister expanse of spooky soundtrack ambience bombarded (at relaxed intervals) with boulders... No, not boulders -- fuzz-distortion depth charges, dropped deep and echoing in the abyss, wherein dwell the cave-blind creatures that make Nortt's music... or so it would seem from this disc's raspy, weary vocal exhalations and monstrous awakenings. The thudding percussion could be gigantic footfalls amidst the droning, morose melodies, that insinuate themselves slowly into your consciousness, as there are lots of quiet passages on this depressive, lethargic record. We bet Bohren and Der Club Of Gore would love this band! We sure do. Definitely one of the exclusive several doom and/or black metal acts that we think non-habitual listeners to such musics might appreciate, if such extremes of feeling and weirdness as described above are more than tolerated.

MPEG stream: Ligpraedike
MPEG stream: Tilforn Tid

This went out of print almost as soon as we got the original Total Holocaust import version in four or five months ago but has now been resurrected and re-pressed domestically thanks to the dark souls at Southern Lord, who apparently like this stuff as much as we do. Here's what we had to say about it first time around: We barely even have to review this. Just the names of the two artists should be enough. Nortt, whose "Pure Depressive Black Funeral Doom Metal" was a massive favorite around here, and of course Xasthur, who rivals Leviathan as perhaps the most brilliant and important of the modern USBM hordes. Nortt offer up four tracks of miserable drone dirge, with mournful piano over a swirling abyss of black riffs and simple drumming, each chord slowly dissipating into nothingness before the next chord hits. Depressingly gorgeous and wrist slittingly sorrowful. Reminiscent of Corrupted's Llenandose, albeit way more grim and dismal! Xasthur gives us three tracks, equally depressive, but here, instead of tarpit tempos and drone-like dirges, the depression and misery is communicated through creepy minor key riffing, mournful melodies and what sounds like clean chant-like singing, almost choral, but buried so low in the mix it almost sounds like just another instrument. Xasthur has totally perfected the swaying seasickly black metal waltz, with relentless double kicks, anguished vocals struggling to communicate from beyond, and warm and woozy, arpeggiated guitars. So good.

MPEG stream: Glemt
MPEG stream: A Curse For The Lifeless

You're probably getting as tired of hearing this as we are saying it, but it has to be done. THIS IS SUPER LIMITED!! IN FACT, IT'S ALREADY OUT OF PRINT!! (Arghhh. Why lablels just don't press more when they know they can sell them still makes no sense to us...) SO, ONCE THESE ARE GONE, THEY ARE GONE FOR GOOD!! SO ACT FAST! Here's what we had to say about the cd version a while back: We barely even have to review this. Just the names of the two artists should be enough. Nortt, whose "Pure Depressive Black Funeral Doom Metal" was a massive favorite around here, and of course Xasthur, who rivals Leviathan as perhaps the most brilliant and important of the modern USBM hordes. Nortt offer up four tracks of miserable drone dirge, with mournful piano over a swirling abyss of black riffs and simple drumming, each chord slowly dissipating into nothingness before the next chord hits. Depressingly gorgeous and wrist slittingly sorrowful. Reminiscent of Corrupted's Llenandose, albeit way more grim and dismal! Xasthur gives us three tracks, equally depressive, but here, instead of tarpit tempos and drone-like dirges, the depression and misery is communicated through creepy minor key riffing, mournful melodies and what sounds like clean chant-like singing, almost choral, but buried so low in the mix it almost sounds like just another instrument. Xasthur has totally perfected the swaying seasickly black metal waltz, with relentless double kicks, anguished vocals struggling to communicate from beyond, and warm and woozy, arpeggiated guitars. So good.

MPEG stream: Glemt
MPEG stream: A Curse For The Lifeless

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

As if two simultaneous full-length releases were not enough, our favorite horror-show "black metal" band spits out this two-track ep. As always, with as much humor as horror. "Give Blood...Save Lives."

Scott "Wino" Weinrich. Ok, he's maybe a -wee- bit overrated, but after all these years definitely deserving of his status as stoner metal's number one guitar hero and favorite frontman, a true "lifer", going strong today in not one but two bands, Place Of Skulls and The Hidden Hand. His career stretches back into the '80s, when he fronted SoCal doom legends Saint Vitus for a spell, a job he got on account of his reputation from his original, also now legendary band The Obsessed from Maryland. He then left Vitus to reform The Obsessed, recording this album, Lunar Womb, in 1991 for the German doom label Hellhound, which somehow led to Wino, incredibly enough, winding up on major label with The Obsessed's next album, The Church Within (Columbia, 1994). The post-grunge major label indie rock feeding frenzy of the early nineties somehow swept a lot of surprising signings, and I guess it helped that the harDCcore scene was always singing Wino's praises (in fact, a blurb from Ian MacKaye appears on this reissue), funnily enough considering his tattooed, drug-fiending, dirtbag heavy metal biker persona. Anyway, The Church Within is out of print, and with Hellhound long since defunct as well, so too has Lunar Womb been unavailable. Now Meteor City and 20 Buck Spin (who handle the vinyl) step in to rectify the situation in regards to that album, much like Southern Lord did with Saint Vitus's V (another lost Hellhound release featuring Wino). Well served by Wino's distinctively gruff, authoritative vox and lead guitar prowess, Lunar Womb is a tuneful, mid-tempo slab of chunky head-nodding heaviness that should have all heshers (and closet-heshers) happily rockin' out. Almost as prescient of QOTSA as it is derivative of Sabbath, this is a post-punk, more-metallic variant on the grunge of its era, with plentiful and catchy riffola, some tricky parts, and a definite downer vibe overall -- though not quite so wasted and psychedelic as was Saint Vitus. Maybe it does make sense that Lunar Womb would lead some LA label suit to think The Obsessed could take it to the next level. CoC did after all. 'Nuff said, really -- if you like any of Wino's current outfits, or were a fan of the several albums he released with his post-Obsessed comeback band Spirit Caravan, and you don't already have this, you'll want it for sure!! (Likewise if you're into Kyuss and/or Goatsnake, which also have familial connections with The Obsessed...) Oh, and this cd reissue boasts liner notes by Joe Carducci of "Rock And The Pop Narcotic" fame.

MPEG stream: Brother Blue Steel
MPEG stream: No Mas

Reissue of this stoner/doom classic, Wino's big major label debut (and finale).

Strange but kinda cool department: This is the second album (we missed the first) from this international, intergenerational hybrid kraut/psych/spacerock band, featuring members of Peru's La Ira De Dios, the USA's Dragonwyck, and Germany's Karmic Society and Treacle People. Well, we're fans of rockin' fuzzpunks La Ira De Dios anyway, don't really know the others. Apparently, inspired by residual '60s psychedelic vibrations, these likeminded folks got together to do some jamming, and that's what this is, all improvised, each track edited down from one-take jam sessions! Well, except for the surprise SLAYER cover, they do "Black Magic" from Show No Mercy! (Or, had we been paying attention, maybe not such a surprise, as apparently they also did Metallica's "For Whom The Bell Tolls" on their first album, we'll have to look into that...) Otherwise, it's all in the realm of spacey stoner rock jamming with lots of fuzz guitar, Hammond organ and Hawkwindy FX, also wailing female vocals dubbed in over top (someone channelling their inner Grace Slick). Not the hippest band in the world, no, but fun and far out. Their unexpected speed metal obsession sure helps heavy it up, keeping this from totally retro tie-dye hippiedom, while at the same time, they manage to make Slayer fit in with their spaced-out sound. Some parts remind us of Circle, some parts remind us of Jex Thoth!

MPEG stream: Somewhere
MPEG stream: Black Magic
MPEG stream: Memories Of Mysteria

Two years on from their Three And Seven debut, the two doomladies and one doomlord of the Occultation trio return from their negative plane (one of them is IN the band Negative Plane, actually) to offer up another spooky slab of their dimly-lit darkside rituals, playing again an obscure, ominous style of female-fronted, majestic dirge-doom, lashed to hectic bursts of prog-pounding. The witchy, gothic vocals dip and soar, while flurries of organ notes send shivers up the spine... Shades of Paul Chain and other esoteric Italian doom, that sort of arcane atmosphere, as if performed by Ides Of Gemini or even Hammers Of Misfortune. Also, Sabbath's "Electric Funeral" seemingly is always echoing in these compositions (along with some melancholic organ runs out of "Hotel California"). 'Tis haunting and HEAVY and sometimes even quite lovely. Quite a cult-sounding hybrid of many things - '70s prog, '80s metal, goth, doom, even a hint of surf at one reverby-moment or two. Light some candles, play it loud, let it really sink in. Recorded, appropriately, in Salem, Massachusetts, with producer Kurt Ballou (Converge, Beastmilk, many others).

MPEG stream: All Hallow's Fire
MPEG stream: Forever Hereafter

Three And Seven is the debut full length from NYC psychedelic doomlords/doomladies, and Negative Plane offshoot, Occultation. Their sound is a dark and dramatic, almost cinematic sort of witchy metallic psychedelia, the heaviness tempered by a fantastically muddy, murky cavernous production, the heaving swells of downtuned riffage, blurred into smeared swells of minor key shimmer, the drums spare and buried in the mix, barring the occasional burst of chaotic frenzy, lush layered organs wheeze and whir, and the vocals, dueling (or perhaps multitracked) female vox, that wind around each other in creepy occultic harmonies, the arrangements dense and complex and proggy, the sound perfectly channeling the spirit of classic metal, old horror soundtracks, and seventies British acid folk. The songs are dense tangles of minor key melody, the guitars unfurling spidery melodies, wrapped around haunting woozy almost goth/post punk sounding basslines, a twisted dissonance marks each of these sonic rituals, epic and majestic, like Death SS via King Diamond, covering Comus, all recorded in some subterranean grotto, before some primitive stone plinth, adorned with skulls and sacrifices. Because this falls into the witchy female fronted metal category, inevitably comparisons will be made to the Devil's Blood, Jex Thoth, Blood Ceremony, and while fans of that stuff will undoubtedly dig this, more apt comparisons might be Ides Of Gemini or Menace Ruine, as Occultation, while still metal, manages to exist in some haunting sonic nether region, seemingly much more beholden to non-metal influences, fans of Sabbath Assembly might dig this too, the same sort of satanic spiritual vibe, but obviously WAY heavier, and much more bleary and blackened. Gorgeous, twisted, heavy, haunting stuff.

MPEG stream: The Sea Of Snakes And Souls
MPEG stream: The One Who Sleeps
MPEG stream: Shroud Of Sorrows

This band from Portland, Maine is the latest to lumber into the realm of the uber-heavy. Now, don't confuse 'em with the band called THE Ocean, from Germany, whose uber-heavy Fluxion album we listed not too long ago. Although you certainly could confuse them, as uber-heaviness has its hallmarks. Indeed, this line from our review of The Ocean's cd actually describes this Ocean quite well, as well: "The basic sound will be familiar for sure, massive guitars, pounding drums, propulsive, relentless riffing, blissed out, post rock parts that build and build and build into huge squalls of gargantuan guitarnoise, throbbing and pulsing, minor key and epic." Yep, another one of those bands, here we go again. Just how much single-riff repetition and down-tuned sludge trudge can we take? Quite a lot, really! Ocean's Here Where Nothing Grows debut consists of three long songs, each one an ultra-slow doomful dirge ridden with gutturally growled vocal angst. Yet, there's a sorta melodic post rock thread running through this, for a sound somewhere betwixt Corrupted and Isis. You could file this alongside the likes of Buried At Sea, Mare, Indian, Pelican, Tides, Yob and Conifer, too. If you're a fan of all that sort of stuff you'll like this. It's nothing you haven't heard before but it's exactly what you like. Extreme sludge, but droning and artful enough to catch the ears of a non-metal label like Important... and on the more soothing side of the sludge spectrum, not so nasty and harrowing as something like Khanate, Bunkur or Graves At Sea. We'll admit that this took a little while to seep in, but as the waves of this Ocean wash over you, you'll happily sink beneath its depths (sorry, it's hard to avoid such aquatic metaphors with these guys, as you'll see the cover sticker blurb writer also found).

MPEG stream: Salt

When talking about this band Ocean, there's always an obvious temptation to liken their music to giant waves crashing upon the shore, which we shall indeed succumb to here. 'Cause of their name, which they share with another heavy band, The Ocean from Germany (this Ocean is the one from the coastal city of Portland, Maine) and 'cause of their massive, relentlessly cycling sound. Large rocks, over the aeons, would easily be turned to tiny grains of sand, by the action of Ocean. Even within the limit of the running time of a compact disc, Ocean surely hints at such power. Over the course of these two loooooong tracks here (35:50 and 23:04), Ocean's repetitive riffs and percussive detonations surge and crest, washing in and out with regularity and ponderous force, slowwwww and steady, building up almost imperceptibly. Beautiful to our ears, or to those of anyone else equally as enamored by crushing, moody, majestic sludge-metal! The anguished vocals, guttural gasps, oftimes like gasses escaping from a subterranean crypt, or (a more appropriate analogy) the final cries of drowning men from a sinking ship intermingled with the bellowings of some leviathan of the depths, put us in mind of the ultra-doooom of Khanate, as do the varied levels of carefully sculpted feedback and distortion. There is some guest singing (in Japanese, we believe) from Yoshiko Ohara of fellow doombringers Bloody Panda on the first track, but even her cleanly-sung lamentation eventually gives way to "vokill" style throat-abuse. During much of her turn at the mic, as well as at other junctures on this disc, (the) Ocean calms and quiets, yet the listener remains adrift at sea. Doomed to drown, sinking down into into the stillness of the deeps, an undersea abyss where of course the darkness and pressure make this even heavier! Not so good for actual shipwreck victims, but metaphorically excellent for those of us into this sort of music - a combination of dirgey funereal doom and loud/soft post rock prettiness, truly elegant -and- extreme. If you liked Ocean's earlier effort for Important (Here Where Nothing Grows), and/or the likes of Bloody Panda, Conifer, Lesbian, Khanate, Thou, Pelican, etc., this is probably for you! And we must also mention the packaging; a white digipack, with text and engraving-style artwork in metallic silver ink. Very classy-looking.

MPEG stream: The Beacon
MPEG stream: Of The Lesser

This is THE Ocean, not to be confused with Portland, Maine's Ocean, just Ocean. While Ocean is pretty darn heavy, The Ocean out heavy them in a way that seems impossible. THE Ocean is a German eight piece (that's right, EIGHT piece) now calling themselves the Ocean Collective. Lots of guitars, multiple vocalists, upping the heaviness quotient exponentially. The world, or at least our little underground rock corner of it, has gone nuts for this new metal / post rock hybrid, so much so that there's even a documentary in the works (which, if the footage makes the final cut, will feature Andee and Allan opining on all things metal and post rock). And we have to say we're digging it all too, Isis, Pelican, Cult Of Luna, Conifer, Minsk, each band doing their own version of that hybrid, adding their own unique particulars.... We seem to lean a bit toward the more metallic end of the spectrum (big surprise there) and the Ocean are right there at the extreme metal end, more a full on crushing metal band, with a bit of post rock weirdness mixed in insted of the other way around. This is massive pummeling extreme metallic brutality. The Ocean's riffs are huge, we mean HUGE, swirling and snarling, downtuned and so so so heavy. Pounding near industrial drums, and a phalanx of vocalists including Coalesce's Sean Ingram, mean this is a fucking shitstorm, in the best possible way. Everything we loved about their last record, Fluxion, is here, but expanded, heavier parts are heavier, weird parts are weirder (including some truly haunting German film music interspersed here and there). The basic formula is the same, massive crushing teutonic sludge / death metal, with all manner of post rockisms tossed in, blissy ambient interludes, grooved out rhythmic breakdowns, there are definitely hints of Isis, Neurosis, Dimmu Borgir, even Rammstein, as well as nods to more dramatic outrock outifts like Godspeed and Mogwai. But Aeolian is just so much more complicated and multilayered, convoluted and complex, dizzyingly so. One of the coolest, weirdest, heaviest metal records so far this year for sure.

MPEG stream: The City In The Sea
MPEG stream: Austerity

With everyone freaking out about Isis, Pelican, Neurosis, Cult Of Luna, and all things massively and epically metal, all churning riffs and pounding majesty, it's hard to believe that most people have never heard, or even heard of German outfit The Ocean. Because in some ways, hard as it may seem to believe, they've almost managed to sonically outdo their obvious influences. The basic sound will be familiar for sure, massive guitars, pounding drums, propulsive, relentless riffing, blissed out, post rock parts that build and build and build into huge squalls of gargantuan guitarnoise, throbbing and pulsing, minor key and epic. But, in the case of The Ocean, they manage to add all sort of extra weirdness and not-so-subtle nuance than really makes Fluxion stand out. The presence of a full on string section (as well as some clarinets and other decidedly non rock instruments) is the first thing, which obviously lends the whole thing a much more stately, mournful feel, making them sound at times like a heavy metal Godspeed You Black Emperor. There's also a whole bunch of melodic flourishes scattered throughout, just here and there, that make what could be standard metal riffs become something a little bit out of the ordinary. The order of the day though is definitely metallic pummel, growled gutteral vocals over ultra thick Teutonic riffs, their German-ness shines through a bit in those instances, reminding us a bit of Rammstein, and when the keyboards kick in, there's definitely some Dimmu Borgir going on. And there is definitely a black metal vibe throughout, although it's bent and twisted to fit into The Ocean's moody metal framework. But the sound is so much more expansive and epic than most black metal, or most metal in general, especially when the guitars bliss out a bit, and strings are soaring, guitars picking out arpeggiated minor key melodies, everything eventually erupting into full on metallic bombast. And even in the midst of TOTAL METAL, the melodies are still moody and intense, the riffing is weird and the overal vibe is super dramatic and ultra intense. Fans of the 'new mood metal', a la Pelican, Isis, Cult Of Luna, as well as fans of the new metallic post rock (Conifer, Tides, Mouth Of The Architect, etc.) will be totally blown away! Some of the most amazing packaging we've seen, a multi panel digipak, depicting a huge shcool of fish, with the band name and random spatters printed in a glossy varnish. The gatefold is a huge two panel spread of dead gutted fish, and inside all the liner notes and lyrics are printed glossy black on matte black. Wow!

MPEG stream: Nazca
MPEG stream: The Human Stain
MPEG stream: Comfort Zones

Both amazing releases from Germany's The Ocean, last year's Fluxion, and the brand new Aeolian, now available on vinyl, a super limited triple lp set which includes each one of the three lps in a different color, packaged in a gorgeous silver inked 8mm-spine gatefold jacket, with a full color fold-out poster. Limited to 472 copies, already out of print, we have about 30 so act fast. Here's what we think about Aeolian: This is THE Ocean, not to be confused with Portland, Maine's Ocean, just Ocean. While Ocean is pretty darn heavy, The Ocean out heavy them in a way that seems impossible. THE Ocean is a German eight piece (that's right, EIGHT piece) now calling themselves the Ocean Collective. Lots of guitars, multiple vocalists, upping the heaviness quotient exponentially. The world, or at least our little underground rock corner of it, has gone nuts for this new metal / post rock hybrid, so much so that there's even a documentary in the works (featuring Andee and Allan opining on all things metal and post rock). And we have to say we're digging it all too, Isis, Pelican, Cult Of Luna, Conifer, Minsk, each band doing their own version of that hybrid, adding their own unique particulars.... We seem to lean a bit toward the more metallic end of the spectrum (big surprise there) and the Ocean are right there at the extreme metal end, more a full on crushing metal band, with a bit of post rock weirdness mixed in insted of the other way around. This is massive pummeling extreme metallic brutality. The Ocean's riffs are huge, we mean HUGE, swirling and snarling, downtuned and so so so heavy. Pounding near industrial drums, and a phalanx of vocalists including Coalesce's Sean Ingram, mean this is a fucking shitstorm, in the best possible way. Everything we loved about their last record, Fluxion is here, but expanded, heavier parts are heavier, weird parts are weirder (including some truly haunting German film music interspersed here and there). The basic formula is the same, massive crushing teutonic sludge / death metal, with all manner of post rockisms tossed in, blissy ambient interludes, grooved out rhythmic breakdowns, there are definitely hints of Isis, Neurosis, Dimmu Borgir, even Rammstein, as well as nods to more dramatic outrock outifts like Godspeed and Mogwai. But Aeolian is just so much more complicated and multilayered, convoluted and complex, dizzyingly so. One of the coolest, weirdest, heaviest metal records so far this year for sure. And here's what we had to say about Fluxion: With everyone freaking out about Isis, Pelican, Neurosis, Cult Of Luna, and all things massively and epically metal, all churning riffs and pounding majesty, it's hard to believe that most people have never heard, or even heard of German outfit The Ocean. Because in some ways, hard as it may seem to believe, they've almost managed to sonically outdo their obvious influences. The basic sound will be familiar for sure, massive guitars, pounding drums, propulsive, relentless riffing, blissed out, post rock parts that build and build and build into huge squalls of gargantuan guitarnoise, throbbing and pulsing, minor key and epic. But, in the case of The Ocean, they manage to add all sort of extra weirdness and not-so-subtle nuance than really makes Fluxion stand out. The presence of a full on string section (as well as some clarinets and other decidedly non rock instruments) is the first thing, which obviously lends the whole thing a much more stately, mournful feel, making them sound at times like a heavy metal Godspeed You Black Emperor. There's also a whole bunch of melodic flourishes scattered throughout, just here and there, that make what could be standard metal riffs become something a little bit out of the ordinary. The order of the day though is definitely metallic pummel, growled gutteral vocals over ultra thick Teutonic riffs, their German-ness shines through a bit in those instances, reminding us a bit of Rammstein, and when the keyboards kick in, there's definitely some Dimmu Borgir going on. And there is definitely a black metal vibe throughout, although it's bent and twisted to fit into The Ocean's moody metal framework. But the sound is so much more expansive and epic than most black metal, or most metal in general, especially when the guitars bliss out a bit, and strings are soaring, guitars picking out arpeggiated minor key melodies, everything eventually erupting into full on metallic bombast. And even in the midst of TOTAL METAL, the melodies are still moody and intense, the riffing is weird and the overal vibe is super dramatic and ultra intense. Fans of the 'new mood metal', a la Pelican, Isis, Cult Of Luna, as well as fans of the new metallic post rock (Conifer, Tides, Mouth Of The Architect, etc.) will be totally blown away!

MPEG stream: The City In The Sea
MPEG stream: Austerity

Germany's THE Ocean, not to be confused with Ocean from the US, have always been a pretty impressive proposition, their soaring epic post Godspeed Neur-Isis style metallic grind, their phalanx of guitarists, their triple vocal attack, the fact that they're a sort of musical commune, but more importantly, the sound they make is MASSIVE, thick and churning and so so so so HEAVY. It boggles the mind how a band can sound this heavy, on record even, we fear for the brave souls that subject themselves to this sort of crushing brutality live. A lot has changed in The Ocean camp since 2006's Aeolian. Where that record was moody and nuanced, majestic and cinematic, Precambrian is much more immediate, more furious and intense, the guitars downtuned and crunchy, even heavier than before, the vocals a metal howl, bordering on hardcore bark. The drums swinging wildly from monstrous pound to lightning fast blast beats. And the compositions, holy shit! Mathy and complex and convoluted, Much grindier than before, relentless and maniacal. But wait! That's only the first half of Precambrian. Ultra high concept, separated into two discs (or three lps), the first disc, if we're going by the cd (nicely designed as a 3" cd embedded in a 5" plastic disc) is short and sharp and fast and furious and is the first movement. But the second disc (the third and fourth lp) is much more of the Ocean we're used to. Beginning with some abstract clean guitar shimmering in an expanse of distant drones and mournful melodies, quickly shifting into some mathy post rock, all noodly melodies and jagged harmonies, some seriously dark riffing, even some clean vocals, piano, strings, this is epic shit, wound around gnarled bursts of furious intensity. The record is super strange, shifting from almost gypsy sounding folk, with moaning fiddles, and chime like melodies, to dens chunks of Neurosis style sludge, from expansive shoegaze-y bliss outs to full on Eyehategod howl and chug, tripped out almost-jazz to straight up chamber music, and back to punishing ultra heaviness. Makes no sense to us that The Ocean guys are not as huge as Isis or Pelican or Neurosis. And if you dig any of those bands you owe it to yourself to get into these guys. The cd comes in a double jewel case, one normal 5"s disc, one 3" disc in a 5" plastic disc, with multiple booklets, packed with lyrics and woodcut illustrations. Wow. But if any record was one for the vinyl nerds it's THIS ONE. So over the top. A triple lp, gatefold, the whole thing black on black, with silver and white ink, spot varnish flourishes, diecut front and back with amoeboid shapes so the inner sleeves are visible, metallic ink on matte black inserts feature lyrics and illustrations, each lp a different color, orange, dark swirled red and swirled grey. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. Holy shit!!! It weighs a ton, and is so beautiful and damn if it wouldn't be worth buying just for the packaging. Thankfully the record is definitely worthy of the packaging. WAY recommended. ESPECIALLY the limited vinyl!

MPEG stream: Hadean - The Long March Of The Yes-Man
MPEG stream: Eoarchaean - The Great Void
MPEG stream: Palaeoarchaean - Man And The Sea

Super limited split between these two heavyweights. In this corner, Burst, with their Meshuggah-like stop start riffing, super precise and machinelike, downtuned guitar chugs like pipes to the side of the head, all getting more and more tangled until it's a dizzying metallic swirl. There's also some weird warped melodies, the guitars and vocals doing something bizarre together, making it sound like the record is warped or something. Cool. And in the other corner, Germany's Ocean, not to be confused with THE Ocean, a massive metallic collective, who tone back the metal just a bit this time around and explore some post rock weirdness. Serene stretches of sweet blissed out prettiness, finger picked guitars and angelic female vocals, before a monstrous sledgehammer groove kicks in, all HUGE riff and harsh demonic vocals. Killer! Packaged in a gorgeous fold out sleeve designed by Seldon Hunt and pressed on blue vinyl. Super limited and we only got a few.

Winsome pop melodies that gently caress the ear, relaxed and lovely--WHOOPS. N-n-n-n-nnoo, wrong review. Anybody familiar with insectoid, techy guitar playing of Mick Barr (of Ocrilim, Orthrelm, Octis, and Crom Tech fame) knows that we had to be pulling your collective leg with the beginning of this paragraph. Not a chance in heck that Ocrilim's latest release, on Hydra Head, would be anything less than a completely nerve-wracking, possibly aggravating, virtuoso six string mindfuck. And is it ever. Unique as well, 'cause nothin' else sounds quite like this. It's insane ear candy for those of us who like the concept (put forth in a previous Mick Barr review on the AQ site) of Ygnwie playing Metal Machine Music! Divvyed up into seven parts, the all-instrumental Annwn is a tour-de-force of repetitive yet complex high-end trill, incorporating spiralling sixteenth note fretboard frenzies that burrow into your skull like a trepanist's drill. These trance-inducing pieces are all long ones, upwards of ten minutes or more, most of 'em, and take that time to build into truly grandiose symphonics, that (if the listener can, um, hear the forest for the trees) are indeed melodic, if not poppy. Never before has anything so trebly also sounded so majestic! Barr's swarming sounds somehow hint at John Williams' Star Wars/Death Star theme music... and very much makes us think, Black Metal. It's not, but comes pretty close indeed. And in fact, if this WAS a black metal band, we'd be all, "best/most fucked black metal of the year so far." Albeit one that's all-guitar (consisting entirely of the notes, noise, and drone that Barr can call forth from his mystic, multitracked axe), no vocals or drums or drum machine or nothin'.... and owes as much to no-wave and minimalism and 20th c. classical.

MPEG stream: Part 2
MPEG stream: Part 6

Ol' Crazy Fingers (not really what they call him) Mick Barr is baaack. He of Orthrelm, Octis, Crom Tech, etcetera fame, a true fretboard wizard for the punkish underground avant-core set. If Lightning Bolt were Metallica, Mick Barr'd be Yngwie. Or something like that... y'know, it's hard to make a lot of sense when your brain is being subjected to the bumblebee chamber metal sounds of Ocrilm, so cut us a break. This latest Mick Barr masterpiece is a solo project, all three of its overdubbed Gibson SG guitar tracks laid down by Mick hisself in a maddening density of notes and harmonies, droning sheets and shards of sound. This is massive, and maniacal. Anoint is a seven-part composition for excited strings, a one-man Glenn Branca-esque guitar symphony done shred style. A beautiful, beautiful thing... though you can imagine it being recorded, and listened to, in the confines of a padded cell!

MPEG stream: Anoint pt. 1
MPEG stream: Anoint pt. 7

Any one familiar with Mick Barr, most likely knows all about his dense, insane shredding axework and super obtuse metalisms in groups like Crom-Tech, Orthrelm, Octis, Krallice and of course Ocrilim. This super deluxe, super limited boxset collects three out of print cd-r's, and presents them on vinyl, and all three taken as a single body of work might just comprise the most listenable stuff we've ever heard from Barr. Annothrith Hymns is the prettiest of the bunch, a collection of short form solo guitarscapes, ostensibly black metal, but just the guitars, loosed from any griminty and instead allowed to soar majestically, layered and lush and lyrical, the sounds pulse and undulating, the tremolo picked riffs blurred into sweet soaring ur-drone epicness. Somehow buzzy and metal but still ethereal and mesmerizingly dreamy, even the Xasthur cover is transformed into something more crystalline and lovely. Ixoltion immediately sounds like some epic, Norwegian style black metal, until you realize, that once again, it's just guitar, and the sound is not so much buzzy, so much as again, like the first lp, soaring and majestic, single riffs expanded to fill up a whole side, sprawling riffscapes that manage to remain black metal, while becoming something completely other, some sort of mesmerizing, looped, minimal blackened riffdronebuzz bliss out. Heavy sure, maybe, but more hypnotic and trancelike. Finally, Sacreth, which complete the trilogy, and in some weird way, sounds like the first two combined, this is actual black metal, blasting and buzzing, but still minimal, the programmed beats proggy and intricate, matching the unlikely riffing, super hypnotic, the arrangements quite strange as well, lots of stop/starts, super mathy and complex, but still remaining epic and majestic, and weirdest of all, seriously melodic and poppy. It's almost like the three records are a slow build to Sacreth's black metal, but each part functioning fantastically on its own. So good. And even those of you who might have been put off in the past by Barr's gnarled noisy metallic tangle, this might surprise you as much as it did us. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Hand screened, hand glued silkscreened sleeves in a silk screened cardboard box, the records pressed on 180 gram vinyl, with a silkscreened insert, handnumbered.

MPEG stream: With Hate
MPEG stream: Teachings In Cruelty

Expect nihilistic, misanthropic one-man-band black metal on this album, the follow-up to his brilliant, raw, and catchy Welcome To My Planet opus. Fuckhole Armageddon is fast & tinny the way it's supposed to be, as Mr. Octinomos gets a really good droning buzz

[ aquarius records — Metal ]