[ aquarius records

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Showing results 4301 through 4350 of 5570.

MPEG stream: Ett Liv Utan Mening
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When we first heard / heard about Shit And Shine, a mysterious noise rock collective from the UK, they definitely seemed custom made for aQ, multiple drummers, multiple bass players, someone playing lawnmower, a sound equal parts vintage Butthole Surfers, classic Hawkwind, and modern kraut-psych-drone-rock a la Circle and Pharaoh Overlord and Cave and the like, not to mention the garish, sometimes offensive album, art, the hilarious and usually offensive song titles, we were sold, smitten, totally obsessed. And thankfully, in the several years since that very first 12", very little has changed, almost all of the aforementioned essentials are still part and parcel of the Shit And Shine experience (minus the lawnmowers, but then the more we've come to understand these jokers, the more we realize that probably a lot of the 'facts' circulating about S&S is total bullshit, so odds are there never was any lawnmowers, sigh), and if anything, they've managed the impossible, getting tighter and more polished, more rocking, with better and somewhat proper 'songs', while simultaneously getting more and more fucked up and far out, taking super minimal elements and combining them into something massive and bewitching and baffling and heavy as fuck, but sounding literally unlike anything we've ever heard. Sure there are elements of plenty of stuff we love, but the way these guys twist those elements and cram them into whatever shape THIS is, just blows our minds, and eardrums. So yeah, garish pink on white cover, masked lady with one of her breasts out on the front, a weird long necked headless super hero lady on the back, inside an awesome scary photo of two little girls, long hair obscuring their faces, standing hand in hand in front of a massive wall of amps, and song titles: "Have You Really Thought About Your Presentation?", "Goodbye And Good Gardening", "Girls Against Shit", "20 Years Of Caring For The Nations Eyes", "The Cusp Of Innocence, Prettily", "I'm Making My Lunch", " People Like You... REALLY!" and on and on, but none of that would mean shit if there wasn't a head spinning gut churning din to back it up, and holy shit do these guys bring the noise this time around. The opening track, "Have Your Really Thought About Your Presentation" is equal parts Brainbombs and last list's Record Of The Weekers Rusted Shut, but with a little bit of krautish hypnorock mixed in, so what you get is a crushing, super distorted mega main RIFF, a pounding mesmerizing drum beat, everything super hot and blown out and in the red, looped and locked and pounding away over and over and over and over, but with some weird stuff going on, buried vocals, strange bits of glitch and crunch, and the weirdest part of all, seems impossible to play, but every few measures, it sounds like the band skips a beat, almost like the record skips, but it's super subtle, like a weird stutter step, that just makes it all the more weird, but no less trancelike and heavy, and it only gets weirder from there on out. All the songs here are based on rhythms, which comes with the territory when you have multiple drummers, the second track begins all skittery, an almost drum machine sounding shuffle, which slips into a looped dubbed out pound, while all around the rhythms is buffeted by swirling FX, jagged shards of jangle guitar, and super distorted wild over-saturated leads and weird voices buried in the mix. The next track explodes in a tangle of twisted string buzz and fractured electronics, before those sounds coalesce into a crazy noise drenched rock racket, rife with angular guitars and layer upon layer of drones and voices and feedback and sonic chaos. "USA / Mexico" is some Buttholes gone black metal weirdness, super murky muddy riffage, pounding blast beats, start stop rhythms, bizarre vokills and crazy electronics all over the place. The crushing stop start chug of "The Cusp Of Innocence, Prettily", almost makes the record for us, with a killer main riff, and an increasingly distorted guitar tone, until a sample of some cheesy European sounding folk song comes in, and like magic, the crunch and chug and pound lock in and fit perfectly with that lilting little ditty, turning it into something nasty and scary and AWESOME. It's only a second, but it's sooooo good. The abstract dub of the title track, the main rhythm made out of what sounds like someone writing on a chalkboard, some super effected tripped out dubby bursts, random spoken words, thick sheets of warm washed out guitars, until the track gets all Circle-y, but filtered through some fractured nineties industrial, like Pharaoh Overlord jamming Meat Beat Manifesto, but with strangled metal guitars and vrooming motorcycle sounds. There's some dance-y almost house sounding throb and pulse, but it's butted up right against a twisted angular noise rock / electro mashup, that is so distorted it's dabbling in Merzbow territory. The other looooong track "Roberts Church Problem" sounds like it was recorded live, ad thus sounds like vintage S&S in full on unhinged Buttholes mode, multiple pounding drummers, wall of buzz, fuzzed out heaviness, repetitive and looped and seemingly never ending (we wish!). "Friseur Nelson is another good one, all very Circle, distorted and murky, a killer tribal rhythm, crumbling fuzz bass, and a muted chugging low end, some weird haunting chiming minor key melodies, another one that could have been stretched out to the end of the record and we would have been perfectly happy. We could go on and on and on (even more than we already have), but why bother? Every song here rules, they're all super strange and heavy and hooky and groovy and noisy, and somehow, for being so disparate, they all manage to sound like part of a proper record. Well, certainly not a PROPER record, but you know what we mean. And while the rest of the songs are just as tripped out, and what-the-fuck and holy shit! as the ones we already described, odds are by now you probably got the feel for whether this is your cup of blown out rhythmic heaviness or not. The sound of Shit And Shine is like some constantly twisting and transforming, bloody and mangled wreckage, equal parts This Heat, Aluk Todolo, Geronimo, Butthole Surfers, Rusted Shut, Brainbombs, Merzbow, Terminal Cheesecake, Strangulated Beatoffs, Faust, Laddio Bollocko, all pulled apart and reassembled into some damaged Frankenhooker noiserock drum circle spacejam. And odds are if you like any or all of those bands, you're gonna LOVE this...

MPEG stream: Have You Really Thought About Your Presentation?
MPEG stream: USA / Mexico
MPEG stream: The Cusp Of Innocence. Prettily
MPEG stream: Girls Against Shit
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The first time we heard from the UK's bass and drum (not to be confused with drum and bass) ensemble Shit And Shine, we were already predisposed to love them. Seeing as they featured multiple bass players, a stage full of drummers, and most importantly, at least to us, several lawnmowers. Fuck. Yeah. Over the course of the last three or four years, these guys have continually pummeled us within an inch of our lives, with their throbbing tribal Butthole Surfers style onslaught, a furious blown out in the red drug drenched psych rock, but only the loosest approximation of rock. More like some sort of government drug experiment, where various deviants and ne'er do wells, criminals and sociopaths, were incarcerated, dosed with all manner of experimental psychotropics, then let loose in a concrete bunker filled with drums and amps and busted up old bass guitars, everything recorded for posterity, until someone started leaking the tapes, code name: SHIT AND SHINE. This was the most wacked shit we'd heard since Terminal Cheesecake or the Strangulate Beatoffs. And every record drifted further and further out, as the band became more and more unhinged, and now there's this, Cherry, a massive double lp that while still demonstrating the kind of physical and psychic damage Shit And Shine can do, also reveals a whole new world of fucked up sound these guys have tapped into. In fact, when we first threw this on, we weren't even sure it was the same band. The record opens with a simple percussive drum jam, all toms, sort of tribal, beneath a series of samples, and film clips, a little weird, reminiscent of old industrial, until the next track obliterates the first with a blast of awesome processed metallic riffing, almost like some heavily FX-ed Iron Maiden leads, draped over some shitty shiney sludge, then suddenly guitars flip backwards, the sound becoming some freaked out psych damage, lurching into some killer stop / start dynamics, a churning what-the-fuck sort-of metal jam. Oh yeah, there's also a long long track of old school proto disco, groovy, druggy dancefloor shit, unexpected, but it sort of works in S+S's tweaked sound world. And all of that stuff is peppered with brief super short tracks of classic Shit And Shine tribal drugpsych pummel, but it always slips back into something� curious. Side three is a single side long track, a gorgeous chunk of layered drone, guitars buzz and rumble, basses throb and pulse, there are probably some synths in there too, the various layers churning and shifting, drifting and shimmering, super hypnotic but still subtly fucked up and creepy. And finally, for those folks who were put off by all this weirdness, meaning even more weirdness than normal, all of side 4 is taken up by a full on, head crushing Shit And Shine blow out. Doped up and spaced out, huge loping rhythms, pounding multiple drumkits, the basses and guitars a chaotic tangle of crumbling riffs and throbbing distortion, everything locked into relentless looped churning crush. So completely filthy and crusty and damaged that it sounds constantly on the verge of falling to pieces, but it's this continuous chaos and impending doom, that makes S+S's freaky jams so intense and so fucking awesome! Need we say, TRES RECOMMENDED! More totally and hilariously garish cover art. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES! We got a bunch but AQ folks seem especially partial to Shit -AND- Shine, so these will probably go pretty quick. You have been warned.

Ahhh, Shit And Shine, even the name give us the warm fuzzies. That's because multiple drummer-ed lawn mower bass tribal drug jams often do. And no one does it better, or quite like the UK's Shit And Shine. With a constantly shifting lineup that often swells to double digits, including as many drummers as they can pack into a room. And a wall of amplifiers that makes SUNNO))) seem like they're playing through practice amps, several bass players, often just a phalanx of shitty Casio keyboards, howling vocals, all tangled up into a heaving mass of post-Butthole Surfers drug psych heaviness. Much like the cd reissue of Cherry (last week's Record Of The Week), Kuss Mich, Meine Liebe is not entirely brand new, the two longest tracks we've had before on a super limited, crazy expensive lp, but here on cd for the very first time. Along with one other loooooooong jam, and a handful of shorter, but no less appealing chunks of what-the-fuck tribal psych-out heaviness. Let's cover the tracks we've heard before. "Biggest Cock In Christendom" is an in-the-red tribal workout, like a more metallic and way more distorted and druggy No Neck Blues Band. Or a WAY heavier Chain Reaction disc. Thick pulses of low end drift beneath streaks of super distorted amp damage, all very krautrock sounding, but filtered through a bank of effects pedals, all broken or with dying batteries. Definitely blissed out and mesmerizing, but so ominous and creepy. This is the shit musical dreams are made of. 15 minutes of this stuff is not nearly enough. Set it to repeat, drink a bottle of Nyquil and let yourself get sucked under. The other track from the 12", "Toilet Door Tits", is an endless rhythmic jam, with ultra blown out drums, sounding a bit like some Butthole Surfers / Laddio Bolocko hybrid, albeit WAY more distorted and damaged. The sound is completely fried, the whole track sounding like it's crumbling through your speakers, strangled vocals drift amidst the tribal pummel, as do weird alien sounding squiggly leads that squirm and slither from speaker to speaker giving the whole track a super disorienting effect. The other long track on Kuss Mich is the epic and drowsily sprawling "Preventions Arise", 10 minutes of muted almost industrial sounding rhythms, way more moody and washed out than the other tracks, an endless muddy murky rhythmic jam, pulsing and throbbing, a propulsive groove beneath a very noir spoken word. Strange but a good balance to the sheer brutality of the other tracks. Scattered all around these three massive jams are jagged little chunks of shiny shit, blasts of noise and crunch and buzz and pound, from brief flurries of machine like grind, furious blast beats, and stuttering off kilter rhythms, to total Buttholes worship, pounding tribal rhythm, buzzing fuzz guitar, hypnotic and intense, to tripped out abstract skitter, all warbly distorted bass, and processed vox, to huge blown out chug and churn, heavy and epic and massively distorted and blown out. Once again, more proof that these guys (and gals) are the current reigning kings and queens of crushing chaotic drugged out drone drenched drum corps psych-doom heaviness. Killer packaging, very simple and cryptic, shit brown paper and metallic gold ink shine!

MPEG stream: Biggest Cock In Christendom
MPEG stream: The Germans Call It A Swimming Head
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Last year's aQuarius / WFMU South By Southwest showcase was pretty tough to beat, if we do say so ourselves. An entire night of aQ faves, every single one kicking huge amounts of ass, and basically blowing us away over and over again. Just check out the lineup: Speedwolf, Iron Man, Moon Duo, Pierced Arrows, Dengue Fever, Epileptinomicon, Todd, True Widow, Sonny & The Sunsets, Headdress, Home Blitz, Drunkdriver, and Shit And Shine. We'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite set of the night, but lots of folks, ourselves included, might find ourselves leaning toward the rhythmic chaotic cacophony of Shit And Shine, a UK based multi-drummer drone-psych-noise unit who once called Texas home. And who, besides kicking up a glorious drum heavy racket, managed to keep the crowd riveted for their whole set, the members clad in strange costumes, a bunny suit, creepy plastic masks, furry animal heads, all while manning multiple drumkits and constantly switching instruments, and creating a glorious wall of pulsing, pounding, hypnotic sound. Luckily, the whole thing was captured on tape. And while maybe something is lost without the visuals, the music holds up surprisingly well on its own, the group's single song set spread out over two sides, right out of the gate, the band lock into a rhythm and don't let up. The sound is blown out and in the red, helping make it sound exactly like being there (and like you forgot your earplugs), the legion of drummers, pounding out a rhythm in perfect unison, while the rest of the $+$ crew do their thing, their thing in this case being super distorted fuzzed out bass, processed alien vocals, blasts of screeching feedback, squalls of psychedelic white noise buzz, a sound that is basically krautrock writ NOISY and BLOWN OUT and HEAD CAVINGLY LOUD! By the time the second half (side) rolls around, the buzz and pound are interrupted by thick shards of almost poppy melody, streaks of almost shogazey looped fragmented noise, until finally the jam switches gears, just a bit, and we get the $+$ version of 'bringing it down', a churning Circle like sludgekraut hypnorock groove that plays out until the record settles into a locked groove, which if you're not paying attention, will have you listening to that single groove for EVER, before realizing something is up. And hell, we actually listened to it for 5 or 6 minutes, and probably would have let it keep on playing... (and the first side ends with a locked groove too, so be prepared to be mesmerized, endlessly there too!)... Heavy and hypnotic, the perfect sonic souvenir if you were there, an even more perfect slab of crushing corrosive rhythmic noise rock weirdness if you weren't. Housed in a full color sleeve, an Austin backyard on one side, one of the $+$-ers on the other. Includes a Xeroxed insert, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered. ----* ----* Highlights : ----*

What would you expect from a band called Shitfucker? Whose record is called Sucks Cocks In Hell? And whose cd cover features a 'shiswastifa', or a 'shitstika', essentially a swastika, but made from an 'S' and an 'F', for Shitfucker (only on the cd though btw)? And with song titles like "Satanisanity", and "Smash Your Skull (Against the Wall)", and "Sex Dungeon", and maybe best of all "Rock N' Roll Freaky Dude"�? You'd probably expect something filthy, and depraved, some sonic scum designed to offend and outrage, and hell, that's exactly what you get from these Detroit scumfucks, who take knuckle dragging, head banging thrash metal, tangle it all up with some snarling punk rock, and some crusty D-beat, and vomit it all back up in a glorious lo-fi rush of noisy thrashy riffage, wild metallic gallops, trashy drumming, belched, glass gargling vokills, the label compares 'em to Gism, Sodom, Abigail and Bathory, and yeah, that pretty much nails it, we'd also probably include Motorhead, and Venom, especially Venom in regards to the aforementioned "Rock N' Roll Freaky Dude", which even starts out with a pretty hilarious, heavily accented, spoken word intro, that either sounds just like Venom, or maybe Dethklok, or even Bad News, but it leads right into the dumbest, and thus greatest song ever, with the title delivered in a hellish rasp, over a galloping blast of chaotic thrash punk, and the weird part it, it's kind of catchy too. A total drunken headbanging anthem for sure. And hell, that basically describes the pretty much every song here. There's some weirdness going on as well, the clean kinda crooned almost falsetto vox on "Demonic Rock", some weird samples (a la Church Of Misery) on "Sex Dungeon", tolling bells on "I Am Of The Devil", not to mention the truly creepy intro and outro, but the weirdness is just a byproduct of whatever crazy shit these guys were smoking, cuz really, it's about the metal, a metal that reeks of booze and weed, leather and denim and spikes, filthy dreads and band patches, motorcycles, beards and of course SATAN.

MPEG stream: Smash Your Skull
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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.

The music on this cd represents the entire recorded output of this obscure early '70s acid-rock band. Shiver recorded this stuff live to two-track tape in the summer of 1972, and while they never released an album back in the day, it's clear that the world is Basically, Shiver were a bunch of hard-rocking hippie freaks, brought together by a Texas-bred drummer who moved to San Francisco to take up where his obvious heroes Blue Cheer left off. They soon had a rather rough, tough reputation, playing Haight street fairs and Hells Angels biker parties. At one point they even had a singer with an iron hook for a hand, which he could use as a slide for his guitar, or for more violent purposes. Shiver played "heavy psychedelic rock" at its most primal -- no overdubs, raw as hell. Portions of this were previously available as an expensive Rockadelic LP, but the cd adds quite a few extra, lower-fidelity tracks as a "bonus."

RealAudio clip: Bone Shaker

Another official GoD vinyl reissue (following the Kalacakra we listed not long ago) of a krautrock rarity. Well, is it krautrock if it's from Switzerland? Sorta, it's heavy progressive Sixties blues psych in any case, full of hammering Hammond organ. And being Swiss, these guys were lucky enough to obtain appropriately shiver-inducing (and sexually suggestive) cover artwork by H.R. Giger, for their lone, rare, 1969 album release! The music isn't quite creepy enough to live up to Giger's cover, though The Shiver can certainly get moody. The opener is fairly ominous, an instrumental called "Repent Walpurgis", with weeping wailing guitars and organ, and bombastic drumbeat breakdowns, though it has a nicely melodic piano passage too. And they sound quite liturgically somber - as well as psychedelic - on "Hey Mr. Holy Man", another of the other tracks here that might invite comparisons to AQ-fave Austrian krautrockers Paternoster. Also, we dig their downer cover of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", clearly inspired by The Animals' version more than that of Nina Simone. While this is "pop music" it's certainly got something of a dismal, druggy vibe. Also this album is most definitely bluesy - and if you don't like that, then their song "What's Wrong About The Blues" will answer its own question! Gatefold sleeve, numbered limited edition of 1000.

MPEG stream: Repent Walpurgis
MPEG stream: Hey Mr. Holy Man

It's been a struggle to figure out what to write about this record. It's a gorgeous moody slab of blissed out mathy post rock. We love that stuff. A lot. But it's really difficult to explain exactly why this record is somehow WAY more than just a post-rock record. It's maybe MORE, more moody, more mathy, more blissed out, but there's still some ineffable thing that turns Shora into a whole other proposition. Similar to the way that Fuehler and Turing Machine in the past took the sound of their post rock forefathers to whole new realms, Shora, breathe new life, breathe fire even, into what has become the sound du riguer of the indie underground. How exactly is a bit tougher to pin down. It's very repetitive, some riffs practically become loops, repeating over and over, inducing some serious mesmeric listening, each looped post-rock-scape is underpinned by dense but complex krautrocky rhythms, that occasionally explode into spikey tangles of free jazz mathrock octopoidal polyrhythms before settling back into dreamy head nodding grooves. The guitars are like chameleons, snakey smokey tendrils one second, huge jagged metallic shards the next, turning from bell like chimes into slinky slippery smears of sound all within a matter of seconds. Majestic, haunting, repetitive and completely fascinating. That's just the first three tracks too, 24 minutes of dense, layered, experimental instrumental rock music perfection. Then there's the very strange final track, which starts out as a soft focused dreamscape, all gauzy and shimmery, before out of the blue, down comees a blast of bizarre pounding Gary Glitter sounding glam rock stomp, right there in the middle of the song! The stomp quickly gives way to some organ drenched Goblin worship before slipping softly back into dark droney ambience. But that's not all, suddenly there are female vocals, and not wispy soft ones, no we're talking a throaty belt, more PJ Harvey than Grouper or Paavoharju, at first it's a little bit jarring, but after a few moments it makes perfect sense. But it only lasts a few moments. Which is maybe indicative of why this band is so great. Putting that much thought into a tiny part, and finding a vocalist, coming up with melodies, lyrics, all for the last minute or two of the last song on your record. Few bands would bother. Which is precisely the point wethinks. It's easy to tell that the same sort of meticulous preparation and deep thought went into every part of this record. But without sacrificing any of the passion or immediacy that makes music so vital. Which is a rare thing indeed.

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These irrepressible SoCal stoner skate punks come ripping and raging back with their 2nd album for Tee Pee. Not unlike the self-proclaimed "primitive blast" of their debut, it's again an explosive concoction of high energy rock 'n' roll, sure to catch your ears and show 'em a good time, even as these tracks speed by in full on party mode. Part metal, part punk, The Shrine are both heavy and hooky, mixing up some Kill 'Em All era Metallica riffage with SST/Black Flag 'tude too (and in fact, one song features lyrics by Chuck Dukowski originally written for an unrecorded Black Flag tune from '83). Lest we forget, some other longhairs named Soundgarden got their start on SST, and The Shrine probably say, Ultramega OK to that. Among this album's highlights, we'll single out the remarkably poppy shred of "Tripping Corpse", you just gotta love lines like "he combs his hair / he doesn't care / he's living free / acid casualty", as sung over some suitably tweaked Voivoid-esqe chords. The sheer no-fucks-gven rock power of that track is fairly representative of the whole dang disc. No sophomore slump here! No slump of any kind. Indeed, this is pure anti-slumping music for sure. It's get up, get going, skate and destroy music!

MPEG stream: Tripping Corpse
MPEG stream: Bless Off
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The Shrine to what? The gods of high energy rock n' roll action, we assume. Such a shrine, we're imagining, would consist of one or more big ass amplifiers, probably draped with an Amerikkkan flag (upside down?), ringed with empty beer cans and broken bottles. Oh, and skateboards, a bunch of skateboards. Musically, that's what we're gettin' here, the three hairy dudes in heavy, punked out power trio The Shrine mainlining such influences as Black Flag, Black Sabbath, and the MC5. They don't hold back, with opener "Zipper Tripper" defining The Shrine's style of speedy SoCal "psychedelic violence" pretty plainly from the get-go. Furthermore, as the disc spins, The Shrine soon make it obvious that their particular primitive blast is in fact a damn catchy one, yeah! They rip it up with snakey riffs and plenty of 'tude on all nine tracks here, a little over a half hour of gnarly shake appeal for stoner punks & skate metallers; this is definitely for anybody who was into another, sorta similar Tee Pee band, Annihilation Time (R.I.P.), recipients of a T-shirt shout out from The Shrine on this album's back cover band pic. Another good comparison would be to the 2nd, more SST-ish album from J. Mascis doom project Witch. For us, what really seals the deal is that track four happens to be a cranked-up cover of "Run The Night", originally by '70s heavy psych British biker band Wicked Lady, whose reissues we just highlighted. We were like, hmmm, this sounds familiar, then figured it out. And it fits right in with the vibe of the whole album. Killer!!!

MPEG stream: Whistlings Of Death
MPEG stream: Run The Night
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We'd be into a new release from SoCal skate punk metal blasters The Shrine in any case, 'cuz they kick ass, but this new 12" maxi-single of theirs on Tank Crimes is extra-awesome, as The Shrine prove themselves to be the coolest kids in skool by doing a cover of "Waiting For The War" by obscure early '80s French punk rawkers SOGGY!! If you've been with us for a while, maybe you remember when we had the limited vinyl reissue of the Soggy album, we sold a ton of those while they were briefly available some years ago. The awesomely Stooges-y "Waiting For The War" was Soggy's best, heaviest jam. You should check out Soggy's live-on-TV version of it on YouTube if you've never heard it - and/or pick up this, The Shrine doing a killer cover, it's a brilliantly perfect choice for them. (They have a good taste in covers, having done a Wicked Lady tune on their debut album.) The A-side also includes an original by the Shrine, the rollicking stoner rocker "Rare Breed", while on the B-side, you gets an instrumental version of "Waiting For The War". Colored vinyl, and it comes with a download card!

MPEG stream: Waiting For The War

Most people cringe upon hearing the word "supergroup," and not without good reason: most supergroups fucking suck. Shrinebuilder, however, is a rare beast, an exception to the general rule, and it almost seems offensive to call them a supergroup. BUT... that's sort of what they are. Consisting of Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Al Cisneros (Om, Sleep), Dale Crover (the Melvins), and Wino (you should know him by now, but let's mention The Obsessed, Spirit Caravan and Saint Vitus!!), Shrinebuilder raised some pretty high hopes, and it seemed impossible that these four living legends would let us down. Thankfully, they haven't. In fact, Shrinebuilder's debut has far exceeded any expectations we had for a project which was pretty much destined to kick our asses in all kinds of different directions. You can detect each musician's individual style, sure, but more than anything, Shrinebuilder seems to follow a decidedly old school approach to heaviness - think Sabbath, Buffalo, that kind of thing - delivering five lengthy songs of groove laden metal heavy on the riffs (no surprise there), doomy bass, awesome to the point drumming, and plenty of spacey FX. There are moments where you have to remind yourself that you aren't listening to Sleep, especially when Al lays on the wah wah pedal, and parts of this album fulfill the fantasies of those who sometimes wish Om had a guitar player. Scott Kelly and Wino are one hell of a guitar team, and there are some amazing moments of fuzzy, sustained harmonies and plenty of chugging overdriven riffage. Crover's drumming is particularly impressive here, not that anyone needs to remind you that the guy slays. His playing here is less busy than it tends to be with the Melvins, and his steady pound suits these songs perfectly. The unmistakable vocal stylings of Wino, Scott, and Al all show up, but one of the band's greatest strengths is the fact that this sounds like the work not of some half assed side project, but of an actual band. So yeah, don't let the whole "supergroup" tag throw you off, as this is a potent brew of fully realized HEAVIOSITY. By the way, this is on special sale here ($2 off the regular $14.98 it would be) for the next two weeks only. Not that we can imagine anyone who'd be into this not picking it up right away anyway!

MPEG stream: Solar Benediction
MPEG stream: Pyramid Of The Moon

First record we've reviewed from this weirdo Romanian black metal duo, whose sound is a gloriously lo-fi folk flecked blackness, that manages to be surprisingly poppy and melodic, while remaining raw and lo-fi. The record opens with a short sort of intro, that is barely black metal at all, an almost post rock lope, all melancholic melodies, and shimmering, softly distorted guitar shimmer, the vocals a growling rasp, the only really blackened element, and even when the record proper kicks in, the drums galloping, the guitars buzzing, the vocals a monstrous bellow, the sound remains brittle and shimmery and melodic, the sound infused with serious melody, when the sound shifts into the bridge or chorus, it's almost like some lost indie rock record, again, the vocals really the only thing tethering it to the metal world at all, fans of the new wave of metal gaze will definitely feel right at home, the same sort of blessed out shoegazey vibe pervades much of the sound here, but there's plenty of other weirdness going on, like the almost disco beat on "Lesben Allo", beneath some chugging metal, and some twisted growly vocalizations, not to mention a trippy psychedelic breakdown part way through, complete with maniacal laughter! There are moments of more grim buzz, "Kozmikus Zuhanas" manages to crank up the black buzz and the sonic murk, but even then, the melody shines through, keeping the sound from slipping into pure black buzz, but the record is all the better for it, a sort of gloomy blackened pop, while elsewhere the sound slips into lurching blackened doom, but there too, laced with acoustic guitars, and haunting atmospherics, and lets not forget "Melankolikus Transzcendens" which add some bleating horns to the occasion, coupled with frantic double kick drumming, and weird monotone vokills, again, well removed from black metal, and instead, sounding, like some blackened noise rock, or gloom pop, but whatever you call it, we're digging it big time!

MPEG stream: Vegtelen Ut
MPEG stream: Kozmikus Zuhanas
MPEG stream: Melankolikus Transzcendens

So many grind/metalcore/hardcore bands over the years owe more than a few pennies to Boston's hardcore/grind pioneers Siege. In fact, a lot of those bands owe them EVERYTHING! Much like the length of their songs, their time as a band was brief, but in just two short years they laid waste to many with their intense sound and energy. Bands like Napalm Death and a whole slew of early Earache/Noiseville acts made pretty decent careers for themselves taking that Siege sound and running with it, some of them continuing to do it even now, in fucking 2007! This cd collects all their compilation tracks as well as all the "official release" stuff, and while this ain't a very long player, Siege managed to get to the point REAL QUICK, without wasting much more than some picks, some guitar strings, a bunch of drumsticks and last but not least YOUR GODDAMN EARDRUMS! One of the greatest and heaviest punk (metal?) bands ever!

MPEG stream: Drop Dead
MPEG stream: Walls
MPEG stream: Sad But True

Pretty much every black metal band in the world owes their very existence to Venom, hell, the very name of the genre comes from the title of a Venom album, and while the sound has changed over the last couple decades, the template is not all that different, buzzing guitars, galloping drums, satanic lyrics. And sure, the sound has indeed spiraled out in every possible direction, from dirgey depressive buzz, to lightning speed blast, few have taken the sound further OUT than Japan's enigmatic Sigh, who throughout their nearly two decade existence, have incorporated Morricone style motifs, psychedelic rock, lounge-y jazz, over the top cabaret and lots of saxophone into their already twisted blackness. So what to expect when Sigh decide to take on a set of songs by their black metal forefathers? Well, perhaps we might have expected something a LOT more demented than this, but hell, it's a bit refreshing to hear Sigh just sort of thrash and rock out without going totally haywire. With special guests Dan Lilker from Brutal Truth and Shane Embury of Napalm Death, Sigh have let their sexy saxophonist Dr. Mikannibal (who is really a doctor apparently) sit this one out (although she does sing a bit) so the band can spit out 7 kick ass blasts of old school pounding metal. Which is exactly what you get. These versions are not really all that far removed from the originals, heavy and intense and furious, but also wild and sloppy and a bit chaotic and loose, which when you think about it pretty much perfectly captures the peculiar essence of Venom. They picked a couple strange songs to cover too, the bluesy "Teacher's Pet" and the epic dramatic piano workout of "Mayhem With Mercy", but for the most part this is nothing but thrashing and buzzing old school black metal, heavy on the metal. Weird only in that it's not that weird at all for Sigh, so folks expecting something fucked up and demented might be a bit disappointed, but most metalheads will be in heavy metal heaven, er, hell. Released as an lp, packaged with a cd (not a cd-r) containing all the same songs!

Whoa! We were taken by surprise (in several ways) by the sudden appearance of a new album from Japanese black metal mavericks Sigh. We all loved the avant garde, psychedelic, stoner rock horror show of their 2001 disc Imaginary Sonicscape but we hadn't heard much about them since. Well, the press release for Gallows Gallery explains that this sixth Sigh opus was recorded last year but Century Media, previous label, refused to release it because it allegedly makes use of experimental, illegal "sonic weapon techniques" developed during World War II! Warning is given that this album could be hazardous to the listener's health -- in fact, supposedly one of the members of Sigh was hospitalized during the recording sessions due to the effects of this sonic weapon stuff. But... we're having a hard time believing all that! If you're expecting some sort of bowel-rupturing, flesh-decaying subsonic rumble you'll have to get a different cd (I'm sure we can find you something). Listening to this record is more likely to leave one puzzled rather than sickened. Having heard it, our guess is that the REAL reason that Century Media dropped Sigh is that, even by Sigh's previous standards, this is just so darn eccentric, confusing, and (to us) amusing. We're thinking that if this "sonic weapon" stuff exists, it operates in the realm of psychological warfare, 'cause it does seem possible that this music could drive a person insane. IT certainly is! Kind of like the way a catchy jingle might drive you crazy. They've definitely upped the pop element of their sound here. That's right, POP. But not normal pop that could ever be, uh, popular. No this is weird...weird....weird. And it's still metal of course. Just not black metal really, more like European "power metal" with speedy drums and hooky choruses. But their voices are kind of chipmunky, and there's weird effects, psychedelic organ jamming, throat singing, sitars and saxophones... Yup, their genre-fuckery is still in full effect. This might sound like Dag Nasty punk one second, Iron Maiden metal the next, with a schmaltzy lounge-jazz interlude following that! And the James Bond theme gets hinted at as well. Totally the sort of thing that should be on Trey Spruance's Mimicry label, though it's on Baphomet instead. Apparently whatever Japanese insane asylum wherein the guys in Sigh reside allows visitors, as this album features members of the Meads Of Asphodel (who are about the only band in the world that we'd say are all that similar to Sigh!), Necrophagia, The Red Chord, Yakuza, Dark Tranquility, Firewind, and Thine, helping out with the shredding guitar runs, dramatic narration, saxophone solos, and things like that. Someone else also contributes a trancey techno remix of one of the album's songs at the end of the disc, preceeded by the untitled electronic noises of track ten, which we suspect might be the "weaponized" one. So...be careful, especially since it's gonna require repeated exposure to ever figure this album out.

MPEG stream: Confession To Be Buried
MPEG stream: Midnight Sun

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

SORRY. Want weird? Watch out for this Japanese black metal band that tries to combine New Wave of British Heavy Metal guitar licks with Schoenbergian classical chamber music--it's like Venom sitting in with Bernard Herrmann to score a horror flick. One guy in the band is credited with, among other things of course, playing the triangle! See the quote at end of this month's AQ-L for more info!

It's a panic attack of over the top black metal theatrics from this notoriously 'round the bend band from Japan! The frantic tempo barely ever lets up as Sigh cram as much in the way of grandiose keyboards, blazing fretwork, thundering drums, and pompous choirs as they can into every nutty nook and crazy cranny of this album. The rapid, rasping delivery of the liberetto is dizzying too... we say "liberetto" because this album is divided into three acts, and has a definite operatic feel to it. Black metal opera. At 200 mph. It's like they've been listening to a lot of Devil Doll and Cradle Of Filth back to back, on crack. Starting off years and years ago as Japan's truest "Nordic" black metal act (with their first album set for release on Euronymous of Mayhem's record label, before his murder by Count Grishnack of Burzum), Sigh went on to establish a career of horror soundtrack-inspired genre-fuckery that had critics comparing 'em to John Zorn and the Boredoms as much as Burzum. After their brilliant mashup of stoner rock psych and black metal mayhem on 2001's Imaginary Sonicscape, this cult took things maybe a bit too far for some of their fans with the unexpected (even for them) chipmunk-voiced poppy power metal moves of that album's long-awaited follow-up in 2005, Gallows Gallery. WE were happily confused and amused, though. And now Sigh has sharpened their blades to shred even harder on this album, dispensing with the chipmunks and also with the occasional saxophone lounge jazz and techno detours that popped up on Gallows Gallery. Absurdly bombastic, mixing heavy metal heroics with Morricone melodies, the fierce, frenzied, fixated Hangman's Hymn is as ridiculous as anything they've done but also undeniably, insanely impressive and entertaining.

MPEG stream: Introitus / Kyrie
MPEG stream: Inked In Blood
MPEG stream: Me-Devil

Japan's best black metal band (along with Sabbat) are back with their first US domestic release, having just been signed by big metal label Century Media. We've always been fans of their fucked-up genre-mangling horror movie soundtrack metal, and this might

RealAudio clip: Ecstatic Transformation
RealAudio clip: Nietzschean Conspiracy
RealAudio clip: A Sunset Song

Japan's Sigh are back again with more of their batshit bonkers symphonic black metal as only they can do it. If you liked their previous dizzying disc Scenes From Hell, or most of the ones before that, then In Somniphobia is a no brainer. More of their over the top orchestrated million mile an hour eccentricity, that can stop on a dime to veer from prog-power metal bombast to classical soundtrack atmospherics to frenzied oompah action to, uh, "Baker Street" style sax soloing. With buzzing synths and sound FX, widdly guitars and filthy vokills, jagged industrial beats and loungey jazz interludes, there's a LOT crammed into each of these eleven tracks. Unusual (for metal) instruments used include sitar, jaw harp, shortwave, sarangi, accordion, glockenspiel, etc. etc. And one thing they don't neglect (along with the kitchen sink) is a large dose of MELODY. Some of it's kinda cheesy, to be sure, but in chaotic juxtaposition with everything else, that melodiousness comes off as crazed and creepy as well. And makes their avant-garde metal surprisingly listenable. Sigh fans already know more or less what to expect... for everyone else, it's kinda like Cradle Of Filth as if conducted by John Zorn, or Mike Patton! Guests include Metatron from likeminded loons Meads Of Asphodel and Kam Lee of Death/Massacre fame. And the cover art is again by Eliran Kantor, who has come up with an amazing painting here. By the way, we just figured out that Sigh's studio albums have a special naming convention to 'em, kinda like how Morbid Angel's are arranged alphabetically (Altars of Madness, Blessed Are The Sick, Covenant, Domination, etc.). The first letter of the title of each Sigh album is either an S, I, G, or H, and chronologically in order, they've spelled out S-I-G-H-S-I-G-H-S-I so far...

MPEG stream: The Transfiguration Fear
MPEG stream: Somniphobia
MPEG stream: Equale

Japan's strangest black metal band returns with another mind-boggling rock 'n roll horror flick soundtrack-styled disc that surpasses their previous efforts in the genre-bending department. As enamored of John Zorn as they are of Venom, this trio combine catchy metal licks with 20th century classical. At one point in their the song "Black Curse" the band lurches into a country western vamp that'll make you think you've wandered into a Jim O'Rourke record! Such curious shifts though are executed so smoothly though that this comes across much better than the sort of Satanic Mr. Bungle you might imagine. The "metal" pick of the month, next to Satyricon.

Ready to return to the bizarre black metal (and beyond) world of Japan's Sigh? You'd better be, since that's where we're going, straight to, well, HELL. Hell for those who would prefer to listen to something simple and straightforward, that is! Scenes From Hell, Sigh's eighth studio full-length, is again an idiosyncratic mix of metallic symphonics and cartoonish chaos, complex and careening. If you liked both their last couple of albums, Gallows Gallery and Hangman's Hymn, you should be happy with this ('cause it's sorta like a blend of the two). In other words, it's for folks who like their metal ornate and over-stimulating. There's A LOT going on here. Piano, horns, thrash guitars, piano, classical string quartet, rasping vox, vocoder, even the sex appeal saxophone of new co-vocalist Dr. Mikannibal (not a medical doctor, she has a PhD in physics apparently). Whew! Sigh's unusual brand of orchestral metal is compositionally eccentric and utterly grandiose to say the least, like an over the top mash up of Cradle Of Filth, Carl Stalling, Ennio Morricone, Finntroll, Devil Doll, Arcturus, Dragonforce, Uz Jsme Doma, Hammers Of Misfortune - or imagine a black metal Koenjihyakkei, if you can - it's THAT hyperactive, heavy and heretical. Not to mention, performed to perfection. The eight busy tracks here race through twists and turns, sounding both vicious and mournful, cinematic and circus-y, and very very Japanese. Even when they've got a horn section tooting away more like an oompah band than black metal, it's still freakin' hellish. So dizzying we're STILL trying to take it all in, but this review should suffice for now... Oh, but maybe we should mention the guest spoken word appearance by Current 93's David Tibet?! And there's also a vokill cameo by Kam Lee from '80s Florida death metal pioneers Mantas and Massacre. Huh, David Tibet and Kam Lee on the same album, wow.

MPEG stream: The Red Funeral
MPEG stream: Musica In Tempora Belli
MPEG stream: L'art De Mourir

Here's another tough one. An amazing black metal band. A gnarled convoluted blackened blowout equal parts Watain, Funeral Mist and Deathspell Omega, insane blasting drumming, super complex riffing buzz, tons of parts, all tangled and dizzyingly serpentine, laced with strange spoken word interludes, bits of choir, stretches of ambience, little bits of folk flutter, a seriously over the top chunk of black metal majesty, as epic and expansive as it is utterly grim and cult. BUT, these guys have some seriously fucked politics. Although they claim to not have any specific agenda, and claim to not be an National Socialist Black Metal band, that's a little hard to believe, the lyrics implying master race / white pride stuff, and other similarly distasteful subject matter. Lots of concern with the supposed purity of their "Nordic blood" and the shame of bowing down to those their "race" once conquered. Not hard to read between the lines here. But if you can manage to ignore what's between the lines, as we are sometimes forced to do, with some of the more problematic black metal hordes, one will be rewarded with some of the most abstract and musically forward thinking extreme blackness we've heard in ages. This isn't new or anything. We've had copies for ages, but we have never been able to get enough copies to list properly. And then the more we dug into the lyrics and the politics, we figured, we oughta just list the ones we have, so at least a handful of folks who are so inclined can hear this stuff. And the thing is, minus the above bullshit, this band is mind blowing. SO fast and furious, their black metal layered and lush, so much stuff going on all the time, headphones are a must, every blast is laced with all manner of background noise and texture, the brief interludes are rife with sonic weirdness, the riffs sound bent and fractured, a little Voivod, a little Greg Ginn. In addition to claiming they are not in fact an NS band, they also claim to not even be black metal, which in some ways they might not be, they are definitely pushing the boundaries of that specific BM sound, but it many fundamental ways, they are, which is not at all a bad thing. Still they most definitely incorporate enough musical eccentricity to be far from typical, enough that we, while despite despising their philosophies, dig their music, a lot. So, you've been warned. If you order this, we'll hopefully assume you're like us: into the music, not the bullshit beliefs. We only have 7 cds and 11 lps (the vinyl is super deluxe with amazing packaging) and since we haven't been able to get more in, what? Three years or so? We'll just assume that once these are gone they are gone for good.

MPEG stream: Opening Mass (Let Us Pray)
MPEG stream: Krigspsalm
MPEG stream: Manifest (Blood Religion Part II)

It seems like a lot of the black metal we've been digging lately has been of the 'tortured anguished vocals' variety. Sterbend from last list is probably the most obvious. But Marblebog too. Also Hekel elsewhere on this list. But go back a ways and you can find plenty of black hordes who not only buzz grimly, but howl and wail as if their souls were trying to escape from their bodies, Bethlehem, SF cult legends Weakling, and of course Silencer. This record isn't really new, and actually we have been trying to track down copies of this forever. Silencer are spoken of with hushed reverence, and for good reason. Death - Pierce Me is dark and damaged, grim and suicidal miserablist doom-drenched black metal of the highest order. Talk to any of the current crop of the black metal elite, Wrest from Leviathan, Malefic from Xasthur, and they will fawn unabashedly over Silencer. Thankfully, Autopsy Kitchen have stepped up and rescued this all time black classic from oblivion. And now you can finally experience one of the original black cults who expressed their blackened misery through impossibly anguished vocals. Hysterical shrieks, frenzied and overwrought howls of absolute terror. Never has a band captured grief and misery and loneliness so perfectly and in such an utterly frightening way. But it's not just the vocals, the music is completely intense and seething as well, with an unrestrained turbulence, dense and buzzing and so emotional and personal and overwhelming. Heart rending minor key melodies emeshed in black swirls of buzz, the riffing so intense and totally manic, exposing a tortured inner world wrought with drama and tension, a dark soul exposed, a damaged personal hell expressed through shriek and buzz. The anguished blasts of blackness are separated by dark doomy ambient passages, from simple mournful acoustic guitar to droney piano fugues to simple melodic doom metal minimalism, but when the riffs and the vocals kick in, a huge brutal blackness dropping on you from above, it's the sort of musical moment that gives you chills, makes your hair stand up on end, and in the right frame of mind makes you want to just break down. Which is precisely why Silencer and Death - Pierce Me are so revered, this record set the template for ALL depressive suicidal black metal to follow, and while some have come close, Xasthur and Nortt certainly, there is just something so special, and so utterly frightening about this record that keeps anyone from ever capturing the same black musical world of abject fear and unmitigated misery.

MPEG stream: Death - Pierce Me
MPEG stream: Sterile Nails And Thunderbowels
MPEG stream: Taklamakan

Second release from Silentist, a bizarre grindcore twentieth century classical hybrid. At least that's what they used to sound like. Originally described to us as a classical pianist playing with a relentlessly blast beating drummer, their sound ended up being more like a grind band with a pianist and no guitarist. Which was still pretty darn amazing. This time around it's a whole different beast. All the metal and the downtuned fury, the blast beats, the shrieked vocals, all gone. In their place is a strangely avant garde piano, vocals and drum cabaret. Wild and splattery, ultra dramatic and completely unlike anything we've ever heard. Wild atonal piano intertwined with pounding tribal drumming, accompanied by over the top super dramatic vocals. A brief flurry of manic and impossibly intricate piano drum interplay before the drums drop out and the piano becomes a multiphonic blur, a lush jazzscape of shimmering cymbals, repetitive piano figures and crooning keening vocals. A strange pop song with fuzzed out rhythms, affected vocals, shuffling jazz drums, sounding a bit like a jazzier Animal Collective... But it's the final track that kicks in with a bit of Silentist's old heaviness. But only a bit. A super distorted low end rhythmic buzz over haunting creepy piano melodies, and wailed mournful vocals, all drenched in reverb, laced loosely to a lurching loping tempo, a weirdly catchy minor key epic that builds and builds with manic drumming surfacing beneath the seasick tempo and turning an already harrowing sounding track more and more intense. Really really strange and completely amazing!

MPEG stream: Easy Tines
MPEG stream: Chariot Swing

We've pretty much totally fallen for these guys. Big time! Initially we were lead completely astray by a friend who described them as a classical pianist / grindcore drummer duo. We were expecting something like that weird Dave Lombardo record where he drums along to Vivaldi. What we got was much different but no less satisfying. A demented dark grind band with a pianist who added all sorts of unlikely tonal color, and weird melodic flourishes. On their second ep, they ditched the grind completely and replaced it with some sort of damaged cabaret, with super dramatic vocals, insane piano, and all sorts of swirling jazzisms. Well, here we are at ep #3 (what is it with the ep's guys?) and they've gone and done it again. It's almost like they're a different band each time. But there's always something that links all their disparate musical personalities no matter how tenuous. On House On The Hill, Silentist are some sort of doomy, gothy slowcore band. The opening track is a loping dirge, simple shuffling drums over a rumbling bass drone and drawled sung spoken vocals, with occasional bursts of anguished howls and extra-pounding drums, almost like a much more malevolent Codeine with some distinct Swans influence. The second track is equally as dark, but is a super dramatic sort-of-industrial version of the first song, music box melodies, weird distorted electric piano, grinding fuzz synths, pounding drums and moaned baritone vocals, that also occasionally shift into black metal screams. Imagine some neo-classical, black metal Birthday Party and you might be close. Very dark, and very creepy and strangely psychedelic. Heavy too, but not like metal heavy, more sort of dense and disturbing. This record is almost like the perfect mix of the first two, wild whiplash grind and super glammy cabaret, a blackened glam grind maybe? Some tracks are sweeping and epic, some are blasting and chaotic, but always the interplay between the drums and piano manage to hold it all together. Dreamy minor key melodicism jammed up against lightning fast blast beats, howled tortured vocals draped over sweetly melancholy ambience, dizzying and confusing, but so fucking great.

MPEG stream: Cut
MPEG stream: Evil Triad

Local noiseniks the Yellow Swans hipped us to this band, describing Silentist as a classical pianist, with a drummer playing blast beats behind the piano. Hell, we were sold without even hearing it! Their descption was not all that far off the mark, although we might have described them as a grindcore band with a pianist instead of a guitarist. Either way this is pretty weird stuff. Manic twentieth century free jazz piano, angular and melodic, occasionally picking out mournful minor key melodies, sometimes pounding out chords and riffs, all kept in check by an incredibly kick ass drummer who swings from ultra complex, polyrhythmic jazz freakouts, to blurry lightning fast blast beats. Occasional shrieked vocals and downtuned guitars add some more typical 'heaviness' to the proceedings, but to be honest its the interplay between the drums and the piano that has our head spinning. Imagine Matthew Shipp jamming with Dave Lombardo, backed up by Brutal Truth here and there! Woah! Free jazz grind? Um, how about grind jazz? Or twentieth century grind? I know, modern free grind! Whatever it is it's fucking amazing!

MPEG stream: Kimono Mask

Deadly, devilish Dutch death metal done darn well. These guys have been around for a while, and always produce some of the most brutal and um, sinister sounds in their genre. Albums like "Hate" and "Aggressive Measures" are definite DM classics. With

RealAudio clip: Season Of The Wicked

Death metal is a heavily populated genre, with legions of faceless practitioners spewing gore lyrics and blast beats. Still, amid the masses, we all have our personal favorites that for some reason strike a (bloody) chord. For Allan one of those bands is Holland's Sinister, a long running death unit who've just released "Savage Or Grace", their second album with vocalist Rachel on board. (She's just as brutal a "singer" as any guy, in case you were wondering.) The production is kinda raw, but I don't think that takes away from the undeniable ripping power of the band. Rather, I like its warm, grinding embrace. And Sinister's usual brand of speedy, chugging devastation decorated with dizzying guitar breaks and quirky compositional details is in full effect. Includes, while supplies last, a seven-song bonus disc with no information given (is it live?).

MPEG stream: Dominion

Album #2 from Allentown, PA's Sinister Realm, and if you're looking for the most metal thing on this week's list, this is it! Well, next to the other Shadow Kingdom release, their reissue of Manilla Road's The Deluge. But that's an underground '80s metal classic, while this one is brand spankin' new. And it smokes. Sinister Realm are very epic and '80s sounding indeed, in the grand tradition of such bands as Judas Priest (livin' waaaay after midnight), Mercyful Fate, Manowar, Maiden, Candlemass... The kind of rockin' heavy metal that Satan actually listens to, 'cause you know he's at least as old as your dad, right? Yeah, Satan would love this, with its headbanging riffs and commanding vocals... Especially on the slower, Sabbathier numbers like the title track, vocalist Alex Kristof really gets his Dio on. Dude's got a classic voice, and puts it to good use here, being Sinister Realm's main draw, though the prominent bass and the dual wailing/weedly guitars vie for supremacy as well. This is trudging and triumphant ("With swords held high we ride") all the way through to the ambitious album ender "The Tower Is Burning", nearly nine majestic minutes long, with eerie choirs and orchestration giving the definite impression that they love Satan right back. Wow. Horns up! Another top contender in the string of excellent trad metal albums to come out this year thus far: Argus, In Solitude, Portrait, Twisted Tower Dire...

MPEG stream: Winds Of Vengeance
MPEG stream: The Crystal Eye
MPEG stream: At The Hands Of The Tormentor

Shadow Kingdom Records are apparently on a quest to rule the cult heavy metal underground, snapping up a lot of cool bands lately in the true metal/trad doom genres. This list we have the debuts of two of 'em, Argus and Sinister Realm. Both happen to hail from Pennsylvania, which isn't that odd since the Pittsburgh-based Shadow Kingdom would of course wish to conquer nearby territories. Allentown's Sinister Realm, featuring a couple current and ex-members of stoner doom stalwarts Pale Divine, play a '80s influenced brand of "black candles & pentagrams n' shit" occult metal, on the midpaced, epick doomy side of things, with lots of headbanging, air-guitaring, invisible-orange-lofting potential. The bald domed, Anton-Lavey-in-leather lookin' vocalist really does the job right, his histrionic delivery the perfect match for the dark riffs and neo-classical shred offered up by the band's two guitarists. We get the idea that the bass player is the main songwriter, and he has a knack for stuff that sounds both sinister (yep) and anthemic. For fans of Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus, Mercyful Fate, as well as Satan (the devil, not the band, we mean) and also the Shadow Kingdom roster in general.

MPEG stream: (The Oracle) Into The Depths Of Hell
MPEG stream: The Demon Seed

The Kult Of Nihilow website has this to say about Sink's The Process: "This is not a sludge record. This is not a drone record. This is not an experimental record." Which is not actually true, since it's actually an awesome mix of all three. More accurately, it's not an average sludge record, or a typical drone record, and isn't like most experimental music, but that's precisely what makes it so appealing. Sink are from Finland and have shared a split with aQ faves, UK dronelords Marzuraan, and they traffic in a sound that is both crushingly slow, blindingly heavy, as well as mysteriously dark and droney, but just like anything, it's what you do with all that stuff that matters. Anyone can tune down and play an E chord for 10 minutes. But not anyone can make it sound like angels singing. On their split with Marzuraan, we described their sound as "a swirling, sludgy wall of hissing fuzzed out blackened ultra noise, harsh and horrific", but there's nothing like that here. The Process is much more musical, and more measured, for a band who is typically defined as a sludge band, they spend much of their time unfurling dark muted shimmery dronescapes, hushed whispery smears of barely audible thrum. And even when they are dropping some serious sludge, it's not really sludgey, the guitars are thick and corrosive, but glimmering and crystalline, rife with haunting chords, the vocals deep monk like chants. The opener here is the perfect example, it sounds like Tibetan monks fronting a doom band, only the doom is strangely melodic, and hauntingly cinematic. Halfway through the track fades into some dark chiming ambience, all muted and blurred, before the crushing doomic blows begin to rain down again, those vocals returning to underpin everything with their thick rumbling whir (sounding quite a bit like Tuvan throat singing). It's a pity the track is only 11 minutes long. We could have gone for twice that! At least. The second track is all soaring Sunroof! like streaks of sound and strummed acoustic guitars, sounding like a noisier doomier Kiss The Anus, but all washed out and smeared into bleary shoegazey drifts, reminding us of a way more abstract Nadja or Angelic Process actually. Strangely enough, almost the whole rest of the record is devoid of any hint of sludge or doom, instead exploring longform guitar drones, super minimal sinewave skree, gentle dreamlike ambience, rumbling cavernous dronemusic, until finally, the not at all appropriately titled final song "The Silence", which is anything but silent, four minutes of murky corrosive drift, but like the opener, rife with mysterious melody, disembodied vocals, glimmering chordal blur, all spread out into a thick sluggish doom-ic haze, that seems to blot out the sun, bathing everything in a burnished blood red glow. Beautifully packaged In an elaborate fold out sleeve, printed in full color with a little tab to hold it shut. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!

MPEG stream: Weakness (The Process)
MPEG stream: Ascension
MPEG stream: Receiving Silence

Get ready for some glorious seventies-worshipping heavy rock via the self-released debut cd from this oddly named Vancouver band. Not as overtly Sabbath-derived as fellow Canadian rockers Sheavy, but similarly excellent (and Sir Hedgehog's "Bitchlord" *does*

RealAudio clip: Magic Garden
RealAudio clip: Bitchlord
RealAudio clip: The Cleavage And The Clamp

In the annals of the "early heavy", the Sir Lord Baltimore (from Brooklyn) is up there with the likes of Dust, Bang, and yes Blue Cheer. Too bad their two albums have been pretty much out of print for ages, the last official cd reissue, a two-fer, was back in the early '90s. But, proto-metal fans rejoice, 'cause now both SLB records are back in action, individually, on vinyl! 1970's Kingdom Come and the self-titled 1971 sequel, both of 'em essential slabs of heavy hard rockin' from this seminal band in heavy metal history. The debut, with the spooky trippy "ghost ship" painting on the cover, alone justifies SLB's cult status. Very few bands in 1970 were this heavy (though, it must be said, Black Sabbath were on an other level entirely). Aside from the primly pretty, baroque ballad "Lake Isle Of Innersfree", this whole record is pretty much a frenzied fuzz blaster par excellance. And when we say fuzz, we mean FUZZ! Just check out the title track, a majestic six and half minutes mixing tripped out lyrics with savage bursts of ultra distorted guitar. There's definitely a sixties vibe to the proceedings; you can imagine bikers totally digging it. And it's as energetic as the proto-punk coming out of Detroit at the time, too. The follow-up album is a little fancier, more diverse, and dramatic, the band expanded from a trio to a quartet, with extra instrumentation (acoustic guitar, organ). There's a 10+ minute prog epic called "Man From Manhattan" (which still gets heavy!), but also ragin' rockers like "Woman Tamer". And you get to hear SLB kicking out the jams in concert on the live track "Where Are We Going". What's not to love about this band? They're a Sir, they're a Lord, they even have a singing drummer! So if you haven't yet been flattened by SLB's fuzz, time to add these to your collection, especially if said collection already includes the likes of High Tide, Tiger B. Smith, Highway Robbery, Leaf Hound, Toad, etc.

MPEG stream: Kingdom Come
MPEG stream: Master Heartache

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Another blast of sinister grimness from this local tape label (who in the past have brought us Sunchariot, Surt, Uruk Hai and more), this time in the form of this two way split, featuring two bands who are not so much black metal as blacknoize, two strains of mutant death industrial. Sirius are up first, unfurling a caustic crawl of power electronics thrum, and noise drenched rumble, all blurred and glitched out, shot through with fragmented melodies, and swirling textures, as well as buried churning rhythms, over which a strange voice, doused in effects and heavily processed, delivers some arcane incantations, the sound roiling and blackened, dense and intense, caustic and corrosive, but also muted and murky, making it more listenable than a full on noise record, with the sound constantly shifting, and often settling into tripped out psychedelic drifts and sprawls of primitive lo-fi electronics, all whirling grey noise and burbling gurgling glitches, dark cascades of woozy melody, tumbling into gnarled black tangles of sound, one sound in particular sounding like that horn they always blow at sporting events, but here slowed waay down, and heavily processed into a creepy atonal bleat. The sound continues to unfurl, and unravel, detuned pianos, over warbly loops, and bowed buzzing metals, darkly hypnotic, and seriously warped and woozy, with most of Sirius's side of the tape tending toward creepy ambience and atmospheric mumbled mesmer. Cosmic Breath begin with a serious of reverbed cosmic concussions, ringing out over a field of caustic crunch, before abruptly cutting out, and slipping into a haunting bit of atmospheric drift, all tinkling melodies, and moaning drones, of swirling synths, all woven into a gently undulating sprawl of glimmering psychedelia, and woozy droned out dirft. Minor key melodies seeming to melt over a dirge like churn, while the sky above is filled with high end streaks and shimmering sine wave like overtones, the sound transforming into stately synth marches, all wistful and melancholy, but paired with sick, raspy demonic vokills, that changes the cinematic synthiness into something much more menacing, the juxtaposition truly warped and bizarre, and it continues like that, creepy lo-fi Carpenter / Goblin style synthscapery, drifting and slithering and creeping beneath those monstrous shrieks, occasionally slipping into something much darker, wreathed in feedback, droning ominously, a super tripped out collection of grim black-synth cosmic ambience that definitely has us wanting to hear more!

John Wiese (Bastard Noise) and his pal Cory Ronnau deliver what is probably the world's first plunderphonic grindcore record. Although in this case all of the plundering is self inflicted and self directed as the two record their own two piece (guitar and

RealAudio clip: Track one

We had never heard of this Pagan Russian black metal, until we got a few copies from local label Brotherhood Of Light (Sunchariot, Domus Mactibilus, Llyr, Haar, Sirius, Cosmic Breath, Surt, Svetovid, Uruk Hai, Worldscape:18), and we were pretty blown away. The gorgeous opening intro is all sampled birdsong, folky guitar, and simple minimal percussion, lilting and melancholy, which is why when the record proper kicks in, it threw us for a loop, some seriously fierce, and blown out black buzz, the sound massive, and thick, and dense and heavy as fuck, and it's not just the sound that was a surprise, the arrangement, epic and complex, and then when weird shredding guitar surfaces, the song becomes a weird mathed out black prog, before exploding into furious buzzing blackness, the vocals are insane too, hysterical shrieking demonic howls, the perfect match for Sivyi Yar's dense black sonic tangles, and don't worry, it gets weirder. About halfway through, the song lurches to a halt, transformed into a chugging doom, laced with what sounds like xylophone, a sweet tinkling melody over this churning metallic crush, it's strange, but weirdly effective, eventually building back to a blasting black buzz, the shredding guitars return, and the sound becomes impossibly epic. And that's just the first song. The rest of the record is just as twisted and majestic and complex and heavy, the second track opening with a sprawl of droned out rumbles, and mysterious chanted female vox, before again, exploding into some of the fiercest blackness we've heard in a while, the song relentless and brutal, at least until the last few minutes, when it becomes a super melodic almost dreamy sounding dirge, the drums still wildly blasting, and the guitars still super distorted, but soaring and melodic and downright pretty. There's one more black buzz epic, before finishing off with two strange tracks, the first, beginning with the sound of rainfall and sinister synths, giving way to some seriously abject ultra blackened dooooooom, augmented by JAW HARP, it sounds weird and it is, but somehow, it's also extremely cool. The closer winds things up with another bit of mysterious ambience, all shimmering synths and more of those chanted vocals, booming distant percussion, all hazy and washed out, a gorgeously haunting finish to what might be our new favorite black metal record. WAY recommended!!!

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Bay area black metal masters Von were responsible for two of the most important USBM documents ever, the Satanic Blood and Blood Angel demos, considered by many to be the first US black metal record(s), and to this day, those records continue to inspire a legion of musical hordes, who strive to emulate that furious idiosyncratic raw that few can reproduce. What few people know, is that right after the release of those demos, the members of Von shifted their focus to another project, with a way different sound and vibe, called Sixx, which was anything but black metal, instead a dark, creepy, brooding, gothic deathrock, think Bauhaus, Christian Death, Specimen, all minor key spidery guitars, swirling dark ambience, pounding new wave drums, and of course, super dramatic crooned vocals. It seems almost prescient, considering that this sound is enjoying a pretty serious resurgence these days: past Record Of The Weekers Soror Dolorosa, Hateful Abandon, Factums, Dial M For Murder, Cold Cave, Crystal Stilts, etc. But this demo, recorded in 1991, was as mentioned above, recorded hot on the heels of two of the most grim and raw, blasting black metal records ever! And while it may not directly inform the actual sound, it does speak to what a strange and special record the Sixx demo was and is. Chiming guitars and krauty rhythms, lots of reverb and delay, a dark brooding ambience, we hear lots of classic goth and darkwave and new wave, Kommunity FK, Human Drama, Tones On Tail, and the more we listen to it, the more the link between Sixx and Von crystallizes, both bands trafficked in simple stripped down songs, most with only one or two parts, vocals repetitive and mantric, in fact, in some ways, Sixx almost sounds like Von with all the distortion removed, right down to those classic Von goaty grunts. That said, just 'cause you like Von, doesn't necessarily mean you'll like Sixx, but if you dig that sound, and any of the above mentioned bands, then Sixx's Sister Devil might just be your lost reissue / rediscovered gem of the year.

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Finally! The return of Eikenskaden, whose mastermind (and only member as far as we know) was also responsible for the baffling brilliance that was Mystic Forest. Long time readers of the aQ list will no doubt know how much we love Stefan Kozak, and both Mystic Forest and Eikenskaden, so much so that Andee even released Eikenskaden's amazing 665.999 on tUMULt. And we're happy to report, that besides being just as cool and weird as we remember, along with a strange name change, Eikenskaden is now known as The Skaden, the sound has gotten even MORE bizarre and all overt the map, which is definitely a very good thing. Right from the outset, the intro to the first track "Pain and sexual Overdose Delusion" (yes there's still a definite BDSM vibe, in the song titles, subject matter, even artwork) Kozak confounds by opening with what sounds like a black metal theme to a James Bond movie we'd kill to see, with it's frantic jangle clean guitar, moaning horns (sounds like horns at least), and super moody melody, but soon, the song kicks in full bore and we're in more familiar Eikenskaden style soaring epic melodic black metal territory. But things get WAY weirder pretty quickly, as the song shifts gears and transforms into a sort of string laden sea shanty, like some strange musical, dramatic and playful, but still growly and buzzy and sinister, a truly weird combo. The second track, is a brooding Katatonia like slab of dour doomic black metal, with lots of slow jangly guitars, spaced out stretches of dramatic post rock, complete with whispered female vox and soaring guitar melodies. And the record just continues to confound, the strange loping almost jig-like fiddle on "A Peaceful Moment", along with the haunting slow build Godspeed like string quartet gone black metal second half of the same song, the wild progged out frenzy of "Grand Final" with frantic speed picked distorted riffing, jangly clean guitar, and tangled flutes laid over growled black metal vox, like some sort of Burzum / Tull mashup, that eventually morphs into some super hypnotic blackened noise rock, the flute along for the whole ride, and finally, the final track, the title and lyrics all in Japanese, which at the outset appears to be the most truly black metal track on the record, but as you might expect, the track seesaws from black buzz, to lurching dramatic cabaret, to haunting shimmery string laden skitter, all the while a female recites the lyrics in Japanese way down in the mix, and those horns return, cloaking the track in a serious noir vibe, before it lurches back into some blasting blackness. Some serious what-the-fuck for sure, but we love it. Did we mention EVERY song begins with the sound of wind blowing? So good. If you already dig Eikenskaden and Mystic Forest, this is obviously essential, otherwise, if you're looking for something black metal, but still super melodic and WAY WAY twisted, you probably couldn't hope for anything better, or weirder than this!

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[ aquarius records — Metal ]