Anarchic is the long in the works second full length from Cascadian black metal duo Skagos, and unlike their debut Ast (which for some reason never got reviewed here) it's less about blown out black buzz onslaught and more about, well, it's hard to say. Metalheads will definitely be a bit confused by the opening few movements of the 35 minute, 4 part opener. The record begins with dense swirling swells of feedback, preparing the listener, one might presume, for a barrage of blasting drums and insectoid riffing. A gorgeous haze of feedback and spare drifting acoustic guitars, but instead of launching into it, what sounds like pulsing synths surface, and then the vocals, a lush, reverbed croon, and suddenly, we're in shoegaze dream pop territory, and not HEAVY shoegaze either, drifty, and wispy, and hushed, the vocals almost a whisper, the instrumentation barebones, and the harmonies, WOW, who would have thought these guys had it in 'em? At this point we were sort of hoping there would be NO metal, cuz what a total mindfuck, some Cascadian black metal that actually sounds like Low or Stars Of The Lid, it's really quite lovely, and we would have been perfectly happy had the whole first track unfurled similarly. But fear not, the song soon explodes into wild chaotic drumming, soaring swirling black buzz, the vibe appropriately epic and majestic, and the heaviness retaining much of the melodic wistfulness of the unlikely opening. Like many like minded bands, Skagos' sound is obviously informed by so much more than black metal. Post rock, math rock, indie rock, it all finds its way into the sound, sometimes subtly, sometimes not so much. And when those harmonies resurface during the blasting buzz, it's a gorgeous combination, we almost wish the harsh vokills weren't there to obscure what is essentially a swoonsome shoegaze black buzz that's crazy melodic and catchy, but even with the rasping howls, it's still pretty stunning stuff. Alcest and Amesoeurs are definitely apt comparisons, although Skagos are WAY heavier and noisier. And so it goes, the first 'track' moves through its movements, melding hazy dreamy driftiness to blurred furious riffing, devolving at one point into some super hooky post rocky riffing, before exploding into probably the most chaotically black passage on the record. There's so much going on here, the sound shifting constantly, the composition epic and seriously proggy, the music itself, tending to always drift back toward the more melodic, as if instead of this being a black metal record with weird shoegazey bits and pretty melodies, it's exactly the opposite, some twisted heavy dreampop shoegaze record with black metal bits. In fact in the whole last ten minutes of the first track there's no metal to be found at all. Loping drumming over acoustic guitars, swirling psychedelic drifts, backwards melodies and distant rumbling drones beneath crystalline melodies, and then when the vocals come back in, holy shit, it sounds like Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat or Woven Hand or something, the vocals passionate and emotional, super dramatic, all over what sounds like accordions, everything underpinned by a hushed black ambient drift, a weird tangle of apocalyptic folk and psychedelic ambience that is pretty goddamn great. And more to have many metalheads scratching their chins.
The second track, and the three remaining movements, follow a similarly unlikely sonic path, starting out with a bit of hushed ambient shimmer, which is soon joined by muted pulsing drums, shot through with softly squiggly psychedelic theremin like melodies, it's a slow build to, yep, you guessed it, more sort of drifty, dreamy post rock jangle pop, a little bit slowcore, chiming melodies over a skeletal rhythm, the vocals a soft chantlike croon, again the vibe sort of darkly folk, and druggily dreamy, and then finally, at about the ten minute mark, the song dramatically splinters into a seriously dense blackened onslaught, a swirling chaotic frenzy, utterly at odds with what came before, but then sort of not, again the band deftly weaving the melody of the non metal part into the grim black buzz, at which point the band spends the most time they have yet on Anarchic in full on metal mode, but soon, they slow down to a slithery black doom crawl, buried double kick stutter under woozy riffic churn, and belched black rasps, before the metal peels away, leaving softly swirling steel string shimmer, shuffling jazzy rhythms, sing songy and melodic, the drums played with brushes, the group locked into a mesmerizing psych pop drift, that does get heavy, but barring the return of the rasp, is more like some sort of Godspeed / Explosions In The Sky sort of epic melodic coda, the soaring clean vox return, and it's pretty dramatic and intense, and not all that black metal sounding, the whole thing gradually settling into a slow shifting, hazy, washed out soporific slowcore dreamgaze fade out.
Such a fantastic surprise, and as you may have surmised by now, not so much for the true grim hordes, as folks into epic experimental, VERY melodic heaviness. Definite contender for year end top ten lists. Ours most certainly!
The return of our favorite anarcho vegan pagan black metal band, Kentucky's Panopticon, here teamed up with Canadian duo Skagos, who we'd never actually heard before, but had heard OF, and were dying to check out.
But first, three new tracks from Panopticon, a one man band from the South, whose crusty weirdo math abstruse black metal we went nuts for, a buzzing blasting pounding onslaught of Pagan fury, rife with samples and all manner of strange sonic filigree. The tracks here begin with a strange sampled folk song, simple percussion, lots of cheers and group vocals, very Teutonic, until the track explodes in a gnarled frenzy of furious blasting blackness, dense and brutal and weirdly melodic, an epic jam shifting from mathy churning stutter to frantic lightspeed buzz to loping post rock meander, and finally to shimmery shoegazey ambience. The second track begins a gauzy rhythmic dronescape, washed out and hypnotic, the drums sound programmed, stuttery and shuffly, while melodies unfurl and blur, the whole thing hazy and dreamlike, until the guitars come in, the track instantly transformed into some churning Neurosis like heaviness, breaking down at one point, to just super fuzzed out bass, drums, and weirdly tortured and effected vokills, before finishing off in a blaze of total blackened sonic chaos, which somehow manages to still sound melodic and melancholy.
And holy shit, the last track is a monster, right out of the gate, an impossibly insanely complex squall of looped buzzing riffage and frenzied drumming, so heavy and dense and intense, over the course of the track, shifting to hushed soft focus drone laced with tinkling chiming melodies, to spacious post rock drift, wreathed in echo-ey shoegaze guitars and maniacal shrieked vocals and anchored by still more incredible drumming, grinding to a halt, leaving a just a strange sample of deep chanted singing, and a mysterious German conversation, angelic choirs, and the sounds of birds and streams in the background.
As if that weren't enough, we've got two lengthy epics from Skagos, both seeming to fit in with the whole Cascadian black metal sound (Wolves In The Throneroom, Fauna, etc), the sound as post rocky as it is black metal, very melodic, and melancholy, blasting beats and harsh vokills laid atop swoonsome melodies, and some super surprising clean vocal pop parts, very distinctive, not typically black metal 'clean vocals' either, almost like Modest Mouse or Built To Spill, an indie pop croon over woozy minor key riffs and simple rhythms, eventually erupting back into some seriously fierce heaviness, but never losing that element of emotion and melody, the track getting mathy occasionally, with cool start / stop rhythms, twisted arrangements, and plenty of blissed out ambient haze, so much going on over the course of the 12+ minutes.
The second track is even longer, and just as varied, beginning with crystalline clean guitars, underpinned by haunting atonal strings, before erupting into some seriously filthy raw blasting black metal, that eventually dials it back, and reveals a strangely pretty melodic element lurking just below the surface, the vibe is a little Neurosisy too, heavy and epic and a little bit crusty, slipping into a cool churning chugscape, before a burst of loping doomic crunch, and then more delicate ambient prettiness, just gorgeous guitar suspended in a dreamlike haze, where the clean vocals return, this time sounding like Jeff Buckley, super emotional and intense so at odds with the rest of the track, which is why it's so cool. Makes us almost wish they would have that singing all the way through, instead of the harsh vox, how cool would that be?
Eventually, the track winds down with a final burst of pounding downtuned blackened howl, but it's those mysterious clean vocals, and the strange melodic elements that run throughout both tracks that definitely make Skagos something special.
Comes packaged in a super swank digipak, full color, printed with reflective UV ink...
Agents Of Power (subtitled: "including Elric: The Dragon Prince (A Tale Of Tragic Destiny In 12 Parts") is the third album from these ultra-epic, triumphant true metal warriors, who often write lines like "I have slain man and elf before" - but don't take themselves TOO seriously however, since their band is named, after all, for the villain from the He-Man cartoons (or are they?). Skelator are an American act, from up in Seattle, but have a definite European power metal feel a la Hammerfall (and remind us also of aQ faves Sacred Steel). However, their biggest influence is probably Judas Priest, with Skelator's vocalist, excuse us, "Larynx of Doom", Jason Conde-Houston, definitely possessing some screaming-to-the-stratosphere, Rob Halford style pipes! Furthermore, what's cool is that the Priest influence extends not just to their "castle metal" epics - they've also made Priest's motorcycle ridin' rocka-rolla part of their sound too. So while the whole entire second half of this album (and then some) is an elaborate, theatrical multi-part song suite dedicated to Michael Moorcock's swords & sorcery anti-hero Elric (which by itself would be rad and impressive), the first batch of tracks here are lustful, stand-alone denim & leather rockers, with the reckless "Rhythm Of The Chain" (first lines: "I'm walkin' down the street / rocking to the power of the thunder beat") being a ridiculous standout and live fave. We know that 'cause we saw 'em a month or two ago here in San Francisco at, of all places, hipster haven The Hemlock Tavern. They were on a bill with SF's Slough Feg - turns out those bands are buds, and it was particularly cool when Skelator's singer got on stage during Slough Feg's set to duet on a cover of "Green Manalishi"! Of course. After that, we were like, gotta review some Skelator! It's the first album of theirs that we've listed, though the true metalheads here at aQ have been throwing the horns to 'em for a while now. This new album could be their best yet.
For fans of, well, METAL, but, specifically, Judas Priest, not to mention fellow Pacific Northwesterners 3 Inches Of Blood, too.
Seattle's truest underground power metal warriors have returned with another headbanging batch of toons about swords, witches, demons and METAL. Indeed, this disc is, as they accurately put it, a collection of "catchy metal anthems to pump your fist bang your head and scream into the night." As fans of the band's prior opuses (opi?), we expect no less! Not very groundbreaking, but very metal and very fun - especially (or only) if you like paint peeling, air raid siren vocal histrionics in the tradition of Halford and Dickinson (and Gerrit Mutz of Sacred Steel!). Skelator possess an abundance of both vocal and instrumental firepower, along with a certain panache to how they deliver the goods. A band like this you judge by how effectively their ripping riffery, soaring vocals, and true metal 'tude make you raise your hands in the instinctive 'invisible oranges' gesture, and these guys are off the hook in that department. Invisible oranges lofted, stat. Epic, majestic, and also rockin', our only disappointment here being that they didn't include their cover of Hawkwind's "Master Of The Universe" on this cd (Skelator gone space rock, with saxophone!), but you can find a free download of that on their Bandcamp page. And if you think it's weird a band like Skelator would cover Hawkwind, well, we know they are big Elric/Moorcock fans, so that's a Hawkwind connection, plus, that song could be construed as a He-Man reference, just like Skelator. Clever.
Remember this deathly, doomic band and their debut Tomb Coven from 2009, which we recommended to fans of Acid Witch? Well, the fleshless ones are back, and now even witchier. That's 'cause somewhere along the way, they revamped their lineup. Original guitarist Sacrifice The Virgin is gone, leaving bassist Behold The Pentagram and drummer Haunting The Beyond to recruit into the band, in the incestuous fashion of many Razorback acts, none other than Vanessa Nocera, whom you know as frontwoman for Wooden Stake. With S.T.V. out, now B.T.P. plays both guitar and bass, while H.T.B. is still on drums, and Nocera (why didn't they make her adopt a Something The Something stage name, we wonder?) handles all the vocals, previously B.T.P.'s department. When she does the low guttural grunting death metal Cookie Monster / Boris The Spider thing (which she does, and does convincingly), you might not notice the difference. But, sometimes she also "sings" more properly, cleanly yet creepily, which witch-ily adds to the occult atmosphere they intend to evoke, Nocera sounding like some evil high priestess, surrounded by chanting monks. You do definitely get more of her deliberately wretched vokills here, than her cleaner, "Jex Thoth" style, though.
Vanessa's vocal versatility is melded to what the band already did quite well, catchy old school death metal with some sludgier spooky slow parts. The same Swedish DM buzzsaw guitar grind as before is in full effect, with a rakish hint of rock n' roll in their chunky riffage and squeaky leads. Lyrically, of course, it's all campy splatter cinema and EC Comics shenanigans. Ferinstance, "Sekhmet Prowls The Azure Night" is written from the POV of an undead Egyptian mummy (hence the vaguely Middle Eastern sounding guitar break at 2:21), "Raw Head & Bloody Bones" is about the supernatural revenge of a razorback hog (!), killed by hunters, while "Master Of The Muck" is not about a monster, but actually about cult comic book illustrator Bernie Wrightson, a tribute to him.
So this new Skeletal Spectre is for anyone with an appreciation of that "fun" horror aesthetic, and who digs death metal; specifically for fans of the doomier stuff, specifically Wooden Stake (of course), Acid Witch, Hooded Menace, Decrepitaph, plus early Dismember and Entombed, etc.
Last year we raved (cackled?) about an album by the band Acid Witch, spooky-ooky doom released on the reliably gory death metal label Razorback. Since then, Razorback has put out several other fine releases of old school death metal, including one, Claws, featuring a former member of Acid Witch. Of course, we can't review everything, not even everything that we like. So haven't gotten to all those yet. But THIS new Razorback release we had to bring to your attention, 'cause it's a bit more in the freaky, psychedelically doomy style of Acid Witch. Furthermore, the band's from Sweden, and are quite capable practitioners of their country's traditional music: death metal! (The sort of stuff documented on that recent triple cd compilation "Swedish Death Metal" reviewed here not long ago.)
Skeletal Spectre mix classic Swedish DM buzzsaw guitar tones with rocked out riffage and weird, whining, grinding atmosphere, even some droning organ. Haunting melodies are intertwined with the background buzzings as, churning and chugging, they trudge at near-doom speeds on such creepy-crawl numbers as "Burial Ground" and "Eerie Bones", never taking it too slow though, and certainly speeding up to bash out the likes of "Wrath Of Corrupta" and "Amulet Of Impurity".
The vokills by bassist Behold The Pentagram (!) are wonderfully wretched, owing something not only to the Cookie Monster but also to the death grunts of Tom G. Warrior. Guitarist Sacrifice The Virgin (!!) and drummer Haunting The Beyond (!!!) are obviously familiar with the works of Hellhammer/Celtic Frost as well! Also, Entombed, Dismember, Autopsy, Coffins, Cathedral, Acid Witch... all could also be good RIYL's in regards to the retro DM/doom, ghoulish good times on offer here.
Okay, basically, if the band name "Skeletonwitch" sounds cool to you (like, maybe you'd be willing to wear a T-shirt that says Skeletonwitch, or draw the Skeletonwitch logo on your school materials), and you like both modern black/death metal extremity and the more melodic, galloping sound of '80s speed/thrash metal a la Destruction, then chances are you'll dig this debut from Ohio's...Skeletonwitch! That is, they do indeed live up to everything that name implies (for the record, we think it's cool -- trying saying it out loud, in a sibilant stage-whisper), and play a hybridized blend of death metal/thrash, with raspy vox screeching and grunting over top of blazing '80s influenced speed metal heaviness, guitar solos and all. Dark, deceased, dissected and demonic. Dude! Skeletonwitch! Ready for your tattoo?
We've raved before about this cool metal band from Ohio, after they blitzed us with the sweet strains of their previous album At One With The Shadows (2004) and more recent self-released ep, Worship The Witch (2006). The strength of those releases, as well as the excessive, impressive showmanship with which they deliver their '80s influenced blackened speed metal of death in the live arena, has heightened their profile in the realm of underground US metal -- hence their deal for this new album. They've been touring hard, and getting great word of mouth, which we're happy to amplify. Perhaps the hype will even allow them to cross over to the indie audience that likes bands like The Fucking Champs and Early Man, we imagine that could easily happen -- though this ain't no ironic hipster metal, we know these guys are bona fide metalheads from the Midwest.
They just came through town recently on tour, opening for Nachtmystium, who had to cancel their SF appearance at the last minute -- but we don't think anyone in the crowd that night went home disappointed after Skeletonwitch, thrust into the headlining spot, got up there and wrecked everybody's neck, slaying in style with energy and aplomb. Killer show, killer band -- and this is a killer album.
Not only can they play, AND have good songs, but they have all the details down too, little details that are TIGHT. Like, for instance, when they play live, the two guitarists are on either side of the stage, both shredding on matching Flying V's. Good enough, but what makes it really tight is that one of the guitarists is left handed, and stands stage left, so both guitarists' Flying V's are pointed in opposite directions, flanking the scary singer and roving bassist, which just looks cool. You might think, on album, so what if the guitarists have such visual symmetry? Well damn if we don't think that we can HEAR it. Or at least hear that they're the sort of band that might cultivate that sort of old school, larger than life presentation.
This album certainly showcases their strengths: The aforementioned dual guitar shred (shades of Maiden and At The Gates). Blazing technicality in the service of solid, memorable, melodic thrash metal songs. And dynamic, demonic vocals (grunts, snarls, screeches) from a frontman who is also awesomely expressive nonverbally on stage (constantly pulling exaggerated faces and making almost sign-language hand-motions to illustrate his lyrics).
FYI, for fans who already have the Worship The Witch ep (or are thinking about getting it): 3 of that disc's 4 tracks are repeated here, albeit in rerecorded form. They also redo four songs from their now-out-of-print debut, which is fine 'cause the production here is much much better than on that first full-length.
Better start doing some special stretches to limber up that neck. Your neck's gotta be in shape 'cause the headbanging is about to commence, and it'll be fierce. Skeletonwitch is back, Breathing The Fire. The vocalist sure sounds like he's been doing just that, with his commanding raspy shrieks and guttural growls, in a hybrid black metal/death metal style. Meanwhile the band's music, as always, veers from those extremes (reminding of Dissection) to their old school '80s thrash and speed metal inspirations (there's definitely some Megadeth going on here). If you know Skeletonwitch (and it seems like most AQ metal customers do, and dig 'em big time just like us), you know what to expect: a whirlwind barrage of riffs, solos, battery. Twin guitars sending swarms of notes speeding on demon winds, that sort of thing. All in the service of Satan or whatever unholy horned beastie you prefer (like the fella on the cover, Skeletonwitch's own Eddie or Vic Rattlehead style mascot, who is called, uh, we don't know, Mr. Skeletonwitch? Skeletonwitchdude?). Though you might not understand what the singer is "singing" without reference to the lyric sheet, the song titles give a good idea: "Submit To The Suffering", "Released From The Catacombs", "Crushed Beyond Dust", "Blinding Black Rage", "Strangled By Unseen Hands"... not happy stuff. Yet any metalhead worth his denim will be grinning as this spins, quaffing a few cans of beer in celebration. While this disc hits the ground running for sure, we'd say it gets better as it goes, and boy does it go, each track blazing by a 2-3 minute conflagration of sheer metal madness.
What should we expect from headbanging Ohio heshers Skeletonwitch here, on full length number four? More of their raging blackened thrash extremity, no doubt, and that's indeed what they deliver, after a brief acoustic intro! Eleven aggro tracks packed with rasping vokills, skilled melodic soloing, and blasting battery.
We've been fans of this band since back when they were about as underground as you could get, now they're on the cover of the big glossy metal magazines, touring with the likes of Arch Enemy and Danzig, but still stick to their original MO of mixing old school '80s thrash with more modern black and death metal stylings... and doing it with poseur-killing panache. Their brand of speedy shred is tight and ripping, leavened with moments of classy melodiousness.
While the entire album seems intended to be consumed (or consume you) in one sitting, track after track flashing/thrashing by, each one of 'em wrecking necks before passing the spiked baton to the next song, several stand out in particular, such as the remarkably poppy "The Infernal Resurrection".
And at just over 32 minutes in length, Forever Abomination doesn't overstay its welcome, instead leaving us wanting more, which of course leads to pulling out their previous albums, as well as discs by such bands as Destruction, Dissection, Aura Noir, Coroner, Audiopain, Defleshed...
The cd comes in a digipack, with embossed cover art, the double lp version is housed in a nice thick tri-fold sleeve and is on colored wax to boot.
Graced with some pretty amazing fake Pushead cover art (by John Baizley of Baroness), this four-song ep is a strong contender for being the most intensely tight and brutal Bay Area thrash meets NWOBHM meets blackened death styled 12 minutes of heavy metal you're gonna hear this year! Imagine a hybrid of Coroner, Slough Feg, and Dissection, with ultra-raspy death metal screaming n' grunting vokills. That's Ohio's Skeletonwitch, who do in fact get a big endorsement from our pals in Slough Feg, who played with them a couple times this summer. And the truth is, cool as this ep is, seeing them live will *really* make you a believer. The razor-sharp riffs, shredding leads and sick harmonies are all the more impressive when being pulled off perfectly in person, these heshers thrashing like mad on stage in a strobe-lit fog cloud. And it's great beer drinkin' music too, that's for sure. But for home use this ep is a worthy addition to their so-far scant discog (they have one full-length album previous to this that we gave the thumbs/horns up from us last year). Racing and bracing, Worship The Witch is a perfectly titled and all-too short assault from a truly badass band (and nice bunch of guys).
A new, one-song ep from Finland's masters of depressive forest doom metal. Of course, it's over 27 minutes long--over the course of which, they somehow (slowly) 'rock out' moreso than on anything we've heard from them thus far--but that is in no way to say that their crushing and suffocating funereal doom is not the most devestating and intense we've perhaps ever heard. It is. They still possess a stately, almost religious quality (and enough ambience to maintain their AQ-declared status as the Labradford of black metal).
It's so difficult for a doom band to carve out a totally unique sound. Slow, check. Downtuned, check. Plodding tempos, check. Growled vox, check. Nothing to do but get slower and lower, but you can only get so slow or so low, before the music stops being actual sound and instead turns into some sort of physical thing, like a big molten lump of mysterious blackness. Plus, odds are, in a name-that-tune style test, most of us would be hard pressed to tell one ultra doom band from another funereal doom band, or one doomdirgedrone outfit from another slow motion sludge combo. But then there's Skepticism, who even after 17 years, and some dramatic sonic shifts, still sound like no one else. Their warm washed out blend of chugging ultra low guitar and warm church organ-like keyboards, their haunting atmosphere and otherworldy production, sound like NOBODY else.
Way back in the beginning, the way we described Skepticism was like this: imagine a doom metal band jamming out in a church basement, while upstairs the organist practices, playing some haunting liturgical hymns, now imagine a recording made right outside the church's stone walls, so the metal is muted and murky, the pipe organ warm and thick and muffled, so weirdly heavy, but dreary and dreamy. We also at one point described Skepticism as black metal meets Labradford. Both are pretty accurate we think.
It's interesting that such a heavy, low end band would NOT have a bass player, but like all the other records, Skepticism employ just guitar, drums, and keyboards, but once you hear it, a bass would just muddy it up, the sound is already perfect, a dark shimmering heaviness as ethereal as it is crushing. The band's recordings gradually grew less lo-fi, thickening and becoming heavier and heavier, but without losing their distinctive sound. It's been 5 years since the last Skepticism record, Farmakon, and in that time, the band have once again subtly altered their sound, incorporating a bit more classic doom, a bit more propulsion as well, a little more 'chug', varying the sound more than ever, but around these new elements is still wrapped that thick, warm black Skepticism sonic monk cloak.
The strangest song is probably "March October", with its clean guitar, it's lurching chug, and it's almost drinking song like vocals, howled by a singer who we can't help but imagine is covered in sabre tooth tiger pelts, sporting a black beard to his waist, a massive mountain of a man, leading us on a brave march into certain death. The whole record is epic and majestic, funereal and crushing, morose, atmospheric and dismally, depressively beautiful. Anyone at all into bands like Esoteric, Thergothon, Shape Of Despair, Corrupted, Evoken, Boris, Khanate, Eyehategod, Cavity, Electric Wizard, Moss, Bunkur, SUNNO))), Thou, Trees, Otesanek, Fleshpress, Monarch, Nihill, Monument Of Urns, Atavist, Noothgrush, Catacombs, Winter, should either already love Skepticism, or should buy this, and then buy every single thing they've ever recorded, because as much as we love all of those bands, we just might love Skepticism the most...
BACK IN PRINT, and re-listed for those whose funereal doom collections are lacking this crucial entry. Twenty-seven minutes of pure depression from the cold dark woods of Finland.Ô
Skepticism are the masters of ultra doom. Their sound we once described as sitting in a stone church, surrounded by the warm sounds of an old pipe organ, while a doom metal band practices in the basement, their funereal crawl barely audible through the floor, the two sounds mixed into a slow slthery doomish creep. Here on theÔsequel to Skepticism's brilliant, black-metal-meets-Labradford "Stormcrowfleet" album, these doomic depressives up the production values without losing that distinctive sound. The 12 minute first track starts off with nothing but big booming drums, or actually drum singular, pounding out a simple funereal beat, something like 16 bpm, with chiming church bells and a thick organ drone threatening to drown the listener in a thick black pitch of misery and horror, with the occasional burst of downtuned guitar, only to have it quickly subside and slip back beneath the black drones. This is exactly what you would expect to hear in the underworld, a death march stretchingÔ off into infinity, fire pits on every side, demons wielding big drums stretched tight with human skin. So creepy and hauntingly beautiful. There's even some piano, adding an emotional depth not found in most ultra doom. Like a way heavier Low or a doom metal Codeine. The second track is more guitar heavy, with chords unfurled and allowed to slowly dissipate before the next one drops, there are vocals here too, monstrous chest rattling growls, that almost sound like another guitar, swirling keyboards, faux strings, very dramatic and cinematic. The final track, "Chorale" is epic and infused with a sort of pomp. Huge pipe organs unleash thick vibrant chords that whir and drone, the melodies are sort of festive, or at least as festive as doom can get, it's almost like one would expect to hear in the court of some king of the underworld, sitting at huge tables, watching a procession of doomed souls trudge wearily by. So totally intense. It's been a while since we revisited Skepticism, but we're reminded why there's not a doom band alive (or dead) who can touch the doomic might and glory of Skepticism!
At this point, we know we can count on a large sub-set of Aquarius customers to be as into droney doom metal as we are. Bands like Corrupted, Boris, Khanate, Eyehategod, Cavity, Esoteric, Electric Wizard, etc. always elicit an enthusiastic response when we list 'em. Foremost amongst the doom hordes we must acknowledge Finland's Skepticism. They've been favorites ever since their "Stormcrowfleet" debut back in 1995. Sheer majestic downer atmospherics, religious music for a suicide cult. Appropriately, their distorted guitars, gruff vocals and echoing drums are accompanied by massive amounts of church-organ synth.
According to their own inscrutable tradition, Skepticism always precede each new album with an ep, so we knew that it wouldn't be too long after the "Process of Farmakon" ep (reviewed back on list #142, last year) that we could expect a full-length. Well, it did actually take a while, but at last here it is. Wreathed in smoke and darkness, "Farmakon" features different versions of the two tracks first heard on that ep, and four previously unheard epics. Plodding and miasmic as ever, this album is perhaps less soothing than some past recordings, more harsh and jagged. There's a weird urgency to some of the songs, and plenty of the "what the fuck?" moments we've come to expect from 'em, such as the synthesized "horns" and pretty, post-rockish elements encountered in the unnamed, 13-minute track 4. Lyrically, the band seem to have left the forest for an equally dark sea, judging by their cryptic texts referencing shores, waves, and water. And just what is "Farmakon" or the "Farmakon Process"?? You could try going to the band's website at www.farmakon.com for information on Skepticism and their esoteric ideas, though unfortunately their "Dictionary" page seems to be broken at the moment...
Here's one of those crucial, seminal recordings that somehow (probably 'cause we were much less thorough about these things at the time of its release) never made it into our on-line catalog. Yet we often make reference to it, and have recommended other, subsequent albums by the band, including the recently-released "The Process Of Farmakon" cdep reviewed on list #142.
Happily, Red Stream has just reissued this album, the debut from Finnish doom-lords Skepticism, after some time out of print, and we now have a chance to list it for the first time! Originally issued in 1995, this 2002 version has been (slightly) redesigned graphics-wise but contains the same immense sonic slabs of funereal doom-trudge metal that so awed us seven years back. We hail this album as the ultimate "black-metal-meets-Labradford" listening experience. Totally morose, depressive, atmospheric ambience in heavy dirge death metal mode, with melodies to crush your soul. Medieval organ-like keyboards give this a grim, churchly air, and of course it sounds like it was recorded with the microphones quite distant from the instruments/amps, possibly in a nearby forest.
If like other Skepticism albums and/or are a fan of the likes of Esoteric, Thergothon, Shape Of Despair, Corrupted, Evoken, Burzum's "Filosofem", and other sad and gloomy things, you MUST OWN THIS. 'Nuff said.
It's always a happy day here at Aquarius when we get new music from Finland's Skepticism. I mean, a depressing day. Soooooooo wonderfully depressing. Skepticism are our favorite funereal forest doom metal band, we've described them before as the Labradford of black metal. Almost ambient, droning, downer stuff, plodding along through a nighttime fog. Imagine the music of a suicidal church organist, teamed up with some longhaired Scandinavian death metal teens. Beautiful.
As with all their releases, more of the same yet with enough difference to be a significant, essential addition to their ouevre. This time, the 'what the fuck?' aspect is highlighted by the bizarre bubbling noises that join the gruff vocals and downtuned guitars on the title track, which sounds as if it was recorded on a ship slowing sinking on the River Styx. As is their wont, this two-song ep (18+ minutes) precedes a full-length due out sometime later this year, supposedly.
Local folks may have seen these guys tearing up stages around town. Although maybe tearing up isn't precisely what these guys do. They're much more of a brooding behemoth. But they're much more than that. Almost confusingly so (but in a good way!) Anyway, Skin Horse are a trio who traffic in long stretches of plodding doom, mathy jangle, and epic post rock, laced with haunting atmospherics and deep black ambience.
This 3 song cd-r is their debut, and each of the three tracks is totally different, and in some cases almost sound like different bands, but somehow, the tracks do manage to fit together, a little disjointedly, but still strangely cohesive.
The opener begins with a sheet of guitar noise under static and strange voices, soaring harmonics, and rumbling drones, when the band do finally kick in, it's a sort of slowcore, dronedoom hybrid. Plodding and downtuned and heavy, but weirdly melodic, the guitars heavy and abstract, the drums a caveman pound, vocals a harsh shriek, Khanate fans will be all over this, as will all ultradoomlords.
But only maybe until the second track, which begins with dark minor key guitar jangle, which erupts into some awesomely nineties sounding mathrock, all clean guitars, and convoluted arrangements, before locking into a spiraling freakout, all tribal rhythms, and squealing feedback, a stuttering riff and swirls of FX, launching immediately into the final track, another blast of angular clean guitar mathrock, but structure like doom, so the chords ring out, the drums crash, but there's tons of space, some super abstract arrangements, killer dynamics, all wrapped around a super intense main minor key melody, the kind of stuff we could listen to forever, before again, locking into an extended outro, a cool woozy chugging groove, that eventually gives way to a brief stretch of moody Slintish drift to finish off.
We've been inundated with post rock metal bands, or post metal or whatever, but Skin Horse are as far as we can remember the first band to fuse math rock with serious doom metal, and we're definitely up for hearing more.
Packaged in hand sewn, hand screened red or black pouches, LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
We'd been dying to hear more Skin Horse ever since their self released 3 song ep from last year, a killer mix of lurching black doom, mathy post rock, and epic dark ambience.
So here we have one new track (it's a long one though, nearly 14 minutes), and it definitely takes off right where the ep left off. Beginning with a dark brooding slowcore skitter, although it's laced with some super strange warbly downtuned tones, that make the whole thing sound a bit twisted and off kilter. The heaviness builds, as heaviness so often does, but here it just wraps itself around that initial post rocky guitar part instead of obliterating it completely, making for some seriously moody heaviness. Once things get going, the guitars are slathered on thick, and allowed to bow and bend the otherwise straight ahead jams into yet another warped groove, there do seem to be vocals, but they're buried way down in the murk.
About halfway through, Skin Horse shift gears and get super intense and aggro, going all mathy, offering up bursts of ultra tight rock, before splintering into some plodding ultra doom, the vocals a caustic wail, the guitars an oozing black buzz, the drums a massive plod, and just as you're getting into that slow motion groove, they shift gears again and bliss out, the guitars becoming nearly translucent, drifting over a sea of sizzling cymbals, weird bits of sampled preaching, dense grinding effects laden buzz, building to another mathy metallic frenzy, before almost dubbing out into a long, sprawling outro. Killer stuff, definitely need to see these guys pull this off live.
Skin Horse share this two song half hour split with a band called Nanda Devi, who we'd never heard before now, but who definitely seem like a good match for Skin Horse. Their 18 minute epic begins with layered sheets of noise, buried bits of melody and softly strummed guitars, which give way to some surprisingly melodic post rocking, the drums massive and LOUD, the guitars simple and stripped down, swirling and building into some metallic Godspeed territory, in come the howled Neurosisy vocals, but the cool thing is, the guitars are still not heavy or distorted, instead jangling and shimmering and singing and soaring, a good contrast with the raw gruff vocals and the wildly chaotic drumming. They too shift gears part way through, the drums getting all tribal, the guitars getting more angular, and beginning another slow build, until a second guitar swoops in adding all sorts of spaciness to the proceedings. Another bout of howled vocals, and the song unwinds in a flurry of tripped out spaced out swirling whirling epic heaviness. Bad ass. And BOTH bands here come WAY recommended.
Punishing and pounding old school death metal. Heavy on the low end and furiously fast, with insane drumming, blazing riffs, grunting growling vocals and a bunch of goofy samples.
This one was definitely made for aQ. Self described black noise / doom metal from Maniac, formerly of Norwegian black metal legends Mayhem, joined by Kvarforth of Swedish black metallers Shining, and Attila from SUNNO))) (and also Mayhem oddly enough) and featuring music by Current 93. A pretty odd mix for sure, especially the two former Mayhem vocalists, and what's even more odd, is that this release features only two studio tracks, the other 6 recorded live, one of which is an intro recorded by David Tibet and Andrew Liles as Current 93. But a strange band deserves a strange release, so here we go.
The opening title track is some super abstract noise drenched doom, falling somewhere between Khanate, Gnaw Their Tongues and something much more spacious and abstract. A simple little guitar melody drifts through a landscape of howled and shrieked vocals, thick bursts of caustic crumbling distortion, little flurries of metallic chug, haunting minor key melodies, a truly twisted doomscape for sure, but it's Maniac's vocals (as well as Attila's here) that make it so fucked up and freaked out. So impossibly harsh and intense, a monstrous growl/shriek totally in the red, swallowing up all the sounds around it, managing to sound as creepy and crawly as it does intense and insane. There's tons of shit going on in the background too, strange voices speaking, other instruments drifting in and out, random samples and field recordings, some buried percussion, all only adding to the weirdness.
The second studio track is a whole different story, a hugely heavy slab of plodding doom metal, guitars thick and loud and distorted, layer upon layer of grind and crumble and buzz, the vocals super intense, slipping from hellish shriek to demonic growl and back again. Lots of effects, the arrangement full of starts and stops, plenty of grinding guitar lurking beneath the main riff, a loping freaky fucked up ultradoom jam for fans of Moss, Monarch, Nihill, Bunkur, Whitehorse, etc.
The rest of the disc is a live show recorded at the Camden Underworld in the UK in 2007, and begins with a creepy Current 93 intro, with David Tibet, howling his strange invective, over a wash of hiss and white noise and guitar rumble, until the band launch into a live version of the second studio track mentioned above which launches the band into an expansive trudge through some serious tweaked and twisted doom. Live it sounds a lot less freaked out and a lot more TRUE, huge riffing, caveman drums, amazing throat shredding vocals, the sound is definitely raw and live sounding, but it perfectly suits Skitliv's hellish black doom. The record closes with a live version of "Amfetamin", the track that opened the disc, and it's appropriately intense, the addition of drums doing nothing to take away from its minimal menace, the focus less on vocals (minus a flurry of howls and shrieks midway through) and more on the droning guitars and grinding crumbling creepy black ambience.
Ultra limited picture disc 10" from this damaged and demented avant black doom outfit featuring former Mayhem frontman Maniac, Niklas Kvarforth from black metal outfit Shining, and Current 93's David Tibet among others. One side features an introductory collage created by David Tibet / Current 93, that the band used for an intro at their shows, and it's classic Current 93, a sort of demented slowly decaying gypsy folk, with Tibet's increasingly anxious and frantic vocalizing, his vocals multitracked so the track builds to a frenzied climax, with multiple Tibets howling and shrieking "Who will deliver me from myself?!". The other two tracks are alternate versions of tracks on Skandinavisk Misantropi, one a demo, and one an alternate mix, but they kind of sound better here, the guitars more raw, the sound more fierce and feral, the vocals SICK, the band unfurling lurching lumbering doomy blackness, but laced with unlikely melodies, "Slow Pain Coming" manages to be fucked up and hateful, the vocals especially harsh, but the music is surprisingly melodic, and there's an awesome breakdown partway through where the band lurches and starts and stops, while the vocals just gargle and rasp and howl. The demo of "A Valley Below" is way more low fidelity, but again, it sounds so much more fucked up and frightening, the vocals especially again, even more inhuman, makes you wonder what they did on the record proper, cuz here, they just ooze and drip, super intense and freaky, perfectly suiting the low slung slither underneath. Makes us want to go back and listen to the full length again, Or just keep listening to these two tracks over and over.
Super nice artwork on the picture disc, an appropriately gruesome painting on one side, and an original David Tibet painting on the other. LIMITED TO 777 COPIES!!!
The first proper release from these Swedish metal misanthropes. Their last release, Amfetamin, while quite excellent, was more of a compilation, with only two studio tracks, the others recorded live, and thus wasn't super cohesive.
But that's not a problem here. We weren't sure what to expect really, considering our only exposure to Skitliv previously was the aforementioned Amfetamin, but whatever it is we thought we might here, this is way better, heavier, darker, catchier and creepier, which shouldn't be that much of a surprise really, after all, guitarist Kvarforth plays in Shining, Ondskapt, Manes, Den Saakaldte among others, and the band features Mayhem's Maniac on vocals, and this record in particular features a pretty bad ass set of guests, Gaahl, formerly of Gorgoroth, Attila (also of Mayhem, as well as Aborym and Tormentor), and of course David Tibet from Current 93, who also guested on the first record.
On Amfetamin, Skitliv trafficked in a sort of stumbling abstract doom, and that doom vibe is definitely present here, but the sound is at once more blackened, and more melodic, the grim riffing and harsh vokills wrapped around almost Lifelover style minor key melodies, the songs super catchy, almost like a black metal My Dying Bride or a more well produced Hypothermia, some of the tracks slipping into minimal moody drifts, creeping black ambience, and almost post rock sounding skitter, while all around, clouds of strange effects and processed electronics swirl and swoop, giving the proceedings a definite spaced out vibe.
David Tibet's contribution is immediately recognizable, his track sounding like a black metal Current 93, haunting and otherworldly, his manic vocals over clean guitars, even some piano, before the song explodes in a frenzy of howling buzz.
Elsewhere the tracks occasionally burst into full on blasting blackness, but just as often splinter into a swirling hazy almost pop sounding plod, with cool harmonized guitar leads, and more melancholic melodies. The record closes with the epic "ScumDrug", a smoldering gothic doomscape, all clean guitar, tinkling pianos, growling demonic vocals and distant distorted riffage, a woozy cabaret crawl that eventually morphs into a freaky collaged outro, all garbled voices and rumbling low end pulses, squalls of white noise hiss, and mysterious gurgles, an appropriately twisted ending to a seriously twisted record.
Oh yeah! Sweden strikes again! The great Subliminal Sounds label (who brought us Dungen, as well as reissues from the likes of Baby Grandmothers and Trad Gras Och Stenar) seem to have revved up their faux-way-back machine to bring us what sounds a heck of a lot like an early '70s proto-metal reissue but in fact isn't, the longhaired young rockers of Skogen Brinner belonging to the here and now, somehow. But man this sure sounds like 1971, sheer hellacious FUZZ filled heaviness, wild wailing retro-proto-metal-punk-garage action. The Skogen Brinner boys don't hold back at all, and this stuff sounds too raw and real to be for calculated effect, it's not mere 'cool' retro posing. No, playing what you hear here clearly comes quite naturally to them - maybe their parents raised 'em on steady diet of Black Sabbath, Pentagram, and Wicked Lady? And the records of Swedish '70s proto-metal masters November for sure.
The singing is almost all in Swedish, and is performed with manic, aggressive attitude, though both vocals and music don't lack for melody when required - track eight, "Vargen Till Forvirring", being a nice brief acoustic respite from all the fuzzed out madness. Mostly though, yeah, it's hard hitting psychedelic freakorama, with lotsa fuzz guitar, some organ, echoing studio effects, and "hairy funk" grooves that would get Finders Keepers DJ Andy Votel all hot and bothered if he found this music on some vintage 45. Oh, and there's even saxophone on two tracks, "Odjurtets Hamnd" and "Farsonas Berg", riffing just as hard as the guitars. The only song with an English title and lyrics is called "Speed Freak", if that tells you anything. That track somehow sounds kinda like Mainliner gone medieval & martial. Total biker metal brilliance, there!
Belongs in the collection (and in heavy rotation on the playback devices) of anyone who also loves Kadavar, Burning Saviours, Troubled Horse, Horisont, Danava, La Ira De Dios, Scorpion Child, and other current bands bringing these heavy '70s sounds back. Ok, look - you know we love this sort of stuff. And we say Skogen Brinner have got the goods, get it!
Digipack cd or gatefold vinyl, both adorned with band portraits in '70s underground comix style, perfect.
The Skull Defekts are another one of those bands that seem to have gone from barely existing, with only a cd-r or an lp or two floating around, to a seriously productive group spitting out a release or two every few months. And with SD, unlike a lot of bands, we CAN NOT get enough. Easy to understand why. Their records all sound so completely different, some are glitchy freak outs, others are droney and contemplative, some are heavy and dark, others shimmer and drift, but all of them somehow manage to sound fairly distinctive and unique, with some invisible Skull Defektive thread running through them.
This particular slab of Defektive sound is all synths, thick and pulsing, layers upon layers of grinding throbbing buzzing synthesizer, laced with distant streaks of slightly higher pitched synths, adding a bit of subtle color, a gorgeous glacial Niblock drone synth symphony, the tones beating against each other, subtly altering the tempo and rhythm and timbre, a whole side of dark minimal buzzy crawl, sounds amazing on both 33 or 45.
The flip side begins with more synths, almost like a continuation of the first side, but with a strange industrial jackhammer beat, that eventually dissipates leaving the synths to squirm and slither.. The second track on side 2, is like a higher end mix of side 1, with the various layers beginning to crumble and distort, and glitch out a bit, almost like the Skull Defekts as recorded by William Basinski, all very buzzy and intense, sounding a bit like the gateway to the other dimension in the movie Phantasm gone haywire... So cool.
Packaged in a gorgeous black on black wood cut style sleeve.
First release in 7 YEARS from mighty UK heavy/drone/psych gods Skullfower. Matthew Bower (Sunroof!, Total ) resurrects his slumbering free-noise behemoth with this gorgeous blast of hypnotic, pummeling, droning crush, equal parts shimmering skree, damaged motorik rhythms, murky and druggy psych-rock riffs and swirling fuzzed-out guitars.
The album's core is the epic, expansive and never ending, four part suite "Celestial Highway", a sludgy sabbathy seventies rock riff, repeated adinfinitum, a dangerously unstable entropic jam wherein the riff slowly drifts apart, sinking into a churning tarpit of abstract whir and hum, gradually mutating into a drifting, throbbing pulse, as warbly synths, chirping birds, and thick washes of dreamy sonic turbulence overtake and subdue any traces of the original riff. Mesmeric and hypnotic and totally otherworldly. Like UK mantric rockers Loop, on repeat play, while your boombox runs out of batteries, or a sweeter, prettier version of Dutch minimal metal gods Gore, or imagine Steve Reich or Terry Riley composing for Black Sabbath. The remaining tracks retain their Krautrockish propulsion but drift closer to Sunroof! territory, loosening the psychedelic electronic riffscapes from their moorings, letting them float lazily through a gauzy soundscape of buzzing melodies, luminous shards of shimmering feedback and rumbling waves of drowsy, druggy drone. Like Neu! or Kraftwerk, doped up and drifting off, run through a bank of cheap effects, and broadcast out of an underwater leslie speaker, the lo-fi rhythms suffocating under a thick blanket of gossamer guitars and sonic detritus. Hypnotic and savage, dreamy and otherworldly, quixotic and godlike! Featuring sonic contributions from Vibracathedral Orchestra's Neil Campbell and produced by Colin Potter (Nurse With Wound, Ora. Monos, etc.).
Before Skullflower became a blissed out free drone, psychedelic raga outfit which would eventually morph into the ultra dreamy Sunroof!, they were trolling much darker, much harsher waters. When IIIrd Gatekeeper first came out way back in 1992, it fell right in alongside its sonic brethren, Swans, Godflesh, Pitchshifter, Terminal Cheesecake, Ramleh and all of those industrial dirge rockers. Originally released on Justin Broadrick's hEADdIRT label, IIIrd Gatekeeper is definitely one of Skullflower's finest moments (and quite possibly both Andee and Allan's favorite SF record EVER), a slow murky trudge through a blinding squall of psychedelic guitar freakout, dense swirls of which lurk behind a lurching slow motion bass dirge and pounding near industrial drumming. Each track picks a riff and pounds it into the ground, repeating and repeating until you can't help but be drawn in, while white hot streaks of guitar skree and low end rumble spin around the relentless plodding. SO much heavier and scarier than almost any other record. A bit like a heavy metal Whitehouse, or a more psychedelic Swans. A muddy, filthy, drug drenched metal club to the side of the head. So fucking awesome.
THIS WAS A WAREHOUSE FIND. THIS RECORD IS SOOOO OUT OF PRINT, BUT ONE OF OUR DISTRIBUTORS FOUND A BOX SO WE TOOK AS MANY AS THEY HAD. ONCE THESE ARE GONE IT'S BACK TO eBAY WITH YOU...
Matthew Bower's growing obsession with black metal has gradually infiltrated the blown out guitar skree of his earlier recordings and continues to push the sound of modern Skullflower into realms blacker and more grim and gristly than ever. Much like the recently reviewed (but sadly now out of print) Vile Veil lp, word on the street was that Malediction was to be the "Skullflower black metal" record, which it could very well be, but you have to realize that no matter how much Darkthrone or Pyha or Old Wainds or Arckanum Bower listens too, those sounds get filtered through that mysterious mind, eventually coming out via his guitar as a sound not terribly removed from something recognizably Skullflower, but with enough blackness, enough buzzing riffage, enough cello (here transformed into howling moans and caustic shards of scrape and skree) and enough chaotic drum splatter, courtesy of original Skullflower drummer Stuart Dennison, to make this more than just another Skullflower record, and more than just another guitarnoise record, it transforms this wild cacophony into some transcendent blacknoise hybrid, equal parts ur-drone and black buzz, psychedelic freakout and free-noise experiment, a pulsing, throbbing swirl of abstract heaviness and in-the-red speaker damaging crunch, a sound that slips fluidly from total abstract atom scatter to lurching almost riffy mesmer, remaining always wreathed in a thick, corrosive field of upper register sonic static, only the drums, ever really leaping from the fray, to hurl some thunderous beats before being quickly sucked back under.
Not sure if it was that brief foray into almost seventies sounding riffiness, back circa the records Exquisite Fucking Boredom and Orange Canyon Mind, but ever since then, Bower and company have been making noise with a vengeance, the sound of Skullflower and fierce and fucked up and heavy and noisy as it's ever been, Bower's black metal interests only adding to the bands hellish sonic trajectory. That's not all to say black metallers would dig this, cuz odds are, only the most extreme music obsessives among the black legions would find this particular brand of psych-skree to their liking, but heck, those of you who do fit that profile, go for it, immerse yourself, and discover just what it is about Skullflower, just what sort of black ritualistic magic lurks within the caustic black sonic sun that is Malediction.
Noiseniks will no doubt flip their lids, appropriately so, but there's so much more to this 'noise', what seems like a wall of sound, crumbles into pieces revealing so much texture within, every heaving wave of punishing crunch, gradually parts revealing a delicate network of strange melodies, the sounds while on the surface seem easily defined, are in fact more complex then they might appear, guitars and drums and voices and cellos all careening chaotically into a roiling churning black sea, a bottomless sonic expanse that takes metal and sludge and doom and noise and punk rock and minimal drone music and melts it down, shaping it into something new and mysterious, a baffling, deafening sound that defies any sort of classification, as the title of an old SF record so boldly proclaimed. This is Skullflower. And THIS, is Skullflower NOW.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. Packaged in a six panel full color digipak with cool tripped out watercolor artwork by Bower himself.
Skullflower's Exquisite Fucking Boredom, released last year on Andee's tUMULt label, welcomed back the seemingly retired Skullflower from a SEVEN YEAR hiatus. Skullflower mainman Matthew Bower was anything but MIA, keeping quite busy with his more blissed out Sunroof! project, as well as his equally blissed out but slightly noisier Hototogisu project. So after seven years, what was it that reanimated the slumbering corpse of Skullflower and sent the reawakened behemoth on a new path of sonic destruction. Well, it most definitely had something to do with THE RIFF. Exquisite Fucking Boredom was a throbbing pulsing ROCK record, a fucked up one for sure, but rock nonetheless. It was that relentless riffing eventually imploding on itself that convinced us that Skullflower was indeed back, to do unspeakable things with THE RIFF and offer up their own seriously skewed take on SPACE RAWK. So it seems now, with a new Skullflower record only a year later, we can rest assured that last year's return was for good.
All that talk of riffs, and a last record wholly centered around a single riff, and what does Bower do? Opens the new record with a dense splattery swirl of freaked out high end skree and throbbing drone, sounding not all that unlike his old group Total. There may be riffs in there somewhere, but you'd be hard pressed to find 'em. Sounds almost like he threw all of Hawkwind in the bathtub and then tossed in a plugged in hair dryer and recorded the results. Super freaked out spaced out free noise insanity! Fear not though, track two is where the riff returns, and once again we have to think Hawkwind, or maybe Circle, or even Can, that propulsive throbbing rhythm, that endless riffing, even some almost-leads, totally hypnotic and endlessly mesmerizing, a rock band rocking out until the end of the world as the earth opens up and the sky darkens with ash, although in this instance Bower takes that apocalyptic rock business and douses it in jagged sheets of white noise and huge slabs of acid fried feedback, swirling swells of amp buzz and chaotic guitar freakout, turning a rock song into a perilous journey through a sonic shitstorm. Makes sense that Crucial Blast has adorned this with a black metal styled Skullflower logo! And so it goes for the rest of the record. A musical tug of war, riffing is subsumed by squalls of white noise, massive waves of throbbing dissonance part allowing a riff to push its way through briefly, only to be eventually swallowed up again, eventually to resurface and push relentlessly forward into a looming musical darkness only toe be obliterated again into a beautiful cloud of swirling whirling noise. Not sure if this is the best rock record we've heard all year, or the best noise record. But it's damn sure one of 'em. Heck, it just might well be both!
About three years ago, Matthew Bower resurrected his sleeping freenoise behemoth Skullflower, after having spent the last few years focusing on the more dreamy drone based Sunroof! That disc was a serious surprise, the new Skullflower was somehow some sort of stoned, freaked out druggy, psychedelic kraut/space/groove/stoner rock outfit. Killer psychrock riffs, looped into oblivion and buried in dense washes of outer space FX and thick sheets of tripped out ambience. We were stunned, and totally blown away. Exquisite Fucking Boredom was just about the heaviest noisiest space rock record EVER! The follow up to EFB, Orange Canyon Mind was still heavy on the riffs, but the noise quotient was cranked WAY up, as if the band had made this huge leap into some outer space drug rock alternate universe, but was sliding steadily back into the old Skullflower's swirling pit of white noise and grinding guitar feedback. So here we have record number three from Skullflower mach II, and it seems those riffs had an incredibly short half-life and have now been totally obliterated, the shards of all those dying riffs have been chopped into pieces and hurled into the spinning vortex that is Tribulation. Easily the noisiest record since the good ol' Total days (Bower's band before Skullflower), with huge sheets of white hot, blown out guitar skree, crunchy amp buzz, sparkling clouds of glitched out electronic interference, and layer after layer after layer after layer of thick squirming, slithering, shrieking guitar ROOOOOAAAR. Tribulation most definitely sounds like an army of guitars, set to kill, and leaned up against an even bigger army of feeding back amplifiers. Every track is a dense ear shredding tangle of melodic fragments and wild peals of upper register psychguitar abuse. Imagine classic Total mixed with Bower's new blacksludge outfit Mirag and you'll get a rough idea of what sort of aural punishment you're in for. Harsh and heavy, noisy and brutal, but as with most Bower projects, not without some hidden beauty, although Tribulation's hidden beauty is tucked safely away, beneath a million pounds of black hole noise rock pummel.
Holy shit is this an incredible match up. Legendary industrial/noise/power electronics/experimental guitar/drone outfit Skullflower teamed up with local gnarled avant headfuck sci-fi blast-buzz one man black metal horde Mastery for this super limited 12", with each band delivering some of their best material yet. This is extremely limited too, once we run out, it might take us a while to get more, assuming we can even get more...
Skullflower's Matthew Bower has made no secret of his love for / fascination with black metal, and it's been seeping into the SF sound for a while now, but strangely, on a record where he's paired with an actual black metal band, when you might expect Bower and Co. to deliver some kvlt black buzz grimnity, blasting and howling and hellish, this is something entirely different. While it is in fact blackened and buzzy, it's much more atmospheric and droned out, weirdly hypnotic and majestic, keening arcs of blown out distortion, buried melodies, and lush crumbling textures, atmospheric, haunting and hypnotic and yeah heavy too, with a super intense in-the-red production, that gives the sound a feral ferocity, and makes every note feel on the verge of collapse, even though it's all actually, in its own fractured and fucked up way, quite lovely.
Mastery of course is in his own gloriously demented and ultra damaged sound world, delivering the sort of lightning speed, dizzying blackened sonic fury that few others can touch, so much so, that we continue to wonder how this guy isn't utterly worshipped by the grim hordes. Could be cuz it's just too goddamn weird, cuz it really is. We're talking far out freaky WTF beyond black metal outsider genius. The sound twisted and tangled, a buzzing blur, wild sonic smears constantly colliding, the vocals rasping and croaking over squalls of blacknoise, and impossibly furious riffing, not to mention inhuman drumming. The guitar playing in particular is totally next level avant insanity, Mick Barr better be looking over his shoulder, cuz at times this sounds like multiple Ocrilim records playing at the same time, all spinning at 78rpm. Beyond that there's all kinds of weird noisiness too, industrial churn, wildly sputtering drum machines, total black metal bliss out head fuck radness. If you've yet to discover just how fucking mind blowing the music of Mastery is, here's another chance...
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES! Cool colored vinyl, and super striking sleeves, with space wolf artwork similar to the double cd on tUMULt!
As we've mentioned in our reviews of the last clutch of Skullflower releases, Matthew Bower's long running industrial/noise/power electronics/experimental guitar/drone outfit seems to be gradually growing blacker and blacker, with Bower's love of black metal transforming Skullflower's distortion drenched skree into some sort of avant black buzz. Now that blackness has manifested in a series of splits with 'actual' black metal bands, a forthcoming split with local one man band Mastery, and this one, with weirdo experimental Norwegian blackened doomlords Utarm, whose twisted Apocryphal Stories on Handmade Birds was a huge hit around here, and whose fractured and fucked up take on black buzz seems especially appropriate alongside Skullflower's own idiosyncratic noisemaking. That said, the SF tracks here might be the prettiest stuff we've heard from them/him in a while, the opener super melodic, ultra textural, distorted and crumbly, multiple layers buzz and undulate, buried melodies are looped and tangled into soft squalls of lushly textured crunch, and warped cascades of soft focus noise, even at ten minutes, it's the sort of dense, swirling psychedelia, that we could get lost in for a whole record. The second track, again, on the surface, a wild, noisy, washed out dronescape, but the crackling buzz and fractured FX seem to be draped over something much lovelier, a droned out thrum, a smoldering landscape of minor key shimmer, it's a heady concoction, a sort of pretty ambience in blacknoise clothing, but the prettiness seems to be the victor, infusing the caustic noisiness with a warm melodic glow, and again, we would have happily dug a whole record long version. So we were expecting the final track to be explosive and buzzy, but instead, it's even prettier, gentle guitar strum, pulsing electronics, a sky full of psychedelic squiggles, the pulsing building and intensifying throughout, eventually becoming the dominant presence, but even then, the sound is more moody and haunting than anything, the guitars doused in woozy effects, the overall sound almost jazzy, albeit some sort of black noise power electronics devil jazz.
Utarm keep the weird quotient pretty high with their two tracks, the first, a massive near 18 minute epic, all squiggly synths, and weird processed falsetto vocals, distorted spidery guitar melodies, almost like some sort of demonic lullaby, warped and damaged, until about 5 minutes in when an avalanche of crumblingly distorted downtuned riffage comes crashing in, the sound a black ooze, a sort of SUNNO))) like dirge, but wreathed in howled FX drenched vokills and wild squalls of high end guitar noise, super psychedelic drone-dirge weirdness that KILLS, and so it goes, for the duration of the track, a blown out, heady, heavy psychedelic noise dirge dronescape, that's weirdly hypnotic and melodic, while being darkly corrosive and caustic, some serious black beauty for sure, finally exploding into a closing burst of melody infused blacknoise howl.
The closer, clocking in at a conservative 10 minutes, starts out sounding like it could be Skullflower, noisy swirly and psychedelic, until the sound splinters into a weird sort of industrial creep, all processed vocal samples, churning dirgey basslines, anguished wails, heaving swell of crumbling low end, what sounds like dense collages samples, almost symphonic, all blurred into a wild but weirdly pretty din/skree, super tripped out, free form WTF psychedelic noisy weirdness.
Killer stuff from both groups and obviously WAY recommended!
The Supreme Ugliness indeed! From the cover, a dizzying scribbled high school notebook scrawl of black and white shapes, tattooed musclebound cavemen (one of which is fucking a skull, natch), devils, upside down crosses, beasts of all shapes and sizes, severed heads, profanity, filthy, crusty, evil and chaotic, to the music inside.
This duo spew out a brutal brew of old school metal, super harsh and stripped down midtempo death metal filth, but since it's one of the dudes from AQ faves Ride For Revenge, there are subtle bits of weirdness here and there, some freaky leads, some squiggly guitar parts�
But for the most part, this is pure grim evil, pounding, chugging, thrashing, grinding, downtuned, distorted, doomy and ugly METAL. The drums a caveman plod, the guitar grinding and corrosive, the bass a speaker shredding throb, song titles like "Life Of Shit", "We Are The Death Cult", "100,000 Dead" and "Suicidal Rape", vocals like someone puking up barbed wire and broken glass. Occasional blasts of furious thrashing, but mostly a skull crushing midtempo pound. Don't be fooled by the sludgey crumbling distorted bass intro, which had us thinking this would be some sort of ultramega doom disc, this is foul, frightful, stumbling,murky, coarse, loathsome, odious Finnish old school death metal. And we love it!
First of all, you've got to admire a mostly unknown American swords-and-sorcery metal band that follows an album called "Kings of the Universe" with one titled "Consequences of Failure"! That definitely demonstrates a sense of realism amid the fantasy and an
We knew we were in for something special when we discovered the amazing Frequency Thirteen cd-r label (thanks to loyal AQ customer Andrew S. for turning us on to these guys). Bands with names like Ice Bound Majesty, Skultroll, Raperack, Black Vomit, Karaoke Vocal Eliminator. Each disc emblazoned with the label's mantra: TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA. Which is pretty much the perfect description of this stuff. We might have also offered, grinding corrosive blackened hypnorock, or perhaps blacknoizemetal, or something similar, perhaps blackkrautnoizerock. Whatever you call it, this stuff is dark, and distorted, blown out and heavy as fuck, hypnotic, rhythmic, and seriously genius.
This is, as far as we know, the first full length from the duo known as Skultroll, just bass and drums, but it sounds like both are being run through a blender and a dumptruck and a black hole and about a million malfunctioning distortion pedals. The sound is obviously stripped down, but the riffing is dense and intense, thick and throbbing, the drums are furious and frenzied. The band tend toward the superdistorted kraut-flecked hypno rock, settling into a groove and then just pounding it into the ground. It's easy to hear Laddio Bolocko, Lightning Bolt, Barbara, Circle and the like, albeit way heavier, way more distorted and much much blacker. At some points it even almost sounds a bit like a Black metal Terminal Cheesecake. Which, we shouldn't have to tell you, is a very very very good thing!
Even the slow jams, are super thick, and crumbling to pieces before our ears, the bass loping lazily under sheets of corrosive FX, the drums pounding out a stripped down rhythm, like an evilized Can, occasionally bursting into full on grinding blasts, but almost always returning to a lurching doomic plod.
The disc closes with a nearly twenty minute low end epic. The first half a murky muddy blown out slow build, the bass smeared into thick washes of black blur, the drums tribal and complex, the song gradually growing more and more propulsive, almost like some groovy stoner rock jam, pulled apart and reassembled all wrong, eventually the distortion overtaking the actual music, the drums becoming more and more abstract, the bass riffs turning into long drawn out drones.
Heavy and freaked out, frightening and fucking awesome.
From the same folks who brought us the amazing Charnel House cd-r elsewhere on this week's list, comes this mysterious slab of wax, with very little in the way of liner notes, other than a cryptic list of "Implements", which include Metasonix S-1000, Drone Commander (!), Sherman Filters, Eventide Delay, Dave Smith Instruments, Keeley Electronics and Music From Outer Space (!). They had us at "Drone Commander", but sealed the deal with "Music From Outer Space"! But what exactly do you get when you mix those outer space sounds with a drone commander and all the rest? Well, some sort of abstract, fuzzy, droney cosmic weirdness that somehow melds tripped out minimal psychedelia to blackened drones and abstract experimental riffage. The record opens with a long stretch of murky guitar churn, rife with gnarled melodies, that sounds a bit like some weird hybrid of Amps For Christ and Blackwolfgoat, but from there on out, the sound gets decidedly more minimal, slipping into a sort of super abstract FX drenched kosmische drift, thick swells of low end rumble, beneath layered swirls of blurred buzz and muted high end shimmer, those deep tones surfacing throughout the tracks on side one.
The flipside starts off with a hazy metallic ur-drone, a little bit Sunroof!-y, but a bit more blissed out, hypnotic and heady, before slipping into a pulsing minimal sprawl of rib cage rattling bass creep, which soon blossoms into more of a warm whir, hushed and soft focus, gauzy and fuzzy and dreamlike, but infused with a subtly ominous sonic vibe, before finally, the record finishes off with another bit of Amps For Christ-ish pulsating electronics and what sound like processed synth, a twisted spaced out psychedelic krautwave coda, that wraps things up in a big buzzy new age psych kraut bow. Awesome!
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered, housed in a coll black and dark red fold over sleeve, with a printed clear plastic insert.
We've been in intrigued (and a bit obsessed) with these Norwegian black metal weirdos for a while now. Frontman Aatselgribb, always sporting a white magistrate's powdered wig, usually a hat, and some sort of old fashioned garment, big wide cuffs, flowing coats, very striking, but pretty what the fuck as well. The covers and band photos are routinely super dramatic staged shots with the band members preceding over some sort of tribunal, or standing with arms outstretched batlike in the orchestra pit at an opera. On top of all that, Aatselgribb's sidekicks in Slagmaur are called General Gribbsphilser and Lt. Warder.
There are two other proper full lengths, neither of which we've been able to track down to list, both packed with buzzing blackness, haunting industrial stomp, soaring symphonic pomp, and all manner of gothic ambience. Domfeldt is the band's demo from 2007, reissued on cd for the first time, and as most people's entree into the sick soundworld of Slagmaur, it's a pretty great one.
After a dense swirling drone intro, like a symphony of swarming insects over a tuning up orchestra, the band launch into a sound that hovers somewhere between a depressive lurching black metal dirge, a Godflesh like industrial stomp, and woozy tripped out blackened doom. The guitars buzz and soar, not way up in the mix, sort of muted and off in the distance, the drums, machinelike and motorik, everything wreathed in a haunting murky oppressive ambience, the melodies ascending and descending maniacally, the whole sound very seasick and warped sounding, in the distance, strings sing, the vocals a harsh raspy croak, atonal piano pounds somewhere down in the mix, the rhythms sounding almost martial at times, elsewhere horns moan ominously, random bits of percussive clunk and clatter drift on heaving seas of twisted muted riffage, guitars unfurl prickly detuned sort-of-leads, the sound shifts from hellish circus, to stripped down new wave-y doom, to gothic crush, to 16rpm black metal, to fucked up SST inflected doom. It's pretty tough to describe. It's too slow and fucked up to really be pure black metal, but it's too black and twisted to be doom or anything else. At times it sounds a bit like The Cure if they were raised on Abruptum and Burzum, and fed loads and loads of bad acid and PCP. Some moments sound like a more specifically metal Gnaw Their Tongues, but for the most part Slagmaur do their own thing, a fucked up, sick and twisted, and gloriously damaged and demented thing. Yet another new name to add to the ever expanding aQ canon of super fucked outsider blackness. Needless to say (but we will anyway), absolutely essential.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
**SALE***SALE***SALE**
Another one we somehow neglected to list - back in 2007 when we got 'em in, from the same label that brought us cool stuff by Rabbits, Acre, and Purple Rhinestone Eagle.
This is a split release of crusty blackened thrashing metal, Portland's Order Of The Gash all instrumental (but with gnarly songtitles), the amazingly monikered Slam Dunk (With Authority!) doing their thing with gnarly vocals too.
Pressed on translucent "periwinkle" colored vinyl. LIMITED TO 300 numbered copies, and who knows, these might be the last ones anywhere.
Not the MTV hair band Slaughter!!! These guys were from Canada and were actually a METAL band. Demos and stuff here, stay away poseur!!!
No, not that Slaughter. This one lives up to the name. Canadian thrash attack!!!
No, not that Slaughter. This one lives up to the name. Canadian thrash attack!!!
More from this cult Illinois '80s metal combo. We highlighted their actual album reissue of 1985's Winter Kill up above on this week's list. This disc collects the previously unreleased tracks from the sessions for their aborted second album, 1987's Free The Beast, along with some early demo material circa 1981-'84. The first, title track starts off with some Satanic backwards vocals and things just get more evil and metal from there! Crazy stuff, super long songs, screechy vocals, well you know if you've heard Winter Kill...
Get Winter Kill first, and if you want more of this band's very '80s over-the-top metal onslaught, which you will, then pick this up. This new edition also includes a bonus video clip but we haven't checked it out yet.
Yeah, yeah, another obscure '80s cult metal band reissued. I'd heard about this group and how amazing they were supposed to be for a long time, but when I first got the cd reissue of their only album, 1985's "Winter Kill", it sounded just like I expected: high pitched vox, widdly guitar solos, Maiden-esque songwriting... cool, yeah, but nothing special. BUT, then I listened to it again. Something about this, some X-factor, makes it VERY special (or maybe it's just me). Rather than sounding like they're derivative of Maiden, Priest, and a host of mid-'80s Metal Blade bands, Slauter Xstroyes somehow do what they do so perfectly that THEY sound like the Platonic ideal of '80s true heavy metal, the template for every other band, the originators rather than imitators. Of course this isn't actually the case, yet a few listens into it, "Winter Kill" was having that effect: while it's on your stereo, it's the ultimate in metal. I bow down. Fans of the likes of Omen, Cirith Ungol, Warlord, Manilla Road, Attacker, and Brocas Helm should add this to their collections for sure. Classy, slightly eccentric, skilled, and -- the kicker -- full of actual emotion. Absurd as it sounds -- and the vocalist's squeals do sometimes sound absurd -- this metal is for real and meaningful. From the heavy droney keyboard intro, through the album's intervening moments of galloping attack, doomy riffing, and acoustic bliss, to the closing anthem "Mother, Mother Fucker" these guys rule. If you can listen to Spinal Tap for more than comedic value, as I can, you'll agree.
Record number two from this now defunct, vocal/synth psychedelic shoegaze duo, recorded back in 2009, and released not long after their Debacle cd-r, Ocean On Ocean. And like that record, on Grey Angel the Slaves again masterfully conjure up some sort of cosmic otherworld, a sound so expansive and epic, its hard to believe they're just a duo, layers of smoldering synths, swirling clouds of blurred effects, and the vocals, ethereal an angelic, like a deconstructed Slowdive, or My Bloody Valentine, slowed way down, and smeared into alien torch songs, the music roiling and full of motion, the lush raga like tones draped over a swirl of fractured melodies and vocal fragments, a darkly dour, melancholic rhythmless drift, all buzz and fuzz and rumble and whir, bleeding into one organic sonic swoon. On the tracks that hew closer to traditional songcraft, the melodies coalesce into something that almost sounds like some lost eighties synthwave creep, but the Slaves add wild squalls of psychedelic guitars, and reverb drenched vocal acrobatics, all of those disparate elements again woven into something impossibly lovely and dreamily mesmerizing.
A collection of melted pop songs, of deconstructed shoegaze, which occasionally, like on the cold wave poppy "Visions", definitely sounds like it could be some unearthed eighties synth pop gem, but of course spinning at the wrong speed, and not to mention the weirdly processed male vox, almost robotic, a weirdly (im)perfect foil for the gorgeous powerful soaring female vox. But of course, it doesn't take long for the band to slip back into something more abstract and tripped out, looping snipped vox over thick synth swells, all again as a backdrop to those gorgeous vocals.
"Ancestors" almost sounds like witch house, with all the rhythms stripped away, and the sounds super saturated, sonically coloring way outside the lines, haunting and dreamily ominous, the track growing more and more noisy and chaotic as it goes, culminating in the sweetly brooding slo-mo shoegaze dreamwave of the closer "Angel", which sounds like the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from Sleep Over or Still Corners, a totally gorgeous hazy, hushed dreamsynth ballad, that sounds a little bit like Zola Jesus on 4AD...
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
We don't list a whole lot of PUNK rock, and it's not cuz we don't love punk rock, everyone at aQ has iPods full of Crass, Flipper, Die Kreuzen, Misfits, Didjits, Amebix, Channel 3, Spazz, Sore Throat, Naked Raygun, Rudimentary Peni, Man Is The Bastard, Black Flag, well, you get the idea, but modern day punk just doesn't often do it for us. Every once in a while something kicks our ass and usually it comes out of nowhere. Such is the case with Norwegian aggro grind punks Slaxxmaal, this being their first ever vinyl release and it's a doozy. 7"s, 19 songs, many clocking in at 15, 10, even 2 seconds. Furious thrashing grinding chaos, vocals that shriek hysterically one second bellow monstrously the next, guitars more angular and obtuse than most punk rock riffing, and drums like an avalanche of percussion, all wound up TIGHT, into short sharp bursts of blinding deafening fury. Some tracks slow things down, like the opener, with it's almost sludgey groove, Greg Ginn-ish guitar freakouts and howled demonlike vocals, but the band typically explode back into super aggressive blasts of grindpunk destruction. Awesome.
Comes with a printed lyric sheet, all in Norwegian, tons of photos and a bad ass skull cover.
