Yay! Two NEW songs from AQ faves Witchcraft, the Swedish sensations beloved of all those who dig '70s doom/psych like Sabbath and Pentagram as much as they do, and folky proggy stuff too. They're on tour in the US as we write this, go see 'em if you can, we did last night and they were awesome! They played the driving, groovy A-side of this single, "If Crimson Was Your Colour" and it went down a storm. The bluesier B-side, "I Know You Killed Someone" is also a winner, recalling their primal Roky Erickson influence. Seven inch 45 rpm RED VINYL format only, & we only have so many!
By the way, if you do go see them this tour, you might see 'em sporting AQ t-shirts, as they were just in the shop today and we traded 'em for Witchcraft tees...
From the seemingly infallible Paradigms label, who in the past have brought us amazing releases from (we're gonna have to stop doing this, pretty soon the list of killer Paradigms releases will be longer than most reviews): Hjarnidaudi, Amber Asylum, Throne Of Katarsis, Blueprint Human Being, Utlagr, the Angelic Process, Titan, Jarboe and that amazing Walking With Ghosts compilation. Avid readers of the list probably own all or most of those by now. Each one totally unique and amazing in its own way. This time around we have two more releases just as unique and amazing, the droning doomed classical of Hallvardur Asgeirsson reviewed elsewhere on this list, and this disc of bizarre, convoluted, super dynamic, avant garde doomy post rock from German outfit Woburn House.
Hailing from Germany, the strangely monickered Woburn House at first listen sound a but like Dutch hypno-metallers Gore, with an immediately catchy and crunchy riff that repeats and repeats. Actually it's almost so heavy and modern sounding that it makes us think more of some sort of avant metalcore version of Gore. Gloriously grinding, churning riffage, complex yet melodic, over pounding drums. But suddenly, the vocals kick in, a soft, sort of chanted croon, while beneath it, the guitars shift to strange minor key angularity, before the whole song twists dramatically into some super complex Voivod-y metallic prog. And it's then that you realize there's still nearly thirteen minutes to go in the track! And in those thirteen minutes the band will twist and turn and shift and explore pretty much every post rock or metal nook and cranny you can conceive. Blown out high end freakouts, creaking and groaning swells of shipwreck doom, muted slow core minor key jangle, loping dreamlike slowcore, but always returning to that killer opening riff. It's very much like a doom influenced metalcore Slint, super complex, incredibly emotional, with all sorts of disparate parts and melodic fragments that fit so perfectly together, it's hard to imagine the song any other way.
Track two revisits the Voivod-y prog of the opener, beginning as a lurching dirge-like doom, with HUGE dynamics, and strange howled vocals, before shifting into a much more propulsive mathrock prog a la Bastro or Drive Like Jehu. Ominous and threatening, but super hypnotic and complex, eventually unwinding into strange strummy minor key jangle, and eventually a soft shimmery expanse of warm church organ whir.
The third track is all metallized math rock. See-sawing between spare finger picked guitar and simple shuffling drumming, and huge distorted angular crunch and complex prog pound. Again like a modernized version of Slint or Bastro, the same sort of arpeggiated minor chords, shuffling rhythms and mesmerizingly obtuse arrangements, albeit with much more metal vocals, and some ambient field recordings mixed in.
The final track is another epic (all four songs are 10 minutes +) offering up their own take of that whole Isis, Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, sort of dramatic post rock slow build majesty. And they nail it. The choruses are massive slabs of downtuned chug, the in-betweens are swirls of shuffling rhythms, finger picked guitars, simple strum, melancholy melodies, drifting and shimmering, slowly building to their inevitable climax.
We been loving the whole doom dirge sludge meets post rock thing (Isis, Tides, Mouth Of The Architect, Village Of Dead Roads, Irepress, Baroness, Conifer), but we're sort of extra smitten with Woburn House, who sound like we WISHED math rock and post rock sounded back in the day. Instead of making their sludgey metal, sound a little post rock, they sound like they could have been a post rock band back in the nineties, albeit with much bigger amps and much more metal souls!!
Unlike most of the Paradigms releases, which come in cardboard sleeves wrapped in hand stamped, brown paper, this disc is in a digipak, with some seriously intense and disturbing (but quite beautiful) drawings...
Fourth album from these Swedish traditional metal mongers. Speedy and catchy and all done up in the denim and leather. Yep they deliver the goods, but we're not sure how inspired this sounds this time around... I mean, we loved their debut and each subsequent release, but although their head-bangin' batteries haven't run low, the special creative x-factor perhaps has...we're not hearing anything new here. Or maybe we just weren't in the mood. Can't point out exactly what's wrong, maybe nothing, or it's just the lyrics that are sounding tired to us. Certainly they still seem just as rippin' and retro as before, music-wise. If you liked their other discs, definitely at least give a listen to the sound clips below... but if you don't have their other discs, we're not sure if we'd say to start with this one. Get the self-titled debut, or their previous one Evil Star instead.
Ah, and we'll give it another listen. After all, we *know* that these guys are capable of making metal's many cliches sound fresh, and if that was tougher for them than usual this time, it should still be a fun spin when we're in a less critical mood...
Worship (not to be confused with the infamous doom outfit) are a new mysterious group who've just released their debut cd-r. Definitely for fans of Wooden Wand And The Vanishing Voice and the Jewelled Antler folks. At times, their shape-shifting, ultra minimal swamp twang is so barely there, it's phantom-like. You feel a presence, more than hear one. Note: this first pressing is limited to 100 hand numbered cd-rs.
It's been quite some time since The Wrens' acclaimed and beloved Meadowlands album, hasn't it? Three whole years! Fans of the band have probably worn their cds thin. Sadly their early, far lesser known albums have languished in the out-of-print / record label dispute department for years... until now. Dear patient devotees, you are rewarded with two reissues! Both albums were originally released by Grass Records, Secaucus in 1996 and Silver in 1994 (that one was briefly reissued by Wind-Up in '97). This is the former, more low-key one. The Wrens skillfully achieve a fine balancing act between heartfelt emo-pop mellowness and fiery energetic indie rock.
Fans of Modest Mouse or Doug Martch in his Built To Spill years should definitely check this out!
Nineteen songs total!
It's been quite some time since The Wrens' acclaimed and beloved Meadowlands album, hasn't it? Three whole years! Fans of the band have probably worn their cds thin. Sadly their early, far lesser known albums have languished in the out-of-print / record label dispute department for years... until now. Dear patient devotees, you are rewarded with two reissues! Both albums were originally released by Grass Records, Secaucus in 1996 and Silver in 1994 (that one was briefly reissued by Wind-Up in '97). This is the latter and it's the more crunchily abrasive of the two. The Wrens skillfully achieve a fine balancing act between heartfelt emo-pop mellowness and fiery energetic indie rock... and they're not afraid to throw in a curveball here and there. Great stuff!
Fans of The Pixies or Doug Martch in his Treepeople years should definitely check this out!
Twenty five songs total!
The amazing Drone Records label, run by Stefan Knappe of Maeror Tri / Troum, has been quietly releasing super limited, hand made slabs of gorgeous drone music for years now. Mostly 7", always vinyl, some of which were recently collected and released as a 2cd on Andee's tUMULt label), each record an ultra personal exploration of the drone, sometimes soft and dreamlike, sometimes harsh and noisy, but always beautiful. The most recent 7" in the ongoing series is Air Guitar, a three song single from New Zealander Peter Wright, an absolutely gorgeous collision of field recordings and guitar exploration. It also just might be the loudest and most active of the Drone singles so far!
The record starts with subtle bits of clatter, like someone in the kitchen or the practice space, just sort of moving stuff about. Those random ambient sounds are soon swallowed up by dense moody mesmerizing guitarscapes, gentle sweet insistent melodies over a slow building drone. Like a heavier dronier Roy Montgomery maybe...
The second track is a lush tapestry of tangled melody woven from sheets of super distorted guitar and streaks of incandescent feedback, that Wright deftly controls and harnesses into something more moody and lovely than freaked out and ferocious. The final track takes up all of the B side and is a single sonorous side-long drone, humming low end slowly and languorously drifts beneath a night sky lit by glistening streaks of high end glimmer. So nice.
Packaged in cool, hand painted orange sleeves, pressed on swirled orange vinyl, with a printed orange insert.
This is the first pressing and is limited to 300 copies!
The beautifully damaged worlds of Xiu Xiu and Grouper are magically melded together on this limited edition ep. The trademark drugged out dreamy drones of Liz Harris aka Grouper perfectly compliment the mopey dark instrumentation of Xiu Xiu. Like their collaboration with Larsen last year, Xiu Xiu prove that besides their intense lyrics and over-the-top vocal delivery, they have a knack for creating a truly creepy and unsettling ambiance. Vocals and voices are just another element of the haunting mood these two effortlessly conjure up. Like the ghost sounds of a carnival that rode off into the sunset hundreds of years ago but whose imprint has never been totally erased. Together Xiu Xiu and Grouper weave sounds that occupy some perfect space between dreams and nightmares. Highly recommended! And we only got a handful direct from the bands, so you know what that means...
Japanese seventies psych rock, wild and crazy, from... 1971. Cool! This is the first time we've encountered a reissue of this album, the follow-up to keyboardist Yanagida's well-regarded solo debut Milk Time. It features Kimo Mizutani (on some seriously *piercing* lead fuzz guitar!!) who was a member of legendary weird psych-prog acts Love Live Life +1 and Foodbrain along with Yanagida. And also guesting on this album is Joey Smith of Speed, Glue & Shinki and Juan de la Cruz fame (his "doo wop" vocals on the pot-positive love song "My Dear Mary" are worth a chuckle).
This is really all over the place -- we're partial to the heavier instrumental numbers like "The Butcher" and "The Murder In The Midnight" but the gentler, poppier fare like "Always" and "Melancholy" or the flutey "The Skyscraper 42nd F" are enjoyable too. Overall this can be described as proggy, a bit bluesy, Hammond-grooving, and sorta wacky. And again we should mention that there's just a heckuva lot of that aforementioned high-end, ear-canal invading guitar tone from Mizutani. Sounds like a bug zapper, we're diggin' it! Oh, and based on the surface noise, we don't think this is a reissue from the master tapes...
