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IMPORTANT (Please read to avoid confusion): Some items below may be tagged with a bold, red, all-caps OUT OF PRINT/UNAVAILABLE notice. This does NOT mean that all other items not so tagged are, in fact, in stock — or for that matter, in print and available, though there's a good chance they are. Some folks get confused on this point, and we can see why, so please read this for further clarification and other important before-you-order information. Unlike some mailorder websites, we don't have an electronic inventory system linked to our site, so you can't be sure of what we actually have or don't have in stock at any given moment without asking us — please email our mailorder department for availability status — or better yet, just go ahead and place your order using our shopping cart function and we'll get back to you with the status of each item. If you have general non-mailorder questions, email the store.

Showing results 701 through 750 of 2189.

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

SORRY. Second studio recording from the Tokyo trio, led by the self-proclaimed king of darkness, Keiji Haino. Monstrous, in-the-red guitar destruction only Haino can deliver. Recommended as a starter for those interested in the mysterious world of Fushitsusha.

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

SORRY. Housed in a handsome (black!) foldout "digipak" (oh this ugly new jargon), this is heavy duty gtr noise sans vocals from Keji Haino and Co.

Not. For. The. Faint. Of. Heart. Nosirree, you know this is gonna be wonderfully, brutally OUT. And you probably know if you want it or not already... Japanese psych-improv free rock masters Fushitsusha, lead by shamanic guitarist/vocalist Keiji Haino, teamed up with one of the true titans of saxophone skronk, Germany's legendary Peter Brotzmann, holy crap! Batten down the hatches!! Turns out this fancy new Utech triple cd release is not in fact a new recording, it's an archival find from the '90s, thus boasting the classic Fushitsusha lineup of the era, Haino accompanied by Jun Kosugi on drums and Yashusi Ozawa on bass. Plus of course a very special guest on saxophone. And y'know, they're not a band who can have just anybody sit in with them. No, any Fushitsusha guest (and there haven't been many) had better be heavy duty. Peter Brotzmann, he qualifies. Seriously, he's the guy whose perhaps best known album, from 1968, is called Machine Gun, and to this day he's famed for his uber-intense, scorched earth, red-in-the-head playing style. Who better really to collaborate with Fushitsusha, "the most important rock band of the past 25 years" (according to Haino hagiographer Alan Cummings, writing in this set's liner notes - our Allan also agrees). This triple cd set documents an entire concert (maybe the first complete Fushitsusha show on cd?), recorded April 26th, 1996 in Tokyo. That's two days after Haino and Brotzmann went into the studio to record their duo disc on PSF, Evolving Blush Or Driving Original Sin. As fans, it's amazing to find out now that, there's more, and with Haino's whole band, even better! When at full-bore roar, the Fushitsusha trio create a clangorous, cavernous environment for Brotzmann's sax to soar and slither around in, intertwining with the muzzy sheets of sound emanating from Haino's guitar/amp. Rather than the players competing for sound-space, it's a synthesis; you might not even be able to tell what's Haino and what's Brotzmann amidst it all. And despite the potential (often realized!) for noisier-than-thou onslaughts, there's subtle beauty here too, moody melodious moments, quiet stirrings before/betwixt the storm... disc one, for instance, begins with glistening chiming sounds and restrained percussive skitter-scatter, quite lovely. It's a while before Haino's trademark distorted guitar squall, let alone the saxophone of Brotzmann, even makes an appearance, and that's just fine. We can't rightly review the entirety of these three discs (approximately three hours), words fail. Plus, you should have your own experience of discovery - like finding out that Haino busts out the hurdy-gurdy for some drones on disc two! But as any Fushitsusha fan will expect, it's unique, abstract, massive, magnificent, building from delicate solos and duos amongst the players to HEAVY total group aktion, getting more 'rock' than Brotzmann even ever did in Last Exit. And really, that Brotzmann's on board is a bonus, but even if he wasn't, heck, it's a Fushitsusha triple live of uncommon beauty and power regardless. Utech's art and design is always really nice, but this one's especially elaborately packaged, with many, many inserts wrapped/folded together with the 3 discs (though, be careful with the outer plastic sleeve, as that's what's holding it all together).

MPEG stream: A Seldom-Seen Means Of Displacing Humiliation
MPEG stream: Now Able To Know Fear

Another awesome find from the diggers at Finders Keepers / B-Music! This '70s Spanish (Catalan) band, as their name implies, plays freaky fusion jazz/rock, kinda like a (more) wacked out Return To Forever! It's psychedelically groovy stuff, high on classical gasses, that at times even reminds us a bit of Bollywood, and much else besides (a goofier Goblin, anyone? Le Orme? Wolfgang Dauner?). Fusioon is for sure fun. Ferinstance, the buzzy, bouncy synth and Spanish-languge chant of the quirky, rhythmic "Farsa Del Buen Vivir" is utterly delightful, deservedly drawing comparisons to old kid-friendly funk fave Stark Reality. The dozen selections here, drawn from Fusioon's singles and lps for the Belter Progressiva label in the early/mid '70s, are percussively propulsive, sometimes soundtrack-suspenseful, and always packed with surprises, including symphonic-sounding bits and electronic blitzes... And as always, the Finders Keepers folks fit this cd out with a booklet full of colorful photos, graphics, and extensive, expert liner notes (by Cherrystones and Andy Votel) delving into the details of Fusioon's career, and in general schooling us about the psych/jazz scene in Franco's Spain.

MPEG stream: Dialogos
MPEG stream: Farsa Del Buen Vivir
MPEG stream: Contraste

Future Old People Are Wizards, eh? We don't have a problem with the band name, it's kind of interesting, but wish they hadn't used a phonetic pronunciation of the acronym for their name as the title of this disc. FOPAW = "Faux Paw". Meaning what? Seems a little silly. Ah well, we forgive 'em, they're Belgian (mmmm, beer). Also, whatever, the music is way cool, Future Old People Are Wizards being a sort of alternative/stoner rock band, grungy and psychedelic and plenty melodic, with lots and lots of spacey synth swirling around the distorted guitars. It's heavy and rockin' one moment, trippy and Beatles-esque the next. The title of instrumental track "Eastern Sabbath" is also pretty overt in describing what that one sounds like, eh. The FOPAW equation doesn't really include any utterly original elements, yet it's a particular, precise blend of styles/sounds you don't hear together everyday, all good stuff, and it works! They've got it dialed in on this debut, definitely. Their label references both Tangerine Dream and Kyuss with regards to FOPAW's sound, yeah we hear that, Eno and Zep too, or try UFOmammut meets Queens Of The Stone Age. Another: imagine Aussie synth lords The Night Terrors teamed up with old aQ stoner-psych-pop faves Elope from Sweden, perhaps? Powerful wall-of-fuzz riff repetition, shoegazing melody, drifting dreaminess (particularly on the super-synthed-out final epic track "Cotton Sheep")... FOPAW do it all, and do it well, making this pretty hard for us to resist, not that we're trying, why would we? Recommended rock!

MPEG stream: Teenage Hospital
MPEG stream: Little Big One
MPEG stream: Somewhere

Yowza. Hells to the yeah. It's Fuzz II time. If'n you don't know, Fuzz is the stomping heavy psych power trio featuring garage pop wunderkind Ty Segall (playing the flailin' drums) as well as the Ty Segall Band's Charlie Moothart, wailin' on the guitar, and rounding out the trio, Chad from The Meatbodies is now their bassist. After a couple brilliant singles, Fuzz released their eponymous debut in 2013, blowing us away and earning Record Of The Week honors at aQ. Now they're back... with another ROTW, natch! Fuzz II means the next level of Fuzz. Advanced Fuzz. Definitely more Fuzz - there's 14 tracks here, some short blasts, but others mega jams - including a lengthy, 13+ minute album-ending epic freakout that is apparently titled "II" (yes, a numbered album with a title track, brilliant!). Of course, if you call your band Fuzz, that's what you gotta deliver. And they sure do, job number one. Lots and lots of fuzz, check. Moothart again channels the likes Leigh Stephens, Randy Holden, Martin Weaver, and other legendary axe-wielding fuzzmasters of yesteryear. Ye olde stoner rawkin' Blue Cheery, Black Sabbathy heaviness is a big part of the Fuzz equation, as are the garage psych pop smarts Segall is known for on all his other records. For us, it's a killer combination!! And this time 'round their longhaired retro-proto-metal riffage is maybe a mite more proggy and complexified, more Sir Lord Baltimore baroque than Blue Cheer basic. Well, they still turn the air into cottage cheese, but there's a whiff of some fancy camembert in there too, with a couple tracks bringing in some orchestrated sounds (must be by the guest credited with "InterstellarStringSweeping"). And there's keys and synths and stuff too. Not that it's nothing but muscular hard-hitting rock action though, sounding like some lost late '60s / early '70s classic that just couldn't be, 'cause it's so grindingly badass and freshly in your melted face. We're digging it big time, all the freaky sounds and hooks and riffs and FUZZ. Ty Segall never lets us down, and as serious heavy psych lovers, Fuzz is one of our favorite projects of his. For fans of all its proto-metal inspirations like Sir Lord Baltimore, as well as the music of Ty's pal King Tuff, and even moreso, King Tuff-related band Witch.

MPEG stream: Time Collapse II / The 7th Terror
MPEG stream: Rat Race
MPEG stream: Silent Sits The Dust Bowl

At first blush, the debut full length from local trio Fuzz, sounds a lot like a Ty Segall record, as it should, since Fuzz is actually Segall's new band, which was originally described to us as sounding like Ty Segall crossed with Black Sabbath. Needless to say we were pretty skeptical at first, but their preceding 7"s proved the point, and now that the highly anticipated full-length is here, goddamn if this isn't some seriously heavy garage-psych proto-metal retro-rock radness! In fact, you'd most certainly be forgiven for thinking this was in fact some genuine lost proto metal artifact, the songs, the sound, the guitar tone, all harken back to the classics, that sound we here at aQ obsess over, in fact, if we were trying to describe Fuzz with some succinct rock band math, we might replace Sabbath above with groups like Power Of Zeus, or Dust, or the Groundhogs, cuz it definitely has that old school hard rocking vibe BIG TIME. The interesting thing about Fuzz, is that while Segall is still singing, he's now behind the kit, and is actually a seriously kick ass drummer, very much in the style of say Ginger Baker or Mitch Mitchell, busy and loose, slipping from wild octopoidal freakouts to locked in hard rocking grooves and back again, while guitarist Charlie Moothart (who also plays in Segall's band, as well as the Moonhearts) proves himself to be a serious shredder, who should be getting the same sort of love that dudes like Isaiah Mitchell does, in fact fans of Earthless will find much of the jamming here right up their alley, with Moothart unfurling, crumbling, blown out heavy rock riffs, alongside wild blasts of mega shred psychedelic freakout. And while most of the songs her are loose and jammy, with much of the record sounding like different parts of the same mega-jam, rife with lots of space, and stop/starts, stretches of amp hum, lurching abstract almost doomy breakdowns, even some almost-drum solo bits, a few pop gems surface here and there, like "What's In My Head", which would have sounded right at home on any of the Segall record proper, so catchy, with a hook to die for, but still somehow fitting into Fuzz's retro fuzz-rock soundworld. That sound in full effect on "Loose Sutures" which is about as loose as these guys get, the midsong breakdown total heavy seventies psych-prog radness, complete with fuzzed out bass solo, killer drumming, and when the main riff comes back in, SO HEAVY. The record finishes of with three more blasts of blown out riff heavy psych rock that kills, lurching from fuzzy lope, to full on near metallic crunch, to total classic old school heavy psych, and as much as we love pretty much everything Segall has done, this Fuzz record is fast becoming our favorite. Killer psychedelic space dragon cover art, the lp includes a download code as well!

MPEG stream: Earthen gate
MPEG stream: What's In My Head
MPEG stream: Sleigh Ride
MPEG stream: Loose Sutures

Well it's about time!!!!!! After years of wallowing in the hazy convoluted mists of legend, hearsay, and hipster influence, only to be obtained through ultra expensive imports, rare bootlegs, or ripped vinyl blogs, this long unavailable but hugely influential work by Serge Gainsbourg finally sees its first domestic reissue almost forty years after its scandalous release. You won't need a translator to understand the sublime perversity at the heart of this concept record, arguably Gainsbourg's most accomplished full studio album. Released in 1971, Histoire De Melody Nelson is a seven song suite about an underage English nymphet (the titular Melody Nelson) and the wealthy lecherous older Frenchman who, after nearly running over her in his Rolls Royce, takes her in, falls in love and eventually deflowers her. And of course, like most love stories, there is a tragic climax. While the story is largely lifted from Kubrick's cinematic version of Lolita, the concept was undertaken in actuality as a symphonic love letter to Jane Birken, the British actress and singer (she sings the part of Melody). Though, not underage when they began their affair, she was twenty years younger than Serge, and their relationship became controversial with the release of their 1969 duet "Je t'aime....mon non plus" (originally recorded with Brigitte Bardot) with its sounds of a simulated female orgasm. But Melody Nelson is not only Gainsbourg's finest moment, its musical reputation would be nothing without the orchestral arrangements and progressive grooves of Jean-Claude Vannier (see our review of L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches, to get some highly praised background). The underlying score is less obviously song-oriented and more atmospheric than previous Gainsbourg outings, yet deceptively simple. The opening and closing tracks each at nearly eight minutes mirror each other with a sinewy descending bass groove and classic drum breaks (sampled heavily by De La Soul, David Holmes and Dan The Automator), which set the stage for acid-y guitar fills, swooning strings and Serge's own seductive speak-singing. The closing track ("Cargo Culte") ups the transcendent quality of the climax by adding a mass choir and full orchestra to the swirling tower of sound. In between these two tracks are shorter but artfully arranged pieces of folk-groove, French chanson, acid rock, and cinematic sonic bliss that move the story forward. It's one of those records that slowly grabs you, lures you into its spell, and eventually hooks you, so you'll want to keep listening to it over and over. Though it was a flop on its initial release - Gainsbourg was largely a singles artist before this point, and the leap from that to concept album, especially one of this perverse nature, was perhaps too wide for French audiences - Histoire De Melody Nelson has gained a significant cult following over the years, perhaps reaching its greatest influence in the nineties with bands like Portishead (Dummy), Pulp (This is Hardcore), Massive Attack (Protection), Radiohead (The Bends), Air (Moon Safari), Blonde Redhead (Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons) and Beck (Sea Change), nearly lifting the basic sonic template of this album wholesale. This awesome, nicely packaged reissue comes with a beautiful booklet of drawings, essays and interviews, outlining not only the full extent of the making of this amazing work, but charting its larger cultural impact as well. Reissue of the year!

MPEG stream: Melody
MPEG stream: Ballade De Melody Nelson
MPEG stream: En Melody

Ok, hopefully all of you into dooooooooooooooooom have heeded our recommendations in the past ("best band EVER" we may have said, in a moment of infatuation) and are already well acquainted with this cult Japanese band who exude a magnificently miserable mixture of slow, atmospheric doominess and crusty black metal thrashing, inspired by the likes of Celtic Frost/Hellhammer (natch), Amebix, and Corrupted. This is their 2nd full-length studio album, following 2004's Gloomy Lights debut and last year's The Dawn Of Gallhammer demos n' live cd+dvd collection. That's the one where we busted out the Simpsons Comic Book Guy impersonation in our review, but it's this album that really seals the deal, when it comes to Gallhammer's position in the pantheon of most depressive doom bands ever, anyway. They're up there, no doubt about it, as is proved by this collection of ten tracks, each one of 'em often (but not always) a slow-motion trudge through the depths of emotional bleakness in the form of monotonously massive low-end guitar riffage, wretched cookie monster screams, and simple, gloomy melodies. Several of the song titles are quite indicative of their sound: "Long Scary Dream", "SLOG", "Ripper In The Gloom"... Many of these varied tracks feature a dynamic combination of knock-you-over-with-a-feather soft n' sad prettiness setting you up for some smash-you-with-a-hammer heaviness, or even manage both at the same time. It's the former element, this band's almost post-rock instrumental mesmeric moodiness, for which we think Gallhammer should be best noted. Not that it has any of post-rock's usual complexity, this is raw and primal and ritualistic, perfectly encapsulated by the way the stark, repetitive slowcore acoustic guitar part at the start of "Ripper In The Gloom" suddenly, shockingly gives way to a full-on punk rock assault. It also seems possible that Gallhammer, along with their interest in underground '80s doom-crust, also shares some of the Velvet Underground fixation displayed by their contemporaries from the Japanese psych-rock scene, like LSD-march and Doodles. Heck, track one, the nearly eight minute "At The Onset Of The Age Of Despair" seems to have echoes of VU's "Venus In Furs"... If one of Gallhammer's songs wound up on a PSF Tokyo Flashback comp someday we'd be surprised, yes, but only a little. Though it sure wouldn't be a track like "Killed By The Queen" or "Blind My Eyes", two of the punked out, filthy metal blitzes on here, the latter of which throws in some uncharacteristic Melt-Banana style yelping, dogwhistle vocals along with the usual guttural grunting and growling. Hey, we made it all the way to the end of this review without mentioning Gallhammer's major non-musical selling point... we said they're a "cult" band above, but were tempted to say "cute", as this trio just happen to all be attractive young Japanese ladies, their looks further enhanced by the tasteful application of gothy corpsepaint makeup. No this fact doesn't make Gallhammer's music sound any better (or worse) but it's, um, interesting. Happily, though, Peaceville isn't using Gallhammer's sex appeal to sell this album, there's not even any pictures of the band at all included in the classy-lookin' white-and-silver digipack. Recommended nonetheless!

MPEG stream: SLOG
MPEG stream: Killed By The Queen
MPEG stream: Ripper In The Gloom

In the voice of Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons: "Best band EVER." No, we're not actually implying an endorsement of Gallhammer by Comic Book Guy. But, IF Comic Book Guy was into old school death/black/doom metal and crusty punk (which, we'd imagine he probably isn't) -and- was really into cute Japanese girls (which, chances are, he is), then, well, Gallhammer would be one of his favorite bands. We can't help but like 'em lot ourselves. We reviewed their debut cd Gloomy Lights back on list 235, and pointed out then that while a trio of cute, Japanese girls with raccoon eyes playing in the style of '80s doom pioneers Hellhammer was an obvious high-concept selling point, from -listening- to it you sure couldn't tell they were cute or even female. But you could tell that their music was utterly grim and wretched and heavy as hell, which for us was enough to recommend it. Glacial riffs, pounding drums, atmospheric breaks, deathly croaks... raw and primitive and very effective! We also reported that they'd gotten signed to Peaceville, who have cleverly determined that the best way to introduce Gallhammer to the masses isn't with a new album (still upcoming) but with this, a collection of demos and rehearsal tracks. Oh, and with a DVD disc of live performances. That's the clever part. Once you see vocalist/bassist Vivian Slaughter in her Celtic Frost t-shirt, staring blankly into space and grunting inhumanly into the microphone, you'll be smitten. Or watch drummer Risa Reaper thrash her kit, providing back-up screams too. Or witness guitarist Mika Penetrator (Amebix t-shirt for her) crank out the riffage whilst contributing blood-curdling vokills as well... it's all over. Is there a fan club? Where do we sign up? Seriously, though, the live footage is convincing. They're a killer band. And have a great sense of theatrics, looking so much like those spooky girls you always see in Japanese horror films with their long black hair and hollow eyes. The DVD features 24 songs from six shows filmed at various venues in Japan between 2005 and 2006. Some are pro shot (the show at Okayama Pepper Land which is presented in its entirety) and others are more bootleggy lookin' but still perfectly acceptable. And there's also a photo gallery of stills to stimulate more fanboy drool. Meanwhile, on the audio disc, you get twelve tracks including two exclusive demos of (brutal) brand new songs, along with rarities going back to before the Gloomy Lights album. If you've heard Gallhammer before, you know this is gonna be crushing. Far from cartoonish. If you haven't heard 'em, this a good place to enter their haunted world of misanthropic moody metal. Imagine if Unsane, Corrupted and Zeni Geva got together in a cave to make the soundtrack to some freaky J-horror flick, after listening to nothing but Tom G. Warrior's earliest output and the occasional Velvet Underground album for inspiration. Cool, eh?

MPEG stream: At The Onset Of The Age Of Despair
MPEG stream: Beyond The Hate Red

This ultra kvlt (and, we must admit, quite kvte!) all-girl Japanese band who play the blackened "metal of death" in a most dirgey and crusty stylee, inspired by (no duh) '80s death/doom pioneers Hellhammer, have returned after 4 years with a new album - titled with some finality The End, though let's hope it ain't. If you're an AQ customer with a pulse, at all into the doomy and dank, you're probably already a Gallhammer fan and are 'adding to cart' as we speak. If at all hesitant, the abysmal buzz and clank of going nowhere not so fast opener "The End" ought to convince you! With that title track out of the way, the Gallhammer gals (now the duo of bassist/vocalist Vivian Slaughter & drummer Risa Reaper, former guitarist Mika Penetrator having left after 2007's Ill Innocence) pick up the pace a bit on the next even more brutal number "Rubbish CG202" (one of several weird, partly numeric song titles on the album, btw), and vary between a flashing stroboscopic throb and molasses creepy crawl throughout this disc, the rhythms more a function of fluctuation in the overlaying distortion field than anything else. The vokills vary too, from rasping guttural anguish to some disturbing yelps (on "Aberration") and even almost actual singing (on "Sober"). The truth is, Gallhammer aren't really so much a metal band, as they are purveyors of nihilistic noise rock, having as much or more in common with the likes of Kevin Drumm, Wolf Eyes, Prurient, Sister Iodine, Aufgehoben No Process, Brainbombs, etc. as they do with the aforementioned Hellhammer, and other old school metal/punk artists whose T-shirts they're often seen wearing, like Amebix. The final cut, the ten+ minute "108=7/T-NA" is perhaps the weirdest, most WTF?, featuring some frightening saxophone textures, played by Ms. Slaughter... but don't worry, this is neither smooth nor jazz!! Just more grinding terror, the end of The End going to the utter extreme of experimental yet primitive doomdrone metal. Damn. We're falling in love with Gallhammer all over again.

MPEG stream: The End
MPEG stream: Rubbish CG 202
MPEG stream: Aberration

Garadama is a hitherto unknown to us, super heavy metallic rock trio from Japan, making their debut on Osaka's Alchemy label (home to albums by Hijo Kaidan, Merzbow, Masonna, Angel 'In Heavy Syrup among others). They're not unlike a more modern-sounding version

RealAudio clip: A Fiend Is Living In My Brain
RealAudio clip: The Sun Rises

A couple years ago, all the Boris / Corrupted / Eyehategod / Zeni Geva fans here at AQ were pleased to discover the debut cd from this band Garadama, released on the Osaka based, eclectic noise/psych label Alchemy. Super heavy riffage, distorted fuzzed out walls of DOOOOM guitar, crashing into your brain with the force of a frantic fiend (as per their song "A Fiend Is Living In My Brain"). Great stuff for everyone into the HEAVY (and no surprise, seeing as how the band featured the former singer/guitarist from the very Sabbatherian outfit Subvert Blaze). So, we've been waiting, and had begun to wonder what had happened to them. Well, suddenly and thankfully, we've got import copies of their brand new second album, as you can tell by the title. Again it's an onslaught of monster dirge crunch distorto sludge, swinging from Sabbathy groove to spooky, droning ambience... plus a dose of that special Japanese weirdness we love. Tracks like "Dogma" parts 1 and 2 are ultra-spooky and almost black metal, while the band display their rockin' side on the likes of the riffy "Who Does Try To Kill A Man?". The album is not over-long, but their doom is deep, and we're sure Garadama would hold their own in any contest with countryfolk Green Machine and Boris... We should mention also that the nasally strangled doom vocals and the twistedness of their heaviness here reminds Andee of old faves Alice Donut! Recommended, doom fanatics.

MPEG stream: Dragon's Shrine
MPEG stream: Soliloquy

Here in America, the name Garfield makes us think of an assassinated 19th century President, and a cartoon cat - and not necessarily in that order. Some might also recall that Garfield is Henry Rollins' real last name. But fans of the tongue-in-cheek musical genre from Finland known as the "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal", spawned by several Circle side-projects, should know another Garfield - Garfield Steel, the distinctive, drawling lead singer of NWOFHM standard bearers Steel Mammoth. And now here we have Garfield Steel's solo debut! Like his work in Steel Mammoth, this both is and isn't exactly metal; a (parodic?) sort-of-metal is part of it for sure but there's a lot more going on. Weird, synth-laden indie pop boogie would also describe it, a bit. Several "synthesizerists" are listed in this album's credits, and boy do they synthesizerize. Also quite often the electronic drums and/or drum machines are locked in overdrive - the track "Memory Rhythm" gets almost Digital Hardcore with its noisy, speedy distortion/destruction. But this onslaught of eccentric electro-metal & lo-fi synth punk is very poppy too, head noddingly so, mellowing out at times as well. Along with all the electronics, Garfield Steel's hoarse melodic crooning is of course also a big part of the sound, delivering (just as he does in Steel Mammoth) some truly ridiculous lyrics to go with great, silly song titles such as "Nuclear Retard" and "Skullfist Emperor". Fans of Steel Mammoth's over the top absurdity and catchy riffing and occasional detours into dreaminess will be right at home here, in other words, even if the sonic palette of GS's solo effort is a little bit different. And it becomes evident that the NWOFHM 'thing' is as much Garfield's doing, as it is Circle's... Oh, and fyi, NWOFHM fans, Jussi from Circle also has a new, VERY metal band called Arkhamin Kirjasto. Their debut cd Torches Ablaze just came out on his Ektro label, we have just a few in stock right now...

MPEG stream: Boogie Eclipse
MPEG stream: Memory Rhythm
MPEG stream: Second Sign Of The Shark

At this point, the idea of "improvised guitar and electronics" (what it says here) elicits a bit of a ho-hum reaction from us. Heard it before, we think. Do we need more of that noise? But, in the case of French guitarist Guillaume Gargaud, it's still pretty worthwhile of an idea. We hadn't heard him previously (despite his having a recent recording on AQ fave label Utech, somehow we missed that one!). But we're glad we checked out his new disc, released on the same label that previously brought us the cosmic New Age electronics of J.D. Emmanuel (via archival release Solid Dawn: Electronic Works 1979-1982). Portions of this are certainly dreamily deep space sounding enough to fit in with that. The nine tracks here in fact range from truly intense, dramatic drone, like the ominous opening cut "Seve Brute" (which reminds us of Darsombra or an "isolationist" Expo 70) to purely acoustic, post-Takoma wanderings more akin to James Blackshaw or Steffen Basho-Junghans ("Aedeiinae"). Though there's heavy moments, many of the tracks are ultimately gentle, vaguely glitchy, sometimes soothingly rhythmic, mostly drifting... all quite nice. Turns out there's still lots of good & not TOO abstract results possible with ye olde improvised guitar and electronics, why did we doubt it?

MPEG stream: Seve Brute
MPEG stream: Traces Du Temps
MPEG stream: Tache De Suie

Not remotely new (the catalog number for this is PSF-17, it was released some years ago) but something that we thought we'd get a few of and list 'cause we were doing an order with the PSF label in Tokyo and hadn't ever reviewed this cult classic before. Anyone into the speedfreak psychedelic acid punk of flagship PSF band High Rise (or Mainliner, or Musica Transonic, etc.) ought to check out Gaseneta, a Japanese combo from the late '70s who helped pioneer that sound (and were later covered by High Rise). This disc contains archival recordings mostly from 1978, all of 'em ultra distorted, in-the-red recordings of a band simply destroying, sonically wrecking the place. We mean, if you thought Boris kicked out the noisy jams on Pink... well this is a whole 'nother kettle of raw fish of course, way punker than Pink, but of potential interest to Boris fans wanting to check out their antecedents. There's eleven energetic tracks on Sooner Or Later, bursting with skronky guitar solos (Black Flag style) and the spittle of guttural vox, backed by urgent bashing rhythms. Four of 'em are live recordings, which are especially lo-fi but since you should be playing this LOUD anyway that just adds to the effect. Way cool.

MPEG stream: track 1
MPEG stream: track 3

Hey, all right! This British band is back, at long last, with their 2nd album, and once again sound like a blast from the past (the past circa 1972 or so) even though they're from this day and age. We're almost sorta surprised they're not from Sweden, usually it's Swedish bands like Witchcraft, Graveyard, Horisont, and Noctum who do the bellbottomed retro-rawkin' thing this damn well, but heck the bands Gentlemans Pistols most sound like - Sabbath and Zeppelin - were from England, so it's in their blood after all. We wuz big fans of their self-titled debut a few years back, and are damn happy to hear 'em kicking out the jams once more, this time with new axe slinger the one and only Bill Steer (Carcass, Napalm Death, Firebird) on board, GP's upping the ante on all others in the realm of '70s styled stoner rock with their wailing vox, crunchy fuzz guitar riffage, and hard to beat bouncy energy. They're delivering the goods here, is what we're sayin'. A dozen new songs, all catchy and heavy and authentically '70s proto-metal sounding, they could hold their own with Pentagram and Hard Stuff and Leaf Hound and Highway Robbery, etc.... and they've got a sweaty muscularity to 'em that makes 'em more of a powerful proposition than just some kind of imitation or approximation. They're real, and rockin'. A ripping good time. Another one of those bands, in our view, that should be HUGE, and would be if we ran the rock n' roll world! F'ing recommended.

MPEG stream: Comfortably Crazy
MPEG stream: Midnight Crawler
MPEG stream: Some Girls Don't Know What's Good For Them

Blimey, this is our favorite pure heavy rock n' roll album in a month of Sundays, pretty much, well since the Birds Of Avalon debut a few lists back anyway. '70s stylings to the max, fully indebted to the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and the MC5. And paying those debts with freshly minted $100 bills. (If only, in a perfect world these guys would be raking it in like Wolfmother.) Signed to the Rise Above label over in England, home to Electric Wizard and Witchcraft and sundry other sterling stoner/doom outfits, this British band is indeed kinda Witchcrafty, if Witchcraft were more single-mindedly concerned about kicking out the jams... like a more cock-rock Witchcraft perhaps. Certainly Gentlemans Pistols are as much convincingly "out of time" as those Swedes, a bellbottomed retro-rockin' good time that ought to get your head to banging with such should-be car stereo staples as "Just A Fraction", "Widow Maker", and the MC5-ish high energy "Out Of The Eye" amongst the ten equally rad tracks on offer here. Gentlemans Pistols win us over with confident melodic vox, an abundance of catchy riffs, and a bit of clever... what's up with the song title "Parking Banshee"? They're sly ones, these guys, even when displaying some slightly cheesy, lemon-squeezin' rawk and roll lyrics that we suspect are halfway tongue in cheek, on the track "Heavy Pettin'" in particular, which is a slower, bluesy number a la Zep's "Dazed And Confused"... Definitely an album for Pentagram and Leaf Hound and even Raging Slab fans... Recommended, rockers!!

MPEG stream: Just A Fraction
MPEG stream: Out Of The Eye
MPEG stream: Widow Maker

We're so glad this actually exists - that somehow the guys in Gentry Lord thought this was a good idea. 'Cause if this band had asked almost ANYONE else if what they were doing was a good idea, the answer would have been no. But fortunately they didn't ask, or maybe, like a heavy metal honey badger, they just don't care. Anyone in their right mind wouldn't make this music, but Gentry Lord (what's with the name?) did, and it's so amazingly rad. Over, over, waaaaay over the top '80s influenced prog/power metal, so shreddingly dense and intense that it comes off as almost total chaos, like each song is really 2 or 3 songs playing at the same time. And then there's the vocals. High pitched, falsetto Mercyful Fate style. Shrieking like King Diamond with his family jewels caught in a vice. Backed by music that sounds like several Sigh albums in a blender. It's like Crimson Glory (if you remember them, '80s mask-wearing prog metal) jacked up on all the drugs and stuff that Jason Statham takes in those Crank movies. With that "everything all at once" production feel, like the first Satan's Host album. And tons and tons of reverb, a vast fantastic cosmos of reverb. It's only a 4-song ep, but boy does Gentry Lord pack in the "music", tons and tons of bombastic synths, speedy shred guitar, blasting drums, ominous keys, popping bass, sheer shrieking insanity, even some choruses of "nyah-nyah-nyah" laughter. Just frantic batshit WTF?-ness all over the place. Maybe a good thing it's only 4 songs, really, 'cause even then it's overload. It'd be hard for the brain to process many more songs this confusionally brilliant. We're also happy that Gentry Lord didn't make the mistake of asking a sane person what they thought of the garish cover art (the alien has a mustache!), or ridiculous album title, or their tag line "Magic Metal Mystical Experience"!! 'Cause it's all perfect, perfectly insane. It says here: "The signals were transferred to understandable forms during Earth Years 2012 - 2013 in the CRYSTAL CAVE studio." Understandable? Uh, right.

MPEG stream: Secrets Behind The Veil
MPEG stream: Garden Of Screaming Skulls

We're always amazed that so much awesome and little known music from the sixties and seventies continues to be resurrected, and remain very worthy of its cult status. Case in point, this anachronistic synth-heavy psych gem from 1977 by the George-Edwards Group. While punk, disco, glam, bland FM radio, and heavy metal ruled the musical zeitgeist of the era, two multi-instrumentalist friends with a love of synthesizers, home-taping and melancholic spacey folk-pop made a mini-masterpiece in their Detroit, Michigan basement. Briefly mentioned in the Acid Archives book, it doesn't feel so much a late hippie-psych artifact, as it does a sublime and moody soft-rock epic that would have been huge on '70s AM radio in a parallel universe of our fantasies. Where instead of Bread, Chicago, and Seals & Croft, being played ad nauseum, music by Dreamies, Shuggie Otis, Fresh Maggots, Roger Rodier, Emmanuelle Parrenin, Collie Ryan, Biff Rose, Big Star, Scott Walker, Warlus, and of course, the George-Edwards Group would have scored our parallel universe childhood. Yet even that said though, 38:38 is much stranger than we can describe. Often the tracks with their multilayered Arp, Moog, and Mellotron drones and harmonies often sung in falsetto, sound like the less musically-damaged touchstones of what Ariel Pink recorded on his Doldrums album. And though the synthesizers are most prevalent, especially in sci-fi themed instrumental tracks like "Solar Flare" and "Magnetic Variation", other instrumentation like xylophones, autoharps, bells, piano and acoustic guitar play a big part in the compositions. One of our favorite tracks is "Floating Away", a druggy ballad with just acoustic guitar and what is purported to be recordings of ocean sounds, but sound like huge sheets of metal crashing in the background. Even the longest track, the instrumental "Hypertrain" is a kraut-y fuzzed electric guitar raga over drums that reminds a bit of Circle and Cave, while the second to the last track called "Some Fun" features maniacal laughter over a repetitive groove that adds an element of bad trip creepiness to the proceedings. One of the headiest records from the seventies we've heard in a while; those into druggy cyber-space folk-pop weirdness will be very satisfied with this. Solid! Vinyl only, not sure if there's plans for a cd reissue too.

It'd normally be enough that Finders Keepers / B-Music decided to reissue a soundtrack, we'd assume it was awesome just 'cause they gave it their stamp of approval. That's true. But this one, though, well how could it NOT be good, with that title/concept?? Awesome music aside, heck we wanna see the movie. Werewolves On Wheels, for reals? As one of the radio adverts included here as a bonus track puts it: "Here comes the most eerie, the most chilling, the most terrifying motorcycle horror film ever made... Werewolves On Wheels - in color - is the most unusual bizarre film yet... Werewolves On Wheels is the ghoulish story of a wild motorcycle gang lost in the desert, mocking the supernatural... one by one they die... unnatural unbelievable deaths... they are afraid of nothing but they cannot fight what they cannot see and do not understand!" Sounds good, doesn't it? As lovers of another Satanic psychedelic '70s motorcycle horror film, Psychomania, we're sold. And like Psychomania, this has a way cool soundtrack. Which can also be filed alongside another biker B-Music release, Billy Green's Stone OST. This 1971 low budget chiller thriller's "Main Theme" is 5+ minutes of percussive rhythms adorned with flashes of fuzz guitar, simple and effective, as hypnotic as it is haunting. Groovy! That's followed by the hippie country rock of "Mount Shasta Home", and there's another cool slice of country tonk later on with "One Foot In Heaven", but the majority of the soundtrack is devoted to more abstract, weirdly stumbling, atmospheric stuff, perhaps trying to evoke a tripped out Native American desert vibe, with ringing and rattling and what sounds like wrasslin'... there's sudden stabs of synth and the occasional line of campy movie dialog. Several of the tracks (the three spooky "Ritual" ones in particular) could be sinister krautrock jams, full of thumping hand drums, crackling fire, and synthesizer sounds. Other tracks are more groovadelic, yet creepy too, with propulsive rhythms, acid guitar licks, droning FX, and of course revving motorcycle engines and screams of terror. For all we know, the movie, the directorial debut of Roger Corman/Russ Meyer associate Michel Levesque, isn't even so bad it's good. But the soundtrack, it's for sure fantastic! If The Byrds had teamed up with Goblin to do a soundtrack, maybe this is what the results would have sounded like!?! We're also reminded of Ry Cooder's Cyleib People - if they jammed with Sylvester Anfang, perhaps. The label suggests a Sandy Bull/Amon Duul team up, and we won't argue with that comparison either. Another winner - of course - from the Finders Keepers folks!!

MPEG stream: Werewolves On Wheels (Main Theme)
MPEG stream: Ritual 2
MPEG stream: One Foot In Heaven
MPEG stream: Burning Grass

It was sort of inevitable that this disc would end up being an aQ record of the week. But before we tell you the strange tale of how we got to this point, how we discovered this band and this disc, let's offer up a quick, succinct, three word description that might render the rest of this rambling review moot: CAVEMAN THIS HEAT. Sold? We would be. Imagine Man Is The Bastard transported back to the early seventies and let loose in This Heat's Cold Storage recording studio, or take the black hypno kraut noise of former aQ record of the week, Aluk Todolo and strip it down to its bare essence, a sound based almost entirely on rhythm. A pounding, Neanderthal groove, pelted with squelches, and laced with a strangled inhuman mewling, huge chunks of grinding minimalism and long swaths of dreamy shimmering bliss, an ultra intense slab of kraut-doom power violence for sure. The weird thing is, the first time we hear Geronimo was several years ago, when Circle came to play some shows on the West Coast, and so I (Andee) was happily drafted to drive them around, roadie for them, all that stuff. So one of the shows was at Arthurfest in LA Circle were playing with SUNNO))), in a way-too-small seated theater, based on how many angry folks were turned away (as in HUNDREDS!). I spent the whole time, running back and forth, up and down the stairs, trying to sneak as many people into the show as possible, through the emergency exit, the backstage door, every time I went back out I would run into someone who wanted me to get them inside. While this was all going on, a band started playing, and they were AMAZING. A bunch of cholo looking dudes, handkerchief headbands, all sort of just standing there, behind huge racks of busted looking equipment, making the most unholy racket, a gorgeously destructive rib cage rattling pummel, eventually I had to stop running back and forth, cuz this band was totally sucking me in, and so I just sat down on the floor and let the band's vibrations wash over me, the floor literally shaking violently with every note. Well, we later discovered they were called Geronimo, but no one knew anything about them, and the folks waiting for Circle and SUNNO))) didn't seem to get it or be that into it at all. We never got to talk to them in the chaos of getting Circle sorted. And eventually it sort of just slipped my mind. So flash forward two years to the end of 2007, when we highlighted that No Skull Left Unturned comp a list or two back, collecting the various offshoots of Power Violence pioneers Man Is The Bastard. And we were particularly taken with the band Sleestak, a doomy math rock variant on MITB's bassy grind, and their sound reminded us of THAT band, the one that opened for Circle back in 2005. Then we sort of randomly stumbled across this here disc, and suddenly everything clicked, THIS was the band we saw and loved so much, and whaddayaknow, Geronimo just so happens to feature folks from both Man Is The Bastard and Sleestak. And it sounds even better than I remember, heavier, groovier, way more fucked up and WAY more freaked out. So here's a song by song breakdown of this devastating chunk of brutal beauty and monstrous minimalism: The opener, the 18 minute "Firewater", is perfectly placed to test the listener's mettle, an endless epic stretch of looped high end klaxons and choked cymbal crashes, like a metal intro stretched into an entire song. All around this constant crunch and whine, whip flurries of electronic glitch and crunch, swaths of grinding crumbling analog buzz, while beneath it all a rumbling minimal bass line lopes lazily, until about half way through, when the track suddenly switches gears, and turns super abstract, minimal smears of drone and muted feedback, LOTS of space, and huge percussive crashes spread WAY out. It's like a super minimal abstract doom. But with bits of atonal keyboard and strangled vocals. Like the rhythm section of Khanate scoring a Dario Argento movie. That soaring high end from the beginning of the track returns, along with some speaker destroying analog buzz, still spaced out around long stretches of silence, finishing off with a brief burst of intense fury, distorted vocals, thick wall of crumbling distortion, If you survive the first track, then track two, "Headdress", is your reward, a short sharp shock of rhythmic groove, it's all about the drums, a simple, killer rhythm, the drums slightly distorted, locked into a relentless loop, while all around it, malfunctioning synths and skittering shards of glitch and skree soar and swoop, until it too shifts suddenly, into a mathy breakdown, another mesmerizingly minimal and hypnotic looped drum fill, pounding its way through a sky filled with creaks and groans and whirs and garbled grinding lo-fi squelch, finishing off with another furious blast, this time a spray of super distorted bass riffing, howled ultra effected vocals, and total drum destruction. "Spiritwalker" offers up another side of Geronimo, the strange homemade electronics muted and smeared into much softer shapes, allowed to drift and shimmer, the drums a muffled pulse, lots of low end rumble and whir, darkly droning and cinematic, thick swells of minor key melodies, over a wasteland of glitch and buzz, slow motion tribal percussion, everything wrapped in a gauze-y haze of psychedelic textures, low end murk, and abstract FX, a gorgeous soundscape, of slow black krautrock ambience. "Medicine Man" is another brief chunk of abstract doom. A simple plodding rhythm, a thick grinding rumbling low end synth, huge blasts of effects-drenched crunch, and ominous spoken vocals and shrieked demonic howls, And then there's "Facepeeler", which begins with a propulsive drum part, a serious metallic jam, huge bass riffs, shrieked maniacal vocals, and speaker shredding, super stereo panned effects, until suddenly the song slows down into a lurching doomic plod, the drums blown out and in the red, locked into another super simple, but completely intense and relentless slow motion rhythm, again, the sky full of FX, squealing and grinding and buzzing and screeching, but now sprawled over Geronimo's angular what-the-fuck minimal math doom, are some of the most fucked up and intense vocals ever, alternately growling, roaring, howling, whispering and mewling, it sounds a bit like an industrialized Wolf Eyes-ian Oxbow, until you realize that the vocals in question belong to one David Yow, of Jesus Lizard and Scratch Acid (if only Qui sounded this bad ass). The suddenly it begins to sound like some Jesus Lizard outtake, slowed down, pulled apart and run through a bank of rusted and duct taped effects. One of those songs that easily could have been stretched out to the length of a whole record. Abrasive and brutal and hateful and super intense and heavy as fuck, but somehow weirdly hooky, and impossibly catchy, it's almost like having your pain and pleasure centers swapped, so having that anvil dropped repeatedly on your head ends up feeling so so divine. Definitely the song we keep coming back to, and playing over and over and over and over... Finally, the band finish things off with the uncharacteristically mellow "Prints Tie", wrapped around a fluid almost jazzy bassline, drifting keyboard melodies, and shuffling abstract percussion, the Neanderthal electronics are still present, but used much more sparingly, gorgeous and glimmering, a soft smeared minimal workout that almost sounds like a more lo-fi Necks. Super dreamy and darkly shimmery, and just pretty enough to almost make you forget the 47 minutes of glorious sonic punishment you just endured. Almost. So so so recommended. The minute we threw this one, we knew, THIS WAS THE ONE. Definite contender for record of the year (and actually, since I got it in December, it WAS my record of the year for 2007, even having only had it less than a month!) Folks who dug the Aluk Todolo will for sure dig this too. Likewise if the idea of, say, Mammal doing This Heat songs sounds cool to you too. Basically anyone into brutal rhythms and abstract minimal heaviness NEEDS this...

MPEG stream: Headdress
MPEG stream: Facepeeler
MPEG stream: Spiritwalker

It seems Japanese psychedelic noiserock insanity in the tradition of the good ol' Boredoms is alive and well! We're talking crazy Boredoms back in the day, at their hyperdelic height, but NOISIER. This debut album from Japanese outfit Gezan (in English, that may mean Descending, which makes sense given a close look at the cover art), unleashed over there in 2012, now gets a domestic release via Important and we gotta say, hell yeah, 'cuz Gezan rulez! Don't just take it from us - Gezan has garnered adulatory cover-blurb endorsements from the likes of Merzbow, Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins) and Agata (Melt-Banana); and apparently Acid Mothers Temple guru Makato Kawabata was the one that brought 'em to the attention of Important, citing Gezan as his favorite live band in Japan. Seems like those guys all think of Gezan as nextgen torchbearers for the classic Japanoise surreal psych sound, and we're hearing it here, freshly intense and energized, dark and psychotic. The buzzing distortodelic chaos of the aforementioned early Boredoms comes to mind right away, as leadoff track "Mishima To Kuchibeni" hoves into earshot, riding a headcaving Butthole Surfers sorta riff, warped and damaged, FX bubbling up everywhere. The in-the-red 'Tokyo Flashback' acid rock sound of psychedelic speed freak gangs like High Rise and Mainliner is obviously also deeply encoded in Gezan's DNA. And even harsher stuff, like Eye from the Boredoms' earlier noise unit Hanatarash, is touched upon here too - the industrial-strength devastation of "Kouchuu No Wakai", ferinstance, sounds like Merzbow meets Guitar Wolf! Meanwhile, the likes of "Kyoushin" channel the blackhole heaviness and lumbering, lurching feedback-drenched doomic riffery of such notorious Japanese psych-prog heavies as Zeni Geva, YBO2 and even Fushitsusha. Dang. Gezan do it all, in terms of freeform, unafraid, bold & bombastic freak flag flyin'. Never a dull moment. You get glitched-out rhythmic cut-up shenanigans, organized screaming, spacey shoegaze warble, fractured blues, even some bleakly beautiful parts. There's often strange, sudden segues into cinematic samples, echoing whisper-voiced interludes, and distortion-bombed soundscapes. But these are structured songs, mind you, and as experimental and extended and distended as they are, there's eventual rock n' roll payoff, usually. Also, Gezan are capable of surprises all the way through to the end, treating us to the (mostly) melodic blissed out finale "Haru No Hiza", didn't see that one coming. Nice. We've made a ton of references here to other Japanese bands - and should also mention some more, Gezan is likely also for fans of LSD-March, DMBQ, Omiode Hatoba, Up-Tight, and Boris (if they went totally nuts). But you don't have to be a Japanoise nerd to get into Gezan. Or at least, you don't have to know you're a Japanoise nerd, yet. Gezan's blown-out, blown-up brand of noisy psychedelic mayhem could and should appeal to lots of folks yet to delve into Gezan's overt antecedents. Just be into distorted, damaged, freaky, rocking WTF-ness and you'll dig this!

MPEG stream: Mishima To Kuchibeni
MPEG stream: Kocyuu, Shitatarazu
MPEG stream: MAN Machine

Finally back in stock, one of the AQ-staff's all time favorite drone recordings! This came out in '95, but we thought we'd list it anyway, after ordering a batch directly from the label 'cause we like it so much. Electronic instrument inventor Q.R. Ghazala (you may remember him from the instrument-inventor compilation "Gravikords, Whirligigs...") presents his "first insect symphony", performed on his "Vox Insecta" -- a synthesizer than specializes in simulating insect voices! The beautiful instrument (depicted on the cover, it looks like some sort of Art Deco stenographer's machine) may or may not always sound like a swarm of insects, but it certainly produces some gorgeous drones... Dark stuff, with keening higher-end tones supported by bass-y undulations. Creepy and beautiful. For fans of Tony Conrad and Lustmord and that sort of thing. So totally recommended!

RealAudio clip: Lullaby

Hallelujah! Ghost are back! Since Drag City's simultaneous release of their Snuff Box Immanence and Tune In, Turn On, Free Tibet albums back in 1999, we hadn't heard hide nor hair of Japan's wonderful acid-folksters Ghost (unless you count their liason with Damon & Naomi). Indeed we'd begun to wonder what was up with Masaki Batoh, Michio Kurihara and crew -- we missed them! And in those four or five years, it seemed that fans of '70s inspired Japanese psychedelic music had switched their allegiance to the much more prolific Acid Mothers Temple camp led by Kawabata Makoto who emerged in the meantime. But we Ghost fans know that, as good as AMT can be, in the realm of cosmic communal Japanese hippy rock, there is no comparison. Ghost rule that particular hypnotic underworld. Depth, beauty, originality -- on all those counts they have it over AMT. Unlike the excessive pastiche of AMT, there's nothing tongue in cheek about Ghost. And as for quality control, well, you do the math. So, needless to say, we were supremely excited to get this brand new Ghost album! The sun was sure 'tangging' the day this showed up. Word was that this might be Ghost's best album yet, and while we each have our favorites (mine's Lama Rabi Rabi, with their self-titled debut in close competition) this was immediately revealed as a contender. In short, it's freakin' great. Ghost explore some heavier, rockier, more prog-tastic directions in some of these songs, yet let their incomparable delicate psych-folk flow as well. Stirring guitar/drums workouts coexist with Batoh's fragile vocals and trembling sunshine melodies. And Terrascopic trainspotters will be interested to know that Ghost interpret songs by both Syd Barrett and the obscure '70s Dutch prog-rock act Earth & Fire, and make them completely their own. The album takes its name from the four-part, 25-minute suite that opens this disc, which ventures from lovely, hazy jazz-inflected jams to bombastic, utterly prog-rock flourishes complete with grandiose choirs. That alone is worth having waited four or five years for!

MPEG stream: Piper
MPEG stream: HU pt. 2: Escaped And Lost Down In Medina
MPEG stream: HU pt. 3: Aramaic Barbarous Dawn

FINALLY, this long out of print, all time unanimous AQ favorite gets re-pressed and is available once again! The Conet Project from beyond the grave!?! Perhaps that's a good way of describing this baffling, terrifying, occasionally laughable, but always compelling album. It's been out of print for a very long time, and we're pleased to see The Ghost Orchid haunting our shelves once again! To recap, The Ghost Orchid documents instances of something called "Electronic Voice Phenomenon," the paranormal appearance of strange voices (which at times sing and speak in multiple languages) on magnetic tape when there shouldn't be any voices there at all... Respected parapsychologists have postulated that these voices are those of dead people (i.e. ghosts) or possibly of extraterrestrial origin! Unlike The Conet Project, which cross referenced the audio tracks with written information, The Ghost Orchid presents these recordings with the audio commentary of one of several researchers (Nadia Fowler, Raymond Cass, and Lief Elggren -- the Swedish performance/audio artist and a part time collaborator with the Hafler Trio), explaining the findings. These recordings are the findings of a number of parapsychologists including Dr. Konstantine Raudive, Friedrich Jurgenson, and Raymond Cass. While there is something wholly terrifying about these recordings, there is an absurd question about these ghostly voices that we have to ask: Why are the majority of these recordings in Latvian? At any rate, The Ghost Orchid manages to be both spooky and silly, and is definitely a fascinating listen from a pure sound perspective regardless of how disturbing and/or amusing you might find the alleged sound source itself. For non sequitur pop culture reference, the sample "You are sleeping, you do not want to believe" which concludes The Smith's "The Rubber Ring" hails from an old recording made by Raudive and can be found in its entirety here. Brilliant!

MPEG stream: Out Of This World
MPEG stream: Burned With Force
MPEG stream: Carefully With Nerve Gas
MPEG stream: Breakthrough Side A

Darkthrone fans, check it out! It's a solo album - or at least, a solo ep, about 25 minutes long, with 4 songs on it - from Ted Skjellum, aka Nocturno Culto, one half of that idiosyncratic Norwegian black metal institution. Why he called his solo project Gift Of Gods we don't know, why not just call it the Nocturno Culto Band when you've already got a cool name like that? We also don't know why he didn't just put these songs on a Darkthrone album, 'cause in the liner notes, ol' Ted says this is his outlet for making music in the vein of '80s heavy metal, but of course that (in part) has been what Darkthrone has been doing on their last 4 or 5 albums anyway. Certainly any of the four tracks here could easily have appeared as one of the Nocturno Culto contributions to this year's Darkthrone opus The Underground Resistance, which alternated songs written and sung by Nocturno Culto with songs written and sung by the other half of the Darkthrone duo, Fenriz. The only real difference here is that N.C. is playing drums instead of Fenriz, as well as handling almost everything else: guitar, bass, lyrics, & vocals. N.C. does get help from his pal K.A. Hudbreider on rhythm guitar, while K.A.'s brother provides guests vocals on one track. Punningly named opener "Enlightning Strikes" sets the tone, with its surging, doomic riffs and N.C.'s rasping vokills, singing lyrics that are both morbid and cosmic. It's heavy, headbanging stuff, which segues nicely into an equally heavy instrumental, the triumphant title track, again loaded with churning riffage as well as loads of glorious lead guitar. That's followed by the disc's most traditionally '80s sounding song, which turns out to in fact be a cover, a rockin' number called "Looking For An Answer", originally recorded by an obscure Swedish heavy metal band called Universe back in 1985. A pretty great song, actually, and it fits right in, even though N.C. brings in a ringer to handle the more melodic demands of the vocals (quite well done by the aforementioned brother). Finally the ep winds up with the downer, doomy "Last Solstice", a track lengthy and pounding like the opener. Pure melancholy majesty; the '80s metal being referenced here has got to be Celtic Frost. So, basically, if you liked The Underground Resistance (we did!), then you can consider this ep the equivalent of previously unreleased bonus tracks, quite worthy ones at that. Now we'll be looking for a reissue of Universe's album... Slipcased jewel case compact disc packaging (vinyl version AWOL at the moment).

MPEG stream: Enlightning Strikes
MPEG stream: Looking For An Answer

The lucky few who managed to snag a copy of Canadian metal mag Morbid Tales #6, also got a glimpse of something pretty spectacular, strange and unexpected: a heavy metal cookbook, recipes from famous rockers, their own peculiar and particular metal food faves, compiled by Morbid Tales editrix Annick "Morbid Chef" Giroux, who has now taken her love of metal, and food, and that little cookbook supplement, and expanded it to a full on, honest to goodness cookbook. And it's awesome. We really can't imagine a metalhead who wouldn't want this, even if they never planned on actually making all the recipes. Pretty much the perfect gift for the metaller in your life, and who knows, maybe this cookbook will be the catalyst for some homemade meals. Although some of these recipes might have you thinking twice. Some sound delicious for sure, and the pictures are appropriately appealing, but others maybe not so much, and some seem to be purposefully disgusting, something only a very drunk metalhead would eat. But that's part of the fun of the book. We wanted to make a bunch of these before we reviewed it but ran out of time. We will though, already have a few bookmarked. For all her troo metal cred, editor Giroux is just too cute, on the cover in her metal patch-ed apron and huge knife, or on the dust cover chowing down on a sausage, heck the book is even dedicated to her grandmother, but let's get to the meat of this here cookbook. Every recipe features a full color photo (which at first glance seem like standard cookbook photos, until you begin to notice various metal items in the background, leather jackets, spikes, album covers, beer cans, wine bottles, etc.), the band logo and bio, the ingredients and instructions from the chef, as well as a little note from the Morbid Chef, her own take on each recipe. Some highlights include: Mummified Jalapeno Bacon Bombs from Chris Reifert of Autopsy/Abcess, Candied Sweetbreads On A Bed Of Sacred Heart from Balsac The Jaws Of Death from Gwar, Fried Egg Rigor Mortis Cure from Ustumallagam Of Denial Of God, Devil's Porridge from Montalo of Witchfynde, Welfare Nachos from Jason Decay of Cauldron/Goathorn, Bull Testicle Surprise from Tomas 'Necrocock' Kohout of Master's Hammer (and while many of the recipes have funny metal names and in fact are something else entirely, this one is in fact bull testicles!), The Stew Of True Doom from Karl Simon of Gates Of Slumber, Thundering Beef Brisket from Lips of Anvil, Doro's Black Forest Cake from Doro of Warlock, Beer Pizza Crust from Olaf Zissel of Tankard, New Orleans Blood Red Beans And Rice from Mike IX Williams of Eyehategod, Shellfish Crossfire from King Ov Hell of God Seed/Gorgoroth, and we could go on and on... More than 100 recipes from more than 30 countries, other bands contributing their favorite delectables include: Abigail, Accept, Amebix, Anthrax, Tygers Of Pan Tang, Uriah Heep, Thin Lizzy, Trouble, Electric Wizard, Destruction, Mayhem, Melechesh, Death SS, Judas Priest, Budgie, Impaler, Brutal Truth, Mutiilation, Lord Vicar, The Lord Weird Slough Feg, Piledriver, Pentagram, Rigor Mortis, The Rods, S.O.D, Stiny Plamenu, Warpig, Kreator and more more more. Separated into sections for: appetizers and side dishes, beef, pork, lamb, poultry, seafood, vegetarian, desserts, even drinks (of course - and many of the food recipes include instructions to drink beer WHILE MAKING the food, not just when eating it), with lots of awesome illustrations, photographs, record covers, it's pretty epic, and totally metal, and we really can't recommend this enough. As Giroux says in her intro, making a meal is a great excuse for drinking and listening to metal! INDEED!!!

Wow! This is one for all of you always seeking out the ultimate mathy heaviness. Girth are a guitar and drums duo from up Seattle way, and they dish out some seriously deranged, detailed, devastating instrumental mayhem here. There's a dozen songs on this 42 minute debut and they're all hella herky and jerky and heavy. Did we just say Hella? Well that'd be one comparison, along with Bozart and Breadwinner, though Girth are way more of a metal-riffed monster that those bands, something of which we totally approve. Girth's spazzy string-strangulation and amazing octopoidal drumming is balanced by their crushing low-end chunk and high-tension rocka rolla, and there's even some nice, calming interludes of post-rockish near melody. It's sorta like Crom-Tech or Orthrelm, but just a bit less maddening, more musical. At times this could be the Melvins, playing Black Flag's Process Of Weeding Out while on a caffine binge, throwing in some Entombed or Eyehategod riffs while they're at it. Or the Fucking Champs and Slayer as possessor demons doing battle for control of the same host body. The most important point is, that as hectic and heavy as this can be, it manages to be super listenable as well, something that we don't always get from the math core crowd. We like it. A lot. An impressive debut for sure, packaged with some suitably beautifully chaotic yet precise Stephen O'Malley designed graphics.

MPEG stream: Defaced By Her Unconscious
MPEG stream: Discreet Rendezvous
MPEG stream: Monopolizing The Pleasure Dome

We thumbed up the spacey synthy glitter-glam garage retro not-really-metal of this SF band's Siltbreeze 7" a while back, but then somehow skipped over reviewing their subsequent full-length, and are even a little behind the times in getting to this new elope of theirs too, but that's ok 'cause the Glitter Wiz guys are also behind the times, or maybe way out futuristically in front, way out anyway, again using '60s and '70s rock inspirations like Deep Purple, Hawkwind, The Doors, Bloodrock, Black Widow, and Iron Butterfly to help formulate their super groovy, more wizardly-than-thou sound, one that's got lotsa synth, jamming electric organ, some flute and sax. Along with catchy riffs and amusing lyrics, often gleefully unserious ("I don't worship the Devil, the Devil worships me"). Our kind of entertainment! There's one little hushed-folky-trippy-acoustic number, "Sunlit Wolves", but otherwise most of the trax are swaggering rockers, such as "Wizard Wagon" (about the singer's van, it would seem) which definitely has hit potential, in our world anyway. "Motorider" reminds us of both The Stooges and Steppenwolf, and when they get heavier on the 7+ minute "Space" it sorta sounds like an agitated Om with keyboards. Album-closer "Big Sur" also has that Om/Sleep vibe, due to the chant-like vox and slomo swinging plod. It's another long one, the longest here at close to 9 minutes, and so about half way through stops plodding and starts ripping and rollicking, reminding us more of early early Sabbath, like back when Sabbath covered Crow's "Evil Woman" on their first single. That said, though, mostly Glitter Wizard doesn't even seem all that heavy or metal or even proto-metal. They're retro-proto-proto-metal maybe? Definitely G. Wiz love their '60s sounds but do their own cool new thing with that, rather than going for some kind of Nuggets redux. For fans of Blood Ceremony (minus the female vox and much of the metal) and Danava and Mammatus when they do get heavy-ish. Vinyl-only, goddamit. Maybe someday they'll realize that compact discs are more glittery and magical.

MPEG stream: Worship The Devil
MPEG stream: Wizard Wagon
MPEG stream: Big Sur

Thee extreme/experimental/industrial metal scene has a potential new ruler here, with the doomic and disturbing debut of Gnaw. If you put this disc in your computer's iTunes, you'll see some joker has categorized their genre as "children's music". Ha, don't think so! Unless you want your kids to grow up to be like Alan Dubin, of OLD/Khanate infamy, who provides the blood curdling vokills here, ranging from throat-shredding yowls to creepy stage whispers. He's joined by former members of doomlords Burning Witch, psychfolk weirdos Enos Slaughter and cold, early '80s NYC post-punk Factory Records band Ike Yard (!) for this new project, which seems to take up where Dubin's previous bands left off, but in a direction much more deviant & eccentric. The claustrophobic chaos of track one, "Haven Vault", ought to determine pretty quick if this is for you or not. Imagine a sped-up Khanate struggling through a windstorm, Dubin bawling wretchedly amidst the buzzing murk and the splatter of improv percussion... then distant, pretty piano notes fade in eerily, one by one... it's like Khanate meets Hazard meets Supersilent, in a nightmare. Extreme indeed, and all right with us! That leads to the next track, one that's calmer and more song-like, yet perhaps even more sinister-sounding, with Dubin's negative vibe lyrics more intelligible, everything backed by a springy-sprongy electronic rhythm. More of a tribal drumming pattern is exhibited on the deep rumble of the third song. Each track seems to delve further and further into weirdness and woe, with drone and distortion and feedback given free range of the album. The jittery percussion effects a trance-like vibe at times, perhaps allowing Dubin's words deeper, subliminal access to your subconscious (uh oh). But as big fans of both OLD and Khanate, we're all for it, glad to now have Gnaw to push those same buttons, along with other ones we hadn't expected, like the way the singing on "Watcher" sounds almost like Eugene from Oxbow. Or how it sounds like maybe Dubin & Co. have been into some dubstep lately. Or how Gnaw's crunching head nodding heaviness is cracked like Humpty D. Yep, if you like some strange surprises in your grim glitchtronic avant-metal music, and moreover enjoy the varied vokill stylings of Mr. Dubin, you'll want Gnaw's Your Face at your place. The Conspiracy label has released this on cd (digipack) and of course LIMITED EDITION gatefold vinyl of various colors (we've got any color you want, as long as it's black). They had to leave 2 tracks off the vinyl version, but it does come with a free mp3 download card so you can get the entire album on your computer.

MPEG stream: Haven Vault
MPEG stream: Vacant
MPEG stream: Shard

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

SORRY. Just got a handful of this obscure prog cd reissue so we thought we'd list it. Definitely one for anyone who's dug previous AQ prog recommendations. Actually the UK's Gnidrolog kinda combine a lot of our favorite over-the-top prog moves into one elpee. You'll hear some Magma, some Van Der Graaf...King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Shub Niggurath, Osanna...even some Comus. It's crazed and hectic and bombastic, with zany Zappa'd mathematical rock n' roll raveups (complete with harp blowin'), fitted out in extreme prog fashion with cello, sax, oboe, piano, and flute. (Let's not forget the flute!! that's where the Comus and Tull comparisions come in.) From pretty, rustic folk song to unhinged dramatic vocalizations to doomy rock chords and even some super-skronky guitar noise, this 1972 LP was definitely *out there* as far as progressive rock goes. In Spite Of Harry's Toe-Nail was their debut, but this cd version includes as bonus tracks alternate versions of two from their second album Lady Lake, including the epic Wishbone Ash-ish "I Could Never Be A Soldier".

MPEG stream: Long Live Man Dead
MPEG stream: Snails

We've been waiting for this one for ages. After an insanely limited 7" single, which was so scarce, no one we know has actually ever even seen a copy, let alone bought one, and a teaser video on YouTube, and all sorts of rumors about this Swedish band who were influenced by African music and voodoo and came from some mysterious village no one had ever heard of, well, needless to say, we were DYING for the full length, and it does not disappoint. So the story goes, in a tiny village in Sweden called Korpolombolo, there has existed a band called Goat for generations, this is just the first incarnation of the band that has captured any of their music on tape. Supposedly the village was cursed by some sort of voodoo witch doctor, who was put to death for being a witch, and introducing voodoo worship to this tiny village. It only takes one Google search to discover that there is no such village, or so say the skeptics, but we choose to BELIEVE, and that village is just so obscure and tiny and tucked away, that it has even escaped the notice of Google. And whether it's true or not, the IDEA of it definitely influences the music of Goat, whose sound most definitely has a serious African vibe, the percussion, the vocals, it's heady concoction of wild psychedelic space rock, all driving krautrock rhythms, and tangled squalls of electric guitar freakout, and dense rhythmic percussion, and almost double dutch sounding vocals. When we first threw this on, our first impression was that it sounded like a weird mix of Konono No.1, The Heads and (believe it or not) the Go! Team, which even now, after constant listening doesn't seem that far off. The tracks are dense, and psychedelic, heavy, fuzzy, definitely Stooges-y at times, Hawkwindy at others, several of the tracks display a Miles Davis style grooviness, sounding like a SUPERCHARGED ultra heavy Bitches Brew, others pound away sounding exactly how you might imagine some ancient voodoo ritual would sound reimagined by some modern Swedish psychedelic space rock outfit. "Goatman" (from the 7") is the perfect intro, after a strange sample, and some tribal drumming, the guitars come cascading in, wild squalls of psychedelic wah guitar, and keening high end wails, then the vocals come in, belted out over the fuzzed out bass, the percussion wild and groovy, it's total Swedish Afro-psych, or something, if this one track stretched out and filled up the whole record, it STILL would have been Record Of The Week. The band do have a surprisingly broad palette though, whether it's the subdued acid folk Appalachia of "Goathead", or the organ driven Afro-groove of the appropriately titled "Disco Fever", with its percussion heavy funk swaddled in progged out organs, and then there's the equally funky "Golden Down", that sounds like some Southeast Asian Sublime Frequencies jam, but here cranked up, the guitars super distorted, the bass dangerously buzzy, the sound blissfully in-the-red, the drums wild and loose, the ultimate heavy psychedelic dance band, for those three minutes you can almost imagine these guys jamming out at the edge of the world in some alternate dimension seedy dive, with a dancefloor full of damned souls. Sweaty and swaggery and fierce as fuck. "Let It Bleed" delivers a more laid back groove, and even introduces some saxophone, which gives it the vibe once again of some psych-ed up Ethiopian groove. "Run To Your Mama" melds serious Sabbath-y riffage to some wild tribal percussion, and wailed vox, while "Goatlord" unfurls some dark psych folk, replete with super distorted heavy psych leads, over urgent strumming and cooed echo drenched vox, sounding a bit like a more psychedelic Comus in fact. And finally, the record finishes off with the epic "Det Som Aldrig Forandras", with its bagpipe sounding opening, that quickly explodes into a heady psychedelic groove, droned out and hypnotic, the sort of jam that should/could have been ENDLESS, but instead, works its way back to a seriously heavy psychedelic coda, bookending the brief 3 minute opener, again, the sort of jam they could have stretched out for another twenty minutes, and we would have been in heaven, but the fact that it loops back around to the beginning, only adds a strange sort of endless ritual vibe to the proceedings, and makes it that much easier to play it all over again. And again. And again. Forever. Super swank, die cut, eye popping artwork too, on the cd and lp both!

MPEG stream: Diarabi
MPEG stream: Goatman
MPEG stream: Golden Dawn
MPEG stream: Det Som Aldrig Forandras / Diarabi

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

SORRY. Spooky '70s Italian prog rockers Goblin are known for their soundtracks to many famous Dario Argento horror films. Here's one of the best, newly reissued on lp. Deep red indeed. Includes the tracks "Death Dies", "Mad Puppet", and "School At Night" among others.

It's weird to think that amongst the legions of fans out there who LOVE Jesu, there are probably loads of folks who don't realize that Jesu was born out of the mighty behemoth that was Godflesh. Justin Broadrick, who started off in grind pioneers Napalm Death, made a quick pitstop in Head Of David, and eventually struck out on his own in Godflesh. These days, drum machines and metal are not strange bedfellows, but back in the day, this was some seriously what-the-fuck action. Metalheads and punk rockers alike were confused, but got over it pretty quick once they realized that Godflesh might just be the heaviest fiercest thing they had ever heard. And Godflesh at their heaviest was to be found right here, on Streetcleaner, adorned with the now iconic image of crucified men on crossed in front of a cascade of burning lava (a frame from the genius movie Altered States), this record, originally released in 1989, still sounds as fearsome as ever. And now that we have a handful of Jesu records to reference, it's easy to hear that some of the seeds that would eventually blossom into the dreamy shoegazy metallic bliss of Jesu, were present even back then, albeit buried beneath a black hole crush of churning downtuned riffage and blistering skull rattling programmed beats. Our old three sentence, 14 word review of this still says it best: "One of the heaviest, scariest "metal" albums EVER. Drum machine doom death. Godflesh's best." NOW ON VINYL!!! And holy crap if that cover doesn't look even more amazing all blown back up to its proper lp size!!

MPEG stream: Christbait Rising
MPEG stream: Mighty Trust Krusher

It's always a little nerve wracking listening to a friend's record. Hoping that it's good so you don't have to hem and haw and eventually say something like "Wow...really interesting" or "Wow. Great guitar sound" or some other non-committal could-be-construed-as-saying-you-like-the-record sort of thing. So it's even more intense when it's someone's -first- record. But luckily, this time, there was no need to worry, 'cause this Golden Hotel record is a gorgeous, droney, space-y, drugged out psychedelic folk record. Golden Hotel is our customer Cayce (who has appeared in several of the AQ neighborhood films, he's the bearded fellow with the dog Cowboy) and his brother Sidney who is in AQ faves Torrez. And the Torrez connection definitely shows, with shimmery guitars and warm thick atmosphere, but the female vocals of Torrez are replaced with the brothers' rough but melodic warm warbly rasps and the sound is a little less lush and a bit more buzzing and immediate (plenty of instrument buzz, lip smacking, breathing). Warm swells of thick guitar wash over shimmering high end harmonics whirling quietly in the background as gently strummed acoustic guitar underpins delicate minor key melodies. Lots of stray sounds, varied instrumentation and production fuckery augment these ultimately simple folk songs, turning them into languid, stoned epics, with simple stumbling percussion, fuzzy far-away guitar, droning buzzing harmonies, pulsing underwater bass, and dreamy blissed out ambience. Definitely influenced by/reminiscent of Greg Weeks, Six Organs Of Admittance, Charalambides, Joshua, Songs:Ohia, Herman Dune, and other current practitioners of modern psych-folk. A great surprise and a fantastic record.

RealAudio clip: Summer, Silver Lake/The Trouble Behind Mr. Peterson's Eyes
RealAudio clip: Palisade
RealAudio clip: All My Girls Are Singing
RealAudio clip: Everything Dying Sings

We first heard Golden Void, via their debut single on local label Valley King, and were immediately blown away, so much so that we could pretty much only muster up a bunch of wild gushing to explain how much we loved it. It went like this: "Golden Void's sound is SO kick ass and SO hits the spot, totally heavy, hooky, groovy stoner rock, big riffs, lots of organ, soaring vocals, and yeah, of course some seriously shredding leads, totally catchy, a modern take on some mix of all your teenage faves, Kiss, Thin Lizzy, Skynrd, just totally rocking, laced with plenty of psychedelic swirl, and a distinctly laid back classic rock vibe. Also reminds us a LOT of aQ stoner rock faces Freedom Hawk, the A side of this here single, might be THEE rocking jam of the summer. And we're thinking that when these guys come out with a full length, we might just have us a new favorite record..." Well, we pretty much called it, cuz these guys DO have a new record, and it most absolutely IS our new favorite, in fact, we got a copy a while back, even though it only just came out, and it has to be one of THEE most played records in the store, by pretty much everyone here, and almost every time we played it, customers in the store had to find out what it was, and more often than not, ordered themselves a copy. So yeah, Golden Void is the new band from Earthless' Isaiah Mitchell, along with Camilla Saufley-Mitchell (his wife?) from Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, as well as few other locals, and they have come up with easily the best retro rock, heavy psych record of the year. In addition to the above mentioned outfits, we hear plenty of Captain Beyond, Ozzy era Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, even Witchcraft, the sound is heavy and hooky, the songs good enough to actually BE classic rock tunes, not just sounding like them, had this record come out in 1976, we'd be hearing this shit on classic rock radio non stop. Sun baked and blown out, more mellow than metallic, very California-esque in its vibe, a totally classic, vintage seventies sound, right down to the recording, and again, the songs. We can't tell you how many bands have the sound nailed but not the songs, but every track here is perfect, and impossibly catchy, the sort of songs you'll have stuck in your head forEVER. "Art Of Invading" starts things off, organ driven proto metal psychedelic radness, wild drumming, the vocals bathed in reverb, the sound stone-y and heavy, super dynamic, and it is Mitchell's band after all, so plenty of super melodic, wildly shredding leads. "Virtue" cranks things up a notch, and weirdly reminds us of the sort of sound that aQ faves Malachai were conjuring up in the studio, super heavy, riffy, laid back vox, and hooks galore, and the drumming, holy shit, crazy busy, but perfect for the song, which leads directly into "Jetsun Dolma", the slow groover of the record, the psychedelic ballad, that has a bit of an Allman Brothers vibe, laced with woozy swirls of washed out organ, and killer wah guitar. It's at this point that the record gets REALLY good. Even better than the first half. "Badlands" might be our most played song on the record, with its churning organ heavy groove, crazy catchy chorus, and killer proggy breakdown midsong. Then come the two tracks from the Valley King single, which along with "Badlands", are absolutely the perfect retro psych heavy rock one-two-three punch. "Shady Grove" is the band at their poppiest, and sort of Southern rockiest, such a goddamn great song, and the main melody, especially when Mitchell solos off of it, untouchable. And then there's "The Curve", which might be even poppier, but is also heavier, some of us hear Kiss like crazy, but a smarter, heavier, more psychedelic version of Kiss, more killer guitar harmonies, and probably the catchiest leads on the whole record. There's also the bluesy breakdown midsong, which is so seventies, Mitchell lacing it with all sorts of subtle guitar shreddery, and then the slow build back to the main riff, pretty much impossible to resist headbanging or air guitaring or BOTH. Finally, the record finishes off with "Atlantis", which might be the most psychedelic of the bunch, with its slithery main melody, and washed out vocals, the whole thing hazy and tripped out, but still heavy and groovy, slipping from the dense drum heavy verses, to the soaring swoonsome chorus, the two separated by a super cool angular guitar break. The second half of the track adds extra guitar shred, and a bit of sonic heft, before the music drops out, leaving just the vocals to fade out in a druggy haze. Holy shit. Even after maybe a hundred listens, we're still not tired of this. Anyone into any of the above mentioned outfits, as well as obviously Earthless, Assemble Head, Comets On Fire, etc. will definitely lose their shit over these guys, as will most folks into heavy, hooky retro rock heavy psych radness, which we're guessing is probably a whole lot of YOU.

MPEG stream: Shady Grove
MPEG stream: The Curve
MPEG stream: Art Of Invading
MPEG stream: Badlands

German Oak isn't the only recent reissue from the murky zone of long-lost krautrock to get us frothing lately. There's also this welcome reissue of the Golem album, via excellent archival imprint Lion Productions (and their UK associates Acme Records). This one has a mysterious backstory indeed. We'll briefly try to give you the basics here, though there's lots more info in the liner notes that come with this release... During the mid '90s there was a resurgence of interest in krautrock, when all kinds of long lost kraut classics were being reissued on cd (many via the grey area Germanofon label), and Julian Cope came out with his infamous Krautrocksampler book. Virgin UK got into the act with a series of compilations called Unknown Deutschland. They featured tracks by some totally unknown bands, The Nazgul, Golem, Temple, Galactic Explorers, and others, supposedly originally released as limited edition lps (100 copies? 25?!) by an art gallery associated label called Pyramid, circa '72-'74, amazing archival stuff indeed. But were they fakes? Perhaps '90s recordings, cashing in on the krautrock boom? Some thought so, on account of how nobody had ever seen or heard of these records before. Definitely it seemed likely that all were the work of the same bunch of musicians, recording under different names. Eventually a label called Psi-Fi came out with reissues (?) of some of the individual albums, which hardly settled the question. This, one, by Golem, even deepened the mystery, as someone named "Genius P. Orridge" was credited as producer... Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV fans will find that rather curious. Who knows, maybe a coincidence. The controversy has never been definitively settled. But the general consensus is that these recordings do date from Germany in the '70s, maybe more like the late '70s. In any case it's the music that matters, and yeah by that measure there's no doubting that Golem is prime krautrock indeed, sure sounds like it to us! Freeform, all-instrumental, organ and synth heavy space rock for fans of Gila, Guru Guru, Ash Ra Tempel, etc. Five long tracks (including a 14 minute 3 part suite) of superbly spaced out jamming, loose and lysergic, with an edgy, throbbing pulse throughout, and blasts of fuzzed out guitar. Title track "Orion Awakes" starts the trip off right, dark and heavy, "Stellar Launch" also builds up from nervous atmospheres and propulsive motorik rhythms to sheer ecstatic chaos, "Godhead Dance" wah's it up a la Hendrix, "Jupiter & Beyond" (the suite) is suitably far out and freaky, and the repetitive riff rock finale of "The Returning" is a catchy fuzz buzz, almost pop, yet ultra distorted, that reminds us a heck of a lot of AQ garage psych faves The Heads!! Spacemen 3, too. Also could almost be something from one of J. Cope's Braindonor discs too. Super cool. Like we said, packaged with copious liner notes, this edition far superior to the long out of print one on Psi-Fi, though that did have nice silver metallic cover that this doesn't replicate. Here's hoping that Lion next reissues The Nazgul one, it's good too, how could it not be with a lineup consisting of Frodo, Gandalf, and Pippin?

MPEG stream: Orion Awakes
MPEG stream: Stellar Launch
MPEG stream: The Returning

You know the notion of the wise old hermit sitting on a mountaintop? You'd expect to find an Eastern guru like that up on some Himalayan peak, but of course leave it to a bunch of Swiss and German hippies in the '70s to relocate that mountaintop guru concept to the Alps, and why not? These krautrockers, organized as one of Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser's "Cosmic Couriers" projects, found the perfect frontman, enlisting Swiss writer/folklorist Sergius Golowin (an expert on both Alpine myths and magic mushrooms, not to mention a friend of fugitive acid maven Timothy Leary) to provide mystic recitations over the Eastern-inspired druggy kraut bliss a-sprawl on this 1973 LSD dipped/tripped/hipped "supersession" happening. Said spaced out sounds generated, via flute Mellotron bongos electronics piano tablas organ glockenspiel & guitars, by a cast of musicians including folkies Witthuser & Westrupp, members of hard progsters Wallenstein, and last but not least, he of much kosmiche cred, Klaus Schulze! Actually, Golowin's echoey German-language spoken vox, while adding to the esoteric atmosphere, really take a back seat to the trancey music found on these three long tracks, the longest and most dramatic of which is the third, "Die Hoch-Keit", at almost 20 minutes taking up all of the original vinyl's second side. It begins like an eerie interlude from a particularly psychedelic Spaghetti Western soundtrack, full of abstract percussive sputter, cascading piano, and whispered vocals, its rhythms eventually coalescing into minimalist, Reich/Reichel style pulsations, having a looping, Moolah-like aspect. It and the other two equally freaky pieces on here make for mind expanding, maybe not exactly relaxing music, having a nervous energy that might have something to do with the general drug vibe... yet some portions of this album are quite angelic. While kraut fiends will want this 'cause it was one of the first of Kaiser's post-OHR Cosmic Couriers label albums, released after Ash Ra Tempel's Seven Up and before Walter Wegmuller's Tarot, even the less obsessed might find this an interesting Astral-Alpine excursion! It's been reissued before, on Spalax, but this new edition boasts much more in the way of liner notes in the thick cd booklet, including some fairly recent interviews with the late Sergius Golowin himself, who passed away in 2006, a true hippie guru 'til the end.

MPEG stream: Der Reigen
MPEG stream: Die Hoch-Zeit (excerpt 1)
MPEG stream: Die Hoch-Zeit (excerpt 2)

Somehow missed this when it came out last year. But with Delia & Gavin being recent Arthur Magazine cover stars we figured we should get on the ball. Some of us remember hearing a 12" of theirs on DFA that stood out as it was really like nothing else on the label. These weren't sounds interested in making you dance and shaking your ass, instead they were about creating a trance, a hypnotizing, tranquil and space-bound dreamlike state. The album takes the same approach and even widens and propels its effect. With 5 long songs that will no doubt make you think of the best of Tangerine Dream. So entrancing and mesmerizing. The Days of Mars sort of sounds like trying to travel to outer space in an old helicopter that rises ever so slowly with its rotors going around and around, an analog starship travelling through some druggy digital universe. Taking cues from lots of the best of 70's electronic minded ambient recordings, like the collaborations between Eno & Cluster, as well as the most spaced out moments of pre-Wall Pink Floyd, this is a record that totally nails its sound so well. Something so mesmerizing, empty, and creepy about its presence. There have been times near closing hour where there will be just one person in the store and this will be on and there's just the weirdest tension that begins to permeate the store. Like a film loop of a acid drenched washed out kodachrome shot image that you can't stop staring at. This is the sound of hours after the rave, days of being awake, nights of being in a complete daze. A late night early morning eyes wide shut dreamstate blissout for sure! We are hooked!

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Sam Gopal was an Indian tabla player, making the scene in Swinging Sixties London. His 1969 Escalator album is pretty obscure, but a classic as far as we're concerned. Sam's percussion of course does a lot to set it apart from the paisley pack (not that Eastern sounds weren't unheard of back then), but it's really vocalist/guitarist Ian "Lemmy" Willis (yes, Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead) who really shines here. The young Lemmy conjures up some incredibly liquid, languid dark psych on tracks like "The Dark Lord" and "You're Alone Now". Reminds us a bit of Twink's Think Pink album, or even T2. So starkly beautiful. Mellow, melodic, mystical. Not heavy in a loud way (nothing like Motorhead that's for sure!!), but "heavy" nonetheless if you know what we mean. Some of the songs definitely do rock out, but still remain somehow muted and moody. It's gorgeous stuff, the downer, down-tempo mood spoiled only a bit by covers of "Back Door Man" and "Season Of The Witch" (the later with R&B-ish female backing vocals). Aside from those, though, supposedly all the songs on here were written by Lemmy in one night, up on speed! Wow. Jeez, is Lemmy the best or what? Hendrix roadie, onetime Hawklord, metal icon...and sinister psych singer-songwriter too! This nice digipack reissue, including two tracks from the group's lone single as a bonus, comes very much recommended.

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Holy shit. GORE! Easily one of our favorite heavy bands EVER. We raved about the separate 2lp reissues last list, but we figured we'd wait for the cds to show up before bestowing Record Of The Week status upon them. Now combined as one massive double disc document collecting the first two albums and then some from this Dutch instru-metal group, who forged an incredible minimal metallic legacy that would go on to influence loads of our favorite bands. In fact, aQ would quite possibly be a whole different kind of store if it wasn't for Gore... This is the sort of review that is so intimidating. Records we have loved for years and years, listened to hundreds, maybe even thousands of times, and then to finally have to put into words what it is that makes these so good, so special, whatever it is that makes these two of our favorite records EVER!!!! How much do we love these records? Well, whenever we would find one used, we would buy it just to give it to someone who needed to hear it, so much so that Andee at one point was even talking to the band about a comprehensive career spanning box set. But why you ask? Difficult to explain, hearing them is enough, even decades after they were originally released, folks who have never heard Gore, are usually sold after ONE song. Sometimes it doesn't even take that long. Just listen to "Mean Man's Dream" below, we'll wait.... See what we mean? So heavy, repetitive, mesmerizing, hypnotic, angular and abrasive, but impossibly catchy, groovy even. Listen to the other tracks, you won't be able to stop, you'll need to hear them all. Gore fanatics will need these no matter what, and most heavy music fans have probably at least heard OF Gore, if not heard them once or twice, so they too might also want to pick these up. But we might as well start with who the heck this Gore band is anyway, and why should we care... Gore were a Dutch instrumental power trio trafficking in ultra minimal heaviness, like an even more minimal Melvins, but sans vocals, their songs made up of one, maybe two riffs, pounded out over and over, a bit like a more metal, proto-Circle. Hart Gore and Mean Man's Dream are the first two Gore records, but play like part one and part two of a single song cycle. Crushing, pummeling, heavy as hell, repetitive, motorik, but weirdly melodic and impossibly catchy, we can't stress enough how massive and seminal these records were and are. Gore created and mastered a sound that would go on to influence countless heavy bands, and yet, somehow, these two records decades after their initial release, still sound YEARS ahead of their time, masterpieces of heavy rock, of minimal metal, of proto-math metal, of hypno rock, this, as they say is THE SHIT. For now, all we can say, is if you are at all into heavy music, these records are about as essential as it gets, your life will be changed, the way you look at music, what you consider heavy, how you hear other heavy bands, all of that will change, for the better. Trust us. For Gore fanatics, like us, these are ESSENTIAL, the new designs are gorgeous, incorporating the timeless original album covers with new drawings and a beautiful super stylized layout. The cd includes a big booklet, packed with liner notes, the story of Gore, tons of rare photos, and most importantly, both discs come with a whole mess of live tracks from the same era! Unreleased and unheard until now! BUY THIS NOW! YOU WILL NOT BE SORRY. THIS COULD BE YOUR NEW FAVORITE BAND! AND C'MON SOUTHERN LORD! KEEP THE GORE REISSUES COMING. WREDE! LIFELONG DEADLINE! MEST! SLOW DEATH! WE WANT, NAY -NEED- THEM ALL!!!!!!

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

SORRY. Rarely do bands completely reinvent themselves, especially metal bands. But Canada's Gorguts have done it (firing all but one member of the band in the process...) on this, their third album. Nobody was expecting it (nobody was really expecting a new Gorguts record at all, to be honest), but on Obscura generic deathmetal becomes super aggressive, completely unmelodic, stop/start math metal with the most bizarre guitar playing (totally "no-wave", like they have the guitarist from the Scissor Girls or something!) possibly ever heard in a "metal" band. Highly recommended!

We've been on a bit of a soundtrack kick lately here at aQ, getting a lot of cool ones in over the past little while. We just came across this disc and figured we should give it a shot, even though we hadn't seen the movie and weren't that familiar with the composer - but it's from an early '70s Italian "giallo" style thriller after all, and that's pretty compelling piece of cover art, ain't it? (Grasping hands, witchy woman, supine topless beauty; possibly promising a cinematic / soundtrack experience equally creepy and occult and sexy). As it turns out, this soundtrack turned out to be even better than we had hoped!! Much of the music here is soooooo beautifully sinister and slinky, exotic and noirishly jazzy - but that's not all, what we weren't expecting was how much fuzzed out psych-rock guitar action was going to be on here, too. WOW. Amidst the suitably spooky, sometimes quite lovely atmospheric interludes that primarily comprise the soundtrack, there's sudden heavy parts that sound not unlike the intro to a Black Sabbath song!! Maybe Tony Iommi happened to be visiting ancestral homeland and got hired to do these sessions while he was there - ok, unlikely, but that's almost what it sounds like. And certainly it's not impossible that the same guys who made that Blue Phantom library record could have been involved with this... definitely the occasional isolated slice of Sabbathy fuzzy doom riffage should attract any adventurous proto-metal fiends also into Italian library music, Goblin, & stuff like that too. Mostly, this consists of dark, suspenseful, instrumental grooves, tracks variously arranged for ticking, agitated percussion, zinging strings, eerie woodwinds, springy Jew's harp, bongo drums, smokey jazz trumpet, wordless haunting female vocals, wavery electric organ, electronic effects... These incidental tracks are sinister, but romantic. Like the theme song for a lover you don't trust to not kill you when she's done with you, but you're still gonna take that chance. And then, oh yeah, there's that aforementioned fuzz guitar, putting this over the top for us. Sometimes just a stab of it here or there, a single chord ringing out, cranking up the intensity level of this spinetingling music. Or, a couple times, leading into a full-on heavy psychrock jam. Weird how this album at moments reminds us of Black Sabbath or Randy Holden's Population II - and also, at other times, when that trumpet gets a-swinging, of Herb Alpert! Now it seems lots of times when we list a soundtrack, we mention that we haven't actually seen the movie - in part 'cause yes we haven't seen the movie and thus can't say a lot about it, but also to indicate that you don't HAVE to have seen a movie in order to enjoy a soundtrack - but you all get that already, right? Of course. So for this review, we decided that we'd make an effort to try and watch La Morte Scende Leggera (aka Death Comes Lightly), the soundtrack made us curious after all... but alas we didn't manage to track it down in time. So once again, this is an example of how you can absolutely LOVE a soundtrack without any idea what the movie was all about - although the copious liner notes in the cd booklet, illustrated with stills from the film, do give us an idea - directed by Leopoldo Savona and released in 1972, it was apparently a movie with a confusing plot somehow involving drug smuggling, political corruption, quasi-supernatural elements, a series of mysterious murders, and erotic interludes - part psychological thriller, part ghost story, part softcore porn. The liner notes don't exactly give it two thumbs up, but it sounds kinda cool to us. And the appropriately psychedelic soundtrack for sure is cool. From reading the liner notes, we also got some notion of how exactly it ended up sounding the way it does. Turns out track one, the movie's theme song, "Sunday In Neon Light", was actually not specifically written for the soundtrack. It had originally appeared on an obscure 1972 album (which now we'd love to find) called Peace On You by the Mak Sigis Porter Ensemble, lead by an expatriate singer/musician from Ghana. Part aching ballad, part heavy psych jam, "Sunday In Neon Light" has a bit of the vibe of some of the Afro-fuzz garage records we've had reissues of lately, with crunching guitar chords and vocals that remind us of Jimi Hendrix or Malcolm Mooney from early Can (hearing it was the first thing that clued us in that this wasn't the usual giallo soundtrack). Then, 'cause they'd decided to use this song in the movie, composer Lallo Gori wrote the rest of the score around it, his orchestrations in a similar psychedelic style using fuzz rock guitar, etc. And, in our opinion, the results are up there with some of our favorite soundtracks like Klute, Psychomania, and Possession - the latter of which we made a Record Of The Week not long ago, so we're gonna do the same for La Morte Scende Leggera too. Also note, it's a limited edition release, our supplier apparently having some of the last copies around, and at a bargain price since it's normally an expensive import.

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For fans of NECROPHAGIST!!! Big time. Same label too. Hyper technical deathmetal with INSANE squiggly guitar parts and absurdly brutal vocal gruntings. It's mathy like Girth, dizzingly technical like Capharnaum, catchy like Carcass, and even a wee bit fusiony like Psyopus... and deathly death metal. Grrrr. Lots of stop start jerkiness to mess you up, with riffs swarming like vermin all over the bloody corpses that they call songs. Yet amidst the intense brutality, the guitarwork could even be called beautiful. Certainly impressive. Anyone at all metal-minded will be slayed. It's basically the Fucking Champs/Gorguts fantasy date. And that's probably all you need to know! But can we also say that it's really hard to figure out what they're going on about in their songs? I mean, of course you can't understand what the vocalist is violently belching about. But there's a lyric sheet and we're still confused. We can attribute such song titles as "Hunt To The Weaks" to the fact that they're French and maybe English isn't their strong suit. And yeah, "Smoked Skulls" and "Gutting Job" sound like regular nasty death metal titles. But look more closely into the lyrics and it's not so obvious. For instance, what IS "Gorod"? It's not just the band name, they sing about it. And "Neurotripsicks"? That's all over the lyrics too. Crazy. Just like the music. So, again, Necrophagist fans must check this out. It's the mathy technical death metal guitar-wank record of the week/month/maybe year for sure!!

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A few years ago (2006) we reviewed the debut album from unpretentious modern day prog rockers Gosta Berlings Saga, of Sweden. Checking in with them again, they're up to album number 3, released Stateside by the venerable progressive rock / new music label Cuneiform. This actually came out last year, so we're a little late to it, but this sort of prog rock is timeless anyway (it might as well be from 1975!). They're still pushing our "traditional" prog rock lovin' buttons, so we thought we ought to list it for those of you likely to feel the same way, who dig other 21st century efforts at updating this '70s genre from the likes of Astra, Diagonal, and Crime In Choir, for instance. Glue Works, like GBS's preceding albums, is mostly instrumental, and not overindulgent (for prog) - and thus could just as easily be seen as a moderately mathy "post-rock" album (but with mellotron!) instead of anything self-consciously retro. Most of the songs are even quite short and succinct, with only two of the 7 tracks breaking into double-digit lengths, those would be the powerful symphonic epic "Island" (12:58), and the album's multifaceted grand finale, "Sorteragatan 1" (12:51). Filled with the varied drama & delight of grimy distortion, pleasant keys, eerie synth, sweeping strings, some angular new wavy guitar, and even musical saw, the entirety of Glue Works is a melodic and moody opus that nods to the proggy '70s without growing a ponytail or anything. Quite nice!

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At last, a nicely done new cd reissue of this renowned early '80s krautrock / proto-techno classic! We've actually never before reviewed E2-E4 because the previous reissues were expensive and kinda hard to come by, though we DID once list a double cd tribute to this record, imported from Japan, featuring tracks by the likes of Rovo, Buffalo Daughter, and Eye from the Boredoms, who took up the entire 2nd disc with his extended mix (wish we still had that, but it's long gone). Better, though, to have this, the actual album that inspired the tribute. Here's some of what we said about it when we reviewed that Japanese tribute disc: German guitar guru Manuel Gottsching, founder of legendary krautrock pioneers Ash Ra Temple (which morphed into the new-age-ier Ashra), made a few records in the eighties under his own name. E2-E4, recorded in Berlin in 1981, and released in '84, was first and foremost among them. It's rightly hailed as a classic and was a great inspiration for early Detroit techno artists like Derrick May and Carl Craig. The resonant timelessness of E2-E4 has extended beyond many other albums of the era and its influence has continuously popped up in more recent minimalist techno circles - most noticeably within the Cologne scene. We went on to say that while the reinterpretations on the tribute disc were cool, you should check out the real deal, and now here it is. It's one loooong track, approximately one hour in length, with nine titled and timed subdivisions indicated on the cover (suggestive of a chess match: "Quiet Nervousness", "Queen A Pawn", "Draw"...), that flows and flows and flows, Gottsching's guitar and electronics drifting and dancing beautifully over the continuous, pulsating, subtly-shifting proto-techno beat. It's so very pleasant and airy, also soooo hypnotic and ahead of its time. An hour you won't want to end, once it has lulled you into trance. Listening to this, it's easy to see why the Boredoms' Eye would revere it, and of course those abovementioned Detroit legends too. This "30th Anniversary" edition comes packaged in a nice embossed miniature lp style sleeve showing off its iconic chess-board cover design.

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