Here's a brand new official cd reissue of the 1980 debut from Manilla Road, the epitome of obscure, epick, eccentrick metal! The band that San Francisco metal faves The Lord Weird Slough Feg can't avoid being compared to all the time (not because Manilla Road were actually an influence, they weren't, but because both bands, as traditionally metal as they are, can be so gosh darn weird). And this here is doubtless among the weirdest of the whole screw-loose Manilla Road discography.
Though the production (and the cover art) is oh so low-budget and lo-fi, the band's imagination certainly wasn't limited. These guys were into Rush, Hawkwind, Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Motorhead - and dosing on LSD and reading pulp fantasy fiction. And, in these early days, they were bound by no "traditional" metal blueprints (or, for that matter, commercial considerations). Heck Iron Maiden wasn't even an influence until at least their second album, 1982's bluntly-titled Metal (which we expect Shadow Kingdom to reissue eventually as well). So Manilla Road were free to blend psych and prog and hard rock and whatever else into what they considered to be "epic space-metal".
And then there's the love 'em or hate 'em vocals of guitarist Mark "The Shark" Shelton - growling, soaring, dramatic and outlandish, ranging all over these songs, whether they be riffy and rockin', or epic and theatrical. And his guitar does the same. Quirky, pioneering, pure underground metal (or, proto-metal) indeed. About as underground as it gets. Now most folks aren't gonna like this, we'll admit right now, but a select few will - and if you're already like Manilla Road, or the aforementioned Slough Feg, or Cirith Ungol or Brocas Helm, or are perhaps just into retro, ridiculous, unashamed rock n' roll, that might be you. There's just an infectious zeal to these proceedings that I for one can't deny.
This record includes one of Manilla Road's most hot rockin' tracks, "Street Jammer", a song that's been covered by both Slough Feg (on their Hardworlder album), and lo-fi black metal horde Wormsblood (on their In The Stars cd-r).
As, I suppose, with so many things we sell, for some this release will mean nothing -- to others, holy crap! Check the label name: Cult Metal Classics. Well, with this release they're not lying. Perhaps you're a metal cultist yourself and/or recall us here at AQ raving about this '80s vintage metal band and the various recent (and already, again, often hard to come by) reissues of their albums, or even their latest, the return to former glories that was the Spiral Castle album. Wichita, Kansas' Manilla Road, the epitome of obscure epick, eccentrick metal! The band that The Lord Weird Slough Feg can't avoid being compared to (not because Manilla Road were an influence, they weren't, but because both bands, as traditionally metal as they are, can be so gosh darn weird). And this here is doubtless the weirdest of the whole screw-loose Manilla Road discography. Two albums actually, their 1980 debut Invasion and the 1982 follow-up Metal, which had been bootlegged before but never properly compact-disc'd until this double cd release. Though the production (and the cover art) is oh so low-budget and lo-fi, the band's imagination certainly wasn't limited. These guys were into Rush, Hawkwind, Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Motorhead -- and dosing on LSD and reading pulp fantasy fiction. And, in these early days, they were bound by no "traditional" metal blueprints (or, for that matter, commerical considerations). Heck Iron Maiden wasn't even an influence until at least their second album, the bluntly-titled Metal. So Manilla Road were free to blend psych and prog and hard rock and whatever else into what they considered to be "epic space-metal". Who else would do a song called "Defender", written from the perspective of a Defender video arcade machine?? You gotta love that. And then there's the love 'em or hate 'em vocals of guitarist Mark "The Shark" Shelton -- growling, soaring, dramatic and outlandish, ranging all over these songs, whether they be riffy and rockin', or epic and theatrical. And his guitar does the same. Quirky, pioneering, pure underground metal (or, proto-metal) indeed. About as underground as it gets. Now most folks aren't gonna like this, I'll admit right now, but a select few will -- and if you're already like Manilla Road, or the aforementioned Slough Feg, or Cirith Ungol or Brocas Helm, or are perhaps just into retro, ridiculous, unashamed rock n' roll, that might be you. There's just an infectious zeal to these proceedings that I for one can't deny.
And by the way, this reissue is a fan's delight, including lyrics and lengthy liner notes that give a very detailed early history of the band.
If you're into '80s metal of the more obscure, underground, cult variety and a reissue of a 1982 Manilla Road album entitled Metal doesn't immediately get you jazzed, something is wrong (unless you have it already of course, but then you'll at least be happy that other folks, less fortunate, at last have a chance to pick it up). Released now as part of Shadow Kingdom's Manilla Road reissue campaign, this is the follow up to the band's 1980 debut, Invasion. It's even more metal (hence the title), these weird Wichita wizards most likely adding Iron Maiden and other NWOBHM'ers to their roster of influences, previously a '70s space/prog/hard psych blend of Rush, Hawkwind, B.O.C., Hendrix, Captain Beyond, Black Sabbath, etc. that in combination with their interest in pulp fantasy literature they turned into some of the earliest of "epic" (and eccentric!) metal. As the '80s progressed, each MR album heavied up, but still stayed strange (not difficult, considering the unique vocal stylings of guitarist and mastermind Mark "The Shark" Shelton). Metal is a great early example, one of our several faves in the band's still-growing catalog, in part 'cause it contains a song called "Defender", written from the perspective of a Defender video arcade machine! Here's a few lines: "Defending my planet / Is all that I do / Won't somebody play me / One quarter will do". Haha. Who else would do that, even in '82 when it was indeed a topical song idea?
Other key cuts include the no-argument-there title track "Metal", and Conan-themed classic "Queen Of The Black Coast". And let's not forget "Out Of Control With Rock 'N' Roll", which sure hints at that Blue Oyster Cult influence, eh? Then there's this album's longest epic, "Cage Of Mirrors", which gets pretty freaky by the end.
Reissued with new cover art but the more stark and simple (read: crude) original cover appears on the back of the booklet so purists can flip it around.
The (obviously) cult metal Shadow Kingdom adds two more Manilla Road jewels to their crown/catalog, with the domestic reissues of both 1985's Open The Gates, and 1990's The Courts Of Chaos. We'd once had an import of Open The Gates, but had never reviewed Into The Courts before. Both are recommended (if you don't already have 'em) to all Manilla Road fans, and by extension, anyone with a yen for thee true epick metal.
Last gasp of the original run of the Road, pretty much. Even though we today think of 'em as monolithic epic metal forefathers, Manilla Road morphed quite a bit over their career, from their '70s space rock origins to, in the late '80s, fast n' technical stuff influenced less by Hawkwind and more by the speedy Slayer and various Bay Area thrashers... But this album, often overlooked 'cause of its 1990 release date, sees 'em bringing it all together, really. It's got quite a few classics on it all right, including one of the Road's most epick numbers ever, album ender "The Books Of Skelos", which whips up a bombastic orchestrated onslaught of brutality, Manilla Road style.
Mark Shelton's weird croon wraps itself around the various twisted tales here, but he also breaks out some rasping black/death vox here that, heck, Absu fans oughtta dig. Furthermore, fyi, the drums on this ARE programmed, but still sound cool to us, sounding more maniacal than mechanical. So they keep it cutting edge to the end, while also delving back into the depths of 1970 for a cover of Texas proto-metallers Bloodrock's spooky downer rock opus "D.O.A.", which fits right in. Glad this got reissued 'cause it gave us a chance to revisit it and realize how damn good it actually is, Manilla Road perhaps past any chance of "making it" here, but still going for it like they're metal's number one representatives on Earth, and they know it.
This is the very first attack (circa 1982) from these ultra-campy (but great!) he-man metallers, now remastered and reissued in time for their 20th anniversary. There's many classic tracks to be found here, including theme song "Manowar", "Fast Taker", "Dark
It's nice to know that no matter how many records are reissued, or rare gems discovered, or mysterious private press releases rescued from oblivion, there will always be more. And even though sometimes we feel like the bottom of the reissue barrel has been reached, based on some dubious reissues, all it takes is a record like this, to remind us that there are truly some mind benignly fantastic records that have yet to be unearthed. And yeah, this is some truly next level, mind bending stuff. EVERYBODY here digs it, so we knew we had to make it a Record Of The Week, even though a week ago, we'd never heard of Mar-Vista. Sounds like of like a motel or something.
Originally a private press record, released in a run of just 200 copies in 1976, and packaged in blank white sleeves, and sold locally in France, this deliriously trippy and over the top chunk of French psychedelic synth prog is so good, and so weird, it really is one of those rare records, that's makes it hard to believe it could've remained lost for so long. Cuz really, anyone hearing this, would immediately freak out. We most definitely did. Apparently this duo was heavily influenced by minimalists like La Monte Young and Terry Riley, and krautrock combos like Ashra Tempel and Popol Vuh and while that's not actually bad band math when trying to describe Mar-Vista, the truth of the sound is so much stranger.
A single 41 minute song suite, separated into 6 movements, Visions Of Sodal Ye begins with primitive lo-fi drum machine (or drumming that sounds programmed), beneath whirring organs, fingerpicked acoustic guitars, droning synths and shimmering melodies, with laid back vox way down in the mix, not to mention some killer distorted psych guitar shred, the whole thing wrapped in warped sonic warble. There are plenty of weird production glitches, drop outs, and tape decay/damage from the original masters we would assume, but it only adds to the sound, a sound that soon blossoms into soaring kosmische synth swirls, anchored by more of those primitive drum machine like rhythms, and wreathed in what sounds like whipping winds, and jaw harp like spring melodies, more plink plonk, sing songy synths, and a fierce squall of psychedelic noise guitar. The movements merge into one sprawling epic, continuing with the coolest, creepiest track of the bunch, a dour, murky dirge, a tripped out sort of doom-kraut creep, with low buzzing synths, skittery rhythms, and multiple vocal lines, all wound up into a haunting, intense, organ and synth drenched lumber, that could be the weirdest heaviest French psych-prog jam EVER. That quickly (d)evolves into a cool, groovy sixties style psychedelic blow out, all cascading synth melodies, pulsing hip shaking rhythms, and super distorted theremin like squiggles over the top, before settling into some pulsating, cosmic shimmer, tinged with just a little bit new age, some serious synth prog that blossoms into awesome John Carpenter like soundtrackiness! The record/songsuite culminates in the final 21+ minute movement, a sprawling cinematic synth epic, a twisted dronescape of layered synths and extended tones, ominous and sinister, minor key and darkly malevolent, again, like it could be from the some lost Carpenter movie, all creepy slo-mo melodies, and crumbling textures, plenty of tension, haunting and shadowy and mysterious.
And generally bonus tracks are bonus tracks for a reason, cast offs, throw aways, songs that weren't good enough to make the cut, but not here, the two bonus tracks (found only on the cd!!) are crazy, and crazy cool, the first, "Synthetik Way", is a glistening, glimmering planetarium style cosmic synth workout, all lush, hushed and tranquil one second, then distorted and wildly psychedelic the next, while the second "Crash '73", is an impossibly trippy, surprisingly heavy psych rock jam, with in-the-red distorted guitar and skittery drumming, beneath a wild tangle of snake charmer synth shred, and a totally WTF twisted stuttery finale, which had us imagining a whole other record tucked away with more of this outsider synth-prog-psych weirdness�
So incredible, quite possibly the reissue of the year! Minimal liner notes, a reproduction of the original sleeve, but sadly somewhat flimsy packaging on the digipack cd...
The cd version is limited to 500 copies, the lp just 300.
In the beginning, Swedish black metal horde Marduk were a special breed, a sonic panzer division onslaught, that mostly consisted of locking into a riff, dropping in an insanely fast blast beat, and then letting rip, rarely veering from their course. Fast and furious and heavy. Lots of folks thought they were boring, but for us, the sound of Marduk was transcendent, mesmerizing, hypnotic, cyclical, it was trancelike, and we loved it.
The something changed, and Marduk began to morph into something new, something much less one dimensional (even though it was a great dimension), their sound began to drift more toward the avant garde side of BM, becoming more gnarled and convoluted and fucked up, where was once old school classic Swedish blackness, aligned with the Scandinavian pantheon, was now some strange modern avant black weirdness, now more in line with groups like Deathspell Omega, Funeral Mist and the like, which make sense considering Funeral Mist vocalist Mortuus joined the group right around this shift.
And while we still hold the old Marduk records near and dear to our hearts, it's hard to deny the twisted beast Marduk has become, especially considering how much the BM envelope has been pushed lately, Marduk may be old guard, but they've stepped up and put most of the new guard to shame.
2007's Rom 5:12 was a totally twisted game changer, bumming out lots of old time fans, but reinvigorating the group, and turning on a whole new legion of fans enmeshed in the more progressive side of BM, which has all lead to this, easily the best Marduk record yet. Certainly the weirdest, and catchiest, the same folks who hated Rom 5:12 will probably hate this one too, unless they've finally come to their senses, for the rest of us, it's a chance to dig in to an incredibly dense and bizarre record by a band at the top of their game.
There's plenty of furious blasting blackness on Wormwood, it's just that there's so much more, and even when the band is blasting blackly, they're still twisting it all up. After a creepy intro the band explode into a frenzy of super complex convoluted thrashing, the riffs are strange, atonal, warped, the arrangement is incredible, with the band stopping and starting, lurching wildly, slipping into a doomy creep, only to launch right back into it, the sound is MASSIVE, there's bass all over the place (in a notoriously bass-less genre), Mortuus' vocals are SICK, an inhuman gurgling rasp, and the riffs amazing, wild and tangled and melodic, it's 3 minutes for Marduk, but for other bands it would be a whole record. Which leads right into the seasick lumber of "Funeral Dawn", with an almost industrial martial vibe, soaring epic and melodic, the main melody impossibly catchy, while streaks of noise swirl around the riffs, there's even a breakdown where Mortuus's sick vox are laid over a thick undulating bassline, the resulting sound is like a blackened Laibach.
"The Fleshy Void" is a 3 minute hyperblast of black intensity, still tangled and warped, but impossibly heavy and fast, giving way to the super creepy "Unclosing The Curse", all tolling bells and pulsing bass, abstract guitar chords, and hateful vokills, spare and spaced out and super ominous.
Wormwood is not inherently a 'weird record', it's not fucked up and freaky the way Furze or Necrofrost are - the weirdness here, the strange song structures, the freaked out non black parts, the fucked up samples, the drones, the doomy breakdowns, they're all seamlessly integrated into Marduk's sound, for every blast of Swedish blackness, there's some soaring melodic almost NWOBHM sounding melody, for every stretch of doomy pound, there's some gurgly bass heavy creep, the whole record is twisted, but subtly so, it's not about being weird or fucked up, it's about making a truly original piece of black art, which by its very nature IS both fucked up and weird. But the fact that's not the be all end all, keeps Wormwood from being gimmicky, instead it's a fierce and furious ultra heavy black metal record, with lots of twists and turns, which in a nutshell, means quite possible black metal record of the year for sure.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Hey Mars Volta completists! Here's another striking picture disc from these post-prog cool kids. Not the place to start if you're just getting acquainted with these fellows. Head straight for their Tremulant EP first. Limited pressing of 5000.
Uh oh. Here we are again, with the band that creates lovers or haters more than any other I know. Although, I have to say, personally I'm kind of on the fence about them! Jon Theodore is one of the most amazing drummers I've ever seen or heard. Their live show is absolutely entertaining, especially when joined by John Frusciante, who's contribution of a second incessant guitar solo seems to make their music make sense. As well, Omar and Cedric's pants are just so tight, it is unbelievable. Their Tremulant EP was shocking. It was this full-on indie-power-prog, like nothing I'd heard before. Their music went somewhere... and kept on going... though, I don't think I understood exactly "where". Their debut full-length, Deloused In The Comatorium (with its odd name and pretty terrible artwork) was still totally beyond me. Not truly prog, not truly indie-pop... someplace in between, with technical insanity, near-constant meter-changes and polyrhythm incessantry. A lot of people seemed to take MV as though they were a total mess of music: ornate, pompous, not at all worthy of any ounce of praise, let alone the millions of "extreme" fans all over the world.
Now, Frances The Mute, their second full-length, is monolithic at 77 minutes long. Despite that length, it seems to be a bit more digestible. I would certainly have something that felt like jet-lag if I had to listen to the whole thing in one sitting, but to dedicated fans, of which there are many, this will hardly be enough power-progtastic-indie-pop. And of course, MV still features Lars Ulrich's and my favorite drummer, Jon Theodore.
Hark, all ye kids and collectors! The B-side of this 12" single is a live version of The Mars Volta's heartfelt power-prog ballad "The Widow" recorded at LA's Wiltern Theater on May 6th, 2004. The album version can be heard on their latest release, Frances The Mute (which happens to also be the title of the A-side of this record), but you probably already knew that.
If you've been in search of some new and exciting sounds, you simply should not miss this introductory EP to The Mars Volta. Although this sextet will undoubtedly receive much attention for two of its members' past band (Omar and Cedric were the most recognizable members of At The Drive-In) not to mention the presence of Jon Theodore (of Golden and formerly of Royal Trux and Him) on drums, they fully deserve to be taken on their own ground.
The Mars Volta are determined *not* to take the path of least resistance by retracing the steps they've already trod. Instead, they're traversing a fresh, dynamic terrain. Crafting intricate, multi-layered songs with a definite *prog* angle. Shades of King Crimson and Yes (and U2 in the vocals, but it's not annoying at all). And they've got the chops to successfully execute their formidable mission. The vocals - so untethered, hoarse and fiery in ATDI - are here molded into an emotional falsetto that rings clear and strong with additional effected ones adding an air of alienation. The music is an amazing, intricate blend of ultra-tight drumming, deep bass, keyboards and guitar made even more potent and unsettling by carefully arranged, foreboding samples and electronics. Oh and in case I didn't make myself clear... They absolutely rock! If these three songs are any indication, they will be a force to be reckoned with. Blistering!
Please note: this is not to be confused with DeFacto (TMV members Omar, Cedric, Jeremy and Ikey's experimental dub side project).
Ah, yes it's summertime! Warm sunshine and trips to the beach! And what's more summery than surf music? Lo and behold, our favorite label for obscure and amazing reissues, Japan's EM Records, has a special new series of five, count 'em, five reissues devoted to lost "surf" music treasures. The first two, by Farm and Peter Martin & Finch, are out now, with the others to follow in short order. We're pretty sure all of 'em are awesome.
And if you're familiar with the eccentricity of this label, you'll know that this "EM Under Water" series isn't going to be about, y'know, "regular" surf music of the Jan & Dean or Ventures variety, nope. These first two releases are both soundtracks to rad '70s surfing movies, and are fully psychedelic, with tripped out grooves, synth experiments, and heavy rock jamming all part of the mix.
This album is the soundtrack to a cult 1974 documentary film entitled Drouyn, that followed champion Australian surfer Peter Drouyn (hmm, depending on how it's pronounced, Drouyn could be a bad name for a surfer!) on a globetrotting quest for the perfect wave, a journey that took him and his surfing pals to a variety of exotic locales -- as far afield as Africa and Japan -- over the course of the two years spent shooting the film. Filmmaker Bob Evans commissioned composer and classical guitarist Peter Finch to do the music, and also Sydney-based hard rockers Finch were brought in on the project as well. These songs and incidental music passages fully capture the lure of sun, sand and sea, as well as the sheer excitement of the wave-riding sport. You get orchestrated pop instrumentals, Eastern ethnic interludes, and even a laidback Beach Boyish cut ("Morning Comes The Sun") with harmony vocals. The contributions from Finch add a dose of fuzzed-out rock and roll energy as well, with their song "Roses" being a kick ass bit of hippy hard rock kitsch with lyrics that go: "Anyone can grow roses / but it takes a green thumb to grow grass" and "Everywhere you go you get busted by the fuzz / get out of the system, have a natural buzz". Peter Martin makes good use of the Finch boys on here, and also offers up arrangements for soulful horns, wigged out ARP synth, and strings... it flows wonderfully, sunny and melodic and mostly mellow. A summertime treat, like the Farm album it's own special thing, lovingly reissued by EM with all the bells and whistles.
Chances are, you probably haven't heard of the UK's Marzuraan. But if Earth, SUNNO))), Khanate, Boris, Corrupted, Eyehategod and others of that ilk mean anything to you, then you will probably want to add Marzuraan to that illustrious list of low-end, slowed-down, heavy-as-hell heroes. This is the band's debut cd from last year, that we recently tracked down in enough quanity (we hope) to list. Marzuraan wear their influences on their sleeve -- quite literally, in fact, as this disc comes in a nice cardstock package that folds out into a cross, designed by none other than Stephen O'Malley of SUNNO))) and Khanate. And the band's name is derived, we're pretty sure, from song by James Plotkin of Khanate's old band, OLD. So, no surprise then (only expectant satisfaction) that this starts off (and continues) in doomy dirge mode, heavy and sludgey, definitely very Earth-like, but live-recorded at high volume for maximum murk and grit and distortion. The proceedings are mostly instrumental, although what sounds like the snarl of feeding zombies breaks out at least once, to terrifying effect. Could almost be a battle between the vocalists for Caninus and Hatebeak!
Mainly, though, these folks are all about crushing you with their droning ambient metal riffs, as helped along by the sparse plod of the drums, and the constant presence of feedback, feedback that reaches a pinnacle on the third track "Martian Dub". By the end of the disc, though, Marzuuran have also gotten into some really nice lo-fi, distorted post-rock psychedelia, that then freaks out into an improv frenzy at the finish... Five tracks, one full hour. The raw production really works for this (they're not quite the Doktor Kettu of doom-drone, but close). We'll certainly be on the lookout for a limited edition (of course! argh!) double LP from these guys which we're told is upcoming.
Small ensembles of strings, keyboards, and clarinets playing klezmer/jazz tunes. This brief description must be augmented with the declaration that this is an ALL TIME AQUARIUS FAVE!!!
Rev it up! The Maserati boys are back with another compact disc installment of their instrumental, exceedingly rhythmic post rock, and unlike some bands who have run afoul of corporate intellectual property lawyers (Pansonic, Kleenex, Bipolaroid, etc.), they still haven't been sued by the manufacturers of the Italian sports car from whom they borrow their name (though perhaps it's also an obscure Ted Nugent lyrical reference? let's hope not). Probably the suits at the automaker Maserati's headquarters realize that this band's music is free, excellent advertising for their product!
This is definitely -driving- music, sometime a pleasant Sunday drive, sometimes a white knuckle ride over the speed limit, always propulsive, hypnotically repetitive, but dynamic as well. "Join Us, Mystic Sister" is a brief, ecstatic intro, that shines forth and then segues smoothly into "No More Sages", with its vaguely metallic, chucka-chucka guitars, motorik beats, and washes of shoegazery distortion. Other cuts venture further into purely kosmische, krautrock inspired territory, like the minimalist all-synth pulsations of "Thieves".
There's 8 tracks on this 40 minute disc, three of them remixes. However, all but two of the tracks previously appeared on limited edition, now out of print vinyl releases. The first four cuts are from Maserati's side of their 12" split with Zombi that we were never able to get enough of to list. And two of the remixes, by DFA's Tim Goldsworthy and !!!'s Justin Van Der Volgen, are from the Inventions Remixes 12". Both really dance it up, accentuating the cosmic disco vibe that Maserati already possess. The other remix, of a spacier take of this disc's "Monoliths", was done by Zombi's Steve Moore, and is exclusive to this release, as is album closer "Do You Hear The Nightbirds Calling You?". And if all that wasn't enough, this cd is further enhanced by the presence of two pretty cool Quicktime video clips. One's live, the other a cute, partly animated music video demonstrating Maserati's potential as workout music.
As always, VERY recommended for fans of Zombi, Trans Am, Circle, Salvatore, Tussle, Nisennenmondai, SF's own Jonas Reinhardt, and other likeminded coked up post rockers.
There's noise, and then there's noise!!! And then, there's Masonna... and this, the Ultimate Masonna (volume one).
Never heard any Japanese noise? Well, there's always a first time, and this could be it. Maybe you'll love it (if not, you'll probably hate it... not much room for any reactions in-between). If you have heard Japanese noise, you probably already know Masonna. Along with Merzbow and Hijokaidan, he's probably the most (in)famous and most extreme of all the many Japanese noisicians. At AQ, he's also quite popular for his other sonic endeavors, the analog spaced out kosmiche electronic trips of Space Machine, the super psychedelic rhythmic synth grooves of Christine 23 Onna, and the fuzz-freaked garage rock of Acid Eater. Those outfits, to varying degrees, can be considered music, even pop music. But recording under the Masonna moniker, Maso Yamazaki makes sheer noise, no "music" involved at all. Just ultra dynamic, distorted screaming and electronic distortion, volume cranked to the max, an all-out expressive attack, acrobatic and energetic. Very similar to his famous "jumping" live performances.
In honor of Masonna's 20th anniversary of noisemaking, packaged with super swank graphics (we dig the elaborate Greatful Dead/Quicksilver looking logo) and liner notes in both English and Japanese, Ultimate Collection Vol.1 brings back two long out of print Masonna documents. It includes the oddly titled Masonna Vs. Bananamara LP, originally released on vinyl in 1989 by Japan's Vanilla Records in an edition of 290 copies, and the aptly titled 1996 album Hyper Chaotic, originally from tiny US label V Records. Reissued together on one compact disc, these two albums comprise 48 mostly short tracks (many of 'em under a minute each) of the most intense, shrieking shards of distortion with which you've ever abused your ears... you've been warned!!
The vs. Bananamara album (which was Masonna's debut LP after some self-released cassettes) perhaps features more high-end skree, while the later Hyper Chaotic is more about blown-out white noise... but there's plenty of both sounds throughout!
What could be better (and noisier) than Masonna's Ultimate Collection Volume 1? Volume 2 of course. In honor of the man's 20 years of noisemaking madness, Alchemy has reissued several crucial, long out of print Masonna documents as two-on-one cds in this Ultimate Collection series. You can check out our review, elsewhere on our site, of Vol. 1 to read more about Masonna and his legendary place in the pantheon of Japanese noise, alongside the likes of Merzbow and Hijokaidan... suffice to say if you've never heard this stuff before, be warned! It's noisy all right. Not everyone will have the same reaction (no siree) but for us, when we hear the harsh sonic genius of Masonna, it's like, we freeze, fascinated, compelled - numbed and hypnotized even. It's really enjoyable... really.
So, Volume 2 comprises the early 1990 album Shinsen Na Clitoris (of which only 499 copies were pressed), and the 1998 cd-r Tripsy Sunshine (which was even rarer, in an edition of 49 copies!). Rather than the many short, sharp, shocking tracks found on Vol.1, there's just four long tracks here, each of the original albums split into two approximately 15 minute pieces. Though, on Shinsen Na Clitoris, it still sounds like a lot of cut-up edits.
That album is all about totally destroyed, distorted to hell vocals, Masonna's insane shrieking demonic baby babble in a swirling vortex of feedback and warped FX, the sounds of guitar (?), electronics, and his voice all one massive noisy jibber-jabber. Whew! He's really freaking out, hyperventilating probably. Later, on the Tripsy Sunshine tracks, Masonna moves more into the fuzzed out psych-synth territory of his Christine 23 Onna and Space Machine projects, with washes of fuzzy synth overload and throbbing pounding rhythms. So it becomes a bit more 'musical' but just barely. There's certainly gobs of sheer chaotic please turn that down NOISE to happily torment your earholes with as well, from start to finish.
You know how you can't fit more than, like, 80 minutes of music on a compact disc? Well this disc is one hour long, but it's probably got more (noisy) SOUND crammed into it than any cd you can find, whatever the length. Basically, Masonna takes to heart the principle that if you're gonna make noise, make it the noisiest. And he sure does.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
One of the best new releases on Man's Ruin in a while! This debut cd by Germany's Mass will definitely appeal to fans of Melvins, Boris, and similar paragons of avant-metallic heaviness. The opening track "White Light Yellow Pt. One" establishes the band's inital juggernaut similarity to the Melvins, but as the album progresses, so does Mass, incorporating the judicious use of keyboards, non-distorted vocals, and other unusual moves -- really blossoming into something original, devastating, and addictive. The closing instrumental 'cover' of funkmaster Larry Graham's "Earthquake" puts the perfect finishing touch on this quality album. Featuring the former rhythm section of the underrated and unsung Nonoyesno (although the sound of Mass is very different). Recommended! Also, this disc's artwork, while simple, is a cut above what we have come to expect from Man's Ruin's usual 'I stole this off the net, and made it different colors' lazy artistic re-appropriation.
Sun City Girls fans! Drone-doom freaks! Here's your unlikely crossover dream come true, kind of. A psychedelically heavy (sometimes) and always eerily exotic new album on the Conspiracy label from this band with the wiseass faux-ethnic name (if you don't know what Bukkake is, don't ask, and definitely don't Google it - if you do, be aware it's NSFW). Now including members of Earth and Burning Witch amongst their ranks, and once again boasting cameo appearances from folks belonging to the Sun City Girls and Secret Chiefs 3, this is exactly (and excellently) what we might have expected from this project. Acoustic ethnic instrument buzz and drone meets guitars-leaning-on-amps buzz and drone. There's electronic FX and analog synths alongside field recordings, bells and chimes and gamelan percussion mixed with Tibetan monkish low-end drone-chant, and let's not forget the flute and Mellotron... The seven tracks of Totem One span a wild, wide range of (moody) moods, from the heavy throbbing maelstrom that is "Schism Prism / Adamatios" to the spacey, spooky folk ramble of "Cascade Cathedral". The most Sun City Girlish moment here is probably "People Of The Drifting Houses", not surprisingly the track which features guest vocals provided by Alan Bishop of SCGs and Sublime Frequencies fame.
"In The Lightness Of The Sonoran" could be the recently reviewed Harappian Night Recordings attempting to channel SUNNO))), whilst other tracks (simultaneously) bring to mind such not-entirely-disparate artists as Angus MacLise, Blood Of The Black Owl, Six Organs Of Admittance, Ghost, and Acid Mothers Temple. The latter especially, for instance on the most freaked out parts of the aforementioned "Schism Prism / Adamatios" or during the blissful ceremony of the album-ending nine minute long "Eaglewolf". Fantastic. We're now eagerly looking forward to further Totem installments! (Totem Two is due out later this year on the SCG-related Abduction label, that released MMOB's prior album as well.)
NB. The vinyl version of this comes with a coupon for free mp3 download of the whole album.
Sometimes seeing a band play live in the flesh surpasses the experience on record, but other times, there's the danger of diminishing whatever mystique they've created for themselves, which remains safe when one listens at home with just the music (and record sleeve artwork) for one's imagination feed upon. Seeing a bunch of dudes in jeans and baseball hats up on stage making musician faces and fiddling with gear has bummed us out a bit about bands we've liked before, when we wanted gods and monsters and supermen.
And the ominously, exotically evocative music of the Master Musicians Of Bukkake, along with their colorful album cover imagery, provides a LOT of mystique to live up to (despite their irreverent/gross/jokey monicker). So when Allan here got the chance to see 'em recently at the Roadburn Festival in Holland, he was full of anticipation, but also a bit trepidatious about it. Turns out he had nothing to worry about. Do go see the Master Musicians Of Bukkake if you get the chance, their mystique will remain intact, never fear! Led by a dramatic robed figure wearing a wooden demon mask, the rest of the large ensemble wore white sombrero-like hats, their faces shrouded in black netting, and rocked out like dervishes, looking like they stepped out of scene in a Jodorowsky movie. One of most memorable performances at Roadburn for sure (and despite being, ah, so different from a lot of the other bands, they got a great response).
Witnessing that definitely got Allan excited about this impending new album, Totem Two. Plus we loved Totem One. The sequel raises the Master Musicians' mystic monolith still higher to the heavens. Once again to describe their sound, we could use the usual shorthand of the Sun City Girls meet latter-day Earth (which has some basis in this band's hybrid heavy drone exotica as well as their actual membership / friendship connections to those two legendary Seattle outfits). Other references: Ghost, Grails, Acid Mothers Temple, Secret Chiefs, Tangerine Dream! Thus, Totem Two has certainly been getting played a lot in the store, the MMoB's particular/pecuilar synthesis of sounds appealing to all of us here. Psychedelic, pretty, sinister, cinematic, steeped in ancient, Third World folk music and mythology... they're a mysterious moody mix of a lot of stuff we love, electronic drone filtered through faux-ethno ceremony, part SUNNO))), part Sublime Frequencies! Also, we're almost surprised this isn't on Ipecac, they ought to be Mike Patton's favorite band, in some ways bringing to life Mike Patton's Ennio Morricone compilation Crime & Dissonance (which was actually compiled by Alan Bishop, who of course is one of the Sun City Girls, and a mentor of / inspiration for / occasional collaborator with these guys).
The album begins with what sounds like a ghost train a-comin'... field recordings and tinkling percussion, hushed drone and the far-off foggy bellowings of Tibetan horns... you know you're in for a far ranging journey, off the beaten track. Gorgeous lonely flute dominates the second song, floating o'er a ritual processional, like Djivan Gasparyan sitting in on a sombre Amon Duul or International Harvester jam... the middle of the album brings in more buzzing synths, majestic and melancholic, getting spacey like Klaus Schulze, playing sentimental cinematic themes, dark and melodic.... The distortion ramps up briefly as a segue into the album's final eleven minute piece, a calm and psychedelic epic like Six Organs with extra synth squiggle... Beautiful! Almost makes us think of Japan's Far East Family Band from the '70s, that one. That's just a short surface summary, you could fall into this album's depths though, and come back changed, as if from a dream/drug quest...
Both cd and lp formats, like Totem One, feature feverish psychedelic jungle Seldon Hunt artwork, the vinyl version also comes wrapped in an obi.
Amazing, very METAL metalcore is what Atlanta's Mastodon crank out. These guys used to be in AQ-faves Today Is The Day, which is quite obvious when you hear 'em. They're heavy, aggressive, technical, and -- most importantly -- imaginative. Already up there with the likes of Coalesce and Converge in our estimation. Mastodon seems even more metal than those metalcore worthies, though.
Maybe it's how the guitarist is partial to spitting out those Zakk Wylde-style harmonic squeals. Or maybe it's simply the crushing, crunching, complex riffs and drumming. But there's also some quite pretty melody to be found amidst Mastodon's math n' mayhem, and they have an almost 'post-rock' sense of dynamics (something most 'extreme' metal acts lack). Imagine your favorite old AmRep noise-rock act gone metal...or, Dazzling Killmen mixed with The Champs? Something like that. Also, they cut back on the movie samples that cluttered up their otherwise awesome debut ep (as per our suggestion?). Very impressive.
After The Dagger last list, our latest vintage-sounding (but utterly brand new) true, trad metal obsession comes in the form of the debut disc from Finland's Mausoleum Gate. You'd be forgiven for thinking this album came out years and years ago, like in 1985, 'cause it's rocking, twin guitar NWOBHM influenced stuff, with heavy nods to '70s Deep Purplish prog too, featuring lots of keyboard (Hammond organ, Mellotron), songs about Gypsy Queens, and better yet, Demon Droids - in fact our fave cut here, maybe favorite metal song in a while, is indeed "Demon Droid", how can you not love it for the title/concept alone? It's a kickass tune, too, and we also dig how the vocalist throws in some wordless "Aaah aaah aaah aaahs", nice touch. Speaking of the wailing, commanding vocalist, we're pretty sure he must have one or both hands permanently locked into making the "invisible oranges" gesture, or Dio-esque devil horns!
Cliches abound, perhaps, but they're delivered with panache. Like fellow Finns Lord Fist, Mausoleum Gate sure have got the spark, and conjure an entertaining, none too serious "evil" atmosphere, perfectly captured by the cover art. You can practically smell the brimstone. Also they ROCK. Moreover, you really don't often hear this sort of doomy/proggy/rocking combination (at its most doomyproggyrockingest on the nearly 12 minute closing epic, "Mausoleum Gate"), so it's a ton of fun for fans of the likes of Iron Maiden, Rainbow, Priest, early Savatage, old Heep, Dio (and Martin) era Sabbath, and other demon-pact class acts of yore.
Damn, the metalheads here are geeking out over this gem! As super obscure cult '80s metal bands go, Max Planck from up in the boonies of Port Townsend, WA, are definitely one of our faves. A few years back, Buried By Time And Dust did a pricey vinyl reissue, now out of print, of this bizarro band's 1985 demo, that we never managed to review, so we're stoked that Stormspell has just done a nice new, less expensive (but still limited) compact disc version, complete with bonus track.
Of all the demos that could be rescued from the dusty past, this one is so very worthy. Max Planck were a three-piece playing a charming homebrewed brand of DIY metal, putting on their own shows out in the woods, though they also played clubs in Seattle too. Epic and melodic, rockin' and catchy, eccentric and sorta psychedelic, this should definitely appeal to those into the marginally less obscure likes of Manilla Road, Cirith Ungol, Brocas Helm, Black Hole, and even Dwarr and Zolar X.
We were surprised to learn that the guitarist and bassist were husband and wife, with kids!! That'd be Rod Freeman, also the vocalist, and Colleen "Spike" McCormick. The trio was rounded out by 15 year old drummer Eddie Forcier.
Proggy and punky at the same time, their song titles include "Fucked Up" and "Everywhere Is Nowhere", but they weren't really such a negative, nihilistic bunch. The song "Starscream" is in fact about the Transformers cartoon, a sci-fi subject that makes a lot of sense considering that Spike and Rod were raising two small children and Eddie was basically still a kid himself.
Weird and nerdy as their metal is, it makes sense that they'd be named after a famous German physicist, the founder of quantum theory - but, the name of the band was in fact selected through a chance operation that also involved the help of a mystical forest druid. Read the liner notes.... (And also be aware that though we're not reproducing it due to the limitations of our website's coding, the band's official spelling of their name of course includes a very metal umlaut over the "a" in Planck.)
Max Planck's namesake scientist won a Nobel Prize in 1918, and if they gave out an award for quirky, inspired, old school metal-making, Max Planck the band would be a deserving recipient.
Limited edition, hand-numbered, 500 copies only. The cd booklet includes biographical liner notes, full lyrics, gear specs, vintage b&w photos, and graphics from their rare vinyl appearances (on the Metal Meltdown lp compilation, and on a split 7").
Definitely an auspicious start for Stormspell's new "arcane collector series" of obscure '80s metal demo reissues, look for other volumes by Aerian Rage and Battlecry to be reviewed here soon...
And, as they liked to say, it's now time to CRANK THE PLANCK!!!!
Finally available on vinyl!
Damn. Not only was this here disc cooked up by a badass, totally STONED sounding R&B infused greasy garage rock n' roll band from Deeeetroit, featuring members of heavy hitters like the Black Keys (guitarist Dan Auerbach), Dirtbombs (bassist Troy Gregory), Outrageous Cherry (guitarist Matthew Smith), and the Sights (drummer Dave Shettler) but check the top billing - there's a bona fide, veteran black soul singer fronting this combo, maybe you've heard of him, maybe you haven't, but he was the real deal, Nathaniel Mayer. He had his first hit single, "Village Of Love", in the Top 40 back in 1962. We've had (but haven't yet reviewed) a pretty cool anthology of his '60s stuff, I Want Love And Affection, Not The House Of Correction. But that certainly didn't prepare us for this. Don't call it a comeback, this is something else altogether. Ol' Mayer didn't sound like this back in the sixties. We mean, yeah, this IS retro, but also totally something that could only be made now, the unlikely meeting of a versatile, veteran voice and young 'uns who grew up worshipping the Stoogesy rock action, who bring a fresh dose of fuzz and loose, laidback druggy psych to the proceedings that's pretty special.
Even more special though, is Mayer's marvelously ragged, hoarse voice. Weary and burnished with time - you can hear every one of his 64 years. Yet he's also totally in command of it, butter smooth one moment, croakingly gruff the next, belting out the James Brown style "owwwws!" like he coined the phrase. Yeah, the man can sing. And lyrically, he's all about sex and desire. Beggin' his girl. "Why Don't You Give It To Me?" Sometimes, "Doin' It" (which is a nearly 9-minute, wasted wild wahwah'd jam). In keeping with Mayer's phlegmy voice, the whole album is wrapped in a lo-fi murk, adding to the battered, bluesy, psychedelic mood. One that we might compare to some of the more soulful obscurities on that ol' Chains And Black Exhaust comp. The 1995 solo album by LSD casualty and former Funkadelic, Tawl Ross comes to mind as well.
And we'll remind you ('cause you DO read his site, right?) that this was Julian Cope's Head Heritage Record of the Month back in May.
Sadly, Mayer has passed away since this album first came out (it's a 2007 release, now here on vinyl), but there's a pretty cool posthumous album called Why Won't You Let Me Be Black that's just been released as well that we'll be reviewing soon on an upcoming list.
Damn. Not only was this here disc cooked up by a badass, totally STONED sounding R&B infused greasy garage rock n' roll band from Deeeetroit, featuring members of heavy hitters like the Black Keys (guitarist Dan Auerbach), Dirtbombs (bassist Troy Gregory), Outrageous Cherry (guitarist Matthew Smith), and the Sights (drummer Dave Shettler) but check the top billing - there's a bona fide, veteran black soul singer fronting this combo, maybe you've heard of him, maybe you haven't, but he's the real deal, Nathaniel Mayer. He had his first hit single, "Village Of Love", in the Top 40 back in 1962. We've had (but haven't yet reviewed) a pretty cool anthology of his '60s stuff, I Want Love And Affection, Not The House Of Correction. But we that certainly didn't prepare us for this. Don't call it a comeback, this is something else altogether. Ol' Mayer didn't sound like this back in the sixties. We mean, yeah, this IS retro, but also totally something that could only be made now, the unlikely meeting of a versatile, veteran voice and young 'uns who grew up worshipping the Stoogesy rock action, who bring a fresh dose of fuzz and loose, laidback druggy psych to the proceedings that's pretty special.
Even more special though, is Mayer's marvelously ragged, hoarse voice. Weary and burnished with time - you can hear every one of his 64 years. Yet he's also totally in command of it, butter smooth one moment, croakingly gruff the next, belting out the James Brown style "owwwws!" like he coined the phrase. Yeah, the man can sing. And lyrically, he's all about sex and desire. Beggin' his girl. "Why Don't You Give It To Me?" Sometimes, "Doin' It" (which is a nearly 9-minute, wasted wild wahwah'd jam). In keeping with Mayer's phlegmy voice, the whole album is wrapped in a lo-fi murk, adding to the battered, bluesy, psychedelic mood. One that we might compare to some of the more soulful obscurities on that ol' Chains And Black Exhaust comp. The 1995 solo album by LSD casualty and former Funkadelic, Tawl Ross comes to mind as well.
And we'll remind you ('cause you DO read his site, right?) that this was Julian Cope's Head Heritage Record of the Month back in May. This is actually a 2007 release (hey better to list it now than never) so maybe there'll be another one soon from Mayer and the boys, but we don't really know, since it was reported Mayer suffered a stroke earlier this year. Hope he's doing ok.
You ever have that problem where you're in an internet sex chat room, and you make a date with some pervy girl for a phone sex session, and then when you call her up it's actually some jerk with a sampler loaded with a sexy female voice telling you things
A few of the callers figure it out, and then it gets even more pathetic as they continue to masturbate, being such geeks that they're turned on by the technical details of the joke (one guy asks, excitedly, about if the sampler is triggered by keyboard or mouse). But most of the guys are so clueless and horny that they're completely unfazed by Kathy's bizarre comments ("I think you might be racist", "I want to have your retarded babies", "I've got a pickle in my ass") and limited vocabulary (she says "Yesssss!" the same way every time), or her deafeningly noisy, Merzbow-level obviously-looped screams of orgasmic ecstasy. We could go on, but we don't want to reveal too much. Just get this, it's the best crank call disc we've heard in a long time. You'll be playing it for everyone you know, except maybe your mom. Absurdly funny.
We made this Record of the Week a couple months ago, then promptly ran out of 'em -- as did their label in England, who have now pressed more copies. So here it is again, in case you missed it before. The UK's amazing, eccentric Meads Of Asphodel are back with their second, long-awaited full-length. From the get-go, this had an inside line on becoming an AQ Record of the Week -- indeed, we were so excited about its impending release that even before any of our wholesale suppliers had imports of this in stock, Andee went ahead and mail-ordered two copies from England, one for himself and one as a Christmas gift for Allan! Now, we've managed to get copies for the store to share with all of you. What's so special about the Meads Of Asphodel, besides their unusual name? Well, if you've been a long-time AQ list reader/customer maybe you'll remember how much we liked their debut, The Excommunication of Christ. Well as good as that crackpot example of medieval metal was, this new one is even more esoteric and ridiculous and incredible. As AQ's coverage of the genre has demonstrated, black metal can be a lot of different things. In the Meads of Asphodel's case, it IS many different things, all at the same time! First off, apparently nobody told them that an ostensibly black metal band shouldn't write pop songs. Sure, they are really really heavy and decidedly grim, but Meads have a pop sensibility that can't be denied. The album's second track, "God Is Rome", will have you staring at your stereo as its gruff-voiced chugging brutality gives way to an acoustic guitar lick and subsequent pop hook that is more Nirvana than necro. Not to suggest that this isn't a massively metal album. It is. Their brand of metal is like Venom mixed with Bal-Sagoth: sparkling keyboards strewn over rough-hewn riffage and pounding drums. They're also quite psychedelic (drugs involved for sure), with weird changes and spacey synths. Landing rocketships in the Middle Ages, Meads make for a creditable space rock band. Indeed, these Hawkwind obsessives do a killer Hawkwind cover ("Utopia") with two actual Hawkwind members sitting in! Other guests on this album include Mirai from another AQ fave, Japan's Sigh, one of the only other "black metal" bands on the planet as far-out as the Meads, and Vincent Crowley, somewhat infamous as an underground death metal Satanist. His presence, however cartoonish, illustrates another important point about this record. As random and spicy a goulash their music is, Meads remain a steadfastly black metal band where it most counts: in their opposition to God and religion. Indeed, unlike the majority of black metal acts whose anti-Christian, anti-clerical, pro-Satan stance is indeed just that, a stance or pose, just to conform to the standard black metal aesthetic of being "evil", Meads of Asphodel seem to take this issue more seriously. What we mean is that their lyrics are more about WHY they don't believe in God, than about how cool that makes them. So it turns out that as tongue-in-cheek as so much about them seems (from the cover pics of the band in the guise of armored knights looking rather more hapless than intimidating, to such song titles as "On Graven Images I Glide Beyond The Monstrous Gates Of Pandemonium To Face The Baptised Warriors Of Yahweh In The Skull-littered Plain Of Esdraelon") they actually have a message, if you will. Delivered quite bizarrely and confusingly of course. And that's what we like best, the confounding mixture of the serious and the silly where irony is left in the dust, replaced by question marks and half-smiles, and gleeful enjoyment of some remarkable music. This album is definitely the sort of thing that we at AQ think will both satisfy open-minded metal fans and provide a varied enough dish for folks seeking something weird on the pop/spacerock/electronic side of things. Indeed, did we mention that the aforementioned lengthy song title belongs to a ten minute epick of When-like eclecticism, that brings in techno electronica, Middle Eastern music, and even some acid-jazz organ jamming -- utterly instrumental except for samples of an utterly blasphemous nature? This is indicative in many ways of their bizarro modus operandi. Appealing in so many ways to the extremes of what we might call the AQ-aesthetic, it would have been hard *not* to make this a Record Of The Week.
We all knew the Meads Of Asphodel were a weird bunch. Every record was a baffling slab of confusional black metal, often laced with all manner of VERY non-black metal sounds and ideas. Well, no matter how weird we though they were in the past, they've totally outdone themselves this time. So much so that we would hesitate to even classify this as black metal.
There's a lot to be confused by here, from a bizarre collage of military speeches and snippets of random dialogue, to huge swelling synths, super dramatic and over the top, to strange synthesized spaghetti western jams, to not-all-that-metal blasts of propulsive spaced out rock and roll, with groovy Stooges-y riffing, simple pounding drumming, some serious guitar leads, and over the top some Motorhead gone black metal vocals... but that's not all. There are lots of lots of pianos, and soaring female vocals, blissed out stretches of space rock whoosh, some full on old school punk rock. And then there's the completely fucked final track, called "Aborted Stygian Foetus", a sort of industrial electronic metal jam, drum machines, heavy riffing, weird vocals, like some weird mix of Ministry and My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. But it's not over. After about 20 minutes of silence you'll find the secret track, an intense and seriously silly and fucked up stretch of testifying, over a swirl of church organs, a heavily (British) accented 'preacher' gives a fiery sermon on how we are all wankers and how we are all full of shit. Woah.
The new sound could have something to do with the addition of a whole mess of new Meads: Alan Davey of Hawkwind, Mirai from Japanes metal weirdos Sigh, Lesion from Worms Of Sabnock, as well as some synth, trumpet, and not one but TWO female vocalists.
The more likely reason for this new direction should be obvious from the cover, all sepia toned, with a crucifix, and piles of dead bodies and that instantly recognizable Crass style text. Like maybe they were going for some sort of Flux Of Pink Indians / Crass / Rudimentary Peni sort of crust vibe!! Although on the inside they're still clad in their armor and chainmail and helmets...
So fucking weird.
The folks at the Mellotronen label (who brought us Solid Ground, Life, Charlie & Esdor and other Scandinavian 'progg' treats) told us we'd want to get a bunch of these and boy they were right! It's the long-awaited reissue of the eponymous 1967 debut album from Swedish swingin' sixties psych-pop combo the Mecki Mark Men... We've had Mellotronen's other couple of MMM reissues, especially liking Running In The Summer Night, but this is even better. It's got the original MMM lineup, featuring of course band leader Mecki Bodemark and also drummer Thomas Mera Gartz, later of International Harvester and Trad Gras Och Stenar. Definitely influenced by the heavy psychedelic excesses of Jimi Hendrix (with whom they toured, briefly), Mecki Mark Men also conjure a groovy hipster nightclub vibe, with Gartz's jazzy drumming, and Bodemark's woozy organ jamming. Woozy too are his wasted, druggy vox, which sound a bit like Hendrix too. There's also doses of buzzing sitar, shimmering vibraphone, flute, and some fat sax blat. It's a wild, wonderful blend of fuzzy freaky drone and finger snapping, toe tapping catchy pop songwriting, wrapped into one psychedelic, shambolic whole. There's just something indefinably genius about this. Recommended, definitely for fans of Baby Grandmothers and Hansson and Karlsson and today's retro Swedish psych-pop sensations Dungen as well. This reissue is remixed and remastered, presented in a digipack with four bonus tracks.
During the summer of 1990, while enjoying a three month holiday in Oslo, Norway, I (Elliott) came across a magazine that would be of untold influence to my thirteen-year old ears -- the 1990 Metal Hammer "Thrash Spectacular". This would serve to be my introduction to an obsession with extreme bands that would consume an unhealthy amount of my time and interest throughout middle and high school -- bands such as Exodus, Sepultura, Pungent Stench, Testament, Sacred Reich, and on and on. But the centerpiece of the issue was four articles on what Metal Hammer referred to as the "Big Four" of thrash, namely: Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeth.
And now we have a re-mastered re-issue of Megadeth's Rust in Peace, originally released coincidentally enough, within weeks of my return from the land of fjords. Why is this significant? Well, because with the very notable exception of Slayer's Seasons in the Abyss, Rust in the Peace was arguably the last great album of the great '80s thrash bands. Sure most, if not all, of these bands continued to release albums up to the present, but really -- which of them would you seriously consider to be on par with their '80s predecessors? Exodus, Testament, Slayer, Anthraxit's like 1990 was an impenetrable divide that dictated, "No decent thrash may pass". And let's not even discuss the Black album. Anyway, the release of Rust in Peace heralded the end of an era, and did so with august aplomb, the group topping even their own previously great achievements. It was as if all bands of the ilk recognized that nothing more could be done within the confines of what was considered thrash. Thrash had, as they say, "jumped the shark".
But most importantly, Rust in Peace is simply a magnificent album, harkening back to a time when metal records were still collections of great songs. Every song on here is unique and there's not a bit of filler to be found. Take a look at the tracks: you get the MTV-friendly alien conspiracy hit single "Hangar 18"; the sheer aggression of "Take No Prisoners," one of their heaviest songs ever; the eerie occultism of "Five Magics"; the upbeat, almost poppy quality of "Poison Was The Cure"; the coke-sweating solipsism of "Lucretia"; the forlorn desolation of "Tornado Of Souls"; the austere drum and bass death march creepiness of "Dawn Patrol," (where you get to hear Dave's hilarious affected British accent) all book-ended by two of the finest thrash epics ever recorded -- the relentless juggernaut of an opener, "Holy WarsThe Punishment Due," and the apocalyptic groove of the closing title track. Rust in Peace also showcases the finest musicianship of their career, featuring the relentless guitar dueling between Mustaine and newly recruited Shrapnel recording artist Marty Friedman. Very rarely has such guitar-shop wankery been harnessed into such tastefully well-crafted songs -- the intro to "Holy Wars" alone is a must-hear. As for the vocals -- some have been at worst annoyed and at best amused by Dave's whining snarl but when you hear him scream "Paid by the alliance, to slay all the giants" I think you'll agree his delivery is perfectly fitting.
Like Black Sabbath's Volume 4 or Celtic Frost's Morbid Tales or Iron Maiden's Killers, Rust in Peace is a milestone of metallic perfection and one which you are doing your metal collection a grave disservice to be without. If you have any genuine interest in metal, any whatsoever -- a single Century Media sampler in your collection, even -- you MUST own this record. Do yourself a favor, hear one of the absolute pinnacles of thrash. It was the last of its era, setting a standard that the genre as a whole would be unable to match again. And don't just take my word for it...Allan's backing me up on this one too: Rust In Peace is a metal essential. This reissue is remixed and remastered, with four bonus tracks (3 demos of album tracks featuring original 'Deth guitarist Chris Poland and the unfinished, unreleased "My Creation").
At last, for those of you whose turntables are built sturdily enough to withstand the massive heaviness, here's some VINYL from former AQ Record Of The Weekers, Megaton Leviathan, those droning Portland doomsters who, while as heavy as their name so inadequately attempts to indicate, are surprisingly somnolently mesmeric too!
Released on their own label, it's a limited lp pressing of their original 2009 demo tape, five tracks, around 34 minutes of doooOOOOOooooom. The first two tracks, "Water Wealth Hell On Earth" and "Guns And LSD" both were later rerecorded for their cd debut that we made ROTW, while the other 3, "Repeating Patterns Of Love", "Time Fades", and "Turlock", all appeared redone on their 2011 demo cassette as well. So, no new songs, but if you don't have the original demo, you haven't heard these versions before, and in any case this is the only way to weigh your turntable down with their doom, as we said... though as we also have said, ML's doom is a special sort of "soft doom", as much spacey slowcore shoegaze as it is anything else, uniquely so even on these, their debut recordings.
It's hard to know what to expect from a band with a name like Megaton Leviathan. You might guess heavy. Probably loud. And you'd be right on both counts, but you probably wouldn't guess that these guys play some sort of super melodic, poppy, and very pretty doom. Or sort of doom. Soft doom? We sure as heck didn't.
But that's pretty much what ML are all about. Even categorizing them as doom doesn't do them justice. The tempos are slow, the mood is doomy, but unlike the typical downtuned sludgery and lumbering slo-mo pummel of most doom combos, these guys infuse their dirges with soaring shimmering clean guitars, the vocals are clean, not howled or grunted, but crooned, bathed in reverb, and draped over the almost ethereal sounding heaviness.
The drums are strange, big and boomy, but they perfectly suit the Nadja-like doom-gaze, the washed out blissy reverbed doom pop, the hazy, gauze-y, space-y doom flecked psychedelia these guys so effortlessly conjure up.
The 19 minute opener is split into two parts, the first half, is a gorgeous dirgey creep, with a melancholy main melody, swirling synth textures, and those moody crooned vox, all stretched out into a glorious bit of space doom dream pop haze, the effects swallowing the instruments up and sending them spinning into the cosmos, woozy, and dreamy and mesmerizing and strangely emotional with some of the best most beautiful hooks you'll ever hear in a 'doom' band.
The second half almost sounds like a dub version of the first, the riffs are stripped away, leaving a glistening filed of layered vocal mantras and electronic effects, the drums spare and abstract, the sound thick and lush and distorted, but blurred and free and swirly and psychedelic, some sort of alien spacedoom ur-drone, the perfect balance for the more riffy bliss of the first half.
After another short track (and by short we mean almost 6 minutes), which is another dirgey crawl, through fields of cloudy effects and smeared electronics, sounding like a modern space doom Codeine, all pretty and melancholy but still dark and heavy, comes the 33+ minute closer, "A Slow Death In D Minor", the whole first half of which sounds like SUNNO))) covering Tangerine Dream, thick downtuned glacial thrum, underpinning, swirling kosmische synths and jangly shimmering clean guitar chords. This could go on forever, and practically does, until about 18 minutes later, the drums come in, and pound out a strange skeletal beat, atop the still drifting buzz and shimmer, buried vocals and muted melodies churn just below the surface, until finally, the sound grows more and more melodic, and what sound like strings surface, and the track is transformed into some sort of chamber doom, until eventually, just the strings are left, to soar dramatically over a barely there layer of crackle and hum, before slipping into silence.
This could definitely be our new favorite doom record, if it didn't feel so wrong to and reductive to call Megaton Leviathan doom. But it's definitely a new favorite, for fans of all things dark and heavy and dreamy and melodic, droney and drifty and pretty and poppy and trance inducing.
Ok, so American death metallers Nile might have the market for Egyptian-themed metal all to themselves. And they're damn good at it. But what about the rest of the Middle East? Well, the guys in Melechesh play "Mesopotamian Metal"! And, they actually hail
Holy crap this band SLAYS. What (the death metal band) Nile are to Egypt, this black metal outfit is to Iraq... That is, Melechesh consider themselves to play "Mesopotamian metal", lyrically focused on the mythology and mysticism of ancient Sumer. Except that, moreso than Nile, the music of Melechesh more fully incorporates influences from the traditional folk musics of the Middle East. So they're kind of an extreme metal version of the '60s Turkish psych bands we love so much, the garagey fuzz guitars replaced with downtuned distorted METAL guitars, making bellydance music with blastbeats. And, unlike Nile who are Americans, the guys in Melechesh actually all originally hail from the region (they're Arabs, emigrated to Europe). Well, they used to have a Texan in the band, the illustrious occultic drumbeast known as Proscriptor (of Absu fame) but on this album he's been replaced with a new drummer, Xul. Proscriptor's a tough act to follow but this Xul guy manages to do so quite well! Wow.
We've raved about 'em before, so hopefully you've already got some Melechesh in your collection and are as excited as we are about this new release, which is from the get-go a raging maelstrom of vicious riffage and masterful metal composition. Crushing AND catchy, technical, and very very METAL, yet with that extra Middle Eastern X-factor that makes it even better in our book, and allows the band to slow down for extra-ethnic, atmospheric interludes like "The Scribes Of Kur". Really, there's nothing we can find fault with here at all. A seriously great Middle Eastern metal assault, which even includes a cover of a song by a (Middle Eastern influenced) Canadian pop band, The Tea Party, weirdly, and cooly, enough. It's a shame that it's impossible to think about the ancient cultures and traditions of Middle East, and Iraq in particular, that Melechesh drawns such inspiration from, without of course dwelling on the current fucked up situation there, which sadly hasn't gotten any better since the release of Melechesh's last album back in 2003...
Good grief, but Melechesh certainly makes it tough for other 'extreme' metal bands to compete. If it wasn't enough that they're masters of razor sharp, ripping blackened deathly thrashy metal, they've also got the Middle Eastern thing going for 'em. Not just lyrically (they're into Mesopotamian mythology) but musically as well this has Middle Eastern motifs, heck there's even some bouzouki on here, and you know how much we like Middle Eastern influenced rock music, all that '60 Turkish psych stuff, well this is the modern metal equivalent! Plus these guys are a lot "closer to the source" than, say, those Egyptology obsessives in Nile, who are Americans. Melechesh are Palestinian Arabs, originally from Israel, and this album was recorded at a studio in Istanbul.
It's been four years since their last album, the amazing Emissaries, and they haven't changed much, except to get even better if possible. These songs are, as always, both crushing and catchy, as well as mystically, "magickally" atmospheric... mesmerizingly so, via the heaving heaviness of such tracks as "The Magickan And The Drones" (the magick wins out), full of sinuous, serious, seasawing riffage that leaves us utterly hypnotized. Elsewhere, the blazing fast battery does the same trick. Yet another AQ-approved aspect of Melechesh is how fist-pumpingly metal they manage to be, showing that their Middle Eastern sound might also have something to do with Iron Maiden's "Powerslave"!
Definitely for fans of Absu (whose Proscriptor was in fact a Melechesh member for a while), with whom they share some similarities of sound and vision; also of course the aforementioned Nile (though those guys are much more death metal) and Morbid Angel (who also are inspired by ancient Sumer). For another concocted comparison, imagine Dissection with a Middle Eastern makeover, maybe.
Highly recommended, this pushes a lot of buttons for us, definitely gonna be a major contender for 2010 top tens. Like we said, when you're listening to this, it's hard to see what else could compete. Comes packaged in a digipak, with suitably esoterically evocative artwork.
Writing as many reviews as we do each week, trying to sell records to the people who will like 'em, we really appreciate it when a band makes it easy, as in this case, like, by being from Japan. And from the early '70s. Playing acid folk. And then they've got a cool name like Melting Glass Box. All that really remains is for us to tell you if is as amazing as it seems it might be - and it is.
Of course, though they're pretty obscure, you may have heard of them already, as this 1970 album has quite a deserved rep among connoisseurs of Japanese psych stuff - though it's mysteriously given short shrift in Julian Cope's Japrocksampler book, though he does praise albums by another band, Five Red Balloons (Itsutsu No Arai Fusen) from whom comes the main Melting Glass Box guy, singer-songwriter Takasi Nishioka, who is the pretty sharp looking denim clad hipster gent in the Melting Glass Box cover photo. MGB was a one-off studio project (though Takasi made many albums with Itsutu No Arai Fusen, and a bunch of later solo records as well) that also featured folks from such crucial underground Japanese psych acts of the era as The Jacks, Apryl Fool, and AQ faves Blues Creation. There's three members of proto-metal heavies Blues Creation on board here, actually, including Iommi-esque guitarist Takeda Kazuo. Not that this is at all heavy, it's actually a mellow, melodic record, quite gentle and pretty and placid, the lazy la la la's of their folky flowerpowered pop punctuated with such surreal details as the sound of shattering glass that startles the listener halfway through the lead off track "Anmari Fukasugite". Likewise, electronic FX, tape speed manipulations, ethnic instruments, and some stinging acid guitar licks are sparingly stirred into the mix throughout, this album one of many interesting, dreamy details and odd arrangements, but that still succeeds especially due to Takasi's balladic songs, that are so very melancholic and emotional - even though we can't understand the lyrics. We bet Masaki Batoh and Ghost grew up listening to this record!
Definitely a thrilling reissue that all of us here at AQ are digging, it's been getting a LOT of in-store play. Nicely done, too, by the Erebus label, with liner notes, original sleeve shots, and discographical information in the cd booklet.
Mike Patton re-issues his Melvin buddies' awesome "Gluey Porch Treatments" album from 1986 and for this we are thankful -- it's nice to have a cd of this godly album all on its own, instead of merely appended to the "Ozma" cd (even though that version is still available for those who want to make their Melvins dollar go further--however, as added value incentive, this stand-alone "Gluey" includes the previously unreleased "garage demos" of the entire album!...thus making it an essential purchase for true Melvins fans even if you already have the "Ozma" cd!). Now, the Melvins have made a lot of records, some better than others, but let me tell you that this is one of the best. Heck, if they'd only made this one record they'd still be one of my all-time favorite bands, it's that good. This is the one that, prior to masterpieces like "Ozma", "Bullhead" and "Lysol", really established their unique Black Flag-meets-Black Sabbath heavier than thou sound.
Huh? We've never reviewed this classic Melvins album, their 1993 major label debut on Atlantic Records, though we did review the live version of this album they released on Ipecac much later, in 2005. Time to rectify the situation!
Houdini destroyed any doubts anyone could have had about the Melvins "selling out", it was pure Melvins through and through, tracks like "Night Goat" and "Hag Me" were just as fierce and devastating as anything they'd done up to then, "Hooch" and "Lizzy" as heavy and rockin', and the likes of "Sky Pup" and "Pearl Bomb" utterly as eerie and puzzling and weird...
How the heck did the freakin' Melvins get signed to a major? One word: Nirvana. And it was a more direct connection than just another "grungy" indie band getting swept up in the major label alt-rock signing hysteria of the era, as the Melvins and Kurt Cobain were old punk rock pals from their Aberdeen, Washington days. And indeed Cobain appears as a guest on a couple of the tracks here, including the finale, "Spread Eagle Beagle", a song in the glorious Melvins tradition of truly WTF? album-closing tracks, over ten minutes of echoing abstract percussion.
Oh, and this album features their harrowing, heavier than thou cover of "Going Blind" by KISS, which even moreso than some other songs they've covered, sounds like it was written FOR the Melvins.
Maybe the reason we never reviewed this before (besides the fact this album's release predated us doing "the list" anyway) is that we had to figure that any/all Melvins fans must already have this. But if by chance you don't, good grief, get it! And if you're NOT a Melvins fan, but would like to be, here's a great one to start in on.
Y'know, the Melvins have been one of our favorite bands for so long we practically take 'em for granted. But when a new album comes out, it's still pretty exciting. Almost like it must have been in the '60s when, like, a new Beatles LP would be released, that's what it's like for us and the Melvins... except heck the Melvins have been around now for, like, 100x as long as the Beatles' whole career lasted.
So, yes, yah, yay, it's a new Melvins! Again on Ipecac, which means it's yet another Melvins cd with the front cover on the back and the tracklist on the front. You think they'd be over that by now, but the Melvins are all about being quirky now aren't they? Well, being quirky and HEAVY. And we're pleased to report that Nude With Boots is plenty heavy! As expected, though with the Melvins you also have to expect the unexpected too. But from the get go, Nude With Boots hammers it down, maybe a bit more uptempo rockin' than typical, lead-off track "The Kicking Machine" being just that, ass kicking that is, a hooky slab of classic rockin' riffola. Replete with chunky guitars, catchy vocal choruses, and splattering percussion to spare. The next track up, "Billy Fish" is another big, bangin' number. And then when track three, "Dog Island" hits, though, it's CRUSHING. And you realize that the album's only getting started. That song's 7 and a half minutes of herky-jerky slo-mo heaviness, creeped out and melodically fist-waving too. Yep, this is shaping up to be a quite satisfying Melvins experience, one that so far stacks up with the likes of Houdini. No kidding.
How do they do it? The Melvins have such an *authoritative* sound. Heavier than thou for sure. Distinctively untouchable. It's like they have access to better stuff than anyone. Stuff? Dunno, gear, drugs, organic vegetables, whatever it is that makes them sound like they do, the Melvins are in a league unto themselves.
One not so secret weapon: Buzz's always amazing, melodic yet gritty vocals, which we realize sound like Gene Simmons crossed with Ozzy Osbourne. And, as well, his usual cryptic, imagistic lyrics.
Furthermore, there's simply so much geetar badassitude on this album, Buzz blasting riffs and sweet licks all over the place, and of course Dale's drum fills are sweet (and punishing) too. We defy you to try to listen to this album and not a) air-guitar b) air-drum or c) at the very least, headbang. Maybe even sing along! If you can figure out the words that is.
Of course, along with the rippin' rock, this also has its copious share of abstractly wacked weirdness, ambient interludes like the 1:05 "Flush" ferinstance. Or the atmospheric moody SUNNO))) styled murk of the cleverly titled "Dies Iraea". Or the bizarre bludgeon n' scrape of "The Savage Hippy" and the even more out there "It Tastes Better Than the Truth", a twofer in the extreme tradition of Melvins album-enders, the latter practically sounding like a chaotic Khanate on a ketamine bender. Or Wildildlife...
So, sometimes it almost sounds like this is a uber-produced Ozzy or Alice Cooper album from the '80s or '90s that's been taken over by the real inmates of one of the padded cell insane asylums that those two cartoon characters always were checking into/outof (on the album covers anyway, rehabs in real life), hard rock pop that's been utterly warped and weirded out...
Maybe it's just as well that Melvins never got as huge as pals Nirvana during the Grunge years. They had a major label dalliance, yes, but survived it, and are still with us to crank out what's simply the classic rock of our generation (with a heavy dose of weirdness). Nude With Boots makes you remember, oh yeah, ROCK MUSIC. We love rock music. Damn, it's good. We've been really into the rejuvenated Harvey Milk lately, a Melvinsy band for sure, but you've gotta give it up to the originals, the one and only Melvins. All hail.
#2 in the Melvin's 3-album summer plan. This is the self-proclaimed 'quiet' one, and, while not near-silent like a Bernard Gunter record or anything, it is quite restrained by the Melvin's usual loud-and-pummelling standards. Rather hypnotic post-rock is what you get, with strange almost-Gothic vocals from Buzz. The first 'wacky' Melvins album that Allan has liked, because the so-called wackiness is limited to a single (successful!) concept that they stick to throughout the record, instead of trying to surprise/annoy with each and every song like some other Melvins discs of which I could think. No, 'The Bootlicker' doesn't possess the classic heavy Melvins sound that previous disc 'The Maggot' recaptured, but is much better the sort of indie-rock/Mr. Bunglized sound of other recent full-lengths like 'Stag'. So, two down, both pretty good, and one to go. (The next one, 'The Crybaby', we'll admit to being a bit afraid of...seeing as it's the 'wacky guest star' album or something, with contributions from the likes of Leif Garrett and Hank Williams III!)
Has it really been two whole years already since the last Melvins long player, the supremely rockin' Nude With Boots? They've been around so long and yet remain so vital and prolific and reliable, it always seems like they just put something out the other day, yet each release is a marvelous surprise. This is their third album since they recruited bass/drums duo Big Business into the band, and this phase of the Melvins' storied career has been a fruitful one.
The first minute or two of the first track "The Water Glass" starts off sounding very much typically thunderous heavier than thou Melvins... but woah, hey, it then takes a MAJOR turn into, what, a rhythmic marching band drumline thing (why not, they've got two drummers), with call and response vocal chant, the Melvins as cheerleaders or drill sergeants gettin' pumped up and ready to go. We're smiling like fools, and confused, what IS this? It's somehow like the MC5 or Dictators meet the Boredoms or go-go music or, we dunno, it'd be awesome and hilarious to see this live. Wow. All right, fair warning, this is clearly the Melvins getting weird on us, something of course they've have always had a knack for. Nude With Boots had its experimental moments, as all Melvins records do, more than moments sometimes, to varying degrees of accessibility, and this one ups the ante, coming closer in WTF?-ness to their recent radical remix album Chicken Scratch... and this time in ways that we don't think we've heard from them before.
All the while keeping it damn catchy, and HEAVY too, at least some of the time. Right on cue, track two again kicks out the jams in old school Melvins style... but a percussive breakdown isn't far away. Neither are cinematic keys, herky jerky prog parts (Ruins-esque, even, or Nomeansno-ish), quirky POP, frenzied metal, and plenty more random what the fuck weirdness, as warned. Such as a ploddingly odd, semi-abstract cover of "My Generation", ferinstance, or the lonely harmonica and hymn-like a cappella of the album's final track, "PG X 3" (and that's not even what's weird about that one). As always, they're part Kiss and The Cars, heavied up and punk rocked, and now we're realizing that Sparks just might be another big fave of theirs.
So, go along for the ride, trust us. And them. Ok, maybe "Hospital Up" is a bit of a throw-away (random improv scatter there). But otherwise, we're sold. And maybe it's the frequent vocal holler, echoing with chorus effect, or the double drummer bombastic battery, but this album sounds particularly triumphant. As well it should. One of the best bands ever, once again deliver the goods. And it can't be easy, after, what, 30 albums??? All we know is, THE MELVINS RULE. End of story.
The first in their three part summer album series recorded for Mike Patton's new Ipecac label. This one is their "metal" record. Supposedly album number two is "slow" and part three is "experimental". Includes a rendition of Fleetwood Mac's "Green Manalishi With The Two-Pronged Crown" (a live favorite at Melvins shows for the past few years). Not as good as the Judas Priest version, but good. Anyway, The Maggot should satisfy those for whom the last couple of Melvins' records were too deliberately weird or "indie-rock".
Another fucked up Melvins classic, the one-track album of sheer heaviosity that pre-dates Sleep's Jerusalem...and visits both Flipper and Alice Cooper tuneage. Originally titled 'Lysol' then simply 'Melvins' due to legal reasons.
NOW ON VINYL!! What we said about this great Melvins album when it came out on cd last year on Ipecac:
Folks have been chomping at the bit for months since it was first announced that the kings of sludgy goofy heaviness were to team up with the master of creepy, sinister ambience. And we do mean 'team up' as in write and record together, not a split record or anything like that, a good ol' collaboration! So here it is. The first track is a creepy slithering dark snippet of sound, super minimal and slowly shifting. So much as we thought, the only way these two behemoths of the underground could cooperate and have it work would be for it to be a drone record. Well the second track blows that theory out of the water. A wickedly fierce, super dynamic barn burner, with a KILLER riff, and some spooky drone-y breakdowns complete with a haunting little melody played on the strings above the neck, and then some serious shredding leads. Maybe the best Melvins song in forever!! But what excatly is Lustmord doing while the Melvins rock? Maybe he strapped on a guitar and joined in the riffing. Or more likely, he supplied the track with all of its weird little sounds and murky background noises. Either way, who cares? It's an incredible track. The next track is a weird tribal workout done Melvins style, with exotic tribal percussion over rumbly drones and distorted guitars providing the melodies. Sounding not unlike a way heavier Muslimgauze! The centerpiece of the record though has to be the 20+ minute title track which sounds like the perfect hybridization of the two bands. Massive slow rolling drones slip and slide through clouds of machine like whirs and muffled outer space sounds, distant clatter and swirling sonic splatter. Eventually the guitars roll in like a huge crushing wave of sound, very Earth-like before it slowly develops into another killer riff, repeated over and over and over, bombarded on all sides by strange effects, swooping chunks of sound and strange, clipped 'almost-vocals' before trailing off into a slowly decaying barely there minimal hum. The rest of the record sort of seesaws back and forth between pounding and churning classic Melvins style sort-of-metal riffing, and really haunting otherworldly minimal dronescapes. VERY reminiscent of Old Man Gloom's drone / dirge combo. But hey, you can't argue with more drone or more dirge or more sludge or more Melvins or more Lustmord. Not at all. When all is said and done, Pigs Of The Roman Empire sounds like someone took a really great Melvins record, and a really great Lustmord record, and sort of chopped them up, and mixed and matched and made the perfect hybrid of the two. Which when you think about it is pretty awesome. We've thought of doing that all the time. Earth and George Winston, Bjork and Thuja, Squarepusher and Jandek, Motorhead and PJ Harvey, A Minor Forest and Keiji Haino (well that one's mainly to piss Andee off), and the list goes on and on and on.
If you were going to create a comic book that would appeal equally to fans of Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) and punk metallers the Melvins, Brian Walsby's Manchild would be it. It IS it. Autobiographical, confessional comix about his life, love, and music. Lots and lots of music. Much of this is devoted to stuff about indie/punk/HC/metal, back in the day... Especially for anyone of a certain age, with nostalgia for the '80s and '90s underground rock scene, this is a must! Walsby is a good artist, and writer, and in fact almost each and every panel found on these many, many pages (this is thick!) is packed with text you'll need to squint a bit to read, but it's worth it.
We haven't read the whole thing yet, but we can tell you that in this issue, there's a bunch of stories about bands he's been in (ferinstance Walsby played drums for Snake Nation, with CoC's Woody Weatherman and Mike Dean, and he was also in Shiny Beast, wow, we had no idea) and stuff about his life now, like how he met his current girlfriend, who has a toddler, what what that's been like.... He illustrates some other folks' tales about quitting their jobs, there's a two-page piece about Jason Newsted, all sorts of random, cool shit, usually pretty funny or weird or interesting, sometimes really something to think about.
In addition to the longer stories, there's plenty of one-page and half-page bits, good laughs like the one about reformed '80s hardcore bands, renamed: 700 Seconds, Middle Aged Threat, Adult Brigade, Youth Of Yesterday, Post-Adolescents, Semi-Negative Approach... Or the one about Jimi Hendrix in Heaven, getting pissed that he's required to "jam" with every other rockstar who dies and goes there after him (he's like, "I finally get Janis and Jerry off of my back... and then I have to play with this...'Dimebag Darrell'?").
The comic book would be worth it by itself, but sweetening the deal, this is shrinkwrapped with a LIVE MELVINS CD! Entitled Pick Your Battles, it's about 50 minutes long, presenting 15 tracks taken from two shows, Berkeley back in 1989 and Boston 2008. True Melvins fans want this, even if they don't like comic books, but why wouldn't you like comic books, especially this one?
It's a comic book! It's a Melvins cd! It's pretty darn cool is what it is. Cartoonist Brian Walsby spoofs and skewers various icons of old school punk/alt rock culture, and puts his own personal family history on the page too ("My Old Man!"). It's mostly subversively funny, sarcastic stuff. Lots of chuckles for those with a bit of nostalgia for the good ol' days of '80s punk rock for sure!! One of our favorite comix in here is "Whatever Happened To You Favorite Eighties Hardcore Mascots" which imagines the DRI "thrash guy" finding a new career as a school crossing guard, and the Black Flag bars being sold to Hank Williams III who "dropped one bar and used the rest for his new logo." Some of the other pieces in this fairly thick book include an illustrated article celebrating TV's SCTV, a Walsby/Melvins 2006 tour diary, a memoir entitled "How I Survived Grunge", "The Rules Of Young Rock Bands" (which include holding the microphone like a glass of wine, and combining two kinds of bad singing: whiny, nasal and hysterical screaming), several comic strips about The Dios (a la The Osbournes), a tribute to Cheap Trick, and much much more. If you like stuff like Peter Bagge's Hate or Chunklet magazine this is for you.
This book makes a perfect team up with Walsby's old pals, wise ass scene vets the Melvins, who contribute a 20+ minute cd to the package, entitled "The Making Love Demos". These eight songs are DIY four-track recordings from back in '87, from the Buzz/Dale/Matt lineup, several of which later wound up in re-recorded form on their classic Ozma album, and some you've never ever heard before. Wow. Melvins fans are gonna be stoked. Heavy grinding nastiness, perfectly filthily home-recorded, that's way more punk than grunge.
Latest (third, I think) release by this Swedish band who are heavily influenced by the dark, epic, doom metal of countrymen Candlemass, circa '88. The chugging riffs, melancholic lead guitar, and the lamentation of their singer (whose soaring and sad wails are not quite as over the top as those of former Candlemass vocalist Messiah Marcolin, but close) all fit that doom blueprint, and will meet acceptance from fans of Solitude Aeturnus, Memento Mori, and the like as well.
What to make of a black metal band that has releases on both the Alien8 (Nadja, Merzbow, Acid Mothers Temple) and Tour De Garde (Ash Pool, Marblebog, Tomb Of..., Uno Actu) labels? That they're probably pretty weird? They are. And intense too. This is some sick stuff. Also beautiful, if you, like us, have fallen under the spell of this most extreme aesthetic, if you're someone whose eyes/imagination can scan the soot-blackend skies of an apocalyptic otherworld, and still spy flights of swans and stars beyond.
Menace Ruine, from the "frozen north" of Quebec, are the mysterious male/female duo of S. de La Moth and Genevieve. This James Plotkin-mastered Alien8 release is their debut album, after one demo (being reissued as a cassette on Tour De Garde). MR's original black metal art really made an immediate impression upon us despite how easily jaded we can be with the glut of black metal out there. It's the unholy layering of sometimes melodic feedback-sculpted ambient drone howl, with machine gun blasting... long stretches of atmospheric synth heavily infiltrated with sheer noise and distortion, scattered further with clanging industrial raw rhythms. There's almost 20th c. avant-garde moments of majesty, like some Romanian electronic composer gone insane in his or her sound laboratory, and others that with the occasional female vox bring to mind Wolves In The Throne Room wandering in another dimension. Or simply blaze with the burning black metal fires of not mere churches but whole civilizations.
For Alien8's first foray into the troo cvlt world of black metal, they couldn't have done much better, with a release that's indeed (oc)cult and true but also experimental, and not something that we've heard already a thousand times before, a rarity indeed! Fiercely recommended.
Krautrock like they used to make, from these modern-day heirs to the glorious kosmiche tradition. The German collective Metabolismus has actually been around since the '80s, but this is only their second domestically released album (available last year on LP, but now on cd). Indeed, most of their other releases have been super-obscure rarities. But with their "Terra Incognita" album released on US label Blackjack a few years back, they turned a few ears around here, and we were excited to see the followup make it to cd. Wonderful, psychedelic stuff, mostly-instrumental explorations, experimental yet pretty, proving that the heyday of Faust and Can and Popul Vuh and Cluster and the like is not forgotten.
