Attention, all worshippers of WITCHCRAFT!! What we have here is the next best thing to new music from that more '70s than thou band of Swedish heavy prog downer doomsters, and huge AQ faves. It's the debut solo recording from Witchcraft frontman Magnus Pelander, a four song, 21 minute ep. If you're a real Witchcraft fan, you'll want this. Since Magnus is the prime mover in Witchcraft, and this highlights his distinctive, mellifluous voice as well as guitar playing and songwriting talents, it's one of those "solo" projects that doesn't sound too different from the main band.... except it's mostly acoustic! A few years back, one time when Witchcraft were playing in San Francisco, Magnus told us he had plans to team up with a friend of his back home, who's also his guitar teacher, to do an acoustic album. We'd been eagerly waiting ever since, and it seems that their project has finally borne fruit. Magnus plays 6 string acoustic guitar, electric as well, plus drums and percussion. And of course sings. Meanwhile, his friend Mike (first name only given here, he's shy or something) plays 6 and 12 steel string acoustic guitars, plus piano, bass, percussion, and handles the string arrangements.
AQ's Allan, actually, was lucky enough to get to see the duo's first ever performance, this year at the Roadburn festival in Holland. For him, it was definitely a highlight of the fest, though Magnus and Mike were frustrated by some technical difficulties during their set. Still, they rose to the occasion and delivered some of the most "musical" moments of the whole Roadburn experience. Let's put it this way: Magnus is no slouch on guitar, but this guy Mike was really phenomenal!
The glorious, intricate interplay of guitars Allan heard there is fully on display here, as is the manner in which Magnus bears his heart vocally and lyrically, these songs so personal and emotive, like a lot of the most moving Witchcraft tunes. Some of this has got that sad Sabbath "Solitude" vibe, though the ep starts out on the brighter side with "A Sinner's Child", featuring melodious whistling, and lovely female backing ah-ah-ah's, but also lyrics like "I am a sinner's child / you better wait a while / before you take my hand / can you see Satan smile?" keeping it well within the realm of something dark and occultic that Witchcraft themselves might do. "Hope", which begins just with voice and piano, getting even more intimate in feel than the first track, soon turns into even more of a showcase for this duo's impressive 6 and 12 string chops. They rip... acoustically. Track 3, "You Have Got No Friends To Turn To" is by far the heaviest offering here, Magnus busting out the electric guitar for some plodding riff stomp and amped-up psychedelic soloing, though the track is still adorned with plenty of acoustic filigree and hand percussion. Certainly another one that wouldn't be out of place on a Witchcraft album.
The last, and longest, track, "Stardust", is an achingly beautiful and melancholic ballad, Magus's singing starting off hushed, the strumming almost sacred, a string section gradually building up in the background, piano notes intertwined with the guitar lines, it gets pretty progged out and epic! Allan definitely remembers this one from Roadburn, even in the stripped down way they played it there.
This record recalls at moments the likes of Comus and Six Organs and Aztec Two-Step and even, unintentionally but awesomely, Tenacious D, just a teeny bit. Fellow Swedes Dungen and Bjorn Olsson would be other references. And while in our experience, most people into the whole current indie acid folk scene already do dig Witchcraft, those who haven't heard 'em might find this to be a particularly lush, gorgeous, somewhat mellowed out entree.
LIMITED IMPORT RELEASE, cd version limited to 500 copies. We have black vinyl, with nice thick sleeves.
Oh man, if this record was only a full length, and not an EP, it would have been record of the week for sure! Even so, it's a pretty hefty EP clocking in at 33 minutes, especially when you consider it's only two songs! And not only is it quite possibly the best Pelican song so far, with a completely unforgettable, loping seasick main riff, relentless double kick drumming, totally heavy and MASSIVE, occasionally slipping into indie rock, with deliriously jangle-and-chime drenched melodies that eventually becomes a dreamy acoustic coda complete with flute, but the second track is a JK Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu) remix that ends up sounding like the best Jesu track yet, all My Bloody Valentine blissed out with fuzzy backward melodies, industrial machinellike rhythms and epic alien arrangements.
This album prompted a discussion here about how there's the post rock bands that throw in some heavy, riffy metal bits to make things weirder and more interesting (and maybe so they don't seem quite so wimpy). And there's also the metal bands that write some pretty, quiet post rock parts also to be weird and interesting (and so as not to seem like total Neanderthals). In both cases, when things work out well, the results are a band that sounds not like, uh, wimpy Neanderthals but rather like intelligent and sensitive types who also possess crushing might. Pretty much every boy's ideal, eh? And Chicago instrumental heavies (and big AQ faves) Pelican are a great example of this, even though -- especially with this new album -- we can't quite decide if they're a metal band first post rock band second or the other way around. The very first track on The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw, "Last Day Of Winter", is seemingly more on the post rock side, all simmering moodiness and storm-yet-to-be-unleashed power. It IS big and loud but not really metal. Eventually the album offers up some truly uber metal moments, though, yes. Pelican's vaunted heaviness remains. But things are overall at least equally dreamy...dreamy and layered and melodically mathy, with post rock dynamics that dip into quiet, relaxed territory as much as they charge into heavy rock battle. Track four, for instance, is ALL gentle acoustic string-strum, with hints also of glitchy electronic crackle. We were prepared for this by their warm-up ep March Into The Sea (the title track of which is reprised here in edited form) wherein those acoustic guitars were added to Pelican's sonic palette. Pelican's vast, riff-ravaged landscape now has little lovely flowers growing, and expands to even further horizons. Funnily enough, "March Into The Sea" itself also offers some of the most metal (fast, furious) passages on here. Whatever you call it, the music of Pelican is (and always has been) totally mesmerizing and epic. Even if this album makes us think that it's almost like Pelican are turning into Kinski. Who aren't metal even though they are sometimes quite heavy. And who we also like a lot after all.
Ok, enough about all this post rock vs. metal stuff (though we will say that the presence of an extensive "thanks" list argues for Pelican indeed being a metal band at heart). What's important is that anyone into massive sonics of riff-shifting symphonic complexity OR blissful simplicity, should bow down to the juggernaut genius of Pelican's lastest opus...now that sounds fairly metal, don't it? Mention should also be made of the really quite lovely cd packaging here -- the cd booklet's got a translucent vellum cover and some cool interior artwork. Recommended!
Wow. This has got to be the thickest heftiest gatefoldlp sleeve we've EVER seen. Not just the kind that cracks and creaks when you open, no, it's the sort of lp that when you do finally crack it open, it's like in the movies when the main character is finally opening the long lost crypt, muscles bulging, tendons straining, sweating and grunting, as it slowly opens with the grinding scrape of metal on concrete... Okay, so maybe it's not quite -that- intense, but heck, EVERY single person who picks it up does a sort of double take and utters something like "Woah, wow... WOW!" Plus the cover images are gorgeous, the front is a stark black and white landscape of gnarled dead trees, the back is a makeshift gallows, occupied by two unlucky souls, with an ominous pile of human skulls in the foreground. Crack it open and inside the gatefold you'll see a acid drenched burnt out kaleidoscopic photo of Krysztof Penderecki behind a huge pile of analog studio gear. Penderecki? Yep, Pendercki! This is the long lost soundtrack to the 1965 classic The Sargassa Manuscript, AKA Rekopis znaleziony w Sarogossie, AKA The Manuscript Found In Saragossa, one of the greatest Polish films ever made, and most definitely one of the strangest, most fucked up visual trips EVER. Think Bunuel, Lynch, Jodorowsky, Tarkovsky, Gilliam and then realize you'd most definitely need to include Sargasso director Wojciech Has. But the sounds are as strange and wondrous as the sights, due in no small part to Penderecki's lovely, haunting and downright bizarre score. Dark delicate piano filigree hovers in wide expanses of barely there ambience, grunts and groans and mumbled vocalisations drift in and out, western steel string guitars play tiny boleros before being overtaken by majestic church organs, snatches of refined chamber music are interrupted by strange soundscapes of what sounds like thunder or trees being felled, hypnotic stretches of No Neck Blues Band-like rattle and clatter, mysterious percussive interludes, woodblocks and rattles and shakers, and surrounding it all, little bits and pieces, scraps of sound, all manner of strange audio delights. A completely intense and intensely strange musical trip, even without the equally bizarre visuals of the film. In fact the images these sounds conjure up in your head, in the dark, with headphones on, might just be even stranger than the movie itself. If that were even possible...
Pressed on INCREDIBLY thick vinyl, and oh, did we mention the sleeve?!?!
And as you might imagine, this vinyl-only Polish import is EXTREMELY LIMITED!!!!
These two crucial Pentagram discs were reissued earlier this year and we figured we'd better (at long last) get 'em reviewed for our site, what with the immense popularity of Swedish retro-doomsters Witchcraft (seriously, we sell a TON of Witchcraft records and that's how it should be) and also their friends/countrymen/doppelgangers Burning Saviours, both of whom utterly absolutely obviously *worship* Pentagram. Black Sabbath too of course, but it's Pentagram who provide them with more of a "cult" thrill and inspiration -- Witchcraft has recorded several Pentagram covers, and Burning Saviors are even named after a Pentagram song.
Now, Pentagram's been around for a long time (almost as long as Sabbath) in various incarnations, and we've previously reviewed both collections of '70s era Pentagam material as well as their several recent albums. But the two records that really put 'em on the metal map were these, which date from the mid 1980s. Originally self-titled, Relentless was the band's debut full-length from 1985 (yep, about a full 15 years after they first formed!!) and 1987's Day Of Reckoning was their second. Both are classics of doom metal, up there with the other great '80s post-Sabbath doom LPs by Trouble, Candlemass, and Saint Vitus.
On these albums vocalist Bobby Liebling is at the height of his powers (he sounds kinda like Ozzy, but something about his voice and delivery indicates that maybe he's got even more first-hand knowledge of the dark side, like he's one of the evil creatures that Ozzy would just warn you about!) and current Place Of Skulls guitarist Victor Griffin riffs with the best of 'em. Drummer Joe Hasselvander and bassist Martin Swaney round out this era's Pentagram line-up. Penta-classic tracks found here include "Death Row", "Sign Of The Wolf (Pentagram)" and "20 Buck Spin" (on Relentless) and "When The Screams Come", "Burning Savior" and "Madman" (on Day Of Reckoning), among others. Both discs are great, buy the pair!
Reissued in digipacks, cd booklets replete with lyrics, photos, and brand new jive-talkin' liner notes by the still-kickin' Bobby L.
Maryland-based doom metallers Pentagram are on some kinda roll, following up their recently released and quite awesome album "Sub-Basement" (see the review on AQ-list 128) with this collection of stuff they recorded almost 30 years ago! Yep, they've been
"Starlady" ('76) -- why they didn't get signed on the strength of this potential single (a hit if I've ever heard one) I don't know. Or why KISS didn't buy the tune for their own use, that's perhaps even more of a mystery! (KISS's management was checking Pentagram out at the time, but no record deal resulted...)
"Forever My Queen" ('73) -- powerful doom metal that shows them at their Sabbath-like best (although, hearing this collection, you'll realize that Pentagram were equally into, and the equals of, other heavy contemporaries like Captain Beyond, Dust, and Blue Cheer).
"Last Days Here" ('74) -- it's like some Stones or "Raw Power"-era Stooges ballad, with Bobby doing his best Iggy impression.
"Be Forwarned" ('72) -- Pentagram re-recorded this epic, the A-side of first ever 7", on their 1994 "Be Forwarned" album, and when I first heard that version I knew it had to be an old song, 'cause it had such an authentic heavy psych vibe to it. So it's great to finally hear the original (more or less, see below).
"20 Buck Spin" ('73) -- again, the original version of a classic rockin' Pentagram track, covered recently by Pennsylvania doomsters Pale Divine.
All the tracks sound pretty great production-wise (except for the relatively lo-fi live rehearsal recording of "Last Days Here"), putting the previous Pentagram '70s rarities collection "Human Hurricane" to shame. Of course, Bobby did re-master and clean up these tracks in 2001. He also took the opportunity to add some vocals and guitar to "Be Forwarned", for reasons probably known only to him. There's also a few other questionable edits or fades only a Pentagram collector would notice. But such modern-day meddling doesn't detract in any way from the might of the music on offer. It's great stuff, and simply amazing to hear it sounding so good. Pentagram fans have a high tolerance for poor sound (witness the pretty much unlistenable live bootleg LPs that have been released) but this time, you get to *hear* the music as well as own the disc! Recommended to Pentagram fans (obviously) and ANYONE who likes good heavy '70s rock and roll!
It's a time of joy, and a time of doom. That's because in the space of just the past month or two we've gotten not one but now two awesome, unearthed releases of previously lost early '70s underground heaviness from a bunch of longhaired DC-area Blue Cheer fans who, if they'd only managed to get a record deal back then, might have gotten huge and now be known as the American Black Sabbath. Well they really are the American Black Sabbath anyway, but not as many people know it. We're talking about the legendary original lineup of Pentagram, and their even more obscure evil twin Bedemon.
Two lists back, we were freaking out over the long awaited release of that Bedemon album, upon which sometime Pentagram guitarist Randy Palmer's home recorded hymns of doom finally saw the light of day. We're still freaking out about it (just got more in, it's relisted this list), but now our frenzy is doubled. Yes, that amazing release wasn't enough, now here's First Daze Here Too, the follow-up to First Daze Here (natch) the AQ fave 2002 release that compiled a bunch of rare '70s era Pentagram recordings that were otherwise unavailable except perhaps with sub-par sound to rabid tape-traders. First Daze Here astounded us, being one of the best '70s heavy rock albums that never was we'd ever heard. Great songs, restored to sound better than fans has ever heard 'em. Incredibly, Relapse has now put together a solid -second- collection of unreleased vintage Penta-tracks from '72-'76. So many classics in their original form: "When The Screams Come", "Wheel Of Fortune", "Virgin Death", "Target", "Nightmare Gown", "Much Too Young To Know", an alternate version of "Be Forwarned", and more -- even their heavy take on the Stones' "Under My Thumb"! Sound quality varies, from tracks recorded for professional demo purposes to lower-fi rehearsal tapes, but fans will dig it all... though at 22 tracks total we'll admit that it's not all entirely the equal of the 100 percent killer first First Daze Here. This is more like 90 percent, yet it's not like we'd have wanted them to leave anything off. And in fact, we know that there's still more in the Pentagram vaults, so maybe we can look foward to a third volume someday...
Relapse have pulled out all the stops with this one, which after all these years Pentagram definitely deserve. It's a double disc (though actually we think all of it could have fit on one stuffed to the gills 80 minute cd) handsomely packaged with a huge thick booklet full of prevously unseen, sepia-toned band photos and text by original Pentagram drummer and keeper of the flame Geof O'Keefe, including track-by-track commentary... there's also notes from other former members as well. Doom on!
These two crucial Pentagram discs were reissued earlier this year and we figured we'd better (at long last) get 'em reviewed for our site, what with the immense popularity of Swedish retro-doomsters Witchcraft (seriously, we sell a TON of Witchcraft records and that's how it should be) and also their friends/countrymen/doppelgangers Burning Saviours, both of whom utterly absolutely obviously *worship* Pentagram. Black Sabbath too of course, but it's Pentagram who provide them with more of a "cult" thrill and inspiration -- Witchcraft has recorded several Pentagram covers, and Burning Saviors are even named after a Pentagram song.
Now, Pentagram's been around for a long time (almost as long as Sabbath) in various incarnations, and we've previously reviewed both collections of '70s era Pentagam material as well as their several recent albums. But the two records that really put 'em on the metal map were these, which date from the mid 1980s. Originally self-titled, Relentless was the band's debut full-length from 1985 (yep, about a full 15 years after they first formed!!) and 1987's Day Of Reckoning was their second. Both are classics of doom metal, up there with the other great '80s post-Sabbath doom LPs by Trouble, Candlemass, and Saint Vitus.
On these albums vocalist Bobby Liebling is at the height of his powers (he sounds kinda like Ozzy, but something about his voice and delivery indicates that maybe he's got even more first-hand knowledge of the dark side, like he's one of the evil creatures that Ozzy would just warn you about!) and current Place Of Skulls guitarist Victor Griffin riffs with the best of 'em. Drummer Joe Hasselvander and bassist Martin Swaney round out this era's Pentagram line-up. Penta-classic tracks found here include "Death Row", "Sign Of The Wolf (Pentagram)" and "20 Buck Spin" (on Relentless) and "When The Screams Come", "Burning Savior" and "Madman" (on Day Of Reckoning), among others. Both discs are great, buy the pair!
Reissued in digipacks, cd booklets replete with lyrics, photos, and brand new jive-talkin' liner notes by the still-kickin' Bobby L.
'70s semi-survivors Pentagram, one of the only truly O.G. doom metal outfits still somewhat extant, their legend only growing in recent years, more people getting into them, hordes of Witchcraft fans prominent among 'em. When Review Your Choices first came out in 1999, Pentagram were not quite as "hip" a band as they are now. So lots of folks who missed out before should be happy it's been reissued, along with its 2001 follow-up Sub-Basement, together the one-two-punch of a (temporarily) revitalized, turn-of-the-century Pentagram. Both albums now come in styley digipacks, with 2 bonus tracks each.
Here's our original review of Review Your Choices: The long-awaited new album from doom metal legend Bobby Liebling and his cult band Pentagram, one of the most ancient bands in the genre (not much younger than their lords Black Sabbath themselves). Indeed, about half of the tunes on this album were originally recorded as demo tracks back in the mid-'70s when Gene Simmons and KISS took an interest in the Pentagram boys and were trying, unsuccessfully, to get them signed to their Casablanca label. Both the old stuff (recently rerecorded of course) and the newly-written stuff on here resound with an authentic '70s/Sabbath vibe (right down to Bobby's vocals, which sound like Ozzy at his most demented and troglodytic!). Imagine taking records by the heavy likes of Saint Vitus, Trouble, and Blue Cheer and mixing them in a bowl with several boxes of Count Chocula (the cereal paid homage to in the booklet photo spread!) and a quart of way-past-its-expiration-date milk. That's the curdled, dark and soggy breakfast of champions served up by Pentagram on Review Your Choices. What a way to start your day, or perhaps to end it all.
Not much more to say other than, a classic, full of Pentagram necessities old and new. The killer, slide-y main riff on "Megalania". The cheerful insanity of "Gilla?". The old, old utter classic "Forever My Queen".... all of it, really! The bonus tracks are alternative takes of album tracks, and their production or lack thereof is pretty raw, but then again the album proper has its own "gluey" production eccentricities... either way these tracks sound plenty doomy!
Now, since the release of these two albums, Pentagram fans have been exposed to more of the band's original '70s recordings via the two First Daze Here comps that Relapse put out. If you have those, you'll certainly recognize many of the songs on Review Your Choices and Sub-Basement. But not only are these recordings of 'em quite worthy in their own right (some of these versions being our preferred ones for sure), these albums also contain plenty of circa-Y2K penned Pentagram material that's equally worthy.
There's been a lot of activity lately from these semi-legendary lords of doom, surprising coming from a band that's been around for about thirty years and has dwindled down to only two members! But (thankfully for all fans of dark, doomy heavy metal)
1971 strikes again! Here's a new cd reish of this beautifully freaky album by a Japanese "Buddhist-psych" band called People, featuring guitarist Kimio Mizutani (who played with Love Live Life + 1, Hiro Yanagida, and others, and did a solo album called A Path Through Haze). There's monk-like chanting and resounding gongs, field recordings of birds and street sounds, and even, strangely enough, samples from soulful psych-funk producer David Axelrod's classic 1968 album Song Of Innocence. And of course heavy wah wah guitar action. The album is a real 'trip', much of it indeed very ceremonial-sounding, venturing from blissful grooves with tick-tock rhythms ("Shomyo Part 2") and placid, lovely droniness ("Prayer Part 1") to sheer pounding electric fuzz riffage laced with screams of orgasmic ecstasy ("Prayer Part 2"). The puzzling use of those lush, orchestral Axelrod samples on the first and last tracks just helps to make this somehow both very much of its time and also way ahead of it (since Axelrod is heavily sampled by folks today as well!). Quite recommended.
Pretty much as soon as we heard this, we knew it was going to be Record Of The Week, and not just black metal record of the week. In the past, Peste Noire seems to have always been unfairly categorized as an Amesoeurs / Alcest sideproject (we plead guilty of that as well) due not only to the presence of Neige, the mastermind behind both Amesoeurs and Alcest, but the seemingly shared membership between all three bands, and while Neige did no doubt contribute much to Peste Noire's sound, it seems Peste Noire was much more the brainchild of only remaining original member, Famine, whose other main musical outlet is the almost equally twisted Valfunde, and as if to prove the validity of the above claim, has assembled an almost entirely new lineup (although Audrey from Amesoeurs contributes some vocals) and cobbled together the most damaged, most fucked up, most gloriously bizarre Peste Noire record yet. Which if you've heard any of the other records is definitely saying something!
The record is weirdly arranged, five proper songs, with 2 minute or shorter song fragments and interludes, some that play like proper songs themselves, only truncated, others that act as intros or just totally tweaked unhinged sound experiments, but somehow, songs and non-songs alike hold together beautifully, and bafflingly, the band having created some sort of crusty, blackened, melancholy, depressive French folk flecked classic metal.
The intro begins with sizzling shimmering cymbals, simple percussion, eventually joined by beautiful ethereal female vocals, as well as some raspy blackened not-really-harmony vocals, then the riff comes in, and damn if it isn't a riff from Star Wars, but super distorted and blown out, pounding, crusty, epic and majestic, the rasped vocals over a haunting military sounding speech. And then straight into the first 'proper' track, which begins as some sort of sea shanty like French folk song, but with the addition of some hellish black vokills, you can almost imagine a table full of French soldiers, and one dripping slimy otherworldy beast, all singing along, glasses raised to the sky. Then in comes a very classic sounding metal riff, but the guitars muted and woozy, the tempo lurching and seasick, all manner of different vocals, crooning, shrieking, howling, then an awesomely weird squiggly bit of low end, super tripped out and psychedelic but somehow subtle and buried in the mix. Guitars soar and sing and jangle, wrapped around equally dramatic vocals, a total French folk crust anthem.
The follow up track begins all dark acoustic guitars and birdsong, martial percussion, eventually exploding into a super buzzy distorted march, pounding away, midtemp and melancholy, before returning to a super gorgeous, hauntingly depressive gothic crust almost-ballad, blackened and distorted, but also post rocky and strangely emotional and moving.
The 'interludes' include some warped and warbly haunted house piano, doused in hiss and crackle, ghostly female vocals drifting amidst the warm whir, sinister laughter, squalls of maniacal shrieks, dueling male / female vocals, almost operatic, soon joined again by that monstrous blackened croak, warm woozy calliopes, soundtracky keyboards and the sound of storms, tons of reverb and delay, tape hiss and softly crumbling distortion, all creating perfect segues between loping depressive midtempo blackened post metal lurch, super blown out in the red almost D-beat pounding buzz, those vocals transforming from hellish howl to deep moan, there's even some wheezing harmonica, all leading up to the final track, "Soleils Couchants", which begins with birdsong again, and an awesomely angular and beautifully twisted guitar part, paired up with a gorgeous minor key harmony, before slipping into a moody downtuned creep, complete with weird frog like vocals, and a looped bit of beeps and chirps, total post-doom weirdness, literally like nothing you've ever heard, it sounds a little like that first part of the Pirates Of The Caribbean ride at Disneyland, where you're just floating through the dark bayou, lit only but slivers of moonlight and the flickering light of fireflies, it's like a soundtrack to that, swampy and doomy and mysterious, until the band launches into a strangely melodic black doom midtempo jam, the guitars minor key, multiple vocals merging into raspy otherworldly harmonies, before breaking down into a long stretch of just guitars and vocals, the guitars twisted and spidery but still melodic, the voices tortured but super passionate, yet again infusing the fucked up twisted blackness with pathos and emotion, keeping it from being weird for weird's sake, this is something else entirely. What sounds like a child's voice joins in, twisted around that hellish vokill, all draped over a gorgeously catchy riff, reminding us a bit of Katatonia or Lifelover, before spiraling and sprawling into a seriously melodic blackened post rock jam, and then finally returning to the doomy lurch that began the song some seven minutes earlier.
Peste Noire have (again) managed the seemingly impossible, creating a record both totally twisted and damaged, but also lovely and moving and melodic, a record that ranks up there in our pantheon of most bizarre and fucked up black metal records ever, while somehow appealing to even the not so metal inclined, a confusional mix of black and crust and pop and folk, all twisted and tangled up and forced through Peste Noire's cracked musical sensibilities, the result, a record fucked up and fantastical, and this review not withstanding, almost impossible to describe.
Here's one of the 2 new releases from beloved experimental label Utech that we're listing this week, the other being by Suzuki Juzno. Now, before we heard this one, we expected it to be good, 'cause it's on Utech after all, but knowing it was by eclectic French composer Philippe Petite, we didn't know WHAT exactly to expect in terms of sounds - was it gonna be glitchy laptopped electronica? Noisy avant-rock? Droned out soundscapery? Something else? All of the above? Petit has done a lot of things over the years, running both the Pandemonium and Bip-Hop labels, most recently playing in dronesters Strings Of Consciousness... And this is perhaps the heaviest, harshest thing he's been involved with yet, and "all of the above" does just about cover it.
The very first track, "Murmurs", is a collaboration with Justin Broadrick of Jesu/Godflesh/Final/etc. infamy, and that sets the super dark, distorted tone for the whole disc, which consists of 45 minutes of groaning, grinding, grainy, atmospheric instrumental industrial sludge spread over 5 tracks, made with guitars, organs, turntables, percussion, electronic processing, backwards effects, etc... In other words, delightful! That is, if your taste in abstract abrasiveness is at all like ours, partial to passages of subterranean rhythmic skitter mixed with moments of sheer Merzbowian intensity.
The centerpiece of this "Symphonia" is the 16+ minute "Fear Has Fallen", with its martial drumming buried under a sinister miasmic muzz, but the whole disc is quite noisily satisfying throughout. The black clouds of the sleeve art are highly appropriate imagery. Highly recommended!!
Ok, this item has a fairly self-explanatory title, eh? Also, here's the subtitle: "From Psychedelic Experiments To Political Propaganda". Interested? If so, then all that really remains for us to say is, yeah, you should seriously consider picking this up, it's really well done and a good value for the money. Physically, this is a gorgeous tome, and all signs point to it being quite accurate and thorough information-wise.
If you're at all like us you're aware that in recent years the spate of reissues from the Swedish psych / prog scene -- like for instance the whole amazing Parson Sound / International Harvester / Harvester / Trad Gras Och Stenar axis -- has been pretty thrilling. Having a guide to both the bands we've heard of and the many, many more that we haven't is pretty great. Also if you're like us you LOVE books full of pictures of record sleeves, wherever they're from and whatever they are. And this book's got tons of album covers, many of them psychedelically sensational, reproduced in full color!
Plus there's loads of factual info for those curious about the bands, or for record collector types trying to figure out what the original vinyl is worth. Each entry consists of info on the band's line-up, a descriptive paragraph discussing their music and history, as well as a detailed discography. Algarnas Tradgard, Arbete & Fritid, Aunt Sally, Charlie & Esdor, Bo Hansson, Kebnekajse, Life, November, Mikael Ramel, Pugh Rogefeldt, Samla Mammas Manna, Trettioariga Kriget, Turid... they're all here and of course plenty more we'd never heard of before.
In addition to this A-Z of bands, there's a band member index and label discographies as well, with that of the Silence label being the most impressive. And, there's also an introductory essay dealing with the political dimension shared by a lot of the music from the Swedish scene. Apparently, in Sweden there was a difference between "prog" with one g and "progg" with two g's, with the former referring as usual to progressive rock bands like ELP and Yes, latter being a distinctly Swedish concept of (not-necessarily virtuosic or complex) music that reflected the ideals of the left-wing Movement of the times.
All in all, very intriguing and tantalizing, leaving us to look at the those album covers and begin dreaming record collector dreams!
235 pages, hardback, 8 1/2" x 12". Full color EVERYWHERE, and lots of cool b&w photos too. A deluxe production indeed. And there's a bonus cd included as well, featuring the obscure jamming psych band Baby Grandmothers, with three previously unreleased live tracks from 1967 (different from the stuff on their archival Subliminal Sounds cd release also reviewed this list).
If only there was a book like this for EVERY cool musical scene past and present...
NB. mailorder customers, be aware that due to the size and weight of this book, it counts as more than one item for freight purposes -- so any order that includes this book will ship UPS at the 3+ items rate of $6.50 for shipping & handling.
The other day a mail order customer called up and ordered Finnish post-rockers Circle's tUMULt release "Andexelt", and also "Ciudad de Brahman" by Argentinian stoner-rock outfit Natas. I immediately suggested that he also get a copy of this debut cd by
Another one to file under "NWOFHM"! New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal. That's Pharaoh Overlord/Circle bassist Jussi's little joke. Only now it's gone waaaaay beyond joking. Or to another level of joke anyway. What we're saying, is that this fourth Pharaoh Overlord opus is a headbanger's delight, for real. Sure, Pharaoh Overlord were already supposed to be the "heavy" Circle side project, and they were, but not like this. This ain't mere 'stoner rock', this doesn't sound anything like Kyuss anymore. Instead, they've adopted chugging speed metal riffage that could be from an Accept album circa 1984, lashed it to their usual repetitive krautrocky rhythms, unleashed some very metal vocals, and gone entirely over to the dark side (which, by the way, is the title of one of our favorite tracks here, the album-ending 8+ minute instrumental epic that just drives a mean riff into your brain like the spiked fist thru the face of the skull in the cd booklet!!)). They even snuck a little umlaut in over the 2nd 'o' in 'Overlord' on the spine of this cd.
Circle (and Pharaoh Overlord at this point have pretty much the exact same lineup as Circle, it's basically the same band) have dropped big hints about their love of metal before -- making references in their graphics and in their music, with many tracks on such albums as Sunrise and Tulikoira being pretty darn metal, as we've noted before -- but here they go whole hog. They sound less like a spacerock band who want to give a nod to metal with a riff here and there, than like a really weird actual metal band! It's rifftastic, hypnotic biker metal with a strange psychedelic side to it. And best of all -- it works! It's a high concept success (and as we mentioned, they've been seemingly high on this concept before, but never have been this tight with it). The unpredictable predictability of any Circle or Circle-related album, their basic kraut-inspired, "circular" formula, stands up to and indeed seems to embrace this metallic obsession. The tick-tock percussion and cyclical riffs just wind up tension, even as they entrance the listener, making this so very heavy and ominous in a way that maybe no other metal band would or could explore but they'd have to appreciate. AMAZING!!
Can Jussi and Co. get any more metal than this? Well soon we'll see when we get the upcoming Circle cdep Earthworm which features Bruce Duff from '80s alt-metal band Jesters Of Destiny on vocals! Supposed to be pretty darn heavy. Stay tuned.
The good news: at last, we finally got some copies of this recent vinyl-only PO album! The not-so-good-news: we only were able to get a few, not nearly as many as we'd wanted. And that's it, when they're gone they're gone. So, if you're a fan of Finland's Pharaoh Overlord (and/or their mothership act Circle, which this could just as easily be, sonically), act fast if you want one.
Some further info: the four (long!) tracks on Horn were recorded live at something called "Space Force 1, 2nd Flight" in Lahti, Finland in late 2010. Three out of the four are exclusive-to-this-record PO compositions: "Lalibela", "Solar Stomp", and "Sky". And then other one's a cover of "Revolution" by Spacemen 3. All are riffy, raucous, rhythmic noiserock, with some stray pretty piano plinking and enthusiastic crowd response whenever the band takes a between-song break. And the packaging is sumptuous, the thick gatefold sleeve bearing colorful artwork, band name stamped in golden foil... Limited to only 500 copies and as we said, we got all we're gonna be able to get, ever.
Well, we probably don't need to say a whole lot more, but absolutely have to quote the blurb on the sticker on the cover. Pretty much sums it up: "Horn documents 'The Lord' in their rawest, nastiest live mood. Like an early Mudhoney jamming with Crazy Cavan and The Rhythm Rockers, or Sonic Youth tearing it up with Elakelaiset." Yeah, we totally agree! Even though we've never heard of ('70s teddy boy rockabilly act from Wales, it turns out) Crazy Cavan and the Rhythm Rockers before, nor novelty Finnish "humppa" band Elakelaiset, neither. But the Mudhoney and Sonic Youth, we hear, yeah.
'Tis wild stuff, not exactly in PO's "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal" style like their recent Out Of Darkness album, but definitely ROCK, channelling Spacemen 3 (obviously, since they do the cover) and Funhouse-era Stooges. But noisier! It's blasting, throbbing, distortodelic overload, that WE might compare to a rabid combination of The Heads and Circle. Awww yeah!
Bow down, people. Just bow down. If extended, repetitive, droned-out krauty stoner prog a la Circle is your thing, then this disc definitely for you, surprise surprise. Sheer hypnosis. Utterly mesmeric. Sounds sooooooooooooo gooooooooooood. It's hard to think of these guys as just a band, the music here seems produced by some organic force. It's a living thing really. A throbbing monster of an album.
Just like their sister band Circle, of which they're all members, Finnish psychsters Pharaoh Overlord have built a discography (they're up to six albums now, counting this one) that somehow maintains a core identity yet always does something different each time out. They started off with the stoner rock riff mantras of #1, then went to the mostly subdued noirishness of II, followed that with the live-and-raw Battle Of The Axehammer, then came back with the krautrockingly Circle-like diversions of #3, all before delving into the absurdly headbanging metallisms of #4 that even added vocals to their previously instrumental lineup. So, now what? What next? A second live album, this time called Live In Suomi Finland, recorded in Helsinki in May of 2006. On it the regular Pharaoh Overlord lineup of Jussi, Tomi and Janne is augmented by two more Finnish friends, and special guest Hans Joachim Irmler of legendary krautrockers Faust! His electric organ grind here adds an extra dose of distorted drone to the proceedings.
Of the two live PO discs this is definitely the best sounding. It's not as raw and blown-out as Battle Of The Axehammer, it's got better fidelity, but if anything it's even heavier!! Perhaps its the additional "remixing" credited to Irmler, whatever magic he worked in later in the Faust studio definitely makes this more than "just" a live album.
There's five tracks here, though it's a very continuously flowing disc... starting with the infectious riffery of "Black Horse" (which has appeared previously only in another live version on Battle Of The Axehammer), followed by two totally new tracks, "Tutankharmony" and "Zero Gravity" that relax the volume and mood a bit with a sense of smokey, improv mystery. Then they launch into "Skyline", the heaviest cut from II, before winding up / blowing out with a quarter-hour rendition #1's "Mangrove". An incredible 50+ minutes all told. Boy, we wish we'd been there! Too bad SF-Helsinki flights aren't quick or cheap...
Finland's Pharaoh Overlord return with this devastating double lp on Aaron Turner and Faith Coloccia's vinyl-only Sige label. Whilst we have many favorite Finns, these guys (and their mothership Circle) are among our very favoritest. Yours too probably, so we imagine these are gonna fly out of here fast.
This Circle sideproject is certainly VERY "circular" here, full of repetitive minimalist vibrations to the max, utter stoner neo-kraut hypnosis for sure, with a heavy metallic undercurrent and some freaky cosmic jazziness to it too. Of the couple most recent previous PO efforts, Lunar Jetman aligns more closely with the space/noise rock of live lp Horn, rather than the "song-ier" classic metal of Out Of Darkness, harking back also to the dark stoner soundscapes of some of their earlier albums as well; but as always, it is its own entity.
Lunar Jetman features six tracks, mostly quite long, sprawling over four album sides, for far more than an hour of slow burning, steady building, all-instrumental Overlord action. The album begins with the insistent gallop of the nearly 11 minute long "Rodent", which almost sounds like Maiden gone motorik! With extra spaceage shoegazey shwooshing and wooshing thrown in. It'll have you totally transfixed before it's even half over. The distortodelic kraut-iness continues amidst the metronymic percussive percolations of the even-lengthier track two, "Palmyra Cali"; then "Cardinal" is a much shorter, blissed out improv-sounding interlude.
That's followed by the 16+ minutes of "Black Horse", at long last a studio version of a composition earlier documented in briefer versions on both PO's 2004 live album The Battle Of The Axehammer, and then again on 2007's Live In Suomi. Here, it begins with much skitter and skree, before hammering into the happy heavy churning riffage we recognize. This one's definitely bound to be a fave of all the Wooden Shjips' fans out there.
Finally, Lunar Jetman delves deep into the dirge, with the two-part, nearly half-hour, massively moody "Cave Of Hair", a detailed, obsessively repetitive soundscape of ominous chuggery, building from quietly brooding near ambient creepy-crawl to metallic majesty...
Another awesome Overlord recording, in other words. And fyi, Lunar Jetman features Faust's Hans Joachim Irmler on keyboards, who has performed with PO previously, appearing on Live In Suomi - and who produced Circle's 2002 Klangbad release, Alotus. Not that PO nor Circle need Irmler to make 'em any krautrockier, they already had that covered!! But this IS plenty krautrocky.
Double lp fancy limited (530 copies) vinyl for now via Aaron Turner's Sige imprint; cd version expected also from Ektro, someday soon we hope...
It's "NWOFHM" in overdrive overload this week, with not one but two new albums from key exemplars of that Circle side project "scene" up there in Finland. The new vinyl-only offering from Steel Mammoth called Radiation Funeral, you'll find reviewed elsewhere this list, and then there's this, Out Of Darkness, the new cd from Pharaoh Overlord. With fists in the air (and tongues possibly not in cheek?) these two releases have really upped the ante regarding the METAL part of the NWOFHM equation.
Quick recap for those out of the loop: Finnish space prog neo-Kraut band (and massive AQ faves) Circle like to dabble in the metal realms, on their own albums and also by means of various side projects, enough of which exist to populate a self-proclaimed, quasi-parodic New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal movement, NWOFHM for short. These bands usually use metal "signifiers" for their own twisted purposes, making music that's as much experimental and pop and prog as it is metal, but done up in leather and spikes basically for fun.
Circle offshoot Pharaoh Overlord was originally more of a stoner rock take on Circle's motorik mesmerism, dark and psychedelic and heavy. But not "metal". Then they did the album entitled #4, which was NWOFHM almost to the point of being "actual" metal (though still totally repetitive and hypnotic a la Circle of course). But #4's follow up, their previous disc to this, Siluurikaudella, was, while we liked it quite a bit, a definite departure, more of a freakout/improv thing, definitely not remotely metal (or NWOFHM).
So for anyone a bit confused by Siluurikaudella, you'll be happy to hear that Out Of Darkness returns PO to headbanging territory, and then some!! Definitely a metal album, and a rockin' one. Well, it starts off with a lovely acoustic guitar intro, "Eyes Of The Pharaoh", but starts rockin' about 43 seconds later, when the title track erupts, total classic metal riffage with Danzig meets Hetfield vocals courtesy of the singer from US stoner metal band Night Horse, who also appears on the disc's killer final track "I Am The Light". He's not the only guest, as Circle's big hero Bruce "Jesters Of Destiny" Duff and his bandmate Frank Meyer from LA sleaze rockers Angus Khan have cameos too, providing some guest vocals and lead guitar on a few of the cuts here as well.
The nearly ten minute "Devastator" demonstrates that Pharaoh Overlord haven't abandoned the "Circular" style of minimalist repetition, that track devastates indeed with its seeming endlessness (which is awesome). Somewhat poppier is the next track, the chugging "Doomsday Mourning", that's got some psychedelic Uriah Heepishness to it, laden with synths, psych soloing, and dramatic vocals. And that's more the norm, this album being really pretty darn catchy throughout, Pharaoh Overlord mixing their '80s metal obsessions with some Teutonic '70s proginess, and whatthefuckever else they desire. Our heads aren't just banging, they're spinning. Turns out they weren't kidding with the song title "We Came To Rock"! Ok, it gets a bit goofy on the two Bruce Duff sung tracks (especially "No Speed Limit") but that's entertaining too, however for the most part this is a REAL metal / hard rock album, or at least sounds that way, being strange rather than silly when it's not full on metal. For fans of Circle, Queen, krautrock, Thor, La Otracina, Blue Oyster Cult, Accept, Judas Priest, Metallica, Steel Mammoth, Destruction, Anvil, Lucifer's Friend, White Boy And The Average Rat Band, uh, and everything else that's awesome.
Oh, if this wasn't cool enough already, love the outer space neon lazer tiger cover artwork!!! Purrfect for the tight ripping soundz within. The cd booklet also contains an interesting quote from R. Buckminster Fuller. Didn't know he was a metalhead.
FYI, there's another new PO album too, vinyl-only effort called Horn, that we're hoping to get soon too. Haven't heard it yet, don't know where it falls on the NWOFHM spectrum...
Self described as 'industrial doom', the French outfit known as P.H.O.B.O.S. take the industrial pummel and clattery chaos of classic Godflesh, the serpentine song structures of Voivod and the grim grating brutality of the most bizarre black metal, and wind it all into a dense, hateful, slow motion black hole beast, plodding and pounding mercilessly, like some sort of unstoppable behemoth, crushing everything in its path, sucking life, spitting fire, spewing jagged shards of metallic blackness. The sound of a million monstrous jackboots, marching endlessly toward some unspeakably bleak final destination. The stretched out feedback soaked abstract doom of Khanate, given an industrial makeover, throbbing Teutonic rhythms, never even coming close to midtempo, instead pounding out impossibly slow rhythms, the whole thing wrapped in white hot sheets of feedback, and churning tarpit riffage, with the occasional melody tossed in, surviving only briefly, like a cow thrown into a river full of pirahnna, the whole thing exploding in a churning, bloody froth before settling back into the relentless machine like crush. And despite all that brutality, it's also amazingly hypnotic and listenable, with some of the beauty of the post-Godflesh outfit Jesu wethinks.
Originally released on the Appease Me label, run by Phobos' French metal brethren Blut Aus Nord.
When Brooklyn's White Hills was here last week (they played a rad instore, hope you made it), they brought us some copies of this new compilation on which they appear, alongside the likes of Mammatus, The Heads, Kawabata Makoto, Residual Echoes, Plastic Crimewave Sound, Fuzzhead, and a couple others (many of whom are depicted in the cover drawing montage, done by Plastic Crimewave, whose art you may know from his Galactic Zoo Dossier 'zine). Heavy duty, fuzzed out, psychedelic stoner rock nirvana here, folks! But it's NOT exactly a comp, actually. It's the follow-up to an out of print disc called Jamnation that we reviewed (thumbs up) a few years back. And that's the catch, kinda. Both Jamnation and now Phosphene River aren't just various artists collections, they're spoken word projects from the fevered mind of one Dan McGuire, who lays down his gritty beatnik poetry overtop the instrumental spacey effects laden bliss and/or throbbing distorted guitar riffage being pumped out by these bands. We've said it before, we'll say it again, we're not so big on the spoken word thing. You'll never catch us at a poetry slam. BUT, we gotta say, first off McGuire's rambling Lizard King orations, we can deal with, usually. His subject matter is surreal and sinister enough to somewhat make up for the sheer self parodic silliness of the whole spoken word thing. And, his words don't really get in the way of the music, which is really why we're listening. He slips right in there like he belongs, instead of being a total distraction. He's got a cool, gritty voice (we compared him to turned on, dropped out John Wayne / Henry Rollins hybrid before) and sorta sounds like the hardboiled detective doing the voiceover in some '50s noir movie, except with the drug fueled, fear & loathing laden, imagination of a Hunter S. Thompson. Even when he's getting Biblical, as he does on the PCS track "Are You A Dragon". His streams of consciousness can be sort of hypnotic - we'll admit to listening less to what he's saying and more to the heavy sound of the whole thing. And as we said when we reviewed Jamnation, McGuire has a knack for knowing when to back off and leave space for the music. He'll let a track play halfway through sometimes before opening his mouth - and the tracks he's selected for this disc are of course good 'uns, as you might have already guessed from the quality lineup who contributed. It's pretty well done for what it is!
So, if you like stoner psych -and- spoken word, this is for you for sure. If just stoner psych, well we'd say that this comp is rad enough to withstand the inclusion of all that jawing. And think about it, McGuire's purple flow of deviant verbiage is really not that different from what these band's guitarists are doing with their axes, wailing away, off on their own freaky trips...
Perhaps you're familiar with that kick ass Prog Is Not A Four Letter Word compilation on Delay 68? It's sure been a big seller hereabouts. One of the bands that compiler Andy Votel introduced us to via that collection was an Italian group by the name of Picchio Dal Pozzo. Their track "La Merta", in all its gently gorgeous glory of tinkling, buzzing, and wordless vocal "aaaah-aaaahhing", made us curious to hear more by them! Turns out "La Merta" was taken from this, their self-titled debut originally released in 1976 on the Grog label. And indeed it was indicative of the mellow and mysterious delights of this album, a work of cosmically spacey, jazz-inflected, psychedelic chamber-prog inspired by the Canterbury sounds of Robert Wyatt era Soft Machine (indeed, it bears a dedication to "Roberto Viatti" aka Robert Wyatt). They were probably into Terry Riley too. Yet nothing prepared us for track three, this record's ten-minute masterpiece, the suite entitled "Seppia" that freakin' blew our minds with its droning, throbbing, Magmoid, synth-sizzling heaviness. Wow! Have the Boredoms heard this?? So, a very nice record indeed, with at least one track that just takes things to another level entirely. Seriously, if you're like us you'll being playing that one over and over again. Instantly a new Italian prog fave here -- half the AQ staff bought copies for themselves!
Originally available as a bonus DVD audio disc with the first pressing of Pig Destroyer's Terrifyer album, the half hour plus track "Natasha" functions almost better as its own record (which it now is), seeing as it was pretty sonically removed from the rest of the grinding mayhem found on Terrifyer.
Rumored to have originally been intended for a two-part split with the similarly godlike (and sadly defunct) Creation Is Crucifixion, which never materialized, "Natasha" is possibly the single strangest and greatest effort yet from these Pig Destroying psychopaths. Extrapolating on the previous love-scorned dementia lyrical themes of their Prowler In The Yard opus, "Natasha" is a hallucinogenic half-hour nightmare of epic proportions. Heavy, plodding sonorous drums (and finally a bass guitar!) crash like thunder as ominous feedback echoes off the graven landscape of lyricist JR Hayes's surreal acid-trip of uncomfortable adolescent obsession gone horribly awry. The piece metamorphoses through several states, from long quiet ambient passages to keyboard dirges to full-on metallic surges before finally dissolving into the audio equivalent of the gnashing jaws of the song's eponymous protagonist. Absolutely stunningly majestically heavy and downright, dare we say, beautiful - like a psylocybin-striated amalgam of Corrupted, Boris, Godflesh, Buried at Sea, Old Man Gloom and Neurosis. Includes the same disturbing short story liner notes as before, but with some gorgeously garish new artwork. Natasha is an absolute must-hear and definitely proves once again that Pig Destroyer remain at the very fore of extreme music innovation.
There's lots of ways we find out about cool new bands. We finally listen to a promo that came in the mail, or a customer raves about them, or we read about 'em in a fanzine or on the internet, etc. etc. One of the best ways though, is to randomly see a band playing live that you've never heard of before, and be impressed. That's the deal with how we discovered local SF heavies Pigs.
I (Allan) just moved into a new apartment here in the Mission, that's not too far from the Potrero del Sol skatepark. On one of the days I was moving stuff, I could hear live music coming from the direction of the park, where they do sometimes have outdoor shows. Sounded like yr basic punk rock, but then a band started playing that - as best I could tell from several blocks away - sounded much more metallic and interesting, with shredding guitar leads and chunky riffage and everything. And obviously very loud. So, needing a break from my moving tasks, I wandered over to the park posthaste to check out what was going on. When I got there, the band I'd heard was still playing, and they were GREAT. Super heavy, fairly hairy power trio (boy drummer, girl bassist, bearded dude guitarist / sometime vocalist) kicking out the jams big time, sorta like a scrappier, scuzzier Melvins, in their earliest, fastest, punkiest incarnation. Like, with some more Motorhead mixed in. I had a blast watching the rest of their set, totally into it, already wondering if they had any recordings I could get my hands on for Aquarius. Also wondering, just who the heck they were. Well both questions were soon answered when the drummer held up a garish purple, very DIY looking handscreened LP emblazoned with the name Pigs, saying they'd just put this record out. Better yet, moments later a friend of mine appeared, who it turned out was friends with band as well, and told me that he'd just been telling Pigs before they played that they should bring their album down to Aquarius. And so they did, a week or so later, not just the limited vinyl but also a cd version too.
Just like their live set, the album is a blast (of distortion, among other things). Sometimes slow and sludgy, equally often full of frenzied jamming, Illuminati House Party is pure metal-punk underground awesome, with more than a few nods to classic rock catchiness. Pigs traffic in Black Sabbathy riffs (most definitely in "Lurch"), their songs furthermore having plenty of rollicking swing to 'em a la both Sabbath and Sleep. The guitarist constantly peels off tangly, widdly leads like they're coming back into style. All the tracks here (11 of 'em) rule, from the sick-o smartassery of "Hard Lovin' Van", a song with gnarly Ginnish licks and hoarse, strangled vox that could almost be an old Tad tune (some of the lyrics: "let's go the lake, and feed the ducks...get in the van, take the candy"), to the even more punk "Population Control", to the wasted doom of "Hessian's Revenge" and sheer shred of "Surf's Up". And then there's the epic instrumental 3-part rifftastic "Taser Trilogy" wherein Pigs show off their Champsy chops, not to mention stoner sense of humor (and not for the first time on this record). Yeah, great stuff!
Is it possible to imagine an unholy hybrid of, um, Electric Wizard, Breadwinner, and, er, Pissed Jeans?? Pigs might be it. Soooo glad I was within earshot of the skatepark that day!
Richard Pinhas is the mastermind behind French '70s synth-prog-proto-industrial pioneers Heldon, who combined spacey analog electronics with punkish attitude, hypnotic rhythms, and Robert Fripp-style flights of electric guitar. Next to Magma they're one of our all-time favorites from France.
Japan's Captain Trip label has been digging into the Heldon/Pinhas vaults, bringing us some cool live recordings reviewed here not long ago, and now this. Packaged in a handsome silvery metallic mini-LP styled jacket, this cd collects Pinhas's various singles releases as a solo artist, under the Heldon moniker, and in various other earlier guises -- starting with his heavy psych act Schizo from 1972, who were obviously heavily influenced by Hendrix, sounding also quite a bit like the "heavy metal thunder" of Steppenwolf! Those tracks, such as "Schizo (And The Little Girl)" and "Paraphrenia Praecox", certainly fit with the so-called Francais Metal de Proto scene we've been digging lately, bands like Les Variations and Docdail. Cool! That's only the first four tracks and already we're pretty excited.
This disc also contains singles from Heldon, one-off spin-off band T.H.X., and Pinhas solo, all progressively getting more and more into a space age new wave prog thing that fans of the band Zombi will love, cult sci-fi writer Norman Spinrad even showing up for a guest vocals on the paranoid groove of "Houston 69". While some of these singles are are in fact extracts from albums (Heldon's "Baader-Meinhof Blues" for instance), others were only available in this format (like T.H.X.'s version of Joe Meek's classic instrumental "Telstar"!). So this is essential for any dedicated Heldon fan -- and in a lot of ways a great single-disc introduction to the the Pinhas oeuvre, one that's more eclectic and extreme than we'd previously imagined, ranging from Schizo's ponderous psych to the circa-1980, NYC Disco-Not-Disco cool of his solo singles! And as we said, this comes handsomely packaged, with a cd booklet including track details and images of each 7" release compiled here.
This 1971 recording is probably everyone at AQ's favorite post-Barrett Floyd album, and the one for Mogwai fans to get!
Two idiosyncratic Southern California underground pop geniuses on one record! That's right, on this new, ostensibly 'solo' joint, everyone's fave, fey, formerly-lo-fi freakazoid, Ariel Pink, gets some help from his heavy friendz, including none other than the legendary Kim Fowley! Is that cool or what? It is. The Animal God Of The Streets adds an extra dose of cool, bringing more bizarre pop smarts to the mix (as if Ariel didn't have enough of that, but still!). Also on board, Don Bolles (Germs, 45 Grave) Jack Name, Shags Chamberlain, and various current and/or former members of Ariel's band Haunted Graffiti, among many others. As Ariel sez in his humble liner notes, this might in fact be his LEAST 'solo' album ever. In particular, Runaways svengali Fowley gets co-writing credit on five out of the 17 songs, and you can hear him on here too, delivering the spoken vocal on funky vamp "Sexual Athletics".
And basically, if you liked (we did, big time!) Ariel's last album, Mature Themes, this one offers up a similarly amusing and earwormy set of songs. Starting of with the '60s psyke pop stylings of "Plastic Raincoats In The Pig Parade", moving on into the '80s new wave inflected "White Freckles", Pom Pom covers all the usual AP bases, from dreamy love song (and sexy sex song) fare, to druggy gothy stuff, to even more wacked out rockin' weirdness.
Yeah, as you might by now expect, it's got its goofy side, for sure, with a lot of sound effects, funny voices, silly lyrics, and so forth, maybe sticking tongue too far in cheek with "Nude Beach A Go-Go". Though, that's not the most ridiculous song title on here, an honor that might instead go to "Dinosaur Carebears", a track that surprisingly shifts from sheer cavorting chaos into a slinky, dubby groove. Ariel's more earnest, emotional side is represented too, though - a track like "Put Your Number In My Phone" is fairly romantic, after all�
All in all, another very entertaining album from this one of a kind artist!! Dunno if you all have been following the latest AP controversy, but can't really imagine any of these songs on a Madonna album, somehow...
Got a violent piece of vinyl here for all you proto-metal freaks - a reissue of a killer slice of science-fictional heavy rock, this obscure UK outfit's only album, a private pressing from 1974. Both proto-metal and proto-punk we reckon, heavy stuff with lots of psychedelic Hawkwindiness to it, basically everything you could hope for from a record that has both "Astral Traveller" and "The Ripper" as track titles!! And it does rip, the storming opener "Assasin" sets the tone, with throbbing riffs, wailing maniacal vocals, and wild soloing, reminding us of the Pink Fairies in particular when the guitarist tears into some licks from the old Ventures surf rock classic "Walk Don't Run", though with their amphetamine energy they'd remind us of the Fairies anyway. They also achieve Wicked Lady levels of guitar freakout. And with the use of Moog, and the sci-fi aspects of songs like "Cyborg", they have something in common with Simply Saucer, as well. There's dramatic organ runs, and strident marching riffage, and some softer sounds too - at their mellowest, on tracks like "Bad Omen", they can be fairly melodic and Wishbone Ash-y.
There's been a couple hard-to-find, long-gone compact disc reissues of this in the past (one on Little Wing Of Refugees, who changed the cover art and corrected the spelling of 'Assasin' to 'Assassin', and another on Killing Spell, who called it 'Cyborg Assassin', though that one also did include a few live practice space bonus tracks not found here). But this is the first time we've seen it reissued on vinyl, 180 grams to boot.
King Of Jeans? Not sure what that title is about exactly. Now, King Of PISSED would make a lot more sense! What with all the scuzz and scowl found on this loud, noisy record. Though the Pissed Jeans aren't always pissed, sometimes just more, like, bummed. As on the album's final cut, "Goodbye (Hair)", a song about going bald.
By the way, just thought of this, is there some sort of pun going on the band's name, could it be read Pissed Genes as well? Dunno.
Anyway, this album, the PA punk troupe's third (2nd for Sub Pop, where they definitely belong, in the tradition of shitkickers like Green River), is another good 'un. On it, they bring back more of the catchiness that caught our ears on their debut Shallow, while not sacrificing any of the ugliness and avant-rock anguish heard on Hope For Men. Nope, this new slab of heavy punk pounding is chock full of all the feedback guitar skree and vokill rants that Pissed Jeans always bring to the party, sounding partway between Tad and the Jesus Lizard. Of course Black Flag is also another obvious comparison! And like we said, a lot of this is catchy as fuck, that is if you can call choruses consisting of barely-human "bleeeargh!" catchy. Or all the spastic lurching n' doomed lumbering. We also like the spacey FX that pervade "She Is Science Fiction". Most songs are in the 2-3 minute range, though there's exceptions, like the seven and a half minute "Spent", a Melvins-y, My War style dirge.
For fans of the Flag and other '80s punk past, contemporary scuzzers Vee Dee, some of the more extreme of the current "shitgaze" crowd, and of course Pissed Jeans' previous output. Duh.
Now on vinyl!!
A punk record for people who haven't bought a punk record in a while. It's not a retro exercise, but still something about this young Pennsylvania band brings back memories of '80s hardcore, Black Flag or Flipper back in the day, nasty punk scuzz with lots of badass guitar distortion and feedback, shambolic rock n' roll with rabid bite. The lyrics are sadsack smartass dumb, yowled over the band's noisy, catchy trashcan stomp, the vocalist really letting it all (down-and-)out on such songs as "I'm Sick," "Boring Girls", "Ashamed Of My Cum", and "I Broke My Own Heart." Can you feel sorry for someone who's wallowing in it? Doesn't matter, just enjoy the careening chaotic entertainment that results. The packaging features cool cartoon graphics of surburan banality.
Sub Pop has just reissued these abject punks' debut album from 2005, originally released on the Parts Unknown label. Pissed Jeans kicked our asses back then when we first heard 'em - and have continued to do so throughout their career after they signed to Sub Pop. It's great to have this back, especially since Sup Pop has packaged this with extra tracks, the two songs "Throbbing Organ" and "Night Minutes" from an even earlier, long out of print 7" single. The vinyl version provides those on a separate 45, while the new cd version just provides a download code for 'em (the lp comes with a download of the whole thing too, by the way).
So, here's what we said 'bout Shallow when we listed it the first time around: A punk record for people who haven't bought a punk record in a while. It's not a retro exercise, but still something about this young Pennsylvania band brings back memories of '80s hardcore, Black Flag or Flipper back in the day, nasty punk scuzz with lots of badass guitar distortion and feedback, shambolic rock n' roll with rabid bite. The lyrics are sadsack smartass dumb, yowled over the band's noisy, catchy trashcan stomp, the vocalist really letting it all (down-and-)out on such songs as "I'm Sick," "Boring Girls", "Ashamed Of My Cum", and "I Broke My Own Heart." Can you feel sorry for someone who's wallowing in it? Doesn't matter, just enjoy the careening chaotic entertainment that results. The packaging features cool cartoon graphics of suburban banality.
A first listen to this elicited the following quote from Andee: "It's annoying enough that I definitely want one!" Need we say more? Well, what's so wonderfully "annoying" (and therefore AWESOME) about this you ask? PIVIXKI is a duo from Melbourne, Australia, that combines blasting grindcore (the drummer) with avant-garde modern chamber music (the keyboardist). It's just crazy enough to work. On half of the duo, virtuoso pianist Antony Pateras, comes from a classical/academic music background; in fact, he's the composer-in-residence at the Australian National Academy Of Music, and we're not surprised to hear he has recorded for John Zorn's Tzadik label. The other half, drummer Max Kohane, plies his trade in the HC punk/grindcore scene, having played with a ton of bands, the one we know best being Agents Of Abhorrence, previously lauded by us for their technical grindcore frenzies! Thus the 11 instrumental tracks here are INSANE, maniacal typewriter-y piano plinking keeping pace with 1000mph octopoid drum battery. It's like Conlon Nancarrow's player piano music doing battle with a (human) drum machine. If Mick Barr played piano instead of guitar, Orthrelm might sound like this. A band it does remind us of, a lot, would be a stripped-down version of defunct Swiss art-grinders Alboth!, remember them?
Besides piano, Pateras plays the organ (including pipe organ) and analog synth as well, on occasion, lending a '70s prog aspect to the overt avant garde classical / grindcore collision. They also get some guests in on viola, vibraphone, and additional percussion in a couple places. So despite the impression we may have given already, there's a fair amount of variation here, PIVIXKI isn't ALL full on grind assault. The methods of their madness involve a number of techniques and textures. PIVIXKI make good use of minimalist repetition, free-improv ivory tickling, glitchy electronic manipulation ("Late Veins" ferinstance), dizzyingly dramatic crescendos, and even some downright pretty parts. One of our favorite pieces is the nervously moody "A Shrewed Manipulation Of The Facts", which (as other moments here do as well) reminds us of Carl Stalling cartoon music, David Shire suspense soundtracks, and/or a hybrid of Zombi and the Necks... Another artist we are reminded of at times is Tatsuya Yoshida from the Ruins, particularly the Ruins drummer's solo stuff where he's playing drums and keyboards simultaneously. (Some of the song titles also make us think of him as well.)
The handsome trifold cardboard packaging contains some interesting liner notes from Pateras, wherein among other things he discusses how he had to learn to adjust his playing/thinking to keep up with Kohane's drumming. You, in turn, may have to adjust your listening/thinking to keep up with this duo's music! Well worth the effort, though really, once you've taken the plunge (past a track or two), it's easy to enjoy. Especially if you like Xenakis, Radian, AND Discordance Axis. Recommended!
Here's a new reissue of this well-regarded one-shot '60 psych artifact. Canada's Plastic Cloud (they have to be psych with a name like that, eh?) issued this, their sole album, on the Allied label in 1968. And if you like fuzz, it's for you! These darkly melodic psychedelic tunes, maybe something like a harder-edged Kaleidoscope (UK), don't stint on the killer fuzz tone. The band -- four modish lookin' gents in their early '20s named Brian, Randy, Mike and Don -- sure got the fuzz-laced, post-Peppers acid-psych-pop sound down, complete with sinewy psuedo Eastern sitarish stylings, vocal harmonies, and trippy lyrics with themes ranging from notions of reality to anti-war polemic. Those lyrics are presented in this cd's booklet alongside the LP's original J.R.R.-meets-the-Jabberwocky liner notes, photos, and a facsimile of the press release that heralded the LP's release. As melodic '60s vocal psych-pop goes, this is pretty decent (though no threat to the Beatles or the Beach Boys)...but when they unleash the fuzz guitar, that's when your hair will get hard if you're at all receptive to such soundz. A must-have for fuzz-freaks, essential to any serious '60s psych collection, no doubt. And dabblers may be get hooked too. Fer instance, if you took a shot on the Sam Gopal reish we reviewed recently, and were satisfied, you might wanna make this next item for your personal '60s hit parade.
Black digipak. Black disc (both sides!). No art, no text, anywhere. Just a sticker on the shrinkwrap with the name Pom Pom, a bar code, and the Kompakt logo. Apparently this is distributed by our favorite techno label Kompakt, but is actually on the mysterious Pom Pom's own imprint, who have previously released at least thirty two 12" vinyl only Pom Pom records!
Where are Pom Pom from? Berlin of course. Making throbbing minimal so-called "psychedelic" techno since 2001. As their press release puts it: "Pom Pom reflects the monotone and hypnotic essence of techno." True dat. And here's their first compact disk, whose stark, minimal packaging more or less accurately describes its musical content. 14 tracks selected from those 32 eps, full of percussive pulses, hum and hiss, repetitive bass thump, Morse code-y clicks and beeps, little melodic robot riffs. Pom Pom often have a bit of poppiness to 'em, like the uptempo track #6. Other cuts are more about (Echo)spacey ambient drift from out in Dopplereffekt's orbit. Pom Pom are definitely our sort of "dance music", aligned with other faves from the Kompakt realm.
Heavy psych and metal freaks, perhaps you remember we reviewed a reissue of this power trio Poobah's 1979 album Steamroller a while back? While '79 was a late date for "proto-metal", that's definitely what this Youngstown Ohio outfit sounded like, heavy duty acid rock n' roll action with plenty of psychedelically shredding guitar work. Well, now you can check out where they wuz comin' from, 'cause this "Special Collector's Edition" of their 1972 independently released debut has just been "re-unleashed". Just peep the vintage b&w photos of the band, all long hair, beards, head bands. Total hippies! HEAVY hippies. Hard as nails. But definitely hippies (like the fabulous furry freak bro looking dude depicted in the crude cover cartoon, spitting up into a toilet - or is it the other way around?).
So, yeah, Poobah is "proto-metal" fersure on this one, right from the get-go with the aptly titled "Mr. Destroyer", which despite the peace-loving message of the lyrics seems to demonstrate that violence for violence's sake can work, in rock anyway! And aside from one (quite nice) laidback number, "Enjoy What You Have", the six tracks that make up the original release of Let Me In are all similarly raw rifftastic freakrock heaviness, very underground, their unhinged high wattage psychedelia almost kinda punk, a la the UK's Crushed Butler, Detroit's Death, or Australia's Coloured Balls. BAD ASS in other words. Heck the ominous creepy-crawl of "Bowleen" is practically doom metal, though Poobah do have their lighter side, with a penchant for funny voices and trippy rhythmic passages, hippy potsmoking stuff y'know...
The bonus tracks (there's 10 on the gatefold double vinyl version and 12 on the compact disc) are all also quite worthy, recorded circa '72-'73, mostly more high energy ass-kickery in the vein of the album tracks, with a few weird noisy studio experiments thrown in for good measure... or maybe not "studio" exactly as most of the bonus cuts were recorded live to 2-track in the guitarist or bassist's living room. It all sounds great though, from the surprise vocal harmonies in the midst of "Make A Man Out Of You" to the Ted Nugent style gonzo goings on of "Going To Rock City"...
Quite a treat, now we're waiting on a proper reissue of Poobah's second album, US Music, from '76, that's gotta happen someday too...
The Rockadrome label down in Texas is, as we have said, on a roll, digging up the awesome likes of Jerusalem and Iron Claw for our proto-metal listening pleasure. The both of them were early '70s bands from the UK, but Rockadrome, and related label that preceded it, Monster Records, have actually concentrated more on reissuing records by late '70s/early '80s American hard rock acts, private press obscurities that in a perfect world maybe woulda made it big, but had the misfortune of coming out right when new wave and/or disco was what the record companies wanted.
Here's a great example, something previously reissued by Monster, now at last made available again in the Rockadrome catalog. The mighty POOBAH! A power trio from Ohio, featuring in particular the talents of guitarist/vocalist Jimmy Gustafson, the most kick ass guitar whizz you probably have never heard. This one's their 1979 album Steamroller, and aside from the unexpected, lovely piano intro to the instrumental "Atom Bomb", it pretty much IS a steamroller of rockin' and rollin', wailing guitars, bashing drums, psychedelic effects, and screamin' vocals. Although '79 might be a late date for "proto-metal" that's what we'd say this is, 'cause of the weird psych and prog elements, it's just a little too weird and wild and wacky to fit in with the straight-up metal scene, maybe that's why they stayed underground. The overload of raw, chunky riffage and squiggly, slashing guitar leads (along with campy, tongue-in-cheek lyrics) here wasn't exactly radio-friendly either, though great for a party. Basically the appeal of Poobah can be summed up by image found this disc's back cover of the band's curly-haired drummer wearing a homemade t-shirt that reads "Poobah Jams" in iron-on letters. Damn right, jam they did!
So if you dig lotsa guitar, from a band influenced both by '70s heavies like Led Zeppelin (they do a cover of "Rock And Roll") and '60s surf music too, then you oughta ignore the budget cover art (both old and new, the one you see here is the new version Rockadrome came up with but the original is also fairly hideous) and check 'em out. You'll know if Poobah's for you after the seven minutes and thirty eight seconds of their track "Jump Through The Golden Ring" that opens the album! Oh, and like the previous edition on Monster, this includes some extra unreleased/live tracks also from '79.
We'd like to hear more by these forgotten Midwestern hard rock heroes. Hopefully Rockadrome will also re-reissue the other Poobah album Monster did, 1976's U.S. Rock. And, eventually, all the other cool out of print Monster titles, like Cain's Pound Of Flesh. We'll keep you posted.
Strangely enough (or not?) for someone who spends a lot of their time writing music reviews, I just LOVE to read music reviews. And if it's reviews of old heavy metal records, even better! And there's few reviewers whose reviews I get as much of a kick out of as those of Canadian heavy metal opinionmeister Martin Popoff. Back in 1997 he wrote a book -- a tome, in truth, with 3,740 reviews -- entitled The Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal, itself an update of Popoff's previously published opus Riff Kills Man: 25 Years Of Hard Rock & Heavy Metal (a mere 1,942 reviews in that one). And that wasn't enough. So now he's back, revising and expanding the his ultimate heavy metal review resource into not one but three volumes, one per decade of metal, starting with this one, devoted to pretty much anything that rocked out and exhibited some degree of heaviosity in the '70s! And some relevant late '60s albums sneak in too. Hundreds upon hundreds of albums are covered here, each getting a paragraph-or-two review and ratings on not one but two 10-point scales: first for heaviness (which in Martin's world seems more akin to "metalness") and a second for simply just how much Martin likes the album in question. These two scores often correlate but not always. And of course it's not clear that these faux-scientific numerical rankings are a good idea, since it leads to silly comparisons... Blue Cheer's Vincebus Eruptum gets a "6" for heaviness (I woulda gone higher!) while he gives the same rating to Jo Jo Gunne's Jumpin' The Gunne. And they actually both get the same quality rating too, both 6's. Huh? But that is part of the charming eccentricity of this book and its author. Agree with him or not, he'll still get you stoked on some great music.
That's the best thing about this -- that despite the title, it's not really a "collector's" guide. That is, it's not at all about what's rare and valuable and hard to find and that sort of thing. Sure, the occasional ridiculous eBay price gets mentioned, and Martin will bring up some peculiarity of a reissue or whatever if he thinks it's interesting. But what this book is REALLY about is the music, something that most "collector's guides" barely ever even seem concerned with amidst concerns about rarity and monetary value. Sure, Martin's a collector, i.e., he's got lots of records. And so am I. But the motivation for the collecting -- and review-writing -- is an abiding love for the "Greatest Music In The World" (as Martin puts it, and I won't argue) and a desire to share that excitement. So don't come to this book expecting to read a lot about different vinyl pressings and suchlike, thank god. And indeed, part of Martin's mission here is to dispel some collector's myths. He wants to examine some so-called "collector's holy grails" and see if they really stand up against the more popular, better-known bands in the heaviness stakes. Some do, but the point he's making is that just 'cause something costs $500 for an original pressing doesn't mean it's in the same league musically as, say, the Scorpions LP you can still pick up for relatively cheap at a flea market. Kind of a record-collector reality check. And that's good...although of course I'm still drooling over some of these hard-to-find obscurities regardless! And that's what this is for too... covering as it does everything from the obvious (Deep Purple, Judas Priest, Kiss, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen...) to the obscure (Buffalo, I Teoremi, Leafhound, Bang, Jerusalem...). And Martin devotes a bit of space at the beginning of the book explaining how the definition of heavy metal in the '70s is a bit broader than in later decades, as he includes in lots of stuff that the average headbanger today wouldn't consider metal, from hard rock (Foreigner, Aerosmith, Foghat...) to punk acts (The Stooges, DMZ, The Damned, The Saints, Sex Pistols...) to some harder prog and krautrock. But "heavy metal" meant something a little different back in the '70s anyway (as any reader of Black To Comm 'zine will confirm).
There's very few omissions I could think of (and lots of stuff in here I'd never even heard of before!). He even includes an appendix listing bands that you might think (from the name or album cover) are heavy that aren't! And after hours of reading I've only come across one factual mistake. Opinion-wise, there's more to argue with -- as I said, I don't always agree with his reviews, but they're enthused and amusing and even if he trashes an album I personally love I still read it with a chuckle. For a music (and heavy '70s rock) junkie like me, this is a real can't put down page turner like some people find the latest Stephen King or John Grisham. His style is sportswriterly colourful, sometimes just a little crazed, and real conversational. I shouldn't make this review any longer than it is already by quoting from Popoff's prose, but here's a sample from his (10/10) review of Black Sabbath's Sabotage: "...a tour de force from a quartet improbably tormented by the demons of genius and more probably towel-whipped by the gnomes of stupidity." Nice.
Getting into this guy's music n' metal-mad mind, with all his rankings and charts and appendices and personal reminicences is amazing. And as a fellow-review writer, can I just say how freaking impressed I am with his accomplishment here? Pretty much essential for any historical-minded metalhead or retro-rocker who likes to read! Oh yeah, plus there's a bonus cd comp with tracks from the Monster records reissue roster.
Reading this -- and when we got these in Andee and Allan were doing nothing but -- makes us think that maybe we should replace everything in our metal section with only '80s metal reissues. Get rid of all the '90s and beyond black/death/grind metal, and only stock the big hair, big melodies stuff from the '80s, all the LA Sunset Strip and NWOBHM discs we can get. Whaddya think? Let's rock!!
Ok, maybe we're getting carried away but that's what this book is all about, getting carried away by fannish enthusiasm for the glory days of METAL.
It's the second volume in Canadian metal scribe Martin Popoff's rewrite/update of his original book of metal reviews that came out in one volume some years back. The first volume of the new edition, The Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal Vol. 1: The Seventies (which is already, sadly, out of print!) we listed a year ago and we've been waiting anxiously for this volume ever since. Well it's here and even bigger and better than we imagined. 432 pages! Literally thousands of reviews!! You'd be hard pressed to think of an '80s metal band not covered. In the M chapter, for instance, you'll find the biggest of the big four Metallica as well as the more obscure likes of Manilla Road, Malice, and Max Havoc. And Popoff is quite catholic in this endeavor, not neglecting any subgenre of '80s metal from pop to thrash to grunge to crossover...even Husker Du makes the cut!
If you've read any of his previous books you'll know Popoff to have an idiosyncratic, conversational writing style as well as his own sometimes quirky take on things. We certainly don't agree with all his reviews. But we LOVE reading them. Moreso than the '70s volume, which served as resource to find out about a lot of records we'd never heard of before, this one has a bigger nostalgia factor due to our age. Those of us (that'd be Andee) who grew up as metalheads can spend hours and hours looking up old favorites (Icon! Helix! Black n' Blue! Tokyo Blade!) that you otherwise would never ever ever probably hear about ever again. For that in itself -- being a record guide devoted to the unhip, unheralded, but goshdarnit still totally amazing or at least hot rockin' -- we salute Popoff's effort. He deserves a medal. A metal medal. Authoritative, exhaustive, obsessive, encyclopedic, opinionated and most of all (if you're a metal fan) endlessly entertaining! His 1-10 scale ratings are sure to be the cause of some fun arguments too (and we see that Popoff has revised and expanded not only his actual writing but his ratings as well -- we're happy to note that his assessment of local SF legends Brocas Helm has gone up a few notches, their Into Battle LP now rating several points higher than it did in the older edition of this tome.)
Sure, we here at AQ write a lot of reviews too but we've got to bow before his achievement, this massive task to which he has seemingly devoted a good part of his life. Indeed, we can't even imagine how Popoff will top this with the next volume due, devoted to the '90s. He's got to be slaving away on that right now, and as soon as it's out we'll let you know... Apparently that's going to be it for him, he'll retire after that, and any volume four devoted to the current decade will have to be handled by a protege!
Includes a cd sampler of '80s Metal Blade artists including Cirith Ungol, Lizzy Borden, Bitch, Nasty Savage, and Slayer.
Here it is at last. Martin Popoff has laboriously reviewed the heavy metal albums of the '70s, the '80s -- and now the '90s. What a madman. This new book weighs in at 520 pages. THREE THOUSAND SEVENTY THREE reviews. 3,073!!! Good grief. If anybody knows how hard it is to write 3,073 reviews, we do! We bow in honor of Popoff's achievement. And remember, this is volume three in a series (which, as far as Popoff is concerned, stops here, though perhaps an ambitious and/or foolish protege will take up the torch and at some future date produce a book of '00s reviews). The '70s book had 1,162 reviews. The '80s one 2,528. So this is the biggest yet.
So, what's in here, besides just about everything? Well if you're familiar with Martin's other books, you know that he's a very entertaining and idiosyncratic writer. And very opinionated too of course! As he should be, that's what makes this interesting. Just 'cause we don't always (often?) agree with him, that doesn't mean we don't absolutely love reading his reviews. And same goes for reading his reviews of albums that we couldn't care less about (which, this being the '90s book, and so big, there's plenty of in here). You'd think, from our current perspective, that this '90s volume would have tons of the church-burning wave of Scandinavian black metal, and a whole lot of the gory death metal scene of the day. Well, that stuff's in here, for sure, but so's plenty of other styles of metal and bands now less revered. You gotta remember, Martin wrote a lot of these reviews back IN the '90s, for his original Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal (before his 3-volume revision, now completed). And he wasn't that into black metal then, nor was it clear how significant that particular musical movement would become.
What was popular then (and popular with Martin) was the last gasp of the heyday of the hair metal bands. Also the rise of grunge and other forms of alterna-metal. So, although there's only one review of a Burzum album (out of their seven records of the '90s), there's reviews of such (deservedly?) forgotten acts as Mind Funk, Mr. Big, Dangerous Toys, Paw, Big Chief, Saigon Kick, Jackyl, and Mordred. You also get to read about the sad, late-career failed comeback attempts of many '80s hair metal stars, and still-strugglin' '70s acts too (there's three Nazareth reviews!).
This sounds like a criticism, and maybe it is if you're ONLY interested in "extreme metal" (as opposed, to, ferinstance, the band Extreme, which gets a 10 out of 10 for their III Sides To Every Story album from 1992). But remember, there's over three thousand reviews here. And we like being reminded of stuff like Enuff Z'Nuff and Warrior Soul and Circus Of Power and Love/Hate and Masters Of Reality and the SEVEN studio albums Motorhead released in the nineties... And don't worry, the likes of Dimmu Borgir and Borknagar and Marduk etc. all get covered -- basically if a band had an album out on Century Media or Nuclear Blast or Relapse or even Necropolis or Red Stream, it's in here. We also noticed that Martin has upped his scores (awarded on a scale of 1 to 10 for each album) for a lot of the black metal stuff since the original book -- though Mayhem's classic De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas still gets a 0, though Martin allows he would now give it a 7 but feels that the zero is almost more of a compliment to this "near-genius wretch of an album". It's like the anti-ten, that the inverted-cross crowd should appreciate.
And at this point we know and love all of Popoff's reviewing quirks. The Canadian Content, of course. The weird idea he has that bands get BETTER with each release (when everybody knows that most of the time the first album is the best). And then there's his personal "Top 100" list. Which is INSANE. Try this on for size: Popoff's personal favorite best "Heavy Metal" album of the '90s is... wait for it... tad dah, Rhythmeen by ZZ Top! What?? Now, actually that's a pretty cool album (sez Allan) but it sure ain't the best heavy metal disc of the '90s. Heck it's not even heavy metal!!! (And it's not an ironic Chuck Eddy "Tina Marie" move either). So who let this guy write a book about heavy metal? Well if you read it, you'll understand. By the way, the #1 '90s metal album that fans picked in an internet poll conducted by Popoff is a much more sane choice: Megadeth's Rust In Peace.
Granted, this book could at least have been a lot smaller if Martin had restricted his definition of metal just a bit (does Primus really need to be in here?) but again it's written from the perspective of where the "industry" was going back in the '90s... all over the place, basically. So let's leave you with some more names of which this book will perhaps spark fond memories (or not): Sepultura, My Dying Bride, Helmet, Machine Head, Kyuss, Therapy?, Danzig, Porno For Pyros, Pitch Shifter, Skyclad, Tiamat, Monster Magnet, Crowbar, Asphyx, Last Crack, Paradise Lost, Pantera, Four Horsemen, Fudge Tunnel, Therion, Type O Negative, Annihilator... like we said, good grief, there's so much! Jesus Lizard's major label records, and five U.D.O. albums, and all the cool Earache stuff like Godflesh and Carcass and Cathedral and Entombed, and all the Iron Maiden in decline discs, and Metallica's Load albums, and Joey Belladona (ex-Anthrax) solo, Vince Neil solo too, and even Allan's favorite obscure Canadian speed metal band Dogs With Jobs! Maybe the '90s weren't the metal decade that the '80s were, but there was no shortage of the stuff (and its variants) and if you were into it then you'll get a kick out of this book that's for sure.
Oh yeah, of course this also comes with a bonus cd of "nineties rarities", courtesy the Metal Blade label, including tracks by Gwar, Six Feet Under, Skrew, King's X, Cannibal Corpse, and Amon Amarth...
Here it is, at last. The long rumored ART BOOK from Michel Langevin, aka Away, the drummer and visual conceptualist for pioneering Quebecois avant-thrash-metal geniuses Voivod. Away's artwork, the ultimate in sci-fi school binder imagery, helped define his band's unique appeal. Heck, although the music was amazing, one of the other big reasons to buy a Voivod album was to get all that cool artwork, it got to the point that their cds had a piece of Away-art in the booklet for each song, one per page...
We first heard he was putting a book together a few years ago, it was supposed to be published by the Troubleman label, or at least that's what we'd thought, but nothing ever materialized, and then suddenly out of the blue a few weeks ago we got an email from Martin Popoff, the Canadian metal scribe responsible for the three massive Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal volumes we've reviewed in the past, saying that HE was doing a book with Away, and now here it is!
A hefty, hardback, 12"x9" coffee table tome, 184 pages, in full color when appropriate, Worlds Away is what we've been waiting for. TONS of his artwork, of course. Stuff you'll remember from the albums of course, but also sketchbook pages, flyers, demo tape covers, logos, picture discs, as well as art he's done on commission for other bands... Eye candy for Voivod fans oh yeah. And then there's the text, Away interviewed by Popoff, chapter after chapter delving into the world of Voivod, the music, the art and their connection. The early years stuff is surprising but not surprising as we learn about his artistic inspirations as a kid in the '70s (Magma album covers, Gene Simmons' boots...). The history of the band is traced, their evolution from raw thrashers to spaced-out art rockers, along with the evolution in Away's creative / technical process. Turns out the cool monochrome, sorta low res images from the Nothingface album look like that 'cause of the memory limitations of the computer he was using, for instance. Also we get the story behind the 3-D art for The Outer Limits album (which almost didn't happen). We probably don't need to go on, those of you who want this book probably already know it.
FYI, since these aren't cheap, and we're not a bookstore, and it's pretty much for fans only, we only got a few. So if and when we run out it will remain to be seen if we can get more.
VOIVOD!!!!
The Poppy Family have long been a favorite around here, as a cult '60s folk-pop group with psych-ish leanings, and it's good to finally see a top-notch collection of singles and album tracks at an affordable price. Fronted by husband and wife Terry and Susan Jacks and hailing from Canada, their signature sound was notably marked by the use of tablas and sitars that gave their songs a groovy but restless and searching edge, relevant to the flower-powered countercultural shifts at the time in the late sixties and early seventies. Like Shocking Blue, Bobbie Gentry mixed with Coven, or The Carrie Nations (the doomed fictional band in Russ Meyer's Beyond The Valley of The Dolls), The Poppy Family played a slightly druggy folk-pop filtered through the lens of a southern gothic sensibility. Songs like "Where Evil Grows", "Shadows On My Wall", "There's No Blood in Bone", and their biggest single, "Which Way You Goin', Billy? were laden with references to death, suicidal heartbreak and the supernatural.
They only recorded two albums, but sudden band line-up changes, and hectic touring issues forced the couple to go their separate ways. Terry Jacks subsequently scored the biggest hit of his career with "Seasons In The Sun", while Susan continued down her own career path in a more country crossover vein. A Good Thing Lost is an apt title for a band that for a moment could have had it all. These songs still sound so great!
Recommended for fans of any of the groups mentioned above, crate-digger psych breaks and incredible sixties studio production!!!
Recently we've been chuffed to review some great new releases by what we might call New Wave Of Old School Heavy Metal bands, such as Cauldron and Enforcer. And there was that Heavy Metal Killers comp on Earache recently too, which included those two bands, and these guys, Portrait from Sweden. All young bands doing metal like it was meant to be, back in the day. Portrait certainly deliver tons of speedy energy, galloping riffage, evil atmospheres. Melody too. And of course, no cookie monster vocals! Although singer Philip Svennefelt sometimes switches to gruff rasps, he really loves to break into a wailing witchy falsetto a la King Diamond... so Mercyful Fate seems to be a BIG influence here. Mercyful Fate were, along with Venom, one of the '80s originators of black metal, before the church burning Norwegian types took over, and Portrait's fixation on occultic, Satanic themes (song titles include "Hell", "Bow Unto The Devil", and "Beware The Demons") fits the bill. Totally black metal, that is if the '90s never happened. Not to mention that the picture of guitarist Christian Lindell makes him look positively demon-possessed himself, despite his first name. Eyes wide, and mouth a rictus grin, his expression really sums up why Portrait is so appealing, nay, compelling. It's not just the songs and the sound, it's the spirit. The sinister spirit of their influences - Mercyful Fate, and Satan! So while this is fannishly '80s, it's more than that. Not simplistic - their compositions are often quite long (over nine minutes in the case of "The Adversary") with lots of interesting, dynamically intertwined parts, well paced and put together - and not shallow. They channel the ancient spirit with ripping reverence.
Now reissued domestically, this album originally came out last year in a limited die hard edition on Germany's Iron Kodex label, who also just brought us the new vinyl from AQ faves Slough Feg, who could be considered charter members of the NWOOSHM (nuh-whoosh-um), since they've been at it for a while!
One final note: don't you think Portrait is an odd name for a metal band? But actually, according to the Encyclopedia Metallum, they're not the only Portrait around. Hmm. They've just got to find a metal band named Landscape to tour with! (Another search of the Encyclopedia Metallum DID turn up one Landscape, and they're from Sweden, but defunct... oh well.)
First things first, this Possessed has nothing to do with the '80s Bay Area metal band of the same name. No, this Possessed hails from even further back in time, the early '70s to be precise. And that leads us to say this: oh man, if we only had a time machine! Sure we'd go back and kill Hitler's parents and buy Google stock and all that... but our time machine day dream today is dominated by a flyer reproduced in the cd booklet to this release, advertising a month's worth of "progressive concerts" upcoming at a venue, somewhere in England, featuring performances by T2, Judus [sic] Priest, Israel's Jericho Jones, Thin Lizzy and this very band, Possessed. Good grief. We'd have been very very broke blokes back then, spending our last dime, I mean, farthing, on going out to such shows! What a time for hairy, heavy proto-metal awesomeness!
Thinking along those lines, Cathedral vocalist Lee Dorrian *has* built a time machine of sorts, though -- his label Rise Above now has an archival/reissue imprint called Rise Above Relics, dedicated to unearthing the heavy sounds of the past for them to be heard again today. This Possessed album (along with Luv Machine, also reviewed) is one of the first releases and we've gotta say they've dug up a gem, hitherto unknown to us.
Possessed, who you'd think might be some sort of occultic, Comusy folk band from the name and the Art Nouveau, Aubrey Beardsley style cover art, actually play a kinda proggy, kinda glammy hard rock that definitely bears some resemblance to aspects of Led Zeppelin. Just coincidence that Possessed's singer and guitarist, the India-born Vernon Pereira, had been in the original lineup of an outfit called The Band Of Joy, which also included Zeps-to-be Robert Plant and John Bonham? In any case, Possessed's most notable attributes would have to be the sinuous, crunchy riffing of guitarist Pereira, and also his Plant-like lead vocals. Furthermore, the band's spiralingly complex and bombastic songwriting ventures into the variety of "funk" displayed by Led Zeppelin on such songs as "Trampled Underfoot". Then there's the acoustic break of "Exploration Pt. II", also very Zeppish to be sure, though besides Zep, we'd compare this to Thin Lizzy and also to obscurities like Hard Stuff and even AQ faves Zolar X!
Despite being so worthy, Possessed never released an album, though they did record one in 1971 that, due to label disinterest, was shelved (until now, this is it). Sadly, three key band members, including Pereira, died in a motorway accident in 1976 ("Driver of Pop Group Death Van Dozed Off" reads the headline to one of the vintage newspaper clippings reproduced in the cd booklet), bringing a tragic end to the hopes and history of Possessed. The '70s rock star glory experienced by their chums in Led Zeppelin was never to be for this ill-fated band, though things could have, should have, turned out much differently, as at the time of the accident, they were on the verge at last of a major record deal. And they were supposedly slated to play shows in the USA with the Sex Pistols, bizarrely enough. Of course, that never happened.
So we're left with Exploration, while not the best unreleased album of the era ever (Jacula? Bedemon? Sproton Layer?), definitely a pretty darn cool one. It's a bit raw sounding, maybe a still a work in progress with some of the riffing rather similar in a couple of the songs, but it's definitely something that fans of both Led Zep and all the early '70s hard rock rarities we love should investigate! Nicely packaged with a fat, 20 page booklet full of notes and photos, slipcased to boot.
Iceland's third most popular band after Bjork and Sigur Ros! But they don't sound a whole lot like either of those artists, as Potentiam aren't pop or electronic, but a black metal band! Now, this isn't a new release, but it's a favorite of ours and we've
Oh, wow. Finally found a reasonably-priced cd reissue of this freaky, far out '70s artifact, that we first heard of being raved about by The Seth Man on Julian Cope's Head Heritage website a while back. We're talking about the "M. Frog" half of this twofer disc (we'll get to the Roger Powell part, in a bit). Originally released in 1973, it's a rockin' psych-prog opus laden with copious EMS Synthi-A workouts and an anarchic spirit of anything-goes fun. This record was the vibrant solo debut from a Frenchman named Jean Yves Labat (aka M. Frog), who at the time was the keyboard player for Todd Rundgren's Utopia - that being the American pop producer's proggier-than-thou outfit, Rundgren's answer to English bands like Yes and Genesis, as you may know. So Labat was quite the keyboard wiz, and also a bit of a weirdo, almost becoming a Benedictine monk, before he gave that up for a life of progressive rock excess. The M. Frog album draws upon his schooling in avant-garde composition - the colorful cover art is actually a part of a graphic score done in Labat's own unique color-coded notation for synthesizer operation. But it's very much hippie, heavy rock n' roll entertainment too.
This album's opener and presumable alternate-universe hit single sold us right away - "We Are Crazy" lives up to its title, coming across like krautrock goofs Guru Guru jamming with Perrey-Kingsley, or Jean-Pierre Massiera endeavoring to outdo the Osmonds' "Crazy Horses"! The song is built upon catchy riffage with a TON of crazy synth action, and brilliant/dumb non-sequitur lyrics (about how they're crazy and stupid and lazy and if you understand you'll win a washing machine or a date with the Queen) that really drive the "We Are Crazy" point home. It's also reprised later in the album in an instrumental version (even more synth!!) and in both cases exemplifies Jean Yves Labat's statement of purpose: "I want the music to pop out. It's funny music. It's alive. It is for the living."
The next track takes the volume but not the weirdness down a few notches, the moodier "Champegarpaen" being a kinda krautrocky percolating groove, adorned not just with synth but with sawing violin, Munchkin voices, Gregorian chant, musique concrete effects, and cowbell...
Speaking of krautrock, some of this reminds us of Faust, in that it's more comic, than cosmic! Really each and every track here pretty wild, a manic mix of heavy rock jams, plenty of synth zips and zaps, and 'novelty' tunage replete with funny voices. There's some calmer, spacey moments too, as on album-ender "Relax Goliath" (such relaxation is needed by then). And Todd Rungren himself contributes a few fuzzed-out & synth-processed guitar solos here and there; not to be outshined, however, by Jean Yves' own indulgences in crazy complex keyboard solo sections too.
They really don't make 'em like this anymore, and M. Frog must be the ultimate at whatever it is, exactly. A worthy reissue we're so glad to have, done quite nicely with lengthy informative liner notes in the thick cd booklet, which also includes more full-color examples of Labat's unusual & eye-catching musical notation.
AND, that's not all, there's actually a whole 'nother album on this disc, by a totally different guy. That's right, the aforementioned Roger Powell, with his album Air Pocket. The rationale for putting these two together on the same cd is that Powell was, in a later lineup, also the keyboard player for Todd Rundgren's Utopia. Also both albums came out on the Bearsville label. But other than that, and total synth overload, they don't have too much else in common. Powell's brand of prog was less nutty, more cheesy, let's say� but not without its charms. Air Pocket, which actually comes first on this disc, non-chronologically for some reason, definitely has got a lot of '80s glossiness to it, with drum machines and plenty of synthesizer wank - enough that it was voted 1980 Album Of The Year by the readers of Keyboard Magazine. The record starts off pretty cool, the spacey "Lunar Plexus" sounding like the lighter side of something along the lines of John Carpenter, definitely the sort of thing today's fans of Zombi/Majeure will probably like. Then, the futuristic disco new wave pop of "Landmark" adds vocals, it's dated but kinda nifty in a way� the singing in particular kinda reminds us of XTC, for a moment anyway, maybe just 'cause Powell is English.
Air Pocket gets a little freakier on "Emergency Splashdown", with klaxon alarm sounds, urgent rhythms, processed vox� More blissfully ambient-sounding electronics are represented by the brief "Morning Chorus", with guitar by Todd Rundgren. And then, as the second side of the original lp really gets underway, Roger Powell demonstrates his true prog/fantasy allegiances on a series of instrumentals, with titles like "March Of The Dragonslayers" and "Sands Of Arrakis". Which range from bright and chimey TV theme song tuneishness to more moody swirling ambience. Overall, Roger Powell's Air Pocket is a lightly proggy, soft, synth-laden yacht rock record that's kitschy fun, and not un-catchy.
A bonus track by Powell is also included here, from a single he did in 1978, a slightly sinister synth version of surf classic "Pipeline", with a pounding bass beat. Good times! We probably dig that cover more than the actual Air Pocket album, in fact.
But anyway, we already said the real reason to get this disc is for the M. Frog half, otherwise unavailable on its own, while you can count whichever Roger Powell tracks you like as fun, free bonuses and forget the rest.
Fans of abject, chaotic, doomed-out noiserock/industrial heaviness a la Zeni Geva, early Swans, IIIrd Gatekeeper era Skullflower, old Godflesh, Splintered, and Lewd, you're gonna want to batten down the hatches and cuddle up with this!!! A super limited edition (300 copies only) double vinyl reissue of a cd originally released by this Dutch band in 1997 via the Supreme Tool Supplies label, pretty rare & obscure - we had never heard of it, and we were pretty into this sort of stuff back in the day. And it's really good. Six long tracks, each one a harrowing descent into feedback-laden, pounding sludge madness, with churning, clangorous rhythms, headcaving riffs, and anguished vokills that would give even the ultradoom stylings of Alan Dubin in Khanate some competition. On each song, a monster has been stirred from slumber, a nightmare given "musical" form, sorrowful screams coming from all throats and instruments all at once. So sickened, seasawing, distorted and distressed! The 1997 date almost seems too late, this really sounds like something that would have come out on Pathological in like, '89. Agonized, abrasive, cathartic, and car-crash compelling. Would you also believe catchy? Well, maybe, once you're in its dismal, lurching, heavy embrace!
Big thanks to the fine freaks at Israel's Heart & Crossbone label for bringing this black hole of intense industrial rock to "light". Remastered by, yep, Khanate's James Plotkin, who was probably thinking, damn, my kind of shit! Us too. Recommended!!
(Turns out, the singer/guitarist in this band, had also been in Lewd, who did a split with Zeni Geva once upon a time... see it all makes sense.)
Hell yeah, '70s proto-metal from Detroit (and not only that, released on a Motown subsidiary)! These dudes have appeared on some cool comps of heavy psych obscurities we've listed (Up All Night, White Lace & Strange) but this is the first time we've seen a legit reissue of their only album, from 1970, entitled The Gospel According To Zeus. This digipacked reish is from the master tapes. The album starts off with stone classic "It Couldn't Be Me", a track that hiphop headz might recognize as having been sampled on an Obie Trice record a few years back. What we also now realize, is that recent AQ fave band Malachai (the sampledelic UK duo on Domino) essentially sounds, at their best, a whole heck of a lot like that one song by Power Of Zeus - it's as if Malachai based their entire sound on the big beat fuzz pop hard rock of "It Couldn't Be Me"! So that's pretty cool.
But Power Of Zeus have a bunch more bellbottomed acid rock goodness to offer here... ten tracks total ranging from upbeat garagey psych nuggets like "In The Night" and "I Lost My Love", to the mellower, harpsichord-laced "Green Grass & Clover" and the epic, aptly titled doomic dirge "The Death Trip", eventually culminating in the freaked out finale of prog opus "The Sorcerer Of Isis (Ritual Of The Mole)", another track that's been sampled by hiphop producers.
Along the way, lotsa bangin' fuzz riffs, wailing organ, lofty vocals, and cowbell knockin' grooviness, real good stuff for all you proto-metal (and popsike!) fans into the likes of Sir Lord Baltimore, Granicus, Atomic Rooster, Dust, Frijid Pink, Bubble Puppy, and last list's proto-metal selections by Bang and Elonkorjuu.
Way cool.
If Power Of Zeus played shows with Funkadelic back in the day, we wouldn't be at all surprised...
You know how we're always talkin' cult this, cult that, with regard to black metal? Well heck if your black metal band *isn't* considered cult you may as well hang it up. But in other genres, the term can still have some actual meaning. Power metal ferinstance. Lots of not-cult bands of that ilk crowding the scene. And then the occasional one that truly is "cult", has a cult, or deserves a cult (following)... we'll leave it to black metal bands to potentially BE cults in the religious sense.
In any event, all this is preliminarily in aid of saying, bow down, a new Powers Court album (only their third in 18 years of existence!) has finally materialized on our shared plane of existence!! We've reviewed and raved about their others, longtime AQ customers may remember. Basic info: Powers Court is a power metal trio from Illinois (yep, American metal!) whose cult quality is pretty much owed to the persona of the talented Danie Powers, guitarist/vocalist. Females are rare enough in metal bands, especially as leaders, making Ms. Powers immediately notable. She's notable too for her amazing, nearly 5-octave range. She'd be a unique and formidable vocalist alone, but she's also the main songwriter, shredder, and riffmaster (mistress?) of the band. Go, girl!
And while it's been quite a few years since the last Powers Court album back in 2001, Danie & Co. seem to have put that time to good use, crafting a meticulous and magnificent display of 21st century true metal mastery... We'll recommend this immediately to Hammers Of Misfortune fans for a couple reasons, first you probably like operatic female metal vocals, and secondly, this is a concept album, a narrative based on some dark Italian folktale about doomed lovers and occult happenings. This sinister story is set against a relentless, surging backdrop of proggy, pyrotechnic power metal. And we do mean power. Full of explosive, galloping double bass drumming, chunky buzzsaw guitar riffage, harmonic squeals, herky-jerk rhythmic complexities, and, soaring melodically o'er it all, that haunting, weird voice. Theatrical, commanding, sorta like a power metal version of Grace Slick or Pat Benatar, also comparable to Kind Diamond. She sings like a woman possessed, sometimes a crystal clear delicate songbird (as on finale "Vain Regrets") in the upper range, sometimes descending to a much throatier, lower register that's definitely medievally monkish, or even akin to a black metal rasp. Often doubled, multitracked for extra eerie effect, Powers warbles and holds notes in weird ways, her phrasing always adding as much preternatural personality to the proceedings as does her wide range.
Recommended! Definitely for Hammers fans, also for anyone into the dark, thrashy eccentricity of another American metal cult, Manilla Road.
Finland's much lauded (by us and others) Fonal label has been best known for the Finnish forest folk, experimental indie likes of Kemialliset Ystavat, Islaja, Kiila, and Paavoharju, among others... but recently they've branched out beyond their country's borders to release (reviewed last list) the new agey electronic improv drift of Dolphins Into The Future, and also this, by another band not from Finland, the 1st full-length (or 2nd if you count a super limited cd-r) by a blown out blooze rock duo from Deutschland who call themselves Pretty Lightning, though it's more likely thunder you'll think of when you hear 'em, not lightning.
As you might have guessed from the phrase "blown out blooze rock" this isn't your typical Fonal release. Well, it's plenty psychedelic and druggy, though, so that fits right in with a lot of the weird rituals recorded by Fonal's roster. But Pretty Lightning's rolling and tumblin', shambolic stoner stomp sounds a lot more traditionally '60s & '70s rock-based than the usual brand of Fonal freakery. Loud n' distorted fuzz guitars, drawling vox, lots of reverb, swampy slide, lumbering rhythms, splashing cymbals... we're thinking this will go over really well with fans of Dead Meadow!! Reminded of them right away. Also in some regards Wooden Shijips, Moon Duo, Comets On Fire, even Witch... You could also maybe imagine an uber lo-fi, Teutonic Black Keys? Or a basement-dwelling, krautrock-damaged Mount Carmel? Pretty Lightning bring in some ceremonial-sounding communal kraut vibes all right, with rattling percussion and chanted vocals on tracks like "Brother Gold Miner". There's spaced out pretty parts too, sunbaked backporch bliss, but it's all raw and droney for sure, and rife with big catchy riffs and melodic hooks, hot damn we're digging this. Funny it takes a Finnish label to bring us this modern day garagey krautrock that sounds like it's somehow also coming straight outta the Mississippi Delta.
