One of three reissues from garage rock legends Dead Moon, part of a comprehensive campaign reissuing ALL of their records on cd, most for the first time EVER. Defiance was originally released in 1990, hot on the heels of their debut In The Graveyard, and the follow up Unknown Passage (both also reviewed on this week's list), and like those two, Defiance is another collection of impossibly catchy, raw garage rocking classics, with Fred and Toody Cole delivering the sort of songs that sound totally timeless, and crafting the sort of sound most contemporary garage rockers are still emulating today. Opening with a public domain blues classic, the band deliver a serious blast of fuzzed out, swaggery, distorted garage blooze that kills. And from there on out, it's just more classic Dead Moon, the buzzy, hypnotic crunch of "Not The Only One", which just oozes pathos, super anguished emotional vocals over dark minor key jangle, some tracks are all twangy and croony, like the dark torch songy "Dagger Moon", and when Toody takes over on vocals, like on "Johnny's Got A Gun", the sound is total sixties girl group radness, but still plenty raw and stripped down, crusty and fuzzy, and the AC/DC comparisons that we never really got before, still apply here, on tracks like "Kicked Out / Kicked In", with Fred's Bon Scott like vox perfectly complimenting the stripped down heavy blues stomp.
We've been playing these three reissues to death, and we're already chomping at the bit for the next three!!!
Finally, for the first time EVER on cd, the debut from garage rock legends Dead Moon, part of a comprehensive reissue campaign that will find all the classic Dead Moon records reissued. But for now, the first three are ready for digital consumption, housed in fancy digipaks, that belie the grungy, fuzzy, wailing jangle genius within. Fronted by Fred and Toody Cole, the sound of Dead Moon is at once raw and ragged, hooky and catchy, that catchiness due maybe in part to Fred's previous stints in various psych/garage pop combos, including The Lollipop Shoppe, but Dead Moon, while poppy and catchy, are not anything like a proper pop band. Instead, they craft a sort classic garage rock sound, beholden to lots of early rock and roll, but definitely sonically more aligned with groups like AC/DC, the Wipers, Blue Cheer, 13th Floor Elevators - killer riffs, simple drum pound, stripped down and totally rocking, with Fred's super distinctive vocals, keening over the top (which is where much of the AC/DC comes from for sure), with occasional vox from Toody, making for killer harmonies, as well as some lead vocals, like on their cover of "Can't Help Falling In Love", and really, every song here pretty much as tone cold classic. It's not hard to understand why Dead Moon have such a massive cult following, hopefully with these long overdue reissues, that cult will grow and grow.
The Dead Moon compact disc reissue campaign is upon us, the first three records from these legendary garage rockers now available on cd for the first time EVER, and while most folks are probably well aware of Dead Moon's sonic legacy, there are no doubt legions of potential fans who will be discovering this stuff for the first time, and whose minds will most likely be thoroughly blown!
To us, Dead Moon was always sort of THEE quintessential garage rock bands, Fred and Toody Cole delivering plenty of fuzzy jangle and raw, stumbling lo-fi bash and pound, but we'd always seen people comparing them to AC/DC which for some reason didn't make much sense, but holy shit, opener "Dead Moon Night" is a dead ringer for those Aussies, the opening riff, the stripped down swagger, the ridiculous lyrics, right down to Fred Cole's distinctive Bon Scott like yowl, not to mention a chorus that kills. And the rest of the tracks are just as good, with some of the tracks getting broodier, others channeling classic early rock and roll, like the heartfelt duet "A Miss Of You", with Fred and Toody, crooning together over simple drum pound, and twang flecked jangle. But then it's right back into it, with the classic "54/40 Or Fight", a ragged stumbling garage rock blowout.
This album has another great cover, this time the Chambers Brothers' "Time Has Come Today", which finds Dead Moon almost sounding like a noiser, more ramshackle Creedence Clearwater Revival. So good. We had sorta forgotten how much we love Dead Moon, but these records are just so goddamn great, long time fans will find themselves RE-obsessed, and if you're hearing Dead Moon for the first time, man are you in for a treat!
Droning dirge-y sludge records are a dime a dozen at this point. It's still a sound we love, but we're rapidly reaching a saturation point. The punk rock ethos of 'anyone can start a band' combined with the fact that everybody has a cd burner, and the seeming 'ease' of making doomy drone music, just means that now, it requires a whole hell of a lot of digging and sifting thought mounds of mediocre doom and so so sludge, to discover something as fucked up and far out as Dead Peni.
We first hear Dead Peni on a compilation a year or two back and were immediately smitten. The name evoked some sort of blackened take on Rudimentary Peni, but the sound was nothing of the sort, instead Dead Peni trafficked in an expansive sprawling riff based blackened doomdrone, that was anything but static, like a slowed down tarpit space rock, an even doomier murkier Godflesh, or Wolf Eyes with some rhythmic heft. It was hard to get a feel for what DP were capable of just on the basis of the music on the comp, but it was definitely enough to know we needed more.
And -more- has arrived, in the form of this three track, 47 minute, mysteriously monickered slab of blackened crush. 2-4+1 begins all hushed shimmer and deeeeeep low end whir, a sound that could be any cd-r, until some ungodly beastlike growl emerges from the depths and the guitar explodes, super distorted, crumbling and processed, but weirdly muted and warm. A single crash, allowed to ring out, transforming into a charged electronic buzz, streaked with feedback, and underpinned by that monstrous gurgling voice. Finally the drums kick in, a slow motion drum machined doomic plod, and we're gone. Total buzzing black doom industrial noise nirvana, lumbering and druggy, minor key and surprisingly melodic. A bit of Godflesh, a little Gore, some classic old school funereal doom run through a bank of Wolf Eyesian cracked electronics and malfunctioning effects, the weirdest part is the crowd noise, what sounds like the chanting of a rally or demonstration, snippets and samples, wrapped in rippling sheets of feedback, and woven into massive churning waves of crumbling distortion, a cinematic and weirdly dreamlike doom / industrial / noise hybrid. Like the sound of some super fucked up post apocalyptic political rally, tattered flags, burning buildings, a crowd of shapes and figures clad in rags, some mysterious shadow, on a raised parapet, delivering his message in a gurgling rumbling barely audible vocals, almost like goregrind vocals, but buried so low in the mix they end up sounding like another layer of droning rumble. One guitar weaves a soaring almost majestic melody, but still woozy and washed out sounding, while the track lurches glacially onward, the crowd cheering and chanting, the whole thing like some mysterious soundtrack to the end of the world, or at least the end of the world as we know it. But we can't help but willingly submit.
The following track begins with nearly 4 minutes of rain, thunder and lightning, voices, field recordings, laid over an almost imperceptible high end, which gradually grows and grows into a symphony of feedback, tones and overtones tangling and intermingling, creating all sorts of alien melodies, until finally the riff comes in, a super simple caveman dirge sort of riff, locked into a neverending loop, repeating over and over and over like some sort of proto metal mantra, while all the while, the rainfall continues, the random sounds drift in and out, the feedback swirls in little squalls and tangles, the only deviation, being some brief bits of classic doom like melody, before the riff inevitably returns to it's original looping dirge.
The final track begins with an explosion of blown out guitar and buzzing rumble, before drifting off, leaving the staticky detritus over a simple robotic pulse, and a sea of glitch and squiggles, the various elements finally locking into some sort of super abstract doom metal, but one that is hardly doom, or metal, more like some fragmented space drone, peppered with squalls of superdistorted guitar, the occasional clanging crash and crunch, all very muted and muddy, wreathed in a layer of gauzy distortion, voices, dogs barking, all manner of random sounds, and finally, a fierce howled processed demonic voice, wrapped in distorted riffage, and creating a super spare, spaced out sort of doom, where the riffs spend most of the time buzzing and drifting, only to rear up and spit out a bit of fractured melody and harsh hissy pummel, before recoiling again, and resuming its slow burning black drone. It almost sounds like Butthole Surfers ultra-doom, the same sort of effects drenched trippiness, and off kilter dementia, but way blacker, and way more fucked up and frightening.
Any of the three tracks could have been stretched out to album length, and we most certainly would have bought all three, but the three pieces here definitely work together well, as some sort of hellish, demonic, slow motion black doom drone dirge, that plays out almost like some impossible Wolf Eyes / Moss / Arvo Part mash up, if that makes any sense. Which it doesn't, but which is exactly what makes Dead Peni so amazing.
In addition to the 3 audio tracks, there's a fourth track included as a quicktime video, another blown out glacial buzz drenched dirge, this time accompanied by strange abstract visuals, black and white, giving way to green and blue, what seems to be buildings or ruins, but ultimately are so overexposed they just become shapes, the perfect visual representation of Dead Peni's abject black doom.
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One of our all time absolute favorite outsider weirdo black metal records, long out of print on cd, with no plans to re-press, is finally available again, on cassette, for a super limited time. If you missed out on the cd, don't blow it again (and new 2cd coming soon on Andee's tUMULt label)...
When it comes to black metal, our tastes most definitely run� toward the damaged, the demented, the fried and freaked out, the totally baffling, the weirder the better. And there's no shortage of black metal misanthropes, holed up in their caves, or their cabins, or their flats, or their grandfathers' basements, meticulously crafting, ultra personal, maddeningly idiosyncratic outsider black metal. And we are constantly digging for more. The bar has been set pretty high, Benighted Leams obviously, the reigning champions of damaged outsider black metal, then there's Furze and his�'cogent black metal necrosis', let's not forget Emit, Rehtaf Ruo, Necrofrost, Hidden, Vorak, Contra Ignem Fatuum and the elusive Striborg. Phew. That's a pretty heady constellation of bizarre black metal royalty, for sure. So you know, that it is not without some serious soul searching that we would dare declare a record quite possibly the weirdest black metal record ever. But we have searched, and it is thus. Dead Reptile Shrine, from Finland, the record is A Journey Through Darkened Forests and it does indeed sound just like that.
We had practically given up on getting these for the store, Andee had even contacted the band about re-issuing the disc in the states, but luckily we discovered a distributor in Australia who had 30 copies and we took all of them. Now the cd is gone, and while they last we have the tape version... Hmmm. Finland to Australia to the United States, a long journey but it was well worth it we think. Everything about this band is bizarre, the name obviously, the song titles: "A Cave Full Of Corpse Lanterns", "The Snakes Of The Earth Pt. II", "Exekutioner Of The Final Solution", "Above The Ziggurat They Dance", "Clouds Of Doom Gather..." and of course "A Beastcults Procession", the artwork, an appropriately illegible band logo and album title, both peppered with eagles and stars and scorpions as well as loads of squiggles, the band photo of DRC, in a an army jacket, head hung low, hair obscuring his face, in front of what appears to be a huge mound of mud and sticks, with a waving hand emerging from a tiny hole in the mound, and the music, oh the music, so warped and lo-fi, buzzy and doomy and just plain freaky and far fucking out. Wrest from Leviathan bought a copy, and even he could barely handle the Dead Reptile Shrine, which speaks volumes!�
A stumbling, staggering black metal buzz, struggling through walls of haze and fuzz, sounds a bit like a Burzum record with someone constantly fiddling with the pitch control, a warbly seasick black droning whir, with splattery drums, clanging super loud cymbals, and some of the weirdest vocals ever, going from the evil black metal rasp, to an atonal Jandekian croon, to a strange falsetto, to a warm whiskey soaked growl, often within the same song, sometimes within the same line! The entire record is murky and thick with oozing black atmosphere, some songs are loping doom dirges, others race along at breakneck (for DRS at least) speeds, threatening to fall apart completely, riffs sometimes stumble to a halt, before lurching back into action, rhythms stutter, pause, leap forward, the vocals a chaotic swirl around the rickety song structures, minor key melodies and woozy guitars tangle and untangle as the songs slither and slide, leap and careen wildly, there are warbly mumbly soundscapes of droning rumble and otherworldly creaks and groans, tracks of spoken word over chanting monks, an electronic beatscape with garbled growls and haunting clean vocals, even a couple�bizarre acoustic tracks, one with throaty crooned vocals and deliberately strummed steel string guitar, some sort of Jandekian forest folk, with a riff that almost sounds like Nirvana. In fact the forest folk tag is not that far off really. Must be something in the Finnish atmosphere, but without the vocals, huge swaths of Dead Reptile Shrine could be some lost Uton or Avarus recording, or a furtively captured Tivol live session, and yet even with the vocals it still retains some haunting wild woods feral feeling. A Journey Through The Darkest Of Forests is indeed a fearful traipse through a black forest, the overhanging trees blotting out the moonlight, the sounds of the forest a murky buzz, insects and demons, wild beasts and lost souls. A baffling and frightening sonic world that should appeal to metalhead and free folkie alike.�
This tape is super limited (300 copies we think) and will be gone in a flash.... We have a bunch, but we're not sure we'll ever be able to get more...
We're always �going on and on about the weirdest, most fucked up black metal bands ever, even elsewhere on this list, we review the new one from Tasmanian one man band Striborg, and declare it maybe the weirdest yet. But there's weird, and then there's Dead Reptile Shrine, who beyond being weird, are barely even black metal, the metallic elements far outweighed by the fractured folk and total whatthefuck elements, and the blackness, well that infuses pretty much every sound they produce, just not in the way most folks are used to or most metalheads want. Instead, DRS do their own thing, and their own thing is some fucked up mix of dark dronemusic, detuned free folk, stumbling chaotic black metal, some orchestral bits, tortured vocals, all wound into a confusional world of black rituals and mysterious sonic otherworlds. While we anxiously await the forth coming double cd on tUMULt, we have THREE new tapes to tide us over, two reissue of long out of print rarities, and another brand new album, to be released soon on cd and vinyl as well, but for now on the oh so cult cassette format. Each of these is limited to 400 copies, we got a bunch, 30 or so, but odds are those will go fast and we probably won't be able to get more.
Burning Black Intensity is the new album, and offers up a taste of what will be found on the soon to come sprawling tUMULt 2cd full length, and if BBI is any indication, then two whole cds of this stuff is going to DESTROY. This record begins with some creepy, orchestral Peter And The Wolf type sounds, strings and percussion, sampled we assume, while DRS croon over the top, offering up wavery clean vocals, strange incantations, and various other vocalizations, the result is truly twisted. This goes on for several tracks before the band launch into some black metal, but DRS black metal is a whole other thing, the drums buried in the mix, barely audible, the guitars strangled, and gnarled, buzzing, blurred and murky, dueling vocals, one a high howled screech, the other a rumbling demonic gurgle, both drenched in reverb, both howling maniacally, and relentlessly, while the guitars churn and the drums stumble, the whole thing lurching drunkenly, super raw and primitive and lo-fi and fractured and FUCKED for sure. The next track demonstrates that no matter how weird it gets, everything they do is deliberate, the guitars are thick and fuzzy, the drums simple but propulsive, the riff a near static black groove, the bass, pulsing and undulating, more typical black metal vocals screeching over the top, while way in the distance a voice shrieks hysterically, the two vocals all tangled up, the guitar spewing forth a super mesmerizing singular riff, totally hypnotic and trancelike, the vocals growing more and more unhinged. The next track is a murky muddy Wold style soundscape, melodies and guitars smeared and blurred into bleary eyed streaks of sound, the vocals an ominous rumble, the drums a chaotic blast beat, while the guitars swoon woozily, the whole track dizzy and druggy and weirdly dreamlike, the vocal eventually growing more and more warped, almost cartoonish, sing songy and almost operatic, wrapped in fluttery flutes and more distorted soft buzz.
Needless to say, this is brilliantly twisted stuff, totally wacked, outsider blackness, as true as any of the more classically TROO black metal, but unlike those, DRS are true only to themselves, any resemblance between their music and other black metal is not only coincidental it's a fluke, as most of this sounds like nothing you've ever heard.
We're always going on and on about the weirdest, most fucked up black metal bands ever, even elsewhere on this list, we review the new one from Tasmanian one man band Striborg, and declare it maybe the weirdest yet. But there's weird, and then there's Dead Reptile Shrine, who beyond being weird, are barely even black metal, the metallic elements far outweighed by the fractured folk and total whatthefuck elements, and the blackness, well that infuses pretty much every sound they produce, just not in the way most folks are used to or most metalheads want. Instead, DRS do their own thing, and their own thing is some fucked up mix of dark dronemusic, detuned free folk, stumbling chaotic black metal, some orchestral bits, tortured vocals, all wound into a confusional world of black rituals and mysterious sonic otherworlds. While we anxiously await the forth coming double cd on tUMULt, we have THREE new tapes to tide us over, two reissue of long out of print rarities, and another brand new album, to be released soon on cd and vinyl as well, but for now on the oh so cult cassette format. Each of these is limited to 400 copies, we got a bunch, 30 or so, but odds are those will go fast and we probably won't be able to get more.
Isth Naral Ja was one of two full lengths released in 2002, but whereas N.t.K. was a proper DRS release, Isth Naral Ja was a three track, 65 minute, all ambient record, originally given away with another disc, and later reissued, but both times in incredible limited amounts. While much of DRS's output is truly twisted, sometimes to the point of sounding a bit goofy to the untrained ear, the sounds found on Isth, while still twisted, are woven into what seems to be a much more serious soundworld. Epic sprawling expanses of whirring low end, deep throbbing bass, strange disembodied voices, fractured truncated guitar melodies, very haunting and peculiar, incantations surface throughout, long long long streaks of sound, trance inducing minimal rumbles, hissing almost industrial high end, long stretches of hushed murmured blackness, that bass pulse creepy and recurring, the whole thing very cinematic and evocative of some grim black wood, or some abandoned house, or some vast black sea, seemingly serene on the surface, but with who knows lurking beneath.
Isth manages the difficult task of being twisted and strange, haunting and mysterious, still embodying the musical ethos of Dead Reptile Shrine, while pushing the sound into new directions, without losing any of its power, any of its mystery, its blackness.
Whereas other DRS records are most definitely an acquired taste, this disc, while definitely still essential listening for DRS fans, would most definitely please the abstract drone and cd-r crowds. Tunnels, Bones Of Seabirds, Drommer, Expo '70, Nordvargr, Acre, Bonus, Encomiast, Starving Weirdos, Metal Rouge, Trollmann, folks who dig any or all of those might just dig this particular chunk of Dead Reptile Shrine black ambience.
We're always �going on and on about the weirdest, most fucked up black metal bands ever, even elsewhere on this list, we review the new one from Tsmanian one man band Striborg, and declare it maybe the weirdest yet. But there's weird, and then there's Dead Reptile Shrine, who beyond being weird, are barely even black metal, the metallic elements far outweighed by the fractured folk and total whtthefuck elements, and the blackness, well that infuses pretty much every sound they produce, just not in the way most folks are used to or most metalheads want. Instead, DRS do their own thing, and their own thing is some fucked up mix of dark dronemusic, detuned free folk, stumbling chaotic black metal, some orchestral bits, tortured vocals, all wound into a confusional world of black rituals and mysterious sonic otherworlds. While we anxiously await the forth coming double cd on tUMULt, we have THREE new tapes to tide us over, two reissue of long out of print rarities, and another brand new album, to be released soon on cd and vinyl as well, but for now on the oh so cult cassette format. Each of these is limited to 400 copies, we got a bunch, 30 or so, but odds are those will go fast and we probably won't be able to get more.
N.t.K was one of two full lengths released in 2002, originally a super limited cd-r, and yet another piece of the missing pieces puzzle that is the bizarre soundworld of Dead Reptile Shrine. The opener is a super creepy slab of ritualistic drone, the low end drenched in hiss and disrtortion, the vocals a harsh whisper, seriously haunting and intense, a murky mystery that soon gives way to a more 'traditional' DRS, a fractured buzz drenched fragmented black metal, ultra lo-fi, the guitars so distorted they almost sound like a solid hum, the drums a buried muffled thump, the vocals harsh and venomous, until they shift gears and become swoonsome wailing, the sound more Urfaust or Jandek, a wailing clean voice that goes from deep bellow to off kilter howl, as fucked up and out there as the music behind it. Later, the sound veers into all sorts of unimaginable territories, one track offers up a weird almost bouncy stumble, with sing songy clean vocals, underpinned by a super creepy death metal gurgle, the track like some blackened chunk of French outsider new wave, the vocals slipping from hysterical shriek a sort of creepy scatting, another track unleashes some super grim, old school raw plodding black metal, like Darkthrone and Von, but filtered through a broken boombox and a fractured psyche, while still another is a gorgeous black folk drift, all muted strum and mumbled melody, before it suddenly transforms into a stuttering dizzying off kilter doom, with some deep demonic vocals that sound almost like Darth Vader, and another sounds almost like crusty punk, pounding riffage and simple drumming and weird nasally punk rock vocals. It's all over the place, but some twisted black thread holds it all together. We've mentioned it time and time again, but the music of Dead Reptile Shrine is not for the faint of heart, or even the black of soul, it's for the twisted, the warped, the musical misanthropes, in search of sounds mysterious and baffling, and no band was ever more of both than DRS.
Apolgies to all who fell under the spell of the beautiful and bizarre Dead Reptile Shrine. As we mentioned in our review of their cd a few lists back, we were only able to get 30 copies, and judging from the universal freakout we probably should have had 100 or so. We're still trying to track more of those down, thanks to the folks who have been waiting patiently. But to tide you over, we got a whole bunch of this brand new release, a super limited (of course, only 500 copies) split lp with their Finnish black metal brethren in Torturium.
Hard to describe Dead Reptile Shrine. Weird. Wonderfully weird, check the review of the DRS cd elsewhere on the AQ site for the full skinny, needless to say, fans of the demented damaged side of black metal a la Benighted Leams, Striborg, Furze, Urfaust and the like will fall hard for Dead Reptile Shrine.
On this 12", DRS fill their side to overflowing with what might be described as Jandekian black metal, super lo-fi, tortured riffing, howling anguished wails over mumbled sing songy vocals, the whole thing produced in this really strange way that makes it sound almost like Darkthrone recording in a submarine fronted by dueling vocalists Mark E. Smith and Blixa Bargeld. Woah. There's a brief interlude of creepy ambience, like the muffled sound from some forties news reel filmstrip, all crackly and antiquated, sounding a bit like Jeck or Basinski, but surrounded on every side by deep ravines of ultra personal black metal stumble and rrrroooaaar.
Fellow Finns Torturium are a bit more traditional, with a blown out super distorted Viking tinged old school thrash sound, with creepy stretches of reverb drenched ambience and completely INSANE shrieking vocals, somewhere between, Urfaust, Weakling and Bathtub Shitter (!). Occasionally proceedings stumble and slow to a drowsy druggy sludge, there's even a bit that sounds quite Eastern with weird modal guitar figures over warped and warbling riffs. Killer stuff.
Packaged in a cool black and white sleeve, with a full size insert / lyric sheet.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. WE GOT 30, AND WON'T BE ABLE TO GET MORE.
We've long been obsessed with a black metal band simply called The Stone, from Serbia, but we've never been able to get enough of their records to list, and we recently got turned on to a Stone side project called May Result, who we'll have to track down for the list one of these days. And this, the debut from Dead Shell Of Universe is yet another offshoot of The Stone, but these guys are doing something much more dissonant, and frankly a little French sounding. Which as far as we're concerned is most definitely a good thing. Avant post black metal or whatever you want to call it, spaced out spidery post rock guitar lines, furious buzzing dissonance, frenzied blast beats, and super twisted and complex arrangements. Hearing a little Deathspell, yep, and also a little Spektr and some Blut Aus Nord too, but with less of an industrial angle and more of a blackened twisted psychedelic vibe.
Three songs, the shortest one just about 9 minutes, the longest a little over 13, each one a multi part epic, that deftly shifts from grinding black fury to midtempo downtuned crunch, with vocals that go from wild banshee shriek to haunting Viking croon and back again in the midst of mere seconds. The riffing is super tight and definitely catchy. The first track does splinter off into woozy atonal near ambient interludes, the drums spitting out skittery almost tribal flurries, sometime slipping into some strange woozy doom, shot through with strange chords and slippery melodies, before erupting into another blast of blackened chaos.
The second track is even more complex, with some of the most amazing drumming in ages, furious and impossibly fast, skittery and off kilter one second pounding and precise the next, locked in tight with the riffs as they continuously stop and start, change tempos in a heart beat, explode into blasting buzz and dissipate into a spaced out sort of doomy lurch, finishing off with what can only be described as classic Satyricon pulled apart into a strange looped clanging chords, while beneath the drums never stop their relentless pound. The record finishes off with a strange sort of industrial dirgescape, all glitched out electronics submerged in strange metallic rhythms and shortwave buzz, distant downcast piano, soaring faux strings, climaxing with a squall of processed cymbal sizzle, chopped and looped voices, and wavery layered drones.
It's really only two proper songs, but they're so dense and so packed with parts and riffs and rhythms and changes and textures, that we're not sure we could handle any more than 2. But whenever they're ready we're happy to try. Now to track down The Stone...
We've long loved Paul St Hilaire, aka Tikiman, THEE voice of minimal dub geniuses Rhythm And Sound, his gorgeous, otherworldly croon adding some serious soul to R&S' darkly digital world of gristly dubbed out, slow skitter creep, and really, if there was ever one of those 'could sing the phonebook' voices, it's St Hilaire's. Years back, St Hilaire performed with Deadbeat, aka Scott Monteith, another aQ fave, a dub scientist in Berlin by way of Canada, whose sound was and is equal parts Rhythm & Sound skeletal dig-dub, and Pole style click and pop minimalism. Over the years, Monteith and St Hilaire stayed in touch, even playing the occasional show, but this is the first proper recording the two have made together, and it's a total stunner. And as you might imagine from the above, it's pretty much just what you'd expect, a sprawling collection of gorgeous super spare electro dub, a lot like Pole crossed with Rhythm & Sound. But that sound is stretched way out, some of the tracks here almost house-y, some very Kompakt sounding, but regardless of the sonic influence or inspiration, Monteith and St Hilaire make the sound totally their own, conjuring up some spiritual musical magic that makes The Infinity Dub Sessions totally divine. Especially the first track, which is worth the $18 price tag all on its own. Maybe the most perfect, and perfectly mysterious and moody modern dub track we've heard, all woozy, thick bass rumbles, wreathed in static, deep mesmeric swells, laced with dubbed out upstroke chordal thrum, as well as the occasional dubstep style bass wobble, little bits of glitch and squelch scattered throughout, super minimal melodies drifting like bongsmoke in the background, even instrumental, this would be totally hypnotic and irresistibly mesmerizing, but add St. Hilaire's gorgeous croon, and it becomes something even more transcendent.
Nothing else is quite as dark and bass heavy, but all the tracks are tranced out, softly swirly and psychedelic, the sound simultaneously minimal and skeletal, but also deeply lush and layered, ranging from the super percussive churn of "Dopa", with some seriously twisted, echo drenched vox, to the more reggae sounding "What The Heck Them Expect", St Hilaire's vocals the focal point, the background music a dark, languorous groove. "Working Everyday" is a dubby, dreamy sprawl, all soft focus and prismatic, billowy chords drifting atop a lazily propulsive rhythm, while "Rock Of Creation" is a hazy techno-dub ballad, a field of gristly and crackle the framework for shimmery synths and hushed melodies, St Hilaire crooning seductively amidst ethereal clouds of sound. The final three tracks have a huge Kompakt vibe, but imagine if Kompakt was headquartered in Kingston, Jamaica, with The Infinity Dub Sessions a chronicle of St Hilaire and Monteith's mobile sound system, the streets of Jamaica sonically transformed into some otherworldy dream-dub dancehall.
Truly heavy hardcore/metal. Andee, for one, believes that this band rules and/or kicks ass.
I think this one is going to have to be filed under 'guilty pleasure'. And if you're like me, that file just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. First off, there's a few things were going to have to try and overlook. First the atrocious cover painting. Just lame. Bad paint by numbers or something. Ok, two, Deadsy is fronted by Elijah Blue, who you may know as CHER'S SON. Eeeek. And of course there's the blatantly top 40 gothy-retro-electro rock sound that can't help but remind us of Marilyn Manson and Orgy. That said, this record is still a retro rocking good time. Huge thick slabs of synths and moogs, with soaring keyboard melodies and rumbling distorted synthbass, vocoders and overly dramatic vocals and some pretty wicked songs. Their cover of Rush's 'Tom Sawyer' is funny for a minute but their cover of Sebadoh's 'Brand New Love' (the best song Sebadoh ever wrote) is practically perfect. I so want it to be a huge MTV hit, for Deadsy yeah, but especially for Sebadoh! They also do a pretty cool Gary Numan cover. I imagine you'll probably be seeing these gothy glam retro electro-rockers all over MTV soon so now's your last chance to enjoy this guilty pleasure before it's a REALLY, REALLY GUILTY pleasure!
AVAILABLE AGAIN ON VINYL FOR A LIMITED TIME.
An all time AQ perfect pop favorite! Here's our brief yet concise review from way back in the 20th century before these guys had gotten HUGE:
At the risk of slipping into hyperbole, which we try avoid at all costs (snicker...), this is hands down, one of the best (and possibly most overlooked - we almost missed it ourselves, gasp!) indie rock records ever. Landing somewhere between 'There's Nothing Wrong With Love' and 'Perfect From Now On', Death Cab craft a Built-to-Spill-ian universe, full of lazy sad pop, intricate compositions, jangly melodies, shifting structures, odd time signatures, and haunting cellos. This record has been an unbelievable hit in the store. It's pretty much never ever been played without at least one person buying it, sometimes 2 or 3!
Originally released on vinyl for this year's Record Store Day, the Money Store is record number two from this weirdo outsider punk/noise/electro/hip hop trio from across the bay, whose debut, the twisted noise drenched Ex-Military was a huge hit around here, and The Money Store seems poised to follow suit. Although in some ways, this new record is a lot less weird, and a lot more polished, and while it's still fierce and fucked up, it's definitely not as outwardly angry, less a sonic brick in the face, and more like a carefully plotted and meticulously executed throat slitting, which we would imagine is a comparison these guys would dig.
As with Ex-Military, Zach Hill from Hella is one of the guys behind the production, and while there may be live drumming, it definitely sounds like he spent more time programming beats, the sound more electro than anything, and even moreso that Ex-Military, the sound much more fully realized, more lush and layered, opener "Get Got" has a loop and a beat that sounds like it could've gone in an entirely different direction, and been sort of weird pop radio hit, but with Stefan Burnett's twisted flow and frenetic delivery, it helps transform the songs' shoegazey electro-jitter into something more jittery and dizzying, like some malfunctioning double dutch jam. "The Fever" hews closer to the first record, the flow more of a belligerent bellow, the beat a stuttery skitter, but again, the production is super slick and makes the song a bit more palatable, without taking away from the ferocity, which is definitely a delicate line to toe.
The whole record is killer, every track here, all weirdo loops, twisted flow, sick beats, massive production, this is the sort of shit you imagine being blasted from a booming system in the car of THEE scariest dude in the hood, fucked up and fierce, but also groovy and funky, a little bit loopy and twisted, especially when they do the whole sped up soul sample thing, which here just makes things sound weirder then ever.
Lots of this record remind us of one of our favorite weirdo outsider hip hop records EVER, Too Bad But True, by Fever, released on DHR way back in 1998, the same sort of disregard for standard song structure, typical rapping, lots of distortion and murk, fractured beats, twisted loops, almost like both groups decided to reinvent the genre from the ground up, and just inadvertently touched on the various elements that DEFINE the genre in most cases, but here those bits and bobs just got all fucked up and came out the other side practically unrecognizable, and got all tangled up into an already head spinning, bafflingly brilliant sound. Hip hop record of the year? Quite possibly, but word is there's gonna be ANOTHER Death Grips later this year, so we might have to reserve judgment until then!
We've become a little obsessed recently with Ukrainian one man band Moloch. A quick look at Encyclopaedia Metallum reveals about 30 or 40 releases, 5 or 6 of them BOX SETS! Unfortunately most of them limited to 50, or 40, some even less than 10. So we've been on the hunt for at least one record we could get enough of to review on the list. We have our sites set on a cd full length, which we should be able to have in stock soon, but while we've been searching this little black gem showed up, and thus, will most likely serve as your introduction to the mighty Moloch.
Of his 30 or 40 releases, only a handful are black metal, the rest are split between dark ambient, and noise. So the black metal records end up being infused with both ambient drones and black noise.
But before we get to Moloch, we have Deathrow to contend with, a one man band from Italy, that one man also being a member of Frostmoon Eclipse, Ad Hominem, Kult, Nocternity and a whole bunch of others. For this split, Deathrow offer up some gorgeously lush black ambience, thick roiling clouds of buzzing synth, shimmering organs, pulsing low end rumbles, all woven into slow moving creepscapes, almost like Goblin at 16rpm.
Moloch too chooses a path of blacker ambience, and offers up some grim necro rituals recalling the strange abstract blackened mood music of Abruptum, but far from being harsh, this is a dark and haunting journey through some fog shrouded underworld, all deep sonorous tones, mysterious creaks and thumps, dense swells of distorted low end, streaks of minor key melody, everything blurred and indistinct, distant anguished howls, tinkling marimba like chimes, warm washes of crumbling chordal whir, animal grunts and growls, reverb drenched detuned piano, all super cinematic and soundtracky, conjuring images of boarded up old houses, of black swamps, strange shapes drawn by moonlight filtering through the trees, of abandoned streets, dank cellars, of caves lit by flickering firelight, of nighttime, of darkness, of loss, misery, pain, loneliness, and hell.
WAY recommended. And if all goes well we'll be able to track down that Moloch full length, and you can discover his even blacker side for yourself.
Metal heads around these parts have been completely obsessed with Deathspell Omega. And rightfully so. The first black metal band in a long while to totally reinvent black metal and make it their own. In a way that managed to turn lots of non-metal folks to the dark side while somehow remaining true and grim enough to keep the hardcore black metal elite satisfied. We mentioned in our review of the last DSO, that the best way to find out about the best bands, is to check out what the other best bands are listening to, and at the time, everyone from Leviathan to Nachtmystium to Crebain to Draugar were singing their praises. So when the word of a new DSO surfaced, we had the SF black metal horde showing up at the store all the time like kids at Christmastime, chomping at the bit for the new DSO. "Is it here yet?! Is It Here Yet?! IS IT HERE YET?" Well, it is finally here, and damn if it isn't even weirder and more intense and fucking amazing than we could have hoped for. Three tracks clocking in at about 36 minutes, of some of the most unique, idiosyncratic outsider black metal you'll ever hear. The first track starts off with four minutes of meandering and spacious post rock, a lilting melancholic soundscape, of finger picked guitars, big simple drumming, creepy whispered vocals, and snippets of ghostly disembodied voices, before the whole thing builds into a super angular minor key black metal burst of buzzing distorted riffing, arpeggiated melodies and blast beats that all sort of morphs into a very Ved Buens Ende sounding loping midtempo metallic groove, seasick and hypnotic sounding. The entire record is peppered with alien sounding melodies, stretches of ambient flutter, some otherworldly slow motion doom, strange industrial clatter and woozy head nodding arrangements, all aligned around and amidst more traditional blasts of black metal. So cool and so weird. This is indeed black metal through and through, but at the same time it's almost more of a weird avant rock record, incorporating lots of BM elements, making it that much more original and that much more timeless. Packaged in a gorgeous digipak with a huge booklet of BEAUTIFUL creepy artwork very reminiscent of Hans Bellmer, along with all sorts of texts, Biblical, apocryphal and otherwise.
It's only been a year since we last heard from Deathspell Omega, but it feels like forever. Their last record, Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum, still ranks as one of our favorite black metal records ever. A truly original blast of gnarled avant black metal, as true and grim and buzzy and black as any black metal we've heard, but rife with strange chords, and distinctly non-metal phrasings, convoluted arrangements, an incredible raw black metal record, all tangled up with something much more fractured and experimental. The record before that, Kenose, was even more far out, transforming their black buzz into something approaching a blackened Slint, a strange twisted metallic post rock.
This disc however takes us was back to the beginning of this century, and compiles a handful of super rare splits and compilation tracks, from the disc they shared with Mutiilation, their split with Moonblood, and the Black Crushing Sorcery compilations. The sound here, based on the dates, and the fact that these tracks predate new vocalist Mikka Aspa from Clandestine Blaze and Fleshpress joining the band, are sonically much more in line with their earlier records Infernal Battles and especially Inquisitors of Satan. The first two tracks from the Mutiilation split find the band right at the cusp, clinging to their grim raw roots, but allowing their music to sprawl, the chords get more and more dissonant, the arrangements more complex, the overall sound thicker and more lush, but still rough and black. The three tracks from the Moonblood split go back to 2000 and thus sound much more raw and straight ahead, total early nineties Norwegian BM worship, a definite Darkthrone vibe for sure, but is suits them, the soaring buzz, the blasting beats, all wound up into long epics, peppered with woozy midtempo breakdowns, the riffs slippery and atonal, the overall sound a super smoldering lo-fi blackness. The final track from the Black Crushing Sorcery is more of the same, another solid chunk of classic nineties sounding black metal, insectoid guitar buzz, furious blast beats, even a weird punky Darkthrone breakdown partway through.
Essential and classic, another glimpse into the past, revealing more of the black roots that would eventually take hold and produce the fearsome black beast that is Deathspell today.
As we wait patiently for a new Deathspell Omega, we have not one, but two archival releases to hold us over, one, reviewed elsewhere on this list, is a collection of splits and compilation tracks, and this one, well, this is the one DSO the troo fanatics have been waiting for.
The music on the other disc, Manifestations 2000-2001, is all previously released, and while most folks probably never got their hands on the way too limited originals, those recordings have definitely been floating around. But the music on this disc, Manifestations 2002, is all previously unreleased, and unless you're seriously well connected, this is essentially a brand new Deathspell album. These tracks were originally recorded for two different releases, several for a split lp with Cantus Bestiae, which never materialized, and the rest, were intended to be DSO's contribution to the Crushing The Holy Trinity comp. For whatever reason, these tracks never made it, and the band recorded a single 22 minute epic to take their place. But thankfully, these tracks were preserved, and are finally seeing the light of day, or rather, the black of night.
And regardless of where these tracks were headed for, they play pretty solidly as a proper DSO album. Filthy and furious, frenzied and relentless, a flurry on insectoid buzz lightning speed blast beats, harsh bile drenched vokills, but it is Deathspell, and this is about the time their sound began to change, so amidst all this buzz and blast, are strange loping midtempo sprawls, slippery woozy angular riffs, notes colliding and shimmering in fields of weird almost-grooves, melodies and harmonies twist and transform, their sound simultaneously demonic and weirdly pretty, but buried under avalanches of black fury, pounding almost punky breakdowns slip smoothly into impossible fast blurs, brief moments of near poppiness surface amidst roiling seas of choppy black grind, but it's still 2002, so instead of defining their sound, those elements become just another part of the heaving monstrous whole, and infuse even the most straight ahead black blasts with the sort of twisted avant vibe that would eventually become the core of DSO's new direction.
What can we write about France's mysterious Deathspell Omega that we haven't already? Pretty much the gold standard of forward thinking avant black metal, every record better than the last, more twisted, more complex, and weirdly enough less obviously black metal.
Paracletus is the final part of the group's epic trilogy, which began with Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice, and continued with Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum; like those records, Paracletus is an epic sonic undertaking, present in smaller doses are the requisite black metal buzzing and blasting, but even more than the first two records, which were already reaching beyond the tired tropes of traditional black metal, Paracletus barely seems black metal at all. It's definitely heavy, and seriously intense, complex, but even the blasting blackness is infused with mysterious melody, and impossible textures. Listening to this, we not only find ourselves wondering how people can make music like this, but how they can even conceive of it?
The opening sub two minute 'intro' is all gnarled melodies, twisted atonal mathiness, convoluted and avant and abstract and somehow totally catchy, the blackest part is the vocals, still delivered in a gruff demonic bellow, but other than that, the sound is in a realm all its own. And when you expect the record proper to kick in, the band do explode in a frenzy of blasting fury, but the riffs sound weirdly clean, and are peppered with all sorts of little bits of filigree and little sonic curlicues, not to mention more of those super tangled and gnarled Greg Ginn-ish guitar parts that band is known for, the song a twisted sonic puzzle, a million parts seamlessly woven into an impossibly cohesive whole which is indeed heavy, and black, but has so much cool weird shit going on, strange melodic breakdowns, laid over frantic blast beats, haunting ascending and descending melodies, atonal and angular, and it never lets up, how a band can play this fast, and this intricate, and definitely boggles the mind. And the whole record is like that, the sound both heavy and harsh, but simultaneously clean and melodic, it seems impossible, and sounds weird to describe, but there is something definitely unique going on here, the tone, the arrangements, the SOUND, it's not brittle or buzzy or grim or kvlt or any of that, it's LUSH, and expansive and epic and majestic, but still fierce and dark and intense, there's bass all over the place too, definitely an anomaly for black metal, adding some serious heft, not to mention melodic counterpoint, clean vocals, intense spoken word, doomy stretches that sound more like Codeine than Mutiilation. Not to totally downplay how heavy and TRUE this is, there is no doubt that this is black metal, it's just so above and beyond everything else, so unique and unlike all the other groups out there. We LOVE black metal, but 99 percent of the time we'd fail a blind name that tune or even name that band sort of comparison, cuz so much BM sounds so similar, but we could pick out DSP in a matter of seconds.
For their sound, but also for all the strange stuff they mix into their BM, like the lurching low slung breakdown on "Phosphene", with it's buzzy gothy fuzzbass, and tortured wails, not to mention the woozy main riff and the strange scrapes and slides, or the glimmering prettiness that is "Epiklesis II", which sounds almost like Mogwai or something, growing more and more epic, it even sounds like there are horns or an orchestra, so totally epic and unexpected, or howabout the insane mathiness of "Devouring Famine", along with the twisted dizzying breakdowns and the warped sounding guitars, or finally the whole of "Apokatastasis Panton", which is an incredible slab of black pop, the drums super complex, the arrangement sprawling and serpentine, but the guitars, soaring and melodic, again building and building to a sort of psychedelic blackened Godspeed style climax.
So incredible, the sort of thing that doesn't just feel like the culmination of the record, but of all three records, of the trilogy as a whole, an explosive and emotional and ultimately cathartic release, the sort of thing you don't get from much music, let alone black metal. Easily our new favorite black metal record, and without a doubt, black metal record of the year. TOTALLY ESSENTIAL.
The only way to find out about the best bands, has always been to check out who the other best bands are listening to. So when the black metal elite (including our own West Coast wing, Leviathan, Crebain, Draugar, etc) are all singing the praises of a band, then you know you need to check them out. Such is the case with mysterious black metal horde Deathspell Omega. With a handful of impossible to find releases in the past, Si Monvmentvm Reqvires Circvmspice is the first DO record with any sort of wide distribution. It's about time too. Deathspell Omega occupy an unholy sonic space somewhere between Burzum, Mutiilation, Leviathan and Xasthur. Droning mostly midtempo black metal (with occasional blast beats), infused with strange arpeggiated minor key guitars, melancholy riffing, super hypnotic ultra memorable songwriting, compex song structures, grim affected vocals, and all sorts of hauntingly beautiful ambient interludes / intros, with martial percussion, litugical chants and subtle drones, very dark and intensely affecting. Sonically, DO sound a bit like older Enslaved, or early Emperor, but with a strong penchant for unlikely melodies (that subtly surface even in the harshest of musical moments) and hypnotic trance like repetition. One of our favorite new black metal records.
Finally, after waiting and waiting, a brand new Deathspell Omega record. Or track. OK, record. Same difference really. One single sprawling massive 22 minute epic with more parts and compositional complexities than most bands can cram into a record three times as long. And it's the perfect blend of DSO's two disparate sides, their grim and gnarled, frosty, thrashing buzzy black side, and their more obtuse, mathy melodic post rock side. In the past, it seemed like the band would lean heavily in one direction or the other depending on the record, Kenose with it's total slavish and apparently unintentional Slint worship, and then FAS, which seemed to ditch those post rock proclivities in favor of something much more old school.
So it was pretty much a toss up where the band would take their sound, and weirdly enough, this is almost exactly what we were hoping for. A perfect hybrid of the two, with no clear delineation, each side, those battling influences, blurring and bleeding into one another, confusionally bafflingly brilliant, bursts of furious grinding black buzz lead directly into warped stretches of spidery clean guitars and lurching impossible rhythms, soft hushed whispered interludes obliterated by thick roiling black riffery, only to slowly melt before our eyes, twisting and almost detuning, the guitar parts very Polvo-esque, strange tunings, almost skeletal sounding, until the band offer up some impossibly dense complicated BM fury, stop start arrangements, INCREDIBLE drumming, the guitars totally unhinged, but still weirdly catchy. Songs this long are always difficult to pull off, for the best of bands, either parts get recycled, the band repeats itself, or it gets tiresome and then it's a matter of waiting for the song to end. But nothing like that here. So many parts, all thematically and musically linked, but all totally unique, the guitars especially, seem to come to life, like some black weed, while the drums inhumanly stay locked in perfectly. The track shifts from intense frenzy, to woozy groove, to lumbering doom, to jagged mathy stutter, and back again, there even seems to be some horns happening, reminding us of later period Gore.
Even as a musician, it baffles the mind, how anyone is capable of conceiving music this dense and complex and subtly melodic, let along performing it. This just might seal the deal, as if it wasn't sealed already, Deathspell Omega just might be the most progressive, most avant, and fuck it most mind blowing black metal band on the planet right now. Period.
DSO's twenty two minute track is actually from a split, released in conjunction with a new record from countrymen S.V.E.S.T., reviewed elsewhere on this list, and equally as essential, and vinyl folks, you are in luck, both the DSO material and the S.V.E.S.T. songs, while released as separate cds, are available together on a single lp!
The long awaited split from two of our all time favorite black metal outfits, Deathspell Omega and S.V.E.S.T.! Weirdly enough, each band's half of the vinyl split was also released on a separate cd, so if you're a digital kind of person, you're gonna have to buy both cds, and believe us it's well worth it, just read on. But if vinyl is your thing, then you're in luck, cuz both halves, all the material from both cds, is contained on this here lp.
Up first, Deathspell Omega:
Finally, after waiting and waiting, a brand new Deathspell Omega record. Or track. OK, record. Same difference really. One single sprawling massive 22 minute epic with more parts and compositional complexities than most bands can cram into a record three times as long. And it's the perfect blend of DSO's two disparate sides, their grim and gnarled, frosty, thrashing buzzy black side, and their more obtuse, mathy melodic post rock side. In the past, it seemed like the band would lean heavily in one direction or the other depending on the record, Kenose with it's total slavish and apparently unintentional Slint worship, and then FAS, which seemed to ditch those post rock proclivities in favor of something much more old school.
So it was pretty much a toss up where the band would take their sound, and weirdly enough, this is almost exactly what we were hoping for. A perfect hybrid of the two, with no clear delineation, each side, those battling influences, blurring and bleeding into one another, confusionally bafflingly brilliant, bursts of furious grinding black buzz lead directly into warped stretches of spidery clean guitars and lurching impossible rhythms, soft hushed whispered interludes obliterated by thick roiling black riffery, only to slowly melt before our eyes, twisting and almost detuning, the guitar parts very Polvo-esque, strange tunings, almost skeletal sounding, until the band offer up some impossibly dense complicated BM fury, stop start arrangements, INCREDIBLE drumming, the guitars totally unhinged, but still weirdly catchy. Songs this long are always difficult to pull off, for the best of bands, either parts get recycled, the band repeats itself, or it gets tiresome and then it's a matter of waiting for the song to end. But nothing like that here. So many parts, all thematically and musically linked, but all totally unique, the guitars especially, seem to come to life, like some black weed, while the drums inhumanly stay locked in perfectly. The track shifts from intense frenzy, to woozy groove, to lumbering doom, to jagged mathy stutter, and back again, there even seems to be some horns happening, reminding us of later period Gore.
Even as a musician, it baffles the mind, how anyone is capable of conceiving music this dense and complex and subtly melodic, let along performing it. This just might seal the deal, as if it wasn't sealed already, Deathspell Omega just might be the most progressive, most avant, and fuck it most mind blowing black metal band on the planet right now. Period.
And then S.V.E.S.T.:
The return of an old favorite, French duo S.V.E.S.T., who strangely enough haven't released a proper record since 2003 (2005's Coagula compiled older demos), but within 30 seconds, we were totally reminded exactly why we loved these guys so much. And they're a perfect foil for Deathspell, their sound equally fractured and convoluted and fucked up, but where DSO go for something darker and moodier and more melodic, S.V.E.S.T. go in the other direction completely, spitting out frenzied swaths of blurred buzz and wild squalls of intense tangled blackness. These three tracks, are so awesome, we almost, and we're well aware of the sacrilege involved here, but we just might like them as much as, if not even more than the Deathspell half of the split.
Their sound is hard to describe. The first track opens with a dizzying swirl of squiggly guitars, woozy riffs, wild splattery drumming, that seems already like it's bordering on total meltdown, yet that's just the intro, and the band launch into a frenzied assault even more fucked up and dense, but pepper it with cool little melodies and parts that almost sound Viking, albeit buried beneath a roiling black blowout. The guitar does these cool little descending trills, the song lurches and stutters, the drums are relentless, mind blowingly fast and heavy and intricate, until partway through, the sound shifts, and there's a bit of doomy crawl, before leaping right back into the fray. Throughout, there are bursts of total drumming chaos, extra guitars howling and adding yet more layers of buzz. It's so thick and heavy and dense, it takes close listening to pick out all the amazing stuff going on beneath the buzzy black surface.
The second track continues on in much the same vein, with the guitars even more twisted and gnarled, the drums still relentlessly mathy and intricate, slipping from total chaotic black noise, to stumbling groove, to cool pounding dirge, the drums leaping out from the mix, the guitars thick and raw, but soaring majestically at the same time. The sound manages to be epic and classic and technical while also murky and lo-fi, the sounds all blurring together, a heaving mass of constantly shifting blown out blackness, still rife with all manner of tangled little melodies, and sweeping epic ambience.
The closer is short and sweet, the weirdest and creepiest of the bunch, beginning with a staccato machine gun burst of drums and riffage, before slipping into a swirling high end guitardrone, all woozy and overlapping, disembodied riffs and smeared melodies, dizzying and mesmerizing, growing more and more intense, the drums barely there, just those high end guitars glowing hotter and hotter, until finally, the drums kick in, and the track resolves in a totally twisted soaring post rock black metal what the fuck epic outro, that fades out WAY too soon. Holy shit. These guys need to deliver a full length ASAP. and we definitely don't want to wait another 6 years.
LIMITED OF COURSE. And it would be hard not to think, even only nine days into the new year, that this wasn't gonna be the best black metal record of '09. We'll see...
Andee seems to always find one thing on the list to rave about. This week is no different, here's
Andee raving about this Decemberists disc:
I can't figure out why I like this record so much. On first listen it really doesn't sound like my kind of thing at all. Yet it just sort of grabbed me and I can't stop listening to it. Which is pretty exciting considering how much music I hear everyday and how seldom something just completely takes my breath away. Especially when I'm not expecting to like it! The Decemberists play a sort of mutant hybrid of indie pop and folk. And it is a bit twee, which would usually put me off right away. But for some reason, this record manages to claw it's way out of the twee-pop ghetto. The singer has a very affected, sort of British air which reminds me a bit of Belle And Sebastian (who I'm not a huge fan of), but way less wispy and more gritty and world weary. A bit like Robyn Hitchcock or Dan Bejar of the Destroyer (and the New Pornographers) The music though sounds a lot like Neutral Milk Hotel, all strummed guitars and belted-out vocals, but mixed with the dreamy and pastoral popscapes of Belle and Sebastian and even a little bit of the Pogues sort of celtic campfire stomp/gypsy street music vibe. Lilting and dreamy, but also really sharp and emotional. The lyrics are very bookish and the subject matter is very Dickensian, evoking cobblestone streets and gaslamps and hungry street urchins and idealised Victorian romance. Heartbreakingly bittersweet and once in a while even sort of funny. Like Edward Gorey drawings set to music. A lot of that has to do with the instrumentation, wheezing almost Parisian sounding accordions, ominous rumbling cellos, ghostly theremins, and droning warbling organs that affortlessly create that sort of late night, empty streets, drunk and bitter, wistful and sort of hopeful, broken hearted aura that so much music strives for.
From loping waltzes to bouncing pop to crawling dirges, the Decemberists weave a totally magical spell that totally envelops you and transports you to wherever it is the Decemberists are plying their wares. It's all just so beautiful and catchy and melancholy and absolutely fucking great!
Proving that the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal's bounty is seemingly limitless, Shadow Kingdom does it again with another killer NWOBHM find. Actually, we'd read about this band on the internet a while back and wanted to hear 'em ever since, finally here's a reissue of their only album, complete with bonus disc of demo rarities! We've barely listened to that disc, though, interesting as it is, 'cause we just keep spinning the actual album. That's one sign of a good record, another is that after only listening to it a couple of times, we felt like we already knew the songs, there's a lot of individuality here.
Deep Switch (named after a bass-boosting option on an amp one of them owned) and their Nine Inches Of God album, originally released in 1986, are hardly typical NWOBHM fare though. You might have guessed that from the cover art, a psychedelic cartoonish painting of a tripped-out, half-naked, lysergically melting nun (done by the guitarist's dad!) No, they're weird ones, these Deep Switch boys, lead by one "Reverend Nice"; irreverent, intelligent, idiosyncratic (just look at their colorful facepaint and top hats!). Combining a bit of a punk attitude with heavy metal chops, Deep Switch are sex-obsessed and anti-religious, making commentary on society and politics in songs that range from total prog epics to ahead-of-their time alt-metal (and one pretty ballad).
Lead-off track "Pigfeeder!" really threw us for a loop when we first heard it. NWOBHM... with rapping?? Well a little bit of rapping, but it doesn't sound like any "rap-metal" we've ever heard before. Not even sure if that was their intention. Weird but it works, in a Blondie "Rapture" man from Mars, eating cars kind of way, but it's actually saying something, while taking the piss at the same time. Ultimately "Pigfeeder!" is THEE super-catchy, uber-rhythmic song that Deep Switch shall be remembered for when the Big Book of Heavy Metal is written at the end of days. At the very least, in our book, it's up there with "Diggin' That Grave" by Jesters Of Destiny. But there's lots else on this album we dig too, other songs where the widdly guitars and falsetto vocals are put in more typically metal context, reminding us of Mercyful Fate and LA's Warlord at times. Another fave of ours would be the history lesson of "Time Machine", a poppy, proggy gem with lines advising a certain Harold not to "go down to Hastings".
So if you can deal with a little British humor in your old school metal (the killer guitars, catchy riffage, and vocal harmonies should certainly help), you should flip (for) the Deep Switch. And again, Shadow Kingdom do the reissue thing right, there's that whole other disc featuring earlier, different demos of several of the album tracks, plus some previously unreleased material, including a parody of their own "Pigfeeder!" in the form of a Christmas song called "The Festive Zone". And then there's the thick booklet, full of crazy photos, lyrics, and copious liner notes from Reverend Nice himself. Informative, and amusing - we loved the part where he talks about a pub gig at which their bass player Johnny Blade, unable to decipher the set list, comes over to ask what song they're doing next... when told, his response was "It couldn't be - I just played that one!". Classic. As is this album, in its way. Very much recommended.
We want to live in whatever world the music of Deepchord provides the soundtrack to. His murky, swirly minimal techno/dub evokes some sort of future noir, crumbling buildings, rainswept streets, everything lit by the haunting yellow glow of old streetlights, but it also has us imagining modern penthouses, all glass and chrome, overlooking the decrepit city, and the long lit tunnels of some futuristic transport system, not sure why, but Hash-Bar Loops, a record thematically focused on Amsterdam actually, instead has us imagining something like Raymond Chandler crossed with Tron. Which is most definitely a good thing.
We just can't resist the sounds of Deepchord, aka Rod Modell, who seems to have mastered this sound, whatever 'this' sound is. Future dub, ambient cinematic techno, pop ambient futurism, whatever it is, it's a strange hybrid, that to these ears at least, sounds like a mix of late night Detroit techno, Pole style digidub, blissed out pop ambience and that murky washed out heroin house we love so much.
Which pretty much describes Hash-Bar Loops, as does the opening three song suite, perfectly displaying what Modell is so good at, unfurling a hazy bit of warm whirling ambience, wreathed in a layer of static that could be the sound of wind whipping over the hills, rain falling on city streets, or just hissy static... And from there it's a slow build over the three tracks, opener "Spirits" is all ghostly and spectral, "Stars" is where rhtyhmic elements first surface, a muted skitter and pulse mostly obscured by the hiss and hum, all beneath a warm wash of blurred melody and smeared soft focus ambience, until finally, "Sofitel" finds the hiss receding completely, leaving just a skeletal techno groove, the soundtrack to some strange dinner party, on a rooftop in this futuristic city.
The record drifts deamily from beat to drift, from rhythm to ambience, the two sides of the sound constantly fusing and intertwining, the record's finest moments when the balance is just right, the beat buried beneath warm billows of dreamlike sound. And then finally the record ends the way it began, with a three song suite that leads the listener into a blissed out drift, "Crimson" shuffles and swings, surrounded on all sounds by a blurred thrum, on "Black Cavendish" that thrum takes over, and gradually transforms into what sounds like a symphony of crickets, over a murky muted pulse, until finally "Neon And Rain" slips into full on dubbed out shoegaze, a warm whirling shimmer, laced with jagged bits of echoey effects, perfectly evoking as the title suggests, the glow of neon on a dark, rainy night...
"No, Def Leppard don't suck. Their first few albums are pretty great." So we said in a postscript to our review of Savage's Loose 'N Lethal last time. Well let's put our money where our mouth is, and do what we do here, which is write about music we like, dammit. So, here's Def Leppard's 1980 debut, On Through The Night. Despite the most ridiculous "space truckin'" cover art, and Def Leppard's eventual commercial hair metal success-to-excess trajectory, this is a kick ass album. A bona fide NWOBHM classic. Not over produced and over cheesed like some of their later million sellers. Though definitely pro and polished, heavier than you'd expect, and full on rockin', right out of the gate with the anthemic call to arms "Rock Brigade". Next up is the prescient "Hello America", Def Leppard dreaming big, some keyboard synths creeping in... but they're just an embellishment on that one song alone, as there's plenty of guitar riffage to go around on this disc! Lotsa snakey licks, some slide on the big beat of "It Don't Matter". Yeah, on and on through the night you'll hear Def Lep's six stringers Steve Clark (R.I.P.) and Pete Willis duking it out over Rick Savage's bass lines and the solid (two-armed, at the time) drumming of Rick Allen. While wailing over it all are the distinctive, nasally pipes of Joe Elliott (hmm, he's credited here with "throat" just like HR in the Bad Brains).
As the NWOBHM did, Def Leppard take the '70s sounds of British arena rockers like Led Zep and UFO and inject some new vitality and purpose. Youthful energy and all that. And they had learned their lessons well. (It took a few albums into the '80s before they fully fumbled the torch they'd been passed.) There's some mellower, melancholic moments (parts of "Sorrow Is A Woman", of course, ferinstance) but nothing like a ballad, this is mostly a headbanging good time with flashes of royal majesty.
A few further comments on this record: the Leps continue to prophesize their own impending fame with the cheering crowd mixed in on the urgent "Rocks Off". And "Answer To The Master" is just a classic heavy metal song title ain't it? As is (another prophecy?) "Wasted"...
So, knowing full well that I am impervious to any mockery, having weathered plenty with my past admissions (Tool, Fastway, Warlord, Bad News), I will stand tall, and say that the new Deftones record is amazing. Maybe even better than their last record, 'Around The Fur', 'White Pony' puts the Deftones even more safely apart from the 'nu-metal' crowd they are often (and unfairly) lumped in with. Sure, there's the occasional Rage-Against-The-Machine-isms, but that's not so bad (we all loved the Refused record which bordered on RATM territory) and this record is just fucking great. Heavy and weird and catchy and dark, and sometimes slow and creepy (their admitted Depeche Mode obsession is in full effect). Plus some guest vocals from Tool frontman Maynard, make for the best Tool song that never was. Fucking essential.
God, I love the Deftones. I can't help it. And why should I even try? I've proudly proclaimed it in the past and I will continue to do so. Their records strike this perfect balance between thunderous, skull crushing heaviness and heartbreaking, soul shattering lovliness. Sweet, wispy melodies flit delicately between falling slabs of impossibly heavy sound, downtuned guitars spew molten rivers of roiling riffs and frothing feedback, Chino Moreno's gorgeous velvety croon, wraps itself lovingly around your head, filling your ears with warm melodic gauze before exploding into a banshee-like wail and splitting your skull into a thousand pieces. Crushing metallic dirges dissipate into drone-y, whirring soundscapes of hushed, almost whispered vocals and delicate, crystalline melodies. So perfect.
This is a single hour long track, an improvised soundtrack to a 1930 Carl Dreyer film. Turkish drum, electronics, guitar and powerbook. Very spare and ambient with lots of room sound, clicks and clatter, the sound of people laughing (at the film we would
The latest from Finnish minimalist electronic dub technician Vladisav Delay is not in fact a record of demos as the title might lead you to believe, but is actually the first release on his own Huume label, and is easily the most exciting thing he's ever done. Still dabbling in dub, but just barely, this is spare and haunting, with massive expanses of shimmering sound, reverbed emanations that ripple endlessly to the fuzzy grey of the horizon. Industrial clatter is stretched and reshaped into rhythmic echoes, never coalescing enough to constitute an actual beat, but more a series of random pulses and throbs, providing a skeletal support for Delay's blurry indistinct map of abstract dub. Imagine the first groundbreaking Pole record, played through rusty loudspeakers, mounted on unsteady supports, spread throughout a bombed out and wasted urban landscape, the sound waves reflecting from jagged, toppled masonry, shattered windows, and rubble strewn alleys. But then somehow, imbue this murky otherworldy ambience with a distant warm glow, a sort of slight hopefulness, minor keys distantly mirrored by subtle major keys, a single shaft of sunlight filtered through dust choked atmosphere and filthy weather worn windows. Just enough to allow for some slight rosy shading to the otherwise grey sheets of sonic shimmer. At once totally soothing and hypnotically dreamy, but also a deep and darkly challenging listen.
If you can imagine a black metal DUB record, released on Chain Reaction, then this debut from Demdike Stare might be just what you're looking for. A collaboration between one half of the group Pendle Coven, and one of the guys who helps run the amazing Finders Keepers label, the duo craft suffocatingly dark drones, and stark skeletal minimal house music, fusing the two into some sort of mysterious rhythmic black beast. The sound dense and dark, grim and frosty, but infused with all sorts of world music elements, Middle Eastern folk, Indian soundtracks, Turkish psych, the result is really hard to pin down, super stark and dubby a la Pole one minute, then lush and Middle Eastern sounding a la Muslimgauze the next, but just as often, something much more spare and harrowing, buzzy and drone-y, and very very very dark.
The record opens with "Suspicious Drone", which is just that, a dense, deep, throbbing chunk of low end rumble, but shot through with undulating synth pulses, and laced with muted effects, before, a super skittery rhythm is introduced, all wreathed in a haze of Goblin-y synth. The second track, "Haxan Dub", is as you might have surmised super dubbed out, spacious and spare, the beats clipped and minimal, until about halfway through when a second beat joins in, creating a strange stuttery offbeat, very darkly groovy. And then there's "Regressor", a super abstract sprawl of rhythmic clicks, echo reverbed ambience, and very little else, bar the occasional synth squiggle or disembodied sample, the result is truly haunting and weirdly gorgeous. And so it goes, the second half of the record is a bit heavier on the world music, with much of the music being made up of chopped and looped samples, or recontextualized motifs, like on "Trapped Dervish, where a fragment of fiddle and a reverb drenched snippet of female vocals, are blurred into a gorgeous expanse of murky rhythmic ambience, but "Haxan" gets all Chain Reaction heroin house-y, while "Conjoined" is all tangled rhythms, and layered drums, until "Ghostly Hardware" finishes things off in appropriately ominous fashion, a long buzzing low end dronescape, all whirring synths, crackling textures, and pulsing bass, never truly locking into a rhythm, instead drifting and floating ghostlike. So good. One of our favorite new electronic records for sure.
Barely a month has passed since volume 5 in Demdike Stare's series of Test Pressing 12"s, and along comes number six, and like the previous installment, it finds this hauntological duo moving even further from their gloomy electro creep, into a world of alien dancefloor avant electro. The A side almost sounds like two different club tracks playing simultaneously, with looped pitch shifted vocals, over a skittery breakbeat, and wreathed in swaths of thick buzzing noise, and dense swells of ominous rumble, a sort of industrial hip hop hybrid, all tangled up into some post-dubstep noisiness, with the second half getting totally wild, the production splintering into all sorts of strange shapes, before finally jettisoning the beat, and finishing with a killer sprawl of thick, crumbling, almost blackened dronemusic, before unexpectedly, the beat re-surfaces right at the end, for one final beat heavy flourish.
The B side manages to somehow get even more dense and noisy, brutal and bombastic, a sort-of rhythm constructed from skipping static and throbbing bass gristle, less dancefloor and more floorcore, not hard to imagine hearing some weirdo noise dude spitting out this sort of caustic crunch, that is until part way through, when those blasts of static coalesce into a super dark, dubbed out beat, that's thick, and heavy, and darkly groovy, fiercely minimal, but ominous and sinister and seriously sick. Here's hoping the upcoming Demdike full length continues to explore similarly fierce and fucked up sounds. Might just be the best of the Testpressing so far, most definitely the meanest...
As we patiently wait for Demdike Stare to gather up all of their 'Test Pressing' 12"s into some kind of cd or lp box set, we continue to dig every single installment, each dramatically different than the last, and as a whole, offering up some of the best, and most adventurous music we've herd from these guys.
Volume 7 is no different, the A side a woozy, skittery slab of avant ghost-dub, the vibe like something's wrong with your speakers, or your turntables, or your ears, or your MIND, the main melodic loop is slipper, and pitchy, and is soon joined by a haunting angelic chorale, all the while things get grimier and more distorted, until about half way through, the murk clears, and reveals an old school breakbeat, which is quickly surrounded by industrial clatter, and all sorts of sinister sounds, eventually the creepy, choral dub returns, the two sounds merged into some mutant staring of spectral electronica.
The flipside starts out nearly ambient, before swooping backwards beats gradually drift in, then the clip of some diva vocals, looped and layered, chopped up and stuttery, the sound growing quickly funky and super old school, the beat some retro hip hop rhythm, and the chopped up voices collaged into a weird fractured and fucked up take on that sort of C&C Music Factory sound we all grew up with, a super weird analogue for the A side, but even as funky and groovy as it is, it's still shrouded in misty murk, and flecked with ominous rumbling drones, the poppiness more than tempered by Demdike's twisted production.
As always, housed in simple black and white sleeves, printed with the distinctive text heavy Demdike Stare Test Pressing artwork, and very VERY limited.
Finally, Demdike Stare's dark and dizzying, murky and mysterious hauntological black dub triptych, previously available via three separate slabs of vinyl, is now available on cd, gathered up into a single, nicely packaged triple disc set. And loaded with bonus tracks (nearly 40 minutes extra all told), which makes this pretty much a shoe-in for Record Of The Week...
Demdike Stare are one of the few bands who seem to be a unanimous aQ favorite, everyone here LOVES these guys, and judging on how many of the various lps we've sold, everyone out there does too. Which makes sense, when you consider, DS basically create a kind of black metal dubstep, or as we (and others) like to describe it, a blackened dub record on Chain Reaction. Either one should give you an idea of the sort of dark sonic energy these guys conjure up. Thick claustrophobic atmospheres, skeletal rhythms, thick throbbing bass, skittering dubbed out beats, disembodied voices, stuttering minimal sort-of-dubstep, looped and processed African folk music (??), swirling glitched out electronics, deeeep pulsing dronemusic, reverb drenched post-rock-via-techno skitter, all woven into a swirling organic mass of dub flecked blacktronica, dark and sinister and dubby, and weirdly house-y, sprawling and epic and creepy and so totally sweeping and cinematic.
The first disc, Forest Of Evil, was originally two sidelong tracks, the first starts out all deep shimmer, with a softly melodic buzz, spidery acoustic guitars, long stretches of billowy black ambience, bits of shuffly jazzy drift, peppered with thick shards of buzzy fractured dub bass and Kompakt style skitter, giving way to glistening late night techno, whirling pop ambient, and blissed out ethereal dronemusic, while the second is darkly dramatic, epic and majestic, like some lost Italian soundtrack, big drums, orchestral and ominous, looped samples, blurred melodic smears over deep pulsing bass, whirling clouds of cymbal shimmer, insectoid FX buzz, jumbled atonal melodies (hints of Bernard Herrmann), the vibe tense and haunting, with some dubstep bass buzz, that slowly dissolves into a Caretaker like outro, all layered strings wreathed in hiss and crackle, hazy and druggy and divine. The bonus track "Quiet Sky" conjures up just what the title implies, a quiet sky, but a dark, bruised midnight sky, flecked with stars, soft swirls of metallic shimmer like gauzy clouds, the song gradually developing a strange minimal hiccuppy rhythm, underpinning the deep melancholic swells, a strange almost industrial tinged bit of pop ambience.
The second disc, Liberation Through Hearing, is thematically related to the Book Of The Dead, and focuses on the space between death and rebirth. Rendered in greys and blacks, in buzz and rumble, beginning with some woozy late night Portishead style downtempo trip hop, low slung looped skitter and swell, lush swirls of cinematic strings, ghostly choirs, a softly lurching rhythmic stutter, a deep cavernous throb, sounding like a ghostly stripped down dubstep. Which gives way to heaving expanses of black tidal thrum, muted scrapings, all wound into hypnotic pulses of dark energy, laced with distant chiming melodies, a haunting, gauzey faded memory in sound, drawn from radios with dying batteries and gradually slowing turntables, a soft focus symphony of creaks and rumbles and blurred low end shimmer. The first half finishes with a swoonsome smear of looped ambience, like a field recording of an after hours nightclub captured in a temporal loop, warm and druggy and fuzzy, strangely hypnotic and rhythmic, totally trancelike, a creeped out wasteland soundscape, mysterious and chilling, which is eventually augmented by thick slabs of corrosive low end, and heavily reverbed industrial clatter, which eventually emerges into a strange sea of crackle and hum, of warbly rhythms, chiming bells and distorted crunch, sounding a bit like Jeck spinning Pole record, abstract and spaced out and hauntingly lovely.
The second half opens with thick streaks of ghostly mesmer, all washed out and slowly decaying, underpinned by thick swaths of dubstep style bass wobble, but muted and smoothed into soft smears of undulating blackness. Subtle skitter surfaces, as do distant voices, the sound getting more and more dubby, a bit like a Caretaker record on Chain Reaction, that sort of hazy abstract drift, but anchored to barely there beats, the buzz building to an intense coda, all the while wrapped in throbbing woofer punishing low end.
Some super stripped down rhythms are laid over a swirling ghostly backdrop of fragmented melodies and a buried house music thump, tangled and blurred strings wrap the proceedings in a veil of softened reverb and subtle echo, the almost Eastern sounding pulse and swell reminding us a bit of the late great Muslimgauze.
Finally, the record collapses into some sort of melancholic sonic reverie, a hushed ambient outro, a tranquil sea of soft swirling swells, clouds of echo and reverb, a dreamy darkness, a blackened bit of blurpop minimalism, laced with muted streaks of fuzz and hiss, but all gradually sinking into Demdike Stare's endless trancelike billowing blackness.
The bonus tracks on this one (3 of them, clocking in at nearly 20 minutes) continue the record's surreal sonic journey, spidery rhythms, and chiming melodies are looped and layered over a simple pulsing propulsive groove, the whole thing slightly warped and warbled, as if recorded onto an old piece of tape, and played back on some dusty old ramshackle tape player, ghostly, but surprisingly playful at first, before slipping into some seriously creepy, deeeeeep droning rumbles, wreathed in shimmering solar winds, softly billowing sheets of hiss and static, eventually shedding all of that, leaving just a thick morass of softly undulating low end, shot through with a slo-mo house music pulse, only to have the hiss and whir return, this time relegated to the background, until the track finishes surprisingly with what sounds like a bit of African style funkiness, before disappearing in a brief cloud of swirling hushed buzz.
Finally, the third disc, Voices Of Dust, unveils the Tryptych's final movement, opening with "Black Sun", a short stretch of some super minimal electronic dronemusic, all layered overtones and strange sonic shadings, which gives way to the chopped and looped and stuttery vocal driven "Hashshashin Chant" which takes tribal drums and traditional folk music vocals, and twists them all up, and tangles those elements with strange percussion, industrial buzz, the whole thing a dizzying chunk of hypno-electronic collaged psychedelic mashup weirdness, before slipping into the much murkier and minimal "Repository Of Light", which unfurls like some sort of Hawkwind-meets-Pole spaced out digi-dub drift. And so it goes, the sound flitting between impossibly realized miniature sound worlds, cinematic electronic ambience, ominously pulsing low end rumble, hazy glitchy dubbed out Jeckian smears, super blown out electronic big beat bombast, almost industrial sounding avant big band abstraction, roiling corrosive soft noise, bellowing foghorn-like melodies, warped and woozy scratchy old lp warblescapes and beyond.
The bonus tracks are the perfect, hazy, ghostly coda, the first, a warm, whispery bit of keening abstract melody and thick pulsing thrum, all very washed out and space-y and dreamlike, a constantly vibrating living thing, a throbbing organic expanse of minimal space drone psychedelic ambience, until finally, the whole disc is laid to rest with 9 minutes of heaving, glacial, metallic creep and creak, wreathed in record crackle, the final sounds unfurl like some old dusty Tim Hecker 45 spinning at 16rpm, mournful moaning melodies, buried rhythmic thumps, shimmery sitar like buzz, all hazy and smeared and lysergic and mysteriously murky, the perfect slipping-into-darkness, leaving-this-world-behind finale...
Gorgeously evocative, creepy and cinematic, abstract and otherworldly, druggy and dreamy, fantastically haunting and utterly spine tinglingly stunning. And thus, absolutely recommended.
Packaged in a super swank, oversized, hardcover book style digipak.
Fellow doom junkies, you'll agree: what could be better than a 3-way sludge split?? Especially when the three bands are all from Finland, 'cause you know we love Finland. Only one of the three bands here, the mighty Frogskin, had we previously heard, but it turns out, ALL of 'em are awesome, and very well-matched, stylistically. In fact, to tell the truth, at first it's hard to tell when one band leaves off and another begins. Demonic Death Judge (great name!), Semtex, and Frogskin each in turn dish out tremendously heavy, lumbering, loping riffage, with a liberal application of feedback, and rasping ugly vokills. Their sludge has a Sabbath-derived swing to it, for sure, and features plenty of psychedelic guitar shred soloing, especially from DDJ. So these three represent the warped Finnish branch of a doomed-out, drugged-up family that includes both Eyehategod and Electric Wizard in its lineage.
First up is DDJ, with three tracks, each over 7 minutes long, their dirty stoner grooves betraying a love of classic '70s psych and metal. They also aren't afraid of some shining melody in their songs, like on one of this album's highlights, "Beneath The Monument", which also makes good use of disturbing samples, layered and looped. Epic, glorious stuff, which is not what we'd usually say about sludge. Then comes the pot-lovin' Semtex, who boast the best and/or cutest logo. Their four tracks are more overtly drug-oriented, the band a bit like the Finnish answer to Bongzilla, delivering lotsa lazy, bluesy, doped out doominess. And then Frogskin wrap things up, their three contributions to this sludgey split taking it into an even filthier, nastier, crustier direction. It's been doomy all along, but now it's time to run and hide, kiddies.
Wow, what a wicked, wasted 3-way! Better than most single-band discs of this ilk we've ever heard. If it's any recommendation - and it is - we've been listening to this A LOT since we got it in. And are also hoping that a Vol. 2 is indeed on the way, as well as new full-lengths by all 3 of these great bands�
It's been AGES since we last heard from this black metal horde (all the way back in 2009), and at the time, we were pretty obsessed. Definitely a supergroup, featuring members of Shining, Diabolicum, Naer Matron, 1349, Pantheon I, Gehenna, Aeternus AND Doheimsgard, Den Saakaldte (named for a Ved Buens Ende song!) crafted a twisted avant garde depressive blackness, the sort of thing that would have sounded right at home on the Moonfog label back in the day, shades of Thorns throughout for sure, that first record a twisted mix of classic Norwegian black buzz and all manner of fucked up ambience, fractured electronics, WTF production and strange instrumentation (trumpet! accordion!). On Kapittel II: Faen I Helvete, the sound remains twisted and dramatic, although the sound is a bit more of a classic, churning epic blackness, until the vocals come in, they're a bombastic caterwauled croon, that transforms the otherwise grim buzz into something way more over the top, but compared to that first record, this is some almost traditional sounding black metal. Midway through one track, there's a stunning stretch of epic harmonized guitars, tense and intense, until the song swoops back in all melancholic and melodic, it's pretty bad ass! And even one of our other favorite tracks, the sound immediately erupts in a roiling black churn, furious fast picked guitars, progged out octopoidal drumming, bursts of frenzied blasting, it's a few tracks in, that things get truly avant, the sound a bit like a strange hybrid of a melodic modern metal dirge, and some sort of Victorian sea shanty, but instead of sounding weird, these guys simply transform it into something equally black, moody and malevolent, and sure there are some soaring clean vocals, that add yet another dimension, but it manages to stay just this side of weirdness, and instead, ends up crushingly majestic and dramatic, and so it goes for the rest of the record, a dense black sprawl of tangled black buzz, of furious metallic heaviness, of epic blackened majesty, not nearly as doomy or depressive as the first, and way less trumpet (as in, none), but the group seems to have sacrificed some of their twisted experimental streak for a sound much more concise, and more directly beholden to the classic Norwegian blackness that came before...
A list of the members of this new group should be enough to have most black metallers diving for the add-to-cart button: Kvarforth of Shining and Diabolicum, Skyellg from Naer Mataron and Paradigma, Seldemann from 1349 and Pantheon I, S. Winter from Gehenna and Aeternus and finally Jormundgand from Dodheimsgard. Odds are you probably have records by most, if not all of those bands in your collection, and while the sounds of those various groups are pretty varied, it will probably not prepare you for the sound of Den Saakaldte (which some might recognize as a Ved Buens Ende song title!).
Self described as "depressive black metal music with a modern avantgardist touch", the record begins with a long stretch of haunting choral voices, processed FX, soaring strings, swirling synths, deep rumbling drones, cabaret piano, shortwave interference, bits of hiss and glitch. It's an intro, sure, but only inasmuch as it's at the beginning of a black metal record, there are plenty of avant free-rock groups who would kill to come up with a track this cool and weird. But it is a black metal record, and it is after all an intro, so when the first song kicks in all heavy downtuned guitar, we're ready, but what we're not ready for is the trumpet, yep TRUMPET, the guitar trumpet drum mix is pretty cool, but soon gives way to something much more black, a churning blackened chugfest, heavy as fuck, with super deep howled processed vocals, killer drumming, amazing guitar playing, and super catchy main riff, the song twisting and turning and returning to the intro with an Eastern sounding guitar melody replacing the trumpet, before exploding back into that unmistakable Norwegian buzz, before slipping into some woozy doom, before lurching to a stop, leaving just a muted crackly clean guitar, and moaning almost choral vocals, before one final flurry of black buzz and a creepy drifty outro.
The rest of the record follows suit, channeling the spirit of the Norwegian legends: Gorgoroth, Ulver, Arcturus, Burzum, but with a definite dramatic vibe, and plenty of avant flourishes, whether they be weird acoustic guitar / accordion interludes, or strangled maniacal almost operatic vocals, or whole songs of dubbed out rhythms and processed piano, skittery electronic beats and disembodied horn sections.
The record finishes off with the nearly 12 minute lone "Jag Ar Den Fallna", featuring a guitar part that is total Thorns, but again, laced with minor key trumpet flourishes, as well as spidery guitar melodies, a groovy doomy depressive dirge, that explodes into a blast of black fury before crumbling into a sort of stumbling depressive Joy Division-y lurch, the track slipping effortlessly back and forth, from moaning minor key lumber, to blasting shrieking blackness, and back again, eventually the two disparate elements becoming one, the song turning into some blackened My Dying Bride, all epic classic doom, before that Thorns-like riff returns to finish things off, leading directly into the sub-minute long coda, a super creepy collage of little girl voices and atonal synths, wrapped in a gauzy otherworldly swirl of dense delay and reverb.
It might sound cliched to say, but they really don't make records that sound so much like this anymore, that nineties Norwegian sound, heavy and dark and catchy and majestic and mysterious and brutal and black, these are the sounds that lured us over to the dark side, and it's easy to see why, and strangely enough it still sounds as good today as it did 15 years ago. WAY recommended.
Fans of the amazing Cambodian Rocks compilations we've reviewed in the past are definitely gonna want this one too, a collection compiled by the members of the modern LA-based Cambodian pop band Dengue Fever (longtime AQ faves) of their favorite classic Cambodian rock and roll jams from the sixties and seventies, a golden renaissance age for art and music in Cambodia, directly preceding the reign of the Khmer Rouge, who took over the country in 1975 and attempted to wipe out any and all traces of modern society, and as the liner notes point out, much of the music survived, but most of the musicians did not.
As with the Cambodian Rocks comps, the songs here are groovy and funky and fun, with shuffling rhythms, wild psychedelic guitar solos, warm wheezing organs, fuzzy surf guitars, and of course incredible vocals, the perfect mix of Western style rock and pop and Eastern style traditional folk music. Even though on the surface, the songs all seem sunshiney and playful, but there's definitely an element of pathos and drama, many of the songs are subtly maudlin and melancholy, there's even a song called "I Will Starve Myself To Death", but listening to it, with its jangle guitar and shuffly rhythm, you would never guess the grim title and perhaps lyrical content. There's also a killer cover of Sonny Bono's "Bang Bang", popularized by Cher, Nancy Sinatra and Terry Reid, and here it's gorgeously haunting, a waltzy bit of melodrama, with that immediately recognizable chorus, even in a different language. So good. We just can't get enough of this stuff, anyone who dug those Cambodian Rocks comps, or who loves the Sublime Frequencies collections, will no doubt go crazy for this too. There is definitely some overlap with this collection and the partially out of print Cambodian Rocks series, but there are definitely some tracks here we've never heard before (like "Bang Bang", or as it's titled here, "Snaeha"), and besides, the proceeds from the sale of this record will be donated to Cambodian Living Arts: www.cambodianlivingarts.org! So what are you waiting for??
If Martin Newell from Cleaners From Venus or Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices somehow grew up in the sleepy San Diego suburb of La Mesa, CA in the seventies, managed to secure a bunch of instruments and recording equipment from garage sales and swap meets and then recorded in their bedroom an elegiac ode to the ordinary charm and civic pride of their childhood hometown, you would get something very close to this brilliantly lo-fi slab of DIY bizarro-pop wondrousness!
Recorded in 1984 by Joseph D'Angelo and a handful of friends, At The Medieval Castle Nineteen 100-Year Lifetimes Since (one of the best titles ever!), is the kind of obscure scrappy visionary recording (along with the likes of Daniel Johnston, Sun City Girls and The Frogs) that is embedded in the DNA of so many indie bands that came afterward - from Yo La Tengo and The Supreme Dicks to The Unicorns and the bands of The Elephant 6 collective. It's a hotly Technicolor teenage daydream of nostalgic childhood, of Sears Christmas catalogs, Disneyland, skate parks and summer carnivals, that is slowly fading away, as some songs here delve into more ornery young adult concerns, like the psychedelic pseudo anti-drug PSA of "An Open Letter To The Seniors From Mackenzie". Layered riffs of guitar, horns, organs and drum machines, sometimes used in pondering twee instrumentals, but more often in wide-eyed and wobbly surreal psych-pop confections, seemingly sung by earnest but very warped high schoolers. In our minds we can imagine Departmentstore Santas trying to enter this record in a city wide talent contest sponsored by the local chamber of commerce and barely squeaking by with an honorable mention from a baffled jury. So very great and weird!! Thanks to the folks at Superior Viaduct for digging out this obscurity. A must have for fans of any of the above bands/artists mentioned!
The Philosopher's Stone marks the end the of ten long and productive years during which Der Blutharsch have unleashed their signature dark neo-folk upon the masses. Apocalyptic prophecies, mantras, and manifestos spewed forth from the hate-forged lips of Albin Julius, but even this must come to an end. Over the course of 8 tracks and nearly 56 minutes, long-time fans can't help but sit back and marvel at the gargantuan change between 1998's Der Sieg Des Lichtes Ist Des Lebens Heil! and the present release.
The band was considered highly innovative at its inception, but in retrospect it's easily classifiable as straight-forward neo-folk, albeit at its very finest. These days? Geez, I mean, we're hearing something like a blackened, post-industrial Loop or Jesus and Mary Chain. Or maybe even what the Birthday Party would've sounded like if they were a suicidal '70s psych group. Staccato dirges grab distorted basslines and ride them into droney psychedelia, underneath a sky of swirling guitar leads and brutal, haunting vocals. In a way, the album is heavily indebted to Death In June's old, old album The Guilty Have No Past, but on tons of heroin -- and probably a fistful of other downers and/or mood stabilizers. But through it all Julius's mantra could not be clearer. In fact, the back page of the booklet even reads in bold letters: "Uniforms are always changing, rock n' roll will stay forever." And if rock n' roll's main objective is to scare parents, or the majority of society in general, Der Blutharsch are definitely, definitely a rock band. Even though they sure as hell don't look like one. If you were to see them in the street, you'd probably try as hard as possible not to make eye contact, and maybe assume they were an extremely well-funded fascist militia of sorts. Ah, which brings up their (at least implicitly fascist) politics. Well, they're highly questionable at best, and to get the whole story, you'd need to maybe talk with them yourself. As for us, it's not much different than listening to old Ike and Tina Turner recordings, great songs written by a much-less-than-admirable dude. Either way, The Philosopher's Stone is a fantastic cross-section of what Julius and crew are capable of producing, truly mood-altering, honestly fucked up music that completely transcends any traditional understanding of the way songs -- and albums -- work. Somewhere between a heathen liturgy and a well-produced personal catharsis, Der Blutharsch never fails to provide the listener with new experiences and forge new territory in a genre that tends to be cripplingly simplistic, predictable, and indulgent. Recommended.
As always, the packaging is incredible, the cd is in a miniature hardcover book style digipak, all glossy inks and subtle embossing, a big booklet, and super striking imagery. The lp too is extravagant, a similarly rendered glossy layout, but with a BONUS 7" with two tracks not on the cd, in a full color sleeve affixed to the inside of the gatefold.
We actually toyed with the idea of making this 'record of the week' (indie-rock cred be damned!) on the strength of their top-ten single 'Bills Bills Bills' alone (I saw the video for this at a friend's house and it was almost enough to make me want to sign up for cable! I mean the music, not just their outfits). That song, and a couple of others like it certainly make this a record that all those down with the the last, ex-cel-lent TLC disc will love. Indeed, the intro to TLC's 'No Scrubs' is all over this album. True, there's a few of those obligatory urban r&b slow jams that you'll probably want to fast forward past (unless you're in the right 'mood'), but the rest is well worth it. Guest appearance from Missy Elliott.
Everyone knows (or should know) that with the apparent cessation of recording/performing by TLC (the R+B band EVERYONE liked, even my 'metalhead' housemate Josh loves 'Fanmail') that Destiny's Child is the only R+B group that really and truly matters. They look
Furious old-school blackened death metal from Australia. This record was quite a surprise considering how much their earlier efforts sucked. But this is the shit. Incredibly heavy and surprisingly catchy with relentless Norwegian style blast beats mixed
Yet another record from Mark Deutrom, previously and probably still best known for playing bass in the Melvins once upon a time. But for a while now, Deutrom has been cranking out incredible solo records, most on the Rock Is Hell label, and somehow remaining well under the radar. We'd say something like "this one will change everything", but we're guessing it probably won't, and who knows, perhaps he's content to be right where he is. We sure are if it means we keep getting more and more records like this.
With every record it's sort of hard to know what to expect, the last couple were sort of matched out proggy pop, and super catchy sooner rock heaviness, but this new one, begins with an epic 20 minute side long jam titled "Dick Cheney", which spends its first 4 minutes droning ominously, lush layered textures, slowly shifting, finally some buzzing metallic guitar drifts in, as does some percussion, it feels like the song is about to explode, but then instead, transforms into a lurching minimal avant doom creep, spaced out chugs, loads of space, the vibe very Harvey Milk-ish actually, and then the vocals come in, and the song is somehow transformed into something way catchier and popper than it has any right to be. Especially near the end, when the guitar swoops up into a super catchy melody, before devolving into a weird little chug flecked, industrial noise outro. Phew. Most bands would be content with that 20 minutes, but there are three more sides here to dig, all of which display Deutrom's mastery of whatever the fuck he wants to do, from the brooding slow burn psych of "Winter Haystacks At Twilight", that almost sounds like the intro to some doom metal jam, to the very Melvins-y "Sky Full Of Witches", which also displays a seriously poppy vibe, a woozy, lurching stoner pop groove that sounds like it could have been plucked right off some Kyuss B-side. And that pretty much sets the tone, the sound lurches from groovy, mathy, prog-sludge, to groovy stoner pop, to dreamy almost jazzy psych, to super trippy avant abstract space-doom, to twang flecked, reverie balladry, often with several of those bleeding into each other.
Goddamn, this guy is a genius, and a seriously unsung one at that. Fans of the Melvins, Harvey Milk, Prizehog, Kyuss, and just twisted abstract heaviness, and moody metallic avant-gardery, get this and every other thing you can find. You'll thank us later!
Mark Deutrom might be best know for (previously) playing bass in the Melvins, but as longtime readers of the aQ list can attest to, his solo records are pretty goddamn great, and weird, and heavy, and freaking cool. And this new one is no different. A brief three song 12", the title track of which is the soundtrack to a totally eye popping video, check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r22d9BxVV_8
And it's not just the visuals that are amazing, the music more than lives up to the crazy video, a wild, mathed out, prog-metal, noise rock jam, that's bombastic and crazy catchy, freaked out and super psychedelic, an instrumental blowout, that we played like 5 times in a row, and would have probably played more had we not wanted to check out the other two jams here, both of which, equally awesomely mathy and metallic, progged out, intricate, super dynamic, catchy like crazy, wild and weird, and really really good. It's a wonder more folks aren't hip to this guy and his solo records. It's short, but totally worth it. Killer cover art too, with artwork from the Ruckus Juice video. LIMITED TO 207 COPIES, each cover hand silkscreened!
Another disc of horrifying progressive creepiness from Italian underground masters of the bizarre and the frightening, Devil Doll. Never was a band more suited to scoring horror films (since Goblin), but Devil Doll don't, they just weave epic and haunting
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Still even more haunting and lush frightscapes from this Italian troupe of musical miscreants. Orchestral and progressive and heavy and occasionally carnivalesque. Super distorted creep-out piano abruptly shifts to a melancholy soundscape underpinning mad
More Devil Doll insanity. It seems unfair to always compare Devil Doll to Goblin, but it's sort of unavoidable as they both traffic in the same creepy proggy nightmarescapes and they are both so good. To be fair though, Devil Doll have more room to play
Porter Records strikes again. And again and again and again and again... We've been overwhelmed with releases from this one-man-run label juggernaut, we might even have to hire another person just to keep up. But until that happens, we'll just have to pick our favorites, and do our best to get them reviewed and on the list. And with all the stuff Porter keeps digging up it really is difficult to pick favorites, but this one definitely hit the spot.
Two long form pieces, both composed by a youngish composer Andrew Raffo Dewar, the first, "Six Lines Of Transformation" is a sprawling drift of deep swells, soft trills, fluttering woodwinds, dizzying melodies, haunting percussion, and plenty of space. This is a swirling soft cloud of free jazz flutter, peppered with some strange music concrete, and some almost folky melodies. Nearly a half hour, beginning tranquil and a bit droney, with the various instruments, sliding down descending scales like musical rainfall, the piece gets more and more spare until the last movement when things get really strange, and players start huffing through the mouthpieces, bits of bizarre percussion surface, buzzing drones, really cool, and pretty strange for sure.
But it's the second piece that is worth the price of admission. The title says it all, "Music For Eight Bamboo Flutes", 40 minutes of layered woodwind drone, subtly shifting tones, a slowly unfurling melody spread out over the whole 40 minutes, what sounds like crickets in the background, as if it was performed and recorded outside (maybe it was?), the piece goes from soft and breathy to dense and densely layered, tons of overtones, soft fluttery high end, swirling clouds of drones and tones shifting and shimmering, swelling to intense crescendos, then drifting back down to a hushed whir, so very simple, yet richly textured, so primitive and primeval and mesmerizing and beautiful. Absolutely essential listening for the drone inclined, and jazzbos with a thing for far out, space-y and static sounds...
