Not any black metal band can share a split with the mighty and mighty bizarre Urfaust, with their blustery buzz and crazy crooning. But Finland's Circle Of Ouroborus were well up to the task. In fact they actually sound quite bit like Urfaust, albeit in a way more damaged way, which is saying a lot.
On the split with Urfaust we reviewed recently, Circle Of Ouroborus offered up their own cracked take on buzzing black metal, murky almost punky, super lo-fi, practice space production, mumble warbly guitars, drums tinny and buried in the mix, and a totally demented vocalist wailing in a growling cracked croon, WAY up in the mix, shouting and howling. We thought they sounded a bit like a grim black metal Fall.
On Shores, the band stretch out a bit, but still hew close to the sound they share with their sonic brethren in Urfaust, a loping lurching, midtempo buzz, sing songy melodies, a murky black swirl, downtuned and droney, but stumblingly propulsive. Seasick and swaying drunkenly, these tracks sound more like blackened versions of some eighties British post punk band than some cult black metal band. And when the vocals kick in it pretty much seals the deal. When Mark E. Smith dies, and the Fall are no more, he'll strike a deal with the devil, come back from the dead, and this is where he'll end up. Crooning, in that nasally whine, sing/speaking for some mysterious jangly black metal post punk rock band. And if there was any doubt, Circle Of Ouroborus cover "She's Lost Control" by Joy Division. It's not particularly black either, it's gloomy and gothy and propulsively punky, guitars slide and slither, the vocals a dark croon. It almost sounds like a lo-fi live recording of Interpol or some long lost Damned track. Which is a very good thing for sure. It's just weird that these guys exist as a underground, grim and cult black metal band, when sonically, they owe as much to punk rock, and goth rock, and new wave as they do Darkthrone or Mayhem. Sure there's plenty of buzz and suffocating black atmosphere, but to truly dig this you'll definitely need either a love of totally bizarre and not entirely black metal, or a soft spot for classic newwavepostpunk (Fall, Wire, Gang Of Four, Joy Division) or preferably BOTH! And we definitely have both in spades, so as you might imagine this is WAY recommended!
We've said it before, we'll say it again, pretty much all good things come from Finland. Okay, maybe that's us being all hyperbolic again, but c'mon, Finland blows our minds, STILL! Especially with music. Let us count the ways: Skepticism, Mieskuoro Huutajat, Vladislav Delay, Thergothon, Tiermes, Circle, Pharaoh Overlord, Shape Of Despair, Kiila, Children Of Bodom, Es, Hanoi Rocks, Smack, Kroko, Kemialliset Ystavat, Anaksimandros, Avarus, Uton, Doktor Kettu, Islaja, Clandestine Blaze, Horna, Ride For Revenge, Baptizm, Cleaning Women, Paavoharju, Stumm, Chainsmoker, Tivol, Reverend Bizarre, Dead Reptile Shrine, Loinen, Magyar Posse, Itavayla, Exordium, Aaviko... Phew! We could go on and on, but what other region has produced so much weird and wonderful music, from damaged outsider black metal to dreamy foresty folk, to clattery free noise to droning sludge rock and pretty much every strange stop in between.�
But even amidst this veritable who's who of AQ faves, this lineup of damaged and demented, dreamy and brilliant and beautiful music makers, another Finnish band still manages to stand out.�Circle Of Ouroborus. Ostensibly a black metal band, but the more we hear and with every successive record, we begin to wonder why any one ever considered them a metal band at all. But that only makes us love them all the more.�
As we've mentioned in the past, it takes some serious weirdness to share a split with the buzz croon blackness of Urfaust, but CoO pulled it off easy, even managing to outweird the already impossibly weird Urfaust pretty much across the board. Their debut full length was a ramshackle stumbling blackened mess, all atonal guitars, and haphazard percussion, wailed, crooned and spoken vocals, detuned acoustic guitars, some black buzz, but for the most part it was some strange slightly metallic mix of Jandek and the Fall, the vocals constantly switching from Mark E. Smith whine to Jandek drawl, the music beneath following suit, going from fractured folk to hyperkinetic almost new wave black pop. And we dug it. A lot. It was difficult listening certainly, but it grew on us like crazy and became a daily listen.�
So we've been waiting and waiting for the new record. We were warned by the band that it was really strange and that there was some seriously not-metal-at-all moments, so we were pretty excited, but damn if it isn't weirder and way better than we expected.�
On Shores, the band sounded constantly on the verge of falling apart, blasting was an iffy proposition as they sounded like they might derail at any moment, the vocals were definitely tough to listen to at moments, and the guitars were tangled and mangled in gloriously messy clumps. And while some of that remains on streams, it's almost like a different band. The vocals are so much better, still weird and haunting and not always in key, but stronger, and more evocative, more emotional, often buried amidst buzzing guitars or crashing drums, allowed to croon and howl and the results make them sound like a real band. But what sort of real band is the real question. Certainly not a black metal band, although a few songs do have brief blasts of buzzing blackness, instead, they seem to have taken that Fall like sound and stretched it out into some weird gnarled gothy doom pop, at some points they sound like�damaged atonal psych pop like Times New Viking maybe, but most of the time, they sound a bit like a�super lo-fi live recording of Joy Division or Crispy Ambulance, albeit slightly blacker, or maybe some buzzy gothy modern doppelganger of Alien Sex Fiend or Specimen. Sounds weird, and it definitely is, but it's also pretty awesome. It's the sort of not entirely black, black metal record that will definitely appeal to folks just looking for something dark and moody and buzzy and far out. That said, the sound of Streams is about as black metal as CoO have ever gotten, some serious blasting buzz and some grimly buzzing blackness. But that blackness is always muted or smeared into shades of grey, draped over and amidst a collection of haunting and mysterious songs that while strangely connected and cohesive, range from the gloomy fuzzy drama of "Streams Of Depression" to the gorgeous acoustic Sentridoh-like "Anonym".
Definitely for fans of Urfaust, Nuit Noire, Lifelover and all of those peripherally black musical experimentalists...
Super striking and bizarre cover art, black and white pencil drawings of an old man's bald head sporting the CoO ouroborus symbol, the snake eating its own tail, as well as cool pencil sketches of the two band members inside, detailed down to one guy's Isengard t-shirt!
Those guys in the Starving Weirdos have been kicking our asses with one amazing release after another. And as if that weren't enough, now they've started signing other like minded noisemakers to their Atheists Are Gods label.
The first release comes from Cloaks, aka Spencer Doran, who for his first readily available domestic full length release, offers up two gorgeous lengthy pieces, one for piano, tapes, zither and bells, the other for electric guitar and piano with harmonium and electronics. The result is lush and spellbinding. The closest comparison that even begins to come close is Lubomyr Melnyk, with his dense flurries of notes, creating dizzyingly intricate swirls of melodic fragments that while ultra complex are so intricate they seem to melt into long dreamlike drifts.
Such is the case with Cloaks. And then some. The opening track begins with a strange jumble of chaotic percussion, weird boings, effects drenched squiggles, sounding like something that could be a bit goofy for our liking, but after a burst of record crackle and needle on vinyl static, the track settles into a gorgeously sun baked, glistening shimmer, a fine mist of notes enveloping the listener like a warm fog, multiple abstract melodies drifting into one another becoming gloriously intertwined, hovering ghostlike over soft drifts of smeared piano in the background. It almost sounds like Oval's Diskont, but with soft shimmery piano instead of skipping cds. Fluid and organic, softly swelling, so many notes... you know how you can sort of blur your eyes and make everything look all fuzzy, well imagine you could blur your EARS, it's like listening to Reich or Riley or Palestine with blurred ears. Soft focus and indistinct, every once in a while bits of melody coming into view but quickly fading into the sounds around it. So pretty. One of those rare tracks that we wish went on forever and ever...
The second track is a subtly different beast but with a similar vibe. Beginning with spare spidery electric guitar, suspended in a wide open expanse of near silence, a sort of skeletal post rock, which quickly slips under a gradually building wave of dense Wave-Lox like piano. Thick roiling low end squalls of reverberating rumble and rich overtones, very lush and intense. Near the final few minutes little bits of electronic glitch and grrr begin to surface, slowly wrapping themselves around the piano flurries, eventually surrounding it completely, becoming a dense buzzing electronic drone with almost no trace of the piano remaining...
Packaged in super striking silkscreened digipaks with pasted on textured paper, full color art, and with a hand screened insert.
This is a match that makes perfect sense. As Lichens and Cloudland Canyon have both been making some of the most compelling and rewarding crystalline soundscapes of the last few years. One long track clocking in at around a half hour "Exterminating Angel" does sound like the sum of both of these artists' parts. With the first half sounding much more like Lichens, gorgeous deep in space hazy explorations while the krautier leanings of Cloudland Canyon come into focus in the second half of the track propelling the sounds into their kosmiche orbit. Fans of mid-late '70s Tangerine Dream and early Heldon will for sure want to jump aboard this cosmic adventure.
Finally! We can't even begin to tell you how long we have been waiting to list this. Forever going in and out of print and when available it was always super expensive, Cluster's 1974 album Zuckerzeit has finally been given the proper and readily available reissue (Thanks Revisited!) it absolutely deserves. Probably our favorite Cluster album, it is most notably famous for helming their transition from concrete synth dronescapers to their more well known persona as crafters of pastorally cosmic electronica. Adding crisp and propulsive drum programming to their haunting synth melodies, Moebius and Roedelius split the composing duties with Moebius leaning to the more experimental while Roedelius provides the melodic sheen. Zuckerzeit hailed a new direction and focus in German music of the early seventies, with groups like Kraftwerk, and Neu moving through similar reshapes in sound. Obviously, Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin have spent some time absorbing this album. Timeless and classic, we cannot recommend this album enough!
Finally! After how long? It's been years since we've heard from Aaron Cometbus, well, at least properly. There have been some collections in the form of books, but those were compiled from old issues of the zine itself. Anyway, we thought the last issue - which marked 25 years - was his swan song, but with this one we were apparently proven wrong. From squatting to love stories, from traveling to drugs and more, Cometbus has always centered around Berkeley, California, and has always been one of our favorite zines ever. This time around things are no different, as the story once again starts on Telegraph Avenue. A few things have actually changed a bit. Over time, we've seen Aaron's stories go from zine writing to something more akin to subcultural documentation. He collects stories and retells them for our reading pleasure. He goes back to Telegraph and decides to hunt down the stories behind the area's bookstores. To be honest, this is probably mostly for hardcore fans. You know, the ones that will be discussing the same parts with each other the next time they get together and catch up. If you like Aaron's writing style, his sense of humor, the way he observes and recounts things, then this will fit perfectly with your other Cometbuses...
Due to Bristol's rather incestuous pool of avant rock bands, Crescent's name often appears in conjunction with Flying Saucer Attack, Movietone, Third Eye Foundation, and Amp. As it should, since members of Crescent have performed with all three of those groups. It is a tad disheartening to see customers buy Crescent records with the hope of hearing a cosmic drone of blissful feedback, only to find an antithetical abject muck, and then selling them back.
And you know what, there's absolutely nothing wrong with an abject muck, actually we really like abject muck. If you listen closely to the tracks that Matt Jones (Crescent's mastermind) has appeared on in Amp and Movietone, you'll realise that everything he touches ends up with a gritty lo-fi quality. And for Crescent's third album, he has taken up residence in a Bristol church to capture a rather humid, almost rusting sound on top of his very loose songs. A gothic (NOT in the Trench Coat Mafia definition) sensibility of decaying atmospheres, permeates the slow moving waves of sonorous basslines, loose hammond organ semi-improvisations, and skittering rhythms, somewhere between jazz and krautrock.
Man, we really, really love old school video games around here. The Tron and Rastan games in the store, the Arcade Ambience field recording series, Power Pill Fist, etc. It has to be part of what lured us into the world of Toronto's Crystal Castles and their 8-bit electro mayhem. We're so glad this finally came out, because half of these tracks have been on the internet for about two years and a legitimate release was looking sort of unlikely. But here it is! We digress, on with the review.
Okay, so the duo has been lumped in -- maybe mistakenly -- with the Klaxons, Justice, Digitalism, and the like, but we hear darker, more interesting minor key melodies that occasionally hint at things like The Knife and Junior Boys. In reality, they're not divorced from any of those bands, but there's something about them that gets us. No, not just the aural video game quality, but the undeniable urge to somehow say they're just a bit more punk. Fun. Playful. In fact, there's a handful of tracks on the record that aren't even mixed. And when we saw them play here a year or so ago, their singer Alice was telling us about how she had been kicked out of the previous night's venue for underage drinking.
It doesn't hurt their art-punk street cred that they're best buds with LA's own Health, who they did a split 7" with a year or so ago. When listening to Crystal Castles, there's the feeling that this duo would be just as happy blasting their sounds through a shitty stereo system at their friend's house party, but lucky for us everyone else seems to be feeling it too -- and now they can invite us along to the party.
If our instore cd player had a counter we're pretty sure we would have maxed it out by now with endless repeated plays of the debut full length by Crystal Stilts. As much as their debut ep blew us away (check the review elsewhere on the site for much gushing), this record is taking our love for them to even greater heights, so much so that we're becoming pretty darn obsessed! And how could we not, an entire record filled with smokey and catchy dark pop gems. With crooning vocals and rich hooks imbedded into every song, they've managed to create a record that we're always in the mood to hear and don't think we'll ever get sick of. You can tell that these guys probably love '60s pop and girl groups as much as they do post-punk and psychedelic garage sounds, as the songs on Alight Of Night sound like Phil Spector laying his Wall of Sound on a band whose own sound falls somewhere between The Smiths and Joy Division, or if Spacemen 3 did a record full of Crystals covers. In fact this is reminding us a lot of the Jeremy Jay Airwalker ep that we fell in love with right around this time last year.
It's so cool to see AQ customers of all stripes getting swept up in the 'Stilts' sound, unable to resist as we're blasting it in the store, and it's inevitable that they eventually make their way to the 'now playing' holder to find out who is responsible for these sound getting under their skin in such pleasurable ways. Got a good feeling this will be on many of our year end favorite lists...so damn good!
Justice, Digitalism, Crystal Castles. The list of contemporary indie-electro goes on on and on. And it's all at least slightly retro: disco, French house, video games, or whatever. But what we have to high five Australia's Cut Copy for is attempting to revive the orchestrated power-pop sounds of bands like Electric Light Orchestra! Take that, throw in a drum machine, maybe a few heavy post-production filters, and that's where they're at. Above and beyond anything else, and unlike some of their contemporaries, these guys seem to understand that they're essentially making pop music. Whereas projects like Justice sometimes rely too heavily on form rather than content, Cut Copy has their eyes on the songwriting prize. Much like British producer Richard X, they have a healthy and addictive affection for the '80s. Severed Heads, Tears for Fears, even maybe a little Roxette. Yeah! Don't come expecting a challenging musical experiment, or something as conceptual and cohesive. But if you can handle great pop tracks, just give in and let your feet do the dancing. Recommended.
If you're not scared of labels like Cherry Red, Creation, or Hut, then keep reading. And if you first heard those labels on college radio, then definitely keep reading. Darker My Love is an LA-based 4-piece that channels the energy of bands like The Stone Roses and very early Oasis. Sure, throw in some Supergrass. Absolutely summertime, windows down, driving along the coast, feel good music. The group's arrangements are thoughtful while remaining accessible and breezy. In particular we can't help but notice the vocal melodies, provided by guitarist Tim Presley and bassist Rob Barbatto. Interestingly, both artists are former members of The Fall. Also, drummer Andy Granelli was in both The Nerve Agents and The Distillers. Either way, if '90s pop, early '80s power pop, or any other kind of pop has an appeal, this is your summer record! Recommended.
The raw yet epic 1991 release from the notorious Norwegian trio of Fenriz, Nocturno Culto & Zephyrous. A black metal classic that's been practically impossible to find domestically until quite recently.
Album number ten from perhaps the most revered (or as the band prefers, most hated) of black metal's old guard, the dynamic duo of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto. Clocking in at just over a half an hour and according to the liner notes, recorded AND mixed in a mere 26 hours, Hate Them is the latest installment in more than a decade of Christ crushing, poser smashing, misanthropic, grim and buzzy black metal. Emperor are gone, Mayhem are old news, Immortal are cartoons, Satyricon are techno, which leaves Darkthrone to carry the torch of simple, hateful, aggressive and virtually-unchanged-since-1990 black metal. You don't fix what ain't broke! Howling barbed wire guitars, bloodied vocal chords, and Fenriz's 'unique' mostly midtempo drumming, thrashy and sloppy. The blast beats may be 1/10 the speed of other black metal bands, but what Darkthrone lack in speed and finesse they make up for in grim atmosphere and raw aggression. Possibly the only true black metal band left.
MPEG Download: "Rust" [/audio/darkthronerust.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Rust" [/audio/darkthronerust.m3u]
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
In 1981, Tony Wakeford and Douglas P disbanded their anarcho-leftist punk ensemble Crisis in order to focus on their new project Death In June, which ostensibly was a more poetic and esoteric outfit, moving away from the politics that dominated the output of Crisis. The Guilty Have No Pride were the first recordings for DIJ; and immediately, there are numerous differences between DiJ and Crisis, for one, the earlier band had more of a pogo-punk / Oi! sound while DiJ blatantly wore Joy Division's militant gloom on their sleeve. Tony Wakeford still sang with the cockney accent as he did in Crisis (and persists today through his work in Sol Invictus), but Douglas P smoothed his voice into a languid croon not unlike Joy Division's late singer. The grim post-punk inclinations for Death In June resulted in some truly amazing songs found on The Guilty Have No Pride, like "All Alone In Her Nirvana," "Heaven Street," and "Nothing Changes", any of which definitively foreshadow Interpol's black clad revivalism (barring Wakeford's unmistakable voice and Death In June's questionable use of Nazi imagery which they obnoxiously never resolved as either fetishized allegiance or situationist shock-tactics). Politics aside, The Guilty Have No Pride is miles away from the industrialized-folk that Death In June has produced in recent years, and clearly stands as one of their finest moments. Even Andee who is not a huge DiJ fan, LOVES this disc and has been listening to it non stop. This recently re-released remastered version of The Guilty Have No Pride comes with DVD of a live performance from 1982 of much of the material that would later appear on the album itself.
Both Death in June and Boyd Rice pioneered nearly the entire aesthetic, approach, and aural stylings of post-idustrial neo-folk. Their collaboration here is classic and infamous. This album amounts to a sacred text for post-humanist, anti-human humans. Xasthur, Leviathan, or any of the Norwegian hordes have never hated anything on the level of which these guys are capable. An historic document or another reason to join a cult far, far out in the woods and lose contact with humanity? You decide, but definitely an interesting listen nonetheless.
Yay, this long out of print Chain Reaction classic from Finnish minimalist Vladislav Delay is now reissed by Huume... here's what we said about it long ago, the first time 'round:
The scope of the anonymous metallic techno sound of the Chain Reaction / Basic Channel core of artists has been fractured by the simple fact that Berlin is no longer the locus of activity. Rather, Fluxion, Hallucinator, and Vladislav Delay (the latest wave of Chain Reactors) come from lands quite far from Berlin. Finland's Vladislav Delay retains only a semblance of the Chain Reaction 'heroin house'. Instead of stripping the already minimal techno to its most hypnotic particles, Delay densly layers murky percolations of dubbed pattern phases with the teutonic 909 thump only sporadically emerging from the sonic substrata. An exceptional variation on a proven theme.
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.
Final glorious missive from Austrian militaristic folk / post industrial / dark ambient outift Der Blutharsch. Ex members of The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud and former collaborators with Death In June, DB carved out a truly unique and musically diverse niche in a genre rife with problematic politics and unoriginal ideas. The music of Der Blutharsch was and is a seemingly impossible mix, taking the apocalyptic folk of Death In June, the Teutonic metallic stomp of Rammstein, the clattery industrial caberet of Einsturzende Neubaten, the swampy fire and brimstone dirge of Sixteen Horsepower and the dramatic gothiness of Sisters Of Mercy or Bauhaus and crafting all of those disparate elements into something dark and delightfully dreary, creepy and sometimes truly harrowing. Their sound has gone from dark ambience to industrial clatter to dramatic doom, and have now arrived at a sound that is even more difficult to describe. We once wrote that the music of DB sounded like "Dead Can Dance with the vocalist from Rammstein, performing in the forest, covering the Comus record in its entirety, backed up by a military drum corps. Or some impossible mixt of Current 93, Magnetic Fields, World War 2, In The Nursery, Ennio Morricone, a gypsy caravan and every great black metal intro ever" and that still pretty much sums it up. BUT, somehow, for their last hurrah, they've managed to sound even more bizarre and unique and all over the map. The core sound is still dark and droning, but the rock element is much more noticeable this time around, with a seemingly omnipresent churning low slung bass weaving a dense framework of rumbling low end, supporting doom laden soundscapes constructed from moaning cellos and martial snares, wartime sound samples and military speeches, pounding rhythms and dramatic teutonic vocals, gypsy violin and distorted guitar. But even within this industrial doom rock framework, DB manage to inject all sorts of really unexpected twists and turns, one track sounds like some hellish take on a Morricone spaghetti western with little bits of blackened twang, and another even sounds like a lost track from some sixties girl group, albeit in this case, swathed in dark sonic swirls and all sorts of rhythmic interference. So amazing and strange and totally mesmerizing. It's sad to think this is the last we'll hear from Der Blutharsch.
Packaged in a gorgeous all black, letter pressed sleeve, with a little sprig of edelweiss in full color, black text on a black background. Quite striking.
From the same label that brought us recent bouts of brilliantly fucked black metal from Wolok and Lorn as well as classic releases from Blodulv and Glorior Belli comes this killer split, featuring two grim legends from the Swedish black metal underground.
The awesomely named Dimhymn do some impossible to describe black doom classic rock? Or something. Not sure what else to call it. Super blown out distorted black chug, haunting high end guitar licks, and incredibly catchy little bridges, a plodding dirge that sort of lopes along before the music suddenly screeches to a halt and is replaced by some classical piano, only to immediately be stomped on by a huge black cloud. A massive furious riffy freakout, guitars in the red and crumbling all over the place. The drums so hot that the cymbals' sizzle threaten to overwhelm everything. And before you know it the music blinks out again and in its place a haunting alien ambience that bloops and bleeps before once again the blackness descends. The song ends with mournful reverbed trumpet that sort of drifts off into the ether. WHAT THE FUCK? So awesome.
The second track is a huge chunk of black drone, pointillist piano dropped into a bleak soundscape of thick grinding fuzz and insect like melodies.
The final track starts off with melancholy guitar melodies before launching into a SUPER catchy groovy black thrash, with soaring melodies, and massive almost Nirvana like breakdowns, the sound still totally overblown and in the red. And again, the weird reverbed trumpet pops in without any warning, disappearing just as fast. The track ends with more of the classical piano from the first track. Wow. So amazing. We hear lots of weird black metal, but Dimhymn's half of the split has catapulted them damn near right to the front of the fucked black metal line!
Tough to follow up something like that, so fellow Swedes Hypothermia don't try to out-weird Dimhymn, but somehow manage to be just as bizarre but in an entirely different way. Epic fuzzed out glacial dirge, thick riffs spread out in a black smear, the drums a caveman plod, and some of the most fucked vocals ever. From weird, something-caught-in-the-throat sort of strangulated grunts and mewls, to guttural growls that occasionally break into falsetto-y squeaks as if the vocalist hit puberty right in the middle of recording. Sounds funny, but the overall effect is more creepy than anything. The finish the disc off with an epic 16 minute midtempo buzzscape. Looped riffs, totally repetitive and hypnotic, occasionally the drums break into a not-so-fast blast, but for the most part this is drone drenched monochromatic black dirge rock. Almost like a grim black metal Circle, or a blackened Spacemen 3, all stretched out fuzz guitar and endless trancelike riffing. So great.
A pretty much perfect split. Two more impossibly damaged and absolutely essential outsider black metal bands to add to the ever growing list!
Droids is the '70s French space disco project of Fabrice Cuitade, former Barclay Records employee and founder of their Egg imprint - which released the likes of Vangelis, Conrad Schnitzler, and Heldon, among others. The back of this disc claims Droids to be "the Daft Punk of the 70's," but even a quick listen will prove that claim reductive. Neither will the typical Giorgio Moroder comparison suffice. So the story goes that Cuitade saw Star Wars for the first time, and then decided to make his own musical interpretation. As we first listened to the album, we heard something much more nuanced than some sort of filtered French House prototype. Maybe if you picture Battiato partying in the studio with Patrick Cowley then you're getting close. That's right. This is nothing short of some seriously progged-out space disco. But whereas many artists in that arena seem to be cold, calculated, and sterile, Star Peace is an album that manages to hold on to the funk that disco originated with. Cuitade even foreshadows the piano stab-driven funky house of Chicago's Traxx label, while hinting at the celestial impulses of Italian cosmic-groover Daniele Baldelli. Fans of disco, prog, new wave, house, or anything electronic, arpeggiated, or dancey will positively need this. Essential. (Note: includes a track you might have heard already on the now sadly out of print compilation So Young But So Cold that we love love loved...)
Best death metal album of all time? There sure are some runners up. Morbid Angel's Covenant? Deicide's Deicide? Carcass' Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious? They're all fucking brilliant, but let's not forget Edge of Sanity's phenomenal, ground breaking, and completely bizarre third album, Spectral Sorrows from 1993. Not only does it have some of the heaviest riffs of all time, not only does it feature signature production work from the band's legendary vocalist/multi-instrumentalist/mastermind Dan Swano (also of Pan.Thy.Monium, Bloodbath, and a million other projects), and not only does it stand up as one of the least dated death metal albums ever. It can also claim to have killer prog moments and a dark wave/goth track ("Sacrificed"). Oh, also a triumphant cover of Manowar's galloping "Blood of My Enemies."
This is Edge of Sanity before their famed single track 40+ minute long epic-journey opus Crimson (1996), and way before their rad Led Zeppelin-esque swan song Cryptic (which stands in opposition to the rest of their catalog as it does NOT feature Swano). If any of those points fail to sell you on this record, it's probably not for you. But if you're like us yet haven't heard it, then you're in for a treat. For fans of death metal, black metal, or any other conceivably heavy music, you absolutely need this. Best death metal record ever? Who can say. Probably biggest-death-metal-head-at-AQ Cameron's favorite. Honestly, no possible combination of superlatives could express exactly how vital this is. Necessary. Essential. Brutal. Recommended. Do yourself a favor...
Metalheads, buy this! Author Daniel Ekeroth, a Swedish death metal expert (and Swedish death metaller himself, from the band Incision) has collected and presented an invaluable resource with this book, a weighty tome indeed. Due to a dearth of information on this fairly specific subject, the material within was compiled via a practical attempt to synthesize an accurate retelling of the history of Swedish death metal, based on varying accounts in zines and such, then by bouncing those stories back and forth in interviews with key band members, label bosses, etc. The book itself begins by outlining the myriad of influences behind the Swedish sound: San Francisco Bay Area thrash, NWOBHM, and the Tampa Bay Florida scene. Keep in mind, this was well before the internet, so tape and zine trading, and word of mouth, were the only ways to find out about music. Thus some of these band members were true metal geeks. There are accounts of various artists' own early exposure to metal and some really interesting stories about a few of the early Swedish bands, obscurities crossing over from the hardcore punk scene and so forth. Gripping reading for anyone into the book's subject matter. The second half of the book covers the pinnacle and strength of the scene at its brightest. But then there was black metal, and Ekeroth details how it helped usher out the popularity of old school death metal. He also delves into subgenres like grind, death n' roll, and of course the melodic Gothenburg sound.
And then in the back, there is an incredibly useful, opinionated encyclopedia of (possibly) all Swedish death metal bands. Awesome! Complete with band members and releases, where Ekeroth substitutes the term 'deathography' for discography. And this book covers not only the big shots, like Dissection, Unleashed, Entombed, Marduk - hey their first record was recorded with Dan Swano and their first singer was the guitarist from Edge of Sanity - but there are tons of lesser known bands that the Ekeroth goes into detail about. Graphics-wise, there are tons of flyers, demo tape covers, cool pictures, and everything else relevant that you could possibly want in print. It's pretty sweet.
There's not much else to say, really. You know who you are. There are those that would read a 456 page book on the Swedish death metal scene, and there are those who would not. If you are one of those people who WOULD, or just want it as a rad reference point, you need this. In a word, it's totally fucking killer. Recommended! And by the way, this is the new, expanded (and cheaper than the import) US edition, with extra art and interviews.
Back in stock. Might just be your final chance to pick one of these up!!
When we first heard about this record, a split release between some unknown band and ultradoom AQ crushworthy sludgelords Monarch, whose track was an hour long, we wondered how the heck that was fair to the other band. We then discovered that the other band was in fact French grinders Elysium, whose songs average around the one minute mark (one song here clocks in at a whopping 8 seconds) it started to make sense. And what an awesome idea, what a great combo, the two extremes, blazing buzzing hyperspeed grindcore and slow motion sludge. Two great tastes... er, sounds... So here we have 4 tracks from Elysium, total time 5:55, and one track from the mighty Monarch, total time 58:27. Fucking awesome!
So first up Elysium, fast and furious, guitars like squiggles of white hot lightning, the drums like rhythms being fired from a machine gun into your head at point blank range, vocals that screech and gurgle, everything a head spinning blur. Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Nasum, Rotten Sound, you might as well add Elysium to that elite list.�
But they're just the warm up, the appetizer, Monarch's "Amplifire Death March" is why we're here, and they do not disappoint.
So Monarch, for those who don't already know, are one of the slowest, heaviest bands in existence, whose artwork consists of weird Hello Kitty like crosses, skulls and burning churches, as is fronted by a very cute, non-tattooed, non-pierced, spikeless, leatherless, young lady in a sensible skirt and top, who howls like a banshee from the depths of hell and who write in the liner notes "Listen To Judas Priest"? How rad is that? RIDICULOUSLY RAD! And sure we'd be crushed out on Monarch just based on their lugubrious tarpit sonic sludge, we're just like that, but having an adorable frontperson just pushes it over the edge.
So yes, this rules, and is suitably funereal, appropriately slow and somber, so slow in fact it makes Khanate sound like speed metal. Okay, maybe that's stretching� it a bit, but this is some seriously slow motion shit. The riffs stretch out for ages, the drum hits are MILES apart, the vocals a screech / howl / moan, a mouthful of dirt and broken glass, a voice so harsh and hatefilled it seems impossible that it could come from Monarch's diminutive sensibly dressed leader. There are huge stretches of near ambience where it's just the hum of the amplifier, some soft lilting chords, a pounding single drum rhythm, vocals screeched across wide expanses of space, draped across fading riffs like flayed skin before the next chunk of sludge drops.�It's almost as if some leather winged demon was flying above, soaring through the black night sky, hurling huge hundred ton chunks of sludge at the ground every few seconds, or few minutes, where they splinter into a million pieces, filling our ears with shards of searing sludge. A pounding ultra-dirge, a tempo well below 16rpm, the sort of creepy crawl that were it to slow down any more would be just a single tone, albeit a crushing pummeling one. So heavy, and so slow it's almost stops being sludge and simply becomes some abstract heaviness. By now you should know what we're getting at. This is doom, ultramegadoom, doom with a page full of 'o's, wallowing in the same murk as Moss, Rigor Sardonicous, Stumm, Catacombs, Esoteric, and all who bow before the power of dooooooooom.
This is a split release between TEN labels (count 'em:�Shifty / Amanita / (((Parade))) / 213 / Throne / Amertume-Corruption #2 / Fidelio / Murder / Wee Wee / Solitude) which is kinda cool, but also kinda dumb, as each label only gets a handful of copies and therefore it goes out of print before you know it. We got 50 copies originally and those disappeared in a flash, and only now finally managed to get a handful more from one of the labels' secret stash! Probably the last copies ever.
This is going to be short and sweet. At the risk of some of you losing faith in my (Andee's) reviews, Emerson Lake and Palmer are the greatest rock band ever.
Period.
Everything you like about every one of your favorite bands, ELP do better. Heavy, bombastic instrumental virtuosity, gorgeous mellow pop chops, everything. A greatest hits record can't really do justice to a band who almost never wrote a bad song (at least until 1977), and if you were actually interested, you'd be better served buying one of their actual albums. Or all of them. But for the timid or the not so daring, this is not a bad place to start.
Thirteen tracks by of the most successful, most reviled, act in prog-rock history!
The most highly-anticipated black metal album of the summer. You already know that, and you want it, right? Otherwise, what can we say... Emperor is pretty much THE black metal band of the 90's, unsurpassed at what they do, despite their legions of imitators, and this disc not only meets our expections but exceeds them. Formerly on Century Black, now a Candlelight reissue with bonus tracks.
While the Century Black domestic edition included as a bonus the songs & cd-rom video from their import "Reverence" ep, this newer reissue includes the same three ep tracks plus live footage from 1997-98 and an interview on a Finnish television program.
A landmark Scandinavian Black Metal album essential to any good Satanist's collection. The forward impetus of this album is incredible, as the majestic keyboards, rasping cries, and pummelling drums all sweep together like a freezing, evil wave carrying pagan Viking longboats across the North seas to attack and pillage Christian lands. Like opera music for howling wolves. A Nordic church-burning classic. Formerly on Century Black, now a Candlelight reissue with bonus tracks.
Perhaps the most renowned of Eno's ambient albums, Music For Airports, originally released in 1978, is a (or we should say *the*) seminal -ambient- work. The proof is over a quarter decade's worth of other artists (and some downright imitators) who've amassed an enormous collective body of work directly inspired by this one album. This is the O.G. of gorgeous shimmering atmospheric soundscapes. Truly sublime. While Eno's conceptual "hands off" compositional style is certainly one of the larger factors in his influencing other future ambient artists, the striking thing about this work that makes it so compelling is the way in which the pieces manage to impart a feeling of warmth despite the clinically mechanical way in which the pieces are played. And while the performance here is not executed by machines the impact of it carries on down, all the way to the Aphex Twin's zenith of robotic beauty, The Richard D. James album. The four pieces here (programmatically named "1/1", "2/1", "1/2" & "2/2" for their sequencing on the original LP) build one upon the next. The first is arranged entirely with electric and acoustic pianos (with some help from Robert Wyatt for this), the second a chorus of voices and the third and fourth pieces combination of those elements with additional synth help. The drifting and staggered arpeggios cascade in slow motion giving the pieces a shapeless consistency, somehow always moving forward while remaining frozen. A suitable antidote to muzak if there ever was one. If anything dates, or holds back the three latter pieces on this disc it's the now archaic synth patches. They can be charming, but I've never been able to listen to "2/2" without thinking immediately of Steve Winwood's "While You See A Chance". Needless to say, this small downside can't spoil as great an album as this.
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While Plateaux of Mirror could be seen as the inspiration for a generation of new age musicians, On Land (released in 1982) is arguably a place card for a wellspring of darker ambient musicians forging soundtracks for non-existant films. Some, like the now obscure J. Grienke made careers out of this single album. Others, like Richard James on the Aphex Twin's excellent double cd Selected Ambient Works Volume 2, pay homage and move on. But hints of this dark collection of audio soundscapes can be heard from the likes of Biosphere, Deathprod, Andrew Chalk, Troum and even Village of Savoonga. The key elements involved are an elimination of melody and rhythm. As Eno puts it, quite well in fact, in the liner notes: "the landscape has ceased to be a backdrop for something else to happen in front of: instead everything that happens is part of the landscape. There is no longer a sharp distinction between foreground and background". A seminal work and a must have.
We didn't review Another Green World with the other Eno reissues featured a couple weeks back 'cuz they turned out to have some weird defect, but that's been fixed now and so here you go: Unlike most of the recent reissues of classic albums, Brian Eno's aren't graced / padded with extra bells'n'whistles (outtakes, demo versions and the like) nor are there swollen booklets of liner notes, photos, glowing praise, etc. No, you get the albums as they were originally released -- albeit remastered and packaged in simple digipaks with plain clear plastic slipcovers -- and frankly, with albums as timeless and remarkable as these, that's enough! Each is an inspired and inspiring work, remaining vital and compelling even thirty years later. Needless to say, each is fully deserving of an honored place in any record collection.
What remains to be said about one of the all-time classic art-rock records? Here we find Brian Peter George St. John Le Baptiste De La Salle Eno (yes, that's his full name!) leaving behind the song structures of the preceding albums, and jumping straight into inventing the mood-driven, almost-snippits-but-too-composed-to-be-just-parts style of atmospheric 'songs'. A melding of his ambient sides with occasional vocals. "Sombre Reptiles", "I'll Come Running", "St. Elmo's Fire"... MAN, JUST TOO GOOD. If you've never heard this record, buy it and live with it for a few years. It'll getcha eventually... Really, just a flat-out model and inspiration for everything synthetic / experimental / art / punk / pop from Bowie's Low album to Talking Heads to I Am Spoonbender (Cup admits that IAS often uses a set of Eno's 'Oblique Strategies' cards during sessions, just like those mentioned in the liner notes to this essential release. FYI: they were a small black box containing a deck of cards imprinted with an assortment of open-to-interpretation statements... an oracle of sorts that you could refer to in times of creative blocks).
The opportunity of a lifetime film score for Brian Eno: providing a soundtrack to the most, quite literally, other-worldy film footage ever shot. Eno was approached by ex-astronaut Al Reinert in the early eighties to put his ambient touch on a project that Reinert was working on documenting the apollo missions. Reinhert had sorted through 6,000,000 feet of NASA film footage shot by astronauts on those missions, picking out what he considered to be the best clips. To this he intended to add only the voices of the astronauts themselves -- both from interviews after the missions and from their transmissions to Houston during them -- and Eno's music. Though Eno's score was released in 1983, Reinert's film -- For All Mankind -- wasn't completed until 1989. Recorded just a year after his Ambient 4: On Land, the material here is quite similar. The compositions are far less conceptual than his earlier ambient works, yet the pieces here have an intuitive, textural and emotional feel without relying on -- for the most part -- melody. All but four tracks on this album use that same Eno M.O. of blurring the idea of "foreground and background", much like his previous release On Land. The guitar and bass, when the appear, are subverted from their original roles -- melodic lead, rhythm and harmony -- and instead are used for texture and atmosphere as much as the synths and electronics. The ambient tracks on Apollo have a foreboding and sublime quality -- appropriate enough for the vast eternity of space and the dessicated & bleak terrain of the moon. The four non-ambient tracks on this disc, all nestled together towards its end, are a bit of a departure from the rest of the album. "Always Returning" is probably the weakest link on the album, with its sentimental guitar part played by Daniel Lanois. Lanois however redeems himself with his pedal steel guitar playing on "Deep Blue Day", like a Sons Of The Pioneers tune, shot full of heroin and launched into the vacuum of space.
Unlike most of the recent reissues of classic albums, Brian Eno's aren't graced / padded with extra bells'n'whistles (outtakes, demo versions and the like) nor are there swollen booklets of liner notes, photos, glowing praise, etc. No, you get the albums as they were originally released -- albeit remastered and packaged in simple digipaks with plain clear plastic slipcovers -- and frankly, with albums as timeless and remarkable as these, that's enough! Each is an inspired and inspiring work, remaining vital and compelling even thirty years later. Needless to say, each is fully deserving of an honored place in any record collection.
The last of Eno's 'song' records before he drifted off into wind-blown dronespace for good (or bad?). In many ways, this album could be thought of as a more pastoral and less baroque Another Green World, with plenty of experiments near the framework of rock music. It could be that this is exactly what is meant by 'experimental pop music' -- avant garde ideas reworked so as to appear as being something like 'regular music'. As usual, this release features appearances by interesting guests: Can's Jaki Liebezeit and German electronic pioneers Cluster.
The second wave of Brian Eno reissues is of his genre creating and defining ambient music albums from 1975 through 1982. The first in the series is Discreet Music and it's in the liner notes here that Eno describes the genesis for his ambient music. The story goes that while he was recouperating in a hospital after having been struck by a car he found himself inspired through another sort of accident. Eno had been brought a record of 18th century harp music to listen to but, after having struggled to put the record on in his weakened state, found the amplifier levels way too low and one channel of the recording completely missing. Thus he was forced to strain to hear nothing but the loudest of notes above the ambient din in the room. Add to this Eno's admission that he considers himself a much better conceiver of plans than executor of them and you have the foundations for Discreet Music. Eno's goal was to set up a system which would generate music with as little input from him as possible. To this end Eno created a feedback loop into which he could insert pairs of notes and let the ensuing echo box and delay line do the rest. The flipside of this coin, included on this album, is a suite in three parts entitled "Three Variations On the Canon In D Major By Johann Pachelbel". For this piece Eno took sections of the Canon and, on each of the sections, gives the players different instructions for the treatment of those parts. In each case the directives result in different but beautiful deconstructions of the all too familiar Canon.
Unlike most of the recent reissues of classic albums, Brian Eno's aren't graced / padded with extra bells'n'whistles (outtakes, demo versions and the like) nor are there swollen booklets of liner notes, photos, glowing praise, etc. No, you get the albums as they were originally released -- albeit remastered and packaged in simple digipaks with plain clear plastic slipcovers -- and frankly, with albums as timeless and remarkable as these, that's enough! Each is an inspired and inspiring work, remaining vital and compelling even thirty years later. Needless to say, each is fully deserving of an honored place in any record collection.
"My baby's on fiyaaaaaaa!"... so good. Eno's first solo album after leaving Roxy Music finds him in 'proto-everything' territory, pre-dating art-pop, punk and indie rock with his Dada-esque lyrics and a fresh 'non-musician' approach (those are his words, although a bit misleading -- it's not like he was a gardener before he walked into the studio!) to avant garde songs. Glammy, brooding, and exploratory. This, along with his mood-masterpiece Another Green World, comprise the essential bits of pre-ambient Eno.
Here's a straggler that was meant to come out with the last batch of Eno reissues, but was pulled due to a manufacturing defect (is there some rule that at least one Eno disc in each series must have a defect?). More Music For Films stands out amongst the other Eno reissues in that, as an album, it's a previously unreleased one. Let's qualify that statement: More Music For Films contains two albums, one rare and the other rarer, from the early eighties. 11 of the tracks come from Music For Films 2 which was included as a bonus LP to the Working Backwards box set that was released in 1983. The other tracks are culled from a promo-only sampler (only 500 copies printed) which had been sent to a "select group of film directors". Much of the material on More Music For Films comes from the same recording sessions as Music For Films and the album as a whole fits neatly at its side as a companion record. The songs contained herein are all instrumentals, with a variety of moods suitable for use in just about any film.
"This album is a compilation of fragments from my recorded work over the last two or three years. Some of it was made specifically for use as soundtrack material, some of it was made for other reasons but found its way into films; most of it is previously unissued in any form." So says Brian Eno in the liner notes. And people continue to milk this album for their films -- as anyone who's taken a film class in college can attest to. Well, at least fifteen or twenty years ago it was still being used to the point of excess. Extreme over use by film students and budding documentarians aside, Music For Films still holds together rather well... okay, maybe it dates itself a little here and there with the occasional synth patch, or bass line. You can hear a lot of the ideas for what went into Another Green World and Before And After Science on here, which makes one wonder how much of this may have been recorded during those sessions and culled from the album. In fact the track "M386" here is a dead ringer for a half-speed dub mix of Eno's "No One Receiving" off of the latter. While not immediately rock in nature -- the songs lack any verse/chorus/verse structure and seem to be devoid of any beginning, middle or end -- they aren't all as flattened out to be merely texture as his other ambient works. The cast of heavy hitter musicians here include many from Another Green World, such as Phil Collins, Fred Frith, Dave Mattacks, John Cale and Robert Fripp.
Unlike most of the recent reissues of classic albums, Brian Eno's aren't graced / padded with extra bells'n'whistles (outtakes, demo versions and the like) nor are there swollen booklets of liner notes, photos, glowing praise, etc. No, you get the albums as they were originally released -- albeit remastered and packaged in simple digipaks with plain clear plastic slipcovers -- and frankly, with albums as timeless and remarkable as these, that's enough! Each is an inspired and inspiring work, remaining vital and compelling even thirty years later. Needless to say, each is fully deserving of an honored place in any record collection.
One of Eno's best songs kicks off TTM(BS), the ubiquitous and lovely "Burning Airlines Gives You So Much More", with a gorgeous post-Beatles melody and snaky harmonized guitar (an Eno trademark, often played by Robert Fripp on these releases). From there on out, TTM(BS) expands upon -- but doesn't often better -- the ideas that began with Here Come The Warm Jets. Slightly more introspective. It's also less sneering. Of course, Bauhaus resonated with Eno's idea of absurdist / glam / experimental pop, later covering this album's sixth song "Third Uncle". Really, this often sounds like Chairs Missing era Wire in spots, and we all know that's a good thing!
Mixing elements of world, funk, dub, and electronic music has for the most part turned out to be a recipe for disaster. All too many have attempted this mix with a glossy shine and a clumsy hand and without fail have produced pretty tepid attempts at cross cultural imagination. From 1979-1980 Brian Eno and David Byrne recorded -their- take on this fusion years before it became chic and of course with just the right kind of careful and talented hands, and were actually able to make those elements come together and create a brand new language. What's so nice about hearing this reissue is how it's both ahead of its time but also so OF it's time as well. With moments that bring you back to the bits on early Talking Heads records that you could listen to over and over, and with a recording quality so refreshingly raw and primitive. This record was recorded by a large ensemble cast including Bill Laswell who was just then starting his band Material with lots of the same ideas and elements. While not totally related in exact sound we can totally see how many of today's cross cultural sonic explorers were influenced by this record. There's no doubt these were sounds soaked up by the best hip-hop & electronic producers of the '80s and '90s as well as folks like Animal Collective, Excepter and even Glissandro 70, whose record we review elsewhere on this list. This reissue adds a handful of bonus tracks not on the original version and unlike most extras these are in fact all essential.
Recorded in 1980, The Plateaux of Mirror is the least successful of Eno's ambient works, with the exception of its success in being the blueprint for the myriad new age records that would soon follow in its footsteps. Budd's meandering legato piano lines sound so maudlin in comparison to the austere rigidity of Wyatt's playing on Music For Airports. There are less syrupy moments here that make for fine soundtracks. In fact, I think I've seen no less than a dozen student and/or low budget documentaries in my day that have used these tracks in their scores.
Another dose of Viking metal mayhem from these artistically aggressive Norwegians, who rank up there with countrymen Emperor in the pantheon of modern day black metal. A brilliant band, combining the epic and avant-garde with violent thrash fervor. The best band ever that has made a practice of wearing tights and tunics. This one is dense and violent, less spaciously psychedelic than some of their other recent records.
Allan and Andee's personal favorite album from these Viking metallers!! Epic, violent genius.
An early masterpiece from Enslaved, one of the top Viking black metal outfits ever.
Gosh, we're rarely as, um, anticipant (is that a word?) of a new album release by a metal band as we are of anything new by Norway's Enslaved! Pant, pant, pant. And this new album from them, Isa, really got us worked up waiting for it, as an European version was released towards the end of last year but we never were able to buy, beg or steal import copies of it -- although we did get a handful of the vinyl pressing, now gone. But, those extra few months of waiting was worth it, as this domestic cd version boasts some bonus cd-rom footage: the video for the title track, and a twenty minute band interview. Patience pays off. So why were we so excitedly anticipant about this you may ask? Well Enslaved have always been a band who've been adept at pushing all of AQ's buttons (in a good way, that is). There's the old-school Nordic black metal button (which Enslaved, who's first release was a split with Emperor, has no trouble pushing, and here they get guest throats Abbath from Immortal and Nocturno Culto from Darkthrone to apply extra force). There's the epic Floydian psych button. The mood-shattering dynamics button. The Viking tunic and tights button. The avant-garde '70s keyboard-laden prog button. The leather and spikes rock n' roll button. Even the vaguely jazz-fusiony guitar soloing button. The so many buttons button. Now, to be sure, their various records (this is number eight, or so) push these buttons and others in various combinations. At first listen to any of their albums, we often think, hmm, is this working for us? And always it does. Isa is no exception. It continues in what we might call the Opethian progression of recent Enslaved efforts like Monumension and Below The Lights, away from the pure speed and violence of such earlier albums as Frost and Blodheim, but all the polished parts and techy time-changes and such are always offset by a stab at that blackened Norwegian nastiness button, y'know? Jarring yet repetitive riffage coexists here with some clean, Michael Gira style crooning, and droning metal blur, Geiger-counter drumming, and majestic minor-key melody: an art-rock cruise ship rammed and boarded by a Viking longboat. Even with new members (Dirge Rep's replacement on the drum stool is the guy from Red Harvest, we think) and hence new directions, Enslaved have crafted an album that's definitely a progressive part of their now hallowed legacy, replete with menace and grandeur. Too soon yet to tell if this is pushing ALL the same buttons as the godly Mardraum (an AQ Record of the Week once upon a time), or Eld, or Below The Lights but that's what those records are for, anyway. Time for them later, here at last is the NEW Enslaved, so let's let it let us enjoy it!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Whoa! I thought that Weakling's "Dead As Dreams" was gonna be the uncontested "Black Metal Record of the Year" until I heard this, the new album from Norwegian Viking-metallers Enslaved. Now Weakling has some competition! "Mardraum" ("Nightmare") is probably Enslaved's best record to date, no mean feat considering that their "Frost" and "Eld" albums are two of the best Nordic black metal discs ever, in AQ's humble opinion. This new album somehow combines the violent and epic qualities of Enslaved's past works with what can only be considered (despite our dislike, and over-use, of the term) a 'post-rock' sensibility. And, on top of that, there's a full on ROCK element at work here too. During the very first track ("Larger Than Time -- Heavier Than Night") you'll swear that (despite the very metal attack) you can hear in the droning guitar harmonies and mathy drumming the post-rock of a Codeine or A Minor Forest! Enslaved have created a new, multi-layered complexified psych-metal, mixing dangerous speed with slow doom epic majesty (the waves pounding on shore during the Viking longboat raid)...then, amid all this beauty and brutality, they'll go and whip out some leather-clad, almost-punk rock n' roll riffing that's just as foreign to the black metal template as the 'post-rock' aspect just discussed. Not that any of this seems purposefully jarring or ill-fitting (or Mr. Bungle-like) -- it seems quite natural, more artful than artsy. Another example: track seven, "The Ending Empire", starts off with a catchy riff-cycle that strongly reminds me of something like "Insidious Detraction" off the first album by Greg Ginn's Gone, but then the song takes a turn into an almost honkytonk country-western flavored breakdown with a melodic rock guitar solo, before the Viking battle re-commences! Brilliant. Is this the most intense, heaviest, most psychedelic, rockin'est, 'post-black-metal' album ever recorded? We think so. Norwegian genius that puts almost all heavy-duty avant-rock acts to shame, metal or not.
Ivar Bjornson, Grutle Kjellson, Dirge Rep and R. Kronheim are Enslaved. We mention them individually because they and their band deserve to be household names, at least among Aquarius customers. Enslaved are definitely one of our absolute favorite Norwegian
Ok, enough hyperbole (for the moment). What's "Monumension" really like, and how *does* it compare exactly to "Mardraum"? Well, somebody had told us to expect that the new Enslaved would sound like Genesis, but that's definitely not the case. True, '70s prog rock a la Genesis (or, maybe more accurately, King Crimson and Van Der Graaf Generator) certainly flows in the blood of Grutle, Ivar and Co., along with the more ancient blood of their Norse ancestors. Opeth fans will hear the parallels. But are they truly warriors of modern prog? Not quite, as they are so much more. The first thing an Enslaved fan will notice is the surprising prevalence of death metal style vocals alongside the black metal rasps and Viking chants. Vocally, lyrically and musically, this is some seriously heavy stuff, and violent. But it all flows, sometimes into realms so tripped-out and Floyd-ishly psychedelic that you'll forget you're listening to "metal" at all. But then, the next song will start with a blood-quickening, bone-jarring riff to remind you. Like on "Mardraum", the band brilliantly weaves various metal/rock styles into pure Enslaved music, perhaps upping the "folk" aspect a bit (which balances those death metal elements nicely). There's even a bonus track by a related band called HOV (Trygve Mathiesen and a "tribal choir" which includes all the members of Enslaved) that's meant to evoke traditional Viking music -- although the band stresses that "Enslaved has never been about reproduction or literal interpretations. It is more of a quest for creating our own musical traditions and dimensions. The band is built upon the philosophy, magick and myths of the Vikings, not a desire to dress like they did during a historical period or to talk exactly like them. It is something deeper than a mere roleplay to please the outer eyes and ears." These efforts by Enslaved certainly have resulted in surreal, epic, timeless metal for the mind, body and soul.
So yes, these rune-obsessed geniuses, mere youngsters wise beyond their years, have created another utter masterpiece. And it's not just me -- everyone I've discussed this record with agrees that it's amazing. Arrrgh -- my fanboy ramblings can't even begin to do it justice. Emperor, Satyricon, Ulver are all great Norwegian black metal bands that in various ways and to various degress have also branched out into the beyond, but Enslaved are something else again.
This is a Krautrock masterpiece!!! This cd reissue of the 1975 debut release by Eroc has totally floored us. Eroc's the solo project of Joachim Heinz Ehrig, who was the drummer in Grobschnitt. He used his solo project as a way to explore electronics, cutups and sound collage all surrounding totally beautiful & harmonic instrumental pieces. Of the albums he made under the Eroc moniker this is the one that shimmers with the most beauty while still showing his crazy range and unpredictability. From the blissed out to the bizarre, Eroc 1 is one of those records that you can't believe you've never heard before, and one that once heard will surely go down as one of your favorite psych/kraut/prog gems of the '70s.
Every time this plays in the store, someone in the back inevitably comes up front to see what the heck is playing. And often they begin to think that if this keeps up, they just might just have a new favorite record. Striking the perfect balance between experimentation and melody, Eroc melded the use of modular synthesizers, tape, overdubs, sound generators, guitars and percussion into an incredibly forward thinking, densely layered, crazily original sound. There is a golden sonic glow reminiscent of the best moments of Cluster / Harmonia, every track is fantastic and original, each one drives us wild, and the four bonus tracks on this collection are just as good as any of the tracks on the album proper! You can hear the early blueprints of so many musical movements that would take shape in the decades following Eroc's 1975 debut. Moments of dreaminess that foreshadow Durutti Column, glimmering electronics that anyone on Morr Music would kill for, and an integration of so many elements that sonically predate groups like Fridge by decades! We can imagine Andy Votel (Prog Is Not A 4 Letter Word, Finders Keepers) freaking out over this album much like Julian Cope who sang this disc's praises on his Head Heritage website.
And certainly all of us here at AQ have discovered a record that is pretty much a shoe-in for many of our all time favorite lists!
We've been wanting to correct a glaring omission from our site for some time now. Well, its not so much an omission as it's an overdue update on a very old review; one that was made when our reviews served only as shelf-talkers in the store instead of entryways into the vast online catalog of our website. And now with an affordable reissue with a bonus disc of rare BBC radio sessions and alternate versions, the time is right to reappraise this mighty, weird, and awesome jewel of classic krautrock greatness that is Faust IV.
Essential as any krautrock album we can name, including Can's Tago Mago or Future Days, Amon Duul II's Yeti, or Neu! 1, Cluster, Kraftwerk etc. It's also the record that coined the term "krautrock" which is the title of the nearly 12 minute opening track, a thick pulsating rumble of motorik groove that out-Neu's Neu!. But things definitely get stranger after that with bizarre forays into reggae, pretty ballads, prog, pop and free jazz. Yet for all the weirdness, this is the record to get if you've never heard Faust before as it's their most accessible and structured. Not nearly as kaleidoscopic and avant as, So Far or Faust Tapes, and even with the genre-hopping, the songs all seem to belong together. "The Sad Skinhead" has got to be the most left-field excursion into reggae we've heard, complete with marimba passages and echoing vocals, while "Jennifer" has to be about the prettiest song ever made. Each song linked together by odd passages of detuned piano, far away screams and noisy stews of synth warbles and feedback stabs. "Giggly Smile" obviously influenced Battles recent debut Mirrors, as strange effected vocals accompany groovy prog excursions that abruptly shift tempos into one of our favorite rocking moments ever put to tape before suddenly ending, launching into the sublime folk groove of "Lauft... Heisst Das Es Lauft Oder Es Kommt Bald... Lauft". And it just keeps getting better and better.
The bonus disc features many alternate versions of the songs including a much longer version of "Just A Second (Starts Like That!)", plus rare BBC radio sessions of two songs "The Lurcher" and "Do So" and one previously unreleased piece, called appropriately "Piano Piece".
This is definitely one of those records, where we wish we could just invoke some physical force to reach out and grab you through the computer by the shoulders and just scream "Buy this already!!!!!!"
As a music obsessive, it's inevitable that you spend some time fantasizing about the perfect musical match ups. Most of them could never happen, or maybe should never happen, others wouldn't sound as good as one might hope, but some have in fact taken place (SUNNO))) and Boris) and far surpassed our expectations. Which brings us to this, a collaboration between Canadian dream doom duo Nadja, and Dutch one man guitarmy Dirk Serries. These two powerhouses have met up once before, as part of that super limited Conspiracy Records anniversary series, and the sound here is quite similar, hovering somewhere between the colossal crush we know both are capable of, and a surprisingly dreamy drift.
Four lengthy tracks, each more sound than song, but that's exactly as it should be. The opener takes the blown out vacuum cleaner buzz of Total or Skullflower and smears it into soft edged swells, an almost static, barely undulating wall of whirring warmth, which quickly dissipates, leaving just a muted minimal shimmer. The second track is more of the same, a massive pulsing rumble smeared with wispy swaths of fuzzy distortion, but with a bit of percussion added, an industrial clang and thump buried way down in the mix, while above the roiling guitars are draped spidery streaks of coruscating feedback, a sort of Skullflower / SUNNO))) style mashup. Blissful and blown out, but at the same time dark and strangely ominous.
Track three is the anomaly here, the 'quiet' number, a sort of spacious drift, with tons of room sound, simple drumming way down in the mix all Dead C style, some ghostly melodies, and haunting snippets of clean guitar surfacing here and there and what sounds like seasick organs warbly and wavering. So haunting and pretty.
And finally, the closer, which begins with some slightly atonal Nitsch style drones, a wash of what sounds like moaning horns but must be guitars, tense and intense, drawn out for what seems like forever, when suddenly a wall of crumbling distorted guitars drop from the sky like it's raining anvils, a plodding drum beat underpinning the now suddenly caustic riffage, a gorgeously blown out slab of impossibly heavy, and simultaneously strangely lovely, ultra dooooooooom.
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While many of rock's deconstructionists have found themselves at the dead end of ambient, Flying Saucer Attack have veered from such a trajectory by reclaiming the "rural psychedelia" that made their first album so stunning. Big Phil Spector reverb drums demarcate the feedback that at times sound like the new Dead C album Tusk though from a less abject & more isolationist sensibility... Their best record in god knows how long.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
