Also available on limited-edition vinyl.

I'll have the first Dwarr re-issue Animals listed and available here at C-Blast pretty soon, but I didn't really get clued in to this eccentric basement rocker until I heard this latest release, a re-issue of Dwarr's debut album Starting Over. I'd been reading lots of glowing reviews from trusted sources of Dwarr's stuff, but wasn't sure if it was the kind of crunch that I'd want to actually stock here. One listen to this album, though, and I was converted. Described by various lips as "outsider doom metal", "proto-metal psychedelia" and other suggestive terms, Dwarr's music is all of that and yet something totally unique. The guy behind this is one Duane Warr, a South Carolina factory worker who wrote and recorded these albums almost entirely on his own in the mid-80s and self-released them as private pressings with limited distribution. In the decades since, Dwarr's records turned into highly sought after collectors items among fans of deep-underground heavy weirdness, which led to Drag City re-issuing them within the past two years. No wonder that this stuff has built the cult following that it has; Dwarr's music sounds like a very personalized translation of early metal from the 70s, raw and unpolished, heavily influenced by Black Sabbath and Pentagram as you'd expect, but filtered through Duane's quirky interpretation of that proto-doom sound, where the slow, shambling dirges are dosed with far-out psychedelic meanderings and blasts of out-of-control shredding. There's something very "off" about these songs, but that's definitely part of the weird magic of Dwarr. Most of the songs on Starting Over are pretty slow, crawling along at a very Sabbathoid pace, but the guitar solos are completely insane and are one of the most unique features of his music. Amid the dirgey riffing and somewhat tinny (but somehow still heavy, in a weird way) drumming, Dwarr throws in bits of damaged psych, often meandering off into loose Floydian jams with flutes, piano and saxophone occasionally making an appearance, traces of prog rock influence appearing with the more off-beat riffs and arrangements. The recording has a really hand-crafted feel, not entirely low-fi but definitely raw, but the songs are so wild and weird and trippy that it hardly detracts from the experience, and in fact enhances the whole otherworldly feel that this has. His vocals are pretty distinctive too, somewhat sounding like Ozzy but way more somnambulant, his singing always laid back and vaguely miserable. And the guitar playing....it's pretty brilliant. Not to everyone's tastes, sure, but there's no denying that this guy can shred. His guitar is super tinny and pushed way up in the mix, run through an assortment of chorus and other effects, and throughout every song Dwarr whips out these insane squiggly solos and hyper-fast leads that are unlike anything you've heard on a "doom" album. In fact, there's a song on here called "Christmas Shopping" that honestly sounds more like a no-wave thrash freakout that you'd hear on a Weasel Walter record than anything resembling Sabbath or Pentagram. Really amazing stuff, thank Christ that Drag City re-issued this stuff and saved it from mp3 blog obscurity. Check this out if you're into stranger regions of doom-laden psychedelia, I'm pretty sure you've heard nothing like it...