CRUCIAL BLAST WEBSTORE: NEW ARRIVALS FOR FRIDAY APRIL 9th 2010

The featured release for this week is the new full length Clivages from the legendary, Lovecraft-obsessed Belgian chamber-prog band Univers Zero, their first in five years. As a HUGE fan of the French avant-prog sound, Univers Zero has long been one of my favorite bands to come out of this era of prog rock, and on their latest album, the band works with both the sinister chamber music side of their sound, and the amplified, doom-laden prog/fusion of their Heatwave-era. The disc is a must-hear for fans of bands like Magma, Shub-Niggurath, King Crimson, but Univers Zero are capable of sounding way more evil than any of those bands ever do (well, maybe not Shub-Niggurath). Clivages comes highly recommended if you are a fan of dark, malevolent prog...

Some of the other new titles and restocks that have come in:

a KILLER new vinyl reissue of the first two demo/EP releases from Swedish avant-death metallers PAN-THY-MONIUM, on gold vinyl...
the awesome Gas-meets-black-classical-ambient techno dread of NORDVARGR's Resignation II...
Mer Morte, the new cd reissue from French doom/drone entropists MONARCH, on Crucial Blast...
the newest full-length cd from the master of dark industrial subterranean ambience LUASA RAELON...
a new limited cassette from LOCRIAN, Falling Towers / After The Torchlight ...
the latest cd-r of speaker-blasting noise/psych rock from VEEE DEEE...
the newly discovered industrial speed-metal infested noize-ridden breakcore apocalypse of ZOMBIEFLESHEATER...
the new split cd/lp from NADJA and KODIAK, amazing ambient sludge and celestial mega-drone from both...
Aquarian Darkness, a new super-limited 7" from black drone/psych/noise demon HAARE...
the new 8xCD discography set Below And Beyond from the pre-Torche sludge metal outfit FLOOR...
Only Death Is Real, the fantastic new hardcover book from Tom Gabriel Fischer on the history of Hellhammer and the evolution into Celtic Frost...
Pakt, the killer new black/drone/psych/doom album from Norwegian duo Detritivore, on limited edition cd and vinyl...
the new vinyl release for Cuzo's Amor y Muerte en la Tercera Fase, a killer album of Spanish prog-doom...
two new 7"s from Deer Healer: the mutant Flipper-esque hardcore of Condominium, and a new slab from Chicago black metal punkers Exalted...
a rare Maurizio Bianchi cd on the defunct Slaughter Productions label...
ASH POOL's newest album of blazing, majestic black metal, featuring Dom Fernow of PRURIENT...
the monstrous gothic sludge of AATHMA's The Call Of Shiva CD...
the long-awaited reissues of 16's long out-of-print albums Drop Out and Curves That Kick...
classic Swedish death industrial from Brighter Death Now...
a bunch of limited Southern Lord vinyl, including Lps from jazz-sludge duo Ascend, Velvet Cacoon, the out of print Glorior Belli LP, and more...
the new album from melodic trad doom band Apostle Of Solitude on Profound Lore...
unearthed copies of the DARK NOERD 12" on Flapping Jet, bizarro black metal drum n' bass noise as heard on the Gummo soundtrack...
the debut Lp from weirdo hardcore band DRY-ROT out on Parts Unknown (Pissed Jeans/Violent Students)...
a couple of 7" imports from the killer Italian new-wave black metal industrial band IVS PRIMAE NOCTIS...
a reissue of the very first album Multiple Personality Disorder from legendary German post-industrial droners MAEROR TRI...
the new deluxe 2xLP release of NADJA's Under The Jaguar Sun...
brand new album of super-chunky 70's riff rock worship-gone-metal from POSITIVA...
a crushing album of harsh industrial noise and apocalyptic break beats from RISE OF BECAUSE, like Kevin Martin meets Merzbow...
the foul crawling black doom and Fushitsusha-esque guitar howl of SEKTARISM's L'Offrande...
devastating black industrial/sludge noise of SEWER GODDESS's With Dirt You Are One...
a new limited 7" from SISSY SPACEK, ripping improvised power violence/fastcore annihilation...
TRANCELIKE VOID's latest Ep of gloomy acoustic dronefolk and dark sylvan post-rock...
a new 7" featuring damaged blacknoise weirdoes UNO ACTU and quirky midwestern black metal maniacs MALEDICERE...
the new Lp reissue of Zu's 2005 album The Way Of The Animal Powers, heavy dirgey free-jazz crush on heavy swirled vinyl...

ANd there's much more mutant heavy music to be had...keep reading below to check out all of the amazing new music that we have in this week's new arrivals list.

You can now click on the cover image for any title that we carry here at Crucial Blast to see a pop-up photograph of the actual item! Not all of our older titles that we have in stock have product photographs attached to them, but almost anything new that we get in stock will have this feature. The pop-up photo feature can be wonky (like most things) if you are using Internet Explorer, but works perfectly in Firefox and other browsers.

FEATURED RELEASE

UNIVERS ZERO Clivages CD (Cuneiform) 15.98

It's been a long time since Univers Zero released a brand new album of material (2005's Implosion being the last), so just having something new from them is a big deal. I've been obsessed with these Belgian masters of malevolent chamber-prog ever since I got turned on to them via the re-issue of Crawling Wind that Cuneiform put out earlier in the decade, and while I�ve kept myself busy tracking down all of their other available albums, I have been itching to hear something new. Clivages jumped to the top of my current listening pile as soon as it came in the door, not only for featuring a KILLER set of nine new tracks that are indeed as creepy and terrifying and beautiful as their classic output, but also because the album marks the return of keyboardist/guitarist Andy Kirk, who last appeared with Univers Zero on their legendary Heatwave album, which is widely considered to be one of the best albums in the UZ catalog. Kirk performs on two of the tracks on Clivages, the first being the sprawling twelve-minute doom-prog epic "The Warrior" which evokes the combination of searing electric volume and chamber instruments that defined the sound of Heatwave, fusing haunting violin and spiraling woodwinds/strings to a slow dirge-like throb, doom-laden riffs, and some seriously evil prog-guitar soloing, combining Magmoid prog rock sound with 20th century classical elements. There are doom metal bands that would give up a kidney to sound as grim and ominous as this. Lighter sounds do appear, like the joyous folk-melodies of opener "Les Kobolds" that subtly shift into darker shapes as the song progresses; likewise, �Vacillements� contrasts the dreamy pastoral sounds of basoon, violin and clarinet with passages of brooding tension. It's an even mix of sinister sounding prog rock and complex chamber music arrangements, the sound swirling with bassoon, oboes, clarients, saxophones, English horns, keyboards, and violins, and driven by the amazing rhythm section of drummer Daniel Denis (who French prog fans may also know from his involvement in Art Zoyd and Present as well as a one-time stint in Magma early on in his career) and bassist Dimitri Evers. If there's a centerpiece to the album, it�s probably the fourteen-minute epic �Straight Edge� that continually evolves through a series of dark, moody chamber-music passages and driving avant-jazz blowouts, the band building into an amazing fusion workout that takes over halfway through, with some of the most frenzied playing on the album coming into form as the track makes it's way to an explosive climax. These guys can do no wrong in my book, absolute prog-rock geniuses who continue to give me chills with everything that they do, and I'm sure that other UZ fans will agree that this album sees them at their best, delivering another of their heavy, superbly ominous dreamscapes as only they can. Right up there with Magma and King Crimson's darkest material. Recommended.
Track Samples:
Sample : Cercles d'Horus
Sample : Earth Scream
Sample : Les Kobolds
Sample : Warrior

NEW ADDITIONS

16 Drop Out CD (Relapse) 14.98

The early 16 albums have been long overdue for reissue. With the demise of their longtime label Theologian/Pessimiser Records earlier this past decade, most of the 16 catalog became increasingly hard to track down, and their Bacteria Sour releases were even rarer and more sought after. Now with a new album Bridges To Burn out on new label Relapse, a reissue campaign is underway to make these albums available once again, re-mastered and with all new album layouts, starting with their most crucial discs, 1993's Curves That Kick and 1996's Drop Out. Both of these discs are absolutely essential for anyone into the grinding, stop-and-go sludge rock of 16, and either one is a perfect starting point for anybody that's not yet familiar with their brand of sledgehammer heaviness.
Ask a fan what their favorite 16 album is, and most likely they'll say Drop Out. The second album from the LA sludge metallers arguably remains their strongest work, with some of the catchiest, most crushing riffs and songs that the band ever wrote. Their sound and delivery was pretty fucking aggro on Curves The Kick, but this time around, things were way more pissed and negative, pent-up frustration and disillusionment with life that explodes across the ten songs in a murderous rage, strapped down to monstrous bass-driven grooves and crushing stop/start riffing. Their stripped-down, discordant mix of early Helmet, Melvins sludge and violent hardcore is sharpened to a lethal edge here, opening with the brutal chug of "Trigger Happy", then moves through seething sludge ("Pumpfake"), noisy syncopated post-hardcore ("Tocohara"), churning stop-on-a-dime sludge rock ("Sniper"), and minute-long hardcore thrash ferocity that borders on power violence ("Fucked For Life"). Everything is way darker than their debut, uglier, the lyrics steeped in themes of betrayal, self-loathing and despair, but the songs are also laced with subtle guitar and vocal effects that add a newfound psychedelic feel to 16's down tuned throb. Highly recommended - this is the album to start with if you want to get in 16!
Track Samples:
Sample : Pumpfake
Sample : Trigger Happy

16 Curves That Kick CD (Relapse) 14.98

The early 16 albums have been long overdue for reissue. With the demise of their longtime label Theologian/Pessimiser Records earlier this past decade, most of the 16 catalog became increasingly hard to track down, and their Bacteria Sour releases were even more rare and sought after. Now with a new album Bridges To Burn out on new label Relapse, a reissue campaign is underway to make these albums available once again, remastered and with all new album layouts, starting with their most crucial discs, 1993's Curves That Kick and 1996's Drop Out. Both of these discs are absolutely essential for anyone into the grinding, stop-and-go sludge rock of 16, and either one is a perfect starting point for anybody that's not yet familiar with their brand of sledgehammer heaviness.
Originally released on Pushead's Bacteria Sour label, Curves That Kick was the band's debut album, a crushing twelve-song beating that introduced their extremely pissed-off, negative, groove-heavy metallic rock to the underground. With a sound that essentially combined the punishing heaviness of the Melvins with gnarled hardcore punk and the bludgeoning percussive riffs of Strap It On-era Helmet, the LA band made a name for themselves pretty quickly within the extreme hardcore/grind/metal scene in southern California, aided in part by their connection to Pushead and his boutique label. Their minimalist stop-and-go attack is mixed with bursts of thrashy speed on tracks like "Nova" and the very Black Flag-ish "Sedatives", but most of Curves That Kick smashes you over the head with relentless, discordantly noisy riffs played in a crushing mechanical 4/4 groove. Sludgy, brutal and metallic, 16 were also skilled in writing fucking AWESOME riffs, and this album (along with Drop Out) is loaded with 'em, massive catchy riffs that are impossible to resist, any of these songs could have been huge hitys with the alt-metal crowd in the early 90's. To this day, 16 were one of the few bands to find the perfect middle ground between the nihilistic sludge of bands like Buzzoven and Eyehategod, and the aggressive noise rock of the Amphetamine Reptile label.
Track Samples:
Sample : Curves That Kick
Sample : Resin

AATHMA The Call Of Shiva CD (Odio Sonoro) 11.98

Track Samples:
Sample : Oaks
Sample : Shiva the Destroyer
Sample : A Thousand Nail

ANAL CUNT Morbid Florist CD (Relapse) 10.98

A classick early EP from the Boston noisecore legends, Morbid Florist came out as a 7" back in 1993 on Relapse Records, and was then reissued on disc a couple of years later with a previously unreleased untitled bonus track. Like most of AxCx's early 90's stuff, the fifteen tracks on here are mostly pure raw hyperblast blurr, each track a super short nuclear blast of improvised guitar bleeargh and whirlwind noise that borders on Merzbow-like levels of sonic overload, insanely fast cyclonic blast beats, and Seth Putnam's guttural nonsensical screaming about Morrisey, the Grateful Dead, Canadian big band conductor Guy Lombardo, among other more hate-filled subjects.
But there's also some sickeningly grinding doom metal crawl that surfaces on the tracks "Song #5" and "Slow Song From Split 7-Inch", and a couple surprise bursts of goofball thrash metal that keep you on your toes, and the song "Radio Hit" rocks some awesome mosh-meltdown death metal sewage that's still a staple of their live set. The Ep is probably best known though for AxCx's infamous brain-damaged cover of "Unbelievable" from early 90's Madchester pin-ups EMF, easily one of the most insane "cover songs" ever. Along with a bunch of lightning-fast eruptions of total grindnoise, another cover (of Eddy Grant's "I Don't Wanna Dance") and a weird medley of riffs from Boston proto-grind legends Siege called, unsurprisingly, "Siege", this is a blistering chunk of noxious, ridiculously brutal early grind/noise blasts that's pretty essential for hardcore AxCx fans, even if it doesn't have the genius song titles of their later albums. Bleeeargh!
Track Samples:
Sample : I Don't Wanna Dance
Sample : Morrissey
Sample : Siege
Sample : Song #6

APOSTLE OF SOLITUDE Last Sunrise CD (Profound Lore) 13.98

Second full length album from Apostle Of Solitude, a Midwestern doom outfit that features guitarist/singer Chuck Brown who had previously played drums for Gates Of Slumber, still carrying the torch for classic old-school doom metal with this project, although with a slightly tweaked take on the sound. We're talking about some serious Hellhound Records/Maryland doom-style metal, with massive slow-crawling bluesy riffs carved out of huge blocks of Sabbath, creeping doleful dirges powered by huge pounding saurian rhythms and streaked with lots of killer melodic lead guitar; the nine songs on Last Sunrise are directly descended from the classic sound of bands like Saint Vitus, Unorthodox, Internal Void, The Obsessed, Wretched, and Iron Man, and fans of that sort of traditional doom sound should definitely give Apostle Of Solitude a listen. Brown and crew also add some somber spacious passages of melodic guitar and fantastic twin guitar harmonies, interesting flourishes of twangy dark Americana on "Letting Go of the Wheel" and jazz-piano flecked balladry on "December Drives Me to Tears", and even crank up the energy level on a couple of songs by ripping into the occasional NWOBHM style gallop, like on "Hunter Sick Rapture" and "Coldest Love", or the straight up thrash that "Frontiers of Pain" rips into after a lengthy intro of creeping dirge, but the majority of the album is spent wallowing in super heavy lumbering DOOM, equally crushing and majestic and very, very melodic, the melodic aspect enhanced even more by Brown's extremely soulful and dramatic vocals. His soaring, soulful singing really stand out, and may put off doom fans who aren't so crazy about vocals that are this "croony"; his voice reminds me of a cross between Jonah Jenkins (Only Living Witness/Milligram/Raw Radar War) and Eddie Vedder, and it definitely adds an interesting "rock" sheen to the otherwise crushing doom.
Then there are the cover songs. After the nine tracks that make up the album proper, Apostle Of Solitude has also included three covers from The Obsessed, The Misfits, ad Born Against, all of which are pretty fucking killer, and which spin the original songs into AOS's own melodic doom style. The cover of The Obsessed�s �Streetside� is heavier and way more metal than the original, the Misfits classic �Astro Zombies� is given a similar super-heavy treatment, and the cover of �Mary and Child� from 90's hardcore legends Born Against is an unexpected slab of thrashing, anthemic aggression. Usually covers are throwaway additions to an album, but Apostle Of Solitude have turned this into a defining part of their style, even going so far as to include an entirely different set of covers on the European release of this disc!
Recommended for disciples of trad doom and Gates Of Slumber fans, who both should dig this interesting take on classic doom.
Track Samples:
Sample : Ackowledging The Demon
Sample : Hunter Sick Rapture

ASCEND Ample Fire Within 2xLP (Southern Lord) 19.99

Just picked up some of the last copies of the deluxe 2xLP version of Ascend's debut, pressed on 180 gram black vinyl, packaged in a heavyweight textured gatefold sleeve with printed inner jackets, and featuring two bonus tracks ("Desert Cry" and "Fenrir Ondi Ahman") that do not appear on the cd version.
A massive new collaborative project between Greg Anderson (Sunn O)))/Goatsnake/Engine Kid) and Gentry Densley (Iceburn/Eagle Twin), Ascend combines their shared love of extreme sub-sonic tones and the dark fusion jazz of the late 1960's and early 1970's. It seems an unlikely mix, but Ascend have created an amazing debut that travels through regions of abstract doom metal riffage, glacial blues, and behemoth drones that are laced with elements of fusion like horns, reeds, and Wurlitzer electric piano. I've been getting more and more obsessed with 70's fusion like The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return To Forever, Miles Davis' Bitches Brew and Weather Report, especially with the darker, more ominous strains of fusion from that period, and hearing these guys blend those elements with some of the most elephantine drone-doom riffage since early Sunn O))) made this album an immediate favorite. It's also great to see and hear Gentry Densley playing in a band that is this heavy again; his work in Iceburn in the 90's has always been criminally overlooked, and hopefully Ascend will introduce the guy to a new generation of heavy music seekers.
The six tracks on Ample Fire Within are lengthy epics that were borne out of improvisational sessions between the core duo of Anderson and Densley and the host of guest musicians that appear on the album like Steve Moore (Earth), Attila Csihar (Mayhem), Randall Dunn (Master Musicians Of Bukkake), Bubba Dupree (fuckin' VOID, man!), Bill Herzog (Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter), and Kim Thayil (Soundgarden). Massive, lumbering Melvins-style riffs plunder spacious planes of sub-bass drone and extreme low frequency rumbling (low enough to shake the walls when this gets cranked, especially when the extended feedback sculpting kicks in towards the end of "V.O.G.") when the group is at it's heaviest, but the sludge is tempered by passages of transcendent ambience and muted, jazzy textures, and the presence of the Wurlitzer electric piano is constantly felt, as soft flurries of Rhodes-style jazz piano notes drift across the background of both dirge and dronewall alike. Some of the best parts are when Steve Moore's trombones appear over the stentorian doom of "The Obelisk Of Kolob" and sound like battle horns blasting their fanfare over the marching of steel-booted troops to war, or the spacey organ and Moog drones and Native American field recordings that are layered all over the pulvering slo-mo sludge of "Her Horse Is Thunder", eventually sliced and strafed by a gnarly, congested guitar solo from Densley. Another absolutely ripping solo shows up in "V.O.G." and it's one of the album's most striking moments, when a screeching, utterly fucked-sounding atonal solo screams out of the lumbering Sabbathian riff courtesy of Bubba Dupree. Nice. Attila contributes his wordless demonic throat-chanting to the title track, but it's Densley's vocals that dominate the album, moving from the deep growling performance on "Divine" that suggests a subtle Tom Waits influence, to the processed death chants that drift slowly over the buzzing, sitar-infested dronescape of "Dark Matter".
I've been listening to this album constantly lately, and it almost won out over the new Made Out Of Babies for the featured release for this week. A fusion of jazzy organ and resonant Wurlitzer tones that sound like Chick Corea moving through glue and gargantuan abstract doom. Recommended!

Track Samples:
Sample : Dark Matter
Sample : Divine
Sample : The Obelish of Kolob

ASH POOL For Which He Plies The Lash CD (Hospital Productions) 15.98

Featuring Dominick Fernow of Prurient/Cold Cave/Vegas Martyrs/Hospital Productions and Kris Kapke of Northern Cross/Alberich, NY black metal duo Ash Pool has returned with their newest album of raw furious negativity, with more than a few surprises in store for fans who have been following the band since their early Genital Tomb/Black Bondage in the North works. With Fernow involved, you might expect the music of Ash Pool to be on the noisier, more abstract end of USBM, but this stuff turns out to be actually far more melodic and catchy than you'd think, playing a brand of hooky, blown-out punky black metal on previous releases that situated them alongside the likes of Bone Awl, Akitsa, Ancestors, Malveillance and Aanal Beehemoth, and now with For Which He Plies The Lash moving into more progressive territory , with a thicker, more glossy recording, some superbly warped riffing and arrangements and some amazing melodic turns that dropped my jaw a couple of times when I first gave this disc a spin.
All of the older Ash Pool material was punishing enough, but any preconceptions that I had for this album were wiped out as soon as opener "Holocaust Temple" kicks in, starting off with a fucking EPIC jagged intro, then hurtling into a whirlwind of frenzied swarming black riffage and scorched screeching vocals, totally blackened and violent, but with the vocals spinning off into soaring, seemingly harmonized singing, a little like later Enslaved but weirdly "poppy", not at all what I was expecting, but it sounds killer. Suddenly, the song shifts into this long passage of mid-tempo melodic metal, a super poppy rush of raging riffage, then shifting abruptly once again into bizarre loping polka-like melody, almost like some demented blackened Irish traditional tune gone metal before blasting right back into the ferocious holocaustic blackthrash. Fucking AWESOME.
The breakneck blasting BM keeps burning: next is "A Sacrifice Consumed By Fire", putrid death shrieks and guttural howls over grinding back dirge, dissonant guitars buzzing in the background, super heavy and strangely groovy up until it blasts into more super fast violent blackthrash, then switches back into another pounding mid-tempo black n' roll groove. "Big Bang Black Metal" is another ripper that kicks off with a crushing death n' roll riff and deep demonic grunts, shifting between an eerie angular melodic break with sinister trippy lead guitar and jagged rhythmic pummel, and the thrashing blackened gallop and awesome harmonies of the second half. There's the awesome hardcore-tinged black blast of "Porcelain Cancer Spear" that veers from fucked blackthrash to majestic rocking mid-tempo with haunting harmonized vocals in the blink of eye, and the clean soaring singing and spastic black buzz of "White Dwarf Death Mask". The whole album is full of these weird and jarring rhythm and tempo changes, exemplified by the final two tracks: woozy waltzing doom shifts back and forth into a pounding ultra heavy dirge on "Moon Rose", and the crushing black dirge "On The Rings Of Saturn Adam And Eve Conceive Cain" starts with grimy droning riffage that suddenly breaks off into some surprisingly spacey thrash, with swirling Hammond-like buzz and cosmic synth whirr morphing into a droning blurr of minor key thrash riffing and pounding static blast beats, then hurtling back into epic melodic black metal with more soaring majestic melody and buzzing mosquito riffs over relentless blast beats and some really manic, complex tremolo shredding.
Man, their earlier stuff ripped, but this is a whole new level for the band, a faster more melodic dimension to Ash Pool's fearsome brand of black metal.
Track Samples:
Sample : Big Bang Black Metal
Sample : Holocaust Temple

BIANCHI, MAURIZIO Blut Und Nebel CD (Slaughter Productions) 13.98

Track Samples:
Sample : Genocide
Sample : Har-Maghedon
Sample : Neuro Moerder

BLACK COBRA Chronomega LP (Southern Lord) 14.98

Now available on limited-edition vinyl, and includes an oversized LP-size full color booklet.
Nobody brings the monstrous riffcrush better than Black Cobra, who follow up their first pair of albums on At A Loss with Chronomega, their third album and first for their new label home at Southern Lord. This ultra-amped drums/guitar duo, whose members have previously cracked skulls in 16, Cavity and Acid King, continues to serve up their sludgy, ferocious thrash in huge bottom-heavy chunks of juggernaut heaviness, and the riffs are so big, so crunchy on these eight new songs that you never wonder where the bass guitar went to. Man, this album is riff-fucking-city, and every song is weighted down with at least one absolute crusher. The guitars are tuned seriously low, down to teeth-rattling frequencies, the snarling vocals are tough as nails, and the drumming is fluid and furious, a pounding battle-drum assault the roils and churns beneath the grinding riffage on songs like "Negative Reversal", "Zero Point field" and the title track. Black Cobra still remind me of a super-metallized version of Karp crossed with the sludgy thrash metal of High On Fire, and their sound hasn't changed on Chronomega, there's still some of that spacey atmosphere that creeps into some of the songs just like with the earlier albums, some swirling vocals here, trippy melodic leads there, weaving around the often trancey riffs and pummeling low-end heaviness, and closer "Nefarian Triangle" has some spacey Middle Eastern-tinged psych guitar that reminds me of something from Warhorse's As Heaven Turns To Ash. Supremely brutal metal, and clearly a must-get for fans of stuff like High On Fire, Melvins, Karp, Baroness, Torche and Zoroaster.
Track Samples:
Sample : Chronosphere
Sample : Negative Reversal

BLACK SABBATH Black Sabbath LP (NEMS) 15.98

Black Sabbath's eponymous debut needs no introduction; it's ground zero for heavy metal, the starting point for all metallic heaviness, and an eternal classic of early doom metal. Back at the dawn of the 70's, there were plenty of other bands who were developing the template for heavy metal (Led Zep, Deep Purple, Blue Cheer), but none of those guys were as dark and dread-filled and ponderous as Sabbath. The fundamentals of the sound were the same - huge blues-rock riffing married to psychedelia - but the combination of Tony Iommi's slow, downtuned riffs, the saurian rhythm section of Geezer Butler and Bill Ward, and Ozzy's tormented wail with Sabbath's infatuation with dark occult imagery and a wholly malevolent vibe turned their debut into something wholly new and groundbreaking. With that creepy cover art of a woman shrouded in black standing in the foreground of a macabre autumnal scene surrounded by withered trees and weeds, her features blurred and indistinct, the album just looks evil; then the first side starts spinning, opening with that iconic intro of soft rainfall, thunder and a bell tolling in the distance that gives way to the dismal slow-motion doom of the title track, still utterly heavy and morbid sounding as it goes into the mind-blowingly heavy central riff with Ozzy's eerie howl drifting over it, then moving into powerful psychedelic blues rock for the second half...classic. The rest of the a-side is crucial Sabbath, too; the bleating harmonica-led boogie lumber of "The Wizard", "Behind The Wall Of Sleep"'s extended psychedlic swing, the instantly recognizeable doom riff from "N.I.B." (one of the great metal dirges of all time), and the stomping Cream-esque boog of "Wicked World". All essential listening for fans of doom, and hell, heavy metal in general.
Side two isn't as powerful as the first half, with more focus on Cream-influenced blues/psych rock jamming on songs like "Sleeping Village" and the covers of "Evil Woman, Don't Play Your Games With Me" (originally by Minneapolis blues-rock quintet Crow) and "Warning" (from Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation), but still heavy and swingin' enough, and any proto-metal fan knows these tracks up and down.
Sabbath's legacy has unfortunately been tainted over the subsequent decades by some straight-up bullshit and ridiculous Hollywood glitz, but their early 70's works remain unfuckwithable slabs of molten heaviness in my eyes. This NAMS release of Black Sabbath is a limited edition vinyl run on 180 gram black vinyl presented in a heavy jacket, a crucial entry in any doom/metal fan's collection.

BRIGHTER DEATH NOW Innerwar CD (Release) 14.98

1996's Innerwar is the terminally evil fifth album from legendary Swedish death industrialists and Cold Meat Industries flagship band Brighter Death Now, released through the experimental/industrial arm of U.S. death metal/grindcore label Relapse. The main musical project from Cold Meat Industries founder Roger Karmanik (also of Lille Roger/Bomb The Daynursery), this long-running death industrial project has never sounded more harsh than it does here, eschewing much of the bleak, crushing dread and ghastly dark ambience of earlier albums like Necrose Evangelicum for a more violent wall of noise. And man, is this brutal. Definitely some of the heaviest "death industrial" ever, Innerwar bludgeons the listener with eight lengthy tracks of grating, crushing industrial horror, full of grisly images of viscera and corrupted corpses, and visions freed from a Peter Sotos narrative, tracks like "American Tale" and "Little Baby" and "War" feeding you into a great gnashing maw of metal teeth and chains and flesh-destroying gears, looped machine noise and abusive brain-scraping Whitehouse-style feedback forged into fearsome dirges of extreme low-end drones, ultra-distorted vocals that often cross the line into death metal roar, vast rumbling, churning slabs of factory noise and bone-rattling bass, and heavily manipulated, effects-drenched voice samples. A total fucking nightmare of abuse, distortion and sadism, as blackened and terrifying and nihilistic as any "black industrial" album, but firmly rooted in a classic industrial noise/power electronics tradition. Extreme blackened abrasion - if only Release was still putting out stuff like this! The packaging is pretty nice, with translucent vellum cover printed with the red BDN insignia that overlay the horrific abattoir imagery of the actual booklet cover. Highly recommended to fans of Grey Wolves, MZ.412, IRM, Navicon Torture Technologies, Institut, Deathpile, Steel Hook Prostheses and Sutcliffe J�gend.
Track Samples:
Sample : Innerwar
Sample : Little Baby

BUZZOVEN Violence From The Vault CD (Relapse) 11.98

Reissues and releases of the recordings of legendary drug-chugging sludge maniacs Buzzov-en have been few and far between, with the last collection of out-of-print material Welcome To Violence coming out back in 2005 (and itself now out-of-print!). I'll take what I can get though, especially when it's rare studio stuff that I've never heard before. The latest document from Buzzov-en is a short collection, five songs, that were recorded way back in 1994 around the same time as their amazing album Sore, their sole release for Roadrunner Records, and while the recording quality is pretty grotty and raw, it's still primo Buzzov-en sludge, super heavy and crawling and noise-spattered, smeared in vile black feedback and vomitous screams wallowing in the depths of the mix, more tweaked and freaked-out than Eyehategod but sharing a similar punk-influenced slow-mo crush. The four shorter songs on Violence are punishing, grinding brutality, from "Mainline"'s droning hypnotic sludge and the herky-jerky stop/start groove and delirious samples of "Breed", to the pounding slo-mo drums and feedback-soaked dirge "Paintake" and the short, brutal blast of thrashing hardcore skuzz of "I Never", all of 'em ferocious and pissed and violent, the band swirling in the throes of a murderous narco-fueled rage, totally negative and hateful and psychotic. Then there's the almost sixteen minute "Nod", a seriously slow narcotized dirge with random percussion, swirling slurred and mumbling vocals, an endlessly repeating Sabbathoid riff churning through it, while suspended guitar feedback and super detuned guitar rumble hovers in the murky atmosphere, super heavy but also really abstract, a killer slab of noisy psychedelic drugsludge.
Needless to say, anyone into Buzzov-en's early releases will love this unearthed collection of tracks, especially the four shorter tracks that deliver the amazingly ferocious punky sludgecore that these guys helped pioneer. Comes in digipack packaging, and includes some brief liner notes from Buzzov-en singer/guitarist Kirk Fisher that suggests that a new full length may finally be coming soon from the band!
Track Samples:
Sample : Mainline
Sample : Paintake

BUZZOVEN Violence From The Vault LP (Relapse) 14.98

Also available on limited edition vinyl with a digital download code.
Reissues and releases of the recordings of legendary drug-chugging sludge maniacs Buzzov-en have been few and far between, with the last collection of out-of-print material Welcome To Violence coming out back in 2005 (and itself now out-of-print!). I'll take what I can get though, especially when it's rare studio stuff that I've never heard before. The latest document from Buzzov-en is a short collection, five songs, that were recorded way back in 1994 around the same time as their amazing album Sore, their sole release for Roadrunner Records, and while the recording quality is pretty grotty and raw, it's still primo Buzzov-en sludge, super heavy and crawling and noise-spattered, smeared in vile black feedback and vomitous screams wallowing in the depths of the mix, more tweaked and freaked-out than Eyehategod but sharing a similar punk-influenced slow-mo crush. The four shorter songs on Violence are punishing, grinding brutality, from "Mainline"'s droning hypnotic sludge and the herky-jerky stop/start groove and delirious samples of "Breed", to the pounding slo-mo drums and feedback-soaked dirge "Paintake" and the short, brutal blast of thrashing hardcore skuzz of "I Never", all of 'em ferocious and pissed and violent, the band swirling in the throes of a murderous narco-fueled rage, totally negative and hateful and psychotic. Then there's the almost sixteen minute "Nod", a seriously slow narcotized dirge with random percussion, swirling slurred and mumbling vocals, an endlessly repeating Sabbathoid riff churning through it, while suspended guitar feedback and super detuned guitar rumble hovers in the murky atmosphere, super heavy but also really abstract, a killer slab of noisy psychedelic drugsludge.
Needless to say, anyone into Buzzov-en's early releases will love this unearthed collection of tracks, especially the four shorter tracks that deliver the amazingly ferocious punky sludgecore that these guys helped pioneer. Comes in digipack packaging, and includes some brief liner notes from Buzzov-en singer/guitarist Kirk Fisher that suggests that a new full length may finally be coming soon from the band!
Track Samples:
Sample : Mainline
Sample : Paintake

COMITY ...As Everything Is A Tragedy CD (Candlelight) 5.98

I've seen this band's name around for awhile but never checked em out until they were strongly recommended to me by one of our customers, and was surprised by just how insane this gang of French avant-death blasters turned out to be! ...As Everything Is A Tragedy came out a few years ago on Candlelight Records, but like some of the label's other signings from the French underground (Spektr, Overmars), this went largely overlooked by the extreme metal underground. A shame, because this is some of the most warped and mind-bending math-metal I've heard lately, a mixture of ultra-chaotic and insanely complex death metal and warp-speed avant-math-thrash filled with stop-on-a-dime time changes, crazed squiggly guitar leads, dense sheets of guitar noise, weird dissonant mutant-jazz guitar chords, even some surprising but well utilized melodic indie rock-like jangle. A lot of the descriptions of Comity's sound that I've read included comparisons to Dillenger Escape Plan, but that's not really what I'm hearing here; this sounds to me more like some emotionally wrought tech/prog-death infused with elements of post-hardcore and epic sludge, and often reminds me of a crazy mash up of Orthrelm, Obscura-era Gorguts, Dazzling Killmen, early Fantomas, Neurosis, Polvo, and the Gravity Records screamo sound. Sounds like an odd mix of sounds, but anyone into extreme math/grind has got to check this album out; the disc is made up of ninety-nine untitled tracks, each one a short chapter of what I guess is a single album-length piece, the tracks sometimes as short as ten seconds, or as along as several minutes, leaping from baffling arrangements of hyper fast angular shred and jagged math-death into breathtaking melodic vistas of layered guitar and soaring melody a la Mono and deathgrind whiplash, or warped crawling doom morphing into crushing death-metal infused metalcore stomp, then erupting into soaring dark indie rock melody or surging waves of tribal drums, all fronted by a singer whose voice shifts between deep death-metal growling and gut-wrenching gargling screams that sound truly fearsome. Then the final five minute track that ends the album takes it into a whole new direction with a hypnotic tribal dirge of pounding toms and gruff chanted vocals and chiming minor key guitars, that sounds a bit like Neurosis crossed with Fields Of The Nephilim! Pretty fucking incredible stuff. Comes with an eight-page full color booklet and the packaging features spot-varnish printing.
Track Samples:
Sample : Track 16
Sample : Track 25
Sample : Track 33
Sample : Track 38
Sample : Track 42
Sample : Track 99

CONDOMINIUM Gag 7 INCH VINYL (Deer Healer) 6.50

I can't get enough of this messed-up throwback hardcore stuff. Condominium have been around for a couple of years (this 7� is their fourth), but this new Ep is the first exposure I've had to them. Sounds like something I'd hear on Parts Unknown, and if yer into the sort of fucked-up, weirdo hardcore punk that Frich releases through that label (Violent Students, Pissed Jeans, Homostupids, Dry-Rot), you'll probably dig these guys too. Hailing from Minneapolis, Condominium serve up three new songs on this platter, the first "Gag" taking up the a-side with a simmering seven-minute dirge that starts off with a single jangly guitar strumming out an eerie chord progression before being joined by another lead guitar and bass, then drums, the tension slowly being dialed up as the singer comes in with his laconic drawl, bits of backwards sound surfacing, the vocals becoming warped, then suddenly erupting into a pounding sludgy dirge, the melody laced with some dark Western twang, kinda like Flipper mixed with a bit of warped country-punk. Heavy stuff.
On the other side, the band cranks up the speed. "Redemption Song" alternately lunges and withdraws, a furious clot of dissonant guitar mangle, snarling threats and manic drumming that's equal parts Void and Black Flag, and just as crazed as that comparison makes it sound; the third song "The Entire Human Body" starts off with another ominous dirgey riff like the band trudged out on side one, but wanders off into a weirder new direction with strange random percussion, watery slide guitar slipping over the backing bass line, forming into a kind of atonal Gothic blues, getting trippier as the guitar slides further out of form and deeper into humming free-noise. I really dig this stuff. Disturbing lyrics (the lines for "Redemption Song" almost read as notes from Michael Gira's journal), deranged noise-splattered punk dirge, creepy artwork...really looking forward to digging up more from these guys.

CORTEGE FUNEBRE / INTO DAGORLAD split CD (Haunted Hotel) 11.98

This split disc from 2005 features two corpse painted French BM crews that share a some members, and both deliver some nicely shredding tracks of Gallic grimness that's got me digging for more records from both. In contrast to the warped avant-garde sounds that I usually hear when spinning any French black metal, Cortege Funebre and Into Dagorlad both go for an older, more classic sound, but with a high degree of riff-chops and songwriting that allow both bands to rise above the hordes of BM rehash.
The first four tracks are from Cortege Funebre, whose cold, droning old school black metal weaves some epic folk melody into their buzzing black swarms, evoking the sounds of both early Mayhem, Gorgoroth, Immortal and the rural majesty of Hate Forest; tracks like "Souffrance mortuaire", "Ultime ch�timent" and "La r�gne de Lucifer" whip up a blackened blast of screeching high pitched screams, ominous droning minor-key riffs, passages of Burzum-esque buzz, and epic melodies swirling in cavernous ambience, moving between walzting dirges and raw swarming swarms, pretty catchy actually, but REALLY raw, too.
With Into Dagorlad, the sound heads into a much thrashier, more bestial assault, songs like "Trones de cendres" and "Cythraul" inciting epic, often seven-minute plus rituals of punky, d-beat ridden blackthrash that draws from a definite Venom influence as well as the likes of Aura Noir, old Darkthrone, Hellhammer, and early French BM, dropping stretches of slower, shambling black dirge into the blazing buzzsaw chaos, and fronted by some killer razor-gargling vokills that are layered into a hysterical screaming din.
And for the last track "Morgue", the members of both bands come together for a four minute slab of abstract buzz, an Abruptum-esque ritual of formless droning darkness, mangled minor key guitar, simple, almost martial drumming, and demonic shrieks and grunts that ends in a cloud of vile utterances and guitar noise. It's a great introduction to both bands, with almost fifty minutes of French necro oozing off this disc. Limited to 500 copies.
Track Samples:
Sample : CORTEGE FUNEBRE - Le Regne De Lucifer
Sample : INTO DAGORLAD - Pure Hate
Sample : CORTEGE FUNEBRE + INTO DAGORLAD - Morgue

CUZO Amor y Muerte en la Tercera Fase (BLUE VINYL) LP (Alone -Spain-) 17.98

Now available as a limited edition import from Spanish label Alone, in an edition of 200 copies on 180 gram blue vinyl, and presented in a full color gatefold jacket.
For a while there, I thought that the Spanish label Alone Records was going to turn into something skin to a 21st Century Euro-version of Mans Ruin, releasing top notch heavy stoner rock and doom metal with a particular focus on their own underground scene right there in Spain (but without the ridiculous flood of releases that ended up being the downfall of Mans Ruin). The latest three releases from Alone expand the label's range quite a bit though, heading into heavy prog and space rock territory that has only been hinted at on past releases. Both discs from Beiruth and El Paramo deliver some heavy space rock, but the debut album from the band Cuzo is the proggiest of any of 'em, taking a mix of 70s prog rock and krautrock influences and adding them to a stew of heavy distorted riffs, lumbering doom, angular winding basslines, intense proggy rhythmic workouts and powerful percussive assaults and heavy synthesizers drawn out into long meandering arrangements. Based out of Barcelona, the guys in Cuzo already have a metallic resume with members also playing in the crusty doom metal band Warchetype (who are also on Alone Records) and sludge rockers Lords Of Bukkake, and they inject a crushing downtuned heaviness into these eight winding prog jams. The whole album is instrumental, and I hear a LOT of Goblin in here, as well as bits of Pink Floyd, some of that Magma/Zeuhl prog sound on a couple of songs, and lots of old school doom. It's pretty fucking great! There are parts where Cuzo evoke something resembling Saint Vitus playing Italian prog rock, and elsewhere they sound not all that unlike a much heavier, doomier version of Yeti crossed with The Obsessed. There are also subdued passages of creepy electronics and minimal percussion, crushing torrents of in-the-red distorted drone, and sinister kosmiche ambience This album feels like it's tailor made for me, for real - early 80s horror soundtrack sounds mixed with dark heavy prog and mutant doom metal riffs? These guys are awesome, and I can't wait to hear more of this stuff from Cuzo. Way way recommended to fans of heavy prog, Magma, Goblin's rocking 80s releases, Zombi, Yeti, Tarantula Hawk, Horrors Of The Black Museum, Mammatus, Earthless, and anything heavy, doomy, and proggy as fuck!
Track Samples:
Sample : CUZO-Amor y Muerte en la Tercera Fase (BLUE VINYL)
Sample : CUZO-Amor y Muerte en la Tercera Fase (BLUE VINYL)
Sample : CUZO-Amor y Muerte en la Tercera Fase (BLUE VINYL)

CUZO Amor y Muerte en la Tercera Fase (BLACK VINYL) LP (Alone -Spain-) 17.98

Now available as a limited edition import from Spanish label Alone, in an edition of 300 copies on 180 gram black vinyl, and presented in a full color gatefold jacket.
For a while there, I thought that the Spanish label Alone Records was going to turn into something skin to a 21st Century Euro-version of Mans Ruin, releasing top notch heavy stoner rock and doom metal with a particular focus on their own underground scene right there in Spain (but without the ridiculous flood of releases that ended up being the downfall of Mans Ruin). The latest three releases from Alone expand the label's range quite a bit though, heading into heavy prog and space rock territory that has only been hinted at on past releases. Both discs from Beiruth and El Paramo deliver some heavy space rock, but the debut album from the band Cuzo is the proggiest of any of 'em, taking a mix of 70s prog rock and krautrock influences and adding them to a stew of heavy distorted riffs, lumbering doom, angular winding basslines, intense proggy rhythmic workouts and powerful percussive assaults and heavy synthesizers drawn out into long meandering arrangements. Based out of Barcelona, the guys in Cuzo already have a metallic resume with members also playing in the crusty doom metal band Warchetype (who are also on Alone Records) and sludge rockers Lords Of Bukkake, and they inject a crushing downtuned heaviness into these eight winding prog jams. The whole album is instrumental, and I hear a LOT of Goblin in here, as well as bits of Pink Floyd, some of that Magma/Zeuhl prog sound on a couple of songs, and lots of old school doom. It's pretty fucking great! There are parts where Cuzo evoke something resembling Saint Vitus playing Italian prog rock, and elsewhere they sound not all that unlike a much heavier, doomier version of Yeti crossed with The Obsessed. There are also subdued passages of creepy electronics and minimal percussion, crushing torrents of in-the-red distorted drone, and sinister kosmiche ambience This album feels like it's tailor made for me, for real - early 80s horror soundtrack sounds mixed with dark heavy prog and mutant doom metal riffs? These guys are awesome, and I can't wait to hear more of this stuff from Cuzo. Way way recommended to fans of heavy prog, Magma, Goblin's rocking 80s releases, Zombi, Yeti, Tarantula Hawk, Horrors Of The Black Museum, Mammatus, Earthless, and anything heavy, doomy, and proggy as fuck!
Track Samples:
Sample : CUZO-Amor y Muerte en la Tercera Fase (BLACK VINYL)
Sample : CUZO-Amor y Muerte en la Tercera Fase (BLACK VINYL)
Sample : CUZO-Amor y Muerte en la Tercera Fase (BLACK VINYL)

DARK NOERD The Beholder 12 INCH (Flapping Jet) 12.98

Had thought that this 12" was way out of print, never had any luck trying to contact the label that released it (which seems to have quietly shut down in the past year), but persistent digging has turned up some of the last copies of this weird little record from 2001. The nom de guerre of author/indie publisher Ian Christe (whose imprint Bazillion Points is fueling my read-time at the moment with that new Hellhammer/Celtic Frost book Only Death Is Real and the reprint of Daniel Ekeroth's essential tome Swedish Death Metal), Dark Noerd was one of the few black metal breakbeat outfits I've heard. Probably best known for an appearance on the soundtrack for Harmony Korine's Gummo, this 12� was the only other official appearance from Dark Noerd, pressed up on translucent green vinyl and packaged in a clear mylar sleeve with just a pink label on the corner. And it�s a weird one. The six tracks move from dark apocalyptic drum n' bass (think Metalheadz / Photek) to bizarre noise experiments to mangy, damaged low-fi black metal, sometimes combining all three together into a mess of mutant blackened jungle and mangled BM riffs. It's an interesting mashup, with bizarre vocal effects, lots of warped, chopped-up electronic weirdness, and faltering industrial noise loops, both sides ending in hypnotic lock-grooves. It's definitely more "alien" sounding than evil and probably of more interest to noise freaks and industrial/jungle weirdos than black metal fans, though it is hard not to notice the Abruptum/Aborym influences at work here... This record has been rocking it constantly in the C-Blast office. Doesn't really sound like anything else I've ever heard, that's for sure.

DETRITIVORE Pakt LP (Lyderhorn) 15.98

A stunning new debut from an extremely secretive and mysterious band from Norway called Detritivore, Pakt is an intense collection of dark, gothic visions steeped in a mixture of mesmeric black metal abstraction, pulsating Teutonic ambience, disembodied doom metal, and classic industrial music. Seems to describe half of the albums that I've been listening to lately, but Detritivore are on to their own thing here. The first time that I listened to Pakt, I had a hard time trying to describe it; these are heavily textured slabs of nocturnal ambience and spectral heaviness that require repeated listens to really absorb. Apparently some sort of concept album about the member's refutation of organized religion, this ultimately is an engrossing album of psychedelic soundscapes that are formed from field recordings that the duo have captured and cut-and-pasted together with dark synthesizer ambience, primitive crushing doom stripped of any semblance of forward motion, buzzing and choruses of clanking dystopian metal that evoke images of burnt-out cities and futuristic factories belching out vast plumes of black vapor into the sky.
The opening track fades into view with a deep rattling rumbling percussive ambience, like the sound of a distant train, or someone playing a quick marching beat on a snare over and over and over, strange moans and random sounds echoing in the background, setting a very eerie vibe almost instantly, and then gradually the guitars begin to come in at the same time as that percussive rattling fades away, a buzzing, distorted single chord strummed quickly for a moment, then left to hang in mid-air, a brief moment where everything falls away, and then suddenly the droning riff kicks right back in, only this time it's joined by a haunting vocal melody, ghostly harmonized singing that almost sounds like some ancient eldritch folk song being sadly sung over the minimal, fuzz-soaked guitar. Drums crash in, slow and sparse but pounding, turning this into a morose, doom-laden folk dirge, dropping in and out as the droning guitar does the same, the song becoming more fragmented and abstract as it reaches the end.
The following song begins with more droning guitars, deep rumbling feedback swirlign beneath suspended buzz and amplified hum, more guitars slowly joining the fold, the sound slowly blossoming into a massive Sunn-esque dirge, then a massive blackened doom riff caves in, completely turning this into some Sunn-style doomdrone, the crushing riff circling through the murky haze, trebly drones and swells of fuzz forming whorls of gritty sound in the background. The metallic sludge eventually drops out, and leaves behind a wide expanse of field recordings and super minimal thrum, a subdued dronescape made up of the distant buzz of aircraft flying high above, keening strings in the distance, strange echoing sounds and deep textural hiss.
Track three is another mysterious dronescape, this time made up of layered machine noise, sinister whispered vocals, an out-of-tune guitar plucking out the same two-notes over and over, weird delay effects and random noises, and then a single sad violin appears, playing a simple melancholy melody over the guitar for a minute before a terrifying rush of distorted noise suddenly descends from out of nowhere, burying the eerie melody beneath a grinding, buzzing distorted roar.
That's followed by the prettiest track on Pakt, which is at first another abstract industrial dronescape, the sounds of grinding machinery and subterranean rumblings and sheet-metal avalanche far off in the distance, but then a glorious gleaming cloud of cosmic synth tones begin to form, forming into a gorgeous angelic choral melody above the blackened, smoldering surface, total kosmische bliss rising high above a scorched planet, equal parts Tangerine Dream and grim industrial drone...
It's with the final two tracks that the black metal side of Detritivore finally comes into view, although even here it's really minimal and droning, more like dark psychedelia informed by the atmosphere of black metal. An ominous guitar opens track six as a super-distorted, crumbling blackened doom riff crawls forward, another Sunn-like slab of disembodied sludge lumbering over another simple guitar line; it then breaks off into more minimal field recordings and hushed urban ambience for a few minutes, then returns to that creepy riff from the beginning, now backed by additional blackened guitars and thick swathes of corroded low-end and deformed tremolo before the piece collapses in a flurry of delayed percussion and dubby effects. And then the final track comes in, for the first minute or so just industrial noise drenched in reverb and other effects, an intro to the droning black metallish riff that comes in and becomes the center of the track, a simple chord progression repeating over single-note tremolo picking, almost more like an old Pink Floyd instrumental than black metal, certainly not all that distorted, but definitely quite creepy and ominous, especially as more layers of buzzing drone, and dark cosmic synthesizer and backwards guitar appear, it suddenly all sounding a LOT like Chicago blackened psychdrone duo Locrian, a totally hypnotic and haunting blackened krautrock jam, the Tangerine Dream-style synths coming to the fore as the guitars melt into the background, the throbbing bass becoming more prominent, crashing cymbals washed across the periphery, everything eventually fading into shadow...
This album is pretty amazing, unveiling a strange phantasmagorical world shot through with brief flashes of stunning beauty that struggle against the devouring blackness. Fans of Locrian should definitely check this band and album out, and it also comes highly recommended to fans of likeminded black abstractionists and drone sorcerers like Pussygutt, To Blacken The Pages, Fear Falls Burning, Half Makeshift, KTL and OS. It's available on both Cd and Lp, both formats are limited edition, and both packaged in a gatefold sleeve that bears some fantastic artwork from Justin Bartlett.
Track Samples:
Sample : Track 1
Sample : Track 5
Sample : Track 6

DETRITIVORE Pakt CD (Lyderhorn) 9.98

DRY-ROT Philistine LP (Parts Unknown) 12.98

Parts Unknown may be my favorite hardcore label right now. Their latest offering Philistine from Dry-Rot is another ripping, quirky slab of HC punk, and comes from a band that includes two brothers who are professed Christians, a detail that seems to have generated a bit of conversation on the web (this particular corner of hardcore being pretty anti-religious), but this isn�t "Christian hardcore", especially not in the Tooth And Nail/Solidstate sense, there's nothing in the lyrics or music that would lead you to believe that this was a Christian band at all (aside from the weird baptismal imagery on the album cover), but the member�s faith and their intelligent discussion of it in punk zines like Maximum Rock and Roll is an interesting part of the band's background, considering how fucking weird and raging there music is. Dry-Rot�s mutant hardcore is a combo of inscrutably surreal lyrics, bizarre artwork, and warped dadaist thrash that I�ve seen compared to 80's DC hardcore weirdos United Mutation, definitely a good reference point for Dry-Rot's often maniacal HC, but with a lot of lysergic Butthole Surfers style psychedelic noisiness, too. These guys fit right in with the rest of the Parts Unknown roster; fans of Snake Apartment, Pissed Jeans, Homostupids and Violent Students will probably love this.
Philistine is the first full length from the band, with fourteen tracks that go from weirdo dub-punk to super fast mangled thrashcore to arty improv punk, with vocals that are all over the place, one minute shrieking like a maniac, the next belting out a brain-damaged croon, and the guitarist goes for whacked out, spacey effects more than actual riffs half of the time, generating these weird electronic effects that add to Dry-Rot's frenzied psychedelic hardcore sound. Songs often stop and start abruptly, with more than a little bit of SST-style jazzoid weirdness going on; hardly a coincidence as drummer Tony Cicero used to play in Saccharine Trust back in the 90's. There's also a lot of Greg Ginn-esque guitar skronk, and some freaked-out Hendrixian acid guitar, weird poppy parts, jazzy basslines, all put together with fucked-up unpredictable song arrangements. Along with the aforementioned Butthole Surfers and United Mutation, other comparisons include Die Kruezen, Void, and the weirdo hardcore band Condominium that I've also written up in this week's new arrivals list. Comes in a full color jacket with printed inner sleeve and a full color poster.

EKEROTH, DANIEL Swedish Death Metal BOOK (Bazillion Points) 34.98

Here's another essential tome for metal bookworms to add to your extreme metal shelf alongside Mudrian's Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore and Moynihan and Soderlind's Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground. Written by author Daniel Ekeroth (himself a member of Swedish death metal and crust bands like Insision, Diskonto, Soul Devourer, and Dellamorte), Swedish Death Metal is an incredibly in-depth 448-page investigation of one of the world's most influential death metal scenes, collecting an extensive oral history of the amazingly fertile death metal movement that crawled out of the Swedish landscape during the 1980s and 1990s. Ekeroth assembles a fascinating narrative out of first-person accounts from a wide variety of band members, fanzine editors, metal radio disc jockeys, fanatical tape traders, and label owners, tracing the evolution of Swedish DM from the early roots in thrash metal and Swedish hardcore, to early Swedish outfits like Bathory, Obscurity, and Mefisto, to the explosion of death metal that produced classic bands like Merciless, Nihilist, Treblinka, Dismember, Morbid, Grave, Carnage, Entombed, Crematory, Edge Of Sanity, Therion....the list goes on and on. The anecdotal commentary from various denizens of the Swedish extreme metal underground is extensive, and gives a colorful accounting of what went down. One of my favorite things about the book is the attention that Ekeroth gives to the crucial role of underground fanzines and tape trading on the Swedish death metal scene, and there are also several lengthy chapters on the various record labels that were pivotal in spreading the gospel of crushing Death, an entire section that explores the infiltration of black metal into the Swedish underground of the early 90's, the development of the "Gothenburg Sound" that birthed In Flames and At The Gates, the death n' roll offshoots, Swedish crustcore's ties to death metal, and much , much more.
It's a lengthy and fascinating read for death metal geeks, filled with Ekeroth's (often quite funny and sarcastic) writing, and is further brought to life with tons of amazing photographs, demo covers, flyers, inserts, fan club ads and gig posters. On top of all of that, the back of the book features two killer appendices, the first being an "A to Z of Swedish Death Metal Bands" that gives you a capsule profile and discography of just about every Swedish death metal band ever, and a comprehensive bibliography of Swedish death metal fanzines with reproductions of covers and Xeroxed ads that has my 'zine-collecting obsession going into overdrive. Fucking awesome.

EXALTED Eyes Rolled Back 7 INCH VINYL (Deer Healer) 6.50

Chicago punkers gone black metal Exalted are back with a new two-song 7" that delivers more of their thrashing, buzz saw BM that made their debut We Are The Grim Throng such a ripper. Made up of guys who used to play in Chicago-area hardcore bands like MK Ultra, Charles Bronson, Ottowa, and Nema, Exalted play blackened thrash with an unmistakable punk influence: simple three-and-four chord riffs, straightforward thrashy drumming, rocking mid-paced parts, obviously informed by the raw power of hardcore punk, but with screeching feral vokills that are so blown out and distorted that they are totally unintelligible, and recorded with a seriously murky production that gives this a real clandestine vibe. The a-side track "Eyes Rolled Back" is a fierce thrasher that goes from speedy primitive BM to a killer droning hardcore riff, put together into a fairly catchy (and highly skuzzy sounding) dose of necro-punk, while the b-side jam "We Are The Grim Throng" kicks into a seriously catchy punk tune that sounds more like early 80's hardcore than black metal, except they've got this eerie guitar lead snaking through it, and the vocals are at the extreme end of screech. Reminds me a lot of the early Ash Pool / Malveillance / Akitsa brand of blackened punk, though this song is much more melodic than any of that stuff. Pretty fucking rad! The 7� comes in a suitably grim looking sleeve, limited to 300 copies.

FISCHER, TOM GABRIEL Only Death Is Real BOOK (Bazillion Points) 39.98

If you�re going to get the history of any underground music movement, it�s always best when heard straight from the horse's mouth; when it comes to the formative years of the ragtag gang of 80�s metal mutants Hellhammer, who better to give it to us than the man himself, Tom "Warrior" Fischer. I've been looking forward to this book since Bazillion Points dropped the word that it was coming out about a year ago, and the finished tome is an amazing thing. Only Death Is Real is extreme metal publishing of the highest quality, a gorgeous 290-page embossed-hardcover book that almost qualifies as coffee-table sized, printed on high-quality paper with a LOT of gloss black print (so you've gotta watch out for fingerprints when you're paging through it) and an eye-boggling assortment of photographs (mostly black and white, but also including an extensive color section) that spans both the entire career of extreme metal pioneers Hellhammer and the very beginnings of the mighty Celtic Frost.
But it's Tom Gabriel Fischer's recollection in words of what Hellhammer was all about that makes this book so crucial for fans of both of his groundbreaking bands. His writing is straightforward and reflective as he describes growing up on the outskirts of Zurich, Switzerland, how difficult it really was for nascent metallers to get their fix before any sort of metal scene even existed, and the naive, youthful dream that evolved into Hellhammer, complete with all of the hardships, stumbles, misfires (which make for some seriously funny anecdotes), and successes that any young band endures. Except in this case, this young band was Hellhammer, who were a crucial catalyst for the development of both death and black metal. More than anything else, Fischer's narrative (which is embellished by additional commentary from band mates Martin Eric Ain and Steve Warrior, and a handful of other figures connected to the band) shows us a band that, despite all of their difficulties, were immensely driven with a unique, personal vision that they pursued with a relentless determination.
Along with the autobiographical part of the book, this thing is a fucking visual feast. The book is filled with striking photographic images of the young Hellhammer, culminating with the 32-page color section that appears towards the end. There's also tons of artwork, logo art, flyer/newsletter reproductions, sleeve art, and other ephemera that constitutes a smorgasbord of Hellhammer/Celtic Frost-related eye candy that fans will flip over. Design geeks in particular will dig the gallery that shows the evolution of both the Hellhammer and Celtic Frost logos in detail, as well as the other logos that Tom Warrior designed durng this era (I never knew that he created the Hirax logo, for instance). There's also an introduction from Darkthrone's Nocturno Culto, and a foreward from Joel McIver (Justice For All: The Truth About Metallica). Crucial reading for anyone into the mighty force that was Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, and an amazing document of extreme metal history that has landed in my top spot for metal book of the year�

FLOOR Below And Beyond 8xCD GATEFOLD (Robotic Empire) 46.98

Track Samples:
Sample : Chelsea/Pigs
Sample : The Ladder
Sample : Pillars Of Irem
Sample : The Pulse
Sample : Scimitar
Sample : Tales of Lolita

GLORIOR BELLI Manifesting The Raging Beast LP (Southern Lord) 15.98

Just found some of the last copies of this French black metal ritual from Glorior Belli...
Noone delivers progressive, forward-thinking black metal the way the French do, and I can never get enough French black metal. I'm constantly listening to bands like Alcest, Blut Aus Nord, Spektr, and Deathspell Omega over here, and another French band that I finally hear not long ago that has been equally kicking my ass is Glorior Belli, who released their last album Manifesting The Raging Beast through Southern Lord about a year ago. This band is kind of a French black metal supergroup, made up of members of bands like Merrimack, Obscurus Advocam, Slavian and Black Flame, but if anything, Glorior Belli channels a similiar brand of discordant, dissonant black metal as Deathspell Omega throughout these eight songs. Seriously, Deathspell Omega fans will love these guys. Their sound is filled with a similiar sort of seasick riffery and epic, apocalyptic leads, the guitars lurching through angular mathy riffs and dense highspeed buzz, drums going from full-on blast to strange sputtering mid-paced rhythms and that weird sort of blackened, disorienting Slint-esque mathrock dissonance that really gets them the Deathspell comparison. The songs are complex and intricate, made up of assorted passages of raging blackened thrash and passages of warped post-rock n' chiming melodies and waltzing, discordant doominess, and amazingly catchy melodic lines are strewn all across the songs, making this both as grim and fearsome as Deathspell while injecting the music with a unique melodic quality of their own. And like both Deathspell and Funeral Mist, Glorior Belli have given their album a MASSIVE recording that's way heavier and thicker sounding than most black metal albums, infusing their discordant satanic blasts with a crushing presence. I love this album! It's another essential disc for anyone into the super-raging blackness of Deathspell, Funeral Mist, Katharsis, and Watain!
Track Samples:
Sample : From Darkness There Springs Light
Sample : Serpentine Admonition
Sample : Severed from the Self

HAARE Aquarian Darkness 7 INCH VINYL (Hellville) 9.98

Up till now, we've only carried a handful of Haare cassettes and one cd-r, all of em excellent slabs of nocturnal ritual drone. This super-limited (only 110 copies pressed!) 7" is the first Haare vinyl I've picked up, and it's more of that excellent blackened psychdrone that this Finnish one-man band excels at, gorgeously presented in a full color jacket (and with a Haare sticker included) by those black-robed mutants at Hellville.
The a-side drops a massive black veil of hellish drone with "Aquarian Darkness", an endless stream of jet-black rumble, layers of buzzing strata and churning subterranean thrum, clanking metal echoing through the abyss, that central heavy drone shifting ever so slightly through the stygian blackness, almost Lustmord like, but with strange bits of metallic percussion and black cavern winds swirling beneath the hum, almost like Skullflower at times, but more washed out and buried beneath layers of hiss and deep-earth ambience.
"Limbus Of Spiritual Decay" follows on the flipside, starting off almost symphonic, like the sound of a string section playing deep underground, the ominous strains obscured underneath the roar of a great subterranean river, and joined by more of those strange clanking metal sounds and gongs and chimes, subtle swells of swarming feedback and delay, very dark and bleak and psychedelic, more ambient than aggressive, but pretty damn heavy nonetheless, the whole sound thick and murky, a massive roiling blackened raga drone surrounded by terrifying effects and warped strings drowning in reverb. Blackened and creepy as hell, but also really hypnotic and meditative.
Again, there were only 110 of these pressed, and I'm pretty sure that the copies that we picked up from the label are all that we're going to be able to get. Comes in a striking full color jacket with eerie neon-tinged occultic artwork, with a Haare logo sticker inside.

HEIRS Alchera LP (Denovali) 18.98

A beautiful gatefold vinyl edition of Heirs's Alchera, with spot-varnish printing, creepy full color imagery, and pressed on thick colored vinyl
This Australian band shares some members of Whitehorse, who some of you might know from their double cd that came out on 20 Buck Spin a few years ago. With that in mind, you'd probably expect Heirs to traffic in a similiar brand of excruciating sludge, but they're actually quite different, playing a brand of dark soaring instrumental rock mixed up with some Godflesh/Swans influences.
The first track "Plague Asphyx" opens with a wheezing industrial noise loop like rhythmic blasts of steam, as a pounding drumbeat kicks in alongside a massive droning bassline, soon joined by a queasy, trebly guitar lead and sheets of caustic noise. We're talking total Godflesh territory here, a hypnotic industrial dirge with that booming heavy drumbeat repeated again and again, the tension slowly becoming cranked as more noise is fed in, and additional guitars are piled on top, no release in sight, until finally in the last minute a fucking devestating sludge riff drops in, immense and crushing, appearing for only a brief minute until the song closes out on another loop of static bursts. No vocals, no verse/chorus song structure, just a vicious machine-groove pummeling you for five minutes. Killer! But the next track switches gears completely. Opening with a delicate guitar melody, "Mockery" unfurls softly layered post-rock prettiness over a slow, throbbing drumbeat, while streaks of distorted and delayed guitar fly overhead. Sounds a lot like Red Sparowes with its cinematic grandeur and evocative guitars and motorik drums, but after a while the guitars begin to become more distorted, and heavier, and swirling electronic fx and noise begins to envelop the song, and halfway in it morphs abruptly into plodding sludge for a minute or two before returning to the epic layered guitars, before once again sliding into total doom at the end, a super-heavy sludge riff surrounded by the ever-present textured noise and pyres of smoldering amp feedback.
"Cabal" starts off similiarly to the previous track with more moody, somber guitar melody woven into gorgeous counterpoint effect, and when the rhythm section enter this time, their playing is definitley heavier, the bass thick and distorted, the drums loud and pounding. The song winds slowly over the course of the track, building to a climactic finale where the guitars erupt into a wall of sound, finally flaring out and leaving just a single acoustic strummed guitar.
"Mandril" takes on a darker hue, with simple, repetitive drums and looping, Slinty guitars locked in an angular groove over billowing synth drones, then kicks into a huge droning riff with almost mechanical drums throbbing underneath it, like a fast-paced Neurosis riff looped over and over and blanketed with ominous industrial drones, or a more tribal Godflesh. That's followed by "The White Swell", one of the prettiest tracks on here. Again, the band creates a dark, mysterious vibe out of slow moving instrumental post rock, though this one is slower and more languid than the rest, with some beautiful melodic playing and an almost folky feel that reminds me of Neil Young, especially when one of the guitarists comes in with a moving emotive solo halfway in. Kinda feels like some of the newer Earth stuff too, I suppose, but with a jazzier, heavier feel.
And then the last song, "Russia", opening weirdly with the bleeping melody of some electronic toy and the tinkling of a door chime before the band blasts in with a super catchy, wall-of-guitar melody, that plays out for a minute before fading off into space, replaced by whispers and murky guitar notes stretched out over crackling feedback and rumbling drones, an abstract dronescape building in volume and thickness while the guitar slowly gets more distorted, eventually turning into a massive jet-engine roar of distortion and guitar noise.
This stuff is beautiful and weighty, a cool fusion of contempo cinematic rock and industrial dirge and metallic ambience collected together into an ambitious whole that's highly recommended to fans of Red Sparowes, Hand Of Fatima, Disappearer, Windmills By The Ocean, etc. Comes in a cool looking gatefold jacket with spot varnish printing and a full color insert.
Track Samples:
Sample : Plague Asphyx
Sample : Mandril
Sample : Cabal

HELLVETE De Gek LP (K-Raa-k) 19.98

IRON AGE The Sleeping Eye CD (Tee Pee) 14.98

Track Samples:
Sample : A Younger Earth
Sample : Burden of Empire
Sample : Sleeping Eye of the Watchers

IRON AGE The Sleeping Eye LP (Tee Pee) 14.98

Track Samples:
Sample : A Younger Earth
Sample : Burden of Empire
Sample : Sleeping Eye of the Watchers

IVS PRIMAE NOCTIS Solo Odio 7 INCH VINYL (Trips Und Tr�ume) 11.98

One of the very first recordings from this Italian necro-wave band, released in a limited edition of 500 copies in full-color packaging (and apparently now out of print from the label, so we have some of the last copies ever in stock). Mixing together warped black metal, industrial music, and a bit of no-wave abrasion, I've been getting pretty hooked on this obscure band; most of their releases have come out on the small underground label Trips Und Traume, and everything of theirs that I've picked up so far has been pretty great, with a sound that I described in my write-up of their split with Splinter Vs Stalin as something like Abruptum crossed with messed-up New Wave, with a singer named Miss Violetta Beauregarde who brings a bloodcurdling Lydia Lunch-like screech to their electro-blackness.
Apparently this 7" is made up of recordings of a rehearsal session, but the sound quality is way better than I would have expected. The a-side features the track "Solo Odio", some awesome blazing electro black metal weirdness, Miss Violetta shrieking over top the pounding techno beat, razor-edged blackened riffs buzzing with strange effects, a terminally catchy industrial no-wave necro-electro jam that sounds like it could have come from DHR, roaring distorted synthesizers and soaring spacey effects and creepy guitar leads mixed in with the brutal electronic rhythm, Violetta breaking into spoken word parts, the male vocals kicking in towards the end as the music picks up speed and turns into industrial thrash, like a more electro-infected Aborym maybe. Very cool.
"La Citt� � Morta" on the b-side is totally different, though. Here, the band unleashes dark, spacey post-industrial drift, with classical strings and piano floating over simple pounding martial rhythms and intercepted voice transmissions, swooshing Hawkwind effects in the background, sort of reminding me of a more noisy and abstract In The Nursery or Puissance track. This side is actually quite pretty, an interesting contrast with the harsh black electro pummel of the first side.
Comes on thick, heavy Euro vinyl in a full-color jacket.

IVS PRIMAE NOCTIS / SPLINTER VS STALIN split 7 INCH PICTURE DISC (Trips Und Tr�ume) 10.98

Another killer slab of mutant industrial and necro-wave weirdness from Trips Und Traume! This one is a cool-looking picture disc illustrated with goats and grisly murder scenes, a metallic silver printed insert, the black disc printed the with stark silver industrial-culture style symbols of the quirky little Italian scene that revolves around this label, and features two different but equally abrasive outfits, the blackened power electronics group Splinter Vs Stalin and new-wave/black metal of Ivs Primae Noctis.
The Splinter Vs Stalin side is the noisiest for sure, a single track called "Satana negro..e la mosca sta li nella cancrena". And man, is this awesome...so much more brutal and vicious than the other SVS stuff that I have. It's furious grinding blacknoise, with blown-out gusts of distorted riffs, harsh corrosive noise, crushing bass, scrabbly drum machines, the vocals a static-soaked ultra-distorted shriek, swarming tangles of vicious feedback and guitar noise and electronics fused into an infernal power electronics attack but with eerie minor-key black ambient drift in the background and a pounding simplistic blast beat hammering underneath the swirling chaotic filth, almost like Burmese gone blacknoise - fucking killer!
Less abrasive but no less blackened, the Italian blackmetal/synthpunks Ivs Primae Noctis give us "Capre", another industrial black metal freakout that's also collaboration with Italian power electronics act Wertham. Like their other releases, this is a weird mix of droning swirling synthesizers, looped programmed drums, and electronic noise fronted by Miss Violetta's frantic screams, loping mid-tempo rhythms and pulsating bass lines turning this into a post-punk tinged blacknoise jam, like Abruptum flecked with mutant new wave and Lydia Lunch-like screeching. Yet another killer track from this band, which is fast becoming another new favorite of mine.

JAPANESE TORTURE COMEDY HOUR Voltage Monsterc CD (Desolation House) 14.98

Another one of the limited-edition discs that came out on the now completed Desolation House series (a sub-label of Relapse Records), this full length album from Japanese Torture Comedy Hour takes the cake for harshest, most challenging entry in that series. I haven't heard anything this noisy from Relapse since the glory days of the Release imprint. In a nutshell, Japanese Torture Comedy Hour was the guys from Agoraphobic Nosebleed busting out their own take on Japanese-style harsh noise, brutally loud and abrasive blocks of industrial screech and roar that rivaled anything that Masonna, Incapacitants or Pain Jerk were doing in the 90's. With both Jay Randall and Scott Hull (also of Pig Destroyer fame) behind the electronic noise, they summon up massive ear-crushing noise that's fast-paced and viciously assembled with a focus on rapid changes and punishing frequencies, assembled in violent blasts of abstract industrial chaos that reminds me of Guilty Connector, who uses the same kind of abstract, dynamic cut-up approach to harsh noise (and who is unsurprisingly thanked in the liner notes to the disc). It's not all electroshock terror though. The band also lays down some eerie high-end metallic drones and mesmeric whirr as intros and interludes between the blasts of torturous harsh electronics, with the first track "Total Memory Loss" starting the album off with pure drone-tone. There's ultra-distorted vocals, and chunks of over modulated synth, and the occasional sample of a female voice, streaks of backward sound, and the track "Prowler In The Yard" (several tracks on Voltage Monster have titles that are connected to Pig Destroyer's albums) starts off violently, then dissolves into another lengthy minimal drone piece. It's all capped off with the eighteen minute closer "Atmospheres", a devastating industrial assault that goes from spacious sheet-metal eruptions to brutal psychedelic skree to crushing blackened low-end roar.
Limited edition of 1000 copies, packaged in a full-color six panel digipack.
Track Samples:
Sample : Black Mathematics
Sample : Explosions in Ward 6

KERASPHORUS Cloven Hooves at the Holocaust Dawn CD (Nuclear War Now! Productions) 10.98

A devastating debut Ep from the newly manifested black metal band Kerasphorus from the San Francisco area, this is the latest band to feature Pete Helmkamp from Angelcorpse / Order From Chaos / Revenge / Terror Organ, who once again teams up with his Revenge band mate James Read (also of Axis Of Advance / Conqueror / Cremation) for more grinding occult black/death. Any time these guys work together, you can rest assured that the result is going to be BRUTAL. Kerasphorus sure doesn't falter in that department. Joined by guitarist B. Wolaniuk, the band comes roaring out of the pit with four tracks of vicious, chaotic, blasting blackened death, furious complex riffing and psychotic tremolo buzz swarming over Read's hyper speed blasting, the music shifting between supersonic blast and slower, more atmospheric doom, with the occasional rocking mid-tempo groove tossed out (as on "Disturb The Furthest Stars") to rip your head off. The riffs are completely evil and fucked as they alternate between insane mosquito buzz to lurching off-time dirge, the guitars seriously down tuned and covered in filth and gore, the drumming is relentless, an almost virtuosic assault that veers between time signatures effortlessly, dizzying hyper blast black/grind.
When it starts out, opener "The Abyssal Sanhedrin" is eerie and apocalyptic, martial drumming rumbling beneath spidery dissonance and doom-laden crawling riffs before the band erupts into manic buzz saw blackness, racing through a convoluted series of abrupt changes and tempo shifts, the vocals a gargling demonic rasp, blood-vomiting screams, the black thrash careening into manic blasting chaos. "Aosoth Paradigm" is another blackened apocalyptic storm of detuned skullcrush and frantic, frenzied speed and dissonance, a combination of the brutal blackened war metal of the member's previous bands (Conqueror / Revenge) and the warped angular black metal of Funeral Mist, Deathspell Omega, Katharisis and Aosoth. Not as over-the-top as Revenge, this is still insanely savage, and oppressively evil, a call for total war, a blackened nuclear deathstrike served in four parts, and woven with eerie melodic leads that writhe beneath the blasting, staggering thrash and warped waltzing dirges. An awesome first release from this extremely promising new band!
Track Samples:
Sample : The Abyssal Sanhedrin
Sample : Swarm Intelligentsia

KERASPHORUS Cloven Hooves at the Holocaust Dawn 10 INCH VINYL (Nuclear War Now! Productions) 14.98

Also available as a limited edition 10" EP, which includes a foldout poster insert.
A devastating debut Ep from the newly manifested black metal band Kerasphorus from the San Francisco area, this is the latest band to feature Pete Helmkamp from Angelcorpse / Order From Chaos / Revenge / Terror Organ, who once again teams up with his Revenge band mate James Read (also of Axis Of Advance / Conqueror / Cremation) for more grinding occult black/death. Any time these guys work together, you can rest assured that the result is going to be BRUTAL. Kerasphorus sure doesn't falter in that department. Joined by guitarist B. Wolaniuk, the band comes roaring out of the pit with four tracks of vicious, chaotic, blasting blackened death, furious complex riffing and psychotic tremolo buzz swarming over Read's hyper speed blasting, the music shifting between supersonic blast and slower, more atmospheric doom, with the occasional rocking mid-tempo groove tossed out (as on "Disturb The Furthest Stars") to rip your head off. The riffs are completely evil and fucked as they alternate between insane mosquito buzz to lurching off-time dirge, the guitars seriously down tuned and covered in filth and gore, the drumming is relentless, an almost virtuosic assault that veers between time signatures effortlessly, dizzying hyper blast black/grind.
When it starts out, opener "The Abyssal Sanhedrin" is eerie and apocalyptic, martial drumming rumbling beneath spidery dissonance and doom-laden crawling riffs before the band erupts into manic buzz saw blackness, racing through a convoluted series of abrupt changes and tempo shifts, the vocals a gargling demonic rasp, blood-vomiting screams, the black thrash careening into manic blasting chaos. "Aosoth Paradigm" is another blackened apocalyptic storm of detuned skullcrush and frantic, frenzied speed and dissonance, a combination of the brutal blackened war metal of the member's previous bands (Conqueror / Revenge) and the warped angular black metal of Funeral Mist, Deathspell Omega, Katharisis and Aosoth. Not as over-the-top as Revenge, this is still insanely savage, and oppressively evil, a call for total war, a blackened nuclear deathstrike served in four parts, and woven with eerie melodic leads that writhe beneath the blasting, staggering thrash and warped waltzing dirges. An awesome first release from this extremely promising new band!
Track Samples:
Sample : The Abyssal Sanhedrin
Sample : Swarm Intelligentsia

KODIAK / NADJA split CD (Denovali) 13.98

Track Samples:
Sample : KODIAK - MCCCXLIX the rising end
Sample : NADJA - Kitsune fox drone

KODIAK / NADJA split LP (Denovali) 18.98

Track Samples:
Sample : KODIAK - MCCCXLIX the rising end
Sample : NADJA - Kitsune fox drone

LOCRIAN Falling Towers / After The Torchlight CASSETTE (Black Horizons) 8.98

Coming right in the wake of their latest LP Territories (which I'll have listed and written up in next week's new arrivals list), this two-track cassette is a brand new offering of blackened cosmic psychcrush from Locrian, serving up some heavier kosmische-tinged blackness from the Chicago band. The first track "Falling Towers" is massive, a swirling sprawl of blackened guitar riffs and droning feedback and spacey synthesizers, like an especially sinister Earth riff floating through a vast void of rumbling cosmic drift, with horrific distended screams lathered in reverb and other effects, smeared across the pitch-black cavernous abyss, eerie melodic guitar winding across the blackness, almost like something from Old Man Gloom but far more bleak and sinister, disembodied abstract dronemetal hovering in stygian shadow.
The other track "After The Torchlight" is even longer and heavier, opening with a malevolent minor key black metal riff that slowly dissolves into a whirring dronescape of buzzing organ tones, rumbling low-end drift, chant-like moaning, electronic crackle and crumbling blackened heaviness, all fused together into a mighty psychedelic roar that gets more and more abstract and blurry, everything melting down into a massive wash of hum and drone and tectonic hum and plinking piano-like notes, crushing and formless and totally mesmerizing. And like that cassette that Locrian released on Fan Death, this features the recordings repeated on the flipside, but in reverse, the music warped and murky, even more abstracted and creepy and hallucinatory.
The tape comes in fantastic packaging, with screen printed black covers printed in silver ink, a shiny metallic silver label on the cassette, and limited to 200 copies.

LUASA RAELON Vampyr: Light Of The Beast CD (Fatal Beliefs) 9.98

Track Samples:
Sample : Catacombs
Sample : The Keep
Sample : The Wald

MAEROR TRI Multiple Personality Disorder CD (Purplesoil) 13.98

Now this is a major coup for drone fans. Maeror Tri's debut album Multiple Personality Disorder is at long-last back in print, reissued by the Czech label Purplesoil in a gorgeous six-panel full color gatefold package that includes a full-color Maeror Tri postcard and an eight page booklet. The album originally came out in 1993 on Korm Plastics but has been out of print for ages, and has been highly sought after by fans of the German post-industrial drone masters as a masterpiece of dark, gothic guitar-based dronemusic. It's also a concept album that explores the state of Dissociative identity disorder (or multiple personality disorder) through a series of four epic tracks that move from serene, dreamlike ambience to abrasive, nightmarish sound, and like so much of Maeror Tri's music, strives to channel intense psychological states into fields of pure sound.
The first track is no more than a thirty second intro of dark backwards cries and washed out industrial drones; it's with the second track "The Administrator" that we're fully launched into Maeror Tri's grim, billowing cloudscapes of black guitar buzz and soft shifting feedback, and it's an ominous expanse of industrial ambience, gradually building layers of hum and drone that are joined with shimmering sheets of melodious Tangerine Dream-like drift, incandescent tones floating languidly across the shadowy fields of deep rumble and synth-like warble, the sound dark and warped, like Teutonic space music being played backwards.
On "The Anaesthetizer", whipping subterranean winds evolve into deep oscillating rumbles of low-end sound, then evolve into glacial minor-key chordal shift, immense and pitch-black, a nocturnal arctic ambience that resembles that of Lustmord, crushing isolationist drone with monstrous deep horn-like tones and specks of high-end glitch flecked throughout. Deep chanting voices surface with bits of backwards sound and strange creaking noises, and as this fifteen minute track continues to stretch outward, it gets increasingly grim and nightmarish, becoming pure black ambience, any part of which would work perfectly as an intro to a black metal song, but instead just unfurls endlessly. One of Maeror Tri's darkest pieces for sure.
Grueling waves of blown-out guitar noise and harsh amp abuse appear on "The Revenger" as the band chokes and strangles their guitars, creating demonic roars and hellish howling mixed with more backwards voice and swarming high-end feedback like clouds of black flies, a terrifying psychedelic noisescape, like Total scoring a demonic possession scene, infernal engines roaring and sputtering, streaking screaming shafts of agony slicing down into the depths, amassed into a brutal slab of industrial rumble and screech...
Finally, "The Protector" returns to less violent sounds as soft waves of blurred feedback and guitar shimmer drift ever so slowly, an eerie fog of gorgeous tonal smear and lush choral voices singing in the distance, still quite dark and eerie, but more liturgical, like hymns heard drifting from another dimension, warped and indistinct, while blurry strings and pipe organs play in reverse and melt against the black veil of drone, the voices wavering and receding into the shadows.
The eight page booklet that comes with this reissue includes the original liner notes, as well as new liners from the band and Frans de Waard (Korm Plastics/Kapotte Muziek) that illuminate the troubled history of the album.

Track Samples:
Sample : The Administrator
Sample : The Protector
Sample : The Revenger

MALKUTH Sefirah Gevurah LP (Hospital Productions) 16.98

Picked up a couple of copies of this now out-of-print LP from NY black metal demons Malkuth on Hospital Records. Probably the last time that we'll have this in stock. Be warned - all of the copies that we received have some minor ring-wear, but are otherwise in fine shape.
The latest slab of old school black metal frenzy from this NY band that features members of No Neck Blues Band in their ranks. If it seems weird that folks from NYC's premier hippie/improv/tribal/freak/folk collective would have anything to do with extreme metal, don't forget that members of No Neck also played in the awesome weirdo metal band Angelblood years ago. Malkuth are a much blacker and sinister proposition, though, and Sefirah Gevurah, the band's second album, delivers the evil goods with six tracks of grim primitive black metal, loaded with buzzing monochromatic riffs, a crazed atmosphere clinging to everything, ramshackle blastbeats and thrashy punk pogo rhythms, They draw their sound from the classic early 90's Scandinavian BM scene, bands like Darkthrone and Beherit, and channel it through dissonant guitars and relentless "off" sounding riffs, the songs wound into simple straightforward arrangements, their sound clouded by low-fi murkiness and fuzz and sounding remarkably vintage, like this is some long lost 8-track recorded demo from 1992 dug up from the corner of some Finnish kids basement. Throughout their raging midpaced black metal assault, Malkuth also lace their songs with awesome majestic melodies that soar over the minor key riffs, and some of the best parts of the album are when they unleash these epic melodic leads over their more midtempo, punked-out songs, adding this air of evil majesty to the stumbling lurching blackpunk onslaught. Elsewhere, the band lurches through angular doominess, revealing brief moments of post-rocky atmosphere and grinding slow-motion sludge, but the whole album, the whole sound is always rooted in scathing black metal. The vocals on Sefirah are bestial and completely wrecked, howling out slobbering tirades slathered in distortion and drowning in the murky mix. These guys surprised alot of us when they first emerged on Hospital not too long ago, and this new album marks 'em as one of the fiercest up and coming new American black metal bands, diseased and corroded enough that fans of other Hospital-aligned black metal bands like Akitsa and Ash Pool will dig 'em, but residing in a warped lightless world all of their own.
Track Samples:
Sample : Kizzuz Ha-Netiyyot
Sample : Shevirat Ha-Zinnorot

MASONNA Inner Mind Mystique CD (Release) 9.98

One of the few Japanese noise albums to get a major release during the brief but exciting period in the mid-90�s when Relapse Records started signing bands like Masonna and Merzbow, Inner Mind Mystique is still one of the most extreme noise albums that the label ever released, a fucking punishing album that, like the sticker says on the front of the case, delivers "ultra barbaric Japanese Noise!". Originally released as a triple 7" set, Inner Mind Mystique was later issued on CD in 1996, and all of a sudden, a whole new audience of extreme music freaks was suddenly exposed to the brutal ear-scorching noise of Yamazaki Maso�s solo noise project. I remember just beginning to get into Japanese noise around this time, and when I hit play on Inner Mind, I was totally unprepared for the shrieking, howling metallic feedback holocaust that came blasting out of my speakers. Maso used a deceptively minimal set of tools to create this brutal sonic assault; it�s just his voice and a box of coins used to create the raw sounds, but his psychotic screaming is pumped through a thunderous Marshall stack at top volume, the shrieking and screaming and unintelligible gibberish distorted to the point where it becomes a blur of pure high end noise, and the tin box of coins he uses to create the rest of this unholy din is outfitted with contact mics that are connected to a shitload of effects pedals, creating a furiously violent assault of churning high-end frequencies and white-noise distortion. There's seven tracks of this extreme noise attack on Inner Mind Mystique, and just the first track would be enough to clear a room. But for those that have the fortitude to take it, Masonna's shrieking nuclear noise has an intense psychedelic quality as his spastic feedback-shock-attacks swirl out of your speakers, and builds into the same sort of mind-bending effect that Hanatarash and Incapacitants are capable of creating. Still, this is some of the most extreme noise ever, and definitely not for wimps. The Cd version also features an additional fifteen minute bonus track that wasn�t included in the vinyl set.
Track Samples:
Sample : Inner Mind Mystique 1
Sample : Inner Mind Mystique 4

MONARCH Mer Morte CD (Crucial Blast) 9.98

Yeah, this was supposed to come out ages ago, but a variety of impediments stalled it's release until now. The Crucial Blast release of Mer Morte is finally freakin' out, though, and I gotta say, it looks and sounds just as great as the previous Monarch collection on C-Blast, Dead Men Tell No Tales. If you've been following Crucial Blast for a while, you probably already know all about Monarch, the extreme slow-motion sludge/doom band from France who plays so slow, so glacially, that Decibel said in their review of Mer Morte that "even at their fastest, Monarch! sound dead". They ain't kiddin'. Monarch's previous releases pushed the envelope on just how slow and miserable and anguished one band can sound, but here their crawling black drones and tectonic doom rumble seems to actually be decaying. If you're looking for some big, fat riffs to bite into, this isn't the place to look.
Like our previous Monarch release Dead Men Tell No Tales, Mer Morte is a reissue of a vinyl release that came out on the Spanish label Throne Records, this one from back in 2008. The Lp featured the monolithic track "Mer Morte" split into two halves across the two sides of vinyl; now, most Monarch fans find it pretty hard to not lust after their vinyl releases, which are all beautifully packaged and always super-limited, but it's also cool to hear the song uninterrupted, to hear it unfurl it's rotting black wings in it's entirety without pause, which is why we wanted to make this available on disc.
And it's truly gargantuan sounding on this re-issue. �Mer Morte� is a single unbroken thirty-four minute sludge-and-feedback feast that sprawls out even further into the dismal black void that these French doom junkies have been lurking in for the past six years. As with previous releases, Monarch move through massive blackened tar pits of low-end riff and sheets of gluey feedback that are stretched out into monolithic slabs of sound across "Mer Morte", a grim, glacial ultra-doom monolith that crawls at a saurian sub-tempo. It's the most droning, static, deathly doomdrone that Monarch have so far released, not really that propulsive, certainly very little of anything that you could call a "groove", but instead just floating, decaying and corrupted, massive rumbling crush hovering in a sea of yawning blackness.
And vocalist Emilie sounds as gaunt and ghostly as ever, her vocalizations materializing across the spatial doomscape as distant ululating wails, breathy whispers, and putrid death shrieks, at times disappearing almost completely into the black fug for minutes at a time, or lurking as a hushed lullaby whisper way off on the edges of the crushing subterranean thrum. At the same time, this disc captures the band at their most formless and distended, with long sections of droning buzz where the band collapses into waves of pure amp-rumble and minimalist percussion, smoldering black clouds of ghostly cooing vocals and howling feedback drone, and eerie tectonic melodies...definitely one of their most extreme and dismal slabs of doom yet, more ambient drone than doom really, but still completely CRUSHING.
And once again, we've worked with the artisan printers at Stumptown Printers to create the packaging for this Monarch disc, presenting Mer Morte in a black offset-printed jacket with gold metallic printing and more artwork from Monarch's Michell. Might have taken awhile, but the wait was worth it!
Track Samples:
Sample : MONARCH-Mer Morte
Sample : MONARCH-Mer Morte
Sample : MONARCH-Mer Morte

NADJA Under The Jaguar Sun 2xLP (Beta-lactam Ring) 32.98

Nadja's double cd set on Beta-Lactum Ring is now available on limited-edition vinyl, the set divided into one half crushing lumbering sludge, the other a dreamy wash of ambient drift, assembled so that the two discs play together simultaneously, creating a massive stereophonic wall of blissed-out sound (if you are set up with two phonograph's, obviously). Like the cd version, the packaging is stunning, presented in a massive hardcover gatefold sleeve, super thick and heavy, and simply amazing to look at...
The latest full length from dreamsludge architects Nadja is a lavishly assembled double disc set that, like everything else that this duo has been putting out lately, continues to explore their unique form of blissed-out, ultra-distorted heaviness while at the same time finding sublte new permutations of their sound lurking around underneath all of the roaring guitar drone and psychedelic crunch. Each of Jaguar's two discs consists of a different side of their sound, the first focused on the crushing slow-motion sludge, the second more subdued and dreamy and droneological, and the overall aim of this release is that both discs can be played together, a la Rosetta's Galilean Satellites and that killer Melek-Tha/Dapnom double disc that's also listed this week, in order to create a massive quasi-quadrophonic effect when played back on two different stereo systems.
At the same time, the two discs are just as enjoyable when you listen to them separately. The first disc (which is titled Tezcatlipoca - everything about this album seems to reference Aztec mysticism) is where all of the heavy stuff resides, five drawn out tracks that largely sees Nadja at their most spatial, with their usual wall of distortion dialed down, Leah's bass guitar taking the lead and guiding the abstract doom. Minimal mechanical drum machine programming pounds over the swirls of psychedelic effects and whirring metallic noise that threads through each track, bits of crystallized glitch and gleaming effects and computer garble mixing with swells of orchestral strings and lush high-end shimmer; the sound is both industrial and psychedelic, the duo getting as abstract as I've ever heard them. That trademark Nadja wall of sound is still here in part though, especially on "Windstorm" when a surge of distorted synths and massed wind-chimes sweep over the stretched-out, slow motion Godflesh-style grind, and on the breathtaking closer "Earthquake". That last one is another instant Nadja classic, an epic MBV-like riff immersed in pink noise and gliding infinitely over buzzing, in-the-red distortion and crushing slow-mo machine beats.
When the second disc (Quetzalcoatl) is played on it's own, the five tracks reveal minimal, abstract dronescapes similar to the dreamy processed drones that Aidan performs on many of his solo releases. When laid over the first disc, these drones add a whole new layer of mysterious warble and hum, but on their own each track is still pretty great, tiny loops of fragmented melody cycling over infinite feedback hum and metallic drift.
Bring the two discs together, though, and they form a seriously chaotic symphony of metallic drone that at times surprised the hell out of me by how orchestral the music can get... the second track is a perfect example - with both discs synced up, the music turns into an amazing fusion of lumbering industrial percussion, cyclical strings, swells of metallic drone that almost seem to pan from one stereo to another (whoa!), and on that last track, the one that simply sounds like Nadja in all of their earth-swallowing Loveless glory, here that music turns into something way darker and more bizarre and druggy, with weird raga-like drones burrowing through the poppy blown-out riffage, like hearing Indian classical bursting through the immense shoegazer sludge. Pretty wild!

Track Samples:
Sample : Sun 1 Jaguar
Sample : Sun 3 Fiery Rain

NENIA La Casa Del Dolore LP (Trips Und Tr�ume) 14.98

Nenia's debut album La Casa Del Dolore came out back in 2000 on Cd, but was never available on vinyl until now. The oddball Italian black metal/noise label Trips Und Traume has reissued the album in a limited edition of 300 copies, and it's a fascinating album of doleful darkwave and warped bad dream soundscapery from the Italian group. Most of the records that Trips Unde Traume have put out exist somewhere in between the realms of black metal and industrial music, but Nenia are pure atmosphere without a trace of metal, or heaviness of any sort. It almost sounds like something that might have appeared on the Projekt label, but Nenia's gothic ambience is a bit more blackened and deranged compared to bands like Black Tape for a Blue Girl. The band mixes dark industrial with an eerie, dreamy, depressive brand of d-wave, but fronted by frantic screaming, which right off the bat distinguishes their sound from other darkwave-influenced outfits, which are usually a lot more restrained than this. The desperate, anguished screams are in Italian and give this a manic feel, even as the band moves through lush neo-classical strings, odd industrial noisescapes, and bleak rumbling drones that suggest a much darker In The Nursery. The guitars scrawl morose, cavernous melodies against the darkness, joined by somber muted piano lines and delicate flute-like synthesizers that circle above, and are surrounded by additional electronic noises and effects, looped laughter and spoken word samples, grating pneumatic press sounds, dark Goblin-esque synth melodies rising out of Lustmordian drift, and sometimes driven by martial percussion or the simple pounding of tympani. Think Coil, Lustmord, Dead Can Dance, In The Nursery, I can hear all of that in Nenia's strange neo-classical-tinged dark ambience, but imagine that sort of gothic post-industrial sound fronted by anguished almost black-metal like screams, and you'll have an idea of what Nenia sounds like; definitely fits in with this label's weird dark aesthetic. The record comes in a really nice gatefold package with gorgeously grim photos of crumbling cemetery statues and tombs; unfortunately, all of the copies that the label sent us have 3" seam splits along the top edge of the pocket-side of the gatefold. We've knocked the price down to make up for this, but please take note before ordering.

NEUROSIS The Eye Of Every Storm 2xLP (Relapse) 19.98

Track Samples:
Sample : A Season In The Sky
Sample : Burn

NORDVARGR Resignation 2 CD (205 Recordings) 13.98

This is a side of Nordvargr that I haven't heard before. Resignation 2 is a follow-up to an album called 1897 that was released by a short-lived duo called Resignation, which featured Henrik Nordvargr Bj�rkk. aka Nordvargr (of MZ.412, Folkstorm, Toroidh, Vargr, Korperwelten, and a whole host of other awesome blackened industrial/drone/BM projects) and some guy named NG Ekholm. Somewhere along the line, that duo disbanded, and Nordavrgr took it upon himself to release this new disc under his own name. It's a little confusing, but even more so when you actually hear the music on this album. I haven't picked up or heard the Resignation album myself as of yet, although I do plan on getting as soon as possible, but from what I know of it, this is a continuation of the same beat-driven sound that they explored on that disc. On Resignation 2, what we get is Nordvargr crafting a mixture of dark, droning ambience in his signature style with simple, throbbing techno rhythms. Now, this sure isn't "techno", and being a Nordvargr project, you should know that this is extremely dark and creepy, but it's a definite twist in the often terrifying music that he has been creating under his own name in recent years. What this really sounds like is the blissed-out minimal techno of producer Wolfgang Voigt's Gas, the beats have that same minimal pulse, a simple heartbeat throb way down in the mix, usually little more than a muffled, murky pulse. But where the music of Gas is soft and gauzy and dreamy, the music of Resignation 2 is dark, grim, and unbelievably sorrowful, definitely in keeping with the album title, the feeling of abject despair and hopelessness pouring out these tracks, the music a washed-out blur of looped neo-classical strings playing the most morose melodies you can imagine, and surrounded by thick blackened drones, crackling waves of turntable hiss, deep Gregorian-like chants buried underneath everything, and warped into weeping groans that seem to stretch on forever... It's so blackened and creepy, and in that sense VERY different from the shimmery, submerged sound of Gas, but those of you who are into Gas and who also dig much darker, grimmer sounds, well, this might be one of your favorite new albums. Imagine Gas crossed with Lusmord and Filosofem's keyboards or a Chain Reaction remix of Sorc'henn, something along those lines. Definitely comes highly recommended!
Track Samples:
Sample : Children of the masked emperor
Sample : Praeparatus supervivet
Sample : What was written will come to pass

NULL, KK + JOHN WIESE Mondo Paradoxa CD (Auf Abwegen) 14.98

Japanese noise vet KK Null (of Zeni Geva/Absolut Null Punkt fame) teams up with prolific American noisician and former Bastard Noise member John Wiese for a collaboration that pretty much sounds like what you'd expect from a meeting between these two artists, and follows up their Arc Seconds 7" from 2004. Assembled by sending recordings back and forth through the mail, Mondo Paradoxa is an even mix of Null's intricate digital abstractions and alien ambience and Wiese's harsher, fractured noise and feedback sculpture, bombing the deep cosmic electronics, pulsating blipscapes and frenetic oscillations with lots of caustic glitch and clank. The ten untitled pieces aren't a total blowout though, and fans of the more recent KK Null albums like Galactic Tornado and Oxygen Flash will find more of Null's newer fascination with classic krautrock electronics and kosimische sounds here, especially on tracks seven and nine, where Null and Wiese combine looping synthesizer riffs with grinding industrial rhythms and metallic feedback into an awesome circular synth workout that sounds like Throbbing Gristle doing the soundtrack to an early 80's Italian post-apocalyptic flick. Plenty of layered, detailed noisescapes too, filled with swooping glitches and breaking metal/glass and rhythmic chunks of distorted noise...fans of far-out sci-fi soundtracks who don't mind diving into noisier, more abrasive electronica would probably dig this.
The full-color digipack features hallucinatory collage art from Yasutoshi Yoshida, a.k.a. Government Alpha, and is limited to 500 copies.
Track Samples:
Sample : Track 4
Sample : Track 7
Sample : Track 9

PAINTBOX Trip, Trance & Travelling 2xLP (Prank) 22.00

Track Samples:
Sample : Big ant (70km/h version)
Sample : �� (thaw)
Sample : �� -��- (utsusemi)

PAN-THY-MONIUM Dawn / Dream II (GOLD VINYL) LP (The Crypt) 27.98

Alongside Abruptum and Ophthalamia, Pan-Thy-Mononium was indisputably one of the weirdest of Sweden's death metal exports in the very early 1990's. The band (led by Swedish death metal legend Dan Swano) played a brutally heavy brand of death metal, but this was like no other death metal anyone had heard before. Deliberately trying to play the weirdest, most doom-laden death metal that the members could come up with, Pan-Thy-Monium blasted into deep space with a wigged-out combination of complicated arrangements and drawn-out songs, pummeling old-school death metal riffs, gaseous guttural vokills, and lots of weird spacey effects, the recurring sound of a ticking clock, horror-movie synthesizers, synthetic flutes and clavichord-like melodies, creepy droning ambience and swells of gorgeous Vangelis bliss, quirky Voivod-esque chords, and plenty of jarring changes that take the band abruptly from blasting death metal into crawling angular doom and then straight into oddball off-time rock parts. "Unpredictable" is one way to describe Pan-Thy-Monium's music, but in spite of it's rampant weirdness, these songs are both crushing and engaging, a weird Beefheart approach to early death metal that's never been rivaled. In addition, the guys in Pan-Thy-Monium created their own language, or something like that, with totally nonsensical song titles and constant references to some sort of deity called "Raagoonshinnaah", and the liner notes that accompany this record reveal that the singer was actually improvising all of that awesome monstrous growling, calling it "Obituary syndrome" since having lyrics wouldn't be "spontaneous" enough for their music. This wasn't your typical death metal band by a long shot.
Pan-Thy-Monium would eventually release several cult albums on labels like Osmose and Relapse, but their earliest demo releases remained some of the band's most bizarre-sounding and sought-after recordings. The ...Dawn and Dream II demos, recorded and released in 1990 and 1991 respectively, are completely fucking bonkers; this music must have seriously blown the minds of death metallers who ordered these demos from the band. The debut demo ...Dawn never received any sort of official release beyond the original cassette, and while Dreams II was later released on Cd by Avantgarde Music, both recordings have been almost impossible to find in recent years. Enter cult vinyl reissue label The Crypt, who has assembled and released a stunning new Lp collection of both recordings, re-mastered and presented in a thick gatefold jacket which has demo artwork, fanzine interviews, brief liner notes from Dan Swano and photos printed on the interior, and issued in a limited one-time edition of 500 copies (250 of which are on 180 gram gold vinyl, which is the color that we have in stock), and includes a huge 24" x 36" poster of the original Paw Nielsen artwork for the cover of Dream II!
Track Samples:
Sample : II
Sample : Vvoiiccheeces
Sample : Zenotaffph

POSITIVA Prodigal Songs CD (Odio Sonoro) 11.98

Track Samples:
Sample : brother eagle
Sample : catch the fire
Sample : undying shore

PUSSYGUTT Sea Of Sand 2xLP (Olde English Spelling Bee) 29.98

Back in stock!
This mysterious duo from Boise, Idaho released what is one of the most shadowy, mysterious albums of 2007, a vinyl-only outre doom epic which has taken me several attempts to try to capture the strangeness of this music in writing. First, there's the name, Pussygutt. A weird name for any kind of band, let alone one that is this heavy and crushing, it comes from the old colloquialism for the strings for a violin or fiddle, a play on the myth that violin strings were actually created from cat intestines. Then there is the symphony of unlikely instruments that are used; Pussygutt's Blake Green and classical violinist Brittany McConnel craft a massive soundrealm of abstract doom and sub-bass ambience out of violins, synthesizers, bowed cymbals, gongs, organ, drums, clay pots, field recordings of forest sounds and ducks (!), electronic effects, crystal goblets (!?), and most prominently, what sounds like a towering Babel of guitar amplifiers reaching to the sky, emitting all kinds of deep, throbbing rumble, massive detuned doom metal riffage, and howling feedback. There's even a tractor that figures in here as well.
For Sea Of Sand, the band expanded to a three-piece with the addition of Garek Druss (Ear Venom/A Story Of Rats), and craft four sidelong tracks of seriously crushing and weird doomscapes. It's like a set of nightmare soundtracks, lost avant-garde horror film scores unearthed from a dusty film library and released into the world. The first track/side, "West (Creature)", fades in with a black fog of deep rumbling feedback presence, shimmering gongs ringing through the blackness, the hum of electricity charging the air, huge cymbal crashes surging up and dissipating into the ether. A vast void of menacing, beautiful dark ambience, a haunting shimmering creeping blackness that reminds me of the most subdued moments of the Aural Hypnox collective, up until the black drift is rent apart by the sudden crash of plodding caveman drums and a crushing primitive doom metal riff, the lumbering doom metal that staggers groovily through an ever thickening haze of blackened static and blasts of spacey effects a la Hawkwind/Chrome until it once again recedes back into a rhythmic rumble of pitch-black bass drone and subterranean clatter.
The music takes an unnerving turn as we enter the second side. It opens with a swarm of high end violin skree that makes my skin crawl, and then morphs into the dense sound collage that makes up "Winter Lights", a harrowing quilt of sound events that moves from rhythmic clanging of metal to the grunting rar of a tractor engine, howling winds and rumbling feedback, all of these sounds conjoined together and sewn into eerie loops and melodies, crawling through a dark realm of mysterious and sinister sounds, like a mix of horror film score, old school industrial, and Nurse With Wound. This eventually evolves into a blissed out droneslab of heavenly synths buzzing away in aeternum while rusted windchimes clank in dead winds, stalked by the growling of monstrous and cavernous strings like eldritch whale-songs reverberating underneath the earth's crust.
When we enter upon the third side, "Pavour Nocturnus" greets us with layers of eerie violins that weep a vaguely Eastern European sounding melody across a canvas of creepy sonics. The violins sing over shimmering cymbal hiss and deep ambient rumbles, creaking hinges and groaning doors, and chunks of heavy guitar riffage gradually appear, subtly swirling with droning amp hum and electronics, over which slides a somewhat Western sounding guitar lead that all becomes a sort of abstract, blurry glacial crawl, almost reminding me of Earth's Hex crossed with some kind of Codeine/Low style slowcore and the ritualistic drone music of Sunn O)))'s last few albums, all fused with those gorgeous classical strings into a deeply moving funeral hymn.
The fourth and final side begins with distant gongs and muted bells ringing across a vast lightless expanse that becomes gradually filled with swirling hiss and floating metallic tones, huge blasts of distorted down tuned guitar and roaring amplifier drones, creaking metal sounds and plodding, stumbling drums dragging slo-mo beats through melted amber. Like the rest of the album, this is strange soundscapery, creepy as hell, but towards the end it turns into a strange pastoral coda of cosmic synth clouds and strings, geese honking in flight overhead, melodious chimes, woodland sounds and birdsong, the trickling of water, all merging into a collage of moonlit nocturnal sound.
What a weird, darkly evocative album this is. Pussygutt's assemblage of musical sound, surreal sonics and crushing doom is hardly metal, but is unquestionably heavy. The packaging for this is just as amazing, too; the double LP was released by Olde English Spelling Bee in a limited edition of 550 copies, each one a hand-assembled package presented in a huge black heavy gatefold sleeve that has four spray mounted panels that were offset printed on silver stock with two coats of black ink, with full size inserts printed on vellum paper.

RASHOMON The Finishing Line: Film Music Volume II CD (Hinterzimmer) 16.50

The second Film Music disc from Rashomon, a solo project from Matt Thompson who had previously been a member of the UK darkprog outfit Guapo. I haven't heard the first disc in this series (The Ruined Map) as of yet, but this newest album is pretty great, drawing a bit of that heavy Guapo sound into these abstract soundscapes. There's smatterings of super-heavy prog, warped metallic crunch, and creepy soundtrack music found here, and it's the latter that figures most prominently in Rashomon's music; inspired at least in part by a grisly educational film from the 70's called The Finishing Line that warned of the dangers of children playing near the railway (!), the album forms an eerie dreamlike narrative drawn from warped library music, moog, mellotron, organ, Fender Rhodes, violin, zither, guitar and bass, as well as turntables and a bowed psaltery; I can't remember the last time that I heard that on a prog album. With those classic sounding synths and the creepy bits of found music woven into the tracks, this sounds a bit like the sort of ominous 70's prog that Guapo took it's inspiration from, bands like Goblin, Magma and Shub Niggurath, but more abstract and spectral.
At first, the opener "The First Race (9 And Under Fence Breaking)" is all dark abstract ambience, field recordings of nocturnal soundscapes and howling frostwinds, joined by a single shuffling snare drum. Smokey electronic theremin-like melody and somber guitar enter, dark and somewhat jazzy, eventually joined by more processed keyboards, soft luminous reverb falling across the eerie melody and forming something reminiscent of Badalamenti's work in Twin Peaks; violins and mellotron come in alongside distant rumbling like aircraft overhead, a deep portentous dronescape that slowly flat lines into a single harmonium-like drone. Towards the end of the track, this builds and shifts, turning into a throbbing single-note bass line with crawling synths, deep muttering vocals and distant metal percussion, like a John Carpenter score piece but way more hallucinatory...
The other three tracks are equally creepy and abstract, moving between heavy, almost metallic guitars and clusters of tolling bells and droning synthesizers, to awesome doom-prog dirge that sounds a lot like Shub-Niggurath's blackened Zeuhl, which is obviously an influence on Thompson's dark, twisted soundtracks. Classic industrial music and Goblin and Magma and the aforementioned John carpenter are all referenced throughout The Finishing Line as well, a twilight industrial creep-jazz soundtrack constantly shifting between shocking blasts of noise, flutters of minimal piano, the terrifying yowl of scraped strings, the use of excruciating high-end tones, bits of blistered Throbbing Gristle-esque industrial, shadowy blossoms of acoustic guitar strum, layered soundtrack strings playing a sorrowful melody that reappears throughout the album, looped harpsichord runs that are distorted into immolating slabs of noise, weaving and winding through a shadow-layered realm of intricately composed ambient darkprog. Anyone into Guapo will want to pick this up, obviously, but it's equally recommended to fans of dark, creepy industrial-tinged soundtrack music and other surreal sonic nightmares. Comes in an arigato pack-style package.
Track Samples:
Sample : The First Race
Sample : The Second Race

REALICIDE / HALF GORILLA split 7 INCH VINYL (Detournemont Media) 5.98

Eclectic mix of sounds on this one - Realicide with two tracks of brutal anarcho-gabber violence and Half Gorilla with four tracks of blackened stenchcore - with the common thread being blazing speed levels from both along with a shared anarchistic worldview.
First up is Realicide, who teams up with Oakland gabber maniac Vankmen; first track "Dead And Ground Flat Upon Cement" piles shrieking vokills, distorted synths and skull-shredding feedback onto the pounding blown-out gabber assault, jackhammering in-the-red kick drums, super violent, one of the most vicious gabber tracks ever from Realicide, which halfway in breaks into some spastic drum n' bass and blown out noise for a minute before crashing back into the brutal Bloody Fist style speedcore. Then "Head Perfect" follows with another brutal death-gabber rave up, the beats even more chaotic, the vocals more shredded, a harsh industrial gabber meltdown. Fucking killer!
Then comes Milwaukee grinders Half Gorilla who rage through four tracks of raging early Earache style heaviness, with bulldozing riffs, raging d-beat thrash, and crushing down tuned deathcrust, equal parts early Terrorizer, early Napalm death, Bolt Thrower, and Disrupt, mixed with some warped dissonant black metal riffing, high pitched shrieking vokills, and awesome mid-paced mosh parts. These recordings are from the lineup that featured bassist Peter J. Woods, who has also released some really cool industrial/ambient material on labels like Autumn Wind Productions and Heavy Psych. Limited edition of 500 copies.

RISE OF BECAUSE Punishment Room CD (Desolation House) 14.98

"Rise Of Because", huh? Fans of Justin Broadrick and the UK industrial scene will get it, and their name is sort of a clue as to what this Philly area noise group is up to. The duo includes one of the guys from metallic space-sludge architects Rosetta, but you'd never know it from hearing this on its own. Their debut disc Punishment Room from 2008 (to date the only thing that they've released) is one of the harshest and noisiest releases to come out under the Desolation House imprint, the experimental noise/ambient/industrial label that Relapse operated until 2009. The sound is fundamentally a combination of true old-school industrial and power electronics, moving through thick chaotic masses of looped computer melodies, harsh, almost death-metal like screams run through delay and echoing endlessly, grinding rhythmic loops, and dense slabs of churning, caustic low-end noise. It's abrasive and harsh and psychedelic, at times hinting at a much heavier Wolf Eyes/Throbbing Gristle sort of industrial lurch, at it's most extreme emitting a skull-crushing roar of pure noise, but their secret weapon is the BEATS...huge, booming, blown-out drum loops that suddenly rise up on some of these tracks and turn this into a kind of crushing dub-laden break beat hell smothered in psychedelic industrial noise. Like on the second track "Tau Zero", where the slow, reverb-heavy break beat-like drums and pulverizing feedback manipulations/deep-space fx suggest an extreme speaker-blowing coalition between Kevin Martin (Bug/Ice/Techno Animal) or Scorn and some flame-throwing Japanese noise unit like CCCC or Merzbow. These beat-driven parts are outweighed by the pure noise, with most of the album assaulting you with brutal effects, sculpted feedback blasts, grinding distorted synths and pummeling scrap-metal abuse, but when those beats kick in, the effect is pretty fucking powerful. There are some more atmospheric parts as well, such as creepy low-end, almost didgeridoo-like drones, the corroded choral melodies and droning female voices that materialize above the clanking junkyard rhythms of "Timescape", the spacious dark ambience of "Nova", and the extreme distorted synthesizers on the fourteen minute closer Parable Of The Sower" that sound like parts of a John Carpenter score being blasted at top volume through huge shredded speakers, before a wash of blazing kosmiche synthesizer tones and frenzied samples herald the massive trip-hop beat that slowly fades in across the final half of the track. One of the few discs I've picked up which bridges the gap between extreme industrial noise and the apocalyptic industrial beats of Ice/Scorn/Dalek/Techno Animal/Curse of the Golden Vampire. The disc comes in a six panel digipack, limited to 1000 copies.
Track Samples:
Sample : The Forge of God
Sample : Tau Zero

SEKTARISM L'Offrande CD (Insidious Poisoning) 9.98

A single seventeen-minute track of blackened, Satan-worshipping doom called "L'Offrande" (or "The Offering") from France's Sektarism, who debuted with this Ep on the Insidious Poisoning imprint that I just discovered through one of our French suppliers. I have no idea who's in this band, their page on metal-archives.com is pretty barren, but this disc is fucking gnarly sounding. It�s blackened doom, incredibly (ridiculously?) bleak and miserable sounding as the band lumbers through a frequently shapeless doom-dirge that's sometimes crushingly heavy and pummeling, sometimes floating through a squealing cloud of visceral feedback and thunderous amplifier noise that gets into psychedelic out-guitar improve territory at times. These freaks evoke a brand of droning, monotonous crawl with a similar nightmarish ritualistic vibe as bands like Trees, Burning Witch and Bloody Panda, other comparisons might include the suicidal blackened doom of Nortt and black funeral doom weirdoes Senthil, but Sektarism are a bit more fucked-up and psychotic, incorporating elements of black metal into their sound and fronted by a deranged singer who moans and chants and wails like a shaman in the throes of visions, hurling seemingly random blasphemies against the oozing wall of dissonant guitar noise and spacious rumble, with these stretches of howling blackened amp-howl that sounds like the band is wandering into a narcotic haze, with moments that approach Fushitsusha-style guitar destruction. And they aren�t kidding around about their love for Satan; based on my limited grasp of the French language, the lyrics for "L'Offrande" read like poetry for a sacrificial rite. It�s sloppy, stumbling and totally evil psych-doom, way more raw and droning and noisy than the likes of Trees, but just as twisted and creepy sounding.
Track Samples:
Sample : L'Offrande

SEWER GODDESS With Dirt You Are One CD (Black Plagve) 11.98

Track Samples:
Sample : Demasculator
Sample : Penetration Of The Methodical Nightmare
Sample : Unabashed In Their Completion

SISSY SPACEK Fortune b/w The Eyes Of Men 7 INCH VINYL (Gilgongo) 6.98

While their recent experiments in musique concr�te /electro-acoustic noisescapes have been interesting, nothing matches the visceral power of the early Sissy Spacek releases where members John Wiese and Corydon Ronnau took extreme, blasting low-fi grind/hardcore and applied the cut-up techniques of musique concr�te to the recordings, creating intense collages of abstract grindcore that sounded like re-assembled tape cut-ups of Crossed Out 7�s. I fucking loved that stuff, especially their very first 7", and so was seriously stocked to find this new 7" from the band that finds them going back to their blasting noisecore roots. As it turns out, this isn't the return to the cut-up editing techniques that I thought it was going to be, but instead an even more immediate, improvised grind assault that's just as skull-rupturing.
Each side of the 7" features thirteen super short tracks, thirty second explosions of noisy thrash, blast beats, mangled noise, blown-out screams, and scraping electronic splurt, not cut-up and spliced together like the early Ep material, and instead are more like brutal short shocks of free-noise and hyper speed hardcore smashed together into micro bursts of furious energy, seriously HARSH, and extremely low-fi. There's no guitar or bass, just drums and vocals and Wiese unleashing piercing electronics, taking the vocals themselves and processing them into harsh clots of noise, everything racing at breakneck speed, like an atomic blast of Neos crossed with 7 Minutes Of Nausea and Masonna. Vicious!

SKITLIV Skandinavisk Misantropi 2xLP (Season Of Mist) 22.00

Skitliv's avant-blackdoom nightmare Skandinavisk Misantropi is now available from Season of Mist as a limited edition double-LP in gatefold packaging, with a digital download card for an MP3 version of the album.
Skandinavisk Misantropi is the first actual album from the mutant Swedish blackdoom outfit Skitliv, who had already caught me under their diseased spell with the Amfetamin disc that came out on Cold Spring a while back. That disc was a top-notch assemblage of studio material and live recordings that did a great job of introducing Skitliv's unique, enigmatic brand of misanthropic heaviness, but it really only hinted at how crazed their music was going to fully become.
With this album, though, the band has really developed into something lethal. After listening to Amfetamin again and again, I was expecting to hear more of that fractured, abstracted blackened doom, and while there is plenty of that going on with Skandinavisk, Skitliv have expanded their sound as well, becoming even darker and more ominous and MUCH heavier. Where their earlier material was more of shambling, demented doom metal, here that doomy crawl is infused with even more blackened textures, but more melodic too, with the barbed-wire riffs and scathing vocals of front man Maniac (of Mayhem fame, natch) merging with gloomy minor key melodies and offbeat guitar parts - which come via guitarist Niklas Kvarforth, also of Ondskapt / Manes / Shining , and his distinctive moody style is a huge part of Skitliv's grim, otherworldly sound. The songs can get pretty catchy, especially compared to the stumbling sickliness of their earlier recordings, and often the music dips into an awesome melodic doominess suggestive of a blackened, apocalyptic Anathema or My Dying Bride, with huge Sabbathian riffs uncoiling around the moody, almost gothic melodies. Elsewhere, Skitliv moves through passages of abstract minimal slowcore (like on "Hollow Devotion") and formless black drift laced with spacey electronic effects, washes of lush textural noise and murky minor key melodies, strange overlapping voices murmuring over waves of dreamlike ambience. The album also features a pretty incredible lineup of guest musicians, which includes Attila Csihar (Sunn O))) / Mayhem / Aborym), Andrew Liles (Nurse With Wound / Current 93), Gaahl (Gorgoroth), and David Tibet from Current 93, who again joins Skitliv following his spoken word contributions to Amfetamin, here appearing on an entire track that does sound a lot like Current 93, but obviously much heavier and blacker, his frenzied voice carried over ominous clean guitar strum and shards of piano, dark and apocalyptic, before erupting in a blast of harsh blackened distortion.
The rest of the album continues on a schizophrenic course, fueled by the utterly misanthropic visions of Maniac as the music erupts into squalls of furious black metal buzz and crushing Sab-style doom, then shifts to lurching abstract gloom-pop like hooks and dramatic melodic guitars and strange spacey ambience. It all comes to a head with the thirteen minute closing track "Scumdrug", a massive scorched doom epic formed from strains of delicate piano and somber clean guitar, melancholy minor key figures unfurling beneath monstrous sneering vokills and crushing doomy heaviness rumbling off in the distance, starting off as a swirling blackened waltz but slowly evolving into a nightmarish din of random voices and grinding noise, blasts of distortion and bizarre electronic sounds, similar to the NWW-influenced soundscapes on the Maniac/Liles/Czral disc that I reviewed a few weeks back, ending the album on a hallucinatory note that befits this supremely warped album. Recommended!
Track Samples:
Sample : Densetsu
Sample : Slow Pain Coming
Sample : Towards the Shores of Loss (Vulture Face Kain)

SKULLFLOWER This Is Skullflower CD (VHF) 13.98

Finally back in print! The last album from Skullflower to be released in the 1990's, the classic This Is Skullflower is one of the legendary drone-rock group's most acid-soaked and albums, nixing the pummeling pipe battles that typified much of their previous work and sounding a whole hell of a lot like a conceptual bridge between the roaring, blasted power-ragas of Transformer and the soaring sun-baked skree drones that Matthew Bower would busy himself with in Sunroof, his solo project which would occupy most of his attention throughout the rest of the decade. Fans of the Exquisite Fucking Boredom and Orange Canyon Mind albums will find common ground here; while the guitars aren't as searing and distorted as they would get on Bower's post-y2K efforts, these four lengthy tracks are still shot straight through the heart of the sun, scraping strings and buzzing meditative guitar hum streaming endlessly out of a white-hot blast of amplified light, each of these long form stoner-buzz-rituals extended into infinity, infinite Hawkwind-ian psychdrone workouts built from dense billowing cacophonies of guitar and viola and sheets of metallic feedback, driven by clattery hand percussion and Stuart Denison's shambling sub-motorik drumming. The piano sets the album apart from most of Skullflower's oeuvre, though; clanking keys and improvised piano lines scuttling across the smoldering dronescapes and mutant acid-guitar freak outs, adding a strangely jazzy vibe to the album. But even in spite of all of the sun-dappled psychedelic dronebliss, Skullflower still can't help but emit an ominous, otherworldly vibe on This Is Skullflower, and the final track "The Pirate Ship of Reality Is Moving Out" is an almost forty minute performance of apocalyptic freeform scrape and roar, a sprawling monstrous din that was recorded live at a club performance in 1995 which bleeds somber strains of softened psych guitar into a blistering mass of crushing feedback, amp buzz, and free-jazz skronk. The lineup of the band for this album consisted of Matt Bower alongside Richard Youngs on guitar, John Godbert on piano and hand drum, Stuart Dennison on drums and viola and Russell Smith (God/Terminal Cheesecake) on guitar. Essential for Skullflower fans and anyone into the heavy-duty drone rock of Pelt, Flying Saucer Attack and Vibracathedral Orchestra.
Track Samples:
Sample : Creaky Rigging
Sample : Glider

SWANS Kill The Child CD (Atavistic) 14.98

Track Samples:
Sample : Kill the Child

TOUNDRA self-titled CD (Basement Apes) 11.98

This Madrid-based band bring us another platter of heavy, instrumental rock that mixes together the atmospheric heights (and depths) of the Temporary Residence roster (Explosions In The Sky / Mono) and some meaty stoner-metal chunkiness schooled on a combination of Welcome To Sky Valley and Oceanic. It's nothing radical, but Toundra deliver a solid batch of moody soundtrack rock that reminds me of their countrymen Hand Of Fatima, who they actually shared a split EP with a while (and the Toundra track "Nordeste" from that split has been tacked onto the end of this disc as a bonus). Seven tracks of almost completely instrumental rock (save for the wordless background voices on "Genesis") that wind elegant melodic riffs around slow, circular drumming and energetic bursts of propulsive rocking power, the guitars ringing out with chiming, delay-drenched arpeggios and gorgeous indie strum a la Explosions In The Sky, the melodies well-crafted, driven on with soft martial snares, and building into epic crescendos that give Toundra's music it's requisite cinematic feel. It's the crushing stoner rock riffs that these guys inject into their instrumentals that make this more than just another straightforward EITS clone, the music often surging from oceanic ambience and overlapping guitars intertwined in delicate melodies into waves of heavy tribal drumming and crunchy Sabbathoid riffs. Some of that Isis/Pelican sound is going on here as well, but this skews more towards the luminous and ethereal, with the heavier moments outweighed by the majestic, delay-soaked sheets of melodic guitar. Fans of Souvenir's Young America and Tulsa Drone will probably dig this. As with the other recent Basement Apes releases, the packaging is gorgeous, a full-color arigato-style case, but what's up with the iceberg images? It's the exact same photo from Camille Seaman's Last Iceburg Series II that was used on the Atka/Shimetsu split LP�
Track Samples:
Sample : Genesis
Sample : Jauria

TRANCELIKE VOID Where The Trees Can Make it Rain CD (Ars Magna) 9.98

Track Samples:
Sample : Ghost Mountain
Sample : The Stone Pond

TREHA SEKTORI Sorieh CD (Kaosthetik) 12.98

The debut full length from the mysterious French black industrial/ambient group Treha Sektori, who have previously appeared on the Angst Essai III compilation alongside Ulver and Tribe of Circle. If you're looking for a perfect album to seed your nightmares at the threshold of sleep, Sorieh would be it. The band creates an intensely bleak yet phantasmagoric atmosphere across these eight tracks, blending ritualistic dark ambience and deep metallic Lustmord-style drift, vast cavernous drones, heavy percussion, and some seriously creepy processed vocals and manipulated voice recordings. Some of these tracks are almost totally ambient, with heavy sheets of processed metallic drone and vast, cold Lustmord/Yen Pox style emptiness, while others incorporate simple, eerie guitar melody and rumbling, billowing gusts of massive subterranean drone and industrial clang. Those percussive elements are pretty prominent, with lots of heavy kettledrum pummel and martial snares pounding within the gloom; the track "Presceth Keonah" in particular features some hypnotic tribal drumming at the center of an ominous swirling cloud of distant woodwinds, deep-earth thrum, and horrific screams echoing off in the far distance...
More than anything, it's the use of vocals on Sorieh that makes this album stand out from most of the dark ambient stuff that I get in at C-Blast. You usually don't see vocals featured to this degree on dark ambient albums as you do here, but the bizarre incantations, operatic wailing and anguished screams that inhabit Sorieh's nightmarish underworld are a major part of Treha Sektori's sound. Ululating female wails are stretched into infinite drones, and whispered male voices utter strange invocations that are then chopped up and re-arranged into strange alien code. In fact, most of the vocals that you hear have been electronically processed and edited, adding a strange futuristic vibe to the sinister black drift and industrial pummel, as if you're capturing the transmissions of arcane Satanic rituals that are broadcast on a scrambled internet feed. Kind of falls in somewhere between the grim ritual ambience of the Aural Hypnox label and artists like Halo Manash, Aeoga and Arktau Eos, and the much creepier sounds of French black ambient (Aymrev Erkroz Prevre, Dapnom, Melek-Tha, Silcharde, Stigma Diabolicum) but with those weird, electronically-warped vocals that make this a unique entry in the field of claustrophobic dark ambience. Comes in a full-color six-panel digipack.
Track Samples:
Sample : Entori Kethesnah
Sample : Tentureh

TRUE ENDLESS, THE 1888: From Hell 2xCD (Aphelion Productions) 14.98

These Italian black metallers have been around for a couple years with a handful of releases under their belt, but their third album, the black metal rock opera 1888: From Hell is the first offering from the band that I've picked up. Inspired by the macabre story of Jack The Ripper (and presumably the Alan Moore / Eddie Campbell comic book series From Hell), The True Endless released this double disc set on Aphelion Productions, with the main disc featuring a seven-song narrative about Jack The Ripper and the Whitechapel Murders, the second disc featuring a professionally recorded live set from 2007.
The 1888: From Hell disc features the eight songs with lyrics delivered from the perspective of the Whitechapel killer himself (with titles like "Locusts in My Head", "London 1888", "The Law of the Blade", "Psychomegalomaniac: Intro / Eight Little Whores"), conveyed through blasting, old school influenced buzz, fast paced, ferocious and frenzied in the classic Norwegian tradition; early Mayhem is an obvious influence. The band mixes their sound up with some subtle but interesting touches of power electronics and industrial music though, several tracks opening with super-distorted, over-modulated PE-style vokills and creepy droning electronic noise that's contributed by Jiehna from the industrial/electro-BM group Ycosahateron. These intros and interludes bookend the frostbitten epic black metal assault, ripping lightning-blast BM and insanely fast blast beats arranged into complex, eight-plus minute songs, a slight progressive feel going on with the non-BM elements that are woven into the sound, dropping some moments of pounding fist-raising rock and depressing minor-key doom, classical strings, and looped samples of operatic arias and choir voices layered into terrifying collages. Their vocals are pretty cool, too; the lead singer's wretched scowling screams frequently break off into soaring clean singing, reminiscent of Borknagar or Enslaved.
The second disc features seven tracks recorded from a live show in Italy from early 2007, and features a mix of older songs and tracks from 1888: From Hell.
Cool stuff from these murder-obsessed, slightly proggy black metallers! The set comes packaged in a plastic dvd style case with full color artwork and includes a booklet filled with lyrics and liner notes.
Track Samples:
Sample : A Climb To Eternity
Sample : My Main Tormentous Game
Sample : Napalm
Sample : Psychomegalomania: Intro: Eight Little Whores

TU CARNE / SARCOPHAGA CARNARIA split 7 INCH VINYL (Last House On The Right) 4.98

Just came across some copies of this 7" that came out in 2004, a particularly disgusting platter of gore/death/noise weirdness from Spain's Tu Carne and France's Sarcophaga Carnaria. Pressed on colored vinyl and slipped inside of a Xeroxed sleeve covered in disturbing imagery, this came out on Last House On The left, so that should give you an idea of what is going on here: extreme, bizarre gurgling goregrind with a healthy helping of berserk noise on the side.
The Sarcophaga Carnaria side features a two-part song called "Poor Little Thing", a primitive death metal blast with mechanical-sounding drum machines that are set to inhumanly fast, robo-blasting tempos, searing guitar solos, and "vocals" that come from the Last Days Of Humanity school of voice-processing: ridiculously pitchshifted grunts that are even further electronically manipulated so that they turn into a noxious, totally inhuman mass of liquid gurgling noise. They aren't even vocals in the normal sense of the word, more of a disgusting, electronically-processed noise slathered onto the grinding robotic death metal/goregrind skuzz. The song sometimes veers into squealing gore-groove, coming off like Carcass worship mixed with alien drum machine grind craziness, but mostly Sarcophaga Carnaria sounds like listening to an early-90s death metal demo while a food processor goes on the rampage. Pretty sick!
On the other side, Tu Carne belch out another gaseous blast of their charnel grind, a putrefying mess of gorenoise that has their drums / guitar / bass / vocalist lineup augmented with some dude named "Flipi" on "bass distortion", who adds a heavy coating of filthy vomitous noise and low-end rumble to these three grind jams. The first is ridiculously blown-out grind with guttural vocals smothered in fuzz trading off against high-pitched electrocution shrieks, while catchy punk riffs are blasted at supersonic speed over splattery blast beats and slower pounding grooves, while the second starts out with a funky break beat for a second, then kicks into a mix of murky thrash and noise-splattered grindcore. Then the third song explodes in a short 10-second "Scum"-style blast of gurgling vocals, blast beats, and nuclear guitar holocaust. Blam!
Limited to five hundred copies on gross green vinyl!

UNIVERS ZERO Clivages CD (Cuneiform) 15.98

UNO ACTO / MALEDICERE split 7 INCH VINYL (God Is Myth) 6.50

A split 7" for fans of mutant black metal weirdness, this features one track each from Qu�b�cois blackened abstractionists Uno Actu (who in my mind are Canada's answer to Emit) and Minnasota's Maledicere , both of which kill!
First up are Midwestern black metal duo Maledicere, whose "To Present Balance To The Sun" is a twisted black attack of brutal thrashing black metal, a crushing woozy thrash riff slithering over manic drumming that veers from complex rhythmic forms to blazing blast beats, awash in sickly dissonant sheets of guitar that shift and warp throughout the song, the singer's deep guttural growls adding a brutal element to the chaos. There seems to be a bit of a French BM/Deathspell/Blut Aus Nord influence here, blazing, twisted BM with some cool martial percussion smoldering beneath the blackened buzzsaw assault. I'm really looking forward to hearing more from this band.
And then there's French Canadian blacknoise weirdoes Uno Actu, who deliver the seven minute "Absorber/La Noirceur". It starts off with a slow swell of distortion that dissipates into a dark acoustic folk melody layered with caustic electronic buzz and feedback, creating a ghostly shortwave atmosphere, the noise building into a black swarm of flies that enshrouds the simple, circular guitar melody before fading off into pitch-black Lustmord style ambience. The last half of the track moves from this black ambient drift and keening high end feedback drones into another murky guitar melody, which is now joined by gurgling goblinoid whispers and groans, softly blurred melodies running backwards, and the soft crackle of tape hiss all smeared with a patina of decay and rot.
Another fantastic slab of outsider blackness from God Is Myth, released in a limited edition of 300 hand-numbered copies.

VEEE DEEE Listen To This 1000x Then Kill Yourself CD-R (Fuckland Better Business Bureau) 9.98

The latest disc from American expats Veee Deee comes screaming outta Japan with another savage blast of ultra-blown, distorted as fuck, brain-scorching psychedelic noise rock, and if you dug that double 3" CD set that came out on At War With False Noise a couple of years ago, this will not disappoint. The whole deal seems tougher than before, the sleeve for Listen To This 1000x Then Kill Yourself is all black, the song titles ("Fucked In The Heart", "Heat Death") have a more negative vibe coming off of them...hell, the disc is called Listen To This 1000x Then Kill Yourself! As before, Veee Deee�s sound is seriously distorted and low-fi, a sort of crushing, groovy noise-rock trance, hints of in-the-red Japanese psych and American noise rock coming together into massive hypnotic distorto jams, but these songs also reveal a little more melody than I'm used to hearing from �em. The first track "A Wet Hell" is probably the most melodic thing I've heard from them, starting off manic and freaked out, with hyper fast guitar squiggle swarming over a mangled riff and sloppy quasi-blast beats, but then it changes into a dreamy psychdirge halfway in, with this sweet simple melodic fragment soaked in delay and rippling over basic propulsive drumming and clean guitar notes glimmering in the murk. That's followed by the terrifically-titled "Fucked In The Heart", which sounds more like the stuff that was on the At War With False Noise disc, all blown out freeform distorto frenzy, huge fuzzbomb garage rock riffs raging through a cyclone of broken crash cymbals, a super-noisy and distorted Hendrix-meets-High Rise acidpuke jam matted with amp-filth and stomp-box grime, the track getting heavier and more dissonant and fucked-up sounding as it lumbers along, crazed soloing and skronky chords flying in every direction, the volume shooting up at the end as it explodes into a furious blast of overdriven psych-noise.
The other three tracks are an even mix of the blissy, dreamy psych side of Veee Deee's sound and the hypnotic, looping noise-rock blowouts. "Heat Death" starts off sorta jazzy and laid back with a dark bass line and clattering free-jazz drumming around an ominous sludgy guitar riff, then it lurches into this noxious, crushing psych-sludge groove, another in-the-red, blown out, speaker shredding eruption, but still weirdly catchy; then at the end, circular prog guitar start to cycle over a propulsive rock groove, reminding me a little of something from Growing, but filtered through some super distorted Japanese psychedelia. Then sheets of abrasive tape hiss flow into another distorted prog/punk freak out called "Denuded Slopes", with mangled riffing mashing into furious improvisational drumming, super heavy, a little metallic actually, but slowly evolving into a gorgeous, crunchy psych-drone in the last few minutes of the track. The last song "Love Is Magic, Magic Is Stupid" is the most whacked-out song here, a confusing, jagged tangle of angular free-jazz jamming and psych, scorched solos slithering through clusters of seriously chaotic drumming and huge blats of corrosive noise, the avalanche of chaotic crumbling psychedelic heaviness permeated by tons of eerie reverb.
The disc comes in a handmade fold-over paper sleeve, and includes a download code for another full length called "To All the Girls I've Loved Before -- Which One of You Gave Me the Clap?".
Track Samples:
Sample : A Wet Hell
Sample : Fucked In The Heart
Sample : Heat Death

VELVET CACOON Northsuite 2xLP (Southern Lord) 19.98

One of the finest albums of ethereal USBM of the last decade, Velvet Cacoon's Northsuite was originally released by Full Moon Productions, but was later released on vinyl by Southern Lord in one of the most extravagant vinyl packages I've ever seen. Two 180 gram black vinyl LPs, each one in it's own printed inner sleeve and packaged together in a heavy jacket that has the Velvet Cacoon logo embossed on the black matte cover against a field of actual black velvet. It's easily one of Southern Lord's most gorgeous vinyl presentations, and a perfect visual accompaniment for the mysterious, drone-drenched black metal of Velvet Cacoon. Released in a limited edition of 1500 copies.
By now the mythology of this band has been exposed as a hoax on the underground black metal scene: the ""dieselharp"", the eco-fascism, all a prank. I was just recently turned onto Velvet Cacoon, though, after Hamilton from Genghis Tron highly recommended that I check out their Genevieve album, so I missed out on the initial mystique this band had created. Not that it matters though; even without the bizarre background story, Velvet Cacoon are an amazingly strange and captivating outfit, playing some of the most dreamlike black metal in the USBM scene right now. This disc was the followup to Genevieve, and collects the Red Steeples and Music For Falling Buildings demos that were released from 2001 through 2003, preceding their full length. The songs from Music For Falling Buildings capture the band in their formative phase, spitting out raw, dissonant black metal, a combination of Burzumic fuzz and aggressive Darkthrone thrash, with awesome epic hooks, bizarre production tricks, volume swells, and lots of odd ambient passages. By the Red Steeples demo, though, the band had begun to form the exquisitely hypnotic, droning minimalism that would define Genevieve, a dense, vaporous black metal drone with minimal vocals and hypnotic riff repetition over extremely minimal drum machine rhythms. Bleak and haunting, but very beautiful, a foggy wash of shoegazeresque distortion and catchy melodies that fully merge with the relentless propulsive blast of black metal, combining classic gloom pop moves a la Cocteau Twins and Philip Glass style repetition, with the blowout BM of Burzum and Xasthur and burying the sounds beneath suffocating layers of gauzy grit and buzz and drone.
Track Samples:
Sample : VELVET CACOON-Northsuite

WEASEL WALTER SEPTET Invasion CD (ugEXPLODE) 14.98

Scorching new studio album from one of Weasel Walter's more recent group sessions; his septet features Henry Kaiser (guitar), Vinny Golia (clarinets, sax, tubax), Liz Allbee (bells, conch, trumpet), John Lindberg (double bass), Damon Smith (double bass), William Winant (tympani, drums) and Weasel himself behind the drum kit, rocketing the ensemble through four intense long form hardcore free-jazz workouts that'll satisfy fans of Weasel's other group improv albums on ugEXPLODE. It's not as out-and-out brutal as, say, Revenge, but with Kaiser's scrabbly distorted electric guitar shrieking and shredding throughout the disc and Weasel's often violent drumming blasting off into high speed, it's definitely not for wimps. The massive thirty-three minute opener "Nautilus Rising" is a real beast - this epic starts out as an intense sprawl of jagged counterpoint, dark abstract clatter and blasts of furious soloing from all, the shifts about halfway through into a darker, smoldering mass of weeping bass strings, grim groaning woodwinds, sparse flashes of heavy metallic angular riffing and simmering percussion that evokes the evil dissonance of French prog. More driving and propulsive, "Flesh Strata" blends squealing, howling harmolodic horns with complex, heavy-duty bass and distorted Sharrock-like guitar skronk, taking the group deep into Last Exit territory, complete with some killer sax blowouts and screaming shred-metal style guitar solos. The four-and-a-half minute "Cleistogamy" is a mix of clattery acoustic sounds and frenetic percussion overlaid with fragments of acoustic guitar, and the closing title track rockets back into a blazing twenty-two minute free-jazz assault loaded with spastic freeform drumming and blast beats, psychotic speed-demon guitar scrawl, and an unrelenting attack of clarinet and saxophone screaming across the heavens. Fuck yeah. Definitely recommended to fans of Last Exit, Sprawl, Ettrick, Flying Luttenbachers, Peter Br�tzmann, Scorch Trio, Masada, Zu and other furious, high-speed free jazz maniacs.
Track Samples:
Sample : Flesh Strata
Sample : Invasion

ZENI GEVA Maximum Money Monster CD (Cold Spring) 14.98

Back in stock - and according to the label, some of the last copies of this reissue!
A reissue of legendary Japanese heaviness that could not have come one minute sooner, Zeni Geva's first album Maximum Money Monster from 1990 has been resurrected by Cold Spring for this new CD release and beefed up with three devestating additional tracks that are appearing here for the first time. When this album first came out on Pathological almost twenty years ago, it decisively put Zeni Geva on the map of monolithic heaviness that was being charted by likeminded dirge technicians like Godflesh, Swans, and Big Black at the time. I can't imagine how punishing it would have been to hear the slurred opening blast of "Slam King" for the very first time; K.K. Null's monolithic grinding riffs were joined by Mitsuru Tabata on second guitar and fit like machine teeth to the irregular rhythms that drummers Ikuo Taketani and Tatsuya Yoshida (also of Ruins) were laying down (the album features each of the drummers on alternating tracks), and abrasive psychedelic noise and feedback is piled on top in huge amounts, and occasionally shot through with searing, screaming guitar solos on tracks like "Sweetheart" that'll strip the enamel right off of your teeth. K.K. Null's vocals combine crazed shrieks with his patented "samurai warrior" battle roar that still sounds every bit as terrifying today as it did in '90. There's a relentless martial intensity much like that of early Swans at work here with each song being comprised of just one primary riff that the band bashes out over and over in search of the ultimate mindcrush heaviosity, but Zeni Geva were in their own way a vastly heavier beast than any of their peers, almost undefineable as they combined elements of atypical time signatures, atonal thrash metal melted down into a hypnotic trance, sludgy death metal and arty industrial-psych noise, blasting way out beyond anything going on in metal at the time and harnessing some of the most crushing music of the time. An absolute devestator of an album that meshes perfectly with the current zeitgeist that is producing a renaissance in harsh experimental rock forms and reissues of seminal albums like our redux of Skullflower's IIIrd Gatekeeper. This new edition of Maximum Money Monster combines the original album tracks with three bonus live jams ("War Pig", "Skullfuck", and "Dead Car, Sun Crash") recorded in Tokyo in 1990, and all three sound crushing.
Track Samples:
Sample : zenigeva_skullfuck
Sample : zenigeva_warpig

ZOMBIEFLESHEATER Zombiefleshtheatre 12 INCH (Sonic Belligeranza) 10.98

The latest discovery in my constant search for the most brutal extremes of breakcore is this fairly obscure German artist called Zombieflesheater, whose Fulci-diggin' name alone piqued my curiosity. When I first played this nine track 12" (released in 2006 on the Italian breakcore/noise label Sonic Belligeranza), I thought that I had the rpm speed set incorrectly; the opener "Place The Needle Here..." seemed to drag, the sound all choppy and slurred and syrupy, but after a minute it became clear that this was exactly how Zombieflesheater's brutal beatscapes are supposed to sound, messed up and SUPER HEAVY, some seriously crushing malfunctioning industrial noize-soaked breakcore that draws from both the early DHR output and dancehall. Sounds like a weird mix of influences, but man does this sound fucking awesome, an apocalyptic raggacore attack of massive stuttering blown out kick drums, bizarre spastic anti-rhythms, sampled gunshots, murky looped samples and doom-laden synth lines mangled and spliced back together into something warped and chopped-up and seriously abrasive. The first few tracks are all slow and syrupy, so blown out and in the red and DISTORTED, with demented dancehall toasting over MASSIVE low-end bass and crushing industrial breaks, irradiated gore-soaked raggacore that reminded me at first of a slowed-down, sludgy, chopped-n-screwed Shitmat, or some fucked Godflesh remix of a Bong-Ra track.
It's not until the third track "Why Not" that things really pick up speed, but when they do, it turns into spastic high-speed splatterjungle with weird soulful dancehall vocal melodies looped over noisy breaks, then all of a sudden a ripping thrash metal riff comes in out of nowhere joined by some seriously violent and distorted drum n' bass action, blown-out vocal samples, wailing sirens, brutal and ultra-fucked jungle mayhem. The rest of the record continues with mostly fast and violent breakcore, full of sputtering distorted synths, harsh electronic noise, distorted screams, blasts of super-chaotic drill n bass, massive bone-rattling bass, squealing feedback, smash-ups of death metal riffage, creepy industrial noisescapes, mangled Amen breaks, blown-out techno synthlines, wheezing blackened growls and freaked out sped-up chipmunk toasting. Parts of this sound like like Shitmat mixed with Masonna, or DJ Scud mixed with fucked up broken drum machine grind. This stuff is way harsher than any of those artists, and even gives the death-metal lovin' breakcore extremism of Bong-Ra a run for it's money. Fucking AWESOME. Italian import, packaged in a full-color die cut DJ-style jacket.

ZU The Way Of The Animal Powers LP (Public Guilt) 22.00

This 2005 album from Zu was released on cd by the Italian label Xeng, which later went out of print when the label shut down. It's now available for the first time ever on vinyl thanks to our comrade J.R. at Public Guilt, who has reissued this hefty slab of Italian free-jazz heaviness on limited-edition black-and-white swirled 180 gram vinyl, and with a new remastering job from James Plotkin; packaged in a thick black and white gatefold jacket, this thing came out looking beautiful.
Like their album How To Raise An Ox from the same year, this record sees Zu pairing up with another reknowned improvisor, cellist Fred Lomberg-Holm. The textural feel of his scraped strings and the low, tension-building notes that he pulls out of his instrument adds a creepy dissonance to Zu's muscular free-jazz, which on this go-round is a slower and more brooding affair than the thrashier, more aggressive sounds of Carboniferous and Igneo. Not that there's anything "light" about this set; the nine tracks on Way are heavy, heaving slabs of intricate improv that layer deep exhalations of skronk and bone-rattling bass above a staggering, skittery, utterly unpredictable rhythmic attack. It's similar to some of the heavier Brotzmann/Last Exit jams, but with more "math" being worked out in the knotted arrangements. And man, that first track..."Tom Araya Is Our Elvis". A pulverizing free-jazz dirge, one of their heaviest, sludgy slithering bass and pummeling drums grinding through a morass of lurching bleating death-skronk. Fucking killer. And the rest of this album is just as good, sometimes restrained and locking into weird little shuffling grooves and skittering, clambering percussive wig-outs or delicate Ayler-influenced atmosphere, but just as often blasting into one of their thunderous no-wave flecked slow-mo jazzdirge seizures. This (and all of the other Zu albums in my opinion, all of their stuff is pretty great) should be required listening for any of you guys that are already hooked on the likes of Painkiller, Weasel Walter's post-Luttenbachers free jazz ensembles, and the harder Zorn stuff.
Track Samples:
Sample : The Aftermath
Sample : Tomaraya is Our Elvis
Sample : The Witch Herbalist of The Remote Town

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