WITCHCRAFT The Alchemist (Candlelight USA / Rise Above) cd 14.98
The Japanese import version w/ bonus track is all gone, but now we've recieved the much cheaper, digipack'd domestic version of the new Witchcraft, here's our review...
Oh man. The third album from the Swedish prog/psych/doom wizards Witchcraft is finally here. We can barely contain ourselves. They say third time's the charm, and of course with Witchcraft it can't help but being so, since the first two times were charmed as well. This band's debut destroyed us with its incredibly authentic retro Pentagram/Sabbath stylings, with lashings of flute and folkiness too. Their second album, Firewood, captivated us with an equally early '70s heavy progressive vibe. Now The Alchemist succeeds at giving us what we want from Witchcraft -and- pushing further into the realm of melodic, folky proggy rock that stands on its own far beyond being a mere tribute to its '70s ancestors.
Guitarist/singer Magnus Pelander and his band Witchcraft have pretty much proved that the old adage "they don't make 'em like they used to" isn't always true. Witchcraft sure as hell does. That it's 2007 not 1972 isn't evident from anything on here, though it sounds as fresh as a daisy at the same time. These guys are so old school analog you halfway expect that their cd would be made out of black plastic and have visible grooves in it. We certainly could imagine some DJ's looking for breaks wanting this on vinyl real bad, you could do some badass hiphop mix with parts of "Remembered" ferinstance. Bet Andy Votel digs this band. Totally sounds like they could have gotten a deal with his favorite progressive record label back in the day (that'd be the famed Vertigo) had Witchcraft really existed in the '70s... certainly the inclusion of the sax solo (yes, a sax solo!) at the end of "Remembered" helps make it sound like something from an old Vertigo LP! Elsewhere Witchcraft get super sweet and gentle, or break out the heavy riffs Sabbath style (like you'd expect -- Sabbath originally being a Vertigo band y'know) in a blend we can't help but love.
Magnus' emotive, melodic vocals are so crucial here, one of this record's shining strengths. He still sounds a bit like a Swedish-accented Ozzy, yet with a graceful finesse, belting it out expressively or crooning with lilting loveliness. His vocals are matched by the absolutely powerful and gorgeous guitarwork throughout the disc. This album sweeps us off our feet immediately with the instant-classic opener "Walk Between The Lines", which is followed by a re-recorded version of the A-side of last year's 7" single, "If Crimson Was Your Colour", an urgent, witchy rocker embellished with some tasty Moog licks. Then there's the loping "Leva", which though Magnus sings it in Swedish, still goes straight to our soul. The Sabbath factor is ratcheted up on "Hey Doctor", a lumbering doom-riffed downer lamentation/accusation. The next track, "Samaritan Burden" combines the heavy riffs with a mellower mood and more acoustic-y moments, masterfully structured. It's followed by the aforementioned "Remembered", definitely an album-standout that's so '70s in so many ways that pretty much only Witchcraft could have done it in this day and age. And then, speaking of standouts, comes the nearly 15 minute long title track, "The Alchemist"! We'll omit description other than to say it's of course an epic mindblower, closing the album with magnificent, mesmeric, proggier than thou flourish.
Definitely a Top 10 Best of 2007 album, highly recommended. Seriously, we'd have been happy taking all day to write this review, just 'cause we love listening to this album so much.
MPEG Stream: "Walk Between The Lines"
MPEG Stream: "Hey Doctor"
MPEG Stream: "Remembered"

YONKERS, MICHAEL WITH THE BLIND SHAKE Carbohydrates Hydrocarbons (Go Johnny Go) cd 14.98
Underground Minneapolis psych guitar legend Michael Yonkers has been a huge AQ fave ever since his long-lost 1969 album Microminiature Love was rescued from obscurity by the De Stijl and Sub Pop labels. In fact we were very happy to get to meet him when he stopped by the store to say hello one time when he was in town a few years ago. Super nice guy. And it's not just Microminature Love that we love -- the recordings he's released since the (re)discovery of Microminiature Love demonstrate that he's still got it -- IT being a uniquely twisted take on what garage rock should sound like. Utter timeless visionary genius.
Actually, the last thing we listed by Mr. Yonkers, just a few weeks back, was a reissue of another 1969 recording of his, the surprisingly folky Grimwood. Well this cd couldn't be much more different. First of all it's brand new (it came out first on vinyl a few months ago, we've maybe still got one of those LPs but they're otherwise gone), it's a full band recording (Yonkers having hooked up with some hard-hitting youngsters called The Blind Shake), and it's ROCK. Urgent and heavy and distorted. Totally stompin' outsider punk/psych, garage rock from a way fucked up garage. Definitely in the style of Microminiature Love.
Yonkers and The Blind Shake dole out their throbbing, reverb-laden rock in 14 brief blasts (mostly under three minutes, many under two), with song titles to match, often truncated, unfinished queries or statements: "Why Don't", "When Will We", "Don't I Get", "Here's What I'm"... what, what, what, what??? Yonkers' unhinged Iggyish vocals and sinuous squalls of guitar are ultimately the answer. Way cool.
Also look out for Circling The Drain, *another* new Yonkers album, cd version coming soon, vinyl perhaps still around to be found...
MPEG Stream: "Don't I Get"
MPEG Stream: "Carbohydrates Hydrocarbons"
MPEG Stream: "Can It Be"

YOUNGS, RICHARD Autumn Response (Jagjaguwar) cd 14.98
It might be unfair (though easy) to lump Richard Youngs' recent output into the trendy category that lately has been swallowing all music that includes singing and acoustic instruments, namely "freak folk" (or "acid folk" or whatever you want to call it, you know what we mean). On Autumn Response Youngs is hardly singing the music of "the people", nor is he making conscious efforts to associate his music with that of past artists and traditions of his native British Isles. Instead, the lyrics suggest a solitary imagination, isolated and introspectively afoot in a landscape (the further journeys of a 'summer wanderer'?). His song structures are simple and atmospheric...mantra-like..built around emotive, hypnotic, doubled vocal tracks that become vertiginous at times with repeating riffs on acoustic guitar. The affecting, pastoral melodicism and minimalist structuring of these songs gives the impression that Youngs has combined the talents of the great Roy Harper with the methodologies of folk guitar experimentalist Steffen Basho-Junghans, perhaps.
Like most of Youngs' recent records on Jagjaguwar, this one is constructed with a limited set of 'rules' (instruments, production effects, etc.) which makes the record less a collection of songs and more a cohesive single work evolving through its various parts until arriving at the 16+ minute closer, "Something Like Air". It's something all right, and it's breathtaking, as is so much of this lovely, lovely album.
MPEG Stream: "Low Bay Of Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Paths In The City"
MPEG Stream: "One Hundred Stranded Horses"

SEA HAGS s/t (Rock Candy) cd 17.98
With a lot of stuff on the AQ list, to us at least, the music often transcends its genre. And part of the fun of reviewing a record like that, is getting people who don't normally listen to that kind of music to check it out, and maybe even dig it. You know, some metal record that's so fucked up and damaged that it might appeal to folks into noise music or experimental music. Or some pop band that's so heavy and intense, that even metalheads might dig it.
Well, with this, the long long long overdue reissue of the first and only record from San Francisco's very own Sea Hags, we're not even gonna bother. This isn't fucked up or noisy or experimental. It's heavy, groovy, glammy hard rock that totally kicks ass. And if you don't dig stuff like Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses, Hanoi Rocks and the like, then odds are you aren't gonna dig this. But if you do (and if you don't what the hell's wrong with you?!), and somehow you missed out on the greatest hard rock band to ever come out of SF, then for fuck's sake, pick this up NOW.
Hailed back in the day as the next Guns N' Roses, and described by their manager thusly: "There's only so far you can go with three junkies and one alcoholicŠ", the Sea Hags were Bay Area rock heroes, who would hang out with Courtney Love, have Metallica's Kirk Hammett play lead on one of their tracks, almost get a song on the Sid And Nancy soundtrack after a tip from Love (who was fronting Faith No More at the time!), record with Mike Clink who produced Appetite For Destruction, kick their drummer out while recording, have the band nearly break up on tour after being busted for drugs, and (sadly) have one member die at age 26 of an heroin overdose a year after the band breaks up, but more importantly than all of that, record one of the best hard rock records of the nineties, and one of the greatest hard rock tracks EVER in the form of "Half The Way Valley".
Just listen to the sound samples and you'll be sold. Filthy and dangerous, groovy and bluesy, glammy and heavy, and so crazy catchy, a pinch of the Stones, a bit of the Yardbirds, lots of Aerosmith, plenty of GN'R , all mixed up with their own unique take on sixties pop and seventies hard rock. Kick ass riffing, pounding drumming, boozy world weary vocals, and hooks galore.
Not sure what else to say. Amongst the hard rockers around these parts, the reissue of the Sea Hags record was a HUGE deal. So much so, that had it not happened, Andee and Allan might have considered it for their fledgling eighties metal reissue label!
Needless to say, this is essential listening for hard rockers. One of our favorite discs from the nineties. Finally reissued, and damn if it don't sound as kick ass as ever!
As with all the Rock Candy reissues, the packaging and presentation are amazing. If only ALL reissues were this well done. Bonus tracks, tons of photos, extensive liner notes, interviews with bandleader Ron Yocom, as well as track by track notes and a band history.
MPEG Stream: "Half The Way Valley"
MPEG Stream: "Doghouse"

BLOOD FARMERS Permanent Brain Damage (Leaf Hound) cd 15.98
Finally re-pressed and back in stock!! Here's what we had to say about it back on list 199:
Doom! Not just doom...but maybe the best doomy release of the year, sez Allan...and it's a reissue. Of a demo tape, no less. New York's Blood Farmers (now defunct) recorded one self-titled album in 1995 for the (also now defunct) German label Hellhound, who are not to be confused with the Japanese label Leafhound responsible for this release. The Hellhound album was an obscure, now-out-of-print, but seriously heavy and deranged slice of doom-adelica in the vein of the masters Black Sabbath and especially Saint Vitus. But it turns out that the Blood Farmer's 1992 demo was easily as good if not better than their actual album (and has only one cut in common, "Bullet In My Head", which is a very different version here). Heads up, heads -- this starts with the 14 minute long psychedelic doom opus "Behind The Brown Door" ends with another 14+ minute epic "Deathmaster", a suite in five parts. Extended fuzz-wah terror ensues throughout those epics and all over the album as a whole, with guitarist Dave Depraved's soloing brilliantly channelling the heavy trippiness of Vitus' Dave Chandler. There's also more more concise rockers here like the aforementioned "Bullet In My Head" and "St. Chibes". Basically, imagine The Heads jamming with Vitus or Church Of Misery. Regarding the latter, the Blood Farmers share the same serial-killer obsession as do those Japanese doom freaks, but theirs is really more about the fiction films about the serial killers than the killers themselves. In addition to the original demo tracks, which are remixed and remastered, there's also a live bonus track from '96, itself followed by a hidden bonus track of ambient music/sound fx, accompanying a monologue, all doubtless lifted from one of the Blood Farmer's fave horror flicks. So if you'd like a severe dose of acid-sludge rock, look no further!
MPEG Stream: "Behind The Brown Door"
MPEG Stream: "Bullet In My Head"

MAKES NICE, THE This Time Tomorrow (Frenetic) cd 13.98
This Time Tomorrow? As in, by this time tomorrow, all these songs will be stuck in your head! San Francisco power pop power trio The Makes Nice hit us with their second album, again crammed with catchiness, boasting a bunch more action-packed, altogether killer, no filler tracks. A pitch-perfect hybridization and revitalization of all of their varied retro influences, from '60s Nuggets style garage to Elvis Costello to the Raspberries to Cheap Trick to the pansiest of paisley psych to, even, Devo. All 14 numbers are poppy n' boppy, but there's definitely two general sorts of songs The Makes Nice like to knock out, to knock us out: one is the energetic, nay frenzied, punker fueled by whiplash Keith Moon-ish bashing, full of slashing guitar rippage. Or, we get foot-tapping, sunshine n' lollipops hooks and harmonies... but even then, the headspinning guitar licks are in full force, Josh Smith doin' proud such legends as Billy Gibbons, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. Even though it's only 33:48 long, this album is an embarrassment of riches. Heck we made their debut Record Of The Week. This one's just as good, maybe even better. No sophomore slump here! 'Nuff said?
If anything, The Makes Nice sound even more assured and dangerous this time 'round. If they've got any competition, they sure shut 'em down. Their not-so-secret weapon remains the wham-bam-thank-you-mam soloing of guitar whiz Josh (still formerly of The Fucking Champs, and Weakling too if it matters) but drummer Jack Matthew and bassist Aaron Burnham hold up their sides solidly for sure, and actually it's the whole band's involvement in complex arrangements, clever boy-meets-girl lyrics, and vocal harmony that really makes The Makes Nice something special. That's the thing, despite how prolific they are (by this time tomorrow, they probably will have written another cool song or two!), their craftmanship is prodigious, little details get a lot of thought. And as a result, they're not for everyone. The scuzzy sloppy garage crowd may find them too accomplished, complex. While pure pop fans might not get into their raw garageiness. And both camps could be scared off by Josh's advanced Stratocaster chops. On the other hand, in our book those are all real good things. So get with the program!
MPEG Stream: "Do It Again"
MPEG Stream: "When It's All Gone"
MPEG Stream: "Don't You Understand"

BIXOBAL Number 1 October 2007 (Ri Be Xibalba) magazine 2.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Basically, if you're into the more experimental, droney, improv-y, internationally adventurous, whatever side of the stuff we feature here at AQ, and you like to read which of course you do, and you've got a lousy two bucks, you should pick this up!! Edited by Eric Lanzillotta (of Anomalous records fame), this new 'zine is devoted to all sorts of interestin' music n' stuff, this debut issue featuring Robert Millis waxing nostalgic about his favorite Korean 78 rpm record, an interview with ESP-Disk experimentalist Alan Sondheim, an article about the books of number one Fug Tuli Kupferberg, an Indian travelogue from Sun City Girl Sir Richard Bishop, and a no-holds-barred interview with Dave Nuss of the No Neck Blues Band (which gets into some interesting, open-minded discussion about what might be bullshit or not about NNCK's music!!). A great read. Plus there's a plethora of reviews and other 'zine-ish goodness. 56 pages, digest-sized. Looking forward to issue 2!

BURIED AT SEA Ghosts (Neurot) cd 14.98
Buried At Sea's Migration cd from 2004 was one of Aquarius' steadiest, dooooooooooomiest best-sellers up until it went totally, sadly out of print. Seriously, we sold a ton of those. And deservedly so, as this Chicago band's debut really did compare favorably with the likes of both Khanate and Pelican, a sludge/postrock marriage made in the lowest reaches of Hell. Migration was followed by a one-sided collectable 12" vinyl ep... and that was that. We thought this band was dead and buried themselves. And maybe they are, but -hallelujah!- have visited upon us this new cd release on Neurot. Perhaps this is a posthumous release of lost recordings, it's called "Ghost" after all. We don't know. What we do know is that it's one megalithic track, just under 30 minutes of music, about as slow and heavy and dreary as anything we'd heard from them... or anyone else! A trance-inducing funereal trudge through realms of spaced-out swooshing psychedelic effects. Early on, "Ghost" establishes a grinding repetitive throb, not so much head banging as head nodding, and wrist slitting. This depressive doomdrone heaviness gives way eventually (at around the 12 minute mark) to a quiet passage of tolling chimes, and then cathartic vocals groan forth over more metallic, energized riffage as "Ghost" relentlessly steamrollers onwards... further into a phantom void of disturbing electronics and shuddering low-end despair. Obviously, recommended to all into Buried At Sea, as well as the likes of Corrupted, Khanate, Orthodox, Ufomammut, SUNNO))), etc.
MPEG Stream: "Ghost (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost (excerpt 2)"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost (excerpt 3)"

HIGGS, DANIEL "BELTESHAZZAR" Metempsychotic Memories (Holy Mountain) cd 14.98
We'd be happy if Daniel Higgs would put out a new album every month. Every week, even. His songs can be long (up to 14 minutes on this disc's "Love Abides") but eventually they do end and we always want more more more. Because they are totally entrancing, his raw "Appalachian raga" folk picking style wending and winding while he chants his mystic lyrics repetitively, warbling with the outsider intensity of a Charles Manson... a dramatic delivery that eccentrically enhances the weird wisdom of his words, worth absorbing for their imagery even when their import is not immediately understandable. Well though he's not THAT prolific we're happy to have this new disc on Holy Mountain already, following Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot on Thrill Jockey earlier this year.
Metempsychotic Melodies (whatever that means, it seems like a good title for this!!) starts off with a stark and skillful instrumental, "Universal Salutation", which we're told was "recorded aboard the Starship Weep-For-Lucifer". Again, we believe it, that somehow makes sense. That leads into the aforementioned "Love Abides", an extended mantra for voice and banjo (in fact, banjo is the main instrument throughout), wherein Higgs sings lines like "Love is the secret seam between waking and dream / love is a breath that bears a boundless scream" and offers up further thoughts from his personal gnosis of love, notions guaranteed to never be repeated in any other "love song" ever!! Such as: "Love, like a basilisk hatched in the nest of a dove / love's got a bible it hides in the folds of a cloud" and "Love is your name when your name has fallen away / love tends the last dawning of the last day"...
As if allowing an interlude to let all that sink in, the third track "Leontocephaline Rhapsody" is a loping, psychedelic instrumental, a gentle jam densely droning and alive with electricity. Then comes the fourth and final song, "All Cherished Things", another display of Higgs' druggy, fascinating poetry. "There's a pearl in your head / the head between your double-head / it's flashing blue and red - hear it sing". He goes on to touch upon some favored themes, Christ, Krishna, coitus, his own dead body, love... Lyrics like "The skull at the foot of the cross is my own" could be creepy, or pretentious, as could be Higgs' unique vocal stylings, but no, not as far as we're concerned. Ok, maybe it is a bit creepy. He's on a wavelength that works (for him -- maybe no one else could pull this off). If Higgs had a cult, we'd seriously consider joining it...truly a treasure of the US indie rock scene, and one of the realest deals in the "acid folk" underground. We'll be spinning this highly recommended album with ceremonial regularity as it takes its honored place in our collection of his music, and of course our anticipation of his next set of shamanic sermons remains high.
MPEG Stream: "All Cherished Things"
MPEG Stream: "Universal Salutation"
MPEG Stream: "Love Abides"

ORTHODOX Amanecer en Puerta Oscura (Southern Lord) cd 14.98
We're probably not the first to say it, but doom metal band Orthodox are *anything but* orthodox on their second offering for the Southern Lord label. Spanish sludge lords with a psychedelic bent, Orthodox's 2006 debut album Gran Poder was a major sensation among connoisseurs of the heavy, being selected as an Album Of The Month on Julian Cope's Head Heritage website, in part for its pagan-Catholic imagery, in part for its monolithic heaviness. What about eagerly anticipated album number two? Though we think it's great, and most likely Mr. Cope does too, this new one will no doubt cause some consternation among the less open minded of doom fanatics, as it's got a lot more going on that sheer sludge-ry. Not that Gran Poder wasn't an eccentric effort either, but this one's extremely so. Extremely eccentric, and eclectic, indeed.
The first track, "Con Sangre De Quien Te Ofenda" could easily be mistaken for a moody piece of instrumental avant-jazz, with that wide-open-desert-spaces feel of Hex-era Earth, baroquely adorned with a shuffling, dramatic drum solo and an almost-joyous improv-blowing session for trumpet and other horns. It actually brings back fond memories of the late great metallic math-rockers Engine Kid, the band that SUNNO))) member and Southern Lord label boss Greg Anderson used to play in back in the day, like when they would get jazzy like Iceburn and cover Coltrane... Minus the horns, that disjointed, free-jazz vibe continues on the second track, the nine-minute "Mesto, Rigido E Ceremoniale", though they heavy it up quite a bit. Imagine a slowed-down, fractured Black Flag instrumental, like something from The Process Of Weeding Out made more abstract, slower and heavier. Entering into the territory of defunct Dutch instro-metallers Gore here! With the third song, though, vocals finally enter the mix, weirdly distressed and wailing chant-like, and the riffing gets more intensely metallic, rigidly clawing through a miasma of chaotic, psychedelic, paranoid jamming. That one, "Solemne Triduo", makes us think of Om mixed with Los Natas at their strangest. And then, just when things are getting loudest and most insane, the album takes an abrupt shift into the quietly windswept, acoustically strummed "Amancer En Puerta Oscura" which flows immediately into the ominous "Puerta Osario", with stark repeated chords, and cruelly plinking piano keys. Though just two minutes minutes long, this is no brief detour like the piano interlude heard in the middle of Gran Poder, as it seamlessly segues into the sedated, suspenseful "Templos" that pulsates for 15 minutes in an darkened dreamworld of eerie clarinet, shimmering cymbals, slow-paced percussion, sparsely echoing bass, sheer moody atmosphere... It's a kind of creeping chamber music, that could be the score from some Italian horror soundtrack, or the sinister cousin to the epic tracks on Circle's mellow and mesmeric Miljard, mixed maybe with the 20th Century style stuff Ghost was experimenting with on their last album, In Stormy Nights.
The seventh and final track, "Parte II. Apogeum", then hits like a ton of bricks, massive doom-riff guitars smashing all before it, as if to say, you want ye olde DOOOOOOM? You got it! This song should shut up any complainers who didn't entirely get what was going on before, it's a doozy of a doom number all right, complete with even frenzied, metallic, acid-fried guitar soloing, and insanely effected alien Ozzy vocals. Closest comparisons would be to Thrones, and Yob and/or Middian, at their most claustrophobically crushing. It's like Orthodox wanted to wrap the album up with one song that in 7 minutes, 54 seconds would utterly satisfy anyone wanting Gran Poder Part II, for whom some of the more mystifying, weirdly proggy stuff elsewhere on this album could just be a bonus. Of course for us it's all good.
Recommended to all unorthodox doom lovers! Art and design by Seldon Hunt, by the way, and as long as we're dropping his name, here's some other names that we should have worked into the review somehow, as we think fans of the following might quite like this: Boris, Comets On Fire, Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, Ennio Morricone, Dragonauta...
MPEG Stream: "Mesto, Rigido E Ceremoniale"
MPEG Stream: "Solemne Triduo"
MPEG Stream: "Templos"

ANGELA VALID This Book's On Fire (World In Winter) cd 14.98
Been wanting to list this Sheffield UK band's debut four-song ep for a while now, finally got a few in stock so here goes... Angela Valid (name of band, not a person) plays improv instrumentals, a skittery post-rock stitching together of all kinds of glitch and drone, whirring and clatter and feedback, dealt out with guitars, drums, electronics (synths, drum machines, effects...) and violin. Angela Valid's music is very textural, displaying both caution and conviction. We're reminded of the likes of This Heat. Tarentel. Sinistri. A (the Italian band A). Radian. Or, Tortoise + Wolf Eyes as someone else has suggested. At times it's like there's someone building something in the next room, or doing construction work upstairs, banging tools about. But at the same time there's constant jazzy rhythmics buried beneath it all as well. If you like this sort of stuff (we sure do) these four tracks are all very satisfying and leave us wanting to hear more...
MPEG Stream: "Terry's Incantation"
MPEG Stream: "Ocean Ceiling"

COPE, JULIAN Japrocksampler (Bloomsbury) book 30.00
FINALLY! REPRINTED AND BACK IN STOCK!
One of the best album covers ever, for the Flower Travellin' Band's 1970 debut LP Anywhere, a photo of that band as naked Japanese hippy freak outlaw bikers ridin' free, adorns the cover of this book. Good choice! If that doesn't look cool to you, you don't need this volume. If it does, then queue up! The subtitle: "How The Post-War Japanese Blew Their Minds On Rock 'N' Roll" is perfectly illustrated by that cover picture.
Let's back up, though. British author Julian Cope, originally best-known as something of a rock star (with The Teardrop Explodes in the '80s and his subsequent solo career) has also long been entertaining and informing us all as a writer, an expert on the heavy and the ancient: both the stone circles of Megalithic Europe, and the stoned rock n' roll of the psychedelic/progressive variety, yesterday and today. His happenin' website, Head Heritage (www.headheritage.co.uk) should be bookmarked by everyone who looks at OUR site. Way back when, over a decade ago, Julian Cope published a slim little paperback volume called the Krautrocksampler, one fan's obsessive, opinionated look back at the wondrous krautrock scene of the '70s. If you've got one, you're lucky, they're out of print and hard to come by these days, going for $$$ on eBay (er, anyone with a spare copy, please contact Allan at the store, he foolishly never bought it when we used to sell 'em and has regretted it ever since, maybe we can work out a deal...). Another reason to pick up this new Japrocksampler while you can!
It's about the same approximate dimensions as the Krautrocksampler, but thicker (over 300 pages!) and hardcover, with color plates depicting various rare album covers in the center of the book, and black and white graphics throughout. Nicely done, the paper stock and binding bringing back memories of a particular type of book we used to have in school.
And, as you have probably figured out, it's the Japanese '70s rock companion to Cope's krautrock treatise. But because the Japanese underground music scene of the same era is comparatively a lot more obscure over here in the West, Cope had to do a lot more in-depth research to give us all a real history lesson, starting off all the way back in the aftermath of WWII. Moving forward, he devotes much attention to the experimental composers of the sixties, like Toshi Ichiyanagi, and (for a time) his wife, Yoko Ono. All sorts of radical "actions" and conceptual sound art get their due. Other early chapters include include investigations of the homegrown "Eleki" scene (Japanese surf music, sort of) and the "Group Sounds" phenomenon (Japan's reaction to the British Invasion). Then Heavy Rock hits, with freaks and festivals, and Cope digs with utmost detail into the behind-the-music stories of such artists as cover stars Flower Travellin Band, Speed, Glue & Shinki, and, perhaps most crucially ('cause they're so mysterious and influential), Les Rallizes Denudes. In all cases, he reveals lots of stuff we didn't know. Regarding Les Rallizes, ferinstance, apparently their original bass player was involved in a JAL jetliner highjacking back in 1970, which lead to innocent Rallizes leader Takeshi Mizutani being trailed by CIA agents, which may help explain his legendary reclusiveness!
The Japrocksampler also provides plenty of info about important intersection between the avant-garde theater scene and rock n' roll in the early '70s, with a chapter on the brilliant J.A. Caesar. There's also pages and pages on the Taj Mahal Travellers, Far East Family Band, the Tokyo Kid Brothers, and much much more. It's exhaustive, impressively connecting all kinds of dots. Probably equally obsessed fanboys will have facts to check and nits to pick (we're thinking of our pal JW in particular) but really, where else are you gonna find all this info in English?? And so entertainingly written? Nowhere. Anyone who's read the Krautrocksampler, or visited Head Heritage, knows that Cope's got a knack for writing that's both enthused and erudite, a bit like Lester Bangs with footnotes. You don't even really have to know (or have heard) what he's talking about to fall under his spell, which is helpful 'cause the one big drawback to reading the Japrocksampler is the frustration most folks are gonna have trying to track down and listen to a lot of the music being discussed. We do our best to stock a good selection of '70s Japanese psych/prog/experimental reissues, whatever we can get by bands like the Taj Mahal Travellers and Flower Travellin' Band, but even we had to cry when looking over the section of the book devoted to lengthy reviews of Cope's top 50 favorite Japrock albums. Some we've got, others... someday we hope! Maybe this book will spur some more reissue action.
Can't come up with too many criticisms, other than that he slams some records we like (Foodbrain!), seemingly omits Flied Egg, and we guess we're not sure exactly how politically correct the term "Japrock" is, though it's not any worse than saying "krautrock" when you think about it...
Basically, this is a fascinating read for anyone curious about the effects of rock n' roll on the artsy underbelly of an "alien" culture. A must have if you're already into this stuff, of course, but also totally recommended if you're just a little bit curious about this "secret history" 'cause of being exposed to all the wild, freaky sounds currently being made in Japan by bands like the Boredoms, Boris, and Acid Mothers Temple.

TRAD GRAS OCH STENAR From Moja To Minneapolis (Gashud) dvd 28.00
It's been, what, three years since Swedish psych veterans Trad Gras och Stenar toured the United States? Too long anyway. If you saw 'em then, you know why we're so excited about this new DVD. This band has been around, in one form or another, since the late sixties, starting off in 1967 as Parson Sound, then morphing into International Harvester, Harvester, and finally Trad Gras och Stenar (Trees, Grass, and Stones). And they somehow have maintained their radical hippy outlook, their politics and their musical adventurousness, all these years (they were on a long hiatus from 1972 until their 1995 reunion). This band just rules. Makes us young 'uns a bit less worried about getting old.
Heavy and mesmeric, TGoS's jams are something like a more hippified version of Circle, minimalist, rhythmic, trance-inducing. For more description of their sounds, please refer to one of our reviews of their several albums. Presumably if you're curious about this dvd you've already heard 'em, and just want to know what the dvd is all about. Basically, it's like their home movies from tour (and tour-prep). It's done in a cinema-verite manner, capturing quirky detail, Trad Gras definitely interested in demystifying and debunking any "rock and roll" pretense. For instance, when at one point the plays on Swedish television, the clip from the actual TV show is never shown, just their own "behind the scenes" footage. And then there's a scene of the band out of doors, in the snow (!), trying to tune in themselves on an old TV set, almost just to be silly.
Shot by filmmaker Michael Hogstrom circa 2002-2005, this documentary follows TGoS around Sweden and over to both Russia and the United States to various gigs, playing their wonderful music and dealing with the mundane misadventures of life on the road. There's plenty of performance footage and lots of inter-band banter (with English subtitles, yay!) in the tour van or backstage. In fact, thematically this movie is almost as much about "old friends" as it is a musical document. It's almost two hours worth of the Trad Gras och Stenar experience -- not a substitute for seeing 'em live in person but the next best thing for sure (and since we in the USA don't have that opportunity all that often, this is a treat!). And, another treat: there's a few minutes of 8mm footage of the band appearing at one of the famous free Stockholm summer festivals back in 1970, a montage of various vintage clips of the scene there, all scratchy and colorful. These were silent films, so the sound isn't synched, but there's a Trad Gras album playing on the soundtrack (literally, in a preamble, we're shown the needle being dropped on the vinyl). A nice bonus!
If you're not charmed by the way the dvd begins, outside Trad Gras och Stenar's practice space at a house somewhere in the Swedish countryside, with their wizened guitarist and spiritual leader Bo Anders Persson seated on a motorcycle, trying to get the thing to start up, as the rest of the band looks on, then perhaps this excursion won't be for you. But if immediately you wish you were hanging out with those guys, helping with the motorcycle, hearing their stories, basking in their music, then you're a fan of TGoS and will enjoy the rest of the movie!!

MELVINS / BRIAN WALSBY The Making Love Demos / Manchild 3 cd+book 14.98
It's a comic book! It's a Melvins cd! It's pretty darn cool is what it is. Cartoonist Brian Walsby spoofs and skewers various icons of old school punk/alt rock culture, and puts his own personal family history on the page too ("My Old Man!"). It's mostly subversively funny, sarcastic stuff. Lots of chuckles for those with a bit of nostalgia for the good ol' days of '80s punk rock for sure!! One of our favorite comix in here is "Whatever Happened To You Favorite Eighties Hardcore Mascots" which imagines the DRI "thrash guy" finding a new career as a school crossing guard, and the Black Flag bars being sold to Hank Williams III who "dropped one bar and used the rest for his new logo." Some of the other pieces in this fairly thick book include an illustrated article celebrating TV's SCTV, a Walsby/Melvins 2006 tour diary, a memoir entitled "How I Survived Grunge", "The Rules Of Young Rock Bands" (which include holding the microphone like a glass of wine, and combining two kinds of bad singing: whiny, nasal and hysterical screaming), several comic strips about The Dios (a la The Osbournes), a tribute to Cheap Trick, and much much more. If you like stuff like Peter Bagge's Hate or Chunklet magazine this is for you.
This book makes a perfect team up with Walsby's old pals, wise ass scene vets the Melvins, who contribute a 20+ minute cd to the package, entitled "The Making Love Demos". These eight songs are DIY four-track recordings from back in '87, from the Buzz/Dale/Matt lineup, several of which later wound up in re-recorded form on their classic Ozma album, and some you've never ever heard before. Wow. Melvins fans are gonna be stoked. Heavy grinding nastiness, perfectly filthily home-recorded, that's way more punk than grunge.
MPEG Stream: "Creepy Smell"
MPEG Stream: "Excess Pool"

NARROWS, THE Benjamin (Pool Or Pond / Wantage USA) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW ON VINYL! Last list's Record Of The Week, finally available on lp, and super limited.
It's been ages since we've heard from Bellingham Washington's Narrows, whose last two (and only two) records, Alligator and The Skull At Life Size, were huge AQ favorites. Our Narrows obsession was solidified by a mindblowing show at the Hemlock where the band laid waste to all post rock past and present in a matter of 30 or 40 minutes, managing to rock so hard, even with the frontman / guitar player seated the whole time. A mix of lurching loping metallic bombast and lilting whispery post rock moodiness, not like the current crop of metallic post rockers though, no the Narrows were something much more unique... all the best parts of nineties mathrock, June Of 44, Slint, Rodan, but filtered through that weird Bellingham outsider vibe (also responsible for Reeks And The Wrecks) and lovingly wrapped in some serious skull crushing riffage. And of course songs. Killer songs. Moody and mournful, personal and emotional, and catchy as all get out.
We had sort of given up on the Narrows, we knew there was a record in the works, but they sort of seemed to drop off the musical map completely, until all of our fears were assuaged by the sudden appearance of this here brand new full length, that is somehow even better than their first two discs, heavier, prettier, weirder....
Beginning with the nine minute near perfect post rock epic "The Sasquatch", a sequence of big groaning downtuned riffage, huge pounding drums all wrapped around a strange insistent loping groove, with wailed super emo vocals, like a prettier Melvins almost, or a resurrected Engine Kid, some Unwound, a little bit of Sub Pop, a little Amrep. These super dynamic nine minutes might as well go on for 90 minutes as far as we're concerned.
The second track, the even longer "Last Of The Norsemen", is all slithery slowcore, with crooned sadboy vocals, spidery guitar melodies, shuffled drums, until the crashing chorus, a gorgeous minor key stop start lurch, along the same lines as Codeine's "Cave In", with burbling underwater bass added to the mix, and a convoluted mathy arrangement, before drifting back into the moody lope of the first few minutes, peppered with strange slippery guitar chords and unexpected dynamics, somehow totally off kilter and alien sounding, but super catchy and melodic and surprisingly pretty!
"Quellish" is up next with its serpentine distorted crunch and crashing blown out drumming, letting up here and there for some muted shuffle and croon, before the bombast is brought in again, a super emotional musical seesaw, that manages to subvert the tired loud-soft-loud-soft thing and turn it into something new and exciting sounding.
As if the deal wasn't already sealed for best post-math-whatever-rock / slowcore record ever already, they finish it off with the heartwrenching "Over and Out", a sort of damaged Pinback on horse tranquilizers mathy groove, with big booming Albini-ish drums, over blooping underwater bass, and slithery minor key distorted guitar melodies, and a super subtle hook to die for. The song has a wicked, super dramatic coda with crumbling distorted riffing, and super emotional leads, yeah LEADS, what self respecting post rock band can whip out the leads and bring you to your knees without sounding the least bit cheesy? Can't think of very many (or any really)... but The Narrows pull it off effortlessly. There's an "Over and Out" part two, but it's more sort of a coda, that now burned into your ears/heart/soul melody is pulled apart, wrapped in some twangy Morricone-ish guitar, some tinkling music box like keyboards, and allowed to unfurl lazily into the distance, becoming more and more abstract and indistinct, culminating in seven minutes of silence... Needless to say one of our favorite new records, pushing all our buttons, old math rock, new post rock, metal, pop, heavy, pretty, strange... Absolutely and utterly recommended (as is seeing these guys live if you get the chance)!
MPEG Stream: "The Sasquatch"
MPEG Stream: "Last Of The Norsemen"

SUN I'll Be The Same (Staubgold) cd 15.98
The sun is warm, the sun lights the way, the sun brings life... what's in a name? Well, it's certainly no misnomer for this group. It'll Be The Same is the second album from Sun, not to be confused with SUNNO))), although these guys are also a duo (Oren Ambarchi and Chris Townsend) and half of 'em (Mr. Ambarchi) have collaborated with SUNNO))) in the past. This Sun isn't from Southern Lord, but from the southern hemisphere (Australia), and play purely pop music, slow and soft and hushed but nothing doomy or blackened at all... some gentle droniness certainly does creep in, experimental glitch techniques n' textures that are of course what we might expect from Oren Ambarchi, who after all is known for solo albums along those lines (in fact, there's a great new one by him, actually on Southern Lord, reviewed on this list too). There are layers of static and field recordings (Townsend's children's voices, perhaps?) that along with Oren and Chris's own voices and guitar strums are formed into six moodily relaxed, truly sun-dappled, electro-acoustic folky-pop songs... a calm, cryptically detailed setting for lovely, wistful vocals that remind us of the Skygreen Leopards' Glenn Donaldson and Richard Youngs.
We loved Sun's first self-titled album (and extra disc of experimental remixes) back in 2003, and are happy to finally hear this excellent follow-up!
MPEG Stream: "Mosquito"
MPEG Stream: "Help Yerself"

MALMBERG, ERIC Verklighet & Beat (Hapna) cd 16.98
We're relisting this, maybe you noticed it on list #278 but maybe you didn't -- as we had meant to make it highlight then but accidentally forgot to. Perhaps as a result, we ended up selling far fewer of 'em than we had hoped, so we're giving it another go 'cause it's a great album and shouldn't be overlooked! Here's the review we ran before:
Who has Swedish prog-organ legend Bo Hansson guesting on their new solo album?? Why Eric Malmberg, formerly the organist of Sagor & Swing of course! Imagine how chuffed he was to jam with his hero. Hansson doesn't play the organ here, though, he's on synth (funny, 'cause apparently Malmberg owns the actual Hammond organ Hansson used on his famous Lord Of The Rings album).
As you might expect if you've heard Malmberg and/or S&S (or for that matter, Bo Hansson) before, this is all about the magic of the Hammond organ, its gentle, groovy bombast, Malmberg weaving an instrumental prog-jazz delight of both bright and mellow moods! Gorgeous stuff as usual. It's got a much bigger sound than what the Sagor & Swing duo could crank out, as this is a bigger band, Malmberg joined here by many other folks besides Hansson. It's a dense but fluffy bed of sound, with shuffling drums and folky melodies, jamming synths and glorious horns. Some songs, like track one "Finalen", are propelled by martial beats, still joyous though... Like his countryman Bjorn Olsson, Malmberg has a knack for cinematic-sounding melodies that'll put a smile on your face. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Milda Doden Hamtar Oss Alla Till Slut"
MPEG Stream: "Styx"

SUN CITY GIRLS Juggernaut (Abduction) cd 16.98
Alan Bishop of the Sun City Girls has been the curator of many of the finest Ennio Morricone collections, including the brilliant compilation on Ipecac Crime & Dissonance, despite the John Zorn written liner notes that seemed to suggest that Mike Patton had done the compiling. Needless to say, it makes a lot of sense for the Sun City Girls to find their way into the realm of the soundtrack, given Alan Bishop's love of Morricone; and Juggernaut is one of those Sun City Girls soundtracks. While this soundtrack was originally released on vinyl through Abduction back in 1994, the corresponding film by Mark Roman Bodnar and Kyrill Kazemirovitch Protsenko had never been officially released. That said, it did make an appearance at an Italian film festival in 1997; so, it probably is an actual film, and not some fiction propagated as a strange in-joke by the Sun City Girls. But then again...
Anyway, Juggernaut is a pretty good Sun City Girls album. The band had always been a difficult proposition, as they had thrown every idea (from the great notions of smashing Southeast Asian pop melodies with SoCal skate punk energy to the better-in-theory modes of junkyard gamelan via free jazz) at the audience and let them sort out the mess. Juggernaut follows suit, as an entirely instrumental album with the highlights giving nods to the classic SCG album Torch of the Mystics through lysergic guitar solos splattered across acid-punk jams that could easily ground the work of early Flaming Lips or Thinking Fellers, if those bands were way more fucked up. The semi-focused, stoned ritualism that makes up the rest of the album could have had some atmospheric purpose in the original film although they're not out of character for any given Sun City Girls album.
MPEG Stream: "Gravelhead"
MPEG Stream: "Spatial Retreat"
MPEG Stream: "Among All Flat"

SUN CITY GIRLS Piasa... Devourer Of Men (Abduction) cd 16.98
So the story goes that a young Italian director named Antonio Pomola got in touch with the Sun City Girls in 1993 to score a film about a giant pre-historic flying reptile terrorizing a 19th Century Native American tribe somewhere in the Midwest. According to the Girls, the film was never completed; and the soundtrack is the only document from the film's creative genesis. There doesn't appear to be any further information about the career or even existence to this Pomola character, beyond the fact that the Sun City Girls composed this soundtrack of fragmented interludes, raga instrumentals, and weirdo atmospherics. Needless to say, the Girls self-released this soundtrack in 1994 on vinyl; only to have it disappear from circulation in quick fashion.
Jump a dozen years into the future, and the soundtrack is available again at last with a cd pressing. Composed immediately after their Juggernaut soundtrack (reviewed elsewhere on this list), the Sun City Girls offered a series of edited fragments, which mostly touch on a psychedelic ritualism which foreshadows the Finnish free-folk splatter of Avarus, Kemialliset Ystavat, and Kuupuu. Faux-indian raga blues drifts into lumbering plods for plenty of chicken scratch guitar noodles, free-jazz drum stumblings, and glossalaic vocals. At times, the Bishop brothers and Charlie Gocher tease us with a glimpse of their mutant songwriting talents; but more often than not, it's sinister atmospheres for gongs, Tibetan horns, and amorphous guitar pluckery.
MPEG Stream: "Thunderbird"
MPEG Stream: "Wingspan Eclipse Of The Moon"

DZJENGHIS KHAN s/t (Leaf Hound / Motorwolf) cd 15.98
This San Fran retro-rockin' power trio, a deliberate throwback to the proto-metal stylings of the Frisco ballroom daze's bad boys Blue Cheer, at last presents their debut album, a split release from Japanese label Leaf Hound and Dutch label Motorwolf, (both) home to likeminded heavies Orange Sunshine. We've been waiting for an album from this band for a while, having gone to see 'em play every chance we got, going on a few years now. We forget how we first discovered 'em, they were opening for somebody else at a sparsely attended show at the Hemlock, and we were like, Pentagram T-shirt, shaggy hair, vintage gear? Hmm, wonder if these guys will be good... oh yeah!
What other current SF band sounds so Blue Cheer? That'd be Parchman Farm... whose bass player extraordinaire, "Binksebus Eruptum", happens to hold down (and shimmy 'round and 'round) the bottom end in this band too. Live, his showmanship is part of the attraction, but the band's true charisma belongs to singing drummer "Tommy Tomson", whose aw shucks, "God Damn", stoner authenticity talks the talk and walks the walk. Just like the rest of the band, who very definitely look the part. None of these kids were probably even born in 1971, but they sure seem like that's when they come from. It's not just Blue Cheer that inspires 'em, they're fully versed in vintage vinyl proto-metal from Highway Robbery to Road, Juan De La Cruz to Toad. Putting all that love of early '70s hard psych into this album, they've come up with a worthy ten tracks of fuzzed-out, blooze-based, badass guitar/bass/drums swagger, with raspy whisky vox, simple bashing beats, wah wah guitar rippage, and bellbottomed bass lines. It's a fairly raw recording, giving it a bit of a punk feel, reflective of their youthful energy and enthusiasm, not unlike seeing 'em live. The rather lo-fi, garagey production also makes it sound extra olden and all, as does the folky acoustic coda "Sister Dorien". Sure, you're not gonna feel like nobody's ever made this sort of music before, in fact the opposite is quite the point, but if you like proto-metal like we (and they) do, you gotta appreciate the purity of this band's approach, their knowing naivety. It's not just pot, these stoners are totally high on the Speed, the Glue, -and- the Shinki! Right on we say.
By the way, they wuz formerly known as Genghis Khan, the "Dzj" now tacked on at the beginning presumably both to try to differentiate 'em from what's probably about 10,000 other bands also named after the Mongol warlord, and also to reflect the lineup changes that have occurred since their inception (the drummer being the sole surviving member from the first time we ever saw 'em, which is fine 'cause he was clearly the star, though their original guitarist was responsible for writing some cool riffs it must be said).
MPEG Stream: "No Time For Love"
MPEG Stream: "Against The Wall"

GREY DATURAS Dead In The Woods (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98
This AQ fave disc, a former Record Of The Week, was originally released on the Australian label Crashing Jets, and been out of print for a little while... fortunately, now it's gotten a domestic reissue on Crucial Blast! It's been remastered by Scott Hull (Pig Destroyer) and repackaged, but of course otherwise it's the same great album. Here's what we said about it when we first reviewed it back in 2005:
It's weird to think about the world before the Internet. Little pockets of bands in out of the way places, producing wild and wonderful music that outside of a few tape traders and cool record stores just didn't get heard. In some ways the advent of immediate worldwide communication has been a wellspring of amazing music, since now, some kid who records in his bedroom in Finland, can now be heard by anyone in the world. Anywhere. Any time. The downside is of course the proliferation of bands whose material maybe didn't need worldwide exposure, music that was just fine where it was, in the bedroom or the basement. Thankfully this particular release is a definite example of the former. Australia has produced some killer rock over the years, from AC/DC to Radio Birdman to Lubricated Goat (one of Allan and Andee's favorites) to the Dirty Three to more obscure noiserock bands like Budd or the Dumb And The Ugly or Primitive Calculators. A few lists back we reviewed an awesome disc by the band Whitehorse, whose epic sludge-y, drone-y dirge definitely hit the SUNNO))) / Earth / Corrupted / Khanate spot. The guys in Whitehorse suggested we check out another Aussie outfit (also from Melbourne) a two guys and a gal trio called the Grey Daturas, who only a few weeks later just showed up in our store with a box full of cds, about to embark on their first US tour. And while the Daturas are indeed heavy and droney, their sound is less slow motion sludge and more blown out fuzzy psych rock. A blurry druggy mix of Hawkwind, the Dead C, Comets On Fire, Residual Echoes, Dead Meadow and Bardo Pond. The Daturas' sound is all over the map, from churning, throbbing fuzzdrug churn, with squealing feedback and choppy uneven riffing, to drifting dreamy stripped down post rock, all careening wildly between thick swaths of super overdriven psych fuzz, and drenched in crumbly distortion and all manner of wah. When they kick out the jams, it's fierce and mesmerizing, pounding and relentless, with simple propulsive percussion and spaced out swirl. Often stretching out into head nodding Krautrock jams, spacious and hypnotic. When the storms calm and the band drifts off and just sort of meanders, we're reminded of Codeine and other like minded practitioners of drowsy, druggy slow core. Still noisy, but mellow and intense, brooding and subtly aggressive.
The Grey Daturas are all instrumental which as you probably know we tend to dig, since there's nothing like a bad singer to ruin a perfectly good band, but there's always the risk of bands with no vocalists to be really really boring. But because a lot of the Daturas' tunes are improvised, and the band is willing to take all kinds of musical chances (they often switch instruments, sometimes perform as a duo with no drummer, etc...) it never gets boring, instead it becomes the perfect mix of droning free rock, kick ass instrumental post rock, buzzing druggy psych and even occasional blasts of full on metal. Mix in some cool song titles: "The Hanging Man Is No Peacock", "Force Is A Weapon Of The Weak", as well as some oddly political song titles (but more sort of Sixties politics): "For Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale", "Night Of The Barricade: Paris 1968", a gorgeous washed out black, brown and grey cardboard sleeve, and a totally kick ass live show (they performed admirably with a handful of fill-in drummers here, even teaming up with art noise outfit the Yellow Swans for one show), and you've got one of our favorite new bands / releases.
And while supplies last, with every copy of this Crucial Blast rerelease you get a special bonus limited edition button set!
MPEG Stream: "She Was The Cutie Of Camp Cooke"
MPEG Stream: "Golden Gate Blues"
MPEG Stream: "Answer February"

TULUS Biography Obscene (Candlelight) cd 14.98
Last year we totally raved about this Norwegian black metal band's Cold Core Collection, which was a double cd anthology of their eldritch early works, from back in the mid/late nineties before they changed their name to Khold and became our favorite grunge-inflected (Nirvana, anyway) buzzing black metal act.
At the time, we mentioned that Tulus had just reunited (with Khold going into hibernation or something), and had a new album out too, called Biography Obscene, which we promised to review soon... well you know how things go. But the truth is, we really did dig their new album, so better late than never! Unlike the lo-fi necroness of the earliest Cold Core material, the *new* Tulus is in the more polished vein of the Khold stuff, but with some twists.
Biography Obscene is a cruel yet catchy slab of rockin' grimness and (dare we say) grooviness that takes the thick, chugging, killer riffage that Khold was known for and drags them into much weirder, artier, proggier territory. They've got a "chamber metal" thing happening, with piano, violin, organ, and even some non-sucky (really) saxophone on a couple of the tracks. In fact, what sounds like a veritable horn section on the title cut. It's never wimpy, though! They may be tickling the ivories or playing flamenco guitar licks, but it's always in the midst of ultra serious, pounding black metal filth. It's kinda like Darkthrone, Mayhem or old Samael mixed with a bit of '70s progsters Van Der Graaf Generator. Maybe hint of post punkers w/ sax Essential Logic too for a few moments on that title track when the usual gravelly vokill delivery is doubled by some screechy new wavey female vox... well we could be stretching it there. But anyway we think AQ customers into weird black metal (that would be quite a few of you) will find Biography Obscene of interest. Heck, this ain't just "interesting", it's darn headbanging too!! Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Natal Day"
MPEG Stream: "Stories Untold"
MPEG Stream: "Victim"
MPEG Stream: "Biography Obscene"

WOODEN SHJIPS s/t (Holy Mountain) lp 14.98
Now the fantastically popular debut full-length from Wooden Shjips is here on vinyl, get 'em while you can!
From right here in our sunny San Francisco neighborhood, comes an eagerly anticipated new release of hypnotically searing garagey psych jams! And yes, if you haven't run into them before, it's Wooden ShJips with a J, that's not a typo, just a way we guess of making their moniker more psychedelic (and easier to Google, too). They've garnered a lot of deserved attention from folks into minimalistic psych throb, that's for sure, their now-out-of-print 10" and 7" vinyl records released last year making us -- and so many others, foremost among 'em Tom Lax of Siltbreeze/Siltblog fame, and Byron Coley at The Wire -- into drooling Wooden Shjips fanatics.
So, this new self-titled album follows on from their various singles and eps with five more fuzzy, super groovy, guitar/organ/bass/drums slowburners, somewhere between Comets On Fire and Circle, with a definite Doors-y vibe as well, in part due to the keys which give this an almost loungey relaxed feel at times, and in part due to the occasional laidback Morrison-ish vocals of guitarist Erik Johnson. Erik also makes us think of Neil Young as well, as his more "out" guitar solos -- some if 'em SCORCHING -- could be off of Young's feedback-filled Arc. Or a Les Rallizes Denudes record! Track four, "Blue Sky Bends", having the best Rallizes-ish drone-factor of the record. Overall, we'd say that these tracks, as a development from their earlier material, exhibits more and more of a throwback to the ballroom Frisco style of the sixties... now they just need to get a light show happening! But something tells us they'd be all about stark bright white strobes and dark black shadows only, maybe some b&w op art spirals, if their monochrome packaging aesthetic and the general heavy lidded mood of the music is anything to go by...
MPEG Stream: "We Ask You To Ride"
MPEG Stream: "Blue Sky Bends"

CIRCLE Meronia (Ektro) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ok, you could be forgiven one of these days for saying, "Hey Aquarius, if you love Circle so much, why don't you marry them?" (We'd consider it, would be get Finnish citizenship?) It's true, we love love love this astonishing prog/space/psych/metal/wtf? band from Finland, and aren't afraid to say it. Our love affair got even more heated if possible these past few weeks when not only did we have a great new album (their collaboration with Sunburned Hand Of The Man) to list last time, and another great new album (Katapult) to list the time before that, but also as you probably know, they were just in town on tour, blowing minds at the Bottom Of The Hill this past week. And we also hosted a Circle in-store performance and helped arrange a secret show for them inside our friend John's bus!! Andee even flew up to Portland to see them (and help drive their van down to SF so they would get here in time for all these events). Totally worth it, they certainly put on a show to see...
They're back in Finland now, but they left us with a whole bunch of copies of this at-long-last reissue of their debut album, originally released on the Bad Vugum label in 1994. It's been out of print for years but now Circle has just regained the rights and put it out again on their own Ektro label. Yay! (FYI, if you already have Meronia, don't worry, there's no extra tracks or anything, the artwork somewhat revised but otherwise no significant changes from the original so you don't have to buy it again.) We probably don't need to say too much about it, basically if you love Circle and never had a chance to get this before, get it now, it's essential. This IS the stuff that made us fans of Circle in the first place.
Actually, we could be all snobby and be like, so, you think you like Circle, eh? ha you haven't even HEARD Circle. But of course we're not like that. However it's true, if you're a Circle fan unfamiliar with Meronia, you're gonna both be instantly satisfied -and- in for a surprise (isn't that always the case with these guys?). Back in '94, they had a rather different lineup to the one that just played here (or on many of their other albums... bassist/bandleader Jussi has been the sole constant in Circle over the years). But their trademark "circular" repetitive pulse was of course fully formed, and some other things haven't changed either (it would seem that their favorite keyboard patch has remained the same for a loooong time, that synth strings sound is just like what they used on the tour that brought them here last week). What is different is the emphasis on angular heavy guitar rock riffs, washes of symphnonic magnificence, and the choral vocals -- which sound like monks chanting! Like Magma, Circle created their own "language" in which to sing, called Meronian. Pretty incredible.
This album links Circle to so such late '80s/early '90s alt-metal influences as Gore and Helmet, even Voivod. Turns out, Circle's metal leanings go way back, though of course this weirdness isn't really metal itself. It's some kind of monk-prog that oddly creates a mood that reminds us a bit of Swedish goth/doom metallers Katatonia, if they were a no wave Magmoid motorik space rock ensemble, perhaps.
Meronia is one of those albums that while we were listening to it, revisiting it while writing the review, ALL other thoughts and worries and everything was washed away. The head starts uncontrollably nodding, feet tapping in time, and ... huh, what, where were we? Yep, hypnotic Circle to the core.
Obviously, recommended. And we're also happy to report that several other long-gone Circle titles are also soon to be reissued by Ektro, including this album's similar but krautrockier successor, and arguably our favorite Circle album ever, Zopalki. So keep it tuned.
MPEG Stream: "Ed-visio"
MPEG Stream: "DNA"
MPEG Stream: "Hypto"

STRIBORG Solitude (Displeased) cd 14.98
Black metal bands come in many varieties, and we have our favorites among everything from blackened thrash drunkards to grandiose symphonic keyboard-laden festival headliners to grim trance-y one-man-band eccentrics... particularly the latter, though, especially when we're trying to find black metal to recommend to AQ customers who aren't necessarily metalheads but who like weird weird music whatever the genre. Droning fucked up stuff that's almost more experimental than it is metal. And this (one-man) band Striborg is precisely what we like to have on hand when the subject of, "if I were to buy just one weird black metal record, what should it be?" comes up.
For the longest time, it was next to impossible to find cds by this still-obscure artist from far-off Tasmania (that's right, Tasmania!). Fortunately others besides us have recognized his peculiar genius and now the releases are (somewhat) more readily available. Which brings us to this brand new album, Solitude, and it to us, hot on the heels of Striborg's other recent full-length release, Ghostwoodlands. As with that album, here Striborg has uncapped his usual aerosol spray of buzzing guitars and wretched effected vokills. The fuzzed out, bleak black metal clatter is interspersed with long stretches of what approaches D.I.Y. 20th Century Classical electronic music spookiness! The ambient, isolationist tracks that cropped up on Ghostwoodlands are again to the fore, as is an even more droney, doomy, droomy mood. There are several exclusively "black metal" tracks (two of 'em quarter hour epics!), some of them powered by blazing drum machine beats, but even so the overall vibe of Solitude is so slooooow and doooooomy.
Drum machine? Don't worry, it sounds good, and at times, we think he really IS playing the drums. Striborg's less-than-tight timekeeping and fucked up fills have always been paradoxical highlights of his albums in our perverse estimation, but Solitude finds many ways to provide those idiosyncratic so-wrong-its-right pleasures. Tracks like "Ektoplasmic Dreams", "Doppelganger" and "The Untouched Land" are purely electronic-sounding, ominous abstract dronescapes, piercing with high-end synth-shards and soothing with somnolent textures. Elsewhere, his blurred guitars do the same, reminding us of dreamy gloom dronesters Angelic Process, a hushed guitar tone... not even a tone, more like a pure wave, a solid mass.
We mentioned that Striborg hails from pretty far south -- Tasmania. The rainforests of his island are not that distant from the icy wastes of Antarctica. But this album, Solitude, is the sound of Striborg's one-man, one-way journey even further south, falling right off the edge of this world...
MPEG Stream: "Ektoplasmic Dreams"
MPEG Stream: "Solitude"
MPEG Stream: "The Grandeur of Melancholy"

SKELETONWITCH Beyond The Permafrost (Prosthetic) cd 14.98
We've raved before about this cool metal band from Ohio, after they blitzed us with the sweet strains of their previous album At One With The Shadows (2004) and more recent self-released ep, Worship The Witch (2006). The strength of those releases, as well as the excessive, impressive showmanship with which they deliver their '80s influenced blackened speed metal of death in the live arena, has heightened their profile in the realm of underground US metal -- hence their deal for this new album. They've been touring hard, and getting great word of mouth, which we're happy to amplify. Perhaps the hype will even allow them to cross over to the indie audience that likes bands like The Fucking Champs and Early Man, we imagine that could easily happen -- though this ain't no ironic hipster metal, we know these guys are bona fide metalheads from the Midwest.
They just came through town recently on tour, opening for Nachtmystium, who had to cancel their SF appearance at the last minute -- but we don't think anyone in the crowd that night went home disappointed after Skeletonwitch, thrust into the headlining spot, got up there and wrecked everybody's neck, slaying in style with energy and aplomb. Killer show, killer band -- and this is a killer album.
Not only can they play, AND have good songs, but they have all the details down too, little details that are TIGHT. Like, for instance, when they play live, the two guitarists are on either side of the stage, both shredding on matching Flying V's. Good enough, but what makes it really tight is that one of the guitarists is left handed, and stands stage left, so both guitarists' Flying V's are pointed in opposite directions, flanking the scary singer and roving bassist, which just looks cool. You might think, on album, so what if the guitarists have such visual symmetry? Well damn if we don't think that we can HEAR it. Or at least hear that they're the sort of band that might cultivate that sort of old school, larger than life presentation.
This album certainly showcases their strengths: The aforementioned dual guitar shred (shades of Maiden and At The Gates). Blazing technicality in the service of solid, memorable, melodic thrash metal songs. And dynamic, demonic vocals (grunts, snarls, screeches) from a frontman who is also awesomely expressive nonverbally on stage (constantly pulling exaggerated faces and making almost sign-language hand-motions to illustrate his lyrics).
FYI, for fans who already have the Worship The Witch ep (or are thinking about getting it): 3 of that disc's 4 tracks are repeated here, albeit in rerecorded form. They also redo four songs from their now-out-of-print debut, which is fine 'cause the production here is much much better than on that first full-length.
MPEG Stream: "Upon Black Wings"
MPEG Stream: "Soul Thrashing Black Sorcery"

WITCHCRAFT The Alchemist (Japanese edition) (Leaf Hound / Rise Above) cd 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Oh man. The third album from the Swedish prog/psych/doom wizards Witchcraft is finally here. We can barely contain ourselves. They say third time's the charm, and of course with Witchcraft it can't help but being so, since the first two times were charmed as well. This band's debut destroyed us with its incredibly authentic retro Pentagram/Sabbath stylings, with lashings of flute and folkiness too. Their second album, Firewood, captivated us with an equally early '70s heavy progressive vibe. Now The Alchemist succeeds at giving us what we want from Witchcraft -and- pushing further into the realm of melodic, folky proggy rock that stands on its own far beyond being a mere tribute to its '70s ancestors.
Guitarist/singer Magnus Pelander and his band Witchcraft have pretty much proved that the old adage "they don't make 'em like they used to" isn't always true. Witchcraft sure as hell does. That it's 2007 not 1972 isn't evident from anything on here, though it sounds as fresh as a daisy at the same time. These guys are so old school analog you halfway expect that their cd would be made out of black plastic and have visible grooves in it. We certainly could imagine some DJ's looking for breaks wanting this on vinyl real bad, you could do some badass hiphop mix with parts of "Remembered" ferinstance. Bet Andy Votel digs this band. Totally sounds like they could have gotten a deal with his favorite progressive record label back in the day (that'd be the famed Vertigo) had Witchcraft really existed in the '70s... certainly the inclusion of the sax solo (yes, a sax solo!) at the end of "Remembered" helps make it sound like something from an old Vertigo LP! Elsewhere Witchcraft get super sweet and gentle, or break out the heavy riffs Sabbath style (like you'd expect -- Sabbath originally being a Vertigo band y'know) in a blend we can't help but love.
Magnus' emotive, melodic vocals are so crucial here, one of this record's shining strengths. He still sounds a bit like a Swedish-accented Ozzy, yet with a graceful finesse, belting it out expressively or crooning with lilting loveliness. His vocals are matched by the absolutely powerful and gorgeous guitarwork throughout the disc. This album sweeps us off our feet immediately with the instant-classic opener "Walk Between The Lines", which is followed by a re-recorded version of the A-side of last year's 7" single, "If Crimson Was Your Colour", an urgent, witchy rocker embellished with some tasty Moog licks. Then there's the loping "Leva", which though Magnus sings it in Swedish, still goes straight to our soul. The Sabbath factor is ratcheted up on "Hey Doctor", a lumbering doom-riffed downer lamentation/accusation. The next track, "Samaritan Burden" combines the heavy riffs with a mellower mood and more acoustic-y moments, masterfully structured. It's followed by the aforementioned "Remembered", definitely an album-standout that's so '70s in so many ways that pretty much only Witchcraft could have done it in this day and age. And then, speaking of standouts, comes the nearly 15 minute long title track, "The Alchemist"! We'll omit description other than to say it's of course an epic mindblower, closing the album with magnificent, mesmeric, proggier than thou flourish.
Definitely a Top 10 Best of 2007 album. We'd have made it Record Of The Week, but what we've got here is the somewhat pricier Japanese import edition (the domestic version is due out towards the end of the month), with a Japan-only bonus track added on at the end, "Sweet Honey Pie", a lovely, acoustic little number. Not sure when/if we'll get more, so we were wary about giving it pole position. But with or without bonus track, it's an AMAZING new effort from this fantastic band, highly recommended. Seriously, we'd have been happy taking all day to write this review, just 'cause we love listening to this album so much.
MPEG Stream: "Walk Between The Lines"
MPEG Stream: "Hey Doctor"
MPEG Stream: "Remembered"

SUNBURNED CIRCLE The Blaze Game (Conspiracy Records) cd 15.98
Any one lucky enough to visit hypnorockers Circle in Finland, besides being showered with hospitality and crazy adventures, hockey games, private concerts, lots of record shopping, reindeer dinners and Finnish pizza, also is quite likely to be invited to record with the band, as they seem to be in a constant state of ready-to-record-ness, as our very own Andee can attest to: just check http://www.tUMULt.net to hear Jaappollot, the results of several sessions he shared with the boys in Circle!
Seems a similar thing happened to abstract free rock collective Sunburned Hand Of The Man when they were in Finland, and it's hard to imagine a better match. Sunburned seems to have lured Circle back into the murky woods, for long languorous stretches of slow burning psychedelia. The metallic sheen of recent releases has been rusted and caked with mud and old dried branches, the result a trancelike folk flecked tribal krautrock, the perfect mix of what we like best about both bands. 
The sound on first listen is like some sort of alien world music, with dense, but laid back tribal drumming, swirling serpentine guitar lines, whispered chanted vocals, all wrapped in a cavernous production, making the tracks sound warm and wide open, expansive and endless, there is clatter and clang, but for the most part it's smeared and blurred, buried in sonic murk, wrapped around abstract krautrock rhythms and chunks of angular guitar riffage. Some of the tracks get wild and chaotic, but even then, the sound is still restrained, not jagged or harsh, more swirling and washed out. 
One of our favorite tracks ever, by maybe either band, is the super hypnotic "Heinavelho", another growling ambient sprawl, but strangely rhythmic and musical, still murky and muddy and super hypnotic, but with ultra subtle repetitively strummed guitars, held in check by martial drum rolls and little squalls of brushed snares, eventually building to an FX drenched gothy cabaret crawl, all moody and drunken, lurching and downtuned, staggering through a thick cloud of chirping bleeps and bloops and dense swells of rumble and shimmer. 
Fans of either band will definitely dig, and a good gateway for anyone into one, but not yet so into the other...
MPEG Stream: "Majava"
MPEG Stream: "Heinavelho"
MPEG Stream: "Vuoren Valloitus"

STEEL MAMMOTH Atomic Mountain (Ektro) cd 14.98
You were warned. We reviewed this Circle side project's insane debut ep a couple weeks ago. Now, here's the full-length follow-up. The battletoads are back!
Not Sacred Steel, Steel Attack, Ritual Steel, or Steel Assassin. Not Wooly Mammoth. Or Mammatus. Or Mastodon. Or Pelican's "Pink Mammoth". Not Titan Steele, or Virgin Steele, or Steeler. It's STEEL MAMMOTH!! A metal band, presumably? Well, no, not quite. It IS another example of the many flirtations our favorite Finnish prog-psych band (Circle, including offshoots like Pharaoh Overlord and Krypt Axeripper) has always had with the elements of heavy metal (sonic, visual, lyrical). But the high-concept of "Circle does '80s metal" that you might expect from the band name and cover graphics and band pics with spikes and leather isn't quite what you actually get here, these guys being too clever and creative and crazy to do the obvious thing. Really, if you want to hear Circle-goes-metal, they come a lot closer on certain songs from Circle albums like Sunrise and Tulikora, and the recent, ever so slightly black metal bewitched Katapult. Not to mention, way back on their debut Meronia, with all its Helmet-style heaviness. And probably the most metal they've ever been is on Pharaoh Overlord #4.
So no, Steel Mammoth isn't a metal band, or even a joke metal band (though there's definitely some tongue in cheek joking going on). It's pure WTF? weirdness in the guise of a metal band. More catchy than crushing, it's a hitherto unheard hybrid of Circle's trademark hypnotic pulsations, a relaxed pop sensibility, tossed off hard rock riffing, moody tension, and sensitive vocals delivering ridiculous lyrics. Lyrics that are so ridiculous they're genius, lyrics that would make Monster Magnet or Manowar laugh and crumple up their notebook page if they'd written them. For instance, lines like: "barbarian lords/we ride alone/until we're just a pile of bones", or "lonely banzai rhino blackout leather/volcano hideout of the mountain owl/masterplan suicide war machine/lady death on the steering wheel", or "black diamond thunder dragon/beast of vampire torture/silver locusts on the desert sky/acid rain wasteland"! We also hear about a "multiheaded lion", "switchblade messiahs of hate", "midnight witches", a "metal infant", and the "powersweat of the demonwolf" to pick some other gems at random. Wow. Death and destruction and kicking ass seem to be the themes... yet there's some thought and depth to it all, extending to a self-constructed cosmology for these "nuclear barbarians" on their journey to the center of the "atomic mountain", that's depicted in a schematic in the cd booklet. We even detect a sincere sentimentality to some of this -- when album closer and title track "Atomic Mountain" finds the band sweetly crooning "Down, down, down I go" you FEEL it on some meaningful level, really.
As for the music, most of the songs share a skeletal Judas Priest vibe, stripped down and mellowed out and infused with effects. The opener, "Black Team", reminds us more of a handicapped Rolling Stones, fronted maybe by Danzig, but odder even than that would be. Several tracks later, "Nuclear Barbarians" is reprised from the ep, not really sure why they did that, though it is a cool song -- love how they pronounce nuclear, "nuck-leeyer". But it's followed by something completely different, the 11 and a half minute "Commando Leopard", an instrumental that starts off with primitive krauty rhythms before entering into a long beatless stretch of atmospheric, electronic spookiness. Like we said, WTF? Or should we say, NWOFWTF?
MPEG Stream: "Blackout Leather"
MPEG Stream: "Riders Of Death"
MPEG Stream: "Commando Leopard"

VORAK Rhetoric Of The Supermen (Destruktive Kommandoh / Modern Invasion Music) cd 14.98
Finally!!! It's taken us years (literally) but we finally managed to track down the second record (in a quantity enough to review and list) from one of our all time favorite outsider weirdo whatthefuck metal bands, VORAK! If you're a regular reader of the list, you know how much we love the damaged and demented, the fucked up and freaked out metal, so believe us when we tell you Vorak just might be the weirdest and most fucked up EVER. When we reviewed the first Vorak years and years ago, we summed it up suggesting that Lord Vorak, the man behind one man classical nihilist black metal commando unit Vorak "either must be joking or is totally out of his mind" and record number two only furthers that sentiment.
The first record was a dizzying logic defying head spinning blur of spastic drum machines, sped up vocals, garbled metal guitar and snatches of piano, all tossed in a blender and spewed out in a confusional froth. Well if anything, record number two, Rhetoric Of The Supermen, demonstrates a little bit more song structure, but manages to sound not one whit more sane. In fact Vorak's sound is almost even weirder when applied to actual sort-of-actual-song arrangements.
But let's start from the top. Vorak. Aka Lord Vorak, a man we're led to believe must be a classically trained pianist, whose record covers are covered in metallic gold busts, flaming eagles, and barbed wire, who's partial to song titles like "Dies Irae: Kruel And Glorious Purgation Of The Untermenschen", "Synthetic Nepenthe", "Australyan Uber-Volkslieder 1", there seems to be some sort of obsession with fascism, inside the booklet, it mentions that "All aspects of this supreme music of the future production emanate from the mind of Lord Vorak entirely for his own amusement and gratification"... and heck, we haven't even gotten to the music yet.
An ultra fucked up and completely fractured assemblage of super distorted classical piano, screeching metallic buzz, damaged chipmunk vocals, stumbling chaotic drum programming, interspersed with some straight classical piano, some soaring strings, all tangled and convoluted, every track rife with new head scratching (and head banging) moments...
The record opens with some wild tangled harpsichord sounding piano, dense flurries of notes, strangely recorded, but distinctly classical, until the super distorted metal riffing takes over at the beginning of track two, laid over a series of struggling stumbling drum machine rhythms, and super high pitched vocals, sounding a bit like that girl at the beginning of Kiss's "God Of Thunder" but more maniacal... The guitar is furious, the riffing relentless, with wild squiggly leads everywhere, huge swells of string like synths, and the vocals squawking and bleating all over the place, the drums a head spinning splatter... The next track slows things down a little bit, a thick sheet of blurred distorted guitar laid over some gorgeous minor key piano, the vocals sporadic and drenched in reverb, creepy more than weird, the whole thing super emotional and dark, but still completely unhinged.
Then comes "Blood-Reich 2000", with its relentless metallic onslaught, that gives way to strange piano / helium vocals / sputtering drum machine interludes, always returning to that furious minor key riffing. Several tracks are just piano, and those are quite stunning, atonal and modern, but still melodic and emotional, also strangely recorded so the lower notes are super distorted and at times sounding like a harpsichord. And there's one long track of blown out ambience, fuzzy and blurry, and strangely cinematic, thick swaths of buzz over strings all arranged into sweeping movements. But those tracks are surrounded on all sides by mind melting flurries of manic metal and furious freaked out metallic damage.
The disc includes two bonus tracks, both solo piano, both pieces by Richard Wagner, a strangely lovely and sedate finish to a record that most definitely ranks as one of the weirdest, and absolutely one of our all time favorites.
Totally recommended. And absolutely essential for all lovers of damaged, demented, fucked up, freaked out, outsider metal weirdness.
MPEG Stream: "Dies Irae I: Kruel And Glorious"
MPEG Stream: "Fylfot Lakrimosa Et Sanguinus"
MPEG Stream: "Blood-Reich 2000"
MPEG Stream: "Dies Irae II: Blood Katharsis"

GALLHAMMER Ill Innocence (Peaceville) cd 16.98
May as well re-list the cd while we're at it (the brand new import vinyl version is being listed nearby).
Ok, hopefully all of you into dooooooooooooooooom have heeded our recommendations in the past ("best band EVER" we may have said, in a moment of infatuation) and are already well acquainted with this cult Japanese band who exude a magnificently miserable mixture of slow, atmospheric doominess and crusty black metal thrashing, inspired by the likes of Celtic Frost/Hellhammer (natch), Amebix, and Corrupted. This is their 2nd full-length studio album, following 2004's Gloomy Lights debut and last year's The Dawn Of Gallhammer demos n' live cd+dvd collection. That's the one where we busted out the Simpsons Comic Book Guy impersonation in our review, but it's this album that really seals the deal, when it comes to Gallhammer's position in the pantheon of most depressive doom bands ever, anyway. They're up there, no doubt about it, as is proved by this collection of ten tracks, each one of 'em often (but not always) a slow-motion trudge through the depths of emotional bleakness in the form of monotonously massive low-end guitar riffage, wretched cookie monster screams, and simple, gloomy melodies. Several of the song titles are quite indicative of their sound: "Long Scary Dream", "SLOG", "Ripper In The Gloom"... Many of these varied tracks feature a dynamic combination of knock-you-over-with-a-feather soft n' sad prettiness setting you up for some smash-you-with-a-hammer heaviness, or even manage both at the same time. It's the former element, this band's almost post-rock instrumental mesmeric moodiness, for which we think Gallhammer should be best noted. Not that it has any of post-rock's usual complexity, this is raw and primal and ritualistic, perfectly encapsulated by the way the stark, repetitive slowcore acoustic guitar part at the start of "Ripper In The Gloom" suddenly, shockingly gives way to a full-on punk rock assault.
It also seems possible that Gallhammer, along with their interest in underground '80s doom-crust, also shares some of the Velvet Underground fixation displayed by their contemporaries from the Japanese psych-rock scene, like LSD-march and Doodles. Heck, track one, the nearly eight minute "At The Onset Of The Age Of Despair" seems to have echoes of VU's "Venus In Furs"... If one of Gallhammer's songs wound up on a PSF Tokyo Flashback comp someday we'd be surprised, yes, but only a little. Though it sure wouldn't be a track like "Killed By The Queen" or "Blind My Eyes", two of the punked out, filthy metal blitzes on here, the latter of which throws in some uncharacteristic Melt-Banana style yelping, dogwhistle vocals along with the usual guttural grunting and growling.
Hey, we made it all the way to the end of this review without mentioning Gallhammer's major non-musical selling point... we said they're a "cult" band above, but were tempted to say "cute", as this trio just happen to all be attractive young Japanese ladies, their looks further enhanced by the tasteful application of gothy corpsepaint makeup. No this fact doesn't make Gallhammer's music sound any better (or worse) but it's, um, interesting. Happily, though, Peaceville isn't using Gallhammer's sex appeal to sell this album, there's not even any pictures of the band at all included in this classy-lookin' white-and-silver digipack. Recommended nonetheless!
MPEG Stream: "SLOG"
MPEG Stream: "Killed By The Queen"
MPEG Stream: "Ripper In The Gloom"

SUPERSILENT 8 (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98
8 is not Supersilent's eighth album, actually, 'cause their first, a triple cd extravaganza, was entitled 1-3... and Supersilent 7 was actually a live dvd. So if you don't count that one, then Supersilent 8 is really the celebrated Norwegian outfit's fifth studio release. Still, it's far enough into Supersilent's career that you'd think we'd have a good notion of what to expect from these AQ faves. But if we really did, it wouldn't be Supersilent. And as usual they offer no clues: the digipack cd design is as usual stylish but generic, and song titles are an unnecessary luxury in which other more ordinary bands indulge. Here we have eight nameless tracks, 66 minutes of new and varied Supersilent output. In the past, they've created stunning soundscapes that are part Miles Davis, part Starfuckers, part Autechre, a hybrid of dronejazz improv and electronic processing, a live band screwing with itself via computer feedback. They call it "death-jazz" but what the heck does that really mean?
So maybe a track by track accounting is needed. The disc starts off quietly, cautiously, eerily ambient, not giving much up at first. It's a ways into the first 11 minute long track that, with increased volume, a rhythmic pulse makes itself throbbingly known, and eventually builds into a roiling low-end cacophony, with what sounds like a tolling bell amidst percussive splatter and insectoid buzz, slowed down and grinding. The second track is even more sparse and atmospheric, with occasional improv percussion clatter, echoing cymbals, and suspenseful electronic organ musings. So far, this is turning out to be a good album for this time of the year (Halloween being this week!). The third cut continues the sorta spooky and sci-fi theme, venturing further into a dense thicket of crackly, agitated sounds, with stabs of sizzling synth and clumsy, clomping rhythmic rattle, harking back to the counter-intuitive chaos of Supersilent 1-3. Track four is sleepier, gentler, with the breathy trumpet of Arve Henriksen weaving a fragile melody.
Then suddenly with the fifth track, it's like we've flipped the record to a (thus far hypothetical, as a vinyl version hasn't yet been released) side two, which begins on a quite different note than before, with a bizarre, distorted, almost robot-metallic voice or voices intoning some sort of garbled rant. But by the time this track's twelve minutes are up, we've heard more of the melodious trumpet, humming drone, percussive splatter, and glacial glitch that we realize we DO expect from ol' Supersilent. That's followed by the stuttering electronic clicks and plings of track six, this song's special surprise being high, wordless female vocals soaring up and over the ending. Number seven is a skronkier, noisier affair than anything yet on the album, it's an energetic compression of the cacophony heard on tracks 1 or 3, the drummer going nuts, the organist sucking up lots of electricity, and with the addition of what must be wild, howling, heavily effected vocals swirling cryptically over it all. Supersilent let it all hang out on this one, yeah! #7 would be the piece for them to play if they ever had to share a stage with Acid Mothers Temple. And then track 8 brings Supersilent 8 to a quiet close, perfectly spaced sounds and silence like a more regulated Starfuckers jam, clicks and clacks and crackle, that only lasts four minutes and four seconds but could go on and on forever as far as we're concerned.
Wow. Another excellent, original Supersilent effort, with the use/abuse of vocals opening up some new dimensions to their sound. Parts of Supersilent 8 give us the idea we're listening to some sort of really strange field recording, the documentation of the fracturing of an iceberg, the swarmings of bugs, or the language of birds or bats, when in fact this is a very human-activated, machine-mediated, far-from-natural audio document. Of course at other times on this album that fact is quite evident! Indeed, Supersilent 8 also is the closest these "death-jazzers" have come to making rock album, especially when the super distorted, hazy murk of psychedelic howling almost garage-rock-improv pummel of track 7 is taken into account.
MPEG Stream: "track 3"
MPEG Stream: "track 5"
MPEG Stream: "track 7"

STUMPS, THE The Black Wood (Last Visible Dog) cd 13.98